“Starting a business is like chewing glass” - Elon Musk. Here’s why.
Silvermine AI took many huge steps forward. Onboarded six customers. Prepped for 5 more deals. Here’s what happens behind the scenes.
Here’s a list of everything that I did:
- Migrate from Outlook to Gmail. Fix my DNs records so I don’t get flagged as spam. My company’s website crashes (it’s okay I’m gonna gut it anyway and move over to what I’m putting my customers on.)
- set up an account for my web dev to build a site for my customer.
- Review my web devs site. Evaluate quality. Find broken links.
- Call 4 people my cold caller found. They’re all interested.
- Follow up text with one. He tries grinding 95% of my margin. I let him. I regret it. Deal falls through anyway. He’s not my target customer.
- post updates on Facebook. Someone I haven’t spoken too in 15 years calls me greedy. I’m working 80 hour weeks with no pay for the next three months c supporting people who are otherwise unemployed. Some people just wanna tear you down. I’ve heard it spoken that when you try to do something, the people not in the arena like throwing boos. But the people on the field respect you. “It is not the critic who counts.” As that quote goes. Dare bravely.
- Send material to my social media manager.
- Review the work she did. Get stoked. She’s crushing it. My clients like it.
- Reach out to owner to ask what they want on their website. Don’t hear back. Check in next week I suppose.
- Send out 6 onboarding forms. 3 don’t reply. Check back next week I suppose.
- Discuss with my ads manager how to do ads. Customer asks me questions. I’m relaying info to my manager. I’m learning. Try to schedule time. Pause writing this because I realize I forgot to schedule that follow up time with my customers.
- My customers are so busy they don’t have time to respond. I’m so busy trying to remember who I’ve responded to.
- Reach back out to 10 warm leads. People interested but too busy to respond. I send out a calendar invite just to see if that’s easier than trying to text them again. It is. The random time I picked didn’t work (as expected). They responded with a better time (amazing). I’m one step closer to helping them get the site they want. Success.
- Reach out to a family member who posted on Facebook about their construction business. They knew I stated a business but didn’t know exactly what. We have an hour chat. They realize I may be able to help them. Document new lead. Follow up for Monday.
- This said family member on my wife’s side is surprisingly a customer of my cousins on my side. Wild. I realize that my cousin is a chiropractor. I could potentially help him build his business. Try calling, out of office. Make a new lead in my CRM. Follow up next Wednesday.
- Do an audit of a site. Send out a response. Didn’t get an answer. Decided instead of texting I’ll do the same thing as above and send another cal invite. Waiting to hear back.
- One of the four interested cold calls said he was super interested and to call back on Friday. I’m stoked. Then I call back Friday. He says call back in 15. I call back in 45 bc of another meeting. He silences my call and sends me straight to voicemail. I send a text. No response. Follow up one time next week before closing as a lost. People are weird. But I get it. He didn’t recognize our convo from Wednesday. He doesn’t have time to deal with this decision. I know how that goes.
- third interested guy says he’ll sign up next week once he gets paid. Stoked. Send reminder in CRM. Hopefully he doesn’t forget me like the Friday guy.
- Fourth interested guy says to call back in the evening that very same day. He’s stoked. I call back but his daughter broke her arm just hours earlier. Going to hospital. I’m surprised he responded at all. I send him a text the next day wishing his daughter well. I call back two days later and he’s at the dentist. He appreciated my text. I choose to set up time next Tuesday. He agrees. Hope is still alive.
- Pay my workers for their hard work. Realize I’m still losing money. That’s expected. im investing.
- write down all the tools I’ve subscribed to in the last three weeks.
- Send credentials to my team so they can use these tools.
- Get four audits from my SEO expert. Tell him what to improve. He sends back more content.
- move content to Google drive.
- Set up client folders on Google drive. Set up documents with info per client to collaborate. Have assistant help.
- spend 3 hours preparing for key partner. I spent 10 the prior week. I’m excited. Call goes well.
- Send material to other potential key partner. He’s excited. I’m excited. May be a few weeks or months before it’s a good time though. Keep building. Remember to follow up.
- Reach out to another key partner.
- A friend from high school I haven’t seen since 2008 wants to chat. He does what I do but for sales (I’m on marketing). Have a chat. He tells me he wants to send me clients. I tell him I need his help. He sets up more time on Monday to chat. Hope builds.
- college friend who does a different type of SEO than me reaches out. His cousin needs help with Local SEO (my specialty). I send phone number.
- Said cousin calls me within an hour. I don’t recognize the number but I pick up now. Person is from my grandma’s home town. Wild. Another small connection. Person asks me about Google business profile. I answer. They seem relieved. They ask for my services. I send a doc. Set up time to chat Tuesday.
- Decline meeting with one person because I’m so busy.
- Go to work because I’m not full time. Manage work….
- Set up asana instead of ClickUp for task management. Asana is expensive. ClickUp is free. But ClickUp is complicated. I realize $100/mo is not worth complication.
- Add 6 people to asana. Track down their emails. Realize I forgot each persons hourly rate. Create an HR spreadsheet.
- Add 4 people to slack. I need to get off email for internal work. Happy.
- Just realized I forgot to add that friends cousin to my CRM. Pause now to add them. They’re added 3 minutes later. Had to look up their email to add to my CRM.
- Realized my CRM isn’t connected to my email. Sync is broken. Reach out to customer support.
- Realize after switching Gmail to Outlook that calendly and outlook are stuck to the Microsoft version of my email address. That’s weird. Fix outlook in my mobile. Fix calendly. Can now book appointments properly. Success.
- Had a customer call. Chat for 30 min about next steps. Phone dies mid call. Back to real job.
- realize I paid my part timer for not doing anything this week. Crap. I quickly send them their task, which was stuck in draft mode on slack. I make a note to my assistant to ensure this doesn’t slip through.
- Get access to Google business profiles. Send them to my developer.
- Migrate subscriptions off of an old Gmail. I’m official now. I should have everything on my @silvermineai.com domain
- Add all subscriptions to my finance tracker.
- Random people I haven’t spoken to in years or ever start commenting on my fb posts. I reach out to one. They have a non-profit. I suddenly want to help. I now can because I do websites. They need help with their website. I get excited about their mission.
- Hopped on Facebook to post this. Realize there’s an ad about Facebook marketing. I click. The content is exactly what I’m looking for. I could probably find it online on YouTube but I buy a 2.5 hour course. Paid content is usually better than free. Not always. I say no to all upselling stuff. Inbox gets links to the course.
- Chat with guy about working together on something else. Realize I didn’t text him back. Just opened my notes and sent him the thing I 95% finished.
- After sending this blurb I realized I have a buddy I’ve been meaning to reach out to. I do a quick audit of his Google ranking for his stores. I send off some analytics.
- Three nights this week I only got 6 hours of sleep. Body fatigue.
Why am I doing this?
- Support my family. I’ve got 6 mouths to feed. California is a tough break for anyone trying to live here. Taxes are high. Most people are dual income. This raises housing prices.
- Empower others. I find intense emotional fulfillment in helping others grow.
- Grow. I’m up for new challenges. This is right up my alley.
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Bryan lives somewhere at the intersection of faith, fatherhood, and futurism and writes about tech, books, Christianity, gratitude, and whatever’s on his mind. If you liked reading, perhaps you’ll also like subscribing: