#131 – January 2025 Income Report

Shannon Mattern (00:02.702)

Hey there and welcome to my January 2025 income report where I take you behind the scenes of my business and break down how much money we made, how much we spent and all of the life business and money lessons learned along the way because how we think about money drives so many actions which either create wanted or unwanted results. So this episode every single month that I record

It's not only to help me become aware of my own money thoughts and how they're helping me get closer to my goals or not, but also help you get some awareness around your own money thoughts in your web design business and decide if you want to keep them or if you want to actively work on shifting your money mindset. So buckle up friends. This is going to be a long episode. I just wrapped up my December 2024 income report and 2024 year in review.

episodes. Those were numbers 130 and 131. So if you haven't listened to those yet, I talk about how it feels like I closed a chapter of like my business over a decade in business at the end of 2024 and how 2025 feels like I'm starting a new one. So I'm excited to share with you what we have planned for 2025 in this episode. So it's going to be a little bit longer because kind of a lot happened

from let's say the end of December all the way through kind of like the beginning of February. So this is covering a little bit of a longer time span than usual. And maybe it's because I've been in business for a decade now. Maybe it's because I've experienced some ups and downs and I know that I can get through the downs like I have proof now. Maybe it's because I've just done a lot of work to heal my nervous system, but I really came into January feeling ready for more.

But not to do more things or to make more money, but really feeling ready to be more connected, to give more, to serve more. Like I just felt like I had the capacity. And there's been like a shift at my core from needing to make money to protect myself and to survive to being like, I weathered some of the toughest times you can go through as an entrepreneur.

Shannon Mattern (02:23.566)

And it was still worth every moment. Like I would not trade everything that happened over the past 10 years or certainly, you know, the 2023 beginning of 2024 for the certainty of a day job paycheck because it came at the cost of my autonomy and freedom. And that experience really reawakened

the passion that drove me to start my business in the first place, not my like freelance web design business, but like what drove me to start my old free five day website challenge business where I was like, I need as many women as possible to experience what it's like to not have to ask for permission for anything and to know that they can create the life that they want anything that they want. And I feel like I have reconnected

with that mission, specifically for women web designers in a really deep way. So it's not about making more, it's about helping more and more women experience what I have experienced and how your power and confidence grows in those tough times, especially when you allow yourself to be held and supported through them like I did. I would have given in without the support of

my friends, family, colleagues and coaches. And when I say given in or like, I mean, I would have given up my freedom, my autonomy and my ability to decide how much I make for the feeling of safety and certainty that I would have attributed to a day job. But truly that comes from within. And so it's from that place that I'm like, okay, so if support was required,

to get through the low times and come out of them even stronger, like that I wasn't able to do that on my own. Just imagine what I could create if I simply ask for and allow myself to receive more help, more support anytime, and not just when I'm struggling. And that's really my theme for 2025 is just ask, just ask and be willing to receive and be willing to hear no.

Shannon Mattern (04:36.844)

And it just seems so easy, but my gosh, it is not easy. And I'll tell you more about that later too. But let me start off with just important things that happened like through the end of December and in January. And I'll wrap up this episode with the numbers and just some information on like what's next for us here at the Web Designer Academy.

So I mentioned in my 2024 year in review episode number 130 that we spent all of last year like testing, testing, testing, because it's absolutely true that the way people make buying decisions online has just fundamentally changed. And I don't think that there's any going back to the way that it used to be. And like I talked about with Nadine Nethery back in episode 128, all about customer journeys. I intentionally built like an Iron Man Tough Mudder obstacle course.

of a customer journey, which in hindsight was totally to protect myself. But when it requires so much courage and belief and internal knowing and certainty in yourself and your business ahead of time for you to come and work with us, it kind of defeats the purpose because so much of what we do inside of the Web Designer Academy builds that courage and confidence along the way. So last year,

we added a lot of stepping stones to our customer journey to take you from like, don't know, email subscriber, casual podcast listener, heard me on someone else's podcast, heard me speak at an event all the way to web designer academy member. We tested a lot of stepping stones that like didn't get to stay, but we tested a lot of things. And one of those tests that I mentioned in my October income report was that I...

tested offering out a self-study version of the Web Designer Academy. Like, here's just the curriculum, in the strategies, no coaching component, no access to me, to test out if people just wanted the strategies, to test out a lower price point for access to those. And I talk about in my October income report how like, I just wasn't sure what to make of the test results.

Shannon Mattern (06:52.174)

I was unsure whether I was going to offer it again. And I forgot to mention this in my December of 2024 income report, but I did offer it again. I offered it to the 35 accepted applicants into our program. Like they applied to work with us. They applied to come to our final live private training of the year. I invited them to work with us because they like totally qualified. I could see like, yes, you absolutely can successfully.

implement these strategies. And for all of the people who did not opt for our full coaching program, I offered them the Web Designer Academy self study like, hey, if the full coaching program wasn't the right fit for you, maybe you'd want lifetime access to the self study to all of the strategies. And there was even a full no questions asked refund period so people could like check it out and get their money back if it wasn't what they expected.

And I was not sure again what to expect, but I can't say that the result was unexpected because I know that our buying decisions are almost never about money. They're about our belief in our ability to create results and to create our return on our investment. And if we don't really believe in ourselves and that like what we want is possible, we're not going to spend the money. And so the number one,

thing that I hear from people who apply for the web designer Academy who are amazing fits for the program who don't end up joining is that they're they're worried they won't be able to find clients. Like they say things like, all of my clients come from more of a mouth than referrals, like somehow that's a problem. And then they make joining us mean that they're going to have to find like a new source of investment minded clients and they tell themselves they don't know where or how. So now the decision to work with us becomes contingent on finding like this whole new set of clients.

And while, because that doesn't feel possible, I'm just not going to like make any decision. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. And so it's not a surprise to me that the people who did not enroll in our full coaching program also did not take me up on, getting access to just the strategies for half the price of the full coaching program, because it wasn't about the price and like,

Shannon Mattern (09:14.27)

So many times that's what I'm seeing. It's like, it's not about the price. It's about the commitment of a year, or it's not about the price. It's about my belief in myself, or it's not about the price. It's like, I'm scared to go all in. There's a missing piece. And to me, that's my responsibility to put that piece there for you. There's been a missing stepping stone in the customer journey. And so,

And not that everyone is going to come to work with us, but there are people who want to, who are not doing it. And so, like I said, there's been a missing stepping stone in the customer journey. I, and we spent a lot of time actually in 2024, adding stepping stones to the web designer academies sales processes to make it easier for our, our students, customers to say yes to working with them.

We did the same thing with the web designer Academy, just like obviously different steps because they're buying a different service. So, but I talk about, when I talk about like you selling to your clients, right. When you you're selling a web design project to your clients, there's three core needs that three boxes that need to be checked. Three, like core fundamental needs your clients need to feel in order to like feel safe to move forward with.

making that purchase decision, especially at a premium price. And they're, those things are resources. So they need all of the time, information, money, and energy. They need to know what is required of them. And they need to feel like they have those resources available to them. They need to feel psychologically safe to make that decision. So they trust you. And like it basically is trust.

lots of different ways that that can play out just depending on the service, but it's trust. And then they also need to feel like they have autonomy, like they're never locked into anything. And so I've tried filling the gap between the stepping stones on my American Ninja warrior course with like more information, like more resources, like more information, more clarity on the time, money and energy required. I've tried filling it in with more psychological safety.

Shannon Mattern (11:40.726)

So that trust factor, like, so are you going to feel safe in our community? So I made profitable web designer premium podcast feed available. So you can hear like what our live strategy calls are like, how I coach, what the, what the room is like, and learn more about what we do on the inside. So, you know, like, I will be respected and heard and understood when I joined this program. I've tried filling the stepping stone gaps with

more autonomy, like 30 day trials and no questions asked refund periods, payment plan options, still with a one year commitment. And so all of those things have added small stepping stones, but there's still been some gaps. And one of my hypotheses is that there is a belief gap in terms of like believing that if I actually

implement these strategies in my business, I will make more money, get more clients, create what I really want to create. And so my October income report comes out in November. And over Thanksgiving, I get an email from a podcast listener named Michelle Burbinare, and she's an SEO expert. Her website is words on the rise.com.

She actually spoke at the Simply Profitable Designer Summit in 2024. Josh Hall introduced us and she's done some SEO work for him. And in her email, she's like, hey, I just listened to your October 2024 income report, where you talk about like, you're not sure what to do with this Web Designer Academy self study option. Like it kind of competes with the regular Web Designer Academy, people who say no to the full Web Designer Academy.

aren't really saying yes to the self-study version either. So I had an idea for something that you could offer that doesn't compete with the web designer academy. And she made me a loom video, like explaining her whole idea for this stepping stone I could offer. And her idea was a beginner self-study course for web designers to teach them how to get their first, like their first five clients. And she was like, because I've heard you say that the strategies you teach in the web designer academy aren't for beginner web designers,

Shannon Mattern (13:58.434)

This will give you something for the people who just aren't to that point in their business yet, where they feel like they're ready for the web designer Academy. And then she rightly said, because I don't think you want to teach how to build a website, which is where the most, most people who want to coach web designers start. And I'm like, my gosh, you're right. You're spot on. I told her, I think where I've been getting stuck. And then she pointed this out brilliantly is that.

A, I used to teach design skills to any business owner, not just, not just like people who wanted to become a web designer. And that was my free five day website challenge. And that was not for, teaching you how to start a web design business. That was for teaching life coach how to build her own website so she could start, building her email list and making offers and all of those things.

And a tiny, tiny by-product of that was women being like, my gosh, it was actually fun to build a website. I'd like to get paid to do this for other people. But the free five day website challenge was never the feeder of the web designer academy. That the feeder of the web designer academy was like partnerships and collaborations I had done with other companies already serving freelance web designers, like skill crush, for example.

And so people like people I would talk to would be like, well, you have, you, teach people how to build a website. I'm like, yeah, but not web designers. Like what I am teaching this person is like the technical aspects of WordPress, but I don't want to do that anymore because it changes the technology just changes so much. there's so many questions. And honestly, there are so many.

other resources out there to learn the technical skills you need to learn. And because I'm not doing it anymore, I'm not up to it. I'm not like, I don't know. Of course, I know I can figure anything out, but like, I'm just not in it in the day to day. So I don't want to teach it. And so, um, and the other thing that happened was I started the web designer Academy actually back in 2016 and those

Shannon Mattern (16:21.022)

were the students then were newer web designers. Like they probably hadn't had clients before they're like, yeah, I have this interest in this skill and I do want to turn it into a business. And as they evolved the program evolved with them. And I kind of left the newbie web designer a little bit behind. Right. And so I was like, you're so spot on because there is like, we don't have an offer for

Oh, so you want to become a web designer or you already gave your, you already taught yourself the skills and now you want to turn those skills into a business. We don't have that. We're for the people who learned somewhere else. Well, I should say right now kind of still work for the people who already learned web design, either at their day job or from another course or on their own. And they,

like have already started either with like on their own, just by like working with family and friends or through another course or whatever, for whatever reason, they've already started to get clients. And then they've reached this point where they're like, I'm undercharging, I'm over delivering, this is a mess. Like, how is this even going to work? And that's where we come in and we're like, let me show you how to actually run this business that you've started. So

She was like, I have this idea for how you can bridge the gap because you probably have a lot of people in your audience who are, have the skill but haven't started the business yet because they don't know how. And so she shared her idea with me and I was like, that is really such a great idea. Cause that is a gap. Like we're not serving that person.

And I outlined the course. like, here's everything that she actually gave me a course outline. And I like took it and I was like, I already have so much of that stuff from our original iteration of the web designer Academy that I could like pull out and whatever. And so I outlined the course idea based on like what she shared with me and what we already had. And I was like, I had this idea. I'm like, I'll work on this over the break. I'll live teach it the first couple of months of 2025.

Shannon Mattern (18:39.0)

So we need to promote it and write emails and maybe put together a webinar for beginner web designers and everything set up to live teach this. But something must have still felt a little off about it because I could not really get myself to move forward on the like promotion piece of it. Like outlining what I would teach was like, yes, this is like awesome. But then when it came to moving forward with like promoting the like

doing whatever promotion for it, I was just like, not feeling it. And I know me when I know, know, know something is right. It's like, get out of my way. This baby is coming. But when I don't know, it doesn't feel right. For some reason, it just drops lower and lower on my to do list. So I'm like, it's not a bad idea. It's a great idea, actually. But something just doesn't feel right about it. So we go offline the last two weeks of the year. And our last day online was like,

December 20th of 2024. That was the last day people could enroll in the web designer academy after our 2025 profitable web designer web design business roadmap training on December 7th. We didn't come back online till January 6, which was magical. I love owning my own business deciding that for me and our team that we're not working over the holidays. I love modeling for our students how to design a business that works with your life.

and like communicating that to their clients and what the expectations are, but like being offline for me means no meetings on my calendar and no expectation that I'll respond to any messages or anything until I'm back online. In those spaces, my brain is so online and like my husband works a normal job with a normal schedule. Actually, he travels a lot too.

So he was working. We weren't planning to travel anywhere for the holidays. So I had plenty of time for projects and just a ton of free unstructured time to let my brain go wherever it wanted to go. So it's December 20th. It's our last day online. And I make a loom for my team and drop it in Slack, like, Hey, here's all the things that I'll be working on over the break. We'll talk about it all. We're back online. No action needed from you just wanted you to know like, what's gonna what's coming down the, you know,

Shannon Mattern (21:03.116)

down the pike. And so I dropped them this loom and then I'm having all kinds of ideas over the break and I'm dropping loom videos in a slack like, I don't need you to watch this right now. I'm just dropping it here while it's fresh in my mind. Let's talk all of, let's watch this when we're back online in January. We'll talk about it then.

And one of the projects I was working on over the break was an SEO pillar post about how to market your web design business. And I mean like epic 10,000 word blog post. And right before the holidays, I had also had Michelle Warner on my podcast, which you haven't, if you haven't listened to our episode number 127, it is so good. And we, she, she articulated something that I'm like, I

it finally clicked in my brain. I've never been able to articulate why this works, but it does. And she gave me the language and the proof as to why it works. Because I'm always like, hey, web designers, stop trying to be on Instagram and all of this stuff. If you don't like doing it, that's not where to be. One-to-one relationships, outreach.

you know, building new relationships, leveraging existing relationships, relationship marketing is where it's at for web designers. So I'm writing this epic 10,000 word blog post, basically documenting like our entire marketing strategy and all of that, and that we teach inside the web designer academy. And that's when it hit me. I was like, I knew exactly what stepping stone I wanted to test. And in that moment, I was like,

Okay, get out of my way. This baby is coming. I mean, I've never had a baby, but I imagine that's what it would be like, like a moment of knowing. And also that there's like nothing that can happen that can stop it from happening. So I have this idea. It was like December 30th, and I make a loom for my team and I drop it in slack. And I was gonna have my podcast producer like put the actual loom in here, but I'm just gonna read to you like the transcript.

Shannon Mattern (23:16.514)

So that'll be easier for all of us, because the loom will sound bad anyway. The audio will be terrible. I was probably in my bed with bad microphone and all of that. So I'll just share with you what I told my team. I said, the thought I had was, what about instead of doing just a one-time newbie course, because marketing is such a huge pain point for people, what if instead I created a membership all about marketing?

So it's just an idea that popped into my head. I do love the idea of a newbie course, but I think what would help us feed the Web Designer Academy could be a membership. And this membership is around a very specific topic. And so while I still love the idea of a newbie course that kind of answers all these like beginner level questions, I also feel like I love the idea of a, creating ongoing recurring revenue and helping people with a very specific topic that they are always going to have to do.

Like there's just never going to be a day when they are done with marketing. And if they are done with marketing, cool. They need to join us in the next level mastermind because all of their seeds have been planted and the momentum is flowing. But that's just kind of what I was thinking. And also I think I was getting a little bit stuck on what this newbie course would be because I don't know. It feels right, but it didn't feel quite right. Like it feels right, but I don't know how to articulate that. But I was just like, a very specific marketing membership fills a gap. Like

I'm not doing it. No other web design business coach is doing something like this that I know of. And I'm like, my gosh, it would be so easy. I've already taught this workshop 1000 times. This could be something that web designer Academy and next level mastermind members also get access to where where they get to come to this monthly marketing workshop, co working in q &a session where I'm teaching a different marketing strategy, and they're doing it while they're at the workshop.

so that they don't have to try to figure out when to make time for it later. We've got a bajillion of them that we can teach, give people scripts, give them time to implement and time for mindset coaching. And then I was thinking, okay, well, what about community? Because community is an important part of membership. And then I was thinking about what I had said in this other brain dump that I sent you guys about working on a brand refresh and the idea I had about separating our courses site from the main WDA website. Well, we could take it a step.

Shannon Mattern (25:41.464)

further and move to Circle. And we could move to Circle if we use Spiffy for payments. And they integrate WooCommerce integrates with Circle. And then you know, we can do a lot of fun engagement things like monthly marketing challenges, badges, awards, leaderboards, tracking, just a lot of things like that. And so I was thinking $97 a month, cancel anytime. And it feels to me like, okay, if this is your biggest barrier to joining a program like ours,

that you're worried you won't get clients. Well, how about we just solve that problem for you ahead of time? And I like to think that, I think I like that a bit better than the beginner business owner thing right now. I mean, it feels like this is just a huge gap that we keep hearing over and over and over and over again in terms of, I'm just getting started. I need to get clients first. I feel like all my clients come from referrals and word of mouth that needs to change first.

Well, this is the most important thing that you need to do to create any kind of progress or consistency in your business. And then all it takes for me is just teaching what I already teach all the time over and over and over again, inside the web designer Academy in a membership format, invite anyone to come and join us and make sure that we're engaging people and creating a community for that. So those are my thoughts. I'm curious what you guys think. I know these are a lot of big ideas and shifts.

and I'm truly wanting your feedback in terms of what problems does this solve? What problems could it create? What's the opportunity cost of doing things like this? What do we get to prioritize and make sure that if we're going to do all of these things, we're also writing pillar content, doing outreach for speaking engagements and podcast interviews. It's like I get to still prioritize the top of funnel things in addition to something like this.

So I feel like this is more universal to who we already have in our audience, regardless of their age or avatar or how long they've been in business or whether they're new, experienced or whatever. This could be a great stepping stone to joining us inside the web designer academy, regardless of whether they're making a thousand a month, zero a month, 10,000 a month, 7,000 a month. This might be a good stepping stone for people. So I'm curious what you guys think. I know I've dropped a lot on you in this brain dump and I think we can kind of...

Shannon Mattern (27:57.838)

And then I said, yeah, I'm just curious to talk to you and kind of see where we land on what we're going to prioritize in 2025. So that's what I dropped on my team, like December 30th, right? So this happens December 30th. And my team loves this idea just as much as I do because they've, we've done all the research together. And I think my team has already floated the idea of helping people with marketing and.

I had like, we're like, oh, let's do a marketing challenge. Let's do a free training on marketing. And I've always had resistance to that because I'm like, well, the people who need help with marketing are not the ones who are going to join the web designer academy. And I had never picked up on that being my clue to be like, then you need to create an offer to help people with their marketing so that that is no longer a barrier to them joining the web designer academy.

marketing is like when you understand how to market your business and you integrate it consistently into your workflows, stops feeling like marketing, it stops feeling like work and you start creating consistent clients and you start saying things like clients are coming out of nowhere and that's not what's happening, it's because you're actually doing it. So, and then,

you start experiencing the problems of success, right? Undercharging, over-delivering, scope creep, bound, like you need clients for all of that. And it's so funny to me because if I look back over the past five years of like web designer academy promotional webinars, like live private trainings and stuff, that's always a key component of the training. And to be like, for any of this to happen, you need clients like, and here's how we help you get clients.

But I think it was just like a too big of a leap for people to be like, okay, I'm gonna like join this program and then prove to myself that I can get clients once I'm already inside. I'm like, I need to pull that piece out and show you that you can get clients. And then when you start to experience the problems of success that the Web Designer Academy solves, we would love to have you.

Shannon Mattern (30:18.518)

Right. And if you're already experiencing those problems of success that the web designer Academy solves, cool. Come join us inside of the web designer Academy. And you also get access to this marketing membership. That's going to make sure that you are always like your next clients always lined up. our team loves this idea. And because we really have totally adopted an experimental mindset, like, Hey, let's just try this and see what happens. I'm like, okay.

first, think I'll launch it with a webinar and then I'm like, that doesn't feel right. Because like I mentioned earlier, I'm having this desire to be like more connected to our audience, have more conversations with them be in the same room with them at the same time, virtually and even in person, right? And like most of my colleagues, like most of my colleagues in the online business space, they feel drained by live launches. But hanging out live with people is like one of my favorite things to do. one of those clues that

I'd never really like paid attention to before that was like, the simply profitable designer summit, five days of hanging out with attendees live, having deep discussions, having like panel panelists doing live presentations. I love it. I remember saying to Erica after last year, I'm like, how can we do more of that? And so a webinar, I just, it felt like flat, right? Like, I was just like, it just feels like just another sales thing, but I want more connection.

And so I had another idea that I dropped on my team on January 6th, the day we came back from our holiday break. And so what I said to them in that loom, and I'll just read you the transcript. I was like, this next change ties into what I was talking about with the newbie course and how I want to turn that into a membership. I'm going to give all of the web designer Academy students access to that. And that will start with a monthly marketing membership call on the fourth Thursday of each month.

all Web Designer Academy students will be invited to that call. So let's say that this marketing membership idea totally flops. At the very least, we'll still have a dedicated marketing call on the fourth Thursday at 3 p.m. for Web Designer Academy members. I don't see how that wouldn't be a huge value add for them. And then the structure will be simple. I'll teach a marketing strategy, give them time to implement, and then we'll do a Q &A. They can add that to their calendar and save those dates.

Shannon Mattern (32:46.174)

And I'm also going to talk to Lee about this today in terms of quote unquote, launching the marketing membership. I figure a super simple five day challenge would be a fantastic way to introduce it. It would be a basic five day marketing challenge covering the core core concepts from our marketing teachings mindset goal setting, making a list, starting outreach and actually sending outreach since we know people get tend to get stuck on the sending part. And then on the fifth day,

I just do a training where I officially introduce the membership and invite people who are there to join us. And even if I do this challenge and not a single person joins, it's still a win because we'll still continue to offer that marketing call for our students. We would do a challenge for our students anyway, so there is really no downside to this. So I dropped that on my team on January 6th.

And then I talked to Lee Scott, who I mentioned in my 2024 year in review podcast, her company is called Zanatine Consulting, and we contract with her to help us like design and implement and gather data from all of these tests that she and she uses her brilliant brain to like analyze that data and help us make decisions on what to try next. And so she and I, I met with her team on January 7th, and I'm like, so hey, this is what I want to test out.

By the way, I want to do this challenge in 20 days, January 27th through 31st. And Lee's team has been offering to help with lots of things that we do. And I've let them help with some things, but I haven't let them help with a lot of things because I've had a big assumption about allowing help in my business, which I've talked about in past podcast episodes. But I keep thinking, but like in this specific situation, I was thinking like,

well, I want to do this in 20 days and I don't want to put that short timeline on someone else. Like, and basically what it all boils down to is that one of the core pillars of what we teach in the web designer academy is that you design your business around your life and not your client's life. And I am so hypersensitive to that. And I don't ever want to be a quote unquote

Shannon Mattern (35:06.52)

difficult client because that would make me a hypocrite. So when I'm coaching someone on something like my client wants this huge project done in three weeks and I'm giving them advice on how to navigate that. And then here on the flip side, I am being like, I want to offer a brand new membership and launch it with a challenge we've never done before in three weeks on a platform we've never used before. So we have to build that too. My brain is telling me things like they are going to hate you. You are a difficult client.

Basically, it all boils down to worrying about not being liked and we all have a core need to be liked. It's how we survive as humans. We can't do all the things we need to do to survive on our own. We need other people. But also what I forgot to tell myself is the other part of the story, which is what I'm always coaching our students on is that it's their choice. Just because a client has asked for something doesn't mean that they have to say yes, they get to say no.

or offer options that do work for them and that they have full autonomy. And I get to remember that my service providers, the people I contract with also have full autonomy. They're adults. We have very trusting relationships and I say to them over and over and over again, like, you can tell me no, you can tell me no. And that's like my need to like,

be respectful of that relationship. So I tell Lee that I would love her team's help with this, but I understand if the timeline's too tight and they were like, no, we love working with you and we want to do this project with you. And we're okay with these things. Like we want to do this with you. And I was just like, okay, cool. And I am at your service. I will get you whatever you need to get things done. When you need it done, you will never be waiting on me. And so I was so proud of myself.

for just asking for the help. And then just being open to them being like, yeah, we can't do that on that timeline. Here's what we could do instead or whatever. Here's how we can support that or awesome, you're on your own. I was so proud of myself for just asking. And they were all in and that was amazing. And you would think it would be like,

Shannon Mattern (37:30.168)

smooth sailing from there, but nope, there are many layers to this onion friends. we're getting the project going and they build the registration page for the challenge and they ask me for my feedback. This is like the very first thing that we do. And they ask me for my feedback. And what does my brain want to do? It's like, Shannon, just tell them you'll take it from here. And then you can just make all of the changes you want to make to the registration page on your own. And it sounded

so simple and so innocent. It's not like I don't know how to do it. Like it'd only take me an hour. But because we did this work at the next level retreat back in November to really craft a vision and uncover what's really in the way of not bringing that vision to life. And what's really in my way is being able to receive help. And because this is a pattern that I fell into with my operations and marketing coordinator where instead of giving her feedback and asking her for what I really wanted,

I just like take it from there and do it myself and totally disempower her. And I literally had to talk myself out of doing it myself and say, no, Shannon, you are going to give feedback and you're going to ask them to make the changes that you want to just take it from here and make yourself. And so I start a loom video and here's what's going through my mind the whole entire time I'm giving this feedback. This is so nitpicky. They're going to hate you. This is so nitpicky. They're going to hate you.

You could just make this change right now instead of telling them to make it, it's taking you longer to tell them. And then I had this other realization as I'm like doing this, I'm like, if the changes I were asking them to make were documented anywhere other than inside my head, like in say, I don't know, brand standard and standards and guidelines or SOPs or whatever, the changes I was asking for would have been communicated upfront. But instead, because all of that lives in my head,

And my only brand standard or brand guideline is like, that doesn't look right. Or I wouldn't say it like that. Or here's why I don't use photos like that. There is no way anyone else could know about my top secret brand standards. But the voice inside my head, what it was doing was just invalidating me at every turn being like, you shouldn't ask for what you really want. They won't like you. You're being a nightmare client when it is literally simply a process.

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I didn't communicate brand guidelines up front. Now I'm communicating them off the back end. And that's not even a process problem. It's just a version of like when something's being communicated. Sky is blue, right? But my subconscious is trying to protect me from the thing that I fear the most, which is being a hypocrite. Because if I'm a hypocrite and I'm actually a nightmare client behind the scenes of my own business, where I teach people how to not put up with nightmare clients,

Well, that's super dangerous because if I get found out, then I could lose everything. This is what my subconscious is telling me, right? So it is so sneaky. That's the core of the onion. And I would never have even, I'm sure there's more to that onion core, by the way, but I would have never even known to start peeling that onion without the work that we do inside of our next level mastermind. Like what got me here to this level of business?

doing it all myself so I don't have to give feedback and risk not being like, well, simply keep me here. And if I want to get to my next level, I have to intentionally change my behavior, but I have to know what behavior to change and why. And that's why the work we do in the next level of mastermind is so important. So it's like, if you are someone who is plateaued and stuck,

and you want to either grow like the money you're making and you want to work less, or you want to just make more money and you like how much you're working or you like how much money you're making and you want to work less, there's not a strategy out there that's going to help you with that. You're so smart, you already have all the strategies.

probably some behavior that you need to change that you're completely unaware of because your brain has a really good reason for why you're doing this thing that you're doing that's actually keeping you stuck. So if that intrigues you at all, go check out our next level mastermind at webdesigneracademy.com forward slash forward slash next level. You can learn all about like how that works. It's fascinating. So anyway, I'm making this loom video giving my feedback and in the video,

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I'm saying things like, my gosh, this is so, so hard for me to give you this feedback. And I can hear myself struggling to give feedback. And I keep hearing myself say like, I'm just going to say this. I'm just going to say this. Like I, it was as if I was talking myself into jumping off a cliff or something. And I'm literally just being like, Hey, like, can you change this color? Cause like, here's how

here's this other page and it should match that page. Right. And when I was done, I was exhausted. Like I had the worst headache. was like intense, but I did it. And I'm so grateful that Lee is also in our next level mastermind. Like she's a web designer Academy student. She's in our next level mastermind. She was there for the whole next level retreat where like I'm digging into this feedback, this being liked feedback, asking for help thing.

And so it didn't make it any easier to give her feedback, but I knew that she understood what I was going through. And so then I'm sharing my experience in the next level mastermind in Legos. It's so funny that you experienced that because as we're listening to the Loom video, we're like, this awesome. She knows exactly what she wants. So we don't have to guess. Cool. She's making our job easy. And so

The stories we tell ourselves are everything. They are so powerful. And your job is to notice the story you're telling yourself and question it. And I get it. It's hard to see your stories on your own in the flurry of your day to day. tend to just believe every thought we think and we can justify it. We have really good reasons. But if you want to break through and really create the vision that you really want to create, you have got to question your current beliefs because they are creating your current reality, wanted or unwanted.

So we're in full swing and working on like the challenge. And then I met up with Josh Hall for coffee again in January to help him plan his in-person event here in Columbus for his web designer pro community. And when I say help him plan, I say that loosely because he already had like an amazing vision for this event. And I was basically a sounding board and a cheerleader because

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Yeah, like his vision was already on point and I'm so excited to get to speak at it and it's going to be transformational for the people that are like going to travel to this event and invest that time and expense to travel here to be there and he cares so much about their experience and making sure it's worth it to them and so like I didn't need to help him plan anything. I just needed to be like a sounding board. But we were chatting about the membership and I was like,

I think I want to use circle, which is the platform he runs his community on. He's like, yes, you totally should. He sent me a playlist of his training videos, which I was so proud of myself. I promptly sent those over to Lee because that's what they were doing. I didn't like poke around in it at all. All I did was like set up my, account with Josh's affiliate link and handed everything over to her. And so she set up a circle community, for us. And because circle only integrates payment payments with Stripe.

And I can't use Stripe due to what I shared back in, I think it was episode 142. You can go listen to that whole saga there if you're interested. But because I can't use Stripe, we're testing out different checkout platforms. And this is probably an episode for another day, but this is where I'm like, this is going to be a long one. Buckle up. When all that Stripe stuff happened, I set up a merchant account with my regional bank and the credit card processor they use.

is Clover and Clover is really designed for like point of sale, brick and mortar, but they do some online processing. They do integrate with WooCommerce, but it is janky when it comes to payment plans and subscriptions. Like if someone wants to switch cards on their subscription, like let's say their card expired or it got stolen or they just want to use a different card, it's like 100 clicks to do it. And lots of error messages and support from us. If someone wants

two subscriptions on one credit card, like let's say profitable web designer premium, and then they want to join the web designer academy on the payment plan. They'll get an error checking out for web designer academy because they can't have two subscriptions on the same card. And then they'll have to reach out to me to cancel their podcast because only one payment token per card per subscription. So stupid. It's a clover limitation. And like I've worked with their support. I'm like, why is this this way? Like in what world is a

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is a business use case, like you only get one subscription per card, but whatever. And then even the WooCommerce checkout is janky. And so we've set up Funnel Kit Builder to make like more streamlined checkout pages. But even then, I mean, like,

Nowadays, you don't even have to know your credit card number or know where your credit card is to buy something. It's like you look at your phone face ID, double click Apple Pay, done and sold or double click Google Pay done and sold or even with Stripe's link feature. Like your info is like already there waiting for you in the checkout field before you've even made the decision to buy something like they do make it so easy. Stripe makes it so easy to get paid as a business owner. But the flip side of that is the risk. And

As we saw back in, I think it was episode 142, it can be devastating. The risk can be devastating to a business and it doesn't matter anyway, because I simply can't use Stripe. My account's not active. I'm not about to set up a new LLC and get a new tax ID and ever open that door again. So because it's stupid episode 142, subscriptions and payment plans just aren't easy for us anymore. And I've been searching for a solution. And so we're testing out this platform called Spiffy.

and they have a PayPal integration. But the bummer is that they don't have their PayPal integrated with Apple Pay or Google Pay. PayPal for Roo Commerce does. So like on my funnel kit checkout pages, you can double click and buy something with Apple Pay. But with Spiffy, you have to like, check out with PayPal and log in and it's like just more friction than I would like, right? I want you to just be able to instantly buy like we all like to do online.

Um, because I know my behavior if I'm like, I have to like get out my credit card and type all these numbers or log into PayPal or like whatever. It gives me the space to really just be like, do I really want this? Like, I don't need this. That just feels like too much work. Like I want you to, I just don't want there to be friction, right? It's not like I'm like, Oh, I want to like compel them to buy something they don't need. That's not it at all. But I feel like our payment should work like every other payment out there. So.

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I did reach out in the spirit of just asking, I reached out to Spiffy and I was like, Hey, would you consider upgrading your PayPal integration to work with Google pay and Apple pay and like, like add the vaulting feature and like whatever, and maybe it'll happen. We'll see. I asked, but we're still on the hunt for the most frictionless checkout experience with payment plans and subscriptions. There is without using Stripe or without companies who basically white label Stripe.

Um, like Woo payments and Squarespace payments are basically built on top of Stripe, they're Stripe, but with a different name. And so that's probably more than you needed to know about that, but it is an important part of what's driving the changes that we're making in 2025. So. Leon or team member, Jamie build a challenge registration page. They integrate my feedback, which was awesome. Um, after I gave it and they were just like,

wow, that was no big deal. And I was like, it was a huge deal for me. All in my head. They build a whole new community space for us on Circle for this challenge. They get everything integrated and set up like automation for joining the challenge. They set up the membership that I want to test and they set up the payments for that and like all of the automations and all of that, which is something I would have totally done on my own.

along with writing the registrations page and the sales page and all the challenge promo emails and the marketing membership emails and designing the challenge itself and writing the scripts for the challenge and the training that launched the membership. But this time around, I only did the writing and

The only reason I did the writing, like I need to like learn to outsource all of the parts of the project and like get them all lined up in a symphony of like deadlines. But the only reason I did the writing, I normally would have outsourced that to Sarah Geo, Sarah G, who does a lot of our copywriting for us. But it was like through the writing process of all of that stuff that I actually like made all the decisions to create the full vision for the membership.

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Like it wasn't until actually writing the challenge registration page copy and the membership sales emails and the challenge and like all of that stuff. even the challenge, like welcome emails that I like really planned out, like here's how this is going to work. Here's how the membership is going to work. Here's how the challenge is going to work. so I really needed all that dedicated writing time to think through like all of the facets of what this is going to be.

And not just like what it is, but who it's for, who it's not for, why does it deserve a whole membership just around the topic of marketing, things like that. So I wrote all of those emails this time around. And like, as things iterate, I'm sure I will outsource more of that, more of that going forward for sure. Cause I'm like, okay, this is an offer that's staying. So I, when I know an offer is staying,

Then I'm like, okay, someone else can totally write this for me. But when it's a test, I'm like, I'm just going to like take care of it. So we opened up registration for the get your next client challenge that was happening in January 27th through the 31st. You may have heard me talk about that on the podcast. had 255 people sign up for it, which was actually a record for challenge signups for us. So I was so proud of that. And then 160.

of those people actually joined the challenge community. So 255 people signed up, 95 of them just never like did anything with their sign up. But 160 people actually joined the community where we hosted the challenge. So A, there's an opportunity for us next time to get more of the people who sign up to actually like make their way to the challenge community and participate. And then

about 25 of those 160 people like joined us live every day, which was awesome. But our stuff is really designed to be time independent. So I always encourage people to come live if they can. But I'm also cool with like people watching replays and stuff. That's basically how I do a lot of my consumption of other content is I'm usually not there live. I'm usually watching on the replay up to two and a half times speed if it's available. That's how I create more time.

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but so we opened the doors to the membership. So we did the five day challenge. It was awesome. People were just like, my gosh, this is breaking my brain. I had so much fun. I had so much fun connecting with people and showing up every day. and then on Friday, January 31st, I opened, I invited everybody to the membership. I mentioned it every day that week. And then on Friday, I was like, and I'm so excited to announce that the doors to marketing momentum are officially open.

Here's what it looks like. Here's everything you'll do. It's $97 a month, month to month with no commitment and the doors close on Friday, February 7th. And I closed the doors because I'm like, this is test and I can't leave the doors open because I don't know if I'm gonna do this again. Like I really don't know if I'm gonna do this again. I don't know if anybody will join and it might just be like a feature of the Web Designer Academy.

going forward and you know, we might just like, we set up all of this stuff for the web designer academy and that's cool. So from January 31st to February 7th, we had 12 people join our new membership that we were doing anyway for our web designer academy members. That's like kind of the first step of future things that we're doing in 2025. And so,

old Shannon from her impatient splashy launch result expectation days of yore would have expected like, would have like secretly wanted 50 people to join the membership, like right there on day five. And when that didn't happen, she would have called it a failure and been like, we're not doing this. Nobody wants this, blah, blah, blah, blah. But today's Shannon was like that 12 people, like that is

freaking amazing. I am so excited for these 12 people. I cannot wait to see what their business looks like in six months. I'm doing this anyway for the web designer Academy. We would have done all of this just for them. We were already gonna peel off like our courses from our website and put them in a community and like leave Facebook for our groups. are, this was already in the works. And so the fact that we're already adding this monthly marketing call for web designer Academy and

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I was coming into this from the place of if no one joins this, I'm good. I don't need anyone to join. And also I'm committed to doing this monthly marketing thing for at least a year, regardless of what happens. So the fact that 12 people joined us, I was like, okay, game on. That's a big deal. And that's just our first 12 and we'll get 12 more and 12 more and 12 more and 12 more and 12 more. And

Like I said, I know what's about to happen for these first 12 people and it's already happening. They're in there getting a little uncomfortable noticing all the reasons that they talk themselves out of like doing marketing for their business. Just like I was noticing all the things talking me out of giving feedback and then taking action from asking for help saying here's what's happening for me asking for help taking action from new thoughts and actually booking new projects.

and getting new clients like it started happening for some people in the first week, right? And also people are learning how to persist through the times when it feels like they're doing all the things and nothing is working and how not to burn out and what to do when they quote unquote run out of people. And just by joining, they have no idea how their business will change over the next six months. But I do, because I've seen it over and over and over again. And I'm so excited for those 12 people.

And I know more and more people will join us. And this is just the beginning. So that was really exciting. And we hosted our first live marketing workshop as part of the membership where we, where I taught like a concept, we do the work together. Then we'll have one every fourth Thursday from there. And so I'm giving away like five new marketing scripts every month. And it's just so far, it's so fun. And so

Even though I closed the doors on February 7th, because I was not sure if I was going to continue to offer this, I'm for sure going to continue to offer this. And if it sounds like something that you are interested in, if you want to join us and just make getting clients a problem of the past, just go to webdesigneracademy.com forward slash momentum to get all of the details and join us inside marketing momentum. so like

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We would love to have you. And one of the people that joined was like, I feel like you created this for me because I've been wanting to join the web designer Academy, but I've been too scared to like commit. And that feels like a stepping stone towards that. And I was like, my gosh, yes. That's exactly why I created this. Like you, I hope I'm being fully transparent. Like, yes, that's why. And so whether you ever join us in the web designer Academy is neither here nor there.

Like worrying about not getting clients won't be a factor in your business anymore because that affects so many things. worrying about clients makes you keep your prices low. It makes you take on bad fit clients. It makes you say yes to everything just to keep clients happy because you're afraid if you say no, there won't be any more clients. And so whether you ever come to work with us in the web designer Academy to use our strategies for

like price increases and stopping undercharging and over delivering and stopping people pleasing and all of that stuff doesn't matter. You can come join us and marketing momentum. We would love to welcome you into that membership and just really help you take away this like, I don't know how to get clients question from your business forever. So you can just go to webdesigneracademy.com forward slash momentum and join it's month to month, no commitments cancel anytime.

come hang out with us for a month and see if you like it. And if you don't, cool. When you cancel, you have access to the membership through the end of your billing period and that's it. So yeah, like I'm so excited about that membership. We're having so much fun. So this next thing that I'm talk about really also started at the end of December. And I alluded to this a little bit ago, but for a while now,

I have been wanting to refresh our web designer Academy branding. And for a very practical reason, there is no system that underlies it. There's like no like reason why we do anything the way that we do it. So I bought a done for you brand from creative market back in 2022 ish maybe, cause I'm not a graphic designer. And I tried to apply that done for you brand across

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all channels and all scenarios and all use cases and I struggle with it. It takes me too long to implement. I get frustrated. I spend time on it that I should be spending on other things. I feel like it looks sloppy. All of the standards and guidelines live in my head. I overthink things because I feel like it looks sloppy. It takes me too long to make slides because I'm tweaking design that I shouldn't be tweaking. Like there's no system to it.

It's hard to operationalize. so because of all of that, it makes it hard for me to outsource things efficiently. Like operationally our brand holds us back. And so if you are a designer and you're like, what's the value of a brand? Like, please hear me when I say this, you're the operational implementation of a brand being difficult is a reason to

do a rebrand even if it looks fine. So don't think that people don't need a rebrand just because like their stuff looks good on the front end. Not even saying my stuff looks good on the front end because I don't always agree with that sentence. anyway.

When our client success coordinator, Erica Nash, who is an insanely talented artist and graphic designer decided at our next level retreat back in November to officially put a container around what she'd already been doing for years, honestly, and launched what she calls Riot Creative Studio. I was like, Oh my gosh, she is the perfect person to partner with on a brand refresh for the web designer academy. Because, A, she's one of our students, she started in 2021. Then,

She applied for our client success coordinator position, totally out of left field. I was like surprised to see her application cause she was a student, but she's also a teacher. Hello. Like how did I get so lucky? And so she's been part time on our team since 2022 and she knows our students intimately and our brand intimately and like me and my vision intimately. So right.

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After she, we came back from next level, she was like, guys, I did it. I got the LLC for Riot Creative Studio. Here's the brand. And I was like, I was so want to work with her so bad on this. I reached out to her and I was like, what would it look like to work together with Riot Creative Studio to do a brand refresh in 2025 and roll it out in a really sustainable way because there are so many assets that would need to be created and updated and

I just think about a website, podcast, workbook, slides. I made a list of 100 things, literally 100 things that would need to be rebranded and updated in order to roll out a new brand. And that's overwhelming to look at. And it makes you think this would be impossible and take forever and take so much work. And I was like, how can we do this in a really sustainable way? And so she was so excited.

She went away and then she came back and gave me the best package matrix ever. For those of you in the web designer Academy listening to this, you know what I'm talking about. It's the way we teach people to make offers inside of our program. And I'm like, of course I want your premium package. Like your premium package is so good. Let's do this. And if you're in the web designer Academy, I haven't asked Eric about this yet, so we'll see. But on one of these upcoming live strategy calls, I want her to share her.

package matrix that she did for me with you because she added like a brilliant touch to it that I think would work really well for for those of you in the web designer Academy using our strategies. So I was like, yes, I paid the deposit. We actually kicked off the project together in February and I cannot wait for you to see what we're pulling together. And I'm pretty sure we're going to like let you in on the process as we go for this rebrand because

why not? Like the whole, like it's just so fun and it's fascinating. And, you know, with the brand refresh and with moving our communities from Facebook groups to circle and maybe even moving some of our course content from our website to circle and with starting our new marketing momentum community. it also creates the opportunity for us to re-engineer our website. We have five years of experiments cobbled together on their

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And now we get to take what we've learned and like rebuild our customer journey, not as an American Ninja warrior obstacle course inside of a hoarder house, but as a super welcoming inviting space that makes you want to stay and hang out and try everything on the menu over time. And so I get to work with, Lee and Jamie on that and Eric on that.

very likely say RG on that depending on like what our copy needs are for that project. And I'll get to work on managing my mind the whole time because I will for sure be needing to give feedback and I'm working with people who I have mentored. So I'm like very mindful of like power dynamic is a weird thing to say. But let's just say it like I had an early experience in my web design business where

I actually was also doing some work for my business coach and I don't think that she intentionally, I wouldn't even say intentionally took advantage of me. She would never take advantage of me, but I felt there was like a, like I made up a power dynamic in my mind that made me act a certain way towards her. And I didn't have the mindset.

at the time to realize that that was a story I was telling myself. And so that is why I'm like so very careful when I'm working with people who are also my students to.

I don't know, like really be clear on what the boundaries are and all of those things. And it's part of what gets in my way because I'm like, why would I not wanna work with these incredible people who are so talented, who came to join our program and I helped them like really fully step into their expertise. And then why would I be like, I'm not gonna work with you because you're one of my students. I'm like, I wanna work with you because you're like awesome. So anyway.

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I'll get to work on managing my mind around that the whole time and just letting like trusting that they are adults and that they have internalized the teachings of our program and that they also apply to me as well. the other thing we worked on and so that's happening and I'm so excited to share all of that with you. And then the other thing that we worked on in January is our Simply Profitable Designer Summit. It's happening in March of 2025, the 17th through the 21st.

This year's topic is all about recurring revenue and how to create consistent recurring revenue you can count on. So if you're like another summit with all the same people talking about the same design things, this is not that. This is exclusively how to create consistent recurring revenue as a web designer. And that's what all of our speakers will be talking about. And so proud of myself, I asked for help with the summit. I partnered with Anshin LaRue, who also hosts the Page Builder Summit.

She has a summit tech implementation service. And so I hired her at the end of last year. I want to say it was in the fall. So I don't even know if I talked about this yet. But in the fall, I hired her to do all of the tech for our Simply Profitable Designer Summit, which if I was even doing that myself, there is no way I would have been able to pull off a challenge in a new membership.

And I didn't do any of that stuff. Like I did just the writing part and the content creation part for that. So Anshin is doing all of our summit setup and then Sarah G is writing all of our promotional emails because I also was looking at my schedule. like, I, okay. So what's super important to me is that it's easy for our speakers to promote and that they're so proud to

promote. And if I tried to write the summer emails for 2025, let's be honest, it would be me just getting mad at chat GPT for spitting out things like it's a game changing event that shows you how to charge your worth and then I'd be like, chatty stop saying game changing, stop saying charger worth it's terrible advice. We don't teach that. And I just be fighting with chat GPT the whole time to get like

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content out of it that I was proud of. And I would not get nearly the amazingness that we would get when Sarah writes or copy. And I want our, I want it to be easy for our sponsors to promote. I want them to feel excited to promote it. And honestly, I would be like phoning it in and not on purpose just because, but because of capacity. And this is where I'm like really starting to see how many hands make light work for all of us.

which is amazing. And so what made it possible for me to hire help to make the summit better for all of us, because if I'm the only one doing it, it's not going to be as good, is our sponsors. And so we have an incredible slate of sponsors who made it possible for me to hire these experts so that the summit is a win-win-win for everyone, a win for our attendees, our speakers, our sponsors, and for us here at the WGA. So shout out to our sponsors.

Sarah G. She is our platinum sponsor this year. She's a copywriter for web designers. She offers copywriting brand and messaging strategy. we'll be talking about her way more at the summit, but you can go check her out at saradesign.com and you can meet her and learn more about her in episode 105. We're also sponsored this year by Web Designer Pro.

which is a course and coaching community that helps web designers build, grow and scale a web design business that gives members lifestyle freedom founded and run by my brother from another mother, Josh Hull. So it includes all of his web design business courses, Coaching with Josh.

Um, and you can check that out at web designer pro.com and you can meet Josh if you don't already know him in episodes 10, 16, 41, and one 26. We're also proudly sponsored by Moxie, a set of stupid good tools for designers like yourself to manage your business from scheduling your initial discovery calls with custom questionnaires to managing projects, sending invoices and keeping track of new opportunities. Everything you need is.

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Everything you need is covered with Moxie. So get your head out of your admin and get back to the work you love. Start your free trial today and save 25 % on your first six months with the code simply profitable. And you can meet Moxie's Chief Marketing Officer Austin Church in episode 102. They have been an incredible partner of the Web Designer Academy coming in like doing trainings for our students. Like they're amazing. And finally, we are sponsored by a rank for revenue created by Sarah Dunn.

Rank for revenue is the SEO program made for web designers who want to build sites that actually get found on Google. No complicated strategies, just a simple, repeatable SEO process you can add to every website to help your clients get found and confidently increase your prices by five to $1,500 per project. So if you want to design beautiful websites that search engines love, this course is for you.

and you can meet Sarah and learn more about her in episode 115 and you can check out rank for revenue at let me make sure I give you the correct email or the correct website here.

Shannon Mattern (01:13:33.198)

So you can check that out at sarahdoseo.com forward slash rank dash forward dash revenue. I'm sure that she has a better link for that that she sent me, but, and it's Sarah without an H S A R A does SEO.com rank for revenue with dashes between the words. So we'll make sure that we give you all, we'll put the link to that in the show notes as well. And like I said, you can meet Sarah and learn more about her in episode one 15.

Okay. An hour and 15 minutes into this podcast. Now let's get to what you have all been waiting for January 2025 numbers. And so when I was like prepping everything for 2025, creating my spending plan and YNAB that you need a budget app like I do every year, planning out my outflow ahead of time, planning out like business investments that I want to make, like partnering with Erica on graphic design, like adding more to Lee's team.

investing in copywriting and looking at like the inflow that's already committed to us from payment plans. So like when people join web designer Academy, next level mastermind, whatever on payment plans, I keep track of that future revenue that's committed to coming in. It's called accounts receivable and accounting terms. I just call it future inflow. Like it's monthly recurring revenue, but it's not always able to be counted on because people do ghost and do weird things, but I just call it feature inflow.

I track that I know what's projected in the months ahead. So I know what the gap is between what's already planned to come in and what needs like what's planned to go out and what the gap is and or maybe there's not a gap. Maybe there's an overflow, whatever. Like, I already know every single month, like what the numbers are ahead of time. And so the money doesn't just magically flow in, right? I have to take action and make offers and asks

to create it, but knowing where we're at for each month in the future helps me plan. And my goal is that the future inflow that's committed to us, like our monthly recurring revenue is more than our planned outflow. And that is not the case right now. And I'm aware of that. Like I'm planning for that. And so I am actively doing things to make up the gap every single month. And so with that context,

Shannon Mattern (01:15:59.278)

What was really cool when I was calculating our future inflow for 2025 is that what's already committed to us in Q1 of 2025 was already more than what I had made total in Q1 of 2024, like after the fact. And that's why I'm like, okay, like it is the time to make some investments in the future because I totally see how by me trying to do everything all on my own.

I either can't do things that I think will help us help more people or I will burn myself out completely. none of it will go as well as it could if I invested in help. And so that's why I'm like, now is the time to make some investments in the future. Like I'm already seeing us trending up and it's not like.

Ooh, we're making more money. I'm going to go like on a vacation. Like, no, it's like, Ooh, we're making more money. Like I get to put more into this mission. And so someone in the web designer Academy was like, how is this brand refresh you're doing not procrastinate branding? Because you always tell us like if you're not getting clients rebranding your website is not where to put your time. And so my reply to that was like, if I would have decided at the end of 2023 that I needed a brand refresh to save the business, and that

Our brand looking different was what would get us more clients. I would not be talking to you all right now. That's not what that would not have worked. I'd be working with my sister doing database migrations and hating my life, right? We're embarking on a brand refresh from a place of wholeness. Like we don't need to do it, but operationally it will solve some problems for us.

and allow us to grow in a way that we haven't been able to because it's one of the bottlenecks in our business in addition to me. So when you think about like the long-term value of what you do for a company when it comes to branding, think about that. Like it's massive. It's not just about like resonating with ideal clients and calling them in. It's like so much more than that. So I just wanted to share that like,

Shannon Mattern (01:18:17.358)

It was so exciting to see that what's already committed to us as like AR in 2021 is already more than what I made in Q1 of 2024. So let's dive into the numbers. In January, our inflow was $15,918.84. Last January is about $6,000. So it's more than double what we brought in last January.

that was from, I think there was like a sponsorship for the simply profitable designer summit in there. It was web designer Academy payment plan payments. there were, I think there was like a conversion from a payment plan to a pay in full. Like there were lots of little different pieces that, that made that up. I think I maybe finally got paid for a podcast.

sponsorship ad that I was waiting to get paid for so Lots of little pieces made that up and then our rolling since six month average revenue is seventeen thousand seven hundred fifty six dollars and that's like been the average inflow monthly over the past six months our outflow in January was twenty thousand one hundred ninety eight dollars all of it was planned for so I

knew ahead of time that we were going to have more outflow than inflow. And so that was our team salary and payroll taxes $11,191.87. That's me and Erica, her raise that kicked in in January that I talked about in one of my fall income reports. And also two months of my retirement contributions coming out in one month for whatever reason. So I contribute the maximum allowed to a Roth IRA each month.

And two transactions came out for that in December. Tools, so our monthly SAS expenses, like monthly or annual subscriptions that come out, $1,672.38. So that's like all of the subscriptions, Marketing, $3,911.80. That's the rebranding, project deposit, conversion rate optimization.

Shannon Mattern (01:20:33.998)

contract copywriting with Sarah G podcast production. and outside of paying myself and Erica. Our biggest, investment is in marketing. It's in serving our current audience and growing it. We invest a lot in that. And, it's there's definitely ROI to that. We've, we've shaved off the things that weren't creating a return and we're leaning into the things that are, and that's people over social media for sure.

Relationships over social media. Professional services $1,973.24. That's accounting and bookkeeping, payroll services, business insurance. Higher than normal this month because I paid the CPA for 2025 tax prep and my bookkeeping expenses increased because the company I used went out of business at the end of 2024. And I signed a new bookkeeping contract with my CPAs company and it costs about $120 more a month.

but I'm happy to give my money to a woman owned business instead of a AI conglomerate. So education and training, $302. I joined a Business Mindset membership called, I think it's called This Abundant Life, but it's by the author of the book, Abundant Ever After by Kathy Heller. It's so good. It's just like the vibe that I know I need to stay in. It helps me a lot with my own mindset.

And I also pay $5 a month for Ash Amberjays, sub stack newsletter, totally worth it. I love spending that $5. And then my line of credit repayment. So $1,147.49 is what I paid down my small business administration line of credit that got me through my no good, very bad year of 2023. And I'm so grateful that I was able to like,

buy some money to get us through that I learned so much from it. I've decided to like make this payment with gratitude every single month. Instead of from the energy that like I made a bad decision or I'm in debt or I shouldn't have done it, which is totally the vibe I was carrying last year. This year I'm like, so grateful that this is available to me happy to make this payment. So with that I used $4,279.94 from our reserves, which if you recall in December we brought in like 27,000

Shannon Mattern (01:22:57.422)

in inflow, added a big chunk of cash to our reserves. So yeah, that's that's it. Like, I'm so excited for 2025. I could have told you about 100 more things that are happening in this episode, but it's already a really long one. We have so much planned for you. I just feel like so deeply connected to our mission and vision and why I do this. And it's why I'm like willing to invest so much back into the business.

And to reach more people and to help more people like really have the life that they truly desire as a web designer and running a web design business and like helping you create success and then helping you navigate the problems of success and then helping you break through to your next level. And so I'm just

So excited to take you along on the ride with us in 2025 is like we roll out our brand refresh throughout the year. We're gonna have so many more live events and different ways for you and I to connect and hang out on a deeper level. And so I just wanna help you add your contributions to this world because you have so much to offer. There's so much good out there happening even alongside all of the challenging stuff that's happening in this world. And we want you to...

We just want to help you create the life that you really want so that you can persist through the hard times and enjoy the good ones. So that's all I got for you this week. Like I left the numbers at the end because like they're truly the least important part. I think that's part of what feels like the chapter has closed. Like I'll still share the numbers with you. They're still important, but they are just not like the most important thing about

what we're doing here and why we're doing them. And so they get to take a back seat. So but I'll still be doing income reports for sure. So that's all I have for you this week. And I'll be back in your earbuds next week with another brand new episode of the profitable web designer podcast. Bye