#126 – How to Create Recurring Revenue with Josh Hall of Web Designer Pro™

Shannon Mattern (00:01.631)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the profitable web designer podcast. I am joined by my good friend, Josh Hall, host of the web design business podcast, creator of the web designer pro community and the guy that I meet with coffee for every now and again to talk web design business and coaching. So Josh, welcome back to the profitable web designer podcast.

Josh Hall (00:27.596)

My sister from another mister. It is great to be back.

Shannon Mattern (00:32.165)

So good to see you. know we chat all the time and it's been way too long since we've done a podcast episode together. So I'm just really excited to have you back on the show because you work with so many freelance web designers on the business side of running their web design business. You have your finger on the pulse of like what's going on in the industry in terms of challenges, opportunities.

I know you went through a big shift in your business over the past year that maybe seemed a little precarious at times, but paid off for you in a really big way. So I want to talk about all of those things. But before we do, if there's anyone listening who doesn't know who you are, can you briefly share a little bit about you and what you do?

Josh Hall (01:23.696)

So I was a freelance web designer for over a decade. to be the very quick, long and short of it is I was actually a drummer in a rock band and was a cabinet maker by day by trade. I got laid off in 2009 and just during the days of being a drummer in a rock band, we were playing shows and I got into design and Photoshop and that led me to doing graphic design and starting to do design work for bands and then...

As we all know, generally if you get into design, all roads lead to websites at some point. So I just dove into web design, started the days of Dreamweaver and then got into WordPress and then built up a little small, lean mini studio agency and ended up teaching a decade later. And now my true passion is helping the Josh of a decade ago to get to six figures and build a sustainable business. So that's what I do now. Yeah. With most of the focus being on the business side of web design.

Shannon Mattern (02:18.565)

I love that story and I'll link up to our previous episode where Josh goes into more detail about that path and how he navigated those early days and all the things if you want to listen to that to hear the whole story because it's really, really fascinating. But what I wanted to dive into today is you run a membership community, coaching community for web designers called Web Designer Pro.

And you help hundreds of freelance web designers inside that community, thousands with your podcasts, with your YouTube channel. You really do have your finger on the pulse of what's going on in the freelance web design space. Can you share with me, like, you know, upon reflection of the past few years and kind of looking forward into 2025, what are some of the biggest opportunities you see for freelance web designers to

really grow to that six figure mark and beyond.

Josh Hall (03:20.846)

What I'm seeing that's working well for the six figure plus web designers is some sort of growth plan. So what's interesting about this is an area of like growth plans for web designers is really open ended to whatever you want to do. It's kind of interesting because I built up my agency and my model around one off website purchases that were generally anywhere between a few grand upwards to 10 to 20 grand for larger, more complex sites.

And then it was backed up by recurring revenue with a maintenance plan. And my maintenance and hosting plans were anywhere from 75 bucks to a couple hundred bucks a month or a few hundred bucks for some clients that were a little more needy or intensive. But what I didn't really I did kind of had this because I did SEO at the time and I had a partner who did SEO ongoing. But I really didn't give enough thought or emphasis to helping my clients continue to grow after we built their website.

So what I've found, particularly for the designers who are over six figures into multi hundreds of six figures, like multi six figures, because I do have some students who are now up into three hundreds, four hundreds, even five hundreds. I've got one student in pro who's over five hundred. There is a lot of opportunity in the MRR space, the monthly recurring revenue with some sort of growth plan. So I have a bit of a framework that I teach in my course, which is build, support, grow.

So anything you do to build a website or if you do branding and you're building an online presence, that could go in your build category. Support would purely be hosting and support plans or care plans just off of what the work you've already done. But then there's this growth plan option, which is completely open-ended to whatever a web designer wants to do. If you like SEO, then I would seriously consider having some SEO ongoing plans to help boost up the presence that you've already built.

If you do digital marketing or social media management, a lot of my students are doing email marketing and conversion and lead generation. Even if you don't know exactly what you would want to do in a growth plan, I would say just have some sort of strategy, like consultive service that's more of a growth plan that could be an add-on that you offer month to month ongoing to help you decide what you want to do. That's been a very kind of a long-winded answer to say what I've seen work is to have build, support, grow.

Josh Hall (05:43.13)

but then have your growth plan be something that is generally a pretty big MRR type of service, but it's very open-ended. So it can be tricky and challenging, but it's also freaking awesome.

Shannon Mattern (05:54.253)

Yeah, I love that. And I think I love how you made the distinction between support and grow because I think what a lot of web designers want is like they want to build and then they want that those that maintenance and support to kind of be like passive income, right? They want it to be like, this is just money coming in. I don't really have to think about it. There's not much that I need to do to support.

and maintain these websites. I'm using tools to like do it in mass and you know, the level of effort for that is pretty low and it's pretty low maintenance and like you can get good money coming in from that, but to really grow beyond that, now you have to shift into like, I have some expertise to offer to my clients on an ongoing basis that is going to help them reach their goals.

Josh Hall (06:48.292)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (06:49.365)

And I think that that's kind of a, that what I have seen, and I'm so curious what your students, what they think about this is the roadblocks that we put in our own way when it comes to offering a support plan. Who am I to offer this? What if they don't get results? I don't want to.

be dedicating X number of hours to a bunch of different clients every single month. I don't want to create another full-time job for myself. And so those are some of the things that I have heard. And I would say that would really hold people back from really stepping into

Josh Hall (07:26.991)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (07:41.957)

powerfully offering a growth plan. And I'm super curious what are some of like the roadblocks or other reasons you've heard for people kind of like not going for it.

Josh Hall (07:52.784)

Yeah, most of it is most web designers don't want to be a digital marketing agency because you can run the risk of being a full blown marketing agency, which has its benefits, especially if you have services you know well and you have systems dialed in. But I didn't want to be a digital marketing agency. I was just a web designer. And by the way, you can still have a very healthy six figure web design business and not do

Shannon Mattern (07:59.93)

Yeah.

Josh Hall (08:19.504)

any bit of marketing or ongoing stuff if you wanted to. It's generally just going to be more premium and bigger, probably one-off purchases. Or you could have a subscription model and just wrap up a $20,000 website project in like an 18 month package and build MRR that way. So there are ways to get around it, but I think that's the biggest one is just they don't want to be a full stack digital marketing agency. Understandably so too, the time factor is a biggie, like you just mentioned. It can grow legs if you have an MRR growth plan.

that is time intensive. This is why I actually don't recommend doing growth plans when you're starting and until you're probably at six figures, because once you hit six figures, you have a little more leeway. I've found to decide like what the next level is. And quite frankly, when somebody's earlier in the journey as a web designer, you got enough on your hands to just figure out web design and basic care plans. Like that is enough to get to six figures. My model, my support plan, my care plan,

got to over five thousand a month at one point and we were supporting seventy five plus websites. A lot of my clients had double websites or three brands under like one contract. So I would do discounts and stuff. But that was a really good model for like low six figures because five K recurring revenue month to month. And then if you do one three thousand dollar website on top of that, that's a six figure business right there with ongoing work and retainers. That's a nice low six figures.

But if you want to get past the quarter million range, that's where I've just seen. And it makes sense that you're doing higher level stuff for fewer clients at a more higher rate, like 500 a month or a thousand a month. And those tend to stack up pretty quick. So I think that's the challenges is time. And you just don't want to be a full blown digital marketing agency. But I would say if you're really serious about building your MRR and you're not necessarily about getting new clients as much as selling to current clients.

which a lot of my pros at that level are doing right now. What I've found is you probably have to decide like a few things you're going to do in a growth plan. You can't do everything. You can't do like all their social media, can't do all of their conversion stuff, all their email marketing. I mean, that is just, unless you have one or two clients doing that, but then you're kind of like a part-time employee for them. So I think it's finding an area of specialty that you like, which is the most important thing. And then

Josh Hall (10:44.772)

double clicking into that and then offering that if it's SEO, if it's email marketing, if it's strategy, if it is like I do Alexia, one of my students really loves, she's a brand, she does mostly branding and web design, but she really loves doing social media graphics and ongoing social media work. I wouldn't like that at all, but she does. So for her, her growth plan is a bit of a done with you or a done for you service that encompasses a lot of ongoing social media. So yeah, in short, find your lane.

Find your skill set and expertise of what you like and then that can be your option for bigger MRR.

Shannon Mattern (11:20.261)

Yeah. And I feel like, you know, if you do wait until you've got your minimum baseline covered with, like you said, support plans and you know, you've got that coming in, then you'll also have more resources to hire people to, or like outsource or subcontract. Like you create the service, you build the systems, then you'll have the resources to have people.

helping you with the delivery of that instead of trying to just pile it all onto yourself, which is what, you know, we were, when we were chatting yesterday, it's like one of those problems of success that web designers like find themselves in where you are highly driven. You're super smart. You can do it all. You take it all on, and then you find yourself like one emergency away from it all falling apart because you put it all on you.

Josh Hall (11:53.594)

You

Josh Hall (12:16.568)

Yeah, that's it, Biggie. will say most everyone at that level in, in, least in, in Web Designer Pro, being that I have a coaching tier so I can, I have a lot of these conversations and we're seeing what's working is I don't know any of them who are doing it all by themselves. They have some sort of team or contractors behind them. And that may sound scary to some, but the reality is a lot of that ongoing work does, does get time intensive. And look, if you just have like a dozen clients, that's manageable probably as a solo printer or maybe one other.

Shannon Mattern (12:30.169)

Yeah.

Josh Hall (12:46.346)

additional set of hands, but you can still do it in a lean studio style way without being like a huge agency, is really cool. The other thing I'll say too about growth plans that's interesting is I found, and I found this to be a big thing for me, was I would get clients to a certain point and then they would continue to have me update the website, but they just go elsewhere for more help for growth, for marketing help.

Again, you don't necessarily probably want to be a digital marketing agency and do it all unless that's a model you want. it is a shame not to have your foot in the door of helping them grow their business ongoing with their website, especially considering all roads lead to websites. So I'd say I really love the opportunity now. think to your point, like in the beginning, you wanted to talk about some of the opportunities. I really think the opportunity is to be a partner and growth for your clients with the website as the hub and

you supporting them and then you have some sort of growth. Really important distinction to keeping support plans or growth plans separate. I can't stress this enough because what happens is clients turn on and off and they ramp up and ramp down marketing services. But you do not want them to turn off hosting and maintenance. So it's a little key of getting hosting for your clients because they're not going to turn off their website unless they're done. So if you can keep those separate, it's a great way to go because you could tell a client, yeah, we could

Do a 12 month push for email marketing and SEO or whatever you want to do or blog content creation. But the support plan, that's what we're just doing to support the current website. That will remain ongoing. You can always discount it though. If you have a support plan that's like 99 bucks, just discount like credit that off of your growth plan potentially without making you unprofitable for doing the support stuff. But yeah, a huge opportunity there. So I hope some of those tips help. That's just what I've seen work.

Shannon Mattern (14:40.632)

Oh yeah, I totally agree with keeping those things separate because then you run the risk of like people, like let's say your support plan that you structured has hours in it. Then you have people saying, oh, can you just like use some of my support plan hours to like build out this whole new marketing funnel for me? And that is not what.

Josh Hall (14:56.814)

Right. Yep.

Shannon Mattern (15:02.105)

that is for and so it is so important to be really clear about what is included, what's not included, what's a new project, what's like maintaining what you built versus fixing what someone else broke, like that third party contractor that you hired broke versus what's a new project. And I love the idea of the growth plan even like

Josh Hall (15:03.332)

Nailed it.

Shannon Mattern (15:29.943)

I work just personally in my business. I work with, other professionals, to help me with certain things. And it's not always the same thing every month, but it is like conversion rate optimization. work with Lee Scott, who's been on your podcast, on a retainer and what we do every single month looks a little bit different, but it's all based around. Like.

different ways we can meet these certain goals that we set for the business. it's fun. It's fun for her because it's like a varied work and it's fun for me because it's just, I have someone I can trust.

Josh Hall (16:08.677)

Yeah.

And that's one great, it's a great way to go about like, like Lee's model with the conversion stuff is there's probably a few different things she's doing as your conversion rate optimists or optimizationist. Is that a word? And that's the same way for web designers, especially if you do quite a few things, if you do SEO and some conversion and copy and you do some email marketing lead generators, like what one thing I've seen work well is it's almost just like a retainer of time or a retainer of an action plan and

probably going into like paid discovery and generating roadmaps is you can create even if you just start with like a 90 day sprint for a client for them to test the waters, you could create a three month action plan. Maybe one month we do conversion rate optimization, the next month we do some SEO or the next month we do some, you know, whatever lead generation or email set up, whatever it looks like. It is kind of cool to be able to have a bit of a retainer approach, especially for the clients who they would love to keep on working with you.

And again, we're talking at a more higher level because this is somebody who knows a lot about this stuff. But the reality is I do think most web designers hit that roadblock at about a quarter million where my model is a bit stuck right there unless you are really, really high value and high premium on websites. You can build a support plan. The student I mentioned who is doing over 500, she actually is doing mostly

maintenance plans with that. But she is in a niche that has like partner like referral partners and it's at a pretty high scale. So like she just has like hundreds and hundreds of of maintenance plans. So you can get to that level, but it is a bit of a difference. It's uncommon for most web designers to manage like thousand maintenance plans. So there is an option basically, like if you're wondering, OK, I'm at like a six figure range. My clients are asking for more. I know SEO. I know a little bit about this.

Josh Hall (18:07.642)

how should I package this up? I would say to start, just offer like a bit of a roadmap, paid discovery type, you know, 90 day sprint or maybe a six month deal, and then create a bit of a roadmap for there and then test it out like that because you can get pretty instant results on some of that stuff. SEO we all know takes some time, but things like conversion and optimization, lead generators, like it's pretty easy to manage and measure how many people signed up in a contact form, how many people booked a call, how many people converted.

Shannon Mattern (18:13.999)

Yep.

Josh Hall (18:37.434)

how many people sign up for an email list. Those are things that you can track very quickly. So I would almost keep it open-ended to see what you like to do and then reel it in from there.

Shannon Mattern (18:46.807)

I love that. And you mentioned paid discovery a couple of times, and that's part of our web designer Academy roadmap. I'll be talking about it in Josh's community coming up soon, but it's just an opportunity for you to be able to take a really deep dive with a client or a potential client to figure out what their goals are and paint a picture for them of what opportunities are there that they don't.

Josh Hall (18:57.582)

Heck yeah.

Shannon Mattern (19:14.019)

Like maybe they haven't considered before, or they don't know what they don't know about what's possible for them or different ways to solve their problems. And it really is just a way for you to show them different ways that they can get to their goals. like to Josh's point, like if you don't know what your, what your growth plan could be, you know,

test the waters, test out some different things, reach out to some of your favorite clients, like do a paid discovery engagement with them, figure out what their goals are, and then see how you can slot in the things that you love to do or that you're great at or that you'd love to start doing for them. And I love that, like create a 90 day roadmap and test it out.

Josh Hall (19:55.34)

And I really

Yeah, I think that's where the real power is to get going with growth plans is because there's not really like an exact framework for it. I mean, I guess like you if you're like largely an SEO, you could create a pretty detailed like structure for an SEO plan that you would follow for for most generalized clients. But just from my experience, most web designers are doing a bit of strategy SEO, lead, Jan, it's kind of all in copy and conversion is kind of a it's a bit of a web designer soup. So

Like I just think it's great to have a bit of a, especially to put your foot in the door, just play like the 90 day sprint. I really liked the 90 day sprint thing because clients will feel like we could get a boost and it would be cool to try it out. And if you get them some results, they're probably going to be like, Ooh, let's keep this going. Um, as opposed to saying like we have an 18 month plan, that's thousand a month. And then suddenly they're like, Oh, 18,000. Hmm. Maybe. But if there's a $3,000 90 day sprint, well that's

little more doable for most clients. And if you just frame it as like, if this gets you two clients at 1500 each, you've paid for it right up front and then the rest is all profit on top of that. So a lot of different ways to frame it, but I really do like the 90 day sprint thing to kick it off.

Shannon Mattern (21:11.813)

Yeah. And so as you were talking, was thinking, you know, we were talking about like opportunities or things, trends that we're seeing for 2025. Are you starting to see, I'm just really curious if you're seeing like a shift away from like prescriptive web design packages or packages, predefined packages of services to like a more custom

feeling experience, even if it might be the same thing that you would have in a package that it's like more tailored toward a client. I'm curious if you're seeing anything like that.

Josh Hall (21:48.196)

I do think I think packages have gone a little bit more low ticket, like a little more like the thousand to two thousand range for like a more of a templatized productized style package. I never had clear packages. I just had ranges. So for me, I always had twenty five hundred up to five thousand was our starter, like, you know, basic style package for smaller sites, generally five pages under.

whether we would use some templatized stuff or not, it didn't matter. It was all in that basic realm. 5,000 to 10,000 was kind of our medium range projects. Most of our projects were in between that. And then 10,000 plus would be for e-commerce sites, larger directory sites, bigger stuff like that. I think that's still a good way to go because you can have constraints in ranges that are kind of like packages, but then you can customize within those constraints.

In most cases, I would I would roll with that. There are it kind of depends on the growth plan, too, though, quite honestly. Like I do think there's kind of two sets of web designers, web designers getting to six figures with a pretty defined range or package style approach for websites backed up by support plans. And then those who are getting past the generally the 200 to 250 are more focused on being a bit of a partner with their clients. And this takes time, by the way, to get to that point. Like this is why I don't

recommend newer designers jump right into growth and partnership status. Like just build a web design studio, get six figures, feel good about what you're doing, and then you can shift towards the growth model because the more agency style like growth model, there's pros and cons of course, but I think the packages of websites are actually more of a lead in to a growth plan than vice versa. You know what I mean? Like a lot of web designers at that level are thinking growth first.

Shannon Mattern (23:36.761)

Yeah. Yep.

Josh Hall (23:43.022)

And then a website may just be a part of that. Like they may be looking at a thousand dollar or $2,000 a month plan. And by the way, the first phase of this plan is doing the website. And then the next phase is doing SEO. Then the next phase is such and such. So, like I know I talked with Troy Dean from agency Mavericks, and that's kind of their, that's how they promote to their agencies. Now they're serving agencies who are generally at seven figures. That's kind of the goal for their clients. And from what I know, the way they frame it is you start out with a

paid discovery that's pretty premium. You create a roadmap and the website may be a part of that roadmap. But he's also serving agencies that may even not do web design. So for web designers, it does shift from what you're selling a website first with support to a little bit of growth. And then suddenly you're actually probably selling growth and roadmap more than just a website.

Shannon Mattern (24:34.329)

Yeah. And I think, especially, like you said, when you are newer, when you're building to SixFigures, like learning the skill of getting clients, sales, running projects, know, navigate, just client wrangling, navigating clients, starting and ending projects on time. Those are like core skills to learn and then like have in place before you go adding more, more onto that. Because if you don't,

Josh Hall (24:49.616)

Mm-hmm.

Josh Hall (25:00.974)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (25:03.595)

learn those things or you don't fix those things and you're spending all your time trying to like build this growth plan for a client that you don't even have yet. Like you're just delaying your results or sweeping future problems under the rug. So I love how you're like saying if you're in this stage of business, like, yes, this is what you're working towards, but like you can get really far.

before you do that and really set yourself up to add that on successfully later instead of overwhelming yourself now or maybe even sabotaging your progress now by trying to do a strategy that's not the like going to support where you're at right now in your business.

Josh Hall (25:50.36)

Yeah. It's kind of like learning to swim in the deep end. Like if you're just thrown right in there, there's just so much more to figure out. Now we'll say there are like the few there's the rarities. Like I have a member of my community, Sam. Did I connect to with Sam by the way? Yeah. So Sam is all about local SEO. He actually knows like a hundred times more about local SEO than I do. So I like, he has a little micro community called local web design or local SEO academy and kind of an offshoot of pro and I lean on him now.

Shannon Mattern (25:52.837)

Yes!

Shannon Mattern (26:04.899)

Yeah, yep.

Josh Hall (26:19.568)

to learn about SEO, the local SEO. The reason I mentioned that is his first year in business, I think he told me, I can share this because he's gonna share it publicly, but I think he's closing his books at like 125K for his first year in business. But he is a wild man rock star and he found his area of specialty very quickly. He loved local SEO. He just, had a knack for it. He loved it. He got results himself.

And he built pretty quickly a growth plan specifically around local SEO. There was no, no conversion, no copy stuff. Like, I mean, a little bit of copy with SEO, but, you know, he did go pretty quickly into that realm. And I think that's probably more of a priority for him than, website design now, cause it's a part of it. So you can go pretty quickly with it, but I would say only if you know exactly what you want to do. Most web designers need to get a feel for the industry and get a feel for what you want to do before you.

create a big hefty growth plan because there's a lot to it and it's time intensive. And Sam has a little, he has some subcontractors doing a lot of the ongoing stuff for him. Cause it's a very quick way to burn out if you try to run before you learn to walk. So.

Shannon Mattern (27:26.853)

Such a good point. So I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about your business journey over the past year. Because when we first met and started talking, your business model looked different than it does today for how you support web designers in these phases of business. And I think when we met each other and went out for coffee the first time,

Both of us were like in this like, yes, business is amazing. It's going so well. And then like 2023 happened and we were both like, what is happening? And then like both had to make some significant changes in our business to like reach our goals and continue, you know, serving the people that we serve. And that was basically the story of 2024. So I would love to hear.

from you kind of the debrief of that and some of the changes you made and why you made them and what things look like now for you.

Josh Hall (28:34.468)

Yeah, the biggest shift that I went through was going from a course model to a membership model. So yeah, at the time of meeting you, what I sold basically, what was paying the bills was a suite of web design courses. I have a few courses that help people learn web design, the process and design and the basics of SEO, some technical stuff, and then business. My main course is my business course. It's the big honker. It's the flagship course that has

everything on building the business and running the business. Then I have a maintenance plan course teaching, teaching recurring revenue with hosting and growth and maintenance plans. So that was my main model. And I had a membership behind that, which was previously called the Web Design Club. And it was smaller at the time. It was generally anywhere between 50 and 100 members at that time. And it was 99 bucks a month at that point. So it was like it was it was a little bit of recurring revenue. It was like a few thousand of recurring revenue for me every month. It was basically just for students who wanted

to have community and coaching behind the courses. There's a lot of benefits towards having one-off lifetime access courses, but as everyone can imagine, especially, you know this, mixing courses and community and coaching together, there's also a lot of drawbacks. I've found particularly if you have a lot of courses, because I had some students who were in one course, some who were in three courses, some who were in all my courses.

And then suddenly their experience is very different when they're trying to build their business with only some of the resources. And, and because I had my coaching community at the time, I had a lot of people I was serving in my coaching community. Some of them had none of my courses. So I was like, my gosh, don't even join this until you go through. like, you gotta go through my business course at least. So I just, I found personally for me, I was at a point where I had seen a lot of student success and people who were killing it.

who had went through my courses and had the backing of community and coaching when they needed it. That was really the impetus for me to think about going from a course-first model, lifetime access to a membership. And basically you just get access to everything, courses, community, and coaching. So Circle is the platform that I use to run my community. And when they opened up the course feature and had an LMS feature finally, I was like, here we go.

Josh Hall (30:49.956)

This is the opportunity I did not, you know, I did not waste much time on that. I think I was like, Ooh, I think I might put the courses in there. And then a month later, boom, all the courses were in there. Thank you to Chris, my amazing VA from the Philippines who did all that for me. And then, and then I re I rebranded to web designer pro. I, never loved the web design club name. I just, I couldn't think of anything better at the time, but because I knew this was going to be a bigger offer for me, I wanted to come up with something legit. And I just,

I forget how I ended up on the name Web Designer Pro, but the dot com was available for a measly $5,000. So pick that up and invested in that and relaunched as Web Designer Pro as the membership. The so all good, all cool there. The issues came because I was selling. had like half of my I like one foot in the courses door, one off sales, and then I had one foot in the membership door.

What I underestimated and didn't really realize is I created two very different purchasing options for potential customers. They were like, well, do I want to buy the business course for a thousand dollars and get lifetime access or do I want to get all the courses? But at that time it was $1.99 a month or $2,000 a year. And so it was like two kind of high end offers that was a little confusing. that's what, in short, I'll stop here for now, but that's kind of

what started the pivot and what also started the revenue decline for me because I was like trickling. I was selling some membership slowly and steady, which in the long run was good to grow a membership slow and steady, but then my course sales dropped like overnight dramatically. summer of 23 was a dark, dark few months for sure.

Shannon Mattern (32:34.245)

I appreciate how like transparent you are in all of this. think that's why we get along so well is because we're both like, yep, here's like, here's how it all like went down. And what I hear from you, and I'm curious in hindsight, if you have any insight into, into this, but what I hear from what my experience of you has always been is that you

never want to take anything away from anyone or like, like inadvertently cause a student to not have every possible thing that they could have to be successful. And that caused you, I wouldn't say a lot of grief, but like it really,

for you to be able to like make the decision of moving things here and changing prices and changing access, you cared so much about making sure every single person had the opportunity to be successful that it seemed that you were not having a hard time making the decisions, but that it wasn't so cut and dry for you to be like, here's how these changes are happening.

I'm curious what your thoughts are on that or your feedback is on that.

Josh Hall (34:01.02)

That's a good point. yeah, I mean I yeah, you know me I'm a heart first business guy like I you know I that's why also I I chose and I knew I would love to really make the community the main thing because that's where I love to hang out That's where like all my friends are now like I am a community builder by nature I have been since I was thinking back about this recently. I'm like I've been a community builder since I was like a early teenager

Like in my band days, was connecting people and creating friendships and then like, you got to meet this person. They do this. And I, looking back, I realized I've been doing that from the early days. And even when I started teaching web design, I created the Divi Facebook group. That's now 25,000 people. don't manage it now, but like I've been a community builder for a long time. So all that to say, I knew I would thrive as a community builder. but it is, it's just a different model. I think the hardship came.

with just changing the business model up. this is worthwhile diving into as well, going back to the first half of this conversation with growth plans, because I think a lot of web designers get to this point too, where it's like, suddenly I'm going from selling websites first to selling more like digital strategy first, and then websites are a part of it. And it's similar with the feelings of like, am I gonna let clients down? How am gonna support them? yeah, was, look, if the membership boomed,

Shannon Mattern (35:14.573)

Yes.

Josh Hall (35:21.806)

right away and my course sales continued going strong, I wouldn't have, it would have been like, this was the best decision ever. Although I don't know, maybe I would have continued to make it confusing for courses and membership. So the reality was, is like, because the core sales dropped almost overnight and because the membership was gaining new members, but it was slow and steady, which again, in hindsight is the best thing because almost a worst problem for a membership if it's in time intensive.

is to have too many members at once because it just doesn't create a cohesive feel. It's like, it's good to grow slow and steady. So, I definitely would have been more tactful with how I positioned the courses and how I positioned the membership from the get go. It took about six months for me to be like, okay, Web Designer Pro is it. I'm not a course creator anymore. I'm a community builder. Courses are a part of what I sell, big part of it, but it's not the end of road. went from essentially selling information

to selling transformation. And that's what I really embraced when I got to the fall of 23 when things turned around.

Shannon Mattern (36:28.853)

So how did you have the courage, I don't know if that's the right word, the patience to stay the course through the transition from selling information to transformation because

I think that does go back to what we were talking about earlier with, you know, when you're going to make a fundamental change in your business, whether that's, like you said, selling website first, selling strategy first, that the changes you make don't always bear fruit immediately. And so how did you self-manage, stay the course, have the courage to see it through instead of being like,

no, no, I made a wrong decision. I'm going to go put it back to how it was.

Josh Hall (37:19.952)

Yeah, I thought about that because I was like, God, should I just like take the courses out and go back selling courses? But what I realized, honestly, what kept me going Shannon was the students in my member. Well, I have to reframe the term my members of Web Designer Pro, the ones who were getting really good results, like they they were killing it and I was overseeing them. And yes, it was on a small, much smaller scale at that time. But I realized like they really kept me going.

because we had built a strong community and because it was working. Yes, it was working for a smaller amount of people at that time, but it was working. for every bit, I think I told you this, like when I interviewed Amy Porterfield, she told me a quote on the podcast that has stuck with me ever since, which is, you can't believe everything you think. You and I have talked about this numerous times, but when sales are down, it is very easy to go like, my God, what did I do? I messed up. I've lost it.

I'm not the best web design coach. I've been out of it for too long. Uh, you can really go to a lot of dark places pretty quickly, but I just honestly just kept going. Like I, just had weekly things like going live for a coaching call every week in web designer pro trickling new members in overseeing them, coaching them, saw them get results. Yes, it was on a small scale. Yes, it wasn't sustainable yet during that pivot, but, um, it was enough to be like, okay, this works.

And this is a general rule of thumb I've realized for web designers too. If it works for one client, it can work for two. If it works for two, it'll work for five. If it works for five, it'll work for 10, up to 100 and so on. So I just realized at that point, I was like, it took a little while to get to that point and realize like, yeah, I mean, I had to go through a bit of identity shift as a course creator to a community builder. And the other thing that was just like a knife to the heart was I...

revamped my business course to the version and what it is now. And it's, this sounds douchey and boastful, but it's like, it's great. It is a really damn good course. Like it really is good. And I put my heart and soul into that thing. So I, I, I pivoted to the membership model and then I didn't market as much because I figured I'm going to launch the new version of the business course and it's going to be a huge launch. It's going to be like a 50 or $60,000 launch.

Shannon Mattern (39:20.471)

It's...

Josh Hall (39:39.086)

between people joining the membership or joining the course for $1,000. I launched that course and the initial launch was $6,000. Like 10x, like I've been seeing all these 10x things. Well, I accidentally went like negative 10x on what I, like I didn't see that ad. I went like negative 10x on what I thought was gonna happen. Now I did have a lot of people join pro at that point. So again, with a

membership model of recurrent revenue. It's smaller at the start, but then it starts to add up pretty quickly. So lifetime value was actually probably 50 or 60 altogether, but it's taken two years to get to that point. So, or a year and a half. So I had that launch and it was just a total flop. And then I had some of the smallest months I had ever had in the summer of 2023. I hadn't been under $10,000 in revenue in like three years. And suddenly I had like a $9,000 a month.

like that's not even enough to cover my family's mortgage and bills altogether. So, luckily we had some savings. had a little bit of runway, but I was honestly probably about three months from being like, I'm going to have to like start doing one-on-one consultations or mowing lawns or doing whatever I have to do building websites again. Yep. Yep. I was getting like, I was getting kind of close to that, to that point. So, and as you know, you know, we, we had gone through a lot of personal things at that time too. My daughter had a serious medical issue and

Shannon Mattern (40:52.313)

Building websites again.

Josh Hall (41:05.392)

We had a lot of rebound going on the personal side. So was just a hell for like a little while. But what kept me going to answer your question was the results that my members were getting, the tight knit group. I mean, like, I just don't know how you can be an entrepreneur without a support system. Whether it's a little mastermind group like you and I have with Jason and I have some other colleagues who are kind of trusted colleagues and advisors who I did lean on a lot during that period. It also helped

me as much as like, feel bad that you went through a tough time too. Part of it was like, okay, I'm not alone. Like a lot of other course creators I talked to as well. And look, there were market effects and inflation and everything else going on too. So there were other course graders who were like, yeah, mine have been like down dramatically too. So was like, okay, it's not just me that helped, but also just having like a customer community and seeing those wins helped me go. And then I, then I finally, after a few months was like, okay.

I don't give a shit about courses because they're not selling anyway, but they're working in WebZone or Pro. So it's all about Pro. Courses became a lead in to Pro. I started selling courses at a huge discount off of summits, off of partner webinars like I did with you and off of like flash sales. So like, what my maintenance plan course for 97 bucks. You get that and you get a 30 day trial of Pro. That is what started the momentum change for me.

Shannon Mattern (42:30.309)

that's so good. And you know, you said earlier, like, this is going to sound douchey or braggy. It's not douchey or braggy to state the truth. Your business course is epic. It is so good. And your maintenance plan course is amazing. I've heard nothing but wonderful things from people I know who have taken both of those courses and are like, I can't believe what is in here. So just to, just to state the fact that

Yeah, you don't have to minimize that at all because it's the truth.

Josh Hall (43:02.542)

Well, and I'm glad, I'm glad you said that Shannon, because that was actually one of the things, cause you like, you may say like, well, why didn't you just jump all in on WebZone or pro initially? It was what you just said. People saying like, I can't believe what's in this course. Prior to making that shift, I had a student join several of my courses and he was like, I just paid $3,000 for this other course. That isn't like a fraction as good as viewers that you're charging a thousand for at that time. And so I had all these like,

yeah, there is such good stuff in here. Am I devaluing it by going to a monthly model? Because yeah, people could just technically come in for a month, take everything and go. But what I realized is because I was moving from information to transformation, which is really the underlying key here. And this is the same for web designers who go from like selling a website to selling growth and selling client success, the transformation, is it just it takes more time to get transformation, especially when you're building your business. So

I learned would I rather have somebody purchase a course for a thousand dollars and then have access to it and then go through it or would I rather have something that's 99 bucks a month or 200 a month and have them stay for years. have a lot of my members are OG member. I've I think 30 almost 40 members who are original founding members. They've been paying me for four years plus and their transformations are where it's at and that's why they keep on paying me. So I realized that's

what I had to mentally move from is a bigger one-off purchase to a smaller ongoing purchase. And that's what really, yeah, that's what I had to move to. It was a hard mental shift because it is, it's like, worked my ass off building my business. I'm put all my secrets and tips and strategies into this that somebody could just rip off for 200 bucks, but it's not 200 bucks, especially if they get results. It's more like, you know, several thousand dollars over the period of a couple of years or longer.

Shannon Mattern (44:57.753)

Well, here's what I see. Like one, you took a stand for your clients at actually a great personal risk to yourself. You really did because what you were seeing back to what we were talking about earlier is like the people who get the best results are the people who have access to everything and have community and have coaching and have support. And you went through

Yes, there were market effects. Yes, but you also risked your business to take a stand for the success of your clients. And that is a bold move. And you had to go through a transformation yourself in order to take a stand for them and look how much more impact you're having. Look how much.

much more impact they're having. you know, I love this story. I hate that you went through a hard time. I hate that I went through a hard time. I wish none of us would ever have to go through a hard time, but we come out so much with so much more to offer on the other side of the darkness.

Josh Hall (46:06.5)

Bye.

Josh Hall (46:16.826)

Yeah. And I do think it's a testament to just being an entrepreneur. We all know it's a roller coaster. What was interesting about that is I had never gone down in revenue since I started business. I've always gone up into the right. There were some years that were, you know, like you too. yeah. We talked about this. Like there are some years where it wasn't like massively up into the right, but I had almost doubled my revenue almost every year since I started. So

Shannon Mattern (46:33.315)

Me too.

Josh Hall (46:44.432)

This was the first time where, I mentioned, 2022 was just a lot of personal things between my family moving and then my daughter had a surgery and then she had a serious medical incident when I was just planning for a big push in the fall. So I gave myself grace on that year. 2023, I figured would be the bounce back year, but because of the pivot, because of the failed launch, because of all the things we just covered, it was even worse than 22. So my, I mean, I just.

talked about it here publicly in a podcast episode and a newsletter. My revenue was down over 125,000 in the period of those two years. For me, that's over like 25 % of my revenue. So it was enough to be like, holy crap, this can't continue. But to your point, once I committed, once I really lean on the members who were getting results, side note, going to WordCamp US in 2023 and meeting a handful of members in person,

was like a life changing event for me because they didn't all know what I was going through at that time, but they were telling me stories. First of all, I was like, I should have brought a microphone and a camera because these are incredible testimonials, but they were telling me their stories of like how they found my course and it changed their life. And then it helped them build recurring revenue. And now they're able to quit their job or their kid got sick and they were able to help them in the hospital and run their business. Like all these stories in person that I just was not.

collecting and most people are not going to share that unless you prompt them. It's very rare somebody is going to be like, Hey, I just wanted to send this like tear teary heartfelt story unless you know some well, but that helped dramatically too. As I was like, okay, this like I'm seeing real world what my work is doing for people. So yeah, it was a huge turnaround. And you're right. Like I, I did lean on the success of those. have a colleague in the, in the WordPress space who has a

one of the biggest YouTube channels and he was like, why don't you just do like a free Facebook group backed up with a low end community and then sell all your courses, just break them up and have them as like low end offers and just do it at scale. I'm like, I could, I could, but that's a whole different business model. Sounds like a lot of support. And you know, now I do have tiers. Now I do have a low end offer to get people in my courses, but it was very different. I was like, that just sounds like,

Josh Hall (49:04.463)

I just didn't want to do that. I just didn't want to. Yeah. And I knew that, you you're not going to get transformation in a free Facebook group. just be honest. So I just, you you could help and it's beneficial, but yeah, I just, you know, I had all these different options and I was like, I realize my gut is telling me to do this. Yes, it's painful and it's hard right now, but I knew, yeah. Again, going back to it works for one, it works for two, it works for five, works for 10, et cetera.

Shannon Mattern (49:04.825)

You are done selling information. You wanted to sell transformation.

Shannon Mattern (49:30.191)

So good. I had a similar experience in 2023 after, you know, challenging summer, which I always talk about how you helped me through, you and our work. Josh and I are in a mastermind together. We meet every month and like, Josh helped me like make some really tough decisions and, you know, move forward. And I trust your advice because you aren't just trying to sell as many courses as you possibly can. Yes, that is a byproduct of

helping as many people be successful as possible, but you're not just like, how can I like just churn up content to sell as many courses and make money from courses? You're like, how can I help as many people as possible get the results and have the life and business that they want? So I really trusted your advice because I knew it was coming from the same kind of place that I would give advice as well.

Josh Hall (50:25.85)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (50:26.133)

And I had a similar experience because I went through a very challenging 2023. had to lay off a team member and then went to our next level mastermind retreat, which is our mastermind for women web designers where we, like I say, we like help them with the problems of success, right? Like you grew too fast and you didn't fix some of the things that Josh and I had talked about earlier or whatever the case may be.

And we're all sitting around the first day and they were telling the story of like how they found me and how their life changed. And I'm just sitting there like, what is happening right now? Like when you're sitting in your office, in your house, behind the screen of your laptop and yeah, we interact in our communities and we know we help people and that's probably very rewarding to us. But to have like that many people tell you how you impacted their life, like

How could you not double down on doing what you're doing? Like, that was a transformational moment for me and a pivotal moment for me. I can imagine how pivotal of a moment that was for you too after the summer that you went through.

Josh Hall (51:23.108)

Mm-hmm.

Josh Hall (51:36.397)

Yeah, I remember, I think we both went through that. We kind of needed that. We needed like in-person connection and hear not only results, because it's nice to know that a student makes it to 10K months, but what is the 10? What's behind a 10K month? Well, that's like a little financial stability. That's being able to be home with their kid when they're sick, or that's being able to help their aging parent and not have to work full-time job. Like there it's getting behind the monetary results.

Shannon Mattern (51:46.693)

Right.

Josh Hall (52:02.396)

in the lifestyle results and lifestyle wins, which are really cool. Now you can't have a lifestyle win until you have monetary results generally. So, like that's still why, like, I don't think there's anything wrong with like having financial goals, but I have leaned on that. You'll notice, like, if you go to webisdnrpro.com, a lot of my testimonials are not about like I'm to 13 K months. It's a sum, but a lot of it is I'm able to like take care of my kids and work from home or

Shannon Mattern (52:15.588)

yeah, no.

Josh Hall (52:31.576)

It's a little more like behind the revenue. So pro tip for everyone, get those from your clients today. do call your clients. So another great way with growth plans and strategy calls and things like that, it gives you a chance to stay top of mind with clients. And then I would really push for that and have have test like collect testimonials that are not just about what they made. Most clients don't want to share that anyway. So like how have you improved their life?

Shannon Mattern (52:34.746)

Yeah.

Yes.

Josh Hall (52:59.792)

If you can get some of that, I mean, I'm looking at my wall right now, which I call it a wall of awesome. There's like 70 plus testimonials and little, little snippets of wins and lifestyle wins and stuff like that. And I look at that every day. That was also clutch during that time was to continue to get testimonials, continue to remind myself, I haven't failed at this. I'm not, not worthy to do this. I just need to my offer. I messed up my offer and I to make it better. So yeah.

Shannon Mattern (53:27.277)

Yeah. So let's talk about your web designer pro membership. Tell us more about how it's structured, what it looks like, what a typical like day, week in the life of a member would look like.

Josh Hall (53:42.074)

So thanks to your client success coordinator, Erica, who's freaking awesome. I worked with her to do a big audit of Pro this year, which is another thing I would recommend doing for everybody because you don't just audit your business, you get your clients and your customers involved and they actually give you direct feedback on what they need, what could be improved. So she interviewed 10 members and

Shannon Mattern (53:46.629)

you

Josh Hall (54:06.064)

We also did like a big survey and just figured out where everyone's revenue range was. What was your experience? What tools they use? All that good stuff. And what I became so clear was that there are three profiles, if you will, in Web Designer Pro. There are builders, folks who are early stage web designers who really just need more information at that point. They're not quite ready for transformation because they got to know how to build websites and run their business and build it up and build a little bit of recurring revenue.

So I realized that a large part of my audience, and after we did that survey, was in that builder category, making under generally 50 to 75,000. So no wonder when I changed my offers to 2,000 a year or $1,000 for a one-off course, it's like, well, no wonder somebody making 20,000 isn't gonna join, because they just can't afford that unless they have help or different, or they just go for it. most of my, like a lot of my members were in that early stage builder category.

We realized there was quite a bit. The next bigger lump of the pie was people who were closing in on six figures or low six figures, which who was most of what I was serving and kind of where I got. And then there were the, the like 10 % or less of pro who were in multi six figures who were scaling and in building and stuff like that. So the experience to answer your question, when you join pro is I really try to get a feel for where you are in that.

And then I have success pathways for each one of those. So when you join, if you're a builder, there's a success pathway with how to start your business. And then I give you a roadmap through the courses for a grower who is closing in on six figures or low six figures, and you're wanting to build a stable six figure business. There's a separate set of like, it's a success pathway for that. And then I recommend like, just go right to the business course. You probably already know basics of SEO and design. So we can fill in the gaps later. Give it to the business course.

And then my scalers, now have a scaling course, which is the newest course that is exclusively in pro. That's ideal for the scalers. They'll probably go through the business course, but that's for the, for the scalers. And then, the big change in the pivot was to add tiers to pro this fall. And so the tier is even more so, or like really ideal. Like if you're, if you're a beginner, if you're a builder, go to the first tier, you get all my courses for 49 bucks a month. Very affordable.

Josh Hall (56:27.392)

And you actually get the pro podcast feed so you can hear our coaching calls. And then the up the tier up for that is the community tier, all courses, all the community for 99 a month. And then that's ideal for the growers and some beginners if you're ready to rock and roll. And then the coaching tier, which is limited on spots, that's for the scalers because scalers do tend to like have unique problems and they may want to use my network. So I'm like, I got a guy Christian or I got a guy, you know, I got Sam connect with Sam or whoever it is.

to do these things. So the coaching tier is kind of ideal for my scalers. So yeah, that's been the big pivot. That's kind of the next chapter for pro is just really serving these folks better and giving them a very clear path to go from builder to like you graduated, you're now a grower and then you're scaling very quickly. So I'm really excited about 2025 because I built the core. know what works. We've defined it. We've really made everything super clear. I think.

So now it's just a matter of marketing and promoting. I'm kind of in sell baby sell mode now. So.

Shannon Mattern (57:32.329)

And you're coming to the Simply Profitable Designer Summit. Web Designer Pro is a sponsor of the Simply Profitable Designer Summit. So we're so thrilled to have you as part of the summit. I know your presentation is going to be amazing. you know, people always ask me, I don't know if you get asked this as much as I get asked this, but like, what's the difference between Web Designer Academy and Web Designer Pro? you know,

I always explain it's not necessarily an either or it's like a both and, and, and if you apply for the web designer Academy and you're in the builder phase, Josh is the only person I'm sending you to, you know, so I always say, like, if you're not sure if you're a right fit for the web designer Academy, go ahead and apply and I'll point you in the right direction. This is the direction I'm pointing you in because I know he's going to take excellent care of you. He's going to teach you everything you need to know about how to start.

a web design business, how to, the technical aspects, you know, the project management aspects, all of those things. I'm sending you over to him. Web designer Academy. We work with women web designers. So there you go. Now you know where to go if, you know, if that's not you. And also we focus a lot on like pricing mindset boundaries.

a lot of the problems of success. And, you know, by the time you get there, it really is a both hand. We have people in both of our communities that are in both of our communities. So.

Josh Hall (59:00.08)

Yeah. Yeah, no, you're right. And look, I really appreciate you, you know, taking Web Designer Pro on as kind of the down sell for WDA if it's not a good fit for folks, because it really does work out. And you and I are good example of, I think of other web designers who want to partner with digital agencies and others who you may do somewhat similar stuff, but you each have your own lane of genius. Like I don't go too far into marketing.

Shannon Mattern (59:22.885)

Yeah.

Josh Hall (59:25.55)

I don't go too far into the mindset stuff and I cover boundaries, but not at the level you do. So like we kind of have our differences there where it's like, if you want to go further into a lot of ongoing marketing WD is a great spot, especially for those who get to that point. So yeah, we have a lot of overlap, but we have our lanes of genius. So I love it. I love the world of co-op petition, as you very well know, where I think is there a better example of two people who are almost direct competitors who also collaborate as much as we do? I don't know.

Shannon Mattern (59:53.707)

Yeah, I don't know. And it's super interesting because I'm always like, I don't want to do anything redundant. Like, there's no point for me to like reinvent a wheel Josh has created. And I'm sure vice versa, where you're like, you can just go to web WDA for that. we, I think that we see, I certainly see like, how we both fit into the no one person can serve everybody. Like, that's just not possible.

Josh Hall (01:00:20.258)

Mm That's it. Yep.

Shannon Mattern (01:00:22.595)

And it's good to learn from lots of different people and not too many, I wouldn't say like with lots of super conflicting values or strategies, but to be able to like take different things and make them your own because you will if you.

Josh Hall (01:00:44.304)

Mm hmm. Yeah, I think being self aware and honest about where you are in the market, who you like to serve is really good, too. Like, I know we got to wrap up here. Do have a call right now, Shannon? OK, I'm sorry. I thought you had one at noon. OK, cool. I've I've got like 15 minutes or so. But like I mentioned agency Mavericks, I've had some people ask about like, I want to build a seven figure agency. And I'm like, honestly, I would love to help you. But I don't really serve the seven figure agency.

Shannon Mattern (01:00:51.427)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (01:00:54.979)

I don't know. We could keep talking.

Josh Hall (01:01:13.55)

model. Like you're better off to go to agency mavericks. I can help you with some stuff I could help you. I'm really like I've realized I'm kind of ideal to get people to between 100,000 and about a half million. That's kind of my sweet spot. Which a lot of people would love to get to. So like, you want to go seven and multi seven figures, I would just go to agency mavericks. That's because I didn't run a seven figure agency. I ran a six figure agency. So I've been very open and self aware about like, yeah, this is who I'm a good fit for.

Shannon Mattern (01:01:15.834)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (01:01:23.7)

Yeah. Yep. Same. Yeah.

Josh Hall (01:01:40.848)

And I'm not a great fit for like the person who's brand brand brand new to web design all the time. Sometimes there are some people who like Sam who we mentioned, he didn't know anything about web design, went through my courses and killed it, but he was also pretty tech savvy and figured stuff out fast. So the person who's like, how do I turn on my computer? I don't think I'm a good fit for, there's a, you know,

Shannon Mattern (01:01:59.685)

Yeah, those people are still searching on YouTube anyway. you know, like there's so much self I taught myself, you taught yourself. There's so many things you can do to teach yourself and like decide if you're that new, like kind of find your way. And then, like when you're ready, you're like, yeah, I want to put some structure around this. I want to find out what like, I know the questions I'm asking, but I don't know what I don't know. That's when

Josh Hall (01:02:04.353)

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Josh Hall (01:02:27.045)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (01:02:29.271)

Like it's time to put some structure around that learning.

Josh Hall (01:02:32.186)

Yeah. And I'll just, was probably going to tell you this anyway, but like my way I'm envisioning things moving forward is my YouTube channel, my podcast. We talk about high level stuff there, but especially my YouTube channel, I'm more interested in serving the like super beginners with resources in that and back it up with like just email lead generation for me and free resources or low end resources. And then people come to the community when they're serious, committed and ready to go to that next level.

And then have the, tiers that I have for folks who do want coaching. just don't foresee myself going to the seven figure agency, you know, crowd. It's just a different, it's just very different type of a place they're in. And I like, I like where I'm at now.

Shannon Mattern (01:03:17.069)

Yeah, I don't, I don't know that we will go there either. Like our next level mastermind. it's, it's even different. Like, yeah, we talk about hiring and growing your business, but it's not like strategy, right? It's like, next level is basically like new levels, same devils. The problems that you didn't solve early on are the ones that are going to pop back up wearing a different outfit later on in your business. And that's where.

Like that's what we work on in Next Level because by the time someone gets there, they don't need a whole lot of hand holding on how to grow. Like they're pretty powerhouse by that point. They're the only one getting in their own way. So we're helping them remove their own roadblocks. And so that's really interesting. would love, like, I would love to have like an agency Mavericks person in Next Level.

Josh Hall (01:03:54.338)

Yeah

Shannon Mattern (01:04:13.295)

Like if that makes sense, like someone who's in agency matter works in next level, cause it'd be so fascinating to see like, where do you get in your way with delegating and like running this team and you know, like all of this stuff. Cause that's really the stuff that we focus on in there, which is it's really, really fun because it's like, you're the only one in your own way. There's, there's like, you always say there's some, there's information out there. There's no shortage of the how to do this, you know?

Josh Hall (01:04:13.584)

Mm. Yeah.

Josh Hall (01:04:37.775)

Yeah.

Josh Hall (01:04:41.552)

I do think AI and just all the resources online now have, I don't want to say devalued information, but it definitely has changed courses. mean, honestly democratize it. That's a good term. That's a great term. Yeah. I do think courses are in a tough spot. Um, you know, I know some course creators who are now like pivoting to the membership model, just especially if there's a lot of different courses. I think there's a time and place for like a course that is a launch model, but, I do think there's some course fatigue.

Shannon Mattern (01:04:43.301)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (01:04:52.153)

democratized it, I would say.

Josh Hall (01:05:11.664)

And I think there's yeah, I think people just want transformation and they want quicker paths to success rather than a drawn out way to go about it. And as we all know, like in a case of a web design business, if you get if you get one course on like design, it's like, well, that's great. But there's so many other aspects I need to know about. So it is do you run the risk of like doing all the things I'm definitely trying to reel myself in to make I get a lot of requests like.

Shannon Mattern (01:05:37.509)

Yeah.

Josh Hall (01:05:39.172)

you should have a course on conversions and all this and this and this. I'm like, every course I create is one I have to keep up with and revamp. like I'm going to have some other resources around it, but like my primary curriculum is, is going to evolve a little bit here over the next couple of years. But yeah, sticking with it works. Another good life lesson.

Shannon Mattern (01:05:45.198)

Yep.

Shannon Mattern (01:05:57.369)

Well, yeah. And I think that the final thing I'll say on this and then we'll wrap up is that, you know, people also want community, right? It's like, yeah, they want transformation. Information is freely out there now. Like, you know, whether it's accurate or not, chat GPT is kind of funny that way. But like, you know, the information is out there, you know, and the transformation is great, but it's way better. Like it's way more rewarding.

and you actually go farther faster in a community of other people going through what you're going through. It makes it easier to stay the course when things get tough, when you know you're not the only one going through this thing right now and you can help someone when you're struggling or you can just hear from someone who's just a few months ahead of you on the upswing.

And if you're just trying to do it all on your own by yourself in a room behind your laptop, it can get really lonely. So I think you need to definitely be part of a community. it's web designer Academy, if it's web designer pro, if it's some other community of, uh, people doing the thing that you want to do and like who are serious about it and committed to it, go get in those rooms because you will go so much farther, faster together than you can on your own.

Josh Hall (01:07:20.698)

I don't have anything to say because that's what I would say. Yes.

Shannon Mattern (01:07:22.085)

Josh, thank you so much for coming on the show. I will link up all of the things that we talked about, all the people we talked about, the resources we talked about, especially Web Designer Pro in the show notes. So you can go check that out. And Josh, thanks again for being here. I really appreciate it.

Josh Hall (01:07:40.56)

Are you going to? Oh, thank you so much for having me Shannon. Real quick, publicly I want to say thank you Shannon for your support. Yeah, we both kind of went through it together. So yeah, I mean you are just as a huge support for me through all this. So and you've been so gracious with your community and with all your resources and yeah, I really appreciate you because I've leaned on you for how you've built and run your community.

And then of course I'm, you know, cherry picking off your, people that you work with. So it's just awesome. So I, did you, are you using your affiliate link for, if you send people to WebZinerPro, I hope you use your affiliate link. I mean, people can go to WebZinerPro.com but.

Shannon Mattern (01:08:15.747)

Yes, I will. How about this? Webdesigneracademy.com forward slash web designer pro to go check out web designer pro.

Josh Hall (01:08:23.652)

Bam. I want to make sure you get credit where credit is due.

Shannon Mattern (01:08:27.129)

I appreciate that Josh and I would send people your way whether I got credit or not. So yes, that's perfect. How about all of the incredible people that you're like, Shannon, you should know this person, this person, you should know Shannon. How about all of those connections are your payment for me talking about pro.

Josh Hall (01:08:33.36)

I'll just buy you a latte once a year. We'll call it even. How's that sound?

Josh Hall (01:08:50.65)

That's a good point. You told me you called me out and we're like, you don't value being a connector. I'm like, dang it. You're right. That is valuable. So let me look at everyone. I referred over and I'll add a 10 % fee on that. We'll call you now. Happy to Shannon. Really appreciate you. And I'll see you tomorrow. Cause I know we're meeting to talk about our first website and our pro event. So

Shannon Mattern (01:08:58.059)

It is valuable. Sounds good.

Shannon Mattern (01:09:10.859)

Yes, that'll be super fun. So thank you all so much for listening and we'll be back next week. Bye.