#201 – Web Design Business Live Q&A: Networking, Pricing & Getting Back on Track

Shannon Mattern (00:14.764)

Well, hello everyone.

Welcome to our live Q &A session for Thursday, May 7th. Leigh Ann, good to see you. I saw your name pop up and I, because I thought it said Lisa Frank, which reminded me of like middle school and like butterflies and school supplies and stickers. So that was a fun little member. was like, nope, that's not Lisa Frank. So good. Good to see you. Thank you.

So we'll get everyone in the room and then we're gonna dive in to your questions. So the way that this call works is I have a list of pre-submitted questions from our audience and I'm gonna answer as many of those questions as I can during our time together.

I see we have some of our web designer academy students here, some of our next level mastermind members here. So good to see you guys. And so I'm going to answer all of the pre-submitted questions first. And then if we have time left, we can take questions from the chat. So go ahead and find the chat, say hello, share where you're listening from. You can tell us what you do and how long you've been doing it.

And I'm going to pull up my list of questions.

Shannon Mattern (01:47.434)

I should probably pull up the participant panel so I can let more people in the room.

Shannon Mattern (01:56.65)

And then we will get started so I can.

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Get those questions answered. There we go.

Shannon Mattern (02:13.12)

Alright.

Shannon Mattern (02:18.542)

So as everyone is making their way into the room.

This is being recorded by the way, for the profitable web designer podcast. So if you're listening, if you're here live or you're listening on the replay, this will be shared publicly. So, I just want to let you know though, that your questions are a gift. There are no stupid questions. If you're just here to listen, that's cool. But like also take this time to, get a question answered. And so for those of you who don't know me,

I'm Shannon Maddern and I work with women web designers to help them stop undercharging, over-delivering and overworking and help them run more profitable and sustainable web design businesses. And web design businesses that like feel as good on the outside or feels good on the inside as they look on the outside. So a lot of times I'll have women like,

apply for the web designer Academy and their websites are gorgeous. Everything looks on point. And then they're telling me like, but I'm like dying on the inside. And so that's not what we want for you. We want your web design business to feel as good on the inside as it does on the outside. And the women that come to work with us are brilliant. they've gotten really far, in business on their own, but there are things like,

just aren't working for them anymore. And with all of the different strategies and advice that's out there online with how to fix it, they can find themselves like really overwhelmed and stuck. So I work with women web designers in three different ways. The first is our web designer academy program. It's our flagship program. And it's perfect for you if you've been in business for at least a year, you've worked with clients.

Shannon Mattern (04:20.366)

and you kind of feel like things are all over the place. You're not confident in your pricing. Maybe you're undercharging, over-delivering, overworking. You feel like your clients are running the show. We help you fix all of that. And it's a year-long group coaching program that helps you package price position and sell projects at higher prices than you ever thought possible. We've had students

use our strategies to triple their prices for web design, for the same thing, like not adding more stuff, not getting better at design. but just talking differently about how they do what they do and putting different decisions in front of their clients. and really just kind of.

changing the whole conversation, designing different decisions for them. And so it's a year long program because we're by your side for an entire year life cycle of your business through the ups and the downs, the economic shifts, the life stuff, the difficult client situations, existential crises where you're like, I don't even know if I want to be doing this anymore. The good times and the bad. Like we show you how to

get through all of it and run a business through all of it. So if you wanna see what it's like inside that program, you can go to webdesigneracademy.com forward slash tour and request to come to one of our actual coaching calls with our actual students this Tuesday, May 12th at 3 p.m. and meet the other women in the program and learn more about how we can support you to reach your goals. And then if you're at a more advanced stage of business,

but you're like really hustling and burnout, our next level mastermind is perfect for you. It helps you grow from what you've already built instead of trying to apply one size fits all strategies to your business. And it really helps you start making really personal strategic shifts to break through to your next level of income or freedom or whatever your next level is alongside other very ambitious driven.

Shannon Mattern (06:36.79)

women web designers going after their next level. And then I also work with women privately, one-on-one inside of my 90 day shift coaching program. And that's perfect for you if you want like a laser focused growth plan created specifically for you, no guesswork. You're not trying to like apply different strategies to you. You don't want to be part of a group. You just want to work together with me for 90 days to reach a big goal in your business. And like,

the women that have done that have just made quantum leaps in their business. and so I just wanted to tell you about those ways that we can work together. in case after you have experienced today's Q and a session and the type of support that, you can get way more access to inside of our program, it feels like maybe this is what you've been missing to, to get to your next level. So I just wanted to share.

all of that with you and I'm going to pop some links into the chat. So that's what I wanted to share with you while everyone's getting in the room. So now I want to switch gears and dive into our Q and a session. So feel free to find the chat, say hi. Leanne's listening from New Jersey. Her studio is called Simple Rabbit. And they just niche down to private pay women's wellness practitioners.

So good. Welcome, Leanne. Good to have you. So yeah, feel free to introduce yourself in the chat, but I'm going to go ahead and dive in to questions and I'm going to answer as many as I can during the next 50 minutes that we have together. So if you didn't pre-submit and you want to get a question answered, you can go ahead and put it in the chat, but I've got so many good ones to get to today.

So our first one is from Hedera. Hi, Hedera, I see that you're here today and you said, I'm currently starting out as a website designer. I previously ran a candle brand, a candle brand. So I've been leveraging that experience and network to position myself as a Shopify designer for e-commerce brands. I've also invested in a course to deepen my Shopify skills as it's more technical than platforms like Squarespace.

Shannon Mattern (09:03.374)

And then you asked a few questions and I was like, if I could only answer one question today, what would that be? And you said that it is your first question that you asked. Let me pull that up to make sure that I share all the details.

Hang on. Your first question was about networking. And let me find my inbox. There it is. You said, if you had to pick the one that's most important to you and most pertinent right now, would be your first one about networking and getting clients. You said, I've been attending in-person networking events locally and pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I've had great conversations.

but most people I meet are other service providers rather than e-commerce founders, which is my target market. I'm unsure how to naturally transition those new relationships into client opportunities without it feeling forced, especially since they're not my exact niche. It feels a bit odd to me to ask for clients of them immediately after our first meeting, but I don't know how to bring that up eventually. Should I still be trying to convert these relationships?

or focus more strictly on my target audience. have any of you ever felt that way too, where you're like, I'm going, I'm meeting people, but they're not my ideal client and I don't know what I'm supposed to do from here. You can just drop a one in the chat. If that's you, Leanne's like all the time. Yes. And so,

you asked us, you asked a few other questions, Hedera, and I told you, I know I said that I was gonna only answer one of them, but I saw a little bit of a common thread in a couple of them, where you were like, asking like, what's the best way to convert from this? And so one of the things that I would invite you

Shannon Mattern (11:21.12)

And you're here so we can chat through this. Do you want to chat through it? You can unmute. Let's talk. Yeah, yeah. I'm more than happy to. Amazing. I love it. So do you have anything you want to add about the networking before we kind chat through it? you got it on the spot. know, it's, it's, I'm happy like meeting people and having conversations and then I get them like connected on LinkedIn afterwards, but I'm like a bit like, okay, what now? Cause I'm like, how do you go from

meeting them and then like I understand they might not be in my niche but they might know people that are in my niche then I don't know how to like naturally move to that conversation without it feeling like icky like I'm using them or something you know what I mean it just feels more natural.

Do you feel like you're using people? I mean, I think that's kind of the part where it's like, why, what's this, like, where's this using people ickiness feeling coming from? Yeah, I think it just feels like, you you just met someone and maybe it's from like me being like quite independent most of the times, but I just felt a bit icky about like, I just met them and then I asked them for like something straight up. I didn't know, it just feels like, is this what they just wanted me from?

like the whole time, and they're not actually trying to actually make a relationship with me. They just asked me a favor straight up. You know what I mean? I thought, so I'm fine with like taking the like the long route with them. I just don't know how to eventually transition into that. And these are networking events that you're meeting people at where everybody that's there is looking to exchange value with.

each other. Yeah, I do think you know, these business owners are used to the whole networking thing. The one that I was at recently, it wasn't necessarily networking as per se, it is like a networking society, but it was like a workshop about something that we were all into. So yeah, it's a little bit different. My strategy for when I meet people, and I haven't asked, like,

Shannon Mattern (13:31.104)

Which I think you absolutely can and I would invite you to say, hey, it was lovely to meet you. Do you know any this? This is who I'm looking for. Do you know anyone who? But I think one step before that would be for you to reach out and say, hey, it was lovely to meet you. What could I help you with most?

right now in your business? What's one thing that could help you? And if they're like, I'm looking to meet such and such, or is there some some kind of value that doesn't have to be like, completely related to Shopify? Can you is there an example of someone that you met that you'd like to follow up with? So for example, is that this link is it's workshop about how to use LinkedIn for your business and the people that

like sat with me, there was a woman I was next to and she runs a business on like doing presentations about equality and like diversity and things like that. So I was thinking in my head like, oh, her website would be really like fun. She was quite colorful as well, like the way she was dressed. I was like, oh, it could be really easy to make a website from that. But I wouldn't know how to like approach her without it coming off like, oh, here's another sales pitch sort of thing.

Shannon Mattern (14:55.018)

A give is always a great way. if, so if you're like, if you were thinking, I might actually want to work with her, even though she's not Shopify. there's two ways you could go about this. One way is if you want to work with the person, you could say it was so lovely to meet you. I don't know if you recall, but I'm a web designer. Would you be interested in me just.

doing a little review of your site and sharing a few things that sharing a few ideas of things that could like help you. Yeah. And she could be like, no, I'm not interested or yeah, let's do that. Cool. So if she is like, yes, then you do it. And then you just ask if she's interested in taking the next step. You could say, I'd love to work with you on this. If you're interested, would you like to set up a

consultation call to talk about that. She could be like, Nope, that's good. I'm not interested. Cool. But maybe she's like, yeah, actually I you're awesome. I'd love to talk to you more about that. You're just, you're just asking for permission to take the next step, but you're starting from value. So you're not like, Hey, it was really nice to meet you. Do you want to hop on a discovery call about me building a website for you? We're taking like two steps back. We're like,

Would you be interested in me sharing some like valuable ideas with you? And then if she's open to that, then it's like, do you want to talk about how I could help you implement that? Does that feel like icky to you at all? I think that makes more sense. Kind of like just taking that sort of baby step towards it. And it's like you said, it's asking for permission. It's not like, I'm enforcing myself on you. I'm just simply asking.

And you're being genuine because you just said to me, she was really colorful. What she do is cool. What she does is really cool. And I would love to work with her. You could say that exact thing in your email to her and your LinkedIn message or whatever. And you don't have to even say like, I'd love to work with you. You could just say, I'm curious if you're open to me sharing some ideas I had about your website with you.

Shannon Mattern (17:20.206)

And see where it goes. It might not go anywhere. She might not be interested. You could end it with amazing if you meet anybody that needs a website. I'm always here and I'm happy to hop on a call and talk to them. The other thing that you could do

to just add value to people in your network first is like, can you think of one person who needs to meet this woman in your network?

and just be like, hey, it was so lovely to meet you. I know this other person. I'd love to introduce you. Would you like me to connect you with them? And just connect people, add value. And then once you've done that, you can follow up later and be like, hey, I was thinking about you. Would you like to move the next step forward?

We teach authentic real person outreach connection, like creative ways to move people forward. And I think you would probably feel better about being like, do you know any e-commerce people? I've got a couple of spots open for projects this summer. And I'm curious if you know anyone who's been

looking for someone to help them with their e-commerce website. After you've nurtured that relationship a little bit in a way that's added value. Yeah. When you were saying like adding value to them, for example, with this woman, she works in diversity and inclusion. It's such an interesting topic. Would something be like, oh, hey, I was just reading this article about diversity and inclusion. Is this any interest to you in just having a kind of geeking out about the topic? Would that be?

Shannon Mattern (19:26.294)

Also like a similar thing to do first? For sure, or if she's ever written anything, sharing it. Like liking, commenting, sharing. I sent the article you wrote about this to my friend who's also interested in the topic. I saw this and I thought of you. I saw this conference. Yeah, absolutely. We have scripts for all of this.

that we do five minute marketing every week on our call. And we're like, what's.

We want like, what's a way that you can just like connect with people that feels good to you, that keeps you top of mind. And then you are going to strategically ask for what you need. Typically what people will do would be like, how can I return the favor? And you don't even have to ask, but we teach you how to ask too, because that's something we have to get over. Like making the first move, being willing to just ask. But there's gold in your network.

and

just not shying away because you're afraid of feeling pushy or sleazy or salesy or where you're like, I'm just using them to get to the next person. Anybody in any kind of networking is there hoping for magic and synchronicity to happen. you could be that magic and synchronicity for someone else. And if you think of it like that,

Shannon Mattern (21:05.646)

then it's not like, I'm just trying to get stuff from people. Like if you focus on adding value as much as, also equally being willing to ask for what you need, you would be shocked at what will happen and what opportunities will come your way. So, don't try so that the word that I kept seeing in your stuff was convert.

Yeah. And I would just that that word has like a lot of pressure attached to it. I feel like. Yeah. And I think if you just don't focus on convert and focus on connect. Yeah. The conversions will happen. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Such a good question. Thank you for asking it. And if I have time, we'll come back to your other questions.

It was a great answer. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. All right. So next up, we have

Shannon Mattern (22:17.356)

Chantel who said, I struggle with creating a simple website for clients. As with many clients, once we get into an exploration call, the website ends up being more complex and I end up taking the cost hit with it. Websites are an obvious next step for my clients and I want to offer them, but at the moment they feel too cumbersome to offer the quality I want to offer with them. Any advice on how to make this process easier for myself would be.

much appreciated. So hello, all you replay watchers. Thank you for being here and watching this. Chantel, you don't have to take the hit if a project becomes more complex once you get into it. A lot of times, and if you've ever felt this way, drop it too in the chat. A lot of times we think I should have known better. I should have seen this coming.

I should have, I should have figured this out. It's my fault because I didn't ask the right questions. Yeah. So.

are some process things that we teach inside of the web designer Academy that you can absolutely implement to help prevent that. But we can't always head off every time we get into something and we realize like, this was actually, you didn't communicate all of this to me, or I didn't understand this, or this is more than I thought it was. When you get to the point where you realize

something ends up being more complex. You can say it. We always say this in the web designer Academy, say it like the sky is blue. Like,

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Here's what this is going to involve.

It's more complex than we originally, than I originally thought, than we originally discussed. Here are some options for how we can address this. And none of those options is you working for free to do it. So what we want to do is create, give our clients choices for how they would like to move forward and let them decide. So

and what those choices are just depends on what the project is and what you found. but you always have the right to say, this is going to be more complex than what, what we, what, what I, what I thought or what we discussed or, I now have new information that I didn't have before or whatever it is. And.

then you're like, so here are your options for moving forward. And you put options in front of them that you're okay with whatever option they choose. And those are the kinds of things that we discuss inside of the web designer academy. When I said like our program is a year long program, it's not because it takes you a year to implement our strategies. Our students come in, we just had someone come in, in March and

one week later is like, I just sold my highest price package ever because you can implement our strategies with your proposals and pricing that quickly. But it's like how other humans behave in the world and what we think we're responsible for and all of those things that we just never question and we don't have anybody to ask, which I didn't for like,

Shannon Mattern (26:15.882)

I never had anybody to ask. I operated like I would as if my client was my boss. well, if my boss is telling me to do something, I better just do it because I don't want to disappoint them and lose my job. Right. So.

We're the place that you can go every single week to ask as you are running the business and running into these things. So Chantel said websites are an obvious next step for my clients. I want to offer them, but at the moment they feel too cumbersome to offer the quality I want to offer. You get to price appropriately Chantel and that's what we can help you do. You're not charging enough. So any advice on how to make this process easier?

Absolutely. Our process is free consultation, paid discovery, package matrix. You have a free consultation with the client to find out their needs in general. And then you offer what we call the paid discovery step, where you say, here are options for moving forward. The first is that we're going to do strategy first. We're going to, I'm going to ask you all the questions. We're going to figure out exactly what we need to build. And from there, I'm going to give you

options for implementing the strategy that we come up with. The strategy is make up a number $1,000. And if you choose to move forward with implementation, we'll credit that strategy. We'll credit what you paid for the strategy to your project. How would you like to move forward? Right. And so we give you the whole process for doing that, but that way you're getting paid to do the strategy.

And also you don't run into the surprises that you've been running into that are causing you to be like, well, it was my fault. And then even if after you get into the project, something changes, we can support you through how to have those conversations. yeah, you don't have to take the cost hit, Chantel. I want to invite you to not.

Shannon Mattern (28:25.19)

take the responsibility for something that you don't have to take the responsibility for. So Ellie asked, how do your students successfully transition a one-time web design client into an ongoing retainer? And what's the conversation or offer that actually makes the client say yes? So I'm set there's there's like a theme here that with

not just your questions, but people inside the web designer Academy too, where you're like, if I just say the right things, if I do it right, then people will say yes. If I have the magic words, people will say yes. And you do have a lot of influence on setting up the decision and how you frame the decision.

but also we just get to give clients choices and let them decide. So you can take the pressure off of yourself for having to figure out how to make people say yes. But I followed up with Ellie because I was like, I need more context to answer this question. And so we were chatting back and forth and she said, I said,

I said, I'd love to have more context so I can give you the best answer. said, what are your current challenges in transitioning clients from project to retainer and what feedback are you getting now from your clients? So does anyone else have this challenge where they are, you get to the end of a project and you're like, okay, now what? And then your client's like, bye. And then they come back like, you know.

six months later and they just expect you to keep like doing stuff to their website as if the project never ended or they come out of the blue and want you to drop everything to help them. Cause that's something that happens with our students a lot. Yeah, Leanne's like 100%. Yep. So we definitely want like one of the key things to do.

Shannon Mattern (30:41.654)

And we teach you all of this inside of our, inside of, think it's module six inside of the web designer Academy with like how to run a project, how to end a project is, a skill that a lot of people don't know how to do, like how to like close the door on like, okay, we are done with all of this. And then if like, here's how to continue.

working with me going forward. So I asked Ellie for some more context. They said, I work with community led businesses like NGOs, membership communities, and social startups. I don't know what NGOs are. Does anybody know what an NGO is? I'm probably going to have to Google that. But they said, most of my clients are small teams with lean budgets. When it comes to retainers, I haven't landed on yet.

not because clients push back on the price, but because they genuinely don't see an ongoing need. Their website is one tool among many to bring in leads, social media, email, word of mouth, and once it's live, it feels quote unquote done to them. Thank you, Janet. She said non-governmental organizations. I'm just gonna assume that's what it is. So my challenge isn't really about the retainer structure or pricing, it's about whether there's a real ongoing need I'm not seeing.

or whether I need to create perceived value that isn't obvious to them yet. So for clients who don't naturally see the need for ongoing support, how do your web designer academy students uncover or create that need and then get the client to say yes. We don't ever teach any strategies that like get the client to say yes. I know that probably sounds like anti, like I shouldn't be marketing the fact that we don't like have high pressure strategies that get our clients to say yes or.

get them to convert. But we do have strategies that help your clients make the decision to continue working with you because you've established the value and made yourself indispensable in a not codependent way. So in

Shannon Mattern (33:02.7)

I'm glad I asked because I would have had a different answer for you had I not gotten more context from you for this question. But that paid discovery step that I just talked about before, that's where you get to dig deep with clients into strategy and where you're like, okay, so this part

of the project is actual like web design project. But these things ongoing are things that I'm not going to include in this project, but are going to, but I'm going to offer to them at the end of the project for ongoing services. So I'm never going to wait on a client to naturally see the need for anything. I'm going to assume that they just don't know what they don't know that I,

That I have the insight to allow them to, sorry, I was just like, someone was in the waiting room. It distracted me. And it's E and I don't know if this is Ellie, but I'm answering your question if it is. So.

Yeah, I'm just never going to assume that anyone's going to see the need for me to do anything naturally. I'm just going to assume that they don't know what they don't know. They don't know what's available to them. They don't know why it's valuable. I'm going to ask for permission to have those conversations with them, but I'm going to be planting seeds the whole way. And the first place that you plant seed seeds is in that paid discovery step. So

free consultation, paid discovery, make an offer to work with you off of the end of paid discovery. But in that discovery step, when you're building out the whole strategy, you can build out the strategy for the one-time project, but then also outline, and here are the things that get to happen ongoing. And then you explain, I'm gonna make an offer, I'm gonna give you options for the one-time project.

Shannon Mattern (35:19.47)

and then that project's going to end and then here are options for working together, going forward in a retainer capacity to implement these things that we identified in this strategy. And the whole time, I'm just going to assume that of course, by the time they get to the end of the project, they're going to not want to, they're going to want to continue working with me. So having a clear end to your project.

where you're like, this is concluded is critical. And then being like, and here's how we can continue working together going forward. And here are your options for that and making that offer and giving them, also like giving them a timeline to decide, like this isn't an open ended decision. those are the ways that you can compel a decision, incentivize the decision plant seeds that there even needs to be a decision.

And just never assume that they're going to come up with that idea on their own. think that's one of the things that we, I was talking to someone in the next level mastermind yesterday and she was just like, well, I figure if I figure they'll just ask me if they want the thing. And I'm like, you get to ask them if they want the thing.

that you're doing instead of waiting on them to ask you. As women, we're not socialized to make the first move and ask. We're socialized to wait to be chosen. And I don't want you guys to continue to wait to be chosen. And we can teach you how to ask in a way that feels like safe to your nervous system so that you don't, because I also don't want you to do things that don't feel

So, so yeah.

Shannon Mattern (37:27.214)

Next question is from, that was a good question, Ellie. So thank you. Uh, next question is from Anna. Anna says last fall, I took on a website maintenance client who mentioned they were interested in redesigning their site soon. We eventually had a consultation call and I sent a way under price quote for $700 for a website refresh. The client was very distracted during the call. Um, and I was all up in her wallet, face melting emoji.

well, she did not go through with it. Then I followed up again in January after learning that her page builder, Divi will be going to four to five in about a year. Dot crickets. Then last week, congrats on following up by the way. then last week she emailed me asking what pricing quote unquote pricing for redoing the website and what my options are.

I really think the best thing now is to move away from Divi mainly because I'm not really familiar with it and I would have to outsource for major changes or spend extra time figuring out how to do things. I ended up responding that we needed to have another call because things have changed. But again, it's been a few days and as of submitting this question, I haven't heard back from her just to get on a call. I feel like I'm being hard to work with by insisting on another meeting and not just restating the price that I quoted previously.

Anna, this one is good. Are you still here? You're still here. Yeah. Tell me, do you want to talk it through? saw you come on camera. if you.

You don't have to know as a fine answer. I can just talk to you. Yeah, I can talk it through. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes. did. Yeah, I'm at the airport. So, I did hear back from her yesterday. So we have a call scheduled for like two weeks from now. So, but I just like, like I went, like I went in circles trying to decide if I should.

Shannon Mattern (39:30.988)

Like, because I really think that would serve her best is like, like really make sure I know what she needs because I did not get a great idea of what she wanted, like what her vision was for like her business going forward and, for the site, on that call, back in the fall. So, I love that you're coming at it from, you really want to make sure you serve her best.

But also you said you feel like you're being hard to work with by insisting on another call. You're not being hard to work with. This is your business. You get to decide what the rules are. And if you don't have clarity or you think that you need to put a speed bump in the process or you think, actually, I think I.

You already know you gave her way too low of a price back then, and you want to push the reset button. You absolutely can by having another conversation. And so you are not being hard to work with. You get to make all the rules, And that's one of the biggest

opportunities, I would say for you. cause, and I don't want to make, I don't, we don't know each other well enough yet for me to make like wide sweeping judgments, not judgments, but like assumptions, but kind of how we do anything is how we do everything. And I would imagine maybe you might do a lot of things to make it easy to work with you that come at your own expense.

Would that be a fair statement? Yeah, that's probably accurate. You are allowed to structure your projects and your process to meet your needs. And if a client doesn't want to adapt to that, there's always more clients on the way. There truly are. So I can tell your heart is

Shannon Mattern (41:53.694)

like you have a big heart cause you're like, this is really in her best interest to have this call. It's also in your best interest and it's okay for it to be both. and yeah, I just want to encourage you to set up the process, allow her to be an adult and choose whether or not she's going to follow the process.

And if she doesn't follow the process, that's okay. You don't have to, you don't have to change your process to meet her. What sounds like a little bit of a chaotic life. Cause like Carly said, when do those become client red flags? Um, you, you, anybody gets to decide what their own red flags are, but, um, I always am like, I'm going to build my process for me.

and how I want to run my business and what works best for me. And I'm going to invite you to come through my process. And if you can't come through my process, then we're probably not a good fit to work together and it's okay. So, did that help? It does help. Yeah, for sure. I think one of the things that comes to mind, like think about red flag clients is like this came as like a referral from

very good friend. And it's like, I think, you know, I don't want to like, disappoint my friend by this not working out sort of thing. So, so normal, so common. and

It's okay to.

Shannon Mattern (43:46.382)

Tell me more about like why you think your friend would be disappointed if this didn't work out.

Shannon Mattern (43:56.834)

I don't know. Like this friend is also kind of like a business, buddy. We talk often and like, don't think she's even close to this person very much. Like they live on opposite sides of the country and all, but, yeah, it's just like, would you want your business buddy to take on a bad fit client for her business? She probably doesn't want you to take on a bad fit client either. I'm guessing. I don't know. So.

One of the.

Shannon Mattern (44:31.965)

one of the hardest lessons I had to learn was not to run, to not run my business, to make other people happy. It was so hard, Anna. I want everybody to like me. I don't ever want anybody to be mad at me. And that's why all of our strategies are designed the way that they are and why our programs for women web designers, because many of us have that thing. And so where I'm like,

I'm just going to give you choices and let you decide. And you deciding to not move forward is an okay answer with me. going to empower you to make your own choices. I'm not going to be like, it sets boundaries, but in a different way than you've ever been told to set boundaries before. So you took a bold first step by inviting her to get on another call.

And you don't have to say $700 again. And in fact, I wouldn't, think that price is too low. and you can say, you can say, thanks for sharing all of this new information with me. I'm to put together a new price and you can decide if you want to move forward with that or not and just let her decide. And if she's like, it's way too expensive.

Like that's okay. So yeah, all of our strategies are designed for choice. So yeah, is there anything else I can help you with?

Shannon Mattern (46:18.854)

I think that's all. You got this. You're You're very welcome. And all the other stuff you do. really, I'm like, listened to your podcast and like, I, yeah, just appreciate all the other stuff you do. So. Amazing. I love hearing from podcast listeners, cause you know, thank you for sharing that. Cause I'm like downloads. Are these actual real people? So I love what I meet the actual real people. So thank you for sharing that. Amazing.

right. And like I said, your questions are a gift. That question, Anna, is going to help lots of other people. So thank you for asking that for the room. Yeah, Carly said, I've been through the same scenario and it was a terrible fit client. The friendship survived. Look, the friendship survived, but the project was awful and I got so taken advantage of. Yeah, that's the stuff we help you guys with in the Web Designer Academy. I know that I lead with

Packages, pricing, consultations, systems, processes, but that's the real stuff. That is the real stuff that there's nobody else out there helping with. They want to just help you like, my strategy is going to prevent that from ever happening. Humans are humans. We can't prevent every single thing from happening. And it's so helpful to have a place where you can go to get help with this stuff.

Ben says, I am a brand designer based in Manchester. I've been building my studio Ben Flay designs, but I'm realizing social media isn't the right fit for how I work or who I want to reach. I saw your work on marketing strategies that don't rely on constant posting and algorithm chasing. I'm curious how you'd approach building visibility and attracting clients, film directors, authors, and small businesses without being tied to Instagram or tick tock.

Such a good question, Ben. Thank you for asking that for the room. Everybody wants to know the answer to this. So if I am, if I'm wanting to connect with film directors, I'm going to just do film directors and authors to start because I think that's like a really, the strategy that I'm going to share is like going to be really helpful for that.

Shannon Mattern (48:45.262)

I would find out where the, like who, what are the rooms that film directors are getting together in to connect and collaborate and be in community with each other? Where are the rooms where authors, and maybe you even go to like a subset of authors, maybe it's nonfiction, maybe it's authors who are like writing books because they want to.

get on podcasts and speak on stages or whatever. Where are those people going to be in community with each other? Who are the people that are creating communities for these people? And how can you meet that person and add value to that person? And ask Claude or chat GPT or whatever AI you use, like what are the networking groups or the communities or the courses or the programs or the coaches for film directors?

and then reach out and connect and introduce yourself and, use some of the strategies I talked to Hedera about before, to add value to those people, to build relationships, pitch yourself for podcasts, that are speaking to those industries and,

just talk to them about like what challenges that you see authors and film directors experiencing in the industry that what you do solves for them. And so you don't have to create content on social media and wait to be found. You can go directly to the people who've already built the community that you want to be a part of.

The other strategy that we teach, and this is one that people in our next level mastermind seem to be more ready for, but it's, it's not like dependent on level of business, but we call it building your own table. So if you're like, where's the room, what's the table that all the film directors are sitting at and how can I get my seat at the table? Well, what about if you just build your own table instead and you invite the people that you want to be at the table to the table?

Shannon Mattern (51:10.956)

So what kind of group or community or something can you start and then reach out to the people that you want to be connected with and invite them to that table and add value to them. So it's really about, again, making the first move, adding value, being willing to ask, being passionately detached from the outcome, being willing to have people ignore you, tell you no.

say weird things to you. Like we've had some, like I've had someone be like unsubscribe. I'm like, this was like an actual real message from me to you, but noted, got it. Won't reach out again. and not making that mean that you're doing it wrong or bad or that your reputation is going to be ruined because you know, you're a person of integrity, who can really help the people that you want to help. So.

That is the marketing strategy that I have used since the day I started my business, um, back in 2015, late 2014, early 2015, I had no idea what I was doing. I'm like, well, my ideal client is a woman starting her own business. Um, and so I found all the people online who were teaching women how to start their own business. And I reached out and I was like, I would love to interview you.

Before a series I'm calling women to watch. And so I sent them questions to answer. They answered it. I created like a, a beautiful blog posts and mark like social media acts assets. wrote tweets for them. I wrote Facebook posts for them. One of the questions I asked was who do you, who else do you learn from in the industry or whatever?

And then when I finished it, I sent it to them with an email that they could send to their community. I was like, here's a link to your post. came out great. Thank you so much for your time. Here's everything that you need to share this with your, audience. try to make them look really good link to all of their stuff. And then I would post it on social media. And I don't know the algorithms might be different these days, but I would like tag the people that they mentioned.

Shannon Mattern (53:37.4)

that were their mentors and people that they looked up to. And then those people would like reshare it. And that's how I like got started marketing my business by adding value to the people that I wanted to build a relationship with. And some of those people I still collaborate with today, 10 years later, because I was willing to like reach out and make the first move. And I wasn't trying to market myself. I was.

adding value to them. And I do the same thing with my podcast today. my podcast is all about building relationships with people who, serve my audience in a different kind of way. So great question, Ben. Ariana says I've been dealing with a lot of overwhelm in my business.

Unsure of if I even want to continue on the rapidly changing world of AI conversion strategies, accessibility, and so many other things makes me feel like I can't keep up with it all. And honestly help my clients. I feel so I owe it to my clients to keep up with it all. And if I don't, I'm failing them. Ariana, thank you for sharing this. That's, that's heavy stuff. I don't know how to incrementally learn and then calmly implement in.

business. Can anybody relate to that? Like I've heard that a lot lately that things seem to be changing so fast that you're kind of questioning like, this even what I want to keep doing? Ariana, you don't have to keep up with it all.

You don't have to keep up with it all. know that that sounds like, um, probably like, what do you mean? I don't have to keep up with it all. What I mean is that a, you can't keep up with it all. You don't have to keep up with it all. And your value does not come from keeping up with it all.

Shannon Mattern (55:48.192)

When we think we have to sell ourselves and sell our skills and come through the door already knowing everything and that's the only way that we add value to our clients, no wonder you would feel so much pressure and overwhelm because when it's absolutely impossible to keep up with those things. Your job as the web designer, as the strategist,

is to not market yourself.

and not know everything ahead of time. It's to connect with your clients, learn about them, find out what they need and figure out what you need to figure out to deliver for that client on that day in that situation.

You get to learn as you go. You get to build the plane as it flies, so to speak.

Shannon Mattern (56:53.196)

you believe you can figure out how to do the things that you need to figure out how to do? I looked at your website, Ariana, before, like, when I saw this question come through. And clearly, like, you're not new. You figured out how to figure out everything that you figured out up until now. So you know how to figure things out.

Your job is to figure out what you need to figure out and then fill in the gaps, bring in an expert, outsource, whatever you need to do, learn it yourself. All of those are all options. Your clients don't need you to know everything ahead of time. They need you to know that you can figure it out for them and deliver the end result that they want.

So I want you to take the pressure off of yourself. You do not have to keep up with all the things and learn all the things. When you say you feel as though you owe it to your clients to keep up and that you're failing them if you're not, I just want you to know like the fact that you even care means you're not failing them. There are so many people who really don't give a crap, who are selling.

Shannon Mattern (58:30.542)

This is why you get to like, this is why web designer Academy exists to support people through stuff like that. Um, I want to invite all of you to come to the live strategy call to request to come to the live strategy call on Tuesday. So you can see, um, what it's like in the room. I'm going to pop the link into the chat and see what it's like to have the support every single week. You do not have to.

go through it and go it alone. And for those of you listening on the replay, that's webdesigneracademy.com forward slash tour, T-O-U-R. We'll get you there if you're listening to this on the Profitable Web Designer podcast. Come to the next live strategy call that we're doing if it's past the date that I said in this. You do not have to figure all of this stuff out on your own. Please let us help you.

Come check that out, see what it's like to have support.

Shannon Mattern (59:35.83)

So we don't have to believe everything we think. You think I owe it to my clients to keep up with it all, and if I don't, I'm failing them. That is not true. And unless you ask the question and you verbalize that out loud, you're just going to keep believing these things that are keeping you feeling terrible about your business. And so I want to invite you for your next project to be like, OK, well, what do I need to know for this project?

And what are my gaps? And you don't need to know everything for every project. And you're super smart and you can figure it out as you go. And if you think, if you're thinking that you can't, then we have some fundamental shifts to make in what you think you're selling to release you from that pressure and that responsibility. So.

Great questions. I think there was one more in the chat from someone that was here live. I want to make sure I answer that.

Shannon Mattern (01:00:48.778)

So Carly said, I've moved and lost my network after taking three years off from my business. Now I'm trying to rebuild it, but it's like starting from scratch and so frustrating since I'm also quite introverted and having to push myself to even go find a local meetup. Carly, I would invite you to reach out to your old network. Reactivate your old network. You don't have to start a brand new network.

even if you've moved. I don't know exactly who you work with, but you could, I would imagine you can work with anyone anywhere. I muted, so we can talk through it if you want. I can stay on for a couple more minutes.

Shannon Mattern (01:01:38.86)

Yeah. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Thank you so much. So I actually kind of, I gave up on my business three years ago because I was overwhelmed and AI was coming. And I really, really wish I hadn't done that now at this point. But we did move and I did reach out to my old network via email and kind of announced it on my, on my

personal social media and then I started an Instagram and a Facebook business pages. But I had one bite that I got a client from, a past client that I'm working on right now. all this time has gone, like it's been the better part of a year now and that's all I've had. Okay. For as far as generating new interests and new leads.

Shannon Mattern (01:02:38.582)

Yeah. So when you reach out to people, are you just like letting them know that you're that, you know, you're available? Like, tell me what the tell me what the outreach looks like or the reconnection looks like, because it could just be like tweaks to how you're saying things or I don't know. So tell me, tell me more. Yeah, it was it was a very like soft.

outreach. Like I just sent an email to each person I had worked with in the past and said, Hey, I'm restarting my business and like I'm here if you need anything. Okay. didn't know what to say. Yeah, no, that's great though. Because it's like, okay, so you let them know. I think, would you be open to like doing a more direct like ask? for sure. Yeah, because I think like,

Do you have any, when you work with a client, like do you have any, or just, I'm trying to think, one of the strategies that we teach inside the Web Designer Academy is just like offering like a mini site audit. And I don't know exactly what you do or who you work with or how you could do that, but actually let me give you a freebie that we have on our site. Hang on, let me find it.

This actually will walk you through the exact process. But you reach out and you offer to do a little website audit that will.

Get clients with website strategy sessions. That's what it is.

Shannon Mattern (01:04:27.81)

How would you send the chat for you? Yeah, go ahead. How would you recommend, like, so the ones that I've reached out to already and got no response from what would you recommend to the to reach out to them again with the website audit? How would I post that since I didn't know? would find the last email that I sent.

even if it was from nine months ago. And I would just put the ask right above that to be like, Hey, thinking about you, I have this new thing that I'm offering these website strategy sessions. There's an exact script in the freebie Carly. So, um, I'm paraphrasing here, but if you get it, you'll get the exact script. Um, and I was thinking about you. I have this new thing that I'm offering.

where I'll review your website and share a couple of opportunities that I see for you to improve it. And I wouldn't, it's not like that. It's way not like critical or it doesn't say improvements, but it does kind of say like, I'll give you some ideas for changes you could make to like better reach your goals or something. I never want to be like critical or imply that someone's

needs to improve, right? Because they might really like what's going on and they might not really need any improvements. Well, I'm sorry to interject right there, they're old. Some of them, their old websites were actually designed by me. Okay, perfect. years ago and they just never updated. So much has changed in the past five or six years, right? So if that's the perfect end to be like,

So much has changed in the past five or six years. Would you be interested in me taking a look at what we built back then and seeing what changes might need to be made? And you're literally asking the question, would you be interested in whatever the thing question mark and you're ending the communication with a yes or no question with a question mark? It's not, let me know if you might need this thing period. It's would you

Shannon Mattern (01:06:51.842)

be interested in this thing question mark. Okay. And no, let me know afterwards or no way to like, you don't want to like soften it or water it. It's just like, ends with a yes or no question. That is one of the tiniest, most powerful tweaks people can make to their outreach that will actually get more people to respond with yes or no. So at least you feel like.

Wouldn't you rather someone just tell you, they're not interested, then ghost you all together? Like. Yeah, always. So I would absolutely follow up with all those people. Who knows what's going to happen? I don't know. We're just going to do it and see what happens. And then with building the new network, I.

I feel like you sound like you kind of have a lot of, not a lot. Do you regret quitting three years ago? Do you feel like you shouldn't have like? I feel like I wish I had just it through. My confidence took a hit and I was scared, but I wish I had stayed because I'd be so much further along now. But it's- I that's the most-

painful thought that I would invite you to just try to not believe anymore. Yeah.

And then building. So the other thing that's happened is I've been trying because I missed out on those three years, I've been trying to catch up with the tech technology and how everybody's designing now and what everybody's using now and getting back into the business to establish it and get it up and running and and know where I'm at, so to speak. And then I haven't

Shannon Mattern (01:08:58.936)

haven't really tackled the networking piece or the marketing because it's been so overwhelming, setting everything back up within the last year. Yeah. What were you feeling like? Never have quit. yeah. That like, everything you just said, you're believing it like it's true. You're like, I missed out.

I'm trying to catch up with what everybody else is doing with what's happening now. I never should have quit. I'm behind.

Shannon Mattern (01:09:34.006)

like there was a reason that you decided to quit. It's okay to like, it's like you did not make a wrong decision. You made that decision for yourself for whatever reason you made it when you made it. But now you're telling yourself you missed out, you're behind, you need to catch up. The whole, you're like, you're, you have this like, it's all moved on and I have to relearn everything.

And I just don't think any of that's true.

So how would you reframe that? Yeah. Tell me, like, I'm curious. Like, what were you building with three years ago? I started with Squarespace and then went to Webflow.

And do you still think you can build with Squarespace and Webflow? yeah, I've been I've been building with Squarespace now again. OK, I'm just trying to only focus on that so that I don't have too many things because I tend to get into too many different things and think, now I need to go over here and try this. need to try that. So I'm to just hone it in a little bit. If you didn't think that.

You're behind that you missed out that the world has moved on without you. didn't say that, but like, that's kind of the thing. And you were just like, I pressed the pause button for three years. Squarespace is still here. I still know what I knew back then. It's still the conversion design principles still apply. Like what I did three years there. What hasn't changed?

Shannon Mattern (01:11:21.696)

in three years is design principles. They're all the same.

Shannon Mattern (01:11:31.564)

And so what if, what if you're not behind? What if you're exactly where you need to be? You know, all the things you need to know, you don't have to catch up and you just pick back up right where you left off with your next client. Does that feel like it couldn't possibly be true? no, that feels like it could be very true because I'm actually about to cry. So.

yeah, that's great. That's true. It's true. So yeah, I'm so glad you came to this call and that you like put that in the chat.

Yeah, me too. Thank you. You're so welcome.

and

just go back to the old clients if they don't say anything. It doesn't matter. It's fine.

Shannon Mattern (01:12:38.038)

I would put my efforts on meeting new people in your current market. It's probably going to be hard. I don't want to say it's going to be hard, but you told me you're an introvert, so it's going to take some effort for you. But I think if you believed that you had every skill that you needed to have right now to go do that, it would be a lot easier because I could see how you're like, well, I have to know everything first before I can go do that. You don't. You could go do it right now.

And you're going to fill in the gaps and figure out just like you did before. can imagine when you were in the thick of it, when a new tool came out, you were like, let me look at that. See if that'll help me do this thing. I'm trying to do faster. It's the same.

So just remember you're not behind. You're exactly where you need to be. You don't have to learn anything else. Just start talking to people. Thank you for the reminder. That's a great way to look at it. You're welcome.

And thank you for all of your work as well. Like the last person said, I also follow your podcast and I learn a lot from you. I'm really grateful for all of your free content and advice. It is my pleasure and my passion. So I'm glad that it is helping. so thank you all for being here. We went long and my podcast producer is going to be like, really Shannon? You're going to post a 75 minute episode? Yep, I am.

So, if you are listening to this on the replay and you would like to come to our open house, our next open house for the web designer Academy, or if you're here live, web designer academy.com forward slash tour T O U R. if you're interested in the next level mastermind web designer academy.com forward slash next. and if you're interested in private coaching with me, that's web designer academy.com forward slash.

Shannon Mattern (01:14:41.71)

shift and you can book discovery call with me to talk about if you're not sure which program you fall into, uh, web designer academy.com forward slash calendar, and we can chat through the best place for you. So thank you all so much for being here. Thank you for your questions. Truly. They are a gift to everyone who's getting to hear this. Um, and I'll see you at the next five Q and a. All right. Bye everyone.