How to Break into Freelance Web Design and Build Reliable Monthly Recurring Revenue with John Wooten: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Imperfect Action. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives and we'll be breaking down how to break into freelance web design and build reliable monthly recurring revenue. To drop these value bombs, I brought John Wooten into EU Fire Studios. John teaches ambitious entrepreneurs how to break into web design, escape the nine to five, achieve financial independence and gain the freedom to work whenever and wherever they want.

0:33We'll talk about why now is the best time to start a business and everybody needs a website fire nation we'll talk about the biggest secrets to becoming a successful freelance web designer and we'll also talk about how to be creative within the space to stand out and so much more and a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to john and our sponsors success story hosted by my friend scott d clary is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals success story features q a sessions with successful business leaders keynote presentations and conversation on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship.

1:08In a recent episode, Scott brings Kate Bradley on the show, founder and CEO of Lately.ai, to discuss the best ways to use AI to create content. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. John, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. First, thanks, John, for having me on. Fire Nation, what is up? My answer to your question is the idea that you have to be constantly 2Xing or 3Xing or 10Xing your business in order to be looked at as quote unquote successful. I feel like everyone is in a contest on how many Xs or how many figures we can promise you.

1:52Learn how to 5X your business or 10X your business or I see some build a six figure web design business or seven figure, eight figure. And I actually started my business with the goal of freedom in mind. And so that's what we're all about at Break into Web. I actually read this analogy last week that I am completely in line with. Somebody said running a business is a lot like surfing, and the process takes patience and practice. As you get better, you start to figure out which waves to attempt riding, which ones to ignore, and you also learn your sweet spot. Not everyone is cut out to ride the 20-foot waves.

2:25Only a few can ride those without getting crushed. And this is the key for me. You realize you can find enjoyment in riding small to medium waves your whole life. just serving when you want to in the style you want to. And that's our goal at Break into Web, helping those transition from maybe a job that they don't quite like or a career into a web design career where they can work when they want with who they want and from where they want. I love this because Fire Nation, one thing that I've been sharing pretty openly for a long time now with my monthly income reports is that, hey, we've been at about the same multi, you know, two to$3 million gross revenue per year now for about eight years in a row.

3:03And guess what? I have not been building my business intentionally because I am not willing to work two times, three times, four times harder to 10X my revenue. I'm just not willing to do that because I have found what enough is for the lifestyle that I want. So I love this message that John is sharing. I hope you, Fire Nation, find what your enough is as well. When you get there, I hope you identify it and you know it. And again, we're talking all about how you, Fire Nation, can break into freelance web design to build reliable monthly recurring revenue. So John, share with us why now, today, is the best time to start a freelance web design biz.

3:43Absolutely. I mean, now more than ever, every business, entrepreneur, everyone that wants to go into business needs a website. I mean, that's one big thing that COVID, COVID showed everyone just how important their online presence is. And one of the secrets is folks are not just looking for a website. They also need that web expert with great service and communication on their side to be the go between, between, you know, the tech companies or the hosting company, keep their website up and running. And crazy. So my co-teacher and the co-founder of the course, Kelly, her and I, for both of us, 2020 was actually one of our best years ever despite the pandemic.

4:24And 2021 is not slowing down. And other agency owners that I talk to and other freelancers, the story is the same. And it's just a great time to hop in. For example, we have one student who two years ago was working in HR for a metal company in Nashville. She had a one-hour commute each way to her job, even though on the weekends it took like 15 minutes to get to her job. And so really she was working four 10-hour days, like 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with those commutes included. and she had a seven level underground parking garage that she would park in. Meanwhile, her husband was a home music producer in Nashville, booking sessions when he wanted to, going on tour.

5:04Sometimes with me, we play in a band together. And before taking our course, she would call herself the least tech savvy person around. And in a year's time, she took our course, built her design business to a point where she could leave her full time job. And now she's completely booked with jobs in the pipeline. And it's only going to increase as companies move more towards online, that online presence and online stores. That's going to be a huge key going forward. So that's why I think now is probably the best time ever. And I'm sure people say that a lot, but it really is. COVID really opened the door to the importance of your online presence.

5:40I mean, things have absolutely shifted, Fire Nation. You know it. I know it. The world will never be quite the same. And so many people now are just recognizing that there are opportunities that didn't exist before or that they were just too blind to see because we all get stuck in these ruts, like in the comfort zone. We just get stuck in the one way of thinking. This is comfortable. This is what we know. And let's be honest, COVID shook things up and things will never be the same. But at the same time, J-Dubs, let's be real. It's a crowded space, this web design world. I mean, especially with do-it-yourself solutions like Squarespace and Wix.

6:17So how would a freelancer navigate this? Absolutely. And I totally see how folks come to us saying with that main concern, when they get into our email opt-in on our website, one of the first emails we send them asks them what's their biggest hesitation to breaking into web. And oftentimes it's just that objection right there. Like, hey, isn't this crowded space? Or how can I make money when I saw a GoDaddy ad that I could have a website for a dollar? There was a Super Bowl ad that had that. Or I can pay$29 a month or clients can do that and build themselves a website in Squarespace. So I see how it's easy to think that.

6:58But as I mentioned earlier, everybody needs a site. And the entrepreneurs and business owners who are successful or will be successful, they realize that their time is more valuable working on their business and their strengths. instead of spending hours in those third-party solutions, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, WordPress, trying to build the site themselves. They're probably unaware of website best practices, how to optimize their site and their media on their site for a fast website, which is now more important for ranking higher in search engines. They may not understand how to effectively tell their story on their site while making sure their site visitor remains the hero and how to build a website with strategy in mind to lead a site visitor to actions or goals that you want them to take as the site owner.

7:49So there's a lot there, but that's why I think folks are realizing the importance of the website and how the website can cause people to take action and not just be a brochure website, actually be a business building tool. And that's what we teach in our course, how to make websites that are business building tools that allows you to charge a little more when you're talking to a client versus the, hey, I'm going to give you a website that has your hours location, what you do on there. No, we're going to have all that, but we're also going to help you get leads through your website. And that makes the website that much more valuable.

8:23I love that Fire Nation. Have the focus, have the direction, have the strategy of creating a business building tool for your clients. But wait, John, wait, don't I need a design degree? can you please bust this myth for us? Absolutely. Yeah, I think most people understand that the way colleges and universities are set up now and the pricing are long overdue for an overhaul, especially when it comes to the tech space. In fact, some companies like Google are treating their own six-month training program to be equivalent to a four-year degree in that same space, which is crazy. College can be great if you're unsure what you want to do, right?

9:09You go in, you take your generals, you kind of figure it out. Like, for example, I was going in to be a physical therapist. I wanted to stretch out Kobe Bryant, you know, and then I shadowed a physical therapist and realized, wow, this is not quite for me. And eventually I found my way to marketing and picked up web design along the way through being in bands. So if you're like that, it can help kind of guide you. But if you're coming out of high school, knowing what you want to do, or if you're looking to transition out of your career into web design, and you know that's what you want to do, definitely you do not need to go to a traditional university to get a degree.

9:44For example, one of my bandmates has a 15-year-old son. He took our course last year. He's 16 now, and he actually subcontracts for us part-time after school, and he's also building his own freelance business with his own clients. His dad tells me he gets home from school, finishes his homework, eats dinner, and then spends two to three hours working in his room on web design. Now, when he graduates in two years, and if he still loves web design, we'll probably straight hire him if he hasn't built his freelance business to, you know, full time by then. But I just don't see why he should go to college if he's coming out and knowing what he wants to do.

10:23But one of of the biggest secrets to a successful freelance web design actually has more to do with your customer service and communication skills instead of your design or technical skills. And so by being a freelance web designer, you're doing more than just the tech skills of design that you might learn at a college. You're also, as a freelancer, you're managing all your business administration, your invoicing, your sales, your follow-up techniques. And what is handy there is that the co-teacher in the course, Kelly, she has an MBA and she's actually built her freelance business twice in two separate states and she leads the business course that we have.

11:01I lead the technical course. So with our course, you're not just getting technical know-how that you would in like a design degree program at a university or even a boot camp that you may have seen online or a code school that you may have seen online. You're going to get that technical training, but you're also going to get the business training that you need to really become a successful freelancer and become your own boss. Fire Nation, I hope you're absorbing these words, you need to own your future. You need to be the person who is conducting your future. Don't be relying on the old gatekeepers, on the old traditional stodgy gateways.

11:37That is no longer the path. Own your own future. And Fire Nation, we're talking about specifically ways that you can make money as web designers. And of course, we're going to be focusing on building reliable, we're talking reliable, monthly recurring revenue for you and your business. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, personalized support has quickly become an expectation from customers everywhere. They want help and they want it now, but many businesses aren't equipped with the right tools to help them deliver. And that means unhappy customers and frustrated service reps. So why not get a customer service solution that can help your reps excel and give your customers the best experience possible the new ai-powered service hub from hubspot is a better way to do service and success service hub helps you fly through the service queues and lighten the load on your reps with ai-powered self-service chat and knowledge base articles it also helps you grow your customer base with tools that helps reps anticipate customer needs before they ever become issues with hubspot service hub reps are resolving tickets 13 times faster, helping them close 42 % more tickets per day.

12:44And that means increasing retention by more than 80%, scale support and drive retention and revenue all in one place with HubSpot's all new service hub. Visit hubspot.com slash service to learn how this all new solution can help you deliver for your customers. So John, we're back and let's get down to brass tacks, brother. We talked about making money as a web designer, as a little tease before the break. Now let's really dive into it. I want to hear about specific ways, strategies, tactics people can make money as a web designer and of course build that reliable monthly recurring revenue. Absolutely.

13:22So there are several ways. There are four kind of main ways and a couple are sexier and more valuable than others. But here are the four. Number one, there's the usual flat build fee. You want to get a website, you approach a freelancer and they tell you, hey, I can build this for you. It's going to cost you three grand or 1500 or whatever it might be. You pay them that they build the website. Boom. That's just a one time fee. And we we like that part of that. But there's a there's definitely a better way. Another way is this monthly build fee that some folks do. So if you're selling designs to a company that's maybe smaller or doesn't need as much features on their website, you can probably get away with a monthly build fee.

14:06So for example, I have a niche service building websites for motivational speakers. They're just one-page websites with a blog attached to them. So for that, there's no large flat build fee at the front. They just start paying me a monthly fee. And as long as they're paying that monthly fee, I keep their website up and running. I take care of all the updates, the technical updates, the maintenance, I take care of all that for them. So that's kind of the number two, the monthly build fee. We have some students that do those at$49 a month or$99 a month or$149 a month, just depending on the scope of the website.

14:41Another thing you can do is ongoing content updates. So say you're willing to go in and make sure the content of the website stays up to date. Client writes a new blog post, you're going to post it for them. Or they have a new page they want to add, you're going to handle all of that as opposed to training them on how to do it. That's one way. But the best thing about web design, and when I meet prospects who are graphic designers already or they're photographers or videographers already, this is kind of the key point that I hit to them, is the ongoing hosting, maintenance, and security of a website.

15:17This is the long play, and I think it's the biggest reason to get into the web design industry specifically if you want to get into the creative space. And so basically what I tell folks is, you know, as a photographer, I don't want to pay for my wedding photos monthly, right? I don't want to pay$20 a month and keep access to my wedding photos. And then if I stop paying$20 a month, I lose them. No, I want to pay one time for those wedding photos. I want to pay one time for my marketing video. I don't want to pay a monthly fee for that. But here's the key. Every website needs to be hosted somewhere.

15:50And we teach our students in Break into Web how to offer this service and how to upcharge this service using reliable third-party providers. The web is constantly changing and updating. Websites need to stay up to date to remain secure and reliable. And we actually use WordPress to build all our sites, and we teach our students the same. WordPress has several pieces that need to be updated. WordPress itself, the theme being used, and any third-party plugins that are used to enhance the website's functionality. leaving these items unchecked and outdated as a recipe for a website hack and clients understand that and so the hosting maintenance and security plan that you offer your clients is some of the most reliable and easy monthly recurring revenue around that's why i tell people you may have canceled your gym membership during the pandemic right i know some folks who canceled their gym membership for a few months during the pandemic but you didn't cancel your car insurance because you still needed to drive your car around.

16:47And during the pandemic, I had clients that may have canceled a social media ad campaign for a few months because the timing wasn't right. But no one canceled their hosting main security plan because now more than ever, as I mentioned, they needed those sites to be up and running. And lastly, the last four to five years in both my business and Kelly and her freelance web design business, we've only taken on website clients who will be on our hosting maintenance and security plans. And through that, we built our monthly recurring revenue to over 7 ,000 per month. Every year, we consistently add about 1 ,500 per month to that number based on how many sites we built that year.

17:24And they're all hosting with us. That's the big end game, starting the month with enough revenue to give you the freedom to work with who you want, when you want, and from where you want. And so that's the biggest key, I think, in web design. It's some of the easiest recurring revenue around. That is the dream fire nation to be at a place where your monthly recurring revenue is at the point where you get to choose who you want to work with, where you want to work from and who you're actually working with and how you're actually working with them, like in what manner. I mean, those are the processes that you can get to when you get your monthly recurring revenue to a point where you're like, okay, I know that I have this coming in every single month.

18:02I can rely on this. I can live on this. I can put some money away with this. This is where I want to be. Like, this is a fantastic place. Everything above this is just gravy. It's just more icing on the cake, which, of course, you want to continue to grow and build to. But you have that locked in. And I love how John took you through those four different options. Super cool. And I love that analogy you made too about, you know, how this type of recurring revenue and Fire Nation really, really think about this. This type of recurring revenue, it's more like your car insurance and less like your gym membership.

18:33Gym memberships will get canceled immediately if needed. It's just like, that is a nice to have. Your car insurance, it's a has to have. It's actually by law, it has to have it. It's more like this car insurance, Fire Nation, than it is like a gym membership, which is why it's a great type of recurring revenue. So, John, you shared so much greatness here today. Let's really end with a bang. What is the one thing you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from everything that we talked about here today? Give us a call to action or maybe even a gift if you have anything for us here today about how we can find out more about you, learn more about this content.

19:13and then we'll say goodbye. Absolutely. And to just put a stamp on the last recurring revenue point, I'll give you some stats. Every year we built about 50 to 75 websites. And so that's 50 to 75 new folks on those plans. And every year on average, we lose two to three that drop off our plan. Either they've outgrown us and they need a website that can do more than what we provide or they've gone out of business. So that retention rate is super key. And then down the line, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, But down the line, when I want to sell my business, it's not just a service business that, hey, I build 50 websites a year on average for four grand apiece.

19:49So my business is 200K times a service multiplier. No, it's going to be, hey, there's that. Plus there's this recurring revenue piece where 95 % of folks stay on for a minimum of five years. And a lot of those folks renew a website with us. That multiplier on that part of the business is huge. So with that, my takeaway, if you're considering a career change, and you want to be creative, I highly recommend the web design industry because of that recurring revenue piece. Web design industry is constantly changing, constantly evolving, and the demand is constant, as I mentioned, now more than ever and will continue to be.

20:31So if you're considering that career change into freelance web design, check out Break into Web. Again, we cover both technical and the business training you're going to need. Most code schools and boot camps are more expensive than we are, and they just cover that technical skill, especially the code schools. They just teach you how to get a new job at a tech company. You don't want a new job. You want to be your boss. You want to freelance. So, yeah. In fact, if you go to breakintoweb.com slash fire, you'll get an exclusive 20 % off the course the next three days that you visit. And also a swag pack if you sign up.

21:08Our swag pack includes our very own There's No Place Like Homepage t-shirt. You also get a Break Into Web mug, a branded notebook for setting your goals and taking notes, as well as a Break Into Web sticker you can slap on your laptop, let folks know that you're going into a new career and you're excited about your future. So go ahead and spell that for us, breakintoweb.com. Absolutely, B-R-E-A-K, breakintoweb, W-E-B.com slash fire, F-I-R-E. Or if you just Google break into web, go to our homepage, add slash fire, you'll get to the page, absolutely. Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, And you've been hanging out with Jdubs and JLD today.

21:53So keep up that heat. Head over to eofire.com. Just type John, J-O-H-N in the search bar. And John Wooten's show notes page will pop right up. These are the best show notes in the biz. Timestamps, links, you name it. And of course, your direct call to action, Fire Nation. Breakintoweb.com slash fire. That's break, B-R-E-A-K. breakintoweb.com slash fire. Head over there, get the bonuses, get the goodies. John, I want to say thank you, brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. John, thank you so much for having me on.

22:34Fire Nation, thanks for listening. We'll see you all on the course. Cheers. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by John. And if you've ever thought about creating a podcast of your own, The Podcast Journal is for you. It is a gorgeous full-leather journal that will guide you step-by-step in the creation and launch of your podcast in 50 days. Visit thepodcastjournal.com. Use promo code podcast for a$15 discount. And thank you for listening to my podcast. And I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Success Story, hosted by my friend Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

23:14Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversation on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship. In a recent episode, Scott brings Kate Bradley on the show, founder and CEO of Lately.ai, to discuss the best ways to use AI to create content. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts.