#194 – The Daily Habit For Building a Full Web Design Client Pipeline with Julia Taylor

Shannon Mattern (00:01.272)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. Today I am joined by my friend Julia Taylor, who's the founder and CEO of Geek Pack. And I'm so excited to have you here, Julia. Thank you so much for being here.

Julia Taylor (00:17.468)

Thank you. I am equally as excited to chat.

Shannon Mattern (00:20.952)

So we were catching up, chit chatting before I hit record. And I'm like, I just got to go ahead and hit record because we're starting too good of conversations to not have them captured. right before I hit record, said, Julia, the last time you were on the show was January of 2023, like a whole century ago in internet times. And so.

I'd love to just dive into what's different since the last time we talked, but very briefly, before we get into all of that, can you share with our listeners more about you and Geek Pack and what it is that you do?

Julia Taylor (01:06.352)

Yeah, absolutely. And when you said three years ago, I was thinking it was maybe a year, year and a half, but you're right. In internet times, the whole world has changed since then, especially online business. So thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure and a joy to come and chat with you and your audience. So my company, Geek Pack, we have gone through lots of pivots and changes. We started back in 2018.

Shannon Mattern (01:13.166)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (01:36.358)

teaching women to code and to build websites from scratch and to really be techie and geekie, hence the name. And since then with AI, which we'll chat a little bit about because that's been part of our pivot, we're leaning into, honestly, we're just trying a lot of things. We're adapting, we're trying to like, who are we talking to and how are we dealing with AI and how are we using it, but yet still being

human and build a community and in-person events is the thing that we're doubling down on. I say doubling down on, we're starting this year and we'll continue to do more of.

Shannon Mattern (02:17.006)

I am glad to hear that I'm not the only one experimenting and trying different things and kind of seeing this shift and not quite exactly sure what to, where it's going to land or what to put my finger on. But I think, one of the things that we always talk about at the web designer academy is like blaze your own trail. Right. And so it's like, wow.

We could sit back and wait for someone to tell us, here's what's trending, here's what's working, here's what's this. That's what I've always loved about you and what you do too, is you're like, we're gonna be the leaders and we're gonna be the wayfinders. But we're not just going to do it from up here on our guru status. We're like this community coming together to really co-create.

what this vision's going to be. And so I've just always appreciated the example that you all set over at Geek Pack when you're like, yeah, like we used to train, like that used to be the way, like they needed people like you and me to be like, here are the buttons to push in WordPress to do the things that you want to do. times have changed.

Times have changed.

Julia Taylor (03:40.22)

Yes, they absolutely have and even, and we'll chat more about revenue as we kind of get into that. Is that something I'm really, really passionate about? And we had a couple really tough years. I think a lot of businesses have, and we kind of stepped back and said, okay, hang on. What can we do? We've got this audience, we've got this ecosystem. What can we try and do things that are a little bit different? And...

Shannon Mattern (03:45.774)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (03:54.871)

I did too.

Julia Taylor (04:06.978)

through a number of kind of just random chance encounters, speaking on stage and things like that, I've had some big companies come and say, hey, we want to get in front of your audience. Can we partner? I was like, I didn't know that was a thing. that's part of our strategy is partnering with companies that want to get in front of this audience that can add value, that's values aligned. So again, that's kind of a tangent that we can go into when we get into kind of events and things, but

Yeah, so we're trying a lot of different things. Like we know exactly what we're here to do and our vision is big and it's very clear. It's to help a million women build profitable, successful businesses by 2030. A million. It's a big number. So we got to figure out really kind of unique and creative ways to reach those million women.

Shannon Mattern (04:41.474)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (04:56.301)

What I think is so interesting is that even though we're running businesses online, would say the internet is facilitating our businesses. It's not like, know, relationships have always been for you, like the driver of how you grow and serve. know, just you're like these encounters of I met somebody in person at an event.

led to me being able to serve my audience better. That didn't happen because you were online with someone at the same time.

Julia Taylor (05:37.2)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's why when I kind of look back at my journey and I kind of think, okay, what were the big milestones that really moved the needle? And it was when I was in person with people in real life. Hence why that's what we're leaning into.

Shannon Mattern (05:51.287)

Same.

Shannon Mattern (05:54.828)

Yeah, so tell me more about that because that's one of the things that we were chatting before I hit record and I'm like, wait, I don't want to say I want to save it for the recording. What I was going to say is like the most pivotal impactful moments in my business have been physically in a room with other humans. Hands down. I've had some great connections online. Like I'm not diminishing it at all, but

Julia Taylor (06:16.55)

percent.

Shannon Mattern (06:24.717)

I also feel like something has shifted where it almost feels, I can't quite put my finger on how it feels.

Julia Taylor (06:29.168)

Yes.

Julia Taylor (06:35.738)

Yes, I agree. I haven't quite figured that out yet either. And all I know is, is I've got to move in the direction of where I know I've moved the needle in the past and that's in person. And I've always gone to in-person events. So this year we are hosting three in-person events and next year we're planning on doubling it at least.

Shannon Mattern (06:43.574)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (06:51.873)

Mm-hmm.

Julia Taylor (07:02.052)

and continuing to grow from there. Now, we've never done an in-person event, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into. And we're putting everything into it. It's going to be incredible. The first event is in St. Louis in a few weeks. So, April 22nd. I don't know when this is coming out, but April 22nd is our first event. And then we're going to be in Denver in June and Atlanta in September.

So those are the the cities it's called the geek pack IRL event tour and Yes, I know we're so excited but the thing that I'm I mean there's a lot of things I'm excited about getting people in the room But the theme of these events is CEO day because you've probably heard people talk about you need to take a take a CEO day or take a CEO week and and I've done those things and it's so incredibly valuable because

Shannon Mattern (07:36.629)

Love it.

Shannon Mattern (07:47.405)

Mmm.

Julia Taylor (07:58.81)

We as business owners, I think especially female founders, we get into the weeds, we're constantly in the day to day, and we're doing and we're just doing all the things, and we kind of look up at the end of the day and think, well, hang on, I was busy all day, but what actually moved the revenue needle? Did I do anything that's going to generate consistent revenue? And the answer is usually no, because we're in it, we're in the weeds, we're...

doing the thing. So the whole concept of these IRL days is for it to be a CEO day. We're bringing 200 women together in a beautiful event venue in St. Louis and Denver and Atlanta. And we're all business owners, brick and mortar, online, all different shapes and sizes, different types of businesses. And we're coming together and we're doing, we're learning, we're

We've got workshops, we've got partners, we've got sponsors, we've got the founder of Build-A-Bear. She's from St. Louis and she's coming. Incredible speakers, panels, breakfast, lunch, giveaways, all the incredible stuff that we do normally in our virtual events, but together in a space, in a room. And one of the big things that we're going to focus on is going, okay, how do we...

make sure that we are dedicating time every day, every week, that is revenue focused behavior. And all of this came because I was at an in-person event back in November. I was at a mastermind in Disney World of all places. And I mean, everything looks good on the outside, but on the inside, I was literally at the end of my room. And I remember one of the days in one of the sessions,

It was like a hot seat session and I raised my hand and this is in front of a room of like a hundred super successful entrepreneurs. And I raised my hand and walked to the front of the room and I literally said, can someone just tell me what I should do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis to drive consistent revenue? And no one was able to give me an answer, not because there wasn't one, but because I didn't.

Julia Taylor (10:21.754)

articulate it as well as I could have and there's so many more nuances that come out of it. So I left that event, I came home and I literally built a system that does exactly that. And now I run it, my team runs it, we all do and it's, I can't wait to share more because it's very effective and it's not time consuming, which is fantastic. And that's what we're gonna do at CEO days as well.

Shannon Mattern (10:49.065)

my gosh, have so many, like this idea excites me to no end and I have so many questions. I get that question a lot too of just like, I know I need to be doing things to grow the business, but I don't know exactly what will grow the business and also,

What I think will grow the business is keeping my current clients really happy and well served. So I'm going to prioritize whatever's going on in my inbox and on my development calendar, above and beyond anything else, because that's the only thing that I can really get behind is happy clients equals referrals. So therefore it makes a lot of sense to me to prioritize good client work.

But I think there should be more things that I should be doing. But I'm just going to default to client work because why not? So tell me, how did you piece together this system? What is it? Break it down for us.

Julia Taylor (11:57.766)

Yeah, sure. So I call it a revenue rhythm. it's true that we do kind of default to the thing that we're most comfortable with and that's serving our current clients and that's all well and good. However, I would caution that I literally just had two conversations with two different GeekPack members and one said, I've had a client for years.

Shannon Mattern (12:10.701)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (12:27.74)

And they have just said, thanks, but I'm going to do my own thing. And they're building all their own stuff with lovable. So you can't guarantee people are going to stick around. That's, know, one, especially with all the, you know, AI tools and things that are coming, which by the way, another reason we are doubling down on in-person events, because at the end the day, what do we have with AI? We have human connection, being with people in real life. So don't get me wrong. I love AI. We use it in the business, but,

Shannon Mattern (12:37.325)

Mm-hmm.

Julia Taylor (12:56.366)

human connection is so important. So that's the first thing, you can't guarantee that your current clients are going to stick around in our current climate. And second, I've had a conversation with someone a couple days ago and she said, I used to be 99 % referral based and it's just not working anymore like it used to. So I agree that serving current clients is very important and what I'm going to explain in this revenue rhythm, this isn't taking time away from those things. It is

It's not allowing yourself to get caught up in the urgency and reacting to what's in your inbox and the day-to-day. So we all know that we react. Slack, client stuff, like there's constantly things going on and we're just doing the thing, and that's our default state. What we need to do instead is have constraints, and I call them like decision rules. So what I'm gonna propose is that you

decide in advance. So make pre-decisions about what your revenue work is. So before we get to the revenue rhythm and what that actually looks like, you need to first look at your business objectively and go, okay, where is revenue coming from? Like legit, where is it coming from? Is it coming from, you know, client work? Is it coming from social media stuff? Like literally, where is that revenue coming in? And

When you identify where the revenue comes in from, you need to go, okay, it's coming from here. What behaviors, what actions did I take that brought that revenue work in? Now, Shannon, the cool thing about this is like it's not rocket science. All it is is kind of asking the right questions and then going, yeah, okay, so me doing this thing brought in that revenue. Okay, cool.

let's double down on that thing. And 99 % of the time, it's relationship building, it's outreach, it's interacting with people in the DMs, it's sending an email, it's human to human connection. And that's where that revenue rhythm comes in. And this is what can you do on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, and on a monthly basis? So daily is going to be,

Julia Taylor (15:24.708)

As an example, five interactions with humans in some form or fashion that keeps your pipeline alive. It depends. Connecting with someone on LinkedIn, having a conversation, something. So that's daily, and you're keeping that pipeline alive. If you do that five times, five days a week, that's 25 human touch points with potential clients, with potential referrals, with potential leads. It can even be with your current clients, just a check-in.

How's everything going? I was thinking about you. I just had a quick look at your website and just something, human connection. And that doesn't take long. 10, 15 minutes a day. We can spare that to keep our pipeline alive, absolutely. And then weekly, it could be a newsletter. It could be a podcast. It could be something that is kind of...

getting you out there in a different kind of bigger way. Maybe it's asking for a referral, something weekly. And again, all of it comes back to the business, the business model, where their revenue comes from. So none of this is cookie cutter or one size fits all. It's just a matter of the individual sitting down, so okay, this is where my revenue comes from. These are the behaviors and the actions that drove to that revenue. Let's break that down. What do I do on a daily, weekly?

monthly basis could be podcast guesting, could be in-person networking, join your chamber, do something in person with other people, rural or not, I'm in a rural community, it's possible, do something with people in person. So that's the idea behind the revenue rhythm and keeping a pipeline going because inconsistent...

revenue behavior leads to inconsistent revenue and wildly off months. But if you're consistently doing small things on a daily basis, a little bit bigger on a weekly, a little bit bigger on a monthly, you're keeping that pipeline alive and a few months from now, your future self is going to thank you. Does that make sense?

Shannon Mattern (17:37.326)

Oh my gosh, you are speaking my language, Julia. This is the only marketing strategy that we teach or talk about in the Web Designer Academy. And I think back to when I left my day job. I started my business in 2016. It was 2018 when I was finally leaving my day job. we had, at my day job, I had worked.

with this marketing agency here in Columbus, Ohio that is like a multimillion dollar marketing agency serving Fortune 50 companies. And I was at like a event with the owner of that agency and he said to me, heard you're leaving to go start your own business. That's so exciting. He was like, may I offer you a piece of advice? And I was like, yes.

like you work with some of the biggest companies in the Midwest, like your agency is huge. And he said, he said, I know that we do huge marketing campaigns for our clients. You know, we do print, we do PR, do like SEO, we do all of that stuff. He was like, but how I got every single one of those clients was through a relationship. And he said, every single day.

I connect with at least one person. That could be to introduce them to another person. That could be to say, I saw this article and it made me think of you. That could be, I'm attending this conference. Will you be there? It does not have to be, I'm open for work. Do you need a web designer? And he said that action that I have taken every single day for the past, however many years, he was like,

that has resulted in this business. We don't do traffic marketing to build our own business. We do traffic marketing for our clients. We don't do it for ourselves. We're in a relationship business. And that stuck with me. And that's, you know, that's why you and I are sitting here having this conversation because some point in the past 10 years, we have never met in person, but we've built a relationship.

Julia Taylor (19:55.142)

Yep. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (19:56.398)

And it doesn't have to always be asking for something. It can be giving and connecting and being real. And I think that that's the thing people miss that makes them feel some type of way about doing outreach. And I'm air quoting for people who can't see me on the podcast. They think that it's sending cold DMS to strangers and reaching out to say, your website doesn't look very good. Can I help you? Like it's not any of that.

It's not any of that. I, I so the way that you laid that out where you're like inconsistent revenue generation behavior leads to inconsistent results. But the other thing that I wanted to point out about what you said is you're like, you're not like, think about what you think might work and then go find a, you know, program to help you do that. You're like, no, look at the past.

and look at what did work. Because you might be completely overlooking the things that worked and dismissing them as not professional or, you know, like, if I didn't get a client through SEO, this is, I'm so curious what you think about this. Sorry, you got me up on my like soapbox here. I hear web designers specifically.

Julia Taylor (21:18.704)

I love it.

Shannon Mattern (21:23.507)

they think that their website needs to bring them clients. And if they have not, if their website didn't bring them a client that they're doing something wrong, because they build that type of environment for other types of businesses. And so they spend an inordinate amount of time optimizing their website for inbound leads instead of

And then thinking, well, if I got a client from a referral, it kind of doesn't really count because it should have just been a stranger that found me online and booked me through my website. So I'm so curious if you've experienced any of that within your community.

Julia Taylor (22:07.996)

Oh yeah, I feel like that is just decreasing. Because ICO is changing so much, and now you've got A-E-I-O and G-E-A, all the different acronyms with AI. And yeah, sure, you can go, you can optimize and blah, blah, but I'm so tired of hearing, my own website's gotta be X, Y, and Z. No, no.

Shannon Mattern (22:14.347)

I agree.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (22:36.309)

Yes, it does not.

Julia Taylor (22:37.5)

It doesn't, it doesn't. Go and talk to people. Relationship building. And this is coming from an introvert. And I live out in the middle of nowhere and I love it. But when I look back on my journey as an entrepreneur, the biggest, we said this, the biggest moves, the biggest pivots, the biggest wins, and the thing that is going to keep us afloat,

Shannon Mattern (22:40.321)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (22:54.818)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (23:03.629)

Mm-hmm.

Julia Taylor (23:03.63)

rather than so many other businesses that are closing down because things aren't as easy as they used to be, is building relationships and being with people in person and sharing and connecting and giving and adding value. And none of that requires a website. It requires you going outside your comfort zone. And I'm at this point now where like you just gotta do it. Like if you want it bad enough, then...

Shannon Mattern (23:07.949)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (23:29.665)

Mm-hmm.

Julia Taylor (23:32.442)

this is what you gotta do. So if you continue to optimize, if you continue to tweak, that is not bringing in revenue. And that's why the very first thing that people need to do is go, okay, where's my revenue coming from? And what are the things that led to that? And some people might say, yeah, inbound, but it's rare. It's really rare. Referrals are fantastic.

interacting with people is so valuable. I make a practice every, I love listening to podcasts, yours a ton, because I walk miles and miles every day. So I'm always listening to podcasts. And whenever I come across a guest that's on that podcast, and if it's like a really powerful one that has changed something about my behavior or something that I'm going to do, then I find that person on LinkedIn.

Shannon Mattern (24:02.677)

Mm-hmm.

Julia Taylor (24:29.998)

and I just say, your podcast was amazing. It was so impactful for these reasons, thank you. And I've had some really, really big names come back and say, I really appreciate that. Thank you for letting me know. Like, huge people that everyone knows. And I just kind of think, just tell someone that...

What they do is impactful. Even just something like that, I've built a relationship. I've started a connection. I can continue on with that. So yeah, I can't lean into relationships. And part of the in-person, we're gonna get 200 women together in a big, beautiful room, and they're gonna be connecting with each other. And most of them are all in the same city and have probably not met.

Shannon Mattern (25:03.565)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (25:23.3)

And that's where you can start to connect and say, you do this, I do this. Maybe we can collaborate or we can be on each other's podcasts. So just being around people is so important now.

Shannon Mattern (25:36.245)

I need to hear more about the events. think this podcast will come out after the first one, but the second two, what is the day going to look like? So imagine I'm an attendee. Like, what's my experience going to be?

Julia Taylor (25:54.562)

we're so excited for these. And I'll talk specifically about the St. Louis event, but the other ones are going to be somewhere because it's front of mind and happening in a few weeks. So we have a VIP ticket option and a general admission, but for the VIP folks, we have a happy hour of the evening before at this incredible kind of bar, really like cool location in St. Louis. there's going to be wine and...

Shannon Mattern (26:01.388)

Yeah.

Sure.

Julia Taylor (26:22.554)

and cheese, like, you know, just a really, really nice atmosphere. And that's 50 women who've gone for the VIP. That's the night before. And then the next day we start with breakfast. So breakfast and lunch is included in the ticket price. The venue is providing all that. And we're kicking off the day with Maxine Clark, the founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop. Like,

worldwide known brand and she's this incredible entrepreneur. She mentors women entrepreneurs and she's gonna kick off the event and we're gonna talk about what it's like to pivot because she pivoted a lot and she took Build-A-Bear to be worldwide. So we're kicking off the bat and then we've got a couple workshops. We're gonna do a revenue workshop. Really like digging into where's the revenue coming from and what's the behavior and.

and what's my revenue rhythm look like and what are the next 90 days? Like how can I test and tweak and have a scorecard and track it all? Because if you don't track it manually, not AI, manually, did I do this thing every day? Red, green, like yes, no, did I do it? If you don't track it, it doesn't exist in my world. So we're doing a real hands-on workshop. One thing, actually two things we're super excited about. have...

a local dentist, woman-owned dentist, and she is our official smile partner. So she's actually sponsoring our photo booth. So we've got this photo booth where you can take pictures and you can take them away. This is what a CEO looks like. And we're also, as a digital business, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners will appreciate, when you think about brick and mortar,

Shannon Mattern (28:00.216)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (28:09.564)

companies, you kind of see them with their with the big scissors and the red ribbon. So we're going to do a digital business ribbon cutting ceremony and all the digital businesses. We're all going to get up on we've got the big scissors and incredible photo opportunity. We've got professional photographers, videographers. We've got a panel of women entrepreneurs who specialize in AI. We're going to talk about what it's like to be

to be AI, human in the AI world. We've got a branding workshop. Like I said, we've got lunch, we've got coffee breaks, we've got network, like speed networking. Gosh, Termageddon is coming. I know you're familiar with Hans and Donata. I know, they're incredible. So Donata and I are going to do a fireside chat. that's

Shannon Mattern (28:54.986)

They're awesome, by the way. They're so fun.

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (29:02.67)

If I, we've got giveaways, we've got incredible stuff that local organizations are providing swag bags. So it's going to be a really special experience. Like it's not a sit and listen. We're doing stuff. People are going to walk away with stuff, a plan for the next 90 days for their business. So we're trying to make it value packed, really kind of take something away and just

Shannon Mattern (29:17.664)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (29:31.31)

a day to think about their business, not in the weeds. And we explicitly say, do not bring a laptop. So that's kind of what the day is shaping up to be.

Shannon Mattern (29:41.438)

I love that and I know like, we got in depth on the revenue rhythm on this podcast, but I know you listener, you're going to be like, that sounds like such a good idea. And then you're going to move on to the next thing and you have got to intentionally extract yourself from the strong current that is your day to day that sucks you in from the moment that you wake up.

And like you said, at the end of the day, you like climb out and you're like, what happened? You have to make different decisions and not think that like, just because you have information is going to like get you to act on it. And if you do amazing, please do like take what we talked about and go do it, but also go put yourself in the room.

with other like-minded people, community who, like, who knows? That's one big, huge revenue building activity to go be in the room with 200 other people. You'll probably get to put a whole bunch of green marks on your card for the next six months just from that one experience. So I wish I lived in St. Louis.

Julia Taylor (31:00.38)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (31:06.8)

Yep. Yes. Yes. At length.

Shannon Mattern (31:06.967)

Totally be there. I may have to fly to Denver or where was the other one? Atlanta. And come to one of these because yeah, like I think that there needs to be more of things like this. We just hosted our Simply Profitable Designer Summit and the education that we provided was excellent. The missing piece is...

the connection and the interaction and those like little magical moments that you can really only get in person. So online is fantastic for learning. I think it used to be good for connecting. I don't think it's that great for connecting anymore because there's just so much distraction and there's a, I love asynchronous, asynchronous. think that's great, but we're missing something.

with asynchronous connection.

Julia Taylor (32:06.748)

100 %

100%. And that's where I'm so excited about these events, because we still have everything virtual. It all still exists. We invested last year in our own app. You can go to the app store and look for Geek Pack and we're there. And so we still heavily lean into all things virtual. However, this, like with AI,

Shannon Mattern (32:18.551)

course.

Julia Taylor (32:37.084)

We can't not do something different. And again, when I look back on my journey and the things that have moved the needle, it's being in a room and chatting with other entrepreneurs and hearing other people say that they're struggling with X, Y, and Z and me going, I'm not the only one. Like, yeah, the day is going to be great. We're going to have all this stuff planned. It's going be wonderful. But it'll be the side conversations that's going to be the most impactful. It'll be meeting your

Shannon Mattern (32:56.278)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (33:03.853)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (33:06.576)

business bestie that you didn't even know you needed and a collaborator and potentially a client. There's just so much value from being in the room and that's why we're doing the three this year and again next year we're gonna double it because why not? We've gotta do something different. I love what we do. I love my company and our vision.

Shannon Mattern (33:29.933)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (33:36.38)

We're going to hit a million women and this is another way that we can do that on an in-person scale.

Shannon Mattern (33:46.101)

Yeah. And I see, I see, of course you're still a virtual company, but the in-person events that becomes the touch point and then the virtual becomes the way to stay connected in between. And that's what I see. Like we have our web designer Academy program, but then we also have our next level mastermind program. And with that program, we meet in person once a year and we've done that for the past.

four years and it's a smaller program. So it's like still 15 women coming together and meeting in person. But the impact of that is exponential for myself included, but for all of them to the point where this year they're like, we don't want to wait till November, Shannon, can you put together something mid-year? And I was like, yeah, okay. Like people are asking.

for this. And so I put together something mid-year, but like these women have, these are like, these are their best friends now. Like they do stuff together without our program facilitating it because they're friends and they want to spend time together and they want to connect. And I never would have thought in a million years that that would have come out of like,

Julia Taylor (35:04.198)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (35:14.581)

I'm like, I'm teaching you a framework. No, changed your, you putting yourself in the room changed your life. And now I'm like, so I just appreciate what you're doing. Cause you're like, I'm creating the container for this connection and transformation. And you said, it's not even our programming. It's going to be those side conversations, the micro moments, the connections, the magic that's going to happen just because you

You took the lead to put everybody in a room together and like you, you know, you're, you're taking the risk to, to, to facilitate that. Like it's that important to you where you're like, I'm booking the space. Excuse me. I'm bringing the people in. I'm, I'm holding this because it's that important to me that you all get to have this experience. So you're just such a trailblazer.

in that way.

Julia Taylor (36:16.71)

Well, yeah, gotta do something to have just do something different and bring value to the value that I've had in the past. it's so easy. And as much as I desperately wanna go back to the years when it was easy and, know, I know, know, like, But that's, that it was,

Shannon Mattern (36:22.08)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (36:26.464)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (36:29.835)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (36:36.394)

You could stay behind your little laptop and never have to leave the house.

Julia Taylor (36:46.166)

easy, but there's nothing about entrepreneurship that's easy. It's a wild roller coaster. And you said something really special there about the connections and the friendships that people make when they're in the room and they meet people in person. And that's so important. And I love my family. I love my friends who are not entrepreneurs, but I can't have the same conversations. It's just,

Shannon Mattern (36:49.248)

There isn't.

Shannon Mattern (37:11.83)

They don't get it.

Julia Taylor (37:15.972)

It's just not the same. There's something about just having your own business and all the things that come along with it. It's just different. And I can have those conversations, good and bad, weeping and laughing with other female entrepreneurs and the ones that I've met in person that are really, really good friends. And we get it and we know what we're going through and we can guide and give advice and say,

Shannon Mattern (37:17.505)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (37:34.998)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (37:45.168)

done it and I think we just need more of that across all female founders is supporting each other. We already do, but let's do it in person and let's get to know each other and connect. And if I get to facilitate that and bring people together all across the US and internationally, we're absolutely planning on taking Geek Pack IRL around the world because I'm so excited about.

the value of bringing women together in person and not only the connections that they're going to make, but the value they're going to get when they're there. And that's why we will have these workshops and they're going to come away with something, including the connections and potential business bestie.

Shannon Mattern (38:31.606)

Yeah, I love that. I appreciate, you you said like entrepreneurship has challenges. I think one of the like, we all know this, you know, growing our business, but I think what we lose, we think that like, someday we're going to crack the code and that that will have arrived somewhere and that it'll just always like, be easy or we're like searching for like the one and it's it's like, that's not been

my experience in the past 10 years. And I do find myself searching for it from time to time thinking that like, like if I just do this then, and then it's just like, but wait, like, I don't think that there's a moment that you ever arrive. There are definitely peaks, there are valleys and...

I appreciate what you said about, you know, I love my friends. I love my husband. Like I love talking to all these people, but like when I talk about the real stuff going on, their eyes kind of like glaze over like a donut and they're like listening, but they don't understand. And they're happy for me, you know, when I'm happy. And honestly, when I'm like stressed, I'm probably more honest on this podcast to strangers.

about the challenges that I'm going through than to say like, actually, business is really hard right now. We're not meeting our enrollment targets. You know, I might have to make some decisions that I don't want to have to make, which when we talked back in 2023, Julia, that was my worst year ever. By that September, I'd had to lay off a team member. Things changed drastically for us as, you know, in talking to people.

Julia Taylor (40:14.3)

Same, 23 was our hardest.

Shannon Mattern (40:22.656)

finding out that I wasn't the only one, thank goodness, but I sure felt like I was doing something wrong. And we're seeing shifts now with AI recently that I hadn't really seen in the past couple of years. Or we're seeing shifts, I'm not quite sure what to attribute them to, but we're just like, maybe I won't wait so long to try something different instead of like,

clinging to what it was or thinking like because it quote unquote worked really well and thinking like, oh, it works, just stay the same. So I just appreciate you saying like, like saying we have challenges. It is normal to have challenges. Nothing is wrong with you. But where you struggle is when you stay alone.

and you think you're the only one and you think you have to solve it on your own, go get in a room like Geek Pack IRL or whatever, Web Designer Academy, Next Level Mastermind, any community you create on your own. Let other people help you.

Julia Taylor (41:36.124)

Yeah. Well, yeah. And, you know, it's, do, can imagine that on a podcast, you would be a lot more kind of vulnerable and honest about the things because the people listening know exactly what you're going through. And that's such a valuable point. And yeah, 23 was our hardest, toughest year. 24 wasn't great. 25 was a little bit better. And it, you know, it,

Shannon Mattern (41:48.48)

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Shannon Mattern (41:59.979)

Mm-mm.

Julia Taylor (42:04.572)

The last few years have been tough and last year I had to make some really tough decisions and I had to let some people go. that is, oh, oh, it's awful. Cause it feels like it's a direct kind of reflection of, you know, me as the business owner and a leader and I failed and I haven't done enough things. I mean, it's all those things that we go through that is...

Shannon Mattern (42:06.678)

Yep.

Shannon Mattern (42:14.678)

Yeah. It's the worst feeling.

Shannon Mattern (42:22.036)

huh. Yep.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Julia Taylor (42:31.512)

isn't really something you can talk about with someone who doesn't have their own business. You can try to explain it. You're right. The highs are easy to kind of talk about, but the lows are not. They're easy to talk about, but with people who get it. And that, you gotta be around people who get it.

Shannon Mattern (42:43.083)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (42:49.324)

Yeah. So good. what didn't we talk about yet that you wanted to make sure we chatted about when we scheduled this? I know we talked about revenue. We talked about the importance of in-person pivoting, having other people there for challenges, that there are going to be challenges and nothing is wrong with you if you're experiencing them.

Julia Taylor (43:12.156)

No, no, is wrong with you. Gosh, yeah, we have. We've covered so much. I think you said something there about kind of clinging on to what's worked in the past. And I had a coach recently refer to it as the sacred cow. Like sometimes, you know, something that worked in the past and you're clinging on, sometimes you gotta let it go. And it's hard.

Shannon Mattern (43:20.587)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (43:26.536)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (43:30.154)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (43:39.862)

Mm-hmm.

Julia Taylor (43:41.18)

It's a lot harder than I would have expected, but they always say you close one door and another one opens. And I think we got to lean into that. And with so many rapid changes all the time with AI, at the end of the day, what do we bring as humans that is different? And that's...

Shannon Mattern (43:57.034)

Mm-hmm.

Julia Taylor (44:09.776)

being in in person, it's in real life connection. if that's so, so important, whether it's with other entrepreneurs or you're connecting with potential clients and leads. And I mean, I just had a team members, she me a message this morning and she went to a office building to a company in person. And the guy she spoke to was like, wow, like

Shannon Mattern (44:13.729)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (44:23.254)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (44:36.844)

it no one ever comes and just you know has a chat in person like We've got a we've got to embrace Even as introverts. We've got to embrace this and and do something in real life join a chamber Get involved with with meetup go to a word camp do something Come to geek pack irl something in person connect with real people because those

Shannon Mattern (44:51.244)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (45:05.532)

pivotal moments are what you will be able to point back to and say that drove revenue. Because revenue is like the air that a business breathes. You don't have it, you don't have a business. I love being a for-profit company because I get to do whatever I want with the revenue. get to have the impact that I want and make it really count and really powerful. I don't have anyone breathing down my neck.

and I don't have investors, know, all of that. So we get to be for-profit companies. We get to decide where our revenue comes from, but you got to take those actions. You got to figure out where does it come in the past? What are those behaviors? And I guarantee you it's going to come down to relationship building. Get out there and do the thing, build the relationships, have that cadence, the daily, weekly, monthly, figure that out what it is for you and do it consistently.

Shannon Mattern (45:51.52)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (46:01.812)

Yeah. So as you were saying that we're talking about the sacred cows and how I mentioned like, I held onto the thing that worked for too long or just tried to keep making it work. How do you, how do you square that with looking at your past to look at what worked? You know, when it's like, okay, so this thing worked in the past.

Julia Taylor (46:30.481)

Hmm.

Shannon Mattern (46:32.844)

Now it's experiencing diminishing returns for me. So how do I then use my past to kind of figure out like what to do in the future? Because I was kind of thinking about that like, well, we're looking at like past behaviors to create current like future results.

How do you kind of analyze that and decide, like, do I keep doing that? Do I start doing that again? What's the nuance there?

Julia Taylor (47:11.238)

That's a fantastic question. Okay, I'm gonna take, let's take a web design agency, for example. All right, so in the past, they have built websites, web design, probably offer kind of recurring maintenance, potentially SEO, know, maybe social media packages. So let's say that's what they've always offered. So.

Shannon Mattern (47:16.598)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (47:30.133)

Mm-hmm.

Julia Taylor (47:41.84)

That is what they have offered in the past. I still think there is value in continuing to offer, like what it is that they're offering isn't so much the point of the revenue rhythm. It's what did they do to get that client? What was the behavior, the action that led to that client? Was it because building relationships

Shannon Mattern (47:56.14)

Sure.

Shannon Mattern (48:00.395)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (48:12.432)

continuing to do the behaviors that led to revenue in the past, continuing to do those consistently, the actual thing that you deliver, the value that you deliver can adapt. Building relationships and keeping a pipeline alive is what's important. Because when you start talking to people and whether it's a sales conversation or just a...

you know, a DM or seeing someone in person, they will tell you what their problems are. And then you can solve that. And you get to decide, is it in your wheelhouse or is it something you might want to pivot to? If you don't talk to people and you just assume that what you've always done in the past is gonna continue to work, that's where the problem is. So I wouldn't worry so much about like the thing. Keep doing what's working, but...

Shannon Mattern (48:47.328)

Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (48:53.696)

Mm-hmm.

Julia Taylor (49:10.46)

talk to people and find out what, we always say, what's keeping people up at night? But like that's actually really important. And the example I gave before about someone saying that they lost a client because they went to lovable, well, that probably could have been avoided or they could have gotten in front of it and said, you know, knowing that things like lovable and everything else are coming out. So.

Maybe it's a matter of getting ahead of it and reaching out to all current clients that you have on your roster and saying, Hey, I'm seeing a shift. I want to get in front of it. so, you know, let's get on a call and let's chat about it. Get your AI note taker to be on that call. And then you can figure out with, whatever AI you use. Okay. Here's what their problems are. Does it fit into what we're currently doing? Do we want to pivot and maybe offer this new thing that's, know, a website in a, in an hour, now and

and we offer the lovable thing or like, it isn't so much the thing. We've just got to get back to talking to people and making sure that what we're, the solution that we're providing is actually solving their problem in the times that we're in. Because we all have something valuable to add. It might change. You got to roll with it.

Shannon Mattern (50:27.606)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (50:34.686)

Yeah. And I was just thinking like, even it's like, even if the tactic used to work, but is not working as well, maybe it's having diminishing returns or things have changed. What's the spirit of the tactic? Like, what was the, you know, the, what was the, the why under the why of the thing that you did? Right. And like kind of boiling it down to, okay, but like, why did that work?

And if that's not working now, why did that work? And how can I put a different flavor or spin on that to, know, cause maybe it was, I'm just going to make something up. Cause I don't teach social media marketing or recommend it at all, but maybe it was like, maybe it was posting on Instagram in 2017 and that worked because, know,

that was a time where people were highly engaged and you were having conversations and connections with people. And so what was it about that that worked? Maybe it wasn't the Instagram strategy. Maybe it was that you had an actual conversation with a real human. Like you said, it's all gonna boil back down to relationships. It wasn't like, my content was pretty, it was, we connected in a deeper level. So.

Julia Taylor (51:56.038)

Yes. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (51:59.967)

Yeah, I was just thinking like, if I went surface and I was like, looked back to like what worked, I would just not letting any of my, if I didn't think deeper about it, if I wasn't in the room with someone else to challenge me about it, I might keep all my sacred cows.

Julia Taylor (52:16.73)

Yeah. Again, we love our sacred cows because we worked so hard to build that up. absolutely. But now more than ever, it pivots and really looking at what's worked and honestly what you love doing and what lights you up. That's got to be a part of this conversation as well.

Shannon Mattern (52:20.768)

Yeah, costs, right?

Shannon Mattern (52:30.326)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (52:38.987)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (52:46.296)

AI is here. It is disrupting so many industries. And that's why we, as a team, last year at our team retreat, we just said, we got to do something different. And what can we do that is AI proof? And this is it. So we just took a real hard look at the business and how it's been going over the last few years. there's so many things that any

Shannon Mattern (52:59.232)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (53:05.269)

Yeah.

Julia Taylor (53:15.576)

online business can do to become AI proof, regardless of what the offer is. And at the end of the day, it might just mean like stepping away from the computer for half a day and just getting out of notebook and writing things down and getting back to the heart of it. But yeah, AI proofing as much as possible is, I think, the only way businesses are gonna make it.

Shannon Mattern (53:41.408)

Yeah.

Where can everybody go to get tickets to Geek Pack IRL, get in the room? Like, yeah, where can they go?

Julia Taylor (53:52.048)

Yeah, so Geek Pack in real life spelled out is where you can go to check out all the details for the events. We will have more on Denver coming soon and Atlanta as well. So geekpackinreallife.com is the best place to go.

Shannon Mattern (54:11.026)

Amazing. cannot wait to spread the word when this goes live. So Julia, thank you so much. I always appreciate you being here in our conversations.

Julia Taylor (54:20.89)

Yes, same. Thank you, Shannon. It was a pleasure.