Full Transcript for 419 - Managing 500+ Maintenance Plan Sites with Jake Kramer

00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:26.959 And if you would like to check that out, we'll of course have that link in the show notes for this one, which is gonna be found at joshhall.co slash 419. 00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:28.639 So head there after this. 00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:29.519 Here's Jake. 00:04:29.519 --> 00:04:32.160 Let's hear about managing 500 maintenance band clients. 00:04:32.160 --> 00:04:39.759 Jake, good to have you back, man. 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:41.120 Five years later. 00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:42.800 Five years later. 00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:44.959 But uh it's great to reconnect, dude. 00:04:45.199 --> 00:04:45.600 That's right. 00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:47.120 Still rocking and rolling. 00:04:47.439 --> 00:04:49.519 You were on in episode 49. 00:04:49.519 --> 00:04:50.560 We were just chatting. 00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:52.240 I can't believe it's been that long. 00:04:52.240 --> 00:04:59.519 It feels like it was just a couple of years ago, but episode 49, we talked about selling website hosting and maintenance plan back in that episode. 00:04:59.519 --> 00:05:07.360 And actually, I recently looked through Buzz Sprout, which is where I host the podcast, and that episode is still one of the most popular episodes. 00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:09.360 So I know, right? 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:20.800 I figured now, six years later, almost five and a half years later, we could have a bit of a round two and talk about your guys' maintenance plan because it's at such a large scale. 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:31.839 And um one thing that I was about to say before I hit record is I just I have so much appreciation and respect for folks who stick with their business. 00:05:31.839 --> 00:05:42.399 And you and John with Artillery Media, I mean, you guys I you know you've innovated, but you've stuck with what works for a long time, which is not the case for a lot of entrepreneurs. 00:05:42.399 --> 00:05:43.360 So good on you, man. 00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:44.399 Yeah, well, thanks. 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:45.120 I appreciate that. 00:05:45.120 --> 00:05:50.000 Yeah, John started Artillery Media 2006, that's when he bought the domain name. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:06:09.199 And then we met in 2012, 2011, and then we've been working together full-time since 2014, and so we are well over a decade grinding this out together, over 500 sites hosted. 00:06:09.199 --> 00:06:15.040 I shared some snapshots of some stats on my socials the other day. 00:06:15.040 --> 00:06:24.079 I think it was like almost 800 domains, five hundred over 550 sites hosted, uh, 213 five-star reviews on Google. 00:06:24.079 --> 00:06:26.160 We're still waiting on that one-star review. 00:06:26.160 --> 00:06:31.680 It hasn't happened yet, but we're anticipating, you know, like the numbers are too in our favor. 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:34.399 Uh, but it's been a it's been a great ride. 00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:37.600 We have a process that works really well, makes people really happy. 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:40.560 We

hold each site and each client with an open hand. 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:43.360 Super transparent pricing. 00:06:43.360 --> 00:06:45.759 Hopefully it's as fair as I can make it. 00:06:45.759 --> 00:06:48.240 And then month to month, no contract required. 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:49.759 It's your site, you own it. 00:06:49.759 --> 00:06:51.360 Use us if you like us. 00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:52.879 So please still do. 00:06:52.879 --> 00:06:53.839 Heck yeah, dude. 00:06:53.839 --> 00:06:54.560 Let's dig in. 00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:56.879 500 plus maintenance plan clients. 00:06:56.879 --> 00:06:58.639 Is that hosting and maintenance included? 00:06:58.959 --> 00:06:59.519 Yes, sir. 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:02.399 We bundled them all together about 2017. 00:07:02.399 --> 00:07:07.759 We actually just released a podcast episode on our um on ours. 00:07:07.759 --> 00:07:09.839 I don't even know what you call it now. 00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:13.920 I'm new to this podcasting thing, but we just talked about this with a little bit more details. 00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:29.040 But uh, we we're kind of revisiting the origins of maintenance, and then that turned into hosting, and then hosting and maintenance and support and security and training. 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:31.199 We can help you with it all. 00:07:31.199 --> 00:07:41.199 So the origins of that started with John back right as WordPress was like beginning. 00:07:41.199 --> 00:07:42.879 He's a what does he call himself? 00:07:42.879 --> 00:07:44.079 A designosaurus? 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:45.360 Designosaur. 00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:47.519 That's what he calls himself. 00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:50.160 And uh I think that's funny. 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:57.279 He started building WordPress websites way back then, and one of his sites got hacked. 00:07:57.279 --> 00:08:01.759 That's when he learned about maintenance, doing it the hard way, and then teaching me. 00:08:01.759 --> 00:08:04.480 And then we moved over to uh hosts we really like. 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:05.600 We use SiteGround. 00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:08.959 I know there's a million options, just like themes. 00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:09.519 No, we'll see. 00:08:10.639 --> 00:08:12.480 That's who I still use, and they're a sponsor for my event. 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:15.839 So we're sticking with they're a partner of mine, so we're sticking with SiteGround, baby. 00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:16.399 They're doing it. 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:18.399 And you know what about SiteGround? 00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:22.480 And you know what about SiteGround is like it's the people, man. 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:23.839 They are great, yeah. 00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:27.519 And that is and it worked, it's so steady. 00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:31.680 Like, I've been using SiteGround since 2015, over 10 years. 00:08:31.920 --> 00:08:34.159 Yeah, yeah, exactly. 00:08:34.159 --> 00:08:36.639 Yeah, the people they just fit our culture for sure. 00:08:36.639 --> 00:08:39.519 The support is amazing, it's uh great, easy to use. 00:08:40.159 --> 00:08:46.399 Let's talk about just let's just rant a little bit on hosting before we talk about heck yeah, because it's so important with maintenance plans. 00:08:46.399 --> 00:08:59.360 I'm sick of watching web designers nickel and dime good hosting to save $100 a year and then have so many issues that are costing them thousands, thousands of dollars in the long run. 00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:00.320 It drives me crazy. 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:06.720 I see people be like, Slate grounds, like it's like you know, 300 when I could get it for 225. 00:09:06.799 --> 00:09:10.159 I'm like, I mean, you don't want to wrestle that. 00:09:10.159 --> 00:09:12.000 Yes, there are of that. 00:09:12.240 --> 00:09:19.600 Yeah, there's other options, but choose what's like it's the foundation of everything for web design. 00:09:19.919 --> 00:09:20.799 It really, really is. 00:09:20.799 --> 00:09:22.320 And trust, trust me. 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:24.240 Well, don't trust me, trust John. 00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:26.159 He's he's done it all. 00:09:26.159 --> 00:09:32.240 Uh, I've I shared this on our pod too, but I have only ever installed Divi as a theme. 00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:33.200 What? 00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:43.440 But I've done it 550 times, hosted, probably over a thousand times now, not hosted, helping friends and sites that have left and all that stuff shut down. 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:48.559 Um so again, like you said, like sticking with one thing. 00:09:48.559 --> 00:09:53.279 Hopefully, Divi5 is is amazing because we have a lot of eggs in that basket, baby. 00:09:53.279 --> 00:09:55.360 Yeah, I'm sure it will be though. 00:09:55.360 --> 00:10:06.720 John has been on it with like Superfly and uh all the products there and making sure that Divi5 is is is gonna be kind of the next evolution that we hope it is. 00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:13.120 But anyway, John talking about the maintenance plan of uh yeah, getting hacked once. 00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:17.279 Okay, let's try GoDaddy, let's try Bluehost, let's try this, let's try that. 00:10:17.279 --> 00:10:25.279 And for so for him, and so then for artillery, you know, design is really our focus. 00:10:25.279 --> 00:10:27.440 Strategic design is what we say. 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:32.320 And so designers are pretty much who who we hire. 00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:46.080 So for design focus, strategy focus, copywriters, you know, we don't have any put huge air quotes here, but full stack devs on our team that you know are are are focused at that. 00:10:46.080 --> 00:11:01.440 So with that context, SiteGround is so perfect for us because you know, Artillery, we have many, many, many cloud hosts uh accounts, and then we put about a hundred sites per cloud host. 00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:10.879 Sometimes we we learn on our first one like if you pack a cloud too too much, no matter what, that it eventually stops working. 00:11:10.879 --> 00:11:12.159 That seems like easy math.

00:11:12.159 --> 00:11:15.279 But the way that we thought, anyway, I digress. 00:11:15.279 --> 00:11:28.399 We started splitting them up, we started migrating our sites to kind of have this even spread across all of our clouds of you know, about a hundred sites per cloud host, and that allows us to scale that cloud up as the sites grow. 00:11:28.399 --> 00:11:43.600 And we get nice easy reminders when, like, hey, suchandsuch.com on cloud artillery cloud four is at, you know, they just added a bunch of photos or whatever, and now they're at this much space. 00:11:43.600 --> 00:11:53.519 And we like you said, we don't try to nickel and dime anyone, and we try to prevent that at all costs, but that gives us a good hand on like, oh, we need to bump that cloud storage up just a little bit more. 00:11:53.519 --> 00:12:03.679 And so we don't have it, gives us a lot of good controls when hosting that many sites because we can really see exactly which sites are getting which usage. 00:12:03.679 --> 00:12:07.519 If we bump the storage on the whole cloud, it's really simple. 00:12:07.519 --> 00:12:10.480 There's easy auto-scaling, like it just gives you a lot of control. 00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:14.000 And then on top of that, we do like the expert care stuff through SiteGround. 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:15.600 Love paying for that. 00:12:15.600 --> 00:12:17.440 Oh my goodness, they're so incredible. 00:12:17.440 --> 00:12:18.639 They'll do anything for you. 00:12:18.639 --> 00:12:25.120 Come to your house, help you out with uh any troubles you're having, you know, like they they raked my my leaves. 00:12:25.120 --> 00:12:25.840 No, I wish. 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:26.399 I'm just kidding. 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:29.440 They'll help your hosting, they'll help your website, and they'll help your plumbing. 00:12:29.519 --> 00:12:30.559 Yeah, that's exactly right. 00:12:30.559 --> 00:12:31.200 They can do it all. 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:32.480 Love Site Ground, seriously. 00:12:32.639 --> 00:12:34.080 Because it was kind of like a concierge. 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:38.559 I don't use that personally because I don't have the need for it right now, but it's kind of like concierge support. 00:12:38.960 --> 00:13:06.559 Yeah, like sometimes, like, okay, like let's say you're you're running um, I don't know, certain gravity forms or even certain um like settings within image optimizations that isn't quite what you're hoping, or or you want to like dive into the nitty-gritty of page speed score and start like getting really good uh handles and optimizations, like you can use credits on a lot of that. 00:13:06.559 --> 00:13:17.279 As well as what what Clara does, who's our support specialist at Artillery, she's about to celebrate five years with us as well, which is exciting in in like November. 00:13:17.279 --> 00:13:24.720 But what she does is she has the expert care help with a lot of like site launches. 00:13:24.720 --> 00:13:26.799 We launch about two sites a week now. 00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:33.840 We're last year we did 94 websites launched, and so she has a nice process for it. 00:13:33.840 --> 00:13:44.240 And at this point, it's kind of nice to just like queue up some people at some projects, you know, for the site ground team and then more of the easier launches we just handle. 00:13:44.240 --> 00:13:45.600 They're just so great and they never miss. 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:47.919 So you're that's kind of how we use them. 00:13:48.240 --> 00:13:54.879 You're relying on the Consier support as almost like an addition, almost like a wing of your team for the for the internet stuff. 00:13:55.519 --> 00:13:56.720 Yeah, because they're the best. 00:13:56.720 --> 00:13:57.200 You know what? 00:13:57.200 --> 00:14:00.159 Am I gonna go hire some ding dong when you got site ground? 00:14:00.159 --> 00:14:01.440 No, just kidding. 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:02.960 Well, that's awesome. 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:07.919 This is a good context because this is the foundation of hosting and maintenance plans, is really good hosting. 00:14:07.919 --> 00:14:11.279 And uh Psychound is not a paid sponsor for this episode. 00:14:11.279 --> 00:14:12.639 We're just users of it. 00:14:12.639 --> 00:14:15.759 Um, let's dive in because I know we have limited time on this one, Jake. 00:14:15.759 --> 00:14:20.639 Let's get let's just do like a fast action lightning around on your maintenance plan now. 00:14:20.639 --> 00:14:30.399 And again, for those who want the full story of how you guys created this and where you were at five years ago, episode 49 is still very worth going through because I know you dig into that story a little more. 00:14:30.399 --> 00:14:30.720 Yeah. 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:38.960 But the cool thing is, is now I don't think too much has changed in the process, maybe just additions, but now it's at a different scale. 00:14:38.960 --> 00:14:44.159 So today we're recording on January 29th, 26th. 00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:48.399 How many sites do you have today that you're hosting and main maintaining? 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:57.360 Yeah, we have about 502 that are like live and and functioning out into the under the great unknown. 00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:02.000 But we have in our site ground account, we have about I think like 570. 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:12.399 Um but 500 is a good number for 2026 on like paid live sites that are out there in the world that have been built by us. 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:15.519 Not just development sites or staging sites and stuff like that. 00:15:15.759 --> 00:15:20.799 Yeah, like we bought we bought some sites from some designers that that had Divi. 00:15:20.799 --> 00:15:27.039 Um, by the way, we are buying Divi sites, so reach out if you've got some. 00:15:27.039 --> 00:15:28.960 Uh like child themes and stuff. 00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:30.000 Shameless plug. 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:31.039 No, like clients. 00:15:31.039 --> 00:15:39.919 Like um, so uh a guy in um in like a small town in in our

state, he just wanted to go do some other things. 00:15:39.919 --> 00:15:46.480 He actually wanted some um, anyway, doesn't matter, but he sold us like 27 of his clients. 00:15:46.480 --> 00:15:48.799 It was very transparent, very well done by him. 00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:52.559 I mean, we communicate with the clients, there are a lot of small town businesses anyway. 00:15:52.559 --> 00:15:54.080 But all the sites were built on Divi. 00:15:54.080 --> 00:15:59.919 He used SiteGround too, so it was like, hey, we'll pay you X dollars per client. 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:07.120 And then he let all the clients know, hey, I'm stepping out of the business, I'm gonna be selling your account to artillery. 00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:08.320 That's great, man. 00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:10.080 That's a great little additional wing. 00:16:10.080 --> 00:16:11.120 I didn't really think about that. 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:18.000 But now, as web designers, I mean, we've seen some web designers from years ago in the Divi realm or other big page builders retire. 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:23.600 And it's like if you don't have a secession plan, that's good to know that you guys sell those things to artillery. 00:16:23.840 --> 00:16:26.559 Well communicated to your client, I always say, right? 00:16:26.559 --> 00:16:30.399 Because, yeah, like you say, like they're an asset. 00:16:30.399 --> 00:16:37.679 Uh, we have infrastructure set up to provide a great service to them, to continue to help them with all their website needs. 00:16:37.679 --> 00:16:39.759 Uh, hopefully not website woes. 00:16:39.759 --> 00:16:45.039 But all that to say, yeah, we have about that many in our stack. 00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:47.679 Let's do a quick kind of quick hitter of our stack. 00:16:47.679 --> 00:16:50.080 So, yes, site ground's the beginning. 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:57.120 We love making sure that the site ground speed optimizer and the site ground uh security optimizer are on. 00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:02.159 There's a couple, you know, small little settings that will go in, but go in there, play around with those settings. 00:17:02.159 --> 00:17:03.279 John always says this. 00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:12.319 He's like, hey, every time I get a new piece of software, I like to go into each setting and just change every single setting to just understand it. 00:17:12.319 --> 00:17:19.680 And so at the scale that we're at, like, you better go in and tweak all those settings to understand um what each little one does. 00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:35.519 And by the way, a lot of questions to the you know, big site ground exec support team that we use those credits on are kind of those more important questions about you know, some of those SG optimizer fine-tunings with Divi and anyway. 00:17:35.519 --> 00:17:37.359 So, site ground. 00:17:37.359 --> 00:17:40.000 And then on top of that, we use Infinite WP. 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:41.599 We still use it, still love it. 00:17:41.599 --> 00:17:42.240 They're great. 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:44.720 They gave us a great deal when we renewed. 00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:49.200 Um, so that is our dashboard. 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:53.359 You know, we're musicians at artillery, so we like to describe it like a MIDI keyboard. 00:17:53.359 --> 00:18:05.279 Nice, you know, all the goodies are on at SiteGround, but Infinite WP allows us to put a plugin on each site and then control it through one dashboard. 00:18:05.279 --> 00:18:13.279 So we just hit it once to update all the sites on WordPress, just hit it once to update gravity forms, plugins, uh, that kind of a thing. 00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:15.519 So are you doing reporting through that as well? 00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:17.440 Like monthly reports or anything like that? 00:18:17.839 --> 00:18:22.640 We uh we don't send out any monthly reports to the client. 00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:26.640 We tell them if you ever we get we give them act, okay. 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:27.359 I'll back up. 00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:32.799 When we launch the site, we tell them, hey, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, here you go. 00:18:32.799 --> 00:18:35.359 Here's your admin access to the site. 00:18:35.359 --> 00:18:38.640 And I you and we always record about a three-minute video. 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:43.039 Hey, congrats on the launch, uh, Jake or Clara or wherever else. 00:18:43.039 --> 00:18:45.119 Uh, here's how to log into your site. 00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:55.279 Oh, make sure you go to your forms and and here's how the entries are working, because the notification sometimes gets gets stuck, especially recently in the recent WordPress uh update. 00:18:55.279 --> 00:18:58.640 Jeeish Luish, that's caused a lot of troubles for a lot of people. 00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:03.680 Um, and then hey, here's how to quickly edit a page and here's some other things on the site. 00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:06.720 So we try to quickly show them, hey, this is your site. 00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:10.079 It's not a magical mystery box. 00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:16.240 Like it's it works like a design tool might, you know, and here's how to change some stuff. 00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:20.240 But note that artillery, we are logging in every single day. 00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:34.880 We're updating the plugins and the themes, and we're making sure that things are running properly and we're pinging the site, making sure that domain hasn't expired or a credit card wasn't lost somewhere in the triage, making sure that things are running like we would every single day. 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:40.640 And then every single day, Site Ground and we are creating a backup of the site in case anything does happen. 00:19:40.640 --> 00:19:44.559 Like imagine you could clone your car every time you went to the grocery store in case it got smashed. 00:19:44.559 --> 00:19:46.319 Hey, no worries, go throw that version away. 00:19:46.319 --> 00:19:48.240 I got an I got a clone in my garage. 00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:49.039 I'll just use.

00:19:49.039 --> 00:19:50.720 So peace of mind. 00:19:50.720 --> 00:19:55.519 And by the way, we also make up a backup of every save on every page. 00:19:55.519 --> 00:20:04.319 So you go in and Donna, uh no shade, no shade to Donna, who works at you know, dot com, whatever, goes in and makes a change. 00:20:04.319 --> 00:20:13.920 Well, then we can just revert it back to the artillery version if if Donna doesn't like it, or if Jim goes in and messes it up, that Donna, whatever. 00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:15.759 So backups on backups. 00:20:15.759 --> 00:20:18.640 Hey, you go ahead, go in here, kick some sand around. 00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:20.160 You can't mess this thing up. 00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:21.440 We got your back. 00:20:21.440 --> 00:20:24.240 Visit our support, ask any questions. 00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:28.880 Hopefully, most of them are on the gold plan, which includes an hour of support a month. 00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:40.799 So that's when we actually will have a human, Clara, log into the site, help with any questions that they might have, adding blogs, changing, swapping photos, adding content, that kind of a thing. 00:20:40.799 --> 00:20:44.160 And then we still use WordFence, good old WordFence. 00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:49.039 Man, we love uh them on top of SiteGround security. 00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:50.240 We use WordFense as well. 00:20:50.559 --> 00:20:51.599 I did not like WordFence. 00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:52.799 Sorry, you didn't like it. 00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:55.200 No, I thought it was bloated and I had a bunch of issues. 00:20:55.200 --> 00:20:58.160 I was used to using security for the firewall. 00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:00.640 Um we use security for artillerymedia.com. 00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:00.960 Okay. 00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:02.480 And I love security. 00:21:02.720 --> 00:21:11.759 And look, with like with Siteground security stuff, I don't need I actually don't use security or WordFence now with both joshhall.co or webcenterpro.com. 00:21:11.759 --> 00:21:18.079 I found that SiteGround better knock on some wood, I guess, but I haven't needed extra firewall protection with that. 00:21:18.319 --> 00:21:18.960 I I agree. 00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:31.920 The only thing that so we have like the free version of WordFence, and we essentially just have one setting that's like, hey, if you're trying to log in with a username or password more than one time that's incorrect, it locks you out for five minutes. 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:36.319 Can't you do that with uh SiteGrounds um security? 00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:38.079 You can plug in? 00:21:38.079 --> 00:21:38.960 You can. 00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:42.000 But why have one plugin, Josh, when you can have two plugins? 00:21:42.400 --> 00:21:45.759 Uh spoken just to spoke up to WordPress Pro. 00:21:46.079 --> 00:21:46.799 No, just kidding. 00:21:46.799 --> 00:21:47.359 Just kidding. 00:21:47.359 --> 00:21:56.400 No, there's some other there's some other settings that that uh John uses through that and some other like things that we can look at and some other settings that that Clara likes to use. 00:21:56.400 --> 00:21:59.759 So we've had this conversation internally, but I do get what you're saying. 00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:00.880 It's an extra. 00:22:01.119 --> 00:22:03.519 Look, dude, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. 00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:10.720 That's I couldn't like I'm so moving into all the dad cliches because they're all true generally. 00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:11.440 Like, yeah. 00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:15.279 That's the thing about I I hold this all such with an open hand. 00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:22.160 Like, like one of my best buddies in the whole wide world, Divi guy, WordPress guy, local business. 00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:24.240 He helped the business here in Lincoln move. 00:22:24.240 --> 00:22:26.720 He was a he was on the C-suite. 00:22:26.720 --> 00:22:28.079 He was the VP of marketing. 00:22:28.079 --> 00:22:35.920 He helped them move from nothing, employee number seven, to two billion, a double unicorn. 00:22:35.920 --> 00:22:40.160 And then he took an exit and now he's starting this other startup with his brother. 00:22:40.160 --> 00:22:42.559 And I'm giving him the whole thing. 00:22:42.559 --> 00:22:46.480 I'm hooking him up with just like all kinds of landing pages and stuff. 00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:48.000 And he he knows the name of the game. 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:49.759 Like he's totally savvy. 00:22:49.759 --> 00:22:56.319 But he just switched over to um like not Replit, the AI thing, but something similar to that. 00:22:56.319 --> 00:23:14.640 And and so like guys who who totally get it and want to move at the speed of light and don't have to kind of clunk around with um a tool that you don't know, and if you really understand what you're doing, like those AI sites, oh man. 00:23:14.640 --> 00:23:15.920 He said it best. 00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:20.480 Like last night when we were playing COD, he's like, he's like, Jake, don't kill me. 00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:23.119 I went over to this replit like AI thing. 00:23:23.119 --> 00:23:27.839 But he's like, hey, right now, I just need we're running tons of Facebook ads. 00:23:27.839 --> 00:23:37.039 So their specific niche of business is like, hey, we need we need lots of users, and we're ton we're we're funded to get tons of daily active users. 00:23:37.039 --> 00:23:40.079 So they're cranking the ads, like tons of ads spent. 00:23:40.079 --> 00:23:59.599 He's like, they need to land on this site, and it's just like it's just like just quickly in and out of the landing page, you know, like two seconds they're gonna be validated through the ad, and then they're gonna enter their email through our app that is on a completely separate system. 00:23:59.599 --> 00:24:07.680 So like it might as well just be raw HTML, you know, like as fast and as smooth and as inside outside as you can get. 00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:10.480 It's like a video and enter your email and done.

00:24:10.480 --> 00:24:18.799 And I'm like, dude, for that, AI is totally the way because you can make some tweaks, some changes anyway. 00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:24.559 All that to say, like there's a million ways to skin this cat called the Great Why World Wide Web. 00:24:24.559 --> 00:24:30.799 And uh I'm yeah, I'm always excited to hear about new ways to build sites, new ways to do things. 00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:39.519 And John put, and to kind of wrap up this whole maybe segment or or rant, you know, John said it well in one of our episodes too. 00:24:39.519 --> 00:24:48.799 Like you gotta, you gotta pick something to scale, to be scalable, to be where artillery's at, you know, 500 sites hosted. 00:24:48.799 --> 00:24:54.880 We cannot do that if we've got a bunch of random themes, some clients in Webflow, some clients over here. 00:24:54.880 --> 00:24:57.039 Like you just kind of have to pick one. 00:24:57.039 --> 00:25:00.720 And Divi is the is the best to get us there. 00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:06.720 It's like a minivan, you know, like no shade to minivans, but it's not a sports car. 00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:07.440 I know. 00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:08.160 Who doesn't, right? 00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:09.279 Especially us dads. 00:25:09.279 --> 00:25:13.279 I'm trying to get Haley on the minivan train, but you tell there's so many cup holders. 00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:19.119 She can have a coffee, she can have multiple coffees, she can have water, you have a you know, a hydro drink, whatever. 00:25:19.119 --> 00:25:20.640 Um so many room for activities. 00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:22.480 So many room for activities, yeah. 00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:23.359 Oh, I know. 00:25:23.359 --> 00:25:25.680 Anyway, there's there's to wrap it up. 00:25:25.680 --> 00:25:28.799 Like there's so many ways to do this, and I love learning about them. 00:25:29.039 --> 00:25:34.960 Well, this and this brings me to something I wanted to ask you, and I I will recommend because we're not going to get into the actual selling of your plan. 00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:37.839 I want to dig into some more specifics at this scale. 00:25:37.839 --> 00:25:40.880 Episode 49 is where we really talked about how you sell it. 00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:45.200 Has real quick, has anything changed with how you sell the plan, or is that pretty still standard? 00:25:45.519 --> 00:25:46.559 Pretty much still standard. 00:25:46.559 --> 00:25:49.440 We itemize talking to the talking to the client. 00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:53.039 Um, you know, our process is like, hey, fill out this form. 00:25:53.039 --> 00:25:54.559 It's really simple, gives us the details. 00:25:54.559 --> 00:25:55.839 I'll top on a call. 00:25:55.839 --> 00:26:01.119 I go through some slides about like, hey, this is just how we build, how we price, I send them a proposal. 00:26:01.119 --> 00:26:02.480 The hosting's in there. 00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:04.160 It's essentially assumed at this point. 00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:06.559 It's sometimes I don't even cover it. 00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:09.200 It's just in the proposal, like, you gotta have this. 00:26:09.200 --> 00:26:15.200 And I feel like now, fast forward from 2020, it's been an easier and easier sell. 00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:16.960 That can be multiple things. 00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:23.599 It can be number one, I don't even it's just like, oh yeah, you you gotta have it. 00:26:23.599 --> 00:26:25.039 Like the lights gotta be on, right? 00:26:25.359 --> 00:26:33.519 That's what I wanted to ask you, which which is are maintenance plans an easier or harder sell in 2026? 00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:34.960 Easier. 00:26:34.960 --> 00:26:35.920 Oh man. 00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:37.200 Way easier. 00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:40.400 It's not even it doesn't even feel like a sell anymore. 00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:47.039 It just feels like okay, people expect recurring costs now with websites. 00:26:47.039 --> 00:26:48.480 That is just expected. 00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:51.039 I feel like that's kind of gone mainstream, I guess. 00:26:51.039 --> 00:27:00.799 Um, so I just say I kind of phrase it like this like, hey, there's no recurring costs with artillery, nothing you can expect, like like retainer fees or anything. 00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:04.640 $99 a month for hosting, maintenance, security, support, training. 00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:06.400 That includes one hour per month. 00:27:06.400 --> 00:27:08.640 It's everything that most of our businesses need. 00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:15.519 If you ever go more than that, we'll have a conversation about how we need to adjust, or maybe you purchase like a bucket of hours or something from us. 00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:17.200 Like we just had a client do that. 00:27:17.200 --> 00:27:20.000 They had a bunch of marketing spend, they wanted to spend it. 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:22.880 I raised my hand and said, How about a bucket of support hours? 00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:25.599 So that's kind of how we do it still. 00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:30.240 Hey, your site needs to be on, running, maintained, secure. 00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:32.400 People kind of get that. 00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:40.559 And having humans that they can go visit or call that can help with each and every little piece, I think they kind of understand. 00:27:40.559 --> 00:27:46.559 Hey, I can go over here and get the results I want, but I won't have the human. 00:27:46.559 --> 00:27:50.079 Or I can have artillery for a pinch more. 00:27:50.400 --> 00:27:53.599 I have my suspicions as to why it's easier to sell now, too. 00:27:53.599 --> 00:27:59.200 And by the way, I'm overseeing so many Web Designer Pro members who have maintenance plans and they're selling them just fine. 00:27:59.200 --> 00:28:04.000 I have a couple members who do have two, 300 plus maintenance plan clients as well. 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:09.839 Not anyone to your scale, but they're doing like multiple hundreds of maintenance plans and they're still selling. 00:28:09.839 --> 00:28:21.759 My intuition

tells me, to your point, Jake, yes, people are used to recurring subscription and it's almost expected, especially if you go to any AI builder or DIY platform, it's a subscription. 00:28:21.759 --> 00:28:23.519 None of those are one-offs. 00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:29.039 Additionally, I think the DIY market has changed dramatically. 00:28:29.359 --> 00:28:30.000 I agree. 00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:37.359 Back 2018, 19, 20, it a lot of people were designing their own sites and doing it all themselves. 00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:45.599 And I think because the the internet is so noisy, there's so many options, there's so much overwhelm, there's so many builders. 00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:47.039 I think it's way harder. 00:28:47.039 --> 00:28:53.680 It's hard enough for a web designer to decide their tool stack, let alone a business owner who's gonna try to do it themselves. 00:28:53.680 --> 00:28:57.039 And I think business owners are now more so than ever. 00:28:57.039 --> 00:29:07.839 And you are a prime living example, you and John and your team are an example that business owners just need a small team or a person to do this stuff. 00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:29.920 And yes, and that's why I like I feel very, very strongly about AI not taking over web designer jobs, is because yes, it's going to evolve and be a very incredible tool to build sites pretty quick, or at least the foundation, but it's not going to take over this stuff, the like the ongoing and being able to make sense of all the aspects of web design. 00:29:29.920 --> 00:29:33.759 So that's my intuition is the DIY market has changed dramatically. 00:29:33.759 --> 00:29:39.759 People are so overwhelmed, they just want a web person or a web gal or a web guy or a small web studio. 00:29:39.759 --> 00:29:44.720 And yeah, I'm glad to hear that my intuition is what you're living out. 00:29:45.039 --> 00:29:45.519 So true. 00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:50.720 And then if you can make sure that, you know, the good old story brand stuff is still very relevant. 00:29:50.720 --> 00:29:57.119 I know he just revamped his book, but it's all about okay, do I understand who I'm talking to in the sales conversation? 00:29:57.119 --> 00:29:59.200 And do I understand what their problems are? 00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:04.400 And can I position my services as a solution to their problems, not just like, oh, here's a thing. 00:30:04.400 --> 00:30:28.000 So, for example, you know, whether I'm talking to a 65-year-old lawn maintenance uh sprinkler guy, or whether I'm talking to a 33-year-old marketing director at a tech company, they both kind of understand now, like, yeah, there are ways I can push a button or talk to a thing and get this done. 00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:35.519 But I want to make sure that when someone goes to the spot, like you said, there's so much noise now. 00:30:35.519 --> 00:30:38.480 Like, I want to make sure, is it the best it can be? 00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:41.920 Is there like a formula that we're following? 00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:45.119 Is is this really well thought out? 00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:49.519 Or am I or someone else just kind of like, oh, I like that. 00:30:49.519 --> 00:30:53.119 So is there strategy behind what we're doing? 00:30:53.119 --> 00:30:55.759 And I feel like we talk about that a lot. 00:30:55.759 --> 00:30:59.920 And then when I get on to the actual conversation with them, we talk about that too. 00:30:59.920 --> 00:31:03.759 Like how there's a formula that actually makes a website work. 00:31:03.759 --> 00:31:06.240 Turns out this has been studied. 00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:09.759 Turns out you have two seconds to build trust. 00:31:09.759 --> 00:31:12.720 You want to answer three questions in those two seconds. 00:31:12.720 --> 00:31:14.319 Next up, there's a section. 00:31:14.319 --> 00:31:15.119 And guess what? 00:31:15.119 --> 00:31:17.200 Apple does this, Target does this. 00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:22.000 Every Fortune 500 company now follows this exact same framework and method and model. 00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:27.599 And so I feel like if you can kind of position that, like, hey, the tool doesn't even really matter anymore. 00:31:27.599 --> 00:31:36.720 Like Divi5, WordPress, it'll all eventually get to equatable, the same like speed, whatever, where the differences will be so marginal. 00:31:36.720 --> 00:31:38.400 The AI will eventually get there. 00:31:38.400 --> 00:31:41.359 Same thing with any way to build a website. 00:31:41.359 --> 00:31:54.079 But are we building our websites with best human practice, best SEO practice, making sure that we're positioning our things in the right order, making sure that those things are well structured. 00:31:54.079 --> 00:31:59.039 I think that piece is what people are maybe understanding more out of the box. 00:31:59.039 --> 00:32:09.200 And it doesn't, it's not that hard to kind of convince them of like, yeah, websites are done a million ways, just like a car, but do we want to have someone who does this all day, every day? 00:32:09.200 --> 00:32:16.079 And I I feel like people are are much much more into that idea of just like, yeah, you're the guy, just take care of it for me. 00:32:16.400 --> 00:32:32.160 Yeah, and I think um just put a cap on this point, like what I'm seeing is most of the builders, most platforms, even like Wix, which was for years the DIY builder, they're moving towards really pushing Wix Studio, which is not for DIYers. 00:32:32.160 --> 00:32:43.839 Even Divi, as you know, like when when John and I got into the Divi world around the same time, he was a little preceding me, Divi was kind of known as like the DIY builder for WordPress. 00:32:43.839 --> 00:32:44.400 Yeah, yeah. 00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:48.319 Divi5 is anything but a DIY builder for WordPress. 00:32:48.319 --> 00:32:50.880 It's very like pro-driven. 00:32:51.119 --> 00:32:52.880 It's like Photoshop, it's like Figma. 00:32:52.880 --> 00:33:03.519 Yeah, it's like that's and that's the other thing

about these DIY things now, to your point, is it's like they're so, I don't want to say bloat, but like the the dashboard, it looks like a spaceship. 00:33:03.519 --> 00:33:09.359 And so when people get in there to start editing their site now, they're like, oh my gosh, there's too many options, I'm afraid. 00:33:09.359 --> 00:33:09.759 Boom. 00:33:09.759 --> 00:33:13.359 Versus like the builders back then were like a big blue button, click it. 00:33:13.359 --> 00:33:14.799 Now choose three options. 00:33:15.039 --> 00:33:15.519 Spot on. 00:33:15.519 --> 00:33:17.119 The spaceship analogy is spot on. 00:33:17.119 --> 00:33:21.039 I actually I think AI builders are replacing DIY builders. 00:33:21.039 --> 00:33:22.079 I think that's what's happening. 00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:23.359 Yes, yes. 00:33:23.920 --> 00:33:31.680 Um, but you get to the point where, like, yeah, there may be some like super quote unquote simple landing pages and sites that AI is fine for. 00:33:31.680 --> 00:33:40.319 But if you're a pro business and you need long-term scalability, manageability, all this stuff, it's crucial. 00:33:40.319 --> 00:33:48.240 So, real quick on that, Jake, um, what's what's your your average price point for projects, which makes $99 a month a lot easier to sell? 00:33:48.240 --> 00:33:51.519 Are you guys still is five to seven K like? 00:33:51.519 --> 00:33:52.960 Yeah, that's good. 00:33:52.960 --> 00:33:53.680 That's healthy. 00:33:53.839 --> 00:33:54.880 I itemize everything. 00:33:54.880 --> 00:33:56.799 So we start about $2,000. 00:33:56.799 --> 00:34:02.079 If you want to work with our design team, if you want John, good old Johnny Boy on the project, it starts at $5,000. 00:34:02.079 --> 00:34:03.680 Then who's writing the content? 00:34:03.680 --> 00:34:04.240 Are we? 00:34:04.240 --> 00:34:05.279 We itemize for that. 00:34:05.279 --> 00:34:06.720 How many pages are we doing? 00:34:06.720 --> 00:34:07.920 We itemize for that. 00:34:07.920 --> 00:34:14.400 Um, about $300 per page if we're building a really fancy page, about $100 per page if we're just cloning that page and going on. 00:34:14.400 --> 00:34:20.239 So at this scale, I've itemized things down that are very, very specific, but very helpful for our team. 00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:22.639 So our proposals are very detailed. 00:34:22.639 --> 00:34:24.480 AI's really help with that too. 00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:28.159 A before and after site map, exactly the pages we're gonna do. 00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:31.039 Yeah, most of those projects are about in that range. 00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:34.239 Um, we can help you for like 2,000. 00:34:34.239 --> 00:34:36.960 We can help you for 20,000. 00:34:36.960 --> 00:34:43.119 Depends on how many pages we're building and you know, how many mock-ups we're doing, how many versions we're doing. 00:34:43.119 --> 00:34:47.599 Um, and I and I try to educate the client through all that, but yeah, we itemize it all. 00:34:47.599 --> 00:34:49.199 That's about our price point. 00:34:49.199 --> 00:35:01.199 And um, let's see, our smallest little project that is just a knock, knock out of the park, little local uh drywall patching company that just does buku numbers. 00:35:01.199 --> 00:35:03.119 It's called uh Patch Pros. 00:35:03.119 --> 00:35:07.679 It's in Lincoln, and it's just like the guy for like drywall patching. 00:35:07.679 --> 00:35:09.280 There's like not even another option. 00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:12.000 It's like, yeah, you need just call patch pros. 00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:22.320 And it got sold to uh another family, and they're they're literally just if they were Nick, my buddy, it would have just been done in AI, you know. 00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:26.159 It's literally like, hey, we want to follow the story brand formula. 00:35:26.159 --> 00:35:29.920 It's one page, just needs to be fast and snappy. 00:35:29.920 --> 00:35:32.719 And oh yeah, patch pros, I'm on the site. 00:35:32.719 --> 00:35:34.079 Oh yeah, this is professional. 00:35:34.079 --> 00:35:35.440 I must be where I'm supposed to be. 00:35:35.440 --> 00:35:37.119 Click, then you're there. 00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:47.039 $2,000 to follow the story brand process, write the content, design, develop, ship, and then $59 or $99 a month to host and maintain. 00:35:47.039 --> 00:36:01.599 So $59 is our hosting, maintenance, security, um training, not support, because if you want support, $99 a month for us to log into your site, make changes um for an hour a month. 00:36:01.760 --> 00:36:03.440 So we roll it. 00:36:03.440 --> 00:36:10.880 Do you have more um robust or complex support plan options other than just the retainers and bulk of hours that you might sell? 00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:19.440 Um, we so okay, so here's the trap that we almost fell into is the add-on trap, right? 00:36:19.440 --> 00:36:26.639 Like, hey, uh if you want AI on your site, like that's an extra $5 a month. 00:36:26.639 --> 00:36:34.000 Or hey, if you're really cranking out a ton of stuff and you're doing a lot of traffic, like that's extra amount. 00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:38.719 Or, or hey, if you want compression, you want to beat this, like that's an extra amount. 00:36:38.719 --> 00:36:41.599 We tried that for like a couple years and it was just like a mess. 00:36:41.599 --> 00:36:42.719 We just didn't like it. 00:36:42.719 --> 00:36:45.920 And so transparency just always wins. 00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:49.920 It all it makes the business owner feel like, hey, you're not just trying to nickel and dye me. 00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:55.519 It makes you feel like you don't have to keep track of all these different packages and how do they fold in. 00:36:55.519 --> 00:36:58.079 And so what do you do instead? 00:36:58.079 --> 00:37:03.519 Um, instead of all those add-on traps, you just have a conversation over time. 00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:11.199 You know, if one site starts to one site out of 50 or 100 starts to have more traffic, I'll usually have a conversation with

them. 00:37:11.199 --> 00:37:13.920 Say, hey, here's actually what our plan says. 00:37:13.920 --> 00:37:15.440 Here's where you're at. 00:37:15.440 --> 00:37:21.039 Um we usually charge more for this, but what do you think we should do about it? 00:37:21.039 --> 00:37:26.400 Like, do you do you wanna up like $10 a month to like account for that? 00:37:26.400 --> 00:37:31.360 Or do we want to like do some type of a trade or do you want to trim some stuff back? 00:37:31.360 --> 00:37:32.639 Like there's a ton of options. 00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:33.360 Here's where we're at. 00:37:33.360 --> 00:37:34.719 Where do you think we should do? 00:37:34.719 --> 00:37:36.239 And here's what I think we should do. 00:37:36.239 --> 00:37:37.440 You know, usually I give them that. 00:37:37.440 --> 00:37:39.199 So you do that usually works really well too. 00:37:39.440 --> 00:37:42.239 So more of a custom approach to anything above the 99. 00:37:42.960 --> 00:37:49.760 Yeah, like we have one, actually, we have five clients on what we call our prime plan, which is $300 a month. 00:37:49.760 --> 00:37:53.760 And that essentially is just like hosting and then a bucket of hours. 00:37:53.760 --> 00:38:02.800 But then we have a food blogger who does Buku numbers that that like gets, I think her site gets like 200,000 visits a month or something. 00:38:02.800 --> 00:38:09.199 So so she has to have her own artillery cloud server. 00:38:09.199 --> 00:38:13.199 Same thing with we host and manage uh prey.org. 00:38:13.199 --> 00:38:14.719 How about that for a domain name? 00:38:14.719 --> 00:38:15.119 Wow. 00:38:15.119 --> 00:38:17.119 It's like worth like 1.4 million. 00:38:17.119 --> 00:38:19.840 It's a it's a big church in on the East Coast. 00:38:19.840 --> 00:38:22.159 Uh, good old Divi, good old WordPress. 00:38:22.159 --> 00:38:24.800 But they're on their own site ground server. 00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:28.559 And so we could have done the whole nickel and dime, try to figure that out. 00:38:28.559 --> 00:38:34.480 But I was just like, hey guys, your site's doing crazy numbers, insane numbers, well beyond average. 00:38:34.480 --> 00:38:37.840 Um how about you just buy your own server through us? 00:38:37.840 --> 00:38:39.280 We'll just charge cost. 00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:48.000 So they pay $99 per month for their own cloud server, and then they pay our gold plant, which is like the maintenance, the support. 00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:53.519 So yeah, they're paying $200 a month, but they're like paying for their own supplies. 00:38:53.519 --> 00:38:58.000 So we kind of gave them the wholesale rate and they felt like we kind of hooked them up, which we did. 00:38:58.320 --> 00:38:59.679 Two quick questions here, Jake. 00:38:59.679 --> 00:39:00.639 I know we're tight on time. 00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:01.679 I'm so I apologize. 00:39:01.679 --> 00:39:03.280 I was running a little behind today on this one. 00:39:03.360 --> 00:39:04.239 Uh, no worries. 00:39:04.239 --> 00:39:05.679 We can we can roll a little bit. 00:39:05.920 --> 00:39:07.840 Do you have a hard stop right at news? 00:39:08.079 --> 00:39:08.639 No, I'm okay. 00:39:08.639 --> 00:39:10.000 It's just my our team meeting. 00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:11.119 I'll tell them I'll be a little late. 00:39:11.280 --> 00:39:13.360 Oh, we're for the great and powerful Josh Hall. 00:39:13.360 --> 00:39:15.039 We got a couple more hours, then we're good. 00:39:15.039 --> 00:39:15.840 That's right. 00:39:15.840 --> 00:39:28.719 Did you guys ever venture into or have you done any sort of like growth plan or digital marketing plan for your clients to help them grow their websites? 00:39:28.719 --> 00:39:33.920 Whether it's SEO, whether it's lead generation, converge rate optimization, email. 00:39:33.920 --> 00:39:37.920 What's that look like in relation to how you're doing your maintenance plans? 00:39:38.239 --> 00:39:39.599 Oh, such a great question. 00:39:39.599 --> 00:39:41.599 Man, we've been down this road a million times. 00:39:41.599 --> 00:39:43.840 Like you take two steps and then you step back. 00:39:43.840 --> 00:39:45.760 I didn't like that experience. 00:39:45.760 --> 00:39:53.360 And then, you know, you get your energy, you're get your excitement up again and like, oh, we could really help people and we could really uh charge for this. 00:39:53.360 --> 00:39:56.559 So this would be a great recurring revenue uh option for us. 00:39:56.559 --> 00:40:00.320 And then you run down that path and then oh, I didn't like that, and then you run back. 00:40:00.320 --> 00:40:01.920 That's kind of how it's been for us. 00:40:01.920 --> 00:40:05.360 And what I mean by that is we are designers. 00:40:05.360 --> 00:40:09.679 We are really good at designing web pages. 00:40:09.679 --> 00:40:19.679 Um, sometimes graphics, if you really, really need it and you and you're nice to us, we'll help you with graphics, but otherwise, web pages and logos. 00:40:19.679 --> 00:40:21.360 We do a lot of branding things now. 00:40:21.360 --> 00:40:23.280 So design is our thing. 00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:25.039 So, what does that mean? 00:40:25.039 --> 00:40:32.880 That means we could do SEO, we could do ads, we could do campaigns, we could do email campaigns for clients. 00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:34.159 Just wasn't our thing. 00:40:34.159 --> 00:40:35.119 We just didn't like it. 00:40:35.119 --> 00:40:36.800 We couldn't find anything that we liked. 00:40:36.800 --> 00:40:42.719 So we have contacts, uh, every little nook and cranny of every little service that you'd want. 00:40:42.719 --> 00:40:50.079 Our thing is hey, is that person an expert at their craft, photography, videography, SEO? 00:40:50.079 --> 00:40:52.400 I have a guy who just does schema now. 00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:54.880 Like that's all he focuses on is like web schema. 00:40:54.880 --> 00:40:56.079 He's like the guy. 00:40:56.079 --> 00:40:58.239 He's like there when it when it was started. 00:40:58.239 --> 00:41:00.000

Literally, he was in the room when it started. 00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:01.599 What a great contact. 00:41:01.599 --> 00:41:02.480 I know. 00:41:02.880 --> 00:41:08.639 So if every web designer needs a schema nerd in their corner, David, who is like, yeah, yeah. 00:41:08.639 --> 00:41:10.400 I was like, what the hell is schema? 00:41:10.400 --> 00:41:12.400 And he's like, oh, dude, let me show you. 00:41:12.400 --> 00:41:13.199 Oh, dude. 00:41:13.199 --> 00:41:15.440 Oh, this is go back the curtain on this. 00:41:15.440 --> 00:41:16.400 It's like the matrix. 00:41:16.480 --> 00:41:18.400 Yeah, like it is like the matrix, man. 00:41:18.559 --> 00:41:20.079 And AI is gobbling that up. 00:41:20.079 --> 00:41:20.639 Uh-huh. 00:41:20.639 --> 00:41:25.039 You didn't know this world of numbers behind the screen of the internet, yeah. 00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:26.239 Seriously. 00:41:26.239 --> 00:41:28.000 So, what does that mean? 00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:31.679 I hope to be everyone's website fiduciary. 00:41:31.679 --> 00:41:32.960 I love that word. 00:41:33.280 --> 00:41:34.239 That's cool. 00:41:34.480 --> 00:41:36.719 Um, let's have a conversation about it. 00:41:36.719 --> 00:41:38.079 What are you struggling with? 00:41:38.079 --> 00:41:44.960 Oh, do you think Facebook ads would be really killer for you because you're a tech company and you need to grow a ton of daily active users? 00:41:44.960 --> 00:41:46.239 You should talk to this guy. 00:41:46.239 --> 00:41:48.800 He's great at Facebook ads hacking. 00:41:48.800 --> 00:41:50.719 I'll build the landing page. 00:41:50.719 --> 00:41:57.440 I'm not going to charge you for that contact introduction, but I'm sticking with what I know hosting, maintenance, security support. 00:41:57.440 --> 00:42:00.559 Your website's gonna be fast, it's gonna be secure, it's gonna be awesome. 00:42:00.719 --> 00:42:01.360 Yeah. 00:42:01.760 --> 00:42:04.000 And from there, let's have a conversation. 00:42:04.320 --> 00:42:15.440 This is so good, Jake, because it it reinforces what I've been saying for years, which is you can have an amazing business just being a designer, a really good designer and supporting your clients. 00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:27.599 Now, the caveat to that is at scale with this model, with a $5,000 average price point and $99 per month, it takes a while to get six figures and multi-six figures. 00:42:27.599 --> 00:42:34.639 But once you're at scale and you have your systems dialed in, it can be a wonderful breezy life and you can have a very modest team like you guys have built. 00:42:34.639 --> 00:42:56.719 So one I I've had to be really careful on trending on this because uh I I'm at the same time a proponent of helping clients build their business via their website with some sort of growth plan, which could be again SEO, could be local SEO, could be national SEO, could be long keyword research type stuff, it could be converted optimization, it could be lead generation with email. 00:42:56.719 --> 00:43:03.679 It absolutely could be ads and marketing, could be strategy, but that's only if you want to have like a couple dozen clients. 00:43:03.679 --> 00:43:30.559 So I kind of feel like the way I've seen the industry go, and this is important for this with maintenance plans, is I think you kind of need to decide do you want to go the artillery route and eventually have hundreds of clients paying, you know, two, five, ten thousand and have a maintenance plan and stop there and constrain yourself from being a digital marketer consultant and have a really good business model that's stable, knowing it's gonna take time to work up to that. 00:43:30.559 --> 00:43:35.440 You and John didn't start this and make you know $250,000 a year in six months. 00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:36.880 It takes time to build that up. 00:43:36.880 --> 00:43:39.679 But once you get to that spot, you guys can scale like you've done. 00:43:39.679 --> 00:43:46.880 Or if you need to make a lot more money faster, you need to have high end websites andor some sort of growth plan to get you there. 00:43:46.880 --> 00:43:49.440 But I do love that both work. 00:43:49.440 --> 00:43:53.280 You know, like you really web designers can choose which route they want to go to. 00:43:53.280 --> 00:43:59.039 Or you can have one particular, like I have a student, April, who loves email marketing. 00:43:59.039 --> 00:43:59.760 That's her growth. 00:43:59.760 --> 00:44:03.119 She doesn't go far into SEO, doesn't go to conversory optimization. 00:44:03.119 --> 00:44:04.159 It's email marketing. 00:44:04.159 --> 00:44:04.719 She loves it. 00:44:04.719 --> 00:44:05.519 She's great at that. 00:44:05.519 --> 00:44:08.400 Sam, one of my members, loves local SEO. 00:44:08.400 --> 00:44:09.679 That's his growth plan. 00:44:09.679 --> 00:44:14.079 I have some members, we have a member doing cover optimization, and she loves that. 00:44:14.079 --> 00:44:16.639 But it's not email marketing and it's not SEO. 00:44:16.639 --> 00:44:23.679 So I'll stop there, but I just wanted to say I really appreciate hearing that you guys have dabbled into that world and realized this is what we do. 00:44:23.679 --> 00:44:24.639 We like it. 00:44:24.639 --> 00:44:25.280 It works. 00:44:25.280 --> 00:44:26.400 We're making a lot of money. 00:44:26.400 --> 00:44:27.199 Everyone's happy. 00:44:27.199 --> 00:44:28.239 Life is good. 00:44:28.639 --> 00:44:30.000 Yeah, man, you nailed it. 00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.559 Really well said uh after years and years of just having so many conversations. 00:44:34.559 --> 00:44:35.840 I'm talking to you, Josh. 00:44:35.840 --> 00:44:37.519 I mean, you just you nailed it. 00:44:37.519 --> 00:44:38.400 It's absolutely right. 00:44:38.400 --> 00:44:42.400 Like you can obviously you can't be the man in everything. 00:44:42.400 --> 00:44:44.079 So who are you? 00:44:44.079 --> 00:44:45.599 Who are you? 00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:46.400 Who who? 00:44:46.400 --> 00:44:50.000 And then you know

that you can essentially have two options. 00:44:50.000 --> 00:45:04.960 You can stop doing the thing that you're doing, which by the way, there's this little quote that I read that was like, you'll either like something to get to know it fully yourself, or you'll pay someone to teach it to you, or pay someone to do it. 00:45:04.960 --> 00:45:06.320 Like that's just so true. 00:45:06.320 --> 00:45:15.280 Like, either you're gonna get to know every little nook and cranny of design or SEO because that's your thing, or you'll pay someone else to do it. 00:45:15.280 --> 00:45:18.400 And like just don't try to kid yourself on that. 00:45:18.400 --> 00:45:22.719 So, where does that put me as a business owner or you, listener? 00:45:22.719 --> 00:45:25.760 Well, you can have it be your growth plan, like you said. 00:45:25.760 --> 00:45:26.880 I love that idea. 00:45:26.880 --> 00:45:27.679 Hey, this is me. 00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:29.599 I'm great at SEO, I love this thing. 00:45:29.599 --> 00:45:32.559 I've spent a ton of time refining this thing. 00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:33.760 This is my thing. 00:45:33.760 --> 00:45:38.960 We're gonna design the site, we're gonna build the site, and then I'm gonna show you the growth over time. 00:45:38.960 --> 00:45:39.920 I love that. 00:45:39.920 --> 00:45:53.440 The other option is you have a Rolodex of people who have you have had conversations with and who have you who have done work for you, and you realize that they're an expert in their field, and then you refer and take a cut of the referral. 00:45:53.440 --> 00:45:54.400 That's very fair. 00:45:54.400 --> 00:45:55.760 That's what we do. 00:45:55.760 --> 00:45:57.840 Um, you can do that way. 00:45:57.840 --> 00:46:03.440 Or the last option is you can find that referral person and you can hire them. 00:46:03.440 --> 00:46:05.280 And that is a huge risk. 00:46:05.280 --> 00:46:20.000 But if you have um the uh maybe the fire in your belly to go and get the revenue required to keep that revenue, that that specific key person on your team, um, that could be a really good option. 00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:21.199 I'll give you a quick story. 00:46:21.199 --> 00:46:28.480 Downeystrategy.com, Brittany Downey, is one of our key affiliate copywriter strategists. 00:46:28.480 --> 00:46:36.880 Like if anyone wants, usually 25 employees or more, want someone to write their content, give them brand voice, strategy, marketing strategy over time. 00:46:36.880 --> 00:46:38.480 Brittany is who you got to hire. 00:46:38.480 --> 00:46:40.079 Shout out Britney Downey. 00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:50.400 I wish I would have hired her when she was at Swanson Russell, a marketing firm in the Midwest, but I was too uh too late and she's too killer at what she does. 00:46:50.400 --> 00:46:53.280 So she went and high, started her own business, and she's an entrepreneur. 00:46:53.280 --> 00:46:54.719 She probably would have started her own business anyway. 00:46:54.719 --> 00:46:55.039 Yeah. 00:46:55.039 --> 00:46:56.800 But all that to say, those are your options. 00:46:56.800 --> 00:47:00.239 And don't, you know, don't try to be everything for everyone. 00:47:00.239 --> 00:47:09.599 Make friends in your industry because sooner or later you're gonna have them kick in over clients because this person needs email marketing and you focused on doing that. 00:47:09.599 --> 00:47:11.760 You're that guy or gal. 00:47:12.400 --> 00:47:13.440 Yeah, I love this, man. 00:47:13.440 --> 00:47:17.920 It's a really important message for people to hear, especially those who are earlier on in the journey. 00:47:17.920 --> 00:47:33.519 Um, although even maybe even more so important for folks who are established like yourself, it's like it can be so tempting, like you said, to like, oh, maybe we should do SEO plans or local SEO management, and maybe we should do conversory optimization, maybe we should do email marketing or ads. 00:47:33.519 --> 00:47:39.920 But unless you love it, it is better to just have a partner with that. 00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:43.119 And I mean, that's one of the main reasons I started Web Designer Pro. 00:47:43.119 --> 00:47:45.119 It's an instant network of partners. 00:47:45.119 --> 00:47:46.719 I should probably put that on the sales page. 00:47:46.719 --> 00:47:48.480 Yeah, make new friends, dude. 00:47:48.480 --> 00:47:50.559 You you don't even have to go find them, they're in pro. 00:47:50.559 --> 00:47:52.159 Like you need SEO people, boom. 00:47:52.159 --> 00:47:54.960 You need CRO people, boom, email market people, boom. 00:47:54.960 --> 00:47:57.599 So I love that reminder. 00:47:57.599 --> 00:48:06.719 Um, and likewise, some people really like SEO or really like email, and websites just a part of what they do, an important part, but that works too. 00:48:06.719 --> 00:48:14.639 But I I think the reality is there's so many um tentacles of a successful web presence. 00:48:14.639 --> 00:48:17.679 The home is the website. 00:48:17.679 --> 00:48:24.320 So what you guys are doing, well, you're building the homes, and then that's right, you can hire contractors for the rest. 00:48:24.320 --> 00:48:27.440 Um, and real quick, 500 plus sites. 00:48:27.440 --> 00:48:30.000 Your team, who's managing that many sites? 00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:32.480 Is it who'd you say is on your team doing that? 00:48:32.719 --> 00:48:33.039 Yeah. 00:48:33.039 --> 00:48:37.599 So John uh he doesn't build sites with us anymore unless you pay that extra fee. 00:48:37.599 --> 00:48:41.920 So he just pretty much handles a lot of the maintenance questions and the billing. 00:48:41.920 --> 00:48:44.639 And then he is helping with a startup right now. 00:48:44.639 --> 00:48:45.760 It's called Funnel. 00:48:45.760 --> 00:48:47.199 That's a lot of fun. 00:48:47.199 --> 00:48:48.880 Um, there's a pun for it. 00:48:48.880 --> 00:48:52.320 If you go to funnel.live, you'll you'll figure out what that is. 00:48:52.320 --> 00:48:53.599 Uh, but that's what he's

doing. 00:48:53.599 --> 00:48:55.039 So John and I co-own. 00:48:55.039 --> 00:48:57.519 And then my wife Haley, she's still project manager. 00:48:57.519 --> 00:49:02.480 We have a couple interns who are helping us out as we step away for uh baby number two. 00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:03.199 Yes, can we do that? 00:49:03.199 --> 00:49:04.719 Otherwise, we've got thank you, thank you. 00:49:05.039 --> 00:49:10.719 You're probably gonna come out right around or right after when when little Kramer, when little Kramer two comes. 00:49:10.719 --> 00:49:12.239 So can't wait. 00:49:12.320 --> 00:49:13.119 It's gonna be fun. 00:49:13.119 --> 00:49:16.639 Uh, and then we've got Sierra, our head designer. 00:49:16.639 --> 00:49:22.000 We've got Liam on our team, who is just the absolute legend. 00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:31.119 We've got Clara, who does all of our hosting, mate, and and maintenance kind of first line of attack, and then uh yeah, she's awesome. 00:49:31.119 --> 00:49:33.519 Kind of director of client success, if you will. 00:49:33.519 --> 00:49:34.159 Gotcha. 00:49:34.159 --> 00:49:38.320 Um, like I said, Haley does all of the kind of project management for our current. 00:49:39.039 --> 00:49:42.719 So who's updating plugins and doing like the literal stuff through Infinity? 00:49:42.719 --> 00:49:44.159 Uh Clara is right now. 00:49:44.159 --> 00:49:45.519 Clara, okay. 00:49:45.519 --> 00:49:46.800 Yeah. 00:49:46.800 --> 00:49:49.679 And then support requests go through. 00:49:49.679 --> 00:49:51.360 Do you guys have a support line? 00:49:51.760 --> 00:49:52.880 We have we use Help Scout. 00:49:52.880 --> 00:49:53.440 Help Scout. 00:49:53.440 --> 00:49:59.280 It's just goes through a gravity form on our site into Help Scout, and Clara manages it. 00:49:59.280 --> 00:50:23.199 And then if it needs a designer or needs to go up, then we just assign it in our base camp project artillery support, and it goes to either me or Liam or Sierra or and then we also have a couple other uh subcontractors locally that like we Kyle Downey, um distantly related to the previous down Downey I mentioned. 00:50:23.199 --> 00:50:28.000 Um he does a lot of builds for us, just white label. 00:50:28.159 --> 00:50:31.119 Um that family then, yeah. 00:50:31.440 --> 00:50:33.280 Yeah, they were all homeschooled. 00:50:33.280 --> 00:50:37.760 So now they're all entrepreneurs and creative and heck yeah, dude. 00:50:37.760 --> 00:50:38.719 Makes you think. 00:50:39.039 --> 00:50:39.360 I know. 00:50:39.360 --> 00:50:47.519 I'm actually yeah, I'm hoping to have a homeschooler on the podcast here soon, uh, who my wife follows because we're exploring that path. 00:50:47.599 --> 00:50:49.360 Um I was homeschooled until seventh grade. 00:50:49.360 --> 00:50:51.199 Haley was homeschooled until the ninth grade. 00:50:51.360 --> 00:50:52.400 Oh wow, how about that? 00:50:52.559 --> 00:50:54.400 So we were only half-baked homeschoolers. 00:50:54.559 --> 00:50:55.519 Half-baked homeschoolers. 00:50:55.519 --> 00:50:59.280 So just because weird and that's a whole nother combo we might need to have, man. 00:50:59.280 --> 00:51:00.800 But Jake, this has been great, dude. 00:51:00.800 --> 00:51:05.280 I'm so thrilled for you guys to see your continued success, slow and steady. 00:51:05.280 --> 00:51:06.719 Um killing it. 00:51:06.719 --> 00:51:09.679 I have one final question before your team call. 00:51:09.679 --> 00:51:18.079 What would you say to the web designers who are being pulled in different directions? 00:51:18.079 --> 00:51:31.280 And are like imagine you what would you tell Jake six, seven years ago who was like, Oh, I maybe I should be ads and marketing or SEO or what would you tell them if you feel like this is the right path for them? 00:51:31.280 --> 00:51:32.800 What do they need to hear? 00:51:33.119 --> 00:51:34.400 Um yeah, there's two things. 00:51:34.400 --> 00:51:41.119 Number one, good old micro, don't follow uh your passions. 00:51:41.119 --> 00:51:44.079 Follow opportunity and bring your passion with you. 00:51:44.079 --> 00:51:49.119 When I met John, I I didn't think I was gonna be a uh web designer. 00:51:49.119 --> 00:51:54.239 I wanted to be, I think I at that point I wanted to be like, who knows what I wanted to be? 00:51:54.239 --> 00:51:58.159 And who knows what I'm gonna be when I grow up now. 00:51:58.159 --> 00:51:59.679 No, just kidding. 00:51:59.679 --> 00:52:00.639 I'm a web designer. 00:52:00.639 --> 00:52:02.559 I've kind of landed on that after 10 years. 00:52:02.559 --> 00:52:08.480 But that brings me to my second point, which is okay, I met John and he really helped me down this path. 00:52:08.480 --> 00:52:11.920 But then point number two is I just really liked it. 00:52:11.920 --> 00:52:12.960 I loved it. 00:52:12.960 --> 00:52:16.480 Like, I did not think of myself as a designer when I started. 00:52:16.480 --> 00:52:22.400 I even remember remember having a conversation with John talking about like, how do you even get started designing a website? 00:52:22.400 --> 00:52:27.280 Like, I'm not a designer, I'm terrible, can only draw like stick figures. 00:52:27.280 --> 00:52:33.119 And he's like, Man, that's just like me for real. 00:52:33.119 --> 00:52:34.480 Like, let's work together. 00:52:34.480 --> 00:52:38.559 And he just he was my mentor and really just kind of pulled me along through music. 00:52:38.559 --> 00:52:43.199 So I definitely wouldn't be here unless it was like a friendship and a hobby. 00:52:43.199 --> 00:52:48.400 But that's kind of like the final little point I'll say like follow opportunity. 00:52:48.400 --> 00:52:52.800 Is it something that you actually really dig doing, like really like doing? 00:52:52.800 --> 00:52:57.199 Like, I still really like websites, it's they're awesome. 00:52:57.199 --> 00:53:15.679 And then, you know, number three is like do over time, can you see yourself um can you see yourself be getting to know this more and more and more

where you can start to be kind of like a like a thought leader and and give content and give help and hold it all with an open hand? 00:53:15.679 --> 00:53:24.960 Um so find, yeah, find what you like, find find the people that you can do it with, because you gotta have multiple people in your corner, you can't do it alone. 00:53:24.960 --> 00:53:27.519 I don't know any web designers that are just doing it alone. 00:53:27.519 --> 00:53:30.559 They'll have contacts and the network and people. 00:53:30.559 --> 00:53:43.119 Um, and then are you um are are you are you able to continue forward with that in in with a like a process that is sustainable? 00:53:43.119 --> 00:53:49.360 Um so that's a little bit about my story and kind of how I stuck with it. 00:53:49.360 --> 00:53:54.880 Followed opportunity, definitely didn't follow like my passions, but I found it. 00:53:54.880 --> 00:53:59.840 Love the guy I was with, you know, I found it through my hobby. 00:53:59.840 --> 00:54:09.679 So if you're a chess player, like you'll you maybe playing chess is the greatest way to find like your next project manager because they're kind of wired like you. 00:54:09.679 --> 00:54:15.199 John's a musician, uh-huh and so am I, and so we're kind of wired the same. 00:54:15.199 --> 00:54:18.480 And he's also a homeschooled kid and weird like me. 00:54:18.480 --> 00:54:20.960 And so there you go. 00:54:20.960 --> 00:54:22.159 Does that answer that? 00:54:22.480 --> 00:54:23.679 Sure enough, sure enough, man. 00:54:23.679 --> 00:54:30.079 Again, episode 49 is worth going back to for folks who want to hear a little bit more about how you guys are selling these plans and digging into it. 00:54:30.079 --> 00:54:31.199 But this has been great, man. 00:54:31.199 --> 00:54:35.760 Really appreciate catching up and and seeing where you guys are at today and what's continued to work for you. 00:54:35.760 --> 00:54:38.800 It's like not truthfully, not much has changed, which is freaking awesome. 00:54:38.800 --> 00:54:44.079 And the world needs to hear that things that worked five, 10 years ago still work today. 00:54:44.079 --> 00:54:44.960 So it's all good. 00:54:45.199 --> 00:54:45.920 And you know what? 00:54:45.920 --> 00:54:52.559 Like the internet moves fast and slow, and so do people. 00:54:52.559 --> 00:55:01.519 Slow and steady is still like the fundamentals of how almost everything in business works, websites included. 00:55:01.519 --> 00:55:12.000 Like, yeah, the internet they'll always be the next website builder, they'll always be, you know, a growing web flow or repli fan base or whatever. 00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:24.159 But at the end of the day, being able to own what you got and being able to trust the guy who's managing your asset, like that, I think is what people value. 00:55:24.159 --> 00:55:38.079 And that's why I love WordPress, and that's why we try to host at a at a fair rate, is because it puts the client, the business owner, in control, no surprises, and

we'll help you with anything that pops up along the way. 00:55:38.800 --> 00:55:39.760 So awesome, dude. 00:55:39.760 --> 00:55:42.559 All right, I know you got to balance where should people go to connect next. 00:55:42.559 --> 00:55:46.559 We've got artillerymedia.com, and you guys have a new podcast. 00:55:46.800 --> 00:55:49.360 Slow and steady, a podcast by artillery. 00:55:49.360 --> 00:55:53.679 We just released eight episodes, which is just the process of building a website. 00:55:53.679 --> 00:56:01.760 It's eight hours of content, uh, but it allows us to get into all the little nitty-gritty details of our process of building a website. 00:56:01.760 --> 00:56:03.039 But then we have some guests on. 00:56:03.039 --> 00:56:05.039 Josh, you're gonna be a guest here pretty soon. 00:56:05.039 --> 00:56:05.599 Hey-oh. 00:56:05.599 --> 00:56:08.480 And um, that's our podcast. 00:56:08.480 --> 00:56:09.519 Check that out. 00:56:09.519 --> 00:56:12.480 Otherwise, artillery media, give us a shout. 00:56:12.480 --> 00:56:14.880 Email me, Jake at artillerymedia.com. 00:56:14.880 --> 00:56:16.400 Would love to chat with you. 00:56:16.400 --> 00:56:18.159 And until next time. 00:56:18.400 --> 00:56:18.960 Heck yeah, dude. 00:56:18.960 --> 00:56:19.840 Till round three. 00:56:19.840 --> 00:56:25.199 We'll go tell the team I said hey, and uh tell John if he wants to some drum lessons to help him out. 00:56:25.199 --> 00:56:25.519 Let me know. 00:56:25.519 --> 00:56:26.719 I'll give him some drum lessons. 00:56:26.800 --> 00:56:28.480 Hey, yeah, I'll make sure to give him a shout. 00:56:28.480 --> 00:56:29.519 You know what's crazy, Josh? 00:56:29.519 --> 00:56:31.760 He just told me he's like, dude, it's a full circle. 00:56:31.760 --> 00:56:37.199 Peter Furler, the newsboys guy, is now hitting up John because John toured with him for like five years. 00:56:37.599 --> 00:56:38.960 Didn't John build his website? 00:56:39.119 --> 00:56:39.599 Yeah, yeah. 00:56:39.599 --> 00:56:43.679 John's like buddies with him now uh through funnel, the other startup he's doing. 00:56:43.679 --> 00:56:49.360 And now Peter is texting John and asking John for drum like lessons and and tips and stuff. 00:56:49.360 --> 00:56:49.840 That's great. 00:56:49.840 --> 00:56:52.639 And John John called me, he's like, dude, full circle moment. 00:56:52.639 --> 00:56:53.599 Full circle. 00:56:53.840 --> 00:56:54.880 That's awesome. 00:56:55.119 --> 00:56:58.559 The legend himself is texting my boy Jay Wooten. 00:56:58.559 --> 00:56:59.920 That is great. 00:57:00.159 --> 00:57:00.880 Awesome, dude. 00:57:00.880 --> 00:57:02.239 Well, Jay, great catching up, man. 00:57:02.239 --> 00:57:03.440 Tell the team I said hey. 00:57:03.599 --> 00:57:04.880 Hey, good to see you, man. 00:57:04.880 --> 00:57:05.840 Appreciate it. 00:57:06.159 --> 00:57:06.960 So good. 00:57:06.960 --> 00:57:08.480 So, so good. 00:57:08.480 --> 00:57:17.360 Again, this is just the moral of this episode is a reminder that you don't need to be a digital marketing agency if you don't want to be. 00:57:17.360 --> 00:57:25.599 You can be a web designer and focused on high-converting, well-designed websites and support and maintain your website clients month to month. 00:57:25.599 --> 00:57:33.760 And when you do that at scale, you can make a very healthy six and multi-six figure business and have a very lean, mean team. 00:57:33.760 --> 00:57:35.519 And it can be awesome. 00:57:35.519 --> 00:57:41.599 So again, I don't want to deter anyone from doing SEO plans or growth plans or any marketing if you're interested in that. 00:57:41.599 --> 00:57:48.880 But if you're down with a slow and steady growth and delayed gratification, this model is definitely very, very viable. 00:57:48.880 --> 00:57:54.880 And it still works today in 2026, just like it did back in 2016, which is the really cool thing. 00:57:54.880 --> 00:57:55.760 I I needed this. 00:57:55.760 --> 00:57:59.599 I needed their the reminder that all of this still works. 00:57:59.599 --> 00:58:05.119 So I hope this is helpful for you if you're kind of more in my camp and you don't want to be a digital marketing agency. 00:58:05.119 --> 00:58:08.000 So connect with Jake and his partner John. 00:58:08.000 --> 00:58:11.199 You can go to their website, artillerymedia.com. 00:58:11.199 --> 00:58:13.199 They have a new podcast called Slow and Steady. 00:58:13.199 --> 00:58:14.719 Speaking of Slow and Steady. 00:58:14.719 --> 00:58:19.679 And there, it'll be linked in the show notes for this episode at joshhall.co slash 419. 00:58:19.679 --> 00:58:20.800 So head over there. 00:58:20.800 --> 00:58:22.719 Be sure to reach out to Jake and let them know. 00:58:22.719 --> 00:58:25.440 Let him know that you heard him on the Web Design Business Podcast. 00:58:25.440 --> 00:58:27.920 And if this helped you, I'm sure he'd love to hear from you. 00:58:27.920 --> 00:58:29.280 And I would love to hear from you too. 00:58:29.280 --> 00:58:32.159 You can leave a comment at joshhall.co slash 419. 00:58:32.159 --> 00:58:34.320 I do read all podcast comments that come through. 00:58:34.320 --> 00:58:36.079 So let me know if this helped. 00:58:36.079 --> 00:58:39.840 Cheers, my friends, especially those of you who are a little more on me and Jake's camp. 00:58:39.840 --> 00:58:42.719 And we just want to build awesome websites and maintain them and support them. 00:58:42.719 --> 00:58:43.920 So cheers to that. 00:58:43.920 --> 00:58:45.760 All right, my friends, stay subscribed. 00:58:45.760 --> 00:58:48.719 We got some killer episodes ahead, let me tell you. 00:58:48.719 --> 00:58:50.159 So don't go anywhere. 00:58:50.159 --> 00:58:51.039 Uh why would you? 00:58:51.039 --> 00:58:53.119 You're learning how to build your web design business and have fun. 00:58:53.119 --> 00:58:54.000 What's better than that? 00:58:54.000 --> 00:58:54.480 Cheers.