How I made $1500 in one hour.
Hi guys, I wanted to talk about one project I have done, which took me 60 minutes of my time and brought me $1500, plus an additional $500 for every year to come, if things go on well.
All this started by pure luck, about 6 months ago. I was at a friend’s party, when I heard my friend saying to a girl “hey you have to discuss with Alan, it’s his job to make websites and stuff on the internet”. Then the friend introduced me to that girl, and we started to talk.
She was starting a business, she was organizing “risk analysis” courses, and she would have like to have a website to get some customers.
I asked her: “What do you want exactly?” She didn’t know… By experience, I know that when you create a website for someone, you have of course to give choices, but you have to take decisions on many things, because if you start to rely too much on the guy’s decisions, he’s gonna drive you mad. He’ll say stupid things like “Oh I want that you put the menu 15 pixels more to the left, people will find my website more user-friendly”. And then you’ll spend hours to find the perfect green gradient that he likes, and getting headache because of changing the HTML a thousand times.
Therefore, I usually ask for what content the person want, ask if he has some idea of the organization of the pages, and if so, that he draws screens on the paper, indicating how he wants things to be displayed. And if the person doesn’t know anything, I just ask for the content, what kind of colour theme he wants, and then I find a couple of templates around that color, show it to the guy for him to decide which one he wants. Then I create the website, show it, ask for remarks, and make the modifications if they are not too big, and nothing more.
But I have to be honest, normally I only create websites for friends or family.
Because this situation happened to me a couple of times: I’m discussing with someone, and when I explain I do internet stuffs, he mentions he would need a website, so he asks how much it would cost if I do it.
I ask what he wants, he says “Oh some website with pages to put information about my business”.
I see that it will take 1 or 2 hours to do the job, so I tell him “Yeah I could make it but for the time it would take, I can’t make you pay more than $50″.
Then hell happens.
The guy eventually wants some website with an online shop, and makes me change 10 times the design because he doesn’t sell anything and he thinks it is because of the design. And when the website gets 1 visit per month, the guy will complain, and if I try to explain that if he wants some serious SEO, it would take me at least a few days, which would cost him at least a thousand $ (and that’s a friendly price), then the guy doesn’t understand why it cost $50 to make a website and $1000 to get some visitors… and eventually things turn bad…
But one friend asked me once last year to make a website for his association. Because he knew about my stories, he asked me to give him some rates that would NOT BE cheap, but similar to other web agencies. He could pay the price, but he preferred to have me because he knew I was going to do something good.
So I set up some rates, there were cheaper than any other companies, but it was enough to cover all the extra time I would be spending on that project to make things go right.
- $300: website one time setup fees, advices, basic SEO and getting listed on Google
- $20 per website page.
- $500 per year maintenance fees (include hosting, domain name, and minor changes on the website, i.e. all changes must be equivalent in total to less than a page every month).
- $20 to create a new page on the website
- $10 to do major changes on a page
These rates seem expensive if you compare to some indian hired on rentacoder.com, but people who come to see me for a website are people who don’t know shit about creating a website, and they wouldn’t be able to work with some freelance guy, because they don’t event know what they want. Saying “I need a website” is one thing, but defining exactly what needs to be done requires someone in front of you who can discuss with you.
If you live in a populated area, chances are that there are many professionals who don’t have a website because they don’t know who can help them, or it is too expensive for them, so you could actually build a profitable business around this. Go to small shops, find a few clients, get started, see how you can adjust your rates, and if you do a good job for a fair price, you’ll get clients by word of mouth.
I don’t do it because I already earn enough with my internet stuffs, but I think that searching “offline” to sell your “online” skills is really a good way to make a lot of money.
The main reason why people will not be interest in paying for a website is, of course, money.
And this is where my little story taught me something interesting.
When I asked what content she wanted to put on the website, the girl showed me a brochure she was always carrying with her, it was 4 pages, plus an additional page with courses and prices.
Frankly I wasn’t interested at all to work for her, even with my “high” fees, so I just popped a random rate out of my mind… “I’ll do it for $1000, plus $500 yearly fees.”
I explained her it was a bargain, because she would have to pay at least $2000 or $3000 if she went to a web agency.
But I could guess she wouldn’t spend that much money, and I was expecting that she was going to forget about it.
Indeed, she said it was too much, she couldn’t afford it… But she asked me, “if I pay $1500, how many customers can you send me?”
Of course, I couldn’t know, and I was not going to lie to her.
So I proposed her a deal… “I’ll do your website for $100, and everytime you get one customer through the website, you pay me $100, until you have paid the full $1500. But because your investment is only those first $100, you will have a website which takes the content of this brochure, nothing fancy, you can’t expect to have it fine-tailored.”
She was selling her courses for $400-$2000, so obviously, it was a good bargain for her, she really had nothing to lose…
I thought to myself “Ok I don’t have a clue if she will ever get one customer, but at least I will get $100 to make a 5 pages website, and she gets her website at a killing price, that’s fair enough”.
Still I wanted to see if I could get her some customers… That meant getting some good traffic, without spending time on it. I used my personal backlink network to make her website rank well, and decided to look at adwords… It was damn expensive, something like $2-$5 per click! So I used instead the trick I explained in my previous post: Getting listed on Google Local.
The whole thing took me around one hour to setup (creating the website using a template, buying the domain name, setting my backlink system to send some links to her website, and filling the google local subscription form).
I made one change once, to her request, but otherwise I didn’t touch anything on her website since, I was quite happy because I made some money without headache. She was happy because she got her website at a great price, and she actually liked the template so she didn’t have any problem with the design.
But guess what? The best was to come… Customers actually found her website, and I started to get money from her for every customer… And today I have officially sent her 14th customer! I earned my $1500 after 5 months, and, I repeat, the whole thing took my one hour of work.
It doesn’t seem much, 14 customers is less than one customer per week, the average traffic is around 15 visitors a day, but all of these customers pay several hundreds for a course! So she’s very happy with my work, and I’m very happy to have made that much money without all the fuss I had with previous people.
If I was doing that kind of deal like ONCE every TWO WEEKS, I would make $3000 per month, plus the future $500, which comes automatically every year.
Even if you don’t have the backlink system like mine, just getting the website listed on Google Local will make your client appear on top of the search result page. If possible, be careful to choose businesses that are not yet listed (e.g., avoid restaurants, or any profession which is already full of listings in your area).
But I know, you’re like me, and even the prospect of making that much cash is not enough to make you move.
Too bad, but if you are really looking for some money, take the rates I wrote above, just spend one or two days and go to small shops, preferably during quiet hours, talk to the owner, make a deal like I did, to pay a bit now, and the rest when results appear, try to find a contract or two, and see if it is worth doing it. Just think that if you have a free day, instead of spending it in front of the TV, just do what I say, at the very worst, your time will have been as useless as watching the TV. Chances are that you will find one contract and make maybe a $100 now, and a couple of hundreds over the next months. Not bad, but even better, you might be luckier, make a couple hundreds now, that will result in a couple thousands. So think again how you would like to spend your next free day.
Tags: earn money, online business, how make money, get paid, to make money at home, make money on the internet, seo tool
great post man. I was actually starting to do this with some friends of mine. they are trying t oget some sites made but they didnt want to pay thousands for it. the way you broke it down in the post is a great way to help my friends while helping myself in the process. good stuff alan.
Thanks!!!
I forgot to add, I read on forums that some people are using such techniques and make close to $10,000 (ten thousands) per month, even without a website.
It’s not difficult to guess what they are doing:
Repeat with as many businesses as you feel like, the best is that when you make someone happy, chances are that he will help you propose your services to his friends who have businesses too.
1) Take the business directory of your city.
2) Make a list of small firms/shops/places that can have an interest to have an online presence.
3) List the ones that are not listed on Google Local, and check that there are not too many listings for the same keywords.
4) Go door to door, discuss with the owner, tell him that you will send them customers through the internet, and offer him to test the service for free for the first three months, nothing to sign.
5) Fill the Google Local form. Warn the owner he will get some verification post within a few weeks and he needs to give it to you.
6) During the 3 months period, go back to see the owner and ask him if he gets new customers from the internet, try to get some figures. It will help you calculate the extra revenue he generates thanks to you. Better do it now when there is no money pressure for him, than the day you ask him to pay.
7) 3 months later, remind him that the trial period is expired. This is the time when you can make an offer.
Selling your service at a price of one or two thousands a year is definitely achievable.
Of course, don’t hesitate to expand the technique to other cities.
Boy was this a timely post for me.
Now that I’m out of college, I need a way to put cash in my pocket right now to pay the bills — can’t be waiting weeks or months for IM projects to take off. I have a pretty solid skill base in web dev, but I’m hardly a seasoned professional. On freelance sites my skills wouldn’t fetch more than dirt cheap rates. So I’ve been trying to come up with a way to market my skills for greater returns.
As fate would have it, last week out of the blue my girlfriend says a friend of hers at work created an educational product for kids that parents buy at $3600 a pop, and that she wants to set up a website. Says she’ll pay maybe $200 for the site and up to $600 to me for each sale that come in through the website. I could blow $500 per conversion in a sloppy PPC campaign and still be making out like a bandit with that payout. Whether this works out with this friend or not, it really opened my eyes to what the right people are willing to pay for when it comes to web dev. AND that a few contacts can go a long way.
But I also thought this might be a once in a blue moon kind of opportunity. After reading your post, I don’t think that’s the case at all. Thanks a bunch man, this gave me the motivation I needed to go out and hit the streets. Time to form a plan of attack.
Do you have any ideas on ways to prove to the business owner that referred customers came from the internet?
In your case, I would agree with the person to set a “promotional internet price”, which will could actually be the same than the normal price, but at least you can write on the website that this offer is special for internet customers.
You can explain to your client that this way, not only it will look like a promotion to the customer, and improve sales, but you could use marketing tricks like “this promotion is for this week only”.
Anyway, there’s the question “How can you be sure that the owner will pay for every customer you send him?” and the answer is: You simply can’t.
Assume that you can be screwed and even if the guy is 100% honest, he could forget or simply don’t know that a customer came from the internet. This is why you shouldn’t feel guilty about setting high rates.
So your goal is to find a way to measure if you send customers, and if you get enough money in return. Don’t expect to maximize things and get 100% of the money that’s owed, it’s simply impossible, unless you make a website that takes care of processing the orders (e.g. an online shop).
So I would say, always do a website, if you are not paid, buy a $1 domain name, put one page with basic info and a sentence such as “We would love to give more information to our internet visitors, please call our phone number and specify you found us through the internet”. After 20 calls, the owner will start to realize that your job is valuable.
When discussing with the owner on the begin, explain him that you offer your service per year and conditions have to be discussed at the end of the year.
Then put some tracking on the website… If the owner is willing to communicate with new clients through emails, put a simple contact form on your website, which sends the messages to him but also CC the messages to you, so you can see how many requests he gets.
If not, at least, with the stats, count how many visits the website gets, then see if the money you get corresponds to the volume of visitors you generate.
If you see that there is too much difference from one month to another, it’s time to discuss with the owner.
You don’t have to accuse him, but simply say “Are you happy to get those new customers from the internet?”
And then explain him that you are sorry but you will have to stop the website at the end of this first year of service. Tell him that the amount of time you spend compared to the money you earn simply makes this website not profitable. He’s a business owner, he should understand. If not, ask him if his shop was not generating enough benefice for him to pay his bills, would he keep it or would he close it?
It’s pure economics, if he can pay you more and it’s still a benefit for him, he will do.
Since you tracked the number of visitors, and you have an idea of the number of customers he should be paying you, it’s easy for you to tell him how much you want.
He shouldn’t know that you are actually spending almost zero time to maintain his website. Don’t feel that you are cheating, it’s business. The price of every service subscription that you pay for is actually much higher than the real cost. Don’t believe that it really cost $20-30 a month to maintain your mobile phone line, one minute of communication actually costs less than a cent.
Creating websites for other is a business that can be really profitable if you respect a few rules:
1) Never work for free. Don’t accept any excuse. Set a “high” price (like I did: $20 for ONE page), because you will spend much more time than you expect, and after the project, you will realize that your average hourly rate was not so high, after all.
2) Write down what you agree to deliver.
Be precise, you don’t want the client to ask you to add an online shop when he originally paid $300 for a 4-pages website.
3) Track the success of the website.
Look at the stats. If possible, agree to do some internet promo, like I explained above, or write your web page in a way that will push people to tell the owner they came from the internet. You really want him to perceive the value you are offering.
4) Set your profitability rate
At first if you earn $100 by spending a week doing a website, it’s not much, but these $100 are better than playing with the X-BOX and having $0.
AND you’ll have earned something valuable: EXPERIENCE.
Next time, you know better how to handle the client. You know better what your rate should be. You’ll know better how to charge (all upfront, yearly rate, affiliate system, etc.)
Be prepared to get screwed a couple of times, but things will go better along the way.
Oh and a little advice regarding those freelance forums, just don’t waste your time on it unless you live in a country where earning $1 per hour is enough to pay your bills.
Great stuff Alan, thanks. And your right about the freelance sites, I\’m probably averaging $3/hour and live in Chicago, USA lol.
great post, sometimes it can easily be forgotten(to me at least) to do more of the offline search for customers. congrats to you!