#118 – October 2024 Income Report

Shannon Mattern (00:04.014)

Hey there and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. Today I am bringing you what everyone tells me is your favorite episode. They're the ones that I get the most feedback on, the ones that get the most downloads, my monthly income report. And this is for October 2024. And in my income reports, I just break down everything that happened behind the scenes of my business, how much money we brought in, how much money went out.

and all of the life, money and business lessons that I learned along the way. And it's been one year since I brought income reports back onto the podcast. I used to do them on my previous podcast, Pep Talks for Side Hustlers every single month. And so when I changed over to, when I retired Pep Talks for Side Hustlers and it was about a year,

before I started Profitable Web Designer, I didn't have income reports on the podcast because I was like, I'm not running a web design business anymore. I'm running a web design business coaching business now. I don't think the money is relevant. And I had a whole lot of other mind trash around that. But from what I heard from all of my students and my listeners is that it's not that my business model being

the same as what is helpful to you. It's the, just the lessons and all of the things about the money that is helpful to you. So I will keep doing these income reports as long as you keep telling me they are helpful to you. But honestly, they're massively, massively helpful to me. So I can't really see a good reason to ever stop doing them. So I highly encourage you.

to take time at the end of each month of your business to write your own income reports and reflect on your month, whether you ever publish them anywhere or not. We get so busy as business owners that sometimes we forget to stop and acknowledge how far we've come, what's working, what's not working, what we want to change. And just taking a beat every month to do that analysis for yourself can help you like.

Shannon Mattern (02:18.592)

show yourself how amazing you are and everything that you did accomplish in that time period and help you just make micro adjustments so that you don't get too far off course or help you look objectively. Now, something that happened three weeks ago that felt really charged or just show you that you don't have to do anything and just stay the course even if it feels slow or feels boring. So they just help give you perspective.

and not necessarily believe the story that your brain wants to tell you in the moment. They say hindsight is 20-20 for a reason. Like that's what these income reports do for me. And I always recommend that you do this for you. And by the time this podcast episode is coming out, it's going to be almost the end of 20-24.

What a great time for you to reflect on your year. You can write your own like annual review and then start writing your own monthly income reports starting in 2025. And then it's so fun to look back on them after, you know, a quarter or six months and see how far you've really, really come.

And I just encourage you to do that as a private exercise in your own business. And so to do it, all you need to do is decide, like figure out what your minimum baseline revenue is. That's the amount of money you need to pay yourself, invest in tools, training and team, and pay your taxes. And that number is totally unique to you. For me, that number is $15,000 every month.

About 10,000 of that goes to me and our client success coordinator, Erica Nash for our paychecks and the payroll taxes that I pay separately. And the remaining 5,000 is spent on marketing operations, admin costs for tools, contractors, all of the things and all of the money that we need to run our business. It goes to paying the interest and the principal on the money I borrowed.

Shannon Mattern (04:23.95)

back in 2023 from my small business administration line of credit to help me get through a super tough year in 2023. And so that's how I figure out my minimum baseline revenue. I talk about all of that in depth in past income reports. So you can go back and listen to that if you want the nitty gritty of exactly what we spend our money on. But if I'm planning ahead of time,

that I know I have 15,000 flowing out every single month and I'm paying myself a paycheck every single month. Like that's the most important thing. I pay myself first. Like the business right now isn't structured to run without me, although we are getting closer to it being like able to sustain without me. It doesn't run without Erica. So I prioritize our

payroll first and then the rest of that is all negotiable. But if I'm planning to spend at least 15,000 every single month, then I also do whatever I can to create at least 15,000 of inflow every single month to cover that. And money flows into our business through new enrollments in our Web Designer Academy program, our Next Level Mastermind program.

recurring revenue from people who enrolled previously on a payment plan. Any other promotions that we might do, like if we're selling tickets to the Simply Profitable Designer Summit, doing a paid life workshop like we did back in August for paid discovery mastery, selling an online course, even in a flow from affiliate partnerships and sponsorships. You may have heard some ads on this podcast, which helps

like offset the cost of producing this podcast. Like we have a lot of different ways that we create inflow. And if more than $15,000 comes in, great, that stays in my bank account for the times when less than $15,000 comes in so that I still can like cover everything that I have committed to, to grow my business. all of the, all of the money that flows out.

Shannon Mattern (06:39.434)

is an investment in creating future inflow, right? So I want to make sure that I am thinking about it in that way so that I'm not so expense-minded when the money leaves my business. So that's how I figure out what I want to create every single month is based.

is like the very first goal is to create what I know I'm gonna, what I'm gonna invest every month. And then anything beyond that is like overflow, right? And so back in my August income report, after seeing three consecutive months of over $20,000 in inflow, so in June, July and August, we had created over $20,000 of inflow every month, I declared that instead of

intending to just create the minimum amount of money I need each month, $15,000, which is definitely just a relic from me just trying to survive 2023 and sustain it and get through it. Back in my August Income Report, I was like, I'm going to start saying that my inflow goal is 40,000 a month and then just let that unfold over time. However, it's going to unfold without me putting pressure on it because like I shared back in episode 104,

when we commit to a goal, not just set a goal, not just be like, it would be nice if but commit to it. Our conscious mind programs our unconscious mind and then much like a self driving car, our brain goes to work on reaching that goal without the intervention of the conscious mind. And in fact, too much intervention from the conscious mind, like worry, anxiety, hustle, all of those things can cause

over corrections and put you more off course away from your goal. And it's an entirely new way of like goal setting for me. And I don't mean that just by like setting that goal and committing to it that I just don't take any action. I sit there and wait for $40,000 to magically appear, but it means that I'm not searching.

Shannon Mattern (08:56.108)

I'm not feeling desperate or anxious or worried or making decisions from the place of desperation, anxiety or worry, nor am I feeling, I don't know, untouchable, infallible, hubris is a word that comes to mind. Like I'm not feeling like I can't lose. So I'm just taking big swings and feeling like nothing could ever go wrong, which is definitely in hindsight upon reflection, a feeling I was feeling back in the heydays of 2021 and 2022.

when everyone was stuck at home, all of the money that they would have been spending doing other things was flowing freely everywhere online. It was like as if money that was going out into the world locally in physical brick and mortar, restaurant, travel, like things that people could do in person, all of that flow of money was redirected to spending online and it was float.

freely flowing everywhere and myself and so many other entrepreneurs made the mistake isn't the right word, but deduction that we did something to cause that money to be directed to us, to cause so much money to flow into our business and thinking like, my gosh, it's always gonna be this way. And making decisions from that place that I wouldn't have made.

under normal business circumstances where all that money wasn't being diverted into just whatever anyone was doing online back then. So like I said, it doesn't mean that I just sit there and wait for 40,000 to magically appear, but I'm also not worried and I'm also not feeling like I can't lose and I'm untouchable and just like doing whatever and just believing like the money will come.

Like there's, there's, steps in between those things. Right. So back in August, I decided and commit that my business is going to create $40,000 months, which by the way, I've done before. Like that's a half a million dollar business. I've totally had that happen before. So it's not out of the realm of possibility. And then in August, and then like, so.

Shannon Mattern (11:23.086)

I decide that in August after seeing the evidence of three 20 K months in a row. And then in September, if you listen to our September income report, our inflow is $8,899. And I shared with you back in that September income report, episode one 13 that old me would have freaked out. But, like been like, my gosh, I have to change everything right now. I have to do something. would have like,

thrown away all of our plans for the rest of the year and tried to like do something to fix that. But I was not at all worried in September seeing that number. I wasn't like, my gosh, something has gone wrong. It's all falling apart. I was just looked at the data and made decisions from like a really calm, confident place. And that experience is how I know that my subconscious mind is at work on my $40,000 a month goal.

because I didn't meddle with any of our plans based on what happened in September. I stayed the course in October. I still did all of the things I planned to do. I made another investment in my business based on those 25 questions to ask myself when making a financial decision that I talked about in a previous podcast episode. I even tested something new from a place of inspiration and generosity without a thought about doing it to quote unquote, make up for lost revenue in September, which I totally would have done.

before to be like, my gosh, I got to fix what happened in September. I got to try something. I got to pull something out of my hat and see what I got, but that's not what I did. And so because I stayed the course in October, our inflow was $21,490. Our outflow was $19,233.36, which added $2,256 to our reserves.

And back in September, I had the 7,000 or whatever I needed, the difference between what we made and what went out in my reserves to cover that. And it was no big deal. Side note, our outflow was about just a little over $4,000 more than what our baseline outflow is. And that's just because we paid like the rest of the deposit for our next level retreat house. And it was all expected.

Shannon Mattern (13:47.936)

outflow, was nothing in that 19,000 that was like, Ooh, I didn't see that coming. So I knew that that money was coming out and we had planned for it. And so that's, you know, I say that our minimum baseline is 15 because that's what we spend. knew I was going to spend over 19 in October. We had that planned for it was covered, no big deal. So that's how I feel.

I'm not going to lie. have blips here and there of like, what if no one ever buys anything ever again and I never make another dollar? Like, I think I do have that thought pop in, but I can so quickly not get hooked into it. And I can just see that that's just like the scared little girl in me that's afraid things aren't going to work out and that's okay. She can live in there, but I get to like,

comfort her as the adult and help her see that every of the other 1000 times she's thought that in the past, that's not what has happened. So I was just thinking that like, I don't know what exactly has happened to me over the past year. You know, since I've been publishing income reports on this podcast and talking, you know, more publicly,

publicly, I guess it is public, it's on the podcast publicly about like the behind the scenes of our business. But I feel like a new person. And I do know that I have invested a lot of my time and attention into my own mental health in lots of different ways. Bringing this monthly income report back was critical to feeling like, how do I say this? Like feeling like I'm being.

fully transparent and hiding nothing and that makes me feel authentic and when I feel authentic, I feel like myself, I guess. And I also spent very, I put very, a lot of very intentional time into my next level goal of eliminating negative self-talk. And so, you know, I started noticing this in September.

Shannon Mattern (16:08.738)

But I noticed a lot more in October. Like, I'm no longer driven by anxiety, which had become so normal for me. I didn't realize it. It was just like my baseline operating energy. I now feel calm and patient. I literally cannot remember the last time I felt this good. You know, I'm thinking it's been like over, I'm just like, gosh, it could be like 25 years. Like, I really don't know. And

It didn't just happen. I made a series of intentional decisions. got really honest with myself about places in my life where I was playing small, not taking good care of myself physically or mentally, and acting like a victim of my circumstances. And I dedicated intentional time to reading as many books as I could get my hands on about lots of different facets of mindset, not just in business, but in life and in relationships. And I didn't just read, I went to therapy.

I went to therapy by myself. My husband and I went to therapy together. And my family members that went to therapy separately, we all talked about our therapy together. And I was open to feedback that I was getting from colleagues and mastermind members and family and friends when I told them what I was working on.

Yeah, here's my thing. I'm working on my negative self-talk. And then they started sharing with me things that they noticed about me that I could work on related to my negative self-talk and how it played out in my life. And they felt safe to tell me those things. I could handle hearing it. And I was just so grateful to be like, my gosh, thank you for sharing that with me. I had no idea. And it really helps me to see how I can change.

to like, I don't know, be happier. And just even being open to new experiences like hypnotherapy, which I did on my podcast interview back with Lauren Best in episode 103. And spoiler alert, we invited her to do a session with us at our next level Mastermind, which I'll talk about in my November income report. And it was incredible. So long story longer.

Shannon Mattern (18:30.516)

In October, I just noticed the contrast of how I feel now versus how I felt even a year ago when I started these income reports or even a year ago this time, because like we took our annual friendscation in October of this year. We do it every single year and I just noticed the contrast of how I felt on that vacation this year versus last year.

my husband and our best friends. We have this tradition, we take a trip together to the Dominican Republic every year. We found this all inclusive resort that we love and we go every year if we can, maybe every other year if we can't. And the past three times that we went, even though I was in paradise, I was so anxious about my business, about how I looked in a swimsuit, but mostly about business.

I'd be laying in a cabana on the beach, like under palm trees, looking at this gorgeous ocean, completely unable to relax and be in the moment. My mind was completely flooded with to-do lists and our year in promotion and how when I get back from vacation, I get serious about making sure that next year I didn't look disgusting in a bathing suit. And I'd just be completely distracted and consumed by my own negative thoughts. Like someday when I have enough money and I'm thin enough, I'll be able to enjoy this.

Like even just saying this now, I'm like, my gosh, that poor girl, she was so mean to herself. I just want to give her a hug. And I've done a lot of work, intentional work in this past year. And then we go on this vacation again and I had a fantastic time, totally in the moment, not worrying about a thing, wearing whatever swimsuit I wanted without thinking I should look any different or trash talking myself, working.

early in the morning is if I felt inspired to work, but never because I had to or I was worried about anything, but because I love what I do. I truly, truly love what I do. And my friend Eric who goes on this trip with us, who's my best friend's husband, always used to say to me when we're on this trip, he's like, Shannon, be here now. And honestly, he wouldn't just say this to me on this trip, he'd say it to me anytime we were together doing something.

Shannon Mattern (20:50.592)

And I was like often wherever being anxious about anything. I was here now on that trip and it was a new experience for me. And that feeling of being here now, I think is what will give me the capacity I need to do the things I need to do and make the decisions I need to make and take the informed risks I need to take to create those $40,000 months in the future, because it's not about the money.

The money is the measure of the impact that I wanna have. And if we're making $40,000 a month, that means we're helping a lot of women to have this experience that I have been having this year, like especially recently in terms of like, I have created a business that lets me live the life that I want to live on my terms.

I've created a business that has let me over the past two months be there for my family, at the drop of a hat when, when they need something, because now we have like, have a, my grandpa, elderly grandmother who, you know, she's, she just turned 89 and she needs a lot more support than she used to. And we are all pitching in to help with that and just.

other, you know, just being able to help with other things in the family. And like, I know a lot of you listening, have elderly parents, have elderly grandparents, have children, have reasons why you want to be able to do whatever you want to do. Whenever you want to do it, you want to be in charge of structuring your life so that you can do that. And you don't want to be like having to ask for permission from your boss.

to live your life the way that you wanna live it. And that is what I have experienced for a long time, but now I'm just allowing myself to be like, yeah, like this is what this is all about. And so the more people we can help with that, like that's amazing. And the more inflow we can create in the business, that means I can.

Shannon Mattern (23:15.946)

make bigger investments in the business, right? So if I'm, if my minimum baseline right now is 15,000 and I want it to be 40, it's not because I want to just pay myself $25,000 a month and like, you know, go do whatever in my personal life with that money. Like I can, if I want to, I'm totally allowed to, but

The bigger vision I have is to invest a lot of that back into the business to grow it, to serve our students even more, to create more resources, to create more capacity. Some people would call that word scale. It's not scaling for the sake of scaling, it's scaling for the sake of creating a bigger impact and helping a lot more women have the freedom, flexibility, and financial independence that we have seen our students create inside of our program.

And so when I tell myself the truth, which is that I have enough, that there's always more on the way and that I always get to decide how I use my time, that I get to prioritize what matters most to me, which means that my family and myself and my clients all get the best of me, that one isn't getting more at the expense of the other because there's more than enough to go around. That's what will help me create $40,000 months, not a new strategy.

Right? So of course we're being strategic and we're looking at the data and making strategic decisions, but I'm able to make those from a completely different place. So it's not like, I need, you know, in the past it's like, I need to invest in this new coaching program to help me get to where I want, or I need to learn this new strategy because there must be something I don't know. Mentorship is important and I am surrounded by mentors and strategy is important.

and I'm surrounded by strategy, but that's not what's in the way of me and $40,000 months. And if you listen to last week's episode, the episode 116, all about our next level mastermind, and I shared like what the core work we do in there, that's the core work we do in there.

Shannon Mattern (25:29.196)

Like we don't do a whole lot of web design business strategy in that program because we give you all of that inside our web designer academy program. Like next level, the core of the work that we help you do is figure out what your goals really are for your business and life, why that's so important to you. And then we go about the work of getting that and creating that in a completely different way than you're used to. So instead of being like, okay, I want my business to,

look like this, have this many clients, make this much money. These are the services I wanna offer. This is when I'm working and not working. And so therefore here are all the things I need to do or change to make that happen. Let me slam my foot down really hard on the gas and get to work on all of that. We look at, okay, out of all of these things I could do, what's the one thing that will make all of the rest of these things happen faster, easier and effortlessly?

And then we take it one step further and we go through a process to find out like, okay, what's in the way of me just doing this? Because if this were so quote unquote easy for me, I would have already done it, right? Because when you're trying to grow, the thing that we don't realize is that when we put our foot on the gas with, let's say,

a vision, a new strategy, and a coaching program, and all of the things like the Web Designer Academy, we can only get so far before our subconscious puts equal and opposite pressure on the brake because it sees the change that we're trying to make as unknown. And unknown is scary to our subconscious. means if like what could be lurking around that corner, it could kill us.

And so therefore your subconscious wants to prevent you from experiencing the unknown because the unknown, thinks the unknown is unsafe. And so the answer to that question, what's in the way of me doing this one thing that will make all of these other things happen easier, effortlessly and faster. That's where you actually focus your intentional effort to achieve your goals.

Shannon Mattern (27:52.938)

Instead of trying to just press down harder on the gas while you have your other foot pressed down on the brake, you actually work on removing your foot from the brake and then the rest starts to fall into place. And so my break, the way that I've kept myself safe is through negative self-talk. And it sounds so counterintuitive, but it makes so much logical sense when I understand it. like, if I say it to me first,

then when you say it to me, it can't hurt me because I already know. So if I say, I want to do this thing, but it's probably not going to work out and I might lose everything. If that happens, then you can't say, told you so, because I already knew that could happen. Or if you say, you look gross in that bathing suit, I'd be like, yeah, I already know you can't hurt me because I already knew. So that's no way to live. Let me just tell you.

That is no way to live. It sucks all of the joy out of your whole entire life. Like how about shifting to you can't, you can't hurt me because I already know I'm awesome. And your opinion of me is says more about you than it says something about me. Right. So I've done a lot of work in the past year to take my foot off that break.

And you know how I know aside from simply how I feel inside like my old self again, is that the feedback I've gotten from other people is like, you seem like a new person. You seem like your old self again. And it's so funny when they say, you seem like a new person. I'm like, I'm back to myself. You just never met her because we met like sometime in the

you know, in the thick of this anxiety version of me. So I am so excited to think about what I can create from this energy over the next year, three years, five years. Like, it feels very powerful, not to say that I don't have that thing pop up that tells me, hey, don't go, don't go around that corner. You don't know what's around there. And that makes me think I definitely want to listen to

Shannon Mattern (30:14.402)

the episode that I did with Lauren Best episode 103 because she did a hypnosis session in that episode all about uncertainty. So in fact, after this income report or sometime this week, I'm definitely gonna go like listen to that again and get into that state again and lay that new neural path, like reinforce that neural pathway because that's what I need to be okay with in order to create.

the impact that I want to create for all the people that I want to create it for. So let's talk about what I did in the business in October. What happened? So I mentioned that we took our trip to the Dominican Republic at the end of October that we take every year in the fall. I actually took two trips in October. My husband had to travel to Las Vegas for work. And so our best friends that we travel with everywhere and I tagged along.

And I don't know any other way to say this other than I always have a great time with my husband and our friends. We have a blast no matter where we go, but we were all like, yeah, Vegas, we don't need to come here again. And so if you live there, no shade to you. I had no regrets, but the really cool thing that came out of that trip is that Erica, our client success coordinator at the web designer Academy coached on our live strategy call.

So I was traveling on Tuesday, couldn't run that call. Erica totally jumps in and like hosts that call for me when I've been out of town or had a family emergency. And she always comes up with like an incredible discussion that she'd facilitate or something, which is always totally cool with me and a nice break from the regular call. But this time she actually felt confident enough to take coaching questions. And that made me so happy.

Erica is a web designer Academy alumni. She's been on the team for nearly three years in her role as client success coordinator. She's freaking brilliant. People call her our best kept secret. She's super kind and compassionate and smart and she sees the best in everyone. And in her role, she helps me onboard students. She helps make sure that they know everything that's available to them. She gives them feedback on

Shannon Mattern (32:38.024)

All of their assets that they create in our program, their packages, their marketing, their messaging, their communication with clients. She does way, way, way more than that, but that's like her client facing role and to see her have the confidence to coach on a call by herself. It was just like, I was so, so proud. And I mean, she always has gold to add when I'm running the calls and I never had a doubt that she.

could like coach our students really well on the call and the feedback from our students about her coaching was so amazing. And so it's just really, really cool to know that like we have like those, we have my perspective and we have Erica's perspective and both of us together added so much value to our students. And I was just so proud of her that she was just like, yeah.

I know what I'm doing. And that was, that was just really cool. And our students felt it too. And they, they know how much she cares about our mission and vision as much as I do. And it's just, it was really cool to see her do that. So I had to talk about that on, in this podcast episode. So that was something that came out. That was the coolest thing that I won in Vegas. don't, we don't gamble. Like I don't even know why we go there.

why we went, we thought it would be fun to go there. But yeah, that was the best thing that came out of that trip other than just getting to laugh with my husband and my friends about how ridiculous Las Vegas is. Sorry if you love it. I feel like I've just outgrown that vibe. So also in October, we had already planned on testing out selling

a paid discovery mastery live workshop that we did back in at the end of June as an online course. So that's one of the things like we had a lower than planned revenue month in September. We had still planned to sell paid discovery to like test offering paid discovery mastery as an online course. And it wasn't like, my gosh.

Shannon Mattern (34:56.63)

Now it has to do so much better because September wasn't as good of a month as we thought it was going to be. It was just like, no, we're doing this. And September was September. And I'm not bringing that into what we're doing in October. But the live workshop for Paid Discovery, it sold really, really well. And we got also a ton of amazing feedback on the process that we taught.

And not just feedback about how people are easily selling the paid discovery engagements themselves, but how they're also easily selling their highest price packages ever off the backend of paid discovery. And so I'm like, okay, this is a thing. and I, it's not just about like, Hey, they're making a lot of money, right? It's like, it's all about like, Hey, I'm running a sustainable.

Web design business, meaning that like I have the inflow that I need to pay myself. I have time freedom. I have the money. I know more is on the way. And because of that, you're able to prioritize what matters to you most. And it's really hard to do that if you're undercharging and overworking. If you are hustling so hard and you're not charging enough, it's really, really hard to feel like you have freedom.

in your business. And so when I am bragging on our students for selling their highest price packages, what I'm really most excited about is what that means for them in terms of freedom, flexibility, and financial independence. It means that they get to work less with less clients on a deeper level if they want. It means that they're actually getting paid well for the value that they bring to their clients, businesses, and lives.

Instead of selling their time or their skill level, it's not about trying to make as much money as possible at all costs to you and your clients. That's not what we're trying to do here. So I just want to be clear on that because I talk about money a lot on this podcast, and I'm guessing if you're listening, you're not making as much as you want to be making. You're probably working more than you want to, or you don't feel like you have agency or like you get to decide when you're working because your clients are running the show.

Shannon Mattern (37:07.276)

And that is not what I want for you. I want you to have full control over all of it. So back to testing out this paid discovery mastery, like selling it as an online course. About a year ago, one of our next level mastermind members, Rachel Graham of Greenhouse Creative was talking on one of our master weekly mastermind calls about this extra step she was doing in between the consultation process we taught and the

offer making process we taught and how she's charging for it. And then she was like applying that, like what she charged for it to the project. If they went ahead and booked a project with her and how she was like, everybody is like saying yes to this, interim step. It's allowing me to spend more time putting together like a really clear strategy for them. And

really showing them how moving forward at this level with me is going to help them get what they want. And our next level mastermind members were like, I want to see how you're doing that. So she just did an impromptu, we call it a reverse hot seat in the next level mastermind when someone's doing something really cool in their business and wants to show everybody else. So she did a reverse hot seat. They started using that process in the next level mastermind. They're like, my gosh, yes, this is

fantastic and what it did was totally change how I think about my pricing. Like I always had to logically convince myself that the value is there and I could do the math and see the value, but I still didn't believe it. But now with this process, that has clicked and they really started valuing their pricing. So then we decided to like roll that out to our web designer academy students and

like had them add that in as a step in our official web designer academy process. But we're also like, let's test out just teaching this step by itself to anyone that wants to come to this live workshop. And we had, I want to say like 37 people come to that paid live workshop.

Shannon Mattern (39:18.102)

And then I followed up with them afterwards and they're like, yes, this is amazing. Even though they're not using the rest of our web designer Academy processes, like the step really helped them. And I was like, okay, cool. So.

Next level mastermind students having success with it, web designer academy students having success with it, with our processes, and then people who aren't in our program having success with it. This is a thing, the data says this works, people are getting results, let's take the next step, which is to launch it to our entire email list or offer it to our entire email list as a standalone course that they can just buy whether they're in any of our programs or not. And so the investment,

that I made in October that was unplanned, such always a good investment. It always pays off. Is that I hired a Sarah G of Sarah Designs to write those sales emails. Again, she's written so much stuff for me. And I love that process so much because she gives me a questionnaire. I either fill it out by typing it or just making a loom video and verbal vomiting all my answers and thoughts about what I want to convey in the emails.

And then because she knows me so well, she's taken the time to like get to know my brand voice and me, she writes them for me in my brand voice better than I could write them for myself in way less time. And then, you know, we like, it just works out so well. And so many times, like she gives me back the emails and then I read them and then they inspire me to add even more.

to them and so it's truly like this beautiful collaboration where she pulls out of me the things that I didn't know I wanted to say and then it unlocks another door for me and it's just, it's really, really fun. So we kicked off this project right before I left for Las Vegas and then when I get back, voila, emails are done. And I'm like, okay, that's amazing. Like I have all of this capacity.

Shannon Mattern (41:29.014)

I wasn't planning to do a webinar as part of this paid discovery mastery course offer. I was just planning to send emails, but like now I have the time and because I pulled all of that info together for Sarah to write the emails anyway, how about I put together a free training all about the paid discovery process and I'll just kick off this offer with a free training. And so I actually wrote that free training.

on the four hour flight back home from Vegas. It just flowed out of me like things do when they're right. And then I spent another day creating the slides for the presentation and another day putting together all of the automations I need to invite people to register for the webinar, the invitation emails, the reminder emails, the Zoom link, all the things. And are all of those things things I should be doing myself still? Probably not.

but since I laid off my marketing and operations person back in September of 2023, I've been doing all of that stuff myself. And I know that my time should be spent differently. I know that, you know, the one thing that, that we need in order to reach our big goals is just.

more eyeballs on the web designer Academy, getting in front of more new people who haven't heard of us before. And the building of automations and all of the technical operation things that I do, that I spend my time doing day in, day out could totally be done by someone else while I'm focusing my time on getting in front of more web designers. And the truth is that I have not been able to successfully delegate those things over the long term.

and I know that it's me and not the people in the various roles that I've had over the years who I have tried to like offload those things to. One of my problems is, or opportunities I should say, is that I really like doing that stuff. I love being in the zone. I love just like being cozied up in my bed with my laptop and like building an automation. It's super fun to me.

Shannon Mattern (43:46.006)

Time passes by like no other. I love doing it. But the truth is, I'm at a point in my business where I'm at a crossroads. I can keep putting my time in those things, or I can step into my next level, which is not doing those things anymore and putting my time into all of the other things that we've identified that are going to spread the word about the Web Designer Academy and our programs.

So that's one of the challenges that I have. And because I'm spending my time there in that place, doing the thing that I like to do and that I'm really good at, it compounds the rest of the things, right? So I'm to last minute. I'm spending so much time in those things that when I have an idea, I'm to last minute to delegate it to someone else, like maybe to get on the schedule for someone's VIP day. for instance,

I come up with the idea to have a webinar on the day that the first webinar registration email would need to go out. And so therefore I need to build everything up to sending the first email on that day because I didn't give myself the capacity to think that far ahead. I still have that thing where I'm too afraid to spend money I didn't plan to spend the uncertainty of peeking around what's the corner.

I know the whole process like the back of my hand and it feels easier to just do it than show someone else how, or it feels uncomfortable to just let them do their thing their way because then I feel out of control. And then I also feel like I don't always communicate my expectations well. I don't realize I had certain expectations when what's delivered to me doesn't rely, doesn't like align with what I didn't even realize I wanted.

until I see like the first draft and then I don't know how to say, Hey, I thought I knew what I wanted. Turns out I didn't. Now I want something different. Are you willing to help me out with that? Instead, I think things like, well, it's my own fault that I didn't know what I wanted or I'm trying to rush this or I didn't communicate well. So now I'll just take it from here because I don't want you to think you didn't do a good job. You did. It's not you. It's me. And I don't want to spend more money on this because I messed up.

Shannon Mattern (46:05.708)

And then because of all of those thoughts that honestly I don't even realize I'm having in the moment, I just convince myself it's easier for me to do it all myself. And then I never give anyone else the chance to be successful in helping me in whatever capacity I need the support. And so that is how I am getting in my own way and staying plateaued and stuck.

and why the business is just sustaining and not necessarily growing at the way that I would like it to grow. And so I shouldn't say that I've never been able to successfully delegate those things, but I've successfully delegated a lot of other things. Like I've successfully delegated the client success coordinator role to Erica and copywriting to Sarah G and

a lot of the tech behind the conversion rate optimization stuff we're doing with Lee Scott's team at Zanatang Consulting. But there's like, there's a big opportunity for me to shift more things off my plate. And I do see the thought patterns that are keeping me stuck in this hamster wheel. And I'm just acknowledging that stuff here because that is what

I took to the next level mastermind. So I started writing this income report before the next level mastermind. I took those thoughts for lack of a better word to the next level mastermind retreat as the thing that I wanted to explore and work on in 2025. And I'll tell you more about how that all unfolded in my November income report, but

back to the paid discovery launch, not only did I create the capacity by outsourcing the sales emails to Sarah G, I created the capacity to add a free training to that offer and I pulled it all together and scheduled it for October 18th. And so I was just like, it is kind of awesome that I have the skills to like just pull all this together and be able to test these things on the fly.

Shannon Mattern (48:28.11)

but I also see how I'm getting in my own way about it and it's something that I want to explore. So I have paid discovery mastery all set up and ready to roll for October 18th. The Friday before I met my buddy Josh Hall for our annual coffee meetup. We meet up every fall for coffee and we were just chit chatting and I was telling him about how I was testing out this offer of paid discovery mastery as a standalone course the following week.

And he was talking about like how he had just restructured web designer pro and, side note, cannot tell you how awesome it is to have a, relationship with someone in your industry doing the same thing as you that doesn't see you as competition. And for me and Josh, that's each other. Like Josh is the only other, I have relationships with other web design business coaches in the industry, but Josh and I like.

open up our books and our numbers to each other. Like we share what's working, what's didn't working, what's not working, trends we're seeing, what we're hearing from our students, and we're both selling web design business coaching. But we see how different we are and how we serve students in completely different ways. And while we absolutely have like crossover in students that we serve, we're not like...

Poaching students from each other or in competition, it truly is like a symbiotic relationship. so Josh was sharing how he recently added tiers to his web designer pro program and how he's offering access to just the courses or courses in community or co courses, community and coaching. And now how he was like about to roll that out. it would, it just, we were having this conversation.

And I don't know if he asked me this question or this question came up in my own mind, but I was like, could I offer a course only version of the Web Designer Academy? I'm offering a course only paid discovery mastery. Could I offer a course only version of the Web Designer Academy? Like one week before when I'm doing this training. And the answer has always been a hard no in my brain.

Shannon Mattern (50:48.738)

because up until 2020, the Web Designer Academy was quote unquote, just a course with a weekly call and a Facebook group, but I wasn't giving people feedback on their marketing, their package, their pricing, their work with me pages like we do now. And all of that personal feedback has made a huge difference in the results that we see with our students. we all have blind spots, no matter how open we are to seeing them, they're there. And when you go through someone's lesson and you learn something new,

and you go to implement, let's say our package matrix strategy, your blind spots are coming along for the ride with you. And no matter how open we are to seeing them, they're there. And so you go to create your new packages, you submit them to us for review, and you have a little bit of your expense mindset seep in, or you nail the strategy, every nuance of it.

but you're like, I don't know if I did this right. And that lack of confidence like follows you all the way through into your consultation. But with our feedback to be like, great, you nailed it. Now you're like, yeah, I'm so confident. I'm taking that into my consultation. And you come into your consultation with the vibe of being very confident. So we see the impact that

our group coaching program format has on the results of our clients. And I'm like, well, if I offered a course only version of the web designer academy, they'll miss that part. And if they don't get that part, they'll be less successful. And I don't want people to be less successful. But if I'm being really honest and looking at all of the data and all of the feedback, we have people who joined the web designer academy, never come to a single live call.

never submit for feedback, blaze their own trail through the curriculum. And then we check in with them because we do a quarterly check in with everybody that enrolls in the web designer Academy coaching program. And they're like, by the way, I've been meaning to email you. I'm killing it. This program is amazing. And I'm so glad I made the decision to join. And I'm like, you haven't like used any, if many avenues of support and you're like doing awesome. So.

Shannon Mattern (53:12.266)

my black and white theory that people need our feedback to be successful has gotten some holes poked into it. Also, we recently updated our package matrix module and distilled the four years of feedback we've been giving to people on their packages into updated lessons that help people get over the common obstacles that we were seeing when we were giving feedback.

testing out new ways of teaching the strategy to make it simpler and faster, sharing lots of examples from our students on how they're using that strategy to package our offers, just baking a lot of the mindset stuff that we see come up into the training itself to just help people think about that in a new way. And we rolled that out. We got such great feedback from it. We cleaned up a lot of the places where the nuances of the strategy were getting missed. So if I'm being really honest,

I was just afraid if I offered a course only version of the web designer academy, no one would ever join the coaching program again. And it's so funny the mental gymnastics that we do to not see the things that our brain doesn't want us to see. So I went from coffee with Josh, went into coffee with Josh thinking like I can not ever offer a course only version to, could I offer a course only version to?

how can I safely test offering a course only version? And so leave coffee with Josh. Maybe I'm caffeine fueled by the maple whatever latte that I had while we were chatting. But I'm like driving home and I'm like, what if I tested out a self study version of the web designer Academy along with that paid discovery offer I'm doing in October?

And so that idea is like percolating while I'm like driving home. And then the next morning I like. I'm having these are, guess are my coffee fueled, ideas, but I was like drinking coffee and journaling and like the way I could test it, just like pour it out of me on paper. And so I'm like, okay, I'm just going to test it. I'm going to see what happens. So the following Friday, I, did the live training that walked through our entire paid discovery.

Shannon Mattern (55:31.544)

process and then I was like, okay, so I'm testing this out. I've never done it before. I might not do it again, but you can either get our paid discovery mastery course and all the templates, process and scripts for it by itself. Or you can get this self study version of the web designer Academy, which includes all of our curriculum plus paid discovery mastery without an application. And this offer is only available through the end of the month.

And it's just the course. It doesn't come with the coaching or the feedback or anything. And the price reflects that. And if that's something you want, you have till the end of October to get in on that. And then in our post webinar emails that Sarah G also wrote for us, which I sent to my entire email list this time with the replay of the training and all the info about what's in, you know, paid discovery mastery, what's in web designer academy self-study.

I sent those out to our entire email list because I'm like, yeah, I had 167 people register for this free paid discovery training, but everyone might want to know about like this offer. And so I really had no idea what to expect. And I know I changed my original experiment from will people want to buy paid discovery mastery as a course versus a live workshop to

Will people want to buy paid discovery mastery as a course versus buying the web designer Academy as a self study course without an application, without live strategy calls and without work reviews. And then I was like, okay, I also need to create some psychological safety here too, because I, if I'm trying to safely test this for myself, I want to be able to safely, I want you to be able to safely test it too. So I also added a 48 hour, no questions asked refund policy.

refund policies so that people felt like they had a chance to also vet the program and make sure it's what they really needed. And so that's what I tested out at the end of October. We had 167 people register for that training that I put together on the fly, literally on the fly on a plane back from Vegas. We sent that replay out. I think we had about 50 people attend live.

Shannon Mattern (57:50.902)

I sent the replay and the offer for paid discovery mastery or self-study, web designer academy self-study to our entire list of over 6,000 people. The offer itself ran from October 18th through the 31st. And I had four people purchase paid discovery mastery on its own at 297. And then I had five people purchase the web designer academy self-study course. Three of them.

chose the $297 a month payment plan, two of them paid in full. And then one of those three payment plan people opted for a refund because she said she was also wanting to learn how to build websites, which we don't teach. And it was like, totally cool. Yeah. You won't find that in here. Let me refund you by the way, when you're ready for help with the business side of your business, come on back. We'd be happy to help you. So if we're looking at stats based on

the 167 registrants, that's a 4.8 % conversion on just someone buying something, which is actually really freaking good for conversion percentages. But our conversion for the Web Designer Academy group coaching program from applicant to enrollment is over 20%. And so,

not to say like they're two totally different offers for two totally different people. So I'm not necessarily comparing those. But like I said, I really didn't know what to expect. And I'm still also trying to figure out what to make of the results. So this test added $6,287 to our inflow in October, which is freaking awesome. You know, and it took us from

make just making our minimum baseline in October to over our minimum baseline. So that's really, really good. And then, you know, on one hand, I'm like, what was I actually testing? Was I testing a $297 price point? Was I testing, a $2,500 price point? Did this test show me that there's a market for a self study version of the web designer Academy, or did it show me that there's a market for a $297 price point?

Shannon Mattern (01:00:08.812)

So I'm trying to figure out like what to do next. Like what's my next test? If I offer a self-study version of the Web Designer Academy in the future, where does it fall in our entire offer suite of group coaching program, next level mastermind? I mean, it seems obvious where it fits, but.

How do you like, how do I want to make those offers going forward? You know, when one requires an application and another doesn't, how does it fit in terms of our promotion? There are a lot of questions my brain wants answers to. because what is kind of going on in my brain is like 2024 was the year of gathering, of testing and gathering data. And I think what I'm trying to tell myself, which may not be true.

Is that 2025 is the year of I had, I got all the answers in 2024. Now I'm going to put them together in 2025 and it will just like work the way that I think it will. And I think what I'm realizing as I'm saying this is that 2025 is also going to be a big experiment also. And we just get to do more of what worked in 2024 and try some new things too.

So I think that I'm coming to the conclusion that like, need to stop searching for answers and just keep testing. And, you know, that's really what we've been doing with my conversion rate optimization team at Zanetain. And that's why it's so clearly an ongoing, recurring revenue for them, opportunity and offer because it's always like, here's what we tried this month. Here's the data.

Here's some guesses that we can make from the data. What can we do to test these assumptions? Okay, we did some tests. Now we have more data. Here are some more guesses we can make from this additional data. What more tests can we run? And it just keeps growing and changing and growing and changing. And it will keep changing because the world keeps changing. What people need keeps changing. What your clients need.

Shannon Mattern (01:02:25.622)

to make the decision to work with you is changing. What our students need to make the decision to work with us is changing. And so we keep getting to just evolve and evolve and evolve instead of somehow thinking that we will have arrived. And I think that that's the biggest takeaway that I'm taking from a year of testing, a year of bringing income reports and reflection back into the business, a year of being able to

not make decisions from protection and prevention and all of my negative self-talk and make decisions from possibility and impact and being willing to take some risks for the vision that I have, not just for myself, but for everybody that comes to work with us. so,

I guess I get to stop seeking the answer, the certainty of if this, then that, like with no uncertainty and no risks, that's not how that works. And so I guess what I'm realizing is that I don't need certainty that it will work. I just need certainty that I'll be okay no matter what, whether it works or not. And if the past two years have taught me anything, it's that I will be okay no matter what. And so I can allow myself to test things, to take calculated informed risks and just...

like tell myself like, hey, this could go any number of ways. You can't know the outcome. But one of those ways that it can go is that you commit wholeheartedly, put your time, effort, energy, and money into this, and you don't get out of it what you wanted to get out of it, whether that's more money or capacity or time or whatever result you think you're after. And if you don't get back into it what you think you should, are you still willing to go for it to fully commit?

knowing that it might look nothing like you planned. And when I think about it, the answer is yes, because I enjoy things so much more. I feel better. I have more capacity. I'm more open. I'm more curious. I'm more generous and willing. And this is not just a job for me. If I wanted to like have no skin in the game, I'd go work for someone else, right? Like when I'm not so attached to the outcome, it's

Shannon Mattern (01:04:46.766)

so much more fun when it gets to just unfold how it's going to unfold. And I like feeling that way, as opposed to anxious and nervous and closed off and controlling and pressurey. So if this business is what I'm choosing to do, if it's how I'm choosing to spend my time, why not choose to love every second of it because it is a choice. So

I don't have all the answers right now as to the future of the self study version of the web designer Academy that offer closed on October 31 and as of the time of this recording on November today's November 18 it's not available for sale, but that doesn't mean that it won't ever be available for sale ever again. we're going to finish out the year as planned with our final.

invitation only live private training that we do annually every December. It's our final app open enrollment for our application only Web Designer Academy group coaching program. So if you're listening to this before December 5 2024, and you haven't applied to get your invitation to that training, you can go to Web Designer Academy comm fill out that application request your invitation. I'm going to be sharing our 2025 profitable web design business roadmap.

I'll be breaking down what to put in place in your web design business to reach your goals in 2025. I'll be inviting accepted applicants to join us inside the Web Designer Academy group coaching program, which is for web designers who aren't trying to learn web design. They already know web design. You know, they've had clients before or they're, you know,

Shannon Mattern (01:06:41.218)

So if you're listening to this before December 5th and you haven't applied to get your invitation to that training, you can go to WebDesignerAcademy.com, fill out the application and request your invitation to our 2025 Profitable Web Design Business Roadmap Training. It is for women web designers who are ready to stop undercharging, over delivering, and finally like take control of their web design business and I'll be teaching what to put in place.

in your web design business in 2025 to reach your goals. And then I'll also be inviting accepted applicants to join us inside of the web designer academy, that group coaching program, our application only group coaching program. But obviously zero obligation to join. If your application is accepted, we are not pushy sleazy or salesy in that way. It's just making sure that the application is really just to make sure that like

your business is in the right place to like actually get a return on your investment in the strategies. If you're too early in your web design business, our strategies are too advanced for you and it's not the right place to spend your time and I don't want you spending your time there. And if you are more advanced in your web design business, you don't need to rebuild systems processes and all of those things. Next level mastermind might be a better place for you, but it's just

so that I can help make sure we direct you in the appropriate way, which is why we have that application process. So that in our programs, we have people at similar levels of business who can learn from each other's challenges and successes and not feel like, that's not relevant to me because that was me five years ago, or that's not relevant to me because I'm beyond that beginner stage of business.

I'm not getting anything out of that. That's why we have the application process so that we can make sure you're gonna get more than you ever expected out of it. So I'll be inviting accepted applicants to join us inside the Web Designer Academy in 2025. And I don't know what that invitation will look like yet. I have no idea what I might test out at that final open enrollment event of 2024.

Shannon Mattern (01:09:02.189)

I have got a lot of data to look at numbers to crunch calculations to run thought experiments to run. And I'm sure I will give you all of the juicy details about what went down in that December, 2024 income report on what I decided and what I tested and how, how it went down. Or you could just make sure you're there to find out firsthand and don't miss out on any special offers. might test by going to web designer academy.com and filling out that application.

to get your invitation to that private training that's happening on December 6th. So that's it. That's all I got for you for my October 2024 income report. And in my next income report, my November 2024 income report, I'll be telling you all about what went down at our in-person next level mastermind retreat, the fascinating money conversations that we had.

what my personal goal ended up being. alluded to it a little bit in this episode and just give you all of the money numbers for November and all of the lessons that I learned along the way. So thank you so, so much for listening and I'll see you back here on the podcast next week. Bye.