[00:00:00] Josh: And welcome in friends to episode 230, where in this one I want to share with you just a few tips in a few things that will help you move the needle forward in your business as quickly as possible.

[00:00:13] And this stems off of a couple things that have happened recently. More and more people I’ve found are awesomely getting into web design. And what I’m finding is a lot of you maybe, maybe you’re listening right now and you’re in that position where you’re just getting into web design. More often than not, it’s a side hustle.

[00:00:32] And for those of you who are in a position where maybe you have a corporate job or you have your own endeavor and you’re doing web design on the. In a lot of cases I’ve found you are either managing a family or you have a mortgage and you have a lot of obligations and commitments on your plate, which means you can’t waste any time growing your business.

[00:00:52] And I had a discussion. Recently in my web design club with a new member who is in this position where he is balancing a lot, and he straight up asked me what are the things I can do that will like quickly ex escalate my, uh, or accelerate, excuse me, my journey so I can essentially, you know, bypass years.

[00:01:12] So instead of just taking the long way around, and that prompted me to come up with the three things that I recommended to him that I’m gonna recommend for you here as well. So take this as kind of a free little coaching session. These are the top three things that are gonna help you build your business fast and not waste any time, uh, unlike what I’m doing right here in this intro.

[00:01:32] So let’s dive right in, shall we? First off, I do wanna say these are like umbrella style categories. So yes, there are a lot of little things that are going to be included in this, but since I’ve been fortunate to coach hundreds of web designers all over the world, I’ve seen a lot of them make very, very quick work of their business and taking it to six figure. These are the things that are most common with the people who do that and do that effectively, even if they go from side hustle to to full time.

1) Few services (and a great product)

[00:01:58] So first things first, number one, few services. And also some of these kinda have sub, some subpoints to ’em. A really great product. So one common issue. And, and you may think that sounds different, but they’re actually very similar in my mind.

[00:02:15] Having a really good product in limiting the amount of services you offer in and around that service or product, that is key. What I often see is what I did when starting out, and that is when you have like 19 services and the reality is you’re gonna be a jack of all trades. And master of, we all know this, none. Now, I do think in the beginning you’re gonna be in a point where you’re gonna try a lot of things out and that’s fine, but you need to whittle down your services down to ideally three.

[00:02:44] I’ve found three to be the magic numbers with the types of services you offer. And those can be umbrella terms and you can have, for example, what I always did and what I recommend in my business course and a lot of my training materials is to have three avenues in web design, which website design, which would include redesigns, gra, uh, ground up builds and other types of web design services if you do online stores, for example, and then some sort of maintenance and hosting or care.

[00:03:12] So the first bucket is web design. Second is care hosting and maintenance. And then third is some sort of growth strategy. Something that’s going to get those clients that you work with Results. That will often be any sort of marketing services you offer. Email marketing. Could be seo, could be content, could be a lot of different things that you offer once a website is live. Those are the three main buckets that I generally recommend.

[00:03:36] Whether you want to use that model and go for it, or if you want make your own, that’s fine, but try to put, put them all on buckets so that you have less services, but just a really great product that gets really good results for clients. So number. Fewer services, but also something that works and is just a really good product.

[00:03:55] And let me give you a quick tip. I just posted this on my Instagram. If you haven’t followed me on Instagram, that’s where I’m most active right now. Just go to josh Hall dot slash instagram and uh, connect with me over there. But I just shared this because it is a really, really important tip. Actually, no, I haven’t shared it yet, but I’m going to very soon.

[00:04:12] And that is the number one conversion tip I can give you. Would you like that? Would you like this conversion tip? It is to ask yourself, would you buy your service? And if you honestly don’t believe that to your core that you would buy what you do and what you sell, that is where we need to put the work.

[00:04:29] That’s where we need to put our focus on what you do for your clients. So if you kind of have a half-ass service that you don’t really sell confidently, first off, that’s gonna come across second. Don’t put all your emphasis in your marketing and everything you’re doing to get more leads and more traffic.

[00:04:45] Focus on what you do best and just do a really good job for a couple people. Then you’ll start getting referrals. You’ll build confidence, you’ll get better results. And bam, my friend, you are off to the races with getting clients. So a few services and a really great product. That’s number one.

2) Premium rates (often raising pricing)

[00:05:02] Number two, shocker pricing and rates. The folks who I have seen really move the needle, quote unquote quickly, have some sort of premium pricing. Now, if you are brands making new to web design, yes, it takes some a little bit of time to get to this point. Once you know your tools and, uh, know your processes get better at design and the basics of SEO and all that stuff, which is why I have my courses by the way.

[00:05:28] That way you can fast track your journey in all these. But the more important overall theme here is that most people that I’ve found who take a long time are hindered by their own mindset. I’m holding my hand up because it took me six years to get to six figures, a hundred thousand plus in my business.

[00:05:46] Why not because of how good I was at design or anything like that, but because of my mindset, I simply did not value my services enough. That’s why it took so long to get to six figures. Now, at that time also, I didn’t have a family. I didn’t have near as many bills as I have now, so I didn’t have quite the driver that pushed me to get things to six figure.

[00:06:07] Some of you, if you do have, again, a mortgage and more obligations, a family or whatever that looks like, you are likely going to expedite your journey because you have to, if it’s literally gonna work. So, uh, premium rates and raising your rates right now. If you followed me for any amount of time, you know I am not shy in telling you to raise your rates, so I’m gonna encourage you to do that right now.

[00:06:28] Raise your rates even if you don’t feel like you’re super valuable, raise them in the same price bucket. For example, let’s say you’re charging 1200 for websites. Make it 1500, a few hundred bucks. Every project will go a long way to increase your bottom line, and in most cases, if you want to get to the six figure range for web design, Average website build should be around the 5,000 range.

[00:06:53] Now, average being that you may have starter packages that are two or 3000, and then you’ll have bigger projects that are more around the $10,000 range. This is what I experienced, but you definitely need to get to around an average of 5,000. Why? Because this is just my personal experience and what a lot of my students have done successfully.

[00:07:12] 5,000 projects. If you or $5,000 projects, , not 5,000 projects in a year, uh, $5,000 projects will put you in a place to where if you get even one a month. You’ll get 12 projects that year that’ll get to you around 60,000. And then once you get to around 60, generally with other services, with maintenance and care and one-off type projects, generally you’ll be able to fill in the rest of that 40 k or so to get to the six figure mark.

[00:07:39] But even if you are averaging like 6,000, that’s gonna get even closer. And that would only be one project a month. And if you’re cool with doing two projects a. You can imagine two projects a month just by itself at $5,000 on average is gonna put you at $120,000 a year. Look at me being a mathematician live.

[00:07:57] So you ne you definitely need to make sure your premium pricing gets to a point, ideally, where you’re in the 5,000 to $10,000 reigns eventually. Uh, if you wanna do less projects and, and less clients. But the 5,000 mark is a really achievable mark to get to, even if you’re early on or if you feel like you’re just not that valuable yet. But you are my friend. Premium rates, razor rates right now, that’s number two.

3) Delegating (focusing on your superpower)

[00:08:21] And then finally number three. Wow. We’re not even at the 10 minute mark and I’m already the, to the third point, I intentionally wanted to keep this one short and snappy for you just to see if I could do an episode under 15 minutes. The third one is delegating. I e focusing on your superpower. One thing I have noticed with all of my web design students, including myself, when I was able to create a multi six-figure business that was like stable, the key was I was not doing absolutely everything. And that is so hard to do when you are not in the mind of a business owner or an entrepreneur who is quick to hire things out.

[00:08:59] So when you go from a web design, Lance, To a web design business owner, which are, those are different things. Those are, those are different things, but it’s the typical progression you’ll go through. The key is you’ve got to focus on your strengths, your superpower, which means there’s gonna be a bunch of tasks and a bunch of things in your business that you shouldn’t be doing somebody else should do.

[00:09:22] It doesn’t mean that you can’t do it, it doesn’t mean that you are above, you know, your stature is above these lowly tasks, but the reality. Should you be tweaking graphics and doing little repeatable tasks and doing that while the rest of your clients are just waiting for you to get to their projects?

[00:09:39] Or should you delegate those things to a junior designer or to somebody who can learn pretty quickly and, and get going on that? And you can provide an opportunity for somebody, whether it’s local or in your area or even across the globe. You can hire this stuff off to focus on the big picture items of your business or, or similarly do the things that you would like to do that like give you energy in your business even if you like doing some of the work.

[00:10:07] I don’t wanna say you will never actually design websites again, but what I mean is when it comes to delegating, maybe you focus on sales and running your business and maybe you have a hand in the beginning of the design, but then you, you hand the rest off to, to a junior designer or somebody to take the rest of the, the project forward, interact with client, do all the feedback, revisions, and that leaves you the time to work on the high level.

[00:10:30] Work on your business, not just in your business. That is a biggie. And this actually, if I could pinpoint one thing of these three that kind of holds somebody back from moving the needle in their business, it’s that they are clinging on to all of the tasks in their business for way too long. And if you want a little more resources, cuz the next question on this would be, okay, Josh, this sounds great, but I have so many questions about how to hire and where do I find subcontractors?

[00:10:57] How do I do it? I’ve answered a lot of those questions in podcasts 154. So I recommend going back to that episode. We’ll link that in the show notes here. Um, which dishes out a ton of tips that I would just relay here about how to start hiring and delegating work. I highly recommend you go back and check that one out.

[00:11:16] I would also bookmark it if you find yourself needing to refer back to that as you continue to, to get things off your plate so you can focus on your superpower, which. It’s not only gonna make the business more profitable, cuz you’re focusing on high level things, but you’re just gonna enjoy life more and it’s gonna be sustainable.

[00:11:33] Cuz this is the other thing I wanna say right here. I’m so glad I just remembered this cuz I meant to write this down, but I forgot. I do not want you to move the needle forward in your business and speed things up and go super, super fast in hustle mode only to burnout. And to just, you know, go three months and then you’re done, or six months and you’re done.

[00:11:54] And I have seen this with some people recently. In fact, I had a student who grew his business so fast and at such a rate that he just burned himself out. I didn’t even know I burn out. Didn’t look like typical burnout. I just, I didn’t even know he was going through this. Next thing you know, he moved on to a different position because, He went too fast and just did not work on things in a sustainable way.

[00:12:19] So I don’t want that to happen for you either. And, and for this particular person, it doesn’t mean that that’s the end of web design for him. He might come back to it with sustainability as the most important thing. So you can still grow your business without killing yourself. And honestly, a lot of these things having way too many services, um, doing them for cheap or doing them for literally just an un profit um, you know, pricing and then doing all the tasks, those three things are gonna lead to burnout. And I don’t wanna call it failure, but, you know, whatever that’s gonna look like for you or it’s just gonna take a long time.

[00:12:53] So, quick recap. Number one, fewer services and make those services really freaking good. Really great work. Good results for your clients. That’s gonna make everything easier for you to sell to, to delegate, to get more clients. They’re gonna refer. Number two rates, get to

[00:13:11] premium rates, whatever that looks like for you. I often say six figures, but the reality is, you know, depending on where you are, maybe, maybe 50,000 would rock your world, and that’s fine. Try to get to 50 K with your average pack packages. Some of you might need to be a quarter million dollar business to, to support the lifestyle you want. Same thing. You in that case, would try to get to 15 to $20,000 projects, which absolutely can be done either way, raising your pricing.

[00:13:36] And number three, delegation. You have got to focus on what you do best, my friend. Whatever your superpower is, maybe it’s gonna take some time to find it. Once you find it, hone in on that because all of the other work you have to do is only gonna pull you away and drain your energy. And I don’t want that for you. I want you. Start your days loving your business and I want you to be able to make a big impact with you and your clients to grow your business and provide opportunities for others. So that’s the biggie.

[00:14:02] The last, uh, link I wanted to mention too real quick that I think will really help. I did a podcast interview with my business coach James Ramco, a little while back in the podcast. It was episode 101 and he actually echoes a lot of these points and I’ll, uh, just come on record and say A lot of this I’ve learned from James, um, cuz often what I come to him are these like needle moving strategies? He’ll give me the big picture things that are working, and then it’s up to me to implement them.

[00:14:31] And I’ve learned a lot of this from him, and I do recommend you go back to that episode as well. Episode 101 of this podcast, and, uh, you’ll hear me and James talk about some of the things in a little more detail here that, that, especially he’s learned as a coach to some amazing people all over the world, like high tier, uh, entrepreneurs in the online space that are gonna filter down to you as well. So I highly recommend that.

[00:14:52] So, two links. I’d probably recommend episode 1 0 1 with my business coach James Ramco. We, we’ll dive into this in more detail. And then for those of you ready to de. And start subcontracting out, subcontracting out work. Head over to episode 1 54 for some more details on that. And again, a quick recap. Three things, fewer services, but really good product. Two, premium rates, depending on where you need to be. And three, superpower, focus on that, delegate the rest.

[00:15:18] And I’d say my friends. Wow, okay. We’re over 15 minutes, but. I wanted to intentionally try to see if I could just do a quicker snap your solo episode. If you like this, if you like a little bit of more thriftiness from me, let me know. You can go to josh hall.co/two 30. And leave a comment on this podcast post.

[00:15:36] I would love to hear if you like this, or do you like me rambling on for a half an hour? I try not to ramble sometimes I just, you know, it’s like a training, it’s like a lesson. I’m, I’m gonna go as long as it needs to go. But if you like the quick snappy ones, let me know. I always love hearing your, uh, constructive thoughts as a listener of the show.

[00:15:52] I appreciate you. Thank you so much for joining. I’m excited to help you every way in your web design business. So here’s to moving that needle forward. Friends as quickly as you. But also doing it in a sustainable way. I hope this helped. See you on the next episode, guys.