270 - Getting at Least 16 Web Design Leads Per Month with Eric Dingler

CEO of In Transit Studios, Eric Dingler, is back on the podcast, this time sharing what’s worked for him in getting more web design leads…at least 16 leads per month to be exact. And how he’s converted at least 4 per month.

In This Episode

0:00 - Strategies for Generating Web Design Leads

6:47 - Measuring and Nurturing Sales Leads

15:10 - Retention for Studios

29:17 - Networking Importance

38:22 - Customer Activity and Strategies

46:15 - Digital Nomads and Business Growth

54:40 - Results in Sales

1:07:25 - Membership Options for Clients

1:18:19 - Favorite and Most Successful Marketing Methods

Get all links, resources and show notes at:

https://joshhall.co/270

Transcript

Eric: 0:00

And so if the numbers you're looking at for your business are all rear view mirror numbers like how much money did we make last month, how many projects did we launch last quarter, like if it's all rear view mirror numbers those are all lag measures And by the time you're looking at those it's too late to do anything about it. Like how much money we made Q1 of this year Well, that's how much money we've. there is literally nothing I can do now to go back and make more money in January, february or March. But if I'm looking at what is referred to as lead measures or predictive measures for the future, then I kind of have an idea of what kind of success we're going to have. Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast. with your host, josh Hall, can you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love?

Josh: 1:01

Hey everyone, great to have you here for this episode of the show where I'm so excited to bring back on Eric Dingler, the CEO of my web design agency that I founded and built up in transit studios. If you didn't know the story real quickly, eric took over my agency in 2020 so I could focus full time on course creation and community building And I am essentially a consultant now for in transit studios And I typically have this kind of conversation one-on-one and private with Eric. But we were talking about what's working for him right now with getting more web design leads And I was like why don't we just make this podcast episode? So he agreed to doing that And on this episode, eric is sharing everything that is working for him right now. So these are proven, real world strategies to get a goal of 16 leads per month And, as you'll find out, eric generally converts 25 to 35% on those. So, on average, we're bringing in one to two new clients per week for in transit studios. If you're curious about how the heck we're doing that, eric is going to share it literally everything he's doing to not only find leads but how to filter out qualified versus questionable leads, to get those qualified leads on a call and to convert them. So if that sounds interesting to you, i think you're going to love this episode. It's very real. The curtain is pulled back on everything that's working for us right now, and what I'm really excited about is everything we cover is going to be great for you to implement, no matter what size of business you want. So maybe you only need one new client a month. Then you could just scale back everything that Eric's doing Now. Eric is a full blown entrepreneur and business owner, so for those of you who are more interested in scaling at this level, i would follow his proven path exactly. But for those of you who want to scale it back, you can do that too. Just the numbers just look a little bit different. So, without further ado, can't wait to bring back on Eric to share with you what's working today for our agency in transit studios. And, by the way, if you would like some help for lead generation strategies that work for you and your ideal clients, i would love to personally help you with that, and we do that inside of web designer pro.

Josh: 3:08

Web designer pro is My web design community and membership. That not only has all my courses and it's just an incredible community, but it's where you and I can talk together and I give you coaching through a private messaging chat, and I would love to do that for you. So when you join web designer pro, we can get right to it and start talking about the lead strategies that are best for you. So come join us in pro and you you and I will have a personal DM coaching thread. So, if that sounds good, go to joshallco slash pro. There's no risk to join up. Check it out and you and I can start chatting. And for right now, here's Eric to give you some strategies to help get more web design leads.

Josh: 3:52

Well, eric, good to see you. Man, this is interesting because it's your third time on the podcast, but every time we've talked on the show it's been very different, like a very different season of life. You first came on the show to talk about your journey and hitting six figures with your web design business. So you were like a great, an A plus student of mine. The second time you're on it was when you took over my agency and I sold it to you and then picked. We just went through that entire process. Now, three years later, can you believe it's been three years Now I'm having you on to learn from you about what you're doing with building your lead pipeline and funneling clients. So, man, i'm so excited to dive into this.

Eric: 4:35

Yeah, it's good to be back, so always good catching up with you and giving back a little bit to the community.

Josh: 4:43

Well, the Padawan has become the master, the apprentice has become the master here. I'm excited to learn from you, particularly with this idea of leads man. You are somebody, and one reason I chose you to see if you're interested in taking over my agency is I wanted somebody who was entrepreneur minded and business focused and somebody who was going to be hungry to grow the business. That's what I saw in you and it's definitely played out. So I don't know. what do you think the important like? how important is it to nurture your lead system? I guess that's the shorthand question, because I feel like so many designers, as you know, we like to do design, we like to build websites, but sales and building a lead system tends to be an afterthought. That's just what I've seen in my journey and a lot of my students. So, yeah, what's the importance of lead generation?

Eric: 5:36

Well, i think a big part of it is, as with everything is mindset. So I had this realization, you know, we were getting ready to go do something. As a family, we tend to live it in a bit of an adventurous lifestyle And I'm trying to instill into our kids some entrepreneur spirit. And I said, hey, listen, i think it's just worth noting, before we, you know, go into the Amazon jungle for eight days, that we're able to do this thanks to our clients and our customers, and explain it. And as we were taking the boat ride out into the Amazon jungle, it kind of dawned on me every dollar I've ever made started from a lead. Now, the lead came in several different avenues, but literally every dollar in our bank account started as a lead. And that was kind of this mind shift of like wow, this is super important, like I need to pay more attention to this, and not just as like, well, yeah, this is something I've got to do, but this is like super important to get right, super important.

Josh: 6:47

Now, what a great realization and way to frame it. It's true, It's like every yeah, every dollar that comes into your bank account started as a lead. I love that idea Because it does just show you like it's an important thing to nurture and it's an important thing to take seriously. I've actually this is so timely because I feel like this year in particular, I've dipped a little bit in the amount of sales and outbound marketing I've done I'm going to a lot of. That is because I'm in the middle of revamping my business course, which is just a hunker of a course, So it's taken so much time. I'm honestly like I can't wait to get done with this, Just like it's taken like double the amount of time I thought it would. But I say that to say and this is really common when you get busy with projects and fulfillment, you cannot let your sales funnel dry up. It's just like anything you have to feed it.

Josh: 7:34

I think one tricky thing is to do it consistently. It's really easy to be low on projects and have all the time in the world to email and get out on social and do workshops, webinars, go to networking events, whatever the strategy is, But it's, I think I don't know. How do you do it consistently, Eric, especially because, like you said, you are for folks who don't know. You and your family are digital nomads. Now, I mean, I had to ask you where the heck you are in the world when we started this call, because I couldn't remember where you were. You guys are traveling all over. You're getting clients remotely now. So how do you do it consistently, especially remotely?

Eric: 8:07

Yeah. So there's a really great book, the Four Disciplines of Execution, and one of the things that I learned from that book is the difference between a lead measure and a lag measure. And one of the things that I've known for years and years and years as a leader is what gets measured gets managed. And so if the numbers you're looking at for your business are all rear view mirror numbers like how much money did we make last month, how many projects did we launch last quarter, like, if it's all rear view mirror numbers, those are all lag measures And by the time you're looking at those it's too late to do anything about it. Like how much money we made Q1 of this year, well, that's how much money we've. There is literally nothing I can do now to go back and make more money in January, february or March. But if I'm looking at what is referred to as lead measures or predictive measures for the future, then I kind of have an idea of what kind of success we're going to have.

Eric: 9:17

So for me, within Transit Studios, i know that I need to have four initial discussions a week. Well, i can look at my calendar every Tuesday morning for the following week and see how many meetings do I have scheduled next week? I have four. Great, i'm good to go. I've only got two. I got to hustle. I got to get meetings scheduled for next week because that's the measurement I'm looking at, because what gets measured gets managed.

Eric: 9:48

And so if the number you're looking at are just constantly these behind you know, these rear view mirror numbers how much money you made in the last month, well then you're going to sit there and feel like, oh man, i got an increase and how am I going to do this?

Eric: 10:02

And you get an idea and you try something, and then what happens is the first time you start Googling how to do some of this stuff, you're bombarded with everybody's magic program And you know everybody's hitting you up to take their course or this way to create leads, and a lot of web designers are collectors of courses and programs because and it makes sense, because when you think about it, so and it may and it's probably varies depending on your niche If you build e-commerce websites or e-learning platform websites for you know people then maybe you've got clients that are at their computer a significant part of the day.

Eric: 10:45

But for us at Entrance Studios, we're building websites for mechanics, pizza shop owners, attorneys, dentists They're not at their computer even kind of close to the amount of time I'm at my computer for my business, and so we're bombarded by more messages and opportunities and things to jump into than a mechanic, a pizza shop owner or somebody like that. And so, because of that, we're aware of things and we, we, we economy things, but we, we jump onto these new things because we think it's going to solve last month's problem. When, instead, when we step back and say those numbers are important, but the numbers, the number is only important if I have a predictive number to go with it.

Eric: 11:32

So for me, it's how many meetings do I have scheduled next week? How many sales presentations do I have scheduled next week? Because what I did January doesn't really count anymore.

Josh: 11:44

That's a wonderful principle, and so, having those right now.

Josh: 11:48

It kind of reminds me of, like anytime in movies or books or whatever it is where you hear about a sales team the emphasis is always on how many meetings, how many calls. It's never like how many clients necessarily did you get that week. I mean, that's the end result, that's the goal. But the initial pipeline lead experience is calls, discovery calls, contact form submissions. If it's an automated process, as you know, in my business course I teach kind of the hybrid model to where I would only do, like, discovery calls for qualified clients and automate and weed out the questionable ones. But you could do this in a variety of different ways. But it's a great reminder that you do need to look over the next month or two to see what that strategy looks like. Because, yeah, you're right, it's so easy to look back and say, okay, first quarter 2023, so much we did, so that's probably how much we'll do in the second one.

Josh: 12:40

I don't know What's are you? are you, are you? yeah, as you're like, discovery call schedule booked up like that's a big deal. So that's a wonderful principle to be reminded of. What about conversion rate? Like, do you, eric, now aim for four a week? so that's 16 a month by my math, and what's the conversion rate on those calls? I mean, do you, do you hope to get like half of those as paying clients? You hope to get a quarter. You know what I mean? Like what's the metric for? Do you have a, a, a guesstimate of conversion rate between, like 16 calls in a month?

Eric: 13:12

Yes. So we actually now really have this kind of honed in for N-Transit Studios. Then each quarter I can set new goals to say, hey, i want to increase this metric from a 10 percent conversion to a 15, from a 15 to an 18. There's really five key numbers to look at For us, for N-Transit Studios, and what I've learned is, if I can increase those numbers by about 10 percent, i double the income of the business. I can take the business from 250,000 to 500,000 by increasing five numbers, a few percentage points, versus sitting back and going how am I going to double the revenue? Well, it's all going to be in sales. Well, that's not true. I can also increase the average amount of each sale. If every sale and every amount of each sale increases by a percentage, i'm going to make more revenue. If I increase my client retention, i'm going to increase revenue. So there's lots of things for that.

Eric: 14:33

So with N-Transit, on some of the numbers we look at, so out of four initial discussions, these are leads that raise their hand. That's when, to us, somebody becomes a prospect. The moment they raise their hand and they want to have a conversation, you're on the prospect list. You're somebody that you've asked for me to talk to you. I'm going to talk to you about this. So I'm going to have four of those three of those a week turn into a sales presentation. So it's a half hour conversation. That is me learning about their business. Sometimes, at the end of the call, i just go we can't help you. You should talk to our friend Stephanie, or something like you need to talk to somebody else. We're just not equipped to help you because we're kind of niching in a little bit. We're actually to the point. We're not taking on new e-commerce builds, for example. It's just they're a pain. I just don't like dealing with them.

Josh: 15:38

Yeah, that should really be for the folks who just do e-commerce which, by the way, there's quite a few members in Webizen are Pro now who just do e-commerce and I'm like, yes, that is wonderful, if you love it then. I mean, there's such a market for that, yeah.

Eric: 15:52

Or just like e-learning. If you just do like e-learning platforms, like it's just for us, we're to the point. We have really discovered our sweet spot is the small local business owner. That's what we're going after. Now they may be, like I said, a mechanic, a pizza shop, whatever, but the small business owner, Anyway, out of those four, three are going to come a sales presentation and we're going to close 50 percent of those as clients. Okay, That's where we're at with this.

Josh: 16:25

So one and a half on average per week. So what? four or five clients a month? That's the goal.

Eric: 16:30

Four or five clients a month, yeah, and they're not all. Now we're not, and these numbers would look different if we were just looking at our Web Design Division, but we also have a Digital Marketing Division now. That's one of the changes in the last three years within Transit And that's become the feeder for a lot of our Web Design projects.

Josh: 16:54

Yeah, and.

Josh: 16:55

I wanted to ask where. Yeah, and this is a good example of like, sometimes your services dictate where your leads come from as well. Like, if you're just doing websites, the lead pool is going to look a little bit different than those who are needing Digital Marketing and then that leading into websites. So I want to dive into where these leads are coming from. I do have to say real quick though I didn't want to miss this point, and that is the only difference between the looking in the rear view mirror versus up ahead, is any sort of subscription model.

Josh: 17:23

So that is the one thing, as you know, with a maintenance plan or any sort of ongoing services, that is the one thing where it's like well, first quarter, we signed up, you know, 20 clients on our maintenance plan at these different levels. So as long as they stay with us, as long as they, you know, we retain them and work on retention, then that's at least our baseline for moving forward, and then we can focus on the leads. How does that come into play? Before we talk about lead generation? specifically, like, how do you manage all the recurring services that we're doing with in transit?

Eric: 17:53

Yeah, so again, there's still to me a lead measure for that you know, versus a still lag.

Eric: 18:02

So we're looking at upcoming anniversaries, like renewal dates, you know things like that. And then, just how often, you know, are we like? you know? so we know that each month we want to reach out and have a conversation with so many of our clients. How many emails are we sending? You know? so I'm trying to send two high level educational emails a month to just our client list, just adding value to them. So just that kind of stuff, scheduling quarterly strategy sessions to talk with our clients. So there's a lot of activity in that to go into, you know, maintaining retention, because then, like you said, i can look out over the next three months, six months, and say, well, well, here's how many contracts we currently have, and you know, maintenance and hosting is on month to month, so that's the only one that's month to month. All of our other services are on six month or 12 month contracts.

Josh: 19:03

That's beautiful. That's the way it should be, by the way, for everybody. Because real quick side note, if anyone's been through my maintenance plan course, the reason we don't have SEO and digital marketing combined is because those services come and go. People turn them on, people turn them off, People scale down, they scale up, but you cannot turn off your hosting and maintenance, ideally. So that's wonderful that you're doing it that way, man.

Eric: 19:24

And we break it out on invoices that way. Like this is you know, this is your payment for this and this. and then we've also shifted to the point, just a little bit of a sign up on the business side. We've moved everybody to the payment date of the fifth or the 20th of the month, because then that way. yeah, that has been wonderful Because now on the sixth I can really quickly scan down through Stripe and see if I have any failed payments or mispayments or anything like that.

Eric: 19:54

And so everything is happening on the fifth and the 20th. I know from QuickBooks I know how much money is gonna hit the income account on the fifth, how much is gonna hit on the 20th. that covers payment And sometimes I'll even go well, we're going to start your recurring on the 20th because I wanna have a little bit more money towards the end of the month.

Josh: 20:15

So yeah, i was just gonna ask what if somebody signs? what if, on the sixth, they're like yeah, america, i'm in, give me on the hosting and maintenance plan? Do you have to wait to the 20th to invoice them, or do you invoice them and set up like a trial for two weeks and then the payment comes in? How do you do that? Because my fear of that would be like I don't want them to. You know, the iron's hot, the card's out. I wanna get a payment. I would be leery about waiting two weeks and then they'd be like actually, i think I'll update it myself.

Eric: 20:41

Yeah, no, we would take it right then and then prorate it. So in Stripe you can put the subscription to prorate on there and we just prorated out and then, boom, they're done, they're on, and then they start recurring on the 20th, recurring on the fifth, and that is just from a business operation, instead of, like every day, every week, trying to track down payments, and so I only have to do it twice a month, and so that's been really handy.

Josh: 21:09

Well, thank you for calling me out there, because now I'm thinking about doing that with pro or something. Anytime there's recurring. Yeah, i mean, i have my, i have it all. I'm made it to where people get kickbacks, but every once in a while, you know if it goes to junk or if I'm still waiting I'm seeing the you know, failed payment. I'm like, hey, by the way, this is still failed. So, okay, that's interesting. That's an interesting metric for everyone to try out.

Eric: 21:31

Yeah, it's been really handy. And then again you can kind of look ahead and see, you know what's coming up down the line and all of that, so you can do some predictive measures. But you need to courtedly look at trends. You know, like and we actually just yesterday with our CPA, we actually in our QuickBooks now she has broken our income down on our profit and loss statement by recurring income and project income, and then under recurring income it says if it's recurring for hosting and maintenance, recurring for digital marketing or recurring for coaching, and so now we can even start to look and see a comparison of our expenses versus our income. Now, if it's for people that are listening and they're like wait, like I don't understand, why would I need to do that? Well then you probably don't right now, you know. And so I like to tell people don't compare your beginning to Entrance at Studios Middle. You know some people are listening and they're probably like well, we've been doing that for years, so we're just getting to it.

Josh: 22:49

Well, something I do want to hit fairly early in the conversation, because we're talking about leads. I'm sure everyone at this point is like tell me, tell me, where are the leads coming from? How are you getting the leads, particularly, like I said, remotely? what's so interesting about you, eric, is you and I could not have a different system for leads. Like you know me, you know my story. It was mostly all local, all through networking, all word amount referrals. I never did any outbound marketing. Shame on me. I never did even any email marketing or follow-ups. It was just my pure charm and smile that got me client retention. So, especially being remotely, how are you getting leads? now? How has the word out within Entrance at Studios being that you're in different time zones? Where are these leads coming from?

Eric: 23:34

A variety of sources. A variety of sources. So we have several strategic partnerships. We just had a really quality lead come in yesterday from the Small Business Development Center of Virginia. So we are one of two digital marketers that they recommend to all the businesses that they're working with through the Small Business Development Center. So we build a relationship with them and we run a. We do a quarterly training So we have a webinar that I've probably presented this webinar, josh, honestly, in the last three years almost once a week. I mean it no exaggeration to say I've probably presented this webinar at least a hundred times, if not 150.

Josh: 24:30

It's the exact same thing And it refined it over the past few years.

Eric: 24:33

Yep, absolutely Now. So we offer it to our email list as people join our email list through our. We're filling out a form on our website or downloading one of our lead magnets, but I offer it to other strategic partners Any chance I get to say hey, would this be helpful to your customers?

Josh: 24:53

Yeah, with it being a free training. It's not like, hey, send them our way so we can build them five or $10,000. It's here's a free training that gets them through the door, so it's a free value there.

Eric: 25:04

Free training. Just I love strategic partnerships, so we're still part of a couple of local business associations in the States, even though I'm up there, like a lot of business associations are still hosting their meetings, both in-person and doing, you know, zooming in at the same time Because they realized even local businesses it was easier for them to join and participate from their office via Zoom and not have the half hour commute each way, you know. So they saved an hour, so we still participate in that. We're still doing the podcast for a local business association. That's been still one of our more high converting.

Josh: 25:51

And then we can have like interview series you did, by the way. Is that kind of where that originated?

Eric: 25:58

Yeah. So we joined the business association and I said, hey, we'd like to host for free a podcast where we interview local businesses and highlight them, and we'll promote it on Nextdoor. But you'll be, i'll do the interviews and I'll say you know, welcome to the Discover OV podcast, a production of the Ocean View Business Association. So they're getting all the credit. All I want is I want to build the relationship with the business owner. I want to jump on Zoom, have a conversation and then inevitably like so what do you do? again, eric? Because they just know I'm up to that point. Yeah, for new businesses, they pretty much just know I'm just part of the Ocean View Business Association.

Eric: 26:42

Oh, i own a digital marketing agency. Oh, what do you do with that? Oh, we build websites and basically we help local businesses get more customer activity through their social media, digital marketing websites. Really, we've just been talking about we need some help with. Oh yeah, well, let's take a look. And it's just a very natural conversation. So for us, the game isn't trying to get 500 new email addresses and, trust me, i've seen it. There are now AI tools where you can create a video of you talking about a website and then this AI tool will go in and they'll take your video. They'll find a website. Overlay you over that website. Make it look like you're talking about that person's website.

Josh: 27:38

Email it to yourself. That is the sliminess of AI that I am not down with.

Eric: 27:43

Yeah, but you literally it's like it's a game of numbers. They're like every it was like every 500 people. You know you get a call. I don't want to send 500 spam emails.

Josh: 27:55

Yeah, that works. And then we just established the goal of four to five clients a month. So Intranjust Studios has not set up for the numbers game like the quantity. It's quality over quantity. That's the whole reason why you have the pipeline the way you have it.

Eric: 28:11

Yes, And I know, and I talked to so many websites. Oh, I don't know, Eric, about going to a networking event. I'm an introvert And I know this sounds really harsh, but I'm just kind of like well then, be content with your business the way it is.

Josh: 28:25

Yeah, or higher? Yeah, yeah.

Eric: 28:29

Yeah, like if you can afford it, then then yeah, you can. Well, that's a really good point. Like you don't have to be the one that does this. I enjoy doing that. I don't enjoy doing the fulfillment. I enjoyed meeting people and thinking of a strategy for them and stuff like that.

Josh: 28:46

You know this is a great point. I want to hang on this for a second, Eric, just because this is so timely. I mean, I have conversations every day now Web Designer Pro, with members who are introverted in nature. I am very empathetic towards that because as extroverted as I am, I still am very often an introvert, Like I don't like going to a group of 30 people. I don't know Now if I'm comfortable with them, I'm all about it, Or if I'm, you know, if it's something where I feel like it is a good environment for me, I'm in, But it is daunting to do that.

Josh: 29:17

But the reality that I learned was just this whole conversation of lead generation, like networking and in-person stuff was largely my biggest pool of clients And those were my, that was my sales force. So it just dawned on me like if I want to have a pipeline of clients, I have to continually feed how I'm getting clients, And that was, for me, networking. So I had to branch out on my comfort zone and I got better and better and more comfortable and more comfortable. And the same is true for anyone, no matter what your strategy is, Because the opposite of that like if you absolutely don't want to do in-person. There's so many ways you could get online and get clients as well. But you do have to commit to sales.

Josh: 29:56

And I'm telling myself that too, because more recently, like I said in the beginning, I found myself slipping out of my sales engine And a lot of that is just because I'm so busy like optimizing pro and building my business course and revamping it.

Josh: 30:10

But I have caught myself like I need to sell more. And this dawned on me with one of my members and pro, a new member who said I didn't even like, I didn't really know about this, And I was like well, I just don't want to come across too salesy, I don't want to annoy people and see like, but I didn't know about this And I wish I would have a few months ago. And I was like ah, what a great like. How many clients have we? have we let go or who have bypassed us Because we just didn't put ourselves out there And we all know by this point, sales does not need to be slimy, Doesn't need to be icky, Does it need to be like used car salesman type. So, anyway, I don't want to go on a soapbox, but I just wanted to highlight the importance of like the lead system and feeding it.

Eric: 30:50

Well, and here's the other thing like you again, it's a big, big part of it is a mindset like I have had to wrestle with imposter syndrome and deal with it. But I really had to get to the point where I was, where I was comfortable, not and I don't say it out loud bragging and things like that, but I had to be comfortable sitting here at my computer, knowing you know what we can really help businesses Like we really can't. We know what we're doing And when a business trust us and partners with us, we can really help their business. Well, once I realized that you almost have a moral obligation to be out there letting people know that you exist and you, you can help them because that's what we're here for to help others. And, like you just said, like that person she's like, yeah, but Josh, i wish I would have known about you. Like she's telling you, you, you, you, you own the responsibility of letting me know that you exist.

Josh: 31:49

Yeah, and you know, oh, that's such a great way to frame it, because this is true for everybody is. I know everyone listening and watching right now probably feels the exact same way. You don't want to like sell too much, it's. It's tough getting out there constantly, but the reality is you're right. If you have a service that you know helps people, it's a disservice to not help more people. It really is like people need you, people need what you offer, and every business owner I know who's successful, every, every entrepreneur who is at the top of the game. More often than not, they are selling in some way And, of course, they're fulfilling and they're getting results and they're retaining clients. But on the outside, what you see in social media and the main channels, it's some sort of lead generation and lead building, list building, whatever that looks like. So what a great point.

Eric: 32:38

Yeah, yeah, we have some of that in place. Like, we do do some Facebook. I don't do a lot, but we do some Facebook ads and it's. It's okay, but it just takes. It takes so long to move someone from seeing an ad on Facebook to actually paying us money. Now it works, you know, but it just it takes a really long time. You're going to have a lot of conversations that go nowhere, and so if you're an introvert, you don't want to talk to people, well then I wouldn't rely on Facebook ads.

Josh: 33:13

That's true. That's like the worst, because then you're dealing with totally Exactly.

Eric: 33:19

And so you're like, oh, it's even worse If you like you. I still think local networking events are are a big key to it, but nobody wants to be a project. So if you go in with the mindset that you're there to sell people, these business owners are going to pick up on it like that, yeah, that's not why we go. We go to learn. And then here's the thing I've been telling people that have in the lead factory that, listen, you're a business owner. You know you have to give yourself permission to say I'm a business owner. And you know what a lot of business owners do They have coffee with other business owners Because it's like, it's like being married. You know, if somebody was to ask me that's never been married, eric, what's it like to be married? You know what it's like when you're married. Like there's, i can't, i'll never be able to describe what it's like to be married. But you know when. you know, all right, if you're married. You know if you're a parent, you know if you're a business owner, you know.

Eric: 34:30

And so sitting down with another business owner who has to make payroll, who's struggling in their business, who's trying to figure out work life balance, and you just sit down to have a cup of coffee and you say, hey, i have a couple of questions, especially if you're listening and you're newer to all of this. Go talk to a business, go have coffee with somebody that's had been a business for for 15 years and just say I just want to hear your story. How'd you get started? What did you learn? What books do you read? How do you get inspired? How do you keep a work life balance? Even if they're a total different industry than you, they still own a business and there's still this pressure and you're going to start building relationships with people And they're going to want to work with you when they figure out that, oh, suddenly you're there, you're there person. When somebody else says, hey, do you know anybody that does web design? Oh, i have somebody. Yeah, i just had coffee with them. You know you're the guy.

Eric: 35:22

You're the girl, yeah, yeah we get together like every we. Just every couple months we have coffee. So when we were living in the States, i had a list of people that I was regularly trying to have coffee with on a rotating you know, just because one I was learning from them. One guy was a financial planner And we just enjoyed each other's company. But I was. I was learning something from me. But guess who tends to use financial planners?

Eric: 35:51

A lot of business owners people with money a little further along with money, And they're sitting there and, as a financial planner, he's trying to help them make the most out of their business And he's like you know what? I got somebody you need to talk to. Yeah, So that's to me that's a big way to do lead jet.

Josh: 36:09

Yeah, so strategic partnerships, and that can take many different forms. So what you've covered so far is great, eric. I mean it's gold. Again, your route is a little bit different in what I've done, which just goes to show you that it all works. Every strategy works. It just like what works for you. How far do you want to go with it?

Josh: 36:30

Some people do like ads and that's their big thing. I don't know too many people who rely on ads 100% for web design because it's such. it's not like you're buying a t-shirt. Am I a t-shirt company? I would be doing ads left and right, but when you are a web person, you are the webmaster. It's very relationship driven. So I think having that from the ground up is a really good reminder that you.

Josh: 36:50

the good news is you don't need to sell. We've talked about this for like a year straight on the podcast almost every week. You don't need to sell nowadays. Just educate, help, inspire, all the things you can do to just build connects when people and then you will sell. without even knowing you, you're selling. The beauty about the strategies you've talked about so far is you're getting yourself out of cold leads and right into warm leads or, in many cases, hot leads. All you need to do is get them on that call every Tuesday and convert at least one or two of them. So I really love that idea.

Josh: 37:19

The other thing I wanted to mention too so many good things here, eric, in a in a meeting and I want to get your thoughts on this You can reframe the conversation. instead of feeling like you need to sell your web design services and saying what you sell like I sell web design packages, you could just reframe that to. I help businesses grow their business online and that changes the dynamic completely, because suddenly they're not looking at you and what you're quote unquote, selling for $5,000 or $10,000. They're looking at you and suddenly it's completely flip flop to Oh, what Josh is doing would help grow my business with my website. Now, if I see 10 K, i'm like well, if my customers pay me $1,000 on average, then 10 customers make up that investment. It's like it changes everything. What are your thoughts on that, on how to frame and how do you frame the conversation with these leads to make sure they're like investment minded and see the results?

Eric: 38:22

Yeah, we the terminology we kind of use regularly is we help businesses get more customer activity. And the reason we say it is because not all of them think of think of the way, like a pizza shop doesn't think of leads, you know, i mean, that's what, that's what, that's what a person is like. They're doing lead gen and conversion and all that stuff, but that's not the lingo. They use its orders. They need customer activity, phone calls, people walking in the door, and so really, here's what's great.

Eric: 38:53

If you, if you start having coffee once a week with a different, with different business owners and go in as a student and just ask them, you know you're going to find out what keeps them up at night. You're going to find out what problems they have and what language they're using. And that's how I've learned over time that I've never met a business owner again, and I shouldn't say never. The handful of people we have that have e-commerce shops, for example, like they're laying in bed at night going, oh how are we going to increase conversions? Like they may think that a dentist, a mechanic No right, they're not. They're not thinking that. They're thinking how are we going to get more people to call us?

Josh: 39:34

Terrier steel. Terrier steel is not like how can we get these steel manufacturers, how can we convert them at a higher level? That's not Yeah Yeah, it's not their lingo.

Eric: 39:44

Yeah, exactly, And so they're. They've got a whole different set of things, But kind of a common language is we all want you. What we're talking about for web designers is how do we get more customer activity as web designers? So I mean, it's it's, it's what we do. So if you say, oh, we help people get more, you know customer activities, then that's great. And then what what we do is and one of the things that I go over and over and over and over Again is we're constantly talking about the three customer types. There's only three types of customers, That's it, And everything you do in marketing is going to reach one of those three types of customers, And so you've got your current clients. To me, one place that most web designers miss out on is all of the gold in their backyard. It is easier to get one person to buy from you 100 times than 100 people to buy from you one time.

Eric: 40:47

So the entire year of 2022. And up to just a couple months ago of 2023, we did zero, zero lead gen outside of our email list. We just nurtured, we just went back to clients, upsell clients. In the new services We added, we had Foundations Care. That was the maintenance plan. We use the exact same maintenance program. You teaching your maintenance course, That's Foundations. We call it Foundations Care. Well, 18 months ago we added a serve. We added another level called Studio Plus, Increased the price $100, went back to my email list of clients and had about 25 percent of our clients upgrade Plans $100 a month.

Josh: 41:46

That was a really nice big boost.

Eric: 41:49

Yeah, really nice big boost to monthly recurring revenue. Then it's like let's say, you've got, you've built 20 websites. How many of those websites did you put an email magnet on? You can go back to them and say, hey, listen, we were looking at your site and we'd like to recommend. The next stage for you would be to add an email magnet. Then you can sell them that service that you can write. You can have somebody partner with that writes it for you, whatever. Anyway, that's a big thing. You've got your current customers.

Eric: 42:26

I think a lot of web designers forget to go prospecting to their past clients or their current clients. I'm constantly prospecting to our current clients, constantly Prospecting to your current clients and then asking them who they know, giving them permission to invite others to a webinar training or share your emails, and stuff like that. The second customer type is hot buyers. These are people that they already know they're going to build a website. They want a website. It's going to be WordPress, like check, check, check, check, check. They're just looking for the web designer to hand their money to.

Josh: 43:06

These are coming from the strategic partners often.

Eric: 43:09

Strategic partners, or these are the people where we will, from time to time, run pay-per-click ads To be at the top of a Google search result, because they don't scroll down into the organic results. They click on that top ad because they want a website right now. Now that doesn't happen as often as it does for a pizza shop, a pizza shop owner. Somebody searches restaurant near me. When somebody searches restaurant near me, they're literally looking for somebody to hand money to. When I'm having coffee with a restaurant owner and they start talking about business, i might ask them what are you doing to get those active searchers? They may go.

Eric: 43:59

We don't have anything in place. How do you get in front of them? Then? your third customer type is passive prospects. These are the people where you have to create awareness. You have to start educating them about websites and improving websites, all this stuff. But it can take literally months to move them from seeing your content on Facebook to get to the point where they're going to give you $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, $8,000, $9,000. Yeah, but it goes a lot faster if you're able to sit at a meeting coffee with them.

Josh: 44:38

Well, i love that framework too. I don't know if this was intentional, but you kind of place the hierarchy and priority on those three different categories. It's like current is most important to take care of, because they will buy from you again and again, and again and again as long as they like you and they trust you and they know you're getting results. And then, like you said, they also know a ton of other people who are they're going to be your sales force. And then, outside of current clients, is also the past client. So maybe they're not current with you, but they already know you And hopefully they're going to trust you. So perfect time to circle back around. And then, yeah, i love the warm leads. I mean, to me there's really like there's current clients, warm leads and cold leads. That's kind of how I would break that down as Yeah.

Eric: 45:20

And you're also like that's totally you know.

Josh: 45:22

Yeah, yeah, totally. So that makes a whole lot of sense. So the pipeline, the leads that you have coming in, the idea of like at least four a week, were you still doing that, eric, last year? I mean I remember you saying 2022, because we had talked at one point last year and and I was asking like how's it going, what are some of the strategies that's working for you right now? And you were like we're all about acquisition and retention right now. Or, excuse me, you were like we're all about retention right now with current clients, retention and upsets.

Josh: 45:50

Yeah, yeah, so were you doing the outbound Like, as you said? you did like a hundred of these presentations. Are you doing that only occasionally with qualified leads? Or when did this like four a week thing start?

Eric: 46:01

Yeah, So we've been doing that since the first of the year this year. We had done it before that. Last year I adjusted it down because I was so intentional of going back to our so I was trying to meet with two clients a week.

Josh: 46:15

You were also traveling a lot last year.

Eric: 46:18

Yeah, but we, when we travel, it's a day like, ok, it takes me a day to pack up. We really like it's. It's a digital nomads, we're. It's not like vacation travel OK, that's all I can think of is like loading up for vacation with three littles and I'm like I'm done for like three weeks.

Josh: 46:39

After that, i need a vacation from the vacation that we just took. Yeah, yeah.

Eric: 46:43

Yeah, no, it's totally So. we take vacations So, but you know, as a family we do trips, and trips mean dad still works, and then we do vacation, which means dad doesn't work. Yeah, so, yeah, so when. So the traveling doesn't doesn't really impact the availability. Availability we were more so just trying to streamline some of our systems, re-repositioning some of the staff and doing some team development So like I don't have to be involved in the day to day, and because we've got some growth strategies coming up, that was going to require that I was still getting involved with too many questions. So we were doing a lot of training, development and that kind of stuff, but really just upsell, you know, a lot of sales. What's great about this, too, is it's a really good example that there are, it's it's seasonal.

Josh: 47:41

There are seasons where you can push into a lot of outbound and a lot of lead generation and more, more lead signups and more webinars of workshops to the cold audience or the warm audience. And then there are seasons where you can say you know what I'm going to back off for this quarter and just focus on my systems. And even though I'm contradicting what I said earlier, where I said you don't want to turn off your, your, your feed at your pipeline, there is a point where you can back it off. At least you know like you can. You can slow it down a little bit. I would still unless I mean it's different too because, in terms of studios, is now 14 years old. Next year is going to be 15. I started it in 2009.

Josh: 48:18

So there are and even though not I mean we have some clients from 2011, i think is maybe some of the clients around the rock. They're like. Some of them have been with us for over a decade. So I say that to say we're. The business is established enough to where you can back off some of the lead generator. I mean it's been getting referral. I mean it's been getting, it's been getting back off Some of the lead generator. I mean, it's been getting referral. I still get referrals from people who are I'm getting tagged on Facebook still today, who are like oh yeah, josh does websites. I'm like actually, but I'll refer you to Eric. Or or a student who I think might be a good fit.

Josh: 48:56

Yeah, so, like I said, say there are times when your business is established where you have a little more leeway there. If you're a little earlier in the journey, i would say probably balance that a little more to where I wouldn't take a full year on just retaining three clients. I would really build that client pool. But it's amazing that that's an option And we can do that. You can turn stuff off and you can ramp it up, turn it off. You know it's really cool. So I'm glad to hear that.

Eric: 49:21

When you have the right measurements in place. so we refer to it as the dashboard. So when you've got the right metrics on your dashboard and you're looking at lead measures and looking at things coming up in the future that allowed me to plan that, let me know. Hey, you know what? We've got this much coming up in contracts and things like this. You know we're to the point with Intransit Studios that if we had zero new work come in for the next 12 months, okay it with our fixed costs are totally covered by recurring revenue. But we've got growth strategies and plans and we're now we've reached the point as a business where we're looking at retained earnings and you know we're trying to save up to start replacing some equipment for some of the team and stuff like that.

Josh: 50:13

And so there's, a lot to that Can we also say to Eric I would be curious to get your thoughts on the results we're getting for clients, because that is the best way you can get more clients is to get your current clients really good results. If you help grow their business, you will get referrals and you will get hot leads because you are growing their business. First of all, they're not going to stop with you and you best believe their entire network is going to say what's working for Gary at safeguard with solutions? How's he doing that? Who's he using? Like you know what I mean, that's.

Josh: 50:47

I think that's also an aspect that's not lost on web designers as a whole. but it's easy to overlook And I struggle with this. I'm saying this as somebody who did this. I kept on thinking about new clients over and over and over And then I learned later on, unfortunately, that if I just focus on my really good clients, i can stop some outbound strategies. but my focus, like 75% of what I'm doing, is just doing a really damn good work for my current clients and getting them results That is going to feed me referrals. What are your thoughts on that approach?

Eric: 51:19

A hundred percent We have to make. You have to make sure that you're showing them the results, because sometimes they don't always see it, or they may. They're maybe so busy that they're not attributing their results to what you're doing. Or, depending on how their market may be impacted, they, their business, may be dropping Like so we've had this, we've seen this recently with a couple of barbershops and their overall business was dropping. Well, they, you know. Luckily, we were in a position to be able to show them like. Well, actually, your website traffic and your phone calls through Google business and stuff like that are increasing, you know, from us. So what, what is? who is? is somebody new answering the phone? Well, we, they had just switched to a new booking system and things were getting missed and reminders weren't getting sent out to people.

Eric: 52:15

So they started realizing wait, we're actually getting a lot of no shows And so it wasn't a lack of new business, It was a lack of no, it was they were increasing in no shows. So when you have these numbers and share them, you're not going to unintentionally get get blamed, And sometimes you get to help a customer realize that it's not you, it's them.

Josh: 52:36

That's a great point Yeah. Well, that's what, having those numbers.

Josh: 52:41

We, we, yeah. When you are, when you frame yourself as kind of a strategist and and and a more in a marketing end of a web design business, that is where you can go a little bit further, because you may have a hand in their business And even just if you're just doing website design, all those metrics you just covered with the Google way analytics stuff or traffic or Fathom, whatever analytics you're using along with the Google business or the that kind of stuff, like you can measure that just as a web designer to basically prove that well, the website's actually working fine, yeah, or are these other pieces? Yeah. And that's really interesting because if you frame yourself as more of a, i mean you're almost like a business consultant, you're almost like a marketing type person for them, which is tricky, not always, you know. You have to be careful of that, i've found, because then they want you to, you know, do their social media ads and you're like, oh, no, no, no, no, not doing that.

Josh: 53:30

But it makes a lot of sense when it comes to the lead generators, like they're, they're going to essentially you're, you're showing more value to the leads that come through. They see you as more than a commodity, which is really what I've found nowadays is what web designers are combating against is you want to not be viewed as a commodity. You want to be viewed as either a holistic approach as far as marketing and strategy within website designs, or whatever your specialty is. Like you know, april Ray, who's in pro, like her thing is email marketing And that's really hot right now, so a lot of clients are turning to her for that and that turns into into websites. So how are you like, is it marketing first or is it websites first? That's my question, eric, with these leads that you're getting, so we have.

Eric: 54:16

We have definitely shifted to where, for us, it is a little bit more on the marketing first leading to website, because we've got some marketing services that aren't even kind of close to the cost of a website.

Josh: 54:33

And I see this play out Must last expensive.

Eric: 54:36

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I've seen this play out. I quoted last fall I quoted somebody, or last spring I quoted somebody a website and it was going to be a $3,500 website, and she was just like oh, I don't know, I can't afford that. That's, it's just too much. Okay, You know, I completely understand. Within the next month, she came to the webinar. I do a webinar every month And so she came to the webinar. After the webinar, she came back and she said I want to know more about this, this Google business profile stuff. And I'm like, yeah, okay, no problem, It's this, it's this, it's this, you know. And she's like how much is that service? And I'm like $500 a month. She goes sign me up. I'm like okay, So $6,000 this year isn't too much money, but $3,500 was too much money. You know. Okay, I'll get $6,000 from you this year And then, over time, showing value. Because here's the thing and I don't have a way to say this yet One of the things I learned from you early on is people buy from people they know like and trust, And that that is that is really, really, really true.

Eric: 55:47

I see that over and over and over. But there's a new element to that, And I don't know how to state it yet, I don't have a wordsmith way to say it, But it's no longer just those three, because I know, like and trust people that sell different things, but we still order what they sell on Amazon because of convenience and value. So I'm going to do business with people that are there's proof in the value and I know, like and trust them. So it probably, maybe it's maybe that fits under the trust. The trust comes from the proof of the results. I don't know yet. It's just something I think you don't know. Yeah, yeah.

Josh: 56:28

I'll tell timely. Yeah, just last week I just recorded the module. The new version of the module in the business course on sales and getting clients, and that was a part of it, is to just dive, dig deeper into the know, like and trust framework And, yeah, i had put results. I guess that's probably what you're getting to is like, you want to know you can get the results. That goes into the trust factor because it means they trust you with this investment, cause I can know what you do and I can like you. But if I don't trust you can actually get some results, i'm very leery So that I would put that under there. It could be separate potentially.

Eric: 57:01

No, I think you're. I think you're absolutely right. Like I said, I've just kind of been wrestling with this the last couple of months because I've seen that, like, it used to be just the know, like and trust. But it's also because when that concept was first written in a book in the sixties, sales happened by the traveling sales person, Like you bought from, but it shifted a little bit.

Josh: 57:21

I think it shifted too, because when I originally thought of trusting a web designer, it was mainly just trusting them to show up and trusting them not to ghost. You know what I mean. Like how many web design? like how many clients has everyone got right now? that said, my last web designer just disappeared. So the trust factor is just like communicating well and being there Well, now there is that extra layer of now.

Josh: 57:42

There's a trust in not only are you going to be there and fall through, but can you get me some results? And luckily, most every web designer, even if it's a novice or a junior, the basic level of basic good web design, is going to get results for clients. It would depend on the guarantee and what the goal is, of course, but even a basic website is going to convert people and totally going to pay for a $3,500 website. But yeah, there is. It's a great point.

Josh: 58:11

When it comes to leads, like, really, i can't emphasize this enough Talk about results, talk about their customers, don't talk about you, don't talk about what you do right now. Talk about them. This is, by the way, this is like half of the sales stuff of my business course is really diving into framing the conversation towards your lead, make them feel excited, and as soon as you start talking about their customers, suddenly Eric's like the greatest person to talk to. Well, eric didn't say anything, he just prompted you with a couple of questions about your customers, and now you're their best friend. So, yeah, that emphasis on results, i love it, ki. It's crucial.

Eric: 58:44

Well, and we try to in the initial discussion, i've learned and this takes time to get used to like, if you're not doing this, it might be harder at first, but I've even gotten to the point. So, like I was talking to a guy a couple of weeks ago, he has a barbershop in Texas and they just do kids' haircuts, that's it. It's a barbershop for kids, and so he was, you know. So we are talking and I was asking him, like I got to the point of questions like well, how much are you currently doing a month in sales and how many? and then I said like, and how many? you know what's the average haircut cost? And so I was really able quickly to do the math and go okay, so you're doing about 800 of haircuts a month.

Eric: 59:27

And he's like, yep, i'm like okay, well, you said you were wanting to increase revenue by this amount. That's like another 500 haircuts in a month. Do you have enough stylists and chairs and square footage in your building to do another 500 per month? And he sat back and he went no, i was like oh, he's like, yeah, no, we could never grow that much. And he's like, well, let's. So we ended up. So then we had like a five minute conversation about that And then I was able to say like okay, well, now you're actually only looking to increase your monthly income by $1,200. Well, that told me I can't come back to him with a proposal for $2,500 a month in digital marketing services.

Eric: 1:00:20

He's only gonna increase his revenue by $1,200. So when you get really inquisitive about your lead's business and ask them in that initial discussion, here's the thing. Personally, i've learned that in that first meeting, if you're talking about colors and fonts, you're having the wrong conversation, cause every other web designer have that conversation. Talk to them about their business, talk to them about their business And you're suddenly there, even if you don't know the answers to the problems they might be having in their business. When you get to know their business, suddenly you care about them in a way that no other web designer has.

Josh: 1:01:01

All right, here it is. Eric, the way you talk to leads is very different than the way you talk to clients. When you're talking fonts, typography, design, branding, that's good. That is for clients. Yeah, leads, you're just interested in their business And, yes, you're gonna be talking more in depth about their business as a paying client. But, yeah, don't cover the design styles and stuff with leads.

Josh: 1:01:28

Leads are. This can make sales so simple. You just ask about their business. We don't even need to dip our toe into design, layout and all that stuff. Nope, that's for when you pay. This is why, by the way, i have a very different and I don't know if you're doing the same as what I had in place or if it's a little bit different. Now, it's probably different with marketing, the amount of marketing you're doing, but you have a different. You have a questioner for a proposal which covers the stuff about their customers and main called actions and their goals for the business, the level back questionnaire, the strategy questionnaire. That's for paying clients, because then we're getting into design styles, layout, deep conversion stuff.

Josh: 1:02:05

So this is one of the things that distinction, because this is another great way to talk to leads. You have to remember because it's funny, i get this question all the time and I understand the question where do I find clients? You know, eric, as well as I do you do not find clients. You find leads and leads. Hopefully you convert them and they become clients, but you don't find clients. You don't go oh, there's a business owner over there. You pay me here $5,000 right now, let's go. It's like I say this in the business course. It's like I didn't meet my wife and go, oh, i didn't pull a beauty and the beast and go, oh, she's the one That's not. It didn't work So, but you know, she was a lead and then we got to know each other and then she became. You know what I mean. I converted her. Anyway, you convert leads into clients. That's what I'm saying.

Eric: 1:02:59

So big distinction there, that's good, i'm going to repeat that many times now. Moving into the future, you talk to leads different than you talk to clients. You're absolutely right, it's a completely different conversation and here's the benefit to it If the initial conversations are about the business, the outcome, the strategy, they're suddenly going to not hound you so much when you get into the design phase, because-.

Josh: 1:03:25

Oh, good point, good point.

Eric: 1:03:27

Yeah, because the converse, like you're gonna be able to say to the expert here's why we laid your website out this way. We put this over here because we said the goal was this Suddenly they're gonna go oh yeah, okay, that's great. But if the initial conversation is all about the design, they're looking for somebody to micromanage That they're, and they're gonna come back to you with revision requests after revision requests, after revision requests. you don't want them Like Great point, let them hire somebody off of Fiverr, because that's what they want. You want to be, you want to partner with somebody that lets you help them with their business, and then they come back to you And then, like we were saying, you gotta share this number. So one of the things I wanted to share with you was like so we have Foundations Care, that's our maintenance and care package. that still runs the exact same way. I learned it from you. We use mainHWP. we've got the report like it's the exact same. We have Studio Plus, where we charge $100 more, and what we do for that $100 is there's a few other services like they get. we add termageddon on top of that and some stuff like that. But we actually manually create their report And we tell people. on this plan we are in a reactive relationship. If you see something in your report and you have a question about it, you get back to us and we'll react and we'll help you.

Eric: 1:05:01

At this level up here, studio Plus, we're in a proactive. We're gonna look at the numbers and we're gonna come to you and say here's where your numbers are, here's the goal we've set, here's what we think we should do to get you up there and improve those numbers. And every three months we schedule a strategy session and I'm able to go. so we're ending next month. next week is July, so next week we'll start scheduling strategy sessions and I'm gonna be able to go in these strategy sessions and say, hey, last week, last quarter, we talked about the fact that your website was gonna be due for a redesign.

Eric: 1:05:40

I think it's time Some of the conversations I'm gonna say, hey, last week we had, or last quarter we added, pay per click. This month I think we should add Facebook ads And that whole ascension process every three months. basically, i'm charging clients $100 more per month for the right to come and try to upsell them a product or service every three months. But we're creating these reports, we're looking at numbers. it's a little bit more work on our end, but the clients on Studio Plus their businesses grow way better than clients on our foundations care.

Josh: 1:06:23

How are you on time, by the way, eric, i'm good. Okay, good for you, i was. I didn't know if you had like maybe 10 or 15 more minutes. I wanted to go back to something you said that was really interesting with the client who was fine with monthly but view like was basically fine to pay double almost monthly for over a year, than like a full website at 3,500. I've seen this on both sides and I think people are a little more used to paying monthly for things. Now subscriptions, because subscriptions are so just commonplace.

Josh: 1:06:56

But I had some clients like I won't say my name, but one of my favorite websites I ever did. He was totally fine with dropping four K on a site like $4,000, no big deal. He paid immediately. And then when I offered my maintenance plan, which at the time I think was 75 a month, he was like, oh no, i don't want to do that. It was like a whole different person. So he was very averse to monthly, even though it was month to month, that he could turn it off at any point, but he was all about, you know, $4,000. So how do you are you weeding people out to figure out this mindset, or do you have you seen people be more accustomed to just going monthly and leading into website, you know, not devaluing website design, but just adding that as a piece, like I guess. Yeah, kind of two questions in there, but what are your thoughts on that?

Eric: 1:07:45

Yeah. so we've moved to. we use what we call the build framework. So after the initial discussion, we prepare for everybody a digital marketing blueprint. So blueprint kind of goes with the build theme. And so the build framework follows a very strategic process And when we I have learned that since we've approached this started approaching the sales process this way, it's, for the most part, eliminated those kinds of things because they just see like, oh, this is just what I need to do to get the results, because the sales front is always about the results.

Eric: 1:08:27

Now I will get some people that go, you know, oh, we can't afford that. you know, or, oh, that's too much, and things like that. And so we're actually next month, july, we're launching a brand new service and it's a membership. It's called marketing momentum and it's $500 a month and it's a membership And it looks a lot like, you know, web designer pro. You know there's a masterclass training each month and it just follows the build framework. So the first month we're going to do a training on how to set up your Google business profile And it's a prerecorded video. it walks them through it, and then the next week we're going to have a live Q and A for everybody inside marketing momentum.

Josh: 1:09:23

And then the next month. Is that for current clients, mostly Eric, or is that people outside too?

Eric: 1:09:29

Yeah. So we did a founding members launch to our current customers, new people moving forward. It's going to be a down sell option, so we now do so. We have a done with, so we have do it yourself resources, blogs, videos and then once a week I do an 18 minute live rapid training. So I'm doing one today's we're recording this. On what? Tuesday? So this Thursday I'm doing one. They're always 18 minutes long And I cover three things real quick about a certain topic. So this Thursday I'm going to talk about Apple Business Connect how to get more customer activity from iPhone users. It's 18 minutes on how to set up your Apple Business Connect pitfalls to avoid I forget what the third talking point is now.

Josh: 1:10:28

So a couple days figured out.

Eric: 1:10:29

Yeah, yeah. Those are all geared towards people that are your do it yourself first. They need somebody to guide them. Marketing momentum is going to be our new done with you service. So we've got several clients. Brandon Wilson Wilson National is an auctioneer. The guy is very much kind of a do it yourself for, but he just wants some expert advice on what to do And as an auctioneer he's got time during his off season to work on his business. He signed up like that.

Josh: 1:11:03

He's a great. It's awesome. I miss working with him.

Eric: 1:11:08

Yeah, he's great. So he's like, yep, i'm in, i want this. So that's our done with you service. Then we have all of our done for you services where you just pay us and we do all the work for you And we officially next month will have resources for people in all three do it yourself first, done with you, done for you.

Josh: 1:11:37

There is a lot of. this is really cool Because we might have to do a separate case study on having a membership on the back of your web design business, Because I do think, and a lot of it's oh gosh how timely. literally just earlier today I did a Q&A and pro and we were talking about the web printers inside pro and those who are interested in doing a course or a membership or a community with your clients and what that looks like and what the options are. Because I do think and I've seen I mean it's you're, you're living proof that there is a market now for taking your existing current clients and either bringing them together or just offering more of a deeper mentor, guide, coaching style relationship. I mean you can almost go from and talk about the value building and building, know, like and trust. If you go from being a service provider and a strategist to their coach, they view you completely differently.

Eric: 1:12:35

Yeah, So you have the client resource page. Okay, So you're, you're, the I really think the the the creator of that, that concept, the client resource page. I, you're the first one I saw do that.

Josh: 1:12:48

I need to copy right that crap.

Eric: 1:12:52

So think about, like you have on there, like you had a video on on Google analytics, google search console, stuff like that, instead of putting all of that in one place for clients to go to and pick and choose from what if you like? you just said what if you strategically map that out in a way that said, hey, you're going to get a train, a master training video, once a month. It's about 45 minutes, and then once a month we're going to have a live Q and A. If you can't attend, you can submit your questions ahead of time, and then we've got a community area. Whether you use a Facebook group circle does, doesn't matter.

Eric: 1:13:30

And when somebody's website launches, they get, they start a drip campaign. In the first month it's how to read Google analytics. It's pre recorded, it's done, it goes out. The second month It's Google search console. The third month it's I don't know. You know it's. You know you could have a video if you wanted to say blocked websites, you could do something on conversions. Or you know email marketing, a B split testing, you know a shifted, doing a heat map. One month you could talk about a heat map And then you could say and if you would like a heat map on your website, we can install one for $100. Like there's all kinds of things you can do with that. That would be. And even if you had six months, 12 months, i think that's a genius idea of having that as a membership after a site launches.

Josh: 1:14:23

Yeah, and I think for, like your high quality clients, you're likely everyone who's like a little daunted about doing all this extra stuff.

Josh: 1:14:29

I would venture to say you're probably doing a lot of this one on one and just not charging for it. If you're doing any sort of follow up or monthly types of email marketing recurring or strategy calls, check ins, consulting calls you're doing all of this. It's really just a matter of packaging it up as a value add, bringing your clients together, and it's a little bit different with your clients who are in different industries, because Brandon from Wilson National is probably not going to talk to the folks that retina group and have too much in common, but what they might have in common is growing their business with their website and online marketing trends that are working right now and changes to Google, changes with AI. There's a lot of things that you could like. I say, or what I'm thinking, is that a membership off of a web design experience that you do offer in six months or 12 months, whatever it is. What a great time to dish out trends to your current clients who are getting the results.

Eric: 1:15:27

Yeah, or things that you're learning. I talked to a web designer real time that are trying to figure out and learn. well, i'm going to start posting reels. They go out and learn about plugins that add captions and this kind of stuff to create Instagram reels. Well, you know who else wants to create Instagram reels? Most of the pizza shops, attorneys, mechanics, auctioneers, vi, doctor, like they're doing a lot of the same things. So you're learning these things. Take what you learned this month and then put it together as a resource and there you go. It's an interesting idea. So it's a little bit different than what we're doing with marketing momentum, but I really like the idea a lot.

Josh: 1:16:08

Yeah, all right. Well, we're going to save that for round two. I want to see how this round goes for you, So I feel like the next time you'll be on, maybe we'll dive into web designers offering memberships on the back of web design and marketing services. So super exciting, eric, let's put a cap on this one man, always great to talk to you, i love. I mean. Basically what we're doing is a conversation you and I would probably have just you know with me being a consultant now to end transit, but I'm happy that you are down to record it and share some lead strategies for everybody. I know you have a resource. So final question for you before we get to that where would you like people to go? Because I think you have a speaking of a free lead resource. You've got something for everyone listening right?

Eric: 1:16:47

Yeah, absolutely So. If folks just head over to finallyleadscom, i've got five strategies for 30 leads in 30 days And you can download that, and then one of the things that we'll do from there is we'll invite you. If you're a Marco Polo user, i don't know if you're familiar with the app Marco Polo. I love Marco Polo, it's great. It's kind of like Voxer. People are saying to be a little more familiar with Voxer, but it's video. It's kind of an instant video text messaging but via video app. But anyway, i have a. I have a Marco Polo group called the daily lead And every day I answer a question submitted by people that totally free to join the Marco Polo group and follow along, but people submit questions and I answer a question every day, monday through Friday, about lead gen.

Josh: 1:17:44

And so to get onto that.

Eric: 1:17:45

Marco Polo group. just go download my eGuide five leads for five strategies, for 30 leads in 30 days from finallyleadscom And I'll invite you over to the Marco Polo group.

Josh: 1:17:59

Awesome. We'll have that link to the show notes, of course. Finallyleadscom. Last question for you, eric. On the landing page for this lead generator, you have the five leads. You just give a preview of the five leads, which are number one, a league magnet. Number two, a local event. Number three, strategic partnerships We've talked about a lot here. Number four, a Ted type talk. And number five, a local directory. of those five. Eric, what is your favorite?

Eric: 1:18:28

Oh man, that's a all of them.

Josh: 1:18:32

I have a feeling, i know, i feel like I know, but I want to hear from you first.

Eric: 1:18:39

My favorite would probably be and this is going to sound weird because I'm a digital nomad, but was the local live event- I love that one Yeah.

Josh: 1:18:50

Now it's the Ted. This could be a two part. It could be what's your favorite like personally, and then what one has converted the most. So let's do that. So your favorite is the local event, What one has converted the most?

Eric: 1:19:00

Yeah, the local directory. The local directory went for sure. So, and then it's probably the, the Ted style talk has been doing really well for us.

Josh: 1:19:10

Oh, i thought for sure strategic partnerships would be in there, yeah.

Eric: 1:19:15

The one. The one thing about strategic partnerships is because it falls under the referral umbrella. I learned the same from you. We're out of mouth. Referrals are great, but it's like the rain You can't control when it happens. So I like the strategic partnerships a lot, but you can't really control when those leads come in. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. So the local directory, that can either be a website or a podcast directory that converts just so well. And then, yeah, the 18 minute Ted talks convert Well. And so by well I would mean I would say consistently, the ones that convert the easiest are the strategic partnerships. They're the easiest to convert because it's kind of like a referral already.

Josh: 1:20:01

Hot, lead, yeah, yeah.

Eric: 1:20:03

So the other is the hot lead. The others are a little more in the warm and cold, but I used to love, when we lived in Norfolk, the local event, like you know, finding a little community room and just hosting a lunch and learn for an hour on. You know how to create Instagram reels. A lot of business owners will come to a free training for that and you're now this marketing expert.

Eric: 1:20:31

Even if you don't sell that service. Even if you don't sell that service, you're still. What do you? I build websites. Well, man, we need to talk about our website. I loved posting those.

Josh: 1:20:41

Yeah, that's beautiful, eric. We could keep on going, but I think this is a great cap for this conversation. So thanks so much, man always, for being so transparent and sharing what's working well within transit right now with leads. I mean, like I said, this is a good reminder that there are so many ways to find leads. Just remember everybody leads are not clients. You don't find clients, you find leads. Very different conversation, but what a great, what a great map of the different ways that are working right now. Some of these are pretty, pretty fresh strategies too. I don't know too many students employing this, so another great way to look at like I'm sure this is open, the idea. You turn the light bulb on for some people who are just thinking well, facebook ads are the typical stuff, but there's a lot of different options now for leads. So love it, eric. Thanks again for coming on, man. I'm already excited for round four All right, sounds good.

Josh: 1:21:32

There is nothing better to me personally than hearing conversations that aren't theory based or aren't like wishy washy, broad kind of advice, you know, those kind of things or things that might work. No, these everything that we covered here is actually things that are working right now for Eric and our team within transit, and a lot of what we just covered are things that have worked for me over the years. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I would love to hear your thoughts on it and maybe a big takeaway that you got from this one. If you'd like to, you can leave a comment at Josh Hallco slash two seven zero, where that is the podcast episode or, excuse me, podcast page for this episode that has all the links we covered, and please leave me a comment with your biggest takeaway from this. I would love to hear maybe what's working for you and what lead generation strategy maybe haven't thought of yet. I do read all the podcast comments that come through and I try to respond to them all as well. I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment. comment at Josh Hallco slash two seven zero. Again. Be sure to check Eric out at the new website He has set up. Finally, leadscom You can get access to the free training there that has some additional lead strategies for you and a little more detail. And again, all the links we talked about are at Josh Hallco, slash two, seven zero. Thanks for joining friends on this one and cheers in an honest, honest, go for it.

Josh: 1:22:52

When it comes to getting these leads, do not let your client, potential client pipeline run dry. You've got to get leads. I'm going to do an episode following this in a couple of days here after this launches, about how to go further into filtering out bad leads. So make sure you're subscribed to the podcast. I'll see you on the next one and here's to getting more web design leads. My friends, see you on the next one.