336 - Building Recurring Revenue through Maintenance and Growth Plans with Marc Hyde

To me , it's more of I know who you are , I know who your spouse is , I know who your kids are Not like in a creeper way , but more just in a morning . I , more than I actually care , and I've always been in the people business .

I love people and I've always done what I have done because of people , mainly because of how people have honestly impacted my life .

I've always wanted to impact those people as well , and so when I do people first , that has always been the game , and so the people first business approach , for me at least , has brought in better leads , better referrals , and then , from going into there , it's just having the guts to put a price tag on .

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 .

Recurring income is literally what changed the game for me . It is what grew my business in a sustainable way , and by recurring income , what I did was have a hosting , maintenance and support plan for clients . It is what gave me the stability to be able to charge higher rates and to experiment with my other offers , because it was my baseline revenue .

It is what got my family through a 56 day NICU journey years ago when my first daughter was born . It covered our living expenses and it's what led to my first course , which is actually my maintenance plan course , which is still kicking today and helping so many people build recurring income .

One of my students is Mark Hyde , who went through this course back in 2021 . And today , in 2024 , he is on track for six well over six figures this year , in 24 for his business , and over 30% of his business revenue is through his maintenance and hosting plan and in this interview I'm so excited because we're going to dive into exactly how he did it .

We're going to dive into how he went from actually being a pastor and being in the ministry to getting into web design , building his business , putting an emphasis on recurring revenue , and how his emphasis on people first in relationships , first with clients , has actually helped retain his clients so he can just focus on serving them over and over and over again

and not be in the ebbs and flows and feast and famine of web design . So all those reasons more , I'm so excited to share with you this conversation . We also have a bit of a coaching segment here about how to offer growth plans along with maintenance plan services and support services , which are very different .

You're going to want to separate support services versus growth and marketing services . So we're going to get into all that and more . Make sure to go check out Mark to see what he's up to at his website , markhydecom . Everything we talk about here , especially in the coaching portion of this chat , will also be seen at his website as it continues to evolve .

So just a quick personal note about Mark before we dive in . I have to publicly say I'm so proud of what he's done with his business . He is an absolute web designer pro . He's one of our most engaged members of my community web designer pro and I think you're going to see see why here .

So good on , mark , and I hope you take some serious takeaways here and apply it to your business to build your recurring income Well , first off , mark , welcome back from . I was going to call it a vacation , but we all know with kids you have eight kids . It's a trip , so welcome back . You're right back from .

It Is the first week at work after eight kids vacation . Is this like a chill week ?

It was a lot to get from and I still haven't caught up on all those yet . And it's two o'clock on a Tuesday .

I just don't have it . There's definitely something to getting back into the swing of entrepreneurship .

Then when I come back , I'm like but now you're working longer again . Daddy goes . Well , yeah , I got to catch up from the last week because I didn't really feel as much when I was a cabinet maker , because I just showed up and did my work .

So my vacations were never really full unplugged vacations and there's always something new and and they're joking the church world is always Sundays , always coming . It just comes faster than others , and so you always had to be on and always had to be thinking . So bringing that into entrepreneurial .

I mean , my schedule , honestly , is easier a little bit now than what it was when I was pastoring , just because I have a lot more control over my boundaries .

You've come into pro and just you become one of the most engaged members and everybody knows you now in pro . So , but on that note , how has a background in pastoral work transferred to you as a business owner and an entrepreneur ? I've always wanted to ask you this .

I'm very much a be on a first name basis with your web designer style approach , and so when I came into this world , I quickly learned you know both through you and some other people that you've had on the show . I've taken a lot of stuff from Shannon Mattern and a lot of other people you've had on the show too . It's I'm not a salesperson .

I help people with their problems and the websites are just how I happen to do it . And so with coming along these different folks , it's not just a I'm trying to sell you on a website , get you in really fast , and then you know you're just a number .

To me it's more of I know who you are , I know who your spouse is , I know who your kids are , Not like in a creeper way , but more just in a morning . I actually care and you know I've always been in the people business . I love people and I've always done what I have done because of people , mainly because of how people have honestly impacted my life .

I've always wanted to impact those people as well , and so when I do people first , that has always been the game .

And so the people first business approach , for me at least , has brought in better leads , better referrals , and then from going into there , it's just having the guts to put a price tag on well , how much is it gonna be , how much is it gonna cost for me to help you ?

And I've had a lot of different mental shifts of I'm not charging because I'm trying to be cheap or I'm trying to make the most money I possibly can , but it's how much do I need to be paid to have the space in my schedule to really serve you the best that I possibly can ? And so that's kind of where the whole transition is .

And obviously you know , like with pastoring and whatnot , I was teaching multiple times per week in front of people , and so I've taught everything from five people to no joke . I now I emcee a massive summer festival up in Michigan every single summer because of it . So I'm in front of about three or 4,000 people on those days or so .

So you know the idea of getting in front of people and speaking and having these conversations . That has been terrific and , you know , being able to be very quick on my feet for trying to . You know , answer questions , ask questions , engage with what's going on . It's , honestly , has just been a tick for tack chain over .

It's just the fact of now , instead of my entire job is to just help people . Now there actually is a finish line , so that that part's kind of helpful , Not going to lie .

You have a couple kiddos who have well , a few kiddos actually different levels six technically .

Just give us the , the foundation of you as a , as a dad , and what's behind the screen , and then we'll dive into how business is supporting all this yeah , definitely .

So I'm mark , I'm owner , founder uh , I always joke I'm the head barista at markide creative um , mainly coffee for me , and that my wife gets to tap into that too , um , but yeah , so I started markide creative back in 2020 , actually , honestly , because of COVID is why I started it and so I was pastoring locally , had a family implosion I won't go into that ,

I've gone into that in different shows and so , because of that , though , my wife basically had an affair and left , and then I was just emotionally , physically , spiritually , not okay at all , and you can't help people when you're bleeding all over them and I was doing that , and so I resigned technically in January of 2020 . And then , in then , my contract .

The church said , hey , just stay on till May . Help the seniors graduate , just keep the wheels on the cart . If you find a job before then , super cool , just keep the wheels on the cart . I'm like , great , awesome . And so I had some really good interviews lined up still in the marketing world . One was a promotional company .

One was actually with one of the sister colleges , with Notre Dame . St Mary's had interviews lined up with them , was in money talks with another company and then the world literally shut down . And so it shut down , and so I just had to hustle the crap out of everything to take care of the kids , and no one was calling back , no one was messaging .

But I was able to use my network , use my sources , use my connections to just hustle the crap out of anything in the freelancer world . And I should say , coming out of that as well , I wasn't just yes , I'm a pastorally trained , have masters , you know certifications , ordinations , all those different things .

But I always have been in the marketing world too , and so in college I ended up becoming the creative services project manager , well over the whole creative services department of the university . So if it was on paper , it went through my desk first before it went out .

So within the first couple of years , I rebranded the whole church , turned to logos and everything , built their website and did a lot of stuff for the church , and you know , as student ministry , we're kicking out graphics all the time and logos and branding sequences and all these different things too .

Every sermon series literally is a brand for that sermon series , and so we were doing that all the time . So when I left the pastoral world , I had a ton of marketing in my background already , and so when I left in 2020 , I technically was in the marketing world professionally , plus my pastoral stuff since 2012 , I think , or so .

So when I went on my own , I already had eight years of experience in the background not running a business , not doing websites , and so I got connected , though , with a local marketing company here in Michiana , which we call Michiana , michigan , indiana , got to marry them together . And so and he goes , hey , so what do you want to do ?

And I said , oh , I don't really want to do video , that's how you found me . I don't want to do social media because I'm already doing that and I hate that . So what do you got ? And he goes well , you want to try websites . And I said sure , and absolutely just fell in love with it .

And so I learned a lot of my processes and what page builder I use and stuff like that through him and just kind of ran off with it . And every client that I had from there referred me out kept growing the prices . And we are to where we are here , business-ly with that , business-ly Business-related with that , but on the family side dude .

So , anywho , so I met my wife through the podcast that I run , real talk Christian podcast . I actually interviewed her on episode 39 of the podcast , so our first ever conversation we ever had is live on air and it's still out there , one of our most listened to episodes .

And so I met her through the podcast , cause we wanted to interview someone who literally , as what the I'm not trying to preach , but you know we see in James or says true religion is taking care of widows and orphans .

So we're like , all right , let's talk with a foster parent and we has to foster mom in our church and she said you don't want to talk with me , you want to talk with this crazy lady , beth , who had five kids who she adopted all of them , and she's single , without any family support because her family lives in central .

Uh , at that time they were I mean , they were all over the midwest . And so come to find out , the person who set me up , nicole , now nicole roberts .

Um , that was a setup to get us together , just a fun fact there so nicole got that one locked in for us so but yeah , we met through that we and then she moved up to south bend literally the eight months after we first recorded the podcast , in January of 2021 , right 2021 . And then we got married in March of 2021 .

But the reason I wanted to make sure we set the precedence for this is it's going to , I think , make sense to how many businesses you're running right now and the different branches you have , and then your background , because , as we both know , it doesn't matter what background you have .

Everyone could be a web designer , especially if you do have a background in any sort of communications or sales or pastoral or even marketing , whatever it is . So I think it's really cool . It's like one of my favorite things about this industry is nobody comes from an academic background .

I don't know anybody I really don't who went to college for four years , who owns their own web shop . The folks who went that route typically work for the entrepreneurs who are taking the risk in doing all this .

Oh yeah , because of how many DOMs you have , how many different individual lines of code and things you have .

And so right now , genesis Framework and Cadence are the two I mean , and Cadence is a I mean it's a bit of a page builder because WordPress is going that way , but the all encompassing page builders get pooped on a lot .

thousands of post types , you do not want to have to have builder elements in all those articles and I did migrate a blog off of Elementor for every post , and that was a job .

I mean , I'm in that situation now because I do use the Divi Builder for particularly the podcast episodes here . But we have a nice template with all that . In an ideal world , would I change that ? Just to you know , the raw text editor or the block editor with the WordPress ?

I probably will eventually , just in case , for any reason , I decide to move from Divi . I have no plans on that , but I know now , just as a heads up for everyone , think about this when you're thinking about maintainability and scalability If you do change your builder , you have to change all your post types if you're using it , so it's something to consider .

I'm the only user of that in all of the pro community actually , but I know it inside and out so stinking well that I can look at a website and go , yeah , I know exactly how I would build that In Elementor . I'd thinking , well , that I could look at a website and go , yeah , I know exactly how I would build that an elementor .

I'd have no clue in divi , I'd have half a clue because I have a lot of maintenance plans to use build . Their websites were built on divi from a different marketing company that I take over their maintenance and support .

Um , so I know divi decently well , but my builder , oh yeah , dude , I can do stuff you know , but most people might do in a couple hours . Give me 10 minutes , just just because I know it that well , and so that's the biggest thing .

But we started Real Talk Christian podcast as a teaching ministry of the church , actually when I was on staff and then when I left , we just took it because the church was like we don't want to deal with it , just have fun with it . So we took that over . So we did monetize that for a good long while and we were monetized really , really well .

But it became a really big beast and both of us have kids and families and church and he's a union rep for his steel company and so my co-host is busy as all get out . So we've scaled it back a little bit , but the podcast that's more of just Mark's hobby and Mark's excuse to hang out with his best friend all the time .

That's really what that is and there's a lot of ministry we have . So I guess you could say Real Talk Christian Podcast is a business because there is a support community of a couple thousand people on Facebook and other things like that as well . So there is that .

So it is a very large community that we do and we're getting texts and DMs every single day because of that . But then I do have Markide Creative . I started a second company a few years ago called Small Church Media smallchurchmedia .

The idea was the fact of there's a lot of church communication things out there and resources for the big churches you know a thousand or plus but for the average size church of 50 to 75 people they're like dude , we can't even pay our pastor . You want us to do what ? Like that makes no sense . So that's where that dream and vision came from .

That and that I've intentionally was like I'm not making money off of it , it's just a free resource , and so I have a free resource library and that's something I want to talk to you about . On this coaching call of what do we do for that ?

Because I do have an email list of a couple hundred church people right there who I could tap into and I just don't know how or how I want to do it or what we want to do with that .

I started Get Found Locally , which I know we've talked a lot about in the group , and I'm trying to push that , but it's falling on a lot of mute ears because I feel like the people that it's going after . I need to reposition that a little bit , because a lot of folks that are successful using just social basically get found locally .

The idea is the fact of you pay a subscription fee , monthly or yearly . You get a one-page website and a whole bunch of other stuff that comes with it to help you market your small business . Because if you can't afford , you know the five , seven k website , well , what do I have for you ?

Well , I'm like , well , we can go down to like it's still a thirty , five hundred dollar website . And they're like I still can't do that . And so I was just saying , all right , see you later . Um , yeah , so I wanted something like a like safety net to catch people if they they bounce , if they're too small .

But I'm , I'm , I'm still figuring out a position , that one to actually get some leads , cause I've had zero traction from that , except people who look at it and go , oh , that's really good , but I'm doing okay on social media . Or I'm doing really good , but I don't really need a website right now because of this , or I'm , I'm okay .

So I'm figuring that piece of the puzzle out . So when you look at all the different things I'm doing , I guess I would say , business-wise I just have Mark Hyde Creative , but on paper there's probably more about four that I either actively do or it's on the back burner or want to do something with .

But then on top of that we're very involved with our kids' school . I go there and teach in chapels and spiritual emphasis days and retreats and all that and do a lot with church too . So we're as busy as they come .

But I think what I want to dig out of you in this one here is where the challenges are and what the there's obviously some level we want to get to . I imagine clarity with a lot of this . So the foundation is Mark Hyde dot com . That's your main agency site , that's you Solopreneur , yep . Do you have a support system ?

You said you hired some stuff out before , but do you have any team behind you ? I have three VAs actually .

Another VA , which is actually my sister-in-law I'm starting to , as people come for I'm for some reason getting a lot of retainer requests or like hey , can we do something like this where you know we pay a 400 a month to do whatever ? And so I always think , okay , is there something that's repeatable , that I can systematize ?

And Missy does all of that , and so Missy's helped me out with a lot of projects like that . And then I have a copywriter , aubrey , who , um , for my primary SEO client , she does all the blogging for them , all the posting , all the sharing , all that kind of stuff , and she does some ghostwriting for me too .

I would kind of wonder , like , is he going to be able to communicate well if I didn't know you ? So I think that would really help . Any sort of hesitation and the clients probably aren't mentioning that to you , but I think in reality there's probably a lot of people who might be like , can Mark handle this size project with eight kids and just him ?

So I think it's really important to make sure everyone knows you have a support system behind you ?

And I've thought , bro , I mean you've mentioned it so many times on different calls where if you hear me , you know , clicky clack , I'm making lots of notes over here too and you've said on calls and you've put so many fires under our butts , like , if you got a VA , get them on your site now and it's like , maybe next week we'll be fine , we'll be fine ,

we'll be fine And's also , I'll be honest with you , man , there's a little bit of pride too in being the solopreneur , um , and my name is on everything , and so therefore I don't want to have crap results .

So there's , there's that little bit of fear of when you work with , I'm going to say in the third person , it's going to sound bad , but when you work with Mark , you work with Mark Like that's , that's the whole goal of the agency .

So there is a little bit of if I say that I'm like , is that taking it away , or is it actually positioning where it's like ? No , this is a viable business , I'm just some dude out of his basement .

It's like as soon as you join Web Designer Pro , you don't need to put the member directory on your website , but you could say I'm also in a community If we get stuck or if there's something that is not my area of expertise . I have people that are not a 10,000 person Facebook group but are actually people I know .

I know their name and we partner up and collaborate together . So you actually have two levels of support system behind you with a small support system team and pro . So I think you should 100% get those on your about page . You don't need to have a separate team page yet , but at least on your about page about yeah , your support system for different roles .

Um , I do include a joke right at the beginning because everyone says so . So is Mark short for Marcus , and so I just lean into it because it's no , no , it's not . My first name is Timothy and I don't even go by it and my middle name is not even spelt normal . So , thanks , mom . So I say that on phone calls .

So I plopped it on the website and then I try to position it where why I do what I do , and I want to rework that section just a little bit . And then I have some of the certifications and awards that I've done .

Do you think it would be better to put something like that higher up , or is it more of like , after the the , do you know what the future holds Like ? What's what say you ? And then there's those reviews right there .

And then something about because you have have your Best of Michigan Business BBB Accredited Business . You're talking about the business itself of your business and I would say we also have a support system and , again , like I show on my team page , have them as collaborates frequently or occasionally .

And then you go into a little bit more about you and the promise . So actually , technically , I don't want to say I guess maybe right now , if I had to today say Mark , put it here , I would put it above my promise to you section and below why I do what I do .

Again , with the idea of a $5,000 , $10,000 , $15,000 project with a serious business , I would want to know that you have a support system behind you . I don't want my project taking six months because you got eight kids and you're dealing with a few different wings of your business , quite frankly . So I really think it's important to uh to .

It's just one section , three people , short little bio . What you told me is literally what could be like . You could take the transcript from this and just have a little section meet the , meet the team behind Mark or the support system , simple as that .

To start just to show that , um , and when somebody inevitably asks you , how do you do everything yourself , you could say , well , I have a support system , I'm the creative director , you talk with me .

But when it comes to repeated work or any sort of work that is going to be admin or ongoing or content related , you know I have a team that steps in and assists . When needed or projects get bigger in scope , we can crank them out .

And you know , your , your position is always it's the you're , you're , you're the gong in my head , dude for the last two years of get the lifestyle you want , and I have to remind myself that you know when I cause , you know I get back .

Oh , I missed the good old days of being a pastor and doing this , and I got paid to go to high school football games . Like you know , that was always fun . It's the fact of I'm living someone else's dream because I have freedom in the lifestyle that I want .

And you know we're on track to cross over the six figure mark this , I mean even before the year ends and so , which is super sick .

They got me through the next ceiling and I'm like dang it , I need Josh to get me through the next ceiling . So that's what this phone calls for is to hopefully get through that next ceiling .

I had nothing coming down the pike at all . I had no maintenance plans because I was like , oh , this is just a bandaid gig until I can get a real job . And do I really want to do this ? I don't know . And I started flipping the crap out because I'm like I got no new projects coming in .

I quit doing little social media posts for this company because they were paying dirt . I quit doing this because I was like I want to open my schedule to doing this . And so the first hurdle was how do I stop living that feast or famine lifestyle ? That was the first hurdle and I remember my wife looked at me , probably at about April or May 2022 .

And she goes I know we don't need all the money right now , but you've made some money just sitting in your account . Can you pay yourself please ? And I'm like nope , because I don't know when the next gig is coming and I want money in the business account .

So we'll trickle down a little bit and just having those real heart-to-heart conversations with Beth and going , okay , I don't like the stress of this . I don't like literally waking up in a panic attack .

I literally woke up in a panic attack at 2am , thinking I'll never have another job again Doing a bunch of Craigslist postings at 2am just because I needed to go to sleep . So I needed to do something , and so that was really hard and I would dip my toe into going back into corporate world . I had a few really good interviews .

They offered me the job and went . I got to work from home . I can't be in an office for how many hours I know you guys want me to be there for and so the first hurdle was how can I break that feast or famine lifestyle ?

Which then that's when and I don't remember the exact date I'm going to pull it up real quick of when I first signed up for your maintenance plans and cause I remember the first time I heard you what was that podcast , dude ?

You host it , I'll drop the price and I'll maintain it . Um , now it's no let's , let's go for it . And so , uh , here we go so okay , so I lied , it wasn't 2022 , it was 2021 , when I had that panic attack in january february because at the end of that year I purchased the maintenance plan course back in September of 2021 .

And so I bought that and cause I'm like this might be the ticket to do it . And right now , the goal , now the next ceiling is is I want to have enough maintenance plan clients where my monthly salary cause , no matter how much I make for the business , I pay myself a monthly salary .

Um , I want my monthly salary sans bonuses , sans extra jobs , where if all crap hits the business , I pay myself a monthly salary . I want my monthly salary sans bonuses , sans extra jobs , where if all crap hits the fan , no projects come in for a year . I know I can pay myself just on maintenance plans alone and I'm close . I'm really really close .

But that's the next hurdle . But yeah , the first hurdle was feast or famine . The next one was feeling confident to have the right solutions in place . So that way , when someone said , hey , I have this problem , do you have an answer , I could say , yes , here we go , let's go and do it , so I signed up for a different course and did that .

Um actually did lee blue , um which I know you've had him back in the day in the the web designer pro , which honestly dude that pro training library that we have inside of web designer pro is worth it , just right there I I mean , obviously I'm biased , but I couldn't agree more , I do a lot of you brought that better , because literally , literally that pro

training library is just , I've watched some of those three times , just like like april ray's on email marketing . I'm going through it for the third time because I'm like this is the where this is . This is where it's at and so you know stuff with michelle and you know , uh , there's just so much good I say it with love there's good crap in there .

But so that's my next hurdle , bro , and that's the thing that I'm trying to figure out now is how can I A position myself with getting enough maintenance clients where that is sealed , and that's why I was pushing really hard to figure out how to up the prices , offer more things , get people in Cause I'm like , okay , if I can get people to upgrade to a

package , I don't need to go fight for new ones . It's just selling people that I've already sold . But everyone you know , um , it's kind of the curse of I already do great work for what they're paying for , so they're like no , we're good , we're fine .

It's not where you want it to be yet it's not stable , but with one off projects and a few different things going on , your , your , you will cross six figures this year , I have no doubt about that .

I still white label for a church marketing company , I do their websites I actually have a call with one of their clients tomorrow , um but so I still do a lot of things that I love and that it's good .

Honestly , it's , it's around the same , if not , it's a little bit less of a quote of if I would have offered that quote to that church myself . If that makes sense .

These people need websites too , so I . So I came in as a , as a designer . He uh , nathan gave him my first shot a couple of years ago , um , mainly cause I was just in Facebook groups being helpful in the church communication world . It's answering a bunch of questions and so I . So every ongoing maintenance hosting plan it gets pushed my way .

So out of the , I would say it's maybe six websites I've built with him . Five of them are on hosting and maintenance plans now or some sort of retainer .

So , with this , the next little ceiling that we're going to bust through here markhydecom , your main agency site , your solopreneur site We've already talked a little bit about where that's at . That's the moneymaker , that's the biggie , that is the monetized , and then a complete passion project with small church media . Those two things I hate to even say .

Like you know , pause your passion projects . But if those are not contributing to the pants , it sounds so douchey . But I almost feel like you're at a point where you just have to put all your focus on what is going to build up your revenue .

There are shorter episodes every other week , so we've scaled that back down too , just because I couldn't keep up with it . Chris couldn't keep up with it . So we're doing the right stuff with that . With small church media , though I've had and maybe we can bring this up a little bit later with Get Foundound locally .

I feel like I could take that copy paste and turn that into something for these small churches . But honestly , the small church world is so hard because there's already a thousand companies out there . They're all competing for that real estate .

So let's just worry about that first . I think , with real talk being very streamlined and templatized , you're working less than 40 hours a week , so that's awesome . If you're working 80 or 90 , different story right now .

But you got a lot of good freedom-based principles in place , mark , like now we just need to figure out recurring income and mark hide and get found locally . So that's it .

One thing we've talked about a couple of times in our weekly hot seats in pro , just for since we're talking publicly now for everyone's references you've really tried to figure out how should I have ?

Get found locally be a low end ticket offer that's monthly , but then you have support plans and care plans with Mark Hyde and then the line blurs in between support plans and growth plans . I know you and I talked about this because you have hosting and maintenance and then you have ongoing growth . Does a client understand the two so ?

That was the way for her , so the computer stayed home that's right , because you uh wrongly messaged me in pro and let me know that you're on your phone . I was like enjoy the vacay man , but it was fun seeing the pictures and stuff . So absolutely , and so .

I don't like to sell unless I 100 believe in it , and so I don't want to push seo services because it's hard for me to , especially for small businesses , to justify the price tags , to get results , I guess . So I can easily justify my website prices , that's no problem . I can easily justify the basic maintenance and supports .

But when you look at a small business and I say , well , it's gonna be $1,000 a month , starting for SEO plus , that includes maintenance and support as a part of one of those lines , they're like , well , holy crap back up , when in reality you and I know most good SEO agencies start at five to six K a month .

And so there's there's that awkward line , it's that scene that that's where my ceiling's at right now .

And then growth , which is going to be SEO . But there's no reason for you not to include strategy , whether it's quarterly strategy calls or however . You want to frame consultative services in a growth plan . But , dude , you're also killer at design and copy and lead generation , whether you realize it or not .

Everything you've learned and you do on your website you could wrap up inside of growth services , which is going to be included in SEO . So I actually feel like you're sitting on an amazing stack of growth services , but it's just not presented well . And , first of all , your sites are amazing design , everything else . I don't say that in a derogatory way .

I just feel like I think the biggest thing for you to get through the ceiling is to make a clear distinction between support plans and growth plans at this stage and boost up your growth plans .

Have SEO , copy messaging , which is basically what you're doing I guarantee you're already doing that in your seo plans conversion , which is going to include lead generation , call to action , also messaging and copy , and then I would do , uh , some sort of consultative service in there for now , since you could handle it at a higher rate , like do quarterly growth

strategy calls we just talked about on the podcast you know lisa , who's killing it and pro dude .

What I would do for you right now , as a starting point , is for your services , for your support and care plans . I'd almost say just do two for right now . I mean , I love the look of three , but for right now , to simplify this , I would just have basic .

I think 99 and 249 for hosting and maintenance plans is great , especially because you have different levels of product projects .

Okay , since I pushed it to two 50 , everyone just jumps down and obviously I don't want to keep offering lower money , but I'm also I don't want to leave money on the table either . Why don't we ?

What I have there is sites we've done in this range are like this and real world live examples . So you could do something similar for your maintenance plans , so basic gray . Or you could do like a good fit for sites that are updated quarterly or um .

You know , don't have like ongoing new pages and content and stuff like that , but complete are going to be best for more complex sites , advanced sites and something that requires a little more ongoing support . But what we talked about a couple months back was this blurred line in between your growth category .

Currently you have a growth wing of your maintenance plans which is $599 a month . But what I told you is what I'll reiterate publicly is I was looking at that and I'm like , dude , that's a growth plan .

That's like your entry tier to your growth plan , which could still technically work on your support page , cause you could say we have a growth option for support and that leads them into a growth plan .

But I think for now I would almost just say have two tiers for maintenance and then two tiers for growth , and in your growth plan they include maintenance but starts at $599 . And then maybe your second growth plan is $999 . Maybe it's a thousand a month .

So , um , it already has built-in backups , it has built-in , built-in , plug-in auto updates for basic stuff , um , basic uptime , like it has the basic crap in there , and so I just host it for them . So that way I'm like , if crap hits the fan , you call me , you don't call anybody else . Is it worth offering a third one of hosting or cause ?

I don't want to . I feel like most people who are serious about their business and they've they're . I mean , if you're paying me 5k for a website but you can't pay a hundred dollars a month to make sure it's good .

Or again , is that opening up the potential for the A tire kickers or B people who are trying to get the Porsche on the Pinto budget ?

The plan B is somebody says I appreciate it , mark , but you know , 90 bucks a month is a lot . We don't really do that much ongoing stuff with this . You could say , well for you , I'd be happy to at least be in your corner .

We can do your hosting basic support for $39 a month and then , if you ever do want to upgrade , you'll be able to have that option . But this will give you a discounted hourly rate for when you need us and you know still some more value for just $39 a month .

You can actually we're looking at it . So for those , uh , well , we're not , we're not screen sharing anything , but we're both looking at you can screen share if you want .

I think if you did $599 or even $499 for a starter growth plan and then $999 , two different growth plans that have the different levels of again what we just talked about , a quarterly strategy call the SEO , which is at different levels conversion , lead generation , stuff like that which they could use the time blocks for .

I will say five hours right now for $5.99, . That scares me a little bit . I would almost say maybe three hours in the first growth tier and then maybe five in the 999 tier or yeah , honestly , because like right now .

They need a new website , they're looking at new SEO stuff and the guy wanted to stay locally here in the South Bend area and so the quote I sent him for SEO full disclosure was it included two blog posts a month , which is pretty standard for me , and then we post it to your Google business profile for updates .

I also do tell people because again , this is where it's hard , because I don't want to productize , systematize everything there is a people element where it's like okay , if you want to make one of those blog posts into a landing page for a service , we can swap one of those out , no big deal .

And so now I have , I use Fluent CRM , so it's all stays inside of my WordPress website . I use Postmark for all my deliverability , and so with Fluent CRM , I at least have my client tab so I can email my clients really really quick . Like , hey , I'm going on vacation , do not email me , and so stuff like that .

So I definitely think that should be a big time lead generator on your site , not even just in your contact form , but a page like on your quick menu just slash newsletter and then I really think you should do that .

There's three blog posts that I'm kicking out every single month and I've been pushing hard on digital marketing services because I know that's where the direction needs to go for the business , for that ceiling .

So I'm like I want to position my articles and blogs in such a way where I look like an authority in that space when they come here to get that information . Now it's just having the for lack of better word balls to do it and pull the trigger and start selling it . You know .

Yeah , make that the main call to action , because that way you're going to build your list . We all know it's 2024 . You build your list , you build your income . So build your list , build your list , build your list .

Similarly with support plans , you're going to have some clients who may just want to do a blog a month or like one lead generator that you set up , and then occasional consultative services , and you may have one who's like Mark , you're my guy . I want to do three blogs a week or three blogs a month . We want to do lead generators a lot .

We want to do a lot of ongoing support and you have to have an option for them . That may start at $1,000 a month , maybe even up to $2,000 to $3,000 a month .

I just don't push it really hard Because , honestly , full disclosure too it's the fact of I want to make sure that I don't position myself where , all of a sudden , I have to work those 60 hour work weeks .

So it's also as I'm trying to build my business , I'm trying to build my bottom end , and so I've worked a lot with with my copywriter Aubrey , to be like , hey , if , if stuff comes in , are you ready ?

You could use GetFoundfoundlocallynet as a lead generator or asa low ticket offer potentially , but with your custom services and then your maintenance , your care plans and then your couple growth options there , with the different things you're doing in that category . That's it .

I really just think you should just tweak your site ever so slightly with those offers and just sell , baby sell , in the words of mike mccallowitz , uh , who was on the podcast . That's why he told me here and I'm like , oh , that's a great . You get to the point where you have everything you need . You find it . Just sell , sell like crazy , like that's .

All we need to worry about really for the rest of this year is just sell , sell and sell it . You've got .

And let's just bounce it down to 199 . Let's see how that goes . Okay , just double it . That's basically just a little more support for those who need it . Most people will be on 99 . Your $39 is your hidden downsell . That's your backup plan . And then growth growth categories . I would call it . I wouldn't even SEO is a part of it , it .

But I would almost say like , yeah , growth plans which included in growth is seo , lead generation , copy messaging , um list , building , everything that we just talked about , and then offer in a uh , a strategy call with those once a quarter for those . I would even because you could do it for your maintenance plan clients .

But if you did it for your maintenance plan clients , I would say , maybe offer that like every once in a while and then they don't want it , they don't want a strategy call .

If you would like to talk to me about your website , have any questions , book these and it's free , completely complimentary to current clients . And then there's your time to upsell the growth plans if interested . Even if you just plant seeds for maybe later this year , early next year , for these growth plans , and that's it . That's your like .

That is enough to roll . I think you could double or triple your recurring revenue with that model .

see you , you know hit the next level and crash like , I pay myself a certain amount , then there's bonuses , whatever .

Really , all you're doing with the growth plans is just putting a dang name in a package to what you're already doing . So let's just even if it's a bullet list , even if it's a growth plans , two different levels . You got the starter growth plan , which is $499 or $599 .

Then you have the you know , the elite growth plan , whatever you want to call it , or the complete growth plan , that's $999 . And then if you get a few of those and you're like , oh my gosh , I need to make a third tier or this needs to be like two grand a month , and then you up it , you grandfather everybody in that 1K .

And then now new growth plan is 2K , 3k .

it's like you can pick two out of the three or you can pick two out of the four because I love I mean , I've I've been following april ray's stuff so tight because I love what she does for her email , for for her email marketing services , because she includes seo blog posts and stuff like that . She just names it a little different .

It's she presents it as email but then supports it with growth .

So I'm like is is that the way to do it where it's more of here's your different tiers or more of you're gonna pick four out of the five options , I think for right now , with the growth plans being fairly new and you're still working on those , I would almost just treat it as like a retainer , just in this first phase .

I don't think you'll ever have one that's exactly the same , unless you want to productize it like april has done or like lisa has done with with her stuff yeah , I followed lisa's stuff too , because she's productized beautifully yeah .

So that's how I would do , that is , just say , like , in these growth plans , these are the types of things we'll do with this , and maybe some things you do like , for example , keyword research or or amount of blog . Then maybe that is just for the top tier growth plan , so you may separate a few things out .

But I would start with the idea that these are the types of things we could do in your growth plans . And since it's month to month , maybe one month we do three blog posts , maybe the next month we do a lead generator and a strategy call .

That's the kind of I would just keep it a la carte and more like , yeah , retainer style , just to start until you're like dead set on okay , growth plan one this is what works well . Growth plan two email , lead building , site sequences , stuff like that . Growth plan three maybe advanced seo , a lot of content creation . Then you could productize it .

So , keeping those separate , just for everyone's reference , you keep support separated from growth plans because when somebody wants to turn off their SEO and blogging , you don't want them to not do hosting and maintenance .

So what I would say is let's say you have $4.99 for your entry growth plan and somebody on your $99 plan wants to do that , you can give them a discount of $99 a month on the marketing plan , the growth plan . So they would basically like you would just include , you would prorate or discount support off of that . As a current client .

So that part's not a worry , it's more of I look at this and go , okay , I like this makes me feel better to sell it , because unless I would buy it myself , I don't want to sell it . I like the idea of knowing where it's going , and that's why I haven't pushed SEO hard . So I'm like , oh , you can pay me to do blog posts in this .

And it's like , okay , so what ? I'm like , well , well , I mean I can tell you why , but are we really going to ? That's where I think I get tripped up , and so this at least points the compass north a little bit .

It'll be sloppy at first , it'll be a little messy , but I think over the next few months we'll get a really good idea of how to package these up a little more . And again , I'm just , I'm not worried for you , dude . I would tell you like , oh , I would reel in . I wouldn't , you know , launch this right away .

Um , you're so close to the recurring revenue thing I just don't even think I wouldn't even worry about get found locally . Yet I would just do , do this what we just covered with that little list . And again , you're not . I mean , the only new page you're going to build would be like a growth page which you may tweak , the seo page .

Or oh , yeah , I would just .

But the search engine page is built to not be just SEO . It's all focused on how do you get found online , how does your local business get online boost ?

You just need to package , you need to flop things on the homepage , add a little bit of new page , you just need to button some stuff up . So it's a mix of flopping and buttoning . It's just charging for what I'm already doing . Yeah , that's it honestly . Yeah , in seriousness . Yeah , you just you're doing so much . There's just there's not .

You're not packaging it up . So there it is , man I really I got my notes . I really I I could see . I mean , I think you could probably . I know you're just back from vacation . I think you could probably get this all in on your site here within a couple of weeks , I would imagine a couple of weeks , absolutely .

So , end of the week , whatever , um , before this goes live , for sure you'll have it up . So yeah , that's what I would do , man , I really think it's going to be more than enough to get you to your recurring revenue . So , all right , cool , there we go . Awesome , mark . Well , this has been almost an hour and a half dude dude .

Why don't you give us the listeners of the show , since you're a listener of the podcast as well , give everyone else your Mark's marketing minute for for the podcast here . Help help out some other web designers who maybe want to get to this point , because you're at an incredible point . You're closing in on six figures .

What would your marketing minute be to word of wisdom for web designers who want to be the next mark ?

So if you can say here's the result , it's packaged up , ready to go , I'm doing this to help you and people trust you to help them . And then you have the testimonials to back it up , bro , from there it's piece of cake .

I feel like this is a win , win , like there's nothing to lose with just you know , packaging all this up in a growth plan , tweaking your , your support services , exciting times ahead , my friend , awesome . Well , thanks again , josh . Thank you , mark . Appreciate it , man . Awesome . Thank you , mark . Appreciate it , man . Awesome .

It's the name of the game , my friends . Recurring income still to this day by having a support plan , a maintenance plan for your web clients . It's the key , it's the foundation . I absolutely encourage you to help your clients get results through marketing and growth plans .

But , as we talked about , clients will ramp up and ramp down those marketing efforts and those growth plans . So , support offer your hosting and maintenance plans if you need help with that . Yes , I do have my full course on building , launching and selling a website maintenance plan .

You can get access to that course , just the course itself , or it is a part of your membership to my community Web Designer Pro . Links to both of those will be in the show notes for this episode at joshhallco , slash 336 .

So head over there If you want to meet Mark , get a full transcription for this episode and start building your recurring income , or taking your recurring income to a whole other level , which is my absolute favorite thing to do . So , joshhallco , slash 336 . I'll see you over there and let me know how this episode helps build your current income .