1-on-1 with Patrick is a series of web design coaching sessions for wannabe web designers.
In this episode we have Carla Montano from Venezuela! We discuss:
- Where Carla is at in her web design journey
- Building a bilingual web design business
- Using social media to get your first web design clients
- Injecting your unique personality into your brand
- Building your web design business with passive income as a priority
- Deciding what to charge for your web design services as a complete newb
- The importance of personal dedication
- Closing thoughts
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Tools & Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- Elementor
- Weebly
- Pricing Web Design Services
- Building Passive Income With Web Design
- Staying Focused and Committed
- Building a Unique Brand
Episode Transcript
Where Carla is At in Her Web Design Journey
Patrick: Hey, Carla.
Carla: Hey, how are you?
Patrick: I’m pretty good, yourself?
Carla: I’m good, can you hear me good?
Patrick: Yeah, that’s great. Sorry, are you a teacher?
Carla: Yes, I’m a teacher. I teach Spanish.
Patrick: Okay. So you’re in a Mississippi, you said?
Carla: Yes Mississippi.
Patrick: Okay great. How long have you been there?
Carla: Oh, I have been in the area for about six years. Six years now? Yes, here in Mississippi two years, but I have been in the same area.
Patrick: Okay. I used to live in Texas for four years, so I’ve been to Mississippi. I had some friends that used to live there. So not too far away, maybe we can start with you telling me about where you’re at with your web design journey so far and where you could use some help.
Carla: Okay so in the very beginning of my journey, I have been learning signs. A few years ago, coding and I really liked it, but eh, I kind of dug in more into WordPress and Elementor this year. So I like both things actually. But yeah, so I have, from the release of the build your business in 24 hours, I have some of the stuff that’s already done that I actually started before. Eh, the thing is I was branding myself like a tech VA or to general doing systems and tech and web design but right now I don’t want to be doing that many things. So I just want to stay with web design, so I’m kind of okay, how should do I need some and all of that.
Patrick: Okay so yeah, you’re basically before you’re trying to be a VA, you said like a virtual assistant or basically everything under the sun. That’s a common problem is we oftentimes when first starting out, we try to be everything to everyone. And then we ended up being nothing to everyone because we don’t Excel in one particular area. So it’s good that you’re trying to niche down. Have you given some, any thought as to what kind of niche you would like to do?
Carla: I was, that’s a thing. I was pretty sure when I said, okay, I’m going to do this meeting down in the wellness and sports area, because that is my background. So I’m a PE teacher, a former PE teacher. So since I came to the, US I haven’t in that area, there was a Spanish. And also I have the personal training. I’m a certified personal training and different things so I liked, I will like to work in that area, eh, but the first person that was guiding me was a VA and has been a VA. So she kind of guided me towards that more than just to say with that niche and just miss out as a tech VA into whatever offer, whatever you can. So I love that area. I was thinking on getting into businesses, small businesses, but there is too much, I mean, too many people offering to small businesses. So I’m not sure if niching down us, the web design for the design and for a wellness in sports will be yes. Enough or because I also have done the research around me about small businesses, restaurants, or cafes that they don’t have websites. So I don’t know.
Building a Bilingual Web Design Business
Patrick: Okay so yeah, it sounds like you’re still trying to kind of narrow that down a little bit. Would you be designing; have you given some thought as to whether you’d be designing websites in English or Spanish or both?
Carla: That’s my other thing because here in the US, I am mostly with US citizens, Americans in my day-to-day it, my kids, they play sports. So I’m with a lot of parents and coaches in all of that. That is one thing that I like, and I like to do being in the field of sports because I have a lot of contact with a lot of coaches. So in all of them is in English. So I have a lot of people in my Facebook and all of that, which are back from back home. I’m from Venezuela and a lot of people around everywhere speak Spanish. So I like to like have two websites or one for Spanish, small businesses, and one for English sports.
Patrick: Well, yeah. So yeah, there’s a lot of potential there. I think there’s, I think first off it’s a huge advantage that you are bilingual, that you can do English and Spanish and there’s tons of Spanish speakers in the United States, right? Like it’s, it’s the second language. I’m pretty sure it’s a million and millions and millions of people speak Spanish. So you can look at it two ways, either you could cater to Spanish speakers who are starting their own business, like small business owners who are primarily native Spanish speakers or small business owners that are natively English, but are also trying to cater or offer their services or products to a Spanish speaking customers. So like you could build a site for a local business in both English and Spanish and I think that is an advantage because there are so many Spanish speakers and Spanish in itself is I don’t want to say it’s a niche because there’s so many Spanish speakers, but it is a niche within the United States to a certain extent.
So I would probably give some thought as to what it takes to build a multi-lingual websites, not as hard as you think. It really is, especially if you’re building with WordPress, you can integrate some pretty simple plugins that will help manage languages. I’ve built websites with Chinese as the second language. It really just comes down to getting the translation correct. Making sure that’s done properly instead of just using Google translate, which so many people will just auto translate stuff and then it doesn’t make sense right? Yeah I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of that. It doesn’t, you have to translate the idea and the thought behind it, not just word for word. So the fact that you can do that in both English and Spanish that’s I think that’s a big advantage you might have. So I’d maybe give some thought as to even building your own website in both English and Spanish and trying to draw customers from both sides of the aisle, so to speak. Have you thought about that?
Carla: Yes I have.
Patrick: Yeah. That would be, that’d be my first thought. The second would be, I guess you’re trying to figure out how to market yourself, what your brand would look like, correct?
Carla: Yes.
Patrick: So where are you at with that so far?
Using Social Media to Get Your First Web Design Clients
Carla: I said I was branding myself as a tech VA, so I’m in that process of, okay, now let me figure out what I’m going to do. So I can market myself as just web designer in this. I know that you are not a fan of Facebook and social. Media, the lady that was guiding me, she is a fan of Facebook. And all you have to do is promote yourself in Facebook and Instagram and all of that.
Patrick: Don’t listen to her, it’s a trap. I’m just kidding. Yeah, I get it. I get why so many people like it. I get the value that can come from it for sure just a personal choice for me that I don’t enjoy it. I understand that it’s even some people recognize it as a unnecessary evil. They might not enjoy it much it, but they recognize that literally billions of people use social media every day and it is a great way to market your business if done right. The particular like it’s so much more competitive now, like you used to in the early days, it was it was quite easy. I don’t want to say easy, but a lot easier. The organic reach of these posts would just; you can get all this free attention, free followers and free rankings of your posts.
That’s long gone and now it’s basically has two options. You either pay for ads to make your posts show up in front of your ideal audience or you network, which is probably what your friend was guiding you to do is join Facebook groups, meet people go where your audiences, so to speak groups of who your niche is and try to be useful, add value answer their questions, things like that, and, and be visible. That’s probably the most valuable way to use something like Facebook these days. I would think so. I won’t discourage you from doing that not at all. That’s just a personal choice of mine that I went the SEO route, the long-term route with search engine optimization versus a short-term is social media. But it sounds to me like you still have to decide whether you want to be a web designer or a VA.
Carla: No, no, no, no. I want to be just a web designer.
Patrick: Okay so yeah, your then your friend is correct in that that could work for you. But before you do any of that, you really have to have your own setup. So do you have a website yet?
Carla: I do have my website, eh, and working on that. So I got my domain with my name and so I’m not sure if just keeping my name or just get a branding name or
Patrick: So is that, is it like Carlamontano.com?
Carla: Yes with M
Patrick: All right. I’m going to check that out.
Carla: It’s not, it’s not live is on.
Patrick: Oh, okay. So you just have the domain?
Carla: Yes.
Patrick: Got you
Injecting Your Unique Personality Into Your Brand
Carla: Yes I started working on it, but I’m assigned one that where to niche down and what to do. I’m working on the, let me see if there is not that much in there. So at the beginning I was building a full website with all the nav-bar and home services about me and all of that. So, but now I’m like, you know what I want to do just one page and get everything in there and grow later.
Patrick: Yeah. That’s a good idea. Keep it simple, especially when you’re first starting out. That’s exactly what I did. I only had one page on my site for years actually. I kept it very simple, kept it focused. So try not to overwhelm yourself right from the start. But with regards to brand, so you have your name, if you want to do it under your name. That’s great and it’s awesome that you were even able to find that domain available under your name because sometimes if you have a common name, I don’t know how common Carla Montano is, but sometimes it it’ll already be taken. So that’s good that you can find that. So now you got to build a brand around your name, so who are you? What’s what your interests are? What are your likes? What will people, what do you want, how do you speak, how do you think, what do you want people to think about you and feel about you and how do you connect with people on a more personal level?
That’s kind of where your; how you have to think about your brand. So for example I did something like I redesigned my blog page, a blog design page recently on my website. And I gave it a lot of thought as to, okay. What are some things that bloggers stereotypical, stereotypical things about bloggers what are some common connections about what either, what bloggers do or what bloggers think or feel or have to deal with on a day-to-day basis and right away, my thing was cats. Because I always see pictures of people that are working on their laptops and the cat is like trying to get their attention. They’re like lying on the keyboard or like piecing at their hand or I’ve seen so many of those pictures and videos and they’re pretty funny. And so I kind of made it, I didn’t make it the whole theme of the page, but I just added a little, I made a cartoon cat as like a mascot.
So it would, it would just pop up around the page. As you scroll down, doing different things, like there’ll be a cat on a laptop or a cat drinking coffee and that was kind of like the theme for the page. And it, wasn’t the whole theme, but it’s just like a, it’s just like a nice little thing to laugh out or smile about. And it still made sense within the context of the service I was offering. So you could do something like that with any niche really. Let’s say you’re niching to do well let’s say you’re building websites for fitness trainers or wellness. Like you’re talking about, you could do just pick any type of animal and have it, instead of it could be like a, what’s something that is often considered fit. I was going to say, I mean, cats are pretty good for everything these days. What do you think of when you think of like a healthy, energetic animal?
Carla: Lion!
Patrick: A lion? Yeah, so that’s type of cat. So let’s say you have a lion and he’s like the little mascot for the page and he’s like lifting weights or doing jumping jacks, doing these different things or meditating, whatever, like whatever these doing different health practices that still fit around your brand and the service you’re offering. And it’s a small thing, but it goes a little extra mile and it makes people smile. And it shows your personality so little things like that can go a long way. So when you’re thinking about your brand and who you are and the things you like, try to give some thought as to that, like, do you like animals? Do you like nature? Do you like video games? Like what are your hobbies and kind of inject your personality into, into your brand.
Carla: Okay that sounds nice. I never thought about it, but yes, for me, sports,
Patrick: Sports, sweet. I love sports. What’s your favorite?
Carla: So I played my whole life table tennis but as I did P E as a profession, I had to do everything a little bit of everything. So yeah I love sports. My kids play baseball, volleyball, some ball, they are, its sports life.
Patrick: That’s perfect. Yeah. So what if you added some kind of sports theme around your brand?
Carla: Okay.
Patrick: Because that’s something you’re passionate about.
Carla: Without nicheing down specifically in sports.
Patrick: You could, you don’t to so there are kind of two ways of thinking about this. There’s basically designing a page or marketing towards a specific niche, and then there is your brand and who you are. And to me, if that’s something you’re passionate about sports in general, that’s something you grew up with. I would make that kind of a part of your, be open about that. It’s not like you have to make the whole page about sports. It’s just add little things here or there that kind of stand out. Like, I love hockey, that’s my favorite sport and a lot of the content that I write or talk about, whether it’s a podcast or a blog post or a video I’ll just drop in here or there about like a little anecdote about hockey or how I’m a Montreal Canadians fan, I’ll have like a meme about hockey.
Like, and it just kind of, it’s not the feature of the whole thing, but it just adds a little seasoning, a little spice to, and people get to know me on a personal level. And, I’ve had people reach out and be like, Hey; I’m a Montreal Canadians fan too. And then they ended up being a website client. Like, it sounds weird, but people connect with people, they don’t connect with faceless brands. And if you’re a one-man or one-woman business, then it’s all about you. You are the brand, you’re the personality so don’t be too shy or afraid to make, to show people what you’re like and what you enjoy, and you’d be surprised what people can, will connect on. So maybe, and maybe there’s even something like from your Venezuelan culture or background is a certain type of food or something you used to do back home. I don’t know like it could be anything that means something to you.
Carla: Yeah that’s a good idea.
Patrick: Yeah, for sure. Take your time.
Building Your Web Design Business With Passive Income as a Priority
Carla: Okay and I’m really into the passive income side making yes. At the beginning, I was thinking that part of hosting was kind of, that I could do it under my own posting it, just getting a domain for another person and being in my own hosting. I know, or I have been listening to the different ways to do it, but it’s still kind of not that clear of how to do it.
Patrick: Yeah so there’s a few different ways to, you’re talking about specifically offering hosting, correct?
Carla: Yes, in maintenance.
Patrick: In maintenance yeah, so does it does a number of different ways to do it? Reselling hosting is basically you partner with a web host and a lot of web hosting companies do this. They have a package that literally says reseller hosting, and they’ll charge you a certain rate for that hosting. And then you can turn around and you can sell it to your customers and make out with a higher margin, higher profit. But the hosting has done all of their, they take care of all the work, they manage it and they maintain it. You basically just, you use them as your backend. Every time you take a client who wants hosting, you say, I have another one; they’ll have different processes of how to actually set it up depending on the company.
But the idea is that you’re literally you’re reselling hosting. So they sell it to you at like a wholesale rate kind of like a warehouse rate and then you’re the retailer. You’re the front shop and you sell it at retail price or what your price is. So that’s one way to do it and that’s how I started doing it in the beginning. I used a company called big scoots. It’s a funny name, but great service. The number one thing you want from a great reseller is customer service. You want someone that’s responsive because you’re going to run into issues. Anytime you do hosting or maintaining websites, you’ll come, you’ll run into problems and you’ll need their help. And you want someone that’s going to be fast. And they were always very fast for me, even when they messed up; they were quick to communicate things.
That’s the most important thing to me. So big scoots are what I used, but again, there are many you can choose from. So I would just do a little research, just keep in mind that when you are doing research about it, if you Google something like best reseller hosting, you’re just going to get a bunch of blog posts of people who are trying to get affiliate sales. Yeah, they’ll just all recommend Blue host because Blue host pays them $120 per referral or something so it’s not necessarily a legit information. It’s a little bit tainted. I had all the ones, all the services and companies that I recommend. I always make sure it’s something that I’ve used personally and that I really like. And if I don’t like them anymore, I say so like I tell people, I told people for years to go to Weebly and I tell them not to, it’s not going to only use Weebly.
If you’re, if you’re building a website for yourself personally, if you’re doing a web design business, don’t use them. But anyway, so yeah, reseller hosting, that’s the way, the first way to do it. Second would be more advanced which is what I ended up working towards. I ended up leasing my own server. It’s called a dedicated server. So what reseller hosting is you’re sharing a server with thousands of other websites. It’s a big server that all these websites are sharing resources together. But it’s cheaper. And that’s the cost benefit type thing. It’s more cost-effective but as a result, you have to share these resources with other, other people, a dedicated server is more expensive, but it means that it’s yours. No one, you don’t have to share your resources with anyone else, but you and your clients.
And the advantage of that is better performance. You get better loading speeds, better security, et cetera, et cetera. So I ended up leasing a once my business grew, I ended up leasing my own dedicated server. And because I didn’t want to get into server management because that requires day to day stuff that I just, I like building websites and maintaining the websites themselves. I don’t want to get into server stuff and IT stuff. So I basically hired someone part-time to kind of maintain it for me. But like I said, that’s something that comes along once your business grows and you can afford it, you can afford to do that. So that’s what I’m doing now so those are the two main ways. There’s also a much, there’s a third way. It’s basically affiliate sales, which is basically what I just told you about what people do with blog posts, where someone clicks a link you refer to someone.
Then you refer people to someone and you get a cut of it. That’s the smallest way to make passive income. And for someone that’s just starting out like you, I would say it’s the least genuine way because you don’t really know which host is great. You haven’t used any yet so you’re kind of just picking one and saying, Hey, I got their link. And just go with these people without actually knowing or experiencing what they’re like. So I personally would recommend not doing that, but it is the easiest. So many people choose to do that, so I always recommend for people that are just starting out, get the reseller, hosting. Sign up with a company and try out the reseller hosting. That’s the most efficient way to get passive income and it’s good for you. And it’s most importantly; it’s good for your customer. You have to think about what’s best for them too.
Deciding What to Charge For Your Web Design Services as a Complete Newb
Carla: Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely! Let’s see, the other thing is pricing.
Patrick: What about pricing?
Carla: I’m not sure how to set the price pricing, because I want to offer maintenance, offer like a package of maintenance. So I’m not sure because I haven’t built any page for another person. I know that at the beginning, I might need to do some for free. I know I already started to do one for a friend that has a little company, a construction company. Let’s see. What do you think and for a really simple one simple, simple one, but I want to have something said before I start getting out with my branding and all of that in my pay of course.
Patrick: Yeah pricing is one of the most common questions I get. And one of the biggest struggles people has, especially when they’re starting out. Like you said, you’re going to have to do your first few websites for free, or at least for quite cheap, you need to build a portfolio. That’s just the reality by doing that, you’ll get more practice so you’ll refine your skills, get better at it. And you’ll also have something to show actual prospective clients when they visit your site, they show they can see your work and you will get reviews. It’s a very important that for every website you do, even if it’s for free, get them to review you on Google, set up a Google profile, Google my business account.
Carla: I have it.
Patrick: Yeah that already sweet. So make sure that that’s part of the deal. You give them, you build it for free, but you need, they need to give you a review. That’s very important so that’s what you have to do in the beginning. Once you get past that and you’re trying to figure out pricing, I there’s a lot of different ways to go about pricing. People actually, it’s funny watching web designers fight over this because there’s like, there’s a lot of different ways to go about it. And some web designers get upset at others for basically doing it for too cheap because it lowers the bar for the whole industry. Anyways, it’s a bunch of nonsense. It’s entirely up to you. What you want to charge, what you think your value is. The way I went about it in the beginning and the way I still go about it is how much do I want to make per hour? How many hours will this website take me to build simple as that. The reason why that’s less effective in the beginning and why you have to be more reasonable is that it’s going to take you longer to build websites because you’re, you don’t have that practice skill yet, which is why you have to, you have to kind of offer more discounts in the beginning, but once you get good, once you get into a rhythm and once you build processes and you’re doing this thing and building each website is just followed step by step by step and you know the whole thing, and you’re getting into a groove, you’ll find you can do bill website’s way faster.
Websites when I first started out that took me 50 hours to make, I can now make in 15. That’s a massive, yeah, it’s a huge difference and that’s when your profits really start to improve. And I made the conscious decision that once that happened, I actually lowered my prices. I didn’t look. I mean, by what I mean by lowered prices is I didn’t actually, I didn’t raise them. I kept my price affordable because I want my service to be accessible to more people and more business owners. I believe that web design shouldn’t be as complicated and as expensive as it is for so many small businesses right now. It frustrates me when I see, I just had an experience recently where someone paid $6,000 for a website from a top agency in Toronto only for it to be basically a disaster.
It didn’t work, didn’t run properly. It looked pretty on the surface. Everything was fine, but there was a real fundamental problem with the site and they ended up coming to me to help them fix it. And for a thousand bucks, I rebuilt the whole thing and it’s running smoothly. It looks better than even the site was before and like long story short is they, they felt like, because they’re going to a top design agency that they were going to get value for their $6,000. And they didn’t. And I can’t speak as to why that happened with this company because they are a very popular company. Maybe they just had a bad day; maybe the person that was assigned to this project was a new designer or didn’t know their processes. I don’t know, but it was a bad mess up and unfortunately I see that a lot.
It’s just a lot of people that get burned by designers that promise things that they don’t follow through on, or charge them more than they really should have to pay. Let’s just say it’s $6,000 for a site that’s still based off a template. That’s fine. Most websites are built from template these days, but for six grand, like it’s just too much, in my opinion, I just don’t, it shouldn’t cost that much. And so that’s kind of my, my mission, I guess, so to speak is to kind of democratize web design, make it more accessible for them. And I still make good money because like I said, I’ve taken a process that normally would take agencies 50 or 60 hours. I’ve whittled it down to 15 or 20. So if I charge a thousand dollars for a website and I finish it in 20 hours, I’m making 50 bucks an hour. I’m pretty happy with that. I think that’s good money. And then of course, there’s the passive income that comes from it afterwards, the residual of $40 a month to host it and maintain it. That’s what I’m really after. And it’s a full service that the client benefits from because every client goes ahead
Carla: With that do you do for them any kind of updates like for blog posts or pictures changing pictures or they do it by themselves?
Patrick: Excuse me. I was about to sneeze no, so that is a, that’s what I call website management. So I have a separate service that includes unlimited edits to what you said, like images, text, anything you want. I’ll build you a new page even it’s all included underneath a package of a $200 a month, the maintenance, the $39 a month that doesn’t include like they’ll do any edits and changes to the site that they have to do that themselves. I do provide like integrate some video tutorials into their sites so that they can get some training to learn how to do it. But no, what I do is I do all the backend stuff. It’s regular updates premium security backups all those things, but for actual, for unlimited edits and changes, that’s a separate service.
Carla: Okay.
Patrick: Because at $40 a month, you can’t do unlimited edits. You’ll be, you won’t make money. They’ll be texting you or emailing you like every other day, change those things that for $40 a month, that’s not worth it.
Carla: Yes not at all and so for you building websites, did you go by scratch or templates first
Patrick: Template, but what I like to do and why I like elementary is you’re building from; you’re kind of building template blocks, you’re building your own template. I almost never just, I actually never just take a template and say, cookie cutter fill in the text images. I don’t do that. I start as a foundation where I kind of take pieces of different templates and then put them together. And that’s where I start but then everything after that is customizing and editing and tweaking and blending and making it really its own style. So yeah, so the short answer is you’re basically building your own theme and Elementor I think it makes it easy to do that more than any other website builder I’ve seen so far, because most other website builders, you are building straight from a template and the customization options are not nearly as available. But I do remember you said you liked to code.
Carla: Yes, I do.
Patrick: So what is your level of coding, would you say?
Carla: So I will say kind of beginner. I mean, I can code if you ask me to do like a basic layout. I can do a basically out and stuff like that. Sometimes when I’m in Elementor, how do I do this here? I know I’m going to just put the code.
Patrick: So that’s good, that’s great. Yeah, so then you already, yeah, anytime you run into some kind of snag or you want to do something a little more custom, you know how to do that? You can just, I’ll just code this, whatever that’s good. So I would, yeah, I’d recommend you kind of do like a blend of both. Almost no website is made custom coded from scratch anymore. The only reason you’d ever need to build a website from scratch these days is if you’re building like enterprise level sites with many pages and complicated integrations and features. 95% of websites can be built from template for sure.
Carla: Yes I have my brother, he is a senior software engineer, so he is the one that first, hey, you need to build this. Let’s go but he is more in the company side, he works for Pinterest.
Patrick: Oh, there you go. Yeah that’s enterprise level. Okay so Carla, we have time for one more question.
Carla: One more question. Oh gosh.
Patrick: No pressure.
Carla: So passive income and you already did that, so what will be your final advice for me?
The Importance of Personal Dedication and Final Thoughts
Patrick: Final advice; dedicate as much time as you can to this project or this pursuit. I don’t know what your schedule is like. I’m sure you’re quite busy. Did you say you have kids?
Carla: Yes.
Patrick: Oh, okay so then that’s a whole other level. I can’t tell you anything about time. Just forget what I said. I have a great advantage as a single guy, so I could just, yeah, I worked full time and then I worked in the evenings. But even if yeah, you’re going to be quite busy. So do what you can as much as you can, but I guess I would encourage patients then as well, because it is something that takes time to build up. A lot of us, we really want to see success or some kind of progress overnight. And that’s just not going to happen. This business that I made took it took years and it took probably about a year and a half before I got my first client. And that was just from learning, researching, practicing. Like I said, in the evenings after I was done window cleaning for the day and getting into blogging to market it build my SEO very gradual.
The good news is I don’t think it has to take a year and a half to get your first client. I don’t think has together is just you have a great advantage of having so much information available to you, tips and things that other people like myself have learned and that you can now learn from my mistakes basically. But yeah, patience is, is very, very important. And if you have you have an advantage because it sounds like you have a job, you have an income already, so it’s not like there’s pressure on this to produce income right away.
Carla: Well, I have my own pressure so I had my job of keeping my current income until next year, so that’s me.
Patrick: Okay so you’re saying your goal is to maintain your current level of income for the next year. Is that what you’re saying?
Carla: Yes, until August, July next year.
Patrick: Okay, that’s a personal goal, right? That’s good so then it’s something to shoot for, but yeah, I guess what I was saying is just, there’s some that I talked to that they’ve just been laid off. They don’t have a job, they don’t have any income or they’ve only been able to find a job part-time and then need something to supplement it. And the pressure, the stress can be a lot because they need it to produce right away. They need to get clients right away. They need to make income right away. It’s tough to do that and even I didn’t do that. I mean, I only was able to build this while actually having some other income coming in from my main job. And I built this on the side slowly until one day it was making enough money that I could quit.
Carla: How long it took you to quit your job?
Patrick: Probably about two and a half years. Yeah so when I say it took me a year and a half to get my first client, it was like from the very start from when I first said, okay, what is this web design thing? And I start researching it and reading and watching and tweaking. So it was like from the very beginning and then probably two and a half years from that point from starting from scratch, I got to a point where I could pursue it full-time or I could just my sole income. Yeah so it does take time, but it’s very satisfying. It’s nice to build your own something that’s your own. And to watch it grow to learn new things, to improve, I’m always tweaking. Even now I’m always looking for ways to make it better. I just redesigned my site like a couple weeks ago. I’m always changing little things here or there so yeah. Patience is good if you can. I know mostly, well, we don’t like to hear that. It’s tough.
Carla: Yes, yes, no, I’m very patient, but I like I need to do this. I need to do this. I need to do this.
Patrick: So that’s good that you can push yourself. And you’re self-motivated because I talked to other people that say, Oh, how long is this going to take? And then I find out there, they’re watching Netflix four hours a day. And you’re like, well, if you watch less Netflix, you can build a faster,
Carla: No, I remember at the beginning of COVID, I was like, okay, I’m going to take one week off in that week, turn in two weeks of food, Netflix and the kids. And then I said; you know what? No more, so now if my kids watch a movie and in the side with a computer mom, you’re always working. I don’t care.
Patrick: Quiet if you’re watching Netflix, your mom’s working. No, that’s good and it’s tough because there are just so many distractions these days, right, between just TV or social video games, or even just the news. Like it’s just, it can be tough. There are a lot of things, especially when you’re working so hard already. Like when you get to a point where you just want to kind of shut your brain off and relax. Sometimes it’s just, the last thing you want to do is work some more. But what I personally found motivated me is because it’s your own and it’s your own time and you’re building it for yourself. That is the motivation. That’s where it comes from. It makes it easier because you’re not working for someone else. You’re doing it for something you’re growing something that’s for you and for your kids and that kind of envisioning that future where you can quit your job and this could be your sole income and with the passive income coming in, you’ll be able to work less and spend more time with your kids. And that’s going to keep you motivated I think.
Carla: Yes, that’s the goal.
Patrick: Well, it was great chatting with you, Carla.
Carla: Thank you so much for your time and advice.
Patrick: I look forward to seeing what your website looks like.
Carla: Oh, sure, sure. I will share it soon hopefully.
Patrick: Sure send me a link when it’s done. I’ll love to see it.
Carla: Okay. Sure. Thank you so much.
Patrick: No problem; take care stay safe.
Carla: Do the same.
