#122 – Profitable Web Design Business Planning Series #3: CEO Decisions

Shannon Mattern (00:00.714)

All right, we are back. Now we're going to pull all of what we just did together into, we have all of the information we need to start making some decisions about our business. So in the last session, we left off with you figuring out what is the value of one spot on your development calendar, right? So we're just assuming for sake of example,

that you could take on one web design project a month in the time that you have allotted for projects in your business and you figured out how much you need to make every single month, how much you need to pay yourself every single month, and then how much you need to make in order to pay yourself that much and spend money on your business and make investments in your business and pay taxes. So we figured out your personal profitability formula. We used

that number to figure out what is the value of a spot on your calendar. And now we're gonna dive into like, how do I make decisions like the version of me who already has created this result, like the CEO of my web design business, so that over the next 12 months, I can create this.

So if you missed previous sessions, those are sitting over there. They're in Crowdcast. All of these recordings are available right now for you to go back and watch them. You guys who are here, who are here live or who have purchased access to this in the future, you have lifetime access to this. So you can come back through this anytime. If there's a concept that didn't quite land with you, you can watch it again.

If you need to rework on your vision or re-figure your numbers and your time block, you can watch it again. So this is here for you anytime in the future. And I invite you to revisit this process every six months or so, really. redo it, reevaluate, make adjustments in your business because you will evolve and things will change and life changes.

Shannon Mattern (02:21.134)

life changes. Things in your life change and therefore you're going to need to like redesign your web design business around your life. So in this session we are going to be talking about making decisions like the CEO of your web design business. We're actually going to kick off with a little bit of a break because we went over in the last session.

Let's go ahead and just take a quick five minute break and then we will dive back in. Beverly, the recordings are available like forever. This ticket to this event was a lifetime access ticket. So go ahead and take five minutes. We will start back right at about 15 minutes after the hour, so 2.15 Eastern. If you have not already applied for our

Bonus training tomorrow, all about creating profitable web design packages and exactly what our students put in their web design packages to allow them to create the revenue numbers that we're talking about today. Click that apply now button below this video. You'll fill out a quick application. Our team member, Ali, is standing by to review and process those. If you meet the criteria, we will invite you to tomorrow's training. If you don't, we will let you know. Here's.

here's what you need to do to like meet that in the future and we'll give you some resources so you know like there's no downside to applying if we accept your application we'll invite you to tomorrow's training we'll break down our entire system and process for helping you create the results how we can work with you over the next 12 months to implement what you learned here today and what you'll learn tomorrow

We will offer you a spot in our program. is zero obligation for you to accept your spot. If we invite you to tomorrow's training, you truly have nothing to lose. So go ahead and fill out the application and give yourself the chance to find out what it would look like to have support working with us over the next 12 months to really truly implement this plan that you're going to create today. The training tomorrow is at 1 p.m. Eastern.

Shannon Mattern (04:40.174)

and it will be recorded. So even if you can't attend the training live, fill out that application. And if we approve you, we will make sure that you get a recording of the training so that you have that. So yeah, awesome. Thanks, Ali. Ali is like ready and waiting to process your applications. we have had so many incredible applications come through you guys. Like it is my it just blows my mind.

I get so excited when I see your applications and I'm like, they don't even know how amazing they are. They don't even know what's possible for them. And I get very excited about like seeing exactly what we like, where the gaps are for you and what strategies and mindset stuff we have for you to help you, help you bridge those gaps. So yeah, it's really, really fun to look at, to look at those.

All right, so we'll be back here just in a few minutes and we'll get started with making decisions like the CEO of your web design business.

Shannon Mattern (08:06.136)

All right, we are back for session three. This retreat is like flying by. It's kind of crazy that we're already on session three. So you just figured out the value of the spot on your calendar, right? So when you prioritize you and your personal time and your marketing and

when you are meeting with people, like when you prioritize all of that, you really clearly see when you are undercharging. And that is what I really wanna do to actually, like you might have a feeling like I'm undercharging and over delivering. You guys really resonate with that messaging.

Shannon Mattern (08:57.25)

But you get to really see on paper, like, what does it look like for me to create the kind of revenue that I want to create so that I can pay myself what I want to make? Right. So and what does that look like with, you know, where I'm at now with the kind of money that I'm bringing in, where I want to be in the future? And one of the biggest shifts.

that I had to make in my business that we help our web designer academy students make in their business to create those results, to create the result of the schedule, to create the result of the money is to shift from operating like an employee in their business to operating like the CEO. So how many of you say things to yourself like, I don't have time for this or.

I'm overwhelmed. have too much time or the client wants this now so I have to work on this or I can't clean my house on Saturday because I have to do this for my client. How many of you guys think about your business and all of the things that you have to do as things that are outside of your control?

Shannon Mattern (10:09.624)

Share with me in the chat if you've ever thought like that.

Shannon Mattern (10:20.014)

So when I say like we help our clients shift from operating like an employee in their business to operating like a CEO, what I mean is that like employees take orders, but CEOs give orders, right? CEOs get to design the whole thing, decide how it's gonna work. Employees don't typically get to do that, right? Employees are just like, you tell me what to do and I'll do it. And so most of us,

have been trained to be good employees our whole lives, right? Like if you're anything like me, who I grew up in the Midwest with a single mom, living paycheck to paycheck, it was absolutely critical to our livelihood and financial security for her to be a good employee and remain employed at all costs. And that meant becoming a people pleaser who said yes to everything for whatever someone was willing to pay her, right? At her job, meant her letting other, and that meant for me too, I'm like, this is,

This was modeled to me that this is how you survive. And that meant I was a people pleaser who said yes to everything for whatever someone was willing to pay me in my corporate job and in my web design business. It meant letting other people tell me what I was worth. And it meant going above and beyond to make sure that I never got fired. And if there were layoffs coming, I was going to make myself indispensable. How many of you here can relate to that?

And if you don't relate to that, good on you. Like a good, good for you. But I'm curious to know if I'm the only one. And like that behavior works great in a corporate environment, right? It kept me really safe and climbing that corporate ladder. Well, it felt safe, but I traded my freedom for foe safety and security. And so what I didn't realize when I started my web design business was that I brought all of that with me.

I brought that employee mindset with me. My clients took on the role of employer in my mind. They were calling the shots. They were telling me how much I was worth because I wasn't telling them how much I was worth, right? They were telling me how much they were willing to pay because I wasn't telling me telling them how much they had to pay to work with me. And in order to keep them happy, happy, meaning we're never going to have an uncomfortable conversation.

Shannon Mattern (12:45.026)

because I'm just always going to say yes so that I don't have to feel uncomfortable. I needed to over deliver to keep getting the money and to avoid uncomfortable conversations so that I don't have to feel uncomfortable. So that is how I was operating my web design business in the beginning. And for many, many years, that's why I was like, I can't work with clients anymore. It's too hard. I would rather do everything else I possibly can to not have to work with clients.

And so a lot of you guys tell me, want to do templates. I want to do VIP days. I want to do all of these other things because I don't have, sometimes it's coming from a great place. A lot of times it's coming from the place of, I don't have boundaries because I'm operating like an employee. And because I don't have boundaries, I don't have the emotional capacity and the mental capacity and the physical capacity.

to give that much if I charge that much. And so therefore I'm gonna like put a lot of distance between me and my clients with passive income and you know, like VIP days and things like that so that I don't have to work on all of this stuff. And I wanna offer to you that shifting your mindset from an employee mindset to a CEO mindset is one of the most valuable things that you can do in your business aside from

like the mindset piece is everything. It's the thing that's going to get you to do the things we teach in our program or not do the things we teach in our program. So I had to very intentionally, with the help of many business coaches and books and podcasts along the way, make the transition from employee-minded solopreneur to savvy CEO. I don't take orders in my business. Like I had to stop taking orders in my business from my clients, right?

I tell my clients how it works and they either get on the train or they don't. And I don't mean that in a harsh way. I mean that I set up my business to run the way I want it. So you guys crafted your vision. You put, you decided on a schedule that works for your life. You're deciding on how much it costs to work with you. Your time is very valuable. Your skills are very valuable.

Shannon Mattern (15:10.38)

You create value to your clients. Your price is actually less than the value, right? Because your price is value is business outcomes, personal outcomes and emotional outcomes minus the price.

Shannon Mattern (15:28.312)

So you set things up to run the way you want to run them and that's how it works. And people can either work with me within my boundaries or they can find someone else to work with who is a better fit for how they want to work. And that's just it. And so when you're coming from a place of lack of there's not enough clients and all of these things, just let all of your boundaries go out the window, right? Or I'm not allowed to be in control of my business.

Michelle said, I think women, maybe it's just in the Midwest or conditioned in ways to be nice and saying, yes, yeah. Whether it's women, employees or people not in a place of power, we don't realize that we can take our power back. No one has to give us our power. We get to just take it. At the beginning of today's retreat, you heard me talk about savvy business owners, like in the state of the...

the state of the web design industry, right? I was like, savvy business owners, this is what they want. This is what they need. This is what they're looking for. This is what they're paying for. This is how they make decisions. And if you want to work with these people, you have also got to become this person. You've got to become a savvy business owner. You have got to adopt a CEO mindset. It's not going to happen overnight, but we get to start working on that today.

So a savvy CEO is someone who intentionally designs their business around their goals instead of letting clients dictate how their businesses run. A savvy CEO is someone who intentionally creates processes and systems and boundaries that are mutually beneficial to them and their clients, and then leads their clients through it instead of just creating systems that are just for me and screw you, or systems that like benefit their client and I'm burnout and resentful on the other side.

A savvy CEO is someone who makes decisions for the business is proactive instead of being reactive and letting clients decide for them and run the show. And they have cultivated an investment mindset, not only around money, but also around time and operates from a place of sufficiency and abundance instead of lack and stress. Sufficiency doesn't even have to be to abundance like sufficiency.

Shannon Mattern (17:53.922)

Like there's always more time. There's always more money on the way. You know, so our time is finite, but we don't have, we can say to ourselves, like, I have plenty of time for this. I'm in control of my time. Right? So if you have listened to my podcast, the profitable web designer, or heard me speak at events, you might have heard me talk about this concept of pricing paradigms. How many of you guys have heard me talk about this concept of pricing paradigms?

Obviously, my slide is not updated. I see that every time I do this presentation. I'm like, I need to fix that. Yeah, so you guys have heard this. So a paradigm is a standard perspective, a set of ideas that it's a way of looking at something. It's like a set of thoughts that create a belief, right?

And so my pricing paradigm is unique to me and how I was raised and my experiences. Yours is unique to you and how you were raised and your experiences. And I like to think of these as like that game Jenga, where you like lay all the blocks on top of each other. And it forms like the sturdy tower. And imagine that every single one of those blocks is a thought about your business, about your time, about your money, about how much you can make. Every single one of those

is an individual block stacked up to make a sturdy tower. And so it's solid and it's steady and you believe it, but it might also be what's in the way of you and your goals. All of these thoughts that you have, you have to find them and decide, is this empowering me to reach my goals or is this disempowering me to reach my goals? And so in talking to hundreds of

business owners on my podcast, my own experience working with clients, being in rooms with multi seven and eight figure mentors. If that's where I want to go, that's the rooms I'm in. And, you know, being in the early days of my business, these are the three most common pricing paradigms that I see. People have an expense minded paradigm, a hybrid minded paradigm, or an investment minded paradigm. And so

Shannon Mattern (20:09.262)

If you're operating from an expense mindset like I did for like the whole, I would say the first five years of my business, I believed all of these little thoughts. Hard work is the only thing that makes money. Once it leaves my bank account, it's gone forever. I'm not making money fast enough. I'd rather spend my time than my money. That's why I DIY'd everything. I reverse engineered all the free webinars that I watched. Like all of those things. I'd rather...

I take money from my clients, I would think things like, if I take money from them and they don't, their business doesn't work out. I have harmed them. Like if they hire me to do this and their business doesn't work out, I have created harm for them because money can run out. Like I just took it away from their bank account. Right? So I thought I had, these were like, this was just like, this is the way the world works. That was my core set of beliefs. And so

Another thing that we do is that we can be really, really impatient when we're operating from an expense mindset. We have such a sense of urgency to create more money now and not use what we have that we take on any work that comes to us. Like any client that shows up in our, like that gets referred to us or whatever, and we just charge whatever we think they'll pay because we just have to like get all the money we can now. We have such a sense of urgency.

The thing, the beautiful thing about people with an expense mindset, they are the hardest of hard workers. An expense mindset person is going to figure it out and get it done at all costs. That is why your calendar, you guys are overworking, undercharging, overworking, over delivering hustlers, and your clients freaking love you because you're cheap and you always get it done.

your expense mindset is like your superpower. It makes you super scrappy, but it also is withstanding in the way of you and your goals. So if you have an expense minded paradigm, you probably feel bad about charging for all the time that you take on a project because you think you're harming your clients by charging them.

Shannon Mattern (22:30.25)

You will do just whatever a client asks without charging more because you're worried that they won't get the results that they paid you for. And you make yourself responsible for things that are not your responsibility. Like whether your client actually like does the stuff they need to do on their side of the business to like market their business, have proven offers that convert, delight their clients with amazing, amazing experiences, market, you make yourself responsible for that stuff. They're responsible for that stuff. You're giving them the tools.

to be able to do that. So if you're expense-minded, you're gonna undercharge and then try to make up the difference with more clients and you're gonna work yourself to death, right? And make it really, really hard for your business to be sustainable. So if you feel like I'm calling you out right now, just like say yes or raise your hand in the chat because I was you. I can promise you, I operated this way for so long.

I slip back into it every now and again when I'm not managing my mind, I slip back into it.

So.

This is the Jenga tower that I'm talking about. So when you start to see how I'm operating now is, is disempowering me in a lot of ways. Like it's worked for me until it stops working for me. Right. And now it's holding me back and now it's in my way. You get to start creating, you get to start to identify all of those things that you think.

Shannon Mattern (24:01.27)

and deciding is that serving me? Is that not serving me? And start to deconstruct this tower and pulling it apart, right? And rebuilding it. And so we call this the hybrid mindset. And so when you're operating from this, it's like you're deconstructing that expense mindset. You're rebuilding the investment mindset, which we'll talk about in a little bit. And you want to have that investment mindset, but you're still like one foot in, one foot out, right?

It doesn't quite feel safe yet. It doesn't feel natural. It feels risky. You still think money leaves your account and it won't come back. You start to value your time more though. Or you think that money leaves your account, but now you're like, you know what? I can create that. It's on its way back. You start thinking about DubSado not as an expense, but as something that saves you time. DubSado is just like the WGA fam, our students. That's their favorite.

Proposal tool and everything you start to think of all the things you spend money on as like investments not expenses not money gone forever. You value your time more you stop trying to do everything all on your own without support and you're dipping your toe into the possibility that it will work so you're starting to deconstruct this and you start trusting yourself and you start thinking like I'm willing to do what it takes to create a return on my investment in.

Today, you're spending six hours with me today. I'm willing to make intentional effort towards holding my time blocking and raising my prices and all of these things. I'm willing to do what it takes to create my return on my investment of time. So investment mindset. And by the way, all of your clients,

Are these things too? You have clients that are expense minded clients. have clients that are hybrid minded clients. We want you shifting everything that you're doing towards expense minded clients, and we're going to talk more about that tomorrow about how we package price and position our offers for investment minded clients inside the Web Designer Academy. That's how our students create results. They stay stop talking to invest expense minded clients.

Shannon Mattern (26:23.086)

They assume everyone they're talking to and is an investment minded client and they let that person make a decision of whether or not they're going to make the investment or they're going to or they're not and no harm, no foul. So investment minded clients. And when you're operating from an investment mindset, you believe money is renewable. There's always more on the way it flows. It'll never run out. I can always create more. I have the skill to always create more.

Every dollar that leaves my bank account is an investment, not an expense. It's going to allow me to create more time or more money. It's leaving, but it's on its way back. And there's always more on the way. It's sufficient and it's always flowing. And I make decisions about what's possible in the future, not what is happening today or what happened in the past. And when I make a decision, I fully commit to that decision. And I don't get distracted by shiny objects. And I'm patient for the return. And I'm willing to do

whatever it takes to create it within these boundaries that I have set for myself. I protect my time and I don't undercharge and over deliver. And I don't think I'm harming my clients by taking money from them and then delivering an incredible result. Okay. So this investment mindset, some people literally are born with it. Like I've met people, like some of our web designer Academy students are like, yeah, of course, that's just how the world works. And I'm like,

How could I have not met you like 10 years ago? There are people out there who are just like, yep, this is how the world works. I was not one of those people. I had to deconstruct my expense mindset, have a hybrid mindset for a while where I had to have the courage to believe that the world does, that there are people that operate like this, take risks to create that. And then lo and behold, it is actually true, right? And so Michelle says she bounces between the two of these.

and there's an investment amount where I get panicked. Well, we're gonna help you navigate those thoughts today. It's not the number, it's your thought about the number. So like I said, this didn't come naturally to me, when you, this is the thing. When you're making decisions like the CEO of your business,

Shannon Mattern (28:42.572)

You have to start making decisions like the version of you who already has created the thing, the version of you who already has reached the goal before you reach them. And this is the hardest thing to do. So when you created your vision of what things look like in 2023, you must start making decisions like that now, as if you're already there.

You have to intentionally create and practice believing thoughts that will create the results that you want and operate from those thoughts. Because if you don't, if you leave here today and you just go back and you keep doing what you've always been doing, you are not going to create that 2023 vision. It requires you to shift how you think and how you act to create that. And you have to think like that person. So we're gonna do a little exercise next.

Shannon Mattern (29:43.938)

We'll come back to this.

Shannon Mattern (29:52.578)

Yeah, we'll come back to that next slide. So you're going to go to your workbook. Let me make sure I'm sharing this.

Shannon Mattern (30:03.937)

Here we go. So the next section is your CEO decisions. So in this section here, I want you to put that number, that number of the spot that is, you can do this one of two ways. You can put that 20, 23, let's do it that way. Your vision, go back to your vision. How much money you made?

in just by December of 2023 put that number here so I'm just going to use a super round number this might not be everybody's number you're going to type that in there so you can either type the total of the end of 2023 or that's what I'm going to recommend if you want to do the value of a spot on your calendar you could put that there too and then I want you to start going through

from your vision, you've probably already like thought through this. What type of work are you no longer doing? What types of clients are you exclusively working with? And I'm not talking niche, I'm talking investment expense or hybrid. If you are super clear on niche, cool, we don't even have you niche down in the web designer academy because it honestly doesn't matter. We used to focus on that but...

What rose to the top is the type of clients within each industry, not necessarily the industry.

The minimum amount people pay you to get time on your schedule, not selling time by the hour, but you won't touch a project for under this much money. You belong to these communities, programs, networks. You invest in this type of training and education. Your marketing looks like this. Your team looks like this. And you think what about yourself and your business and your ability to create these results? What do you think about yourself?

Shannon Mattern (32:05.63)

A lot of you tell me in your web designer academy applications, like, I don't know if I'm good enough. Like, when you've created this result, do you think things like that anymore? So what do you think about yourself at that level? So I want you to take some time.

and fill this out.

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at your goal revenue at what you want to make at the end of 2023 in your vision. What does that look like?

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So we'll take about 10 minutes for you to do all of that.

and then we'll go on to the next next step.

Shannon Mattern (32:55.31)

I'm going to go ahead and mute myself and turn off my camera and we will be back at 2 50 Eastern. While you guys do that.

Shannon Mattern (41:07.065)

All right, I'll give you guys just a minute to wrap that up.

Shannon Mattern (41:13.902)

So Kate said, I'm increasing all my prices on my website by $2,000 today. Boom. Mic drop. Yes. So Kate has a thought. This is where we're going to get to next. Like Kate has a thought about that decision that feels like really empowering and bold for her to do that. And that's what we want to cultivate. And that's what we're going to talk about next. So let me get my slides back up here.

Somehow I like left the stage and trying to find my way back here. So Kate had.

Shannon Mattern (41:56.238)

thought about that. So you have all of your CEO decisions and you are either going to have empowering thoughts about those decisions or disempowering thoughts about those decisions. And right now what we want to do, I'm going to share my share my screen.

Shannon Mattern (42:20.408)

Kate has a thought that she needs to raise her. So one of Kate CEO decisions is raise my prices by $2,000 each. So she has a thought that's like getting her really excited about that and wanting her to like go and do that now. We wanna know, I want you to go through all of these things and I want you to just like straight up, we call this a word vomit in the web designer academy. I know it's gross.

but we call it word vomit and we want you to just write out what are all of the things that you think about these decisions. So before you do that,

I just want to back up here.

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you took some time to write down like all of the things that you would be doing in your business if you were making a $100,000. So at $100,000, I'm not doing this type of work anymore. I only work with this type of clients. The minimum amount I charge is this. I'm going to raise my prices by $2,000. I belong to these communities. I invest in this type of training. I want you to take your cursor, highlight the word at, and you get to type the words to.

create is these are all of the decisions that you get to start making today to create your goal. We don't just wait for it to magically happen. We take action by making decisions on all of these things that we think are going to get us there. Some of them may or may not be necessary.

You may still have some mind trash around some of the things that you need to do, but your best guess of what you need to do to get there is this. We don't do this when we are there. Like, once we get there, I'll stop doing this. We do it to get there. So that is a huge, huge mindset shift of we do these things to create.

that revenue, right? To create that goal. And so to get yourself to the place where you are able to make those decisions, you have to examine your thoughts around those decisions and decide, are those thoughts empowering you to create the results that you want to create? Are they disempowering you to create the results you want to create? So I want to hear from someone. What is a thought?

What's one of what's one of the things that you need to do to create your revenue? To create that goal and what is your thought about it?

Shannon Mattern (45:15.266)

So pop that in the chat for me, whoever would like to share.

the decision and then your thought about the decision. And then we'll give you guys some time to just brain dump, word vomit, all of your thoughts about your decisions.

Shannon Mattern (45:49.134)

Kate is inspiring Yvette to raise her prices. Amazing. Kate, Yvette, what was your thought? What thought drove you, I know like, Kate inspired me. What thought did you have about what Kate just did that gave you the inspiration, motivation, and courage to go raise your prices on your website right now? What were you thinking?

Shannon Mattern (46:20.174)

So Michelle says she is not charging less than $12,000 per four week project. Her thoughts about this are, I'm gonna just shorten your thought, Michelle. For a four week project at $12,000 must be really complex.

So you have a thought that like, if it's $12,000 for four weeks, it must be a very complex project. How can I frame that up? So what she put in the chat was, have a hard time imagining what kind of complexity comes into a four week slash 10 day project. How can I frame that up? you have a thought that a 12.

$1000 for a week project has a lot of moving parts complexity. How could I do that? How could I possibly do that? A vet's thought about raising prices is that no big deal like Kate can do it. I can do it. No big deal, right? So what are your thoughts? Empowering, disempowering, mind trash or amazing, whatever. Go ahead and

go ahead and come down here to your thoughts about your CEO decisions and just start listing them out. I want you to look at every single thing you wrote in your CEO decisions. And I want you to just sit like write down what you're thinking about your ability to create that, to make that decision, to do that thing. So we'll give you a good five minutes to just mind trash brain dump.

word vomit, all the things and the thoughts. I would love for you guys to share what's going on in your head in the chat so I can use some of that stuff as examples as we go through the rest of this. Because it's not the CEO decisions themselves, it is your thoughts about the CEO decisions that is gonna determine whether you take action on them or not. Your thoughts about those things are gonna determine whether you cultivate the mindset needed to create that result or not.

Shannon Mattern (48:40.44)

Good stuff going on in the chat. can't wait to dive in, but I'm going to give you guys four more minutes to, we call this word vomit in the web designer academy. Everything you're thinking about your pot, the possibility and capability of you to do that in your, in your doc.

Shannon Mattern (49:07.202)

The truth comes out. The truth is coming out in the chat.

Shannon Mattern (49:20.194)

Good stuff.

Shannon Mattern (49:27.202)

Keep it coming.

Shannon Mattern (49:47.447)

And we want your beautiful thoughts about your CEO decisions and your not so beautiful thoughts. We want to notice those awesome thoughts and apply some of that same thinking to some of the not so empowering thoughts, what we call mind trash inside the Web Designer Academy. So document both.

Shannon Mattern (52:19.124)

All right, you guys can keep those thoughts.

coming in the chat. They are all so, good. And I'm gonna talk to you more about this concept that your thoughts create your results. Okay, so let me stop sharing this and we're gonna come back to.

What can I?

Shannon Mattern (52:49.602)

We'll just be half and half here. So you have decisions that you want to make to reach your goal. You listed all of the things that you're going to do. And then we had you list out like, what are all the thoughts that you think about your ability to do the things that you need to do to create the results? And to get your to get yourself to the place where you're able to make those decisions, your thoughts about your ability to do that must be aligned.

with the results. Otherwise, you won't take action towards doing it. You will just keep doing what you'll leave this retreat and you're just going to keep doing what you're doing. So we had you list out all of your thoughts and you might have some really empowering thoughts about the things you need to do to create your goal. Like we saw that Kate was like, I'm raising my prices by $2,000. She probably had a thought that it's it's worth it. I'm worth it.

I've been under charging and I'm not going to do that anymore. Like she probably had some really empowering thought that just compelled her to go do that. And then Yvette was like, well, Kate just made it seem like no big deal. So, you know, that's basically like they had really empowering thoughts about that. But when you have disempowering thoughts, you take actions that disempower you, right? So what that means for our web designer Academy students is that we

They make the decision to work with us. They have lots of thoughts about making that decision, right? They have an empowering thought that gives them the, gives them the motivation, the inspiration, the courage to make the decision to work with us. And then we put strategies in front of them. You know, we help them identify like, what are you thinking? What about this strategy like freaks you out? Right. And then we help.

them work through those thoughts so that they can take the action. So it's not just, this is why if you've done other programs or trainings or coaching and you're like, this strategy seems to work for everyone, but it's not working for me. It's because there's no component of helping you uncover what you think about the strategy.

Shannon Mattern (55:08.6)

to identify what you need to change about what you think about the strategy in order to make you take action on the strategy and try the strategy. Or what you need to change about what you think to help you persist and keep trying different ways until you find the thing that's right for you, right? So our students create thoughts that make them willing to follow their time block schedule and do the uncomfortable work of raising their prices and holding boundaries, right?

They create thoughts that make them willing to raise their prices and let a client tell them that they can't afford to work with them and not make it mean that their price is too high or that they'll never get another client. So they don't do this all on their own. We cannot see our own thoughts. I cannot stress this enough that we don't even realize that a lot of the things that we're thinking aren't... We believe our thoughts. We think we are...

like just whatever's going on in here is true and factual and the way the world works and facts. It's all of our paradigms operating. And when you when your paradigms aren't getting you the results that you want, you have to examine that and decide, wait, how is this way of thinking standing in the way of my goals and what can I think instead? Right. And like I said, I can't see my own thoughts. I have coaches to help me see my own thoughts. And our students

put them like they come in and they ask questions and they go on live strategy calls and they post to the Facebook group and they like pour their thoughts out for us and then we can just sift through and be like, here's the thought that's in your way. And here's how we can help you think about this a little bit differently. So.

Shannon Mattern (56:56.716)

I want to go over this, this, model with you. This is Brooke Castillo of the life life coach schools concept. I don't know if any of you have heard of her before. the, coaches that I have worked with personally, like on like life coaches on things in my personal life that I've wanted to accomplish and some business coaches that I have worked with, operate like based on this model. And so I want to, want to walk you through this full disclosure. I'm not like a sort of like a life coach school certified coach.

But I have been like working with, I've been applying the model to myself and self coaching myself for five years. And it's incredible and it's amazing. So the premise of the model is that there are circumstances in the world. These are facts that like everyone would agree on that, like maybe not everyone would agree on this, but it's like we live on planet Earth. The majority of people in the world would be like, yes, that is the truth. Like that is.

That is correct, right? So the premise of the model is that there are circumstances in the world. And when we encounter those circumstances, we have a thought about those circumstances. So we have thoughts about the circumstances or in reaction to the circumstances and our thoughts trigger our brains to release hormones and assert that feel a certain way in our body. And those are feelings and those are one word. So I feel

I feel angry, feel scared, I feel worried, I feel anxious, I feel elated, I feel invigorated, I feel excited. Those feelings, they feel a certain way in your body and they're created by chemicals that are released when you think certain things, right? And we all have different brains. Our brains are all wired different and different thoughts feel different ways. And every single one of our bodies based on how like our experience in the world, right?

Those feelings that we have, chemicals that were released in our body, they drive actions. This chemical that came out of my brain, it's like a program to make me do something. So Melissa's heart just started racing. Melissa must've had a thought. I don't know what that thought was that caused your heart to start racing. For example, before I started Push Broadcast,

Shannon Mattern (59:24.824)

today, my heart start racing. I feel warm. I'm thinking, I really want this to go well. And I'm thinking, I'm nervous because I get that way before I've been doing this for years. I get that way before every single live event. had some kind of a thought that made me feel nervous. So that feeling in my body felt like red, sweaty, like

Whatever. Let me go put on some more deodorant before I come in here and push play, right? Those feelings drive my actions. Those hormones activate me into action. And the best example to illustrate this is like when adrenaline is released in your body, because you've had a certain feeling that made you release that fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. So if something creates fear, fear is like a feeling when adrenaline is released. Flight.

fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Those are the four reactions to a fear response, an adrenaline rush in your body. Fawning is playing along, by the way. I had no idea that's what that meant. I just learned this fear response from a trauma, one of our trauma informed coach, Dr. Lee Cordell, definitely my go-to fear response. I'm like, you're being a jerk to me. I'll just play along because that feels safe to me. our thoughts create our feelings, create our actions.

and the problem becomes when we think our thoughts are facts.

So some examples of this is no one will pay me that much for a website. You think that's a fact, right? How many of you have that thought that that's a fact? Like no one will pay me that much for a website.

Shannon Mattern (01:01:12.074)

Arwen had a thought that no one will ever hire like if I get rid of this client, I'll never get another client. Like that was her thought. That's what came up when she was talking about her CEO decisions. And that has a thought that nonprofits and small businesses can't pay higher prices. She believes that to be the truth.

Shannon Mattern (01:01:38.134)

Let's see. Angela has a thought that if I raise my prices, I'll alienate my current fans and that music teachers have no business spending $10,000 on a website and no website is going to hold that much value for them in terms of ROI. She believes that to be true. So the problem becomes when we believe our thoughts, when we believe our thoughts to be true. And so.

you might think no one will pay that much for a website. It's not a fact. And do we know how we know that it's not a fact? Because it's happened before. So it's happened before. You saw all of these testimonials, all of these success stories from our clients that are like, someone just paid me $18,000 for a website. Someone just paid me $15,000 for a website. Someone just paid me $10,000 for a website. So it is not true.

that no one will pay you that much, right? I want you to question your belief that a music teacher making $50,000 a year couldn't create, couldn't, A, afford $10,000 for a website. You have no idea what someone's financial situation looks like even if their salary, even if you know what their salary is.

We teach our clients, this is something one of my coaches talked to me about, stay out of your clients while it's do not make that decision for them. That is not your job to make that decision for them. They are grown adults with their own pricing paradigms, their own goals, their own things. Your only job is to give them all of the information that they need to make the decision for themselves. If that is an investment that they want to make or not, that is not your decision.

So what Angela might need to do is decide how can I, how could it be possible? How could it be possible that a music teacher would generate 10 times more, know, or generate a return on their investment in this website, right? How is it possible? And if she can't figure that out,

Shannon Mattern (01:04:04.472)

then maybe she gets to decide, wait, which do I want to choose? Do I want to choose this price or this person? How do I want to this? So Melissa says, where do you find the people that will pay that price? Because I have never experienced that. So another belief people have is, I don't know someone that's willing to pay that price.

Like I don't, those people aren't in my audience. Those people aren't in my network. I don't know anyone who would.

And so one of the things that let's examine that thought, right? So let's get into your workbook because that's a perfect way to examine, to go to this next step. So I'm going to share the workbook again. Let me see.

This is where like

Shannon Mattern (01:05:08.952)

creating empowering thoughts, right? I could sit here all day and say, here's exactly what you do to go find those clients. And we do that inside the web designer academy. But when you're operating from a thought that like, I've never, what is the thought? me make sure I'm showing everything I wanna show, okay.

Yeah, this is like the mind bending session. So Melissa has a thought that I have never met a client that would spend. I to get your exact thought.

Shannon Mattern (01:05:55.448)

So we always wanna state our thoughts as a statement and not a question.

okay. Well, that's how that's going to work. All right. Copy and paste. So this is her thought. I don't know where

Shannon Mattern (01:06:18.842)

Transform this into a statement. I don't know anyone who will pay that price. And I don't know how to find them.

Shannon Mattern (01:06:39.682)

That would be, I don't know how to find people that will pay that price. No, I don't know how to find them. That would be an okay thought. It's kind of two thoughts in one, but we'll roll with it. So Melissa, tell me how you feel when you think that.

What feeling? One word. How does it feel to you when you think that? Nervous.

Shannon Mattern (01:07:06.958)

And when you're nervous, what do you do or not do?

Shannon Mattern (01:07:16.184)

hide.

But when you're hiding.

Shannon Mattern (01:07:24.92)

Do find them?

Shannon Mattern (01:07:33.144)

What happens when you hide? Do you meet people that pay that much? That would pay that much?

You said, no, exactly. Your thoughts create your results every single time. So results, I'm not, I don't find them.

Shannon Mattern (01:08:02.51)

So we can start from this side, from anywhere. We don't have to create a new thought right away. You might be, if you're like me, I'm not super in touch with like feelings in my body. It's something I have to practice all the time. If you ask me how I feel, I say another thought. I'll be like, I feel like I'm not sure, blah, blah, blah. Like I say another thought. I don't say like the one word.

feeling in my body because I've been so detached from my feelings for so long, it's really hard for me to like think of how I want to feel. So sometimes for me, it's easier for me to go straight to a new thought and be like, well, how would that make me feel? For some people who are like really in touch with their feelings, but don't know how to translate that into thoughts, it might be that you want to start with how you want to feel. Or we start with action or we start with the result. So

Where do you want to start? Yeah, the result is no money.

The result.

Shannon Mattern (01:09:15.252)

No one pays me that much.

Shannon Mattern (01:09:20.974)

So how do you, what do you think, let's start with the action. What do think the action needs to be for you to create the result of finding people who will pay that much? I guess the result is what we want is finding people who will pay that much.

Shannon Mattern (01:09:45.218)

Because you have to find them. They're not going to magically come to you. You have to find them. So if that's the result that we want, you can tell me a thought, feeling, or action. Which one do you? You can just tell me one.

What do you have to think, or do to create the result of finding people who will pay that much?

Shannon Mattern (01:10:23.724)

Yeah, what do you mean by get out there? What does get out there mean to you?

Shannon Mattern (01:10:35.627)

Become visible. What does become visible mean?

Shannon Mattern (01:10:40.962)

Does that mean doing like our get your next client outreach in the Web Designer Academy?

Shannon Mattern (01:10:55.962)

I guess. What else does it mean? Like that's a strategy. Like that's an action that you could take. What else does it mean? What does get out there mean? Like when you imagine yourself out there, what does that mean?

Shannon Mattern (01:11:22.934)

I'm not sure. Yeah. So there's some lack of clarity around. Well, I mean, and Sharon, what does networking mean? We need to get really specific on what the action is. It's like making connections. How are we doing that? No, it doesn't sound stupid, Melissa. Please do not judge yourself right now. This is the stuff. This is the stuff. Like if we're not even clear on what the action is, it's because we have a thought. Like we have a thought like

Another thought you might be having that's disempowering is I don't know what to do to put myself out there. And so this is kind of how you how you go, how you start to unwind all of this.

Shannon Mattern (01:12:12.482)

You have to fill in these blanks.

Shannon Mattern (01:12:17.9)

It's like feeling confused, locked.

Shannon Mattern (01:12:25.706)

Action. Don't put myself out there.

Shannon Mattern (01:12:33.218)

And the result is I never figure out what works.

Shannon Mattern (01:12:46.872)

So you went to a networking event last night, right? So what was the thought that got you to go to a networking event?

Shannon Mattern (01:13:02.178)

Look, there's so many actions in the chat. Networking groups. Get your next client exerciser, 111 method like we teach in the Web Designer Academy. Outreach emails, writing a blog, showing your genius and posting on social media. We focus exclusively on outreach emails and outreach and connection because it's the fastest, easiest way to finding people who will pay that much. So friends invited you to a networking event.

And there was a thought that you had.

Shannon Mattern (01:13:37.45)

that compelled you to go. What was it?

Shannon Mattern (01:13:45.942)

And I'm sticking with you here, Melissa, because you are about 50 other people in this room. Just by the way, like you are you are going through this and so are 50 other people in this room. So thank you for thank you for being their example. I was in a networking group, but they are entrepreneurs who don't have any money because they are starting up. Did you ask to see everybody's bank account balance at that event?

I mean, I know that sounds super silly to say that, like that's a thought that you have. That's like you just said that as if it was a fact, right? You just said that like they're entrepreneurs who don't have money because they're starting up. You just made that like you have no idea what anybody's financial situation is. We can't make that assumption.

That's another thought. That is another thought that people have. So I'm going to just walk and you went anyway. Yeah, I know. So let's think about like action. Let people at networking group know that I'm a web designer.

And I have open spots if they know anyone who they know anyone who meets my five DreamHim client bullet points.

Shannon Mattern (01:15:29.452)

which is something that we do in the web designer academy.

So that is an action that you could take and that would come from feeling confident. And the thought would be, I'm willing to stay out of their wallets and let them know how they can work with me.

Shannon Mattern (01:16:04.77)

So I don't know anyone who will pay that price and I don't know how to find them. My new thought is I'm willing to stay out of their wallets and let them know how they work with me. I feel that thought makes me feel confident. That thought might just make you feel willing, honestly.

Shannon Mattern (01:16:20.994)

And then your action is, I'm going to go to this networking group. I'm going to tell people what I do. It's not that huge of a deal. It's not so serious. I'm going to say this, these are the five dreamium client bullet points. I work with people who, and you have your dream and client bullet points and I've open spots. I have openings for January. If you know anyone who meets those qualifications, your result, if you continue to do that because you're willing,

is eventually you will find people who pay that much. And you have to be willing to hear no in the pursuit of yes.

But the feeling again is willing. So you have to be aware of your thoughts. You have to be aware of your thoughts and if you're believing your thoughts. Okay, so I'm gonna do another example of this because this is so, so, so important.

Shannon Mattern (01:17:26.2)

So I pick I'm picking I'm picking people who represent like every other person in this room, by the way.

Shannon Mattern (01:17:36.788)

Let's see who has a thought that they want me to work through as I'm kind of reading back through. you pop it down in the bottom of the chat, I will I'll take your thought on and we'll do do do yours. It was someone said never count someone else's money.

I'm going to do Arwen's thought of, if I raise my prices, no one will ever hire me again.

Shannon Mattern (01:18:11.104)

And I'm going to like, I think it's like fire this client.

Shannon Mattern (01:18:18.278)

So, Arwen, how does that make you feel when you think that? And then we'll do one more after Arwen. Ooh, Angela, we talked about this on Instagram DMs. I'm gonna do that one next. That's so good. And that kind of relates to Melanie. My designs are not good enough to other designers who charge more.

While we're waiting for Arwen to tell us how she feels, Melanie, are other designers who charge more like, do you know what their business looks like on the back end or do you just see the price on their website? Just out of curiosity. All right, so Arwen feels anxious and afraid.

Which one do you think is more strong, fear or anxiety?

Shannon Mattern (01:19:28.494)

Hey, that's a good one too. We have time. We'll do that one as well.

Shannon Mattern (01:19:38.988)

I'm going just go with fear. I know the delay is a little bit. So the action is I don't fire the client. I don't fire the You can see the typos in my emails in action, guys. My brain does not put words in the right order all the time. I don't fire the client and I don't raise my prices.

Shannon Mattern (01:20:09.558)

Results. Here's the awesome thing about this. I know it's so crazy, but like no one hires me.

Why does no one hire her? Because she's spending all her time on this client and not marketing and putting herself out there and all of the things, right? And it's like, I'm an introvert. can't market. That's another thought, Arwen, that you might want to explore with this.

So fear because it leads to the action don't raise my prices and it leads to the action of staying with this client. So what you really want is a higher paying client.

Shannon Mattern (01:20:58.102)

Now, have you about results? We can never control other people. It's just, we just can't. Another person, a hire. Another person cannot be in our result line. The result can't be like, my husband takes out the trash when I want him to or whatever. It's another person's... They all have autonomy. We don't get to control them. So this results...

We might have to tweak this when we get here. how do you want to about what's the, let's go with the, we're going to start with the action you want to take. The action you want to take is hire the client and find a new hire paying client.

Shannon Mattern (01:21:52.704)

I want to offer to you, Arwen, that we can flip the order in which we do this.

Shannon Mattern (01:22:06.478)

So how would you have to feel to take this action?

Shannon Mattern (01:22:32.532)

Confident in my skills. That's a whole nother, that's a whole nother model.

So that's where you copy this and you're like, thought.

my skills aren't.

Shannon Mattern (01:22:53.24)

Good enough to charge that much. Feeling insecure.

action.

Shannon Mattern (01:23:08.066)

Keep prices low.

Shannon Mattern (01:23:12.992)

Result, I don't charge that much.

New thought.

Shannon Mattern (01:23:24.338)

I can figure anything out. My clients are paying me for the results, not how I got there. Feeling. Confident. Action. Raise my prices. Results. My clients pay me for results.

Hot skills.

Shannon Mattern (01:24:00.77)

See how that works. So.

you uncovered another thought that you had to clean up before you can come up here and have a new thought about this. So I want to find a new higher paying client and fire the old client. I have to feel confident, maybe even courageous.

What do I have to think? I'm willing to do what it takes. I'm a new client. I don't know, that's just one thought. You'll have to try on some thoughts that'll resonate for you. I can't give you guys thoughts, because you have a unique brain that some things feel good to you, other things don't feel good to you. So you can work with...

You can work with these things with you being the results. Like I don't quit until I get that client. You make time for it every week. You do what you need to do to create that. So those are how you have to find your disempowering thoughts and examine how are they making me feel? What action or inaction is this creating? What results? How is that like contributing to the results I'm getting now? What do I want to be doing?

do need to feel to do that? What do I need to think? You can go through that other side in any order. this is

Shannon Mattern (01:25:31.138)

This is the key. You need to figure out what you are thinking because you will keep doing what you're doing if you don't clean up your thoughts. And so our live strategy calls in the Web Designer Academy, that's all they are for, is for people to come in, tell us about a problem that they're having. don't even, you guys don't even realize this is what I'm doing behind the scenes.

This is like the back end of how I'm helping you through those of you that are in the web designer academy. This is like the back end of how I'm helping you like shift those thoughts and the beliefs. We don't like sit down and do models together, but like that's how my mind is working. When you tell me things like, I, like I have to, like, this is something that we did yesterday on one of our calls. One of our students, Janet was like,

I have too many projects coming up and I only have two hands and I'm so overwhelmed that I don't know how I'm to get it all done. And then this client wanted to move something and that client wanted to move something and we had to really deconstruct her thoughts about all of it. So she can have some empowering thoughts to be able to take back control of all of this. So we do this all the time. So there are a ton of thoughts over here in this chat. And what I realized is like the chat is different in every room. We're going to move on.

to the next session, is selling profitable web design projects in any economy. It's gonna continue this conversation about circumstances, create your thoughts, create your feelings. But I want you, if you put a thought in this chat, I want you to go ahead and like copy it. I wanna come back to Angela's thought a little bit later that no Squarespace website can be worth 10K.

So Angela, you do me a favor, when we get to the next room, just put that in the chat. So it'll just signal me to like talk about that when we get into the next session. So I'm gonna end this one. We'll see you guys in the next one. And we're gonna talk about like booking profitable web design projects in an uncertain economy and how you adapt the CEO mindset to how you run your business.