If you’re anything like me, you’re building a website and an audience with the Free 5 Day Website Challenge because you want FREEDOM – financial freedom and a flexible schedule.
About 4 years ago, I began the slow journey toward freedom, going from just a strong desire with no concrete plans to building a business that’s going to be my full time job at the end of the year.
This story isn’t “I had an email list of zero people and then I started marketing the Free 5 Day Website Challenge in Facebook groups, got my first subscriber and first affiliate commission and now I’m quitting my day job.”
I’ve told you that story before, and it’s the truth, but it’s not the whole truth.
It leaves out the slow, grinding start. The iterations. The doubt balanced out by the burning desire that kept me going, that inspired me to change my approach when I veered too far away from my goal of FREEDOM.
In this post I’m gonna share with you exactly how I got here so that if you have that burning desire for freedom also, but you feel like giving up, or like you’re not qualified or like it’s impossible, it’s my hope that you’ll feel re-inspired.
And then over my next few blog posts I’ll give you practical, actionable steps for moving forward.
The seed of the idea to create my own business was planted in the spring of 2014 when I read Chalene Johnson’s “30 Day PUSH” in my millionth attempt to shed the extra weight I’ve been carrying since adolescence.
The gist of it is that you set 10 goals of things you want to accomplish in the next year in the areas of health, your career, your relationships and lifestyle – but then you take a step back and you look at all of those things and figure out an 11th goal that when accomplished is going to serve as a domino effect to making all those other things happen faster, aka, a PUSH goal.
I set goals for my health like losing 40 pounds and exercising 5 times a week and cooking healthy meals daily. My relationship goals were to designate a date night with my husband and stick to it. My career goal was to make enough money to pay off all of our debt and live comfortably, and my lifestyle goals including things like finally painting all of our woodwork white and getting new carpet and countertops.
So as I sat pondering what the PUSH goal would be, the one that would make all of these other things easier, my mindset was one of lack.
I don’t have time to exercise and cook because of my work schedule. Unless I change jobs, I won’t increase my income enough to get where I want to be financially, nor will I ever be able to afford updating this house.
And that’s when it hit me. The way to make all of my dreams come true was to become my own boss. To work from home on my terms and take the limit off of my income potential. And I knew the exact skill I had to offer – web design. It was the one thing I did at my day job that I absolutely loved doing and was transferable to any business.
And so I started doing what every other brand new entrepreneur does once they have an idea for a new business: obsessing over a name. Because that’s super pro-active, right?? When you’re just starting out, you think it’s the most important thing in the world (but really, I discovered that it’s just a diversion).
After weeks of Googling web design companies that specialize in WordPress, I discovered that they all use “Press” or “WP” in their name, and so I settled on “LimePress Development” which to me meant fresh designs, but to everyone else meant absolutely nothing. And I proceeded to obsess over finding the perfect WordPress theme, the perfect stock photos that represented the services that I planned to offer and over my bio…
That’s when the imposter monster really started to take over in my mind.
I had been building websites with WordPress for several years at that point, and if you could break it, I’d broken it. And fixed it. And generated significant income for my day job with a few different WordPress sites. I had a background in marketing and I knew exactly what it took to build the kind of website needed to grow a business.
Yet because I didn’t go to school for it, I didn’t feel like I was qualified to start a web design business let alone call myself a web developer.
And so I built the LimePress Development site and made it as impersonal and corporate as possible. I presented it as a local company that provided web design services and tucked my resume at the end of the About page. It didn’t have an email opt in, just a contact form to request a proposal.
It was nothing like what I teach you guys to do in the Free 5 Day Website Challenge.
Now, I can look back on this and can clearly see the mistakes I was making make this blog post all about what not to do, but that’s not the point of me sharing this story with you…
When I look back on how this business started, what I see is someone that had an idea, and starting taking ACTION. Imperfect, forward-moving action.
At that time I didn’t know that there was this whole movement of people building audiences and providing value and serving people online. My only idea was that I would do freelance web design for local clients and if I charge hourly what I made at my day job and get enough clients to fill a 40-hour work week then I’d be able to quit.
Easy-peasy, right? Um, not so much.
That website that I agonized over? It didn’t result in a single client. But it did make me FEEL legit, and that meant something. So how did I get my first clients?
Relationships.
Before I could actually get clients through relationships, I had to tell people what I did. Say the words out loud.
I’d be at the gym after work and people would ask me what I did for a living, I wouldn’t say “I’m a web designer,” I would say, “I do IT and marketing for a non-profit, and I do freelance web design on the side.” I lacked so much confidence in what I was doing the way I said it was even passive!
But again, it was another slow step forward. I put it out there. Just saying it to other people resulted in a my first three clients.
Had I not taken the imperfect action of casually mentioning that I do freelance web design (a casual mention that made my face turn red and my heart race, thankfully it was already bright red from all the burpees), then I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this blog post.
I’ve discovered that building relationships is the most important part of my business, whether they start in person or online, it’s when you have an actual one-on-one conversation with someone and make a connection that a whole new door of possibilities opens up.
But I didn’t recognize the importance of it back then. I just thought, great, I’ve got clients! OMG this is happening!!
And then I quickly discovered that I had created a second full time job for myself that paid significantly less that my day job and I was on the path to total burnout.
Why? Because I didn’t value my skillset. I thought that because I was able to teach myself WordPress and that it’s made for non-coders, that really anyone should be able to figure it out, therefore I’m not providing some specialized skill that’s worth a premium.
And my thinking about it wasn’t even that articulate, it was just a feeling that WordPress is so EASY, why would someone pay me to do something they could do for free? In my mind, building a WordPress site for someone wasn’t worth more than a few hundred dollars…
I also didn’t anticipate the amount of time it took to manage projects and get content from clients and do revisions. So I spent every waking hour outside of work working on freelance projects. I’m talking all evening until late into the night and all weekend.
My relationship with my husband suffered. I quit the gym. I skipped family functions to work. I really resented my day job even more. The little money I earned just didn’t feel worth it.
I felt like giving up.
But again, I look back on it and I know that I needed to have that experience as the catalyst to creating WP+BFF. Those first few projects made me feel more like an order-taker than a someone whose expertise in marketing and web design was being taken seriously.
I found myself wishing more than once “I wish I could just teach people how to do it themselves so that they can make these changes and revisions and tweaks themselves, because it’s really just point and click!”
And it’s all of these desires and thoughts and experiences that added up to create the spark for the Free 5 Day Website Challenge. But again, the path to get to the 5 Day Challenge is twist-y and turn-y…
If the desire to be my own boss came from Chalene Johnson’s book, the idea for the Free 5 Day Website Challenge came from her email marketing. I had signed up for Chalene’s email list, and one day got the launch series for her Marketing Impact Academy where she explained that you can create an Academy that shares your knowledge, and in the first few videos she explained how to create a free gift to give away in exchange for an email address.
This was a totally new concept to me, so I starting consuming all of the free information I could about it, which resulting in the creations of “Website Essentials Academy,” a paid course on how to build a WordPress site, and my freebie optin was a PDF that walked people through all the decisions they needed to make before they started building their website called “5 Steps to Website Success”.
Again, I agonized over the website, I created the guide without evening knowing how I was going to find the people to even try to get them on my email list. But I just felt compelled to write the thing, and then I figure out later how to get it in front of people.
By the way, you’ve never seen either of those things from me, have you?
Nope. I created them, and then self-doubt stopped me from putting them out there. I still didn’t feel like I had the authority to ask for people’s money to teach them how to build a WordPress site.
I want to go back in time four years and take 33 year old Shannon out for a beer and give her a hug and tell her that she doesn’t have to feel qualified. That part doesn’t matter. She just has to have the desire to help people, that there are so many amazing people out there that need her help, and she just needs to share what she knows and build relationships and believe in herself and she’ll have everything she ever wanted.
But since I can’t go back in time to tell myself that, I’m here now telling it to you.
You know something that other people need to know. You’ve been through something and come out on the other end okay, and you can help other people do the same. Something you do all the time is really easy for you, but it’s a big challenge for other people.
You don’t need to be certified, you don’t need to have a degree, you just need to have the desire to help people, the heart of a teacher, the patience to keep taking imperfect action and the belief that it is possible.
And I’m here to teach you HOW to take what you know, put it online, build an audience through providing value and turning your expertise into income in a way that doesn’t even feel like work.
Let’s be real – unless you’ve been building websites for the past several years, building a website is an obstacle on your path to your goal. Knowing how to use SEO and social media to build an audience online is another barrier. Knowing how to create products to sell online and and then market your products and services effectively to that audience is a barrier.
I’m here to help you knock down all of those barriers so that you can help people with whatever amazing thing it is that you do. Because there are so many other things that can hold you back from having the life you desire, I don’t want the tech to be one of them, okay??
Okay, back to the journey… so I created the “5 Steps to Website Success” optin and built the Website Essentials Academy website and then I went back to my daily grind of wake up, watch Real Housewives while getting ready for work, listen to a podcast on the way to work to make up for the brain cells I killed watching Real Housewives, work a job that sucked the life out of me all day, come home, throw back a few Miller Lites to relax instead of working out, go to bed and do it all over again.
Just when I was about to give up, another way appeared.
My desire for freedom was stronger than anything else, and I’ve learned that once you have a desire for something it’s already done. You don’t get to decide how or when it happens, but you just stay on the path and the doors will open.
I had heard of Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income podcast on Chalene Johnson’s Build Your Tribe Podcast (are you seeing a pattern here?) Pat Flynn teaches how to create passive income through affiliate marketing, and his strategy is to give away everything he knows for free, and he also has affiliate relationships where he earns commissions from products and services that he believes in and recommends to his audience…
What?? This is a thing??
Talk about a lightening bolt moment for someone with tons of knowledge that feels like she’s not qualified to sell her knowledge, but she can make money by giving it away for free? Sign me up yesterday!! Nothing I had done to that point felt more right than this!
And THAT is how the Free 5 Day Website Challenge was born.
I share all of this with you to tell you that if your first idea doesn’t feel right or if it doesn’t work out the way that you planned, it’s okay. If your desire is strong and that end goal is clear, it’s okay if you don’t know know exactly how to get there.
It’s okay if you obsess over things that most experts would tell you to stop doing because it won’t move the needle, because you’re still taking action and you’re feeding that desire. It’s the desire that’s going to keep you going when the tactics don’t work the first time. It’s okay if you try on a few different pairs of shoes until you find the one that fits perfectly and makes you feel super confident.
What I don’t want you to do is give up because it feels too hard. Because it takes too much time. Because you don’t feel like you have the resources. Remember why you wanted this in the first place, and be open to receiving the information you need to receive and building the relationships you need to build to make it happen.
So if you’ve read this whole post, then I think it’s safe to say that you have the desire. And you know what that means? It’s time to take some action. In the comments below, tell me:
What is the one thing that will make all the other things happen faster? In other words, what is your PUSH goal? WHY? What is driving you to accomplish that goal?
And next week on the blog, I’ll share with you exactly how I grew my audience and turned my expertise into income using the Free 5 Day Website Challenge.
