Discover the Best Price List Template Word for Sales to Streamline Your Business

Price list template word for Sales

hi everyone welcome to my YouTube channel I'm Diane Whitten and here we're going to talk about web design online marketing and today how to build a successful web design business this week's guest is Christy price she has been working in web design for over 20 years and she recently she in a few years ago switched to working solely to Squarespace in 2018 she's a certified Squarespace expert and authorized trainer and not only does she build gorgeous effective websites and templates she's also building a mountain of resources for web designers so to start us off Christie the big question why did you switch from WordPress to sbas that's a great question so I was doing website design for a long time working for different companies in Austin and when I went out on my own to freelance I did WordPress because that's what I was used to and I worked in it for several years and after a while I got really tired of cleaning up websites because um the SQL database would get all these links added by Bad actors and if people weren't updating their plugins every month that just happened it was part of it I was sick of that and then I realized that my clients really hated WordPress to the extent that they wouldn't go in and make any edits themselves and so I was doing the tiniest little edits for them like updating the copyright and little things like that and it you know I had no joy doing that nobody really wants to do that they didn't want to pay me to do that so I started looking around and thinking about what is a great platform that I could use that I could hand off a website to a client and they could manage the basics themselves if they still needed help with something bigger strategy adding a new service sure I could jump in and help with that but these little tiny tasks the five minute here five minute there that would just take up a whole day they can handle those on their own right exactly and for all those little tiny tasks and I so feel your pain there is no joy me adding a hyperlink to your text or yeah like these little tiny things that they're like I just can't handle that backend interface please do this yes we are charging an arm and a leg to do them because that's that was what our time that's what our time is worth and it's it wasn't the it's not it's not a great solution for most businesses some people need it yes when look at the ease of Squarespace it's a totally different thing and Squarespace was a match for the type of clients that I liked working with so I really love small businesses or solopreneurs who you know have an idea of something a service they want to offer and those folks are the ones that I really love making that Vision come to life for and in WordPress with WordPress it just you know it never felt aligned and with Squarespace it was really easy to show them how their site would work it felt comfortable for them to go in and make changes and it really aligned for those types of websites because they're more informational they didn't need things like tons of logins or forums or recipes you know like there are some businesses that are better suited for other platforms but for my client Squarespace was it was a clear winner when I was going through and trying out all the Builders out there awesome awesome great okay so so so it's established we both love Squarespace it's so awesome and wonderful and we're so glad we're building websites in Squarespace so now let's talk about building a web design business and how to make that successful and how to do that really well because you have got some insight into this you're you're really I think killing it in the space and you've got some really good foundational ideas to help web designers with this so talk a little bit about what's most important and the things that you recommend for web designers to build a strong foundation for their business yeah so I think the first thing is choose your lane and for me you know in 2018 that lane became Squarespace it wasn't specifically you know I didn't Niche down to like I just work with Architects but it really was small businesses on Squarespace so I think choosing your Niche and then really diving deep and becoming an expert in it because I think there is a tendency at least for me I get this you know shiny object syndrome and I'm like oh let me go check out framer and let me go check out webflow and there are I could spend my time playing around with all the different platforms out there but at the end of the day to be able to build a good website quickly in Squarespace that requires some knowledge and some practice so my number one tip is become an expert in what you're offering and dive deep in it and that way it's easier for you you're charging the same for a project that you would spend 10 hours on because you know exactly what you're doing or a project that you spend 40 hours on because you're learning as you go and of course early on you're going to be learning as you go but after a while you're going to develop processes and systems you know the platform inside out one of my favorite feedbacks is when I'm doing live changes with clients and they're like you're so fast it's like yeah I do this all day that's awesome I think that's such good advice I hear a lot of people talking about how easy Squarespace is to use and that's true it is but I don't think that that's a substitute for glossing over the depth of experience and Mastery that you can get inside just that platform yes it's it's easy to use and it's simple to use but there's a lot to learn if you want to get amazing at it yeah there's a lot to learn and I I know like starting out I was used to how things worked in WordPress so you know the idea of like where does the social sharing logo go and how do you set up a 404 page and things like that that was pretty time consuming in the in the beginning and now it's like you know two seconds and you're done but I think diving into your platform becoming an expert and really knowing what you can offer as well so you're you're promising your client something that you can deliver yeah I I love that I'm I'm so glad you said that I don't think that can be said enough okay and so really quick on Niche so you you think that just Squarespace is Nisha Sam Crawford said that too when I interviewed him a couple weeks ago so you you Echo that same idea I do and I would I probably Niche a little more than Sam I know Sam is just doing tons and tons of projects I don't I don't think I work as much as Sam after hearing him talk so I I don't do as many projects as Sam so I am able to Niche a little maybe a little smaller so really small businesses like I said um you know right now I'm actually doing a custom build for a tax and Law Firm they have about 20 employees but I'm really only working with two to do the website so that still feels aligned but you know I don't do for example I used to work on nonprofit websites quite a bit when I was starting out because I was just looking for work and those were the people that had low budgets and who would take a chance on somebody who wasn't that experienced but after doing lots of nonprofit websites I realized that there's not one or two decision makers there's 20 and they all have opinions and the timelines for those just get so crazy and long that I'm like no more nonprofit websites for me and unless it's like I'll do a pro Bona website and I'll be like I'm gonna give you what you get and here's your website but you know I think that for for me I niche in terms of my process so I look for clients that will fit my process O say more about that yeah so the way I run my projects is time limited so I block off my calendar for a custom build and it might be two weeks for a smaller project it might be six weeks for a bigger project but I have within that timeline I know exactly when I'm building out certain things and I know that for twoe projects one decision maker is all that that time frame can handle for a six week project I can have two if I had more than that it would not fit on my calendar basically those tend to drag on so I'm looking for projects that fit my timelines that I have so at the end of this year I go through and I look at my calendar for next year and I kind of block out when I think those builds will happen so smaller build here larger build here and I can tweak that you know I get inquiries but I'm looking for people that like my process and my process is not super duper collaborative so I take um initial website inspiration from the client I talk with them about their goals we come up with a strategy together and I talk through basically what the website structure will be and give them ideas of what it will look like and once they're on board with that I start building and then we have a homepage walkthrough and that's where I make sure I'm on the right page in terms of design and content you know if I've created any kind of additional content than they've provided I want to make sure that's nailed down and once they're happy with the look and the feel of the website the way it works on the homepage I go and I build out the rest of the pages and we don't have another call until those pages are done and we do a full walk through together so I'm sending them links along the way so they can review it but on that next we actually go through the website every page and I make live changes to the website so we go through their list of changes and I just knock them out and then we have a launch call for any final tweaks make those changes and the site goes live so there's not a ton of back and forth and they know I have a revision stock so they can have all their notes there you know every now and then there is going to be something bigger that happens along the way with this site that I'm currently working on they changed a couple of their services are like well while we're doing this we're going to change what we initially talked about and so you know it's like I can do that within this timeline I've given myself buffer but if it were a two-e website it would be like oh that's outside of the scope of what we agreed on so you know you price ingly to the number of decision makers the size of the site you give yourself a little extra room I know for me I um have a couple of autoimmune things going on and so I may not have a great day once a while and so I give myself buffer time so those two we builds those are websites I could probably build in two days if I had to but I give myself two weeks and that also makes the price point feel better for the client yes absolutely I'm like a two-day website is $6,000 they're gonna be like oh no right right right right you're not doing enough magic in two days what do you mean yeah but the two weeks makes it look like yeah for sure okay so I have so many questions on this and don't want to Dive In Too Deep because I I really want to talk to you about products and like strategy building in your site but I want to drill down into this um because there you have said a couple things that are fascinating to me so okay so first thing so you when you're doing the two week or six week or four week or whatever it is it's just one client at a time right that you're working on will you do other small things will you throw a VIP day in there or any other little okay yeah yeah absolutely yeah I'm still doing Discovery calls I might have one VIP day those are less likely in the two week builds more likely in the six week builds um I'll definitely have a couple of hour calls each week with someone so they are my only custom build client during that time but I am doing other work and I'm of course doing work for my own business right of course yeah okay um so the build process is fairly similar to mine um in the way I you know I get all the information from the client and then I go away in my cave and I build and you do the homepage I'm assuming perks the Squarespace because things you cannot do in WordPress the homepage is uh like a substitute for a wireframe in the word press world right like the brand board and wireframe and stuff just we just build the homepage because it's yeah and I I know a lot of designers especially those that operate at higher price points they'll do a beautiful design in figma and present that to their client and then build it in Squarespace and I have a slightly different take on that one I don't love figma like I'm like for me it feels like a waste of time because I don't do websites with a ton ton ton of custom code so I can just spin it up in Squarespace and then make any adjustments there faster than I personally could build it in figma and so I kind of ski that step yeah I agree same yeah same thing and then the client really gets to see like you said color scheme font all those things they also get to see the messaging because the homepage is so indicative of what the rest of the the feel and cont is be um so it's a really so that's good and then girl you get on a call with the client and do changes in real time I do yeah I didn't do that when I started um but yeah but at this point in my business it's I want them to see a couple things one I want them to see what it's like to use Squarespace and when they watch me do it they're learning a little bit and so they're I'm going fast right because it's a fast call but I record it and they have access to the recordings so I they can always go back and look at what we did together now I also do smaller recordings when I'm adding a blog post or changing text or updating an image so they have those little Library tutorials for their website but they can also go back and look at at the recording of the call and so I want them to feel like wow she's really fast but this is something I could do myself see the steps it looks doable so that's part one part two is when I'm on even on the homepage call if they're like well what about this and I can just show them really quickly um you know like I thought about that and here's why it doesn't work and they can see that really quickly they lean into the fact that I'm the expert like I've got this I can do it really quickly I understand what I'm doing there are reasons behind why things look and work the way they do and so I think that's part of it too is just like they see you as an expert oh fantastic yes totally oh so many it's that's one of those things I've been allergic to I'm like I would not get on the phone and in WordPress it's not even feasible right no no that's not something you could do no but um okay I'll I'll consider that if I if I give that a try I will report back and let you know yeah I actually think it's really fun that is like the the tiny bit of collaboration does come in in that homepage walkth through and then the other the edits are are it's really interesting because sometimes they'll throw a wrench in at the ninth hour you know on that on the edits call and be like well what if we move the logo to the right side of the page and of course I'm like well have you seen any websites with the logo on the right um you know we didn't see that in any of your inspiration websites but I'd be happy to take a look and then you can show them like in Squarespace here are our options like these are the layout options we don't have that as an option I can certainly reach out to a developer I don't have that code on hand this is about how much that would cost this is about how much time it would add to the project and they're like oh maybe I don't actually want the logo on the right you know yeah that's amazing so for everyone listening um Chrissy just gave you a whole bunch of really Stellar scripts right there exactly what you say to clients when they ask for something bizarre so have you seen any other clients where that's happened and well I don't have that code on hand but I could I mean right there that was that was yeah a lot of times I think the clients aren't they've done the work ahead of time and then they kind of forget about it while you're doing the initial build right so maybe they got you the content the inspiration maybe the strategy call was two months ago they've forgotten what inspiration sites they put down and so I think calling that out and being like so just let's pull up those inspiration sites again that you provided and so this is why we did this this is why we did that and it keeps things on track so like there is I think when they see there's a logic behind it and there's a strategy they're like oh okay I get it you had a reason for this it's not just like we can't willy-nilly move things wherever we want there's a reason and so I think that's really helpful awesome I love it fantastic all right so I want to transition into talking about products and stuff but before we do it let's let's check the chat really quickly and just see if there are any questions um every thank hi everyone thank you so much for being here um yeah and Caitlyn says yeah wireframing always felt redundant Kaitlyn yes yes and she does some Caitlyn does some live too sometimes Diane are we gonna convert you I don't know man I I'm have to I'm G have to do some deep work to see if I can swing up but I'll I'll let you guys know and she agrees with you it's always helpful for them to see yeah definitely some added benefits there very cool very cool thanks Kaitlyn awesome okay so now let's move into um actually structuring your business so that's a lot of good stuff on like you know what to focus on and how to Niche and things like that but then talk talk to me a little bit because you have like three arms that you talk about in your business yeah so I I do one-on-one client work but I also have kind of two other buckets of income so I kind of think of them as as buckets so um part of my energy and my income comes from this client work bucket that's something that we just talked about with custom design but it also includes you know any kind of Maintenance I do for a client which I don't do as much now that I'm doing Squarespace instead of Wordpress um hourly screen share help calls uh VIP days things like that so that's all one-on-one work now I also have two other um pretty robust income streams and one of those is affiliate marketing and I started blogging after I moved my business to Squarespace one of the things I recognized I was spending a lot of time trying to figure things out initially and this was back in 2018 and it a lot of it was just you know really deep work figuring things out maybe going into Squarespace help and chat with somebody at Squarespace and they would give you a workaround and you're like well people should know about this and so I would write a blog post and I started getting traffic to my site or those blog posts and at some point I thought you know there are a lot of plugins that I use there are you know there's a certain text stack that I use there are contracts that I use I bet other people other service providers not just web designers would be interested in that and so I started writing about that as well I include a toolbox page on my website and so I started getting some money from affiliate marketing when I talk about tools that I use my myself in love and why they work for me I feel like it feels really aligned and people are happy to use your link to purchase that because they've learned something from you that might help their business so second bucket is affiliate marketing and the third bucket that came a little bit later is uh digital products and so it started with my first digital product is actually free now it's my image optimization mini course so that was like a very low price offer off initially and now it's free but when I started that it was like just dipping my toe in the waters like I didn't want to do a video course it's all just text based but I wanted to see if people were interested and they were so that led me to create a couple of other digital products that don't exist anymore because the platform has changed so much that they needed to be updated but then I rolled out make money with your blog so I talked about how I used my blog for affiliate marketing but it also brought clients my way and I talk about how I do that in that course and my most recent digital product is the Squarespace designers starter template and that has really done well I think people are enjoying using it and that's really fun to hear how it's helping people save time kicking off new projects so that is the third bucket digital products so kind of three different things I didn't start them all at once so I started with the client work because that's a for sure thing you do the work you get paid and kind of naturally from that came blogging and the affiliate marketing and then when I saw that there were things that maybe I couldn't cover in a blog because they were so they needed so much more information and more handholding and more videos and details those kind of became the digital products yeah absolutely um so we're gonna really uh dive into the digital products arm but really quickly before we get there let's talk about the affiliate marketing pie really quickly actually let me back up even more because there's something else it's really it it's the client work is such a good place to start and I know that in this day and age and like there's Etsy and all these things and everybody's like I want to get all these digital product streams going and it's like if you need cash flow which I mean who doesn't but if you're starting a business cash flow is probably a priority and if you need cash flow like those one-on-one clients that service-based work I mean that's that that's the quickest route to there you get a client you get cash low even if it's low in the beginning um and and and to your point earlier too it was interesting that like you started out with this niche of uh nonprofits and then it gradually kind of expanded and changed into other things and that's something to keep in mind too your Niche may change absolutely when you're starting out it's you know you're looking for whoever will hire you and so yeah I still have some sites that were live when I started on Squarespace one is I think I charged $750 for it it was one of my first ones on Squarespace you know I was just kind of testing the waters it's for a local psychologist and you would look at that and go that is the Bedford template you know it I didn't really do anything but it works for him he's still running with it so it's it's so funny so you do have to start somewhere yeah exactly exactly and then I think the next logical place to start is the affiliate marketing stuff affiliate is it's so easy to get into it because like you said you're right at the gate there are going to be things you're going to using you're going to have affiliate links for those um well I have well I have a two-part question for that so my my question is is would you move into that next as the logical step and then it's probably not going to be super profitable right away because you know you got a small audience what kind of audience do you need to get to for affiliate marketing to really start to make a difference in your bottom line that is a great question so um I think that I mean I remember when I made my first affiliate marketing sale and I think I got like $3 and then I'm like well now I have to wait until I have 50 and they'll actually do a payout so you know I we all start with zero audience as well and for me it really took about nine months of blogging before I had any traction and was making money with um affiliate marketing and for me after nine months I was making about $1,500 a month in affiliate marketing from my blog and you know I still I make that or more today and it's um and I'm also doing affiliate marketing through my email list now which don't do what I did start your email list early I had my blog up and running forever before I added a lead magnet and an email list and I'm like how much did I miss out on because I just didn't do that step so I would recommend if you know if you are creating content get a newsletter going get people on your email list start collecting those email addresses uh so it it took a while and I don't have an answer for number of people because for me it was a time-based thing and I didn't have a list yet right so it was just people coming to my to my blog but it was about nine months of blogging every couple of weeks and until then sorry I was just to say until then I felt like I was shouting into the voice like came to my website I just kept going um and I'm feeling that with uh YouTube now maybe we'll talk about that later but you know it's it's interesting that getting started is is always tough so um a while oh let's let's talk about that right now really quickly because I've been feeling this too because I've just started my YouTube channel my goal is 100 subscribers by the end of the year I mean you know and it's like I'm such a veteran I've been doing this work for however many years I've built several successful businesses but like anytime you start anything new you're gonna have that feeling of I'm a rookie I have no idea what I'm doing I'm shouting into the void nobody's paying attention it just you just have that and you just you just got to keep going so here's some encouragement for you and anybody else who's listening so I had a YouTube channel for years but I didn't really do anything with it I would occasionally post a video um so at the be at the end of last year I think I had like 400 subscribers um which was you know just accumulated over those years of the occasional video which was really good but not good enough to really do anything with um so I would encourage you one to dream bigger like you can get more than a hundred and you're watching yeah if you're watching subscribe to Diane's Channel she's got great content um so last year when I I was part of the Google Labs experiment and I saw that they were rolling out zero click search and I'm like oh no there goes my blog traffic and I started thinking about how can I mitigate that and I thought well I'm gonna have to start doing videos because the other big search engine that would work for me is YouTube so by the end of last year I had a plan to start in February doing one video at least every week this year and right now I have over 2,000 subscribers so there is a Tipping Point there is a point at which you'll be like oh there are the people but it took months months and if you look back years but I didn't do a lot during those years but because you're starting now and you're doing this consistently it's going to you're going to have more than a 100 in no time but but I'm still not monetized and when will that happen I don't know I think probably end of q1 next year if my analytics hold true but again for a long time it's just shouting into the void but the indicators that I look for just if you know if you're trying out something new because I tried out Pinterest and I hated it and I never got a lead from Pinterest I was on Instagram for years years I had like the most beautifully curated Instagram feed of like here's a text post of a brand color and here's a beautiful photo and here's another text post with a different brand color I spent a ridiculous amount of time on Instagram and got very very few leads there so this year I'm like you know what it's going to be for fun for me I'll put up a nine grid call it done do some stories when I find something helpful or funny and that's all I'm doing there because it was n worth my effort but blogging was definitely worth my effort I think YouTube is going to be worth my effort because I am starting to get inquiries from people who say I found you via YouTube yeah so again that's an indicator to me to keep going yes yes oh we've got some good comments um yeah Caitlyn never got leads from Instagram same strategy as me now love it um floating Lotus design are you primarily using YouTube to build build your email list or attract clients yes so I'm using it to build my email list um for me what I've done is I have a h pre-launch checklist U that is my lead magnet it's been my lead magnet for years on Squarespace and what I'm doing is I'm going through and I'm creating a video for every every little point on that checklist so they're short but they're really actionable and they are things people need to know before or after they launch a Squarespace website and what I'm doing is I'm putting those videos out there every week people are finding one realizing there's a whole checklist watching all the videos that I have so far and signing up for my email to get the checklist so it's kind of just keeping people in that ecosystem um we've got that's such a great freebie too I just want to give a quick shout out that pre-launch checklist is just Stellar we'll put a link in the Des but it's it's thank you I um I think it's pretty helpful Janelle pure inspo shouting into the void yes absolutely um oh and Diane she says one of her clients had her goal of hundred subs and now she has over a thousand yeah we both think you're gonna hit a thousand like no problem quickly yes yeah I'm excited like we talked about I'm like for many of the same reasons I'm like this is gonna be my main thing for next year you know this in my email list because of course I know mine as well please learn from us do not do that your email list now even if you don't think you have anything to share just start doing it just start collecting the emails you don't have to send them anything other than like every couple months just like so they don't forget who you are um there are some really sweet comments about digital products too I downloaded your client process checklist and it is gold Allison thank you so much Christine big up vote for the starter template thank you guys yeah that's awesome love that okay now the topic everyone's been waiting for products yeah let's talk about products let's talk about the strategy for them like how have you built because you are building like an army of like resources it's amazing some of the stuff you have so talk a little bit about your thought process behind it as you've built them and and what you're trying to create yeah so for me initially I was trying to answer question questions that I would get a lot so with the um with a make money with your blog course for example which needs updating so it's like fairly inexpensive relatively right now so if you grab it I'm sorry it needs updating but you're getting a good deal um it's that was because I had a lot of clients who were really interested in blogging they had heard me talk about how I was doing affiliate marketing and the income it was bringing in and they wanted me to sit and talk with them for like three hours about how to start to blog and how to do affiliate marketing and how to position themselves as an expert how to get clients and I can't do that for every person and so after a few of those I'm like I need to make a course on this so that to me it's like when I get the same question over and over or the same request over and over once I hear it a few times it's like yeah like by the third or fourth time I'm like this is a sign I need to create this so I um that's kind of how almost every product starts is because someone has asked me about it in some way or asked for that particular product for the starter template it was actually people asked for that exactly so in 2023 I did a talk at Squarespace Circle day it was a little workshop virtual and I talked about client offboarding and in that video I talk about a couple of the things that I do on these pages on the back end of the website and maybe five or six people email me right right after and said can you build this I will buy it and so I waited a year until the next Circle day so before Circle day I'm like oh right I need a digital product because I'm gonna be on stage and I need some income from this to pay for my Squarespace hotels because they were crazy expensive this year so I had a goal of how many of the starter templates I needed to sell to pay for my hotels I love that I love that it was paying for your stay at Circle day where you were speaking like okay I got to make this work yes it's so good and that product is amazing the so good it's that's another thing that I just think is so helpful for web designers because you really spell out all the things that a site should have and and how it should work and you show you're really good at all in all of your like freebies and products you're really good at showing and demonstrating like how you streamline things to make it easier on you yeah that's something that I love is I love a good checklist and I love efficiency so if if that's you then you'll probably find something you enjoy in my shop but the the starter template in particular was really interesting for me because I have a complete walkth through so if you don't want to buy it you can build it yourself I show you everything you can do and I've had since August over 150 people actually purchase it because they saw like all the things that go into it it's like I should just buy this instead of building it myself and I hope that people who don't have the budget are building it themselves because they you know they have the info but I actually thought if I'm giving this away in terms of like showing people exactly what's there I don't think I'll sell that many but what I didn't realize is like it's such a timesaver people are willing to invest in it and so I was able to cover my hotel by the time I left Circle day I'd met that goal and I did a flash sale after or the Black Friday sale and it's been it's been really good so I I feel like it's a good product and people are finding it useful and so that is my goal for the products to get feedback and and feel like these are great there are some that I you know I try out a product and it's not great so I had one for a while that was a Squarespace campaigns course and it was great when it when I initially rolled it out and then campaigns changed so much that it just wasn't serving anybody anymore and so I I took that off um make money with your blog the blog structure has changed a little bit and I talk about that it's just like it looks different now but it still works the same so all the principles and how it works is the same so that's you know it's fine so it's still there but I think you do have to be aware of you know as things change you either need to kind of put things in the vault or brush them off dust them off update them um and that's what I've tried to do awesome awesome I think yeah that's really good advice too and and and also pointing out that just because maybe something is a little outdated it doesn't mean it's not worth anything I love that you're like okay so the blogging the whole plat blogging platform doesn't work the way it did but I'm not I'm not going to give it away or make it toast it's just but I am G to Discount to acknowledge that but the principles are all still there you'll still all get all the goodies so yeah um okay so on that note what you were talking about with um because you do the uh for the um starter template you do this there very long video where you walk through like every single piece of it and you get to see it and I was surprised by that too so talk a little bit because I think a lot of people are concerned when they're creating digital products of like giving away the F and so what would you say in terms of like where's the line between holding back enough or giving away to much there might not I think you know that's a great question question and I'm not sure where the line is I think the starter template is kind of a special case because it's all about creating systems to save you time and then you realize oh I could save even more time if I were to just buy this so it might be a special case in and that you know it's kind of uh it's a little meta and that it is what it is so um for other for other things I think that you know I think the beauty to a course is that all the information is in one place so you might have actually here's a great example back when I was charging for my image optimization course uh it was $17 so like I don't want you to think it was very expensive it was $17 and it was kind of my proof of concept for digital courses but it was text based course and overall I would say 98% of the people that bought it left me a great review said it was wonderful super helpful and then one guy wrote in and he said I could have found all of this if I had Googled it and read all the Squarespace help articles and I'm like but do you want to like would it be worth $17 for you to just have it all right here in words that you understand right so you know I feel like it's different for everybody but that guy it was I'll never forget that guy I'm like yeah you could Google everything everything and yeah you could you could find it and if you want to we through like CHR who's on this call she has an amazing resource for e-commerce on Squarespace and I mean it's so good I don't know that all of it is in the Squarespace documents but I've tried to read those Squarespace documents and they don't make any sense to me and when I when I got uh Christine's product it's like oh it's all logical it makes sense here are examples like I get it and I would happily pay for that rather than spending hours trying to decide for like things that were written by someone who has maybe never even used the product yeah absolutely I think I think people miss that a lot and I I want to tie tie that back to like building your list in your audience and because I think this is a really important part of building your brand too is that when you establish yourself as someone who's good at explaining or explaining in a way that you can understand when you establish that Authority people are happy to buy from you it's like oh my gosh you're going to see I don't have to look for something because it's not just finding the information it's finding the information from somebody where you trust the source yes there's a lot of work involved in that so yeah if you're establishing it right out the gate and people and building that audience over time people are going to totally buy from you and I think that's a really good point you make about establishing that trust with your audience so um on for Black Friday I do like a curated blog post of Black Friday deals but they're only things that I've bought and that I use and I send it out every year and this year I got a lot of really lovely emails back saying you know I look forward to this because I know like I trust you and I know like these are things that you've bought and you've invested in instead of like a hundred things you need as a Squarespace web designer these are like seven things that Christy has bought and thinks are worthwhile so um you know I I think it is is worthwhile to really curate what you're sharing um and to be really transparent about like it's something that has worked for me and not just like you know here are 10,000 things that you might like for your business because those listicle blog posts do well and the YouTube videos but do they serve you well in the long term I'm not sure they do I agree with that wholeheartedly absolutely um okay so let me ask you another couple questions so we've got thinking about the questions that you get asked all the time because that's a good source of ideas for products and then thinking about who your client is and what they need in terms of what you want to share I think it's such a good point to think about like if they're really wanting to save time and that's the product you're creating it may be okay to share more because they'll just invest in this in the done for you solution that you have available if you're sharing something like say scripts to say to a client for example maybe that's something where you need to share a little bit less and talk more about the benefits that kind but so those are really those are really great points is there any other strategy involved in creating a suite of digital products yes and this is something that I have not done a great job on but I am working toward so I think when you create a suite of digital products one thing to consider is that once someone purchases one and has a good experience you want to create other things that they could come back and purchase as well so you want to kind of think of it holistically and the reason I've not done a good job of this is initially when I started building my digital product shop I was building it for diyers and what I've realized is that more of my audience is actually Squarespace designers or people who are considering becoming Squarespace designers than diyers and so you'll see that my products have shifted over time to focus more on designers I still have some for the diyers that I can point people to but but going forward I'm thinking about how all of those products work together because once someone purchases something from you they have a good experience they're a lot more likely when you have a sale to go oh yeah I'm G to grab that from her too the first thing was really good so you know thinking about how they all might work together in harmony I love that yeah thinking looking taking a step back and looking at what your Niche needs in sort of like a 360 view well if they need this they're going to need this and if they need this then they're going to need that to encourage those like you said and then you can bundle things and have sales and you can do all kinds of stuff so yeah very very very great advice um okay so yeah we've got some more good comments uh Caitlyn's saying yes she found that too um yes I answer a lot of questions in the social media Stratosphere and floating Lotus is saying I answer a lot on my YouTube channel yeah for yeah yeah any any thoughts on that on answering support question and stuff do you you just take the time to answer and give people all the good information build your brand I mean if it's if it's something I know then sure you know I'll just pop in the resource that I have on hand or you know what I think if it's something that I have to go and research no I mean they would need to pay me for that but um no I do get a lot of questions some of which are things that you know it's a pretty easy answer if you've been doing Squarespace for a while and so it's like somebody I think had a question about like this weird error they were getting and I'm like oh that's the 404 page and you can create your own you know or you have a question about you are redirects because you don't that's not something we're born knowing so you know those are like easy to answer questions but every now and then it'll be like my site is doing this weird thing and I'm like yeah that's weird you need to talk to support right yeah that's weird I don't know that right uh okay and so we have a few more comments yeah the fact that we're Squarespace designers developers can easily parse their support docs I mean it's it's true right the just because information is available doesn't mean people are going to want to consume it or will even be easily able to consume it so right taking information that exists somewhere else and it all exists somewhere else but taking information that exists somewhere else and repackaging it and repurposing it in a way that is relevant to your audience I mean that's that's the gold um Christin says I read the scor space support doc so you don't have to perfect yes right a absolutely uh we've got uh is it Amna I don't have my glasses on so I'm squinting I'm a digital doodle artist I love that that sounds so cool that is that's amazing I love that awesome guys so much fun okay I said YouTube it yeah some really good comments thank you guys yeah okay so one more question on um so we we've kind of we've kind of covered the gamut I feel like we've got a good view like what creates a successful web design business let's talk a little bit about services and productizing your services so that that makes people's lives easier to yours and your clients what does that look like in your business yeah so I have um I have four different Services right now and so that changes over time right so I have my Squarespace screen share for an hour and that's kind of my foot in the door for a lot of clients like they're not willing to spend thousands of dollar on a new website or on a VIP day but they will spell spend a couple hundred to get some targeted help on a specific issue but once they've worked with you they're really much more likely to come back and say well I saw how fast that was for you and easy for you and it would have taken me two months and a lot of headaches and I might have thrown my computer out the window so I'm just going to hire you to do this so it's it's a really nice kind of taster for people now that's not productized in any way other than like it's all just it all happens on Acuity and I just show up for the call and answer the questions they have so but that looks different for every person so I think the product ice part of that is you know the sales page is there they can book without talking to me they get all the reminders and you know I have an AI tool that records the call for them so that's that's one um the other is my designer for day which AI tool do you use to record I use fathom video right now but I'm playing around with some others so we'll see yeah yeah um the next service like price point ladder wise is my VIP day which I call designer for a day and that is also not really productized because it's very specific for the person but it's at a price point that like if I spend five or six hours a day on it I feel very well paid for my time and they have a great experience and a lot of those people have come back in a few years and gone with custom build for me as well so again it's just that higher tier to develop relationships and help people with something that they need that's more than you could do in an hour um the next service is very productized so that is my two-day website and it's a template buildout so people will choose one of my Squarespace templates that I've created and for example if they choose my sway template for service providers I set them up in copyscape and they get a a visual of each section of each page and then I ask them what text do you want here here's what it should be about what image do you want here here's kind of what you're looking for they fill all of that out they fill out all of the backend stuff like your domain and you know your privacy policy all of that stuff and they do all that without me they hand it off to me I build it in two days we have a one and a half hour walkthrough call and they're done so that is highly productized and that is really rewarding because it is not that much time for me but I do feel amply rewarded for my experience in creating these systems and the templates so it's really nice and it's much lower price point for them than a custom build would be so they're getting a great website that's strategic that is branded for their business but they don't have to pay for a custom build yeah for sure yeah and then we talked a little bit about the custom builds before but for for me um like I said the timeline changes with those but my process is actually the same throughout them all and I have um somebody mentioned my client process checklist that's the one that I use that I go through and I'm actually working on a course that's going to launch in February called the web designers Playbook where you're going to get a complete behind the scenes on exactly how I run my custom projects so you'll get swipe files and timelines and everything in a sauna or you can drop it into whatever system you use and it's all there for you I'm so excited about the course talk a little bit more about that because I think it's it's going to be I think it's just going to be a huge resource for web designers for me it's really everything I wish I had known before I started doing custom builds so it's like how do you position yourself what do you do on a discovery call what questions do you need to ask on the initial questionnaire um everything like that even to the details of like who pays for hosting when do I add the client to the website how do they preview the website everything from that very first touch point to client offboarding so it's going to be I think I've got about 10 modules and I'm really excited about it it's not built yet I'm still working on it but um I do have a weight list page that is not well-designed at all because it's just tossed up there as I'm working on the course but you are um it's called the web designers Playbook and we can drop a link in the description um if you want to get on the weight list for that yeah for sure for sure yeah we'll have that in there yeah it's I think it's going to be so amazing because the that's like the big I mean that's what we took Years Learning yes years you know what do what do I say to the client take what do what do I how do I get from them what I need to do my job and then how do I set them for Success set them up for Success when I offb like there's this whole just the minutia of the words to say how do I keep this project on track how do we not end up with 10 scope changes because when I was starting out I mean there was this architect that I work with on her website years ago I'm sure she's not watching this um but I built a website for her this was actually on WordPress it was before I was doing Squarespace and she wanted to change the color blue on the website I think we changed it a hundred times and we had to be a call for each one of those changes because I didn't have any boundaries and eventually it's like her sister's cat was involved in the decision making it was just ridiculous so I have learned over time how to create healthy boundaries for myself and the clients um and I think we all learn from each other as designers too like these things come up in conversations but if you're new to the web designer world who do you ask and so I'm just trying to put all of those resources in one place that you know it's everything that I wish I had had starting out I love that I love that yeah I think that's so true because it it like you're saying who do you ask like who you know it's not it's not a part of the common discourse not many people are sharing this kind of stuff I talked to a woman recently who said she was moving toward um template sales she was building a template shop because she couldn't stand working with clients anymore yeah and I was just curious and I was like well you know so what was the you know what was bad or what was hard about it like one of the first things she said was well when they would text me oh oh nobody has my phone number nope nope that's the first red flag but how do you know like you know how do you communicate with people you text people so you give them your number like you you just those are the those systems and processes don't know in the beginning that those are the things that will contribute to your insanity and still learning so I have a Google Voice number that I use for my business but during the designer for a day the VIP day I actually do text people back and forth and for a while like six months later I get a text from a number I don't recognize and they're like can you help me with something real quick and so after that I'm like now at the end of the day I have this really nice pasted response it's like just so you know this number's not monitored if you need to get in touch with me later here's my email address so I mean we're all learning all the time right that's something that I should have thought of but I didn't until you know there was a boundary crossed and I'm like oh I need to Wrangle this right for sure yes someone said said uh I read once someone said that being a web designer means changing your contract every single time you have a client because every client violates a boundary in another way and you just in the contract which feels true but of course what I found is that the contract can't protect you from everything there are some things that you have to have in place in just with in a systems way in a communication's way and I think that's what your course is going to just thank you be so great at sharing with people so yeah we'll have a link to that in the description a link to her weight list page or if she's already offering it it'll be for the for the actual page for the course so awesome uh yeah yeah floating Lotus is saying boxer is the best for VIP days I rely on Boxer and what's out a lot that's so funny I don't like it for VIP days because people will just and maybe it's the type of clients that I work with because if they have Voxer and they're talking a lot of them I think verbalize to rationalize and so like I'm getting a lot of thought process happening and I'm like I don't need all of that I need this much and so for me I think the texting works better that's really interesting interesting yeah that's funny I I like the boxer and the whatsat because I can speed it up and so if there's a lot of this going I go like you know tap tap tap speed and I get to the Nugget that I need yes but yeah that's interesting um awesome awesome we're just reading the comments really quickly them boundaries are gold you said it it yes all right awesome this was lovely okay let me ask you one last question um and then we'll wrap up but one last question um tell people where they can find you oh yeah it's Christy price.com um and all my digital products are at learn. chrisy price.com and oh uh I have two questions for you so keep going so where else can people find you so on YouTube at Christy price and Instagram Christy price web design awesome awesome and we will have links all of to all of those in the description my last question this is actually a substantive question uh you are recently very recently you just moved everything to podia I'm fascinated tell me about that yeah and actually Christine who is in the comments here was the impetus for that because I saw her doing it I'm like that looks delightful so um there were two things that kind of made me move otherwise I like I inertia is a big thing for me like it's a lot to change platforms um so my courses were initially on teachable which is great for a lot of reasons but the price was going up and their customer support was terrible and it I the interface like I never got the hang of it like I couldn't find things it was just so frustrating for me to use now there were some good things like they handle all sales taxs so right now I have to figure out how to charge sales taxs for people in the EU and do vat stuff so that's a learning for me but it's worth it because the podia interface is so delightful so that alone the teachable stuff alone may not have been enough but then I was also using convert kit and I was struggling with a few things there and then they did their rebranding to kit and I heard that they spent half a million dollars on the domain name kit.com and I'm like I can't give you any more money you're not using it wisely like you could have just made it look like this and still called it convert kit it would have been great so that was the like those two things in tandem were like were like okay I need to find something else for email marketing and for digital products and pody actually does those both really nicely together and it's been a great experience so far I mean there have been hiccups sure when you're any new platform but overall really happy outstanding and there just say a little tiny I I love that you said that about convert kit I just you're just so my person you're just my kind of people um because I I'm like really you this whole Rebrand and you took the most important part of your name out of it on yeah I know right crazy who was on that meeting I just things I don't understand so anyway this was this was after a failed Rebrand remember like they tried to Rebrand it once before and I think they didn't do research into what the word meant so it was just like I need to leave this I don't have brain space for this okay and so then you moved your email marketing also to podio which is really interesting to me and you like the way it works works and it's like makes sense and all those things yeah it's not as feature Rich As convert kit so there are things that I can't do in podia but I wasn't doing them in convert kit anyway okay all right and the interface is so much easier it's just so simple okay Fant all right well thank you so much for taking an extra couple minutes for that I wanted to dive into that because I'm like that's fascinating so okay so last substantive question um uh what's your biggest piece of advice to someone who's starting out their web design business like who's just starting what's your B my biggest piece of advice is for the first few months we talked about this even we talked about it with content creation but it's honestly with starting a business you feel like you're shouting into the void and it's so easy to just quit because you're you don't have any traction and my biggest piece of advice would be just keep just keep swimming like Dory and Finding Nemo like just keep swimming just keep swimming and give yourself enough time to see if it's actually going to work and I think most of us are we live in the society where we expect things to happen instantly and businesses don't work like that it's going to take a lot of time and it's going to be a slow growth um for a lot of people and I think just hang in there awesome super smart very encouraging and very wise too thank you so much Christie thank you so much for being here with me today this was awesome you asked such interesting questions and I learned a lot from you too this is fun and I feel like we're twps in a pod with the WordPress and Squarespace and convert kit stuff yeah so many things absolutely so I'm definitely gonna have you back on in 2025 so everybody keep an eye out for that because we like you said we have so many fun things to talk yeah that sounds amazing thanks so much for everybody who joined us live great chat appreciate you being here yes this was so great everybody thank you all so much for being here links to Christy services and courses are going to be in the show notes which you'll find at my website sway rise creative and they're also going to be in the description below if you want to support me you can check out my site at sway risc creative.com I have tons of resources for designers and small businesses there and next week I will be talking to Squarespace web designer Caitlyn de about web design trends for 2025 what's hot what's not do we even care it's going to be really interesting so thank you all so much for being here today this is great and I'll see you next week bye everyone