Something I don't understand is that yes on paper it looks good, and it sounds like you can take 3 months off when you have 30 subscription clients and still make a lot of money. But what happens to these 30 clients that are paying you every month ? Aren't you providing anything anymore to them ? Why would they keep paying you then ? Because if you offer unlimited site editing requests, my guess is that you won't be able to sleep very soon with dozens of requests every week and landing page changes, holiday offer changes, black friday offers, summer sales new pages, etc etc... I'm wondering how you got this figured out in your system. Because the only way I could find this subscription based service appealing as a potential client is if you can make site changes for me whenever I ask you to. I wouldn't want to pay 200$ every month for hosting and plugin updates. So I'm curious about the details of your offer.
If you have an AGENCY, there is someone on your team fulfilling the delivery (the support/implementation). The owner is not delivering service. But, if you don’t have recurring revenue, as the owner, you still have to constantly do SALES for new customers. You can’t “take a break”. Even if you’re service delivery is great. With recurring revenue, you can take a break as the owner. Your company won’t grow, but it won’t tank down either
Hey Thomas! Thanks for the comment. Some thoughts: Right, we do not offer unlimited updates. I think the pricing for that kind of service would have to look way different than what I offer, and I'm just not a fan of those models. After the initial build, we offer 1 hour of updates for free, and then additional hours beyond that. Adam offers 30 minutes (I THINK he explained this in the video near the end if I remember correctly). What you must do is think like a business offer with zero web skills. I was on the radio in my town yesterday with one of my clients, and she explained it PERFECTLY. She runs a tanning salon and has to make updates often because the business is always changing. She would nuts if she had to learn how to manage that. She just writes into our team and it gets done - no problem, seamless, smooth. *That's what clients are paying for.* But also, in our models, we're spreading out the cost of the build over a minimum time period. What it boils down to is you have raised a hypothetical that neither of us, in over a decade of doing this, have experienced. It's never been too much work at one time, and client's don't complain that we're not doing enough. Just hasn't happened, ya know? But to Juan's point, we also have a team. So the team is doing any work to keep the websites updated. Also, to be fair, Adam's scenario was a hypothetical as well. REALISTICALLY, you're probably not taking three months off in your business anytime soon. It's a great goal to shoot for and could happen one day, but he said merely to make a point. I hope this was a little helpful!!! :)
I would absolutely pay $200/month as a business owner to have my site in a safe place with an expert while having my own peace of mind that it is going to stay functional and i dont have to have multiple different accounts; hosting, web platform, and paying an agency expensive hourly rates for small updates. A lot of agencies will charge $75-150 per hour of work so you factor that in on top of hosting and web platform costs it can easily come to $500/1000 per month for people with multiple different payment processors. 1 hour of updates free per month makes total sense. If you don’t think that’s worth it - then something else you can offer on top of that is GMB reputation management or something. Maybe provide a quality report each month to clients showing data and performance. Maybe 1 SEO content post per month. So many things. Personally, I would charge more for these things. There are ways to make $200/month a no brainer, which in my opinion it already is worth the money for a lot of business owners. If your website is solid and makes a business owner more than what you charge, it will almost always make sense to them.
It's refreshing to watch a realistic conversation that benefits the small business web designer. This was great. I got so drained from the "we make 6 figures per website" videos that people couldn't relate to.
I’m living in Spain and I wants to do the same model. I went talking to some small business owners and they all prefer paying upfront in stead of monthly subscription. The reason is that to them, a website is like a thing they want to get done done and that’s it, maybe paying for domain and hosting but nothing else. Also to them, paying subscription is more costly than paying upfront and pay extra every time they need anything done. To them, a website is just like an online brochure than a sale tools. I wonder how would you tackle this situation, especially when marketing is not my expertise and I can’t offer something like SEO or marketing packages…
Hey there! Thanks for the comment. This comes back down to the basics of sales: They simply don't see the value and they misunderstand what a website is/should be. It's no surprise they don't want to pay monthly for an online brochure. I wouldn't either. I WOULD pay monthly for a sales tool though--in other words, a tool that is consistently bringing me in new sales. You have to show them how a website can meet their needs. This is something that will take some study on your part. Read sales and marketing books, and also consider reading some books on the benefits of the subscription economy in general, like this one: www.amazon.com/Automatic-Customer-Creating-Subscription-Business-ebook/dp/B00LFYXDNQ?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.NI2Pn--cdoAQd7KQWrcgpY3U2Y5n8LfbMtTIjgdlLW_zu1IVp6lhNgfOGTPRkrzrxXltyxqLmZun1OMdE-iWwdJKitK-rmFSkoD348m4QEY.JWKcWrWR6U5eR1Uf7d0n22TvVvrzyfR7GPm7nBXIJ8A&dib_tag=AUTHOR And of course, subscribe to this podcast, because we talk about this stuff often! In fact, I am going to put down an episode idea to cover this question.
The first time I watched this I believe Adam talked about hosting, but I didn't hear it the second time I watched it. Where did he suggest hosting? I thought he mentioned hosting with a particular place that did updates, etc..
Hi Michael, I don't recall him mentioning hosting during our conversation. However, I AM having Adam on again very soon and maybe that's something we can cover for you!
If you got a template for Pizza Shops, lets say, in a niche area, all the websites looks the same with different copy, pictures and colors? Why would the next shop be your client, you'll doing just the same website for them. What about SEO? Say you got 2 competing companies and you sold them SEO websites? Like ok Luigi's Pizza, Mario's Pizza is my client, he's paying me the same as you. You will have the same website as them. They are #1 in organic search in Ohio, you could be that. Isn't there a design and SEO conflict? No profitable business wants to look the same as their competition, they would most certainly prefer leaving their own mark. These are entrepreneurs, usually creative and very industry aware people. At least, they will compare their website to the competitor's. Am I overthinking? Just my concerns, Thanks
Hey Juan! I think this is a great point you bring up and it is understandable as well. All industries are a little different. There are definitely some industries which will be concerned with the design of their website and the marketing, such that they might wish for you to work with them on an exclusive basis. There are many industries, though, which do not require this. They are more concerned with having a professional presentation online that fits their branding (the sites still look customized to that brand), and place the biggest importance on making it easy for their customers to purchase, order, download, etc. SEO is a little trickier, I'm sure, and I don't think Adam offers SEO services. If you are niching geographically, I could see working only with a select number of clients on SEO work in a particular region. Which would naturally make it more expensive, especially if you're good, since doing business with them means you CAN'T do business with someone else. At that point, it becomes a selling point (positive) rather than a negative. Great question!
Great question, but funny enough, I get this question more from other web designers than from clients. We'll customize every website with the company's photos, logos, menus, and featured promotions, so while we start wihttehs same template, every website ends up looking different from the competition (The average guy ordering pizza for his family on a Friday night won't recognize the similarities). Additionally, we want to focus on what makes each pizza place unique and build that into the SEO - one is organic pizza, and the other is deep dish. One is standard pizza toppings, the other has a buffet of toppings. One has tables to sit in the restaurant and the other is delivery only. If the pizza places don't have unique values for their brand, then their problem isn't that their website is the same layout as the guy down the street. I dig a little deeper here: th-cam.com/video/VH50JYEPNi4/w-d-xo.html
@BuildThatAgency this is a great response to this question, Ive been asking myself it so many times since starting to learn and seen it asked so many times
This has been a really great watch. Really happy I found your channel. Quick question here. What would you recommend for domains? For my agency to buy and manage their domain on my registrar account so it’s all in one place or for them to? I know most people will already have a domain and registered so would we look to transfer or allow them to keep it? For those that don’t yet, I’m not sure which route is best
Thank you!!! I'll be honest, I do not personally have a preference on this, though I bias towards the client owning the domain. There are some domains that we own and manage for clients. I'm not positive Adam's take on this, but I'm inclined to think he owns/manages the domains since the website is entirely a service, but I'm not positive on that.
@@swschramm you’re the man! Thank you for the quick response. Im leaning towards if they do not have one - I setup and include it in the monthly rate and do not “own” it myself like the website - so they will leave with that domain if they choose to. If they do have a domain already, I will allow them the option to keep it themselves or transfer it for one easy payment and still keep the ownership. I don’t like the idea of taking people’s personal assets like that. I feel like there could be complications with IP. If a brand has a name and that domain is named their brand, technically they have a right to own it in my opinion. Thanks for your help and I will keep following your channel!
I really found a lot of value here as someone who is setting up a web design business using this exact model. One sticking point I have is that in my chosen niche, a lot of businesses often already have an existing website. This isn't an issue in itself because I can normally offer a way better website. But their domain name and multiple staff email addresses/mailboxes which need to be migrated over to my company, sounds like a huge headache. Once they've got a new mailbox on my hosting, what happens to all the old emails they might still need access to? How do you tackle this? Thanks
Hey Adam! Yeah, this is a big topic. The web designers who have the most peace of mind essentially treat email as something entirely separate and usually recommend the client sets up Google Workspace or something, or even engages an email consultant separately. In short: It's doable and we've done it before, but it REALLY sucks :) It literally boils down to logging into both old and new email address on the separate servers using a client like Mozilla Thunderbird or something, and dragging and dropping the emails. It's a serious headache.
@@swschramm At least I’m not the only one who finds this part tricky. I think outsourcing is the way to go, but finding someone trustworthy enough to let them into client email is scary.
Make sure to use code STEVE on buildthatagency.com to save 25%!!! You don't want to miss this deal! (Valid until 11/30/23.)
Thanks for having me Steve! I had a blast and can't wait to be back to talk about building recurring revenue!
Can't wait dude! So awesome!
Something I don't understand is that yes on paper it looks good, and it sounds like you can take 3 months off when you have 30 subscription clients and still make a lot of money. But what happens to these 30 clients that are paying you every month ? Aren't you providing anything anymore to them ? Why would they keep paying you then ?
Because if you offer unlimited site editing requests, my guess is that you won't be able to sleep very soon with dozens of requests every week and landing page changes, holiday offer changes, black friday offers, summer sales new pages, etc etc...
I'm wondering how you got this figured out in your system. Because the only way I could find this subscription based service appealing as a potential client is if you can make site changes for me whenever I ask you to. I wouldn't want to pay 200$ every month for hosting and plugin updates.
So I'm curious about the details of your offer.
This is so true, totally agree with you
If you have an AGENCY, there is someone on your team fulfilling the delivery (the support/implementation). The owner is not delivering service.
But, if you don’t have recurring revenue, as the owner, you still have to constantly do SALES for new customers. You can’t “take a break”. Even if you’re service delivery is great.
With recurring revenue, you can take a break as the owner. Your company won’t grow, but it won’t tank down either
Hey Thomas! Thanks for the comment. Some thoughts:
Right, we do not offer unlimited updates. I think the pricing for that kind of service would have to look way different than what I offer, and I'm just not a fan of those models. After the initial build, we offer 1 hour of updates for free, and then additional hours beyond that. Adam offers 30 minutes (I THINK he explained this in the video near the end if I remember correctly).
What you must do is think like a business offer with zero web skills. I was on the radio in my town yesterday with one of my clients, and she explained it PERFECTLY. She runs a tanning salon and has to make updates often because the business is always changing. She would nuts if she had to learn how to manage that. She just writes into our team and it gets done - no problem, seamless, smooth. *That's what clients are paying for.* But also, in our models, we're spreading out the cost of the build over a minimum time period.
What it boils down to is you have raised a hypothetical that neither of us, in over a decade of doing this, have experienced. It's never been too much work at one time, and client's don't complain that we're not doing enough. Just hasn't happened, ya know?
But to Juan's point, we also have a team. So the team is doing any work to keep the websites updated. Also, to be fair, Adam's scenario was a hypothetical as well. REALISTICALLY, you're probably not taking three months off in your business anytime soon. It's a great goal to shoot for and could happen one day, but he said merely to make a point.
I hope this was a little helpful!!! :)
I would absolutely pay $200/month as a business owner to have my site in a safe place with an expert while having my own peace of mind that it is going to stay functional and i dont have to have multiple different accounts; hosting, web platform, and paying an agency expensive hourly rates for small updates.
A lot of agencies will charge $75-150 per hour of work so you factor that in on top of hosting and web platform costs it can easily come to $500/1000 per month for people with multiple different payment processors.
1 hour of updates free per month makes total sense. If you don’t think that’s worth it - then something else you can offer on top of that is GMB reputation management or something. Maybe provide a quality report each month to clients showing data and performance. Maybe 1 SEO content post per month. So many things. Personally, I would charge more for these things.
There are ways to make $200/month a no brainer, which in my opinion it already is worth the money for a lot of business owners.
If your website is solid and makes a business owner more than what you charge, it will almost always make sense to them.
It's refreshing to watch a realistic conversation that benefits the small business web designer. This was great.
I got so drained from the "we make 6 figures per website" videos that people couldn't relate to.
Thank you so much!!! I know, those videos get EXHAUSTING right? We do our best to keep it real around here. 💪🏼
This was a great interview, please do get Adam on again (and let him talk a bit more next time😄)
LOL! I can take a hint! Will definitely have him back :)
I’m living in Spain and I wants to do the same model. I went talking to some small business owners and they all prefer paying upfront in stead of monthly subscription. The reason is that to them, a website is like a thing they want to get done done and that’s it, maybe paying for domain and hosting but nothing else. Also to them, paying subscription is more costly than paying upfront and pay extra every time they need anything done. To them, a website is just like an online brochure than a sale tools. I wonder how would you tackle this situation, especially when marketing is not my expertise and I can’t offer something like SEO or marketing packages…
Hey there! Thanks for the comment. This comes back down to the basics of sales: They simply don't see the value and they misunderstand what a website is/should be. It's no surprise they don't want to pay monthly for an online brochure. I wouldn't either. I WOULD pay monthly for a sales tool though--in other words, a tool that is consistently bringing me in new sales. You have to show them how a website can meet their needs. This is something that will take some study on your part. Read sales and marketing books, and also consider reading some books on the benefits of the subscription economy in general, like this one: www.amazon.com/Automatic-Customer-Creating-Subscription-Business-ebook/dp/B00LFYXDNQ?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.NI2Pn--cdoAQd7KQWrcgpY3U2Y5n8LfbMtTIjgdlLW_zu1IVp6lhNgfOGTPRkrzrxXltyxqLmZun1OMdE-iWwdJKitK-rmFSkoD348m4QEY.JWKcWrWR6U5eR1Uf7d0n22TvVvrzyfR7GPm7nBXIJ8A&dib_tag=AUTHOR
And of course, subscribe to this podcast, because we talk about this stuff often! In fact, I am going to put down an episode idea to cover this question.
The first time I watched this I believe Adam talked about hosting, but I didn't hear it the second time I watched it. Where did he suggest hosting? I thought he mentioned hosting with a particular place that did updates, etc..
Hi Michael, I don't recall him mentioning hosting during our conversation. However, I AM having Adam on again very soon and maybe that's something we can cover for you!
Awesome topic.
Glad you liked it!!!
If you got a template for Pizza Shops, lets say, in a niche area, all the websites looks the same with different copy, pictures and colors? Why would the next shop be your client, you'll doing just the same website for them. What about SEO? Say you got 2 competing companies and you sold them SEO websites? Like ok Luigi's Pizza, Mario's Pizza is my client, he's paying me the same as you. You will have the same website as them. They are #1 in organic search in Ohio, you could be that. Isn't there a design and SEO conflict? No profitable business wants to look the same as their competition, they would most certainly prefer leaving their own mark. These are entrepreneurs, usually creative and very industry aware people. At least, they will compare their website to the competitor's. Am I overthinking? Just my concerns, Thanks
Good point, I wonder this too
Hey Juan! I think this is a great point you bring up and it is understandable as well. All industries are a little different. There are definitely some industries which will be concerned with the design of their website and the marketing, such that they might wish for you to work with them on an exclusive basis.
There are many industries, though, which do not require this. They are more concerned with having a professional presentation online that fits their branding (the sites still look customized to that brand), and place the biggest importance on making it easy for their customers to purchase, order, download, etc. SEO is a little trickier, I'm sure, and I don't think Adam offers SEO services.
If you are niching geographically, I could see working only with a select number of clients on SEO work in a particular region. Which would naturally make it more expensive, especially if you're good, since doing business with them means you CAN'T do business with someone else. At that point, it becomes a selling point (positive) rather than a negative.
Great question!
Great question, but funny enough, I get this question more from other web designers than from clients.
We'll customize every website with the company's photos, logos, menus, and featured promotions, so while we start wihttehs same template, every website ends up looking different from the competition (The average guy ordering pizza for his family on a Friday night won't recognize the similarities).
Additionally, we want to focus on what makes each pizza place unique and build that into the SEO - one is organic pizza, and the other is deep dish. One is standard pizza toppings, the other has a buffet of toppings. One has tables to sit in the restaurant and the other is delivery only.
If the pizza places don't have unique values for their brand, then their problem isn't that their website is the same layout as the guy down the street.
I dig a little deeper here: th-cam.com/video/VH50JYEPNi4/w-d-xo.html
@BuildThatAgency this is a great response to this question, Ive been asking myself it so many times since starting to learn and seen it asked so many times
Cool! @@arekdevss - Glad it's helpful.
This has been a really great watch. Really happy I found your channel.
Quick question here. What would you recommend for domains? For my agency to buy and manage their domain on my registrar account so it’s all in one place or for them to?
I know most people will already have a domain and registered so would we look to transfer or allow them to keep it? For those that don’t yet, I’m not sure which route is best
Thank you!!! I'll be honest, I do not personally have a preference on this, though I bias towards the client owning the domain. There are some domains that we own and manage for clients. I'm not positive Adam's take on this, but I'm inclined to think he owns/manages the domains since the website is entirely a service, but I'm not positive on that.
@@swschramm you’re the man! Thank you for the quick response. Im leaning towards if they do not have one - I setup and include it in the monthly rate and do not “own” it myself like the website - so they will leave with that domain if they choose to. If they do have a domain already, I will allow them the option to keep it themselves or transfer it for one easy payment and still keep the ownership.
I don’t like the idea of taking people’s personal assets like that. I feel like there could be complications with IP. If a brand has a name and that domain is named their brand, technically they have a right to own it in my opinion.
Thanks for your help and I will keep following your channel!
I really found a lot of value here as someone who is setting up a web design business using this exact model. One sticking point I have is that in my chosen niche, a lot of businesses often already have an existing website. This isn't an issue in itself because I can normally offer a way better website. But their domain name and multiple staff email addresses/mailboxes which need to be migrated over to my company, sounds like a huge headache. Once they've got a new mailbox on my hosting, what happens to all the old emails they might still need access to? How do you tackle this? Thanks
Hey Adam! Yeah, this is a big topic. The web designers who have the most peace of mind essentially treat email as something entirely separate and usually recommend the client sets up Google Workspace or something, or even engages an email consultant separately.
In short: It's doable and we've done it before, but it REALLY sucks :) It literally boils down to logging into both old and new email address on the separate servers using a client like Mozilla Thunderbird or something, and dragging and dropping the emails. It's a serious headache.
@@swschramm At least I’m not the only one who finds this part tricky. I think outsourcing is the way to go, but finding someone trustworthy enough to let them into client email is scary.
Hi Steve and Adam, this was fantastic! Do either of you offer 1-on-1 consulting calls?
Hey there! I do - send me an email - steve@northmacservices.com. I am not positive whether Adam does or not but I know it'd be worth your time!