Getting Started and Finding a Niche
Julia: Lived in Montreal at the time. And then I moved to Vermont, and I kind of continued doing that same thing, but I eventually wanted to do something that was just a little more connected to people in my community and just wanted to be able to meet with people instead of something that was where I was very, very isolated and solo. So I was kind of thinking about what my skills were. I thought about technology. I connected with somebody locally named Perry Heller who had a Mac repair business, and we were sort of trying to figure out how we could work together. So I ended up sharing an office with him when I first got started, and there were a lot of people that just kind of came through his business to me and built it from there. I think I really enjoy, as someone who had been self-employed a lot before that, I was really looking for what is the need in the community? Where is there a gap that I could fill? And I really like working with business owners because I also am a business owner, and that’s always super fun.
Danielle: Yeah, no. And I actually want to know a little bit about the logistical side of, you know, this whole thing. We are called First One Hundred, so I always want to ask all of my guests, how did you actually get those first few clients? And then once you get them, what happens then?
J: Yes, that’s such a good question. I mean, I think at first, Perry helped me get those first very couple of clients because he said, you know, sometimes people come in and ask for help with their websites, and that’s just not what I do. So that was a little, that was just like the very little seed that started growing, started everything rolling. I ended up joining a BNI chapter that was in a nearby city, which is, I don’t know if you’ve heard of BNI, it’s like very intense, like doing a lot of networking. And there’s just like a lot of built-in support. So that, I think, really kind of forced me to take my business seriously. Not that I wouldn’t have otherwise, but it’s sometimes it’s hard when you’re not connected with other people. So that was really where I think the probably the first one hundred probably came through the BNI network and just word of mouth from those clients. And then I think the what next once you have those people, I think in the very beginning, a lot of times you’re just looking for data points in a way. Like you’re taking whatever, taking whatever customer or client in my case and just finding out what they need, finding out what their problems are, and how it works when you try to solve those problems. And then further, later on in the process, it starts to become more of a narrowing down. Like these are the clients I like working with. These are the clients I’m actually able to help really well, and start to use the experience you’re getting from the spray and pray approach to actually look for who you really want to be working with and kind of sometimes start saying no to clients that just aren’t going to be a good fit based on your experiences with those first however many. Probably like the first fifty, sixty clients I felt like that was the way I was doing it. I was just like, whatever you need, I’ll try to fix it. I’ll try to do it. And now I can’t do that anymore. I got to be discerning.
D: No, I mean, obviously, I think as any business grows, I think at the beginning everyone is kind of in the same mindset of let’s just get anything, and then we work from there. And I think once you start to find stability, it’s easier for you to sort of also have a niche of what you are going to do. But I actually want to ask you more on that. Like what then? So you had your first one hundred clients for a number. But let’s just say you were already getting a steady number of people coming in. How did you actually start scaling and working on making this a bigger thing? I always want to know this because I think a lot of business owners that I talked to on the podcast, like I had this one guy tell me like, my dream was just to have my business and for it to be successful. But I never thought about what I was going to do if it actually started to do well. He was just like, I’m so excited to get a bunch of people. And then I was so overwhelmed. And it was like, my dream was my biggest nightmare. Because yeah, it was just like, he was like, he had to start turning down people. He felt like he was losing money.
Personal Growth and Professional Relationships
D: I feel like I was so young and immature and I had kind of been under my parents’ umbrella for my whole life that I didn’t know anything about the real world, and I made a lot of choices out of stupidity. Yeah, I moved in with this one girl who I was really good friends with, and it turns out we were good friends, we were not good roommates.
J: Totally, totally.
D: Yeah, we had so many issues living together. We had so many fights. It completely destroyed our friendship. Like we stopped being friends after that because it was a horrible experience. And then after that, I remember I started to learn a lot because I did learn sort of red flags that you also have to see in people before you move in with them. How sometimes a friendship can be good as a friendship, but not in a different kind of setting. Like a lot of, and then I had a bunch of roommates throughout my college life. Like I kept moving around. I never stayed in an apartment for too long because I was also a lot was going on. So until I graduated, I had a bunch of roommates, and I think it was what you were saying about finding a team and working with your friend and learning. Oh my gosh, I had to learn so much in order to figure out what it was like to be a good roommate, to have a good roommate, to sort of be a decent person to live with because I think living in my parents’ home was completely different than being on my own.
J: Sure. Yeah, it totally is. I think there’s people too that I’m like, even just thinking of people in my life right now, that there’s some that I’m like, I love you so much, dude. Like we are, you know, and I don’t want to work with you in any capacity. Then there’s other people that it’s just like, I don’t really, we wouldn’t hang out, but at work we work together well. And so recognizing the signs of which person this is really nice. Like once you start getting better at identifying that early on, it just saves a lot of frustration.
D: Yeah, I know. I feel like it takes a lot of really bad experiences for you to get to a place where you’re like, okay, I get it. I understand. And I mean, obviously, you’re in a different situation. But I was just hearing you say that, and I was like, this is what I was going through every time I picked a bad roommate. And then I would have a really bad experience. And then I’d be like, what did I do wrong? What is so wrong? And then it was like, yeah. A learning experience. And then I think I sort of got better also with maturity and age, because obviously I was seven.
J: Of course. And it’s not like, yeah, it’s totally not always the other person. Like I figured out, just to go back to, you know, my team and what works. It’s like, I need to meet with you in the beginning. If you’re a contact with me, like I need to meet with you like three times a week, maybe, or maybe even just once a week. But I noticed, and when we meet, it’s like, okay, here’s the list of tasks, like bang, bang, bang, tell me like what’s going on with this one, this one, this one. Like if nothing has happened and we don’t have any work, then we need to talk about why and is that okay? And how are we going to revisit and cetera. So I noticed a pattern where it’s like, if people kept canceling those meetings, if we weren’t meeting regularly, it was just not going to happen. Like it was not going to work with the person. So that’s one thing that, you know, I just have learned about myself because I used to be so loosey goosey with it. I’d be like, Oh yeah, it’s fine. Like you’re just working on that over there. And I trust you and everything’s good. But just because I’m the one actually talking to the client, I need to really be strict about always being on top of where everybody’s at in the different tasks. And yeah, it’s tough. You got to learn the hard way. You really do.
D: Yeah, no, no, it’s tough, but I think it’s like a great learning experience. And I think it also makes, I mean, the working environment better when you can have that organization. And like you said, it’s a process, right? Definitely. So hold on one second. I just want to kind of stop the notifications. Are you getting like a buzzing sound every time I get a text or no?
J: No, I haven’t. But I can like, yeah, you can turn it off. It’s fine. I don’t know how easy it is to do that from seems like you don’t have to worry. I got it. I got it. I got it. You just brag about how great I am at tech, you know, like turning off notifications on a phone while I’m in a video conference. We’re all good.
D: Okay, carry on. It’s a computer, not a phone. Right? Anyway, there’s so many different specialties within tech too.
J: Yeah. I have a lot of friends that are really technical people and they do not, they get, you know what confounds a lot of people is how to set up hosting and DNS. Like that’s so easy for me now. But then my other friend who’s like a coding genius is just completely out and just out of their depth or whatever.
D: My brother is studying computer science right now, and I see him sometimes doing his homework and I’m just like, what are you doing? And then he will explain something really complicated and I’ll just be like, you go. It’s very specialized because it’s like, yeah, there’s so much stuff to go within just like tech in general. It’s crazy. Which actually I wanted to ask you, what industries or clients do you guys typically serve or work with the most? Is there like a specific type of client that you are scouting for or looking for or do you guys have like an openness to anybody that wants web development help?
Ideal Clients and Services
J: Yeah, I mean, we’re pretty open. I think we are most specifically interested in e-commerce sites. And that is a lot of our clients that have been pretty steady with us. Like, if I had to really name my ideal client, I’d say it’s an e-commerce site that also does content marketing, you know, somebody who’s got an active digital marketing strategy that they’re implementing and they need help implementing. So we’ve had a lot of clients like that because it’s just we can help on the tech side and with an e-commerce site, you know, you really need that to work. It’s not like a brochure site. Sure, it could be brochure meaning it’s not super functionality based, it’s more informational. Usually it’s those sites kind of run a little bit more on autopilot. There’s not a lot going on there unless they have something like a complicated events calendar or some other like a course, like a learning online like a learning management system. Those can be complicated, but we just haven’t ended up doing as many of those. Like the e-commerce part we’ve sort of specialized in over time and then a lot of times we’ll end up doing like some social media posts, some blog posts, some SEO work for that. Like we can really build out a full, just add in a lot of services that help them to execute all of the technical parts of, not that social media is always technical, but the SEO part, you know, creating the content with like an SEO framework in mind can be sometimes very technical and we have we have good writers on our team and decent design or we have our design partner. I digress. So we have a lot of e-commerce clients, love e-commerce, especially if they’re marketing actively. Aside from that, we have a lot of just kind of random like small businesses and nonprofits that are using WordPress, but I would say nonprofits also tends to be an interesting chunk. We just tend to have a lot of them. And they’re lovely, of course, because, you know, usually mission-driven and nice people.
D: Yeah. Yeah, no. And nonprofits are very interesting to work with because a lot of them need help. And, you know, like you would think that. I think we do, I think I was talking about this the other day. We have a program called Penji for Good, where we essentially give the service for free to some non-profits every month. It’s kind of like a way to give back to the community. But I’ve learned through that program that a lot of non-profits, need help with marketing and sales and stuff like, like a little bit that sounds less, I guess more like business oriented.
J: Yeah. I think, yeah, small businesses need that stability to be able to make those kind of promises. So yeah, like it totally makes sense. I think big businesses are probably able to pay more money as well. Right. And I mean, I just like, it’s, of course, like a big budget is always nice to have, but like a clear budget, a straightforward budget is really nice. Even if it’s small, it’s like, oh, let’s, let’s just make the scope according to that. And yeah.
The Quick-Fire Game
D: Amazing. Well, Julia, this is almost all of the time that we have for today, but I do have a game prepared for us.
J: Cool.
D: Going to set a timer on my phone right now. For one minute. Where’s my clock? Oh, here it is. So basically what we’re going to do is that I have twenty questions prepared for you. And they’re not marketing, tech, any kind of like, you know, business thing related. They’re just fun questions. And let’s see if you can get through all twenty in a minute or as many as you can. No pressure, but nobody has gotten through twenty. So let’s see if you’re going to come out on the winning side or. Join the losers.
J: Okay. Great. Now my competitive energy is just like peaked here. Alright. And this is just like I’m just answering like whatever.
D: Okay. Let’s do it. So my advice, if you don’t know the answer for one question, you can lie. Like if you really want to win, if you really want to win this. Okay. So not necessarily difficult answers, just fast answers. Alright.
J: Alright. I’ll try my best. Okay.
D: And go. Coffee or tea?
J: Coffee.
D: Early bird or night owl?
J: Night owl for sure.
D: Favorite social media platform?
J: Instagram.
D: Go-to karaoke song?
J: Son of a Preacher Man by Dusty Springfield.
D: Books or podcasts?
J: Oh, it depends on the context. I think books lately.
D: One word that describes you?
J: Cold right now.
D: Vacation destination.
J: San Francisco.
D: Most used app on your phone.
J: Gmail.
D: Favorite emoji.
J: The crying when I’m laughing so hard.
D: What’s your hidden talent?
J: Hidden talent. I’m really into home organization right now.
D: Favorite emoji. Oh, no, sorry. Go to comfort food.
J: Comfort food, mac and cheese. Is that the timer? That cannot have been twenty questions. I feel like that was more like ten.
D: That was ten questions. Yeah, that was ten questions. I like how my word to describe myself was cold based on my current bodily experience.
J: You know, I felt like when you said cold, I thought you meant like a cold person. Yeah, like I’m very like shut off and like, no, I was like, no, like literally I need warmer socks right now.
D: I was like, yeah, she doesn’t seem like a cold person, but I did tell her to lie.
J: I took it very, very literally, Danielle.
D: No, Julia, thank you so much for doing this. It was great. Unfortunately, you also did not get through the twenty questions, but that’s okay. Nobody has.
J: I did my best, you know. It’s an undoable challenge, I think. But I do want to give you the space right now to tell all of our viewers and our followers to go to wherever you want to send them to. If you are looking to plug anything, I’ve had a couple of people who are looking to hire people and then they’re doing the shout out. So whatever space is yours.
Plugging and Wrap Up
J: Yeah, for sure. Thanks. I mean, I’m always looking for maintenance clients on WordPress. That’s like the section I want to grow so much right now. I’m hoping to hire an online business manager. So if folks are out there and they are really good at that, please contact me. Even if you don’t feel like you’re that good at it, let’s chat and we’ll make you good at it. What else am I looking for? I think in the new year also I’m amping up my content marketing for my own business. So if people want to follow YouTube and Instagram, like Wheel of Horse Web, if you go to our website, you’ll see all the links for that. And yeah, so stay tuned for that.
D: Amazing. Yeah. I will be adding the links to your website and information to the description of this video so that people can go ahead and find you and for those of you who are listening, go to the video for the links. And Julia, thank you so much for doing this.
J: Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun. It was really fun.
D: Yeah, everybody. I’ll see you on the next episode. Bye-bye.
