#188 – Stop Starting From Scratch: The Web Designer Anthology Method with Tiffany Pichardo

Shannon Mattern (00:01.038)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. I am so excited for this episode today. It's like, I've been waiting for it. I cannot wait to introduce you to my guest, Tiffany Pichardo of Web Designer Anthology. Tiffany, welcome to the Profitable Web Designer podcast.

Tiffany (00:22.863)

Shannon, thank you so much for having me. It is actually a dream being here, being able to talk to you. I think I reached out in December and was just like, please be my friend. I'm just so excited to be here. So thank you for having me.

Shannon Mattern (00:35.022)

you

Shannon Mattern (00:40.199)

my gosh, it is truly my pleasure. And I love that this is an example of like outreach works. You just like.

emailed me and we connected and here we are. like, and it's been a delight getting to know you. We just came off of two days of getting to hang out on panel discussions for the Simply Profitable Designer Summit, hosting a live Q &A. like, this podcast needs to get here because I have so many questions for her and not enough time to ask them in all of these other places. But before I dive in, can you share more with our listeners like

about you and what is web designer anthology?

Tiffany (01:17.615)

Yes, Web Designer Anthology is a passion in the making. mean, it's taken me eight years of designing, being in the trenches, going through every single possible thing you can go through as a freelancer and as an enterprise UX designer. And all that experience has led up to what Anthology is today. Well, what is it? It is a system.

that helps designers work faster while saving their nervous system. How did this come about? Well, my nervous system crashed and I couldn't keep working the same way anymore. So in Anthology, we have the Anthology method, teaches you to work smarter, not harder. We have an AI that designs along with you and we have lots of templates and things to support you. So that's my passion, supporting other designers.

Shannon Mattern (02:15.66)

to back to the beginning and I want to hear your origin story. How did you get started in design? What was the progression of your career like? What led you to the point of the breaking point for lack of a better term? So tell me about that progression.

Tiffany (02:36.847)

Absolutely. So I started designing in 2018. I was literally just so bored while my son was napping. I was like, I'm going to busy myself with designing. I had lots of friends who needed websites. I was like, okay, I'm just going to learn as I go. And I think that is, I am a product of fake it till you make it. So I just learned by doing.

By 2020, the pandemic hit and at the same time, I was really getting frustrated with not understanding the why behind my decisions. I can make beautiful websites, but there was no strategy. And in my research, I came across UX. Well, love it first sight, me and UX. It was like the answer to all of my problems. The typical route.

that you take with UX as you graduate from a bootcamp, you go and get a big fancy, you know, software job, which I did. And when I was doing all of that, I could never leave behind web design. So though being a designer at a global corporation, I was leading design systems for the whole company. On the weekends, I was doing web design because it's my first love. So

how this all came about, obviously, corporation jobs. It's a little bit of a black hole for your time, especially a salary position. I had my second child, was working 12 hour days, Monday through Friday. If I could squeeze in web design during the weekdays, I would. If not, I was working all throughout the weekend. I'm also the main breadwinner for my family.

I just had this kind of like survival instinct. don't know. My nervous system was so shot and it got to the point where I just started fainting everywhere. Like my nervous system was done so much so that I was in Target, 4th of July. All of a sudden I was getting hot dog buns because I was going to go take it back to my family memory one day off, right? And I fainted in the bread aisle of Target.

Tiffany (05:00.623)

And I was hospitalized right after that. And I mean, they told me I couldn't leave the hospital until I could walk to the exit sign and I couldn't do it. I literally could not walk more than a couple of feet. And that is what working so hard, putting my value into time did to me. So going back to work.

It was pretty much right away. I was like, I can't do this anymore. I love design. I love web design. But this is like killing me. I need to be here for my family. Family's number one, right? My kids need their mom. So I pretty much decided right then and there, I had already been working on design systems for my corporate job. I was going to bring that into the web design world too. So

I broke down everything that I had made over the past eight years and I systematized it. I put it into templates, put it into sections. Even like the small things, my color theory, my layout formula, what I found works best for certain kinds of customers, branding matrix, customer matrix, brand archetypes. I put it all and then into a system.

The main one being the anthology method, which is a thing from product called discover, develop and deliver, bringing that to the web design world. And then the second is an AI model that has been trained on everything that, so even when I am in a flare up and I can't walk more than a couple of feet, I have an AI that is right there with me, you know, helping me design it's, you know,

I actually need a walker right now because I also have something called EDS. So like my hips are constantly popping out of joint. And so I'm using a walker. I'm 30 years old. I'm using a walker. And I think for those of us that might need a little bit more help in certain times of our life, it's really important to take the help where you can.

Tiffany (07:29.985)

and not crashing bird.

Shannon Mattern (07:33.346)

That is just an incredible story. we, so many women that I talk to have, you're the first person I've met that's fainted in the bread islet target. But I hear the same story over and over and over again about I love this and it almost killed me.

I love this and I'm so burnt out even if it wasn't, even if it never got like that far as being like a physical burnout, the mental burnout, the spark gone, the feeling of like, why am I even doing this? And I know I experienced that at the beginning of my freelance web design business where I was just like.

I wanted to quit my day job so bad. I wanted the freedom, flexibility. I didn't want to have a boss anymore. I didn't want someone telling me where to be, when, what to wear. didn't want to, like, I just, I felt, I was like, I, I'm 35 years old and I still have to ask for permission to like take time off. Like this is, this is not okay. I wanted to break free from that. And I got to the point in my web design business that I'm like, this day job feels better than how the rest of this is feeling right now.

And that's why we met, you reached out, we connected and you shared with me why you do what we, you do. And I'm like, I'm all in, I'm all in because it is, I hear the story over and over and over again, and we try to solve it in so many ways, right? People are like, well, if I just had help, but I can't afford to hire and

Now AI is, is on coming on and that's very helpful. But if you don't have systems behind AI, I'm sure all of us listening have been like me messing around with chat. GBT is taking longer than if I would have just started with my own process myself or whatever. So your passion for helping other designers is like.

Shannon Mattern (09:49.514)

I connected with that right away because yeah, it's about why would we do this? If not for it's going to, yes, we want to do what we love and live the life that we want to live. And you can do both, but you have to change how you're doing things.

Tiffany (10:10.243)

That resonates with me so much and thank you for sharing about your grappling between office work and in freelance work. I think it's definitely not unique, especially, you know, you're wearing so many different hats, you know, running your own business where you get to clock in and clock out at your corporate job. So I was once working with this amazing, amazing, amazing designer.

Shannon Mattern (10:30.635)

Mm hmm.

Tiffany (10:38.735)

I mean, who had been in the industry like 30 years. And it's really a tragic story and that's why I won't share her name or anything. But the work starting from scratch burnt her out so bad that she actually quit designing. Like she's done. And I think...

There's a couple of things to that. It wasn't just starting from scratch. It was also having to explain decisions over and over and over again. And as much as we want to present it perfectly every time, you want to be customer service minded, we talked about this in the panel, speaking to their goals and everything, eventually, if you're having to reinvent the wheel every time, it to wear on you. You're just starting to throw things out there.

It doesn't land. I think it was a lot of this could have been prevented her ending her design career if it was systematized. And I think I was right there, to be honest with you, Shannon. I was right there. I didn't know how it could go on. So I think systematizing everything, it saved me. It also saved

my love for design. So now I feel like I can like really breathe again. I have an event later in the month where I'm meeting a bunch of like women owned business owners in San Diego. If you're in San Diego, please come. It's March 28th at Liberty Station. And I don't know, it just, it's life giving now.

Shannon Mattern (12:20.493)

Yeah. Yeah, that's, mean, that's why we do this. And so I want to know when you said I sat down and I systematized everything I do, I was just, I was thinking about what was that process like for you to like watch yourself? We talked about this earlier today. You're like, design in fours. What was it like for you to like,

watch yourself make the decision and like build the design system because that is fascinating to me that you're like, I went through and I created this whole design system. I'm thinking like, if I had to do that for myself, I don't even know that I would ever finish it. So what was that process like for you to, for you to like pour your

Tiffany (13:15.085)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (13:19.009)

brain out and your systems out and your strategies out and really put this, put this together. I'm so curious.

Tiffany (13:25.389)

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think from a design standard point of view, again, like my background is in UX and there is a lot to that guidebook, but we all in our profession, know intrinsically through doing this every day, what matters to us as designers. Most of us just don't have it written down. So honestly, I brain dumped into chat GBT and let it parse it for me.

And I actually was speaking to it like, this is why design and fours. This is why I believe that this kind of customer connects to this type of brand archetype. This is why I do the long form sales page and how to remember everything. and then it was going through all of my old work, which hello, that it will keep you humble. Like my old stuff. was like, okay, well, it made us a dollar, but wow.

Shannon Mattern (14:22.797)

you

Tiffany (14:24.087)

I actually had to rebuild some of the things just to make sure that they were up to standards. but yeah, like I went in, I kept every single website, like a copy of it that I had built. and I changed the visual identity behind it, of course, but I broke it all up. So there's templates there that if I really liked a section or a certain layout, I broke it into saved assets.

that you can drag and drop into your website template or into like a website that you're working on if you just want to have an extra boost of confidence behind that decision to use it. But yeah, I mean, I think with design systems, it can look different for everyone. It's basically just making repeatable what you already love as a designer.

Shannon Mattern (15:17.739)

That's so, I love how you said that making repeatable what you already love as a designer. And I think a lot of people listening might not realize some of the things that they just do over and over and they're different designs as like a habit. And I love that you went back through your old designs and like probably noticed like, I did that same thing.

this way, here, here, and here. And it wasn't even like a conscious decision probably, I would imagine. It's like you're the design skill, the intuition. A lot of it probably was very intentional. But then just being able to see the things that were like your unique design standards and things that you bring to the project. Yeah, that sounds really fun to go through that.

So I know that you were like, I don't ever want another designer to burn out the way I did. I don't want to see someone on the precipice of ending a huge career, a 30-year-long career because of burnout and all of the reasons that we talked about. When did you decide? What was the moment that you're like, I'm building anthology?

Tiffany (16:42.767)

It was never, it was never like a moment. It's just in me. I, I always had this idea, right? That I'm going to mentor other designers. I'm going to help them. I just don't know how yet. I haven't experienced that, you know, crashing pain point that's going to make me a great mentor. And me having chronic illness was that crashing pain point.

I think that, you know, I'm the oldest of six kids. And I think just taking care of people, making sure they feel, you know, supported and cared for and guided, given all the resources that they need is like so important to me. So it was always in me, even from bootcamp days, I applied to a mentorship right out of bootcamp.

You know, it just, yeah. And so anthology is the accumulation of all these years, again, eight years now of, of learned design life, you know.

Shannon Mattern (17:56.051)

Yeah, I your presentation at the Simply Profitable Designer Summit blew my mind. Erica Nash, our client success coordinator, and I were like watching it. We're in Slack. And she was just like, we were slacking each other about your presentation. And so bonus for listeners, if you didn't attend the summit, I'm going to link Tiffany's presentation up so you can watch it and really see her like walk you through.

what this design system looks like in action. It was fascinating, but also super entertaining and engaging. We were just like, this is one of the most engaging tutorials I have ever watched in my life. was like, it was entertaining and educational. was like all of the things. So if you're listening to this and you didn't come to the summit and you didn't get to see Tiffany's presentation, I really don't want you to miss out on that. So I'm going to...

I'm going to link that up for everyone so you can go look. But one of the things that we talked about is anthology is built in Wix. And I'm so curious why Wix and what are some like myths that people believe about, like designers believe about Wix that we need to just bust once and for all.

Tiffany (19:04.953)

Yes.

Tiffany (19:23.631)

Absolutely. I think the biggest one that I hear is that Wix is for big corporations. So you see a lot of like the show at websites. They look very like showdy. You see WordPress website and that's not a bad thing. They're beautiful. WordPress looks like WordPress. Well, okay. Can you only design corporate things in Wix? No, you can make it as beautiful unique different as you want.

Shannon Mattern (19:35.468)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (19:39.102)

Yeah.

Tiffany (19:50.927)

The wonderful thing about Wix is it allows me to be as lazy as I want.

Shannon Mattern (19:58.901)

I love this so much. The less clicks, the better. Please and thank you.

Tiffany (20:04.469)

Please, I am a girl who I know that this might not resonate, but I hate coding. I hate it.

Shannon Mattern (20:14.28)

I hate coding. never learned to code. Who likes to code?

Tiffany (20:17.537)

my God. Okay. Thank you. It's literally the worst. have sat in so many coding courses that it just is awful. So I realized when I was doing, I did Becca Luna's Dayrate course and she had using show it during those those courses. I really struggled with the editor because I felt like, my gosh, like if

Shannon Mattern (20:33.717)

Yeah.

Tiffany (20:45.423)

Want a text marquee I have to go and find the code because I'm not coding that forget it I have to go find the code. I have to drop it in um If you I want an integration I have to go find it pull it in and I just felt like I'm spending so much time here Grappling for all these things that should be easy. I pressed on though. I did it for I think like six months or something Tried to make sure it work. Um, and then I was like, let me just

I'm just going to go back to Wix just to see like what kind of updates they've done. And what really changed things for me is that they had a drag and drop text marquee. I was like, what? And say, you just literally dropped it in. If you wanted a booking integration, it's right there. You want an event integration, it's right there. They honestly, you could manage.

your entire back end of your business in Wix. So not only is it a website, but it streamlines everything that you need for your business in one place. And that's something that I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think WordPress or ShowIt has that. So Wix, if you're talking about aesthetics,

It can look like anything out there. You don't have to do coding. It's all drag and drop. And they have responsive AI. So have you heard about this?

Shannon Mattern (22:20.672)

Like what? You mean I don't have to build two websites in one?

Tiffany (22:22.407)

no. Okay. So yeah. Okay. Listen to this. You only need to design for desktop. The AI automatically shrinks it to tablet intuitively, not messily, intuitively, and then shrinks it down to mobile on its own. It takes about 30 seconds.

my gosh, the time that saved me. So not only am I not grappling with code, grappling with integrations, I have an AI that's making things responsive for me. Like for me personally, who hates wasting time and hates coding, it was really like a godsend for me. I loved it.

Shannon Mattern (23:11.67)

So I'm a WordPress person just because when I came out of, well, I learned Dreamweaver in college because I don't even know, you were probably a toddler when I did that. And then WordPress came along and it was like how you feel about Wix is back then how I felt about WordPress. I'm like, my gosh, this is fantastic.

I don't have to code. There's a plugin for every little piece of functionality. I can build whatever I want. And then page editors came out and I'm like, wait, I'm like dragging page builders, dragging and dropping. I don't have to code. And that's all fantastic. And then tools like Wix came out and Squarespace came out and the WordPress people got all defensive. They were like, you know,

it's drag and drop, it's so easy. It's not then they'd like pick it apart. They'd be like, well, Wix isn't good for SEO. It does these things. Squarespace isn't good for SEO. like they would come up with all of these reasons to defend working really, really hard because they're the value was coming from I know how to do the hard thing. And

There was like for when I first started freelancing, there was like this battle of like WordPress Wix WordPress Squarespace. And to the point where like, and I still see this on designer sites today, like they're like, I'm a WordPress designer and they spend their whole website defending the decision for WordPress and trashing other platforms as if like that's the way to sell the client on their service.

And so I say all of this to say there is like this pervasive myth in the web designer space. And people come to me with this all the time where they're like, Shannon, I'd really love to join the web designer Academy because you help people with pricing, but I can't charge that much because I don't do WordPress. And I'm just like, can we just stop right now? Can we just this?

Shannon Mattern (25:33.739)

because they're like, I'm a Squarespace designer. I'm a Wix designer. I'm a show at designer. I can't charge as much as much as people who do WordPress. And I'm like, what are you talking about? can everyone on this podcast has heard my soapbox on that a thousand times. I would love to hear your soapbox on that because you dropped some gold in your presentation today, but I want to like, let me have it.

Give it all to me.

Tiffany (26:03.695)

Yeah, yeah, I am so passionate about this. I think it is the difference between you thinking of your website as a commodity rather than a service. Where you shine is in strategy, right? That means that only you can do what you can do. You're putting your own brain into the website, right? Who cares how it was built, right?

If the train analogy earlier, designers who have been working on it as a train mechanic on a train, what design systems and AI gives you is, my gosh, you just got promoted to train conductor and you have 150 employees. Who cares about the train? If you are giving your clients results because of the genius brain that lives in your head,

Like that is what you need to be caring about. so, you know, all of these editors, they have spots where they really shine. Showit has a beautiful sites. Tonic, Becca Luna, Oregon Lane, North Folk, beautiful designers all show it. Wix designers as well, like in WordPress too, like that has really nothing to do with it.

It just doesn't. And honestly, I have worked again, my background in UX enterprise. I've worked with a lot of engineers and I'm telling you, I'm working with engineers that have built global SaaS platforms that have, they're like the top of their industry. My boss was a guy from MIT, like geniuses, none of them coded.

Shannon Mattern (28:02.177)

Yeah.

Tiffany (28:02.649)

Not one. They used a system in place, the dragging drop code. So if the top performing products of our age are not coded, why are you still clinging on to feeling like your value is coming from actually manually coding everything or, you know, hanging onto your editor? It really

It really just doesn't matter that much. Where are you putting your value?

Shannon Mattern (28:35.254)

Yeah.

Yeah. And I don't think, I don't know many people even manually coding, but what I do know about WordPress and Elementor, that's the builder that I, all of my stuff's built on. And I know a lot of people use Divi. There's just a lot of different ones. The one that I just happened to choose is Elementor. There's like 17 clicks to like get to, and I know the clicks, like the back of my hand. I know them. I don't have to think about them. was like driving a car.

Like to my favorite coffee shop and back, I don't have to think about it. I know how to get there. Like no thought required, but it takes time and it would be a lot faster if I could just like describe the thing and have it be spun up for me. Like you show in, in the video from the presentation and then like give design direction instead of me, I'm not coding anything.

but I'm clicking, clicking, clicking, like swap coding for clicking. And it's still, it's the same. It's the same thought. It's like, because my value comes because I know how to spin up a WordPress site, hosting plugins, like do all of this stuff. I know where to go in WordPress to like set all of this stuff. Like, no, that's not at all where my value comes. And we have to, not even because AI is.

Tiffany (29:40.399)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (30:02.992)

is here. This we've been talking about this since before AI got here. But now AI is going to be that person before it was AI. It was like, well, how can I charge that much when people in the Philippines who have a lower cost of living can charge less than me? Or people in India, like, we can't base our value on the doing it's the strategy. It's the client experience. It's the delivery. It's all of that stuff. So

Why not pick the platform that's gonna make your job easy so that you can spend less time and go have fun and live life? That's why we don't wanna have bosses.

Tiffany (30:48.623)

Mic drop. Yeah, I agree. And I bet you anything that in a couple of years, we're not even going to be like talking about editors. It will be which AI are you using? You know, like I demonstrated in my presentation, working with Wix Harmony. I really brought you through that because I know I avoided looking at Wix Harmony is Wix's AI website builder.

Shannon Mattern (30:50.86)

you

Shannon Mattern (30:58.976)

No.

Shannon Mattern (31:03.137)

Yeah.

Tiffany (31:17.869)

I avoided looking at any AI website builder for a year because I was honestly terrified by it. I mean, I had coworkers that were like, we're not going to have a job in the next couple of years. that's when a lot of misinformation was out and what I demonstrated was you can build something really fast. like Wix editor for right now, it's a really, really fast drag and drop integrations.

Shannon Mattern (31:34.529)

Yeah.

Tiffany (31:46.991)

everything that you need in one spot. Well, you know, AI is doing that for me too. I built that website and that presentation in like an hour and it was like, you know, it was nice. It's a good website. Um, but it had zero strategy behind it. Like I honestly would have to go in there and put my brain into every step of that website to make it actually worth something to a customer.

Shannon Mattern (31:55.382)

Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (32:17.059)

I have another person in my life who, you know, they're really tight on money. They're starting a business and they're going to use an AI website builder for their business. I can't talk them out of it because, you know, that's just how it is if they've already got their mind set on it. But what I was trying to tell them and what I'll tell you now is

Shannon Mattern (32:33.898)

Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (32:43.007)

The goal is not to have something that looks pretty. The goal is to have something that meets your goals. whether that's booking consultations or just getting people through the funnel, an AI website builder can't do that for you just yet.

Shannon Mattern (33:00.012)

Yeah, my experience when I was playing around, well, first, when I saw Wix's Super Bowl commercial, I was like, I better get in here and see what this is because I'm about to hear from every single person in the web designer academy and in our community that they're going to be like, did you see this? They're advertising this now we're going to be replaced. And my initial impression was, wow, this AI builder.

like picked the right template for me to start with. You know, because I think about like back in, know, another, another thing that web designers have got, like I would always try to like have them get over is they're like, well, I can't like buy a template and then like sell that to my client as custom design. And I'm like, why not?

Tiffany (33:33.391)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (33:54.59)

like you still have to do something to the template that you installed. Has anybody ever installed a template and not had to maybe work harder to make it work than just designing from scratch? so that's what I saw when I just like, didn't put any kind of like comprehensive prompt into it, which your clients are going to

maybe ask AI what to put in their AI site and still not be like doing the strategic, nuanced, discerning thinking that you are. And so there's still so much opportunity for us. just have to, we just have to, our identity needs to shift and it's always needed to shift, but now more than ever, it needs to shift.

Tiffany (34:52.507)

You stole the words right out of my mouth. Like our value needs to come from the strategy and not from like the output, if that makes sense. yeah, how we get there doesn't matter. It's are we actually helping people with what we're doing?

Shannon Mattern (35:01.76)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Shannon Mattern (35:12.81)

Yeah, so when we were talking, like when we first met and we were talking about, I'm like, tell me more about anthology. And then I was like, is it templates? And then you're like, no, it's not templates. So there are assets, but like for the person who's like, is it templates? Like how would you answer that question for them?

Tiffany (35:25.091)

Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (35:36.937)

So yeah, of course. Well, there's templates in there. So don't get me wrong. Like we have 20 website templates in there right now, which is quite an amount. Again, it's my life's work in there with sections that make the templates really flexible. I think where the value really comes through is the anthology method. So it's the triple diamond. is discovery, develop and deliver. It really helps you walk through the process that you feel.

Shannon Mattern (35:40.853)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (35:57.419)

Yeah.

Tiffany (36:05.707)

empowered in every part of your design work. You know, because maybe you are a person who maybe does a website in a week or maybe does a day rate or what have you. It doesn't matter. But you don't feel you feel like you're scrambling every time you haven't maybe asked for the market research. You don't really understand maybe the user persona. You know, these these things that I learned in the product life that

Shannon Mattern (36:23.775)

Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (36:35.785)

really help when you're designing, that leads you through it. Now, the last phase, obviously, is developing the website, but delivering. What does that mean? So that doesn't mean we hand the website over. Good luck to you. It is that aftercare. It is making sure that the website is actually performing and doing what you want it to and then iterating the whole

process should feel iterative. Now, does that mean that I would go and charge the same price as someone who is delivering just a website and nothing else without that strategy behind it? No, I'm going to charge a heck of a lot more because again, I am selling a strategy, a decision making system. I'm not just delivering you a website.

so that's the anthology method. the other thing that we have in anthology is an AI called the librarian that designs alongside with you. It is amazing because I basically going through, all of my design standards from the past eight years, I put it into the AI it's fully trained and,

And it designs alongside with you so you can ask it questions. Okay, like what fonts are best for a luxury brand? And it will tell you, yada, yada, yada, play fair display and Montserrat or whatever. then if you are not wanting to switch over to Wix just yet, you can upload a photo, like a full screenshot of what you're working on, and it will give you design feedback.

So it's a designer that works right alongside you. It's basically me, but in like a chat form.

Shannon Mattern (38:39.783)

I love it. for someone who joins anthology, can you tell me like, walk me through what my experience is going to be like? I'm like, I need this. I need design systems. I need someone to have thought of all of these things for me, who's a UX designer, who's dumped her whole entire brain into not only the visuals that I can start with, but then the

librarian who's going to guide me through everything. What's it like when I get in the door? Where am I going to start?

Tiffany (39:17.999)

So, okay, say you just got a client for a pizza restaurant, right? You would go into the anthology method and you would say, okay, so I know that before I get started, I really need to have an understanding of the user persona. If they don't already have like a user persona or a proto persona,

That means that you need to understand the goals, the pain points of the user. You also need to understand the business goals. So that first diamond called discovery is going to be really important for you to help deliver. So it's going to walk you through that period. Okay. You have all that information. Amazing. It's the day of, you know, you starting your designs, you start to develop, right? You're not going to just open the editor and start moving things around.

No, no, no, no. You are going to open up a template, something that you feel works well with maybe the visual identity, because like all my templates, they have animation from stuff. So something that works with the visual identity of a pizza restaurant, maybe already has integrations for restaurants because they have those two in Wix. And then you open it up, you start fiddling around with it, you add the visual identity.

You add, you know, extra sections that meet your criteria for, you know, how to meet your user goals, right? And you have your proto persona right here. You understand the competitive landscape. You feel empowered. You're not scrambling. You have your template. You're not working from scratch. Your cognitive load is like here instead of here, right? And then you go to deliver it and you actually get to watch it grow.

So it's going to take time. These things take time, right? But within a year of using anthology, you're going to feel so empowered as a designer. All the pizza restaurants in town are going to be so freaking busy because you have just empowered the whole business to serve their customers in a more satisfying way. So does that make sense?

Shannon Mattern (41:43.294)

It really does. it feels like I've worked with thousands of women web designers over the past 10 years. And I just think of we put it all on us. It's all on our shoulders. It's all on me. I have to know everything. I have to figure everything out on my own. And

we take on a lot of responsibility. I think one of the things that really resonated about what you've built, it's unlike anything else I've ever seen out there, is that you're like, let me carry this for you. This part that like you don't need to carry.

And let me give you permission. That was the other thing. You're like, let me give you permission to set it down. Because I know right now you might not feel like you can set it down or that it's safe to set it down. And you're like, here I am. Anthology is your permission to set down that heavy load that you're carrying and also permission to charge really, really well.

for the work that you're doing. And that's what we're all about here at the Profitable Web Designer, profitable, sustainable, fulfilling businesses.

Tiffany (43:13.027)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (43:14.355)

And I teach systems processes for sales boundaries, but we don't teach design systems or like things that like make like, teach build once reuse it. I teach those things, but like, I don't have a library where I've already done it for you so that you don't have to do it. I'm teaching, I'm like, build it for yourself, for your future self. Tiffany's like,

I built it for you. I built it for you and I'm beside you while you're building it and we're making it exponentially faster. So that's what really just really stood out to me is that it's not just not to minimize it because it not just designs like that part is incredible.

Tiffany (43:45.166)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (44:09.599)

But what it allows you to do is what the responsibility like your shoulders are going to be like not up by your ears anymore.

Tiffany (44:19.683)

And my question is, like, what would this free you up to do? Like if you're not sitting there and struggling and scrambling through every single design, what does that mean for you? Like, yeah, it's going to ease up the tension in your life, make your nervous system happier, right? But what is that going to free you up to? Are you going to grow in your career in another way? Are you going to learn AI? Are you going to expand an SEO? Cause I, I'm not much in the SEO world.

Shannon Mattern (44:23.029)

Yeah.

Tiffany (44:48.015)

But now there's a new term, I think it starts with an A. There's also designing for AI bots now. I mean, these are all things that, like our industry is growing. And so this is giving you permission, yes, to set it down. I've given you eight years of design, so you can flourish. What does that mean for you next?

Shannon Mattern (44:51.499)

AEO, yeah.

Shannon Mattern (44:58.677)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (45:16.917)

Yeah. And just maybe going on vacation without your laptop, that would be lovely too.

Tiffany (45:24.687)

I know. Literally, I think I have worked every weekend before I really got sick for the past five years. You know, I shared, think in my presentation that I took my laptop on vacation with my family up to the mountains. There was a fire risk.

Shannon Mattern (45:35.956)

Yeah.

Tiffany (45:52.367)

because I live in California, there's always a fire risk, and they shut down electricity for the entire city. So I was literally working on a hotspot in my car, going, I think I again worked like 20 hours that weekend, it was absolutely insane. And I didn't spend time with my family. I was absolutely stressed out because I'm working off a hotspot in my car all weekend. And...

Yes, I delivered on the website. Yes, it was great. Yes, actually got them on the news the next month, which is amazing. But personally for me, I was like, I never want to do that ever again. And so I didn't. I think that was another breaking point. Like one, yeah, like the hospitalization too is I'm I never want to miss out on quality time with my kids and my husband like ever again, you know.

Shannon Mattern (46:28.821)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (46:39.883)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (46:46.835)

Yeah. I have two more questions for you. And then we are going to wrap this up because I could talk to you for hours because we've vibed so much on all of this. And I've had similar experiences. And then you get to the end of it and you're like, what am I doing? What am I doing?

Tiffany (47:09.711)

you

Shannon Mattern (47:09.757)

I asked this question to everybody that comes on the podcast and it's what belief about yourself did you have to change to get where you are today?

Tiffany (47:21.655)

That question can make me cry. I wish.

I talk about this with ease now, but I wish you could have been there with me when I was working so hard, missing out on time with my family, wishing so bad I could just lighten things up, but I couldn't because my identity was in it. And it literally had to be taken away from me and my identity challenged.

in order to finally realize my identity doesn't come from that at all. It comes from...

me, you know who I am intrinsically and You know what I like I'm not even what I produce but how much do I love what I'm doing I had to fall in love again But I wish you could have been there with me like some it just full vulnerability So many times where I am fighting off depression fighting off panic attacks

because I want so badly to everyone for everyone to be so proud of me because I've worked so stinking hard and I've made so much money and I've grown my business and I'm just I was literally the unhappiest I've ever been was when I was awarded as a top 10 percent performer of my company and that is like huge. This is not a small company. It is a big company.

Tiffany (49:00.641)

I was so unhappy because I was literally chained to them and to my work. And really understanding who I am, slowing down for once, giving myself permission just to be was the switch that needed to happen for anthology really to happen.

Shannon Mattern (49:26.953)

Wow. That was so powerful. Thank you for sharing that with us because I think there are so many people out there that can relate to, you know, the harder I work, the more accepted I will be. And it's pervasive and it's not, it's not going to lead you anywhere. Good. So I'm so glad you built Anthology.

I know you have a special offer for our listeners. Can you share more about what that is, where they can go, all of the things to really kind of like get this movement underway to stop working so hard and working our lives away.

Tiffany (49:57.667)

Yes.

Tiffany (50:12.302)

Nice.

Yeah, if you want to start reclaiming your life, getting it back, you can go to WebDesignerAnthology.com for you special listeners. I'm giving you a month free. So you can really just get in there and just start running your life a little bit more relaxed and feeling confident in what you're producing. really there's a wonderful community in there and where we all are just going to support each other, grow together.

you know, all these things, they're gonna grow and evolve with like the feedback of you. So I just want to say thank you and I'm really excited to meet you.

Shannon Mattern (50:57.323)

So good. And is there a coupon code that you have for everybody or a special link? I want to make sure we get it in the recording and in the show notes. So, so yeah.

Tiffany (51:06.039)

Yeah.

Yes. So the link is a web designer anthology.com forward slash podcast. The coupon code is Shannon. So make sure to use the code Shannon at checkout.

Shannon Mattern (51:23.883)

Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. It's truly been a delight getting to know you. And I, you know, I love meeting people like you who have such a deep passion for helping other people not go through the pain that you went through. And so just thank you so much for everything you're doing for vulnerability sharing with everybody.

I will link up webdesigneranthology.com forward slash podcast in the show notes use coupon code Shannon. If you swipe up on this episode, it'll be there. can just tap and go. Tiffany, thank you. It's been such a pleasure.

Tiffany (52:06.957)

Yeah, Shannon, you're the best of the best and it's been an honor getting to know you. Thank you so much. I'm truly humbled by being here. Thank you.