on my desk.
As an independent graphic designer, I created new business cards for my only client, Chuck, at 1001 Business Cards. He paid me $10 a card. Normally, I would have had zero contact with those businesses ordering cards. Chuck would get a new client, collect their logo, their picture, and their design requirements, and send them to me. I would design their card and email it to Chuck. After client approval, Chuck would have the cards printed and delivered. There was no reason why I would have interacted with these businesses. But now I had a plan to diversify. I wanted to sell them a five‐page website design package for $299. I started cold calling these businesses with my offer. After spending a week calling every business card that I had designed, there were only two takers out of 200 calls. Selling over the phone was difficult; telemarketing wasn't for me.
I needed a new plan, so I refocused on the problem. I analyzed my talking points, learning from my telemarketing experience. I devised a new strategy that would take the process from a cold call to a warm lead, but it meant I needed to meet with these people in person. I asked Chuck if I could hand deliver the completed business cards to these businesses and offer my further services for ads and websites. He gave me the thumbs up and go‐ahead, which landed me the opportunity to meet face‐to‐face with people who could be potential clients for my own business. These were the perfect candidates for businesses that needed a web designer.
When I'd present the finished cards to the owner or manager of the business, they were always impressed with the quality of the card. We didn't do simple cards; we printed in quality full‐color graphics with all the bells and whistles of a premium business card, which was uncommon then. As soon as I saw the moment of excitement or approval of the product, I'd pounce. Here was my window to get a new client! I told them I was the card designer, I was glad they liked my work, and I could do a lot more for their business by helping them create a website. I told them that every business needed a website—this was the future in marketing because leads and sales were going digital. It actually was a tough sell, because most businesses in my area were still on dial‐up Internet at the time. If you are unfamiliar with dial‐up Internet, let me explain it this way for you youngsters: dial‐up Internet ran at 56/K (kilobits) per second. Not megabits. Which means that if you wanted to download today's latest update of Fortnite, it would take you 30 days, 22 hours, and 3 minutes, assuming your connection wasn't interrupted and you didn't have to start all over again.
You could imagine that people didn't see the value in spending money on something so slow and widely unused, but I would start using my sales pitch. It really was going to be the way of the future. Even if only 10% of the city was using the Internet to look for a service, their business was guaranteed to take that call if their competitors weren't online yet. Having a website would give them a place to host frequently asked questions, share a bio about the business and/or the owner, and, most importantly, generate leads. It was a digital sales brochure and the future of marketing.
This new plan worked almost every time. I was converting nearly every business card client into a website client. I got more than 100 clients originally, plus referrals at every turn. And as a bonus, they would need a second business card printed because the first one I designed hadn't had a website listed on it! Score! I sold these updated business cards for $20, helping my original client, Chuck, and giving him additional clientele. He had been my first and only client, and I became his biggest client over the years, bringing in lots of business for him.
Your Client's Success Is Your Success
But website design was one‐off work. I only got paid once by each client, which meant that I was always hustling and trying to make a sale. There were a lot of ups and downs, and it was starting to wear on me. It was time to visit Dad again. I told my dad of my predicament, and he smiled as he said, “Remember the advice I gave you?” Of course, I did. I had gone from one client to hundreds of clients, even getting other designers to help me so I could save time while bringing in more money. Dear old Dad smiled and said, “Well, I only gave you half of the advice. You needed to learn that first part before you were ready to learn the next. You've been banging your head for some months now, right? There are a lot of ups and downs?” It was like he was reading my mind. “You've been losing sleep, too, haven't you?” How did he know? “Now you are ready to understand the second part: Success is all about acquisition and retention of clients and having them come back wanting more. You got the acquisition down. But how is your retention? How many clients pay you monthly?” I explained the one‐and‐done nature of website design. Every single client paid me once. Dad said, “You'll always have ups and downs and sleeplessness without retention. Figure out retention—how you can keep them wanting more, and you can figure out success.” If you haven't realized it yet, my dad is a genius.
So I analyzed my problems again. What could I do differently? I came to the conclusion that there were two ways I could get recurring monthly payments from clients: hosting and ranking, that is, Internet marketing. All websites needed a host, which required monthly fees. So I started a hosting company called FatBoy Hosting. The name referred to the size of the hosting packages, not my personal weight (or did it …?). We had everything from small to XXXL to Blimpie‐sized packages. I also knew that companies paid monthly for Internet marketing. They needed to have websites get ranked in directories and other services. So I started doing website ranking for companies that paid me monthly. My business soon stabilized and started producing residual income. And I got more sleep. Thanks, Dad.
I continued to build websites for clients, hosted their website, and helped them get ranked on the relatively new Internet, or the World Wide Web as it was more commonly called then. I used search directories like Yahoo, Excite, Ask Jeeves, and AltaVista. “Google” wasn't yet a household name. I did this for several years, trying to expand my company. In 2005, I had hired a few new employees and needed to purchase some inexpensive office furniture, so I went to Craigslist to look for a good bargain. When you're fresh out of college and excited about a glowing future in entrepreneurship, you buy your office desk brand new at Staples, but when you've been around the block a few times and the shine has worn down, you save money and buy secondhand goods (or even better, get them for free) that work just the same!
While I was on Craigslist, I saw a listing for a contest to win a free new iPod Nano for anyone who could get people to join a new website called YouTube. The previous iPod on the market was the size of a brick and held a weighty 1,000 songs! Plus, if you threw it at someone you might kill them because it was heavy like a brick. Steve Jobs had just announced this new iPod Nano, which was the size of a pack of gum (much lighter than a brick) and held even more songs. I wanted that iPod! I signed up for YouTube, spammed all my contacts and clients to do the same, and even created new emails for myself personally to increase my chances. I became one of the lucky winners of the latest and greatest iPod on the market.
But then I started watching videos on YouTube and was blown away by the quality of the videos and the lack of the dreaded “buffering” load time so common then. I was hooked! I learned that you could embed videos from YouTube to any website, and people could play them wherever they were in the world. BAM, an idea came to me: I could upsell my 865 clients to embed a video on their website. It would be so easy, it would be like printing my own money. No one was doing this. I could be the first to put videos on my clients' websites.
In November 2006, YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion. Naturally, the platform's videos started to gain ranking traction on Google searches—now that they owned it, of course they wanted to help it get noticed. At this time, my job was to keep my clients' websites ranked as #1 on the front page of Google. But there was an anti‐spam czar at Google named Matt Cutts who made my life a living hell. Matt Cutts was my nemesis. My whole day was spent trying to figure out hacks to game the system and get my clients' websites highly ranked, and Matt and his team would find exploits to the system and shut them down every time. I felt like I was stuck on a roller coaster with no end in sight.
I was sick of fighting with Matt Cutts, and I was sick of getting the dreaded phone calls
