In my previous podcast episode, I shared that I just recently crossed the 7-figure (1 million in revenue) mark for my business…that’s super cool, amazing and all; but I’ve had a hard time celebrating the milestone because the past year has been BY FAR the hardest, most challenging year I’ve ever had in business.
Web design, owning a business and entrepreneurship is always a roller coaster (both in revenue, career path and both mentally and emotionally) but transparently, I’ve experienced some of the lowest points on this journey in the past year.
I’m an optimist and I like to keep things light but I’m not gonna lie, this year has been tough.
What led to a tough, challenging year in business
Many of the challenges of the past 12 months were because of personal reasons (which I open up about in this episode in detail) but in short, between my daughter Brea having a traumatic prolonged seizure and while recovering at our local Children’s hospital, my son being born the same week and a few days after birth, my wife having a serious incident of preeclampsia…it kicked off the start of a very challenging season.
Not only were we adding a 3rd baby into the mix (that’s 3 kiddos under 5) but my daughter was just starting phase I of her recovery after having been completely paralyzed on her left side; having to relearn how to crawl, walk and regain her strength and motor functions.
I’ll update you on where she’s at today in this episode! Great news, while it’s still a long road of recovery, she’s making amazing progress.
Meanwhile, at the time of us finally settling into our new normal and taking this challenging season one day at a time, my business expenses were going up but the revenue…was staying stagnant…then suddenly going down month after month.
Because of our challenging personal situation, it’s understandable I wasn’t able to devote as much time to creating new content, hosting webinars, marketing efforts, launches, etc but I was still doing a lot of work in the way of continuing to build my community and keep my courses up to date. Normally, that would be enough to keep our revenue about where I’m used to seeing it.
It got particularly challenging when a couple launches and marketing pushes I did (which normally brought in an expected level of income) didn’t produce nearly what I thought they would.
Since starting my brand with joshhall.co, I’ve been used to measuring my revenue quarterly and every quarter, I’ve been used to seeing the numbers go up and to the right…but for the first time…they started to level off and even slightly decline…
On top of this, my family and I are in a beautiful new home (with a much higher mortgage, medical bills are piling up, business expenses have increased but revenue, even after a few marketing/launch pushes, were on the decline.
This led to some of the lowest points I’ve personally had as a business owner and entrepreneur…
I’ve learned that when you have a lot riding on you (like I do as the sole provider to a family of 5) the stress, pressure and what felt like physical weight on my shoulders when things weren’t going as well as they had been…hit 100 times harder.
But as you might hope…this story doesn’t end on a bad note 🙂
Light at the end of the tunnel
I’m here today, comfortable to share my insight on this challenging year because I feel the tides have turned and I’m headed into the light at the end of the tunnel.
The numbers are trending back up and to the right, student results are pouring in, proving to me that what I do is working and changing lives and wow have I matured as a person and business owner, become more vigilant with the numbers and have never appreciated sales & good revenue months more than I do today.
Today I’m sharing in depth about what I learned and did to get through this extremely tough year in business but while you’re here, I’ll share this…
At my lowest points, I refused to give in to the thoughts that I need to pivot or change things up, or abandon my mission of helping web designers build a business that gives them freedom and a life they love.
I learned to keep moving forward, to focus on the wins and results of my students, to be real and transparent but as a leader, keep my head on straight and to show up 100% for you, my students and my following at large no matter what was going on.
A few months of these little actions, small steps moving forward, keeping positive influences around me and speaking into me and my business (even when I didn’t see the numbers changing) have led to the sales and stability I needed to keep my business afloat.
All of this and have given me a new burst of energy and appreciation for the next season of my business which is the upswing and path forward through some of these challenges.
It’s why now, I feel confident to share with you many of the lessons I’ve learned through this…challenging (to put it mildly) year so that if you’re going through it now or if you will in the future, you can hopefully keep these insights in your back pocket and bookmarked to return to.
I’d love to hear from you as to what insight was a good takeaway for you and if you needed to hear this one, please reply back if you’re seeing this in email or leave me a comment below and let me know!
I sincerely hope what I’ve learned helps you in your web design journey,
– Josh
In this episode:
01:16 – Surviving Tough Season in Business
13:50 – Challenges and Lessons Learned in 2023
26:04 – Double Down on What’s Working
38:27 – Client Care and Recognizing Business Success
48:10 – Web Design Pro and Scaling Promotion
Links Mentioned
Episode #290 Full Transcription
JoshHost00:13
Hello friends, welcome in to the show. This episode is a very different style episode for this podcast. If you listened to the episode prior to this, I mentioned that the next couple episodes would be kind of a part one and part two of a solo episode mini series here, where I’m just taking some time to chat with you about some lessons learned from in the previous episode.
00:36
Hitting seven figures, hitting a million dollars in my business Very, very cool landmark and milestone. But at the same time, it has been the most challenging and, quite frankly, tough season in my business over the last about year or so. So in this episode I want to share a little more about that and I’m not going to take this into a negative turn. But what I want to do in this episode is just share with you personally some things that I’ve learned from going through tough season in business but, most importantly, give you some actionable advice that will get you through similar seasons. And the reason I’m doing this episode now, and why I feel good about doing it now, is because I feel like I’m at the very tail end of the most challenging parts of this tough season. Now there’s still plenty of things that I’m kind of working through as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, but I’m definitely far enough along now. Where I can, I feel comfortable with sharing what I’ve learned, because I’ve actually learned quite a few things, even the last couple months here, that I think would really benefit those of you who are either in a tough season in business right now and you’re looking for some advice to get through it, or maybe things are going swell for you right now but you know, at some point the roller coaster ride of business you’re going to have a tough season. Hopefully it doesn’t last a year, maybe it’s just a month or two, but things happen. And as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, another reason I wanted to share with you a little bit about this stuff is because I feel like we often see the highlights and we see the wins on social media and the communities we’re in. But unless it’s like your aunt who’s always bitching about something on Facebook or something, it’s very rare that you see people open up too much of like really open up about their revenue, struggles or challenges. So I wanted to do that as well, just to share with you and to make sure you know you’re not alone if you’re in a tough season or if you go through a tough season. And if you’ve been an established business owner and web designer for a while, you know that it is seasonal Again the roller coaster effects. So all that to say, that’s what led me to want to talk with you about this.
02:43
Now I figured what I’d like to do is kind of just share about personally the things that I’ve kind of gone through, just to set the stage here and give you the foundation for this, because I do have 10 tips. I’m a 10 tip guy. I always try to do like five that I’m like I got more to say. Of course, I could do a hundred tips very easily, but I boiled it down to 10 for you that I’ve found to be the most impactful to help me get through this tough season. I was going to do this episode months ago but I felt like I was too far into it still to where it was kind of more about venting and not complaining but just like sharing my heart, where I was like I really didn’t have too much value because things have not quite turned around yet. I hadn’t stopped the bleeding, as an analogy but I feel really good about where things are and I’ve seen the numbers revenue wise for me increase here of the past couple of months. So I felt like, okay, let’s talk about this and then I’m done. I’m done feeling negative about the past year because I’m ready to rock and roll.
03:37
So what led me here is a mix of quite a few things, and if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you may have known that last year was a big year for my family, starting with us moving into a new home. Those of you who have moved with toddlers know it is absolutely no joke, and my wife was very, very pregnant at the time of us moving. So I took a little bit of time off of work. I actually did an episode about how I barely worked at all last jane or July in the summer, just due to moving and getting settled in, and quite frankly, I really didn’t take much of a break up to that point. So I felt like it was a good time to take my foot off the accelerator, which I think is important. I do not regret that decision at all, but I did lose a little momentum in that season.
04:23
I found that it was kind of hard to get back into the swing of things and I didn’t stop working completely. I still ran my membership, did this podcast. I just didn’t do anything new. I didn’t do any launches, I didn’t really push for anything and it was a it was over two months of that kind of taking the foot off the gas and that did lead to a little bit of decrease in revenue, but that was expected and I was fine with that. I had prepared for it and I had kind of planned on taking the summer of 2022, just light, just have a light summer, and then I was going to ramp it back up in the fall.
04:56
Now, what I did not anticipate happening in the fall a lot of you who have followed me for a while know about this is my sweet daughter, bria, my oldest, who is a special needs kiddo, who we have a lot of challenges with Bria, just in the way of therapies and she’s poor thing. She’s been through surgeries for her cleft, lip and palate and she’s just a rock star, but anyway, she had a prolonged seizure that really threw us for a loop. I did a whole episode on that a while back, because this week it’s actually interesting. This week I’m releasing this as a year out. From when that happened we found her in the morning having a what we found out was a seizure. She looked completely fine on the monitor and then, when we wondered why she wasn’t waking up, we went in and it was just an absolutely traumatic life changing experience for us and we called the squad. Luckily they were here in a couple of minutes and zipped us up to children’s and they did. They were able to stop the seizure when she got to children’s hospital.
05:54
And then what happened was we were hoping when she woke up all would be fine. We had no idea how long she was having a seizure throughout the night, but we were hoping she would just wake up and it would be fine. And but it was not. She did wake up very, very slowly and we discovered that the entire left side of her body was essentially paralyzed. She was extremely weak and, like her left side of her body, her arm, her leg, even her facial muscles were just not popping, like not coming back. Now, as the week progressed, she started getting a little bit better. She started opening her eyes and coming to and her face kind of started making the usual movements and stuff, but she was still having a lot of weakness in her core and her left side as a whole. So you can imagine how stressful that was.
06:38
I was mainly at children’s hospital with her all day, all night. My wife was back and forth between our home and then my middle daughter. If you don’t know, I now have three kids, which you’ll find out, but back then I too, and just our two. Our two daughters and Annie, my middle child, was at home wondering what the hell was going on, because we just disappeared after the squad came and mom’s coming back and forth. I was only home a couple of times within the span of a week and then grandparents were stopping in, neighbors were helping out and stuff and eventually, only four days into my daughter being in the the the NICU there’s not the NICU but the children’s hospital there my son, jackson, who was only a few weeks out from being due anyway, decided with the stress of everything especially that my wife was going through. He decided he was ready to come. So while Brea, my daughter, is at children’s recovering from this prolonged seizure, jackson comes, and we had also all got COVID at that same week. So we did not know that was was in the cards for us. But day one of us being at children’s we all started showing symptoms and we’re wondering if that’s potentially something that led to her having that prolonged seizure in the first place. And we had never got COVID this whole time of the pandemic and stuff we had been out and about and we had never got it. And anyway we had to have Drachston while we were in like the COVID lockdown rooms in another hospital in Columbus. So he’s born.
08:08
I’m bouncing back between children’s hospital and and being with my wife and then my daughter at home Absolute lifetime story script. Just wild week and a half and then eventually eight days in Brie was far enough along where they felt she was comfortable to go home and start to recover, knowing that she was very well taken care of and she had 24 seven support. So we were able to get her out of children’s and come home. And then Jackson got home a couple of days. Luckily the birth went great and everything, and I’m sharing this because this is what led to a very, very tough season for me, by the way.
08:44
And then my wife had a very, very serious episode with preclampsia and, for those who don’t know, it is very, very serious and can happen with certain women at any given time after childbirth. Typically, it could happen within hours of that, or it could happen with days of that. So she did not feel right. We rushed her to the hospital and they rushed her back and we’re like how are you even standing up right now? Rushed her back, ivs, the whole thing. And then I was trying to take care of my little man while he was brand new and we didn’t have any milk supply built up then. So, and I was really worried about what was going on with her. So we were in the hospital for another couple of days with that. So all that to say. And then, when we got home, we started the recovery path with Bria. All that to say, a two week period completely rocked me personally and completely rocked my family.
09:36
Now, looking back on this a year later, this story does have a happy ending in the way of my wife’s doing great my little man is awesome. Annie, my sweet little daughter, is doing great. And then Bria, the one who had the prolonged seizure. It is still a very, very long road to recovery. However, she has been doing amazing. She is getting strength back, week by week, month by month. She is walking again. She’s even running when we try not to have her run working on her balance. She’s moving her arm a little more, caring stuff, still working on dexterity with her fingers, but her facial muscles are back. Cognitively she’s back. And then we just recently had an MRI and had a good report of signs of healing and stuff. So we don’t know how long recovery is gonna be, but we hope and pray that eventually it’ll be a hundred percent recovery. So recovery, so always accept your well wishes, thoughts and prayers for my little sweetie who is continuing to do therapies and to really work through this.
10:34
After having that seizure that we don’t know how long it could have been, it could have been all night. So I rehashed that story and I share that to say that is what happened after taking a bit of the gas off of my business and, as you can imagine, once we kind of rebounded from that, I was completely zapped. So I ended 2022 with, I mean, really it was like last year was almost like a part-time job, just with everything that happened to me and my family. Now, fortunately, this will come into play here with these top 10 tips. Fortunately, I did have enough savings in the business and personally to be able to get through that season. So there’s a good lesson to account for as a business owner is make sure you have some savings for when life happens. Hopefully it’s not that type of situation, but even if you break your arm or you have a loved one that needs help, life does happen.
11:28
But I say that to say like when I planned to get back to work, I was mentally just spent and then, not only when we got home, we were going through that. We were adjusting with life with a newborn. Now we’re a family of five, but my daughter, bria, was doing two to three therapies and appointments a week, so it was extremely time intensive. I was doing every one of those with my wife recovering from everything she went through and having a newborn. So it started the journey to where we are now, which is in a much better place. But I share that personal story with you and just wanted to open up about that because it really it started from there to be the biggest challenging thing for me, because once 2023 came around, I got excited again about really really diving back into business in a way that I was ready to launch new stuff, ready to look forward, and what happened is 2023, as we’ve talked about on the podcast a couple of times recently, and as I found out from a lot of colleagues, there was a lot of businesses, particularly in the coaching and course world, that did struggle this year, in 2023, not all of them, but from literally just about everyone I’ve talked to.
12:36
Most course creators saw quite a big dip in their numbers this year. Now what’s interesting about that is for web designers. I’m coaching web designers all over and web design itself building websites for clients is the opposite, which is thrilling. I hope you’re excited about that. Web designers are killing it Like it’s more needed. The opportunity is better than ever. Even with AI and everything going on right now, the need for web designers is continuing to boom. So it’s why I’m so excited still about being a leader in the industry and a coach for you to help you grow your web design business, because there’s truly no better time.
13:13
But it was kind of interesting because I was coaching and I’m coaching a lot of people who are having their best years ever and are slammed with work. Meanwhile, I’m used to seeing certain number of revenue and numbers come in with courses and everything that’s going on, and that was not the case for me. And then, even when I started really working like putting the gas back, the accelerator back down and really going for it what the results that I was seeing was not like what I was used to seeing for the past few years with building this brand. Now, fortunately, I still make enough to cover our basics or the basics, but, as I mentioned a few episodes back with Daniel Hayden and when we were talking about well, we got into this a little bit.
13:54
When it comes to like, like spending expenses and everything else, I did have to be really, really careful about our spending in both business and personally. We had things we wanted to do as a family to our new home and stuff that we had to put the brakes on and put a hold on some stuff. So it was like all those things kind of culminated to be a very, very challenging year for me and all the areas I just mentioned, just between a lot of life changes and then a traumatic experience that we went through as a family and then a road to recovery for my daughter which is extremely time intensive, and just the culmination of this year, 2023, particularly, for course, creators. In fact, I’m gonna make sure we link this in the show notes. But my friend Julia Taylor with Geekpack as I’m recording this, just today, the day of recording this, she released a video on her YouTube channel on the Geekpack YouTube channel about how to get through tough times. So Julia and I are on the same boat, so she’s got some tips that I’d recommend that you check out as well. Some are actually reflected from here that I have as well, so we’ll have that linked in the show notes. Go to Geekpack, go to their YouTube channel to see that video.
15:03
But, all that to say, it has tested me as an entrepreneur and a business owner. So I’m about to get into these 10 tips that I’ve learned from all this, because I have had some down moments this year and I’ve had some points where I didn’t know means, but I did. I ever think about giving up, but I did have some worries and anxious feelings. I even lost my appetite for a few days, which is not common, because I like me some bagels and pizza and all the good goods, but I felt so stressed at one point about seeing the numbers in the low months I was having ongoing and thinking about. We got a bigger mortgage. Now I’ve got more responsibility. This is not what I was anticipating. We got medical bills coming in good Lord, all these things.
15:51
Yeah, I really I actually had like the most stressful time I’ve had in the way of like, if things don’t turn around pretty quickly, we’re gonna have to make some changes. And then what would that look like with my family of now five, three kids, like I had some of these feelings and what I did, and I’ll just tell you I don’t have this on the list here, but what I learned in that situation, when I had those like really down moments and those anxious feelings and even honestly, I like I literally lost my appetite. I mean I ate, but I was I just like was not my normal self I really really felt that stress and weight of the world. I felt like you know, when people say like I feel like I got the weight in the world on my shoulders, I never really quite felt or understood that term until this happened, and that happened in June this year, when I had the lowest month in my business since I started it. I was like what in the heck Now? I didn’t launch or anything or do anything big, and at that time I was still revamping my business course. So all the work I was doing was going into this, the new version of the business course, which came out the next month.
16:57
So, again expecting a down month it was summertime but it was such a low month that I was like you know, sometimes you get used to seeing certain revenue numbers and then when you see one that’s like well below what you’re used to, it really gets your juices flowing. It’s like, oh my gosh. And I think that’s what kind of triggered some of the pressure I felt and the anxiety about that. But here’s what I learned you really, when you get in that type of situation, there’s kind of two paths in my mind you can take. You can curl up in the corner and just start blaming people, blame the market, blame everything that happened, look up to the sky and shake your fists and wonder why this is happening to me and my family.
17:34
Or what I tried to stop myself and to do really quickly is just keep going, move forward. As Don Draper and one of my favorite shows, mad Men, says just move forward, just keep going. So I did not let myself stay low. That’s really the big thing is, yes, I had some, some of those feelings and anxiety and the pressure on my shoulders, literally, um, but what I really caught myself was like forced myself to smile and just think about the positive things that were going on, because there was actually a lot of positive things from this year still which is a point here coming up. Sorry, this is like the longest foundation intro to do an episode, but I think this is important and I just kept going.
18:18
I did little things that did end up helping turn the numbers around and I really tried to focus on the good things that were happening in my business. And there were good things there. Despite having struggles with core sales as a whole and some other stuff, there were still a lot of amazing things happening and I’ve and you’ve heard a lot of you’ve been listening to the podcast. You’ve heard some of my students who have been getting results. Like I could not. I actually caught myself thinking like am I meant to do this? And then I thought, like look at all these students who are getting these results. Of course I’m meant to do this. I’m just in a season, I’m in a tough season with where I’m personally at, but I really just I learned to move forward and take it day by day and, yes, if I have those feelings and there’s realistic expectations with this and I really do need to do a better job at looking at the numbers and preparing and planning and adjusting but I did not let myself stay down. I did new things, did some live calls this year, did continue with the Q&As and the coaching and pulled success stories and brought on students on the podcast to share what’s working. I did the things that kept moving me forward and that is what started with the. Where we’re at now, which is the tail end of the biggest challenge, I really feel like I’m at the light at the end of the tunnel. So, all that to say, I have 10 tips that I’ve really really learned from this. We’ll get through these here pretty quickly.
19:37
Oh, and the other thing I meant to mention too is like there were some things that were like my business directly related, but there were some stuff that I was I was not anticipating that we’re out of my control, like my YouTube money, my YouTube absence income that was coming in. I talked about this in the last episode, but I was used to having at least $1,500 a month come in on YouTube, which is a nice little. You know it’s not the end of the world, but it’s a nice little additional income for me and my business. That covered most all my team costs right there, and last month, in September 2023, would you like to know how much came in? $171. Last year it was over $1,500 in September. So that’s the kind of thing where it’s like I don’t have any control of what YouTube’s doing. I could do more on YouTube, for sure, but even if I do the same strategy, I don’t know what’s going on with that. I don’t even know if there was a reason I was it’s declined that much. But all I have to say, those things really all culminated for me in this really really challenging year, but I kept moving forward.
20:40
In the past few months have shown me, if you stick to you know what works and the results that you’re getting people and you stick to your mission, you can get through it. It might be painful in some ways and you might need to be really tactile with your spending and expenses and be really strategic with what you’re doing, but you can get through it. So that leads me to these 10 points. Let’s go through these here. Number one don’t panic and do stupid stuff. And this is based off of kind of moving forward, because one thing that I kind of got trouble in a little bit with is like just trying a bunch of stuff which is, I think, in a way that that can be a solid. You know, I understand that and I might even advise it in some ways. Like the worst thing you could do is just stay stagnant and not do anything, because then the feelings of anxiety are really going to come. You really could damage your business if you just don’t do anything. But you don’t want to do stupid stuff. And when you are in a panic state we all know if you’re in a panic state generally, your actions or behaviors are not going to be the best.
21:41
So what I learned to do is to literally like take a deep breath and like chill out in whatever way you chill out, but look at your actions and your behaviors, especially your behaviors. And what I thought about over the past couple of months in particular is what would my behaviors look like day to day if I was not in this challenge? If, like, business was hopping and booming, what would I be doing? I’d be delegating more I would be, which you know, when you’re cutting back on expenses, that can be tricky, but I still would not be in areas of my business that I know are low level tasks are going to keep me from my high level tasks. What would I be doing? What would I be focusing on? I would be focusing on my best clients, getting them the best results, doing all the things, like we’ve talked about recently actually in the last episode that help move the needle in your business, and I found myself for the last few months working on things that were not needle mover activities and content.
22:38
So quick tip there is to just don’t do stupid stuff. Catch like, catch yourself, sleep on it, don’t panic. Do the things that you would still do if things were absolutely slam for you and hopping Now. You may need to adjust some of that, but don’t change your behavior and revert back to you from like five or 10 years ago when you were just starting, just because the numbers are down, because that will likely put gas on the fire and make things worse. If you’re only focused on low level things that are not revenue boosting activities and they could potentially like you could be spending two or three times the amount of time that you’re used to spending on stuff but you’re actually doing like the least amount of activities that are actually going to work for you. So don’t panic, don’t do stupid stuff. Keep moving forward, but don’t do the stupid stuff. Number two this kind of goes into that and when it comes to well now it’s like well, thanks, josh, but like okay, don’t do stupid stuff. What’s the stuff I do? I’ll tell you what you do. Number two Whatever is working. Double down on that.
23:38
And I needed to hear this from my good buddy, jason Grasya, who I’m in a mastermind group with. He’s coming back on the podcast here in a couple months. I’m really excited to introduce him to you. If you haven’t heard from Jason, who’s been on the show in the past, but he really more recently, kind of helped me with this idea because every month we do, we get together and he we kind of go through the business and he’s much more established as an entrepreneur than I am, so he’s kind of used to seeing these patterns. And he was looking at all these ideas and I had all these like kind of stupid idea, not stupid ideas. But I was like should I change my business model? Should I have my courses be cheaper. Should I do just like super low monthly payment plans? I start a free Facebook group so I do everything.
24:18
I did a while back and he asked me is like what’s what is working in your business? And it was such a great question and for me what was working really well was Web designer pro, my community, my membership. Now earlier this year, my, my recurring revenue and my membership through web designer pro was a big part of my business, but not the biggest part. Courses were Still the biggest part, but because the downturn and one-off course sales that I’ve experienced Very quickly, web designer pro became the main thing for me and he was like what’s working? I was like well, actually, that is.
24:50
I was like that’s the one area my business that like it’s awesome members are getting great results. I love showing up every day in there. I love coaching the people when there are second to none. It’s the pest little corner, the internet. That is what’s working well. And he was like double down on that. And it was a great reminder for me that To avoid doing the stupid stuff, whatever is working in your business, double down on that, because that’s what’s working. You don’t need to waste a bunch of time doing a bunch of things that may or may not work. They might work but you know, in my case, if I were to do a bunch of like free little lead generators, that may take way longer than just doubling down on on web designer pro my community that is working so well and just getting better results for for folks in the community, along with everything I’m doing publicly as well.
25:37
But I’ve really worked at doubling down on that and most practically what I’ve done more recently is decided to cap Web designer pro and I might be like that doesn’t seem like it’s it would work. It would work or double down on that. But I had a membership goal of 200 members for 2023 and what I came to realize is that with the amount of coaching that I do in pro Because every member gets to DM coach me and we do loom videos back and forth and doesn’t mean that 200 people are emailing me every day or DMing me but it is time-intensive for me I’ve realized that the most people I can serve with this setup is 250 people really well, and I decided that we’re gonna make that the cap because I know that’s what I have bandwidth for. My goal was still 200 this year, but I might, might stretch. Goal is 250 because that is what I’ll be able to serve well, without Risk of that community becoming too big for for what we have. And then, once we get to 250, then we’re moving to a wait list and then we’ll reevaluate and we’ll look at what it would look like if we were to have a lower tier for People starting and a higher tier for those who want more intensive coaching with me. But for right now we’re double down double don’t doubling down, excuse me on what’s working, which is web designer pro.
26:48
So for you, if you get into a tough season, ask yourself what is the one service that’s working for you really well, that’s my challenge to you. Whatever is working, double down on that. Because as soon as I started doing that, I’ve seen a big boost. We’ve actually, since recording this, we’ve had like the biggest influx of membership in the past two weeks, just by announcing the cap and just by just putting the gas on Web designer pro and making that the thing I’m talking about and doing everything towards that. So already that Single act of doubling down on what is working, that has changed things around for me and I know it will for you to win. And if you get into a tough season, there is something in your business that will still be working. Double down on that, particularly if it’s a profitable thing or the most profitable thing. You don’t want to worry about a bunch of stuff. It’s not very profitable. And then you have, like these $5,000 web design packages that you’re just sitting on. So double down on that. Now number three some of these are a little faster.
27:47
Just as just a quick note. I actually Julia Taylor from geek pack, who shares this in her video. It reminded me I wanted to relay this to you because she’s she opened up about a tough year for her business as well, and she said this, and it’s a reminder for me and for you that nothing is permanent, that this is temporary. This too, shall pass.
28:06
As the old saying goes, nothing is permanent, and this is a great reminder for me that as I think about myself and being a business owner eventually, like an Established entrepreneur who looks back and I think about the seasons of my business, I think I’ll look back at this past year and Realize how much farther I’ve grown and learned and just become a more, just, a better business owner, a better entrepreneur, somebody who is stronger and knows how to anticipate these things and is a little more Detailed with the numbers and all the downfalls that I have as I become a better business owner. I think I’m really gonna look back at this year and look at it as like the biggest growth period I’ve ever had as a business owner. You know, we all know, when things are going really good you never grow. In those, those seasons, it’s the hard times that you get through that really make you who you are and really build the Entrepreneurial muscle inside of you. So nothing is permanent and this is a great reminder for me, for you who are in a tough season Maybe, or who might go through a tough season. Just remember it’s not permanent and if you do everything that we’ve talked about so far and what we’re gonna continue to go through here, I know you’ll be able to very quickly see the light at the end of the tunnel as you get the momentum going, which momentum is a big one now I already kind of talked about this number four, but it is to have not a disaster plan but at least some preparation for these tough seasons.
29:32
Now, as I mentioned, there was for me there was kind of three things that caused the biggest challenge here for me, and that was life just changing a little bit and planning on a revenue drop, because I kind of took it easy last summer. Everything that we went through as a family with my daughter and everything else, and then you know the 2023 thing with courses as a whole. Those were like the holy trinity of challenge for me this year. But I did at least have some savings in my business and us personally to be able to weather a three to six month period. So for you, make sure you get to work on that today.
30:13
Don’t be frivolous with your spending, because I did get slightly fruit. I wasn’t like spending like crazy, but I got like a new desk and some add-ons and some stuff from my office that I could have done without. It would have been fine. I got some. I don’t shop for myself very much, but I’ve got some clothes. Last year I got a little comfortable in the good times and I Again, we didn’t overspend like crazy. My yacht wasn’t that expensive, but I did buy some stuff. I was like I didn’t need to do that.
30:38
So now, as I think about being more mature as a business owner, I am. Even the next season, when I know things are going to be booming, I will be much more Reserved in spending and being much and I actually like way overspent on some team costs this year, knowing it really wasn’t paying off, I just kind of went for it and I just wasn’t as careful with with the spending. And as I get to another place in business in the next season, when I know things are going to be completely different, I will be a much more Mature business owner. I’ll put it that way. So make sure if you don’t have three to six months of savings personally and for your business, ideally to that’s the goal you want to get there. Three months is ideal and it doesn’t mean that you’re never gonna make money at all for those three to six months. It just means that you have a cushion for, like, if you’re just covering the bare bones, you can still get by. That’s, that’s the biggie. So yes, make sure ideally that to get that going, and if you don’t have any savings for both of those, let’s start on that today. Just be careful with your spending and raise your rates. I Now number five is kind of what I alluded to there, which is to not get too comfortable in those good times.
31:46
Like I mentioned, I didn’t overspend drastically or anything, but what happened is I did get a little comfortable. I just kind of expected that the numbers would stay the same just because they had the past couple of years leading up to that. But I had a chat with one of my friends who’s going back on the podcast soon and he’s an established entrepreneur as well, doug. He owns a video company called Magnify, which is the tool I use for video testimonials. He’s going to come back on the show soon too, but we had just a casual chat about this and we talked about that. I told him I feel like I got a little comfortable, like things were going so well on such a trajectory for quite a few years, that I did find myself just a little too comfortable. And he’s like I’ve been there as well.
32:30
It happens it’s a dangerous place to be in, so heads up when your things are going really well, don’t get too comfortable. Now I want you to enjoy the fruits of your labor and I want you to go on vacations and I want you to take it easy when you’re feeling too stretched. But being comfortable is very, very dangerous, and this is for all athletes. It’s the same thing for anyone doing something worthwhile. Comfort is death. Isn’t that the old like? I think that’s a. I think that’s on the bluejackets my hockey team, I think that’s in their, their team, or their changing room, the locker room. Comfort is death, so don’t get too comfortable in good times.
33:07
It kind of leads me to number six here, which is when it comes to being comfortable and expecting things to be the same. You need to expect fluctuations and changes in the market, and this was not something I was anticipating this year,