#189 – How To Price Custom Web Design Projects with Shannon Mattern

Shannon Mattern (00:06.574)

Well, hello, everyone. I love it when people just hop right on into the room when I go live. So good to see you guys. I'm going to change us from gallery view to speaker view and pen myself.

Shannon Mattern (00:31.362)

Good morning.

Shannon Mattern (00:39.31)

So this is day two of the Simply Profitable Designer Summit. I'm so glad you all are here with me. I'm going to give people just a couple minutes to find their way in here. And then I am going to dive deep into pricing for conversion with you all. So Mark, so good to see you. Wendy, you as well. Hi, Jeff.

I got to pull up my participants panel here. So y'all are off camera, on camera, but I have everybody muted. So you can find the chat if you have questions for me. But yeah, we're going to dive deep into pricing today. Oh, Mark, looking out my window, there's just like a little blizzard.

going on here. Yeah, it was I'm in Columbus, Ohio. And it was 72 and sunny on Sunday. And now it's snowing in 20 degrees today. So. So yeah, I like it, though. I like having all four seasons in one week, you know, it makes makes things interesting. Whitney, aren't you in Columbus also? I feel like you are.

I feel like I saw that in your bio, so we need to go have coffee.

Shannon Mattern (02:10.464)

Very cool. Awesome. We'll get that set up after the summit's done. So welcome, everybody. I see you all are coming in to the room. I'm excited for today's session. So.

I'm Shannon Maddern. For those of you who don't know me, I'm the host of the Simply Profitable Designer Summit. I introduced myself yesterday. You're gonna be seeing a lot of me. But today I'm talking all about pricing for conversions. So I have a presentation for you. I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen and let me make sure I have my command center up here so I can see the chat and see most of you.

be able to see all of you, but see as many of you as I can see. And then we are going to dive in. I did not mean to do that. Hang on.

Shannon Mattern (03:11.566)

All right. Can y'all see my screen and also see me? We were having some glitchy technical stuff yesterday. So thanks, Wendy. I appreciate it. Awesome. All right. Well, let's go ahead and dive in to pricing for conversion package matrix method, because I have a ton of stuff to share with you and I haven't shared this level of detail about this.

outside of the web designer academy. And I know some of you have seen me speak on this in other areas. So grab a pen and paper, get ready to take notes because you're going to school today. All about pricing for conversion. But before we dive into that, like I said, I'm Shannon Maddern. I am a pricing strategist and a business coach.

for women web designers who want to stop undercharging, over-delivering and overworking and build simpler, more profitable businesses. If you're not a woman web designer, it's okay. You are still in the right place. You're gonna get so much out of today. And I have some more stuff coming that I'll tell you about that anyone can participate in. So like Mark and Whitney and I were chatting about, I live in Columbus, Ohio, where

yester, like two days ago it was 70 and sunny today. It's 20 and snowing. I live here with my husband Floyd and our dog Scarlett. She's literally laying on this bench over by my window right now. I did move the boxes. she is a sassy nine year old, charcoal lab. So her name's Scarlett, if you know, you know, and we don't have any kids, but we do have seven nieces and nephews.

that we love to spoil and they love to be spoiled by us. It's like our goal to be like the ones that they like better than their parents. And I think we have achieved that. So before we dive in, if you are a woman web designer, I want to invite you to come to our Web Designer Academy open house. It's happening next week, Tuesday, March 24th at 3 p.m. Eastern. You.

Shannon Mattern (05:24.14)

get to attend our weekly live strategy call that's usually only for our members. I'll show you around the program. I'll talk about our brand new options for working together in 2026. And I'll share more about our free trial. I just wanted to get that out of the way now because we are, like I said, I have a ton to share with you and I didn't want to wait till the end to invite you to that. go ahead and go to webdesigneracademy.com forward slash open house. There is a form that you need to fill out to request to attend.

because it is our actual real members. I don't just let anybody in there. So I need to make sure that I'm not inviting, like just letting anybody in the room. So you can go ahead and fill that form out, request to attend and get to see what it's like inside. So find the chat and I wanna know what are your biggest pricing?

challenges. Yes, Cameron, I am totally the fun aunt. What are your biggest pricing challenges? And while you're finding the chat and telling me yours, I'm going to share with you mine. So when I first started my freelance web design business back in 2014 on the side of my day job, I thought that I had to come up with an hourly rate. I was like, well, they pay me this much at my day job, so that must be what I'm worth. And then when I realized like,

this is not like there's there's so much more work to this. And once the hours started adding up, I kept thinking like, I can't charge that much because of whatever the people I know in Columbus, Ohio can't afford to pay more. I don't want to nickel and dime people. They're on a budget. They can't afford it. I underestimated the project. It's my fault. Like all of these things. Right. What if I mess something up?

I've never done this for a client before. I just do it for my day job. And so I just had all of these thoughts about why I couldn't charge that much. And so y'all are sharing in the chat sounding too expensive, Jeff's like figuring out my tiers, staying out of my client's wallet, not packing in a whole load of deliverables because I'm worried about value and also worrying about accessibility. So that's like one of those things where like, if I'm not perfect,

Shannon Mattern (07:46.762)

then it's not worth that, like it's not worth it. what if I mess something up? Mark is balancing what a project's worth versus what a client's able to pay. I'm already not cheap, but I don't want to come off as greedy. I don't deserve the rate I'm given. Understanding budget constraints. When clients don't have a budget in mind, project versus hourly. Recognizing the value compared to the amount of work. Cameron says most businesses in the area I live in.

are solo or micro businesses. And I don't feel like I can charge that much because it eliminates the local market. Patty said all of this. I used to think like this, but I'm a confident phase now and what me and my team and my husband can do. Alexia is guilty of package stuffing proposals. So I just want you all to know, like this is so normal. It is so normal to have these thoughts, these thoughts.

are optional, right? So we're gonna, I'm gonna share with you today, like a strategy to help you solve for these. On the flip side, I also had a lot of delivery challenges. I, and I always talk about like undercharging over delivering. I was undercharging. I had a whole lot of thoughts about what I couldn't charge, but also delivery. I felt like I had to be,

On call 24 seven, if you emailed me, was emailing you back right away. If you asked me for more, I felt bad saying no. If you delayed the project, I was just like, okay, well, it's your project. I'm on your timeline. Never wanting to upset a client, have them not happy with me. I wanted to make sure that they liked me so that they would refer me even though I was undercharging a lot of perfectionism like.

I have to get this perfectly right. Sometimes not even for them. Sometimes they wanted me to do things that were like, I didn't think looked good. And I was like, I didn't like it, you know? But I was like, I had this perfectionism thing, saving the day. Who here loves to swoop in and save the day for a client who's having like big tech challenges. You like to like be the hero. And then like co-dependence, right?

Shannon Mattern (10:06.264)

where you feel more responsible. You feel responsible for things that aren't your responsibility, like the success of their business. And maybe sometimes you care more about their outcomes and results than they do. That's codependence. Like I'm gonna save you from yourself. You didn't get me content, I'm gonna write the content for you, because I don't want this project to fail. Or you didn't get me content,

I'm going to write the content for you because I just want to keep this project moving and get it off my plate. Taking responsibility for things that aren't yours over delivering being the in the name of good customer service, right? Cause Emily's like, you mean that's not what I'm supposed to do. so we try to solve these problems. Like we try to solve the problem of undercharging by getting better, right? I'm going to get more skills.

I'm gonna add more stuff into my packages. I try to solve the problem of making more money by just undercharging, but packing in the clients. Like, let me just, I don't feel comfortable charging that much. So let me see how many clients I can get at the price that I do feel comfortable charging, right? And that's why I created the package matrix strategy that I'm gonna share with you today because I kept seeing what one myself,

But I also kept seeing other super smart, creative, capable, brilliant professionals doing incredible work at bargain basement prices and taking on responsibility that wasn't theirs. And so the solution to making the money you really want to be making is to charge more. And I know that that is a challenge of so many of you because of all of the thoughts that we talked about at the beginning, but also one of your biggest opportunities

to make the money that you really wanna make and have the business that you really want to have is to stop providing first class levels of service at bargain basement economy prices. So imagine if you didn't increase your prices at all, you just stopped over delivering. How much more time would you have? How much more capacity would you have? How much more happiness would you have if you didn't feel like you were on

Shannon Mattern (12:28.758)

the hook for everything. like, so Patty said I did three blog posts for a client so that they could visualize how they would look. And then they thought I would do blog posts for them. Like, this is what I'm talking about, right? So if you could even create more capacity with your time, what could that look like for you? So the solution on the revenue side is to charge more and also to stop providing

first-class levels of service at economy prices and to set boundaries. There's a huge opportunity for you to set some boundaries and expectations around how you will deliver services in a way that creates more capacity and leverage for you. So how do we solve this? By using the right pricing strategy for your business model. So there are two pricing models that exist.

You may have heard Jason Gracia's presentation yesterday on Million Dollar website. He does a cost space pricing model, right? He is selling a high volume of a product, productized service. And he doesn't need to charge as much because he is just like he said yesterday, like, I'm churning out, like it takes us four hours to deliver. Right. So he can charge less than if you are a

putting your hands on the service. And so if you are using a cost-based pricing model, but you are actually putting your hand, you're implementing the service for people, you're using the wrong pricing model and you need to switch to value-based pricing. And so I don't wanna go into this too deeply. I'll talk about it a little bit more, but...

It's the different variables that you bring into the project. We were talking in Jason's presentation yesterday about how you're not selling a website. You're selling the value of the outcomes and the results that the website can create for that person in the future. And so that's the shift. That is the shift that you must make in order to not only charge profitably, but also run your business sustainably and not over deliver for your client.

Shannon Mattern (14:54.19)

So the way we do this inside of the Web Designer Academy is the package matrix. I would argue that this is one of the most important assets that you will ever create in your business. This is a tool that I created back in 2018 for Web Designer Academy students after spending what from 2014 to 2016, like struggling so hard.

with all of the things that we talked about here. And then I figured out over time, like how to make offers in a way to solve this problem. And so this is what I'm going to show you today. This is what I'm going to break down for you. So get your screenshot fingers ready. And I'll also give you a way you can get your hands on this. This is a package matrix. Okay. I'm going to walk you through what this is and why it works and how it works in the

behavioral economics and sales psychology, pricing psychology behind this. So screenshot that. If you missed it, go to webdesigneracademy.com forward slash template or scan that QR code. And hopefully that QR code goes there. I didn't double check it, but go to webdesigneracademy.com forward slash template. I'll send you this package matrix template.

So we call this a Patrick in the Web Designer Academy because for the longest time I could not say package matrix. Every module inside the Web Designer Academy where I'm recording talking about the package matrix, I say Patrick matrix. I don't know why, but I said it so much that one of our students, Kayla, like made him into a mascot. We call him Patrick. We refer to it as patricking your offer. Like you should pack.

Patrick that, so I wanted to introduce you all to Patrick and he is a superhero. He has a cape, he really should have a cape because it's a framework that will allow you to safely test premium prices. You all are so afraid to raise your prices because you think people will say no, this is a way for you to give them options of what they're willing to say yes to, set boundaries, prevent scope creep.

Shannon Mattern (17:18.062)

Talk about value and return on investment and sell that instead of selling deliverables. Position yourself as a collaborative consultant instead of a pixel pusher. Stay out of your clients' wallets and allow them to make an empowered decision and empower them with choices. It also helps you confidently make offers, confidently only offer services that you feel comfortable providing.

speak to investment minded, hybrid minded and expense minded clients all at the same time, which I'll talk about more in a little bit. And it just helps you get your time back. It helps you get your time back. So what I'm gonna go through in this presentation are the four rules of package matrix. And I'm gonna go through why these four rules and the pricing psychology, the brain science, the behavioral economics that make up the framework. And yesterday,

In our sessions, Jason Gracia said about his productized service, he was like, you have to make a decision and you have to stick with it. Otherwise it falls apart. Same goes for package matrix. These are the four rules that you must follow. Otherwise it does not work. And so the four rules are to always include three options based on pricing paradigms. Options are apples to apples.

use value-based pricing and not cost-based pricing and anchor high. So I'm gonna go through all of these and I wanna try to do it as fast as I can so that I can answer any of your questions that you have. So let's dive into rule number one, three options based on pricing paradigms. So you'll see at the top of Patrick here that I have investment mindset, hustle mindset and expense mindset. So these are what I call pricing paradigms.

So if you've heard me talk about this, like I talk about this all the time, about pricing paradigms all the time, your beliefs about money, your clients' money, what people can and can't afford, what happens when they part with their money and you receive it, what you're responsible for and what your clients are responsible for, all of that makes up your pricing paradigm. And a paradigm is simply a way of looking at the world. And it's literally,

Shannon Mattern (19:41.09)

just sets of thoughts. So all of these pricing thoughts, these are a pricing paradigm. All of these delivery thoughts, these are also part of, like they're the manifestation of this pricing paradigm, right? Like all of these thoughts lead to these actions. And so there are three pricing paradigms, investment, hustle,

an expense or employee. So if you're like me, raised by a single mom in Ohio, we grew up on food stamps, free lunch, and we were latchkey kids. And she said she was always robbing Peter to pay Paul. And her default answer to everything was nope, we can't afford it. If that is how you grew up, it's very likely that you look

at the world through an expense or an employee mindset, where there is a finite amount of money that you can make. It's limited by your time because time is finite and someone else gets to decide all of that. They get to decide how many hours a week they'll give you to work. They get to decide how much you make an hour and that's really, it feels out of your hands. so security, keeping the ability to have that arrangement becomes the most important thing.

because someone else decides all of that, and the only way for you to make more money is to spend time and time is limited, then money becomes more valuable than time. And you are like, conserve money, spend time, even at my own expense, at all costs, conserve money, spend time. Not only do you think that about yourself, you think that that's what other people, how other people operate too. So you're like, I have to save my clients money.

and because otherwise I'm harming them. So that's expense employee mindset. That is how I grew up. I did not know that there was any other way to think about it. But then she told me, my mom told me like, hey, we can't afford to pay for college, but if you can figure out a way, you're really smart, get good grades, try to get some scholarships. You can also like get student loans and work to pay for it. I did all of that because

Shannon Mattern (22:09.902)

She was like, you can raise the value of your time. If you get a degree, your time will be worth more. You can go get hired by a company who's gonna pay you more for your time. Your time becomes more valuable. So now hard work plus more skills equals more money. And so if you just hustle really hard, you're a team player, everybody likes you, and you're good at what you do, you can make more money. You can also get promoted and make more money. You just have to work really, really hard.

Right? And so that is the place where I see so many web designers get trapped in their hustle mindset. If I just work really hard, if I just get better, faster, more skills, then I can make more money. And so there's also investment mindset where money isn't a construct of time at all. had like, this probably didn't, I didn't realize this until like my thirties.

I'm 46. I had no idea that this was even a thing. Like I knew there were people who like made investments and invested in real estate and stock market, like stuff like that, but not like, money comes through value. People will exchange money for things that they value more than money. Me parting with this money today will help me create more money in the future. And it's worth it to me to part with this money today to get these outcomes and results that I want in the future.

My time is more valuable than money and my time is better spent elsewhere. And so when you're investment minded, you're thinking, I offer something that can help people create more. I'm not taking something from them and leaving them with less, right? So let me know in the chat which one of these you most identify with. I grew up this way. I spent my adulthood this way and I had to intentionally cultivate

this as a business owner. This is not my default. I bounce back and forth between these in my business a lot. I have to intentionally get myself back here. And every time I do, business gets easier. Business gets easier for sure. And so what's important to know about this is that in any sales conversation, there are two pricing paradigms at play.

Shannon Mattern (24:34.466)

the one that you're bringing into it and the one that your clients operate with. And we all have all three of us, like in us at any given time. I see that in the chat, like Deb's like combo of two and three, Shannon's like two trying to move to one. And so it depends, right? It depends on what you value in any given situation.

you're walking around making decisions, operating your business based on your default pricing paradigm, which you were unaware of until today, or maybe you've attended another one of my talks and you knew it, but your client also, the person on the other side of your consultation, they also are coming in with their own pricing paradigm. The problem is when you assume you know what theirs is and you're just like, people,

Like everybody I know is expense mindset because they live where I live or you don't even realize that any of this exists and you're just pricing through your own lens. And that's only a problem if it's creating unwanted results for you. So I would argue that like a product I service like Jason is like what Jason does, it's targeted for

the expense employee mindset, but it's creating wanted results for him. Pricing paradigm is only a problem when it's creating unwanted results for you. So not charging sustainably, not marketing or making offers because the pressure of receiving money is so the stakes are so high that it's actually safer to not get any clients. know counterintuitive, but

that's how we protect ourselves from harming someone else. It's very subconscious, over delivering underperforming. So underperforming would mean like, just hold yourself back from saying, it's not underperforming, it's under promising, that shouldn't be underperforming. It's like, I don't want to even

Shannon Mattern (26:58.08)

say that I can help you get these results because what if you don't? So what if I can't get you the results? I don't want to promise something that I can't deliver on. So I'm just going to hedge and like not even talk about how many more clients could you get if we did this. I'm not even going to go there because I'm too afraid. Because what if it doesn't work out? This whole summit is about helping you get more confident in outcomes and results that you create for your clients.

so that you can feel confident to say to them, like to talk about value-based pricing, right? Enabling the people that you wanna help to stay stuck. That's a hard one. That's a hard one. So your nervous system, which is actually running the show, is doing its job. It's protecting you when you have beliefs that create unwanted results.

your nervous system, your subconscious, it's running the show and it's taking its instructions from your pricing paradigm. It wants to protect you. Its job is to protect you. So you have to intentionally deconstruct your pricing paradigm if it's creating unwanted results for you and rebuild it to create wanted results for you, which would be pricing such that you meet your own revenue goals and needs.

marketing and making offers, delivering in a way that is sustainable for you. I don't know how many web designers I talked to that are like, I'm so burnt out. I said yes to everything that came my way because I was so afraid nothing else was going to come. And now I can't do it. Like I let the ball drop on some projects. like this client ran me ragged. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm just going to shut this down and go sell templates. So

you want to create wanted results of a sustainable business. So you have to deconstruct your pricing paradigm and rebuild it. And pricing paradigms aren't, so that's on your side, right? These are all of your thoughts to deconstruct your own pricing paradigm and rebuild it. But pricing paradigms aren't fixed and you can influence how your prospect on the other side of you makes the decision to work with you.

Shannon Mattern (29:24.502)

Remember when Melina Palmer yesterday at her session was talking about the behavioral economics behind designing decisions? We've been talking about conversion on like sales pages and websites, but you can design your proposals for conversions too. And that's what a package matrix does. A package matrix guides your prospects decision using behavioral economics

psychological safety and sales psychology. Like all things that are, you're guiding a ethical decision, not guiding a decision that's not in the client's best interest. I think that that's really important to point out that you're designing an ethical decision for your client. so package matrix helps you

Create the psychological safety that you need to be able to charge more, but also that your clients need to be able to like make a decision in their business, not from a place of pressure. And like I said, you have more influence than you realize. the first rule is three options based on pricing paradigms so that the person in front of you has choices because

Brains need a frame of reference for making decisions. If you don't give a frame of reference for making the decision, your prospect's gonna come up with their own. So when you put three options in front of your prospect, you have one option speaking to each pricing paradigm. You don't need to know what their pricing paradigm is. You don't need to assume they're investment-minded or expense-minded. You just put the three options in front of them, one for each pricing paradigm,

not only have you given them choice, which creates psychological safety, our brains need a frame of reference for making decisions. And so what will happen when you don't design the decision is they'll compare your offer to doing nothing, which is status quo bias, right? So if you're gonna put an option in front of me to do something,

Shannon Mattern (31:52.328)

new or stay the same. More often than not, my comfort zone, even if it sucks, I'm going to choose my comfort zone because it's not uncertain. know it. So when you give multiple options, you're framed properly, which we're going to talk about. You actually create the situation where people can make an empowered decision based on their

based on their pricing paradigm. And so three options framed properly convert at 70 % on average, whereas one option converts at 20 to 30 % on average. And I'll, keep saying framed properly. If you don't follow these four rules of package matrix, it's not going to work because you're not designing the decision properly. Alexia said,

heard this from Shannon a while ago and it stuck with me, give people the option to pay you more. Yeah, your proposals right now aren't giving people the option to pay you more. So package matrix allows you to give people the option to pay you more, they might not choose to take it, but we're going to design the decision in a way that gives us and them the best chance to choose what's in their best interest, but they have free will to choose what's best for them. So rule number two is that options are apples to apples.

a package matrix is not three different packages. Please hear me when I say this. It's not like a 20 page website, a 10 page website or a five page website. It's not e-commerce, no e-commerce and a one page website. It is not a custom site, a starter site. It's not that. Options are apples to apples. The deliverables are the same.

differentiated by delivery. So that means that they are going, no matter which option they choose, they're going to get the same outcome. You can think of it like flying. You can either fly first class, business class or economy, same destination, different level of service, different level of personal attention, different level of perks when it comes to a website, different level of strategy, different level of customization, different level of access to you.

Shannon Mattern (34:16.322)

different level of who knows, get creative, right? There's so many different ways that you can package matrix. That's what we help our students do inside of the web designer academy is package matrix, their existing offers in a way that really works for them. Maybe they're doing it on a per client basis. Maybe they're doing it like globally. It doesn't matter. We help you make a custom package matrix for your, that works for you, your business and your clients.

We never want you to build a package matrix that includes an option that you would hate your life if a client chose it. So that's why it's a framework and you get to apply it to your unique business model. teach this, I just started teaching it outside of the web designer academy to other types of businesses. And it's so fun to see the things that you can package matrix but it is a completely different way of operating.

to go from selling, like focusing on deliverables to differentiating on delivery. And what makes it so powerful is that, yes, you're putting choices in front of them so that based on what their pricing paradigm is, they can choose an option for them. And every option you put in front of them should be profitable and sustainable for you to deliver at that price. But what they don't choose is

just as important, if not more important than what they do choose. So let's say they choose an expense, your expense minded level, right? If they choose that package, they are explicitly not choosing the level of service customization access to whatever your differentiators are at a higher level. They saw those options, they knew they were a choice, they didn't choose it, they picked what they picked.

And it makes the conversation so much easier when you get into the project and they're like, hey, can we add on that thing? And you're like, yeah, that's an option in the next level package up. Would you like to upgrade to that? They saw it. They didn't choose it. It makes holding boundaries so much easier, so much easier. Because like I said earlier, one of your biggest opportunities for creating more revenue

Shannon Mattern (36:45.324)

is to stop over delivery. Stop providing first-class levels of service at economy prices, but allow your client to choose their level of service. Allow them to choose. And you're also designing for the decision. So rule number three is to use value-based pricing instead of cost-based pricing. And this is a huge mindset shift for so many of you. It's not about you.

We talked about this yesterday, Kathy Olson in her presentation was talking about none of this is about you. Your value does not come from how skilled you are at web design. The pixels on the page, the design, I know it's like a hard pill to swallow. It's all about the outcomes and results the client can create as a result of working with you.

I'm not saying don't take pride in your work. I'm not saying that your skills are worthless. I'm not saying that it's not important to have skills. I think it is important. But when you are making offers to your clients, that's not what they are buying. I was helping my podcast producer, Package Matrix, her offers, and she kept talking about how we are excellent editors. We do a fantastic job. We're so skilled. We this, we this, we're award winning. I'm like,

I know you're so proud of that, but your client doesn't care. They care what, like how easy is it gonna be for me to start this podcast? How much time is it gonna take me? What's the, like, is it gonna even be heard by anyone? That's the stuff that they care about. So you cannot base your price on yourself. I hate the like I hate the advice, charge your worth.

Anytime I have chat GPT or Claude try to write copy for me, it tries to put charger worth in there. And I'm like, that's the worst advice ever. I hope you have high self-worth and I hope you charge a lot based on that. But most web designers I meet feel like they don't know everything. So they can't charge that much there. You are priceless. Your price isn't about you. So value-based pricing, the value is not that your value.

Shannon Mattern (39:10.774)

It's the value to the client and value is greater than price. Value is the total of the financial, emotional and time outcomes in their business and their life minus the price. So yesterday, Jason Gracia said in part of his consultation, he's like, yeah, tell me, tell me how much is one client worth to you? And if we can build a website that gets you three more clients a month, what would that be worth to you?

that's financial value, right? But then there's emotional value, time value in your business and your life. Like, what does that look like when their websites actually converting? How much time is it saving them to stop messing around with it themselves and hire you? How much more confident are they going to feel to share to actually like

tell people about their website. Josh Hall yesterday said, one of the things that he always asks is what would make you really proud to share this website with people. But it's more than that. It's not just the business, it's their life too. And you have to ask the questions. You have to ask the questions to figure out the value to the client. So if you don't wanna talk to clients, it's gonna be a problem. You need to go there.

You need to go there and ask them because a package matrix frames a value-based decision. You must know the why behind the goal. It's not just the money. It's what the money will empower them to create in their life and in their business. They have a mission and vision. They have a mission and vision beyond their business mission and vision. What is that? And how can you tie what you do back to that?

It's important for you to do that because sometimes I was talking to one of our web designer or our next level mastermind students recently and she's feeling super burnt out and she's really disconnected from why she does her work. And if it's just about you making money, there are easier ways to make money than running your own web design business. Truly. We want to help you make it easier. But when you're really connected with your clients, why?

Shannon Mattern (41:37.068)

In a deeper way, it just makes it so much easier to have these sales conversations. So ask the questions you need to ask to be able to stop talking about deliverables and start talking about value. Rule number four is to anchor high. So here's some pricing psychology for you. Melina Palmer talked about this yesterday in her session. The first number a person hears

becomes the price anchor. And every option they hear after that gets compared to it. That is how our brains are wired. And I don't think I need to tell you all right now in this moment in time, when prices rise, we tend to hoard our resources. Right now, we're in a period of time where gas prices are rising very quickly. And we look at that one key metric,

and we're like, better hoard, better not spend right now. And it's a primal instinct. It's not just like a money mindset thing. It's like a primal instinct when resources feel like they're going to be scarce, we hoard and we press pause and we hold off.

And so very inadvertently, can, hate like trigger is the wrong word, but you can prime.

that hoarding response in your client. So if one of the first questions you ask people is what their budget is for a project, you just set a low anchor and you just primed an expense minded decision. You talked about money before you talked about value. If you have starting at prices listed on your website, you probably have a very good reason why

Shannon Mattern (43:35.596)

You do that for yourself on the surface. You're like, I don't want to talk to anybody who can't afford to work with me. You're setting up an expense-minded cost-based decision from the jump.

You're unintentionally setting low price anchors and speaking to expense mindset when you lead with budget, starting at prices, price ranges that go low to high.

it feels vulnerable to stop doing that because what we're most afraid of is getting someone on a consultation call, putting an offer in front of them and having them be like, how dare you charge me that much? I demand to see your portfolio. Who do you think you are? This other person over here is charging five times less than you are. And then you're like, I'm gonna have to defend myself. Package Matrix changes the entire conversation completely.

so that you're not even playing on the same field as everybody else. You're not having the same conversation. You're not having the same consultation. There's a whole process around package matrix of how you actually present that to your client and how you lead them through and how, what questions you ask in the consultation, what you say on the consultation call, how and when you present the package matrix to them, how you tie it back to what they value and the outcomes and results that they want.

So when you have starting out in budget and ranges, you unintentionally set a low anchor and you speak to expense mindset. So if the first number becomes the anchor,

Shannon Mattern (45:23.522)

I don't want to anchor low and prime an expense-minded decision. I wanna anchor high. If the first number seen, or said becomes the anchor, then let's anchor high. Let's anchor high in the value of the outcomes that this specific client could get as a result of working with you. That could be financial, that could be other stuff, right? Jason Gracia yesterday gave you an example of anchoring. He asked the client, what's one client worth to you? Multiply that by three.

set a high anchor. The way we do it is with our package matrix. When you speak to the investment might package first, you go through the investment might package first, you say it's perfect for you if you value these things and these outcomes and results. And I'm going to say the high number, and then I'm going to go to the next package, and I'm going to say the lower number, and then I'm going to say a lower number.

Instead of mimicking the experience of prices rising, which equals less sales at lower prices, I'm going to anchor high and prices are going to decrease. And value doesn't decrease. It's just, I spending my time or my money? What do I want to contribute to this project? What's the opportunity costs for me? It's a whole different way of thinking about

proposals, pricing, and making offers. So, Melina Palmer, this, I keep, I love this book. I think Kathy Olson said it in her presentation yesterday. She goes, have you ever learned a concept that makes you just feel so validated? Um, and we've been teaching package matrix since 2018 and I met Melina. Well, I pitched her to speak at the summit this year because I asked, um, one of our web designer Academy students, I was like, who should I invite to speak at the

at conversion Fest. And she was like, the host of the brainy business podcast, Melina Palmer, listened to her podcast, bought her book. And I was like, she's a behavioral economist, like a, I don't know, PhD level behavioral economist. And she talked about the concept of the wingman and how when you anchor high, you're creating, you're designing the decision and you're positioning the mid level as the best, best offer.

Shannon Mattern (47:51.778)

you're preventing sticker shock. My favorite thing that happens though, in the web designer academy, this happens all the time, is we teach people to package matrix their offers. We're like, just trust the process. I know it sounds crazy that you could actually charge $15,000 for this web design project that you've been charging 5,000 for. You've been providing private jet levels of service at Southwest prices.

And so if you package matrix that and you shift the value off of yourself and on off of the deliverables and onto the opportunity cost to the client, you paint the picture of value, you anchor high all of those things.

and then you present these options in this order, you will be shocked at how many people will choose your high-end offer. And that's when I know that they priced their high-end offer too low because they're like, I just sold my highest price offer. And I'm like, that's amazing. And that tells me that you can move this to here and go even higher there, but it's another mindset shift, right?

This is the one that's like, Hey, did you guys watch how your how I met your mother? Hey, have you met Ted? Right? When Barney is like introducing Ted to all the girls, like Barney is the shiny, exciting one, right? But this is Ted. This is the nice guy. But some people like Barney, you know, some people like him. So it's a strategy and

You're true. The other thing about this is though, you are truly not trying to sell any one of these packages. You are putting options in front of people. You're anchoring high. You're like, if I'm going to, if I know that pricing paradigms are fluid, I'm going to speak to the expense minded version that is in that person first. I'm going to anchor high it or sorry, it's investment minded version first. I'm going to anchor high.

Shannon Mattern (50:10.562)

I'm gonna make all three of these options, I'm gonna present them to you, I'm gonna let you decide. I'm not gonna be like, you know what, based on what you just told me, I think that this one's gonna be the best one for you. I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna let you decide. And when I frame up a completely different decision, you would be surprised. Investment-minded clients are all around you.

You think you know what other people's money mindset is, their pricing paradigm, what they can and can't afford, what they will and won't spend. You have no idea. You haven't been giving people a real choice. You haven't designed the decision to make them feel psychologically safe to make it in a way that removes all of the pressure, in a way that speaks to their investment mindset. They may still choose to make an expense-minded decision. That's okay. Nothing has gone wrong because if you built your package matrix right,

that expense my decision is still profitable and sustainable for you to deliver. So I see several questions in the comments. I'm gonna answer those, but I just wanna leave you with this. You help your clients create more. You do not take from them. You do not harm them. Nothing you do in your business is going to cause your clients harm. You help them create more. So start thinking about it like this. And if you are operating your business with an expense mindset,

It is costing you so much more than you think it is costing you. It is costing you so much more than you think. So if you got your hands on the designer power pack, I, there's a replay of a retreat that I hosted in December where I walk you through like shifting how you think about your money, your business, your value. Definitely watch that. Our profitable web designer podcast is all about helping you really shift into

a husband, like a expense mindset or investment mindset. keep saying investment mindset as a web designer. You cannot run your business for very long without burning out if you don't cultivate an investment mindset. And if you already are operating your business with an investment mindset, amazing applying a package matrix will like help you take it to the next level.

Shannon Mattern (52:32.098)

And if you're not even sure what your next level is, you've built something solid, maybe you're craving more freedom, income and alignment, check out our next level Mastermind. We'll help you uncover what that is and support you as you create it. It's not always scaling to a million dollar agency, right? And if you are a hustle mindset person, Web Designer Academy was built for you. It's truly built to help you stop over delivering.

stop undercharging, create more capacity, more leverage, all of those things. So if you are an experienced web designer and you have clients and you're undercharging, over-delivering, hustling, you just think it should be easier, it gets to be easier and we can help you. So just come to our open house. And again, if you want to get your hands on that package matrix template, you can go to webdesigneracademy.com.

template. So I saw a bunch of questions. I'm going to rapid fire answer these to make sure that I get to all of them.

So Zeynab says, should Patrick be used, I love that you're calling him Patrick already, should Patrick be used to bundle services or different services at various levels? It is not a bundle. Don't use it to bundle services. If you have a graphic design service, you would create a package matrix for the graphic design service. Like if you have a graphic design service, a web design service, and an e-commerce service, three different package matrices.

matrices, Patrick's. That's why I say Patrick, three different Patrick's. I know you're like, this is really complicated. But one of our students, April, package matrix her offers and sold a $15,000 project that she used to charge $5,000 for. I think it's worth a few hours of your time to package matrix an offer if it's going to triple your prices.

Shannon Mattern (54:37.846)

And that's just one example of many examples we have of web designer academy students that have patriced their offers. So I helped, she's not in the web designer academy, she's a business coach, but I helped her make a package matrix nine grid, we called it, because she was like, well, I have three different avatars that I work with. And I'm like, your package matrix is not for three different avatars. It's for three different pricing paradigms. So if you have an avatar that is

million dollar businesses, $500,000 businesses and under $100,000 businesses and you offer different services for each of those. Those would be three different Patrick's. Mark says, I've been struggling to find ways to Patrick for certain quotes for websites because they are so small on deliverables. Do ever find that some projects don't need a Patrick and some just need quotes? So I'm always, I am always of the opinion that like if it's

Package matrix sets boundaries. So.

what are the challenges? It sets boundaries and it allows the client to make a different decision. So I'm almost always of the opinion that you're leaving time or money on the table if you don't package matrix your offer. There's lots of creative ways to do it. And on the flip side of that, Jason Gracia would say,

If you're building the same kind of website for the same kind of client over and over and over again, a product high service might be the way to go. And he teaches you a different way to anchor high in the value and make that sale without having a package matrix. So the answer is it depends. And there's no one size fits all advice. So if you feel like, I would say trust yourself.

Shannon Mattern (56:38.986)

Mark to if you're like there, I can't think of a good way to package matrix this just and you know, try it without see what happens. But I can I can find a way to package matrix almost anything. Patty says I offer a collaborative type of launch. They have everything ready and need to launch not all the bells and whistles or signature all done for you revisions and mockups and the whole design process. I think you're just sharing sharing what you do there.

That's two of the three options there, it sounds like. So Alexia said, question, would having a higher package with a one-on-one training session on how to use their branding be another deliverable or level of service? I recently did this with a client and it blew her mind. She said she had never gotten that level of service from an agency, got me thinking of offering that in higher package. What we see, Alexia, is that

Earlier I said, people package matrix their offers and then they're like, I had a client pick my high end package. And then they're like, I don't even know how I could go higher. That's the type of thing that would absolutely like be something you could add to a higher level package. I also love that idea for like a painful incentive too. Like if you didn't have a higher level package,

But you wanted to be like, and if you make a single payment and just buy this whole web design package from me in one fell swoop, I can throw this in. So there's lots of different creative ways to do that. But that would be a great idea. Kaylee said, I've been offering this for about two years, and I've been including it as aftercare. That's an example of Southwest prices and

NetJet's service, that's the company my husband works for. NetJet's level of service. There's value to those things. And you get to let the client decide if they value that too. Thank you, David. Emily said, in my attempts to package Matrix in this year since you first blew my mind with this, I feel like I'm constantly coming up with.

Shannon Mattern (59:03.712)

new ways to create the three options because I don't specialize in one product. Yes. Do you have easy ways to do this quickly or is it more important to make the same offer over and over? We have people that make the same offer over and over. We have people that start with the paid discovery step and make a custom Patrick for every client. We have people that, and when I say custom, it's like, I have it like 90 % and I just need to change the 10%.

per client, but this perfect for you if that's written for the specific client I'm talking to. It's not a standard like thing boilerplate copy that I wrote. I customize this to each client and I customize this so that you can to each client differentiated by investment hustle and expense mindset.

And here's the thing. People always say like, spend so much time on proposals that don't convert. And I'm like, yeah, that would be really annoying to spend so much time on proposals that don't convert. But I'm willing to spend time on proposals that do convert if I'm going to make thousands and thousands of dollars off the back end. I could see why it would feel not worth it if you're only going to make $5,000 versus $15,000.

Shannon Mattern (01:00:35.182)

The juice is worth the squeeze.

When we've tried to teach people to like systematize it, it can work in some circumstances, but take the time to like, to connect it to the value. Tiffany says, do you recommend leaving prices off the website? We do Tiffany. That's our like, premise isn't the right word. Our recommendation at the web designer academy.

There's no right or wrong way to do it. But with the strategy that we teach, we recommend leaving prices off the website. I don't need people to opt out. I don't need people to come to my website and I'm showing that's like setting up an expense minded decision. We're taking that off of the table completely. Karen says the Patrick helps set boundaries, but if they choose the middle or low option, any advice when the client chooses high and pushes boundaries? Yes, my favorite is

Yep, we can absolutely do that for you. Would you like me to give you an estimate for how much that would add to the project? So there has to be some boundaries at the high end as well. And Karen, you're in the Web Designer Academy. So if you need help with a specific high end client who's pushing the boundaries, we can give you exactly what to say. But it's always like it's the same scope creep.

shutter down or sentence that we have for any scope creep situation is like, yeah, I'd love to do that for you. Would you like me to give you a quote or, you know, and I, that's for all you people pleasers out there who are afraid to say no. You get to say yes and let them decide. Genevieve says, if we were to share our Patrick on our sales page, should we remove any starting at mention?

Shannon Mattern (01:02:35.016)

than right, I want to keep prices public. So this is kind of where back at the beginning, I said that there are things that will make the strategy work less well. And one of the things that makes the strategy work less well is removing your ability to pre-frame the value of working with you.

like we've been talking about at the summit, people are scanners, skimmers, whatever. We cannot assume that people are reading our whole entire website and understanding like you're anchoring them high and all of these things and whatever. We just can't expect that they're going to do that themselves. Part of what makes a package matrix process successful is how we have you lead your client through that. And so you can put your path

package matrix on your sales page. We've trialed and narrowed and tested this ourselves, but you are risking that they're just going to go straight to the price and miss the whole anchoring piece altogether. So I wouldn't recommend that. If you have any starting at prices on your site, I absolutely recommend it. Ideally, no public prices at all.

Yeah, why not? Why wouldn't you just want to talk to someone, learn more about them, and make an offer to them after the fact? So that's our position. I'm not saying it's the only way that works. So you have to use your discernment as a business owner with what works for you. But if you're going to use the package matrix strategy, it's kind of like you got to go all in.

Herbie asks, it possible to do the three tier package matrix with a website in a week service? All I can think is to pile on more deliverables with each tier. So I can package matrix anything. So yeah, I would say what's the...

Shannon Mattern (01:04:41.974)

we would have to like get really specific and talk about like, what are the other things, but your other options are level of service, turnaround time, access to you. There are so many creative ways to package matrix. I think it's possible. The question is, does, like, is it gonna...

For what purpose? If it's just, if it's to charge more or.

Shannon Mattern (01:05:13.55)

What I see happen is people are like, I learned day rates from this person and I learned this from this person and I learned this from this person and I learned this other strategy from this person. Like, how can I combine all of these because we all are experts in what we do and we've all found a successful way to do things. I would say if...

If what you're doing is creating wanted results for you, you don't have to package matrix it. And so there are lots of different ways to do things. This is just one way. So yeah, Kirby, this is kind of where we get into the nitty gritty inside of our programs about how to do those things.

I am taking up the first five minutes of our next presenters session. So I want to, want to wrap up. Great questions. You can ask me more in the community this week. And if you're a woman web designer who wants to learn more, we just scratched the surface. Package Matrix is one piece of everything that we do in the Web Designer Academy to help you stop undercharging, over delivering, overworking.

package stuffing, all of the things. So come to the open house, come check us out and I'll give you a tour. So thank you all so much. I got a jet too. And I will see you guys in the summit sessions today. Thank you all. Bye everyone.

Shannon Mattern (01:06:55.087)

my zoom end button. I covered it up. there we go. All right. Bye everyone.