listen to my latest podcast episode:
February + March 2024 Income Report EP 87
byShannon Mattern
WDA Live Strategy Call 05-31-2022

This Week's Questions

Chat

00:00:29 Amy K Ogden: HI EVERYONE!!
00:01:08 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: Hiii!
00:01:20 Trish Bovell: Hey everyone!
00:01:29 Amy K Ogden: I booked a new client and got THREE referrals from past clients in the last 2 weeks!
00:01:36 Courtney Wilson: We feel like we've been staying afloat for the last week. A lot of personal stuff, nothing serious, just very very busy.
00:01:37 Caitlin Harrison: wow Amy!!
00:01:40 Erica Nash: YAY AMY!!!!
00:01:44 Courtney Wilson: Go Amy!
00:02:02 Erica Nash: Yay for staying afloat, courtney!!!
00:02:18 LaShae Dorsey: I had my first ALL DAY strategy call
00:02:28 Trish Bovell: WIN – finished the 2nd to last undercharged client website. Last one is scheduled for next week!
00:02:33 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: Wins: I got my first Dub workflow running! Finished a full call script that I can replicate for each new consult. Got a great start on customizing the project planner.
00:02:38 Erica Nash: Ooooh so interested to hear how that went, LaShae!!
00:02:45 LaShae Dorsey: Woohooo Amy!!!
00:02:56 Leigh Scott: Congrats Amy!
00:03:00 Erica Nash: Yay Trish and Kaila!!
00:03:17 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: Weee the photographer!!! Yay Amy!
00:03:50 LaShae Dorsey: Floating is a win @Courtney!
00:03:56 Leigh Scott: Win: I successfully binge watched stranger things instead of working yesterday
00:04:23 Erica Nash: LEIGH!! We are on episode 6 and i cannnnootttttttt
00:04:25 Trish Bovell: @Leigh – how was Stranger Things? I was gone all weekend and haven't watched it yet
00:04:34 Amy K Ogden: Totally a win, Courtney
00:04:49 Leigh Scott: Omg don’t watch it in the dark!
00:04:51 Amy K Ogden: LOL! Leigh!
00:04:52 Robin Smith: Win – I completed a client website and it went live at 2 :AM today. He is happy.
00:04:56 Caitlin Harrison: struggling to think of a win, the two proposals with my new prices have just not replied to email check ins
00:04:58 Courtney Wilson: Leigh, I love your win! We haven't watched yet!
00:04:59 Amy K Ogden: Binging is not easy!
00:05:05 Aisha Beauford – 1: Don’t have COVID anymore!
00:05:07 Leigh Scott: Or maybe do Incase the light flickers and gives you a panic attack???
00:05:09 LaShae Dorsey: Nice Trish. Leaving the legacy …
00:05:29 Lisa Doiron: reorganized and made a plan for June, already started implementing
00:05:54 Trish Bovell: 😃
00:05:58 Amy K Ogden: Yay! Kaila!!
00:06:00 Laura Kåmark: Win: met Kate Newnham in real life
00:06:04 Erica Nash: So many great wins!!
00:06:12 Robin Smith: When I finished the website this AM… I decided it was time to raise my price.
00:06:30 Amy K Ogden: Laura THAT WAS AWESOME! Sooo jealous!
00:07:23 LaShae Dorsey: by the water as well!
00:07:37 Erica Nash: So so cool!
00:08:00 Laura Kåmark: @amy it was so fun! Can't wait for my next trip to VI so we can meet
00:08:23 Laura Kåmark: what time?
00:08:35 Caitlin Harrison: I can only make it for the first half an hour but I'm planning on it
00:08:38 Robin Smith: Is it recorded?
00:08:56 Laura Kåmark: I’ll be driving my kids to school, but will listen to the replay
00:08:56 Shannon Mattern: Everything we do is recorded and added to the dashbaord
00:11:10 Amy K Ogden: Laura, that would be AMAZING!!!!
00:12:33 Robin Smith: @Laura, loved seeing those wedding photos on FB. Beautiful!
00:13:27 Laura Kåmark: @robin thank you!!!
00:13:48 Lisa Doiron: Sort of a similar issue here…have had a consult with 2 separate clients on the past while (it's been about 4 months for one and 2 for another), sent proposal and despite multiple follow ups heard nothing back, got completely ghosted. I just dropped it eventually but wondering if I should swing back around at some point with a check in? Or forget it and move on? So frustrating and confusing.
00:13:55 Laura Kåmark: @robin Those were taken over in Amy's neck of the woods ☺️
00:14:09 Kate Newnham: Also the holiday weekend delays people a lot
00:15:06 Amy K Ogden: If you move on and then they come back I would imagine they would understand that they need to wait until you can get back to them
00:15:15 Amy K Ogden: and schedule themin
00:15:21 Amy K Ogden: them in
00:15:48 Lauren N.: Question if we have time: I have a web design client who wants a very specific behavior on their website. I implemented the plugins/features they wanted, but they're looking for a very specific interaction to happen. Plugin support doesn't have an answer and at this point I think it would require custom coding in order to make it happen. How do you handle these sort of requests from clients when the feature is working, but they want ‘icing on the cake' so to speak? Should I hire someone to do custom coding? Or have a discussion that this would be an extra cost to them?
00:18:18 Amy K Ogden: I'd like to talk out a mindset challenge I'm struggling with in regards to all these new clients if there’s time.
00:18:47 Caitlin Harrison: In relation to @Lisa's question, what if they have no timeline?
00:19:01 Courtney Wilson: @Lauren – we've run into this with a couple of clients. We let them know that the plugin does certain things out of the box, and that what they're looking for would require additional custom dev work. We then get a quote from a dev that has some availability, and provide it to the client.
00:21:03 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: @Lauren I do the same as Courtney. Although, I'm pretty sure almost 100% of the time they end up deciding whatever their icing was is not worth the cost of custom dev. :p
00:21:43 Lisa Doiron: No that helps thank you
00:21:59 Lauren N.: @Courtney @Kaila thank you!!! That makes sense. I might hit up the facebook group to see if anyone knows a good developer 🙂
00:22:04 Laura Kåmark: How long if everyone giving proposals expiry dates? I've been doing 30 days
00:22:10 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: (if they've decided for me to gather a quote and then see the numbers I mean)
00:22:24 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: I do 30
00:22:33 Caitlin Harrison: @laura do you have that written on the proposal? right now there are no deadlines 🙃
00:22:47 Caitlin Harrison: I'm a mess in terms of getting this into a timeline and a deadline on offers
00:23:00 Courtney Wilson: @Laura We do 30 days.
00:23:00 Laura Kåmark: @caitlin yes, I have it at the bottom of my proposals
00:25:19 LaShae Dorsey: @Laura I've been doing either 15 or 30 based on what they are looking to get done.

@Caitlin In my proposal walk through and in the written proposal I clearly speak it and it's on the written proposal as well
00:25:26 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: @caitlin i don't have the 30 day expiry on my proposal (i should do that) but I do mention it in one of my later follow ups if they're not responding
00:25:52 Caitlin Harrison: @kaila thats a good idea to have a “reason” to check in
00:26:04 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: yah, it's kind of my last hail mary haha
00:34:43 Kate Newnham: The package matrix is custom to what they need
00:34:49 Kate Newnham: It’s not generic
00:37:12 Lauren N.: I never realized you could customize it based on the client!! This is so valuable
00:37:48 Kate Newnham: Yeah the matrix I create is based on the call and their needs. It’s not the generic one on my website.
00:38:02 Lauren N.: So you dont give them prices on the call?
00:38:17 Caitlin Harrison: @kate how do you present it? what tech? Dub is so tedious to make new packages over and over
00:38:50 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: I'm liking this convo. I also feel like i'm straddling that line between where the generic comes into play and how much time to be devoting to that custom offering for them.
00:38:51 Kate Newnham: @lauren – I don’t. I did and wasn’t winning business. I send after now custom for them
00:39:25 Kate Newnham: @Caitlin – I do a 2-page PDF in matrix format
00:39:42 Kate Newnham: Once I did it in an email lol
00:40:01 Nay Stevens: I do the same as Kate – I send the package matrix after the call and I can customize it to suit the client. But having a starting point is helpful so I'm not reinventing the wheel
00:40:10 Kate Newnham: Yes @nay!!
00:40:28 Kate Newnham: It takes a few hours but worth it to win the business
00:40:43 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: Ok, thanks Kate & Nay – that's so helpful. That's how I WAS doing it but for the last few I've been presenting the generic packages and pricing on the call and I don't necessarily feel like they are identifying with it
00:41:12 Kate Newnham: People like to think they’re special
00:41:17 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: Totally
00:41:24 Nay Stevens: Exactly @Kate!
00:41:44 Lauren N.: $9.99/mo
00:41:46 Caitlin Harrison: I think its closer to $100 for the year
00:41:50 LaShae Dorsey: $100 for the year
00:41:51 Nay Stevens: $80 a year?
00:42:20 Nay Stevens: Doing the loom also makes it feel custom for them, enhancing the client experience…
00:42:21 Leigh Scott: I use loom for EVERYTHING now
00:42:30 Laura Kåmark: I love loom so much
00:42:40 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: I pay $125CAD/year
00:43:08 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: Loom has been totally worth it for me – saves me soooo much time with technical emails
00:43:14 Caitlin Harrison: On a different conversation, has anyone been pulled into other platform? I just got another request and the site is a squarespace…. I do only WordPress currently but am wondering if I'm leaving money on the table by not offering multiple platforms?
00:43:18 LaShae Dorsey: Descript.com is free and does screen recording up to 2 hours
00:43:23 Lisa Doiron: I did that in my last project and my client loved it!
00:43:24 Caitlin Harrison: I use Loom for so much too!
00:43:26 Nay Stevens: Oooh! That's so good, need to start implementing that
00:43:46 Lauren N.: I've been taking that advice, Shannon! Loom video before calls are fantastic
00:43:49 Caitlin Harrison: I find it helps a lot on tech calls too, showing vs just typing mile-long emails
00:44:03 Laura Kåmark: @caitlin, yes! this
00:44:19 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: @caitlin – yes – no more ‘here's how you do this step 1 through 50 in a year long email’ haha
00:44:25 Laura Kåmark: I respond to so many emails with a loom. So much easier for me to talk things out then type them out
00:45:15 Courtney Wilson: @Caitlin – we work with mutliple platforms. There's good and bad with that. On the good – you can work with more clients, who have specified they want to use a certain tool…… but, it can be time consuming to learn and the ins and outs of each system, and to keep up on all the news/updates for each system..
00:49:32 Amy K Ogden: This chat is so valuable too! Thanks all for sharing your insights on the Matrix and Loom. Really helps me to feel confident. Thank you Thank you!!
00:49:46 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: Thanks for asking that q Amy!!
00:49:58 Amy K Ogden: Aww Kaila!!!
00:50:32 Trish Bovell: @Caitlin – that's if you want to learn a new tool. For me, I let go of Squarespace because for me, it was too much to keep up with both WP & Squarespace.
00:53:13 Lisa Doiron: The question I have about Caitlin's question is how to realistically work exclusively for someone? I have retainer clients + clients that have ongoing tasks, wondering if you set up a one day per month or every couple of weeks to batch their tasks/projects?
00:54:02 Nay Stevens: It was interesting for me – when we did the get the next client live, I was super hesitant to include some people on my list, but going through it again in the last week, different names are coming up and I'm feeling more comfortable with doing it again and again…
00:54:10 Amy K Ogden: Yes! It does prove it!
00:54:19 Erica Nash: If there is 1 there is 100
00:54:20 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: i'm laughng at your ‘doooess iitt???'
00:54:23 Kate Newnham: Been there! Lol
00:54:28 LaShae Dorsey: One yes validates the offer.

^^^^ Must remember that!
00:54:29 Amy K Ogden: Sooooo I just upgraded my Loom LOL!
00:54:53 Nay Stevens: Yes Amy!
00:54:54 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: weo!
00:55:06 Courtney Wilson: Sooooo…… I find that when you don't have any clients coming in, the best thing to do is have a panic attack and totally despair that you're not going to ever work again. The universe usually sends something through in the next couple of days.
00:55:22 Erica Nash: LOL Courtney 😂
00:55:26 Kaila – HeyKaila Media: hahaha
00:55:29 Nay Stevens: LOL Courtney!
00:55:31 Amy K Ogden: Courtney ! LOl! I'm pretty skilled at that
00:55:38 LaShae Dorsey: LOL Courtney the thing is it only works that first time.
00:56:22 Kate Newnham: Orrrrrr… try the law of attraction
00:56:33 Amy K Ogden: Yes KAte!
00:56:45 Kate Newnham: I am so grateful for all these clients I have!!!
00:56:52 Amy K Ogden: You
00:56:53 LaShae Dorsey: Lie to me Shannon! LOL
00:57:10 Amy K Ogden: You’re giving me hope Kate thank you
00:57:12 Kate Newnham: Lol LaShae!!!!
00:57:22 Amy K Ogden: LaShae lol!
00:57:39 Amy K Ogden: This is a funny bunch!
00:58:01 Aisha Beauford: Trying new things is sexy,
00:58:15 Amy K Ogden: Aisha I like that
00:58:44 Kate Newnham: Squarespace has come a long way too
00:58:46 Laura Kåmark: If you're going to tell stories, make it a good one
00:58:57 Nay Stevens: So true Laura!
00:59:09 Laura Kåmark: That's a shannon quote
00:59:34 Amy K Ogden: Laura I spy a beach I know!
00:59:42 Laura Kåmark: yesss! truck love
00:59:45 Amy K Ogden: I was there last weekend!