Greatest Hits: How Jason Gracia Built a 7-Figure Productized Web Design Business

This episode is one of our Greatest Hits interviews, originally released about two and a half years ago with my close colleague and good friend, Jason Gracia.

Jason has built one of the most incredible productized web design businesses I’ve seen through his company, SWYFT Sites. Since this conversation first aired, he has sold the same core website more than 700 times and generated nearly $2.5 million through the system he created.

He’s also shared this model inside Web Designer Pro and recently presented his $2 million sales system at one of our ProCon events. This original interview was the conversation that first introduced his system to the world, which is why I wanted to bring it back as one of our Greatest Hits.

And the timing couldn’t be better.

Jason is hosting a completely free Million-Dollar Website Workshop on Thursday, July 16 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern, where he’ll pull back the curtain and walk you through the entire system behind SWYFT Sites.

I’m a proud partner of Jason’s, and this model has helped so many web designers move away from being stuck in daily production and step into the role of business owner.

This is especially helpful if:

• You’re tired of being the person doing every part of every website project
• You already serve a specific niche—or want to choose one
• Websites are only one part of a broader marketing or digital agency
• You want to build a productized wing of your existing services
• You’re looking for a more scalable and repeatable business model
• Jason’s approach is one of the best examples of how to turn web design into a systemized offer that can be sold and delivered repeatedly without reinventing every project.

In this one, we cover:

• How Jason built a seven-figure productized web design business
• How SWYFT Sites sells the same proven website system repeatedly
• Why choosing a niche made the model possible
• How he moved from custom projects into a scalable service
• The systems behind selling and delivering websites at volume
• How productization can help you step out of daily fulfillment
• Why this model works for both web designers and broader agencies
• How Jason generated nearly $2.5 million from one core system
• The difference between owning the business and being the web designer
• How to create a productized division without changing your entire company

This was originally Episode 312, so head to the original show notes for all links and resources mentioned, along with the full transcription at joshhall.co/312.

Transcript

Greatest Hits Intro And Workshop Invite

Josh Hall 0:00

Welcome back, my friends, or welcome if you are a new listener to the podcast. It is great to have you here. This episode is one of our greatest hits interviews. This happened originally about two and a half years ago when we released this, and it is a chat with my close colleague and good friend Jason Grazia, who has created one of the most incredible productized web design businesses with his company, SwiftSites. He has sold even more than when we talked about this originally. He sold the exact same website 700 and some times at this point. He has made nearly two and a half million dollars with this system that he's created. He has talked about it inside of our Community Web Designer Pro. He has presented his $2 million sales call at one of our recent ProCon events. And this interview was the one that unleashed this system to the world, which is why I wanted to share it with you here again on the podcast as one of our greatest hits interviews. And if you love what you hear here from Jason, you are going to want to make sure to jump on his upcoming completely free workshop Thursday, July 16th at 12 p.m. Eastern, where he is going to walk you through this entire system. It is completely free. It is the behind the scenes curtain pulled back on this system. Again, completely for free. It is the million-dollar website workshop. To sign up, click the link below, or go to swift sites.com slash workshop. I am a proud partner of Jason's, and this has been so helpful for so many folks in my audience and members of Web Design Pro who are done being the web designer and want to step into truly the owner of the business. Or for those of you who have a niche or want a niche or are much more focused on a broader set of services inside of your digital marketing agency. And websites are just a part of other things you do with marketing and SEO and design or whatever that looks like. This is perhaps one of the best ways to get out of the daily grind as a web designer and be the owner of your business by having a productized wing of your service for your website. So if you want to learn from Jason, you can do it for free this Thursday, July 16th, 12 p.m. Eastern. I will see you there. I will be there in the first part. Happy to do an introduction for Jason. And yeah, he's just he is the man. And if you haven't met him, you'll meet him here and you'll learn from him directly on Thursday, July 16th. So I will see you there. Without further ado, one of our greatest hits, Jason Grascia. This episode was originally episode 312. So that'll be linked below if you want to go to the show notes. And without further ado, here's Jason to again hear how he has built a seven-figure productized web design business.

The SwiftSites Promise And Scale

Josh Hall 2:59

What you've done is your SwiftSites, SwiftSites.com, you have created a like the it's almost the model of a productized web design service. I refer to your site like all the time. So uh if you're down for it, I'd love to just kind of unpack how you did it in this chat. You got it.

Jason Gracia 3:18

I am so down. Yeah, like the the little hook um is I started doing websites like everybody else, and I made $26,000. I eventually got to the Swift Sites model, and in 24 months, I made a million dollars. So that, and it's all the model. So yeah, that I am happy to unpack that because it changed everything. Changed my life, changed my business, changed, uh, changed the game for me.

Josh Hall 3:45

Yeah, I mean, I saw it too. I saw you going from uh recording in your basement to recording calls in your yacht. Um yacht, but you did. I mean, you really I I have seen you just literally blow this business up. Now you're a quiet guy, outward facing on social media and stuff, but um, to see what you've done and see even just the way you've been able to have other passion projects come to life, I will talk about like you've really freed yourself up to be the entrepreneur you want to be, which I think is a side benefit to productizing and niching down, is you can really uh what do you think about that? Like, do you just to have the freedom to do other things has to be pretty freaking awesome.

Jason Gracia 4:23

I spend so yeah, you I could not agree with you more because when I used to do web design projects, they would take like they'd consume me. I would, that's all I would do is deal with the project at hand, client issues, scope creep, all the like all the drama of building websites. That's all I did all day, every day. And I could take on a handful of clients every three months. With the way that I've done it now, I spend an hour total per entire project, and that's on the sales call. So I do a sales call. If they're in, I close, and I do not see that person again until they're happily launched with their own website ready to go. And instead of three clients every few months, I can take on 40 clients a month.

Josh Hall 5:08

Now that is where we're at today, but take us back to the beginning.

Finding A Niche Through Real History

Josh Hall 5:12

Like I think it's probably a we all know why you would want to productize and niche and have a system in place for web design. But what did that how did that start for you, Jason? Like, first of all, how did you know what industry you wanted to niche into? Because I imagine you were a generalist just like all of us are as web designers often when we're starting. How did you know coaching clients were were your clients?

Jason Gracia 5:35

Yeah. So um, I'll do a quick little go back in time a bit to uh 2001. Um so I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. My dad was a business consultant. I mean, I remember sitting um at Big Boys, which is a hamburger chain in Milwaukee. And we have that too. We call it Fresh's like Fresh is Big Boys, yeah. And we'd be going through stocks, like he'd be showing me. I don't know, I was probably eight years old, then we'd be going through looking at the newspaper at stocks, and then we would be talking about um way back then, he even was talking about lead magnets and his his business would call give to get the idea of giving away something free. So, like way back when I was little, I was already in. Like I that's all we talked about. Every my um parents divorced when I was young, but I went with my dad every week, and it was like going to see uh like a business consultant every week, which I loved because that's that's what we talked about every week for years. So come college, I went to school for marketing, and then when I graduated, everyone on my dad's side, kind of my dad, my stepmom, uh my two brothers, they all had websites, all in their own areas. My one brother Scott, he launched a throwing knife because he was into knives, so throwzini.com uh was his, so he sold knives through the mail. Um, I don't know if you can do that today because man, he sold some crazy things axes and spears. Um, yeah, and to and he'd always say if someone broke into his house, they'd probably turn right around and leave because they would just see weapons everywhere. Um, my other brother Chad, he was an acting, so he had actingtips.com, my stepmom, getorganized now.com, and my dad at give togetmarketing.com. So it was like I had to start a website, it was like family business. And I always, since I was younger, I read Tony Robbins, Zig Ziggler, like when I was little, Dale Carnegie. I loved motivation, like the idea that you could read something or hear something that would change something in your mind to help you accomplish more than you did before. I loved that idea, and so I wanted to be that person. So I launched Motivation123, and that was my little website, and I was just gonna put out little tips and tricks about getting motivated. Um that website did really well. It was like the perfect timing in 2001 because we got to be the number one motivation website on Google relatively quickly. Now, back then it was all about page links, like having people follow you. So I every day for hours would reach out to every website I knew and ask if they would link to me. Um, so I got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people to link to Motivation123, and then we just climbed up until number one for 10 years. Um, so I that's how I got into personal development. So that's kind of a little bit of how the coaching came into it, because that's the world I lived in. Um now 2001 coaching was very different. Back then, it would be what just didn't know anything. Um, but that's how that started. So I wrote books, I did courses, I did consulting all around motivation, um, and did that for a long time. Did really well. The company made a million dollars, and then, as you know, um diagnosed with cancer. Um, and that was kind of like a reset. So when that happened, I kind of walked away from Motivation 123. I just, as you can imagine, everything was just kind of flipped upside down. Um, and as I walked away, I just didn't have it in me to do that. At that moment, money started to disappear because when you don't work, apparently you don't make money, and the bills did not stop. So those those uh those bills wiped us out. Like it was everything we had. I wasn't working and we had all the medical bills for my cancer. And then

The First Coaching Client After Cancer

Jason Gracia 9:20

I got an email one day randomly in November uh 2016 from a man named Bill Simmons from South Carolina, and he asked me if I designed websites. Now, at that point, never for our anyone else, it was always me. Like I loved websites. I back in the HTML days, I would just hand code like simple little websites, but never for someone else. I just that was my thing. But in that situation, no money, we're we had to we were thinking about having to sell our house. Um, I said what any dad would say, because I had a little baby. Um, I said, Of course I designed websites, like yes, I do that all day, every day. And it turns out he was a coach. And so that is when I really sunk my teeth into okay, if this is my chance, kind of a second chance, a comeback, I want to knock it out of the park. So I dove deep into coaching websites. Like, what does a coach really need? Not a basic website, um, not just a brochure, but what are they, what are the mechanics of what a coach needs to do the things they want? And so I dove in deep. I studied other people's websites, I studied coaches, I studied anything I can get my hands on as far as how to make this machine for Bill Simmons so that it worked and Bill would turn into many more. Um, so I I learned about you know discovery calls and calendars and follow-up sequences all for a coach. And I built it, handed it over, and he loved it. Um, I I mission accomplished. And so Bill turned into Nancy, and Nancy turned into Marcy, and Marcy turned into 10 more, and then I just got better and better, and 20 more, 30 more, 40 more, and it started to catch on because I became known as the guy who could build you a coaching website. And so that is pre-productized. So that's kind of how that started. Where um Bill came into my world, I did the best I could for him. I did good enough that it spread, and then people started to get to know Savvy Hippo, which is what it was called originally, Savvy Hippo. Um, that's the place to go if you're a coach and you want a website.

Josh Hall 11:30

Did you have which side note? We're gonna have to do a follow-up episode on your story as a whole, because your cancer story, what your you and your family went through is just incredible. You were in a mastermind with Shannon Matter and our good friend, and and you were on her podcast recently and you opened up about that. So we'll have to make that a follow-up episode because that is incredible, man. But at that time, you're you're at this point in life where I mean, yeah, you're like living about to sell your house completely wiped with medical bills and stuff. Like, did you have savvy hippo as a brand name in mind at that point? Or were you just operating like Jason, you know, personal brand?

Jason Gracia 12:05

Yeah, when I started, I didn't have anything. Yep. Okay. And I like it wasn't um, as you can imagine, I'm sure after Motivation 1 to 3, it wasn't like next day Bill Simmons wrote, right? It was kind of I just toyed around with some ideas. So Motivation 123 ended, and I I just thought, well, what can I do? I have experience, maybe I could help people start an online business in motivation, things like that, where I was just kind of toying around. Um, but after a few months, that's when Bill wrote, and I didn't have there was nothing. So yeah, it was just how did he find out about you?

Josh Hall 12:36

Was it through Motivation 123 that he was? It was through, yeah.

Jason Gracia 12:39

So he was saw one of my sites and then reached out saying, in effect, I love what you did for yourself. Do you do that for other people?

Josh Hall 12:46

Yeah, wonderful. So you got your like client avatar, client one. Um, which is not always the case. Now, were you doing generalists like were you working for chiropractors and massage therapists or hairdressers or whatever at that point, or were you pretty much all in on coaching from the game?

Jason Gracia 13:04

All in on coaching, yep. Yeah, because at the time that was when it started to uh explode. I mean, today everyone, everyone's a coach. But back then it was just starting to grow. And so I thought I've got 15 years experience in personal development. I don't want to do e-com, so I didn't want to I didn't want to kind of live in that world of, oh, you're a coach with a book or a course. What I really loved the idea was I could manufacture this perfect little machine that could help a new coach get results fast, which is often through one-on-one coaching. And so we didn't have to wait for a book to be written or a course to be created. It's just someone could show up and say, I'm I'm brand new, and I could build the website that worked for them. So pretty early on, I was like, okay, coaches, that's a market that's growing. I know it. I have a background in personal development. I could go all in on this.

Josh Hall 13:56

Yeah, even your approach that you said when you met Bill initially, it was like instead of just saying, I'll build you a pretty website and we'll get it out the door as quickly as possible. You were very intentional about the results for him, which is what I came to like, you know, it took me like 10 years to think about. Instead of just making a nice website that looks cool and functions well and and all that, it's more about okay, the client themselves. What's their goal? How can I make a yeah, a full machine for them to help grow their business? So and again, you were you've been an entrepreneur, so it probably isn't a shock that you know you you came into this thing with the idea of a results-based service, essentially.

Jason Gracia 14:38

Right. I think that's why oh, I was gonna say, I think that is why a lot of designers struggle because they look at it as art only. And I look at it as it's a machine that should deliver results because you're you're totally right. One of my, and this is one of my kind of USPs in the market, my my unique um kind of placement is I came in backwards. Most people who do websites, they love the idea of design and creation and art and they're artists in a way. Whereas I was businessman first, who just so happened to do websites, and so I just gave it a different twist, which is this is a machine that can punch out a result.

Josh Hall 15:16

Yeah, you're a business set it apart. You're a business strategist who does websites and not a web designer who can do a little business strategy. You got it, you got it.

Jason Gracia 15:24

That set me apart because when I you could get on the uh the phone with 10 other designers and they would talk design, they would talk branding and brand boards, and they would talk color theory and font choices. And what I was talking was bottom line, getting clients, building your business. And we're gonna do it with a website, and that is night and day. So I just lived in a different world than everyone else. So it was easy for me to get those clients.

Josh Hall 15:48

And what year was this when Savvy Hippo really took off, or when you started doing coaches? 2016.

Jason Gracia 15:52

So 2016 is when, yep. But we're still we're pre-productized, so this is just savvy hippo, but I'm building just me building websites.

The Moment Productizing Clicked

Josh Hall 16:00

And honestly, I I feel like for anyone who feels like they've missed the boat on productizing, that's not the case. Like you, it's this is this is the perfect time as any this conversation is going to be coming out early uh 24 here in the Q1. It's the perfect time to think about productizing what you offer because for you, I imagine you get theme, like you get common themes. I'm sure you're getting the same questions over and over. Oh coaches, even if they're coaching different industries, they probably have a lot of recurring challenges and struggles. How what planted the seed for productizing this? And were there like those common themes that you found?

Jason Gracia 16:34

Yep, and that's it. So here's and I remember doing it. So I built, let's I probably built 10 websites um when the the seed was planted. And when I what here's what what happened I built a website, and as opposed to going to the client saying, What how do you want this to look? In my brain was I know how this should look. Because I know how I know like Motivation 123 got millions of visitors, so I just knew put this here, move this here, say this here. I knew how to make the machine work. Um, but I didn't want to just come off saying that. So what I did was I, if you were my client, I'd I'd go through the whole process of what do you think? And they would say, Well, I really want to do this, and then I would take an hour to explain why that's not a good idea. Then they go, Oh, that makes sense. And then we go to the next page and they'd say, Well, I want this, this, this. And I'd say, actually, boom, boom, boom. And then, oh, that's it, okay, that makes sense. So in the end, they had the website layouts that I wanted them to have, but I went through three months of getting them there. And after doing that with about 10 clients, I realized maybe I just have one website that I sell to many coaches because on the homepage I need this section and I need it to say these things, and I need the next section to do this, and I need this button here. So, what I realized was I built a machine that can be replicated. So, why am I spending months with each client convincing them? Because in the end, the website started to look the same as far as structure and architecture because I was trying to achieve a specific result, but I just it was like dragging them along. I had to convince them. And I realized this is inefficient. I am building the same structure of website, but I'm doing one at a time, and it's taking me months and months and months. So, step one was I stopped doing that and I just had structures, but I would still do everything. It was just me building websites, but as opposed to starting from scratch, I now had frameworks and layouts that were set.

Josh Hall 18:33

And

Selling A Proven System Not Templates

Josh Hall 18:34

how did you how did you approach that conversation on your website practically? Did you did you change the verbiage and almost get people into the mindset of you're the expert, you know what they need, and they need to follow your frameworks? Because this is what I found. I mean, a lot of and I've found a lot of clients were very hesitant towards templates and pre-built sites because they didn't want to look like everyone else. But I think if you're I imagine you came across of it uh at a like a results-based messaging and copy. So they're that probably alleviates a lot of the fear of a template site, if it's like this freaking gets results. So am I reading that right? Is that kind of right?

Jason Gracia 19:14

Yeah. So the website I didn't update too much. They still kind of came in with the idea that we can build dual coaching website. And then when I had them on the call, I said, There's works of art and then there's machines that produce results. And works of art are fantastic, but that is untested and unproven. And I don't want to use your money to test a new idea. Instead, I'd rather give you what I know works so you can get clients, and you can get so many clients that you have enough money where you can build your works of art. But what you want if you're an entrepreneur is you want a proven system that's gonna get you the results that you're after. And that worked. I thought now, just between you and me and everyone listening, I thought there's gonna be tons of pushback because the idea of template is terrible, but that's not how I pitched it. What I pitched it is proven model. So I have made a million dollars building websites. I know where things should go, but the good news is on top of it, it's your colors, it's your fonts, it's your message. What really matters, your mission, that's what makes it you. You I just control what's under the hood.

Josh Hall 20:20

You just said it, Jason. You just glance past the gold statement that I don't even know you knew was so gold in there. But it's you don't sell templates, you sell a proven system.

unknown 20:31

Yep.

Josh Hall 20:31

That is it. All right, well, Jason, we can we can call it here. Thank you so much for your time. That's all we need to do. Man, this is great. Like, literally, that's that's it.

Jason Gracia 20:39

That's I never mentioned the word template.

Josh Hall 20:42

Yeah, that is really that's the I think that's the culprit for because I have a lot of students who are doing the hybrid model like I did, which is essentially kind of like a half-productized system as a generalist. And I really enjoyed, honestly, being a generalist. I loved having medical clients in the steel company and barbershops. I enjoyed that, but I had my own systems to make that process a lot easier. So it can be done. But at scale and at the level you are, if you can refine things as much as possible with like the way the double whammy of niche and a productize solution, you're you're really a fine-tuned machine. And I think what you said is that's the gold. The template verbiage, I imagine, is the killer. Because as soon as you say, Yeah, we use website templates, what's going to stop clients from thinking, well, I could just go to Squarespace and pick a template. How did you did you ever have that? Like, did clients ever say Yeah, like were they ever wondering about the template style thing, or was that not even a factor when you talked about results and and the proven system?

Jason Gracia 21:44

It's the niche. That's why I could get away with it. Um, and not get away with it, like I was tricking anyone, but yeah, the niche is the reason because if it was a template website that could serve many industries, it would probably be ineffective. But because coaches need a Very, it's almost like you're in a race, you're sitting in a race car. Everyone there has a basic same type of engine because it's it's getting us around the track. Um, and it's we're we can all share that experience because we need this race car to do a very specific thing that everyone else needs to do. I wouldn't be able to do that if I built engines for race cars and then for soccer moms and then write like the the only reason it worked is because coaches need the same thing on a website, which is we want people to book a call with us to learn about working with us. And when you have the same objective, then you can use a standardized process. But yes, how I would describe it on a call is you could have a totally custom website, a beautiful custom website that looks like nothing else on the internet, and it can give you $10,000 in uh the investment you make and zero clients. And that is what most coaches do. They look at the art and they don't realize that what they're missing is the strategy and the actual results of a website. That is what's going to set you apart. So, what do you want? Do you want a brand new untested framework that we build together? Or do you want something that's been in the works for 15 years that has already delivered results and you can get it too without having to go through those 15 years? So if I brought the machine that was already proven and built, they could they could leap year or leap ahead years by not having to go through what I went through to figure out this is how the website should be laid out to get the result you want. Um, but it's only the niche. I think that's the key.

Josh Hall 23:35

So that machine, again, I'm wondering if clients would potentially be like, well, can't I just find like a coaching template on Squarespace and use that for 50 bucks versus you know paying uh I think your price point's like 4K right now, right?

Jason Gracia 23:48

Yep, four and five, yeah.

Josh Hall 23:49

So what's the uh what's what's the extra guided systems and processes within that your side?

Jason Gracia 23:56

I have it, I it's I narrowed it down to one line which says it all, which is WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, they are knives. But Swift is a chef. And that's the difference. A 15-year-old can throw together a template in mom's basement, but a 15-year-old doesn't know that I need to put this CTA on this page this far down with these words to get a human being to click this button. And so that's the difference. We are a chef. The tech, the tools, get it anywhere, but you can't get what I know anywhere else.

Josh Hall 24:33

I hope everyone pulls that line into the next sales call. They do. And it's not like a sleazy sales thing, like it's true, it is totally true. And I unintentionally learned personally that half of my conversations with clients was just that, explaining why I was much more than just a designer or just a pixel pusher, if you will. There's so much more to it when it comes to business strategy and just online marketing and flow, even I mean, design, the the artful things of a website still apply and are important into a professional website, but people do tend to get hung up on that. And I think nowadays, in the day of the days of AI and and image generation and graphics and everything else and templates, it's like it's so easy to be a commodity. Whereas business strategists and people who are creating a results-based solution like this, it is not easily replicated. Um, so that makes total sense of how you're able to alleviate a lot of those challenges and questions that I'm sure a lot of clients and coaches had initially, because it probably didn't take long for them to be like, all right, yep, you do whatever you need to do. I mean, what do you do for the clients who push back and say, well, I really want a custom side, I really want to do more and more pages. Do you have add-on options for people who want to do things outside, or do you just say, Listen, this is our process, and if you don't go abide, then we're not a good fit. What's what's that idea?

Jason Gracia 26:01

Yep, the ladder. You don't you the only way you grow is with no. I had a call literally yesterday, and he's like, Well, actually, I have my own ideas, and I said, I'm sure they're fantastic. I believe that they are, but we do one thing and we do it really well. And if you want us to do something different, we have to say no. And then he pushed back more. He pushed back more. He's like, Ah, come on, could you just and I was like, Nope. The reason we're so successful is because we made a choice to help this specific person with this specific thing, and we don't do anything else. So you can go find someone else, but that's not us.

Josh Hall 26:38

Gosh, and there's so many examples of that where as soon as you deviate from what you do well, that's when problems start, and that's when troubles arise.

Jason Gracia 26:48

And I did it like early before Swift and Savvy Hippo. Um, if anything like that came up, yeah, I was like, Oh, yeah, sure, I'll do that. Oh, that you need sure. And that was the like the worst idea ever. I was like in over my head, they kept coming with requests. Today, this is what you I even say on my sales call, everything you see here, you get nothing more, but you get nothing less. And that's it. So they know what they're getting up front. And that actually, like, this is kind of a tangent, but that actually helped me a ton when it came with the reveal because I felt like when I first did websites, I was so nervous, and sometimes they were unhappy because they didn't know what to expect. But with my system now, I show them the pages of exactly how they're gonna look. Okay, they know exactly what they're gonna get. So when it's done, they are thrilled because they already knew from the start what it was gonna look like. So that took a ton of pressure off me. I mean, we've worked with over 500 clients, and I haven't had anyone say, Oh, this is not what I expected, this is not what I wanted, because they already knew. I already showed them this is how your homepage is gonna look, and here's why it looks this way.

Josh Hall 27:54

Gotcha.

Jason Gracia 27:54

Here's the psychology of it, right?

Josh Hall 27:56

So And we all know as web designers, sometimes it's really hard to see what the client has in mind because they may not, they may not even know what they have in mind, or they may not be able to articulate it. So you send them a sweet design that you design, and you think they're gonna love this, and oh, it's not what I had in mind. But you're like, Well, you didn't tell me what you had in mind, so I didn't know what you had in mind.

Jason Gracia 28:16

Yep. And I skipped all of it. There is there, that's not part of our conversation at all.

Josh Hall 28:22

The clients who do say, like, you're just like you're not a good fit. Have you ever had them come back and be like, we went custom, we went artful, it was terrible. Or or do you see, or do they tend to just kind of disappear after that?

Jason Gracia 28:35

Usually they don't come back because someone who does want custom, I get it. Uh, like I used to be the same way. If I wanted someone to build something, I didn't want them just to grab something they already had because I just I wasn't thinking about it in results. I just thought, I want to show this off. Like, look how great this is. Um, so most of the time they're gonna go and they're gonna get someone to work with them, put some some something together custom. But often those sites don't work just because you could have the Mona Lisa, but if the Mona Lisa doesn't have email marketing and your scheduling set up the proper way, like it doesn't matter. So it's just hard. Like when they're too focused on the custom, they miss the whole point of the website, which is business building. So they usually don't come back. Um, but sometimes they do. Sometimes, yeah. They I tried this myself, and what you got just looks looks like what I need. I I submit, I give in.

The Full Offer Beyond Web Pages

Josh Hall 29:26

Uh how far do you go? I mean, you're not just building websites. You mentioned you're here helping with like lead generator scheduling, uh, email sequences. Like, how far are you reaching in? Because you're really getting into like business consultant territory with this. How far do you go with setting like if I use MailChimp, but that's uh how like what other tools are you allowing to enter your uh systems in your yeah, great question.

Jason Gracia 29:53

So um you're totally right. It wasn't just pages, I actually set that up on my web on my sales call, which what I do is I kind of go through our process of how we do what we do, and we can get in that if you want to, because I I I didn't productize yet, I just standardized my layouts, but I did a whole new thing to really ramp it up. But first, I show them the pages and I explain. Um, these pages are based on science and psychology of visitor behavior. These look a certain way to get a certain result, and that's why we don't go custom because we can't guess our way there. And I I like as an example, could kind of give your listeners an idea of how I sell this so well. I say things like when someone comes to a coaching homepage, they have six questions in their head. We have to answer those questions a certain way in a certain order for them to know, like, and trust you enough to click one of these many buttons to book a call. So when you when you can talk like that, a lot of the pushback as far as wait, this is a template, that just goes to the side because they realize, oh, okay, this is this is a different level of expertise. Like you know what you're doing, which helps kind of scoop up all those objections and just push them to the side.

Josh Hall 31:00

Because now they're even even the 4K price range, it makes sense that you're able to have that level of offer with a little more than just the website. Uh right. Yeah, like what if somebody comes? Yeah, I guess to my original question too, like what else is included in that?

Jason Gracia 31:15

Yeah, so I go so I that that's how I first pitch the pages, right? So I go through each page showing them here's the layout, here's why it looks this way. Then I go to a slide and I do a slideshow with me on screen and zoom, and I say, and this is a wonderful website for 3% of your market. But and then I have a big old slide that says problem. Most people do not book a call on their first visit. So I say, most people who build websites stop right here. They're gonna give you amazing pages. They might even have a lot of the things that I mentioned built in, which is great. But 97% of your potential clients will walk away if you don't have, and then I say email marketing. So one of the first third-party systems we use is email marketing. So we we use Mail or Lite for a lot of our clients. We used to use MailChimp. Uh MailChimp just for some people, it's a little hard to use for new uh coaches. Yeah. And their free version, they kind of knock down. There's not that much they offer. Mail or Lite, though, opens their whole platform up to a thousand subscribers for free. Okay. But our clients can use any they want: active campaign, a web or constant contact. And so that's the first external we do. So we say you have to have email marketing set up and we'll set it up for you.

Josh Hall 32:25

Oh, okay.

Jason Gracia 32:26

And if you want to use Mail or Lite, all you do is click a button that says I want to use Mail or Lite. Our team will do all the rest. We register the account for you in your name, all the logins are yours, but we do all the work. We integrate it into the website, we create the forms. So on day one, it's just there and it just works. You don't have to do a thing. But email alone is not enough. You can't say, hey, join my subscriber list. That does not work anymore. And then I use like, I'm old enough, as you can see by my hair. I'm old enough where that used to work. You could just put a little form and people would fill it out. Well, not anymore. You're not going to get any subscribers unless you have, and then I reveal lead magnet. So we include a lead magnet. So my team actually creates a PDF, a downloadable PDF for every client. Oh, it's their content, so they give us the content, but we turn it into a downloadable PDF. We design it using their colors and fonts they chose. So now we've got this PDF. Um, and then we say, but on its own, not enough unless you connect the dots and you create funnels. So that's the next thing we do is where I show them how we create simple funnels within WordPress, where if they request the giveaway, for instance, they are automatically brought to the booking page, which brings in the last thing we do, which is Calendly. So we set up a free Calendly account for every client. It's in their name. We set up the appointment for them. All they have to do is click a button that says, I want to use Calendly. We do all the rest. So we create the accounts for these clients and then give them the logins afterwards. But we really do everything for them. They just give us initial information, they click a button, we do all the rest until it's done. Um, so in the end, they have a website with all the pages they need, calendar so people can book a call, and email marketing setup so that they can build their list.

Josh Hall 34:10

So there's almost like three pillars, or maybe even five pillars, depending on how once you look at it. The website, the lead generator, the email platform, the funneling, and the booking.

unknown 34:23

Yeah.

Josh Hall 34:24

Although I guess you could probably categorize in those into like the three pillars, which is great, which is essentially website booking, email marketing. Exactly.

Jason Gracia 34:32

What a coach needs.

Josh Hall 34:33

This is yeah, I was gonna say the reason this is so important is because you're selling websites for coaches, but technically you're selling like five things for coaches all wrapped in one. But it's very clever and very intentional, I imagine, with how you're because it's all they're thinking is website. Yeah, because I was gonna this is why I love web design. Websites lead to everything else, and all things lead to websites. That's so that's why, like, if you there's so many things you can say I've found in headlines, and I've coached hundreds of students, thousands of students in my courses. I've seen a lot of headlines, and a lot of them work. What I found is like if you just say you build awesome websites, that is also a great line because you can really expand from there and all roads lead magnets, email funnels, PDFs, whatever. They live somewhere. They gotta they live on the website. That's what's so great about the opportunity for web designers now. So I love that there's actually like five things you're doing, but it's under the umbrella of the website. Yeah. I imagine you productized all of those very intentionally after doing that over and over for coaching clients. Uh, probably no, no, no surprise there that after working with 10 or 15 clients, you're like, okay, every one of these needs the website, the lead generator, the booking system, the email. Content collection. Here we go.

Content Collection Without Chasing Clients

Josh Hall 35:54

The bane of every web designer. I'm super excited to talk about it. You of all people have perhaps the the best productized system and standard operating procedures for this. How did you master content collection? How did yeah, how did you do it?

Jason Gracia 36:14

So, as you know all too well, and everyone listening probably knows, the worst thing in the world is sending 800 emails saying, hey, I really need that content. I can't move forward until I get that content. Um, so what I realized was, what if instead of all of my work being put on pause while they're doing the content, what if I don't do anything until they're done with their content? That way they can take a week, they can take a year. And so that was my first idea of what if my work does not begin until their work finishes. But to do that, I have to somehow let them know what I need and how I need it. So at first, it was Google Docs saying, okay, I'm the homepage, here are the different sections, which it helps to have that standard outline and framework, right? Because I couldn't do this otherwise. So I knew there are six sections to every homepage. Hero section, this is what I need. Next section, this is what I need. And so I just had a little Google Doc and they'd fill that out with the information. So I'd say, if you were my client, here's everything you need, Google Doc, you fill it out, you take your time, you take as long as you need, I'll be with you when you're done. And then I'd ignore them until they finished. Then I realized, what if I could put this all into a beautiful little piece of software where I could both educate them on what to write and have them fill it out and have some extra goodies in there. And that is really what changed it and what made Swift Sites what it is. Where first I tried on my own. I thought I was a developer because I could build websites. I am not a developer, I don't know anything. So I found a developer. And what I said was, I want to build a piece of software that a client could log in. They could choose their colors, they could choose their fonts, they could upload their images, and they could enter their content, and I could have trainings as they went through it to tell them what I need them to do. And so that's what we built was the Swift Side software, which really sets us apart. So a client now, once the sale's made, they log into the software and the software walks them through choosing colors, fonts, pictures, and words. It's the whole thing, everything I need from them is in one place, and then they click a button that says I'm done. And then they come into our world. And you will not move forward unless they're done, right? Absolutely. We will not do a thing for them website-wise. And of course, there's support and there's things like that. If they have questions, we help them with that. Sure. But building, we don't touch a thing until they're done. And it's worked.

Josh Hall 38:39

Do you have a do you have a deadline? Do you say because I imagine like what if a client takes three years? Or what's the thing?

Jason Gracia 38:45

Yeah. So I used to have a deadline. And I I even use this on sales calls too. Because I say, before I had kids, I would say, uh, I need this done in 30 days. And I thought everyone just sat at their computer and worked all day. I did not realize, oh, people have families and people have jobs. So there is no deadline on you. You take as long as you need. Now we'd love you to get done as soon as you can, but if it takes you six months, it takes you six months. And I can only do that because of the setup. Because once you're in our system, you have work to do before I do anything.

Josh Hall 39:15

They pay in full, right?

Jason Gracia 39:17

They pay full or payment plans.

Josh Hall 39:19

Okay.

Jason Gracia 39:20

Yep. But that's how we do it. So that I took the content piece and I put it 100% on them, but I train them. And this is something else that sets me apart as far as in coaching, and I'm sure this is true for almost anyone in web design. The hardest thing is what do I say on these pages for clients? So I let them know. I walk you through exactly what to say on every page, every section. We give you examples of what you can write. I teach you the strategy of why you should write it this way. You can see what other coaches have done. You can even reach out to us directly if you get stuck. So we that's how we solve this content part, which is it's hard for you and it takes a long time. I'm going to tell you exactly what to do and it's on your timeline. So no pressure. But that's really how we solved it.

Josh Hall 40:04

I was kind of curious, how far do you go with messaging? And like, what if they send you just a horrible heading? And you're like, uh, you know what I mean? Like what like do you help with copy? I mean, I imagine with AI now, I don't know if that's in the roadmap for you, but I would imagine there could be a pool of like similar headings that are proven, that kind of thing. Um, what does that look like?

Jason Gracia 40:25

So we do a few things. So when it comes to copy, um, and this is a little probably less relatable because not everyone listening has software that does this for their people. But what I did was I actually, because I'm a copywriter kind of at heart, like that's what I do. I've I've written copy to make millions. So I wrote entire copy websites of copy from different coaching specialties: life coach, life purpose coach, midlife coach, parenting coach, marriage coach, um, business coach. So I wrote their homepage, I wrote their contact page, I wrote their services page. And what our software does is you can actually click whatever specialty you are, and then it pre-fills your pages for you with my copy. Okay. Then you get to edit and tweak based on my advice. So you would come into our software, you'd be, for instance, on the home page where you enter your in your home information, and you click play on my tutorial, and I just walk you through. So, all right, Josh. I don't say Josh because it's for everyone, but all right. So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna fill out your homepage information. So if you open up the first card, you'll see it's the hero section. Here is what we need to accomplish for the hero section. So, this is what I want you to write. If you click this button, you can get some examples. If you get stuck, you can reach out to us. And that's how I handle the whole content piece, which is giving them words, giving them training, giving them examples. Um, and then they go through page by page by page, and then only when they're done do we get started.

Josh Hall 41:45

And really, I mean, to be able to productize content collection, you have to have your productized service in your yeah, it only works. Yeah, it really is all about your the systems that you have in place to alleviate that. That makes total

Fast Builds With Flexible Payments

Josh Hall 42:00

sense. I would imagine, I mean, do you know your percentages with how many people drag on past 30, 60 days or three months? I mean, because I imagine if somebody's serious about it, it's kind of as soon as you get us content, is as soon as your website will go live. Yep, it's all over the all over the board, as you can probably imagine.

Jason Gracia 42:19

So we have people who come in on a Monday and their website is being built next Monday. Wow. They're ready to go. And our turnaround time is five days. So we once we start, we are done within usually three days, but we say five days. Um, and I tell them typically in the industry, you could be waiting six to eight weeks for your website to be developed. For us, we don't want you to lose clients. If someone's interested in working with you, they're not going to wait two months and then come back for your website. They'll just find someone else. So we do it in less than a week, only because we have productized service. Um, but yeah, so we have people who they get everything done in one day. They sit down, they follow my tutorials, they fill it out, they click their button, they schedule their build. We have people who they take a year. But we're fine with both because it doesn't matter to us, right?

Josh Hall 43:05

How does the payment plan work? Is it like over six months or something, or is it the duration of because I would imagine for cash flow purposes, you gotta if they take a year, are you still billing them out a year later, or how does that work?

Jason Gracia 43:16

They pay um immediately, either full or payment plan starts right away. Does it so if they wait a year to do their work, we still have their money. So what's the payment?

Josh Hall 43:28

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Jason Gracia 43:29

Yeah, yeah. So we do a 4 or 5K, 5K every day, 4K if you're ready right away.

Speaker 1 43:36

Oh, okay.

Jason Gracia 43:37

And then um they can split it into they can split it, and we do interest free payment plans. So it's kind of a lot of people don't do that. It's not always recommended, but if I can show them the dream, which is what we build, and then show them 4K and they kind of get deflated because you're like, okay, I thought it was gonna be a little bit more, and then I say, Well, don't worry, you can cut that in half. Cut it in thirds, you can cut it in fourths, fifths, or sixths. Oh, okay. You're not gonna pay any more than someone who pays in full. So that's how we do our payment plan. We let them go down to as low as $500 a month. But they don't pay any more. So what I say is you can break it down, but you don't pay any more than anyone else. And we'll build your website even if you're not done paying your balance.

Josh Hall 44:21

Okay. So so you're essentially what would be the maximum duration of a of a payment plan, like six months or a year?

Jason Gracia 44:29

Usually it's eight months, so eight times five hundred is four thousand. So usually eight months, but then there are people we have enough clients where we can just do whatever works for them. Yeah because there's sometimes they're just struggling. And I grew up on welfare, single mom, like we struggled, um, even though, and that's a whole nother podcast. My dad was doing quite well, we were not, but um I know, so I get that. I and I talk to them just honestly saying, I know it's a lot of money, and and I know you really want to do this. So we do we've done down to 250 a month. Okay. Um, and the idea there is your website pays for your website, right? So you pay one payment, we'll build your website as soon as you're ready to go, even if you have 10 payments left. But the good news is you're gonna have a website that's helping you make those payments.

Josh Hall 45:15

Yeah, got it. Yeah, and it makes sense in that niche where a lot of people are probably working full-time elsewhere, potentially. And this is a side hustle, so they may not be out of the budget. That that definitely makes a ton of sense. Let's

Building The Team And Automation Engine

Josh Hall 45:27

talk about your team a little bit, because as you mentioned, this is not all you. Your your process now is literally about an hour per build, but you're at the you know, light at the end of the tunnel with building this incredible system with Swift. Where did you find your developer?

Jason Gracia 45:40

Well, uh, how did you find developer was Facebook? So I was in a Facebook group, I believe it was, I don't even remember which group, but it was years ago.

Josh Hall 45:49

Is that how we met, by the way, Jason? Was it through my Divi group?

Jason Gracia 45:52

I think we might have, yeah, because I used Divi early on. So I bet we did connect through Divi. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I met my developer through Facebook.

Josh Hall 46:01

He was it through my group? Am I the sole reason that Wipped is so successful? I don't think he would.

Jason Gracia 46:08

Let's see. I don't know if he'd be in a Divi group, but let's just say yes. But I caught him at the right time because he didn't have a lot of work to do and he thought the project was interesting. He built it for just a few thousand dollars, which when I came back to him years later saying I need another one built, it was now $75,000. So I realized, okay, I lucked out like the luckiest luck of all, lucky lucks, because he was just, I don't have much to do. This sounds interesting. I'll help you out. Wow. And then I realized, wow, he gave me like a 99% discount. Wow. Because there's no way I could have afforded it.

Josh Hall 46:47

Did you post like a job description? Like I'm looking for this, and you got a bunch of people saying I'm interested. How did how did you actually like literally hire him?

Jason Gracia 46:54

I think it was more that I said, I have this idea of I kind of want my clients to be able to log into some type of portal and be able to submit information. Does anyone know if that's possible? And then I think my developer then reached out and said, Yeah, why don't we chat? This is definitely possible. And that's where it grew. And it took years um to get the first one built. Um, but then I just kept upgrading, upgrading, then Swift kind of we we upgraded everything into the Swift sites brand. Um and that was really fast. So yeah, I just lucked out in a Facebook group. And then my builder, so as you said, I don't do any of it. We we actually and this might get a little more like not technical, but just the way really we every step we just got things done faster and faster because we productize everything. For instance, when we say we we create lead magnets for people, a lot of people are like, Whoa, geez, that's a lot of work. You gotta do all this, that well, we have all of our layouts already built in Canva, everything's ready, it's just placeholders ready for them to put in their content. So everything is down to an SOP, everything is standard, uh standardized across the board. So there is no customization in our entire start to finish process. Um but what really helped was my developer found a way that we could have our software where people put in their information. Well, he created a plugin for WordPress where we just have to push a button and it takes everything from my software and plugs it automatically into pre-made layouts in WordPress. Oh, okay. So their colors, their fonts, all of their copy. It's automatically put into every page where it needs to go. So my team's job is to go in and make sure it looks good. Okay. So they they edit the font, they move things around, they add a few touches here and there. But yeah, it just takes a few hours now for an entire build to be done. And I found my lead builder who is the greatest thing on earth on Upwork. Of all places, Upwork is where I found Emily, and she has she's done over 250 sites for me. She is, I could not do this without her. She's amazing, and she is why I don't have to worry about this business that just churns out tens and tens of thousands of dollars. I I don't do hardly anything now. I just hop on a call and close.

Josh Hall 49:15

Do you communicate with her through Upwork or have you brought her on outside of Upwork?

Jason Gracia 49:20

Yeah, Slack is where, yep, almost everything we do is through Slack together.

Josh Hall 49:24

Yeah, because I've hired some folks on Upwork, and I just hate having to log in there to do everything and open up a ticket and uh, does Upwork like to remind you that everything should be done on right? Because it makes sense.

Jason Gracia 49:36

That's where they make their money.

Josh Hall 49:37

Yeah, for the marketplace aspect.

Jason Gracia 49:38

Right.

Josh Hall 49:38

Sure. So did she stop doing upwork and come over to your team? Yep, soon after.

Jason Gracia 49:42

Yeah. And now she's been with us for years.

Josh Hall 49:44

Yeah, because they have like a non-compete or something. Don't they have something in place to where like if you're working on Upwork, you're you can't or not supposed to work outside of it, otherwise you get dinged. Right.

Jason Gracia 49:55

Yeah. They'll they'll uh your upwork account can be penalized so that they make it hard for you to get more work. Yeah. But yeah, heads up, everybody. Yeah, right. Um, and then I had a I have a backup builder just in case Emily gets too busy. We do about three builds a week. Um, so if there's four or five builds in a certain week, she can she can pass work off.

Josh Hall 50:16

Um if only there was a web design community with more website designers if you need them too, as you scale. I don't think uh I don't think one exists, so that's too bad.

Jason Gracia 50:24

But that'd be so great. That'd be great. Um, but yeah, I have a lean, uh, just this tiny little team and this web creating machine. And uh it's all because of the niche and then standardization, and they still get an amazing product that delivers results.

Josh Hall 50:40

Amazing little team for the for the little website machine. That's

Partnerships And Ads For Hot Leads

Josh Hall 50:45

beautiful. How are you marketing? Facebook ads, I know you're doing. Are you doing anything else to market this? Because I'm sure people are curious, like, how the heck are you getting clients?

Jason Gracia 50:53

Yeah, so um I get clients, I'm like a client-getting machine as far as what I try. So I've gotten clients through everything content marketing, partnerships, referrals, affiliate marketing, uh, paid ads. Um, but probably my big buckets are when I go, so when I launch any new company, what I do is I find the leaders that are at my level, so I don't go, you know, too far up. Um, but I find the people who are working with my people. Right. So it's I teach it to all my clients. We you form partnerships with people who have um kind of tangent offers. So in Swift's case, I reached out to people who work with coaches, but they teach them about how to run a coaching business. They, the mentor, is just as confused and overwhelmed by tech as everyone else.

Josh Hall 51:38

Yeah.

Jason Gracia 51:38

So what I do is I I reached out to them saying, I love what you do. This is fantastic. But do you have anyone who helps with the website piece? Because I actually perfected a model that can help your clients get a website up and running in days so that you are not the person they come to asking, oh, my website doesn't load, or oh, this page doesn't work, or oh, how do I do this or that? You can actually offload that all on our team. So when you do that, you get many people who are like, Thank God you exist because I can't ask, I can't answer another website question.

Josh Hall 52:12

And that's that's just something I teach in Web Designer Pro in my business course. It's such for some reason, and maybe it's just because people, if they're not in the entrepreneurial world, you generally web designers are just trying to learn webs website design and then oh crap, I got a business. So it's not something you generally think about when you think about getting clients. It's like social media or whatever the standard things are, even networking, which I'm a big fan of. That's one of the first things. The partnership thing is like the most impactful and almost one of the most fun things you can do, especially for introverts who don't want to be front-facing all the time necessarily. You get a partner who, like you said, has actually a huge client pool that can funnel them to you. You get hot leads, you don't get cold leads, it's hot leads.

Jason Gracia 52:58

No, no, so I could talk about this forever. I love this topic, but I'll tell you, I'll share two quick things. No client is easier to enroll as a partner referral because they arrive already pre-sold. I have authority of credibility, they're just like, where do I sign up? But the other thing you can do, if it works, is work your offer into your partner's offer so that when your partner gets a new client. So I did this, I had a wonderful partner, and she actually made her offer better by saying website included. Is that Betty? Not Betty. Oh, okay. So Linda. Linda brought me $100,000. One partnership, we had one talk one time. I made a hundred thousand dollars from her in one year because every time someone came into her world and became a client, they automatically got a website through Swift and Linda would pay me directly. So that one partnership. So you were like a white labeler almost for her. Right.

unknown 53:58

Yeah.

Jason Gracia 53:59

Because now any coach who works with coaches and they're struggling with the website piece, well, they can just send them to Swift and we'll take care of you. So you could either do a referral where I would send money, which I do with a lot of people, you refer someone to me, we'll give you a commission. But then we have people who actually build Swift into their own offer. So every time they get a client, I get a client.

Josh Hall 54:19

You know what's funny? I told I did this, and I didn't even realize I did it. Uh when it within transit, I had one of my best clients. He was, they were like a marketing firm for like low-level political stuff. So it was like state officials and stuff they would do campaigns for. And I ended up meeting him through a networking group, and then one thing led to another. I did some work for him, and then he's like, he's like, I don't have a web designer for these. And he's like, we offer it, like we'd like to offer it for every marketing campaign. Not every client takes it on, but um, would you like to be the guy to do all their websites? And yeah, I like templatize it. I had a couple different templates. There you go. One gravity form contact form with we would customize it occasionally, and that was it. And yeah, he would send me like two or three a month there for a little while, especially during the fall, like with uh with political campaigns. And it was super simple and super easy, and he was just feeding them to me. It was a dream. I unintentionally, that partnership thing with him is how that worked out. And and it wasn't the most gravitifying artistic creative work, but it paid the bills really nicely, and he was the one who was like, Yeah, whatever you charge is fine. Uh right. It was a very similar type of setup.

Jason Gracia 55:26

And there's we know, you and I know, there's really no such thing as passive income. There's always effort involved, except with those partnerships. I will say, once that was set up with my partners, there was no work. I just got an email that said, Hey, send me an invoice for this next client. Sounds good. So I guess I did have to type out the invoice. So that that was that was the effort.

Josh Hall 55:47

You can hire that, Alan. I imagine yeah, partnerships are uh a big thing for my business, as you know, for 2024. And and something I'm actually I think I'm gonna create a playbook, not a not a full course, but a playbook for for web designer partnerships for pro just to really help folks like think about the partnership thing because it's like you're sitting on gold. Yep. Uh, as a web designer, how many people do you know who do photography, videography? I had a client who was a business coach, just very, you know, very timely, and they became one of my best lead generators because who are their clients? Businesses who need websites. And I would exactly tell and yeah, I mean, you could you could really approach the partnership thing as just a referral, or like you're doing, you could white label it and be a part of another service, either way. Right. And another tool we're all sitting on.

Jason Gracia 56:40

One more thing I did, and then I'll I'll tell you a few others we can because I just did the partnership for traffic. But another thing you can do. So I what I teach is there's referrals, there's offers where you integrate your offer, but then there's content expert where I, if you take some people's courses online as far as how to grow your business, if there's a website portion, I'm the teacher. Oh, okay. So they have a course, they cover websites, but they don't know websites because that's not their thing. I come on, I'm like, hey, I'm Jason from Swift Sites, and I'm gonna teach you this. Well, obviously, then they come right back to me when they want a website. So that's another thing you could do is become an expert for other people within their content.

Josh Hall 57:19

Yeah. For example, as a web designer, if you know a SEO person or a digital marketing agency, but you know, they're doing SEO and digital marketing, and then they need somebody to teach on the web design side of things. There's your opportunity. There it is. Um, which I'm doing that in pro, by the way. I don't know if I filled you in on this, but I have some members who are colleagues who like I have Steve, who does subscription web design. I didn't do subscription web design, it wasn't my cup of tea, but it is his. So he's like he's a part of the business course. If you want to go further into subscription web design, go to Steve. There you go. Training in pro to get you started. If you want his full course, that's available.

Jason Gracia 57:52

So and that's enough. Yeah, like that is enough to run your entire business. Like these strategies are huge. But so partners, I do um referrals. If anyone's a client, they send a client back to me. We send them a referral commission. So we've sent thousands back to our clients.

Josh Hall 58:06

Yeah, what's your commission? There's like 10.

Jason Gracia 58:07

We do 250 to 500, depending on how many people they've sent to us. So if you send more, you get more money. Oh, okay. That's cool. Yep. Now, in the beginning, I did uh $2,000, I gave them half.

Speaker 1 58:20

Ooh.

Jason Gracia 58:20

And that got clients fast. And then I shut that off because that I just wanted clients fast. Um yeah, that was a big one. But free money, and that only works again because of my productized service. Because if it took me three months, I just couldn't do it. But me, it's 60 minutes of my time. Gotcha. Um, and then as you know, paid ads. So I don't do any social media posting, I don't do any content. I haven't sent an email newsletter for years. It is paid ads and partnerships, those are my big ones, and paid ads do great. You and I have talked many times about it. Um, if you have a dialed-in system and it's niche, so you can speak right to your audience, then ads can do really well. So, yeah, we've made hundreds of thousands from ads. Oh, that's awesome.

Josh Hall 58:58

Again, there's, I mean, it and marketing in reality, like it all works. It's almost like, what do you want to do? What do you like to do? How can you make it work? Uh, the partnerships thing is I'm really enjoying the partnerships thing. I did a few test runs so far, and they've all overwhelmingly have gone well. And it is the hot lead, the prime lead is something so nice. It's so nice. It's something I just can't recommend. Like, don't cold call. Who needs to cold call? You don't need to cold call anymore. I guess you can have partners. Yeah, if you have partners or I mean, yeah, even like going to a networking group or a chamber of commerce, you're automatically in with a warmer audience. There's just there's so many avenues now for warm and hot leads. So yeah, man. Well, Jason, this is this has been awesome. Uh, really getting a good feel for this entire product type system.

Tracking Results And The Next Business

Josh Hall 59:48

One last thing I was curious about how are you tracking results for these clients? Do you have a follow-up sequence? And I'm gonna let you keep talking. Daisy Lou, Michael and Retrievers dying to get out of the office. I'm gonna let her out, but can you just let us know how do you track how you do the results? Yep, yep, yep.

Jason Gracia 1:00:02

So um for our first batch of clients like uh coming through Swift, I just I it was all external, so I would email them. And uh if anyone knows, listening, or Josh, if you know, once someone's done with a project, trying to get data from them can be very hard. So yeah, it was not easy. So we do have a ton of client results, but a lot of people never reported. Now, what I do today with clients that I work with directly, as you know, we have a white-labeled CRM where I can see everything. So I see every visitor they get, I see every lead they get, I see every booked call they get, which is kind of for me the dream because I'm a data guy, love to see it all. But yeah, for those clients, we know how some did, but we can't always get the other people to report on how it how the site did for them.

Josh Hall 1:00:50

That's what I was wondering is like when you're selling the this the system that you have in place, we're talking about results, you know these pages work. The question I would have as a client is how do you know? Like, how are you measuring results? Is that what you're using Go High Level for for measures?

Jason Gracia 1:01:04

For the for the coaching program, yep. Because now with high level, you can build within high level, which means I can track everything that a client's going through. So, yeah, I know everything about um those clients. That's separate from Swift. This is more of my coaching program, but yeah, um, that's that's like my dream that I'm gonna do. So what are you using for every number? Swift clients. How are you talking about? Swift clients is email.

Josh Hall 1:01:26

Okay, so Swift clients is still email, got it.

Jason Gracia 1:01:28

Yep, yep. So as you can imagine, we've gotten a lot of uh feedback, but then there's clients who they're done. Like they moved on, they got their website, they are not gonna, and the other thing is too, they don't know their numbers, right? Most clients don't. Most clients, most coaches, just like probably web designers, they're not entrepreneurs by trade, and so they don't know the importance of numbers. I try and teach it, it's in my training, but not every coach tracks their numbers, so they don't even know sometimes.

Josh Hall 1:01:55

So you have this coaching program. I don't know how much you want to share or you feel comfortable sharing, but yeah, tell us about kind of the next thing for you because you've got these amazing coaching clients through Swift. I imagine some of them are rock stars who want to keep working with you. I I'm sure I can't, I mean, I would imagine you're getting consulting invites and questions about further coaching. Uh so is that what kind of led to first paying client with this new coaching program? Like, tell us about that if you want to.

Jason Gracia 1:02:21

Right. Because so Swift sites was great and it now runs itself, so I don't do much in it. So I think like you and probably a lot of people listening, like I'm an entrepreneur, and so I want to I want to do business, like I want to talk business, I want to help businesses. And so I thought, well, I kind of checked the box on the website, but there's so much more. There's there's the mindset, there's the strategy, there's growing a business. I don't get a chance yet to do that at the level I want to, so I launched uh a coaching program to help people do that. So yeah, we're in our beta right now, um, helping people go through the whole process, pretty much following what I did to go from making zero after cancer. We I got down to about uh a few hundred dollars a month in income all the way up to uh five, six hundred thousand dollars. So I just teach them because the great thing is when it comes to getting clients, just like with Swift, a lot of it can be standardized. You use a lot of the same ideas and principles to get coaching clients as you do website clients. So I can teach a lot of what I've done to help them get clients as well.

Josh Hall 1:03:27

Uh the seven-year itch principle for entrepreneurs, did you think about that? Like, uh I don't know if you for me into that.

Jason Gracia 1:03:35

Okay, so me, and this might sound, I hope it doesn't sound terrible. For me, it's the million-dollar itch. Uh when Motivation123 hit a million, I was like, okay. And when Swift hit a million, I was kind of like, I kind of did it. Like I proved that it worked, and now I need, but you're totally right. You know me.

Josh Hall 1:03:50

Well, the reason I mentioned that is you said you started 2016. 2016, 2023 is when you started first paying client. I started in transit in 2010. I started Josh Hall.co in 2017. There is I don't know what it is about the seven thing.

Jason Gracia 1:04:04

Um I think you might be right. I think you might be right because yeah, I just I know focus is the key, right? We know that like everyone says it, but yeah, I just feel like I kind of did the thing. Now I'm ready for the new thing. Um, and first paying clients, that new thing.

Josh Hall 1:04:18

Well, it's a it's a cool case study too for a product-type service where if you I mean honestly, for anyone who's really considering going to the to the level that you have with a product-tized web design service, even if it's not quite as like a custom software system type thing, but still product-tized in as many ways as possible and automated, you do get to the point where you are going to free yourself up. And then I think it's important to think about the the vision for the next chapter. And like what you're doing, if you have a pool of clients who are you're building productized sites for, how could you serve them in a way that may be a membership or a coaching program or whatever that looks like? And I think that's I have a student right now, Katie, who has a personal brand for building websites that's getting more and more automated. And now she's doing like a almost similar, it's like a it's like a DIY website business coaching type uh membership uh alongside of it that could be like the upsell. So you got, yeah, that's exactly

SOPs Mindset And Closing Call To Action

Josh Hall 1:05:15

right.

Jason Gracia 1:05:15

And I'll say you you triggered one more thing I I want to say, which we both know it. In the early stages, I would do the same work and I would just tell myself, uh, I'll I'll create a process and kind of map out what I do later. Like I'm just gonna do it. And then I would just I'll just do it. And I did the work and it did the work. So I wasted a lot of time doing repetitive work because I didn't want to take the time to map out the system and write out the SOP. Once I wrote it out, that's when it changed. So, anyone listening, if you do something similar over and over, you do just have to stop, take the time, and map out the process, even though it's like I put it off forever. It was like homework for me. But once you do it, then you've got it. And that's the key.

Josh Hall 1:05:59

Such wise counsel. Yeah, you just you you just have to do it. And it's can be overwhelming if you're thinking about a lot of systems and SOPs, but if you just get the ball rolling or start small, I promise. I'm sure you'll agree with me in saying that it's easier than you think it is. You'll you'll go six months and you'll do something that takes an hour, and you're like, why the heck didn't I do that six months ago? And it really, it's the compound effect of saving time that's the kicker. Like when I did that, I shared this in my business course. When I did that with my invoice or my proposal, contract, invoice, and payment system, I automated all those with 17 hats into one slick little dick diggit, and it was just all automated. The first time I got that email that said proposals been signed or proposal's been accepted, contract been signed, invoice, payment came in, content is underway. I was like, it's a beautiful thing. I did that in 2018. Why didn't I do that in 2013? You know, like uh so anyway, that's what I'm here for. That's what you're here for. So, Jason, man, thank you so much for sharing the ins and outs and uh just opening up about this whole system. Honestly, I think that episode could probably be worth re-listening to at least once a year. I feel like there's some episodes of the podcast that are like annual revisits, and this is definitely one of them. Even if you don't want to have a hyper-productized offer like Jason does, it's still you can still take what you learn from him and apply it to your own business, or maybe apply it to one of your packages or one of your tiers of websites if you have like a website in a day or website in a week offer, but still want to have a more custom generalized approach, like I kind of like as well. So again, Jason is going to be hosting another completely free workshop, giving you a behind-the-scenes look at his productize system. Go to SwiftSites.com slash workshop or click the link below to get access for this free workshop. I will see you there again. Swiftsites.com slash workshop that's going down Thursday, July 16th at 12 p.m. Eastern. So I hope to see you there. If you're catching the replay of this and missed it, he will be hosting another one. I think you can always go to what Swiftsites.com slash workshop and sign up for the next one. Don't quote me on that, but pretty sure that's the case. But in any case, for those listening live this week, I will see you there one more time, Swiftsites.com slash workshop. Click the link below, and I will see you there. All right, my friends, cheers to building your own productized web design service in whatever capacity that works for you. And I do hope this helps you out. Jason is just an absolute whiz. I count on an honor to consider him a friend in this industry. And I hope you learned a lot. All right, my friends, stay subscribed, and I'll see you on the next one.