277 - How has your year gone so far? Let's do a mid-year review

Number one I am actually on vacation this week with my family , a much needed and , I feel , well deserved little time away with my family after a whole lot of work here over the past few months with revamping the business course and just got done doing an early bird sale Now the official launch sales , on which you can still find more out about when you go to

joshallcobiz B-I-Z . But in honor of that , I didn't want to do an interview this week , because usually I connect with my guest after an interview , let them know their episode is live and we go back and forth and I try to stay active on the socials to promote them . But I'm going to be pretty off the grid this week at the time of this coming out .

So what I wanted to do in this episode is share something we're doing in Web Designer Pro right now that I recommend you do if you have not done it already , and that is a six month review . Now we're in the beginning of August here at the time of this is coming out , so you should have time .

You should have have plenty of time over the past month or so to get the books halfway through the year . At least review your numbers overall , and they don't need to be down to the penny .

But I do recommend getting a feel for what came in this year and look back at what worked , maybe what didn't work and , more importantly , what to do the rest of this year to make sure that the back half of 2023 is way better than the first half .

If you are in the boat where you just did not have the best first half of the year , the good news is I have found that the back half of years are always the bigger months for a Web Design as a whole , because what I've found is a lot of clients , when they get done with summer vacations and kids being out of school and everything else , they ramp up big

time , usually in September . So September the way how timely that this is coming out , because you can really ramp up for September , october and November . We all know there's usually a pretty big dip in December because holidays are coming up new year and everything else .

But September , october , november , my friends , it's go time and I want you to make the most out of the rest of 2023 , to make it even better . So that's my encouragement for you , as I give you some tips on reflecting after the first six months and looking at your numbers , and I'm going to give you some tactile things .

That we've done in pro was , with some of my members , to make sure we come up with a plan to be able to market better , to make sure our services are right and to make sure you enjoy the rest of the year too , because I think it's super fun .

And the other thing I was going to say when it comes to the back half of the year , one thing to remember is that a lot of customers are going to want to spend their marketing budgets by the end of the year for their taxes Really really big , important point .

So let me say that again , if anyone who's multi task and it didn't hear that a lot of businesses will spend their marketing budget by the end of the year , especially if they have a surf plus for any of my office fans out there . They will spend that money by the end of the year .

I think it's another reason why the last few months of the year are always the hot ones . So , like I've always found , like spring time is good too , but I've always found September , October , november to be the big ones , and there's all those reasons combined make that big . So let's start out with the past six months , the first half of the year .

My question to you obviously we're not having a one on one dialogue about this , but my question to you is how is it gone ? And I did this with my all of my members and web designer pro . I sent a mass DM to every member in pro . It's actually one cool new circle .

Feature Circle is the platform that I run web designer pro on and it was really cool because now I can , they have it . It's called a workflow and you can .

It's kind of like Zapier meets email , like it's kind of an automation through through the whole platform , but I could message every member at once or do it by segments or category or however I wanted to segment it , and I was able to just ask every member hey , how was the year one to 10 ? Give me a rating and I . The responses that I got were amazing .

So if you're , if you're listening to this in your in pro , I just want to say thank you for sharing with me how the year has gone and what's worked for you , but what maybe hasn't worked so well that we've probably already had a conversation on .

And what was really cool about this is it gave a lot of people a chance to have a proactive approach for the rest of the year . So for you , I want you from one to 10 , right your year so far , and since we're past July , maybe you could even look at July's numbers and say , okay , seven months in , how are we from one to 10 ?

One , you need some help , we need to . We're going to fix some stuff immediately . 10 you should be coaching me . That's the spectrum there . So a lot of members in pro were all quite all over , which is really interesting . Now , one thing I've noticed for the people who are five and under . I'm gonna give you advice for that .

And then I wanna give you some advice for the people who are like seven , eights and nines , because I had a lot of pro members who have had amazing years and there was some commonalities between what they did . So let's start with the like five or under . Let's say , your year is like you're at a five and not great , but not terrible .

Like you know , you may have to live , but we got some work to do .

One thing I noticed is that a lot of people who fit that category I'm just speaking of what I've learned here recently talking with members in pro as a lot of those folks were not as focused on marketing as they were in kind of reactionary work or , in some cases , working on their business systems .

Now , that is a very , very important thing and , of course , I just launched my business course , which is all about working on your business .

But I do wanna say just remember , if you are working on the business and you're doing things like refining your systems , your processes , your SOPs and everything else , you cannot stop marketing and you cannot start turning off your sales tool .

So just remember , when you're doing that kind of work , you still have to clear one day out of the week or at some point sometime during the week to be able to sell .

In whatever manner you sell , whether it's on social media or in groups or a networking group , or one of the best hidden tips on selling is to just reach out to your current clients and your past clients , because they will buy again from you and more from you .

So do all those things occasionally Now there are seasons in your business where you're gonna need to sell and market more . I'm actually in that boat right now .

It's funny because , as I'm saying this , I'm really coaching myself on this , because the first half of this year was largely working on my stuff and my numbers have been down not drastically , but there's been a big dip in the numbers and honestly , I have no one to blame but myself . I could certainly say like people aren't buying courses like they used to .

But as I look back at this , I realize and I would encourage you to that you've got to take ownership of your numbers . And what I realized is like I have not sold enough this year . I have not marketed enough . A lot of my work so far in this year was revamping and building Web Designer Pro from what was formerly called the Web Design Club .

We made it pro out of the courses completely new experience . I did so much work with the onboarding processes and I'm refining it . I've really been refining pro and I haven't been doing many member pushes or member drives .

But that's gonna change and I also , as I mentioned in the beginning , took like three months building my business course from the ground up again . I revamped every lesson , did all new texts , I took a lot of the core that was there but made it completely new and refreshed . And , yeah , it's a whole different beast of so much better of a course .

But I wasn't selling much during the past three months , which is why my numbers have been down . But what I'm doing now is what I would encourage you to do if your numbers are down , and that is to switch gears .

I , as Mike McAllowitz told me when I interviewed him on the podcast back in episode 250 , he said sometimes you get into a point in your business where you got to sell , baby sell , and that's where I am right now .

So you will see me , I'm not gonna be annoying about it , but I am not gonna be shy in saying what I offer and how it's helping people , because and I would encourage you with this too if you don't like selling , because I don't like selling , but the reality is the world needs us .

I'm hoping every web designer who mice courses are a good fit for , knows what I offer , sees the result they can get because they are proven and they join in some manner . They join a course or they come into Web Designer Pro . That's my goal . So for you , don't be shy to share with the world .

Shout from the digital mountaintop that you have an amazing web design service and you can help businesses grow , because there's a lot of businesses who are not growing because they're not working with you . And they may not be working with you because you just haven't told anybody or you're just not visible enough .

And again , whatever way you prefer to market in the business course , I share all different styles of marketing . Every possible way you can find a lead and it's up to you to choose . That's the beauty about nowadays introverts , extroverts , people who like in person stuff , people who like online stuff , whatever it is .

You got to get out there and you have to market if you are in a situation where you want to go from a five to like a seven or eight . So that's my big challenge for you . When I was talking to people on Pro who fit the five or below range , it was a lot of that and some of it was expected too .

Like a lot of people , a lot of members told me yeah , I got , I was a five , but it was because I was going through some courses and building my processes , but now I'm ready to ramp up , which is beautiful . That's how things will turn around . So that's my big encouragement If you're a five or below .

Now , if you are a five or above and things have gone pretty well , my big encouragement for you is to double down on what's working and there may be a time where you do sit back while you have a big old pipeline of clients and you can work on your SOPs and systems .

But I would also say , try to capitalize on the few months ahead that are really busy typically to be able to give you a nice cushion and nice bankroll for December into the new year , which are typically two of the lowest months in web design In my experience .

In my experience makes sense with holidays and Christmas and New Year and I should say I'm sorry , despite going on vacation here , I actually picked up a cold excuse me right before we were leaving . So perfect timing on the cold front . Thank you very much . Probably overworked myself on launching the business course , but again , it's seasonally .

That's why I plan to get the business course done , launch it . Take a little break with the family , and then I will be hitting it hard when we come back mid August . So , if things are working well , double down , my friend , double down on what is working . If you had one email campaign to current clients and it worked really well , double down on that .

If your packages are going really well and they're converting , it's probably time to raise your rates , particularly if you are getting ready to delegate or hire at all or do some subcontracting . Whatever is working , though , don't stop doing it .

So it's funny I'm in a mastermind group that meets every month with a good buddy of mine , jason Grasia of Swift Sites , and he's kind of basically like a business coach sounding board for me , and we were talking about just my numbers dipping a little bit , and I told him it wasn't expected , but I was looking at what I did this year and I have focused a

lot the marketing I have done . I didn't measure the results or the data soon enough . I didn't . I just kind of let it go for a while and I kind of knew like some of the things I was doing wasn't working . For example , reels haven't really been the best thing for me . I'm still active on socials .

But one thing I realized is I'm like I built my this whole brand off of YouTube and this podcast has been the other big key . Social media is just not my like . I am just I'm not great at social media .

I don't even love social media , but I found myself spending way more time on social media the first half of the year than I was doing at all on YouTube . So you probably guess what I'm going to do .

I'm going to switch my focus for the back half of this year to getting back to tutorials , reviewing tools , sharing processes , a lot of the business processes and things I've learned in the way of conversions on websites on my YouTube channel .

And I'm still going to stay strong with the podcast because this is the other big discoverability platform and nurturing platform for me . Side note , those are the two forms of marketing . I covered this a few episodes back and choosing your marketing channel .

You want to have one for discovery , for new people , to find you new leads , and then one for nurturing people who are in your pipeline but maybe aren't clients yet , but you can continue to communicate with them .

Those would be podcast listeners , youtube followers , people in your networking group , people who are involved with the partnerships that you're a part of could be your social media followers , whatever it looks like , discovery and networking . But before I digress and before I get off topic , if things are working well , don't abandon them . Double down on them .

Also , it's a good reminder to look at your sales pages and your website . Is it updated ? Are you showcasing student results ? For about four months I've been kind of like half-assed working on a student success page , but I haven't got it live and I looked at it and I was like you know what ?

I have to put myself in a new person's shoes who is just exposed to my brand today . What are they gonna see ? They're gonna see some really good testimonials , but some of them are outdated now and there's no success stories page which I teach . Everyone have a success stories page and I'm basically like coaching myself Everything I'm relaying to my students .

That's working well . I'm like circling background and applying it to my business . So I'm working on my student success stories page , which you'll see live here by the end of August Excuse me , man , terrible timing for this cold . So if it's working well , double down on it . Tweak your services pages . Make them even better . Refine your website .

Make sure everything is up to date , and go harder on what's working , especially if you're doing any sort of marketing that you like , like if you have an email list , even if it's 60 people , but those 60 people are clients who are continuing to buy from you . Serve them better . Don't worry about getting as many new leads right now .

If you wanna take a few months to circle back around with current leads or current clients and just remember you can always do this seasonally you can do a marketing strategy for two to three months and then switch it out , go somewhere else . It's a little bit different for me with this podcast . This is something that I don't turn on and off .

I keep on going with the podcast , but I can do this with my YouTube channel . I could have a few months where I go ham and do a ton of videos or do enough to where I have a bank role , and even if I did one a month , I'd be way better than posting note tutorials , which I'm doing right now . Shame on me and you're gonna see less .

Honestly , you'll just see less reels my social media . I'm gonna take a more nurturing , just casual , just kind of fun approach , but we're not gonna be investing as much in , like the interview snippets or the reels , just because , as cool as I think they are , they're just not converting to numbers .

They're not converting to sales as much as I do when I do a podcast or YouTube video or have a different type of resource . So that's what I'm doing and that's what I recommend for you as you look back at your numbers . If you are below a five , a five or below , things are just not a great year .

Good news you have a whole back half of the year that you can turn things around and often you don't need to do that much . It can make a huge impact for those of you who are a five and above and things are going really good through the half , halfway through the year . Double down on it . Whatever is working . Double down on it .

Think about your best jobs of the year . How did you get those jobs ? Whatever channel it was . If it was a networking group , go to that networking group religiously . If it was a type of social media posts that you did that attracted some people , do that again . If you hosted a webinar and it landed a bunch of clients , host another webinar . Do what works .

Six year review I love bi-annual reviews because three months is good . I love doing a quarterly review , but you could try something out for three months and then maybe it'll take three months to really get going . That's kind of the approach I have with my social media stuff .

I was like , let's try it out for a few months , few months in , like it was a little bit of growth , a little bit of sales , but it wasn't the night and day , but I was like , let's keep it going . And then , six months in , I realized , okay , we're doing some stuff that is just it's not paying off literally .

So we got to change it up and that's what I would encourage you to do as well . Either way , double down . Let's , my friends , finish off 2023 either way with an incredible end of the year . The world needs you .

I've said this a lot to members and pros , specifically those who are maybe branching out of their comfort zone and don't like selling and marketing , just like me , join the club . The beauty is , we don't need to be that used , sweaty car salesman . The world needs you . You have an amazing service , you are amazing and the world needs you .

Again , I had to keep on saying it , but somebody needs you and they're not paying you because you haven't offered it or you're not in front of them . So get in front of them . All right , friends , I hope you enjoyed this shorty episode . I was gonna say I'm gonna get back to the beach . I'm not recording this on the beach .

I'm recording this couple of days before we leave for the beach . I'm excited , though , to get back and to make the most of the rest of the summer and into the fall here in 2023 . I really feel , for anyone who's had a not so great year , now is an amazing time to turn things around , but you have got to take a proactive approach .

If you stay in reactionary mode , guess what's gonna happen ?

Nothing's gonna change , but if you're proactive , a lot can change very quickly , very , very quickly and I'm saying this from my experience and some pros who have done things that I recommend , and immediately , with their pricing , with their packages , with their marketing efforts , and within a couple of weeks , they've landed three , four $5,000 jobs .

Same can happen for you Proactive approach . Right now , my business course version 2.0 , the launch sale is still on . I did have an early bird special with some additional bonuses , but if you happen to miss that good news , the launch sale excuse me is still going on through August . So go to joshallcobizbiz .

You can still claim a discount and some goodies for the launch sale to the business course . You can also get that inside of Web Designer Pro when you join us in Pro . For that , just go to joshallcobizbizbiz . Well , I will coach you directly amazing community and you get access to all my courses .

I told you I'm gonna be , you know , a little more visible with my marketing and telling you what I offer . So that's what I have for you . All my courses stand alone . You can just choose one and go through it DIY approach or you can join us on Web Designer Pro . Get it all community and a personal coaching line with me .

I would love to help you make sure we have a five and above for the end of the year , in 2023 . So hope to see you in my courses or Pro . And until next time , friends , keep on going . The world needs you . See you in the next episode .