I need to set up something . And then it became do I go monthly ? No , that's too much . They don't need quote unquote strategy every month . So quarterly just seemed to fit . Six months was too much and then random wasn't going to work because for me I wanted it to be . I know that in July our next quarterly calls are coming up .
In July our next quarterly calls are coming up . 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 , so great to have you here for this episode . This is a big one and it's something that is , I dare say , revolutionary in web design right now , and it is a way to build recurring income and boost your revenue in a lot of different ways with current clients .
So we're not even talking about doing any cold marketing or outbound marketing , but we're just focusing on your current clients in a way to serve them better and to build your recurring income and boost your revenue , and you can do that with strategy calls .
This is a hot new thing that you can tack onto your hosting and maintenance and care plans , or you can offer them one-off , quarterly ideally , in order to reconnect with your clients and to lead to more work . And the person who kind of pioneered this is one of my members , one of my OG members , a founding member of Web Designer Pro , lisa Williams .
She was recently on the podcast .
I'm inviting her back on the podcast because she just did a live training inside of Web Designer Pro on how she offers quarterly strategy calls inside of Web Designer Pro , on how she offers quarterly strategy calls , and what you're going to hear in this conversation is her actual results on what this has done to her business and how it's helped deepen her
relationships with clients . Most importantly , though , boost her revenue . And it's such an easy thing to do . There's no pressure , there's no sales strategy with it , you just offer quarterly strategy calls . So we're going to dive into exactly how to do . There's no pressure , there's no sales strategy with it , like you just offer quarterly strategy calls .
So we're going to dive into exactly how to do that for you in this episode . We're going to cover a lot of resources here , and I have some additional resources for you at the show notes for this episode , which is going to be found at joshhallco , slash 326 .
So head over there to not only connect with Lisa and see what she's up to , but get some additional resources here . Again , her training she has an entire guest expert training that she did on this inside of web designer pro . So it's just another reason to come inside my coaching community , web designer pro .
You get to meet amazing people like Lisa and see what's working for other web designers . So come on into Web Designer Pro a link for that as well at joshhallco , slash 326 , along with a bunch of free resources . Now here is Lisa . Let's talk quarterly strategy calls . Lisa , so good to have you back on . I'm pumped to talk about this strategy calls .
You have pioneered something . I don't know if you realized how revolutionary this was until we brought it up inside of Web Designer Pro and then I was like what , that's super cool . And everyone else was like what , that's super cool . And now people are making money every quarter from doing these strategy calls . So I would love to kick us off .
If you had like a 30 second elevator pitch , like you know how , like a networking means you got to give your pitch for 30 seconds . How would you describe a strategy call ? What's , what's the what's the summary of a quarterly strategy call ?
This . Well , thank you for having me back . I'm super stoked . Yeah , this kind of came about . The quarterly strategy calls , just to touch on that , it kind of came about just organically . And I just started , I like mentioned it to somebody in pro and I was like , and that's where it kind of took off . So everybody was like , wow , that's really neat .
But the quarterly strategy calls , I guess to summarize client relationships , that's really what it comes down to and I would say I enhance client relationships or I keep up with our clients through these calls , through the strategy , and to really just bounce ideas off them . So I'm a sounding board . Sometimes I'm a therapist , sometimes I'm a strategist .
We brainstorm things and sometimes it leads to additional project work and sometimes it's just peace of mind for the client , like , yeah , okay , I'm on the right track .
It's also a very organized way to go about that , because otherwise it's very scattered , as you know . Know , when you have a lot of clients , you need to start making some processes and systems in place , that kind of constrain , and make limitations and boundaries .
Otherwise everything you just said there , as web designers , we're generally doing just you know , sporadically every day , every week . Yeah , what you did , that was so genius and it's in the name , so it's not . You know like we're the details , but it's very clearly in the name of quarterly strategy call .
You just brought all because you guys have quite a few clients now , a couple dozen plus clients .
Right , you brought them all together for a window of opportunity every quarter to do this , to be a sounding board , to give ideas , to touch base with their clients , to stay top of mind , to retain them and build more recurring income and retainer work and everything else . But what's so genius about this is organizing this once a quarter .
I'm actually I've taken a page off of your book , and I'm thinking about doing the same thing for me with like consult calls and things like that I usually do and I'm like , why am I doing those randomly when I could just say like once a quarter I open up calls , yeah .
And it started in so a year ago , january . So January of 23, . I have a few little stats up here on the side , but um of 23 .
Yeah , but just prior to that , probably a few months or so , maybe four , six months before that , I found that I was answering a lot of questions or I was giving , and it wasn't overwhelming , but I was just like if this client wants a little feedback on this or needs a little direction on how to something , or they need something done , then other clients
probably do too , or they need something done , then other clients probably do too . And it just it kind of came about as I wanted to be able to reach out to them more on a consistent basis and not just have it be random , like you said . But then also we don't send out .
You know , we host and maintain and do all the updates and all that for our clients , but we don't send out a monthly report or here's what we did this month . It's just not in our model . So I needed a way to just communicate .
And I do send out emails to clients sometimes for anything that they need to know , like the whole Google domain move to Squarespace , those types of things you know I I do send out emails and just blog strategy type things but you don't have a consistent newsletter they're not expecting something .
But over this past year , clients will reach out now and , hey , this and this and this , but um , isn't our , isn't our strategy ? Call coming up or like they expect it , and so they look forward to it . And not every client does it , and we'll get into that in just a moment , but it is . It's still letting them know that I'm here to help them .
Well , and another little hidden gem of strategy calls . I think we talked about it in the recent training you did inside of pro , because you did this wonderful like visual training of how to offer strategy calls . You mentioned it's also .
It helps revisions and feedback and ongoing support because , yeah , they could send a bunch of emails over or they're like you know what , hey , our call's coming up in a month .
I'll just wait till I talk to Lisa and I record the call and um in along with that . I do have office hours Now I do have time that they can schedule if they just need to pick my brain or we just want to talk through . So if something is a little more timely for them , I do have that available .
It's a paid office hour type thing , but that was just more recent . But yeah , it's um , it's a lot of , it's fun . I actually look forward to them .
It takes a lot out of me , you know , for those few days , but it's really , really , uh , it's , it's enlightening in a lot of ways and it's better to have a little segment of a week or two that's a little bit draining , than having , like every week of every year , be draining .
Exactly , exactly , and I and I I can see where they're going in their business or where they want to go , and I know their business , and so it just it works really well for us .
So , before we get into the specifics of how you're doing this , whether it's paid or free , when and where you offer it where did ? Yeah , where did this idea stem from ? Was there a breaking point for you or was there something that was like ? You know what ? I'm just going to group all these together . Where did this idea stem from ?
It was the questions and the kind of things , the emails that I would get , and I would sometimes if a client was having some issue or something . I didn't have very many of these , but I'd say , all right , let's get on a call real quick and I would just do a little 15 , 20 minute call and we kind of hash something out and that would be it .
I didn't have anything spelled out in our care plans , our monthly care plans . I didn't have anything really . You know our monthly care plans . I didn't have anything really . It was over . It was over the holiday of 22 , 23 .
And where I have that was the first year that I really just took a complete break from work , like I was just out , like I didn't do any work for that kind of week in between Christmas and New Year's . And that's when it came Cause I'm I'm a firm believer like just take a break , take a rest and it'll come to you . So it just it was .
I was like I need to set up something . And then it became do I go monthly ? No , that's too much , they don't need quote unquote strategy every month . So quarterly just seemed to fit . Six months was too much . So and then random wasn't going to work because for me , I wanted it to be .
I know that in July our next quarterly calls are coming up and I know yeah .
That's so genius , it's so great . I also love that it came to you when you're on a break , just like all the best ideas happen . The best ideas don't happen when you're behind the keyboard , the screen on a breaker in the shower right , yeah , and then break in the shower . Yeah , uh , yeah , the best ideas never come when you're .
You're actively working on websites and doing proposals , and stuff when you're when you're off . Yeah , that's wonderful . So let's talk about how you're offering this , and , of course , I know all this , but for everyone listening and watching now this is a lot of this may be like ding , brand new idea , heck , yeah , yeah .
So you're offering it in just to current clients , right current clients .
um , just a little side note , all of our services are just for current clients . Like the only way you can get into us is web design project . Um , I've just held steadfast to that for five years now . So , yeah , so current clients and that's it , yeah .
Current clients , and then it's a part of your maintenance plans and is it refresh my memory , is it , uh , for everybody who's on all level , cause I know you have a tier maintenance plan ? Is it for everybody , at every level ? It's for everybody .
Yeah , you know , when we get to that point , we're sitting at roughly 28, . 29 clients right now . Um , well , that seems funny that I say 28, . You either have 28 or you have 29 . So I think we're at 28 right now , but um , have 29 .
So I think we're at 28 right now , but , um , uh , that is uh , if we get more , you know if we're up to the 40 , 50 .
I may only include it in the top two tiers , gotcha , I was just . I was wondering about right now .
It's manageable , yeah right now it's because , you'll see , you know roughly , I think we figured out the percentage . It's not here , but I don't know roughly like 20% .
Gotcha who are at her showing ?
up for calls . Yeah , yeah , correct yeah , and it's 45 minutes . Um , because I typically go a little over at any call , so I thought well , to keep it under an hour or at an hour , I've got to give it 45 minutes , so yeah .
Yeah , love it . Yeah , you and I I know we have we're going to keep this one on an hour , which , for you and me is going to be tricky stuff it's tricky . Yeah , we can go for two hours just on one point of this . So exactly . So it is a it's a benefit of the plan , right , lisa ?
it's not something someone pays for additionally , it's a benefit of the plan , it's a benefit of being with us .
It's um , it's yeah , it's a win-win um for everybody it's such , it's so cool for new clients who get on your plan . What has been the reaction when you say and we have a quarterly strategy call .
Oh , they're psyched . Probably seven , six , six clients since I started , you know , like they kind of just piggybacked on , like not all six became in the same month or anything but , um , we've had probably five or six since I started , uh , new clients and to this day I say , you know , we have this call and they're just okay .
This is wonderful because I know that things are going to come up . I know that , you know and I said it's , you don't have to do an additional project Like . That's not the goal of the call is for me to invoice you for additional work . That's not the goal of the call is for me to invoice you for additional work . That's not the goal of the call .
That's been a result , a nice benefit , a nice result . But it wasn't the goal to begin with . It was just letting them know we're here , let's talk through some strategy . This is a time that you and I have . I've been around the block a time or two in this whole online marketing website space . What all the little pieces of it .
While I'm not an expert in order , I claim to be on all the pieces right . I've got enough insight into the pieces that I can at least point them in the right direction . So that was my goal of the calls and it's just morphed into this really cool thing that our clients do like .
I was just looking because I think we had talked about this together when I was revamping my maintenance plan course a couple years back and because in my maintenance plan course on my demo sales page I have it labeled as a website review call . But when I redo that course and I update it , I'm 100% going to use your model of quarterly strategy .
Because that label , like you could say review , call , you could say console , but the term strategy is just hitting right now . So I love that that's resonating with clients , clients , because it's not like a casual catch up , it's like it's intentional .
It's very intentional what we could do moving forward yeah . And I give them action steps , even if it doesn't require the full call , doesn't result in . You know , I'm invoicing you for a half a day to complete ABC it's I can give them some action steps if it's , like you know , writing blog posts .
That's been a big thing that we're trying to educate some clients on and help them to to transverse that . But you know it might be something do this , this and this and we go through things . I share my screen and do something .
So it's it's a variety , but it always results in them taking some kind of action yeah , yeah , you don't want to call it upsell calls . Right , we're not really reviewing anything so it's not it's all like moving forward . It might be like , well , how did this work ?
Or here's how it's going , and we talk about analytics sometimes and I kind of help them wade through that we use fathom analytics . So so I , I show them that and you know . So we , we just talk about things and love that .
It's super casual that there's not like a bullet list of checklists kind of thing , that you're going in and you're just talking with clients and then I you're a , naturally it just leads to some really good stuff . It's gotta be kind of cool for you . Whether you realize it or not , lisa you're you're like a website coach with these .
you know it's um , you know , teacher , former teacher , teacher by nature . That's what I did for 10 years . But I , I don't go into it like that .
But yeah , because I feel like I have at least this knowledge of again pointing them in the right direction , and if it gets too much for me , I'll go well , hey , I'm going to call on my expert team that I have , which is , of course , pro , and I go okay , well , let me just go in and see what's what I can , what I can garner from this topic , or what
information I can get . Or , you know , we're sharing things all the time in pro right , like links and pages and tools and all kinds of stuff . So that's where I tell them I'll go and then I can get the answer for them yeah , and , by the way , you could do that .
I don't know if you've done it live , but that's the benefit of being inside a web designer pro or any community is . You could be like well , actually , let me , I'll take you in . This is the web design community I'm a part of , and and like look , we have a whole space for , like , local seo .
We have a whole yeah , yeah , yeah , or you haven't done that . Live on the call yet on one of these you're welcome to if you want nothing proprietary true , true , that'd be interesting . Yeah , but yeah , it is . It is in a coach um type , um scenario coach . You know , I'm helping them along and some clients it's .
They're so far along that we have some pretty high profile clients and they're so far along that they either don't need a strategy call because they have their own team that does it , or we're very intentional , like they're kind of leading me on what they want to do and then I tell them how it can be implemented .
And that typically is an invoice project because it's so detailed , but yeah , so I wanna recap .
I wanna get into the results of your year and a half of offering Before we do . When are you offering these and how long is the window of- .
So I offer them quarterly . So when I first started I thought , all right , it just happened to be January , right , like you can start it at any time of the year , but it just kind of all the stars lined up for me then .
So I was like January is perfect , so it's usually mid month , um , just depending on my project schedule , and of course summertime gets a little sketchy , you know . But um , it's January , april , july and October , which is is .
I know we talked about this before and on the training people are asking when I start , you know when I did these , and October is a great month , like they're all just great months , you know . I guess that's . You know that's the quarters . You know they're all just really good months to do this July last year .
It's been a year , just really good months to do this July last year and it's been a year , so this , so April , you know . So I haven't quite . I haven't went through another summer yet .
I mean it's only been a little over a year that I've done this , so yeah , yeah , yeah , and you had mentioned so , and I know , um we're not pulling this up on the screen , but in the training you did inside of web designer pro , you had mentioned January , which , if you're cool , are you cool with ?
I'm cool with sharing yeah , I have it up too . Like I'm cool with sharing yeah , walk us through , so walk , oh and by the way before we look at your actual numbers and stuff .
How often are you opening up these calls ?
Is it ?
two weeks .
It's , it's 10 business days . So usually that's a Monday Friday , monday Friday usually , but sometimes it'll overlap and sometimes it's not quite 10 business days , but I it's seven to 10 business days is when I have it . So I have my calendar and I just have a specific calendar for that call and then I just open it up those two or those days .
You know that that span , and I send an email out that it's time . You know , here we are , you know kind of , and that's not automated . Some people ask me if that's automated . It's not .
I just want to send it out and , based on the time it is , I might add a little snippet of us or what we're doing , or whatever time it is , I might add a little snippet of us or what we're doing , or whatever . You know , I just personalize it . Or if something's really on my mind , I might say , hey , let's talk about this , this is an idea .
So I leave it open . I give them some examples of what we can talk about , but I send that email out about a week and a half before the calendar opens . And then I'll go in and send a couple reminders . Um , I know who's scheduled or not . You know again , if we get like we're reaching 40 , 50 , 60 clients , which I don't know , that just seems like .
If we doubled , like that would just seem crazy to me , but it's possible . I would have to have some different processes , maybe a little more automation , but right now I don't automate all those emails , so yeah , yeah , and then they schedule , and that's it .
That's a very sound uh like . Look ahead because , like you said you're , it's manageable , it's sustainable . But I would say , yeah , as your coach , as soon as you get to the point where you're like , okay , this is getting , this is a lot of calls , then then it's time for tiered separation .
Right , right yeah .
That kind of thing . Yeah , what are you ? Are you using Calendly or what ?
I use book like a boss . I've used it um , I'm a moxie queen and we'll get to a little snippet of that at the end but and they do have a calendar in there I just one . My subscription's not up yet . I go yearly with book like a boss . I love them . It's been wonderful so who knows , but it's , it's amazing .
You know all our clients are used to it and everything , just the , the , you know the platform and stuff . But I use that . It's very friendly and I set it up and so I just mark off the um , the block off the calendar with my days tuesday , wednesday , thursday . I might open it up during that time . I might open it .
I think I do monday through thursday for that usually I'm only doing calls tuesday through thursday , but I think I open up the mond for that for that time period . But yeah , and it's just . You know there's plenty of time for them to schedule . It's pretty wide open on those days . So they schedule their time and and we just go for it .
Yeah . So let's talk numbers . Year and a half You've done this , this , so you've done six quarterly six , yep , yep , so .
So january of 2023 is when I started . So january , there were seven and we didn't have , you know , we were maybe sitting at 21 , 2021 clients at that time . So seven , seven booked . And then in apr , seven booked , in July , five and then October was 10 .
10 . Yeah , so , like you said , october , which makes sense , and I think , well , obviously this year is more . We'll get to that , but the first year of doing this , it makes sense that fall was the big one you had a few to kind of reel in your systems and your processes right oh , it's always a great time school year started .
They're looking to to wrap the end of the year up strong in july .
You know , summer um , I might even um , do something a little bit different this summer . I might maybe have a bigger window , but not as many day . I don't know how , but just given the vacations and things like that , I just um , because july there were five , which was fine .
You know , I don't if one schedules , that's fine with me , um , and then january , january , just , I had 11 this year , this past january 11 yeah , and it wasn't oh yeah , it was our highest month . I'll go . I'll give you the numbers in a minute . Then April I just finished up and there was seven .
Okay , okay . So it's the exact same as last year and we're at 28 clients . That's the big thing . It's like I know everyone's probably terrified of like oh , am I going to open up my call schedule ? 20 or 30 or 40 people . The reality is , yeah , not everyone's going to do it .
And some might say , yeah , I'll do the one in January , but we're good for six months . I'll reconnect in the summer or fall .
And even there was a client who didn't call or didn't schedule a call , but she emailed and said hey , in response to my , it's time to schedule your quarterly call . I don't need a call for this , but here's what I want to do . And she just spelled it out .
Um , and it was a an additional , it was a paid project that we were going to do , but she didn't need a call for that . So just the idea of having the call sending out that it's time to schedule , you know , and she had booked calls in the past , she just didn't need one . She already knew what she wanted , so she just was like , let's do it .
So I was just thinking for the , for the next level of this , to to save time and bandwidth and sustainability . I almost wonder if there could be , well , a couple different things that come to mind with . The next level would be to either do like a group call sort of method that would be a lot of people , I'm sure a lot of it needs to be one-on-one .
But if you end up doing a tier down , maybe it's like a group quarterly strategy call that , like the low tier would get Exactly . Almost like a Q&A session , like we do in Pro , like a weekly call .
Yeah , exactly .
Yeah , you in a session like we do in pro , like a week , yeah , exactly , yeah . The other thing you could do is like personal loom videos so you could say , like you know , if you don't need a one-on-one call , send me what you need , and if you need my insight , I'll send you a loom video . So it's kind of like I can do that .
Yeah , a different version of it . I don't even think about that , like , if you just have a question about something , give me your question and I'll do a video for you yeah , or a series of questions .
If they send you 10 questions , instead of doing a 50 minute one-on-one call , you could do a 10 minute loom video or uh , yeah , or something like that in lieu of the call , like I wouldn't do both right , yeah , just see if somebody can't make it .
But you could still say , like , if you do have questions , but you don't want to book a whole call send them to me and I'll send you a loom . So it's kind of I'm trying to think of a way you could almost incorporate even more clients without spending more time .
Right , true , true , yeah , it's . Um , yeah , the the calls are . You know there's sometimes there's two , because I don't limit the amount per day . I know , like in calendar platforms you can do that , you know , but I don't do that for these calls because I just want it to be open , it to be open .
And there've been months where I do have three a day , like , and they're , like , you know , not back to back because I of course , have a little buffer , you know , but it's enough to where I'm like . Ooh , I've been talking a lot today , you know web designers you're just here doing your thing , you know , and I go .
Oh my , my gosh , I'm like exhausted at the end of the day same thing with podcasting , if I do two or three podcasts and they're like whoo , yeah , I need to design a website tomorrow . I'm gonna do exactly exactly , but again , it goes back to that idea of you would have had to space these 10 calls out over three months previous to this .
Yeah , I mean , and then it's all like oh , do I charge , Do I put a fee on these ? Do I do this , Do I do that ? And I'm like you know what it's in our plan right now Like you , just get this . It's not an exhausting amount of time , you know it's not like I'm doing all these things to prepare . I don't have to prepare for the call .
Sometimes , if they tell me exactly what they want to talk about because I do have that question when they schedule the call you know what specifically would you like to talk about ? Then I might have to look something up or I just kind of like look at their website or something . But there's not a lot of prep in these calls .
It's right then , and there I don't have a script , or , you know , I don't have specific questions that I ask them . It's just very loose and organic .
And I'm sure a lot of people are wondering , lisa , you're taking , you know , upwards of 10 , 11 calls every quarter for free . That seems like a big time issue . So let's talk numbers , let's talk money .
The thing is , yes , it's a benefit to keep in touch with clients and reduce doing these calls scattered , but they have led to a ton of additional revenue for you that would have never been there .
That would have never been there and I would have still been answering questions and emails . I would have still been doing short little videos to explain something , questions and emails . I would have still been doing short little videos to explain something .
I would have still been doing all of those things and being resentful because I should really be charging for this . You know , like we have that kind of you know fence that we straddle a lot right , so this is just relieved , all of that .
It's been actually lovely to be able to do this , because I don't get a lot of that extra that I you know that clients need and that they want . So 13.7 in last year total .
So yeah , almost $14,000 .
And it probably that's not exact . But for me to go back , exact because the projects are , they range , you know it's not I have half day , full day things , and then if a project is even more intense than that , like in in January , I had a . This past January was our highest month at 5,200 , resulting from those calls .
Those results . This is pulled off a slide in your training . That's actually 14,700 . Oh , it is so . In January 23 , you had $3,500 of additional projects based off of quarter strategy calls . April , you had 2,500 additional projects . July , despite it being the least amount of people last year , you had $4,200 worth of additional projects .
And then in October , you had 4,500 .
So that's almost 15 . So I added wrong .
No that's all right . That's what I'm here for .
Yeah , almost 15 , for having calls with clients that we know they're like part of our family , that's just our . It's Steve and I and we just we know all our clients and you know , at a certain level and we're friends with some of them , and I mean all of them really . I don't like to say some of them we're friends with , but you know what I mean .
So it's yeah , it's extra , it's amazing , amazing , yeah , it's additional stuff .
They didn't have to come up with a launch plan and email sequences a big thing . You just yeah . And keeping in mind this is year one , I imagine every year this is going to two , three x . Uh , january was .
January was 52 and just April was 32 . So I'm already almost halfway to last year's strategy call . So the projects range , you know it can .
It can just be helping them through something as far as , like some email sequence where I'm not writing them or anything , but maybe they just , you know , they need me to go in and plug some things in the connections and the integrations stump a lot of clients and so I will sometimes go in and do that as a project , but that's kind of rare .
Most of the times it has to do with their website , um something . So you're rebranding or they're . They need an opt-in , they need a sales page , they need something .
Yeah , that's just kind of cool . No matter what , like anyone can do this . No matter what you're set your suite of services , even if you do happen to have 50 or a hundred clients , you could just do it with the top level . Your a clients Exactly In most cases .
I think your range is going to be most common for freelancers with anywhere between 10 , 20 , 30 clients . It's very manageable and it's amazing what you can do . I've been how long have I been saying this , lisa ? A couple dozen clients can get you to six figures and well beyond .
It is . It is true , a couple dozen clients and a course right .
And a course . We'll talk about your new course next , but that's what I think about .
But like , yeah , I'm not with these additional projects which have also led to podcast transcription , which that is an additional . It's a recurring project , but a strategy call led to us doing that . So it's not a direct correlation all the time .
So the number of calls don't , they don't all get , you know , have a project attached , a paid project , right then , but sometimes it's it's the talk about it and then let's okay , how are we going to implement this ? And for podcast transcription , it's a monthly recurring . So with all of that combined , it's not like , oh my gosh , I need a brand new client .
Well , there's three ways to grow your business . You either get new clients , you either raise your rates and grow your revenue , or you sell more to your current clients just sell more things . What you're doing is the latter . You are just figuring out a genius way to add more value for your clients , and sometimes they just need to be prompted .
Sometimes clients right now I'll say this to everyone listening and watching your clients are probably a lot of them willing to pay you a lot more money right now for multiple things . You just haven't offered it . So they need to hear from you .
You need to be on top of their minds , in their feeds , in their email , and if you do these quarterly strategy calls , we're good to go .
So , yeah , when I still , when I started doing this , I had to like check myself and go , wait a minute , am I qualified to give all of this advice , like talk about all of these things ? And then I looked at my journey up until then and I've had other smaller businesses , I've done other things , I've been online , I've done all those things , right ? Um ?
And so I thought you know , it's okay , because I'm not here with all that . I'm not trying to say like I have all the answers and that I can even do all the projects . If somebody wants something , sometimes I suggest they do some keyword research or we might talk about more strategy into that sphere , which I can only go so far with that , right .
But so so I just had to say you know what , I'm here for them , let me see what I can do for them , and I know what I know , and let's go from there so I encourage anyone to just do it yeah .
I totally agree . Yeah , anyone who feels like an imposter or not a quote-unquote expert . If you are in web design for three months , you know more than your clients .
So yeah , you're good , exactly , and then join pro . You have an entire network of everything else you need . I was just gonna say if you're in pro , then you don't have to worry at all not a dang thing so yeah , are you using zoom to record these ? I am not . I use sessions . Okay , um sessions , sessions as is a Zoom alternative type thing .
Do they get access to the whole call for their reference ?
They do , I can download it and then there's a link . It saves . It automatically saves it in your platform , in the Sessions platform , and so I send them that link . Usually they don't need it . It's more for me to make sure that I've got everything straight . Usually they don't need it . It's more for me to make sure that I've got everything straight .
I've only had to go back and look at a couple you know like replay a couple of videos and then I delete them after a while .
But yeah , it's just there . Those could be repurposed at some point or you could use the one as an example . You could say , like watch a strategy poll of a client .
I never thought about that . I'm here for you , lisa .
That's why we're here we are coming up with like a whole nother course , like a full course on how to make strategy calls I'm telling you , maybe that's my next one uh-oh here we go , but that , but it's .
It's just been so rewarding because , like I said , even if the call is 45 minutes of like it's okay really . Like you don't have to be on , you don't have to live on social media to get , to get your website off the ground or to get clients or get whatever like you can do this and let's start .
You know , even if it's just talking them off the ledge , so to speak , it's worth it .
Yeah , so you're , you're doing the , so you have the two , the , the two week window or the 10 day window ish , to book the calls once every quarter . Um , and I imagine too , a lot of this may plant some seeds for something that may come down the road , three , six months or a year down down the road . Not all of this is going to be instant gratification .
I would imagine if you talk to somebody in January last year that prompted them to really think about it and then maybe January this year they're finally like yep , after our conversation last year , we're ready to go on this , that is , and sometimes it's after a call and they think about it after a call and they think about it and they so that the , the , the
income , the , you know the revenue from those calls .
Again , it's not like these seven calls resulted in this exact amount , but like it's just kind of a ballpark on what I know I was going to do for them and what what I did do for them eventually . But it might not result that first month it might not come that call , but they might just email me . Hey , I'm ready now .
Remember when we talked in April that we're going to do ABC ? Now I'm ready , or something of that nature .
So yeah , One of the coolest things about this is the very fact that you are separating yourself from most every other web designer out there by offering a consultation , a strategy call when your clients need it . Like most web designers build sites even if they have recurring income . Most part , they're kind of hands off after that .
But what you and a lot of other pros have done that I've seen so well over the past year , a couple of years is really put an emphasis on retention and I think personally , for web designers who are going to make it and be sustainable , it's going to be a much bigger emphasis on retaining clients and deepening those relationships and learning new things and just
selling less . You don't have to meet new clients all the time . You don't need to be stuck on social media or posting reels nonstop . You can get a couple dozen clients and really invest in them and go deeper with them . That's one really cool .
benefit of this , that's always what I wanted to do .
Yeah , we have a couple of clients , two clients that I work really heavily with the website , the forms , the opt-ins , the sales pages , the courses that they offer , the um products that they offer , which aren't very many , but and then the uh , the podcast transcription , monthly , so like , and then blog posts from those transcriptions .
You know , with the platform that I use , so it's just like I'm just in it and it's so much easier to when they want something done that I can just do it very quickly or I don't have to go down the rabbit hole of oh gosh , you know well how exactly should this look for that , like , I know what , what they like , and those kind of things from a design
perspective it's just a , it's just fun , you know , and then you don't you . Then a new client comes in . You're like , oh , you get to be part of the fun now , like you get to you know , because , again , it's just web design for us and I've I've always held that .
Well , I mean to get in , I say like we're some kind of lockdown fortress or something which . But I'm just , I'm not going to like , we're not going to maintain a website that's just random out there somewhere , you know , but that's just us and a lot of people they do that . That's totally fine . So it's been very nice to be able to keep it in-house .
What's been the most surprising thing for you with these quarterly strategy calls ? It could be revenue , could be the relationship with clients . What's has anything you know been surprising to you , or just you weren't expecting that with these ?
I think how open they are and how trusting they are , how open some of them will be , and if they're struggling with something or if they're just not , how is this going to work ? Like a client just reached out yesterday about a opt-in , a freemium , they call it in the in the world .
You know , um , she has it ready , but like I don't have my email sequence quite set up and I can't , can't quite remember how this all works . But but this is done , like the offer's done , it's a recipe thing , but can you tell me , like , how are we going to do this ?
Like I'm ready to kind of do this now , um , and so just the trust , really just the um , openness and the trust that they have and me to be able to help them figure it out or not , help them , point them in the right direction or do it like have actually know how to do it .
That's cool . Yeah , I imagine you're unlocking kind of a different uh aspect of your relationship with clients with these with that , that idea of trust .
Yeah , I mean , they will reach out to us , I'm not worried . Now a new client coming in , I got to kind of like , you know , encourage them .
Or I got to kind of like it's like when you , um , you know you kind of mold in that person into how , how you want the relationship to be kind of , and so new clients coming in , they're like wait a minute , you can do that , we can do that on my website , like , because a lot of times they don't even know what they don't know .
They don't know what we can do with the tools that we have and that we can just implement these things , and a lot of times they don't know . So when new clients come in , it's like , okay , if you have this , you know , don't go out and do all these things , let me know , because we probably have the tool already to do that .
You must be learning so much in each one of these quarters too , cause if you learn something from one client and do it the next call you have , you can be like we just did this with Sally , you know , and look at her website and then they're gonna be like oh my gosh , I want that too A ton .
Yeah , so yeah . It's just the relationship all the way around and the trust they have in us .
Yeah , so awesome , lisa this is so great . I Great , I mean , yeah , we really covered most everything I wanted to hit as far as the podcast . Here you have the entire training that you did .
Thank you so much for doing that and being transparent here , and the training with your numbers and how you've run it in the weeds that's available for everyone who joins pro . So we talked about some strategies and tips for the next evolution of these plans for you . So I'm really excited to continue to oversee how you're doing this and what's working .
Eventually we'll get to the point where we're going to need to talk yeah , group coaching calls with these put tears in the lady Right . But you're loving it . Obviously , it's a year and a half in . You're not burned out from doing it , so that's wonderful to see .
You're entering new territory , though Also , you mentioned your course , so let's just shift gears completely to close this up . You're a big moxie user .
you're a power user of moxie , moxie , crm , it's they're it's kind of yeah , they're kind of hard to find online like freelance with moxie . With moxie just depends on what those , what those words are that you put in there might take a little bit of you , you know , finagling and a year and a half .
Here's what's interesting seeing you , because I've seen your whole journey just about .
You've been a student for a long time . Yeah , the whole journey .
Yeah , I've literally seen you from , yeah , square one , which is , like you're , one of the most rewarding case studies . Success stories . I actually have a picture of you . I'm building my wall of awesome right now , my wall and I have testimonials and snippets from a lot of stories , and you're up there , you and Steve . So I see it every day .
I'm like , yeah , look at you guys . Here's the thing that's cool , though , is in a year and a half , you went from becoming now an established web designer to website coach , with your core strategy calls , and now you're a course creator . So tell us about your Moxie course calls .
And now you're a course creator , so tell us about your moxie course . Yeah , so the moxie crm , it's a you know whole platform , like your dibsado , your 17 hatch , your honey book . It's all that right . But I was in search of a uh , project management platform , because I'm not an asana user , I'm not clickable . That was just way overkill for me .
I didn't I anyway . So I found moxie last summer and let me tell you , it completely changed day to day . It completely changed how I work project management , tasks , invoices , proposals , time tracker . There's a scheduler , request , tickets , all the things . And what's so special about Moxie is that they are focused on freelancers and small businesses .
However , you can have big businesses in there , but you know it's it's geared towards the smaller businesses . So I started using that last summer . It became a huge , just like I dove in and then people in in . We got started in pro .
People were like there was conversation and when they were on AppSumo last summer , it was all like , oh my God , so we had talk on there . Well , that went in . That morphed into I just became the person to ask for how are you doing this or how to do this , or I can't get this , and I just started helping in pro .
That's really where it started and the idea for the course . It's a beginner's course . So it's like I say , if you have a messy moxie , if it's just all out of sorts , or if you have not even set it up yet , this is the course for you and I . It's almost done .
This was the first release of it just a couple weeks ago ago and 80 people are in the course already . It's blowing my mind . It is so exciting because these , these business , they're business owners , so it's not like they're my , they're not like my client . You know I'm not trying to get new clients from that .
It's like I'm trying to help you to run your business with , with this platform . And it is absolutely fabulous and the course has been going great so far and I'm almost done releasing the last few little modules lessons .
But um yeah , by the time this goes live , it'll be , it'll be complete outside of . Web Designer Pro . Who are ? Who's buying the course ? Where are you marketing ?
Oh , I shared it in the Moxie Facebook community and it blew up in there and then I was able Stephanie Hudson graciously allowed me to share it in folks . Wp Facebook group . So , there wasn't a lot of conversation in that group in the you know the what I shared in there . But I'm not on Facebook a whole lot .
I go into these few groups that I'm in , right , and I just check things out and that's kind of my serving your clients and making money Right Right . Right Busy creating this course , but yeah , it's so . It kind of blew up in there .
People are just been sharing it with each other and there's other people , there's other people in the community that they do done for you services . So you know they're going to set up your Moxie for you for X amount of dollars and at different levels and whatever .
There's a few people that do that and they have like little power hours where they're talking through something . But I thought you know what ? No , this I don't want to set up Moxie for other business owners . That's not my . I don't want to get into your business . This is to . I don't want to set up . Moxie for other business owners , that's not my .
I don't want to get into your business . You need to really get in there and set it up Right . So , um , I need to . I need to show you how , and it it was birth . The idea of the course was birth during one of our member hangouts and pro , that's where it was .
I mean , if that's not like affirmation , I don't know what it is . That's so awesome and you're a really good example of like . If anyone feels like , why would I ever create a course or a program or a training on a tool because moxie has tutorials , I'm sure just like . Like I thought that I was like for a while .
I was like , do I even want to ever do a divi course because they have their training like they have divi tutorials that divi provides .
But power users of a tool have a unique perspective and the fact that you and I use a lot of tools but we're not a part of the company , we can share very honestly what we like , what we don't like , what could be improved , without bias , and people respect that and trust that .
So I think you hit uh , you hit why the iron was hot and it was needed and I go on the facebook community um a lot and I have I pop in there and I see and and it's questions and questions and questions about little things and some of the some of the um features .
I , like I said , I don't use the calendar in there right now , I don't use request tickets but , like um , this isn't . It's not everything that I call .
I don't cover everything in this course because you just I , I'm just not it's really , it's a beginner's course , it's a beginner's course and it sets you up , and then I also have a monthly q a for that group of people , and yesterday , um may 8th , is we're recording this .
It was yesterday was our first one and it one and it was really cool , it was really fun .
We answered .
I answered questions , we talked about things and it was really fun . But the course itself is to get you to set up your Moxie platform in the right order . Everyone wants to get to . I want to send an agreement , I want to send this proposal .
Well , you got to start here first , and that's what I found in helping people and setting it up myself is that it needs to be done in this logical order and then you're all . By the end , everything is good to go all the way through workflow automations .
This is a Moxie foundations course .
Yeah , course number two will be your advanced course ? Yeah , and it's geared towards web designers only because that's what I do and that's the examples that I kind of show . But any small bit , you know , it's really for the business owner like me . It's small , you know .
So for anyone who's screaming at us like where the heck do I find this course ? Where do they go ?
It is our website , so jolidesignsolutionscom , and it's slash , it's moxie-course , okay .
And we'll have that linked in the show notes .
Yeah , it is Moxie dash course and it's like you know it's all access and I'm in there . There's a little comment there's where you can ask questions right on the lesson that you're on . I put that in there . I just I thought I don't want people emailing me and having to , I don't know .
I like I want everybody to see the Q and a kind of throughout the lessons . So it's a lot of fun and it is it's amazing that that um the feedback so far is good . So I'm just anxious to kind of get it done and get it Um . Like you said , when this , this is um out , it'll be done . Yeah , so yeah it's exciting .
I'm so pumped for you , lisa . Your strategy calls your course the success of your business .
That may be my next course ? I don't know . I'll have to talk to the Hangout about a name for that .
Yeah , well , for pro , I'm going to be putting together almost like mini courses I'm thinking about calling them playbooks which are a little more robust than our monthly training , cause our monthly trainings are like 30 , 40 minute masterclasses , like the one you did but , there's time where like it'd be nice to have a little more , but we don't need a full , like
seven module course . So yeah . I'm thinking about putting a playbook together for interview series which I recommend people do and , if you , about putting a playbook together for interview series which I recommend people do uh and a few an email newsletters for web designers , a few right right .
We've had a lot of good trainings in there so I can see that being a good thing yeah , my tag team with you on uh quarterly strategy calls playbook yeah , yeah , all right I'll message you in pro after this , we'll get going on it .
Yeah , yeah , that would be cool , lisa . Yeah , any final .
Sorry got to get going here in a couple minutes , but any final thoughts . I encourage anyone to .
I encourage to start , you know , doing the quarterly strategy calls . You know , even if you want to offer it just to a select few clients right now , maybe I don't know , but I encourage anyone to do it and just thank you , man is , I don't know ? I , you know .
I just say all the time I don't talk to many other web designers that are not in pro , but I tell you , if you're a web designer , listen , and you're not , it I mean , I'm Josh , did not pay me to say this , but it is the absolute best investment in your business . I've been from day one and it is amazing .
I wouldn't be where I am today , honestly , like I wouldn't have the wherewithal and the confidence and the knowing that people have my back and knowing that I can bounce ideas off of people .
So I just thank you , you know , for having the vision for this early on and I'm here for the ride for having the vision for this early on and I'm here for the ride .
Well , I'm so pleased to have you along for the ride , Lisa . That was awesome . I can't think of a better way to end the podcast so thank you for sharing your quarterly plans . Pumped about your Moxie course . We'll have a link to the show notes for everybody , until the next one , lisa . Thank you , my gosh , you're just your momentum is incredible .
I'm going to do a hat trick . Oh , you'll be a three-peater . I'll reference your hockey love . I'm going to do a hat trick here .
A hat trick . Oh , lisa gosh , you're just awesome . That's wonderful .
I will talk to you later , Josh , All right .
Lisa , thanks this was great .
All right , bye .
So awesome , right , a great way to deepen your relationship with clients , to boost your revenue , to build recurring income , all by doing it in a way that just standardizing standardizes .
Excuse me , how to connect with your clients , because you're probably doing this just sporadically already , so you might as well do it every quarter with this idea of quarterly strategy calls .
This idea of quarterly strategy calls , again , more resources for you over at joshhallco , slash 326 , where all the show notes , links and resources mentioned will be there for you . Definitely .
Connect with Lisa over there and if you are a Moxie user , as we just talked about , lisa has a brand new course at the time of releasing this for Moxie users , so go check that out as well .
You can connect with her at joelledesignsolutionscom and , again , all those links will be over at the show notes for you , along with a full transcription of this at joshhallco slash 326 . I'll see you over there . Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast and I can't wait to see on the next one , because there's a lot of goodies just like this one up ahead .
So thanks for listening , friends . Leave a review , by the way , if you would . That'd be so helpful to the show . It would mean a lot to me All right , see you at the show notes . Over at the show notes . Wow , if I could talk today At joshhallco , slash 326 .