Sharing my wins and tricks :) · Web Agency Accelerator (FREE)

Sharing my wins and tricks :)

Hi guys,

Last month, I joined this group and made this post. Today, 23 days later, just the beginning of February 2025, I already made AUD 12,500 for the month (for two website projects. Note: I only offer timeline-based web design services, ranging from 3 days and 3-weeks for fully custom ones. These two projects will wrap up by the end of the month).

I am proud of myself to be able to bounce back fast after a long break but to be honest I'm not surprised because actually this is my 4th time of doing the same thing--taking a long break after I made enough money to survive just enough for the year.

A lil back story, I started doing web design in 2018, it was going really really well for me. And because I lived in Bali while making money in stronger currencies, I was living the dream and I saved a lot of money to live comfortably in Bali and traveling. Then my fiance got cancer and died in June 2020, just 2 weeks after my birthday. Two people died on that day, him and the person I used to be. Since then, I decided to not working and lived off my savings. I lost my passion for design and for success. I just stopped caring and stopped having dreams. I literally become a zombie (a goodlooking one, thank God). My savings allowed me to be able to not working and just doing whatever I felt like for over 2 years since he passed away (for example, I started become a stand up comedian, lol, what a twist!). I only started going back to work doing web design whenever I felt I needed some more money and worked for 2-4 months of the year and took the long hiatus again for the rest of the year. Which means whenever I needed to get back, I had to start finding new clients, pitching, etc. I always managed to get projects at my desired rates quite quickly. But since I was a zombie, I took it for granted. Whenever my business started to pick up, I took the long hiatus again and refused clients. Because I had no ambition anymore.

It's only the end of Dec 2024 that I feel I've got my passion back. Maybe the grief has been easier to deal with and I just realized maybe I had wasted my potential, my life, as if my life ended when his did and it needed to stop being like this. So on Jan 5th 2025, I officially started again, 3 weeks later, I booked 2 projects and when I am writing this post, I am writing 2 project proposals for March for two potential clients that already had discovery calls with me.

What I want to share is that, every single time I had to restart, my formula always worked to get clients. No matter how long I took a break, I always bounced back considerably quickly, and I always do the same tricks to get booked, nothing changes, five years, still the same formula. Most of the things that Patrick shares to this community, I do them, I do some things differently, but if you build the foundation correctly like what he shares, it’s easier to convert clients;

Knowledge and skills (design, problem solving and development)
Good presentations of your skill (e.g: good website)
Good process and workflow to give premium client experience (from discovery call, to proposal, contract, client portal, client testimonials etc)

It doesnt matter that English is not my first language, I dont speak English perfectly, as long as I have all three aspects strong enough, my pitch will have some weights. My conversion rate after clients have calls with me is 90%. But to get the call inquiries is the hard work.

I send a lot of pitches, but not randomly. By “a lot” I mean, not even 50 emails in the three weeks before I signed these projects. Instead of sending cold pitches to businesses that I can find in google maps, I just reached out to people who already posted on facebook groups looking for help in their businesses. Even if they dont look for web design assistance, I would check on their websites and if I think their website could’ve gotten some improvements, I sent them personalized emails along with a quick website audit video I made on their websites. These two clients that I just got were actually initially looking for a video editor and social media manager.

In my experience, businesses who are hiring (for any positions) tend to be more eager to do improvements in other parts of their business including their website. So that’s why I think this way works better (at least for me) than just random cold pitching. When you just start/ restart, I think that having a niche is not really the issue. It’s more about the strategy, because I would also ignore cold pitches that go to my inbox when I am not looking for something. And this strategy wont work if I didnt have the three components I mentioned before. I am confident with my knowledge, website and the streamlined process I have (I’m quite organized) and I keep improving myself and stay updated with the changes.

I hope this can help others find some inspo and keep the spirit. Hard work never betrays. My hard work that I put in before my fiance passed away was the one that saved me for years after he died. I did the work before the storm came. And I’ve promised myself to keep my dreams alive again and live to the fullest :)

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