#182 – January 2026 Income Report

Shannon Mattern (00:01.326)

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. And this is everybody's favorite episode. So I hear from all of you. This is our January 2026 income report where I break down how much our business made, how much we spent, all of the lessons learned along the way. And I'm joined for these episodes every month by our Web Designer Academy Client Success Coordinator.

Erica Nash (00:11.023)

You

Shannon Mattern (00:31.04)

Erica Nash, who is my cohost for this episode and my sidekick and asks me all of the questions and then all of the questions that she knows you all want to know the answers to as well as I like share the things. So Erica, welcome back.

Erica Nash (00:32.303)

You

Erica Nash (00:47.311)

Hi. I am so excited that I get to be a part of everyone's favorite episode. It's mine too.

Shannon Mattern (00:53.364)

I love that you're here to do this. one of the, like, there were many reasons to have you on. But one of the reasons is that everyone in the web designer academy is like, we want more of Erica. Erica's like the best kept secret. Why do we only get to know about Erica once we're inside the program? We want to, we want, like, we think you should have Erica more like.

outside of the doors of the web designer academy. So that was like one reason that we were like, have you come and be a co-host on this? And you had just said to me before I hit record that we started having you on last March, March of 2025. And then the other reason was that I needed to shave the time down for these episodes from like,

four hours of like writing a script and recording it and all of that. And this was the solution that we came up with was for you to just interview me, which I, it's so much fun. I love it.

Erica Nash (01:56.907)

Yeah, no, same. And that's so kind of everyone to say, but yeah, I'm just I'm also glad that it saved you so much time. know that that's, know, like all business owners, that's one of the biggest opportunities. So. Win win.

Shannon Mattern (02:12.984)

Yeah, and sometimes I try to save time in the wrong places, which we can talk about in this income report too, which we discovered in January. So Erica is gonna just ask me all of the questions and Erica just be as like nosy as you want as we go through all of this. So yeah, I'll hand it over to you to kick it off.

Erica Nash (02:18.831)

Let's do it.

Erica Nash (02:32.815)

You

Erica Nash (02:36.495)

Let's do it. So yeah, let's start with inflow. What was the total inflow for January 2026?

Shannon Mattern (02:45.058)

Yeah, the total inflow for January 2026 was $26,766.32. And that came almost exclusively from Web Designer Academy payment plans renewals. people joining Web Designer like staying in Web Designer Academy for another year, people moving.

Erica Nash (02:48.655)

you

Shannon Mattern (03:12.344)

from the Web Designer Academy into our next level mastermind, people in our next level mastermind staying for another year. I mean, we have people renewing, I think for their fourth or even fifth year coming up. This year will be people renewing into their fifth year. So yeah, we have people in their fourth year. So it was almost exclusively, we had no new Web Designer Academy students join in January. It was all...

Erica Nash (03:28.127)

Yeah, I f-

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (03:41.558)

renewals, people moving into next level, next level people renewing. It was people signing up for private coaching and simply profitable designer summit sponsorships. So just really interesting different places than historically the revenue comes from. And

I'm so curious now. like, I want to look at January 2025 really quick to see what our revenue was in January 2025, because I feel like it's pretty different this year than last year. Yeah, so January 2025, the inflow was 15,000.

9,1884. So over 10,000 more, but the profile of where the money is coming from looks completely different. And my nervous system, how to get used to that.

Erica Nash (04:37.464)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (04:49.475)

Yeah. And I was going to ask about just like last January to this January, nervous system wise, just like you mindset wise as a person, can you tell us what that looks like? How different are those two people?

Shannon Mattern (05:10.445)

So they're still the same person. would say, how do I best describe this? I would say that January of 2026, Shannon, I got a little pulled back into January 2025, Shannon. I tried so hard to not get sucked into some mind trashy thinking. I did not succeed. However,

Erica Nash (05:13.881)

For sure.

Shannon Mattern (05:40.91)

I knew I was in it, like I was flailing and I knew I was flailing and I asked for someone to throw me a life preserver instead of continuing to flail and prolonging the flailing. So I think that that's like the biggest difference. It's like, I still was like, okay, money's not coming from where I'm used to.

to it coming from and when I'm used to it coming and this is feeling very unsettling and I need help. So I asked for support from my support systems and I don't normally do that. I normally just try to figure it all out on my own, but I was like too overwhelmed in January to even know like where to even.

start and it was almost like a like I had to because there was like no other choice. So again I let it go on too long before I asked for help and I know that what I'm saying is nothing new to the people listening to this podcast because I know you guys do it too. I know you wait until you're like basically drowning.

Erica Nash (06:42.563)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (07:02.645)

and then you're like, I can still figure it out. It's still on me to figure it. Like I should have all the answers. I should know what to do in this situation. and guess what? Like we don't always know what to do in certain situations, especially when you feel the pressure and the stress and overwhelm. It takes your higher level thinking offline. There was no amount of brain power. could have thrown up the

things that I was experiencing that could have come from my own self to figure that out. I needed to ask for, for support. So even though the numbers look better and that's great and amazing, that all came in and like the last few days of the month, and I wasn't expecting it to come in at all. I'm just like, okay. There we go. Now we're good. But like,

the way that I was thinking was not on the level with what I would coach any of our Web Designer Academy students to think if they were in a similar situation as me. And I can coach myself to a point, but there's a point where I can't coach myself anymore. And I need to bring in my own A team, so to speak.

Erica Nash (08:08.845)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (08:20.845)

Yeah, I'm so glad that you have people that you can kind of like bring in and rely on to kind of point you back to like what's true and like, you know, what, I don't know, just kind of like clear the way. you know, we and aside from all of that, too, just like the regular business tasks on top of like getting everything done.

Shannon Mattern (08:30.635)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (08:36.13)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (08:48.415)

And like we've talked before about how we're experimenting with, you know, sort of delegating some things. And so yay for that, but also we're prepping for our annual summit and that is a lot. And so I can only imagine how full your brain must have felt during that time.

Shannon Mattern (09:11.477)

I was looking, I was making the list of like all the things that happened in January. And I'm like, no wonder I felt the way that I felt. And that's a sign that I can't say yes to that many things and, you know, do all of the things that I did. I'm like, I definitely hit like max over capacity on like,

Erica Nash (09:18.191)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (09:39.862)

what I can ask of myself, what we have capacity for as a team, what our promotional calendar has capacity for. Like it was just pure, like too much in all senses of January. So I'm like, okay, there's one of our next level mastermind students, Liz, who I was thinking of all throughout January.

Whenever we meet, she's just like, I'm just in hibernation mode right now. She's like, it is not natural for us to be going hard in January. She's like, so I'm just over here hibernating, doing my thing, and she will emerge in March. And I'm like, yeah, yes, because.

Erica Nash (10:30.351)

Yes, yes please.

Shannon Mattern (10:33.709)

Because I'm like, I don't want a G like, yeah, I just, it gets to look different. found, I touched the stove. I found my limit.

Erica Nash (10:39.075)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (10:46.831)

And I love that you know that about yourself. Like I just kind of have to, you know, do the thing. But I was talking with someone about January, last January, I remember people talking about like, my gosh, January was 98 days long and it was just so hard. And like that it didn't feel that way for me. But this January, I was like, I see.

Shannon Mattern (10:52.791)

you

Erica Nash (11:14.383)

why January can feel 98 days long. And just like for me, it was also like kind of a wreck on my nervous system. And so I just find the concept of like choosing to have a slow like hibernation January so intriguing after my January this year.

Shannon Mattern (11:23.511)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (11:38.124)

You know, I've got to think with how I was stretched. Like, we all think that everybody had this like restful, relaxing time off. And it was, to an extent, it was time off, but it was a different, it was filled with a different kind of responsibility over the holidays. Where it's like, yes, I'm offline. Yes, I'm spending time with family, but the,

It's not like I'm just like sleeping the whole time. I'm like with people interacting. have stuff on my calendar. I have commitments. I'm doing things. I'm going here. We're going there. We're, you know, I'll seeing a lot of people like that for me is not restful. is not restful for me to have a bunch of people in my house being at other people's houses. Like that's not downtime. That's time away from work.

Erica Nash (12:11.215)

Alright.

Erica Nash (12:32.345)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (12:37.855)

it's offline time, but it's not downtime. And so then when it's like, okay, now we're back online, I don't feel necessarily rested. I did have a break from my normal day to day. And then it's just like everything that we had committed to, you know, in October and November, when January felt so far away when I said yes to those things.

Erica Nash (12:49.295)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (13:07.257)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (13:07.437)

Then they all came to pass. And then it was just like, I actually should have said no to most of this stuff and taken some stuff off of my plate. But one of my, what do they say, your superpowers, your kryptonite? I have a problem with loyalty.

Like, if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. Like, I will not cancel on you. I will not reschedule. I will, like, I will fulfill my commitment no matter what. And the problem is that I shouldn't have made some of the commitments in the first place. Because then I, and then I almost get in like a

Erica Nash (13:40.939)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (14:06.785)

black and white thinking like, I'll say things like the train is on the tracks, like as if I have zero control over what happens after I have committed to something. And then I just like power through to the point of overload. So I got to see that about myself firsthand in January, but also really proud of myself for asking for help in multiple different ways when I got.

Erica Nash (14:24.964)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (14:37.239)

that point.

Erica Nash (14:38.639)

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it's February now. We made it through. It's a new month. I don't know if it feels to you. I typically am like, it's just another day on the calendar. But I was so glad to see it change from January to February because I was like, all right, let's start over. But you know, I think that there's...

Shannon Mattern (14:44.759)

We made it.

Erica Nash (15:04.671)

lot to be said about those lessons that we learn and we get to like move forward into a new month with just you know I don't know more insight into all of those different areas so yay for

Shannon Mattern (15:07.82)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (15:12.353)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (15:20.045)

Yeah. And it's just like, I think the reflection piece is so important, right? Because I'm sitting here, I'm like looking at like the rev, like the inflow has to come in in these certain expected ways. And it's not coming in in those certain expected ways that I'm happening. And I'm getting, you know, worried and anxious and nervous and concerned. Not even like considering like, there's other ways.

that this can happen and the fact that people are staying in our programs. And my mind wants to go to like, well, that's not good enough because new people aren't joining. Like that's ridiculousness upon reflection. You know what I mean? Like, so it's like the place where your brain wants to take you or that like the 10th annual simply profitable designer summit is something that people want to invest in sponsorship in.

but because it didn't come in through the door of new web designer academy students, that's not good. my, yeah, or something. so, so it's just really being on to, but like, know what that is, right? I know that that's like, it feels out of my control. And it also feels like, because my time is disproportionately spent on.

Erica Nash (16:25.004)

Kit doesn't count.

Shannon Mattern (16:45.375)

marketing to get new web designer academy students when where I'm putting my effort isn't creating the outcomes that I want. It feels very out of control, but I'm missing this whole thing that's happening over here that's actually like happening easily and happening without efforting. And so what I was reflecting on was just like, I use this analogy in

some of my presentations, it's like where you're driving up the hill and you've got your foot so hard on the gas, but you're stuck in too high of a gear and you're just like flooring it, but you're not, you're just going slower and slower and slower up the hill. And you need to, you need to downshift. I needed to downshift and I wasn't, I was just like, if I just push harder on the gas of all of the things that I'm doing to market the web designer Academy, then.

I'll eventually get up this hill when what really needed to happen was a downshift of like, okay, maybe the things that you think you need to do to create the outcomes and results that you want aren't actually the things that you need to do. And maybe you have a bunch of blind spots and you can't see what other people can see. And maybe you need to ask.

for some feedback, guidance, and support. Because if what you're doing isn't working, isn't getting you the outcomes that you want, what else could be true? And what else could be true is like, maybe I don't have all the answers and I need help. So that's kind of where I went with that. So yeah.

I experienced the same things I coach you guys on all the time. And the reason I can spot it from a mile away is because I'm like, yep, I did that last month. Just in a different way.

Erica Nash (18:53.103)

Yeah.

I feel like I say this every time I'm on, but again, it's just truly the value of having people that one, know you, and two, know your business and know business in general that can spot those things because we all have blind spots. We all have them. And it is so important to find somebody that can lovingly call them out and help you work through them because if not,

Shannon Mattern (19:06.327)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (19:11.841)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (19:25.823)

we would never get anywhere. We would never get to the next place. And we would stay flailing in that struggle.

Shannon Mattern (19:27.597)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (19:33.249)

Yeah. I went to my mastermind and normally, normally I'll just like sit back or wait to the end. And this time I went in and I was like, can I go first today? Because I need your help. And I'd also like to record this part because we don't record it. Like we all meet in person and we don't record it. I was like, can I please record this because I want to be very present and hear what

you guys are saying to me without trying to like furiously like jot down notes and everything. And they were, I was like, I need your candid feedback. Like don't assume that I know what I'm doing. I said, a lot of times I think I know what I'm doing and I'm so confident of it that I convince you all that I know what I'm doing. And I'm convinced of it too. I was like,

don't assume that I know what I'm doing. I need you to tell me where you think I'm off. And they were all kind of looking at me like, whoa. Is she really going to like, and then I had to be really open to hear maybe some things that weren't going to feel that good to hear. Some feedback to, you

Erica Nash (20:40.943)

Hahaha

Shannon Mattern (20:57.952)

but I was like ready for it. And so I'm so glad I did that because it really helped me like.

You know how in our next level mastermind, we talk a lot about how our brains work and how we have like the ways the we have our big assumption of like a way we think the world works. And it's basically just well formed neural pathways that like have been firing for so long that like, your brain doesn't even it's like just being like efficient.

Erica Nash (21:20.175)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (21:33.982)

It's like, I'm just going to travel this well-worn neural pathway in this scenario.

they really helped me pattern interrupt a lot of those neural pathways because I was just in such black and white thinking of like, this is just the way I've always done it, so this is the way I have to do it. And even every suggestion that they were making, I could just feel so much resistance to. It was as if my brain was just like, nope, we're not making a new neural pathway.

right now we don't have the energy to make a new neural pathway you're just going to like

resist everything they're saying. Like I was sitting there watching myself resist everything that they were saying to me, knowing that like the resistance was the problem. Like it was just so fascinating. And so it took like a week of like listening from a different place, listening to what they said, going through kind of processing to really start to like break out of it. Like, so.

Erica Nash (22:26.189)

Fascinating, yeah.

Shannon Mattern (22:44.424)

Yeah, like, I don't know. It was just really interesting.

to go through that and experience that deep level of overwhelm and frustration. I understand from that place why it's so hard to make a decision to change because it feels unsafe. So when I put myself in the shoes of a podcast listener who's just in it with their business and needs help, but even getting help feels unsafe.

Erica Nash (23:06.903)

Yeah, yeah, it's like rockin' a hard place.

Shannon Mattern (23:21.504)

because it's like change and it's unknown. Like I deeply empathize with you if that's you listening to this because it is hard. It is definitely, definitely difficult to kind of break out of that pattern. So yeah.

Erica Nash (23:21.519)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (23:28.355)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (23:37.475)

Yeah. I mean, I just kudos to you. Like it is so hard to set yourself aside and be open to feedback and to be open to change and to just be willing to hear other ways that you are not your own. I've been thinking a lot. don't

I don't necessarily use this word for you, but it makes me think I've been thinking a lot this week or this month, the challenging month in January. I've been thinking a lot about my own, just like my ego and just kind of the same thing. And like, how do I set aside like my own ego and the assumption that it needs to be this way or that way, like willingness to test things that other people that I'm learning from are suggesting and things like that.

Shannon Mattern (24:17.868)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (24:34.819)

And you're right, it is scary because it's, we get into these assumptions and these stories that we tell ourselves that if, if some of the things, like one of the ones that I have is like,

I should have known better. Like, if I do something wrong, it's because I should have known better. Like I already had the, you know, anyway, all of that stuff. that, it hurts, it hurts to like experience something that like proves, and I use that in air quotes, proves that assumption when like there are so many other factors at play. So yeah, I know that's not the point of this episode, but I just like kudos for like being able to put yourself.

Shannon Mattern (24:51.116)

That's what I meant too.

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (25:06.584)

huh. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (25:14.846)

No, it is.

Erica Nash (25:18.649)

to the side and just be open.

Shannon Mattern (25:20.694)

Well, thank you. And you know, when I think of ego, don't think of like, I think of it the way that you're saying it is like, it's not like, I know better than everybody else. And I'm so much smarter. And I have all like, and so I know what the right way is. I think of the ego is like that self protective part of us that's like, if

Erica Nash (25:41.539)

Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (25:46.005)

If I do it this way and I like have prepared and this and that, and like, I, I'm protecting myself from whatever. if you're going to come here and tell me to like do it differently than the way that it feels safe for me to do it, I'm not like, can't, I can't even hear you because I can't, so it's not that like,

I think I know better. I know better how to keep myself safe. That doesn't mean my idea is better than yours, but I absolutely know that what you're telling me is dangerous to my nervous system. And so I know that my way is better to keep me protected and safe, not that like because I'm smarter or better or whatever. And so yeah, it's just like, but when you're in it, when I'm in it,

Erica Nash (26:18.777)

Yeah. Yeah.

Erica Nash (26:33.465)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (26:45.196)

like it takes me a minute to realize I'm in it. And then once I do, it takes like effort to get out. And as we always talk about the goal is to get in it less frequently and stay in it for less periods of time. I, you know, I hopefully accomplished that this time around.

Erica Nash (26:48.399)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (27:10.471)

I mean, it seems like you did. It seems like you recognized it fast, got help fast, moved out of it fast. It cause January was 98 days long.

Shannon Mattern (27:16.456)

It didn't feel fast, but thank you. Yeah, so that was really like, it felt like a turning point in terms of like, I'm going up the hill and too high of a gear. I'm trying to give it more gas. I'm just burning out the engine. I'm not actually getting up the hill. I need to make a significant shift.

And that shift doesn't have to be like throwing the whole thing out and starting over, but the shift is like

I need other eyes to show me what I'm not seeing and help me kind of break out of the paradigm of like the way I've always done it and trying to continually try, like find ways to make the way I've always done it work better. When it's like, maybe the way I've always done it isn't the way to keep doing it.

And what could that look like?

Erica Nash (28:25.731)

Yeah, I also just want to point out that you didn't like change, like throw it all out and start something new, which is what like, you know, you've been working on for a while. So that is a huge win. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (28:40.246)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, and it's like, I am.

We spent a lot of time like in 2025 with our brand refresh and stuff creating capacity and

I would say that I almost got to, I have too much. I have all this capacity. Let me just say yes to all of these things. And I found the breaking points of that. here's where we don't have capacity. And here's where different things need to happen. yeah, but just looking, we started onboarding our new VA team.

in January. That's a big thing in and of itself, where we're really trying to get some support for both of us to take things off of our plate. But yeah, I'm just looking at things that happened in January. like, what was I even thinking? What was I thinking?

Erica Nash (29:53.295)

But before you before Before we do that, let's talk about the outflow. We haven't talked about the outflow yet. I everybody's waiting to hear.

Shannon Mattern (29:59.659)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (30:04.172)

Yeah, so the outflow was $24,860.73, adding $1,905.59 to our reserves. So January is always the month where I get to pay for tax preparation on top of our salaries. We onboarded.

our new VA team. So we paid for three months upfront for our new VA team. And Erica is offloading a bunch of the manual things that we do every month to market the business and deliver to our clients. So those were our out of ordinary things that happened.

happened in January that were above and beyond our normal expenses. So yeah, I think that that's it outside of our salaries and our general operations, what it costs us to run the business. yeah, did not turn out how my brain was expecting it to turn out.

Erica Nash (31:22.617)

Beautiful.

Erica Nash (31:26.479)

Surprise!

Shannon Mattern (31:28.172)

turned out much better, which goes to show you cannot believe everything you think. And you can, you know, why make yourself miserable for weeks on end trying to predict a future you can't predict. Hmm. I don't know. I'll have to remind myself of that next time I go there.

Erica Nash (31:34.264)

now.

Erica Nash (31:43.395)

Well, my dream said it.

Erica Nash (31:48.153)

Right? It's so hard. It's so hard. Because your brain is like, well, if you're thinking about it, then you're prepared. And that's not the truth. Right? It's not.

Shannon Mattern (31:50.668)

Ha ha.

Shannon Mattern (31:58.364)

I guess mine is more like, yes, if you're thinking about it, you can prevent it. I don't feel prepared. I just feel like I'm like, I don't know, in prevention mode, which never works. Yeah, despite my hyper prevention-ness, we landed where we landed in January. So I'm like.

Erica Nash (32:21.711)

Hooray!

Shannon Mattern (32:26.811)

Note to self, don't do that. Don't make it don't make yourself miserable for no reason.

Erica Nash (32:29.752)

you

Erica Nash (32:34.255)

like establishing that new neural pathway, right? Like it's really hard. I was thinking this morning about, oh, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna botch the words. One of our Next Level mastermind members has talked about it before, Kate. She loves brain science and she has talked about like priming, priming the brain. I was thinking a lot about that just today and just like how I think that I need to

Shannon Mattern (32:37.951)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (33:04.12)

do that in order to prepare my nervous system for my next phase of growth, because I find that even really good things that are unexpected throw my nervous system out of whack. And so I think that, I don't know, that's something that I want to experiment with. Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (33:08.938)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (33:15.967)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (33:22.911)

That's that fear of success that you're experiencing. You're like, even really good things that happen throw my nervous system out of whack. So your nervous system does not want to be out of whack. So it's going to be like, bad things, bad. Good things, bad. Stay. Maintain homeostasis. Don't change. Stay in your comfort zone. And I'm just not a, I'm just not happy in my comfort zone.

Erica Nash (33:37.455)

All of it's bad,

Erica Nash (33:50.201)

Same.

Shannon Mattern (33:51.732)

Like I just, you know, I would much rather hit up again, hit my capacity and touch the stove and burn my engine out a little bit than just be complacent and learn from that. And I don't always have to learn the hard way, but I don't think any there's ever any. I don't think there's a way to just always learn the easy way. Maybe there is, maybe that's a thought error.

Erica Nash (34:19.471)

Is there a secret somewhere? Please share it with us.

Shannon Mattern (34:22.151)

Is there? I mean, you learn by experiences as much as you can learn by other people's experiences. So I just go through it all to help you maybe learn from my experiences. Can we help you prevent it? Yeah, here, watch. Watch me touch this. It's going to hurt. Don't do it.

Erica Nash (34:28.814)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (34:33.899)

I

Shannon touches the stove first, then she teaches us. Last week, so Jen Boss. Jen Boss is a financial, I don't know exactly what her title is.

Shannon Mattern (34:55.787)

I call her my financial strategist. know she's also yours and she's all of our next level mastermind went to a training that she did.

Erica Nash (35:00.015)

She's incredible. She's all of the financial things and

Yes, and at this trading, she was talking about experiencing pain in the business and she was just like talking like, you know, pain is sort of inevitable and like, and I texted Caitlin, who was also in the training like, where do get a pain free business? That's, that's the one I want. I want pain free. Unfortunately, I don't think that's

Shannon Mattern (35:26.48)

Hahaha

I like though the rewards are so worth it. And not like the money because I know this is an income report, but like I was talking to one of my mastermind members after I'm like, please help. And she's like, can we just have a one day intensive where I just like go through all of this with you because she does marketing strategy combined with like.

Erica Nash (35:35.265)

They are. They are.

Shannon Mattern (35:57.2)

making sure that your nervous system is regulated and like all of the stuff. She's like, let's just do a one day. And she's like, tell me where everything works and feels great. I'm like, the web designer Academy and the next level mastermind and the podcast and private coaching and like all of the things that I actually like all of the delivery pieces of I'm like, I love

how our program's formatted. every single, sorry, Scarlett's over there. Like, I don't know what she's doing. Did you hear a big flump? I love the Web Designer Academy. Like, our students come in, it changes their life. Like, the next level mastermind, it changes their life. I get to meet cool strangers and talk to them for an hour on the podcast.

Erica Nash (36:34.991)

you

Erica Nash (36:45.039)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (36:55.485)

I get to do so many incredible things. Having a hard January where I hit my capacity, worth all of that. I'm not going to stay there. I'm going to fix it. Because it's so, I always say, I can't believe I get to do this. How is this my life? And even when I have a challenging month.

Erica Nash (37:07.801)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (37:26.315)

Still, how is this my life? So worth it. So, yeah. There are pieces where it's like, okay, the juice isn't worth the squeeze in this specific area. That needs to be fixed. But like the rest of this is like amazing. And so that's the part where it's like, what is working?

Erica Nash (37:29.603)

Yeah, a thousand percent. I agree. It was just my...

Erica Nash (37:48.515)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (37:53.234)

well and what's not and then how do we just like extract the parts that aren't working well and keep what is.

Erica Nash (38:02.031)

Yeah, there's gold in the challenges. Unfortunately, I'm just kidding. It is. It is. You're able, I think you're able to offload it a lot faster. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk, I know we've talked about some of the important things that happened in January, but are there any others that we haven't touched on?

Shannon Mattern (38:06.443)

Right? It's so much easier when you have other people to help you and you're not going through it alone.

Shannon Mattern (38:18.983)

Yeah, for sure.

Shannon Mattern (38:29.513)

Yeah, think one of the things that we tested in January was like last year, I did this training that's like the last third of the year called Five Secrets to High Converting Web Design Proposals. So I tested out that format for live training from like August to December. And then this year, I shifted it to I'm like, let's take those same concepts, but like flip them on their head.

And I shifted it to like five proposal mistakes costing web designers thousands to see if that would be a little more compelling because like what we see is when people implement our package matrix framework and all of the strategies that we teach inside of the web designer Academy, they're literally like tripling their prices and

to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars that they were not charging before. And so I was like, five proposal mistakes costing web designers thousands. I think what we're seeing and the data is showing that, and I'm still kind of working through this, but that the whole live webinar model isn't.

working the way that it used to work maybe one, two, three, four years ago. And I had a conversation with some of my other friends in the online business space about how some of the big names in the online business space have completely shut down programs, big multi-million dollar programs that use this model to

Erica Nash (40:01.295)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (40:25.705)

launch and they made their money teaching this model and things like that. And they're like closing it. I'm like, I'm experiencing that I'm not getting the expected out the outcomes that I would expect for putting this much effort into not that I like am guaranteed results for the effort, but I'm like testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, like just trying to like tweak this thing until

And it's not creating the outcomes that I think are worth the time that I'm putting into it. at least on the timeframe that feels worth it to continue to put that much energy and effort into it. so, so that's just something that's kind of like in flux under consideration. Where does, where does a live training with me get to live in our ecosystem?

Erica Nash (41:08.985)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (41:25.659)

after hosting it, I don't know, at least 10 times since August. And it didn't really seem to move the needle more than like email marketing. And even that started to have diminishing returns, we'll talk about. We might be changing, tweaking that.

Erica Nash (41:31.043)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (41:45.039)

Mm.

Shannon Mattern (41:53.866)

based on recommendations from my trusted colleagues. So we'll probably have more to talk about around that. I think the thing that's a little unknown is there's a shift happening, and I don't know what it is. And that's unsettling. And so it's like, if you don't know what the shift is, how do you react to it?

Erica Nash (42:15.405)

Mm. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (42:22.547)

And I guess you just have to like, as we say, like, this is the mug we send everybody when they join. If you are listening to this on the podcast, it says blaze your own trail. Like, I'm just going to have to blaze my own trail and figure it out and not wait for someone to be like, by the way, what we're seeing is this strategy that you've leaned on for this many years. No longer works for whatever reason. Like.

Erica Nash (42:38.04)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (42:52.317)

anything, you know, so it's just really interesting.

Erica Nash (42:53.987)

Yeah.

Yeah, that brings up two thoughts for me. The first one is that one of your strategies... Well, let me go back. These are not the two thoughts. I think you tested the workshop with fidelity. And at this point, if it doesn't feel like the juice is worth the squeeze, like that, I think that's a...

It had a good run, you know what I'm saying? Like you didn't deviate from what you were doing. You were faithful to it and you like made those quarter turns, but like you did not deviate. You were like, we're doing this, we're doing this, you know, this many times for six months. And so like, and that's what experimentation is, right? Like we do something, we do it with fidelity. We make those tiny quarter turns.

Shannon Mattern (43:27.499)

What does fidelity mean?

Shannon Mattern (43:42.879)

for six months. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (43:49.236)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (43:54.735)

We gather the data, we do it for a limited amount of time, and then we analyze and we decide, is this working? And so I think it's really cool that you did that. The things that I wanted to say, you're welcome. The things that I wanted to say are that one, you definitely get to trust yourself because remember when you were like, when you opened up the open house and you were like, nobody told me to do this. And like, and, and, and.

Shannon Mattern (44:04.373)

Thank you.

Erica Nash (44:23.491)

that brings us clients, like that enrolls students in Web Designer Academy. So there is proof that you don't have to rely on somebody else to tell you what strategies are working or not.

Shannon Mattern (44:36.414)

Ooh, thank you.

Erica Nash (44:37.923)

You're welcome. And then the second thing I want to say is that, and like, I think I would be telling, like, this would be my own advice to myself as well. Because as I was thinking it, I was like, I probably need that advice. It's easier to say it to somebody else. Whenever you said, you know, like the way forward is like unknown. And so like that, like, you know, feels, you didn't say this, but like kind of wobbly and kind of sticky.

I think we just get to go back to what's true. And so what's true is that when you show up live, you make connections with people, deep connections, and people decide that you're the person that they want to coach them. When you show up on your podcast consistently, people listen and people decide that's who I want coaching me. And whenever you

whatever you write. We know that email is an important piece of that customer journey and that's something that we've been talking about as well. And so I think we just get to go back to what we know for certain, those things are true. And then the rest of the chips get to fall where they may and we get to fill in the blanks as we do blaze the trail. So unknown is not always...

Shannon Mattern (45:38.176)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (46:06.137)

fun, but also yay, one at adventure that's going to be really fun. So.

Shannon Mattern (46:08.896)

Yeah.

So when we went through the rebrand last year, the big overarching theme that we came up with for the Web Designer Academy was the third space, Central Perk, Cheers Bar. Like the place where you built, it's your family. When you're not at home, this is your family.

Erica Nash (46:26.041)

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Shannon Mattern (46:41.983)

That's what it feels like inside of our programs, like lifelong friendships built inside of there. And we were talking about this earlier today at our team meeting because the feedback that I got from my mastermind people was that my marketing did not feel as deeply connected as what the intention that we put on

Erica Nash (46:43.919)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (47:11.467)

how it feels on the inside. So if once you walk through the door, everybody's like, my gosh, I'm so excited you're here. I can't wait to meet you. You're like, I'm meeting them. You're meeting them. We're introducing them to the rest of the people. We're taking their hand. We're making sure that they're just so well taken care of. Contrast with, you're coming to a webinar where I'm talking at you and

maybe you can chat with me, but maybe you're just like listening. And it doesn't even feel like maybe we're not even really in the same room together. I just happen to be like, it could be a recording for all you for, for how it felt. And there's not like this engagement or us talking to each other. It's like, that's not the vibe of what it feels like on the inside.

Erica Nash (47:55.055)

Mm.

Shannon Mattern (48:08.234)

So the advice that I was given was like, bring that feeling from the inside to the outside. And that means no more chat GPT writing your emails. Like where I said earlier, like I outsourced the wrong things. I outsourced my voice. Our conversion rate optimization personally, we met at the end of January. She was like, your open rates are down 10%. And I was like,

That's crazy town to me. She was like, since August, which was when we changed our email template to look more newsletter-y. And I was like, cool. Now that it looks like this, I don't have to be the one to write it. Erica, here's chat GPT prompts. Put this together for me. I took the wrong things off my plate. I took me out of.

the out like that part too. And the only time people would like experience that's why the that's why the open house works so well. Is because then people could like feel, this is what it's like on the inside. But like, we get to bring more of that to the outside. So it's just interesting, I would have never even picked up on that in a million years.

Erica Nash (49:18.487)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (49:29.455)

Yeah.

Yeah, no, same. I'm so glad that we have data now for what, like two years or something. I'm so glad that we have that information to be able to like spot that thing that we now just get to make like that quarter turn again on email. And yeah, I don't know, just like it's a gift to have other people have their eyes and be able to spot those things. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (49:37.854)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (49:48.031)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (50:00.969)

I think back to all the pivotal times in my business where I was like, something's, whether it was feeling really dire or the data was showing that it was dire. And I think both of those things are important to pay attention to because something was out of alignment, you know, with.

Shannon Mattern (50:25.262)

like the time I was putting into things and the into the wrong things, right? So like what I really was seeing is like, I'm putting time into things that are not creating the outcomes that I want. Time is finite. Like I really do need to like make a shift with how I'm spending my time and like get some support. But like every time it's the people around me that

Shannon Mattern (50:57.27)

like help me through it every single time. It's like, have this board of directors and I was like getting so overwhelmed at the point where I'm like, I'm like, my gosh, I'm getting different advice from every single person. Everybody's telling me something different to do. I don't really know which way to turn. And then I was just like, but what are the themes here? And then like, what are they saying that is the same? And what's like,

you know, just trying to kind of figure, figure that out. And then I was like, once I kind of got to that and like, no, they're all they're all saying the same thing to me. Their tactic might be different as to the how but like, the underlying message is I've put too many walls up again.

Erica Nash (51:47.919)

Mm.

Shannon Mattern (51:49.486)

Erica Nash (51:50.976)

to your time.

Shannon Mattern (51:52.491)

to protect my time, to protect my time, to protect feeling overly responsible for other adults' decisions again. You know, they say new levels, same devils. me taking, and we talk to our web designer academy students about this all the time, like what's your responsibility as the web designer? What's your client's responsibility as the CEO and owner of their business?

Erica Nash (52:08.291)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (52:23.442)

I was taking too much responsibility for like, what can I promise as the owner of the web designer Academy as the coach? And what is your responsibility as our client or our student? And, I'm speaking at Sam Sarston's SEO search summit in

I think it's at the end of February and he sent over a video about like his sponsorship options and in it he's, and I've heard him say this before in other presentations and I just love it. He said, I can't promise you that we'll get you on the first page of Google, but I can promise that we'll fight like hell for you. And we'll do everything in our power to give like to do, you know, to fulfill our end of the deal. And like, I forget that that's.

Erica Nash (53:09.455)

Mm.

Shannon Mattern (53:21.194)

how we are at our core for our students, that it's just like so much of a given that I think that it's like, one of those things like, it's so natural and part of what we do that I like devalue it and diminish it. And then I'm like, but I have to promise that you're gonna make three times as much on your packages than you are now. And...

Erica Nash (53:24.207)

for sure.

Shannon Mattern (53:49.79)

convince you that that's possible and like just zero focus laser in there instead of like.

the comments of like, this program changed my life that we hear from our students. And then just being like, the same way that like one of my private coaching clients, April, she was like, it just feels like cheating because it's so easy. I'm like, how committed we are to your success feels like not even

Erica Nash (54:05.122)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (54:30.755)

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (54:30.794)

a thing because it just is.

And I get to remember that like, oh no, that's why I get to say like, just get in here, we can help you.

Erica Nash (54:46.189)

Yeah, and like maybe that's one of the reasons why, like I know there are many reasons why when people come to the open house, they're then many times compelled to join us. But maybe that's one of the reasons why is because they see the depth. And I would say

Shannon Mattern (55:04.616)

I'm no longer trying to protect myself on our normal life strategy call. So they're seeing like the unencumbered me, version of me, who's not like, I don't wanna like pressure them one way or another. don't wanna like, I'm just like being my normal self. Before that, I'm still like worried.

Erica Nash (55:08.983)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (55:25.391)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (55:31.966)

that I'm going to take on too much responsibility or something, or I'm going to talk you into something that you don't. It's that same old thing that keeps coming up. And so the feedback that I got was just like, remember where your responsibility lies. the person, the people on the other side are adults who can make their own decisions. The exact same advice we give to you guys when you're selling web design projects.

Erica Nash (55:39.907)

Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (56:01.127)

So yeah, funny how that works. My goodness. You just slip back into it sometimes where I'm like, I thought I took down the walls. Some of them I just moved. And I didn't take them down all the way. I just, yeah. I just put like a screen up in front of the opening to be like, there's no opening here. It just looks like there is.

Erica Nash (56:01.987)

The reason we can give that advice so well is because we fully understand it.

So easy.

Erica Nash (56:14.317)

it's just redecorated.

Erica Nash (56:23.279)

you

Erica Nash (56:27.471)

Nothing to see here. Amazing. Did anything else important happen in March?

Shannon Mattern (56:29.832)

Nothing to see here. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (56:38.804)

So yeah, I started talking about package matrix outside of web designer spaces.

Erica Nash (56:47.033)

Sorry, I just realized I said March. It was January. Who knows?

Shannon Mattern (56:49.802)

I didn't even I didn't even pick up on that. It could be March by now for all we know. Yeah, so my friend Austin from his last name just escaped me. Austin Church, I was going to say Austin cake. No, his community is a freelance cake. Austin Church, he wrote a book called Free Money. He invited me to come speak in his freelance cake community.

Erica Nash (57:04.493)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (57:17.838)

and I talked about our package matrix strategy to them. And, I went to a prosper network speed networking event and met some people and talked about it there. I spoke on a panel for someone cold pitched me and asked me to like speak on at their summit. I said yes to that because it was a really good cold pitch.

I've just had a lot of opportunities to start talking about package matrix outside of the web designer Academy space, which is awesome. And also contributed to a lot of the overwhelm. Cause I'm like, well, now what, what do I, have to have a funnel for these people and all like, just,

Erica Nash (57:56.676)

Sure.

Shannon Mattern (58:05.704)

And then I had coffee with one of our web designer Academy students who lives here in Columbus, Ohio. And while we were chatting, was like, I'm, it was so helpful to talk to her. was like, I'm trying to build the version of like this new business. I'm trying to like apply a 10 year old business's strategies to something that I don't even know.

what it's going to be. So no, it doesn't necessarily deserve a lead magnet and a funnel and a freebie and a webinar and a this and a that because it just deserves like a market research call with people who are interested. It's like so early stage, but I've been thinking of it as like, it gets the same structures that the program that has been built over 10 years gets. And I forget like,

The very first thing I did for the web designer Academy was say, Hey, you want to like do a 12 week like coaching thing in this group with five other people? And that was my very first step for that. And then I figured it out as I went. And so I'm trying to figure out what taking package matrix to service providers other than web designers looks like before it has even had the chance to like.

show me what it looks like through tiny baby steps. And so I got that feedback from people who I just talked to about what I'm experiencing. I don't even know what my questions are, but they're able to say, you said this. That's interesting. Have you considered this? And I'm just like, yeah, I didn't even see that. Thank you.

Erica Nash (59:32.655)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (01:00:01.229)

Yeah, I even just hearing you talk about like, you know, thinking about like the funnel and all the things that need to happen for like, that is a lot. So I, I that had to feel so heavy. And like, to be able to, I don't know, I love that you moved forward. And like, we're talking about it anyway, without having those pieces built. Because that I can see that that could have been like a really

Shannon Mattern (01:00:01.501)

So.

Erica Nash (01:00:30.223)

It was just a big obstacle.

Shannon Mattern (01:00:34.354)

Not an obstacle in terms of like, it was going to stop me. It's just like, I got to shove this onto the to-do list because I know how to make an op. It's like the kind of the curse of knowing how to do it and knowing what needs to be done. I'm like, I can spin that up in half a day. But how many half days are there in a month? There are. Yeah. So anyway, it was definitely like a.

Erica Nash (01:00:41.252)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (01:00:46.137)

the curse of knowledge.

Erica Nash (01:00:54.187)

You don't have half a day. You do not have that.

Shannon Mattern (01:01:04.082)

It was a month of...

Shannon Mattern (01:01:09.514)

me. It was like a pains in a way, but growth in a different way of just like

Erica Nash (01:01:14.499)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (01:01:21.93)

asking for help, trusting when like what used to work is giving you signs that maybe it's not, maybe you're getting diminishing returns, noticing when I'm like, brain's telling stories about things that like, whether they're true or not, are not going to help me create the outcomes and results that I want.

And so I'm still kind of in the midst of at the time of this recording, reflecting on a lot of those things and just making decisions on where we're going. But I'm just so grateful we have the groundwork for all of it. Because just thinking back, like we, the third space for the brand of the Web Designer Academy was so very aligned. And now with that North Star guiding us.

Erica Nash (01:02:01.081)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (01:02:14.642)

Where are we out of alignment in different parts of the business with that? Because clearly it's working because people are renewing.

Erica Nash (01:02:25.667)

Yeah, and you know what? You always ask the question of people, like, how can this be easy? Or like, where can this be easy? I think we've shown that creating third space for us is easy. And so it's so fun. It's so, like, I think both of us, like, that is why we do what we do.

Shannon Mattern (01:02:33.726)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (01:02:42.726)

It is, and it's so fun.

Shannon Mattern (01:02:52.201)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (01:02:52.311)

is like really truly to create community and those connections and those relationships. And so I don't know about you, like you're gonna have some more tasks on your plate, but I feel like creating third space outside of the program will be easy.

Shannon Mattern (01:03:11.388)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. It sounds super fun too. So.

Erica Nash (01:03:13.271)

Yeah. Yeah. And like, I don't know, just the fact that we get to follow that is super cool.

Shannon Mattern (01:03:21.884)

I know. So you get to remind me, how can this be easy? And how is this third space? And if it's not, we get to question why it gets to deserve our time and attention and our resources and our capacity and our effort.

Erica Nash (01:03:28.015)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Erica Nash (01:03:40.397)

Yeah, imagine if it's not aligned with third space, it would have to, there would have to be a big time reason for it to deserve all of those things. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (01:03:50.846)

Yeah. I think that's everything. mean, there were like 10 more things on the list that I didn't talk about, but that's just, you know, I'll talk about them in the emails that I'm writing again now or in other pieces of content that we're creating. You know, like maybe a micro podcast that might be coming out soon.

Erica Nash (01:04:06.735)

There you go.

Erica Nash (01:04:17.519)

Who knows?

Shannon Mattern (01:04:19.4)

So we've got lots of fun third spacey things planned for 2026. Yeah. So that's it. I'm good.

Erica Nash (01:04:29.803)

Amazing. What a great reflection.

Shannon Mattern (01:04:35.316)

Thank you. needed, yeah, it's like cathartic for me to like process those things and move forward. So I'm glad everybody likes to listen to it too because it gives me the space to really reflect and learn and move forward. So yeah, I think that's it for our January, 2026 income report. So we'll see everybody back here next week. All right, bye everyone.

Erica Nash (01:04:36.345)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (01:04:41.7)

Mm-hmm.

you

Erica Nash (01:05:02.755)

Bye.