143 – Lessons Learned Going Full Time Web Design with Kristin Pearson

Josh 0:15
Hello, hello friends welcome in to Episode 143. I am pumped about this episode. There’s something about people who are early on in the journey predict well, particularly when they’re on fire, and they’re crushing it. But there’s also a special energy to somebody who is new in their journey and is learning at such a fast pace and is experimenting with their business and doing all sorts of cool things. In this episode, I’m so pumped to bring in one of my recent students, Kristin Pearson, who just recently went full time in her web design business, but is killing it and is doing such a great inspirational job on how to transition to go to full time and what she’s doing in her business. I think it’s gonna be super impactful for you, I think it’s gonna inspire you. My hope is that it encourages you, particularly those of you who are working as a side hustle right now with web design, and you want to go full time, but maybe you’re just, you know, you’re looking at what that’s going to take you want to hear some more case studies on how to practically do it. This is going to be your episode.

Josh 1:18
Kristin really gets into the weeds on a lot of the hot topics when it comes to going full time, like risk management and your services, a pipeline of clients, you know, preparing financially, all these things that can be very daunting when it comes to going full time Kristin and I really dive into. And she’s just a shining example of how to do it right. So I can’t wait to hear how this episode helps you I want to feature and just bring up something that we do talk about fairly early on in the conversation. But Kristin had a very unique approach to getting clients, which is usually the the main question everyone asks when you want to go full time, how do I get clients? How do I get a constant pipeline of clients?

Josh 2:00
Well, Kristin, did something genius and I’m not going to give it all away right now. But let me just give you a snapshot. She did a little bit of market research. And she interviewed somebody she knew in her network and asked them some really great questions and recorded the call. That call became basically her framework for building out her website organizing her services. It provided her with content and really nailed down the perfect avatar of like her target audience. And she was able to build her website, build her business and start to fast track her journey, all based off of that one call, genius and absolutely genius way to go about getting clients. And Kristin actually for you. For those of you listening to this episode, put her questions together for you to download. It’s a market research question for for designers.

Josh 2:51
If you want to do something similar to what Kristen did and reach out to somebody who is an ideal client, she has all of her questions available for you, you can go to Kristin pearson.com slash Josh Hall, and you can get access to that document again, it’s basically her market research questions for web designers, it should be a great resource for you if you’re going to be interested in doing what Kristin did help fast track her journey. So check that out. I can’t recommend that enough. Kristen Pearson com slash Josh hall to pick that up. And I’m really, really excited to hear how Kristen’s experience early on in her journey where it’s going to help inspire and pump you up to do the same with going full time with your web design business.

Josh 3:28
And that’s what I’m here for as well guys, I wanted to mention before we dive in my whole goal with what I do every day is to help you go full time and take your web design business to the next level. And actually, I would love to help you do that right now, particularly for those of you who are just extremely daunted with the business side of everything, and you need help with contracts, proposals, questionnaires, Content Collection, all that stuff. I created my web design business course, for those of you who need some help with getting your business started growing it and taking it to the next level. Join that today it will fill in all the gaps and I pull the entire curtain back on my entire business to help you take your business full time, just like Kristen did recently. So join that today Josh Hall co slash business. If you go there that’ll take you to the course if you guys have any questions, let me know. I’d be happy to answer any questions and I really want to guide you to taking your business full time just like Kristen did. And without further ado, we’re gonna have some fun of this one. You’re going to hear so much gold advice and valuable information that’s going to help you take your business from side hustle to full time as well. Enjoy.

Josh 4:41
Kristin, welcome on to the podcast. It’s so great to have you. Thanks for taking some time today to chat with us.

Kristin 4:47
Absolutely Good to be here. I’m excited.

Josh 4:50
It was pretty cool because you are a student of mine and we were joking about before we went live I was kind of curious about your journey because you you went full time. More recently with your web design business, and I just was curious, I was gonna ask you some questions and I thought you know what, let’s make it a pot. Let’s make it a podcast episode I sent you a welcome video as I always do with new students, and you hit me back with a video which I absolutely love. So just a quick plug. If anyone gets a welcome video for me, if you would like to send me one back, I watch them all I love getting those because it just it’s awesome to get to know students and stuff. So loved your video, I was like we got it, we got to bring you on, because I’m so curious about your experience and what you’re up to. So really excited to talk about full time and the mindset and a lot of the ins and outs of, of you know, going for it. So needless to say, really excited to chat with you. Before we dive in here. Kristen, do you want to let everybody know where you’re based out of? And then what do you do with your web design business now? It’s full time.

Kristin 5:46
Yeah, so I am originally from a small town in Illinois, but about a little less than eight years ago, I moved to the Greater Milwaukee Wisconsin area, and just bought a house last few months. So I’m here to stay.

Josh 5:58
Congrats awesome. Yeah, I’ve heard good things about that area. I’ve got some colleagues there. Everyone’s really cool that I know in that area.

Kristin 6:07
Yeah, Milwaukee is fantastic. I like to say and I think anybody from Illinois might shun me for this but I like to say it’s all the good parts of Chicago just a little bit north. It’s smaller and all that so i i truly enjoy it. I think it’s one of those big small towns.

Josh 6:22
Yeah, well, probably some Canadian. A lot of Canadian folks there right? I mean, it’s not too far from the border and I think even isn’t like Wisconsin and a bunch of the states of North air. I mean, I feel like when I talk to people from there they sound Canadian.

Kristin 6:38
It’s that’s I was gonna say it’s hard to figure out where people are from because a lot of Minnesotans as well do the like the O’s, like the open all of that. So it’s it’s a big old melting pot of things, but I’ve yet to meet any Canadians around here.

Josh 6:54
Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Well, very, very cool. Tell us about your business. And what you do now, because you have a personal branded website. If you could just give us your you know, your your minute elevator pitch that you would say, in a networking group. When somebody asks you what you do, what do you tell them?

Kristin 7:14
Yeah, so I make, you know, effective websites, specifically for public speakers and coaches. And I do that in a way that keeps them in the loop and values communication and make sure that they are represented in their branding and in their website.

Josh 7:31
Gotcha. So for speakers, coaches, consultants, I imagine before we talk about, you know, even going full time and everything with this, what made you decide on this, this niche or niche was

Kristin 7:43
Have we decided? that we decided for doing niche or niche,

Josh 7:47
I would not trust my pronunciation. I say niche, but I think that’s fairly American, any of you get like, when I have Brits on the podcast, it’s nice, you’re in Australia, it’s all nice. So niche, nice, I tend to just go back and forth, depending on the room I’m in. So maybe we can come up with a, you know, a happy medium between the two.

Kristin 8:07
I’m no authority. So who knows what I’ll say, as I’m going through this, but yeah, I chose to really work with professional speakers and coaches, because I find that a lot of the values kind of align with what I do. And while when I was starting out, there’s always the whole do I niche down or do I, you know, try to make websites for everybody. And I’ll say my first three websites were a forklift repair company, a and then two coaches. And I found that by the second coach, I was already getting more rhythm and realizing what the problems were going to be and what questions they were going to have. And then the forklift one was just such a left field, I knew nothing about that. So it was a lot more work on my end, and just to try to make that connection, because that’s super important to me. And I had worked with a lot of coaches and professional speakers in my full time job, when we would host a lot of events throughout the year and I would be hosting them in person and I got to know a lot of them and they just ended up being my favorite people that I’ve ever met. So I just wanted to work with them more.

Josh 9:14
Well, that makes a lot of sense. I think that’s a great, intentional approach about being really self aware about kind of who you draw jive with and, and and even like, if you came from a professional background, I imagine the coaches and consultants probably were a little more savvy with tech and maybe perhaps got content to you quicker in a better way or maybe understood a little more about I mean, maybe not but you know, I know the problem with coaches consultants in any business owners is they’re busy too. And often sometimes the people who you would think would be the best at that are actually like the worst at that. And then you got, you know, Joe and his forklift company that he’s got a bunch of pictures he sends you right after your meeting. So yeah, maybe not, but it does sound like overall that’s a really interesting point that you just kind of discovered pretty early on. that I like is like this crew that like this tribe.

Kristin 10:03
Yeah, I liked that most coaches and speakers have their content somewhat prepared. And that’s kind of why I went into the professional speaking realm is because everyone that I knew they have a speech, you know, they’ve they’ve said it a million times they know what they’re going to talk about, it’s so much easier to get content from them than it is even from a coach because a coach I find is very reactive to you know who they’re talking to, and really work off of that. But a speaker is a one to many person, so they have to know what they’re doing. So they have been a treat to work with when it comes to content.

Josh 10:37
Interesting. That’s a really, really interesting differentiation between speakers and coaches. And I imagine consultants may be even a completely different thing between those two. I didn’t really think about that. But Wow, my mind’s racing because I just think about, I think about what I do now Kristin, and it’s like, it’s, it’s kind of both. It’s Yeah, I guess I’m a speaker in some ways, although I’ve never spoken on stage other than like some meetups and stuff. But I do, you know, speak and share my knowledge in courses and podcasts and videos and master classes and stuff. And that’s a whole different ballgame, then coaching and looking at a problem. And like when I do my weekly q&a, I have a web design club, and I do do weekly q&a is in there. When I teach on something that I do the mental strain isn’t that bad. But when somebody asked me a question and presents a challenge that I have to think through and really dig deep on what I know, and maybe what I don’t know what we need to find out, it’s a little more exhausting, like coaching. and problem solving is a whole different ballgame than sharing what you already know. So that’s, that’s really, really interesting. But do you like do you kind of funnel them out with different services? I was going to talk about this later. But it’s a good time to ask this question. Or like, is the process the same for speakers versus coaches? What does that look like with actually like what you do and how you help them?

Kristin 11:55
Yeah, my process is generally the same throughout both. I’m every single day, I feel like I’m trying to move my business forward a little bit. And so I’ve started to realize that some of maybe the questions that I asked coaches aren’t questions that I would ask a speaker. And so I’m starting to do a little bit of differentiation, like to collect content, I just have a Google Doc that has a lot of pointed questions. And I’ll take that content and put it into their website where it makes the most sense. And since I’ve been working with speakers, it’s not as easy to just say, like, what’s this program? instead of like, you know, who are you trying to help? The questions are just a little bit different. And so right now I’m working on a huge workbook that’s going to be for speakers only. And it’s just going to, I feel like it’s going to appeal to them a lot more, because the questions are, you know, when you go on stage, how does this feel type of thing?

Josh 12:49
And do a lot of the speakers have books in digital products? Like courses versus coaches? I would imagine, maybe they have courses like myself, but I would imagine that’s probably more of like, they want to get their calendar booked. Right? Like they want to get calls and they want to get, you know, some sort of coaching program Solo is that is that kind of what you see, between those? Yeah,

Kristin 13:07
I’m finding that a lot of the coaches do have those courses kind of go that route more. And then the speakers do have more productized things like a book, because it takes so much to be a speaker, when the world is normal, you know, they’re traveling so much and doing all that they don’t have time to then do a lot of coaching calls. I’ve worked with speakers, and I have one right now that he he does coaching and he’s writing a book. So a lot of them it’s muddied waters. So it’s that’s why it’s good that I’m working with both of them, because they do kind of get a little bit of everything.

Josh 13:39
Yeah, wow, that makes a lot of sense. I just did not even think we were gonna dive into this right from beginning but I’m just like, you’re really making me think about what I do on a day to day basis. Because I, I’ve just now realized, I’m like, 75% speaker, you know, maybe 25% coach, maybe a little more coach, but I’ve tried to I try to balance both. I think as much as I love coaching and problem solving, and you know, seeing somebody like yourself, like getting to know you and your journey. I also hate having a full calendar of calls that wears me out. So I’m kind of like in both. So really, really interesting. So we’ll we’ll come back to this because I am really curious about how you even got to the point of, you know, meeting these consultants, or these coaches and speakers. But let’s back up before you started your website here, Kristen. What were you doing in your former life before you became a web designer and what you’re doing now? What? What were you doing? And then maybe that’ll segue into how web design became a part of your life?

Kristin 14:37
Yeah, so web design came became a part of my life. Honestly, back in my space days. That’s how I that’s how I learned that that’s what I like to do. And which is really embarrassing, and like really tells you you know, like, when I know what

Josh 14:51
I’m finding a lot of web designers started with MySpace because that was like mixing. Yeah, no, that was the first taste that a lot of people got to htt Well, because my space allowed you to customize your site. And then a lot of people were like, especially I was in the band world, this was huge for bands. I mean, we like we paid a guy 800 bucks back then just to like, build our MySpace page. I remember I thought that was like, holy galley under dollars. So I think that’s actually a really crucial starting point for a lot of web designers. So no way.

Kristin 15:23
Yeah, that’s very validating, but because I loves doing that. And so whenever I started thinking about where I wanted to go to college, and what I wanted to do, I was like, why don’t I just do this thing that I find that I’m good at, you know, just playing with the HTML, doing the layouts, all that, and I went to, I went to college for Graphic Communications, web media was the official term of it. And it was two years of that really fun stuff that I like to do the designing the creative. And then the last two years ended up being more of the programming or not even that, but like server side of things, and it was just not I couldn’t grasp it. I don’t know how I passed anything. It was just not in my brain that it worked that way.

Kristin 16:04
And I kind of got away from the web design thing, I ruined my love for all of it. And when I graduated, I was like, Oh, I want to be just a graphic designer, I want to get just the creative side of it. And my dream was to be the graphic designer for the Chicago Blackhawks. I was just like, that’s my thing. And I got an internship in the sporting world, for NASCAR for just graphic design. And I realized very quickly that I did not want to work in sports. My kids love it. But it’s, for me, that’s an entertainment thing and a way to get away from any kind of stress. And I wouldn’t want to watch a sport and feel like I’m working. So

Josh 16:40
That’s so funny, Chris and I, again, I’m right with you. Because when I got into graphic design, I wanted to do design for the blue jackets, because I’m in Columbus, and I’m a big hockey guy. So yeah, that’s so funny. I used to go to the arena and being like, man, I would love to design these banners and stuff in these Facebook graphics. But then similarly as I got further into the graphic design world, I think, Oh my gosh, I bet those teams are so stressed out trying to meet deadlines and right however, you know, the the corporate ladder, they got to run everything past so I’m sure it’s a little bit different on the inside.

Kristin 17:13
Yeah, it was very, very corporate. And I wasn’t expecting that environment. So I did that. And then I was like, Okay, well now what I’ve graduated, I got this degree that I don’t really love. And I was in sort of fill that void I guess of passion. During college, I was in an organization called pi sigma epsilon. And it’s, it’s a co Ed business fraternity. So it’s a professional organization that teaches you sales and marketing skills. And I loved every second of it, I dove in, I wanted to do everything with it. So I got on like the executive board. So I got my leadership, you know, kind of experience, I got to travel across the country for competitions and events. And I loved it so much.

I was like, if I could dream of a perfect job, I don’t even think I would have gotten to that cool of a job. – Kristin

Kristin 17:56
Well, after I completed my internship with NASCAR, and I was like, Well, I don’t know where I’m going with what I’m going to do. I went to an event as an alumni. And they were actually hiring for someone that did graphic design, new web design, and would like to travel and be a consultant to college, college students, you know, throughout the country. And I was like, if I could dream of a perfect job, I don’t even think I would have gotten to that cool of a job. For me, it was perfect. And I was there for seven and a half years. And that’s the only job I technically had full time since I graduated.

Kristin 18:32
So with that, you know, it’s a small team, it’s a nonprofit, and you start getting that a lot of hats and a lot of responsibilities. And things that you didn’t know that you’d be good at, or if you even know what to do. And I loved it. It was everything I wanted, because it was kind of feeding that entrepreneurial spirit that I had that I wanted to have my hands and everything. And I just didn’t know what that was until I got into that position. And people started telling me like, you know, this is because you you’re an entrepreneur, and I was like I didn’t know that, like I did not get that in into my head until people started telling me.

Kristin 19:07
And just throughout the years, more and more came onto my plate and I started managing people and I stopped I still had to travel which started to get kind of not my favorite thing. But it’s very rewarding of a job. But then, you know, all of a sudden, I’m looking around and I’m doing sales, and I’m starting chapters I’m traveling, I’m doing all these things, and I’m not doing the graphic or web design. We were hiring other people. We were hiring consultants or outside freelancers to do that work for us because my plate was just too full. And then I found out what they were making. And I was kind of here.

Josh 19:46
Yeah, here’s the question I had with all this. As your responsibility grows, you’re taking on more hats or taking on more different roles and everything is your income matching all these extra roles you’re taking or were you kept in limited With with, you know what you were offered in that position,

Kristin 20:02
I think kept is a too harsh of a word, but limited is perfect. Because it is a nonprofit and then, you know, we’re just trying to help you’re trying to serve the job is to serve and it was it’s so worthwhile and all the other ways but the income part of it. Yeah, so

Josh 20:20
so you gotta so that really interesting, I think this is really common when people unknowingly realize they’re entrepreneurs. This again, same for me, I feel like I share a kinship with you on this stuff, Christen because very, very similar, I didn’t realize I was an entrepreneur, either even for farther into my web design business, I just thought I was gonna be a designer, a graphic designer or web designer for an agency, and then I thought I might be a small team business owner. And then I realized, um, I actually like doing a lot of different things, not just one one thing, and I don’t like following a checklist, I love making checklists, but I hate following them, which is a natural sign of an entrepreneur.

Josh 20:57
So I think that’s a really, really good point to intentionally like be self aware and, and just look at what you enjoy doing. Because it’s very clear, you enjoyed the marketing and communication and sales and people to people aspect, like myself, the programming side, you probably didn’t love getting into PHP myadmin and looking at database stable, you know, that I understand, like, I get it. So that’s really, really interesting, because I’m sure that was a turning point for you. So you get this, you know, taste of entrepreneurial-ship did you think about or did you try going into more like marketing or just a graphic design areas? or How did web design itself kind of enter in for you?

Kristin 21:39
Yeah, so when I got hired to do that, it was you needed to have experience and I was like, Okay, well, I guess I have it, it’s not going to be my full job I can I can do it. I know I can do it. And it was through that is when I learned more about WordPress, and the different builders of ways that make your life easier. And I was like, This is more of what I enjoy. And this is kind of how I would like it to be so the organization already had that set up. And so when I just jumped in on the team, I was like, Oh, yeah, I can do this, this is easy. Like, this is the fun part, this is bringing me back to why I loved it. And so it it kind of just grew that from there.

Kristin 22:17
But then you know, I love to doing it, I had so much fun. And then you know the the window of being able to do that started getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And we hired out people and like I said, it was just it was kind of a but I really liked to doing that. But I was getting pushed kind of more into the maybe future CEO role. So they were you know, my, my current current my CEO at the time, and some of the volunteers were all like, you need to learn the other things. And I’m like, but I don’t like the other things like they don’t, they’re not they don’t come easy to me, it doesn’t matter if I’m good at something, it doesn’t come easy. Like those are two different things. And so it really kind of took me on a different journey. And I was like, I want to get back to what I love and back to the basics and why I did, why I’ve made all the choices that I’ve made in my life. So that’s how I was like, you know, I can do this web design once I learned WordPress and I use Elementor. So once I learned that, I was like, oh, like I can do this for people that need it and provide that and it’s fun.

Josh 23:16
Well, this is another big point two, because I think the tech side of things deter a lot of people from going into web design full time, it was really scared me because I am not a numbers guy. And I tend to struggle with code. Even though I love CSS, I have a course on it. It took me a while to learn it. And interestingly enough, I recently had another one of my students on who is bilingual, and she knows another language and she actually really enjoyed learning CSS, I kind of wonder if there’s something in that where if you learn different languages, maybe you pick up on different coding languages as well, I don’t know.

Josh 23:52
But either way, I think some people are really interested in code and can understand it. And maybe people like ourselves that it’s a little harder to grasp or we just maybe just don’t love it. But I say all that to say that is a big deterrent. The good news is when it comes to code with builders like Elementor, Divi, like I use, you don’t really need to know much. I mean, technically you don’t need to know anything. But I think it’s good to know the basics of it. And it’s not rocket science, like once you just have a grasp of the basics. It’s actually incredibly easy to use and navigate. And once you do it a few times it becomes natural. And then the other stuff like cPanel and email and databases all that same thing. It’s good to know the basics of that. But then once you know the basics, hire the rest of that out or don’t you know, don’t partner up with somebody or you know, there’s oodles of options to get that off your plate. So I imagine like did you think about that when the time came to go full time? like did you think about how am I gonna handle the stuff I don’t like along with the stuff I do. Like,

Kristin 24:51
I think I’ve always been the person to get myself into problems and figure out how to get out of them before thinking about what I’m actually getting myself into. So it was You know, I was doing so I started doing web design on the side while I still had this job. And that I would run into those problems of these things that I don’t really know about. They were things I’ve definitely taken classes on in college, but I didn’t retain any of it. And so I knew kind of what to Google, like I knew the words that I needed to Google and then it was just tutorials from there, taking courses, all of that, like that’s what got me to being able to confidently be like, okay, I can do every phase of starting a website and making it live.

Josh 25:30
Beautiful, beautiful. And did you have any support forums or Facebook groups or communities you’re a part of at this point to help you out? Or was it just you and you and your trusted best friend Google at that point,

Kristin 25:42
I was definitely in a lot of Facebook groups. I’m in a million Facebook groups I feel like and a few of them are very pointed at web designers or graphic designers and those have been the most helpful thing I was in there yesterday asking a question and I love those communities because no one’s competing with each other there’s no one you know, we’re not performing for anybody. We’re just needing help with a problem and so everyone’s super helpful and I love that about that and I think it’s super important that if you’re going to go full time to get some kind of network that’s going to help you and answer your questions and I found that in the form of Facebook groups especially now because we’re all sitting at home you know, I can’t go to a WordPress meetup or anything like that still, like you know, for we’re just here, pandemic times.

Josh 26:24
A great point. Another great point. This is something I’ve been harping on for a long time now is particularly when you go full time, you literally do not have to do it alone surround yourself with support groups, there’s free Facebook groups I have my web design club there’s like there’s premium options for more in depth, relationships and trusted partnerships. There’s free options 100% agree with you there the groups you were in, was that like Elementor based or just WordPress based,

Kristin 26:50
Um just web designer. I think you had Emma Kate on your podcast at some point and she has a lot of stuff to do with someone into Anna dour and so Emma kind of runs the whole website like website side and then Anna does the graphic design and I’m in both of those and they’ve just been most helpful groups I’ve ever been in ever.

Josh 27:11
Yeah they they’ve done a really great job I’m I’m excited. Well at the time of recording this we’re recording this in early September 2021 next month will be the designer boss number three summit which is going to be really cool.

Kristin 27:23
That’s how I know who you are.

Josh 27:25
Oh, okay. Okay,

Kristin 27:26
The first one that you were on.

Josh 27:28
Okay, that’s right, because I recognize your name when you came through a course and then that’s great to know that was the first introduction Yeah, and they’ve done a really good job at helping both primarily women and the graphic design and marketing world with getting into web design, but they did a really good job I feel like having a really open community for folks just like yourself I think you’re probably like their key demographic professional gal who didn’t want to stay in that certain role and then wanted to go full time graphic design and web design so that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Yeah, that that’s a huge part to going full time so I imagine that gave you some confidence. Take us to like the moment take us to when you were like okay, you know were you making enough on the side to feel like I could really go full time and do this. What did that look like when you were like leading up to and what made you finally go let’s do this. Let’s take

Kristin 28:20
Yeah, so like I said, I was kind of not doing the things that I loved at my job I wasn’t getting paid what I wanted to be paid and at the time so as pandemic started I was doing some side business some side you know, websites, and we were in an apartment It was my then boyfriend now fiance, but we wanted a house and we were like we can’t afford a house. So I’ll start doing side stuff, we’ll start making more money. And then so the pandemic really opened my eyes to a lot of things. It was that I wasn’t extremely happy I’m the position as great of an organization that I worked for I wasn’t happy there it wasn’t serving me they weren’t I wasn’t serving them anymore all that well.

Kristin 29:00
And then we wanted to buy this house and we got engaged we want now we have to afford a wedding. And then the the moment that it happened and we’re gonna go like real kind of more personal on the side is so in the beginning of February this year, two days before my 30th birthday, my dad passed away of cancer. And my dad was my biggest supporter in the business every time I would see him he would be like, how’s the business going? How do you know what’s this and he would ask me about the clients like by their name, which is amazing because he was a career person like he worked for the same company for 38 years as a teenager and then he worked for the same company until he retired. And so I would not have expected the support from him because he was always like, you know what’s next, like make sure you’re you’re stable and everything but when he passed away, it was kind of like, I had to reflect on a lot of things personally, like I already knew I was unhappy, but I was scared to take the leap.

Kristin 29:58
I was making money. I had clients, I had some connections that were helping me and referring me. But when my dad died, it was, you know, for he was retired for six months, he worked his literal entire life at one company and didn’t get to enjoy any of that. And so it was just kind of like a, I have to do this. And it’s on paper looks like the wrong equation, because I was like, Oh, I’m going to buy a house. So he passed away in February, March, we bought the house. And then in May I quit. And it was like most people don’t buy a house and then quit their jobs. But I knew the income was was able to be there. And I had enough in my savings that it was, I can sustain this for a couple months. And if not, I had already built such a network through my old job of like professionals and high level executives at you know, very common, well known companies that if I needed to get another job, I had connections I had people that have already said that they were my safety net. So it was just a combination of everything and then it just, it hit me one day. And I was just like, I gotta do this. I I’m I have it I have to stop stalling.

Josh 31:10
Yeah, wow. Well, Chris, and that is so powerful. Thank you, thank you for being open and transparent about that. That is a huge, huge life moment and mental shift. And first off something you know, a little note before we get back to that, if somebody is going to quit their job, it is best to buy a house first to get that loan and then quit the job because if you had quit your job six months before getting alone that one, there would have been like, you just started this business that’s that’s not gonna happen.

Kristin 31:37
Exactly that was we I knew that part. I was like, like, I’ve just sat there at my job for a couple months. And I had to I had some responsibilities I needed to fulfill and I owe the company that and so we had a big event in March and I was like, two weeks after that. I was like well I’m not here So

Josh 31:53
You did you did that right there for sure. Wow, this stuff with your dad, though, like that? Is it something? Well, and I just like the personal aspect to all this too, aside from the emotional stuff is like dat really does a lot to mindset. I feel like when somebody is that close, and then isn’t there anymore, or like I know for me, I didn’t have that close of a person passed away. But I did have two people on my life that were really important to me from a professional standpoint. One was the I used to be a cabinet maker. And the boss of that company I just I looked up to in a lot of ways and stuff. And when I started my web design business, whenever I’d run into him, he’d be like, so how’s the web design stuff going?

Josh 32:42
He’s like, you know, maybe you’ll do our website one day, stuff like that. And then he passed away. And it was really, it was really, really devastating. And in a weird way, I kind of felt like I always wanted some approval from him and my business and when he passed away, in a weird way, it was almost a freeing It was like Yeah, I don’t I don’t know, it’s kind of weird. It’s weird to say because I don’t it’s hard to articulate I, I just, yeah, emotions mess with you. And that kind of stuff. I think when there is somebody in some sort of mentorship role, even if it’s, you know, obviously, your dad, that’s a whole different ballgame. But even if somebody is a mentor or a coach or an old boss or something, they’re they’re important to you and your life. And when they’re, when they’re gone, or whatever that looks like it definitely messes with your mindset.

Josh 33:24
But I do think it does often open up some some freedom. And it does in your case, like make you really look at the full picture and go for it. And I was thinking about another gal on my network who was really impactful for me in my business. And when she passed away, she was quite young, that kind of made me realize to like, man, life, life is short, like I want to enjoy every day. So some of those things as devastating as they can be, are really big moments. So it’s really interesting to hear you, you know, look at your dad’s life. And that look that’s really common most all of our generations parents, right, worked for one company, ain’t nobody, no kids these days, you know, we’ll bring it back to the kids these days. Nobody’s working for one company longer than like six months. So right?

Kristin 34:09
Yeah. And it’s like, this is something that people don’t really talk about a lot. When it comes to the starting a business and everything. It’s like, you got to remember that life is happening outside of all of that. And I don’t think it’s really talked about a lot because I also lost my grandpa like right after that, too. And it was just like, I was just with so much I was like, I need to change. And I can say yeah, I was making enough money and all that. But it’s like, the bigger thing was it’s, I needed to protect myself and just kind of like, do what I needed to do. And like, yeah, remember that? Yeah, the life is short thing and to just, you know, not take to take calculated risks, really.

Josh 34:47
And I think it’s generationally, it’s different because in our parents generation, they didn’t have the technology we have now so I don’t know how many entrepreneurs there were back then it was a whole different All game if you were going to be a business owner in the 40s 50s 60s 70s whatever than it is now and I actually the more people I talked to particularly from an older generation I’m I’m really thrilled about our time right now like I know there’s a lot going on in the world as there always is. And you know I think it’s easy to focus on negative stuff but if you quiet some of that out for a little bit and just think about the amazing opportunity we have to work from home and like we’re doing this call where a few states away from each other and we’re having this call together like that is amazing Yeah, and we can build businesses online we can work at home if we want we can work in a coffee shop we can is particularly a web design and graphic design you can make as much income as you want there is no cap there’s no limit you can literally as smart and as hard as you want to work you can make it happen so did all those thoughts come into play when you you know made that decision?

Kristin 35:53
Absolutely, I had I had the weight of the entire world and a million other people’s worlds on my shoulders and once I started once I quit and I sat at this desk and I was like okay, we’re gonna make this work and I The good thing about and you kind of touched on it is that our effort can actually be what matters to our income and like it’s kind of directly related and you know, in a nine to five a salary job I didn’t have to work that hard sometimes like I could just kind of skate by and you know, phase out and do all that but right now it’s a it’s such a blessing to know that if I only want to work five hours today, but I work really hard like it’s it’s been a great day and it’s going to be super productive and it’s more motivational to me and just my personality type to be like you have to get this done otherwise you’re not getting paid like alright then let’s get it done.

Josh 36:47
It’s a big mindset shift there too isn’t it when you go full time because you’re like wow, I don’t have to work eight hours a day if I don’t want to I can or I can work like really hard and quite a few hours and a few days and then have you know for days that are either off or maybe a couple of days that are low key that’s kind of my schedule I tend to work a lot on Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays Fridays are half days and Mondays are like kind of easy days I don’t do any calls I just do planning or writing or kind of whatever I want to work on and there’s seasons just like any any any position there are seasons where that are really busy.

Josh 37:22
But then there are seasons or like particularly during the summer I try to spend as much time with my little girls so that is a very very new concept in the grand scheme of any sort of you know modern work age so as I say all that say it is a lot different with our generation because our parents generation is they may be supportive but they probably don’t understand quite this realm in this world which is really really cool and really really freeing so I figured that all played into that decision to actually you know put in your two weeks and go full time now at this point two questions I want to I definitely want to know like did you have projects lined up the other thing I would like to know is what did the risk factor look like for you let’s start there. What was how did you analyze the risk like you said worst case scenario you could get another job because you had a network is was that pretty much your safety plan and for you know, God forbid, it just didn’t work out after a few months of going full time?

Kristin 38:24
Um I would say so yeah, that was kind of my safety plan and I knew I didn’t want that and if I don’t want something I’m going to work as hard as possible to make sure that doesn’t happen and I’m very lucky to have an amazing fiance and he was willing to go get a side job if he was like you know if this doesn’t work he’s like you have to go for this you’ve been talking about this for years like at this point you just you need to do this for you and he was like I’ll go get a job at you know some store and I’ll bring in extra income while you do this and I did not want to put that burden on him so that was just extra I don’t want to say pressure but it was more motivation for the fire it was such fuel and I was just like you know Do I have to get a side job like am I gonna have to go and work at Starbucks or something like I don’t want to do that and so I with doing all of that it kind of jumps into the I knew I needed to raise my rates and start charging more because if I thought about what I was making already at my at my previous job what I needed to pay for you know, like my mortgage I needed to you know, I had to upgrade all of my technology I was working off of my works computer for most of the time, but then I had just a tablet and I like I had all these expenses I needed to do and I just worked backwards of like, what I was charging was not enough.

Josh 39:43
Yeah. Set well that’s another awesome you know, support system for you as well to have your fiance who backed you up on that because that is a biggie. You really do you need to have the support of who’s ever closest to you particularly if it’s a relationship like that because you know if if they’re really Worried or against it that’s a whole different set of challenges but it seems like most people I talked to are in this position there’s a level of trust there and comfort and support that’s going to help you as well and I think equally as powerful is like worst case scenario is what you just don’t want to have happen. I haven’t heard anyone say quite like that but I love that because like in my case, going full time if I had an even going full time with courses now like for whatever reason if it dropped off worst case for us as we would have to move in with parents, and I’m never gonna end up on the streets that’s never gonna happen you know that I do not want that to happen and that you know, that’s far from my mind now because we’re kind of luckily fortunately past that but when I went full time that did occur to me like okay, what is the worst case scenario we’d have to move in with parents? Yeah, I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure that does not happen and worst case scenario you know that’s not that bad in the long femur things

Kristin 41:01
right and then how privileged of us to say that and I totally like I totally acknowledge that but like yeah that’s what’s gonna say if anything I could have moved back in with my mom I there there’s always options or you know, my friends or something could have made it work and I think that that’s what’s important for anybody listening if they’re like, well I’m not engaged to a guy that’s good that’s willing to do that or you know, maybe my parents live too far away or something like that it’s just finding some kind of support system and finding that that safety net i think is important that safety net then might be too far down like further down than you’d want it to be but it was still there and in analyzing that I never had to deal with that

Josh 41:39
yeah and the risk factor with with your family as well like for people who have kids it’s a it’s a different ballgame as well interestingly enough, you did commit to a mortgage right before this happens so it’s not like you You know, reduce your expenses and add a bunch of savings and then just went for it was like you added expenses and a lot more and then went for it so there’s there’s a little more fuel to the fire to I’m not gonna say pressure because I think that all is good fuel to the fire because it does, it forces you to raise your rates. And I’m sure think smarter, valuing your time more. When you went full time, I’m fascinated by the mindset shift of a nine to five person to freedom first and the 24. Seven. Did you still work? A lot of hours? Did you? Did you have any sort of trouble, like reducing hours at any point? Because I did that was a really it took me years to not feel weird if I wasn’t working at 3pm. So what does that look like?

Kristin 42:41
Um, yeah, right away, I Well, first, I had a million things to do, right. So I like had this new house, which is my child at this point. And like I had so much things, like so many things in my personal life to do and all that. But I did, I totally felt guilty if I wasn’t sitting at this desk from nine to five. And I had a moment where my fiance said, like, let’s go to the grocery store. I’m like, I can’t do that. It’s two o’clock. I’m like, wait a minute, like, I can’t like I can’t. And I don’t need to work later tonight to make up for this or anything. But I think the biggest struggle I had was making the most of the time that I’ve been sitting like at a computer because of that nine to five, getting paid no matter what. Like here I am just sitting here and I just got to make sure I’m answering emails on time. And all that is like in that totally like does not income, encapsulate everything I had to do for that my career. But now I’m like, if I if I go quicker, it’s a reward. But before the nine to five, if you go quicker, you’re still sitting here you might get a good liabilities.

You don’t need more hours, you need better hours. – Josh quoting from Basecamp creators 

Josh 43:43
It’s a really goes back to one of my favorite quotes from the book rework from the guys from Basecamp, which is you don’t need more hours, you need better hours, and entrepreneurial-ship it is a whole different ballgame, then then a salary position because yeah, like I think is in a salaried position. As long as you’re at your desk and you’re doing something, even if it’s a low level task, probably still get to the same end point. Well newsflash for everyone who is full time now or is going to go full time. When it’s all on you, and you have complete freedom that does not apply. So answering emails for eight hours a day is way different than like vision, like envisioning your next three months in planning out a new product or a new service or raising your rates, those tasks, they’re all really important, but they’re not equal as far as the output that they’re going to get. So I know for me, this is something I’ve really, really learned and I’m really preaching to all my students, particularly when it comes to scaling to six figures, is you have got to do a task inventory and look at what you’re doing day to day and then figuring out okay, what’s a high level task that only I can do what’s a low level task that I can still do, but maybe in short bursts, or controlled times, or that I can automate or that I can hire out And then focus on that the you know, the the 150 200 $300 an hour task. Did you How long did it take for you? I mean, I know you’re still early in the journey because you met full time in May, we’re talking in beginning of September.

Kristin 45:12
June 1st was my first day as my own boss. And so it’s September 1 now. So it’s just been a couple months. And I will say, like, I, I knew before, like, when I switched over to this, you know, you have all the freedom, but you got to do a lot of the things. mindset was, I still get up early, I’m still at my desk and ready to work before 9am. I’ve already done you know, like, here’s my top three tasks for the day, I did carry that over. And that does really help because I noticed that there were a couple of days, it was like, maybe I’ll just do laundry, or I’ll, you know, watch some TV in the morning or something. And that’s nothing I would ever have done whenever I was working a nine to five when I was in the office. But like, I was like, I can’t do that, like I found myself not being as productive. And so yeah, I carried that over, I think I have a good grasp on it now. Because my personal responsibilities are a lot less. And I say that, but also I’m starting to now I want to renovate our house and I’m like, Oh, here we go with those projects. So we’ll see.

Josh 46:13
Yeah, it’s a, it’s a fine line to balance between, like enjoying the freedom you have, and actually not taking advantage of it in a way like, it is kind of tricky, I’ve had to balance myself with that, too. There are some weeks where, like, if me and my family will go to the zoo or something that’s almost a full day, it’s like, you know, we do some stuff like that. But then there are times where I find myself not paying enough attention to my business, or I tend to try to catch myself and I’ve been working from home for almost 12 years now.

Josh 46:44
So I’m, I can pretty I can pretty, you know, pretty much quickly dial in what I need to do, or if I feel like, Alright, I’m spending a little too much time outside of what I need to do. But I think you’ll probably learn that as well as far as like the seasons of when you can invest more time outside the business versus really going ham on it. But I think it’s a that’s a great point, it’s really important to look out for because yeah, the next thing you know, you could be watching, you know, you could binge a TV show, and then it’s like two o’clock and you’re like, oh, shoot, I gotta do something today. So it’s also, I think there’s a huge level of I guess, self control. And you really have to be self aware and kind of be your own boss in a lot of ways. Did you expect Did you have any issues? I mean, it sounds like you’re, you’re a go getter, I probably didn’t affect you too much. But did you have any points where you had to realize like, well, I’ve got to be really self motivated to get this stuff done when there’s no deadlines unless you set them or your clients,

Kristin 47:41
Right. I would actually say that I went through that phase and learned those lessons during the pandemic and working for a nine to five. That’s where I kind of got into that. And so the transition was a lot more smooth, because I was always thinking like, Okay, if I can do this quicker if I can do this, I was you know, here’s this whole to do list I can do what can I do? That’s kind of more brainless, like what can I do when I’m watching TV and hanging out with people or, you know, and just sitting on my computer like, that’s, I definitely learned that earlier on whenever I first started working from home because I was in an office every single day or I was traveling. So before this pandemic, so I learned it then.

Josh 48:25
Gotcha. So going full time. Going back to my other question, what did the business landscape look like for you? Did you have a bunch of projects backed up that you were like, Alright, finally, I can have time to work on these or was it real, you know, jump into deep and hope it works out? kind of thing. What did it look like? As far as your pipeline of projects and stuff?

Kristin 48:47
Yeah, going full time, I had two projects that I’d gotten from a referral basis. Um, they were kind of ending as I was going full time. And so when I went full time, I all of a sudden had a ton of time. And this goes back to why I chose the public speaking thing actually, was I was like, Okay, I need clients, I need to figure out how to make this happen. And I ended up actually reaching out to a mentor that I had met through my old job and he was a he was a he was a professional speaker. He doesn’t do it anymore.

Kristin 49:20
But I was like, Can I just chat with you about you know, what a professional speaker but want no website or marketing, all that. And we had an hour long conversation, but by the end of it, he’s like, you know, you should talk to one of my friends who owns a speaking agency. And I was like, that’s not exactly what I was going for. But okay, I mean, at this point, Business is business. And the moment I started talking to the friend, I was like, this is this is the actual opportunity that I needed, because I did that website. And now it’s all of the speakers that work for the agency. I’m their, their trusted person to go to for the website. And so I had so I had the Ending when I went full time and I think I had a couple like side like graphic design gigs, which I don’t love to do anymore. I’d really like to focus on these high value websites and everything. But I was doing some hourly work for a couple of the previous clients that I had that they just needed a new PowerPoint, and I just, I can’t look at something and it’d be poorly designed without being like, Can I help you?

Josh 50:23
Yeah.

Kristin 50:26
So I had a little bit going, but it was a little bit, you know, I didn’t know where my next paycheck where my first real paycheck from myself was coming from in the business. But like I said, I had savings. I had all that. And I’m trying to think, you know, I was like, my mom has her own business kind of on the side too. And she, oddly, she hasn’t paid me to do her website. But I’ll talk to her about that. But I like I knew I had that kind of in

Josh 50:55
The back pocket I raised you You owe me a free website, exactly.

Kristin 50:59
100%, I owe that woman the world. But I was just like, I had some things that I could have done for people. But it just, I decided that I needed to learn more about my target market, and that just paid off in dividends. So

Josh 51:11
That’s awesome. Well, hats off to you for realizing that so soon, and you just hit the nail on the head on how to start getting clients. This is this is the number one question I get all the time I understand. But sometimes it boggles me that the most simplest approach to getting clients is so overlooked, which is to talk to your freaking already established network. Right? Those are the people who already know you and they know a lot of other people talk to them. So in most business owners and professionals are super open to having a call with somebody. And I just want to take this moment right here to mention everybody and encourage you do just what you did Chris and reach out to somebody you know in your network who is professional or who might know a lot of people and there is nothing wrong with what you do.

Josh 51:57
Well you did as an interesting approach because you thought about that target market and just ask questions about them. It wasn’t like you were like, Hey john, or whatever his name is, you know, do you know any people you can send my way you can do that too. But a more tactful approach to build trust and authority is to go that route to like be curious and ask about what they’re looking for. Because that’s going to show a very different side of Kristen than just like hey, I’m doing website design now Do you know anybody it’s like yeah, what do you think clients need? Whoo That’s a powerful stuff I’m super excited for you like Did that help you also craft your services? Because I imagine you figured out that they like and subsequently are you doing more than just websites are you doing email marketing social anything like that? How is that kind of how you were able to craft your services for this target market?

Kristin 52:44
Yeah, um, so the thing is, you mentioned like Oh, you’re a speaker. Do you know any speaker that need websites? like that kind of question I had that I had, I had about 30 questions to ask this man. And that was the last question and I didn’t even get to get to that before he was like you need to talk to this person so that’s that whole thing but that call was truly life changing because I went into that call assuming so much I thought that I could make a lead magnet that’d be perfect for speakers because of my background in some sort of marketing and sales and I threw it out there to this guy and I was like, you know here’s four different lead magnets I thought of which one would you like and he basically said none of them were great he’s just like what authority are you to tell me how to market my speaking business and I was like, Yeah, you’re right like and it was a trusted person so it was like it was a conversation all like he was there to help me clearly.

Kristin 53:38
And so that really put me back to the drawing board and I recorded the call and I still have it and basically like I use the words that he said I put them straight to my website I record every call I have with a potential client because when I’m doing the proposal I want to use their words and I know you’ve talked about this it’s like sales 101 I’ve been told this like for the last 10 years of you need to you know ask somebody what they want and then tell them that they you know, tell them that you can do what they want and the exact same words and…

Kristin 54:05
So um, so that kind of got me into that and then for Am I doing more than websites I do maintenance which you obviously know that because that’s how that’s the course I’ve taken from you. I do maintenance for my clients and then I do have some that have me paid hourly to do like Canva templates for them because they just want some easy way to build out their social media. And so I I’m willing to do that it’s not like a full term but I would love to eventually hire somebody to work under me that does all of that that’s kind of like the goal like maybe in a couple months or a year I already know somebody that’d be great for it. So I do offer a little bit more than things and I’ll design a lead magnet if they have it. What I don’t do is copywriting because I can talk I can’t write. Most of my website is written because I said you know I used a Google doc and turned on the talk to text.

Josh 54:58
Me I say talkers. Just the better Yep, yep, yep,

Kristin 55:01
That’s how I do everything is I have to do it that way. And like that’s Yeah, so those are kind of my services. And so yeah, that call did change everything for me because I was like I thought I knew. And I turned out, I didn’t,

Josh 55:14
Wow, I can’t even tell you how valuable that is. I mean, obviously, you know, the value of that call, you know that that just goes to prove just reaching out to somebody. And asking questions can literally be life changing, because a few months after going full time, you could be in a way different spot, Kristen, if you hadn’t had that call, like, maybe you put all your eggs in this, these baskets of like legions and reaching out to speakers. But if it doesn’t convert, you’re in a whole different place than just asking those pertinent questions and hearing exactly, you know, what is most needed and what he knows, and then he knows, and I that was a really interesting point that you didn’t even need to ask him for referrals. Because another sales trick, if you just ask questions, and are genuine, like really, genuinely curious, and want to provide solutions, you don’t even have to ask for the job, you don’t even have to sell. That’s what’s really cool about some of these different type of sales tactics, because if you do it right, and you’re really curious, and you really care and really want to help, you don’t need to sell at all, it’ll just naturally come to you. So that’s really, really cool.

Kristin 56:19
Like I really have the organization that I used to work for to thank for that, because we, you know, their whole mission is to, is to help college students learn sales and marketing. And throughout that we did annual competitions that are huge. It’s what the organization is known for, that these really high level executives come in, and they judge a sales competition, and these students get 12 minutes to sell something. And there’s a whole training that goes with it. And I’ve gotten to sit on that training for years. And I’ve gotten other personalized training from people. And that’s, that’s the basis of that, too. So this isn’t just a web design, sales thing that you can do, or like a freelancer thing, if anyone’s listening like this is what top tier sales trainings are teaching people as well. And so I think, obviously, if it works for us, it works for them. And just, you know, vice versa.

Josh 57:06
That’s great to know, because I, as you probably know, I am not in the academic world, I don’t I have very mixed feelings and emotions about most higher education. And I often I often think like, you know, because I know what works for me because it actually worked. And I actually sold high end websites, and I actually built a six figure business. But there’s still part of me that kind of feels like am I just like, you know, like, I feel like I’m almost a kid still, like, I’m not a real adult in the, in the working world or corporate world because I’m not in the corporate world. Well, I guess I am, but I, you know, I’m not a suit and tie kind of go downtown kind of guy.

Josh 57:45
So I’ve always felt odd. And I kind of wondered if it was different in corporate and in higher ed. But what’s interesting is that this point, I’m hearing more and more people from that world, like, come to me and come to my colleagues type of strategies, because it’s more personal. What’s more real it’s, it does translate what is the same tactics that translate with selling a pizza shop website, are often the same tactics that would sell a multimillion dollar deal and in the corporate world. So that’s awesome to hear. I really appreciate I appreciate hearing that because it shows me that, you know, this stuff works in every situation and different budgets and different clients. That’s really cool. So you, you refined your services, raised your rates? What did you do to get more clients outside of that? Did you join like networking groups? Or it’s a little different during COVID? Did you join any like online forums for that kind of stuff? Did you join new groups like Facebook for speakers? or How did you start to expand your client base from there?

Kristin 58:46
Yeah, so as a reminder to live in three months, but I don’t, all of my clients have been from referral, or from this speaking agency, or it’s like a friend of a friend type of thing. But I spend a lot of my time like, I read books that are like, how to be a professional speaker, you know how to uplevel I read those blogs, like specifically for speakers, and maybe one day I want to do that, but like, right now I just, I’m just continually learning about what, what they want what they need, but I was in Facebook, like the Facebook groups, or how I got my start, and it’s just referral from there.

Josh 59:26
That’s great. Well, a really, really good solid tactic with reading more about your target market because I’m sure you’ll be able to hit them with ideas and strategies, and they might be like, Oh, I didn’t even I don’t even think about that. And the really cool thing about having similar niches, niches, whatever you chaise if we want to create something like like that I was looking at for instance, the cool thing about that is you get to pull from other projects. It’s like every time you do a project, you’re going to be more you’re going to build more muscle in that niche. You know, like you’re going to be jacked by the time you do 50 speaker websites, because you’re gonna know exactly what works, how to you know how to frame it, obviously, you’re going to cater it to the to the person or to the company.

Josh 1:00:09
But that’s really, really cool to really take a deep dive into what they need, which is, which is awesome. And I think this is a perfect example of focusing on, you know, one target market or a couple of different industries, which is, which is really, really cool. And yeah, you’re in a great spot just a few months in with the referral chain, because you don’t need to push or sell as much as just serve, which is really, really cool. How do you feel about it? Three months in, I was gonna ask this later on, but like, are you? Are you? Are you still daunted in any way? Or do you feel like sky’s the limit? Are you more excited than ever? What? Yeah, what if you could, if you could sum up your feelings, three months in

Kristin 1:00:44
All of that, I feel so excited because it’s gone so well. And some days, it’s kind of like, depending on the day, but I’ll have that like imposter syndrome of like, this shouldn’t be going that well for you. But then some of me is like, I’ve been working towards this for so long. And like, it’s crazy. Because while I haven’t been designing websites for people for more than a year, at this point, I have so many other skills that I use in my business that make me feel more confident about everything. So I am very much just like, sky’s the limit. And being in groups and you know, Facebook groups and stuff, I hear people’s complaints about like, why it’s not going great for them. And part of me is like, I don’t have that problem. And why don’t

Josh 1:01:28
Well, they’re probably they’re probably not calling people in their professional networks that are coming with this approach. And I don’t mean I don’t mean to sound like, you know, kind of sinning, because I know when you get started in business, if you have no mind for business at all, you have to learn that what’s interesting, and I think what’s really cool about your situation is you came from a professional background. So yeah, you probably didn’t need to learn or hear me say, talk to somebody you know, in your professional network. I imagine that was kind of natural for you to think about that. Right? Which

Kristin 1:01:57
I mean, I was being told that for a year that’s how I was successful in my past job was I needed to reach out and that’s what everyone said, like, you know, you’re working with a bunch of salespeople, they want to get on the call, they want to get on a phone call or zoom and talk to you they don’t it’s it’s like this weird and I’m not trying to call anybody out or anything or say that one’s better than the other one one works for me better than the other is, some people like to flex that they don’t talk to their clients. And like they almost like that’s the goal is to automate everything and onboard and all that. And then all of a sudden, they make a great website, and they never really have to connect with somebody, but I find it it’s been so worth it to take that extra time and mental space to talk to people and because you’re making a personal connection, and then they’re referring you.

Josh 1:02:43
That is a great point.

Kristin 1:02:45
I had a business or I had a person a coach that I made her website and she said that she chose me because I was the only one that was willing to get on multiple zoom calls before she even paid me. And I was like, Well, yeah, what? You’re not gonna just gonna pay me Why would you trust me and she was like, well, that’s what everyone expects is to just trust or to post, you know, six things on Instagram and all of a sudden, they’re gonna have all these clients come in, and I just, I knew that wasn’t gonna work for me. And so like I said, I’m not saying it’s all designers, and I’m not trying to call anybody out whatever works for people does. But it was almost I almost felt like a fraud or that I was doing something wrong, because I liked to do that. Like it’s, it’s so shifted in my mind that it was like web designers, they just sit at their computer, they don’t talk to people they don’t want to. And all of my classmates in college, we’re that kind of way. And then I would you know, walk into the classroom and say, like, Hi everybody, and like be like that person that everyone was like, Oh, no, like she’s too loud for this room. But like now it’s my strength. And so

Josh 1:03:49
That is a strength early on in the business. And I think what a lot of web designers don’t realize is if you go out on your own, and you wear all the hats, you are the salesperson, so whether you like it or not, you have to talk with people. Now, the cool thing about web design is for people who are extremely introverted, and just cannot stand talking with people, there are still a lot of avenues. I mean, honestly, that type of personality type is best suited for just a job as a web designer or developer.

Josh 1:04:20
However, if you still want to have more freedom, that’s the beauty of white labeling is you can become popular and in demand in these groups. And like I have a couple people on my web design club, who are like the go to guys now for that kind of stuff. And they’re more introverted, but they’re really good at certain aspects. And that’s how they’re getting leads. So that can be done too.

Josh 1:04:40
But yeah, I think if you are somebody who is the face of your business and in whether you again, whether you like it or not, you are the salesman, and you almost have to be the salesman or sales gal first before anything else because you can be the best developer in the world. But if you can’t sell your services, that’s the problem. So it is interesting. I’m sure you felt kind of maybe out of place or odd, but I definitely want to encourage you and anyone else who is in that role, especially, particularly if it’s going really well to not feel bad about that, because you have worked your ass off up to this point.

Kristin 1:05:10
Yeah.

Josh 1:05:11
And you just translated everything. And again, going back to the idea of the mindset of like, how to get clients reaching out focusing on your target market, it took me a long time to get to that point. And I famously talked about how my first business card had drum lessons, along with my MySpace page services and web design, like it did not even dawn on me that I should not have that type of service on my business card. But that just goes to show you can come a long way in a short amount of time, you know, from a professional standpoint, and knowing your clients and services. So I think it’s all really valid in this case. And like I said, I, I see it all the time. And I feel for people who are stuck or are off to a slow start. But the reality is, if you just hide behind your computer, and you don’t get out there and you don’t serve and you don’t ask questions, and you just try to sell in a sneaky or shady way, it’s not gonna work. So these things, these things are crucial. And I think the most freeing part is, it’s, especially when it comes to how you your approach of like, serve, oversell. You don’t have to sell, you can just ask questions and try to help people and that is how you get clients in 2021 and beyond. So

Kristin 1:06:23
Right. And well, the thing is like going back to the niches and stuff, I work with people that also value communication, they’re speakers, they’re people that talk anyways, think about the forklift guy that I did the website for. He didn’t want to get on a call, it was like purely through email. And so like there is that kind of thing. Whenever if you’re thinking about your target market, I value communication, I hope that people I work with are going to answer my phone calls or whatever, I don’t get my phone number out anymore, just because like I had one client that texted me and I was like, This is not good. Like I was like I I don’t answer my texts from my friends. I’m not gonna answer my texts for my clients, like so bad at it.

You can’t make connections if you’re not trying to make connections. – Kristin

Kristin 1:07:00
But like I learned that lesson really quick. But yeah, there’s like, there’s ways to utilize your strengths. And to go to the whole finding clients thing. If you think about, like, if we come out of the web design world, like if you think about if you just sit in your house. And your goal is to make friends, you’re not going to reach your goal because you’re not doing anything to get towards like the making friends, like I moved to a new city by myself didn’t know a single person in the entire like state. And I had to make friends. So I had to put myself out there I had to go to events and things to meet people. And that wasn’t going to happen if I just sat at home. And so it’s like, yes, sometimes we do have to do the uncomfortable things to get to where we want to go. But if you if I made it a game, honestly, like when I’m thinking about like meeting people and like trying to find clients like it was like, if I you know, if I do all this like, point for me type of thing. Like I have to get through this, and I can put on a brave face and reach out to this person. And then once I’m done, I can put on sweat pants and just walk away. You know, like it was like a reward system. But it’s just yeah, that’s like kind of my biggest. Yeah, you can’t make connections if you’re not trying to make connections.

Josh 1:08:09
And I think another really you mentioned uncomfortable. I think this is a really important point when it comes to this. And that is just because something is uncomfortable for you now, it doesn’t mean it’s always gonna be uncomfortable. It’s just because you haven’t done it. Like I talked with Bama Gallagher, who’s the radio voice of the Columbus blue jackets. I have hit him on the podcast. I don’t know if you heard that one. It was about Get it? Yeah. So he

Kristin 1:08:32
Oh, I saw the Columbus blue jackets. And I was like I am immediately.

Josh 1:08:37
He was so great. But one point he said in there in that talk, which was Episode 104, if anyone wants to go back and listen to it, one thing that’s really applicable here is he was like, people feel like they’re terrible on camera, and they get real nervous to speak and he’s like, you’re supposed to be bad, you don’t do it that much. So if someone is not used to going to a networking group, it’s okay to feel uncomfortable, you’re gonna be a little awkward, it’s gonna feel weird, you haven’t done it that much. And I’m saying this because that’s exactly how I felt I put off going to a networking group.

Josh 1:09:08
Because I, you know, despite being a social person, I didn’t feel comfortable in those settings. I hated speaking. I was terrible on camera when I started doing that stuff. And it was really uncomfortable. But over the years, I got better and better and better and more comfortable. And then I ended up being the president of the group. And I ended up like attracting a ton of people to the group and it became like Mike, my spot my tribe. So all that to say just because something’s uncomfortable, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. And it doesn’t mean it’s always going to be uncomfortable, you will learn to adapt to it and get better at it. And that I think that goes with sales too. For people who are terrified with talking with a potential client again, the short trick is just to serve and ask questions and don’t try to sell yourself and you will get used to it more and actually kind of curious, what are some of the areas in your business christian right now that maybe you have more uncomfortable at first, but they You’re getting used to Is it like anything technical or is it anything Are you getting used to like not having a you know salary built out for the rest of the year like what is the things that you’re getting used to already brainstem oh yeah

Kristin 1:10:19
Like the the side business like that business side that like I didn’t have to worry about it back then like I was just making you know a couple 100 bucks on the side and people were Venmo me and it was just like that but now like it’s all I got so I have to do all these I have to spend that time and do those things and learn it and I plan on hiring someone to do that for me because it’s not something I’m going to be great at. So that’s how

Josh 1:10:42
I would do that as soon as you can for sure that’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Yeah, I actually will say you’ll save a lot more generally that costs evens out or actually ends up making you more because they know the tax laws and they know where the breaks are and you end up saving hundreds 1000s.

Kristin 1:11:00
Sleep better at night like you know like anybody that started a business and they haven’t done their taxes yet it keeps us up you know, it’s like I don’t want to do it. It’s big and scary and then all of a sudden it’s like oh,

Josh 1:11:10
It’s like four it’s like I don’t want to go to jail because I didn’t understand this line on a tax form you know, but that’s a great point, the tax thing that is a big thing because you might make you know, seven $8,000 and it’s like Whoa, I made a grand building websites and it’s like, oh, you know, actually Yeah, actually I didn’t take home 1000 I had to pay a couple 1000 in taxes or whatever it is and there’s expenses so that is that’s a great point that’s a big mental my like a mindset shift when it comes to but I think that helps with your rates too because it’s like okay, this is why I don’t charge 500 bucks for a website right because there’s a lot more to that than just the 500 bucks for my time.

Kristin 1:11:49
Exactly so so there’s that like part of it but I think on the technical side it’s going live is the most stressful thing and I have to do it later today with a website is I don’t know why but like I get so scared that I’m gonna mess up something you know, because I’m building you know, staging sites and then I got to go live and I’m just I’m still getting to the point where that’s more of a system and just a process I got to go through but that’s been the one the one thing that I’m just like, Oh, I don’t know how to do this and that’s why I’m asking questions to people that know better than me.

Josh 1:12:23
Gotcha. Now when you go live, let’s get technical for a second. Are you using a like a duplicator tool or through hosting or what do you typically go live with?

Kristin 1:12:33
Uh, you know, we’re still working that out. So currently I do I use siteground for hosting and I have all my websites on there so I do have that like next year I’ll have some recurring income and all of that but so I do siteground and then I have them in like I’m just like a temporary domain and so to get to a website it’s like you know Kristen PS seven two you know all of that and so like the I’ll send that to a client once I’m done with it so they can give me the feedback but then it’s once I have that and it’s all great then what how am I getting it to you know that person’s name calm like that’s the I have to what search and replace all of the string I have to do something in WordPress the other day in that mess

Josh 1:13:16
Have you seen my tutorial on manually migrating a WordPress website that will be your Gods I’m going to be your new best friend after you watch well now I’m going to be your really new best friend so I see you type in hopefully you pull that up check that out it’s less than 20 minutes it literally will show you how to migrate a website because there’s really actually let’s we’ll get technical for a second why not where is a web design podcast?

Kristin 1:13:42
People are going to appreciate it I promise

Josh 1:13:44
Yeah so so that tutorial literally walks you through how to like move a site from a complete domain to another one so in the case of this it’ll be perfect because you might go to a different hosting or different domain if you just go from a subdomain to a live domain it’s a little easier because you literally can just move the files and just rename the file path and stuff but yeah, there’s kind of a few components to a website there is just for simplicity sake there is the actual files in WordPress which is like your WP content and all that stuff and then there’s the database which is found inside PHP myadmin the database is what actually houses the pages so when I got into WordPress

Josh 1:14:25
I broke a couple of my first sites moving them because I was like I move the files what happened I did not understand that the actual pages and the content and the pages are in the database. So those are really the two main things that need to be moved and then essentially, just for your reference in case you didn’t know Chris and in WordPress files there’s actually only two files that matter. Everything else is just standard WordPress. The WP content folder is where all of your images themes, plugins and everything is so that’s custom and then your what’s called the WP config file literally is That it says we’re going to configure these files to match up with that database. Those are the only things that matter all the other WordPress files you see are just standard WordPress.

Josh 1:15:09
So essentially what I’ll show you in that tutorial, I hope you hopefully you can watch that after this call. That’ll basically show you how you can literally just move the WP content folder and then the config file and then just make sure that config file is matching up with the database in the new place and then all the other files can just be a standard WordPress install. And that will share that that’ll save you from the database err and all and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, hopefully that helps out. I mean, there’s a lot of great cloning tools out there and usually they work. However, when they inevitably break or timeout you’ve got to know how to do it manually or have somebody to help out so yeah, hopefully that’ll

Kristin 1:15:49
I use manage WP and I make a backup of all of my you know, like my temporary websites before anything happens, because I’m like you never know. But like, I guess the biggest problem I’ve really had is when people want to keep their emails, how they’re already doing it. So when I’m moving a website from Wix, to WordPress there, they want to keep their their Gmail like access that they have through Wix. And right now I’m working with one that’s with Yahoo, small business, and she wants to keep that so she doesn’t want to change up her whole system of how she checks her email, she just wants a new website to her those things don’t aren’t can okay

Josh 1:16:27
So the next course you need to go through is my cPanel course because that will walk you through that as well it’s a super low cost course for everyone who’s interested because that covers email files database, all the scary stuff and it’s super, super short course. In short, we go into more of this in the course visually and stuff but what controls email is the MX record. So the really cool thing about that is you can take a site domain everything from WordPress, Wix whatever and move it to a different host. And then as long as the MX record is the same, the mail will not change so you won’t break any mail and then there’s also one thing it really is important is to know the difference between name servers and just like an A record which is is what tells the website where the actual URL is.

Josh 1:17:15
Name servers control everything so if you change name servers from Bluehost to siteground you’re changing everything domains email all that everything has to be perfectly mirrored on the new host if you just wanted to change a website but wanted to keep all the mail the same all you’d have to do is change the a record which is just controls the URL so there’s a couple like really important things like that to make you feel more comfortable with domains which is in hosting and stuff I know that’s the that’s the worst part of all that but yeah I mean honestly what we just covered right there and then just knowing the files the fact that there’s three important things database that has all the pages there’s the folder the content folder and then there’s the config file that connects everything that’s it that’s is that’s all you need for every migration So

Kristin 1:18:04
Yeah, I was actually saving that question until after this call was done because I was like by the way can you help me and like I it’s great that you said that because now I know there’s other people that struggle with this because when I ask any question like this in a Facebook group there’s at least you know for people that say same following like yeah, you know, when

Josh 1:18:21
I say like, yeah, it was this was the worst part for me I broke so many websites I took my emails down it was Tara This is literally why I created my cPanel course because I do not want people to go through what I did, which was like one Saturday morning we went live or no it was a Friday night we went live with a site Saturday morning I wake up to my client had like three voicemails he was freaking out because his email went down. And I was like, Oh, no, I didn’t know the MX record was implicated with that. So yeah, those are really the most important things. Yeah, everybody Yeah, it’s in the tricky thing I think about requesting help for that in the groups is not all the time but often the people who are really smart are the worst at explaining or helping sometimes. So they’ll be like well Kristen, you’re a record bla bla bla bla bla and then MX record you’re like what what is what I don’t even speak the language that you’re seeing right now.

Kristin 1:19:13
So where are you even seeing these things? Yeah, now like but that was my questions in the beginning as people were very bad at explaining.

Josh 1:19:23
So let’s do a case study if you know whenever the time is right cPanel course will rock your world and then the migration tutorial, anyone can search it manually migrate WordPress, we’ll link it in the show notes. Those two things will literally make you so much more confident. And here’s the new fun fact you can charge more because now you can do this a lot faster and you can grow your business because you won’t break a site. You can do it real quick and be done and then your client will be like wow, that was awesome. And then they’ll be like my other web designer broke my email and you’re like well yeah, that’s because you know, I didn’t know about the right. So any Hill, all good stuff.

Josh 1:19:58
This actually this is a nice little case. For helping you with an aspect of the business that is new and that you don’t care for or feel confident with but hopefully you get some more confidence and it’s an honor for me Kristen to you know help you out with that and then I really I do want to hear about recurring income real quick as we wrap this conversation up when did the idea of hosting and maintenance come into play for you because I’m sure you’ve probably heard me talk about the beauty of any sort of recurring income with web design Did that help what what was the thing that spurred you on to think about recurring income and then you know coming into my maintenance paying course

Kristin 1:20:32
Yeah, I would say in large part was you always kind of saying it throughout the podcast but I think every web designer that has recurring income is like you need recurring income and I knew this like just kind of as a business senses you don’t want to have to work so hard for every single dollar that you make. I knew that going into this so I was like, how do I make this happen? You know, do I have to sell products do I have to make a course right now and it’s like no, you can just keep serving the people that you’ve already sold to which What is it people are like seven times more likely to buy from you a second time than they are at first time?

Kristin 1:21:05
I don’t know the actual system statistic but you know, um, you know, I want it and I love the people I was working with and it was like how do I just keep working with them they’re also wonderful and nice. So now I have just like you know, monthly I do hosting and then I’ll do some maintenance and so I offer an hour of of edits to their website which no one has gone over 15 minutes of it so like that’s great. And then I like to just you know, surprise and delight them too. So if I do make extra Canva templates like if I’m really in the zone and it doesn’t work for a client I’ll like package them up and send them over to other people and be like, I know you use Canva you might like these and so I just like to keep over over delivering over serving because it’s just gotten me this far so

Josh 1:21:50
And I try to remember the video you sent me back did you mention that you had us managed WP Are you but yeah it was kind of showed you kind of how I use it which kind of opened your mind like oh wow, there’s a lot of different things we can do with this right?

Kristin 1:22:03
Yeah, I would say that I was like 85 to 90% there with managed WP and so a lot of your course when it came down to that part. I was like, Oh, I’m doing this right. Like I got this, you know, and then there was like some things that I was like, Oh, I did have a question about that or I’ve just been completely ignoring this and everything and I love managed WP it’s it’s saved me from many of things. And I think like, you know, my clients like the the proposal or the you know, the monthly report and everything. And I like that I can say, hey, if your website goes down, I’ll just back up yesterday’s website, like I love being able to say that to them. But then also for me, it’s like if I do something or if they do something, I’m good. I don’t need to I’m not going to cry about it and have an extra rebuild the whole website time,

Josh 1:22:48
Right. And the beauty about managed WP is it’s super, super cheap. Like it’s crazy affordable. And this is really important when it comes to going full time and starting your business because you have got to automate this stuff. So you don’t do it manually. I had a student recently who didn’t know about managed WP, they’re new to the game. And they were manually updating every website going in and it was, you know, a good like eight to 10 hours a month with all the clients he’s getting now. And I was like Alright, you ready for your world to be rocked? And I was like and it’s not going to cost much at all managed WP and then literally like two days later he hit me up. He was like, Dude, why haven’t I been using this? And I was like, Well, it’s because you didn’t go to my maintenance planning course. But that’s alright I’m still here for you. Right?

Josh 1:23:32
Use manageWP so anyone Gaea can use that or any other tools that automate that stuff is it’s such a time saver. And it’s really important to keep profitable, keep you Top of Mind with clients. So I’m really, really excited about that into your business. I’m really excited to see what happens moving forward here. So before I have one final question, before we get to that, what do you envision for the next you know, the rest of 2021? And 22? Do you think you’re going to continue just to refine everything you have in place? Do you anticipate adding more services like email marketing or anything like that? What do you what do you envision for your business? As you look at it over the next few months and beyond?

Kristin 1:24:11
I’m not really sure I don’t think I want to do email marketing. But I do want to help do more of like strategically planning, lead magnets or how to implement you know, podcasts and stuff on behalf of all these speakers that I’m helping. I want to get more into more passive income streams and try to try to maybe sell some of the different things that I’ve already established in my business and be like, hey, if this can help anybody, like, here it is, you know, like my questions for my intake, that really starts getting us on a personal level and everything but also talks about their website, like I’ve really refined that. And you know, like different things like that, or like a content guide, the content guide that I’ve created for the speakers at this point, it’s like 17 pages on a Google Doc It goes through like what SEO is and why it’s important and hey if you were going to you know look for this or if you if you wanted to be found on Google what would you want it to be found for and it’s like kind of walking through easily and in like simple terms how to do like what you want in a website and so that would be maybe something that I want to try to do but I mean my goal is to have a six figure year next year so my first full year in business and I totally foresee that happening

Josh 1:25:26
Well, tomorrow I am recording a free masterclass on how to get your business to six figures so I’ll have that out by the by the time this episode comes out so maybe I’ll link that and I’ll send it to you personally if you if you want to check that out because that’ll hopefully give you some really good tactics and strategies to to help you put everything in place to get there because you’re definitely on the right path Chris and I’m super super excited for you I think there’s actually a huge opportunity for you maybe phase two of the business to have more some of your passive income kind of stuff with either templates or you know sharing everything that you’re doing in your business particularly since it is a niche or a niche Shea since we’ve come up with that term.

Josh 1:26:07
And you say I feel like because you know your target market so well and a lot of people are doing websites for coaches and consultants and speakers there’s probably quite a market for that so why not share what you know and make some passive income off of and I would think whether you want to sell these or do this internally since you are working with a lot of the same type of clients you could probably make a lot of template style sites and then have maybe a lower cost website build portion and then grow your hosting and maintenance and sell those templates to clients customize them for a certain amount of hours you know a speaker that maybe has a lower budget or maybe not super well known yet may want to go for that option and then you could just use one of your nine templates or whatever and then swap out the colors text

Kristin 1:26:52
Yeah, I did have that idea and I did want to do that and then I’ve just got like I don’t want to say lucky but like I’ve just positioned myself that I’ve been very busy and like I’m booked out right now like I’m not even looking for anybody for the next month but that is definitely something that’s on my radar that I want to kind of just start exploring because I do want to be able to help those people that maybe are doing bad on the side you know like maybe and i and i know what beginning speakers kind of make and they’re they’re struggling to get by and all that and so I

Josh 1:27:24
The other thing about that too is honestly just from a time perspective and internally there’s no reason for you to recreate the same kind of website over and over like you might as well make a few templates and and I’m telling you once and it may feel like you’re ripping clients off if you just use a template that you already created but I learned that if you just change colors out and view images and graphics and change the text and fonts It looks very different yeah so in clients don’t care if they’re like in an exact clone copy most clients aren’t even going to know or care so they’re likely not gonna have the same audience as this other person so I would definitely think about that

Kristin 1:28:04
Every website looks different because the people and the images and they are different and all that and so I have a basic wireframe that I pretty much follow throughout all of my of my websites but like if they have really good professional photos I’m gonna be able to really make that website great but say they don’t we have to use stock photos or like smaller file sizes like yeah, I’m gonna I have to just you know, tweak it and move it around and all that and so yeah, that’s definitely part of my process that I’m starting to develop now.

Josh 1:28:34
Yeah, well that would be my coaching tip for you is through the next few months here like be intentional about the layouts you’re creating and what I would do is really keep an eye on like the different types of coaching clients and speaking clients because you may have speakers who just speak and then they need events and that kind of thing you may have some that have books and then you may have some that have courses and you could probably have a few different templates like okay when a lead comes in there a speaker who has a book and this and this okay I’ve got a template that I’ve already put the the groundwork into. Now we can refine it with their images and have some custom stuff on the front page and it would save a ton a ton of time, which is going to be key and getting you to that six figure mark so yeah, yeah, hopefully didn’t mean to get all coccinea but hopefully that

Kristin 1:29:23
I feel lucky to be able to get coached so yeah,

Josh 1:29:26
Well I’m excited for Chris and you know, you’re you’re a go getter and awesome, awesome, savvy mind with this kind of stuff. It’s not surprising that you’re having a great first few months. Before my last question, Where would you like everyone to go to check out for some inspiration or to connect with you?

Kristin 1:29:42
Absolutely. So my website is Kristin Pearson com Kristen’s k ri STI n everyone’s spell set incorrectly. So that’s good start on Instagram. I am Kristen Pearson designs and then my preferred platform is actually tik tok. And I’m just design business in one word. Design business and I love to connect with other designers there. I don’t really have you know, products or anything that I’m trying to sell or whatever to other designers. So the people that are listening to this so truly, like just reach out trying to build connections, build the network. And I would say if anybody is interested in getting like my, you know, my my form of like questions that I ask people on like a discovery call, just reach out to me, I’m willing to share some things and maybe even like, get some feedback on it before you know, I do start selling it. So if anyone’s interested in that, or just connecting, I’m here for it.

Josh 1:30:35
Are you open to maybe linking that we can link that in the show notes? Would you be open to putting that on your website? And we could just create a link for everyone listening to go check it out? Yes, we can do like we can Kristen Pearson comm slash Josh Hall and you could just put it on there. If you’d be open to doing that, or, yeah, absolutely. Make it a little easier. That way people could just go there instead of, you know, pinging you left and right, although I know your names correctly. Yeah. If you’re open to that we could put it in the show notes. So in that way, they could just you know, get some folks there. Kristen pearson.com. And we’ll of course link it in the show notes slash Josh Hall.

Josh 1:31:10
And yeah, I want to check that out. I’m really really curious. So I’d love to check that out. Yeah, thanks. All right, Chris. Last question for you, I know we’ve we’ve got we’ve got quite a while that’s a very quick hour and a half, it was very quick. If you were Since you’re so new to the journey still in full time. If someone was like you in you know, January this year, and they’re like I might want to consider going full time. What would be like one piece of advice that you would pull from your experience so far is there like I know that you can probably say 1000 things but is there anything that jumps to mind as far as like what you would maybe mentor somebody on

Kristin 1:31:53
I think people just get too nervous to start sometimes because they see everything that they have to do to start a business and maybe you make a list of everything you think you need to do before you’re okay with going live or whatever and prioritize and then just do one at a time hide that list get your top three of the day or whatever it is, just don’t be afraid to start and also obviously I’m a big proponent, use your network you are not gonna be able to go full time if you have you know, no portfolio or anything like that and also it will save you so much in the long run of learning where your faults are and what really you know, messes you up in the process like I had to learn so much about everything of this and I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I was just making you know, fake brochure sites to put on my portfolio which is great to get those people in the door but you have to start talking to people and telling people your plans I think a big thing is everyone loves to seem like they’re an overnight success but they’re not you know telling people about what they’re doing and the behind the scenes but that’s not going to get us anywhere you know you never know if your great uncle has a friend who’s doing something that you’re super interested in that you could make a website for you ever know so just utilize your network is the biggest thing and just one step at a time

Josh 1:33:12
Very well said very well said I love that Chris and thank you for your time today for coming I really really had a blast chatting with you and getting to know you better in your business I think really awesome things are ahead I definitely don’t think this will be the last time you’re on the show because maybe we can do a follow up next year to see where things are at and what you’ve learned you know maybe six months year down the road so super pumped for you it’s been awesome you know seeing your journey so far. I know we’re more recently connected now you’ve gone through my maintenance planning course and stuff but I’m really excited to you know, continue being your coach and hopefully, you know, guide you every step of the way moving forward. So

Kristin 1:33:47
Yeah, thank you so much for this opportunity.

Josh 1:33:48
Awesome. Thanks Kristin