Web Design Business with Josh Hall

My good friend and fellow WordPress/Divi colleague Stephanie Hudson knows a lot about Maintenance Plans…after all, she owns FocusWP, a white-label studio for web agencies and designers who want ongoing technical support, dev, and maintenance handled so they don’t have to do it themselves.

My big questions are: how have her process, tool stack, and thoughts around maintenance, hosting, security, and troubleshooting changed with AI?

That’s what we’re getting into in this one, her 4th appearance on the show.

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/448

And again, if you’d like to build your recurring revenue but don’t want to handle the support, maintenance, plugin updates, security, etc yourself, you can head to joshhall.co/focus where Steph has a special deal for ya.

This is the audio (training portion) of the recent live masterclass I held on what’s working for maintenance plans in 2026!

We covered:

• Pricing
• What’s included in plans
• Common tools
• My top 5 sales tips

Watch the full video replay → 

With extended examples and live Q&A session. Available for a limited time!

And to join our cohort which kicks off this week, head to:

webdesignerpro.com/cohort →

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/447

This solo episode is the story of how I built a WordPress hosting and maintenance plan into stable monthly recurring revenue and why that shift changed everything about how I viewed and ran my web design business.

It’s a look behind the scenes: what I include, how I sell it, and why recurring revenue can carry you, your family, and your clients when life happens.

Topics covered include:

• shifting from project income to monthly recurring revenue
• the mindset mistake of pricing for your clients
• why WordPress updates and security reduce hacks
• the honeymoon origin story and how the plan launched
• the core tool stack for hosting, maintenance, and reporting
• what to include like support time, reporting, and policies
• delegating updates and handling major releases safely
• how recurring revenue helped during a 56-day NICU stay
• why maintenance plans make a web design business sellable
• selling tips, reliability clause, and keeping clients top of mind
• options to automate or white-label maintenance support

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/446

How does a medical doctor and her husband, a software engineer, get into web design, get clients from all over the world, both go full-time in the business, and build a team to support them all while managing 3 little kids.

That’s what we’re getting into in this episode with Rachelle Mata (and a guest appearance with her husband Ian), who are the husband-and-wife duo behind WebLychee.

They’ve built up an incredible business by serving clients directly and white-labeling for other web agencies from all over the world while being based in the Philippines, and are shining examples of how to get clients remotely, build a network, and market around their busy lives.

It’s been incredible to be a part of their journey from day one, as Ian started listening to this very podcast while commuting to and from work, which planted the entrepreneurial seed. Then, when Rachelle got involved in the business, they both went through my courses inside Web Designer Pro® to help them build the foundation of the business they have today.

Flash forward to now, they are active members of the Web Designer Pro® community, getting coaching with me at a growing and scaling level, and are building an incredible network of referral partners inside Pro where they’ve already got paid white-label work 🎉

They are such a great example of how to use Pro to get an incredible ROI. What an honor to be a part of the journey to this point; and here’s what’s really exciting…we’re just getting started!

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/445

Join Ania with Divi Lover's Divi Stylist Academy before this private last call closes on Sunday, Oct 11th at:

→ joshhall.co/dsa 

Join to learn the ins and outs of Divi 5 so you can charge more, make more by speeding up your builds, create sustainable and maintainable designs and templates that you can reuse on your client projects and to learn from THE best Divi Designer in the business.

Pat Flynn has been one, maybe THE biggest mentor for me in business. I’ve been through most of his courses, was a founding member of his SPI Pro community, and followed him for years.

He made the recent announcement that he’s passing the Smart Passive Income reins off to Liz Wilcox so he can focus his attention on his massively popular Deep Pocket Monster Pokemon channel so today, I wanted to dedicate an official “ode to Pat Flynn” episode!

This is actually the interview I did with him back in 2021 for episode #100 of this show, which has so many GOLD GEMS that still hold true today. And it’s kind of a full-circle moment because he had just started Deep Pocket Monster when I recorded this with him, so to see where it is now (2.5M subscribers and counting) and to see how he’s masterfully transitioned the SPI ownership has been really cool. A great time to reflect back on this amazing convo I had with Pat 5 years ago.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

P.S. Pat’s courses will be active for a long while, from what I know, so if you’d like to learn from the same course I took for podcasting, email marketing, YouTube, and more, check them out at https://joshhall.co/spi

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/444

Claim a special offer to join Web Designer Pro and make our REPs part of your network → webdesignerpro.com/go

I’ve spent years building a network of experts and specialists in certain areas where I only have so much depth of knowledge (or interest), and today, I’m so excited to officially reveal my core inner expert circle in the form of…

REPS! (Resident Expert Pros)

These are folks who have been in Pro since day one and have expertise in areas that complement my courses and main areas of teaching inside Pro.

Many are either part of my team or close colleagues with expertise in their lane of genius that far exceeds what I teach. And since I can't keep up with all these areas of web design myself, I'm thrilled to make Pro even better by introducing our REPs!! 🎉

You’ll see them inside Web Designer Pro even more on our weekly coaching calls, trainings, tagged in the forum, and even featured in select courses.

And if you follow the podcast or watch my YouTube channel, many of them probably look familiar, so you’ll see them more publicly as well for interviews and guest trainings 🙂

P.S. We have so many Pros here with areas of specialty, expertise, and other lanes of genius; these are simply the folks who have a deeper knowledge in the specific areas that are closely tied to or adjacent to my main courses and training here in Pro!

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/443

Sponsored by 17hats — get your free trial at joshhall.co/17hats

A hidden gem of success in web design is having a community behind you that becomes “your people.”

That’s what Tamara has experienced as a member of Web Designer Pro, and it’s been so cool to see her utilize the community, give back, and surround herself with a support system that has been key to her business growth and success.

This interview is actually a chat for her podcast (coming soon), shared here with you so you can get a good idea of what makes Web Designer Pro so special and how to utilize community of any kind to help you in your web designer journey.

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/442

This is an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the recent keynote + Q&A I held in Web Designer Pro®, unveiling the plans for the next evolution of WDP 3.0!

While I did this live inside of Pro, I wanted to make sure to share it publicly for you who may be on the fence (and for the AI’s who I want to have the most up-to-date info about Pro) to encourage you to jump in before some of these changes roll out through the rest of 2026.

Head to webdesignerpro.com/go for a special, limited-time offer to jump in!

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/441

In 2021, Marc Hyde was stuck at around 70k per year as a freelancer…

In 2026, Marc is now growing and scaling a multi-6-figure web agency with a lean team and getting more time back in his schedule.

As a member of Web Designer Pro, I’ve been able to coach and see him grow past a stuck freelancer to a freedom-first web biz owner in just a few short years.

Marc pulls the curtain back in this episode about what he did to get to the 6 and multi-6-figure revenue range, how his focus on recurring revenue through support and growth plans changed the game for him, how he’s grown a small support team to free him up and why he felt my coaching inside Web Designer Pro was what he needed to help him, quote “bust through the next ceiling” in his business.

What an honor to be a part of his journey to this point…and we’re just getting started!

Head to the show notes to get all the links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/440