Circle Live

Circle Live: Strategic Growth with Christy Price

• Squarespace Circle • Season 3 • Episode 2

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In this episode of Circle Live, we took a look at the past, present, and future of Circle with longtime Circle member, Squarespace educator, and cohost of the Somewhat Useful podcast, Christy Price.

Listen or watch to hear Christy and Squarespace’s Jeremy Schwartz discuss Christy’s career journey and the strategic choices she’s made to grow her career while partnering with Circle. We also shared some exciting news about how the Circle program is evolving to support and reward designers, agencies, and entrepreneurs at every stage of their careers.

Discover:

  • Strategic decisions Christy made that grew her business
  • What distinguishes web design professionals from amateurs
  • Upcoming releases announced in our product preview, This Is Squarespace, on February 19 
  • The advantages and benefits of Circle membership 
  • Brand-new Circle perks and program updates

Then, check out Christy’s Web Designer’s Playbook, a step-by-step system for running successful custom website projects, watch her Circle Day 2023 discussion about crafting smooth client offboarding strategies, and listen to Jeremy's March 2025 appearance on Somewhat Useful discussing Squarespace and Circle's evolutions over time.

If you use a podcast player (like Overcast), use this link to subscribe to Circle Live: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2299108.rss

Already a Circle member? Check out the events calendar to see what’s coming soon! ➡️➡️➡️ https://forum.squarespace.com/events

To learn more about Circle, check out some resources below:

Keyboard shortcuts, my friend. Life changing. I did not expect that. Yeah, okay. Keep going. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, just from, like, the simplest one that you might know about is the forward slash key. Once you're inside Squarespace, that will take you to menus. So, you know, you guys been moving things around on us a little bit as you're improving the product. And one of the things instead of having to go into settings and find the right folder, is just to hit the forward slash key and start typing in pop up or announcement bar or whatever. You're looking for domains and it will take you right there. Hello entrepreneurs, designers, business nomads, and business gurus. Welcome to Circle Live, our internet talk show just for Squarespace Circle members, I'm Sam Z, your senior community events manager, and I'm Sarah G, team lead for the Circle program team. And we have our colleague Taylor Lagoy managing the chat today. Last month we had so much fun talking to Nick and Hannah Ippolito from SquareKicker about the State of the Web Design industry report, and the conversation has kept on going. You can have a look at some of the great insights coming out from the report. By searching the hashtag #circlereport2025 on social media. I think Taylor is going to share a link to the report in the chat. Let me also point out that we have a special guest with us in the studio today. Hi, Jeremy. Hi, Sam. Welcome to Circle Live. Welcome back to Circle Live. I should say viewers will recognize both you and Sarah as the hosts of This Is Squarespace, the annual product announcement, the latest edition of which that went out last week. We've been watching these videos of the two of you for the past few years. And, I've always wanted to know how: much work goes into coordinating your outfits? I think I could take this one, too. The way it usually goes down is about t-minus four days before we're recording, Sarah stops by my desk and says, “so what should we wear?” And I'm like, I don't know. We'll figure it out. And then the morning of, I get one of the very, very few text messages from colleagues from Sarah with her outfit laid out in her page, and she says this. I say, okay, I'll riff on that. And that's that's how it happens. A, star of the screen and also wardrobe. I wear a lot of hats at Squarespace, and this is just one of them. And you probably also own a lot of hats as a wardrobe person. Maybe not. I don't look great in the hat, I'll admit it on camera, but, I own a lot of neutrals, so Jeremy and I get by. Okay. Don't knock it till you try it. Maybe we'll have a hat in the future This Is Squarespace. Before we head into the interview part of the show, I want to introduce a new segment to Circle Live. This is a completely new thing. And, Jeremy, are you willing to join us for this new segment? I mean, I'm here. Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah. Okay. This is called Circle Member Moments. So on signing up for the live event, we asked Circle Live viewers, what was your proudest moment from the last month of business? Jeremy and Sarah and I are going to now share some of the responses,

starting with:

Eli said that they were,“highlighted in the Squarespace Circle newsletter for a site they designed.” I love that, Wayne launched a course on his Squarespace site, and he said,“It is such a great workflow.” Love it, love to hear it. We love to hear that too. Nicole said that she, “landed literally a dream client and finally decided, I'm going to redo my website to reflect all the coding and design skills I've learned recently.” Yes, she said, I upgraded a number of happy clients to 7.1 thanks to the built-in upgrade. Cool. Amazing. Maya said, “I began my first mentorship offering with another female developer to help her learn my web process and ways of managing a creative custom. Squarespace development feels good to expand the community and teach others what I've learned.” Thanks for your service, Maya. I love that. Sadie said, “I've been doing Squarespace sites for a decade and I had my best slash biggest month yet.” So many great wins this month. The Circle team loves to hear your wins. So it just, it just really keeps us going. Really, keep sharing them with us in the comments today. And also, whenever you see, whenever you sign up for the next Circle Live, you will have an opportunity to share your wins with us and potentially be on the show. But for now, we're going to turn to a quick announcement from Sarah. Thanks, Sam. Last week we released our newest edition of This Is Squarespace exclusively for Circle members. In it, we announced updates coming to the Circle program, ways that Squarespace products are evolving to better support designers and lots of new commerce functionality, from site design improvements like faster styling features and updated layout control to opportunities for more discounts and elevated customer support, this is great. This includes updates on everything you need to know to stay in the know for the next six months. You can check your email, for the link to the This Is Squarespace website as well as well as the password to access it. Fabulous. So, Jeremy, hi. Let's turn to you again. Last week, you sat down with Christy Price, one of our most prominent Circle members, to talk about how she has grown with the Circle community. I liked two things, especially about this interview. First, you totally coordinated outfits. Speaking of coordinating outfits, I don't know if there was a text conversation. But second, it felt like to longtime friends talking, you know, and taking a walk down memory lane, makes sense because you both have been in this program for a while. I mean, you started it, and then, I think Christy has been in the program since 2018. I want to know, do you remember first becoming aware of Christy? Well, first, to your first point about the coordinated outfits. That was dumb luck. And then people will be able to see that in a second. I'm not going to make you, answer the question, who wore it best? But, that's what I was thinking about when I saw that, you know? So I was trying to think about this,‘cause we talked about this earlier, you know, when did I first become aware of Christy Price and I. I gotta say, it's hard to remember it. She's kind of been the water we've been swimming in for a while, but I do know that a few years ago, you know, it was clear that we had within the Circle community, which was already such a distinct part of the sort of the Squarespace user base. Generally. We had this, this group of people that were especially active in the forum, especially generous in creating content and helping other people get their their businesses up and running. And Christy was one of them. And that's why we launched the Community Leaders program a couple of years ago, both to kind of develop a closer relationship with them, try to reward them, make sure they're connecting with each other. But I think that's probably why, you know, I'm sure Christy was part of our sort of mental impetus to launch Community Leaders in the first place, because she's such an exemplar of that program, exemplar. She is. So, let's watch this interview with exemplar of the community, Christy Price. Hi, Christy. It's so great to see you. And I'm so glad you got the memo. And, green mark turtlenecks as the as the uniform for today. It's great to be back, Jeremy. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm good. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm really excited to to chat. So let's just jump right into it. But. So you joined Circle in 2018. What did you think you were getting yourself into? So my experience might be a little different because I was actually a web designer prior to joining Circle. I just built on a different platform, and that platform was no longer serving me or my clients. And so I spent the better portion of a year building site in all these different platforms, including Squarespace. And then it just became apparent that Squarespace was going to be the clear winner for what I wanted to achieve, and it was a good fit for my clients. So after all of that research, I had already kind of dug deep on how to use Squarespace. About the Circle member program and so I remember just like, okay, this is my first site. This is my second site. It's my third site, and I applied as soon as I hit that third site, I could not wait. Oh, so you were counting down to eligibility? Yeah, exactly. And I knew that there were some perks that I was missing that I would get when I joined Circle, and those were really important, especially when working with clients. What were the perks that you had in mind? Do you remember? Yeah. The two that were the most important to me were the discount that I could pass on to my clients and the extended trial. How do you how how did you frame it, that or how do you frame it now when when you talk to your client? Yeah. I mean, I think as a Circle member, it's really nice to frame it as well. Because you're working with me and I'm a Squarespace Circle member, I can pass along a 20% discount to you. So it makes us sound like experts, too, which is really nice. I mean, you happen to be an expert also that you've got something to back it up also. Actually, that was 2018. Extended trial was nice, discount was nice. Were you active in the forum in 2018? Yes. So in 2018 I was active in the forum because that is when I was starting my blog. And so I would go to the forum and see, like what questions people were asking, and then I could answer them and write a blog post about it. Because if one person has a question, chances are other people do too. So I was growing my skills by learning the platform and figuring out answers to questions. So I would go there to help other people. But also when I had questions, there was this whole community of experts that I could go to and ask. So I loved the forum from day one. Yeah, well that's great. Okay, so those 2018, those were the two the you're active in the forum site about that discount. Six months is plenty of time to work. How do you think about how the program has changed over the years and sort of how that that's impacted you or your business? Yeah, I think there are kind of two main changes that have really impacted my business. One is the, the transparency that you guys provide now, I feel like that has really grown since 2018, just in the past few years. We're seeing a lot more transparency about product updates well in advance and on the forums. Now we have the feature update boards. So we can put things there and then see are they in review. Might this happen. And so that gives us a lot more information. And it makes us look a lot smarter in front of our clients which is always great. And the other thing that I really loved about something new that happened along the way was Circle Day. So, I've been to all three Circle Days. They've all been amazing. And, you know, I'll tell you guys, that's the highlight of my work year. That's my favorite workday of the year is coming to Circle Day and meeting my coworkers and see you guys in person. And that really has been a huge evolution in the program. At least from my perspective. There's so much I want to dig into there. Sticking with the Circle Day thing, you know? You're a three timer, but you also sometimes host events right down there at Austin. I do, yeah. So we've got a really great community, of Squarespace designers here in Austin. And we'll get together a few times a year and people at all different stages of their careers and web design. So it's really nice to, to get together with those folks. And then in addition, I love any chance to hang out with kind of people who started with Squarespace or in Circle around the time that I did. And those have been really amazing relationships to kind of maintain over time, because those people are kind of on the same track. All right. So paint the picture. Are you down there in Austin or are you at a, at a barbecue place, a coffee shop. What's, what's, what's the scene for your meetups? Everywhere. So I've had Christmas parties at my house for local designers. So everything from that to coffee shops and yes, barbecue is very often enjoyed. Do you think that sort of a a circle thing. I think it's a youth thing. Like what is it that. And I think, Nick Ippolito from from SquareKicker is talked about sort of a sense of like rising tide lifts all boats, like where it's coming from, because I can absolutely imagine a sense that someone might have of this being zero. So if someone's downloading my checklist, they're not downloading your checklist. And that sort of a good news for me. Yeah. So the platform that I built on before was kind of like that. It was really competitive. There was a lot of gatekeeping. So trying to figure something out as a new designer, there was just brutal. And coming to Squarespace and seeing the Circle community. And I think you guys kind of set that standard early for Circle members in the forum. It's like, this is a helpful place, and I don't know if it's just that you attract nicer people. Maybe. Maybe we're all just nicer because of Squarespace, I don't know. It's something that I've wondered about too, but it is definitely something that I see specific to this community that I don't see in other types of communities, on other website builders. So there is something special about this group of Circle members who want to, you know, make Squarespace better for everybody, make the web better for everyone, and help each other out. So it's it's something that is, I think, a little unusual but wonderful. Yeah, I do it's so interesting about sort of, kind of community norms and where they come from. And I think, you know, kind of credit to you and the other community leaders, you know, we get tough questions in the forum from you and from others. But I think that they're always the vibe is always sort of tough but fair. Yeah. I mean, I think that everybody recognizes that they are bumps in the road. Right. And so when there are bumps in the road, we can get a little persnickety. If that bump is really affecting us. And I think to your credit and to the team’s credit, you guys are always trying to give us as much information as you can at the time. I mean, sometimes I know your hands are tied because it involves like other companies or, you know, information that you can't really share at the time. But having been around, like, we know you're telling us everything you can at the moment, and we know that you have our best interests at heart. I'm really glad you asked that transparency, because that's the thing we've we've worked on for a long time. And the thing that I've said, is that, you know, Circle members are business people. And like the number one thing business people cannot deal with is uncertainty. And that, you know, a hard no, we are not building that future is much better than an opaque, “we don't even know what's going on in there.” Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the really nice things about the, feature request board is that sometimes you guys are like, yeah, this is in review, or that dream needs to die. And we do need to know if that dream needs to die because we need to find out workarounds or figure out something else for our clients. But it is really nice because I remember early on, I was working and I wasn't a circle member yet, so I wasn't getting the updates, and I was working with a client over screen share. And we logged in and I'm like, oh my goodness, everything looks different. I don't know what to do. And I never, ever want to be in that position again. So I am following those Circle update emails. You know, I know what's going on because all the information is there. Like we never have to look silly in front of our clients, you know, really appreciate it. I'm so glad you know, this is I'm so glad you say because, you know, one of I think we had this when we launched one of the the first benefits when we launched was the weekly release notes. Yeah. And, you know, we release a lot of stuff. We're kind of continuously deploying, so you can't really put everything in there. So we kind of need some sort of like editorial standard, rule of thumb, what goes in the release notes and the mantra I've always had as we've been talking about things, is we cannot let them look dumb in front of their clients. So you’re a Community Leader, we started telling you late last year about how the Circle program is going to evolve into the new statuses that we're introducing. What's your impression? How are you interpreting this? What are you excited about? What are you wary about? I'll be totally transparent. My first major reaction was, ugh, because change is hard, right? It's like anytime anything changes, it's it's hard. But once I saw what you guys were doing and basically I talked about my struggle before I was able to join Circle, like people can join Circle now from the get go, from the moment that they are just like, I think this is something I want to do. So I feel a sense of relief for those people who are going to be able to get those, you know, product notes and know what's going on so they don't look silly in front of their client. And let's say, you know, with platinum, you know, we were talking about Circle Day earlier. You get, early access to, to sign up for in person because those tickets go fast. So, are we gonna see you in New York this fall? Oh, if I can be there, I absolutely will. Like I said, it's my favorite day, work day of the year. And, also, if you haven't been, one of the most interesting things is you get to see how tall people are in your life or short like me, because you don't know how tall I am. Kind of going back to Circle generally. So we've talked about extended trials, talk about circle Day. We talked about release notes. Are there any kind of like under the radar perks or benefits that you're that you use that you think kind of like, don't get enough air time? Yeah. I mean, I think honestly, the thing that surprises me is that people don't know about referral payments and that's huge. Like, you guys give us money. And I wish that that was kind of more prominent, I think because some of the local designers that I, you know, I talk about, we'll meet at a coffee shop, somebody new to Circle and we'll say, you know, did you sign up for referral payments? And they'll be like, I saw something about that, but I wasn't sure what it was. And so if you're listening and you have the ability to sign up for referral payments, don't miss out because they'll send you money, which is the best. What's the thing that people are sleeping on that they really need to get more out of? Okay, here's mine, and it's probably not what you expect. Keyboard shortcuts, my friend. I did not-life changing. I did not expect that. Yeah. Okay. Keep going. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, just from like the simplest one that you might know about is the forward slash key. Once you're inside Squarespace that will take you to menus. So you know, you guys have been moving things around on us a little bit as you're improving the product. And one of the things instead of having to go into settings and find the right folder, is just to hit the forward slash key and start typing in pop up or announcement bar or whatever. You're looking for domains and it will take you right there. So I actually was on a call with another designer and I did that. And she's like, hold up, what magic just happened. So I think you guys have, a support document about all the keyboard shortcuts. So there's like sitewide shortcuts you can use as well. Like that, Fluid Engine shortcuts that are really handy. And then just like, shortcuts for type for paragraph in and header changing those so it speeds up your workflow. It makes you look amazing to anyone else who happens to be watching you work. So that's that's my favorite. Oh, that's so good. You know, I really love that because one of our I've got a lot of mantras that I'll repeat to the team that we talk about internally. And one of them is we really want to help, you know, creative professionals and agencies build sustainable businesses. And that we think kind of part of that is making them more efficient. How can we take the build time down from X to point eight? That's good for them. That's good for us. I mean, it feels like the speed at which your product updates are coming has just picked up over the past few years, which is both exciting and a lot to keep up with. So definitely appreciate those product updates and the announcements in the forums. Those are really helpful. Yeah, I know, I think we you know, I'm, I think I'm pretty sure I’m at the company for 12 years. So I've seen us through a lot of evolutions and I think, you know, evolving from kind of a pretty straightforward product 12 years ago to where we are. We've had various, growing pains. And I think we're we're really I agree with you that little too, that past few years, we've been hitting our stride and a really great way. Yeah. So I wanted to go back to thing you mentioned earlier, about how you go into the forum and you'd find topics for your blog. And I've been thinking about the the extended Christy Price universe. As far as I can tell, there's a podcast, you've got YouTube, there's Designer for a Day business. And I think it's not kitchen sink. I think there's a coherent SEO. So I'm interested first of all. And sort of if you were to describe kind of like a throughline in terms of your business and your strategy, what that is and how you think about kind of, you know, not at a individual project level, but at the the Christy Price business level, how you think about your business and how you do your planning, is it, well, one year plan or you're looking five years into the future? Like what? Talk me through it a little bit. So the the Christy Price universe, I love that you called it that. Yeah. So it really started with the blog. So when I was growing my business, the first thing that I wanted to focus on was SEO, because I needed clients. I needed people to find me. And I do not enjoy local networking and like trying to sell my business in person. And I thought, well, if I just look like I know what I'm doing online, I'm answering questions, people may just come to me. And that was a much better path for my brain and my business. So it started out with blogging that was part one, and everything just kind of grew from there. So I really have two different audiences. One is absolute people who are using Squarespace, and they may need to hire me for help or come to my blog to find answers, or watch my YouTube videos for how to do something that they're struggling with. And I love working with those clients to just help make things easier and better for them. And the other is other designers, and that has been something that has really in the past few years, really, since the second single day when I got to talk about client offboarding, that people have started asking me questions as their web web design business is growing, you know, how do you do this? And would you teach about that? So that had that part of my business has kind of taken off over the past few years, in large part due to you Circle Day. And they do kind of both seem separate, but they all go together under the Squarespace umbrella, which is really nice. And I know you pointed out all the different things that I'm doing, and it's not like I just sat one, sat down one day and I'm like, oh, I'm going to do a blog and a podcast and, you know, and, update my services and have a YouTube channel. It happens over the seven years. Right? So if you're starting out, I think one of the things that's really hard when you're starting is not comparing your beginning to someone else's middle. And, you know, if you're starting out and you're like, oh, I see these designers who are doing all these things. It didn't happen in one day, right? It happened over years. And for me in particular, it's really figuring out what I enjoy doing. So I enjoy the blogging. I have learned to enjoy YouTube. I don't enjoy Pinterest. You'll see a lot of other designers spend a lot of time on Pinterest, and I gave it a good six months a couple of years ago and I'm like, oh, this is not for me. So I think leaning into what you enjoy doing is one of the most important parts of growing your business and diversifying. So it's an organic evolution, but that could also lead to sprawl. Is there anything that you kind of were into? And it was working for a while, but you sort of looked at your business and you said, that's no longer sort of doing what I needed to do for my business, and I'm going to kind of consciously sunset that and enter a pair of things back and really sort of make sure I'm focused. I think in terms of services, as you're growing as a web designer and as your business is growing your services, not really kind of change over time. So there were services that I offered in the beginning. You know, I offered maintenance plans for a little while, which turns out not to be necessary. Squarespace. So I sense all of that. And that has been a real evolution for me as well. And I find that like if I pick three services kind of at very different price points, like a low price point, like foot in the door, which is my Squarespace help, you know, jump on a screen, share with me for an hour, and I'll help walk you through any kind of blocks, roadblocks you have. And then my Designer for a Day offer, which is pick me for a day. That's kind of mid price. Have a two-day build, which is template based also kind of mid price. And then I have my custom builds. So over time those have kind of just essentially settled. But there's been there's been a lot of flux in what I offered and the price points. I mean, certainly I can offer services at a higher price point today than I could seven years ago because of my experience and inflation. So, yeah, that changes over time. Yeah. I couldn't help but notice that you've got a bound industry report in your background. Yeah, yeah. One of the questions we asked is what in the industry report is what are you proudest of in 2024? And, I’m interested for you. What were you proudest of from last year? So last year, I think my two proudest moments were when I got to record a course for new Circle members on working with clients. And if you know me, that is something I'm so passionate about and I love talking about. So that was a real highlight for me. And the other was probably when, well, and I got to bring our podcast Somewhat Useful to the Circle stage and have a conversation live with the audience that was really fun. And, those are probably two of the most enjoyable things last year. Oh, I love that. Well, one of my proudest moments in the last couple of weeks was getting to go on your podcast and chat with you and Will. It was so great to have you on. Yeah, I really loved it. And I think that episodes coming out soon, or maybe it just did, but one of the things you asked me right at the end and we're coming to the end of our conversation is, what's the best advice I'd ever received? And I told you, and people have to listen to the episode to find out. Yeah. But let me ask you, what's the best advice you've received? So the best advice I received was actually, for my daughter, but I've taken it to heart. So when my daughter was younger, she did mixed martial arts, and her instructor was showing her how to do a roundhouse kick on the bag, and she was doing it, and it was hitting. But you could tell it was wasn't as easy as it should have been. And so he corrected her stance a little bit, and she did it again. And it was just like, so much more powerful. And he looked at her and he said, life is as easy as you make it. And I thought, oh my goodness, when in my life am I just getting in my own way? Like, when is my stance wrong? Or, you know, if I'm seeing friction, what can I do to alleviate some of that? So that is one of my favorite pieces of life advice. Life is as easy as you make it. That's great. I love that. Christy, thank you so, so much for joining us. Great to see you online. I'm so excited to see you in the fall. And thank you again for for being on Circle Live. Thanks for having me, Jeremy. And, I think I've been on Circle Live twice, both times with you. So really appreciate it. And, I don't think last time we had matching shirts, but, you know. So. Great. And we'll be joined by Christy live here for your Q&A in just a moment. That was a great interview. Jeremy, you brought out a new side of Christy I've never seen before. Her obsession with keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts? Yeah, I mean, that is that's how you know, when you're an expert. If your keys, if your hands are never leaving the keyboard, you've really achieved something. Absolutely not surprised at all her attention to, making things efficient. And also, I want to take away, that I think people have noted in the chat is just the focusing on the things that you love. You're going to be more efficient, and you're going to care about more of what you do. If you just do the stuff that you really love to do in your business. We, as I said, have Christy here with us in the chat. We'll bring her to the stage in just a minute. For a Q and A people in the chat, please add your questions for Christy and, we will be right back. Today's Circle Live is brought to you by the Circle Referral Payments Benefit, or CRPB. The CRPB is available for Circle Gold Partners and Circle Platinum Partners everywhere, empowering you to unlock earnings by referring new annual website, digital products, Email Campaigns and Acuity Scheduling subscriptions. Signing up for the Circle Referral Payments Benefit is fast and easy. Just visit support.squarespace.com, search “Circle Referral,” and follow the registration instructions. Then, start earning commissions by referring your clients to qualifying Squarespace subscriptions that can help grow their business. And we're back. Viewers, please keep those questions coming for Christy. And, you can also ask questions of our other special guest today, Jeremy, who's in the studio. We, are going to bring Christy to the stage now to join us. Christy Price, welcome back live. Thank you for wearing one of your many green shirts today. I do own more than one shirt, I promise. Yeah. No, I'm sure you have a closet for, like, a cartoon. A good a good cartoon. She. Christy, you know, almost everything. But, I do want to start the Q&A with this question, which is, when is your podcast with Jeremy coming out? Oh, we are so excited for this. So the podcast, Somewhat Useful. You mentioned, could not do it without my cohost Will Myers, who's in the chat. And Jeremy's episode will correct me if I'm wrong. I think it's landing a week from today on March 5th, so it's a really good one, so be sure and tune in. We've had some really fun guests, this year so far. You might recognize some names. So Omari from SQSP Themes, Kate Scott, Becca from Inside the Square. So we're having a lot of fun talking with people in the Squarespace world. Join the Christy universe, join it. You can subscribe to Somewhat Useful at the link Taylor is sharing in the chat, and we'll also share that in the show notes. While you're at it, sign up for the Circle Live podcast feed at circlelive.buzzsprout.com. Taylor will be sharing both of those links in the chat. I want to also note, Christy, that you've just launched a website guide, the Web Designer’s Playbook. Here, you're really showing your process soup to nuts how you build a website you've put so much work into, this is very clear. I believe you had the inspiration to release this playbook during Circle Day, is that right? Yeah. So, Circle Day 2023 was, it was a fun Circle Day. They all are. I gave a virtual talk about client offboarding, and the responses that I got after that talk were all about process. So I shared a little bit about my process for offboarding clients. And people really were curious about, well, what's the rest of your process like? You know, how do you run a discovery call? What do you do on a strategy call? How do you get your clients to give you content? And so, you know, I've been working on those problems for years. And what I decided to do is create a course that basically shares my entire system, all of my templates. You get an Asana project template for, how to run a website project with like 50 different little, action items. You get my, you know, discovery questionnaire, you get how to run a strategy, call everything onboarding to offboarding, soup to nuts. It's how to run a website project. So it's really for people who are like, yeah, I can build a website, but now how do I work with clients? Yeah. And, yeah. So the Web Designer’s Playbook, it just launched yesterday and it's on sale for $500 off through March 8th. So if you're interested about it, reach out to me if you have questions for Christy.

From Catherine:

Christy, you mentioned your different tiers of services before introducing a new offering. How do you determine whether there is a market for it? Oh, that's a great question. So, most of those offers have come from working with clients and them asking like, could you do this other thing? So I don't need a whole website. I just really need help for like this amount of stuff. Do you think you could do that in a day? So things like that. I, you know, I think it's really just listening to what people are asking for and then creating something that fits. I have tried out other things where I think I'm like, oh, people need this. And so I'll roll it out. And then it turns out no one needs it. So I try to focus on what people are asking for and create something to fit that. I love that, good to have the demand before you, produce the supply, I guess. All right. They write themselves.

Question from Leoni:

Christy, would love to get your opinions around AI and our work as web designers. From what I can see, despite the hype, we still have a great future ahead of us. I totally agree, Leoni. I think, I, I, I think when we were talking to Omari on the podcast, he said, you know, yeah, there's artificial intelligence, but people are always going to want organic intelligence, like they want to work with other humans. So there's something magic that humans bring to the table. So I'm not in fear for our jobs at all. I think that there, Rache at Squarestylist, she rolled out Copyspark, which is a really neat AI tool that, like, develops a first pass website content for you when you're working with clients. So if people are having a hard time developing content, you can kind of give them a starting point. So I think there are ways that we can use AI to make our jobs easier. I don't see it replacing us anytime soon. I love that, and I'll sort of give my view on this. You know, being at Squarespace for a long time, I think that we heard especially years and years ago, was Squarespace is going to put we make it so easy to build a website. There's not gonna be any market for professional web developers or web designers. And and here we are. And I think and it turns out that, like, you know, that having a tool that anybody could use is different from being skilled with the tool or experience with the tool or using it strategically. And I think, you know, I guess it could end up being sort of I all the way down or all the way up, and maybe the traffic keeps going up the value chain. But I still think that to stand out, to succeed online, you're going to need something that's different from what a robot will do if you give it a prompt of, build me a beautiful flower website, flower store website. Yeah, if you want to see anyone succeed, you can't just be doing what the models are saying. You ought to be doing. Yeah, but yeah, I totally agree. And I think that, I just want to give another shout out to Becca Harpain of Inside the Square, who rolled out a robot that as it's really helpful with Squarespace. So custom code she rolled out and it helps you with custom code. It helps like when you have questions about how things should work. So I totally agree with what you're saying, Jeremy, like people are an important part of the equation, but I do think there are so many AI tools that that we people can use to, to help make our lives easier, but they won't replace us. I've got a question for you, Christy, about, you know, your talk a couple years ago was about your process, and then now you've turned it into this, this sort of, content that you get that people can buy from you. But when you think about process, is it you codifying what you're already doing? Is it you're like, let me think, what is my process? Or are you sort of starting with a blank piece of paper and be like, I've got a bunch of stuff my life, I'm going to develop and design a new process, or is it or is it iterative kind of. You go back and forth between the two. Yeah, it's definitely iterative. So when I started out in 2018, when I moved to Squarespace, it was figuring out that kind of workflow that worked for clients and me on this platform specifically. And a lot of it's trial and error when you're, you know, you're starting out. So it is that iterative process. I think early on, it's a very iterative. So like this worked, this didn't work. And after a while you have a really nice system. But still things change. You know, nothing is static forever. So after every project I do, I ask for feedback, obviously from the client, but I do a little review myself. Like what went well, what could have gone better? And then I'll go back and make changes to the process based on the feedback from the client and the feedback that I've given myself to. So it's kind of a combination of of both those things I love that are retro. After the project, that seems like a very wise a good process. Yeah. Okay. We have a question from Tia that says, Christy, do you find it easy for your clients to understand your different to your options? I know that sales psychology often suggests three options as a sweet spot to avoid overwhelm. How do you market or differentiate your offers to make it easy for clients to understand without feeling overwhelmed? That's a great question. I think in my particular service offerings, people are able to differentiate what they need to some extent. So I do an hour screen share call with people like that's pretty clear there. Like I just have a few questions. I need somebody to help me with this layout or I'm not sure how, you know, I'm changing my domain name. What do I need to be aware of? Things like that? That's a really clear one. The other one. So the difference between, you know, designer for a day and a full custom build, people really want to choose designer for a day. Even if they need a custom build. So a lot of times it is I, you know, I offer a chat to people who I think might be a fit. So it's this discovery chat. It's typically 30 minutes, and we talk about what they need, because people, you know, if given the option, they're always going to choose, you know, like the cheapest one. So it is kind of explaining like a so a Designer for a Day is meant for if you have an existing website and you need to level up a few things, or you need an additional sales page, or you need like these specific things, you need a whole new website because your strategy is changing or your business is changing. Or maybe you don't have a website yet, so it does take some guidance sometimes on those things, but I would say most yeah, I don't know, maybe over half people, half of the people can look at the service pages and understand what the options are. And then some do need to overcome that. Well, I want the cheap option and you have to say, well that one's not for you. You you need this option. So I think that if you have a lot of offers, yeah, that can be really overwhelming. But I do think, you know, 3 or 4 gives these people some choice and gives them some agency in deciding what they need, and then you can help guide them along the way as well. Great. You touched on pricing in there. And we have a question that says, Christy, how many times have you changed your pricing? It seems that folks are often scared to make the change, even if it isn't working for them. Yeah. So, early on in my web design career, I definitely underpriced my services. And I remember one of my friends telling me so basically, everybody is accepting your proposals. And I'm like, yeah, it's great. I got all this business. And he was like, that means you're too cheap. So you expect at least one or two people out of ten to be like, oh, this is more expensive than I expected. And that was really great advice. So when I was starting out on Squarespace. So I had been a web designer for years before, but on Squarespace, when I was starting out, my first Squarespace website build, I charged $750 for it was for a local Austin therapist. And, you know, I was kind of learning things. He needed a website. If you looked at that today, it's still live. Like he got his $750 worth, but you'd be like, oh, Christy, that is the Bedford template. Exactly. So it wasn't like I did anything super special and the price was good. I got a project in Squarespace. I got to learn it a little better. He got a website for a steal, and then I would raise my prices like $500 with each project after that. So for a while it was like, okay, the next one's going to be 1215. That's going to be 1715. There's going to be 20 to 50. Until I found like it felt right, like I'm offering this based on my experience and what you're getting and the clients, you know. Yeah, there are still some people that reach out and they're like, even though my pricing is on my website, they'll reach out and they'll be like, no, that's too expensive. And I'm like, well, it was right there. So, but again, yeah, if everybody's saying yes, you're probably price too low. Awesome. I heard this, from an uncle of mine who's a talented economist, he was saying within his negotiation class, pretty much everything boils down to, I'm not interested how much? So you keep that in mind? I have I have a question for you, Christy, and it's going to have to be our last question. So you've been running Somewhat Useful, your podcast for Squarespace designers, for two years now, is that right? Oh, goodness. Will, Will, help me out in the chat. I think it's been two years and two years. I know that it's at least, it's it's quite. You've built up quite a portfolio. What I want to know is what have you learned in the process of talking to so many talented designers? That is a great question. And I think the answer to that is there's no one right answer. Like, these are all brilliant people who are doing things their own way and making things happen, and it's all specific to them. So I think that that's my takeaway is that there's not one path to success. There are lots of roads, so many roads to success. Yours. Your road to success has been an inspiration to all of us, though, Christy. And I'm just so glad that we were able to get you on the show again. It's always such a delight having you on Circle Live. Thank you for joining us today. Thanks so much for having me, you guys. It's always a lot of fun. Well, we can't wait till the next time that we get to see Christy. And that now brings us to the end of our show. What do you think, guys, when you start a Squarespace design company? An agency? Every time we finish one of these episodes, I'm like, should I just become a designer? That's all for today's show. Thank you for joining us live. We will be back with Circle Live next month, the month of March. I think Taylor is going to share the link to register for that in the chat. Until next Circle Live. This is Sam Z and I'm Sarah G reminding you that there is no page like home page for everybody.