Web Design Clients and What to Do If You Are Not Getting Enough

Shannon Mattern: Welcome to the Profitable Web Designer, a podcast for web designers who want to work less and make more money. I'm your host Shannon Mattern, founder of the Web Designer Academy, where we've helped hundreds of web designers stop under charging, overworking and create profitable sustainable web design businesses.

Shannon Mattern: Hey, and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer Podcast. I have a really, really special episode for you today all about what to do when you are not getting clients. So this is a discussion that we had inside of our live strategy call inside the Web Designer Academy all about how to troubleshoot exactly what to do when you are not getting clients. So we talk a lot about strategies for getting clients and step giving, like all of the steps and all of the scripts and what to do and what to say and how to do it and where to do it and all of the things. But what happens when you don't create the result that you wanna create? How do you troubleshoot that? And that is what we're talking about on the podcast today. So here is a recording of part of our live strategy call that we recently did where I broke down exactly how to troubleshoot getting clients.

Shannon Mattern: All right, so let's dive in to troubleshooting, getting clients. And like I said, I really wanted to talk about this today on the live strategy call because it is a topic that came up a lot at the Simply Profitable Designer Summit. I have been just noticing posts in the Facebook group and things here and there, and I thought I really wanted to give you a tool for what you do when you're not getting clients consistently and how do you troubleshoot that? Because there will a thousand percent be times in your business no matter how much marketing you're doing or how many things that you're doing right, that you are not going to get the outcomes that you want to create. And it's like how you think in those moments that determines the actions that you take that determines the outcomes that you will get. And so when you go about solving this problem from a place of like lack and anxiety and the sky is falling, which is, I don't know, my default mode and I think most humans default modes versus curiosity and sufficiency and capability and resilience, that's just gonna determine like how the future of your business goes.

Shannon Mattern: It helps you build trust in yourself, it helps you build resilience. We were talking earlier about when you think the sky is falling , like how can you build trust? And I think going through this process can really help you build trust because it's part mechanics. Like we teach strategies, you implement the strategies, we give you scripts, you follow the steps, that's all the mechanics, but it's also part mindset. And so we're gonna cover like the two pieces of not getting clients. There's the not creating consultations, not creating the opportunities, and then there's not like closing, right? Like not getting the yes. And we'll talk about how to troubleshoot both scenarios. But the first step in either scenario is to examine your mindset. Like that is the first place to look for all of this. I can promise you finding your mind trash is gold, finding all your mind trash is what will help you create results.

Shannon Mattern: And being aware of it is like don't judge yourself for it. Don't think that you're broken, don't think that you're wrong, don't think that you have too much of it. It is the exact thing that you need to find in order to create different results. So the first step before you do anything else is to do a self-analysis. And you'll probably wanna take some notes here. We are transcribing this for you know, that'll, it'll go in the dashboard. Our auto AI will transcribe this so we will have this for you. But if you can take notes, take notes on this because we want you to ask yourself a series of questions designed to uncover your mind. Trash not designed to make you judge yourself as I didn't do something right or I should be better. Like if you find yourself thinking all of these things, when I'm asking you these questions, I'm not asking you these questions to like put you on blast about what you are doing or what you aren't doing.

Shannon Mattern: That is not what this is. It's all about helping you truly take an objective look at yourself and your mind and your thoughts and what you're thinking to uncover your mind trash. So do not use these questions against yourself to judge yourself or think that you're not good enough or that you should be doing better. Okay, . So whether you have an issue on the consultation side or the closing side, ask yourself these questions. Why do you think you are not getting clients? And just like ask yourself that and literally write down the answers. Take some time to pull out some pen and paper and write down the answers to these questions. And hopefully , for those of you who are here, as you go through this, you'll be like, I'm totally gonna submit this piece of mind trash I found for a live strategy call.

Shannon Mattern: I need some support like making this over. So why do you think you're not getting clients? Like list out all of the reasons, right? It could be anything. It could be anywhere from I'm not good enough to, they can't afford it to, there's no one out here that wants it to, who knows, it could be anything. List all of those out because all of the things that you think as to why you're not getting clients, it's influencing the, the actions that you're taking. It's influencing the words that you're saying on your consultations, it's influencing how you're following up the words that you're saying in your follow up. It is influencing everything and you don't even know it. So you need to know all of the things that you think while you're not getting clients because we get to explore how that is affecting the things that you're doing and saying and all of those things.

Shannon Mattern: So that's the first question to ask yourself, what are all of the reasons you think you're not getting clients? What are you making not getting clients or not getting consultations mean? So what are you making mean about yourself, about your business? List, all of those things out. Question number three, what do you do when you aren't getting clients? What actions are you taking when you're not getting clients? Are you working on your website? Are you working on your portfolio? Are you clicking on Facebook adss and watching webinars for the tried and true client getting strategy of the day? , Kate's laughing. I don't know if you're laughing at that or something else, but like , I found myself literally accidentally reading a Facebook me like that's a really, yeah, that's re no like stop it and I like close the tab, right? Are you working on your copy?

Shannon Mattern: Like what are the things that you're doing? So list out all the things and then ask yourself like why do you think those things will result in you getting more clients? Like why do you think those things will work? Why? And then ask yourself like is it true? Are those thought errors? Is there any mind trash in here? Just like do an objective analysis of like why do I think working on my website is going to result in more clients? I'm not even gonna like go down the rabbit hole of all the reasons why that may or may not be true. But just ask yourself and then what results are those thoughts creating and are those results wanted or unwanted? So you have asked yourself three questions to really kind of figure out like what are you thinking? What are you doing? You get to then run that stuff through a mind trash makeover.

Shannon Mattern: So let me share my screen. For those of you on the live strategy call, you have all of the thoughts that you uncovered, you have all of the actions that you uncovered. Your result is I'm not getting clients or I'm not getting consultations. So that's the result. You can just automatically put that in there and then you get to decide like what do you need to think instead to create the result of getting clients. And if you haven't watched the mind trash makeover training that I did, it's just straight up on the web designer academy dashboard like go watch that To see the mechanics of actually like doing your own mind trash makeover. I wanna get through all of this content here but run that, run that stuff through a mind trash makeover and decide what do you want to think instead, what do you wanna believe that's gonna help you create the result that you want?

Shannon Mattern: The next part of that is then, okay, what else could be true? That's part of the other side of the mind trash makeover. What else could be true that will create a wanted result? Is it true that people can't afford to pay that much for a website? Like what else could be true? Like I just haven't met the person yet that is willing to pay that much for a website. What else could be true? You wanna think things are going to help you create the wanted result or at least create new thoughts. You might not believe them yet. That messy middle part is like I'm willing to believe, I'm willing to work on believing that , you know that's the messy middle piece of like breaking your brain open a little bit to consider something new. So what else could be true that will help you create a wanted result?

Shannon Mattern: Caitlin just popped in the chat. I'm always willing to believe that thought drives Caitlin to ask questions on live strategy calls. Like she's always willing to believe it's possible that drives her action of getting support if she didn't believe it was possible, she just give up and look at what she's created. So that's that messy middle that's gonna like compel you to do something different. And if , when I ask the question, cuz some of you guys do this, if you find yourself thinking a bunch more things that could be true, but they're creating unwanted results for you, that's more mind trash to put in the mind trash column. Like don't be like, well here's what else could be true. I'm a fraud and I'm horrible. Like all the things again, mind trash, put it in the mind trash column. You get to counter those thoughts and then come up with thoughts that will put you on the path to believing the new things.

Shannon Mattern: This next question, are you willing to feel uncomfortable, annoyed, or worried or anxious in the pursuit of the ultimate result that you want? Do you need it to feel good and be comfortable every step of the way? That just made me think something that Erica said to me that Dr. Lee Cordell said to her. And so y'all have to share this podcast with us when it comes out, Erica. Well the, the comment was if I'm gonna scale fast, my capacity for failure has to be high. Like if I'm gonna do new things and try new things and transform my life and my business, my capacity for failure needs to grow, my capacity to feel uncomfortable, annoyed and worried and do it anyway needs to grow. Yeah, Kayla, I needed to hear that today too. , we can thank Erica for that. I needed to hear that today too.

Shannon Mattern: And like our capacity for the discomfort in pursuit of the goal needs to grow. And I don't know, I think that makes me think of you Kayla. I can't imagine snowboarding as easy. Like it probably hurts. It's probably uncomfortable, it's probably awkward and you probably like it's terrifying as she says and yet you're like, I can't miss a powder day. I need to be out there. It's the best. It was so worth it. Yeah, getting to the other side is amazing and you don't always get to stay there. There's always more growth, but getting to the other side is awesome. So are you willing to feel uncomfortable, annoyed, worried in pursuit? Can you grow your capacity to feel that way and then do the things that are going to help you shift out of that because it doesn't have to stay that way, right? We don't want you to feel like horrible reaching out to clients.

Shannon Mattern: We want you to be like, I notice I'm feeling horrible about the thought of reaching out to clients. How can I change how I'm thinking about this to compel me to do this? And I might not love it but I know it's gonna be worth it. Number seven, this question, this is so me before I just say this, are you experiencing success expectancy? This is a concept that my business coach talks about that because you've done something well in the past or you're used to just things going a certain way. Are you just expecting them to always go that way or are you looking around at like I see other people doing it so it should just happen that exactly that way for me too or it's so easy for other people. Why is it so hard for me? Shannon said these were the steps and I did them and I haven't gotten the result so it must not work or it must not work for me.

Shannon Mattern: And so we were talking about our recent launch and like I set a big goal for that launch and we are not gonna reach that goal. I would be surprised if we do. On one hand I was like, I know I'm setting the goal that big, I logically know all of these things and then in the back of my mind I'm like, but I'm gonna get an a plus. I'm gonna be the one that like blows it all outta the water. I know what I'm doing, I know how I've got like I've done it before. I've done it a million times, right? I was experiencing secret success expectancy, . And that creates mind drama. Like it really does. And so it's something to be aware of because failure is part of the process and all failure is, I mean just you guys are technical, right?

Shannon Mattern: Like all failure is is I took actions that I expected to create this outcome. This outcome was not created, right? Like it's just an error, it's a like something failed, something didn't go as expected. That's literally all that it is and it's part of the process and you can only solve those problems if you don't make it mean that you have failed or that you have done something wrong or like you aren't capable. So it's part of the process and you, you only get good at outreach and creating consultations and closing and selling premium packages or even dealing with clients by first being bad at it and needing support and help and guidance. You have to do it to be bad at it. You have to be willing to fail at it. And then you have to be willing to troubleshoot and just tell yourself like nothing has gone wrong.

Shannon Mattern: I got a different outcome than I wanted and I get to figure out what is in my control to fix it. And even your mind trash, it's just thinking it's not who you are at your core, it's just something that I'm thinking and I get to examine how this is creating a wanted or unwanted result for me. So what will keep you stuck is expecting success without failure because you will fail in so many ways. You'll reach out to your network, you'll be ghosted, you'll hear, no, not right now, go away, stop bothering me. You're annoying, you send too many emails. People will tell you that they aren't interested but never book. People will book a consult but not show up. People will show up and tell you that they can't afford you. They will show up and say yes, but not right now. They will show up and say yes and then yes right now and then ghost you and never sign the contract .

Shannon Mattern: They'll say yes, sign the contract, agree to all the milestones and then ghost you and not pay you. You'll fumble presenting your new packages and pricing. You'll feel like an imposter. You'll subconsciously talk them out of working with you or your high-end package because you haven't, because you put so much pressure on it being right and you you won't look like haven't looked at your mind trash about it. I just listed eight ways you'll fail. Seven of those eight things are other people's decisions that are out of your control. , like the only thing that is in your control is how you feel about your packages, your pricing. Have you sold yourself? Do you really believe it? You get to work on that. If you don't really believe it, if you think your prices are too high, you are literally subconsciously going through your package matrix and being like, I think my price is too high so you probably shouldn't work with me.

Shannon Mattern: You're doing subtle things to say that to people. So you get to examine that. You get to look at what you think about you and what do you want to think about you? Do you wanna think that you suck and that you're too expensive and that you're a fraud and an imposter? Or do you wanna think this is an opportunity for me to figure out what I really think? Or you can also think like it's really too bad for them. They totally missed out. I'm amazing. Like I know I'm amazing and they missed out on working with me. And what will keep you stuck is when you put so much pressure on yourself to succeed and to get it right the first time and to get the a plus and to make the perfect pancake on the very first try. As Erica said, her pancake analogy, like your first pancake always sucks.

Shannon Mattern: It might be edible but it's never perfect. You make the stakes so high that you put off failure by not doing anything, by doing things that won't create results like rebuilding your website for the fifth time or whatever it is, right? Procrast, the branding, all of those things. So success expectancy and failure like expect failure, plan for failure. Who are you going to be when you don't get the outcome that you want? Are you gonna examine all of these things and try again? Get support, ask for help or are you going to box yourself in with un actionable problems? So this is something that you want to notice if you do. When you say things like, I've tried everything, I've tried everything or I've done all the things like now you have created an unsolvable problem for your brain. If that's just, that's like, that's it.

Shannon Mattern: I'm at the end. I've tried everything, I've done everything. Is that really true? Like when you tell yourself that you make it the end. So if you notice that, that's how you think, challenge yourself. I've tried everything. What haven't I tried yet? I've done all the things. What things haven't I done yet? It might not be more actions, it might be I haven't really looked at my mind trash, I haven't submitted for a coaching call. I need to submit my get your next client outreach that I've been doing to Eric and Shannon so they can see what I might be missing. See the nuances of what you might be missing. So it might not be, oh let me just keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. It's like what else can I do? And then like what haven't you tried yet and why haven't you tried it?

Shannon Mattern: That's the goal is in the question like why haven't I tried that? Like why haven't I submitted my outreach for review? Like maybe it's just the, oh I forgot, okay cool. But maybe it's like I don't think I should need help with that. Or it's like I've got that. Like that's how I am. I know I know what I'm doing, I don't need to submit for a review clearly I could ask for some help and get some other eyes on what I am doing, right? So be willing to notice those things that are in your way. Are you, this is another question to ask yourself. Are you subconsciously sabotaging your outreach? This is where we can really help you because you might not see it, you might just read it and be like, that sounds, yeah, that's exactly, I don't understand why they didn't re reply.

Shannon Mattern: Are you being indirect? Are you hoping people will ask you or offer to refer you? This is something Erica and I also talked about today cuz she's a brilliant genius. The guessers paradigm versus ask her's paradigm. Are you just like hoping that someone will ask you or are you like being direct? I'm sure she could explain that a little bit better. And how can we help you get more comfortable with being direct in your communications? Do you have all these like loose coffee chat referral partner arrangements that you've like met with tons of people and they're all just like you're just like waiting for them to send people your way instead of like reaching out and asking and nurturing those relationships and taking action on those. And do you have any mind trash about being direct in your outreach? Like are you afraid you're annoying people or bothering people?

Shannon Mattern: We uncovered a little bit of that with Lauren with just even how she is like just even the amount of time that she gives people for feedback at her own expense because she doesn't want people to think she's annoying or or that she's bothering them. So just look at different ways that you might be sabotaging your outreach and let us help you with that. That's why you were here. This next question to ask yourself, do you believe in your pricing? Are you sold on your pricing? Like do you think or do you still think you're too expensive? Do you have any mind trash that you need to clean up around your pricing? Do you still think people can't afford to work with you? What do you need to clean up around your pricing? Do you need to go back to module three and sell yourself on the value with this opening of the web designer academy, it's the first time we've sold it at this price I had to do a lot.

Shannon Mattern: I did my 30 results on a big post-it note on my wall that clients can create as a result of working with with us. 30 priceless non-monetary results. You guys are all incredible. They were all like results that came from you guys, from things that you've shared in your wins. There were so many more of them, I couldn't fit them all. So do you believe in your pricing? What work still needs to be done there? And then do you believe your clients can create the results they want by working with you? That's a big one. If you don't have that belief, why are you going to risk working with someone and taking their money if you don't think that they can get create results by working with you? Why would you wanna do outreach? Why would you wanna put your like create that lack of safety for yourself?

Shannon Mattern: So explore that and if you have some mind trash around that and you need some support cleaning that up, let's talk about it. Submit it for a live strategy call. Another question to ask yourself. Are you in people's wallets? Are you deciding ahead of time that they can't afford to work with you so you don't even reach out to them? So that is something to notice if you're in people's wallets. Question number 13 on this list. Are you willing to keep trying until you create the result? And I don't mean like doing the same thing without analysis, without examining, without asking for help, without submitting for review. Are you willing to keep going until you create the result? This is how you build the confidence and the resilience, the steps we give you, they are simple but they are not always easy. They bring up your stuff, we know they bring up your stuff.

Shannon Mattern: We're here to help you clean up the stuff. So and when you ask like I don't want you to ask yourself from a disempowered place like how long do I keep trying until I create the result? Like Shannon, tell me how long it's like I want you to ask it from a really empowered place like am I willing to keep trying until I create the result? What are all of the things I'm willing to do to create the result? If you were not allowed to change your packages or your price and you were required to reach out to five people every single week or you weren't allowed to like be a web designer ever again anymore, you had to go back and get a day job forever and ever and ever and never work for yourself. When we kicked you out of the program, what would you do?

Shannon Mattern: Like who would you become in the pursuit of that? Like what do you think you would create if you just like truly had to commit? What would you have to overcome? Like you would go through all of these questions, you would do all the things, you would blow up me and Erica with work review requests and we'd have to add another call for all the mine trash makeovers that we'd have to do. Like we want you guys to do these thought experiments and put constraints on yourself like that to see what needs to be cleaned up. And then this the last thing that I wanna ask invite you to do, practice your consultation and notice everything you are thinking as you're going through it and like write it down as you're going through the consultation. Literally just like go wherever you go to do your consultations practice.

Shannon Mattern: You can practice with each other if you wanna practice partner, but you can practice it on your own and go through the whole thing and be like my high end package is too expensive or no one can like notice all of the things that you're thinking we're trying to get you in different scenarios and situations to uncover the mind trash that you might not notice in other situations. I did this recently with the webinar that we just did for the work class, make more masterclass. I went through it and I practiced it and I wrote down, I was like oh my god, I had no idea that I thought that that like I need to hurry up and get to the q and a because like I'm taking too long and like all of these things that were like creating me to feel anxious and like skip important parts and all of these things.

Shannon Mattern: And so I got to clean up all of that mind trash. That's the self-analysis and it's pretty extensive. Some of those questions are probably not gonna resonate with everybody, but it's important to to explore yourself. Like what are your thoughts? Because like I said, getting clients is simple. It's the stuff that is in our way that keeps us from taking the action to create that. So use that mind trash makeover tool. Go watch that in the web designer academy dashboard. Do the analysis, do the mind trash side but do the makeover side. Don't skip that. Don't just be like, oh I'm gonna dump out on my mind trash and feel like crap and go on with my day. Do the other side of it and bridge the gap with the messy middle. You don't know what problems you are truly solving for until you do that.

Shannon Mattern: You think you have a tactic problem and you have a belief problem nine times out of 10 and you can keep changing tactics and changing tactics and changing tactics and magically it doesn't change anything. That's when you know you have some excavation to do to find that mine trash. So that's the mindset stuff. Then we get to evaluate the mechanics, right? Like the mechanics are the actions that you've taken and you get to evaluate them like a scientist as Erica always says, we make data-driven evidence-based decisions because when I make decisions based on emotions, when I have not analyzed my mindset, I don't make decisions that create new results, I create more work for myself and I create the same results every single time. I was trying to think of like the baseball stats or something, I don't know, I don't know baseball, but I was trying to like think of an analogy of like every single time I make a decision from mind trash and not evidence, I create the same result over and over again.

Shannon Mattern: So it's, I'm working really hard and I'm not getting the outcome that I want. So evaluate your mind trash first, then evaluate your mechanics like a scientist with data. We can't say I've tried everything and nothing's working. Like that is not a helpful statement to analyze from. So if your problem is on the creating opportunities for consultation side, you wanna pull out your next client manifest from module five. Those of you who are new will get there and do an analysis like how many people on that list have you reached out to? If your problem is, well I don't have enough people to put on the list, is there anyone you left off the list? Why did you leave them off the list? Are you in their wallet? Are you excluding people because you're afraid of what they'll say if you reach out to them?

Shannon Mattern: Or because there aren't in your niche again, you're gonna still uncover some more mine trash When you explore the mechanics likely have you truly exhausted every opportunity if you have created your next client manifest and you can't think of anything else and you're like, I put five people on here. That's it. That's all I've got. You have this whole entire web designer, the Wda fam and me and Erica to really help you brainstorm and help you tease out what could be going on there. Use the live strategy calls to be like, here's my deal. Like this is like come ask us submit for review. Like can you give me any ideas on how to extend this list? How can you get creative and build new relationships? Or as Lee Scott says, how can you build more tables? How can you build the table? How can you create the space that people wanna come into?

Shannon Mattern: How can you get creative with that? We just did the Simply Profitable Designer Summit. We did tons of speaker panels. I interviewed Renee free on how to sell if you hate sales. Literally no one said the secret to getting more clients is posting on social media. Like that's just not what it is. It's relationship building, it's creating new opportunities, all of those things. And so how can you get creative and how can you use the smart people in here to help you brainstorm those things? The next thing to look at in your mechanics is to look at the actual words you are saying in your outreach. How much outreach have you done? That's another thing like get very methodical. Like how many emails have I sent? How much follow up did I do? Like all of that. Knowing those numbers is important because if you're like, I've tried everything and everything you've tried has been passively posting on social media with like no or unclear or indirect calls to action that is not as powerful as direct outreach, right?

Shannon Mattern: So as your outreach passive or direct saying, let me know if you are interested versus would you like me to send you a link to book a consultation are two very different calls to action. One says, let me know if you're interested. It's very passive if they're not interested they and then you're like, they never responded. They ghosted me like you didn't say something. That that invites a response versus would you like me to send you a link to book a consultation? Yes or no? If you're not okay with sending the second one, what are you thinking that makes you not okay with sending that and do you wanna keep thinking that? Is that creating unwanted or unwanted result for you? How can you get creative and say be direct in a way that feels good to you? So go back and watch that part of module five again where we talk about like how to do outreach and all of the nuances of it.

Shannon Mattern: There are nuances of doing that and you can submit your outreach to us for review before you send it, after you send it. We can give you feedback. We'd love to see it before you send it so we can help you like capture the opportunity using the strategies. Are you burying your calls to action? Are you watering them down? Are you not directly telling people what to do? Are you just saying I'm a web designer and you're making them like Erica said, guess what to do next. Or you know you're not being explicit that you're wanting to work with people. Are you telling people to just like DM you or message you? Tell them exactly what to do if you are on Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever and you are connecting with people there, tell them exactly what to say when they DM you.

Shannon Mattern: Don't make them guess on how to start this conversation with you. Give them the exact words. Better yet, just be like DM me and tell me to send you the link to book the consultation like you know, be very explicit as much as you can say, click here to book a consultation with me. Say that. And then how can you get creative and meeting new people whether they are in your niche or not. People always say how like I think we got this question at the summit. Tell me the exact steps to take to find people who are willing to like pay a premium for my packages. And I'm like, there aren't exact steps for that. Like there is no secret magic formula. It's meeting anyone that you can meet whether they're in your niche or not getting comfortable talking about what you do, who you love to work with, who lights you up, like how excited you get whether they're in your niche or not.

Shannon Mattern: And how can you just do that? How can you build your own table? How can you step outta your box and outside of your comfort zone? What thoughts do you need to think to do that and how can we help you with that? So those are all of the things to really look at and you might look at all of that and be like, I'm doing everything. I'm doing all of these things. I have a beautiful amazing thoughts. I have all the nuances of all of the strategies down, like I've got this down. And then you just get to be patient, and persistent and consistent and continue to take the actions and trust the process, right? Cuz we don't always get to choose the timeline in which people respond to us, but I'm guessing you'll find some little mind trash nugget along the way that we get to help you with.

Shannon Mattern: So we are here for you every step of the way. Use us, ask us questions. So if your problem is on the closing side for every consultation that didn't close, what is your theory about why they didn't book? What were you thinking before, during and after that consultation? Write everything down. Like how did you feel going into it? What were your thoughts? What were your feelings about it during it? What did you think after? Because those thoughts influence everything you do. That's another place to find your mind trash and you get to clean that up and you get to sell yourself again and again and again and stay out of their wallet. If you were thinking things like, I'm too expensive, they can't afford this, this doesn't sound like my ideal client, like whatever it was, this is gonna be a waste of my time that's coming through.

Shannon Mattern: Even if you don't say those words, that's basically what my business coach calls your unintentional sales pitch is all of those things that you're thinking. So you want to notice that stuff and clean that up. If they didn't close and they told me it wasn't the right time either they need to come up, they wanna work with me, they need to come up with the resources or their project starts later. That wasn't a no, that was a yes . You don't always get to control the timeline and you get to follow up with them or they ghosted me. Did you follow up? How many times? Why or why not? Were you explicit and direct? Did you hold the timelines? Did you compel a response? Submit your follow up to us for a review. Maybe there's some nuance or mind trash missing that you don't even know you have.

Shannon Mattern: So if this sounds like a lot of work, it's worth it to go through and do this full analysis like it is so worth exploring these things and finding your mind trash. Because what we don't want you to do is to be like, I'm gonna go find a new strategy and take all of that with you and then just keep working and working and working and not creating the result that you want. We want you to solve the core problems that keep marketing from being simple and easy. Because if you think getting clients is hard, you'll make it hard. You'll do way more work than you need to do to get clients. If you think that it's hard that hit Caitlin, she said, Ooh, you can experience challenges getting clients but like if you believe at your core that getting clients is hard, you'll make it make it hard.

Shannon Mattern: And that's something to run through a mind trash makeover as well. Actually I'm gonna pull that up and then we'll we'll wrap this up and I'd be happy to answer any questions that anyone has with this. But like if my thought is getting clients is hard, how do you feel when you think that? Just pop that pop, how that makes you feel in the chat? Frustrated. I overwhelmed. What do you guys think? Scared, frustrated, hopeless. Reluctant. Do you feel a struggle of feeling struggles in action? So if you think getting clients is hard and you feel scared, frustrated, hopeless and reluctant, what do you do when you feel scared, frustrated, hopeless and reluctant. What are some actions? Procrast the plan. Love that. I love the procrast prefix. Procrast the plan. Oh avoid. Sarah says by creating new offers. Yeah, like this didn't work at this price I'm gonna, I love and Sarah, I know you're one of these people too.

Shannon Mattern: I love my v i p day people. I think you guys are amazing. I think Sarah Massey is amazing. I see you guys using v i p days against yourself all the time to solve mind trash. Do not use Sarah's v i p day strategy as a solution to your mind. Trash . She and I have talked about that. I'm like get up on my soapbox about it. Procrast the brand. Change prices. Yep. Lower your lower prices. Change offers. What else do we do when we feel scared, frustrated, hopeless. Maybe withdraw. You stop coming to coaching calls. Maybe you just don't bother to like do any work to submit it for review or you just don't submit what you've done for review. So don't do the workbooks. Don't submit for review. Tweak, tweak, tweak. Watch tv, take a break. I mean that's all good if it's coming from a place that creates a wanted result, okay, we want you watching TV and taking breaks to create a wanted result.

Shannon Mattern: Not to avoid. Tweak, tweak, tweak. I would say play with amazing tech tools like what's the one Glent showed us at the summit? I can't remember what it's called. Build systems work. Kona. We work on work Kona, we build systems. Talk it out with our friends. We don't reach out to our network. Pivots. Yes, pivot . Yeah I do new webinars, emails and sales funnels. But you guys don't do that. We don't teach that here. I'm just putting it in here cuz this is something that I notice that I do buy a new course. Ah yes, you buy a new course, buy a new course or a program, get a new certification. This is gold you guys , get a certification. Learn more skills. Make me more skills will magically make clients find me. Go down a rabbit hole. Yes.

Shannon Mattern: And all of these things, add more services, keep 'em coming. I'll keep adding them to this list cuz this is gold. Add more services and then what result does that create for you? Getting clients is hard. It creates relief from feeling scared, frustrated and hopeless and reluctant. But that's not the result you wanted. You wanted clients and money and freedom and to love what you do and fulfillment, right? So what do you want to believe? What's the wanted result? Getting clients isn't hard. I'm not even gonna say easy. I'm just isn't hard. That's the result that we want. What do you have to, well okay let's talk about this. What do we have to feel? What do we have to think? Okay, let me come at it this way. What would you do if you didn't think getting clients was hard? If you thought getting clients isn't hard, what actions would you take?

Shannon Mattern: Send emails daily to people I know and I'm gonna put a caveat in here. Like getting clients at the prices I charge isn't hard. If you believed that, send emails to people daily. I'm just gonna say using our scripts, actually talk about my services. Just show up in a room. This is interesting Aisha. She said just show up in a room. Everyone would already want to work with me. What if you could just believe that everyone in this room wants to work with me and I just have to tell them how? Like that's a thought. I'm gonna just say that. That's a thought. Everyone already wants to work with me. I just need to tell them how outreach to people that work with my clients. That's another action. That's an action you would take if you believed getting clients at the prices. I wanna charge isn't hard outreach to people that work with my clients.

Shannon Mattern: Go to local events that I've been invited to. So I'm gonna put the unwanted action of don't go to local events that I haven't been invited to or that I've been invited to. Brittany, you're welcome. I'm glad. I think a lot of people needed this today. What else would you do if you thought getting clients at the prices I charge isn't hard work on marketing regularly. I'm gonna offer some ideas to you. Submit my outreach for review to see if there's anything I'm missing. Do this analysis this Shannon just laid out for me and we'll put something together for web Designer Academy students so that you have this, you can go through it. You'll have some space to write submit. I would just say do mind trash makeovers. Actually that's probably like a messy middle actions, but you'll still do 'em when you're creating the wanted result cuz there's always something new to find.

Shannon Mattern: Especially when you like break that first. Raise prices barrier and you wanna raise prices again. Every time you raise prices, you're gonna have to make over some mind trash. Oh my top tier price with confidence. Yes, take every opportunity for support. I would also say I would not exclude anyone from my mind trash makeover list or not mine tr from my next client manifest. And I would stay out of wallets. Okay, so what do you have to think Aisha? Everyone already wants to work with me. I just need to tell them. How do you think someone who thinks that cares of someone says no. Like no. And I'm just like, I have that energy of everybody wants to work with me. I just need to tell 'em how. If they don't right now, they will later after they get to me and what I do, they're gonna wanna work with me.

Shannon Mattern: Even if they don't have a web Disney, like if they don't have a business, they're just gonna think I'm so awesome. Like what if you truly believed that they're gonna wanna start a business just so they can work with me? . Like what if you truly, truly at your core believed that getting clients at the prices I charge isn't hard is the result? What if he believed this thought? What if he believed the result? What if he believed that we have lots of results of people getting clients at the prices that they wanna charge? You hear it from all the Web designer Academy students, it's because they have uncovered some mine trash that has allowed them to think that that's possible for them. Sarah, another action. She said, go on. Other people's podcasts. Oh my gosh, okay. Her thought was, they always want to work with me after and I put in parenthesis going on their podcast or meeting me at a networking event or you know.

Shannon Mattern: So I just wanna invite you to think that believing this thought is a decision that you get to make over and over and over again. So if you want to believe that getting clients at the prices I charge isn't hard, that everyone are already wants to work with me and that they always wanna work with me after they meet me or like whatever. Like what are the messy middle thoughts? You have to think. I'm willing to work on believing this is possible. Simple thought, feeling, willing actions. Do this analysis on myself. Do mind trash makeovers. Take every opportunity for support. Start doing the actions that are creating your wanted result. You start doing them even when they don't feel good. And I would say feel good yet, right? You start doing the things to create the wanted result and it doesn't yet feel easy. It doesn't yet feel natural, but you do them anyway.

Shannon Mattern: And the result is I start shifting my beliefs. That's the result of this. You start transforming your belief. So that's the process. There is literally no secret back pocket strategy that I have for you. If you're like, well Shannon, everything you told me in module five didn't work for me. Yes, we do teach one to many marketing in the in the program, but it's all the same skills required for that. That's required for the one-to-one marketing. You can create a freebie and build an email list the actions it takes to build an email list with your freebie unless you have a pile of money sitting to burn on ads to figure that out. Which if you do, awesome, go for it, is to meet people and tell the like all of the things and then be like, Hey, will you share my freebie with your audience?

Shannon Mattern: Like that is how that works. So you still have to develop the same skills for both strategies and the same belief and all the same things. Ah, so Sharon says, would be scared, but do it anyway. I would say, well quote leche, get paid to do it. Scared. That's your action. That's also a result, , that you create in the messy middle. You get paid to do it scared. So we will put together like something that you can use to go through this analysis for yourself and let us support you. Let us support you. We don't want you to struggle for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. We want you to feel this and then guide you through this process of troubleshooting, getting clients and uncovering like there's likely just like one or two thoughts in your way that once we get those cleaned up, you'll start doing these messy middle things.

Shannon Mattern: You'll start doing the makeover things from a place of willingness. All right, that is what I have for you. I'm gonna not answer any questions from the chat today. If you had a question that you wanted to explore further, please go ahead and submit that for next week's call and we can talk through that. So just marinate on what, what we talked about here today, and then we can talk more about this next week since it's 40 minutes longer than a, than a live strategy call normally goes for Sarah and Sarah, our new people, they do not go this long. in general. So that's all I have for you guys. So we will see you right here next week for our next live strategy call.

Shannon Mattern: Awesome. Alright. Bye everyone. Hey, so if you're ready to stop undercharging and overworking, if you wanna take back control of your time, work only with the dreamiest of clients and make more money as a web designer than you ever thought possible, get started now by going to https://webdesigneracademy.com and joining our wait list. We'll send you exclusive teachings from the current Web Designer Academy so you can start replying our concepts now, and you'll be first to know when enrollment opens up again, so that you can work with us to completely transform your web design business. This

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