#216 – Web Designer Pricing Workshop

Shannon Mattern (00:02.306)

Hey there and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer Podcast. This week I've got a replay of a pricing workshop I hosted a few years ago where I walk you through not only how to set profitable, sustainable prices for your web design services, but also help you sell yourself on those prices so that by the end of the episode, you stop holding yourself back from putting yourself out there and charging what your work is truly worth.

And if anything you hear in this episode resonates with you and you want to find out more about working together in our next six-month cohort of the Web Designer Academy, just go to WebdesignerAcademy.com forward slash program to get all of the program details and get on the wait list to be the first to know when enrollment opens up again. Okay, so let's dive in to our web designer pricing workshop.

Shannon Mattern (00:00.312)

Hello and welcome to our web designer pricing workshop. I am so, so excited that you are here with us today. Whether you are joining me live or you're watching here on the replay, I would love to know what is your big dream. So if you're here with us live, go ahead and tell us in the chat what your big dream is. And if you're watching on the replay, I just want you to think about it. I want you to think.

What is it that you want to accomplish with your web design business? Is it to quit your day job? Is it to have a really lucrative side hustle to prepare you for retiring from your day job? Is it to be able to travel? Is it to be able to spend more time with your family? I want you to start thinking about what your big dream is for when you are running your business full time. So if you are here today because you are just getting started as a web designer and you want to learn more about pricing and all of the things related to that.

Or if you've been at it for a while and you are undercharging, overdelivering, wondering how you are ever gonna make this work, either way, you are in the right place. So my name is Shannon Mattern and I am obsessed with helping web designers build profitable, sustainable, and scalable web design businesses. And if you're here because you want to make a full-time income as a web designer, working on your own terms from wherever you want, whenever you want, like

That was me. That was me back in the day when I first started my web design business back in 2014. I wanted to be my own boss. And the skill that I had to do that was web design. But your big struggle might be, and my big struggle back then was getting clients and knowing how much to charge. Or maybe you are already working and getting a few clients and you want to raise your prices, but you don't think that your clients can afford to pay you more.

So that is that's something that we're gonna talk about today as well. Maybe you want to quit your day job, but until you're making a really consistent income, this business is gonna be a side hustle and you wanna know that it is a sure thing before you walk away from that steady paycheck. And I can relate to this one as well. All three of these also describe me at certain points in my journey. I am absolutely very conservative and I would never like I'm I'm never gonna quit my job before I know what I'm moving to is a is a sure thing. And

Shannon Mattern (02:04.586)

Your biggest struggle might be undercharging, over delivering, and boundaries because you do have a day job. You do have all this other stuff to manage. You can't be you know, taking client phone calls all the time and you have a limited amount of time to do client work. And so it's really, really important to you to have your project start on time and end on time, and you know, that you're making a consistent income so that you can justify quitting your day job. So you are in the right place if you are any of those and probably a lot of other scenarios that I didn't didn't mention here.

But the only problem is that you think you don't think anyone will be able to afford you if you raise your prices. So maybe you think, my clients are nonprofits or my clients can't afford me. If I charge more than I think I can charge right now or that I am charging right now, I won't get any clients and I won't be able to make this business work at all. Or maybe you think that you don't know enough, that you need to learn more, that you need to take more classes, that you need to build more websites for free or for cheap before you can raise your prices. Or

Maybe you think that you can't you can't deliver, right? Maybe you're scared that, you know, I've built a website for myself and I've built several websites, but for some reason when it comes to building one for a client, you think that you can't deliver. But the kicker is that that mindset is actually holding you back from making the changes that you need to make in your business to be successful. The the thought that people can't afford you, the thought that you need to work for.

free or for cheap to get more experience. That mindset is holding you back from marketing yourself, from raising your prices, from getting the right kinds of clients. And when you have this mindset, you struggle to put yourself out there and get clients because either either I clients put yourself out there and get clients because either you feel like an imposter or it's just not worth it. It's just not worth it to you to take on one more cheap client because you can't it's just

You can't make it work. It's it these projects drag on forever. You end up burnt out and resentful. So what we're gonna do today is we're going to not only fix your pricing, we're gonna fix the your pricing mindset. We're gonna not we're gonna fix the the math, right? And then I'm going to sell you on your own value because otherwise you will never raise your prices. You will go through this entire workshop. And if you don't truly believe in your own value.

Shannon Mattern (04:23.32)

As a web designer and what you bring to the table, it doesn't matter what number you end up with at the end of this webinar, you're not gonna change your prices and you're not gonna go out there and market yourself at these new prices because you will still feel like a total imposter and the problem will not be resolved, right? So we need to get you sold on the value that you bring to the table. And that is part of what we're gonna do today in this training. So we're gonna talk about what is sustainable pricing and how to implement it in your web design business.

We're also going to bust all of your limiting beliefs that hold you back from actually charging enough money for you to like be able to live and run your business and pay taxes and have a life which you deserve to be compensated well for what you bring to the table. We're going to bust all of the limiting beliefs that hold you back. Then we're going to fix the free the three most common business breakdowns that just leak money out of your business.

So these are all like three really, really important pieces of a profitable, sustainable, and scalable web design business is having these pieces in having these pieces in place, having your pricing right, having your mindset right, but also having your all of the pieces, the processes like right so that you can so that you can actually move clients from, you know, move customers from like start to end, right? You want to be able to end those projects. We're gonna start off with sustainable pricing.

By finding your minimum baseline. So I want you to grab a pen and a paper, probably your phone, because you're going to need the calculator, or if you have a calculator handy, you're going to need that because we are going to do some math and figure out what you how much money you need to make to meet your needs as a as a human person, wherever, wherever it is that you live. This is this is going to be different for everybody. So when I say sus sustainable pricing, I mean that you are making enough to pay yourself your paycheck, the the amount of money that you need to make.

To live, to pay for your business expenses, because when you run a business, there are expenses and to pay taxes. And depending on where you live, that is different. If you're in the United States, we pay federal income tax. Depending on the state you live in, we pay state income taxes, depending on the city or town you live in. You might have local taxes that you have to pay. And these are all numbers that we want to figure into how much we are charging, right? So grab that pen and paper, let's dive into finding your minimum baseline.

Shannon Mattern (06:42.198)

And one more thing before we do the math on the minimum baseline, I like to start with our very first goal for revenue being the smallest amount of money that we need to make in order to meet all three of those things, right? And if you listen to my podcast, Pep Talks for Side Hustlers, I do a monthly income report every single month where I break down, hey, here's the minimum baseline I need to run this business, to pay myself, pay the expenses, pay our taxes. And that minimum baseline has shifted since.

2015, when I started my web design business and I still had a day job. So I didn't need to pay myself a paycheck. I just needed to be able to cover my business expenses and bring in enough money over and over and over again to then be able to cover my paycheck to when I quit my day job and then I was solely responsible for paying my paycheck, covering the expenses and taxes. To now I've added team members and I have to pay them and expenses and taxes. So my minimum baseline has shifted over.

over the growth of my business. And I think one of the things that I see that people do where they host themselves is they're like, I want a web design business that makes six figures. And I think that is great. And I am here for it. And I will support you every step of the way and I will get you there. But if that's not where you need to start, that can be really overwhelming to think of all that you need to do to get there. So we start with our minimum baseline. So we actually get like a realistic number that's doable. So you can see like here's how this is doable. And if I start here,

Then here's how I can grow to my big goal. And I'll show you that a little bit later in this training. So, first, what is your minimum monthly income requirement? You can figure this out in one of two ways. If you have a day job and you're getting paid and you don't want to take a pay cut, then you figure out what is your take-home pay after taxes. So I did a little calculator. I kind of got my time machine and went back to 2014, 2015 when I had a day job and I think I was making about $60,000 a year.

at my day job and my take-home pay, which was what actually got deposited into my bank account after all the taxes and benefits and like all the stuff came out was about $4,000. So that was that's what I would put down for my minimum monthly income requirement is $4,000. That's one way to figure it out. The other way to figure it out is to do a budget, do your household budget. Like what's your mortgage? What's your car payments? Do you have student loans, credit cards, like what are all of your expenses? And

Shannon Mattern (09:05.738)

What's your partner make if you have a partner? What's coming in there? And I'm talking full budget groceries, every like everything, like you know, if you Dave Ramsey style, if you guys follow him. And then to figure out, okay, well, what's what is the minimum amount I need to bring in every month to whatever my partner and I or whatever I decide that number needs to be, right? So that's another way to figure it out. Totally unique to you. We want you making, we want you.

Bringing in like we want your basic needs met, right? We want the minimum baseline to meet your basic needs. Once we get our basic needs met, we can work on the big dream stuff, right? Like it's way easier to work on the big dream stuff when we're not stressed about money all the time. Okay. So what's your minimum monthly income requirement? Whether that's like, I'm not taking a pay cut if I build this web design business, or it's these are all my obligations and I want to cover them or whatever I've decided to contribute to them for my household. So that's step one. So get that number. Step two, what are your business expenses?

So in my income reports, I talk about how I have three categories of business expenses. I have tools, I have team, and I have training. So for me, tools are web hosting, email marketing, all the little tools that I use to software as a services, subscriptions, all of those little things that I use to like run the business, those are my tools. And if you want to go to shannonmatter.com forward slash podcast, click on income reports. In every single income report, I link to the same spreadsheet that has a list of all the tools that I use in my business and how much I pay for them every single month.

So what are your business expenses? And then team. you know, I didn't have a team when I started. So your team line's probably zero. right now I have a team, I have a team, I have people I pay every month. So I put them in there. And then training, that has been the most important expense. And I I don't even want to call an expense. These are all investments, right? These are all investments in the growth of our business. Training behind team is my biggest expense every single month, my biggest investment that I make in my business because I used to go it alone.

And I used to struggle and hustle and do it the hard way. And when I started setting aside money to invest in training and mentorship, then everything changed. So that is the third line item personally for me in my business. And it's like the most important one for me. So for in our example, let's say you have $650 a month set aside for tools and training. And you don't have a team. So you don't have team. And then what do you need to set aside to pay your taxes?

Shannon Mattern (11:29.902)

caveat, I am not a CPA or an attorney. This is not legal or tax advice. I will just tell you what I do. And I'll just, yeah, I'll just tell you what I do and I'll give you a rule of thumb. If you have a paycheck, you can you can just take the number twice of what's currently coming out of your paycheck. so that's a good rule of thumb just because when you're self-employed, you pay self-employment taxes. So like your employer pays 50% of your Medicare and Social Security and you pay 50%. When you're self-employed you pay 100% of that.

So you actually have to pull out a little bit more for taxes than if you were an employee. And please don't get freaked out about this. it's it's really not like it's not a big deal. We actually help our students inside the Web Designer Academy. We have a training on like how to do this right and everything. but it's just like a benchmark. So you would want to set aside twice of what's currently coming out of your paycheck or about 20 to 25% of

your revenue minus expenses. And we'll talk about that in a second. We'll talk about what the what the minimum baseline revenue number is minus that $650 expenses. About 20 to 25% of that is what you would want to set aside for taxes. and then step four, so those are the numbers that you want to have written down. And then step four is how much time do you have available every week to work? Like this is such a critical number that most people don't consider. And you need to know this. So I want you to think about like

Your day, do you have a couple hours in the morning? Are you a night owl? It does not matter when, but how many hours a week do you have to work? So is it like two Monday through Friday? And then, you know, that's 10 hours. And then is it like a 10 hour day on Saturday? Or is it like five on Saturday, five on Sunday? Like it's totally up to you. That would be an example of like me when I was side hustling. and I probably honestly had 30 hours a week side hustling because I did stuff before and after work because I don't have kids, but like what what time do you have available to you to work every week? So think about that.

Add the hours, write it down. So knowing these four variables, how much you need to make, what your expenses are, how much to set aside to pay for taxes, and how much time you have available every week, now you can do the math. So if you need $4,000 to pay yourself plus $650 for expenses and $13.50 for taxes, you need to be bringing in about $6,000 of revenue every month. And so

Shannon Mattern (13:49.4)

I don't know if my math is gonna exactly work out for this 1350 to be like so the other remember I said 20 to 25% of of your of your revenue minus expenses equals your taxes. So that would be 20% of 6,000 minus 650. That might not quite equal 1350, but for the sake of argument, for the sake of this example, I just wanted to like make it make it super simple. So 4,000 to pay yourself, 650 expenses, and then you'd have you'd set aside 1350.

Pay your taxes every quarter when the IRS says to, and again, I'm not a CPA or an attorney, but it's literally as easy as like going on their website and like entering your information and paying it every quarter on the days that they say it's due. So anyway, just to like, I know I that's the other thing that I hear freaks people out so much about running their own business is that stuff. And and it's it's something that we help our students with inside of our program, but also we provide resources, I should say. But also I just want you to know like when I start to talk about this stuff.

And if you're feeling yourself get tense and worried and my gosh, I'm not qualified to run a business, you are. You absolutely are. So do the math. Figure out what is this minimum baseline that you need to pay that you need to make every single month to have a sustainable web design business, meaning it makes enough money to pay you and pay for itself and pay the IRS, right? Or whatever country you live in. I don't know how your taxes work outside of the US. So please don't ask me. Okay, so do the math.

And then the mistake most people make from this point is that they just decide that six thousand dollars a month. I've got 20 hours a week to work. There are four weeks in a month, my hourly rate is $75 an hour. And if you don't get sticker shock from that number because you grew up like I did, and no, you never made that much money in your life, and you don't know anybody that made that much money in your life. If you don't get sticker shock from that, you then are like, okay, cool, got it. Like, I've got $75 an hour.

I've got four hours every single day, Monday through Friday to work. Like I'm golden. That actually all all works out to $6,000 a month. Awesome. But it doesn't work that way. It does not work that way because you are going, there's more time in here in this than just client work, right? There's marketing, there's administrative stuff. There's working in your business. There's building your systems. There's there's scope creep if you don't have a process in place for that. So

Shannon Mattern (16:15.928)

There's more time that you need to dedicate to your business than just billable client work, right? And so what happens is either you you you can't ever hit to hit that six thousand dollar mark, or you hit the six thousand dollar mark, but you're working 40 hours a week outside of your day job because 20 of it was on client work and then the other 20 of it was on all the other stuff that's not client work. So this does not work. You cannot charge by the hour. This is one of the biggest mindset shifts that people that people have to make because

Like right now, I bet a lot of you are charging by the hour, and you're not charging anywhere near what you would need to charge by the hour to even hit your minimum baseline. And even if you were charging anywhere near what you need to make to hit your minimum baseline, you don't have the amount of time you need in the week to make that happen. So you have to stop charging by the hour and start charging by the long-term value of the website for your client. So here's what I mean by that. And before I get into here's what I mean by that.

Use your minimum baseline as a starting point. And this is like a whole big mindset shift for people, which I'll talk about in a second, because they're just like, I can't do that. I have to work with more clients first. I couldn't possibly charge. I couldn't possibly start charging that much right now. I need to, I need to work for free to get more clients first and get my process down before I'm somebody comes and tells me that, like, okay, now it's time that you're allowed to charge for this. Like, we'll get into the mindset here in a second. So start charging, stop charging by the hour.

Start charging by the long-term value of the website for your client and use your minimum baseline as the starting point for your pricing. Okay. So on one hand, your pricing is not about you. It's all about the long-term value of the website for your client, but your pricing is about you. You want to make sure that you're that you're making enough to live, right? That you're making enough to make the business sustainable. Cause if the business isn't sustainable, then you are hurting yourself. You're hurting your clients and the business isn't going to be there for you.

So you have to use your minimum baseline as a starting point. So what you do instead is if you need to make six thousand dollars per month, you price by the project. So six thousand dollars per month equals X number of projects at Y price. So again, what I see people want to do is undercharge. They're like, okay, well, I'll just charge $1,200 per website and I'll do five projects per month at $1,200. You cannot do five projects per month at $1,200 unless you have a system that is.

Shannon Mattern (18:42.53)

dialed and you have a really solid pipeline of leads coming in. Like your marketing game has got to be on point and your processes have to be on point so that your projects do not drag out. so that like everything's happening like clockwork and you only have 20 hours a week to make this happen. So or maybe a little more. So like that has to be a well-oiled machine in order for that to work. And most of you right now are not at the place where you have that many leads coming in.

To even like book five projects a month. Say you need to talk to 20 people a month to book five projects a month at $1,200 and then be able to complete five websites every single month. I mean, that's a heavy, heavy lift. So what we do with our clients is we teach them how to position themselves to be able to charge $6,000 for one project and they work 20 hours a week. The project itself that they're completing in one month takes 40.

hours to complete. So they have 80 at 20 hours a week. They have about 80 hours in a month to work. Their client project takes only 40 hours. So they still have time for the admin stuff. They still have time to book the next client. They still have time to market to fill the pipeline. They still have time to work on their business and build their business. And they're making six thousand dollars a month on their client projects, right? So this is just one way we help them structure it. You know, they could have two $3,000 projects and we would help them figure out how to fit that in.

how to fit that in with their life. But this is what it can look like when you're not undercharging and you have this is a sustainable, healthy business. Okay. So that's what it looks like for our clients. And creating a full time income on a side hustler schedule is absolutely absolutely possible. But it doesn't work if you are undercharging. It does not work if you are undercharging. So if you

Like this, if you're charge if you're trying to charge twelve hundred dollars for a six thousand dollar website, you're this is you're not gonna hit your minimum baseline. You might be able to fit into this schedule, but you're not gonna be able to do five of these in in one month. So we have to be realistic about what we're capable of when we're looking at our pricing also. And it always starts with our minimum baseline. So how how do we get there? How do we get to believing that

Shannon Mattern (21:06.07)

We could actually charge six thousand dollars for one website. And that's where the rule of ten comes in. I absolutely love this. I'm in a mastermind, a coaching program with this woman. Her name's Aisha Crumbine, crumbine ed.com. She does something completely different. She doesn't do web design or anything like that. But we were in this Facebook group and she shared her rule of 10. And I was like, This is genius. This is genius. So I'm passing this along to you. And I I don't know if she came up with it, but I heard it from her, so I wanted to credit.

Credit her. so the rule of 10, I want you to think about this. What when we talk about your price is not based on on like an hourly rate. It's based on the long-term value of the website for your client. And also you're picking your starting point as your minimum baseline because you deserve to have a sustainable, profitable, scalable, like web design business, right? Like you, it's okay for you to have that. So

When you're thinking about long-term value, I want you to think like, what is possible for my client once they've worked with me? A lot of you guys want to work with like so many of our clients are like they serve like the in the coaching space, right? A life coach, a health coach, a business coach, whatever. They build websites for those types of people. So thinking about a life coach, like what is possible for a life coach once they have worked with one of our designers? Well, before they didn't have a website, maybe they didn't have a website that they were proud of. So they held themselves back from marketing and getting new clients.

They didn't have systems in place to capture email addresses so that they could make offers to their clients. They didn't have a scheduler. so they were constantly going back and forth with their clients on on times for for coaching. They didn't have any kind of like invoicing system or payment system. They were like manually sending PayPal links to their clients before. And there was just a whole lot of overhead and admin, and they were spending more time working on running the business than they actually are.

Serving the clients and they're not even able to scale to the the group level. you know, they're doing one on one coaching, they'd never be able to scale to the group level because of all the time they're spending on admin, and they'd never be able to scale to the course level because they couldn't even get past the one on one with their time. So think about the limit that that person has on their income because they don't have a website that that works for them. Now they have a website that does all of that for them and they're able to just do their marketing.

Shannon Mattern (23:27.212)

And just onboard new clients and their website and their email system facilitates a lot of that other stuff. And they don't have to manually send invoices or chase people down. They can actually have a group program now. And then they can actually add an online course in later because they have all of this. What is possible for that client? Could they 10X their income? Could they 20x their income with the the website that you were able to build for them? That's possible, right? So could your client, here's the rule of 10 could your client make 10 times more.

Than what they paid you over the lifetime of the website. And imagine that the lifetime of the website that you bought them is maybe or that you designed for them is like one to two to three years, right? Is it possible for your client to make 10 times more than what they paid you? So in our example, if I charge $6,000 for this website, could my client make $60,000 over the next three years? yes, I would hope so. Like I cannot control whether that person decides to market themselves or

you know, do a launch or run a campaign, but I can give them all of the tools to make that possible for them. So they absolutely could absolutely make 10 times more than they they paid me over the lifetime of that website. So that's the first piece of the rule of 10 and figuring out like what's the long-term value based on your minimum baseline and justifying how much you're charging to yourself in your mind and really getting sold on it. Then the other piece of it is could your client make back what they paid you three to six months?

After launching. So they pay you $6,000 in three to six months. Are they making $6,000 in their business? Are they making $2,000 a month? Are they making $1,000 a month? Would it be possible for them to make that much with our with what we build for them, whether they do the work or not? This is this is critical. This is a critical piece of the puzzle. You cannot control whether that client is going to actually run their business once.

They build the website, but you can only give them the circumstance for them to be able to do it. No website can like generate clients on demand, right? So that's one of those you know, managing the expectations of your client is like, I will give you the thing that you need, and then you can take it from there and run with it and market and do the things, right? Like they will have to do the marketing afterwards, but you can give them a website that converts if they do their part to get the person there. Like that's their responsibility, right?

Shannon Mattern (25:48.312)

So could your client make back what they paid you three to six months after, after working with you, after going live, after or or when they decide to like actually start their business, right? When they start their business in three to six months, will they have generated that much revenue with the systems that they created? Or when they relaunch this website. So that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about like long-term value. Like long term is the 10x over the lifetime, but even short term, over the short term, are they gonna recoup their investment?

In the short term and then grow it to 10 times more, right? So I hope that I have convinced you to at least, at least raise your prices to your minimum baseline. It's critical for you if you wanna, if you want your web design business to thrive and be able to grow. Okay. And and you can like this is when what happens when you get really clear on who your client is and how you can help them. And you can actually like understand in your mind the value of

them working with somebody like you to build their website. So I want you to raise your prices. But still, where a lot of you are going to get stuck is your mindset. It doesn't matter I could convince you of all of this. You're probably like logically, Shannon, that makes sense. But I still think the following things. Let's clean up your busted pricing beliefs so that you can believe that you really can charge that much. Busted belief number one, I need more experience first. I just went on a little mini rant on Facebook Live about this.

recently where I t I was talking to someone who said, I I want to raise my prices, but I'm not going to until I get a few more clients under my belt and get my process dialed in. Because right now, the first client, one of the early clients that I worked with that I only charged, I want to say she said around $800. I think she's it was pounds, but it doesn't matter. She only charged $800, but she wants to charge $5,000.

But she won't charge $5,000 until she gets her process dialed in, but she's having problems with this client and they're not getting content and all of this stuff. And now she's feeling resentful. It's like, so in so in her mind, it's just like, well, there must be a problem with me. And I just must be so inexperienced that, you know, I do a few more of these, all of these problems will clear up. And it's like, it's not a you problem. It is a process problem.

Shannon Mattern (28:11.48)

There is no amount of you taking on cheap clients that is going to fix your busted processes, right? You don't know what you don't know about running a web design project. You know how to build an awesome website. Like that is your skill. That's the skill that you bring to the table. But what you don't know is how to deal with a client and how to plan for all of the variables of a client going rogue or ghosting you or not paying you on time or not getting you content on time. So if you want.

You can take on client after client and experience all of that pain and go through and develop your own processes after working with 10 cheapskate clients over the next year and not raising your prices. And then only once you feel like you're good enough and you're and you've done it, you've gone through the pain enough times that it's worth raising your price and that you're experienced enough to raise your price, or you can raise your price now. You can raise your price now and you can either go it alone and try to figure out how to.

How to fix all these problems after the fact, or you can get some help and be proactive about it. And I'll tell you very briefly at the end of this webinar how we can help you with that. You do not need more experience building websites, you know how to build websites, you need a process that's going to support you. And when you have it, it's gonna be way easier for you to charge more when you're like, my gosh, look at all that's involved in this process. Of course, I've been undercharging. You keep thinking.

That's all you're delivering is a WordPress site with five pages and a blog and branding and whatever. And it only took you a week to do yours. So that can't possibly be worth that much. And that is not not true. The truth is that you need a solid process and support, not more experience. Do you if you want to experience pain over and over again, then sure you need more experience. But that's that's an optional part of the journey, right? That is a totally optional part of the journey for you to experience all the crap so that you can fix it. The other option is to

have someone guide you and support you through the process so that you're golden from from the very beginning. And then you know your price is your price can be, you don't have to wait to charge more. You don't have to wait to charge you, you don't have to wait to charge more, even if you're going to just get experience as you go. You the cause the value of the website's the value the long term value of of it to the client. You can experience all the pain and charge higher, or you can, you know, not experience the pain and charge higher. So you need a solid process and a support, but

Shannon Mattern (30:33.026)

The price has nothing to do with your experience. If you can deliver the outcome of the website, that's all you need. That's the experience that helps the client get the long-term value. So the truth is that you need a solid process and support. Busted belief number two, I can't charge as much because I am self-taught. I can promise you your client does not care how you learned. They just care that you can deliver the outcome. And the other thing I think every time I hear this is like someone that like pays to go to college to learn it or pays for a certification to learn it.

They also are self-taught, right? They they showed up and they did the work. There are plenty of people who pay for trainings like that and actually never complete and never learn and never have the skill, but they paid for it. Like the whole self-taught thing is like you figured it out on your own, like instead of someone teaching it to you. That's not worth any less. It is not worth any less. So you that's just not true. And the outcome is no different for your client, regardless of how you learned, right? And

You being self-taught is probably actually an asset because you know how to figure out problems, right? So I don't care if you're self-taught or if you took a class or if you got a certification or you went to college for it. You are going to work on a client project where something happens that you don't already know how to do. And if you taught yourself, you can teach yourself the answer to that problem. If you went to college or you got a certain certification, you can teach yourself how to figure out that problem. It doesn't matter. The outcome is no different for your client. They're paying you for the outcome, not for how you learned.

It's just it's not even a factor. So the third busted belief that I hear so, so often is my clients can't afford to pay more. This is especially true of those of you who tell me, like, I would love to charge my minimum baseline, but I work for nonprofits. nonprofits don't have money, they can't afford to pay more. And it's like nonprofits have money, they just don't take profits out of their business, right? So the definition of a nonprofit is that.

All of the money that the business makes stays in the business and nobody takes profit off the top. So nonprofits don't like, they're not, they're not like adverse to making money. Nonprofits make a lot of money. The more money that nonprofits can make, the bigger that the more that they can serve their mission, right? And they recruit volunteers because they can use more of the money that they make to invest in serving the people that the volunteers serve, right? Like, so there's so many reasons why nonprofits

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would actually want to invest in a website that's going to bring them 10 times more donations than what they were able to get without it, or 20 times more donations, or 20 times more volunteers, or 10 times more visibility or reach than they were able to get before. So nonprofits have money and nonprofits will invest in things that were are going to help them, help them make more money, right? It's an investment. It's not an expense. That's the thing that you have to think about.

When you think about building a website for something, an organization like a nonprofit, it is not money that just goes away forever. It's money that grows. When they give you the $6,000, they are able to 10 times that because they didn't have the the tool to do that before. So that's one thing when people talk about nonprofits. And yes, of course, there are nonprofit organizations that really don't, that really are operating on a shoestring. But when you're charging sustainably for the ones that are able to afford it, then you can create

like pro bono programs for the ones that don't, or create trainings for the ones that don't, or create lower priced offers for the ones that don't. When you're taking care of you, you can support others at you know and at a more generous level. So that's the thing I want to say about nonprofits. But the other thing is your clients can't afford to pay you more. That is just not true. It's absolutely not true. There, there, I'll give you this: there are people who just won't pay for things. There really are people who believe that a website is an expense.

That it's a necessary like that it's never gonna make the money back. And no matter how much you try to convince them in in your marketing that it is actually an investment that's going to help them make money, they're just not going to spend the money on it. And there's all kinds of reasons why their money mindset could be a factor. There's so many reasons why it could literally be that you know they're choosing to pay their mortgage rather than hire you to build a website. And that's okay. But there are just as many other people out there who actually can't afford to pay more. And those are your clients. Okay. Those are your clients.

And you have got to stop pricing with your own pocketbook. If you are the kind of person that thinks that your clients can't afford to pay for things, I am guessing that you often think that you can't afford to pay for things and that you also think of things as expenses rather than investments. And that you're seeing that you're looking at the short-term picture of the money going away rather than okay, the money goes away for a little while, but then it comes back 10 times more. And I'm only saying that because that used to be me. I have done so much work on my money mindset and to stop.

Shannon Mattern (35:17.302)

charging based on like my own fear and my own worry and my own scarcity and to understand that you know there are people out there who don't think like me there are people out there who do see it as an investment there are people out there that are willing to pay and willing to have a trusted partner guide them through the process and there are people who aren't and it's my job to find the people who are so stop thinking that everyone is the same. Stop pricing with your own pocketbook. There absolutely are clients out there

Who would pay you 6,000 instead of 12,000? There truly, truly are. You just have to believe it first before they're gonna believe it. So I wanna ask you, after me making this very impassioned argument to you, to please raise your prices, do you believe that your clients could make 10 times your minimum baseline over the lifetime of the website? Do you believe that? I just want you to take a minute and really think about it. Is that possible for your client?

Can you deliver them something that would enable them to get that result? Cause I want to go back to the whole, you can't jump in their body and make them do their marketing. You can't jump in their body and make them run their business, but you can give them the tool that they can use. And if they use that tool, could they make 10 times right over the lifetime of the website?

I want to leave you with this. Raise your prices. Raise your prices. This is the second time I'm telling you this. So you can raise your prices, but there are still a few places where your website is web design business will break down and leak money, or that you'll leave money on the table. So we want to get your pricing right, but we want you to we want you to like maximize that. We don't want you leaving more money on the table and we don't want you leaking, leaking money. So like I said, raising your prices is just one piece.

Of the overall puzzle, there are three places that like you can put a price on a package all day long. But if you're not getting clients buying it, that's breakdown number one. If you're not getting clients cooperating with you to actually start and end those projects on your timeline and it stretches out beyond that one month timeline, that's breakdown number two, because then you're adding another client on before you finish that one, you're not getting paid on time. And then breakdown number three is scope creep, where you're doing work.

Shannon Mattern (37:34.196)

You're not getting paid for. And that's where your whole this all breaks down, right? So if you are not doing your marketing, A, and you're not getting consultations, B, and you're not turning those consultations into client C, I don't care what number you wrote on the package on your website, that's not it's not gonna help until you actually book the client. And then once you book that client, if the project drags on because the client is not cooperating, that's breakdown number two, because

Projects take longer and then you're booking projects on top of projects on top of projects. And now you've got four clients going on at the same time and you're completely burnt out and overwhelmed and you're not getting paid on time. And then, like I said, three scope creep is when you don't know how to say no to a client who asks for more than what you agreed to in the first place. And so this is where your process comes massively, massively into play.

That you have got to have a process that builds in boundaries from moment one. If you don't have these things in place and you're charging $6,000, that $6,000 is going to get stretched super, super thin across a few months and you're going to be working like crazy. So having a process that builds in boundaries from day one, a process that helps guide you through not only marketing, you know, how to market, how to have conversations with clients, how to have consultations, how to follow up.

And turn those consultations into clients, how to actually like lead your client through a very crystal clear process of of working with you and having all the levers to pull when the client's not cooperating already built into your process in your contract. So you already know if this happens, then that. And the client already knows too, so that you're clear from day one how this project's gonna go. And all of the scenarios are already laid out. You have your exit strategy already laid out.

if a client is is not cooperating and you know how to navigate every single one of those situations. You have a an offer, an offer process and a package process and a and a contract and boundaries that actually prevent scope creep. Because when the client purchased whatever they purchased, they knew what they were not purchasing, right? So they knew what they were not purchasing from day one. And also they you know how to say when they ask you for something that they didn't pay for. You know exactly how to say no.

Shannon Mattern (39:58.688)

In a way that feels very authentic and natural to you. If you're anything like me and you hate confrontation, you like it just like it makes your heart pound and you don't want to deal with it. So you would rather just do the work and not get paid for it and not ask to get paid for it to feel the relief from the potential confrontation. You'd rather work for free than to actually get paid for it. And we teach you how to not do that. Like your process should prevent that. And so these are the three places.

where you want to be really, really careful about your web design business breaking down. When you raise your price and you don't really believe in that full-time value, you'll be afraid to market yourself. You won't get consultations and then you won't follow up with them to turn them into clients because you feel like an imposter. So you've got to get your mindset right and you've got to truly believe and work, work out in your mind how the site that you build is worth 10 times more to your ideal client over the lifetime of the site before you raise those prices. So that you'll market yourself.

So that you'll know that they're better off working with you than they weren't than they'd be without working with you. And so you can have a really authentic conversation that's going to turn them into a client. And then your process should really be clear on here's exactly what happens, here's when you have to get the content to me, here's how this is going to go. And if it doesn't go this way, here's what's going to happen. So have that all really defined. And then preventing scope creep from day one is making sure that they know what they didn't buy from you and that you know how to.

how to say no or how to give them options of what of what you will do for them when they ask you for things. Because this is what we want your web design business to look like. We want you charging your minimum baseline for your project. We want you completing projects, starting them on time, completing them on time, having enough time for the admin, having enough time for the marketing, and having enough time to invest in your business. And when you don't have those processes, it starts to look like this. And this is not, and even if that was one project at 6,000, this is still not.

Not sustainable because nowhere in here is you getting that next client lined up, right? So, like we said, a process that builds boundaries in in from day one. Your profitable web design business happens. Profit means, hey, you're actually making more than your minimum baseline, right? You're paying yourself, you're paying taxes, you're paying business expenses, and there's some left over. That's profit. That's the difference between a nonprofit and a for-profit business, right? Sustainable pricing. So you have sustainable pricing in place.

Shannon Mattern (42:15.506)

And you have the rule of 10 mindset, which means you totally believe in the value, the long-term value that you bring to your clients, and you have boundaries built into that process. When you have all of those three things going, you are going to start like growing beyond. You're gonna hit that minimum baseline every single month, but you're gonna grow beyond that minimum baseline too. And so what would be possible for you if you had that proven system strategy process and support?

These are this is what's happening for our Web Designer Academy students each and every single week. It blows my mind. I know it shouldn't. I went through the rule of 10X with me, with my pricing for the program and with with what I what I put into it. I had to do a lot of mindset work there. but this is what's happening with our clients. We get these testimonials every single week. We they share their wins on our in our Facebook group and on our live strategy calls, and they are just constantly, constantly blowing their minds.

I I shouldn't be surprised, but every time they they blow my mind with with the results that they're getting. And I would love to help you too. I would love to help you not only reach your minimum baseline, but I would also love to help you reach your big goal revenue. And so we would love to help you do that because I don't care how many free trainings you take for me. You could watch every single Facebook Live that I do, every single free webinar that I put on. And I can I deliver as much value as I can pack into these trainings, but there is so

much that you don't see and that you don't experience when you are on the outside with our strategies, our you know, everything, everything that we do inside of that program is is just next level. And you can't reverse engineer it. Even if you were to go look at every single one of our students' websites, sign up for their email list, stock them on social media. You use that's just the tip of the iceberg of what you would see. You would not see all of the things that actually like go into that and the nuance and the strategy behind it. So we would love to

help you with that. So now it is time for our QA session. Clever and creative. Thank you for thank you for your comments, Scott. Thank you for your comments. We have several questions. so I wanted to make sure that I answered those. So Ivan asks, do you think doing a design audit or consultation can help the client, help the client see the value you bring to their brand? And my answer to that is a thousand percent.

Shannon Mattern (44:32.332)

Yes, absolutely. And you guys also you can put questions in the chat or in the QA. so so go ahead and put them wherever you want. I also jotted down a few that kind of came through during during the program. But yes, absolutely. I think you know, having a clear like a clear process where you're having a conversation with a client, you're explaining how you work, you're sharing, you're learning about them, you're translating what they're telling you into solutions. You're able to like explain to them in terms that they can understand.

like how this like how what you can do for them can 10x their business. I mean, you don't have to like say it specifically like that if you haven't gotten that far in the conversation, but when you understand, when you have a process to talk to a client where you can understand their pain points and then talk about your websites that you deliver in terms of a solution to their pain point and what is possible for them and their business when that problem is solved. And then you can also frame that in terms of revenue or opportunity or whatever for them, then

that makes it so much easier to charge more. I think Ivan, you had shared a little bit earlier that like you are getting these leads from people who are looking for you're getting some leads on Discord, Figma, Webflow channel. These are people who are specifically looking for your skill of web flow, right? And so why you're having a hard time raising your prices is because they're probably also looking at a lot of other people who are scal selling the skill of web flow time for dollars.

And when you come in with, hey, I also sell this skill, but I want to charge more than them, they're like, well, why would I pay you more? Everybody else is charging less. So what you have to do is change the conversation. You have to not be not be competing with all the other people who are selling that skill. You have to get really clear on what kind of clients you want to work for and sell a solution to their problem. And when you market based on the solution to the problem and not your skills, that's when the value goes up.

So for those of you who are who are experiencing that same thing where, you know, you you have these conversations and people are like, I'm not paying you $6,000 for a five page website. Like so-and-so over here is charging $1,000 for that. Well, that's because you're trying to sell a five page website in apples to apples comparison with all the other people who don't understand their value. What you need to do is talk to that person, figure out who your ideal client is, and position your website as a solution. That's what we help our clients do inside of our program.

Shannon Mattern (46:55.904)

Such a good question, Ivan. You guys, if you have other questions, go ahead and pop them in the chat so that I can answer those. let me just make sure. I have two monitors open here. So Zoom is like, once I switched, it like changed where everything was on me. So next question comes from Amanda. Also such a good question. She said, My business partner and I specialize in the Kajabi platform. As we build our business, we are working to push our limiting beliefs when it comes to pricing. But eventually we want to make more than what the celebrities in this field of design charge per site.

Is it crazy to charge more than them? Or is this when we have come up with other ways to increase their offers? So this is such a good question, Amanda. So so basically, and let and let me know in the chat if I'm understanding this right. You're like, we want to make more than more than what we see other celebrities in the field charging for Kajabi sites. We want to make more than that. So yeah, that could absolutely be figuring out what kind of clients you work for and figuring out like what would be 10, like the rule of 10, what would that look like for those people?

And you know, going after the people who are already making, you know, money in their business and can afford to pay you more, right? So it could be, yep, I'm just literally raising the prices on the exact same thing that I do because I know how to sell the value better than the other than the celebrities in the field, right? So that's one way to do it. But the other way that we teach our our students to do it is we teach them to scale. So we teach them to add scalable offers so that, you know, eventually you probably will get maxed out on your on your package price, right?

eventually you probably will get to the point where you're maxed out on that. But like there are people out there willing to pay premium for premium, right? For a premium experience and and not, you know, for everything to be taken care of for them, right? There are people out there willing, willing to do that. But then we also teach you how to create scalable offers so that you can serve one to many without adding to your time. So it's not crazy to charge more, it's just it depends on how you want to structure your business, right? And we help people figure out what that looks like for them.

And you know, yeah, it really kind of it all does come down to to your mindset. And we that's that's really what we help with as well. so how do we get into the mindset that we are worth that? That's that is such I mean, you you have to continuously think about the results that your clients can get from working with you. You truly do. We have people that came in have come into the Web Designer Academy. One of our most recent students, she filled out her intake form and I was like, tell me, because in the form I want to know.

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Things about them. And I'm like, tell me some of your experience and things that you're proud of. She was like, I took a and I helped an e-commerce company go from idea to inception all the way to a million-dollar revenue business because of her ideas, her consulting, her solutions, her building the the product, like the website for them. And she helped them from their very beginning idea and created something that allowed that and supported them to create something that was a million dollars. So that's worth it.

I have other people come in and say, I built this website for this coach back in 2015 for $300. And she's still using the same website and she's making a million dollars a year. Right. And she's still using it's the same funnels, same membership site, all that stuff. And then they're kicking themselves because they should have charged more because they weren't thinking about it in terms of the value to the client. People like people will pay for things that they value. You just have to learn how to talk about it in a way that they value.

And you have to believe it. You really do. And I think it's just continuous work on on the mindset. And that's a that's why that's such a big part of our program. Mindset is a huge part of our program. so Grace had said new solopreneurs who do not have a lot of money are her target audience. So she she really does believe that her clients can't afford her. I hope you're still here, Grace. Let me know in the comments if you're still here. And so you you gotta think though, like, why do you think that new solopreneurs don't have a lot of money? Is that true?

Is that always true 100% of the time that new solopreneurs do not have a lot of money? I think back to myself when I was just starting my business and I was a side hustling solopreneur. And, you know, I had the skill to DIY a lot of stuff, sure, but I had money to invest in training and courses and all of these things to help me build my business because it was a side hustle. I had a paycheck paying me.

and so I could take the money that I was making and I could reinvest that back in my business. So it is not true that everybody who is a new business owner cannot afford your services. And we cannot like it's we can't just assume that that someone's new they can't afford us. Like you're probably pricing with your own pocketbook through your own lens. Maybe I don't know. I don't know what you think, Grace. So if this is not you or your thoughts, that's okay. But I'm just saying what I would have done back back then. It's like if I truly thought like,

Shannon Mattern (51:43.276)

I can't afford this, I can't afford that, I have to DIY, I have to do all this. I had the skill to DIY, so I could DIY. And I truly believe that like I was parting with this money, never to have it ever return. And if I if I didn't spend it, I would like if I didn't spend it and I failed, then I didn't really fail because I didn't spend any money on it, right? But if I spent it and I still failed, well, then I failed big time, right? That's that was my mindset back then.

There are people out there who don't think like that. That is what I have come to learn as I have up-leveled my money mindset. There are people out there who are like, I believe in this business. I know I'm going to do it. I'm a brand new solopreneur, and I'm willing to invest in the right people and the right tools to make this a success. There are people out there like that, and they're new solopreneurs. So what you have to do is detach from the idea that all new business owners can't afford to work with you, don't have money, can't afford it. And

Position your services for the people who can. Like, cause there are those people out there. And what do think about what do those people want? The new solopreneur who can afford it, what would that person want? What problem would you be solving for that person with your site? So think about that. And we have exercises in our program that actually like walk you through that in detail to like help you figure that out. So I just want to leave you with that. But it is absolutely not true. And I know it's not true because when I first started doing web design.

And I taught people how to DIY for free, free five-day website challenge. I was like, all you gotta do is use my affiliate links. I'll teach you how to do it yourself. Cause I had all kinds of money mindset issues. And people would still come to me and say, I don't want to do it. Can you just do it for me? Can I pay you to do it for me? And I'd be No, you can't pay me to do it for you. I don't do that. I only teach. And they're like, But please, because like clearly you know what you're doing, you're building what I what I want and what I need. Can you just do it for me? And I like, Okay, well, now I'm just saying no to money, and that's just silly. So I need to figure out how to work with people again. And that hence

what kind of what became this program. So such a good question. You you have, yes, if you are a DIYer, if you don't value your own skill set, if you think because because you're self-taught and you think, it's so easy for me. It must be so easy for everybody else. That is not true. People are freaked out and terrified by the tech. And that's something that I've come to learn over working with over 15,000 DIYers is that they're like afraid to push a button wrong. And so there are a lot of people out there who would just value

Shannon Mattern (54:05.792)

not having to deal with that part. Yeah. So that is definitely a mindset shift. I'm so glad you asked that question. And Sarah says she has the same problem. Same, same thing, same thing applies is really focusing on for the person who can afford you, because they have a paycheck coming in and everything they're making in their business can be right invested back into their business until it's time to do something differently. you know, don't price, don't well one, don't price with your own pocketbook, but you might not have money mindset issues. That one might not resonate with you.

Stay out of your clients' wallets is what my coach always tells me, Mariah Cause. She's like, stay out of your clients' wallets. It is she always says it's rude and disrespectful to assume someone can't afford something. You don't know until you make the offer, right? You don't know until you make the offer. Inside the Web Designer Academy, we actually like give you guys scripts for every possible thing you could ever say. We call it the if this then that like document. And it's a table full of like all of these types of questions. And we have like, if they if they say this, then you say that. And as our

As our students come in with like the most random sideways things that clients say, we like add it to that doc. And so we have like a I don't know if compendium is the right word. It's the one that came to mind. But we just have like a whole list of like, here's what to say in every client situation. Because that was my struggle in the beginning. I'm like, could someone just please tell me what to say? Could someone just tell me what to say? Just tell me the answer. It's like, don't make me like get through all my mindset stuff about confrontation and pricing and all that. Just tell me what to say. And so that's really what what we do.

So if you have okay, so I'm going back through the chat to make sure we don't miss anything. Kathleen says, one of my biggest struggles is actually finding and communicating with leads. One of your testimonials mentioned that they work with agencies. How do you even find agencies to work with? So it does not matter who your ideal client is, whether it's an agency or a person, the marketing strategy is the exact same. You have to figure out where, how you can connect with them online, what their struggles are, what their problems are, what

problems they're trying to solve and how you can present what you do as the solution to their problems. So if it's an agency, then I would be making a list of agencies and reaching out to these agencies and figuring out, like, you know, having conversations with them. What are your biggest struggles when it comes to working with the designers that you hire, making a list of pain points and then selling yourself as the solution to all of those problems. That's that's exactly how I would do it. So you have to put yourself out there. That's the thing. And that's the other thing that everyone says like,

Shannon Mattern (56:29.314)

I'm so afraid to put myself out there. I'm I'm so afraid to to do that. But like when you put yourself out there as the solution instead of the expert, it becomes so much easier. And that is how we teach you to position yourself through our framework and through our training, is we help you identify all of this and authentically position yourself as the solution. So you don't have to come out and say, like, I am the end, I'll be all expert on Kajabi for.

You know, this type of business, and that's why you should work with me, and that's my why my prices are so high. no, you talk about like I am the solution to everything that's holding you back from where you want to go, and here's how I can help you get there. And that's how you transform from being a hourly paid by the hour pixel pusher who is just being hired for jobs here and there to a collaborative, consultative partner who commands way higher, way higher rates than than everyone else.

Not than everyone else, that you deserve, that you're that you're worth. because there's room for all of us, right? what other questions do we have? Sarah said, boom, you are the solution, not the expert. I think my brain just exploded. Thank you for that. You are welcome. This, my whole goal inside of this training is to get you to shift how you think about your value. Shift how you think about your value and

Because when you think you have to be the expert, then you feel like an imposter. When you think you people can't afford your stuff, then you lowball your price. When you think these things, then you don't market yourself, right? Then you hold back. Then you wait for referrals to come to you. then you work for beta prices and and and try to get more experience until you finally some someday feel confident. None of that is coming. I'm just telling you, you have to change your mindset. So that's really what we help you do inside of our program.

Let me know if you guys have any other questions. I can stick around for another eight minutes. If not, feel free to jump off. but definitely take this time to to help me like tell me what is holding you back from raising your prices. I want you to leave this training believing that it's possible.

Shannon Mattern (58:48.664)

Sarah says, yes, there's so much pressure with that expert tag. I am sure that's where my imposter syndrome comes in. Your clients don't need you to be an expert in knowing everything they need you to be able to solve their problem. And it's a it's a process, right? It's a process of like getting to know who that client is, what their needs are, figuring out what the solution is, being able to troubleshoot problems as they come along. Like I say this over and over again, and this is like, I get flack for saying this, like.

You do not have to be an expert. Yes, you absolutely have to know how to deliver the end result of the website that solves the problem. You have to know how to point and click and type your way through that. Not that I'm not disputing that. But there is never a scenario that you are going to like do it perfectly and never run into a single problem or a single variable that was different from the last project or a weird situation that this client has that the last client didn't have. Like no project is ever just going to be like,

did that without a single roadblock from start to finish. And that means I have finally arrived and I'm finally qualified and I'm no longer an imposter. That just does not happen. You have to believe that you are willing to figure out how to solve any problem that comes along. And when you are going it alone and you're not part of a community and you're not part of a group of people who can put their smart brains together and help you, that is a lot, lot harder. And that's one of the things that our students love about our program is they are collaborating together.

in our Facebook community. That Facebook community is not like ask Shannon questions. They do, but they use that to help each other solve client problems. They get on Zooms with each other and dig into code and they do all kinds of stuff to help each other through all of all of the things because they trust each other and they know that they can ask for help and no one's gonna be like, you're stupid. You shouldn't have you shouldn't be a web designer if you have to ask that question. Like you would see in some more public forums and that's the kind of stuff that used to happen to me back in the day when I was when I was learning

Teaching myself, I'd ask a question and someone would be like, You're stupid for asking that. And I'd be like, Okay, bye. I'm gonna go make my own community over here with people who don't do that. So yeah, like you do not have to know everything. And if you can hook in to a community of super supportive people who are willing to hold your hand through some of the things that you don't know, like you're unstoppable. You are absolutely unstoppable.