Build processes to delegate - Web Designer and Strategist John D. Saunders
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Build processes to delegate - Freelance Web Designer and Strategist John D. Saunders
John’s first client was his mum, a teacher in need of a website so she could offer one-to-one tutoring. Today, after spending four years learning the ropes in an agency, John’s running his own agency as well as three other businesses and online courses.
John worked 18-hour days while he was a full-time employee building his freelance portfolio on the side. Six years later and with everything he’s got going on, John’s enjoying a comfortable working week with plenty of time left over for his young family.
He’s learned to trust his team and step away from the creative work to focus on managing projects and operations. He tells Steve how he’s built standard processes in his business that allow him to delegate easily and well.
John D. Saunders
"I always recommend to folks that want to do freelance or go out on their own — try to work for someone else. By working for someone else you can learn what to do, what not to do, and you get paid to develop and hone in on your process."
Growing a team and creating standard processes
In building an agency, John’s learned how to develop consistent processes so that his team can essentially run the business without him.
“When you like to create and you like to design and develop yourself, sometimes it's hard to give up the reins on those things, but one thing that really helped me is creating our own proprietary process. That way, I can almost replicate my skillset and pass it on to another team member.”
These days, John spends most of his time making sure that everything is running smoothly.
“I'd say about 80% of my time is spent really just managing projects, developing standard operating procedures, asking the team questions on ways we can do it better, training team members… but I do still get my hands dirty. I still hop into Creative Suite and design some logos and some concepts.”
Building new income streams and multiple businesses
Alongside the agency, John’s running three other businesses — Black Wallet, Black Illustrations, and Illustrator Hub.
“Having an agency, we already have the step-by-step directions on how to onboard a client and how to manage a client, and so we treat my other businesses and ideas under that moniker. It makes it easier to facilitate these because we already have an agency that can do it, and we already have the process in place to get it done.”
John’s team is remote and he’s a fan of the lean approach to starting up.
“The great thing about working in this space is that a lot of things don't cost a ton to test out. Nowadays, especially with the No-Code Movement, if you have an idea and it's digital-based, it doesn't cost you a lot to get it done, and if it doesn't work out, or it doesn't work well, it's okay. You might've lost out a few hundred, or even a couple thousand, but you've learned a new skill. You've developed a new career choice. There's just so many things that can be done with it."
Selling online courses
Under his personal brand, John sells online courses to help business owners start and grow a web design agency.
“I have paid offerings as well as freebies because I've always been a proponent of value-based content and providing free value to an audience that's looking for it. People want to come to you, and talk to you, and be around you because you're providing them with so much valuable content. And so, that's how I've pretty much built my business, and it's worked well so far."
When it comes to selling his courses, John says it’s essential to get early buy in.
“I think people have that misconception where they're like, “I want to make passive income,” and it's great, but ultimately, in the beginning, you really have to set yourself up for success by creating a course that people really want, and talking to your audience, and making sure that this course is in line with what their needs are, and then creating that course once you have some people fed into the process.”
Without talking to your audience first to find out what it is they really need, says John, you’re risking the time and energy that goes into it.
“Trust me, I've done it before where I've created a course, and I was like, “This course is going to be awesome. People are going to love it. I can't wait.” I spent five months on the course, sent it out, release it, and it's a flop, because I didn't ask my audience what they really wanted.”
And the one thing John would tell his younger self about being freelance?
“Provide value-based content to your audience, and don't look for the quick response, or the quick, "Hey, I want to work with you." Just continue to provide value, and the rest will come.
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and freelance Web Designer and Strategist John D. Saunders
Transcription via Rev - try them yourself!
Steve Folland: How about we get started hearing about how you got started being freelance?
John D Saunders: It's funny. I've always been a creative kid, Lego blocks, all that good stuff, and I was always a huge fan of just being creative in the sense of writing stories, and short novels, and so what I did when I was about 19 or 20-years-old is I was talking to my mom, and she wanted to launch her own ... She was a teacher at the time. She's been teaching for about 30 plus years, and at the time she wanted to do one-on-one tutoring for kids, and so I was like, "How can I help her facilitate this process?" And so, what I did was I was like, "I'll create a website. That way people can go to the website, they can see the services she offers, and they can get it done that way."
John D Saunders: And so, what I did was I went on YouTube, took a few online courses, and I learned about WordPress at the time, and I was able to build this website for her. People were able to come to the website, book her, and that's when it clicked. I realized that I could take these ideas that I had and make them into something tangible that could both help people and facilitate the process of getting noticed online, and that's when I was completely hooked.
John D Saunders: And so, I started out as a writer wanting to be a copywriter, so I read a book called Ogilvy on Advertising and I just became obsessed with advertising, and I tried to get a job. I did two internships, long internships, and no one was giving me a job. I had just recently graduated college, and I was just like, "Man, I cannot get into this advertising world." And so, finally, an agency took a chance. It was a small agency, probably like six people, and I was able to jump in there and just get to work.
John D Saunders: So, I spent about four years there, moved up through the ranks. Just started out writing HTML, doing social media, and I ended up being the marketing director, so overseeing all the SEO campaigns, social media, PPC, SEM, web design, and I just loved it. And so, as I grew in that company I learned so much from my boss that I realized this is an automotive agency, they dealt directly with car dealerships, and so I wanted to branch out and help different types of companies, so I decided to leave that company.
John D Saunders: It's crazy. I still talk to him today. We still do projects for him to this day. So, I've been able maintain that relationship, and it's been great, because I was able to leverage all those skills and things that I learned while at the agency to build out my own company, so I always recommend folks that want to do freelance, or start out and go out on their own, try to work for someone else. You know what I mean? By working for someone else you can learn what to do, what not to do, and you get paid to develop and hone in on your process.
John D Saunders: And so, when I became a freelancer I started 5Four Digital. This was about six years ago, and at that time we were doing everything in the agency. We were doing SEO, SEM, PPC. These are all just digital marketing services that we were offering, as well as web design and development. My favorite part had always been the process of creating a user interface, and creating a user experience that people love, and people appreciate, and that can equate to dollars.
John D Saunders: And so, being inundated with all this work, and just overwhelmed, working 14, 16, 18 hours a day as a freelancer the first thing I really had to do was hire someone, so I was like, "All right, what I need to do is really build out my team," and it didn't really hit me until I hit a wall where I was working 14 to 18 hours a day, and then my wife had gotten pregnant. "So listen, I can't work these hours anymore. I want to be able to be there for my kid, hangout with them, enjoy my family time, and I need to be able to start building this process," so that's when I literally sat down and I started to write down every single task that we did within the business.
John D Saunders: At that time, it was just me, and maybe one other freelancer that was helping, or independent contractor, that was helping me build out these sites that I was building and designing. So, I started to literally write down every single step of every single proprietary system that we use in the agency, and once I had that done I was able to delegate. That's when I really started to hire and really started to grow.
John D Saunders: So, the first step was writing everything down. The second step was hiring a team member that could help me facilitate these. Those main roles being, one, a web developer, and then also a project manager and a designer. And so, doing that just freed up so much more time for me to focus on big picture, scaling the business, perfecting our standard operating procedures with the agency, and really grow and develop this thing.
John D Saunders: And then, that's when I realized, "Listen, we don't need to be offering all these services."
Steve Folland: I'll tell you what, I don't normally interrupt, but there's so much to unpack I'm going to forget it if I don't interrupt soon.
John D Saunders: No, of course.
Steve Folland: First of all, brilliant being in a relatively small company. Six people meant you've got to, as you say, see, or do it, or learn what you wanted to do. But six years ago, you step out on your own, how did you go about finding those first freelance clients?
John D Saunders: So, while I was at the automotive agency I had been talking to friends and family, and I was like, "Guy, listen, I want to branch out on my own. I want to do my own thing. I need to start building up these case studies," and I didn't want to step on the toes of the job that I was working in, so I did everything outside of the automotive realm. So I was like, "What do you need? Website, branding, social media. Whatever you need I'll do it for you. If you don't have money for it right now, that's fine, I'll use it as a case study," and that's when I really just started to build as much as I could on side projects, and it let me own my skills, number one.
John D Saunders: It let me test the theories and ideas that I had, and it let me apply the things that I learned while being at the agency in real time, so that's why I was working so much, because I'm working full-time at this job. At that point, we probably had about 20 to 25 employees at that point. I had five employees in my department. And then, when I got home I spent a couple hours with family, and then I'd work until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning on my own stuff.
Steve Folland: Man. You called yourself ... Is it 5Four Digital?
John D Saunders: Yes.
Steve Folland: You decided to go with a business name I feel like, a company name rather than your own name from the off.
John D Saunders: Yeah, that's interesting. I never got asked that before. Yeah, absolutely, because there's a few things that I learned, one is you always want to be building your business in the form that it can scale and be able to run without you, and ultimately you could see your business if you wanted to, right?
John D Saunders: There's a book called The E Myth by Michael E. Gerber who talks about this. You want to build your business in the framework where you'll be able to sell it one day, and then start on the next project, then the next project, and it's almost like this business circle of life, right? So, for me, it was really about not framing myself, but more so the business, and me as the spokesperson for the business.
John D Saunders: And also, what that also does is it makes your company seem larger than it is, right? It's not necessarily deceptive, but it's just more so to say this is my business, it's almost a separate entity from me. So, as your business scales and it grows you don't necessarily have to be tied to every single facet of it. You can almost be front facing to the client and have your team facilitate the tasks within the business.
Steve Folland: Sure. It sounds like you embraced or were energized by the entrepreneurial side of what freelancing was going to bring you, as in some people they think, "I love web developing. I'm going to create loads of websites, and that's going to be my thing," whereas you were like, "No, actually I want to build out a company." When it came to doing that though, what was the reality of it like when you were actually hiring people and starting to grow a team?
John D Saunders: It's really hard, especially when you're a little bit introverted. When you like to create, and you like to design and develop yourself sometimes it's hard to give up the reins on those things, but one thing that really helped me is creating our own proprietary process. That way I can almost replicate my skillset and pass it on to another team member.
John D Saunders: So, one example is how we do brand identity. We usually start with a brand discovery session, which is about 30 minutes to about an hour and a half just breaking down the values, the mission statement, the unique selling proposition of a business, and so I have a checklist of everything that we go through with the client. Then after that's down, I sit down with our designer and I go through those steps, and I say, "Hey, this is what we're looking for. Here's the mood board."
John D Saunders: So, we have these step-by-step directions that are proprietary to the agency that I'm able to pass on to team members. That way, I'm still able to input my process in that without giving up complete reins of a project. Does that make sense?
Steve Folland: Yeah. And how did you get on when it came to pricing those projects knowing it wasn't just you, you have more involved now?
John D Saunders: Great question. So, when I started out I was super cheap, and I was just taking on any project that I could, and that was a problem in itself because I was just getting so much work from potential customers, prospects, people who found out that I was freelancing now, so they wanted to work with me, so I became inundated. At that point, I was like, "I can't charge too much." I feel like I can't do that yet. I wouldn't do that, and it just became a problem because I had just an influx of work and we were doing so many different services.
John D Saunders: So, to fix that issue, one, I decided we were going to focus on a few core services, that's it. So, if you fast forward to now we do web design, we do web development, we do brand identity, and then we do management for clients of their site, that's it. We don't do social media. We don't do SEO. We'll do an onsite SEO, but not month-to-month. So, by focusing on those core services that really helped us own in on the process.
John D Saunders: And then, two, it really let us be able to charge a premium price because of the process that I created for the agency. So, we have an onboarding process. We have a process for creating site maps, and designing low fidelity wireframes, and high fidelity wireframes, and we have a process that we've owned in on for the last six years that works really, really well, so we're able to work with a nimble and small team. We're only five of us. It's a completely remote agency, and everybody works pretty much here and abroad.
John D Saunders: And so, we keep it small, we keep it tight, but systems really help us do the job of a bigger agency, but give the client still that personal feel.
Steve Folland: Do you find that your time now is spent bringing in the work, or managing the work, or do you manage to get your hands dirty still doing the fun stuff that you enjoy doing?
John D Saunders: Great question, Steve. So, it's a little bit of both, honestly. More so, I'd say about 80% of my time is spent really just managing projects, developing standard operating procedures, asking the team questions on ways we can do it better, training team members, but I still get my hands dirty. I still hop into Creative Suite and design some logos and some concepts. I still design and develop logos because I still want to be able to be relevant within the agency, and I still want to be prevalent because I love that part of the process, but for the most part, I'm able to pass on, or delegate, the actual work part.
John D Saunders: So, I'm almost like the creative director now, pretty much.
Steve Folland: How did you go from ... You said you were far too cheap for example, how did you go from that point to the higher price point that you just described? Was that as simple as saying, "No, that was the price yesterday. Here's the price today," or was it a longer process that you struggled with?
John D Saunders: I wish I could say we changed it overnight, but honestly if I told you what I charged for my first website you'd be like, "What?" So, for me, it was trial and error. I was doing these projects, and I was looking back at the time I was spending, and I'm like, "Listen, I'm spending so many hours. I'm literally getting paid five bucks an hour to do these projects if I looked at how much time I've spent on it truly."
John D Saunders: So, what I did was I looked at all the projects that we had worked on. I looked at how much we have spent, and how much time, how many hours, we allocated toward a specific project, and I was like this needs to increase because I want to bring on new team members, I want to be able to delegate more, and so I can't charge this price point anymore. Plus, if I look at what we're doing in the space as compared to other agencies we're doing a lot more for a lot less, so I just did a deep dive and really studied what other agencies were offering, what we could offer, and so that helped us come up with a minimum price, and the deliverables that would come with that, and then the rest is history.
Steve Folland: At one point, you were having really long days, family came along, how is your work/life balance now? How has it evolved?
John D Saunders: It's pretty solid. So right now, I usually work from about 8:00am to about 4:00pm each day. After that, I take off. I spend time with family. We might go to the park, might watch a movie, catch Netflix, and then there's some days where I'm a huge ... I love to absorb knowledge, and learn, and develop my skills, and so some nights I'll work when the family falls asleep for a few hours, but ultimately I went from working 14, 16 hour days to now seven or eight hours, and some days I'll work outside. I'll change my location. I'll really try to switch it up, and keep it exciting.
Steve Folland: Now, it's intriguing because ... Obviously, we're going to put show notes for this. People can go to beingfreelance.com. You can click through and find out what John D. Saunders is all about, and part of that is the agency that you described, 5Four Digital, but part of it is you still, so you seemed to have managed to keep what you've got, an agency, you've got you, you're own personal brand too, right?
John D Saunders: Yeah, so I do. I keep it whereas 5Four Digital is almost at the top of the hill. That facilitates everything else, or is almost like the monarch for all the other businesses, and so under that is my personal brand. And so, under my personal brand I've got a couple courses. I have private offerings, as well as freebies, because I've always been a proponent of value-based content and providing free value to an audience that's looking for it.
John D Saunders: So, johndsaunders.co is my personal brand where I'll have different resources and guides for people that are looking to start their own agency, or looking to freelance, or become an entrepreneur.
Steve Folland: When did you start that?
John D Saunders: Probably eight or nine years ago. Back then, it was called John Social, and it was just a blog, and I would just post relevant things that were going on. And it's funny too, because back then other agency owners were like, "John, you're telling all these people what to do, and you're giving them step-by-step directions. You're giving them the secret sauce. You shouldn't do that," but I have always thought to myself if I'm giving them this value, and they're seeing value in it, and they're applying it they're going to come back and they're going to be like, "Hey, do you want to collaborate?" or "Hey, I have this idea for a project. What do you think?"
John D Saunders: I think you become a thought leader in the space, and people want to come to you, and talk to you, and be around you because you're providing them with so much valuable content. And so, that's how I've pretty much built my business, and it's worked well so far.
Steve Folland: So then, you do courses as well. How have you found doing that?
John D Saunders: My first course, it wasn't necessarily a flop, but I had 2,000 students and I probably made 1,000 bucks. It was on Udemy, and I learned a lot in the process of how to create a course, how to develop the curriculum, how to answer questions from potential students, so it taught me a lot. And then, I had a second course that did okay. And now, I have my current course, The Web Design Studio Accelerator, which has done really, really well.
John D Saunders: It was really a learning process, and it's a great way to create passive income, which isn't passive at first. So, I think people had that misconception where they're like, "I want to make passive income," and you're getting all this money and dough rolling in every month, and it's great, but ultimately in the beginning you really have to set yourself up for success by creating a course that people really want, and talking to your audience, and making sure that this course is in line with what their needs are, and then creating that course once you have some people fed into the process. So, it's great. It's lucrative. It's definitely a nice passive income stream as well.
Steve Folland: How did you find out what your audience wanted, as you put it?
John D Saunders: Great question. So, the best way to do that is, one, I talk to ... Here's the thing. People think that you need this big, huge audience to find out this information. You don't. What I did was I talked to my email audience, which was probably at that time 150 people. I talked to Facebook groups, I talked to friends, and I had sent them a form, and I said, "Hey, this is the curriculum I'm thinking of." It was a Google Doc where it had just the title of the course, and then a breakdown of the curriculum. I said, "Hey, this is the course that I'm thinking about. What you mind filling out this form?"
John D Saunders: In that document there was a form that they could click, and they could fill out a few questions like, "Hey, what do you think of this course? Would you buy this course? What is missing from this course?" Just general questions, right? And then, I would take those responses and people would see. They're like, "Well, you're missing a module on sales," and if I got that question a few times I would add that module in, and then I would just correspond with them over the course of maybe a month and a half of just facilitating and getting that course perfect.
John D Saunders: And now, it's just a doc, right? So, I haven't created this entire curriculum yet, so in that doc, once it's perfect, once it's ready to go, and the people that said yes they would buy the course I say, "Hey, what I'm going to do is I'm going to offer this course for 4.97. If you sign up you can put a deposit down for seven bucks, and you'll get the course for half off when it goes live." And then, based on how many people sign up that tells me this course is the one. I need to go ahead and create it.
John D Saunders: And then, I'll spend the next two and a half, three months, actually creating the course, but I always vet it first prior so I know that it's something that people really want.
Steve Folland: Whoa, so let me get that right, so once you've gone through the process of figuring out that the content of the course is what people might want you then go back and you said, "I'm going to offer this course," and I realize the figures might not be the exact figures, but "I'm going to be selling this course for 4.97. If you put a deposit down for $7 now, when it finally goes live you will get it at half price, so half of 4.97."
John D Saunders: Exactly. So now, they have a big incentive to want to sign up.
Steve Folland: And similarly, if people don't put down that $7 you might think, "Okay, I won't build the course," or "I'll tweak it further"?
John D Saunders: Exactly. Tweak it further, and tweak it further until people start buying in early. And so, that helped me do a $10,000 launch the day of, and then that course would go on to do about 110,000 in the last nine months, so it really helped in that process because I was able to say, "Hey, this is what people are looking for, now I can go and build out this thing and make it work," because trust me I've done it before where I've created a course, and I was like, "This course is going to be awesome. People are going to love it. I can't wait." I spent five months on the course, send it out, release it, and it's a flop, because I didn't ask my audience what they really wanted.
Steve Folland: So how long was the period between getting those $7 and actually launching it?
John D Saunders: It was about two and a half months. The thing about that is you don't want to wait too long because people lose interest, they move on to other things, and then I'd keep them up-to-date like, "Hey, guys. We're about three weeks out. I just finished module four." I just try to keep them up-to-date and relevant to it.
John D Saunders: And then, before of course you charge their card you let them know, "Hey, guys. By the way, this week the course is going live. This is the price," and then that's it. We've got maybe ... I can't remember how many sign-ups, but maybe five or six people were like, "I can't do it right now, but maybe next time." So, it's just really being transparent and giving them all the options.
Steve Folland: And then, how much effort do you say you put into marketing it once it's gone live, once you've put all that effort in, and it's gone out there?
John D Saunders: So, I had the Facebook ads. Let me think. So, the course did about 110K. I've probably spent maybe 15, 20K in ads, so about maybe one sixth, or one fifth, of that is profit, and that's it. I just did Facebook ads, just some retargeting, a landing page, that's it.
Steve Folland: How do you balance your time between creating things like that under your own brand and doing the client work I guess?
John D Saunders: It really ties to creating these processes and delegating. That's my biggest suggestion, or part of the process, is really developing standard operating procedures, and delegating to my team. So, the great thing about having an agency is any idea, and anything that we want to do, fall under that agency.
John D Saunders: So, having an agency we already have the step-by-step directions on how to onboard a client, how to run a client, how to manage a client, and so we treat my other businesses and ideas under that moniker, so it makes it easier to facilitate these because we already have an agency that can do it, and we already have the process in place to get it done.
Steve Folland: So, when you built out your course, did you use your 5Four Digital team to help you do that?
John D Saunders: Yeah. So, our team helped design some of the collateral, helped layout the page, so yes, absolutely.
Steve Folland: You mentioned other businesses as well. Does that mean there's more I haven't uncovered here?
John D Saunders: Yeah. Yeah, I've got a couple businesses. I have blackillustrations.com, which is a website where you can download illustrations featuring people of color in different ways. Then design, development. We have other illustrations on spirituality, on going to the gym. So, that business does well, and then I also have a business called blackwallet.org, which is a financial literacy blog where we've had a best-selling book on Amazon.
John D Saunders: And then, the last business, which is not really a business because it doesn't make money, but it's called illustratorhub.com, which is a database of talented illustrators.
Steve Folland: Wow. What was the inspiration, motivation, I guess those two things are slightly intertwined, as to starting those? When did you start them?
John D Saunders: Great, yes. Blackillustrations.com I launched in April of this year, or no, March of this year, and the main reason I did it was because being a web designer and web developer I just didn't see a lot of diversity in illustrations that we were using on sites, and I felt like black people especially weren't represented a lot in the digital content that I was seeing, so I was like, "You know what? Let's build the site ourselves."
John D Saunders: So, we launched that in March, and we've gone to do about 60,000 downloads.
Steve Folland: Nice.
John D Saunders: We have about a half a million visitors on the website, and we have premium and free illustration packs. So, I wanted to be able to have these beautiful illustrations that people will be able to use on their websites. We've been featured by UM, Harvard, Stanford, the CDC. It's been pretty amazing, and it was something that was just really needed in the space.
Steve Folland: That's awesome.
John D Saunders: Thank you.
Steve Folland: Especially because some people think, "I never can find these things."
John D Saunders: Exactly.
Steve Folland: But it doesn't mean they go and create it. There's actually this thing inside you, which is like, "No, I've not got enough on my plate."
John D Saunders: Yeah, man. I'm addicted. I always tell my wife in the shower for me I need a waterproof whiteboard, because I have so many ideas, and so many things that I want to get out.
Steve Folland: And then, there was the wallet one. It's interesting, because like the illustration sites that feels linked into what you do with the creative team, web design, and so on, and so forth, but what was the other one, the wallet?
John D Saunders: Yeah. It's blackwallet.org. So, it's a financial literacy blog for urban millennials. And so, the main reason I launched it, this was about maybe two and a half years ago, was I just didn't see a lot of content resonating with a certain audience, and so I decided to say ... I come from a financial background. I worked at a bank for five years. I'm an avid reader of financial literacy books, and I'm always thinking about generational wealth, and how to build a generational wealth for generations to come.
John D Saunders: And so, for me I launched it, and it's been going well since then. We launched a best-selling book on Amazon last year which hit number one, and it's just, again, another business that pretty much runs on autopilot now because we have our writer, she writes an article a week, we post that content, we have about a quarter million of followers on Instagram, and we just continue to just grow and develop the brand.
Steve Folland: Flip an egg. How much of your time, and focus, and energy goes into these separate things?
John D Saunders: There's a book by Cal Newport called Deep Work, and that's really how I block out my day. I block out a certain amount of time for the agency, a certain amount of time for side projects or other businesses, and I really try to create these processes and delegate so that these things can run without me. So, with Black Illustrations that's pretty much running on autopilot.
John D Saunders: Black Wallet the same thing. 5Four Digital's a little bit more hands-on because we're running all that, but what I do is I run the business like these other side hustles, or other businesses, are part of 5Four Digital's ecosystem, so our team members know exactly what to do. We have different tasks, and we treat them almost as if they're a client, so it really helps in their systems because we're just doing the same things that we would do for a client.
Steve Folland: Yeah. And when it comes to working on them you literally switch off from the other things, as in you've blocked out three hours to work on this particular thing, and you turn off any other distractions while you do that.
John D Saunders: Yeah, exactly.
Steve Folland: Because ironically, I started reading Deep Work, which is all about focus, and couldn't quite find the time to finish reading it. Okay, right. I was about to say, "Well, that's everything," but I don't feel like I should take that for granted. Have we covered everything that you're doing, John?
John D Saunders: We have. We have. By the way, you have a great radio voice, man. I love it. It's just very smooth.
Steve Folland: It's interesting that you mentioned about saving for future, basically, generational income, and things like that, is that something that you consciously think about now, your future?
John D Saunders: Absolutely, all the time, and for me it's really just about leaving a legacy. Listen, I'm not Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk, but I feel like I want to be able to leave a legacy for generations to come, and just inspire another kid like me that might not necessarily know that digital, or web design, or even branding are a career choice. And so, my ultimate goal is to really have an incubator here in South Florida where I can help other startup owners, young people that are looking to get into startups, or entrepreneurs, or design, or freelancers, and just help them build their businesses and develop their skills.
Steve Folland: That's so cool. That's a proper idea you've got as in you're already planning it out, and saving towards it?
John D Saunders: Yes, exactly.
Steve Folland: Cool. John, I admire, like I said, the vision, but also-
John D Saunders: Thank you.
Steve Folland: ... actually getting stuff done.
John D Saunders: Thank you.
Steve Folland: But in order to get that stuff done you do have to take care of yourself, and to make sure that you're not just blowing money. There is quite a serious cashflow thing involved in running this sort of business, almost empire, that you're starting to create.
John D Saunders: Yes, absolutely, and I'm a huge fan of ... Lean Startup is another great book, and I'm all about running lean. That's why before everything happened with COVID we were a completely remote team. Other agencies were like, "You need a big office. You need this. You need that." And I was like I can have a great well-paid team that does great work, and they can work from anywhere they want, and at their own time that they want, and that was my thought behind that.
John D Saunders: And so, we run really lean. Our tech stack is probably 10 apps. You know what I mean? We really try to keep it very lean, and clean, and process has really helped us facilitate a lot of this stuff. So for me, it's really about taking this income that we're creating, and then being able to reinvest it into the business, and reinvest in other ventures, and continue to grow.
Steve Folland: How do you get past that thing of feeling secure that you're creating a buffer of money that's protecting your business, and so, and for that matter, protecting yourself, but then also taking a chance on things?
John D Saunders: Yes. The great thing about working in this space is a lot of the things don't cost a ton to test out. Nowadays, especially with the No-Code Movement, and all these things beginning to come up, and blossom, I feel as though you have an idea, and it's digital-based, it doesn't cost you a lot to get it done, and if it doesn't work out, or it doesn't work well, it's okay. You know? You might've lost out a few hundred, or even a couple thousand, but you've learned a new skill. You've developed a new career choice. There's just so many things that can be done with it.
John D Saunders: And so, everyone being remote, everything being digital now, is a huge opportunity for folks to take advantage of their skillset and turn it into a cash generating machine.
Steve Folland: These days, how do clients come to you, or how do you go to clients? How does the work come in that feeds into all of these other things?
John D Saunders: I'd say 90% of our prospects are referrals, so one, folks that have either worked with us before recommend us, two is when it comes to Webflow, which is a content management system, we're a Webflow agency, Webflow expert, and we also create templates for web flow as well, so we're pretty active in that community, so we get leads from that. And then, my personal social media I try to post value-based content everyday on Instagram and Facebook, and leads from that, so most of it is referrals, and just people coming back from checking out my content.
Steve Folland: Nice. That's interesting about Webflow. So, Webflow is a like a sexy version of Squarespace and WordPress, right?
John D Saunders: Yeah. Webflow, it's probably the most advanced content management system that you can use right now in regards to creating a website that you want. So, you can create customized websites really easily using their designer, and it outputs HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, in clean, consistent code. It's new. It's emerging. It's doing an amazing job of facilitating, and if you look at all of our projects they're all running through Webflow.
Steve Folland: And that's what intrigued me is the fact that you ... I've been looking at Webflow a lot, and I'm not a designer, sadly, but it sounds like you're very early, and therefore ... Now, everyone knows there's a million WordPress templates. You're creating templates that other people can buy for Webflow quite early on in the emergence of it. Do you see what I mean?
John D Saunders: Exactly.
Steve Folland: Right. So, that's almost a passive income for the agency once you've created the product.
John D Saunders: Yeah.
Steve Folland: How's that going?
John D Saunders: It's going great actually. We launched last week, and we've probably had maybe 30 downloads.
Steve Folland: And you don't have to advertise them. They just get found by people searching within Webflow.
John D Saunders: No. We're going to launch some ads next week, but yeah, we haven't had any ads yet.
Steve Folland: Okay. If there was one thing you could tell your younger self about being freelance what would that be?
John D Saunders: Provide value-based content to your audience, and don't look for the quick response, or the quick, "Hey, I want to work with you." Just continue to provide value, and the rest will come.
Steve Folland: John, it's been so good to talk to you, and all the best being freelance.
John D Saunders: Thank you so much, Steve. I appreciate it.