Boom ! Welcome in , friends , to Episode 300 . What a milestone . It is an honor to be here with you for the 300th episode of the Web Design Business Podcast . It is very well known that most podcasts don't make it very far at all .
In fact , based off of the limited research I've done , from what I've seen usually like less than , or most podcasts do less than , 20 episodes before they're in and out . So to be at 300 , what an honor , friends , and I just want to say right up front here it is because of you .
I just want to say thank you for listening to the show , for sharing the show with friends and colleagues in Web Design , for leaving podcast reviews . Podcasts , by nature , are such an organic type of medium because this show does not exist without listeners and , again , without you , who are sharing this and leaving reviews and making the show what it is .
So thank you . Whether you're a brand new listener or whether you've been a listener from day one , Thank you for being a listener . I see the downloads and I get the feedback and you make this possible .
I'm having an absolute blast doing the podcast 300 and a lot of people have asked me recently are you getting burned out or are you feeling like 300 is just whoo , it's like a stopping point . No , not at all .
In fact , of all that I'm doing , the podcast is the one thing that I could just do all the time nonstop , Because I like to talk sometimes and my intro is already getting long winded . So I'm so excited about this one . We're going to do something , of course , special for the 300th episode .
I had thought about a few different guests I had thought about bringing on , but then I thought I miss doing panel style discussions and roundtables . I used to be on a podcast called Divvy Chat which did this . It's currently in my right now , but I missed that and I thought you know what I've been thinking about doing this for a while .
How much fun would it be to have some of my web design friends and close colleagues do like a panel discussion , maybe once every quarter or something .
So don't hold me to this , but I think that's what I'm going to do for a while is like once a quarter , bring a , bring a few of my close colleagues and friends on who are in web design and who are educators and have unique perspectives on the industry .
So this episode is the first issue of the web designer roundtable and this one I'm really excited to bring on Kyle Van Dusen , who is who runs the admin bar , which is the number one voted community for WordPress .
Good friend of mine , Shannon mattered , who has a group coaching program inside the web designer Academy , and then Chris Badgett , the CEO and founder of Lifter LMS , which is one of the most popular learning management systems for WordPress . And these all , all these folks have different , again , perspectives on web design and they're in different areas of the market .
So we had a really cool casual chat about what's working in web design today , what's going on with trends and marketing and clients and technology and where WordPress is compared to other builders so many things that we're talking about that we're chatting here about this one .
So I just want to thank Kyle , Shannon and Chris for joining me for round one of the web designer roundtable . Without further ado , here is our conversation and again , thank you for being a listener of the show . If you haven't yet , make sure to subscribe . Please consider sharing this episode and the show as a whole to other web designers .
You know , leave a podcast review if you haven't already , and I'm breaking the general rule of podcasts , which is one called action , but I gave you like five there , so you know what to do . Anyway , friends , thank you so much . Here is the first web designer roundtable chat .
Well , everybody , welcome into the first official web design roundtable round , one for the 300 episode of the podcast .
I'm super excited to do this and I brought on for this one a few friends of mine who are in the mainly the WordPress side of things , but also just web design in general , and it's one of them a chance to have a roundtable chat to see what's what the heck's going on in web design these days . So I want to do some quick introductions .
They say chivalry is dead , but not here . On the web design business podcast . We're going to go ladies first . Shannon , Welcome in . Would you like to tell us who you are , what you do ?
Yeah , I'm Shannon Madder and I am the founder of the web designer academy , where we help web designers create profitable , sustainable web design businesses .
Beautifully said . Let's , let's go over to Kyle . Kyle , if you'd like to let us know who you are and what you do .
Yeah , my name is Kyle Van Doosen . I run a small agency of one that I've had for about seven years now , and alongside of that I started a community called the admin bar . We've since been voted the number one community twice , going for a third time now .
We need a few more votes to make sure we're put over the edge this time , but so spend a lot of time with that community and helping other web professionals kind of build their own dream running their own business .
Awesome , awesome . And speaking of helping somebody with their dream business , chris Badgett . Chris , how do you sum up what you do ?
Well , I'm the founder of a learning management system for WordPress called Lyftr LMS , and I'm really passionate about online education . I have a podcast called LMS Cast , which is all about helping WordPress pros and course creators be successful .
Awesome guys . So I think we've established we are . We're all primarily in the WordPress realm , although it's kind of interesting because I spend more of my day in circle now than WordPress with my community WebZener Pro .
So I feel like I've cheated on WordPress , but I'm not typically an all in one solution platform kind of guy with circles got me there as far as my community . But I say that to say it's kind of interesting to see the landscape now with builders and different platforms . I just released a podcast episode recently with Dave Foy who is all about bricks .
Bricks is kind of the hot new thing for WordPress . I'll leave it open to anyone who wants to go first . But are you guys seeing the same things with just how like ? I don't want to say WordPress on decline , but there's just a lot of other interests and other platforms compared to a few years ago . Have you guys seen the same thing ?
I'd say WordPress is a tool but , like in the online education space , people also use , do a lot of video stuff . They're using Zoom , streamyard , audio hosting solutions . But still , I see a lot of WordPress use , but there's a lot of other tools out there . I mean , people are going crazy about AI . It's more about like , what are we trying to do ?
What's the best technology for the job ? But the good old fashioned WordPress is around and people are . Youtube continues to grow , video marketing and all that stuff and I have a Facebook group . It's got about 8,000 people in it and it's declining in terms of growth , but it's still being used heavily by the people that love Facebook groups .
So it's just I don't know just fluctuations in the industry on the tools .
Kyle , you may be in a different situation because you are a WordPress group specifically , so that might automatically keep you out of some other circles , but I don't know . Have you seen folks at the admin bar and folks , do you know turn to other tools or be curious about other platforms and builders ?
Yeah , I mean our growth has been . It's more every year . Every year I think people are saying more and more that like , oh , everybody's going to go somewhere else and WordPress is dying a little bit , but our growth has continued more and more year after year .
I still see plenty of people shoehorning things into WordPress that probably don't belong in WordPress , so that's still happening . Even though there's other platforms that might be a better use , they're still trying to fit it in there , so that continues to happen .
But I think the interesting thing is when we go to like in person events so just at WordCamp US here a couple months back like the average age is definitely getting older for people using WordPress , because I don't see a lot of people in their early twenties joining into WordPress and I wonder if that's where you know we have to worry about where the community
is going , just based on kind of the age of people coming into it .
That's interesting . That's an interesting insight . I didn't even think about that , but you're right . A lot of my students recently who are WordPress tend to be probably mid 30s , 30 to 40s , 50s . Wow , that's interesting . Shannon , you know you serve a lot of different people , but in the Web Designer Academy , do you know what would be WordPress ?
Because you're a WordPress gal Like do you , does that attract WordPress folks for you primarily ?
Yeah , I think we're probably like 70% WordPress and you know all of our members are women . Right now in the program we do have some Squarespace and Show it and Shopify and you know other platforms . But I think where I see and I also see like people being , you know , just designing on different platforms , just depending on what the needs of the client are .
So kind of like what Chris said , it's like it's the tool , it's like in the solution and in the strategy which is going to be the best tool for the job , and a lot of times when they're working on more complex use cases , like they're definitely going to trend towards WordPress than like if they're working with just a beginner business that just needs an online
presence . Like it's kind of like apples and oranges in that way .
I'll just add to what Kyle said . My average user is about 50 years old , so there's a wide range , but in online education particularly , sometimes there needs to be a lot of time go by before somebody is , you know , ready and wanting to teach . It's not always the case .
There's a lot of great young folks too , but the average is definitely older than me , like 50 , 55 . That's a good one , and same with the WordPress . Like a website builder agency . There's a lot of great agency folks who it's not their first career . They get into it later and then they start getting into WordPress later in life .
I know I just had a student recently join pro who's 22 . He's our youngest member and , similar to me , he's a graphic designer getting into web and I think that's a pretty common path for a lot of folks is you're in some sort of design ? Okay , so same with Kyle .
Yeah , really really common graphic design , and we can see that naturally all roads lead to websites .
So it would make sense that it becomes more serious , and not in all cases , but in a lot of cases late twenties and in the thirties , particularly when you become like a business owner and you start having a family or just you get a mortgage , you have more bills and just life takes in a different direction . So the age thing is kind of interesting .
I don't know , kyle , have you do you have metrics on the admin bar ? Age wise , or ?
Yeah , we have . You know , Facebook will provide you some of that and the biggest chunk , I believe , is in like the 30 to 40 range , and when I stopped talking I'll pull all those up and we can check on that . But it's definitely getting you know , it's trending in the older direction .
I mean , we had a like we do a live call with members once a month , like a Zoom call . We were on it the other day and somebody who's in their early 20s showed up to the call and I swear everybody in the group was like asking them questions like they were from a different planet . You know , like what do young kids like to use these days ?
And we sound so old in this group . It was . It was kind of funny , but there's just not that many people , you know , 22 years old , that are making a living with WordPress , and I'm thinking Interesting .
Well , even like in the case of Andy , my student , who's 22, . He is a web flow guy , so I don't know , maybe it's a marketing thing , maybe . I really wish I got like a whipper snapper on here to tell us how they're being marketed to you , Cause I mean , when I was , let's see , I got into web design in 2010 .
So I was still like early 20s I mean , websites were different , even for all of us , you know and a teenager , early 20s age . But I do wonder that's it's really . I think we'd end up here so quickly , but it is kind of interesting , like how are web , how is web design , marketed to younger folks now , and what are the tools as the entry points ?
I mean , if you look at WordPress as a software like it looks very dated . So I imagine , if you're coming in here as a 20 year old , this looks like . This looks like your parent software , you know .
I think it's also the . The business , like a website , is often for a business and business owners are typically not 18 , 19 , 20 . And then when you're hiring an agency I mean you don't necessarily hire people that are younger than you , are older than you , but it tends sometimes you're looking when you hire an agency , you're looking for more experience .
So who has more experience ? Older people with more time ? So I think that might be part of it as well .
And I was thinking , like you know how I'm marketing the web designer academy like you cannot find me on Instagram , like it's just not going to be a place where I'm spending my time . I'm almost 44 .
And so I feel , like you know , I'm attracting people into , into our community that are , you know , 35 to 50 , because I'm hanging out in the places where you know they're consuming content . So I think if I spent more time in those other places you know , I might have a community that spanned a wider age range .
We do have a , but that's just not where I'm I'm spending a lot of my time either . So I think that there's there's that too .
I'm kind of curious . Maybe we can go one by one . What ? What got you into WordPress , kyle , maybe we'll start with you . Do you remember your first foray into WordPress ? I mean , I imagine back then there was probably some different options , but what was it about WordPress that got you ?
Yeah , so I actually the first thing I ever used because I had no idea about web stuff the first thing I used was Wix and thought , oh man , I'm a web developer , now I could use Wix . It took me like 10 minutes and I had to had it figured out . It was great .
And then I figured out there was like a lot of problems with that and not everything made sense and I took probably like three attempts into WordPress , trying it out and just being completely frustrated . And I'm not , I'm not the most technical person in the world , I'm not a developer or anything , but I grew up around technology .
I'm a , I'm an elder millennial , but I've been around technology quite a while , you know . So I felt like I would be able to adapt pretty quickly , but it took me several tries to like get in there and figure out how does all these things work .
And I feel like a lot of the other programs that have just been made , you know , long since WordPress started they've gotten they didn't have all those same hurdles right and they don't have the legacy that WordPress has in the backwards compatibility things to take care of and and worry about , so they're able to kind of just start at a more modern place .
So I feel like if , if you walk into Squarespace , you're going to be feeling comfortable a lot quicker than you are in in WordPress .
And what year was that , kyle ? What year did you 2016 . Oh , I didn't realize it was that recent . Okay , wow , gotcha . Also , I'm going to clip out the part where you said you started with Wix . I'm going to share that in the admin bar and tell everyone that you're a hypocrite . That's fine , do ?
it .
Okay , cool , chris , you're a little more OG with the WordPress . Landman . What did , what did you actually get into WordPress ? Were you sled dog running when you were in WordPress ?
I was . So I got in in 2008 . And the funny thing is I thought I was late to like web design agency , ultimately doing a product . I've always felt late when I was actually early . I am 44 . So I was 29 years old when I got into WordPress and I just wanted a blog .
I was I was in Alaska at the time doing a lot of sled dog stuff and leadership and management . I ran this business . It was really complicated and also I liked management and leadership and learning about it and I wanted to blog about it .
And I just went to YouTube and did a search for how to build a website and I ended up on somebody's YouTube tutorial and I just followed step by step and that's when I fell down the rabbit hole back in 2008 . And you know , I kind of went from content .
I've been on all sides of WordPress content creator , freelancer , build an agency , up to 17 people , build a product and then got involved in the WordPress community as well organizing word WordPress events and sponsoring and stuff like that . So I've kind of been all around it for a while .
What's your favorite of ? Is what you do now your favorite , Chris , or is there aspects of some of the being an agency that you miss ?
I'm not one of these people that like didn't like clients or whatever . I love agency work , but I do like the focus of product and I'm really into the mission of online education . So just having that focus in many ways is harder because you have , like lots of clients and lots of clients are demanding just like a single client can be demanding .
But yeah , ultimately I discovered on my own personal journey that , like I'm a product person . I wasn't never went to school for any of that , but it just emerged over time as I followed my passions that hey , that's what I love to do and that's what I'm the best at .
And Shane and I forget . Was your first experience of web design WordPress , or was there a different platform that you were exposed to ?
Well , so I mean , in college it was Dreamweaver , and then I worked in the marketing department at a law firm for my first job and we contracted with some company to spend half a million dollars building a website for our law firm , and so I was like part of that project .
And then when I came across WordPress , it was because we had a use case that our half a million dollar website couldn't accommodate , which was like we had like a case that we had to communicate with like hundreds of clients in like a class action and we had to like communicate information .
And I don't know why this fell to the marketing department because IT was like , yeah , we don't care , like you guys need to figure out how to like do client communication this way .
And so I just started researching and I came across WordPress and I was like , oh , like this could just be blog posts and they could subscribe to this blog and I don't have to ask IT for anything and I don't have to ask the vendor for anything . I can just solve this problem , this business problem , and like , save a ton of money and you know whatever .
And so that is kind of like I was using WordPress as like a business tool as a communication tool . And then when I went to my next job , I was solving tons of business problems just with WordPress and with online course platforms and gravity forms and all of this stuff . And that was like my MO .
And then I even I got into freelancing just because our vendors that we worked with would be like who built that for you ? And I'm like I did . And they're like do you do side work ? And I'm like , okay , and that's kind of how my business started . So I was really using WordPress to just solve business problems .
It wasn't really like a whole , like it wasn't . I wasn't focused on the design aspect , I was just like I can make it do anything I need . And that was like very empowering .
That's the biggie . There I can make it do anything I need . That's where I think we all , we all know you get stuck with Wix or Squarespace or Webflow or some of the others . I'm kind of curious and I'll leave this open to anybody .
Like , well , first off , do you feel for , like that , the mid , you know the mid 20s person who's been graphic designing and is interested in web design , like getting started nowadays has to feel overwhelming , to say the least . Like how do you , how the heck do you decide what to choose ?
If you're , because we've already , we've all been in the WordPress world for years now , but if you're starting today , you don't know anything . Like I just had a student join pro recently . She didn't even know there was word camps and to me it's like I have to remember a lot of people don't know about what's going on and what has been going on for years .
I don't know . I just I personally kind of feel like man . It's got to be wild to get into it now to decide what the heck to use .
I have a student that you know . She taught herself Squarespace and she's having this realization that an or like she wants to learn WordPress because she wants to be able to take on bigger projects with you know , more complex strategy and all of this stuff . And she had that same kind of experience Like how do I , where do I start ? How do I learn this ?
You all , like which page builder should I use ? And everyone in the room was like gave her a different answer and so you know it was . But there are really incredible . Like you know , chris said he's really passionate about online education .
There are a lot of people out there like teaching their way and what they love and their process and their favorite tools , and I think it's just a matter of like knowing that you can't really like make a wrong choice in your journey and that it's just going to be your journey and you're going to find the things that you love and find the things that you
hate and just really go into it like an exploration instead of like there's one right way to do this and if you're searching for the right way , you're going to be super frustrated because there's a hundred right ways , a million right ways .
So that's well said , Kyle . I think you were going to say something too .
Yeah , I think if they put me in charge , they won't . But if they put me in charge of marketing WordPress , to me it's 100% the community . Like if the community and the people around WordPress disappeared , I'd probably lose interest in the software . In about 16 hours I'd be on to other things . What makes WordPress so useful is all the people around it .
So once I found that inside WordPress , that's what hooked me in , Like there were people to help me and there was cool ideas to share and there was things to bolt onto your website to do things that would have never been possible to somebody like me who doesn't know how to develop things . So that's the part I think that has to get out there for people .
It's like the community that's involved with it . I've spent some time around the Webflow communities and things like that and it does not hold a candle to what we have in WordPress . So to me , that's where all the marketing should go .
That's well said . It's a really important perspective , I think , to have a WordPress . So it's , I think , by nature , wordpress being open source , meaning it literally is a community that built it , like that's a part of it too , whereas I don't know , is there another open source platform like WordPress that is big .
I mean Webflow , squarespace , all those are like .
There are some , but they're just not big . Not big Like WordPress .
What was it like in 2008 , Chris , Was it ? I mean , was the community just as strong back then ?
I didn't even know there was a community . Same thing Like I didn't know about WordCamps or anything , and I was just a guy looking for tools trying to build a website and that was it .
But even back then that had to be way better than like Dreamweaver or custom coding . Oh I remember .
Yeah Well , I'm not a developer or a coder , so I was like I needed something that I could do myself , that wasn't going to break the bank and , hey , it's mostly free . So that was the obvious pick . And to your question about the young 20 year old , I'm a big fan of information products and those have been around for a long time , not just online .
So print newsletters , home study courses on DVDs and things like this . You know , like my parents' generation , if you were doing that , you had a word processor and you wrote a nice newsletter and you put it in the mail .
And then , when I came around , you get yourself a MailChimp , you figure out how to do a form on your website and you do an auto responder . So I think every generation just adapts as the technology landscape gets more complex . Because I didn't grow up with a smartphone , but people who did .
I think they have an even easier time just dealing with the change of all the technology and the proliferation of it .
Yeah , yeah , that's a good point . I mean I even wonder I wonder how many , like how much time younger generations are spending on websites as much as they are just pure social media . I don't really think about that until now . But yeah , I mean I remember like in high school there were websites that were popular .
I don't know if that's as much , unless it's an article style site , but you're seeing on mobile . I didn't really think about it until now , but I do wonder if the generation coming up is views websites like you mentioned , kyle , like maybe like not all websites in general , but if websites are almost like , yeah , like a parent thing .
We're obsolete . That's all there .
We've got 20 years left at best .
Can't wait to show my 13 year old this podcast . He's going to be real impressed with us .
So just be like is it on TikTok yet ? Cause I'm not going to see it .
Like what's a website ?
Yeah , you know this is kind of interesting though , like . But what's interesting is I've seen the resurgence of some like older things like , for example , newsletters .
Kyle , you have one of the biggest newsletters in WordPress with your community and I just started mine literally recently here and the the amount of feedback and interest I got on a week one astounded me . Like people were actually responding back to my email saying they loved it and a lot of people were really interested .
So , like there's a resurgence now in like an old school medium of email . So I kind of wonder if websites have felt dated and to to some people . I wonder if more so than ever , as people continue to get more scattered on different platforms . That I don't know .
I hate to keep seeing the younger generation , but I wonder if they'll realize , like , how important websites actually are . Like you need a home , you , you've got to have a home on the internet , and that's what websites are . If I could sell web , if I could sell the you know websites to the internet , that's that's a website star .
Yeah , I don't know if you guys have any insight on that , I'll leave it open .
But I was just saying AI as an example . It needs a place to get language or data from , and that's websites . Like it's still important , Just like the newsletter is still important .
Does it not scrape salt ? Sorry , Shannon , Does it ? Does it not scrape social media or anything ? Any AI stuff ?
I mean , I don't honestly don't know the answer and I think it depends on the AI , but there's just a lot of websites on the internet and that's with a lot of content on them .
Yeah , I didn't think about that . Hopefully it doesn't scrape social media . Sorry , shannon .
No , I was just thinking like I personally don't . I like to have autonomy in how I'm consuming my content , and so I don't love to scroll a feed and I I don't know , maybe that makes me weird and abnormal but like I don't love to scroll a feed of things that have been curated by an algorithm for me . I like to have that autonomy .
Maybe I'm a little bit of a control freak , I don't know . So I prefer to go to websites . I prefer to subscribe to things that I'm interested in . An email I like to . I don't like it to be like served up to me by someone who like padded with other things that I haven't asked to see .
Like I like to kind of have that autonomy and so that's just me , but that's like I noticed that I consume content like really intentionally different than like how the internet wants us to consume content nowadays , and I don't know if that's like .
I don't know if if that's going to be like a trend that people come back to where they're like oh wait , I just don't want to be like fed this all day , Every day .
I want to like actually have some agency around it , and I think that that's why creators having our websites and our email list and our other ways to further our missions and visions of the things that we are doing is still really important .
I could see that . How do you find , how do you find the stuff that you enjoy , shannon ? Are you Googling things or is it by recommendation ?
But then recommendations get into the , you know , the algorithm kind of thing too , potentially , unless it's like a podcast recommendations from friends or like if I'm listening , like I'm a podcast person , so if I'm listening to a podcast and I hear a guest that mentioned something like it's kind of following the threads of like people I trust just in a different
way . That's , I don't know , and not like an ad the people you .
I think you just hit it right there . It's the people you trust . That's how I found out about the admin bar . Originally , I think I'd probably come across my feed , but Hans and Denana would turn again , which is a privacy policy generator . I got to know him really well and was a big fan of what they're up to .
And then I think I heard on an interview he did . He talked about the admin bar and I was like I've heard of that , I need to go check that community out , and that's how I got connected with Kyle so kind of similar , like I , I think , which is kind of cool I'm .
That's one area of the industry moving forward that I'm thrilled about is , if you are somebody who has any sort of influence , you can really have an impact on what people are not only using with tools , but yeah , what they subscribe to and kind of help guide people to some good resources if you're trusted .
It's amazing how like the pendulum swings , you know . So what's old becomes new again , and with something like TikTok , that's taken over the world and essentially they're just force feeding you whatever they think you're going to consume and you don't really have like to Shannon's point , you don't have any autonomy over what you're going to be consuming in there .
I imagine that while that's the most popular thing for people today , eventually everybody's going to get sick of that and they're going to want to go back to the other end where , like , hey , I don't want to see anything that I didn't choose to see , you know . So I think all those things kind of come and go , and probably somewhere in the middle , is it ?
You know the resting point , but we tend to go from one extreme to the other .
Yeah , good point . So I'm going to curious from you guys perspective . We all either have students or people in our networks who are web design freelancers , solopreneurs . I'm kind of curious with , like , the landscape of websites now for clients .
What are you , I guess , the people who you see whether they're students or colleagues who are successful as freelancers or agency owners , what type of services are they offering ? Now ? This is a big question that I get all the time . It's like should I do email marketing or SEO ?
Even though I don't recommend all my students be digital marketers per se , I do recommend that they do something more than just websites , unless they are extremely specialized and really really hyper focused on one thing with websites , which you can do , but in most cases , I recommend trying to help your clients grow their business with the website being the home .
Have you guys seen any kind of curiously , if there's any like commonalities as far as like what's selling right now for web designers ?
I like what I see a lot of . Where it really works this was part of my story too is the niche selection and then solving business problems for that niche . So I ended up in the online course coaching membership site type niche . That's how I went from my first $200 website to $80,000 multi-month project .
But it was by focusing on oh well , we help coaches who are also using Infusionsoft , which requires a lot of marketing automation . That's kind of where I got in and found my niche in web design . But as close as you can get to the money is what I recommend .
So , like , e-commerce is kind of an obvious focus , whether that's WooCommerce or Shopify or whatever , and maybe niching within that like a certain type of store . Then you get known like business owners , just like us here , who are in the same similar niche , like we talked to each other . So people recommend the people who do great work .
So , really , niche focus and by getting close to the money , whether that's e-commerce or , in my case , the lifter like the website is the product . It's not a brochure for another business , like a business somewhere else , so it's very valuable to the client .
So , like , e-learning is a good niche , but there's many great niches out there where clients have big business problems that are worth a lot of money .
And you did kind of too right , chris , you did coaches who use Infusionsoft , is that right ?
Yeah , so I was also going to ICON , like , which is an Infusionsoft conference . That used to happen and then the clients just started referring each other and kept having to raise the prices and say no to people and stuff like that . So that's where I got my start .
But that was not just building a great looking website , it was also a lot of marketing automation and helping them get their e-commerce and stuff figured out as well .
Shannon , with your , you probably have the best insight on this as far as directly with a lot of your students because your program is a group coaching program . But are you helping them with , like I call it , the growth category of services and what you'd want to do in there , like what's working for some of your students in Web Designer Academy ?
Yeah . So I think , kind of piggybacking off of what Chris said is really , you know , focusing on selling the solution and the strategy and what are their goals ? And how does this you know website that you're building , or the brand strategy or whatever like , feed into that ultimate goal ?
I think that that's the biggest shift that you know , our , our students are making and it kind of happens like in their journey , right , they start at the beginning like , oh , I build websites , I design , you know , I do graphic design , I'm a brand designer and then they start to gain more confidence in their expertise to be like oh , I do see how this solves
those high dollar business problems .
And once they focus on that and they start speaking that way to business owners , that shifts them out of like being the commodity to being like the strategic consultant and they're able to really book those More profitable projects for them but like it better , like the value for their clients is greater because they're focusing on like how does everything that we're
doing serve this ultimate outcome ? Instead of like so do you like this design ? Like ? There's a big difference between those two and I feel like that's what's really working for them to book those higher end projects , so like function over . Strategy .
Yeah , strategy Like leading them through like a strategic process and then helping make decisions based on that instead of like do . I personally like the way this looks as a business owner .
Yeah , yeah , kyle , smile at the logo pop . I know that's a popular thing in the admin bar . What about you , kyle ? Because you have such an interesting group with the admin bar community , it's a lot . I mean , there's a lot of developers , there's a lot of really savvy folks .
A lot of the conversation in your community is , you know , we're WordPress people , but at the same time , there's always what a WordPress people do build websites for clients . So they're obviously you know this is a big part too . I don't know how far you go into with some of your resources , but what's your perspective on that ?
Yeah , I mean I agree with everything Shannon and Chris said here . I think the perspective I look at all that is is like there's just so many options out there for people now .
So I try to envision a world where I don't know anything about building a website online and let's say I start out as a plumber and I just need a website and I decide , okay , I need a website . Where do I start ? There's a million places to look . You know , the TV is going to tell you Squarespace and Wix , because they got commercials on it .
Tv is also going to tell you , go to Fiverr and you can hire somebody to do it right . And then there's thousands , if not hundreds of thousands , of people on Fiverr . You could Google somebody . That's local . People still think that maybe they need to deal with somebody local . You could ask for friends , for recommendations online .
I mean , there's just so many different places to find web developers . I think it becomes a challenge of like how do I stand out ? How do I become the obvious choice for whoever these people are ? So that's where I think the niche is so powerful , like even in my own business . It's .
I didn't , you know , wake up one day and decide this is what I was going to do . But when I started talking about a specific problem that I saw for a specific type of situation , that's when it made it really obvious to people when they should reach out to me .
And then because of that it was I was able to raise prices and I was able to have longer wait times and all those things , because people knew exactly what they were going to get from me , whereas there's a lot of options out there . That's just kind of like we do everything .
So at that point it's kind of we do nothing because people don't know exactly what they're going to get from somebody .
I forget . Kyle , are you niche down for your agency ? So your business there ?
So a couple of years ago I started making a bunch of YouTube tutorials about generate press and generate blocks and using the block editor and really focusing on performance . So just about every project I take on at this point is somebody with an existing website that wants to rebuild it using generate press and generate blocks to improve their performance .
So that niche wasn't something I just woke up one day and said this is what I'm going to do . It's just that's what I started talking about all the time . So then people thought I was an expert at it and I wasn't going to tell them they were wrong , so I just started taking their money .
I experienced the same thing with Divi . When I started doing Divi tutorials , I thought for sure , just web designers were going to be wanting to learn Divi tricks . And then that was shocked at the amount of people who came through wanting websites .
Now , some of them were DIYers with zero budget , but surprisingly , a lot of people were experimenting with their own websites and they were like , all right , screw it , I need help . This he's the expert . Yeah , I'll pay whatever . Not all the time , but they did . I did get some really good clients that way .
So that's another testament to like , when it comes to producing content , create content around the tools that you use you feel comfortable with once you solidify them after , like we talked about , and that really does , even if you don't know the , even if you don't have a niche or have a certain , because then , kyle , you're probably working with people in different
industries and stuff , but you can still have a commonality with , like , the tools and the tool stack . That's always an option as well . I think we've established like . There's just so many ways to do it , which is daunting but at the same time , pretty dang awesome , because you can really literally do whatever you want and you can use whatever you want .
I just want to add to what you said about teaching what you know and like , whether it was generate , press or Divi or whatever . That's how I broke as an agency outside of my immediate geography . I was doing auto body shops , restaurants , massage therapists , whatever .
But then I just made a series of six videos called how to build a WordPress website in a weekend , and then I started getting contacted from people all over the country in the world who were like hey , can you just build the site for me ? And that's literally how it's how it started .
So teaching what you know , giving away your best tips and tricks , is actually a good thing , from my experience .
And you can do it .
Yeah , sorry , guys that is exactly what I did too . I was just like free five day website challenge for non techie solopreneurs who want to set up their first website . And it was a five day training . I was earning affiliate commissions off the backend and I was just like never wanted to actually do client work .
I was just like no , I just want to teach you and build this audience as much as possible . And then people are like but I don't want to do it . Can I hire you to do it for me ? And I was just like I don't understand . I'm showing you how to do it for free . They're like I don't want to and I'm like okay , fine , I'll take your money .
And then I was like okay , this is a marketing tool for actual one on one client work , which was not my intention at all , but you just have to follow those threads where they lead you , you know .
My favorite part about that , too , is like I hate being salesy and in the videos I've done , I've never once said hey , email me and I'll build you a website . Or look at my agency , I'll sell you this , sell you that . None of that . I was just teaching the things I want to teach .
And actually somebody asked me the other day how many leads I'm getting through that I have no idea in our industry what's a good amount of leads or bad amount of leads , but over since January of 2022 , so January of last year through present day , I'm averaging averaging five leads per week through people who found me on YouTube just from random videos on there .
That's a lot of leads over especially for something that I never intended to be a sales tool or anything .
So it's pretty yeah , for a solo printer business where , as web designers , we don't need that any leader .
That was five per week on average . It's like way too many . It's way too many . Wow , anybody needs leads . I got them .
Oh , you're going to be getting hit up now . Yeah , that's fascinating . And look , the good news is , too , for anyone who's like , oh , I don't want to do YouTube , you can build a business to six figures and beyond completely locally . That's what I did . I didn't do YouTube until I was seven years in , but it was just for me .
It was the classic like in person . Just , I said I did websites . Somebody saw on Facebook they had a friend who had a business and it was a personal network , professional network , kind of thing . But in any case , like I still had to talk about the tools that I use , because I especially probably I'd say 2015, .
2016 is when it started shifting to like , yeah , just build a website . To what tools do you use ? Cause , then suddenly I would have a lead for somebody who had a Wix website but I said I'm not , I don't do Wix , we have to move you out of WordPress .
Do you guys have any tips for that for , or I don't know what have you done , where somebody comes to you a client maybe with a certain tool , and then not only do you have to sell a website , but you have to sell a new platform , which can be tricky for a lot of people who might be married to a platform .
I don't try to do a lot of convincing for people . I mean , I try to stay up with , like , what are all these different platforms and there's pros and cons to all of them . Wordpress isn't the perfect solution to everything .
I think a lot of times people try to pretend that it is the perfect solution for everything and use it for things that probably not that great at .
So I try to keep an open mind about , you know , maybe there are other platforms that are good for them and if , if I don't feel like what I provide is the best solution for a client , then I'm pretty open to tell them that and help them , you know , find the right path forward with somebody else that can help them with that Cause there are just plenty of
options out there . There's no use trying to shoehorn everything and like really sell people on a solution if it's not the best solution for them and especially if we know better that it's not the best solution .
In the early days I would just take the money and then over the night learn how to use Magento or whatever it was . I got myself into trouble in some ways where I'm not an engineer so I can't deal with like custom . So then that caused me to start hiring developers , hiring real designers , and so I had to . It caused me to grow .
But the place where you want to end up is like hey , this is the tech stack that I like to use and find clients because you can fit in that and that will trust you as an advisor to let you recommend the tools . So maybe sometimes you make an exception or already using this thing or that thing .
But if you once you've kind of focused on your tool bag and then you can just master those tools and deliver the best work to clients because you're staying focused and you've got your tool bag that you use to do the job .
Yeah , I agree with what both of you said , and a lot of times I look at a lot of web designer websites because when they want to come work with us , we do an analysis , and a lot of times I see people spending a lot of time on their marketing , trying to convince why you should choose WordPress , and my advice is always to not focus there and focus on ,
like , how you can solve their problems and help them create outcomes , because I think that , just like Kyle said , it's just , it's not always the best tool .
And to try to convince everybody that , like to try to sell WordPress as the thing that you're selling versus selling the solution you , you put yourself in the position to have to convince two things like that .
I need to explain to you what this tool is and why you should use it and why you should hire me , and we haven't even talked about you and what you want and your goals yet , so I just don't think it's productive to try to force that Everyone who has an Instagram post right now have done .
That's like seven reasons why you should use WordPress .
You can go ahead and just pause on it and just , yeah , talk about your , your clients problems , their business problems , because then inevitably , then then you can figure and by then , if you talk about solutions to problems like real business problems or or what their website could be , the tool becomes not near as important in their minds if they're , if they're a
true business owner . So , yeah , it's kind of interesting .
And just to put a like , some of those big business problems on the table . Like clients want leads , they want sales , they want a product to sell , they want to save time , they want automation . Maybe they're launching a new business and they need , like , an online facade or storefront or or business for that new business . Like that's what they really want .
So focusing on that is is the key .
Yeah , that's good . Sorry , I almost choked on my water Wrong tube . Terrible time on the podcast . All right , we're good . Now we're back . What are you guys excited about in web design right now ? Opening a question , but I want to leave some time on this just because I love as much as I focus on it's .
You know , some of the problems or challenges of WordPress or web design are also such an optimist and it's freaking awesome we get to do this like it's amazing . I have so many people who are coming into web designer pro and who have been through my courses who are just there . They're . They just hate their career , even if they get to work from home .
They just hate being tied to a job they , they , they can't either rely on or are so limited by . What are you guys excited about ? Just web design in general .
So I think there are two things for me like one , like just AI and all of the new tools coming out . I think it's really fun to see how people are being like creative with that and just leveraging all of that to just come up with new solutions and tools and just all the incredible things that are happening .
And I think it's kind of like this just juxtaposition of like automation and AI , but also like real human connection and relationships , because what I'm hearing from our students and two or three years ago , or even pre pandemic times , like people would tell me like I don't want to , I hate in person networking , I don't want to do it .
I want to like find people online and that's how I want to get clients .
And the shift has been like I'm so sick of being online , I'm I'm like going to in person networking groups , I'm creating my own in person networking groups and so where , like where there's this , like you know , emphasis on AI and like replacing , you know , the creative things that we do , and I'm also wanting to connect in person more than ever , and I think
both of those things are really exciting and like open up space for just new things that we don't even know what's going to happen , and I think that that's really exciting .
And I'm like what Kyle said earlier too . It's like what's what ? Old is new and new is old . It's like everything circling back around to where yeah , the in person stuff even for people who are introverted by nature or there's something extra special about it I'm pumped for blockbuster and like CDs to come back around . I'm just waiting for that .
I think you can have this conversation without talking about AI .
Obviously , everything you can do with that like as somebody who's not a coder , being able to go in and solve challenges that I probably would have just gave up on before is is pretty awesome and interesting the , the , the idea of in person and all that the thing that never goes out of style , that I wish more people get excited about his customer service ,
because the way you can retain a client by just being good at customer service is amazing , and that that seems to be something that will last forever . So I'm excited about how we can leverage some of these tools and even some of the AI stuff to be able to better serve clients or be able to serve more clients at the same time .
I think there's lots of interesting opportunities there .
I think there's never been a better time to be a creative , and the great thing about WordPress and other tools and AI and everything else is that it somewhat democratizes or increases access to creative problem solvers to solve problems and make their work look good .
So , even though there's like a lot of tools out there , you don't have to be a coder to build a website .
If you're an okay designer , you can become a great designer with tools like the AI that's in Photoshop now and canva continuously blows my mind at what a useful tool that is to help people create better design if they don't come from a design background .
So , yeah , it's just it's easier and easier to create great products and create amplification where you create this one thing that can impact , like all these people . That's super exciting to me , whether it's art , education , a store with global access , some kind of content site .
It's just an exciting time to be alive and more and more people are coming online and I think we forget that us here are power users of the Internet . But high speed Internet , the ability for videos to come through Internet , smartphone and every hand , like the world is becoming even more connected .
Every one of you just dished out such an important point like everything . And to that point , chris , like that idea that honestly , this is all so new still , and that's what's kind of interesting too .
When you look for mentors in like web design , you do need to find like you can only look so far , because it's like if you found a seven year old web designer , they probably got into web design in the 90s , you know like so they would have been . What they would have been like later is when it started .
So we're all because we're all in like some sort of thought leadership or influence type of situation where we're young compared to a lot of the students who and people who are in our worlds .
But it's kind of interesting how time and web design is different by age , because you could meet a 29 year old who is like a maybe they've had a decade and WordPress or the Internet , and it's different now . Then I feel like previous careers where , like they were , there was a tried and true path of becoming a lawyer .
There was a very clear , you know like academic program and very clear rules and regulations and you'd have mentors . Now it's kind of interesting . I mean we're all in a cool position with that , but yeah , that was a really don't have an ending thought on that , but it's just kind of interesting to think about how new web design is still in .
Like human species time . It's brands making new , so the time is now .
And we're already talking about it is it is this is WordPress dying , where it's so new and we're like is it over ? It's not over right .
Yeah , and that's a good point too .
Like I don't want to say I'm jaded , but I see I see a lot of people leaving WordPress for different platforms and , like I said , we're all kind of in different ends of the market , whereas Kyle has one of the most engaged groups in WordPress , so he's seeing a lot of growth because that's he's attracting the people who are getting into WordPress , sticking with
WordPress and fired up on WordPress , and I think there's probably pockets or growth everywhere , and it is just what I've . What dawned on me more recently is just how big the industry of web design in particular is now , even compared to when I got into it in 2010 .
I don't know how many millions of people are doing web design , but it wasn't as much as now . So it's not necessarily that things have like stalled or gone backwards , but it's just like there's so many more things that have expanded . From where we are , I feel like we're just also connected now to that .
You can find community , no matter how , like , how crazy your niche becomes , of things you're into , Like there's a community around that . You know what I mean . So it's it's pretty cool that you can find that . You know where . You know , 10 , 15 years ago you couldn't have found something like that .
That's true . I could start a group about WordPress web designers who have golden retrievers and like Pilsner's , and it would be . Yeah , we could make it happen . We could make that a 5,000 person group .
Absolutely .
And Shannon's going to be the first member .
I have a charcoal lab . So as long as you make an exception , but I do like Pilsner's , so I'm enjoying it .
Labs and Goldens . They're cool in that group . Yeah , yeah , that's awesome guys . Well , we're getting close to an hour so we'll get ready to wrap this up here . Well , I thought maybe we'll do some closing thoughts , Like a lightning round of closing thoughts . I talked about what we just you know we're excited about in the future . So we'll go up to Chris here .
Chris , do you ? We'll keep it open in . Do you have something that maybe you would want to share earlier on any of the stuff we've covered about ? Or just something you'd like to leave us with , on this just kind of first round table of this , this kind of look at the landscape of Web design right now .
It could be motivational , it could be a beware , you know , whatever your style is , yeah , I would just say , especially if you're new in the agency journey , like , stick with it , believe in yourself , be adaptable , keep growing , figure out like study and figure out how to do good client relationships and psychology and marketing and design principles , and if you
really love it and stick to it , it's almost impossible to fail . Because one of the things that makes Web builders unique is the motivation is coming from the inside . I mean , you may have outside pressure like I need to put food on the table or whatever , but there's this creativity and this problem solve .
Every Web designer I've ever met is a natural problem solver and they so . When you thought that's really valuable in this world and the more time I spend in this space , I realize how unique that is to those Web creators . So but it can be hard in the beginning .
It can feel crowded , you could have like a challenging situation with a client or whatever , but just keep going and those years after years compound on itself . Like the first time I went to a WordCamp , as an example , I didn't know anybody .
Now I go to a big WordCamp like people are coming up and they're like I saw your videos or this and that , and I'm just like I can't get a moment sitting down , you know , and I wasn't even trying to be an influencer or whatever I was just a rock star , but that's because I followed the passion .
I love it and I just kept going and it gets easier over time , so stick with it .
Well , we all know Chris is in the signing autographs , that's why he got into it . Yeah , shannon , what about you ? Final , final thought on this one .
Build relationships as many as you possibly can . I mean , you know we're creators , we're sitting behind a computer a lot of the time , like in the zone doing our thing . I think the most unexpected delight of doing what I do is all the people that I've gotten to meet along the way and all the opportunities it's created unexpectedly .
And you know , like a marketing can be as easy as just like meeting a new person , and it doesn't even have to be like this whole big strategy . It can just be like intentionally meeting new people .
And , you know , for creators who can be introverted and , you know , want to hide behind the screen and all of that Like making new friends can sometimes be challenging , but it is the most rewarding thing about this whole journey for me and it's helped me so many times when I've , you know , had challenging situations .
Josh is like , oh , I know someone that can help you or you know , and it's just you have just a network of people that can support you because you know , freelancing isn't always easy .
You have challenges and you know , and especially if you're at home working by yourself , it's just great to like have that community and have , you know , people that you can count on in all different industries .
That's such a good point , shannon . I think about like in high school , when you don't know anybody or you know , like I was a little weird and shocker , just kind of yeah , kind of weird in high school , but if somebody had like a Star Wars bag , I'd be like , oh , you like Star Wars too . And then there's like a commonality .
So the same thing with WordPress . Like you get into your tools or whatever , or even just web design in general , you're in a networking group and you're like , oh , you do web design or digital marketing , Like , oh , there's some commonality , rather than like your realtor , I don't know what to say .
So , yeah , you can like find your people when you get into web design . Well , somebody knows , somebody knows a lot about bringing people to find their people . Kyle , such a community guy yourself , man , yeah , what's your final thought on this ?
I think that was already spoken on perfectly . I don't got nothing to add to that , but I do . When I asked Josh , have you gone back and listened to like your first podcast episode ? So does it make you cringe to think about it a little bit ?
My first one was not an interview , it was a story . I might have to listen to the first interview . My first interview was the second episode . I might need to go back . It's probably not . It's probably not great . That was 2019 .
I imagine between then and now , like 300 episodes later . First of all , 300 is amazing . Oh thanks you almost I want to give you credit here . You've put in a lot of work , but you almost couldn't help but get way , way better at doing this . After doing it 300 times , like it would be impossible for you to go the other direction .
I think so many people get hung up on not being great at doing something the first time they try it , and that's so normal . You're going to suck the first few times , you're going to fall down , you're going to do it wrong , you're going to look back on the work you did before and be embarrassed about it , and all that is part of the process .
But when you put in the reps , when you do 300 episodes of something , success will come from that . So I think this , this episode number and this podcast , is a great inspiration for that .
It just putting in the work and putting in the time and putting in the effort , and if you do those things it's almost impossible for you to end up failing if you put in that kind of work . So a huge testament to the work you've done here in the podcast and helping so many people grow their business and help them find their way .
So a huge round of applause for that and hopefully that's inspiration for everybody else .
Oh , I appreciate that man , I mean it . It's such a good lesson just for web designers getting into it .
Because the imposter syndrome thing when we all got into web design I don't think that was a popular term but we all felt it , I know and the yeah you get , you get so judgmental towards yourself the first website you design because it doesn't look that great .
Or even if you model it after design , it's like it's , you know , janky and trying to figure stuff out . But you do two , it's a little better . You do three , it gets a little better . By the time you do 10 , 20 , 30 websites , you're pro already . So , yeah , that's such an important message guys .
Well , every one of you , I really appreciate you being on today .
If I can leave off any on anything , I would say for folks especially getting into web design or who are taking it more seriously kind of goes back to some Kyle you mentioned , which is like the customer service , a layer back from that that helped me sell before I could build a website was just to care like care about my work , care about my client , be
genuine in that . And then I found that if I really cared about every aspect of working with clients , it . It's what help literally sell . For me , like I think a lot of people just try to to get by without genuinely caring , and that comes through if you really , if you don't care , so yeah , you can sell care .
It sounds weird , but I think it's an over overlooked thing . So well , guys , thank you so much for being a part of the first round table . This has been a blast Again . We all have unique perspectives on on web design , so I'm really glad to have had this chat and we , like I said , we're all friends because we have the commonality of WordPress .
So I really appreciate your guys's time and for for chatting today . I'm excited for another round . Thanks for having us . It's awesome .
Yeah , thank you .
All right guys . Well , I need to work on my altros , but we'll wind it off there . The next 300 , I'll work at better group out .
Number 600 , you'll have it down , I promise .
There we go . All right , thanks guys . All right , well , I will get better at the conclusions of group panel conversations . That's an area I have to work on here . It's been a while . So thank you so much for joining . I hope you enjoyed this format . I actually I really want to hear from you on this one .
Let me know what you thought about this round table discussion type thing . Would you like more of these ? My thought is to do this maybe once a quarter , so I might plan one for springtime next year , maybe sometime Q1 , but I would love to hear from you Would you enjoy more of these round table style discussions here ?
On the podcast , the panelists would be different every time , so let me know if you would like that . Leave a comment at joshallcocom For this one . You can find all the podcasts at joshallcocom and if you're a new listener , you can go to each episode by going to the episode number at joshallcocom In this case 300 . So I would love to hear from you .
Thank you again for being a listener of the show Again . 300 is an incredible milestone , but that is thanks to you for being a listener , sharing the show , for leaving podcasts , for views . So please do all the above , if you would .
I read all the podcast reviews and I really enjoy just being a podcaster and doing this for you , but I couldn't do this if no one was listening . So thank you so much .
And again , leave me a comment at joshallcocom and let me know what you thought about this group interview style round table and if you'd like more of these , all right friends , make sure to subscribe . See you on the next episode .