I recently did a live training on how to Scale Your Web Design Business for Brad Hussey’s web design community CreativeCrew.
We did a live Q&A session afterward and had some amazing questions come in. Brad and I got to riff on scaling a web agency, the lessons learned from our experience, what we both may have done differently and what we felt worked really well.
I’m pleased to share the entire Q&A portion with you here in this special edition episode of the podcast!
We cover topics like:
Get all links and resources mentioned along with a full transcription at:
https://joshhall.co/332
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
I recently did a live training on how to Scale Your Web Design Business for Brad Hussey’s web design community CreativeCrew.
We did a live Q&A session afterward and had some amazing questions come in. Brad and I got to riff on scaling a web agency, the lessons learned from our experience, what we both may have done differently and what we felt worked really well.
I’m pleased to share the entire Q&A portion with you here in this special edition episode of the podcast!
We cover topics like:
Get all links and resources mentioned along with a full transcription at:
https://joshhall.co/332
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
I would also not say I and then the client expects to work with you through the entire process. Because if you say I and all your verbiage, and then you do the onboarding, but then you're like, okay, here's the lead designer. And they're like, whoa, I didn't even know anyone else, I was working with Josh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's the, you know. I would just be very transparent. Who's behind the business? Is it just you doing all the things? If so, that's fine, for right now Say I, I did, but eventually say we, as soon as you have help, it's we. 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. What's good? Web designer friends, this is a special edition episode for the web design business podcast.
Josh Hall:This is actually a recent Q and a session I did with Brad Hussey, who was on the podcast recently and has been on before. He is the founder and community runner of creative crew, which is a community of web designers specifically built off of Wix Studio, and Brad recently brought me in to do a live training for his community on scaling and we had a really good Q&A session afterwards. It was actually more of a conversation about scaling, with live questions, and I asked Brad if it would be cool if I repurposed it for you here on the podcast, just because I think it's really beneficial to hear some of my experience, and then Brad's experience as well, with scaling and going from me to we and building a business that's bigger than just you. So that's exactly what we're going to dive into here. Thanks to Brad for letting me repurpose this for you. Now we are going to be and you'll hear about my training and some takeaways that his members got from my training. I have actually made this entire training available for you for free.
Josh Hall:So, if this Q and a session intrigues you at all and you would like the full training, head over to joshhallco slash scale and you will get the full training, which will give you a lot more context for this episode. So, if you want, go to joshhallco slash scale and you will get the full training, which will give you a lot more context for this episode. So, if you want, go to Josh hallco slash scale, watch the training it's like 50 minutes and then come back to this, which, uh, might fill in some of the gaps there, but you're welcome to check this out first. Uh, if you want a primer and for the show notes for this episode, all the links mentioned and to check out Brad's community creative crew, which is a free community for web designers, check that out. You can go to joshhallco slash three, three, two for all the links mentioned. And for now, enjoy my little Q and a conversation we had with Brad Hussey about scaling your website business.
Brad Hussey:Yeah, this transition from solo freelancing to scaling it's it's a real sticking point and I think it's what separates the freelancers from the business owners. And it's not to say that you can't have a successful solo operation, because you can, but even solo operations. If anybody watched the session yesterday with John D Saunders, he said, like do SOPs for yourself, because then you know your operations, you know you're not repeating yourself from scratch. You have kind of like a intellectual property and an asset to go off of. But then, more importantly, if you need help, you need to hire somebody. You have some instructions to go off of.
Brad Hussey:So this scaling really is, it's not just about okay, now I got to take on a whole bunch of extra costs and now I'm not as profitable. It's completely the opposite. I get the mentality of I used to make $5,000 for this website, Now I'm making $3,000. Like that's less money and now there's more people. What's going on here? And it's not that you're doing? Because if you're scaling and you're still getting the same amount of projects and not making as much money, obviously that's a problem. The point is, I'll pay $2,000, let's say, for this $5,000 project. So I'll keep $3,000 and that's a healthy profit margin so that I can bring on two more projects. So now that's $15,000 in incoming website projects versus $5,000. So before it was $5,000, all for you, but now it's $3,000 per project, let's say, and you got three of them, so that's $9,000 for you. So this is really rudimentary math here, but it really is how it works Once you taste it and you get yourself out of your own way and then you hire somebody to help you with that project.
Brad Hussey:They do their best work. You pay them. It feels good to pay your vendors. By the way, I pride myself on whenever I get an invoice from a vendor, paying it. It's such a great feeling. You feel so empowered and it feels so business owner-y and I still get a lot of joy from paying the invoice. It's not a painful thing. That, to me, was an investment in growing the business, my mental well-being and all that time you were doing that busy work building out the site, doing the brand, project management, whatever you hired. I was doing something else which was typically bringing in more business, closing more deals, making sure I got past clients back on for new projects. It's an incredible feeling, so scaling, even in a small way. It's like an investment, not only in your business, but in your mental well-being.
Josh Hall:Yeah that's the big thing, man. For me, it's most of the personal side of things. It's like I want to do what I enjoy doing and I don't want to. We do not create our own business to make a job that we hate. But that's what happens to a lot of web designers you end up just doing everything that you just don't like doing.
Brad Hussey:Yeah, 100%. Let's jump to some questions. So I saw and I have questions too. If anybody doesn't want to step up with any extra questions, we've got a few here. Justin asked a little earlier. Here People say, when you're busy, you should raise your rates and work with higher budget clients. When scaling, should we stop saying no to low budget clients due to the ability to outsource?
Josh Hall:Well, I think kind of both. It depends on the business model, what the game is. I mean. Either way, raising rates is key. Even before scaling, you should raise your rates to try to reduce your workload.
Josh Hall:But what I found is, depending on what point you're at in your journey, when I had the infamous 23 projects at once, I was pretty established to where I had a huge client list, a huge client roster of well over 50 clients. At that point I had a huge client list, a huge client roster of well over 50 clients at that point. So it's not like I could just change my business overnight. I got a lot of people to support, even if I raise my rates a lot. I also didn't want to lose a bunch of my current clients if I raise my rates. So you can kind of raise your rates to help that burden, but at some point you're not going to be able to do everything yourself unless you completely change your business model, which is a whole different talk. So I would start with raising your rates for sure for new work, for new clients. However, you have to be really careful with how that applies to current clients.
Josh Hall:It is a good place to start, but I would potentially the idea of low-ticket offers or productized offers, templatized offers, yeah, unless that is a huge driver of your business. I would almost consider either lessening those or hiding them or turning them off for a season for sure, because those are typically things that you could. Let's say, literally you have a productized service page. If you just hide it or take it off and just give a few months focus to your high-end clients, even to start to scale, that is a great way to go and then you can always reignite your low ticket offer. Only if it's not a big driver to your business, it's something you could turn on or turn off.
Josh Hall:I don't know if you could turn on or turn off your high ticket offer. I guess you could, but the answer is kind of yeah. I mean, I would just, in a way, raise your rates, figure out if your low-end offer is worth it. Otherwise, yeah, I would consider maybe just not talking about it or not promoting it. Hide it from all the things for a little while. It doesn't mean you won't do it. It could always be a fallback plan or a downsell, but put your emphasis on higher end offers, raising rates and getting a little support behind you.
Brad Hussey:Yeah, I would agree.
Brad Hussey:You want to be able to put the bulk of your, you want the majority of your revenue, I think, to come from heavier hitting engagements rather than a lot of small engagements.
Brad Hussey:Because if you have, let's say, 27 small engagements, all less than $500, you might think, hey, it's a lot of work and that's a lot of instances of these small projects or these bug fixes or these little things. It's a lot of management because it's either going to be emotionally taxing on you or you're handing it off to a project manager or account manager that you're hiring and there's not a lot of profit margin. Maybe you get 500 bucks from this instance but it costs you $350, $400 for it to even be worth it for your project manager to take care of it. So you're just getting chump change a lot and that's frustrating and it's not making stuff happen. But if you secure a $10,000, $15,000 to $30,000 project, obviously that is way better. And if you get one or two of those and you can focus on getting those in the pipeline, hiring and scaling and managing, that is way easier. Because if you can keep that profit margin at 50, 60, 70%, you're laughing. That's where business is made and grown, rather than those little, tiny, little things.
Josh Hall:Well said, own rather than those little, tiny little things.
Brad Hussey:Well said, um, man wants to know. Um, curious for both of us actually how complex uh were your web projects? Uh, you know, are your web projects, or were your web projects, whether or not you do them right now? Um, you know what? What basically like? What did your web projects look like? What did it consist of? Were they full-fledged? Were they small? What did that look like for you?
Josh Hall:most of ours were small to medium-sized businesses. So they were you know, they weren't like enterprise, like huge projects, but they were also more than like a pizza shop typically kind of thing um, which meant that there were generally at least one primary contact, maybe a couple, and then most of our projects were, I would say, medium-sized projects, so 10 to 20 to 30-page websites with some more basic portfolio-style functionality. So they would have blogs, portfolio basic kind of stuff. But then some did get pretty intricate to where we had gated membership-style systems on the backends. We did do Ecommerce as intricate to where we had gated membership style systems on the back ends. We did do e-commerce as well. So we had a handful of e-commerce projects that crept up quite a bit.
Josh Hall:So when I hired Jonathan, I did not start with e-commerce stuff. We started very simply with some of the more portfolio style sites that were, I guess, quote, unquote basic in the way of functionality and stuff. So I could really allow him to focus on design. And then when I asked him are you interested in more development and eCommerce kind of stuff? We use WooCommerce? He was like, yeah, I would love to. I know it a little bit. And then I eventually had him get further into that world, and then we ended up hiring out a couple of help with advanced development kind of stuff.
Josh Hall:So I essentially had really four main contractors.
Josh Hall:Jonathan was the only one that was mostly full-time, and then we had a few that were as needed which, by the way, if anyone's going to put a small team on your website, the way I recommend doing it is to have all your team on there, but just specify how often they work with you, Because you have your team and then you have collaborators, but it's really nice for clients to know that. Okay, josh has a couple full-time people, but then he's got a support system of a few designers who specialize in these areas and they work frequently or occasionally, and then, even better yet, you can put like I'm also a part of creative crew. This is something I tell my members of pro is. I've been telling them more. I need Justin, you're here, I'm going to do a better job at this is to tell members like on your team page, say you're also a part of the web designer pro community. There's a community of developers and designers to help, even when needed, if we ever get a project that we need some additional help on.
Brad Hussey:So that's kind of how to go about that I would recommend Nice, yeah, and I'd say for me, my web projects in the height of me exclusively doing client work, it was me a designer who was also able to build the sites, which is hard to find when you have a good designer who can also build sites Specifically back then. Now it's much easier because, say, if you're using a platform like Wix Studio, you can have a great designer and if they could build it out, they don't need to have technical know-how or programming knowledge, which is now. It's easier to have excellent designers who could deliver on that product. Back when I was doing it, it wasn't as easy to do that. So having a designer who could also code in PHP, building out WordPress sites, that was tricky.
Brad Hussey:So it was me a designer, developer and a project manager, and so what that allowed me to do was kind of act as the sales and high level sort of creative director, sales and, you know, customer making sure all my customers felt taken care of, my clients felt taken care of getting new business, understanding the project, doing proposals, doing meetings, things like that. Okay, we got a project Project manager. I need you to communicate between our designer, developer and the client and you keep that loop going, and so for me it was like we made sure to create a good little system where it was like I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of the project, here's the direction, here's the client's needs, here's what I want. I would oversee, you know, the mock-up and everything, and go this looks good, let's put that into development. Project manager, make sure that the client's updated and make or pay grade, throw it up to me and I'll take care of it. So you were still.
Josh Hall:you were a CEO, creative director, lead designer kind of kind of role, yeah pretty much.
Brad Hussey:Yeah. So I would like kind of start and be like I have a vision for what this is going to be. I'm going to throw out my kind of rudimentary mock-up of what I like this to go Like. Here's kind of my vision for it. Now you take it and actually turn it into a proper design and proper site, and I don't want to get into the minutiae of the project, so that's the project manager's responsibility. There's a problem? I'll take care of it. And so that's how I ran it and it was a good trio and that really, really worked, because I felt so free from the coding and the functions and the PHP and the mockups and the artboards and it was just like that stuff. I realized how bad I was at that part and how much I got in my own way, but I love being like this is what I imagined the site. I want this, here's the thing, here's that.
Brad Hussey:And I don't want to talk at all. I don't want to be in a frigging email thread, I don't want any of that. You do that, I'll pay you. You do that, I'll pay you. I'll go get more work for all of us. How's that sound? That's how I would do it. Um, so and that, and that's great. That's a great way of doing it too. Uh, more questions here. Um, we're going to throw Benji's question in here. We've got some others, but let's throw Benji in the mix here. How much time does it actually take to finish a project? I'll let you kind of jump on that one first, josh.
Josh Hall:Yeah, I mean, obviously it depends on the size, the scope and scale of the project. For us personally and for me, it was like with the majority of our builds we did everything we could to keep it under 45 days. I always said 30 to 45 for most standard projects. If it was a large eCommerce site, a lot of content creation, a lot of content back and forth, then some of ours would get up to 60 to 90 at most. Once you get past three months, I think you should do everything in your power to keep sites under three months and there's plenty of options to productize and templatize sites for websites in a day and websites in a week. I mean just practically. I never did that route and I wasn't working with that many clients and I also was very big on relationships with my clients one step at a time, so I was never doing things at scale. So we were 30 to 45 days on average.
Josh Hall:Now one thing I will say is, with this idea of scaling, this will help you expedite your projects. Maybe two or three X what takes you three months to build as a solopreneur because you're juggling 10 projects. You might be able to get it done in 30 days less with some help. So that's actually one of the huge benefits of scaling is you can get things done way faster. Then you can get them on your care plan, support plans and you can get them on growth plans if you're doing marketing or other services. So it makes For the client. It's like ask yourself, would a client rather work with one person, but it's going to take five months to get a finished project, or would it take less than like 30 days with a team? But we're going to be, let's rock and roll. We're ready to rock and roll after that.
Brad Hussey:So that's the true benefit of scaling yeah, 100 I, I did, uh, it was an interview with I can't remember who it was, but I feel like it was hunter hammonds. Uh, he runs off menu design and a few other. We we have a session with him here in the crew and anyway, he and I might be misattributing this, it might be somebody else and I might have heard it somewhere, doesn't matter. The point is this um, the company that's hiring you, um, when the let's say it's an account manager and they're deciding whether to hire this freelancer, the studio or this agency it might have been Mike Janda who said this actually Anyway, that person, they're not going to get fired for hiring the best one, whereas if they hire and go out on a limb and hire the freelancer who's the solo person and they take a long time and they seem promising and they got a great price because they're a budget friendly option and they seem nice, but if that person screws up or ghosts or doesn't deliver or something happens or it takes, like you know, three months longer than anticipated, that account manager is going to get fired. So the account manager will actually be more inclined and have a better argument for hiring the most expensive or more reputable option, because that's not going to get them fired If the CEO goes hold up what happened with this project?
Brad Hussey:What's going on? Like, look, I hired the agency and they have awards or they've got a good track record, lots of case studies and testimonials. Their work's incredible. I didn't want to hire the freelancer over here who's got like two projects and a school project. Like, look, I'm just trying to give you the best quality here. And they go, yeah, okay, all right, well, let's make sure next time that this doesn't happen.
Brad Hussey:But if you're like, look, I hired the freelancer and then they just ghosted on us with our $8,000. Then they go, okay, well, you're fired. You have bad decision-making skills. So just remember that scaling is actually. It actually adds value to your reputation to the eyes of the people hiring you know it's actually. It will make you appear and be more reliable and reputable. Because if it's just you and something happens let's say you have a baby and baby's in the NICU, or you get sick, or you get injured or any number of life situations comes up yeah, and you're just like taken out. Like if you stop and your business stops and then your clients are relying on you, like that's a real big problem and the more you can eliminate that risk for you and your client and you have a team like that's. That is wonderful and that's going to get you more work. That's going to be good for your mental health and that's going to be good for your clients.
Josh Hall:And it kind of goes. It goes back to that job versus business thing too, like if your job is your business, if most people have a job, if they go through a life experience, there's probably some leeway there. They'll probably get compensated for a little while not too long but they are part of a job with a bigger business. But when your job is your business, when you have to take a break for any amount of time, the business stops. Even if you have recurring income coming, you still have to keep your clients happy. So that's the real danger of doing everything yourself and keeping it all on your shoulders.
Brad Hussey:Yeah, you want to. This is so great. I feel like this is back-to-back-to-back lineup that I set up. I'm patting myself on the back here.
Josh Hall:I was wondering when you had John on yesterday, because John is such a you know he's huge on this. He'd be, he'd be preaching in the back on this stuff, man.
Brad Hussey:He definitely. Like I got a page of notes here from John Then. You've said so many things today. I'm like, yep, john said that. Definitely John would agree with that, and actually I was about to say to to your point. Like you need to make yourself redundant Basically. You need to make yourself redundant Basically. You need to make yourself replaceable and get rid of yourself in your own operation, and that's actually our talk. It might be tomorrow with Karen of Awaken Studio making yourself redundant. So she had a baby and she needed to be away from the business, but everything ran without her Business coming in sites being delivered, vip days, vip weeks, websites in a week. All of it was happening and it was growing. It was growing because she made herself redundant. She created a fantastic operation and that's a perfect example. What a great feeling that is to see the bank account is growing, clients are happy, your vendors and your team members are getting paid.
Josh Hall:You're like man, this is the dream, and I remember it was funny because Jonathan lived in Australia. So when I hired him and he started doing full projects, the real cool moments for me was when I would be involved early on with setting up his to-do list and what we wanted to get done, and I was just used to. The only time things were getting done in my business was when I was awake during the weekday and working. But suddenly I would wake up and then I would log on and the site was like done, or a whole page was done. I was like this is so cool because I was sleeping and the business was moving forward so well.
Josh Hall:Yet of what are awesome aspects of scaling.
Brad Hussey:Yeah, question from Justin. Can I ask about how you tackle communication between the client and your contractor? Can it be awkward if the client wants to talk money with the contractor? How open are you with the contractor about their percentage? Do you project manage so that they don't talk to each other?
Josh Hall:What do we do here? Initially, jonathan, for me, did not talk to the clients at all. It was only when I found out he was doing a really good job. He also his primary language was French, so he had to learn a lot of English. So once he got to that point I then felt comfortable for him to talk with the client. But there was no reason for him to talk money at all. So in most cases I don't think a contractor would ever need to talk about money unless they were in a sales or some sort of marketing position. So in those roles I feel like most people are going to hire out later on.
Josh Hall:I don't know too many people who start with sales and marketing. It's usually deliverables and client work. So yeah, in most cases I would say there's really no reason they would need to talk about money. If they do, that was never an issue for me. I would assume and expect Jonathan to talk with me about that before. He's like, yeah, we could do that, no problem If that does you know? End of the picture. That's a problem If you're, if your designer is basically selling without your approval. So I feel like it's far few and far between. But yeah, definitely try to nib that in the bud, if that happens.
Brad Hussey:For sure. Yeah, and it's a good question. That scenario would rarely come up and you just make contingency for it and it's kind of some safety gates whatever term I'm trying to go here. You need to put something in place for that contingency. Be like hey, contractor, you have a contractor agreement too, and in your contractor agreement you put a clause that says, like no poaching my clients. You can't say, hey, I saw that Josh was charging you $15,000. I could do this for $2,000. Yeah, Sure.
Brad Hussey:Like put that in there, you can't poach the clients. See, there's a name for it and it's in a standard contract.
Josh Hall:Yeah, which, by the way, the scaling course that I have for everyone here. That's in there. It's a whole lesson. It's a non-disclosure agreement that you can copy-paste, use it as your template. Yeah, it covers that type of situation, but usually that's where, before you have trust with a contractor, those type of issues shouldn't even arise because they shouldn't be talking to the client. There should be plenty of work that's low risk, low pressure and that's gated from client communication. So, justin, to your point, yeah, like you could have your designer work under you or developer work under you. They don't know the client, they don't talk to the client, they're not even in that thread and base camp, for example. So yeah, it's a way to go about it.
Brad Hussey:Exactly and for me. That's why I would often have a project manager who has a different role and I say, look, your job's not sales. You know, if anything comes up in these areas and I want you to use your discretion if it seems like it's my thing to do, let me know, I'll take care of it. Communication and they want to do their job and they know like they're being a freelancer for you or a subcontractor for you, because they don't want to worry about the client stuff. You're their client essentially, so they don't want to like I don't just send me the work and I'll bill you $3,000. Like it's like, perfect, I'm happy. I just know you're going to throw work on my plate. The happier I make you the more you're going to throw me and the better I do, the more work you're going to get. So that's good for me.
Brad Hussey:And if that person is somehow trying to poach a client, well then you did a bad hire, that was your bad. You probably should have had that clause in your contract anyway. And then you fire them and you say, hey, look, that's not cool, we don't do that that way. Thanks, you can finish your project and goodbye, and it's business. It's like it is what it is. If someone's a sour apple or someone's no good, it's a contractor for you, you go. Oh, I'm invoking section C clause. This You're trying to poach my client. We don't do it like that. Thanks for your business and peace. Yeah, and that rarely ever happens. I think I've fired one contractor and it was very politely and everyone was happy. Yeah.
Josh Hall:And I totally understand A lot of questions about scaling are very fear-based and very hesitant, which I totally understand. Why? Because your business is your baby. It's funny, though, as I've helped a lot of people scale over the past particular year with this course, and even before the course, I was helping coach people scale. Before I made the course out of it, what I realized is, once people got going, none of these questions were even really needed. I mean very rare situations but most of the response I got was why didn't I do this sooner? My life has changed. I think one thing about scaling, too, that's underrated is the feeling of weight on your shoulders. When everything is on your shoulders and then, as soon as you delegate and it's not on you, there is like a ah, it's just really, really cool. So we could go further into that 100%.
Brad Hussey:Yeah, it is. Madeline asks what was the name of the designer you just mentioned? Did we mention a designer?
Josh Hall:I don't know if that was in reference to Karen for the talk you guys are doing tomorrow.
Brad Hussey:Oh yeah, was that who we were talking about? Madeline? Because there's the session. If we're talking about it, building a web design agency that grows in your absence with Karen If that's who you're talking to, like, come, come to that session. Uh, for sure, right, it was the one you were talking about with the polish process. Yeah, oh yeah, thanks, nan. So, jaron, john, john here, john, session two. Um, there was john session as well. Check those out afterwards, it was a while ago for doing the different packages. Um, yeah, I believe it was karen, I think. Um, those are the two designers that. Yeah, yeah, I think we got. You're definitely going to want to come to that, madeline, I know, I know for sure. Um, okay, so another question here. This is a. This is an interesting one. Uh, nand wants to know, in your opinion, what niches or niches have you found clients who are keen to spend $10,000 to $15,000 on their sites? So, basically, what are these clients who spend $10,000 to $15,000 sites? Who are they For me?
Josh Hall:personally, it was businesses that were a little more established. What comes to mind is one of my best clients ever was a retina surgery like a surgical place. They ended up being, over the years, well more than that. They were a really good one that were fine with even starting at 5 to 10. One was a steel company here in Columbus that was referred, actually, by my insurance. When I say, start with your personal network, my insurance guy worked for them and he was like hey, I have another guy who's a web designer. They were one of those types of clients. One of them was like a business consulting firm that was pretty established with a lot of businesses. So I'm talking about businesses that are a little more established. The other thing to consider, though, is a lot of times, what may be like a $2,000 client initially could actually be a $10 to $15 project, depending on what you offer in it. So if you are doing copywriting, seo, conversion-based design, if you're doing any sort of growth or marketing services with the website as the core of their web presence, then that's where an automotive client may be a $10,000 to $15,000 client.
Josh Hall:One of my pro members is actually I think they're going to move forward with him, the old church that I used to play drums for, for their worship band. They are paying an absurd amount of money for one of these church apps. That is an all-in-one solution, but it's just terrible, it's just not working for them. I like church apps. That is an all-in-one solution, but it's just terrible, it's just not working for them. I don't know exactly what they're paying, but his plan was, I think, $1,000 a month that he was offering, and this particular tool was more, so that, right, there is probably $15,000. You would never guess that this church would be paying that for a website.
Josh Hall:So, yeah, there's really like there's the industry that either knows value or is going to see results and you can get results for, or it's your offer and what you could do to take a $1,000 project to a $5,000 or a $5,000 to a $10,000 to $15,000. So that's kind of how I view. Yeah, because there really aren't like certain niches per se or niches or industries. It's like kind of depends on what you offer, I mean. But there there's some, um, there's some common sense as far as like, if a business is brand new and they have no sales coming in, they're probably gonna have no budget. So there's some of that too. Or like your aunt is starting a quilting business probably not going to be a 10 to 15 000 situation exactly, exactly.
Brad Hussey:it's. Every industry, or most industries, are going to have the big fish and the little fish, and it's good about seeing that and identifying that. And that's in terms of a number of things like what's the revenue, what's the size of the business. If you look at the industry, you can do research. Just Google how big is the lumber industry? And you go well, this many billions of dollars. You're like, well, it's this many billions of dollars. You're like, well, there's money in that industry, so can I drill into that industry and find some niche within that that I can capture some of that market? And so, for example, ben Peach he's an agency owner in the community here and we did a session with him as well. He was a general agency and did all the sites for all the people, just like most of us start out as, and he has an experience in the hardwood lumber industry, so that's specialized within the lumber industry.
Brad Hussey:it's not softwood lumber, you know like yeah it is, it's hardwood lumber, very and multi, multi-million dollar industry. And he realized and these are like trades guys, these are like rough and tumble lumber dudes. And when you ask if they need a website, the answer is no, I don't need a website for it. We don't. It's handshake, not handshake deals, it's an actual legitimate deal. But it's like we talk, we go to trade shows, we know people, what do I need a website for? And so I don't have a budget for it. Maybe we could give you 500 bucks and you can throw some crappy thing up on, for whatever reason. But what he realized it wasn't the website they needed, it was there was a whole underlying inventory management system, inventory management system and their website was more of a web application where they can have their vendors and potential customers say I need a truckload of this, 50,000 of these, 100 of these. And then they were doing inventory management and quote systems to the tune of tens upon tens upon hundreds of thousands of dollars in deals and they had some sort of rudimentary, crappy backend system. And he was a developer and he knows the industry and has experience and he goes. Well, you know what, if we not only did marketing and rebranding. But we also built out this system for you, and so that turned into these guys going yeah, that would help a lot and that would save us tens of thousands of dollars in lost opportunities, lost deals. We forgot about this quote. We forgot about this quote and it turned into full front-end branding and back-end development for multiple five-figure projects. And he's not hurting for work.
Brad Hussey:And so it's about knowing. It's not just like do dentists need websites? You're like, well, it's so vague and broad, and the answer to that is a no, but also yes, and it's not the website they're looking at, it's what's the big problem that you're solving, and you got to do a little bit of thought and research into that. And that's where those 10, 15, $20,000 projects come. Yeah, the riches truly are in the niches. In the niches, right, and it's not just about the 15,000 upfront. Maybe it's a client on a retainer or a management or a growth plan at $500 to $1,000 a month for two years. Yeah, there you go, there's your 20, you know, 15, 20, $25,000 client over the lifetime value.
Brad Hussey:Um, okay, let's see here. Uh, we got time for a couple more questions. Josh, yeah, I'm good. Yep, okay, sweet. Um, nan says that's wild. He basically built a marketplace for his business, for for trade. Exactly, yeah, check out that session afterwards too. Now let me see here. We got a question here. It says do you have any tips on outsourcing the sales process, like sourcing, pitching, quoting clients? I like the web design work, but not so much the selling.
Josh Hall:I did not do that personally. It's funny, though, eric, the CEO of my agency, who took over my business when I sold it he actually just recently did this and it was pretty cool because Katie, who is our lead strategist now, she sold a $9,000 project and Eric told me he was like it's the first time In Transit Studios has ever made a sale without either one of us selling. It was really cool, but I'm going to tell you right now it was a lot of work. It was a lot of work because he really went wild with an SOP on how we talk, our values, our beliefs, where our price ranges are In order to hand that off. I would say it really should be somebody who sees the process pretty well.
Josh Hall:The other problem is I know some agency owners and some people in agencies here in Columbus, ohio, and one thing that drove them crazy is these agencies would hire a pretty sales girl and these pretty sales girls would go and do a business and sell a $50,000 project for $15,000. And they're like how this is way over scope from what we're able to do. So that's the danger of like hiring anyone who doesn't really know the scope of the project. So I would say, if you're going to hire somebody to do that, ideally they would be in the business already or know some of the business, or at very least have them have a. I mean honestly, I probably just have packages, have your packages that have constraints, and then you say these are what we sell.
Josh Hall:We sell these three different packages. They start at these ranges. If you have any questions, I could come on board for a call. But these are our sales packages. They start at this. These are our downsells, these are our upsells, these are our down sales, these are our up sales, these are our ongoing plans. That's what you sell. So it almost productize your packages. Before you would ever have somebody try to sell a custom website because, unless they're a web designer, they have no idea what's involved with it.
Brad Hussey:Yeah, 100%. Yeah, you got to be careful about the sales. You can't just like jump into that. You kind of need to have a proven one, proven business. So let's say who asked the question. It was Justin, maybe. Let's say Justin was like you know, if we did a coaching session or me and you and Josh like sat down, you know, for a few hours and we kind of really dug into your business and you're like well, I do about Last year we did $80,000 in sales, this year was $100,000 and I project it's going to be $150,000 this upcoming year.
Brad Hussey:And you go, great, there's growth here. What are you doing? What's happening? How are you getting these clients? How do you close them? Oh, you go to trade shows, okay. Oh, you do calls, okay, and you got this set up.
Brad Hussey:What do you say? How do you offer? What are your offers? Is it systemized? Do you have products? Is it always custom and bespoke? What does that look like? What does that sales journey look like, from first point to closing the deal?
Brad Hussey:And you'd be able to answer that and then we go all right, it sounds like you're a bit of a bottleneck in your sales process and you don't want to be the only salesperson, or you don't want to be the salesperson at all, all right, we're going to need you to document how you do these conversations.
Brad Hussey:We need to really dig in to create almost a pattern, and then we need to find either somebody in your operation who knows your stuff intimately and is willing or can do sales, or you literally hire a salesperson who's got experience in your industry and then you onboard them, train them. You do a lot of work in order to say, all right, this is how we do it. These are offers. You've got some leeway here to make custom offers, or you don't, and you create a lot of guardrails and then maybe you pay them per project closed. Maybe it's a commission-based sales there's a number of things but it wouldn't be just like. You know what Sales makes me feel queasy, so I'm going to just hire somebody to do it. The chances that that will fail are very high, very high yeah.
Brad Hussey:Whereas if you're like no, I know it, I've recorded my conversations, I've seen my notes, I know how it works. I'm good at this. I just I don't prefer it and I'd like to get into the creative direction.
Josh Hall:Yeah, I was just going to say if anyone's going to hire out sales or marketing, check out the book Built to Sell by John Warrillow. That's got a lot of good tips and processes for that too.
Brad Hussey:Yeah, a hundred percent. Okay, let's see. We got another question here. What advice can you give about scaling marketing for a web designer or agency?
Josh Hall:Yeah, I would lump that in with sales too. I would imagine there's a difference between so marketing could entail sales, but it could also entail content creation and social media work and stuff like that. So I guess I would define the two. I would lump one in with sales and in marketing. What would entail with marketing? Marketing could be as simple as all right, we're done with the project Person that goes to you. You do the portfolio page, you follow up with a case study and then you create little graphics of projects that we're going to put on LinkedIn or whatever it is. We're going to tag the client. We're going to give them something.
Josh Hall:I have a business course and one thing I teach in that is to create a launch pack for your clients that gives them assets. With their new design, with Lingo, they can already copy and paste to make it easy for them to share on social media, so you could have somebody lead that as well. That's how I think of that, unless they are going to be creating content for your brand. But that definitely is a whole another ballgame, potentially if you're going to have a social media guy or gal represent your brand. So, yeah, I would make it more of like how can we promote our services and packages and clients? How can we start there? That's how I would approach that, yeah.
Brad Hussey:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Another question here Is it good to change from I to we in your marketing, social posts, emails and so on and so forth, or should you maintain that personal?
Josh Hall:approach. That's such a good question, justin. I still I would go with we, but just make it oh so clear that I am the founder, I am the CEO of this business, but I'm supported by a small team. I actually think most, while most clients want a personalized experience, most clients don't want a stressed out, burned out freelancer. They want to know that this person I'm going to work with is supported in some way.
Josh Hall:I actually found that to be a bit of a detriment to me when I started working with professional businesses, when it was just me, I had some clients ask me are you the only guy who does all this? How are you doing all this? Is this going to take six months, just like we talked about earlier? So I said, well, I have a small support system behind me. And then I eventually said we um, I know it feels weird because it's your business, but I guess, to sum this up, I would say say I if it's you and you're in, you made a job for yourself as a freelancer or a solopreneur, but say we if you're making a business no-transcript.
Brad Hussey:If you just want to create a personal brand, then obviously you're, you're I, but um, let's like if you're building that business, it's, it's we, especially if you're subcontracting or hiring people. But if you're using your personal brand, let's say like um's we, especially if you're subcontracting or hiring people. But if you're using your personal brand, let's say, like another great time with John yesterday. So John's got a large personal brand but he's got an active, healthy, running agency. But his agency doesn't have a lot of, let's say, I mean, I don't think it does like its own large brand.
Brad Hussey:On Twitter and Instagram he does and he feeds traffic and leads into the agency. So when he's talking about his content, he'll talk about I, this is what I like to do. But if he's referencing his agency and what they do, it's we, hey, if you want to work with us at, uh, you know, five, four digital. You know this is what we do. We talk through this, we work through this and you know me and my team. We make sure that you're taken care of. Yada, yada, yada. So it's, you know it's less of. Am I being real if I say we and it's kind of just my business, but I'm under the brand like bright side, like mine. It's like well, yeah, I mean it's totally fine for you to say we, and especially because this is about scaling, if you plan on hiring or you are because it is we, yeah, and vice versa, like I would also not say I and then the client expects to work with you through the entire process.
Josh Hall:Because if you say I and all your verbiage, and then you do the onboarding, but then you're like, okay, here's the lead designer. And they're like, whoa, I didn't even know anyone else, I was working with Josh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's the, you know. I would just be very transparent. Who's behind the business? Is it just you doing all the things? If so, that's fine, for right now Say I, I did, but eventually say we, as soon as you have help, it's we.
Brad Hussey:You know, yep, a hundred percent it is, and that's kind of. The answer is right in the. It's right there, you know. It's like do I say I or do I say we? Well, it's like well, is it a you or is it a they? You know, is it just you or is it somebody else as well?
Brad Hussey:Because if it's literally just you, you don't need to puff yourself up to make it seem like you're more than you're not, and you can be a freelancer and be fast and be nimble and lightweight and they like working with you. But if you're like I want to hire an agency and the account manager was like I hired the agency and then you find out it's literally just one freelancer with no intentions of ever working with people, it's a little strange. It's like if you're going to build an agency, even if it's remote workers or one remote worker that would be how I'd say that Samantha says this was great. First, your scaling course, josh. Thanks so much. I have to hop off. Thanks so much, samantha. That was incredible and Josh will be in contact with you today.
Josh Hall:I will follow up. Awesome, Samantha Gonna. Have some fun scaling Samantha's way. Well, I certainly do hope you enjoyed that one as well. Friends, Like I said, I really enjoyed this kind of Q and a back and forth conversation with Brad, and some of his members who showed up asked some really good questions. So a big thanks to Brad for sending me the huge audio file and allowing me to uh, actually, this is video as well, If you want to see it on YouTube um, for repurposing this. I really appreciate it and I hope you enjoyed this. I would love to hear from you I know Brad would too. I'll actually let Brad know that this goes live and to keep an eye on the comments, If you would like to ask me or Brad a question about scaling, go to the show notes for this episode of joshhallco slash three, three, two.
Josh Hall:I do a pretty thoroughly look at all my podcast comments and I will let Brad know as well, so maybe he'll be active over the next week or two to answer any questions you have. And again, as I mentioned in the intro, if you would like to see the training that I did for Brad's community, it is available for you in the form of a free masterclass Now. To get that it's free, go to joshhallco slash scale and you can watch that right now. All right, friends, Hope you enjoyed this one. Can't wait to hear from you. Josh hallco slash three, three, two is where to go for show notes, links and to leave a comment. I'll see you over in this free training at Josh hallco slash scale and I will see you on the next episode, which is a doozy. So make sure you subscribe and make sure you get ready, Cause we've got some honkers up, and by honkers I mean like good big episodes. I don't know if that's the right term, but it is here, baby Cheers.