H: Welcome back to Messy in the Middle. With me today, I have Steph Corrigan. Steph is a strategic branding and web designer for purpose driven small businesses, including Haleyejohnson.com. She helps visionary entrepreneurs and bold business owners elevate their brand and website so they can scale their business with ease.
I obviously introduced you to our listeners with your more professional elevator pitch, but let’s rewind a bit to before things were so professional. What did little Steph want to be when she grew up? Because I know it wasn’t always graphic design.
S: That’s actually kind of a hard question because I never had a clear career trajectory in mind.When I was younger, I always loved doing creative things, like creative writing. I used to make these home videos with my dad and my friends where we would come up with scripts and act out these scenes and then do all the editing and everything. I really love doing creative projects like that. But then as I got older, I guess I kind of started to think more practically about my career. All of that creative stuff, unfortunately, kind of went to the back burner.I guess I started thinking more practically about what would be a good career, financially stable and actually contributing to society in a meaningful way.
That kind of led me to get interested in psychology and human behavior. For a while, I was interested in physical therapy, and then when I went to college, I kind of tried out a bunch of different subjects. Ultimately, I just kept coming back to psychology.I just was always fascinated in how the human brain works and all of that. I ended up getting a degree in neuroscience. My thinking at the time was to go either into research, pursue a PhD, or potentially go to medical school and become a psychiatrist or do therapy or something along those lines because it was interesting to me. It also seemed like a great way to actually help people.
After I graduated, I wasn’t really ready to go back to school right away. I wanted to be an adult and get an apartment and have a job and just kind of live for a little bit before I went back to school. I ended up getting a job in New York City at Weill Cornell Medicine, which is like a medical school and a hospital. It was a more administrative role. I had a little bit of that research component that I was interested in, but it was in the leukemia program, so it wasn’t really related to psychiatry.
I worked there for a couple of years and in the back of my mind I was always thinking, “okay, what am I going to do next? Should I start applying for medical school? Should I be trying to do more research so that I can get into that?” Because as I’m sure everyone knows, it’s super competitive to get into those kinds of programs. And the job that I had wasn’t really a direct correlation to where I would want to go.
At some point during that time I kind of realized that maybe this wasn’t really the right path for me after all. I was dreading the idea of going back to school for another 4+ years. I also realized that the medical profession, after working in that environment for a while, maybe this isn’t really the best fit for me after all. Then I had kind of a career crisis moment where I was like, “okay, if this isn’t the right path, then what on earth am I going to do next?”
I just did a ton of research exploring different options and I kept feeling like I had hit a wall. I could continue this path that I was on, but I knew that my heart wasn’t really in it. Somehow in my research, I stumbled upon web development. Initially, it was just web development. I started playing around with it through free tutorials and things like that. Then I was like, “okay, I think I can do this.” I started taking a course on web development and that also included graphic design and branding design. And as I was going through it, I also started to learn more about the world of freelancing. That was kind of where it first hit me that that was an option as well. I don’t have to go to this 9-5 office job, which I really kind of struggled with.
I discovered freelancing and I realized that the skills that I was building would be perfect for something that I could do independently. It was also creative work, which I loved and was something that I really missed from my life. It felt like that was something that had always been a part of me, but that I pushed aside. I took these online courses for a while, and then after about six months, I decided to just go for it and quit my job and see if I could make it work.
How Did You Come to Terms?
H: When you realized that and finally came to terms or made peace with the fact that you were like, “Okay, I’m not going to go to medical school, I’m not going to pursue a PhD,” was that emotional or scary? Or was it kind of a relief to know that now you know that’s not what you want to do so you can focus your energy on figuring out what it is that you want to do?
S: It was definitely something that I wrestled with because there was the logical part of my mind that was like, “if I want to have a successful career and make good money and all of that, then that is what I should do.” But ultimately, I think during that time, I was just doing a lot of personal exploration, learning more about myself and who I was.
I just kind of realized that that really wasn’t me. That part of me was something that had been instilled in me through going to school.
I went to a really rigorous private school and everyone there was very career focused. A lot of my friends went on to get PhDs and become doctors and lawyers and all of that, and I was just kind of, like, swept up in it. But at my core, that was never really who I was. It was difficult, but it was also kind of a relief to see that there was another option that’s just a better fit for me.
H: Yeah, and freelancing gives you so much opportunity for that too, especially in a creative field. I know when I was younger, I always wanted to be a writer or an editor or something in that realm. Then the practical side kicked in and I was like, “I’m going to go to school for dietetics.” Spoiler alert. She did not succeed in dietetics. And it wasn’t until after graduating and realizing like, “oh, freelancing doesn’t have to be this intermediary.” It can be like the beginning of something independent and just as legitimate as a 9-5 That really flipped the switch for me.
Before you, or maybe while you were taking the development classes and the coding classes, was there a plan B? Was there another potential 9-5 options that you were considering? Or was it really just trying to figure out what this development thing could turn into?
S: To be honest, I didn’t really have much of a plan at all. I was pretty naive going into the whole freelancing thing. I read stories about how people were able to make really good money by offering the skill, because web development is a very in demand skill and if you’re good at it, it can also pay really well. I would also calculate out what my hourly rate would be, and when I made those calculations, it was like, “oh, I could make really good money doing this and it’ll be easy and great.”
But I didn’t really take into consideration all the other parts of being a freelancer with sales and finding those clients. I don’t know, somehow it didn’t really click that I would actually have to find those clients. They weren’t just going to come to me.
H: It sounds like the answer is you barely had a plan A, but I can relate to that a lot.
S: Before I went down that road, I actually did start applying for other jobs as well that were administrative type jobs. But yeah, my heart was never really in that. It was sort of a very soft plan B, but all of my energy pretty much was into doing this freelance thing.
Imposter Syndrome
H: Awesome. I know for me, before I went back to school for a marketing degree, I felt a lot of imposter syndrome. Early on in my business, I spent a lot of time researching and learning about marketing. Even though I felt like I knew what I was talking about, there was always that little voice that was like, “but people went to school for this. What are you doing offering that?” Did you ever experience that with design? Or I guess a better question is, how did you decide that you were good enough to call yourself a designer when you’re essentially self taught?
S: Imposter syndrome was very real throughout my whole freelance journey and definitely something I still struggle with today. In the very beginning though, again, I think I was just too naive about the whole thing and I thought that if I just learned the skills that people would hire me to do them because I could. Over time as I was trying to get work, I realized that it wasn’t that simple. It wasn’t as easy as just creating some portfolio pieces and then if people liked you, they would hire you. There is a lot more that goes into it.
I also started to network more with other designers and just be more entrenched in the design community in general. That was kind of when looking around, I realized that I still had a long way to go. I’d only been doing this for a few months and my work was nowhere near the quality of other designers who were doing this professionally. That kind of motivated me to work harder on developing those skills. I realized that now that I have the skills, it doesn’t really stop here. I need to keep developing them, get better, and just continue working on that.
H: It’s almost like imposter syndrome didn’t stop you, it actually pushed you to be better.
S: Yes, in a way! Sometimes I feel like more of us need that kind of imposter syndrome.
What Does Steph Corrigan Design Look Like?
H: Yeah. So of course I know the answer to this because spoiler alert to our listeners, we work together and I’m obsessed with your offers, but can you talk me through what your business looks like today, what your offers are, and maybe like some of the offers you’ve had in the past that morphed into your current business?
S: Yeah, for sure. Well, first of all, I’ve been in business for four years now, so during that time, I’ve made a lot of changes. I’ve done a lot of experimenting with my offers and how I want to work with people. My core offers have always been my branding and web design package. This is like a really comprehensive package where first I’ll design the brand identity for a business, and then once the brand is established, I would create a website for them as well. And that can kind of take different forms depending on the client. But that has always been my signature offer.
At some point, I started experimenting a little bit more. Earlier on, I was doing a lot of hourly work as well. When I was first starting out, I did a lot of work through UpWork because that was the only way I was able to get work in the beginning when I didn’t have much of a portfolio. I was doing a lot of hourly work and it would be kind of just like random design projects. Some of it was branding or web design, but it was also random things like graphic design things or website updates and projects like that. I also used to do just logo design.You’re probably going to laugh at this, but I used to do logo design, like $50 logo, which is just insane, but that’s how it was.
H: How long would something like that take you? How long would you dedicate to a $50 logo? Was it something that you could whip out and it was a pretty decent deal for you? Or was this like you’re spending just as much time as you would on a $5,000 logo and making pennies on the hour?
S: Somewhere in the middle, I think. Back then, my logo design skills were not very good. So it wasn’t something that I was putting a ton of time into. It was very basic, but it was also still not worth or worth more than $50. Istopped offering that like a long time ago, fortunately. More recently, so maybe about two years ago, I started offering day rates. Initially this was something for me that was kind of like an alternative to doing hourly work. The problem with hourly work for me was that these projects would drag on and on and they didn’t have a really clear process or timeline. For me, it just felt a little bit too disorganized, I guess, to be like managing projects like that.
With the day rate, it’s a much more contained way of working together. You have a very clear timeline and it’s just a lot more clear what you’re going to do and get out of that and also financially as well. Initially they didn’t really get much interest at all. They are kind of a premium as far as, like, if you compare the hourly rate for day rate versus what I was charging hourly, the day rate seemed a lot more expensive. But I also think it was a lot more valuable to be able to get my attention on something for a full day as opposed to spacing it out, an hour here, an hour there.
For day rates, it was mostly just for random projects like if people needed some updates to their website or they needed a new refreshed color palette or something like that. More recently, I realized that I was getting a lot of people who were interested in working with me for branding and web design specifically. But for whatever reason, they just weren’t a good fit for my signature package. It’s a pretty significant investment and it’s really intended for someone who has an established business and is at a stage where they’re trying to grow as opposed to just starting out and aren’t really ready to invest a ton of money into their business because they don’t really know how it’s going to go or what direction it’s going in.
Then it kind of occurred to me that maybe there was a way to create a middle ground between the day rates and the signature branding and web design experience. Then I started offering a one day website service, which is template based. However, it’s a really great option for anyone who really needs a professional website but doesn’t want to invest like $5000+ in a custom website. I kind of tried that out for a little bit and it went really, really well. So then I was like, maybe I can do the same thing for branding. I started offering branding intensive, which is a one day brand design experience that’s basically a super condensed version of my signature branding process in one day. That seemed to go really well as well.
So now at this point, I realized that I think the majority of people who do come to me are a better fit for those one day projects as opposed to the signature. Some people definitely are looking for that kind of more in depth experience. But I do attract a lot of people who are starting out with their business and they need something professional, but they’re not super ready to invest that much into it. The branding intensive and the one day website are kind of the perfect option for them. As early as the beginning of this year, I’ve been leaning more into those offers.
H: And I can imagine no, if you’re at that earlier stage in your business where you maybe don’t have a website set up already, you don’t have a brand set up already. The thought of investing in a custom brand and web design project and then waiting for the entire process to be complete is like time is money and it’s a lot of money. Getting to get the brand back in a day, getting to get the website back in the day, even if you have to wait a couple of weeks for it, is better than being entrenched in this process for weeks or even months because they just need to get it up and running.
S: Yeah, exactly. That’s definitely one of the top selling points, just to be able to get something really quickly that is going to help you get going as soon as possible so that you can start making money. Then maybe eventually in a few years you’ll want to come back and do that full experience because now you know more about your audience. You’re more clear on your offers and you just have a more clear vision overall for where you want the business to go. Then that’s a really good time to revisit your brand and update your website to reflect all of that.
Steph’s Templates
H: So you mentioned that the one day website is template based and I know you design the templates yourself. What made you decide to get into template design specifically instead of maybe using someone else’s templates or figuring out some other way to kind of automate that part of the process?
S: I started creating templates before I started offering the one day website service. And my motivation for them was pretty simple. I just wanted to have some kind of “passive income” because the only way that I was able to make money was by selling my time through my services. I thought maybe I could diversify that a little bit, create some templates that people can just buy and they can install them and customize them themselves.
I also recorded tutorials on how to do that and created a shop on my website and I just have them there so that if people aren’t ready to hire a designer, then at least they can buy a professional template and kind of customize it for themselves. Then when I was thinking about the one day website, it didn’t really make sense to be doing a custom website in a day. It’s just not enough time to be able to do that.
The templates were kind of a perfect solution because I created them myself, I can work with them really quickly and I know exactly what’s included and I’m very familiar with the theme that was used for them as well. It just kind of made sense to use those templates that I created and customize them for people. Again, since I’m a designer and that’s like what I do, I’m able to customize them to an extent that you honestly can’t even tell that it’s a template. Every one day website that I do is pretty unique because I end up changing a lot of things that basically take it out of that template and make it look more unique to that brand.
Favorite Offerings vs. Least Favorite
H: Do you have a favorite offer that you have right now? Like, if you get an inquiry, are you secretly hoping it’s this offer or that offer, like something that really just brings you a lot of joy?
S: Oh, that’s a tough question. I always get excited when I get inquiries for any of my offers, I do a little happy dance every time. I think right now, I’ve really been loving the one day website. Web design in general has always been my favorite out of all the services that I offer because it’s what I’ve been doing the longest, it’s what I feel the most comfortable with. However, I love doing any of my other services too, so it’s really hard to pick a favorite.
H: Well, now I’m going to flip it on you. Do you have an offer that you’ve had in the past that is maybe your least favorite and you look back on, like, “I can’t believe I ever offered that.”
S: That would probably be the logo design that I did, the $50 logo, at least. That’s a story.
H: And you probably have a really interesting arc of your skills changing as a designer. Like, there’s probably a lesson or blog post or something in there.
S: Yeah, for sure. By the way, I don’t think it’s wrong for designers to offer that. I think you got to do whatever makes sense for you. And there definitely are clients out there who really just want a logo. They don’t care about all the other elements. So, there is a place for that service. But for me, it just felt like it just wasn’t worth it for the amount that I would be able to charge for it.
H: Yeah, definitely. Do you have any offers that you maybe sometimes toy with bringing back? Like things that you’ve retired and don’t do anymore but kind of wish you still did or that you still had time for?
S: Not really. I guess the only thing that comes to mind is that I occasionally still do hourly work just because for certain projects, that’s what makes the most sense. Like, for example, if I worked with a client on their website, and then they come back to me and they need a few updates. It doesn’t really make sense to do a full day rate because it’s kind of overkill for what they’re looking for. So in that case, hourly can work. But the difference is that now I charge a rate that’s a lot more sustainable for me. But other than that, I can’t really think of anything else that I would want to bring back.
H: Yeah, like, things have been kind of fluid and evolved into each other over time, so it’s not like you’ve really scrapped anything.
So one last question about offers before we get back into some marketing and truly messy middle questions- from both the client side and the provider side, I love your pricing. A lot of your offers are similar in both structure and price to some of my copy offers. And I feel like there’s this perfect mix of easy yes pricing, but still enough to justify that you’re getting this professional quality at the end of the day. And you mentioned before, changing your hourly rate over time. What has your journey been like with pricing from the beginning of your business through now and how you approach coming up with pricing for a new project or offer or revisiting the pricing of your in a day services?
S: Yeah, good question. It’s definitely evolved a lot over time. And I don’t just mean that I kept increasing it. There were also times that I actually decreased my pricing because I realized that after increasing it, it would just be harder for people to be able to see the value of it at that price point. I actually went through an interesting phase last year where I was really focused on selling the signature package, and I had done a lot of working with coaches and courses and all of that. And everyone’s trying to get you to sell this big signature package and price it at 10k+ and work with these premium clients. I guess the idea behind it is that if you sell this big ticket package, you can do fewer of them, so you’re actually doing less work but making more money.
That was really appealing to me, and so I tried to go along with that and focus on the signature and raise my rates. Basically, it just didn’t really work out in the way that I hoped it would. I did manage to sell a couple of packages at that higher rate, but then, I don’t know, for whatever reason, I really struggled to continue that. I came to kind of dread doing the sales calls, which I never loved doing, but when you’re selling a high ticket package like that, there’s a lot more pressure and there’s a lot more selling that you have to do, because you really have to convince people of the value of it. That just didn’t feel good to me, so I ended up actually reducing my rate back to what it was before. That kind of helped because then I was able to book more packages and I also started offering more of the day rates as well to fill in the gaps when I wasn’t able to sell those larger packages.
But other than that, as far as pricing, I tried to come up with a number that feels good to me and that is going to help me meet my income goals. But also thinking about where my clients are at in their business and if they’re not going to be able to invest like 10k+. Then thinking, is there something else that I can offer them that is going to be a better fit for where they are?
H: Yeah, definitely. I love that. And I experienced the same thing when trying to build out a more premium offering. There’s a lot, especially for ongoing management stuff, there’s a lot of questions and guessing and true unknowns. And if you’re building out these big packages to try and account for all of that, there’s so much room for, well, what if things change? Or what if this happens? Or what if that happens? And I actually went back to doing a lot of hourly pricing in the beginning of 2022 because I felt like I kept getting what the client needed wrong in terms of like, you have this call, you give this pitch, and then things change a couple of months down the line and they’re locked into this package. So I definitely can relate to that. And I don’t do quite as much hourly anymore, but I think pulling back and getting back in that zone can be really helpful.
Steph’s Messy Middle
So now the questions that we’re all here for, the messy middle. Can you think of a point in your business where you made the transition to stop feeling like a total newbie, but maybe also realized that the messy middle is not necessarily easier than being a beginner business owner?
S: Yeah, it’s so hard to pinpoint a specific point in time just because things have changed a lot over the past four years and they continue to change and it feels like the messy middle never really goes away. It just kind of morphs into something else. But I guess I would say when I was about two years into my business is when I started to feel like I wasn’t a newbie anymore. And I think what happened is that clients started coming to me. I think that was really the ultimate shift. Instead of me always actively trying to find my next client and worrying about where my next paycheck was going to come from, clients started to come to me instead. And that has continued to grow over the past couple of years. Which I feel super fortunate about because it takes a lot of the stress of running your own business out of the picture. So yeah, I guess there wasn’t really a specific point in time, but I’d say around the two year mark is when things kind of shifted.
H: Can you think of a time, though, maybe since that two year mark where you’ve made like, a major “oops,” or looking back, you’re like, “wow, that was such a rookie mistake. I can’t believe I’m supposed to be in the middle. Why is this beginner’s problem happening to me?”
S: Yeah, there’s definitely been a few moments like that. I would say there have been some projects that didn’t work out because the client wasn’t a good fit. I think the mistake that I still make the most often is taking on red flag clients. And every time it happens, I’m like, “I should have known better.” I saw those red flags from the very beginning, but for whatever reason, I felt like I needed to take on the project, and most of the time I’ve regretted doing those. So that still happens every now and then. Not as often as I used to, but I mean, even as recently as earlier this year, I took on a day rate client who had so many red flags before we worked together. Then after we worked together, all these issues kept coming up and, yeah, it just wasn’t a great experience, but I try to just learn from them every time.
Client Red Flags
H: What are some red flags that are an automatic no for you that you currently are very good at not accepting those clients? And maybe what are some that you convince yourself to keep going even if the red flag is there?
S: I think the style of communication is a big one. Like, for this client, for example, I was talking to them, we talked back and forth for over a month before they finally booked the project. They reached out to me. They said they were interested, and then there would be like a week where I didn’t hear anything. Then they came back and said they were interested, but they had a few more questions and then there would be another week of silence. I mean, for day rate especially, communication is really important and being able to be able to reach each other during the day to get feedback on things and just make sure we’re on the same page. That would be probably the biggest redflag.
Otherwise, just the types of questions that people ask or the way they approach your pricing. For example, this client also really told me that my service was really expensive and that they could have hired someone to do this for like, $200 or something. And they told me that even though they hired me, they told me that. I’m like, okay, I don’t know why you’re telling me this after you’ve already paid for the project, but anyway. Yes, mostly just communicating things and intuitively assessing what someone’s going to be like to work with.
Steph & SEO
H: Yes, I get that for sure. So you talk a lot in your marketing and in general about how important SEO is and how you get a lot of your clients from SEO and through Google. Was this always the case or was there a point in time where you really hit your SEO straight and the client acquisition process became easier? You said that was around two years in.
S: Yeah, I guess that would be around the two year mark as well. So, for anyone who knows anything about SEO, it’s a long game and it takes a lot of time to actually see results from it. I kind of started blogging pretty much as soon as I started my business. I don’t really know why, it just seemed like something that I should do, probably because I just enjoy writing. In the beginning, I didn’t know anything about SEO, and I was just kind of like writing posts that I thought people would want to read or to educate people about my services. Over time, I started to learn more about SEO and I managed to get a couple of posts that ranked really well on Google. And actually today, the post that brings me the most traffic is one that I published in 2019. It’s amazing because I get so much traffic (and actually leads as well) from just a handful of blog posts that have just lived on my website for the past few years. Now, I’m a lot more strategic about blocking and about keyword research and all of that. SEO has definitely been a major game changer for me, and that’s where most people are finding me these days.
H: In between finding clients on Upwork and when SEO really took off, can you remember where your first organic client came from that wasn’t on a job board already?
S: After Upwork, I discovered Facebook groups and realized that there were a lot of groups with entrepreneurs and other creatives. For a while, that’s where I was getting most of my projects. People would just post that they’re looking for web designer or brand designer, and then I would comment with a link to my website. Then if they were interested, they would reach out to me and have a call. That was working for me for a while, and then after I started to work with more clients, I started to get referrals as well, and I still do. The referrals started to build up and that is honestly such a great way to get clients without really trying to. Because if they trust the person who referred them, then they’re going to be more likely to trust you as well. I’ve always been on social media since the beginning, but social media has never been a main source of clients for me. I don’t know why. I think it’s overhyped, but that’s another conversation for another day.
What’s Next for Steph Corrigan Design?
H: So, what about your next client? What’s next for Steph Corrigan Design? Do you have anything exciting coming up? Anything to announce? Floor is yours.
S: I’m definitely keeping busy with design projects, mostly day rates at this point, but I am working on a couple of custom branded web projects as well. But the next thing I’m working on is my first course. I’ve been wanting to create a course for a while, but I didn’t know what to teach. It kind of hit me one day that something that was working really well for me, that I can confidently teach, that’s going to be helpful for other business owners as well, is blogging. I’m working on creating a course about how to write blog posts using SEO in order to get more clients, traffic, sales, subscribers, all of that through your website.
H: Awesome. Do you have a waitlist or anything that people can join for that?
S: Check out the waitlist HERE!
H: Thank you so much for joining me on the show today! For our listeners, where can people find you and hang out online?
S: You can find me at stephcorrigan.com. And I’m also on Instagram, although I am taking an Instagram break right now, so I’m not super active on there. But I’m sure I’ll be back at some point. They always suck you back in.
