#110 – Simplifying Your Web Design Business with Moxie Maven Lisa Williams

Shannon Mattern (00:02.199)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. Today I am joined by Moxie Maven, Lisa Williams, who is a web designer. She is a, I don't know, I'm gonna call you a Moxie expert. I have, yeah, yeah, I've heard of Lisa. We were chatting just before I hit record. I've heard of her from no less than like four different people.

Lisa Williams (00:02.263)

you

Lisa Williams (00:20.838)

Getting there.

Shannon Mattern (00:30.185)

about how I had to have her on the show to talk to her, not only about Moxie, which we love Moxie here at the Web Designer Academy and at the Profitable Web Designer. We'll talk more about like what they are if you don't know who they are, but just to learn more about her and her business journey. So Lisa, thank you so much for being here. Can you share a little bit more with our listeners about you and what you do?

Lisa Williams (00:57.066)

Yeah, let me just say thank you for having me here. You know, I'm sure I'm not the only one that comes on and says, I listen to you all the time, you know, so it's in your whole money mindset and you're not in their pocket. That's been huge for me, like as a growth. So anyways, I digress, but thank you for having me on and so excited to talk about Moxie. And it's, it's kind of like a

kind of becoming like the word Google to me. It's kind of just like a word. It's like, do you Moxie? Yes, I Moxie. It's, kind of think of it, but it's been a little over a year. Yeah. A little over a year that I've started using Moxie and I'm a web designer and we, my husband and I run our web design business. Just him and I, I say just, which is not just, but him and I, along with all the people that we know, but

I, you know, when you're doing your processes and you're getting your tools and you're trying to like put all the things in a nice little box that you can follow and forget about it. I tried everything. I have so many subscriptions and trials out there that, you know, and I, last year, probably February, March, I started researching, I need something.

to help me manage my day. That project management was my biggest obstacle in any industry, but in web design, you can just get lost in the weeds if you don't have your ducks in a row. And I was sticky note queen. was notebook over here, sticky notes. had everything. And I don't know. just.

I guess I'm really good with Google because I searched and searched and here's Moxie that shows up. And that was it. That was it for me. And I thought I found my tool and let me just dig in. And I'm one of those with any tool. And like if you buy something from IKEA and you just pull it out of the box and you just start putting it together like, there are directions with that.

Lisa Williams (03:18.922)

Like that was me when I started with Moxie. I just jumped in to the deep end and just started doing things. And I quickly found that not only that I was reaching out to support a lot, but that I was getting stuck. was hitting roadblocks in setting things up. So that's when I like pulled back and started from the beginning. So it's completely transformed my day to day. I can't even.

you know, you still have those days where you're just like, my gosh, can I get it together already? But part of it is probably my age, you know, but another part is just like all the things. And so, but I just come back to like, wait a second, what's, what do I have going on? And then, then I just go to it. So it's fantastic.

Shannon Mattern (04:12.535)

I love that. And we started hearing, I started hearing about Moxie in, I don't know, it's probably in the past year when our web designer academy students are like, they have like the problems of success, right? So they're coming in, they're starting to use our systems and processes. They're starting to like book clients. They're really starting to take action and they're starting to like create opportunities for.

discovery calls for like all of the pieces and parts. There's so many moving pieces and parts from like getting an initial consultation all the way to like delivering the client project. And so as they're starting to get more clients and have more, just even have more conversations and things, they're like,

like you said, lost in the weeds, buried under like, okay, who am I talking to? What are we talking about? Where are we at in this? Did they sign the contract? Have I been paid? And feeling like they wanted a way to manage it all. So they'd all start talking in our community about like, how are you guys doing this? And someone's like, I have a spreadsheet. I use this tool, I use that tool, I use.

Dubsado, Honeybooks, spreadsheets, sticky notes, just like you said, like all of the different things. And then I start hearing, you know, and I personally had never made a specific recommendation of a tool because we're like, we are platform agnostic in our program. Whereas like, we don't want you to come in and be like, well, can't.

Lisa Williams (05:31.507)

Ehh

Shannon Mattern (05:53.067)

they won't help me because I use XYZ or this isn't the right place for me because we use XYZ. But then when people started digging into Moxie and they started talking about it, I'm like, I'm hearing a buzz about this unlike any other tool. And so like you, I got my own subscription because I'm like, I want to see what this is all about. And like you, I was like,

Lisa Williams (06:11.19)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (06:17.149)

I don't want to take your demo, close, close, close. No, I don't want to read anything. I just want to intuitively dig in and see. This has only been a couple of months ago. I'm sure things have changed with software and stuff in the past year, but I'm like, this makes so much sense. my gosh. A lot of the things that we teach in our program, our systems, processes, and strategies, they can actually accommodate that.

Lisa Williams (06:25.396)

Yep.

Shannon Mattern (06:46.687)

Like there are so, and so it was like checking all of the boxes. And then I got introduced to the people at Moxie. We do a couple of lunch and learns. Then I start hearing the name Lisa Williams, Lisa Williams, Lisa Williams, Lisa Williams has a course on Moxie, Lisa Williams. And I'm just like, I need to meet Lisa Williams. I need to have her on the podcast and talk about this. So yeah, I will get back to Moxie.

Lisa Williams (07:00.78)

Yay!

Lisa Williams (07:08.258)

I'm so excited.

Shannon Mattern (07:17.195)

in a little bit, but I want to know about like you and your web design business journey. Like when did you start your business and what has that looked like?

Lisa Williams (07:29.794)

Thank you. Yeah, it's pretty darn special, that journey. Before I started web design, and I've been doing it since April of 2019. prior to that, prior, I'm former teacher, an elementary teacher, and I was always into technology in the classroom. And technology these days is, back then was completely different than it is now.

I say back then, it was like 15 years ago, but it wasn't like, you know, I taught in the nineties or something, but, so I was always into technology while I started coaching and I, your, you'll like this. I used to be a certified hypnotist and I saw your, your episodes on hypnosis and all that. Fantastic. still.

Shannon Mattern (08:23.495)

my gosh, so cool.

Lisa Williams (08:25.058)

Yeah, I went through that. I just loved it. And I was a health and wellness coach. so life coach kind of that journey for a few years. And I was doing my own website and I've used all the tools for that too. And then in April of 2019, I started my web design business in January of that year, my mom passed.

from lung cancer, from complications of lung cancer, a month after she was diagnosed. And so we're from Michigan, we live in San Antonio and we're from Michigan. So I had went out, I was on my way to go like, I had my whole car packed, like everything, because I was going to work, I was going to do hypnosis, I could do it virtually, I could do my coaching virtually. And I went up there and I was going to take care of her and do all the things that you do, right? Well,

That lasted about 12 hours. I got there one night and the next morning she passed. So it was like just crazy. The most traumatic experience I've ever had and I've had some losses in our in my life. But at that point, I mean, you're kind of in like a steeper for, you know, a while. And then my husband, of course, and my and our daughter and my best friend were here and they drove up immediately and

Shannon Mattern (09:29.933)

I'm sure.

Shannon Mattern (09:39.148)

Mm -hmm.

Lisa Williams (09:47.916)

So we get back from there and I started like reevaluating things. Hold on a second, what's going on? And so it might, I completely just flipped upside down. said, what do I enjoy doing? I'm tired of doing for, you know, everyone else. Like this is it. All of my people that raised me were gone. My mom was the last one in my gun. Like, so I was just like, what is going on? So it took me a couple of months and I decided I'm going to do web design.

Shannon Mattern (10:07.755)

Yeah.

Lisa Williams (10:18.656)

And somebody that I knew asked me to do something for them and it just took off. And then I needed a name. our name, Jolee is my mom's first name, Joanne, and my name Lisa. And my little story is on our about page, but it's just on our Jolee Design Solutions about page. But it's basically, my mom and I had a little craft idea. She was a crafty person, made little things.

And she wanted to sell her things. And how can we do that? Well, I'm like, put it on Etsy, you know. And this was several years ago. And so we were going to name it Jolie Creations. My mom came up with the name. And I was like, my gosh, I love that. So that's where the name came from. then I just, then it just took off. And I started with Squarespace, actually. And then somebody, one of our clients, current clients, she's like,

one of our longest clients, had a WordPress site with Elementor and she asked me to do something on it. And I was like, okay, well, I can pick up on this pretty quick. And although I wasn't like a huge fan of Elementor for whatever reason, I was like, I can do so much here that I can't do in Squarespace. Like what's going on? And so then I transitioned to WordPress and it's been, the rest is history. It's been got in.

I'm one of the founding members, one of the OGs of Web Designer Pro, Josh's Web Designer Pro. it's just a lot. I just keep, I wouldn't be where I am today in web design without, even be able to do the Moxie course and all of that kind of things without this growth and this just kind of on a steady and we host and we maintain our clients' websites. So.

The only way into our little orbit is through web design. So I don't do off one projects or we design your website and we keep it and host it and maintain it and take care of you. yeah. And then, then the tools came through, you know, but yeah, my mom is right there. Yeah. Totally.

Shannon Mattern (12:28.458)

I love that your mom was, yeah.

I love that she was part of the journey and you honored that with your business name. I want to shout out my friend Josh Hall who his Web Designer Pro program has helped so many people. I feel like our programs are like brother and sister. We definitely

Lisa Williams (12:59.392)

Yep. Yep.

Shannon Mattern (13:04.55)

We both have the same goal in mind for web designers, which is for you to have profitable, sustainable businesses. I know obviously I have the Web Designer Academy, but I want to hear more about you gave yourself support by joining Web Designer Pro. How did that community and that program and Josh's support and all of those things contribute to

Lisa Williams (13:07.756)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (13:33.845)

where you're at today in your business.

Lisa Williams (13:36.342)

Yeah, well, I'm sure it's like I know about your academy. I mean, I've heard you speak about it in both of you. And so I totally agree the brother and sister thing, know, siblings. And there's no sibling rivalry. I can say that. There isn't. It's amazing. But what attracted me to the Web Designer Pro and Josh's, of course, the podcast when it used to be, you know, it's renamed now. like before he started this community, what

Shannon Mattern (13:46.797)

You

There isn't, there's truly not.

Lisa Williams (14:06.158)

kind of pulled me in his direction and to the community is the I want to help you create, you know, and architect a business that fits for you. You don't need to make multi six figures. You don't have to go for this. You don't have to do you don't have to be an agency. You don't have to because my husband and I were in our 50s. We absolutely love what I do or love what we do and

We are creating what works for us. And I don't have, we don't have the desire to be an agency. You know, I, I get help from people now and then and on certain projects and, and that, it's not, it's not any bigger. We, we love it the way we are. So that's what attracted me in the first place. And then it is just, just the people and watching it grow is I feel like a,

a mom in there now in a way I feel like I've been here for so long, you know, and I've just seen people come in and their engagement and the learning and you know, we have hangouts and I know you've talked about like group calls you have and the academy, it's just a place, you don't have to worry about saying anything that people are gonna shut down or you know, can just, it's a free space.

And I've vented in that not vented in a bad way, but like, you know, and, then I've returned the favor to others that are struggling. And so it's just, it's just welcoming to be in that place because we sit here and behind our computer, you know, my husband and I will take a little drive out in the back roads country of San Antonio, just to get out of the house for a minute, you know? So yeah.

It's been, I've learned a ton. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (16:05.623)

I think it's just, I asked you that because I just think it is so important for us as solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, solo business owners to, like you said, have a space with other people who are right there to cheer us on, who will support us when we need support, a place where we can contribute all of the really cool things that we've learned to help somebody else and

go to like put your collective brains together in a place where everyone, the value of everyone's knowledge together is just so much more than us trying to do it all on our own. And everybody listening to this, I don't care what community you put yourself in, whether it's ours, whether it's Josh's, whether it's, you know, one of the other awesome.

Lisa Williams (16:44.193)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (17:02.283)

web design business coaches or community owners that we've had on the show. I encourage you to find your people, find your place, find that place, like how you feel about Web Designer Pro where you're so proud to be a part of that community and you want to contribute to that community and give back to it because it's given you so much and it makes what we do so much more fulfilling.

Lisa Williams (17:23.734)

Yeah.

Lisa Williams (17:29.642)

Yeah, I've got the swag to prove that I'm loyal to that. Yeah, it's funny. But yeah, and I've learned that I've learned from so many others in there. And then I've also been able to give back in that way. And this is what I've learned by doing things this way, or somebody wants to offer some new service to their, you how does this look? And I said, well, I tried it and this is what happened, but

Shannon Mattern (17:32.461)

Hahaha

Lisa Williams (17:57.046)

You know, so it just goes back and forth like that. And it's amazing. That's probably the one of the only communities online that I'm pretty regular in, you know. But yeah, it's where it's where my course was birthed from. It's where my beginner's course was birthed from one of our weekly hangouts. We just get on and we talk whatever. Sometimes we talk about the weather. Sometimes we talk. We give our UK friends a bunch of

Shannon Mattern (18:06.603)

Yeah.

Lisa Williams (18:26.954)

you know, dirt or whatever. But we just chat. But that's where it was. The idea came from that, one of those hangouts.

Shannon Mattern (18:29.193)

Hahaha!

Shannon Mattern (18:38.175)

Yeah, so I'd love to know a little bit more about that. So you're like at the Hangout, y 'all are talking about Moxie. Did someone say to you, you should make a course on this? Did you have the idea? Like how did that come up?

Lisa Williams (18:51.754)

Someone we were talking and we call it, because I just scream out loud whenever I can in pro or like, but, other people have started screaming as well, like on my behalf, but it was, somebody said, the word, something, that's how we kind of laugh about it in those hangouts. But yeah, it's kind of a running joke. But somebody said that because I had been helping.

Shannon Mattern (19:13.591)

Hahaha.

Lisa Williams (19:20.598)

those in pro for a few months prior. So I launched that beginner's course in May. And then of this year, but for three or four months before that, I'd been starting to kind of help people. What is this Maxi and Lisa can help you. And I would do little loom videos and just kind of, and people were, they were getting value out of it. Like they were like, okay, I've got this now. Like this is great. And then it just, somebody was saying,

that you should do a course on that. And I was like, I have no idea where to start doing a course. mean, so I put on my teacher hat and I said, OK, I can do this. And I literally did it in like two weeks. It's crazy. I mean, I've added a little bit and kind of added and I've updated some since then. But I had the course, I pre sold it and I was just I was blown away. Never.

And in my working entrepreneurial that I ever launched something like that and it just blew up and there's over hundred people in it right now. And I'm just like, are you kidding me? And I've got a surprise that just yesterday I have a free course that is available. So I'll talk about that in a minute.

Shannon Mattern (20:48.097)

That's incredible one that I love the way that it happened, that it happened so organically with you just being like in love with this tool, excited to show it to other people, excited to help other people with it. And then your imposter syndrome kicked in a little bit and you decided to not, like you decided to just like not.

Lisa Williams (20:49.217)

Yeah.

Lisa Williams (20:58.114)

It's like...

Shannon Mattern (21:15.121)

into that and be like, no, I actually do know how to teach something. I am a teacher. So let me do that. I am curious, and we'll come back to the free course because I want to talk about this too, but I'm curious, when looking at creating the course, where did you see people getting stuck and then how did your teaching background come into play to help you?

Lisa Williams (21:20.66)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (21:44.135)

make this beginner course and make this easy for them.

Lisa Williams (21:47.788)

So it's twofold on that. One is the way I started, know, the way a lot of us do when we share something, a solution to something, we went through the trenches and how I said, I just jump in and I started like, holy moly, I'm like, wait a minute, this isn't working. This isn't doing what it's supposed to do, all those things. But in helping others along the way, and of course myself, one, I found that

People will jump in. They want to send the invoice. They want to send the project. They want to like, wait a second. I sent this agreement and now I got to send a project. Now I got to send an invoice. Well, no, you don't. It can all be in one. So there was things that were missing in people's processes of setting up and wanting to do things that I was like, wait a second. You don't have a form that's going to lead to this or

you, there's no opportunity. So who are you going to send this to? And I started putting those pieces together and thought, people just aren't taking the time to set up, which understandably so. It takes a minute. People aren't taking the time to set up those initial pieces to make the puzzle come together because there's a lot of pieces that they all have to talk to each other.

and people are missing certain pieces or they're just not connected in the right way. So they're not talking to each other. And that was what I was finding in just helping people and even being in the Facebook community. And let me just say Moxie themselves have been completely supportive of what I'm doing. And there's a lot of done for you implementers. There's a lot of people that help and they're all amazing. And I just thought, you know what?

Some people want to just do it themselves and they want to own what they're doing and they need help, yes, but they want to own what they're putting in there and how they're setting things up and so that they understand it completely. So there's two sets of people in that respect, but yeah, it's just setting up the pieces in the beginning. And so I thought.

Lisa Williams (24:15.446)

what's the first thing that you got to do? And I just went from there. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (24:20.031)

It makes me think of like back in the day I used to teach a WordPress course and I don't teach it anymore, but it used to be like my main offer like back in the day. And I was just like, maybe I don't think like other people, but all of the resources online, I'm like, this seems backwards. It seems like you're teaching me like things I don't need to know right now, or you're teaching me to do something that's making me have to do extra work later.

And so for so many like set up, like you do something so many times and then you're just like, well, if we just flip this on our head and do this first and I don't even talk to you about that until later when you actually need it, we're gonna cut so much time, confusion, frustration off of this process. And that's what people tell me your course does is.

Lisa Williams (25:15.682)

It's my, you said turn it on its head. That's one of my little tag. I turned Moxie set up on its head is what I say. What's on my page.

Shannon Mattern (25:21.388)

I love it. I probably got that from reading your bio before we started.

Lisa Williams (25:27.496)

In the magic moxie, like you want a magic moxie and you got a messy moxie right now. A lot of people like they're in the course and they're like, okay, hold on a second. I am a one hot mess right now. You know, so yeah. Yeah, I'm really, really, touches my heart that people are getting so much value and able to

get use out of it and able to quite frankly stick around, right? If you get too frustrated, you're like, I'm out of this tool. I don't get it. So I wanna help people get it.

Shannon Mattern (26:07.669)

Yeah, I feel like as web designers, we have enough going on. We have to figure out how to get clients. We have to figure out sales. Yes, we have the skills to do the thing we're doing, but that changes all the time of what we're designing for and what kinds of... Everything is changing so much and we have to figure out how to charge, how to make money, how to run projects.

If you are messing around starting over with your project management system over and over and over again, like you are just adding so much extra work to your plate that's taking time away from what you really want, which is really like great fit clients who pay you well and projects that run smoothly. And I feel like if you can find the tool.

And just like you said, there's a resource out there to show you how to set this up in a way that's not going to like make you want to throw your laptop out the window. Why not just do that and stick with it? Because every time we start over, we're just delaying our delaying our results, delaying our results.

Lisa Williams (27:15.511)

Yeah.

Lisa Williams (27:23.966)

Yeah, and I my YouTube channel, I've never had a YouTube channel. I tried to do one for you know, what does that like I tried to do one like helping and then I thought everything that I was doing on the on the kind of opt in side and the kind of the gen side of our web design business was was bringing like DIYers to me and I'm like, no, wait a second. So I just but anyways, with the YouTube channel was also birthed out of

one of the pro hangouts, one of our weekly hangouts. And I was just like, okay, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. And I just hammered out about 10 videos for YouTube in a week or so. And I have over 100 subscribers. I'm like.

Lisa Williams (28:19.082)

just find it so fascinating, but I absolutely love it. I could not be happier putting that out there because I feel like some people gravitate towards the way people teach and the way people show you how to do things. And I'm just friends, Rachel Green, Joey Tribbiani are two clients of mine, and I don't care who says anything about it. I'm just like, I am all about my friends. I mean, people won't see this, but I have my...

Shannon Mattern (28:31.735)

Yeah.

Lisa Williams (28:48.65)

My water bottle thing is all friends. It's a friends. It's kind of blurry. can't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I just, so I play on that and I just love it. And I feel like it's just, I want it to be relaxing for people as well when they're saying, because that's it's a lot of brain, you know, energy that goes into setting something up. But I also hope that it helps people to like,

Shannon Mattern (28:53.121)

yeah, I see like all of the stickers and.

Lisa Williams (29:15.714)

take a deeper dive into their business processes. And especially if they're moving from one platform to another. And it's just like, OK, let me figure out what exactly do I want to do. me edit some things or adjust some things. So it's just so much fun. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (29:18.882)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (29:33.717)

It's, that's, that's amazing. It's like, that's, that's the thing we want to love what we're doing. I was thinking about, you know, when you were saying, you were saying like with, with Moxie and launching your course and getting a hundred people in it and your YouTube channel is a hundred people and like, this is kind of like blowing up and, and you also said that in the, when you decided to, to go and do your web design business, that that just took off.

Lisa Williams (30:03.778)

Mm

Shannon Mattern (30:04.135)

I am curious and I know our listeners would love to know what did that look like for you to start getting clients in your web design business when you said it took off? Like what were you doing? What were you saying to people? What actions were you taking as that newer web design business owner to start letting people know like, hey, this is what I'm doing now and people are coming to you and it just starts to take off.

Lisa Williams (30:34.142)

Yeah. And I will say that the web design journey didn't take off as quick as this course Moxie whole orbit has, but number one, I've always been positive that I felt deep in my soul that this is what I'm supposed to do. Like this is where I'm supposed to be is I absolutely love designing websites and I will learning and digging through the little technical pieces of it. mean, I don't go as far as like,

coding and all of that stuff. But anyways, I love it. And it took off in the sense that the more and more clients we got, and I mean, was word of mouth at first, it was just being out there. was social media. And even five years ago, social media was different than it is today. So we're not, I'm not even on social media for our business anymore. I ditched that last summer, this past summer. I was just like, it's too much, it's too much head space for me.

And content marketing is where it's at for me. And I encourage our clients to do that. So it gradually, and I just kept positive and I kept learning and growing and I meditate a lot and I walk and I just do, I just talk, my husband and I talk. Now he didn't start out.

When I he didn't he wasn't with me when I started out I started out and I was doing Squarespace of course So so you don't need hosting or anything and then when I moved to WordPress I thought well, okay. Hold on a second. Where am I gonna? I knew nothing. Where am I gonna host? What how am I gonna get this online? And then I started then I went on that journey found flywheel and then it's just grown from there where we have another company where we've had a couple different companies, but

I did it myself. I I had 10, 12 clients maybe like about a six, eight months later, something like that a year later. But then in the summer ish of 2020, my husband, he said, let's, let's do it. He had a part -time job that he was doing and just said, let's, let's do this because you can do it. He's very technical and very, he used to work in IT and all that. So, so like,

Lisa Williams (32:58.09)

our skill sets just match right up to provide one full service. So in the last year though, year and a half, it's really grown because I've tightened up one, our processes. I valued what we do and what I do more. And I'm from you, really, I'm not in their pocket. That's been a very, very

Big jump for me and big mindset switch for me is that the people, we have our value and we charge what we charge and it's an investment. It's not a cost for the client. And I have that mindset, but it's their choice. And we get referrals. I have a couple SEO ladies that have worked with other clients and so they'll send.

some on our way, but we do a lot of recurring services and that's something that's And another reason why Moxie helps me day to day is because I have these other, these ongoing things with current clients that we do. And it's just like, yeah, that's coming up, okay. And I always say in different, I always say that.

Some dates are on rolling due dates. It's not everything is a hard due date. So I just push them next week if I didn't get to it this week and it's okay. yeah, so we do a lot of recurring now, but it's really jumped in the last year and a half. A lot because of Pro, the community, and then just our growth in general. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (34:50.673)

I love that you said that you just, you were certain that this is what you're meant to do and that you've remained positive. You know, as you were growing, I talked to a lot of web designers who are in that uncomfortable space between, you know, really like putting themselves out there, doing outreach, talking to people, creating, doing their content marketing.

doing all of the things and then awaiting the results of the doing and that they start to get doubtful and they start to feel like maybe there's something wrong with them or maybe they're doing it wrong or whatever thoughts creep in the space between the doing and the getting the results. And, you know, when you said

Lisa Williams (35:39.681)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (35:46.069)

you stayed positive, you took care of yourself through meditation and walking and learning and being part of a community to get support and you're seeing the results of that, like staying the course and that commitment and managing your mind. It's such a beautiful thing.

Lisa Williams (36:08.226)

Thank you. It's not, mean, there were hard, there were like challenging moments, right? You're in the trenches, you're in the middle of it. And I remember doing this 90 day blog writing strategy, just, we didn't have, was a kind of a, people will say, people will say in the community sometimes, or just ask me when you don't have any clients, where do you go? Write, write, share your knowledge, write, write, write, write.

don't go posting on crazy on social media. Right. And so that's what I did. I took 90 days roughly, and I just hammered out just blog posts and Steve wrote, my husband, Steve, he wrote a bit and I just wrote on all different topics. I researched different things. I gathered all this stuff and I wrote and they're still living on our website today. And it's giving me a way to

be found, people search for that kind of stuff, as well as share. you're asking about this, about, should my email and my website be in the same hosting company? No, here's why. And I share my blog article about it. So things like that. it's giving me a way to share things too. So, but yeah, stay in the course. Just knowing.

Shannon Mattern (37:37.629)

I, you know, when your advice to write makes me think of just like you went into how can I add value? How can I serve? How can I help? How can I create assets for my business that serve and help and add value that live on and moving into that space versus staying in the

Lisa Williams (37:39.786)

Excuse me.

Lisa Williams (37:57.814)

That live on, that live forever. Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (38:07.189)

you know, this isn't working, it's not going to work. I'm, you know, that kind of energy that causes, I think causes people to jump from thing to thing to thing and never give one thing long enough to really like percolate and pan out and work out. So I think that that's just, that's, that's really beautiful that you went into like service, but with a purpose that benefited your business as well.

Lisa Williams (38:35.38)

Yeah, when you say it like that, didn't think about I haven't thought about it that way before, but yeah, it was. And I was just thinking, I was just seeing there were so many things out there that just in everywhere that I looked and I was just like, people aren't quite sure what to do. How do they get a domain name? Like, what do you mean I have to...

have a privacy policy? I like, what are you talking about? Like all kinds of different things. And it just marketing in general, just like how does a website benefit you in general? So all of those different topics, I just, yeah. And I don't write that much now. I mean, I do, but not that intensely because I got a course to create now.

Shannon Mattern (39:31.031)

Yeah, but you're doing the same thing with Moxie, right? Like you just talked about, like you created a free course. That is the same thing as, I mean, obviously a different process of people like finding that and like getting on it. But let's talk about the free course. Why did you, so you built the paid course first, you launched it, it was a huge success, filled a big need for people. Why did you decide to create the free course?

Lisa Williams (39:33.824)

I am.

Lisa Williams (39:45.802)

Right, right.

Lisa Williams (39:52.993)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lisa Williams (40:01.154)

The main reason is a lot of what I had a lot of questions that I was or that I saw in. Let me just say just right here that Moxie support is amazing. Like they are second to none and they're amazing and I just I can't say enough about them and I will tap into them every now and then.

Something just isn't clicking right for me. And so they're amazing. But in the community, just was like, you know, people have said, that's not in my budget. The full course isn't in my budget right now. And I was like, okay. And I would, I don't know, I had a coupon. I ran a couple of, you know, like little bit off or whatnot over the summer. But I just thought, I can just give this little bit.

and it would lay the foundation. What I was finding was people were asking questions about how to do the same thing that I was talking about before when they're jumping too far ahead. They don't realize it. But they're jumping here and want to do this, but yet this isn't set up. the paid courses is from start to finish. There's very little that I have in there.

But the free course is six lessons. And it's literally just focusing on your settings and your business settings and just kind of some preferences. And then your few templates, email form and project templates. And that is going to set you up to do the rest. yeah, people have said.

I just launched the free course. I'm kind of still in shock because I just put it out. So what I did was I created the free course. They're brand new videos. I, because I sent an email to all of the students in the paid course and I was like, okay, we know that these are different. I'm not giving away, you know, the cow with the farm or whatever that saying is. I'm not giving away everything in these, you know, but these are.

Lisa Williams (42:28.45)

completely new videos and Although the the lesson names are the same kind of but I asked them to share it with others and then I put it in the Facebook community but my gosh, you know, it's here and Like 70 people are already in the free I just like crazy Yeah, just in and like

Shannon Mattern (42:56.639)

I love that so much.

Lisa Williams (42:58.146)

36 hours. but what makes me happy is that someone already said to me, I, my gosh, like I have completely like I'm done with that part. And now, and I've learned and I can make a few tweaks and I can do this for this client that I'm working with. Like she's helping the client set up. And then others have just said, like I was so, my Moxie was turned upside down.

And now it's fine. And now I've got a better grasp on it. And I just sent out my first invoice. things like that are my first agreement. And everything was all in one. They pay the deposit and boom, done. Project was automatically created. All of my tasks are right there, done. And like that, yes, that's the way it's supposed to work. Yay. I'm so happy that you have time back now.

You can do other things. You can write more blog posts, right? Or whatever your industry is. I say it's for web designers, but it's really for anybody. But my examples and my focus is web designers. That's what I do. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (44:04.535)

Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (44:11.211)

I love that. Can I ask, are you using your affiliate link with the free training?

Lisa Williams (44:18.43)

I am. am. Well, most people that come into the course, already have Moxie. They're in a trial. They already have it. So I kind of like, know, but from the YouTube channel, that is so much fun. I never thought that creating little YouTube tutorials could be so much fun. And I have my little avatar, your Moxie Maeve, and my little avatar on my YouTube channel. And Josh keeps telling me I need to put my picture there.

Shannon Mattern (44:19.873)

Yes, good.

Shannon Mattern (44:27.009)

Gotcha.

Lisa Williams (44:47.606)

And I said, no, I'm not. I'm keeping my little avatar, but I have it. I'm in my videos. But anyways, I have the affiliate link there because somebody could be just looking around for a tool and they don't have it yet. But yes, I do have.

Shannon Mattern (45:03.991)

So your journey right now with your Moxie free course and your Moxie paid course reminds me of my very early journey with teaching WordPress because I taught an entire WordPress end -end course for free, but I used affiliate links throughout the entire course. And so I used an affiliate link for hosting. I used an affiliate link for Canva, for email, for all of this stuff. And I said in my...

free stuff, my free course, like thank you so much in advance for using my affiliate links because I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase and it helps me create more great free content for you. So I was very actively promoting my affiliate links with my free training. I also like you with Moxie had a upgrade for or a paid option for people who wanted to go deeper.

Lisa Williams (45:57.152)

Mmm.

Shannon Mattern (46:01.797)

And I needed to do that because as you know, things change, modules need to be updated. Like there's an investment of our time and money that needs to happen. So like we get to be compensated for our intellectual property and for our work. But I had the free course and I was able to kind of do what you're doing, although you didn't pitch me to come on this podcast. Josh was like, you need to have Lisa on this podcast.

But like I would say, hey, I'd love to come on your show, talk about what I do. I have a completely free training that I can give your people. And then in that training where I'm introducing the fact to them that they could actually do this themselves. I was making five to $10 ,000 a month just from affiliate links. And so that's why I say this to you, giving you a little bit of unsolicited advice, but also for all of our listeners who

Lisa Williams (47:00.599)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (47:01.097)

might be in a position where they have a tool that they love that they've cracked the code on it, made it easy for people and other people are always asking them, how do you do this in this tool? That having a give like that to go around and give to people to market and then I would say very blatantly talking about your affiliate links and being proud to do that because people would

people are like, my gosh, this is so amazing. Do you have an affiliate link? They probably ask you that. To just be able to give and receive something in return, it's like a win -win -win, especially for the people that are like, I don't have the budget, but you're still getting something from Moxie for promoting them. It's just such a reciprocity that for

Lisa Williams (47:36.104)

Yeah, and I need to, yeah.

Lisa Williams (47:45.193)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (47:57.783)

people who really love a tool like you do can be a way to supplement your web design business income or maybe like me end up that being the only thing that you do eventually if it grows that much. I know that was a whole bunch of unsolicited advice, but I'm very excited for the possibility of you to really take this free course on the road and

be able to give a bunch of value away for free and get paid for it at the same time.

Lisa Williams (48:32.808)

Unsolicited advice very much the received and well received I appreciate it I need to add my affiliate link into the actual free the free course content because on the YouTube channel and so far people that have come into it they already had like they're either in the trial or they're Or they're just crazy trying to set it up and they've already had moxie, but I do have an

Shannon Mattern (48:35.221)

You

Shannon Mattern (48:42.935)

Do it.

Shannon Mattern (48:57.175)

Well, the time our listeners hear this and they come to sign up for your free course, make sure you all use Lisa's affiliate link to sign up for Moxie so that she gets credit for teaching you all of the things. I will say it for you.

Lisa Williams (49:04.658)

Yeah, I'll have my affiliate link there.

Yeah, and.

Lisa Williams (49:16.034)

And I have an affiliate link for my course.

Shannon Mattern (49:23.383)

cool.

Lisa Williams (49:24.096)

Yeah, so I use SureCart, little plug for SureCart, love SureCart. So I use SureCart for the payment and then Learn Bash for the course platform. In fact, I just changed and I just moved to Bricks Builder and I'm just, my gosh, it's like a breath of fresh air. I'm I'm chomping at the bit to get these websites, but yourmoxymaven .com is on Bricks.

And it's LearnDash is where the courses, the two courses, that's the platform. But I use SureCart and I have an affiliate. You can, how do I say that? You can be an affiliate for my course. so people have done that, that have gotten into the paid course. So yeah, I mean, and I continue to update things and even the free course, I'm not just going to let it sit there and get out of date.

I don't want things to be out of date too much. mean, things are going to kind of, know, Moxie moves so fast sometimes with new features and improving features that I just can't get to a fast enough, but I absolutely love it. And I do, when you thought I want you to take this on the road, like to give something. I thought the Maven's going on the road. Like I just saw it like road trip for the Maven or something. I don't know.

Shannon Mattern (50:49.395)

it so much. you know, like I said, here at the Web Designer Academy, we have been like platform agnostic because we do serve people who have all different tech stacks that they do for themselves or for their clients. But what is emerging with all of our students is that Moxie has been a really powerful tool, a great partner. There are people like you creating good education to help people

Lisa Williams (50:50.241)

haha

Shannon Mattern (51:18.573)

It's more affordable in terms of its monthly fees than its peers, I guess you would say, in the industry. I highly recommend checking it out through Lisa's course and website and just learning more about that. Where can everybody go to get their hands on this free course, learn more about you, connect with you, learn all things Moxie from you?

Lisa Williams (51:28.011)

Yeah.

Lisa Williams (51:47.828)

Yeah, yourmoxymaven .com. just, in fact, it's just a couple weeks ago. I mean, I had had the domain sitting there for a couple of months. And then when I made the move to Bricks, that's a whole long story. That's a whole other, it's a whole long story. But so I thought, well, let me just get the course over there and just have this dedicated to the course. So it's very slim. Like it's.

Shannon Mattern (51:51.265)

good.

Shannon Mattern (52:04.823)

Ha ha!

Lisa Williams (52:17.214)

There's like three pages there. There's the beginner course, yourmoxiemaven .com will take you right to the beginners course page. And then there's a starter course and then your account page. Like that's it. I don't have my blog posts over there yet. Our website, joelydesignsolutions .com has blog articles about Moxie, but I haven't moved those over to your Moxie Maven yet.

Shannon Mattern (52:19.885)

Perfect.

Lisa Williams (52:45.548)

But yeah, that's all the things in my YouTube channel is the same. mean, when you search like Moxie something like my YouTubes are popping up there. I'm just like, I'm just blown away. What is happening right? And that's what I see for other people. Like when I search things and so it's really, it's fun. It's heartwarming. It's, I'm just glad I'm able to provide something that helps.

Shannon Mattern (52:59.053)

You're like, what is happening right now? What is happening?

Yeah.

Lisa Williams (53:15.276)

people in their business.

Shannon Mattern (53:18.029)

So good. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. I love hearing about your journey and just your enthusiasm for helping other people and just the joy on your face when you think about one of your students getting a paid invoice because of something that you helped them do is just so amazing. And I'm going to link up your MoxieMaven .com

Lisa Williams (53:35.617)

Next.

Shannon Mattern (53:46.765)

We'll put your YouTube channel. We'll link up to those blog posts. So everybody listening, if you haven't selected a CRM project management and voice management tool, please go check out Lisa. Learn more about Moxie. Consider that as your tool and let her show you how to get that set up. So Lisa, thank you so much for being here.

Lisa Williams (54:10.046)

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I would say go check out the free course or just there's a few videos on the YouTube channel that kind of gives an overview of what you can do and how it works and things. So thank you. I've had so much fun and

Shannon Mattern (54:24.48)

Amazing.

It was so great to meet you and I know that this is like the first meeting of many, I'm sure.

Lisa Williams (54:33.142)

I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Thank you so much. Thanks again. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (54:39.479)

That's all I've got for you for this week. So I'll see you all back here next week. Bye.