The Best Way to Market Your Web Design Business

Chris:
One of the things that I see freelance web designers struggle with the most is how to market themselves. I'm on a phone call almost weekly. Now with people who are great web developers, they're great web designers. But they've struggled with the idea of both finding clients, and then communicating their value well enough to those potential clients that end up in a sale and contract and with a project. That's exactly what we are talking about today with Davey Jones from brands that book. He and his wife, Krista have built an incredible web design agency, and they've served a lot of great clients and have done an amazing job and you are going to benefit so much from what he has to say about how to market yourself as a freelance web designer.

Hey, if you haven't already, I'd love for you to subscribe to the self-made web designer podcast and leave us a rating and some feedback. It would mean a lot to me and it will help to shape how we do this show in the future. Without further ado, here is Davey Jones.

We have an awesome guest with us here today, Mr. Davey Jones of DaveyandKrista.com and the most recent development Till Agency, which is a marketing firm that helps businesses market on social media platforms and in other ways. Just an awesome guy with a ton of good insight on what it means to brand and build a web design business because he has done it himself with his wife successfully. So hey, Davey, thank you so much for being on the podcast with us today.

Davey:
Thanks, man. I was pumped when you reached out. I'm glad that you're starting something because you have so much valuable content on Self-Made Web Designer. And you know, I think that podcasting is just such an awesome channel to disseminate content.

Chris:
Yeah, thank you, man. And you know, my wife and I were talking about it as I started Self-Made Web Designer. And we're both like neither of us read blogs. Like, most of the time when we're consuming content, it's because we're listening to it while we're doing the dishes. You know, and, and so it just makes sense. And you've got a great podcast as well called, Brands that Book.

Davey:
Yeah, thank you. And I was fortunate enough just to be able to interview you on it as well, that'll probably release about the same time as your podcast is being released. But that was a fun conversation. excited for part two here.

Chris:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's get into it. Tell me a little bit about your background, how you started Davey and Krista, and how it developed from there.

Davey:
Yeah, for sure. So, but you know, my background, I was a theology major in school. I decided after my undergrad, I was working at a high school, and the administration liked me and they're like, Hey, you really should consider you know, getting your teachers certificate. And so I went into a sort of a master's degree that got me a master's in multicultural education and my teaching certificate and did that for a few years. And my wife Krista, she had started a photography business. And so you can already see that my background, you're like, okay, so where does the web design stuff come in. But, you know, at the time, she had started that, and I was interested in it, you know, I was interested more in like, the business side of things. I mean, I love photography and all. And she had started that and she was working at the time as a web designer for a nonprofit. And her background was in InDesign. Her undergraduate degree is in graphic design. And then when she was she got this first job, it was for web design. So that's where she learned the web design piece. So I started helping with the photography business, and we started working on this, this first side hustle of ours, and eventually, she went full time with that, but um, to bring that business full time, she needed a website. And so she took what she learned from this first job of hers, and she was still working it and built her first website. And so of course, from there people came along were like, Hey, who built your website? I'd love to reach out to them. She's like, well, I built my website. And so other photographers, mostly other wedding industry folks would reach out to her and just say, Hey, could you build me a website? And so she started this sort of side hustle, like, yeah, sure, you know, build your website. And at the time, I mean, since we're since we were primarily shooting weddings, there's an offseason, especially, especially here in the Mid Atlantic, you know, between, let's say, late November and March, you know, where there's just not as many weddings and honestly, you know, I didn't love shooting winter weddings because it got dark earlier and all you know, this and that. So it was a great form of side income during the months when we weren't shooting. So that was kind of that was the sort of the beginnings of Davey and Krista and again, you know, my role in all that, you know, I was interested in the business side of things. So while she was, you know, sort of the artist and creative I was interested in, 'Okay, so how do we get more business? How do we market our business effectively?' And so that's always been sort of my role, not only at, you know, within the photography business, and then Davey and Krista, but then my newest business Till Agency as well. So, eventually, you know, to kind of make a long story short, we helped found the Rising Tide Society. And you know, did that for probably two years total or so, before stepping away from that. And then as we stepped away from that, we formally started Davey and Krista, which is a branding and website design agency, and we primarily serve service-based businesses in the creative industry. Lots of wedding industry folk. Honestly, we enjoy it though, and I think kind of our background lends itself to this. The e-commerce and more technical side of website builds. But I would say that most of our clientele are wedding photographers or planners or, you know, I mean, dentist, home builders, you know, all sorts of service-based businesses.

Chris:
Yeah, that's awesome. One thing I love about that is that you found your niche and you serve them well and built from there. And I think a lot of people who are just getting started as web designers have such a broad and big net that they're not catching anything.

Davey:
Yeah. I think that's such a good observation. I would say though, that one piece of advice that I give people as they're first starting because I do agree that it's so important to niche down because it's just going to make your life easier on so many different levels. Because you can create systems and processes that are easily repeatable, you know and that you know, and we're going to talk about this day a little bit but marketing your business, you're just able to speak clearly to a specific set of people. But I do think it's helpful as you're getting started to work with all sorts of people, you know, so if someone wants to work with you, work with them and see how it goes, because, you know, I remember even when we were starting a photography business, working with a few clients that I thought, I don't know if they're gonna make the best clients for us. And so it might redefine kind of your perceptions and where you land when it comes to your niche.

Chris:
So your podcast is called brands that book and you know, one of the main things I see freelance web designers struggle with is aspects of branding themselves and following through with a sales call or being good at the business aspect, and that's the strength that you brought to Davey and Krista. So talk a little About that, like things that you did that you felt helped the success?

Davey:
Yeah, sure. So, um, you know, I mean, when it comes to branding, too, I mean, I guess I guess something designers might think about and might reflect about a little bit, especially when it comes to website design. We talked a little bit about this too, when you record it on my podcast, but web design and brand design, let's say, are two different disciplines. So I don't think that there's any shame in somebody who does web design well, to reach out to a brand designer and say, 'Hey, can you help me? Can you help me get this?' Right? You know, I think it's valuable on a few different levels. But I think an outside perspective is always super helpful for somebody from the outside looking in and saying, okay, so you know, why are you doing things this way? Or why did you choose, you know, kind of this aesthetic? So I think that outside perspective can be valid. And again, just getting somebody good at brand design, to speak into your business. Because brand design and website design are just, you know, at the end of the day, they're just two different disciplines and we've helped several brand designers with their website because they realized as brand designers that you know, they didn't have the technical expertise to build a well-functioning website. So you know, I'm not sure you know, as a designer yourself, you know, whether you would agree with that, but I would love to hear what you think.

Chris:
No, I think that's spot on. And I think it comes back to knowing your strength and what you're good at and then figuring out ways to complement your weaknesses. I even saw from Krista in the Show-It group the other day, say, 'hey, we've got this client that's asking for this design aesthetic that we're just not good at that, so does anybody want to take this?' And I appreciate it that, you know?

Davey:
Yeah. And I think that I think you just need to be self-aware enough to realize that because that's not going to serve the client well. And you're going to realize that as you try, and it's not necessarily fun for us, you know, not that everything has to be fun, you know. But at the end of the day, if there's another designer out there whose aesthetic better matches that client style, then it's better for those people to be connected, it's going to be a lot more enjoyable for that designer, that client is going to be a lot happier at the end of the day, you're still going to be you know, kind of part of that story because you were able to connect those people, you know, so we've got recommendations from people who we didn't even work with just because we've made connections like that. So I do think being able to define your style, and understand kind of what you're good at and maybe what you're not so good at and outsourcing or looking for help with the pieces that you're not so good at. And I think that's something that we've never been scared to do, to ask for help, or to reach out to people who might be able to help us in ways where maybe we could figure out how to do it on our own. But it's just, again, it's just not our expertise or our time is better spent elsewhere. I mean, an example that in recent past, last year sometime, we hired Vanessa Kind who is a Pinterest wizard to manage our Pinterest platform. Just because, you know, yeah, we could try to figure out that platform. We could try to figure out Tailwind and the different tools that that people use on Pinterest. But, you know, we knew that just bringing somebody in, who was going to be able to take that off of our plate was going to allow us to focus on things that we are good at.

Chris:
Yeah, I love that. And I feel like at the heart of that is, you are finding a way to serve your clients the best that you possibly can. And I think a lot of web designers struggle with this idea that being salesy or like, I'm trying to manipulate somebody into hiring me, but truly, as a service provider, the only way that you're going to win long term is when you consider yourself a servant to the people that you are providing that service for.

Davey:
Yeah, you know, I agree with that. 100%. And, you know, I think it's just helpful to remember that a lot of this is an iterative process, you know, like, I was talking with somebody the other day, and they were kind of, you know, they're kind of figuring out what their brand position is. And they're like, Man, you know, brands that book I feel like, that's just, you know, it's so short, it's to the point, you know, it's very clear that you work with service-based businesses, and I was like, you know, how long it took us to come up with that, you know, because and especially me, I'll be the first to admit that I like to do a lot of different things. You know, like I think of new projects almost daily and it's been something that I've had to learn how to do to say, no, I need to focus on these projects. You know, that sounds fun, but it's ultimately maybe not going to get me to where I want to go. So learning, just kind of figuring out what clients we are a good fit for. And then going hard after those types of people.

Chris:
Yeah, and I think that process, it's trial and error and can be somewhat frustrating. And I think a lot of people come at starting a web design freelancing business with the idea that I'm going to hit it right off the bat. And if it's not a home run, then I'm just not fit for this. But failure is such a good process when it comes to building a business. And just learning as you go 100% agree. And you know, I always think to like, back to, you know, early failures, and think to myself, like, man, I'm so glad, because you know, there are defining moments early on in anybody's business. And everybody, I don't care how long you've been in business, everybody deals with, difficult clients once in a while, you know, or just different difficult situations. So if you are out there and you're just getting started and you're looking at somebody else's business that you kind of emulate, know that even if things look, really good on the outside, that doesn't mean that they're not good. But know that they also deal with difficult situations and they have problems to solve and it's just a matter of learning from them and then moving on and making the appropriate adjustments.

Davey:
But it's a very iterative process. I mean, even in a language that we use, we used to try to do, you know, I'm trying to remember like kind of our first sort of tagline brand positioning statement, but it was something along the lines of converting, you know, like brands that convert or something like that, and with our audience there's something about the word convert that maybe sounded a little bit too technical or just didn't resonate, you know? But, yeah, for service-based businesses, booking makes a lot of sense, right? You know, everybody's trying to book more clients. And then, you know, we were, we were golden, you know, it was a lot of, you know, figuring out, okay, well, this messaging for whatever reason isn't landing. And, you know, what can we do maybe to improve it make it a little bit more clear. And, you know, just more definitively or more specifically speak to a group of people.

Chris:
My first tagline when I first got started was ridding the world of bad websites, one web design at a time, you know, it's just so cheesy and stupid.

Davey:
Yeah. But you know, you look, you start there, and you move on, you know, I can't tell you I mean, if we go back, you know, so for instance, like right when we stepped down from the white rising tide society, and we launched the first iteration of our website, say for Davey and Krista, you know, I'm sure that if you do the Wayback Machine, are you familiar with the Wayback Machine? Yeah, so I'm sure you can find it. You know, I wish that that didn't exist. But for anybody who wants to go look at iterations or our website, I mean, it's a far cry from what it is today. And I remember when we launched, you know like I said, I love to do lots of different things. I love you know, copywriting I love coaching. I love web design and branding. I mean, I love all the things you know, especially when it comes to just the online world and digital marketing. And so when we launched we launched with probably five different services. And so, you know, and it just didn't land well and you know, I think in part because when people talked about Davey and Krista, you know, what Davey and Krista did there was just too much to get out Davey and Krista. Yeah, I think they do, you know, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, right. If you go to our website right now, I would hope at least and I think it does, very much you understand like when you land on our way website that, that we're brand new website designers, that's what we do, you know, we might provide content around all sorts of different things. But at the end of the day if you need to, if you need a new brand or a rebrand or a new website design, that's what we do.

Chris:
What I love about that is that there's streamlined clarity, to who you serve, and how you serve them. And I think so many service providers or freelance web designers can get cute about what it is that they do, and somebody comes in visits their website, and they're like, I don't even really know what I'm getting myself into, because they haven't been clear about who they are and what they do. Yeah.

Davey:
And you know, if you have a tagline that maybe you know, if you would like brands that book, for instance, brands that book even requires a little extra explanation, you know, from from the tagline brands that book, you don't necessarily know that we're brand designers or website designers. So if you go to our website, you'll see that we provide that little bit of elaboration, you know, and I do I would 100% agree, though. One of the things that I mean, because we're working with a lot of photographers, we noticed that people will have like a cute, you know, sort of positioning statement or some sort of cute statement on there, on the homepage of their website. But it doesn't include, but nowhere on their homepage Can you find, okay, where they're located and what kind of photography? They do, you know, so you don't want to bury, you know, that sort of information. That's key to people understanding whether they're in the right place, you know, somewhere on your website that people can't see it.

Chris:
So you just recently pivoted and started the Till agency. And I'd love for you to talk about that and what that process looks like going into unknown territory for the first time.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Tilly agency is a paid advertising agency. So you know, primarily what we're doing is we're running Facebook and Instagram ads for companies, a little bit of Google ads. And then for those clients, we do all sorts of things, you know, So, again, I mean, just going back to like clarifying what it is that you do. I mean, with till agency, we want to be as full service as possible. But again, we don't want to fall into that trap like we want people when they describe the agency to understand that it is a, it's an advertising agency. Now, when they're in the door, we offer all sorts of other services. We do search engine optimization, we do court value optimization, we look at people's email funnels, and we'll even get in there and do a little bit of writing when it comes to those funnels. So there are all sorts of different things we do. But we want to just be super clear about what that is. And you know, Till's been a lot of fun to build, because I've had all sorts of failed projects in the past, you know, so don't think that just because you've built one successful business that every you know that anything you touch after that is just automatically going to work. I think, yeah, I mean, I think that's just one of the pieces was something that I learned along the way in pursuing other projects that you know, once you get a business going and sort of the flywheels going, so it's, there's a little bit of momentum.

Chris:
Sometimes I think it's easy to forget, you know, how much of a grind it is and how much of a hustle It is, in the beginning. You know, like, with till there has been, there's been late nights, you know, and it's all fine and good, I think, especially when people are advising others about starting a business and let's talk about boundaries. And hey, you know, you want to make sure you set designated work hours, and you want to make sure that you're not answering emails on, you know, in the evenings or on the weekends and stuff like that. You know, I think there is sort of, you know, this period, especially when you're starting a business, that you just gotta hustle, you know, and if that means sending some emails later at night or doing some work later at night, or getting up on a Saturday morning early before your kids get up and getting some work done. You just got to go do it.
I think right now in business there's there are these two camps. You know you got your Michael Hyatt who is just like, if you're working over 40 hours a week, then You're probably doing something and then you've got your Gary Vee who's like, if you're working under 80 hours a week, then you're doing something wrong, you know. And so there's, there's this tension right now. And for me, like, I look at things in seasons, you know, so, and my wife and I do this, as well, as I've decided to launch self-made web designer, we've realized like, Okay, I'm gonna have to stop doing freelancing, which means it's going to take a hit on our income. And I'm gonna have to pour myself into this. And so, we work those things out as far as responsibilities in the home, you know, like, okay, you're gonna pick up the kids, I'm gonna go to Starbucks, and I'm gonna type out some content, you know, so, talk about that with you and Krista, like, how have you guys balanced that and figured out how to do things in seasons because you also have kids, as you've also got all of these other things going on?

Davey:
Yeah, I think that's, I think thinking about it in seasons is super because I mean, especially right now Till is ramped up probably a little bit faster than what I and my partners had anticipated. And then Davey and Krista is a full-fledged branding and website design agency. So this season for me right now is particularly busy. You know, we haven't we have a 20-month-old, which is it's hard to believe you know, that's a whole nother conversation. It is true. You know, people who tell me it goes by so quickly. Turns out it does go by so quickly. But it's helpful to think about things in seasons because I think, this season that we're in right now, it's important for Kristen, I have to have that conversation and say, this season can't last forever, you know, like this, this certain this rhythm of work that I have right now, that's a little bit more than usual. You know, we're going to have to figure out a schedule and figure out boundaries for it. But this season kind of calls for that extra effort right now, especially as we establish a new business. So Krista realizes that, and then we just, you know, we make sure that we keep our commitments to one another. And I think that I mean, I just think to work with a spouse, but working with anybody, that's important. So, you know, there's certain times of the day where I need to be disconnected, I need to be off my phone, I need to be, you know, not checking email, and I'd be hanging out with a family, you know, certainly, like, while we're eating dinner, and that time leading up, you know, to bedtime for jack and, you know, I just got to make sure that I'm, I'm being there for him and being a good father. And then when he goes down to for bed, I can, you know, turn the laptop back on and make sure that client projects are moving,

Chris:
You know, similar to what we have with me and Sarah because we've got a brand new baby. Because I'll have to, you know, as I joked with somebody the other day that it's like type, type, type, type, type, get up and change a diaper. Type type type type type, give them a bottle type type type type type get food ready for the rest of my kiddos so I think it's it's just figuring out how to make it work but not allowing your circumstance to keep you from getting to the point that you want to get to.

Davey:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's with kids, especially in your with you been in the season, the newborn season right now and Congrats, by the way. It's, it's crazy. I mean, like, on one day, they have like three naps. And then all of a sudden, you know, as soon as you get used to the three or five maps, or however many naps they take, when they're, when they're newborns, all of a sudden, they go down to, you know, three, let's say and then all of a sudden, as soon as you get used to that, they go down to two. And then as soon as you get these that they go down to one. And so it's just such an adjustment. And just giving yourself the grace and flexibility, I guess to try to figure that out, you know, but admittedly is still something I'm sorting out. So for instance, jack was Jack's been under the weather The last few days, you know, so that's kind of thrown off our morning schedule and, and time that I usually get to work. I've been hanging out with him. Right, you know, so? Yeah, I mean, not to take the conversation in a whole nother direction, but it's working from home is great. You know, I do feel super fortunate that I get, you know, the flexibility that owning your own business has, but there are challenges with it too.

Chris:
So talk a little bit about first getting started. So let's say you have a freelance web designer that is just getting started on a coaching call. What would you encourage them to do in their first steps, maybe even their first, you know, six months of getting going?

Davey:
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's an excellent question. And really, I think that marketing, sales, you know, getting your name out there, get more visibility, getting more work. It comes down to two things. All right. It comes down to building a relationship. IPS and building content. And that's and that's, I mean, that's it. And I think it's just so important, especially when you're first getting started with something. And this is something, there are a few things with till that I feel like we did well, just as we got started, which was letting everybody know, in our network, what we were doing, you know, we didn't build the website, and then hope people that would just miraculously find it, right. We sent emails to everybody that we knew in our networks and said, you know, it's pretty simple. It just said, Hey, listen, this is what we just started this new business. at, you know, we reference a little bit of success that we've had, and again, when you're just getting started, like, that might be like just a free project that you did for somebody or something that you did for yourself, you know. So I think one of one of the best things that you probably do as a website designer, like you can build a website for yourself, and you can reference that when you tell your network What you're doing, like, Hey, you know, I'm doing website design. Now if you want to check out something that I've done, you know, here's a link to that. If you know of anybody who might be interested in a new website or a website redesign, have them reach out. Also, if you're ever interested in a website, let me know, I'd be happy to help help you. And that's a great way just to tap into relationships that you already have to try to find like an initial set of work.

Chris:
And you mentioned building content and content marketing. And I think that's a real key component to being successful in the long term. And I don't think a lot of freelancers realize that you know, most, most get caught up in the feast or famine mentality, like they either have too much work to do and not enough time or they have no work and they're scrambling to find it. But you have to be intentional about what you're putting out and how you're marketing yourself. Either with a blog or with videos or how-tos. So, talk about how you guys because y'all have done it incredibly well at Davey and Krista, like so much great content to help your clients. So talk about that, how you've done both how you've been able to build projects, but actually, build content at the same time.

Davey:
Yeah, absolutely. And this is, this is sort of my wheelhouse. I mean, if you go to Dave and Krista, and you check out some of our projects, and, you know, our design, nearly all the credit is due to Krista. She's, she's the designer. And then you know, I would consider myself the marketer of the two of us, but both relationships and marketing content. And one thing that you said about content that I think is super beneficial to point out its contents, not just blog content, I think a lot of people when they think of content, they think, Oh, I gotta be blogging. And if you're not a good writer, then that's okay, because there are all sorts of great channels that you can create content on. You can push content out, you know audio so you can do a podcast like this you can create a YouTube channel so it's not just written blog content now if you can teach yourself to, you know, a or if you can become a better writer, you know because as we talked about on my podcast, something that you said is nobody's born, you know, just with nobody's born a good writer, you know, people become a good writer after just doing it over and over again. And I do think that there's value in actually creating, you know, written blog posts, even if you then turn that into a video or whatever. But I guess that's probably a conversation for another day. The point being is that choose a choose some sort of channel that you want to create content on having a website where you can post that content is, I think, really valuable because it's a channel that you own. You know, like your website, you own that. If the Facebook we're going to get we're to go down tomorrow, YouTube, we're going to go down tomorrow and have Those things are very unlikely, but you know, you lose the content there. Right? So having that content somewhere on your website, I think is, is pretty valuable. And then there's always fluke things that happen, right? Maybe YouTube or Facebook bans you unintentionally you know, and those things occasionally do happen, right? Then you're just not out of luck. So choose a place that you're going to produce content. And then really, at the end of the day, all content is information that helps someone reach their goal or meet a need. And you know, like I mentioned relationships as one of the most valuable things you can do in building or I'm sorry, in building a business is building relationships. One of the best ways to build relationships is to create free content. All right, and that free content establishes trust, it builds authority, you know, because it allows you to serve people every day. We get questions from people and I assume that you do too, Chris. You know, when it comes to website design, people want to know what platform Should I build on? People want to know, you know, should I have a single page site or a multi-page site? There's a bazillion questions that people ask and then oftentimes, you'll find that people are asking the same questions over and over and over again, keep a list of that kind of stuff, and then start creating content around it. Most of the blog posts that we push out over at Davey and Krista, they're the result of us being asked that question 10 times and thinking to ourselves, we should just create a blog post around that.

Chris:
something you said that hit home to me was content is helping someone reach their goal or meet a need. And I think this is a key thing to understand when it comes to getting clients as a freelance web designer that you can't think of yourself as this artist who's trying to puff your portfolio you know, you have to think of yourself of how am I going to help this person reach their goals or reach the vision that they're seeing for their future. And it becomes a lot less about you and a lot more about them.

Davey:
Yeah, yeah. And I think that you know, when you have that mentality about content, you'll see that it plays off or pays off, in all sorts of different ways. You know, I mean, even when you think about search engine optimization, you know, and this is why I don't talk about channels often when I talk about content, like, you know, I don't think it's so important that you, you're like, Oh, you have to be on Instagram or you have to be on Facebook, you have to be on Twitter. You know, if you go to till agency right now, we've built a business. And we have not launched yet our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you know, like, there's no social media posts. Now, don't get me wrong. That is on our list of things to do. This year, actually, very soon. We have our designer over until, you know, working on getting all that stuff together. But you know, it's Not, that's not the important thing. The important thing is that we have content that proves out that we can help people get to where they want to go, you know, so content for us or agency looks a little bit different than the content we provide over at Davey and Krista. So you know, I guess just to distinguish between the two content over at Davey and Krista is going to be a lot of tutorials, it's going to be a lot of just advice for people who are trying to do it themselves. We do work with, you know, smaller businesses solopreneurs small teams. And so there is a certain aspect of like, you know, people go to that blog to figure out how to do something on the ground, you know, and along the way, it allows us to prove that we're good at what we do, you know, so if you're kind of over the stage of building a website on your own, you can hire us to build that website for you. But we have website templates available for people that they can download and customize themselves to agencies a little bit different. We have a different sort of client over there, but it's still just as important for us to build content, but the content that we build over until agency is in the way of case studies. So we put together the case studies of people that we've helped. So we outline kind of what the problem is that they had, and then where they wanted to go. And then we talked about how we partner with that company, to help them get to where they want to go. And again, you know, people could read these case studies, people could jump on a call with me over until agency, take what I tell them and just try to go implement on their own. But these are the type of people who are like you who realize, you know, their time would be better spent doing what they're good at. And it's better to hire an agency to help them.

Chris:
And that's great because I think a lot of people that are even potentially thinking about getting into web design, are worried that, you know, sites like showing it or web flow or element to our WordPress are going to eventually take their business away from them. And so there's this fear of like if I give this away nobody's gonna want to hire me. But I feel like you guys have seen the opposite.

Davey:
Yeah. And the exact opposite is true. I mean, you know, and I talked to a few coaching clients that, and that will come up occasionally. And that, you know, they'll say, well, am I giving too much away, you know, especially when they're putting together things like lead magnets and stuff like that. And so, a lead magnet is just typically something that somebody can download on your website. And in exchange, you get their email address, so you can follow up with them. And so one thing that I'll hear often is like, hey, am I even, am I giving away too much in this lead magnet? And I'm like, if you don't feel like you're not giving away too much, then you're not doing it. Right. All right, like you should feel every time you write a blog post that man, I just, I mean, I gave away the good stuff in this post. I gave away the good stuff in this video. And that's really what's going to prove to people that you're an expert and that you can be trusted. You know, I think it was a what's his name? He was Tim Ferriss right, wrote the four-hour workweek. He also wrote a bunch of like, you know, kind of follow-ups that I'm thinking of tools of Titans is one of his books. Yeah, I think in that he mentioned something and I'm gonna butcher the quote, but he said something along the lines of like, the people who are truly good at what they do, you know, make things seem easy or teach things in a way that they're easy to understand. It was something along those lines, right. But when you're hanging out, like when you have a teacher who knows their stuff, then they have a way of like transferring that knowledge in a way that you know, it just seems so easy. All of a sudden, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be as good as your teacher in what you do. But I do think that's the sign of an expert. I think the people who try to make things more convoluted or complicated than they are, you know, are people who aren't trying experts in what they're doing or just aren't secure enough in what they're doing. So I say, you know, give it away, and I wouldn't be worried about, you know, Show It or these platforms making things too easy because of website design, it's a discipline, you know, and, yeah, I mean, anybody can build their website, but we have people who have built their websites come to us and just say, Hey, I know that I know, I need an expert to help me with this at this point. I mean, there's just so many things that go into it, that maybe when you're doing website design every day just come naturally to you at this point. But just like the user experience, I mean, how to color as I mean, there's just so many different things that come to or that that come into play in website design that the average person would miss or somebody who's not trained in website design or has been doing it for a while when just go back to the photography example, just Because we work with a lot of photographers, you know, occasionally we will get a question. It's like, hey, why should I pay you to build a website for me when I can just download a template of your website, you know, and it's, of course, much less, much more inexpensive to do that. And, you know, it would be like me saying, Okay, why can't I just ask all my friends at my wedding to take iPhone photos of me, instead of hiring a photographer who's going to cost thousands of dollars, because it doesn't matter if you give an average person, a camera, they're still not going to produce the same quality photos that somebody who is an expert in their craft.

Chris:
You recently did a talk at the United conference that I just absolutely loved. And you talked about the best way to set up your website to take Get the clients that you are trying to get. I wonder if you could just give us maybe a few bullet points from that conversation. And if I'm putting you on the spot, and you've got to get notes, just let me know. No, but I just felt like, I felt like it was so valuable and such good. Such a good resource for people.

Davey:
Yeah, absolutely. So basically the thesis of that talk, and I can send you it, I mean, you probably have access to the link for that. So if you want to post that in show notes, and people want to take a look at that, they can go and see the full talk. But basically, my thesis in that talk is that you know, whenever somebody comes to your website, or really whenever somebody interacts with you, so this these concepts are as true on your website as they are anywhere else, you show up to do business, but people want to know, one, are you good at what you do? All right. So of course, that's the, you know, of course, people want to know that they want to know are you good at what you do? And then the second thing people want to know is can you do that? Whatever that service is that you provide For someone like them, all right, can you do whatever that is service that you provide? For somebody like them? Can you get them? The results that you've got other people? Can you get them the results that they've kind of determined are important to them? And so what that comes down to, I think focusing on those two questions makes selling and marketing a lot easier. And it also again, pointing back to what I said earlier, it points back to why relationships and why creating content are so important. So when people go to your website, it's an important one to show off your best work. You know, your best work, not all your work your very best work you want. When people go to your website, you want them to understand almost immediately, what it is, who you do it for and how good your work is. So again, not to Yeah, I know I'm not speaking to photographers here, but if you were a photographer, you'd want to your very best images In the hero spot of your website, you know, if you're a web designer, you want to make sure that if you have designed a couple of websites, that you're showing off your very best websites, you know, pretty much right away somewhere on your website. So you're demonstrating that you're good at what you do. But it's not good enough just to say that you're good at what you do. You want other people to be saying that you're good at what you do as well. So throughout your website, you should be using things like social proof, you should have testimonials from clients who are saying, Hey, you know, Davey, Chris, you know, whoever got me to where I wanted to go, you know, I had these goals, and Davey and Chris, they helped me get there. And so that's, that's the kind of stuff that you want to include throughout your website. And of course, in the United talk, I go into much more detail and I look at each of the pages and talk about, you know, sort of what the theme of each of those pages is. But, at the end of the day, what it comes down to is being you know, building relationships because You know, in building those relationships, you're going to have other people who are pointing back at you and saying, Hey, you know, he is good at what, what he does. And then creating content because creating content, as I said, it's, I mean, not only is it one of the best ways to build relationships, but it's also a way to establish that you have authority and establish trust with people when you claim that you can do whatever it is that you say you can do.

Chris:
The cool thing about that, too, is you end up learning a ton from having to teach it as well. There's, there's this big, there's a lot of thought right now in the UX design world about how if you're a UX designer, you should also be a UX writer because you will grow exponentially from that experience.

Davey:
Yeah, I think that's great. I mean, I think that you know, thinking back to my days as a teacher, you know, one of the things I realized real quickly like, day one of the class was You know, I would show up and I would think to myself, yeah, you know, I know this, this, this material, but then getting up in front of the class and then trying to teach it and realizing, okay, maybe I don't know this material as well as I thought I knew it, and then having to go back and study it a little bit harder. But then also even, you know, even as I progressed in teaching, realizing that, you know, typically there are three or four periods in the day, right. The third period that I had to teach that class, that was the best lesson, right? Because you have, you've articulated it at least two other times before that. And you've also answered questions that people have. And again, this is, I think, just along the lines of creating content and putting content out there is people are going to ask questions, and they're going to push back. And that's going to force you to think through things that you hadn't thought of before, reevaluate your claims and either shift them, you know, because hey, that person brought up a good point. And, you know, I need to adjust my content to kind of account for that question or that outlier. So, you know, again, just I think I think that's a great insight.

Chris:
Yes. So what about that when people push back because somebody hearing that might think, Oh, no, if I get questioned, I'm not going to be considered the expert, and somebody might not be as willing to hire me. So how do you deal with that?

Davey:
Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of those things, like just being secure in you know, in what you do and what your expertise is. And like, I appreciate it. When people ask questions because it often makes me think about things that I hadn't thought of before. I think that there are a few things that you should, I guess, sort of be aware of, because I think some people are too. There, there they're too quick to say, Oh, yeah, yeah, you know, that's a good point and then just kind of take you know, I'm wrong. position. And I think it's okay to you know, somebody pushes back. And it's something that you hadn't thought about before, and you're not quite sure what the answer is to say, Hey, you know, I just need a little bit of time to think about that, you know, but they're certainly not doing anything wrong and going back to somebody and saying, Hey, you know, I thought about what you said, I think you make a good point. And let's give that a shot, especially in the context of a project. And, you know, for both till and Davey and, Krista, we have to do that on a, you know, I think on almost every project basis, because the people that we're working with, they have the expertise as well. And so they're also going to know their audience and their goals, you know, even better than we are. So of course, we're going to take the certain principles that we think can apply to every business, but rules might bend based on you know, that person's audience. So we might write copy, you know, for instance, over until agency for an ad for a company, and that company might come back and say hey, Listen, we need to make these adjustments to the copy. And, you know, your gut reaction might be well, no, like, you know, typically, typically people respond to this sort of claim in this way. Right? But after further reflection, you might think, no, you know, they, it looks like they've tried something like this in the past and it didn't land. So you know, we're going to, we're going to work with them to make this adjustment. And I think people respect that, you know, kind of going back to what you said, at the very beginning of this episode, you know, you like you're here to serve people, and you're here to help them get to where they want to go. And so it is a fine line between, you know, not bending too much because you you know, your craft, and you know, that certain things might not be obvious to that person, but we'll help them get to where they want to go, but then also being flexible enough to take into account their feedback and their criticism occasionally, and I think to a certain extent, it's about not getting caught up in the weeds and you know, not getting so Single focused about the role that you play or the bigger picture of what it is that you're doing to serve your client. Whereas you have this aspect of I'm going to build them a website, or I'm going to do some web designs for them. But they're thinking, but yeah, what about advertising? What about payroll? What about, you know, all the marketing stuff, and so and so, coming at it humbly, but with expertise is that it's that that that sweet spot for a web designer to know, like, Hey, I'm confident to be right, and I'm confident to be wrong, but it doesn't decrease my value to whoever it is that I'm serving.

Chris:
Yeah, I think that's, I think that's a great approach. And it's just something that I mean, we have clients occasionally who will come to us and say, This is what I want, and we tell them like, Hey, we think that this is a bad movie, you know, and in sometimes it ends up being a bad movie, but the client wants it. And so at the end of the day, you're there to build their website, you know, for them. And so, you know, I think it's important to make that claim to say, Hey, we do think that this is a bad idea. But if they insist you go ahead and do it, but at least it's out there. And I think that you whether they realize it or not have served them well, by bringing, but you know, whatever, that that concern is up, you know, getting it in writing an email, you know, somewhere just in case they do come back one day and kind of forget that you did try to convince them to do something different. But also realize that that's just part of projects.

Davey:
You know, I think we're building a house right now. And, you know, it's funny, I think, are kind of trying to put myself in our builder shoes, you know, and I do feel like there are so many similarities to website design. There's a ton of differences too, but trying to remember trying to take you to know, like we would our builder and say we want you to know, XYZ and him saying hey, Hey, listen, I think you're gonna regret this one day, you know thinking hard about that, you know, because I can see ourselves, you know, talking to a website design client and saying the same thing.

Chris:
Well, David, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Can you please tell our listeners how they might be able to find you and connect with you?

Davey:
Absolutely. So till agency, that's the latest business paid advertising, Facebook and Instagram ads, helping businesses scale. If you go over to DaveyandKrista.com, you're going to find the brand and website design agency. And over there, you know, I think that while most of the content is written towards photographers, it's not written with website designers in mind. I do think that there's probably a decent amount of content over there if you're just starting your business especially that you might find helpful, because we do right you know, for instance, those you know how to deal with difficult client posts. Which I think pretty much could apply to any sort of business as well and, you know DIY design mistakes, stuff like that, that, you know, just somebody who's just getting started in website design might find helpful. And then you can always connect with us on Instagram. My personal Instagram is @DaveytJonesy, but you can find both of us @daveyandKrista

Chris:
Awesome. And of course, Brands that Book podcast.
And thanks so much for having me on there as well. It's just a great resource for anybody that has a service-based business.

Davey:
Thanks. And likewise, I appreciate you having me on podcast excited for this thing to launch. And, you know, if you are listening, go ahead and check out my brand new book episode with Chris.

Chris:
Yeah, thank you so much. We're gonna have to have you back on Davey. This has been such a great conversation.

Davey:
Thanks, Chris. I appreciate it.

Chris:
Wow, such incredible insight from Davey. I know I've learned a lot from him and I'm gonna have to have him back. The show so that he can tell us more about how to market ourselves as freelance web designers. There are quite a few places that you can find Davey at. He has his podcast. It's incredible called brands. That book I was a guest on it had a great time talking to him, he and his wife, Christa, run Davey and krista.com. You can see how they've set up their web design business, how they sell templates to Show It and WordPress as well. And then you can also find him at till dot agency for some of his advertising work that he's begun to do. I hope you enjoyed that episode. And I hope that you enjoyed the first four episodes of this self-made web designer podcast. We will be back next Tuesday with a brand new episode, and I know that you're gonna benefit from it. I know that you're gonna enjoy it. I can't wait to see you then.