356 - Productizing Website Design (as a course) with Whitney Bateson

I actually , when I started my business , really wanted to launch a course like day one , but luckily I got some advice being like why don't you wait ? And that was really great advice . Because this process and this system , because we did refine our web design process .

I use a project management software called Wrike W-R-I-K-E is how it's spelled and we built out a full template with dependencies . So as soon as you put that first start date in it , just All of it flowed through . It was really cool and really great . I was really proud of it .

But so then I was like , okay , well , maybe we can turn this process into a product . Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast , with your host , josh Hall , helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love .

And the reality is there's a lot of different ways to productize and systematize or templatize your web design services . One way is to do it in the way of a course or a program , and that's exactly what my guest in this episode has done Whitney Bateson , who is actually a member of my community web designer pro .

So I've got to see her business model and see how she runs . This thing has done an incredible job .

Like she is a shining example of how to productize web design service in in one way , as a course and as an education program , and that's exactly what we're going to get into in this episode how she's done it , how she runs it and how she empowers her clients through her signature program , which is called the Wellness Pro website system .

Now Whitney has a niche she serves folks in the wellness industry . So it's one way that helps productize a service . But I love this conversation for many reasons , but mainly because we get into what led her to move from custom builds to a more productized approach .

How her maintenance plan recurring revenue hit a growth rate problem , which was a big factor into this pivot . How she started with refining her systems and processes first before starting to productize . How she balances ongoing support with a productized style business .

And then why , if you're in this place where you're doing a lot of custom builds , why it's actually in her mind and I agree with this why it's good to start custom and work on your systems first before you start to productize . Because if your productize too fast , you're going systems first before you start to productize .

Because if your productize too fast , you're going to run before you walk . All that and more is covered in this one . So I want to say thank you , a big thanks to Whitney for coming on and being so open and transparent about her entire system . I mean she really pulls the curtain back on this thing . So I really hope this helps you .

If you are at the place in your business where you're ready to productize in some way , doing it as a course or a training type program may work for you . There's other ways to do it as well , but I hope this gives you some ideas and if you do wanna make a course or a training out of your system , then this is the episode for you .

All the show notes and links can be found at joshhallco slash 356 . And if you wanna connect with Whitney , go to her website , which is found at WhitneyBatesoncom . That will be linked over at JoshHallco slash 356 as well . All right , here we go . Whitney , it is a dang pleasure to have you on the show .

I am so impressed with your business and what you've done , with both changing up your offer and the way you help clients with websites , and you've got a podcast . You're a true webpreneur , which is kind of like the fourth category that I have seen in web designers .

I really wanted to just take some time to dig into how you productize your web design service in this . So first off , just a big thank you for coming on and being willing to share what's working for you .

Damn it , I've been working my ass off on .

It's really kind of an all encompassing um , um , yeah , program to help .

But , uh , when I approached it I really wanted to make sure that it did cover all of the things that you needed to have on your website in order for it to be successful without overwhelming . People install those templates on WordPress , on our hosting , through SiteGround .

We put in their logo , we customize that design to their font and color choices and then we hand it over to them . But then we have weekly calls and it alternates between a call with me for strategy and all of that and a call with my development team to do more like technical kind of stuff .

And then we have a forum as well , a community forum that people can ask questions and you know we'll go into their site if they're struggling with something . But then we also include email marketing , a little bit of that , seo branding , understanding your ideal customer what kind of sales system do you want ? What kinds of services are you thinking about ?

What's your website strategy ? So , yeah , it's trying to cover a lot and then also give that hands-on support so that when people get stuck because there's just so many roadblocks that you can hit going through all of those things , I don't want people to feel alone and that they can't ask a question and and get that guidance .

It would be just kind of like pre-work , which is basically starting to think about your business and give it , get us your access details and all that , and then we kick off on a date and then , after the end , that's it , and that's the end of the cohort , that's the end of the community , that's the end of the calls , but they would go on our maintenance

plans so they could get the support of just little tech questions and we'd be doing the software updates and all of that , but it definitely wasn't the level of like . Okay , let's move around . You know the , the modules and the layout of your page . You know that like strategic guidance , um .

So what I have been doing over the past year , though , is moving to an evergreen model , like an ever rolling enrollment . Um , we're still doing like , mainly launches at this point . We're building up the evergreen funnel right now .

We also did that because we were finding that , in order to have affiliates promote our program , threading the needle of like , their promotional calendar being exactly aligned to when our promotional calendar is is really rough . Our promotional calendar is is really rough . So , um , it was an affiliates when I first launched in .

Some launches made up half of my my sales , so it was significant and really valuable . But then , as time went on , we had less people being able to really commit . They're like , oh , I can send out one email and you know one email to a list of cold um , is is just not going to do it . Um , so we're moving in that direction .

And one other thing that I actually have done so far in this launch and we'll see if I continue it as I do add another four weeks on . So , actually , so I'm telling people like the way the content rolls out and all of that , it's an eight week kind of you know sequence .

But then I , right now , I'm adding an additional four weeks of just additional calls and forum support . So it's like , okay , you've learned everything there is to learn , you've been implementing along the way , but you're probably behind on some things .

So here's like another four weeks and then , now that we're evergreen , we're always going to be , in theory , having people coming in . I am now rolling out a community membership , which is not right now , at this point . It's not above and beyond what currently you get in the program .

Because just committing to like okay , like I mean I'm in your membership and it's , it's amazing there's so much value Like , and so I'm like I'm , I'm not at that like I mean I'm in your membership and it's , it's amazing there's so much value and so I'm like I'm , I'm not at that level .

I mean you've built that over many years too , but I'm not ready to kind of commit to like a , you know , a huge membership or anything like that . I'm very transparent that this is just continuing the live support that you got in the program . So you can continue to ask questions in the forum . You can continue to come to the calls .

You'll get four calls a month and I allow them to either go month to month for that or they can lock in a quarterly renewal and do it that way .

Well , I want to dive into some more nitty gritty on this and how it's helping your clients , because I mean , it's a total value add for your clients because I'm sure they would they rather just have somebody build them a website or like help them , be like a marketing partner , right ?

Especially , I know you're working with wellness brands , so I imagine there's folks on the broad spectrum of little tech savvy to probably like not tech savvy at all , right ? Um , so the total sell , I would imagine . I mean , you've really come up with something really cool there .

So I want to get into that and how you know you sold this and how it works for clients . But I have to ask what was , what was the jettison or trajectory of this model ? Like , were you a normal web designer before and what led to having like a program style web design service ?

Back in like late 2017 , early 2018 is when I launched my business and quit my full-time job and did that , and soon it became apparent okay , websites , this is . I enjoy websites .

I love how like diverse the work is in terms of like you're doing design , you're doing strategy , you're doing technical things and like I used to love arts and crafts as a kid and I feel like websites are like digital arts and crafts , just more complicated , large scale .

But then I I started my business and I actually started this , this travel program as well . So I was traveling the world with a group of other entrepreneurs and digital nomads and remote workers and all of that , and we were all meeting and I was a solopreneur , but I was quickly learning that there's no way that I can scale if I'm doing all of the work .

But I was really nervous to bring on anyone , but they really helped convince me . I did the math and I was like , okay , yeah , I should definitely have some people come in , and so it was great , the people that I was working traveling with they . There was this one who was wonderful .

He was an Aussie lawyer but really wanted to completely pivot his career and go into web design and development , so he was one of the first people that came into my business . So , basically , I started building this agency where I had a designer who was also project managing the websites .

I was still doing the selling and the strategy but then I had developers , designers and all of that . So , cut to 2021 , I think it was , and business is up and down with any kind of web design business but then it got slow and I maybe didn't do the best job of like , okay , how can I keep my current contractors engaged instead of finding other work ?

And so , but that's what happened .

And so my project manager , who is just a rock star , uh really couldn't commit the time that we needed anymore , and so I I had to find someone else , and it was just a real challenge , and so this is a really long but I think just maybe important way to get to the answer , and so at that point and I've since improved my hiring process and all of that

but I was just really like okay , I have two choices . I can either go back to the drawing board and try and find and train a new project manager for these custom web design projects that take a ton of time , a ton of energy , a ton of coordination , handholding , coaching , you know , both on your team's side and the client's side .

Or I can do something in my business to eliminate the need to have a project manager . And so that was like the first kind of impetus to okay .

Well , how can we create something that , um , yeah , that is really driven by the client , but not in the way that they have to be like figuring out what to do next , and you know , did you have the terminology of like systematizing or productizing back then , or was it just a loose idea of what that would be ? Yeah , I don't think I really mean I don't .

Yeah , I don't think like product ties was really in my like mindset or anything like that . It was just like I want to create something that is scalable , easier to run , I can do more of them . Because , also , I really wanted to build up my maintenance plans but we were only able to do like 13 to 15 websites a year .

It was just it took a long time to do them and it was a lot of work and so that's not really like a great growth rate on your maintenance plans . So there were just a bunch of different reasons why it felt like the right time . Also , I love teaching .

I actually , when I started my business , really wanted to launch a course like day one , but luckily I got some advice being like , why don't you wait ? And that was really great advice .

Because this process and this system , because we did refine our web design process I use a project management software called Wrike W-R-I-K-E is how it's spelled and we built out a full template with dependencies . So as soon as you put that first start date in it , just All of it flowed through . It was really cool and really great . I was really proud of it .

But so then I was like , okay , well , maybe we can turn this process into a product in some way and into a system . And so I went through the process with my team of listing all the possible things that we think people would need and that we would want to do and put in there .

And then how can we kind of take the parts of our process that work or that we need people to do and just kind of build them into a course Gotcha ?

I think there are definitely businesses where it makes sense and they , but usually they're like further along and they have more kind of intricacies in their either their systems and the tech or their service offerings and you know , they just they have some ideas and then they have the budget to spend on a fully bespoke , customized design from the ground up .

But I was just finding that with the price point and the age of the businesses that were coming to us , it felt like , okay , maybe there is a way to have some templates that can still be customized , because at the beginning I was very and I feel like I've listened , been listening to your trainings and your podcasts and all of that and this idea of , as a

web designer , thinking that you can replace design with templates and this idea of like , no , I could never . I could never give someone a template . Every business is unique , every person is unique and all of that .

But at the same time , we know that there are certain things that a website needs to have in order for it to drive conversions and especially , I'm niched down enough that I'm serving service-based businesses in the health and wellness space , so it's pretty similar and , honestly , the things that I focus on so much more is what's the customer journey ?

What's the strategy for the services that you have ? How are you positioning your services ? How are you writing really great copy ?

How are we just making sure that this is a clean design , it's easy to work around and move around , and we have those critical things built into the site Because , yeah , someone who's coming to hire a dietitian for counseling services , they just want to connect with that person . So it doesn't have to necessarily have all these bells and whistles .

It needs to focus on the connection .

You said you had about what I had for temple for , and , yeah , I mean , unless you're doing , like you said , really advanced custom work , most especially if your niche like you are , you do know that niche really well , you do know the service pages . Reality is like how many custom about pages do we need ? How many contact pages do we really need ?

To go on ? I mean , my rule of thumb is thumb is like if you're going to customize anything , maybe the homepage , but even that's probably going to have some standard flow and layout to it . But the emphasis on copy messaging strategy , those type of things are the biggies that are going to be a little more custom .

Did you have your niche leading up to this ?

And then so I've served dietitians for many years and then have just started to open it up a little bit more , because I do feel , granted , I don't want to say like , okay , now we're going to serve attorneys and dog walkers and all of that but I do feel that a lot of the concepts that I teach also apply to health coaches and therapists and those kinds of

things .

I would say I think it is more of like the virtual services , the some some people are doing one on one in in person and all of that , but getting into like where they have an office and they're doing classes and all that , I don't focus as much on that .

Based off of personality , I think , like it's good to know that you enjoy teaching and enjoy the calls , because there's a lot of different ways to roll out a web design service . And , yeah , like , if you don't enjoy a teaching element or you don't enjoy whether it's ongoing or two to three months of like calls , that's going to be a very hard .

Or if you don't enjoy doing Q and A's , like that's going to be a very difficult business you've set up for yourself . So I think the biggest lesson here so far is to know your personality type and to see , like , how do you enjoy doing stuff ? Uh , same with marketing . As we know , like some people love going to networking groups , some people dread it .

Some people love making content and being active on social media Some people dread it . There's no right or wrong way to do marketing or to provide a service . I feel like the most important thing , especially for sustainability , as you've been a really good example of is to figure out , like well , number one , what I want my calendar to look like .

What do I want my days to look like , and then how do I want to show up . Did you did a lot of that factor into this , or was it just kind of more natural ?

I've worked from Asia before .

Asia is real tough , no matter what , but I wanted to have a business that was not just location independent but time zone independent as much as possible and minimize the calls , the need for a lot of back and forth and synchronous communication with clients , with team members , and so , just by the nature of also the people that I was working with and traveling

with , like none of us wanted to get on calls once a week to talk through stuff . So , like we rely on our project system very much , we put those systems in place so that there is just as much automation and asynchronous communication as possible , and so that's why , like you know , we've got just the one call every other week with me .

So , and I will admit , for a while I I did not want the rolling or the evergreen , because I did not want to have to feel like I had to be on and be available for calls throughout the year because , yeah , if I want to go to Asia , like what , what am I going to do then and how am I going to manage that ?

But what I've realized and thought about was okay , whitney , you can commit to two calls a month and people are understanding . If I need to move the call to a different time zone after a couple months or shift things around , that's possible and fine . So it did take some time for me to be okay with that and fine .

So it did take some time for me to be okay with that . For a couple of years , when I was rolling this out , I was like I want to keep the calls to a minimum and all of that , but I'm kind of overcoming that .

But I've realized obviously it helps not being a digital nomad , but in my case I would probably change that up if I was traveling a lot . But , same thing , it's like I'm doing calls in one form or another at least once a week . So , like I said , there's always even for clients , they understand that web designers are booked out for a little while on week .

So , like I said , there's always even for clients , I understand that web designers are booked out for a little while on calls . So a really , really good , important lesson to figure out yeah , what do you want your life to look like , your calendar look like ?

And then that's the really cool thing , I think that's the most exciting thing about this industry , especially now , is you can customize it to whatever works for you and you just kind of give the parameters to clients or customers and kind of go from there .

Now I'm very curious and this is so timely At the time of recording this with you , I think , as you know , I'm about to kind of head into a new phase of Web Designer Pro and open up a couple lower tiers because we're nearing cap capacity here on the coaching level .

I'm about to issue in a new innovation here with pivoting my offer . I'm about to actually , today I'm writing my newsletter for this weekend about some tips for pivoting . So this couldn't be more timely . This really timed out . But with that idea , when you knew that you wanted to create this system , how did you actually pivot ?

Did you cold turkey , like end one-off projects and fixed rates and just move into the program to the core style ? What did that pivot look like for you when you changed your offer ?

I wasn't promoting our services anymore and there were a few people that it is painful to be like I don't think we're going to do custom anymore . I'm sorry , but yeah , I was burnt out . I was completely burnt out . I didn't have a project manager anymore Because I had not been project managing website projects in such a long time .

I was kind of allergic to doing it . So I was like I can't , this isn't going to work . So , yeah , I had to go cold turkey , but my team was still involved in designing the templates and we had to develop them .

And then one of my developers he was the one that recorded all of the videos in the section about actually customizing your site and the Divi Builder and all of that so we had plenty of work and I had plenty of work to give to my team leading up to that point and you know I had .

I forget why I think I was using octopus , because I just liked octopus for , like , site architecture . So I I use that for mapping out , like , okay , what is week one going to look like and what are all the modules that I think I need , and changing them to colors once I got them recorded .

And so I just had , and when I first launched we still were doing drip . So we also had a fairly good pre-work , because we weren't ready when we first pre-sold it too , so we kept the pre-work .

I think we had some videos that we shared with them that were outside of we use Kajabi , and so it was outside of Kajabi while we were readying Kajabi , and then they came in and then we were still dripping the content . So , like week one , once you're finished week one , then you can go to week two , and they knew that they were in a beta .

So you know they got a great price . They got a lot of support because we were trying to figure out , okay , what do you need more support with , what parts are confusing , what parts do we not need to include ? And then but it also lit a fire under our butts to like get those those finished and recorded , and and all of that .

But if you go from one solid vine which , yes , you were burned out and there were some issues with , but it was still technically solid , with good leads , doing one-off projects and fixed projects you don't want to grab a vine that's just going to go plummeting straight to the ground .

So did you essentially just it sounds like you gave yourself about a year to do a beta round while you were still doing some custom work . Is that right ? Am I understanding that , yeah , or did you just have faith that this model I had faith , I just really believed in it so much .

And I had been building my email list and I did build a waitlist for this and was reaching out to past people who I had talked to who hadn't signed on for a custom project and seeing , you know , hey , maybe this might be a better fit for you . The price point is here and and whatever .

Um , so yeah , in this case I for some reason was not risk averse and I just was like we're just doing it . Um , because I just could not . I just physically could not do the custom stuff anymore .

With a model that is time intensive , you do get to a place where there's really only a few options to be able to continue to grow it , and that is like jack up the price or scale it in a way that is just less time intensive for you , depending on what the model is . So for you it sounds like it was basically a no brainer offer , like you built what .

I actually think it's really good that you did the work you did leading up to that . Yes , To where you knew your client , you knew the processes , you knew your tools , you had built your team . I think it would be very hard to scale the model that you've created or to even start with a model like that without If you hadn't done it .

Yeah , you just got to kind of do it that way .

I mean I keep saying like we're kind of on similar parallel paths in different parts of the industry , because I felt the same way with courses , like I couldn't launch Web Designer Pro in its form without having done one-off courses and built up a suite of courses that I know works and built up my authority in web design .

So all that to say , sometimes to get to a really nice recurring revenue model , sometimes you do just have to do the dirty work and put your work boots on and get to know your business before you could , you know , roll something like this out , especially roll out with confidence when it's not technically proven .

I'll build a course and then I'll sell it and it's like , but you're not like yeah , okay , you can do that , but you're not really going to know what to include in it .

You're not going to know the pain points of your customers , and then you're going to spend so much time and energy building out that course You're not even thinking yet about , like , what audience are you going to sell it to , and how are you going to sell it and launch it and all of that , but you're just spending a lot of time behind the scenes building

with no data , whereas you do just like you said . You got to get in the trenches Back when I was starting my career in dietetics . During my internship , I was talking to different professionals and places where I wanted to be at one point and it was the same advice .

It was like if you want to do nutrition policy work and school nutrition , you need to first work in a school district , and so I followed that advice and then I didn't end up doing school nutrition policy work , but it all worked out .

But you do have to get in there as much as it can be frustrating to do and I can be impatient , but also I want to go back to it . Sounded like it was a rash decision , but I think my team had been telling me to create this kind of service for like literally a year , a year and a half , and I was very resistant to doing it .

So , um , I had had people telling me for a while that , hey , this would be a really good thing that we could offer to people , and I was just like , no , I want to do the custom .

I just didn't believe in it , and so it finally took me hitting my breaking point to be like , okay , yeah , I'm ready , but needed all of the learning to understand what trips customers up so that we can make sure that we build that into the program . Because this is extremely systematized to the point where .

Because otherwise , like how on earth could you get someone who doesn't know web design and doesn't know WordPress at all to finish a website by themselves in two months , with you only spending , like maybe in total , a couple hours helping them ?

That means that the support , the teaching , the education all needs to be so dialed in and at the right points and giving the right advice and supporting them in the right way .

And , yeah , if you haven't done that and seen where those pitfalls are for people and where it's clunky on your side or it's clunky on a client side , then you're going to have those within your course and , granted , you can fix them within the course .

But it's clunky on a client side , then you're going to have those within your course and , granted , you can fix them within the course , but it just might be a little painful and , granted , if you launch something like , I definitely recommend having a beta with only a few people in there .

So if you do find out that , yeah , no one understands how to do this thing because actually you didn't have a module about it and everyone is mentioning in the forum the same question and you're feeling a little embarrassed and all of that , at least it's only four or five people and not 20 that you're having to , which that's what happens . It's okay .

That's the whole point of a beta .

I also like to say , too , that remember that people , when they sign up for any kind of program or course , they don't have endless hours to watch like just lots and lots of videos , and I think we can think as educators that we should just give them everything and that they're going to see more value if we included 20 hours of lessons and education .

But it's our job to weed out and give them only the most important information and ensure that it's as time efficient for them as possible , and so I think it's really important . When you're launching something , too , it's just like okay , it's like going out of the house with your jewelry , take one piece off , because then it's like then that's the right amount .

So it's like just put what you think should be in there , but also don't put everything . Wait for them to show you and tell you what's missing , and let them guide a little bit of the process as well . Otherwise , if you throw everything in there , you may not even really know which parts actually are not necessary to be in there .

You got to know their challenges , their needs , got to know your system , because I do think that people want to productize and build a passive or recurring subscription style service , sometimes too quickly , because if you don't know things really well , it is so hard to do that effectively or you'll just get a lot of churn like that's the most important thing if

you're not getting results . You'll get a lot of churn if it is something that's ongoing .

So I think this is a really , really important message because even for those who kind of follow what I teach in my web design business course , which is kind of the traditional model , now you could still roll in a subscription style model with that , but it is more of a like manual .

You can still systematize it and templatize it , but it's not really productized . There's a difference . There's a difference between systematizing your business with your processes and there's a difference with selling it , which is more productizing it .

So those are kind of the two paths that you learn to systematize and then you learn to productize it , which is selling it . The good news is for folks who are earlier on , just learning and building their systems and choosing their tool stack , or maybe they're getting close to feeling a little more burned out . That's actually the time to look at .

Well , how can I take what I've done to this point and change up the offer to productize it , reduce my time ? I know what works for these 10 clients . That'll work for 100 . So let's do it like that . So it's a very , very cool case study that you've went through .

I really appreciate being able to dig into this here on the show , because I do think a lot of people want to get to this point . But , as we've already talked about to start at this point , I don't even know if it's possible .

I'm sure there are like quote unquote turnkey solutions out there , but those are generally the people who come to pro and are like I tried this and it didn't work . How can I get to this point ?

What kind of access do you need to ensure ? Like , what kind of access do you need ? Like , do you want to manage the domain ? Do you want to just get collaborator access ? What ? What are the key domains that you want to recommend to people ? What's , what's your hosting solution ? Like , how are you going to make that as easy as possible ?

Like , if we and just be ruthless about being as efficient as possible , because even if you never go to where I've gone , being as efficient as possible is just going to allow you to deliver a better result to your customers and keep the costs in check . If you're like , oh , just go .

I mean , I've heard people say like , go and just buy the hosting from whatever platform , but then you're having to learn and deal with some crappy hosts we will not name them , but there's some bad ones out there and it's just so frustrating and I think the more like I picked .

When we first launched the program , I was also adamant that I wanted Divi and Elementor . So we built templates for both , we've recorded hours of videos for both and then , finally , my team convinced me . They were like you got to stop this , you got to pick one . And I was like , no , I don't want to .

It has some things that it can do and I usually would recommend it to people who wanted to really focus on blogging and maybe they were going to start having custom post types and I just personally at the time felt Elementor did a better job handling some of those things and so I was like , okay , this can be that solution for those people that are really

going in the blogging direction . But yeah , it's tough . Like even now we're we're really diving into optimizing our templates for faster site customization set up for the clients . If we had to do that four times for Divi and then another four times for Elementor , like oh yeah .

It's double the amount of learning , it's double the amount of teaching , it's double the amount of support , it's double the amount of team Like your team now suddenly needs to know two builders really well and keep up with it's , two blogs to keep up with and read and news , like there's double everything .

So , yeah , you can get by with one like a very , very lean and mean tool stack . That's the best and you're a proof , an example . I mean . I know divvy takes a lot of heat . I'm , I'm sure divvy five is . I know you're probably excited about Divi 5 and maybe going to wait to update some sites until the first few rounds of bugs . Oh yeah .

But it's kind of just , you know , comes with the territory with , especially with this model , if clients are updating their sites which , by the the way , even if , like with my model of just having like a client resources page with some tutorials , I would have had to redo those too .

So that's just kind of yeah for anyone who you know is like oh , I don't do this , it is , you're just gonna have to do either way . But the really cool thing about this I actually feel like we just came up with an incredible three-part framework for productizing web design , which is number one systematize .

Number two templatize , like take what works and templatize , make it more efficient . And then three is to sell it and productize . So , systematize , templatize , productize . Yep , here we go .

Obviously , you've talked about how you've adjusted the amount of time that it takes and now kind of switch the model going from launch like on and off launch mode to more of an evergreen . You're kind of working your way into that , but did you think about this um , any other way ?

Or did more of a like course program style just feel like a good fit , or whether ever any other ideas on how to actually like deliver this ?

And then there's another model where , hey , just give us your content and we'll put it into the site , give us your copy and photos and all of that .

Um , but you know , my , I thought that selling the templates on their own would potentially erode sales into the program and then , on the other side of it , doing a more done for you , it just would be going back to what I have been so adamant to avoid , which is really having to manage clients delivering stuff and timelines , and it's just , it's a lot of

just chasing and all of that . And what I really like about the program is that the client drives it . So , hey , if it takes you four weeks to write your copy , then that's on you .

I'm trying to help you make it as fast as possible , but if you're going to take longer to do that , then that's fine , and they have lifetime access to the videos , so it's not like you know they're going to lose out . It's just if you wanted to get my , my input or get my team to help you with the tech stuff .

You're not going to have that , but luckily now we're adding that option , so I just I never wanted to try and teach business owners how to be tech gurus themselves , Um , and I really wanted to avoid that need for project management of individual clients .

You are here to help them get things going and build their business and not be a part-time web designer . I think that is what I've seen .

A lot of DIY type of solutions running the trouble with is , yeah , they're taking clients and trying to make them like semi web designers , when clients they may think they want to have control of their website and do stuff , but about three weeks into it they're like no , you do your thing , I'll do my thing .

I don't know why you should spend five hours on a weekend in cold sweats trying to figure that out yourself . Just have someone do that . But then the things that you're going to have to do over and over is writing copy .

You're always going to be writing copy , whether it's emails or more , updating it on your site or whatever the case may be , making updates to your site , adding new pages , swapping out photos . You go and get new headshots . You want to change out those photos .

Those are the kinds of things that are repeating , that are going to be beneficial to your business and those are helpful skills to learn . So I try and divide that line of you're going to learn the valuable stuff and then we'll take care of the stuff .

That's just too technical and it's really not worth anyone's time Me trying to teach you how to do that that's a really , really great frame , like a great mindset of it .

And it's just like , yeah , there's some things that that that knowledge is going to get an ROI . And then there's other things where it's just like there's , there's nothing else .

You're now learning to be a carpenter , learning to be a web designer , and it's like , no , you , there's's so many things your business that you have to do and and learn and figure out on a day-to-day .

Okay , I got out like a saw to do the flooring myself , and then I had that same thought . I'm like this is probably gonna take me like at least a week . I know myself . I'm just , I'm gonna . I'm gonna learn a lot of stuff .

I need to get tools , whereas if I could hire this out , yeah , it's gonna be thousands of dollars , but I'll be going to have to learn a lot of stuff .

I need to get tools , whereas if I could hire this out , yeah , it's going to be thousands of dollars , but I'll be able to have a whole extra week of work that I can make probably three times what I'm going to invest in just the floor . Then we have all these tools that I'm going to use . Once . It's the exact same situation .

I'm so glad I went that route . Yeah , it takes a while for people to get to this point , I think sometimes , because , especially when you're scrappy , you think I just got to do everything myself . But from doing the wires I feel like a lot of people come to this realization no-transcript .

I want to double click into this kind of the next evolution or innovation . I should say that you're in right now , which is going from the launch model to more of an evergreen model . So we had a pro call , we had a coaching call together what was , a couple months ago , a few months ago . My timeline always gets messy , yeah , not too , long ago .

But yeah , you would just kind of express the interest of how to make this a little more ongoing and evergreen . I would imagine that this may have come down to to your schedule with the here . Here's my take on this . I would think that you should tell me if I'm wrong .

I would think that you chose a on and off launch model because you wanted to have like four to eight weeks of being on for clients and then four to eight weeks of being completely off . Okay , so I got that . What ?

My passion for it had gone a little bit and um , and so I was just kind of waiting for it to come back . I mean , I was trying , I was trying to get it back , but it just wasn't coming . Uh , but it finally did start coming back .

And one of the realizations also was just when I realized that when I went on a coaching call with my clients , after that call I felt so energized and so useful , but when I wasn't talking to anyone , I did not feel like I had anything to offer anyone ever , because you're just alone with your thoughts , no one is asking you questions , you're not giving really

any advice or anything like that . And that's another reason that I finally launched the podcast too was because I realized that the more I'm talking and giving advice and all of that , I'm keeping that confidence in myself up , I'm keeping that tool sharp and it it's okay , and so I , I just really honestly , a lot of it was about just my passion .

Coming back a bit and then also looking at the facts that like , okay , you know , I've had one client in my business uh , more on a consulting level where I used to have calls once a week and I did that for years and I was like , well , I survived that . So if I can do a call every other week , I think I'll be okay .

So , yeah , just being like honest , like it's not that much . Whitney and I had team members too , so you , so I'm definitely not doing any of this alone . I have someone on my team now who's monitoring the forum all the time and she's doing as many question answers as possible and she just sends me the questions that I need to answer .

So just not having to be constantly checking the forum every day and being like , oh , I have it pop up into a folder not my main inbox folder , but I do see like an unread message come up .

I'm like , okay , I'm gonna wait to see , you know , if she responds to her , if she lets me know , like maybe I'll go in and look if I need to , but she's on top of it .

So I think just building in some systems to to make sure that it isn't overwhelming me If I see a lot of messages coming in from a lot of different directions , I just start feeling really stressed and pulled and I don't love that .

So how can we like build it and get the right support to make it feel good and aligned with , kind of like how I like to work and my triggers ?

Anyway , I really recommend that because you're seeing it with the calls that you're doing . I love that you said that , because we sometimes think that we want to have like silence and I feel like our personalities are probably similar to where Are you somewhat extroverted ? Do you go to a party and feel pretty good , or are you an introvert ?

Extrovert where you fall .

I actually think that's extremely detrimental . Whether you're introverted or extroverted , I think that's a big problem that a lot of web designers do . It's still one reason why I push web designers to at least do something where you're talking to clients .

If it's like an online membership monthly call , if it is ideally getting out to a networking event or even events every once in a while , or checking with your clients .

Do something to get that real feedback , because we are our own worst enemies with our thoughts , because if you don't talk to anyone for a month or two , you might be like , oh my God , have I lost it ? Are clients not happy ? But if you're not giving them a forum to talk to you , then you're not going to know .

So all that to say , I think it's really important to have , whether it's weekly or monthly . Yeah , so all that to say , I think it's really important to have whether it's weekly or monthly some sort of touch point with clients and if you can get real time feedback .

The reason I mentioned the wins and successes forum is because that's my absolute favorite part of pro is when I I get so excited when I see a win and a success because I see what's working . They might mention something in my courses or a coaching call and I'm like , oh my gosh , all the hard work is working . It's working and I know it works .

But we all need to be reassured , especially when the industry changes like it does . You want to be reassured that what you're doing is working , so I would recommend doing that , especially since your clients are similar . I actually think you're in a unique position to where you could almost start to foster .

Maybe you're already doing this or it's happening organically , like since you are working with wellness pros .

I imagine they can probably start learning from each other , and if you have a wins and successes forum where people share something that you did on the website or they landed you know they did a marketing push that worked or boost their email list , other clients are going to be like , ooh , I might try that too .

You didn't need to do a dang thing , it's just in the wins and successes column . And then that's almost like a little training area for you that you can be like this worked for Lisa , this worked for Diane , you know , and then push it out to everybody .

I was very much about protecting my time and like , well , I don't want to be offering , like , quarterly calls . What am I going to talk about ?

Like you know , all of this and it's like this is actually better for us as the business owner too , in ways that are just not obvious , especially if you are a little bit more introverted and you want that quiet time for yourself and you don't want to have a lot of calls in your calendar .

It's like , yeah , but it actually does things subconsciously that like yeah , I just I had no idea .

There's no sales about it , they're just talking about strategy or whatever that looks like , and you actually may learn a lot and it's actually working on the business . It can be like a business refining call . You can work on your systems or your templates based off of what you learned from that call .

So there's another quote for the day not all calls are sales calls .

It's like every interaction that you have with your customers , either a potential customer or a current one , is just this other opportunity to be learning and figuring out how they describe their problems and what's going on . And then , yeah , things that you could be improving in your own business to support them better . Like it's all learning .

It can be tough when we're in the moment to recognize that like , oh , this call , I could be learning some things from it , cause we're so focused on serving and giving and being present and all of that .

But even just taking a moment to like reflect , like oh , yeah , that was something that I should definitely talk about at some point , put it in my newsletter , put it in your blog , whatever the case is .

It's like there it is , this is what's working today , so let's stick with that , and they may come up with a whole new thing . We's like there it is , this is what's working today , so let's stick with that , and they may come up with a whole new thing .

We're like oh yeah , maybe we should add a module on that or a lesson on that , or maybe that is a common pain point . Yeah , yeah , so I love that . And for those who don't have , like , a customer community or a customer membership , we might frame it as you could still do this with check-ins with clients .

You could say you could do a , you could do a push on email and just say , like clients share a recent win that you got from your website , and then you could kick that out as case studies or a lot or social media posts . A lot of different ways to go up , but definitely having some ongoing source of wins . Nick is big for everybody .

Um well , this has been awesome . I have one final well , okay , Two final questions , real quick . I the one thing I don't want to leave us on is uh , how did you know , when you're thinking about marketing and showing your clients how to use their websites , where did you draw the line with marketing ? Because are people asking you to do their ?

social media to run ads for them Like where did you know where to draw the line with marketing ?

But then we and then at the end I talk about ways to drive traffic to your site and talk about just SEO , which is slow burn marketing , but we just don't cover those other things . And I think we make it pretty clear in our sales page and when I'm doing my masterclass and talking about the different things that people try and what the solution is .

I don't say that social media is a solution . Obviously people can use it and and all of that and it can be very powerful , but I don't put it in my like solution stack because then that would imply that I'm going to help you with that . And , um , yeah , I , in the past , you know , we tried offering some marketing packages and services and those were just .

I just like things to be super automated and systematized .

I think for a reason , like you do some marketing , but man , that is like there really is such a big difference in every industry with web and utilizing the website Right , doing a little bit of marketing , versus like full on digital marketing , because that is a whole . That's a can of worms that most web designers are just not ready to get into .

You almost have to commit to being a digital marketing agency if you're going to go into that realm .

And also I try and search for how can I make it easier for my customers , because I know that most of my customers are not necessarily wanting to pay for like a custom solution , and I know that it took me years to build up the process to deliver websites and an efficient and streamlined way .

I would want whatever if I were to sell something next to also have a process , and so it's going to take me years to figure that out . And so I'm always thinking about like , well , how can I make it easier for them ? And I am just like that's just a lot of work and I'm just going to focus on this ?

Have you had any recent moments or times where you did get that boost ? Was it a coaching call ? I imagine joining Web Presenter Pro was the best thing , but aside from that , honestly , what else has been ? What have given you some of those boosts that you needed ?

I'm like embarrassed to my team being like , yeah , still working on it , but it's like it's 15 emails long , so it's like I feel justified at the same time .

So I'll do the sequence when it feels natural for me .

And so learning about other businesses that have also productized and systematized really inspired me .

And then being on our call a few weeks or a few months ago and I dove in hard into optimizing our templates and our site setup process , because I was like these are taking way too long , it's a bottleneck , it is going to hold us back from scaling , it is too dependent on team members and their skills , unique skill sets and all of that .

And so I just dove into it . And that's the kind of work that I really love is like just trying to figure out , like how to make things more streamlined and effective and building the systems . So just , you know , tinkering I guess in the in the business is is enjoyable to me .

And then also the other side is that I just keep seeing my clients be feel so confident with their businesses and their websites and being telling me that they're so happy that they found my service and it's just perfect for them , and so continuing to get that feedback makes me feel like , okay , this is still something that's valuable to people .

It's not for everyone . There's custom sites out there , there's DIY out there . This is not it , but for the people that it is a fit for , they appreciate it so much and then they're able to keep their businesses moving and growing and that just makes me feel good .

And and I don't right now , because I am so focused on like systems and and efficiency I don't really want to be expanding out and adding a lot of other complexity . I I'm pretty focused on like we're just going to keep making this program the best it can be and every not even every year , every six months we're doing something to make it better .

Every not even every year , every six months we're doing something to make it better and and then just continuing to grow our maintenance and just serve people and try and make it the best possible , you know , service for them .

Um , yes , I appreciate you being willing to come on and just share what's working for you , uh , and really be a good beacon of hope and light for folks who do want to productize eventually . Um , this is a . This is an envious system . You are at a very I don't know if you realize this , but you are .

You are at a place where hundreds of thousands of web designers are probably killed to get to . So , um , yeah , where would you like folks to go if they do want to check this out ? I know you have a podcast too now , so where should we go ? Yeah , yeah .

So if you just kind of want to be a fly on the wall of one of my launches , and because we do have , well , depending on when this drops , but we're doing evergreen so if you want to kind of just see what's going on , feel free to go . You can also go to wellness pro websitecom . That'll take you to the same spot .

Um , just to see kind of what's involved .

So we're going to um , have another one in February , um , but in the meantime we're doing some um JV launches , having people do their own , like launches of our program , just to their audience . We're going to do a black Friday sale which by the time this airs , hopefully hopefully it went well .

So but if you feel good , you know you're doing it in a sustainable way , then I imagine you could probably marry the two and then , you know , get the evergreen going and then switch to that model , which I've learned to love Personally .

You know , if I can give you any inspiration on having an evergreen model , I don't launch pro in any way and I stopped launching courses . It's yeah , it's just freaking awesome . Like I'd rather just see the numbers go up and up and up every month and just enjoy a sustainable pace and just serve your customers . Yeah .

And basically the reason that we're doing a sale is because I looked at the numbers of this year and I'm like these launches didn't go as well as I would have liked .

And I wonder if there's launch fatigue yeah it's possible , you know , and also it's like the time of year and like who knows , you know the other things that have been going around and on in the in the United states causing people to make certain decisions or not make decisions in their business , waiting for things .

So , um , yeah , it's anyone's guess we just talked about this our recent coaching call .

It's cool to see how you've really tinkered and evolved your offers and pivoted everything you've done , and then I think the next step will be , yeah , just really clarify , like your , it's almost just your sales Now , it's just your offers on how you're , how and when you're doing them , and just keeping that sustainable .

It makes a lot of sense with your affiliate partners though I will say that Anyone who has affiliates it's like if you have an open and closed model , you're kind of screwed for every other period .

I have some colleagues who have open and closed courses and I'm like , can you please just keep your courses open , because I can't put you on my recommendations page .

Um , we'll see about that . But uh , yeah , still , because right now , this is the only offer . This is the only way for people to work with us , and in the past we had done a downsell where it was a version of the course , just without the live calls and forum .

Um , but yeah , I just I didn't think people got as great a resort result as if they were getting our support and they weren't as necessarily bought in and they still ask questions , even though , like we said , no questions , but it's like you don't want to leave them high and dry , so also definitely looking at like , just yeah , that that evolution of of what

products , the product suite . So it's another let's do a round two .

You know your season of life and you're a digital nomad or some are at home Like it . Just there's so many ways to go about this , so it's really cool . So appreciate you being a member and I appreciate you sharing .

My last quick question for somebody who wants to productize and get to this point , but they're just in the weeds of , you know , building their business , can you offer just like one little what would you recommend focusing on for somebody who wants to get here but maybe they're in systematizing mode Like what , what ?

What did Whitney need to hear a year before you productize stuff ?

And , I think , also making sure you're building your audience , building your email list , because if you do want to launch the product and sell the product , you need people to sell it to . So I think it's never too early or too late to be building your email list .

But I would say that if you're feeling impatient , if you're feeling frustrated , that like I want to do this thing but I'm busy building websites and serving clients , it's like just give yourself just scratch . I had pieces of paper that I would just like , especially on airplane rides . It was really . It was just a vacuum , you know .

So I could really like get all my thoughts down , just so that you can start feeling like , okay , at least there is this outlet for me to put these ideas and start figuring out okay , what , what would the next step look like ? What do I need . Maybe you do want to hire some people to help you do some of the stuff .

I don't know , but you need to know what you need first . So Wonderful .

Again , there are many of you who might be ready to do this right now , but if you're earlier on in your journey , enjoy the journey , enjoy doing the custom work and having less clients , focus on quality over quantity and get your place , your business , to the place where you're ready to eventually productize it , just like Whitney did .

Again , there's a ton of different ways to go about it . Doing it as a course or program is one way . It's not the right or wrong way , it's just one way to do it . So if this is you , I hope this has helped . If you've made it to this point in the episode , you're probably quite serious about this .

So if you are serious about productizing your web design business and you would like to get my insight and maybe even connect with Whitney directly , you can do that when you join my community Web Designer Pro . Whitney is currently an active member of Web Designer Pro . It is open to you and , again , we have multiple levels .

Now , if you are starting , you just want to go through my courses . That is available for you in the courses tier for Web Designer Pro .

You can join the courses and get the community aspects in the middle of the community tier and if you want to get my insight directly , for personal coaching , we do have a few spots available still right now in the coaching level , which gives you direct DM access to me , just like Whitney has , and access to our weekly coaching calls , which have been loads of

fun recently . So I encourage you to check that out at any tier that works for you . You can go to webdesignerprocom for that and again , the show notes for this episode are going to be found at joshhallco slash 356 to get all the links that we mentioned in this episode . Again , cheers , friends , can't wait to see how you implement this into your business .

Leave us a comment , if you would . I'm sure Whitney would love to hear from you , apart from connecting with her website and her social media . Again , joshhallco slash 356 is where all the show notes for this one will be found . So we'll see you over there . Stay subscribed . Some awesome ones ahead as we end the year here in 24 .

We're going to do some fun episodes . By the way , we're going to maybe kick out a couple episodes that are a little more personal and just kind of hang out time with you here as we wrap up this year and we head into 2025 . All right , friends , I will see you on the next episode .