Welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast! Today I’m bringing you my monthly income report for June 2024 where I break down what happened behind the scenes of the Web Designer Academy, how much money we made, how much we spent, and the lessons learned along the way.
We'll explore the strategic decisions behind rolling back investment rates for the Web Designer Academy to 2020 levels, managing renewals, and testing smaller offers that generated significant additional income. You’ll get a firsthand look at how thoughtful decision-making, rather than knee-jerk reactions, can lead to sustainable growth.
But that's not all. We'll also dive into the incredible insights I gained while participating in a mastermind group focused on addressing big assumptions and limiting beliefs. I’ll share my personal story of recognizing and managing my own big assumption: “If people don't like me, I'll lose everything.” This belief affected my approach to social media, fueled self-criticism, and led me to seek therapy and somatic experiencing for healing.
You'll hear about my commitment to engage authentically on Instagram for six months, reflecting on the journey that led me to this decision, and the amazing support system that included friends, family, and expert coaches like Josh Hall and Jason Gracia.
This episode is filled with invaluable lessons on breaking free from limiting beliefs, the importance of persistence, and the need for patience in both personal and business growth. So stick around as we unpack the profound strategies and experiences that can elevate your web design business to the next level!
So today, I’m gonna jump right into the numbers, and then I’ll tell you how we created that… because honestly, the numbers are the least interesting part of the story.
Ready?
Our total revenue or inflow in June was $24,121, our investments or outflow were $17,368.44, which lets me add $6,752.16 to our cash reserves.
Normally I call that $6,752.16 PROFIT, but I’ve decided to stop saying it that way, because the flip side of that coin is LOSS… and because our thoughts create our feelings which drive our actions and create wanted or unwanted results…
I have mindtrashy thoughts about the words profit AND loss. My thoughts about LOSS make me feel anxious, my thoughts about PROFIT make me feel complacent, and both of those feelings drive actions that create unwanted results for me.
So from now on, I’ll be talking about inflow, outflow, overflow, and reserves.
When I think of that six grand as overflow that stays in reserves to fund future months for when my outflow is higher than my inflow… I feel way more calm, centered, steady, and patient than thinking of it as Profit and Loss.
So how did we create over $24,000 of inflow in June? I’ll get to the mechanics of that later, but I talk about this with Web Designer Academy students all the time – my results, whether they are what I want and expect, or what I don’t want or don’t expect – are a mix of mindset and mechanics, and guided by mentorship.
And the results I’m seeing today are a result of thoughts I started thinking and things I started doing 3, 6, 9 and 12 months ago.
The $24,000 I created in June didn’t happen because June was somehow this amazing, magical month where I finally cracked the code and did everything right. And there’s also no guarantee that we’ll continue generating that level of inflow every month – we’re still building up recurring revenue and working on that every single month…
But the story of June 2024 is really the culmination of everything that’s happened over the past 12 months.
It’s been one year since we made the bold decision to roll back the investment for the Web Designer Academy to 2020 rates. We rolled back the TWO price increases we’d done in 2022 and 2023, and we’re a year out from that decision.
So in preparation for this income report, I went back and listened to Episode 44, where I reviewed Q1 and Q2 of 2023, and then all of the income reports I’ve shared on this podcast starting with October 2023.
I wanted to refresh my memory on the past year and what my thought processes were… and I’m not gonna lie, I also wanted to see if I could spot any mindtrashy thoughts in those income reports.
Because one year ago, it felt like everything was falling apart. My inflow was at an all-time low, my outflow was at an all-time high along with my anxiety…
And honestly, reaching that breaking point was one of the best things that could have happened.
It forced me to ask for help, be open-minded, and receive the help and advice that was being offered.
It forced me to put down my defenses and that self-righteous part of me that “already knows that” and that straight-A student in me that wants my coaches’ praise for succeeding rather than their honest feedback about what I need to change.
It forced me to really, truly evaluate if this is what I want to be doing with my life, if I was really as passionate and committed to the Web Designer Academy and women web designers when times weren’t good as I was when they were.
And there are so many people that so compassionately and generously helped me along the way, like my friend and fellow web design business coach Josh Hall. Josh runs a program called Web Designer Pro™ and everyone I know who has been part of it raves about it – so you can go check it out at JoshHall.co – but I can personally attest to the fact that Josh is a fantastic coach.
He helped me objectively look at our sales data, and told me exactly what he’d do if he were in my shoes when I was so afraid of making a wrong decision because I was telling myself I’d made so many mistakes to create the situation I was in that I couldn’t trust my own judgment. Josh was right there to be my objective judgment.
And Jason Gracia – who’s brilliant and so generous with his time and knowledge, who also helped me make a decision I didn’t trust myself at the time to make, and then helped me get excited about it so I could authentically share the decision to roll back our pricing in a really powerful way that felt like a win-win for our students.
My client success coordinator Erica Nash, who is also so passionate about the work we do in the Web Designer Academy helped me pull together and analyze the data, and so lovingly and compassionately guided me towards letting the data drive my decisions instead of letting my anxiety run the show. And same with my Marketing + Ops coordinator at the time, Ally, who I ended up having to lay off back in October, but she was also really supportive during that tough period.
I’m in a local mastermind group here in Columbus Ohio with other women entrepreneurs… I asked for help and let them help me, especially my friend Alecia St. Germain of the Conscious Edge. We had countless conversations and she guided me through my fears, impatience, and frustrations in a really powerful way, kindly showing me that how I was thinking and feeling was showing up in all of my interactions and communications with clients and helping me re-set and re-direct.
My older sister Karen, who said “Listen, I have a job waiting for you if you ever want or need it… but you gotta see this all the way through. Leave nothing on the table… and then if at the end of the day you can’t save it, you get to come work with me, so you’ve got nothing to lose.” Knowing I wasn’t going to “lose everything” as my brain likes to tell me, helped to quell that anxiety that had become such a constant companion that I didn’t even really know how bad I felt.
My therapist, Dr. Kelley, who saw how much pressure I was putting on myself to avoid having to even contemplate layoffs, who saw how much that pressure was compounding my anxiety, who gently nudged me to write out exactly what I’d say, and the step by step process, and then file it away so it was there if I ever needed it, but so I could stop ruminating on it and being afraid of it.
And of course my husband Floyd, all of my friends and family, who would ask how business was going, and I’d tell them the truth, and they’d tell me that they have my back no matter what…
Feeling like I was failing and letting other people in, trusting them, allowing them to be kind to me and support me…
I needed that more than I knew. And I’m so SO grateful for it.
Because I’ve been feeling like I’m myself again.
I kept noticing feeling better over the past 6 months… like I’m on the other side of the challenges.
And I don’t mean financially on the other side of the challenges, I mean that I’m integrating the lessons I’ve learned from the challenges, and I’m continually learning new lessons in hindsight… noticing when I’m falling back into old thought patterns that led to some of the challenges, things like that. Which is why I write these income reports, and why I re-listen to them.
And sure, I can say we’re financially improving… like, in the first 6 months of 2024, we made double what we made in the first 6 months of 2023, and matched what we made in the second half of 2023…
But if you told me that I could make all the money I wanted and have the freedom and flexibility I have now – but I had to feel the way I felt in 2023… that’s a hard pass.
I do believe I can have both though. I just needed to grow into the person that I need to become to have both.
I feel not only like my old self… but also like a new version of myself.
I have a tendency to learn through experience… I always call myself a stove-toucher… but I think a BIG area of growth for me through this learning experience is that I get to be open to hearing and listening to the people around me who are saying, sure, Shannon, you can touch the stove if you want to, but here’s another way.
And every single experience I have – positive or negative, wanted or unwanted – makes me a better coach for our students, because we can give you all of the systems, processes, strategies in the world to follow step by step… you’re still bringing your own unique belief systems, experiences, paradigms, thoughts, feelings to them, and no two people in our program will have the same experience, have the same questions and need the same support… It’s like, our curriculum is tried and true, we might tweak or enhance some strategies here and there, but what evolves most is the coaching. And the more experience I gain, the farther ahead I am in terms of my business and personal development, the more tools I have in my toolbox to support our students.
So like one of my first business coaches always said to me… there’s profit in the pain. Meaning, if you’re willing to learn and integrate the lessons the pain is here to teach you, you can use it to help others – whether I help you avoid it – or help you through it if you’re a stove toucher like me.
So that’s an important thing that happened in June – the one-year anniversary of the decision to return to our original Web Designer Academy pricing… a number that I’m so sold on that it feels easy to sell and like I’m giving the Web Designer Academy away.
Another important thing that happened in June is that I while I noticed my negative self-talk receded at the same rate my anxiety declined, there were still a few key places where I’m just saying awful, awful things to myself.
So to back up a little bit, some of the work we do in our Next Level Mastermind is to uncover what’s REALLY standing in the way of our goals. Like, in the Web Designer Academy we work a lot on mechanics, like here’s the strategy, here’s the process, here’s what to do and how to do it – and also mindset, like “Okay, I’m sold on this price but I still feel like I’m ripping my clients off because what I do feels so easy to me.” stuff like that.
In the Next Level Mastermind, we not only help you get really, really clear on your vision for your business and your life and help you design a business that ultimately helps you create the LIFE you really want and then guide you through creating and executing a plan to make it happen… we also excavate a little deeper to uncover your core beliefs that are getting in the way of vision – now and in the future.
With the help of my bestie and mindset coach extraordinaire Alecia St. Germain of the Conscious Edge, we walk you through a mapping process that results in you uncovering this core belief, or Big Assumption as she calls it, that’s unconsciously driving your thoughts, feelings, actions and results.
My Big Assumption is that if people don’t like me, I could lose everything. But it’s just an assumption – it’s not a fact. And Alecia’s Immunity to Change coaching leads you through a process that helps you deconstruct and disprove your big assumption through a series of tests specifically designed to safely test your big assumption.
In Next Level, we craft our vision, we define some goals that will help us create the vision, we identify the ONE goal to focus on that when accomplished, it will make accomplishing all the other goals easier. We call it a DOMINO, because when that goal gets knocked down, the momentum from it knocks down the other goals faster and easier – and then we identify our Big Assumptions so that we know what’s likely to get in our way ahead of time, share them with each other, create a Mantra to counter our big assumption, and then we all know each others’ big assumptions so that when we’re at our weekly mastermind meetings, we can notice when each others’ big assumptions are at play and nip it and head it off – because it’s always so hard to see our own stuff, but we can spot other people’s stuff a mile away – and our big assumptions are also like whack-a-mole in disguise. So they pop up one place, you knock it back down, and it pops up somewhere else in a different outfit.
The trick is to notice it sooner, not get hooked by it as Alecia would say, or unhook yourself from it sooner and sooner each time.
I’ve done a lot of work on my big assumption over the years, but the big realization I had in June came after I started trying to do more Reels on Instagram. So you might recall that in previous episodes I said I wanted to be more present and engaged on Instagram as a way to connect with web designers in a different way than just me publishing a podcast and sending out emails, which is just me communicating TO you, not WITH you. And I just want to test out Instagram to see if it helps me build more connections and trust… AND I know that I need to just create there for awhile without expectation to build up momentum, I can’t just post and ghost.
But what I noticed is a LOT of procrastination, a lot of preparation, a lot of getting ready, and lot of research – and I’m not normally like that.
I’m normally like, bull in a china shop, move fast, break things fix it later. So when I’m being like that, something’s up.
And then I noticed every time I’d go to record, I’d just say these terrible things about myself… like, you look so OLD, you look so TIRED, your face looks like it’s melting, you have no upper lip, your mouth barely moves when you talk, you look so serious, you should try to smile more, your arms are huge…
Like, my chest gets tight just saying it because it’s AWFUL. That mean girl, that inner critic voice in me was just raging – just like, one big long tirade of all the worst things I’ve ever thought about myself.
And I’m like, okay, this is not okay. Like, where is this coming from?
So my big assumption is that if people don’t like me, I’ll lose everything, and my DOMINO, my one goal that will make all the other goals easier, was to massively reduce my negative self talk.
And as my anxiety receded and I became more aware of the negative self-talk, it also receded a lot. Like, I felt SO MUCH BETTER until I went to do those Reels and it just came roaring back…
And I realized it was my big assumption driving my negative self talk.
I realized that my brain was thinking: if I don’t like me first, then it will hurt less if you don’t like me. Like I’m somehow protecting myself from anything bad you could ever say about me because I’ll say it about me first so that you can’t catch me off guard. If I hurt me first, you can’t really hurt me.
So let me go ahead and say to myself all the things I’d fear having said to me the most, with the twisted logic that it will hurt less if I say it first, and if “I already know” all the awful things about me, then you can’t think I’m egotistical and stuck up and not like me, because remember, if you don’t like me I could lose everything.
Well, friends, it doesn’t hurt less, it’s super damaging, it keeps me stuck and shielding myself behind a podcast and an email list…
AND the real truth is… the most important person I need to like me is ME.
Me not liking me has been costing me WAY more than anyone else not liking me. Me not liking me is what could result in me losing everything.
So I shared with my Columbus mastermind group that I was experiencing all this negative-self talk when going to make stories or reels, and Dr. Lee Cordell who’s in the mastermind and is the founder of the Institute for Trauma and Psychological Safety, offered to do some somatic experiencing or processing with me to help me heal that part where I criticize my physical appearance – so I’ll keep you posted on that… because if our thoughts create our feelings which drive our actions and create our results, I can totally see how thinking better of myself will make it SO much easier to create, connect and engage with people.
In June we also started planning our in-person Next Level retreat that will be held in Destin, Florida November 6-10th, and again, I noticed some overthinking and procrastination and some decision paralysis, and so I asked Erica if she would take over the planning, because she doesn’t have the same mental drama that I do around it – the pressure I put on myself to make sure people like me, my big assumption popping up and paralyzing me. Like, I could do a bunch of work on my big assumption, or I could just ask for help. And asking for help is something I’m continually practicing, and of course I’ll get coaching on it because it’s definitely an opportunity for growth, but so is asking for help.
And I also hired Sarah G, Next Level member and copywriter extraordinaire, to write a sales page for me for Next Level, because in spite of persistent evidence that Next Level is transformational for the women in it… I continue to downplay the program my own head, I continue to tell myself the story it’s not good enough, that it needs to be better… and as I’m literally writing this I’m having the realization that I say the same things about Next Level as I say about myself… so I think there’s a connection there, like if I allow myself to really believe Next Level is as awesome as the people in it say it is… then I could open myself up to “being hurt.”
I’m honestly so tired of “protecting” myself. Like, I really don’t need to. People are not nearly as “bad” as my brain likes to tell me they are. 99.9% of people I’e encountered are AMAZING, and for the .1% of people that haven’t liked me – I haven’t lost everything.
But that’s what our Big Assumptions like to tell us when they remain unchallenged and untested, and that’s why we find ourselves repeating that same patterns or creating the same situations over and over again. It’s why we plateau and can’t seem to break through no matter what we’ve tried.
I also asked Erica to handle renewals for the Web Designer Academy – because our program is a one year program, and at the end of the year our students have the option to continue in the Web Designer Academy, and they get continued access to coaching, curriculum, work review and any new modules or updates, like the Paid Discovery module we just added, or they can apply for the Next Level Mastermind if they’ve reached certain milestones in their first year, or they can graduate, which means they take everything they’ve created with them, but they leave the community and no longer have access to curriculum and coaching.
And I was proud of myself for asking for support with putting a system in place for reaching out to our current students near the end of their time and answering their questions and helping them decide which option is right for them.
Renewals were part of how we created over $24,000 of inflow in June, like, we WANT people to stay in the program, because it’s not just learning the strategies, it’s getting coaching on applying them, on weird client situations that come up, its being in community with other web designers – it’s getting our eyes on what you’re up to and getting our feedback – so while we love our new students, we also love the ones who have been around for awhile too!
Another way we created revenue in June was to test out two smaller offers – our Income Accelerator, formerly known as the Profitable Web Designer Masterclass collection which teaches our marketing strategy, how to sell results instead of deliverables and how to set boundaries with clients – and we also testing selling tickets to the public for a module we added to the Web Designer Academy on how to add a paid discovery step to their sales process.
Together those offers created over $5000 in inflow for us, which is awesome, and then we also had 3 new students enroll in June, plus payment plan revenue.
We did all of that because we’re testing out different offers for the different types of people in our audience, the microwaves, who find us and join within a couple of weeks, the crockpots who could take up to a year or more to join, and the campfires, who may never join, but who will buy what they need to solve specific problems.
So the last thing I want to talk about is how much I worked in June… because I’ve also noticed that I’m spending a lot less time working. And what I mean by that is… I’m not working to quell anxiety or to try this new thing to save the business or whatever, and it’s SO uncomfortable.
What we’ve been doing is starting to work. We’re creating momentum. We’re seeing the results of what we did 30, 60, 90 days ago… 6 months ago, a year ago, and I have to sit on my hands to not meddle with it and to let it play out – because I keep wanting results FASTER, but what I know, from experience, is that I break more than I fix when I do that, and my job is still to slow down, to be patient.
I was listening to a podcast called Quitted, and the guest was a guy who quit the NFL… his name is Caleb Campbell and he’s a coach and keynote speaker, and he was talking about the concept of Liminal Space it just blew my mind. I was like OH, this is what has been going on for me for the past year…
I found a post on his LinkedIn which I’ll link up in the show notes so you can follow him if this resonates with you too, but here’s what he said:
“What I know to be true from my own life experience, and I'm sure you can relate, is that seasons of transition are wildly uncomfortable as they are full of uncertainty and ambiguity. The ground that we were standing on that was once so steady and sturdy is now shaky and wobbly. The tried and true is no longer working and the new way has not yet appeared—and we are in this awkward in-between stage—and it has the potential to be remarkably disorienting.
And because of how uncomfortable (because we don’t feel like we are in control) the in-between stage is, we often double down on our willpower and bury our heads, grit our teeth, clench our fists, and strive our way out of it.
As a result, we miss out on the gift that only the in-between season offers us.
The in-between season has a name and it's called liminal space. It comes from the Latin word ‘limen' which means threshold. It's actually speaking to the threshold at the bottom of a door as you cross over from one room or space to the next.
And, liminal space is the prerequisite to growth. And how we move through it and hold the uncertainty and tension of it matters.
So, when we rush out of liminal space, we do ourselves and the people we are leading a disservice. Because it’s only in the liminal space—when we’re feeling so lost, disoriented, and full of uncertainty—do our hidden fears, unprocessed feelings, and beliefs that no longer serve us begin to surface.
And once they surface, we can move and grow through them while expanding our lives emotionally, relationally, and even financially.”
I don’t know if understanding what was happening would have made it easier, I don’t know if it was even supposed to be easier because I think I needed to have like Caleb said, all my hidden fears, unprocessed feelings and beliefs that no longer serve me come to the service and basically say to me, hey, do you really want this? Like, do you REALLY?
And when faced with the option to persist – or to literally walk away from all of it and go work with my sister and have a sweet paycheck, and a flexible schedule, and awesome benefits…
I chose the Web Designer Academy. I chose Next Level. I chose our students, the women web designers who blazing their own trails, and I chose the path that I know will have more challenges ahead… I chose being a leader and accepting that’s what I really am, because I want the personal growth opportunities that come along for the ride, and I want to keep sharing those lessons with you along the way as I learn them in case they help you as much as my mentors help me.
I don’t know what my income report will look like next month, but I do know that I’m committed into growing into the person who doesn’t tear herself down to protect herself because she truly doesn’t believe she needs to protect herself, that’s way more valuable to me than money… AND, I don’t think it’s one or the other. I think its both/and, and the more I value myself, the more capacity I have to help other people, and that’s truly what lights me up.
So that’s all I’ve got for you for my June Income Report, I hope you heard something that helped you, and if so, I’d love for you to take a moment to leave a rating and review – it helps us get in front of other web designers that need help with their businesses. If you’re listening on Spotify, just go to the show page and tap Rate Show, and if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, just scroll up on this episode and you’ll see a link to webdesigneracademy.com/review and that’ll take you to the right place in the app to leave a review.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to do that, and I’ll see you back here next week. Bye!!
