351 - 5 Year Podcast Anniversary (AMA with Josh)

I wanted to dedicate an entire episode to this milestone and just spend some time with you to share some reflections on the past five years of doing this podcast , some insights of what I've learned and , most importantly , give you some insight on what's ahead with the show , and I actually wanted to make this kind of a Q&A I've learned and , most importantly , give

you some insight on what's ahead with the show , and I actually wanted to make this kind of a Q&A . So what I did was I polled my community Web Designer Pro and asked for questions about the podcast or anything that's on my community members' mind , and there were some incredible questions that came in .

Just side note , hats off to my community Web Designer Pro . The members are so thoughtful when it comes to particularly with Q and A's and things like this . And what we're going to dive into is there were questions in kind of three buckets .

There were questions about the podcast itself , there were questions about the business of web design , web designers at all levels , and then there were questions about just general online entrepreneurship , which I think are going to be really relevant to those of you who are not just web designers , but you're kind of what I call webpreneurs .

You're doing things outside of just web design . So we're going to cover questions that are in each one of those categories and at the end of this I'm also going to give you a teaser and a look at what's ahead with Web Designer Pro 2.0 . We are on the eve of a very exciting new chapter for Web Designer Pro and we're going to cover that .

I'm going to give you a teaser because it's going to be launching next week . So I'm going to give you a teaser of what's ahead . That will be at the very end , so make sure you stay to the end or skip ahead and check that out if you're just dying to know . So let's dive right into these questions .

For the fifth anniversary of the podcast and actually real quick , before we dive into the questions , I want to say just a big thank you to everyone who listens to the show regularly . Especially means the world to me . It makes what I do here with the show and the hard work we put into it so worthwhile .

And for those of you watching on YouTube this , most of my solo episodes are just audio , but this one I'm doing on YouTube as well . A big those of you watching on YouTube . Most of my solo episodes are just audio , but this one I'm doing on YouTube as well . A big thanks to you . There is both the video version of the show and the audio version .

I just want to thank you for being a watcher or a listener . This is now the number one podcast for web design , at least the business of web design . Most web design podcasts seem to be seasonal or hit or miss . People just can't stick with it . It is not for the faint of heart doing a podcast .

So it is an honor to be in this position and it's just been my honor over the past five years , before we dive into these questions , to share with you what I've learned in my journey , to share with you from so many industry experts in web design and entrepreneurship over the last five years so many industry experts in web design and entrepreneurship over the

last five years and to share what's working now today in web design year to year . So it's just a really cool position to be in and I just want to say thank you , because I couldn't do this without you and I have to say the podcast is the number one driver for my business and my community , web designer pro .

This podcast is not big on ads or sponsorships I actually don't make barely any money from the podcast itself but it is the driver that supports my business , which in turn supports my family and allows me to do this for you and to bring the world so much free content . So big thanks to you for being a listener and a watcher of the show .

Just by downloading an episode , you are helping so many web designers all over the world and being a big piece to my family . So thank you for your support . All right , let's dive in to the questions here inside of Web Designer Pro .

Again , I posted this in the community and just asked for questions that are either about the podcast , about web design business or about entrepreneurship . We're not going to do these in each particular category . I'm just going to go through all the questions , starting with Kevin . What's going on ?

Kevin , who is actually my social media manager and he was first up , let me take a drink here and then we'll dive into questions . He said congrats , what a milestone . Do you have a strategy for selecting guests ?

So this has evolved over time and the initial originally my first probably 50 to 75 episodes were mainly just my network , my network of other web designers who use Divi and WordPress , other web design business owners who I knew . At the time I was also a regular on a podcast called Divi Chat , so I got exposed to a lot of web design business owners there .

I ran the Divi Web Designers Facebook group , met a lot of people there and then I also interviewed folks from my personal in-person network my videographer guy who was a big referral source for me , a social media guy and some others who I worked with closely . So those were the first 50 to 75 guests who I worked with closely .

So those were the first 50 to 75 guests . And then , as the show started to grow , not only did it expand me to meet more web designers and kind of brought me even outside of WordPress and Divi land . I got to meet a lot of people that way and then started getting guests like that .

But I started getting reached out to by folks and this is actually one of the main ways I get guests now is there are a lot of people reaching out to be on the show .

Now it's it's incredible , very cool , but it's also kind of something that I'm working on building a system around , because I'm at the point now where I hate to ghost people but it's happening .

I'm kind of ghosting people If I just skim through and just don't feel like it's a good fit for the show , or if it's a topic I'm not interested in , like the amount of CEO owners that are building AI companies . I just don't have interest in that .

Nothing against all of them there might be some interesting ones , but I am definitely keeping this show something that I am interested in . So , when it comes to guest selection , I will , number one , want to make sure that it's somebody that I can really quickly get a good feel for and trust , and also that they have topics that I'm interested in diving into .

It's all generally about the business of web design or online entrepreneurship in relation to helping web designers , as you probably know as a listener , but that's how a lot of guests are coming is . I'm getting requests now .

Now , the podcast , as I said , has brought me into this whole new world , even outside of WordPress , which was the kind of hidden thing that I wasn't expecting . I had no idea or anticipation that I would be talking with people from Wix , studio or Webflow or Squarespace and all these different markets of web design .

It's kind of put me in a unique and cool position because I'm able to see what's going on even outside of WordPress , where a lot of people who are strictly WordPress they have no idea what's going on in Webflow land or show it land or do to land or elsewhere . But I have a really honored unique perspective here with that .

So that is really broadened my guest selection options . It's just taken me to a whole new world . So it's still primarily people who I work with , collaborate with , partnerships , guests who reach out Some , as you know , probably as a listener of the show . Many of the guests are not even in web design .

But if they are an entrepreneur who I think has a message to resonate with , then I'm going to bring them on , especially if it's going to help just business owners in general . And then a lot of students and a lot of my members inside of Web Designer Pro . I've been . It's been .

One of my favorite things is to dive into their journeys , whether they are an early stage web designer or whether they're somebody who has taken my courses since day one , hearing about what has worked for them and , most importantly , what's working for now .

So doing a lot more case studies as well , because with Web Designer Pro , with me being able to coach members in there , I get to see behind the scenes what's working really well . So often what I'll do to this point of how do I get guests is I'll ask them like hey , you did this incredible thing , would you like to share it on the podcast ?

We just had Alexia Lynn on the podcast who had an incredible launch plan for her web design business . So instead of me teaching a launch plan , I could just talk to Alexia and say , hey , would you like to share everything you did and make it a free download . And that's exactly what we did for the podcast . I'm loving that as well .

And then there are some guests who are more high profile , like Amy Porterfield , like Mike Michalowicz , derek Sivers , pat Flynn and others who I've reached out to .

I've reached out to a lot of like higher entrepreneur profiles and either got ghosted no offense to that , I don't take offense to it , I know people are busy or they just don't have a system to set up requests like that . But I've reached out to a lot of high pro entrepreneurs , high profile .

They're definitely harder to get , um , but really enjoyed and we'll get into this the interviews , like I did with Pat Flynn and Amy Porterfield and some of the other ones . So those are kind of the mix of guests , ranging from web designers uh , close partnerships and colleagues of mine , what members , students , high profile entrepreneurs and reach outs .

So that is . There's not really a strategy behind that . I I kind of just let it come as it as it goes .

There are times where I'm a little light on guests and then I might reach out to my network , or if I haven't talked with somebody in a few years , I might invite them back on , or if there's a student who's killing it , something I might invite them on . But it's been . It's kind of like referrals .

Getting guests for a podcast that's been around this long now is almost like a trickle of of reach outs . So I I even have a potential guest list in a Google doc that I could turn to at any point . So , uh , I try to stay about at least a month to six weeks out , and I know my team , jen and Nathan , appreciate that as well .

So , yeah , no like exact strategy , but that's kind of how I go about it . Next question goes to Jessica , one of our early stage web designers and web designer pro . Happy birthday to the web design business podcast . Thank you , jessica .

I'm just getting started and basically any site I've built at this point for my portfolio or using basically any site I have built for my portfolio , how does a beginner focus on showing case studies and proven results versus just a portfolio ? Do I need to wait some time , until after client projects are complete , before collecting data and results to showcase ?

Great question , jessica . So basically , how do you show results early on ? The best part about web design , if you are really positioning yourself as a website designer and not yet a web strategist or consultant , is before and afters . That's the bread and butter . That's how you sell website designs before and afters .

So to your point , jessica , and to anyone who is more of an early stage web designer yeah , your portfolio , just show before and afters .

And there's a coaching element here for you as a web designer because , as you know , jessica , like with our weekly calls and Web Designer Pro , a lot of the website reviews we do , we hit on a lot of the same type of themes and topics with a high converting website , which is things like a solid headline that covers who , how and what they're serving .

A call to action , like one primary call to action , a founder's note , good hierarchy , services explained that then lead to the service pages . There's those kinds of things that you can showcase on a before and after for your clients that are also going to lead to results .

Now , results may not be in the form of like revenue for a business a month or two after you launch the website , but results could be bounce rate or contact form submissions or calls .

You could check in with your clients a month or two after and just ask them has the website been generating more calls for you since we launched it , or have you got more contact form submissions or quote submissions or consultation requests ? Those type , those type of things are results that are pretty instant .

Um , at the time of recording this , we just had a monthly training , a guest expert training about conversion rate optimization and a lot of those tips can actually be like those results you can measure pretty quickly , like within 30 days to 45 or 60 days after a site's been live . So before and after is the big one , just the design of a site .

But then look at those metrics like the stats on the website , bounce rate , page views , click through rates and then contact form , submissions , sales . If it's an e-commerce site , that's the easiest one , because before the website went live , maybe they were making five grand on average per month .

After the website went live , they're making 7,500 on average per month . Boom , you just had a big , old , nice increase for them that you can measure . So , yeah , but again , before and after , that's the biggie . More results will come as you have more time and you can kind of be proactive about measuring those .

More results will come as you have more time and you can kind of be proactive about measuring those . Mark has a great question here . How did you walk the line between boss and spouse when Emily joined the team ? So , for those who don't know my wife , we got married in 2015 . And then that summer we got married in the spring .

That summer she joined In Transit Studios , my business at the time . She joined in transit studios , my my business at the time , and it was interesting because she we knew from the get go she wanted to be a stay at home mom , she wanted to be a homemaker and it really helped support me . We have three kids . They're wild right now downstairs Like I .

Really I wanted that as well . So we knew that that sets the framework and the foundation . For when she joined the business . We knew it wasn't going to be like a full-time deal . She wasn't going to have a huge role in the business .

But at that time my business was , let's see , five years old and we were already at the point where I was kind of scaling my own way . What if there was a course name called Scale your Way ? It really was scaling my way .

I brought her in to do administrative tasks and our maintenance plan when we launched that , started cooking and then I had her doing updates and managed WP , doing reporting , doing some administrative stuff and then even some basic content and sites uh , work , things like that were almost like a junior web designer level that pretty much anyone could do , as long as

you could operate a computer . You could do some basic content updates with my tutorials on Divi and stuff . So that's what role she was brought into . So there really wasn't too much we had to work through in the way of like like she knew her role and I knew her role . I wasn't expecting more from her . She wasn't expecting more or less from me .

Now , there were were a few times to be honest and transparent back then , where I had to watch how I would talk to her when I was in boss mode . And for anyone who has a partner in your business who was a spouse , let's just make a very clear distinction between a spouse and a partner .

I know partner is the big new word for spouses these days , but they are very different . A business partner is very different than a marriage partner .

So when I was spouse mode versus boss mode , I did have to be kind of careful on that and even if we were in a little argument or a spat of any kind , I would be careful not to bring that in to the actual work itself . And yeah , we really didn't have any like big friction points or anything like that .

But I did have to to watch going from spouse mode to boss mode in the way of how I talked to her , not talking down to her kind of thing . Cause when you are the boss of your business , when you have people working with you or for you as contractor roles , it's very easy to talk like a boss and , quite frankly , you have to .

Sometimes you are the leader you need to say hey , guys , we need to get this done . We need to do this and this and this . When there is a tight knit relationship , like a spouse , that can get tricky .

So I would just say , if I give any advice on that , it was just to read the room , see how she's feeling and make sure I know if there's any terms or phrases that might make it feel demeaning for her as like a support role in the business , not to make her feel like she's just doing like low level stuff , because she was a huge help at that point and

I tried to learn to thank her greatly and make sure that she saw wins from clients and knew what an impact she was making on the business . So , yeah , great question , mark . It's definitely not easy and it again depends on the role that a spouse takes in the business .

If you are working together I mean like Lisa and her husband Steve here in pro they are like they're both the business owners , so they have a much more tighter relationship working in and on the business together . Um , so it's all about expectations , communication levels and reading the room .

So it's all about expectations , communication levels and reading the room , especially when you almost have to separate married life and personal life with work life . You need to be separate , but inevitably , if you're talking to your spouse , you're probably going to talk a little bit differently than you would a normal employee , I would imagine .

Ben has a great question here . This kind of goes on to the first question we talked about . Do people ask if they can be on your podcast , or are you inviting everyone ? What is the most effective way to ask somebody if you can be a guest on their show , assuming it's not totally frowned upon ? It's not frowned upon at all , Ben for sure .

I would encourage all web designers to request to be on podcasts , especially if you know somebody who has a podcast in your local area or in your industry , in your niche . Do it , do it , do it , do it , do it . Request to be on the show .

The big thing is , though , you generally don't want to request to be on a podcast and just say like hey , would you like to have me on ? There needs to be some benefit for the host and for the show . So having a series of topics that you like , a bullet list of topics that you know well , are interested in most web designers .

Especially if you're a web designer pro , you know the top tips about conversion based websites , or if you go through my courses , you know about what websites need to stay relevant and trends and even support and optimization and things like that .

So I would just have a bullet list of things that you like and that you have expertise or skill set in and that can help other business owners . That way , you can say hey , I'd love to be a guest on your show .

I'm a web designer , um , I know a lot about what's working right now with you , know AI and how that's coming into play , or Google Analytics , or accessibility , privacy or just higher conversions , e-commerce , whatever it is having .

That will really help you become a guest on a show , especially if it is a local chamber of commerce show or something like that , or a niche podcast . We already talked a little bit about how people come onto the podcast . Now , again , it is a mix of inviting people and people requesting to be on Um .

That is a different process there , cause if I invite somebody , I know you know generally what I want to talk about or I want to see what they're interested in , and then , if it's somebody who requests to be on the show , I need to do a little bit of research just to get a feel for them , watch a clip of an interview and I trust my gut on that to

decide they might be a good fit for the show . Mark has a follow-up question to Ben's question . How do guests get on your show ? I've heard folks paying guests to come on and others will come on for free to push their thing . Yeah , I do not have a show where I force like payment for guests . It's usually a mutual thing .

I have done that in the past and it kind of depends on whether it is a corporate company that has an employee or people they're partnering with to come onto the show . I know some podcasts like you have to pay to be on . The Web Design Business Podcast is not at that point .

I have done some partnership opportunities to where we may do like a workshop together and then a guest comes on the show as part of like a almost like a sponsorship type of deal , like a partnership deal .

Um , that's only happened a couple of times so far but I'm probably going to do that a little bit more moving forward , as long as I trust and like the guests and like the topic . That's the biggie , um , but yeah , most people come on for free and as far as pushing their thing .

I do always give a guest an opportunity to share , ideally if they have something free Um . But by taking the time to come on the show , I know they're getting exposure to my audience and then being able to uh release it to their audience as well . Sometimes it can be a big win win .

So I do often give a an opportunity for folks to to share , to share their stuff , especially if it's free . So , yeah , that's kind of how we go about it .

I've never had an issue where somebody has been talking about their product too much or like forcefully salesy , uh like selling it on a show , um , so , yeah , I've been fortunate and lucky to have just incredible guests .

You know , as a listener , I really do try to work my butt off vetting guests and if I get any semblance of a like , I just don't know I feel weird about this . I just trust my guy and it hasn't been an issue . Don't have to worry about it . Great questions , those guys . All right .

Now let's transition to some additional questions in and around , not just podcasting , but , um , personal growth and online entrepreneurship . Sandra actually had a few great questions here . Uh , again , no surprise , sandra . Always thoughtful with your questions , I'm really excited to dive into these . Let's do it . Let me take a drink first and we'll we'll dive in .

All right , podcasting tip always have a cup of water Handy , especially if you're about to do a Q&A , my questions or a workshop . If you do a live workshop . One time I did a live presentation for my mom's Corvette club showing off a website design . Sold it for 500 bucks y'all , Early days .

This was early days but I didn't have a water and I was coughing and I was like my mom brought me a cup of water , like a little kid . I was like I have a juice pouch , mom . Anyway , sandra said , looking ahead , what legacy do you hope your podcast will leave in the entrepreneurship and coaching world ? I don't know if I , definitely not in the coach .

I don't think this podcast is really recognized or known in the coaching world . It may be as not in the coach . I don't think this podcast is really recognized or known in the coaching world . It may be as slightly in the entrepreneurship entrepreneurship world , but there are so many entrepreneur based podcasts that my podcast would have a very , very hard time .

I don't even want to use the term competing , but I'll say even showing up on those directories because it's it's about web design and specifically the business of web design . So , as you know , there's a lot of entrepreneurship in this podcast . Almost every episode is some semblance of being an online entrepreneur today , with web design as the core tool .

But yeah , I don't think we'll really dive . I don't think we'll make a dent in the entrepreneurship podcast land . That said , there is this hybrid of a web designer and an entrepreneur , which is what I call a webpreneur , and I think we are the podcast .

I think this is the show for the webpreneur , somebody who is doing web design but has aspirations of being a true business owner and not an agency owner , but just true business owner and not an agency owner , but just a business owner and also being an online entrepreneur and being able to do different things online , whether it's courses or YouTube channel or

thought leadership . That brings you outside of just doing websites for clients , and that is an absolute honor .

So my legacy for that is I just hope to show what's possible in this amazing world that we live in , that we live in a world where you could be a web designer and if you get to the point where you have time back and you're scaling , you could do a passion project , you could do a side project , you do a podcast , or you could do your own show , or you

could do courses or coaching or mentorship .

A lot of Web Designer Pro members are at this level where they're doing these types of things and it's awesome to be able to not only for your brain just to shift gears a little bit and to do something else , but have a passion that you get into , that you're able to serve other people alongside doing websites , especially if you're building your website business

to scale or to sell potentially . So my hope is that the legacy of this show will show people what's possible as a webpreneur , and the possibilities are endless and ever expanding , day after day after day right now . So great question that's my goal with that .

As far as a , as a webpreneur , how has your vision for the podcast over the or how has your vision for the podcast evolved over the years ? What do you see as the next big milestone ? So it definitely has evolved for the podcast . As many of you know , I launched the podcast with a different name . I did rebrand a couple years back .

It was just the Josh Hall Web Design Show , because I went through like 300 names and couldn't decide what to do .

In the beginning days it was a lot more about the tech and the specifics about web design as a whole , but then pretty quickly I realized the true , the value proposition of the MPV , mvp of this , my most valuable proposition here for this podcast . Did I say that right now you know what I mean . It is the my value prop . It is the business of web design .

I just I learned pretty quickly on , especially with the podcast , because they were long form conversations and it's not visual , like I'm not on YouTube . But basically what I got to is that if I'm going to teach any part of web design that's visual , like you're looking at a builder or you're looking at a tool , that needs to be a separate thing .

It needs to be a YouTube video , which is why I have my YouTube channel for the visual side of things .

If it's more of a tutorial , business wise , yes , we can talk about some website related stuff and best practices , but mostly it's about the business of web design and being a webpreneur , because everyone who does websites online , you're also a webpreneur , whether you know it or not , and if you're making more than $600 a year , you got a business .

So you got to pay taxes on at least stateside as of now . So , uh , that's why it's evolved . That's why it evolved from eventually being the uh , the the Josh Hall web design show to then web design business podcast . Again , I went through a whole different round of names and I was like you know what ? What did we talk about ?

I had thought about calling it the business of web design . I just thought that was hard to say . Like , if anyone who names a show or names anything , think about how it is referred to for others . For example , if you say like you should check out this podcast , the business of web design , that's pretty cool .

But I just thought the web design business would be easier to say like , check out web design business . It's a podcast and video show . Um , just easier . It rolls off the tongue a little bit easier , although I still I have a sweet spot for the , the term business of web design .

But , um , that also sounded just a little bit more businessy than web design business . So that's why I changed it , changed the name and rebranded , because it was mainly topics around the business of web design . That's how it's evolved , for sure . Um , and then one thing I did do .

This was a couple years back is when I I kind of did a push for getting some high profile guests when I got Amy Porterfield , pat Flynn and a few others . That was something I wanted to do to help increase the legitimacy of the podcast Real quick .

If you're curious about how I got those guests Pat Flynn he's been on twice , but he was on on the 100th episode of the podcast .

And the way I got him on and this goes back to this question of how it evolves in the milestones because at that point I wanted to make the show even more legit and I thought , man , if I could get like a couple of legit entrepreneur names , it would just help the show look legit .

Quite frankly , um , even though it didn't make any difference in the stats or numbers , in fact , when I had Pat Flynn and Amy Porterfield on , I thought the numbers were going to skyrocket . They didn't at all and I had a couple episodes with students who shared stuff about their web design business .

That did way more in 90 days than the high profile guests , but it still has helped the show look legitimate because I've had those guests on . So , yeah , I did a a push for some of those . Pat Flynn . I was actually a student in his power up podcasting course , which is the course I went through to help me launch the show . Highly recommended .

If you go check it out , go to joshhallco slash pup P-U-P . I'm an affiliate for that course because it is literally what I took to help me build this podcast and I came out of the gates flying with three episodes back on November 4th 2019 . And here we are five years later . I'm still loving it .

Anyway , um , I did a , a testimonial for for him and smart passive income as company and then eventually they reached out and said hey , we'd love to feature you as a success story with your business and how these courses have helped you . So I did that and then I got an email . I remember standing in the kitchen , uh , with my wife .

We were sitting there talking , and then uh went to check my email real quick and then I got a note from his assistant saying Pat would love to have you on the podcast , his podcast , smart Passive Income Podcast , which is one of the top ones in entrepreneurship category . So I was like heck freaking , yeah .

And when I did that interview with him at the very end , after recording was stopped , I said hey man , I said , uh , if this is a or if I'm ever stepping my boundaries , totally understand , but I'm coming up to the a hundredth episode . And I said I would be honored to have you as my special guest for episode 100 of you'd be interested .

And he said , heck , yeah , let's do it . So that's how I got Pat Flynn , amy Porterfield . I actually just went , I I put my work boots on and I just Googled how to get Amy Porterfield on a podcast . I found a page that was a media request .

I sent a personal video because I had also been a student in her , one of her courses , her list building course and uh , I really enjoyed it and I said , hey , I'm a , I'm a student , a fan of Amy Porterfield . I would love to have her on the show specifically to talk .

I think I talked about a topic that I would like to discuss with her , which is longevity as an entrepreneur , and I sent that little like one minute video in . I made it through a couple rounds and then , next thing , you know , uh , they said Amy's down , it got to her and she would love to come on , and that's how I got Amy Porterfield .

So , um , that's how it evolved from being a business show and then getting into some broader entrepreneurship topics and guests , and those are big milestones . What I see moving forward with the podcast is a lot of the same right now . I really am not at a point where I'm like , all right , five years is up , I'm changing things up .

I like the trajectory it's on right now . I love talking to a lot of my members of Web Designer Pro and students who are doing awesome things . I love talking with colleagues who are up to awesome stuff , the people who reach out and I feel like there's a really cool guest or a cool topic .

I'll continue to have them on and occasionally I'll reach out to see if there's a more high profile entrepreneur who's interested in coming on . Chris Doe , if he's watching , I'm trying to get Chris on the show . Coming on , um , chris Doe , if he's watching , I'm trying to get Chris on the show . So , yeah , that's um the really nothing is changing .

I don't really have a vision or a strategy right now . I'm just , I mean , kind of in reflection mode , reflecting on the past five years and not really vision casting for the next five . I've also got my I've got . I'm knee deep in the rollout here soon of web designer pro 2.0 , which we're going to cover at the end here .

So , yeah , that'll be eventually here . I'll look at the podcast and the vision for it , but I have no plans on changing anything . I still feel very fired up for the next season . Looking back on your podcast journey , said , sandra , what episode or guests had the biggest impact on your own personal growth ?

So I want to say by way of preface this is such a great question , sandra , because this is personal growth , so let's keep this in mind . Personal growth .

I have had so many great conversations on this podcast that have to do with web design , web specifics , design builders , privacy , accessibility , all the topics , speed , all the topics in web design , but let's focus on personal growth .

All that to say , the episodes that I think about top of mind , that were biggest impactful to me , are around this frame of personal growth . So just know , if you've been a guest on the show before , uh , I have loved dearly every conversation I've had on the show . There's really has not been one conversation where I'm like , oh my God , what time is it ?

Can we get this over ? There's a few where , like the topics I wasn't like personally as interested in , um , but I felt were important to go into . But I make sure , like if I'm going to do the show and interview , I want to enjoy it . So the personal growth episodes are actually my favorite , my absolute favorite , while they're top of mind .

Amy Porterfield , back on episode 185 , make sure , if you have not listened to that episode , go back , because it's about longevity , speaking of something turning five in the online world .

Amy and myself , our podcast was all about longevity and how to do this , how to set yourself up to be sustainable , and one thing that she said in that episode was when you are in a tough season . She had this quote .

She said it's a mantra that she lives by and it really resonated with me at the time , especially the year after , because I really had a hard time in my business the year after , which we'll get into here in another question .

But she said you can't believe everything you think , and that quote just hit me like a bag of motivational bricks , because it is so easy for us to think something , especially if we're in a season of low clients or things just aren't going well , projects are taking forever or revenues kind of stagnant or , worse yet , maybe falling and it can be really easy to

think that what if I've screwed something up , I've done something or I've lost my edge ? I'm just there's other , better options than me . I'm not able to keep up .

It's really easy to go to places like that , but Amy's reminder of that quote you can't believe everything you think is so gold , because it just goes to show you you can't trust yourself , you can't trust your own mind , especially in times when you're struggling or in your challenging season .

So the answer to that is to just keep forward and stay positive , stay optimistic . Ideally , have a coach , have a mentor to lean on to guide you through that .

Um , and that's one of my favorite aspects of pro is when people , when I'm coaching them and DMS , they may come to me with a challenge and I feel like it's my duty to say listen , I know you're in this easy right now , but just keep moving forward .

I promise you you're right here , right before the line of revenue goes up into the right , you're right here . So that thought really helped me and again , it was kind of what's the word I'm looking for . It was a preliminary to a premonition .

It was a premonition to the year after having that conversation , because when I did make a pivot in my business and my numbers did go down . My thought was oh my gosh , am I done as a course creator ? Am I , have I lost it ? Are there better people than me ? And thank goodness that quote came back to me , so I just stuck with it and kept on going .

We'll get to that in a little bit here , but yeah , that was a big one for personal growth .

Going back to Pat Flynn , since this is all top of mind in episode 100 , pat said because we were talking about imposter syndrome and just going for it and just doing it If you're building your web design business , you're about to leave your full-time job but you're hanging on to stable income , or you're hanging on to something and you know you have an opportunity

but you're just not going for it . He said I'd rather live a life of oh well then , what ifs ? Let me say that quote one more time . I'd rather live a life of oh well then , what ifs ? Meaning it's way worse , looking back at your life and going what have I had just done that ? What have gone differently ?

What have I had just made the jump and gone full time with my business ? What if I had just made the jump and gone full-time with my business . What if I had just reached out to that person to get on my podcast ? What if I had just went for that big $20,000 quote instead of even just short-term , instead of doing it for $5,000 and killing myself ?

What if , what if ? What if ? Those questions eat at you ? So the oh well questions are more risky and lead to wins and losses , but it's way easier to look back and say , well , oh well , I tried , I tried this change in my business . I tried .

How many of us have gone through proposals like that I have , where I remember sending a $14,000 proposal over to a company that I really wanted , I really wanted this job , but they didn't go for it . They're really cool and gave me the reasons why . But instead of saying what if I just went for it ?

I was able to say , oh well , I went for it , at least I went for it . That's a kind of my new model is to say , at least I went for it , at least I tried it , at least I did it . That's way better . And people in the corporate world and salary mindset folks will not understand this because they are chasing safety and stability .

My big question to that is like how much safety and stability is there in a corporate job ? How many people have been laid off over the past couple of years ? Who you know , or maybe you have yourself ? Um , chasing safety and stability is a very dangerous path .

I think it's most important for everyone , even if you're not in web design , to know how to build something and to sell something . Those two principles alone build , sell , build , sell , build , sell . If you can build something , even if it's a website , even if it's a marketing plan , sell it . Those are key . So , yeah , I'd rather go back to those .

Yeah , like , oh well , I tried , didn't work , but I tried . I've had plenty of didn't works . By the way , I relaunched a course on courses and it just it didn't work . I had students who loved it , who went through it , but I realized my audience is just not the course creator audience , so it was , technically , on the books , a complete revenue flop .

So , yeah , like , I tried it and eventually I'd love to do more entrepreneurship based teaching , but as of right now , yeah , oh well . So those were a couple that come to mind . Another one was Jenny Blake , author of the book Free Time , back in episode 195 .

There are certain episodes that just resonate with me hit me and I'm talking about kind of high profile guests here that one . We talked about the idea of having a friction versus flow set of tasks . I've actually completely ripped off her model and used it in my scaling course and I gave her full credit , by the way .

But in my scaling course I talk about that Look at what you're doing every day and every week in your business . What are the things that light you up , give you energy and are your flow items , and what is just draining to you ? What would you never , or what would you love to never , do again ?

That idea really shifted how I ran my business and set my week up was having a friction and flow list and making sure I stay out of the friction list as much as possible . You're going to have times where you got to do friction tasks but you want to stay in your flow state as much as possible . So I could keep going . I will give a quick one .

Who's not a high profile entrepreneur ? Well , unless you're in Divuland . Tim Strifler , episode two of the web design biz business podcast . We talked about the idea that uh , he said consistency is is more than intensity , or consistency beats intensity . That was the quote and that is absolutely true .

And , uncoincidentally , five years of the podcast shows that , yes , I was able to do this and stay sustainable because I set systems and processes in place , because I went through a course that taught me how to do it Thank you , pat Flynn and because I did this in a way like I didn't do three interviews a week and kill myself .

I made a modest schedule that I could keep up with , and even that's evolved over the years . Um , and I learned thank you to Tim and that quote consistency beats intensity . Same is true in like weight loss too . Like you don't go to lose a hundred pounds immediately .

You have a goal , maybe a long goal , but you got to siphon it off and break it into realistic steps every week , every month . And consistency , the name of the game , those habits that you build for consistency is huge . And then finally , this last question from Sandra . Then we'll get to some other ones .

Great question , sandra as someone who has shaped the careers of many , what has been the most rewarding part of guiding others through the podcast ? And I would probably put this in with pro as well , in courses , because with podcast listeners , unless they join pro , I don't generally know what impact it's making .

I do get occasional DMs or messages via my contact form at joshhallco slash contact . If you want to send me a note about what the podcast has meant to you , I read every one of those . I really appreciate it . Better yet if you would leave it as a review on Apple or Spotify .

That is where I would really appreciate hearing how the podcast has helped you , because it will help others .

But I think the most rewarding part I was thinking about this because I did check out these questions beforehand this because I did check out these questions beforehand there's so many rewarding aspects of seeing people grow their businesses and achieve their dreams .

I think my favorite part is when they hit their goals and now they have expanded what they think is possible . So it kind of goes to like mindset .

I think my favorite part about helping web designers build and grow their business is seeing who they become , because there's a lot of members of Web Designer Pro recently Mark , like Sam , one of our members recently , who came into pro as a complete novice and now is a web printer teaching local SEO and was recently on the podcast .

I'm seeing a lot of these people become who they wanted to be and then have a whole new mindset about what is possible . That is my favorite and most rewarding part is number one seeing people have success . It's just the best , and I know that my resources aren't the only like . It's not like .

You know , the only reason they got there is because of my stuff . But I know my stuff , especially when they tell me , has been a huge piece to their , like a foundation to them , and that is the best . I mean that just makes every minute of hard work that I do worth it .

But it's seeing what people are doing next when they hit their goals , and seeing them become like , seeing their mindset shift from like I just need to make enough money to like I'm making the money now I need to get my time back to I've built something here .

Now I want to either give back or expand in a way that suits me , and just seeing people live a free lifestyle that's what I just absolutely love . And I have to give a quick shout out to all of the web designer pros who we met up in last year's WordCamp , wordcamp 23 .

We'll get to this in a little bit on one of these questions , but I don't think anyone knew at that point . I was definitely having a hard time in my business . My revenue numbers were down significantly because I did make a pivot and change in my business that I'll expand on here , but that was in August or late September last year 23 .

And I was definitely in kind of a hard point in my business to where I was like , do I need to ? Not that I was going to quit it , but I was like , do I need to change something ? No-transcript in depth and hearing about how they found my podcast and how it helped them was just I mean that just may . It really was a turning point for me .

So personally , I want to say thank you to everyone who was there who shared their wins with me in person .

I mean , sandy actually came on the podcast a while back talking about her journey and how she started scaling and got through cancer with scaling her web design business , was able to keep up web design and then went to a WordPress meeting and found Divi and then subsequently found me and she said those tutorials that I put out on Divi helped her like stay in

web design and that kind of thing was just the most rewarding thing . And I will say for anyone who's a course creator , a podcaster or , I guess , influencer , quote unquote for any type , like the people who make a difference for you .

Please let them know , because I didn't know a lot of that and until I had Web Designer Pro , one reason I started this community that had an element of like DM and coaching is because , unless a testimonial came in , I didn't know what results my students were having .

But with Pro in our wins and successes category , which is my favorite part of WebZenner Pro , now I'm seeing it and then through DM conversations , a lot of people are sharing numbers with me . They don't want public , and I totally get that if they want to keep it private for many reasons , but I'm seeing this and it's just .

Yeah , it's what keeps me going , cause I'm like I know this works . If it works for one person , it can work for two , and it can work for five , and it can work for 10 , and it can work for 100 , and it can work for 1,000 , and it can work for 10,000 . So , yeah , that's just been the absolute best .

So thank you , sandra , for this incredible set of questions and for prompting me on that , because I wanted to make sure we talked about that . I definitely yeah , it's been absolutely huge . It's just the best . Uh , michelle said I also want to know which episode had the biggest impact on Josh personally and professionally .

Yeah , so I hope that was some good insight on that . And again , that was about the frame of personal growth .

Um , there were some like favorite moments of the podcast , like I remember when Hans , a good partner of mine , the owners of Termageddon , the privacy auto updating privacy tool that I use and recommend I had no idea that he had a business called the Shotbong and sold it to college kids as a drinking toy .

Basically , I had no idea about that until we talked about sales and how his journey actually started selling the shop bong for college kids . Um , so that was like a memorable one . There were some like memorable moments like that that were just great . Um , but yeah , to the tune of , you know , personal growth , some of those conversations were were absolutely huge .

But even um . Another one that comes to mind real quick before we move on to the next couple of questions Another one was from Derek Sivers , who is one of my favorite authors . I was so jazzed to get him on the show . If you have not gone back to listen to that one , do it . Derek Sivers Web Design Business Podcast .

I forget the number on that one it was 245 . Is that right ? Maybe , maybe not . But he said just because something is simple doesn't mean it's not complex .

He said it much more eloquently than I did , but the idea and we've all had these web design clients who say I just want a simple website , just want a simple website or I'm sorry I said the quote wrong the quote is just because it's simple doesn't mean that it's easy .

He said it can be very easy to make something complex , but it can be very hard to make something simple . Every web designer is nodding their heads . I can sense it . I sense the nods . Yes , just because tell your clients , just because it looks easy or just because it looks simple doesn't mean that was easy .

In fact , it can be very hard to make something quote unquote simple . I think probably Apple is the best example of this . Their products look very simple , but we know how hard it was to make something that can be very complex be very simple . Same principles apply to building websites too .

Sometimes a simple website freaking took a long time to get there and a lot of revisions and a lot of work . Long time to get there and a lot of revisions and a lot of work . Holla to all my web designers . So yeah , it's another one that , even outside of personal growth , more tactically , really resonated with me here recently .

Um , oh , by the way , real quick to another one . I'm just thinking , like the high profile guests these this is one thing I've known about how high profile entrepreneurs is they often have at least one thought in a conversation with them that is a banger . That's like oh Ooh , that was good .

I remember talking to Mike Michalowicz I think he was on two 50 and he said sometimes too many sales is actually a bad thing . It's the first time I ever talked with somebody who said sometimes you don't want more sales If your business is not set up for more sales .

You need to work on your systems and you need to work on your profitability before you even go for more sales . Has anyone ever got way too many projects and not know what to do with them ? I'm raising my hand up as somebody who had 23 projects at one point and was completely overwhelmed . I was forced to start scaling . Great example of too many sales .

I just all my referrals started to compound and had a few projects land at once and just . I was just completely overwhelmed . So that idea of too many sales can actually be a bad thing . It can actually sometimes break your business or put a lot of strain . Just remember , every sell equals strain in some sense .

When you sell a website project , your email is going to be strained , your project manager is going to be strained , your time is going to be strained , the team is going to be strained , unless you have a nice , solid system to manage all of it . That's what I have my web design business course for , which is inside of Web Designer Pro .

So , yeah , there's another one , a couple other additional , uh , more outside of personal growth , more like business tips that really resonate with me over the past couple of years . And , yeah , still think about them often . Um , Nick wanted to know . Congrats , josh , thanks man .

You may have posted about this somewhere , but I'd love to know your setup , your gear setup , mic camera , et cetera . Yes , so those watching on YouTube , right now I'm showing you this video , if you just search Josh Hall home studio tour . This is a previous version . I am due to make a new one with my new office .

I promise I've been talking about this for like two years . I promise I will do this . The reason I've held office because I've had more pressing things to do than show off my mics and stuff . Plus everything I cover in this original home studio tour is actually primarily all the same gear I still use .

It's just I'm in a new office with a new background , a couple of new lights , but the camera , the mic , everything else is the same . So just search Josh Holholm studio tour for now , and I will do an updated one soon . I promise I'll be there . I promise , as Arnold said , and jingle all the way .

My favorite Christmas no , not my favorite Christmas movie , my favorite is Christmas vacation . Second favorite is probably jingle all the way no . Second frame it . Second favorite is probably Jingle All the Way no . Second favorite is Home Alone . I may even put the second Home Alone in there , because that one's really good too . We'll give it number four spot .

We'll give Jingle All the Way number four . Elf is close too . Sorry , we're about to start watching Christmas movies here . Actually , at the time of releasing this , christmas movies have already started in the Hall household . Because day after Halloween , baby , it's Christmas time . All right , rosie , great question .

I'd like to ask about your future plans and aspirations and how the pod fits into that . I love this because it's not about the podcast , it's how the pod fits into the vision and the plans overall . Are you fired up for another five years ? Are you fancying a change ? I feel like I've followed your journey for way more than five years of the pod now .

I have massive respect for what you achieved and a curiosity about your plans for the future . Thank you so much , rosie . Nothing short of what I expected from Rosie than a really , really thoughtful question on this , and I appreciate it . I'll say one thing about Rosie .

Rosie is a member of Web Designer Pro , where we've really just talked about mainly about mindset and sustainability . In fact , we've never talked about numbers together . It's kind of a Rosie .

We joked about this Rosie's kind of a unique case study in pro , because instead of talking goals and numbers , we talk about mindset and shifts in mindset and how to be sustainable , and that will inevitably lead to better numbers and revenue , especially if you're more profitable . So love my conversations with Rosie because it's like this .

It's about vision and sustainability . So I am absolutely fired up for another five years for the podcast . I really am , as long as Web Designer Pro is kicking and I am a quote unquote web design business coach . The web design business podcast will be my main driver .

For sure I would like to do , and I am going to do , especially once I roll out Web Designer Pro 2.0 , I will be doing more and more YouTube in the way of videos , more so visual . But the podcast is going to stay as is . As I mentioned a little bit ago , no big changes and again , I'm not at the point where I've thought about a vision for it .

I'm in reflection mode right now . For sure I'm just appreciative of the fact that the podcast has got to this point right now . For sure , I'm just appreciative of the fact that the podcast has got to this point , even though the numbers of downloads are not astronomical .

We in the web design world I mean you , you guys are here , search it , search web design podcast . I guarantee we're up there in the top three almost all searches . So , unless it is a web design like code podcast or something , but if it's entrepreneurial or business , uh , it's been an honor to get to this point .

I'm just , yeah , reflecting on that and just enjoying thinking about how far this thing has come and just looking at , like , how much personal growth I've been able to , uh , to take from this podcast , like as much as I am sharing my knowledge and also sharing other industry experts expertise .

I've learned a ton , so it's really , really great and I have zero plans on changing anything . So , no , not changing , not fancying a change at all . On the web design business podcast , moving forward , my vision and this is and we'll talk about this at the end here with W WDP 2.0 . That is the big thing .

I've kind of moved from being Josh the course creator to Josh the community builder and coach of web designer pro .

That's kind of the the big thing and the big shift that I've gone through over the past couple of years and that is the vision for the next five years for sure is going all in on web Pro , making it better and better and better for all three profile types of pro , which are builders , growers and scalers .

We'll talk about that at the end , but that's where my focus and vision is on for the web design side of things . Now , that said , I really do enjoy and I have enjoyed more more recently , talking more and more about entrepreneurship and community building and membership .

So I don't have an exact vision or game plan on this at all because I'm so hyper-focused on pro and I am a very mono-focused guy when it comes to projects . It's one reason when I sold my agency , I just could not run my agency and do joshhallco at the same time . I just couldn't . I had to go all in um for better , for worse . That's the way I roll .

So I'm just focused on web designer pro . But I will say to plant the seed of like a passion project eventually is . I do love talking about just broad entrepreneurship and what I'm learning with creating Web Designer Pro and building it . Actually , side note , today , november 4th 2024 , is actually the four-year anniversary of Web Designer Pro .

So next year we are going to do a big five-year probably AMA of some sort for Web Designer Pro and what I've learned with building a community around courses , community and coaching and how it's become an incredible source of ARR and MRR monthly recurring revenue for me and my family and become the centerpiece to my business .

So yeah , that's where I'm focused on right now . Rosie and anyone curious it's all in on pro , make it better and better , better , and really embrace being the leader of this community . Put another way , said Rosie , pods are on fire right now . What's the next hot thing you see in marketing and are you tempted by any other marketing channels ?

Yeah , pods are on fire . For anybody who thinks they're too late to podcast , you're not . You are absolutely not late to podcast . Additionally , I think I saw a stat recently that most podcasts don't make it past 20 episodes , meaning if you do over 20 episodes , you're already in like the top I think 5% of podcasts that just keep going .

And if you wanted to try out a podcast , what I recommend is doing an interview series , just interviewing 10 business owners , or interviewing 10 business owners or interviewing 10 friends or colleagues and seeing , if you like , the process of interviewing and post-production and all that . Side note , I got to give a big shout out to my team .

I meant to do that in the beginning . I could not do this podcast without Nathan , my editor , jen , my VA . Big thanks to Cam , my VA of almost five years , who did so much work leading up to this four years , and Kevin , who helps distribute a lot of this stuff on social media .

These are all centerpieces to me , being able to do this show week to week without doing everything and all the things . So huge shout out to my team . I still apologize , guys , for not mentioning you in the outset . Totally meant to do that , but I didn't have a bullet list of things to go over . So , uh , you know how we go .

We just kind of go casual and wing it , but oh , that's good too . That's water , by the way , could be beer . I might transition to beer here . If we keep going , it's going to be happy hour here before we know it . Um , the other marketing channels I'm interested in are YouTube . For sure . I mean , I've had YouTube since 2017 .

It's how I built my tutorials and my online presence . But once the podcast kind of took over as my main content source , um , it became the majority of videos on YouTube . So it's a lot of my video show . Um .

Pros and cons to that strategy , but I'm glad I kept it under Josh hallco , just because if , if web designer or the web design business podcast was its own channel , it would be lower on subscribership and I wouldn't have much on my personal channel . So I am going to absolutely go further into YouTube , especially in this next phase .

Now that I have my offers solidified and Web Designer Pro about ready to be in this next phase , I am going to be marketing a lot more because I have the right channels and funnels in place . We'll get to that too . That's another question coming up here . Um , so , yeah , that's the . There's nothing else new . I'm not interested in any other social media .

Um , yeah , it's YouTube . The only thing I may do is have a more active presence on LinkedIn and a couple other socials . But just hire Kevin or somebody to repurpose content and , yeah , just dedicate more and more to Web Designer Pro . I really do love newsletters too . I'm really enjoying my newsletter and I'm enjoying writing .

So marketing channel is going to keep going with the podcast , for sure , doing more on my YouTube channel and then really enjoying writing . So marketing channel is going to keep going with the podcast , for sure , doing more on my YouTube channel and then really enjoying my weekly newsletter . Go sign up for it . It's free coaching with me .

Every week , every Sunday , I send out an issue joshhallco slash weekly or joshhallco slash newsletter . We'll get you over there . But all that to say . One reason I have started writing and this writing practice over the last year is I am going to write a book . I've actually already started the book . I'm still working through like how I'm going to frame it .

I really I've already started the story about . It's kind of if you've read , built to sell . It's similar in the way of like a web designer meets a guide , basically , and it's kind of my story . It's basically like if Josh at 23 met Josh at 33 , who had a scaling agency . This is what I would teach little Josh .

That's basically the story and the frame and it's a lot about what I've learned on the podcast and what I learned in my journey . So , as far as other marketing channels , a book and I would recommend I mean the cool thing about a book is , while books are in a unique , I don't know , I feel like books are coming back . Do you feel like that ?

I feel like books are coming back , especially with audio versions , and audio books are not reading . By the way , I have nothing against audio books , but don't tell me you read a book . If you listen to a book , you listen to a book . You listen to a book . You don't read podcasts . You listen to podcasts .

I have strong feelings about people saying they read a ton of books when they're listening to them . On audio , love audiobooks , recommend them , but reading , feeling pages , looking at a book or a Kindle or whatever it's on and actually making notes that is reading to me and I think that's coming back even more and more . Um .

So , yeah , yeah , the book getting the web design business story , especially now that I have pro at a place to where I feel really good to release it to the wider world but keep our core inside a pro type teasers for what's to come here .

That's the next marketing channel I would look into is keep the podcast going newsletter , my YouTube and a book as a great entry point . Alexia been listening since 2021 . It's been my most consistently watched podcast . Yes , alexia is a YouTube podcast watcher . Alexia was just on the last podcast episode sharing about her launch plan techniques .

My number one question how did you cultivate Web Designer Pro to be such a successful and engaged community that people truly feel a part of ? Obviously , I love this question . Alexia , you're a big part of it .

You're one of the most active members , people who come to Web Designer Pro and are at a place to be able to dedicate to it or make it a priority or a part of their week , to jump in and help and dive in . You guys are the one who make it . There is a quote that I actually picked up from Pat Flynn which says your vibe attracts your tribe .

And the cool thing about Pro is that it has attracted people of all different backgrounds and all I mean all over the world people of different cultures , different faiths , different parts in their business , different stages of business . Some people are more marketing , some people are more web design and tech .

It really has brought together a wide it's a wide casted net of people , but there's a like-mindedness in that everyone wants to be a freedom-based entrepreneur and it's just cool people . Cool people generally know cool people . Cool people generally hang out with cool people . Good clients generally hang out with good clients .

That's kind of how this has gone and I'm not tooting my own horn , being like I'm just so cool , so it's attractive cool people . But I have done a lot of personal development and growth and been really intentional about being someone who is really open to a lot of different people , wanting to help people in general .

It's one reason that I love helping anyone and everyone . I don't care where you are in your stage of business , I don't care what you look like , I don't care what you believe , I don't care about any of that . I just if you're human and you want to have a business that supports you and your goals and your family . You're a fit .

So that's kind of the motto that I've had with this and I think , even though I haven't said that , I haven't you know there's nothing on my , my homepage that's um , like , uh , we , we are a diverse community and and uh , support equality and stuff like .

I don't need to say any of that , it's just the proof is in the pudding with the people who come in and I just don't care about anything political , like I want humans who are cool , who want to help and who want to be a part of something awesome and grow a business that helps support you , your family , if you have family , or if you're a digital nomad ,

or if that's not your goal , whatever your goals are , that's where Web Designer Pro fits into it . So there's my new heading right there . Yeah , I think that's just . I've just tried to be cool and welcoming and tried to set the precedent for that and it's just . I'm blown away . I am Alexia . I am blown away by how many amazing people come into pro .

It's also one reason why I don't market hugely . And when I said I'm going to market earlier , pro is not going to become this . It's not going to be a big group because it's always going to be premium . There's always going to be a more premium price to it . But investment to it . I should say .

But yeah , like I've just been blown away by like how cool everybody is and I think people feed off each other . I think new members come in and see how engaged everyone and see how is and how helpful everyone in it , and you just can't help but be a part of that . No one wants to be the bad apple and we've been so fortunate in pro .

I think I've only ever deleted two comments that weren't even like nasty comments Like you would find in Facebook . It was just like we might want to reword this differently .

I'm I'm cognizant , too , of a lot of people coming to pro and English is not their main language , so they may be using a translation tool or they may have just said something that came across a little wrong .

I think that's one thing that's helped too , with a diverse audience that is global , is I've learned to be understanding and empathetic to people who that's not their main language . I mean , I can't . I don't speak any other languages . I'm still working on English , so I can only imagine .

So , yeah , I can't attribute it to one thing other than like your vibe attracts your tribe . I've really been proactive and been engaged myself . Like you guys know , when you join pro , I send you a personal video . I am very engaged . I'm in there every day . It's my favorite place of the internet to be .

It's why I'm not very active on social media terribly . I'm barely active in any other Facebook groups that I was a part of . I'm basically just creep and see the news and see updates , and my engagement is with WebCenter Pro and members there because you guys are just the best . So if you want to join , join the fun . It's an incredible group .

I don't even like talking about too much because it's just so awesome . You don't want to like mess up what we have , but we'll get to the plans for pro here shortly after the final questions here . I had no , no anticipation on how long this would go .

I and this is why I was going to pose questions to YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and the podcast as a whole , but I was like there's plenty of questions here because pro is so engaged and the members are so engaged that I was like , yeah , this is going to be plenty enough to keep me talking for an hour , an hour and a half Um a follow-up question to

the engagement and success of web designer pro . I'm so intrigued by how you've created this community , says Alexia . It's one of my top favorite places to hang out . Month after month shoot , day after day for you , alexia , you're one of our most engaged . I love to know your thought process before creating it , at the first stages , all the way up to now .

So when I created what is now Web Designer Pro for those who don't know , it was originally called the Web Design Club and I created it because I had my entire suite of courses live and I had a support community for it and I had separate Facebook groups before that that supported the courses One thing I found is that it was really hard to have multiple courses

and have a bunch of disjointed support forums and stuff . It was just way too confusing , too complex .

Some people were in some courses , not the others , and one common thing I found , which was the impetus for this membership what is now Web Designer Pro is I found that the web designers who had all my courses and were actually do it like they had the whole suite , they were the ones getting the best results and that's why , eventually , I created a bundle of

the courses and then eventually put the courses into Web Designer Pro , which we'll get to next for the next question . And that's when people really started getting and this sounds cheesy or salesy , but it's not it's when people started getting skyrocketing results . They really did .

They had my process course , they had my design course , they had my design course , they had my SEO course . They knew the scary part of websites with my , my DNS course , my C panel course , and then they had my business course , through and through . They had all my processes .

Yes , they would make it their own and choose their own price points and offers , but they had the foundation of what worked for me and what's worked for hundreds of other web designers now thousands around the world . And then they built recurring income with their support plans and maintenance plans . And now the web designers who are scaling .

My most recent course , scale your Way , has helped people go to the next level and get time back and scale their web design businesses .

So that's kind of how it all evolved , as I had these suite of courses , very disjointed in how I supported them , and then when I started the Web Design Club , I actually didn't have the courses in there originally , and even more so .

That's what showed me I'm like , wait a minute , if you have the business course but you don't have my process , you don't have my SEO course , you don't have my design course , you're missing out on so much that is going to help your business .

And then I found members at that time saying like I'd love to get the maintenance plan course , but I'll wait till a black Friday sale or something . By the way , I'm not doing a black Friday sale this year , so excited about not doing a sale . I've never been so excited about not doing a sale .

Maybe I'll talk about that , but , um , because I'm not worried about courses like standalone courses anymore , it's all about pro . So , um , to that end , I learned that everyone who had all the courses had community support and had my support at different levels of coaching them . They were getting the best results .

That is what culminated into what is now web designer pro , which is the big three C's courses community and coaching and I'll share the vision for that here shortly as we're wrapping up these last few questions .

And then another question from Alexia great question , also a challenge and pain point for me right now I'm interested in what your marketing funnel looks like . As far as the podcast to pro pipeline , it works , hence why we're all here . Yes , it does definitely work . I mean , this is the thing is it's not really a great funnel , to be honest .

What I recommend what most gurus quote unquote recommend is that you have some sort of free audience builder , like a podcast , free content , whether it's social media , youtube , newsletter , whatever . In my case , I like to destroy myself and do it all . No , I like to destroy myself and do it all . No , I'm fine , but I do a lot .

I do a lot of free content I do like . Most all my content is free . So for anyone who in the past said , like , how can you charge this much for a course , I'm like , are you freaking , kidding me ? 95% of my content is free at jackwad .

So , when it comes to a funnel , I have kind of an odd funnel today , but my funnel is about to change , moving forward , and we'll get into that . So , alexia , I'm going to answer your question as we move along here because it'll make more sense .

But , in short , my funnel right now is podcast or my YouTube channel are generally where people are hearing about me . Ideally , I get them to the podcast . We recently released the playlists , which are so well received . Thank you , guys for your feedback on the podcast playlist .

Go to joshhallco slash playlists and we have gosh 20 plus playlists now that are a collection of curated listening paths for either starting your business , growing your business , scaling it , and then topical things like website speed , accessibility , ability , privacy , pricing , getting clients . Those pathways and playlists have been an additional nice little funnel .

And , yeah , pretty much right now it's like you get all my free stuff and then you join Web Designer Pro or I do have a free training , that is , I'm about to have three , depending on what stage you're in , but right now I have two .

Joshhallco slash build is where you can get my free training for starting your web design business and building it from the ground up . It's kind of a 10-step action plan . I also have a free training live for JoshHallco slash scale , which is kind of like my top highlights from the scaling course , and then those have been really great to bring folks into pro .

The next one I'm going to be releasing here as I release the next version of pro , is one right in the middle and it is a um . It's a training on getting your business to six figures . Six steps to six figures . If you are a member of Web Designer Pro , this is available now in the Success Pathways .

I have these trainings morphed slightly to Web Designer Pro members . That links to the resources inside of Pro in the Success Pathways space . So head there . My top six tips . It's a tough one to say for six figures , but , yeah , the marketing funnel is going to change and be better and more intentional here . That we'll talk about next Alexia .

All right , a few final questions here , and then I'll share my final thoughts . Just a teaser , because I'm going to follow up with an episode dedicated to Web Designer Pro 2.0 , but I am going to give you a teaser here .

I know we're going long , but if you listen to this show for a while , you should expect no solo episode to be less than a half an hour . If it's a Q&A , like an AMA , like this , it's only an hour at least . I don't even know what time . I didn't even look at the time when we started this , so I have no sense of how long we've gone .

I'm having fun , though . I hope you're having fun . And yeah , five years , let's do it . So , martin , I want to know . Congratulations , josh . You have created a lot of quality content over the past five years . You should be proud of that . Thank you , martin . I do appreciate that . I'm definitely proud .

Sometimes I feel like I don't do much and then I look back and I'm like holy crap , I've done a lot . So I appreciate that it's a good thing for all of us to do . A lot of us don't realize how much work we're doing week to week and then if you look back and just reflect on that month , you're like holy cow .

I finished two websites , I landed three websites , I did this , I sent a newsletter out , I did a workshop , I did this and this and this . You did a lot . So good reminder , martin , for everyone to reflect and look how much that you put out there in the world . What is the best decision you made in the last five years ?

I love this time-based question what has been the most challenging experience in your business journey and how have these experiences transformed you ? So the answer to number one what's the best decision you made in the last five years is also the answer to number two what has been the most challenging experience in your business ?

Because the answer to number one is what led to number two , which is pivoting my business last year , in the spring of 2023 , to go from a courses first business model to a membership first business model , and that happened when I put all of my courses inside of Web Designer Pro . Technically , I did sell in Transit Studios , my agency , in 2020 .

So that's still under five years . So that was technically one of the best decisions I ever made . But that's you know well . I want to stick with like Web Designer Pro on this one , but that was definitely a good decision was to go full-time online education . So kind of two answers , two wins , two best decisions . The second big one was this pivot .

So , as I mentioned a little bit ago , my prior setup was to have a suite of web design courses that could be purchased one-off at different price points or bundled together . And then the web design club was the support . It was the community behind it , the coaching community .

I did have a support community as well for just the courses that were based off of Facebook groups , but that was where , ideally , I wanted people to go , was to get weekly calls with me coaching . And then , as I mentioned , the problem was the people who were getting results had out and they had everything .

They had all the courses , they had the coaching in the community .

That's what led me to put the courses inside of Web Designer Pro when Circle my platform of choice for online memberships when that functionality came out so as soon as Circle released the announcement that they were allowing courses , they have course functions in Circle I was like all right , I'm all in , I'm doing it . That was the best decision .

Looking back now , because some of you guys have seen , my monthly MRR just started to go up and up and up and up and up .

Now it is an incredibly stable point for my business , for my family , and has really allowed me to be flexible and do this in a way that suits me and what I think is working best for everybody , without having to take on sponsorships or do anything that I needed to just to get paid .

Basically , it's also why this podcast is completely free and generally ad free , because I don't rely on this podcast Uh , I don't rely on sponsorships to keep this afloat , because the podcast is what turns people into a presenter pro , which is what pays for the whole shindig .

So , um , looking back now , a year and a half later since making that pivot , best decision I ever made . However , it was also by far the most challenging . I underestimated , when I decided to put all the courses inside of pro , the fact that I just created two massive buying decision differences , created two massive buying decision differences .

People could now choose well , do I just want to buy a one-off course that's still at a pretty lifetime access , premium price point and get supported with that with a support group ? Or do I want to go in Web Designer Pro and get all the courses and the engaged community , incredible people and coaching directly with Josh ?

Those were two pretty big buying decisions that I didn't realize were going to have such an impact on sales . But did my one-off course . Sales took a complete nosedive when I did that because now I had this option of Web Designer Pro . Web Designer Pro in its current form and since launching it in that form form , is a $200 a month membership investment .

So it's $199 a month and that is a lot for , especially for web designers who are at early stages and this will come into play with the plans for moving forward . But I also didn't want to devalue my courses , the community , as I mentioned .

I didn't want a cheap community that the whole world could get into because you basically got a free Facebook group and you've probably been in a low cost community . I mean , how are those conversations compared to what we have in pro ? Night and day difference .

Not to say that everyone who can't afford this membership is not an awesome person , but you do , generally , at least business wise , need to get to a place where you're able to engage and feel comfortable , and there is a dance between having new members learn from experienced members and new member topics not taking over a forum .

So we've struck a really good balance with Pro . That's why I kept it at a premium price point from the start , and that was challenging because naturally , at 200 bucks a month you're not going to get thousands of members .

I did have a slow trickle of members up and up and up , um , but it was not what I was expecting at that point , quite honestly , and because my one-off courses dropped almost completely , I think a lot of people may have had buying fatigue .

It may have been the time I don't know , it was also summertime when my course sales really started to drop off and the membership . I just wasn't doing enough to promote it . Essentially , what I learned is I needed to go . Your follow-up question how have these experiences transformed you ? I learned when you go through a pivot , you have got to commit .

You have to commit to the new strategy . I had one foot in one-off course sales , land , lifetime access . One foot in membership model get all the courses , all the resources , month to month and to get the community and my coaching and a subscription lay .

I w it was one off sales or subscription and I was straddled right in the middle and I think a lot of people just didn't know where to you . Tell me if that was you and last year you were like that was me . I just couldn't afford pro . I didn't want to , I didn't know what to do . Tell me , because I would appreciate hearing your insight .

Go to joshhallco , slash contact , leave me a note if you would like to . But what I realized at that point is because I have something that is working so well . This is really what I learned . I had to back off and look at what's working , even if it's not showing on the books yet , if the revenue is not what is working .

The people who I oversaw , who are getting really good results , who have said their lifetime clients and they have no plans to leave pro ever they want it to be . I've had so many members recently tell me it's just a part of when they see their fees every month . They don't even view it as an expense , it's just a . It's a .

It's as much as like electricity is for them , like they're going to pay it because it's that beneficial . I thought about those members . There are so many of you in Web Designer Pro who fit that . I think about you guys and I said this is what's working .

The people who are in pro as I've mentioned a few times already , they had all the courses , they have the community and they have my coaching . This is what is working . This is what is getting the best results .

You can go through one of my courses and get some results , but to get the six and multi six figure freedom based web design business and the support you need around that and my mentorship for you , it was pro . It's what was getting the people results . So that's when I decided I've got to go all in on pro . It's what was getting the people results .

So that's when I decided I've got to go all in on pro . It was at that point a few months after making this pivot , going through a rough summer with very , very low revenue numbers and then um going to word camp and meeting with so many members in person . Every singer , every single member there was a member of pro um cause it was our pro meetup .

That is what sealed the deal for me that I need to go all in on this , and the way I did that practically was I stopped selling courses as the main thing and I started selling web designer pro as the main thing .

So the best decision ever , because as soon as the fall hit last year in 2023 , the numbers finally started going up and to the right , instead of being kind of stagnant and stable , because anyone who has a membership , you'll learn people come and people go . There is churn , so the goal is to reduce churn as much as you can .

And at that point it had been about six months since , since launching Web Designer Pro and my numbers finally started creeping up .

And then , when I chose to go all in and I chose to use courses as almost like lead generators to pro and instead of being information first as the as the end , all community being the end , all that's when numbers really started to go up I felt much more confident .

On selling pro , I changed the tune and the narrative about when I was talking about stuff instead of talking about my business course is like the end point , nope , the business course is my signature product inside of pro . That's how I learned to reframe that . So now , and it has been for a while , all roads have led to Pro .

I barely sell any one-off courses and I'll talk about my plans for that , because it relates to Web Designer , pro 2.0 . All on Pro , all on the information , just being a part of the bigger narrative in success for members , which is Insider Pro .

Again , going back to courses , community and coaching , so yeah , it was very difficult and I'm going to do a follow-up episode on that journey , cause I have a lot to expand on . I did a podcast a while back , was it ? I want to say it was three , 28 . Let me go back real quick See if I got this right , cause this may be I don't know that's .

That's not the one I was looking for . Um , I forget what number it is . Anyway , if you go back , you can search how I survived a tough year in business .

Um , I talk a little bit about this , but I launched that episode in the fall of last year , right when I was just turning the corner so I still wasn't super confident in sharing all the ins and outs of that .

Now I'm well on the other side because the recurring revenue spiked up in the fall and has just continued to go up and up and up and up and up and up and up this year .

Thank God , thank you , and just freaking awesome and has given me a lot of confidence with this model and going recurring revenue first and membership first , especially when you're mixing information and coaching and community . But I am going to do a follow-up episode here soon about this because I'll just share .

Frankly , my business was down $125,000 over the course of two years . So now I could look at the . I could look at this at one year and say , like my business in the first year was down 75 the second year or down 50 the first year , down uh 75 the second year between 22 and 23 . And there was a lot that went into that .

A lot of you know my daughter also had a traumatic brain injury during having a prolonged seizure which just stopped us completely in our tracks . So that was kind of the kickoff to taking a lot of time off and dealing with that personally for me and my family and helping her . So there was a lot that went into that .

But I'm going to expand on that because , yeah , over the course of two years my business was down 125 K between 22 and 23 . And a lot of it was because of what my family went through , but a lot of it was also because of this pivot and change with going from courses first to membership first , but then I learned to commit .

If you pivot , you've got to commit to the new strategy , even if it's painful . At first you just got to commit to selling what is working and if you pivot , you cannot . Um , one of my wife's favorite movies is , uh , sweet home , alabama .

And at the end for anyone who's seen it if you haven't the bride Reese Witherspoon is is stuck between her ex-husband , who she still loves , but also this new husband who's like McDreamy from shoot what's the dark side , grey's Anatomy , and it's just an awesome guy .

She wants to marry them both and her father says can't ride a horse with two asses sugarplum , and there's actually a lot of wisdom . Sorry , you can't ride two horses with one ass . That's what it was . I am butchering the quotes today , that horses with one ass , that's what it was . I am butchering the quotes today .

That's what I'm going to work on moving forward , but there's a lot of wisdom to that . You can't do two things with one strategy in the business land . So that's what I learned in that Great question , martin , I appreciate that . So that's how it's transforming For the majority of us . Says Austin , the podcast is what brought us to you .

So the fact that it's been five years is mind blowing . Congratulations , honestly . Thank you , austin . Austin is now local to me in Columbus Ohio , so we've been able to do some more meetups , love seeing Austin's business progress and going full time here before you know it .

My man , two questions in your experience , what's the most common mistake new entrepreneurs make in the web design industry ? And , number two , what's the most memorable episodes of doing the podcast ? I'll start with the second because I have to give the most . Well , I'll give two memorable real quick . The one was with Hans .

When I found out he sold the shop bong , I was just like what I was like ? I had no idea the owner of Termageddon , who does privacy policies , used to sell the Shotbong , a drinking device , to college kids and we did it live on the podcast . If you want to go back , search Hans Skilrood . We talked about sales without being salesy .

That was definitely memorable . The other memorable one was the one that I was most amped up and nervous for was Amy Porterfield . Um , I've been a fan boy of hers for a little while now , especially as a course creator , uh , and when I got into courses looked at her like , oh , my gosh , this girl has got it going on as far as her course business .

So , um , I just remember like being sitting at my desk lights , mics on , I'm ready to go . I'm a little like sweaty but also kind of cold because I'm kind of nervous . And then seeing her camera pop up and it's saying Amy Porterfield . And then being like holy crap , I'm talking to Amy on my little web design podcast and she's like hey there .

And I'm like Amy , it's so cool to meet you . And she's like , oh , this sounds horrible but I'll get through it . No , she was great , amy was awesome . It was . That's another reason that interview was so memorable for me was talking with Amy .

When you talk to busy people and entrepreneurs sometimes you can tell there's just other stuff on their mind , and I'm not throwing shade at any particular guests or any things , but there are some interviews where I've done , where it's like I feel like they're kind of ready to go or they have bigger and better things to get to .

Amy was particularly so present and so engaged and I actually think she really liked the topic and I feel like Amy and I just hit it off . I can't wait to get her back in a round two . We're actually she's supposed to come on here and talk about going full time so really excited to get Amy Porterfield back on the show .

But that was a memorable one from a standpoint of like somebody who has been a mentor and somebody I followed to be like talking to them and but also have them being so cool and really engaged and I felt like she really liked the conversation was awesome .

Going back to your first question what's the most common mistake new entrepreneurs make in the web design journey ? This is a great one , austin . There's a lot of different paths this could take . Let me take a quick drink and there's a few more questions after this , by the way and then we'll we'll get to closing this one out here for the five-year anniversary .

I think the common well , this sounds me , but I'm like well , web designers make a ton of new entrepreneurs ton of mistakes . We all make mistakes . I mean we all . Everyone makes a ton of mistakes .

Um , I think the most common one that comes to mind and this is based off of a recent newsletter I kicked out about vanity metrics , which is actually where I showed my numbers and where where pro kind of took off is people starting out , especially nowadays , put too much focus and emphasis on being almost like a semi-influencer , like , in short , people are

interested in building followings and not building a business . The reality is you don't especially as a web designer . You don't need much of a following at all on social media . One mistake is definitely spreading yourself out too thin to do all the social media , all the marketing , and being uncomfortable marketing .

I mean , I encourage you to get out of your comfort zone , but I , if you don't want to dance on TikTok , don't dance on TikTok . If you can't stand LinkedIn , don't do LinkedIn . If you don't know how reels work and stories are confusing holding my hand up , then don't do that or hire it out if you can .

I think I saw a mistake that a lot of new entrepreneurs fall into is they feel like they need to have a big social media presence . In short , and you don't . That's why I recommend especially if you're cool with meeting people in person , do everything you can in person .

Join a BNI group , do networking events , join a chamber of commerce , go to free events , go to meetups . If that's your thing , you will go so much further with building your business . You have to ask yourself what do I really want to do ?

Do I want to have more likes and follows , or do I want to have my bank account grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and get more revenue ? That will dictate everything else , which is why I recommend having a couple dozen clients and getting them to pay you five , 10 , 15 K a year .

It's a way better business model and instead of trying to search for reels or you know the real game , because if you have a social media presence , you need to have something to sell to them generally at scale , like low ticket offers . If you're selling $10,000 websites , I wouldn't even worry about having social media .

I'd have probably a LinkedIn profile to connect with business owners and decision makers . That'd be it , honestly , unless you just really want to go a different route . But I do see so many people hustling on social media for a hundred people on their profile and maybe it's working , maybe it's not .

I don't want to discourage that , by the way , but I'm just saying you will go so much further in person and using your social media to connect with the people you're meeting in your network .

That's essentially how I would frame that is , I would use social media to connect with the people you're meeting in person , ideally , or in other circles , instead of going for likes and vanity metrics , because a lot of likes and follows does not mean a lot of revenue .

So a lot of influencers have been coming out about that and people with like 500 , 900,000 followers will often post a product and like no one buys or it's super low and it's like what the heck ? I always followers , but they may not be like good buyers . So I've I've learned to embrace quality over quantity .

This little podcast learned to embrace quality over quantity . This little podcast , which is bringing in anywhere between 1500 and 2500 listens an episode , is the core to a several hundred thousand dollar business now with Web Designer Pro and what I'm doing so yeah , that's what I've learned is to really just focus on like what's the goal ? Is the goal revenue ?

Where are you going to get your revenue from ? Go there If you're not in in-person networking . Of course I'm going to encourage online stuff , but yeah , just beware of the vanity metrics .

I think , especially now , especially with the generation coming up , we have some members in pro who are the young whippersnappers who are inundated in social media and I think the urge and I'm empathetic to this I would imagine as a youngster the urge would be to be big on social media or to have a YouTube following or something .

But if that's your goal , then go for it . But if your goal is to build a web design business and make six figures , then have your offers reflect that . Go to clients who are paying that , be really damn good at what you do , get support ideally Web Designer Pro and then go for that . So great questions , awesome . Hope that helps .

Um , judah , I'd be interested to know what are your current struggles and pain points . Just a couple last questions here and then we'll wrap this one up and I'll give you just a very , very brief teaser of Web Designer Pro 2.0 .

This is actually a reason I mentioned that is because my current struggles and pain points actually lead up to this , because this will kind of answer a little bit what we're going to do here shortly . But my current struggle and pain points are to do with my capacity and bandwidth .

And bandwidth , I am very close to being at capacity coaching , which is going to come into play with Web Designer 2.0 , because we are going cats out of the bag . We're about to move toa wait list for coaching , but don't worry , pro is not going to be turned off . So that's up ahead .

But that's been a struggle is how do I continue to coach Web Designer Pro members and grow pro without growing my time and expanding my time ? Because I'm close to capacity , because I am a freedom-based , sustainable-based entrepreneur , I know this is something I've got to be really proactive about , intentional about Pro .

Members heard and saw the recent presentation I gave about the plans and why I'm making these changes to pro Um and that's exactly why , because of sustainability , I don't want to work 90 hours a week and no members of pro want me to work 90 hours a week and I also want to do better at reengaging with members and having the time to just send random personal

videos and be like hey , judah , how are things going Um personally , without just the average quarterly check-ins that I do ? So , yeah , that's kind of the the current struggles and pain points is , um , growing pro without growing my time , but I'm about to release the solution , so I'm really excited about that . Uh , great question though , judah .

I appreciate that too . Uh , prompted me with that Um , so I hope that helps . And and this is helpful for web designers too , because you'll get to this point too , if you're not there already where the struggles become .

They go from how to get clients to oh my gosh , how do I manage so many clients and so many projects very different struggles and pain points . So , yeah , that's kind of what's led me to what we'll talk about next with WDP 2.0 . Sandy , last three questions . Sandy , your podcast is incredible . I love that .

The majority of advice dished out is just as valuable when the episode is released as it is years later . Thank you , sandy . I wanted to read that because that's the goal I do love , and I try to make sure that our topics are fairly evergreen . That can last a long time .

You're always telling students how much you've loved being a part of their journey , watching them grow as a web designer and business owner , but as somebody who has followed you since your days of Divi tutorials on YouTube and your Facebook page , then courses . I can say the same about you . Thank you so much , sandy .

I love that I've been able to see your journey for so long and can't wait to see what you do next . If I were to add to your pile of questions , it'd be more personal . You coach students all over the world different personalities , backgrounds , cultures , clientele , business goals , values . What's the biggest thing you've learned from all these people collectively ?

Great question , put another way , what would be the key takeaway that you have from interacting with and coaching so many different people over the years ? What a great question , sandy .

Sandy is who I mentioned , who was on the podcast recently , who we met in person at WordCamp and told me her incredible journey of almost leaving web design , getting into Divi , getting back to it , then scaling her business and , as an incredible story , as a cancer survivor and building her business and scaling it through that difficult journey and her journey .

So , side note , sandy , I have to say uh , ditto right back at you . It has been an honor to serve you and to see you . From that point , what was it ? 2016 or 2017 .

Yeah , you were like early on , I remember connecting on Facebook and then you were one of the first students and then , uh , been with me ever since one of our most engaged members of pro . So , absolutely ditto .

Let me take a quick drink and then I'll answer this great question what have I learned collectively from interacting with and coaching so many different people over the years ?

This is great because , yes , as I mentioned a little while ago , especially in pro , there are so many different types of people , whether that's cultural , whether that's location based , whether that's a mindset is a big one , whether it's the type of business , whether mindset is a big one , whether it's the type of business , whether whatever .

It is a lot of differences , but there are some key commonalities . One I will say that I've noticed , particularly with web designers who just flat out make it , is there is a level of commitment that some other folks I just don't know if they have .

There are people who , just whether they're early on and just learning web design , or whether they're somebody who has a full-time job and a family and has more risk to go full-time the commonality is they commit Absolutely 100% . They're going to work this out . Every web designer I've overseen who has done it and stuck with it has committed .

They are not like I'm going to try this , I hope it goes well . They're like I'm doing this hell or high water . I know I'm going to have good months and bad months . I may have to sacrifice the season of life a little bit in the way of like .

I might need to change my habits , my spending habits , might need to eat ramen noodles for a few months , I don't know . But I'm going to do this . That's been the key . That's been the one collective thing that has been different through all of this is just plain commitment . So I think that's the cool thing , and people commit at different levels .

Some people we just talked to , alexia on the last podcast who committed early on in her business . Others again , who have been in a more risky situation , building their business on the side they still commit . So that's been really , really cool .

The other thing is the mindset on top of commitment , which is there are some common mindsets in the way of and this is true with everyone in Web Presenter Pro . This may go back to the question about attracting the type of people in Pro .

There is no room for pessimistic sarcasm in Pro , and I see that in successful people I think the sarcastic , pessimistic type of person they are generally working for the optimists they absolutely are . I don't know any entrepreneur , successful business owner who's a pessimist they're all optimistic . Successful business owner who's a pessimist they're all optimistic .

And yes , we go through highs and lows and , as I mentioned , went through really really tough season last year , both personally and professionally in the business . But I learned to just keep going . I knew what I'm doing is working . I just need to tweak how I'm doing it , which is a really good reminder for folks going full-time with the web design business .

Yes , it may not be working exactly right now , but you've got the steps , you've got the proven path with my courses and this show and everything you need . It's just you might have to tweak a few things , but it will work , it can work and it does work .

So , yeah , that like commitment , the stick with it-ness and then that mindset of optimism , that's one thing I've seen that is translated through every culture and everything . It's one reason I have a bit of a sweet spot for our UK members and pro . We all know the UK is not known to be the most jovial , optimistic bunch .

Maybe it's the weather , maybe it's I don't know . Is it the tea ? I don't know . Do you guys need more coffee in your life ? Maybe , maybe you don't need a bacon eggs or a bacon sandwich , you need a bacon egg sandwich .

My friend , Dan from Manchester , when he came and visited us he's been on the show met on our honeymoon not me and Dan's honeymoon me and my wife's honeymoon met Dan in the pool talking about WordPress , but he had . He came over here and said he loves bacon sandwiches and I was like just bacon and the bread . I was like where's the egg ?

He's like oh , we don't do egg over there , it's just bacon . I was like what ? So I don't know , maybe that's it , I don't know . But when UK members come inside of Web Designer Pro and they're fired up and they're optimistic and they want to be around people like this , even more . So I'm like welcome .

If you can have that optimistic mindset and be in an environment that typically doesn't foster that , I'm extra thrilled to help you . So yeah , commitment , optimist , um optimization , um optimism are the two Great questions , sandy , last couple questions .

I actually need to take a quick pause to check on my daughter , so I'm going to pause and then we'll get to these last two questions . All right , I'm back . Brie is doing good . My wife put my little guy Drexton down , so when he goes down for nap time , I usually need to pop out to make sure no one is turning on our stove or destroying things .

Mark , how do you battle imposter syndrome as a coach ? Real talk . You still own your business , but it's been a couple of years since you've been in the web design business on your own . How do you battle the mental fight of I'm not a web design business owner anymore , but I've got to coach business owners ? Great question , mark .

This was a big time worry for me when I sold my agency in 2020 to go full-time teaching and mentorship and coaching , because I did think about this .

It's one reason why I had debated on holding onto my agency for so long , when my course sales started just skyrocketing and they far outshined my revenue for my web design business at the time , which I was only working in my web design business 15 hours a week or so because I was dedicating a lot of time to growing JoshHallco and doing my courses .

I thought about this and I was like , how can I teach business owners if I'm not running my business ? But I will tell you this as a quick answer I am 100 times more valuable now in my position than I was doing things with my own clients one-on-one , and here's why and here's how I fight this . Anytime I have these doubts creep in , this is well .

First of all , I just know what's working because of what was in our pro members and your revenues going up . But I think and I realize I have a decade of experience building my Web Design business and , to Sandy's point , nearly everything I did is still what I would do today .

I just released a newsletter and podcast about that recently , about what I would do today . It's exactly what I did back then . Basically , so they're evergreen principles about sales and and keeping in touch with clients . Yes , the tech may change processes slightly , might change , but at the core of selling and being an owner , I would do exactly the same things .

They're evergreen . These could my principles and most of the business course is going to be relevant for decades , potentially . Um . So I realized that I also was very intentional about having a foot under the door within Transit Studios .

So , yes , I did sell the agency to Eric , my CEO , who was previously a student , but I took on essentially a consultant role and I see everything . I have access to our high-level dashboard . I have access to everything I want to see at any time I have questions or want to see what's working or what the offers are , what the price points are .

I get a pulse on the market from Eric's point of view . I have that with him and we . We don't do quarterly catch-ups now , but we still catch up at least a couple of times a year to talk through a lot of this .

So I know exactly what's working today within Transit Studios as a full-blown agency focused on marketing with web design as a part of it , and I know it worked for me and what still works today for so many web designers as a solopreneur , more freelance style agency like Website Studio . And there's two other components that make me 100 times more valuable .

One is this podcast . I have been able to learn from , as I mentioned a little bit ago , so many industry experts and people who are doing seven figures in revenue with their businesses , and I'm able to learn from people myself and also be able to pass it on to not only represent our pro members but everyone as a listener of the show .

I've learned tactics on the show that I'm like oh my gosh , why didn't I do that ? That would have been genius .

That fits in perfectly Case in point , one of the episodes we did a couple of years ago was about launch packs , and I always had a moving forward page that I would send to clients and I'm like , oh , I love the term launch pack , that just sounds better and it's like a pack of resources to empower clients to share this with their audience to get you more

leads . It's just like a step up from what I did and I took that launch pack idea and I rolled it into my business course . So most all of my courses are what I did personally , but there are now and I'm continuing to update them with real time , relevant strategies that are even better from what I did and what I would do if I was starting today .

So that's been clutch and , mark , you and other Web Designer Pro members , I see real time what's working and , as Mark very well knows , we work together on his growth plans and his growth plans have started to cook for him in the way of revenue and that's the kind of thing that I'm able to relay inside of pro , my courses and on this podcast .

So I not only have my decade of experience , but I have the experience of what my agency is doing .

As a consultant , I get to pull from the experience of web designers and business owners from all over the world , some at multi , six and seven figures , a lot of them and what members are doing today in Web Designer Pro , which often have the same structure or framework that I recommend , but they're all making it their own .

So when we look at growth plans , I know like five to 10 different versions of growth plans and ways to sell them and to price them . We look at web design package and pricing . I know a few like several different ways that are working that would fit for this particular person . We look at SEO .

I know several different options for selling SEO one-off and ongoing , all those types of things . We look at audits or entry-level price points , paid discovery , stuff like that . I'm learning and I see what's working for people on a much bigger scale than if I were just to try it out one time , like , yeah , my proposal went through for $15,000 .

Cool , but what if I were able to see 10 proposals that went through at 10 to 15 K and now I know exactly what would work .

For members who come in and ask me about it , I am and I say this as modestly as possible , I am 100 times more valuable and I would stack up where I'm positioned in the market to just about anybody to be able to have a plethora of different views on things that can work for you in your website business , your offers , your services , your pricing .

So that's how I beat that . Yeah , I did think about that , though I was like what am I ? And look worse , absolute worst case scenario . I could always talk to Eric and be like , hey , let me do a sales call , just , you know , shake off some rust , or let me do a marketing campaign for in transit studios . I can do that . Or I could do it on my own .

I can get local clients if I wanted to every once in a while and just do websites , but I don't need to and don't want to right now . So I could always do it . However , I will say we just did this challenge in pro . I sat back and I was like October last month . I was like if I were a web designer and I needed a revenue boost , what would I do ?

I would , even if I don't have a booked out model , I would send an email out to my entire list and post on my socials . If I was on social that I'm booking out for the rest of 2024 . Even if I don't have any clients , I would say , hey , I'm taking projects for the remainder of Q4 . Holidays are coming up . Things get crazy .

If you want to lock in a project or get this rate , do it now . Even if we lock it in and start it in Q1 , we can lock it in , and I posted that as a challenge . I didn't actually do this in my business , but I thought that's what I would do . And guess what ? I've heard from a handful of members already who this has worked .

We just got a couple wins on that who said their clients move forward or they locked in a big project . Thank you so much for this note , this push and this challenge . So that's . The other cool thing about this is I can say what would I do ? And instead of it just working for me and my agency , now I can work for hundreds of web designers .

Yeah , love that , love this . So great question , mark . But rest assured , imposter syndrome means basically nothing to me at this point , when the results are coming in and I've just realized , yeah , like , show me someone who has had the amount of conversations I've had in my experience and sees what's working and is overseeing so many members .

Yeah , I'm trying to be modest about that , but bring it on Imposter syndrome . Bring it on Brian . Last question If you had to restart your entire business all over again , what's the first thing you would focus on ? So I don't know if this is in relation to joshhallco or the web design business . I will say I'll do both real quick .

If I had to restart a web design business , I just did an episode about what I would do if I was starting today . I would , um , I'm happy about my path as a web designer , honestly , but I would definitely put a focus in an emphasis on um client results . Early on , I viewed like a website looking nicer once it went live as like the end goal .

Uh , I would really take to heart keeping clients in a support plan or a growth plan to monitor results and continue to work with them . To get results Essentially have to sell less . Just keep your few clients coming back Referrals , barely sell ever and just keep on reselling to your current clients you don't need to sell to . That's what I'd focus on .

Reselling to your current clients you don't need to sell to . That's how I'd focus on recurring income too . Uh , I waited six years to launch my maintenance plan and that was a terrible decision . I just I had that pessimistic mindset . I was like who's going to pay 30 or 50 bucks a month for me to click update on their WordPress plugins ?

I had a mentor one time say you should do that People will pay you to to manage their websites . I'm like no , they can just log in and just do it . I didn't realize business owners serious business owners don't want to do that . And yes , I launched my maintenance plan and overnight had like $2,000 of recurring income a month , like that overnight .

So I would definitely work on results-based services and roll that into recurring income . I would still do one-off projects . I would do $5,000 to $10,000 one-time builds , but I would have support and growth plans that serve clients , recurring and then for my business .

Now , if I had to do it all over again , similarly , I didn't really have a clear vision when I started this . It was a passion project that led to courses , then led to membership and podcasts , but I would definitely going back to the idea of pivoting . I would definitely commit to the strategy and not try to do two strategies at once .

That's what I would do if I had to do it over again . Guys , thank you so much for these questions . I mean it again this is why I wanted to pull everyone , but I knew this is going to be , like you know , a 10 hour deal If I got questions from everybody . So , webinarpro members , thank you for these incredible questions .

Uh , before I share just the teaser of what's ahead , a big shout out to you as a listener and a watcher of this podcast . Thank you Again . The reason I don't rely on sponsorships and ads for this is because you guys , by joining pro and joining my courses , you are well , there we go . I just contradicted myself by joining pro .

You are supporting me and we don't need to do that for the podcast all the time . So big thanks to you . If you have been enjoying the podcast , please consider leaving a review . I read them all . It means the world to me . It really does help grow the show .

Just by leaving a review , you are helping so many other web designers who want to get into this or take their business to the next level . Thank you . Thank you , web Designer . Pro members . Thank you to everyone who has been a student of mine over the years , even if you've yet to join pro . Talk about that next cause .

I got an option for you and thank you to my team . Jen , my lovely VA , who is just killing it being an incredible . We've been working together for a few months now , absolutely killing it in her VA role .

Nathan , my editor , uh , for being with it for several years now , allowing me to just record and pass off the dirty work to him because he's a great editor . Kevin , for repurposing a lot of this on social . Big thanks to Chris , my tech VA , who does .

She just went through a ton of in-depth Zapier work that was far beyond my interest or skillset or brainpower and just killed it , which leads us to and , by the way , shout out to Christian , just killed it , which leads us to and , by the way , shout out to Christian , my lead developer , who has absolutely done some incredible stuff for my website over the years

. Big shout out to my team and you as a listener here . Web Designer Pro 2.0 . I just heard Bria get into the dishes . Hold on one sec . And I'll wrap this up with Web Designer Pro 2.0 . All right , all is well , and my wife should be out shortly from getting Drex down for his nap . Web designer pro 2.0 .

As I mentioned , I am nearing capacity for the current level of pro because everyone currently gets a line of DM access to me for coaching and we . I look at your proposals . If you want , I look at your pricing . I help you through business challenges that maybe you don't want in the forum of pro or public . So I am close to capacity on that .

I am going to be moving to a wait list for that . It will not be closed and what we'll do as , as people drop out of the coaching tier , uh , we'll say like , hey , we've got five spots open or 10 spots open . You'll be able to upgrade to that . So the question is , josh , are you closing Pro ? Are people not able to access it ?

Pro is going to be moving on November 11th . Next podcast episode I'm going to dedicate a whole episode to this to this new pivot for Web Designer Pro , this next evolution of it . It is going to be moving to tiers . So pro members have already seen this .

If you haven't seen this , go to news and announcements and the video on my whole walkthrough of this and the roadmap is in there . So pro members have known about this for a couple months . But we are going to be opening up two different tiers for pro . So it's going to be three tiers . Remember this courses , community and coaching .

If you just want access to my courses , I'm going to have an entry level tier that gives you access to just that . You will get access to all of my courses , just the courses . You'll be in the you'll .

You'll see other aspects that are gated and you can level up and you can upgrade when you're ready , but this will give you the ability to go through all my courses and be ready to join the community when you've , because a lot of people join the community and they've rushed through the courses just to be able to interact , and that's not the experience I want .

So there's going to be tiers . One tier will be for the courses super affordable . We'll talk about that next . The whole world basically could be in this tier , and pro members will not even know though there's a ton of people in the courses because they're not in the community part yet . The next level up is the community .

So I will have the community open to anyone who wants to join the pro community and you'll get access to the courses and all community features . The only thing that doesn't include is our weekly coaching calls and DMing directly with me , and then I'm going to have a few other perks for the coaching level tier , which is where everyone is at now .

So that will be the middle tier , and then pro in its current form , the coaching tier that has courses , community and direct coaching with me . Our direct coaching is our weekly coaching calls and direct DM access . This will be reserved for the coaching level and that is moving to a wait list , as we are very close to capacity on that .

So I'll do a final push for this and then we'll kick off with the wait list . The way that will work is , once people when people do drop down or downgrade or for whatever reason need to leave pro , we'll be able to say , hey , we've got five spots or , like I said , 10 spots open this month . You want direct coaching with me ?

Now's your chance to upgrade and we'll be ready to go . So that is the big news . That's a teaser . I'm going to expand on this more next week and the tears are going to officially roll out . November 11th Is that right ? We double check . Yes , yes , november 11th . I was . I was going to do it on November 4th here , but I was like it's election week .

Let's get past the election madness and then we'll move forward . So really excited to be able to grow pro reserving my sanity and sustainability , and being able to make pro reserving my sanity and sustainability , and being able to make this an incredible community that also has some like .

We can expand our reach with people who know different builders and we're able to grow this community slowly , but it's never , I will tell you this , pro is never going to be a 10,000 person Facebook group . That is not what it's going to be . It's always going to be a small , tight knit group that is the best dang corner in the internet .

This just allows us to be able to just open the doors up a little more . And for those of you who have been like gosh , I would love to just go through Josh's courses , but you just you don't have any revenue coming in , or you're early in your business or you're a student . Good news , because you will be able to afford the courses . It's 49 a month .

I'm giving entire access to all of my courses for 49 a month , starting with these tiers . We'll talk about price points and everything on the next one , but that's my goal . I've really realized information is not the end game . Community and coaching is what gets the information implemented and out to the world .

That's where I'm putting my emphasis on and that's where the the more premium price ranges are . My courses , my resources . I want to get that out to the entire world . I do most all of it for free anyway , so I might as well just make the courses available for everyone . My one-off courses are going to be dropped off of one-off sales .

Everything will be in WebZenner Pro . I'll expand on this more why I'm doing that and share some tips or share some vision on the courses . Because I'm going to be doing more mini courses and evolving my current suite of courses for you , which will be available for you in the courses tier . So I hope you're excited .

Official announcement or official kickoff will be next Monday . If you are just dying to get access early , maybe I can help you out . We're buttoning up a few automations , but I could probably help you out . Message me , go to joshhallco slash contact . We'll see if I can give you early beta , early access to that . Thank you for joining friends .

If you're watching on YouTube , it has been a dang pleasure More and more coming on the YouTube channel . If you're just listening on Spotify or Apple , or do people listen to other places . Thank you for listening and again , cheers to five years a lot more ahead . Thanks for sticking with me if you listened to this whole episode and I really appreciate you .

And yes , it's been five years of hard work , but I am not slowing down . I'm more excited about the podcast and even more excited about what's ahead with Web Designer Pro . Peace cheers , my friends . I'll see you on the next episode where we talk about the specifics of Web Designer Pro 2.0 .