Thanks for taking the time to post that. It came from a good place, and took a lot of your time so thanks.
I market to higher end clients through my site. My prices are $800, just like you found. On forums my end goal is profit from outreach/distribution, not the front end sale and also just keeping my team busy with work to train them. Same with the higher end clients though too, the money is in outreach/distribution after the sale.
I would have never been able to train the team to the skill they are at now if I hadn't started on the forums with low prices. Lately instead of having stopped selling at the lower prices here I just switched to making profit off the backend with outreach.
Contacting existing customers to sell packages to get out of this hole is an obvious solution I went to before this thread. I did it as far as it could get me. Which is basically more outstanding orders, but still a negative balance keeping me from accomplishing anything. I can't market to new customers because my site is down. I can't fulfill orders because my account is negative. I can't keep accounts that allow me to do work like wufoo, basecamp, and hosting up etc. And no it's not $200. I'm not here because I have just one order I can't fulfill...
That is the situation. Thanks for the help, but I get the business, I know how to market it. Things were going fine until I got kicked over the edge with my accident. I thought I would come forward instead of slinking away. I made the wrong move by making an offer and in effect making this a BST, but I didn't want to come forward and then have no possible solution to offer either.
Thanks for the offer. I will not be taking you up on it now, but I will if I get to a point where I have no other options. At this point I will take up Jstover as well as follow out other options to earning the money.
The $500 offer is by far a better offer for you or anyone (though I'm not offering it anymore because I can't sell here). You would pay more to clear outstanding orders, a lot more, and there is 0 need for exclusivity. Content marketing is an absolutely incredibly large market. There is about 0 chance we would end up competing for the same customer at some point. I could add 100 competitors to the infographic market today and no one would notice. You want exclusivity for what? So there is one less competitor in the content marketing scene? I don't see how that would make a difference for you or anyone.
I do really appreciate the offer though. And if it's something I can come back to, I will, if I have to.
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I'm sorry this turned into a shitshow of a thread. I have read through a million of these burn the OP at the stake threads over the years at WF. I really came in wanting to avoid that, do the right thing and thinking I was. I didn't want to be the guy that waited until customers started a thread here and then only come forward when it snowballed into some witch hunt as many threads do. I wanted to come forward before that, admit my wrong and try to find a solution. I simply offered the offer I made because I didn't want to just make an I'm sorry I'm in the wrong post and then leave it at that. I needed to offer some kind of possible solution. That's the only idea I had. I also never said or meant it to be the only way, it was simply my idea but I was open to whatever I could do.
Stover has made an offer and I will follow up on that. Although marketing on the forums and everything would take awhile to setup and see anything out of it for the customers. So I will be pursuing other as well in the meantime.
Jesus man, you have plenty of excuses.
1. Marketing to existing customers leads to outstanding orders.
Dude, you can't even talk to me without sending me money. Seriously, 90% of my clients pay me money just to spend 30-minutes on the phone to see if I can even help them. I charge 100% upfront with very rare exception, and in those cases it's 50% upfront. Those exceptions are rare.
Whose rule book are you reading that says you can't charge upfront?
I've lived by a simple rule for years, I don't do a damn thing until I get paid the absolute minimum that I'm willing to do the work for. This eliminates a million cashflow headaches. And if I do get ripped off (the last time was 2008) I still have my 50%. It's your business, you set the terms. There's no law stopping you from collecting money upfront, it's a decision you make.
2. "I Get The Business."
Dude, look at yourself. You do NOT get the business. A broken arm is no excuse to place the blame anywhere but yourself. If you got the business you wouldn't be here saying this shit.
3. "My Site Is Down."
Dude, pick up the damn phone and ask them to turn it back on. If that fails Google "30-day free hosting trial" - every host on the planet has one. The site being down is no excuse.
4. "Wufoo, Basecamp, blah blah..."
Use Google forms. Use Trello. Use fucking email. You have every tool that you need to run a business at your disposal. Pick up the damn phone.
5. "I can't, I can't, no...
That says it all, and you're right. You can't. You're not resourceful enough to get your site online, or to manage a team without Basecamp, or to negotiate a payment schedule with your team, or make a special offer to your client list for a quick cashflow surge.
I'm not saying you can't, you are. And that should piss you off.
How much research have you done on your top clients industries? How much data have you found that they'd kill to know about and pay top-dollar to share with the world? How many calls have you made? How many Hangouts have you invited them to so you can present this data? How many times have you asked your host for an extension, or signed up for a free trial at another host?
Have you done anything at all beyond posting here?
I'd bet money that you haven't - and if you have I'd bet everything I own that you haven't come close to doing everything you could possibly do to maximize your resources.
Unless you've burned every client you have, or you've never delivered value to a client, you have people out there who wouldn't hesitate to jump on board and pay a premium upfront if you made them the right offer.
I'm may sound like a dick but you need to hear it. What would you do if your parents kicked you out into the street? What if someone put a gun to your head and told you "I want to see your site online in an hour, I want to see $1k in your Paypal in 12 hours or your dead?"
Could you do it or would you die?
Think about that. Because how you answer it will tell you a lot about what you should be doing to move forward from here.
You'll find out if your talents lay in being innovative and resourceful or if you just happened to catch a lucky break as a no talent middleman who should look into the burger flipping business.
Good luck either way.
