[00:00:00] Josh: Hello friends. Welcome into this episode where we’re gonna talk about the friendliest people, online web developers. They are, I mean, right? You join a web design group, a forum, or a Facebook group that’s full of advanced web developers, and you know that you can ask a question any question, and you will not get ridiculed or slandered or, uh, you know, belittled by your simpleton question.

[00:00:26] Josh: You just know web developers are gonna be really nice and easy with you and give you the answer you’re looking for. All right? Yes, we’re done being sarcastic because we all have had the experience where we’re terrified to ask a question in a web developer group for fear of the responses that we’re gonna get.

[00:00:45] Josh: However, there is a movement. A friendly web developer movement that has been growing over the last few years, and I’m so excited to bring on really somebody who has spearheaded this movement. Julia Taylor, who is the CEO and founder of Geek Pack. Geek Pack’s. Awesome. It’s essentially, so I recently, uh, launched Web Designer Pro, which is the three big Cs coaching community and courses, and Geek Pack also has three Cs, but there’s our code, community and confidence.

[00:01:17] Josh: But at the Key. It’s friendly, like-minded, helpful developers, and I absolutely love my chat with Julia because as you’ll find out, Julia has quite a heart for being a developer who felt imposter syndrome and felt like a bit of a black sheep in a place where there wasn’t that many welcoming people. But she really stood apart and embraced her personality and really used empathy and encouragement.

[00:01:46] Josh: And really, um, just helped a lot of people get started as web developers and now she has this incredible community behind it. So we’re gonna dive into the web developer mindset and this movement. We also do explore some cliches about web developers and whether those are true still nowadays, and as to maybe why web developers are typically branded as, uh, not so nice people online due to, you know, again, my previous experience.

[00:02:12] Josh: That’s certainly what I experienced. So we’re gonna bust some of those myths and have a really fun conversation here about the friendly web developer movement. Julia Taylor, check her out@geekpack.com. I hope you enjoy. I sure did. Here she is.

[00:02:31] Josh: Julia, welcome. Officially under the podcast we were just talking about how, I can’t believe we have not connected before this. Oh, no. So welcome to the show. I, like I said, I, um, I listened to your interview on my friend Shannon Mads podcast, and then not two days later your booking agent reached out and told me about you, and I was like, oh my gosh.

[00:02:51] Josh: I literally just heard our interview. So, um, yeah. Would you like to start out with just, uh, What you do and who you do it for. Yeah, sure.

[00:03:00] Julia: Well, thank you so much for having me. I, uh, when my team member, um, reached out and said that we, we could do this podcast, I remember thinking, oh my gosh, like, he’s a really big deal and some of my students have posted your, um, YouTube videos and, and posted up at your podcast in my community.

[00:03:18] Julia: You know, so, so, you know, so I’m, I’m really excited to be here. I’m a little bit nervous. So thank you, um, for having me. And, um, I don’t feel like I’m on on with a famous person. My students are all gonna be so excited, uh, when they hear this, so, uh, yes, thank you. Um, my name’s Julie Taylor. I’m the c e o and founder of Geek Pak, and we empower women to achieve economic independence through tech skills.

[00:03:42] Julia: Um, so we focus very highly on, um, all things tech. My background, and in our bread and butter, it really kind of sits with WordPress. I have a, a course called WP Rockstar, um, but we take it from a, a slightly different angle than most people in the, um, in kind of the, the WordPress world. And we go at it from the, um, development angle and learn to code and the backend and php and dive in and CSS and tweaks and break things and fix it.

[00:04:09] Julia: And, and so we’re a real techie bunch. Um, and we, we love it. So that’s, that’s really what we do.

[00:04:16] Josh: Well, I’m so excited to have you on. I love your community. I love what you’re up to. You’re interesting, Julia, because I don’t know too many people who are heavy on the development side of things, and I think that may just come from my background being in the Divi community.

[00:04:34] Josh: And yes, I started with Dream Weaver and did a little bit of H T L and c s s, but I’ve got pretty quickly into the page builder world and then front end design. And then, you know, C I learned as much as C s s as I needed to basically to to customize sites. But that’s about the extent of my knowledge, basic H, tm, L and c s s.

[00:04:52] Josh: So it’s really cool that you have a focus on that. I’m kind of curious, backing up, before you started Geek Pack, what was your experience like? Is Geek Pack, I guess the question that I’m wondering about is like, is Geek Pack what you wish you would’ve had when you started?

[00:05:07] Julia: That is exactly what it is. Um, so everything that I’ve created as a, as a course creator and, and community leader and, you know, business owner has been what I wish I’d had when I was learning.

[00:05:19] Julia: Um, and, and we constantly take student feedback and we make things better. And we, we just recently released a, a new product in partnership with Udemy that we can talk about later, um, that we’re very, very excited about. Um, but yeah, that, that’s, that’s it. I don’t have any formal tech background, no formal tech education.

[00:05:36] Julia: Um, I used to work for the US Intelligence community. Um, I. Deployed to Afghanistan a couple times. I met my now husband, um, on, in Afghanistan back in 2018. Wow. So I had a very, sorry, 2008, gosh. Uh, 2008. Um, wow. It was a long, long time ago. Um, so, so I didn’t have any background in what I’m doing now, and I, um, kind of fell into coding, um, by accident in, in a, a nine to five job that I had.

[00:06:05] Julia: And I fell in love with it immediately cuz I saw the, I did, I made a little change and I saw it and it was, it was so satisfying and I, I just loved it and I learned as much as I could online and I joined some communities and, you know, free Facebook groups and forums and people were just mean and I really struggled and I didn’t know how to start a business.

[00:06:24] Julia: I didn’t know how to find clients. I’m all the things that we. Teach and kind of mentor and coach now, or all the things that I struggled with and why my journey as, um, first a, a business owner and service provider, building websites, why it took me so long. Hmm. And then I transitioned into kind of teaching people what I’d learned over those years to try and massively reduce it

[00:06:48] Josh: down.

[00:06:49] Josh: That’s, that’s beautiful. And I feel like especially you’re a niche in your, your area of the market of web design with like the developer side of things, a lot of emphasis on coding and things like that. It is unique because of that, but also because of the like friendly community aspect, which is not common in the developer world.

[00:07:12] Josh: I know like a few groups that I was a part of, I was like, good lordy, like most, you know, like, I think, I guess it depends on the segment of web design. The divvy community in particular is overall really welcoming and, and really great. It’s why I loved it. I have a membership and my students just the best people ever.

[00:07:32] Josh: Like, I can’t rave enough about how friendly and welcoming people are not always the case in, in the developer side of things. Like, I remember getting ripped, uh, asking some questions in the early days and I was like, good lord, I’m not going back to that. So, hats off to you, Julia, for, for starting that.

[00:07:47] Josh: Did you? , did you start Geek Pack? I’m just terribly curious to be that friendly developer place or did you find like-minded people and then. Rally around the friendly developer brand.

[00:08:00] Julia: No, I, that’s exactly why I started it. And the name kind of implies everything that, that’s why it’s, it’s called what it Is and Why The, my business is now fully, all things gate pack.

[00:08:12] Julia: Um, it is a, a pack. You know, we, we look after each other. We are a community. We, we support each other. We empower each other. Uh, there is no such thing as a, a stupid question in our community and, and mean people are asked to leave, which we never have any mean people cuz you know, you attract the type of people who are like you and want, want to be around you.

[00:08:32] Julia: So I don’t think a mean person would wanna be in my community cause they wouldn’t enjoy it. So, um, it was. Created because that’s what I wish I’d had. And the, the women, and we’ve got some amazing men in the community as well. Um, just it’s that supportive. Like, oh wow, I really can ask a question and no one’s gonna make fun of me.

[00:08:53] Julia: And Hmm. And people will say, oh, I think this is a, um, I think this is a real basic question, or I feel silly for asking it. And the amount of people is, That, that, that does not exist here. Um, it just makes the learning experience that much better. Um, and one of the big things that we focus on is, and why we go at like learning tech and learning to code and, and learning the hard stuff, um, is because we want to build confidence.

[00:09:18] Julia: Cuz I’m, I’m a big believer that if you have confidence in your ability to learn anything, then you can say yes to things rather than kind of shying away and, and going, oh, I, I’m gonna have to pass them off to a, a real developer who is gonna charge $500 an hour to clean up some malware when it’s not that hard and anyone can do it and I can show you how.

[00:09:40] Julia: So, so, oh, there’s a lot of emphasis on confidence and I go at that from the angle of learn this hard. Skill and build that confidence and know that you can figure anything out with a supportive

[00:09:52] Josh: Yeah, I love that approach. It’s one reason I recommend going through like some trainings and courses and feel good about making a website before you start to get clients like I did, I got clients first and try to figure it out second, not the approach I recommend

[00:10:06] Josh: Um, I’m kind of curious, do you, have you found that people who are learning and have interest in the coding side of things, are you helping people get jobs as web developers and designers, or are you helping people build a business? While building co like custom coated websites or

[00:10:25] Julia: both? Sure. Primarily the, um, starting a business or scaling a business, growing a business, um, because that’s what I did and that’s what I know and I’m most comfortable kind of teaching and mentoring and coaching.

[00:10:38] Julia: Um, we do have a number of students who come to us and then go and get, you know, a real job. They become an employee or they work for an agency or, or something like that. But for the most part, I’d say 90% of our students, um, already have their own business. So maybe they’re a va, um, and they, they want to add on some of the more kind of techy skills to, to increase their hourly rate, or they want to work from home and they wanna start their own business and they wanna do it, um, start a, a, a web design business. So that, that’s typically where we, um, take, go

[00:11:10] Josh: from. Do you, so you said you’re at WordPress gal, do you. Do you use WordPress alongside custom code and CSS and all the other languages? Or are you helping people code like complete ground up? Nothing but H T M L type of websites.

[00:11:27] Julia: Um, so we have been following, um, the direction that wordPress is going, um, for the last five years. So, for example, when I first, um, launched WP Rockstar back in 2018, um, it was, I, I taught building a WordPress site from scratch. Um, and we used Underscores, um, which is a very kind of bare bones theme. I, you couldn’t even really call it a theme. It’s just there’s not much to it.

[00:11:57] Julia: Um, and that’s kind of where we started. And I taught, um, I taught P H P and um, and HTML and c s s to kind of build this starter theme from nothing into a full-blown website. So that’s really where we got started. And as, as WordPress has developed and as they’re now into, obviously Gutenberg, but now full site editing.

[00:12:20] Julia: Um, we did a full revamp of WP Rockstar last year, and now we teach the, the nitty gritty of full site editing and everything that goes along with that. So we are following where WordPress is going. Um, and, and we will continue to do that. And there’s a lot of students that use Page builders, um, Elementor and Divvy and, you know, they’re all really popular and like, that’s totally awesome.

[00:12:42] Julia: I just want them to understand, um, not just. Like how a WordPress site is, is built and put together, but the, the foundation, the, um, the backend, because when things break, they know where to go to find it, the file structure and, and all of that. So we, we kind of look at WordPress holistically, um, and, and whatever people wanna go to but from a, from a, a technical angle, we just want them to fully understand the whole WordPress

[00:13:10] Josh: platform. Yeah, that’s a really important approach cuz I feel like WordPress is interesting in the market of web design because it is a tool that caters to both DIYs and really advanced developers. Which is fascinating to me cuz I don’t know if that’s the case with Squarespace or Webflow or any, like, do you have any students who use other platforms other than WordPress? Or is it more aware?

[00:13:36] Julia: Yeah, we do. We have some, um, we, and, and I’m a big believer that if you could learn WordPress really well, all the other platforms are super easy. Like, I, I love to go in and play around in liquid, um, the coding language that Shopify is built on because it’s, it’s a lot like PHP and you can, you can make some real fun custom changes with a, uh, with a Shopify site.

[00:13:59] Julia: So that, that’s, and and I do think that, I mean, I love WordPress, but it is not user friendly. Like it’s. , it’s not the best, um, content management system for a beginner. Yeah. And I, I go at that angle immediately with folks and I’m like, look, you know, it, it is a little bit harder than some of the other Squarespace, Shopify, and, and things like that, but it is the best.

[00:14:21] Julia: So if you can get over the bits that are, that are kind of hard and confusing, then you’re gonna be at the top of your game and you’ll, you’ll be able to do all the other things. Um, and with the, the, the, the new product that we have now, um, the partnership with you, to me, that has meant that we can open up, um, so much more course content, um, because we have access to all of their stuff.

[00:14:45] Julia: And we can kind of piggyback off of that. So you, you asked before about kind of more coding, we’ve got, there’s Python and JavaScript and you know, everything you could ever imagine. Um, we now have access to that and our students can, can play around with everything that’s available within

[00:15:00] Josh: Udemy. I’m so glad we’re friends now, Julia, because you are such a perfect referral partner for me because I get a little, like, I go probably to the, like the moderate level of css and that’s about it. And uh, somebody recently asked me, are you gonna do an advanced Cs s course? And I’m like, listen man, everything I know about CSS is in my CSS course.

[00:15:22] Josh: It’s a pretty in-depth course, but it goes way further than what I know now. I hope that’s empowering for people to know that. You can go very far with a little bit of knowledge of code. However, I agree to your point, Julia, it’s good to know at least the most important aspects like of WordPress file structure. Understand that there’s a database behind WordPress that the pages are in, and if you break something, it’s good to break the whole side or have you misaligned css, it’s gonna break itself.

[00:15:50] Josh: Those are really, really important things. But then there’s like, essentially there’s the no coders and that’s a whole different demographic. And then there’s the people in the middle, like myself who know quite a lot about css. A few things, but then you can go so much further if you want to. And I’m kind of curious what doors, what doors are open to people who know much more about different languages of code from a business standpoint?

[00:16:16] Josh: Like do you think that opens up more doors for white labeling and partnerships or? Do you think that they just have a bit of an edge when it comes to client work? Because they can do more and maybe they don’t need to hire out somebody who knows development cuz they can do it. Kind of curious about your perspective and what, what are some of the benefits as to why somebody should, should learn a decent amount of, uh, coding for, for like the business side of things?

[00:16:42] Julia: Yeah, I think it, it really benefits, um, my students who wanna be able to create really custom, um, Bits of the website, that that’s probably what they’ve focused on the most is anytime a client might say, oh, you know, can, can we do this? Or can we do that? It’s a Yeah, of course, because I can, I can figure out how to use custom code to make that happen.

[00:17:07] Julia: Now that being said, I would say that the majority of my students, um, while they have the, the kind of code knowledge, they don’t really use that in a day-to-day. It’s more the, the confidence that comes from them knowing that they know it and knowing that they learned how to do those things.

[00:17:28] Julia: Because then if a, if a client says, Hey, can you, can you do this or can you do that? Or Can we do SEO as well? Or, or maybe, you know, something that’s a little bit more advanced. The answer is yes. It’s not, I don’t know how to do that. I’m gonna hand you off to someone else that you can pay. So that is just giving them that, that confidence that I’ve, I’ve learned this thing that Hollywood says it’s really hard.

[00:17:54] Julia: Um, and it like, if they can do that thing, then what else can they do? And so we’ve found that just being able to do this thing opens up so many opportunities in their own head that they never would’ve thought.

[00:18:09] Josh: That’s an interesting approach, that it’s not necessarily all about the development skills or just being in a text editor coding all day, but that there is a level of confidence that comes with that.

[00:18:20] Josh: Cuz it’s like experience, like the more you sell websites, the the better and more confident you’ll be every time you do it. So I imagine, yeah, just like building websites, if you, if you know, you can troubleshoot things a lot faster, that’s where it’s at. And my o the one reason I’m so passionate about the community side of things, which we are very in alignment, is in alignment in is.

[00:18:41] Josh: if I don’t know something, I want to have a network who can figure it out. Yes. Or friends like that. Actually, the time I’m recording this, I’m literally relaunching, uh, my membership now called Web Owner Pro. And one of the main reasons I have that is for that reason. Like, I want you to be in a safe place with professional like-minded people.

[00:18:58] Josh: Yeah. So when you do have that question, you have a pool of people to get their feedback on and potentially hire or get help from ’em or, or, or be the one that they hire. So it is so important if you don’t know it, to have somebody in your corner. But I love that idea of like, Figuring out what to learn on that idea of like, uh, what to learn.

[00:19:18] Josh: What would you say are the most important languages to at least have a basic understanding of for just a general freelance web designer?

[00:19:27] Julia: hgm, L and css for, for sure. Um, if, if you’re gonna be kind of dabbling with WordPress, then I think p php is, is valuable to understand within the scope of WordPress. That being said, um, with full site editing, they’re kind of moving away from that. So, um, we, and we are kind of what we teach and explain, we’re kind of moving away from that, uh, as well.

[00:19:49] Julia: Although I do think if you can kind of understand, pH h p does make you feel pretty awesome and, and you can kind of figure just about anything out if you have a pretty good handle of, uh, of php, uh, JavaScript, and I think I would, I would say UX UI is, is definitely, and that’s not quite as kind of. Tech heavy on the, the, the technical side in coding, but it’s still such a valuable, um, thing to know. Mobile responsiveness.

[00:20:20] Julia: I mean, media queries a absolutely is really important. And it’s not all that hard Once you understand how media queries work and, and you can really like make a, a mediocre website look amazing on a phone, it makes a huge difference. Um, so I would say those are probably the ones that kind of come to mind off the top of

[00:20:41] Josh: yeah, that’s a good overview. And like I said, the good news is H T M L, basic H T M L and a decent amount of css and that should just about be enough. I barely know any pH p and I remember some of the issues I had where I needed help were generally pH p related with WordPress sites.

[00:21:00] Josh: There was like a functions file that we needed to tweak, or I’ll never forget, I was working on a e-commerce site, a WooCommerce site, and the client wanted this really specific note that changed per product, depending on the variation they picked. There was no plugin I could find that was a good fit, that was a least trusted.

[00:21:18] Josh: So I had a developer friend get in there and I watched him. He lived local and uh, I watched him go into the PHP files and write this script and I was like, I have no idea what you just did, but that’s amazing. So I do feel like for, for like in that case, in this case, my friend David, who was like an expert developer, He is one of those situations where he did have the confidence to get in and he primarily worked on e-commerce sites and really advanced stuff.

[00:21:43] Josh: So, I don’t know, I say all that to say like, it’s good to know what’s possible and the reason why you might wanna go a little further to code into coding if you want to. What’s the, uh, what’s the personality type of coders in developers? Because you said you came from the intelligence industry, so I’m not shocked that you probably have an interest.

[00:22:01] Josh: Detailed type of things and coding and stuff like that. Yeah. What are other types of people you’ve found come to Geek Pack? Are, um, are they all geeks or, or are they different type of people?

[00:22:12] Julia: Mo I would say most are geeks and you know, in the past they, they, they were geeky and maybe they went away from it or they, they want to be, but they never felt comfortable kind of learning on their own or, or asking around.

[00:22:26] Julia: So we, we have a, a very good, broad mix of, um, of geeks in the community. And I, I think, um, attention to detail for sure. Um, and I do, I love, I love the detail, um, a willingness to trouble and problem solve. Um, because if you are are, you know, in a text center and you’re playing around with code and something isn’t working and, and you just give up, that’s probably, you know, it is probably just gonna frustrate you and you don’t wanna do more of it.

[00:22:58] Julia: But if you enjoy the trying and, and seeing and testing, oh, it’s still not working and, you know, Googling and asking for help and getting other people involved. And I remember when I first started the community, uh, back in 2018 and I was teaching some women PhD p and we’re playing around with a, a custom, custom theme and I’m showing them how to, you know, Build a plugin and, and add, you know, all this cool stuff and, and see the change on the website.

[00:23:24] Julia: And one of ’em was having an issue and we’re kind of going back and forth in the Facebook group and, you know, try this and try this. And there’s like 10 of us just troubleshooting with them and then we figure it out. And it’s the best feeling ever, like when you figure that out. And it’s taken a long time.

[00:23:41] Julia: And that’s, it’s just that, that type of person who’s willing to keep trying look for the detail. And of course you’re gonna get frustrated. Everyone does. Who, who doesn’t wanna pull their hair out when something isn’t working. Um, but just knowing that there is a solution and having other people that can kind of help troubleshoot with you.

[00:24:00] Julia: Um, that’s the type of people that we have in our c.

[00:24:04] Josh: I love that. It’s a, it’s a great reminder of the beauty of c s s and any type of coding because you do get those wins. Sometimes they’re quick wins, and sometimes it’s a win after a troubleshooting day. That can be awful. But man, the reward, like you get a different high and a different reward for fixing an issue with code that you don’t get when you’re designing or doing sales copy or copywriting or funneling or anything like that.

[00:24:32] Josh: It’s like, I’m not going to write a sales email and be like, that’s it. Yes, I found the answer. I hopefully it converts, but with code, it’s like, I, I’ve, it’s, it’s working. Yeah. Like I, I remember a CSS thing vivid. I had, I had a friend, which was, he was like watching me, cuz this was when I first got into CSS and I figured out how to change the background on every, every scroll.

[00:24:56] Josh: And this was before page builders and divvy stuff. And I figured out how to do that and I literally leapt up from my table and was like, oh, CSS win. And he was like, my God, you are such a loser. I probably should have joined Geek Pak if it was back, you know, available back then. So I say that to say you can have such great moments as a developer.

[00:25:15] Josh: It’s not all sitting in a dark basement looking at a code editor hating your life and not being friends with anybody. And speaking of that, talk about a segue to the community aspect. What could you remind me, Julia, when did you, when did you. Into the web design world and getting into code

[00:25:30] Julia: was that, uh, let’s see, about 2014 is when I started to kind of dabble and learn and, and Google and YouTube and I, I didn’t start my business as a, as a web designer with a, you know, starting an agency until 2016. Um, and 2018 when I started, um, the, the courses and the community. Um, and I fully transitioned out of doing client work probably around

[00:25:56] Josh: okay. Wow. Very similar path. I started in 2010, so I saw the birth of page builders. So you, you probably came into the industry right when page builders were taking off. Mm-hmm. . What did, okay, so you said you helped a lot of women. I, it’s cool to hear that you helped men as well. I, I’m always curious about whether, like in this case, if you attract just a lot of women being a woman in the development space, or if it is only for women.

[00:26:21] Josh: But I’m kind of curious back then, were you a trailblazer? Like how many gal, developer, you know, that, like how many girl developers did you meet back then? Or were development groups generally a lot of nerdy white dudes who aren’t gonna be very friendly when you ask a DHV question. Yeah, they, that

[00:26:38] Julia: that was the case. And to be fair, um, I’ve had just as many really rude women as I rude men. Um, and, and you know, I always struggle with that when that kind of comes up. Um, but you know, there we go. There’s, there’s mean people and there’s nice people and you know, it’s just one of those, one of those things I think, um, we do, I would say we probably, uh, 10% of our community is probably guys and, um, not, we market to women.

[00:27:05] Julia: Um, and we kind of talk specifically to women. Um, but the, I just my personality and, and the, the type of people that I attract when I do lives and we do, um, events and, um, my social media and, and all of that is just going to attract more women. Um, and the guys that do join are they, they know that our community is, is very, um, we, you know, there’s a lot of empathy.

[00:27:32] Julia: There’s compassion. We’re, we’re supportive. We’re encouraging Not to say that guys aren’t that, but you know, it’s ju we’re just a much more feminine ish type of community. So that’s just what we attract. Yeah. Um, but the guys in there are amazing, and I, I didn’t, when I first started the community, I, I didn’t think there would be that many kind of like techy developer women out there because I hadn’t met any. Um, but it’s amazing how many will kind of come out of the woodwork when they, when they see that there’s other people like them.

[00:28:04] Josh: So, and that’s what I was curious about, like, when you got into the industry, how many women developers were around, or even online specifically? No,

[00:28:12] Julia: well, none that I was really aware of when I, when I first got into kind of online business, it was early 2017, and I came across a Facebook ad and I watched a webinar and I joined a community of other service providers and I was the only developer in there.

[00:28:28] Julia: And I, I like when they found out that I knew how to code and I could do all this custom stuff, um, I was really, really popular and, and people wanted to hire me because they had, oh, you know, this developer ghosted me or, or this guy wasn’t very nice or, or whatever. Like the amount of times that I got clients because their last developer was crap.

[00:28:50] Julia: Happens all the time or happens all the The time. All time. Yeah, all the time. It’s like I tell my students, just be a decent human being. Like reply to emails, answer P, be helpful, be kind, and you will easily like stand above the rest. It’s sad.

[00:29:07] Josh: That’s a great point. Yeah. And so to this point of like when you, when you got into the industry and you were heavy into WordPress and the coding side of things, I’m kind of curious, regardless of, of gender, like why do you think the, the development end of things, why do you think that, how do I say this nicely?

[00:29:31] Josh: Maybe I don’t need to say it nicely. Why are developers often just kind of dicks. Like why, you know what I mean? Like why does that, why, why? I’m kind of curious from your perspective, because how common is it that you go to a developer group, you get nasty responses to something, but if you go into a page builder group or a more business centric people are generally more helpful. I’m kind of curious why. I don’t know if you have any insight from that perspective.

[00:29:54] Julia: No, that’s a really good question and I’ve never, I’ve never really thought about it. Um, why

[00:30:01] Josh: would they, I have some theories I’m happy to share while you’re thinking about it. Yeah, share. Let’s hear it. Cause my, my brother is a developer guy and he is kind of a cynical type of person. And now he’s very, very smart, super book smart. He can write all sorts of code, but he’s. super warm when it, like if, if you were in a group, it’d probably probably give you like a kind of nasty answer. I mean, you wouldn’t be like mean, but it would be like very short and like you, you know, this is how, I don’t know.

[00:30:30] Josh: It’s just there’s not a warmness to Yeah, and I don’t know if that’s, I don’t know if maybe if you’re thinking in code and maybe it’s a, maybe it’s a communication thing. Maybe people who are really really into the development side of things in code think more in absolutes and math and numbers and like direct communication.

[00:30:50] Josh: Whereas warmth, empathy, compassion, those are probably secondary to just like knowing the code and getting it done. So I don’t know if that’s maybe in ask like maybe an as like maybe a lot. I don’t know if that’s an aspect of it. Maybe a lot of those people are not trying to be mean, it’s just how they come across.

[00:31:04] Josh: Whereas you can very definitely tell when somebody is doing that. I, I don’t know. That’s my perspective though, as far as like maybe that’s an underlying. Yeah,

[00:31:12] Julia: I, I think that’s probably a fair assessment for a good, good portion of folks. And, and I guess part of me would almost kind of question, well, is it, is it just what we perceive? Um, and people just accept it and it’s a, oh, well, developers are not nice and non-developers are, I’m a nice person. I don’t wanna be a developer.

[00:31:36] Julia: Like, and then Hollywood kind of makes that perception as well, so isn’t just what people perceive. And you’re right, you go into developer communities and they’re, they’re not gonna, they’re not as nice as some of the others. Then there are nice developer communities. It, it’s almost like the news, like the news will talk about all the bad stuff that’s happening because that’s sensational, but they don’t talk about all the good and there’s still good stuff happening.

[00:32:05] Julia: So I almost wonder if it’s, if it, if it’s just. We recog, we remember the bad experiences and we associate the bad experiences with that community and that group and the good people in those communities just didn’t get a chance to, you know, say, no, we, we are a good group of people and that’s exactly what Geek Pak is. So I, I think that, I think that could be part of it as well. But I like to

[00:32:33] Josh: see people that’s That’s really interesting. Well, everything rises and falls on leadership. So your, the way you come across Julia is very evident and geek pack, I’m sure. I mean, like you said, your vibe attracts your tribes, so you’re gonna get people who are maybe not exactly like you, but like-minded in some way.

[00:32:50] Josh: and helpfulness is a common trait for, with a leader, especially. I kind of, I was thinking about a pro to a group. Let, let’s say there is a development group, not Geek Pak, of course, that is still like, uh, a little, a little, I don’t know. I wanna get in there. It gets nasty sometimes. The good news is if you are a really nice, empathetic, compassionate, developer person, you will stand out, like you said earlier, immediately.

[00:33:17] Josh: So actually, this could be a really good thing because you don’t have to be the best developer. You can just be the nicest developer. Yeah. And you’ll get way more work than that dude who’s really good, but is also a complete jerk. No one wants to email him. So I don’t know if you’ve seen that or that’s a message you, you, uh, relay to your, your students, but I imagine that’s a crow.

[00:33:36] Julia: Yeah, no, I, I love that. That’s a, it’s a really good point. And that’s really like at the end of the day, You be good at what you do and, and be kind and yeah. Reply to people and, you know, just do the things that you would do to a person in real life. Yeah. And I hate when people kind of hide behind, uh, you know, working online and, and they’re never gonna see me again and, and all that.

[00:33:59] Julia: Like, no, we’re still real human beings. The person on the other side of the camera is a human being and just treat them like you would wanna be treated. You know, it’s, it’s basic, but yet it feels like not everyone kind of gets it.

[00:34:13] Josh: You know, I’ve, I’ve taken that approach side note to w with, with my daughter and with having a lot of kids, we’re in and out of appointments left and right with hospitals and all kinds of stuff. And I do a lot of phone calls with like scheduling and stuff like that. And I realize those people have a job that is extremely. Unrewarding, uh, when it comes to like the people they’re talking with, because they’re, everyone everyone’s talking to is stressed out or they just don’t wanna talk to them.

[00:34:42] Josh: So I’ve recently taken it upon myself to, uh, be extra nice and be super thankful and just talk, like you said, talk like I would talk to ’em in person. So the last time I scheduled something for my daughter, Bria, uh, the gal on the other end, I was like, I’m sorry I missed your call, or I think I left her a voicemail. I said, I’m sorry I missed your call. Um, I was in the line of Chick-fil-A, I couldn’t answer you, you understand? And she got back with me and said, like, made her day here and that.

[00:35:06] Josh: So just the littlest things of like us just being real can go such a long way when it comes to communicating with, uh, either clients or the developers, whatever. I, I absolutely love, love, love, love that approach. Also to what you said earlier, when it comes to communication with clients, here’s a shocking bit of news for everybody, especially earlier on, if you just show up and communicate within a decent amount of time. That’s like 75% of getting clients is just communicating well and being punctual. That’s what I’ve experienced at least.

[00:35:36] Julia: Yep. A hundred percent. I absolutely, and I, I saw that all the time that I was working with clients and we, one of the things that we have embedded in the new revamped WP Rockstar is, is the kind of whole client communication process, like from initial interaction to onboarding, and we have the whole kind of setup and, and click up with a template and track and follow up and, and just make sure that you are constantly communicating and, and, and making, making sure that they feel heard and, and their questions are answered.

[00:36:08] Julia: And like, it’s not, it’s not rocket science and it just, having it all laid out just means that, that they are set up to, to win from the beginning and stand out from all the other douchey people that are out there.

[00:36:23] Josh: Yeah. I love that. I’m, I’m really interested to get your thoughts and insight on AI as somebody who’s in the, the developer world. My. Before I turn it over to you, Julia, my personal thought is that AI is not going to run web designers outta business. I think it is gonna be a really good tool to help when it comes to building copy and uh, Who, just one of my colleagues who’s a developer guy had a PHP issue. How Timely and used chat GTP or PT to, I always say, I always get G P T confused with GDPR and all this stuff.

[00:36:56] Josh: Anyway, he used that to get a fix for this PHP code, which probably would’ve taken a bit amount of time in a forum or a group. So I think it’s a really good tool to assist us. What’s your thoughts on ai, and especially on the coding and development side of things?

[00:37:10] Julia: Yeah, same. Um, using it to assist, uh, you know, it’s just like Google. When I, when I was, when I first learned to code, I was Googling errors that I would come up or I was Googling stuff and I would be in Stack Overflow and trying to figure it out and, and trying different things. And if this is a, a shortcut to assisting, awesome. I mean, isn’t that what we do as, as human beings is we, we improve and we make things better.

[00:37:37] Julia: Um, but I definitely don’t think it. Takes anything over. Um, because at the end of the day, it is a computer. It it is, it’s not real. It’s not human. Um, and using it for copy prompts, using it to, to assist absolutely. Whether it’s it’s copy or, um, writing code or, or whatever, you know, writing a song, whatever people are using it for idea generating, assisting.

[00:38:08] Julia: But I think things still need a human touch. And if it worked for your friend to, to come up with the, the PHP solution, amazing. Like, that would’ve been so awesome years ago when I had all, I had a bunch of, you know, PHP issues and trying to, and you’re right. Going back and forth in a forum or stack overflow trying to figure it out.

[00:38:27] Julia: Um, it, it’s just another tool to. Used in your business to, to fix a problem, to troubleshoot, but I don’t think it should be the only one. And of course, double checking the work. Cause you know what, who knows what it would spit out? It could be wrong. So

[00:38:48] Josh: I love that you share that insight as somebody who’s in a bit of a different side of the market than I am. I was really, really interested when things blew up with chat g p t recently to see like, well, what are the people on the developer side of things? Like, are they all nervous that they’re all gonna lose their job because you could just get chat G p T to write out some code. I agree. I, I think there’s, I think there’s a lot.

[00:39:09] Josh: I think there’s a lot to making AI work as a whole. Yeah. And AI is a problem solving solution. Not so much. Yeah. Uh, at least as of now in my mind. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:21] Julia: Agreed.

[00:39:22] Josh: Do you, do you feel like the majority of your community, and maybe it’s split, I don’t know, do you feel like they are. Business-minded people who need to learn code to fill on the confidence gaps? Or do you feel like they’re coders and developers that need to learn the business side of things more? Uh,

[00:39:41] Julia: easily 50 50. Uh, and I think that’s what makes the community so fun is, is they then will help each other out. Um, cuz we have some that are just like deep into the, the code and the websites and, and fixing problems and troubleshooting, but then we’ll have the other half who already have clients.

[00:40:00] Julia: But the really techy ones are terrified of finding clients. It’s the hardest thing in the world. They’ll go down a php rabbit hole all day long versus reaching out to clients. But then we have the ones who have clients and, you know, can give them that confidence and try this and have you tried that? And, um, and then, and sharing and, and hiring each other. So it, it’s easily a 50 50

[00:40:23] Josh: that’s cool. That’s a great distinction too cuz yeah, it’s like, it’s kind of a good self evaluator. Like ask yourself, everyone listening or watching right now, do you, would you rather go to a sales meeting and talk with somebody and then get some help figuring out a PhD p issue?

[00:40:37] Josh: Or would you rather dive into the rabbit hole and go online and go into groups and figure out an issue rather than going to a sales meeting? And, and it’s probably a good distinction on you where you’re maybe best suited for right now? Not to say that you can’t do one or the other, but I do think it’s really important to be self-aware about where your threshold is for, for those types of things.

[00:40:56] Josh: Cuz yeah, a lot of developers, I, I just know this from my experience, they really struggled with communication and sell. Like I used my brother as an example before. he, I had one development question one time with a client that I had him in on just to get his insight and I could tell my client was like, I’m so glad I’m working with Josh, cuz I would not have sold what his brother was was saying.

[00:41:18] Josh: And, but it was just, cuz my brother was so smart and so in it, it was like he was talking like a developer to somebody who was not a developer. Yeah. Um, and maybe, maybe that’s it. Maybe if you are far into the coding world, again, kind of going back to the, the community and the communication aspect. Maybe your lens is talking with people on that level and on that plane where when it comes to client side of things, you have to completely get outside of what you know and talk at their level.

[00:41:43] Josh: Is that something you’ve learned to help people with as well as like stepping out of your area of expertise and really talking at the level of clients and people you’re working with?

[00:41:53] Julia: Yeah, and it, and again, so much of what we teach now is just experience that we had. And I used to write proposals and I would go into all the detail about, you know, All the, the, the features, I, I would leave out the benefits and I wouldn’t kind of say, you know, it being mobile optimized and like, I would just say it would be mobile optimized.

[00:42:19] Julia: Well, what does, what’s the benefit of a, of a website being mobile? And then so we, we try to tell our students now, don’t focus so much on the, the features because you know that that’s your bread and butter. That’s what you’re really good at. I know that that’s what gets you excited, but think about what the benefit is to the client and how.

[00:42:37] Julia: A how the website being mobile optimized means that more people are on their phones and they can see it easy and they navigate, navigate around and they can buy from it and they can book a call and they like just put it in frame. Reframe how you are explaining your super techy knowledge to someone who isn’t super techy. Think you just try to get them to do that.

[00:42:59] Josh: You just nailed it too with the little phrase means that, or I’ve heard it in a lot of cases, so that. So like you can say, if you need to dive into like what you know about a language or a theme, or WordPress versus wic, whatever. Say that so that yeah, you get this result because if you j most people just stop at like, well, we use WordPress cuz this and this and this, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:43:22] Josh: And the client’s already tuned out. Yeah. And then they’re like, oh, now I’m like nervous and a little, I’m not even excited about this anymore. But if you say, we use WordPress and this because, so that you’ll have a site that we can scale and easier to manage. That is the key to, to get to the conversion when it comes to like sales.

[00:43:40] Josh: So I love, I love that point. Um, yeah, that can apply to anything, but particularly when it comes to talking with clients. Yeah. What a good reminder not to go

[00:43:49] Julia: too far. Oh yeah. Another thing that we do, um, a lot because I, I’m a massive introvert. Um, most of my students are, and, and we almost like, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a joke that you know about how, how we’re, we’re all really introverted and, but it kind of brings us together and it’s like, okay, well we are, but how do we how do we take the thing that we really want?

[00:44:13] Julia: And that’s something we focus on is, is what is, what is their why? Why is it that they want to learn this skill? Is it to be a stay-at-home mom? Is it to be a stay-at-home dog mom? Is it to, you know, homeschool their kids or, um, look after their elderly parents, like, whatever.

[00:44:30] Julia: So we try to get them to dig in at the very beginning. Why are they doing this thing that, that most people aren’t doing? They’re learning a skill, they’re starting their own business. And we, we try to get them to keep that in mind. We actually mail out postcards as soon as someone joins a program and we kind of explain, write down your why and on it, they can write it down and post it somewhere so they can see it.

[00:44:53] Julia: And that really helps them kind of focus on when they need to do something that they’re uncomfortable with, like speaking to a client or finding potential clients. And it’s all, all, finding clients is always the thing that we struggle with the most. . And, um, if I, if I can get them to go, okay, I’m, I’m doing this uncomfortable thing that I don’t feel good about doing because I want X and I know exactly what, what that is, it makes it a whole lot easier.

[00:45:20] Julia: Like, I’m an introvert, but my vision for my company is to reach over a hundred thousand women and help them learn tech skills. Well, I’m not gonna do that if I don’t do things like this. Being on podcast, being, you know, being, being the face, doing the, doing the things. I don’t, that’s not comfortable for me, but I put my own feelings aside knowing that I might reach, you know, five women in your community might go, oh, no way.

[00:45:48] Julia: I, I’m gonna go and look at her website. Awesome. Like, that was worth my time. So we try to put a lot of things into perspective, into a bigger, um, bigger goal. Bigger why? Bigger vision. So that hard, uncomfortable in the moment, things are easier.

[00:46:03] Josh: Lot of good life lessons there, particularly when it comes to getting outta your comfort zone. And, and I do think that’s really common for web designers, whether they are more like the non, the no-code builder approach versus the the coding type of development approach. Most web designers don’t get into this game to go to networking groups. It’s like, all right, I can design a website. Oh, shoot, if I’m gonna sell it, I need to sell it to somebody.

[00:46:27] Josh: If I’m gonna sell it to somebody, they need to know what I do. I’m really good. If they’re gonna need to know me, I’m gonna need to like, get in front of them somehow, whether online or in person. So, yeah, I do feel like sometimes that’s the, the second phase to, uh, a web designer’s journey is like, oh, shoot, I gotta sell.

[00:46:42] Josh: Um, that might be my next course. Oh shoot, I gotta sell . So yeah, I, I really love your approach, Julie. Like I said, I was actually just looking at your, um, your, your main website with Geek Pack and then WP Rockstar. Um, So, yeah. Oh my gosh. I have so many questions that we could dive into, but what have you taken from your journey?

[00:47:05] Josh: Okay. Here’s something I I’d love to, to kind of throw in your core, your side of the core is what’s something that you wish somebody would’ve told you when you were maybe a couple years, either in the beginning or a couple years into it that really like would’ve helped? And this, this, you could take this however you want, but I’m just wondering like, almost like if you could go back a decade.

[00:47:24] Josh: and talk to yourself, cuz it sounds like you just got, you know, got started about a decade ago. What, what’s something you would tell yourself as a developer, you know, in this world now?

[00:47:33] Julia: Yeah, and I, I think it kind of goes back to what I just mentioned there, because when I first got started, I, um, I was just doing it. I was a, I was a military wife. We, we moved around a lot and I’d had a previous career, um, with the US government that was going really well. Um, I, when I met my husband in Afghanistan, you know, we, we, he’s British, so I left my job with the government. I moved to the uk military wife moving around.

[00:48:01] Julia: And, um, I, when I first kind of started learning the tech skills and, and I started my online business, I didn’t really have a why or a a really. Good almost vision or mission for myself. And I’m not sure. I think if someone had explained it the way that I do now, it probably would’ve, would’ve made sense to me because I was terrified to find clients. I never thought I knew enough. I was constantly learning. I would go, you know, squirrel syndrome and I would, would buy more courses, you know, all the things that we do.

[00:48:38] Julia: And I, I wish that I had known that if I, if I could kind of say, okay, my, my why is, is this, then if I take a small step every day to help myself get to that, all that compounding will eventually get me there. And it could have happened a lot quicker than how long it actually took me. So I think just having a a, a reason bigger than.

[00:49:10] Julia: I want to work from home. I want to make more money. Those are fine reasons, but there’s more to it like, well, why do you wanna work from home? Why do you wanna make more money? Like, dig deeper into your real intention and your real reason to, to do this thing. And then when the day is tough, when, when you have a hard day and you know, entrepreneur, we’re like this, aren’t we?

[00:49:34] Julia: Every day, every hour, every week. it feels like, um, when you are, are at that low point or you don’t wanna do something, you know, you, you don’t wanna. Be on a podcast because you, you’re on camera and, and someone’s gonna see you. And what if you mumble? Or what if you say something silly or you, all those things go through my head because I’m an introvert.

[00:49:54] Julia: Well, but I, I will do them anyway because I have a bigger reason as to why I am doing them. But I had to get comfortable with that before I could kind of get comfortable with me going outside my comfort zone. And I really think, I mean, I, I do have a very big vision for my company, but I think anyone with, if you’re, you’re a single owner, business owner, you’re building websites for folks.

[00:50:18] Julia: And you, you’ll have your own why and what, what is that? And how can you take one small step every day getting you closer to what that is? Um, that’s what I would’ve told myself.

[00:50:30] Josh: That’s good. Well, couple thoughts on that. One is, I think the re I think the biggest importance for why that I experience in my life is that if you don’t have any sort of why, and this could be a micro why, like something small, like yeah, I would just wanna work from home versus a big why.

[00:50:46] Josh: Like I wanna help a hundred thousand people, uh, do this regardless. When you go through the hard times, if you don’t have something that you’re going towards, you have to like, push through it. But if you have something I’ve found it like helps you, it helps pull you through it. that’s, that’s the best way I can explain.

[00:51:05] Josh: With least, especially what I’ve dealt with with Josh Hold Co with this brand of helping web designers is like I’ve felt a pool to get through the hard times in my business versus pushing through stuff like I did previously. And another note that’s kind of interesting about that is I do feel that whys change, and maybe yours did, like, I don’t know how grandiose that vision was, you know, three or four years ago.

[00:51:26] Josh: So they do change. So then it becomes a point where, yeah, you’re working from home now, so you hit your Y, now it’s time for a new Y. Yeah. Or maybe you’re halfway to that Y and you’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t wanna work from home. I want a new home. Yeah. And I wanna like, I wanna do this for that. And then you’re like, oh, I wanna do this.

[00:51:42] Josh: Or it doesn’t have to necessarily be money related, but there could be all sorts of why’s, so. it’s an interesting message, an interesting point as far as having some sort of why that, again, for me personally, my biggest takeaway on why’s is to have a pool rather than a push. Yes.

[00:51:58] Julia: Yep. I’ve, I’ve heard that on another podcast that I listen to all the time about the importance of a poll rather than a push.

[00:52:05] Josh: So I thought I made it up. Dang it. right here. I am thinking I’m so original. Uh, and I probably heard it and forgot about it and thought I made it up. Well, there we go. All I’ll credit you all, all knowledge is borrowed, all code is ripped. Yeah, all design is ripped off. So, uh, yeah, no, this has been really, really fun.

[00:52:24] Josh: Julia. Like I said, I think you are a very, very good referral partner, uh, for myself, because like I said, I don’t go too far into to what you have set up. Can you tell us about, so Geek Pack is your main website. Is WP Rockstar, is that more of like a, a course and a program alongside of that? I’d love, I have one final question for you, but I’d love to hear just the setup that you have in place here.

[00:52:47] Julia: Yeah, yeah. So, so Geek Pack is, is the brand, is the business. Um, but we, we also just recently in the last, uh, six weeks or so, created a new product called Geek Pack. Um, and that’s the, the partnership with Udemy that I, I mentioned, um, where we’ve kind of expanded into not just WordPress and not just coding, um, but pretty much every tech skill you could imagine, um, being offered, uh, with, with, with that.

[00:53:13] Julia: So that is a thing in, in and of itself, geek Pack as a product. Um, and then WP Rockstar is, is a course, an online course. Um, and that’s, that’s what we, um, what we call that.

[00:53:25] Josh: Gotcha. So do you typically get Geek Packers to go rockstar or do you get rock stars to go geek in terms of the background? In terms of You’re welcome to use that, by the way, for your No,

[00:53:38] Julia: I love that. I, I think I might to tell my, my marketing manager, um, we, so w p Rockstar has been around for five so, um, we have a lot more students, um, who have gone through WP Rockstar. So a lot of my rockstar students have now joined Geek Pack. But we, um, we have, we’re starting to expand, um, promoting Geek Pack and I, I’ve, uh, partnered with a number of economic development organizations and I’ve got, um, for example, uh, dress for Success, uh, in Denver.

[00:54:11] Julia: Um, they’re, they’re gonna be sending some women through Geek Pack and we’re creating custom curriculums for them, uh, learning, um, digital literacy. Uh, I’ve partnered with the Wyoming Women’s Business Center and they are sending, um, they have grant funding and they’re funneling that grant funding to us to, um, create a custom.

[00:54:30] Julia: uh, curriculum for their women, uh, learning digital marketing for six weeks. So having this, uh, partnership with Udemy means that we have such a broad catalog that I have team members who are former teachers and they take the content and they’re kind of creating these custom learning paths. Um, and they’re doing live facilitation to, to get.

[00:54:53] Julia: The women to go through, um, the content. Cuz we all know you buy courses and you never do anything with it. So we’re, we’re trying to, we’re combining this, this library of courses with, um, live classes, custom cohorts, um, learning paths to, to take the overwhelm and kind of really narrow it down and, and teach the things that people wanna learn.

[00:55:14] Josh: So I think that is where online courses, if they’re not already there, it’s where they’re going. It’s one reason, like I mentioned earlier, I, I revamped my membership to include my courses inside Web Designer Pro because I’ve had a lot of success with my courses. I get great testimonials, but I don’t quite know like, Where students are at and it’s hard for me to track with standalone courses where everyone’s at.

[00:55:38] Josh: I love having them centralized now to where we can set up sprints and quick wins and challenges to get through courses at a certain amount of time as a community and as people come in with where they’re at. That way we can get those results as quickly as possible. Cuz you’re right, unless you don’t, if you don’t have accountability or some sort of, it doesn’t have to be a cohort group style thing or unless you’re just extremely motivated to get through a course.

[00:56:03] Josh: Most people don’t or they don’t get through all of it. And it’s like anything, if you pick and choose a few things that sound interesting, you’re never gonna get the, the full result. You gotta go through it all if it’s a really good course from start to finish to get the maximum result. Yep. Um, that’s definitely what I’ve seen in the course world at least.

[00:56:21] Josh: And, and it’s good, it’s a win-win because it’s, it allows course graders to be able to better get results for students, which lead to more course sales and program sales. And it’s better for students to get quicker results and have a community behind them. Absolutely. Yeah, so cool. Are you stateside now or are you still in the UK then?

[00:56:39] Julia: Um, no, we’re in Durango, Colorado and we have a ton of snow .

[00:56:44] Josh: Okay. I was gonna say, cuz your background seems so light still, I, I wonder, I didn’t think you were in the uk if you’re gonna be dark cuz we’re chatting in the afternoon, so, yeah. Yeah. Uh, that’s cool. That’s cool. I’ve, I was, I was also wondering where you got some of those connections, but it sounds like you, you to me, is kind of a built in connection tool in that case.

[00:57:01] Julia: Yeah, they’ve, um, they, they’ve been, well, yeah, I mean, as far as getting the. Content. They’ve been great. Um, I joined last year a local accelerator program for entrepreneurs, which I don’t know if if there’s anything like that near where you are, but it was amazing, um, for my business and the connections that I made.

[00:57:19] Julia: And I mean, at the end of the day, like, as I said, my vision is very big. So my role as, as c e o is how do I, how do I get us towards that vision? Well, it’s making connections. It’s reaching out to nonprofits and, and economic development organizations and any, any organization that retrains women. Um, I’ve got a call tomorrow morning with the unit that my husband used to work in because they have a, they have funding to support the wives and girlfriend learning skills while the guys are, you know, busy, um, doing stuff.

[00:57:55] Julia: So, you know, it’s, it’s just kind of, I’m trying to think outside the box with, cuz a hundred thousand Women’s a lot and, you know, you can only run so many Facebook ads, right. . So, um, how can we, how can I think outside the box and, and reach thousands and thousands of women through organizations where th those women already are. That, that’s what I’m trying to do.

[00:58:18] Josh: Where did the, uh, just out of personal curiosity, where did the. Goal of, or vision or a why of a hundred thousand? Where did that come from? Was there a reason a hundred? It’s a,

[00:58:29] Julia: it’s a big number. It’s scary number. I, I took a course, um, it must have been a y year and a half ago or so at it, kind of a, um, almost a a C E O course really because for so long I I felt like a, you know, I was a business owner and then I was, I was, I was just doing a lot of stuff and I wanted to, um, learn how to be more of the, the visionary in the business. Um, we’re a team of nine. I, I’ve got, I’ve got eight, eight other team members. And, um, most of the day-to-day stuff is, is happening in the background.

[00:59:00] Julia: And I, I didn’t know how to set goals. I didn’t really know where that would come from. And, and the ch, one of the, the very first week of this course was to come up with your vision, mission, and core values, and that I mean, it was an expensive course that went on for maybe six months, but that first week that I got more value out of that than everything else in there because I, I created such a, um, specific vision that a hundred thousand, and it was, it was scary as everything.

[00:59:32] Julia: And back then, I didn’t know how I was going to hit a hundred thousand. I didn’t know, I didn’t have the, um, partnership with you. To me, I didn’t have all these other connections. Those came in time. But I allowed myself to dream big and to, to come up with this big, hairy, audacious number that. I, I thought was ridiculous, but I might as well go for it.

[00:59:55] Julia: But because I allowed myself to have this big ridiculous number, it, it gave me permission to make connections with people who would help me get to that number, to reach out and have partnerships with bigger organizations. Because if I didn’t have that big goal, I wouldn’t have been trying for that big goal.

[01:00:15] Josh: I love that approach too, because sometimes if you set a goal or a vision or a Y that is really grandiose or big, it absolutely, like you just illustrated, forces you to change your entire setup and mindset. It’s like you could take this on a smaller level too, as a web designer, you could say, I wanna build a and do a $10,000 project.

[01:00:37] Josh: I’m charging a thousand dollars on average right now. Don’t do that everyone. Uh, so, okay. What’s buying a $10,000 project? Probably a client that has a budget of at least, you know, , 500,000 per annual sales, maybe a million. Um, what’s involved with that? Probably some decent SEO setup foundation, good conversion design, real, you know, good design principles, mold responsive, all those things.

[01:00:59] Josh: So you kind of work backwards. It’s like if I wanna do this consistently, what do I need to do? Same thing in regards to as ceo, if I want to hit a hundred thousand people, yeah, you’re probably gonna have programs that are gonna be catered to the masses and at scale and you’re gonna have team members to fill in the gap.

[01:01:14] Josh: So, like I said, you’re not doing all the things constantly. Yeah. It’s a great challenge for where I’m at right now too, cause I’ve thought about that as well. Um, so yeah, really interesting. I, that’s actually a great thought to end off this, off of, I think, uh, is to set a big. I think I’ve heard of this.

[01:01:29] Josh: Bhag. Big Harry, audacious. Big Harry, audacious Goal. Behag Here it’s, yeah. I don’t know if our approach coaching program is any similar. I went through something similar, uh, it was called Action Coach back in 2017. Uh, and that really same thing. It was like I learned a lot of stuff that was like, yeah, okay, that’s fine.

[01:01:45] Josh: But it was those like planning and setting up the business and really thinking like a business owner. that took me from the. The, the doer, the, uh, technician into the CEO seat. Yeah. So, yeah. That’s awesome. Well, Julia, this has been great. Uh, super fun chat. I’m sure this is not gonna be the first time, cuz I love your approach.

[01:02:07] Josh: I love your community. I love what you’re up to. So we’ll have the links in the show notes. We’ve got geek pack.com, WP rockstar, we’ll have that linked as well. Any, anything else you’d like to add? No,

[01:02:18] Julia: I, I had a blast. Thank you so much. It was, um, awesome to, to chat all things kind of big vision stuff and all the way down to the nitty gritty of coding and, and all that. So it is conversations like these that remind me why I love getting to do what I do and, and meeting other just amazing entrepreneurs who are just, just good humans. So, so thank you so much for having me.

[01:02:44] Josh: Oh, it’s a pleasure. What a compliment. That’s like the nicest thing I could ever get as a podcaster, so I really appreciate that. I have no idea what I’m gonna title this now, so I’m off to figure that out after this, so.

[01:02:54] Julia: Awesome. Well, thanks so much.

[01:02:56] Josh: Thank you, Julia. Talk soon.