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I'm new, can I use examples from my help on odesk?

by altitudemarketer
7 replies
I'm new at this, and I'm getting ready to start cold calling to sell websites to small local service businesses. I can do wordpress sites, but I'm slow and not very experienced.

So I was going to:
- Finish setting up my website (using elegant Themes)
- Find a designer and an seo person from Philippines on oDesk
- Start cold calling locally to sell $500 - $1000 sites, plus hosting, seo, google local, maintenance, some content creation
- Work with the odesk people to get it done

I don't have my own samples... and I'm under the gun to make some money this next week to pay rent... so I don't have time to find some friends to make sites for.

Questions:

Should I get the odesk designer to give me samples of his previous work, and put that on my site?

Should I throw up a sample site with a made up name in the niche I'm targeting?

What other suggestions can you guys offer?

Thanks,
Mark
#cold call #examples #odesk #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author shivlal829
    yes you can apply and give the answer.
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  • Profile picture of the author SashaLee
    Hi there,

    You should pick some highly rated designers/coders on oDesk and contact them and ask them if you can use their samples on your site. Promise (and follow through on that promise) that if a client picks their sample, you will hire them to do the work.

    This type of partnership works very well for us.

    All the best,

    Sasha.
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  • Profile picture of the author laurencewins
    You should never be working from a point of extreme financial pressure because that's when you make mistakes. I don't know if you have other work or income but I know that if I didn't have my pension, I would be stuffed. It enables me to know my rent and some bills are paid but I can make the rest from my writing.

    If you don't have a good financial position, maybe you need a j.o.b? Even a part time one to ease your pressure and stress until you can become successful because this will take time.
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    Cheers, Laurence.
    Writer/Editor/Proofreader.

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  • Profile picture of the author CurtisSWN
    A j.o.b. is not his solution because he has to pay rent next week, that is, unless he resells a bunch of stuff off of Craiglist or something like that. You can hammer out websites like a madman and pay your rent that's for sure. Maybe you won't quite do it this month, but certainly there is a much higher chance that you will next month.

    You could sell a couple mobile sites, I was just prospecting some last week in a neighborhood here and I found a bunch of business with absolutely no mobile friendly sites at all.

    Designers will definitely let you use their designs as a portfolio, just ask, they want the work to.
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    • Profile picture of the author altitudemarketer
      Thanks for the great advice folks. I will get back online tomorrow and respond with an update.

      Mark
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    • Profile picture of the author altitudemarketer
      Originally Posted by CurtisSWN View Post

      A j.o.b. is not his solution because he has to pay rent next week, that is, unless he resells a bunch of stuff off of Craiglist or something like that. You can hammer out websites like a madman and pay your rent that's for sure. Maybe you won't quite do it this month, but certainly there is a much higher chance that you will next month.

      You could sell a couple mobile sites, I was just prospecting some last week in a neighborhood here and I found a bunch of business with absolutely no mobile friendly sites at all.

      Designers will definitely let you use their designs as a portfolio, just ask, they want the work to.
      Hi Curtis,

      Thanks for the post... I will remember to offer mobile sites as well, to see if I can catch some sales for those who don't want a full site or already have one. Great idea!

      I tend to agree with you Curtis... a j.o.b. is no longer a solution. I'm too old (over the hill now) that even the pizza place won't hire me. I did a terrible job for years that I wasn't that good at and hated and was stressed to the point of health issues (helpdesk)... and rairly made near or over $50k even after being in it for over a decade. With 3 kids and a stay at home wife... it's hard to live on that income.

      Now I'm years behind in skills, and my last job doing that ended in a layoff last fall and not paying much anyway... They had me train three people in India, and then they let me go.

      When I tried looking for a new help desk job, all the local recruiters blacklisted me when they found out I had no tech skills, I was just good at communicating and calming down impatient people (although I really get stressed out doing that) I have less than Zero interest in IT... so I've burned that ship.

      So I took a job for 6 months as a car salesman... it started out good... I made enough money to survive for a couple of months... but then our dealership did what most dealerships are doing; which is flooding the floor with a revolving door of new desperate salesmen to cover all the walk-up traffic, and paying most of them minimum wage and giving all the internet leads to the 2 or 3 guys that have been there for years.

      So, faced with a month of standing around, in a bad economy to make $1300 at the end of the month, I quit at the beginning of this month and started selling what I had left on ebay, and hit some garage sales a couple of weeks... just made about what they were going to pay me at the dealership... But at least I've had time to be at home with my family and learn from the Warrior Forum and look at my options. Plus... I started my site and did a lot of the groundwork for the offline business this last week.

      I believe the offline biz will work... and investing my time in that rather than spending weeks looking for a minimum wage job, is a better use of time... either way, I'll be late on rent... but at least if I hit the phones this week, I have a shot at making some sales and paying my rent a lot sooner.

      Thanks,
      Mark
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      • Profile picture of the author qu4rk
        Originally Posted by mh77mail View Post

        Hi Curtis,

        Thanks for the post... I will remember to offer mobile sites as well, to see if I can catch some sales for those who don't want a full site or already have one. Great idea!

        I tend to agree with you Curtis... a j.o.b. is no longer a solution. I'm too old (over the hill now) that even the pizza place won't hire me. I did a terrible job for years that I wasn't that good at and hated and was stressed to the point of health issues (helpdesk)... and rairly made near or over $50k even after being in it for over a decade. With 3 kids and a stay at home wife... it's hard to live on that income.

        Now I'm years behind in skills, and my last job doing that ended in a layoff last fall and not paying much anyway... They had me train three people in India, and then they let me go.

        When I tried looking for a new help desk job, all the local recruiters blacklisted me when they found out I had no tech skills, I was just good at communicating and calming down impatient people (although I really get stressed out doing that) I have less than Zero interest in IT... so I've burned that ship.

        So I took a job for 6 months as a car salesman... it started out good... I made enough money to survive for a couple of months... but then our dealership did what most dealerships are doing; which is flooding the floor with a revolving door of new desperate salesmen to cover all the walk-up traffic, and paying most of them minimum wage and giving all the internet leads to the 2 or 3 guys that have been there for years.

        So, faced with a month of standing around, in a bad economy to make $1300 at the end of the month, I quit at the beginning of this month and started selling what I had left on ebay, and hit some garage sales a couple of weeks... just made about what they were going to pay me at the dealership... But at least I've had time to be at home with my family and learn from the Warrior Forum and look at my options. Plus... I started my site and did a lot of the groundwork for the offline business this last week.

        I believe the offline biz will work... and investing my time in that rather than spending weeks looking for a minimum wage job, is a better use of time... either way, I'll be late on rent... but at least if I hit the phones this week, I have a shot at making some sales and paying my rent a lot sooner.

        Thanks,
        Mark
        Mark,

        You've been warned about the financial pressure. So, I won't do that. However, some people work better under pressure.

        Yes, use someone elses sites as samples, but make sure they will do the building once you land the job.

        If you can sell you should be fine. If you can pump out the calls you should be fine.

        Good luck man, and come back here for motivation if you are not pumping out the calls left & right!
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