what's up it is Doug Cummings in here
I'm from niche site project I'm gonna
tell you about three things that I
learned running a services business I
ran an SEO guest posting services
business for about ten months I'm going
to tell you my three biggest takeaways
from managing services business irani
now hear myself talking on the computer
so that I know that it's working and
again if you're just joining up I'm Doug
Huntington for a niche site project I'm
going to talk about three things that I
learned while running a services
business it was you know it was pretty
interesting overall I did this for about
ten months it was basically you know
like a seven day startup style services
business where I luckily I had a bit of
an audience - you know launched - right
away from Mitch site project I was able
to you know send an email out to my
email list and you know get started
pretty quickly and it was literally one
of those deals where I had customers
pretty quickly and you know was I was
able to ramp it up so if you're just
joining you could say hi in the chat I
would really appreciate that what's up
Nick I see you're on I will mention that
one of the frequent viewers a superfan
if you will David from Tel Aviv like
asked this question a few weeks ago I
didn't get to go to in-depth but today
I'll go a little bit longer and talk
about the three things that I learned
bringing the seven days startup style
services business and just a little
background the seven day startup is a
book by Dan Norris and for a period of
time I guess like shortly after it came
out and for about a year I was really
interested in the idea and I am trying
to remember I think Dan Norris founded
the company I think is WP curve is that
right David what's up
and I'm sure David Wernick can correct
me if I'm wrong I think Dan Norris wrote
earlier sorry I started WP curve which
is basically a services business with
like a monthly fee and they do WordPress
like all-inclusive work they do pieces
of work an unlimited amount of work in
like 45 minute chunks so they do
specific things there's stuff that's in
scope and out of scope but overall Dan
wrote this book he launched the service
in seven days right he launched the
service he figured it out and then
adjusted until it worked and you know
made it made of something powerful and I
think you know he's doing really well
now so I'll wait just a couple minutes
here and I'll keep burning time I see we
have about ten people on please say
hello I did experiment a little bit
today with what I was sharing to help
people find this video so I have been
sharing on Facebook so I'm sharing like
shared it on the niche site project page
I sure do a Google Plus which I'm not
sure if people people use that very much
anymore and also the new edition I
shared it on LinkedIn so there may
actually be like people that I know
professionally that may accidentally
find this which will be interesting
because I haven't really tested much of
LinkedIn but one thing that I've noticed
is that project managers software
developers and other people that worked
in my general industry of IT are very
interested in what I'm doing so I should
probably do that and again if you're
just joining up I'm gonna go ahead and
say I'm gonna cover the three things
that I learned in the services business
that I ran
and then nick is very good to remind me
that I should mention if you're if
you're here and you have the ability to
click the thumbs up please do it it
helps people find the video and it's a
good thing to do alright so let's get to
it
I'll tell you a little bit about why I
started the services business and it
actually is related to the corporate job
that I had so two years ago to the week
right so I was laid off from my job that
I had for about nine years or so and I
mean I was on a pretty stable project I
was billable things were pretty good and
I'll just leave it at that I was laid
off that happened sometimes they cited
like organizational changes and just you
know a downturn in the market they
probably said three other things too but
they laid me off
I received a severance package which was
good and from there I was like oh I need
to make sure this side project ramps up
like in a serious way because at the
time I was still trying to recover from
you know Google penalties for you know
essentially it was gray hat activity so
I looked at some of the skills that I
was developing one of them was around
you know guest posting and if you're not
familiar with a guest posting is where
you approach a blogger or someone with a
website you asked if you could post
there usually you have a link or some
sort of way for people to find you or
navigate back to your website from that
guest post you can really you're sort of
trying to like build your audience
through other people's platforms
additionally you know from an SEO
perspective you get a link from a site
in your niche hopefully and that helps
your rankings in general so I knew that
I had a skill around guest posting
because I was working on that for you
know a couple of my websites actually so
that was sort of the top choice and I
knew that there really weren't very many
service providers doing that yet one of
the most popular topics on niche site
project was around guest posting how to
get white hot links and there were you
know big SEO pros talking about it like
Ryan Stewart Bryan Dean from backlinko
and several other people now I knew that
there was a gap right so I came from a
grey hat area and a lot of grey hat
people that use private blog networks
wanted to use some sort of a less risky
linking strategy and they wanted to do
guest posts but they also didn't want to
do the work right so it's common thing
that people would they just want to
outsource stuff they would outsource it
and just get away from the work and just
manage things which is a beautiful
thought but it's a lot harder in
practice I can tell you and the very
difficult thing is this particular model
of like guest posting it's very easy for
someone to oversell what they're doing
and then charge a lot and then not
deliver on what they said they were
going to do so basically it's really
easy for scammers to charge people a lot
of money and then not deliver
additionally it's really hard to I guess
correlate back good results or bad
results back to the service provider
that's doing guest post there's a
million excuses which we won't get into
here but let's say I hired someone to do
guest post for me they got five of them
they look kind of okay but nothing
happens my rankings don't go up and get
more traffic on my site they can say
that it's my fault so now and maybe it
is
it's really hard to prove positive or
negative results with SEO because there
are too many excuses and many excuses
that are actually kind of valid so as I
was looking at things that I could
launch and looking at you know my skills
gaps in the market and what I knew my
audience was interested in it was
obvious that I could launch a guest
posting service I remember talking with
one of my friends Louis and you know it
was just like an obvious thing dropped
out of the sky and I had no clue that I
even had the option to run the services
business but Louis and I you know had
talked about doing that sort of stuff
before and we were really you know
impressed with what Dan Norris was doing
and the whole motto of the sudden they
start up is cool like you launch fast
you figure out if things are working
very quickly I mean it's seven days and
he outlines in the book you know day one
figure out your idea name it
day to lunch the website put up a
landing page day three I'm probably
mixing this up that there's only seven
there's seven days and I think I already
had like the majority of it done so
really all I had to do is launch to my
email list which I already had right so
I had a few thousand people that I could
email and probably get one or two
customers and I launched in you know a
couple days ran the service and now I'll
finally tell you about the three things
that I learned and while we're well but
I'm gonna drink a sip of coffee Garci
leo joined up awesome if you're if
you're just joining up and you haven't
said hello say hello and let them know
where you're from
caffeinated today okay so number one I
didn't like running a services business
that's the one of the number one things
that I learned so there are definitely
things I could have tweet but I really
didn't like working with the clients
very much there's some good clients or
some bad clients and I'll mention a
couple things that it could have tweaked
but you know a lot of times the clients
were demanding in a negative way so like
they were demanding and I believe
somewhat unreasonable way and the thing
that I maybe could have corrected was
raising prices raising prices sooner so
I'll come back to that a little bit in
the next point but you know generally
just running the services business I
didn't think it was fun when I launched
I was doing you know basically all the
work myself as I was trying to you know
figure out the processes and I mean I'm
a project manager by trade I basically I
realized that I want to automate stuff
and I want to put systems around it but
you have to figure out how to do like
the nuts and bolts first before you can
put any sort of you know rigid process
around something and then yeah I say
rigid but really you need to have a
flexible process because a lot of times
especially in a services business things
may be tweaked but in my head I was like
okay I want to be able to scale this so
I need to have a pretty predictable
model on how I'm gonna do this because
if I want this to work I need to be able
to scale this in a way so that I am the
manager and I'm hiring people training
them individually to do the same tasks
that I was doing and hopefully you know
hire a few people that specialized in
different areas to replace what I was
doing so in the theory that that would
work and I do believe I think I
mentioned in the description this
could and should be like a multiple
six-figure business I'll just mention
like there were a few months that I made
while there were a few months for I made
like $800 right when I was first
launching it but on some good ones I
made you know five to seven thousand
dollars from the service that's really
good that's like full-time income for
four people so if you I mean if you know
how to do something obviously the people
value you can command you know high
dollar for it now you may not be able to
go right out of the gates to do that and
I'll tell you the second point if you
don't have your positioning right people
will treat your service as a commodity
so I fell into that trap people were
beating me up on price and here's why I
was advertising I was trying to work
with people that were used to gray hat
like private blog network links and
generally they were used to like lower
prices at the time prices were we're
sort of dropping in that area so I would
go advertise my prices which were lowish
I think they were probably like 100 to
150 dollars per guest post so pretty
cheap generally and they would come in
and tell me how they think that cheaper
prices and better results somewhere else
and you know I just did professionally
and I said hey if it's not for you
that's cool and then just moved on and
that actually happened quite a bit I did
get a few customers like right off the
bat and people noticed that I was doing
at work and I was not a jerk about you
know when people were rude to me I
wasn't rude back I was very nice to them
and people took note of that and then
recommended me when they knew someone
was asking about it so overtime just
threw some marketplaces on Facebook I
was able to just build a reputation
around providing the service generally
being professional and nice and then I
was
like succumbing to the people that were
negative or rude to me but overall they
were trying to treat it as a commodity
and early on I liked I needed the
clients and I wanted the work and I
wanted to like build a rapport with
people and build a reputation get more
experience so I negotiated some and I
took you know it took some deals that
were you know I didn't make any money on
it but that brings me to the third thing
is I learned so much about guest posting
during that period I got dozens of guest
posts for like various clients about
half of more niche sites half of them
were like SEO so we're working with
individual businesses and they knew how
to do like gray hat and other SEO but
they needed a guest post or they needed
more gas pose so they hired me to come
in and by you know working with multiple
different you know niches different
types of sites I learned like what
worked and what didn't work
I definitely ran several campaigns where
you know out of the gates it was awesome
I got twice as many guest post I was
able to upsell some of my clients
because I got more guest post than what
they asked for and I was like well hey I
can get you you ordered five but I can
get you five more I already have like
four of them and hoppers so you just let
me know and we can do it if not then you
know get that links myself but whatever
whatever you want to do and of course if
they have it handed to them maybe I give
him a tiny discount or something but
they usually went for it like 90 percent
of the time and the the other part is
just the sheer volume of the guest post
that I was able to get I learned you
know things that worked and things that
didn't work so when I talk about you
know if you look at the previous like
seven live streams
I probably referenced a few times like
getting links to affiliate post like I
know it works because I've done it a lot
for different sites all the time
like it works it doesn't work 100% of
the time but when people tell me hey
it's too hard to get links to the post
that I actually want to rank well they
just need to try harder I mean
everything's hard right like if it was
easy then everyone would do it so okay
so overall the three things that I
learned and I'll hop over to the
questions actually let's look real quick
so David click the like I appreciate
that so if other people have the ability
to click the like button to thumbs up I
would really appreciate it
so David early question is have I ever
tried such a service
what do you mean David do you mean like
am I gonna try and run the service
obviously I'm talking about the one so I
think you know that and Leo what's up I
just I may have said hi to you but I'm
not 100% sure let's see the website was
of the service was it was on niche type
project so it was like niche type
project slash guest posting and just
didn't want to like launch anything else
anything separate I just wanted it to be
in the umbrella that was already there
and then David also asked what coffee is
it I think this is like three or so they
haven't all been this full night it was
definitely strong today and I see
dummies on what's up thanks for joining
me okay and I'll do a quick recap so I
learned that I didn't like running a
services business so much honestly at
the end of the day if I would have
scaled it right you're number one
I don't think scaling guest posting is
super effective so I know a lot of
people will disagree but my personal
experience is that scaling guest posting
to like a lot of different customers
wouldn't be very scalable it would end
up being very
like like redundant there would end up
being like footprints because of the
nature of being able to get the guest
post in a specific way we would probably
end up leaving we're trying to get guest
post on many of the same size over and
over again couldn't crack that puzzle
exactly so like when you scale it out to
hey I need to get ten clients paying
$1,000 a month that would be a little
trouble for me at least the way I was
doing it so that that was one issue the
other part is let's say I figured that
problem out and it was not an issue
there was just an unlimited number of
sites that I can guest post on and I
knew the process to do it and I hired
five people to do the work for me
well at that point I'm a manager and I'm
running a company and I just created a
job for myself
not ideal yes I could leverage my time
by hiring other people in raising rates
and so on but from my perspective we're
running a services business usually
right at least the way I was envisioning
it is not going to be like a passive
situation could I like hire a business
manager and then be a founder and like
step away from it probably right so
probably could do that but I basically
didn't want to grow the company that big
like I just didn't want to so it was
just a personal preference from that
area so so that was number one I didn't
like it for various reasons number two
people treated the service as a
commodity that was my fault as far as
like positioning I will mention that I
eventually raised the prices by like
four to five X and when I did that you
have better clients but
took time it took you're me developing
the reputation that I was providing a
good service and then like things
happened a lot of better things happened
so you know positioning better early it
could have like alleviated that but at
the same time it really it's really hard
to like when you're first starting you
have to tape some gigs that you wouldn't
want to take normally so that's just the
way it works and then the third thing
the positive thing is I learned faster
so if you want to like learn how to do
something you can figure out how to you
know charge people you need to have like
a base skill set right like i already
gotten like a lot of guest posts in the
past so i knew that i could like do it
and I just needed to you know have some
customers and work with them work out
some kinks and yeah like I could do the
service so if you could figure out how
to freelance provide a service while
you're like learning the nuances because
I could do the basic guest posting
posting process but when you do when you
repetitively do the same process like
you'll learn a lot more because you know
there's more failure points that you're
exposed to
maybe I got lucky early on in certain
areas and you know maybe I figured out a
couple things that worked really well
that I needed to do more out so okay so
those are the three things I'm sure I
learned a lot more but I will say that
you know having a niche site that you
set up and you know maintain over time
for me is a way preferable it's so much
easier once you get the content locked
down and you have like a process to add
more you don't even have to have a team
you can go you know check on the site
and keep it up to date and it's wait
it's it's way easier just a few hours a
week
versus a services business which I mean
you can probably one of the fastest ways
to start making money online is to run
like an SEO type service of course you
have to have the chops to be able to do
it in most cases you I mean you really
can't just outsource like each one of
the things if you don't have like an
understanding of how to actually do it
there's too many areas to make a mistake
people will tell you that you can
outsource like everything but not until
you understand how to do it yourself so
okay so on to the questions I'm only
going to answer a few today I do I'm
actually doing a podcast interview with
DOM over human proof design so if you
haven't checked out the podcast I
actually have two episodes over there so
if you I think you just google them or
whatever and you can find it but if you
have a chance to check it out I talked
about he would go ratio scaling sites
and stuff like that not a hundred
percent sure what I'm going to talk
about today but I can't stay on for too
long I gotta talk to DOM so David
clarified his question he asked if I've
ever tried out a wordpress management
service no I haven't no and David says
what do I think about sites that allow
you to pay for a post on your site I
think that I think I generally try to
avoid those the problem is there's a
couple things and I know David you're in
the course so we're gonna we're gonna
talk about it at some point but there's
so many people pitching like guest posts
right now that the bloggers are
realizing that they have some leverage
so they're asking for you know
sponsorship they're asking for money so
I think there can be like if you do a
little bit of that I think it could be
okay I think you really have to watch
out for sites that have almost all posts
that are somehow sponsored and maybe
says a collaborative post or sponsored
pose
or something like that and you know I
think if you have a small percentage of
those like under 25% it's probably okay
and I would try to avoid them if
possible but I think you know we're
coming to a point where bloggers are
getting so many pitches that it's gonna
be sort of standard that they're gonna
ask for some sort of sponsorship so I'm
working I mean you know you're in the
course when you get to unit six you'll
see you know we talked about a lot more
touch points and if you do that you
probably can work your way through it or
end up posting on sites which don't
usually allow guest posts and for
sponsorships and then you'll be in good
shape then so Danish says how much do
you earn on a monthly basis on average
well I don't tell anybody that so I do
pretty well I make more than I did when
I had a corporate job from Amazon sites
which I think that may be more like what
you're asking like a few sites that I
talked about or actually there's one
site that I talk about on the site and
you can see some income reports on that
over the last year it's making about
like five to six thousand per month so I
really wish we didn't get that
Commission rate change a while back that
dropped my revenue quite a bit so but
Danish if you go check out I think I
have like summer fall and winter updates
if you look at those you can get an idea
I will mention I you know since you're
asking about money I just sold a site
with a partner of mine for two hundred
and thirty five thousand dollars so that
was really good that was like a month
ago or so
Sarah asks what if you didn't want to
scale and you were happy to being small
is this something a solo practitioner
could mark it on up where it can be
successful yeah so yeah I mean if I if I
enjoyed the work then yeah I think I
probably could have you know kept it up
and I think for sure I mean if you if
you have the ability to do it then I
think you can make money I have an email
list with people that are interested in
hiring me for guest posting and there's
a few hundred people on there and you
know whenever I emailed it out I
actually had like you know I would email
it out and say I have an opening for one
or two spots and it usually worked out
pretty well
upward could be a good route to go you
probably would need you know some
reviews you would need like some
positive like us feedback on your
profile and like stuff to showcase but
Sarah I mean I think it's totally like a
viable like thing to get links the
interesting part is there's a huge range
like some people like they won't pay
more than like five dollars for a guest
post they have no value and then there's
other people to see it is hugely
valuable in the pay four or five hundred
dollars for a guest post if it's on a
high enough authority site and you know
the trick is to find the people that are
in to actually treat it with value and
like respect the work that you're doing
and they don't treat it as a commodity
that they could just go out and you know
go to Fiverr for example and just buy
some backlinks you know so okay good
question Sarah also a student so if you
wanna follow up with me later then feel
free to any last questions before we
finish
here any last questions yeah
and Nick says Nick's trying to keep me
keep me honest here
and he says sign up for Doug's email
list too so yeah if you happen to
actually let me ask this question if
you're there's like 15 people on here
right now so how many people are
watching this right now that are not
already signed up for my email list if
you're not signed up let me know
I am I usually have the feeling that
there's like not I mean there's not that
many people on here so I assume most of
the people that are actually watching
are on my email list so Nick you I like
what you're thinking now I mean people
could watch this at any time you know
that's uh that's something Nick and I
are working on a little bit here so okay
any less questions and let me know if
you're in the if you were not on the
email list if you're not on the email
list uh me and then go sign up this
niche site project com
yeah and while you know Nick while
you're listening I got your email by the
way I gotta check that out but I was
gonna say I definitely have any plan for
what I want to do with some of these
videos I see you know over time I'm
developing exactly like what I think is
working better and I have some good idea
so I'll email you back and I think we
will I'll be able to do this and
hopefully you know get the email
subscribers that is the goal you're
right all right cool I didn't see I
can't see any more questions so just a
quick reminder if you didn't click the
like button then please click the like
button and and uh Danish
thanks Leah
in a Danish asked one last question that
will be nearly impossible to answer but
how much do you invest on a single niche
site as much as it takes right so this
is a kind of a vague ish question but
I'll assume that you mean like launching
a site so if you're launching a site say
within the first six months if you're
outsourcing content as well you'll
probably spend between like six hundred
and a thousand dollars including the
including the like hosting package
themes content like basically everything
six hundred to a thousand bucks within
the first six months or so if you're on
the tightest budget you could probably
do it for like a hundred and fifty bucks
and the sky's the limit right you can
spend as much as you want and cool so
sarahwoo of course is on the email list
and then bend eighty three asks a QA
question so I'm not going to answer that
today but I'll answer later this week so
please tune in and I will answer that
for you the question is actually two
pages ranking for the same keyword what
should I do and I will tell you that in
the Q&A session sometime soon
so thanks people we'll see you tomorrow
actually we'll see you tomorrow
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