We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rhodaline Escala-Phelps a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Rhodaline, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. The first dollar you earn in a new endeavor is always special. We’d love to hear about how you got your first client that wasn’t a friend or family.

I joined a 30-day marketing challenge where we focus on one platform to market ourselves. I picked LinkedIn because I thought my target audience back then hung out at LinkedIn.

I stayed consistent posting a video of myself giving helpful website-related advice and tips on LinkedIn. Someone who’s part of the 30-day marketing challenge was also active on LinkedIn and kept seeing my posts, so she scheduled a discovery call with me. She wasn’t my “target audience” because at the beginning of my web design journey–I wanted to work with therapists and counselors–but I thoroughly enjoyed learning about what she does and how she’s helped clients. She wanted to build her coaching business while she was working as a VP at a bank and needed help with her website.

When I sent her my proposal after our call, I thought my quote would be too high for her, considering I didn’t have any other website under my belt at that time except my own website. I literally couldn’t sleep and was bracing myself for a “no, thanks.,”

As you can tell, she accepted the proposal, paid the invoice, and she’s still a client more than two years later! I was ecstatic when I received the signed agreement and payment. I used the money I received to invest in a paid WordPress program right away to help me provide my first client with a great experience from onboarding to the website’s launch.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hey, Canvas Rebel readers! I’m Rhodaline, a former-teacher-turned-website-designer Filipino immigrant who enjoys travel, coffee, and walking around the lakes of Minnesota.

I build WordPress websites for busy business owners who want their audience to “know, like, and trust” them. With over 300 websites launched in the past two years, my favorite thing about building websites is still getting to know my clients and hearing about how their website has saved them time and helped them book clients.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

A couple of months into my web design business, I was feeling disheartened because I was getting “no’s” after sending a proposal. My quote was typically too expensive for some of the people I’ve done discovery calls with.

I remember crying to my husband a lot and doubting myself. Maybe I don’t have what it takes after all.

What a lot of new business owners do not realize is that the hardest part is not learning the craft, but learning to accept rejection and be able to keep going.

Their “no” is typically not about you. This is something I keep reminding myself: a lot of things are not about me and I try not to take things personally–whether I get glowing feedback from a client or I get a “no, thanks” after sending a proposal.

A month after I cried my eyes out to my husband, I hit my highest-paying month! I got clients who still refer clients to me from time to time and clients who I’m still working with to this day.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

I was working as the managing editor of affiliate websites: writing SEO-rich content, researching keywords, competitor analysis–the works. Part of the job was designing the banner and feature images and I realized: a) I enjoyed designing more than writing;
b) maintaining the website and making it work for readers excited me more than inserting the keywords in the article in a way that still makes sense.

But how can I make a living designing when all my experience was related to teaching and writing? I knew no one would hire me without experience.

Back in university, I spent weekends creating and designing my own blog (I was using Blogger then). I spruced it with music, an animated cursor, a visitor counter, and all the typical late 2000s website elements! It made me so happy whenever I was able to customize a template with a code snippet. I continued to maintain my own blog as an adult and moved on to WordPress.com.

A decade or so later, this experience came in handy when I wanted to transition from SEO-content writing and managing an affiliate website to web design and development.

I’ve never built a self-hosted website though, so I decided I would start with my own website from scratch–without using templates! I watched YouTube videos on how to build my custom site and also joined a program specific to WordPress that helped me with troubleshooting when I encountered issues.

My first website looked terrible to my now-better-trained eye. I didn’t know about breathing space and proper padding back then! The spacing looked terrible and there was no such thing as white space. *cringe*

While I feel embarrassed now that I think about my old website, I feel proud that I took action and put myself out there. Thanks to my first website, I landed my first couple of clients!

A little over two years later, I’ve launched over 300+ websites from different industries and met people from different fields. I also briefly managed a team of web designers and realized I enjoy designing and creating websites more than managing people. The best thing about this journey is meeting the kind humans behind the business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rhodaline.us
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhodaline/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rhodaline.phelps
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhodaline/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6kvEQKKmucGRkCYrKXSbgg