Lisa has done 6 rounds of strategy calls with her hosting/maintenance plan clients (to this point) which has led to an additional $25,000+ boost of revenue for her. She has refined this strategy to be a well oiled, revenue boosting machine and she’s opening up about how she does it for you so that you can do the same!
We dive into all of the questions above and more in this one but if you want more, Lisa recently did an entire guest expert training with visuals, templates and more inside of Web Designer Pro™!
As a founding member, I’ve seen her take this from idea to slick revenue boosting strategy all within 18 months. Can’t wait to hear how it helps you too!
Get instant access to her full training as a part of your membership when you join our community Web Designer Pro™
In This Episode
00:00 - Boost Revenue With Quarterly Strategy Calls
10:32 - Quarterly Strategy Call Implementation
21:10 - Quarterly Call Management and Future Scaling
30:43 - Quarterly Strategy Calls for Client Growth
43:12 - Moxie CRM Course Creation and Success
56:15 - Podcast Subscriptions and Reviews Thank You
Get all links, resources and show notes at:
https://joshhall.co/326
Join Web Designer Pro™ before we hit the 250 member cap!
https://joshhall.co/pro
Lisa has done 6 rounds of strategy calls with her hosting/maintenance plan clients (to this point) which has led to an additional $25,000+ boost of revenue for her. She has refined this strategy to be a well oiled, revenue boosting machine and she’s opening up about how she does it for you so that you can do the same!
We dive into all of the questions above and more in this one but if you want more, Lisa recently did an entire guest expert training with visuals, templates and more inside of Web Designer Pro™!
As a founding member, I’ve seen her take this from idea to slick revenue boosting strategy all within 18 months. Can’t wait to hear how it helps you too!
Get instant access to her full training as a part of your membership when you join our community Web Designer Pro™
In This Episode
00:00 - Boost Revenue With Quarterly Strategy Calls
10:32 - Quarterly Strategy Call Implementation
21:10 - Quarterly Call Management and Future Scaling
30:43 - Quarterly Strategy Calls for Client Growth
43:12 - Moxie CRM Course Creation and Success
56:15 - Podcast Subscriptions and Reviews Thank You
Get all links, resources and show notes at:
https://joshhall.co/326
Join Web Designer Pro™ before we hit the 250 member cap!
https://joshhall.co/pro
I need to set up something. And then it became do I go monthly? No, that's too much. They don't need quote unquote strategy every month. So quarterly just seemed to fit. Six months was too much and then random wasn't going to work because for me I wanted it to be. I know that in July our next quarterly calls are coming up. In July our next quarterly calls are coming up. Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast with your host, josh Hall, helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love.
Josh:Hey friends, so great to have you here for this episode. This is a big one and it's something that is, I dare say, revolutionary in web design right now, and it is a way to build recurring income and boost your revenue in a lot of different ways with current clients. So we're not even talking about doing any cold marketing or outbound marketing, but we're just focusing on your current clients in a way to serve them better and to build your recurring income and boost your revenue, and you can do that with strategy calls. This is a hot new thing that you can tack onto your hosting and maintenance and care plans, or you can offer them one-off, quarterly ideally, in order to reconnect with your clients and to lead to more work. And the person who kind of pioneered this is one of my members, one of my OG members, a founding member of Web Designer Pro, lisa Williams. She was recently on the podcast. I'm inviting her back on the podcast because she just did a live training inside of Web Designer Pro on how she offers quarterly strategy calls inside of Web Designer Pro, on how she offers quarterly strategy calls, and what you're going to hear in this conversation is her actual results on what this has done to her business and how it's helped deepen her relationships with clients. Most importantly, though, boost her revenue. And it's such an easy thing to do. There's no pressure, there's no sales strategy with it, you just offer quarterly strategy calls. So we're going to dive into exactly how to do. There's no pressure, there's no sales strategy with it, like you just offer quarterly strategy calls. So we're going to dive into exactly how to do that for you in this episode. We're going to cover a lot of resources here, and I have some additional resources for you at the show notes for this episode, which is going to be found at joshhallco, slash 326. So head over there to not only connect with Lisa and see what she's up to, but get some additional resources here. Again, her training she has an entire guest expert training that she did on this inside of web designer pro. So it's just another reason to come inside my coaching community, web designer pro. You get to meet amazing people like Lisa and see what's working for other web designers. So come on into Web Designer Pro a link for that as well at joshhallco, slash 326, along with a bunch of free resources.
Josh:Now here is Lisa. Let's talk quarterly strategy calls. Lisa, so good to have you back on. I'm pumped to talk about this strategy calls. You have pioneered something. I don't know if you realized how revolutionary this was until we brought it up inside of Web Designer Pro and then I was like what, that's super cool. And everyone else was like what, that's super cool. And now people are making money every quarter from doing these strategy calls. So I would love to kick us off. If you had like a 30 second elevator pitch, like you know how, like a networking means you got to give your pitch for 30 seconds. How would you describe a strategy call? What's, what's the what's the summary of a quarterly strategy call?
Lisa:This. Well, thank you for having me back. I'm super stoked. Yeah, this kind of came about. The quarterly strategy calls, just to touch on that, it kind of came about just organically. And I just started, I like mentioned it to somebody in pro and I was like, and that's where it kind of took off. So everybody was like, wow, that's really neat. But the quarterly strategy calls, I guess to summarize client relationships, that's really what it comes down to and I would say I enhance client relationships or I keep up with our clients through these calls, through the strategy, and to really just bounce ideas off them. So I'm a sounding board. Sometimes I'm a therapist, sometimes I'm a strategist. We brainstorm things and sometimes it leads to additional project work and sometimes it's just peace of mind for the client, like, yeah, okay, I'm on the right track.
Josh:It's also a very organized way to go about that, because otherwise it's very scattered, as you know. Know, when you have a lot of clients, you need to start making some processes and systems in place, that kind of constrain, and make limitations and boundaries. Otherwise everything you just said there, as web designers, we're generally doing just you know, sporadically every day, every week.
Josh:Yeah, what you did, that was so genius and it's in the name, so it's not. You know like we're the details, but it's very clearly in the name of quarterly strategy call. You just brought all because you guys have quite a few clients now, a couple dozen plus clients. Right, you brought them all together for a window of opportunity every quarter to do this, to be a sounding board, to give ideas, to touch base with their clients, to stay top of mind, to retain them and build more recurring income and retainer work and everything else. But what's so genius about this is organizing this once a quarter.
Josh:I'm actually I've taken a page off of your book, and I'm thinking about doing the same thing for me with like consult calls and things like that I usually do and I'm like, why am I doing those randomly when I could just say like once a quarter I open up calls, yeah.
Lisa:And it started in so a year ago, january. So January of 23,. I have a few little stats up here on the side, but um of 23. Yeah, but just prior to that, probably a few months or so, maybe four, six months before that, I found that I was answering a lot of questions or I was giving, and it wasn't overwhelming, but I was just like if this client wants a little feedback on this or needs a little direction on how to something, or they need something done, then other clients probably do too, or they need something done, then other clients probably do too.
Lisa:And it just it kind of came about as I wanted to be able to reach out to them more on a consistent basis and not just have it be random, like you said. But then also we don't send out. You know, we host and maintain and do all the updates and all that for our clients, but we don't send out a monthly report or here's what we did this month. It's just not in our model. So I needed a way to just communicate. And I do send out emails to clients sometimes for anything that they need to know, like the whole Google domain move to Squarespace, those types of things you know I I do send out emails and just blog strategy type things but you don't have a consistent newsletter they're not expecting something.
Lisa:But over this past year, clients will reach out now and, hey, this and this and this, but um, isn't our, isn't our strategy? Call coming up or like they expect it, and so they look forward to it. And not every client does it, and we'll get into that in just a moment, but it is. It's still letting them know that I'm here to help them.
Josh:Well, and another little hidden gem of strategy calls. I think we talked about it in the recent training you did inside of pro, because you did this wonderful like visual training of how to offer strategy calls. You mentioned it's also. It helps revisions and feedback and ongoing support because, yeah, they could send a bunch of emails over or they're like you know what, hey, our call's coming up in a month.
Lisa:I'll just wait till I talk to Lisa and I record the call and um in along with that. I do have office hours Now I do have time that they can schedule if they just need to pick my brain or we just want to talk through. So if something is a little more timely for them, I do have that available. It's a paid office hour type thing, but that was just more recent. But yeah, it's um, it's a lot of, it's fun. I actually look forward to them. It takes a lot out of me, you know, for those few days, but it's really, really, uh, it's, it's enlightening in a lot of ways and it's better to have a little segment of a week or two that's a little bit draining, than having, like every week of every year, be draining.
Lisa:Exactly, exactly, and I and I I can see where they're going in their business or where they want to go, and I know their business, and so it just it works really well for us.
Josh:So, before we get into the specifics of how you're doing this, whether it's paid or free, when and where you offer it where did? Yeah, where did this idea stem from? Was there a breaking point for you or was there something that was like? You know what? I'm just going to group all these together. Where did this idea stem from?
Lisa:It was the questions and the kind of things, the emails that I would get, and I would sometimes if a client was having some issue or something. I didn't have very many of these, but I'd say, all right, let's get on a call real quick and I would just do a little 15, 20 minute call and we kind of hash something out and that would be it. I didn't have anything spelled out in our care plans, our monthly care plans. I didn't have anything really. You know our monthly care plans. I didn't have anything really. It was over. It was over the holiday of 22, 23.
Lisa:And where I have that was the first year that I really just took a complete break from work, like I was just out, like I didn't do any work for that kind of week in between Christmas and New Year's. And that's when it came Cause I'm I'm a firm believer like just take a break, take a rest and it'll come to you. So it just it was. I was like I need to set up something. And then it became do I go monthly? No, that's too much, they don't need quote unquote strategy every month. So quarterly just seemed to fit. Six months was too much. So and then random wasn't going to work because for me, I wanted it to be. I know that in July our next quarterly calls are coming up and I know yeah.
Josh:That's so genius, it's so great. I also love that it came to you when you're on a break, just like all the best ideas happen. The best ideas don't happen when you're behind the keyboard, the screen on a breaker in the shower right, yeah, and then break in the shower. Yeah, uh, yeah, the best ideas never come when you're. You're actively working on websites and doing proposals, and stuff when you're when you're off.
Josh:Yeah, that's wonderful. So let's talk about how you're offering this, and, of course, I know all this, but for everyone listening and watching now this is a lot of this may be like ding, brand new idea, heck, yeah, yeah. So you're offering it in just to current clients, right current clients.
Lisa:um, just a little side note, all of our services are just for current clients. Like the only way you can get into us is web design project. Um, I've just held steadfast to that for five years now. So, yeah, so current clients and that's it, yeah.
Josh:Current clients, and then it's a part of your maintenance plans and is it refresh my memory, is it, uh, for everybody who's on all level, cause I know you have a tier maintenance plan? Is it for everybody, at every level? It's for everybody.
Lisa:Yeah, you know, when we get to that point, we're sitting at roughly 28,. 29 clients right now. Um, well, that seems funny that I say 28,. You either have 28 or you have 29. So I think we're at 28 right now, but um, have 29. So I think we're at 28 right now, but, um, uh, that is uh, if we get more, you know if we're up to the 40, 50.
Josh:I may only include it in the top two tiers, gotcha, I was just. I was wondering about right now.
Lisa:It's manageable, yeah right now it's because, you'll see, you know roughly, I think we figured out the percentage. It's not here, but I don't know roughly like 20%.
Josh:Gotcha who are at her showing?
Lisa:up for calls. Yeah, yeah, correct yeah, and it's 45 minutes. Um, because I typically go a little over at any call, so I thought well, to keep it under an hour or at an hour, I've got to give it 45 minutes, so yeah.
Josh:Yeah, love it. Yeah, you and I I know we have we're going to keep this one on an hour, which, for you and me is going to be tricky stuff it's tricky. Yeah, we can go for two hours just on one point of this. So exactly. So it is a it's a benefit of the plan, right, lisa?
Lisa:it's not something someone pays for additionally, it's a benefit of the plan, it's a benefit of being with us.
Josh:It's um, it's yeah, it's a win-win um for everybody it's such, it's so cool for new clients who get on your plan. What has been the reaction when you say and we have a quarterly strategy call.
Lisa:Oh, they're psyched. Probably seven, six, six clients since I started, you know, like they kind of just piggybacked on, like not all six became in the same month or anything but, um, we've had probably five or six since I started, uh, new clients and to this day I say, you know, we have this call and they're just okay. This is wonderful because I know that things are going to come up. I know that, you know and I said it's, you don't have to do an additional project Like. That's not the goal of the call is for me to invoice you for additional work. That's not the goal of the call is for me to invoice you for additional work. That's not the goal of the call.
Lisa:That's been a result, a nice benefit, a nice result. But it wasn't the goal to begin with. It was just letting them know we're here, let's talk through some strategy. This is a time that you and I have. I've been around the block a time or two in this whole online marketing website space. What all the little pieces of it. While I'm not an expert in order, I claim to be on all the pieces right. I've got enough insight into the pieces that I can at least point them in the right direction.
Lisa:So that was my goal of the calls and it's just morphed into this really cool thing that our clients do like.
Josh:I was just looking because I think we had talked about this together when I was revamping my maintenance plan course a couple years back and because in my maintenance plan course on my demo sales page I have it labeled as a website review call. But when I redo that course and I update it, I'm 100% going to use your model of quarterly strategy.
Josh:Because that label, like you could say review, call, you could say console, but the term strategy is just hitting right now. So I love that that's resonating with clients, clients, because it's not like a casual catch up, it's like it's intentional.
Lisa:It's very intentional what we could do moving forward yeah.
Lisa:And I give them action steps, even if it doesn't require the full call, doesn't result in. You know, I'm invoicing you for a half a day to complete ABC it's I can give them some action steps if it's, like you know, writing blog posts. That's been a big thing that we're trying to educate some clients on and help them to to transverse that. But you know it might be something do this, this and this and we go through things. I share my screen and do something. So it's it's a variety, but it always results in them taking some kind of action yeah, yeah, you don't want to call it upsell calls.
Lisa:Right, we're not really reviewing anything so it's not it's all like moving forward. It might be like, well, how did this work? Or here's how it's going, and we talk about analytics sometimes and I kind of help them wade through that we use fathom analytics. So so I, I show them that and you know. So we, we just talk about things and love that.
Josh:It's super casual that there's not like a bullet list of checklists kind of thing, that you're going in and you're just talking with clients and then I you're a, naturally it just leads to some really good stuff. It's gotta be kind of cool for you. Whether you realize it or not, lisa you're you're like a website coach with these.
Lisa:you know it's um, you know, teacher, former teacher, teacher by nature. That's what I did for 10 years. But I, I don't go into it like that. But yeah, because I feel like I have at least this knowledge of again pointing them in the right direction, and if it gets too much for me, I'll go well, hey, I'm going to call on my expert team that I have, which is, of course, pro, and I go okay, well, let me just go in and see what's what I can, what I can garner from this topic, or what information I can get. Or, you know, we're sharing things all the time in pro right, like links and pages and tools and all kinds of stuff. So that's where I tell them I'll go and then I can get the answer for them yeah, and, by the way, you could do that.
Josh:I don't know if you've done it live, but that's the benefit of being inside a web designer pro or any community is. You could be like well, actually, let me, I'll take you in. This is the web design community I'm a part of, and and like look, we have a whole space for, like, local seo.
Lisa:We have a whole yeah, yeah, yeah, or you haven't done that. Live on the call yet on one of these you're welcome to if you want nothing proprietary true, true, that'd be interesting.
Lisa:Yeah, but yeah, it is. It is in a coach um type, um scenario coach. You know, I'm helping them along and some clients it's. They're so far along that we have some pretty high profile clients and they're so far along that they either don't need a strategy call because they have their own team that does it, or we're very intentional, like they're kind of leading me on what they want to do and then I tell them how it can be implemented. And that typically is an invoice project because it's so detailed, but yeah, so I wanna recap.
Josh:I wanna get into the results of your year and a half of offering Before we do. When are you offering these and how long is the window of-.
Lisa:So I offer them quarterly. So when I first started I thought, all right, it just happened to be January, right, like you can start it at any time of the year, but it just kind of all the stars lined up for me then. So I was like January is perfect, so it's usually mid month, um, just depending on my project schedule, and of course summertime gets a little sketchy, you know. But um, it's January, april, july and October, which is is. I know we talked about this before and on the training people are asking when I start, you know when I did these, and October is a great month, like they're all just great months, you know. I guess that's. You know that's the quarters. You know they're all just really good months to do this July last year. It's been a year, just really good months to do this July last year and it's been a year, so this, so April, you know. So I haven't quite. I haven't went through another summer yet.
Josh:I mean it's only been a little over a year that I've done this, so yeah, yeah, yeah, and you had mentioned so, and I know, um we're not pulling this up on the screen, but in the training you did inside of web designer pro, you had mentioned January, which, if you're cool, are you cool with?
Lisa:I'm cool with sharing yeah, I have it up too. Like I'm cool with sharing yeah, walk us through, so walk, oh and by the way before we look at your actual numbers and stuff.
Josh:How often are you opening up these calls?
Lisa:Is it?
Josh:two weeks.
Lisa:It's, it's 10 business days. So usually that's a Monday Friday, monday Friday usually, but sometimes it'll overlap and sometimes it's not quite 10 business days, but I it's seven to 10 business days is when I have it. So I have my calendar and I just have a specific calendar for that call and then I just open it up those two or those days. You know that that span, and I send an email out that it's time. You know, here we are, you know kind of, and that's not automated.
Lisa:Some people ask me if that's automated. It's not. I just want to send it out and, based on the time it is, I might add a little snippet of us or what we're doing, or whatever time it is, I might add a little snippet of us or what we're doing, or whatever. You know, I just personalize it. Or if something's really on my mind, I might say, hey, let's talk about this, this is an idea. So I leave it open. I give them some examples of what we can talk about, but I send that email out about a week and a half before the calendar opens.
Lisa:And then I'll go in and send a couple reminders. Um, I know who's scheduled or not. You know again, if we get like we're reaching 40, 50, 60 clients, which I don't know, that just seems like. If we doubled, like that would just seem crazy to me, but it's possible. I would have to have some different processes, maybe a little more automation, but right now I don't automate all those emails, so yeah, yeah, and then they schedule, and that's it.
Josh:That's a very sound uh like. Look ahead because, like you said you're, it's manageable, it's sustainable. But I would say, yeah, as your coach, as soon as you get to the point where you're like, okay, this is getting, this is a lot of calls, then then it's time for tiered separation.
Lisa:Right, right yeah.
Josh:That kind of thing. Yeah, what are you? Are you using Calendly or what?
Lisa:I use book like a boss. I've used it um, I'm a moxie queen and we'll get to a little snippet of that at the end but and they do have a calendar in there I just one. My subscription's not up yet. I go yearly with book like a boss. I love them. It's been wonderful so who knows, but it's, it's amazing.
Lisa:You know all our clients are used to it and everything, just the, the, you know the platform and stuff. But I use that. It's very friendly and I set it up and so I just mark off the um, the block off the calendar with my days tuesday, wednesday, thursday. I might open it up during that time. I might open it.
Lisa:I think I do monday through thursday for that usually I'm only doing calls tuesday through thursday, but I think I open up the mond for that for that time period. But yeah, and it's just. You know there's plenty of time for them to schedule. It's pretty wide open on those days. So they schedule their time and and we just go for it.
Josh:Yeah. So let's talk numbers. Year and a half You've done this, this, so you've done six quarterly six, yep, yep, so.
Lisa:So january of 2023 is when I started. So january, there were seven and we didn't have, you know, we were maybe sitting at 21, 2021 clients at that time. So seven, seven booked. And then in apr, seven booked, in July, five and then October was 10.
Josh:10. Yeah, so, like you said, october, which makes sense, and I think, well, obviously this year is more. We'll get to that, but the first year of doing this, it makes sense that fall was the big one you had a few to kind of reel in your systems and your processes right oh, it's always a great time school year started. They're looking to to wrap the end of the year up strong in july.
Lisa:You know, summer um, I might even um, do something a little bit different this summer. I might maybe have a bigger window, but not as many day. I don't know how, but just given the vacations and things like that, I just um, because july there were five, which was fine. You know, I don't if one schedules, that's fine with me, um, and then january, january, just, I had 11 this year, this past january 11 yeah, and it wasn't oh yeah, it was our highest month.
Lisa:I'll go. I'll give you the numbers in a minute. Then April I just finished up and there was seven.
Josh:Okay, okay. So it's the exact same as last year and we're at 28 clients. That's the big thing. It's like I know everyone's probably terrified of like oh, am I going to open up my call schedule? 20 or 30 or 40 people. The reality is, yeah, not everyone's going to do it. And some might say, yeah, I'll do the one in January, but we're good for six months. I'll reconnect in the summer or fall.
Lisa:And even there was a client who didn't call or didn't schedule a call, but she emailed and said hey, in response to my, it's time to schedule your quarterly call. I don't need a call for this, but here's what I want to do. And she just spelled it out. Um, and it was a an additional, it was a paid project that we were going to do, but she didn't need a call for that. So just the idea of having the call sending out that it's time to schedule, you know, and she had booked calls in the past, she just didn't need one. She already knew what she wanted, so she just was like, let's do it.
Josh:So I was just thinking for the, for the next level of this, to to save time and bandwidth and sustainability. I almost wonder if there could be, well, a couple different things that come to mind with. The next level would be to either do like a group call sort of method that would be a lot of people, I'm sure a lot of it needs to be one-on-one. But if you end up doing a tier down, maybe it's like a group quarterly strategy call that, like the low tier would get Exactly.
Josh:Almost like a Q&A session, like we do in Pro, like a weekly call.
Lisa:Yeah, exactly.
Josh:Yeah, you in a session like we do in pro, like a week, yeah, exactly, yeah. The other thing you could do is like personal loom videos so you could say, like you know, if you don't need a one-on-one call, send me what you need, and if you need my insight, I'll send you a loom video. So it's kind of like I can do that.
Lisa:Yeah, a different version of it. I don't even think about that, like, if you just have a question about something, give me your question and I'll do a video for you yeah, or a series of questions.
Josh:If they send you 10 questions, instead of doing a 50 minute one-on-one call, you could do a 10 minute loom video or uh, yeah, or something like that in lieu of the call, like I wouldn't do both right, yeah, just see if somebody can't make it. But you could still say, like, if you do have questions, but you don't want to book a whole call send them to me and I'll send you a loom. So it's kind of I'm trying to think of a way you could almost incorporate even more clients without spending more time.
Lisa:Right, true, true, yeah, it's. Um, yeah, the the calls are. You know there's sometimes there's two, because I don't limit the amount per day. I know, like in calendar platforms you can do that, you know, but I don't do that for these calls because I just want it to be open, it to be open. And there've been months where I do have three a day, like, and they're, like, you know, not back to back because I of course, have a little buffer, you know, but it's enough to where I'm like.
Lisa:Ooh, I've been talking a lot today, you know web designers you're just here doing your thing, you know, and I go.
Josh:Oh my, my gosh, I'm like exhausted at the end of the day same thing with podcasting, if I do two or three podcasts and they're like whoo, yeah, I need to design a website tomorrow. I'm gonna do exactly exactly, but again, it goes back to that idea of you would have had to space these 10 calls out over three months previous to this.
Lisa:Yeah, I mean, and then it's all like oh, do I charge, Do I put a fee on these? Do I do this, Do I do that? And I'm like you know what it's in our plan right now Like you, just get this. It's not an exhausting amount of time, you know it's not like I'm doing all these things to prepare.
Lisa:I don't have to prepare for the call. Sometimes, if they tell me exactly what they want to talk about because I do have that question when they schedule the call you know what specifically would you like to talk about? Then I might have to look something up or I just kind of like look at their website or something. But there's not a lot of prep in these calls. It's right then, and there I don't have a script, or, you know, I don't have specific questions that I ask them. It's just very loose and organic.
Josh:And I'm sure a lot of people are wondering, lisa, you're taking, you know, upwards of 10, 11 calls every quarter for free. That seems like a big time issue. So let's talk numbers, let's talk money. The thing is, yes, it's a benefit to keep in touch with clients and reduce doing these calls scattered, but they have led to a ton of additional revenue for you that would have never been there.
Lisa:That would have never been there and I would have still been answering questions and emails. I would have still been doing short little videos to explain something, questions and emails. I would have still been doing short little videos to explain something. I would have still been doing all of those things and being resentful because I should really be charging for this. You know, like we have that kind of you know fence that we straddle a lot right, so this is just relieved, all of that. It's been actually lovely to be able to do this, because I don't get a lot of that extra that I you know that clients need and that they want. So 13.7 in last year total.
Josh:So yeah, almost $14,000.
Lisa:And it probably that's not exact. But for me to go back, exact because the projects are, they range, you know it's not I have half day, full day things, and then if a project is even more intense than that, like in in January, I had a. This past January was our highest month at 5,200, resulting from those calls.
Josh:Those results. This is pulled off a slide in your training. That's actually 14,700. Oh, it is so. In January 23, you had $3,500 of additional projects based off of quarter strategy calls. April, you had 2,500 additional projects. July, despite it being the least amount of people last year, you had $4,200 worth of additional projects. And then in October, you had 4,500.
Lisa:So that's almost 15. So I added wrong.
Josh:No that's all right. That's what I'm here for.
Lisa:Yeah, almost 15, for having calls with clients that we know they're like part of our family, that's just our. It's Steve and I and we just we know all our clients and you know, at a certain level and we're friends with some of them, and I mean all of them really. I don't like to say some of them we're friends with, but you know what I mean. So it's yeah, it's extra, it's amazing, amazing, yeah, it's additional stuff.
Josh:They didn't have to come up with a launch plan and email sequences a big thing. You just yeah. And keeping in mind this is year one, I imagine every year this is going to two, three x. Uh, january was.
Lisa:January was 52 and just April was 32. So I'm already almost halfway to last year's strategy call.
Lisa:So the projects range, you know it can. It can just be helping them through something as far as, like some email sequence where I'm not writing them or anything, but maybe they just, you know, they need me to go in and plug some things in the connections and the integrations stump a lot of clients and so I will sometimes go in and do that as a project, but that's kind of rare. Most of the times it has to do with their website, um something.
Lisa:So you're rebranding or they're. They need an opt-in, they need a sales page, they need something.
Josh:Yeah, that's just kind of cool. No matter what, like anyone can do this. No matter what you're set your suite of services, even if you do happen to have 50 or a hundred clients, you could just do it with the top level. Your a clients Exactly In most cases. I think your range is going to be most common for freelancers with anywhere between 10, 20, 30 clients. It's very manageable and it's amazing what you can do. I've been how long have I been saying this, lisa? A couple dozen clients can get you to six figures and well beyond.
Lisa:It is. It is true, a couple dozen clients and a course right.
Josh:And a course. We'll talk about your new course next, but that's what I think about.
Lisa:But like, yeah, I'm not with these additional projects which have also led to podcast transcription, which that is an additional. It's a recurring project, but a strategy call led to us doing that. So it's not a direct correlation all the time. So the number of calls don't, they don't all get, you know, have a project attached, a paid project, right then, but sometimes it's it's the talk about it and then let's okay, how are we going to implement this? And for podcast transcription, it's a monthly recurring. So with all of that combined, it's not like, oh my gosh, I need a brand new client.
Josh:Well, there's three ways to grow your business. You either get new clients, you either raise your rates and grow your revenue, or you sell more to your current clients just sell more things. What you're doing is the latter. You are just figuring out a genius way to add more value for your clients, and sometimes they just need to be prompted. Sometimes clients right now I'll say this to everyone listening and watching your clients are probably a lot of them willing to pay you a lot more money right now for multiple things. You just haven't offered it. So they need to hear from you. You need to be on top of their minds, in their feeds, in their email, and if you do these quarterly strategy calls, we're good to go.
Lisa:So, yeah, when I still, when I started doing this, I had to like check myself and go, wait a minute, am I qualified to give all of this advice, like talk about all of these things? And then I looked at my journey up until then and I've had other smaller businesses, I've done other things, I've been online, I've done all those things, right? Um? And so I thought you know, it's okay, because I'm not here with all that. I'm not trying to say like I have all the answers and that I can even do all the projects. If somebody wants something, sometimes I suggest they do some keyword research or we might talk about more strategy into that sphere, which I can only go so far with that, right. But so so I just had to say you know what, I'm here for them, let me see what I can do for them, and I know what I know, and let's go from there so I encourage anyone to just do it yeah.
Josh:I totally agree. Yeah, anyone who feels like an imposter or not a quote-unquote expert. If you are in web design for three months, you know more than your clients.
Lisa:So yeah, you're good, exactly, and then join pro. You have an entire network of everything else you need. I was just gonna say if you're in pro, then you don't have to worry at all not a dang thing so yeah, are you using zoom to record these? I am not. I use sessions. Okay, um sessions, sessions as is a Zoom alternative type thing.
Josh:Do they get access to the whole call for their reference?
Lisa:They do, I can download it and then there's a link. It saves. It automatically saves it in your platform, in the Sessions platform, and so I send them that link. Usually they don't need it. It's more for me to make sure that I've got everything straight. Usually they don't need it. It's more for me to make sure that I've got everything straight. I've only had to go back and look at a couple you know like replay a couple of videos and then I delete them after a while.
Josh:But yeah, it's just there. Those could be repurposed at some point or you could use the one as an example. You could say, like watch a strategy poll of a client.
Lisa:I never thought about that. I'm here for you, lisa.
Josh:That's why we're here we are coming up with like a whole nother course, like a full course on how to make strategy calls I'm telling you, maybe that's my next one uh-oh here we go, but that, but it's.
Lisa:It's just been so rewarding because, like I said, even if the call is 45 minutes of like it's okay really. Like you don't have to be on, you don't have to live on social media to get, to get your website off the ground or to get clients or get whatever like you can do this and let's start. You know, even if it's just talking them off the ledge, so to speak, it's worth it.
Josh:Yeah, so you're, you're doing the, so you have the two, the, the two week window or the 10 day window ish, to book the calls once every quarter. Um, and I imagine too, a lot of this may plant some seeds for something that may come down the road, three, six months or a year down down the road. Not all of this is going to be instant gratification. I would imagine if you talk to somebody in January last year that prompted them to really think about it and then maybe January this year they're finally like yep, after our conversation last year, we're ready to go on this, that is, and sometimes it's after a call and they think about it after a call and they think about it and they so that the, the, the income, the, you know the revenue from those calls.
Lisa:Again, it's not like these seven calls resulted in this exact amount, but like it's just kind of a ballpark on what I know I was going to do for them and what what I did do for them eventually. But it might not result that first month it might not come that call, but they might just email me. Hey, I'm ready now. Remember when we talked in April that we're going to do ABC? Now I'm ready, or something of that nature.
Josh:So yeah, One of the coolest things about this is the very fact that you are separating yourself from most every other web designer out there by offering a consultation, a strategy call when your clients need it. Like most web designers build sites even if they have recurring income. Most part, they're kind of hands off after that. But what you and a lot of other pros have done that I've seen so well over the past year, a couple of years is really put an emphasis on retention and I think personally, for web designers who are going to make it and be sustainable, it's going to be a much bigger emphasis on retaining clients and deepening those relationships and learning new things and just selling less. You don't have to meet new clients all the time. You don't need to be stuck on social media or posting reels nonstop. You can get a couple dozen clients and really invest in them and go deeper with them. That's one really cool.
Lisa:benefit of this, that's always what I wanted to do. Yeah, we have a couple of clients, two clients that I work really heavily with the website, the forms, the opt-ins, the sales pages, the courses that they offer, the um products that they offer, which aren't very many, but and then the uh, the podcast transcription, monthly, so like, and then blog posts from those transcriptions. You know, with the platform that I use, so it's just like I'm just in it and it's so much easier to when they want something done that I can just do it very quickly or I don't have to go down the rabbit hole of oh gosh, you know well how exactly should this look for that, like, I know what, what they like, and those kind of things from a design perspective it's just a, it's just fun, you know, and then you don't you.
Lisa:Then a new client comes in. You're like, oh, you get to be part of the fun now, like you get to you know, because, again, it's just web design for us and I've I've always held that.
Lisa:Well, I mean to get in, I say like we're some kind of lockdown fortress or something which. But I'm just, I'm not going to like, we're not going to maintain a website that's just random out there somewhere, you know, but that's just us and a lot of people they do that. That's totally fine. So it's been very nice to be able to keep it in-house.
Josh:What's been the most surprising thing for you with these quarterly strategy calls? It could be revenue, could be the relationship with clients. What's has anything you know been surprising to you, or just you weren't expecting that with these?
Lisa:I think how open they are and how trusting they are, how open some of them will be, and if they're struggling with something or if they're just not, how is this going to work? Like a client just reached out yesterday about a opt-in, a freemium, they call it in the in the world. You know, um, she has it ready, but like I don't have my email sequence quite set up and I can't, can't quite remember how this all works. But but this is done, like the offer's done, it's a recipe thing, but can you tell me, like, how are we going to do this? Like I'm ready to kind of do this now, um, and so just the trust, really just the um, openness and the trust that they have and me to be able to help them figure it out or not, help them, point them in the right direction or do it like have actually know how to do it.
Josh:That's cool. Yeah, I imagine you're unlocking kind of a different uh aspect of your relationship with clients with these with that, that idea of trust.
Lisa:Yeah, I mean, they will reach out to us, I'm not worried. Now a new client coming in, I got to kind of like, you know, encourage them. Or I got to kind of like it's like when you, um, you know you kind of mold in that person into how, how you want the relationship to be kind of, and so new clients coming in, they're like wait a minute, you can do that, we can do that on my website, like, because a lot of times they don't even know what they don't know. They don't know what we can do with the tools that we have and that we can just implement these things, and a lot of times they don't know. So when new clients come in, it's like, okay, if you have this, you know, don't go out and do all these things, let me know, because we probably have the tool already to do that.
Josh:You must be learning so much in each one of these quarters too, cause if you learn something from one client and do it the next call you have, you can be like we just did this with Sally, you know, and look at her website and then they're gonna be like oh my gosh, I want that too A ton.
Lisa:Yeah, so yeah. It's just the relationship all the way around and the trust they have in us.
Josh:Yeah, so awesome, lisa this is so great. I Great, I mean, yeah, we really covered most everything I wanted to hit as far as the podcast. Here you have the entire training that you did. Thank you so much for doing that and being transparent here, and the training with your numbers and how you've run it in the weeds that's available for everyone who joins pro. So we talked about some strategies and tips for the next evolution of these plans for you. So I'm really excited to continue to oversee how you're doing this and what's working.
Josh:Eventually we'll get to the point where we're going to need to talk yeah, group coaching calls with these put tears in the lady Right. But you're loving it. Obviously, it's a year and a half in. You're not burned out from doing it, so that's wonderful to see. You're entering new territory, though Also, you mentioned your course, so let's just shift gears completely to close this up. You're a big moxie user.
Lisa:you're a power user of moxie, moxie, crm, it's they're it's kind of yeah, they're kind of hard to find online like freelance with moxie. With moxie just depends on what those, what those words are that you put in there might take a little bit of you, you know, finagling and a year and a half.
Josh:Here's what's interesting seeing you, because I've seen your whole journey just about.
Lisa:You've been a student for a long time. Yeah, the whole journey.
Josh:Yeah, I've literally seen you from, yeah, square one, which is, like you're, one of the most rewarding case studies. Success stories.
Josh:I actually have a picture of you. I'm building my wall of awesome right now, my wall and I have testimonials and snippets from a lot of stories, and you're up there, you and Steve. So I see it every day. I'm like, yeah, look at you guys. Here's the thing that's cool, though, is in a year and a half, you went from becoming now an established web designer to website coach, with your core strategy calls, and now you're a course creator. So tell us about your Moxie course calls.
Lisa:And now you're a course creator, so tell us about your moxie course. Yeah, so the moxie crm, it's a you know whole platform, like your dibsado, your 17 hatch, your honey book. It's all that right. But I was in search of a uh, project management platform, because I'm not an asana user, I'm not clickable. That was just way overkill for me. I didn't I anyway.
Lisa:So I found moxie last summer and let me tell you, it completely changed day to day. It completely changed how I work project management, tasks, invoices, proposals, time tracker. There's a scheduler, request, tickets, all the things. And what's so special about Moxie is that they are focused on freelancers and small businesses. However, you can have big businesses in there, but you know it's it's geared towards the smaller businesses. So I started using that last summer. It became a huge, just like I dove in and then people in in.
Lisa:We got started in pro. People were like there was conversation and when they were on AppSumo last summer, it was all like, oh my God, so we had talk on there. Well, that went in. That morphed into I just became the person to ask for how are you doing this or how to do this, or I can't get this, and I just started helping in pro. That's really where it started and the idea for the course.
Lisa:It's a beginner's course. So it's like I say, if you have a messy moxie, if it's just all out of sorts, or if you have not even set it up yet, this is the course for you and I. It's almost done. This was the first release of it just a couple weeks ago ago and 80 people are in the course already. It's blowing my mind. It is so exciting because these, these business, they're business owners, so it's not like they're my, they're not like my client. You know I'm not trying to get new clients from that. It's like I'm trying to help you to run your business with, with this platform. And it is absolutely fabulous and the course has been going great so far and I'm almost done releasing the last few little modules lessons.
Josh:But um yeah, by the time this goes live, it'll be, it'll be complete outside of. Web Designer Pro. Who are? Who's buying the course? Where are you marketing?
Lisa:Oh, I shared it in the Moxie Facebook community and it blew up in there and then I was able Stephanie Hudson graciously allowed me to share it in folks. Wp Facebook group. So, there wasn't a lot of conversation in that group in the you know the what I shared in there. But I'm not on Facebook a whole lot. I go into these few groups that I'm in, right, and I just check things out and that's kind of my serving your clients and making money Right Right.
Lisa:Right Busy creating this course, but yeah, it's so. It kind of blew up in there. People are just been sharing it with each other and there's other people, there's other people in the community that they do done for you services. So you know they're going to set up your Moxie for you for X amount of dollars and at different levels and whatever. There's a few people that do that and they have like little power hours where they're talking through something. But I thought you know what? No, this I don't want to set up Moxie for other business owners. That's not my. I don't want to get into your business. This is to. I don't want to set up.
Lisa:Moxie for other business owners, that's not my. I don't want to get into your business. You need to really get in there and set it up Right. So, um, I need to. I need to show you how, and it it was birth. The idea of the course was birth during one of our member hangouts and pro, that's where it was.
Josh:I mean, if that's not like affirmation, I don't know what it is.
Josh:That's so awesome and you're a really good example of like. If anyone feels like, why would I ever create a course or a program or a training on a tool because moxie has tutorials, I'm sure just like. Like I thought that I was like for a while. I was like, do I even want to ever do a divi course because they have their training like they have divi tutorials that divi provides. But power users of a tool have a unique perspective and the fact that you and I use a lot of tools but we're not a part of the company, we can share very honestly what we like, what we don't like, what could be improved, without bias, and people respect that and trust that.
Lisa:So I think you hit uh, you hit why the iron was hot and it was needed and I go on the facebook community um a lot and I have I pop in there and I see and and it's questions and questions and questions about little things and some of the some of the um features. I, like I said, I don't use the calendar in there right now, I don't use request tickets but, like um, this isn't. It's not everything that I call.
Lisa:I don't cover everything in this course because you just I, I'm just not it's really, it's a beginner's course, it's a beginner's course and it sets you up, and then I also have a monthly q a for that group of people, and yesterday, um may 8th, is we're recording this. It was yesterday was our first one and it one and it was really cool, it was really fun.
Josh:We answered.
Lisa:I answered questions, we talked about things and it was really fun. But the course itself is to get you to set up your Moxie platform in the right order. Everyone wants to get to. I want to send an agreement, I want to send this proposal. Well, you got to start here first, and that's what I found in helping people and setting it up myself is that it needs to be done in this logical order and then you're all. By the end, everything is good to go all the way through workflow automations.
Josh:This is a Moxie foundations course.
Lisa:Yeah, course number two will be your advanced course? Yeah, and it's geared towards web designers only because that's what I do and that's the examples that I kind of show. But any small bit, you know, it's really for the business owner like me. It's small, you know.
Josh:So for anyone who's screaming at us like where the heck do I find this course? Where do they go?
Lisa:It is our website, so jolidesignsolutionscom, and it's slash, it's moxie-course, okay.
Josh:And we'll have that linked in the show notes.
Lisa:Yeah, it is Moxie dash course and it's like you know it's all access and I'm in there. There's a little comment there's where you can ask questions right on the lesson that you're on. I put that in there. I just I thought I don't want people emailing me and having to, I don't know. I like I want everybody to see the Q and a kind of throughout the lessons. So it's a lot of fun and it is it's amazing that that um the feedback so far is good. So I'm just anxious to kind of get it done and get it Um. Like you said, when this, this is um out, it'll be done. Yeah, so yeah it's exciting.
Josh:I'm so pumped for you, lisa. Your strategy calls your course the success of your business.
Lisa:That may be my next course? I don't know. I'll have to talk to the Hangout about a name for that.
Josh:Yeah, well, for pro, I'm going to be putting together almost like mini courses I'm thinking about calling them playbooks which are a little more robust than our monthly training, cause our monthly trainings are like 30, 40 minute masterclasses, like the one you did but, there's time where like it'd be nice to have a little more, but we don't need a full, like seven module course. So yeah.
Josh:I'm thinking about putting a playbook together for interview series which I recommend people do and, if you, about putting a playbook together for interview series which I recommend people do uh and a few an email newsletters for web designers, a few right right. We've had a lot of good trainings in there so I can see that being a good thing yeah, my tag team with you on uh quarterly strategy calls playbook yeah, yeah, all right I'll message you in pro after this, we'll get going on it.
Lisa:Yeah, yeah, that would be cool, lisa. Yeah, any final.
Josh:Sorry got to get going here in a couple minutes, but any final thoughts. I encourage anyone to.
Lisa:I encourage to start, you know, doing the quarterly strategy calls. You know, even if you want to offer it just to a select few clients right now, maybe I don't know, but I encourage anyone to do it and just thank you, man is, I don't know? I, you know. I just say all the time I don't talk to many other web designers that are not in pro, but I tell you, if you're a web designer, listen, and you're not, it I mean, I'm Josh, did not pay me to say this, but it is the absolute best investment in your business. I've been from day one and it is amazing. I wouldn't be where I am today, honestly, like I wouldn't have the wherewithal and the confidence and the knowing that people have my back and knowing that I can bounce ideas off of people. So I just thank you, you know, for having the vision for this early on and I'm here for the ride for having the vision for this early on and I'm here for the ride.
Josh:Well, I'm so pleased to have you along for the ride, Lisa. That was awesome. I can't think of a better way to end the podcast so thank you for sharing your quarterly plans. Pumped about your Moxie course. We'll have a link to the show notes for everybody, until the next one, lisa. Thank you, my gosh, you're just your momentum is incredible.
Lisa:I'm going to do a hat trick. Oh, you'll be a three-peater. I'll reference your hockey love. I'm going to do a hat trick here.
Josh:A hat trick. Oh, lisa gosh, you're just awesome. That's wonderful.
Lisa:I will talk to you later, Josh, All right.
Josh:Lisa, thanks this was great.
Lisa:All right, bye.
Josh:So awesome, right, a great way to deepen your relationship with clients, to boost your revenue, to build recurring income, all by doing it in a way that just standardizing standardizes. Excuse me, how to connect with your clients, because you're probably doing this just sporadically already, so you might as well do it every quarter with this idea of quarterly strategy calls. This idea of quarterly strategy calls, again, more resources for you over at joshhallco, slash 326, where all the show notes, links and resources mentioned will be there for you. Definitely. Connect with Lisa over there and if you are a Moxie user, as we just talked about, lisa has a brand new course at the time of releasing this for Moxie users, so go check that out as well. You can connect with her at joelledesignsolutionscom and, again, all those links will be over at the show notes for you, along with a full transcription of this at joshhallco slash 326. I'll see you over there.
Josh:Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast and I can't wait to see on the next one, because there's a lot of goodies just like this one up ahead. So thanks for listening, friends. Leave a review, by the way, if you would. That'd be so helpful to the show. It would mean a lot to me All right, see you at the show notes. Over at the show notes. Wow, if I could talk today At joshhallco, slash 326.