0 (2s):
Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation, JLD here. And welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network with great shows like the salesmen podcast. Today, we'll be focusing on how to break into freelance web design and build reliable monthly recurring revenue to drop these value bombs. I brought John Wooten on the mic. John teaches ambitious entrepreneurs, how to break into web design escape, their nine to five achieved financial independence in gain the freedom to work whenever and wherever they want. And foundation today, we'll be talking about why now is the best time to start a freelance web design business.

0 (45s):
We'll talk about how to get going in a crowded space and the design degree that you may or may not need. And of course, how to make money as a web designer and so much more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, the HubSpot podcast network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. Whether you're looking for marketing sales, service, or operational guidance, the HubSpot podcast network hosts have your back, listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot podcast network at Hubspot.com/podcast network. John say what's up to fire nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree

1 (1m 28s):
With. First. Thanks John, for having me on Fire Nation, what is up my answer to your question is the idea that you have to be constantly two exiting or three X-ing or 10 X-ing your business in order to be looked at as quote unquote successful. I feel like everyone is in a contest on how many Xs or how many figures we can promise you learn how to five X your business, or 10 X your business, or I see some built, a six figure web design business, or seven figure eight figure. And I actually started my business with the goal of freedom in mind. And so that's what we're all about at break into web. I actually read this analogy last week that I am completely in line with somebody said running a business is a lot like surfing and the process takes patience and practice.

1 (2m 15s):
As you get better, you start to figure out which waves to attempt, riding which ones to ignore. And you also learn your sweet spot and not everyone is cut out to ride the 20 foot waves. Only a few can ride those out, getting crushed. And this is the key for me. You realize you can find enjoyment in writing small, the medium waves, your whole life, just serving when you want to in the style you want to. And that's, that's our goal at break into web, helping those transition from maybe a job that they don't quite like or a career into a web design career, where they can work when they want with who they want and from where they want. I

0 (2m 48s):
Love this cause Fire Nation. One thing that I've been sharing pretty openly for a long time now with my monthly income reports is that's. Hey, we've been at about the same multi, you know, two to $3 million gross revenue per year now for about eight years in a row. And guess what? I have not been building my business intentionally because I am not willing to work two times three times, four times harder to 10 X, my revenue. I'm just not willing to do that because I have found what enough is for the lifestyle that I want. So I love this message that John is sharing. I hope you fire nation find what you are enough is as well. When you get there. I hope you identify it. And you know it, and again, we're talking all about how you find it as you can break into freelance web design to build reliable monthly recurring revenue.

0 (3m 35s):
So John share with us why now, today is the best time to start a freelance web design biz.

1 (3m 43s):
Absolutely. I mean, now more than ever every business entrepreneur, everyone that wants to go into business needs a website. I mean, that's one big thing that COVID, COVID showed everyone just how important their online presences. And one of the secrets is folks are not just looking for a website. They also need that web expert with great service and communication on their side to be the go between between, you know, the tech companies or the hosting company, keep their website up and running and crazy. So my co-teacher and the co-founder of the course Kelly, her and I for both of us, 2020 was actually one of our best years ever. Despite the pandemic and 2021 is not slowing down and other agency owners that I talked to and other freelancers, the S the story's the same, and it's this, it's just a great time to hop.

1 (4m 32s):
In. For example, we have one student who two years ago, was working in HR for a metal company in Nashville. She had a one hour commute each way to her job, even though on the weekends, it took like 15 minutes to get to her job. And so really she was working four, 10 hour days, like 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM with those commutes included. And she had a seven level underground parking garage that she would park in. Meanwhile, her husband was a home music producer in Nashville booking sessions when he wanted to going on tour. Sometimes with me, we play in a band together. And before taking our course, she would call herself the least tech savvy person around. And in a year's time, she took our course, built her design business to a point where she could leave her full-time job.

1 (5m 17s):
And now she's completely booked with jobs in the pipeline, and it's only going to increase as companies move more towards online that online presence and online stores, that's going to be a huge key going forward. So that's why I think now's probably the best time ever. And I'm sure people say that a lot, but it really is. COVID really opened the door to the importance of your online presence.

0 (5m 39s):
I mean, things have absolutely shifted Fire Nation, you know, it's, I know it, the world will never be quite the same. And so many people now are just recognizing that there are opportunities that didn't exist before, or that they were just too blind to see. Cause we all get stuck in these ruts, like in the comfort zone, we get stuck in the one way of thinking, this is comfortable. This is what we know. And let's be honest, COVID shook things up and things will never be the same, but at the same time, J dubs, let's be real. It's a crowded space, this web design world. I mean, especially with do it yourself solutions like Squarespace and WEX. So how would a freelancer navigate?

1 (6m 20s):
Yes, absolutely. And I totally see how, how folks come to us saying with that main concern, when they get into our email opt in on our website, one of the first emails we send them, ask them what's their biggest hesitation to breaking into web. And oftentimes it's just that objection right there. Like, Hey, isn't this crowded space or how can I make money? When I saw GoDaddy ad that I could have a website for a dollar, right? There was a Superbowl ad that had that, or I can pay 29 bucks a month. Our clients can do that and build themselves a website in Squarespace. So I see how it's easy to think that, but as I mentioned earlier, everybody needs a site and the entrepreneurs and business owners who are successful or will be successful, they realize that their time is more valuable working on their business and their strengths instead of spending hours.

1 (7m 11s):
And in those third-party solutions, Wix Squarespace, Weebly, WordPress, trying to build a site themselves. They they're probably unaware of website, best practices, how to optimize their site and their media on their site for a fast website, which is now more important for ranking higher in search engines. They may not understand how to effectively tell their story on their site while making sure their site visitor remains the hero and how to build a website with strategy in mind, to lead a site visitor, to actions or goals that you want them to take as the site owner. So there's a lot there with, that's why I think folks are realizing the importance of the website and how the website can cause people to take action and not just be a brochure website, actually be a business building tool.

1 (8m 3s):
And that's what we teach in our course how to make websites that are business building tools that allows you to charge a little more when you're talking to a client versus a, Hey, I'm going to give you a website that has your hours location, what you do on there. No, we're going to have all of that, but we're also going to help you get leads through your website. And that makes the website that much more valuable that fire

0 (8m 23s):
Nation had the focus had the direction, had the strategy of creating a business building tool for your clients. But wait, John, wait, don't need a design degree. Can you please bust this myth for us?

1 (8m 40s):
Absolutely. Yeah. I think most people understand that the way colleges and universities are set up now and the pricing are long overdue for an overhaul, especially when it comes to the tech space. In fact, some companies Google are treating their own six month training program to be equivalent to a four year degree in that same space, which is crazy. College can be great if you're unsure what you want to do, right? You, you go in and you take your general as you kind of figure it out. Like for example, I was going in to be a physical therapist. I wanted to stretch out Kobe Bryant, you know, and then I shadowed a physical therapist and realized, wow, this is, this is not quite for me.

1 (9m 22s):
And eventually I found my way to marketing and picked up web design along the way through being an in bands. So if you're like that, it can help kind of guide you. But if you're coming out of high school, knowing what you want to do, or if you're looking to transition out of your career into web design and you know, that's what you want to do. Definitely you do not need to go to a traditional university to get a degree. For example, one of my bandmates has a 15 year old son. He took our course last year, he's 16 now. And he actually subcontracts for us. Part-time afterschool. And he's also building his own freelance business with his own clients. His dad tells me he gets home from school, finishes his homework, eats dinner, and then spends two to three hours working in his room on web design.

1 (10m 7s):
Now, when he graduates in two years and if he still loves web design, we'll probably straight hire him. If he hasn't built his freelance business to, you know, full-time by them. But I just don't see why he should go to college. If he's coming out, knowing what he wants to do. But one of the biggest secrets to a successful freelance web design hack actually has more to do with their customer service and communication skills instead of your design or technical skills. And so by being a freelance web designer, you're doing more than just the tech skills of design that you might learn at a college. You're also as a freelancer, you're managing all your business administration, your invoicing, your sales, your followup techniques, and what is handy there is that the co-teacher in the course, Kelly, she has an MBA and she's actually built her freelance business twice in two separate States.

1 (10m 58s):
And she leads the business course that we have. I lead the technical course. So it's our course. You're not just getting technical know-how that you would in like a design degree program at a university, or even at a bootcamp that you may have seen online or a code school that you may have seen online. You're going to get that technical training, but you're also going to get the business training that you need to really become a successful freelancer and become your own boss,

0 (11m 21s):
Fire Nation. I hope you're absorbing these words. You need to own your future. You need to be the person who is conducting your future. Don't be relying on the old gatekeepers on the old traditional stodgy gateways that is no longer the path own your own future and financial. We talking about specifically ways that you can make money as web designers. And of course, we'll be focusing on building reliable. We're talking to reliable monthly recurring revenue for you and your business. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, are you ready to take control of your businesses branding, but don't have a design background.

0 (12m 4s):
Great news Fire Nation brand crowd can help. Brand crowd is a logo maker tool that helps you create an amazing logo design online. How do they do it? Using high quality handcrafted designs brands, crowd takes your business name and industry and generates thousands of custom logos just for you and seconds. And once brain crowd generates a logo, you like, you can edit the font, change the colors and tweak the layout until it's exactly what you want. Once your logo is complete, simply by that logo and download all the files you need. And because brain crowd is much more than just a logo maker, they also offer a whole suite of design tools to help you create social media posts and other print materials. Using hundreds of design templates in their massive photo library. It's time to create market and manage your businesses.

0 (12m 45s):
Branding and brand crowd can help check out BrandCrowd.com/fire. To learn more play with the tool for free and get 55% off your logo. That's BrandCrowd, BRANDCROWD.com/fire business growth is something we all want, but let's be honest with growth comes complexity. As you add new team members, more customer data and new process to help you scale. You need software that can support you for that. There's, HubSpots just a few examples of how HubSpot can help support you in your business. Include HubSpot's conversational intelligence tools, which makes it easy to scale your team. You can view call transcripts and moderate conversations, giving you the ability to provide real time feedback and support for your team.

0 (13m 30s):
Another great tool is HubSpot's customizable reports and analytics tools. These help give you a quick and easy look at how your business is performing without having to rely on an operations team. Finally, with 650 plus integrations, HubSpot is sure to offer you everything you need while giving you the flexibility to add anything that will further support you in your business. As you grow, customize it to meet your business needs without adding complexity, learn more about how you can scale your company without scaling complexity at Hubspot.com. So John we're back and let's get down to brass tacks, brother. We talked about making money as a web designer, as a little tease before the break. Now let's really dive into, I want to hear about specific ways strategies, tactics.

0 (14m 14s):
People can make money as a web design and of course, build that reliable monthly recurring revenue.

1 (14m 20s):
Absolutely. So there are several ways. There are four kind of main ways and a couple are sexier and more valuable than others, but here are the four number one, there's the usual flat build fee. You want to get a website, you approach a freelancer and they tell you, Hey, I can build this for you. It's going to cost you to three grand or 1500 or whatever it might be. You pay them that they build the website. Boom, that's just a one-time fee. And we, we like that part of that, but there's a, there's definitely a better way. Another way is this monthly build fee that some folks do. So if you're selling designs to a company that's maybe smaller or doesn't need as much features on their website, you can probably get away with a monthly build fee.

1 (15m 5s):
So for example, I have a niche service building websites for motivational speakers, and they're just one page websites with a blog attached to them. So for that, there's no large flat bill fee at the front. They just start paying me a monthly fee. And as long as they're paying that monthly fee, I keep their website up and running. I take care of all the updates, the technical updates, the maintenance I take care of all that for them. So that's kind of the number two, the monthly bill fee. We have some students that do those at 49 a month or 99 a month or one 49 a month, just depending on the scope of the website. Another thing you can do is ongoing content updates. So say you're willing to go in and make sure the content of the website stays up to date.

1 (15m 48s):
Client writes a new blog posts. You're going to post it for them, or they have a new page. They want to add, you're going to handle all of that as opposed to training them on how to do it. That's one way. But the best thing about web design and I, what I meet prospects who are graphic designers already, or they're photographers or videographers already, this is kind of the key point that I hit to them is the ongoing hosting maintenance and security of a website. This is the long play and it's, I think it's the biggest reason to get into the web design industry specifically, if you want to get into the creative space. And so basically what I tell folks is, you know, as a photographer, I don't want to pay for my wedding photos monthly, right?

1 (16m 31s):
I don't want to pay $20 a month and, and keep access to my wedding photos. And then if I stop paying $20 a month, I lose them. No, I want to pay one time for this wedding photos. I want to pay one time for my marketing video. I want to pay a monthly fee for that, but here's the key. Every website needs to be hosted somewhere and we teach our students in break into web how to offer this service and how to upcharge the service using reliable third-party providers. The web is constantly changing and updating websites need to stay up to date, to remain secure and reliable. And we actually use WordPress to build all our sites and we teach our students the same. WordPress has several pieces that need to be updated WordPress itself.

1 (17m 12s):
The theme being used in any third-party plugins that are used to enhance the website's functionality, leaving these items unchecked and outdated as a recipe for a website hack and clients don't understand that. And so the hosting maintenance and security plan that you offer your clients is some of the most reliable and easy monthly recurring revenue around. That's why I tell people, you may have canceled your gym membership during the pandemic, right? I know some folks who canceled their gym membership for a few months during the pandemic, but you didn't cancel your car insurance because you still needed to drive your car around. And during the pandemic, I had clients that may have canceled a social media ad campaign for a few months because the timing wasn't right, but no one canceled their hosting main security plan because now more than ever, as I mentioned, they needed those sites to be up and running.

1 (18m 1s):
And lastly, the last four to five years in both my business and Kelly and her freelance web design business, where we've only taken on website clients who will be on our hosting maintenance and security plans. And through that, we built our monthly recurring revenue to over 7,000 per month. Every year we consistently add about 1500 per month to that number based on how many sites we build that year. And they're all hosting with those. That's the big end game, starting the month with enough revenue to give you the freedom to work with who you want when you want and from where you want. And so that's the biggest key, I think in web design, it's some of the easiest recurring revenue around that is

0 (18m 38s):
The dream Fire Nation to be at a place where your monthly recurring revenue is at the point where you get to choose who you want to work with, where you want to work from and who you're actually working with and how you're actually working with them. Like in what manner, I mean, those are the processes that you can get to when you get your monthly recurring revenue to a point where you're like, okay, I know that I have this coming in every single month. I can rely on this. I can live on this. I can put some money away with this. This is where I want to be. Like, this is a fantastic place. Everything above this is just gravy. It's just more icing on the cake, which of course you want to continue to grow and build too, but you have that locked in. And I love how John took you through those four different options.

0 (19m 20s):
Super cool. And I love that analogy may too about, you know, how this type of recurring revenue and fire nation really, really think about this, this as a recurring revenue, it's more like your car insurance and less like your gym membership, gym memberships will get canceled immediately if needed. It's just like, that is a nice to have your car shares. It's a hassle to have. It's actually by law, it has to have it. And it's more like this car insurance, Fire Nation than it is like a gym membership, which is why it's a great type of recurring revenue. So John, you shared so much greatness here today. Let's really end with a bang. What is the one thing you really want to make sure fire nation gets from everything that we talked about here today?

0 (20m 4s):
Give us a call to action. Or maybe even a gift. If you have anything for us here today, about how we're going to find out more about you learn more about this content and then we'll say

1 (20m 13s):
Absolutely. And so just put a stamp on the, the last recurring revenue point. I'll give you some stats. Every year we built about 50 to 75 websites. And so that's 50 to 75 new folks on those plans. And every year on average, we lose two to three that drop off our plant either they've outgrown us and they needed a website that can do more than what we provide or they've gone out of business. So that retention rate is super key. And then down the line, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but down the line. When I want to sell my business, it's not just a service business that, Hey, I built 50 websites a year on average four grand a piece. So my businesses 200 K times, I'm a service multiplier. No it's going to be, Hey, there's that?

1 (20m 54s):
Plus there's this recurring revenue piece where 95% of folks stay on for a minimum of five years. And a lot of those folks renew a website with us that multiplier on that part of the business is huge. So with that, my takeaway, if you're considering a career change, I highly recommend and you want to be creative. I highly recommend the web design industry because of that recurring revenue piece, web design industry is constantly changing, constantly evolving. And the demand is constant. As I mentioned now, more than ever and will continue to be. So if you're considering that career change into freelance web design, check out, breakintoweb.com/fire Again, we cover both technical and the business training you're going to need most code schools and bootcamps are more expensive than we are.

1 (21m 42s):
And they just cover that technical skill, especially the boot, the code schools. They just teach you how to get a new job at a tech company. You don't want a new job. You want to be your boss. You want to freelance. So yeah, in fact, if you go to breakintoweb.com/fire, you'll get an exclusive 20% off the course, the next three days that you visit and also a Swhack pack. If you sign up our swag pack includes our very own there's no place like

2 (22m 10s):
Homepage. T-shirt

1 (22m 13s):
You also get a break into web mug, a Brandon notebook for setting your goals and taking notes, as well as a break into web sticker, you can slap on your laptop, let folks know that you're going into a new career and you're excited about your future. So

0 (22m 26s):
Go ahead and spell that for us. BreakIntoWeb.com. Absolutely.

1 (22m 30s):
B R E A K, BREAKINTOWEB.com/fire FIRE. Or if you just Google break into web, go to our homepage, add slash fire. You'll get to the page. Absolutely.

0 (22m 45s):
And you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with JW and JLD today. So keep up that heat, head over to EOFire.com, just type John JOHN in the search bar in John Wootens Chenault's page will pop right up. These are the best shows in the biz. Timestamps links, you name it. And of course your direct call to action fire nation breakintoweb.com/fire that's brake BREAK BreakIntoWeb.com/fire. Head over there, get the bonuses, get the goodies. John, I want to say thank you brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today, for that we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side,

1 (23m 31s):
John, thank you so much for having me on fire nation. Thanks for listening. We'll see you all in the course.

0 (23m 38s):
Hey, Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by John. And if you've ever thought about creating a podcast of your own, the podcast journal is for you. It is a gorgeous full of the journal that will guide you. Step-by-step in the creation and launch of your podcasts. In 50 days, visits the podcast journal.com use promo code podcast for a $15 discounts. And thank you for listening to my podcast and I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side. The HubSpot podcast network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. Whether you're looking for marketing sales, service, or operational guidance, the HubSpot podcast network hosts have your back, listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot podcast network at HubSpot.com/podcast.