255 - From Agency Owner to Full Time Course Creator (My Story Part 2)

[00:00:00] Josh: Welcome to the Web Design Business podcast with your host, Josh Hall, helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love. Hello. Hello friends. Welcome into the show. It's just me here with you in this one. I wanted to take some time and make an episode. That is kind of like part two of my story and how this came about is I've been working on my about page.

[00:00:28] Josh: I've put a lot of work recently into my about page. I actually want to encourage you to check it out, not to be like check out my story, but to pull from some of what I've implemented to maybe tweak your about page because it's probably time that you go in and tweak your about page, update your numbers and give it some pizza.

[00:00:46] Josh: To check out my about page, you can go to josh hall.co/josh, which will zip you over there. If you're wondering how I create those little short links, I use a plugin for WordPress called Pretty Links, uh, which make those little short URLs awesome. That way you can remember, it's josh hall.co/josh, right?

[00:01:03] Josh: Yep. You got it. Anyway, the reason I mention that is I've been working on this page and I added something recently that made me want to do this episode, kind of a part two of the. Because I have the very first episode of this podcast embedded there on my belt page, and what I did in that first episode is I shared a little bit about my story when I went from a cabinet maker and a drummer to becoming a professional web designer.

[00:01:28] Josh: And then how I started Josh hall.co and started teaching. But I thought about it and I'm like, my gosh, people who see my about page now are gonna listen to that. But I recorded that in 2019. So there's a lot that's happened over the past, well, to this point, three and a half years. So this is kind of part two.

[00:01:45] Josh: The first part of my story was from cabinet maker and drummer to web designer. Part two is going from agency owner to full-time, course creator and coach and community builder. So I wanted to just kind of take this time and this opportunity to share with you what's happened over the last few years. And of course I'm gonna give you as much value as I can and give you some ideas to implement for your business as well, because what we're gonna touch on.

[00:02:09] Josh: Uh, there's kind of a lot here between refining, rebranding, pivoting, launching a bit of a dud course, which I'll share. Uh, I've had some really good lessons learned and some amazing months, and I've had some really bad months and not so great lessons learned, which is the story of every entrepreneur and business owner.

[00:02:28] Josh: So you're not alone there. So where this stemmed from is I created a little section on my about page called. Me in one minute, my story in one minute. Basically, I actually pulled this idea from Derek Severs. I recently had him on, and he's one of my favorite authors on his website. Uh, he has a little section that is me in 10 seconds and then me in 10 minutes, and I love that idea.

[00:02:52] Josh: I love that idea because how many times do I need to send a bio in, or how many times would I love to just be able to recap my story really quickly? This is also really handy when you're in meetings or calls or if you're ever on a podcast or a video or something like that and somebody says, tell me a little bit about yourself.

[00:03:08] Josh: Well, it's nice to have like a few bullet points ready to go. That way you can quickly do it. Without giving a 20 minute intro, which I used to do all the time. So anyway, I created this little, my story section me in one minute. And, um, you can see this, by the way, if you go to Instagram, I posted this recently.

[00:03:26] Josh: And under that I have my full story. And then under that I have the audio in bed of the first episode of this podcast, the, uh, cabinet maker to, to designer. So that's why I was like, it's time for a part. So with that in mind, let me take you back to the fall of 2019. So when I recorded the first part of the story, it was when I just launched the podcast, which was originally, if you didn't know the original name of the podcast was the Josh Hall web design show.

[00:03:57] Josh: I actually had the web design business podcast as a name in the running for the show originally. But at that time, I wasn't really doing any business resources. I had ju, I had a couple courses that. More design related? Uh, actually, no. I take that back. By the time I launched the podcast, I had just released my business course, but I did not know where that was gonna go.

[00:04:20] Josh: I wasn't sure if. What I learned in my journey would resonate with everyone. Uh, turns out it's resonated quite well. A lot, a lot of solo printers want to get to the point that I was at and have got to that point way further, uh, using my business course. So that's the one of the main reasons I didn't go with the web design business podcast.

[00:04:39] Josh: So I just went, Josh, how Web Design Show. Eventually we'll talk about why I renamed that, but that is what the podcast started out as. So if you're new to the show and you listen to some previous episodes, you will. The Josh Hall Web design show is the title music is the same. It's the same gal who did the intro, uh, Joanna, which is a site called Music Radio Creative, uh, really great site for like audios and intros.

[00:05:03] Josh: Like I just send my details in and pick some ideas and they ran with it so, Really good resource there to check out. I'll make sure that's linked in the show notes here. Radio music radio creative.com if you're ever wanting to create voiceovers, jingles, or DJ drops as they have on the homepage. So next time you need a DJ drop.

[00:05:21] Josh: There you go. So, uh, let's move on now to 2020. We all know what happened in the spring of 2020. Yes, it was the biggest event in the world. I completed my suite of web design courses. I completed my suite of courses, my nine web design courses, which I had planned. Get this in March of 2020. So technically there was another event that was big around that time, but there were two huge events in the world in the, in the spring of 2020.

[00:05:52] Josh: And in all seriousness, what happened was the demand for online courses in web design exploded. So I don't know how that timed. I did not intentionally plan that. Uh, it was just one of those things where literally the world was shutting down and people were getting online more so than ever. Right. As I was completing my SEO course, which is the last course that I created in my bundle of, of web design courses, my ninth course, and what happened is in the best of ways, for me personally, it exploded like crazy.

[00:06:27] Josh: Like I started getting a swarm of student. A lot of people from different industries, a lot of people who were doing web design on the side or had maybe a passion product, uh, project out of it. And then they're like, well, I can't go to work, so I'm gonna start making money online, doing web design and helping people I know get their businesses online.

[00:06:46] Josh: So it was very, very wild how that timed out. Um, and part of me, I, I have such mixed feelings about that season of life because, I know it was such a struggle for so many people. There was a lot of people around me and me and my family where we really, I mean, they got hit hard and they didn't know if they were gonna have a job, if they could go back.

[00:07:06] Josh: A lot of businesses shut down. But I think what we all learned, and a lot of my students found this out too, web designers and and online businesses were exploding because everybody was going online. I have a ton of students who had their best year ever in 2020 to this point, because so many. Businesses who hadn't yet gone online or hadn't really done anything online, were using them.

[00:07:27] Josh: So I, I say that to say there is, um, I don't wanna say job security, but let's just say the opportunities when you have an online business are amazing. No matter what is happening in the world and when things happen in the physical realm, the online realm is where you can really, uh, excel. So that's what happened in the spring of 2020 with completing my courses.

[00:07:50] Josh: And because of that, that led to a very, very big event for me personally in the summer of 2020 when I sold my web design agency. So my business in transit studios, I had started technically back in 2009, and if you don't know my story, you can listen to the very first episode of this podcast. But the very short version is that I built that business.

[00:08:14] Josh: I went from a freelancer hoping to get a job somewhere, and then eventually going full-time freelance and becoming a true solopreneur and really building the business around me and then starting to scale it. And then eventually I became a business owner. And, uh, once I was a business owner turned kinda web printer, that's when I decided to sell it because, um, I just wanted to teach full-time.

[00:08:38] Josh: I had started josh hall.co. I had started teaching, I started doing tutorials. I had just recently started this podcast, which is kind of crazy to think about. When I created this podcast, I was still running my agency full. Um, and many of you might remember, I did a whole episode. I, so I don't wanna like rehash the entire story of selling my business because there's a lot to that.

[00:08:59] Josh: I have an a podcast episode I'm gonna recommend you go back to if you don't know that story, because I really share in depth and I pull the entire curtain back on how I sold my agency to one of my students. Actually, Eric Dingler, who is the CEO of my web design. That is episode 53 of this podcast. You can go to josh hall.co/ 0 5 3, which will zip you over to that.

[00:09:22] Josh: In short, what we do in that episode is I actually have Eric on and we do kind of a back and forth to hear my perspective and his perspective with buying my agency and me selling it. Um, it's kind of a five phase approach. We talk about, actually it's six phases. We talk about how you know it's time to sell or pivot your business.

[00:09:40] Josh: Phase two, finding the right person to take it over. Phase three, making the deal. Four, planning the change, five, handing over the keys in six, following up. Um, so I would recommend checking that out for the full story on selling my agency. And it was just the recap of that really quickly. It was not an easy transition for me. 

[00:10:00] Josh: Many of you have heard me talk about this. I did not want to sell my agency. Like that was not the goal. I did not build my web design business to sell it one day. That was probably, um, evident when Eric took it over because I had a lot of processes that were fairly well in place, but then a lot that I didn't even think about and that were still in my brain.

[00:10:19] Josh: And I realized, my gosh, how much is in my head? I learned very quickly, everything in your head needs to be in an s o p of some sort. We just talked about that on the podcast with Melissa Morris here a couple episodes ago about systems and processes to avoid overwhelm. But anyway, it wasn't my. That it was not my goal, but I just realized that there was such a flood of students coming in.

[00:10:40] Josh: I wanted to better support them. I also, I got to this point where I remember. It was like a very black and white moment where I was enjoying building the business and doing proposals, and then one day I just didn't. I just, it was, it's weird, and I don't know if you've experienced this with anything you've done, but there comes a day sometimes where you're just done.

[00:11:00] Josh: And I was not burned out. I really to, to that point my business was running smoothly. I mean, I could have taken that to quarter million, probably half a million if I wanted to. Uh, I never had the drive to take it to six figures cuz that a million dollar business looks very different than something doing a few hundred thousand or so.

[00:11:17] Josh: But I love that range. I love the quarter million range personally. But the thing was, and I wasn't burned out, but I realized I want to teach full-time and I wanna do more courses. I had the idea of doing a membership and I was like, I just can't do all of that and run my business. And the options I had, and I explained this in episode in episode 53, is I could 100% continue to be the owner of the business and bring somebody on, but then I'm gonna get into like payroll and scaling or partner.

[00:11:48] Josh: You know, situation and, uh, maybe bring somebody on to share some of the ownership of in-transit studios. And I was like, I. I feel like my entire web design business or, or my entire course business was gonna suffer with me trying to scale in transit studios to, to not be the, the face of it. So I was like, you know what?

[00:12:06] Josh: I'm just gonna sell it. I'm going to sell it. And what I did, if you don't know, is I've retained basically a consultant. Status in the business. So I did hand over all my clients to Eric, but he kept the name in Transit Studios and he's doing awesome. He's supporting them very, very well, and he's much more marketing centered than I was, uh, in that business.

[00:12:27] Josh: Uh, but it's kind of, I left it to him. I didn't tell him how to run the business. I wanted to. Let Eric run with it and do what he wanted to do with it. So there are things I would do differently and I did differently, but there's also things that he's doing that I'm very envious of that I wish I would've done, like email marketing, which he just recently did a PR a training in Web Designer Pro, which we'll talk about here.

[00:12:46] Josh: He shares our entire client email marketing system. Anyway, he took it over. That freed me up to go full-time courses. Now, interesting note you would think. Once I sold that, which was AHI ton of work, which we'll find out in episode 53, when you listen back to that, you would think that, my gosh, Josh, you went full-time courses.

[00:13:07] Josh: You must have felt like you were just free as a bird. Your mind was open. You had a, you know, all the time in the world to do courses and stuff. The reality is I felt complete opposite. There's a value in constraints, and I talked about this recently with Derek Silvers in episode, uh, 2 45. I, I mentioned that because I just mentioned him in the beginning here.

[00:13:27] Josh: But in episode 245, we talk about the value of constraints and limitations and how that applies here. Is I had built Josh hall.co and built my courses with a pretty rigid time constraint. Like I was not putting more than about 15 hours a week on average, sometimes 2025. I was building a course or doing something, but if I had a really busy.

[00:13:50] Josh: Period and in transit I was doing maybe 10, 15 hours at most doing courses and making tutorials. I also had a simpler business setup. Then I was only doing tutorials and making courses. I didn't have really much student support. I wasn't doing any live calls. I didn't have a membership. I wasn't doing any coaching.

[00:14:08] Josh: Pros and cons to both of those things, but. I got to the point where I knew I wanted to do more, and when I went full-time with Josh hall.co, that feeling of wanting to do more actually flooded me Like I felt in a weird way. I thought I was gonna feel free as a bird and I felt overwhelmed and I, part of me is kind of mad at myself.

[00:14:26] Josh: I'm like, dang it, Josh Kitt. Like I'm a happy guy. But I was like, can't I just enjoy this more? Why do I feel so overwhelmed? And I think that comes from a place of like wanting to do so much and have so many visions. And now the opportunity is here and I'm like, I feel overwhelmed. There's so much I want to do.

[00:14:45] Josh: And what that taught me is I had to like reel in my visions and make realistic deadlines and projects and kind of chunk those out, make those little project deadlines to eventually, what eventually happen was I ended up creating my membership, um, that year. So interestingly enough, when I sold web design business.

[00:15:06] Josh: Uh, well that was in July of 2020 and then I got going pretty immediately on, uh, working on my web design membership. So my web design community. In the fall of 2020, I officially launched my membership, which is now called Web Designer Pro. It was originally called my Web Design Club, similar to the Josh Hall Web Design Show.

[00:15:26] Josh: I didn't know what the heck to call this membership, so I had a bunch of different names. I think Web Designer Pro. I didn't have the exact name Web Designer Pro, but I had something similar. It was like Josh Hall Pro, but I was like, that sounds weird. Who's gonna say I'm a Josh Hall Pro? That just sounds weird.

[00:15:42] Josh: So I ended up calling it the Web Design Club, which was really cool for a long time. And I learned a lot about community building and that's when I really started coaching. I do still do weekly calls in there. Basically like q and a sessions and hot seats, website reviews, group coaching, basically all inside a web center pro.

[00:16:00] Josh: Basically that's what we do. Um, so I learned about how to build community and launched it. I also found my very, very favorite platform for community coaching and courses now, which is Circle. Circle is what I used. I was actually one of the first, me, not one of the first customers, but pretty early on.

[00:16:19] Josh: They launched in the summer of 2020 and I signed up with Circle one, September of 2020. I was pretty early on with Circle. I just love the folks who created it. I love that they're very community minded. And three years later, well two and a half years later now I am not looking back at all. I'm all in on circle especially, and this will come into play here because they added the course function.

[00:16:41] Josh: So Circle, huge fan. I'm such a fan of WordPress. Divvy and Circle. The Divvy and Circle are my two favorite tools. Still love D. Uh, so yeah, that is basically the big thing I did when I wrapped up 2020, which led into 2021, which was a really cool year because I. I did launch something new in 2021, which was actually kind of a dud, I'll get to that.

[00:17:04] Josh: But, uh, 2021 was the year of refining and improving systems and really taking everything I had done to josh hall.co on that point. And then revamping it and, and solidifying everything. And I'm actually gonna make a note cause I just remembered I did launch something else in 2021, which was a course revamp.

[00:17:25] Josh: Um, so let me take you to, let's see, probably. I think it was Winter 2021. I started the year off with wanting to get off of Facebook. Anyone can anyone relate? And I, I should say I actually still love Facebook. I, those of you who follow me over there, uh, you can just go to josh hall.co/facebook. That'll zip you over.

[00:17:44] Josh: I'm still very active there. In fact, my Instagram and my Facebook are mirrored, so everything you see on Instagram is usually on Facebook and vice versa. Um, but I had support groups on Facebook for my courses. So at that time, some of you may remember this, if you've been students for a while, we had a few Facebook groups for my bigger courses, like one for my business course, one for my SEO course, couple other courses.

[00:18:10] Josh: But it was such a Frankenstein mixed pod, HODs pods of things together, and some students were in some courses and on others. And, um, if you've ever managed a lot of Facebook groups, you know, it can be very, very time consuming and tricky. Uh, unnecessarily time consuming. So I had so much fun learning circle and launching my web design club at that time, uh, that I decided, you know what, I'm gonna put all of my.

[00:18:36] Josh: Like course support in its own circle and that's when I decided to launch the student center, which is still active today. So if you join my courses one off@joshhall.co, you'll automatically be added and can utilize the student center where I still do monthly calls once a month for all my students across any course, whether you have one course or all of 'em in my web design package, I do my, my supports there, yet there's other support with other students and monthly.

[00:19:05] Josh: So I deleted my Facebook groups and moved everything over to the student center. So I have two circles right now. And then that leads me to my first kind of dud launch, which is when I launched a course outside of my web design package. And I, my, and I'll just share my plan, was at that time to release a bunch of more like web entrepreneur courses, web printer.

[00:19:30] Josh: The course that I launched that was, uh, it didn't, it wasn't, it didn't go bad, it just didn't go great. And it taught me that, ah, I'm actually not positioned to do this yet. At least I, I released a course on creating a course, which is still active today. I have it hidden, but if you're interested in that, you can still get access.

[00:19:47] Josh: You can just email me josh@joshhall.co if you want to know. But it is how to create a course with Learn Dash. So Learn Dash is the system that I use on my website@joshhall.co for my standalone courses. Although now this will come up in a bit. All my courses are also over in Web Designer Pro and Circle.

[00:20:04] Josh: So I use LearnDash, and what I did in that course was essentially, it's kind of a three-part course. It's how to build a course no matter what platform you use. The second phase of that course is how to use LearnDash and the phase. Phase three is how to market and sell courses. So I may repurpose a lot of that content for those of you interested in doing courses either full-time or on the side.

[00:20:26] Josh: But the reason it was kind of a dud is I made probably. Quarter of what I was hoping to when I launched that I really did. It was, it was the first time I ever launched a course and it was like, it was like crap. I mean, I, I, I made enough to earn back, I think, the time that I invested in it. But it's, I'm lucky that that wasn't my first course and I'm lucky that, uh, I wasn't too discouraged by that because what it taught me is that I launched something new that was a little outside of what I'm known for.

[00:20:56] Josh: And some of you have been through that course. I actually think it. Perhaps my best course in the sense of the lessons are very, I think they're very good. It's very well organized. It's literally my entire business model of what I do@joshhall.co. How I build and sell and launch courses, how I sell them consistently, what I do with student support, all of those things, how I edit my lessons, how I record all those things.

[00:21:22] Josh: I'm not really, and at that point I was not really in the course creator realm. I'm in the web designer realm, so it taught me that a few of my students are web entrepreneurs, but I'm trying to remember, I think I, I don't remember the exact numbers. I'd have to look. I think that. Course launched with under 50 students, which is not bad, but I was kind of hoping for like at least a hundred to 200 in that one.

[00:21:44] Josh: So I was kinda like, oh man, that's not what I was expecting. And I did a lot of work during the launch period, so, and it was very modestly priced. I priced it at 2 97, which, I mean, I had one student tell me, you shouldn't be charging any less than like $3,000 for this. So yeah, I, I, it was kind of a dud in a way, and I, what the lesson learned there was I launched something that was slightly out of the niche that I'm known for.

[00:22:06] Josh: So lesson learned. And what I might do again, is I might repurpose a lot of that, and I'll probably put it in Web Designer Pro as a masterclass or a workshop with those to help those of you who are wanting to launch a course potentially on the. So I learned from that. Um, and then I just, pretty much 2 20, 21 was refining courses and again, processes in the summer of 20 20 20, uh, 2021, I did finally start my Instagram.

[00:22:31] Josh: Uh, I don't know if you didn't know this, but I was not on Instagram for a long time, and I also recently learned a lesson that you've got to at least grab your handles, even if you're not gonna jump on a platform, just do yourself a favor and get the handle. Because I'm also now on Twitter and LinkedIn.

[00:22:47] Josh: Well, I'm not active on there. I just set up my accounts. But Twitter, some douche bag took Josh Halco and started repurposing my content and duplicating it. So I had to send a cease and desist to him and got Twitter to take it down. Unfortunately, I can't take over that account. Twitter does not allow somebody else to take over an account that is, um, So if you happen to know how to do that, please for the love of everything and as quickly as possible, let me know if you know how to get Twitter.

[00:23:20] Josh: To give you an uh, uh, a suspended account. If it's rightfully yours or should be yours, please let me know. Email me at Josh Hall or josh@joshhall.co. ASAP is possible because I would really love to get that handle before I start using Twitter, which I plan to soon. So finally, launch my Instagram. I just, funny enough, I just crossed over a thousand followers on Instagram, so thank you.

[00:23:41] Josh: First of all, if you follow me on Instagram, if you have not yet, please do. Instagram has been very, very, very slow growth for me. It's funny, I have like three and a half, 3.3 million YouTube views, but a thousand followers on Instagram and, and a large part of that is because my Instagram strategy isn't really geared for getting new follows.

[00:23:59] Josh: It's more nurturing current students and engaging with a lot of my podcast colleagues and stuff like that, which is fine, but I'm gonna tw uh, kind of tweak that up moving forward. So anyway, got Instagram, I'm going. And then in the fall of 20 21, 1 thing I did, uh, which is actually probably the course I'm most proud of right now, is I revamped my maintenance plan course.

[00:24:20] Josh: So my maintenance plan course, the second version of that course is still live. I can't believe it's been a year and a half since I did that. But yeah, that course is rocking and rolling right now. Have you been through that? Uh, thank you for, uh, being a student and for applying what you learned because recurring income is not going away, guys.

[00:24:37] Josh: It's getting better than ever and there's no better time to start your hosting and care plan. Uh, so yeah, my maintenance plan course, super fun to revamp that. I also learned that revamping a course is sometimes just as much work as creating it, depending, not all the time, but depending. That was a big undertaking.

[00:24:56] Josh: Yeah, I was really glad to do that. I'm actually, now, it's funny this, we'll get to this in a bit, but now I'm in the process of revamping my courses from a few years ago too. Like I'm currently working on version 2.0 of my business course, which I'm really excited, and then I'll continue to just update and refresh all my courses.

[00:25:12] Josh: So, uh, that course launched and then it came time in 2022 to refine and support and pivot a few things. So what's interesting is in 2022, I did not launch anything new. No new course, no new product. But what was extra interesting is despite a lot that I went through personally, including moving my family into a new home, which is a ton of work when you have toddlers with a pregnant wife.

[00:25:38] Josh: And a lot of, you know, I went through a really, really tough season with my family we'll get to, um, but I still ended up at about the quarter million range with not launching anything new. So it just goes to show you, you can still have a multi six-figure business and not, not launch anything if you have recurring.

[00:25:56] Josh: And if you have like a suite of products that you can sell consistently. So I did. I did do a couple sales and I did do a lot of webinars and stuff last year in 2022, but I did not launch anything new cuz typically the new things you launch are gonna be the biggest waves of income. Same with web design services too, by the way.

[00:26:17] Josh: So, and you can relaunch things like when I, when I relaunched version 2.0 of my maintenance plan course. It was fun. It was cool because not only could I relaunch something I had launched a few years prior, but I had proven testimonials and results. So, uh, all that to say, the lesson learned there is if you have a service or a program or anything like that, just remember, you don't have to launch it only one time. 

[00:26:41] Josh: You can relaunch it consistently when you tweak, refine, and then you'll have results and proven stuff that you can, uh, share to, to get like some social proof behind it. So, yeah, 2022 was really all about supporting the courses, doing more for students, doing more webinars, live calls, things like that.

[00:27:00] Josh: I was also really working on growing the podcast too, trying to get some bigger name guests. I had Pat Flynn on, um, at the time that I had Amy Porterfield on, which was a episode 180 5 who. It's coming back onto the show here pretty soon. I think I, I'm gonna double check with her, uh, executive assistant, but she's gonna be coming back onto the podcast here soon.

[00:27:19] Josh: What I'm super excited about, uh, but anyway, when I had her on, I wa I had told her, I'm thinking about re rebranding the podcast to the web design business show. And she told me that sounded like a really good idea. So when somebody who is very prevalent in an industry and is, has a lot of experience, if they say, that sounds like a good idea, I would listen to them.

[00:27:39] Josh: Uh, as long as it feels right in your gut. So, That's kind of what I did in the beginning of 2022. Of course, I was learning, I was growing, uh, at that time, the web design club and then eventually rebranded the podcast. So many of you know, it wasn't that long ago. It was less than a year ago that I rebranded the podcast too, the web design business show.

[00:27:59] Josh: The main reason I did that, I'll just share the highlights of why I did that, cuz I talk about that in episode 1 99. Uh, when we actually re ranted the show officially. But the main reason I did that is for discoverability, and it also explains the moral of the podcast better because a lot of people, I think in the beginning when you hear a web design show, it's like, Are you talking code?

[00:28:23] Josh: Like are we talking about actually designing websites? And we'll talk a little bit about that here in the show. As you know, like we'll talk about conversions and best practices, but we're not, it, it's very difficult to talk about something design related and if it's not video. So I generally save teaching tutorial style stuff and design related stuff coding and, and everything like, For the YouTube channel, and the podcast is much more about running the business of web design and supporting you there. 

[00:28:53] Josh: So I felt like. More often than not, we're talking about the business of web design, so why not call the podcast that web design business show. Boom. There we go. Finally got it. Kept this more or less the same artwork and music and everything, and now it's the web design business show, which we've continued to revamp and elevate and make better. In fact, if you, uh, watch the interviews on YouTube at all, every interview I do, by the way, is on YouTube. If you didn't know it's on the YouTube channel, you can go to josh hall.co/.

[00:29:20] Josh: Using my pretty link to zip you over there. We're actually doing some new things there, including adding the, um, snippet of a guest in the intro, which you'll hear moving forward. And then the YouTube videos are just a little, a, a little more edited to where they're a little more engaging. I'm excited to see how that's gonna help as well.

[00:29:39] Josh: So rebranded the podcast and then. As many of you know, uh, after moving into our new home, getting settle in, settled in there. My family went through a very, very tough season in the fall of 2022 last year when my daughter. Had a prolonged seizure, which we are still in treatment and recovery for. She's doing great.

[00:29:58] Josh: Some of you know, and I know you probably want an update on that for those of you who followed me, uh, for a little while, Bria is doing awesome. She's walking again, she's, she's getting there. We're working on the use of her left arm in her hand, which still does not have any dexterity right now after a traumatic event, the seizure that she went through, but she's.

[00:30:16] Josh: Two therapies a week. We have occupational therapy and physical therapy. So side note, thank you for supporting me. Thank you for those of you who are in Web Designer Pro and have purchased a course, because you supporting me allows me to support my family and my daughter who needs a lot of support as a special needs kiddo.

[00:30:33] Josh: So, Yeah. But, but Bria is doing awesome. If you have not yet, follow me on Instagram because I do occasionally share some updates. You can see, uh, a recent video of her walking and she's killing it. So she's the sweetest little thing. And I should say cognitively, she's back a hundred percent. So we're really confident that she's gonna continue to.

[00:30:52] Josh: Make great strides, no pun intended. And, uh, she's doing awesome. But the, the season that we went through in the fall was really tough because when that happened and we, we, the squad picked us up and went to the hospital that same week, as some of you know, my son was born. So my family was literally split between.

[00:31:10] Josh: My wife having little Draxton, my baby boy, Annie, my middle daughter being at home and Bria being at Children's Hospital. So it was a very, very tough time. A shout out and a special thank you to Eric, the CEO of my agency for coming in and doing a couple podcast episodes. And if you didn't know this, those of you who are in pro or have been for a while, you might remember, Eric did Q and as once a week for a few weeks there because.

[00:31:35] Josh: Difficult thing about being a, uh, personal brand and having your own coaching community is if you can't be there for a few weeks or any amount of time, who's gonna do the calls that people are paying there to, to be there for? So Eric stepped in for me and my team rallied around me and just did awesome.

[00:31:50] Josh: During that period. I literally didn't do like any work in October last year. And what was ironic is I had all these plans to, to relaunch some stuff, but at the same time, I knew my son was being born. I didn't wanna miss those first few months. You guys know if you have kids it goes so dang fast. So I didn't wanna miss anything.

[00:32:08] Josh: But anyway, absolutely Wild Family season. I was very, very excited. To turn the calendar year over to 2023. So at the end of 2022, in the start of 2023, uh, the, the big thing that happened heading into the new year is my free Facebook group, divvy Web Designers. I knew I got to the point as a community builder that I just wasn't spending virtually any time in divvy web designers, and it really, for me became more of a support place to send students.

[00:32:37] Josh: But I already had my student. For my divvy beginner course and divvy, uh, web designers is something I started back in 2016 and it still has my heart. I love that group, but I just, I got to the place where, and I, I've learned this from this quote. What gets you here won't get you there. I kind of learned that Divvy web designers was my home for a community for many years, but between my courses, my student center and my web design membership, those were my homes.

[00:33:06] Josh: Now, like my, my True Home is, is what is now Web Designer Pro. So, uh, I felt like it was time to hand off divvy web designers to somebody who could really nurture it and grow it and support it. And that was Tim Stifler with Divvy Life. So I did an episode recently. Well went into that. I did sell the Facebook group, so it was kind of an interesting lesson on selling a free Facebook group.

[00:33:27] Josh: Uh, Tim just felt like, because Tim is going all in on divvy resources, we worked out a deal that was comfortable for him and what I thought was worthwhile for me with having a group of 25,000 people plus. So we, yeah, we came to a, a, a decision. Kind of similar when I sold my agency. I'm still active in in divvy web designers.

[00:33:46] Josh: I'm still an admin. He's just kind of calling the shots and running the show with that. And I'll be there occasionally and I think we're pretty soon. I think we're gonna do a little, uh, training together in divvy web designers. 

[00:33:56] Josh: But yeah that was the big thing to end off that year, and then eventually the latest thing that has happened to put a cap on this story is, as I've talked about a lot through all this web designer pro, I decided to revamp and rename what it was formally, my web design club to Web designer pro, largely because it became infinitely more valuable.

[00:34:19] Josh: I think when, well, I don't think I wanna say that because the value is there from the get-go, but, um, I added all my courses inside of Web Designer Pro when circle added the course feature. So I did talk about why I rebranded my web design membership in episode 248. So I'll recommend you go back there.

[00:34:37] Josh: Just not too, you know, not too many episodes ago I shared why I rebranded the me. And a big part of it was because they added courses. So all my courses are there now and it's really a combination of the big Three Cs. If you heard me talk about Web Designer Pro one last time, the big three Cs are coaching community and courses.

[00:34:57] Josh: You get private access to me in Web Designer Pro and I do weekly Q and As website reviews and fully support everybody in there. The community is second to none. My gosh. The community and web designer pro, any pro members will tell you it is the most uplifting and just best space on the internet for web designers, uh, and courses.

[00:35:18] Josh: All my courses are now in there. So any area of your business that you need help in, All my web design courses are there for you. And what's really cool about that personally, as we put an end to this conversation here, uh, is it a conversation? It's more of a chat. I don't know, if you're not talking to me, is that considered a conversation?

[00:35:34] Josh: Probably not a, an end to this lecture is, uh, I can now mention like, oh yeah, I've got a resource on that in my business course. And previous to that I have to be like, are you guys members of the course? If you're not join the course, then you can get access to my contract, for example. Well, now I can just pull the lesson up and then you can just zip over and and pro and get that lesson and you can go through the course if you want to.

[00:35:56] Josh: So, well, I'm so honestly so glad I made that decision. It's, it's really been working out awesome and it's just becoming a, a stronger community than ever, and my favorite place to hang out. I'm there every day. All that to say, probably not a shocker. I do encourage you to join us over in Web Designer Pro.

[00:36:13] Josh: You can go to josh hall.co/pro to get all the details and join us right now and you can hop on our next weekly q and a and you'll get access to all the upcoming monthly trainings that we're gonna be doing, which, oh my gosh, we have some incredible speakers lined up for our upcoming monthly trainings for the next few months here.

[00:36:30] Josh: Uh, and you'll get all the courses, incredible community, and you and I can chat privately. We can have a DM line. Where you can share some challenges in your business, and I will give you my honest thoughts and actual advice on what I would recommend doing. So that is where we're at, my friends. That's the story, part two.

[00:36:48] Josh: Now going from agency owner to full-time, course creator, teacher, YouTuber, podcaster. Coach, I don't know. Still don't know quite what to call myself. If you have any ideas, let me know. You can leave a note on the episode notes for this podcast, which are gonna be@joshhall.co slash 2 55. Give me a comment. I would actually honestly love to hear from you as we wrap this up.

[00:37:11] Josh: Um, let me know, I guess, I guess I would just love your thoughts. Give me a takeaway. Did you have a takeaway from this episode? I didn't wanna share my story without giving you hopefully some valuable lessons to apply to your business. So I would love to know. Here's, here's a concrete call to action for you.

[00:37:27] Josh: Go to josh hall.co/two two or 2 55 when you're done driving or done doing the dishes or done mowing the lawn or done knitting, or whatever you're doing, Lisa, that one's for you. I know you're knitting. Um, one of my students, Lisa, is getting in and inning, anywho, leave me a takeaway. What was the takeaway that you had from this podcast?

[00:37:44] Josh: I would love to hear from you. I do read all the comments on the podcast episodes, so go to josh hall.co/ 2 55. Leave me a comment. Hope you enjoy this. And as I mentioned in the beginning, this stemmed from tweaking and leveling up my about page. So if you would like to see my new about page, go to josh hall.co/.

[00:38:04] Josh: Which will forward you over there and you are welcome to take that idea and apply it to your own about page. I have to give a shout out to my developer Christian, who came up with a really nice story slider situation using advanced custom fields for WordPress. So don't ask me how to do that because I don't even know.

[00:38:24] Josh: I hired, I hired Christian. To do that because he is a wiz. It's like a timeline rotating story. So if anything, go to my about page just to look at that. Shout out to Christian, uh, which if you wanna meet Christian, go to episode 206. I had him on talking about how he grew a white label business living in, um, south America.

[00:38:44] Josh: So yeah, definitely wood McMan, checking that out as well, but, Josh Hall Doco slash Josh to check that out and leave me a takeaway on the podcast notes for this page. I would love or podcast page for this. I would love to hear from you. All right, friends, till next time, see you on the next episode. All the links mentioned are available for you right now. Josh hall.co. One more time slash 2 55.