But really kind of looking at it as just information helps to make it feel less personal . Dehumanize it . Dehumanize it because it's so , and we talked about this last time too but not just the negative feedback , but also the positive feedback .
If we're internalizing the negative feedback or the positive feedback , then we're going to rely so much on external validation to feel safe and to feel good in our business , and that is such a dangerous place to be .
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 .
Hey friends , welcome into the show . Great to have you here today . Hey , before we dive into this one , i just wanted to offer a sincere and honest thank you for listening to the show . It dawned on me recently that And I forget where this stat was I don't even know how they know this .
I guess it depends on the player , but the stat I saw was that people are typically subscribed to between 10 and 15 podcasts , which means you have a lot you could be listening to . So the fact that you're here listening to the show , i so appreciate it . I hope the Web Design Business Podcast helps you on the weekly .
To those of you who have been loyal listeners since perhaps day one , an extra special thank you to you . Just wanted to get that out there and say I appreciate you listening because the numbers are growing , which is really , really exciting , and you're a big part of that .
You can be a bigger part of the show if you'd like to leave a podcast review or share it to a friend , which would be super helpful . So I appreciate you . Something else I appreciate are good client reviews and student successes .
One thing I don't appreciate I'm sure you feel like this too is negative feedback or for whatever reason , when a client just doesn't get good results with the website that you provide for them .
So I wanted to talk about this in detail to help you separate emotionally , client results , because we cannot have our mentor and emotional state as a business owner rely on whether our clients get good or bad results . We just we cannot go day to day without really diving into this and being cognizant of detaching emotionally from results and feedback .
So , to explore this in more detail , i'm so excited to bring on Erica Nash , who is you can find her at ericannashcom . She essentially is somebody who helps people create course curriculums And she is also the success coordinator for my friend , shannon Matters Web Designer Academy . So Erica is really deep into the world of client results and how to measure those .
So I couldn't think of anybody better to talk about how to make sure that we detach from both good and negative results and feedback . How do we , how do we detach from those personally and emotionally ? So what a fun combo . Here's Erica again . Check her out at ericannashcom for more . What a great conversation .
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did And again , thanks for listening to the show . Here she is . Well , erica , i had such a good time being interviewed by you that I wanted to return the favor and have you on and maybe pick your brain about .
I guess we're going to maybe focus on , like client results and how we let those build us up but also not affect us , and maybe the internalization of the measurements that we get and results for clients . So if that sounds good , that figure , that's what we might dive into today .
Yeah , i am always game to talk about those kinds of things And I enjoyed chatting with you , so I'm super excited to get to do it again .
Yeah , i was going to say I know we did it . just well , it was a couple of weeks ago , so I feel like we're going to it's going to be a bummer not to chat every couple of weeks , but yeah , you had some really introspective , interesting questions And I could just tell your I feel like you're a very thoughtful entrepreneur . Where does that come from ?
If I'm reading that right , where does , where do you think that comes from for you , with what you do ?
That is a really great question . I am very introspective And sometimes that's to my detriment . Most of the time it's a good thing , but sometimes it's a little like I'm like , okay , erica , it's not that serious , but yeah , i think it probably .
I used to be a teacher And so you know , just dealing with a lot of people day in and day out , you kind of you almost kind of have to be , and so it really helped me to develop just like the ability to ask questions and ask myself questions , and so that's kind of and like that's literally kind of what I do now in my work .
It's I just feel like I'm always just asking questions And and it gives me a sense of like understanding of you know , whatever it is that my clients are dealing with .
But also it allows me it allows me to learn more information , but it gives the clients the space to kind of come to their own conclusions about whatever it might be , and so it's always just a really interesting process And that is kind of just has naturally flowed into podcasting . So that's awesome .
It definitely sounds like you're a good fit and a good . I love the foundation of like your approach to business sounds like it's perfect for what you do with not only the podcast , but I mean essentially you're . You're helping course creators and , i imagine , community builders and on the entrepreneurs .
But you're also connected with one of my good friends in the industry , shannon Matter , because you are what's your official title with her . Are you the success coordinator for her students as well .
So I mean , what a ?
perfect topic . I didn't even think about that until I just said that a lot , but what a perfect topic to get your insight on , which is the results we get our clients , because I imagine you overseeing some of the results that you're helping , or Shannon's helping people with .
That must feed into some really interesting questions that I imagine you guys have learned over the years with web designer , specifically with how to get results and how to measure that .
Oh , it absolutely has it . It's just you know like results can be , so I don't know if touchy is the right word , but they can be just so personal and we internalize so much of that stuff And so we have a lot of I don't even I don't even want to say their issues because that doesn't feel like the right word to say .
But we get a lot of questions about results and how people are feeling about results , how they're responding to results and the fear that comes before the results are even in . You know , like just all of the things .
And it does help to ask questions and kind of chase that rabbit just a little bit sometimes to help kind of take some of the power out of the fear that comes or the hurt that comes with it or whatever .
Well , and I feel like the term results reminds me so much of the term success and success , just like results , look so different depending on the situation , and for web designers , this is a really important . No , we've never talked about this on the podcast but results may look different for your customers too .
I mean , i think , at the end of the day , for web designers , you want to build a website that's going to help grow somebody's business , but there also may be multi facets to that , because success for one business may be like one lead a month from their website .
Another business , if it's an online store , for example , success is going to look very different because they're like main revenue sources , their website .
So results I think you're right , they are touch you because they're so different Like I don't know , do you have , do you guys have a good feel for maybe in your experience , erica , like the different categories of success , like I imagine , one is revenue , business growth , but one may be time , like you might want to help people work less and make more .
One maybe profitability . So it's different than revenue , it's like profitability . One may be success in scaling . I don't know . Have you identified any categories of results ?
Yeah , typically I like to talk about them in three different areas , and so time , money and capacity . And capacity can look like a lot of different things , but you know what is the energy the mental energy , the emotional energy , the physical energy involved in the tasks that you may be taking off of their plate . You know what are .
What are they gaining in that ? Something else that I was thinking about recently too , is like in your work as a web designer , are you sort of like decreasing the client's exposure to something that maybe they don't want to deal with or they feel a lot of stress around or something like that ?
And so through that , you know you're decreasing the mental strain that may be involved , with the mental energy that's involved .
And then going back to money , you know , like that tends to be kind of like the top thing , right , like the people are always talking about the money that you know this or that is able to create and which is fine and good , and like that's an important metric to measure by , but also like are we able to save our clients money ?
You're thinking about it that way . And then , in time , like I feel like time freedom is kind of the new standard of wealth , right , like everybody's kind of chasing being able to be away from their desk a little bit more .
And so if we can lean into talking about results in all three of those ways , we are always going to be able to show an ROI in some way to potential clients And it's gonna feel a little bit better to us .
Because if we're just focused on money , there's so many things involved in making money And like we can't control all of those things , and so if we kind of diversify how we're talking about them , then we're kind of covering all our bases .
That is such a great point . I never really had that visual for explaining results to customers and potential clients because it's so easy to say we'll help grow your business with a new website .
Usually it's focusing on money , but yeah , if their website helps them , for example , reduce bad fit leads and get really quality people through the door less discovery calls but with quality candidates , that right there may save an average of five to 10 hours a week for your client .
And you could position that as like what will you do with this extra time in your business or in your life ? Like , do you wanna take a whole day , potentially a week more , for just you all by just the things we do on the website ? I'm just making this web design related , but of course this translates to any industry . That is genius , like there's .
I love that idea of hitting the different , not pain points , but maybe like heartstrings , like pull on a different heartstring because and I don't know , maybe there's a point in the process where you ask about the results for clients , like what's the most important thing ? Do we wanna grow the ? we grow the revenue ? Do we wanna focus on profit ?
Do we want to save you more time ? Yeah , all those different ? yeah , what's your capacity ? Do we need to look at scaling and hiring things out ? Like what ? yeah , what does that look like ? So , right off the bat , what a great point . And I think one thing that's difficult with results .
I think , for course , creators , that may be different for clients of web designers , because my clients generally never talked with each other And the industries were different So they didn't really like one . A hairdresser wouldn't look like a manufacturing website and say like well , that manufacturing company did like a million dollars in sales on a hairdresser .
Like they weren't at the same level with their goals But with , like , my students . One issue that I've come across that I've had to be really wary about is when I share success stories . I don't necessarily want that to either intimidate or make people feel bad if they haven't hit that .
Like for my students who have gone to six figures pretty quickly , i love sharing that That's a huge success because they're getting time , freedom and they're building their business . But at the same time , if somebody makes 20,000 any year , i don't want them to feel like , oh , i'm a failure , i didn't do what Josh's other students do . What's wrong with me ?
Like there's so many variables that contribute to success or results right , whatever that looks like .
No , that's so true , and I think that that is one of the reasons why , in programs like that , having a coaching component is so important .
Just so that there's a little bit of discourse about like yes , this is happening and this is good and this is amazing for this student , and also here are some of the other struggles that some of these other students are going like to help them not feel so alone in their struggle .
Like , just because one person is winning doesn't mean that there's not space for you to also win , and it doesn't have to be right now And everybody's path is different . And so really kind of leaning into like the human part of it , right of like yes , this can be triggering and I totally see you and like witness to that .
And also here's what else that can be true about this Like this doesn't mean that you're going to this doesn't mean that you're a failure . This doesn't mean that you know you can't also get here as well .
Well , and then sometimes too , another component of success in regards to like a good year revenue-wise . I've learned to ask myself this more recently It's like at what cost ? So a lot of people who make a lot of money not all cases , but a lot of people who do it costs them something . It costs them a lot of time .
It costs both in their business and personal life . It may have cost them , like family time In some case of costs . A lot of entrepreneurs will share their numbers , which I actually am a proponent of , and I'm happy to explain my point of view on that .
But just remember if an entrepreneur like Amy Porterfield , case in point , one of my favorite entrepreneurs in the course creation realm she's very open about her numbers . Now she is a multi-seven figure business , but she also has over like 20 plus full-time team members , So there are a ton of expenses and payroll things at play there .
It's not like she makes multi-seven figures just for herself . So that's like the kind of thing that I like to remember that my business and my setup is very different than hers and others . And , just like web designers , you may be a sole entrepreneur with a lean , mean couple of contractors and you should not judge your results or your successes .
Next to an agency that has payroll and 20 people on staff , Like I say that to say like the success and the results , not only are they different , but you do have to ask yourself like at what cost , What did it take for them to get there ?
Yeah , and you know , with social media , like there's just we get the highlight reels right , like most of the time we're seeing like all of the good things and very , very little of the hard things , and sometimes we can latch on to those good things and make you know if we're not meeting those same things , we can make it mean all kinds of things about
ourselves that are totally not true And it , like that comparison game , really can just mess with you in the worst way .
And I had a couple students one was who is now the CEO of my web design agency who took it over Eric . He was first a student of mine and he took his side hustle web design business to six figures and I think just over a year it was Now .
if you parallel that to a lot of my other students who don't do that within a year , like I had one student who was on the podcast a long time ago who said she felt like she just wasn't measuring up necessarily to somebody like Eric who took it six years and 12 months .
But if you look at their two journeys , eric was in a way different position when he started his web design business He was already experienced as an entrepreneur and as a business owner in many ways And he did not need to learn near as much of the business side of things or even confidence with selling or price points that my other student did .
And I tried to kind of explain that and anytime the situation comes up I do try to explain . you may be starting the race , i guess , for sake of an analogy , at a different place , like when I started my course creation business , i was able to take it to six figures in year two , but it was not any sort of overnight success .
for me , it's because I have spent . at that point , i had spent over 10 years building my own online business as a web designer and I did everything that I told my clients to do when I launched this business . So , yeah , have you seen that as well ? Like had the importance of letting people know .
when it comes to results , there's a different starting point , or even just different paths , Absolutely .
And I , you know , and like I think about that even , like for myself , like I came from a totally different industry And so I had to be very careful about , you know , comparing my results to other people's results , because they just they cannot compare .
It's like comparing apples to oranges And so , to your point , talking about success looks different for everybody . You know , I really think it comes down to us deciding , like choosing our own metrics for success and really , you know doing being diligent about reminding ourselves of those things .
Like you know , if success to me looks like , you know , only working 20 hours a week , you know , kind of talking about the cost , Like I probably am going to make less money , depending on you know how things go If I'm only working 20 hours , not that I'm not , I don't even want to say that because I don't necessarily translate time into money .
But you give what I'm saying . Like you know , there are going to be trade offs here , there , wherever , And so if we're able to really define what our own metrics of success are , then we're going to have an easier time not playing the comparison game .
I so needed to be reminded of this , erica , because , like I'm in a season of life right now where I have three under five , we have a very common denominator with our family dynamics , where I know you have a daughter with some special needs and I do as well .
That makes our lives much more intricate than like single dude designers who have all the time in the world to do whatever they want to do , or like single .
You know , like the entrepreneur types , like a lot of these , like influencers and stuff , i do have a very hard time relating to people who are like , well , you don't have kids , so you just have all the time in the world to do anything you want and you can still work out two hours a day .
You know , and I don't know if you've seen that even in the female side of entrepreneurs , like , there's plenty of women entrepreneurs I think it's very common who don't have families , and nothing wrong with that if you want to be a career woman . But it is very different for the entrepreneurs who are moms and balancing having kids and growing their business .
So maybe even more so for the mom entrepreneurs , the mom printers , who are maybe dealing with serious comparison problems , and same for guys , but I don't know . You tell me , is it worse for moms ?
when you see , like the single women or entrepreneurs who have all the time in the world and aren't balancing mom life and kids and the hormones when there's newborns and everything else Like my wife's going through that right now I can't imagine running a business alongside that too .
That's at least my perspective on the comparison and the things with success and results .
That's actually a really interesting question And , if I'm being completely honest , i don't think that I have like really paid much attention to like the mom part of it . Yeah , so my daughter is 14 .
So she is not in the stage where she is as needy as a toddler , you know , and so she's doing her own thing a lot , which has freed up a lot of time for me to do my own thing .
And so I think that had it been , had I been in business much like a long time ago when she was a lot younger and a lot more like when her needs were at a level of , you know , just like the maximum , when we were at the maximum , oh my gosh , i can't imagine Like there's no way that and I would have just had to do a lot to protect myself in like
probably staying offline , because I could definitely see that , yeah , there's a lot of room for playing that game whenever you're pulled at every end and touched out , and I like every time .
I say that is because we are in that season where 305 little six month old little guy who's awesome , but like we're just in that season , it's very difficult managing two toddlers , one with special needs and a newborn And I do .
I feel like I'm pretty good at avoiding the comparison trap , but inevitably those thoughts come into play And there are some times where I have had to look at what success means for me and the results that I want to get and almost change the narrative to where , like , i am okay with making a little less , as long as I'm supporting my family in this season ,
where I'm not missing a bunch of time with my kids And I'm not gonna like I'd rather essentially long and short of it is I would rather make a little less money and have plenty of memories and kids with the kids at this age , then make way more money and be like well , shit , i just , you know , i didn't even see my newborn barely for the first couple of
years .
So there is the metric of success is so beyond the money side of things And the reason I mentioned particularly for mom printers , but it's the same for dads too , as dad printers like it is just hard to manage young kids and stay fresh and build and run a business at , no matter what level you're in , and it's hard to see again these other people who just
don't have the same responsibilities or time commitments that you do . But it is a good reminder . I needed to hear this reminder , to just to tell it to myself , like their story is not my story , their path is not my path and their season and their life is not my season in my life . Yeah , so I love that thought .
I just I think it's really important when it comes to results and measuring the results for you .
Yeah , i totally agree , and I think we forget too quickly .
Yeah it is , yeah it's easy . I mean it's cliche And , like you said , it's the highlights We all know . It's like none of this is stuff that we don't know , but it does seem like the reminder aspect of things like this is really , really important .
And remember the same for clients , like I think that's where potentially I would love to ask you about when you're sharing success stories of clients .
I would imagine the strategy may be to focus on those three categories rather than just monetary success , because some clients may be drawn to see in somebody's numbers go up , but then some clients may be drawn to seeing people have , like a good experience .
What are your thoughts on that , on those different categories and how to use them for like success stories and testimonials ?
Oh yeah , absolutely . I think it's so important to sort of differentiate in whatever way possible .
You know , those are the three that I tend to like kind of lean into , but they're very broad And so , you know , figuring out and again , i mean it really does come down to knowing your ideal client and just doing a lot of talking and asking and finding out what it is that that you know those pain points .
But I love to really dial into like the aspirational side of it , and so for me it's like looking at a lot of okay , so like who is this person and what are their like big life goals , like what do they want beyond the business so that we can the business can then be like a tool to get there , and so really kind of leaning into , you know , while like
this result was created and as a result of that , you know this client experienced , you know , this amount of time back or this kind of freedom , or they no hunger , felt overwhelmed , because overwhelmed can cloud everything that we do , and so just really kind of leaning into how that affects their day to day life has been really big .
What are your thoughts on sharing monetary results ? And I asked this because this is a I'm finding out quite a polarized topic And I do think maybe it comes down to personality type . case in point , my wife and I are very different in terms of talking about money and stuff publicly Like .
it may just be from her family background or just her personality , but she just doesn't like to talk about money and how much we paid for stuff in our home or whatever . I'm a little not boastfully . but I'm happy to say like yeah , i pay two grand for that trigger grill that I just got . Like I'll tell anybody that I don't . really it doesn't affect me .
And and when I share numbers about business growth and stuff , it's because what really was helpful for me as a up and coming business owner was seeing actual numbers . It does not help me in the slightest to hear somebody say I agree my business by 50% because is that from $2,000 to $4,000 or is that from , you know , $75,000 to $150,000 ?
Because that really makes it tactile for me . So very briefly , that's kind of my perspective on the money thing And I don't think any . everyone should feel like they have to say numbers when it comes to results , but I don't know . We could take this in a few different directions with client results , because it gets tricky when you ask about client success .
So what are your thoughts on that ?
We're sharing real numbers you know and , and you kind of hit the nail on the head like it is tricky And I am . I love transparency , but I also value clients autonomy and just like respect , their ability to like be able to share whatever they want to share .
But also like just I don't know , like I I value the relationships that I form so much And sometimes , sometimes , when I know that people are like totally fine talking about those things like you know , like kind of like you were talking about , like if people are very transparent about that , i'm a little bit less weirded out by asking for direct results .
But if they tend to be very I don't know , kind of pulled back on some of that , i don't tend to , i don't tend to ask for a lot of those things , and it just comes down to like partly me as a person like I don't , i I've done a lot of work around like the money stuff And and that's still I'm still growing in that And sometimes those old , i don't
know fears or insecurities around asking some of those questions come up And and then I'm like I'm not gonna ask , we're not gonna dive into that , but like you said , you know it is really helpful in like on .
You know , as a person who works , so like part of my job right is to like let's get you , let's create this course strategy to get you where your goals are . And sometimes those goals are monetary .
A lot of times those goals are monetary And so it is part of my job to be able to ask questions about about the money and about the revenue and about the goals and like how much are you charging , how much do you want to charge , and , like you know , going down that lane . And so you know , there there is this sense of like .
We do need to talk about that some , but whether or not I share those things like those are in my mind they're too very separate .
Yeah , they are . We're just going to say there is . There's like the internal , like learning from your clients , you know what's working .
And then there's like success stories , case studies , testimonials , And that's where like that is where I understand I and I understand not wanting to talk about money anyway Like I , I'm not wired like that , but I get that not everyone is like me , just like we're all different .
However , the testimonial thing I am very , very cognizant of , like making sure , if somebody tells me , like in Web designer pro , my coaching community , if somebody says I just landed a project for $10,000 , I would love to put that everywhere and shout it off the mountain top and post it on social media .
But I've been very intentional to say would you mind , are you open to letting me maybe put this as a testimony or share it with the hopes of inspiring others who want to do this ? It's not a boastful thing , It's not a braggy thing , It's just like this is what's possible . Are you open to let me share ?
And some people say , no , I prefer to keep it , you know , and I'm totally respectful of that . And same thing for , like web designs for your clients .
There are going to be clients who are totally fine to say , yeah , your website helped me land $30,000 of extra business in a few months , And then some might be like , yeah , we don't really want to talk about our numbers publicly .
So I guess it's it's worthwhile expecting both responses right , Or expecting the different personality types to be involved with results .
Totally , And the time involved it takes to get , to get those results . You know , like on the course creation side , it's like sometimes it's three months , six months , 12 months before there's actual hard and fast data to gather from some of those things , And so it's not always going to be cut and dried .
And that leads to the point we were just talking about with where everyone's at a different place in the journey . Like if I started a business now , being pretty well connected with a lot of different professionals and a big network , it's going to be way easier for me to go pretty far pretty fast with the network already had built up .
But when I was just entering into the business world coming from the band world with no business owners that I really knew , that's why it took longer to get to a place where I built a professional network .
So that's a part of it too And that's why , like we hit on earlier , the comparison game is really really dangerous And I mean , if anyone isn't doing it now , just don't don't compare yourself to other designer . Everyone has a different story and goals and stuff . So yeah , it's so important with results .
Like I'm kind of curious do you guys have a like a questionnaire that you present to clients , not only for you , erica , with your business , but for Shannon , the Web Designer Academy ?
like do you have a set of typical questions And do you ask , like , are you okay to talk about numbers or are you not okay to talk about numbers , or do you prefer to keep them hidden . I don't know , do you guys have anything like that ?
Because I'm really considering setting something like that up for for my students as well and maybe making it , making it like a type form or like a conditional logic kind of thing that just puts them on a different path , so like if they're cool talking about numbers . Cool , Let's talk revenue , let's talk time . Let's talk implementations .
If they prefer to keep it hidden , then let's talk about time back , freedom , the other stuff that may be not numbers based .
Yeah , in in WDA we do have a form that like an intake form when clients fill out , and part of that is sort of like it's not exactly kind of what you're talking about , but it's really similar in like you know in the first 30 days what result do you want to create And there's a few options that they can choose from And that kind of determines the pathway
that we recommend for them to take . And that's a really great way for course creators to one learn exactly about their students , like learn , learn exactly what they want out of your course and what their expectations are for the course .
But also it helps And I'm thinking , you know , in my like curriculum brain down the line , you're going to be able to like go back and look at all of that data And , like , the majority of these students are expecting , you know , this one specific result And then you get to go look at is it actually creating that result And is everything that I the way that
I'm talking about it ? is it pointing to that result ? And do I need to expand on some of the other things that are possible ?
you know , in talking about some of these other avenues or goals that they can reach within the course Gotcha And this room , this kind of primes me for thinking about messaging and copy when it comes to selling something to eventually get a result , because often the messaging and copy I've found really dictate the type of people who are in it for certain results
And that's a very convoluted way to say . I've kind of played around with adding six figures in my copy for helping people build a six-figure web design business Versus , or including a business that gets you freedom in a lifestyle you love . That's the tagline of my show and that's really when it came down to it for me as a web designer .
I didn't need six figures until I got married with the added expenses But I was able to get some freedom in a lifestyle that I wanted , even at making 50 to 75,000 .
But in most cases I found Wet in the Western countries at least you're gonna need to make at least six figures to have any sort of freedom in a lifestyle that you want , in most cases depending on your expenses and everything .
So I've kind of played around with that , adding like the numeric value of quote-unquote success again , but with always the goal of having freedom and lifestyle . I don't know , do you have any thoughts on that , on like win and when not to include .
There were different types of results in messaging , like before somebody purchases a course or a program you know , i think , that people , i It comes down to , i think , really knowing your audience and then being willing to Experiment and sit with the experiment long enough to gather some data on whether or not it's working .
And so you know , using things like like you were talking about , you've done the time that , like the freedom and whatever , and so now switching that language to you know the , the monetary value , and then being willing to just like , let it kind of marinate for a bit and then you know seeing kind of how that works and paying Attention to things like the types
of clients that are that it's bringing in . How is it affecting , you know , my community as a whole ? how has it changed these , this new wave of people ? has it changed the dynamic and is it a Positive change or is it a negative change ? Is it a neutral thing or whatever ?
You know and and kind of looking at At those things , but also in terms of like I I guess that I guess part of what I'm saying is I wouldn't necessarily get Like , go completely , like let's not even talk about freedom or let's not even talk about time at all , but more in the sense of you can create like this number amount so that you can Experience freedom
and you know whatever that or whatever it is that your clients you know want to do .
But then Quantifying what that looks like for them , the , the time , freedom and and you know whatever freedom it is that they're looking for , and , like you know , having them quantify it in some kind of way , whether that's on a scale or a percentage or whatever it might be , and then , down the line , surveying them again so that you can have those hard and
fast numbers .
Yeah , i like your recommendation to test it out Because in that case , like in my case , of the elements that we're talking about for me are six figures and Then freedom and time to our freedom and lifestyle to have that all integrated .
So I could have one that's just about the six figures , one That's just about freedom and lifestyle , or in a lot of cases I have them together .
So I have kind of played around with it and the reason I I am very tactful and I try to be careful with this is that some people Are very opposed to the six-figure lingo now And I think that's probably because of all the entrepreneurial like make six figures tomorrow with this YouTube strategy kind of thing .
And and that's not my approach at all , at least that's not how I , you know I'm trying to come across . But again , i mean my web designer pro at the time of recording this is 600 a quarter or 2000 a year . So you get a big discount when you go yearly . And $2,000 is , i mean , for what it includes between my courses and coaching and community .
I think everyone will agree is very , very fair , but it is an investment over like a $200 course . So if I'm expecting and anticipating somebody to drop two grand . I do want them to know that if you're looking for time and freedom and you're fine with making you know 20 grand , then this , you know that's 10% of what you're hoping to make this year .
But When I say six figures , a hundred thousand dollars or plus , like this is the foundation to help you get here . My goal with that is to say like this is totally worth two thousand dollars , and shana and I have talked about this .
When it comes to pricing and this is a tip for everyone with your web design services , you want your clients to see this as an investment and not a cost , and so they should see this and say , well , yeah , i , you know , if I pay you $5,000 for my website , but you help me , you know , get what ?
Let's say , even if they got five clients from the website , that would be a $25,000 . Like if they charge $5,000 for their service , you'd be 25,000 just with the website alone with five clients . Like if you can put some monetary value in with what you offer . That really helps sell higher ticket offers and bigger programs .
And again , i suppose it's safe to say there's a time and place . So maybe it's good to have those different strategies and maybe almost funnel people to , to get to the right place of that lingo , i don't know . I mean it's challenging , but either way .
I like this idea of or maybe I don't know , you think it's worth just putting all that lingo mixed in there . I mean , that's kind of what I've done with the landing page on web designer pro .
I just kind of how you looked at it like Hopefully you got the vibe that like there are people who are serious about business But there's also great people and it's a very feeling-based thing , like where there's a lot of parent printers in there .
There's a lot of people who are just starting , but also more established Here's a question What was your vibe with a landing page ? Let me ask you , erica You're . What was the vibe you got , honest , i mean , we have a recording , but I 100% accept your feedback . What was the vibe you got on that sales page ?
I thought it was great , honestly And I did I read every word , i watched every video and I thought it was very clear how . Yeah , i didn't . I will be honest , i didn't pay much attention to like money and the like , the monetary stuff . I don't remember seeing that .
That didn't stick out , but what did stick out was How much your students loved you and , like the , the reviews that they were giving were all just so lovely and just how like It sounds like it's a very Tight-knit community , a very supportive community , and that that really came through as well , and so I wasn't necessarily like looking for , you know , some of
those other things . So I Can't fully answer that question , but yeah .
No , i appreciate that and I don't ask this to just you know for to just to talk about my program . But I was curious from your perspective because Earlier you said you're not as much into the money side of things . So I think you maybe not noticing that was probably one of two reasons one , because maybe that's just not what you were drawn to .
But two , i have the money stuff intentionally Down to like the , the checkout , like the , the start button . So by the time you get to my goal and I should say , even if anyone , if you don't want to join a website or pro , that's fine , just go to the page and hopefully it serves as like an inspiration or encouragement for you .
Josh , all that coast last pro was where you can check this out , but I intentionally laid that out to where you don't really see too much of the money talk until you're about to pay money . So , like I want people to feel good and understand what it's all about and the benefits .
But then they see , oh shoot , these feelings and these benefits are Helping people make you know real , like some people , some members were really open with sharing their numbers And now for the people like me who like well , i want .
This sounds great , but I'm not joining a group to just , you know , like , meet some friends with this , like I want to grow my business . So how's this gonna help ? That's my goal is for them to like when they're ready to invest .
They see some , some backing there And I don't think that's the right approach for every sales page , depending on the service , but I do hope it serves as some inspiration for people .
If you are selling a $10,000 website Guess what the majority of your clients are probably gonna want to make sure they recoup their investment pretty quick rather than just like feeling good .
I don't want to disparage .
I don't mean to , you know , talk down on that , but I don't know . Did you see it like ? do you do you agree ?
with that .
No , i totally agree , and I you know there's there's a A space for it , and I think it's really important to be able to pre-frame some of the things that they are going to Do , some of the things that they're going to experience , some of the things that You know they'll get out of that other than the monetary things , and then to also lean into that as
well . You know that they both have their place and , again , i really think it comes down to just knowing your clients really , really well .
That is Well said , erica . I totally agree . Yeah , you're like , if you're a business where you're working with like a lot of holistic people or maybe Like like I have some students who are working with like the spiritual type clients and stuff , they're probably going to be drawn to energy time Anything like that .
I mean , if they're running a business , they're probably gonna be money conscious But they're probably enjoy that more and they might care about vibing with who they're working with more than just somebody who's like Let's make money quick , kind of thing . So I think that's very well said . I love to take a deep dive into the timing of results .
You mentioned a little bit ago great point that it may take different time for Results and there may be different metrics for , like how long a result should take for somebody in the case of , particularly , web designer Academy . When do you guys look for results ? Do you follow up like a few months later and then half a year than a year later ?
Do you have exact timestamps on when you reach out ? What does that look like ?
Yeah , we , we have been working on developing that process . Typically , you know , like they set a goal , students set a goal for like the first 30 days , and that's Sometimes that's possible with what they want .
Sometimes It's I don't want to say it's not possible , but sometimes that's , you know , a little bit more of a stretch than some of the other things . And then we also .
So it's a 12 month program and we try to reach out quarterly and just check in , but we , i mean we meet weekly and Sometimes even twice a week or three , to some some people I see , three times a week , you know , and and so there's a lot of checking in there as well .
You know we have avenues for support that people can , can do , and so we are doing a whole lot of Of internal work checking in on those things , as you know , like they're submitting assets and stuff like that to check in with their , with their questions .
But there are people that don't Engage that way and that's totally okay , you know they like they have the freedom to do that , and so we do send out emails , like I said , about quarterly , so that we don't , so that nobody falls through the cracks , because sometimes that can happen as well .
Yeah , yeah , i think it's probably safe to say a quarterly check-in is just a great way to go , because it is tough to measure within a month or two .
I mean , i come from building websites and when you , when you , do some work on them for SEO , clients are always like the week after they're like , hey , i'm not on the first page on Google and they're like , yeah , it's gonna be , just launch the site , we got to give it some time .
So I'm used to telling clients like , given a few months and I know clients don't always want to hear that , but same thing for all results I think it's probably a good , good , safe estimate to be able to do some check-ins , because you'll get some decent data within a few months .
Half a year is often really good data and then by a year , you should have a good understanding of whether it's going well or not . Yeah , speaking of going well or not , perfect segue into something that you and I talked about on your podcast , which is Internalizing client results for yourself .
And this is a biggie because as service providers or as course graders in particular , i Know how easy it is to feel really high or really low When somebody does well or doesn't do well after they go through your stuff . Can you talk to me about that , erica ?
like If somebody doesn't hit their goals and things aren't going well , yeah , like how do we not let that affect us personally ?
I guess that's the question and it's such a big question , and I just want to like preface this and say that I am saying this as a person who , like , has had to do a lot of deep work around feedback and results and like just a lot of sensitivity around those things , and , you know , feeling or what my brain perceives to be as rejection when feedback might
come in , that's not overly positive , and so Because of that , as a result of that , i have had to Ask myself a lot of questions , which is what I tend to do , and also Develop some like almost like a framework Around you know when results might be coming in , and it just so happens that it's perfect for my clients and For , you know , the the community at
WDA and and being able to kind of look at these things in a different way , so that we're kind of reframing what feedback means , whether it's positive or negative , and so I say all that to say that , like Constantly talking about how It's just information , feedback is just information , it's data , and so whenever we have the ability to look at feedback results
whatever you want to call it as data , then we can kind of be like put our scientists hats on and kind of look at it as like okay , this is one giant experiment . What I expected was not the outcome . So what slight shift do I need to make so that I can perform the next test ?
and You know , obviously there are times where the feedback that we're getting is , you know , we need to like , really like , do some digging into . You know , like , oh , this is an actual thing that , like , i need to listen to , i need to change , i need to , you know , whatever .
And I say change in the sense of like , maybe my process needs to change , maybe my , you know , whatever , um , but really kind of looking at it as as just information Helps to make it feel less personal dehumanize it . Dehumanize it because it's so and like . We talked about this um last time too .
But you know , like Not just the negative feedback but also the positive feedback , like if we're internalizing the negative feedback or the positive feedback , then we're going to rely so much on external validation to feel safe and to feel good in our business , and that is such a dangerous place to be . It's just not good .
Oh , I can tell we just hit the flow with you here in this one . Eric , I can tell you how passionate you are about this because it's so true . I mean , my gosh , did I need to hear this early on ? Because with the idea of results , i think that the thing that's tough too is as a web designer .
I don't know if as a web designer , it hit me as much because my clients , like I said earlier , were so different . I was a generalist , so I had some companies who hit the results really quick and the website was instant success for them .
But then I had some clients that it took a lot longer for them to get results with it And it would depend on how they utilize the website .
Like if one of my clients shared it on social media and promoted it and did an email blast and we did a lot of work and they gave me good images and copied it and of course the website's going to be huge for them . But if a client just we went live and didn't tell anybody and just hope that people found it , of course it's not going to go as well .
And I kind of learned to . I mean , i took it to heart And definitely when it's your baby as a business , you take the results that you get for people , good or bad , to heart . It's very tough to dehumanize it , like we said , but it was easier because my clients were so different . I really struggled with this as a course creator .
So I don't know what you've seen on the course creation side of things with the folks who go through your course programs and your course stuff . But I think the harder thing about that is when the curriculum is the same and you're attracting very similar type of clients .
It does seem like it hurts when somebody just doesn't get the results that somebody else did And then maybe it goes back to just them being in different places And the personality types are different . This is one reason when people ask me like what to do . This is the worst part about coaching for me And maybe I'd love to hear how you feel about this .
It's like I try to get recommendations on what I would do and what worked And what I think might work for them , but the reality is I don't know , it may not work for you , it worked for me , but there's so many variables that are different , like what gives me energy may not give you energy . What worked for me may not work for you . I hope it does .
In a lot of cases it does , but that's the really hard thing about giving people recommendations as a coach and as an influencer or whatever It's like . When people ask me how to get web design clients , i'm like , yes , any way you can think to get a client is right .
It's like , well , whatever you think would work for you , whether it's in-person or virtual , or I'm prone to conversations and deep relationships And some people may be prone to ads and things at scale . I don't know What are your thoughts on that , On advice and recommendations and then also balancing that with taking the results to heart .
Yeah , no , i totally agree with that . It can be so difficult because people , especially if they're not seeing results , they're like I need you to give me the formula , i need you to give me the exact steps that I need to take in order to do this . And , like you said , there are just so many variables .
And so reminding them and I already told this to you , but I use all the time this is an experiment Just try it , gather the data , see what happens and then move on to the next thing .
And so one of the things that I talk about a lot in WDA and talk about it with Shannon all the time is the first time you do anything is going to be like making pancakes . The first pancake is never perfect . It's like maybe it's edible , maybe it's not very pretty .
Usually Let's get past the first pancake , gather what information we can about that one and then go on to the next one . Maybe the batter needs to be remade , i don't know , but let's just do the first one , get it out of the way and see what happens then .
And so I think , just reminding people that it's OK to not know exactly what's going to happen , which I know is incredibly challenging . I love to know all the things that are happening in every way so that I can be prepared in all the ways , because I tend to be super hyper-visual And so I understand that that is so , so challenging .
But there's a part of that where we just have to know that sometimes business is somewhat risky and we can't know everything , and so we experiment instead .
What a segue into something I wanted to ask you that I almost forgot about , which is guaranteeing results . Especially if people are going to pay $10,000 for a program or something , how do you go about guaranteeing a result or saying this is what the goal is ? Yeah , i guess . what are your thoughts on guarantees in results ?
Oh man , no guarantees ever , because how can we ever guarantee anything ? There are just way too many variables and factors involved . Instead , if I was working with a client , i would say all right , let's talk about this . What's the overall goal of the course And what are the key objectives here ? What are you teaching them to do ?
What action steps are you taking them through ? And , instead of talking about it as a guarantee , let's talk about it as you're going to get the opportunity to x , y , z . That's the guarantee , right ? You're giving them the space and the guidance to do the specific thing , but never guaranteeing results Yeah , what are your thoughts on ?
refunds . Well , yeah , what are your thoughts on a refunds result ? Because this is very , very different from the path of web designers . Luckily , web designers I don't know if any web designers need to worry about this , because it's not common for clients to ask for a refund after you build them a website .
I'm sure it's happened , but when I became a course creator , this was a huge thing , because if somebody went through the course and they didn't like it or didn't feel like it was a good fit , then refunds were inevitable , and I feel very fortunate to have very , very little times of people asking for refunds . But it happens .
It doesn't matter how good a course is . It may be life changing for one person and the next person . And I was like , yeah , i didn't really dig it , so I didn't really help . So , yeah , what are your thoughts on refunds , particularly when it comes to courses and knowledge information ?
Man that is so big And so the short of it , i think I would say , is no refunds , but with a caveat . In that , of course , i mean right , because so I'm going to chase this rabbit for just a little while .
Let's chase it .
I got a few minutes , let's chase it Amazing , like I typically recommend my clients to not ever drip content , and that's for a whole host of reasons , but mainly accessibility and respecting students autonomy .
And so if you're not dripping content , you're giving them everything at once , and so how can we refund something that they could have consumed in its entirety and all of that ? And so obviously there's lots of avenues that you could take there And , of course , always up to the course creators' discretion .
Maybe there are times where you're like , yeah , this is totally warranted And I feel really good about offering this refund , but offering it from a place of like , not from a place of like .
I am not feeling OK with the student not getting the result that they expected to get , and so this means that I am a bad person , a poor course creator , whatever dark spiral that could take you down .
So giving it back from a place of empowerment and not like that deep dark place , but then really kind of looking at it as like , ok , they didn't get the result that they were after , let's do some digging into why and what their expectations were when they came in . Let's do some digging into like , what did they actually do on their part ?
And like kind of looking at the shared responsibility of like a successful course experience and then kind of determining how many refund requests are too many And if I reach that threshold , what needs to change about my messaging to match what the actual course experience is . Yeah , so I don't know if that really answers that question , but Well , it's tricky .
I know it's not an easy like yes or no answer , because I've done both ways . There's periods where I've offered . What I've done is a four to actually throw my courses . I currently still do a 14 day refund , no risk . That the reason I have implemented is just because it adds that level of like no risk for somebody to try it .
I found that , if people are really into my YouTube channel or my podcast , very , very rarely And again knock on wood , very rarely have I had people request a refund and I've never had anyone be like mad about it . But it just gives that factor of like . There's nothing to lose .
I can try it out , and my hope is that they get hooked and then they're just going to be a student for a very long time . But there are I mean , i had my business course years ago got ripped off and there are people who take advantage of guarantees to get stuff take and run . That just is a matter of life .
One of my favorite authors , though , derek Sivers , said in his book anything you want kind of , do as to others as you would want done to you Like , if you feel like you , you would . It would make you feel better , as a business owner , to give people a no risk option , then go for it .
But if there is a lot of risk that is not worth that potentially , or a lot of information or content that can be exposed and hurt your business , then that's a different . Yeah , it's the different model . So , yeah , i mean I've seen so many course creators go both ways And we talked about Amy Porterfield earlier .
I know , like her friend and colleague , marie Forleo , i just got bombarded with ads for one of her courses in a big stress point on their ads is no risk . You have like 14 day type of thing . Now the reason the 14 to 30 day thing is interesting is because that's not really leaving enough time for results from the student .
That's basically more of am I going to like this Or is it not ? am I not jiving with it ? So that's where , like I think , as course creators , in most cases you're not going to base a refund off of results , because 30 days isn't even enough time for nearly any results on something potentially . But so maybe that's the difference there is .
It's more about like let's see if we're a good fit , kind of thing . And yeah , i'm still kind of struggling with this because I very much . I'm in alignment with you . where I'm like this is like I worked 14 years to get to this point . Like this stuff I mean , 90% of my content is free anyway between my podcast and my YouTube video , my social media .
So like , really , if you're , you know like are you really going to get some of the premium stuff and expect to refund . But that's happened so little that , yeah , it's made me kind of go back and forth between like it really boils down to the no risk thing And it's mainly for people who don't like no or trust you .
Yet It's it's so maybe it's more for a cold audience . Here we go . I think we just hit it , eric , i think we nailed it . The the refund thing may be much more suited for a cold audience , like Facebook ads from a referral , versus a warm audience of content like podcast listeners , youtubers .
I think that's potentially why I get so little refund requests and stuff is because most people who come through my courses and now web designer pro my community are already invested to a point to where , in most cases , i've found when people join , they're like I can't believe it's taken me this long to join .
I shouldn't done it months ago , which is in different spots . Yeah , i don't know . I just literally talked out loud . I think we that's .
That's how I interpreted it . I saw the experiment . I think that there , i think that there really is something there you know , like if , if people are already like deeply ingrained in your world , then they're going to know .
Especially , you know you do a lot of video and you have the podcast and stuff , so they hear you and they are able to sort of interact with you in some kind of way . And no , probably that that's going to translate into the course experience .
One thing that I that I had a thought of and I wonder if and this is I have not , this is not evidence based , i'm just this is just a wonder .
I'm so excited .
I was just thinking about . you know , like so many people right are talking about the economy right now , and I wonder if people , if that is a strategy that people are using the risk free guarantee , if that's a people , i mean , if that's a strategy that people are using in order to get more conversions .
I'm sure there's a few malicious people out there that are taking advantage of the down economy to say like there's there's no risk in this . to help you prevent that , yeah , it's possible .
I don't know if I don't know , i think that's a negative way .
Just just like , in a way of like , for course , creators be like if they're having a hard time , like closing , like if that adds another layer of like yeah , yeah , yeah , so that they're feeling a little bit safer and like , well , like I kind of need to hold on to this money , but if this thing is going to help , then like it feels a little safer to like
hand it over for a little while .
Gotcha , Yeah , that , yeah , I mean . I personally have felt like that because the times I didn't offer a guarantee , I always wondered how many people are hovering over that pay button . But they were like I'm going to feel locked , Like I can't you know , like if this , if I don't like it , then I'm not going to have an option to go back .
But again , the goal is to get somebody at that point where , like we were talking about my landing page for Web Designer Pro , I want people were , when they're on that checkout page , to zip through it because they're freaking ready . They're not like , oh , I'm so nervous . That is not what I want .
And quite frankly , for everyone listening , if you go to that page and you're thinking and you're like super nervous and you're just dreading moving forward , don't do it Like I want you to be pumped and I want you to check out and dive it like because once you check out , it zips you right into Web Designer Pro to my getting started stuff , And I want that
to be like yes , I'm in , not all God , what did I just do ? Every course creators dream .
Yeah , or even if there is , that hopefully the excitement wins out .
Yes , yes , the excitement trumps the . I don't know what's the right word . The not dread , but fear .
I don't know .
Excitement over fear . Yeah , so well . Erica , my gosh , i think I could talk to you for like three hours about this stuff . But , yeah , fascinating , i love that .
You know , i think you and I are very different in some ways , but very like minded and a lot of other ways , which I love this , and I think we've had a little bit of back and forth with just the different mindsets on some of this stuff , whether it's money or the refund stuff , and I you're just in an interesting spot , because I don't know too many people
who focus on results , but you 100% do as a success coordinator for Shannon and then also with your website , which let me hand it over to you , where would you like people to go to connect with you and to check out what you're up to ?
Yeah , so my website is Erica Nashcom And I'm on Instagram at Erica Nash design And , yeah , you can find all the information about what I do .
I'm a curriculum designer and course strategist And there's all kinds of for people who love like I'm obsessed with education , So it's for people who just love learning their stuff there , but also for people who , you know , are course creators and obsessed with their own , you know , area of expertise and want to teach it to other people .
Beautiful . Well , we will be sure to link everything in the show notes . I'd like to kind of leave maybe a final point for you here , erica , like I don't want a couple different questions I wanted to end with , but I'm trying to make the best use of our time until we talk next , which I don't think this will be the last time . What is okay ? here we go .
What is your favorite result to ? or no , no , let's do this . What is one of your favorite results ? you've seen , from either a student in Shannon's program , web Designer Academy , or one of your students through your course , stuff like what's the result that just makes you go . Oh , that was awesome .
Well , with one of my clients we did a . She had an established program And so she came to me and I did like an audit and we restructured her curriculum and then she like relaunched And I came back .
We had a like a catch up meeting three months later And she , her ROI in her monetary ROI was 400% And her refund rates had decreased to less than 1% , which was amazing . Yeah , so it was her refund . yeah , her refund request rate had decreased And it was just like that's awesome .
So there , i mean there are lots , but that's one that that always sticks out and is really fun .
Yeah , can I share mine ?
Yeah , please do .
It just happened , literally yesterday , the student who I mentioned earlier , who was on my podcast I'm not going to name her because I didn't get permission on this But speaking of sharing results tactfully , she when she said like I felt a little bit of an imposter because I hadn't hit six figures in my first year This interview is probably two , maybe two , yeah ,
about two years ago , yesterday . She emails me because she was a founding member of my community Web Center Pro . She's not active currently , but she emailed me and said she is completely swamped And now she's hiring And she's switched . We didn't talk numbers but I'm assuming she's probably either at or closing in on a six figure level And she's hiring .
That's amazing And it just shows you the power of sticking with it and trusting the process And she does really good work and really cares about her clients and all the things . So yeah , that was mine recently . I was like it's so cool to stay connected with students .
I mean , i do like that's the one thing I love about having a community is it keeps you really engaged with results and you get a really firsthand feel for the challenges everyone's going through and the wins and successes . But even students who , like circle back around a few years later or , in this case , like are asking for help because they're swamped .
It's like that , what ? that's what I'm in it for . That is literally what I'm in it for .
So and I think , ending on the trust , the process , stick with the process . I think that's beautiful .
We guarantee it . That's what I'm going to put on the pro page . Trust the process .
I guarantee it .
Three year refund policy . All right , we're on it , erica . Thank you so much for your time . This was a blast . I think my episode on your I think this will come out before my interview on your show is going to go out , so we'll make sure , once that goes live , we'll link to it and I'll push it out .
But yeah , what a blast . I'm always , i'm doing .
I really love chatting with you , so we'll do it again , thank you . So there we are , my friends . I hope that you feel confident to be a hardened designer and web design business owner . You don't take anything personally now after this conversation .
Yes , it's going to be a work in progress , take some time , but I do feel like it's a muscle And the more you are aware of it and come to expect negative reviews and clients just not getting great results , it's , it is just going to happen , like I've literally I know I said this earlier , but I literally have had courses that change people's life and I've
had some stuff that you know the same people go through that and they're like , yeah , just didn't get the results I was hoping for . It's like , well , something , something's off there , i don't know , and it's all right , like it is going to happen when you create something and you and you provide services .
So , all that to say , i hope this has helped you detach mastering the art of detaching personally and emotionally from client results and feedback . Again , thanks to Erica for coming on today and being so transparent and just opening up about this topic Somebody who knows a lot about client results .
Check her website out at Erica Nashcom If you'd like to see what she's all about with helping you create course blueprint . She also has a really cool podcast . She really will be on . I think in July is my interview with her on the next level course creator podcast and social media . Why she's currently active on Instagram .
You can find her at at Erica Nash design on the Insta And , for those of you who are there , look her up , follower , let her know . You appreciate her on the web design business podcast . And until next time , guys , thanks for joining . See you on the next episode .