Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to episode number 118 of the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee Matthew Jackson. And on today’s show, we have my mate, Kyle Van Dusen, who has come from a print and signage background and now runs his web design business. A brilliant story. Again, yet another story based on growth through community. So sit back, relax, get off Facebook and enjoy the ride.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
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. 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 agencytrailblazer.com.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to a conversation today with myself, your host, Lee Matthew Jackson Jackson, and Kyle Van Dusen. How are you, mate?
Kyle:
I’m excellent. But my arms and legs are outside the vehicle at the moment. So I’m already breaking your rules.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, mate. I haven’t said that for a little while. I thought I might have been with people with it. See, I went on a binge in preparation. So I’ve listened to like probably five episodes today. So I had to have something to say as we opened up to make it interesting.
Kyle:
Keep your arms and legs in the vehicle at all times.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Especially your head, actually. That could go awfully wrong. So does that mean you’re sat in a car?
Kyle:
No, no.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Okay.
Kyle:
I’m safely inside the house.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Okay. You were just being a rebel just for this sake.
Kyle:
Yeah, just for fun.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’re going to be difficult, aren’t you?
Kyle:
Always.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I like it. Kyle, would you like to just introduce yourself and let people know which business thou haileth from?
Kyle:
Oh, that was difficult to say. What you do, your favorite color, and something unusual about yourself that maybe not many people know.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Awesome. All right.
Kyle:
Well, my name is Kyle Van Dusen. I own Ogal Web Design. That’s O-G-A-L. In beautiful Gainesville, Texas, America. So I have two kids, a wife, house, a dog, an office from home, which is nice. And I’ve been running this business full-time since June of 2017. So I’m making it on about six months now. So there’s probably nothing interesting about me. So I’ll leave that part out. Color, we’ll go with orange.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, I figured that, mate. It’s specific. Guys, go to ogleweb.com. You’ll have already guessed.
Kyle:
E C 4 9 1 1.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That is actually your favorite color. We’ll keep it hex.
Kyle:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Geek. Well, and there’s no kind of, no, nothing else? No hidden secret? Like you were once cheerleading champion for the male quadrant of your school?
Kyle:
No, you probably couldn’t tell from my profile picture now where I have glasses and short hair and look pretty squared away. I used to have very long hair and played in a death metal band.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mate, there you go?
Kyle:
You can Google that if you need to.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I knew I could draw something out of you.
Kyle:
Yeah, you can get to it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s amazing. It exists out there. I challenge anyone listening to go ahead and try and find this image because I think this needs to go into the WP Innovator group, which is on wpinnovator.com forward slash group. Facebook group. Let’s see this picture of the Van Dusen.
Kyle:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
What was your stage name?
Kyle:
You know, with the inconspicuous name like Van Dusen, it’s not going to be hard to find. If they can spell it, they’ll find it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s so cool. Ogleweb.com. That’s O-G-A-L-Web.com. We’re going to be talking to the Kyle Van Dusen, former heavy metal rock star. All about his journey into web development. And let’s talk about that. Let’s get into the time machine, buddy. And let’s find out a little bit about your journey into the web. I mean, your business is six months old. You’re already doing amazing, mate. And we’ll probably go into that later on. But how did you get started in building websites or design in general?
Kyle:
Well, I would say the first design aspects was probably back in the band days, making flyers and stuff in high school, Paint Shop Pro style. Oh, nice. This is probably back in 98, 99, starting probably around there. But after high school, I had a buddy whose parents owned a sign shop. And the first time I went in there and saw them making stickers and all these cool things, I was like, OK, I’ve got to work here, you know. So I started out sweeping floors and stuff like that. And luckily, the designer that worked there, she had been a graphic designer for a long time. She let me kind of stand behind her and watch her. And she taught me about Adobe Illustrator and vector artwork. And just kind of from there, I guess that was probably 2003. And I worked in several different sign shops for the next 15 years as a graphic designer, production manager, and all kinds of things in that world. So I came up doing graphic design, self-taught. And that’s pretty much all I’ve done other than delivering pizzas. So delivering pizzas and graphic design.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Now, I mean, signage, was it just signage you were doing? Or did you end up doing other stuff for the business?
Kyle:
Yeah. Well, the place I worked for, we did mostly signage. But we did a lot of small format printing, too. So brochures and business cards and booklets and all those kinds of things. But it was always kind of one of those things where, you know, I like doing that all day at work. And then I would come home and do things for myself. So I was just staring at Illustrator for probably 10 hours a day for 15 years. So you get pretty accustomed to it after an amount of time.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think you just described quite a lot of people’s lives, especially people in the web industry. For myself, I was paid to code for other people. And then I would go home, get the laptop open, and I would carry on doing my own things in the evening. And my wife would be like, are you working? And I’m like, no, I’m actually not working. This is having fun. I am having a chill. She’s like, but you do it all day. I’m like, yeah, I know. But it’s really good. It’s fun. Yep, that’s me. Widow, I married a nerd.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Now, all right. So obviously, you’re self-taught in print design. You were doing design in the evening as well. Were you doing design, again, for print stuff? Or were you teaching yourself web design? Because contrary to popular belief, web design or designing something for a UI is actually very, well, feels very different in my experience to trying to design something for print.
Kyle:
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I really never spend any time doing web design in that in-between. You know, in high school, we had some web design classes where we were using, you know, frames and Notepad and HTML. So I skipped everything in between what happened in like 1997 until probably about three years ago. So I missed all of that. And my wife actually started her own business and, of course, she was going to need a website. And I thought, well, you know, I can get on here and find something. And I stumbled across the magic that we call Wix and started building her website on Wix. And I found out pretty quickly that was not really the route to go. So I opened up WordPress and just beat my head against my desk for a while until it all kind of made sense.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That sounds pretty violent. But also, I can just say you’re seeing the light. It’s like you experiment with Wix and then get WordPress. So, I mean, what was the final result of that website? Does that even still exist anymore?
Kyle:
The Wix one is gone. So I redid her website in WordPress. But, you know, from there, I finished her website. And I had a company I was, or a nonprofit I was doing some volunteering for. And they were unhappy with their website developer, who was also using Wix. And they said, will you take over managing this for us? And I said, sure. You know, so I was kind of doing that in my spare time, in my off time from work. And that led to somebody else asking me to do the same thing for them. And I’m like, man, I’m kind of filling up with people. I’m working a lot at home at night, you know. So that kind of pushed me into going, OK, well, obviously, I don’t want to sit in front of Wix all the time. WordPress seemed super confusing since I had no idea what I was doing. So I just started YouTubing and Googling until I could get a hang of it. You know, it took a little bit of time to figure it out.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It does take a lot of time, especially if you’re coming from a non-development background. Again, I presume you don’t really have any development experience over the last 15 years beforehand.
Kyle:
Yeah, through just doing signage, et cetera. No, that’s why I rely on all these people in these Facebook communities. And I hound them with probably ridiculous questions that I should know. They’re gracious and they help me out. And I couldn’t be doing anything that I’m doing without all these people’s help. So it’s been awesome.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That is a common thread. I mean, Paul Lacey was on a few episodes ago. He was saying the exact same thing. You know, he wouldn’t be running his business, he wouldn’t be where he is today, and the shift in his business wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for amazing online communities. Everyone’s so freaking kind. I mean, given there are a few awkward WordPress groups online where some of the self-perceived elite of WordPress land are quite rude to you if you don’t understand something. But most groups, especially places like Beaver Builder, et cetera, WP Elevation, all those sorts of things, are really, really nice people.
Kyle:
Yeah, and Paul Lacey is one that I ask stupid questions too often. So he’s paying it forward.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. And you see a lot of people doing that, you know. I try to do it now with the things, you know, the little that I know, you know, that I’ve gained along these last couple of years. I try to, you know, hand that out to anybody that was, you know, I was in their shoes just not too long ago. So I think that’s what’s pretty neat about it. I would have had no idea when I got into this that there would be, you know, figured it would be competition, you know. And I don’t see anybody or very few people in these groups acting like it’s competition. It’s all, you know, it’s water cooler talk and it’s hanging out with the people you work with, you know, and they’re helping you get your stuff done and you’re helping them. It’s pretty neat.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’re exactly right. I’ve never felt threatened or feel like someone feels threatened about me or what I do or et cetera. It’s a phenomenal community.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, I think I do wonder if it’s different to most industries because I’ve been in other industries in the past and we might have been at particular events and you’ve got competitors all around you and you’re all just kind of eyeing each other up. And, you know, like wild animals kind of like circling each other ready to pounce at each other. It’s very much like that. And, you know, you’re all just trying to grab the people who are going past and kind of looking at each other with suspicious glances. It’s real weird.
Kyle:
Yeah. I mean, it was like that in the sign industry. You know, we fought with all of our predators about stuff all the time.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Strange, isn’t it? Yeah. I mean, I think, I don’t know. I don’t know why it is like this, but I mean, I’m very grateful. I do think it is also very much the way that WordPress has been built up because WordPress obviously started off as an open source platform and that’s through collaboration, everybody collaborating to build WordPress up, et cetera. And I think that kind of spirit of collaboration has just continued, hasn’t it? Where we all collaborate and help each other. And I think, again, with the WordPress community, there is this abundance mindset for most people. We all recognize that there is actually plenty of business for everybody. I actually can’t design or build every single website known to man, and I’m not going to be able to scale quick enough to do that either. Therefore, it makes sense that we all help each other out and that we all, because I think most of us want really good quality. We want to produce really good quality sites. And if we see someone who has that same desire, then bloody hell, do we want to help them as well, which is awesome. Now, tell me, you’ve spent like years in Illustrator and then you’re Googling WordPress. Can you let us know, like, how did you build your first website? Was this buying a theme and getting stuck into something like Visual Composer or what happened? How did you get those first early sites done in WordPress?
Kyle:
It’s pretty close. Tesseract theme. So I’m sure I’ve seen lots of people. It’s called Tesseract, I think.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’re going to have to spell.
Kyle:
Oh, Tesseract. Yeah, there you go. It’s my lovely accent. There you go. But I’ve seen several people come in, come into the groups and say, hey, I’m using this and I’m having trouble. So that’s where I started. And I actually found Adam at WP Crafter and started watching his videos and downloaded Beaver Builder. And that made a whole lot more sense to me. So that was certainly helpful. And I watched, I went back and watched, I think every video he had done to that point. And it was like a super fast track to at least getting my head wrapped around the whole thing.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, I highly recommend that. If you’re listening to this and you’re in your early stages of a web journey, so maybe you’re a designer and you’re in your early stages, you’re wanting to kind of get your head around being able to translate your design skills online without needing tons and tons of code, then definitely recommend you check out Adam’s channel. You can go to wpcrafter.com and you’ll find tons and tons of videos. He’s recently been doing a rebrand as well and quite liking his new images that he’s using for his podcast artwork, not podcast. I’m a podcaster. His video artwork.
Kyle:
Right.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
He’s also a fellow Baldy.
Kyle:
Yeah, there you go.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. I mean, he markets it for non-techies, you know, so that’s exactly where I was. And that helped me out a ton. I would say that, I mean, the next thing that helped me, I ended up, you know, meeting a guy online who does basically the same kind of work I do. He’s been doing it longer than I have as far as the website of it. And we just, we got a good friendship going and, you know, started connecting more and more and we’ve helped each other out. You know, we talk pretty much daily, you know, about what we’re doing in our own businesses and helping each other out. That’s been a huge success for both of us. I think we’ve both grown a whole lot in that time, just being able to bounce ideas off each other. And when you get stuck, you can make a, you know, send a text or have a quick phone call and get some of those things knocked out.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Something magic, isn’t there about accountability? I’m currently training for a marathon and I don’t have an accountability buddy at the moment. So it’s really easy to not go out and run. When I was training for my last marathon, I had someone to run with. So you got out the door because you knew they were there and you did what you said you were going to do. I don’t know. Is that the sort of experience you’re having? If you’re having a conversation, you’re like, right next week, I need to, I don’t know, send out an email campaign and create some content. Do you feel you need to do that because of that relationship you’ve got?
Kyle:
Oh, absolutely. And we purposefully do that to each other. You know, I’ll call him up and tell him something I’m working on and he’ll stay on me about getting it done. And that goes both ways. So I think that helps out a ton. I mean, just having somebody, you know, it’s helped a lot that me and him connect well and we get along well. You know, that’s been part of it. Just build a friendship out of it. But the fact that our businesses are very similar, we have similar clients. You know, he comes from a print background too, so we have a lot of those things in common. So that’s helped out a ton. But yeah, we definitely try to push each other. You know, both of our prices have gone up significantly since we started, you know, working with each other a lot because we could, you know, not everybody wants to talk about what they’re charging online, you know. But when you have a friend and you can talk about these things, you know, it’s easier to say, well, you know, I did something similar to what you’re talking about and I charge this much and here’s why, you know, real life examples are so helpful.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It really is. We often devalue ourselves, don’t we, as well. We don’t quite realize how much we’re really worth until someone else says, well, I did a very similar project and it cost X. Or they just give you that pep talk and say, dude, you’re underselling yourself. And by the end of it, you’re like walking on a cloud because, you know, they’ve just told you lots of really cool things about yourself.
Kyle:
Yeah, I mean, back in June when I was able to quit my job and start doing this full time, if I got a full website build and billed them $500 for it, I was ecstatic. And now I don’t want to do any website jobs for $500.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, so things change quickly. The good news is you owe significantly more than I charged.
Kyle:
Oh, well, that’s good. So, you know, feel good about that, at least.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. No, it is super easy to go in low. I think, I don’t know. I think, though, you probably need at least one or two ridiculously low site, A, to kind of help you realize the value of what you charge the money. Because when you realize how much work you’ve done for very little money, it kind of puts you off from ever doing that again. But it does also help just to at least get a couple of sites under your belt as well.
Kyle:
Yeah, absolutely. For a portfolio. So they kind of pay for themselves in the long run and you usually get dedicated fans from it. Sure. And you know that you’re going to make a lot of mistakes too, and somebody that you’re charging $500 for is probably going to be a little bit more forgiving than somebody you’re charging $5,000 for. So that helps out a little bit too. They’re probably not expecting quite as much from you at that point.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, playing devil’s advocate here though. I mean, I have found that some clients that we’ve had in the past that have lower budgets tend to have much higher expectations than the people with the bigger budgets. And that’s turned into a bit of a nightmare, our nightmare client. Now, what I am interested in is, you know, again, I keep harkening back to 15 years of essentially print design, design on physical elements, you know, flyers, signage, et cetera. And then making that shift to web. I mean, is it any different? Are there things you have to consider beyond the good old piece of paper or the sign? Or are you just do you feel like nothing’s changed other than you’re using some other tools as well?
Kyle:
Well, I mean, I think the biggest thing would just be dealing with something that has to be responsive. So that’s a complete mind shift. You don’t have to think about that in print whatsoever. You have an artboard and this is the size you’re going to make it. That’s what it’s going to be. So, you know, even sometimes in print, you know, you’d have, you know, two different sizes of the same advertisement or whatever. And you’d kind of have to adapt it for one or the other. But it didn’t have to physically move in between sizes and display nicely dynamically like that. So that’s something you really have to wrap your brain around trying to figure out how that all works. Now, luckily, we have a lot of really neat tools that help us get a lot of that done where I’m not having to code all these things. But that’s definitely a mind shift trying to get that sorted out. And then I think a lot of it, the technical side of it, you know, there’s obviously still going to be things you need to do some kind of code with. That’s, you know, at least it’s, you can Google a lot of those things. So that was difficult. And then I would say, you know, setting up hosting and learning what a cPanel is and how can I get these email accounts linked and why aren’t emails going through and all those kinds of things that you wouldn’t even think about with print. I think that’s probably been my biggest pain point is trying to figure out how all those things work.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So instead of dealing with paper jams.
Kyle:
Right.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’re dealing with email jams. Right. See what I did there. I’m quite proud of myself. There you go. 10 past 5 a.m. in the morning. I’m really proud of myself. That was amazing.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
With regards to kind of screen resolutions as well, was there any kind of lessons there? Because for print and that, I presume, and again, signage, you have to consider people being able to read things from a particular distance, font sizing and everything like that. Was there anything you needed to relearn there? Or was it just a case of your design eye was able to look at the screen and go, that’ll do?
Kyle:
Yeah, I think spending so much time in design and, you know, when you do that for a living, especially for that long, you look at everything as kind of how did they design that, or at least I do. So, you know, I was at least aware of how things looked on the web, you know, in opposition to how things were done in print. But I think still it was taking some time, you know, with the sign industry, it was, you know, can you make my phone number bigger? That was the thing customers would say to us, you know, in every project. They wanted every square inch of space covered in their tech. So learning to be a little bit more minimal and let things breathe. And people are sitting right in front of a computer screen so things don’t have to jump out and shout at them, you know, the same way they do in the sign industry.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So I suppose you already have a captive audience, don’t you? A sign needs to catch the eye, whereas on a website, they’re already there.
Kyle:
Sure. You know, but a lot of the same, you know, the principles of design, if you look at something and say, yes, this looks nice or no, I don’t like the way this looks. You know, a lot of those things, those principles are still there, you know. So some of that was fairly easy to translate. And I think, you know, I think I was surprised getting into the web world that there’s so many people that do this that don’t have any design experience. And I come at it from the other end where I have the design experience, but no development experience. So I think some of my designs have come out fairly decent for starting out at, you know, doing this just because I’ve had all that experience, you know, in the design part, you know. But if a developer got in the back end of my website, they’d probably think quite differently, quite differently.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think I’m a bit of a plug-in snob myself. Like I’ll log into other people’s sites when they’re asking for some help and I’ll see like 50 odd plug-ins and I’ll turn my nose up at the way they’ve built it. But you sometimes can’t argue with the way it looks in the front end when it looks so amazing. But again, that’s a journey, isn’t it? It’s like it’s like a shift, a crossover, isn’t it? You’re going in one from one direction and they’re coming from another.
Kyle:
Yeah, I think the first sites I did had 50 plug-ins in them and they had a plug-in to do any little thing I needed done because it needed to be automated. I was not going to be able to do this on my own. So luckily, I’ve been paring that down quite a bit.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, God bless you. Guys, again, ogleweb.com. That’s O-G-A-L-Web.com. And you can definitely see Kyle’s design background. I really like the site. I like the iconography that you’re using, the color scheme. I do think the kind of, what do you say? It’s like a dark navy blue. No, it’s not even a navy blue. It’s like a dark blue with your orange. What was the orange code again?
Kyle:
E C 4 9 1 1.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
There you go. I’m proud of you.
Kyle:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m so proud of you. Damn it. It’s amazing. But yeah, it’s a really great looking site. And I’m tempted to say, within this site, you might be using Beaver Builder and the ultimate Beaver Builder add-on. Would that be a good yes?
Kyle:
Yep, absolutely. And quite a bit of themer in there as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Beaver Themer as well.
Kyle:
Yeah. So when Beaver Themer came out, I was obviously extremely new to this. And I bought it without knowing exactly what it would do for me. And I’m probably still not utilizing everything I could do with it. But man, that’s a game changer for me too. Because, you know, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t design some of these elements, you know, with Beaver Builder. So Beaver Themer giving you that option was certainly helpful for me.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So what are you using it for? Mainly things like headers, like the control of the headers and footers and stuff?
Kyle:
Yeah, and like in my portfolio, you know, I did custom post types for those and I was able to style and everything with Themer. So I do that a lot of my builds using Pods for custom post types and then styling it all with Themer. That’s one of my favorite things to do, I think.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s weird. Pods is not a pretty application in the back end, but it’s so powerful. It’s phenomenal what you can do with Pods.
Kyle:
Yeah, you know, I started with Advanced Custom Fields and Custom Post Type UI and it was so confusing to me. And when I opened up Pods, it completely made sense to me. So, yeah, I don’t know. Maybe that’s just where I came from. But yeah, Pods has been awesome.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So cool. Tell me then, six months old. So that’s a very new business. You said you kind of transitioned from working for the man to working for the cooler man yourself. How did that transition happen? Was that an instant like you handed in your notice, next day you’re building a website or did you somehow kind of do the two at the same time until you’re ready?
Kyle:
No, I definitely had that slow burnout at the job. So when I started doing a couple of these websites and picked up a few clients on the side, you know, it kind of sparked that interest. I’ve always been interested in business, went to school to get a business degree instead of an art degree. I figured it would be more useful for me. And I just like, you know, that’s one thing I’ve liked working with a lot of small businesses is learning about their business, you know. So I always kind of knew I would like to work for myself. I was just way too scared to ever do that. And opening a sign shop would be extremely expensive. So, you know, I was getting burnt out at my job. There’s nowhere else to go. And when you have as much experience as I do, you kind of get capped, you know, at what you can really make doing that job. You know, and I felt like people I worked with were, you know, uninterested. And the boss was driving around in a nice car with a new house and spending less and less time there and giving me all his responsibilities. So it was just time, you know. So I started working on building some websites and promoting it on Facebook. And the boss caught wind of that. And he told me under no circumstance would I be doing that if I was going to work there. So I deleted all those things and came up with the Ogle Web Design name. So my name wouldn’t be in it and started promoting it, you know, without his knowledge and did that for probably about a year and a half while I still worked there until it got to the point where I was so burnt out. I didn’t want to turn up for work and I was making enough money to, you know, cover bills and, you know, my responsibilities, you know, for the household that I was able to make that leap. But, you know, our family put a lot of work into it. We, you know, tried to pay. We did pay off all of our debt, you know, get ourselves in a good financial spot so that when I made this shift, it was OK. Me and my wife both own our own businesses. So that’s a little scary at times. But yeah, just it took some time. And when the time was right, you know, we both me and my wife just kind of both knew it and I put in my two weeks and I was gone and I have not looked back and I have not missed it one bit.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s a great story. I feel a bit bad for you on the burnout, mate. I kind of I hate you. Because I remember doing a very similar thing, you know, trying to do something on the side just to get more experience and actually start to get the pay and get people paying and then and then taking that leap.
Kyle:
Yeah, I think I was I was eventually pushed anyway. Right. Because I think they knew I wasn’t happy.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, I think they knew I wasn’t happy. So and I’m one of the yeah, my boss definitely knew that, too.
Kyle:
You know, I’m one of those people I like to work. You know, I enjoy working. I was you know, I was never one of those people that got up and dreaded having to go to work. But I got to the point and started having those feelings and they were very new. And I was like, man, I hate this. I don’t want to dread getting up and doing this. I like the things I do. I just hate where I’m doing, you know. And when my wife opened up her own business a couple of years before me, you know, she got to make her own schedule and she was home more and with the kids more and, you know, she was making more money than she did when she was working, you know, full time at a job. Man, I want that, you know. So, you know, now I get to be at home. I get to be with the kids more. All those things are good.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s awesome, man. Now, an all-important question. How were you generating those leads? So, be it a new web company, be it an old web company who’s feeling a little bit stale or be it somebody who’s doing the same as you, which is they’re still working for the man, but they’re trying to find some websites to work on. How did you start to generate those leads for yourself?
Kyle:
A lot of it was word of mouth, you know. When I’d finish a project, I would ask my customer if they knew anybody that could use my help. It’s sometimes kind of awkward to do, but I knew it was probably my best shot at getting them to refer me is just to ask them to refer me, you know. And most of them were glad to do so, joining Chamber of Commerce, doing networking events, things like that. When I left the sign shop, I had a couple of old customers actually seek me out. So that was helpful and luckily Facebook makes that easy to do. But most of it has just been getting out and meeting people and trying to see where I can help them. I’m finally getting to the point now, I guess I’ve probably had my domain for two and a half years or so. I’m finally getting to the point now where I’m generating some leads off of people just Googling me, you know, Googling web design and finding somebody local. So I get a little bit like that, but most of it’s, you know, one job leading to another.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. No, that’s awesome. The power of referrals. Are you regularly going to local networking as well?
Kyle:
Yeah, absolutely.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
What’s it like weekly or kind of maybe a couple of times a month?
Kyle:
Yeah. The town I live in, it’s not real big. They do their little breakfast thing for the Chamber of Commerce every two weeks. So I try to go to that and then they do, you know, ribbon cuttings and all those kinds of things throughout the week. So I try to show up to those when I can and just, you know, I try to not go into those things trying to sell. I just try to go in there and try to learn about other people’s businesses because when you get them talking about themselves, you can find out a lot about them and kind of find out where they might have some pain points or where you might be able to help them. And you can recommend things to them, which is helpful. So just being out there and being seen is a good deal of it right there.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’re totally right. I mean, going into networking thinking that the room potentially are clients is usually a mistake. I don’t think I’ve ever, well, it’s not true. I have ended up doing business with some people in the room, but that’s because they’re designers and they really need some code and it was just an absolutely obvious fit. But in most cases, most of the people at the networking event are not really your clients. But when you become their friends, when you are helpful, when they get to know more about you and when you start to recommend people to them because you’ve learned as much as you can about them, you tend to find the new opportunities coming. We’ve had huge opportunities through local networking. We’re in a small village. It’s not like, you know, it’s not like we’re in London and yet we’ve had thousands upon thousands of pounds of opportunities and sold and converted tons of that just through local networking as an agency. That kind of blew my mind. I’m glad that you’re doing the same.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. Are you familiar with BNI?
Kyle:
Oh, yeah. I used to do BNI.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Okay. So, we did it at my sign shop for a while. It’s too much for me. I wouldn’t want to join it now. But the lesson that I took from that is I think they do networking right. You know, you go to those meetings for the people that aren’t familiar with it. You go to those meetings not to promote yourself. You go to those meetings to turn in referrals for other companies that are in the group. So your job is to be a salesman for all the other people in the group. And then they’re in turn out selling for you and getting referrals for you. And that’s, I mean, that’s the way you kind of build that network. Just like you’re saying with going to the local things, you kind of do it that same way. And that’s definitely what BNI has figured out is a success.
Kyle:
That’s super helpful just to think of it that way. When you can be helpful to somebody else’s business, they’re much more likely to send something to you if you’re sending work to them. They’re going to naturally want to repay you somehow.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Exactly. There’s tons of information, guys, on BNI. If you’re not a part of it, I was in BNI. For me as well, like you, Kyle, it was a little bit overkill, like too much commitment. You have to go every single week. There’s a lot of pressure to generate leads, et cetera, for other people, which can start to lead to what we would term as confetti, as in you would start to receive really rubbish leads that weren’t really going anywhere. It was just a case of people wanting to pass paper around. So it kind of depends on the chapter. Sometimes you get a really great chapter and other times you get kind of a struggling chapter. And you do find if there’s only like 50% of the chapter are kind of engaged in it, it’s a lot harder to grow than if everyone’s really bought in and all in. But the content they put online is brilliant. If you are new to networking, I’d probably recommend you actually maybe try a year of BNI as well and see how it goes. We certainly generated a lot of business with BNI, but because I needed to start traveling, we left because obviously you’re not allowed to be away for so many meetings. You can’t keep sending a sub. So we had to leave because I wanted to do some traveling last year. And it was only after I’d left BNI that I kind of realized how tiring it had been getting up every single Thursday and also going to all of the extra trainings in late evenings that we had to go to two or three. So it’s still a very good system. It’s got it right. But you do need to have a lot of energy. And I don’t know. I’m 35, mate. I feel like I’m getting old.
Kyle:
Yeah. I’ve always kind of explained it as it kind of feels like you’re in a cult. Like it’s on the cusp of being a cult.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s on the cusp. Well, you did the drinking the blood out of the school ceremony, didn’t you, when you first joined?
Kyle:
Well, we’re not allowed to talk about that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Sorry. I’ll have to edit this bit out if I remember. The first rule of BNI is we don’t talk about BNI. I’ve heard that before though, people saying that BNI is a bit like a cult. And it can be. Although that kind of works. When you’re in a BNI where people are like almost cultish about how great BNI is, that tends to be the best chapter as well to be in. Because everybody is like absolutely engaged and trying to make it work. And you find they’re the most successful. So it’s kind of cringy and weird. But equally, it’s like, I think I want to be a part of this because these guys are like throwing business around each other and it’s amazing. And you can see it from their numbers. So I kind of get it. But, you know.
Kyle:
You want to be a part of it. But you might not want to take on that commitment. You might not want to be that fanatic. You know. At least I didn’t.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. Well, could you do us a favor then? I presume. Do you do like a 45 second or a 60 second round for your networking to say who you are and what you do, etc.?
Kyle:
You know, I try to go in there with something different every time. We have a small group. So, you know, I can say the same thing over and over and over. And I think people start tuning me out. But, you know, my general pitch to people is most companies want to grow their business online, but they’re not sure how to do it. I develop custom websites and marketing strategies so you can focus on serving your customers, not looking for them. And I will usually go from there to something I’m talking about that week. It might be, you know, generating leads, landing pages, whatever I’m talking about that week to try to get them engaged in that. That’s usually how I go about it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That was a really good opener. And I’m imagining quite a few people listening to the podcast. I was just rewinding right now and writing that one down.
Kyle:
Well, you can just go to ogleweb.com and it’s right there on the homepage.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Have you got it? Have you got it in there as well?
Kyle:
Yeah, absolutely. On the main website?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. On the main page?
Kyle:
There you go. That was a really good intro. I liked that. I liked it. I might steal it myself, although it wouldn’t actually work for me. I’m actually looking for stressed out designers. That’s what I say.
Kyle:
Yeah, well, you’re welcome to take it and do whatever you wish with it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
There you go, guys. I’m sure I borrowed most of it. I’m pretty sure there’s no new ideas anyway.
Kyle:
Absolutely not. I think it’s recycled.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Actually, on that, like ideas, it’s all about implementation really, isn’t it? We’re always scared about sharing our amazing new idea, but if we can’t implement it anyway, it’s kind of, it’s not really a great idea anyway, is it?
Kyle:
Absolutely.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. It’s like Xerox had like invented the desktop operating system, and yet it was actually a good old Steve Jobs who was an implementer. So he copied it, totally copied it from what I’ve been told online and through books, but he was able to implement it and do something with it. So there you go.
Kyle:
True story.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
There you go. Makes all the difference right there. Lee Matthew Jackson said it. It’s true. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know at all. Just quickly going on to Beaver Themer as well. Folks, if you’ve not checked out Beaver Themer, then head on over to beaverbuilder.com. I’ve actually used it for the Agency Trailblazer community as well. So it’s difficult because I’ve come from a development background, so we’ve built websites from scratch a lot of the time. But to do that for ourselves is very difficult. It doesn’t, you can’t sit there doing tons of CSS and HTML and jQuery for hours and PHP for hours on end. And Beaver Themer just like puts that on steroids. You’re able to do like your post lists as well as the single design. And if people have listened all the way back to the early episodes with John Perez, where John was talking about use the tools to help you build these things faster, you’re still adding the value into people’s lives. You’re still building them a powerful website. So just because you’ve used Beaver Builder and or Beaver Themer to get the job done, the value is still there. They’re still able to sell from their website. So how you built it doesn’t necessarily matter. I’m glad you’ve built your business around using tools and that you’re not spending hours and hours sweating the code. You’re in fact concentrating on the amazing designs that you do and you’re not having to spend hours on the development. And yet you’re still able to charge great prices as well for it.
Kyle:
Well, I certainly wouldn’t even be able to do those things if it wasn’t for the tools. Because you start talking about jQuery and PHP and I wouldn’t even know where to begin. So I would have already thrown the computer across the room and went back to the sign shop.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, I want to encourage people. You are running a successful business, Kyle, without that experience. But you are experienced in the tools that are available. So if people are suffering imposter syndrome, then don’t. If you’re a designer and you’re new into building websites, etc., then there are amazing tools out there like Beaver Builder. There’s Elementor as well if people prefer that. And with the backing of the amazing community that we have, there is no reason why you shouldn’t push on with your web design business and grow it. Because all of the other skills, maybe if you want to get into programming at a later date, there’s always that in the future. And you can always partner with other people as well, either in the community or find new developers. So what’s the future going to look like for you? Do you have any particular plans?
Kyle:
Well, we’re actually going to pack up. I’m sitting in a room full of boxes right now. And we’re going to move our family a couple hours away.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Wow.
Kyle:
Which will be a little nerve wracking for both me and my wife. With our businesses, we’ll kind of have to start again. Her, she’s a counselor. So she’ll have to end her relationship with clients here and start her business again. I’ll get to take most of mine with me, you know, and I’m only a couple hours away and most stuff we do is online anyways. But starting a kind of a new chapter in the life there and hopefully a good opportunity to grow. We’re going to a place where there’s, you know, some more people, some more money, some better schools for the kids. So that is, that’s in the next six months. So that’s, that’s what we’re building towards right now. As far as the business, you know, I don’t, I don’t think I ever want to employ anybody. So I think I will stay just like I am and try to get my prices up as much as I can, you know, you know, afford to and still keep enough work. And if I have to subcontract some stuff out, I think I’ll go that route rather than, rather than trying to hire people. I don’t, I don’t think I want to manage people for a living. So I think I like where I’m at with what I’m doing.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s hard enough just to manage yourself, isn’t it, mate?
Kyle:
Yeah, no doubt. I think I’m one of those people though. I’m the control freak where I would just be standing behind them asking them why they’re doing it that way and then telling them to move so I can do it myself. So I would be a terrible boss.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. I would be a terrible boss. I’ve totally done that with Larissa. Not very often, but now and again, it’s just been easier for me to just quickly jump on a machine and do it.
Kyle:
Yeah. And that’s, that’s certainly no, no employee likes that. So at least I’ve already come to that realization with myself. So I don’t think employing people is in my future.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No, man. Well, mate, it’s been an absolute pleasure finding out your journey and I’m really encouraged. I wish you all the very best for your move. That’s huge news. Very exciting for you guys. Very, like you said, very nerve wracking. So I really do wish you all the very best with the move and would love to have you on in a few months time to find out how, how all that went and how the, how the business kind of continued and hopefully has grown in, in your new place and what you’ve done to, to grow your business and how you’ve made new relationships in that local area. So that’s all something for the future. That sounds like a freaking amazing future episode. If you’d be willing to come back on in a few months time, buddy.
Kyle:
Absolutely. And I appreciate it, Lee Matthew Jackson. And I appreciate, you know, all the things you’ve done to help my business out, probably without you even knowing, you know, listening to the podcast, the advice you give on Facebook and doing videos and all the content you put out. I mean, that’s made, that’s made a huge difference in me being able to get anywhere with this. So I appreciate, appreciate all the things you’ve done and all the, all the folks out there in Facebook land that I’ve, I’ve asked horrible questions to and they’ve been kind to me and, and answered them and helped me out. So thanks. Thanks to all of you for that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, bless you, buddy. I thought you were going to do the Gwyneth Paltrow for a second. Do you remember her Oscar speech?
Kyle: No, I’m not familiar with that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Okay. You’ll, you’ll know what I mean afterwards when you Google it and you’ll have a chuckle.
Kyle:
I’ll do that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So mate, how can people connect with you? And then we will kick you off the show.
Kyle:
Awesome. So, uh, Facebook, I’m on there a lot. Uh, the WP Innovator group. If you go to wpinnovator.com forward slash group.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yes. It’s ingrained.
Kyle:
That there you go. I’ve heard it enough times there. The Beaver Builder group. You can find me in there, friend me, message me, whatever you want to do. Of course, ogleweb.com is where my website is. And I stay off all the other social media. That’s enough drain on my time with Facebook.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah, Facebook’s a big drain and Twitter is as well, mate. Thank you so much. All the best again with your move and we’ll talk to you real soon.
Kyle:
I appreciate it. We’ll talk to you later. Cheerio.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That wraps up this episode, but wait, there’s more in next week’s episode. We’re going to be talking with Amy Woods, who is talking all about content repurposing. Don’t just create a blog. There is so much more you can do with that blog. So many more ways you can share it on social media and get the value out of what you’ve created. So this is a fantastic episode. I cannot wait to release it to you. Don’t forget, if you are part of the Agency Trailblazer community, you’re going to be able to listen to this early in just a few short days time. That’s over on agencytrailblazer.com. Have an awesome week.
