How To Embrace Change In Agency Life

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Verbatim text

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to episode number 128 of the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee. And on today’s show, we will be talking with Jason Vance. He’s a great friend of mine. And today, he’s gonna be sharing his story of increasing his prices yet keeping his clients. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey. This podcast is brought to you by the Agency Trailblazer community. Is agency life stressing you out? Then it is our mission to help you build an agency that you love.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
We’ve created a community which includes the agency reset roadmap that will allow you to get your agency back on the right track. We also have lots of noble straight to the point, easy to consume workshops. We have a thriving community of other agency owners. And we all wrap up every month with a mastermind call with myself and sometimes a special guest where we unpack your questions. For more details, check out agency trailblazer.com.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
You are joining a conversation with me, your beautiful, handsome host, Lee, and mister Jason Vance. Jason, how are you doing today?

Jason Vance:
I’m doing good. Thanks.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s like 1 AM for you right now, you nutter.

Jason Vance:
It is 1 AM. Yeah.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
He’s Jason is a very good friend of mine. A he’s a night owl, as you may tell. I actually sent him a message saying, mate, you don’t have to do this. This is, like, 1 AM for you. You should be in bed. And he’s like, nah, mate. The night is still young.

Jason Vance:
Flowers to bed. Yeah.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
How many hours?

Jason Vance:
Couple. 2 Oh. 2:30:3.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Sort of my number. Millennial.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I am There’s no one millennials there.

Jason Vance:
I guess. It’s it’s funny. I I think I identify with a lot of millennials.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I identify as a millennial, as a as an 18 year old. I think everyone I think everybody identifies as an 18 year old, don’t they?

Jason Vance:
Pretty much. Yeah.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Right up until their nineties, and then they kind of have to give it in.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. So true. Or at least we won’t be 18.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. I’d I’d love to be. It’s it’s it’s just gonna well, let’s let’s not get started on that because we will literally sound like 2 grumpy old men.

Jason Vance:
Alright. Sounds good.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It does, isn’t it? And then and then we would just have to create a whole new podcast about moaning about millennials and being too grumpy old. Actually, I think there’s something in this.

Jason Vance:
Maybe there is.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
But it could be a thing. Folks, if you don’t know who Jason is, he is a fellow WP innovator, a fellow agency trailblazer, a a fellow geek, and he’s also, about 5 years ago, a fellow AppSumo, I think it was the one k course that many of us did many moons ago where we were going through the process of validating business ideas and all sorts with good old Noah. I can’t remember his last name. Kagan?

Jason Vance:
Yep.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Kagan. Very good. He’s got no hair now like me. Back then, Noah actually had a full head of hair as well. Anyway, me and Jason have kept in touch for many years, and, we’ve we’ve basically been in all of the same Facebook groups, haven’t we, for our entire life?

Jason Vance:
Pretty much. Yeah.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Slight exaggeration there for 5 years. But anyway and Jason owns Red Mill Creative, builds websites, does WordPress, does great design. But also, mate, you do lots of other things as well, which we’re probably gonna unpack through this call. So that was my kind of really unplanned, probably didn’t do you any justice, introduction. So would you like to just say hello to everyone, let people know who you are, a little bit about you, your favorite color, what your favorite tipple is, and then we’ll go from there.

Jason Vance:
Sure. What is a tipple?

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s a drink.

Jason Vance:
Okay. Well, I’m drinking a bourbon right now, but, yeah. I know. I yeah. Yeah. If I had to explain if we’re if we’re, like, a meet and greet and I thought I liked you, I’d probably I’d probably tell you that I more than anything, I’m passionate about people and seeing who they are and helping them figure that out and then helping them do something they love. It’s at the kind of underlying core of everything I do. That’s basically where I always default to.

Jason Vance:
It’s like, who are you, and what do you do, or what do you really wanna do, and how can I help?

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.

Jason Vance:
And so, yeah, I’ve if I look back over my life, right, from a kid, it’s kind of what we’ve always done. Just, you know, neighborhood garage sales, baseball tournaments. You know, we just set it up. We didn’t wait for people to give us permission. We kinda just did it.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So you are somebody who helps people with their dreams?

Jason Vance:
Yeah. And I I’ve even introduced myself at different times. I’ve I’ve, called myself a dream producer, like a movie producer, but for dreams or an idea producer.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I really like that.

Jason Vance:
Yeah.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I really like that.

Jason Vance:
Best explains my heart and best explains yeah, really.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I like the angle you’re taking there because instead of saying I am and then defining yourselves by the talents that you have, like, I would often say to somebody, I’m a web developer, or I’m a WordPress expert, or I’m a agency consultant because these are some of the things that I do. But actually, in the grand scheme of things, the bigger picture is is, yes, like you’re saying, I’m actually helping people achieve their dreams, achieve things, leave their legacies, etcetera. Mhmm. That’s a really good really good way of looking at things, mate. I like it.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. And it it also like, if I tell people I’m an an idea producer, it also gets like that head cock. They kinda, like, tilt their head and they squint a little bit, and they’re like, what is that? Like, so it leaves a door for me to explain what I could what I do or what I could do, and and it also allows me to ask questions that they would never probably let me ask. Yeah. You know, even like like, tonight, I was at a a, like, a meet and greet, and met a girl who was, like, a financial planner. And, you know, I got I said that kinda same thing, and I was able to ask her, like, you know, what what is she what do you really love to do? You know? And then she begins to tell me something that’s totally different than her business. And then you can see the you can see the shift from her, like, giving me her sales pitch to her actually connecting with her heart and telling me something that she really loves. Yeah.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. So no. That’s that’s what I love.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s beautiful. It almost feels a little bit Disney esque actually as well, you know, like an imagineer. Yeah. And and you’re you’re making making things that have been imagined, a, someone’s vision and then bringing it to life, and people could be immersed in it. Sorry. I had to bring that right around to Disney because I’m just completely obsessed.

Jason Vance:
No. It’s good. I I love that about Walt’s story. Right?

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Exactly. That’s beautiful. So can we jump in the time machine a little bit, mate? Because, obviously, Red Mill Creative does do the good old web dev design, etcetera. I think one of your latest projects was a web build as well, and you’ve also been in the world of WordPress support as well. You are a young 25 year old plus a little bit of tax, I believe. So something’s you got a few years in the industry now. And, I was just wondering when was the first time you kind of got into web development, be it as a teenager, or how did the whole journey start?

Jason Vance:
Well, I actually I started my journey as a pastor, which is kind of random. And partway through that, because I was the youngest guy on staff, they just had this assumption that I knew technology and computers, but what they didn’t understand was I was from, like, the Kootenay’s, which is, like, in Canada is, like, this redneck kind of hippie place, and I didn’t even barely know how to turn on a computer. But then I turned on the computer, figured out how to do a website, and and started doing graphics and logos. And then I just, like, had a bit of a knack to it, and I was actually kinda good. And because most church ministry jobs don’t pay well, I started offering my services to, you know, just friends and congregation members, and that’s kinda where I got the kickoff into all that.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
No way. So, so when you say a pastor, I mean, here in the UK, you would have 1 pastor per church, and then sometimes depending on the size of church, you may get, like, a lead pastor and then a couple of other pastors of support. Were you, like, a support pastor, or did you actually have your own church?

Jason Vance:
Yeah. I was more like a support pastor. So it was it was a church for about 250 people, and there were 2 other pastors on staff. And I was, like, the 3rd kind of, I guess, like, youth, young adult pastor, but we did everything.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.

Jason Vance:
And yeah. And so and it was all it was never like a full time gig, though it was like full time hours. Just the pay was terrible.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. That’s something that, I can definitely attest to. My my dad growing up as a as a pastor’s son, I can recognize that with my dad. He, never got paid well at all, and I can think of many a times we were teased as kids because I would have, like, the no name brand trainers.

Jason Vance:
Right.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I mean, I I can’t say the name brands because people in the UK would get it in Giggle if I said Golar, but I don’t think people in the US would get the sorts of brands that we had. I don’t know what a shame brand might have been back in the nineties for you guys.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. But yeah. Anything with Velcro.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, pass to pay is not not so good. Well, that’s a great story. I mean, just the fact you were building these websites, when did you start kind of doing it for business? What were the kind of early mistakes you made as well? I imagine as well, not to put Christians down necessarily, but if you’re offering websites to to, like, kind of in that circle, what were the budgets like? Did you make a few mistakes on pricing, or how did all that start?

Jason Vance:
Yeah. So I I kind of, like, dabbled in actually, I I’d started with video. That was that was where we started, but then somebody would ask me for a logo, so I’d do a logo. Somebody asked me for a website, and I’d do a website. And, basically, my answer to everything was yes. There was it was never no. It was like, yes, and I’ll go learn it. And so I kinda did that on the side for, I’d say almost 2 years, and then we started an Internet radio station in in 2000 or 2001.

Jason Vance:
It was like a 24 hour a day Internet radio. And out of that experience and talking like, continually talking with musicians and just listening to their story, their struggle, I came up with this idea where I would basically create where I wanted to create a platform to help musicians sell their music, you know, share their events as, like, kind of a one one stop place for them. And and so we, we started doing that. It was called Worship Vibe, and it was part of our Internet radio. And then in my sort of, like, ignorant but infinite wisdom at the time, I thought I would learn to code and design and just build it myself. And then that was, like, pretty ignorant of me in a lot of ways because, like, I’m just I’m, like, I’m a creative person. I don’t code, like, to this day still stresses stresses me out. And so I just I never really, like, never really grasped the code end of it that well.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. And so it was, like, 2,004. So it was about 3 years of doing just, like, odd projects. And and then my wife and I decided to actually move 4 hours away. I quit my job at the church, and then I went full time. And at that point, I just I, like, I would just take on any client. I got a lot of kind of freelance jobs, like, from some local people, But I just I just said yes, and I just worked, like, crazy hours. And I didn’t really think about I didn’t really think about it because I had a year get a new baby, and I had a year to replace my wife’s maternity leave income and make enough to kinda sustain our life in our new city.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. And, yeah, I’m like, yeah, it was just for me, it was just everything was about building relationship and, you know, getting to know as many people as possible and offering my services. And I’d and I just kept I sort of kept that idea of saying yes. I just said yes to everything. I let people set the budget, which wasn’t wasn’t that smart. You know, I’d ask them, like, what can you afford? And they’d tell me, then I’d do it. And I think I just the volume of work I did allowed me to keep doing it, and I and I it was actually pretty quick,

Lee Matthew Jackson:
which

Jason Vance:
was probably only one of the only reasons why I survived. And at that point, I also did hosting, and I something I learned is if I last just a little bit longer than my friends in the business, they’ll give me their business when they quit. Yeah. And so I actually inherited I think to this day, I’ve inherited 5 friends’ businesses over the years. Wow. And one in just the last year, got 12 clients from him. Wow. And so that, like, that helped me kind of just keep going.

Jason Vance:
And but, yeah, pricing, I still struggle with pricing, to be honest.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Is that your internal generous spirit?

Jason Vance:
Yeah. I I continually just wanna help people and give stuff away, and it’s yeah. By default. I watched my dad do it too. So it’s not like it’s it comes sort of naturally. Yeah.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I mean, I I I’ve often struggle with this, to to be honest. I mean, people come to me. I really, really like them. I love what it is that they want to achieve, and I also recognize that they don’t have the budget. And it’s very, very tempting, isn’t it, to kind of drop your prices significantly so that you can help them. And, actually, that does work sometimes, and I’m not ruling that out over time. But if I really had to tell myself in the last few years that I’ve got a responsibility to my business and to my client to charge the right price so that I can sustain myself, the family, and the business so that that they will get the best support possible. Something I still struggle with to this day.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think most people listening have that inner kind of generous spirit, don’t they, where, you know, something really resonates with you. You love what the client wants to do, and you just you kinda wanna almost give it away for free, don’t you? Because you’re like, oh my gosh. That would be the best thing ever. I really wanna help you. And and it’s hard to hard to resist, I think, sometimes.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. Exactly.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Because we’re all deeply nice apart from certain politicians whose names will not be mentioned on this show. But I think people might know who I mean, which might mean I I lose listenership if I say. So with regards to moving to a new place, that is such a scary thing. What was your strategy for getting your name? You said you you wanted to get to know as many people as you could. How did you do that?

Jason Vance:
Yeah. So we moved to a community where I didn’t know we didn’t know anybody, and it was literally situated halfway between my family and my wife’s family. So we could we needed space from her family, and it was just it was kind of this perfect location. And, you know, we we right away, we got connected with with the church community. So it was it was what I just came from. I just quit my job as a pastor, so we went to that community. And then I just would start inviting myself to coffee with people, and I just I just kept meeting people as met as many people as I could all the time. And then I would tell them what I do, but I’d like, I’d talk to them about what they do, and then I’d, you know, can I help? Like, that’s a big question.

Jason Vance:
Can I help? And, you know, I I mean, I still do that to this day. It’s why I’ve never really finished my website. I try to meet with 1, 2 people a week. And, you know, whether it’s an old client, an old friend, and and just let them know, hey. Like, you know, is there anything I can do for you? You know? Yeah. I’m website. Everybody knows me now. But in the beginning, I, like, told people I could do web, I could do video, branding.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. And then I you talked a lot about, like, I always try to get to the heart of what they really wanna and and make a hard connection with people. I’m fairly relational, so I would just ask questions they wouldn’t ask or, like, other people wouldn’t ask. And I would get clients all the time. My friend that worked with me years ago would joke. He’s like, you’re the only guy I know if you if somebody goes for coffee with you, come back with a new client. And and it was kinda true.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. What’s interesting though is you’re allowing people to talk about themselves and to share their story with you, which I think is is way more effective than going to, say, a networking meeting and telling people what you do and hoping that that means someone in the room will do business with you or that they will refer you. If you can help other people in any way, and, you know, that will lead to good business and opportunities, and that’s what kind of builds the trust with people as well, doesn’t it? So even when I assume as well with some of these people you meet, you give them some good advice. You don’t do business with them, but you’ve made a friend. Yeah.

Jason Vance:
For sure.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
As well will lead to a referral at some point.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. And, like, even, like, the the girl that I met tonight, like, she wants to meet for coffee to talk about her side project that she wanted to do that she never talks about. And whether whether I actually, you know, end up helping her or not isn’t the point. But she’ll remember me as the guy who wanted to. And whenever somebody else needs a website, I’ll be the, you know, the first guy she remembers.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s awesome. Now I remember about 2 or 3 years ago, me and you had a call, because I was interested in trying to set up some sort of WordPress support contract for clients, etcetera. And you were doing that at the time through I can’t remember the brand name. Was it Copilot?

Jason Vance:
Yeah. WP Copilot.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s right. When did that kick off?

Jason Vance:
Yeah. I don’t actually even remember. I like, I’ve always

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, let me reframe the question then. Why did that kick off, I guess? Because you’re building websites through relationships, and then you’ve launched a new brand, WP Copilot, to offer kind of maintenance and support contracts. What was the the reasoning behind that? What was the thought process, and did it work, I guess?

Jason Vance:
Yeah. So for me, I’d always I mean, I think at that point, I had between 60 70 clients that I was servicing, like hosting and providing, like, basic maintenance for them. And I just wanted to start providing more. I also wanted more residual income so I could do more, and I knew that if I offered another service, I could probably do that. And I was also, like, I’ve been trying to get out of my business for pretty much since the day I started. And so I thought this would be a way you know, if I get a 100 clients at $100 a month, I’m I’m laughing. I can then, you know, hire somebody, and I can kinda move on to other projects and other endeavors. And so, yeah, I started it with the hopes that that would happen, and I offered all my my current client base basically a big discount on that.

Jason Vance:
And I got I think I got 5 or 6 of my own clients, and then I just had a 1 page, like, thing up. And I randomly like, without any marketing, I got 6 other clients from around the world. I have no idea. There’s another WP Copilot from Australia. I think I got some of those people actually looking for that business. Yeah. But oops. But I would tell them.

Jason Vance:
I’m like, I don’t I think you’re probably looking for the other business. And, like, I would just be straight up. I’m like, I don’t think you want me. And then they’d they’d always come back. And so I ended up getting 8 or 10 clients, from from just that one it was literally just a one page. Like, we’re starting this new project. We’ll give you 50% off. It’s gonna be 99.

Jason Vance:
We’ll give her 49. And so in total, I probably had about 15 clients ongoing. And and then it just, yeah, it just sat there. And part of the reason it just sat there, had some personal stuff that came up that basically kinda prevented me from really pursuing it any further. Mhmm. And then I ended up going I went to shut it down, and I did shut it down. And and I funny enough, I still have 6 of those clients of the probably 12 or 15 that I had. I mean, they Yeah.

Jason Vance:
They base I said, you know, I’ll keep doing it. We’re just shutting the brand down, but Red Mill is still going. It’ll always go. It’ll just sort of be my my base forever. And so, like, yeah, we’ll just whatever you’re doing, we love you and, you know, we want we love the service and, yeah, we’d like to stick around with you. So those they’ve they’ve stuck around. And then, yeah, more recently, I’ve considered redo relaunching it, but it was just kinda one of the one of the many side projects that I’ve tested out that I’ve started but never really finished.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think with these, though, they’re harder to scale, aren’t they? Because, I mean, if you imagine you’ve got base camp charge, well, I mean, their their prices have since gone up a lot, but they used to charge something like $25 a month. And the way they made and this is obviously for project management software. It’s a completely different service. But the idea is this kind of a software as a service or I mean, this is a service online, isn’t it? But Mhmm. You know, their their way of making the money was volume. So having as many as possible, that that makes the money. The the difficult thing, I think, for agencies is to sell support contracts and to be able to make money from that. You have to sell a lot of support contracts, and then on aggregate, you have to hope that only a certain percentage of so you’ve managed to sell a 100 support contracts.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Only maybe, you know, 10% of them keep you busy, and the rest are just child’s play for you to have a really good profitable business rocking and rolling. So I think it’s a it’s a very difficult it’s a very difficult process to manage. You mentioned, obviously, you had the personal difficulties that meant you didn’t put much marketing muscle behind it. But I think if you’re gonna do something like that, something you’ve really got a market to try and get up on the volume or switch how you do it and and charge a high price. It’s difficult. We’re doing support contracts at the moment, but we’re doing them at a high value. So we’re only doing a few, and and we’re we’re charging something like 2 to £3,000 per year depending on on the needs, but it’s only, again, support and maintenance. It’s they could totally go to WP curve and get it cheaper, but this is just for you know, this is kind of more of a, you know, this is a a high value.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
We we built the site anyway, so we know how it works. And, do you want us, or do you want someone else running it? And people tend to go for us on those things.

Jason Vance:
And then and I found that

Lee Matthew Jackson:
find it difficult.

Jason Vance:
Yep. And I found that to be true too where most of my so I just went through a season of, like, I was providing support for my clients at, like, $19 a month, including hosting for 10 years. Like, my prices haven’t changed. Wow. And I started looking around, and I’m like, man, people are charging, like, $70 for what I’m doing or more. And I realized that just I needed to up my price. And, I mean, I’m just not gonna grow otherwise. And so I’ve recently been doing that and because I have 80 hosting clients and all at 19 or, yeah, $19 a month.

Jason Vance:
And so far, we’re halfway through the 80, and I’ve raised the price to 69 a month with the 1st year at 39, and I haven’t lost a client yet.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I remember you telling us that on the mastermind call. I was like, what?

Jason Vance:
Yeah. What was

Lee Matthew Jackson:
the what was the percentage overall you’d put the price up by from what they were paying? I think it says some amazing percentage, and you’d not lost anyone.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. So they’re all paying 19 a month, and they get a year at 39 a month, and then it’ll be up to 69 after the year, and I haven’t lost one yet.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s amazing.

Jason Vance:
But on top of that, though, I’ve I’ve since changed some of my, like, process and what what I’m offering. I know I’m no longer offering email support or domain management, which I did. And so I’m also closing down the server that they’re on. And and so, like, I have some clients. Like, I just moved this last week, one client with 3 emails. And because of, like, all the security, like, we’re we’re adding SSL. And so on top of the fee that we’re like, the new hire fee that we’re charging, I’m also charging them to move their site and their emails off of our old hosting to our new hosting. And so on top of the price increase, a lot of them are getting, like well, so we’re charging 2.99 to move with adding an SSL, and we’re charging $100 to move emails A $100 to set up an email account, whether it’s like Zoho, Gmail, or something else, and we’re charging $50 an email.

Jason Vance:
And so, like, the last, we just do one on the weekends, and it was an extra $550 to the client on top of the already higher monthly price. And I still haven’t lost the client yet.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think you’ve just given hope to people listening who maybe in a similar situation have been honoring low fees for hosting and maybe struggling supporting email hosting as well, which is, I think, the bane of every web developer’s existence. Yeah. And you’ve just described how you’ve been able to both increase your prices. I like how you’re doing it staged over 2 years. You know, our prices are gonna be 60 odd bucks, but we’re gonna give you a 50% discount, you know, just to to soften the the blow as it were. And then in year 2, you’ll be on full price. And, also, we now no longer support emails because, you know, since the Internet, we now have amazing platforms like Gmail and Zoho to be able to do your business email 10,000,000 times better than trying to lump it on the same server as your website, which I never really understood why people did anyway. And I used to support email as well.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I used to hate it because it wasn’t the website that was the problem most of the time. Most of my support tickets were, I’m not getting emails. It keeps being spammed. I can’t access my email. What’s my email password?

Jason Vance:
And I

Lee Matthew Jackson:
was just like that. And I swore then, but you know what I mean?

Jason Vance:
Well and that and that’s honestly, like, one of the the main reasons for doing it. It was just most of my support and time was spent on, you know, setting up emails or helping with emails. And and it’s like, I’m getting paid $19 a month to do that. It’s just not worth it. No. And I yeah. I’ve got lots of pushback, and people are like, can it be cheaper? And I’m like, sorry. Like, it it you can’t.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
But you do have options. You go elsewhere.

Jason Vance:
And I and I’ve offered I’ve actually said to them. I’m like, I’ll give you all your stuff for free if you wanna go I’ll I’ll call put your website, your database. I’ll put everything in a zip folder for you for free. I’ll I’ll, like, I’ll go back and find the the Photoshop files. You can have it all, like, if you wanna go somewhere else. I’m not holding you. This isn’t me holding you over a barrel. Right? I’m telling you what we’re doing and why, and I actually wrote a 43 100 word email explaining why.

Jason Vance:
And some of them even told me they read it. Some are like, just give me the the the quick points. But, yeah, so far, I haven’t had any any real I’ve had nobody say no. So

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So what was the kind of what was the moment or the the realization or the reasoning behind I gotta do I gotta make this change? At what what point did you realize you had to make this change? And when you decided to do it, was it very difficult to do it, or was it easy and freeing?

Jason Vance:
Well, I think for me, the the turning point I just come out of I just come out of a really long season that, how do I describe it? I at one point so just to give you some little context, I have 6 kids. Yeah. And our last child, my wife went on bed rest for, like, 3 three and a half months before the baby, and then almost, like, 4 months or 5 months after, she was just really sick. The baby was not doing well, and life was just really, really stressful. And and so I I had come out of this place where, like, I was, like, I was, like, borderline suicidal. Like, I was, like, I was giving up on life, everything, and I had to, like, make some decisions. And I actually got I got a really good job offer. $70,000, you know, 3 weeks of holidays after the 1st year, full benefits.

Jason Vance:
It was at a university, local university. I mean, it would have been, like, the sweetest, easiest job ever. And Yeah. I had to basically come around and make decision. Like, am I an entrepreneur? Am I doing this for real? Or do I just go find a job and, you know, live life? And I gave myself actually 10 days at the end of May last year to make that decision, like, go find new client, make and and I decided, okay, I’m an entrepreneur. And and so after that sort of, like, wake up call, basically, I shut the door on ever going back to work for somebody, and I really started reevaluating my business, like, really looking at it. Where am I making money? Where am I losing money? You know, where do I actually like, what did I actually why did I start this in the first place? It was the biggest big question I asked. And it was never it was never to make websites.

Jason Vance:
It was always to, you know, help people figure out really what they wanted to do and help them in that journey. But I knew I needed a web design company. I know that, like, marketing and storytelling is all part of anything that anybody creates. And so it’s always been this. Like, I know I need this piece, and so I’m gonna build it. And then when it came to, like, all the support and stuff, I just I’m like, I’m wasting all my time doing things that I’m not good at. So why why am I gonna do it now? And so when I sort of said, like, yes to going back to the roots of why I did this all, it was actually easier for me to start saying no to the things I was doing because I was either, like well, why was I doing it in the 1st place? I was, if I was if I’m really honest with myself, I did all that stuff because I was afraid of losing clients. You know? And so I’d put them in, like, hosting and and offer their emails at a cheaper rate because I knew that it was, like, $19 a month, and it would be ongoing for, you know, however long.

Jason Vance:
Right? Yeah. And so from from there, I kind of just I slowly just started researching, asking questions, like, you know, what do other people do? How do they do it? And then, yeah, I just I made the decision. And, honestly, like, I’d like, it’s, like, the best decision I’ve ever made because all of a sudden, it just my mind yeah. I could like, my own mind, I could, like it was starting to have space, space that I to dream, to think, you know, because I I realized, like, I didn’t have to be on 24 hours a day. Vacations and family time, I’m, like, always checking my phone, looking for, you know, making sure clients are okay, and and yeah. So and then I also, like, in that process, you know, I test the waters too. Like, I tell one of my clients that I don’t really wanna have as a client anymore. I tell them I’m doing this just to see what their response is, And I gave them a higher price than I ultimately would have charged, and they said, yeah.

Jason Vance:
We’ll do we’ll do that. And so it was, like, it was a good indicator to me that people are gonna be okay with this. You know, I’m trying to get rid of clients and asking more than I would, and they’re saying yes. So I realized it was all me, and I’m the one actually who’s in the way. And and then that’s something else I realized. I’m, like, I’m act I I realized that I’m actually the one who’s in the way of my own success a lot of time.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.

Jason Vance:
And so I’m just like, no. I’m getting out of the way. I’ll trust other pea like, I I’m looking at other people’s businesses and business models. Like, if they can do it, I can do it too. And I just put my own emotions aside and pulled the trigger.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That is absolutely true. We are very often in the way of our own businesses. What you’ve described as well is, like, a complete reset. You’ve gone right back to your why. And then from that, what is it that I wanna do? And that’s just giving you absolute clarity. You can drop all the things that you don’t want to do or that aren’t necessarily helping with your mission, and then you can really focus. Now I think I understand as well from what you’ve said, you’re really looking to although you’re gonna continue to do web development, your your ideal in the future would be now to actually start to consult with people as well and help them realize or help them understand the dreams that they have and then help them realize those dreams. It could be building websites with you, but it also could be you offering further advice and connecting them with other people as well to help them along their way.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Would that be a correct assumption? Because this entire conversation, it sounds like you really wanna help people, and it’s not necessarily by hosting their website for them or by having a website for them that you’re gonna be able to help them.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. I know. For sure. And and, like, right now, I actually I have 4 I have 4 people I’m working with right now to start side projects. 1 of the guys is a he’s a branch manager of a bank. He manages $1,000,000,000, and we have a plan basically to help him transition in for the over the next 18 months from his bank job to you know, he started a blog, and I’m just helping him, like, figure out how to make money doing that. So, yeah, it was Yeah. It’s the highlight of my week every time we talk.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s so cool. So it’s, almost the same sort of journey I think we all went on originally via the AppSumo years ago.

Jason Vance:
What and that was and so my and I even like, I’d actually talked to Noah, which is funny. And I told him about all the stuff I’ve done in the past. And my my reasoning for what to go into AppSumo was because I wanted to see how he how he created a course to help people and with the full intention of me creating my own. Yeah. And I act I did, but then something like, when you decide to have 6 kids, it’s it’s a lot of work.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So it’s the understatement of the podcast. Carry on. Yeah.

Jason Vance:
And, really, like, as much as I’ve been focusing on building a business, like, in reality, my focus on has been on building a family. And Yeah. And then, you know, I it’s funny. I I I got snipped a year ago, so 6 is the limit. And, I don’t know if that was too personal, but, No.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
We share everything on here.

Jason Vance:
Happened. And my test results came back that I was, like, shooting blanks. I think it this door closed. And I’m like, I literally, like, I went through the season of making family, and it’s done. And now I can go into actually a season of really building my business. Yeah. And interestingly, like, since that’s happened, I mean, my business has already quadrupled. Well, as of January 1, I already had the same amount of sales for 2018 as I did for all of 2017 going into the new year.

Jason Vance:
Wow. Which is crazy because I actually technically don’t need another client this year, and I’ve covered my bills.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And is that all just from this initial 50% price increase before the bigger increase?

Jason Vance:
No. That was that was definitely that’s part of it. Yeah. But I also started this other project called Unbranded. I think it’s on my website. You would’ve you might’ve seen

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It is. I I’ve got the website open, Unbranded Media.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. And we got our first our first client, Our group of clients on that, started, and and it that that projects alone covered my salary for the year, and I’m basically done as of January. End of January, I was done. And so it’s, you know, it’s pretty lucrative. There’s high profit margin. And

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Uh-huh.

Jason Vance:
I it just it just works. But that’s all I’m gonna say about that one right now.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I just wanna encourage people, by the way, because I’m looking at buyunbranded. That’s byunbranded.com. And it is clearly the beaver builder out of the box Yes. Landing page with the join, the newsletter thing removed. And you put unbranded community based collaborative marketing, and you’ve been able to create a business, and you’ve just put a disclaimer saying we’re in a limited launch at the moment. Yes.

Jason Vance:
If you

Lee Matthew Jackson:
wanna be on the list, send us an email, blah blah blah. Like, people often don’t go after exciting ideas or change their business because they think they have to build a website, and they think they have to start a social media account, and then they think they have to do all of these things. And we put all of these blockers in the way. Whereas you have led by example here, mate, and you’ve literally created just a space on the Internet to say, put your stake in the ground. We are community based collaborative marketing. Job done. Now I’m gonna go and create some relationships. And you’ve done that, you know, people to people who are creating relationships with people.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And it’s actually you that has sold the business rather than, you know, having to go down the line of building a website, blogging, creating a social media presence, and doing all of that stuff that you would normally have to do around every single business. And I think we all put ourselves off these exciting new ideas because we think we gotta do all that. And you’ve just proven, and this you know, Noah would be proud of you, mate. Yeah.

Jason Vance:
He would.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
You just proved that. You just build a landing page. You didn’t really even need to do that, but, I mean, everyone just kind of expects that there’s a website somewhere and an email address, don’t they? So, I mean, you did the bare minimum, and you’ve still been able to follow an idea that you’ve had, and you’ve absolutely 100% validated that idea. You you know, like you said, you’ve already made this year, which is freaking phenomenal. But that also means that there is clearly an appetite for what it is you have to offer, which now means that perhaps in the near future, you can then look to actually build on the unbranded brand as it were. Mhmm. And actually create a website and attract other people and be able to help more people on a on a wider level and create case studies and all that sort of stuff. But these are all things that you can do after the fact because you’ve already validated.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’ve already made the first big chunk of income. And I think that’s phenomenal. I’m well impressed.

Jason Vance:
Yeah. I mean and it and for me, like, I’m actually I’m not closing my Red Mill business down because it’s always gonna be needed, but I’m not taking on new clients. I’m closing off all my projects, and, you know, I’m going I’m basically going all in on this unbranded, and I’ve given myself 18 months. And, yeah, I it’s it’s looking like it’s it’s it’s an idea that will could change my life forever.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s so cool, mate. Well, I think on this really high note because there is actually loads more me and you could talk about nice. If I’m honest, but we would be here for hours. So I think on this really high note, let’s end this on that encouraging note, you know, especially with regards to if you have an idea. Well, 2 things I think I’ve learned today is number 1, you know, stop and just think what the hell am I doing and why am I doing it? Which, you know you’ve pointed out. And then the other thing is is if you’ve got an exciting idea then you know you only need to validate it doing the basics rather than creating an entire business model to validate something, which is absolutely powerful. So 2 massive lessons in that. Obviously, well there’s more lessons increase your prices.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That that’s a good thing. Yeah. You know obviously. Create family time as well. I love that as well. So this has been a really powerful episode and I’m just really appreciative of your time Jason. Especially the fact that it’s probably now 2 am for you. Still like the middle of the day for you I guess.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mate, how can people follow what you’re doing and and keep in touch with you?

Jason Vance:
Yeah. If, the really the best way right now is just to to friend me on Facebook or you can follow me. You know what? That’s really the best way at the moment.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
No worries. We will put a link to your profile on the Facebook as it used to be. On Facebook. Yeah. And, also, Jason is rocking the WP Innovator Facebook group as well. That’s wpinnovator.com forward slash group. Thanks, mate. This has been an awesome show.

Jason Vance:
Thank you.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And that’s a wrap. In next week’s episode, we’re gonna be talking with Phil Van Dusen of YouTube fame. I’ve been watching Phil now for at least a couple of years, especially his trending videos in design. He provides such amazing valuable content. And we’re gonna be talking with him about his journey through agency life and also launching his YouTube channel, which recently has hit 100,000 plus subscribers. So a brilliant episode. Can’t wait to share it with you. We will see you next week.