418 - Building a Web Design Biz While Working a 9-5 with Allison Ditmer

Building a web design business has it’s challenges. Building it on the side while working a 9-5 has an added set of complexities and challenges. But after coaching hundreds of members in Web Designer Pro over the past 5 years, I’ve seen many members go from part time to full time and absolutely soar when they take that leap.

But getting there is the hard part.

• How do you create time to learn, implement and hone your craft?
• How you get clients working a full time job?
• How do you manage client calls/meetings on nights and weekends?
• How do you build a business and brand on social media without full time hours?
• How do you potentially work in the shadows to hide your aspirations from your employer?

All and more is covered in this podcast episode with Allison Ditmer who has some great strategies on how to build your business (and personal brand) all while working a 9-5!

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/418

Transcript

Defining A Personal Brand That Converts

Josh Hall 0:00

What would your recommendation be when it comes to posting stuff that is building a personal brand?

Allison Ditmer 0:07

Yeah. I think before jumping into that posting camp, to be honest with you, is making sure you're giving yourself enough time to really figure out like what's the thing you want to be known for right off the bat. So, like I said, for me, it was SEO writing. That's pretty clear for people to understand what is it that she does, you know? Um, and I think that's the part that really kind of gets in the way for a lot of people because they throw out the story about, hey, I was with my kids at the zoo and look at us and our picture. And it's and it's cute and people like it, and that's nice. But if you really want to like move towards the area of building a personal brand, there's got to be some thought leadership there behind some topic that's gonna resonate with the audience that you're trying to attract.

Why Build A Side Business Now

Josh Hall 1:00

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. Good to have you here, my friend. Now, I've been coaching web designers and Web Designer Pro for over five years, and not everybody who joins Web Designer Pro is a pro yet. It is a community to become a pro. And the reason I mention that is I've coached a lot of people who have been building side hustles in the hopes to go full-time one day. And I realize I haven't really had like a bona fide podcast episode deep dive about that. But that is no more. Because that's what we're diving into in this one. How to build your side hustle web design business up on the side, specifically while working a nine to five, because if you're in this boat, you know there are some uh well, particularly some time challenges and a variety of challenges. But I am here to tell you it can be done. I've helped a lot of people do it, and I want it to be the case for you if you're ready to go full-time now, soon, or eventually in your web design business. Now, to dive in this, so pumped to welcome onto the show for the first time Allison Ditmer, who has experience in this because she also built up her business on the side and some really good strategies for doing this. Um, particularly extra of interest if you're on LinkedIn, where she is most active and she's got some really good tips for you to kind of build your business and personal brand up while working full-time to or working part-time to get ready to go full-time. So if that's of interest, keep on listening because here we go. Here is Alison Dittmer. You can connect with her via LinkedIn. The links are going to be at the show notes for this episode. This one is 418. So the show notes are gonna be at joshhall.co slash 418. Without further ado, how do you build a business while working a nine to five? Well, here's Allison. Let's dive in. All right. Well, Allison, it's so good to have you on the show here. I was just saying before we went live here, a lot of my Web Designer Pro members have gone full time over the past year, like a a lot. And I I think some of that was intentional. Some of that was with the shifts in markets and just changes in different industries. People are forced to go full time, particularly if they've had a web design side hustle and then you know they lose their job or get laid off. They're well, go for it. So you have a lot of insight into the world of building something on the side. And it's not something we've really talked about too much on the podcast, even in six plus years doing this. So if that sounds good, I'd love to really drill into those insights on building a business on the side with a nine to five.

Allison Ditmer 3:56

Yeah, for sure. Um, and just to kind of go back, just to kind of give you a story, I guess, of like where it all started. So I come from the corporate world. I spent 15 years in corporate, in digital marketing. Um, and as soon as I had my son, honestly, I think everything changed in terms of what I wanted from a career. Um, because as most people know that are on the corporate side, you know, to go up and to get promoted typically means more of your time in office. And I was quickly understanding I wanted to be more at home, like to spend time with my kids. At the at the time he was a baby, um, it worked out because where he was at his daycare was close to where I worked. So I kind of just dealt with it for a few more years. Um, but then when my daughter was born and COVID happened, that was I think the wake up of is this really the only path that is, you know, an option, or can I do something else with this experience that I have in digital marketing? And truthfully, I didn't come from a family of entrepreneurs. So the whole idea of like creating a business was new. Um, and that's just where it started. It started coming out of corporate, feeling like this tug that I wanted to do something, and then writing online and hearing more about LinkedIn and how that was the platform I needed to be on if I wanted to grow a business.

Josh Hall 5:22

Interesting. Let's dive into the different or maybe the common tugs of building something full time because you mentioned yours was your daughter, and then that realization of riding up the corporate ladder just means filling your calendar up with more hours more often than not. I know what a couple other tugs that I've seen, and then I'd love to get your insight on this, is I have a close friend of mine who I went to high school with who I uh works for uh a big bank here in Columbus, actually. And he was saying he's interested in learning web design and starting a side business, not because of uh of needing more time with the family or anything, but that his company stopped hiring. And he felt like if they stop hiring, the next natural phase is going to be layoffs. And it hasn't happened yet, but that was interesting for me to hear that perspective. What are some other common tugs to build a side hustle and get ready potentially for full-time?

Allison’s Corporate-To-Consultant Journey

Allison Ditmer 6:18

Yeah, I think I think one big tug is like just having more flexibility because I think for a lot of us, you just kind of get to this point, especially if you've been working full time in a very like nine to five setting. We all re we all know that like once we have families, there's other people that have needs that we're taking care of. And it's like, I, for example, my kids, they're in activities and a lot of them start at five o'clock. They start at five o'clock where they need to be at a practice. And it's like, look, if I'm working in this nine to five structure, how in the world am I gonna make it home in time to get them to where they need to go, unless I'm like hiring a nanny or someone else? So I would say like that was a tug, I think for sure, and one I hear a lot is like, I need four you know, more flexibility. Um, and to your example, and I think to what we're seeing in the economy too, it's becoming, I think, more and more clear that this is a time where a career can look very different, maybe, than what we were told growing up and going into college. I know for myself, you know, the path was you go to you go, you get your four-year degree. I have a marketing background. Um, I went on to get my MBA. And then after that, you find a good job in this corporate setting that has a pension plan potentially, that has retirement, um, and all those good things. And you're set, right? Like when you arrive there, you've you've reached the pinnacle. But I think what we're finding is like companies are changing. Like everything has changed, I think, since COVID. And I think more and more people are really truly understanding it's actually more valuable to hone in on a skill set and build your thing so that no matter what, no matter if a corporation would decide to let you go, or you know, there's some changes in structure, you've got something that you can initiate and get going on and make money from to support your family or to support yourself if you need to. Like I feel like that's become more glaringly obvious um in the last few years, especially.

Josh Hall 8:27

Yeah, I've been really public in my firm opinion that the only true job security is your skill set and expertise that could go anywhere. And actually, on that note, I mentioned um before we hit record that Andy, our uh student of mine, friend of yours here, we're both local in Columbus, Ohio. We talked yesterday at the time of recording this. And one topic we uh dove into there was like, what are the intangible skill sets that can take you and make you feel confident with maybe even if you're in an adjacent industry, you can still feel confident in doing something new and thriving in a different environment. What are some of the um the intangibles that you've seen when you think about like your your journey and then folks that you help, especially if they're getting ready to go full time or building something on the side, what are those intangibles that you recommend leaning into that can translate to any industry?

Flexibility, Risk, And Changing Careers

Allison Ditmer 9:21

Yeah, um, a very good question. I would say first and foremost is leaning into what feels uncomfortable, which may sound kind of odd, but I think when I look back on my corporate uh career and then like what I'm doing now, like relationships have been so, so important for growth. So I don't know about you. I know for myself, probably before going into this, I would have considered myself more of an introvert, actually. Um, it wasn't easy for me to like go in front of groups and do it, you know, do speaking events or go into conferences and have to talk to a bunch of people. Um, and honestly, I think what I've realized is the more you can kind of push yourself a little bit to be more uncomfortable, to step into those scenarios, to start the conversations, that's actually where I've seen momentum. Um, and it's a key part that I talk about with clients as I work with them on LinkedIn, because that's like my core service is like being focused on helping people grow their personal brands on LinkedIn. And yes, like content creation is one part of it, but engagement is so huge. And so I would say for anybody, like in any industry, no matter what it is, of just learning how to like be in those like public settings and start those conversations without feeling so like nervous and um overthinking it. Cause I think we can do that. I know I've done it where I've totally tried to talk myself out of going to an event or speaking at something. But every single time that I have, I've ended up meeting, you know, people that I that I never thought I would meet, that having relationships past that event, whether they end up working with me directly or we end up collaborating on things. So I think when we're talking about intangibles, like really leaning into um building relationships with people and just strengthening some of those communication skills, whether they're like in person, trying to start conversations with people, and even in written communication too, because that's a big part of LinkedIn, like moving from just posting content to understanding what to say in the comments section, to then moving that to direct messages and having more of that like one-on-one dialogue.

Josh Hall 11:43

Gotcha. Yeah, I backed that up for sure. I actually think in the age of AI, in-person stuff is a hundred times more valuable because of that very thing. Um I feel like most people, especially in my industry of web designers, unless you have a business to scale, a few relationships go a long way. I think there's a miss, I think there's a misnomer that for folks who aren't comfortable or used to networking events or or referral groups, is that you need to like go and speak in front of 200 people every week. And I just found that that's not the case. Like I had a just real quick, my backstory. Uh 50% of my leads for my web design business came from my little 20-person networking group that I was a part of for eight years. And it was it was a very comfortable core group that always evolved and expanded and dipped down sometimes and got bigger sometimes. But a lot of those people are still close colleagues of mine today. And there is something to that when can you can you expand on like maybe when it comes to in-person networks?

Speaker 3 12:45

Yeah.

Josh Hall 12:46

Are there different layers that you see with like maybe a core group of colleagues and then maybe a little bit of a bigger group? And then, you know, you have the there are 200-person events and stuff like that that are a very different ball game, but yeah, exactly.

Intangible Skills That Translate Anywhere

Allison Ditmer 12:59

I think um, yeah, I was talking to somebody about that this week of the importance of having just that smaller core that you can always go back to. Like it sounds like you you found your group that that led to all these other connections. And I would say a lot of the same. So, like I've worked with people across the country on LinkedIn, but I'll be honest, like, like you said, it doesn't actually take a lot of people that you have to know to grow. And I think that's because depth, you know, of the relationship is more important than trying to cast this wide net to all these people, right? So that's one of the things I think right away, like when I'm going through that engagement coaching um with clients, it's like, hey, you don't have to send, you know, 25, 50 connection requests a week. Honestly, just like focusing on three to five people in your direct messages and trying to have conversations with them that go further than, hey, thanks for connecting with me. What do you do? I mean, that goes a long way. Like asking more questions, taking more time to listen. Um, I do think it's more of like the depth of the relationship. And that's it's personally where I've seen growth in my business here locally, you know, for example, there's there's an entrepreneurial group just down the street that I go to. Um, and that's been amazing for making connections and building relationships because that one meeting has led to talking to someone else, which has led to teaching university classes, which is something I never thought I would be doing at this age. I thought that was going to be a bucket list item like 10 years down the road. So, yes, to your point, it's all about like really, I think, focusing on the smaller group and letting it go from there.

Josh Hall 14:48

And bringing this back to like somebody working full time and trying to build something on the side, I think this idea would actually make things feel less overwhelming because you could focus on 10 people rather than trying to build an audience of a thousand people.

Allison Ditmer 15:05

Oh my gosh, yeah. Absolutely, yeah, for sure. No, I was just gonna say, like, that's that's where I've seen momentum grow of just saying, hey, would you like to meet, meet up for coffee? Like that's one of my favorite things. Like, I know we haven't met in person yet, but we were talking before this, like we definitely need to at some point because we live nearby. I don't know about you, but there's been, there's just so much momentum and like a spark of excitement, I think that comes from getting in person and meeting up versus just, you know, trying to talk to a lot of people at one time. Um, like I said, it's just it's made all the difference for me, just in my own personal, I think, motivation of growing a business because it's hard. And let alone when you're working in nine to five and you're trying to also build something on these on the side, all of this takes time. And we have limited time. So I think, yeah, just just staying focused on that smaller subset of people that you can either bounce ideas off of and say, hey, this is what I'm thinking about. What do you think? Um, that's somebody you can trust to give you good feedback, um, as well as potentially, I'm thinking about doing this. Would you have an interest in, you know, working with me on it? I think you got to have the mix, right? Like, I don't know about you, but I've got I've got my core group of people who are also kind of like in the same situation as me building things. I've got people 10 years ahead of me that I look to to ask questions. And then there's people that, of course, I'm always trying to talk to because I'm genuinely interested in trying to help them grow their business as well.

Josh Hall 16:40

Yeah, for sure. I think there needs to be, especially for somebody working full time and they have limited time and resources, a little bit of mixture of, yeah, like the mentors, the colleagues, yeah, but also the leads and the potential clients. And I I actually think it's a bit of a bit of a secret unlock for people working full time is like you don't need to make and build a network from scratch. You can make a few friends and utilize their network to and that's one thing that's not said or not maybe common knowledge for networking groups or referral groups, is like my group of 20 people, they were not some of them were clients, but the real gold of that group was I was immediately the web designer for actually probably like 500 people because I was immediately their trusted source for all of their network. And I mean, this sounds kind of douchey, but like you meet somebody like me who's been at this for 16 years, I have a massively extended deep network. So, like if somebody is my friend, they're gonna get access to a you know a pretty good network if they have expertise in in one area. So I definitely would encourage everyone to have that mindset. Like a little bit goes a long way. To your point, just to double-click on that. 10 deep relationships, you go deep with them, that's gonna be way easier to make more revenue and build your business than a hundred shallow relationships who don't know, like, and trust you yet.

Allison Ditmer 18:04

Right. Cause it's about, I think, tapping into the people who already know, like, and trust you, right? So, like me coming from the corporate environment, there's a lot of people that know me, that know my work, that know my work ethic. And I think as I've gone to build my own business doing this, there's they're coming to me and asking questions, you know, and they're saying, Hey, I see you're doing this. What can I do? I'm thinking about doing this too. Or like, hey, our organization needs to be, you know, they've moved on from like where we worked together before. They're at a new company, and they're saying, you know, their organization is interested in learning about LinkedIn. Do you could you come in and teach the employees of how to do this? You know, because there's value in building your own personal brand. And you can also shed light on the company or the business that you work at, which is really powerful for some of these small businesses that have like, you know, 10 to 20 employees, you know?

Josh Hall 19:00

Yeah.

Allison Ditmer 19:00

So yeah, definitely like leaning into the people who already know you and seeing like where that where that leads into other connections.

Small Networks With Big Impact

Josh Hall 19:08

And the reason I like that we're focusing on this is because I think when it comes to limited time, it's just so much harder to build an audience on any social platform, whether it's LinkedIn or Instagram or YouTube or whatever you do. It's just it's way harder unless you're in like a private premium community where people are like-minded. It's very hard nowadays, especially to stand out and to build an audience. So yeah, I'm definitely in the camp of like do as much as you can in person, focus on a dozen or less people, and that will go a long way. Now, I have like 10 different paths I want to go down. So I'm trying to think, because I want to ask about your timeline between having that tug and then going full time. I also want to get into some specifics on like actionable things that people can do to get ready to go full time. Let's just start with you, Allison. Like, what was what was the timeline like when you wanted that flexibility and time freedom and more presence with the kids to going full time? Cause I think maybe your journey will probably answer a lot of questions.

Allison Ditmer 20:08

Yeah. So it was not a quick decision. That's just not my personality. Um, I was probably talking about this, I would say for nine to ten months. Okay. You know, almost a year with my husband before I officially felt comfortable enough to then say, hey, I'm putting my two weeks in, you know, and then talk to my manager. So that was in July of 2021 when I left. Um and like I said, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. And it's not something I would recommend to people because so you didn't have a business set up. I did not. No. I was in desperate need of like a pause in life to just kind of reset and figure out what I wanted to do. And to be honest with you, my backup plan the whole time was well, I'll just look for another corporate job in digital marketing. You know, that that was the backup plan. And then the more I wrote every day, like I had been writing for a while on medium.com. And I've I really kind of used that as the example of what helped give me confidence, I think, to start putting content out there. Um, and I was building a personal brand then and I didn't even know it, you know, talking about different things that were important to me uh was self-improvement and early career advice and travel and being a parent and that kind of thing. And then um really it was 2023 in January, actually. So I spent a whole year of writing, taking care of the kids. They were really little. Um, and then yeah, my back was up against the wall. I think at that point of like, okay, I have to either go back to the corporate life or really get serious about going forward on this. And so I had seen an article from Tim Dennings on medium.com about if you're a writer and you want to build a Business, you got to get on LinkedIn. Like you're totally missing the boat if you don't. And that was interesting to me because I'd had a LinkedIn profile, but I never did anything with it. Um, but January 2023 was a time I got serious. And I just told myself 60 days, I'm gonna post three days a week. I'm gonna talk about my transition from corporate to now. Um, I I started marketing myself as an SEO writer because that's what I knew coming from the digital marketing side.

Josh Hall 22:28

So I was gonna ask what I was gonna ask what Yeah, you want to see what the what the offer was. Yeah.

Allison Ditmer 22:32

So like I, you know, I was pairing that digital experience with my love for writing with what I knew about SEO. And so that's how I marketed myself initially was an SEO writer. And then within two months of doing that, I got my first two retainer clients. And one of which came from a colleague that knew me from my corporate life that was volunteering at a nonprofit and said, We got a website we need to redo. Would you be interested? And that was the first introduction for that. And I'm I'm still working with them. So three years later, there's still a client of mine that I work with that I work on their website and their LinkedIn content.

Josh Hall 23:09

All roads lead to websites, I'm telling you, still today.

Allison Ditmer 23:12

Well, because everybody, because at some point or another, even if you don't start out with a website, I think if you're planning to keep up with this, you've got to have like a home base that you can send people to, you know, that you can send people to or through SEO, people can discover you, right? And so I have a website, but I'm gonna be really honest with you. It needs to be redone. I know it needs to be redone, but because of my offer being LinkedIn, my time is on LinkedIn, and that's where everybody's finding me and where we talk. So that's why it's become priority number two. But I'm with you. Websites are still important, and I would never say that they're not. But yeah, that was the timeline. And then, like I said, you know, here I am in in 2026 and still going and it's still working, and I like it, and and that's why I've stuck with it.

Josh Hall 24:02

So you had about a year of planting the seed, working towards not even building your personal brand yet, but just the exit plan. I mean, it sounds like you were at a place too where you were just gonna embrace being a stay-at-home mom for a little while with two young kids, right? Uh, and obviously important to note, I imagine you weren't the breadwinner at that point. Is that right?

Momentum Through Coffee Chats And Depth

Allison Ditmer 24:23

Yeah. My, yeah. Well, and here's another thing that I think is important to note is my husband and I, when we were married before kids, financially, we always tried to plan things so that we could mostly uh, you know, be okay on one person's income. Now, that's very difficult, I think, today, in all honesty, with the way the economy's gone and prices going up and how expensive everything everything is. But we really kind of mapped it out and we've just always been kind of good about, you know, trying to be smart about how we're spending our money and and whatnot. So, yes, that's why I say to most, I would never recommend to the majority of people to just leave what they have with a full-time job to try this. Because if if if I were to advise someone, I would say, try to get that first client, you know, first before actually leaving the corporate job or the full-time job to make sure that you actually love what you're doing and to kind of get your feet wet and to see, okay, I got my first client. Now I'm gonna get my second client. I'm gonna get my third client, right? Like I feel like you need to experience that while you have the safety of the full-time job and benefits before you're finally saying, okay, I can make this a full-time thing. I see the potential here. Um, but that's not how I did it. You know, it was a different path. Um, but yeah, no, anytime anybody talks to me about it, I'm like, yeah, I don't recommend going the path I've gone. It's just, it's just worked out.

Josh Hall 25:55

Everyone's going full-time stories looks different. I think there's definitely buckets of people. I think you're probably a rare bucket of people where you're able to. I mean, look, my we have three kids. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. I know that she has the much harder job and does more work than I do. Um, but at that point, it was interesting to know that you didn't actually even start getting clients or even had a clear direction of what the offer was going to be. I mean, but the most important thing I think that you probably had at that point were a lot of intangible skill sets and areas of specialty. I mean, the reality is, and the one reason I love web design is there's so many things you can do in and around web design. You can focus on copywriting or SEO, you can focus on keyword research. Now there's a lot of assistance with AI type of tools that can help clients. You can focus on design and conversion or conversate optimization, or like you're doing, you can focus on LinkedIn and personal branding and certain social networks. So I think it actually is a really exciting time because you can pretty much take any intangible and move it towards any part of the online industry. But to your point, yeah. Um what what would you say to folks? Is there a metric like if you're ready to go full time and you're planning to go full time? I have my thoughts on this, but do you have a rec a list of recommendations, whether it's a certain amount of savings, whether it's a certain amount of pipeline of clients, what's that look like? And I don't know how far you go on advising going full-time exactly, but I know you're not like a go full-time coach, but uh No.

Leaving Safely Versus Leaping Early

Allison Ditmer 27:25

No, I'm not. And I want to preface that because I think also it really determines the person's comfortability with how you know how much they need, right? And we're all different. Like if you're single and you're not married and you don't have kids, I do think that's a very different scenario than say us with two or more children, right? It it just is expense. It's more expensive. It's more expensive when you have a family. Um I think you have to be smart about it, like be realistic. Look at how much you need per month to survive when it comes to mortgage and bills, and add some additional padding in there for the unexpected. I think the other thing that honestly has just been not so fun to deal with is when you do go into building your own thing, health insurance. Health insurance in this country, it's not fun. I mean, my husband and I are going through it right now. Um, you know, he's trying to build his own business too. So we've got two entrepreneurs in the family like doing this. And it's just, it's such a it's a whole different thing than what we were used to in our corporate life. Not that it's impossible, but there's definitely more research involved and the cost of it. And what do you need for your specific family, you know, with what you've got going on and different things. So I do think that's another area that if you're thinking of transitioning from corporate to building your own business, you want to start looking into that health insurance stuff before you actually say goodbye to that health insurance plan you have, because it could potentially be more expensive than what than what you're experiencing now. Cause we, you know, it's just oh yeah, it's a very different structure.

Josh Hall 29:11

Two to three times more expensive at least. Yeah.

Allison Ditmer 29:14

Yeah, it's a very different structure. And you and you know, you can also charge more prices for or a higher price for like what you do to try to help offset that.

Josh Hall 29:23

But that's my big thing is like I know health insurance is a son of a gun, but you know what? Nothing to me, it's worth it to have time, freedom, flexibility for my family, to have a uh unlimited ceiling of revenue opportunities. I'm not limited by a salary. And I don't know about you, Allison, but like if you are still working today in the marketing industry at all, wouldn't you feel like um an elevator or maybe like a refrigerator hum, at least constant feeling of like I could lose my job at any minute. Any minute. I mean, I'm seeing a lot of people.

Allison Ditmer 30:05

Today, yes. If if we would go back to 2021, I did not feel that way. And I know it's ridiculous, but like I worked at the same company for 15 years. And I know that's another anomaly. So there was a false sense of security. I think I had for a very long time working where I did because I was there for so long. But absolutely, I think today, I don't know how anyone can be sitting in their job and feeling super comfortable, you know, and feeling super safe. Um, and I think again, that's that's another, truthfully, that's another motivational factor for me to build my own thing right now, to not wait, to not put it off until later in life, to just go all in and see where this goes. Cause like to your point, there is no ceiling, you know, it's really on you as to what that is. If you're a driver and if you have passion and if you really want to see this succeed, um, I have full faith that like anything's possible. Um, and I think that's that's something that I've also had to teach myself, you know, a little bit of like becoming your own inner cheerleader because there's a lot of days where you don't have those people around you and it is just you in front of a laptop and you're the, you know, it's on you to make the connections, to call the people, to set up the meetings. Um and I think that's another important thing, like to be aware of before jumping in.

Josh Hall 31:29

And I think I'm glad that you mentioned that because I what I've seen in coaching a lot of people who do go full-time, if they come from a corporate background, is one of the struggles that I've identified with them is they're not used to creating the uh the action plans, the tasks. They're used to doing stuff when they're told to do it and used to having deadlines, and they're basically used to having a project manager or a boss often.

Speaker 3 31:53

Yes.

Josh Hall 31:54

Um, but as you know, like when you become an entrepreneur, you're wearing 10 plus more hats. You're all you're in all the roles. And most importantly, no one is creating a vision for you or a path for the business or keeping up with market fluctuations or anything like that, except for you. So that's kind of one thing I've identified with a lot of folks who have gone full time and then they get to a point where they're like, I'm sorry I have so much to do, but I don't know quite what to do or what to prioritize. And it's been my job coaching a lot of members and my coaching tier who are at that point to help them identify, like, yeah, okay, what are the things, especially you want to get done this year, this month, this quarter, whatever, and really given like a clear path to execute because I have found that as an interesting mindset shift where yeah, you go from basically employee to boss. And yes, you may have quote unquote bosses as clients, but they're not gonna get get granular and give you tasks to do and stuff like that. So you do really need to be somebody who turns into like owning the show and and create and yeah, creating the vision, creating the plans.

Money, Health Insurance, And Runway

Allison Ditmer 32:57

Oh my gosh. I mean, that was a huge mindset shift for me of trying to go from corporate to building my own thing and looking around and going, yeah, what is the action plan? Where's the manual? You know, that's what I wanted. I wanted the the step by step. That's my personality. And so um honestly, it's been good for me. It's been good for me to step into this and to own it and to figure it out. And like I say to people, I know it sounds silly, but I feel like I'm a more like outgoing personality through this process because you kind of have to be. And in doing so, like I've just met so many more people. And going back to like what you said, like I didn't know you were going down this path you when you started that whole didn't when you feel like a hum, if you will, like a refrigerator sitting there if you were in your corporate role. I mean, I would never even go back to what I was doing because of just the amount of growth that I've seen in myself, like personally. I would have never grown like this if I would have stayed.

Josh Hall 33:59

I feel like most entrepreneurs are unemployable after a good couple of years. If you stick it through a couple of years, you can't get a job.

Allison Ditmer 34:06

I know. It's just so because I don't know about you. I mean, there's roles that still come in front of me that people will ask me and I appreciate it. But truth be told, I start looking at it and I'm like, I'm not done.

Josh Hall 34:19

Well, I I've one one reason I'm glad to talk to you specifically is I don't come from a corporate background at all. I've been working for myself since 2009. I was a cabinet maker and a rock drummer and got laid off from my cabinet making job. So I was, I think there's two kinds of entrepreneurs. There's there's intentional entrepreneurs who either have a mind for business from you know the age of three and they're interested in business, or like you, a seed was planted and they in any direction plan to go full-time eventually. But I'm in the accidental entrepreneur camp. I got laid off and just had to start working for myself and had interest in design, and then eventually web design, got some clients, and then next thing I know, I got a business. Made like 30 grand as a freelancer, and I was like, all right, I think I could actually make this a business. So I don't have that. And this is where I try to be really empathetic to folks who come from corporate because my instinct is just be like, stop, stop bitching and moaning about it and just do it. Just freaking out. Yes, just do it. Go to a networking group. I promise you'll get clients. Um but I I have to be really I have to reel myself in because I realize I'm not wired like that. And most people in corporate have a very, very different set of risk tolerance than I do. And they're probably coming from a world of academia where the worst thing you could do is fail a test. So they're like, they're scared of failure, they're scared to make mistakes. And man, I mean, you know, you go into an entrepreneurship, like just get ready to fail a bunch and make a bunch of mistakes because there's no right and wrong. And there isn't. There is there isn't always there, there's you know vague paths. And even in my community, I have a pretty proven path for web designers, but there's also, depending on where you live, depending on whatever you want to focus on, it's not gonna look the same exactly.

Allison Ditmer 36:08

So yes. And I think that's the hard part for people to get over of like, we can't hand you the like tried and true manual because it's different for everybody. There's just so many different factors, I think, that come into it. Um, and you just like you said, I mean, you you said it right at the beginning, you just have to take action. I I don't know how else to say it. I was talking to a client today um about some of the LinkedIn stuff we're working on. And a part of like, I think in working with clients is meeting them kind of where they're at, you know, not everybody, like I can come in thinking what the agenda is and like, okay, we need to do this, we need to do that. But sometimes people just also need someone to listen of like, hey, life's hard right now. I can't get my head wrapped around what I need to do because there's so much in my personal life right now that it's it's becoming so difficult and overwhelming to even do what I know I need to do. And uh the thing I said to her was, hey, you know, I totally understand that it's a hard time right now. Let's check in next week and let's do the next action. Let's just focus on the next action.

Josh Hall 37:19

So baby steps.

Becoming The Boss: Action And Ownership

Allison Ditmer 37:20

Yeah, that's what it is because every action I think compounds over time and consistency is the hard part, I think most of the time. You know, we do the one thing, we get excited, we do the next thing, but it's finding ways to make sure that you show up consistently, whether that's in web design of, you know, reaching out to the next client or if you're on LinkedIn doing the next post or reaching out in the DMs. A lot of entrepreneurship, I think, is being a person that's ready to take action and ready to learn and pivot.

Josh Hall 37:53

Now, the idea of taking action, I think a lot of people probably think like going to a networking group, going to a referral group, which you both you and I both recommend. But there's also a different type of action that's lower barrier to entry, low risk, not as much pressure, easier to do, which is to post and to build an online brand. Now, you've talked a lot about personal brand. That is such a vague umbrella term that I think is different for a lot of people. But um, I wanted to ask you specifically about if somebody is working in nine to five and either they're pulling a tug or they're worried about getting laid off or they want to go full time pretty soon and they want to build a personal brand, but they're like, that sounds great. What next? Like, what next do I do I post like my expertise? Do I post cooking videos? Do I post what my family's up to? What would your recommendation be when it comes to posting stuff that is building a personal brand?

Allison Ditmer 38:49

Yeah. I think before jumping into that posting camp, to be honest with you, is making sure you're giving yourself enough time to really figure out like what's the thing you want to be known for right off the bat. So, like I said, for me, it was SEO writing. That's pretty clear for people to understand what is it that she does, you know? Um, and I think that's the part that really kind of gets in the way for a lot of people because they throw out the story about, hey, I was with my kids at the zoo and look at us and our picture, and it's and it's cute and people like it, and that's nice. But if you really want to like move towards the area of building a personal brand, there's got to be some thought leadership there behind some topic that's gonna resonate with the audience that you're trying to attract. And most of the time, that audience you're trying to attract are potential clients that you would want to work with. So, first, I think you do have to make sure you're pausing long enough to like really think about like what is it that I want to be known for? And then making sure like from a content perspective, it's all laddering up to that. And yeah, you can you can layer in the stories of being with your family and you know, different interactions, but you always want to make sure that you're also kind of having that go back to what is it that you do? What, how, how do you help? Um, because there's all kinds of content. There's I, you know, we could really get into this in detail. Um, there's like the awareness, feel good content, like you said, the family stories, and they're and it is nice because it does give a window for people to try to get to know you more. Like you did a cute one the other day with your kids and how they were like in the call center. I thought that was adorable. And you and you found a way to like tie it like to what you do and mentioning web design. Um, there's there's fun ways to do that because I think really it's more and more important that like content is coming from you as an individual because people want to work with other great people. So if we're seeing content from you and it's resonating and there's something about you, you're a parent, you love websites, whatever that is, like that little thing's gonna come through to the right people to want to reach out. And I and I think definitely being clear on like what you want to be known for and then layering in those story elements is what's gonna attract people to you.

Start Taking Action In Tiny Steps

Josh Hall 41:16

Great advice. And I would recommend starting with that because once you do get into like meeting people and creating a new network and making new connections, if you connect on LinkedIn afterwards, wouldn't it be nice to have a very clear message on what you do, who you work with, what you're known for, but also a chance for them to get to know you a little bit outside. And I and I totally understand people wanting to be more private personally, but I think regardless of that, even if you don't want to show your kids online, there's absolutely ways to be authentic and show your personality online, even just by the way you talk or sharing interests or or whatever, whatever it is sprinkled in there. Because I do think that's a really, really important aspect now more than ever. Like clients really do not want to be a number on a spreadsheet, they want to know who they're working with. I mean, it's like all the goofy cliches that are so true. They want to like who they're working with and they want to trust them. And yeah, if you can build just a little bit, I mean, and what would you say? I mean, it doesn't need to, you know, you posted three times for what, six a week for 60 days. So for doing that.

Allison Ditmer 42:19

Yeah, for when I first started, it was three times a week for 60 days.

Josh Hall 42:22

What would what would like a bare minimum amount be? Like a dozen, maybe or something, just to have enough proof. What would you say?

Allison Ditmer 42:30

Oh, yeah. I mean, I think, well, first of all, I think there's kind of different paths you can go. So, like if posting, I want to say this first, like if posting still intimidates you and you're like, like, I'm just not there yet, start commenting. Because right now, especially in the algorithm on LinkedIn, they're really showing favoritism towards uh comments. So, like I have a post, I was looking at my data yesterday. And when you look at like how people are finding me, 60% of people are finding me from my comments on other people's posts. 30% are finding me directly through my post. Like, does that mean you shouldn't post? No, because like when people click into your page, it's still gonna show credibility of like what you do and how you help. So the the posting is still important. And it's a third, it's a still a third of how people are finding their way to me. But 60%, I think that's pretty telling that like if you were on the fence about commenting or just unsure of like was it effective or not? I I'm telling people right now, like, get on there, start commenting, comment on the people you potentially want to work with and do more than just like great stuff or love it, really go into some more detail of some things you can add to it or or sprinkle in a little bit about your experiences that relate to the post. Um I say start there. And then from a posting standpoint, I know there's a lot of advice about number of posts, but where I start with folks. Folks is like, I want to understand for your scenario where you're at right now, from a place of feeling comfortable, from maybe you just want to start creating awareness and you're not necessarily needing a ton of clients at the moment, but you just want to get yourself out there, it can range. It can go anywhere from like posting once a week to three times a week to five times a week. But I don't think you should overwhelm yourself thinking you need to post constantly because you really don't. I mean, there's a lot of value in just commenting really intentionally right now and then putting a post out there a week. I would say that's a nice starting place if you can do that.

Josh Hall 44:40

There's such a difference between like a quick thought that you know, maybe you do three of those a week versus like a meaty newsletter blog post that is something that might be referred back to time and time again. That's a more long form piece for sure.

Speaker 3 44:55

Yes.

Josh Hall 44:57

I still struggle with that, which is like I I just I'm a long form guy, so I have a very hard time doing the short form stuff.

Allison Ditmer 45:04

Um but you so much of your long form can be broken out into the short form. So that's what's great about people who love long form content. I'm willing to bet you have probably a post for every day right now with how much long form content you've probably written.

Personal Brand Basics For Employees

Josh Hall 45:20

Yeah, I know. I I need to like it's so funny. This is very timely because I'm literally in that right now. I'm like, you know what? Like this year, I could probably make almost no new content. Maybe a couple quick thoughts, but like I have so much. And I think once you get to to this point, when I've been doing it for as long as I have, there's so much that people haven't seen that I have to remind myself. And even in an early standpoint, like maybe a year in, you can start repurposing older content and share it again or post it again. Um that's another good tip, too. It's not like you have to do something new every every week or three times a week.

Allison Ditmer 45:57

Yeah, you really don't. I mean, kind of like zeroing in on those like repeatable questions that you hear over and over again from clients. That's usually like a nice flag of like, okay, this is some evergreen content that I can repurpose over and over again. You know, like every six weeks, maybe this is a topic I can throw out there again because it's very relevant. It's coming to me all the time. I think, I mean, admittedly, I just love creating content. Like I really enjoy it. And so I don't repurpose enough. Like I'm trying to get better about that. And I was intentional over Christmas looking at my newsletter issues because at this point I've written, you know, 70 some issues. So there's content there. I could obviously be pulling from. You gotta do that. I think my problem is, yeah, you know, my problem is it's just like you have new experiences and they feel exciting at the time. And so I'm just like, I want to talk about that. Which I think, I think it's a balance, right? Like I think, I think you can absolutely take a lot of, like you said, you've been doing this a really long time. There's definite themes. If you and I were to sit down in detail, I bet that we could easily pull out where that could be like your your evergreen stuff, your repeatable, valuable stuff. And then leaving room, because I just I wrote an article about this, leaving room for some of those in the what I call like in the moment content, where you know, if there's an event you attended or there's a meeting you had with someone, or there was just this new tool or something that you want to talk about.

Josh Hall 47:27

Or your kids decide to get laptops and put in the uh super cute. That was really their decision. I was like, this is adorable. And I was like, you guys look like the Web Designer Pro support team. And I was like, that's a great post idea.

Allison Ditmer 47:39

Yeah, you're like, this is awesome. Yeah. So stuff like that. You know, I think I think that's what makes I think that's what makes for good content. Um, and I think also people, people remember that and they want to keep coming back because they want to see some of the in-the-moment stuff with you too. That's what gets them feeling closer to you without even ever maybe meeting you at that point.

Josh Hall 48:00

True that. Well, one thing I wanted to talk about real quick was the I mean, con I think what's tricky about this is if they if somebody doesn't have a platform of choice yet, the content strategy might look different. Um, I'm really enjoying LinkedIn. I started on it last year. Uh, I knew the value of it. I had a previous LinkedIn profile back when I was an agency owner. I actually deleted that just because I was like a whole different person. Um and I what's tricky about this is like I've actually made it harder on myself with content now because I'm like, if I do a piece on LinkedIn, um, even though Facebook is formatted similarly, it just doesn't translate the same. And then Instagram is obviously a whole different beast as far as it being more visual. So what about that? I mean, is that one reason that you recommended recommend LinkedIn or at least gravitated towards LinkedIn? What are your thoughts on like choosing the platform or platforms?

Commenting > Posting For Early Reach

Allison Ditmer 48:57

That's such a good question. I think first you got to look at your audience. So where are they hanging out? You know, do your research, make sure that you know where they're hanging out. Um, and I think when you're like a one one man or one woman show, there's this pressure to feel like you need to be on all these social platforms. But in truth, I think you're better off like picking one that's like really strong where you know a lot of the people that you want to reach are hanging out at, and then really diving into that one and getting comfortable with that one and understanding it. And then from there, once you've reached that point, um, you know, then you can start repurposing to like some of these other platforms that make sense as well. Like for me, I am on LinkedIn primarily. I mean, it makes sense for my offer since that's like the real, the real focus for me. I do other things, I work with CMOs doing other content things for clients. But um over time, like I've tried to do more on YouTube. So as I've done videos for LinkedIn, I've just very simply had YouTube there as my channel. And I try to remember to repurpose the video there so that it's living in two places. So you don't have to make it hard on yourself, but I do think before you jump in on a platform, you really want to make sure that the people you're trying to reach are there. Because if they're not and you're just having fun with content, you're always gonna be discouraged because you're not gonna get you're not gonna get the people that you're trying to reach.

Josh Hall 50:27

Is LinkedIn becoming more and more saturated over the past couple of years? What's your because I'm newer to LinkedIn as far as like again, I had a profile, but I mean, I probably logged in maybe like 10 times over a 10 year span. It just wasn't my platform of choice. But now I check my my route is I check Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And then my my YouTube is is obviously a huge portion of my business, but it's not like a social post platform, and you can do posts, but it's it's not the same. So yeah, it's not the same. That's on the back burner with like how I'm checking in and connecting. Yeah. But what's your experience with LinkedIn, good or bad, on uh like how it's changed over the past couple of years?

Allison Ditmer 51:05

I think with the with more of the introduction with AI, we're seeing more out there, you know, there's more content being generated, but it's not necessarily great content. And what I mean by that is I think you you can relate, like you're going through the feed and you're reading stuff, and it's just so top level. Yeah, it's just like it's just like, has this person lived the ex, you know, have they done anything? You know, that's that's what I am trying to focus on more for myself this year and also with my clients. Let's dig into what you're doing, let's show more of that. Let's talk about the details. Um, that's honestly, I mean, some of my best performing posts in terms of not just likes and comments, um, you know, because we can get into some vanity metrics there, but actual people reaching out that were qualified leads from seeing that post and saying, hey, tell me more. I want to understand what it's like to work with you. They were the posts where I showed the work, where I actually kind of walked through my process of working with clients. I showed the before, I showed the after. I talked about the fact that after doing so, how many more people they had reach out in their DMs and say, hey, I saw your profile. I, you know, it looks like you do this. I'd love to hear more. I I really think, like, yeah, it may be getting more saturated from the aspect of people being on there because AI makes it easier to create content, but it's still worth being there if you're willing to talk about your experiences because that's the stuff I think that's gonna float to the top and and rise above that other stuff. And obviously, the more you engage, like that, that in and of itself is what's gonna, I think, really help you grow is like having the presence and then amplifying that by talking to other people. So I still think it's absolutely worth it to be there. Um and yeah, I mean, I'd love to know what your your platform of choice is. Like you said, LinkedIn is kind of newer for you.

Repurpose Long Form Into Short Wins

Josh Hall 53:03

Yeah, it's interesting because well, I wanted to say this earlier. The idea of like commenting, it's funny how these same principles that work today work 10 years ago because when I came up and Facebook groups were a large portion of how I got a notoriety, a lot of notoriety as a web design coach and stuff. And a lot of it was commenting in in in Facebook, like web design Facebook groups. And I would just share, it wasn't like a worthless, well, I hate say worthless comment. It wasn't a comment with no value. It was like, hey, here's what I recommend doing, or I did this and this really helped. It was stuff like that. And those platforms, Facebook and LinkedIn in particular, do show comments, they really do show helpful comments. So um, that was a big part of it. It's interesting because Facebook was was my only platform of choice for a long time. And again, when I came up in this uh world as as with my YouTube channel and stuff, Facebook was king, especially in web design. Um, there were so many Facebook groups, more than way more than there were today. So I was just used to to interacting and being on Facebook, and then luckily that translates to LinkedIn pretty closely, just with the way the formats work. Yeah, structurally, it looks cooler. It's just not as noisy, there's not as politicized. It's I do what I love about LinkedIn is that it's very focused. I can go there and nine out of ten interactions I'm having or things I'm seeing are like somebody serious about business or entrepreneurship, and that that aspect I really, really enjoy. Um and then Instagram, I I I like creating content on Instagram the least because I just feel like it takes more time. And I don't like literally creating content on my phone with reels and stuff like that. I'm like, and I and I have worked with a social media guy for a long time who was great, but I just got out of the like there's a difference between planned content that's like promoting a podcast episode, like we'll do here, or like you know, fun picture with the kids, and I want to take a picture of them and post it. So um I yeah, all that to say, like I'm still doing content on all three Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Um, but LinkedIn has become my new uh favorite, more intentional place, and I think it's easier to post content there. Um, but I do what I do like about Instagram is there's definitely a different level of connection. I I personally use Instagram more as a connection tool with a lot of my and still being in my industry, um, I'm finding a lot of like DMing with partners and colleagues is happening more so on Instagram. Okay, but it's just because I haven't built up an extensive network on LinkedIn.

Speaker 3 55:41

Yeah.

Josh Hall 55:41

Um but to your point, like, you know, if I want to, if I want to DM Andy or you or there's some members of my community, even uh, so I sold my web design agency in 2020. My CEO of that agency now, he's on LinkedIn mostly. So that's another reason that I personally diversified at this point was to be able to hit these, you know, the folks where are they active at? So that goes back to your point of like where are your people active at? And that could be leads, but it could also be colleagues or your network.

Pick One Platform Your Clients Use

Allison Ditmer 56:09

Correct. Correct. And I think like your face kind of said it all, like when you were just talking about how much um, you know, you gotta have find joy, I think, in the platforms that you choose. So, like, first obviously make sure your audience is there. But if you don't enjoy being on the platform, I really don't think it's going to do anything for you to to grow because you're not gonna be excited to show up there. You're not going to, you know, it it's the energy comes through, I think. And so I I do I do really believe it's important to find the platform you also enjoy being on if you're in this for the long haul and creating content consistently. And, you know, you saw it in your face, like you're excited. It's like, yeah, I want to post that picture of my kids. And that's the kind of stuff that you want to focus on because it is important. I think it's what helps you continue with the path you're going down.

Josh Hall 57:01

Yeah. Well, Allison, this has been great. A lot of good tips for, I mean, just general, you know, just general entrepreneurship tips, uh, especially for web designers. But I think we really got some some gold gems here from from uh building a personal brand, posting, connecting one-on-one, or you know, connecting in person as much as you can. Uh again, I I know that there's a lot of people who probably feel lonely and isolated who are working in nine to five, who want to have a plan of action to get ready to go full time. So um, yeah, I really appreciate your thoughts on this. I think it'll help a lot of folks. So good. Is there a uh first of all, um layup question? Where are you active on social media? Where should people connect with you?

Allison Ditmer 57:41

LinkedIn, of course. Like I said, I am there pretty much every day of the week. I'm not posting necessarily every day of the week, but I'm I'm on there and checking out and commenting and in the DMs. So if you want to find me or just talk more, or if you just have a question and you're curious, please reach out to me. I I love those conversations. Send me a DM on LinkedIn and I will get back to you.

Josh Hall 58:03

I saw we have a mutual connection with Michelle of Urban Year. Have you connected with her? Have you talked to her?

Allison Ditmer 58:08

Yes. Yep, yep, yep.

Josh Hall 58:09

She's been my word, she's been my SEO word partner since 20. Yeah, 20, 2020.

Allison Ditmer 58:17

Okay, yeah. Her and I, I think I actually met her through Andy, if I remember quite correctly. He had her was she on his podcast?

Josh Hall 58:25

Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, because Michelle's uh yeah, been a close colleague of mine for years now. So Andy joined my community pro and then uh stole all my community and had me on his podcast.

Allison Ditmer 58:35

So he's like, I am following the rule book according to Josh. This is how you do it.

Josh Hall 58:42

He'll listen back to this one. So that was for Andy. Uh no, that's great. Yeah, we'll definitely have that linked in the show notes. Any um any final any final tips or anything you'd like to leave us with here, Allison?

Allison Ditmer 58:53

Um, just the fact that as overwhelmed as you might feel about putting yourself out there, I will tell you there are more people that are rooting for you than against you. So, like this idea of feeling judged, um, because I think it's very real, especially coming out of the corporate environment, um, of like feeling, well, if I put myself out there and I say that, what are they gonna think? Push past it because I can't tell you how many people in real life have walked up to me who I used to work with and said, I see your post on LinkedIn. I think it's amazing what you're doing. And they never like and they never comment, but they talk to me in person, like outside in the real world. So please, like just push past that. Most of the time it's this inner dialogue, I think, that gets to us, and it's not even true. You know, it's this fear. So push past it, put yourself out there, and only good things are gonna come from it.

Josh Hall 59:50

That's such a good point. I'm so glad you hit on that before we wrapped up, too, with the fact that, yeah, just because things don't get liked or followed all the time doesn't mean people aren't seeing it and doesn't mean it almost lands you a client. So exactly. In fact, sometimes the busy clients are the ones not liking and engaging, they're the ones who just need to see it and move forward.

Allison Ditmer 1:00:06

So oh my gosh, most of the time, a lot of my clients have never liked or commented on my stuff, but they reached out to me like behind the scenes in the DMs. So, yes, your stuff is getting read, even if you're not getting that attention. I promise you.

Josh Hall 1:00:19

Oh, that's so good. All right, Allison. Well, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate you. And uh hope to see you in person next time.

Allison Ditmer 1:00:24

Yeah, thank you.

LinkedIn Quality, AI Noise, And Proof

Josh Hall 1:00:27

All right, my friend, I would love to hear from you on if you are building a business while working in 9 to 5. And I would love to hear takeaways from this chat. I know Allison would as well. Best way to do that is to leave a comment at the show notes for this episode, which is going to be found at joshhall.co slash 418. I am also very active uh on both LinkedIn and Instagram. Those that's where I hang out on the socials mostly, aside from just being in my community web designer pro. So if you would like to connect with me there, you can send me a DM and I try to get to all DMs that I can as long as they're not spammy, which there's a lot of spam coming in nowadays. But if it's if it's real and it's authentic, you should make it through, and I would love to talk to you. So DM me Instagram or LinkedIn. My handle is at Josh Hall Co on both of those. Show notes, joshhall.co slash 418. And if you want to get coaching from me directly and have me help you go full time in your web design business, webdesignerpro.com. Join my community. The coaching tier is where you'll get direct access to me anytime via DM. So I'd recommend that if you really want to do this. Uh but there we go. Links. Show notes, joshhall.co slash 418. Thanks for joining and cheers. And congrats to building your business on the side to go full time, my friend.