394 - The Self-Made Web Designer is Back with Chris Misterek - Web Design Business with Josh Hall

Episode Transcript
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Chris Misterek (00:00):
client coming to you and saying I really want my
site to be built on this andyou being like well, I've never
done that before, but let's tryit.
It's like it's going to takeyou so much time to learn the
platform.
Your profit margin is going tobe abysmal.
You know, like you kind of, youkind of need to put your stake
in the ground for a period oftime.
You don't have to stay thereforever if you don't like it,

(00:23):
but you should at least tocommit to a handful of projects
before you say, okay, yes, thisis what I want to do, or I don't
want to do.

Josh Hall (00:34):
Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast, with
your host, josh Hall, helpingyou build a web design business
that gives you freedom and alifestyle you love.
Hello, my friend, it's so goodto have you here and I am so
excited to share with you myconversation with repeat guest
friend of the show, chrisMistrick.

(00:54):
He is the guy behind one of thebest brand names in web design,
the self-made web designer.
Darn him for naming that sogood.
A little jealous, a littlejealous.
Great brand, great guy.
And we are having just a verycasual catch up in this one.
But we do talk about somethings that I think are really
going to help you, whether youare in the beginning of your

(01:16):
business or whether you're moreadvanced and established and
want to get a feel for wherethings are in the view from the
lens of two people who have beenin the industry for a while,
which Chris and I have.
We're getting into everythingfrom where the industry is today
, with AI and everything elsethat's going on, what's
different about getting startednow versus when we got into the
industry, and how more importantthan ever it is to stick to

(01:42):
your tools and beware the shinyobject syndrome.
So, with all that as a primer.
I'll leave it at that and I'mgoing to welcome in our good
friend, chris Mystrick.
Uh, he did have some technicalissues.
Heads up, if you watch thisversion on YouTube, you will see
a camera change and either afreeze frame or a um a picture
of Chris over that segment,depending on what me and my

(02:04):
Nathan editor decided to do onthat.
So just a heads up on that.
Go to the show notes of thisepisode, joshhallco, slash 394,
for all the links we mentioned.
And since you're on the podcast, be sure to go check out
Chris's podcast Self-Made WebDesigner.
It's a good one.
Here's Chris.
Hello, banter, how long has itbeen for real, was it?

it's been a couple years, right, I think it
was 2022 and so it's 2025 now,so maybe about three years or so
, wow well, man, it's so good tosee you again.

Josh Hall (02:39):
Dude, how, how are things?
I?
It looked like life had taken alot of different turns over the
past few years since we chattedlast.

Absolutely.
Yeah, no, things are.
Things are really good, man.
I um still add show it, stilldoing web design stuff.
Just recently started self-madeweb designer back up again and
uh, yeah, other than that, Ihave a senior in high school
which is nuts.
I don't know how that's evenpossible, but here we are.

Josh Hall (03:10):
Yeah, cause you're only 26.

Yeah, exactly yeah.
So um had her when I was like11, so all good.

Josh Hall (03:20):
So wild man Gosh, chris, that's crazy.
Well, I'm pumped to reconnectwith you here.
Man Just wanted to kind of getthe lay of the land on where
you're at.
I mean, I just I have to saydamn you, chris, for stealing
the best freaking podcast name,like I remember when I saw your
stuff I was like dang it.
That is what I wanted to callmy podcast that's so much better

(03:42):
than mine, wow.

Thank you, man.
It's such a good brand, I'm soglad you're back.

Josh Hall (03:49):
man, the self-made web designer, is back.

Yeah yeah.
It was quite a long hiatus Ithink it was two years in total,
had a whole bunch of stuffhappen and my family, my dad,
passed away and just got kind ofoverwhelmed and burnt out and
so just took some time off tokind of get healthy and

(04:13):
emotionally, physically all thatstuff focus on my family and
then slowly but surely, like I,actually found a love for
writing again.

Josh Hall (04:19):
And you came back with your newsletter first right
.

Yeah, yeah.
So I started writing andblogging and you know, like I
was like, well, I'm, I'm doingthis.
I might as well, you know, makepodcast scripts or the YouTube
channel or whatever.
And so, yeah, I just kind ofslowly progressed into that.
And then, um, started YouTubeback up this year and then had a

(04:43):
go, a couple of videos go offpretty well, and so now I'm just
like, okay, well, how do wekeep this going?

Josh Hall (04:49):
I guess, yeah, cause you're such a video guy.
I remember you know, reallylooking up to you with your
video when we first gotconnected I was like man, it's
obvious you had a background invideo production and audio and
sound and stuff I actuallydidn't know you were as heavy
into or maybe, I don't know, waswriting kind of secondary and

(05:09):
then, like you said, was it justa chance to get into it?
That was a little more lowbarrier, less production, less
everything.

Yeah, I read a book from a gal named Anne
Lamont called Bird by Bird, andit's a funny name, but she is
essentially a writing teacher,so she teaches people how to
write.
She's done a few creativenovels, but really the majority

(05:39):
of her work has been around howto write.
And it was just super inspiringand I was like you know what, I
think I want to do this, and sojust started sitting down at a
computer and just found a knackfor like busting out a thousand
words in like 30 minutes, youknow.
And so I was like, well, Ithink I can do this like every
day.
And so then I just starteddoing that every day.

(06:00):
It became a pattern and so,yeah, and so then that just kind
of catapulted from there.

Josh Hall (06:06):
Was.
Was the initial writing for you?
Was it more like journaling,especially since you had gone
through so much in the period ofa couple of years?
Or was it intentional to likeweb designers, or how?
How did the writing start?

Yeah, it was all about.
It was all about web design,but my style is much more like
okay, here's my story.
And here's the thing that Ilearned through this story as it
relates to web design, becausewhat I do is show it is still
web design stuff.
I'm helping web designers thatuse our platform, and so it was

(06:39):
just like, all right, well, Ineed to produce content for
these guys, so I'm going to blog, I'm going to write a
newsletter for them.
And then I was like, well, I've, I've got more words that I
could be writing, and so whydon't I just do self-made web
designer newsletter and then whydon't I blog if I've got all
these words that I'm writingevery week, you know so, so,

(07:00):
yeah, so it was kind of aprogressive thing, but it was
always, like you know, heavy webdesign stuff well, it's
interesting because I remember,I think you, just because I was
on your, I'm still am on yournewsletter.

Josh Hall (07:12):
I do know one thing about you, chris, is that I know
when you email, it's going tobe heartfelt, it's not going to
be a rushed crap, like just stayon schedule type thing, which,
yeah, is a good remind, like agood like, yeah, it's a good
reminder that you like, uh,what's the right term?

care trumps consistency maybe I don't know.

Josh Hall (07:32):
Like you know, I mean like I'd rather get less emails
from you, but ones that arelike he puts them hard into this
.
Sure, you know, as much as Istick on schedule with stuff,
there's sometimes where I'm likemaybe I want to start doing
less just better.

Yeah, I, I appreciate that.
Yeah, I, I intentionally try,you know like I don't like,
because you could find webdesign advice from a number of
people you know, like either ofus.
You could be getting solid webdesign advice to build a solid
web design business or from chatgpt now yeah, 100, and there
are.
There's more and more peoplebecause of these great tools

(08:06):
that we have at our fingertipsthat are just creating tons of
content.
But you know nobody can stealyour story.
You know nobody can steal thepart of your business that makes
you uniquely you and so, likethat's one of the core
competencies that I think a lotof web designers miss out on is
like they.

(08:27):
They try to create an image ofwhat they think their clients
want and in doing so, they leaveout a piece of themselves and
therefore it takes out that realcore competency and it pulls
the heart out of their businesscompetency and it pulls the

(08:48):
heart out of their business.

Josh Hall (08:49):
Did it make it easier to rebound from burnout and
everything that you went throughwith just the idea that it is
more of like a story based likeheartfelt kind of thing, versus
like, okay, here's my revenuetarget, here's my action plan?
Did it make it easier to getback into it, knowing like you
just share what you're thinking,what you're feeling?

Yeah, you know, it's always.
It's always a moving landscapefor me when it comes to, like,
what are my goals with thisthing?
Cause I I have the luxury ofhaving a really nice full-time
job, you know, that pays mybills, and then some takes care
of me and my family, um, and sothere is a little bit of like,

(09:31):
well, if I'm going to bespending extra time on this, it
needs it needs to be justifiedby providing for my family.
You know, um, at the same time,like, a lot of the reason why
it was it was hard for me, youknow, back when I first started,
was because it did feel likesuch a content machine.
You know, it's just like, gotto turn it out, got to put it
out there.
You know what's going to getthe most clicks, what's going to

(09:53):
get the most reads, what'sgoing to get the most views
versus like, hey, let's just bea real person.
You know, and then you know,whatever happens happens because
I, you know, don't need this.
You know, and it's a reminderthat I keep having to bring up
to myself because inevitablyit's so easy.
You know, vanity metrics of,like, how many views am I

(10:15):
getting, how many people arefollowing me on social media
when I think the more importantthing and what I have to keep
bringing myself back to is, likewhat's the end goal, like
what's the real purpose of this?
And my wife and I are alwayshaving this conversation and for
me, at the end of it all islike I just want to help people.

(10:37):
You know, like whatever thatlooks like like to be an
encouragement to help you buildyour business, to know a little
bit more about web design, andso if that's all the goal is
then mission accomplished.
You know what I mean.
Like we've created, you know,like all this stuff that is
super helpful and I've gottenfeedback.

(10:57):
You know like, hey, this hasreally helped me and so it's
like okay.
Like so that big purpose is nowtaken care of.
Now I can just have fun.
You know, now I can just figureout ways to be creative,
express myself, help peoplemaybe a little bit more.

Josh Hall (11:11):
You know that's a really good point.
I feel like if you, if you havea, if you don't have a
measurable goal, there's nosense in looking at measurable
results in the form of vanitymetrics or sales, because that's
not the goal.
Now, if you actually get to thepoint where you have a goal or
maybe there's parts of, maybethat's the broader mission, but

(11:32):
then there's goals within themission, that's when I feel like
it's worthwhile doing that.
But I do like that idea justbecause I feel like, yeah, for
you, there's no sense of lookingat vanity metrics or number of
students or number of downloadswhen none of that is a goal,
like you're just if you want tohelp people.
So technically, one person,you've won.
That's the success.

A hundred percent, yeah, and you know
again, like it's, it's a movingtarget.
It's super easy to get suckedinto like feeling like you're
not performing well enough oryou're not as good as all the
other people who are also doingthe same thing, or whatever,
when in reality it's like youkind of have to take a step back

(12:13):
from that and say, okay, at theend of the day, if I look back
10 years from now and try tomeasure my success, it's
probably not going to be fromthe amount of money I made.
It's going to be from theamount of money I made.
It's going to be on the impactthat I had on somebody's life,
you know, and so, um, so that'skind of the North star for me,
and and it's and it's tough todo marketing for that, you know.

(12:36):
And and to be fair, like I'm acompetitive person, Like I want
to, I want to be the best inwhatever the thing is that I'm
doing.
It's not like.
It's like, well, we'll just putout whatever and see if, if, if
, see if it lands somewhere.
It's like no, I want to beintentional about what I'm doing
.
You know, I just don't wantthat to be an all consuming goal
that takes up tons of my brainspace.

Josh Hall (12:55):
Well, I mean, I'm so glad you mentioned your
full-time role with show it,because the reality is you do
have constraints unless you wantto work 90 hours a week.
So I and I, my gosh man, I havefound this to be more and more
of not an issue but just areminder to people who are
building web design businesseson the side or, like I have a
lot of web designer pro memberswho are mompreneurs and they're

(13:18):
balancing having young kids oreven teenagers, and they just
they can only work about 15 or20 hours a week.
And I just, at this time ofrecording this, just did a
mid-year check-in with everybodyand it's interesting how many
conversations I've had withfolks who are in a part-time
position, like you are, withtheir web design business.
But it's really easy to judgetheir success off of people who

(13:39):
are beyond full-time in theirroles and you just cannot, you
just can't do it Like.
I love this reminder that ifyou're working 15 or 20 hours a
week and you're making 50 or 60grand and that's fine for you
and your family, you've won,like you don't need to.
I mean, if you want to go to sixfigures, awesome, we can get
there without going too muchmore than you know you could
probably get there with a fewtweaks without working more, but

(14:05):
you don't need to if you don'tneed to, so yeah, I just I think
, now more than ever, I thinkthat's, uh, it's worth like
banging that drum.
Uh, that you yeah, there's nosense of like stacking ourself
and comparing ourselves andpeople who are in literal
different positions and havedifferent variables and have
different working hours.
And yeah, like I know I have topersonally be careful about
looking at like otherinfluencers and folks who are,

(14:27):
who don't have families, andit's like, well, yeah, you can
travel a lot and do a lot ofspeaking and conferences and
crank out more content, becauseyou don't have any kids to worry
about taking up your time, youknow.

And I don't mean like that, but I just mean,
yeah, you know what I mean.
Comparison is a dangerous game.
Yeah, yeah, you know what Imean.
Comparison is a dangerous game.
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's kindof two sided, you know, like
you don't.
You don't want to stick yourhead in the sand, um, at the
same time, you don't want to usefalse measurement criteria, you
know, like.
So, like you know, I tell youRoosevelt, god bless him,

(14:59):
comparison is the thief of joy.
I think comparison helps.
You know when you shouldaudition for American Idol and
when you shouldn't.
And some people don't have thattool, like they're just like no,
I'm the, I'm the best there is.
Like, actually, you shouldn'teven be on the stage.
But at the same time, like youknow you, you have to compare
the right things to the rightthings, and the best thing to

(15:19):
compare is yourself now versus ayear ago.
And so if you can look back andsay, like I did X projects, I
made X amount of money, thenlike, there's probably something
, there's something to celebratein that you know.
And so, learning, learning whatthe wins are, and and I even

(15:41):
have to, like you know, have alist of like, like here, here
are some wins that like, eventhough they're not the big
things you know like, maybe it'snot I made a hundred thousand
dollars, maybe a client saidthey had one of the best
experiences working with a webdesigner when they worked with
me.
Um, you know, for for me it'sthe comments I get on my videos,

(16:02):
where, even if the video onlygets, you know, a certain amount
of views, somebody says, hey, Iwas about to give up, but this
video just gave me a lot ofideas to keep going.
It's like that's gold to me.
That is, that is a measurementof like.
The more I hear that, the moreI'm like I am on the right track
.

Josh Hall (16:20):
So when to compare, that's a good, it's a good topic
.
Like you, compare yourself toyour former self, your progress,
absolutely, I do think it'sworthwhile.
Comparing is in more of likemarket research for positioning

(16:44):
competition.
If somebody wants to teach webdesigners, it would be
worthwhile comparing your youknow your skill sets and where
you are compared to me andcompared to you and compared to
agency Mavericks, compared toall the other folks who are
teaching web designers in somecapacity.

So there I I agree there's like there is a
time to compare, but I thinkit's um, I think it's really
important not to like almostjudge yourself in comparison,
especially when there's a very,very different set of
circumstances time goals, 100,etc yeah, and I think too, it it
comes down to the comparison isnot an evaluation of your worth

(17:22):
as a person, and so, like,that's where it starts to get
really tough when you're likethis person is better than me,
so I must be, I must be a worseperson.
You know, um, or I'm not asvalued, or maybe I'm not as
spectacular, right, like that's.
That's where you can get, youknow, really really burnt out

(17:44):
from you know this person isbetter.
Therefore, I am a worse humanbeing, you know, like, but if
you, just if you kind of have toput your thinker hat on and and
and put your feelings to theside and say, no, this, these,
these are just data pointsthat's going to help me make a
decision about where to focus myskills next, and so some of the

(18:05):
things.
It's like you know.
Like you know, especially forme, when I was thinking about
the early days of startingcourses, I looked at all your
courses.
Like Josh has all these coursesand they're fantastic.
He's not talking about Upwork.
I have a particular expertisein the field of Upwork and so
that's the course that I'm goingto make you know, because I

(18:26):
have something that's prettyunique to talk about it
specifically to web designers,so that kind of helps you figure
out like what's my secret sauceor the value proposition, my
onlyness that I can say?
Only I have this ability orexperience, expertise, whatever
you want to call it, and so thismakes me a much better fit for

(18:48):
these types of people.

Josh Hall (18:51):
Such a good point, especially, I think, for web
designers who are focused onlocal, whether it's local SEO or
their local market.
It's very, very worthwhiletaking this approach of like
looking at your competition andviewing them as number one
coopetition, like we can befriends.
We don't need to be enemies, Idon't need to steal clients from
you and vice versa.
But then, like you said, whatis what's different about you?

(19:13):
And this is where I see a lotof designers look around at
other designers and then all ofa sudden, they're like oh my God
, I'm not near as good as thisperson, whether they're local or
global, whatever it really like, it is worthwhile.
Even though you may haveoverlap in services and stuff
like that, there's always aunique selling proposition.

(19:34):
There's always something uniqueabout you and it may be a
personal thing, maybe, justmaybe some clients just want to
work with you because you're youand you have the exact same
services as this big agency intown, but they're not you.
Going back to your story, yourstory attracts, if there's
anything that attracts yourtribe your vibe attracts your
tribe.
It's a story, it's how youpresent yourself.

(19:55):
I just had a call with one ofmy pro members, whitney, who has
a podcast herself and she'svery established.
And I asked her point blankwhat was it about me that
attracted you versus going toAgency Mavericks or somebody
else?
And she said it're just yourstyle, like.
You just seem like a stable,balanced entrepreneur and she

(20:16):
wanted a little more of like.
She didn't want to hustle, shewanted more of that.
So I'm I realized like, yeah, Imean I have the best in certain
areas, but yeah, it's like your, your vibe truly does attract
your tribe.
I saw you went side camera.

I know it's my computer.
It's not letting me switch inbetween, so let me see oh,
that's all right.

Josh Hall (20:36):
Yeah, sometimes a Riverside.
I guess it's like everystreaming platform.
Sometimes it goes well, but hey, you look fine.

We can see your stash.

Josh Hall (20:47):
That's the most important yeah, yeah, well, but
hey, you look fine.

Fine to me, we can see your stash.
That's the most important.

Josh Hall (20:53):
Yeah, yeah, okay, cool yeah, I was joking before
we hit record, like if somethinghappens you will make a hell of
a cop.
Just keep the stash ready.

Plan B yeah, I, I, I fear I would be like, you
know, too lenient, you know,pull people over cause they're
speeding.
You know I'm like, ah, you know, it's fine, We'll, we'll figure
it out.

Josh Hall (21:06):
Just don't.
Don't do it again.
You would be the worst cop,Chris, Cause you'd be like I
just want to help you.

I don't want to give you a ticket.

Josh Hall (21:11):
They'd be like Chris literally he was going 95 and a
35.
You have to give a ticket.

Yeah, you know in in talking about like
competition.
So what I do for show it is Iactually help our designers that
use the show at platform.
So we've got a really bigcircle community.
We also have a core group ofdesigners we call the design
partners.
So there are people who havebeen vetted by us.
They've been through theprocess of taking some of our

(21:40):
courses.
We've gotten client feedbackabout them, and so we actually
take them on retreats a fewtimes a year up to a cabin that
the CEO owns.
I'm actually there right now.

Josh Hall (21:54):
So I'm going to say it looked like you were in like
a lake house or something.

Yeah, so and they just get together and they
just share and they're like hey,here's where it's working well
for me, or just what's maybe alittle bit too difficult.
Right now we do some workshopson like show it stuff.
I'll do a presentation, the CEOdoes a presentation, but it's
amazing to see the people whocome, who kind of hold things

(22:19):
close to their chest.
You know they're like I don'twant to give away my secrets
because we're all trying to getthe same clients, but by the end
of the week it's just likethey're the most open people you
know, because they've seen thevalue of sharing and being
honest and being open.
And this is what's working forme and you know, like there's

(22:41):
just there's so much more to itthan just the way the websites
look that you built or there'sso much opportunity.
You know, with however manybillions of people in the world
there's, there's always going tobe a need for a good web
designer.
You know, despite what peopleare saying, with AI and

(23:03):
everything else that's happeningand it's certainly something to
consider and think about andtry to try to figure out again
how you are going to stand out,but at the same time, it's like
man, there's just so muchbusiness opportunity and so many
people who need unique thingsthat there will never be a point
where it's like, well, all theweb designers that are needed

(23:25):
are being used by projects, andso you know, good luck everybody
else.

Josh Hall (23:30):
Yeah, every single business owner and DIYer has you
know.
They can build their ownwebsite now for sure, and they
don't need any help with theircopy or messaging.
They're going to understand SEOwith a you know, chat, gpt
prompt.
They know, you know userexperience and they can figure
that out on their own.
Now.
Business owners don't need that.
They don't need to figure out.

(23:55):
Email is involved with domainsand websites and, um, yeah,
they've got it all.
Yeah, there's no need for us.
Yeah, yeah, I don't see thathappening ever.
Uh yeah I love.
I love that you're bringing thisup, chris, just because, like,
I feel like we're our own worstenemy as creatives, especially
with scarcity mindsets, and Iunderstand these are interesting
times economically andeverything else has, like I mean
there may be different worstenemy as creatives, especially
with scarcity mindsets, and Iunderstand these are interesting
times economically andeverything else has like I mean,
there may be differentfluctuations of that, but that

(24:15):
is always the case.
But the reality is, like I'vejust gone back this over and
over most web designers don'tneed more than 25 to 50 clients
to build a healthy big business,especially depending on your
price points.
How many businesses in theworld are the million, like

(24:36):
hundreds of millions, businessowners and people launching new
businesses all the time?
There is a scarcity of webdesigners, quite honestly,
especially web designers who arenot just pixel pushers, like
folks who are like really in andwe take it a level back and say
, like web designers whoactually care and give a crap.

(24:57):
That's really.
I've banged on that drum foryears because that's how I got
started.
Not having any expertise andvery good design skills, quite
honestly, is I really did careand clients can sense that.
So, going back to thoseintangibles.
I feel like it's worthwhilereally for everyone sitting down
and thinking about yourintangibles Like where's my

(25:19):
level of care?
Where's my passions in thiswork?
What do I do that I enjoy?
What do I do that I want tohelp others with?
What type of people do I likehelping with?
And my gosh, that could takeyou so far.
There's just, there's no needfor a scarcity mindset.
Now more than ever, yeah, yeah.
I think the folks who have theopposite of that are the ones
who are going to go really far,really fast.

Yeah, yeah, you know it's interesting.
Um, I actually, uh, probablylast fall, got a fairly big
client for myself, um, and itcame down that it was between me
and this like bigger agency,and so the client was talking
with them and he sent me theagency's proposal and was like

(26:00):
hey, can you look at this andjust tell me how you would be
different?
And like if you would be ableto deliver some of the things
that that they're talking about?
And so, as I was looking attheir proposal, I was like I
feel like this is everythingthat I have said that I'm going
to be doing for them.
So what was the disconnect?

(26:20):
Like?
Why did he feel like theirproposal was so much stronger
than mine that he would say, hey, can you level up to this, you
know?
And so I realized it was theway that they were communicating
about what they were delivering, and so we were both going to
deliver probably close to thesame level of quality of product

(26:43):
, you know.
And we both showed like, here'sour background, here's the
stuff that I have done.
It was pretty similar, you know, like there wasn't anything
that's like oh, this isdrastically better than mine,
but the difference that he feltwas the way that they were
presenting and communicating,and so that's when I realized,
like, all right, I need tofigure out how to communicate in

(27:04):
such a way that you know aclient is going to feel more
secure in saying yes to me, andthat's that intangible that that
you're talking about, andthat's, I think, that the more
AI becomes prevalent in the workthat we do, the thing that's
going to help you stand out morelike.
People are going to want thehuman connection.
They're going to want the, theinteraction that you wouldn't be

(27:26):
able to get from a computer.

Josh Hall (27:29):
Was that in the case of that agency proposal and the
way they were communicating?
Was it specifically a level ofpersonalization and like
one-on-one contact with you?
If you could drill down toexactly what the difference was
in communication, what do youthink that was?

Yeah.
So some of it was.
They had like a slide deckpresentation that they were kind
of mapping out Like here's somepast examples, here's our
framework.
So they went really into thedetails of their process and I
had kind of touched on that inmy calls with him, but there was
never a point where I was likeall right, let's look at this

(28:03):
together here's A, B, C, D andthis is exactly the path that
I'm going to take you on toensure success, and here's the
things that we're going to avoidso we don't get in any pitfalls
.
And so I had that.
I just didn't have asystematized way of
communicating that, and so itdidn't feel like I'd put too

(28:27):
much um of the onus on thepotential client to like figure
that out, as I'm just kind ofspit balling on a zoom call, you
know.
And so, um, yeah, that wasprobably the biggest thing was
just how it was presented andcommunicated.

Josh Hall (28:42):
And so they went.
Did you go forward with you orthe agency?
I'm sorry, Did I miss that he?

ended up going forward with me.
Uh it price point, uh, you know, because I I bet I was less
than half of what they wereasking for.
Um, but it was still like areally sizable project for me.
I just don't have agencyoverhead that they did gotcha.

Josh Hall (29:03):
Yeah, I was wondering like, yeah, what was the what?
Yeah, was it a level ofpersonalization?
I'm sure that helped too.
Though, like I don't know,would the agency have looked
over, reviewed your proposal andreally gave it, given a, like
you know, personalized,one-on-one response?
I don't know, probably not.
I I would guess, like maybethey would say they reviewed it.
But you know, if that's aperfect example of like I mean,

(29:24):
yes, you were lower in price andand yes, there were
deliverables that didn't requirethe extra overhead and
everything that agency, it's aproblem with agencies and, by
the way, the hard part foragencies, they're competing with
folks who, if you can get stuffdone with one or a very lean
team which is what I teach onthen yeah, why wouldn't you do
that?
And there's going to be morepersonalization and you're not

(29:45):
going to be just a number on aspreadsheet and you don't need
to pay for their.
You know, big holiday parties,that's.
You know that's very, that's a,that's a unique selling
position for all freelancers andsolopreneurs and small teams
too.
Yeah, so yeah.

Yeah, and I think to you know, there, there,
there are clients.
So I have had clients who'vesaid, you know, like, hey, we're
also talking to an agency andthey're going to give us a
project manager, they're goingto give us a designer, they're
going to give us a developer,and it's just you.
So how are you going to make upfor all those differences?
And so you know, like somepeople, especially bigger

(30:22):
businesses, um, it's they havemore money than they have
resources and time, and sothey'd rather spend more money
to know that they don't have tohave their hands as much in the
project.
But for a lot of people it's,like you know, a website might
be one of the.
You know like 30, 40 grand on anew, really simple website,

(30:53):
which is what most agencies aregoing to ask for, just to have
the conversation.

Josh Hall (30:58):
Yeah Well, I'll tell you my fix for that, which is
have a team page that hascollaborators and they don't
need to need to subcontract withyou often.
I mean, it's one thing I tellmy Web Designer Pro members I'm
like you automatically have ateam when you join Web Designer
Pro, because it could literallyjust be you you could have never
hired anyone else to help youand you can say if we have a
really big project that we needother hands on, that go far into

(31:20):
DNS or far into e-commerce orfar into memberships or whatever
it is.
I'm a part of the community andit's a team of collaborators
who can step in with needed.
That's the quick solution forthat that I found.
And then, once you do have afew contractors that you work
with occasionally, then they'reon your team page and you just
put collaborates frequently orhow often they help.

(31:40):
But yeah, it's funny becausethe same thing I did in 2011
works today probably even betterand that is to put your sweet
spot on your website.
Um, I, I literally created agraphic that still works today,
and it's this little graphicthat says I'm not a stressed out

(32:01):
freelancer who does everythinghim or herself and can't answer
an email within three days, butI'm not an agency where you're
going to be treated like anumber.
I'm right in the middle me, andthen you other folks who work
with me, or I have a team ofcollaborators, and that's still
such a wonderful sweet spot thatso many businesses want.
It's a great point, though,chris, because there are times
where you're like, yeah, look,you need an agency, you need

(32:23):
full-blown, they're going to bereally heavily involved in your
business, unless I'm going towork part-time for you.
You need, you know, departmentsof people to help you, but most
freelancers aren't getting toomany leads that are that robust,
at least from my experience.

Yeah, and that's that's been my experience as
well, and there's there's a lotof opportunity in that space.
You know, um, you know not tosay that it's if you want to
scale up to the agency level,that it's not worth the idea of
the conversation, um, becausethat certainly is a place to be.
You know, like sometimesagencies are able to put out

(33:00):
better work because they havepeople who are really specified
in their skill, you know.
So they have a brand designer,they have a motion designer,
they have somebody who's doingthings for UI and UX, like
they've got all these individualparts.
But you know, that's that's fora level that it's like you're
you're really trying to eke outjust maybe 3% more value from

(33:25):
this new thing.
Like it doesn't need todrastically overhaul, it doesn't
need to make a huge impact, itjust needs to add maybe a few
dollar signs to their budget.

Josh Hall (33:35):
How many cause you're , a you know self-made words on
a brand you're.
I know you're a freedom based,you know heartfelt business kind
of guy Like.
How many happy agency owners doyou think you've met who have
like a ton of departments andare truly like happy?

(33:55):
Yeah, I don't a couple.
But they've been much moreowner focused from the get go
and they like prettyintentionally or at least they
were at a point in their journeywhen they started an agency

(34:16):
where they knew how to build ateam and knew what worked for
them.
Really good example is a sitecalled Studio One Design.
I had their owner on there fromAustralia and he's one of the
very few true agency owners thatis balanced and still loves
what he does.
But I haven't met many.
They're mostly especially nowin 2025, we're seeing the

(34:42):
remnants of burned out agencyowners and man, the agency life
is a brutal, hard life because,yes, you may have marketing
departments of folks, but I'veseen it firsthand the amount of
churn that agencies deal withand a client may get a marketing
head director, they may get adeveloper, they may get a
designer and they may get aproduction assistant, but they

(35:05):
may get like two or three newproduction assistants during
their contract with them becausethey're turning people out so
bad.
So I'm all.

I'm just saying I wouldn't envy the agency world
at all right now, for sure, forsure, yeah, um so a friend of
mine, mike Janda, you know hetalks about how familiar with
him yeah.
Yeah, he, he's talked about, um,like when he was running an
agency, he had to have a like aGoogle sheet that listed out how

(35:40):
long they could run, even ifthey didn't get another job
starting today.
Just because it was so stressful, it was like there's so many
things that could go wrong,there's so many things that
could happen, and so in order tosleep at night, he had to know
okay, we've got six months ofrunway before we really need to
start worrying, or we've got ayear of runway before we really

(36:01):
need to start worrying, and sothere's, there's a way to
mitigate that, there's a way todo it well.
But I know that people thatwork for agencies, typically
it's like it's younger folks whodon't have a lot of other
responsibilities outside oftheir job, and so they don't
need a lot of money and they canwork, and it's always kind of
talked about as a stepping stone.

(36:22):
You know, like I got a lot ofexperience.
I, you know, built my chopsthrough doing agency work and
then I went out and did itmyself, so so I would agree it's
it's a tough.
It's a tough world to play in.
You know.
Of course there are folks whoare doing it well, but it's
going to have its own unique setof challenges.

Josh Hall (36:43):
Well, and even the folks who are doing it well.
I wonder, this is where theidea of like, comparing yourself
to them, man, did.
I experience this when Istarted you know, becoming
successful as a freelancer, Ilooked at some agencies in town.
I felt so envious that they hada cool office downtown and,
like, man, should I do that?
And what I've realized is, likethe true mission of what you

(37:05):
want to do in your work thattrumps everything.
Because, like I, just I didn'twant to drive every day downtown
and deal with traffic.
I wanted to work from home, Ididn't want the overhead, and
they just had different missionsand different levels of
experience behind them and Ithink a lot of agency owners
probably I would say I would betthat a lot of them view their

(37:27):
agency in creating somethingthat's sellable or something
that's an exit.
I had a conversation back on thepodcast not too long ago with
Matt Gartland, who was the CEOof Smart Passive Income, with
Pat Flynn, and he said when youstart your business, you have to
ask yourself are you creating ajob, a business or an exit?

(37:48):
And I really love that framebecause it does put everything
into perspective, like there'snothing wrong with creating a
freelance job for yourself.
If that's what you want to doat least, even if it's, you know
, for a while, that's fine.
Creating a business is verydifferent than creating a
freelancing job for yourself,and creating something that's
going to be sellable by acertain time is very different
than just creating a business.

(38:09):
So yeah, I don't know.
I just think that's reallyimportant, because most agency
owners are probably creating abusiness and an exit.

No, no agent.

Josh Hall (38:17):
Owner is like I want to create a job for myself where
I have to oversee 30 people andhave to work 90 hours a week,
and I'm just going to love allthese team meeting calls.
I'm going to love hiring andfiring.
It's just going to be great.
No, they're doing it becausethey want to build a business
that they probably want to exitfrom in a certain amount of time
without dying before they do it.

It's funny.
I just did a workshop with acouple of designers in Showit
about using white labeldesigners.
So there's the business ownerwho has a business.
She probably works about 15 to20 hours a week.
Her other job is to be astay-at-home mom and so she does

(39:00):
homeschooling with her kids isby hiring people who are on her
team, but they're notnecessarily only working for her
.
And so you know it's anotheropportunity where it's like you
could actually scale.
You know like you could take onmore work if you had a few

(39:26):
collaborators like you've talkedabout, or folks who it's like
you've taken them through yourprocesses.
Obviously there's onboarding.
There's a little bit of likeworking out the details of how
the relationship is going towork and how you like to run
your systems, um.
But you know there's so muchopportunity out there because
there are folks who they'drather not be face to face with

(39:47):
the client.
They just want to do the workand they're willing to take less
money because they're theyrealize they're not going out
there and getting the business.

Josh Hall (39:55):
Yeah, it's a great point.
I think it actually I think itleads to this like pulling the
curtain back on the challengesof being an agency owner is, I
think, where people get reallyscared to scale.
The last course that I releasedlast year was called Scale your
Way and it's been reallyinteresting to see people the

(40:17):
results they're getting fromthat course.
But mostly the results havebeen a mindset shift in being
confident and comfortable toscale but not be a stressed out
agency, because there really area lot of ways to go about it,
and that's one for sure justhaving contractors and white
labelers and not the stress of afull-time W2 employee or

(40:38):
multiple.
There's also, I think, aself-awareness thing, like you
mentioned there, chris, which isknow what you want to do.
If you really hate developmentand troubleshooting, you can
hire that out from day one.
Even if you're working part-time, you can absolutely get help
with that.
You can focus on the creativeparts and the selling and the

(40:59):
client communication, or viceversa.
Maybe you really like havinghands in the coding and you
really enjoy that aspect ofthings, but you dread going to a
networking group.
There's a lot of different waysto be able to get help on the
sales part, or partnering withpeople as a white label person
to do the development and thedesign that a lot of people like
myself don't really want to do.
So I think that's the coolthing about the world of

(41:23):
freelance solopreneurship andI'll call it studio versus
agency world is there's just alot more flexibility.
And I don't want to derailanyone or speak badly about
agencies as a whole, likethey're really some people like
it, but I think most maybe justbecause we're in the freelance

(41:44):
world primarily and do you seethat too, where people are
afraid to become an agency,they're like I don't want to
scale, it just sounds horribleand so stressful.

Yeah, you know, I, I think I see a lot of people
who have tried dipping theirtoes into it and then it didn't
go well right off the bat and sothey just kind of, you know,
scurried back to what felt safeand so, kind of, you know,

(42:14):
scurried back to what felt safe.
And so, because it is adifferent part of your brain
that you're teaching a new skill, you know, it's not the web
design, it's not the getting aclient, it's no.
Now you're overseeing people,you're learning how to
communicate your leadership.
Yeah, yeah, all of those thingsyou know, you're you're
translating from the businessowner to the person who's

(42:35):
working on the project Like alot of times that those skills
are something it's like we feellike we should just be good at
from the very beginning.
But it actually takes a lot ofdevelopment and you're not just
going to be good at it right offthe bat.
So you've got to, you've got togive yourself some runway and
you've got to say, like I'mgoing to, I'm going to try this

(42:58):
for X number of times before Isay this isn't the right season
for me.
You know so, like I was working, uh, with a video editor for
some of my YouTube stuff and hewas just like hey, listen, like,
in order for us to know if thisis going to work out, we really
need to do like three videostogether and I was like, oh,
okay, yeah, that makes, thatmakes sense.

(43:20):
You know, like, like we numberone, it gets you more business
and so that's kind of helpfulfor you.
But number two, like, yeah, thefirst one's going to be kind of
rough.
You know, like you're learninghow you're communicating, you're
learning what gets missed orwhat needs to have some directed
attention towards and so like.
But the more reps you get intothose things, the easier it's

(43:42):
going to be every single time.

Josh Hall (43:44):
That's a great point, and one thing that I teach in
my course scale your way andalso have learned is when you
dip your toe into scaling.
And by scaling I just mean likegetting help to start.
In most cases, web designersare just buried and they're like
I can't.
I literally can't do all this.
I need to get help at some,some capacity, make it low risk
and low pressure to start.

(44:05):
Like, don't just hire somebodyyou meet on, we'll just say
Upwork for now as a designer,and then say hey, here's a 20
page website, here's ourstrategy call with the client.

You know, here's our portfolio.

Josh Hall (44:22):
Good luck.
99.9%.
That's not going to go well.
But if you give them like apage or or a couple pages to
build out based off of whatyou're doing, then you it's a
very low risk, low pressure kindof approach.
One thing that I learned withJonathan, who was my lead
designer for a long time, was westarted like that I gave him
like a section.
Well, first I gave him like apart of a footer to work on.
He did great on that.
I gave him a section to work on, then gave him a page to work

(44:44):
on, then gave him multiple pagesto work on, and then I felt
comfortable like, okay, he canabsolutely build a whole site.
And I was still doing strategy,initial calls and overall
creative director type stuff.
But then we got to the pointwhere, like, he became better
than I was at designing, so Ifelt comfortable with just
getting the project kicked offand then it turned over to him
and it was literally and theneventually he got involved with

(45:06):
client communication and that'show we rolled.
So all that to say like startoff, low risk, low pressure.
Don't yeah, Don't put yourselfin a position to blow up your
business the first time you geta little bit of help.
Yeah, it'll be a lot betterexperience and that way, if it
goes bad, it's like okay, thatpage is terrible, let's try one
more.
Yeah, I'm not a good fit.

(45:26):
I think we can.
Yeah, we're just not a good fit.

Yeah, yeah so video guy I'm.

Josh Hall (45:30):
You know that was probably a good, like you know,
if you did three and it's like,okay, we didn't get it after
three, no harm.
Yeah, you know not a good fit.

Yeah, and the, the, the two designers that um
did the workshop yesterday withme.
One was the business owner andone was the white label designer
.
Um, they, they, uh say just doa paid test project, you know,
where it's not even clientfacing, where you know you're
not asking for free work to bedone, but like, hey, you know,

(46:00):
build me a hero section andhere's the brief, you know, and
then I'll give you $500.
I just want to see what you'regoing to come up with, just to
see what your style is.
You know, um, like that can beanother opportunity.
And another one of their tipswas like don't try to do it when
you're busy, like it's actuallythe worst time to do it when

(46:22):
you feel slammed, because notonly do you have to finish the
project but you also have toteach somebody how to help you
finish the project.

Josh Hall (46:30):
So it's like it's kind of the worst moment.
Yeah, that was.
I will say I got through itbecause I I've notoriously
publicly said I had 23 projectsand I was like, oh my God, I
literally can't do it on my ownanymore.
I didn't have a choice.
I had to like jack up my ratesor scale in some capacity.
And I did make it through it.

(46:51):
But yeah, man, do I wish Iwould have like have like you
know, like just transparently.
I wish I would have gonethrough my course to be prepared
to scale before you even thinkyou're ready to scale.
At least you know that way.
When you get to that point, youknow like okay, let me create
an org chart.
Most design I bet most webdesigners don't have an org
chart.
So right now, visualize an orgchart.
Or just google org chart orchat, gpt and org chart.

(47:13):
There's a ceo, there's acreative director, there's a
salesperson, there's marketing,content creation.
There's a designer, there'sdeveloper, there's tech support,
there's ongoing admin like yourface is in all of those spots
right now.
So as soon as you get to thepoint where you're somewhat busy
, I would start to chip away atwhat you don't want to do.

(47:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, isn't thatawesome Like this is so cool
about this industry is we reallydo.
I don't know of anotherindustry where you can have so
much freedom outside of justyour work time and stuff.
But, like in your business, youhave the freedom Like most.
I don't know Most people whoget into like loans probably
don't have that much flexibilitywith their work in loans Like

(47:57):
you probably have like stuff yougot to follow all the time.
But we can do whatever one ofthose roles we want to as our
main role.

Yeah for sure, and there's so many new,
different things to learn as yougo to you Like that's, that's
honestly one of the reasons whyI love web design.
It's like, well, you know, likeweb design in general is such a
big idea.
You know, it's not just webdevelopment, it's not just UX UI
, like no, this is we're.
We're building things for theweb.

(48:25):
Well, what well, it could be anapp.
Uh, it could be a website.
Um, that could mean that you'rea part of the development
process.
That could mean that you're apart of the design process.
That mean you're a part of allof those things.
You could be doing SEO, youcould be doing strategy, and and
so you know as much as you know, I get kicked back every once
in a while and some of mycontent, like you know, web

(48:47):
designers aren't web developersand vice versa.
It's like, ah, I mean you mighthave to be fairly soon.
You know, like there's a daycoming where a generous is
probably going to be more indemand than somebody who's
really specific.

Josh Hall (49:03):
That's interesting.
I really thought about it likethat.
I mean I I've definitely seenfor my members in my little
sphere and web designer pro, mymembers in my little sphere and
Web Designer Pro a lot of thefolks who are at a like six and
multi six figure level eitherhave just a lot of maintenance
plans and have scaled up somesort of MRR or their services or

(49:23):
a higher price point, or theyare doing things like strategy
and consultative services.

(49:43):
They don't even necessarilyneed to be a digital marketing
agency, but they're definitelypositioned now more as a trusted
web guide, like a webmaster,versus just somebody who's
taking orders and making thelogo bigger.
That is what I recommend folksget to.
Even if they're fairly new, youcould still become a bit of a
strategist and kind of aconsultant.
I mean, honestly, most webdesigners, all web designers,
are doing some level of strategyand consultative services from
day one, so you might as wellposition yourself like that.

(50:05):
I still like saying a webdesigner, because if you say
you're a web designer, you willget clients.
If you go to a networking groupand do it consistently, you
will get clients.
If you go to a networking groupand do it consistently, you
will get clients promiseguaranteed, a hundred percent
guaranteed.
It's just it opens doors.
But that next level back I've,I've learned and I think now
like to your point.
I think now is that point wherebusinesses do just want

(50:28):
somebody who knows what theheck's going on on the web.
So I agree, yeah.
You don't do everything, but youknow, if you know your lanes
and can do a few things, well,particularly if it's just on the
website, that's where the goldis.

Yeah, yeah, nielsen put out an article just
recently that talked about, like, the era of specialization
being almost over, especiallywith the introduction of AI.
You know, it's just so mucheasier to know a lot of things
about a lot of things, and so,like we have to be ready to say

(51:03):
like all right, what's, what'sthe new skill that I can learn
or add to the repertoire?
And, like you're talking aboutthe, the people who are making,
you know, multiple six figures.
They're hardly ever justdesigning the pages, you know,
unless they're just some kind ofcrazy good designer, which I've
not even really seen somebodythat is at that level who's just

(51:24):
designing, you know.

Josh Hall (51:26):
Yeah, I think the case for that would be if
they're working with brands thatare making so much online that
literally, a call to actiontweak may be worth tens of
thousands or hundreds ormillions of dollars.
I think that's where, like youknow, some of the top level
design design folks get to, butI mean those are few and far
between.
It is interesting, your, your,your pushback towards the idea

(51:47):
of a specialist, because I'veheard so much of the opposite in
that, like folks are saying,drill down into a specialty, go
niche, and it definitely makesthings more referable when it's
like, yes, this person does this.
But even the folks I think of,who I'm utilizing and referring
people to, they do a fewdifferent things.

(52:08):
They may have a lead specialty,but it's not their only
specialty, so that I agree onfor sure where it's like you got
a few bags of specialty, butit's not their only specialty,
so that I agree on for surewhere it's like you know, you
got a few bags of tricks butyou've got made one that may be
the primary lead source, butthen when they use you for that,
the work doesn't stop, you say,oh shoot, you do this too and
you do this.
Interesting, awesome.

Yeah yeah, you know, contrary to popular advice
, I have never really nicheddown and some of that is my
brain, Like I.
Just I have a hard time likereally going deep for a very
long time, Like I are you afraidof getting bored?
A hundred percent, and so I justknow a lot of things about a

(52:49):
lot of things.
And so it's like you know, likeI'm, I'm okay, going like all
right, a lot of things.
And so it's like you know, likeI'm, I'm okay, going like all
right, for six months let'sreally get into SEO, and then
for another six months let'slearn machine learning, because
that sounds like something thatis probably going to be
important within this nextdecade, you know.
And so I've never had issueslike could I be making more

(53:09):
money?
Maybe you know, but maybe I'dbe making less if I didn't
necessarily niche down into whatI'm doing.
So I think, I think the roadthat I've taken might take a
little bit longer to to get upthere.
You know, like, if you want, togo designer yeah, a hundred
percent, like if.
if you want to make a lot ofmoney really quickly, yes, pick

(53:30):
a niche, go hard into it andthen you'll get there.
But if you're thinking aboutlongevity over the long haul,
like not necessarily nichingdown is maybe a good option for
you.

Josh Hall (53:42):
I think it goes all goes back to what you want and I
with a with niche.
It's funny, it really is 50, 50.
It can, yeah, it can,absolutely work and you can do
it at scale and you it could bean easier sell because you know
the clients, you know yourtarget market, you know the
messaging and everything.
But you can also run into therisk that I've seen for people

(54:04):
who want to go niche where,unless you're like so certain
about who you want to serve,that is an unnecessary challenge
you put on yourself.
You absolutely can be ageneralist.
I was, you are.
So many of our Pro members Ioversee are and a lot of them
are very happy to just work withdifferent types of businesses.
You can always go like hybridniche to where you have maybe

(54:26):
it's not like just chiropractors, but you serve healthcare or
wellness.
Wellness is what wellness means.
You got yoga instructors,dietitians, nutritionists.
You know you don't have to golike hyper, hyper niche and I I
do.
I love that.
You said that, chris, just causethat is something that I'm like
I'm trying to help people orthey're like I got to pick a
niche.

(54:46):
I'm like, no, you, no, youdon't.
If you don't know your niche.
Don't pick a niche yet, just doweb design.
I promise eventually you'll getto the point where, like, okay,
I like these types of people,but yeah, there's no pressure to
niche, niche, niche, howeveryou say it.
Yeah, no, I like that, it'strue and to your like, to your

(55:07):
situation, you're balancingfull-time work for show it your
freelance stuff and your yourteaching.
You know your your passionstuff and your your teaching you
know your your passion stuffthrough side or side I was going
to say side made web designer.
That actually may be your truebrand, but you are this
self-made web designer, but youknow you're, you've got three
different income streamstechnically.
So yeah, yeah, there's like,there's no, there's no reason to

(55:29):
put added pressure on yourself.
I feel like when somebody hasthat kind of thing going on.

Yeah, and eventually, especially when I
was first getting started, Ijust happened to be doing a lot
of websites for people who werein personal training, and so it
was like, okay, I could easilytake this and say I've done like
four or five websites forpersonal trainers.
That's enough of a portfoliothat I could say I am the web

(55:58):
designer for personal trainers.
You know, um, I didn't end upgoing that route because it's
like this is not really a nicheI want to stay in.
You know, like I like beingable to help the personal
trainer and the investment firm,you know, and so, um, but it
you'll eventually start to seepatterns in the types of clients
that you're getting.
You'll see patterns in the typeof stuff you like doing.

(56:21):
Um, and a mix of that is a goodopportunity.
Like, if you could say like,hey, yeah, like I could see
myself helping doing this typeof website over and over again
for the next however long, thenmaybe that's a good option.
I could just never see myselfdoing that.

Josh Hall (56:38):
That and then also, if you really commit to going
niche and you're not 100% sureyou're going to enjoy it or it's
going to work, then a year ortwo in, if you're going to pivot
in a lot of ways, you don'tneed to completely start over,
but you do need to redesign yourwebsite.
Your current portfolio is notgoing to be the best example of

(56:59):
who you want to serve now, soyou really have to expand your
network in a whole different way.
You got to have differentmarketing strategies.
Pivoting a niche is a wholeother challenge and that's
something I really talked about.
But I have seen to where it'slike challenge and that's
something I really talked about,but I have seen to where it's
like I feel bad, but it's likeyour current roster and client
list and network is almost Idon't want to say useless, but

(57:20):
it's.
It's not not what you need tomove forward.
It's like what got you here andthey're going to get you there.
And now you got to really startover again.
If you commit to a niche thatyou're not truly going to serve
for the long haul, yeah,absolutely, and I do know people
who have done that successfully.

There's actually a show at designer who, um, she
burned her portfolio, you know,so to speak, and took all of
the websites that she had doneoff of her you know case studies
section and then just made umlike ideas out of thin air and
made, you know, test projectsfor her own concepts and that's

(57:59):
what she ended up showing on herwebsite and that actually
turned her business around.
So it's not that it'simpossible, it's just like it's
better to have that conversationwith yourself earlier in your
business than it is to be two orthree years in and be like okay
.

Josh Hall (58:19):
I don't like anything that I'm doing.
Yeah, and the folks who I'veseen, who go niche really well,
generally come from thatindustry, like Jason Gracia who
has a site called Swift Sitessuper productized, probably one
of the best examples of superwell.
He's not even super nichebecause he serves coaches in
different variety of coachingindustries, but he came from
that world of motivation andcoaching and he just knows those

(58:40):
people really well, knows whatthey need, but it's broad enough
to where it's not just fitnesscoaches, every site.
And another pro member, kristen, who was recently on the
podcast.
She comes from the speakingworld and she just knows
speakers and they are coachestoo actually a lot of them and
she loves serving them and she'seven trained like her custom

(59:01):
chat GPT to like she's a customGPT about speaking websites and
different content and she lovesit because she knows that
industry, she loves the industry, she's a speaker herself.
So I feel like that's when,when it's oh so clear of what
you know, who you like to workwith, that's the time to go
niche.
But yeah, I just I just wonderlike it just it pains me to see

(59:23):
people like hang up theirbusiness or get delayed in
starting or have so muchstruggles or unnecessarily
unnecessary challenges whenthey're like I gotta go niche, I
gotta find my niece.
I just don't agree.
I totally agree, man.
It's just like just do webs,enjoy web design first and
figure out what you want to dowithin web design.
These can come later.

A hundred percent.
Yeah, I think that's solidadvice.

Josh Hall (59:48):
The show it.
Uh, it's interesting.
We are in a very, very, veryinteresting time with website
builders.
Wordpress has a lot of dramagoing on around it.
Um, I mean, truly page buildersare what's carrying wordpress
and the community behind it.
But wix studio is gainingmomentum.

(01:00:08):
There's show it, there'ssquarespace, which is still
hanging on really strong.
There's so many other platforms.
I'm just kind of curious, likewhat type of people are you
seeing in ShowIt land?
My VA Jen actually uses ShowIt,yeah, and I know people who use
it really like it, just like, Iguess, with any platform.
But are you seeing agencyowners with ShowIt?
Is it freelancers?

(01:00:28):
Is it more female driven thanmale driven?

Chris Misterek (01:00:32):
What are you seeing in show at land.
Yeah, it's uh, all of the above, um and like.
We have design partners whohave full fledged agencies.
Um, we have site shops that are, you know, doing millions of
dollars just based on templates.
Um, you know.
So there's, there's opportunity.

(01:00:54):
No matter what kind of webdesign business you're you're
wanting to build, I would say,like, the thing that separates
us from, um, a lot of otherwebsite builders is, like, what
you see within the show atwebsite builder is what it's
going to look like on thewebpage.
You know, and it's it's mucheasier to move a, an image,

(01:01:22):
three and a half pixels over tothe right than it would be on a
lot of other website builders.
You know, so like, of course,all of them have their positives
and negatives, you know, um,and there are some great ones
out there and, and honestly,like, I would never tell
somebody like, show, it is thebest and the only.
It's like, you know, like, no,like, if you want full creative
freedom with a website like show, it is the platform for you.

(01:01:44):
Yeah, cause our mission is tocultivate the creativity that
exists in every individual, umand so like, we are wanting to
give you a tool to be morecreative with how you're putting
yourself online, um and so like.
We are wanting to give you atool to be more creative with
how you're putting yourselfonline, um.
So, as we're Squarespace it,you'd be able to get something
up really quickly, but it'sgoing to be tough making tweaks

(01:02:06):
outside of the ability thatthey've given you.
You know like they have.

Josh Hall (01:02:11):
I have heard that show.
That seems to be a bit of abridge in between, like
something like a squarespace andbut not as like robust, as like
a crm like wordpress orsomething that is open source
and you know you can get very,very advanced into well and I
would say yeah, we integratewith wordpress and so there are

(01:02:32):
different.

There are different tiers, like you know.
You have one, one, one level.
That's just the show up builder.
So if you just want to createstatic pages, then we have like
a multi site option, whereyou've got WordPress but you
can't add in your own plugins,and then you've got the advanced
blog, which is like it's justlike having a WordPress website,
and then you've got theadvanced blog, which is like
it's just like having aWordPress website.

(01:02:53):
The difference is you designhow you want your website to
look and show it and then youconnect specific WordPress pages
to show it.
So, but I've created, you know,like really advanced custom
post types and advanced customfields and obviously integrate
with WooCommerce and all thatkind of stuff to to make some
really fun stuff.

Josh Hall (01:03:14):
Interesting.
I didn't realize that.
So a self-made web designercomis that?
Show it with WordPressintegration.

Yeah, exactly yeah, so, um.
So that's all very, very customWordPress stuff connected to it
, so, um.
So a lot of people say it'slike the missing link for
WordPress, because you knowthere are some great WordPress
builders, you know, Divi beingone of them, Elementor being

(01:03:42):
another, Showit is just mucheasier to design how you would
want it to look.

Josh Hall (01:04:25):
No-transcript.
There are other tools that arecoming out that are are kind of
filling those shoes.
But yeah, I actually didn'trealize, to the extent of show
it, of how far show it goes intothat.
So that's interesting.
Good for me to know.

Yeah, yeah, so you know, to answer your
questions, like there's, there'sall types of different
designers that that use ourplatform.
Um, we have leaned more towardsa female audience.
Um, and that's notintentionally, just seems to be
like we, at the very beginning,we were the website builder for

(01:05:07):
photographers, and so there area lot of photography businesses
that are female led, which isfantastic, and so, um, we've
just had a lot of folks that arefemale business owners that
love using our platform, um, andI've got oh sorry, but the
crmiu 17 hats is the same way.

Josh Hall (01:05:28):
It's largely female customer base and they started
in photography as well.
Yeah, there's definitely.
Yeah makes sense.
It just kind of comes with the.

Yeah, yeah.
And over time, you know, wekind of found that we had
photographers as like an idealcustomer avatar, but there was
also the designer and a lot ofpeople were photographers who
built their own website.
And then other people were like, wow, your website's great, can
you do that for me?
And so then they pivoted andbuilt a web design business and

(01:05:57):
and so that's kind of the otherperson that our platform is
great for is like, if you'rewanting to, you know, learn how
to build websites and chargemoney for it, like it's a great
platform for you.

Josh Hall (01:06:09):
This was not planned.
By the way, this episode issponsored by show it.
Show it Cause I actually wasn'tsure if you were still involved
with that.
So that's cool, man it is.
It is one of those things where, too, I really do feel for
folks getting into web designnow, cause it's just it's option
, overload, um, it's there.

(01:06:31):
There's not a right or wrongsolution, there is.
I really just recommend peopleplay around with a few different
things early on and see whatthey like.
But, man, I mean, tell me aboutlike experienced web designer
like yourself with you know the,the, uh, the, the public
transparent adhd that all webdesigners I feel strongly have

(01:06:52):
in some level.
How do you not just derailyourself with like shiny new
tool syndrome?

Cause that is another big problem of folks
five, 10 years 15 years in it tobe like Ooh, shiny new tool

(01:07:31):
with this.
Yeah, you know, myencouragement to folks who are
in that beginning phase is likeone try out a lot of trial runs,
you know, like most websitebuilders.
So it goes back to the videoeditor advice.
You know, like like, stick tothree projects and then evaluate
like is this something that Iam going to want to learn more
about?
And the answer might be yes.
And so then you do anotherthree projects and you just keep

(01:07:52):
going until you have a littlebit of an expertise in that.
The answer might be no.
And then you kind of pivot andtry a different platform.
The problem with a client comingto you and saying I really want
my site to be built on this andyou being like well, I've never
done that before, but let's tryit.
It's like it's going to takeyou so much time to learn the

(01:08:14):
platform.
Your profit margin is going tobe abysmal.
You kind of need to put yourstake in the ground for a period
of time you don't have to staythere forever if you don't like
it, but you should at least tocommit to a handful of projects
before you say, okay, yes, thisis what I want to do or I don't

(01:08:40):
want to do, Because, as withanything, it's like you start
looking at like, oh, look at allthese other features that they
just rolled out on Framer orthey just rolled out on Webflow,
and it's like all that stuff isgreat, you could probably be
doing this stuff in the platformthat you're currently using.
Like, you just haven't reallydug into it, you know.
And so and that was one of thethings that, like, I realized

(01:09:02):
when I, when I came on the show,a team is like everybody told
me like hey show, it's bad foranimations.
And I'm like is it like?
How do you know that?
Is it just because you tellpeople it's bad?
It's like.
And so then I started lookinginto it.
I'm like, oh, actually we coulddo a lot of really cool stuff.
And then I started showingpeople the different animations
that I was creating and it waslike how did you do that?

(01:09:24):
I was like it's just right.
There, there's no code.
You don't even have to havecode, you know, but it's that oh
sorry, go ahead, go ahead yeah,I was just saying you didn't
have the um.
I I guess the the adventurousspirit to say, yeah, let's see
if we can do this you know,sometimes you gotta take your

(01:09:44):
wife for a date.

Josh Hall (01:09:45):
Yeah, sometimes you gotta, you know you gotta spice
it up a little bit.
Like same thing with our toolsit is.
It is funny.
It's like you use a tool for awhile and then you just stop
experimenting with it's going tostart to sound creepy, but you
know, like you just it.
Like 17 hats, for example.
I've been using 17 hats for 10years at this point and there's
a new tool called or newercalled, moxie, which is a really

(01:10:08):
nice crm.
A lot of my pro members areusing it, kind of caught fire.
And and then it came to itwhere 17 hats sponsored our
event and then that gave me theopportunity to just like re look
at the platform and there waslike so many new things that I
just didn't even, I just wasn'tpaying attention to.
I was like, oh my gosh, cause Ialmost started using Moxie.
I'm like wait a minute, 17 hatsdoes that and they do that and

(01:10:38):
they just added that and likethere's a lot of new things.
I'm like, oh my gosh, I I feelbad that I haven't been talking
about that in some of my coursesand stuff, because I can
absolutely do all this now too.
So, um, same thing with divvyand others like, yeah, I totally
agree, man, to avoid siney newobject syndrome, don't bail on
your current tool, whatever itis yeah, like squeeze the most
juice you can out of yourcurrent tool before you think I
need a new model.
Yeah, yeah, take your wife outon a date this week, everybody.

That's a great analogy.
I actually just wrote anewsletter where I talked about,
you know, coming from the musicworld, which is where I was for
a long time, you know,especially guitar players, it's
it's all about the gear.
Like I just need a new pedal ora new guitar or a new amp.
And I was actually at aconference where, like this

(01:11:23):
guitar player, who's like one ofthe industry's best, was doing
a Q and a and inevitablysomebody asked like hey, can you
talk about your gear setup?
And he's like, uh, his name isLincoln Brewster, so, um, can
you talk about your gear setup?
Who was it?
And he's like, uh, his name isLincoln Brewster, so, um, he's
definitely more in like theChristian space.
Um, isn't as popular as muchanymore.

(01:11:47):
He's kind of he's kind of goneoff the scene a little bit.
But, um, he was just saying,like I just use one pedal, like
I don't even have an amp, likeit's a line six pedal and that's
it.
And then he said, you know,it's, it's not about the gear
that you have, it's about howyou use it.
And I was like, wow, that'llpreach man.
And that's so true for, likeeverybody in every industry, but

(01:12:08):
especially in in any type oftech world, where it's like, ah,
if I just had a better computer, or if I just had a better
camera to make better content,or if I just signed up for this
new tool that's going tointegrate with my website
builder and do all these crazyfun things, it's like, hey,
maybe just see what you can dowith where you're at.

Josh Hall (01:12:29):
A tool is not going to save you.
That's it, man.
That's such a good point, chris.
That is genius.
I absolutely.
It's funny for the music world,I do.
You're totally right.
I think that's probably thehardest for a guitarist, because
even with drums like, you canadd more to drums.

(01:12:49):
As a drummer, I actually hadthat.
I learned that mindset of likeI'm going to do as much as I can
with this, with these set oftoms, these set of cymbals and,
yeah, guitarists, I could seeit's like I get a new pedal,
gotta get a new whatever.
Gotta get three new guitars,gotta get an h string, gotta get
whatever it is.
And, yeah, that's fascinating.
That's such a good point.

(01:13:10):
And singers have the easiestbecause, unless they're doing
vocal effects, you just have amic.
Yeah, maybe nobody better tolearn from with that than a
singer like yeah right.
How can you get as much as youcan out of what you got, which
is your voice?

yeah, absolutely , absolutely that's great man.

Josh Hall (01:13:27):
I meant to ask you how you're doing.
On time we can wrap this uphere.
I know you're at the uh, theretreat here but here.

But yeah, no, all good.

Josh Hall (01:13:34):
Sweet man.
Well, dude, great to catch upwith you.
This is, yeah, I'm so, so gladto see you back on the scene.
Um, but, like I said, yournewsletter, that first one that
just popped in my inbox I waslike, oh my gosh, chris is back.
I think I've messaged you back,right?
I was like, dude, good to goodto be back.

(01:13:55):
Yeah, man, I love that you'redoing it your way and you're
just enjoying it.
You know kind of written stuff,for is your podcast back?

It is.
It's mainly the YouTube channelnow, so it's it's YouTube that
also has a podcast, whereasbefore it was podcasts that also
had a YouTube.
Um, so we've reformatted itjust a little bit, but, um, yeah
, so still running and gunningand it's not like right now it's
every two weeks or so, so it'snot like a weekly thing, Um, but

(01:14:23):
you know we're we're stilldoing it and still loving it.

Josh Hall (01:14:27):
And is the YouTube self-made web designer.
Yeah, it's the same brand.

Uh, yeah, all the same same, all the same
thing across all channels gotcha.

Josh Hall (01:14:36):
Oh, 25k followers.

Congrats, dude yeah, man, thank you I did.

Josh Hall (01:14:41):
I did see that you had a few videos that were like
oh wow, way to go, the threeskills.
I remember seeing that one yeah, yeah, yeah.

They just kind of popped off.
I was like I don't know.
I at first I started doing themand it wasn't getting anywhere
and then all of a sudden it justhockey sticked and I was like,
oh okay, wow, this is fun.

Josh Hall (01:15:01):
Yeah, man, what's next do you think for self-made?
Then Do you have an idea oflike you know your your funnel
is.
Is it the Upwork course?
So you think in membership oneday.
What do you?
What's's what's next for you?

yeah, you know, part of it is like self-made is
kind of an arm of upwork orsorry, show it um, and so like I
, you know, like I use a littlebit partner with you, working
them with them, right yeah.
So they're like I don't get paidextra because of my channel,
that I do on the side, um, butlike, know, show, it has the

(01:15:33):
designer community which Ioversee and and that's really,
you know, like I love thedesigner community and love that
it's, it's growing and can helppeople out.
So I'm always trying to, youknow, kind of bridge the gap
between those two things.

Josh Hall (01:15:47):
We need to have a uh, unrecorded talk about this, or
maybe a different episode, cause, yeah, gosh, I feel like show
it could boost tremendously withyou doing the self-made
resources that lead into show acommunity or have courses about
Upwork.
And then when people want tobuild websites and get clients

(01:16:07):
on Upwork, what do they use?
Chris uses show it.
Here's how we do it.
Yeah, I know, are you feelingwith Brad Hussey?

Yeah, yeah, he and I are good friends.

Josh Hall (01:16:16):
Yeah, I thought so, I thought so.
You guys both have greatstashes too.

Maybe one day I'll.

Josh Hall (01:16:20):
I'll join the staff.
I wore a fake one for our ourin-person event.
We did a mock-up sales callwith my friend Jason, who I
mentioned, and I had a stash ashis central client and I looked
I've never looked more like acop.
I was like, oh my gosh, I mean Ilook, I like yeah.

(01:16:41):
So I don't know, I don't know,chris maybe.
But all that to say, I knowBrad does that with Wix studio,
like he has his community, buthis brand partner is Wix studio.
Um, yeah, I might need to talkto Divi here.
Anywho, yeah, Exciting timesman, exciting.
You know, even in like the, theinfluencer coaching world,
there's so many excitingopportunities to now too.

So absolutely yeah.
It's a lot of fun and a lot ofuncertainty, but, you know, a
lot of opportunity all at thesame time.

Josh Hall (01:17:07):
Heck, yeah, chris.
Well, great catching up.
Dude, thank you as always foryour transparency, and wisdom to
this point.
And, man, I'm excited to seewhere Self Made Web Designer
goes.

Yeah, thanks, josh, appreciate you having me
on.

Josh Hall (01:17:21):
Big thanks to Chris for coming on and again sharing
some transparency about wherehe's at in web design and some
of his journey.
I know a lot of that related tome and I'm sure, related to you
as well.
Again, show notes for thisepisode are going to be found at
joshhallco slash 394.
You can check Chris out at theself made web designercom.
That is also the name of hispodcast.

(01:17:42):
God, such a good name, darn,the good branding choices he
made before I did so.
Go check that out, connect withChris, let him know you heard
him on the podcast.
Wish him well and I feel likethere was something else I was
going to say.
It'll probably hit me right asI stop recording.
So until then, I don't know,I'll follow up and make a note
on it over at joshhallco slash394.

(01:18:03):
Cheers, my friend.

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394 - The Self-Made Web Designer is Back with Chris Misterek

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}394 - The Self-Made Web Designer is Back with Chris Misterek