Josh Hall’s Web Designer Pro Helps Web Designers Build, Grow & Scale Lifestyle Business

Josh Hall describes how he developed Web Designer Pro into a platform for business education that aids web designers in starting, expanding, and scaling their companies. He describes how he provides courses, community, coaching, and a high-level mastermind to members at three distinct stages builders, growers, and scalers. Understanding people’s actual pain spots, assisting them in moving through various stages, and fostering an atmosphere where members feel understood and supported are key components of effective coaching and community building, according to a main subject of the discussion.

Josh also discusses the importance of in-person events and community development. He describes how ProCon grew from a tiny get-together to an annual gathering where web designers can network, learn, have fun, and form sincere connections. He places a strong emphasis on starting off simply, allowing for impromptu interactions, and fostering an environment that values independence, diligence, and having fun. He provides examples of members who, just by meeting in person, were able to find business prospects, collaborations, and deeper friendships.

Coaching and overcoming impostor syndrome is another important subject. According to Josh, a coach does not always have to be more skilled than the person they are mentoring. Rather, a skilled coach can recognize issues, pinpoint blind spots, learn from past mistakes, and expedite a person’s progress.

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You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show

Chris Badgett: Hello and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a special guest, he’s back on the show, it’s my friend Josh Hall. I think this might be his third appearance. Josh runs Web Designer Pro. You can find that at webdesignerpro.com. A fun story, I think the first time I ever did my own migration of one WordPress site to somewhere else, I followed Josh’s video click by click, and then figured that out as a non-developer myself.

But I’ve gotten to know Josh over the years, and he serves some of the people that we are and that we work with, which is people who build websites for clients, web design, web designers, website agencies. His whole focus is on web designer professionals. Welcome back to the show, Josh. 

Josh Hall: Ah, it is so good to see you again, Chris.

I didn’t know that you watched that video, which funny enough, is my n- most popular YouTube video on my channel, which is how to manually migrate WordPress for when inevitably a plugin breaks or times out, so who knew? I did that video, it’s 20 minutes. I just ripped it out, put it together. I had no idea that was gonna be the number one video on my channel.

I think there’s well over a half million views now on that. 

Chris Badgett: As a marketer, whenever I need to fix something on my house, I’m like, “Oh how do I change this part of a toilet or fix this?” And you go to this YouTube channel of somebody with just holding their phone and it’s got 10 million views.

You did that for something in the WordPress ecosystem. Yeah. It’s so cool. It’s so cool.

Josh Hall: It’s funny too because I am not a super techy guy, but I think that’s what helped in that case, is usually when you learn from developers, it’s “Oh my God, that was so over my head. I don’t know what he said.”

But I’m a simple dude, and I just explained it in the simplistic way that I understood it, and it just happened to work. That actually taught me a lot with how to teach, is like I don’t need to teach like an expert, I just teach like I do it, for better or for worse, so 

Chris Badgett: Problem and pain, n- not, I don’t like seeing people in pain, but as a marketer or product creator or offer creator, you really need to know a pain.

Yeah. And in marketing, you have permission to spread your wings a little bit like you did with okay, I’m gonna show people how to migrate a site. Oh, wow, you found like a massive pain point that millions of people all over the earth are trying to figure out and there’s just not enough good content on that, and you just nailed it.

Josh Hall: You know what my second biggest… This wasn’t a v- it is a video, but the blog post gets way more traffic than the video, and it is How to create a circle on p- the program preview on Mac. 

Chris Badgett: Okay. 

Josh Hall: It’s like niche. Like the most hyper, like here’s how to do this. So yeah, you just, obviously that wasn’t ideal for the strategy of bringing people into Web Designer Pro long term, but hey good use case, so yeah.

Chris Badgett: Good numbers on YouTube. Let’s start there. Let’s stay on pain since we’re talking about pain. And again, I love pain, but only when I can solve it. When you look at the Web Designer Pro, you have courses, coaching, and community for your type of person I look at pain like there’s like a main pain, and then under that there’s like a family of related pains.

And it doesn’t always have to be that structure, but what is the main pain that Web Designer Pro aims to solve, and what are the cluster of other pain points? 

Josh Hall: So I would group them into three different pains. Okay. So in Web Designer Pro, this has taken a lot of years of refinement, by the way. So you had mentioned before we hit live that my site is super clear and concise right now.

That is years of hard work to get to this point. But we’ve identified that there’s really three buckets of members: builders, growers, and scalers. The builders are the folks who are just that. They’re building their web design agency. They may be new or they may be in their first couple years of business.

They really need mostly the courses first, and then some community support, and then different levels of coaching, but I don’t really wanna one-on-one privately coach people who are, like, just trying to figure out how to get clients. So I would bucket them as the builders. They, their biggest pain point is, yeah, just really getting their business off the ground and actually just building a business, truthfully.

So again, my, my courses are kinda well-suited for that. The growers are the next bucket. Those are the folks who are generally making, 50, 60, 70 grand, and most of them wanna get to a six-figure range. They maybe have a side hustle or their business is growing. Most likely they’re like me and they accidentally started a business.

They didn’t know what they were getting into, just like most web designers, and now they’re like, “Oh, my gosh. This is getting serious, so I wanna be a professional. I’m growing, but I can’t manage this growth.” So their biggest pain point is typically things like offers, price point, and really just solidifying what they have and get clarity on where they wanna go.

And a little bit of coaching can help them, but often what helps them mostly is community support. So the Web Designer Pro community is really an ideal fit for them. And then there’s the scalers. That’s the third piece, which is these are the folks who are at a six or multi six-figure level.

They’ve built an incredible business, and now they’re at the point where the business is running them and they’re not running their business. And I’ve learned that at this stage of my coaching career I’ve become a better and better coach for folks at this level who really just wanna get time and freedom back.

So those three categories are really where now Web Designer Pro can meet them where they are. And that’s really helped, having the courses, community, and coaching, ’cause I can say, “Look, if you’re a beginner or you’re in your first couple years of business and you just, you need clients and you’re trying to figure out your offers, tr- start with the courses.

That’ll get to, get you to the point where you’re ready to be a grower and come into the community, and we’ll help you get to six figures, and then I will personally guide you much more intensively when you are at six figures and ready to scale that beyond.” So that’s kinda where we landed. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome.

I love it too ’cause it’s a little bit counter to the advice of “Oh you should just create your offer for scalers, people that are already successful,” and all this. But you think more fourth dimensionally through time. Yeah. And in theory, somebody could come in and start as a builder, then a grower, and then a scaler, and you’ve got a customer for years.

I 

Josh Hall: mean- Oh, dude, we have members- Yeah … who have literally gone through the entire ladder in two or three years. And I think- That’s awesome … and they’re some of our best ca- Actually, I’m wearing this shirt from Alexia, who designed … who is on retainer with me now for her agency. She designed our in-person event swag this year.

She’s one of our rockstar members. She is in year two, not even … She just passed full-time in her business one year. She’s already on track for six figures this year. And, if I were only serving the people at a higher end level, which there’s a world where that’s perfect for certain people, but I kinda, I like it, man.

I like … If I can find a rockstar who is, who I can tell is gonna do it, then I wanna be able to give them the path to success and succeed. But interestingly enough, like I’m gonna start doing some community building coaching, and on that side of things, because it’s more of a soon-to-be passion project, I am gonna start high level.

And I will- I just don’t have the time or bandwidth to create a whole nother business for beginners. So on that front, I will start high-ticket coaching, high-level coaching, just with a few. But for Web Designer Pro, I love having all three. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: There’s a really good lesson in there. I think people get really kinda confused with the customer avatar or ideal customer profile thing.

And it sounds like with you, Did you say her name was Alexa? 

Josh Hall: Alexia. 

Chris Badgett: Alexia. The best customer avatar is somebody you actually know and worked with. So I don’t know if she’s like the ideal, and maybe it’s an amalgamation of several people like that. But just because Alexia may be like one of your favorite ideal members, went through the full thing in two years, and got super successful, and is now a brand evangelist, you…

It doesn’t mean everybody’s gonna be like that. You’re gonna pick up some scalers who are… just need help, they’re maxed out, or just a pure beginner who maybe doesn’t make it all the way to the scaling stage or… So y- you don’t have to… I think people get confused, like no, everybody in here is not an identical twin, but, the perfect fit- Yeah

is somebody like Alexia or whatever. 

Josh Hall: And that’s a great point, Chris. ‘Cause I think when you think about either a course or a community or a coaching program, or all three together in my case, I think you need to think about, like, where are they gonna go after they hit a certain level? So if you have a really tight customer avatar and they grow past your program, then the question would be do they graduate and is the goal for them to move on to something else or do you wanna have some sort of platform that helps them continue to grow?

And that’s really what I’ve turned Web Designer Pro into, which is if you’re brand new but you’re a freaking rock star you’re welcome on in. And we don’t have a application process, but it’s just worked out well to where the folks who are gonna succeed just naturally graduate up to the community tier when they’re ready on their terms.

But I had some members who have told me in the past “I kinda got to the scaler level and now I wondered, what’s next? What’s after that?” Actually, really funny, right before this, I had a podcast interview with one of my members who actually started as a grower. He was stuck at a couple years at the 70 to 80K range per year, and he just couldn’t quite, quite get to six figures.

And he told me he wanted to bust through the floor to see a new ceiling. Yeah. And that’s why he joined Pro. And I was like, “That’s really cool,” ’cause that’s not verbiage that I came up with, but enough podcast interviews and success stories and clarity in our offer made him feel like, “Yeah I’m ready to be a scaler now.”

So yeah I, it’s… and it’s not for everybody. I think if you have a really clear avatar and it’s just a point A to point B, that’s probably more of a course and a cohort, I would guess. Whereas a community, yeah I like … I really like having the full experience, the full journey.

That’s kinda what I’m catering to, which is not easy, and it has evolved to get to this place. And I think for anyone who checked out some of our first conversations I actually started as just a one-time, one-off course creator. And I didn’t have an offer for coaching or for, any sort of growth past that.

But that was fine for then, but now this is my full-time deal. I am 100% a coach and a community builder. So yeah, I wanted to have those next level offers for them. 

Chris Badgett: Since we’re talking about the people you serve, or the avatar, whatever web designers, you’re a web designer, I was a web designer. I know a lot of web designers.

I really like web designers. And I, you… I feel like you can’t do what you’ve done if you don’t love your customer. And you’re almost like… I heard a great coach once say, they believe in you more than you believe in yourself, and it’s not hyperbole, it’s literally true. 

Josh Hall: Yeah.

Chris Badgett: And they’re, like, helping you uncover blocks. But what do 

Josh Hall: you think- Can I- 

Chris Badgett: Go ahead. 

Josh Hall: Real quick on that, Chris, just before I forget it. This was early on, first year of Web Designer Pro back in 2020. But I had a member, Jacob, I’ll never forget him he was just… He was struggling. He a lot of personal stuff going on at the same time, but he was such a good developer and such a good designer.

And we worked together for a while, and he went from basically ha- making no income the first half of the year. And then all of a sudden he got, I think it was like a $17,000 build. Yeah. And then he got a bunch of other wins off that. And I reme- I’ll never forget this. He sent me a video literally in tears, and he said, “I just needed someone to believe in me.”

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Josh Hall: And that was just it really is a testament to what you said. Yeah, when you go through it and you know the journey, you have not a fake belief, it’s like a, “Listen, I know you can do this” kind of thing. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, that’s super powerful. And it’s no surprise you had that story because, you have longevity.

You’ve been around for a long time. You can feel it in your brand, and even in your energy on this podcast. But what are some of the things that make web designers special? I’ll rattle off a few and pass it over to you. And I’m speaking as a web designer, like former agency guy. I think we can all relate to this where, the client hires you to build a website, and then by the end you feel like the CEO.

They’re asking you for business advice advice about services you don’t even offer, doing business strategy with you. So basically the way I think about that is web designers are, like, some of the most helpful, caring people on the planet. There’s a dark side to that, which is they can be taken advantage of.

Josh Hall: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And, do things like where the client expectations are too high, or they don’t pay the invoice, or I don’t know. Just so there is a, a dark side to it, but the great bright side is these people are so smart, so creative, so helpful, good listeners, and good collaborators. It’s a special crop of people in the world.

Josh Hall: I could not agree more. Yeah. I love web designers. And I think- Yeah. What makes web designers so awesome? I think a lot of it is if you think about web design there’s an element of creativity and craftsmanship that goes into it that you don’t see in a lot of other industries. If you’re gonna be a realtor, I don’t know if realtors think

And nothing against realtors. We need them. I love my realtor. She’s freaking awesome. But I don’t know if they think about their work as a craftsman. I don’t know if they’re like … I don’t know if they’re thinking about the work they do like that, whereas web designers, we do. We really care about our work.

Really good web designers end up s- using that same energy for their clients and really caring about their clients and their results, which is gonna impact their work, and becomes a win-win. I think there’s a lot of … I think there’s craft and creativity in web design that is unique for web designers compared to other industries.

I also think the personality type of that lends itself to being, like, unique people. When I think about most web designers, and I found this, I know we’ll probably talk about our in-person event, but oh, I’m getting chills just thinking about ProCon, our in-person event, because it’s … It reminds me of, and other members have said this, it’s like the coolest people in your high school that are all chill and down to earth, no ego, no weird jock preppiness, or, you know no bullies.

There’s just, … It’s just … Imagine if you had a school of just all really cool people. And yes, there’s differences. There’s uniqueness. Yeah. With web designers, you’re gonna get some introversion. You’re gonna get some oddities. You’re gonna get some nerds. You’re g- you’re gonna get all the things.

But and you’re gonna get some partiers. I fall a little more into that camp. But it is, … You don’t get the, like … You don’t get as many corporate pe- Yeah. I think that’s what it is. You don’t get as much mainstream- Yeah … corporate genericness. You get, yeah, unique creativity and a lot of yeah, just a lot of cool people.

So I think all those things make web designers different, and that’s … I absolutely love serving web designers. Yes, I was a web designer for a decade, so I know the pain points. I remember vividly all the big challenges that I have, so it’s easy for me to speak on those, and I have the real-world experience of the, the literal scars and hairline receding before I made that manual migration video to prove it.

But yeah those are just a few. I could probably take a whole hour talking why I love web designers, but those are a few that come to mind. 

Chris Badgett: I love the saying about community when you’re designing it, but also when you’re just creating a, an offer for a certain type of person, the vibe you want them to experience, like, when they first show up to your ProCon in-person event, or even a Zoom meeting, or even social media group, or where- wherever you’re hanging out, is there’s this feeling called finding the others.

And that’s what it feels like when- I don’t know. As a web designers, there’s a limit to how much your non-web design friends or your partner wanna hear you talk about JPEGs and pixels and responsive design and marketing automation and white space or whatever. It’s but when you find yourself in the company of all these other weirdos who are weird in exactly the same way you are, it’s the feeling of finding the others, which is so cool and you design community aspect, not just content.

So- Yeah … tell us about how you shape that. ‘Cause I feel like between courses, coaching, and community design is the least well understood. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: So what’s your- Yeah, 

Josh Hall: it’s true. Yeah. And it’s, and it can be really hard too, just because… and it will evolve, I will say. Web Designer Pro is a continual i- innovate- it’s continual innovation, continual, not change, but definitely e- evolving.

And I think overall the biggest thing I learned with setting the culture, I guess I would… Would you call it culture- Yeah … of community? I think- Yeah. And 

Chris Badgett: it starts with the culture of the founder.

Josh Hall: That’s- 

Chris Badgett: Yeah … that’s how it starts, but then it takes on a life of its own. 

Josh Hall: That is so true.

Your vibe attracts your tribe. That, I think that may be, like, the most important quote when it comes to being a community builder of some sorts. And yeah, I’m pretty clear and up front about, I don’t have a mission statement or values per se, but in my podcast, which is my number one attractor to Web Designer Pro, is that, the f- the tagline of my podcast, The Web Design Business podcast, is helping you build your web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love.

So that right there, and I end up using that for the tagline and heading for Web Designer Pro, because I really want people to come in who are, yes, driven, and they’re down to hustle a little bit and to work hard. We are hard workers. We know this isn’t easy. We are gonna work our asses off, but we’re gonna have fun doing it, and we’re doing it for freedom.

And freedom may look like me. I’ve got three kids, I have a daughter with special needs. I don’t wanna work generally more than 30 to 35 hours a week. Definitely no more than 40 unless I’m in a hustle season. And I’ve attracted a lot of people who are freedom-based entrepreneurs. Those people tend to be super cool.

Yeah. I did have one member I remember a couple years ago join, and he was a kind of a bro hustler, and he just said, “I wanna… I don’t have any experience in this, but I wanna build a seven-figure agency this year.” And I’m like I’m not a good fit for you, dude. I think you should go to f- find another offer.

This is not who I serve.” So yeah it’s interesting, I think from a po- it’s alm- almost like positioning. You gotta… To get the right culture in a community, you need to make sure you’re positioned to attract the right people. So I would actually, before thinking about culture, think about positioning on who are you attracting?

Where are you attracting? What does your messaging look like? What are your channels on where you’re getting people? There’s a reason that I don’t play the social media game. My social media following is piddly compared to other people in my space, but I just made a million dollars with my community in five and a half years, and the culture is incredible.

And I’m… I have the most freedom-based schedule around it, and that is a very intentional design to where I’d rather work with a couple hundred people in the main community areas and have the pricing be according to what my family needs to take home and, be able to have other avenues for revenue.

But yeah, the, the culture is freedom. Work hard, make money, have fun, freedom. Maybe there’s my new tagline, but that’s kinda… That’s what I’ve learned. And before we even get into community design of the spaces and the other things, it’s like I think those are the most important things to really think through first 

Chris Badgett: I love that.

You probably agree with me here, but I f- one of the things I feel is super AI-proof is YouTube and podcasts, which you do both of those. People pr- particularly for educational content, they don’t wanna watch AI generated videos. B- and the same for listening, going on a run or washing the dishes they wanna hear Josh Hall, not a AI robot ElevenLabs voice for an hour or whatever.

But let’s dial it back to community. Tell us about the in-person event. That’s a … In WordPress as an example, I went to something called CaboPress that Chris Lema put on a long time ago, and that was my first time as a web designer getting out from behind my computer. I’d never been to a WordPress WordCamp or anything.

I might’ve been to one WordPress meetup. Yeah. And I got on a plane, I flew to Mexico, and I had this experience of meeting, finding the others, and I was like … And it, my current business partner, my lead developer, all met around that conference, which I went back to multiple years in a row. Yeah. And it was small.

It was only 30, 40 people there. It wasn’t a giant conference. But anyways, you designed ProCon. Why’d you do it? How’d you do it? How did it work out? 

Josh Hall: I always knew I wanted to do an in-person event just ’cause similarly I had some experiences both at WordCamps and other web design meetups where I’m like, “Oh my God, this is incredible,” to, like you said, to not have to burden my family and my wife with the, security issues of WordPress or whatever it was awesome to just, yeah to meet your tribe, to be with your people who understand you and are moving in a similar direction.

And so when I started Web Designer Pro in 2020, important context here is that I had already had courses. I had at that point over 1,000 students in my one-off courses, and Web Designer Pro really started as a coaching community, so courses were not in it at first. But I did not … I basically built it on the side and just got used to building online community in a intensive way, a more, like, true online community, not a big Facebook group, and in coaching.

I really wanted to get- Good with community and coaching before I did an in-person event be- and quite frankly, I’ve heard so many horror stories about how costly in-person stuff is. And it is. It is. It’s not, especially if you’re gonna bring, in our case, 40 to 50 people into Columbus, Ohio, there’s a lot of planning and cost that goes along with that.

So I really wasn’t in a place to be able to do an official event the first few years really. But in 2023, so three years into building Web Designer Pro, and then eventually putting courses, community coaching all together there was a WordCamp in Washington, DC, 2023. I think you were at that one, right?

We just didn’t- I 

Chris Badgett: was. 

Josh Hall: Unfortunately, we did not meet, which is an absolute shame. How the hell have we not met in person? 

Chris Badgett: I don’t know. That is- Are you going to WordCamp Europe? I’ll be in Spain.

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Josh Hall: No. 

Chris Badgett: In the spring, I think. 

Josh Hall: Man, one day. Hopefully US we can get together, or maybe I’ll have you come to ProCon next year.

Yeah. That would be real fun. Yeah. But but we did, what we did essentially was a meetup. We did a Web Designer Pro meetup at WordCamp, and there was, I think, 9 or 10 of us that were there attending WordCamp, and we tacked on a private dinner together. And we basic- That was really the only thing that was structured, was just a dinner.

A bunch of us went out afterwards, we went to a few bars, and then everyone was meeting up sporadically around that, and it was incredible. Yeah. It was like some of these people h- were founding members. We’ve been working together for three years, some of us. Some of them were students of mine from previous to that.

And I remember one member, Sandy, told me her story again just about in tears about how she was literally walking into this agency or somebody she was working with to say, “I’m done with web design. I can’t stand it.” And this person was like before you quit, have you tried this c- tool called Divi?”

And then she looked up Divi tutorials, and I had just started my YouTube channel doing Divi tutorials, and then eventually she took my course, became a founding member of Pro. She’s still in Pro today. Wow. Literally a decade later, Chris. An incredible story. And she told me that, and I was like

First of all, so I was like, “Why didn’t you ever tell me that? How have you not told me? That’s incredible.” But, you get these interactions, and you hear the stories, and you really … You, as one of our members said about ProCon, you go from 2D to 3D when you meet in person. Yeah. So that experience completely solidified the deal for me that okay, we are, we’re not just gonna go to a WordCamp and do a meetup.

We are gonna do an event. Ended up taking a couple years from that until I, we got to the place where I was, like, really ready to go for it. And in 2025, we did our first event. And we had, at that point, I think we had 30, 30 to 35 members all together with a couple plus ones and sponsors, and it was it was almost like a religious experience for myself and so many members of Pro, because at that point it was a lot of firsts.

The second round that we just did the event a few months ago, in a lot of ways it felt like a reunion because so many people from the first round came there. But the first one had a unique feeling because it was, like, the first, and it… Neither one was better than the other. In some ways I enjoyed the first year more than the second, in some ways I enjoyed the second more than the first.

But it was the first time where there was a dedicated Web Designer Pro large group of 30-plus people, and there is a feeling when somebody travels somewhere for your thing. Or in our case everyone felt like they were basically just going to meet their friends. So it was incredible. It was remarkable.

And then this, the second year we just did it here in the spring of 2026, and it was even better from a standpoint of we learned a lot in the first year, leveled up a lot with just making things better all around from merch and swag to event coordination and even things like how to use Circle, which is what com- what Web Designer Pro is run on, how to put the, the event group chat at the top of the app when we’re live at the event so people don’t need to scroll down to the bottom.

Little things like that were really improved upon and and now I’m like, I’m so an in-person event guy. And there, it just, it gives you a buzz that carries over for months. I’m still buzzing literally thinking about so many of the, the conversations I had with that many people. We all blew our voices out, which is awesome, and the really cool thing is we had four girls who stayed with each other the first event.

They stayed at an Airbnb instead of the hotel I would have never paired those four up. I would have never thought. They’re all on different stages in business. I actually didn’t know if their personalities would connect or clash. And they ha- they still have a group chat with each other to this day, two years later, and they are, like, super close.

They even have a pretend podcast that they they joked about starting together. In person just opens up this whole other level of connection, for sure growth and possibilities, inspiration, encouragement, and as a community builder, retention. So of course there’s a, the big pull on that is yes it’s costly, and my motto is even if I break even, that’s cool.

I know it’s gonna be worthwhile long term for our community. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: I’m not a very left brain guy. I can do left brain stuff, but r- the u- it’s a left brain concept that there’s equity in relationships. It’s not about making money from the event, it’s about building relationships, not just to you, but between each other at the thing.

I wanna unpack everything you said just like, ’cause I’ve seen this movie before when people design communities, and you mentioned so many good best practices. The first thing you mentioned is when you understand your avatar you know that oh a lot of my people are gonna be at this WordCamp.

So you tag on to an event that’s already happening. They already have plane tickets, and you get comfortable with it. You test the waters. I’m assuming you might have bought dinner or maybe everybody chipped in or something. I don’t know. But you- 

Josh Hall: I, the only, yeah, the only thing I paid for on that one was dinner.

Yeah, exactly. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Josh Hall: I would recommend everyone start out like that if you can, just because, yeah, it’s, it is i- I think the worst thing that you could do is try to go too big and too fast. And then, like I’m not gonna say the creator, but I have a friend who was involved w- with this big entrepreneur who did this huge event.

On the outside it looked amazing. It was like this first big event for this, this well-known entrepreneur. They lost like almost 100 grand on that event. And of course, I knew I wasn’t gonna be at that level where there’s 2,000 or 3,000 people, but I was certainly not at the point financially where I could even lose really any money.

So yeah, start small. I l- I love the meetup first approach. Keep it… Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Next thing you did, which I’ve seen a lot, and people have some, I don’t know if it’s imposter syndrome or what, but it’s keep it simple. My first event, they’re gonna fly to me. You said Columbus, Ohio, which is where you live. I’ve seen people do this in rural Canada, and they’re like, “Nobody’s gonna…”

People fly from other continents, sometimes. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And it’s, So that’s a pro tip. Any pro tips about your first one by your hometown? I think there’s a airport near you. There’s probably hotels that already have infrastructure for group rates, and conference rooms, and audio/video, or whatever.

But any of those kind of tips? 

Josh Hall: Yeah. All, all those things were factored in. It’s one reason why I took a couple years to really think through it. And I did create… One thing that was really helpful as well is I actually put almost a little mini mastermind to- almost like an event mastermind together of a couple colleagues I know.

You’ve spoke with Shannon Mattern, right? 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. So she’s local to me. We’re in a mastermind together, and I knew that she did an event for her high-level group. Different, very different, because they go to a beach and do it that way. But she had a lot of good insight about these are the things to think about, factor in.

She’s like, “Food is always three times more expensive than you think.” So there was all that stuff that was really helpful. And yeah, as far as thinking through the event, I’m really fortunate, because Columbus, Ohio is freaking awesome. Have you ever been to Columbus? 

Chris Badgett: I have not. 

Josh Hall: So- Columbus is kinda like a mini Chicago, mini Austin to where it is, it’s a big city, but it is absolutely super manageable to get around.

And yeah, the airport’s super close by. There’s plenty of hotels downtown. There’s also, in walking distance, plenty of things to do right downtown by the hotel that I chose for our event space. So there’s we have a minor league baseball team. We have the Blue Jackets, the NHL team. We have a minor league soccer team, and they’re all right there in this little district.

I wanted a place originally where ideally people could go, and they could never have to Uber if they- Yeah, that’s smart … they really didn’t want to. So Columbus just happened to be, fortunately a really good fit for that. Now, there’s other ways to build an event out that’s a little more rural, depending on what it looks like.

Or in like Shannon’s case, more of like a retreat that is- … specific to maybe a couple groups or a smaller group that’s sharing a house or something like that. But I knew I knew I wanted to have those few things in mind, which was I wanted a space that had a decent size event space. Not huge, not like a hall, but like a decent event space that had catering options.

And our baseball team is an incredible stadium, and they have a bunch of suites there. So I knew, I thought about wanted to do that. I wanted to have some sort of social component that wasn’t just “Hey, everyone. Show up here and let’s get to work.” I really, I wanted… And I, actually the event structure just for context was technically on the books, Friday night is the baseball game, group social.

It’s covered in your ticket. Food and the suite is covered. And then Saturday, full day workshop. So 10:00 to 4:00 officially with lunch that’s catered in between there, and then a private dinner for all of us. So their ticket covers those three main things, and that’s the programming of the event.

But as you probably well know and anyone else who goes to event, most of my favorite things happened in and outside of that, which were the meetups, the people coming early- You know, we have a really good time for the folks who are the night crew. We did karaoke. This last time, six of us were out till 3:00 AM just ’cause

I’ve got three kids, I never get to do that, so my wife and I were with a few members, and we were literally getting pizza at 3:30 in the morning. It was freaking awesome. So it was a mix of professional workshop, but also casual social, and also completely, off the cuff, if you come early, awesome, we’ll try to meet up, kind of thing.

I think I derailed m- us from the question, but that wa- that was the structure of the event and why Columbus was a really good fit. 

Chris Badgett: That’s perfect. That’s perfect. The next thing, you didn’t say it explicitly, but I’m pretty sure it worked this way, is you didn’t try to do all that you just said and carry all the presentation.

For example- Yeah … you had Sh- Shannon help with just figuring out event, like … So it’s not a solo act. Yeah. And then I think you probably had other experts facilitating things or giving talks or whatever. So tell us a little bit 

Josh Hall: about that. Yeah. Yeah, it was actually, the first year was, like, so easy on my part, ’cause I literally, I p- I prepared some slides for the speakers, and then my end of the first event was really just to be the emcee.

Okay. Yeah. It was so easy for me because, yeah I basic- we did put a frame on the actual workshop, but the first year was the, the frame of a revenue boost. So I was like, “I want people to come here and feel like they’re leaving with some really good ideas and strategies to boost their revenue.”

So yeah, we had Shannon did a talk on pricing. My friend Jason Gracia has the most productized model on web design, so he spoke. He actually did a mock sales call, and I was his … And we did not rehearse this, but I just, I was his mock client. I wore a mustache, and- … my name was Jim Shorts, and it, that was really fun.

And he just took us through his sales process, and we were all mouth agape mind blown with how he does that. We had one of our speakers speak. So it was really cool. That first year was a little more like that. One thing … And then I did a live Q&A coaching session at the end of that first year.

But one thing I did hear back with feedback from the first group was they really wanted more time to implement some stuff live and have some breakout sessions. It was really just a lot of live workshops stacked on each other. So the second year, we only did a few live workshops, and then we spent quite a bit of time with a big extended breakout session, where each table were their own little mastermind groups, and we would kick off with a topic, and then dig into that per group.

It wa- I’m excited for this next one in 2027 because I really wanna learn more about that and do breakout groups and little mastermind stuff better. It was really good. I felt like it was a little just loosey-goosey. Which ended up being fine, but I know we could tighten that up and make that a better experience for all the members.

So that’s what I’m personally looking forward to learning more about, and I’m actually going to an event. I’m a part of Jay Clouse’s community, The Lab. Which is like Web Designer Pro, but just for creators. They’re doing an event actually in Columbus now- Okay … the month before. So I’m an attendee there.

I’m gonna buy a ticket and go to that event, mainly to learn and just be an observer about how they do that event, ’cause I know they do the breakout groups really well. So I’m actually gonna learn from that and immediately apply it to our community the, the month after. So I’m looking forward to that.

But yeah, to your point, yeah, it was… You know me I really viewed it as like I’m… People learn from me enough in the courses, in the podcast, everything else. Here, I wanna be connection, community builder, and emcee, basically. I’m not the star of the show at ProCon. It’s the people. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome.

Josh Hall: And- Another- Oh, sorry. Go ahead. The last thing that we did this year was my wife actually joined us for a live Q&A, ’cause everyone has been wanting my wife to come on the podcast for years. Just not… She is, does not like the, the light on her, the camera on her. Yeah. But I figured, let’s just make it the most intimidating thing and just bring her up and do the live Q&A in front of 40-some people, but it was awesome. It was really cool to do that. 

Chris Badgett: Very cool. Another thing you said was, like, the reunion element. Yeah. Typically, I see something like, I don’t know, maybe 50% retention, 50% new year over year in a c- community. And then you have on the extreme end, like you mentioned, somebody who’s been there for eight years or 10 years or whatever, like a lifer.

And then you h- you might have somebody who tries it once, but then there’s this, like, fat middle of people that keep coming back or do a… They treat it like, a master’s degree. “I’m gonna give this community two years of my life,” and, you get some repeats. And then those people who return to the event make your job easier ’cause they’re like, “Oh yeah, Josh is gonna do this.

Then we’re gonna go here. Oh, bathroom’s over here. Breakout things. This is how the mastermind’s gonna work.” And it’s m- it just becomes a organic group of people that are actually helping lead your event. 

Josh Hall: Yeah, it is. Even the second year I’m s- I’m… It’s so fun, and I’m so curious about year to year what it’s gonna evolve to be, just because- Yeah, like I don’t really wanna make too many changes honestly.

In fact, one of our members when we were leaving last year, he was like, “Same time, same place, same everything next year?” And I was like, “Everyone else sound good?” Everyone was like, “Hell yeah.” We wanna just ke- we just wanna do that more. But at the same time I don’t want it to be like the same old thing every time.

So my, my big goal though and the cool thing about an in-person event as is like it’s the connections you make and the conversations you have that you just have no idea were gonna happen that- Yeah … that are the, like the, the really cool thing. You can program as much as you want, but I have learned to basically I wanna leave room for connection and leave room for spontaneous.

So that’s why like our official event is social Friday night, workshop on Saturday, private dinner. Anything around that is free game. I’ll let you know where I’ll be downtown, what restaurants or bars we’ll be at. But we had member, like we had some members this year go candle making together- Okay … on Friday during the day.

That wasn’t planned. It was just like six or seven members were like, “Hey, you guys wanna do that?” And they found it and did it. I think it’s important when it comes to structuring event to, to not have it overly structured. Otherwise, there’s no room for, I don’t wanna say no room for fun, but there’s no room for like spontaneity or genuine, something fresh and new, which is kinda hard to come by for a lot of business owners. We’re used to doing the same stuff over and over, the same call schedule or the same thing. So it’s really, it’s life-giving in so many ways to get in person and have experiences that still think about months and years later in many cases.

Chris Badgett: My next thing I wanted to highlight that you mentioned is people have the experience of meeting their friends. Like- … either their online friends and going three-dimensional or just a new person they’ve never even heard of before. For a really good event, I almost feel guilty when I’m going.

Around my family, I’m like, “Yeah, I’m going to a business conference.” And I know it- I’m packing my swimming suit. I’m looking at the things in the area. “Oh, maybe I’ll find some people who like to run. We’ll go for a run over here.” It’s a learning thing. It’s a business thing.

But a really well-done event, it’s kind of a party, however you wanna define that. Yeah. It’s… But with business benefit, too. 

Josh Hall: One of our- 

Chris Badgett: Go ahead.

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Josh Hall: Oh, dude. One of our members said, “I had no idea.” And she came from a lot of corporate work. She’s like, “I had no idea that a business conference could be fun.”

And it i- obviously, the… With ProCon specifically, it would’ve been hard to not be fun, just ’cause most of us know each other, in a lot of cases very well. Not all the time. We had a lot of members who didn’t know anyone. And there, there are people I found out who are complete ghosts in the community but are still paying.

And I’m like, “I can’t believe they’re still paying for this. They have not logged in, or they’re not…” But they come to the in-person stuff. 

Chris Badgett: Oh, 

Josh Hall: yeah. And it means so much to so many people. So yeah I just… Really the only quote-unquote, work was just the live trainings. But even those we tried to make lighthearted and as fun as possible.

And one thing I did learn with keeping the fun of it is if you are in we’re working, we’re thinking, we’re strategy it doesn’t mean that those things can’t have a light element and some fun. Case in point, for our sponsors this year, we had three sponsors that were there in person. Hans from Termageddon, Sam, one of our members who has his own SEO academy, and 17hats, which is the platform that I use for invoicing and contracting.

Their guy, Jeb, who has been in both events and is now basically a web designer pro, he was there. And Jeb has a huge beard. Ma- Yeah … civil War style beard. And so for this, we did a live sponsor panel this year, and it was so much fun. The questions, it was so much more fun than I could’ve ever imagined.

The questions that people were hitting them with, it was just so great. Who knew that a sponsor session could be fun? But we really… I tried hard to have lighthearted questions. And I was like, “How would you explain Termageddon to a five-year-old?” Yeah. And Hans, on the fly, had to think about how he would do that.

But then I also got their baby pictures, and we did a guess this baby sponsor. And Jebs had a massive beard on his baby picture. Like, when we did that live, it got a huge appl- it was a huge for us. We did a lot of those things to try to make the whole event just nonstop fun.

And then, yeah. There, to me There’s nothing better, and this is just my personal thing, there’s nothing better than being at a pack- not, maybe not a fully packed, but a busy bar that’s like a hole in the wall place downtown in Columbus talking about how we build a six or multi six figure business.

Yeah. That to me is like my happy place if I’m doing… And that’s what happened. One of our members, Mike, we were there till like midnight, and we were just talk- It was, usually at midnight at a bar things are getting sloppy or questionable or, you got some questionable folks coming in, but we were just having a blast and it was as wholesome as you could possibly be at midnight at a bar, and I just loved it.

You know- Yeah … we, on that note real quick, we did, I did try to say we are gonna go to bars,” largely because with a group of 30 to 40 people who may or may not meet randomly, we can’t go to a coffee shop and maybe have 30 people there. We need to have a place that literally has space to grow if people are gonna come.

So we are gonna hang out at a lot of bars, but I made really clear that there is no pressure to drink whatsoever. For folks who don’t drink, it is no problem at all. There will be no pressure. There’s no judgment. We, there’s a lot of us who will be drinking, but it’s not gonna get out of control.

We’re gonna have fun, but there’s no pressure to be around that. So I try to make that really clear for folks who don’t feel comfortable in the bar scene. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, that is good. And now I can tell just from your website and like I was on your community page, and it said, Something about safe space or whatever.

Yeah. But that’s part of what you do as a community builder, is you create the container and you want everybody to feel comfortable. And I just wanna mention, Josh and I haven’t met in person, and we’re podcasters, so it may not be obvious, but I am a card-carrying extreme introvert. But so I didn’t think events were for me, but when I started going, particularly to the smaller ones, like 20 to 30.

I think to, in my view 30 is the sweet spot. Yeah. But there’s some great 200-person events and stuff, and I go to the giant multi-thousand conferences too, but it’s different. Like, when you go to that 30-person thing where everybody holds the value of, in your case freedom at the top, it’s just gonna be so much fun.

Josh Hall: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And the the other thing I just wanna mention is it’s not just about your brand or you or whatever. I’ve seen business partnerships, I’ve seen couples and marriages. Oh. Like- 

Josh Hall: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: I forget the statistic, and this is changing with the generations, but it’s something like one out of four people meet their spouse at work, or that’s what it used to be.

But if you’re a web designer working in your home office or the coffee shop- 

Josh Hall: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: you may only have a couple events like this a year, but that’s at work for you, and you may actually meet the love of your life, your new best friend, a business partner, a mastermind group, and that’s just part of the value you’re creating.

And- Yeah … and it’s cool. Yeah. I’m sure you have a story of hey, these two people connected in this way, and now they refer business to each other or 

Josh Hall: whatever. Oh, left and right. Yeah. Laur- lot from the in-person events that we’ve done so far. Yeah, we actually … I don’t think we’ve had any couples form, no relationships that I know of, but we did have Sam, who I mentioned, who was one of our sponsors, he has an SEO agency, web design agency, and a a little brother community for Web Designer Pro, which is one of our partners, called Local SEO Academy.

He’d actually be a great fit for your show if you want a introduction- Yeah … to him, Chris. I’m … He probably would love to chat with you. But so he has a little brother community to ours, and he really needed help with the operations of his SEO business. And at the first ProCon, we have another member, Eleanor, who’s pretty quiet.

She’s very introverted. I had no idea that she was, like, a master operator. Okay. And she struggles with doing the marketing and going to the events, and she’s also a stay-at-home mom and only has a certain amount of hours to work. Who knew it? They go, we do ProCon the first year.

Three months later, she’s on his team page, and she is now full-time in his agency, and they have destroyed together in the best way. Yeah. And it’s just, yeah, I would have never known that. I’ve been able to matchmake in some ways and foster a lot of connections in Pro virtually.

But yeah, I l- I’m there in person, and I’m looking around and seeing everyone chatting, and I’m always wondering “I wonder what that conversation is, or what that conversation is.” You just never know where something’s gonna lead, which is just so cool. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. This is like a master class in community building, and you’re such a natural at it.

It’s, And I know, I’m sure you had your bumps and hiccups in figuring it all out, but it’s so valuable. And again, it’s the least misunderstood. ‘Cause we think about courses, we got content, maybe quizzes, certificates, things like that. Coaching, you come with your problems, I’m gonna help you.

But community, like this stuff we’re talking about, is more amorphous and squishy and hard to define, like what it is we’re actually doing online or in person or on a Zoom call. Yeah. But it’s all a community. 

Josh Hall: And I would say for the introversion thing, like the introvert thing like you said, I totally agree.

Now, I am much more extroverted. However, I’ve been in plenty and I did networking for almost a decade. I remember feeling very nervous to speak- Yeah … and being very nervous to go to a 200-person event. I’m like, “I maybe all know a couple people and I’m gonna cling to them.” Despite being fairly extroverted I’m certainly not someone who’s gonna go with people, a group of people I don’t know or feel comfortable with, and be like, “Hey, I’m Joss, this is this.”

So when you go to a place where even if it’s 30, 40, 50 people, but like you said, they are you, they are your people, it is so much easier. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Josh Hall: And there’s just a natural, like you can just be yourself. If you’re introverted- You let the mask 

Chris Badgett: down. The mask comes down … 

Josh Hall: yeah. That’s where like you can talk nerdy, and you can talk about DNS struggles and, robots.txt file issues with people who understand you, versus going to the networking group that’s, chiropractors and real estate agents and whatever, which I still recommend.

But it is, it’s like you can… Yeah, you can let your guard down. You can be yourself. And then it’s funny, one of, one of our m- one of the most introverted people at this last round, Veronica, super quiet, super timid, was real… Like I couldn’t believe she came in person. Like good for her for getting out of her comfort zone.

Night two, she is singing karaoke. Someone who didn’t, like barely say two sentences the whole couple days before that, was so comfortable by the end that she was doing karaoke. And yeah, it was just so cool. So cool,

Chris Badgett: the other thing I just wanna mention here is a nuance, and it really makes sense for web designers.

Sometimes we go to events to get clients, to get new business. Which puts a kind of pressure on you. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: But you’re not going here to sell or, be professional. You’re being professional, but you’re not… You’re, it’s very different just hanging out with your peers- Yeah … and learning as a learning community, which is really cool.

Josh Hall: That is it. And that’s what’s cool is like you don’t go into it thinking like, “I’m gonna make a business partner,” or- No … “I’m gonna, make a referral partner.” No, it’s like- some, depending on how active people in Pro are, they’re gonna go there and they’re already gonna know people and they’re gonna have a rapport.

And, there’s naturally gonna be a few groups of people who already are working together, so they’re gonna talk a lot. But if you go there with the intention of, yeah there’s even… There’s no pressure to serve or sell. There’s no pressure for anything. You just go to- Yeah

learn and connect and hang, and that’s where you never know where things are gonna lead. Actually, one of our members, Dylan, who is very introverted, super struggles to get out to get clients, the majority of his revenue this year has come from white labeling with other Pro members, and the majority of those opportunities came from ProCon.

So it took- Yeah … him being in person with a bunch of people and having conversations where they were like, “Oh, shoot yeah, I can use you,” and, have you, “Have you help me with this?” And he’s really he’s trending upwards with having that opportunity after meeting people in person as an extreme introvert, and he would be the first to say he is.

Yeah, it’s, yeah, so cool. So you gotta give- I think- Events need… You gotta give the people the space, though. That’s certainly, that’s the goal 

Chris Badgett: Well, tell us about your new program. 

Josh Hall: So the, the newer thing that I actually launched at the end of this ProCon event was our mastermind. Our Web Designer Pro specific mastermind.

It’s our highest tier offer. It is for the folks who, like I mentioned earlier, especially for the scalers who are scaling at a six and multi-six figure level. They may have a studio or a small team. And then the question becomes are they too advanced for Pro? And that’s really… I can only go to a certain level with my experience and my comfort with coaching.

But at the same time, I … There, there was a glaring need for folks who get to that point. They want more Josh, they want more one-on-one coaching calls, and they want a private space with other Pro members that is not gonna actually be heard by other Pro members. 

So the way we do our coaching calls right now is those coaching calls get repurposed for our pri-

We have a private Pro podcast app, or like a Pro podcast feed. So everyone who has a Pro member profile is gonna hear the coaching calls. Confidential stuff is not gonna be ideal in that scenario. So this is the opportunity for folks to, yeah, have that confidential private group that’s really intensive, and it’s our most intensive coaching offer.

So I technically have four tiers now. There’s courses. The new price point for the courses, I’m actually about to move to a quarterly pricing. I’m not sure when this is gonna come out. At the time of recording this, it sits monthly at 49, but I’ve realized I really want people to commit at least three months, at least in the, even in the courses, just to better serve them and really encourage them to go as far and as fast as they can, and then up- upgrade to community when they’re ready.

So that’s one change we’re gonna make on the courses side. The community currently is 99 a month. And then the coaching tier, which gives folks DM access for coaching to me, and a one annual, like, one-on-one private call now just moved to 3,000 a year. That’s the current price points, and then the mastermind is a $10,000 a year deal because that’s private group, bi-weekly call, or calls every two weeks with just our private group, and it gives people a quarterly one-on-one with me for the most intensive coaching.

And we’re really drilling into numbers, team, profit, delegation, leadership, all those things. So it’s been cool to kinda… to grow and flex the coaching muscle at that level ’cause I’ve learned a lot from those folks. And I found in myself a level of high coaching that I didn’t really know that I had.

But it took a lot of people telling me “Josh, how the hell do you not have a 10K or 20K program?” And yeah, I just was finally like, “Screw it, I’m gonna do it.” And we’re kinda building it together in a lot of ways, but it’s a group of five, five pro members who joined the first round, so there’s six of us all together- together, and it’s been freaking awesome.

We’re like four months into it now. 

Chris Badgett: I think web designers specifically suffer from this issue where we’re so close to our strengths, we don’t see it. I know that you’re an incredible coach. I’ve watched you invest in being coached yourself- … with i- in your own development, which you learn a lot from working with a high-quality coach as well.

And you’ve been communicating for decade plus like you investing- Absolutely … and figuring out this whole thing. It’s a no… It’s not a surprise to me. But I’m just highlighting that- Yeah … it’s such a thing with online education or courses, coaching, and community, when you’re so close to your strengths, you have a massive blind spot.

Josh Hall: I als- I’ll- And tell me this, Chris, do you feel like in any sort of coaching capacity… It feels weird because I feel like I’ve, I’m ripping off my coaches ’cause I’m using their lines sometimes. 

Chris Badgett: And- No, it’s, I’ve heard it called R&D. So that’s rob and duplicate, which sounds bad. But- That’s true … this is what we do.

Yeah. Like, when you write a book, “Oh, yeah, this person said this. I’m gonna marry that idea with this idea,” it’s just part of… That’s what we do. It’s when you go to school, you borrow ideas- Yeah … and you build on them, and you move them forward, and sometimes you quote. And if you remember that you can give credit where credit is due.

Like I don’t remember who said finding the others. But if I could remember who that was, I would’ve probably mentioned like, “Oh, there’s this great quote- Yeah … by this person.” 

Josh Hall: Abraham Lincoln. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. Okay. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. All quotes lead back to Abe. Yep. 

Chris Badgett: Probably. 

Josh Hall: Probably … but I think about often, yeah, the reason I mention that is es- especially at this level of coaching, ’cause if there’s if there’s coaching that I’m doing from a capacity of helping people out with their pricing and their offers and building recurring revenue and client generation and referrals, I largely base that off of my experience.

Although now I’m in a really unique position to where I am like, this sounds super douchey, but I’m like 100x more powerful as a coach now because not only do I have my experience, but I have the experience of my CEO, Eric, who bought my agency, and I’m a consultant for them, and hundreds of pro members who I’ve coached.

So I can literally be like, “Ooh you would learn a lot from this model that this guy did. I’d recommend doing this from what I learned, but I also see this working over here.” And then suddenly they just save maybe two years of hardship by one little DM conversation. So that’s a… That feels different than sometimes at this high level coaching.

I do often think about- more intensive coaching learning that I’ve had that I do replicate. I think about James Schramko- Yeah … who we know. Yeah. And I coached with him for four, four or five years. And I remember it was actually on my… Actually, funny enough, this was on my podcast that he challenged me with this idea, but I asked him about the people who have trouble scaling and delegating, and he said, “Do you ever, have they ever eaten at a restaurant?”

And I was like, “Yeah, probably.” He’s like, “Then they can scale, delegate and scale. They did it at the restaurant. They paid someone to cook the food and, they ordered it.” And I was like, “Oh, I never thought about it like that.” So sometimes it’s those little easy analogies that, yeah, that, can go a long way and can be replicated.

So I’m leaning into it now. I’m leaning… Like every line I’ve ever read or heard- Yeah … I’m like absolutely using, but. 

Chris Badgett: And I’ll give credit, R&D, Robin Duplicate, is a Dan Martell-ism, who I- Oh, okay … coached under for a while. And then there’s another old one that hopefully helps you out there listening or watching, which Josh mentioned, is as a subject matter expert, this is Brendon Burchard from old school internet marketing time, but he was talking about how you don’t always have to be the role model.

You can be the researcher. And I know you’re really good at research. You’ve watched the people, like you’re watching in your community or watching in the industry, but we all get hung up in that we have to be like… It’s our, it’s, I don’t know if it’s our ego or what it is, but it’s like you can be a great coach.

You don’t have to be Tony Robbins to help somebody with personal development, 

Josh Hall: and I really, I thought about this when I… This was a big challenge for me when I thought about selling my agency because I knew I wanted to online educate full-time and just go for it. I just, I can only run r- run one business at a time.

I was like, in my mind, I’m like if I’m not building websites, how am I gonna teach people to build a website business?” Now yes, I had a decade of experience, but what I’ve realized in that time is I’m actually way more, again, e- l- I guess I’m way more qualified and even a better fit for so many people at different levels because I have my experience and like I just said, the experience of all these other hundreds of people, and I can spot gaps faster than I’d say just about anybody as a web design business coach, which is like- Yeah

my official role i- in Pro. And one thing I’ve learned too is we were just talking about this recently. Actually, a few coaching members I’ve talked to about transparently, how is my coaching still helping you at this level? And one thing I’ve realized is if you look at any professional athlete, everybody at the top has a coach, and none of those coaches can do what the athlete does.

Chris Badgett: Yes. 

Josh Hall: But what is the… like this is probably I’m preaching to the choir here, but like the coach spots stuff that the athlete doesn’t see. The coach is watching. The coach is getting like honest feedback that they’re not gonna share with anyone else, and the coach is able to give like really targeted advice that can go such a long way based off of just maybe one little conversation or one call.

Yeah. I’ve definitely learned that and felt even more … i’ve rarely had any, like, imposter syndrome feelings as a coach, but I have had the subtle seasons of doubt of “Man, I haven’t built a website for a client in eight years. Who am I to teach these people?” I’m like h- yeah, who am I?”

I run the web- number one web design podcast in the world. Pro, I’m teaching people. I’ve literally helped people build six and multi six figure businesses. Some of them have made literally several million dollars in lifetime revenue since coaching with me. So I’m more than qualified to be a voice of reason and a guide, even though I’m not doing that work right now 

Chris Badgett: 100%.

And I know we’re a little bit over. I just wanted to get one more question while- 

Josh Hall: Oh, sure … 

Chris Badgett: while I had Josh Hall on, on- 

Josh Hall: Real quick, Chris, while you’re asking the question, I’m just gonna close this door. Our kids just- Yeah … came in before one of ’em busted. I’m just gonna close my door real quick. Yeah. I’m listening.

No problem. 

Chris Badgett: Okay. The, the question is that there’s a lot of fear in the web designer, web design agency space right now. Some people, it’s like some people are struggling, business is drying up. It’s harder to get clients. And the other side, there’s people that are killing it as agency.

We’ve got AI on the scene creating a lot of just noise, distraction, but also useful tools and maybe just lightning round style, like what’s two to five things that the, the web designers that are doing great these days are doing either differently or continuing to do what’s always worked?

What sets them apart from the ones that are struggling these days? 

Josh Hall: The … Here’s the good news. The stuff that worked a decade ago is what’s working today in 2026 even better in many ways. I really do think that … A- and I do agree. I’ve absolutely seen this with Pro too, where people are either struggling mightily or absolutely crushing it, and there are some differences.

Some of the differences are the people who are crushing it may have already established business, and they’ve already got clients, and they’re just building off of that and doubling down on that or adding more high level services. But at the same time, there are people who are new who are crushing it too.

I think one of the, the dangers, one of the, the two to five things is this idea of AI and this, and all the different things you can do. Distraction is- Yeah … destroying people. It is- Yeah … destroying … I th- I think about how many people, and I know at some capacity you gotta have time to learn and experiment and play around, particularly with AI or any other platform.

But at the same time, I’m wondering when I hear some people say I can’t find any clients,” but they’re tinkering around with all these different platforms, and they don’t really have a clear offer, and they’re just doing busy work basically. They haven’t joined a networking group. They haven’t done anything to sell.

They haven’t reached out to their personal and professional network. I’m like, if you didn’t, if you didn’t distract yourself with all this stuff and you actually did the stuff that is gonna get you in front of people, I guarantee you wouldn’t be in this position. And if we work on your offer and your pricing, that’s it.

Leads, offer, pricing. There’s, there it is. There’s the three things: leads, offer, pricing. Those are like, it’s the basics of business. And I really think that whether it’s being on social media, whether it’s tinkering out with AI, I think you really do have to master traction. ‘Cause the word distraction is, means it’s just, it’s pulling you away from something else.

You need, I think now more than ever, to be like, you gotta have a vision, you have to have a goal where you wanna get, and this is vague, but you really need to just put the blinders on and do less social media, do less tinker around with AI. And depending on where people are at, I know, there’s a time and place for all that, but that’s kinda what I’ve seen, honestly, man.

If I could boil it down to anything, the people who are killing it, they are just doubling down on what is working, which luckily is 3 to 6,000… for websites, for web designers, 3 to $6,000 websites, $99 hosting and maintenance plans with a fallback plan of 59 bucks or 49 bucks ideally, and then usually some sort of growth service for clients who want more than just a website and hosting.

That may be SEO, that may be strategy, it may be content, it may be social media, it may be branding, it may be design. And any amount of services in that framework, in my course, my business course, which is Inside Pro, I have a framework that’s build, support, grow, and there it is, friends. You don’t even need to pay for the course to implement that.

Obviously there’s a lot more to it, but that’s what’s working, those things right there. First, first six and multi six figure businesses, and then you get to a point where you start to scale a little bit, start to get some help, and that’s when the freedom really takes off 

Chris Badgett: That is awesome.

So you out there listening or watching, go check out webdesignerpro.com. Check out Josh’s podcast, the Web Design Business podcast. Did I say that correctly? 

Josh Hall: Yeah, Web Design Business. Yep. 

Chris Badgett: Yep. And put him in your corner. This is it’s Josh, but it’s also a community. And yeah, I just… I can’t say enough great things about you, and, I wish I had…

I wish you existed when I started building websites for clients in 2010. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. ‘

Chris Badgett: Cause I was just shooting in the dark. And then once you surround yourself with good coaching and courses and community it’s a 10X change- 

Josh Hall: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: at least. 

Josh Hall: Oh, for sure. Yeah, you go so much further faster when you have, yeah, courses, community coaching.

That’s the biggie. It’s like an athlete sticking with the athlete analogy, but, successful athletes have cheerleaders cheering them on. They have teammates who are right there with them, and then they have a coach who’s challenging them and getting them to that next level, and that’s the, a visual that I have for pro members is you need cheerleaders, you need teammates, and you need a coach.

By the way, I should mention too, I have a brand-new email list that I’ve just opened up that is specific to community builders. Oh. It’s completely free. Joshhall.co/community will get you there. And yeah, that is specific for community builders. I’m gonna start, I’m dipping my toe into sharing a little more about community building and, as I mentioned earlier, eventually here I’m gonna have an offer to coach at a higher level to start for community folks.

But eventually I could foresee, not a full Web Designer Pro brand, but some… I just love talk- obviously I love talking about community, so I wanna help more folks in that realm where I can with the time that I have available. So yeah, that’s free. Totally free to sign up for, joshhall.co/community if you wanna check it out.

Chris Badgett: Josh, thank you so much for coming. I can’t wait to catch up a year from now and see what you’ve done, see where you’re at. 

Josh Hall: Hopefully I’ll see you in, hopefully I’ll see you in about six months at ProCon 2027. 

Chris Badgett: Nice. That’s 

Josh Hall: just seven months if you wanna… We can talk about that. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah.

LifterLMS would like to sponsor. We could- Dude … we could look at that. 

Josh Hall: Freaking heck yeah, man. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. Thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it, and we’re definitely gonna have to do it again sometime. 

Josh Hall: All right, Chris. Thanks, man.

And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at lifterlms.com/gift. Go to lifterlms.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.