#133 – Timeless Strategies for Growing Your Web Design Business with Christy Price + Will Myers of Somewhat Useful

Shannon Mattern (00:01.623)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the profitable web designer podcast. Today I am joined by Squarespace designer, Christy Price and Squarespace developer, Will Myers. They are the host of the somewhat useful podcast, a podcast for web designers and digital entrepreneurs. And in addition to hosting the somewhat useful podcast, Will has a Squarespace plugin store to help people level up their Squarespace sites.

and the Code Curious membership for folks who want to learn more about coding on Squarespace. And Christy offers her Squarespace design skills in lots of different interesting ways. was stalking her website right before hitting record on this. So I'm interested in dig into all of that. And she just loves sharing what she's learning with other designers. So Will and Christy, welcome to the show.

Christy Price (00:50.83)

Thank you.

Will Myers (00:51.107)

Thank you. Thank you for having us. This is going to be fun.

Shannon Mattern (00:54.261)

Yeah. So I was chatting with Christy before I hit record and I always ask my listeners like, what podcasts are you listening to? Who do I need to talk to? And of course your podcast came up several times. So I'm thrilled to have you both here. And yeah. So Christy, we'll just start with you. Can you just, you know, take me back in time to your like web designer origin story? Like how did you get started and

Christy Price (01:01.262)

Thank

Christy Price (01:18.021)

Hahaha

Will Myers (01:21.817)

She was bit by a web designer very young.

Shannon Mattern (01:23.156)

Right.

Christy Price (01:23.886)

I know, I know, now I have these superpowers. No, just kidding. Yeah, so mine is like way back in time. So I was actually in grad school and I was building websites for fun on the side, working on my doctorate in cognitive psychology and had this moment where I realized I didn't want to be in academia forever. And so I left school and got a job with a startup in Austin doing web development.

Shannon Mattern (01:27.596)

you

Christy Price (01:53.106)

and learn from the designers there. And really that's what started this whole path. And it was back in the day, if you have some older folks like me listening, where we were basically creating our website inside Adobe Photoshop and using a tool to slice it into cells for tables. And so the entire website was coded like a table. Yep. Yeah. So

Will Myers (02:18.403)

Yep, very old school way. Yeah, that was.

Christy Price (02:22.158)

I did that for years. worked in a cold fusion, if you remember that language, so long ago. And after lots of working for different companies and then working on my own in 2018, I pivoted to focus solely on the Squarespace platform. And that's when I went full-time working for myself.

Shannon Mattern (02:44.535)

So good. You brought up Cold Fusion. was like, that was the Macromedia back in the Dreamweaver Macromedia days. That's where I cut my teeth. Will, how about you? What's your origin story?

Christy Price (02:47.278)

Yes! Yes! Yep.

Will Myers (02:51.801)

Yeah.

Will Myers (02:58.453)

Origin story. Well, I went to school for business and I really wanted to start a business, do small business stuff. Graduated, of jumped into a little bit of helping some small businesses get started. One thing everyone needed was websites. So my skillset was just like spinning up websites on Squarespace for people to build. And eventually me and my friend were like, hey, we could just do this as our own business. So we started doing that.

as sort of a side project, that side project kind of turned into an actual business. And then I realized, hey, I'm actually in love with you and I got married to my business partner and we're married now. She's now my wife. And then that business kind of grew a little bit and as that was growing and we were building more websites, more people wanted custom stuff. So I was getting into development a lot more. And I realized just in the development is like, this is the stuff I love.

Christy Price (03:36.407)

Yeah.

Will Myers (03:54.777)

I was staying up till like 2 a.m. just like coding stuff and I love that. And it just sort of spiraled from there. Once I realized, oh, this is the thing I love, I focused on that more and then I built some little plugins that would work within Squarespace, built one, made a little money, built two, made a little more and just sort of grew that business unintentionally but organically. And then all of a sudden I woke up and I was like, oh, I wanna focus on this. And now I'm full time just developing.

developing stuff within Squarespace and just other websites. The development world is changing rapidly right now, as I'm sure with everything else with AI. So it's just still in a bit of a transition period, but very focused on Squarespace plugins and development.

Christy Price (04:30.083)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (04:41.399)

So many interesting threads I want to follow with both of what you both shared. So Christy, for you, tell me a little bit more about when you found Squarespace and you decided that was your platform, what were the next steps for you after being like, OK, I found this. I like it here.

Christy Price (04:44.159)

Hahaha

Christy Price (04:50.286)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (04:59.17)

Yeah.

Christy Price (05:09.582)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (05:10.802)

Then how did you move forward from there?

Christy Price (05:14.062)

Yeah, I bluffed my way into a job. I, I, I realized after some experimentation that Squarespace was the platform that I wanted to focus on. And once I realized that I realized that I needed clients. So what I did was I looked around to see who was hiring Squarespace web designers. And at the time there was a company called 60 and they would basically pair a designer with someone who needed help for an hour.

Shannon Mattern (05:17.374)

Love it.

Will Myers (05:18.201)

This is it.

Christy Price (05:44.354)

So someone would come with a brief, you I need help doing this on my Squarespace website. And you would screen share with them for an hour and solve their problem. So with 60, I basically said, yeah, I'm a Squarespace designer. And I was able to answer enough questions that they put me on their roster. And so what would happen is I would get this brief and I would have no idea how to fix the problem. But I would spend all day.

the day before the call, figuring out how to do it. So when I hopped on the call with the client, it looked seamless and I looked like a pro. And that was really how I was learning Squarespace at the same time. So I was investing a ton of time. I mean, if you looked at how much I was getting paid for the hour, that was fine, but I wasn't getting paid for all of that time that I was putting in, figuring it out ahead of time, but it was helping me grow my skillset and grow my business. And then I realized if these people have this question,

other people must have it too. So I started blogging and creating blog posts. And that's really what Jump Started My Business was my blog. That's how people found me organically because they were Googling a question that I had a blog post and answered it. They would find me and say, she seems to know what she's doing. Let me just hire her to build my website. And so that's what Jump Started My Business.

Shannon Mattern (07:05.527)

So good. Will, how about you?

Will Myers (07:08.153)

Very similar actually. When I was in my transition of sort of building websites to getting more into coding, I had a very similar tact that Christy followed, which was I started just to write some stuff about coding on my blog, but no one's coming. If you just write a blog, no one comes to your blog. Like someone has to see it. So I started to join these Facebook groups where people had questions.

Christy Price (07:09.943)

You

Christy Price (07:27.854)

Mm-hmm. Right.

Yeah.

Will Myers (07:33.513)

and people would write a question and then I would go back to my blog, I would write the answer to that question in the form of a blog post and then share that on Facebook. And did that over and just pretended like I had this hide the publish date, hide the publish date. And over time that just kind of builds up and you have this nice little blog and you have this nice bit of brand awareness around you.

Christy Price (07:46.542)

You

Christy Price (07:57.614)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (07:58.585)

If you look at my website, I'm not like a brand heavy guy. My website doesn't look like super nice or anything, but my brand is, I'm good at code. I can help you solve your coding problems. And that's what my blogs were doing. And then eventually people just sort of recognized, Will Dash Myers, let's check out his website to see if there's any cool coding stuff I should learn. And then that's kind of where it is today. I've sort of built up that reputation as someone who knows code. And if you're in the Squarespace world, you should check that out.

check out that website.

Shannon Mattern (08:30.221)

My story is also very similar to that. Although just swap Squarespace for WordPress. was, um, you know, I was freelancing. was doing some stuff on the side. was, um, working at my day job and using WordPress to solve all kinds of business problems and all day long. I'm just like in the floor in the WordPress forums, like searching, searching, searching. And one day I asked a question and, uh, I just got like,

Christy Price (08:33.559)

You

Will Myers (08:34.346)

Love it!

Christy Price (08:36.653)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (08:58.771)

eviscerated by that community. Like, how dare you even think that you're going to build a website if you have to ask a question. This dumb or something and I was like, okay, well, now I'm gonna like go build the place that that's not going to ever happen to anyone. Because I was like, that's not cool. And so I didn't

Christy Price (09:06.446)

no.

Christy Price (09:18.294)

Mm-hmm. Right.

Will Myers (09:19.873)

It's great.

Shannon Mattern (09:26.411)

I didn't go build that community until later, but what that did was like, it shut me down from ever wanting to ask again. I'm like, I'm just going to now spend hours trying to piece through all this stuff and trial and erroring my way through. And then I was like, you know what? I don't ever want anyone to to feel that way. I am going to create my own.

Christy Price (09:33.282)

Right.

Christy Price (09:44.781)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (09:49.579)

training and tutorials based on everything that I've learned. then again, Will, it's just like, yeah, you build that, then how, like, how do you, you know, get that in front of people, Facebook groups being helpful, like, I created a free training on this. started my own community where I would like provide support to people. And I was just like, it was just, I wanted to like create a safe space for people to like come ask their quote unquote dumb questions.

Christy Price (10:01.731)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (10:01.913)

That's nice.

Christy Price (10:16.994)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Will Myers (10:18.179)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (10:19.261)

and help them. And so, and then, you know, as that kind of. Progressed people were like, I don't really want to be doing this myself. Do you offer web design services? And I'm like, okay, you know, so that's kind of how that happened. So now we're in 2025, right? And, and there is, I know it's crazy.

Christy Price (10:32.513)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (10:34.809)

share.

Christy Price (10:43.118)

Still shocking to think that.

Shannon Mattern (10:46.667)

And there are so many resources out there to teach people how to do things. What do you see is different now when it comes to building from the ground up and getting clients as a web designer versus what's timeless?

Christy Price (10:50.104)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (11:06.763)

Hmm. Christie, do you want to start there? You have more experience than like the web bill. I have some thoughts, but I'll let you share.

Shannon Mattern (11:10.613)

Okay.

Christy Price (11:10.647)

Yeah.

Yeah, I think in terms of, you know, the getting clients at that perspective, it really is. I think we're seeing more and more web designers these days. I mean, maybe I'm just more hyper aware, but I feel like there are more web designers these days. But I do think that what has always been true is that somebody is drawn to you because of you and your past work. And so I think.

Having your personality shine through is really important today. Your portfolio has always been important, but I think as an added layer, people are really looking for someone that they can connect with on a personal level as well. And in the past, it may have been a more kind of business, like I just want this done, let me hire someone. And today people I think are craving more connection and more, I wanna hire somebody that I feel like we can connect.

So I think that's the change I'm seeing today. And I think maybe it's a reaction against so much AI that we're seeing. You know, our friend Omari has been kind of coining organic intelligence as opposed to artificial intelligence. And I love thinking about it like that. And in terms of just more of you, bringing more of you to the table and you know, we're not robots. And I think it's really nice to acknowledge that.

Will Myers (12:37.475)

Totally, totally. And sort of piggybacking on top of that, I think a lot of people, part of the timeless aspect about this work, a lot of clients, they want you to solve their problem. They want you to like build them their website. I think a lot of, especially young web designers think, like, this is so easy. Like anyone could just do this. But a lot of what you're getting paid for is to take on those problems

and solve them for the client. so, and another thing I struggled with at the beginning, I know a lot of other web designers do as well, you don't feel like you want to promise something to a client because you don't know how to do it yet. You haven't done it yet once. And I think it's fine to shift your mindset to be like, I'm just the problem solver here. I don't know exactly how to do exactly what you're wanting, but I will help you figure out a problem that fits, that matches with...

Christy Price (13:27.384)

Yeah.

Will Myers (13:34.039)

your budget and your business needs. can find, I'm confident I can help you think through a solution here. And I think that's part of the timeless aspect of it because as AI is coming, part of the transition, what's different today, is it is a lot easier to throw up a website. You can just go to some of these platforms. I've seen WordPress recently, it's substantially better with sort of their builder UI that's kind of baked in. All the other Elementor, all those things are.

Christy Price (13:36.152)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (13:43.159)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (13:58.232)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (14:01.365)

still fantastic tools, Squarespace is so easy to just throw up a website. So just the core of getting websites up on the internet is substantially easier, but that problem of a business owner doesn't want to spend their mental energy and their effort managing and building this, that's still there and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Christy Price (14:18.402)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (14:21.453)

I totally agree with that. And I also think, you know, even though it's easier than ever, it's like people still don't know what they don't know. They still don't know like what problems they're solving or how to leverage the tools that just make the tasks faster and simpler like to their advantage as well. So you have so much knowledge and strategy that even if you just knowing

Christy Price (14:30.115)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (14:39.897)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (14:47.147)

where to even start to solve a problem is so massively valuable beyond like just pushing quote unquote pushing the button. So I couldn't agree with you more. I think, I personally think relationships and personal connection are more important than ever before, especially people always ask me like, how do I stand out in a saturated market? I'm like, you don't have to just go be a real person, connect with real.

Christy Price (14:49.73)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (15:12.536)

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Shannon Mattern (15:16.599)

people and you'll stand out to those people like you don't have to stand out against everybody else there are enough people people for you so yes

Christy Price (15:21.453)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (15:24.972)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (15:24.985)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (15:29.313)

Right. In marketing, typically happens from like, and this is, I did my, my, that blogging strategy and that helps sort of get sort of that, that wider net of people coming to my website, but getting started, it's, was all friends and family. Like it starts with friends and family, people, you know, people that you can talk to because they're the ones that trust you and you can do that. And then, and that's like your smallest concentric circle. And then your next one is like,

Christy Price (15:46.946)

Yeah.

Christy Price (15:52.45)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (15:56.397)

the word of mouth. And then a lot of business comes from word of mouth. And the best agency businesses I know grow through word of mouth. They don't have this wonderful social media strategy. It's they've done good work in the past and they get referred. And then once you hit that, think it's, can really get some scale if you throw in some social media stuff and have fun with it that way. That's a lot more of the social aspect. You can interact with other people. But,

Christy Price (15:57.826)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (16:05.645)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (16:11.587)

Thanks.

Christy Price (16:21.624)

Thank

Will Myers (16:23.927)

I think those first two circles where it's like your friends and family and then word of mouth focusing on those is probably where you're going to have the most bang for your buck in terms of marketing.

Christy Price (16:27.373)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (16:34.445)

So good. So I want to like kind of change gears here. How did you two meet and decide to start a podcast together?

Christy Price (16:42.542)

You

Will Myers (16:44.451)

we met from a friend who was also in the Squarespace community. She was like, two need to just like get on a Zoom and chat.

Christy Price (16:50.082)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (16:54.904)

She told us both multiple times before we actually did it. Yeah.

Will Myers (16:58.585)

She did. Yeah, she was like, you two need to be, you two need to be. And so we were like, okay, sure. And I had read a bunch of Christie's blogs and stuff. And so I was like, okay, this is great. This is great. This would be really fun. We jumped on a phone call. It was a good conversation. We were like, we should do a webinar together. And Christie does webinars like once a month often. She's got great webinars. And so I joined one of her webinars and we had a blast.

Christy Price (17:07.286)

And I'd used Will's code. Yeah.

Christy Price (17:16.578)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (17:27.811)

Then we kept in touch and I think did it one more time and we were like, you know what we should do? We should do a podcast. That would be fun.

Christy Price (17:32.494)

Yeah. And we actually met in person shortly after that initial contact at the first Squarespace Circle Day. And so it was really neat to be able to meet in person. yeah. And after that, we were talking about, you know, ways we wanted to have fun with our business. And one of those things that we had an idea was to start doing Instagram lives. We started doing that and we called it Squarespace shenanigans.

Will Myers (17:37.273)

Good.

Will Myers (17:41.378)

Right.

Will Myers (17:58.189)

Yeah.

Christy Price (18:00.236)

And that was pretty short-lived because I can't spell shenanigans correctly on a regular basis. And we can use the name Squarespace in our title anyway. So it kind of morphed into a podcast that we call somewhat useful because we didn't want to over-promise. Somewhat useful.

Will Myers (18:00.824)

Thank

Will Myers (18:05.046)

it

Will Myers (18:17.017)

Somewhat useful, take it or leave it. Yeah, there, it was a lot of trial and error trying to figure out, we knew we wanted to do something together, and we're both of that just entrepreneurial mindset where it's like, well, let's just jump in and try something. We don't need this huge plan to get started. Let's just jump in and try something, see what works. We experimented with a couple things until we landed on a podcast, and that's been great.

Christy Price (18:23.843)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (18:30.326)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (18:42.765)

So you've mentioned talking about ways you wanted to have more fun in your business. What precipitated that desire to create more fun in your business?

Will Myers (18:48.91)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (18:52.813)

Hmm

Christy Price (18:58.104)

think for me, I've kind of always had that mindset. Like if I'm going to be my own boss, I get to have fun. And why would I do things that aren't fun for me? And yeah, I'm going to be the best boss ever. So that's always been my mindset since I started, you know, working for myself all the time. And I actually model a lot of it on a boss that I had early on. His name was Matt. And I remember working on a project.

And I was just head down working on this project and he came over. He was like, it's awesome. It's done. And I'm like, Matt, it's not done. He was like, you are 80%. It's awesome. Go home. You're done. I was like, 80 % rule. I like this because I could have kept going and working and working and it might've gotten 1 % better after days and days. And so I think about Matt a lot and just his, the way he was a great boss. And I try to be that kind to myself.

Will Myers (19:37.433)

Hahaha.

Will Myers (19:45.401)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (19:54.553)

I love that. Yeah, fun is just, it's been important to both of us. both, we've both talked about that a lot is like none of this is worth it unless we're having fun. We don't want these like super rigid deadlines and like we gotta be hard asses to each other about it because we have to get stuff done. It's like, no, if this isn't fun, then we're not gonna do it. And I think that kind of resonates with our audience as well. Like if we're not having fun then.

Christy Price (19:56.706)

Ha ha ha.

Christy Price (20:00.44)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (20:05.102)

Yeah.

Christy Price (20:10.67)

Yeah.

Christy Price (20:15.267)

Right.

Will Myers (20:21.059)

they're not gonna enjoy listening to it or they're not gonna enjoy the websites we build. A lot of creativity comes from fun too. So it's a core value I think Christie and I both share, which is think part of the reason why this works so well.

Christy Price (20:23.309)

Yeah.

Christy Price (20:32.142)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (20:35.117)

I love that so much because I know for me, when I left my corporate job back in January of 2018 now, so it's been a minute and I was my own boss. I had that attitude that you had, Christy, but I also let the hustle and the, oh, now I don't have the quote unquote security.

uh, you know, the faux security of a corporate paycheck. And I did let that like anxiety and hustle kind of like overtake things. And I remember my best friend saying to me like, your boss is kind of a hard ass. And I was just like, Oh yeah. Like, you know, she never lets you have any fun. She makes you work way too much. You can never like take advantage of all this freedom that you have.

Christy Price (21:03.363)

Yeah.

Christy Price (21:06.68)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (21:20.152)

Yeah.

Christy Price (21:30.296)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (21:30.541)

And I'm like, yeah, like I brought that like grindy employee mindset with me into my business. And it permeated like a lot of different things, but that was like a real wake up call for me to be like, I get to decide how this looks every aspect of it. My clients don't get to decide.

Christy Price (21:39.278)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (21:52.45)

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-mm.

Will Myers (21:53.209)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (21:57.685)

You know, I get to decide all of this. And I think so many of our listeners forget that they have the total freedom to run their businesses the way they want and have fun and, you know, be creative and all of that. So.

Christy Price (22:03.662)

you

Christy Price (22:11.16)

Yeah.

Will Myers (22:15.595)

Right. think a lot of that comes from just like a mistrust of yourself when you're getting started. You just don't trust yourself to know what are the parts of my business I should be focusing on. Like I'm enjoying this, but I really need to do that. So should I like make myself hate it and go do work over there because I have to. I think it's because I remember doing the same thing and I don't begrudge myself for working hard and grinding at the beginning, but

Christy Price (22:16.491)

and

Christy Price (22:20.298)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Christy Price (22:29.166)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (22:43.096)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (22:45.227)

at the same time, you have to like, if that's all you're doing, if you hate your job, that's gonna come out in your work, you're not gonna do good work, and you're not gonna enjoy your business. So you do have to find a balance. And I don't know what the key to doing that is, but just wanna say you gotta find a balance at some point.

Christy Price (22:49.742)

you

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Christy Price (23:02.648)

That I think I think that's a great point. Well, because, you know, when I transitioned to Squarespace, I was working more that first year like Shannon 2018 was my year to 2018 and early 2019. I was working more. You know, I was working as much as I did at my full time job, if not a little more. And I think that when you are switching gears, there is that there's nothing wrong with working a little more for a while.

Shannon Mattern (23:16.29)

Yeah.

Christy Price (23:31.378)

And after that first year, kind of getting my processes in place and understanding where I was spending my time that paid off more, I was able to kind of scale back the number of hours I was spending on work and really lean into what was fun. But I think there's also this, you you mentioned that that worry of, you know, is it going to be enough? And I think that

one of the mindsets I had, I read the book by Paul Jarvis, Company of One, and it really talks about that idea of what is enough for you. And so I really thought about that. Like, what is enough? Like, what makes this sustainable in terms of income for me? And every year I have a little spreadsheet, a little profit planner that I do, and I'm like, how many custom builds do I need to do? How many digital products do I need to do? And

I have a number that feels right to me. And if that means I can work 25 hours a week and really enjoy myself, then that's what I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna hustle, hustle and work myself past 50, 60 hours a week to reach some number that I don't need. So I have the idea of what is enough and how to get there. And that's kind of my blueprint for every year.

Will Myers (24:54.585)

I love that. That's so good. It's also what I really like about that, Christy, is that it sets these bounds as like an entrepreneur or a freelancer. It's like there's no bounds. That's like the hardest part. Like there's no one telling you what to do. There's no one giving you timeframes. It's all up to you. And that forces you to be more efficient. And that being more efficient is effectively how your business ends up growing too, a lot of the times. It makes you think of new things. I love that.

Shannon Mattern (24:56.097)

Yeah, that's beautiful.

Christy Price (25:03.821)

Yeah.

Christy Price (25:07.479)

Right.

Christy Price (25:19.788)

Right, right. And I think counter to that, we see all these influencers who are like, my six figure month, or it's just, we're bombarded with these messages about what success should look like. And I think when you take a moment and I'm like, success for me is I get to sit outside with my dogs and read my book in the afternoons. And that feels good to me.

Will Myers (25:36.121)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (25:44.811)

Hmm.

Christy Price (25:48.332)

You know, I don't have a Lamborghini, but I like my dogs better than a car, so.

Shannon Mattern (25:51.277)

you

Will Myers (25:52.503)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (25:55.329)

Yeah. And you think about, love how you plan that out and structure it. And it's like, because at what cost, right? It almost goes back to like the 80, it's 80 % done. I could spend this much more effort for a 1 % improvement and you can hustle to make a lot more money, but how much more is that improving your quality of life? Your

Christy Price (26:00.846)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (26:04.822)

Right.

Will Myers (26:05.593)

Hmm.

Christy Price (26:08.238)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (26:12.546)

Right.

Christy Price (26:17.646)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (26:21.24)

Right.

Will Myers (26:21.817)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (26:22.857)

relationships, the, you know, your mission, your, your values, what you're here for. And so that's just, I, that's a beautiful perspective. And, I'd love to talk more with both of you about like your business structures, because I think that's a perfect segue into you're like, okay, I have this vision. Here's what I want my life to look like. I want to chill with my dogs and not like feel.

Christy Price (26:24.216)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (26:29.698)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (26:51.391)

like rushed or stressed out or like I can't do the things that I'm here to do that I like created this life to do. How is your business structured and how did you like intentionally design that to support this life that you want?

Christy Price (27:00.899)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (27:15.406)

I can start with that one. So I talked about my profit planner that I do kind of to plan for the next year every year. And part of that is I mentioned like how many custom builds I want to do. And I'll go ahead and put those on the calendar. So I know what dates, you know, I typically build in two week blocks for most of those. They're like seven page websites. About two weeks build is perfect. And I don't like to overlap projects because that makes me feel stressed out.

Shannon Mattern (27:17.655)

Yeah.

Will Myers (27:17.762)

start?

Christy Price (27:45.208)

So I have a plan for when those are happening. I also have a service called Designer for a Day where I work with clients one-on-one to level up their website in a day. I block out on my calendar when those are gonna happen. And then I just fill things in around that. And what the rest of that looks like for me has been changing every year because, know, last year for me, the big change was

I stopped writing as many blogs and I spent a lot more time creating YouTube content because I realized that's where I would get more traction and get more people on my email list and get people into my ecosystem. So every year it looks a little different. For me this year, it's going to be continuing to work on my YouTube channel because that has been really fun and I'm seeing it start to pay off. And I'm also spending more time creating digital products. So

Last year I created a product that's a starter template for Squarespace designers that they can use to duplicate and kick off custom builds. And I got great feedback on it. It was a lot of fun. And when I ask people what else they want to know about how I run my business, people know I love my systems and my checklists. And the question that I get is how do you run a custom build project start to finish? What is your process like with your client?

And so I'm working on a course that will launch in February of 2025 called the web designers playbook. And that has been a pretty big project and it's going to be like every system, every swipe file, every template that I use for those projects. And I'm really excited about that. So in my view of this year, it was scaling back a little bit on the client work to make room for creating digital products. So every year it looks a little different.

Will Myers (29:36.28)

Hmm.

Christy Price (29:37.194)

depending on what I'm going lean into. But I think having that plan at the beginning is really helpful. And for me, I tend to work nine to three, Monday through Friday. I do client calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So it's, I block out my time so that I'm, you know, I know when to expect what.

Will Myers (29:59.009)

Hmm, that's, that's really good. I have structure sort of going back to the fun stuff. I've tried to structure my business to be focused around the things that I enjoy the most. And I'll start off with like, I had a business mentor. He told me, and this has like stuck with me I really love it. He's like your business. He built this massive business. So he knows kind of what success of it looks like. He was like, your business has to do everything well.

Shannon Mattern (30:00.545)

So good. What about you, Will?

Will Myers (30:29.209)

But here's the problem, you do not do everything well. And so you need to either figure out how to do everything well or hire people that are gonna do everything well. And it's like that sort of the perpetual problem I'm trying to solve in my business is figure out the things in my business that aren't going well. And how do I solve them? How do I do them well, while still enjoying the work that I do? So we build a lot of plugins and digital products and it feels like, that's passive income.

But there's a lot of support that comes along with it. It's the furthest thing from passive, a lot of support. And so I was, as I was building my business, having to answer, spend up to like two to three to four hours a day answering support ticket emails. And it was just began to be too much for me. So I ended up hiring someone a couple of years ago that could handle the support side of my business. Her name's Abby and she's still with me today and she's fantastic. She's amazing. She's getting into plugin development and it's going really great.

Christy Price (31:00.599)

You

Will Myers (31:28.537)

And that was sort of an instance of like, this is something I don't like having to spend the majority of my day, half my day answering support tickets. But to do my business well, this has to be done. So I ended up hiring someone for that. And I want to be slow to hire people. I don't really wanna bring people in quickly because that can lead to just chaos. And then again, all I would be doing is managing people. But.

I slowly brought her in. She was handling support tickets, allowed me to focus more on the development side of things, which is the stuff I really like. I really like building things, coding stuff. And that has been, that's sort of where I am today, as that has sort of grown, that sort of philosophy has grown. I spend the majority of my day developing, either building something new, troubleshooting something that needs some development.

And then the other part that's big today is just the marketing. So being sort of the front face of everything, whether that's like Christy, less of blogs these days, but more of like creating YouTube videos, sharing things on social media, right? I have a newsletter list and so sharing things in that. So focusing on those. And those are the things I really enjoy. I've been running this business for five, six years now. And I feel like just now is a point where I'm really.

Christy Price (32:24.194)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (32:29.1)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (32:48.343)

getting into it and loving every aspect of the business that I'm doing. And it's still a lot. I'm still, oftentimes I'll be up till like midnight, 2 a.m., but I just, love what I'm doing. And so doesn't, that part doesn't feel like work. I'm really building something new or creating something and it's just, it's fun. So I don't know if that answered the question about, I don't know that's where you're going for business structure, but that's where I rambled onto.

Christy Price (33:02.327)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (33:13.197)

Yeah. I can relate to so much of what you both said in terms of, with Christy, also time block and plan out my time. And, you know, I always say Mondays and mornings are mine. I won't schedule any meetings on Mondays. Mornings are my time to do the things that I love to do the most because I am, my brain is like,

Christy Price (33:27.394)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (33:31.427)

Mmm.

Christy Price (33:31.746)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (33:41.779)

on fire in the morning and I have my most creative fun ideas. And that's where I'm doing like, you know, what Will said, like the most things that I love the most, the creative fun things. And, you know, really I'm at this place of, I'm sure you too can relate as web designers and problem solvers and

Christy Price (33:43.618)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (34:05.911)

I think you said this earlier. It's like, Christy, you're like, I bluffed my way into this. And Will said, I'm like, I, you know, I can figure out anything. We all believe we can figure out anything. There's probably not a problem that you cannot figure out a way to solve. And that can be my own personal Achilles heel as a business owner, because I'm like, of course I can do.

Christy Price (34:10.946)

Yeah.

Christy Price (34:18.904)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (34:23.063)

Okay.

Christy Price (34:25.582)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (34:31.138)

Yes.

Will Myers (34:32.173)

Yep. Holy. Holy.

Shannon Mattern (34:35.657)

all of the things. I don't know how to do that. I'll figure out how to do that. I'll be the one to do that. And I love what you said, Will, about your business has to do all the things well, but you can't do all the things well. like, you just don't have the capacity to operate at the level that my brain wants to. Like, I love that my brain is so like,

Will Myers (34:37.049)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (34:41.581)

Yeah.

Christy Price (34:52.888)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (35:00.023)

thinks so highly of me. And there's not enough hours in the day for me to do all of those things. I am in this transition space where I'm like, I get to ask for help, receive help, like step out of some of the things that I enjoy problem solving, but where do I want to go?

Will Myers (35:01.894)

You

Christy Price (35:02.094)

You

Will Myers (35:08.174)

Right.

Christy Price (35:21.998)

you

Shannon Mattern (35:24.013)

with my business in the future. And if I keep doing these things that I'm good at and that come easy to me, I'm not gonna have the impact that I wanna have. And so I'm in this like uncomfortable place too, where I'm like stretching myself outside of my comfort zone, which my comfort zone is being really good at solving problems and being a doer. So I can totally relate to what you both said for sure.

Will Myers (35:44.269)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (35:49.497)

Yeah, you got to follow the things you love doing. You got to follow your curiosity. I think that's a big problem with sort of education today. It's especially like, and part of the reason why I feel like I got into entrepreneurship, I really, had this curiosity. I knew I had it. It was like deep down in there. I didn't need anyone to tell me, you're a curious boy. You should follow that. I was just curious about things, but I didn't do well in school because

Christy Price (36:03.032)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (36:16.888)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (36:18.809)

It was these were topics I didn't care about but I followed my curiosity in other places and I feel like that's what creating your own business and being an entrepreneur and self-employed allows you to do and you just got to make that match between like can I care for myself? Am I getting a living that I'm happy with? Like those things have to be in place sure but if you can do that then follow your curiosity. I don't think there's a better gift in life than being able to do that.

Christy Price (36:21.39)

You

Christy Price (36:30.51)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (36:35.682)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (36:45.463)

So good. So you both, when I pitched you to be on this podcast, I think you were like, if it wasn't like the day you were speaking at Squarespace Circle, Circle Day, it was like right in the time of that. And what I am noticing from just talking to you two and learning more about you is that community seems to be really important to both of you, connecting and giving back.

Christy Price (36:55.574)

you

Christy Price (37:10.85)

Hugely. Yeah.

Will Myers (37:12.023)

Yeah. Yep.

Shannon Mattern (37:14.773)

You know, I know a lot of my listeners are introverts. They like to stay behind their laptop. It's like this, the comfy safe place to be. So what has kind of, what drives you to get out from behind the laptop and go do things like circle day or community build or get on a zoom with someone that someone says that you should meet like, you know,

Christy Price (37:21.08)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (37:25.122)

Yeah? Feel that.

Will Myers (37:25.623)

Yep, yep, feel that, 100%.

Christy Price (37:42.936)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (37:43.982)

And what advice can you give to our listeners to encourage them to do more of that?

Christy Price (37:48.632)

you

Will Myers (37:51.033)

Christy, how did you feel about Circle Day, about speaking in Circle Day? Maybe we start there.

Christy Price (37:51.31)

That's a really great question. Oh my goodness. Well, we were both so nervous about speaking at Circle Day. It was just like we practiced so much. It was ridiculous. I yeah, we.

Will Myers (37:59.203)

terrified. Yeah.

Will Myers (38:06.891)

It was absurd the amount we would probably practice three hours a week for 12 weeks, three, four hours a week. Like to get together, not to mention just like as you're in the car driving or as you're on a run or something, like it's perpetually in the back of your mind.

Christy Price (38:12.11)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Azure driving, yes, yeah.

And then when we were up there, we had practiced and it always went long when we practiced. And then when we were on stage, we forgot like half the things we were going to say. So, you know, I think we definitely, when you're like those introverts, it's hard. Yes, we, we feel that. I remember just the first circle day and how nervous I was about showing up to these people that I kind of maybe knew online and just

Will Myers (38:47.705)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (38:50.222)

being there in person. And beforehand, like I almost didn't go. I don't know if we talked about that, Will, but I'm like, oh, it's gonna be, it's gonna be so hard meeting these people. But I think when you do put yourself out there, you realize just how amazing the community is and you find your people. I mean, if I hadn't gone, Will and I wouldn't have a podcast today. So it's...

Will Myers (39:02.329)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (39:20.298)

It's really, it's hard. mean, I feel that it's hard to do that. It's hard to find community. It's hard to put yourself out there. It's hard to show up in person because I could always lose 10 pounds or am I wearing the right clothes and my hair is not great today. So I think that you just have to be human and show up even though it's hard.

Will Myers (39:33.655)

Yeah.

Will Myers (39:43.501)

Yeah, I couldn't agree more with what Christy said. And I think just like doing go in the in-person aspect of it, I think cannot be overstated. know we do a podcast and, you YouTube and all that stuff. I'm very introverted myself. I work from home in a tiny little apartment and all day every day. And I kind of love it. I have my internet friends, but I'm just by myself most of the time and I kind of love it.

Christy Price (39:55.054)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (40:02.222)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (40:09.132)

you

Will Myers (40:13.257)

And even at the beginning of this podcast, if you went back and listened to it, as I'm introducing myself, like my heart's beating fast. I like struggled to match the cadence of like my words with my breath. And so it's just like a little weird. And that's all just part of me. It doesn't go away. Like that feeling of being an introvert and being like a little nervous doesn't go away. But like Christy said, going and meeting people in person and seeing their face and like, okay, like you're human and actually like,

you care about me and I care about you. Those are the things that actually changes it from being like, okay, I'm not necessarily speaking in front of people and this big extroverted person that's the life of the party. Now these are just like, these are my friends. These are people that I know. These are people I'm around.

Christy Price (40:45.464)

Yeah.

Christy Price (40:53.496)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (40:59.18)

Yeah, I feel like you get this feeling like we're all in this boat together, right? We have the same struggles. We understand each other on a fundamental level that maybe our families don't even get. So it's kind of nice to have those relationships.

Will Myers (41:14.809)

And you can see, they're awkward too. They're just as awkward as me. As I'm standing there having a conversation, it goes silent and we're just like, hmm, what should we talk about next? They're just as guilty of that as I am. So it's very humanizing in that respect.

Christy Price (41:25.218)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yep, it is. Yeah, we're all so weird. It's like a lovely party of weirdos. It's awesome.

Will Myers (41:34.227)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (41:36.941)

I resonate so much with what you both said in terms of Christy, like you saying, you know, I had this event to go to and I almost didn't go, you know, because of like, worrying about what other people are going to think or just even I, this is like the hundred and thirtieth something episode of this podcast and before every guest,

Christy Price (41:49.422)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (41:54.456)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (42:01.432)

all that.

Christy Price (42:01.71)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (42:03.597)

I feel the same way Will described to feeling like my hands are a little sweaty. I'm nervous to meet a new person. I spend time writing an intro and stalking you online a little bit to try to A, have a good conversation, but B, to just calm my nerves down about who I'm about to meet. so once you get past the first

Christy Price (42:05.934)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (42:18.591)

You

Yeah.

Christy Price (42:27.47)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (42:30.989)

30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, and then we all fall in and it's like, it's such a good conversation. And it's just so worth the little bit of discomfort and like getting over that like inertia for like the connection and the relationship. And now we know each other and who knows what's going to come of it just because we're all taking the time to have a conversation together. And I love what you said about just

Will Myers (42:34.903)

Right, now here we are.

Christy Price (42:35.939)

Yeah.

Christy Price (42:43.521)

Yes.

Will Myers (42:44.557)

Right.

Mmm.

Christy Price (42:51.214)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (42:57.624)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (43:01.061)

everybody else in the room feels that way. There's probably like four people in a room of a hundred that are like feeling like, yes, this is the best thing ever.

Will Myers (43:12.825)

They're suave, they're cool, they can handle themselves. Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (43:16.389)

Yeah, no, no, everybody's like craving connection, but like scared to make the first move. And, you know, it's just everybody, if I just tell myself, everybody here feels the exact same way I do. And if I could just like go up to someone and say, Hey, cool sticker on your laptop, where'd you where'd you get that? Like, you know, then I have a new friend and, you know, making friends as

Christy Price (43:23.971)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (43:38.681)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (43:41.997)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (43:45.057)

You know, a mid forties adult is not, I don't say it's hard, but it's like, there's no rule book. Just like, do it.

Will Myers (43:53.443)

Right, yeah, yeah. It's a lot of trial and error because you will do that. You'll go out and say, cool sticker, where'd you get that? And that person is gonna be just as awkward and they're probably just gonna give you a response and then like not know what else. But you just, you push through it. You push through it you're gonna find someone that you connect with and engage and you'll make a little joke. And then all of sudden you got three or four people you're comfortable around and it just grows from there.

Christy Price (43:54.595)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (44:09.563)

you

Christy Price (44:19.128)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (44:21.719)

So, Will, I'd love to learn more about your Curious Coders membership. I know we have a lot of people in this audience who are designers and want to lean more into like having coding superpower in their back pocket. So yeah, what's your membership like?

Will Myers (44:28.535)

Yeah.

Sure.

Will Myers (44:41.017)

Well, I'll explain that on two angles because I know this is a website web designer business podcast. I'll explain about the membership first. And Squarespace has sort of memberships baked in. They've made it really easy to just spin one up and do it. But they're mostly like content membership. So it's like put your content out there. Your members can log in and get it. And I started that about two years ago because

I knew, one, I wanted to sort of figure out a way to sort of level out the ebbs and flows of the plugin business revenue cycle. And two, I wanted to teach people about coding more. I was like, I feel like no one's doing this in this industry, so I want to be putting more coding content out there. Called it Curious Coder, I thought that was like a cute little name. And the goal was to send out,

So monthly subscriptions, send out emails three times a week about how to build something new in coding. That was the initial goal. Quickly realized this isn't one, sustainable with the amount of people I'm getting in and the price point. And two, helpful. More importantly, not helpful to people. People don't want like coding emails sent to them. So I pivoted to turn it into more a coding library. So I created this library that...

Christy Price (45:54.35)

you

Will Myers (46:06.027)

has a bunch of different code snippets. You can come in and grab them. Most web designers, the majority of web designers don't care about learning code, but they want quick access to cool little resources from someone they trust. And so that's what I ended up building. It's just this big code library with a bunch of code snippets in there. And I attach videos to them showing how I built this. Some of them, most of them, not all of them. And I give you the code. So if you're curious, you can kind of like noodle through and kind of figure, learn something new.

Christy Price (46:15.726)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (46:34.777)

And then recently with the advent of AI, I've built a web app that kind of accompanies all this. So it has a list, it's a library of all the different CSS selectors for the different blocks and sections and page types and all that within Squarespace. And this is like a full build, full stack custom app. So I've been sort of noodling in that area as well and providing.

providing that to the members as well. So it's kind of been all over the place. It's hard for me to quickly and succinctly describe what it is, but that's what it is.

Christy Price (47:07.086)

Well, and I so I've been a member since the beginning and the way I use it is kind of twofold. One is that when I'm working on custom projects, I'm often like, how can I level this up and make it look like it's not a Squarespace website? And so what I'll do is I'll hop into, you know, Will's code snippets or this new app he's built.

And I'll just kind of scroll through and be like, oh, for my FAQ section, I could style it like this. And all I have to do is copy and paste the code and it looks totally different. So that's one way I use it. And the other is that he has a Slack channel for his members too. And that is hugely useful when you need some support from the community. So those have both been really helpful for my design business.

Will Myers (47:47.683)

Right.

Will Myers (47:58.115)

Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, the Slack community has been good too.

Shannon Mattern (48:00.405)

I love that you're like, so Will helps you do custom design way faster, it sounds like.

Christy Price (48:06.646)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I don't even know what I'm looking for until I get in there and like, that looks really cool. Let me do that.

Will Myers (48:08.289)

Yeah. Yeah.

Will Myers (48:15.289)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's like an inspiration library, I guess, as well. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (48:16.673)

That's awesome.

Shannon Mattern (48:20.493)

So before we wrap up, because I could talk to you too for another 45 minutes. It's been so fun. can't believe we're already almost as far as we are. Tell me what is the podcast about and who is it for and who should listen?

Christy Price (48:25.294)

you

Will Myers (48:28.375)

It is fun.

Christy Price (48:41.614)

So it's called Somewhat Useful. It's a podcast for digital entrepreneurs, but mostly Squarespace designers. So if you're a Squarespace designer, we really dive deep into the platform and you'll recognize the names of most of our guests that we have on. Well, what else?

Will Myers (49:04.213)

Yeah, it's mostly for Squarespace designers, but the topics we hit is a lot more higher level about just the web design industry and how web designers build businesses and interact. And we're not necessarily teaching. mean, this is somewhat useful. There's a lot of banter at the beginning where we're just like...

Christy Price (49:14.616)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (49:20.686)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (49:25.079)

Thanks.

Will Myers (49:27.661)

complaining about something or saying, this is a cool tool we found or like, this is kind of frustrating how we have to deal with this. You're like, how do you talk to your spouse about this? It's just kind of like stuff like that. Just anyone who's in the web design industry can kind of pop in and get a little something I think from it. But it's all somewhat useful. Don't tell us, don't send us emails saying I thought this was gonna be useful. Very helpful.

Christy Price (49:34.082)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (49:47.758)

Yeah, we're setting a low bar, somewhat useful.

Shannon Mattern (49:48.493)

So I have one more question that I ask everyone that comes on this show. And I'd love to hear from both of you on this. Christy, we'll start with you, put you on the spot first. But what belief about yourself did you have to change to get to where you are today?

Christy Price (50:06.03)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (50:13.23)

that is a great question.

Will Myers (50:15.737)

could answer this immediately. Can I go first? It's the, and I don't, again, I'm probably gonna ramble, but it's this feeling that is like the people pleasing side of me. And like I said, your business has to do everything well, but you don't do everything well. That's the part that I don't do well. I'm very much a people pleaser. And so I...

Christy Price (50:17.875)

We'll go for it! Yeah!

Shannon Mattern (50:18.881)

Go ahead, yeah, give Christy some time.

Will Myers (50:42.857)

I over index on wanting to do exactly what they want instead of building a business that works for me and ultimately better for them. Cause a lot of time I take on responsibility that I shouldn't be doing and not teaching them how to handle stuff on their own website or development. And that's probably, and I'm still in the transition period of figuring out what is that balance between, between being a good owner to my business and

Christy Price (50:48.174)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (51:12.141)

being sort of a people pleaser. Because I don't want to lose that part of myself. That is part of me. And I think people pleasing is very much like a pejorative, but I think there's part of it that I don't want to lose. I like being relatable to people. I like connecting with people and making them laugh and helping them out and doing stuff for them. But if it's taken too far, like anything, it can be bad. And so I'm trying to figure out, that's the part that I'm trying to change in myself, is how do I modulate that a little bit?

Christy Price (51:26.318)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (51:41.805)

to be a better business owner and to just be a little bit better to everyone else around.

Christy Price (51:43.8)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (51:48.045)

I know so many of our listeners can relate to that. talk about that a lot on the show about how do you delight your clients without over delivering? How do you delight them not at your own expense, but how do you put your...

Christy Price (51:48.502)

I love that.

Will Myers (51:58.243)

Yeah.

Christy Price (51:59.064)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (52:05.239)

put yourself in business first. And I'm putting that in quotes without feeling like you're just a total jerk to everybody else. So that's definitely something that we talk about a lot here on the Profit of a Web Designer podcast. So you've had some time to think, Christy.

Christy Price (52:11.84)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (52:12.119)

Right. Yeah.

Christy Price (52:18.274)

Yeah. Yeah.

Will Myers (52:18.328)

I love it. Yeah.

Christy Price (52:25.1)

Yeah, no, I think for me it's letting go of this feeling that I need to show up perfectly. So I mentioned YouTube. So YouTube was a big part of my business last year, trying to grow my YouTube channel. And I had tried it before and I really, really struggled because I don't always say everything 100 % correctly. I'll realize I misspoke or...

Will Myers (52:32.547)

Hmm.

Christy Price (52:53.454)

maybe this transition I did wasn't great or there are a billion ways to make this video so much better. And that shut me down before when I was trying to do it. And last year I realized I just had to let go of that perfectionism and realize that people are not coming to see this incredibly polished studio worthy presentation. They're coming to learn how to do a thing. And really all I have to do is show up and show them how to do the thing and not worry about

you know, is my hair perfect? Or did I stumble over this word? Or when I was editing that I accidentally take out a part that wasn't really necessary, nobody cares. And I think for me, that change has been just giving myself grace and realizing that I don't have to show up perfectly all the time and just showing up is good enough.

Will Myers (53:43.977)

Mmm. I love that. That's that's that one. I'm actually in the middle of that one as well. So good. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (53:45.079)

So good.

Christy Price (53:48.632)

You get the messy me. You get the messy me.

Shannon Mattern (53:52.447)

Yeah, I can so relate to everything you said to you know, I I was trying to do reels. I am not even a consumer of Instagram content. So to I'm like, everyone's telling me I need to do reels, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm like trying to do it. But I, I decided ultimately not to be there. But what I loved that came out of that

Christy Price (54:02.968)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Christy Price (54:17.198)

Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (54:17.41)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (54:19.563)

was I noticed that just negative self talk loop going on the whole time I'm doing that. And I'm like, well, hey, no wonder I hate this because if you heard what was going on in my mind as I'm doing it, it's like a form of self torture. And that's the real problem here. So that is what I actually get to focus on not trying to.

Christy Price (54:23.714)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (54:30.37)

Yeah.

Christy Price (54:36.291)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (54:45.975)

contort myself into being better to like fit this thing that like, I don't even really want to do anyway, but I'm going to work on how I talk to myself in my own head because it kind of ties it back to what you were saying earlier about like, if you're going to be your own boss, be the best boss ever. If I had like someone like that just over my shoulder, chattering at me the same way that like that voice in my head wants to like.

Christy Price (54:55.587)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (55:04.259)

Yeah.

Christy Price (55:10.648)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (55:12.137)

No, she can go. We don't need her anymore. She's terminated. She can like go sit over there and we're going to have fun and enjoy what we're doing. So I can totally relate to that. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Christy Price (55:15.224)

Mm-mm. Yeah.

Christy Price (55:19.768)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (55:25.145)

No, I couldn't agree more. If you have this little voice in the back of your head telling you how awful you are at like some social media, because often it's someone telling us you need to be on TikTok, you need to be on X, you need to be on Blue Sky, you need to be on Reels. right, yeah, that's hard, that's hard. But you're right, you have that little voice in the back of your head and just stop. You do not have to do it. You do not have to do it.

Christy Price (55:25.709)

Yeah.

Christy Price (55:29.582)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (55:34.957)

See ya.

Christy Price (55:35.34)

Yes. Yeah, but I'm not good at pointing at things. So no TikTok for me.

Christy Price (55:50.082)

Mm-mm.

Will Myers (55:51.371)

And maybe you'll get in a mindset where you kind of enjoy it and maybe you'll get back into it later and that would be great. But totally with you. If you're doing that to yourself, take a break. Don't jump in. Lean into the fun. Lean into the fun.

Christy Price (56:02.252)

Mm-hmm. Lean into the fun.

Shannon Mattern (56:04.919)

Yeah.

and connection and community and Will and Christy, thank you so, much for being here. It has been a pleasure talking to both of you. Christy, can you share where people can connect with you and learn more about you? then Will, I'll have you share where people can connect with you.

Christy Price (56:10.158)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Will Myers (56:13.335)

Mm-hmm.

Christy Price (56:31.128)

Yeah, my website is christyprice.com. You can find me there and there are links to all my socials there as well.

Will Myers (56:38.426)

And my website is will-myers, either spelled out or with a dash, I got both domains. And my Instagram is will-myers as well, so you can just find me on either one of those.

Shannon Mattern (56:51.423)

Amazing. You too are so welcome and everyone go to somewhatusefulpodcast.com so you can check out the show and follow it and listen in on some somewhat useful stuff from Christie and Will. Thanks so much, everyone. We'll see you back here next week.

Christy Price (56:51.598)

Shannon, thank you so much for having us.

Will Myers (56:52.995)

Thank you, Shannon. This has been great. Love this conversation.

Christy Price (57:09.518)

Thank you.

Will Myers (57:10.891)

Love it. Love it. Thanks again.