One of the benefits of being a web designer is your option to build recurring revenue. As a WordPress web designer, I learned that one of the best ways to do this was to offer a hosting and maintenance plan. Or “care plan” as it’s more commonly referred to these days.
For years, it was my assumption that if you use self-hosted platforms like SquareSpace, WixStudio, Webflow, Showit, etc then you can't offer care plans because there's no plugins to update or advanced security to monitor.
But I was wrong...you CAN offer care plans (even if you're NOT using WordPress!!)
A great example of this is Eleanor Mayrhofer, a SquareSpace web designer and member of my community Web Designer Pro™.
On a recent weekly coaching call, Eleanor and I chatted together about how she could build up more recurring income as a SquareSpace designer and we came up with offering an “SOS” plan.
SOS stands for "Strategy, Optimization & Support"
Eleanor launched her SOS plan and literally overnight generated a few hundred dollars per month of recurring revenue with this plan and her clients are loving it!
She’s on the podcast this week pulling back the curtain on her plan!
We cover:
Get all links and resources mentioned along with a full transcription at:
https://joshhall.co/331
View all Web Design Business Podcasts with show notes and full transcriptions at: https://joshhall.co/podcast
Join Web Designer Pro™ before we hit the 250 member cap!
https://joshhall.co/pro
One of the benefits of being a web designer is your option to build recurring revenue. As a WordPress web designer, I learned that one of the best ways to do this was to offer a hosting and maintenance plan. Or “care plan” as it’s more commonly referred to these days.
For years, it was my assumption that if you use self-hosted platforms like SquareSpace, WixStudio, Webflow, Showit, etc then you can't offer care plans because there's no plugins to update or advanced security to monitor.
But I was wrong...you CAN offer care plans (even if you're NOT using WordPress!!)
A great example of this is Eleanor Mayrhofer, a SquareSpace web designer and member of my community Web Designer Pro™.
On a recent weekly coaching call, Eleanor and I chatted together about how she could build up more recurring income as a SquareSpace designer and we came up with offering an “SOS” plan.
SOS stands for "Strategy, Optimization & Support"
Eleanor launched her SOS plan and literally overnight generated a few hundred dollars per month of recurring revenue with this plan and her clients are loving it!
She’s on the podcast this week pulling back the curtain on her plan!
We cover:
Get all links and resources mentioned along with a full transcription at:
https://joshhall.co/331
View all Web Design Business Podcasts with show notes and full transcriptions at: https://joshhall.co/podcast
Join Web Designer Pro™ before we hit the 250 member cap!
https://joshhall.co/pro
Then I finally was like I have to ask, I just have to say I have this thing and then so the next month I did it, the newsletter was just that, and I got responses right away and I think I sold two and I and I did say I have, I can comfortably, I can comfortably accept three new clients right now and like those got booked right away.
Josh Hall:Wow, and then there were the SOS plan, yeah.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yeah, Cause I also didn't want to. I wanted to see how it would go. And I, you know, and my, I think I also had some personal fears of like, oh my God, I'm going to get bombarded with all this stuff and it's been fine, Um. But and then I had several that said I'm not ready for this, but can we talk again in a couple months? And I said, sure, no problem, and that's even better because I want to make sure I'm able to deliver value on this offer. So it was pretty much that, and I mean that's not a huge list. That list is 35 people. 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 Hall:Hello friends, great to be with you here for another episode of the Web Design Business Podcast. We're really going to talk business today, the business of website care plans for non-WordPress sites. So I started using WordPress back in 2012, and it was my assumption, as other page builders and other platforms came online, that you could not have website care plans and maintenance plans and hosting plans, because things like Squarespace, wix, webflow, et cetera were self-hosted and didn't need plugin updates, didn't need security and didn't need what you would typically offer in a classic maintenance plan for WordPress sites. However, I was wrong and if you have that mindset now, I'm real excited to share this episode because I am bringing on Eleanor Merhofer she does have a German last name, so I hope I got that close who is a member of mine in Web Designer Pro and she is a Squarespace web designer, and, more recently, because every week in Pro, if you didn't know, we do weekly coaching calls and she had a question about how she could build more recurring income in her business apart from the marketing plans that she's doing. She was really interested in having some sort of support plan or care plan, but she uses Squarespace and what we came up with is what we and I'm going to give her 50% credit on this, because we really did come up with this together we came up with an SOS plan, which stands for strategy, optimization and support.
Josh Hall:Eleanor, as you'll hear in this interview here, launched this to her clients and overnight generated a few hundred dollars of recurring income with one email to a very small pool of current clients. So this is just the beginning. You can absolutely offer care plans and support plans, even if you're not a WordPress web designer. So if you're interested in building recurring income with a care plan, this is your episode. We're going to cover how she sold this and how she launched it to her clients, what she includes in her SOS plan, how she is building her SOS plan that's, more support alongside her growth and marketing plans and, most importantly, why she's very happy about going slow and steady with this, because she wants to make sure that she's protecting her time. So all that is covered in more.
Josh Hall:Eleanor is just an awesome web design entrepreneur. I really think you're going to love this episode. I was so excited to get this live. I featured her recently on my newsletter and she agreed to come on the podcast and open up with exactly how she's doing this. So, my friends, I hope you enjoy this. If you're not a WordPress user and you are going to build your own SOS plan, let us know. Go to the comments for this episode or the show notes for this episode. Go to joshhallco slash three, three one. You can drop us a comment there and if you would like to see her SOS plan, you can do that by going to her website, which is going to be linked at the show notes. Her website is her name, eleanor Mayer Ofer dot com, which again will be linked in the show notes at Josh Hall dot co slash three, three one. All right, here's Eleanor, let's talk about how to craft your own SOS plan. Eleanor, it is so good to talk with you. It's been a while. Welcome in. I'm so excited to chat with you today.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:It's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me.
Josh Hall:I don't even know where to start with this, because you have such an interesting backstory and setup for your business. You have a unique podcast. It's interesting because I'm a WordPress guy and I've known so many web designers in that world. It's interesting because I'm a WordPress guy and I've known so many web designers in that world. But I feel like particularly this podcast has opened me up to web designers and of other platforms like Squarespace. So when you came into Web Designer Pro and you were, I think you were one of the first Squarespace users there. There's a lot now we have. As you know, it's very agnostic, we have all sorts of builders in there, but it's just really cool to see a different part of the industry. So I want to just say thank you for being a Squarespace user but still being in my world. It's very cool for me to see another side of this.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Oh, I was really glad to be welcomed with open arms because I was a little worried at first.
Josh Hall:Yeah, I know. I'm trying to make that very clear that like yeah, so my courses are WordPress. There's WordPress in there. I mean, like 90% of everything is applicable to any builder. So I tried to make that more prominent.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:And that was clear from the beginning. It was a non-issue.
Josh Hall:Okay, cool. That's good for me to know and this is very important for this topic we're going to dive into because for years, I always just kind of assumed and as a lot of other people did, I think maybe you did as well that you couldn't have a maintenance plan or a support plan if you don't use WordPress, because you don't need to update plugins. But you and I, we broke the mold. I'm sure we're not the first people ever to do this, but we had one of our coaching calls in pro. We came up with this slick strategy and I know we'll dive into that, but what was your thinking towards that? Did you have that same mindset?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Well, I knew what I was seeing was a lot of my clients were launching their websites, but there was a whole other marketing piece that I was sort of like we do the launch. And then it was like and surprise, you're a digital marketer now, and some of them had some knowledge and sophistication around those things, but many of them didn't. And I was working with anything from health practitioners to magicians, to coaches, clinicians to coaches, and you know some of them would were pretty good with like SEO type stuff. Some of them SEO didn't really apply to their businesses. And you know, I try and explain some things like, okay, we're going to put your site on Google console, but I could see that they were going to be lost after.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:You know that this was kind of step one. It wasn't the thing that was going to get the leads coming in. It will help with that process. But yeah, that's, that's not the thing. And so then I'd kind of say, well then just do this and maybe you should think about LinkedIn. And then I'd go through this laundry list and they'd look like a deer in the headlines.
Josh Hall:Yeah, well, you said it, websites kind of are the step one and then, as you very well articulated, clients want to know now, what do I do? Yeah, which is really cool for web designers, because I've been saying for a while now, all roads lead towards websites, which means it can be a starting point, but it can also be sold in addition to other services. For those who have a focus on marketing, how are you positioning yourself with your copy and with your clients? And I'd love to dive into your niche too but how are you positioning yourself? Do you come across as a web designer or a digital marketer or a strategist?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:How are you presenting Well, I'm kind of in the middle of the very beginning not in the middle the very beginning of I've always wanted I just listened to your episode with Troy Dean of I've always wanted. I just listened to your your episode with Troy Dean and I've always thought of myself as a digital strategist. But your response to him encapsulated my like. If I tell people I'm a digital strategist like they'll go huh, what? So it's just easier to say I'm a web designer, because people get what that is. But I've always had a kind of offer called a digital strategy session. Um, and sometimes if someone will a lead, will come to me and I can tell they kind of don't know what they need. I'd say, why don't you just book this? It's like 200 bucks, it's not a lot. And then you know maybe a site is what they need. A lot of times it is, but there's a whole other piece around that. But the, the support that I'm offering afterwards I only do it for existing clients. And, um, the way I I'll tell you how it started I had one client I did I've done three sites.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:First one of my favorite clients and she has a very. She had a very specific niche, a very specific offer was very clear on who it was and she knew she needed to go on LinkedIn, like that was where her ideal client was and that's like my main social media platform. And so it was kind of one of those things. She booked an intensive with me and I was we were like doing the things and I and she was like this is too much, I can't even deal with this. Basically, Um, and I said, well, what would work for you? So it was kind of a um, a collaboration, and she said I can spend one hour and I want to have accountability calls, I want to come up with a list of everything I need to do and we can work through that list together. So I said, okay, and we'll like work on a monthly basis. So I kind of let that be my frame for it.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:And then I just thought about all of the things that some of the customers I really enjoyed working with came back for or had questions around, and it sort of fell into several buckets and one and like in her case, she was a perfect candidate for SEO, and so I put her on my SEO tool and we're working on, you know, some terms and all that stuff. For others it's not, and this is what's a little bit interesting about this. It's still evolving and I have good relations with my clients so I can be frank about that. But some some are starting their businesses and they are very focused on lead generation, and others are like busy, they sell into organizations. They are not like revenue is not an issue, it's more they need a sparring partner for their marketing and messaging and it's more strategic work and I love that kind of work.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:One client I'm working with now we're just like trying to distill all the things she does into a few key messages and there's probably a website redesign in the future somewhere. But she just needs to get all this stuff figured out before she takes that plunge.
Josh Hall:I want to dive into these buckets because this will be parallel to what we've come up with, this SOS strategy of strategy care and support or optimization support. But it makes sense that you are paying really good attention to the common questions that your clients are coming back to you with. I also love that you said you start out as a web designer. I still think it's the best way to go, because people don't know strategists. But if you start with websites, like you said, naturally they're like okay, now, what do we do? And there's your time to upsell for strategy. I personally love that. That's the kind of way I would. If I were starting today. I would still go about it that way. So let's just dive right into this strategy that you and I came up with.
Josh Hall:I'm trying to remember when we did that call. Remember when we did that call. But you had talked about maintenance plans for Squarespace and others. And then, and yeah, there's no plugins to update. And there's there's. You don't update Squarespace, but there are a lot of other things you can do to optimize, to support and, as you've already mentioned, there's a lot of strategy opportunities for web designers with SEO, with marketing, with copy, with all these different buckets. So who should take credit for this, eleanor? Was it you or me? I think we should split this 50-50.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Joint effort, joint effort yeah.
Josh Hall:So tell us real quick about what you've done. I mean, you've made this your own, but tell us about your SOS strategy and how that's gone.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:So what I did was so I really should pull up the site now, but what I did was I basically came up with three tiers and some clients also need things like they'll have. I'll have helped them set up. Their Squarespace, has their own newsletter tool and for most of my clients that's perfectly fine to use, but then they'll get stuck with. I need to set up a template and automation flow and that's just a little bit beyond their capacity. And I was working. I was offering just short intensives, like 90 minutes or a half day or a full day, and sometimes what they needed did not fit neatly into that.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:So part of the support optimization strategy thing was like you can come to me for anything in these buckets. We can work on your marketing strategy, we can work on your SEO, I can help you. I'm not a bad copywriter. I can help you with things like copywriting and like these bigger strategy items I was talking about. And for your existing site, in each tier you get an automatic you know half hour hour, two hours of fixes, anything that goes back to the website. So almost you can any help you need. With the exception of launching a new site, you will be first in line.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Lots of times. Clients would like send me an email and they need something to take half an hour and it's like what do I do with that? I don't want to say like, well, you got to book a full session and these are clients I have good relationships with, so if they have this SOS plan, that falls into it, no problem, and I also respond, because if they're not on the plan it's like I'll do my best to respond, but I can't promise I got a husband, a dog, a kid, a business Like.
Josh Hall:I can't be answering every email after your support like launch support is over and they would be at a higher hourly rate too.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Right, you do, yeah. And then and then one if they, it's a use it or lose it. And once they, if they use the maximum of the hours, it just rolls into an hourly. If they use the maximum of the hours, it just rolls into an hourly Gotcha. So it's a better way to work together. It feels more comfortable with clients you have a good relationship with.
Josh Hall:That's a really good point too. It was one of the reasons I loved having my maintenance plan. It was like I was taking all these random requests. I was like I might as well get paid for it in a way that makes it easier for clients too, because they just know I'm in their corner and if it's a quick update they have a new team member. I can throw it up there, because they're paying for an hour a month.
Josh Hall:Yeah, but if they don't use it all good. Most clients did not care about that. I was really worried about clients being worried about paying for an hour of time they're not going to use. But if you stack in a maintenance plan or support plan with all these other benefits, plan with all these other benefits that one hour is viewed as a bonus, as a perk.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:It's not what they think they're paying for. Yeah, that has been a non-issue so far.
Josh Hall:I love what you have done with your plan and the way of having it tiered out too. So for those, what we're going to do is I'm going to make sure I'm actually going to follow up with this podcast with a more condensed video to show this on YouTube. But for everyone just listening, your plan is called SOS Support Optimization Strategy. I would actually probably lead with strategy.
Josh Hall:As I'm looking at it, I would say yeah, I'm thinking about reversing the only reason is just because I feel like if you lead with that, it would probably seem more valuable, whereas right now, I mean, it works either way. But either way, strategy optimization, support, sos. You're including priority support with a discounted hourly rate, online marketing, copy and messaging services, seo monitoring, reporting, website enhancements and it's tiered out. So you have a basic, premium and elite plan and for everyone who checks out the page, I'll make sure we have the page linked in the show notes for this one. But yeah, I'm just kind of overviewing your plan and your tiers of what's working, because it is nice to have clients who are not going to need much. They can do the basic. It's 149 euro premium. Right now you're at 249 and 449 for Elite.
Josh Hall:So I want to know you laid this out. You delayed a couple months, I think it was in doing this. It was so funny because in pro, you were like I finally did it and, my gosh, it worked like overnight. So tell us about launching this. I'd love to hear, now that we've covered, what you include and how you go about it. I would love to hear about how you launched this to current clients.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yeah, I think there were some mindset issues, so I did it. And then I think I sent it, I sent my, I have a mailing list just for clients, um, and I send maybe every couple of months just a little hi, hello, tips, stuff, um, just kind of staying in touch. And so the January one I had a podcast, podcast episode I shared that was relevant to all my clients and I did the PS. I have this thing like way at the bottom and I don't think it even got any clicks Cause I. And then I finally was like I have to ask, I just have to say I have this thing. And then so the next month I did it, the newsletter was just that and I got responses right away and I think I sold two and I and I did say I have, I can comfortably, I can comfortably accept three new clients right now and like those got booked right away.
Josh Hall:Wow, and then there were the SOS plan, yeah.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yeah, cause I also didn't want to. I wanted to see how it would go. And I, you know, and my, I think I also had some personal fears of oh my God, I'm going to get bombarded with all this stuff, and it's been fine. But and then I had several that said I'm not ready for this, but can we talk again in a couple months? And I said, sure, no problem, and that's even better because I want to make sure I'm able to deliver value on this offer. So it was pretty much that, and I mean that's not a huge list.
Josh Hall:That list is 35 people Awesome. Yeah, it's almost better to start with just a handful, or even less, in the beginning with this kind of thing, because it's direct support, whereas if you get 30 people signing up for something, yeah, you might be scrambling. So you onboarded a few, that first step. How did the initial wave go? You said you're worried about getting constant. You know bombardment, but it sounds like that's not the case. So how did the first round of your sos plan go?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:well, one thing I realized after starting was we really need to and I need to put this on the sales page but we really need to start with a like a complementary, because I also have quarterly strategy calls at different levels. So, like you get two I think it um elite and one and premium.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:But I think these offers all need to start with a strategy call because, it's sort of like what are we doing here and like let's set some KPIs. And so I just did that and you know, on that on the house, um, and then, because I have, you know, my clients are great I was also redoing my CRM at the time, which I don't recommend doing this at the same time. You do that. So, um, it wasn't like until a month in that I had all my client portals set up and everything nice where I could do things. So it was kind of like building the plane as I was flying in a little bit from like a backend perspective. But, um, I mean, there wasn't really much to it.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:I set up the sales page and I sent that uh email and then, and then now what I have in my CRM is, on each client portal they have links to, I have special meeting types set up and, um, and the portal I have, like each, if we have sessions and I take notes, I record them all with like an AI note taker and so I always you know they can always find their notes in the portal and book a call. I thought at first, um, I want to make this as streamlined as possible, so I didn't like go set up some kind of ticketing system or anything like that. You know, I thought if it gets to like that kind of volume, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. But for now it was like if you have anything you can just send me an email, and even that hasn't really happened. I mean, I get a couple of things, but it wasn't just like my fear of just never ending email requests to do little things on a website.
Josh Hall:Yeah, I don't know if you were on the recent call on Pro, we were talking about that because we do have some members who have 50 plus websites they're managing and then, once you get to that point, yeah, a little more of a streamlined ticketing system is a great way to go. You don't want to lose the personal touch but, like my CEO, eric, he just has everyone send something to support at in transit studios.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Um, please, nobody don't send stuff to that email because it's going to get flagged and zapped here, then it goes to the team.
Josh Hall:So but that's how he does it. But yeah, if you're dealing with a dozen or two dozen clients generally. Yeah, if you're dealing with a dozen or two dozen clients, it's not a big issue. How many are you? How many are on the plan today?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Then just for our reference Four, four.
Josh Hall:Okay. So yeah, I feel like, as you double that and triple that, it'll be a good tell, like telling sign, once you get to like a dozen and up to the 20 range, whether that would need to change. But you're right, especially since you already have a really good relationship with your clients. If anything, it's just a good chance to reignite your relationship with your clients.
Josh Hall:Because if you have something new that shows that you're innovating and that shows that you're working on your business and you're providing more value. That is a bit of a hidden gem that most web designers don't think about. If you don't offer anything new ever for years, you're going to look stagnant. Yeah, it doesn't mean you need to blow up your business, but if you do have a value add, launch it, make it special, do a big announcement post and something like this. I mean, overnight you made a few hundred bucks.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yeah, overnight in recurring just one email.
Josh Hall:So yeah, in recurring just one email, so yeah, it's a really it's cool to see you do this. And then because, yeah, you didn't know what to expect but if you do offer it it, it can be very, very cool. Now with with starting with a handful of people and stuff. I'm kind of curious. You know you haven't been an issue with with um getting requests and things like that. But one thing I do want to highlight what you said there is to do an onboarding call. I think that is absolutely crucial for this because you could really highlight the strategy and that way I mean one onboarding call. Yes, it might take some time with a few clients, but that's probably worth maybe tens of thousands of dollars years down the road. I mean that's pretty cool. When you did those strategy calls, did you or those onboarding calls will call? Did you have any agenda with those? Or was it just casual, just kind of catch up and talk about where they're at and what the questions they have?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Well, one thing I really want to do is establish, like, what are the goals? What do you, what do you want to do out of this, so that they're getting value out of it? And, um, you know, like some it's very concrete. It's like I want one to two new clients a month, Because otherwise I don't really know how I can help them. So it's like, okay, that's clear, this is what I think we should do to help meet the goals.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:And with another person, it was like I want to speak on these certain stages this time next year. So it was like, okay, it's going to be messaging content, like let's do that and that. So it's kind of different. So just kind of setting the stage for what the work's going to look like. And to the point about, like you say it all the time and it is true, it's like it always leads back to the website.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:So one client who started a coaching practice she does, you know, want a healthy clip of clients, but she wants to do a lot of content marketing and she said, okay, I want to do the newsletter now. And then I said okay, and we talked about it and realized like she kind of needs to think through more like what her automation process is going to be. And then, when it came to Squarespace campaigns, I was like, ah, there's got to be a course. But then I realized, wait a minute, you're on my plan, Like book an extra hour and we'll set it up, and that's way cheaper than you going through a course and do it and that's like the benefit for them. It's like I can just when we get to that point where we have to get our hands into the website again, I can help you with that, yeah.
Josh Hall:Now that makes a lot of sense. It's going to open up the doors to all these additional services. But that leads me to a fear-based question, which is how do you put constraints on what you do outside of website and support? I mean, when you talk SEO marketing, lead generators that can get into very, very, very complex digital marketing territory, because I imagine they may be like eleanor, would you take my social media over to where do you draw the line and how do you put a cap on those marketing services?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:um, I think that's where it's like it's not implementation, like I am not going, like I have another offer that's like a very expensive monthly retainer where there is actual help with the content and scheduling it out.
Josh Hall:So I do have a with you.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yeah, I do have. If you go to my website, I have like website packages and digital strategy services and the premium one is like a four-figure monthly retainer. That is not what this is. So and like what comes up a lot is like people want me to help them set up their Gmail, and that's what I'm like. I am not an IT person. My husband does that for me, like can't help you with that. So I just tell people like this is kind of out of the purview and I'm not good at it.
Josh Hall:Do you get any people confused? Cause I'm looking now yeah, this is great, you have a digital marketing packages that include strategy roadmap, like digital roadmap, and then and full blown digital marketing services, a little more support and implementation. Have those conflicted with your SOS plans? Cause I imagine some clients might be confused. Well, if you're already doing it, I'm already on your strategy plan. What's the difference between a roadmap? Is that the clarity, the difference, just the amount of time that you're actually doing things for them.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:You know a lot of them just don't even know about that. Once they're your client, they're not really going back to your site, and those are more. The first two digital strategy services would be something that somebody would use before we did a site together, okay.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:And then if they want something more robust, I can point them to the digital services. And usually sometimes that with clients and I've I've talked to them. I've never actually I'm not like doing that for anybody, but sometimes they've had me and I've literally written things up in Notion, like where we've talked about and I'd be like this is what it would look like in your case. So that's sort of a placeholder there if somebody wants it, but it's not something. And those two, all of this, and the SOS you have to be. I've had to have done a website with you first. Yeah, absolutely None of it's anything you could book, just standalone.
Josh Hall:It's interesting because you mentioned my conversation with Troy Dean recently about growth plans and really what you have in place is a great example of that with your roadmap and digital marketing services. Do you, if you were to sell one of those today, if somebody did your roadmap or your full-blown top tier you know 2k a month digital marketing services, would you include SOS as a bonus? Like just that would be like the foundation strategy, support and care, or would somebody purchase that separately?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:It depends, because I mean I can't imagine a situation. But if they got the roadmap and then somehow part of that was not a website, it wouldn't really make sense.
Josh Hall:Um but, I was just thinking your SOS plans could be a great downsell. To like. If somebody is doing your roadmap or your, your top tier marketing services and they're like, hey, we want to pause this, you could still say, well, we could still do the fundamentals with our SOS plan. That way you and I can at least get together quarterly, Um, and we could do your basic support for you know, a couple hundred bucks a month or something, it could be a nice.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:I am experimenting with this a little bit. I'm in talks with one person who had a proposal, who I think had a little sticker shock and, or just like, got cold feet and the business is still kind of coming together.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:And so we're going to talk again and I'm going to say, well, maybe we do a slimmed down version and then you get on a plan and we can do things incrementally and I, to be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly what that would look, sure, what that would look like, but I'm glad I have that there.
Josh Hall:Yeah, it's a great starting point too. Yeah, cause you can start someone on your top tier of your SOS plan to have you know the strategy and the goals moving forward, and then they could work up towards the actual roadmap and your marketing services, even when they're ready.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:What I don't want that I guess the thing I'm concerned or would be concerned about, like I don't want that I guess the thing I'm concerned or would be concerned about, like I don't want somebody to try and use that as a backdoor to do a new site.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Oh, like I have to be very clear about that. Like you're not going to get a site like on an hourly rate, like you have to have a site build first for financial reasons. But also I just personally I don't want people in my inbox that I don't want being there, that that's like part of the the freedom thing of being an entrepreneur. So doing a website together I know like, okay, I like this person, we work well together, we're enriching each other's lives and great Happy to have them there.
Josh Hall:But you kind of know, after one site build, if it's like yeah, yeah, good luck right and that's important too, because you wouldn't necessarily want to have a like at scale, a bunch of clients on an sos plan that you really don't want to work with.
Josh Hall:So I think that's an important distinction here, because for anyone who might be thinking like, well, I wouldn't want to do an sos plan unless I had, you know, 20 or 30 or 40 clients, the thing is in your case, eleanor, it's almost just a bonus to your clients in your business. As of now, eventually, I can see it being a pretty big piece and core to your business, especially being that it's recurring. But you're an established web design business owner at this point, so it was kind of a nice add-, an additional piece to what you're offering. But again, the cool thing is I feel like clients just slip away if they don't have that option, because prior to your SOS plans you really had the option to do website or one of these advanced marketing services. Otherwise it's like see you later. You can stay on my list.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yeah, I don't really have anything for them, so that's what I think is really cool.
Josh Hall:I feel like this to me on the outside, looking in, it looks like this fills in that nice little gap to keep people in your world, and you have that offer to continue to roll out every time you do a newsletter. I mean you did that one that was highlighting it, but it can always be a part of your offer suite moving forward.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yeah, yeah, and I think I will hold off until the end of the summer to kind of push it again, and I'll reach out. I've actually raised the price because the person who bought, like the elite, was like. This is very reasonable.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:So I was like oh okay, good to know. So, but the people that I talked to at the, I will honor the original rate that I talked to. So I'll do that with them. And you know, another thing about this is it is win-win because it gives me real insight into my client's business problems and that helps me think about my business and my offerings. So it goes both ways. I get a lot of information about their struggles, their challenges, all kinds of things. So I just I actually do find it really gratifying work and I like to think of um, I like to be like a partner for my clients. So it's just, I think the trick is figuring out how much of the work is like thinking work. I think the trick is figuring out how much of the work is like thinking work and I don't want it to turn into just too much like order taking and job ticket work.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yeah, I want it to kind of stay at that strategic level.
Josh Hall:And that's and I think the way you've done it is wise, because you have a smaller pool of clients to test that out on. Again, if you had 30 clients sign up, that's dangerous territory. When it's one-on-one kind of work, you are mixing in task taking and strategy and bigger vision thoughts. So I think you're doing a really good job and I think it's cool that you've gone slow with it and you just have a handful of clients right now, out of curiosity between your three tiers. I know you only have a handful of clients, but are most of them on the basic tier. You have the one on the elite. Where do they fall? Within your tears right all across. Okay, yeah, it would be fascinating once you get up to like 20 or 30 people to see if that continues, just full transparency.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:We could do some on on air coaching. I don't know if I could do that because that's why I'm kind of going slow, because I have a couple of I'm moving. I was really doing a lot of like productized service launch in a day and now I'm kind of getting more custom projects and they don't. They're not like turn and burn. So I'm a I'm pacing myself because I'm not sure how a bunch of calls like I just don't know what that's going to look like and I get nervous about how that will affect my delivery work. So I've got to just weigh the balance there yeah, I think the quarterly call thing how timely.
Josh Hall:I just talked to Lisa Williams, who is kind of the the queen of quarterly calls.
Josh Hall:We did that recent training in pro about that and I know you're doing that as well.
Josh Hall:That's where that can be a lifesaver just to have, like, once a quarter you open up a window of calls and then, when all your clients get that access that way, you're not doing that weekly and every month. Otherwise that can be dangerous and that can be very draining. So yeah, I think you're probably pretty close to the point where it's already getting to constraints and figuring out how you can site certain call days and seasons of calls over a 10-day period or something. But yeah, to your point, personally, as your coach, I would say your handful of clients make it work really well. It's kind of cool that they're all on their own tiers. That way you can kind of figure out what's working here and what's working there, because eventually maybe you even have just one tier of an SEO or maybe just two, maybe there's just a basic and then the elite which will then lead into the roadmap and stuff, and again, I just think it would be a great initial offer and a downsell eventually, too, for those who want to leave the roadmap and your marketing services.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Oh right.
Josh Hall:So I really think they marry well nicely together. But it seems like you're kind of in a point, with your business too, where you're not pivoting, it looks like. But it seems like you're just rearranging your offers. Am I getting?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:that yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a better way to put it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I way to put it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, how would you? Can I just ask you, like when you say a downsell?
Josh Hall:like, how would you imagine that working? So if somebody was on your elite plan for 2k a month and then they're like I, we, eleanor, it's been great, but we're just going to take a pause, we're re, we're changing some things, I w I would just say, no problem, totally understand. What we can do is, uh, we have our SOS plan, which we're doing complimentary for you. What you're doing right now it's only a few hundred a month and that way I can at least stay. I can stay as your support person month to month and we'll still have a quarterly strategy call, so I'll be able to do this month to month, any changes you need. We're going to optimize the website. I'll support you and you'll have a lot of time, and then in a few months we'll have our strategy call and we can reconvene in three months and then maybe that's the time to sell up.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Right, I see Like downsell from the full retainer marketing services. Right, right yeah.
Josh Hall:Because otherwise it's just boom, there's $2K a month gone, but that's really nice, like you know.
Josh Hall:Yeah, that might suck, but at least you have an option for like 300 a month that they can pay on or whatever, whatever tier they choose, yeah, yeah, I think that would be a perfect, yeah, downsell opportunity and you would just say, like we're doing, this is kind of the fundamentals of what we're doing, it's the baseline, and we can at least keep that going with the angle that you're still in their corner month to month with their website. They don't need you as much over this next season, but they could at least have you when they need you.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:I think the interesting thing about this is a lot of the clients I work for there is a section, a sub bucket of them that it's like they need agency services.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:But there I mean most agency services started a few thousand bucks a month and there's nobody. Like I'm trying to fill the sweet spot between like somebody who doesn't want to like go on Upwork or Fiverr and like, and also just offering those services for clients because they really don't have, like they don't want to manage a bunch of freelancers, and this is another kind of secret good thing about this service. So, like one client, she was working with a copywriter and she has a VA, but everything can come through me. Like I can send stuff to her VA, I can take the copy, I can put it on the website. Like I can send stuff to her VA, I can take the copy, I can put it on the website, I can help her with her copy. Like she doesn't have to manage all these people and say, okay, now I've got to take this and trot it over to my web designer and do this. Like you can have like umbrella services at this level that work for that. Like small businesses.
Josh Hall:And, side note, you're going to be doing that anyway, so you might as well get paid for it. You know, like, regardless, for anyone who's like well, I don't want to be the middleman and mediator. It's like you're going to have to talk with. If there's other people, if there's other cooks in the kitchen, you're going to have to interact with them, or you're going to do it by way of the client, which is going to take triple as long. If you have to tell your client hey, can you tell your copywriter to do this and send it back to you and come back to me like. I know that gets tricky, but you're going to be doing it regardless. There's a lot of other people working on it yeah, for sure for sure.
Josh Hall:So very, very cool again. First phase with this, you know sdo plan or this sos plan in the West plan. So what's your vision for moving forward?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Well, hang on.
Josh Hall:I'm so sorry.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:I'm so sorry.
Josh Hall:Murphy's Law. Who's moving the dog? Okay, I see you, lilz.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Hello, I'm sharing with you. Now it's off. Okay, sorry, I thought I turned the bell off, but apparently I didn't all right, I got, I marked it, so we'll know.
Josh Hall:Okay, okay with the, the pup eruptions, that's all good.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:So what is my vision for this?
Josh Hall:yeah, with where it's at now. You know I've started it. How are you, do you think you're going to to push it quite bit, moving forward? Are you just going to kind of ease it in there as needed, or again? I know you don't want to take a flood of clients on this, but yeah, I'm just kind of curious now that you've had a few months with it, what's the plan moving forward?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:I definitely enjoy the work and I want to keep it up. And, no joke, it's nice to see like oh, look at that monthly revenue just like coming in. Um, so that's nice, obviously, and I do like the work and I would like to have more of it. It's it's really just figuring out my capacity, because a lot of this work is not something I can pass off to somebody else. So the first time I'm thinking about, like what it would look like to bring someone on to help with some other tasks and I'm going to be checking out scale your way in the community, you always got something when I need it, so that's great. So it's really just going to be like, what can I do? Because even if at this price point I would have to have quite a few clients to like, just do that exclusively. So I just have to figure out what that would look like. But right now I definitely want to do more of it. I really like it.
Josh Hall:And that makes sense too, as a WordPress guy like it's. It's pretty. It's pretty easy to get somebody to do more like junior level tasks when it comes to updating plugins and basic content updates, but, uh, the fact that you're mixing in strategy. I guess what you would probably do is and one thing that I teach in in the scaling course, scale your way, which is what I'll read right here is, with this service strategy, optimization and support. I would almost treat those as separate jobs and look at for sure, you're going to be doing strategy, so you're not gonna be able to hire anyone to do that, but you could get help with optimization and support. So, when it comes to support, that may be updating the website, that kind of thing Even if you're a mediator, you could forward those tasks on.
Josh Hall:If it's updating website pages, staff stuff like that, if it is optimization, that's where I would come up with some pretty rigid constraints on like these are the type of optimization things we do, whether it's alt text on images, speed, accessibility, things that you're doing on websites, that kind of thing. That's kind of how I would treat that and look at like what areas and now that you have a few months, I would take the next few months with these plans and see what you're doing, that's repetitive, that you're like, okay, I can stop doing this. I could absolutely get somebody else to do this. I would kind of take note of that and I think that's how you'll be able to hire on, get some additional help with your SOS plans, cause, yeah, you don't want it to be a time suck if it does become that.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:There hasn't been a lot of that, though there really just hasn't been. I mean, part of it's cause it's squished, but like the optimization, the one client that has the SEO stuff, um, but that's really about like adding content. So, and with hosted platforms, which, which is fine with me, I'm not like particularly interested in doing that kind of stuff. It's more like add on work, and that's where I think I could potentially, you know like okay, we're building a sales page and or you know whatever, and that's where I could.
Josh Hall:I would almost you know coaching time, but I would, as you're doing, these add-ons like sales pages, lead generators. I imagine you have some templates that you base it off of. I would even take it to the next step with almost creating like, if someone wants a landing page or a lead generator, you give them like two different templates to choose from and you can say these are the two that I roll with. They work really well. Which one would work for you and maybe you could customize it from there. But I almost feel like this next phase of your business it's probably a matter of refining and consolidating what you've been doing and getting out of, because I'm sure even your custom stuff you're probably doing stuff that's pretty similar or slightly repetitive. So my challenge for you, eleanor, the next little while here, would be what can you streamline and standardize based off of what you know works and that a lot of your clients have done? I think that'll help to reduce your bandwidth and and making sure you stay sustainable.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:For sure, even even though it is the Squarespace world, there is an ecosystem around like tools, and there's some where you can move modules between the sites that you manage and stuff. So I've actually been experimenting with that a little bit, because you can always just move stuff over from another site or a master template and then you know style it for the site. So yeah, you're totally right, it's going to be more of that kind of stuff figuring out automations.
Josh Hall:And that would go for all of your services your SOS plans, your website builds and your marketing services. Because really, as you know, the framework that I recommend that all web designers have is build, support, grow. And while you don't say that clear, you don't state that exactly your services are exactly that. You build websites, you support them with your SOS plans and you grow with your marketing services. So you're a shining example of how to do it, but you're also a good example of like. Once you get to this point, now the question turns to how do I make this sustainable and profitable and not stretch myself too thin and or become a huge agency owner? So I mean, we've covered a lot of tips that I think will help that. Obviously, now it's kind of getting the work boots on and putting some of these really just constraints in place.
Josh Hall:And the thing is, even for custom. I know clients like to customize things, but if you come across with a lead generator and say, like this is the path that I have set up, it's a proven path, it works. These tools, these templates if you wanted to customize things, we could at a much higher hourly rate, but this is what works. So it's kind of cool. You have the freedom at your level, knowing what has worked for other clients to be able to use that on others. One thing you said earlier too.
Josh Hall:I didn't want to skip over this. It's like if you have a core group of really good clients, everything you learn with them and implement with them can trickle down to all of your other clients, which, if anyone is curious, that is the main reason I started Web Designer Pro. I wanted to have a much closer eye on and community with really good web designers who I was able to learn from as well, and everything we're learning in Web Designer Pro through DMs and our coaching calls is trickling down to the whole community and out to this podcast and on my YouTube channel. It's kind of the same way. What I do with Pro is much the same way. It's learning from a smaller pool of web designers, and then that trickles out to everybody.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yeah, and I will just echo that and say that pro is so wonderful. Everybody should sign up and join. It's so great. It is a really nice bunch of people.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:And you know I dip in and out but, like with this, I was like I need to have like some sort of add on services and I can just jump in and there is the resource there I can go to exactly what I need. And I found it and I was like I want a little more help with this and got on the hot seat. And just yesterday I have another idea, you know bright, shiny object, like all entrepreneurs. Um, it has to do with the directory. Actually it'd probably be a WordPress thing and I was like let me go into pro. And I just like Googled it not Google, you know, put it in the search and met up with Rosie, who's in the UK. We had a great talk, just good community really, and you never know the collabs that can happen. We had a great exchange and I was just so grateful. Like you know, I'll go every quarter through things like what could I cut? Is there bloat? And I'm like not cutting that, not cutting that.
Josh Hall:Oh, that is amazing, eleanor. There may be no better compliment than somebody saying this is the one thing that I am not not stopping. That's so great to hear and that's what's cool for me too. Like there are members who are there almost every day and they're super engaged. There's also those who come in when and if needed and I realized, too, like somebody like yourself, you're busy running your business.
Josh Hall:I don't expect to see you in pro every day, but it's there when you need it. And like right now, in this next season of your business, you're looking to scale your way. So I'm like, here we go, you can plan it out and take a couple of weeks, go through and implement it, and then that'll set you on for the next few months. It's kind of like what you're doing with strategy calls and staying in top of mind with clients. It's like it's always there when you need it. And then there's some points where you're going to be really active and really engaged and that's what's cool. Like, yeah, so anyway, I just I appreciate hearing that. That really it reaffirms what's in place and anytime I'm like, I'm like, do I need to change some?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:things up or tweak things. It's like, no, this is working really well for everybody. Yeah, it really is. Keep it going, yeah it really is.
Josh Hall:It really is so great. And same thing for your clients. I mean, that's kind of you know, as we kind of wrap this up here, I was thinking, I think for everyone who is offering support strategy care, it's like whatever is working for your client, double down on that and make a package out of that and that will trickle down to everybody else. So I'm really curious, I'm excited to see how these SOS plans continue to work in your ecosystem of your business over the next few months, because again, I think you really found a sweet spot. I know you just have a handful of clients right there, but as you continue to roll that out, I think it'll be very manageable.
Josh Hall:For context, I was managing over 75 websites on my hosting and maintenance plan. It was me, my wife and then JD, my lead designer, would help with some more intensive, complex stuff occasionally, but it was very manageable. So I think anyone who has that fear of like I don't know if I want to do ongoing support and calls, you're going to get the calls anyway. Make it a nice little service. It really even already it's been cool to see that it hasn't overwhelmed you.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:And that was okay for you. I guess it's like a gym model, Like everybody's not really going to call on the same day but, for all those people 75 sites it was, it was okay.
Josh Hall:Oh, absolutely yeah, it was great. It's.
Josh Hall:The best part is what I sold basically when I sold my business, because my business was mostly a job other than my maintenance plan, it was the one thing that was sellable. Side note uh, I talk about this in the scaling course when you get there. But I do recommend whether or not you have an intention of selling or pivoting one day, recurring income is the only thing you can sell. Otherwise you just sell yourself. You can't sell yourself as a job. So it makes your business way more valuable when you have multiple sources of recurring income in there. But that's an important point too.
Josh Hall:Real quick, that idea of, like the gym thing Look, we have over 200 members in pro and yeah, I was really nervous initially because everyone has access to me for coaching and I was like what if I have 200 people messaging me every day? It's not the case. I get you know half a dozen at most on a daily basis and usually it's probably the same thing with your clients. You have interactions with somebody back and forth over a few days and then the next month or two months they're implementing. So I actually love that dynamic. It's worked out really well. So all that to say, if I can manage 75 websites and manage over 200 people being able to have direct access to me, everyone here can manage a couple of clients on SOS plans.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yeah, well said, well said.
Josh Hall:Well, eleanor, thank you so much for sharing what's working with you. I'm so glad you implemented this based off of our coaching call. I'm so glad you came in and posted your win. It was really cool to see and I'm starting to share this out as a really good example for those who are not WordPress users, because, again, I've heard time and time again over the years and had this mindset myself, that you can't build recurring income with Squarespace or Webflow or Wix. But you are the perfect example that you absolutely can. You mix support and optimization with strategy and any marketing services you want and then you can really create something cool.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:So I love what you're up to Well, thanks. And just one last thing to say again from the group is one of the things I did was I went to a lot of other designers in the group and looked at how they structured their plans and even though they were all WordPress, it was still really helpful for me to think, ah, okay, that's how I can structure it. So we're we're learning from each other, and that's what's so great about the group.
Josh Hall:Oh, we can talk about pro as much as you want, let's. Well, that's a good point too, because even if you, for anyone who's not a WordPress user, you can absolutely go through my maintenance plan course or any WordPress maintenance plan. Web designers and yeah, look at what they're doing. The reality is the only WordPress specific things are going to be, if they're hosting the website, security and plugin updates. Everything else in those plans is outside of anything that's particular to WordPress. So that's all covered. But yeah, one question I was going to have for you was if any clients are questioning support if they're on Squarespace. But I would imagine that's not even an issue if you're backing it up with optimization and strategy.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:No.
Josh Hall:Have you had any clients be like well, I'm on Squarespace. Why do I need support?
Eleanor Mayrhofer:To be honest, half the time they don't understand the difference. So no, I mean, I think I laid it out pretty well what they were getting, and a lot of them had come to me with just little things, so that hasn't been an issue at all.
Josh Hall:Cool? Yeah, I didn't think so with the way that's presented. Well, eleanor, thank you so much for your time. I was going to send people. Obviously we'll have your website and your SOS plan linked in the show notes. Now, your podcast. You have a very unique niche, so I was going to say I don't even you know. I mean, people are welcome to check out your podcast. But yeah, where should people go to connect with you? That's a better question.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:They can go. They can just go to my website. Eleanor Meyerhofercom and I am very active on LinkedIn, so always happy to connect with people on LinkedIn. That's a great place as well.
Josh Hall:Yeah, that's my next big thing. I've been tempted for a long time to get on LinkedIn. For personal bandwidth reasons, I haven't wanted to get into something new, but I feel like at this point, enough people have talked me into getting active on LinkedIn Really, yeah, okay, I love it there.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:I just think it's a great platform. It's just really a networking platform, yeah, and it's got a lot of great ways to search and stuff. So I look forward to seeing you there.
Josh Hall:It's what I would do. Did you side note? Did you see Alex, one of the new members of Pro, what he just posted.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yes, I saw that whole thing, the sales navigator thing.
Josh Hall:I didn't even know that feature was there.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Yeah, I have sales navigator. It's really powerful.
Josh Hall:Okay, good to know. All right, I'm sold. I'll get going on LinkedIn. All right, eleanor, I'll see you over there. Thanks again for your time, thanks for sharing what's working for you, and I'm excited to see what the SOS plan looks like through the rest of this year and beyond.
Eleanor Mayrhofer:Okay, thanks for having me on.
Josh Hall:The big one here, friends. I really I don't know. I mean, I know there's other resources out there about how you can offer ongoing support for Squarespace sites and stuff, but I really am fired up about this idea of an SOS plan. I think I might need to copyright it before somebody steals it, because it's genius and it's working. It's also working for other members in Web Designer Pro, too, who are not WordPress users.
Josh Hall:Did you know that my community, web designer pro, is not just a WordPress community? It is agnostic, and this is a biggie because I never thought I would branch away from the WordPress community and get into other communities. But I kind of changed my tune when I started using circle, which is a self-hosted platform which powers my community. And while I'm a WordPress guy, I am so happy to serve folks like Eleanor and others who are not WordPress designers, because at the core of what Web Designer Pro is, it really is the business of web design. We're getting into things like you just heard building recurring income and creating plans and packages and offers that suit you, no matter what tools you use, and I have a lot of members actually who are using WordPress alongside things like show it and Webflow, squarespace, et cetera. So you are welcome Even if you're not a WordPress user. You are welcome If you are a WordPress user. Yes, of course you're welcome.
Josh Hall:Some of the resources in there are WordPress specific, but not all of it, not actually near all of it. Most, I'd say like 80% at least of the I know, I'd say like 90% of my courses and most of the content in pro is agnostic to any builder. It's just good web design business stuff. There's a I mean, is that copy one-on-one right there or what? So I'd love to see in web designer pro so you can meet Eleanor and I can coach you directly and help you craft your own plans. Head over to joshhallco slash pro to join us in pro and for the show notes, for a full transcription to go check out Eleanor's plan again, go to joshhallco slash 331 for all the goodness. All right, friends, make sure you're subscribed and I'm pumped to see you on the next episode because we've got some more doozies ahead.