372 - Rebounding from Losing $6k in MRR (in One Week) with Steve Schramm

They say business is like a roller coaster…ups and downs and highs and lows…and “they” couldn’t be more right.

My guest in this chat, friend of the podcast, king of the Subscription Web Design model and founding member of Web Designer Pro Steve Schramm can also confirm.

Recently, he shared a thoughtful, transparent and inspirational post in Pro about how he rebounded from a tough situation when he had over 6k+ in MRR drop within one week.

At the same time, he also landed one of his biggest contracts to date…the emotional highs and lows of entrepreneurship truly are comical sometimes.

But most importantly, we get into exactly WHAT he did when he had the week of 6k down and HOW he began to rebound quickly.

Enjoy.

Enjoy this chat and enjoy the ride of being a web design entrepreneur baby!

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/372

Episode Transcript

Steve Schramm (00:00):
in the blink of an eye, 6200 worth of monthly
income is gone wow and you'rethinking, okay, don't panic.
right, so that was, that waswhere the whole thing started.
Now, that's that wasn't whereit ended, right, like when it,
when it came around to that thatpost that I, that I put in uh

(00:23):
in pro, so that was where itstarted was like with that.
And now one thing I will sayabout me is I'm good under
pressure.
I'm like hypothetical thingscause me a great deal of worry
and anxiety.
Once something becomes real,typically I can move along and
deal with it.
Okay, so within a couple ofweeks I was like you know what

(00:44):
it's going to be.
Fine, I've been working on likea lead flow process and
everything I'm probably going tohave to like let my team sort
of fade into the background alittle bit while.
I take a little bit more of thehands-on work for a little
while.
But thanks to what I teachrecurring revenue,
subscription-based web designyou know we were good.

(01:07):
Welcome to the Web DesignBusiness Podcast with your host,
josh Hall, helping you build aweb design business that gives
you freedom and a lifestyle youlove.

Josh Hall (01:17):
Oh, my friends, the roller coaster that is business,
particularly web design, andentrepreneurship.
My guest in this episoderecently lost over $6,000 per
month in recurring revenue, buthe's rebounded.
In this episode we're going todive into everything that he
learned and what he didimmediately when this happened

(01:40):
because this was all within aspan of a week and, most
importantly, the things he'sdone to give himself a buffer of
MRR monthly recurring revenue.
My guest in this one probablyneeds no introduction If you've
been following the show for awhile Steve Schramm.
He is kind of the king ofsubscription web design.
He's been on the show numeroustimes.
He's a founder of my communityWeb Designer Pro and he has

(02:00):
built up his web design businesswith a subscription web design
model and subscription webdesign recurring revenue is
amazing, but what a lot ofpeople don't talk about is,
while you build it up and get toa certain level, it's awesome,
but that does not mean that it'salways going to be there.
You have to continue toinnovate and in the case of what
Steve went through recently, hejust kind of had a bad week

(02:22):
where two of his biggestaccounts dropped and that was
over 6,000 a month of recurringrevenue.
That was in one week kind ofgone for him, but again he's
rebounded and he had a lot oflessons to share in this one
that I learned from him.
So I know you're going to takethis and be able to apply it to
your business.
Whether you're doing thesubscription web design model or

(02:43):
whether you are doing support,maintenance or growth plans in
your business, the key is youwant to reduce churn and I hope
everything that Steve and I getinto here helps you as well.
You can connect with Steve atsteveshramco.
That is his website, which willlink you out to his courses his
podcast.
He used to have thesubscription web design podcast
that is now rebranded to WebDesign MBA, so give that a go If

(03:11):
you want to listen and learnfor more on Steve, but for right
now, let's hear about how theheck he rebounded from $6,000
down in one week.

Steve Schramm (03:16):
Shivers in my spine Just hearing about that.
Here we go.

Josh Hall (03:21):
Well, Steve, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on
the show again, man, and totake some time to chat about the
roller coaster of business.

Steve Schramm (03:31):
Oh, my goodness, and boy is it a roller coaster.
It is just one day to the next.
You just never know what'sgoing to happen.
But I'm blessed again to behere with you, josh, one of my
favorite people in the world, soI always say yes to this
opportunity.

Josh Hall (03:45):
Well, man, you posted a post at the end of 2024 in
WebCenter Pro.
You're a founding member of Pro, you're one of the many people
in there that just make it whatit is, and this type of post
that you laid out there is oneof the reasons.
I think it's one of the thingsthat makes Pro so different
compared to most onlinecommunities is like sheer

(04:08):
transparency and utter um, Iguess that's it Authenticity,
transparency because I think alot of people, especially as as
coaches, you want to focus onthe bright side of business, but
people need to know that thisis hard and that there are good
months and bad months.
And I just wanted to justbriefly go over what you said

(04:30):
here real quick for everyonewatching and listening, who
isn't in pro, who maybe hasn'tseen this, but you had just
mentioned your.
Your title was therapy,transparency and, hopefully,
encouragement, which Iabsolutely love.
So right there, I'm hookedcopywriting Steve at it again.
And you said in short, I'm notgoing to read, obviously, the
whole thing, but you said therehave been some serious highs,

(04:51):
some serious lows, a lot ofuncertainty, gratefulness,
frustration, joy, pretty muchevery emotion, excitement,
trembling, fear.
You said I'm writing this postfor a few reasons to process, to
vent, to encourage, to seekencouragement, to stay real and
to get over my own pride, andprobably a few more things as

(05:11):
well.
And, in short, I just wanted tolay that out there because that
was the foundation for theroller coaster that you had at
the end of 2024.
So, yeah, give us the what'sthe summary version of of what
you went through that promptedthat post.

Steve Schramm (05:25):
Obviously, I just read the intro but yeah, yeah,
no, that that that's okay, I youknow, and that I'll just.
I'll just give a plug, a, anunsolicited plug here, because
Josh's group, Web Designer Pro,just really is fantastic for
this kind of thing.
I mean, it's, it's, it's theone place on the internet where
I feel pretty comfortable,bearing all.
I mean I'm pretty transparenton my own podcast and stuff, but

(05:46):
but you know I'm not going toget into all the nitty gritty
like I would in Josh's club, soI still keep calling it the club
.
It's not the club anymore, it'sWeb.

Josh Hall (05:53):
Designer Pro.
It's fancy, but it's habit.
You know habit, that's allright.

Steve Schramm (05:58):
So so yeah, I'll, I'll give you the basic rundown
.
So the whole thing sort ofstarted about a month or so
earlier than that post.
I woke up I think it was on aTuesday and I got two emails
that morning, neither of which Iwas kind of thinking were

(06:23):
coming at some point, neither ofwhich I was expecting to happen
quite when they did, andcertainly certainly not both
happening on the same day.
But the long and short of thatis that my two, my two biggest
clients, essentially both theydidn't cancel their service.

(06:48):
They both downgraded to needingmaintenance only because in one
case we had a bigger retainerthat was focused on development
work and then in another case wehad a marketing program with
them.
There was not any hard feelings.
There was not any hard feelings, there was not any huge
problems.
Again, the one company therewas a planned eventuality where

(07:10):
the WordPress site was goingdown and a standalone app that
was being developed was goingout by another company and the
buyout was like a multi-yearprocess and throughout the
majority of the process we hadbeen doing marketing for the

(07:32):
company that had been bought outand essentially that was coming
to a close and they didn't needour marketing services anymore
because the parent company wasgoing to be taking it over.
So, again, a couple of justvery reasonable circumstances,
with no hard feelings oranything like that.
Nevertheless, it's a Tuesdaywhere you wake up and, pretty

(07:53):
much in the blink of an eye,$6,200 worth of monthly income
is gone and you're thinking,okay, don't panic, right, so
that was, that was where thewhole thing started.
Now that's the.
That wasn't where it ended,right, like when it, when I,

(08:14):
when it came around to that thatpost that I that I put in, uh,
in pro, so that was where itstarted was like with that.
And now one thing I will sayabout me is I'm good under
pressure.
I'm like hypothetical thingscause me a great deal of worry
and anxiety.
Once something becomes real,typically I can move along and

(08:35):
deal with it.
Okay, so within a couple ofweeks I was like you know what?
It's going to be?
Fine, I've been working on likea lead flow process and
everything like.
But I'm going to have to like,let my team sort of fade into
the background a little bitwhile I take a little bit more
of the hands-on work for alittle while.
But thanks to what I teachrecurring revenue,
subscription-based web design.

(08:56):
You know we were good.
I mean, we weren't going underlike the money was there to pay
all the bills and everything.
I just you know we had a fewprojects in process to pay all
the bills and everything.
I just you know we had a fewprojects in process and so
figuring out who was going to doall the work related to that
was something to think throughand I worked through it and then
and I don't remember the exact,I should have looked this up,
but I don't remember like theexact events and timing and

(09:18):
everything.
But I think it was like the dayor two before I posted in pro a
client that we had a currentproject for which is also a, you
know, not just my standard 297a month, you know recommended
subscription web design.
This was a bigger project, it'sfor a town and anyway that

(09:39):
project was, which was about twomonths in.
I made a discovery slash, youknow, early administrative error
on and we were nowhere near asfar along in the pro and the
project as we should have beenfor the, for the timeframe, and
so I delivered an update to theclient and the client was
basically like what the heck isthis?
You know this is not what.

(09:59):
What you know, we expected, andwe expected much more than this
, and blah, blah, blah, we needto have a meeting, and so the
pit of my stomach anxiety atthis point is just becoming a
little bit overwhelming.
And then in that same timeperiod, like either the day
after that or whatever, likeright around when I posted in

(10:20):
there, I had six deals that werein the pipeline, which is part
of why I was like, okay, I thinkI can get over the income loss
thing.
I had six deals in the pipeline, five of them closed on one day
, and in that same day Ireceived the biggest single
check.
I'm not going to disclose thenumber here, but I received the
biggest single check for anannual project for a new client

(10:43):
or a new project for a currentclient that I'd ever received in
my life.
So here I am, I've, I'vereceived.
I'll just say this it was tensof thousands of dollars.
I will say that, okay, so Ireceived a check for tens of
thousands of dollars and yetfelt like the biggest failure.

(11:03):
And that was because that wasthe exact same time that the one
client had an issue and you,the one client had an issue of a
, two clients had left, and it'sjust all the roller coasters
and it finally just was like I'mnever getting past this if I
don't write about it Right, anduh.
And so the gist of what I wrotein there was look, the issues

(11:27):
aren't solved yet, we haven'tmade up for the same, you know,
for the recurring revenue.
But like I just need to processand just talk about how I'm
feeling right now.
Maybe somebody else can relate,or maybe sometime down the road
when you need it, it'll be herefor you and yeah, so that's
basically the story of uh thatled up to that post that you
referred to in December.

Josh Hall (11:52):
What was the time period between losing those two
big recurring revenue clientsand then getting the huge wave
of influx of cash?
Was it a couple of weeks span,or what was the time period
between all that?
It was about a month it was, itwas about a month.

Steve Schramm (12:00):
Yeah, it was about a month, it was.
It was just enough to be like,be like whoa.
What are we going to do?
Actually, let me reframe this alittle bit, let me back up a
little bit, because I justremembered something.
I think what happened is I gotnotice about this in early
October.
Okay, so October, november,december I got notice about it

(12:22):
in early October.
That made the last month forthe $2,000 ish a month client,
okay, and then the rest of itwas made up by this other client
and that notice I said, hey,well, by the way, you have like
a 30 day expiring.
You know there's like a 30 daywritten notice that you have to
give us.
So I was able to get one morepayment from them for November,

(12:46):
one more month of service forNovember, and so that kind of
gave me November to think about,like, okay, I got to figure
some things out, I got to figureout how this money is going to
be replaced.
And then by December, of course, I knew that none of that
income was there anymore, and soit was getting really real.
And so then early December iswhen we did have that huge
influx of income come in and weadded some new recurring clients

(13:06):
too.
So it was like the last threemonths of the year were just
like, if I can say this, scaryAF.
I mean they just were scary.

Josh Hall (13:15):
Yeah, I would say something more drastic than that
for sure.
I think.
I mean, look, you're in thispost, all of the emotions you
mentioned uncertainty,gratefulness, frustration, joy,
excitement, trembling, fear,highs and lows.
I mean your month is verycommon in the entrepreneurial

(13:37):
world or just as a businessowner.
I love that we're talking aboutthis, because even with a
subscription style model orrecurring revenue model, if
there are waves or big clientsthat drop off, it still happens.
You still can have feast andfamine with a recurring revenue
model, especially in your casewhen you have a lot of eggs in a

(13:59):
couple baskets.
So I do love that we're talkingabout this.
Steve, I want to drill into thespecifics on this just to hear
about what you did and how youmade it through, especially that
first part.
I have to say, though realquick, it's not uncommon.
I've found I just know thisfrom my experience and talking
with members in pro with havinga single day of emotions like

(14:20):
that.
I remember when we landed thebiggest project we did to date.
At that time, which was $15,000.
I got a call from the clientand he said we were moving
forward.
The same day he called me atnight, and prior to that day my
wife and I.
She had watched a family friend, a little girl, for like a year

(14:42):
and she became kind of like apart of our family and it was
our last day watching her, so itwas kind of an emotional day.
She wasn't going to be around,this was before we had kids and
so like we took her to the parkwe kind of shed some tears
because it was like, oh, we'renever going to ever do this
again with her.
Probably that happened.
And then we got the callbecause Em was pregnant at the
time with our first Bria.
We got the call that after somegenetic testing that Bria did

(15:07):
have a chromosome deletion.
So life-changing news.
Immediately after watching thegirl, after the gal was picked
up, probably not two hours later, the client calls and says hey,
josh, really exciting news,we're going to move forward.
Normally I'd be like that'sawesome, all right, rock and
roll.
But I just remember probably Idon't even remember what I said
we were just kind of in shockabout the stuff with Bria.

(15:30):
That it was.
It was that wide range ofemotions in the same day.
I mean, I tried to keep my shittogether, basically.
But I basically told him likeall right, really excited man
and but I didn't like, I didn'treally feel at all just because
there was such more biggerthings pressing, although it was
really nice when we got thatnews to know, like, all right,
we got a huge wave coming in.
All that to say, man, it's notuncommon.
It seems like for likeeverything to happen on one day.

Steve Schramm (15:52):
Yeah, and and um, I I agree, and that there's
been.
You know I've had in the courseof my business, you know, just
a handful.
I mean maybe, if I'm beinggenerous, three to five.
You know that I can think ofoff the top of my head maybe two
to three days like that, whereit was like you know, where I
got a life-changing email rightthat just totally ruined my day,

(16:14):
or you know, or something, andit sounds weird to have like one
of the worst days in existencebe a day where you got paid a
lot of money and I think there'sa really interesting lesson
there of just how little of lifeis actually about how much
money you make beyond.
You know the basics and the andeverything else it's.
You know it's nice to makemoney.
A hundred percent certainlyhelps, um and uh.

(16:37):
I am uh mucho grateful for thatproject that came in and um, you
know it didn't.
It didn't save my business, butit sure did help my anxiety.
It was like, okay, good, we got, we have months to work with
now of like figuring things out.
You know we can calm down.
I will say one thing that that,you know, made this a little
bit worse for me and this doesnot mean I'm better than another

(17:00):
person or anything who, who,who is dealing with with this.
It doesn't mean that at all.
But one thing that's differentis I also have a role sort of
coaching and educating other webdesigners, and I'm very vocal
about the model that works formy business.
And in fact, after thoseclients left, the first thing I

(17:20):
did was record a podcast episodeabout it.
Right, and that's a whole otherstory.
I actually took a hiatus fromthe podcast for a few months and
that was the last episode thatwas left hanging out there.
The truth was is that I just gotso busy after that season that
I just couldn't justify gettingback to it.
I had to put my head down andget to work.
But it probably looked to mostpeople, like you know, I lost

(17:42):
these clients, my businessfailed and I peaced out.
So part of the emotion of thatwas twofold.
That's why I mentioned the partabout pride.
Part of it was well, not onlydo I like coach other web
designers, I have a podcast.
I like I'm supposed to have mycrap together right, so that I
can, that I can help otherpeople.
But you know, even within yourgroup, within Pro, I have

(18:09):
somewhat of an influence there,and you know, I'm just.
It was really hard to come toterms with the fact that, like
hey, you know, I don't, I don'talways have everything under
control.
You know, as much as we we'dlike to think that we do have
control.
So again, that that just is alittle bit different thing.
Where it's like you know, I, Iwas, I was kind of this is a
little bit dramatic, but I waskind of suffering in public in a
way, right when I was like I'mreally nervous about what this
means for who I am and myvalidation as a business owner.

(18:31):
Does it make me any any, youknow, worse as a coach or
whatever?
And of course, looking back now, objectively, I can reason
through those things and I and Iknow where I stand and know my
value doesn't lie in how muchmoney I make or whether or not I
lose a client.
It's in the experience thatI've gained and how I could
communicate that to others.
But in those moments though,when it's all weighing down on
you, it's hard, it reallypresses in and it just makes you

(18:54):
want to shut down.

Josh Hall (18:55):
And I think the reality is because you are in a
coaching role and kind of anauthority role in web design,
both in pro and with yourpodcast and your subscription
model stuff.
It's like people appreciateauthenticity and transparency,
but people also want to learnfrom and follow people who are
successful, and so it's likefailure doesn't necessarily

(19:18):
attract paying customers.
Um, so I think that's wherelike going into the outset, like
we talked about, customers.
So I think that's where likegoing into the outset, like we
talked about.
I think that's why I really amso glad you shared about that
the roller coaster.
But at the same time, I thinkthat's why so many quote unquote
influencers and authority folksare afraid to share when things

(19:38):
aren't going great becausesuddenly it can look like oh
well, you know, like you justsaid, is that somebody I want to
follow?
But most importantly, things didturn around and you know and I
talked about this I think yousaw recently like I shared my
story with two down revenueyears.
I shared a little bit aboutthat publicly but I didn't let

(19:59):
on to it with exactly wherethings were.
I waited till I was kind ofpast the storm and figured out
the most important lessonslearned through that before.
I shared that full podcastepisode, which is 360, if anyone
wants to go back and listen tothat, because I really drill
into everything I learned frombeing over $100,000 down in a
couple of years, but my bestyear ever was last year in 24.

(20:19):
So it was a lot easier for meto be like, okay, we're back,
I'm fired up, confident, as ever.
Here's what I learned.
So to you, I do appreciate you,steve, being open to share.
You know what you were goingthrough, but I wanted to
specifically talk to you heretoday to find out what you did
to.
Even.
I don't know where things areat today.
I don't know if you'recompletely rebounded, but, most

(20:40):
importantly, I think a lot ofpeople give up when things get
hard.
And the reality is there's areason I don't put easy in any
of my marketing or courses orpodcasts.
It's not easy.
Web design, entrepreneurship,business, being a business owner
it's not easy.
If you want easy, go get a job.
That's.
That can be a lot easier.
So I'm kind of curiousimmediately when you lost those

(21:04):
big recurring revenue, those bigMRR checks coming in.
You mentioned you're good underpressure, which is step number
one get good under pressure.
What did you?
Did you scale your team back?
You mentioned you were talkingabout.
You know what could they do.
What was your like?
What did you do practically inthose first couple of weeks when
you'd lost a ton of revenue andcashflow?

Steve Schramm (21:26):
Yeah, oh, this is , yeah, this is a great question
and I I certainly hope that Ican do it justice, uh, with an
answer, because, uh, you know,frankly, it comes down to just
remembering well, what, what didI do?

Josh Hall (21:39):
I also, it is man.

Steve Schramm (21:42):
It's been a.
It's been a, it's been a totalwhirlwind.
So, right, the first thing thatyou have to do when a moment of
crisis comes is, frankly, youjust have to get out of your
head a little bit and you haveto make a distinction between
what is okay and what isn't okay.

(22:06):
All right.
So, um, it's kind of like ifyou leave the house for a
vacation and, uh, you know, youstart to get this nagging
feeling that you left the stoveon, uh, from breakfast or
whatever, like before you left,and you know you're about to be
an hour away from, you know,from town, and so it's kind of

(22:27):
like, what do you do when thatsituation strikes?
Well, um, if you're reasonablycertain that the oven was left
on or the stove whatever I justsaid was left on your house
could burn down, and so, um,probably wise to check and and
and make sure.

(22:47):
Either have somebody go checkor, if you're still close enough
, turn around and go check tomake sure things are okay.
Maybe a weird analogy, but thepoint I'm getting at is that if
you don't already have a greathandle on where the numbers are
in your business, that's sort ofwhere you have to look.
And again, we're assuming asituation similar to mine, where
you know, I mean I, you know,I'm not qualified to help you if

(23:08):
your crisis is of a differentnature, right Of a family crisis
that happens, or whatever.
I mean, we all deal with thosethings differently and I'm not
qualified to.
But if the crisis is, is youlose a really big client?
You know, then I have somethingto offer here, and the first
step would just be to make surethat you are very clear on your
numbers.
What's the number coming in?

(23:30):
What's the number that has togo out?
What's the amount of?
You know, what are the currentprojects that you have?
What are those things do?
Who do you have working for you?
What roles are they in?
You know, are you by yourself,Right?
So there's all these factors.
Now, for me, are they in?
You know, are you by yourself,right?
So there's all these factors.
Now for me, uh, my business hadgotten to the point where my, uh

(23:55):
, my staff was doing, you know,90 plus percent of the
deliverable work.
And, um, there are, there arebusiness consultants who would,
who would come into my businessand look at my numbers and argue
that, even at my, even at myhighest, um, which is which,
which you know was, was a lotbetter than a lot of web
designers.
Right, there's a lot ofstruggling web designers,
unfortunately, I've been blessedto do very well, okay.

(24:16):
And so there are businessconsultants who would come in
and say that, even at my highestyou know point of revenue and
income, that I should have beendoing all the work myself.
Right, that I shouldn't havehired a team.
Oh, this is good.
It just goes back to the firstpodcast episode that you had me
on back in like April of 2021,where I made the point that I
started scaling early, and Istand by that.

(24:36):
I think, if you're, if, iffreedom is the game you're
playing, I totally stand by it.

Josh Hall (24:41):
I was just thinking well, who the hell consultant
would tell you that youshouldn't hire a workout and be
the owner?

Steve Schramm (24:46):
I would fire them if somebody tells you that,
yeah, there's.
There's things that I've readand seen where people that it's
like if you're not doing aminimum of 250 K a year, then
you shouldn't you shouldn't hireany workout.
Oh that's pish posh.

Josh Hall (25:00):
Losers.

Steve Schramm (25:01):
I agree, I think it's stupid.
That's why I didn't, that's whyI don't do it Right.
But just to make the point oflike, so yeah, I had gotten to
the point where my business wasmostly the most of the actual
work was being done by, by otherpeople and I was just very high
level sort of an editing,editing role and like looking
over things and making sure thework was being done Right, and

(25:24):
so, you know, it's kind of oneof those things where, okay,
when you're looking at finances,you can go look at, like, all
your subscriptions and you couldtry to trim your, your design
subscriptions and your projectmanagement subscriptions and all
that down by by five, 10, $20here.
But if you're paying us, ifyou're paying a team of any kind
, then you know that's where theexpense is.
The expense is in your team,right.

(25:44):
The other things are, you know,not not nearly as significant.
They won't move the needlenearly as fast.

Josh Hall (25:50):
So I wrote an email to.

Steve Schramm (25:52):
I wrote an email to my team and I've always been
very transparent with them.
Um, when stuff like thishappens and I've had it, I've
had revenue dips once or twicebefore.
This is nothing new.
New this one was the scariestone, for sure.
And so I wrote to them just heyguys, look, you know, here's
the situation.
Um, just so you know, I amgoing to be scaling back a few

(26:13):
things, I'm going to be takingover a few things.
And we looked at the latest, um, heartbeat.
My project manager writes what'scalled a heartbeat every monday
, which is basically a look atthe current projects that we're
working on, what's left toheartbeat every Monday, which is
basically a look at the currentprojects that we're working on,
what's left to do on thoseprojects, et cetera.
And so I went through thelatest heartbeat and was like
I'm taking over this, this, this, this and this.
You know, the funding sourcefor this is a little bit

(26:36):
different.
Like I have a project that I'mworking on, that I'm working
with a group, and they're kindof funding the team as we go,
and they're kind of funding theteam as we go.
I'm doing my part for free,it's because I'm involved with
the project and so like thatproject can continue and I don't
have to be the one to work onthat, there's money for the team
to work on that.
So there was a few things thatfell into that category where it
made sense for the team to keepworking on it, and then a few

(26:57):
things that were currently goingon where it made sense for me
to be the one to be hands on andto work on those, and so, as it
relates to that one thing, Ihave been gradually bringing the
team back in on certain aspectsof projects from that time
until now, and so I'm feelinggood about where they're at.
I'm still doing a lot of work,but they are also continually

(27:19):
doing more and more, and sowe're ramping that back up
slowly.
But the first thing was just totake a hard look at the real
numbers and say what do we haveto do?
And the reality of what I hadto do was I needed to basically
go back to a clean slate and sayI am the chief designer,
developer or whatever, again fora hot minute while I figure out

(27:42):
what the numbers look like.
So that was the first andbiggest thing that I did.

Josh Hall (27:48):
Gotcha.
Now I feel like there'sprobably a couple different
approaches somebody could takewhen the numbers dip like that,
when you do have a team.
Steve, I'm so glad youmentioned what like.
What expenses do you trim?
Because you're absolutely right, team costs is always generally
way more than subscriptions.
Like you could cancel a $9monthly subscription, but that's

(28:08):
not going to make the biggestdifference, especially if you're
losing, you know, severalthousand dollars of MRR.
By the way, I'm so glad youstayed in pro and I hope it
wasn't, you know, I hope thatwas like one of the last things
that you would have cut on yourlist.
So I feel honored that you werelike Josh lost a MMR, I got to
step out of pro for a while, soI count that an honor that I was
not, you know the first things.

Steve Schramm (28:29):
It didn't even cross my mind.
If I'm being completely honestwith you, so that's like the
biggest win ever.

Josh Hall (28:34):
So I appreciate that, um, but the other area I feel
like you could have gravitatedto is I'm going to go hard on
selling and actually take lessof the work on and go into sales
mode.
What prevented you from doingthat?
And obviously and maybe maybeokay, I have, I have an idea as

(28:55):
to why, but I want to hear yourthoughts Like why didn't you
just sell more at that point?

Steve Schramm (29:00):
Yeah, that's a good question, and it's um, it's
kind of like saying why don'tyou just be more skinny?
Uh, you know what I mean.
So, um, because there areprocesses involved with sales
and, and one problem that I hadup to this point was being

(29:20):
lackadaisical with my processesthat lead to sales.
Okay, now I've done, I have youknow, I do some things right Um
, but the truth is is that Ihave been so bogged down with
just the overall team managementand things like that, and I
went through a period of a fewmonths where, I'll just be
honest, things were good and itwas like, yep, I should be

(29:43):
worried more about sales rightnow, but I'm not right, and so
that'll bite you in the buttwhen it turns out that you have
a client that that leaves, andso what's interesting is, about
a month and a half before I,before I, before all this
happened, I had made thedecision that I was going to

(30:04):
change that, and so I startedspending $10 a day.
I said, actually, it's either$10 or $15.
I can't remember which.
I said I'm basically going tospend $10 to $15 a day on ads
for the rest of my life, and I'mgoing to figure out that right,
because Facebook ads can can bevery, very powerful and they're

(30:27):
they're a way that does notrely on creating content right
To to be able to do it.
So, anyway, I, um, I wanted tolearn ads and, by the way, to
this day it's now whatever date,it is February, as we're
recording this is February 6th Istill have those ads active and
I'm monitoring that.
Now I'm not I'm not doing muchto convert those people into
sales full transparency, cause Ihaven't gotten there yet and

(30:48):
I'll explain more why in aminute.
What I was trying to do is getmy lead generation game as a web
designer figured out right.
What does it look like and whatdoes the testing look like?
But I know it's a long-termgame, okay, and so the resolve
part of it was I'm going tospend $10 to $15 a day figuring
out this problem and I can savethat much money in other areas

(31:12):
eating out a little bit less, orjust a few less business
lunches or just whatever.
It is right, I can figure thatout, and so that was part of
where my confidence came from,because at that point I had
already generated quite a fewleads.
I think at this point I'vegenerated over 100 leads that
are just qualified web designand digital marketing sort of

(31:33):
leads.
Now again, like I said, I'm nottrying to paint myself as some
huge marketing guru here.
I have not done anythingreasonable to convert those
leads.
My plan is to implement asteady newsletter and I'm
working through that.

Josh Hall (31:47):
That's interesting.
It wasn't soon enough yet.
It's good to know that you hadalready preemptively started
changing the sales marketingfunnel a little bit before that
even happened, Because otherwiseI feel like the strategy would
have been a little different.

Steve Schramm (32:02):
Correct, yeah, and so I started out with that,
okay and um, I don't, you know,I'm not a member of any local
networking groups or anything.
And so what, what I was doingduring that first month of of
knowing that that you know thatDecember was coming and I wasn't
going to have that big check torely on anymore, uh, I was.

(32:22):
I was trying to do somestrategic planning and figuring
out of um of how I was going tostart converting those leads.
But we had active projects thatwe were working on that now I
had to be more hands-on.
And then, when early Decembercame and those five projects you
know came in, especially withthe holidays and everything
coming up, I left sales mode.

(32:43):
I was like I just, I mean, I wasin sales mode in the sense that
I had just converted six youknow leads into into clients,
right?
So you know, in, in one sensethere's there's something a
little wrong with your question,right?
Because in one sense I wasselling.
I had six leads in the pipeline.
I converted five of them, butnow somebody had to do the work

(33:05):
and so I had to do the work, andso I have been.
I mean, you know, here it isearly February, other than
holiday travel.
I have been head down doing thework ever since then and I'm
just, in the last couple ofweeks, starting to come up for
air.

Josh Hall (33:18):
Well, and it makes sense too, because I think the
reality is look, you have afamily, you have a team, there
are actual expenses, actualnumbers going out the door.
So I told and I I asked thatquestion a bit of as a devil's
advocate, just because I do feellike there's you you took in,
well, not actually because youdid sell during that.

(33:39):
So it my, my assumption, or theway I thought that that went
down, is that you didn't reallyhave too much in the pipeline at
that point.
You just took a conservativeroute by, like here's what I
know is coming in with cash flow.
So I'm going to make sure wedon't go over budget or out of
pocket over the next couplemonths, which is why you would

(33:59):
do more work and spend your timein that.
But you actually did, yeah,preemptively have a bit of a
lead sales engine there.
So when you found out thatmonth between you, finding out
that they are going to bedropping, it actually is fair to
say you did do those sales.

(34:20):
What did you do to land thosehalf dozen clients?
Did you do more calls?
Did you do more emailing?
Did you do more DMing?
What did you do to actuallyland those, to get that big wave
that kind of saved your butt inDecember.

Steve Schramm (34:34):
Yeah, fair enough , and this is where my story is
not very sexy.
I didn't do anything, right?
I mean I didn't do anything,and right I mean this, this, and
I didn't do anything.
And yet I did everything.
What do I mean by that?
Well, I didn't do anythingparticular.
I didn't send DMS, I didn'teven do a Facebook post.
I don't think I might have, but, like you know, I I didn't.
I didn't do anything like that.
A few of these were uh dealsthat had come in because they

(34:56):
were referrals from past clients.
One of them was a currentclient that was looking at
adding a new website.
Another one, well, they allmostly fell into that category.
One or two may have comebecause they saw my link in the
footer of another website orsomething like that.
On my podcast occasionally I dothese.

(35:18):
Where did I get my last fiveclients episode?
And I was thinking this morningthat I actually want to do one.
So I'm going to take a harderlook at that and I'll have an
answer for people on this.
On the specific question thatyou asked me, when I do that,
but the reality is is that Isaid I didn't do anything, which
I didn't, but I also dideverything and that to this
point I've been in business foreight or nine years, whatever it

(35:39):
is now, and they always saythat about 10 years is that
inflection point where the wordof mouth you know if you can
survive for 10 years, then theword of mouth can bring a
stability to your business.
After that point that you knowit's a coveted thing and we're
kind of to that point now.
That's why you know it's likewell, are you selling now?

Josh Hall (36:05):
Well, again.

Steve Schramm (36:05):
I haven't even started working on my conversion
mechanism for the lead gen.
I've done, but I've got sevenleads in the pipeline right now
From Facebook.
Well, from a smattering, fromreferrals from other clients,
work for past clients, thingslike that.
I'm not talking about theFacebook leads at all, yet I
haven't done anything with those.
This is just a matter ofconsistent activity over the
many years that I've been inbusiness.
So there's, you know, there'sno, there's no guru ness here

(36:28):
other than to survive and do agreat job for clients so that
you get, you know, you get morereferrals and more people
interested in, in, in, in,working with you.
So you know, and I, I have, Ihave new deals that are starting
and, lord willing, I mean I, uh, I don't plan to take any
additional new clients, even inFebruary.
I'm experiencing, uh,experimenting with a closed

(36:48):
model, so probably start takingnew clients again in March.

Josh Hall (36:52):
And the only reason, the only reason I'm drilling in
and hanging onto this month isbecause I I'm just, I'm more and
more so fascinated what peopledo under pressure and what can
be done.
I mean, you know, as a kind ofpart-time web design coach
yourself, people come to yougenerally when there's
challenges or there's a dryspell.
So, like, the most commonquestion just about I get now is

(37:15):
I'm in a dry spell, what do Ido?
So I'm even more reallyrefining my ax on.
I mean, I could give somebody100 things to do, but it is very
dependent on their situation,their time, their variables.
You are in a different situationthan a lot of people starting
out because, like you justalluded to, you had pre-built
compounding interest of leadsbased off of your clientele.

(37:40):
How long you've been doing this.
So that helps clarify it for me.
Steve, I think I was under theimpression that the work you had
started doing with Facebookgave you an option to reach out
to those leads, but no, in factit just kind of landed in your
lap with just the nature of allthe work you had done prior.
So now I am really curiousabout this, though what would

(38:01):
have happened if that didn'thappen.
What would you have done?
This is hypothetical, of course,but you know, you did kind of
have.
You were in a place where weall know, when you're in
business for a while and youbuild a lot of referral partners
and you and you get referrals,there are waves of business that
come.
You have a month where there'snone, you have a month where
there's ton.
But what if that hadn'thappened?

(38:23):
What would you have done ifthat big wave didn't come for
you in December?
Yep.

Steve Schramm (38:29):
That is a very good question and I was about to
answer it, so I'm glad thatwe're going here.
Probably the lowest hangingfruit is that I would have been,
I would have startedaggressively selling to those
leads that I had startedgenerating.
So, um, but here's why.
So when you look at, like, thespectrum of things that you can

(38:53):
do, the you know, I mean you canobviously go to networking
groups, or, or you know you cango to networking groups.
You can start.
You know you can start apodcast, right, you can go to a
haunt.
Facebook groups would behelpful, right, you can
obviously go to networkinggroups.
Or you can go to networkinggroups.
You can start a podcast.
You can go to Facebook groupswould be helpful.
You can generate leads onFacebook.
There's a number of things thatyou can do.
I probably would have spent moretime doing things that had
worked for me very well in thepast.

(39:15):
So networking groups have notworked for me very well in the
past.
Facebook groups have workedstellar for me very well in the
past.
Facebook groups have workedstellar for me in the past.
So I immediately would havepaid more attention to Facebook
groups because I know that thathas been my bread and butter in
the past on getting really goodclients and it's a little bit
shorter of a distance usually toa client even though there is

(39:36):
some upfront value anticipated.
It's a little bit shorter of adistance to clients than, say,
starting a YouTube channel or apodcast or something like that.
Right, that's a good long-termstrategy and you should do it.
But if you need money now, youknow, don't start a podcast.

Josh Hall (39:53):
Those are not quick wins strategies, for sure.
Yeah, those Facebook groups, bythe way, steve, are those like
business groups they're nottalking about, like Divi web
designers, or would it be a mixof?
Yeah?

Steve Schramm (40:04):
No, I mean, look, ultimately it's niche dependent
.
In my case, it's always beenlike you know course creators
and membership owners and stufflike that, like groups like that
.
That's where my client hangsout, and so by being helpful in
those groups before I've madeyeah, I've made tens of

(40:26):
thousands of dollars fromclients that I've gotten being
helpful in those groups over theyears.
In fact, they launched I mean,they were part of what launched
my web design career, so I knowhow to generate value for people
in those groups.
And it's still a longer termplay sometimes, but it's way
shorter, you know, than apodcast or or you know anything

(40:47):
like that and um, so that's onething I would have done.
The other thing that I that Iwould have done, in fact, I was
pretty well gearing up to do ituntil until it became pretty
clear that that I had a handfulof deals that were getting ready
to close and I needed to focuson getting the details close
with those so I could dive intothe work.
The thing that I would havedone otherwise is to start

(41:07):
calling on and having a moreaggressive sales approach with
those leads that I had generatedvia Facebook, because those
were people.
That's the beautiful thingabout lead generation is these
are people who are raising theirhand and they're saying I have
a problem that you can solve now.

(41:29):
Of course, they're not saying Iand I want you to solve the
problem for me, but at leastthey're taking the first step to
say, oh, I have this issue.
Um, I am interested in what youhave to say in helping to fix
the issue, and so, in my case,I'm using a Google business
profile cheat sheet to basicallyhelp them with that, and so

(41:50):
that would be for the more localbusiness side of my business.
So I've got two main clientsare local businesses and then,
course, creators, et cetera, andso that would have been for
that side, and so that's what Iwould have done on either side.
I would have paid attention tomy leads that had came in from
Facebook and really startedemailing them, calling them and

(42:11):
doing that, and then, on theother hand, it would have been
Facebook groups.
Now, I'm not against coldactivities, cold email, cold
calling and things like that,but if you're like me, I mean I
hate those things, I hate beingon the receiving end of those
things and I hate being on thequote, unquote giving end of

(42:33):
those things, and so, frankly,obviously, if it's make a cold
email or my business doesn'tsurvive, then I'm going to make
a cold call or send a cold emailso that my business will
survive, but to me those are thelast option.
So I was trying to do anythingother than that and again,
fortunately, like I said, I hadthe mechanisms in place.

(42:57):
But thank God, it worked outthe way that it did and we had a
good influx come in and look, Imean we're, we're not done yet,
right?
Um, I still haven't made up forthe actual MRR loss, right that
that came in.
So we're still working on anddeveloping these things, but I
had to get these initialprojects, you know, out the
window.

Josh Hall (43:19):
Was a big reason also for you taking more of a like,
stepping back into the role oflead designer, developer et
cetera, was that to get projectsout faster so you could close
the books on them faster, likeyou know, like finish projects
and get more revenue in, or withthe subscription model would
that have not mattered as much.

Steve Schramm (43:42):
Well, it was a second order type of thing.
So, yes, but that wasn't myfirst motivation.
It would be unfair to say thatI was thinking that far ahead.
My first thought was I got tosave money.
I can do a lot of this work andthat's it.
And you always hate to takemoney away from your people, but

(44:02):
you know, these are contractors.
They have other people theywork for too.
I'm not the only egg in theirbasket.

Josh Hall (44:07):
And look, the worst thing would be for you to go out
of business.
So, yeah, it's better that theyhave reduced hours and you stay
afloat.

Steve Schramm (44:13):
If I'm out of business, then we're all tanked,
right, so that doesn't reallymake sense, right?
So?
So you got to again put firstthings first your family, your
business, unfortunately, has tobe first, so that everybody else
can can come along with you.
Okay so, but here's what Inoticed and all due respect to
my team, some of whom areprobably going to listen to this
podcast, right, my, my teamdoes fantastic work and I love

(44:35):
them.
But after I started digging intothings, it started to become
clear that there were someinefficiencies that had crept in
to our processes and some areaswhere it's like well, it
probably takes an hour to writethis thing up in Basecamp,
whereas, do we really need towrite all this up?

(44:57):
Why didn't we just do it andthen say done as the comment in
Basecamp?
Now, a lot of times I like alot of writing, but sometimes
it's not necessary, and so therewere just these little
inefficiencies in the processthat I'm like, okay, well, what
we're going to do here is usethis as an opportunity.
We're going to tighten thingsup a little bit, we're going to
try to streamline the process,and I haven't made a ton of
progress with that.

(45:18):
I'm just saying that I'm tryingto look into the processes and
the things that we're doing.
Can I adjust my timelines?
Hey, I'm noticing that even onbest effort, we're taking
sometimes three weeks to fiveweeks longer than we should.
So I started asking some peoplearound well, what kind of
timelines are you guaranteeingon custom projects?

(45:40):
Well, we had been guaranteeingnot guaranteeing like not
guaranteeing but we had been.
We had been estimating six toeight weeks for projects, even,
you know, bigger projects, andI'm finding other people, even
on their smaller projects, aresaying nine to 12 weeks these
days and I'm like, okay, well,so I'm, I'm off on when I first
set this system up, so I need togo back and readjust it.

(46:01):
So little inefficiencies, justincorrect expectations.
Frankly, on my standpoint, onsome of the items that I was
able to uncover and fix, so itwas an opportunity to do that.

Josh Hall (46:14):
I think it's worthwhile, even if you're not
in that situation, just to dipback into some of those
processes every once in a whileto look at what could be trimmed
.
I did that last year when Ibrought Jen on as my new VA.
It gave me a chance to go backin and I'm like, oh, we don't
need to do that anymore or crap,I need to put that on this SOP
that we have and make a new one.

(46:35):
It was actually really goodthat, for when Cam, my previous
VA, left, it forced me to revampthe processes and we're, like
you know, 10x more efficient nowwith those.
Sorry, cam, if you're listening, I feel like she would have
loved what we did when she hadto step away.
But I think it is a goodreminder.
Sometimes you got to get yourwork boots on and go back into
those processes as the owner.

(46:56):
Most of us who are scaling inany way are going to have a
couple contractors or a few.
So, yeah, good reminder to goin and make sure to clean up
those inefficiencies.
And, quite frankly, it doesn'tmean that you need to reduce
team costs all the time.
It just means that maybe youopen up more opportunity for
your team, because if it's nottheir business, I think some
rock stars are going to be likehey, steve, we could improve on

(47:19):
this, but most contractors aregoing to do what they're told,
and then that's kind of theirjob.
So it is up to us, as the owner, to make things more efficient.
I'm curious oh, go ahead, steve.

Steve Schramm (47:32):
I was just saying , I was just agreeing with you.

Josh Hall (47:35):
I'm curious what was your runway in in regards to
like?
Did you have a few monthsbefore cold selling was going to
have to be, you know, like,like?
Obviously you laid out a reallygood plan of action for, like,
a emergency revenue boost.
Ooh, that's a good name.

Steve Schramm (47:52):
Ooh, yeah, yeah, I need to make that a emergency,
yeah, life boat revenue,emergency revenue boost.

Josh Hall (48:02):
I think that's the one ER, erb.
There's my new product I'mworking on.
All right, emergency revenueboost.
Ooh, that could be a goodchallenge for pro.
Anywho, what was your runwaythere between?
Like you know, you had.
You had the month there where,luckily, the work came in.
So this is, of course, justhypothetical.
You would have done the provenstuff that had worked for.
You had the month there where,luckily, the work came in.
So this is, of course, justhypothetical.
You would have done the provenstuff that had worked for you in

(48:23):
the past the Facebook groups,nurturing the leads that you had
in the pipeline, and then coldcalling would have been the
third.
What was your runway like?
Did you have a few months ordid you have more time that you
had some leeway there?
Was it less?
What was your runway of?
You know, know you don't haveto say numbers, but savings and
like cash flow.

Steve Schramm (48:40):
What was your runway?
Look like sure, yeah, yeah,yeah, no, that that is good.
No, I was.
You know, we are cash flow wise.
I was still, um, you know,coming in a little bit above
what, what we needed at the youknow to put, you know, I mean to
basically to pay all the billsand everything, assuming that I
did all the work right.
So we were, we were right thereat it, um, and now if we had
lost, like another huge client,that would have been a problem.

(49:03):
But we did have a runway of afew months.
We, I always do the profit firstmethod, and so I have money
that goes out to, uh, profitsavings and then I have money
that goes out to tax savings.
I mean, like I'm talking aboutworst case scenario, the irs can
wait a few extra months, orlike you know, whatever, like

(49:24):
that's like the worst casescenario, which I would never
recommend and this is notfinancial advice, um, but, um,
you know, that was like theworst case.
If it's, if it's if it's myfamily eats or the government
gets paid my family eats, sorry,I did that paid my family eats.

Josh Hall (49:36):
Sorry, I did that.
I took a penalty.
I paid my taxes later, one year, years ago, because it just
came at a really bad time.
And it was a similar thingwhere I was like we have the
cash flow, it's in billing,we're going to have a wave, and
I think my penalty.
I think I did it a month later.
Yes, disclaimer Steve and I arenot telling anyone to not pay
your taxes, but I did do apenalty.

(49:58):
I paid a month later and Ithink the penalty was like 12
bucks or something.
I was thinking it was going tobe thousands.
I was like, oh, that's good toknow, it's not that bad.
I don't know if that's the samenow, but that was the case then
.

Steve Schramm (50:11):
Yeah, and I mean, if anything to actually take
away from that, please, please,please, please, please, please,
please, please.
Do not calculate your revenuebased on your owner's pay, based
on the top line money thatcomes in minus the few
subscriptions you have.
Please, that is not the way todo it.
You've got to set aside moneyand get used to living on for

(50:33):
yourself.
Again, I'm with Donald Milleron the sort of recommended
baseline below two 50 K you'retaking home about about 50%.
Um, oh, you know what?
That is one actual practicalthing that I did do that I'm
totally willing to share.
I, since my costs were down, Iadjusted my profit first

(50:53):
percentages to flowautomatically more of that top
line revenue towards me thaninto my operating expenses,
because I didn't need to do thatfor the team.
So that's a very practical thingthat I did and I use a system
that's actually endorsed by MikeMichalowicz and profit first

(51:13):
called Relay, and it's basicallya they're essentially a SaaS
company that sits on top of anFDIC insured bank that allows
you to automatically flow incomeinto your account and then it
breaks it out into checkingaccounts.
They're like Profit First andit's just a beautiful system.

(51:34):
I would talk for an hour onjust it if we had the time.
That is one practical thing Idid and I would always suggest
is that part of shoring up thatfoundation is making sure that
you've got the money flowingcorrectly to be able to pay for
yourself and your expenses andyour taxes and your profits and

(51:54):
all of that.
Whatever method you choose todo, you gotta be setting that
money aside.
So all of this takes you knoweverything that we're saying and
the money that's there andeverything it all factors in.
You know those numbers andeverything.

Josh Hall (52:06):
So that's great.
Yeah, I think we came up withlike five to 10 new topics for
your podcast here in this one,steve.
A lot of really cool, inspiringstuff in this one.
I want to bring this one home.
I know we got a role here bothof us here pretty soon, but is
there anything left that do youfeel like we should cover or

(52:27):
somebody should know, or maybelike a?
motivational type of thing.
But is there anything, anyother lessons learned that are
really important, that wehaven't covered with this little
rebound that you went through?

Steve Schramm (52:39):
Yeah, yeah, it's a.
It's a really really goodquestion.
So here's what I here's, here'swhat I think.
I think number one you you haveto build in some sort of
expectation that this kind ofthing will happen.
Okay, this is not.
If you're a business owner,this is not a you know something

(53:01):
that is just not going tohappen to you.
You're not immune from this.
There are going to be hard days.
Some of those hard days aregoing to come with a financial
element, right, and there'sgoing to be a rainy day.
It's kind of like Dave Ramseysays right, it's going to be a

(53:24):
rainy day.
It's kind of like Dave Ramseysays it's going to rain.
I don't know how you feel aboutDave Ramsey, but I used to love
his stuff and I read his TotalMoney Makeover book many years
ago and in that book he saysmyth, if I set aside for a rainy
day fund for when it rains,then I'll have a rainy day and
then I'll have to use that money.
If I set aside for it, thenthat means something's going to
go wrong.
And he's like fact, you'regoing to have a rainy day, it's

(53:48):
going to go wrong.
Set aside for it now.
And so again, in Dave's purview.
He's talking about money stuff,but I would say, from a
financial standpoint, but also,just gosh frankly, from a
mindset standpoint, the mindsetis the biggest thing here.
I'm convinced that mindset islike 80% of business.
The rest of it is just details.
It's really all about what youbelieve about yourself, what you

(54:09):
believe about your value andjust preparing for when things
like this are going to happen.
So that's the first thing I'dsay, and the second one is
honestly just related to that,in this idea of just like lock
in and press on because it'sgoing to be okay, like there's
never been a time in my lifewhere it has not been okay, at

(54:36):
least when it comes to stufflike this.
If your family's doing well,you've got a support system in
life, people like Josh or me tocoach you and mentor you, you've
got colleagues, you've got yourfamily.
If you've got people who cansupport you and be there for you
, you can just move on.
I'll just share a quick story.
A couple of years ago, we justvoted in a new pastor in our

(54:57):
church uh, in December, and sothis is like his second month on
the job here and um, but wewere without a pastor for 18
months and um, uh, for just itwas a bad situation.
But we were without a pastorfor 18 months and sort of our
motto as a church during thattime, because we knew we would
come out the other side of thisand we just had faith and

(55:18):
believed that it was going to bebetter than ever.
But we didn't know what thedetails were of that.
It was a mindset, it was abelief, it was faith, and so
during that time our sort ofmantra was just lock in, Like
now is not the time to peace outbutter, you know, peace out,
girl Scout.
You know.
Oh, my life is a failure, mylife is a wreck, it's not going
to work, our church is a wreck.

(55:38):
So what we did was we said youknow what, we're going to lock
in, we're going to plug in,we're going to keep doing what
we've been doing and it's allgoing to be okay.
And guess what it was.
So I would encourage you toreally just have that mindset of
like you know what today?
Oh, I have one more thing Ihave to share.
I'm sorry, but that would bethe mindset is you know what
today sucks.
Maybe I need to take the restof the day off, bury my head in

(56:03):
a pillow.
By the way, I did that.
I took the day after I madethat post, I believe.
I took the day off and I laidon the couch and I did not do
anything.
And guess what?
By Thursday, I was locked inagain.
I was focused, I was ready togo.
And now this is all theoreticaland this is all mindset, and
sometimes mindset is hard totalk about.
I don't know, josh, if you're anAli Abdaal fan or if you've

(56:25):
ever heard of him.
He's on YouTube.
He's got a lot of greatbusiness and productivity advice
.
I'm reading his book right now,called Feel Good Productivity,
and he shared something in therethat it wasn't even in the
context of like anxiety andoverwhelm and all of this, and I
just thought, oh man, this istoo good.
This is too good.
This is like the best frameworkever.
He calls it the 10, 10, 10 rule,and so it's a question you can

(56:49):
ask yourself how is this goingto feel, or is this going to
matter in 10 minutes?
And it's like you know what?
Yep, in the next 10 minutes,this is really going to suck.
It's going to keep sucking.
It's going to keep feelingexactly the same.
Well, what about?
What about 10 weeks?
Well, yeah, I can't imaginethat I'm going to feel this way
10 weeks from now, likesomething's going to happen

(57:11):
Something.
Yeah, a lot can change in 10weeks, there's no way.
What about 10 months?
Oh, my goodness, 10 months fromnow could be just intact.
And just in my experience,since I learned this and started
applying it immediately, theweight falls off.
Not the physical weight.
I wish the mental weight right,the mental load.

(57:33):
We just recently switched ourkid's school to a new private
school from the old privateschool and we knew we had to do
it, but it was still hard.
And I ran through the sameexercise because I was really
feeling in the gutter about it,even though it was a great
decision and we know it was theright decision.
I was having a bad day thinkingabout it and just dwelling on
it.
I just asked myself okay, 10minutes from now, yep, still

(57:53):
sucks.
10 weeks from now, oh my gosh,life is way different.
You know, 10 months from now,dude, we don't like putting all
that behind, like we're not.
We're not even going to be,it's not even going to be on our
radar.
Life's going to be so good, andso that 10, 10, 10 rule if you
take nothing else away from thispodcast, 10, 10, 10, and that
will help you mindset wise, Ibelieve.

Josh Hall (58:14):
I love that.
That's a great little, greatlittle framework to think about.
It kind of reminds me just aswe put a close to this one.
I don't have exactly that, butI think from my personal
experience with what we've gonethrough as a parent with the
daughter with special needs andwe've gone through a lot, not
only in that situation, but justa lot of other things what I've

(58:34):
learned in business over thepast couple years I've learned
to in hard times if I can addany insight on this is to zoom
out and just remember that I'min a story.
And for anyone who is in a dryspell and feels like there's no
way out, if you zoom out andremember like this is just a

(58:54):
part of my story.
It sounds super corny andcliche and it is, but it's
freaking true too.
You are in a story and anyonewho's read a book, no, or
watched a movie ever in yourlife it's never a happy, go,
lucky thing all the way through.
There's always a challenge,there's always a bad things that
happen, there's alwayspersistence, all that stuff
that's.

(59:14):
You're in that chapter rightnow.
So I don't know about you,steve, but for me I remind
myself that, yeah, I'm in astory.
I'm in a dark chapter right nowor I'm in a tough point, and if
I zoom out, this 10-10-10 rule,it's a different style of frame.
Thinking about zooming out, Ithink, and looking at like okay,
well, in a year I look back onthis.
And it's really hard to do thisin the moment because you just

(59:36):
want to get past it.
But if you think about, well,in a year, I'm going to learn a
lot from this situation.
I think being a business ownerhas taught me that that in that
situation, as hard as it is,zooming out and looking at like
this is a really important partof my story.
And thinking about like it alsohelps you think about okay, I'm

(59:58):
in this right now, but what'sthe next chapter going to look
like?
Is the next chapter going to beworse and I quit, or is the
next chapter going to be therebound?
And this is when things startedto actually turn for me.

Steve Schramm (01:00:11):
Josh, I'm so glad you said this because I
literally I didn't put it orthink about it nearly as
eloquently as you just did, butI did have the same thought
because I love storytelling.
I mean, I study fiction writersbecause it helps me with
marketing.
So I'm a really big fan ofstudying story and studying
fiction, and I did at one pointthroughout this process, have a

(01:00:33):
very similar thought of justlike this is one chapter in a
story.
Throughout this process, have avery similar thought of just
like this is one chapter in astory and every good story.
Like there's a saying byfiction writers that conflict is
the engine of fiction, and thereason why that's true is
because conflict is the engineof life.
If you try to read a book thathas no conflict in it, you'll
put it down immediately.
It's so boring.
Conflict is what makes lifeinteresting.

(01:00:54):
Stuff like this is what makeslife life that you can look back
on and say I overcame that andso I love that.
That's great advice, maybe evenbetter advice than the 10, 10,
10.
I'm just like zooming out,remembering that you're in a
story and at the end of the day,you're going to have a happy
ending.
And look, what you can do, too,is you can look back to things
in your own life.

(01:01:14):
I have one in my childhood,because my dad died at a young
age.
I was in fifth grade when mydad died, and so I, in a strange
way, have the blessing of beingable to look back on that
circumstance and be like Iremember what it was like 10
weeks after that.
It still sucked.
I also remember what it waslike 10 months and 10 years
after that, and it sucks.
But life has a way of healingwounds and time has a way of

(01:01:39):
doing it as well.
And so time, if you just canput yourself in the framework of
time, of the story, and thinkabout the big picture rather
than this moment, it'll changeeverything for you.
So I think that was great.

Josh Hall (01:01:51):
I don't think we can do any better than that to put a
cap on this one.
Steve man, Thank you so muchfor this has been a great chat,
man.
I really really enjoyedchatting with you through this.
As soon as you posted that Iwas like, Ooh, I want to dive
into that.
So thank you so much, man, for,first off, being just a huge
asset to pro.
So many people look up to you,largely because of your

(01:02:13):
transparency, on top of justyour business principles and
what you've shared with thesubscription models and
recurring revenue.
I mean just you as anentrepreneur.
You're just a shining exampleof what happens as an
entrepreneur these tricky,challenging times, but I'm
really excited to see you comingout of the other end of this.
You're not through all the way,but you're at the tail end.

(01:02:34):
The tail end of, it seems likethis, this tough chapter.
So really cool to to dive intothis.
Yeah, Thanks, man for forsharing everything, and who
knows what our next chat will beon.

Steve Schramm (01:02:45):
I don't know.
We could talk about any numberof things.
So I'm I'm excited to have hadthe opportunity and uh, and just
really appreciate you.

Josh Hall (01:02:51):
Heck, yeah, dude, hey , I'm excited to see in real
life here in a few months forWeb Designer Pro Con, so let's
do it.
Yeah, dude, thanks Steve.
All right friends?
Well, the show notes for thisepisode can be found at
joshhallco slash 372.
We did cover quite a fewresources.
Again, if you want to connectwith Steve, if you want to check
out his subscription web designcourse, if you would like to

(01:03:12):
listen to his podcast or connectwith some of his coaching, go
to stevesramco.
That will also be linked in theshow notes.
And again, I just want topublicly thank Steve for coming
on and being very open andtransparent about this.
I just find that a lot ofentrepreneurs like to talk about
the wins and the goods, but ittakes somebody with honest

(01:03:33):
integrity to share aboutfailures or challenges, and
Steve went through quite achallenge recently but has done
an incredible job at rebounding.
So I can't wait to hear fromyou.
I know Steve would love to hearfrom you as well.
You can leave us a comment atjoshhallco slash three seven two
.
That will have links to hisother episodes on the podcast as
well.
Stay subscribed if you're notalready, because we've got some
awesome ones ahead.

(01:03:54):
And cheers to building your MRRand reducing churn.