Revenue Reset Part 1: Turning Mindtrash Into Gold

Shannon Mattern (00:02.578)

Hey there, welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. So as I am recording this intro to this week's episode, I am actually preparing to go down to Destin, Florida for the next five days to do a in-person retreat with our Web Designer Academy Next Level students. Those are our advanced students who have either been through our first, like at least one year of our Web Designer Academy program, or who are coming in already, like already, you know, making six figures in their web design business and wanting to grow from there. And we, this is the second year that we are hosting this in-person retreat. And so, you know, I'm sitting here thinking about the women that I'm gonna be spending the next five days with and like where they were when they found us, when they came to work with us. Some of them came to work with us like in the very, very beginning days, like the 2016, 2017 days of the Web Designer Academy. It was just an online course. And some of them have come to work with us this year.

Some of them joined like one year ago, two years ago, and they're all at different places in their business. And it's just so fascinating to like look back at where they were when they started, what they were struggling with, how much they've transformed. And at this in-person retreat, it's like they're creating their next level goals, their bigger goals. And so, I was sitting here thinking about, you know, where I like I was just like, Oh my gosh, they have come so far. I have come so far. The people that come to work with us have come so far. But also, I know that so many of you are at the very beginning of your journey. And I was at the beginning of my journey. You know, we all started at the beginning of our journey. And so I was really reflecting.

Shannon Mattern (02:23.526)

um recently on like what that was like and the things that i just believed to be true and facts and that like i just didn't even consider could be thought of a different way or could be done a different way and how just kind of locked in to um my way of thinking that

was locked into. Like I just didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't know it could be any different. And it's fascinating because as I'm thinking about like what do I want to get out of these next five days at this retreat, I noticed that I've been locked in to a certain way of thinking again that I get to release and let go of in order to get

to the next place on my journey. And it's a whole different way of thinking than I was thinking in the beginning, but I'm also seeing how like this line of thinking is keeping me stuck. And so I will absolutely share more with you about those lessons that I'm learning and all of those things when I get back from the retreat and when I start to really like process that. But today,

I have a very special episode for you. I have a series of episodes planned for you that really are taking me back to the beginning of my journey and the things that I thought to be true and the things that I was like conditioned to believe as a web designer and a woman web designer and a service provider and a business owner and all of those things.

and really deconstructing of those things that I had to do in order to create the life and the freedom and the financial freedom that I wanted to create. So over the next five episodes of the Profitable Web Designer podcast, I am giving you the replays of the Revenue Reset Challenge.

Shannon Mattern (04:38.21)

that I recently hosted for our email list subscribers back in September of 2023, because it was a truly transformational challenge for the people that attended live and watched the replays and actually took the time to do the exercises in each of the trainings. So I'm putting those replays on the podcast for you.

Um, edited, edited down a little bit. So it's just the information that you need. And I want to invite you to take the time to actually go through the exercises that I'm going to be talking about in each, uh, in each episode. I want you to, um, give yourself the opportunity to experience the transformation of going how you from like, how you, how you might think. Things have to work or how you might think things are.

to really transforming your beliefs about what's possible for you and all of those things related to being a freelance web designer. Because I was thinking about this, especially as women, but as service providers and former employees and all of this stuff, we are conditioned to be of service, to take care of others, to take care of customers and clients.

We're conditioned to, you know, that like our time is like we get paid by the hour. We're worth only so much per hour, only worth how long we've been doing it. Or, you know, that our worth is all about us and our experience and what someone else tells us this role is worth or this job is worth. And so when you take those things that like we've been conditioned really to believe in this society.

and combine them with being a business owner, what ends up happening is you get someone who is like massively undercharging and over delivering and burnt out and it's completely unsustainable. And I say that because I lived to that. That was like my lived experience. I'm like, all of the things that I've learned about how to like operate in this world are incompatible with being a business owner. And

Shannon Mattern (07:04.406)

I had to like unwind that and reset that and deconstruct that. And so that's why I hosted the revenue reset challenge to really walk you through that process of figuring out like, what are your beliefs about what you're capable of? Do you want to keep those? Are they creating the results that you want? If they are creating the results that you want, awesome. How can we do more of that? If they're not creating the results that you want?

awesome, how can we shift what we think about and how we believe to create the results that we want? How might our potential clients be thinking and how can we really like guide them to think in ways that serve them instead of kind of being enrolled in thinking that doesn't serve them and like believing their thoughts that don't serve them and really like speaking to

what they really want instead of what they might be afraid of. And then finally, kind of taking all of that into action and like putting it into action. So over the next five episodes, five weeks of the show, I'm going to walk you step by step through everything I did in the revenue reset challenge. So I invite you to, you know, you're probably listening while you're doing other things, which is why I love podcasting so much. Like it's basically the only way I consume content online.

Um, you're probably doing something else while you're listening to this, but I invite you, like, when you have a quiet moment to just get out a pen and piece of paper and take action on the things that I'm talking about in every episode over the next five weeks. And I would love to hear from you about what you discovered about yourself, any epiphanies or aha moments or breakthroughs that you had, um, on your way to

truly transforming what you believe to be true about what is possible for you. So without further ado, this is the first episode in the Revenue Reset Challenge series all about identifying your mind trash.

Shannon Mattern (00:09.082)

Okay, so the first thing we need to know when we're talking about like having a revenue reset is where are we now? Where are we now? Where do we want to be going? And what are our thoughts about that? Right? So if you have ever taken any of my

I always talk about minimum baseline revenue. I talk about it on the Profitable Web Designer podcast. I talk about it all over the place. And minimum base, this is where, when I talk about pricing, I'm like, you get to charge sustainably for you. We're all about creating a profitable, sustainable web design business. And when I say sustainable, I'm talking about time, I'm talking about capacity.

But I'm also talking about like, you are charging the amount of money that you need to live your life because that's why we do this. Unless you're a charity and I'm sure you're not at the revenue reset challenge if you just want to build websites for people for free for fun. So you get to look at what do I need to live? To live comfortably, sustainably?

What does that look like in my life? And my pricing gets to take that into consideration and reflect that. It's not what most people think focusing first on like, oh, how much can I charge for this? And then I'll do that in volume to make the money I wanna make in my life. It's how much do I wanna make in my life? And then I reverse engineer my pricing from there.

The first question is how much money does your web design business currently make each month on average, right? You might have some ebbs and flows in your revenue just depending on like when you're booking clients, but like on average, how much does your business make each month? And if you don't know those numbers, like off the top of your head, just notice that, just notice that and ask yourself,

Shannon Mattern (02:31.682)

Hmm, why don't I know that? Like maybe it's just because you haven't looked. Maybe you don't wanna look. You wanna notice if you don't know the answer to that, why you don't know the answer to that. Because those are also like little pieces of mind trash that we get to turn into gold. We turn your mind trash into gold around here. Like we love finding it, we love excavating it because it's so valuable.

Shannon Mattern (03:00.862)

And then how much revenue does your business need to make each month in order to pay yourself what you wanna make? So to cover your living expenses and your obligations, everybody is different. We don't do vanity metrics like five-figure websites and six-figure web design business around here. You might, that might be.

where you want to go, that might be your minimum baseline, but everybody is different. Where I live in Alexandria, Ohio, the cost of living here is like very reasonable versus some of our students who live in LA or New York, like a mortgage payment for them is double for half the size of a house than here, right? So I want you to look at you.

and your personal situation and you might be a single parent, you might have a partner, you might be the sole provider, you might have a partner that contributes financially. These are the things to look at and your unique revenue needs are completely individual. So that's why...

I think it's so important to look at that. And it's so important to take that into account when it comes to your pricing. Because what we teach in the Web Designer Academy is that minimum baseline revenue is our first goal. That's what we work you up towards. So minimum baseline revenue, that first part of it is how much do you wanna pay yourself every month? What do you want that paycheck to be? Or maybe you wanna pay yourself twice a month. And what do you want that to be? Two payments of 2,500.

Maybe you only need 1500, maybe you need 5000 twice a month. Everybody's different, okay? Second part piece of that is how much do you need to cover business expenses? You have business expenses. You pay for hosting, you pay for tools, you pay for training. Maybe you subcontract or have a team. Maybe you're not quite there yet, that's fine. Mentorship, courses, all of those things.

Shannon Mattern (05:25.282)

How do you, how much do you need to cover those things? What are you spending on your business every single month to run it? Like if you use a onboarding tool like Dubsado or HoneyBook or one of the bajillion million ones, if you're paying for other tools, like what are, how much are you spending every month on business expenses, plug-in subscriptions, stuff like that.

So you can just kind of guess that. And then here in the United States, and I am sorry for those of you who are in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Canada, I don't know. I'm not like an expert in tax law. I'm not an expert in United States tax law. This is not tax or legal advice, disclaimer. I always say that when I talk about this part, this is not tax advice.

However, what I do in my business is I add on 20 to 25% of how much I wanna pay myself each month. So for easy math, if I wanna pay myself $4,000 a month, 25% of 4,000 is 1,000. So I want to put $1,000 in the...

Shannon Mattern (06:51.49)

the line for taxes.

Shannon Mattern (06:56.266)

I cannot tell you how to figure that out in any other country, but whatever percentage you would pay of your income, you want to add that to this formula, right? So it's not that I want to take home 4,000 and then I'm going to deduct 1,000 and only have 3,000 after I pay taxes. It's that I want to take home 4,000, so I want to add in another 1,000, so I want to make 5,000 so I can keep 4,000.

You have three line items. How much do you wanna pay yourself every month? How much do you need in your business to cover those expenses? And how much do you need to set aside for taxes? And then add those things up. And what is the total? And we call that your minimum baseline revenue.

And then what is the gap between what your web design business is currently making and your minimum baseline revenue? So let's say that you're currently making 2,500 a month and you added those three numbers up and I'm just doing like easy math again. Say you added those three numbers up and it was like 7,500 a month. What's the gap? $5,000.

Right? Or say you're currently making $5,000 a month and your minimum baseline is 7,500, the gap's 2,500. Right? So everyone's going to have a unique situation. And it is so important to know these numbers. It's just, your business is so unique to you. Your business doesn't look like everyone else's. You don't offer the same services as everyone else. You don't work with the same clients as everyone else. You are unique.

your business is unique, your needs are unique. And when you try to fit yourself into other people's molds, that's where we get in trouble. We think we should be different. We think we should stretch farther than we're ready to stretch. We don't do one size fits all around here. We do what fits you and your life and your goals and your business. So what is the gap for you?

Shannon Mattern (09:13.41)

And then the next question to take a look at, and remember, this is the MindTrash makeover, MindTrash makeover day of the challenge. So we're gonna get into all your thoughts about this later, all your thoughts about these numbers later. At your current pricing, how many more clients do you need to book each month to close the gap?

How many more clients at your current pricing do you need to book each month to close the gap?

And then I'm gonna ask you the question that is designed to bring up all your mind trash so we can turn your mind trash into gold. This is my favorite part. And I'm gonna kind of set the stage for how we think of mind trash around here because mind trash is not a bad thing at all. The more mind trash you can find and get coaching on,

that is what's going to shift everything in your business. You are not supposed to come into this challenge and be like, oh, I get an A plus. I have no mind trash, I have no trashy thoughts. I check, check. Like, I'm good everywhere. Moving on, I get a gold star pot on the back. If that is you, amazing. Like, what I want you to notice is what are all your golden thoughts that you have?

that you are like, let's notice those, right? And maybe you don't have as much mind trash to make over. Some of you are gonna have a lot, some of you are gonna not have too much, but we all get to share thoughts. If you have really golden thoughts about things, you get to share that with everybody else. Chantel says,

Shannon Mattern (11:12.77)

to charge my minimum baseline price makes me want to barf. I'm so sorry that like that's exactly what I wanted to have happen with this challenge is for you to identify that. I don't want you to feel nauseous, but this is what we get to work through in order for you to get really on the path to doing that. So thank you for sharing that feeling.

Shannon Mattern (11:45.319)

So, this leads me to the final question of day one. Imagine that I told you right now, you have to change your price to at least your minimum baseline revenue for your web design packages.

If I was like, day one of the challenge, you can never come back ever. You can't, you have to delete the podcast. You got to remove yourself from my email list. Like, unless you, I don't know how else, I don't know how else I can like, you know, make you do it. I'm gonna jump through the computer and make you do it. Imagine I told you right now that you have to change your price to at least your minimum baseline revenue.

Would you do it? Why or why not? What are all the thoughts running through your mind? What do you think, believe about charging that price? How does it make you feel? I want you to do, sorry about the grossness of this, but we call it a word vomit in the web designer academy. When someone is just like, here's all the things I think, and I'm not even sure if just, what are all the things that come up for you?

if I said you have to like leave here right now and go change your price.

because a lot of times, I don't wanna say 100% of the time, but I could say like 98.9% of the time, this is the stuff that's keeping you from making the kind of money you wanna make. Not your messaging, not your website, not whatever, it's this type of stuff.

Shannon Mattern (13:26.114)

So Kelly said, I think I would starve. Also, how can I deliver that value? My packages are always a work in progress. I want you to notice those thoughts, Kelly, because we are gonna make those thoughts over tomorrow. So you have a belief that like, it's not worth it. How can I deliver that value?

So notice where you're placing the responsibility for the outcome. Do you have to?

I'm getting into tomorrow, so I'm gonna hold that thought. Just notice these thoughts, this is the gold. We're gonna make these over tomorrow. So definitely write those down that you would starve. Why? Because no one would have like, you'd never book another project. How can I deliver that value? Sometimes when we ask questions, I just want to point this out when we're talking about mind. What you're really saying is, I can't deliver the value.

or I don't think I can deliver that value. It's a belief, right? So we wanna like notice that belief and that my packages always feel like they're a work in progress. So there's something going on with like, I'm not ready, it's not good enough, things like that. So I'm picking this gap, this is gross. I don't know why today is so gross, but I'm like picking this gap today, we'll put a bandaid on it tomorrow. I promise I will not leave you hanging with.

your mind trash thoughts. Chantelle says, I totally want to, but it's terrifying because I'm scared I'll get no clients coming in. I am a new designer, so I feel like I can't charge those prices until I have more years under my belt. I feel like I would need to offer more of my packages. I know this is what I need in order to feel mentally better and feel my worth is valued. So don't worry, Chantelle, I'm not gonna make you go do it tomorrow.

Shannon Mattern (15:32.919)

I just want to know really where your mind is at. What you just said is literally everything, almost every person I've ever worked with thinks when they're just starting out or like when they're in those early days of trying to figure out their pricing. So I don't know if it makes you feel any better that you are so totally normal and that we have made over.

those that mind trash with many, many web designers who then go on to be like, Oh my gosh, it's so funny that I thought I could never charge that much. But it's a process. You're not going to go from there to just changing your price and believing it. If you try to, you will just like probably close up your laptop and like stop being a web designer. We don't want to stretch you too far past your comfort zone. So just

I don't want you to think that like on Friday, I'm gonna be like, okay, change your price to your minimum baseline. If you're ready, amazing. Like I'll fully support that, but we're gonna baby step you to at least believing it's possible. Gabrielle says, I work with a number of charities and really small businesses. So I have some of those feelings like they can't afford to pay more. And Liz says, yes, especially with fellow creative types and artists. Yeah.

So it's just important to notice all of those thoughts.

Shannon Mattern (17:06.374)

And also I will say, you get to design your business how you want intentionally, okay? So there's that piece of revenue reset too. It's not always about raising your prices. We have two sides of the equation, right? Time and money. So how can, like if you decide very intentionally from a non-mine trashy place,

that the type of clientele you want to serve benefits from you keeping your price at a certain place and in your soul at your core, you're like, and I know the value of this is worth a million times more.

and I've done the work to know that and I'm choosing to keep the price here and I'm gonna change things to like make it so that I can do the work faster or whatever it is so that it's still profitable and sustainable for you. That's okay too. So I just want revenue resets not always about like how high can we get our prices? There's two sides to the equation.

And there's so many places where your web design business is leaking time and money that we can patch up to reset your revenue without you having to change your price to your minimum baseline for all of your packages and all your clients. But I want you to do the thought experiment because this is the type of thing that I want you, we need to come up,

Shannon Mattern (18:53.23)

to think about what you truly think about charging that much, whatever, that much is to you. And so we can work through the challenge. Heather says, I'm tired of neglecting my kids to make barely any money, and I'm ready to stay out of my client's wallets. My mind trashes, I am scared of being questioned about bills and not being valuable to the client. Yeah.

That is also very, very common mind trash. What are they gonna say? I'm afraid I'm gonna blindside them. What if, with what happened with Z, they're like, that's how much you charged me to change the percentage on my website. And I'm not saying that was that person's tone at all, but sometimes we read that tone and we're like, oh shoot, they're mad at me, right? And it's, you know.

And then we're like, oh, I can't charge for that. At least that's how I would react back in the day. When I was new and I'm like, oh, that was so small. Like I shouldn't charge for that. But like there was time involved in that. Even if the change itself is simple, it's like I had to read the email. I had to plan time to do it. I had to do it. I had to communicate with the client. I had to do all of these things. My time is valuable. It's worth something. And I get to communicate.

to my clients what the expectations are, what the boundaries are, and all of those things. Okay, so day one, I basically just made you get the trash can out of your kitchen and like dump it on the floor and like make a big pile of mine trash. Tomorrow we're going to start cleaning it up. Okay, so I want you to just take some time and really think about it, really answer those questions.

Really do that math and tomorrow we'll do some coaching on some of this mind trash. And we're going to start like taking some of those heavy feelings off and shifting those beliefs and really deconstructing them so that you can start to take action and stop.

Shannon Mattern (21:11.23)

You know, there's lots of different ways this mind trash holds you back. I will show you how that mind trash is holding you back and we will start to deconstruct it and make it over.