I have been saying for a while that the woman is pregnant. I believe that the birthing is started. I have been working on our taxes. Right now, we owe $4,000. And I still have to do the state of CO return. Ha. We have Jordan going to college in the fall. They all have to move here in June. And, I have to find a place for us to live in. Plus, I still have to live now.
God is showing up.
This is the first deal for Jonathan and I and The Revenue Factory. Bless God.
Hello John,
Thank you for getting back to me today.
Please call me on Monday and we can work out payment details and get you started.
Sincerely,
Jon
On Jan 21, 2012 4:35 PM, “John Stein” <john.stein@ebwaydev.com> wrote:
>
> Hey Jon,
>
> Here are the answers to your questions:
>
> 1) Price determination. Our strategic services rates are $175/hour. This type of project usually takes 30-45 hours of billable activity. The minimum that we charge is $5,000, independent of how long it takes. However, we are willing to do a fixed-fee project at $6,000, if you guys would feel more comfortable working on a fixed budget. I can tell you that the likelihood of it being closer to $6,500 is much greater than $5,000. You always have more hours into the project than you anticipate. It’s the nature of the business.
>
> 2) Social Media. Timing is TBD. Our approach to all of Internet Marketing is:
>
> a. Lay the foundation
> b. Maximize invested capital
> c. Expand once the foundation is operating correctly
>
> With your business, foundational elements can and will most likely include Social Media. The degree is based upon spend. Entering into social today doesnt make sense on the surface until you fix the outlay of current cash.
>
> Case in point. You are not spending enough in SEO or PPC, but you are doing both. There has been no research on our part, so I am speaking only from personal conviction and experience. If you combined the spend from those two projects into a single project, you would get better results overall. Whether it is social or any other program is a progression. You have to have the website. That is priority one. It seems to serve best to have that baby operating at its fullest, even if just entry-level before embarking on other programs. Get the site performing. Curtis mentioned it yesterday that your site doesnt perform at all. That needs investigation.
>
> 3) Cash flow. We will not tell you what you want to hear just to tickle your ears. However, there is scale to everything. Given the nature of the companies that I work with, your issue is quite common to us. “We only have so much to spend, and we have to get all we can out of that.” So, priorities are big. We must do the first things first and do them right. We certainly can enter into different realms before being at peak for any program. What I will put together is our minimum recommendation for each of the programs and then show progressive increases over time.
>
> You mentioned 1.52M in our first discussion as revenue target. Curtis mentioned 2M in our last discussion. I will want to know what your marketing and internet marketing budgets are as a percent of that revenue and when you plan on achieving those marks on a month-by-month basis (initial discovery meeting stuff). I have my own recommendations on spend as a percent of revenue but will want to see where you guys are first. We will build out the spend based upon the revenue growth. If revs are accelerated or delayed, we will tailor the programs accordingly.
>
> Sometimes, waiting to pull the trigger on a program is the best option. And, it would seem best to know that you do not have the cash flow to invest into a specific program before you go waisting thousands of dollars of nickels. The nickels burn easy because they are so small.
>
> What we give you can be taken to any company to pull off. You are not obligated to use us. But, I think that once you see what we give you, you will understand why approaching this stuff as a business is so critical. The issue with Internet marketing is that there are so many different ways to spend the money. That makes it challenging as a business owner. Did I mention that you can spend the nickels easily?
>
> 4) Not everything has a management fee. PPC is one of the few that does, for example. SEO is just a flat-rate event. As I shared on PPC, expecting $500 on top of $1,500 is a good target. That is 25%. As a different example, if we provide the service and work with partners on execution, we mark up their services. I have our target margins at 35% +/- on partners, but that is really market-driven more than anything else. We negotiate reduced rates with our partners so that there is room for us. We cannot mark up SEO, for example beyond what the market will bear. I use SEO as an example since I shared with you that we partnered with another SEO firm for international search on the Chicago project, since we are new to the Asian market.
>
> Also, we serve as project managers on all individual projects to make sure that they are pulled off correctly. That is covered in our markup as well. Now, I will tell you that we go after top-shelf service – internally and externally so we position ourselves to the higher end of market. But, I have noticed that there are plenty of guys still quite a bit more than where we come in. I think that that is because we work a lot with smaller companies – not Fortune America.
>
> We also provide an outsourced CMO option to our work. That is an ongoing deal. We take the reports, analysis, etc. and work to adjust programs, bring in new ideas and programs, etc. and work to advise you on a continuous basis. But, that is not the same as serving as project manager nor is it an override on any service.
>
> 5) You doing management. Are you in the HVAC business or the Internet Marketing business? Said a different way, am I willing to risk my company’s reputation on your ability to pull of the work? Nope. But, there are things here and there that you can do, and we will highlight that. Blogging is an example. Some folks use us to ghost blog for search and performance reasons. But to lower costs, they might have us write one article per week and add one or two themselves. So, if there is legitimate opportunity for you to do the work, we are ok with that.
>
> Trust is earned. Integrity is a character issue – not something that one can promote. You are welcomed to challenge us in both areas.
>
> We are honored to work with you.
>
> Now, I can tell you that we expect your cooperation in giving us testimonies and doing a video for us telling the world how much we helped you grow your business and achieve those Big Dreams.
>
> It will be in the agreement….
>
> Peace and favor,
>
> John
>
>
>
> On Jan 20, 2012, at 12:30 PM, Jon Diamond wrote:
>
>> Hello John,
>>
>> Thank you again for your time today. Curtis and I discussed this for about an hour after getting off the phone with you. We are very interested in moving forward with our relationship with you and Jonathan. However before we make this decision we must make sure that we get as many unknowns taken care of as possible. Here are the questions/concerns that came up…..
>>
>> 1) What are the deciding factors that will determine weather your 12 month Online Marketing Plan is going to cost $5k or $6,500?
>>
>> 2) We did not hear you say much about the Social Media stuff happening at the beginning of our launch, more so after other things get in place. Is the timing of that TBD or is that simply something that has to come in time. We feel very strongly that we should be hitting this sooner than later and in fact that is what started our relationship to begin with.
>>
>> 3) There is concern as to weather or not we will have the cash flow to incorporate your plan once you have figured it out. The high monthly investment and the cost to implement. Give us your thoughts on that. Are you ready to find a solution that will fit our budget if we can not pull the trigger on everything?
>>
>> 4) Will your pricing that you provide us after the 4-6 weeks breakout the cost of goods (for lack of a better word) and the Management Fees that go along with them or will it be a lump sum?
>>
>> 5) Is it possible that we would take on some portion of the management side of things or do you see that being 100% from an outside source (ie you or a recommended vendor)?
>>
>> By no means are we trying to be a pain in the butt. We are both new to this and we have very Big Dreams for our Business and we have lost our share of money this year trusting people who promise to deliver and then do not. We are willing to take calculated risks in order Grow our Business and we will continue to look for new opportunities and partnerships that can help us achieve those Dreams. We respect the fact that you have not oversold yourself, your ability or your company. I look forward to your reply to this email.
>>
>>
>> Sincerley,
>>
>> Jon Diamond & Curtis Moore
>>
>>