 Thank you. I'm just gonna get stuck right in but I'll get everyone to stand up first. We're all feeling that after-lunch slump. Yeah, so I'm gonna ask a couple of questions and you can sit down if it's a yes. So do you work more than 50 hours a week? Do you work more than 40? How about 20? So does anyone work more than 15 hours a week and okay so I'm the only one left standing. My work hours as of this right now are under 15 hours a week and I'm still bringing in the same income I was before I took maternity leave. It took me a year to get to this place where I could take six months off and only check in on my business a couple of times a week. I've head down getting everything ready but once it was up and running and I took that leave I've come back and I haven't had to work as hard as I did before which has been really amazing so yeah. I guess one of the biggest things that prompted me to do it, falling pregnant, but also the fact that I've suffered burnout before. So I was in a corporate environment working over 50 hours a week and they're getting paid for 40 of those, expected to stay late, come in early and and make someone else a lot of money so that's where I sort of started to go well why am I doing this for someone else when I can do it for myself on my own terms and make it work for myself and my family. So has anyone else here suffered from burnout? So you feel like you're stuck in a funk, you've got no motivation, the thought of picking up your laptop and starting to do some work is actually quite depressing rather than enjoying what you do. So hopefully the tips I share today can help you avoid it. I'll use this. So who am I? I'm Hailey. I'm from the Gold Coast in Australia. My husband is Matt and I'm a new mom to Mason. He's only 10 months old and yes he's at home in Australia so five days away. We've got two dogs and a cat and I actually live to travel so that's another reason for starting my own business in this industry. What do I do? As Lana said, I'm the owner and creative director at Brandshack, a web design studio with clients in Sydney and Melbourne and we do some work for a business in Singapore. I've got a keen interest in user experience design but my day to day involves involved hands on web design and project management. So I've now just scaled back to project management. And why listen to me? So I've touched on this already. So I work on an average five hours a day, three days a week. I take days off on those days as and when needed and I work from anywhere I choose. So that's Mason. One of the reasons I do what I do now. This is Mason in Bali where we spent a month in April and that was my office the other day. So big reasons why I do what I do and how I've made it work for me. So before we dive too deep into the five steps, I want you to think about why you do what you do. So some of the reasons in this industry come to mind are freedom, working from home, travel, family, money. For me initially it was always about the travel and it will continue to be. I could work from anywhere. I could get a connection whether it be Peru, Lombok, LA. Don't try and work from Cuba because it won't happen. But now that family is a new element and flexible hours working from home has become a real priority. Sorry. Why is your why important? So how many times have you not been able to relate to your client, their business or their goals? Have you noticed that it's these projects that tend to be the ones that become harder than expected? So always remember your why. Sorry, I'm reading. I should have reread this again. And if your why doesn't align with a project, ditch it. I have permission to share a colleague's story. So last year she went through a bit of a transition herself. She really looked at the job she enjoyed doing. And it came down to she split off into two separate new niches. So the main and the most obvious was being for her was working with charities, non-profits and startups. And the second and what I think is the most exciting is her passion to mentor and coach graphic designers and teach them how to be web designers. She loves sharing her knowledge and seeing others succeed. So she's turned that into a successful business model. So what are the five steps? So before I start, I want to point out that this is a really basic overview. Each one of these steps could be a whole presentation in its own. And if you want to chat about any of them in more detail, feel free. I'm around tonight, tomorrow. So I'm more than happy to chat to everyone. And it's something that I'm really passionate about. So please, let's chat. All right. So what are the five steps? So documenting processes, implementing recurring revenue streams, increasing your rates, hiring staff, and setting boundaries. Give everyone a chance to take a photo. So let's start with documenting processes. It's really important. Sorry. Oh, it went really far back. Sorry, I tried to be fancy. There you go. All right. So documenting processes. It's really important for a number of reasons. Biggest ones are hiring staff and the saleability of your business. Without documented processes, you really have no business. Okay. So make the time. I don't have time, you say. Set aside a window every week for business development. You are here at WordCamp because you genuinely care about what you do. When I started my business and obviously I was really, really quiet, I set aside every Wednesday each week to work on business development. Now, not even now, but last year it was down to a couple of hours before I ramped it up before I went on leave. Okay. So be detailed. Every task you do can be documented down to the finest of details. So things to include a purpose of the process, why it's important, what you need before doing it. So the tools, the content, logins, et cetera. The actual steps to do it. So the actual process of how it gets done, what done looks like. So an example of the actual outcome, a checklist to complete, confirm completion, and what to do if you have a problem and who to contact. So we use Google sites and this is an example of what it looks like in a sec. I can share these slides with everyone if you want. So it's really, really simple basic Google site. Once I've done one, I could copy and paste it into all the different processes. So a bonus tip, create email templates for common emails you send. So an example, a few examples of the type of emails that we've got templated, welcome, onboarding. They actually are automated as well. So they just go straight into automation. Design and development proof emails. So proof one, proof two, approval emails, reporting emails, answers to common questions. We also add them to our fax pages. They come up and we use Evernote to store our email templates. So we can access them easily from anywhere. So the next one, implement recurring revenue streams. So this can help take some of the pressure off and this is how I changed my business to be able to take six months off. So to this day, I'm still not worrying about where my next project's coming. I actually have no new projects since coming back from leave. I haven't gone looking for them and I'm not stressed about finding them. So some sources of recurring revenue. I'd say half of us at least are doing website maintenance. Are we? Website maintenance? Okay, so it's compulsory for, it has to be compulsory for your clients. So you've built them a website. What happens next? Are you letting them look after it, maintain it, update it, back it up? So we only work with clients on new projects who will invest in keeping their website up to date, optimized and secure. We include the first three months as part of the project to show value and if they choose not to proceed with ongoing maintenance and in the future they need changes on their site we'll refer them to someone who's happy to take them on in this manner. Taking on existing previous clients that don't maintain their site, it's a horrible project isn't it? So it's just a rule we've set and it works. We probably have nearly 100% conversion rate from new projects going on to maintenance plans. So hosting, not clicking the button, sorry, hosting. So many hosts offer reselling packages. I choose my hosts based on support and I prefer live chat. I hate being on the phone. Affiliates are another way to earn money through hosting. In our company we personally work with SiteGround to resell packages and WP Engine as an affiliate but there are hundreds of options to choose from and you need to find one that's reliable for working with you. Finding an affiliate program that works for you is an awesome alternative so yeah. SEO, PPC, social content management. Create packages and offer them as add-ons for your clients. You can outsource these as necessary or work with other contractors. You don't have to be at gun at everything. So all these things I'm talking about you don't need to do it all. So you can refer and get a referral fee. You don't have to do it all. Trying to be an expert at everything is something that can contribute to being overwhelmed and on the verge of burnout. You shouldn't be everything for every project. So retainers. So you're sick of sending invoices to the same clients for odd jobs. Probably two years ago a lot of my invoices were for $150, $300, $70. That takes time and it costs money. So the same clients are getting the same like odd jobs done in here and there. How about forgetting to invoice completely? I still do it now for those clients that I haven't managed yet on retainers. So three months will go by and I have to invoice for the last three months worth of odd jobs. That can be a little awkward sending them an invoice that late. The simplest answer is retainers or time blocks. You invoice less often and have to set up and have set up recurring revenues so you don't forget. The only time I'll offer discounted rates is for retainers or time blocks simply because they decrease the amount of admin work. So last year this was my big goal was implementing recurring revenue streams. I've gone from nearly 100% project-based income to 75% of my income goal recurring revenue. Hence why I'm not out there looking for a lot of new work right now. So increasing your rates, undercharging your clients, okay don'ts first. So who here has charged less than $1,000 for a website? I have significantly discounted websites for family or friends. I have started a project, undercharged, lost interest and ended up being a horrible experience for everyone. Okay so undercharging your clients is not only detrimental to your business but it does the client an actual disservice. You can't help anyone if your business isn't profitable. So quick side note, undercharging also devalues our industry. It's really hard for clients to understand the value of our work when we're not charging enough for our time, our knowledge and our services. Increasing our rates will benefit our whole community. Okay so things to do, work with less clients. Pick and choose the clients that you enjoy working with. The values align. This is something that again has changed my business. So I don't work with everyone. I'm happy to say no and but I do have a base of other designers and developers that I can refer that work onto that they might be better suited to. It's better for me, it's better for them. We're all going to enjoy the project a little bit more. Dive deeper into projects so you can spend more time with these clients. You can dive deeper into their wants and needs. You can spend time researching the best solution and take the time to implement it in the best way possible. So by working with less clients and charging more, I'm able to offer them a better solution. I'm not rushing through their job to get to the next one, to get to the next payday. Simply offer a better service. You can be more available to those clients. You're not managing five projects a month, you've only got one or two. Have time for a weekly catch-up and a review of their project. Communication is key on all parts. When I first started we'd go two or three weeks working on a project and not having any input from the client. All of a sudden the client sees what we've done and they're like oh okay, they've got no idea. By giving them a weekly update saying this is what we've done this week, this is our plan for the next week and this is what we need from you, that communication adds value to them. They know where we're at. They understand a little bit better. Okay, so challenge. I'd love for everyone in this room to charge 20 percent more on their next project. So there's a bit of a, so then you can keep increasing until you start getting pushback. You'll be surprised at how far you'll get. Be confident with your value. Do not compete based on price. Do not negotiate. Do not discount. Know your worth and you'll be surprised what happens. So I did this probably three years ago. I'm still doing it. Okay, so next. Higher staff. So this is where documenting processes comes in really handy. Deciding what tasks you want to hand over to someone else in advance. When I took on my first part timer, I used a project management app to create a set of tasks I wanted her to complete and I set them up as recurring based on on when I needed her to do them. From simple things like signing on that day via Skype and sending me an email of what she achieved that day in the afternoon to more detailed tasks such as blog writing with briefs ready to go and setting up social media such schedules. Having this ready before her first day allowed her to be more confident when as she needed, she knew what she needed to do and now two years later has led to her managing her own tasks with zero input from me. She knows what's expected of her and she actually generates work without me needing to to get too involved. So I'll get emails at the end of day saying, Hey, we've noticed we're missing this opportunity with this client. I'm going to email them tomorrow. I'm constantly replying great work. Let's do that. Can we and I'm and I'm saying, Okay, so there's another opportunity with this client. Did you want to take control of that? So it's fantastic and it came down to having everything documented before she started. So should you outsource or employ? Oh, so what to outsource? See, I didn't what kind of jobs can you outsource? Jobs you don't like. So he likes bookkeeping, accounting, admin and emails. There's VA's bookkeepers and accountants for that. Jobs you aren't good at. I'm not a copywriter and I'm not a developer. So I have those, those people around me. Jobs you don't have time for social media, blogging and sales. Should you outsource or employ? What's the difference? So we outsource and employ. We outsource through a number of avenues. The longest, oh, she's now apart. She's now our full-time staff member, but our longest standing staff member was through an agency and that works well. She feels supported by her peers at the agency and receives additional ongoing training. Employing in house at the time was something I couldn't take on. But I was involved quite a bit of it in my previous corporate life. There's a lot more responsibly legally and financially speaking and it's not for everyone. If you haven't hired before, start without sourcing. So where to find staff? So I've used a couple of these. Some work better than others. They work different for everyone. Online jobs.ph Upwork. Agencies like Outsourcing Angel we've had great success with. Networking. WordCamp. There's a jobs board outside. And I had a job last year that I called out for. Okay, setting boundaries. Boundaries are a really personal decision and these are just some suggestions based on what have worked for me. I'm a bit of a tough cookie when it comes to boundaries and I have zero issue with firing clients who don't respect them. Okay, so set boundaries for clients, staff and yourself. So a few opportunities here are turning off email notifications on your phone or removing them completely. Those little buggers are distracting. Broomerang for Gmail is also great for allowing your reply in your own time. So there's times where we all work at nine o'clock at night. We don't want our clients to know that so you can use the app to send it at 10 o'clock the next morning. Where are we? The do not disturb feature on your phone. Mine goes from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. So I don't, unless I go looking for text messages, Facebook or anything like that, I don't see it. And use a support ticket system and not emails for client support. And you only need to check that once or twice a day. My clients, if there's an emergency, they have my mobile number but they're very aware that they don't call it unless it's an emergency and they're actually educated on what an emergency is. So an emergency is not uploading a blog. Implement set hours of work. Separate your work and personal time. Set times to action certain tasks. So for example, I check my emails at 10 and three only. Broomerang also has a really cool pause feature so your emails don't tick through into your inbox. I do understand that we're mostly business owners and it isn't always realistic. But the goal is to make my working hours out of hours a rare exception and not the rule. Have a communications policy. So mine is obviously super strict and it's not for everyone and I hate talking on the phone. So 99% of communication is via email. Before I start working with a client there is a form that they fill out and one of the question is are you comfortable working mostly through email? This isn't to say that we don't have phone calls it's just to say that the majority of contact is via email. I do have a business number which goes to a voicemail and then is sent to me via email which is amazing. It also weeds out the telemarketers so I don't pick up the phone waste time wasting with telemarketers. And once a site goes live maintenance clients have access to my mobile number with strict instructions to text an emergency with clear expectations around what constitutes an emergency. Yes, it's harsh. The key here is communicating the purpose behind the policy. So I explain to my clients at the less time I spend on my phone the more time I have to work on their projects and effectively keeps their bills down. It's super simple. So I'm happy to share this policy with anyone if you'd like. Just have a chat to me later pass me your email and I'll send it out. Take it tweak it and just make it your own. Okay, so couple of little extra tips that you might find useful. Take a business development course. I'm a really big fan in the last four years I've probably done three. Okay, so a couple I recommend WP Elevation with Troy Dean. I think there's probably quite a few people in the room that have done it. Build a business that works without you. I don't think Charlie does this anymore. I'll have to check. Jennifer Bourne profitable project plan. She's actually retweaking that so it's going to be three courses in one over the space of a year. So that would be really good value. Reward yourself set goals weekly monthly quarterly and set appropriate awards. Weekly might be a dinner out with a friend. Yearly could be that holiday where you've had your eye on. Do not disturb. Use do not disturb on your phone. It's genius. And walk away. So if you're suffering from mental block or frustration simply walk away. Take 15 minutes to do something non-work related. Go for a walk outside. If it's really bad I watch a show on Netflix. Okay, some final thoughts. Healthy work life balance benefits everyone. So it's not just about you. It's great for your business. Your staff, your clients, your family and friends. Makes it easier to get up and for work in the morning. Helps you focus on your family and personal life with less distractions. It will reduce anxiety. It will help you with longevity in your business. Start with just one or two changes. I've shared a lot today and I've only touched very briefly on it. And it can seem a little overwhelming and not everything will be right for everyone. Start with one or two of the actions that resonate with you and you'll start to see a difference quite quickly. As I mentioned before, I've already said that. Happy to chat with anyone. So feel free to get in touch. If you want to copy other slides or that onboarding document, you're more than welcome and I'll send it over. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you. There's another one. So I do apologize. Do I am I still on? I do apologize for standing behind there. The baby brain is real. Hello, I'm Liu. Can you share about how you dropped the contract? Like a proposal, like a contract? Like a proper shirt, a proper shirt and a given contract. I initially used the one I said contract killer. There's a template online and I believe it's free. So if you're using software like better proposals or something like that, there's heaps of templates. But you tweak it and make it your own and use your own voice. And then again, that helps attract the clients that are going to work best with you. So mine, as I'm very blunt, I say it like it is and I say it upfront. So I don't hide the fact that I hide behind email. I'm an introvert. I don't hide that I'm strict if we're going to meet. We're going to meet at a certain time. And if you don't show up, you get charged. So that's all in my contract so that they know that straight up. Clients that don't work like that don't work with me and that's fine. So contract templates. So there are plenty online. Do you use a proposal software? No. So better proposals I used for a really long time. I'm just in the middle of moving to dub-sardo. So the contracts there are not as in-depth. Okay. Hello, I'm Ada. Hi Ada. You mentioned that every Wednesday you would have been doing business development activities. So can you share more about what are the business development activities? So when I first started my business, I joined WP Elevation really quickly and it was a game changer for me because I was starting from scratch. I didn't really have a business beforehand. So I was able to implement a lot of the tools really quickly. I've done a couple of courses since then as well which is just that's kind of what I do in that time. When I'm not doing a course, I'm constantly working on things like automating tools in my business to free up time, working on templates. And I've just set a new goal to start looking at contributing to WordPress. So whilst that's not business development, it's about making connections for my business as well. So yeah, there's plenty to do. Hello, my name is Rafa. I was at the talk before about niching down for your business. I see that you're still out for a broad range of services. Do you consider niching down? I am niched down to working with only complex websites. So we only do large e-commerce or e-learning websites. We don't do brochure sites anymore. And I fell into the retainer business of being kind of a marketing consultant for clients and I have people around me that do that work. So I don't do it myself. So I have in my team a developer and someone that manages content and then outside of that. So AdWords goes somewhere else. Yeah, so that's all calculated into that. That retainer and I pay those people under my umbrella I guess. So project management is the key here. Hi, I'm Maruti from India. Hi. We're talk thanks for sharing. Thank you. I want to know like usually like you said it's a 40 hours a week and 50 if you had commuting out. And now you are like three days working five hours making it 15. I would like to know why you did that. You said but particularly why you did that and how you did that. Yeah. And how did you like what do you follow and I'm pretty sure it would happen over the night and what kept you motivated to do that. Okay. So I've always been so I suffered burnout in the corporate industry in a different role. So I wasn't a web designer. I was in a marketing role and I suffered burnout big time. And that was my decision to move and work for myself. When I became really serious about changing the way I ran my business and that I wanted to run my business and not have it run me. It was about 19 months ago and I felt pregnant. So my choices were to make it work so I could spend time with my son or close my business. So I made that decision for nine months. I had my head down, worked really hard with my two permanent staff members. And I'm just really lucky that they're amazing and I had the processes in place for them to kind of take over. I never disappeared completely. Best thing about a newborn is for the first three months they sleep. So I was able to keep in touch with clients and kind of watch what was going on very easily. After that it got a bit harder. And by six months he was in daycare those three days a week. But still I'm not working long hours. And I think because I've spoken about this with a couple of people because I've got it to a point where we're all comfortable. It's working well. I haven't found the motivation yet to go out and find more projects. So that has to come eventually. Something will change and we'll start growing again and getting more team members. But right now we're all sort of very happy with where we're sitting and how much work I have to do. Hi, I'm Carl from the Philippines. And you mentioned that don't get clients below $1,000. So would you mind sharing where do you get through? Okay. So and there's probably a bit of a difference between Australian and some of the countries over here because the rates of pay are different. So that was just an example number. I myself don't take clients under seven and a half now. I just pulled that number out because for me that's the minimum amount we need to make to pay for my staff, for me to be paid, for my business to be profitable. Those are the numbers you've got to look at. So how much you want to take home? How many jobs you want to work on a month? So that's what I'd be looking at is how much you want to work in a month? How many clients you can comfortably take on in the hours you want to work? And it's about adding value in that time for your clients so that they can justify paying it. So that's all right. I'm Colleen. I'm from India. And I don't know about this design at the moment as you can see. My question is like you're working 15 hours a day, 15 hours a week. So don't you ever feel like you can do more? You are losing all of some money or you can have a better life than let's say a year if you are working 40 hours a week and not 15 hours? So an example week on Mondays, we wake up, I go for a walk with my son, we come home he has a nap. I quickly check emails just to make sure everything's running smoothly and I check in with my staff member that works on Monday. He wakes up, we go to the park. We go back, he has lunch, he goes to bed. The same thing, I just quickly check. So I'm a business owner, I'm still going to check and make sure everything's running smoothly. That's never, I don't think that'll ever disappear. In the afternoon we play, his dad comes home, we spend time together, he goes to bed, I'm not going to work at night. Come Tuesday it's very similar except for the hours between 10 and 3. I'm actually at my desk doing work, physical work, whether it's just project management, a little bit of design, which I don't touch on very often anymore. So that kind of continues throughout the week. My week is full with a little one. And I guess at one point I will want to take on more and I'm working on niching a little bit and having my messaging around the right websites that I want to take on. But because I've built my business to be sustainable without taking those projects on, I can get my business now ready to do that in the right way. So I'm not having to take on the bottom feeders to keep paying everyone if that makes sense. So the goal is there to go out and keep building, definitely. But at the moment I don't have to and I don't want to. Yeah, simple as that. Hi Eddie, thanks for the talk. I think one of the key ingredients for that I hear mentioned often is maintenance plans, right? But how does the maintenance plans work if you're only working three days a week? Have you? As soon as you're going to see? My developer. So he works, my developer works 20 hours a week and he works permanently Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And he's genuinely on call Tuesday and Wednesdays if needed. He works, he's permanent on those three days for me and on the other two he works with other people that I know as well. So he's genuinely able to sort of fix things in the mean. Worst case, I'm on on the two days that he's off so I can generally manage something whether I go to the hosting company and sort it out. So I've kind of scheduled our time so that there's always someone there that can do it if that makes sense. My permanent staff, full-time staff member works Monday to Friday, nine to five. So all inquiries tend to go through her and she for them filters them out to who they need and she communicates with the clients, turn around and some things like that. So everyone's like, no one's emails are sitting there unanswered. And so that I think that's it, communication is key with things like that. Yeah, I also have another thing, my out-of-office is on all the time and that's not saying that I'm out of office, it's saying these are my hours I work, this is why I do it and this is the process if something has gone wrong and so because standard people email yourself, email you as the business owner all the time. It's about educating them to email either support or our project. Hello, Matt. Hi, Nellie, that is a beautiful presentation. Thank you. So I'm Hassan from Bangladesh and I have an interesting question like if you have a few clients who love to work with you but at some point two of them came back but you have time for only one. So how do you say no to a good client without risking losing them? Well, if you've got to say no, you find someone. Without risking losing them that they'll come back to you. You find someone you trust or you hire. So there's been times where people have come to me and I haven't wanted to work with them because it's not a right fit but there's also been times where it's not a right fit for me in my life. So I've had to turn people away because I didn't want to take on projects that are seven months pregnant because I knew it wasn't going to finish at the time that I was going to be able to give them that attention. So having people that work in the industry that you work with, you talk to all the time that you bounce ideas off is really important and you can create relationships with those people to share work. So I've got a really close knit group of web designers and developers. One was actually pregnant just before myself all her clients, her out of office was if there's any issues go to Hailey when I went on leave. It was I had my team set up but if I had any projects come in that I couldn't take on I did pass them over to her and have a contract. So we did have a contract saying that there was referral fees. So we were both paid if something happened. Her clients went back to her because she had a good relationship with them and it's again communication. So I was very clear with my clients that I was pregnant. That's the reason I couldn't take it on. Shoals going to look after you. Shoals amazing. And just having that rapport with them they've come back and hers it's gone back to her. So but I also have a good relationship with them as well. So yeah. Thank you everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone.