How Daily Habits Can Transform Your Freelance Business

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the show. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of the WP Minute. I'm your host, Eric Karkovac. Today, I'm joined by Cammie McNamara. Cammie is a freelance web designer based in Seattle, Washington, and she's also the author of a terrific newsletter called Web Designer Habits. that provides actionable advice for web professionals, which I find very incredibly useful. Cammie, welcome to the WP Minute. Hey, thank you, Eric. I'm so happy to be here, and it's nice to hang out with you.

on video and not just on social media. So it's very nice. Yeah, I feel like we connected on Twitter many years ago and that's just kind of like that. Many years ago. A back and forth connection over the years. So it's nice to finally have a real conversation with you. Yes. Because I'm a big fan of the content you create. And of course, I think we have a lot in common.

We both like to write about our journeys in this industry. And we also kind of write about how to help clients as well, which I notice you do on your blog. So I think that's awesome.

Yeah, I'm always trying to be their hero. That's my goal, you know? And that's part of the... I think that's part of just adding value, right? I mean, you're... You're not only just doing the job for them, you're informing them, you're educating them, you're helping them make the right decisions. Yeah, you know, so most of my clients are small businesses or nonprofits. I kind of work in that arena.

they're all overwhelmed running their business, which is something we all experience. And if you are a freelancer and you're running your business, and I know that whenever somebody helps me, I'm so grateful. So that's kind of how I come at.

helping my clients out. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, that's part of the job that not everybody realizes right away when you start freelancing. And speaking of that, how did you... decide that you wanted to to do this for a living like were you working for another company at the time you started your business or was this just something you you decided from you know like a young age i'm going to go do this

Well, okay, from a young age, I was a little strange as a kid. I wanted to be Darren Stevens on Bewitched. So I grew up in the 70s watching... old reruns of shows like that and if you remember darren stevens had a giant pad of paper which i'm not gonna lie there's a giant post-it note right over there because i loved that and so I made advertising signs for my parents' business. They were self-employed and making handbags. And so I...

And I was like yearbook editor and I had all these artsy habits when I was a kid. But when I went to work as an adult, I worked in corporate retail as an allocation analyst. So I was working on a computer. I was working with database. basses and lotus one two three you know like i'm talking way back in the 90s and i became a mom and i didn't want to work those hours so um I quit working. I had a business partnership for a while.

with some other women who were stay-at-home moms, and that didn't really work out. And I picked up HTML for dummies because I just wanted to make a website to share photos of my kid. And it was my light bulb went off like this is what I'm supposed to do with my life. So I enrolled at a community college, got certification and got my business license in 2002. And I've been going.

strong ever since well that's awesome it's amazing how sometimes you have those little moments like that you're just looking at html because you need a website you don't necessarily have the funds to hire someone else to do it And look where that got you. So congratulations. Yeah. No, I knew that it was what I was supposed to do when I found myself like just like.

You know, you're taking care of a young kid. They wake you up in the middle of the night. And I would like run down to the computer to. try to figure something out. So I really enjoyed it. And I just knew it was my calling after that. And it really tied the computer skills I had learned as an allocation analyst. I did that job for about seven years.

And, you know, it just was the best of both worlds. So I started volunteering around my community, you know, my son's preschool, every team he was on. I even did two of the major... elementary schools here in Seattle. I used to have FTP access to the Seattle Public School District. I can't even believe that that was a thing. But, you know, it's just kind of like...

snowballed into a business after that. I've been in BNI, which is Business Networking International, for 15 years now. That's been a huge way for me to get business. So yeah, I sort of, I fell into what I love to do. So I consider myself a designer more than a developer. And that's what I really enjoy. And then all the client interaction.

is something I enjoy as well. So how would you say, you know, you've been doing this for a while now, over 20 years, right? Yeah, 23 years. Okay. So I am on 26 years of freelancing. 30 in web design overall. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. Well, save to you. I know things have changed so much. How would you say like the last five years or so have changed your business with, you know, we had pandemic, we have all this AI stuff everywhere. Like what has changed most for you? Well, you know, I...

I'm going to say that in terms of getting clients and everything, I have only continued to build. Even during downturns, I found that in my price range for... for clientele so i'm charging between three and six thousand dollars for a website people that i am i'm hit less than i think an agency that's charging fifty thousand dollars so Also during downturns and slowdowns, I really...

worked on taking care of my clients. So I have been offering care plan services since 2015 and I manage over 200 websites a month now. And I offer them at a low price. So even during the pandemic, I only had like two or three clients that said they wanted to cancel because they couldn't pay for it. And I just comped them a free year. And at the end, you know, they were back to wanting to pay.

So I haven't really experienced a downturn or a change that way. And I only, I find that AI is helping me. with my business. It's helping me run all the stuff in the background and using Zapier and things like that have only been a plus. So, you know, knock on wood, I know that that isn't. you know, it may not be the case forever. Like, it could totally replace us someday. But for right now, I think it's a plus. Like, get in there, know how to use it.

I use it every day. It's open right now in my other window because that's what I'm always using it all day long. Well, I congratulate you on being able to... you know, maintain your client base and continue growing it through the pandemic, through all that, because I think...

when you create that personal relationship with the client, right, they, they value what you do and they, they trust your advice. I think that that is kind of the key to getting them to come back, even when they're going through a rough time, you know, that. I applaud you for, you know, understanding that and, you know, giving them a chance to kind of come back and, you know, get through that tough time and then, you know, continue with you.

When a client does, let's say a client gets a new provider, and this will happen sometimes because I only offer web design. I'm not offering a certain... search engine optimization packages. And a lot of times a client will move on, hire an SEO company, and then that company will want to redesign their website.

And I can't tell you how many times a client has done that. And I always make a backup of clients website when they leave me, throw it into Dropbox and keep it in case they ever want to come back. And sure enough, you know, half the time. Two years later, they're like, Cammie, this is not working. Can we come back? And it's like, sure, you know. So that does happen all the time. And I really do think it's the personal relationship.

You know, I still pick up the phone if somebody calls me. You know, I try to run the business like I am part of their team without being their employee. So I think that's key as well. Yeah, that's what picking up the phone. I dread doing it, but I still do it when the phone rings. Yeah.

I do too. Now, I don't do it for unknown numbers, but I try to get my clients' names in there. And when they do call me, texting is a big black hole. So they've kind of learned not to do that because then they don't end up. on my task list and a few things like that. But I think people really appreciate that in this day and time because they just don't, they don't get that level of service.

Especially from, you know, tech, things that they subscribe to or, you know, more and more it's all ticketing. The average business owner in my clientele just doesn't have time for that. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, even like with some of the larger agencies, I mean, you know, I've gotten clients because their agency wouldn't.

look at their problem for a week. So what are they supposed to do in the meantime? If something's broken, well, I'll get back to it next week. Well, I'm losing sales. I'm losing conversions. So that personal touch, I think even with everything we do with AI these days, yeah, the personal touch is what's going to set all of us apart, I think. And if you can continue to do that, then you're going to survive the great bot uprising of 2026.

It's true. And if you're harnessing it to help you with I use it a lot to help run my business. I use it for coding errors. I, you know, just I use it to, you know. help me figure out using Zapier, things like that. So it definitely is something to take advantage of now. You know, it might be different later.

Yeah, I mean, the coding aspect of it, I mean, it has helped me tremendously. I get things done so much faster. I have a faster start on my projects, which I think gives me more time to work with clients and actually... Do some of the things that I read in the Web Designer Habits newsletter that you send out every week. Which I encourage everybody to look at this. It's webdesignerhabits.com, right?

Yes, you can sign up right there and I'll hit your inbox with just one tiny tip for the week. It's something that they're all usually easy to do. Some are bigger tasks than others, but... They are things I practice. And part of having the newsletter is helping me manage my own business and reminding myself every week of all these habits that I really need to.

hone in on to have a good work day i think so much of what we think about as web designers is being a designer and being good at coding and all the things that go along with that But if you're a freelancer running your own business and you are struggling day in and day out to just make it through the day, having a small little habit that can help you make it easier is something that I really...

take to heart myself. I'm just going to come clean on my situation because I started out as a freelancer after working for a few firms. I started out as a freelancer when I was 21. And all I thought about was HTML and Photoshop and that kind of thing back in the day. I had no idea how to run a business. I had no idea what to charge or what to do anything. And I got...

into a lot of bad habits. And as I'm getting older, as I've been doing this longer, I start to see, oh, man, I've really buried myself with this client, with this pricing structure or, you know. And we'll get to some of the specific tips you have because just things I wanted to bring up. But just the way I respond to things and conduct business, I've kind of buried myself with that, right?

So when I read these tips, they come into my email box every Monday morning, and I look forward to them. Thank you. Well, you're welcome. I'm glad you write them. And that's what I love about web design. We all share with each other. This is not like... you know, car dealers or no shade to Matt Medeiros, whose family was in the car business. But we have, you know, these different industries that are so...

you know, cut through it and they want to, you know, throw each other under a bus. Web designers help each other. And so that's kind of why I like doing what I'm doing. And I imagine something that appeals to you as well. Yes, I do. I really enjoy it. You know, I have a small online Facebook community called Webcami Cafe, and it's basically friends I've made along the way going to WordCamps.

You know, we all refer to each other. We're all so helpful in just trying to help each other grow and deal with the day in and day out of running a web design business. It can be overwhelming. It can also be overwhelming to sign up for a course, and I have taken some fabulous courses, but I find that it takes me a year to make it through a course that might be a 12-week course because I don't have time.

So that's why those tiny habits really work for me. And I thought they might be helpful to other people. Yeah, if you dig into these posts and these emails. The great thing about them is they're short. They are not 2,000-word essays. They are just cleanly delineated, and you can read them very easily, and they have actionable advice.

I'm just going to go through a couple of them here just to get your opinion on them. But like the last one I see on your site is the analyzing your billing practices. And that has killed me for years. And I'm finally starting to. To get into the point where like, okay, I'm charging people on an annual basis now. I'm trying to get away from the hourly work when I can. Even just opening it up to Stripe or something like that.

How did you come to that decision to say, OK, I'm not going to just take checks anymore and wait by the mailbox all day? Right. Well, you know, when I send these out. It's usually, I want everyone to know, it's usually a habit that I'm dealing with right at the moment. So I have a plan for the whole year. And each year, I'm going to try to introduce 16 new habits and keep like...

core habit. So that's kind of like how I'm going to keep this newsletter just going because there's always a new habit. But the state of Washington where I live just made web design a taxable service. After 23 years. And so I went down the rabbit hole of meeting with my accountant. She's like, you really should switch to QuickBooks because it will.

automatically populate those tax rates. It's not the tax rate where I am. It's the tax rate where the client lives in Washington state. Out-of-state clients are not affected. So I had probably spent 80 hours since July setting up QuickBooks. And just last week I was in tears. And said, I can't do this. Like, I can't switch from what I was in, which is FreshBooks, which is an equivalent or similar program. And yeah, analyzing what you're in.

deciding what you're in is going to work and making it work because I is so important and I don't think we put enough thought into it so I prefer the annual payments versus monthly I do have like you know, more than 50 clients on a monthly plan, but I encourage annual plans because it's less time doing your bookkeeping. So, you know, charging an annual rate. easier than charging hourly. So all those little changes, and we don't take time to look at that stuff.

And making time in your schedule to analyze your business practices, whether it's financial or your social media use or whatever you're doing, it's really time that's valuable. Yeah, that's a good point. You definitely need to look at these things because... We're, you know, we're designers and developers. We don't necessarily sit there and think about our bookkeeping habits. We just kind of, it's a thing we have to do at the end of the month or whatever. And you don't necessarily prioritize it.

And I will tell you, being an accountant or a bookkeeper would not be my first choice. Especially after the last few months. But, you know, I finally came to... I met with my accountant again and just said, I got to do something different. This isn't going to work. So we made a plan. And it is always good, though, to have those professionals in your back pocket. Absolutely.

Yeah. And for those people who have it together enough to hire somebody to just take care of all that for you, more power to you. Yeah, that's one thing I learned. I did learn early on. starting a business is like, I do not want to do my own taxes. I do not trust myself to do my taxes. I will keep track of the numbers, but then I will feed them to my accountant who will do that for me. Me too. That's what I do as well.

So the next one I want to talk about is a little different because it's not necessarily a business practice. It's more of a self-care practice, and that is just taking a daily walk. which I mean, I work 10 hours a day. I'm here in this little room. Taking a walk is like going on vacation. Yes.

Yeah, it's true. Well, I don't know. I have a dog. So and he's a big giant yellow lab that will come and bark at me. He comes in and barks. I had to have the door shut for our recording session here because. he will pop in and tell me it's time for a walk. So at a minimum, I'm getting out with him. But I at least, you know, when it's not raining.

like crazy here in Seattle I'm out every morning for at least 20-30 minutes um just to get my head in a different space and I think it's like you know you don't have to go out there and and you know, sprint or anything like that, but it is super helpful for us because sitting behind a computer for 10 hours is not something that we should do every day uninterrupted.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, just even going outside, I find for a few minutes, I'll find like, okay, I can kind of refocus when I get back inside. And the longer you sit there and stare at that screen, I think the harder it is. maintain your focus. Right. And you can break through barriers that you're having, you know, sometimes just stepping away.

is what you need to figure something out that you're having trouble with, or you're not liking the way a design is looking. Well, the more you look at it, the less effective you are. So sometimes just taking that break. Is so helpful. And it just keeps our stress levels down. Running your own business is very stressful. So anything you can do to manage it is good. I've only got two more for you because I know you have to get out.

Offer free strategy sessions, which seems like a really nice way to get clients to come to you with new projects. Yeah, this was like, this was too effective for me. Like I did not plan this well enough. And I have a client newsletter that I send out once a month. And it's really, it started out, my folks passed away in 2022 within 11 months of each other.

I was very helpful in caregiving with my sister for them. So during COVID, I flew to California 20 times. And I started this newsletter to tell my clients that I was leaving. And it turned into like... You know, it's not like I'm offering them many things in the newsletters, just like here's my travel schedule and, you know, watch out for this phishing email that's going around. It's more helpful.

So and at the bottom, I have a link that says book a meeting with me, right? Like just standard. They never do that. So I wrote a newsletter that said basically like, I'm going to open up my calendar for two days and you can have a free 30-minute session. They're limited. Well, you know, and please book. Well, within three hours, the first day was gone.

And then the next day was totally gone. And I had only put like five meetings per day. That's really the max I can do. The next day, they were all gone. So I added a third day. And so I ended up having like 15 meetings and getting like, I don't know, eight redesigns. Like it was too much. So I have kind of decided that.

When I do that, I won't send it to the entire mailing list. I'm going to target it. So I've been working on categorizing in my mailing list the clients that I know that really need a redesign. And maybe I just send that version to five of them, right? Yeah, well, that makes sense. Yeah. But it is super effective. And I shared like the wording that I had in that email. And it did really work, man. Whatever it was, it was an effective way of doing things.

I'll tell you that that's one of the lessons I've learned, and your emails are part of that, that, you know, I've always expected clients to just come to me whenever they need something, right? Because they just email me and say, Eric, I need this.

Hey, do you want to do a redesign? But often you have to reach out. You have to be the one to reach out because, as you said, they're busy. They're not necessarily thinking like that is a priority at that very moment. They're just trying to get their business. taken care of. So when you actually reach out and you offer something like that, they will often take advantage of it. Right. And you know, they look at their website. I have clients that are in Genesis themes.

from studio press that are on their last leg right like you know they're not block editor they're just they need to go but the client looks at their website and thinks oh it looks great I'm still, it still works. It still works on the front end for me. And so when you get a meeting like that and you say, well, I can't update your PHP from 7.4 to in the eights where it needs to be because everything breaks.

And this is a security risk. And you start to explain those things to them. They'll listen to you because they trust you because you've, you know, been a good communicator and helped them out in the past. A hundred percent. But they're not going to reach out to you about that because in their mind, they liked it 12 years ago and they still like it now. Well, speaking of communication, the last one.

is only check emails three times a day. I do not know who does this, how you do it. Do you really do that? I don't do it every day. I do it most days, though. I do it because I created, I use something called CloudHQ inside of my Gmail. And it allows you to create tabs. So your various things coming in that you've tagged go in. And I have one that's empty. And I put my email on the empty tab. And I don't...

move from there. So that is how I have the most success. And I would say my success rate is 70% or higher. I have those days where the incoming is so much. that I just can't, can't let it go and, and, you know, get to the end. And I'll admit sometimes on a Saturday, my inbox is so full.

From the entire week of being really good at that, that I'll go to a coffee shop with my laptop and just triage email while I drink coffee and look at the view. So that's what I'm going to have to work on because I'm. You know, all day, all night, email is open. Probably not the healthiest thing. Well, you know something that you can do that's kind of like a cheater way of doing it? So I use MixMax, which is an email templating program, and it also does sequences.

But I have hundreds of email templates. It allows me to schedule. So if I'm breaking my own rules, I will send the email during the window. that I'm supposed to be checking it. So the client gets that, you know, maybe they're not paying attention. Maybe they are. But if they email me at nine, they don't get a reply until one. If they email me at 1, they don't get a reply until 4.30. If they email me at 3, they don't get the reply until the next day. And I have already replied and scheduled it.

I like that. I'm going to have to look into that. That's one of those things that just, you know, you can spend an awful lot of time just answering emails furiously like I do and not getting your work done. Yes, it is.

You make your whole job answering email. That's not good either. No. So I know you have to get going. So I want to thank you so much for being on the WP Minute. Where can people find you online? So they can find me at, well, webdesignerhabits.com is where to sign up for that newsletter. Webcamicafe.com is where I kind of blog about running my business in general. It's where Web Designer Habits was born. And I have a Facebook page.

Facebook group called Webcaming Cafe that you can join where you'll meet a bunch of other WordPress web designers. There's a few Squarespace ones and, you know, I dabble in that a little bit too. But WordPress is where my heart is and where my community is. So those are two great places to find me. I'm over on Blue Sky these days. Not so much Twitter anymore.

And I'm Webcammy everywhere. So you can LinkedIn, you can just Google Webcammy and it'll come up. Well, thanks again for being a part of this. It's great to have you on and finally get that opportunity to speak with you face to face. I just loved your, I love your blog writing. You're like my blog writing hero. And it's just really an honor to meet somebody who has put out so much great.

content and to get to chat with you in person. And I hope we get to chat at an in-person event sometime in the next, you know, year or so. Absolutely. That would be wonderful. Well, Cammie, thanks again for being on the WP Minute. And for those of you that are listening and watching today, thanks so much for being a part of our audience.

Visit us over at the WP minute dot com slash subscribe where you can get our newsletter, become a member and even support the work we do. And oh, yes, we also have opened up our Slack community. to everyone you can just go to the site and register you can get to chat with myself and matt medeiros and all of your favorite hosts at the wp minute so thanks a lot everyone and we'll see you next time

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