375 - 5 Years In and Thriving with "Web Designer for Speakers" Kristin Adkins

There’s nothing better than talking to a web designer who’s enjoying their work, loving their clients, making good money and who’s just all around thriving. 

And that’s why I’m pumped to share this recent convo I had with Kristin Adkins of Crash Design Co who’s found a suite niche by becoming the trusted “web designer for speakers”

Kristin was on the podcast (ep 143) when she had just gone full time and I thought it was a good time to catch up because now, 5 years later, she’s grown her business, nailed her niche and continues to love every minute of it. 

A lot of web designers get burned out, take too much on or have goals that lead to stress and growth pains but Kristin’s done it right by building a business around her lifestyle goals and mid-west pace.

This was a hard one to title because we get into everything from:

• Niching
• Scaling/hiring
• Building a referral network
• Raising rates
• Sticking with Elementor (and not having shiny object syndrome)
• The value of sending clients “website launch packs”

And so much more. But it’s all the things that have led to her having an amazing first 5 years so that’s what we get into in this one.

P.S. Wouldn’t it be cool to see her website launch pack examples and process? Kristin will be doing a special guest training inside Web Designer Pro™ this summer so jump on in to connect with her!

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/375

Big thanks to the sponsors for our upcoming Web Designer Pro CON 2025 event! We couldn't make such a top-notch event for my community without their support 🙏

17hats (for proposals, invoicing, contracts and automation)

SiteGround (for website hosting)

Termageddon (for auto-updating privacy po

Chapters

• 0:00 Website Launch Packs for Referrals
• 6:14 Kristen's Journey: 5 Years Later
• 12:29 Finding and Loving Your Niche
• 19:34 Raising Rates and Defining Service Offerings
• 27:06 Building a Team and Tools
• 39:22 Staying Consistent with Technology
• 57:57 Speaking on Stage and Next Steps
• 1:07:16 Wrapping Up and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Kristin Adkins: 1:49

And if anyone is listening that doesn't have a launch pack, you have to do that. I can. So much of my business has come from people getting excited about their brand new site, me sending them Instagram and LinkedIn graphics of their new site, full page looks of it, plus a picture of a nice headshot of them with the website in front scrolling through video. They love that. And then I have a here's a caption that you could put in on it, and in that caption is you know, this was done when I worked with Kristen at Crash Design Co. This is the thing. These are the things we talked about. So I'm already in there and if they want to delete it, they can delete it, but most people don't. Most people want the easy button. They copy, they paste. I'm tagged. 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.

Josh Hall: 2:48

Hello friend, good to have you here for this episode where we are going to have an absolutely awesome time together. Talking to Kristen Adkins, who is a repeat guest on the podcast. Kristen was actually on back in episode 143 just after she had went full time in her business, but now, nearly five years later, I wanted to catch up with her because Kristen is now a member of my community Web Designer Pro. We've got to reconnect and I'm seeing what she's up to now and she is an absolute shining example of how to do things right. Her business has grown tremendously in the past five years. She has really dialed in her niche but I think, most importantly, she's just loving life in her niche. But I think, most importantly, she's just loving life. And five years in, that's not the easiest thing to do when you're building and growing your web design business and becoming a true business owner. But she has a lot of value and wisdom to share that we dive into this one everything from how she nailed and really dialed in her niche as the website designer for speakers, how she's now hiring and scaling, how she's building a referral network, how she's raised her rates over the past couple of years, how she has continued to stick with the tools that are in her tool stack and avoiding shiny object syndrome. And, most importantly, do not miss this one the value of website launch packs and how that's getting her more clients. We're going to dive into all that and more website launch packs and how that's getting her more clients. We're going to dive into all that and more.

Josh Hall: 4:17

Speaking of website launch packs, wouldn't it be cool to see what she's doing and to see her process and to see what she sends clients? Well, you can get a glimpse of that If you join Web Designer Pro, because Kristen, this summer, in 2025, is actually going to be doing a special guest training. More details on that, excuse me, coming soon, but for now, here is Kristen to dive into everything that she's learned and what she's doing to be five years in and thriving. You can go to her website, which is crashdesignco, to check things out, and all of the links we mentioned will be at the show notes for this one at joshhallco, slash 375. Let's rock and roll, my friends. It is a dang pleasure to have you back on the show. So good to catch up and chat. So much to talk about. There's not an exact topic that we're going to dive into, but I just wanted to kind of reconnect with you because you were on in 21.

Josh Hall: 5:14

You were on four years ago that was episode 143 with a different name, a different last game then that's why we both had trouble finding our episode we're trying to find it and we were joking about how josh hall is unfortunately the boyfriend of I think it's christina hack, the tv show, the house show, so like we should have worked this out before we went live.

Kristin Adkins: 5:33

Oh man, it's just. Anytime somebody googles my name, it's Christina Hack, the TV show, the house show. So, like my we should have worked this out before we went live, oh man it's just anytime somebody Googles my name, it's mostly that.

Josh Hall: 5:39

So, any, I wanted to catch up because you were at a place the first time we chatted, where you were, by all intensive purposes, a web designer pro. I mean, you weren't a member yet and it wasn't even called pro back then, but you were in a really like professional trajectory and then looking, you know, now, four years later, fast forward. One thing I really appreciate about what I've seen you do is you've stayed so consistent and you've just like refined your craft and you're serving the same audience, but you're doing it like even a more polished level. I looked at your site today and I was like, oh my gosh, I mean, there's just so much we can learn from you. So for all those reasons and more, I'm really pumped to have you back on.

Kristin Adkins: 6:26

Absolutely. I'm excited to see where this conversation goes.

Josh Hall: 6:29

I have no idea. I mean, let's just talk about that, Like, what has made you stay consistent? Because a lot of web designers, you know it's really common we're entrepreneurs at heart. So after a few years we get the itch to do something different or switch up our niche. What has made you just stay within your niche and stay consistent?

Kristin Adkins: 6:47

Yeah, well, the easiest thing is that I love my clients. I get to work with really cool people and it's so easy to stay consistent when I'm getting referred. Now, like I just heard the other day it was I was talking to a business friend of mine and she goes oh, she's like I have to tell you I have a friend who was excited about your website and she said that she can't wait for her business to take off because there's this web designer she really wants to work with and in the Milwaukee area that works with professional speakers. And my friend goes are you talking about Kristen Adkins? And I was like yes, and so she told me about that and I was like niching down was the best thing I ever did and I have been screaming that from the rooftops. So how can I go away from that?

Kristin Adkins: 7:31

And again, I love my clients. They are doing really cool things and it's hard to want to switch away from people who want to like change the world. And they're doing that and I get to help them and so I just I adore it, I, I love my niche and it's really easy to get really good at something if you're doing it over and over and over again, and so I found that to be very helpful when it comes to growing my business and my processes and all of that.

Josh Hall: 7:56

We talked a little bit about this. If I remember right from our first convo, that topic was more about, like, going full time because you got that place in your business and your journey. But I am curious, like, when you landed on this niche I mean, this is such a hot topic nowadays and I'm always leery about people who are trying to find a niche because I'm like, make sure you love it and you are the your case. You know you're 101 for like why you should love your niche and love the people who are in that type of niche. What made you choose the thought leader and speaker route? Yeah, remind us or remind me of how you landed there.

Kristin Adkins: 8:34

Yeah, and it was about the last time that we had a conversation. It was pretty soon or pretty recently before that that I had said this is what I was going to do. Mine was, when I went full-time, I knew I wanted to niche down, but I wasn't sure what it was and I hadn't worked with a lot of clients yet. But I had two coaches back to back, and then the second coach was so much easier to work with because I was asking the right questions. I already knew some of the problems she was having and the pain points, and so we got to go much deeper into our conversations right away because I'd already worked with someone very similar to her. And then, after those two, I was like okay, so now I know the power of niching down, do I want to work with coaches? And I was like I don't actually know any more coaches like that. I kind of like that was it.

Kristin Adkins: 9:19

And I thought about who my professional network I knew, and in my previous career I'd worked with a lot of professional speakers because I used to hire them for conferences and conventions and I saw firsthand that people's websites got them the job or lost them that. And so I was like wait a minute, I know exactly which problem I need to solve. I was a part of this, and so that has been a story that I tell all the time. Is I, I used to hire you. I know what meeting planners are looking for because I used to be that person.

Kristin Adkins: 9:48

I'm going to make you a website that would make me want to hire you, and that is kind of been the thing that got me through niching down, and I already knew some, some speakers that I had worked with and I reached out to them and I'm like I don't know if you want a new website or anything, but can I just talk to you about this thing? And it was just audience research has helped me and I just recently, in the past two months, did like more audience research that we talked about in our first conversation. It was like questions of just you know, open-ended questions, what they want, what they need, and it comes to their website. I just did another round of that two months ago and learned even more, and so, yeah, I just started with reaching out to my connections and then they said I know somebody that needs to know you, and then it kind of spiraled through there.

Josh Hall: 10:35

Well, and the cool thing about your niche, as it were, is it is broad enough to where, like it's not hyper hyper, like it's not a super small market. I mean, your website is clearly stated for speakers and coaches and, as we know, you know that could branch you out to a lot of different industries, although I imagine it does take you away from, like, brick and mortar shops or hair salons. You know stuff where you may get some local business, but this is consultants, coaches and speakers are in different industries. So was that intentional? Did you think about, like, making sure you didn't go too hyper niche to where you're a big fish in a small pond, kind of thing? Since I know you love the lake, how, by the way, are you out on the lake more? I know that was a goal last year we are.

Kristin Adkins: 11:19

We have a boat. We bought a boat last year and so we are out on the boat quite a bit. Can't wait for it to warm up so we can go back out.

Josh Hall: 11:25

We're we're itching for it, so I love that you remember that I'm so glad I was gonna ask you about that because, as you know, you're on the coaching tier and pro and I always ask coaching members what's your goal? And then I loved I, yours was just vivid as day because you were like I just want to be on the lake more.

Kristin Adkins: 11:38

Yeah, that is a great goal yeah, and so we get to do that. So check mark on that one. But, um, to go back to the question about niching, yeah, it did. I was worried to niche. I definitely was, and I was, like you know, I don't want to, like you know, turn away business. But then I did one WooCommerce store and honestly, I hated it and I was like you know what? This is going to be easy for me to like cut that part of my business. And then the coaching and why it says coaching and thought leaders on my website is mainly because I had been approached by a few coaches and they were like well, I'm not a speaker yet, but I want to be. Could you still work with me? And the question was always, or the answer was always like, absolutely Like, if you want to be on stages, that's what I'm specializing in really, and so I have coaches and thought leaders on there, but for the most part it is just speakers that want to work with me, um, or want to get into that industry.

Josh Hall: 12:27

So, yeah, I'm kind of curious about entrepreneurs or business. So like how far does this? How far are you willing to bend the constraints on your? You know who you'll take on.

Kristin Adkins: 12:40

Um, the thing is like it doesn't help them any bit to work with me if I'm not a specialist in what they do, and so I'm. I'm a part of a big entrepreneurial group and small business owners and I get I get approached a lot by people and I'm not afraid to say no if it's something that I'm not going to be really good at. Um, because I have my processes. I have like how it works, and a lot of my stuff, all the languages saying you know what's going to get you on stage, who's the meeting planner, who's the person actually hiring you and then who are in the seats? Like I have like all of these things that I'm asking, which it doesn't make sense to other people.

Kristin Adkins: 13:13

That being said, I have worked with a photographer who was a friend and it was like as a favor, her husband was in the construction industry and so I worked with him and then he started telling people about his website. So I weirdly have this like invisible side niche of trades and construction, and that's simply because people have been saying my name and I was like, well, I can get you a website that's just like theirs. They're like, yes, perfect, great, all right, I guess so, but yeah, when it comes to that, the niching, if I could go even deeper, I totally would Like. I think if I ever am like, oh, this is too much, everyone's a little too different, I would go into former professional athletes who want to speak. Like I'm not that afraid to do that because I've worked with a few and they were like my favorite.

Josh Hall: 13:58

Wow, that is interesting. I mean I would imagine that could even be like a hybrid niche of crash design studio you could do like a industry serve, or it could be like wouldn't be industry serve, but it'd be like a segment. You know, you can.

Kristin Adkins: 14:16

Yeah, and it just kind of turns into they all know each other. That's the other things, like a lot of speakers know each other and so they say my name. A lot of professional athletes who are now doing speaking all kind of know each other as well, and so that's why I've gotten a little bit into that sub niche.

Josh Hall: 14:27

I guess I would say so, hypothetically, if somebody like me was to come to you, entrepreneur, business owner, does like virtual speaking, doesn't do like in-person conferences as much, but does coaching. But I don't really identify as a coach, like somebody who's like a not a messy entrepreneur, but just like a hodgepodge of all this consultant coach I'm sure a lot of your clients fit a lot of the check, a lot of the boxes. Oh yeah, how, like what? Is that the type of thing where you'd be like, hmm, maybe, or would you try to weed me out?

Kristin Adkins: 15:00

um, I think it'd be a case-by-case basis.

Josh Hall: 15:01

Josh, I would, of course, I'd build you a website, but I think it was an immediate yeah, like he's in, but you know no I wouldn't just be like, yep, you know, here's the deposit, sign it now.

Kristin Adkins: 15:11

Like we'd get on a, like I get on about a 45 minute call, no matter what, before someone's even allowed to give me a deposit, because I want to make sure it's a good fit and I'm not trying to work with 10 people a month type of thing. I want to work with people I really like and just have my have, have my little niche and carve it out.

Josh Hall: 15:29

How are you dealing with inbound now, with leads and referrals, because you are at a very different place four years later. I mean, like you said you, you have a little bit of flexibility and freedom here for what you could potentially do if you want to drill down further or start to add some constraints, but how are you dealing with the referrals? I mean, I imagine you could spend, you know, at least half a day, all day, with calls if you're getting a ton of referrals.

Kristin Adkins: 15:51

Yeah, I could, and most of my business still is just referrals. I have some clients who have gone really big in the speaking industry and that brings in quite a bit of people because my name is on the bottom of the website. But I'll get people coming in once a week, maybe twice a week, and if they're in my industry, yeah, let's talk. If they're not, I have people that I'm going to push them out to. I have some friends that are in the web design industry, some people in pro that I'm like okay, hey, here's this person, I think they would be better fit for you, but I don't market. So I don't want to say obnoxiously, but I'm not like I need clients on LinkedIn or Instagram and hoping people come to me and everything Like I. I kind of do more of a natural outreach, I think, when it comes to social media and that's kind of all part of this visibility that I like to build up.

Josh Hall: 16:44

And your call to action on your contact page is still schedule a call. Well, there's a, there's a. I'm kind of curious. So you have the option you can schedule a call or you could fill out the contact form to give a little bit of information on their project. What is your? What's the percentage split just roughly between people just going right to a call, or I imagine and I found this to be the case a lot of busy entrepreneurs, thought leaders, coaches they don't really want to take time for a call unless it's absolutely needed. So how many people are like I would probably be interested in just sending a form in to get the ball rolling before a call. But you tell me, like how many people are scheduling a call versus just sending in an initial contact form submission?

Kristin Adkins: 17:27

I would say about 80% people schedule a call first and I will say most of the people that fill out the contact form are simply just trying to find my prices, and then half of them don't even show up to a call if I invite them to it. So if you schedule a call, usually you're like you're my people Also, remember, I work with speakers. They like to talk, they just want to, like, get on a conversation. They're they're, you know, extroverted like that, and so, yeah, very rarely does somebody book with me if they fill out my contact form, and I've actually noticed that as like a trend and so it's been really interesting to watch.

Josh Hall: 17:59

Well it makes sense to, I guess, with the way you are attracting leads being pretty organic, largely referral based, you are getting quality over quantity as far as leads go as a whole. So it'd be different if you had, like, a big social media strategy or a paid ads acquisition where you're getting a ton of traffic. I would imagine you would not want the schedule a call option to be out there on the first layer.

Kristin Adkins: 18:21

Yeah, no, if it ever got like crazy then I would take that down. But really, yeah, it hasn't been a problem.

Josh Hall: 18:28

That's cool and I mean like a very for one thing I was thinking about too is people who are price shopping or looking at several different agencies or studios. They may not want to have like 10 calls with 10 different web designers, but if you know Joe refers Bob cause he's a speaker and Joe's like you got to talk to Kristen then he's probably going to likely just be wanting to do a call because it's like you're the one in his mind to do the work for him.

Kristin Adkins: 18:53

Yeah, Most of the time it's that or like I'll even get DMS on Instagram or LinkedIn of like hey, so-and-so said your name, we got to talk, and I'm like all right, cool, Like let's chat, here's my link.

Josh Hall: 19:03

So you talked a little bit about your uh, the questions you ask and prompt, and I remember from our first conversation it was kind of a light bulb moment for me with the idea of recording those initial calls and using that as website copy and content and getting your client their, you know, the leads just to talk about their business, to help you. Yeah, what, what things? That sounds like you've refined that over the past four years. What is what? What's different now? What do you do differently now? Do you have different tools in your, in your toolbox? Uh, you know, this is kind of probably a can of worms we could open up, but like, what are the uh, what's the differences now versus your business, you know, four or five years ago?

Kristin Adkins: 19:46

Um, my confidence first of all, that's for sure.

Kristin Adkins: 19:49

Prices have tripled, at least, um, but my for things that I use.

Kristin Adkins: 19:54

So when I said that I had just done another round of like audience interviews and stuff and I wasn't trying to sell them on anything, that was all because I was building my own GPT so that I can just ask it questions, and it's responding as if it was one of my clients. And so it was. It was a. I was in a program and the person taught me about this. It was like interview the person, get it transcribed, put it in chat GPT and make your own custom one. And so now every time I go in there, I'm like asking like hey, can you ask, or can you act like you are a client on a call and then go through some objections that you might have, and I'll sit there and like practice, what I would say to those objections, or be more prepared when somebody is on a real call with me. And so that's one of the big things is now the AI obviously has really evolved since we've talked in 2021. And so that's what I was doing it for was to have a little bit of fun.

Josh Hall: 20:46

This is a great explanation of how to use AI. That's not like AI is taking over web designers jobs. You're a prime example of using it to refine, like your perfect offer and how you're talking with clients. How do you practically do that with chat GPT, by the way? Do you cause I don't know how to like make it its own thing? How do you? Is there like a setting to where you can create your own chat GPT bot?

Kristin Adkins: 21:10

Yeah, so you have to use the paid version, that's for sure. Um, cause I like got instructions on how to do this. So I know, um, yeah, you have to. You have a paid version and there's like an option to create your own custom GPT and so like, then, if you use chat GPT a lot on the left-hand side I have like 10 million conversations with it I have. I can start a new one and say I want to talk to my audience or I just want to do an open, regular GPT, the regular chat GPT, open AI thing. So, yeah, there's like steps.

Kristin Adkins: 21:41

I'm sure it'd be a really quick Google to figure that out, but I was like I just followed it and it was yeah, transcribe your conversations, you put them in like on a PDF and you submit all the documents that would be helpful for this GPT to know and you can go in and add more, you can tell it instructions before it creates this GPT and you can say you know, don't ever use anyone's name in this, and I try to take their names out before during the transcription because I don't want them to say, like you know, adam said this and it's like no, I don't want that. I want you to act like you're a person, so just give it instructions. But yeah, I put in like five different interviews in there and it uses their answers to these questions and then creates different ones, because I'm not just re-asking the same questions, but it's really cool to see what it spits out.

Josh Hall: 22:25

Okay, so for people who are more savvy with ChatGPT than I am, they probably already know this, but so you can go just to your profile and then it says my gpts and you can customize it from there. It's really, really cool. It reminds me of what we just opened up with in pro. Did you see, brock?

Kristin Adkins: 22:40

I did. Yeah, love the name, by the way kids do the best branding.

Josh Hall: 22:45

Because my daughter was just like let's call it broccoli and I was like, all right, we're all that shout out to a kid that's got broccoli on the mind.

Kristin Adkins: 22:52

I mean, mean you don't hear that?

Josh Hall: 22:54

often Right, yeah, I'm surprised it wasn't chocolate or, yeah, punch rounds or something. Right, fudgey would have been cool too, but hey, we'll go with Brock. But yeah, it reminds me of that same idea of like it's just curating answers and coaching based off of you know the resources and pros. So, likewise, every web design studio could create I mean, we could create SOPs based off what we're doing, but you're utilizing it in a really awesome way with, like, really drilling into that. So that's awesome. That's awesome to hear how you're every quarter, every year. Or did you get to a point where you were like I'm just gonna like, double this thing and see what happens?

Kristin Adkins: 23:40

Yeah, it was that one. I started, you know, just kind of like increasing, because I've been told like one of my like first few clients was like he's like I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you that you need to raise your rates. And I was like oh, and I actually was like, okay, I'm going to tell you that you need to raise your rates. And I was like oh, and I actually was like, okay, I'm going to slowly raise them, slowly raise them. And then I had a conversation with somebody.

Kristin Adkins: 23:59

I was having an in-person coffee conversation, which is very rare for me to have with my clients, cause usually they're all across the country, but like finally I got a Wisconsin one and he is a former football player and all this stuff, and so we were having coffee and he was like and he asked my prices and I told him and he was like I'm going to act like this as a friends and family discount and I need you to write this name down.

Kristin Adkins: 24:20

And I'm like okay, so I like write a name down. And he's like that's my money, coach, I need you to talk to her. He's like you are not charging enough. And he was like my friend did this and he pulled up his website, which was like terrible, sorry, but it was really really bad and like didn't really work all that well. And he's like my friend did this and he charges more than you do. And I was like, oh, so it was like okay, well, and then it was almost double, and this was through my conversations that I had interviewed with people of like what did you pay for your first website? And everyone's like first website that they had to do the copy for, they had to do everything for, was like what I was charging.

Josh Hall: 24:56

And.

Kristin Adkins: 24:56

I'm like, oh, I'm offering so much more. I'm a specialist with this Like I just I kind of needed a little bit of like internal therapy going on of like we need to raise these rates. And so, yeah, I doubled my rates within the past year, I would say and this is almost four years into this so I was doing the gradual and then all of a sudden it was like I need to, I need to bump it up there.

Josh Hall: 25:19

Well, especially since you know the niche, you've refined it. I imagine you're getting sites out a lot faster than you were a few years ago. Win, win, win all around, and I do copy.

Kristin Adkins: 25:28

Now, I don't do copy, I have a copywriter. So all of my projects if I'm doing a custom website, I do. I do their copy for them. Um, and they literally get on strategy call with me and the copywriter. So they know like that's a thing, and we go through everything that they want to do, what they want to accomplish, and he writes it, gives it to me, I do the design with my junior designer and then, um, we're launched within a month at all times.

Josh Hall: 25:55

I was just going to ask what is the suite of your web packages? What does that look like? So, custom design, a lot of strategy, a lot of messaging, help copy. How far are you going into SEO and some of the other aspects?

Kristin Adkins: 26:09

Not too much. I'll do the basics. So your heading structure is going to be correct, your alt tags are going to be in there, but I'm not doing any kind of like ongoing a brochure style site.

Josh Hall: 26:19

I don't want to frame it, I don't want to make it sound simple but they may just want something that is going to represent them for the next what? Two or three years.

Kristin Adkins: 26:42

Yep, because a lot of what they're doing is applying for speaking gigs and then they need somewhere to send them. So it has their speaker reel, like their video of them talking. It has a podcast, if they have it. It has like all of the things that they do shows off their book. But yeah, very rarely do they need a shop functionality or anything else besides, just very brochure.

Kristin Adkins: 27:04

But some of them need a lot of things because they talk to a lot of different audiences and then we break those off into different pages. So about eight pages is kind of the average that I do. And then there's also things within the speaking industry that you need. You should have a media page. So if someone does book you, there's a page that should be like a thank you page. And it's got their headshots ready for download. It's got their stage bios. It's got any kind of AV like audiovisual needs. Do they prefer a lavalier mic, a handheld mic? So I'm going through all of that with them and making those websites, those pages as well. But yeah, it really is brochure when it gets down to it.

Josh Hall: 27:42

When, with these rate increases, did you? Was there any other factors that led you to increasing your rates other than just you know, a couple divine meetings divine meetings you know like did? Did life change at any point where you were like I need to make more, or I'd like to make more, or we want to get that boat like was? Was there anything else that contributed to that, or was it just somebody sounding like you need to have your rights, need to be way more than they are?

Kristin Adkins: 28:08

yeah so much like multiple people tell you you need to raise your rights is gonna do it. But, um, yeah, I mean life stuff, like I, just I. When it comes to the work, like I have junior designer now I have a copywriter like I need to pay them so that needs to like bump up, the value is going up, but I mean life really hasn't changed all that much. I mean I have a dog that eats like crazy, but I'd really like to have that boat paid off. But, um, other than that, it's really just me protecting my peace and wanting to like do really good work and not need to be doing 20 websites at a time Like how you did 24 still to my like. I still remember that story of yours and I was like I can't, like I in no way that would send me into a spiral.

Josh Hall: 28:48

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't 24, like huge sites, but it was 24 projects.

Kristin Adkins: 28:54

You know 24 emails. I'm stressed out I'm not doing that.

Josh Hall: 28:59

Yeah, well, it's funny Cause we're I'm talking to Megan after this another pro member who is is in the shoes that I was in at that point, where she's just overloaded right now. So we're going to dig into that. The reality is, it's interesting that you've been able to stay at a sustainable, consistent pace. It sounds like. Have you had any waves? I mean, I would be shocked to think that you've never just had a month or two where just a ton all came in, or has it just not been the case?

Kristin Adkins: 29:27

Um, little waves, but not like big waves of like. I'm always. I always know I'll be able to pay my bills. I'm never like stressed about that. I do have, you know, maintenance. I do have all of those. The base is covered. Um, there'll be waves, like with more people. Um, there's generally a lot of. There's some of my more successful clients that they now coach other speakers and everybody wants to be like them so that they see that, they see my name, or they'll say my name and like a training or something. And then I all of a sudden I'll get three or four you know inquiries at the same exact time and I'm like, oh, I know exactly who said my name somewhere and so, but nothing like big, huge waves that have stressed me out at all.

Kristin Adkins: 30:07

Yeah, just consistent, honestly is a pretty good word.

Josh Hall: 30:10

Yeah, that's awesome. Did you have any pushback when you raised your rates? Or maybe not pushback, but did you see any changes with conversions or different clients? When you I mean doubling your rates now triple, I mean that's, that's no small feat. Um, so yeah, what was that like? Were you nervous about a big increase like that?

Kristin Adkins: 30:29

Yeah, I was super nervous and, um, I wasn't getting yeses to everybody, but I was getting a lot of yeses before that and I think that's kind of like the thing. Right, if you're getting 80, 90% yeses, then your rates are too low, like supply and demand type of thing, and so I get a few more no's now. But I'm also more confident in that because I was affirmed by people are saying like yes, that's a good rate for you. I'm like, oh okay, like I'm not like topping out and, you know, pricing myself out of some people and I'm starting to build off a smaller package as well for people.

Kristin Adkins: 31:04

I had like a one page, like a landing page kind of offer that was here's four different landing pages I've designed. Pick one, I'll go in and customize it real quick, we'll be done within a week, and this is great for people that needed a website yesterday, right, or they're about to apply for new speaking gigs, and so I've played around with that. I don't really market it all that much, but it is always an offer there. It's kind of like that downsell. If somebody did come to me and say I need my first speaker website and I'm sitting there like, well, I'm like how much do you charge per speech? And if they say a couple hundred bucks, then I'm like then it doesn't make sense for you to work with me yet. Like let's get the reps first, get the photos, get the, get the proof of concept, then come back to me.

Josh Hall: 31:51

But like let's do this something on a smaller scale first, and I'm not afraid to tell somebody that, okay, perfect, I wanted to unpack your suite of services here now. So you have that kind of like low end, almost like website in a week landing page offer which could be a initial like getting started piece, or it could be a downsell, like like you just outlined. That's awesome. You have a website audit on your website. Is that your main low end, like entry offer, just for people to get to know you and feel confident with you?

Kristin Adkins: 32:23

Yeah, so that is the thing that is on my website, because I do a lot of training and workshops for speaking groups, and so I like to offer that as like a raffle of like hey, if you're on the live call, I'm going to pick somebody. You're going to get a free audit. It's valued at this here, like you can see this, and if you didn't win, you also can purchase this if you really do, if you really were interested. So it's not something that gets used a lot, but it's mainly there to position it as this is this free thing that I give away because I do a lot of training for that's cool, gotcha.

Josh Hall: 32:53

So you have your website audit, which is 150 right now, which is a perfect like lower end type of product. Like you said, it could be also something that could be a bit of a carrot, either a promotion or or a freebie, a giveaway that's awesome. You have your website in a week kind of service. That's more landing page a little little hidden and correct me if I'm wrong on any of this and then you have custom web design and maintenance. Is that right?

Kristin Adkins: 33:18

Yep, and the custom web design is actually broken up into two different packages in them in themselves. So it's like you have one speaking page, or you know. So it'd be like a five page brochure site is the one, or you can get like the other one, which is multiple pages for your speaking audiences. These are for, like the authors, podcasters and then building all of that in there. So there's two within custom. But yes, that's a correct breakdown.

Josh Hall: 33:42

Awesome and I'm seeing here well done, kristen, your signature speaker site. I love that you named it. That's very cool. The signature speaker site investment starts at $74.99, paid over three months, very clear, very transparent, awesome, yep. And then tons of bonuses with it. So you're doing two months of maintenance and support on you includes some. That's great. Did you happen to listen to the episode I just released with cammy, who is managing over 200?

Josh Hall: 34:09

yes, I did, I did uh, she just reaffirmed how beneficial it is to give one to two months of free maintenance, just so clients see what you're doing and get it and I was doing it for a year.

Kristin Adkins: 34:21

So when I first started, I was giving a full year of hosting because I was like, well, you know, they just paid me. At that point I thought it was a lot of money. I'm like, they just paid me so much money they're not going to want to pay me anymore. And now I'm finding that there were people that had slipped through the cracks and because I was disorganized, so they were just getting free hosting. I had somebody that got free hosting for two and a half years and and I just found it like, like, like recently, and I was like, hey, I was like, well, I'm like, consider that a gift from me.

Josh Hall: 34:50

But, however like, I'm like you know how, like whenever, you work with Wix and Squarespace, you kind of got to like pay that monthly thing. How did that go over today? Were they fine with paying?

Kristin Adkins: 35:01

Oh, he laughed. He was just like, oh, he's like cool, all right. And then he like he did go for the basic option, like the cheapest option, which I kind of knew was coming, because he went two and a half years without paying. But like now I have a VA as well, and so she's that is, her main job is making sure all of those get cleaned up, and every time I launch she's like scheduling out those, those emails. So but yeah, the used to do a year would not recommend, because then after a year they get kind of like used to the free thing. But now in the past like five months I think, I've been doing only two months and it's converted so much better, awesome.

Kristin Adkins: 35:36

I'm taking care of so many more websites.

Josh Hall: 35:39

Two months free. By the way side note for anyone who has ever experienced that to where you're like shoot, I feel like a total fraud. I didn't realize they weren't paying for something. Every single one of us has been through that multiple times. When I sold in transit, I went through and I was like, oh my gosh, I have like three clients who haven't paid in like a year and I didn't realize it. So yeah, you're.

Kristin Adkins: 35:59

Yeah, shout out to my VA, who has paid for herself now because she found all of this. And it wasn't just that one like there was, there was a few that hadn't paid and everything. But you know what can you do?

Josh Hall: 36:09

okay, I want to dive into your team too, but real quick on the pricing. So what? What stopped you? Or have you thought about one month or what? Why two months versus like a one month or a three month kind of thing?

Kristin Adkins: 36:21

mainly, I mainly just because I want them to see it a couple times and I and I just like a two, like two little touch points of you know, here's this report and then here's this, this report. After that you can totally, you know, compare the two and see how your website's doing and everything. I think a lot of times the first month is skewed as well. Um, if I'm being completely honest with my clients, because you're like everybody, look at my website, you're sending it to your family, you're sending it to all these people, I think your traffic is skewed.

Kristin Adkins: 36:47

So it's like okay, so month two is actually what you should be basing things off of.

Josh Hall: 36:52

That's a really, really important point. Yeah, gosh, that's awesome, because clients may not realize that either. Right, they may think, oh my gosh, this is getting.

Kristin Adkins: 37:00

Yeah, they're all like what happened. Yeah, it's like what happened.

Josh Hall: 37:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone has to do what happened and you can kind of guide them through that. I love that. That's a genius idea that makes total sense. I know a lot of web designers, a lot of pros, are doing three months, which I guess two to three. It could probably work out Probably nice, that's a nice thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah, free quarter. You know, 90 days, that's the max I would do free. As you rightly said, people get used to getting a free service and they're like no, I don't want to pay for that.

Kristin Adkins: 37:30

Yeah, they're like why, why would I?

Josh Hall: 37:33

I didn't explain it well enough. Yeah, yeah, this is great, Kristen. You've got a really solid offer here the investment of $7,500 over three months, but I like that you have bonuses over $1,000 of bonuses included with the site launch, website launch pack, training videos, plug in licenses and then two months of maintenance and support, which is really cool.

Kristin Adkins: 37:56

Yeah, and if anyone is listening, that doesn't have a launch pack. You have to do that, like I can. So much of my business has come from people getting excited about their brand new site. Me sending them Instagram and LinkedIn graphics of their new site, like full page, like looks of it Plus, like them a picture of, like a nice headshot of them with like the website in front, like scrolling through video, like they love that. And then I have a here's a caption that you could put in on it, and in that caption is caption is you know, this was done when I worked with kristin at crash design co. This is the thing. These are the things we talked about, so I'm already in there and if they want to delete it, they can delete it, but most people don't. Most people want the easy button.

Josh Hall: 38:39

They copy, they paste, I'm tagged I'm just gonna ask you this live would you be down with sharing your launch pack in pro Like would you want to do like a train, like a live training?

Kristin Adkins: 38:50

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Josh Hall: 38:51

I would love to dive in that Cause. I was going to ask you here what's in your launch pack, but it would be really cool to see that visually. So, if you're interested, maybe this summer we could do. I could have you, you know, do a special training in Pro. If you're open, just share in your launch pack, because it is such a hidden gem. I mean a hidden gem for web designers.

Kristin Adkins: 39:11

It really is, and it is like that's why referrals come to me Every time I launch a new website. I just wait for the 24 hours and there's another person in my inbox.

Josh Hall: 39:20

That's so awesome, so let's do it. I'll follow up with you to get in here to do a live training and we can look at that and have a training library pro.

Josh Hall: 39:28

There's a lesson in my business course on creating a launch pack, but I don't think that's something that you could never get enough examples of how, because there's no right or wrong way to go about it. There's so many, and a lot of it may depend on your niche, of course, like you may have, I don't know. Do you cater it towards speakers and coaches with anything in particular, or are you doing stuff that could work for medical offices and stuff?

Kristin Adkins: 39:50

It could work for anybody. Yeah, I have my emails all scripted out that I send the moment someone's live. I went live this morning with somebody. I literally just copied and pasted it over, changed out the links and then they have all the things. I sometimes personalize it because I'm not working with a ton of people, so I can personalize a little bit of it, but it's really just plug and play and then I have a Canva template that I just go in I record their screen or record their website and do all the things like print out the three or four graphics, attach it to the email and send it to them and I follow up with them a week later and then a month later they get their first report and then two months later they get their next report that says, hey, we need to do the launch Genius, see how this all comes together.

Josh Hall: 40:38

I can't wait to see that. I love it Really, really excited. So I imagine that may be something that. Do you have team members who help you out with that, or is that something that you do, since you're more client-facing with the launch pack stuff?

Kristin Adkins: 40:48

So my VA admittedly doesn't like to do Canva, and that's totally fine. I've been doing it recently, but also I just hired her like three months ago so I could have somebody else do it. But I just do it and send it over to them. I just know it's done. When it is done, how long does?

Josh Hall: 41:05

it take for those, send it over to them. That's just. I just know it's done when it is done Like how long does it take for those? For what? For your launch packs to put those together? I?

Kristin Adkins: 41:09

don't know, probably like 10, 15 minutes of that. Oh wow, I was thinking like a couple hours depending on oh, no Cause I have the template on on Canva and then I just use, you know, Google Chrome extension to do the full page, and then I just do, do, do, do Awesome.

Josh Hall: 41:25

Okay, super cool.

Kristin Adkins: 41:26

Sorry to the podcast users for just me, just like making noises right there.

Josh Hall: 41:29

But I always prefer yeah, because most people, like you know, show something or wave their hands, but I prefer audio cues Absolutely.

Kristin Adkins: 41:35

Like I just yeah.

Josh Hall: 41:37

Yep, even better. So your team, chris, remind me when we talked. I can't believe those four years ago when we talked then what in the f? Where is the time going?

Kristin Adkins: 41:49

um so much beer has been drinking since the two of us.

Josh Hall: 41:51

So much hockey has been watched. Oh you gotta, are you? Are you coming to? Uh, wdp con I'm not.

Kristin Adkins: 41:56

I I have already blown my budget on uh in-person events. This year I'm going to a huge conference for speakers, and so when that it's like the week before or something like that we we're going to have so much extroverted, introverted self could not do that two weeks in a row. So next year next year.

Josh Hall: 42:12

Okay, next year deal, I'm going to hold you to that Cause gosh, we're gonna have some fun Anywho, um, did you have any team members last year, did you?

Kristin Adkins: 42:20

Oh gosh, no, this is all within the past year. Um, I posted in a Facebook group of like hey, I need a junior designer. Like someone's got to help me out here. Um, and I had about 14 people reach out to me and send me their portfolio or their website, whatever. And there was like three people that I just like, all right, I'm into it. Like, let's, I'm going to give them a small project.

Kristin Adkins: 42:40

So I had like the same project that was coming up. I just paid each of them to do it and I compared and I was like I really like one of these girls. She's amazing and what's great is she's in London. So I wake up and stuff is done. It's so cool. But yeah, so I just white label her out as my junior designer.

Kristin Adkins: 42:56

My clients know I have a junior designer, but she's running her own business, but she's white labeled through me for my projects and she's incredible, and so I have had her for about seven months I would say it was almost a year now, cause it was last summer. And then I brought in a copywriter about six months ago, cause I had a client that really needed it and found him weirdly through threads. Um, I posted like is there? Are there any copywriters that can see this? I like to do things in a week. Can you work fast? Fast, love to reach out to you. And his first email he was like hey, I'm a brisket loving beer drinker in texas and I was like hired so like you, instantly.

Kristin Adkins: 43:35

You obviously know how to put a personality into into words and I was like done, like hired him and haven't looked back since that's awesome designer copywriter. And then I have a va as of three months ago.

Josh Hall: 43:50

So with the, so with the designer what Facebook group? What was it like a, like a tool, specific group? Was it a web design group?

Kristin Adkins: 43:54

I think, man, I want to say it was like a women in web design group. I don't. I don't think it was like an Elementor group, cause I use Elementor, but I think it was just a women in group because I use Elementor, that's right. But I think it was just a women in web design and I said I wanted someone that was good in Elementor and I was like I use SiteGround as hosting. If there's any way you could help me with that, that would be great. So yeah, this girl just checked all the boxes.

Josh Hall: 44:18

Awesome. And then so threads for your copywriter, that's awesome. And then your VA. How did you end up finding the VA?

Kristin Adkins: 44:27

Yeah, I was in a business cohort this first quarter of the year and everybody had a VA but me. And they were like, all right, you need to talk to this person and there is a it's a agency, it's a VA agency outside of Madison, wisconsin. I'm in Milwaukee. So I was like, all right, that's cool, I'll talk to this girl. And it was like instantly. She's like we pair you with a VA, so we get to know your business and within a month you'll have one.

Kristin Adkins: 44:50

So it's not this instant, like I'm not going on online trying to find somebody. They're pairing me with somebody. And it was like what's important to you and mine was willing to embrace technology was really important. I was like I don't want to call and text you, like Slack has to be a thing, like I can't, I can't keep up with these things and like have to be just you know, like you can work whenever you want, like it was just like a big questionnaire that I filled out and then I did an in-person interview or not in-person, a virtual interview and then they matched me with somebody. So that's how.

Josh Hall: 45:21

I found out Awesome, so it was almost like a um like uh, I use Robert half for this when I found a graphic designer years ago like a headhunter kind of agency.

Kristin Adkins: 45:32

So they yeah, they find other VAs that want to come in and then it gets all under their agency. But yeah, like this girl works for other ones as well, she's got like five other clients, I think, and so they're all like through different ways, like she found them through all different different ways, but does the agency bill you for her or is she billing you directly through her? The agency bills me gotcha, but we're.

Kristin Adkins: 45:54

I mean that hourly rate I'm sure is more than you know, somebody on fiverr or it is more expensive but they, like the agency, has checked in with me twice, like they do like um, like semi-annual reviews with me and making sure it's all worth it, and then you can have a package of like 15 hours I think is their lowest, up to whatever you want.

Josh Hall: 46:13

Gotcha, and I mean it took a lot of headache and time out of you know for what you would have had to have done initially, and I was like on a zoom with three people that were like, yes, this is the way to go.

Kristin Adkins: 46:22

I'm so happy with my person and I was like, cool, that's easy.

Josh Hall: 46:27

That's a good reminder that the agency route for hiring is still a really quality route for all those reasons and more yeah, you'll pay a little bit more, but you save a lot of headache in the beginning and in the follow-up and I feel like they already have a pool of qualified people, whereas if you hire somebody from Upwork, so you know it could go well, but it could also you know stuff out there and VA and everything for a reason.

Kristin Adkins: 46:55

So yeah, and she's like in Texas, so we're in the same time zone technically, but she's got kids and stuff. She's like I like to work at night. I'm like cool, I don't, I don't care when you work.

Josh Hall: 47:06

Heck yeah. Is that a national? I assuming it's a national agency, right?

Kristin Adkins: 47:11

It's a national, yeah, so it's US based, and then it's specifically for women. So the mission of the founder is to have women who are specifically mothers employed in a way that maybe they couldn't be otherwise, because they have to run around with schedules of kids and stuff like that.

Josh Hall: 47:29

What's the agency?

Kristin Adkins: 47:31

It's called my VA Rocks.

Josh Hall: 47:34

That's cool.

Kristin Adkins: 47:34

Yeah, and they do like podcast too, like I think they just opened up like my Podcast Rocks as well. So if you needed someone to like, do your editing for that and everything. Yeah, they're growing. It's really cool. The founder is also a speaker. She's done a TED Talk. So, like we, the founder is also a speaker, she's done a TED Talk. So we hit it off immediately, and then we were talking about musicals and everything.

Josh Hall: 47:54

But, yeah, Very cool. Well, I'll link that in the show notes. It's very top of mind. Just because there's somebody in our somewhat immediate family who is also a special needs parent and as a special needs parent myself, I think sometimes like how in the hell would we do it if I was working nine to five in a? I could just I don't know how it's done, so I'm I'm wondering I'm sure there are like even more so talking about niche, like even more so for parents, and mothers in particular, who want to work in the evenings like special needs parents.

Kristin Adkins: 48:25

Yeah, I'm sure that's a part of it.

Josh Hall: 48:28

So yeah, I wonder yeah, I'm sure that's a part of it. So, yeah, I wonder yeah, that's something I'm definitely. I have a hidden passion for that I could see expanding on eventually, but I do wonder I would champion for them all day.

Kristin Adkins: 48:38

It's been a wonderful experience.

Josh Hall: 48:40

That's awesome, cool, very cool Shoot. I was going to ask you something. It's gone. It's completely gone. This derailed me in the best of ways, because now I'm thinking about, you know, the other special needs parents who need VA situations so they're not tied to a job like this. But this is really cool. So a lot has happened in the past year. It seems like things compounded. Is that fair in saying, like you put all, you really built the foundation the first few years, and then I mean how long have you been doing this total, not even just for this niche, but how long have you been designing websites?

Kristin Adkins: 49:12

So it'll be full time in June. On June 1st would be full time for four years. So still at kind of like a three and a half mark, maybe a little bit more than that, and I was side hustling for a good six months before that.

Josh Hall: 49:25

Okay, so five-ish altogether.

Kristin Adkins: 49:28

Almost at five yeah.

Josh Hall: 49:29

Wow, very cool. That's impressive, kristen. I mean the business you've created, does it feel? I mean it's gotta feel cool to be in this spot and within five years.

Kristin Adkins: 49:37

Yeah, it is really cool and, like I, I get to do a lot of things now and people know me for what my business is and everything, and so it's been really it's been really fun. I honestly like I think this past, like this year, specifically 2025, has just been like fun for me, so that's like it's wonderful.

Josh Hall: 49:54

That's really cool to hear. Awesome. Oh yeah, because a lot of people get to this stage that I've seen because I coach now in pro and I do see a lot of web designers build their business and become an owner and then not all the time but it can get stressful at this point when there's a lot of growth and there's just a lot of different things going on. But I really I mean you are such a great model of like staying consistent and sustainable and having a niche that you really enjoy working on. Not you know, I mean there's a ton of things you could do, but it seems like you found a sweet spot with your services and not going too far into SEO or ongoing or marketing. I mean you just you design awesome websites for speakers and coaches. You give them a launch pack, you get them on their maintenance plan. You're personable, stay in touch. Am I missing anything?

Kristin Adkins: 50:44

And I and yeah, cause like I just know where they're at and I know where they're from, cause I've been doing speaking myself lately, so it's like I just it's I get, I just get to work with a lot of cool people. But I also like I don't know if I could have this great of a disposition if it wasn't for having that junior designer, because I am kind of getting out of the love for the design part of it. Um, like I just don't want to sit here and design websites all day, like I now like have other passions that I want to do and pursue and stuff, and so being able to grow the business and then also get like the work done has been really, really helpful. And that's part of the reason why I rebranded which is why we couldn't find our videos because I now can use my government name again, because I was using my maiden name when I first started this business.

Josh Hall: 51:27

Yeah, and to that point I talk about this in my scaling course, which is it's really it's a thought that's easily overlooked, but particularly in your situation you have an opportunity for someone else, to give somebody else an opportunity to be able to design sites. Who really wants to do that, like I don't know the junior VA where she's at, but I imagine she probably loves doing that, and a lot of designers, especially junior roles. I don't know the junior VA where she's at, but I imagine she probably loves doing that and a lot of designers, especially junior roles. They don't want to do the selling, they just want to design and just do a project, and it's really cool to be in a position where you have the opportunity to give an opportunity, and that's not the case for everybody. So I love that you're embracing that and releasing that so somebody else can have fun doing that.

Kristin Adkins: 52:10

And she's so good at what she does too. That's the thing we started with me doing the homepage and then her doing the inside pages of websites, and we still kind of do that. We're actually Right now we're in the first project where she's doing the whole thing, and then I'm going to go in and add my touches on it or coach her through what I'd prefer things to be like, but on it, or kind of coach her through what I'd prefer things to be like, but yeah, like she's so good like picking up my style and she knows like I like bold, I like like certain effects throughout the website, and so she's just been wonderful.

Josh Hall: 52:39

It just came back to me. I remember what I was going to ask you before Elementor. You have been using Elementor from day one, right, is that right?

Kristin Adkins: 52:48

From day one.

Josh Hall: 52:48

There are so many other tools now. Now there's a land grab for website builders. Which studio is starting to take off? Webflow, show it. All these other platforms. What has kept you consistent without you know nickel or, um, you know shiny nickel syndrome, where you're like, oh, I want to try this, try this, because that's another trap I see a lot of web designers fall into what they're like I'm, I'm gonna try this, and then you end up having to like relearn tools, get your team to relearn tools. What has kept you stay, like staying or staying with your tool stack?

Kristin Adkins: 53:20

I have tried other things. Like, weirdly, switching from elementor to divi was so difficult to me and I think it's just because, like they're both nuances but they kind of are similar at the same time. I don't know. But, um, I loved elementary cause I'm just good at it. I'm, first of all, I'm grandfathered into like their cheapest license ever, and so it's like really hard to walk away from that.

Kristin Adkins: 53:41

But I tried a Squarespace website, cause there was somebody in the area that I really wanted to work with and he wasn't willing to move. And I told him willing to move. And I told him I was like I've never done this, but if you're willing to take a chance, like I'd love to do that. And he was like, yep, he's like I trust you Cause he's seen my work, and he's like he's like I bet you'll figure it out and I'm like, if not, I will refund all of your money. Like this is truly just a learning thing for me. And it ended up great.

Kristin Adkins: 54:04

He loved it. It took me about twice, twice as long as it would take me in Elementor. So like I have that skill but I don't want to utilize it again. But I've also been playing in Go High Level. If you've heard of that like it's more of like a more of making, like a whole CRM and a SaaS for your client and so I tried to play around with it. It is so difficult there are things that make it so hard for a web designer but I do have clients that have asked for it, so I'm like I'm going to play around with it.

Josh Hall: 54:33

So yeah, Eric's using it for in transit as far as our like main client portal and all that stuff. But it is definitely, I mean it is a robust.

Josh Hall: 54:42

Yeah it's kind of an all in one type of thing. I don't know the builder or the website builder itself. I've seen and seen. It seems like it would be well suited for landing pages for folks who are doing that. But yeah, I can't imagine doing custom builds. I also I know there was a lawsuit with them in click funnels I wonder yeah, I think there was some proprietary stuff that click funnels had trademarked or copied. Write it, copy, written, copy, wrote.

Kristin Adkins: 55:11

Uh, and I don't wrote. We don't even know how to say niche, josh, let's not for example, midwest folk hold on, let me find out.

Josh Hall: 55:20

I wonder what the latest is on that gossip time digital gossip glad everyone's coming on the ride with us yes, high level.

Kristin Adkins: 55:30

I hadn't even heard of this, so, but it just makes complete sense that it would exist this is breaking news.

Josh Hall: 55:35

Actually it's not breaking. I think this happened last year let's see, let's see what the latest is.

Josh Hall: 55:43

Uh, they let click funnels allege that go high levels funnel builder technology infringed on click funnels patents potentially aiming for strategic uh advantage and settlement negotiations. Blah, blah, blah. Looks like it's all still going on. I don't know what the latest and I mean any legal thing. I mean we're seeing it in wordpress now too, with with wp engine and yeah, and uh, mullin, mullin wild man. So yeah, it looks like it's still going on from what I see. I'm not chat gpt and I'm going old school and googling, but anywho, yeah, I just wonder. I mean it's just fascinating because there's just so many tools and so many options. I honestly feel bad for folks getting going now. Uh, just because I'm like you really just need to like see what feels good to you. Like you mentioned, elementor just felt good over divi. I don't know if you've tried divi 5. Divi 5 is a very tried to be 5.

Kristin Adkins: 56:39

I honestly, like my clients don't care, like they just want, they want it from me. And I say like this is how I do my best work. And they're like cool, okay, sign me up, like I don't care, and then I shoot them a video that's another part of my launch pack, though that is the thing that takes longer time is. I shoot them a video of like here's how to log in, here's how to edit your stuff, and then I have like a full library for them to look at, of like you'd add a new page here you go. I don't, but for me it's just. My clients have always just been like yeah, okay, I've had one that had Divi, and she was like can I add Divi on top of it? And I'm like I really don't think that's going to work how you want it to work.

Josh Hall: 57:18

You could.

Kristin Adkins: 57:19

you could do the Divi builder, but yeah, I don't know how well it plays with Elementor, but literally I got on a Zoom call with her and went into the back end of my own website and started moving stuff around and showed her like how easy it was for me to change things. She's like oh okay, that's fine.

Josh Hall: 57:34

She's like sign me up yeah, I mean, the reality is more and more because, especially with pro, just seeing overseeing so many designers who are using even different builders and platforms, I've really landed on like just choose the tool that you like and as long as it, the functionality is there, you should be fine, whether it's a builder, wordpress or like I.

Josh Hall: 57:56

It's so funny because, coming in the divi, coming from the divi world, I used to be like, oh, elementor, who would be better than divi? And now I'm like I know tons of close friends and tons of pros use elementor and love it. I'm like, yeah, if it works, that's good, great. Like, do you want? So if somebody wants to use Squarespace or Wix studio or show it, I don't care, whatever you like.

Kristin Adkins: 58:16

If you, if, if any of my clients come to me and they're like this is a deal breaker, I must use Wix studio. Cool, here's my friend, amanda. I already like you're going to love her. Great, go to her. Like, if that's your, if that's your deal breaker and I can't get you out of that, I have people to send you to.

Josh Hall: 58:31

Yep, that's a great point. That's a great point If you do. It is nice to build a network and that's one wonderful thing about pro. It's like if a client is absolutely dead set on Divi and you're not going to take that on tons of Divi web designers you can refer somebody to, or like if someone's in an industry that I don't work with, street that I don't work with, I've posted in pro like hey, I have this website.

Kristin Adkins: 58:49

I'm like I don't really understand this, what he's wanting, but this is what he sent me. I put, I put it in pro and somebody immediately was like this is my jam, this is what I do and I'm like cool.

Josh Hall: 59:07

Here's his phone number. Like yeah, like it's not for updates regarding the lawsuit, so imagine it still. It was initiated in April 24. Interesting so, well over or almost a year, almost a year, yeah. So it's just interesting because you're getting a lot of builders and technologies that are looking. I mean, even Divi 5 is very comparable as far as the, the, the layout, to Elementor in some ways, but also like Wix Studio actually I was playing around with that. It actually functions a lot like Divi 5, like it with the way.

Kristin Adkins: 59:38

I've been wanting to dive into Wix Studio, but it's interesting?

Josh Hall: 59:43

I do. Yeah, wix Studio is fascinating because they it's very different than Wix and it is I. It is getting gaining traction, and I do. I'm keeping an eye on it is getting gaining traction, and I do. I'm keeping an eye on it over the next year to two here, because I do think they're going to. I think it's going to blow up in some ways, but WordPress is also still almost half the internet, so we're safe as WordPress designers for quite a long time as well. And the bill I think the builders are really going to dictate like where, how WordPress continues on it. I really think it's like I almost view Divi, elementor, breakdance, bricks as their own, like platforms, and it's just. Wordpress is just the common factor.

Kristin Adkins: 1:00:22

Yeah, and we'll technically show it. Is that as well? Show? It's technically built on WordPress as well. They just oh, I didn't know that. So if you wanted like a blog on your show at site, you have to like set it up on a WordPress site exactly how we would, and then, like you, connect it. It's yeah, so it's technically built on WordPress, but so which is really funny, because there's always like haters and social media of like use this instead of the other one, and it's like we're all kind of using the same tool. By the way, is it self-hosted, though, or can you use a show at?

Josh Hall: 1:00:54

site on like psych ground. I believe it's self-hosted interesting I started.

Kristin Adkins: 1:00:57

When I started designing websites, I used show it just because like that's what I was seeing on tiktok and everything and I really liked the builder. But I thought it's really easy to make a messy website um and like not have things aligned and that that bothers me. So I got out of it pretty quickly interesting, so show and I might be saying this wrong because, again, this was like four years ago that I had been looking at this, but it was like, yeah, here's the download from what I discovered show.

Josh Hall: 1:01:24

It is not built on wordpress but it does integrate with wordpress for blogging there, it is okay so you nailed, showit is a drag and drop website builder, blah, blah, blah blah without code, how it connects to WordPress the pages. So I imagine, like most of the main pages are built and managed on Showit. Blog posts, specifically, are WordPress, so somehow Showit manages the WordPress hosting on your behalf. So that's what's kind of interesting. It's like if you, I guess, if you, if you, you, if you use it for blogging or maybe different post types, then it's hosted separately.

Kristin Adkins: 1:02:01

how that connects to the site, I'm not sure that's interesting yeah, no I'm sure it's like four years ago, but I remember it was fun because it was kind of like building a little digital uh scrapbook, because it's truly drag and drop.

Josh Hall: 1:02:14

Somebody knows listening right now and they're probably like God, bring me up.

Kristin Adkins: 1:02:17

I know someone's screaming, I just know it. I'm sorry.

Josh Hall: 1:02:20

Same here. But there's just so many different tools, so that's that's cool to. I mean, you definitely seem like a person who's like it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Kristin Adkins: 1:02:32

It's working well. You know it. You know you're. You know it. I know how to like make my style on it and I know how to do that easily and I like that. I can like copy and paste from one website to another like really, really easily.

Josh Hall: 1:02:40

I'm not downloading like a template, uploading it, it's like just copy from one website to the other and I will say I a key uh component to web designers and business owners, entrepreneurs who are in this realm that we're in in web design and marketing and entrepreneurship. One of the commonalities to people making it and staying sustainable is they're not dabblers. It's very hard to get them to move from, even if it's a dated thing. I still use 17 hats for all my invoicing and proposals and contracts and it's dated in some ways, but the functionality is there. It's never let me down. I've never had an issue with it at all.

Kristin Adkins: 1:03:18

That's like I haven't touched Dubsado since I set it up. Like I truly like I'll go in and like edit some things and my proposals and all that, but like it was set up four years ago, it is set up the same exact way set up four years ago. It is set up the same exact way. All of the automations are the same.

Josh Hall: 1:03:32

Like I'm not touching it, yeah, If it's not broke. I have to ask this this is shameless self-promotion, but you mentioned, you know, having pro as a resource for you with, with, with partners and stuff. What made you so excited when you joined pro?

Kristin Adkins: 1:03:43

I was like oh, kristen's, here, yes. I got that video immediately I was like Kristen's here.

Josh Hall: 1:03:49

What's up? What made you join pro?

Kristin Adkins: 1:03:52

Um, well, first of all, like how could I not Like I mean, you put together such a good community and it was more of like the courses, but the main thing was the um, the masterclasses that you were hosting, and, um, there was like you were, you had Jason Gracia and we've talked about this. I like I told you I was like I like I had been following him. I was like really like I admired what he did for coaches and like how he built his whole system, and that was like the month that I joined was Jason Gracia's like master class and I was like I need to be hit on that call and that the value I got from that was like worth it to stay in here.

Kristin Adkins: 1:04:27

I'm not in like the coaching tier because I don't jump in there enough to justify it but I am in the community tier now but I just moved down and I was just kind of like I just need to linger for a little bit because I am in, like I said, I was in a business cohort, I'm in another, like entrepreneurship group. I was like this is just a lot Like I just need to pare down, but I'm not going to leave pro. That would be. That would be crazy.

Josh Hall: 1:04:51

Well, that's amazing and that's a great use case.

Josh Hall: 1:04:53

As far as why I opened up the tears to that, exact thing Cause I oh, that's amazing, and I did see people leaving who were just like I'm just not able to use it a lot right now, so I'm out. But I wanted to make it so like you don't need to be out completely. Like you know, I have only so much capacity and time for my coaching. So, like, if you want to use it, awesome. But in your case, like I love that you're still there and I can still tag you and and you can jump in when you want it and you can come to the event. Hoping this year I'm still going to. We got a month. I'm going to see if I can persuade you to come out because Jason's going to be there and Jason is sharing live.

Josh Hall: 1:05:23

Yeah, we're going to do a mock-up call. There's five speakers, jason and I. I'm going to be his lead and we're going to do a mock-up call and he's going to walk us through his sales process. Live that. I mean. He's made it for $2 million in five years with his stuff, so I'll send you some details Chris we have seven tickets and there's going to be a lot of beer and it's going to be a blast.

Josh Hall: 1:05:50

We're going to a baseball game together, we're all going to a baseball game on Friday night. It's all covered. I got it all covered. Saturday is the workshop. Are you familiar with Jay Klaus? Do you know him at all? He's a creator of science. He's just one of the best creators today. In my mind, he's going to be talking about email and news.

Kristin Adkins: 1:06:10

One of those, but definitely not this guy.

Josh Hall: 1:06:13

Not Jay Klaus, he's, he's in Ohio. But, uh, shannon Mattern speaking, michelle Bermanier is going to be speaking. It's going to be freaking awesome. So, anywho, all right, I'll follow up with you after See if we can get that, get you there. But, um, yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that.

Kristin Adkins: 1:06:26

I was kind of curious, so, yeah, it just like having the courses like on demand was really helpful because, like, I bet you can go in and see my activity of there. It's like just jumping into a random lesson, coming out of it jumping like I just just picking what I need at the time, and that's what makes pro so great. It's like I have it all at my disposal right like. I bought maintenance back before the community so I was like I bought the maintenance course because that was like my like first introduction to like hey Josh, my name is Kristen Like, and then it kind of you know, has gone to this four years later.

Josh Hall: 1:06:56

And that is what's interesting. I guess it depends, like the course creation world and you may do. You serve course creators in your niche, or is that a different?

Kristin Adkins: 1:07:05

um, a lot of them just want to like link to their stuff. So they'll put it on like kajabi or whatever and they just like, want to link, and I'm like, all right, we'll make a sales page for it and then you can link it out. But I've had one client want to host her courses on her website.

Josh Hall: 1:07:20

So and I was willing to do anything.

Kristin Adkins: 1:07:21

And that was like in the early days and I was like, yep, I'll do anything, like I just want to make you happy, so not much posting online on their site.

Josh Hall: 1:07:28

I just asked because there's such a shift in courses online now compared to even when we talked four years ago for the show. Like I think if you were to have like a couple signature courses, you can get by with just having courses. But, like in my case, with the suite of courses and now additional trainings, it's like there's no other model that would work than just having everything as a pick and choose subscription, because I do the same thing that you do. I'm in, actually, in Jay Klaus, I'm in his community, the Lab, and a lot of courses, a lot of posts, a lot of resources. It's kind of like more of a creator's version of Web Designer Pro and I do the same thing. I just pick and choose lessons on certain courses sometimes or pop in a post that I think is like oh yeah, I do want to get in on this. So, yeah, it's awesome, very cool, kristen. Well, I mean, this has been really cool. It's been awesome catching up.

Josh Hall: 1:08:22

I do have one final question for you, but this has been a really great overview of what you've done, again just to reiterate like I'm so impressed by what you've done, again just to reiterate like I'm so impressed by what you've created. But also I just wanted to highlight what you're up to, because you are just such a good example of staying consistent, sustainable. You're out on the lake, more having a good time, had your funnest year to date so far, which is like what a win. Like, apart from, you know, tripling rates. Tripling rates is really cool, but having fun is really really really cool.

Kristin Adkins: 1:08:54

And having fun for me might not be the same as for everyone else, cause, like this is kind of going into what I've been doing. Besides, the design part is I'm speaking on stages now, like I am also a coauthor of a book. I do a lot of podcast guesting, like I've got a lot of different things that I'm doing that aren't just the web design, but it all funnels it into the web design.

Josh Hall: 1:09:13

Are you going to be a podcast host? Because that was a perfect segue Cause I was going to. I was going to give you the platform to share a little bit about you know your passion projects coming to life now.

Kristin Adkins: 1:09:22

No, I am not a podcast host, but I will do a little self plug, for what I am doing when it comes to my speaking is I've been doing more like sharing my story and how I got to where I am right now, and I shared my story Actually when I was on your podcast. The first time was the first time I told somebody I didn't know my actual story and so like why I had started my business and all of that. Well, now that has been published, that has been I've been on stage saying that and it's all like going into this visibility thing that I'm kind of like jumping into and it's been really fun. And so I'm doing like more like personal brand, um, but telling my story. And so, like, what I wanted to share with everybody was I have the.

Kristin Adkins: 1:10:01

I have a video of how a web designer can tell their story and find clients. That's not through being salesy and it's through being on the stage, and so I talk about why I became a web designer, what really changed in my life that turned me into this, and then I talk about like who I get to work with and how amazing it is, and then people hear that and they like get brought in and they're like I want to be a part of that as well. So, like that's what I've been doing, it's a lot more speaking, and not just into this microphone, but more on an actual stage with lights on me very cool.

Josh Hall: 1:10:33

we'll make sure we have that video linked in the show notes for this one. Yeah, because and yeah, I mean story I think story in the, in the age of ai and everything else going on like real personal, oh yeah, lived experience stories are more important than ever to get. It's a great reminder, like I've got some stories I need to, and sometimes we tell stories five years ago and we forget Like the people we just met who are in our zone are new leads and clients now. They don't know that from five years ago. So keep on repeating the story, get it out there. That's a great reminder.

Kristin Adkins: 1:11:06

And that for everything too. A testimonial you got five years ago is still a testimonial you can share today, like, even if you shared it five years ago, you still can. You still should be posting those things, follow up with them, see if it's still, you know, going well, and so that's what a lot of my business right now is, is just a lot of talking to people, and it's been fun.

Josh Hall: 1:11:22

Oh, that's amazing. We'll have all this linked in the show notes. Last question for you real quick how is the beer in Wisconsin Are we talking like? Are you a Pilsner gal IPAs?

Kristin Adkins: 1:11:35

I am anything but an IPA person, but like it's Wisconsin, and if you come to Wisconsin, Josh, I will buy you a Spotted Cow. If you don't know about the legacy of Spotted Cow, it is only sold in Wisconsin. It is brewed in the state. You cannot, a store cannot legally sell it outside of state lines and it's just a really good. It's like a cream ale, but it's kind of on the lighter side. But I do still like to just go back to my roots and drink a nice light beer, a nice light lager. But yeah, I have really poor taste, I think, when it comes to beer. I just enjoy it.

Josh Hall: 1:12:08

That's all right. There is no poor taste in my mind. I would love to take you up on that, absolutely.

Kristin Adkins: 1:12:15

I was just a boring person in a brewery last week Like this is all I'm going to say. There were options everywhere. I'm like what's your closest thing to a Miller Lite, please?

Josh Hall: 1:12:29

I was just going to ask because Miller Lite, and that's just where it well, you come to Wisconsin, you can take the tour of the brewery.

Kristin Adkins: 1:12:34

Um, there's like 400 steps in it. They like they tell you the whole thing, but yeah, so it's. I think it's kind of like Coors in Colorado it doesn't taste. There's only one place that can taste the best and that is like where it was brewed, and so I think Wisconsin Miller Lite tastes better than other Miller Lites.

Josh Hall: 1:12:51

Is that where it originated from?

Kristin Adkins: 1:12:53

Yeah, the brewery is right downtown Milwaukee.

Josh Hall: 1:13:01

Oh, my wife and I are definitely. I'm going to relay that immediately because, yeah, that's definitely our go-to, so awesome. Well, when I get you to come to our event here next month, you first round on me and then we'll go okay actually, literally it is because dinner is covered and everyone gets a drink if they want one, so it is literally covered.

Josh Hall: 1:13:14

So I mean, I'm really I'm letting it on. Everyone is hearing my sales. Yeah, we're get, we're gonna get there. I don't know if we'll get you. I know you have a lot going on, but we'll see. This was awesome, chris, and thanks so much. Really appreciate you, as always in that round three, you know, definitely, definitely.

Kristin Adkins: 1:13:30

And then within four years. How about that?

Josh Hall: 1:13:32

Definitely within four years, and I can't wait to have you in pro to do a little look at your launch pack, so we'll make that happen.

Kristin Adkins: 1:13:39

Absolutely.

Josh Hall: 1:13:40

All right, keep it up.

Kristin Adkins: 1:13:42

Yes, I will talk to you soon, and everybody else.

Josh Hall: 1:13:44

Thanks, kristen. I mean, if you were taking notes on this one, show me a screenshot of your notebook, because this was a bit of a masterclass in how to thrive in five years as a web designer. Kristen again has done so many things right, so I just want to publicly say thank you to Kristen for being so open and transparent with everything that's working for her. Again, we talked about a lot of resources that are going to be available and linked up over at the show notes page. For this one, that will be at joshhallco slash 375. And again, if you are not yet sending out website launch packs, this is a lesson that's included in my business course, but if you would like to see exactly how Kristen is doing it, the training has not yet been commenced inside of Web Designer Pro, but Kristen is going to be doing a live training inside of Web Designer Pro this summer, in 2025, showing all the ins and outs of her website launch packs.

Josh Hall: 1:14:41

We do guest trainings almost every month in Pro, so it's just another reason to jump on in to this incredible community that is waiting for you. Go to webdesignerprocom, join us today. You can join the community level to get access to the monthly trainings and to meet Kristen. She's a member right now and she's just a total pro. She's truly a web designer pro. So I can't wait to see you in there and, again, I can't wait to hear what you pulled away from this one. Leave us a comment at joshhallco slash.