61 - A WordPress Website In A Day

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 WP Innovator podcast, the podcast for web designers and design agencies exploring the world of WordPress and online business. And now your host, Lee Jackson. Hi, and welcome to episode number 61 of the WP Innovator podcast. Today we have Chantal, who builds websites in a day. I freaking kid you not. She builds them in a day. So let’s listen and enjoy understanding how she went from being one of us, one of these people that build websites in many days, over many months and years, to being a professional at making a website in a day and developing an amazing process and also being able to sell many of those in a. In a month.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s amazing. It’s a great story. Now, I do apologize, there is a little bit of poor audio now and again. Chantal had the most super sensitive microphone in the world too. Now and again you can hear her dog and sometimes you can hear a guy farting about three streets away. But that’s fine. We’ve done our best with the audio, but the actual content is amazing. Listen to what she says, listen to what she talks about, and hopefully it’s going to inspire you as well to maybe look at some ideas for your own business.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Maybe you could do a model in this way. What lessons has she learned that you can apply to your business? So, guys, really enjoy. Do come across to the Facebook group on learning leejacksondev.com group and let us know your thoughts. Also, Chantelle lives in the group too, so she’ll, I’m sure, be really happy to hear from you as well. Get your feedback on today’s episode, guys. Enjoy. I’m gonna shut up. On with the show.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Hello and welcome to the umpteenth episode of the WP Innovator podcast. I say umpteenth because we’re. We’ve been going for over a year now, guys. This is absolutely insane. And today we’ve got someone. I’ve been super excited to talk to you for a long time and she’s been really kind in on the show, especially because I had to cancel on her the other day with man flu. But we have Chantel from One Day Webs. How are you doing?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Hey, Lee. Great to be on your podcast. I’ve been a big fan for ages, so it’s a real treat.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s nice. That’s good. That’s good to know. Well, guys, first of all, if you want to learn more about Chantelle and what she gets up to, then head on over to 1daywebs.com, that’s the number one. And then daywebs Dot com. And you can probably imagine that Chantelle is specializing in building freaking amazing sites. Probably in a day. But instead of me trying to introduce you, why don’t you just say hi to everyone, tell us your favorite color, your favorite drink, your PIN number, and any other cool information about yourself that you think is pertinent.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
I might keep the PIN number secret.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, sure. Sorry. I thought I’d slip that one in there.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah. So, yeah, that’s me. I’m Chantal from One Day Webs. If you’ve ever been to my website, you will have seen my favorite colors. My favorite colors are actually turquoise and red. So that’s why I use them in my business, because I love them. And they’re all over my office. Everywhere you look.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
You can’t escape those colors. So those are my favorite colors. My favorite drink at the moment is water because I’m pregnant, so there’s no more red wine at the moment, which is quite a tragedy in my life. I’m really looking forward to post pregnancy red wine.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Have you got a countdown?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
I do. I absolutely do. I know exactly how many days are left.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So you have the baby and it’s like, right, okay, pass me the bottle.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, yeah, totally. We’ll have to pump and dump. The breastfeeding moms out there will know what that means.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I do too, even though I’m not a breastfeeding mum. But anyway. That’s so funny. And when did. When did you start One Day Webs?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Anyway, so one day. We started last year around March, April, and it actually came out of a place of pain from our previous business, which I think is often something that does lead us entrepreneurs to take the next step or change things. You know, that feeling of discomfort when things are not going as well as you’d like them to.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
And it forces you to really examine your. Your business and yourself and, you know, your clients and the model and the whole. The whole sort of thing. And it really came out of that. It came out of being in an uncomfortable place with my previous brand and my previous business and really just looking for options. And I mean, I’ve told the backstory several times, but I was on a Facebook group. I’m a big Beaver Builder fan, and it was on the Beaver Builder Facebook group that I came across this thread where somebody was saying, hey, I’ve got too much work. Can anyone help? Is there anyone that could, you know, that I can outsource to? And two of the people that commented on the post had commented on the post and.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
And posted their Websites. And it was, it was John Mather and Grant Ambrose who at the time had their, their one Day website services. They were, you know, promoting those. And I was like, hang on a second. One Day website services. This sounds like really interesting to me. And I just went onto their websites, had a look at the concept and I was like, damn, that’s what I should be doing. You know, that is so suited to who I am, how I work, you know.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah. Everything. So literally the same day. That was 6am and by 6pm I had my domain and my, my site built and that was it.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I would hope so as well. If you’re going to be called One Day west, you would have to have that done in a day.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So officially that was the first One Day web, the first iteration of the site. So yeah, and that’s, that’s really where it started. And I didn’t, I didn’t do a hell of a lot of research before. I just, as I say, saw the idea, thought, that is, that is flipping genius. It’s gold. I’m going to, I’m going to run with that idea. And it’s completely changed my business. I mean, my clientele has changed.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
I now deal far more with international clientele than I did before. The client profile of who I’m appealing to is, is far more in line with who I enjoy working with, you know, so it’s been, it’s been a win in so many, so many ways besides obviously being financially viable and you know, just. Yeah, I mean there’s just, I can’t, there’s nothing that I’ve not enjoyed about the process actually.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think as well it’ll appear to appeal to a lot of us web developers because, you know, I’m in, I’m involved in projects which will take absolutely months and months and months. You know, for example, one project we’ve got, we’re actually still working on now and I think it’s been going on about. It’s actually been going on as long as Larissa has been employed, which is about a year and a year and a half now. Yeah, about a year and a half now. And we’re still not really sure when that project’s going to finish.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
No, it’s insane. And you just, you cannot cost for those kind of products. Well, I was finding it really tough to cost. You know, I was, I was not doing it right. Obviously. I was, I was estimating and then it was obviously taking a lot more time and you know, I was not recovering all the time investment that was going into these, these sites. And yeah, it was just, it was becoming really frustrating for me.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So One Day Web’s kind of. I can’t imagine if you’ve never built. Yeah, I can’t imagine how. Yeah, exactly. I’m almost speechless here. I’m like, I’m thinking now One Day Web, I’ve just told you about a 15 month project. I mean given the 15 month project is huge amount of custom development, but even a standard site for us, we’ll get the designs and we’ll take you out two weeks to do it before the clients even put content in. So how the hell do you do this? Is it, is it magic?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So practically this is how it works. Well, how I do it in my business is obviously the people book ahead of time and I normally limit the time frame for booking on my website. So you can’t for example, book a one day web within two weeks. You know, you can only book in advance of that because there’s no ways that those people will be ready tomorrow sort of thing or get me all the info I need for tomorrow. So first of all, I push them out a minimum of two weeks, just depending on what my availability is. So they book then and I’ll take you through the process, you know, from A to Z. I mean there’s no secret and it’s not like it’s, it’s some big conspiracy theory. It’s quite simple.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
As soon as they’ve booked and paid the deposit, I create a Dropbox share with them and I send them my preparation guide which asks them all those questions like, you know, show me sites you like, who’s your target markets, what are the words you would describe your, your, your ideal brand with, you know, all that kind of good stuff. So like the, the sort of profiling stuff as it were, and then also the practicalities. So like do you already have WordPress set up? What are your logins, what’s your mailchimp? You know, like what, what are all your social media accounts? So I’ve got, you know, beforehand literally every login and every possible piece of information I could need and then it goes through individual pages. So it’s like what words, what content do you want on here? You know, your homepage, your about page or services page or whatever, whatever they have. So, so it gives them a guide really so that they know when they’re preparing, what they need to get ready, as it were. And then obviously they drop all that into Dropbox. So images, logos, all that content for the pages, etc. Etc.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
And that all happens ahead of time. So ideally, I like to try and get my clients to get that to me at least like, say, a week in advance, you know, so that I’ve got something to look at a week before. And then what I typically do is I install the plugins and the theme and all of that sort of setup stuff before the day. So on the day I’m ready to literally build the homepage, as it were. So everything’s installed, the theme, the plugins, the media is uploaded, the logo is uploaded. It’s really ready to rock and roll. And in some cases, you know, they’re quite specific about what design they want for the pages or whatever. And in that case, I mean, you know, using something like Beaver Builder, you can, you can, you can bang that out in two hours.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
You can pretty much do anything.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, a lot of my clients actually already have branding exercises done, so they would even have web designs done by their graphic designers or their branding experts. So I would get, for example, a PSD that I’m then just converting into a website, you know, so I have that kind of client. And then I have the other end of the spectrum, other people that literally just drop the words and the images into the, into the Dropbox folder and they’ve got no clue. And they really rely on me to come up with a design that’s going to work for their business and appeal to their industry. And that’s what I do. I typically build the homepage first and then I get in touch with the client and get some design sign off, you know, make sure they’re happy with the overall look and feel. If there are any changes, I make changes and then, and then we, we do the rest of the pages from there.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So it’s limited to up to five pages. And as you know, once you’ve built the first one, the, the others are, are very simple with things like templates, etc. So, yeah, the homepage probably takes a good, you know, two or three hours or, you know, almost, almost half the day sometimes. And then the rest go fairly quickly thereafter.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And then do you have the people with you either physically or virtually, or

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
are they just on call other businesses? I think there’s a business in the UK close to you, maybe even Lee, that they actually have the people come into the office.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s right, yeah. That’s just down the road from me,

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
friends of mine, I’ve watched some of the videos and stuff that they have shown on their page, but no, I don’t work like that. Especially because most of my clients are international. So here I am in sunny Durban, South Africa, and my clients are in Hawaii or Ibiza or, you know, so. So, no, they don’t sit with me. I normally have them on Skype, you know, so if I do have a burning question, I need to ask that they’re available. Um, but typically I would just make a call, really, because it’s easy to change something, you know, so I won’t let anything hold me up. If I can’t raise them or get feedback from them real time, I’ll make a call and then send them quite a detailed report afterwards saying, this is what’s been done. I assumed XYZ and have done this, let me know if I need to change it, you know.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah. And then, and then it’s just really little bug fixing and little tweaks here and there. You know, make this font bigger, change that color to be lighter, whatever, you know, so we’ll, we’ll typically pick up on any of those things in the next day or so. But, yeah, that’s, that’s pretty much it. That’s how it works.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s amazing. So I guess the, the essential part of this kind of. It sounds like you created a really good process. The essential part is that preparation is getting a lot, you know, content up for knowing the structure of the site, you know, the branding. If they’ve got their own brand board. Pass you that. If they don’t have a brand board. Are you doing logos as well in the price or are you not?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
No, I outsource and I recommend people for that. But yeah, so my, my target market is, is really quite specific. Like I have, you know, a very, a very specific client avatar.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
You know, tell us your avatar. Go on.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So one of those things, for example, is my client typically has done some form of coaching, typically has a graphic designer or some kind of branding specialist. They normally have a brand board or, you know, something from a graphic designer. They’ve done a personal photo shoot or a product photo shoot or, you know, whatever’s relevant for their, for their business. They’re typically female, typically creative, and typically entrepreneurs. So, yeah, that’s very, that’s very much my, my sort of niche, as it were.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s a very specific niche. And that’s, that’s good though.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Very specific. Yeah. And, you know, that’s, that’s probably one of the best tips I can ever give anyone starting out in business. I think a lot of people when you start out, you think, oh, my gosh, I’m So desperate for work. Like my client is anybody, you know, you’ll, you’ll say to a web designer, so who do you, what sort of sites do you do? And they’ll. I’ll do anything, you know, because they’re so desperate for the work. But I’ve just found in my experience, the more specific you are about what you do and who you do it for, the more the work comes, you know, then, then if you’re just standing there going, hey, I’m just like a web designer.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So here’s, Here’s a question for you. You know, we’re saying one day web, it’s really, you know, it’s a beautiful thing to asset, you know, to ascertain to do. I get you’ve got this avatar, I get you’ve got the preparation that. But do you still have any of these websites that go way beyond a day? Do you have the client that will keep changing things, et cetera? How do you manage that? You know, because you did mention that afterwards you might do a few tweaks after. So that’s the kind of. On the second day, there might be a few tweaks before go live. How do you manage the revision kind of limits or anything like that to stop it getting out of control?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
It’s actually amazing. People are really far more respectful of my time and those revisions because it’s so overtly one day web. So where before on, you know, my previous model and my previous business and all the rest of it, I’d have people that go on for weeks and weeks and weeks on end with, you know, endless little minor changes. I now more likely have clients that send me. They’ll send me one email with, with, you know, maybe four or five changes, and they offer to pay me an hourly rate. It’s. It’s insane. I know, but it’s, there’s something about making it overtly about time that people then really respect your time.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So I, I typically, as a, you know, as a courtesy or whatever, for up to three months afterwards, I’ll check in with people, make sure things are, you know, still okay and all the rest of it. And the odd thing, they send through and say, hey, you know, I’m trying to figure out how to do this or whatever. I’ve got no hassle spending five or 10 minutes in a day doing that. But yes, if I’ve got a client that’s coming back to me every day with long emails, then absolutely, I would go back and say, look, I’m sorry, but like, we need to Just start recovering some costs here for the time that it’s going to take. I’ve got no problem doing it. But this is my hourly rate and estimated will take this much time and are you happy to pay that? But I haven’t had one of those since I’ve changed over to One Day Webs. Like literally not one what I would call an inverted commas problem children, you

Lee Matthew Jackson:
know, I like it.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
I don’t get them any. It’s amazing.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And what about your first ever One Day web, your first build? Did you have this process nailed? How did you sit down and plan this? Or did you just kind of wing wing the first one?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So I had a sort of a two I know it sounds insanely short but I had a two week window between deciding this, this was something I was going to pursue and building my own One Day Web’s website and when I plan to launch it. So I set a date about two weeks in advance and then I literally ran a few tests. So I gave myself sites that I’d done in the past or whatever and I was like okay, timer on like let’s go and let’s figure out how long it takes to do this like if we can actually do it in one day. And so I just ran through like two or three practice runs like that and I nailed it down. I knew exactly how much time I needed to spend to set things up and how, you know, how long it took to build a typical page, etc. Etc. So I just ran some really random tests, embedded that down and that’s where I came up with the process of okay, let’s get the plugins and the theme installed ahead of time. Let’s make sure we have the hosting up because that’s where you’re going to, you’re going to find, you know, you’re going to come sort of unstuck as it were.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
You know, if somebody’s set up a hosting account that isn’t, you know, you don’t have the correct access to or you know, you know how it goes, doesn’t have enough memory or is a very old PHP or any of the other tech stuff that can go wrong when, when clients are setting up their own infrastructure. Yeah, so we get all of that, you know, tested and checked and installed and set up ahead of time so that I know on build day there’s, there’s nothing that’s going to hold me from building that site and that. Yeah, that was, that was it. I just, I ran some tests and I was like no, I can do this. 8 to 10 hours. This I can do.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It just sounds so beautiful as well. It would be an ideal world, you

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
know, simple, you know, when I changed it, when I changed it. And I mean, every time I do a site still, every time I do a one day web or a landing page, I’m like, oh my God, I cannot believe I did it any other way for all, all those years. This just makes so much sense. How did I not actually think about this myself?

Lee Matthew Jackson:
You know, you mentioned Beaver Builder a few times. Is that one of the major tools you use to do this?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So I pretty much exclusively develop with Beaver Builder both the theme and the, the plugin.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Can I just say amen and hallelujah. Carry on. Sorry.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it’s, it’s, it’s a no brainer. I wouldn’t be able to do this. I wouldn’t be able to do one day web without Beaver Builder. Like never.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Exactly.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
My business model doesn’t exist without Beaver Builder.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
WP Biber Builder cannot get a bigger Beaver Builder fan. Exactly. No. Well, you’ve listened to the podcast. I rave about Beaver Builder all the time. You know, we use it, we still build the theme from scratch, so we don’t use the Beaver Builder theme, but we use Beaver Builder in the content area and we strip it down to the basics. But there have been some sites we’ve done really fast where people just need a, you know, landing page or a small five page site knocking together and Beaver Builder, freaking A. You can do it.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, it’s absolutely awesome. And I tell you what excites me most is not how easy it is for me to build, it’s how easy it is for my clients to maintain and edit and change going forward. Because my model, I’m, you know, I’m like a, like an add child or something. I don’t know. I like new projects all the time. I don’t want to be doing your website maintenance for the next two years at an hourly rate. That’s like not my model and it’s not the work I’m kind of that interested in. So my model is really, I’m building something, I’m handing it over to you, but I’m, I’m giving you the tools to be able to, you know, run with it and make your changes yourself, which really appeals to entrepreneurs, creative people, etc.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Etc. Because they, they have that little bit of flare and they want to have that bit of ownership and, you know, be able to make those changes themselves. And the feedback I Get from clients who have done various other websites in the past, maybe been beholden to other web developers where they can’t change anything or they, you know, it’s, you got to go into code or whatever the case is. The fee, the raving feedback I get back from clients when they’ve first gone in and used Beaver Builder to edit a page is like, it’s priceless. You know, it’s amazing. It does my job for me. It sells my, it sells my service for me.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Really, it’s perfect. And guys, it’s not cheating either because you know, sometimes people feel like they’re cheating a little bit by using a visual builder, but you’re actually using the tools and the knowledge you’ve gained over the many years to create something of value to the end user.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
You’re the kind of person that thinks getting in a car and driving to your local supermarket is cheating because you’ve got legs, you can walk.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s brilliant. I love it. I actually inherited a site just the other day from someone. We’re in a serviced office complex, so we’ve got an office and there’s lots of offices here and we’ve just inherited someone’s site which is, it’s a hand coded WordPress theme but also in the text editor they’ve got tons and tons of classes and you know, divs and classes and all sorts to be able to do stuff. So I’ve just integrated Beaver Builder for them, you know, within a few minutes to say, guys, just use this. Yeah, yeah. And. And now they carry me around the office on a golden pillow.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Exactly. Yeah. Beaver Builder does make it very easy to make it look like I am really good at what I do.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So guys. Leejacksondev.com beaverbuilder go check that out. If you have not looked at it. And obviously just a reminder to go and see what Chantelle has been creating. Great portfolio on there and great information. Good blog as well. It’s one day webs.com that’s the number one day. So Chantelle, I was talking to Adam.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Adam, I can never say his name. Prizer, isn’t it? Adam Pricer, good friend of ours and he mentioned that we were essentially talking about putting yourself out there, you know, so being visible. So you have a brand, there’s these faceless brands, isn’t there? You know, and you don’t have any one person represented but he mentioned that for you actually getting in front of a camera, I mean I’m looking at your website right now and there’s great pictures of you all over the place with your favorite colors and beautiful backdrops, etc. How did that help change things?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Oh my gosh. So that is really what switched on my business, you know. So I started this one day web thing and, and if anyone remembers the first iteration of my site or had the misfortune of seeing it, it was very different. It was very. There was no me. You know, it was just one day webs. It was like written in corporate speak and it was all black, red and, and teal and very little white. And yeah, there was just nothing personal.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
There was no personal branding at all. And it was like that for pro. About the first two or three months of my business and at the same time I was actually going through a business coaching exercise with, with my business coach and she kept saying to me, you’ve got a personal brand, you’ve got a personal brand. And like I was resisting, I was really resisting this.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
And eventually she kicked my butt hard enough, quite frankly, and forced me to actually do something. And so I had a photo shoot done and made some basic changes to the website, you know, stuck my face over, changed the, the voice to, you know, more first person. And it was like literally the orders just started flowing from that day. And it’s actually quite funny. We were talking, I was talking to Sujay yesterday from Ultimate Beaver. We were, we were chatting about a marketing automation tool we both use in our businesses called Mortic. And we were sort of trading war stories as it were and you know, having, you know, picking each other’s brains. And I do, you know, an email funnel, obviously a sales funnel from my site when you sign up.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
And all of my emails are HTML emails, heavy on the images, like exactly what they say you shouldn’t do for conversion and all the rest of that good stuff. And we were comparing open rates and I have an open rate of about 65% in my emails, which, yeah, which is quite.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think I’ve got a 10%.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
All the wrong stuff.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m getting 10% I think or something.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
And we had this conversation. I said to him, you know what it is? It’s because my market, that is exactly what appeals to my market. So yes, it’s the completely the wrong thing for a lot of other markets, but for my specific clientele that are typically female entrepreneurs, creative, visual, you know, they’re on the same journey as it were and they want to see that, they want to see me, they want to connect with me, they want to know about me. That’s what really works. For my market. So it’s like another reminder again that you’ve got to keep, you know, drilling back to that who’s your ideal client and making sure the decisions you make aren’t just based on, like, what. What XYZ article tells you to. To do.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
You know, that it needs to make sense for your market, and maybe you need to do something that’s actually a little bit against the grain, but, you know, connects with your market and really speaks to them. But it’s amazing. And I joked with him on, on our little conversation yesterday, and I said, listen, for me, if I stick my face on, that’s. That’s it. That’s my market. Put my face on it, put some scripty font, and. And that’s the winning. The winning recipe for me, it seems to be.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And that scripty font is all over your website.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
All over.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
All over. I love it. I realize. What is that font?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
It’s called Wild Heart.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Wild Heart. Wild Heart. Oh, no. I thought you said Wild Heart. It is the accent. Guys, we will translate a lot of this, but Skype is actually. Skype.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, exactly.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
If you’re wondering what a website is, it’s actually a.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Exactly.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Maybe I should have done that right up front. You know, people might be like, what is this podcast? I’m joking with you. Your accent’s not that bad at all.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
That’s classic.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Now, guys, the thing I’m hearing here the most is that, well, two major. Well, three major things, I guess. First of all is kind of knowing your niche, knowing the industry, as it were. Then there’s also knowing the person, the person who’s reading this sort of stuff. So, you know, what, what, what do they like to see? So obviously they are. They like to see Chantelle, they like the script, they like the first person chatting, etc. And there’s also then the fact that, you know, Chantelle is putting herself out there. So, you know, it’s.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s first person. There are pictures of her. She’s a friendly girl, she’s approachable, and, you know, you’re going to be doing business with Chantelle, etc. So, you know, for me, you know, I was always scared. Years ago, my website was exactly the same as yours. You know, original site, you know, just very corporate. You know, I still talk in the we because we are a team, but we plaster our pictures everywhere now. You know, we are.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
We are present. We’re not just like this invisible corporation who talk about ourselves. Like on your website, you’re saying, hey, I’m Chantal and I’m here to help you. And then essentially, you’re talking about, you know, the person, the visitor, the avatar. So knowing your avatar, knowing your industry are such great lessons.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, totally. Have you. Did you find that at doing the same thing, personal branding made a difference for your business?

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Absolutely. And in fact, that kind of the perfect vehicle for personal branding was actually this podcast as well, because I am the host of the podcast, I’ve got my picture all over it, etc. So, you know, slowly but surely those pictures have then filtered out into everything else that I do. And, you know, they’re on into the new brand. Because we’re actually relaunching over the next few weeks. Yeah, exactly. So we’re having to do everyone else. That’s the only problem.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
We’re always worrying about everybody else’s website. You never get time to do your own.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
My goodness, don’t get me started. I’m launching a new product and I was actually hoping to launch it in January, and here we are on the 20th of January, and I have yet to build this landing page. It’s crazy, you know, things that you can do in two or three hours for clients that you just. It’s so hard to do your own stuff, isn’t it?

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Do you think that’s like, the inbuilt perfectionism it is?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Definitely. Yeah. You know, and you’re going to be judged. You know, like, you’re going to be so judged because it’s yours. Oh, it’s so. I don’t know. I find it very paralysis by analysis for me when it comes to my own stuff.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, what I’ve started doing is I’ve. It sounds terrible because it goes totally against the grain and I have to get Larissa to help me with this, but we have to say at some point it will do.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yes.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
As in.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, and then we’ll get.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
We’ll get it out and then change it later if I, you know.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, yeah. So a lot of coaches use the saying, and I could be misquoting, but something like published is better than perfect or something like that, you know? Yeah, just get it live. You can always tweak it.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Also do remember, guys, that most people don’t see that little bit of padding that’s not right in the box that you see and I see, but they won’t.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, nobody sees it.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Exactly. And actually, even I even see this on some sites, some issues, and I still end up signing up for whatever it is.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
No, exactly. Because does it matter? What matters is the message what does

Lee Matthew Jackson:
matter, obviously is also space.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, not my strong point at all. Grammarly is my best friend.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, that’s a good one. Yeah. Is that grammar Lee Ly. Yeah, yeah, guys, check that one out. That is, that is a good point. And that integrates with Gmail as well. If you find you sending emails out with incorrect grammar, then grammar Ly. I’ll put that in the show notes as well.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’d be. Yeah, that’d be a fantastic idea. So have you, have you, have you kind of got the next kind of three months booked up then already or are you kind of going from month to month? How’s, how does the schedule for these. One day?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, pretty, you know, in some cases, in some cases not. It just depends on the time of year.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Okay.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So yeah, January’s been a little bit slow. I have quite a few clients who have pushed their dates forward, obviously intending to do a lot more over the festive season than they did on their businesses, much like I did as well. And so I’ve had a couple of clients push things out, which has actually been a blessing in disguise because it’s enabled me to kind of, you know, ease into, into my year, as it were. But yeah, I, you know, it’s just, you know, how it goes. Sometimes it’s booked up a month in advance, sometimes more. I mean, that’s certainly once one of my goals is I’d like to ideally be booked up, you know, well in advance, like six months into the future or whatever. Yeah, that would be ideal. But because I do so many, I don’t need to be booked out that, you know, to that extreme, if you know what I mean.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
I’m happy if I do, you know, four to eight sites a month is, is wonderful. It’s great business for me, you know, so I’m not looking to book every day. I still want time free to do my own, you know, work on my own business and to have a life.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So my policies, for example, I don’t typically work Fridays, so I don’t schedule anything on a Friday at all. If I do any business, it’s something like this, you know, recording a podcast or taking a client meeting at a coffee shop or something like that. But no, no actual work on a Friday. So I typically work a four day week because I work really, really hard on those four days and sometimes long hours. So, you know, you need that balance. And then I also am launching a, a new product that’s like a recurring income model. I know that’s something you’ve spoken about on. On previous podcasts and I think it’s a hot topic of conversation on all of the sort of groups that we’re on with other web developers out there.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
We all want that elusive recurring income. Perfect model.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yes, we all do. Desperately.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Exactly. That’s my new product that I’m planning to launch, which is geared more towards my future client, as it were. So it’s the people that can’t really afford to get me to do their site that they sort of the closer to the DIY market, but they’re overwhelmed by the, the setup. And I think there’s a lot of offerings out there that do training and whatnot, but I think people get overwhelmed by that as well. So they sign up for these training courses and they still don’t actually have a site at the end of it because they get, you know, overwhelmed during the process. So yeah, so mine is slightly different. It’s like a kind of like a. A done for you setup.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So I set them up, sort out their hosting, their backups, install the theme plugins, all that good stuff, stick their logo in where they want it, preload their color and font selections and then they build from there using Viva Builder and then the ongoing subscription gets them. Obviously they’re hosting their backups, all their updates, maintenance, licensing, all of that rolled in, as well as access to me and tutorials on how to do different things on the site or how to implement different things.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That sounds like a great model because that’s like with wix or something. Sorry to swear guys, but you know, you are or anything like that. Squarespace as well. Damn it, I swore again. You know, you are left to your own devices, aren’t you? Whereas I think what you’re saying is you’re actually going to get them set up. There’s going to be some communication with a human. You are still building it yourself, but you’re around as well, which is cool. There’s a burning question that I know most people have right now, so they’re sold on this idea of one day webs.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
How the hell though do you market this and actually generate leads? I’m intrigued to know. Obviously you know your target market, you know your niche. You’re saying four to eight websites a month is great, you know, but some people listening right now probably are struggling to even get one website in the door.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, sure.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
What’s your process?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah, I’ll tell you what’s really worked brilliantly for me is actually Facebook groups where they are mutual interests so much like, you know, we’re all on the Beaver Builder group, those of us that are Beaver Builder fans and what an amazing community that is, and how much sort of referral business and whatever is passed backwards and forwards and help and assistance and all of that. There are groups along the same lines as that, but aimed at sort of female entrepreneurs in various guises and industries and what have you. So I’m very active on Facebook, groups that appeal to. To my market and I hang out in the same places online as my market hangs out and I help people and that’s. That’s what works for me. I help people a lot and my name gets remembered when somebody goes, oh, I need a website. Everyone’s like, oh, my gosh, this check Chantal from one day. We really knows what she’s talking about.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
You got to go to her. So I get referral business online a lot and I get a lot of people business through Facebook. I get a lot of business from business coaches, you know, so I partner with a lot of business coaches and branding coaches, you know, people like that who use me for their clients, so they design a gorgeous logo or website design or whatever, and then they refer their clients to me to actually do that build. So I get a lot of that business.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And those coaches did you connect with again through Facebook groups as well? So you built that network?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Absolutely, yeah, through Facebook groups. I mean, I get a huge amount of business through probably at the moment, easily half of my business comes from coaches, branding people, you know, that kind of thing. So through other. Through other small businesses that are related easily. And then from there it’s just referral. Referral. And often I get the same client building more than one site or more than one landing page as well.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Cool.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So, yeah, that’s, that’s really, that’s. That’s been the key for me, marketing automation as well. Like to actually convert those leads into actual bookings. That. That’s worked really well for me, setting up a good sales funnel. And that’s something I’m continuing to sort of improve on and work on and hoping to, you know, use more in the future. Yeah, because, I mean, it’s. It’s one thing to get the lead, another thing to actually convert it to.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yes, I’m going to actually pay you to build my site, you know, so

Lee Matthew Jackson:
can you, can you describe that funnel in a little bit of detail?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
I mean, it’s really quite simple and sort of the way I planned it was I sort of sat down as I planned most things with paper and pencil and sort of drew out as it were the process, when I’m dealing with a client face to face, for example, of what we would go through, you know, so it’s the same, it’s taken them through the same steps that you would normally go through in the sales process, but obviously online and in the form of an email. So really it’s like, oh, hey, great, great to connect with you. Here’s a preparation guide so that you know what you know, you know what you need to get together for your site, blah, blah, blah, blah, off that goes, you know, and then the next email is like, hey, do you need some inspiration? Here’s some great examples of sites done recently. Have a little browse or whatever. So it’s a bit of a. And some testimonials. And then the next one is something along the lines of are you struggling with something? You know, and then what are they struggling with? You know, it asks the question, are you struggling with writing your copy? Do you need images, etc. Etc.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
And depending on what they click in there, they go through to another funnel that solves that problem for them, you know, so refers them to copywriters or graphic designers or free image sites or whatever the case is. So it’s really just going through the, the steps of what they need to get ready for the, for their design or for their build and helping them achieve those. So referring them, finding out what they’re struggling with and pointing them in the right direction and just kind of hurrying them up as it were.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And is that leads through your website that you’re. Then they then enter that.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
So that’s. Yeah, so that’s leads through my website. So I always try and drive people there to try and you know, obviously subscribe on my website because that gets, gets them into that, that funnel and it just, you know, saves you the time of having to send those emails and those follow, making those follow up calls. I mean there’s just no ways you can actually be building websites and doing that at the same time. If you’ve got a small business, you know, if you’ve got a team of people chasing that, then that’s great. But having built businesses, big businesses in the past, it’s just not somewhere I want to go. I’m really keen to just keep things, you know, nice and lean. So as much automation as possible works for me.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s beautiful. I love the idea of, well, sending people down that funnel, not having to send all those questions, have multiple calls, etc. You’re actually empowering and helping the people understand what it is they need even know the sources of images you mentioned, you know, all that sort of stuff. Some great looking websites and that. So by the time they’re ready to part with money, they’ve got a very good idea of what they want. They know how to communicate that to you. That is such a beautiful process.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah. I feel like we should applaud you through the preparation.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That is beautiful.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yeah.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And even if they don’t, you’ve added value into someone’s life, you know, if they don’t buy, they at least know that you’ve at least helped them get involved.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
They’ve started. Yeah, exactly.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
They’ve got to where they potentially want to be. They’re always going to remember you. That potentially will recommend you to someone else as well.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Correct. It always amazes me. I mean, on some of these Facebook groups I’m on, sometimes people will comment on a thread and say, oh, you know, like Chantels, you’re your girl or whatever. I don’t even know that person. I can’t remember ever speaking to them. You know, it’s just because at some stage in the past I’ve helped them in some way. Even if it means they’ve read something I’ve written or whatever on somebody else’s issue and in their mind I’m the go to person. Even though they actually have never worked with me or connected with me one on one.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
This is brilliant. I’m so glad you’ve shared this story because a lot of people I’ve spoken to online, you know, they’re looking at trying to invest in Facebook, advertising and all that sort of stuff, which all has its merit, etc. But the thing I’ve always said is nothing beats being in these groups, helping people, adding value into people’s lives.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Exactly. And that’s. It really stems from where my heart is. You know, I always say, like, I think I’m a teacher at heart really, although I’ve never, I’ve never been that because I just want to share what I know. I want everybody to know what I know and be able to do what I do, you know, so I can’t help myself. Somebody asks a question, I tell you how to do it, you know, that’s just, that’s just the way I am. And I’m fortunate that despite giving away so much or maybe even because I give away so much, I receive as

Lee Matthew Jackson:
well, you know, but also a lot of people, you know, I would, I would enjoy listening to how something is done. But in all God’s honest truth, I’m still going to want that person who’s telling me to actually do it for me anyway, because I’m busy on whatever it is, you know, I’m a butcher. I want to go and butcher animals. I don’t want to build my website, I want you to build it. Do you know what I mean? So that’s a terrible analogy. Oh my gosh. Sorry. To all the vegetarians.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
That is exactly. And I think that’s another, another thing I’m guessing is going to be an offshoot of this DIY based product that I’m launching is that people think they want to do it themselves. And even if you, you give them the tools and you set them up, when they’re actually sitting in front of that machine and building that page, I think there will be a percentage of them that realize, oh, hell, like I actually, I don’t actually, actually want to build this. And those people will then, you know, kick up and become actual builds. You know, I’m sure that there will be some, some full builds that come out of that offering.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
No, it’s true. And I think people. Sorry, I’m echoing back again. I know that’s true. I think people will as well. When they’re trying to build it themselves. They’re thinking to themselves, well, why doesn’t mine look like that? Because you can still give people the tools, but you can’t give people that design eye. And that’s something.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Absolutely, you know, design flair. Absolutely. Yeah.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, Chantelle, you’ve been an absolute legend. I know there are now hundreds of web developers around the world who are all thinking, freaking out, I want to do this too. And you know, how can people follow you or connect with you, etc. Where’s the best places on the web

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
to find you besides my website? Facebook, definitely. I love connecting with international developers. It’s one of the best things since I’ve started one daywebs is that I’ve, I’m now connected with people all over the world that do what I do, which is really awesome. Where before I was quite isolated down here in South Africa. So yeah, find me on Facebook, friend me on Facebook. And yeah, I’ll put a link in

Lee Matthew Jackson:
the show notes, but it’s facebook.com ChantaleDouar Betsy. But I’ll write that down, don’t worry. And we’ll put that in the, in the, in the Facebook notes. You can also find her, I believe. You’re the WP Innovator group, aren’t you?

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Yes, yes.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Come and join the WP Innovator Group. That’s LeeJacksonDev.com forward slash group. It’s the best group in town because we’re all awesome. And Chantelle’s in there. She’s awesome. And also guys, we mentioned the Beaver Builder group as well. Hit Facebook and go check out the Beaver Builder group in there as well. You don’t even have to own Beaver Builder to be a part of that group.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, it’s incredible community. Absolutely amazing. Because you know there is the free version of Beaver Builder as well, you know, that you can play with and tons of amazing add ons and people and most of my friends and contacts nowadays in the WordPress space tend to be as a result of the Beaver Builder group, which again is how me and Chantelle know each other and. Yeah, and Chantelle is even in there helping everyone out there and wherever else, so. All right. Well, you are a legend.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Thank you.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It is a fact and I’m impressed and I’m loving it and I’m excited to see where you go and excited to see to see how the DIY launch goes as well. So do keep in touch.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Thanks. That’s awesome.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
All right, well, have a bloody awesome day.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
You too. Enjoy your weekend.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
All right, take care.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Bye.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So that wraps up episode number 61. We’ve got some exciting interviews lined up for you, including some interviews that I actually am going to do this afternoon, which I’m looking forward to. So remember, the Facebook group is there for your benefit, for your enjoyment. For cat Pictures, it’s Leejacksondev.com group. That’s Leejacksondev.Com forward slash group. And we will see you in episode number 62. Cheerio.