346 - Landing $7,500 Website Projects (in the first year of business) with Ben Forred

And then , yeah , the next morning , it's like 5 am , I've got a cup of coffee , I'm sitting at my computer and then I get a little Moxie notification . Moxie is my CRM little notification pop in that says you've got a signed agreement .

And so I was like , oh OK , and so I'm , I'm , I'm expecting , I'm a hop in there and I'll see that she took the thousand you know a dollar thing to fix the five , five items . And she selected the second one . And I opened my email and there's a note from her . I absolutely love the way this looks . This sounds amazing . Let's go all in .

I want you to be . You know , I want to have you on hand for 18 months . Let's go .

So if you have been a web designer for a while , I want to invite you to think back to your first year in business and to think about your highest project in that first year , the most you charged for a website in your first year . Aside from the rare exception , I'm guessing it's probably to the tune of low thousands or probably even hundreds .

And I'm raising my hand here if you can't see me , because , yes , I didn't even make more than a thousand dollars for a website project in my first year , but my guest in this podcast episode did . This is Ben Ford , who is still at the time of releasing this episode in his first year of his web design business .

He's also a full-time corporate worker who is building his web design business on the side , so this is a side hustle , and I am so excited for you to be able to hear exactly what he did in starting his business on the side and getting it very quickly to a point where he was able to turn a $1,000 website project into a $7,500 website project .

So to be able to help somebody sell a $7,500 project in year one is amazing and Ben has really done a lot of cool things in order to get to this point so early in his business .

Ben is a member of my community web designer pro actually one of our top engaged members and it shows because he has really worked hard to build this thing , he's dead serious about building his web design business to eventually be able to go full time . So what an honor to have a part so early in his journey and I can't wait to see what he does next .

In this conversation . I'm excited for you to learn about what he's done , because he is an open book . We get into what he did to kind of speed learn on building websites , not having a background in web design . We get into how he refined his offers and price points that work for him in order to be able to charge $7,500, .

How he utilized his background in a very unique niche to have a pool of clients to work with . How he created this genius little four-step process of selling a low ticket item first to build trust , which then led him to turn a $1,000 project into this $7,500 project . So all that and more is covered here has been .

You can go check out his website at forward web designcom . That will be linked in the show notes for this episode of joshhallco slash 346 . And if you are early in your journey , if you didn't know , I do have a free guide , a free training , which is actually a 10 step action plan that you can pick up today for you to help you start your business .

If you're early on , that is at joshhallco slash start , joshhallco slash start . We'll zip you over there and I would love to give you this free training , which is a lot of what Ben did to do this in his first year in business , on how he was able to go for a $7,500 project . Way to go , ben . All right , here we go . I hope you enjoy this one .

Friends I did is . I really really enjoyed chatting with Ben and I think you're going to learn a lot . So go to the show notes at this episode , joshhallcosas346 , to connect with him and get all the links and resources we've mentioned . Ben pumped to have you on dude .

I had been doing some work to learn coding and try to get stuff there and I built a website for a previous business I had and I was listening to podcasts and they were like how to make a million dollars on Upwork and like how do you , do you know all of these things ?

Well , I listened to all the episodes of one of these podcasts and I said , oh , I gotta find a new podcast . Yours came up and started listening to yours . You know , fast forward a few months .

I'm joining Pro and now you and I are sitting here talking and I'm like a year ago I just started listening to your podcast while , like , working on stuff in my garage . So now it's a thing . It's very meta .

You're working with limited hours , with working full time I'm sure we'll get into that , being a family man and a dad , you have limited time and I feel like sometimes folks in that situation actually tend to make the fastest results because you don't have time to overthink things or or let imposter syndrome sink in . You just learn , implement and go um .

So credit to you , dude , for all you've done in less than a year in your business .

Getting to know people who have gone through this before and people who are doing it right now , at the same time as me , is a totally you can't put a price on it .

You're essentially thrown into the mix with your courses , which are a blueprint for how to get things rolling , and then you've got this entire community of people that help you when you get stuck , they cheer you on when you win and they help you through and you're struggling .

And I've always been a person who believes there's virtue in the struggle and that's an OK thing to sit with , and I've always been a person who believes there's virtue in the struggle and that's an OK thing to sit with , but man , is it easier to do ?

So what I'd love to start off with here , as we kind of dig into your journey , is where were you last year ? What was the impetus to get into web design ?

It was like you get out of high school , you go to college , you , you go follow your dream to be what you want to be , and my problem was that I never had a dream of what I wanted to be , and so it was a lot of chasing . I started as an engineering major .

I dropped that , went to photography school for a year , switched that and graduated with biology .

And all of that is to say that I have marched through a process over my 15 year career in biomedical research , doing everything you're supposed to do , and at the end of all of that thing , by objective measures , you should be in a place with your life that you want , nothing more . This is this is the zenith .

More this is the zenith , and what I found for myself is that that's true for some people , but this isn't the true fit for me , and I began to look at . Well , what can I do that I'm interested in ?

And during the pandemic , I was working in clinical research and so we were doing clinical trials for COVID and it was just about as stressful as you in clinical research , and so we were doing clinical trials for COVID and it was just about as stressful as you can possibly get . And I needed something to keep my mind off of work to so I wouldn't go crazy .

And I found coding . I started taking class on Code Academy and a dummy , and and it was actually more of an escape because I found that if I get sucked into coding , you know I could spend a number of hours in there and enjoy every minute of it . And so , um a year ago , I was trying to figure out what my next steps are .

You know what's , what's my big dream that I'm chasing ? I'm all you know . I'm pushing 40 . If I'm going to do this , I have to do it now . I'm pushing 40 . If I'm going to do this , I have to do it now . And web design opened up this opportunity that I thought I would try to chase .

So I started listening to podcasts , I started doing all of those different other things and , like you said , and , like you say , you have this opportunity with web design to either build yourself a job or build yourself a business or build yourself an exit .

You know you're trying to move through either of these phases and I have thought of myself in each of them . Uh , and you know , at the beginning I was like I'm gonna be a freelance web designer and then now I'm at a point where it's like , you know , I'd still love all of that stuff , but I find more of a rush and satisfaction in running a show .

I want to , I want to be a business owner and , and you know , moving , moving towards those things . So , um , yeah , I think I think , as I've come to to uh get to know myself , my own dreams , where I want to go , I know three things about me that I can take .

One is that I need human connection , I need to be working with people , I need to be able to be creative as creative as I want to be and I can do that and I have to be solving problems . I've got to be nurturing some intrinsic curiosity , like I have to be out there trying to um , figure out how the world works .

I got to , you know , web design checks all those boxes , uh , owning a web design business checks all of those options and all of those boxes for me and , um , this is , this has been like an incredibly natural feeling , fit , and that that's , that's been the the push and the force behind it .

I want to chase the life I want , which is to spend more time at home with my wife and our four kids and watch them grow up , be available for them , be around , be happy , not be crabby . Coming home from work every day and know that the time that I am spending working is time that I'm spending on myself .

I I'm taking the products of that , I'm taking the profit , I'm keeping that , I'm working with the family , and none of this is to say that somebody who has a job is like a you know sucker or something . It's just this wasn't the right . That's just not for me . I've always wanted to work for myself .

And so your options are work outside of everything you just worked really hard to get a degree in or go to more school and take on more debt and do those things and you just have no guarantee that any of that's going to pay off . And it's kind of funny . I'll actually just tell it . One of my college professors is a business business class .

First day of the class he he walked in and he was talking , introduced himself . He goes how many of you show of hands are here because you want to be an entrepreneur ? And you know , a half dozen people kind of raised their hands yeah , I'm , because you want to be an entrepreneur .

And you know , like half dozen people kind of raised their hands yeah , I'm going to college to be an entrepreneur . And he said you still have time to get your money back , get up and walk out , because you've got everything you need to be an entrepreneur right now .

Wow , I'm not going to teach you anything that you're not going to learn out there the hard way , and learning it from me isn't going to make any of that easier for you . So his advice was if you're here to learn how to start a business , get your money back and go start a business . And I should have known that .

But you know , looking back , that was actually pretty wise . But you know , looking back , that was actually pretty wise .

Um , people , and then problem solving , which doesn't always sound fun , but it is a good ongoing brain teaser when things don't stay the same .

Uh , and like I think every web designer probably feel the same way where it's like none of us would do well in a job where every day is the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again , like we would all go insane , and so all those things are some of the most beautiful aspects of web design , so it's cool to hear that those were

some of the things that drew you to it originally , absolutely .

And you know , I can just tell you that my thing , or something that I enjoy , every time I open Chrome's developer tools and I start to dive in there to see what's going on with this site and try to find the right classes to throw into this script that I can use to make my site , you know , behave a certain way .

Every single time I'm looking at that , that screen of code , I'm like , all right , here we go , it's , it's like it's , let's do this . And you know that that peaks my problem solving , gets my curiosity going , yeah , so I was just thinking .

Marketing copy like the result that you're trying to get for clients , like there's a lot of different forms of problem solving which are unintentionally more exciting uh , you know , equally as exciting for web designers as as , like yourself , you become kind of a business owner Cause , as you've very rightly realized more recently , it's like you're basically a consultant

now , along with being a designer for your clients .

But it's , it's um sitting there and they start to ask questions and you're going like man , these are some softballs . Um , when are they going to ask the real ? You know head scratchers , the brain busters , as as uh , billy Madison would say . Um , I , it's like I'm the expert in the room right now , holy cow .

And so you just reframe the way that you're approaching that meeting and you're not trying to sell anything , you're just going yeah , yeah , no , I know the answer to that . And by the end of the call , they have a need .

You've demonstrated that you know what you need to know to take care of that need and it becomes easier for them to sign with you than to have another call with somebody else .

But I'm curious about your time management . You are a father , you're a husband , you got four kiddos , you're working full-time . How the heck did you manage to learn and start to implement with the limited time that you have ? You have a flexible job that you work from home . Like how did you practically get going with time constraints ?

She's also a business owner , so she gets it , um , but you know , having her support is , uh , is the biggest thing , uh , but aside from that , I wake up two hours before everybody else , just naturally , and I go to bed later and I do a lot of my work in the early mornings and in the evenings , right before bedtime , put the little kids to bed , the

youngest ones , we hang out and then , after people go to bed , sometimes I'll hang out and do some more work . And so weekends , nights , early mornings , you just kind of cram it in whenever you get a chance . I I don't have any secrets , it's just are you awake right now ? Are you doing anything ? Okay ?

I think it was in March that you wanted your first paying client , just a couple months in . Guess , what happened in March Wasn't the last wasn't it the last day . That's what happens when you put it out into the universe and put it in pro . The last day of March , you got your first paying client .

If you can try to get a reachable goal and there's a little bit of accountability there , whether it's a follow-up or whether , again , it's something that you have on your desk or on a post-it or whatever , there really is something to that , because it it , it can . I don't know .

You tell me , doesn't it just make you a little more sharper , a little less lagging on , like decision-making ? It's like okay , here's , here's my goal . I need a first paying client . Well , I have for you . I can build websites now from start to finish . Where do I get clients ? So I would actually like to hear that .

Like , number one , did that help you expedite the process ? And number two , how did you get that first client ?

And I , um , you know , just , I , I called my shot and said let's go , and I joined a referral group , uh , met some people there in person , some people locally , um , and I , uh , and I , you know , I think we'll probably get into this a little bit later , but I have , you know , two different kind of sides to the business .

And so this one person , the first client that I had came through in a contact form that they , that they had come through or that they saw , found my site and it was like , okay , so you just organically found me on the internet and she said you know , I just need somebody to be on standby to help me with updates each month and do these kinds of things .

You know , is that something you can do ? And before even knowing if the answer was yes , I said yes and that's kind of how it went . So at the 11th hour , I got my very first paying client .

I love working with people who would just absolutely relate to the whole long-winded spiel I gave at the beginning of this podcast and just understanding , hey , we're like in this struggle , in this toil , trying to carve out our little bit of the pie together . I get you , I know what's going on .

Let me build your website , and that's been a conversation that's really easy to have for me . The other thing is I've spent 15 years working in biomedical research and so I have background in things like genetics and stuff like that , and I've been involved in advocacy for rare diseases , and so I myself have a rare disease .

I have worked with people who research rare diseases . I've researched them myself and it's a thing where there's a very , very close-knit community out there of people who have children with a monogenic type of epilepsy or something . I know you relate to this personally . You're very public about your own daughter , bria .

It's a very close network of people who just like the small business thing I was talking about Get it . They get each other who , just like the small business thing I was talking about , get it . They get each other . There's a lot of peace that comes with being around people that you don't have to explain anything to . They just understand .

And I think that spending time with those advocacy organizations and knowing how hard they have to work to get $1 of donated funding to support research they need better websites . That was something that was there . They're DIYing them . Some are better than others .

If they do pay somebody to do it , they'll hire the cheapest person , they'll build a site and then they'll be gone and then they're left trying to maintain this thing . And so I just thought to myself this is an area of need . This is a group of people that I'm a part of . I'm a part of this group , and how can I use that to help them ?

How can I use this business to help them ? So I have this separate brand called Zebra Sight Studios . That's for the rare disease advocacy community specifically . That's a niche , and I serve them on a subscription web design model based loosely off of Steve Schramm's setup there and Steve's also awesome .

But it's essentially a way to approach them and say hey , I know cash flows are tight , this is tough . You're in and out . You're running a nonprofit . You're you're running on donations . You're also usually a mom who's got a kid with special needs , who's also trying to put food on the table and raise other children at the same time .

There's just no time for you to sit down and build a freaking website same time . There's just no time for you to sit down and build a freaking website . So how about this ? Let's do like the amount of money I would need right now to get things going .

Let's say 300 bucks right now , at this moment in time , and every month for the next 18 months , you , instead of paying me $7,500 , now how about 350 a month for the next 18 months ? You're going to have me there the entire time and so I'm not going anywhere Each month .

You can call up Ben , I need this , I need this , and even if you're not asking for anything , I'm still going to be there in the background making sure your site's live , it's secure , it's got all of the things you need . Just because of my work , I know all of these like privacy requirements , like GDPR and things .

If you're , if you've got people in the EU hitting your site , they have special privacy rights and so it's navigating those kinds of things . Again , talking to people who just get it . You know , sales , I think , is all about making it easier for a person to take advantage of an opportunity to make their life better than to walk away .

So you know , yeah , ben , you are totally part of this community and you understand everything about what I just talked about and you could totally probably write all the copy for this website without me giving you too much more information . But I'm going to go talk to this other guy . You know , it's just not a conversation that happens all that often , yeah .

So , as you know , like , my advice with niching is like , if you are in a world of some kind , or even if it's your background and you speak the language , you know the people , then by all means , if it's profitable or if it is a side wing of your business , like you're doing , which I think is really smart , that's when to do it .

And I love that you recognize that most people do not have funding or barely any money , and it's not a business . So subscription model is a great way to go if it's just a more templatized , productized service over a set of months exactly , and you know .

If this is a good idea , let me know , if it's's not , don't tell me , because I'm still going to do it . And and then if you'd be so kind as to just put it on some people's radar that you think could benefit . And that night I had four , four um entry and contact forms filled out and I got one my first client from one of those .

So it just that's just kind of how it snowballed right away .

What you just did I don't know if everyone realizes what you just said there , but that is literally that scenario . You just reached out to a person you knew in that world . Here's an offer . They shared it . You got your first client . So for anyone who was in their early days wanting my first client , try that out first . You didn't have to market .

You didn't have to go dance , dance on TikTok like you . You didn't have to do any content creation at that point , other than having a really good offer . Of course you did work up to that point . But good on you , dude , for starting with people . You know , and , like I said , it's a great .

I think it's a very wise decision to have a wing of your business that is kind of a passion project alongside of your small business design , Because I know on your side what's your side ? What's that website ? Again ? Your one for rare diseases .

So in medical school students are taught or at least they were at one point in time taught that when you hear hoofbeats , think horses and not zebras , because the most likely diagnosis , the most common diagnosis , is going to be the most likely .

The problem with that rationale is that zebras exist and so there are those rare diseases that are out there that get overlooked by most things .

You know that first line visit the second line , maybe even you know it's going to take three , four visits to get to somebody who's like let's just get you some genetic testing and see what's going on , and that's a common plight . They call it the diagnostic odyssey , and so the zebra is like this unofficial mascot of the rare disease community .

So it's maybe a little bit of a dog whistle sending out there for people who might understand what the background signifies .

Moving forward from that , which is interesting too , because you launched with both of these at the same time . It's not like you established your main business and then opened up a passion project , which can be done .

You're doing it in a good way , though , but you're also , I think , for anyone who has a side niche business , it's so important and you tell me if you agree with this to make sure that is productized and templatized , because if you run two custom businesses at the same time and try to grow both of those , you're basically giving 50% effort to each of those ,

and that can be a really , really hard place to be in , especially if you are already working full time .

One is for forward web design when I'm working with small businesses , and the other one is a bit more robust and that's for ZebraSight Studios and when we get into the meat and potatoes of it with the rare disease advocacy groups .

They're also different that there is going to be some customization there , but it's not to the same degree that I'm starting from absolute scratch or just taking some ideas . Or hey , give me some suggestions of what kind of things you like on websites . It's , this is what we got . Let's make it yours .

You know one thing is you know all these small businesses in Sioux Falls there are , there's a network that you're a part of . I'm in Sioux Falls , south Dakota , by the way , and if I can , if I can connect with them , then I know I'll be golden . And so I followed your courses . I did your stuff for web design built on that model .

But at the same time , it was how can I get clients based on my , my own community ? And that's where it came into this idea of niche . And niche gets in from the podcast you listen to , in the books you read . It sometimes gets this like almost negative connotation , as if it's like how can I capitalize on this tiny little market ?

And I can't emphasize it enough that for me , the question was what can I do with this skill set to do the most good for for the world . How can I , how can I do something here that is giving back um or or actually helping progress things ?

And if rare disease advocacy is out there having problems telling their stories , I know how to tell that story and we can meet and we can sit down and talk about it and push our websites out .

And so I thought maybe that's a niche that I can work with right away and I just went all in on it , and so it was let's do this subscription model over here , where I feel like it makes more sense , and we'll do the traditional setup over here with the small businesses , because I feel like that makes sense , and whichever one makes me the most money is

going to be , that's going to be the stanchion of the business , but it's it's it's . It's a little bit more like recurring revenue versus those big , those big influxes of cash .

So what I like about what you've done is you have what I teach which is what I did in my business course , which is the traditional model 50% upfront , typically , 50% upon completion of a month or two-month project .

The reason I like that , especially in the early days , is you may get influxes of $5,000 , $10,000 , $15,000 months with that model which can really hold you over and jumpstart you . The problem with going all in on subscription at first and you mentioned Steve Schramm , he's one of our good buddies , he would agree with me on this .

He has on the podcast before If you are strapped for cash and if you are just starting , the subscription model is going to take at least a couple years , depending on how much money you need to bring in to really be able to cover that .

Because even if you land 10 clients at $300 a month , well , you're still only bringing $3,000 a month in for a long time and then you need to do all the fulfillment for all those clients in a few months .

So I really liked that you took a safe approach to this idea of working in these different pricing models , which is great , and it looks like you're able to balance those and do those both well .

And it's kind of a cool case study too , because you can have some fun and kind of go for a five or $10,000 contract or you could go safe and go with the subscription route and it all kind of works out . So I'm glad to hear that's worked out for you . Ben Marketing , you mentioned the group . Was it a BNI group that you joined ? Referral ?

I one question I had about this was how you're doing that with your time constraints , but , gosh , referral groups . They really do expand your network so , so quickly . How are you managing that , though ? Is it early ? Is it in a time that you don't need to be working Like , how are you ? How are you actually managing a ?

Is it a weekly group at this point , or is it monthly ?

But you could think of it as just like compounding interest . Almost you know . You started with start with your network , who's in your network , who's in your group ?

Going to a referral group is just essentially saying I'm Ben for it , I'm starting a web design business , and this is what's so cool about it , and then asking each of those people to do that exact same thing .

So you've just like blown that concept up onto a totally different scale because they're they're all going to go , tap into their networks and and say , if you need a website , I got a guy .

I just know that it's one of those things that if you have 100 phone calls , one or two is going to turn out the way you want it to , and I don't have time for that . So it's kind of like let's figure out where those , as organically as possible . Where can we get some quick wins ?

I'm not sure if it'll be out by the time this goes live , but it will soon if it's not already out , and it's literally last on the list . There's just so many other things you could do rather than cold calling , especially now .

And if you do happen to be in a community or an online community or a community of people like the rare disease community , you're just at such a better end . There's almost no need to hound businesses cold . I like that . You had that approach early on and again , I think there's value to having deadlines and time constraints .

It's like I got a little bit of time . What's the easiest way to go about this ? And I'm really glad what I learned in my experience is translated to you , ben . It's super cool . So you're getting going . You had a hot streak shortly after that . I'd seem like every update in pro you were like got a new client , got a new client , two , 3000 , 5000 .

What led to that hot streak ? Do you think there was a ? Was it just momentum ? Was it referrals ? What led to that little hot streak you went through and kind of have been going through ? I ?

And , um , I I have yet to have anyone type in one of the keywords I optimized for . So it's like , wow , maybe I should revisit the whole .

If it was just me , it would be a very , very much more ambitious goal that I still have to feed four little mouths and make sure that there's a roof over our heads . So I got to be smart about it too . I'm a risk averse person . I avoid risks .

I don't like it , and I just knew and recognized that that's something I'm going to need to get more comfortable with . And so , at the same time I was getting that momentum , I was saying , you know , at some point you gotta , you gotta leap here . And , um , it hasn't happened yet .

But , uh , being a member of pro , uh , or you know , maybe any online community , but my experience has been with pro and I feel like it'd be hard to replicate I um , it makes it easier to take those risks .

Uh , and it's not because you've got a bunch of people cheering you on , it's because if I say yes to this and then I get into it and I've overcommitted , um , I have , I have people I can bring in , you know , like I could , I could talk to somebody who's an expert in that thing and you know , they , they and I would work out an arrangement .

They could come in and knock out , like whatever video editing they need , or you know just an example , and then I go back to the client . They're none the wiser , they get the result they needed .

I didn't have to do the thing , I didn't know how to do , and you know it's because I was made some friends over here , you know , and you know it's because I made some friends over here , you know so you are .

With all considered , I know you're getting deeper and deeper into local SEO , so yeah , I'm doing an .

You know , hey , let's check out these other geographical locations within my driving distance and we'll see what happens . And , um , you know , I actually I , I was , I had a coaching uh opportunity with you in a hot seat in pro and um .

For everybody who doesn't know , it's essentially the whole group kind of gets together on a big zoom call and and it's just kind of like , hey , I just redid myid my web , my homepage , and , you know , can you review it ?

And then Josh will put you up on the screen and everybody looks at it and you get all kinds of awesome real time feedback from people who are way better at this than you . And so I was in this hot seat and I was telling Josh , I like this VForge strategy . Problem is , I live in South Dakota with six other people . This is not .

This is not a metropolis here . You know , sioux Falls has , you know , including all the bedroom communities around it , there's maybe 250,000 , 300,000 people , but the whole state has 800,000 . So the entire rest of the state is just very sparsely populated . The entire rest of the state is just very sparsely populated .

And so it's like how can I apply this VForge local SEO strategy to a situation where I'm in this you know , giant , like , let's just say , really spread out geographical thing ? If I'm going to take that approach , I'm going to have to sell the people who live outside of my driving distance . How do I comfortably do that ?

Live outside of my driving distance , how do I comfortably do that ? And you and then Sam Starson had some great advice .

But approaching that , and if you go to page two on Google my my areas , we serve page , the one that I based off the VFOR strategy actually ranks higher than my homepage does , and I just found that interesting strategy actually ranks higher than my homepage does , and I just found that interesting .

Each one of those little cities have a page that's SEO . Towards that , you can have a lot of repeating global elements with your services and testimonials .

But you do want to have kind of customized copy that is location-based per city , and if you link it all together like a tree , there's a link on your homepage that links to your main service page and then you link out to the smaller branches , aka location pages , from there . It works , it just works .

And I know a lot of SEO people I've said I've seen maybe you've seen this too they're like , oh , that's a bad strategy , don't do that . I'm like I'm going to do what actually works .

So , it's like okay , uh , I don't know how that happened , but um you know you're the fifth organic .

I mean a little bit goes a long way , is what I'm trying to say with SEO . So you're implementing a lot of great strategies , dude , You're . You're doing what you can online . Uh , are you doing content ? Are you ? Do you have a social media presence ? Uh , I mean you're . You're active in that rare disease community .

You're active in your networking group as often as you can be , or I disease community . You're active in your networking group as often as you can be . Or I should say , your referral group . You've made a lot of location area pages and seo optimized doing more at that ?

Um , and we , we , we sell things to for campfires and camping and stuff that we make and the money goes to feed kids in south dakota who live at risk of hunger . And , um , for that , I , I , I went all in on Tik TOK and I have a Tik TOK account for that , that business that has a ton of followers . Um , but that was an incredible .

That was more work than starting a business . Uh , that , that was a ton of work . And and , um , you know , I , I haven't been on there in a while , but I still will .

I just knew at the gate that starting up a social media presence is going to be something that's going to take up a lot of time , and I don't have a lot of time , and so I haven't this idea where on my FAQs , I know the questions , but then I have a hard time writing copy in a way that doesn't become like a whole page , and so what I want to do is

just record brief videos of myself answering the questions and then putting the videos in my FAQ , and that way there's a video response to a frequently asked question and that can go on a YouTube channel and then that can be out there and then I can pull from that and start a blog and do all the other things .

And if you talk about doing web design for Sioux Falls or whatever it is , watertown , whatever web design for you know , sioux Falls or whatever it is , watertown , whatever that will do wonders for you . So maybe we can come up with a little strategy and pro on that . I would definitely recommend doing that , and you said it .

If you , if you do have hard time writing copy on something or you end up writing a book , yeah , just record little videos on each . Maybe give yourself like a one to two time , like a one to two minute window , and then you can take that transcript and that can be the written copy that accompanies the video too . So , yeah , very wise .

I mean that kind of thing . Think about it like this too for everyone . Like if you do give back in some sort of way , like that , if you're up against a few other web designers and the client's like okay , I've got Ben and Lisa and Jimmy Jimmy's kind of the juicy social media digital marketing guy , but they obviously have a proven track record .

Lisa seems nice , like her design , and then there's Ben , but then they're like they see your giving back page and they see like wow , ben is like not only is this business building his business and supporting his family , but he's also giving back to the community .

That is something that could be the very key differentiator between somebody moving with you and then moving on from from somebody else .

Meaning , you know , one in six kids goes home on Friday and then doesn't reliably have a meal until they get back to school on Monday and , um , you know , we're . We're right here in the middle of the United States and this is a place where that shouldn't be happening , and uh and it is .

So we've been putting that out for a few years now and it's been really greatly received . We have donated just over 35,000 meals .

So I was Divi , wordpress , rebuilt the whole site , and that was just around the time that I started learning coding and stuff too . And so , um , I YouTube , you know , divi tutorials and went through stuff I I'm , I know , I've watched a few of yours , for sure and then I , you know , was incorporating the CSS .

I was learning and all of these other things and the process of building the website for this . And then I'm starting a new one . It's a lot more like this is there , and it was , and it was actually something that nurtured this new type of interest that I've got and it's , yeah , it's , it's a big , a big thing .

So I can feel good that I've got a business where I'm taking care of myself and my family and we're we're growing this business .

This is going to be the next phase of my career and I can also sleep well at night knowing that I'm also taking some of the energy that I've gotten teaching my boys and teaching my family that you know , making sure that everybody around you has food on their plate , too , is just as important as making sure that you have some on yours .

Or maybe if you do something annually , if you do like a Thanksgiving drive or something , you could absolutely include that in a monthly newsletter to clients and say by the way , we didn't know , we also , you know , give back to the community . It's a hundred percent proceeds . Go towards this If you'd like to like .

You know it's , it's kind of a win-win with all these different things you have going on . So all that to say yeah , man , let's get that sucker up on the side .

How how are you over here building websites now ? Like are you ? Do you have multiple personalities , are you ? like clients asked you that , Um . Well , clients have asked me that , Um , and I I've also felt like it's a gap in my uh on my website , Like when I talk about myself or I tell the story of the business .

You know , I feel like I feel like there's truth in the quote that people buy from people , not businesses , and you need to .

You need to make sure that you are the face of your company , which is why I had no problem taking your advice to put the owner's founder's note , you know , top of your website , because I want people to know who they're dealing with , and part of that , I think , means explaining why I own a web design business .

And I don't really know how to do that because my , my training and stuff is in completely unrelated things .

You said something to the effect of I did everything you should do , but I just never felt fulfilled and I always realized that I wanted to help people and do my own thing .

And that's what led to the creation of Led into my journey of doing websites , Because not only do I get to explore my creativity and my love of problem solving , but I also get to help people and help people build their businesses , Boom .

One thing I would do too , ben , as I'm looking at your about page , I know we're kind of getting into semi-website review stuff now too , which , by the way , everyone this is what we do every week in Web Designer Pro I would also write your bio or on your about page , not in third person , but like you , I would say like hey , I'm Ben . I started this .

It just feels a little more personal , especially since it's your last name in the website . Unless you had a team and a copywriter , I would have it . You know , this is , this is like a note from you . Yeah and yeah , I would just be honest about that . I don't know if that would conflict .

No , would that conflict with your employment , if you said that because they're going to be like oh , that's nice to know , ben yeah , no , they know , no , no , no , they , they .

So I'm not going to lie , it's that's the way it goes , and I think of it too is maybe there's there's not a lot of conventional stuff about , about the way that I'm thinking about my future here , because it's like I've done conventional .

You know , I worked really hard for a long time to get a job where I had to put a suit on every day and I'd sit in the meetings and I'd be there for finance discussions and all these different things . And I'm there , you get there . If you work hard , you get there . And so I'm there , there , you get there . If you work hard , you get there .

And so I'm there and it's not where I want to be . And , um , that's a tough pill to swallow . Uh , you know right away . But a mentor of mine um has been a friend for a long time said you know the solution's totally in your control here , bud . You know you , you know you can pivot . There's nothing that says you can't .

And so that's what I've done and I know it's the right decision because , even though it's been very , very hard , there hasn't been a single moment where I've even considered absolutely throwing in the towel . Stopping isn't an option . This is the direction I want to go in . I know that I have the right reasons . I know it's stopping is an option .

This is this is the direction I want to go in . I know that I have the right reasons . I know why it's fulfilling to me and , um , this is just . This is what we're pursuing . So you know it's , it's there . Next phase is going to be , you know , multi seven figure agency owner , um doing podcasts with Josh Hall .

I have said publicly that I almost named this podcast web design business made easy and I literally was writing like I wrote some copy for it , I was working on the logo for , and then I just felt like a little slimy , like made easy in the term , and that is because it's not easy .

You can have all the training , all the courses , you can have the complete map , everything we have in pro , like we can have everything you have community support . You can have me coaching you . It is still going to be hard . What were the hard aspects so far in your experience ?

And you know , I can give you the example I would give you is setting up the business and I guess kicking things off along that one one path , using uh Squarespace and just throwing it together on there , and uh realizing that you know I'm hundreds of dollars in on this , this thing that's uh doing fine , but I'm going to have to pay that again next year and

I don't have that kind of those kinds of resources . So it's like I guess I'll teach myself how to do this . That's maybe a little bit more about me as a person than anything , but I think that I would say that it's kind of like you know , putting together like a fuse box in a house where you've got like the big , the big electric panel .

You know you could sit there and try to like get that thing set up and you might even get it right four days into it . But it's a lot easier if you got the wiring diagram in the door . You can just follow that and that's kind of what like joining pro is you get these sorts of these sorts of tips and resources that you can just use to begin .

So I've not ever told anybody that that it's easy because it's definitely not . But you know , you can make things easier on yourself by giving yourself the resources that are out there things easier on yourself by giving yourself the resources that are out there .

I went to graduate school and earned an MBA . You're knee-deep in corporate finance classes . That's very much your income statements and all that kind of stuff . I was like I'll start a business , I got an MBA , I know how to do that . I know how to manage an already existing corporation . Not even that I know how to do that .

No , I know how to manage an already existing corporation and not even that I know how to manage like one department within that . You know it's not necessarily transferable and setting up my expenses and setting up my things to work that way was just hard for me to think about .

But reading , but reading Mike Michalowicz's profit first book and then completely reframing the way that this goes where it's like oh you know , I don't necessarily need to generate a profit and loss statement at the end of the quarter and then look at that and analyze my numbers .

If I just set up the way that money flows into the account and out of the account , I can just have a snapshot where I look at it and it makes more sense and I can tell you there's nothing more satisfying to me than the end of the quarter rolling around and seeing that I've got $150 in this profit account and that's not there before I .

I have just created a little little tiny chunk of of like profit that's only mine I get , like I can do whatever I want with it and um , and it's because people have put their trust in me and that means a lot to me too .

Um , I I went into this to try to help and make a difference in an area that I want to help in small business or patient advocacy and people are willing to trust me with this . And it's not a small part of the business or an organization . It's your websites , your external facing presence these days , and all things lead to the website .

So it's , it's , it's a big component . Uh , and when people take it seriously , um , that's when good things can start happening for their company in 2024 . But you know , yeah , you were going to say something .

I wanted to talk pricing because I recently shared on my newsletter your recent story , which thank you , ben , for being so cool about publishing that publicly . Yeah , you landed a $7,500 web design project with this slick little I don't even know what to call it kind of a little roadmap , a little process for a low ticket offer , which was a $500 boost plan .

And then you did a free audit , which is kind of a tips recommendations for the website . You rolled that into a slight redesign like a mock-up example , and then you went for it . You offered a proposal and a plan for using the subscription model , in this case 18 months for a project and then a down payment or a setup fee of $1,200 . Total was $7,500 .

I want to know from you pricing wise , was that hard as well ? And then what led you to feel confident to , for lack of a term , just go for it and have a $7,500 proposal , a kick-ass proposal , what can we call them ? I think it's awesome .

And we started . We went down that road and there's a huge website . There's a lot of stuff there . A lot of content it's in the advocacy space , so it's a lot of medical terminology and a lot of stuff . But stuff like that a lot of scientific research articles and things .

But I um , did these five pages , optimized it , and I kept finding myself reigning myself in because I'd be like oh , there's 43 plugins that need to be updated . I'll just hop in there and hit update . And it's like no , that's not what I'm getting paid for right now , and so I move on to doing the thing .

And so , when I got done with the technical components of this , I sent her a report and an email that just said I finished your SEO boost project . This is what's going on . Next steps are I'm going to monitor the site and in six months I'll give you a second report to show what kinds of results we've had .

By the way , while I was in there working , I recognized you're not updating anything this huge security risk . You need to be in there at least a month every month doing that . And then you know , there was just a kind of a handful of things that I was like these are things I would recommend that you you tackle right away with your website .

And I just left it at that and you said you know I'll be in touch and and continue to give you updates as time goes on . And you know she responded oh wow , I'm really glad . You know I'm so happy with this what this looks like . I did .

I left out , I mocked up the home page just to say , hey , you know , this is how you could redistribute this content so it flows better , makes a little more sense and and I was a better designer than her previous one . So I was kind of like , well , here we go . And they and she loved that .

So she said what's it going to cost for you to do these five things ? And I put together that , that that proposal there .

But I really wanted to redesign and from working on the SEO project , I had the inside baseball of knowing what's going on within the website , and I know that this thing is big , it's going to take work , it's going to be something that's going to need to be managed very closely . This isn't going to be a twenty five hundred dollar Web site .

And so , you know , I I kind of pulled seventy five hundred out after trying to calculate hours or think about the scope , and I landed on seventy five hundred and I thought , well , you know what , if nothing else , I might get a thousand out of this to do these five things that need to get done , and I'll send it off .

But I'm not going to quote anything lower than that because I know it's going to be a big , a big undertaking . And I sent it off . And then , yeah , the next morning , it's like 5 am , I've got a cup of coffee , I'm sitting at my computer , and then I get a little Moxie notification .

Moxie is my CRM little notification pop in that says you've got a signed agreement . And so I was like , oh , okay , and so I'm , I'm , I'm expecting , I'm a hop in there and I'll see that she took the thousand you know a dollar thing to fix the five , five items and she selected the second one and I opened my email and there's a note from her .

I absolutely love the way this looks . This sounds amazing . Let's go all in . I want you to be . You know , I want to have you on hand for 18 months . Let's go , and you know . Right there at five in the morning , with all my family sleeping , I did a giant cheer and a happy dance and the day started on the right foot .

So well done on you . Leading up to this were your projects . Like I said , you kind of were on a bit of a hot streak , but those were mostly what ? Like $2,000 projects around that range . Right , little $500 wins here or there .

Um , of course I , you know , essentially paid them to build their website , but I but it's it's it was . I got what I needed out of it , and every time that I've had had a project that I've learned a lot on and I know I can apply things to the next one , I do raise my my rates a bit .

In my head , I use the value-based pricing model , so I have the pricing range on my site , um , for potential client page . I do , but it's not indexed . Um , I just send it via email . If there's a person who asks questions , um , then it's a kind of a how , how are we , how , how can we work together , kind of a thing .

Um , so , yeah , it's I , I have the range on there , but I , I've in my head I kind of go okay , next time I'm putting a website of this size together , I'm not going any lower than 3000 . And that's kind of how what I take out of it . And so , um , yeah , it started out as those like 500 , 1000 , 1700 .

And now I'm kind of more in that range where for a real basic site , a normal brochure kind of site , would be around 3,000 , 3,500 probably .

So it's kind of like how can I automate my processes or how can I have something put together that just is there when I need it , like a website template ? And so I've been building those kinds of things up , and then this fall , I want to really sit down and think about 2025 . Okay , well , let's go in with a full head of steam .

How much do I need to cover ? How much ground do I need to cover in 2025 to be able to do this full time ? Yeah , and um , there's , you know , two questions wrapped up into that . How much money do I need ? You know , how much money do I need to be making in a year for my family to eat ?

But also , um , how much of my own salary do I need to cover before ? It's like all right , you just need to quit now and go fall in on your web design . You know , I don't want to . I don't want to wait until the end of 2025 . You know I don't want to . I don't want to wait until the end of 2025 .

If it would be just as , if it actually would be more lucrative to just go in and devote time to it .

My metrics are ideally you want to get to 50% of your income with a side business and then , if you can have six months of savings or , in case of your spouse having a business , if there's another income stream that would put to the point where , even if you had to cut back dramatically on expenses and eating out and whatever else , you would still be able to

survive comfortably and build things up . And so many members who have gone full-time and pro will say the same thing it is shocking how fast and far you will go .

I see you nodding your head because I know this is what you're going to experience here next year when you are full-time and when you have all the bandwidth towards that Now , equally as hard as to reel that in because there is benefit , like we've talked about , with having constraints . But those are the two metrics there .

If you can have three to six months savings and then get to the business to 15 or 50% of where you're at , then it would be like , okay , it's now , it's time to actually set a date and let's go , that's that's awesome feedback I like just as a frameworks .

You know we we mentioned BNI earlier , uh , when we were talking about nib , and I think that the uh , I would put an emphasis or a priority on joining a proper BNI group Once I go full time . The conflict right now is that I either have to leave work to go to BNI and you know that is something they wouldn't be happy with . So I , I do .

I do have those , those limitations at the moment , but I do know how much a BNI group is helpful . I have a friend , even in this city , who does print graphic design and she's had a very successful business for 15 years or so here in town and I said what do you do for marketing or for advertising or anything ?

And she said I started going to BNI for four years and then I still , to this day , get every client from referrals from BNI .

So , needless to say , now he's been doing it for like six years , so it's compounded , but , needless to say , bang on . Yes , that is absolutely what you will have time to do and market for , so I'm going to send you , if you want to , if you want early access to it , I'm going to send you the YouTube video .

Yeah , that'd be awesome If you want to listen before it comes out next week and then , by the time this comes out , go back to episode 338 . It's a doozy . It's like a masterclass in how to network and be in a referral group . So I'm super excited to be a part of this next phase for you , ben .

It's been an honor serving you and seeing what you've done just in seven months inside of Pro . My goodness , like the leaps and bounds you have made . I can't even imagine we still have half a year left almost in 24 . So 25 is . I mean you've really learned a lot . You've implemented fast in the first half of 24 .

The next half of 24 , I imagine you're going to be refining and just boosting what you have in place , being more confident , really reeling in your services , working on those SOP . Have you gone through my scaling course yet your way ?

So that actually yeah , I'll say like we probably want to as you start to refine delegating and automating , that's really going to help you already I think .

Have a mindset for that for next year , although you could actually technically start to scale and get some help , even just while you have full-time employment , just to give yourself a little bit of a buffer to bring on some junior help and repeatable tasks . But yeah , I really think that's going to be the roadmap for you . And then 25 is going to be .

We'll set a goal for whatever level of six figures you want to hit revenue-wise , to account for taxes and everything else and expenses , and then we'll talk about what you need to take home . So we'll hit seven figures . We'll get to seven figures eventually , but right now , six and multi six figures , that's 25 .

So yeah , dude , I'm so excited to be a part of this next phase of your journey . Again , it's been so awesome seeing what you've done so far .

I thought I would get doing what I have done and now I just got to put the accountability and ownership on my own shoulders and push the ship off the docks and let's go .

You're really coming through with some like sage counsel already for folks who are the step below you now in the way of like their early stage . They're like just getting started and you've already come in as a mentor in a lot of ways . So you're a great example and pro of like .

Even if you're just a year into it , you you'll be shocked at how much you have to give back to people who are , you know , been of last year . So awesome man .

I did put in a uh , a goal to be accountable , to uh set myself a deadline within 2024 . I need to have at least one $10,000 a month I need .

I made a joke in pro where I was like I just hit my first four figure month , everybody , and they were like well , you got to make that five and uh , the thought of a 10,000 plus month , um , was laughable to me .

So you get a couple of ways , especially if you use a traditional model with a , an influx of maybe a $5,000 payment with your other subscription plans and hosting and maintenance and growth plans . Like I have no doubt you'll hit that by the end of the year . So I'm excited . I'm excited to post that when we'll do a whole nother .

Yeah , we'll do another thing . I have a whole section on my website of Ben wins Right .

How's that sound ?

So imagine when he gets to the place where he can dedicate some full-time hours to this . He is going to be unstoppable . I really hope this helped you , whether you are early in your journey and you're looking for some guidance and vision on how to do this practically in your first year , ben really shared some important things on how to do it .

It's working for him today . But even if you're more established , this idea of having a process like this that is , either a free or low ticket offer with a little bit of confidence building for the client and then going for it and taking a project that could go from something like 1,000 to a 75-minute project it's very , very possible .

And the more experienced you are , I'd say it's easier to be able to have the offers that will take you to the 5 , 10 , 15 , 20k range . So , wherever you are in your journey , I can't wait to hear how this helps you . Drop us a comment at joshhallco , slash 346 .

Ben , as I mentioned , is one of our most engaged members in my community , web Designer Pro , so I will let him know to check the comments for this episode . If you are not yet a member of Pro but you want to pick his brain in some regard , he might be able to drop in the comments .

I can't say for sure , but I would imagine he'd be open to sharing some more of his advice on the show notes for this episode at joshhallco , slash 346 .

And if you do want to hang out with Ben and have direct coaching , like Ben has with me , web Designer Pro is available in its current form for just a short while longer because I am very close to being completely capped with my coaching .

I go live every week for coaching calls , I do DM coaching and , just as a heads up , I am very , very close like probably 15 to 20 more spots in pro in its current form and then we are going to be instituting a tiered model more on that coming soon so you will have access to just the courses in the community .

But if you want , josh , you got to jump in now , so I'll follow up on that in more detail , but just heads up on that . Join Ben and join myself on Web Designer Pro at webdesignerprocom . And again connect with Ben , go to his website , fordwebdesigncom . That'll be at the show notes at joshhallco , slash 346 . Thanks for joining friends .

I'll see you on the next one .