Web Design Business with Josh Hall

379 - Selling Growth Plans (& Transformation) for Web Designers in 2025 with Shannon Mattern

• Josh Hall

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Recently, my friend Shannon Mattern interviewed me on her The Profitable Web Designer podcast all about what's working well for web designers killing it in 2025.

She's kindly offered to let me repurpose the whole convo for you! 

It's a bit of a 2-parter with part 1 being all about becoming more than just a web designer for clients, but a growth partner for bigger MRR (monthly recurring revenue)

Part 2 covers more of what I went through in pivoting from selling information to selling transformation. Very parallel to web designers moving from selling a nice website design to selling a high-converting sales tool for clients. All the same lessons apply.

Enjoy!

Shannon:

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:

So I was recently interviewed by my friend, Shannon Mattern, who is a fellow web design business coach. She is the founder of the Web Designer Academy and she had me on her podcast, which is the Profitable Web Designer Podcast, and we talked a lot about essentially selling results and how to leverage higher offers, what's working right now with supporting clients and growth plans and really just what's working for web designers in 2025. And I had a really good time chatting with her and she was kind enough to let me repurpose that conversation for you. So here it is, my conversation with Shannon Maddern, again originally aired on the Profitable Web Designer Podcast. You can check Shannon out by going to webdesigneracademycom if you'd like to find out more about her and how she's helping web designers as a fellow web design business coach. So let's have some fun and talk about what's working right now to help you excel in 2025 and way beyond my web designer friend. All right, here we go.

Shannon:

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer Podcast. I am joined by my good friend, josh Hall, host of the Web Design Business Podcast, creator of the Web Designer Pro community and the guy that I meet with coffee for every now and again to talk web design, business and coaching. So, josh, welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer Podcast.

Josh:

My sister from another mister. It is great to be back.

Shannon:

So good to see you. I know we chat all the time and it's been way too long since we've done a podcast episode together, so I'm just really excited to have you back on the show. Because you work with so many freelance web designers on the business side of running their web design business, you have your finger on the pulse of what's going on in the industry in terms of challenges, opportunities. I know you went through a big shift in your business over the past year. That maybe seemed a little precarious at times, but paid off for you in a really big way. So I want to talk about all of those things, but before we do, if there's anyone listening who doesn't know who you are, can you briefly share a little bit about you and what you do?

Josh:

So I was a freelance web designer for over a decade Used to be the very quick long short of it is. I was actually a drummer in a rock band and I was a cabinet maker by day. By trade. I got laid off in 2009. And just during the days of being a drummer in a rock band, we were playing shows and I got into design and Photoshop and that led me to doing graphic design and starting to do design work for bands. And then, as we all know generally, if you get into design, all roads lead to websites at some point. So I just dove into web design, started the days of Dreamweaver and then got into WordPress and then built up a little small, lean mini studio agency and ended up teaching a decade later. And now my true passion is helping the Josh of a decade ago to get to six figures and build a sustainable business. So that's what I do now, yeah, with most of the focus being on the business side of web design.

Shannon:

I love that story and I'll link up to our previous episode where Josh goes into more detail about that path and how he navigated those early days and all the things, if you want to listen to that, to hear the whole story, because it's really, really fascinating. You run a membership community, coaching community for web designers called Web Designer Pro and you help hundreds of freelance web designers inside that community, thousands with your podcast, with your YouTube channel. You really do have your finger on the pulse of what's going on in the freelance web design space. Can you share with me, like you know, upon reflection of the past few years and kind of looking forward into 2025, what are some of the biggest opportunities you see for freelance web designers to really grow to that six figure mark and beyond?

Josh:

What I'm seeing that's working well for the six figure plus web designers is some sort of growth plan. So what's interesting about this is an area of like growth plans for web designers is really open ended to whatever you want to do. It's kind of interesting because I built up my agency and my model around one-off website purchases that were generally anywhere between a few grand upwards to 10 to 20 grand for larger, more complex sites, and then it was backed up by recurring revenue with a maintenance plan, and my maintenance and hosting plans were anywhere from 75 bucks to a couple hundred bucks a month or a few hundred bucks for some clients that were a little more needy or intensive. But what I didn't really I did kind of have this because I did SEO at the time and I had a partner who did SEO ongoing, but I really didn't give enough thought or emphasis to helping my clients continue to grow after we built their website. So what I found, particularly for the designers who are over six figures into multi hundreds of six figures like multi six figures, because I do have some students who are now up into 300s, 400s, even 500s. I've got one student in pro who's over 500. There is a lot of opportunity in the MRR space the monthly recurring revenue with some sort of growth plan. So I have a bit of a framework that I teach in my course, which is build support grow.

Josh:

So anything you do to build a website or if you do branding and you're building an online presence, that could go in your build category. Support would purely be hosting and support plans or care plans just off of what the work you've already done. But then there's this growth plan option, which is completely open-ended to whatever a web designer wants to do. If you like SEO, then I would seriously consider having some SEO ongoing plans to help boost up the presence that you've already built.

Josh:

If you do digital marketing or social media management a lot of my students are doing email marketing and conversion and lead generation. Even if you don't know exactly what you would want to do in a growth plan, I would say just have some sort of strategy like consultive service. That's more of a growth plan. That could be an add-on that you offer month to month ongoing to help you decide what you want to do. That's been a very long-winded answer to say what I've seen work is to have build support grow, but then have your growth plan be something that is generally a pretty big MRR type of service, but it's very open-ended so it can be tricky and challenging, but it's also freaking awesome.

Shannon:

Yeah, I love that and I think I love how you made the distinction between support and grow, because I think what a lot of web designers want is they want to build and then they want that maintenance and support to be like passive income. They want it to be like this is just money coming in. I don't really have to think about it. There's not much that I need to do to support and maintain these websites. I'm using tools to do it in mass and the level of effort for that is pretty low and it's pretty low maintenance and you can get good money coming in from that. But to really grow beyond that now you have to shift into like I have some expertise to offer to my clients on an ongoing basis that is going to help them reach their goals. And you know, I think that that's kind of a that.

Shannon:

What I have seen and I'm so curious what your, what your students like, what they think about this is like the roadblocks that we put in our own way when it comes to like offering a support plan. Like who am I to offer this? What if they don't get results? I don't want to be dedicating like X number of hours to a bunch of different clients every single month. I don't want to create another full-time job for myself, and so, um, those are some of the things that I have heard and I would say that would that would really hold people back from really stepping into, um, powerfully offering a growth plan. And I'm super curious what are some of the roadblocks or other reasons you've heard for people kind of like not going for it?

Josh:

Yeah, most of it is. Most web designers don't want to be a digital marketing agency because you can run the risk of being a full-blown marketing agency, which has its benefits, especially if you have services you know well and you have systems dialed in. But I didn't want to be a digital marketing agency. I was just a web designer and, by the way, you can still have a very healthy six-figure web design business and not do any bit of marketing or ongoing stuff if you wanted to. It's generally just going to be more premium and bigger, probably one-off purchases, or you could have a subscription model and just wrap up a $20,000 website project in an 18-month package and build MRR that way. So there are ways to get around it, but I think that's the biggest one. They don't want to be a full-stack digital marketing agency, understandably. So too. The time factor is a biggie. Like you just mentioned, it can grow legs if you have an MRR growth plan that is time intensive. This is why I actually don't recommend doing growth plans when you're starting and until you're probably at six figures, because once you hit six figures you have a little more leeway. I found to decide, like, what the next level is and, quite frankly, when somebody's earlier in the journey as a web designer you got enough on your hands to just figure out web design and basic care plans, like that is enough to get to six figures. My model, my support plan, my care plan got to over 5000 a month at one point and we were supporting 75 plus websites. A lot of my clients had double websites or three brands under one contract, so I would do discounts and stuff. But that was a really good model for low six figures because 5k recurring revenue month to month and then if you do one $3,000 website on top of that, that's a six-figure business right there With ongoing work and retainers. That's a nice low six figures. But if you want to get past the quarter million range, that's where I've just seen and it makes sense that you're doing higher level stuff for fewer clients at a more higher rate, like 500 a month or 1000 a month, and those tend to stack up pretty quick.

Josh:

So I think that's the challenges, is time, and you you just don't want to be a full blown digital marketing agency, but I would say if you're really serious about building your MRR and you're not necessarily about getting new clients as much as selling to current clients, which a lot of my pros at that level are doing right now. What I found is you probably have to decide, like a few things you're going to do in a growth plan. You can't do everything. You can't do like all their social media, can't do all of their conversion stuff, all their email marketing. I mean, that is just unless you have one or two clients doing that, but then you're kind of like a part-time employee for them. So I think it's finding an area of specialty that you like which is the most important thing, and then double clicking into that and then offering that. If it's SEO, if it's email marketing, if it's strategy, if it is like I do.

Josh:

Alexia, one of my students, really loves. She's a brand, she does mostly branding and web design, but she really loves doing social media graphics and ongoing social media work. I wouldn't like that at all, but she does fix an ongoing social media work. I wouldn't like that at all, but she does so for her. Her growth plan is a bit of a done with you or a done for you service that encompasses a lot of ongoing social media. So yeah, in short, find your lane, find your skill set and expertise of what you like and then that can be your option for a bigger MRR.

Shannon:

Yeah, and I feel like if you do wait until you've got your minimum baseline covered with, like you said, support plans and you've got that coming in, then you'll also have the resources to have people helping you with the delivery of that, instead of trying to just pile it all onto yourself, which is what you're super smart you can do it all, you take it all on and then you find yourself one emergency away from it all falling apart because you put it all on you.

Josh:

Yeah, that's a biggie, I will say most everyone at that level and at least in Web Designer Pro, being that I have a coaching tier, so I have a lot of these conversations and we're seeing what's working is. I don't know any of them who are doing it all by themselves. They have some sort of team or contractors behind them and that may sound scary to some, but the reality is a lot of that ongoing work does get time intensive and look, if you just have like a dozen clients, that's manageable, probably as a solo printer or maybe one other additional set of hands, but you can still do it in a lean studio style way without being like a huge agency, which is really cool. The other thing I'll say too, about growth plans that's interesting is I found and I found this to be a big thing for me was I would get clients to a certain point and then they would continue to have me update the website, but they just go elsewhere for more help for growth, for marketing help, and again, you don't necessarily probably want to be a digital marketing agency and do it all, unless that's a model you want, but it is a shame not to have your foot in the door of helping them grow their business ongoing with their website, especially considering all roads lead to websites. So I'd say I really love the opportunity. Now I think to your point. Like in the beginning, you wanted to talk about some of the opportunities. I really think the opportunity is to be a partner in growth for your clients, with the website as the hub and you supporting them, and then you have some sort of growth.

Josh:

Really important distinction, too keeping support plans or growth plans separate. I can't stress this enough, because what happens is clients turn on and off and they ramp up and ramp down marketing services, but you do not want them to turn off hosting and maintenance. So it's a little key of getting hosting for your clients, because they're not going to turn off their website unless they're done. So if you can keep those separate, it's a great way to go, because you could tell a client yeah, we could do a 12 month push for email marketing and SEO or whatever we want to do or blog content creation. But the support plan, that's what we're just doing to support the current website. That will remain ongoing. You can always discount it, though. If you have a support plan, that's like $99, just discount like credit that off of your growth plan, potentially without making you unprofitable for doing the support stuff. But, yeah, a huge opportunity there. So I hope some of those tips help. That's just what I've seen work.

Shannon:

Oh yeah, I totally agree with keeping those things separate, because then you run the risk of like people like, let's say, your support plan that you structured has hours in it. Then you have people saying, oh, can you just like use some of my support plan hours to like build out this whole new marketing funnel?

Shannon:

for me and that is not what that is for, and so it is so important to be really clear about what is included, what's not included, what's a new project, what's maintaining what you built versus fixing what someone else broke, like that third-party contractor that you hired broke versus what's a new project. You hired broke versus what's a new project. And I love the idea of the growth plan. Even like I work just personally in my business, I work with other professionals to help me with certain things and it's not always the same thing every month, but it is like conversion rate optimization. I work with Lee Scott, who's been on your podcast, um, on a retainer, and what we do every single month looks a little bit different, but it's all based around like different ways we can meet these certain goals that we we set for the business and it's it. It's fun. It's fun for her because it's like a varied work and it's fun for me because it's just I have someone I can trust.

Josh:

And that's one great. It's a great way to go about Lee's model with the conversion stuff is there's probably a few different things she's doing as your conversion rate optimist or optimizationist Is that a word? And that's the same way for web designers, especially if you do quite a few things, if you do SEO and some conversion and copy and you do some email marketing, lead generators. One thing I've seen work well is it's almost just like a retainer of time or a retainer of an action plan, and probably going into paid discovery and generating roadmaps is you can create, even if you just start with like a 90-day sprint for a client to test the waters, you can create a three-month action plan. Maybe one month we do conversion rate optimization, the next month we do some SEO, or the next month we do some lead generation or email setup, whatever it looks like. It is kind of cool to be able to have a bit of a retainer approach, especially for the clients who they would love to keep on working with you. And again, we're talking at a more higher level because this is somebody who knows a lot about this stuff, but the reality is I do think most web designers hit that roadblock at about a quarter million, where my model is a bit stuck right there. Unless you are really really high value and high premium on websites, you can build a support plan. The student I mentioned who is doing over 500, she actually is doing mostly maintenance plans with that, but she is in a niche that has referral partners and it's at a pretty high scale. So she just has hundreds and hundreds of maintenance plans. So you can get to that level, but it is a bit of a difference. It's uncommon for most web designers to manage 1,000 maintenance plans. So there is an option.

Josh:

Basically, if you're wondering, okay, I'm at a six-figure range. My clients are asking for more. I know SEO, I know a little bit about this. How should I package this up? I would say to start, just offer a bit of a roadmap paid discovery type 90-day sprint or maybe a six-month deal and then create a bit of a roadmap for there and then test it out like that, because you can get pretty instant results on some of that stuff. Seo, we all know, takes some time, but things like conversion and optimization, lead generators it's pretty easy to manage and measure how many people signed up in a contact form, how many people booked a call how many people converted, how many people signed up for an email list. Those are things that you can track very quickly, so I would almost keep it open-ended to see what you like to do and then reel it in from there.

Shannon:

I love that, and you mentioned paid discovery a couple times and that's part of our Web Designer Academy roadmap.

Shannon:

I'll be talking about it in Josh's community coming up soon, but it's just an opportunity for you to be able to take a really deep dive with a client or a potential client to figure out what their goals are and paint a picture for them of what opportunities are there that they don't. Maybe they haven't considered before or they don't know what. They don't know about what's possible for them or different ways to solve their problems, and it really is just a way for you to show them different ways that they can get to their goals. So to Josh's point if you don't know what your growth plan could be, test the waters, test out some different things. Reach out to some of your favorite clients, do a paid discovery engagement with them, figure out what their goals are and then see how you can slot in the things that you love to do or that you're great at or that you'd love to. You know, start like doing for them and I love that like create a 90 day roadmap and like test it out.

Josh:

I think that's where the real power is. To get going with growth plans is because there's not really like an exact framework for it. I mean, I guess, like you, if you're like largely into SEO, you could create a pretty detailed like structure for an SEO plan that you would follow for most generalized clients. But just from my experience, most web designers are doing a bit of strategy SEO lead gen. It's kind of all in copy and conversion. It's kind of a. It's a bit of strategy seo lead gen. It's kind of all in copy and conversion. It's kind of it's a bit of a web designer soup.

Josh:

So, like I just think it's great to have a bit of a, especially to put your foot in the door, just like, yeah, like the 90-day sprint. I really like the 90-day sprint thing because clients will feel like we could get a boost and it would be cool to try it out. And if you get them some results, they're probably going to be like, ooh, let's keep this going, as opposed to saying like we have an 18-month plan that's $1,000 a month and then suddenly they're like oh, $18,000. Hmm, maybe, but if there's a $3,000 90-day sprint, well, that's a little more doable for most clients, and if you just frame it as like if this gets you two clients at $1,500 each, you've paid for it right up front and then the rest is all profit on top of that. So a lot of different ways to frame it, but I really do like the 90-day sprint thing to kick it off.

Shannon:

Yeah, and so as you were talking, I was thinking you know we were talking about like opportunities or things, trends that we're seeing for 2025. Predefined packages of services to like a more custom feeling experience. Even if it might be the same thing that you would have in a package that it's like more tailored toward a client. I'm curious if you're seeing anything like that.

Josh:

I think packages have gone a little bit more low ticket like a little more like the thousand,000 to 2,000 range for like a more of a templatized, productized style package. I never had clear packages, I just had ranges. So for me I always had 2,500. Up to 5,000 was our starter like basic style package for smaller sites, generally five pages under. Whether we would use some templatized stuff or not, it didn't matter, it was all in that basic realm. 5,000 to 10,000 was kind of our medium range projects. Most of our projects were in between that and then 10,000 plus would be for e-commerce sites, larger directory sites, bigger stuff like that. I think that's still a good way to go because you can have constraints in ranges that are kind of like packages, but then you can customize within those constraints. So in most cases I would roll with that. It kind of depends on the growth plan too, though quite honestly I do think there's kind of two sets of web designers Web designers getting to six figures with a pretty defined range or package style approach for websites backed up by support plans, and then those who are getting past the generally the 200 to 250 are more focused on being a bit of a partner with their clients and this takes time, by the way, to get to that point. That's why I don't recommend newer designers jump right into growth and partnership status. Just build a web design studio, get six figures, feel good about what you're doing and then you can shift towards the growth model, Because the more agency style growth model. There's pros and cons, of course, but I think the packages of websites are actually more of a lead-in to a growth plan than vice versa. You know what I mean.

Josh:

A lot of web designers at that level are thinking growth first and then a website may just be a part of that. They may be looking at $1,000 or $2,000 a month plan and, by the way, the first phase of this plan is doing the website and then the next phase is doing SEO, Then the next phase is such and such. I know I talked with Troy Dean from Agency Mavericks and that's how they promote to their agencies. Now they're serving agencies who are generally at seven figures. That's the goal for their clients and, from what I know, the way they frame it is you start out with a paid discovery. That's pretty premium. You create a roadmap and the website may be a part of that roadmap. But he's also serving agencies that may even not do web design. So for web designers it does shift from what you're selling a website first with support to a little bit of growth, and then suddenly you're actually probably selling growth and roadmap more than just a website.

Shannon:

Yeah, and I think, especially like you said, when you are newer, when you're building to six figures, like learning the skill of getting clients, sales, running projects, you know, navigate, like just client wrangling, navigating clients, starting and ending projects on time those are like core skills to learn and then like have in place before you go, adding more, more onto that.

Shannon:

Because if you don't learn those things or you don't fix those things and you're spending all your time trying to like build this growth plan for a client that you don't even have yet, like you're just delaying your results or sweeping future problems under the rug. So I love how you're saying, if you're in this stage of business, yes, this is what you're working towards, but you can get really far before you do that and really set yourself up to add that on successfully later. Instead of overwhelming yourself now or maybe even sabotaging your progress now by trying to do a strategy that's not um, they're like going to support where you're at right now in your business it's kind of like learning to swim in the deep end, like if you're just thrown right in there.

Josh:

There's just so much more to figure out. Now I will say there are like the few, there's the rarities, like I have a member of my community, sam. Did I connect you with Sam, by the way? Yeah, yeah. So Sam is all about local SEO. He actually knows like a hundred times more about local SEO than I do. So I like he has a little micro community called local web design or local SEO Academy and kind of an offshoot of Pro, and I lean on him now to learn about SEO.

Josh:

But the local SEO, the reason I mentioned that is his first year in business. I think he told me I can share this because he's going to share it publicly, but I think he's closing his books at like $125K for his first year in business. But he is a wild man rock star and he found his area of specialty very quickly. He loved local SEO, he had a knack for it, he loved it, he got results himself and he built pretty quickly a growth plan specifically around local SEO.

Josh:

There was no conversion, no copy stuff I mean a little bit of copy with SEO but he did go pretty quickly into that realm and I think that's probably more of a priority for him than website design now, because it's a part of it, so you can go pretty quickly with it. But I would say, only if you know exactly what you want to do. Most web designers need to get a feel for the industry and get a feel for what you want to do before you create a big, hefty growth plan, because there's a lot to it and it's time intensive and sam has a little. He has some subcontractors doing a lot of the ongoing stuff for him because, um, it's a very quick way to burn out if you try to run before you learn to walk such a good point.

Shannon:

So I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about your business journey over the past year, because when we first met and started talking, your business model looked different than it does today, for how you support web designers in these phases of business. And I think when we met each other and went out for coffee the first time, both of us were like in this, like yes, business is amazing, it's going so well. And then, like 2023 happened and we were both like what is happening? And then like both had to make some significant changes in our business to like reach our goals and continue, you know, serving the people that we serve, and that was basically the story of 2024. So I would love to hear from you the debrief of that and some of the changes you made and why you made them and what things look like now for you.

Josh:

Yeah, the biggest shift that I went through was going from a course model to a membership model. So, yeah, at the time of meeting you, what I sold basically what was paying the bills was a suite of web design courses. I have a few courses that help people learn web design, the process and design and the basics of SEO, some technical stuff and then business I have. My main course is my business course. It's the big honker, it's the flagship course that has everything on building the business and running the business. Then I have a maintenance plan course teaching recurring revenue with hosting and growth and maintenance plans. So that was my main model and I had a membership behind that, which was previously called the Web Design Club, and it was smaller at the time. It was generally anywhere between 50 and 100 members at that time and it was $99 a month at that point. So it was a little bit of recurring revenue. It was like a few thousand of recurring revenue for me every month. It was basically just for students who wanted to have community and coaching behind the courses.

Josh:

There's a lot of benefits towards having one-off lifetime access courses but, as everyone can imagine especially you know this you know mixing courses and community and coaching together. There's also a lot of drawbacks, I found, particularly if you have a lot of courses, because I had some students who were in one course, some who were in three courses, some who were in all my courses and then suddenly their experience is very different when they're trying to build their business with only some of the resources, and because I had my coaching community. At the time. I had a lot of people I was serving in my coaching community. Some of them had none of my courses, so I was like, oh my gosh, don't even join this until you go through. So I'm like you got to go through my business course at least. So I found personally for me, I was at a point where I had seen a lot of student success and people who are killing it, who had went through my courses and had the backing of community and coaching when they needed it. That was really the impetus for me to think about going from a course-first model, lifetime access to a membership and basically you just get access to everything courses, community and coaching. So Circle is the platform that I use to run my community. And when they opened up the course feature and had an LMS feature, finally I was like here we go, this is the opportunity. I did not. You know, I did not waste much time on that. I think I was like, ooh, I think I might put the courses in there. And then a month later, boom, all the courses were in there. Thank you to Chris, my amazing VA from the Philippines, who did all that for me. And then I rebranded to Web Designer Pro. I never loved the Web Design Club name. I just couldn't think of anything better at the time. But because I knew this was going to be a bigger offer for me at the time, but because I knew this was going to be a bigger offer for me, I wanted to come up with something legit and I just I forget how I ended up on the name Web Designer Pro. But the com was available for a measly $5,000. So I picked that up and invested in that and relaunched as Web Designer Pro, as the membership. So all good, all cool there.

Josh:

The issues came because I was selling. I had one foot in the courses door, one off sales, and then I had one foot in the membership door. What I underestimated and didn't really realize is I created two very different purchasing options for potential customers. They were like Well, do I want to buy the business course for $1,000 and get lifetime access, or do I want to get all the courses? But at that time it was $199 a month or $2,000 a year and so it was like two high-end offers. That was a little confusing and that's what. And sure I'll stop here for now. But that's what started the pivot and what also started the revenue decline for me, because I was trickling. I was stop here for now, but that's what started the pivot and what also started the revenue decline for me, because I was trickling. I was selling some memberships slowly and steady, which in the long run was good to grow a membership slow and steady. But then, my course, sales dropped overnight dramatically. So summer of 23 was a dark, dark few months, for sure.

Shannon:

I appreciate how transparent you are in all of this. I think that's why we get along so well is because we're both like yep, here's, like, here's how it all like went down. And what I hear from you and I'm curious, in hindsight, if you have any insight into um, into this but what I hear from, what my experience of you has always been, is that you never want to take anything away from anyone or like, like inadvertently cause a student to not have every possible thing that they could have to be successful, and that caused you I wouldn't say a lot of grief, but like it really um for you to be able to like make the decision of moving things here and changing prices and changing access. You cared so much about making sure every single person had the opportunity to be successful that it seemed that you were not having a hard time making the decisions, but that it wasn't so cut and dry for you to be like. Here's how these changes are happening. I'm curious what your thoughts are on that or your feedback is on that.

Josh:

That's a good point. Yeah, you know me, I'm a heart first business guy. That's why, also, I chose and I knew I would love to really make the community the main thing, because that's where I love to hang out, that's where all my friends are. Now I am a community builder by nature. I have been since. I was thinking back about this recently. I'm like I've been a community builder since I was an early teenager. In my band days I was connecting people and creating friendships and then, like you, got to meet this person. They do this and looking back, I realized I've been doing that from the early days and even when I started teaching web design, I created the Divi Facebook group. That's now 25,000 people. I don't manage it now, but I've been a community builder for a long time. So, all that to say, I knew I would thrive as a community builder, but it's just a different model.

Josh:

I think the hardship came with just changing the business model and this is worthwhile diving into as well. Going back to the first half of this conversation with growth plans, because I think a lot of web designers get to this point too where it's like oh, suddenly I'm going from selling websites first to selling more like digital strategy first, and then websites are a part of it, and it's similar with the feelings of like am I going to let clients down? How am I going to support them? So yeah, it was it all. Look, if the membership boomed right away and my course sales continued going strong, I wouldn't have. It would have been like this was the best decision ever, although I don't know, maybe I would have continued to make it confusing for courses and membership.

Josh:

So the reality was is like because the course sales dropped almost overnight and because the membership was gaining new members, but it was slow and steady, which again, in hindsight, is the best thing, because almost the worst problem for a membership if it's in time intensive is to have too many members at once, because it just doesn't create a cohesive feel. It's like it's good to grow slow and steady. So I definitely would have been more tactful with how I positioned the courses and how I positioned the membership from the get-go. It took about six months for me to be like okay, web Designer Pro, is it? I'm not a course creator anymore, I'm a community builder. Courses are a part of what I sell, big part of it. But it's not the end of the road, I went from essentially selling information to selling transformation, and that's what I really embraced when I got to the fall of 23, when things turned around.

Shannon:

So how did you have the courage I don't know if that's the right word the patience to stay the course through the transition from selling information to transformation, because I think that does go back to what we were talking about earlier with when you're going to make a fundamental change in your business whether that's, like you said, selling website first, selling strategy first that the changes you make don't always bear fruit immediately. And so how did you self-manage, stay the course, have the courage to see it through, instead of being like, oh no, no, I made a wrong decision. I'm going to go put the courage to see it through instead of being like, oh no, no, I made a wrong decision, I'm going to go put it back to how it was.

Josh:

Yeah, I thought about that because I was like, oh God, should I just like take the courses out and go back to selling courses? But what I realized, I honestly, what kept me going, shannon, was the students in my member well, I have to reframe the term my members of Web Designer Pro, the ones who were getting really good results. They were killing it and I was overseeing them and, yes, it was on a small, much smaller scale at that time, but I realized they really kept me going because we had built a strong community and because it was working. Yes, it was working for a smaller amount of people at that time, but it was working. So for every bit. I think I told you this, like, when I interviewed Amy Porterfield, she told me a quote on the podcast that has stuck with me ever since, which is you can't believe everything you think. You and I have talked about this numerous times, but when sales are down, it is very easy to go like, oh my God, what did I do? I messed up, I've lost it. I'm not the best web design coach. I've been out of it for too long. You can really go to a lot of dark places pretty quickly, but I just honestly just kept going. I just had weekly things like going live for a coaching call every week in Web Designer Pro, trickling new members in, overseeing them, coaching them, saw them get results. Yes, it was on a small scale, yes, it wasn't sustainable yet during that pivot, but it was enough to be like, okay, this works and this is a general rule of thumb, I've realized for web designers too If it works for one client, it can work for two. If it works for two, it'll work for five, if it works for five, it'll work for 10, up to 100 and so on.

Josh:

So I just realized at that point I was like it took a little while to get to that point and realize like, yeah, I mean, I had to go through a bit of identity shift as a course creator to a community builder. Um, and the other thing that was just like a knife to the heart was I revamped my business course to the version and what it is now and it's. This sounds douchey and boastful, but it's great. Like it's great, it is a really damn good course. Like it really is good, and I put my heart and soul into that thing.

Josh:

So I pivoted to the membership model and then I didn't market as much because I figured I'm going to launch the new version of the business course and it's going to be a huge launch. It's going to be like a $50,000 or $60,000 launch between people joining the membership or joining the course for $1,000. I launched that course and the initial launch was $6,000. Like 10 X like I've been seeing all these 10 X things. Well, I accidentally went like negative 10 X on what I like I didn't see that ad. Uh, I went like negative 10 X on what I thought was going to happen. Now I did have a lot of people join pro at that point.

Josh:

So, again, with a membership model of recurrent revenue, it's smaller at the start but then it starts to add up pretty quickly. So lifetime value was actually probably 50 or 60 altogether, but it's taken two years to get to that point. So, or a year and a half. So I had that launch and it was just a total flop. And then I had some of the smallest months I'd ever had in the summer of 2023. I hadn't been under $10,000 in revenue in like three years and suddenly I had like a $9,000 a month. Like that's not even enough to cover my family's mortgage and bills altogether. So luckily we had some savings, we had a little bit of runway, but I was honestly probably about three months from being like I'm going to have to like start doing one-on-one consultations or mowing lawns or doing whatever I have to do Building websites again.

Josh:

Building websites again. Yep, yep. I was getting kind of close to that point and, as you know, we had gone through a lot of personal things at that time too. My daughter had a serious medical issue and we had a lot of rebound going on the personal side. So it was just hell for a little while.

Josh:

But what kept me going to answer your question was the results that my members were getting, the tight knit group. I mean, I just don't know how you can be an entrepreneur without a support system, whether it's a little mastermind group like you and I have with Jason, and I have some other colleagues who are trusted colleagues and advisors who I did lean on a lot during that period. It also helped me, as much as I feel bad that you went through a tough time too. Part of it was like, okay, I'm not alone, like a lot of other course creators I talked to as well. And look, there were market effects and inflation and everything else going on too.

Josh:

So there were other course creators who were like, yeah, mine have been like down dramatically too. So I was like, okay, it's not just me that helped, but also just having a customer community and seeing those wins helped me go. And then I finally, after a few months, was like okay, I don't give a shit about courses because they're not selling anyway, but they're working in Web Designer Pro, so it's all about pro. Courses became a lead-in to pro. I started selling courses at a huge discount off of summits, off of partner webinars like I did with you and off of flash sales. So like, hey, you want my maintenance plan course for $97? You get that and you get a 30-day trial of pro.

Shannon:

That is what started the momentum change for me that's so good and you said earlier this is going to sound douchey or braggy. It's not douchey or braggy, to state the truth. Your business course is epic. It is so good and your maintenance plan course is amazing. I've heard nothing but wonderful things from people I know who have taken both of those courses and are like taken both of those courses and are like I can't believe what is in here. So just to just to state the fact that, yeah, you don't have to minimize that at all.

Josh:

I'm glad you said that, shannon, because that was actually one of the things because you, like you, may say like, well, why didn't you just jump all in on Web Designer Pro? Initially, it was what you just said People saying like I can't believe what's in this course. Prior to making that shift, I had a student join several of my courses and he was like I just paid $3,000 for this other course. That isn't like a fraction as good as yours that you're charging $1,000 for at that time. And so I had all these like yeah, there is such good stuff in here. Am I devaluing it by going to a monthly model? Because, yeah, people could just technically come in for a month, take everything and go.

Josh:

But what I realized is because I was moving from information to transformation, which is really the underlying key here, and this is the same for web designers who go from selling a website to selling growth and selling client success and transformation. It takes more time to get transformation, especially when you're building your business. So I learned would I rather have somebody purchase a course for $1,000 and then have access to it and then go through it, or would I rather have something that's 99 bucks a month or 200 a month and have them stay for years. I have a lot of my members are OG members. I have, I think, 30, almost 40 members who are original founding members. They've been paying me for four years plus and their transformations are where it's at and that's why they keep on paying me.

Josh:

So I realized that's what I had to mentally move from is a bigger one-off purchase to a smaller ongoing purchase, and that's what really yeah, that's what I had to move to. It was a hard mental shift, because it is. It's like I worked my ass off building my business. I'm going to put all my secrets and tips and strategies into this that somebody could just rip off for $200. But it's not $200, especially if they get results. It's more like several thousand dollars over the period of a couple years or longer.

Shannon:

Well, here's what I see. One you took a stand for your clients at actually a great personal risk to yourself. You really did, because what you were seeing back to what we were talking about earlier like, the people who get the best results are the people who have access to everything and have community and have coaching and have support and you went through. Yes, there were market effects, yes, but you also risked your business to take a stand for the success of your clients, and that is a bold move, and you had to go through a transformation yourself in order to take a stand for them and look how much more impact you're having, look how much more impact they're having, and I love this story. I hate that you went through a hard time. I hate that I went through a hard time. I wish none of us would ever have to go through a hard time, but we come out so much with so much more to offer on the other side of the darkness.

Josh:

Yeah, and I do think it's a testament to just being an entrepreneur. We all know it's a roller coaster. What was interesting about that is I had never gone down in revenue since I started business. I've always gone up into the right.

Shannon:

There were some years that were like you too.

Josh:

Oh yeah, we talked about this Like there's some years where it wasn't like massively up into the right, but I had almost doubled my revenue almost every year since I started. So this was the first time where, as I mentioned, 2022 was just a lot of personal things between my family moving and then my daughter out of surgery and then she had a serious medical incident when I was just planning for a big push in the fall. So I gave myself grace on that year. 2023, I figured would be the bounce back year, but because of the pivot, because of the failed launch, because of all the things we just covered, it was even worse than 22. So, yeah, I mean I just talked about it here publicly in a podcast episode and a newsletter my revenue was down over $125,000 in the period of those two years. For me, that's over like 25% of my revenue. So it was enough to be like holy crap, this can't continue. But to your point, once I committed, once I really leaned on the members who were getting results side note going to WordCamp US in 2023 and meeting a handful of members in person was a life-changing event for me, because they didn't all know what I was going through at that time, but they were telling me stories. First of all, I was like I should have brought a microphone and a camera, because these are incredible testimonials. But they were telling me their stories of how they found my course and it changed their life and then it helped them build recurring revenue and now they're able to quit their job or their kid got sick and they were able to help them in the hospital and run their business. Like all these stories in person that I just was not collecting and most people are not going to share that unless you prompt them, it's very rare Somebody is going to be like hey, I just wanted to, you know, send this like tear, teary, heartfelt story, unless you, you know, some will. But that helped dramatically too, as I was like, okay, this, like I'm seeing real world, what my work has is doing for people. So, yeah, it was a huge turnaround and you're right.

Josh:

Like I, I did lean on the success of those. I have a colleague in the in the WordPress space who has one of the biggest YouTube channels and he was like why don't you just do a free Facebook group backed up with a low-end community and then sell all your courses? Just break them up and have them as low-end offers and just do it at scale. I'm like I could, I could, but that's a whole different business model. Sounds like a lot of support and you know, now I do have tiers, now I do have a low end offer to get people in my courses, but it was very different. I was like that just sounds like uh.

Shannon:

I just didn't want to do that. You were done selling information. I just didn't want to sell transformation.

Josh:

Yes, and I knew that. You know you're not going to get transformation in a free Facebook group, transformation in a free Facebook group, let's just be honest. So I just you know you could help and it's beneficial. But yeah, I just you know. I had all these different options and I was like I realized my gut is telling me to do this. Yes, it's painful and it's hard right now, but I knew, yeah, again, going back to it, it works for one, it works for two, it works for five works for 10, et cetera so good.

Shannon:

I had a similar experience in 2023, after a challenging summer, which I always talk about how you helped me through. Josh and I are in a mastermind together. We meet every month and Josh helped me make some really tough decisions and move forward. And I trust your advice because you aren't just trying to sell as many courses as you possibly can. Yes, that is a byproduct of helping as many people be successful as possible, but you're not just like how can I just churn out content to sell as many courses and make money from courses. You're like how can I help as many people as possible get the results and have the life and business that they want? So I really trusted your advice because I knew it was coming from the same kind of place that I would give advice as well.

Shannon:

And I had a similar experience because I went through a very challenging 2023.

Shannon:

I had to lay off a team member and then went to our Next Level Mastermind Retreat, which is our mastermind for women web designers, where we like I say we like help them with the problems of success. Right, like, you grew too fast and you didn't fix some of the things that Josh and I had talked about earlier, or whatever the case may be, and we're all sitting around the first day and they're telling the story of how they found me and how their life changed. And I'm just sitting there like what is happening right now, when you're sitting in your office, in your house behind the screen of your laptop and, yeah, we interact in our communities and we know we help people and that's probably very rewarding to us. But to have that many people tell you how you impacted their life, how could you not double down on doing what you're doing? That was a transformational moment for me and a pivotal moment for me. I can imagine how pivotal of a moment that was for you, too, after the summer that you went through.

Josh:

Yeah, I remember I think we both went through that. We kind of needed that. We needed like in-person connection and hear not only results, because it's nice to know that a student makes it to 10K months. But what's behind a 10K month? Well, that's like a little financial stability, that's being able to be home with their kid when they're sick or that's being able to help their aging parent and not have to work full-time job. It's getting behind the monetary results and the lifestyle results and lifestyle wins, which are really cool.

Josh:

Now, you can't have a lifestyle win until you have monetary results generally. So that's still why I don't think there's anything wrong with having financial goals. But I have leaned on that. You'll notice, if you go to Web Designer Procom, a lot of my testimonials are not about, like, I'm to 13K months it's a sum, but a lot of it is I'm able to take care of my kids and work from home, or it's a little more behind the revenue.

Josh:

So pro tip for everyone yes, get those from your clients today. Like, do call your clients. So another great way with growth plans and strategy calls and things like that, it gives you a chance to stay top of mind with clients and then I would really push for that and have have tests like collect testimonials that are not just about what they made. Most clients don't want to share that anyway, so how have you improved their life? You can get some of that. I'm looking at my wall right now, which I call a wall of awesome. There's like 70 plus testimonials and little snippets of wins and lifestyle wins and stuff like that, and I look at that every day. That was also clutch during that time was to continue to get testimonials, continue to remind myself I haven't failed at this. I'm not not worthy to do this. I just needed my offer. I messed up my offer. I need to make it better.

Shannon:

So yeah, so let's talk about your Web Designer Pro membership. Tell us more about how it's structured, what it looks like, what a typical week in the life of a member would look like.

Josh:

So, thanks to your client success coordinator, erica, who's freaking awesome, I worked with her to do a big audit of pro this year, which is another thing I would recommend doing for everybody, because you don't just audit your business, you get your clients and your customers involved and they actually give you direct feedback on what they need, what could be improved. So she interviewed 10 members and we also did a big survey and just figured out where everyone's revenue range was. What was their year experience, what tools they use all that good stuff, what was your experience? What tools they use, all that good stuff. And what I became so clear was that there are three profiles, if you will, in Web Designer Pro. There are builders, folks who are early stage web designers, who really just need more information. At that point they're not quite ready for transformation because they got to know how to build websites and run their business and build it up and build a little bit of recurring revenue, got to know how to build websites and run their business and build it up and build a little bit of recurring revenue. So I realized that a large part of my audience and after we did that survey was in that builder category, making under generally $50,000 to $75,000. So no wonder when I changed my offers to $2,000 a year or $1,000 for a one-off course, it's like, well, no wonder somebody making $20,000 isn't going to join because they just can't afford that unless they have help or they just go for it.

Josh:

So a lot of my members were in that early stage builder category. We realized there was quite a bit. The next bigger lump of the pie was people who were closing in on six figures or low six figures, which was most of what I was serving and kind of where I got. And then there were the 10% or less of pro who were in multi-six figures, who were scaling and building and stuff like that. So the experience to answer your question when you join pro is I really try to get a feel for where you are in that and then I have success pathways for each one of those. So when you join, if you're a builder, there's a success pathway with how to start your business and then I give you a roadmap to the courses. For a grower who is closing in on six figures or low six figures and you're wanting to build a stable six figure business, there's a separate set of like. There's a success pathway for that. And then I recommend, like, just go right to the business course. You probably already know basics of SEO and design so we can fill in the gaps later. Go to the business course and then my scalers. I now have a scaling course which is the newest course that is exclusively in pro. That's ideal for the scalers. They'll probably go through the business course, but that's for the scalers.

Josh:

And then the big change in the pivot was to add tiers to pro this fall, and so the tiers, even more so, are really ideal. If you're a beginner, if you're a builder, go to the first tier. You get all my courses for $49 a month Very affordable. And you actually get the pro podcast feed so you can hear our coaching calls. And then the tier up for that is the community tier All courses, all the community, for $99 a month. And then that tier up for that is the community tier, all courses, all the community, for $99 a month. And then that's ideal for the growers and some beginners, if you're ready to rock and roll.

Josh:

And then the coaching tier, which is limited on spots. That's for the scalers, because scalers do tend to have unique problems and they may want to use my network. So I'm like I got a guy Christian, or I got a guy, you know, I get Sam, connect with Sam or whoever it is to do these things. Um, so the, the coaching tier is kind of ideal for my scalers. So, yeah, that's been the big pivot. That's kind of the next chapter, for pro is just really serving these folks better and giving them a very clear path to go from builder to like you've graduated, you're now a grower and then you're scaling very quickly. So I'm really excited about 2025 because I built the core. I know what works, we've defined it. We've really made everything super clear, I think. So now it's just a matter of marketing and promoting. I'm kind of in sell, baby sell mode now.

Shannon:

And you're coming to the Simply Profitable Designer Summit. Web Designer Pro is a sponsor of the Simply Profitable Designer Summit. Web Designer Pro is a sponsor of the Simply Profitable Designer Summit, so we're so thrilled to have you as part of the summit. I know your presentation is going to be amazing and people always ask me I don't know if you get asked this as much as I get asked this but like, what's the difference between Web Designer Academy and Web Designer Pro? And you know I always explain. It's not necessarily an either or it's like a both and and and.

Shannon:

If you apply for the Web Designer Academy and you're in the builder phase, josh is the only person I'm sending you to, you know. So I always say, like, if you're not sure if you're a right fit for the Web Designer Academy, go ahead and apply and I'll point you in the right direction. This is the direction I'm pointing you in because I know he's going to take excellent care of you. He's going to teach you everything you need to know about how to start a web design business, how to the technical aspects, the you know the project management aspects, all of those things I'm sending you over to him. Web Designer Academy we work with women web designers. So there you go. Now you know where to go if that's not you. And also we focus a lot on pricing, mindset boundaries, a lot of the problems of success, and by the time you get there, it really is a both hand. We have people in both of our communities.

Josh:

Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. Look, I really appreciate you taking Web Designer Pro on as the downsell for WDA if it's not a good fit for folks, because it really does work out, and you and I are a good example of, I think, of other web designers who want to partner with digital agencies and others who you may do some similar stuff, but you each have your own lane of genius. Yeah, I don't go too far into marketing. I don't go too far into the mindset stuff and I cover boundaries, but not at the level you do. So we have our differences there where it's like, if you want to go further into a lot of ongoing marketing, wda is a great spot, especially for those who get to that point. So, yeah, we have a lot of overlap, but we have our lanes of genius. So I love it. I love the world of coopetition, as you very well know. Is there a better example of two people who are almost direct competitors, who also collaborate as much as we do?

Shannon:

I don't know and it's super interesting because I'm always like I don't want to do anything redundant, like there's no point for me to like reinvent a wheel josh has created, and I'm sure vice versa, where you're like oh, you can just go to web wda for that, like we, I think that we see. I certainly see, like how we both fit into the no one person can serve everybody, like that's just not possible.

Shannon:

And it's good to learn from lots of different people, and not too many, I wouldn't say like with lots of super conflicting values or, um, you know strategies, but to be able to like take take something, like take different things and make them your own, because you will if you, yeah.

Josh:

I think being self-aware and honest about where you are in the market, who you like to serve, is really good too. Like I know, we've got to wrap up here. Do you have a call right now, shannon? I don't know. Okay, I'm sorry.

Shannon:

I thought you had one at noon. Okay too. Like I know, we got to wrap up here. Do you have a call right now, shannon? I don't. No, oh, okay, I'm sorry, I thought you had one at noon, okay.

Josh:

I've got like 15 minutes or so. But like I mentioned agency Mavericks, I've had some people ask about like I want to build a seven figure agency and Like you're better off to go to agency Mavericks. I can help you with some stuff I can help you. I'm really like I've realized I'm kind of ideal to get people to between a hundred thousand and about a half million. That's kind of my sweet spot. Um, it's a lot of people would love to get to.

Josh:

So like if you want to go seven and multi seven figures, I would just go to agency Mavericks, Because I didn't run a seven-figure agency, I ran a six-figure agency. So I've been very open and self-aware about like yeah, this is who I'm a good fit for and I'm not a great fit for the person who's brand brand brand new to web design all the time. Sometimes there are some people who, like Sam who we mentioned, he didn't know anything about web design, went through my courses and killed it, but he was also pretty tech savvy and figured stuff out fast. So the person who's like, how do I turn on my computer?

Shannon:

I don't think I'm a good fit for those people are still searching on youtube anyway, and you know like there's so much self.

Shannon:

I taught myself, you taught yourself. There are so many things you can do to teach yourself and like decide, if you're that new, like kind of find your way, and then like, if you're that new, like kind of find your way, and then, like, when you're ready, you're like oh yeah, I want to put some structure around this. I want to find out what, like. I know the questions I'm asking, but I don't know what I don't know. That's when like it's time to put some structure around that learning.

Josh:

Yeah, and I'll. Just I was probably going to tell you this anyway, but like my way I'm envisioning things moving forward is my YouTube channel, my podcast. We talk about high level stuff there, but especially my YouTube channel, I'm more interested in serving the like super beginners with resources in that and back it up with like just email, lead generation for me and free resources or lowend resources, and then people come to the community when they're serious, committed and ready to go to that next level and then have the tiers that I have for folks who do want coaching. I just don't foresee myself going to the seven-figure agency crowd. It's just a different. It's just a very different type of place they're in and I like where I'm at now.

Shannon:

Yeah, I don't know that we will go there either. Our next level mastermind it's even different. Yeah, we talk about hiring and growing your business, but it's not like strategy, right, it's like next level is basically like new levels same devils. The problems that you didn't solve early on are the ones that are going to pop back up, wearing a different outfit, later on in your business. And that's what we work on in next level, because by the time someone gets there, they don't need a whole lot of handholding on how to grow.

Shannon:

They're pretty powerhouse by that point. They're the only one getting in their own way, so we're helping them remove their own roadblocks, and so that's really interesting. I would love to have an agency mavericks person in Next Level, if that makes sense, someone who's in agency Mavericks in next level, cause it'd be so fascinating to see like, well, where do you get in your way with delegating and like running this team and you know, like all of this stuff, cause that's really the stuff that we focus on in there, which is it's really really fun because it's like you're the only one in your own way. There's there's, like you always say, there's some, there's information out there.

Shannon:

There's no shortage of the how to do this you know, especially now.

Josh:

I do think AI and just all the resources online now have I don't want to say devalued information, but it definitely has changed courses.

Shannon:

I mean honestly, I would say that's a good term.

Josh:

That's a great term. Yeah, I do think courses are in a tough spot. I know some course creators who are now pivoting to the membership model, just especially if there's a lot of different courses. I think there's a time and place for a course that is a launch model. But I do think there's some course fatigue and I think there's. Yeah, I think people just want transformation and they want quicker paths to success rather than a drawn out way to go about it. And, as we all know, like in a case of a web design business, if you get, if you get one course on like design, it's like well, that's great, but there's so many other aspects I need to know about. So it is do you run the risk of like doing all the things I'm? I'm definitely trying to reel myself in to make cause?

Shannon:

I get a lot of requests.

Josh:

like you should have a course on conversions and all this and this and this. I'm like, ah, every course I create is one I have to keep up with and revamp. So, like I, I'm going to have some other resources around it, but, like my primary curriculum is, is is going to evolve a little bit here over the next couple of years. But, yeah, sticking with what works Another good life lesson.

Shannon:

Well, yeah, and I think that the final thing I'll say on this and then we'll wrap up is that you know people also want community, right? It's like, yeah, they want transformation. Information is freely out there now, like you know, whether it's accurate or not chat GPT is kind of funny that way. But ChatGPT is kind of funny that way. But the information is out there and the transformation is great. But it's way more rewarding and you actually go farther faster in a community of other people going through what you're going through.

Shannon:

It makes it easier to stay the course when things get tough, when you know you're not the only one going through this thing right now and you can help someone when you're struggling. Or you can just hear from someone who's just a few months ahead of you on the upswing. And if you're just trying to do it all on your own by yourself in a room behind your laptop, it can get really lonely. So I think you need to definitely be part of a community. If it's Web Designer Academy, if it's Web Designer Pro, if it's some other community of people doing the thing that you want to do and who are serious about it and committed to it, go get in those rooms, because you will go so much farther faster together than you can on your own.

Josh:

I don't have anything to say, Cause I would. That's what I would say.

Shannon:

Josh, thank you so much for coming on the show. I will link up all of the things that we talked about, all the people we talked about, the resources we talked about, especially web designer pro, in the show notes so you can go check that out. And Josh, thanks again for being here. Really appreciate it.

Josh:

Oh, thank you so much for having me, shannon, and real quick, publicly, I want to say thank you, shannon, for your support. Uh, yeah, we both kind of went through it together so, uh, yeah, I mean you were just as a huge support for me through through all this. So, and you've been so gracious with your community and with all your resources and, yeah, I really, yeah, I really appreciate you because I've leaned on you for how you've built and run your community and then, of course, I'm, you know, cherry picking off the people that you work with. So it's just awesome. So, are you using your affiliate link for if you send people to Web Designer Pro? I hope you using your affiliate link, for if you send people to Web Designer Pro, I hope you use your affiliate link.

Shannon:

Yes, I will. How about this Webdesignercademycom forward slash Web Designer Pro to go check out Web Designer Pro.

Josh:

Bam, I want to make sure you get credit where credit is due.

Shannon:

I appreciate that, Josh and I would send people your way, whether I got credit or not. So um, yes, I'll just buy you a latte once a year. We'll call it even. How's that sound? How about all of the incredible people that you're like, Shannon? You should know this person, this person, you should know, Shannon, how about all of those connections? Are your payment for me? Um, you know talking about.

Josh:

That's a good point. You told me you called me out and you don't value being a connector. I'm like you're right, that is valuable. So let me look at everyone I referred over and I'll add a 10 fee on that. Sounds good. No, happy to shannon, really appreciate you. And uh, I'll see you tomorrow because I know we're meeting to uh talk about our first web designer pro event.

Shannon:

So yes, that'll be super fun. So thank you all so much for listening, and we'll be back next week. Bye.

Josh:

Well, I hope you enjoyed that, one friend. Again, big thanks to Shannon for allowing me to repurpose this for you. I just really had a good time chatting with her, as always, and I think we hit on some very important subjects for web designers today. So I would love to hear from you on any takeaways or big hits on this one that you can apply to your business. I'm sure Shannon would love to hear from you as well.

Josh:

You can leave us a comment at the show notes for this episode, which are going to be found at joshhallco slash 379. Head over there to leave us a comment and again, if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and tune into Shannon's podcast, the Profitable Web Designer, and you can check her out at webdesigneracademycom. Cheers to the rest of 2025, going your way, and whether you're brand spanking new or whether you're established, just having a dang fun time designing websites and helping web design business owners, well, you're the web designer, they're the business owner. You know what I mean. All right, I'm starting to ramble, which means we're closing out. Hope you enjoyed this one, friends. Joshhallco slash three, seven, nine to leave a comment and I will see you on the next episode.