#177 – Why Doing It All Yourself Is Slowing Down Your Web Design Business with Bailey Collins

Shannon Mattern (00:01.294)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the profitable web designer podcast. Today I am joined by Bailey Collins who is an award-winning brand and website designer and the founder of HoneyWave Creative and Bailey helps business owners grow their businesses with custom brands and websites built in a day and also helps fellow creatives through her Signature Design Day Blueprint course.

helping them to scale faster with strategy, confidence and ease. I love that introduction. Bailey, welcome to the profitable web designer.

Bailey Collins (00:32.092)

Thank you. Hello, thank you so much for having me. I was telling you before, but I feel like I've been listening to your podcast for forever now. So the fact that I'm here is super cool.

Shannon Mattern (00:45.506)

Well, and I love that you reached out to me to ask to be on the show because we're all about like outreach marketing here and creating your own opportunities. And you sent me a really, really good pitch that I had to say yes to. So kudos to you because it was fantastic. And so I'm like, yeah, I want to meet Bailey. Yeah. We're trying.

Bailey Collins (00:59.208)

Aw. Thank you. Aw, well thank you. I had to, the podcast queen. You and Josh Hall, I feel like are taking over the whole podcast realm with websites. So had to, yeah.

Shannon Mattern (01:14.388)

We're trying. So tell our listeners just, gave, you know, the, standard intro, but tell our listeners a little bit more about you, where you're from and how you kind of got into this.

Bailey Collins (01:26.192)

Yeah, so I'm from Louisiana, Lake Charles, Louisiana. So if you hear a little bit of a tang in my voice, that's fine. Usually the first thing clients say to me when they get on a call is, where are you from? So Louisiana. And I've been designing websites for around like five years officially. I started, I guess, 2020 COVID January, but I was kind of learning a little bit before that on how to do it all. And I do have a bit of a schooling background in it. I went to school for marketing and then I got my, my master's in business administration. I

Shannon Mattern (01:33.038)

You

Shannon Mattern (01:37.742)

you

Bailey Collins (01:55.922)

did have that knowledge, but I did not learn how to actually do graphic design. And so I ended up, whenever I graduated, I was trying to find a job and our town actually got hit by a really bad hurricane that year. And so I had found one and then it just like kind of fell apart. I was in a hotel for three months and I was just sitting in the lobby thinking, what can I do? Like if I can't find a job, I'm just going to hire myself. And so I just started watching YouTube videos and learning. I talked to somebody at the gym who had a fitness business and I made them a logo. And so

That's really how it started was just going on and saying, okay, if I can't find someone to help me make this happen, I'm just gonna make it happen myself. And then five years later, here we are making brands and websites every day.

Shannon Mattern (02:38.024)

my gosh. I love just that organic start. And I think it's so important to talk about that. And I love hearing everybody's origin story because, you know, we all start marketing. have a, like you have a degree in marketing, you have an MBA, like, you know, and we all start marketing in the most, like the smallest little ways that we think are like,

Bailey Collins (03:03.485)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (03:07.54)

not really marketing that put us on the path to like having the business that we want. And so I'm so curious, like going back to those early days and you're like, yeah, I just talked to this guy at a gym and in gym and did a logo for him. you know, how, how that aligned with, or how that felt compared to like your education and everything that you learned about marketing and business.

Bailey Collins (03:13.083)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (03:36.552)

Yeah, it did line up. So it was nice getting to actually put some of that knowledge saying like, okay, I'm using my degree. I know what a brand is, know it like color palettes, it's all that. So it was cool using that, but it was still just such a new world. You know, in the beginning of it, you, I mean, you don't even know what do they get with the logo, which I just sent like a PNG file, a PDF. It's like, you don't even know. So it was very new in the beginning of it and just.

Shannon Mattern (03:37.378)

What did that feel like?

Shannon Mattern (03:43.22)

Yes!

Shannon Mattern (03:53.6)

Mm-hmm.

Bailey Collins (04:01.65)

figuring things out, but I knew, and actually this is a good part to the story that I forgot to mention on the last one, but part of what got me just inspired to start this was I was gonna start a potato pet business. And I say that and you're like.

Shannon Mattern (04:18.317)

I'm like, what is, I need to know more.

Bailey Collins (04:19.068)

Yeah, so it was like a basically a pet rock business and I knew that had done so well in the past for other people. So was like, I'm going to do potato pets. And so I spent like so much time in string COVID. So I felt like we all had some extra time on our hands. just graduated. And so I did this whole brand and website for this potato pet business. I had a purr-tato and it was just like a cat and a pug-tato. And I did like a whole training manual that was branded and a website and all this stuff. And so

Shannon Mattern (04:34.497)

Yeah, we did.

Bailey Collins (04:47.098)

I finished, make any sales, but at the end of it, I was like, okay, that didn't work. And I don't think that's my calling, but I did really enjoy getting to create and getting to make the brand, make the website and take something that was an idea and like, wasn't really anything and bring it to life. And so even though in the beginning days, like for the first logo, I didn't really know what I was doing. I knew that I liked being creative and taking these ideas and just putting life into them and making it turn into something.

my gosh, what's so funny? What's so funny? And I share it on my stories sometimes at HoneyWave just to kind of show, but I had a whole promo video and everything. And so it's like, I still have, if anybody wants a pug tato or pro tato, I still have the training manuals in the boxes that have like the holes cut out so the potatoes could breathe. So I have them, send me a message. We can make something happen.

Shannon Mattern (05:18.861)

Okay, think everybody listening wants to know where they can buy a potato, first of all. Like, how adorable.

Shannon Mattern (05:49.154)

this. So you, you start building this really creative, fun, crazy idea, which like how delightful like in a time where things were maybe not feeling so delightful, right. And you like decide that you fall in love with your creativity, you start talking to people, you are kind of figuring it out as you go. And like,

Bailey Collins (05:51.144)

You

Bailey Collins (05:56.839)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (06:00.977)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (06:16.561)

What led you and I'm kind of fast forwarding a little bit and then we'll kind of fill in some of the gaps, but like what led you to then shift into like designing in a day and doing the things like offering the service the way that you offer it to clients now.

Bailey Collins (06:17.33)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (06:30.44)

Yeah, and I've always been a person who really likes just locking in on a project and getting it done and not, I get so distracted, so easy. And so if I don't just cut all the distractions and focus in, it takes forever. And so I've always been that type of person my whole life. And whenever I was first getting started, I took a course and in that course, she actually taught a two week website process, which I didn't know it at the time, but that's already a really accelerated process. And so.

That's just, I just jumped into this two week process and that's all I really knew. It's like, okay, this is how you do things. And so I was doing that for a little bit, probably about a year. then towards the end of that process and having some clients under my belt, was like, you know, I'm finishing this website really early. And then I'm just kind of sitting around pretending like I'm doing stuff and sending the client something over and asking if they have feedback and almost like.

Shannon Mattern (07:01.783)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (07:26.716)

wanting them to give me revisions and almost making it to where they felt like they had to try and find something else. And there really wasn't anything else to do. So whenever I sat down and just cut out all the fluff, said, you know, I think I could do this in a day. And then built the process around it, tried it out, and then we got rolling with it it all went from there.

Shannon Mattern (07:46.466)

So I think everybody listening is like, okay, tell me more, because this sounds like sorcery and magic. And how is it even possible to extract the information that I need from a client to be able to spin up a website in a day? So what are some of the, what is some of the fluff that you cut out? And what are some of the...

Bailey Collins (08:00.072)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (08:12.257)

the maybe counterintuitive things that listeners think that they need to do that they actually don't really need to do in order to tighten up their process and not have to deal with a lot of things that they really kind of dread about the whole thing.

Bailey Collins (08:16.56)

Yeah!

Bailey Collins (08:24.232)

Yeah, so a couple examples, and this is stuff I used to do, and then I was like, wait, why? But I used to, for example, at the end of the website process, I would make all these custom social graphics for our clients to share in their emails and Instagram and send them on their way with all these custom graphics. And I started realizing they weren't posting the graphics. They'd maybe make posts, but they weren't using them, which by all means, fine with me.

Shannon Mattern (08:32.897)

You

Bailey Collins (08:50.632)

But I was like, why am I spending all this time? I could just make it. So now what we have is we have a pack of social templates that we provide them with. So it's Canva templates and they have it. So if they want to make something, they just plug their picture in and they can use it. And some people do, but it's not us spending all the time on it anymore. And then another example is I used to go in and add for all the images we do, the title and the meta description and all that stuff. I said, you know, I'm like, this package doesn't include SEO. Why am I spending all this time on this? And something that like a lot of clients

don't even know is there. You tell them what you're doing and they don't even fully understand. So a lot of the little stuff like that, we just kinda stripped away, got it down to the core pieces that people really care about and then also that really drive results and got it down to the one day.

Shannon Mattern (09:36.77)

That's beautiful. did you, as you know, as a listener to this podcast, the profitable web designer, we talk a lot about pricing and money mindset and all of those things. Did you have any like a money or price drama related to like making the shift from like two weeks and I'm working really hard and like, you know, doing all of these things and providing all of this stuff to shifting to this one day.

Bailey Collins (09:43.752)

Mm-hmm.

Bailey Collins (09:56.274)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (10:05.279)

model? what was your money mindset like around?

Bailey Collins (10:06.568)

Well, so whenever I offered the first design day, I had it for $800. And at the time, I'm pretty sure I was charging around, it was between two and 3000 for the full two week process. And so even at that time, whenever I look back, I remember thinking $800 for a day. Like, oh my gosh, is anybody actually going to pay me this? I don't think somebody's going to pay me this. But then I said, you know, even if I lose a couple of clients, like the $3,000 clients, doing it in a day and I can get in that two weeks way more and make up, you know, the difference of what it is. And so I just kind of.

Shannon Mattern (10:24.356)

you

Bailey Collins (10:36.456)

like let the thought of potentially losing out go to the wayside in terms of bringing up more time and the potential to make more money. And then after I sold a couple at $800 price point, I just kept bumping it up, bumping it up. And now we're at 3,800 for a one day website and we have a $500 brand add-on. So if they don't have a brand yet, they could get a mini brand and it bumps it up to around 4,300. And yes, people are paying that for a day. And I think once you lose the mindset of...

I can't make that much in a day. Why would somebody pay me that much? It's like, no, look at the value you're providing them. The value and the quality of the work doesn't have to be tied to time necessarily on like a big long timeline. That doesn't quantify how much you can charge.

Shannon Mattern (11:20.909)

Oh, that's so good. like just the name of your offer website in a day is not like I bought eight hours of Bailey's time for $800. It's the website and you're getting it in a day. like us, we've been all raised to be employees paid hourly paid salary.

Bailey Collins (11:29.799)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (11:41.181)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (11:44.46)

you know, selling our time, trading our time for money. And it is so hard even for a lot of our web designers who are selling like package-based projects to not still do time math behind the scenes and like be like, well, this takes me X number of hours to deliver and blah, blah, blah, blah. And so this is my hourly rate. It's like, please, can we just stop?

Bailey Collins (11:57.328)

Yeah. Yeah.

Bailey Collins (12:03.954)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (12:07.624)

Not necessary. Well, and I'll tell you this too, whenever I first started one of those first websites I did for $800, they had a business already and they were just selling on Instagram. They didn't have a website presence. We dropped the website that next week or two, they did a launch for the same offer they'd been selling, but they actually had a place to send people to do the selling form. And they had like a $40,000 launch. And so after seeing that, I was like, wait a minute, they paid $800 and got a $40,000 return on this because they now had a website to send people to instead of just selling. so

Things like that, like a designer's listening to this, trying to think like, how many hours is that? What's the hourly rate? It doesn't matter because you're providing so much value and something that they can use for years. So it's not something you have to go and sit and do the math on to figure out the numbers.

Shannon Mattern (12:54.253)

my gosh, I love that. so kind of going back to like the fluff that you were cutting out and the work that you're cutting out, it also sounds like you are delivering like something that's going to help them create results. You said that earlier. so it's not like, let me stuff this full of deliverables to justify the price. Let me give the cleanest path.

Bailey Collins (12:57.906)

Mm-hmm.

Bailey Collins (13:14.365)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (13:19.735)

from visit to results, whatever that is, booking a call, buying a product, whatever. So was that part of your thought process and kind of stripping away like a lot of the unnecessary things?

Bailey Collins (13:31.536)

Yeah, well, part of stripping away too, whenever you have a really standard nuts and bolts package available for people that gives them what they need and gives it to them quickly is that you're able to productize that offer. And so I don't even have to get on, I will get on sales calls if people want to get on sales calls, but a lot of times I'm not even getting on sales calls anymore. And I've been able to automate it. So we have the package listed on the website, give them all the info they need. They click out to go, we use Dubsado, but they do proposal, contract, and invoice.

and they can do all that while I'm sleeping. And then my assistant goes on, onboards them, and then the ball's back in their court. We just wait on them to prep and book in their day, and then it's ready. So whenever you strip everything down and just simplify, and so many designers, know this, like, just overcomplicate things to the max, and it's unnecessary, and almost makes it more difficult for clients to make a decision sometimes whenever you have all that. And so that was part of it too, is just productizing it.

And then we do have a couple of add-ons, so for the blog, the mini brand, but we don't ever try to crowd it with too many options because I want it to be as easy of a yes. We also offer a payment plan to help that be easier, but as easy of a yes as possible. That way we can set up the best experience as possible behind it and just perfect it time and time and time again.

Shannon Mattern (14:50.765)

So I'm curious when you were like, okay, design in a day, $800. And that was your starting point to now the offer that you just described. What was like your own progression from like, I'm just going to do this for $800 to that. Like, what was your vision and your goal and like the drive behind building it the way that you, the way that you have it now.

Bailey Collins (14:56.466)

Mm-hmm.

Bailey Collins (15:10.109)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (15:17.096)

Yeah, well, I saw that one client had the $40,000 launch and that's when I said, okay, let's bump this a little bit. And so think I went up 1200 and just, just kept slowly raising it. Usually at the end of every year, I do a bit of a price increase, which that works very well for any designers listening. I have found it to work very well at the end of the year. Do a little price jump. It keeps your prices relevant and in tune with everything. And it also helps to close deals at the end of the year. But yeah, we just constantly were raising it after each project. And then

At the end of the year, we bump it up a little bit more. so over the years, we've gotten to the 3,800 price point. And it feels good too, because, which I should have mentioned, but whenever we were at those lower price points, I was almost getting too many websites. It's like, okay, I still want that freedom in my life. I still want to have, like, I don't need to be doing this every single day. So let me go up on price. We'll tone down the sites a little bit and still make the same money basically.

Shannon Mattern (16:03.445)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (16:12.779)

So how are you marketing this and getting clients?

Bailey Collins (16:13.934)

Mostly Instagram. I dance around like they're on there like a crazy person, have a lot of fun with it. And I also have a newsletter that goes out once a week. But so we get a lot of our business there. I'll also say though, that since we have done like we've done over 400 design days at this point, that's 400 plus websites. Yeah, I need to go back and actually do a recount and see where we're at now because that was earlier this year when we actually counted it up. But

Shannon Mattern (16:28.29)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (16:34.004)

Awesome. Yeah.

Bailey Collins (16:38.736)

We have so many past clients that have been so happy with it. And so at this point we get a ton of referrals too, which I love about the design day because you get to work with so many people. And so we get a lot of referrals to our past clients are telling their friends and sending them our way.

Shannon Mattern (16:54.569)

I love that. And so this has been working so well for you. At some point, you're like, okay, I need to like help other people do this too. So tell me more about like, that decision and what led you to to starting to do that.

Bailey Collins (17:00.082)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (17:09.392)

I honestly was just getting so many DMs from other designers asking, how do you do this? There's like, this looks amazing. How do you actually do it in a day? How can I start doing it? Or maybe they were already offering design days, but it didn't feel as smooth behind the scenes or they kind of just felt like they were faking it till they making it or were making it. And so I had a bunch of people asking about it I said, you know, let's test it out. I'd been wanting to do a course. And so this year decided to put one together, just take our process that we worked on the past four something years.

Shannon Mattern (17:14.443)

Hahaha

Shannon Mattern (17:35.799)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (17:39.56)

put it into a course forum and it went really well. I was thinking we were gonna have like my goal, the first launch, I was like, hey, let's try and get 15 designers on board. And we ended up getting 42 in the first round. And I was just like, whoa, this is, I knew it was needed and I knew that we'd be able to provide value and then especially getting their feedback too, but I didn't realize it was so desired by these designers. They had so many people so interested in this model.

Shannon Mattern (18:07.467)

Yeah, the thing that I see when people are like, I want to do design days. I want to do VIP days. I want to do this one day service. The challenges that I see them run into are that they don't have the systems processes and strategies to actually deliver something in a day. So they'll sell a day, and I'm putting that in air quotes, but then they will deliver multiple days until they

Bailey Collins (18:25.405)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (18:37.411)

complete whatever they sold. And so there's a lack of boundaries around it. There's a lot of like, you know, there's just a lot of like messy pieces and parts to how I've seen people try to implement, the, the VIP day process or the design day process or whatever. think VIP days and design days and website in a day are probably two like very different things from the way that you're, you're saying this, but.

Bailey Collins (19:00.232)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (19:07.421)

It sounds to me like you have a very specific process for here's how you can deliver this deliverable in a day. And it's not leaving a bunch of ambiguity over like you come up with what you think you might be able to deliver in a day and I'll show you how to sell days. You're like, no, here's how to deliver the thing in a day.

Bailey Collins (19:26.908)

Yeah, exactly. And we have two, because so in the very first module of the course, we go through and help people create the offer that they want, because we do a six page website in a day. And at this point, I didn't start that way. I started with a three page website. Now I do six. I also have an assistant who's in the office full time, helps me design. So we do a lot more advanced fuller websites now, but we have at the beginning of the course, a module that goes through and says, OK, what do you want your day to look like?

Shannon Mattern (19:37.687)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Bailey Collins (19:53.266)

Do you want it to be a more intense day? And you can maybe do six pages, five, six pages. Do you want it to be more chill? Maybe you don't even work the full day. You just kind of like chill a little bit, sleep in a little bit and do maybe two or three pages or even one landing page is very much so an option as well. And that way people can take it and craft it to their needs and how they want their day. Cause I know you teach on it all the time. Like you need you to build a business you love. And if you're not the type of person who likes having more intense days, then

scale it down, do a one or two, three page website, something smaller, until you feel comfortable with it work your way up.

Shannon Mattern (20:30.58)

I love that. definitely, a thousand percent agree with you that you have to design a business that fits your life and your energy and your needs. And when you think it has to look a certain way because you see other people doing like, I think that this is what it takes to quote unquote, be successful or whatever. And then

Bailey Collins (20:49.414)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (20:55.0)

I was literally just having a conversation with, with one of my coaching clients who was just like, I need to just pick a goal and then like do what it takes to get there. And I'm like, no, like that does not sound fun at all. Can we just like, like, let's go at this in a completely different direction. So, I love that you start out with. From this place of what you want things to look like, guess what?

Bailey Collins (21:04.838)

Yeah. Yeah.

Bailey Collins (21:21.021)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (21:23.786)

We can build an offer that works for you and your life. It's such a novel idea, right?

Bailey Collins (21:24.208)

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have some moms too, who they know they need to pick up their kid at 3 p.m. Say, okay, well, why don't we set it up almost as a half day type scenario where you're done by 3 p.m. and you leave and you go pick up your kids and get to do the stuff you want. I even have some moms too who do, they take the same framework and do it over a week, but same process applies. And it's really just building the offer at that point to fit what you would enjoy for your own business.

Shannon Mattern (21:47.947)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (21:53.547)

Yeah, like we all get to do that. We all get to do that. So I'm curious with your students that have gone through your course and your training, what are some of the most exciting transformations that you've seen aside from this idea that like, you get to actually like build a business so that you can go pick your kids up at 3 p.m.

Bailey Collins (21:53.946)

Yeah, best part.

Bailey Collins (22:17.254)

Yeah, I mean, some of it, or one of the most common things that I heard was a lot of people saying that they just feel so much more professional and put together now because even like one day, not even included, but just the systems and processes built behind it, a lot of business owners don't really have a set thing. They're negotiating prices every time they're trying. So even just having the process, people are saying they feel so much just more professional put together and able to stick to the boundaries they put in place because they know they're

they're leading the ship instead of like sitting behind the passenger seat. They're now driving the process and guiding their client down the path they want to take. Another one that I really liked was we had a couple of designers that they call themselves a creative duo, but they were in the course this round and they designed together and they had been doing websites for a while, hadn't done the one day model, but before we even got like halfway through the modules, they had already sold a design day, did the design day and they were like, my gosh, we actually did this.

They were even doing not a completely new website platform, but they usually use Wix. They use Wix Studio. So it's kind of a new platform too. And they're like, this is possible in a day. I can't believe it. And then since then they went and sold a bunch more and they were selling it like at the same price that I'm selling it too. I'm like, see, this isn't even, you could literally start today and start selling design days for three, $4,000 and have people buy it and not just buy it, but be excited about it and be looking forward to doing it. So that's been really cool seeing people actually go out.

Shannon Mattern (23:23.969)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (23:44.156)

do the design day, finish by the end of the day, and then come back to me at the end saying, wow, I did it and the client's done. And now I'm like, I wiped my hands. I don't have to do edits. I'm just done. What is this? Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (23:57.345)

What is this magical world? what, gosh, I was gonna ask you, like, what do you think keeps people when you're like, can literally do this in a day? Like, you could start this now and by next week, you could have delivered one. What do you think stops people from like moving forward with that?

Bailey Collins (24:09.255)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (24:19.368)

almost just self doubt of just no way I could build a website a day. And my point to that is one, try it because you can do, whenever you're not sitting and balancing emails and client calls and just having your attention pulled in different directions all day long, and you sit at the beginning of the day with everything you need and you make a website, you can move a lot quicker than you think you can move. And if you've never tried it, I encourage you to try it. But the second part of it too, is that the biggest...

struggle that a lot of designers have with the website process and being able to move quickly is that they don't have everything they need from their clients. They need copy, they need pictures. The client didn't give them a link or a login that they need. And that's the biggest piece. And so with the design day process, a huge part of what makes it successful, what allows you to focus in on the day is that you're getting all the information before. And so we use Trello. We send our client a welcome video.

and kind of talk them through. We don't have them do a ton of things. Like I don't want them getting in, they sign on, they're excited about a website and then they see a big homework assignment. They're like, I just paid you. I don't have to do this. You know, like I never want that to happen. So we have really simplified it to where we're only asking for the things we need. We give our clients like even for writing the words on their site, we have a copy guide that outlines the most important sections for the pages. It gives them prompts of what to write, chat, GPT prompts, if they just want words. And we do review what this says, but they're able to go through, it, give the pictures, give everything.

We have a prep call before where if we have any questions we can ask them. If they're missing anything, I tell them what they're missing, make a little checklist for them. They can get it done for the day. And then on the day you're cruising, you have it and you're not having to sit and hit all these roadblocks because I mean, know, whenever you're working on something, you're cruising and then you hit a roadblock. It's so frustrating to sit and wait. They take three days to get back to you. And then at that point you're over it. You're like, I don't even want to do this anymore. I don't feel creative. Let me take another three days to get back in the mindset. And then it just carries on like that.

Having everything you need and being able to focus in on one thing at a time, get it done and have your client available at the end of the day for revisions, knowing what time you need them and they're there. It just streamlines everything. It makes it so nice and you could do way more than you think you can do if you never tried it.

Shannon Mattern (26:34.732)

Yeah. And there's like this natural container around the whole project that is like not even an option for it to drag on like beyond this. So I want to shift gears a little bit and ask you about like throughout this process of starting and over the past five years, like what are some of the biggest mindset shifts you've personally experienced like in your

Bailey Collins (26:36.69)

Mm-hmm.

Bailey Collins (26:42.269)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (27:02.886)

journey of like growing this business and then like shifting from implementation to like education and those types of things like what have been your biggest transformations and shifts.

Bailey Collins (27:13.83)

I think one being the whole, don't have to tie the value or quantify the value based on just the hours. That's huge. And also that more time doesn't necessarily mean it's more valuable or better quality. Cause I see that one a lot too. And that's not necessarily, that doesn't have to be the case. And then I think to just realizing the importance of systems and cause

A lot of times we think, we're doing all this stuff, we're really busy, we're getting pulled in all these directions. I'm crushing it, I'm doing awesome. But then you take a step back and you're like, wait, that took me 15 minutes, but I could actually automate it. I don't have to do anything, I just set it up once and it runs on autopilot. And so maybe I don't have to be doing all these things to just feel successful, feel like I'm busy and doing good. I can automate it, systemize it, make it easier for me. And then...

I can still do a lot if I want to do a lot, but it's a choice at that point. can enjoy slow down or if I want to do, my day up, I can, but it's a choice.

Shannon Mattern (28:17.014)

think what jumped out at me from what you said is just like equating crushing it and hustling and working really hard with success or earning it, earning the money or earning the whatever. I think that that is one of like, aside from selling your time, like that it's only worth it if it was complex, if it was hard, if it was a grind, if I like struggled for it, therefore some

Bailey Collins (28:26.246)

Yeah, yeah.

Bailey Collins (28:43.367)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (28:46.978)

how it's worth more or I earned it. And if it's simple and easy and it flows and it's this then like maybe I cheated or maybe I'm ripping people off or maybe whatever. And so that's a big mindset shift that I have to work with especially women on for some reason, I don't know.

Bailey Collins (28:56.008)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (29:10.812)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (29:14.432)

to just like, it's not cheating if it's easy, you're not ripping people off. It's not about any of that. It's about the $40,000 like outcome from a one day site. That was easy and fun for you to do for them.

Bailey Collins (29:18.844)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (29:22.332)

win at the end of it. Yeah.

Yeah. Another one too that came up while you were speaking is a lot of, or something that I often with designers is we care so much about our clients and every little piece of what we think they need. And I'm not saying not to care about your clients. I, I'm best friends all my clients. put so much care in everything we do, but I've had to really shift my mind in the fact of I can't force them to care as much as I do on some things. And I also,

don't need to mentally care more than they do. It's because there's some things on the website where I'm like, for example, I have one website, we have a form on the site, the form submissions have not been going through for probably a year now. And I've told them I need this certain login to get it connected for you. And I've tried, I've tried, I've tried. And to me, I'm like, let me care for you. Like, let me connect this for you. But the client just doesn't, that's not important to them. And so I had to learn to just like,

Release it, don't stress about that stuff. It's not on you. If they don't care, that's fine. We're all adults here, let them do what they wanna do. And if they want your help, you're there for them. don't, I used to stress myself out so much about stuff that my clients just did not care about at all.

Shannon Mattern (30:45.352)

Yeah, it's like you, your responsibility is to deliver on what you said you deliver and be an integrity. And they their side of the street is exactly what you they have their own side of the street and the things that they're responsible for. And, you know, they are responsible for making sure that they have an offer that people want to buy. Like I imagine if someone came to you and they were like, I have this awesome idea for potato pets.

Bailey Collins (30:50.984)

Mm-hmm.

Bailey Collins (30:57.959)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (31:06.694)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (31:12.167)

Ha ha.

Shannon Mattern (31:14.304)

And I want you to build this website for me. You could build that website and it would be like an awesome website, but you're not in control of whether or not people buy the perfect potato or the potato. Like you're just not in control of that. Like it was their responsibility to make sure that they had product market fit, like find the buyer for the potato. You would have delivered an incredible website for them, you know? And so I think it's like we.

Bailey Collins (31:16.744)

amazing.

Bailey Collins (31:21.34)

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Bailey Collins (31:33.084)

Mm-hmm.

Bailey Collins (31:38.076)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (31:44.203)

get codependent almost when we make their outcomes and results about our value and our worth. And I think you said it so beautifully to be like, I've told them about the form. They don't care. There's nothing more I can do here. I cannot jump in their body and make me make them give me the login. I can't like, I can't force their hand and it feels almost like you're doing something wrong.

Bailey Collins (31:44.956)

Mm-hmm.

Bailey Collins (32:01.64)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (32:13.822)

to like, at least it used to to me to be like, I know what's going to I'm trying to help you. I think I know what's going to make you more successful and create the results that you want. I'm telling you but also like, it is your choice as a human being with free will, what you want to do at the end of the day.

Bailey Collins (32:30.758)

Yeah. Yeah. Especially some of the revisions at the end of the day. It's like, okay, I can do that for you. And I would not, if it was my website, I'll explain to you why, but if they still want to do it, go for it. Your website, I'm I'm gonna make you happy. And I told you my recommendations. So it's just one of those things.

Shannon Mattern (32:53.236)

Yeah, my gosh. So I'm like, I have so many questions I want to ask you. want to like, yeah, I'm like, I want to ask her all of them all at once. When it comes down to the offer, and the boundaries seem like they're really built in, and you seem like the kind of person that is really good at

Bailey Collins (33:15.304)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (33:20.768)

communicating boundaries and holding them. But what are some challenges that either you have had or overcome or that you have helped your clients overcome? Because we know like clients are people and even though we put these like guardrails and guidelines and boundaries in front of them, like to just, some people like to just step on over them. Like what are some experiences you have had or you've helped your clients have with like holding

Bailey Collins (33:37.788)

do what they want.

Shannon Mattern (33:50.602)

the boundaries of a design day type engagement.

Bailey Collins (33:52.454)

Yeah, one of the most common, there's two common ones that I see that really impact the boundaries surrounding the day. One of those being people not getting the prep work done in time. And for that, two things. One, you can put a reschedule fee in there if you need to reschedule. If not, you don't give me a week heads up. Okay, it's gonna be this price. That's one of them that helps. Even just that simple helps a lot. And then just communicating.

giving them the chance like, okay, look, I don't want you to have to do this, but if you do need to move it, here it is. If not, this is what I need from you. And then that usually gets people to kind of kick it in gear, get their stuff together. And then the other one is it doesn't happen often because again, it's so much on the communication. If you tell people on the sales page, on the proposal, on the contract, on the welcome email, on the prep call, on that, like you have so many touch points. And if you tell them they need to be free from three to five CST to get work on me with revisions.

Shannon Mattern (34:40.268)

Yes.

Bailey Collins (34:50.938)

They're pretty much always free that time because they know, okay, we have two hours to make revisions at the end, we're done, we're launched. Even then, there will be some times that you don't have somebody available, two to, or three to five. I make sure that I always do my part, do what we need to do. If that ever happens, which I'm trying to avoid at all costs, if it ever happens, usually what I'll do just to give a little bit of leniency is say, okay, look, I have two hours banked in for you. That's your revision time.

Take your time with it tonight, go through Azure revisions into the Google Doc, which is how we track is in a Google Doc. And I have those two hours bank for you. So tomorrow or depending on if we have, sometimes we'll have like four design days back to back. So whenever the next availability is like, I have time on Friday and at that point I'll go in, you have two hours or revisions. Anything past that is going to be billed at the hourly rate. And then if I haven't done this, but if I were to be concerned that they would extend this out to like three months later and then they're coming back, then I would probably put some sort of constraint of like, okay, look out.

offer this to you until end of next week or whatever that may be. But that's the kind of one thing is if they aren't available during that time, my little bit of grace is okay. Even though I told you 10 times, I get it, things happen. I'll save your two hours and you still have that two hours of revisions, but anything past that, because what you don't want to happen and what I have seen is people say like, it's fine. Yeah, like just.

Shannon Mattern (35:59.303)

You

Bailey Collins (36:06.982)

Whenever, let me know. And then they go, they show their friends, they show their mom, they show their cousins, they show Facebook group. And then at the end of it, they have a big long Google doc and they're like, there's no way I could get this done in two hours. And then it just turned into a big thing where it's like, well, you said you do revisions. It's unlimited revisions. Why can't I keep doing it? So you still need to put that time constraint on there. That way you have the ropes and you don't have to go and like wrestle the sheep back into the gate. You have the ropes on it. You tell them what's allowed. And if you tell them what's allowed and you guide them, they will stick to it or they'll pay extra.

Yeah, again, choice.

Shannon Mattern (36:37.24)

Yeah, it's right. Exactly. But that's a choice too, right? That's what that's what we always say is like every step of the way. It's like I don't like I really don't like punitive boundaries. I don't want to feel like I'm like your mean manager or a punitive parent where I'm like, no, this isn't happening like this. We're not doing this way. Like I always even say like in any of our communications.

Bailey Collins (36:53.362)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (37:04.427)

you're likely never gonna hear the word no, never, not like we just don't even use like negative words. We're like, if this then that here are your choices, like, and putting decisions in front of adults who can decide within my boundaries what I am and am not willing to do. And here's how it works. And choose your own adventure, make the choice. But I wrote the book. I wrote the choose your own adventure book, you can turn to page 72 or 94, but I wrote both outcomes.

Bailey Collins (37:06.599)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (37:24.626)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (37:31.868)

I like that.

Shannon Mattern (37:33.491)

You get to choose whichever one, whichever one you want. yeah, it's like boundaries don't have to be no bad, like anything like that. They can actually just be like very chill and simple.

Bailey Collins (37:48.146)

Yeah, and a lot of times too, I don't think clients want to push boundaries. A lot of times they just don't know what the boundary is. And a huge part of it is just communicating. And you might've already told them three times, tell them again, tell them on the prep call. You're not being repetitive. They have a lot coming at them. Just remind them of what to expect, when to expect it, what it's going to look like. That way, if they're overstepping, they at least know they're overstepping and then they can make the choice.

Shannon Mattern (37:56.978)

Exactly.

Shannon Mattern (38:06.335)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (38:17.633)

Yeah. So the other question I wanted to ask you about is marketing. Like I know people listening to this are going to be like, okay, all of this sounds amazing, but how do I get clients for this? So what is your best advice for people just in general, whether they're doing a design day or anything to create opportunities for clients?

Bailey Collins (38:21.608)

Mm-hmm.

Bailey Collins (38:38.502)

Yeah, so in the course we do have a whole two week launch period that we advise you to go through. It starts with doing a beta rate. If this is a new offer, get you a beta rate going half off, get those first two clients in that way you can make the sale and then you have proof. It's not just a concept anymore. You have proof and it might've been in a lower price than what you're wanting to charge. But example, $800 to start or even less than that. you have the websites to show because...

just having sites to show in your portfolio make it so much easier to sell something than if you're trying to sell somebody an idea and a concept where they, the design day in itself is so, it's getting more common, but it's still so rare that you tell people that and they're like, what am I going to get for that? That's, huh? That's huge. It's beta rate. Get your first two clients in. If you can't get the two clients in, I recommend doing your own design day site as an example site. If you don't have one, that not only gives you something to show people,

but it also gives you the confidence to sell it, because if you're having trouble selling, you're not feeling that confident in it. And it gives you something to show and gives you proof that you can do the offer. So you're more confident selling it too. And I find that really helps.

Shannon Mattern (39:52.5)

Yeah, I love that. clients are out there in the most unexpected places. You're like, I'm at the gym working out, and I'm doing a logo for the guy on the treadmill next to me, or whatever. My second client came from someone at the gym being like, hey, what do you do for a living? I was like, I'm in marketing and communications, and I do web design on the side.

Bailey Collins (39:56.135)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (40:06.032)

Yeah!

Shannon Mattern (40:21.949)

And the only reason I said I did web design on the side was cause I had like taken on a, like a random side gig project from someone like a vendor at work. He was like, who built your website? I'm like, I did. He was like, do you do side work? And I'm like, sure. You know, and then telling someone at the gym, she's like, my gosh, we've been looking for someone for forever. Do you do WordPress? And I was like, yeah, I do. And then I told, my.

Bailey Collins (40:32.22)

Me.

Bailey Collins (40:36.37)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (40:49.801)

best friend's husband. was like, yeah, that girl at the gym that, know, do you know her? was like, yeah, she just hired me to do web design work. He was like, you do that? My dad's website got hacked. He needs somebody like literally it's the simplest thing to get clients. It doesn't have to be some complicated marketing strategy at all. If you just are willing to tell people what you do.

Bailey Collins (40:58.269)

Just talk.

Bailey Collins (41:12.508)

Yeah. And once you get one person, ask them if they have friends. A lot of them do have friends and just put it out there.

Shannon Mattern (41:18.571)

Yeah, a lot of them have friends. People are so afraid to ask though, do you ever get that with people? They're like, I don't want to feel pushy. I don't want to feel salesy. I don't want to sell people something they don't need. Like they're selling like leggings or jewelry or makeup or something.

Bailey Collins (41:31.335)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (41:36.616)

Yeah, I do. One of the ways or one of the little tricks of how we do it is we have an automated email flow that triggers after the design day's finished. It follows them for over two years with, it's just perfectly timed. Okay. It tells them whenever the end of their support period is coming up. After that, it tells them, okay, it ended. Anything else is going to be hourly or retainer. And then after about a year, it's happy one year website anniversary. And I think it was at the happier market. I have to go back and look, but somewhere along there.

We ask them, hey, do you have any friends? Could you send this to one person? Like just forward this email to one person, connect me with them. And that's a way to do it to where you are asking and you're getting the results from it, but you're not having to do it in a way where you're like going back after months and you're low on business and you're like, hey, can you please send me a friend, please? Like they know it's automated. They do appreciate it, but they know it's automated. It's not as like, I feel like it's not as sales to do it that way.

Shannon Mattern (42:33.437)

I love it. So good. So just a couple more questions for you. This one I ask everyone that comes on the podcast and it's what belief about yourself did you have to change to get to where you are today?

Bailey Collins (42:45.128)

that I don't have to do it all myself. And I know that's one you've heard, but I vividly remember my Google searches being whenever I was first starting, because I saw other agencies that were successful business owners. I'm like, how can I hit this revenue milestone as a single solopreneur? How can I do that? And that was like my whole thing. was like, well, if like I see that they're doing that, but I'm going to be better because I'm like, I'm very competitive. I played sports growing up, played softball in college.

So I'm like, how can I do it better? okay, fine, you hit this number, but you had three people. I'm going to do it with one person. it actually, craziest thing, whenever I finally let go of that, it wasn't even necessarily by choice. I think it was a God thing because I was sitting, had, I think three design days on the week. I was on the third one. I'm like midday, like just grinding to try and get it done. And then my phone rings and I was like, my gosh, okay. Let me answer cause I need more business. have to this goal.

And it was Kyle, who's now my assistant. He's been with me for three something years and he was asking, Hey, are you hiring? And I was like, I was about to just say no, but I was like, actually maybe let me give you a call back. And then that turned into I'll interviewed him and he's been with me for forever now. And if I would have known back then how much that would have helped me to bring someone on, how many more websites we could do, how much more just like I would enjoy my life and not be so much stressed anymore.

I would have done it so much sooner and I would have brought in like I have an admin assistant now. I have another graphic assistant as well who works part time. Having them just makes life a lot more enjoyable and it's not a thing where it's like you get a trophy for doing it by yourself. Like, yeah, that's cool, but you can only do it for so long and you can only get so far doing it by yourself. And at that point, it's not even a trophy anymore of trying to do it by yourself. Like the only person that cares about that is you. The people who are, you're trying to reach, they don't care. Like that's not something that's on their minds. It's just for you and just leave it behind, drop it.

Shannon Mattern (44:39.741)

my gosh, that is so good because I hear so many people say the same thing. Like how can I, you know, hit these revenue goals on my own because I don't want to have to be responsible for someone else's income. I don't want to have to manage people. And they're like, they're telling the story of it. Like it's this really big burden and it can be a beautiful like synergy of

Bailey Collins (44:50.472)

Mm-hmm.

Bailey Collins (45:06.887)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (45:06.911)

It doesn't have to be the way that you're thinking about it. If you're the type of person that's like, well, if I have a team now I'm responsible for them and my clients and this. And it's so much more fun to work with people.

Bailey Collins (45:17.756)

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, every, what is this saying? It's like different levels, different devils. Like every level you hit, you're gonna have new problems. So there's gonna be growing pains, but it's almost like just growing up. Like you get a certain age, you gotta go to college, you gotta move out, you gotta start painting your buildings. Just grow up and you hit the next level and it's difficult at first, but you figure it out. once you figure it out, you're like, okay, that's easy. That's actually nice. Let me do that some more.

Shannon Mattern (45:25.611)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (45:45.95)

Yeah. And like, I don't know. I like to accomplish things. You seem like you like to accomplish things. Like I, you know, I get bored when things get too easy. And I don't mean like I used to meddle when things get too easy, like, and not realize that that I was, that I was doing it like, it feels too easy. Let me like break it so I can fix it. but I've, I've identified that pattern and kind of fixed that, but now it's just like, okay, well, how can I like,

Bailey Collins (45:47.208)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (45:57.351)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (46:02.502)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (46:16.029)

in a personal growth healthy way, like still grow. never wanna reach like the point where I'm like settled. Like that's not the point, right? Like I always wanna like have more fulfillment and things like that from a place of contentment and not a place of like grinding. And I think that's kind of like what you were saying, like new levels, there's gonna be new challenges and like we can meet them with.

Bailey Collins (46:21.872)

Yeah. Yeah.

Bailey Collins (46:31.74)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (46:44.009)

like curiosity and courage and not like avoidance and all of those things. So that's kind of like a deeper conversation than probably what we have time to get into. But where can everyone go to learn more about you, follow you on Instagram, get their hands on your course to implement this process in their business. It sounds like such a breath of fresh air for people. Where can they go to learn more about that?

Bailey Collins (46:47.207)

Yeah.

Bailey Collins (47:08.518)

Yeah, so follow me on Instagram at honeywavecreative. Honey like a bee, wave like water, honeywavecreative. And I usually am dancing around doing some silly stuff over there. So we like to have fun. We have a good community too. So you might find some other people you like. Follow me over there. And then if you want to get more information on the course, you can go to honeywavecreative.com backslash DDB, Design Day Blueprint DDB.

Shannon Mattern (47:17.236)

You

Bailey Collins (47:34.706)

but I'm also giving Shannon a special link that she's gonna link in the show notes, right? Yes. And you're gonna wanna use that link. So use Shannon's link instead. I'll give her a code and she can give you the code too in the show notes. But that's gonna get you our mini brand add-on for the course for free, which not mini brand. It teaches you how to do a brand in a day too. And it's usually $500, but if you go through Shannon's link and if you use her code, it'll give you that $500 add-on for free when you sign up. So check it out via her link.

Shannon Mattern (47:41.897)

Yep.

Shannon Mattern (48:06.683)

Amazing. So I will put all of that in the show notes. So if you're listening to this on your device, just scroll up, show notes are right there. You can tap on that. If we sent you this episode via email, cause you're on our email list and you should be on our email list. Go to webdesigneracademy.com forward slash podcast. Make sure you're on our email list. We will have sent that out to you in an email as well. So definitely take advantage of that. Bailey.

Bailey Collins (48:20.904)

Sign up!

Bailey Collins (48:32.936)

Yeah. Aw, thank you, I am too. It was meant to be, I wish we would met a long time ago.

Shannon Mattern (48:35.687)

You're awesome. I'm so glad we met. Thank you so much for being here.

Bailey Collins (48:43.538)

Perfect timing. There we go. Well, it nice meeting you and thank you so much for having me.

Shannon Mattern (48:43.549)

I know, but you know, like today's the first day of a new friendship. So I love it.

Thank you so much for being here. All right, that's it, everyone. We'll see you next week. Bye.