342 - From $0 to $7k MRR (in One Year) through Local SEO with Sam Sarsten

For the people that are offering local SEO , Like you're going to have to this first couple it's going to , it might be a little sketchy , no-transcript , I need to think about it . And I said okay , Cause I've always been really bad at sales . But he thought about it for a week and actually part was when I was there in his shop that day .

He had one project and it was just him , and three months later when I went back to his shop , it was full and he had a helper working for him and he's still a client to this day .

Web designers often ask me how long will it take to get to six figures , and there's all sorts of different metrics for quote unquote success in web design , but I think most commonly , if you're living in the States or the UK or you're a Western resident , six figures is what it's going to take to be able to provide enough support for you and your family ,

whatever that looks like . So I often get the questions how long will that take ? And it is a hard question to answer because there's so many variables when it comes to being able to get to six figures , especially within a year . It may depend on your background , your time , your availability , your area of focus , your expertise , whether you're adverse to risk .

There's so many factors , but it can be done , and I am so excited to bring on somebody who has taken his business from zero to well beyond six figures in less than a year , in fact , sam Sarsden , my guest in this podcast , who is one of our most engaged members of my community web designer pro , who I've been able to see literally jump in before he had a

paying client and now , a year later , is now bringing in get this Cause . I checked in with him on this today at the time of recording this . He is now bringing in over $7,000 in monthly recurring revenue . He right now has $7,197 in monthly recurring revenue MRR , and that's not even including his other one-time services , repeat work and hourly work .

So it can be done , and in this episode Sam shares exactly how he did it . We cover what the heck Sam was thinking in quitting his full-time job when he had zero paying clients . What gave him the confidence to do that and start getting clients and start getting clients and start getting cashflow .

How he fell in love with one area of web design , which was local SEO , and how he made that his primary service , and then subsequently how he began to offer that to build this recurring income . And we even get into some coaching into this later on , because now Sam actually has some challenges and some pain points with such fast growth .

So all of that is covered and much more . It was a real honor to have Sam on here as such an engaged member of pro and just a personal honor for me to see what he's done in this year of business and he's just a shining example that you can do it . Now it's not to say that it's been a perfect uh , you know unicorn rainbow adventure .

There have been bumps in the roads , but it can be done and Sam is a true entrepreneur and really I'm so excited about what he's done and what he's doing because Sam and I have actually partnered up more moving forward , because he's really diving deeper into SEO and local SEO and teaching it . It's an area that I cover a little bit . In Web Designer Pro .

We talk a lot about SEO , but Sam has gone even further into teaching local SEO . So there's going to be some links and resources at the show notes for this episode . Make sure you don't miss them . Go to joshhallco slash 342 .

There we're going to have links to his agency website and his brand new local SEO Academy , which is a wonderful offshoot of Web Designer Pro , because a lot of pros don't want to go too far into SEO . But if you do , even if you're not a member of Web Designer Pro yet , you can go to localseoacademyco .

Slash Josh and Sam has put a special offer together just for you , just by being a listener of this podcast . When you're a member of my community Web Designer Pro , you'll always have an offer to join Sam's local SEO Academy . But even as just a listener right now , you can go there and get the special offer just for you .

All the show notes are going to be over at joshhallco slash 342 . All right , long intro , but really important because it set the foundation for Sam , who now you can hear his whole journey on going from zero to $7,000 plus in monthly recurring revenue . Awesome , dude . Well , like my shirt says , sam , we're about to do some partying .

Man , I wore my party time shirt . We're recording around July 4th . You are wearing the true party shirt , your web designer pro shirt , which is looking killer , looks good . I love the baseball style too .

I know we're going to dive into everything you've done in this first wild year of business but , dude , how's it feel ?

Like I think you had an 11 000 month to kick off this year , if I remember right , and then , yeah , you have some . That's like four or five thousand , but the average is more for you around the 6K range , which is on the doorstep of six figure , like you know , $100,000 . That's just over 8,000 . So within a year , dude , you are on track for six figures .

So that's incredible . I love hearing that the average so far this year is creeping up to the , you know , five , six , $7,000 months . Where were you at the start of this , though ? Take us back May 1st last year . Was your go live date ? Right ? Your your all in date .

Uh , my score mentor paid $300 for Google business profile optimization and one of my first clients paid like $5 to my Stripe account to make sure it worked . Uh , and that was one of my friends for a testimonial account or a testimonial website and so , yeah , so before May 1st we were at about $305 in revenue for then can designs . So that was pretty .

That was a pretty scary place to leave my full time job at .

The thing about you that I wasn't worried about , though , is that I could tell you had already done a lot of hard work up to that point to kind of build the foundation of your business , so so many things we could dive into here , but what was your runway like ?

Cause I don't always recommend diving headfirst , with no clients , full-time to quit a job Uh , obviously , you're in a place where you don't have a family yet , so you have a little bit of flexibility and freedom financially . I'm sure you would be down with eating ramen noodles for a few months if you needed to like where . What was your runway ?

What would have been ? Uh , I guess the same question is like how long did you have before you needed to start making money ?

Right Is , have a runway , don't just take the leap , and I think that's one of the harder parts for people when they want to take the leap is when you have mouths to feed and you have other people to count on you .

It makes it a lot harder , and so it's , you know , a blessing and a curse , if you will , but a blessing in this situation that I , I don't have any mouths to feed . I don't even have to pay for loafs , kibbles over here , and so you know , like , uh , so that was a little bit easier .

But , to answer your question , I had , uh , you know , I did the math and I said okay , to pay all my bills and to eat off a top ramen , like we did back in college . Um , I , I figured out what that number was .

I saved up three months and I put that in my checking account , and then I saved up another three months and I had that in my savings account and so that was my plan .

I was like , all right , so I have six months of like very lean , not even really business expenses and I set aside probably around uh , and initially a thousand dollars , and then it became like two and I think I all in all I ever invested in the business invested was 3000 and I paid myself back that , um , and so that was it .

So that was , you know , six months of not a whole lot , and six months didn't look like a lot , trust me . Um , so you know , if any emergencies would have come up or anything like that , we'd we'd be having a much different podcast episode , but luckily that didn't happen and I did have to dip into that savings at some point .

So it's very important to make sure you have that runway built , because you're definitely going to need it and you're probably going to need that extra chunk too .

What did your business offers look like at that point ? This is going to refresh my memory . Obviously I know in depth , but for those listening , I'm sure everyone's curious business offers look like at that point . This is going to refresh my memory . Obviously I know in depth , but for those listening , I'm sure everyone's curious .

Where was your business at at that point ? What did your offers look like and your price points look like ?

And you know , even back then , even a year ago , you were recommending like the growth service is probably the thing you grow into , right , you might not have that service right away . And so I was like , okay , I'm going to build websites and I'm going to maintain websites .

And you know the dream I think , that gets sold by people that are much more clickbaity on YouTube . Is that check it out , man ? All you got to do is get all these clients and get them on maintenance plans .

And then you're going to be fine and you're more realistic about it , like , hey , you're not going to get 20 clients overnight and then you'll have enough recurring revenue from your maintenance plans to survive , and even , really , is 20 clients enough to do that ? And so it was nice that you kept giving us this reality checks , and it was nice , too .

Around the time I joined Pro , I sat down with some people in bend , where I'm located here in bend , oregon , and they said I said , do you have any advice for somebody that's just getting started ? And they said don't charge anything less than $3,500 for a website . And that blew my mind .

I was like really , um , but the more I listened to you , you were saying like don't charge anything less than $2,500 across the country , no matter where you're at . And Ben's a more affluent , touristy type town , and so to be able to hear that .

And so , yeah , it was good to have that advice , cause it kind of gave me that frame of reference of like , okay , like I know I'm going to have to , you know , be a little leaner in the early days , Right , but that's the target I should be getting to as soon as possible .

And so I totally just followed your advice of like , hey , find a couple of friends , find some people in your circle , do some testimonial sites . And so I whipped out a couple you know none that I would say I'm embarrassed to point back to .

So you know , we can always go back to my friend's backflow site , which I think was one of my first uh websites uh , that was brought up in pro and uh , you know , um , and so I did a couple of those .

And then you know my biggest mistake , which you talk about , and it was just one of the few times I listened to Josh , and one of the times I should have listened to Josh was that a lead is not a client , and so I thought I'd landed a really big lead . In the middle of February I was having a rough time at work .

It was totally unrelated to my job , it was just a specific task at hand , and it was that thing that flipped the switch of like I want to make this happen way faster . Um , and so I thought I had that client . And so that's when I put in my two months notice at my job , cause I was like the office manager and like the office everything .

So I knew it'd take a long time to train somebody . Plus , I figured it'd give me enough time to land a couple of clients . Uh , get a couple of websites signed up . And yeah , between February 28th and May 1st we got zero clients signed up and that lead did not materialize into a client .

And so that was kind of the jumping out of the airplane and hoping for the best at that point . But yeah , the initial services was just websites and maintenance packages and I knew that I'd have to hustle . And so May 1st , that's what I decided to do .

I'm sure everyone has this story where you're like oh , I got this . They said , they verbally said , we're going to move forward . This is like a $5,000 or $10,000 project we're in , and then you make a big change and then , oh shoot , actually they got cold feet or they had to run it up the ladder and the person ahead of them didn't approve it .

Whatever , the fact may be , blessing in disguise for you . You were head , you were thrown headfirst into this , so you had your , your offers , prices nailed down . Um , I want to get into SEO because that became pretty quick for you . But I have to ask now how did you get your first client ?

I can't remember what it is , but it's like the people in your circle , so we'll have to hit up Eric later to remember .

I'm like Eric , I'm losing track of all your frameworks , man .

Even if you've been open for business for a while , it doesn't hurt to remind people like hey , I'm out here doing the thing and so you know . Uh , my former employer definitely needed a website . At one point it was hacked and redirecting to a website that was selling little blue pills , and so that was one of my first projects for him . I did it for free .

That was my first time working with a hacked website , so that was fun . That was very early . Chat . Gpt helped me find the PHP files that were the culprits , so that was cool and yeah anyway .

But also he's a very staunch business owner and so he was the one that talked me down . And this was another time where I didn't listen to Josh , where I was like he's not going to go higher than 2,500 .

And you were like this is you know , you , you got to stick to your gun sometimes , but then I also , like , looked at my bank account and said I need to make some money , and so , you know , I think that was . This is one of the few times that I didn't listen to .

Josh's been a good one , because , one , I think it looks good and , two , it's a bigger company in town . It's probably actually the biggest company I've worked with , and so it's nice to be able to point to that because people know it in this area . So that was it was . Sometimes you got to think about all of the factors .

Right , you don't want to do stuff for free all the time , but uh , and then it was just nice to get that money .

But I think you're in a good position and you know that client is going to lead to other businesses as well . I do want to double click into this first client , this paid project , though , because that could be potentially a very awkward one . Your former employer . So was he cool with you leaving ?

Obviously , you did a really good job of not burning that bridge . If he's going to pay you for your new endeavor , it's pretty cool .

I mean , I can't do it for free , but you know we could probably do it for a good price . And so we had , over the time where I was training my replacement , we talked about different ways . He's like , well , maybe you could do it at your hourly rate . And I said , well , I don't think that would be the best way to do it .

I should definitely run it through my business and all that stuff . I had the LLC registered and all that and so . But then they also had like kind of an allegiance to this other web designer in town who owns an agency .

But he was also really busy and really expensive and so that was kind of my in and so , basically , when I was coming back at like 4,000 , he's like , well , for another thousand I can just go to the agency . So maybe you know , if this is one of your first websites , and so that was .

That was a fair uh rebuttal and so , but yeah , I think one if there's . I've learned a lot of lessons in life and one of them is , you know , try not to burn bridges .

And uh , you know , that employer he was probably shouldn't have hired me for that job at the time did , and I , I worked my my rear off for him , uh , and I , you know , I wish I could have worked there longer because it was a good job .

All the guys there were really uh , it was a really cool place to work , but it just wasn't going to be what got me to where I wanted to be , and so I was really grateful to be able to have the time to train my replacement , who's still there today , and then to still be able to hold a relationship with him and we run into each other sometimes .

Redmond's a small town and I do a lot of networking there and uh , you know , he was like kind of uh , sponsoring one of the chamber events , kind of was like one of the co-sponsors , and he was there until we were talking a little bit and he's like , looks like business is going all right , and I was like , yeah , and so I think he was he's happy to see

that . you know cause he's . He really wants to see us succeed , other entrepreneurs succeed , so , uh , so it's been , it's been cool .

Uh , yeah , so it was like a it's like a coffee delivery company and so we , they deliver coffee out to the businesses , uh , bottled water , other things like that for state supplies , and so , uh , it's been around for a long time in the area and supplies yeah , a lot of like companies , big and small , so it was pretty cool .

There's a lot of things you could do to potentially , I hate to say , milk that network , but milk the network , right , we'll find a better term for it . What was your main marketing strategy ? Apart from that , you had the previous employer about what were you doing in-person networking ? Were you doing online strategies ?

At this point , I'd love to transition to SEO , because that's what you're known for right now . But yeah , what was your marketing ?

Sometimes I look back and just watch those videos to cringe at it . Um , but uh , you know I'll never take them down cause they're just sentimental to me .

Um , but uh , I I didn't understand how the game worked and it was like just watching , like the 10 views and the like , 12 subscribers , and most of them were my family Um , I was just like , what am I doing ? Like I had , I had no strategy . That was really it . And so when I , when I got out , uh to going all in in in May .

So I registered the business in January and that's when we joined pro that month , and then uh went all in in May . And so the initial strategy was in-person networking . Cause that's what I listened , I was like all right , all glory to Josh , what does he say ? And you said in-person networking , single category networking , referral groups are really big .

And so I started to show up to any networking event I could find . And then towards the end of May , I started to check out the B&Is in my area and the B&I-like groups and that was actually how I got . My second client was just visiting a B&I group doing a one-to-one , and then they were like I need a website , and I was like $3,500 ?

And they're like yes , and I was like , oh , it's working . And so , uh , yeah , and that's been one of my best clients , uh , to this day , and she's a doula . I never thought I would make a website for somebody that catches babies for a living . That's her words , not mine .

Um , but uh , yeah , she's been an amazing client and so I , I I seriously consider joining the BNI group , but in this area , uh , to get started , it's $1,500 . And at that time but I continue to show up to things there's a couple of different groups .

Uh , in this area there's the chamber in Redmond , um , and so , um , yeah , I was just trying to selectively uh , do that and just get out there . Uh , because I've really learned , you know , trial by fire is that you have to get exposure .

In the early days People don't even know you exist , and so you know , it's not that people don't know what , then , can designs is and what it does . But people don't know who Sam is , and so they're like they're not . They don't even know you . How are they going to learn to like you ? How are they going to learn to trust you ?

How are they going to learn to want to buy from you ? Um , and so that was . Those were lessons that were hard learned . And so the first couple of paid clients , you know , besides that one , I ended up getting a couple of landing pages . I'm trying to remember how the heck I got them . I think I did get the next thing .

So , as I was struggling to get clients , the next thing I decided to work on was my own SEO Cause . Why not ? Right ? It's supposed to get you all this business if you do it right . And so one of the first things I did , before I even really knew how to do local SEO , was I stole the via forge strategy , as I like to call it , from inside a pro .

And so in Josh's SEO course , which you haven't taken it , that should be the first SEO course you take , um it he , you know , you have this example , and I believe it was your SEO power partner from from back in the day , right uh , he's a colleague of mine .

And he literally showed me what I show in my SEO course , which is exactly how he created these local landing pages for SEO which , quote unquote , aren't supposed to be what Google likes nowadays but it still freaking works .

I wasn't ranking even in the top 30 for Bend web design , but I was ranking first for Madras web design and so I think that's how he got to the site and so that was really cool to like get that early dopamine hit of like , oh , SEO can work , Uh . And the other thing I was also learning too yeah , real quick on that .

It started ranking within a week and it sits there to this day , and that's one of the little lessons about local SEOs .

I was just curious about the window between you creating that location page and then getting a lead from it .

But you know , you say I build websites for small businesses and they're like , yeah , everybody does that , but how do I rank higher on Google ? That seemed to be the follow-up question . And also my very first business card , which I don't have with me today .

That would be a fun visual aid , but I put SEO actually as my growth service and so , even though I wasn't ready to offer it yet , and so oftentimes I'd hand people that business card and they're like , oh , you do SEO .

And I'd be like , well , kind of I do it like in the website build , um , but you know , really it's something you should do , ongoing , but I'm just not really at the point where I should be selling that to people and and like a lot of people would honestly be like , hey , when you're ready , let me know .

And like I should have kept a log of those people , but I didn't , and so , uh , but yeah , that was me like doing my first , uh , what do they call it ? Uh , you know , we were asking people the questions , the something marketing , um , where you're uh , but anyway , I was .

I was figuring out from the people , from the actual conversations that we were having , that people cared about SEO , and so I was like I should probably learn more about that . And so , you know , a lot of people that do web design are probably familiar with the uh feast or famine that occurs between projects .

Right , you know you , you get a project , everything's good , life is great , and then there's that downturn in between clients , right , and then you get the next project and like , oh sweet , right , and maybe it's even just the blips between the payments , right , the initial payment and the on delivery payment .

Sometimes that can be a just a painful point where you're like I'm not getting any money right now , and so , uh , I looked at pro and I was looking like who's rocking it in pro ?

And there's people like April Ray that does email marketing , uh , and some other people that have growth services , and I was like these are the people that appear to have six figure businesses . Appear to be rocking . It appear to have team members . And I was like I think that's the missing piece . I have to pick a growth service .

And it was actually Ann that encouraged me to do to look into Google business profiles . And so then I worked on my Google business profile and that made it show up on the first page , which is still like 20th . But that was just another quick win of like this stuff works , I just need to figure it out .

And so then I was like so every time I get in the famine stage after you know I got done with the like lying in the fetal position on the floor and chewing my nails I get up out of that place of fear that I'd normally sit in a lot longer and I'd be like let's go learn something about SEO today . And , um , that's just kind of how it started .

I think what you hit on there and all seriousness , sam , is that you were actively in person talking to real people , real business owners , because they will tell you what they're looking for . And , by golly , I love that . You had an interest in SEO . A lot of people don't , and that's where you got to do something else to help put in your growth service .

So for you , I love that . That was the common trend that they would be interested in a website and then inevitably ask for SEO . So you went through the SEO course . You started doing local SEO At that point I think we did a hot seat back then about your packages , right ?

I'm trying to remember now , at that point , when you were taking SEO more seriously , like what was your first SEO offer , your official offer package ?

Some of them will give you like a blip , like here's the theoretical and it's like , okay , I've learned about a 301 redirect . Enough . Like somebody tell me how to actually , how do I actually rank higher for local SEO ?

Um , but you know , if you go out there and you grab like all the free resources on YouTube and pay for a couple of courses , you can kind of , uh , scrap together something , um , and so that's kind of what I was doing , and every time I learned a new lesson I was like , okay , let's apply it to then can site , and it was really cool to start to see the

results materialize . Uh , and like , what got me to the point where I felt comfortable enough to offer it as a service was then can designs was starting to rank in the map pack . Uh , for its Google business profile on this side of town . It's very proximity based , um .

And then it was also on the first page for bend web design , which was the keyword that I'd always been targeting , um . I finally made it to the first page and I was like , oh , okay , I think I think I can finally do this . And I'd also done it for those first couple of clients the coffee company , the doula .

I wasn't doing ongoing SEO , but I was really dialing in the website based mostly based off of your SEO course , and you know , the doula was second for Ben doula , the coffee place was really high for their keywords and so I was like , okay , so like this stuff works and I just have to get over the imposter syndrome and offer it . And so I decided to .

I had a really good lead come in from the networking group in Redmond that I ended up joining later on because they were cheaper , but they're still really great . They're great people .

I was there this morning , anyway , had a good lead come through , talk to the gal and she was basically cool with like $500 a month and I was like , okay , I could , that sounds like an okay starting place . And so , uh , and her whole thing was she , she has a . She's a florist in Redmond .

She was ranking third in the map pack and she wanted to be first . Um , and so I was like , okay , like uh , and this is where I came up with my little slogan that I say in every lead call . I say , well , look , I can't promise that I can get you to rank first , but I do promise that I will work my ass off for you .

And she said that sounds good enough for me . And so you know , she was the first client . And then that same week I reached out to the cabinet maker that I was working with and he , his whole situation was he relocated from a different state that we don't like to talk about and bend a lot . I hit the mic and California anyway .

And so he moved to bend and he had no seo , obviously , because we had to refresh his website and move it to bend and he was initially showing up like 30 something for , like , custom cabinets and I could see he had all these opportunities for his other services and down the road . But he needed , he would really need , ongoing seo .

And so I went to him and I said you know , hey , for 400 a month I'll do your SEO Like I was . Just I was making these numbers up Like I was trying to . I was just trying to figure it out Right , and I want to be really honest about this for the people that are offering local SEO , like you're going to have to this first couple it's going to .

It might be a little sketchy , but that's okay . Um and so , and he said like , uh , maybe . And then I said , well , I'll give you three months for two months . So if you give me $800 right now cause I was looking at , you know people on YouTube that were talking about sales I was like , if you do it right now , we'll make that price happen .

He said I need to think about it . And I said , okay , cause I've always been really bad at sales . Uh , but he thought about it for a week and actually a contact form submission came through on the website that he did , and so he was like you know what I see the volume in this , let's try it out .

And the crazy part was when I was there in his shop that day , he had one project and it was just him . And three months later , when I went back to his shop , it was full and he had a helper working for him and he's still a client to this day and that florist is first in the map pack right now . So that was those . So that was those two .

You know that that got me over the imposter syndrome that I can charge money , and it also like showed me that , uh , whatever I'm doing is working , like , keep doing it , refine the systems , get it dialed in and push forward , and around that time I started to learn about SEO sprints .

Shout out to Ryan Stewart and Blueprint Training If you want to start a seven-figure SEO agency , he's a pretty good resource to check out .

But the thing that I noticed was that a lot of people I'm not trying to get to seven figures , I'm trying to get to my first six figures and then the second six figures , and I think a lot of people are in that spot and so I was finding a lot of the stuff that he was teaching good , but it was at like a higher level that I wasn't quite ready to get

to , and so I was trying to figure out how to like translate that to to small businesses that needed local SEO .

Anyone who does any amount of SEO will knows , or will quickly find out , that that is not something that's an overnight success . Like website design , there's a before and after switch , there's before and then , there's after , once the site goes live . Seo , though , as you've rightly already articulated , it takes a little bit of time .

Sometimes not that much time , though . It could be a couple of weeks for a location page , like you talked about . So I love that that worked out . In fact , I don't know .

However , I'm a person who likes to admit when I'm wrong , and I think that that's a short-sighted thought .

I think that that's an okay package to have , but I do think that SEO tends to work better if we can all work together for a long time , and so I think having that option to have either a short-term contract or a long-term contract is actually a good idea , and right now , what I've settled on is leading with a 12-month commitment , and then , if they're not

interested in that , I kind of default back to the old sprint model where I'm like , okay , you have to pay more upfront because we're going to do a lot of heavy lifting in the early days , and then the price tapers down over time . Um , but you can .

You can pull the rip cord at any time if you don't feel this is uh , if , if you don't want to invest in this anymore . But the problem I was having with that is that people were leaving is people would . They'd start to either one that they didn't quite see any results after the first month . That's because that's not how SEO works , right ? Um , um .

And so they , they would leave after the first month . Um , or we'd be clicking along and they're getting some business .

And now , because they had business , they looked at the other expenses that they hadn't been able to pay for and they're like I want to pause and go get my band wrapped , or I want to pause , I'm going to go do this and I'm like , oh , but that's not how it works , but that's how it was set up .

So they had that , right , um , and so that's kind of why I'm changing gears a little bit here . Uh , you know , you gotta learn right , you gotta I . I often I used to use the analogy that I'm walking across a bridge right now , but I'm putting down the boards with each step .

Uh , but it's really more like flying in an airplane that we're building in the air , and it's like every day the plane could crash , but it's a hell of a ride in the meantime .

So the same local SEO plan that you may offer is probably going to be different in Columbus , and it would be very different in Chicago , or very different in LA . It would be very different depending on those different variables . I think it's what's tricky about it .

Either way , though , regardless , it makes sense that a 12-month commitment would be the ideal thing , because that's going to give you also time to pivot and change , potentially quarterly , to see a strategy play out .

I would think at the very least Um , I would think at the very least doing 90 day sprints , and I don't know , I don't know Ryan Stewart's uh program , but I would think like a 90 day deal would be the bare minimum to get going on , and then maybe go month to month after that .

Imagine that would be a good place to start , and then maybe , if somebody goes 12 month commitment , then that's where there's a lot more value added bonuses , maybe strategy involved with that and all that . Maybe that could be something different . But so I'm uh , I got . I couldn't keep track of what you're doing now , sam .

Are you doing 12 month commitments now and moving forward , or are you doing monthly or quarterly ?

And so I started to offer SEO sprints , and the way I was doing it was there would be a foundation sprint , which is really like disaster recovery Google business profile optimization , finding all the keywords that we need , and it's really the strategy phase . I also try to look for some easy wins .

I was learning , especially after those first couple of clients I did it with , is , if you can't show those early wins , then they might not want to stick around , and so I really tried to find Internally . I'm looking at 5 things and I might highlight 2 of them at the end . See how we got you from 7th to 4th .

I know that's not exactly what we want , but that was a nice little boost . So now imagine what can happen over time . And so that's that first phase , which is usually a month . And then the growth sprint is where we build up the content , which sometimes a full website refresh , sometimes it's just building on a couple of service pages or location pages .

It just depends on where the client's at . And then the last phase is what I like to call .

This is different than what Ryan Stewart does the SEO care plan , where you focus on ongoing Google Business Profile management , on-page SEO optimization over time , and then off-page SEO opportunities , those dirty dirty backlinks , and so those are the three things that matter for local SEO .

That's what I found out , and so the goal is to get down to that , and my plan was always like if we could get the price down to lower than the agencies in town , people will be happy .

But there's a lot of heavy lifting , especially the content creation , along the way to get there , so we have to charge a little bit more , especially the content creation along the way to get there , so we have to charge a little bit more .

And so and those clients are you know what's gotten me to the point that I'm at today but I've also realized like for this to be sustainable , it kind of needs to be more productized and needs to be easier to pitch , because I've had a couple of leads get confused as I'm explaining that , and I see the perplexed face on that Josh has over here for the

podcast listeners , and so nowadays it's very simple SEO TLC plan If you have a website that's in good shape , maybe it was recently refreshed and you need help ranking higher . That plan is $999 a month and it's 12 months , and then if you end up needing a couple of pages built out , no problem . Whatever the page builder is , I'll figure it out .

And then the other plan is I like to call it SEO TLC plus plan where you also need a website , and so it's like you haven't had your website refreshed in a while , or maybe you need one from scratch .

A lot of businesses that are just starting out aren't ready to invest in seo yet , but usually it's a site needs to be refreshed or they're working with an agency and they left them with this like kind of clunker , and so , uh , we'll get the website refreshed , and that one's 12.99 a month , and so , uh , and if anybody in the process maybe like I'll just say

this , because you know this is a web design business podcast like if anybody is not a good fit , i'll'll I'll weed them out along the way , like , if they don't need local SEO , I'll let them know that , like this , these are local SEO packages . You need national SEO .

If they end up needing like a really custom solution for a website , I'll be like look , you don't actually qualify for this plan because you're going to need this , this and this .

But here's what I can do instead , and so you know that was kind of part of Michelle's encouragement was to weed out after the fact , and so I'm trying to just keep it really simple on the website here .

But you need the traffic first , and you need to have a solid platform , aka website , with the correct lead generator pages and everything , and then you get them to pay you .

I knew we were gonna get into some coaching here , sam , because here's my one caveat with your current situation , Bearing in mind that , first of all , again to reiterate , you've done an incredible job up to this point you are knocking on the door of six figures in MRR , at $6,000 to $7,000 per month on average .

The thing I would encourage you to think about , though , is that these plans are still so close together , like $99999 and 1299 is almost the same price bucket . Um , now , over the span of a year , that does look different . I'll give you that , because what's right ? What's 1300 in a year ?

hold on 1299 15 6 15 , yeah , 15 , 6 , so that you know up significantly from 12,000 a year . However , it's still pretty darn close . What would your thought be to have a doubled tier , a doubled price ? Like what could you do to have a 99 , nine , 99 month monthly tier and then a 1999 monthly tier ? How does that strike you ?

I've been reading things like E-Myth and I've taken your scaling course and I got like the org chart built out and it's , like you know , looking at the writing on the wall , like a thousand dollars per month out a full website and $3,600 maybe isn't the best price for a website , but I've got some good systems and team members in place where we can do it

pretty lean , and so that's one of the reasons why that was the main reason why there's that price uh , differential but yeah , I think yeah .

Like , in order to qualify for that , they need to have a site that has certain things in place , and if they're not ready for that , they need to have a site that has certain things in place . And if they're not ready for that , then we could build your new site , maybe for the one-off fee , but then we initiate your local SEO immediately upon completion .

That's kind of the way I would think about that . But , as you just mentioned , there may be a productized version .

I wonder if , in a world where could you have like a 4.99 or 5.99 foundation seo that's ongoing and then more of the 9.99 that's your , your standard , and then two to three thousand a month , that is , you know , your top tier for local seo one thing that I've done , because I've really been looking in that like value proposition ladder escalator model Uh , if

you actually switch over the web design page , I just revamped that one too , uh .

They're just like I don't have $5,000 right now . Um and uh . So but I've noticed that when I ask people for $500 a month , they're they're like here you go , uh , and so I think I'm .

I'm looking at that as a way to kind of build up the client base , because we all know it's easier to sell to people that you've already sold to , and so that's kind of a shift that I'm willing to try , so that's kind of an experiment .

So I have two tiers where basically one's a landing page for a pretty low price and then the other one is like the five-ish page build . That pretty much equates to five-ish thousand dollars at the end of the year and it includes like what would be the equivalent of a basic maintenance plan okay .

And I'm curious to see how this plays out for you , because I know that could get a little muddy . Again , we're dealing with one-off projects and well , what you're really dealing with is ongoing recurring work like local SEO . That includes on-site work and content and off-site work and then payment plans for a one-off project . That's where this gets a little .

So , uh , michelle helping with that , uh , updating that page recently uh , just a couple of weeks ago , it was the week before the 4th of July , and I launched the site , the page , on Monday night and one of the reasons why I wanted to revamp the pages we're already ranking first for SEO Bend , oregon .

If you want to see how I do that , you can go watch a video series on YouTube about it . But anyway , I hadn't gotten any clients from it and I thought maybe it's the copy on the website . And so I decided to reach out to Michelle and do her copy boost package .

And uh , and it was amazing , but she was like hey , if you're going to put the pricing on here , do do it like this . And obviously I'm still kind of refining it . But I put it up there . And the next day , literally Tuesday , I got a text from somebody and they're like hey , I can't , none of the times on your Calendly work .

Uh , can we just talk over email or the phone ? And by the end of the week I closed that client for a property management company in town . And so , uh , you know it was , they got on there they saw 999 , they said 999 does not scare us , um and so . And then they signed up and their their website's good enough , where we can , we can work with that .

And so that was the first 12 month commitment . Nine 99 a month plan ?

I had no idea if I was going to get myself to rank first . I was like , ah , we'll see what happens , and so I was pretty . Uh actually made myself rank down at first , which is kind of funny If you watch the whole series . I was in like the fifties and sixties at one point and I was panicking .

I was , but I still probably look like an idiot on YouTube but I did get myself drank first , so that was pretty good .

What you've done in this first year is you have , first off just as a quick recap , just to put us where we are on this foundation for you , you learned web design . You built your business around my recommendation of the build support grow model .

You chose growth services , as in local SEO , primarily local SEO started getting results and then you created packages and ongoing packages that have shifted over time , but you're really refining that and nailing that into what's working for you . And now you're finding that the website packages are . You know they can conflict and work together with the SEO packages .

So there's a lot of different ways to go about ongoing and recurring services for growth with SEO , along with one-off services . So , by golly , if the subscription model works for you , awesome . If it's kind of a downsell or a starter point , then it's an upgrade . Whatever is working is cool .

I think what's interesting about where you're at now , and what is very , very common for folks who are on the doorstep of six figures , is your offers tend to change to when you get to 50 and I see you're nodding your head , you're probably , it's probably what you're finding .

It's like , the offers that get you to 50 to 75 000 per year are not the same offers that get you to 100 to 200 000 per year , or let's just say a quarter million , because generally anything between low six figures , like 100,000 to quarter million , are usually the same , just the scale is a little bit different . So what , I guess ?

One question I have for you at this point , sam . I again kind of half coaching , half half interview , because I love picking , you know , picking through to see what has worked for you . But I'm wondering have you written all this out on a spreadsheet ?

Have you done that , where you've literally mapped out what your revenue goal is and what your services are to sell these as almost like units ?

And having no manager , that guy's locked up in the closet over there , he's not allowed to work , Um and so , um , yeah , kind of like flying by the seat of your pants not really realizing like .

That's why it was hard for me to answer that monthly recurring revenue number , even though I've looked at it more now , like I should have actually the average number the average like revenue number , not monthly recurring revenue is is actually closer to 8,000 .

We're pretty on track to hit a hundred thousand , but the monthly recurring revenue is is definitely a lot closer to five . And the reason why it's hard for me to see those numbers is because I haven't really looked at them until recently .

And the difference maker is that one in the early days and I will tell everybody I do everything , I try to do it a quarter step too early , but sometimes I'll take a full or maybe two steps too early . I try to do it a quarter step too early , but sometimes I'll take a full or maybe two steps too early .

And so , as soon as the SEO started to work , I immediately started to look for subcontractors to work with for websites , because I felt like , even though I'd only built maybe 10 or so websites at that point , I felt like because Josh gave me such a good SOP that I had the system dialed in and I was like now I just have to find the worker bees to help

me do that , and I had a couple false starts . But I now have a really good uh web design team and they've built the last five or six websites . And now instead , of spending that awesome 40 or more hours on a website like .

Uh , I spend maybe five doing , like you know , the the client facing stuff , and then coming at the end and doing the seo stuff , um , and and so that's been really cool .

But it was too late in the term . But it felt like the growth was going like this and , spoiler alert it started to go flat for the people in podcast land . I was going up into the right and then I went flat and so that's what's happened over the last quarter went flat and so that's what's happened over the last quarter .

But I was making decisions like we were going to continue up into the right . Of course , that didn't happen . That's the way business works , right . At least it hasn't gone down .

But anyway , I ended up actually reaching out to somebody or I put a posting out there and ended up hiring an SEO assistant , and so he works X number of hours per month roughly , and it's on a contractor basis and basically for the first couple of months he's just been learning , training and doing things , eventually doing like Google business profile posts and

things like that .

But more recently , we've started to actually dig into some of the SEO work , and this is , I feel , like it's getting me to the point where so the nice thing is like , as he's been able to take on a couple more more tasks , I'm able to take a step back , because that's been my problem and that's the problem with , like , local seo or even web design .

Right , it's like you get in there and you start doing so much client work , you get lost and doing all the work and then you can't really focus on your business anymore because you're surprised . You got busy , uh , and now you're stuck working in the business instead of on the business .

And so even just in the last month or so , I've been able to take a deep breath and look at the business and say what does this actually look like ? Not like bare minimum , like I can't just pay this guy and me top ramen wages forever .

If we were actually going to make enough money where we would be happy and we paid our subcontractors a fair rate and we took on this many clients , what does it look like ? What does it look like , like you said , at this rate ? What does it look like at this rate .

And so you know my , my stretch goal which is crazy like , my gross revenue in 2023 was like $20,000 , you know , uh and so , which was really just the back half of the year , but that's not enough to live off of Times that by two , that's like $40,000 .

That's not enough to live in most cities , let alone Bend , and it's over $20 dinners all over the place and so .

But my stretch goal has always been let's try to get to $10,000 per month , and so it was cool to actually see that on one month , no-transcript , that's , that's doable , and so , and when I actually look at the vision for where I think this company is going to be , um , it needs to be more than $10,000 , unfortunately , like , for better or worse , like , um ,

and so like , when I look at that , it almost feels like this daunting task that I'll never get to Right .

But you know , josh Hall in you know 2010 , still with drum lesson on his business card , working in dream Weaver , probably didn't think that in transit studios would come to be and build into the you know multi six figure company that it became , and he probably didn't believe that when he sold it to Eric that it would someday grow into this seven figure .

You know digital marketing agency but it's like you know , eric says this in his podcast , which I know he stole from somebody else , but I can't remember that person , so I'll attribute it to Eric . But he says you know , you don't go into it , you grow into it .

And so that's kind of my goals is like okay , by the end of 24 , I would love to get to $10,000 a month of recurring revenue , and you know , so that's the goal . And then , which looks like you know 10-ish clients , which I have more than that , but unfortunately they're not on $1,000 plans , but that's okay .

And then you know the long-term goal is I don't know , it's afraid to say it out loud , but I'm afraid to say it out loud is like $50,000 of monthly recurring revenue , because I think that's the size you got to get to , to have employees and not even like real estate .

I think that would be a good number to get to and it looks like 50-ish clients and that sounds like a lot . But if you reverse engineer it like you do , I remember one of the first things I watched , which I think was the thing before I paid the $200 for the first course .

I paid for a Josh Hall course was the how to make six figures a year as a web designer . And it was the first time and I've seen videos like this before and I don't know if it was recency bias or what . But you said , let's reverse engineer this . $100,000 divided by 12 is $8,333 . So how do we make $8,000 a month ?

And I was like , oh , I never really thought about it like that , right , um and uh . So if you look at what's $50,000 a month , look like if that's 50 clients , how do we get to 50 clients by the end of 25 ? It's actually only like four clients a month , which is a hell of a lot more than I'm getting right now .

But if I'm going to my networking groups in Redmond and my assistant's going to his networking group in Bend and we also start to double back down on the YouTube channel , because we've gotten three clients across the country , we got clients out from Bend all the way out to the Atlantic Ocean at Then Can Designs , and so it's like you know , if we double down

on that and focus on making videos , not at SEOs and web designers , like I've been doing the last couple of months , but aim back at small business owners again , not at SEOs and web designers like I've been doing the last couple of months , but aim back at small business owners again .

And if we just keep showing up and getting good results and , you know , more referrals will come in . I think four clients per month is totally doable , and so by the end of 25 , you know , maybe then can designs will be , you know , creeping up on Eric's doorsteps , so keep up with in transit . I have like nine different tangents .

You don't even know if you're actually set up for success , and that's why not everything is about a monetary goal , but for most businesses , you need to have a monetary goal , because that's going to determine what you can do with your lifestyle goal .

You need to know what you want to take home after expenses , after taxes , after hopefully having some profit in your business , and then you build from there , and then you set the vision .

I have to say this , though , sam , because you , like myself and every other entrepreneur I know , are very , very hard on themselves , and you probably feel like I should be doing so much more . I should be so much further .

Like , yeah , 8,000 on average with your MRR , your monthly recurring and your one-off projects is cool , but it's not where you want to be . But , dude , you have , in a year and a half , gone from actually just over a year , because he actually started May 1st in 2023 . We're talking in July 24 .

And just over a year , you are thinking about and planning for $50,000 a month . Did you ever think that would ? Even when you started in May , did you think you would be at this point ? I mean you have . You have made the foundation for , and you're actually already creeping on six figures , whether you realize it or not .

Here's the really cool thing , dude , is you have set the foundation for , and all of your work is going to compound very quickly here over the next the end of 2024 , the back half and in 25 . You have actually , whether you realize it or not , you've set the foundation for a quarter million dollar business .

So , with a few refinements , with your team in place , with you freeing yourself up to market and to do the big picture stuff and to actually reel this in , you are actually like there's almost no , you're almost beyond looking at six figures .

Now you're looking at quarter million Once you are on track and things are cooking with your systems and process , or quarter million , that's when you get into the $50,000 months and that's a half million dollar business over over a half million dollar business right there .

So I do want to just pause you and say , dude , like , take stock and maybe I don't know maybe my coaching advice in pro for you , cause I'm about to send everyone an email on pro and I want to hear how the first half of the year has gone . I'll tell you right now , publicly . Like , maybe just take a day off , just go high .

You're in the mountains over there , go hiking . Yeah , look , I really honestly , sam , I want to encourage you to like look back at this first year and just look back at that . That's freaking awesome what you've done . Like you yes , you're the technician , you're the solopreneur I actually think you've done it right . I think you've done it right .

I think you've done everything right . I think before you can sit back and be the business owner and work on the business , you don't do that six months into your business . No , you got to get your work boots on . You got to freaking , do some work . You mentioned earlier the whole like keeping things realistic .

Unfortunately , a thumbnail that says like you're going to have to work your ass off is not the catchy . It's not going to boost my online presence as much , right , but I do try to , as you know , keep it realistic , like it is going to be a lot of work .

It's a lot of work , but so is anything that's worthwhile , and you have done the work to lay the foundation for six figures . Now you're looking at multi-six figures . So all that to say , sam , I got to really in and say , dude , take like , take stock of how amazing you've done this first year . You've really done an incredible job , man .

And the moments that I did like internally work , cause I think it's hard for entrepreneurs to turn this part off , which is like the , that's the hardest part to clock off of right , clock out of um . I pointed to my brain for the people listening Um , the uh , I was looking forward .

I wasn't looking back , right , I was like , okay , now that I have time and space to look ahead , let's look at some of these things which I'd already been looking at , but refining , actually , looking at some specific numbers , things like that how much money do I need to save for my taxes for the rest of the year to catch up on what I haven't saved so far

? Anyway , that's all my bookkeeper Anyway .

But I should do that to take a step back , because what's happened in the last year has been pretty incredible and I recently had the blessing to do a pro training inside of Web Designer Pro , which is really cool , and I said in there all glory to Josh , but it's true , to put a bow on the story , two years ago today was around the time I started working ,

actually as an office manager , but right before that I was actually unemployed and I was on food stamps . I was at kind of a rebuilding phase in my life , putting the pieces together , being mindful , figuring out what I wanted , and I realized that my primary core value was service and I wanted to help people and I knew that I would just and .

But I also knew that I needed help to get to that point , and I had never During college . I felt like I was too good for food stamps . But I reached out and did it , because I just needed a couple extra bucks .

And I found out there are actually these resources in the state of Oregon that you could sign up for if you're on that program through WorkSource Oregon , and so I actually reached out to them . I was trying to refine my resume and things like that , and they'll help people at any point on their journey .

And so they're like oh , did you know that we can actually not only can we help you with this job , but we can help you with your long-term goals ? And they were actually nice enough to not only get me things like new interview clothes , which was cool , but they also hooked me up with a couple free courses .

I was planning on going back to school for computer science . That was the original plan , but then , after I helped somebody build a WordPress website in one weekend thanks to a Darrell Wilson video shout out to the party people out there it planted the seed in my mind that maybe I could do web design .

And I just happened to search for web design podcast one day as I entered in a million checks into QuickBooks which is what I did at my office job and you know took that how to make six figures in a web design free course paid the $200 for the first Josh Hall course .

And then I went back to those people because there was , I think , a Black Friday deal going on and they said your last offer as a part of this program is we'll do one more training for you . And it was X number of dollars , and the X number of dollars matched what the bundle was at that time .

And I never reached out to anybody on the internet before , but I reached out to Josh and I said , hey , they need . The state was actually going to pay for this course , but I need an invoice . And Josh , you know , within a day , wrote back and was like here's the invoice .

And uh , the the cool part is , after that all got done and I started to rip through all of the Josh Hall courses . At that point was I reached back out and I said , hey , is there any way I can get that $200 back ? And I wasn't sure what he would say .

I always figured like all those online course people are scammers and they're just trying to make as much money . But Josh was like yeah , absolutely . And I took that $200 and I saved it and I said I'm going to spend this on Web Designer Pro when I start my business . And so , on New Year's Eve in 2022 , I said I'm going to do this .

I'm going to follow what Josh Hall says . I'm going to start this business . But I got to actually do it . And so in the first month I challenged myself to register my LLC , open up a business checking account , business credit card , get business cards and launch my website .

And on February 1st we did that website review where you did my original website , which you can still see to this day at oldthencanthencandesignscom .

That was the site that you reviewed , josh , and it felt at that point , even though I knew I wasn't ready for what was ahead , I knew that I could do this because I had the support of Web Designer Pro , and that's the only reason I'm here today .

I think a lot of people need to know to hear about that too , because it could be easy to look at where you're at now and feel like like I'm just getting started . How am I going to get to six figures , or even five to $6,000 a month ? But you are maybe the prime example of what it takes to get to that level in a year .

I mean , not everyone needs to do it in a year either , but you're a go getter , you're an Eagle , as they used to say in my networking group . We would look for Eagles . And yeah , I mean , you went all in . And the cool thing is too .

I think something you talked about earlier is everybody has the ebbs and flow as an entrepreneur Peaks and valleys where you're like laying in the floor in a fetal position . But , you mentioned that you got up and you just kept on going it .

You got up and you just kept on going and that , my friends , I cannot , I can't , reiterate how important what you did there , sam , is , which is you just keep going , you keep learning , you try , you implement , you just go .

The reality is , the only way you will fail as a web designer is if you quit , because you could just pivot and keep learning and try a different offer . Go to a networking group , post on social media , do whatever . Get on Upwork , one of the . I'm working right now on a guide , a 50 step guide to getting clients .

There are so many ways , as I'm I'm writing this guide out , which is basically a book , and I'm like , oh my gosh , this is like . I never thought about how many ways I got clients , but it was this method . It was like I tried this that didn't work , tried this that worked , cool , we'll do that again . You do that over and over .

Next thing , you know you're the next Sam . So , man , I really , really appreciate hearing your story , sam , as a capper on this conversation and again , I just I want to reiterate I know you're hard on yourself and I can see you have . You know you want to hit that next step .

But , dude , just if I could give you any bit of encouragement in this stage of the game . Be proud of all the work you've done at this point and just enjoy it because you have done . You did what I did in like seven years , in a year and a half .

Just try to take it . The calendar calendar set up like that for a reason . Take it one day at a time and I guarantee you once you stack up 365 of those maybe there's 366 this year , but once you do that , you're going to be pretty impressed with where you're at in the day .

But if you sit there and just keep thinking about how am I going to do this , how am I going to do this , how am I going to do this , and you don't actually do any action , you're probably going to be in the same place 365 days from now .

Uh , the offer has changed because I have all the courses inside of Pro Right , which I'm actually . The next step of what I'm going to be doing with Pro is some resources and pathways for folks who just want to go through the courses before you come into the community .

So I'm working on that right now , actually , but you had mentioned , you said at the end you say apologies for the lengthy message , but thank you , josh , for inspiring me . As much as I love my current job , here we go . I know I'm worth more than $21 an hour . I can't express how much it means to have been empowered by you and your journey .

$21 an hour to your eyes are set and your goals are set for $50,000 a month . So incredible , dude . It's freaking awesome , freaking awesome . Tons of work to do , but man , enjoy every step of the process . So let's talk local SEO as we wrap this up .

You mentioned , yep , you did a training inside of Pro here recently and I told you , with your blessing , I'm going to make that available publicly . We do guest expert trainings every month inside of Web Designer Pro and I'm going to make yours available on YouTube . So that's actually .

I'm going to make sure that comes out , uh , by the time this is out , so everyone will be able to watch your pro training and you are a full-blown web printer now as well . I'm actually growing my coaching tips for you .

But , uh , now do a couple more reps at the gym or whatever you're doing right now . Uh , but uh , you know it was actually one of the members of pro . I'll leave them anonymous . But they reached out to me at the start of the year when I was really starting to cook with this local SEO stuff , and they said well , you teach me everything you know .

And I said I'm not qualified to do that . And they , they said something super profound , something along the lines of even if you're just a couple steps ahead of me , it's going to be worthwhile . And I said I still said I don't know . And they said I'll give you some money . And I said , okay , let's do it .

Um and so , uh , and as we were going through those sessions we just did like five zoom sessions I tried to teach them , in this haphazard manner , everything that I knew . Um , at up to that point , they kept saying please turn this into a course . Please turn this into a course .

People are going to find value from it and please let me have it for free when you get done with it . No , just kidding . They didn't say that , um , and , and I had another person reach out , actually from YouTube . They watched my YouTube videos and they asked to be trained on Google business profiles .

And I was just like , damn , uh , and that person was in Ireland . Uh , so that was like what . I don't even know this person , um , and so it just kept planting these seeds . And then I have a small little email list and I reached out to them . I said would anybody be willing to walk through a rough draft of these courses ?

And I won't reveal that person either , but they did and they spent like I was thinking about this today when I was driving around Cause I was listening to the last couple episodes of the web design business podcast and I was like I have spent hours in my car with Josh and his guests over the last year and a half and I was like this person spent hours with

me and it was like it felt like such an honor for them to go through . And it was like loom videos . It was bad . I was like messing up in the middle and they would leave feedback , they'd leave comments like you should have a graphic here and you should do this , and I loved how critical they were and I was just like I got to do this .

And so I said , okay , I'm going to make this thing called local SEO Academy , I'm going to make a couple of courses and this is what I'm going to do . And I reached out to Josh for some coaching and , of course , he told me exactly what I needed to hear , which is exactly what I didn't want to hear .

And he said if you put courses out , you're going to be doing support anyway and the money's in communities anyway . So just make a community . I was like , damn you , josh , I don't need another thing right now , but I , I've always really been . You know , like I said , my primary core value is service .

I love teaching , I love helping people , and so , um , I decided to just throw caution to the wind , and so this is , you know , just kind of my my little side hustle here .

And so , uh , we soft launched with that , uh , pro , um , that pro training , and right now we have about 15 ish early adopters right now here on July 9th uh , which is pretty cool , um and uh . So that's exactly the spot I wanted to be at with it .

And so by the time this comes out , uh , right now we have two courses in there the GBP expert course , which is going to be fully launched by end this week , and then we have the big one , the local SEO masterclass , and that one is a honker . We're really just trying to edit all the videos . We have them all out to five modules .

It's like over , it's like six to eight hours of content . So it's a lot of stuff , um , but it's good stuff . And then we also have the community aspect , and that's already been going really good . We have our first SEO challenge going on in there right now , uh , and so we're trying to rank our own sites higher .

So I'm even trying to rank my site higher for Ben Web Design , because I'm not ranking first for that . I'd like to . But anyway , at this point , when this releases , we should be rolling out the final course for now , which is called Selling SEO Services to Clients , and so that'll actually be like how do you do it ?

Hopefully it'll include my SOPs , which I've been refining with my assistant lately , because apparently you can't just have your business live in your brain . I learned that from Josh a long time ago .

So , if anybody out there is interested in local SEO , a lot of the people on the group right now are just beginners , but I really want to create a community that's a lot like pro . I like to think of it as being complimentary to pro .

It could be something that you have , like you're in pro and local SEO Academy , but it's basically a group of people that are just trying to help each other rank higher and try to help their clients rank higher , because that is how we get results for our clients .

Like , we build them this beautiful website , but if nobody's going to it , that's not how they're going to get results , and so , and if you can get results for clients , then they're going to fall in love with you and they're going to want to pay for your services ongoing , and so you know , if you want to be having the tough conversations of like , how do I

get from $10,000 a month of recurring revenue to $50,000? , then hopefully those are the conversations we'll be having in Local SEO Academy . But we're just getting started , and so I'm pretty sure I'm going to try to remember the link that I gave Josh I think it's localseoacademyco . Slash Josh , and that'll be a little landing page with a deal for you .

So , even if it's mini moons from now , as long as local SEO Academy exists , welcome from the future , future listener . But there will still be a deal for you , even in the future .

If you were just to do one as a local seo course and I would say , just do the course like if it's just a point a to point b or if it's on a tool or like a , basically you know , like like a topical type course , and just do the course .

But you've got several courses and you've got people in different places of the journey where you're going to need to create pathways to those courses and then have community support . So it's like , dude , yeah , you might as well have that in there .

And honestly , I'll tell you publicly , sam , I was like , should we just make local SEO Academy part of pro and just have it as like its own thing ? But then I'm like that's going to take over . That's like you know , what I mean . Like then everything would be about local SEO and some people may not be ready for that or have interest in that .

So I'm really excited to be , you know , almost like a partner for you with that , just because I really feel like that's an area that I don't personally have interest in , like going too deep on , and my SEO course , as you've rightly said , is kind of like a foundational style course .

But I love having those who want to go really in-depth with local SEO Boom Head on over to Sam , because now that we're both using Circle , you could dip into local SEO and then dip into pro and it's awesome . So I'm really excited for you , man . You grow this as a passion project on the side .

As you grow your local SEO business and both of those feed each other you will learn somebody in local SEO is going to do something and you're like , oh my gosh , I can implement that in my business and then it works in your business . They will feed each other . So super excited man . All right , dude .

Well , everyone can go to the show notes for this episode for that special offer to check out local SEO , sam's new local SEO program . We'll link to your website , your YouTube . All the resources we talked about , the training you did inside of Pro is available for all members of Pro .

But if you are not yet a member of Pro , I'm going to make that public on YouTube so you can actually see a lot of these strategies we've talked about . I know we probably made people a little mad because they're like well , what was that strategy ? Well , it's , you can see it .

You can see it now on YouTube , so I'll make sure we have that link so you can see Sam's training , because a lot of it is a little more visual . So those are all available . Sam dude , less or , you know , less than a year and a half .

You have done an amazing , amazing thing with your business , so I cannot wait to see what the rest of 2024 and 2025 is going to look like . So already excited for the next round . I'm sure this won't be the last time , man .

You know you're definitely a caregiver when it comes to your family and the the ups and downs that you go through there , but you , you also have a family of like 200 other people inside of web designer pro and you show up for us every week , uh in different ways , and every day sometimes , and so , uh , just for everybody I can't speak for everybody in pro ,

I can only speak for myself , but just thank you for everything you do and , uh , like I like to say all glory to josh , join web designer pro so you can you can say the same thing like what are you waiting ?

He's not afraid to get himself out there . He did a lot of things right . He focused on one area of service , got serious about recurring revenue , and it can be done .

I really hope this gives you a good example and some inspiration and some good takeaways on how you can add this idea to your business to get to six figures , no matter where you are in your journey .

And again , I'm so excited to partner up with Sam on this because I only go so far in teaching local SEO , but because Sam is doing so well at this , we've partnered up together . You can go to this link localseoacademyco slash Josh Head there to claim a special offer to check out that community .

As a listener of this podcast and when you join my community Web Designer Pro , you'll always be able to have an inside scoop and a special offer to get over there . But even if you're not a member of Pro yet and you want to level up your local SEO game , go to Josh Hall or , excuse me , go to local SEO academyco . Slash Josh for your special offer .

That link and much more , including a link to his YouTube channel , his website and everything we talked about here , are going to be available over at joshhallco slash 342 . Cheers , friends , to local SEO If you want to go that route .

But even just all these takeaways that Sam dished out about how to bring your business to six figures in one year , it can be done , even if it's five years or 10 years . I hope to be a part of your journey as well , just like I was for Sam . So , as Sam mentioned , he is a web designer pro , which is my community .

You can check us out and join Sam in 220 plus , as of right now , other web designer pros at webdesignerprocom . Lots of links all mentioned at joshhallco slash 342 . See you over there and make sure to subscribe to get the next episode . Many more doozies ahead , my friends . Cheers to building a web design business .