This is an ongoing series where we share how a past student has been able to significantly grow their freelance business by applying the concepts they learned from Double Your Freelancing. If you feel your story would be a good fit, share why.
Franz Sauerstein is back again to catch us up on his most recent accomplishments. If you haven’t read his first interview, we recommend reading it here first. To remind those of you that have, Franz owns/operates Xciting Webdesign, a WordPress and WooCommerce company that specializes in helping small-to-medium sized businesses generate more revenue by using a data-driven approach to unlock profits.
Tell us about your most recent win.
My most recent wins are surely filling my pipeline through March and putting a content marketing process in place.
The first one was actually the easier part: I just communicated from the first contact that Xciting Webdesign is booked solid and we can’t start right now, but that we can deliver great results. I then added some proof (social and facts) to that and asked prospects to answer a few questions if they are still interested. (That’s Brennan’s qualifying approach.)
If they answered them and I thought they would be a good fit, I offered them a meeting and after that a roadmapping session. It worked 8/10 times and saved me major headaches caused by bad clients.
The content marketing process is directly inspired by Brennan’s videos about content marketing in Sell Yourself Online: The Blueprint, Brian Casel and Philip Morgan. The process consists of three steps:
- I meet up with my editor (Niklas Goeke) and talk about some ideas I brainstormed, we discuss and record it. The recording is transcripted by a service provider.
- Niklas writes the article, puts images in it and writes the excerpt for the mailing list.
- A virtual assistant sends the newsletter, feeds the social networks and does outreach.
My time investment clocks in around 1.5 hours for a very nice and effective content marketing strategy. 🙂
What techniques were integral to your success?
After embracing my positioning, putting out content and actually reaching out to people in my network (and beyond), I not only managed to start my list finally, but also reel high quality customers in for the products I bundled for them. Word of mouth and consistently following up with clients and actually asking for referrals several times in the process helped a lot.
It helps to put your goals upfront (this helped tons) and work backwards from there. I listed out every single step I would need to take to achieve my goal, e.g. selling a quantity of WooCommerce Conversion Rate Optimization packages to shop owners with no dedicated marketing or CRO-person.
After listing out every step, I broke them down and outsourced the manual labor. That streamlined the process, took the boring parts out of it and made it enjoyable. Additionally, it helps a ton to reserve a day a week to work on your business, instead of just in your business. Major game changer.
How do you feel that Double Your Freelancing Clients helped you to achieve this win?
Brennan shares tons of experience in his videos. Those alone are worth the price of the entire course. The course’s usefulness is tripled by the office hours and the private community.
These additional methods of support really helped to dive deep down into everyone’s unique problems. Everyone has been super helpful and willing to share their secret sauce. It’s a tight-knit community.
How does knowing you’re booked solid for numerous months affect your business mentality/confidence?
Very positively. It’s easier to say no to bad clients, it’s easier haggling for higher rates and it is easier to plan well into the future and work on the business itself. It’s a more laid back life all in all. 🙂
What are your excited to accomplish next?
My next goal is to get my email list to 500 subscribers, launch an impulse-buy product, a mid-level one and a higher-tiered one to be able to help more people and invest less time overall myself. I also want to put a system for outreach in place.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I am excited to keep on working with Brennan and his team! His stuff really works.
Franz runs Xciting Webdesign, an online marketing agency that specializes in WordPress and WooCommerce. He helps companies generate 50%+ more revenue. In contrast to his competition, Franz uses a data-driven approach to unlock hidden profits for his clients. After starting his business simultaneously to his studies of engineering and economics, he mastered time management, prioritization and appreciating life the fullest – so that he can take time for the truly important things.