Hello, my friend.

Happy Friday.

If you are listening to this shortly after it goes live, I wanted to share some additional thoughts with you based off of my newsletter that just went out today about pain, about specifically business pain.

And there was something I heard recently that I have to admit I totally agree with.

And that is that every web design business owner or any entrepreneur or any business owner for that matter is constantly in one of three areas of pain: growing pains, plateau pains, or declining pains.

And I want to get into that here with you.

Again, this is based off of my newsletter that just kicked out today.

If you're not on my newsletter, I send these out almost every week on Fridays now.

You can go to joshhall.co/slash newsletter.

It's generally a thought like this or something that's on my mind that I want to help you with in your entrepreneurial journey as a web design business owner.

Now, before we get into this and expand on this, I want to ask you a favor.

And that is to let me know as a listener of this podcast if you're interested in me popping in with these like impromptu, more casual solo episodes more frequently.

It's something I've thought about doing because I'm I've been doing newsletters for over two years now.

And some of these I'm like, as much as I enjoy writing, I enjoy even more riffing on them in an audio format.

So I want to hear from you if you're interested, because I don't want to do it if you're not interested as much.

Uh so let me know.

If you're in my community Web Designer Pro, DM me and let me know if you are interested or would like just a kind of weekly pop-in episode like this that's solo, a little more casual.

There's no episode number, there's no show notes, it's just me popping in, just an audio with you.

And if you're not in Web Designer Pro yet, you can email me, josh at joshhall.co.

Let me know if you would like this because I want to know if you have plenty enough to listen to.

I know we have well over 400 episodes of the podcast, or if you'd like a little more and you'd like to uh to hear from me a little more outside of just you know my my newsletter.

But again, a lot of these solo episodes are probably going to be based off of my newsletter just in a little more detail.

So this is again about where's your pain as a business owner.

Let's start with growing pain.

Now, it is a great pain to have, but it's still a pain.

And I've found growing pains can actually destroy your business or you personally if you are not careful, and you don't either scale up your business or scale back your business, or at the very least, change something to mitigate the growing pains.

And symptoms of growing pains often look like this: you're buried with work, your calendar is always filled, you're working long hours, you just feel like you've got less time and freedom, which is why we signed up to do this in the first place.

You've got a lot more complexity or uh complexity in your business, it feels like.

Maybe you feel like your mental hard drive is just full and you just can't put anything else in there, except for these podcast episodes, of course.

And maybe you're having challenges with figuring out how to scale and hire and having team problems.

Any one of those, just a few that come to mind when it comes to common growing pains that I've had either myself or I that I help a lot of Webpresenter Pro members out with.

If you are there, I got some tips for you.

But I do want to say, just from a personal note, I was right there with you.

Um, and growing pains can look different in different seasons.

It hit me hard when I had 23 projects all at once.

I'll never forget it.

2018 is when I, because I had steady growth and I had like minor growth pains up into that point, but it was never to the point where I felt like I was so buried and I couldn't get out of it.

But man, oh man, did I get to a point where I was like, I have to change, I have to change something because I literally cannot get out of this with my current setup, my current offers, my current pricing, my current workload, myself.

So for me, the thing that helped me at that point was to scale in the way of finally getting design help for websites and designs.

And that was when I hired my first contractor, Jonathan.

I expand on our whole journey together and all the details of how I scaled in my course on scaling, which is called Scale to your Scale Your Way.

It's a part of your membership at any level in Web Designer Pro.

But if you for any reason are not uh wanting to jump in Web Designer Pro yet, or if you just need something to make sure it's for you, I do have a free resource on scaling.

It is my scaling masterclass.

You can go to joshhall.co slash scale to pick that up.

It's completely free.

It's a free training.

So go get that at least.

But if you're already a member of Web Designer Pro, uh go to Scale Your Way and jump into the course.

It's fun, it's very listenable.

If you want to listen to the audio version of the course, it will help you dramatically with all this stuff.

And some of the tips I have in there are as follows.

So when it comes to growing pains, Dr.

Hall recommends doing a task inventory, which is in short, generally over a period of about seven to 14 days, ideally.

Get a good idea of the tasks you're doing.

I have a spreadsheet for this in the course if you want to get fancy with it, or you could just write it on a piece of paper, but definitely document it.

Don't do it in your head.

Get it down.

Do a Google Doc or something.

Get it down on literally what you're doing day to day.

It doesn't need to be by the minute, but at least probably every half hour, especially if you're task switching.

Figure out what you're doing with those tasks in mind.

Put those tasks into a flow or friction list.

Flow tasks are what's going to give you energy and make you want to continue to build your business.

Friction tasks are things you need to get off of your plate immediately, at least some of them or most of them, if you want to do this for a while and be happy.

Uh, with those friction tasks, you need to automate or delegate those.

So see what you can automate with any sort of either AI or automation tool, CRM or anything like that, Zapier or whatever it is, and then delegate the other tasks one step at a time.

Hire out those low-level tasks or the ones that are mentally draining for you.

Now, low level still may be something very valuable, but it's just something that somebody else could do, especially if it's repeatable.

So it's not that you're better than those tasks, it's just that what gets you here won't get you there.

You realize maybe I shouldn't be logging into WordPress and maybe doing all the maintenance plan updates, or maybe I shouldn't be handling every single support task that comes in, or whatever that looks like.

Maybe you can get help with billing and admin and some of that stuff.

So work on delegating some of that out.

Um, in Web Designer Pro, you can go to the pros for hire section to get help with any one of your tasks.

If you are not uh comfortable or you don't know where to start when it comes to hiring, just go through my scaling masterclass and then come into my scale your way course because it's all in there.

But I will give you a pro tip.

There's a website called onlinejobs.ph, which is where you can get Filipino help if you would like help from the Philippines, who are just amazing people who speak great English and are not on generally USD currency.

So you can get a lot of affordable help and it still really helps them, and they are just freaking awesome.

My VA, Chris, is uh in the Philippines and um she is a unicorn magician and incredible.

So check that out, see if that'll help.

So those are some pains and some remedies for growing pains.

Now, plateau pain.

This may not be something you're prepared for, but I've been coaching the coaching tier members of my community Web Designer Pro.

And every year we kick off the ear, I do a DM.

I've been a little quiet publicly, and a lot of that is because I've done so much coaching behind the scenes, which is always the case in the beginning of the year, but it tends to taper off because we've already talked about goals and plans and everyone's going.

But um, I found that some members have been in this bucket of having plateau pain.

You could call it stagnation pain, you could call it any well.

Let me just share with you the symptoms.

They often leave you with the feeling of just meh.

You're not excited to wake up and work on your biz.

What a tragedy.

And it's the worst because it's like things are okay, they're not bad.

Some people say you're not growing, you're dying.

I guess there's probably truth to that, but I do think there's probably a middle tier, like a middle um, you know, pain in here.

There's like a hybrid of things aren't growing, but things aren't bad.

But you definitely don't want to stay there long.

And yes, there's a time to take the accelerator off your business and not grow up into the right all the time.

There's even a time to decline.

I'm rhyme in here, if you need to have more personal time and freedom.

But um, in most cases, a plateau just doesn't feel good.

It just doesn't feel good to be stagnant.

And by the way, this is not just the case for business, this is also the case for relationships.

If anyone's married, you know, inevitably you spend the the you know, the amount of time that you do with the same person all the time, you gotta switch things up.

It's very easy to get into a just a period of stagnation or just doing the same stuff all the time, which can happen in business, especially if you hit the five to seven year mark, which is really common.

Um, if you ever feel like other symptoms I have here from my newsletter include long breaks just staring at the computer, no clarity or vision for the business.

If you feel like you get to a place where you've kind of fulfilled your goals and then you're like, huh, what's next?

That can lead to a feeling of like plateau and stagnation.

Maybe you feel comfortable, but you're not content with your day-to-day.

And actually, if you're comfortable in a lot of what you're doing, I would encourage you to get uncomfortable uh to switch things up.

So there's a lot of different ways, and the other thing is like maybe you're just not enjoying all the tasks that you used to.

Again, going back to the quote, what gets you here won't get you there.

This is really, really common.

I used to love doing certain like design tasks in my business, and I used to enjoy doing some repeatable tasks, and then I just got to the point where I was like, Oh, I don't want to do this anymore.

And sometimes you realize you don't want to do it anymore because you have bigger things to focus on because you are the leader of your business.

You are the CEO.

If that is the case, any of those, here are some remedies again from Dr.

Hall.

Run another task inventory, even if you're plateaued, run a task inventory, put those tasks into a flow or friction list.

Your friction list is going to tell you what you need to get off your plate.

I would still start there because as soon as you have more focus on the tasks that you really enjoy doing, you will get out of this plateau a lot easier.

Really, really encourage you to remember your why.

As corny and as cheesy as that sounds, it can be so easy to forget why you're doing what you're doing, especially if you've been at it for five, seven, ten years.

It's it's not a surprise that you're feeling a little just, uh, you know, like I don't hate my business.

I still enjoy, you know, enjoy some of it, but I just, it's not the same.

I don't get excited like I used to.

Remembering why you're doing it, your why could be a revenue range, it could be freedom, it could be time, it could be for your kids.

One of our Web Designer Pro members, Ben, shout out to Ben, just posted on LinkedIn.

Ben, if you're listening, post this in pro, by the way, dude, because it was a really good post.

But he said that he recently just paid their last daycare payment because he went full-time last year.

And uh, even though he's still on his way up in his business, he said he's not where he wants to be.

A huge win for him was cutting out daycare because he's able to work from home and him and his wife are able to take care of their four kids on a whole different level compared to when he was working 40 plus hours in his day job.

So what a win!

Like what a win not to forget as you're building your business.

I also recommend looking back at client testimonials, wins, and successes.

A couple of years ago, we did a challenge in Pro about creating, I call it a wall of awesome, but um, it's basically a win, a wall of wins.

And or it could be anything in your office.

It could even be testimonials on your website.

Go look at those.

I literally am looking right now.

I have my wall of wins on my, I have a little lounge area in my office and it sits across from my couch, and I have little cutouts of little testimonials and wins from pro members and personal notes that members have sent me.

I see it every day, and I don't read everyone every day, but every if I ever feel that feeling of like, ugh, I go there and I'm like, oh my gosh, I help this person make six figures this year.

Or, you know, I help Ben cut out his daycare costs and his kids can stay home and be with his wife and and him.

That's freaking awesome.

So uh remember your why.

Look at those testimonials and wins that'll give you some confidence and social proof too.

I definitely recommend doing something new.

Get out of your comfort zone.

If you're home a lot working from home, I would recommend literally changing your environment.

Anything physical, going for a walk, awesome, a little bit of exercise, but go to a networking event, host a webinar, do something that's gonna get out of your get you out of your comfort zone.

It's actually the best thing to do if you're feeling plateaued and stagnant is to make yourself a little nervous.

Do something new.

You'll be shocked at the jolt you'll get if you do that.

And it doesn't need to be something that you commit to every week.

It could just be literally a one-time thing.

Uh, you'll be shocked at what that would do.

It may be time for you to innovate your business or or create like a new offer or a new service.

And maybe it's time for you to revamp your website.

Simple as that.

You all you all know when you have a website you're proud of, it just feels great.

And it doesn't last long.

We all redo our websites and then hate them, usually about three weeks afterwards.

But even if you do that, like I felt really good about launching the new version of Web Designer Pro last year, Webdesigner Pro.com.

I already hate it, but I really enjoyed it for a good uh good month.

Uh now I'm ready to redo it again.

But that could be something that will give you a jolt as well.

And of course, if you want help personally getting out of this, I do have the coaching tier of Web Designer Pro, which is currently open to kick off the year here.

And you can jump into coaching.

Go to webdesignerpro.com/slash coaching to jump in, and I would love to help you with a personalized plan to get you out of your plateau.

Now, finally, the declining pain.

I meant to say plateau.

Yeah, plateau plan.

That's what I'll give you.

If you join coaching and mention this, I will give you a plateau plan.

Um, declining pain.

Now, I was gonna say plateau is one of the worst ones, but I actually think declining pain is probably the worst because revenue is going down and you feel like your business is slipping away.

And again, sometimes this happens on a micro level, like you just had a bad week or a bad month, and it doesn't take too much to rebound from that, but sometimes it's a longer type thing, several months or maybe a year.

And I absolutely understand.

I get this.

I went through it big time in 22 and 2023.

I was really public about this when our revenue went down by 25%.

Because I, well, between those two years, my family moved.

I took the foot off the gas, just wanted to kind of go a little slower as my family moved.

My wife was pregnant, my daughter had a traumatic brain injury that fall.

All that happened in a three-month span.

And notably and understandably, I wanted to just take the rest of the year pretty slow.

So I just basically did the bare minimum to continue going with Web Designer Pro and I didn't launch anything new or hustle.

Um, but because of the momentum that I lost, and because of me changing from courses to a membership model in 2023, that all resulted in down revenue and it was the worst.

And all these symptoms are things that I had that you may be feeling.

Hopefully, not all of them, but probably at least one of them.

Sales are going down.

Maybe you feel like leads have dried up.

Again, you lose that momentum.

You feel a lack of confidence because of all those things.

Night sweats are often common.

Um, it seems like when clients leave any sort of recurring revenue plan you have, it seems like they're all leaving together, right?

Like, has that ever happened to you?

I'm sure it's happened.

It happens to be it's it literally it really happens occasionally in pro.

I'll just have like a swarm of members who leave.

And there's no rhyme or reason, I don't think, typically.

I don't think I like say something that offends people or anything.

It just it just happens.

And it happened when I was running my maintenance plan too.

It just seemed like a few clients would leave that.

And I'm like, did you guys like get together and talk about this?

Or it was just coincidence.

I swear it happens to everybody.

So, but it does seem like that happens when there's declining numbers, and it could just, you know, it feels like you're in the Titanic and you're sinking and there's water getting in, and you just can't stop it.

So if that is the case, number one, you're not alone.

And good news, it does get easier.

I think the longer you're in business, the declining pains, especially, are less um what's the word I'm looking for?

Why can't I think of the word?

I always have the worst like word for word brain farts when I'm uh uh recording a podcast, a podcast, but they're they're not as intense.

There it is.

What goodness.

It is Friday.

I'm recording this on a Friday.

It's the last thing I'm doing this week.

So they're not as intense, luckily, the longer you go.

So finally, Dr.

Hall recommends to help getting out of growth or declining pains.

Don't believe everything you think.

I just talked about this recently as a throwback to my conversation with Amy Porterfield on episode 185.

That was the biggest takeaway from that conversation I had with her.

When you are declining, you cannot believe your thoughts.

You're gonna have oodles of thoughts.

Some of them may be valuable, some of them may be honest and like, yeah, that makes sense, but some of them may be absolute trash that you don't even need to listen to.

So you can't believe everything you think.

Um, cancel unnecessary subscriptions and expenses, except for Web Designer Pro, of course.

But that's one of the best things you can do, which is to focus on the things you can control.

And number the easiest thing to control is your spending.

Even though if you have to make sacrifices or cut things out for a little bit, control your spending.

You can also control showing up and marketing and refining your offers and working on your business, doing a little more marketing.

You got to sell, baby, sell.

You could at this point create a new offer and don't worry about selling to new clients all the time.

Remember, it's way easier and way more profitable to sell to existing clients.

So maybe you're gonna roll with paid discovery.

Maybe you're gonna sell strategy sessions.

These are things that a lot of Web Designer Pro members are doing right now for revenue boosts and just go to the next level in their business.

Maybe you're gonna up your pricing and you're gonna lock in, like you could tell your clients, lock in our 2025 rates before we get further into 2026.

Or offer something new.

And again, a lot of the times the the best thing that you can offer new is just strategy or just consultation with you as a web designer to hear from your clients about where what they need help with and and where um they would like you to assist them with if you're interested in that.

Share social proof.

Again, go back to your client wins and testimonials.

And here's a pro tip: don't sleep on them, don't hide your wins.

I want you to annoy the hell out of everyone that interacts with you on any social media platform on your website with testimonials.

Share social proof.

When I was in my rebound, which I talked about in episode 360 of this podcast, if you want to go back to that, I share how I rebounded from my two worst years of revenue.

Uh, well, not the worst, but they were like, you know, down years in revenue to 2024 and 2025 being my two best years to date in revenue.

That all stemmed from my rebound.

And that was episode 360, if you want to go back.

And a big part of the rebound was I committed to sharing a testimonial at least once a week.

These were video testimonials, these were written testimonials, these were course testimonials.

There were pro testimonials.

Testimonials like crazy.

And I doubled down on what was working, and that was working.

Sharing social proof nonstop.

So I want you to feel like you're annoying people because number one, especially on social media, they're only going to see like 10% of what you post anyway.

And to you, you may feel like, you know, you're annoying people by sharing all this.

But to me, if I if I'm following you and I see a social post or social proof post, I'll be like, oh, that's awesome to hear that, you know, I'm talking about Ben.

So we'll keep on going with Ben.

That's awesome to hear what that client said about Ben.

That's it.

That's all I'm thinking about.

But if I see it more and more and more and more, if I'm interested in working with Ben, that's going to really encourage me to move forward.

It takes more than one hit to convince somebody of social proof.

So do that.

And double down on what's working well.

If you have a maintenance plan tier that's working or an SEO plan that's working, or one of your web design packages is working well, double down on that.

Don't try to sell the stuff that's not selling.

Just sell the one thing that's selling.

You'll get some confidence and go from there.

And my biggest encouragement to you here is to only do work that's going to fill your bank account.

Do not tinker.

Do not play around.

Do not start a passion project.

If your numbers are declining, you need to focus on only things that are going to fill your bank account.

So, of all these tips, do that.

Fill your bank account.

Double down on what's working.

Share the social proof.

Create a new offer.

Sell consult time for a little while.

Hustle a little bit.

It's all right.

Cancel unneeded subscriptions.

Again, of course, not Web Designer Pro.

And just sell, sell, sell, sell.

Go into sales mode.

And if you are feeling like numbers are down because you can't sell, well, if you've sold anything, you can sell.

And you can sell more.

So just keep on going, my friend.

Keep on going.

You just got to show up.

You got to do it though.

You got to get more visibility.

You can't get comfortable.

You can't hide.

You have got to share what you do, who you help, and how they get started.

That's it.

All right.

There are my tips.

Those are my Dr.

Hall recommended tips for your growing pains, your plateau pains, and your declining pains.

Again, this was taken from my most recent newsletter.

Go sign up for my newsletter, joshhall.co slash newsletter.

And when you do, I'll be giving you some resources that are going to be a big help to you as you kick the year off here in 2026.

I hope to see you in my community, Web Designer Pro.

Again, any of these pains you want some personalized help with, you can join my coaching tier, joshhall.co, or excuse me, webdesigner pro.com slash coaching is where to go there.

It is open for a limited time for coaching members.

So hope to see you in there.

All right, my friend, have a great rest of the week.

And at the very least, email me josh at joshhall.co to let me know uh if you would like more of these little solo casual episodes.

All right, happy Friday.