NEWBIES READ THIS!!! How Y-O-U Can Make 50k From Nothing With ZERO HTML Knowledge

thanks a lot, is helpful.

Dont try man!

Commit yourself! Its not as scary as it seems...in fact the journey is passionate and exciting...this is a good way to start and make money while you develop.

I did it from the very same place you are now...maybe not even as far as you are now!

You will develop more over time just like everyone else did... but you can start with this plan NOW, and it wont fail if you commit yourself to the process. I promise.

No need to be broke while you learn.

Just put your blinders on and forget all the bs around you and look forward. You can make money within a week, and start developing relationships with business owners, and they dont mind growing with you, trust me.

If you get stuck on your first html site, post here and I'll help you. Use the homestead program. It works, its simple for a newby, and the sites rank nicely.

Once again you dont see an affiliate link... no motivation here but to help, and give back because so much has been givin to me...and I started with nothing...not even a high school diploma.

10 years ago, it was just me...the exciting new warrior forum... and a dummy program...and we just all took it all the way together.

Guess what...its still just us...and I still use the dummy program...however much better than I used to, 100's of thousands of dollars later.

Note - Just in case someone tells you these homestead, or "template" sites are worthless...:

I would never show my own sites here because I made that mistake once and my clients started getting calls from 10 different people...But here are some examples from another designer who uses Homestead templates...the same simple program that any newby can use, the one the the "experts" would tell you isnt real web design.

These sites rank in both google places listings and also natural search rankings

1: Google (broad search) "Sarasota guitar lessons" or "guitar lessons sarasota" two competitive terms. you will see this site which was designed with a homestead template...yes you can even drag and drop video or whatever...even if you are a beginner. This is the site you will find at the top of the search rankings... http://www.guitarlessonssarasota.com/ YES it is a basic homestead site...

Now let me ask is this guys site valuable? Well its on top of google natural and also google places...what do you think?

Could any newby do this with a web for dummies program? Yes. can YOU? Yes. Do you need to be an expert? No.

2: Try googling "sarasota finish carpenter" another competitive term, or "finish carpentry sarasota" Yet again you will find that the top ranking sites are ones designed with a dummy program , my favorite one "homestead" thats made for newbies with no html knowledge or programming knowledge.
http://www.finishcarpentrysarasota.com/

Yet another "websites for dummies" homestead site that any newby could learn to design easily following a dummy tutorial. ranked on the top of both google places and also google natural listings...

Do you think this guy is getting business off his site? Of course, and making thousands of dollars per month Im sure...cabinets arent cheap.

Do you need to be a programmer to design this site?

No.

If you got paid $399 for this site and you didnt know how to create a google places listing for the client, could you pay sombody 50 -100 bucks to do it for you? Yes. Sorry experts, its true.

Can you figure out what keywords are obvious that your customer would want to rank for and place them in a predesigned template that says "put your keywords here" and automatically be meta tagged... YES YOU can. Alll you need is a dummy program ...you dont need to be a programmer or expert at coding... it shows you where the meta tag box is in the program and says "type your keywords here that you want this page to rank for".

You can do that.

I want to dispel the myth that you have to be an expert to get a business owner online and help them get ranked.

Is every site you create gonna be number one?

No but whose is?

If you dont know anything right now but how to open your email box and send an email, you can go to a site like homestead or others...and learn to design a website within 24 hours!

Will you get better with time just like everyone else? Yes.

Start NOW!!!!

You can do this with a template program from where you are right now, starting with the knowledge you have right now, and baby...the proof is in the pudding. Its self evident.

There are THOUSANDS of these basic sites designed with dummy programs that are ranking and the business owners are getting new customers off of them every day, and I dont care how new you are you can learn to do this and pick up a phone and call some business owners and make money helping them get online!

Its funny to know that half the people reading this are looking out for what my agenda is.

Just want to make a point and help some people... I know that not having an agenda is foreign to some... however... its just the way things ought to be when you have been given so much, you should give.

VERY obviously...my desire is not to convince you that I am an authority..because all the authorities are laughing at this post right now.

BUT...its true. You can do this with ZERO programming knowledge... and you arent worthless, and what you offer isnt worthless, the proof is right here.

Go get the dummy program and learn...watch the tutorials, and help some business owners...

You dont have to be an expert...just be YOU and start with this...and grow, and let your customers grow with you... and start NOW!!!!

Go! Do it!

You can!

Sure I like to sell a report here and there... but I also like to help people for no good reason sometimes, just because I have been blessed, and freely given to, so I want to freely give sometimes. Thats what this is about. You will remeber this and give too! pay it forward.

Offline may not be your goal... but if it is, and you feel intimidated, then be like I was, and like many others were, especially when the internet was new, and hardly anyone knew anything..., I wasnt a slave to any expert when I started out... it just made sense that if I tried some things I could figure it out... well I did...now Im showing you what I figured out. What didnt take years figure out, what can help you RIGHT NOW, without feeling intimidated just because others know more. Others are ALWAYS gonna know more... cant let it stop you. Put your blinders on, stick your head in the sand... look only at your dream, and "aspire" with dedication. Become fascinated by the process and dont despise your humble beginning.

Someday you will help someone, because they will know that you started the same way they did, and they will be inspired. Ignorant, intimidated because everyone else seems to know more... dont let it stop you...learn as you go and start out with the wonderful tools are all around that believe it or not were created for people JUST LIKE YOU!!!!

Now if your customer gets a decent website, and you get paid... and everyone is happy... DO YOU CARE IF ANYONE THINKS YOU ARE LESS THAN BECAUSE YOU ARENT A REAL PROGRAMMER?

As you can see... I dont! I can pick up the phone tomorrow and sell somebody a solid website and not charge nearly as much as my competitors and truly deliver value. SO CAN YOU!!!!!

Now I do work with web designers sometimes for real complicated stuff... but for a basic small biz website, you dont need to be complicated... when I work with a designer its because that way I can focus on sales... but I dont NEED to... whenever I want I can bust out my dummy program and produce a site just fine! Its not gonna be real flashy, though it might be more flashy than you'd expect from an ignorant hillbilly..., but it will make a business owner happy and it will be a great tool for their business, and they will love me for it.

You can do this guys! Dont procrastinate success...procrastinate procrastination instead. Get yourself a dummy program and learn how to do a small biz site, you can learn the rest along the way... then come back to the warrior forum and learn some cool stuff from the experts to add to your arsenol.

Dont stop to smell the roses, smell them while you are running with them in your hand!

Make some money!

Okay Im done. Rant over... newbies officially empowered!

I will give it a thought too

Chad,

Thanks for your thoughts, you are an awesome guy! Always uplifting! Lol. yeah I know Im gonna be a man with a mark on my head. lol

My own favorite web designer might even scold me for this one!

Back when the WF started this is how we rolled... people were less concerned with being considered an expert, and more concerned with learning together, and excited to share just for the sake of sharing. The internet, as was the WF was all new and exciting. I lurked more than participated then... and I had a different handle... but I LOVED this place and could wait to get home from "work" everyday to come here, just like many newbies now... so this just gives them something else to be excited about! the knowledge that they "can".


Get on the phone and ask some people if they need a website... the good ole fashion way thats worked for 15 years. Simple. Set an appointment to go talk to them.

I teach alot of techniques for that... but a few hours on the phone you could easily get in your groove and figure it out without buying any report.

Good luck.

Daryl, it's really quite easy. As John has described, just keep calling local businesses until you get business owners who are interested. It's not as hard as it seems, as it really is just a numbers game. Out of every 100 local businesses that you call, I don't think it'd be unreasonable to assume that you could close 1-2 of them on a website.

The issue here is that many people are afraid of calling, and typically call less than 50 businesses after which they call it a day, concluding that this surely cannot work. You have to make up your mind to do this (and not just "try"), and this means reserving your judgment about whether or not this will work and instead just bite the bullet and call over a hundred businesses swiftly and efficiently, without engaging in small talk especially with the business owners who aren't interested.

You want to bang out those phone calls as quickly as possible and get your first sale as swiftly as you can. Once you've acquired that all-important first sale, you're going to be much more motivated to keep calling - when you keep the momentum up like this, you'll find that it actually is pretty easy to get at least $1,000 per week selling simple websites just like what John mentions here!

Paul

go for very door in yr neiborhood and communities ,knock at the door,ask"may I help u?":rolleyes:like a little boy

cleaning the house,lawn、garden...

I'm just starting but I am about to get my third offline client by doing a HubPage about their business. I went into the shop, asked to speak to the owner, told them about the HubPage I was doing, asked if I could take a few photos for the HubPage. We chatted, I took photos, I sent them the HubPage link when I was done. Took a couple of hours.

Two things happened....

1. They sent the link out to everyone on their list and that HubPage got a lot of views, and I (with only a few HubPages created so far) now have a HubPage Accolade award on my profile.

2. One of the stores profiled in the HubPage is "thinking about" hiring me to re-do their website. All I need to do is go back and follow up. (that reminds me....note to self.....follow your own advice and follow up today!)

Now that I'm armed with this excellent and easy website creation tool, I'm going for it!

Thanks John for your help and encouragement.

You find TEN clients willing to pay you $100 each.

Or 20 that's willing to pay $50 each.

Good luck.

Great post John... that's for sharing and giving a proven idea for success...

Dude, Rome wasn't built in a day. Start slowly, but surely. There's no real "get-rich scheme" But there will always be "Try harder and be rich later"

As John and Paul said it does take work and determination however if you want to be a bit more efficient and not have to as much contacting, say the first 5 biz owners you commit to doing business with you, offer them say a 10% discount on the monthly retainer fee if they give you at least ten business referrals.

If you even have 3 biz owners do this for you that's thirty prospects which you didn't have to personally contact.

Indeed. and if they are an OFFLINE business, chances are they arent gonna jump up if you dont call on them!

You would be surprised at all the people who want to talk to someone just like you, and they dont want any big fancy parades... they just want to deal with a down to earth person who can get them online without alot of hassle.

You can be real and even say "Hey Im just starting, but if you will give me a shot I can build you a website for $300 and if you dont like it I will keep working on it til you do"... Seriously, you can do that... drop the sales crap and just TALK to them. Some people will trust you more just because they can see you're not that professional as a salesman.

You would be surprised how if you are just down to earth with people how many will talk to you.

You would also be surprised to know how many people are actually "turned off" because you are overly polished, or seem to concerned with looking like a big deal.

You know what? I cant count the times a customer said yes to me when I first started 10 years ago, and then told me later they only said yes because they admired me for calling and being motivated enough to go out and create my own business, even when I had problems working out their site... they knew I was sincere and they knew I really wanted to do well for them, and they were patient with me... some even told me that early on they knew I was a newby, but they just couldnt say no because they admired my effort in trying...

Hey, you will get all that along the way...and you will develop more as a professional as you go.

Can you get some business?

Im telling you absolutely yes you can... no doubt.

Ps. Thanks Paulie for your contribution, much like Chad I have never seen you when you werent encouraging or uplifting... and CORRECT, because a person who believes truly in OTHERS... they are correct. People like you and Chad encourage others to believe in themselves instead of just believing in YOUR self.

The truth is that people "can". Wow... I cant believe 11 years ago, I was literally afraid of a typewriter.

I was running a call center that sold websites... I knew the phone pitch, I knew how to telemarket...and could train others to say the pitch well... but you know what? I had no idea what I was talking about telling customers on the phone about lycos and hot bot and excite.... I was just saying the pitch.

I remember one morning after I got promoted... I was so nervous because I thought "my boss has no idea how ignorant I am at this internet stuff or he wouldnt have promoted me"... and he asked me to go around the room and turn on all the computers... I remember taking my friend to the side (at 30 years old) and telling him I was embarrassed, staring at the monitor looking for a button....because I didnt even know how to turn on the tower. lol

Today that same person (me) makes his ENTIRE living on the internet, and a pretty decent one.

When I finally learned from that same friend how to get on yahoo and surf...it was the most exciting time!

I know that sometimes people dont believe it, but some of these newbies are just as ignorant and intimidated as I was... and they have just as much potential.

So anyway, go order a dummy program and you will be able to design a website within hours...then grow from there. Yes a drag and drop newby html template program can be just as effective as any other site, once again the proof is in the pudding, and they were specifically designed to WORK for people just like you!!!!

In fact when I left that job a year later, me and my friend started a web design company that ended up doing 30 thousand per month, and we had pro web designers in our office who we paid 15 bucks an hour, but we made them use template programs so that if they ever walked out we could edit the sites ourselves and wouldnt be sunk, also we could easily train others the system if we needed to hire someone else in a hurry, and our customers LOVED their sites!

True story.

Hi John, thankyou so much for sharing this information it is very much appreciated, I will definitely have to try this.

Excellent post John and I for one am always keen to learn things that will make my life easier.

Even so I still believe that many people wont offer this site as a service because they will be frightened of approaching new customers. It's the ol' cold calling syndrome again.

I'd like to just offer one way of marketing this easy to build site service, it's not the fastest way to make money online but it works. It's not new, but it avoids having to do any cold calling.

Build the site like John says, but build it for yourself. The type of site you want to build will be one that lists local services in your area for example 'mytownemergencyplumbers.com', 'mytowntaxis.com' you know the type of thing.

Create some posts of keyword rich content relating to your subject. Now using all your skills with SEO, backlinking etc. get it to rank on the first page of Google.

Create a page with a form where business can add themselves to your directory for free including their website, so you can take a look at what they have.

Make the send button capable of sending you the form and at the same time redirect them to your paid services page where you offer to build them your easy site, get their own site ranked on the first page of Google, get them listed in Facebook, redesign their website etc.

Basically offer whatever packages you have available, and make it easy for them to contact you, including your phone number.

Using this method you wont have to worry about cold calling or finding customers, they come to you.

This type of site is similar to classified ad sites that let you post a free ad, and then redirect you to their upsell page for extra features.

Hope this helps anyone worried about cold calling.

NVM- I don't want to hijack John's thread.

Good info John.

Marcos

You are the most dedicated person I can think of Adam. You will do GREAT. You remind me alot of myself at your age actually.

On the quote above; the 1% makes up for it my friend.

When you make your work, not selling, but rather practicing the laws of the universe that never fail, you cant go wrong.

"My face they may reject, my mannerism they may despise, and even my BARGAINS may cause them suspicion, but my love will melt their hearts liken to the sun whose rays soften the coldest clay....and who is there who can say nay to me when their heart feels my love? If I have no other qualities than this... I can succeed with love alone. I will greet this day with love in my heart and I will succeed". ~ Og

Remember that on the phone... "give energy, and instead of take", and your successes will come almost effortlessly, without resistance, and you will feel great about it and help others along the way, instead of "selling" them.

Make your career being a master practitioner of giving, the receiving will take care of itself.

Thats all you have to do and your success will be drawn to you while many others chase theirs.

Thats one thing great about the WF...they teach you to give here.

You got this.

Its all good guys. If you read the second post... you'll see what I mean about the quality of these sites, and the placement...

Steve you have no idea how this blesses me... when I first read your email of your situation I actually made an hour long audio just for you... then I scratched it because I felt it was too passionate and it would freak you out, but I so related to you. I have had my back against the wall before, and I know what it takes to pull yourself out in those times, clock is ticking, count down...the fat lady is about to sing...then something in you rises up and says NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! YOU WILL NOT SING ON ME AND MY FAMILY!!!!

I knew you had it in you... and I was soooo hoping you would find that in yourself, and you did...without too much intervention actually, you pretty much just did it on your own with the info provided...and you did what you had to do! The walls didnt cave in on you, you found that great spirit inside of yourself, and like Samson... you werent going down without a fight!!!

If that phone were the "jawbone of an ass".... you slayed the whole philistine army with it!!!

Wow. what an inspiration!

Dude, many many props to you!

And thanks for the kind mention!

Wow man. This touches me, I am really humbled by your words. Congrats on the $1200 recurring.... Just dont ever look back man, now you know what you have inside.... I think you knew already though, and just needed an idea!

That's a great story man. I hope your son is doing better and everything worked out for you and your family.

Thanks for a great reply. I will give it a go.

This is an important point.

To some extent EVERYTHING is borrowed one way or another. The overwhelming majority of "custom" WordPress themes start as a free or possibly paid "developers license" theme that has the basic structure of the code and are then modified to the point that few if any would be able to tell, and then only by looking at the code itelf, not the page on the screen.

More advanced developers, ahemmm, have tool kits they work from. These tool kits have snippets (and even whole pages) of code that they've collected over time that they plug in as needed. Most of them also have a couple of "frameworks" to provide structure for the snippets.

Thing is, where do you think 90% of this code came from? Right, they saw something cool, and they borrowed it, then they altered it to suit their needs. It was useful and it went into the kit.

Smart coders DO NOT sit down with a blank screen and start typing until they have a complete website. That is INSANE, I know, I've actually done it a couple of times way back in the early 90's. It's slow, it's painful and it's error prone. It's also a horrible way to build a business.

If a template, theme, whatever is available, that is close to what you want, whether you are dragging and dropping or writing and plugging, starting from somewhere is always better than starting from nowhere.

"talent borrows, genius steals" ~ pablo Picasso
"Good writers borrow. Great writers steal." ~ Oscar Wilde
"The Mediocre borrow. Genius steals." ~ George Bernard Shaw

None of these men were talking about plagerism.

Glad to help. I owe it to the forum. This place has been my greatest asset in 11 years... just returning the favor, and so nice now that there is a section that applies to my particular area, and other off liners.

Before they called it "offline marketing" ... I used to think of it as "hybrid"... not quite "IM" but not quite "brick and morter".

Now we have a term for it, and a section to discuss it!

Working on setting up the dl page now with Darren from High Impact Marketing. You may know him better from Graphics Genie. He's the guy I turn to when I dont know how to do something. Awesome person to work with.

If thats true thats awesome news! last time I spoke with my rep was a couple of months back, maybe 3...I have the "Business" package, and it costs 2.00 per month per domain.

Unlimited domains for 50 bucks is awesome though! I need to call my rep back! You may have misunderstood your rep though... the biz package starts out at $19.00 and you can add as many domains as you want... just adds 2 bucks per month each new client you take on.

I dont know how it would make sense for them to do that, but I'll call and find out thats for sure.

Hi

Wow thats a great little resellers pack.

Even if you only managed to get one customer a week for 50 weeks you would have them costing you $1 a month by the end of the year and the upside is $$$$.

Plus next years $$$$ are already forward planned.

Cool.

Regards

Bronwyn and Keith

Hostgator Does... I think it's $25 per month... But no big deal.

Hostgator also has a bunch of Website Templates ready to go in your CPANEL

This is a great idea for newbies.

Heres the Homestead link:

Web Hosting Software Packages For Your Website | Homestead

I wonder how it would work for Australian domains? (.com.au)

John -

Well said. If folks don't want to pay monthly, simply get an affiliate account with a host and have them go through you to get their hosting.

The other way I find clients is simply driving. Look around and see how many work trucks don't have a website listed. Google them and when nothing shows up, give them a call. I have had huge success with that.

Awesome post! One quick question...

Are you sure that Homestead has a reseller option? I cannot see it. I noticed the $19 business package, but it doesn't seem to be for those who want to resell web hosting.

Bogdan

I'm a previous Recruiter too- I know I have the sales/ admin skills necessary to get this 'job' done - How many times did your boss say:
"Here's this new software, figure it out and use it." Ha! Many times for me. Good Luck, Husker. I know you can do it!

Hey John,

This post is very informative! Thanks!

Hi John

Thank you so much for providing us with this valuable content. I had the same idea as Neil and have created some sites using kompozer as examples for business owners.

Now the big BUT -- I have not come this far to actually sell any sites etc, mainly because transfering all the files is one step above my skills

If I understood correctly with homestead we can build the sites,host it,have unlimited domains if you take the $50 package and no need for any transfers etc? If this is the case I am off to a great start cause I have some interested clients already.

I also want to know if people want to change there sites, do you do this or is there any option for them to have access to the admin(cpanel)?
Once we have many clients it might be difficult to keep up with everyone if they want changes.

Cheers
Werna

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!

Your advice worth much more than some WSOs....

Thank you man!!!

Sorry for a newb question here, but if you are building all of these websites for different businesses and also managing the hosting and accounts, how are the individual email accounts handled? How does your client access them? Also, what about cases of paypal for your clients site? Basically, how is all the back end stuff handled? I know I can build the sites because I am driven. I'm just a bit confused since I'm still learning.

Appreciate that Louie!

It was my TMer that got it. It was for a free one page design, but the hosting is locked up for 6 months.

On the road to riches...

Great tip by the way do you use aweber or is there a free autoresponder?

Also do you use the cold calling tactic? How well does it work for you and do you have your own web design site?

You and me both....

The hard way has always been my route.

Just can't help it.

But... The easy way.... Don't Think... Just Do.


As far as webdesign goes... that is exactly what I do. I sell web design. Why?

So I can have an established relationship with a client that I have already built an "onPage SEOed" website for. It makes my job easier. And it gives me a hot lead. I say hot, because they are already my customer.

Easy Peasy.....

Never have I had anyone ask me for my website.

I have offered it... but never a single request.


Really... if you want one... get one.... and I am sure it helped me when I didn't know it... because it does get a lot of traffic. But.... Do not wait to take action. Just start getting clients and if they ask...


"I do have a site that is in redesign"

What's your email address. When it goes live again. I will send you a link.

Normally though... if they ask for a website. It's a blow off statement. Kind of like.. "do you have a card?"

Hey Luis, I have added you on skype happy to speak whenever you are free.

Thanks,
Ste.

I didn't see anyone answer that for you, so I will. There's nothing to worry about SEO-wise. I have far more HTML sites than Wordpress sites. They rank, and have since the 1990's when I first started. As for impressiveness...if you design a professional looking site it should look professional years from now as long as you stick to tried and true web design principles and aren't using any funky new faddish things that become dated.

Hope that helps.

WOW! A wealth of information. I like all the sites you listed above. How do you people find all this stuff? I had to "copy and paste" this post into my notes...along with John's original Post. Thanks for sharing this stuff. You all make this fun.

Have never really needed them.... but if you feel like you need it. Go for it...

Most of what I do is over the phone. So if you have an autodialer, it will record your conversation. If there is ever a problem, you can play back the recording. Ofcouse.. I have never had a problem.

Just going to answer this if I may.

Use the trial link, then on STEP 2 (if I'm correct) it'll ask you for your bank details and which package you'd like to try. 30 days trial.

How do you lower FREE?

I don't know where you are... but when I first started putting out websites my initial fear was I was charging too much in hosting.

Then I found out what everyones biggest competitor charges for hosting.

You have to remember. Not everyone and thier dog knows about host gator. or Home Stead.

Never once have I had some one say.... I can get that for $10 a month over here.


And if they do balk.... you can say... the rest if for maintenance. That way if you need to make a quick change... no big deal. We will be there for you after the sale.

Oh I wanted a .co.uk domain but there was no link/banner that I saw, oh well. Got my main website up and running, did a few tweaks on PS so it'll look better.
___
Classes are cancelled for the whole week, so I will be start calling few people tomorrow. haha! Any tips from fellow warriors?

What i meant is i don't think you can register or host .com.au domains with them.

Beside that you are only allowed 3 domains. Would you have to pay to register more external to Homstead for more than 3?

If they did... I hope they didn't give up 5 minutes before the miracle happens.


That happens a lot. You get people that say they are going to do this...

They are going to do that....

When it comes down to it... They make like 50 calls a day... MAYBE.... then wonder why it doesn't work... It actually does work... If you work it.

There is no magic pill. There is work to be done. If someone made 500 calls per day.... CONSISTENTLY... for one week straight.... the would be wealthy.

How do I know...

The money in my pocket... That's how.

Not today but a few days ago. I have 6 new clients-yippee! They were all from word of mouth. I'll start cold calling in a few days. I just sent a message via facebook to my friends and they put the word out. I read in someones post that they were calling on work trucks-two of my new accounts are from construction companies. I also had upsells by making them twitter and facebook accounts. This raised their monthly maintenance fee too. If your worried about your clients wanting to move their site, don't be because odds are they won't. Only if they really know what they are doing to maintain the site will they move it. If they decide to do that and think they can do it on their own, they will probably come running back to you within a month or two because they can't deal with it. I don't use homestead. I just have my account with hostgator.

I got his WSO and am working on specific processes for it myself. Looking at where I can find a web builder that will let me make multiple sites that I can sell. I realize that they have to be completely mine for me to do this so it's just a bit of research.. Unfortunately, I'm not too familiar with Wordpress. I use Weebly. Any thoughts on that?

What is an autodialer

I have a very good offline product going for about usd500 for my market and this would really boost my sales! Please share how i can use this autodialer

Also, what crm do u use to manage ya small business?

The real term is actually "predictive Dialer". You load a cusomtized call list into it, put on a pair of head phones and it loads up calls for you, weeding out answering machines and no answers... so it goes through about 100 numbers per hour, and makes sure that as soon as you hang up with a customer there is another popping up on your screen saying "Hello"... very cool.

cuts out down time, and alot of irritation.

With a predictive dialer, you dont waste time listening to ring tones and answering machines, looking up numbers..., you just log in and it starts spitting calls at you as fast as you want to go.

In a nutshell, with a predictive dialer, you are actually talking to customers all day not wasting time... plus it records your calls, tracks your conversions, offers reports on every aspect of your call session. Most importantly, it enables you to hire virtual telemarketers who can log in from their home pc's, and you are able to monitor them and view reports on their real time stats...

Good stuff.

Hi Jeremy

Just looked at your site

First and foremost.... Take the phone numbers off the site, your doing there advertising for them for free

You dont say how old the site is or if its ranking or not

Paul

Hey Jeremy,

My cousin owns one of the shops you have listed
on your site.

Small world.

There were a lot of good things about your site that I liked such as:
The pic of walking.. what a nightmare!
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you are really promoting to the viewer here- who really needs to get their car fixed. Can you put up a map locator? And are you alphabetizing your list of auto care professionals? Just asking! - Nice job!

This is a great thread with real solution building...

Can I add something... based on the following below and leaving homestead out of the equation.

Can't you just create a wordpress site with various niche themes and clone the sites to the be used for a new client?

1. create an optimized wordpress site.
2. offer 5-10 simple designs. Or more if you have the resources.
3. clone these sites as per your clients needs.
4. upsell additional services.
5. Use the telephone whenever possible to close more sales.

In essence this would be similar to using homestead though they have alot of resources to use.

My concern is that you have to host your clients sites on homestead and not on your own servers? That may be a negative, I don't know.

Couple questions:

How would you communicate where your clients sites are?
Would you create sud-domains or hosted sites that your client choose?
Would you sell them webpages or full websites first?

Awesome chat!

Mitch

Sounds about correct.

At this point, you either get some beer and pretzels as George Wright says, and stay up all night being creative and designing their website.... or you hire someone to do it and split up the profits... you may also want to send them an email to confirm your agreement and let them know their work in underway!

Lets say you sell one per day for an average of $399 , you have about 2-3 hours in sales per day, and 2-3 hours in designing... so you make $2000 per week for only working part time....
Now lets say you charge $1,500 instead of $299 then you only have to sell 2 per week to make $3,000 and only work say 15 hours.

As you can see its very lucrative

Great Questions:

It seems that the site you build for a client is really only "leased" to them, correct?

No because if they ever decide to quit working with you can down load their design onto a cd and hand it to them.

You charge the initial $399 or whatever to personalize the site to their business and then the monthly "maintenance" fee. If the client wants their own domain name, you get that and direct it to "their" site that is within your Homestead account. Or do you have the client purchase their own domain and have it directed to the site in your account?

I just sign them up (register their URL) on my account. If the client ever wants to leave or wants to transfer their domain... then its easy enough to unlock lock it and transfer it to a new registar or change the ownership information...

https://www.homestead.com/~site/help/help_page_one.ffhtml

What if the client wants the ability to go into the site and edit text or update a blog? How do you give them access to your account which may have hundreds of other clients websites?

I dont. I think someone at homestead told me there was a way to do it , but I find it easier to just tell clients to email me their updates, and I will handle them. Learned a long time ago that customers dont really call in that much to be honest... you might hear from them once a month or so about updates... but even when they do its easy enough to have them email you , to update their blogs, or in that situation it might be better to have their site link out to their blog instead of designing it within the site. I dont really sell blogs, so I dont know. Another thing, you can charge them for a certain amount of updates per month.

I personally use it as a selling point, that as long as they keep their hosting with me I will do free updates, while other designers charge... they dont really ask for that many to be honest.

In short my policy is just "I'll do your updates".

Or is this strictly a lease proposition and if the clients wants to "own" the site, then they have to open their own Homestead account and have the site transferred over to them?

Yes once again, using the link above you can transfer sites and domains...change registars and ownership info...

Thanks again for helping so many people with this idea.

No prob. Hope it helps some people get started and stop procrastinating, you can learn more along the way... in fact you may learn some things about cpanel permissions... and blogs that I dont even know, because I sell my way, and just leave it at that.

I figure if I gave people access to a cpanel it would just create more customer service, as they would be ringing my phone off the hook everyday for consultations and training on how to use it... its easier just to say "email me if you want an update".

... dig around...theres a million options. You may find some that I havent even looked for.

Another good idea is to join their forum and ask questions their too.

Hope this helps

Guys, if I start answering slower, its because I can only put 25 more posts in this thread... or else its a sinker! lol

The o.p. cant have more than 50 posts in a thread or they lock it and it sinks into oblivion. forever never to rise again... so I will start waiting awhile between posts and using the multiquote function... since we want this thread to last a long time...

Perhaps some others can share their experience as well...

Thanks Russ, It really isnt hard to contribute when you are just saying what you know. Im just bssing, like two ole men sitting on a bench talking about their life to each other. Not hard, just shooting the breeze with some friends who let me stand on a soap box here and there, so I go off on a sermon... lol Sooner or later I'll get down off of my soap box.

I dont know how well what I just said translates to other countries... Does anyone know another way to put that "He's on a soap box"?

Anyway, its fun, and it's very worthwhile. Heck if nothing else, for posterity.

Rudyard kipling says in the poem "if", that one of the things that completes a person and brings them full circle is:

"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew, to serve your turn long after you are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you, except that which is the will which says to them 'hold on'...."

Well hopefully 50 years from now when I am gone, some of these writings will be serving my turn, and still be inspiring others to their own personal epiphany's about their own personal ability to achieve greatness!

Ps. Eventually I will go crawl back in my hole and work! I tend to work real hard for a month or two, then come back and hang out at the wf for a couple weeks... then go work real hard for another month or two... cycles, as Paul Meyers says.

Wow,have really been blessed with all this info,now to take action.

Great idea with the Hubpages DrMeg. It's all about being proactive and creative. I've found if you take the initiative to take action and get a demonstrable result before you start talking to the business owner then your job is more than half done as they'll respect that and also be curious and/or excited about what else you can do for them.

Ahh... a man after my own heart quoting the brilliant and insightful "Kipling". If a man had only one piece of prose by which to guide his life then the "If" poem would have to be it.
"If you can watch the things you gave your life to to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools, or watch the truths you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools"
I could go on... but there's a gem (or two) in every verse for sure!
Thanks John,.. and I totally agree with making your mark and making a (real) difference whilst able bodied and in the midst of life!

The sites may not look like they are worth $100 but its what is done with them and the value it brings to the client that counts. I have seen 3 page html "sites" with one article sold for $500+ and the client was tickled pink as they didn't have to do a thing and now they had an online entity.

For that matter, I have set up single page html landing/squeeze pages for clients before and charge $1500+ incl copywriting and they were delighted to pay it.
As far as WordPress is concerned I agree that there is no other online platform as powerful as WP. I say that as a WP specialist who has created hundreds of WP over the past few years. But here's the thing,.. I totally agree with what John Durham said about the lack of willingness/skill/interest for the client to want to visit the site and start populating it and generally managing it. I have had dozens of clients (and still have many) that have had personalised training via seminars, webinars and video on WP and yet they still can't properly manage their sites (I get their requests every week).
Amazingly,.. I have set up some great WP sites and blogs and started to populate them with content. "GREAT" says the client,... then proceeds to do NOTHING with the site for months on end and they either become abandoned, lose ranking etc. Some eventually come back and take up my offer to manage the site as was first suggested.

I've found that the majority of business people would prefer to not have to ever go inside a cPanel. WP-admin or a MySQL database. Therefore, it's much better to offer them a totally hands free "done and managed for you" alternative that they'll gladly pay for so they can focus on their business.
This is what makes charging $30 to $50 per month for hosting possible when the client realizes that they're getting more than a home for their website,... they're getting the backend support should it ever be required. Ask any decent businessperson what an hour of their time is worth to them!

Cheers all
Russ

We seem to forget what a 'blog' is about. Its intention was for continously updating the public with your information. It wasn't long ago that no one even realized they could build a 'normal' website with a blog.

I've been online since 1995, can code html by hand from scratch. I've also built hundreds and hundreds of wordpress sites.

There's nothing like the sheer simplicity of an html site. Remember, wordpress is constantly updated, it takes plugins to make it seo friendly (though thats slowly changing), which means plugins are constantly updated. Now thats fine if you only have a handful of blog sites... but try hundreds and, even with things like wpmanagerdx, it becomes a continuous battle to keep things updated.

Not so with static html sites. They seo the same way (title tag, description, etc). They only need to be updated when necessary. And they are not resource hogs like wordpress can be.

So you really need to choose what is right for your customer. If they are a business that is always being social and updating the public, a blog might be right for them. If they are a plumber who just needs a web presence, a static html site might be best.

I absolutely and wholly concur...

This is my exact formula for web design. I prefer to use the Flexx theme because it is so customizable and easy to use. Also the Flexibility theme is easy to use too. But it crashed my WP installation when trying to change themes....

If homestead has Fantastico in their Cpanel, this is the easiest, most cost effective way to get sites that are 100% on page optimized ready to rock. You can use Xheader... from the people that brought us XsitePro for free to make your custom headers too. So graphic design is easy peasy....