Finding Clients With John D. Saunders - FULL TRAINING

i'm yeah i'm pretty much i like john's like i've never not landed oh man i i wish right [Music] just because i know everyone's excited for this since we have you know two everyone knows these guys i don't do we even need an introduction everyone knows peyton mastermind behind this group john d saunders super successful weapon owner and stuff and today's topic is one i know everyone cares about including myself which is how to find web design clients and so yeah just gonna wait a few more seconds one two that was a few seconds and so let's go ahead and uh jump into things i'm gonna change this view a little as all you guys know we brought a super special guest with us today john d saunders he's the owner of five for digital a web design agency that specializes in designing web flow websites and also branding for uh startups and he also started another uh kind of subsection of his five-four digital which is five for indie i believe it's called which now devises it for gaming companies right yeah it's definitely definitely done you've done your homework man i love it i love it yes man yes so super successful man a lot of you know him from his youtube videos his instagram posts has rocked him on social media and so forth and then we also have peyton clark smith owner of a paid academy paid digital guy behind this seo webflow facebook group and all around awesome person as well and today i'm gonna be asking them a bunch of questions try to pick their brains get as much information as i can today about how to find web design and seo clients that way it benefits all of us so getting right into things i know i kind of gave a little introduction john but i was wondering if you could kind of introduce yourself and just let us know how you got into web design and maybe even why you got into web design and chose that as a business absolutely so you know first i got to preface that with you know thanking both of you peyton fernando for having me on the show i know peyton and i have talked a lot asked about webflow and web design as a whole so thank you guys for you know creating this platform and and providing value to the webflow community i i started in this game i was like 19 years old i had built a website in wordpress and man it was it was a game changer because back then you know it was a tool where if you knew a little bit of html and css you could really build out these really cool websites and so my journey really started with building a website for my mom she was a teacher and she wanted to tutor locally so i built out that site and as soon as i did it clicked because i was at a point where i was like i could have this idea and make it tangible through website design so you know fast forward to to now you know i worked at an agency for four years and then i branched out on my own about seven years ago and when i started my agency you know web design was just one of our services and we were doing seo sem facebook ads just everything under the sun and um where i really benefited and saw a lot of uh value from was creating these dynamic websites for businesses that needed to go digital and so three years ago we decided to go all in on that and that's when i found out about webflow so so essentially it was a video by rand segal who we all know i saw on youtube and i'm like yo who is this guy what is this like wix copy that he's talking about like i'm not messing with this i don't need another website builder i'm gonna stick to wordpress and but then i just kept seeing the videos and i was like you know what let me just try it out so i built out like a personal site on webflow and i was like yo this is dope like i can build out the site in like a couple days it's dynamic it loads fast and as you know for organic gas literally html css and javascript it's super fast so um once that happened i was hooked man and you know fast forward to now i'm just happy to be a part of this ecosystem to create resources and cloneables on webflow and just man a lot of companies are waking up and seeing how powerful the tool is oh yeah i completely agree it's been a game change for my business and i know peyton will say the exact same thing about his business when it comes to discovering webflow so we're all in agreement with you webflow's awesome and i love all this so that's a little bit of a why want to jump into this question so do you remember how you found uh your first web design client john and do you remember who it was i i do man it was so it was uh it's so funny it was a pest control company this was like two oh man this had to be like i'm old guys i'm like 35 so this was like 13 years ago you know something like that i think no you know i was at the agency so maybe it was like around nine or ten years ago but ultimately this pest control company came in and they're like hey you know we need help with the website social media so i was like all right bet 500 i'll do your website i'll run your social media for six months guys listen don't it was it was it was horrible man the pricing but i was so excited to do it i booked that client and man i was just so excited so that was my first kind of foray into a paid web design client but my pricing was just horrible back then do something about pest control websites man i feel like those are some of my first and i can't say no to them because they're like awesome to work with but uh it took me a long time to get my pricing figured out i was charging like hundreds when i should have been charging thousands and looking back i'm like dude what was i doing like that's like a mistake i feel you man i feel you but it's learning it's learning pain it's like growing pains right so that's a little mistake you know starting off and that kind of leads into my next question i was going to ask both of you guys right now so quick getting some advice out of the way if you were to go back in time right now john and payton what's one piece of advice you would give yourself when you were first starting and john you could take it off go first oh yeah so uh i'd probably say two things one would be to like create systems earlier in the agency because i think a lot of people especially as freelancers they feel like oh well i'm doing all this myself why do i need to create systems when it's just me you know i can't afford to build out a team but i think that systems help you create a proprietary uh way of doing things right and that's almost like your ip so you can use that process to be able to delegate when you're ready to hire you can use that process to systematize your business and sell that as a course i mean there's so many revenue streams in regards to building out those systems so one i wish i would have built out my systems earlier so that i could start to delegate and then two charge more you know i i definitely was at a point where i was probably going through imposter syndrome you know you feel like hey why how can i charge that much when you know i'm not amazing at what i do yet when in reality you're you're you're you're 100 times better than than the average business owner because they're focused on their business so those are two things uh from me i'd say awesome yeah i would i would second both of those things those are two things that uh going back i think i could have accelerated both of those so i feel like that would be my overall advice to myself is just grow faster than i'm comfortable with right like charge like raise my prices faster than i'm ready for or i'm comfortable with and take on projects that i might feel like are maybe too big for me right now just do it just just say yes and uh i think i spent a lot of time kind of in the comfort zone just doing you know projects that i was comfortable with and charging what i knew they would say yes to and i didn't really push things like i should have i didn't put systems in place early enough i didn't hire people early enough um i think i spent too long being content when in reality there's nothing like there's no ceiling on on this right like we could do and grow as fast as we want to and really the only thing holding us back is our effort and our mindset so i would tell myself that coupled with be patient enough to not feel frustrated and want to give up right like we want to push it as hard and fast as we can but uh also it's going to be tough the first few months and there were several times where i'm like i can't feed my family on a 500 website every other month and uh and that's intimidating right and it's scary and so it's it's going to be exponential growth so be patient at first but once you catch your stride man just i mean just go after it i i wish i would have done that more i love that screw though i love it some really great advice in there you guys and two things i kind of want to pick you back off of that is one i really want to emphasize what john said about putting systems and processes in your business especially if even if you're a solopreneur and doing it on yourself you know i do it by myself i don't have a team behind me really like these two gentlemen do but the system the processes that i've personally learned from john and stuff you know have really changed my business so definitely want everyone to hear that and the second thing i heard was the word imposter syndrome and that's actually a question i wanted to ask you guys about i know a lot of people are kind of have imposter syndrome and i wanted to ask you guys as two people who are pretty successful really successful actually do you two still suffer with impostor syndromes yourselves and if so do you guys have any tips for kind of overcoming that and maybe we can start off with john again yeah uh yeah yeah sure so so yeah it's it's hard man because even you know even of course full transparency even some days now i'm like damn you know is this is this something in my wheelhouse that we could do and so i think that we all suffer from imposter syndrome at one time or the other but i think the ultimate thing that we can do is to just continue to keep learning i think just like excuse me just like peyton said you know sometimes you're not super comfortable with it but you got to kind of go with it anyway and i feel like the best founders and the best leaders are always trying to learn and absorb more and be able to take that information and formulate it into something that your team can benefit from so for me to kind of avoid that imposter syndrome things that i do is anytime we sign a new client i'll get two new books right and i'll try to learn and absorb those things that i'm taking into those books and implement that in the agency another piece is just empowering our team you know we provide a stipend where folks can take classes and courses from like the future or peyton or anyone that's out there that's providing ton of value i think that helps you become more comfortable as an agency owner or as a freelancer where you feel comfortable in your ability because you're taking the time to learn and absorb these skills nowadays there's no excuse you got youtube google just released a ux course i mean there's no excuse right now not to stay ahead of the curve and one of the things with web design and just having an agency and being a part of that is that you have to make sure that you're staying ahead case in point webflow right the fact that we got on webflow when it was at the cusp of blowing up now you have all these companies these startups these folks that are finding out about webflow and guess where they're going they're going to the webflow expert platform to hire an export expert agency because they know those are people that have put in the work and the ability to then have the ability to excel and so now and i hate to use the word blue ocean but webflow is pretty much a blue ocean because there's if you put it in the perspective of how many people would understand and can utilize webflow there aren't that many i love it and then maybe if you want to piggyback off of that peyton yeah man i i love that i agree it's uh that's the crazy thing about our job right is we're we're learning new things every day no day is ever the same which is good for me i feel like that's that's what i need to kind of keep motivated and it's fun to wake up and be like today is going to be different than any other day before but constantly learning and not being too rigid in what you're doing now because tomorrow it could be different um and i think uh john does a great job of kind of setting up his systems in a way where you know they're flexible right like that's why we have systems so we know everything that happens at our agency so then we can pivot really quickly um but yeah just just constantly learning i think is huge and the one thing that i always have to tell myself because i struggle with imposter syndrome all the time right like we're always pushing ourselves to for bigger clients and higher price points and you know now we're putting out courses which is something that's way outside my comfort zone and and every time i do something that makes me feel that way i just tell myself you just gotta show up right like you just gotta say yes and you gotta show up because i know that once i get put in that situation where i'm uncomfortable it's going to work out right all you got to do is just show up and there's going to be days where you don't feel like showing up but you just got to do it right you take that zoom call you make that sales call you put out that video whatever it is even if you feel like you are not qualified or you're not good enough just show up and it's it's gonna work out and uh and i feel like you can always fall back on just being genuine and authentic and honest with the people you work with and nothing's ever going to go south right like as long as people know they can trust you and you're you're doing your best you've got nothing to worry about absolutely 100 100 super great and i just want to take a little pause right here and let you guys know we have a lot of people commenting on this video as of right now so we have a good viewership i want to thank everyone who's commenting and watching right now for tuning in with you guys super awesome you know raymond adrian wadness jennifer uh tadd rishock and so on and so forth i missed your name sorry thank you guys so much and i just want to know if you guys have any questions for either john or payton please go ahead and comment those as well we'll make sure to get to them in this video i'll be monitoring the comments throughout this whole video as we do that and so with that let's continue moving forward so finding web design clients is the topic today but before we get into that i think it's super important to talk about setting up your business for success and readying it for the ability to scale because if you have an influx of clients coming in you want to make sure you know you have your systems your processes in place so you can take care of those clients you can provide excellent customer service to them you can deliver you know top tier results and so forth and so it's going to start right there and i know john you are the master the wizard behind setting up processes sops and scaling your business so i wanted to hand it off to you and just give you know the question what are some things that everyone should be doing in order to set their business up for success for when the time comes they're able to handle all the clients that they get fernando to answer your question i'm a huge proponent of standard operating procedures and i talk about sops all the time and uh it's just like peyton said they're flexible they're almost like flexible rules for your business and essentially you're creating a knowledge base of how to run all the different facets of your business and it's just extremely helpful in growing and one example you know we just hired our first account executive and she works remote she's in cali on the west coast and um what we did was set up like the agency process for her to understand hey this is how we do onboarding with video training and step-by-step directions on how to get it done and so by creating these systems what it does is it mitigates issues in regards to the client because if you're following like steps you're not really kind of winging it you're kind of following these steps um in detail it makes it easier for you to get things done you're able to mitigate any issues you might have on the agency side and facilitating some of these things and then it just makes it easier for team members right so as you grow even if you're a one-person team or you're high making your first higher if you have these systems in place you can literally take that gift wrap it and give it to a team member and they can start to create and complete these items while you work and focus on big picture so at this point now i'm not really in web in the webflow designer doing and facilitating the work now right i've created the systems and now i'm delegating that so it's almost like duplicating yourself and giving another version of yourself this kind of proprietary information that you created at your agency and building and scaling that way so as we bring on new clients this the the process is simplified and then it's also and i'll i'll um i'll end with this it also leads to finding issues in your agency so if you see like an sop someone's like hey you know this isn't really working well okay let's go back and refine it for example we have like our design process when the designers upload an um a project they upload it to asana and then they get notified in slack that has been updated we kind of tweaked this prop this process because sometimes things are getting lost in the mix we weren't seeing updates and so it just helps you refine your business and make it even better and you know last thing is if you do this you can build your business to sell one right because people want to buy those proprietary things and unlike peyton says he's launching courses i guarantee you pain you're probably launching those courses based on the process that you created at your agency and you're literally gift wrapping and saying hey guys this is exactly what we do and now not only can you sell to other clients but now you can sell to other agency owners and help them grow um as well i know those long winded my back we're just gonna give john the rest of time because i'm like yeah no i i absolutely second that that's that's so true because once you get the system down you're set right you can put your focus elsewhere that's what happened to me is i had my pipeline which really got clogged up after like one or two clients and then i'm in there trying to fix things and figure things out and i don't have time to land new clients or to hire people and so you've got to have at least enough set up to where you can move a little bit of that focus out focus elsewhere and uh and work on other money you know revenue generating activities so true so true super love that and as part of setting up the processes and being able to you know develop these sops and create a repeatable process that you could deliver to clients day in and day out i think a big part of that is you know really focusing and narrowing in on the services that you're providing as a whole and i know both of you as agency owners are really focused on it paid in it's web flow design and seo and that's you know that's it right there and then for john it's web flow design and branding for his startups and that's it right there and so i was wondering if you could touch on the importance of really you know instead of trying to be one of those who deliver every single service under the sun you know ppc seo branding web design logo design everything so forth you know how has focusing and narrowing down your products and services really helped you be able to blow up again you yeah i'll follow i'll follow up yeah um yeah so that's that's a really good question because i i think it goes with what we just talked about where if you're trying to do a million different things there's no way to systematize that right like you're not going to be able to package things up and systematize and get your processes and your systems in order if every single client is a new combination of eight or nine different services right that's just really hard to scale and it's hard to prepare a team for that when every single project is too vastly different from from the last one or the next one and so narrowing in even though it might feel like you're limiting you know the potential prospects that you could reach or the the money that you could generate in the long run it's going to be much more profitable and beneficial and it's going to be a lot less stressful to just have those things that you do well and then outside of that like you can still take on other things right like i'm always working on random side projects and improving my skills and offering different services but when it comes to your you know your agency or your business kind of focus on what you do best that one you know one or two things and then really dial that in because i would much rather be you know super good at one thing that generates a fair amount of revenue but my life is much easier than trying to do three things to generate a little more revenue but have my life be a mess and never see my family and so you got to kind of weigh those uh those pros and cons but without a doubt the more you can narrow and focus in your life's going to be better all across the board and and then you can raise your rates on that those one or two services because you are becoming the go-to for those things listen that was that i don't even have anything to add there because that's exactly what i was thinking you know when you dial in and you become a specialist one you can charge a premium because you're focused on one specific area and focus of where all of your efforts lie and so it's like peyton said now you're able to go 100 in on just those few skills you become a specialist and people just come to you for that and you can systematize it to the point where you have every part of that agency process set and that's it man i mean that was a flawless answer i don't have anything else to add and with that answer talking about services so we did have a question come up from sanad and uh peyton maybe if you could answer this one they asked what service in european is more profitable web design or seo that's a really good question um i i think my answer would change day to day because some months will bring on you know four or five new web design projects and i'm like man like this is you know this is really profitable but you have the longevity of seo agreements that can't be beat right i love that monthly consistent income so what i would say is if you're ready right now to like push and drive and generate tons of new design and development clients every single month that could probably be the most profitable right now but long term right like i've got a couple seo clients that are assigned to three year agreements that i know for the next three years you know my base income which is really nice so i think either can be extremely profitable i think it just depends on on where you're at and what you're looking for love it great answering you know each of them has their pros and cons and like peyton said it could kind of differ from month to month but they're definitely a great combination to have in your business so with that let's start jumping into a bit of this actually this is a really good question i think for a lead way so juanes asked before you went full time in your business how did you manage your nine-to-five job if you had one he says he's in the process of building his business and wants to be realistic on how he can run it while having a full-time job so i'm not sure who if any one of you specifically want to take this one but i thought that was really good but i want to hear from john on this one yeah yeah yeah yeah definitely so so i worked at an advertising agency uh called permanent advertising here in south florida for about four years and i moved up in the company i became digital marketing director and you know we were doing a lot of ui ux builds for like the automotive industry we were doing a lot of seo sem and facebook ads in its infancy and so we dealt with primarily automotive clients and i wanted to branch out and work with more startups more grassroots companies so when i left i um i actually got a part-time job at an exotic car rental company um which here in south florida called mph club which was super dope i got to drive like all this the exotics which was awesome and what i did was while i was there i would work on my my my side hustle at night so i would essentially and this is i was younger you know i didn't have any kids i had my wife and we were live together but um i would work from about like 10 p.m to like one to two a.m and then in the morning i would wake up a little bit early and work about an hour hour and a half and so if you count that out you know you're looking at maybe 15 to 20 hours additional a week on the weekdays and then i could take some time on the weekends to facilitate that so while i was there i was one i was building i was doing a lot of content marketing so i was doing youtube videos i was doing a ton of events like any events that i could go to whether virtual or in person i was going there and i was showing up and i was saying hey and i'm an introvert so this took a lot to go out there and talk to people i think creating youtube videos helped and so in that while you're working a 9 to 5 i'm not saying to to go super hard because that's what i did when i was at the agency i was working from eight to seven i'd work until two three o'clock in the morning i actually fell asleep at the wheel while driving to work one day and and woke up on the side of the road and i was like man i gotta i gotta i gotta fix it so don't over exert yourself with what to the point where you can't get your creative juices out but allocate a few hours a day to your side hustle and make sure that you're creating a local ecosystem of potential clients that you can always collaborate with in the future did you have anything to add on to that painting or yeah just yeah i mean i i feel like jon's stories are reminding me a lot of of my time and i didn't have a job but i was in college and college was a lot easier to like shirk my responsibilities and just do what i wanted to do but i remember very vividly like in my classes i wasn't working on class work right i was in i remember in my class like working on my own personal website and teachers being like what are you doing like this isn't you know i mean it doesn't have nothing to do with with classwork or anything and then um i had i'm like hesitant to tell this story because i didn't i don't know i feel kind of weird talking about being on pain meds but i broke my ankle and i had surgery and so i was out for like a few months and i got put on some pain meds that i couldn't sleep when i was on them but i mean i felt great i felt super locked in and so i was like i'll just stay up all night and so i went through a period of a couple months of college where i wasn't going to class i kind of got a free pass from class and i was just doing everything you know in my apartment and i remember staying up every single night i just was researching i was looking into affiliate marketing and digital marketing and all these different things but i remember like once i really got hooked like john i i couldn't i couldn't sleep i want to stay up late and i want to wake up early and so it's tough like it's going to be a sacrifice certainly don't run yourself into the ground but i remember that time really fondly because it was the the time where i i had an excuse to just kind of put everything else in my life on hold to pursue something that i was really passionate about and that's the only reason that i found you know and ended up where i am right now building webflow sites and running seo campaigns is because that ankle surgery kind of forced me into that position where i was just gonna you know i was gonna take the time and stay up late and uh and find what i wanted to do i love it i love it and so for the kind of last part of this you know making sure we set up our agency for success the one thing i wanted to make sure we quickly touched on is about team members and stuff and so i have two questions i think i had one off to john and went off to payton and one of them actually came in from raymond who's watching right now so john the question i wanted to ask you was how do you go about finding kick-ass team members and after that i was going to ask peyton a question by raymond and he asked how do you make the decision to bring on more staff when the current budget is extremely tight so maybe when you're first starting out and so far so john let's start with your question how do you find kick-ass team members to help run your agency it's it's so it's in a few ways um one if in our in our space for ui ux designers developers i'm always looking at what's going on locally and who's out there kind of making waves the great thing about about me is i'm a creative so i can tell if someone's you know has the skills that they can grow and develop so for me i'm not necessarily looking at hey is this person an ultimate hire that's gonna have everything that that i need out of the gate i look more so for do they have potential um are they looking to grow and develop their skills do they have the drive and creativity to really um take it to the next level and so i started with like a quick questionnaire of maybe five to six questions about like hey you know what inspires you in regards to your design and this is talking about maybe you were talking about a a wireframe designer for example right or a digital designer um what are some of the projects that you've worked on even if they don't have a huge book of work and i see potential i feel like and again going back to sops i can teach them our operating procedures and help them build like for example our visual design ab he's uh he's been with us about three years and man he's phenomenal and when he started with us he was really doing digital designs not necessarily low fidelity or high-fidelity wireframes but what i did was me had being skilled in those i taught him our systems and now he's doing wireframes for some of our bigger clients and so it's really looking at the potential of someone and seeing that they have the initial skill and being able to grow on that with with operating procedures and the platforms that i use you know i've used all of them upwork freelancer all these other ones i've probably found the most talented folks on upwork and then um in regards to the systems and i'll i'll put everybody on to this as well we have local both us-based team members and offshore team members there's a platform called deal d-e-l where you can actually it's similar to gusto or augusto where u.s space but if you have international team members you can compensate them and take care of them through that platform and it'll help you with compliance documents anything that you need taxes and they actually get a bigger chunk of what you're paying as opposed to paying taxes through like paypal or third party so that's just kind of my two cents but i feel like that's that would be a good way to add some value to your uh to your community great information and then uh just re-asking the question for payton raymond says how do you make the decision to bring on more staff when the current budget is extremely tight but you know without new members you can't necessarily grow yeah that's another great question because i feel like we're always maxing out our budget's always tight right because the bigger we grow the more we're hiring people and trying to reach that next level i fall back on one thing that i was told by a mentor and i think maybe this is best to answer this just in this brief way but i was told that paying somebody a full-time salary and trying to control their time is basically it's the ways of the past right like we don't have to have this mindset that to hire somebody have to be ready to pay them a full salary and control their hours and give them benefits and all these different things but we live in such a like a fluid cool environment right now where we can hire people part-time or for you know on a per-project basis and we can do different things like that and even if you know maybe we break even or maybe on a project we we lose money but if that puts us in a position to then get ourselves out of there it's gonna be worth it so i would say higher even before you're ready because then you in turn can step back and focus on things that will generate more revenue to to loosen up that budget so we've got a bunch of people right now on like a per project basis right like we've got our core team and at any given time we've got three four different designers that do projects with us and we've always got people that are kind of on deck ready to go and we can scale it up scale it down do whatever we need to but people are looking for work and there's a lot of great talent out there i love it some really great advice there from both of you guys so we kind of went over you know setting up our agency for success so now let's dive into finding clients and so first question i want to say on both of you guys is you know let's pretend someone's starting off brand new have little experience what would you recommend to them to find their very first web design clients maybe we'll start off with john and give give it to payton to answer that um man this i know this question is going to get get some value drops so um there's a there's a few ways now if you're new to the game you're not gonna have um you're probably not gonna have brand recognition you're probably not gonna have a lot of brand advocacy or people like shouting your name from the rooftops because you just haven't put a lot of content out there so i think there's a few ways to approach this one is um create a few case studies if you don't have any example work doesn't matter rebrand a local company do something where you can have two to three tangible pieces of hey this is what the website looked like before and this is what it looks like after because when you're starting out you may not have a lot of money but you got time right so you have to start with creating some case studies so that way you have some work to showcase even if it's just your website webflow does an amazing job of having a template resource and and you can leverage a webflow template build it out how you want and leverage that as your as your agency site and then build out some spec projects that you can then showcase to local individuals um second piece of that is you can do a bit of cold outreach but you have to do it with a value add so um and i think peyton's talk spoken about this before do a website audit you know contact people directly create a quick loom video going over issues and things that they can make on their website and then um and then what you can do with that is you can leverage that into continuous content so i always talk about showing your work and documenting your journey use social media as a catalyst to say hey this is what i'm working on i'm working on this spec project and this is how i'm building it out this is the competitive analysis i did to come up with the header idea so get all those ideas out and even if you have 15 followers one of those followers two months from now might be like damn i want to get a website done who do you think they're going to think of so it's really going to come down to you know creating that content making sure you're having this back project and then performing some of that code outreach i know that was a lot in a little bit but i think i definitely think uh peyton can can definitely add to that as well yeah what you got for us peyton how would you go about finding your first account it's funny because we keep doing this but like yeah john larry those are the first two things that i would have said right like that's that's perfect advice um if you have zero experience your first step should be to get experience right and that doesn't need to be a client project but it can be any project but having something to show people is going to be really really important this question is kind of scary for me just because it's easy for me to say oh yeah you know landing clients is easy but we've kind of built up that you know the reputation and our exposure and so those clients are rolling in and so the idea of having none of that and starting over it's it's scary but it's also exciting right i'm thinking about uh if any of you follow grant cardone i know some people like him some people don't but he was on like a tv show right where he basically went undercover and had nothing and he had to build his you know revenue and make money and and just hustle from the ground up and i think that has a lot of cool examples of just doing whatever it takes you know you can't sit back and work on the design of your personal website and expect clients to come banging on your door like you've got to get out there you've got to open your mouth i always say start in your circle first right like i i would almost guarantee that every single one of you has at least one person whether it's a family member a friend a co-worker somebody at your gym at your church that needs a website and those are people that already trust you they already know you so why make it harder on yourself than it needs to be when you can start close to yourself right and then build out from there and so i think that should be everyone's goal is you're not going to walk across the street and land that that you know fortune 500 company right off the bat that's going to come down the road but start slow and start close and put yourself in a scenario where you can succeed where expectations are maybe a little bit lower like that's what i would look for if it was my first project and i wasn't super confident in my skills i would want to put myself in a situation where it's a win no matter what right expectations are low budget's probably going to be a little lower but that means it's less risk for everybody um those are good situations to get to to get that experience and then outside of that just uh like i said just get out there and be consistent right things aren't going to happen overnight they may not happen in the first month or even in the first three months but getting out there and just hustling and doing whatever it takes the clients are going to come we've all been there and uh and it does work out it can be intimidating and scary but it works out and going off kind of that so i know a hot thing that a lot of new web designers are asking is whether or not they should offer pitch people free work when they start so i wanted to ask you guys his opinion what do you think about offering free work to start off i'm not sure who wants to take the lead on this one yeah i don't know that's that's a tough one meal time i i i waver on this one because it's great to get experience but i think every one of you that's that's watching this or is going to watch this you're worth more than free i you know that's how i feel however if you are going to take on free work let it be your decision i think that's the best way to put that right like don't let somebody tell you that you're not worth anything and that you're lucky to work with them and you know you should do it for free because you're going to get exposure don't let people talk you into that however if you want to reach out to somebody and say i've got the time like john said we've got time but no money um i've got the time sure we'll do something for free we'll do a quick mock-up we'll build you a quick website um just make sure that it's your decision and if that's the case it's totally fine nothing to be ashamed of but again i think that every one of you at least and this is something that we we talked about a little bit for now you and i in the course is i think every single person even those of you that have literally no experience you could sell a 500 website without question and so don't uh don't lower your expectations or kind of lose sight of of your worth but i don't know i guess that's that's how i would answer that yeah and i would i would add on to that too as well i think that you know so so from experience i've done projects for free i've probably done more than i'd like to mention and you know one thing one thing that i've realized is you could it's just like peyton said right do it on your own terms what i suggest is if you are going to do a project for free set up stipulations or a quick and simple contract in the beginning saying okay let's say you're going to help a local computer shop right fill out their website okay i'm going to build out the sock site for you however what i'll need is you know an area where people can see that they can collaborate with me or i can add you know made by uh 5 4 digital in the footer or potentially hey do you have any computers that you're maybe getting rid of or modems so you can kind of think about ways that you can barter where it might not even be and the thing is monetary value isn't always the most important thing right exposure can maybe lead you to two or three other folks you could say hey as soon as we finish this just make sure you send a shout out to your email audience and then have hey x and y you know john and his team built this site so kind of think of ways that you could potentially barter where you're not just giving it away 100 for free but you're coming outside the other side with they have a beautiful website and you somehow cultivated this relationship that can ultimately lead to more leads or and here's the thing i've done stuff for friends for free and i'm just like you know it is what it is and and let that happen too but like peyton said always have it be on your own terms i really like that just what john said because it's like value and price are tied together no matter what you do right and so if there's some sort of exchange or agreement they're going to value that work more right i would say that my like the more my clients spend the happier they are because they value it at that higher level and so that's different with with friends right when you're doing something as a favor they're going to value it because it comes from someone that they care about but this question they just got asked tips not underpay yourself or sell yourself for cheap i think it's just that like value and you know value and cost are directly tied and so the less you charge the less people will value your work and the the worse they're going to treat you but if you can charge more that value and perceived value of yourself and your work and your talents are going to be directly tied to that and so i think just remembering that that we always want to lower our prices because we think it makes our services more appealing but instead it makes them look less appealing and people don't value them and that's going to lose you sales more than it's going to get you sales love it well i have you here peyton i did have someone messaging me a question so cindy was asking so one of the methods you talked about getting clients is sending maybe like a loom video giving an audit of their website you know to kind of introduce yourself so they asked uh what do you do when people aren't viewing your loom videos um despite even maybe a follow-up or two yeah that's a great question so i get this a lot actually a lot of people have messaged me and said i've tried your loom strategy and it doesn't work man like that's that's just bogus and i think i could have done a better job of expressing this on the video but that loom video that i send that's my anchor point and most the time people don't open those right away but then when i cold call them it's not really a cold call because when they say who is this why are you calling me i'm gonna say it's about the video that i sent you yesterday did you have a chance to check that out and all of a sudden they're on their heels and they're like oh man i didn't realize that you sent me a video and then they're gonna ask what what was the video about and immediately it's like it's my foot in the door and so what i would say is even if they don't watch it that's okay but then the money is going to be in the follow-up right cold call them if they're not answering your emails try to get them on the phone um send a follow-up email and say hey do you have a chance to watch the video some people aren't going to open it but my most successful cold calls are the ones that i've already sent the video it's sitting in their inbox especially like the video that i posted this morning on youtube talking about getting past the gatekeeper or the secretary like their job is to screen out marketers right but if somebody answers the phone and i say hey i'm calling about the website they're going to turn me away but if i say let you know sally know that it's about the video that i sent her yesterday she'll know what i'm talking about and all of a sudden it's like oh geez yeah i need to pass this guy through to the business owner so it's a foot in the door more than it is a a selling function right and i think that's the best way to use it love it that's a really great answer and thank you for that and so kind of jumping off of that you know talked a bit about finding your first web design client itself and so now you know we have a couple clients when they're about and i really want to start getting into marketing things so i wanted to talk about the different marketing channels you guys are currently using right now um do you guys maybe have a favorite marketing channel where should someone be promoting their design business you know social media is it directories is it elsewhere um so maybe start off with john what are your some of your favorite channels to promote yourself on yeah so so i try to i try to keep it simple you know i think that don't try to spread yourself too thin because you can ultimately repurpose content and as you build systems you can delegate a lot of that that content and create evergreen content over time and i can get into that as well but but ultimately my favorite platforms are one instagram a lot of web designers um are on instagram a lot of agency owned i'm sorry a lot of company owners on instagram as well and so what i do on instagram is i have a strategy and anyone can use this it works wonders it's called show your work right where each day i log in for two minutes and i say hey here's what i'm working on right now and i show either wireframes or what the team is working on or our processes and people love it i mean i get dms every day of people that look forward to it and i've actually booked business from this because clients they're keeping top of mind and to the point where they may not need a website today but three months from now they might need a rebrand and a website a lot of startups and people in my ecosystem are on instagram so that's one two facebook groups and peyton probably knows this as well uh facebook groups are great because one you can add value to a group and that's it you just go in and say hey here's my value enjoy and you don't necessarily look for a return or you know referrals or anything but what's happening is people are looking at your content then they're going to your facebook page and they're going to your website and now you're creating this feedback loop of consistent content over time where they start to follow you and acclimate to the content that you're uh that you're releasing and then the last piece of that is just to um just to be transparent anywhere you are and just show your work and the things that you're working on i think that's a great way to promote yourself and promote your business and um and lastly have side projects and little things that you work on right you might not maybe you don't have a ton of client business but maybe you're building on a landing page for your favorite artist or maybe you're launching a cool little side hustle or project be transparent and building that out as well because i'll tell you right now i have a business called blackillustrations.com which is essentially a platform to download illustrations featuring people of color and that has led to at least 10 web design projects alone just that side project because people see that and they're like wow who did this and then they connect with our agency and it goes from there awesome yeah sorry guys i got people mowing our yard just outside you can hear that in the background uh no i i second everything that john said i i think uh that the best platforms to be honor are those that you can commit to right those that you can post consistently be transparent and you don't feel that pressure of sharing a perfectly beautiful piece of content right you know like i see john stuff all the time where he pulls out his phone he's like hey check out what we're working on and it's just super authentic and and that's the best type of content and it's the easiest type to make right because you're just basically saying here's what's up today here's what we're working on and so um i love um i don't know which one of these i would put first probably facebook and facebook groups just because it's a great way to interact with a community right like we've got our seon webflow facebook group the coolest part about that is you build long-term relationships right which is really awesome i feel like it's a really intimate um social platform youtube's been another one for me which is weird just because my content isn't made for web design clients but just seeing my face and sharing projects here and there like just this morning i had somebody comment on a video that i posted about a car detailing company website that we built and i literally just screen shared and walked through it and he commented he was like hey um i love your work i've got a detailing company where can i email you for you know to give you my business and uh so just putting your work out there anywhere i think there are certain platforms that are easier to get that organic growth than others um but yeah instagram's great and i need to be better on instagram youtube's great linkedin's a you know a great competitive place but it's a great place to put your work so anywhere that you can just commit to i think you're going to be able to have success love it so that's a bit about kind of getting clients into our funnel so you know we have these traffic of clients coming to us reaching out to us now so the next step is kind of going through the sales process you know maybe jumping on a call with them maybe jumping on a zoom call something to kind of close the client and so john i was only if you can maybe talk about your sales process how do you go about actually closing the client now that they've reached out to you and said hey i have some sort of interest in hiring you yeah definitely i'll give you the whole kind of funnel right here uh in real time so um what we do is on the on the site we have a form it's about six or seven questions that just ask like pre-vetting questions um you know hey what's your name your business what's the best place to contact you what services you're looking for one thing we always do is include you know what's your overall budget for the project and we always say no you know our minimum projects start at x just and the the best part about that is you're able to vet a lot of individuals initially to see if they fit into that criteria and so what i always recommend is an agency you're always going to have agencies that are either doing work that you know you can't do because it might be a like potentially a web app right or mobile app development we don't do that but we can help with ui ux and website design so we have an agency on this side that might do 100k 200k 300k web app projects and then we also have web design agencies that might not be doing the work that we're doing at our level in regards to scale that are a little bit um more inexpensive than our agency so we're sit right in the middle so as soon as they fill that out they'll be able to know kind of what price point we sit in and that will get rid of a lot of tire kickers especially folks that might not be in you know the bracket of where you want to be hiring clients or taking on clients so i always recommend kind of having that know like hey what's your budget by the way you know our minimum and the exact verbs we use is our minimum project you know starts at 10k right so clients know where potential prospects know okay this is where it starts and then so once they fill out that form we have two we have two ways if they do less than that amount you know we send them an email saying hey you know we have agencies that we recommend we'll be happy to to send them your way if they fit that criteria we send a follow-up email for them to book a time on our calendar via calendly so that part is completely automated then what happens is that person drops into our crm on asana and now we can see that lead come in and that's set the next piece is when we get on that call we just ask um well before that call we get a questionnaire and then one of our virtual assistants goes and does like a preliminary kind of review and then for that call i'm on all those calls and i have a piece of paper and i have everything about that client i ask specific vetting questions and then after that call we set up a proposal and then we set up one more follow-up to go over the proposal and close the deal and that's pretty much the entire the entire setup for it but it helps get rid of a lot of tire kickers and the clients that are coming in that funnel are clients that have been vetted already so you're not you know wasting time um trying well not wasting time but you're not taking any time talking to someone that might not fit the criteria that you're looking for love it there's a lot of great information there and thank you for sharing kind of that funnel and just to recap there so have some sort of forum that helps qualify them get the information that you need right away use some automation like a calendly service in order to schedule these calls with you that way it's taken care of itself you know you could have a questionnaire that either you or a virtual assistant utilizes to kind of just get some quick information and i'm assuming this is probably like a 10-minute process that you know just quickly going through their website get that um and then from there you're jumping on the call answering asking some questions answering some questions sending out that proposal afterwards and then of course the most important part is at the end doing that follow-up in order to you know get um some sort of response from the client to see if it's going forward so i love that and then peyton going on to you so one of the questions i wanted to ask you i'm kind of the master just sales in my mind and so how do you uh build confidence when you're on the phone or with the zoom call um itself just because i know a lot of people could be nervous you know getting on the phone with a client for the first time or even if they've done it several hundred times itself it could be nerve wracking so any tips on kind of gaining confidence when getting on the call yes i think the first thing that i would say is i get nervous before every sales call like my blood you know my blood's pumping like my heart's pumping i'm just like that's what gets us in the zone right so it's good to be nervous it gives you an edge uh maybe there are some people out there that don't get nervous but i think that's pretty pretty normal for us right like probably human um i think the first thing that i would say in fact i'm taking a course right now there's a youtube channel i follow called uh charisma on command i love the stuff they put out there but it's literally all things communication feeling confident interacting with people being likable and i i have their paid course but they talk about how a lot of times it's like that loop where lack of confidence results in our body language getting like small and tight and nervous and fidgety and so what we can do to counteract that is to open up slow down our gestures slow down our voice and i constantly have to remind myself of this because i can be a fast talker but having confident body language is huge because then that will translate to confidence in your voice and you know in everything that you do now it's interesting because even on the phone when people can't see you that physical confidence is going to translate and people are going to feel that through the phone and so what i like to do is rather than having like my phone right up to my ear and kind of hunched up i'll put it on speaker i sit back in my chair i like open up i get a really comfortable position because that makes me feel comfortable and confident and um just just create a scenario where you can feel that confidence like as dumb as it sounds like i'll i'll get myself a lemonade and i'll i'll get comfortable right like like create your office they're they're coming to you to speak to you right you're not going to them to speak to them and having that mindset is going to help with that confidence i think the the other thing i would say is it just comes with time right i didn't feel nearly as confident selling when i only had one project under my belt versus when we have you know a couple new ones every month and it just comes and that's okay but be patient with yourself you're gonna be you're gonna be nervous before every call and that's okay like i said just just show up and uh and you're gonna show up and you're gonna do a good job i love that i love it and so with this territory comes not landing every client that comes your way itself and so one of the things i wanted to ask both of you is how do you deal with the rejection when you don't land a web design client and what are some things that people should be taking away even if they don't land the client itself maybe we could start with payton and then go to john on this one cool um before every single call i tell myself i don't need this client um you know my family's not going to starve if i don't land this client i try to lower the risk of it right and maybe that doesn't work for some but i try to go into every cell feeling like i've got nothing to lose because then if i do lose the cell it's whatever i'll i'll move on to the next one right you can't get too emotionally attached to every single one and not only is that going to help when they do say or if they do say no but it's also going to help just limit your anxiety about the call so just set good expectations you don't need this one there's always going to be another one um and uh and yeah then it's not going to sting so bad when they do say no the same thing to you john how do you uh deal with rejection you don't land a client yeah um i'm yeah i'm pretty much i like john's like i've never not landed oh man i i wish right i think you know for me i tried to um one i'm not really like uh i don't even know if i'm a sales guy man i'm not really like i just i'm like super transparent i just answer questions and you know i'm not like the i think peyton and i are similar in retrospect we're not like the hard sale like you got to do this right now you know what i mean it's more so hey here's the value laid it all out and then if they choose hey great if not you know there's other opportunities out there so for me i think and i think a lot of agency owners as they start to grow and develop more more skill set and start to bring on more business you start to realize like maybe this plan just wasn't the right fit and sometimes you'll see you don't get a project or a prospect and they'll provide you with red flags and you'll be like nah you know maybe this isn't the best project for me so i think it's just you know do the best that you can to your ability you might have little things that you missed out on maybe you didn't answer a specific question maybe you didn't provide them enough detail on something take those notes and improve as you go but ultimately don't get down if you don't get that client um that you're looking for because if they don't see the value in what you offer they'll probably find another agency but that agency might not be doing what you're doing at your level love it man time has been flying you guys were almost at our mark here and i still have like so many more questions i'm sure people could be watching for another two and a half hours or so but we'll probably save it i know john will have to bring you back on for a future talk as well oh i'd be happy to i'd be happy to but before we end this talk one of the couple questions that i wanted to ask both of you guys that i think is i wanted to know about is um kind of how has you know owning your own web design agency or business change your life i know both of you guys are family people i know john you have your son paid and you have your family and you know i've talked to peyton numerous of times and i know kind of what it's done for you and john i see you on instagram and how you're able to spend all this time with your son playing monopoly and all these other funny games and stuff and so i really want to know like you know how is owning the agency change your life you know how has it helped you and what is some things people can look forward to when they kind of reach you know that level of success where they have something like you guys do maybe john if you want to start off sure sure yeah um you know having a web design agency is one i love what i do you know every day i get to create and i get to develop and i get to work with an amazing team that that just does a phenomenal job and so i think with web design you can you can essentially create the life that you want right you can take on as many clients as you want you can niche down to a specific type of client and only work with those clients there's so many different opportunities and as you grow your agency you can start to work on big picture so now i'm more so managing the operations looking at projects and putting in my two cents and recommendations and so now i'm being able to start to hire and i think that in the last like year and a half we saw this really dynamic shift in how people talk to agency owners before as a web design agency you would have to go in sit down with the client especially if they were using having a bigger budget you might have to bring in your team do an entire report now now that we have this almost remote and virtual ecosystem now you can close clients that are doing bigger deals through a call like this through zoom because now that trust factor has increased because everybody's remote right so the opportunity is there and for me i'm able to get off at at 2 30 every day pick up my son from school hang out with him and then i might work a session at night when everybody's asleep and and do the same thing the next day so as a web design agency owner a few things that i love is you know you work on your own schedule and our team does the same thing like most of our team doesn't work nine to five some of them work 12 to six some of them work overnight it really depends on on their preference and so this remote economy has made it really a lot easier to build the life that you want and with web design because you can do it from anywhere it's probably one of the most dynamic service based businesses out there love it and the same question to you peyton maybe um you know how is web design owning an agency change your life and what are some things people can look forward to with it yeah i love this question because i never would have imagined being in this type of this line of work or in the situation or the type of lifestyle i have right like i didn't know where this was going to lead uh but i'm grateful for like john said i love what i do every day which in turn makes me a happier better you know husband and father which is good right like you you don't want to get off work and be totally burned out even though there are some days that i am but enjoying what you do just uh it makes life better it gives me more energy and uh and even though you don't like every day there's there's a certain amount of pride and fulfillment that comes from having your own thing something that you control and you get to grow and you get to make decisions and it's very fulfilling but the most important reason that i do what i do and the best part about doing what i do is is yeah i get to spend time with family we went to we were out in virginia beach last week we went for a full week with my wife's family which was awesome and i was able to turn off you know put away my laptop and then turn off my phone and uh and kind of enjoy life too and while i don't get to do that as much as i should just because i like working and there's so much to do it does give you that freedom to you know to hang out with your family and uh spend time with your kids like i love finishing work early in the afternoon and hanging out with with my sons and just just chilling right like it it gives you the freedom to do that while also providing the lifestyle that you want to for yourself and for your family so there are a lot of a lot of benefits that come with it it uh at times i get jealous of people that have a kind of a more standard nine-to-five job because i think man that would be nice to be able to completely check out at five o'clock right like i never check out but it's uh you know it's it's a good thing i love i love every minute of it love it and then just to end things off before we kind of say our goodbyes i wanted to uh you know open it up to our awesome guest john do you have any final words for us i know we shared a lot today but was there anything on your mind you kind of wanted to let out or say before we say our goodbyes to you no man you guys keep doing what you're doing i appreciate it i'm happy to be a part of this and if there's anything i can do to help feel free to let me know but i'm just happy to be here and be a part of this this um this community so thank you yeah and we thank you and for those of you who don't know i believe i think john you have a few courses actually you know kind of helping web designers and stuff you know i have one of his courses uh web design studio accelerator i believe it's called if i remember the name correctly so really recommend everyone check that out you know and this john didn't ask me to say this like i legit bought the course you know people price and that was the first thing i said i was like we got to talk about john's courses because he just picked out awesome stuff so thank you guys now you're going to drop the link below and and also check out his his youtube channel instagram they're doing awesome stuff over there oh thank you guys appreciate that check out all of john's resources and with that you know just want to say a big thank you thank you for everyone who tuned in i saw we had you know a large group of people actually stayed throughout the whole hour so i appreciate you guys taking out an hour every day to come on and stuff as always we look forward to you know hosting more of these bands hopefully having john back and other great resources for you guys to learn from itself and with that do you have any final words for the people payton no thanks for watching thanks again to john um more often man because there's there's a lot that says i could learn from john and i know everyone in the group could likewise man likewise i i appreciate it well yeah we'll uh we'll have you on here again but i i think that's it man we're going to keep everybody updated with uh everything else going on in the group but for now everybody have a good day and and a good weekend have a good one

Channel: Payton Clark Smith

Views: 2,919

Keywords: john d saunders, web design, webflow, finding clients, web design clients, web design clients lead generation, finding web design clients, seo and webflow, john d saunders webflow, how to get web design clients, how to get web design clients online, starting a web design business, best way to get web design clients, web design sales, get web design clients fast, how to get web design clients fast, how to get clients for web design business, getting web design clients

Id: OFX_aaR_HeI

Length: 62min 41sec (3761 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 14 2021