We recently connected with Joshua Hernandez and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Joshua thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

At my job, they had this speaker named Jesse Itzler come to work and it completely changed my perspective.
I had just got more stable in my new sales job, that I love, after managing a warehouse with 200 people working for me (I was stressed & had no free time time). Now that I had free time after work, I wanted to earn more while my girlfriend got off for another 2 hours after I finished work.

I love cold calling. Sometimes I want to cold call after work still! I had a lot of experience making websites for companies in college and for my own little projects. I decided to create a web design business. I have a huge network of business professionals from college that I can collaborate on projects with, therefore I called my business ShareWork Web Design.

On my first day & first hour calling, I left work at 4pm and immediately started calling businesses from my phone.
I found a list of new businesses from a local city and I struck gold. Within my first hour of calling, I found 3 different clients willing to work with me for 4 different web design projects. On Valentines day of 2023, I collected my first payment from a client at a Starbucks for a $1800 website.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

For folks who may not have read about you before, can you please tell our readers about yourself,

I am a first generation Cuban-American. I was always encouraged to get a public government job and never knew any business owners growing up. As a kid, I wanted to be an inventor but not an engineer kind of inventor.
I was considered a mute at 5 years old, even though I talk alot now.
I was separated to a different class for tests, my mom told me I once took an entire state test standing up.
I was an advanced placement student in high school and became President of 3 different clubs (the Psychology club, the Math National Honors Society, & the Economics club).
I could not afford to go to my preferred colleges so I went to my local state school reluctantly.
I wanted to be a doctor, but I realized that I do not like touching people and wanted to be less focused in school.
So I signed up for the supposedly “highest paying major” at my school: Supply Chain Management.
It so happened that it is the same department as the E-business major and I took several web design classes as a result.

I am navigating the process of owning a logistics franchise at my current place of work but I am one of the top most earning sales representative in the country. My favorite part is that we resell small parcel, which allows me to learn and work with so many different e-commerce shipping platforms that integrate with websites.
I currently work on my web design and run my podcast after work and on the weekends.

A lot of business owners have a business card, but they are missing the website link for others to easily share their business information with others and for others to refer them. Web design allows you to control how you look to other businesses. I am passionate about helping business owners be a top listed business on Google maps
and incorporating that into their web design. I create a better vision for my clients and advise them thoroughly throughout the process, providing them excellent customer service.

I believe that we live in a day in age that makes it easy for everyone to pursue business ownership. I believe that everyone should aspire to be self employed. I am an available consultant to ensure that you do not overspend or under utilize resources in your business.

I have a podcast called “Must Be Nice” where I post weekly interviews I have with business owners and side hustle heros that are killing the game and have wisdom for us to share. It is nice to learn from so many different type of business owners with different dreams, goals, and incredible strategies to attain desired results. Although I grew up knowing no business owners, I know many now and they are the individuals that I respect the most. I have realized that the business owner may not be the smartest, but they are usually the hardest working and motivated.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I quit my job where I managed 200 warehouse workers and quit my masters, and walked away from a long term career.
I now make way more than what I would have made in my previous dream job in Supply Chain management.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

What helped me build my reputation was constantly asking for my clients to be advocates for my by referring me, by providing public testimonials, and by having high activity in regards to finding clients.

My podcast is helping create my reputation as a business owner advocate.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mustbenice.news/ + https://www.sharework.design/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mustbenice.news/ + https://www.instagram.com/sharework.design/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-her/

Image Credits

Female is my fiance, Elyssia.
Group of men is my friends whom created a group for “Must Be Nice” my business podcast.
The Man with glasses is the Dean of the College of Business at Cal Poly Pomona.