The Top 4 Lessons I Learned About Building A Business in 2015

January 5, 2016
| Archive, Pep Talks for Side Hustlers Podcast

Shannon Mattern is a pricing expert and creator of The Package Matrix™ Method that helps freelancers, fractional execs, consultants, agencies and service providers stop undercharging, overdelivering and overworking by using pricing, proposal and sales strategies backed by behavioral economics and sales psychology.

If you’ve been reading my blog posts for awhile, you know WP+BFF is my side gig, and a major reason that I started WP+BFF is to eventually own my own business and be in control of my own time and schedule.

In January of 2015, I published my WordPress tutorials and launched the Free 5 Day Website Challenge. A lot has happened in the past 12 months, and want to share what I learned and what I could have done better, so you can take some of the lessons that I’ve learned and apply them to your own business!

Lesson 1 – List Building is Key
The first thing that I learned from building my business is the importance of list building. I took Natalie Lussier’s 30 Day List Building Challenge. Nathalie gives you so many strategies for list building – but she breaks it down literally step-by-step. List building is one of the most important things you can do to build your business.

The most important thing I learned about list-building this year is how important to not stop those efforts. I started building my list and then I jumped right into building a premium product that my audience wasn’t ready for. I think if I would have focused on list building for about six months and then asked those people what more they wanted from me then I would be farther along now.

Lesson 2 – Try New Things

Try a bunch of different stuff and see what works for you. I tried so many different things, so many different platforms, so many different tools, interacting in tons of different Facebook groups. You’ll find that one thing that’s going to be the right thing for you. I tried so many things that worked, didn’t work, or I didn’t have the right foundation built for them to work. But I know all the options that are available to me and have a better idea of what will get me traction in 2016.

Lesson 3 – Hire a Mentor

So… I have all these ideas in my head and I want to do them all at once. I bet you can relate! If you hire a coach or a mentor, someone that can help you sort through your ideas, see where you’re missing opportunities, see where you’re putting the cart before the horse – that person can give you some amazing feedback.

They can also show you where you are getting in your own way and help you get past some of the fears that you might be having. I started working with Vicki Fitch in October of 2015.

There are so many times that I’ve called her saying, “So and so wants me to do this thing and I don’t want to do it because the last time I did something like this the experience was bad.“

She’ll say “Hold on. Slow down. Tell me what’s going on with that.” She’ll help me realize that is my fear talking, that I can control these situations, I can set boundaries, and that I should be confident that things are going to go well.

Hiring a mentor has been instrumental in building my business. After I hired her, my income shot up exponentially. I’ve never been more excited to do my accounting just to see the growth. I can’t wait to see the difference from before to after I hired Vicki.

Lesson 4 – Don’t be a Perfectionist

Everything doesn’t have to be perfect before you put it out there. I don’t have to have the best backdrop to do a webinar or a Periscope. I don’t have to have it all set up perfectly. I can just jump on and talk for ten or fifteen minutes. It doesn’t have to be a big huge production.

When you are paralyzed by perfection then you miss so many opportunities to interact and connect with people. I tell people this all the time about their website! It doesn’t have to be perfect for you to take it live, but I need to take my own advice when I comes to other things like Periscope or webinars. And if you’re not on Periscope – jump on the bandwagon now and follow me!

I’ve got some exciting stuff in the works for 2016 and I’m looking forward to interacting with you guys more and helping you grow your business with WordPress!

Pricing, Proposal & Sales Strategy For Freelancers, Fractional Execs & Consultants

ANCHOR HIGH™ PODCAST

Pricing Strategy for Service Providers & Consultants

If you sell your expertise and hands-on implementation, deliver solid work and have happy clients – but you’re maxed out and feel like you’ve hit an income ceiling, this show is for you.

Each short episode breaks down how pricing psychology and proposal strategy influence prospects’ decision-making and helps you rethink everything you thought you knew about how much you can really charge for your services and expertise.

THE PACKAGE MATRIX™ METHOD

The Package Matrix™ Method is a pricing framework built on behavioral economics, sales psychology and a decade of results. It strategically designs a value-based decision for your clients, so you stop pricing based on what you think they can afford and start pricing based on the value they can create by working with you.

How It Works ⟶

ANCHOR HIGH™ CERTIFICATION

If you’re a business coach or consultant who’s an expert at helping your clients grow their businesses and reach their goals – but you don’t have a strategic pricing and sales framework to help your clients confidently close more proposals at higher prices (without working harder), our Anchor High™ Certification program might just be the missing piece of your coaching methodology.

Learn More Here ⟶

ABOUT SHANNON MATTERN

Shannon Mattern is a pricing expert who helps Freelancers, Fractional Execs, Consultants and Creative & Professional Service Providers stop undercharging, overdelivering and overworking by using pricing, proposal and sales strategies backed by behavioral economics and sales psychology.

She helps other business coaches and consultants integrate her pricing and sales methodologies into their coaching, group programs and consultancies so they can help their clients make more without burning out.

She’s also the founder of Web Designer Academy, where she has spent a decade helping women web designers move from undercharging to premium pricing, and where she developed the offer framework now used by service providers across industries.

Topics

Pricing

Marketing

90 DAY REVENUE ROADMAP

Increase your income without rebranding, niching down or adding more services or skills.

Pricing Education for Business Coaches & Consultants

About Package Matrix™

The Package Matrix™ is an offer framework developed by Shannon Mattern, built on the premise that most service provider pricing failures are decision architecture failures. It structures any service offering into options mapped to pricing paradigms (investment-minded, hustle/hybrid-minded, and expense-minded) so clients make an empowered choice and providers earn more without over-delivering.

Pricing Education for Business Coaches & Consultants

The Hidden Pricing Mistakes That Could Be Costing Your Clients Money: What Business Coaches & Consultants Need To Know About Pricing

How business coaches and consultants who work with freelancers, consultants, agencies and other types of service providers can help their clients create better outcomes faster when they help their clients apply proven principles of behavioral economics – the brain science behind why people buy or don’t buy – to pricing and sales strategy and stop treating the symptom of undercharging as a confidence or credibility problem.

Pricing Education for Business Coaches & Consultants

Shannon’s Story: The Origin of The Package Matrix™ Method

It’s not about about how much you’re charging – it’s about how you’re making the offer. If you’re struggling with undercharging, overdelivering, overworking, trying to justify prices, trying to compete with other freelancers in the industry and stand out in a saturated market – I’ve been in your shoes, and that’s why I created The Package Matrix™ Method.

Anchor High Podcast

Why You Don’t Need a Portfolio to Charge Premium Prices

You don’t need a portfolio, case studies or thought leadership to charge premium prices. You prove you’re the right fit in the consultation itself, through the questions you ask, and with a paid discovery step that shows the client exactly what you’ll do for them. We’ve helped clients 3x their prices by changing nothing but how they do their proposals, and by charging for the level of service they actually deliver.