Permission to Kick Ass

Multitalented and multipassionate with Orla Fitzmaurice

• Angie Colee • Episode 195

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What a brilliant chat with Orla Fitzmaurice! We started with web design and then went down the rabbit hole... Orla's path from archaeology nerd to economics graduate to web designer is exactly the delightful meandering I live for. We dove into her take on AI - equal parts excitement and healthy skepticism - and got real about the magic that happens when you let go of perfectionism and actually collaborate with clients. If you identify as multitalented and multipassionate, this convo will show you that you CAN do it all. 

Can't-Miss Moments:

  • Two ADHD entrepreneurs walk into a podcast: Orla breaks down how her diagnosis changed her approach to design (and how you can embrace the chaos to create something even better)...

  • What in the world does archaeology have to do with web design? Orla shares the surprising link between her past interests and present work (maybe no time spent learning is ever really wasted?)...

  • The great AI debate: Orla and I reveal our thoughts about AI and its impact on creative work. Is it time to embrace our new robot overlords?

  • The magic of co-creation: ever heard of someone designing a whole ass website in real time, live with a client? Orla spills the beans on her unique approach and the incredible results it produces...

  • Orla and I bond over our shared contempt for perfectionism (and reveal why being real and unpolished is actually a much stronger position than "perfect")...  

Orla's bio:
Designer, strategist and quiet chaos merchant on an infinite quest to promote sustainable and aligned self-employment.

I believe in the unique and infinite potential of every single mind on this planet and the importance of self-determination for true creative freedom.  I love to help my clients to discover and illuminate their path to sustainable and aligned self-employment to create true personal freedom.

Having worked as a freelance web designer for 20 years a web designer, I have been involved with every side of building a business from idea, design, development, startup funding, business-modeling to sales.  However, as I became more successful, I found myself becoming repeatedly burnt out from the hustle side of running a small agency, constantly moving from contract to contract and struggling to find the time to provide the quality of service I had previously.

When I’m not working, daydreaming or taking care of my two monkeys under 4 – I am painting.  Aimless, delicious, self-indulgent, purposeless painting.

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Angie Colee:

Welcome to Permission to Kick Ass, the show that gives you a virtual seat at the bar for the real conversations that happen between entrepreneurs. I'm interviewing all kinds of business owners, from those just a few years into freelancing to CEOs helming nine figure companies. If you've ever worried that everyone else just seems to get it and you're missing something or messing things up, this show is for you. I'm your host, Angie Coley, and let's get to it. Hey and welcome back to Permission to Kick Ass. With me today is my new friend, Orla Fitzmaurice. Say hi, Hi. You know what?

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Before I get down the rabbit hole, just tell us a little bit about what you do and what brought you here today. So I am a web and graphic designer. I am living in Ireland and I concentrate mainly on helping women to create sustainable self-employment so not self-employment that's going to burn them out, self-employment that feels like it's going to nourish them. And a lot of my work is done through live one-to-one sessions, so they're seeing the work being done live on my computer as it's happening.

Angie Colee:

Is that the design work you're doing? Live with them on the computer? Yeah, that's really cool.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Is that?

Angie Colee:

intimidating to like have somebody watch over your show. I can't have people watch me write.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

No, not at all. You think it would be. But it's funny because I've been a custom web designer for, I think, like 20, 25 years at this stage and, as technology has progressed and all the rest of it, I guess I've been doing it so long that it's more natural to me. And it was post my diagnosis with ADHD as well. A couple of years ago I found the big, long projects. It just it had been draining me. I hadn't realized, and that was when I kind of decided to change it. And it turns out I thrive in chaos, like so I really thrive in the chaos. And you know, like when you're designing with someone in front of you and you see their facial expressions and you know, because a lot of people, especially in Ireland now I don't know if this is a cultural thing too they'll say what you know. They'll say one thing to please you, but you can see it in their face.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

They're like that's not the right direction, let's amend here, and then you can see it when they're like oh my God, that's exactly what I wanted. So it's really exciting and it's fun and it's really interactive and it's actually a lot lighter, I find, and the work is done way faster.

Angie Colee:

Ooh, that's such an interesting approach, and I think for a couple of reasons, because for I think there's a lot of ADHD listeners to this show just by nature of who I am, but one we tend to be hyper aware of other people's like energetic states, facial expressions, changes in, like shift in posture, stuff like that we're hyper aware. And then there's also this overthinking thing that I think tends to happen when you go into the cave to create 100%.

Angie Colee:

Yeah, I wouldn't say that I've gotten to the live creation point because, like I said, I don't like writing with people. There's something about like my fingers just stopped working. I can type upwards of like 70, 80 words a minute, but if somebody is watching me type on a screen like I cannot spell for the life of me. It's ridiculous. I've learned that all of the processes that I used to use to develop copy were just like adding a whole bunch of unnecessary steps, putting space between me and the client and then leaving me by myself to overthink stuff and then be completely overwhelmed when, like I'd get on a review meeting with them, I could see their facial expressions. I know something's wrong, but I don't even begin to know how to unpack it. I think that's just such a cool approach.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Yeah, it's really, really interesting and it was funny because I did a course coaching recently as well and one guy compared it to he's a musician and he compared it to like when they do jazz or instrumentation. He's like it's like everybody knows their own part and nobody knows what the other person is going to do, but somehow when they play together, it creates something completely unique every time and that's what it feels like. It's like I know the web design bit. I know what it takes to get your business in front of people and the other person knows their business and they know who they are and they know what they want it to be. But no matter how many brief meetings you take and no matter how many, how well you spec out that design, you can't know the business.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Like your client knows the business and then doing it together like it creates this something that I could I could never create on my own, to be honest. Like I think I can do something really great, but it's still my design perspective being overlaid, whereas here it's a real blend and it does. Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Angie Colee:

I love that too. You know, I've been doing something experimental for the and I'm about I'm literally just about to formalize this into an offer that goes on to my site, um, but I've been doing an intensive with people. That's basically the, the copy and marketing version of that, and it stems a lot, actually a lot, from the conversations on the show. I'd be listening to these shows to get the show notes down like review, all of the audio chops, hi James editor, extraordinaire for anybody that needs them. And I'd just be going oh, brilliant one-liner, oh, this needs to be the title. Like. I just hear you and all of my wonderful guests say such wonderful things off the cuff and I started to get curious like what if I use all of these podcast interview skills I've developed, plus my years as a strategist, just like asking people about their business and just got people to talk through their marketing so that I could pull their words straight from them and turn it into marketing.

Angie Colee:

And it happened like with a client recently. It was so much fun. I showed her her website, like we redid her website, and I showed her one page and she looks at one line and goes it's that same thing we're reviewing live on a call, she goes. Who said that? And I was like that's, that's you. And she goes yeah, I sound so smart. And I was like you are that smart? You're brilliant. I really love being able to show you that you already had the words to say what you needed to say.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Somebody just needed to pull it out of you, so I always find that as well, like, the words are always there and but they're never the ones that they'll write down. When you give them the brief form or when you ask them to describe it, they're never going to say it. It's the words when you're doing something else and they're thinking about something else, and then they just riff it off and he was like that is it. That's the secret sauce exactly?

Angie Colee:

I wonder you know this. This just has me curious. So, like we're gonna follow this shiny rabbit hole, do you think it has anything to do with kind of being able to get into a flow state a little bit easier when there's almost like an audience or a collaboration going versus by yourself?

Orla Fitzmaurice:

I think there is the case of that and being able to get into flow flow state. I can definitely get into a flow state on my own too, I mean for sure like hyper focus in. But there's something magic that happens when I'm with people, though, as well, and it's the reason why I actually schedule all of my face-to-face, my Zoom type meetings, in the afternoons, because it's kind of my lowest energy time. Like I'm a morning person, I am like a first thing, a lark I have to anyway with two kids. I did that even before that. But in the afternoons, when my energy dips, I find when I'm on with people, it's just like I love talking to people, I love chatting with people and finding out what they want and just getting really into it. So I find it like I just come on and I think a lot of people do where people, people, everybody is. Yeah, most people are yeah, that's fantastic.

Angie Colee:

Well, how did you? I mean, you said you've been in this for a long time. Did you always know you wanted to be a graphic designer? Or did you fall into it? How did that?

Orla Fitzmaurice:

oh my god no, no, no, would you believe. I wanted to do archaeology in a place here called UCC and I was kind of talked out of that because it was like that might not be the best career and I was always very malleable. And so I was talked into economics and finance and when I tell anyone this they think it's freaking hilarious, because I also have dyscalculia, so I can't see or visualize or work with numbers in any way, shape or form. But somehow I managed to get a degree in economics.

Angie Colee:

I thought I had a hard time with numbers, but when I met another person who described that to me and I just went like, wow, I know, I don't have dyslexia, but I know, sometimes I transpose words and then have a moment of like wait, what was that? No, that was a completely different word I can't imagine getting an economics degree going on. Oh goodness, you're my hero.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

I got past it. Like.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

I got through it Like I actually worked in finance as well for a year or two after that, like, and it was the same thing, I got through it because I got the logic you know like so I was always able to show the work and like I would, like I was I'm still, I'm like I take ridiculous amount of notes for everything, and so I was like really clear on like you could see that I had done the work and so I always got the points for work. But the answers were always wrong and it used to drive my boss in finance crazy. He was like you've done it all perfectly. What is wrong with this?

Angie Colee:

Oh, perfectly, what is wrong with this? Oh goodness. Yeah, I feel like as I've gotten older, I used to be like a stickler for for details, for grammar. I was that sorry guys, don't at me, I was that asshole that was online correcting people's grammar, and since then I've had the fortune to meet lovely people with dyscalculia, dyslexia, and I've come to understand that, like guys, if somebody can't spell, if somebody can't math, that has nothing to do with their intellect, it has nothing to do with their value as a person. Like, maybe, stop being a jackass, all right?

Orla Fitzmaurice:

uh, random rant over yeah, my partner's still a little particular for the for for grammar, and so he pulls me up at times, but then I have pushed back the whole time because I'm like sometimes when, when I write a certain way, it's because there's a reason for the need for that expression, and I don't care about that comma, it's not right for me.

Angie Colee:

Exactly. Oh, I had that experience last year when I had a friend who wanted to help with editing and proofreading my book and a lot of the changes that she made which I mean like I don't fault her for this, this is her style, right but was to formalize things a little bit more, make it a little bit more professional. And I was like no, I chose those words with intent. Every single word that made it onto that page is intentional and like, yeah, a little bit wordy, we could probably afford to cut it down a little bit, but like, change the language? I don't think so. Said with all of the love Hi, you're out there and you know who you are. I adore you.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Oh look, I'm the same Like when Phil, like he, I ask him to read over. Sometimes, not every time, sometimes I'm like I don't need an editor today, thank you. Sometimes I ask him to read over and I appreciate it and I keep some of them, but others, like no, that just changes the feel I want from this and it's just like all of art, I guess. But writing is just another art.

Angie Colee:

Some of it has to have creative expression, exactly exactly, and it's that individual expression that actually makes it make a difference, that helps people really resonate with something. I want to go back for a second to archaeology, like how deep into that did you go? Was it just an interest, or have you always kind of kept up with it, even though you didn't do it formally?

Orla Fitzmaurice:

No, I haven't. I loved history. I loved history and it was my top subject in school, so I'd got top, top marks when I came out from. For us it's the leaving cert. So that's why I had assumed that I would like to do that. But no, I didn't keep up with it. I went through the economics science. I loved the economics. You know again, there's great logic in economics.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

And now it's funny, for a good, I think 20 years maybe, maybe less I was like why did I do that? Like I knew that that was not something I wanted to do, it was a crazy thing to do, and I just allowed myself to just be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll go the direction of the right thing to do. But now I'm finding myself going back more and more into economics. As I become more, I guess, socially aware and, I suppose, socially active, I find myself leaning back more and more on my economics degree and I'm enjoying it more, but like, yeah, yeah. So it's just interesting to see how things can come full circle. Things that you think you might never use come back.

Angie Colee:

Oh, absolutely For the longest time after I fell into the world of copywriting and marketing strategy, I wouldn't tell people about my master's degree and I don't say that to be fancy schmancy or anything like that. But I do have a master's degree and it is a it's a weird hybrid creative business degree from Carnegie Mellon and it was meant to be for the entertainment industry. Like the gap between bridging the gap between the people who would go it's called show business, not show art and the people that are you don't have a business without the art, right? So they needed somebody to understand the value of both the business perspective and the and the creative side. I loved that degree and also I was telling another guest just a couple of weeks ago I beat myself up for the longest time because I got good marks, but there were a lot of things that just didn't make sense to me until I went out and started a business of my own. Like my brain just doesn't seem to be able to process high concept stuff without like tangible examples from my own life.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Yes, definitely, I totally agree with that as well. I'm the exact same.

Angie Colee:

Oh goodness, you know, the reason that I took it back to archaeology and I got really curious about that was like I wonder if there's a parallel and this is total creative brain at play between like you're helping people dig up their vision for their website and like it's all fit together all along.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Yeah, well, it's funny I say that I didn't keep up with archeology, but I had a project that I started like before I even was doing web design as as a service and that was called cottageology and it was all around like preserving and restoring Irish cottages, because there's no protection for cottages in Ireland.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

They would be our traditional vernacular architecture, as in. They would be the types of dwellings that would have been made by hands of the local people, you know, with the materials that are available locally to them, but there's no protections for them. So I had started that a long time ago, but there's no protections for them. So I had started that a long time ago and one particular project that I took on with it was going back and finding all of the old streets that were the old city cottages in Dublin, the Dublin City Cottages Project and it was so fascinating and there was a kind of an archaeological element to it because, of course, a lot of them have been replaced with, like, high rises and all the rest of it. So it was like finding images of the old streets or finding references to them on old books and then overlaying maps on top of each other to show how the area had progressed. So that was utterly fascinating. So I said, you know, I said I didn't, but actually all these things weave in and out over the years.

Angie Colee:

Yeah, I mean like, exactly like I said, with getting that degree, I've come to realize since then right, so I thought I was going to be Shonda. I was going to be Shonda Rhimes. I wanted to create worlds and run my own shows and I love television and film and everything about it. And then I got laid off by the Oprah Winfrey Network. Sorry, Oprah, We've got beef, but you can fix it by putting me on your favorite things list. I fell into copywriting when I couldn't get another job in TV development and it's been 14 years and I found that I had a passion and a skill for that and it's been really fun. And it took me until a couple years ago to realize like, oh, creative business degree, copywriting all the graphic designers and the photographers that I know, all of the artists like creative business degree. It's not just I can't help it, guys, Sometimes I'm slow.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

I think we all are and nothing makes sense until we look back. You know it doesn't make sense. At the time, often like I felt like my whole career has been like this weird, like jumping around the place to all these different things and all out of control, and there's something wrong with me and all the rest of that. And it's like now I'm looking back and like, no, that economics and finance degree is awesome. Why were you so down on that?

Angie Colee:

Every step I took gave me a different piece of the puzzle.

Angie Colee:

And when I take time to look back and I think that's the key when I take time to look back, I've got a much clearer vision, because more of the pieces are now into place.

Angie Colee:

Or I think we get into danger and I think I've mentioned this on the show before is entrepreneurship is very forward looking, right, like you've got the vision. You got a reverse engineer from the 10 year plan, the five year plan, to where you are today, so that you know what you're doing next. But while we're focused on those future steps and everything we got to do today to bring about that future, we forget to turn around and look behind us and go oh, look at how far I've come, right. And look at all the people that are coming up after me who are aiming for me. You know, not in a take you, not in a take you out sense, but like they're aiming for me because I'm their model of who they want to be, while I'm looking at this other person over here and going I'll never be there, they're looking at me like that. I don't know. To me that's just a great reminder from time to time to go.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

I actually run this course as well on CBT for adult ADHD with the psychotherapist and that is the one thing that fascinates me with every person on the course.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Right, it starts like it's an eight week long course and it starts at the start and it's like everyone is so down about themselves and it's so. It's all so hard and all that you know yourself not that people not having been diagnosed yet or very recently diagnosed, all in adulthood, so carrying all that baggage and if I had only known when I was younger and they'd be like my life is such a mess. And if I had only known and honestly, by the nearly, by the end, of course, every single one of them will have unfolded like a flower and they have the most incredible experiences. I mean like, oh yes, I was an astronaut for NASA and they'll be like my life is a mess and I've wasted it all and you sit in there going your life is incredible. Look at all these strands, every single one of them. I don't think there's one person I've met on that course over. I don't know. We've done it for a good few years now.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

That hasn't fascinated me and they're just fished and they can't see it themselves.

Angie Colee:

Exactly. This is yet another reason why I love having these conversations, like both the podcast conversations and the work. The new work that I've been doing with the clients is, um I call it like, at the risk of being overly poetic I get to be this awesomeness mirror, just reflecting your own awesomeness right back at you and being like, do you not see how fucking cool you are? I see it. Let me show you, um, and I like I've I've teared up on some of these episodes've I've teared up on some of these episodes. I've teared up on some of these calls just going like it feels good to make people feel good. So trolls, internet trolls out there like maybe try going out and making people feel good instead of feel like shit, that there's a strategy for you, absolutely absolutely.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

I just that fascinates me. It's like why, with what I mean clearly, the not just trolls, but people who you know say hackers, with the amount of intelligence they have and with the amount of social awareness they have, because they do to a certain degree to manipulate in that way, oh my gosh, the world needs you to do good things. Please bring your skills to do good things to do good things.

Angie Colee:

Well, yeah, and we won't get into the pathology of that. Some people just live to create chaos and destruction, and I guess that's part of life's balance. Right, we can't all think the same or operate the same, but Some people do.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

but I think, like the hurt people hurt people Like I just there's no bad person, you know so there's just somebody who has an experience that led them here, but they can change that, you know. Know, like I, definitely like have this whole thing about like this invisible minds thing, like where you know so many of these minds in this world, like every I think every single person has such unlimited potential, like there's a spark of genius in every single person, including the people who do bad. It's just they've had bad experience or they've been funneled in the wrong direction, and we have so many people working crappy ass jobs that could do incredible things, but the world's just not built to optimize for them, for a good environment for humans. It really isn't, and so it's no surprise when we get people doing things that are way off center like that.

Angie Colee:

Yeah, oh God, it was amazing. Like I'm not going to go too down the road into politics, but I do remember reading this one story a while back that was inspiring. I think it was during the pandemic or something like that. A lot of the inmates in one particular prison were able to bank extra money, for whatever reason, and because they're no longer competing for resources, because some people have more money than others, everybody can afford to live. The crime rate inside the prison went down, like the violence, the theft, anything like that, and I was like it's so much. It's interesting to me how the greed kind of plays a role in this. Like gosh, we're going, we're going deep into it now. But like this, this tendency to hoard everything and guard it against theft, versus this generosity and making sure everybody has enough, which is actually the crime deterrent and the lessener absolutely.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

And it's not that we always want to be looking back, because I don't. I mean, I think like obviously things are so much better now. You know like objectively things are better. But like when I think back to the cottages, for example, like vernacular architecture in Ireland back in back in the day and there was a lot of things wrong in Ireland back then don't I want to paint a rosy picture, but when you needed a house, your community came together and everyone worked together to build your house. When you're at the stage where you needed a home and your neighbors came and they brought what they had and then you would go and you would build the house for their child when it came their time.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

And now we have people just hoarding houses. You know, like when did we turn houses into investments? And I'm not saying that to give out about the people who invest in them, but to give out about the systems that facilitate a home being a source of passive income. It should never be their homes. There's so many people homeless Like so these just a society. There's just a lot gone awry in society.

Angie Colee:

Like way far sideways. Absolutely agree with you on that score. I'm not going to go down that path. I can race on that for days. Okay, so we're going to go all the way back to the beginning. You told me that you've been doing this for over 20 years now this graphic design right? What was that progression like for you building the business, Like, I know that that's kind of a high level question, but, like the learning curve, how did you get from beginner to now?

Orla Fitzmaurice:

oh, you know, I guess like how most people get into um, graphic design, I would say so I had a long path before that, even from the economics and finance and the like. So I went through a few different things. I ended up working as an architectural technician for a few years. I mean, I moved through so many different paths before I got here. But it was setting up a company with a friend of mine. Oh my gosh, what is the name? Oh, buyers Broker. Yeah, it's like that long ago. Yeah, it's like still one of my best friends. We set up this company, buyers Broker.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

We needed a website, like websites back then cost a fortune. It was all custom HTML, just plain vanilla HTML and CSS, and I was like I need this website. So I was like I bet I can figure this out. I'm just going to go figure it out. And in the process of figuring it out, a couple of other people needed websites. So I started just helping them out and this was great fun. So it just progressed from there and I mean, over the years I did add on, I did like an interactive media course, which I loved. So that introduced me to a lot of the different elements. Then like a full year long interactive media and then a couple of years after that I did like a post graduate year long course again on innovation management. Business innovation management yeah, business innovation management, that's right and so it's just. It's been a progression along the way and just continuous learning, continuous moving, which you have to do in any design role but any technical design role especially, you've got no choice.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

You know, like, even now you know, I don't feel stressed about AI coming on. I'm like, bring it on, this is great. Like this is something new that I have to learn now and move it in other direction and I use it judiciously with the work that I do. So it's like, yeah, it gets us to where we need to get to faster, because I mostly work with people at the very early stages, so they don't have big budgets, they don't have them. I'd love if I could get a copywriter in for every single project or like a branding designer for every project, but that's not at lower budgets. It's not possible when people are getting started.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

So it's just really, really interesting to be able to use all these tools, and that formed a big part of so. A big part of it was that I needed to change how I worked. Not only did I get the diagnosis with ADHD, I also had become a mum, and so you know like maternity, when you're self-employed and the sole income earner for your family, is no joke, no joke. So everything needed to change, and so this technology was advancing so much that I could do this work life Like, without the advent of things like Canva, without the advent of tools that move us along like WordPress even was so fast. But I moved into Squarespace because I had been a custom web designer with WordPress for so long I can't remember. But moving into other platforms allowed me to build fast, iteratively and allowed me to hand control over to my clients, which is what's made this possible.

Angie Colee:

Oh, I love that perspective shift too, because there is. I mean, we all know that there's a lot of fear around AI and how it could replace jobs, and I'm not here to downplay that, I'm not here to say it's not true. It's like any other revolution that we've been through, from when the automobile came about to, you know, when the internet came about. These are disruptive things. These are disruptive things Even when the cell phones came out and the smartphones. Like I remember going in grad school from having a Palm Pilot, a little handheld scheduling device, to the first iterations of smartphones and like how fast things have progressed since then. Like talk about industries that have gone under. Those kinds of personal planners just don't exist anymore because we've already got tools that handle all of that Right. So I don't mean to make light of that, and I know I'm kind of like all of the places I'm saying this, but there's creative ways for these new problems to be solved. Like I know I hired a designer who creates Canva graphics for me.

Angie Colee:

All of the show notes that I do for permission to kick ass are Canva graphics. That she designs the book cover she designed in Canva and it's like so there's a space where these two things coincide, because I have no design, I have no desire to get into Canva and figure out color palettes and margins, and no, you need a pro. And then, uh, for, for the things that I can do myself or that my team can do, like changing out the numbers of an episode and a picture and a title, then yeah, let's do that. Let's make this a lot easier, reduce some of the back and forth, some of the grunt work that you know like nobody wants to change all of that stuff. It's's such a yeah.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

And it is like AI is coming for a lot of jobs, like you said. I don't want to downplay it either. It is scary, but it is inevitable. In another way and again, just like the housing thing, it is down to our governments in order to protect people here. This is not an individual bottle, you know. So it is down to the governments to rein a lot of this in, to provide social protections for the people who will be harmed by this, because there will be people, but everybody has the choice to try and move with it to. No, I'm actually going to take back choice. We have no choice. It's here. There's no going back, you know so, like all of these things, but I find it exciting.

Angie Colee:

I think so too, yeah yeah, and like there's the fear there and you can. I was just talking to a client about this the other day. I can't remember where I heard the quote, so if you're listening to this and you want to write in and tell me where, where this quote comes from, I would be grateful. Um, the difference between fear and excitement is the breath, and I believe that because I can feel the same sensations in my body when I'm terrified as I do when I'm getting ready to walk out onto a stage and like I'm excited to sing for people. The breath, like it's all the same stuff. You're already familiar with it and I say that to say this, you can reframe how you're feeling about this by focusing on the breath, by going okay, I hear you. This is scary and intimidating. How could I make this work for me instead of what am I going to do now? Why is this happening? Talk about a useless question. Why is this happening?

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Yeah, and I mean I have no doubt, like I have no doubt, like it's coming from me. I'm, I'm design, graphic design. I mean it's already here for me. It's already taking huge swathes of what I do, but at the end of the day there's something again magic about doing the live work. That's face to face, that's people to people, and no machine can get that.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

yet I don't think that's going to come for a long time and that's where I bring my magic, and my client brings their magic, and there's no replacing that right now, thankfully.

Angie Colee:

Thankfully, yeah Well, I mean like there's there's plenty of templates and stuff like that out there, but and maybe it's just me and my spectacular ability to find ingenious ways to fuck things up right, be able to figure out how to put it back, and I will spend hours raging at this template, whereas working with somebody like you live.

Angie Colee:

I go what did I do? How do I put it back? And you go take it over and we're over it in 30 seconds. Like I, will always be somebody that prefers to work with people as much as possible.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

But you know, I'm a web designer and, honestly, when it comes to like doing my own website, it is the thing I hate doing the most in the world, because doing my own website it is the thing I hate doing the most in the world, because doing my own work it tends to be it's a whole other ballgame. You know, when I'm my own client, I'm my worst client. You know my website's always the last thing that gets done. You know like I love doing this with other people, so like there's so many elements to design that we don't even think about and that's part of it too, you know. So it is always having somebody else give you that perspective, take you out of your own head, even when it's for yourself, it's really valuable.

Angie Colee:

Oh God, I've talked to so many people because that's part of the work that I do with that offer that I told you about. I always tell them welcome to the Cobbler's Kids Club.

Angie Colee:

Like we're over here not wearing any damn shoes because we're too busy making them for everybody else. And I even had my coach tell me. You know I was feeling nervous at the beginning of this year about making sales because before I'd always been referral based. But, like a lot of folks, this year I've had to go out and learn how to make high ticket sales on my own and it's been a wonderful learning curve because before I've had people tell me I wasn't a salesperson. Sorry to say I am a salesperson now to those people that didn't believe but whatever, I'm not there yet, I'm all ears, girl.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

I'm all ears because I'm not there yet.

Angie Colee:

Well, he taught me to embrace the imperfection and like, in my case, awkward. He asked me what's coming up when you have these sales calls? And I said I just feel awkward. I don't like promoting myself like this. I know that the service is valuable, so it's not like an insecurity thing. I know that I'm doing something to help people, but I just don't like talking about it. And he goes can you lean into the awkwardness? And I was like maybe.

Angie Colee:

So I tried it on the very next sales call where I just went to somebody and was like all right, here comes the awkward sales pitch Look, look, I'll be super upfront. I don't have a slide deck, I don't have a big polished speech. That's really not how I work. Like I'm not the world's best salesperson. I don't honestly give a damn about that. I give a damn about doing good work on this marketing campaign. And like here are all the ways that I can help you. And then I gave them the rundown. Like here are all the ways that I can help you. And then I gave them the rundown. Like here's what it is, here's how it works, here's what it costs. Let me know if you're in and people were, they were saying yes to that, to me not having a polished presentation and just being like I'm turning red in the chest and I'm like my anxiety was palpable, but I think it was just the fact that I was upfront and genuine about it and like this is not no, this is not the slick sales presentation.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

I think people like that, though, cause I always find, when I talk to somebody and it's not the slick sales presentation, but it feels genuine and honest Like yeah, that's someone I feel I want to work with. I don't want perfect, I mean. I'm anything but perfect. Yes, I want to feel comfortable. It's the person. We're buying the person a lot of the time, you know. I want to feel comfortable with this person, but feel heard by this person, Feel heard and feel supported.

Angie Colee:

That's something that I work on with a lot of the newer folks that I coach too. It's like there's a difference between listening to respond and listening to understand.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Absolutely.

Angie Colee:

Oh my gosh yeah if you're listening to them just to formulate your next very witty and smart sounding answer, so that they know exactly just how brilliant you are and they instantly want to buy from you. Like you're not in the conversation, you're manipulating the conversation. You're not showing your true self to the person because you're not actually present and like this just leads to all kinds of further communication on down the line.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

In my opinion, Absolutely, and like so, a big part of web design over the years has been. You have to be somewhat of a consultant and you end up in coaching territory Just naturally, by virtue of what you do. So that was why I did the coaching course this year the basic level coaching Cause I was like, okay, I need to make sure I'm not doing harm here. You know, because there's a certain amount that you're giving advice and I want to be better at this, not. And then I learned. And then I learned that coaching is not about giving advice at all.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

It is not coaching is just about listening and being curious and what bringing out the amazingness that's in the person. I mean the the course was phenomenal, like it's for me. I don't want to go into pure coaching fully, but through facilitating women becoming comfortable with their own sustainable business goals, I love it from that perspective. So as a blend with what I do, I love it. But it was mind blowing to me I mean the coach, the course, that it was amazing, but this whole idea it is not. I hadn't made the distinction between consulting and coaching, which is why it's so important that people train.

Angie Colee:

Yes, consultants tell you what to do. Coaches help you find the answers that you already have. I was trying not to laugh while you were explaining all that, cause my brain just went back to like how is archeology coming back up again? Like, because coaches really help you dig through all the shit that you've accumulated over the years, all of the conflicting voices, all of the shiny object courses that you've taken as an entrepreneur, and get clear on what you really want and what makes sense to you and your people and tie those strands together, Like that's what I found some of the biggest part is that really listening and they can't see the strands because they're in it, Just like with the design, I'm in it and it's so hard to design for myself.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

But when you can be the person who comes in from outside listening, it's like oh, but you just said you did this a few minutes ago. It's like oh, and I love that when everyone's like oh, oh, yeah.

Angie Colee:

Oh gosh, I think this is hilarious. I'm a big fan of collaboration versus competition and not too long ago I realized that there was another marketer who was doing a very similar offer to me. Like it was an intensive experience. There's a lot of interview, there's a lot of like co-creation and at first I had, I had, like a little mini pity party, like somebody else found it first and they talk about it way better than I do because I suck at talking about it, like the self-promotion thing, the not having the best perspective. And then, like I had my brief, I'm talking about like 15 seconds at most worth of wallowing before I went. You know what. No, reach out to this person, start a conversation, say hey, I'm doing something similar. If you're open to it, I'd love to ask you some questions about your offer, what you're up to, and I'd love to find out how I can promote and support you. And it turns out like we're talking about it.

Angie Colee:

She's got a completely different vibe from me, even though it's the almost exact same service. She's got this wonderful like shout out to Zafira Rajan, she's brilliant. She's got this whole like spa, tranquility, you know, serenity, water, hot. I think she has like a um, a cold plunge and a sauna and stuff like that, like all of these offers that are packaged into this kind of spa, uh, imagery, and I was like anybody that knows me knows I'm more like kick down the wall, light something on fire.

Angie Colee:

This is a rock show. There's space for both of us to have the exact same offer, because we're for really different people. Um, although I think it would surprise people to know I, I really love spas. It's like I would live in one if I could you all.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Do you like another spa? I do like. I like one too. It's very intermittent that I end up there, but I do do like it.

Angie Colee:

Oh gosh, where do I want to go with my next question? I mean, this is also fascinating to me, like the conversation around not being our own best advocates, figuring out how to position ourselves, learning all of this new technology that you talked about. Like you were talking earlier about the progression, and I know that you said you've been doing this over 20 years, how many different kinds of technology did you have to learn, would you say?

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Yeah, I don't know. I've never really sat down to think about it because I think this is again an ADHD thing, but I get excited when there's something new coming along, you know it's like oh, something new to dig my teeth into. Where's this going?

Orla Fitzmaurice:

to take me and it's often like I would say definitely 50% of the time it's a distraction. Maybe another 30% of the time it's like could be useful but just gets forgotten about and then, like 20% of it, becomes incredibly core to what you do. And so that's a small hit rate really for the amount of time that I spend discovering new things, but it does mean I'm open to a lot. And then those tangents again get pulled in, those threads get pulled in another way. You know they shape your move in another direction or whatever. But to say like the sales part of it I find so hard because, like you, it's so funny.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

You said that I had the exact same experience before having the kids. It was all custom web design and all quite high end, but it was all referral and it was also very high pressure. Like high pressure to the point that I remember having Ruby and I had an emergency in section, a very, very difficult time, and I was back on the computer. My legs were not unfrozen yet from the epidural and I was on the computer trying to finish a project that I was working on that had to be done. It had run over like it was a big, big project for a big website here, a town based website, and it just had run over with all of the different people involved and so, yeah, that was just a super amount of stress and then I had to take it easy. Over a couple of years I did and I didn't. That's part of a whole other area, but like now I'm really struggling, I guess. I guess I struggle to find my feet with the sales part of things.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

You know, because before with big projects, referrals work, you know like you can get one or two referrals a month, or three or four referrals a month, and that's you said, you know, whereas definitely working the way I do now, when it's definitely more startup based people at the earlier stages, you need a lot of referrals in order to be able to keep a family of four going. Yes, so this is the area I really want to focus on this year for myself is getting more comfortable with being, you know, with creating offers and delivering them, whereas now I tend to just okay. It's actually a ridiculous situation. I don't even have testimonials up on my website, like I had this old website and trying to make it into the new one, I just yeah. Again, our own websites get left at the very end of the mile.

Angie Colee:

Well, but that's the funny thing too. I think, like having the ideal website does hold a lot of people back from going out there and making sales, because that fear is like what if they go and check me out and the message doesn't match what I'm saying and I'm like this is all communication. Guys, and we as people, especially in this age of like putting screens between us and not really getting good at talking to people and being just comfortable, just comfortable we're just going to make up words, uncomfortable Talking to other people and dealing with hard feelings and hard conversations. Right, you can get better at all of this and you can manage that, and you could just tell people how this works.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Do the simple thing. Yeah, I mean, this is something that people come to me the whole time when we're talking about websites and it's like I need to get the SEO and all the rest. And I am just like stop, stop, stop, stop. Okay, you do not have the budget for SEO and even if you did, it is so in flux right now and like, yes, we're going to create a super website for you right now, but it is still just a business card.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

You know it is a big old business card, no one's going to go there unless you bring them there. And that's the fact of the matter. And I've had so many people say you don't need a website now. You just need to, you know, get on LinkedIn and do your thing. And I really push back on that because I think if you're someone who is really confident already and like happy to hop up onto TikTok and like get going, great maybe, then you don't need a website. That's a really. There's none of my clients that have fit into that mode. Also, if you have a huge network already and you have huge connections and you only need one or two really big corporate clients for the year, yeah, you probably don't need a website. Then for nearly everybody else, Dang.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

If I'm going to take on a service, the first thing I do is look for their website. It does not need to be perfect, but if they don't have an online presence, I'm very unlucky to buy, you know, cause I don't trust it. Then I'm like, okay, they haven't invested in themselves or they're not taking themselves, I suppose, seriously enough, and I know that that's a logical fallacy. Of course they've invested themselves. In other words, Of course they're taking themselves seriously enough. They're trading, they're doing their thing, but I do think that having that one little piece of space online gives you so much credibility.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

But especially for my clients. What it really does is that it sets them up themselves because they've sat down and done the work of what is my business, who is it for? Does this reflect me? And then they just feel really confident when somebody asks them about their business, even if the words won't come out when they're in public, they can say you can just check me out here, you know, at my website. So it just gives that beautiful ground to stand on.

Angie Colee:

Thank you for sharing all of that, cause I know I have definitely said on this show before I'm a big, I'm one of those advocates. Probably in another time, if we weren't talking like this would have been like at loggerheads, like just not agreeing on this. I don't know why. I'm being awkward about it. Whatever, all right. So I used to. I still tell people you don't need a website, but I think that's because a lot of the people that I deal with are copywriters and or or beginning stage creative entrepreneurs who will use the website as a stalling mechanism Like they have fallen for the narrative that you need to build this great, big old funnel and once you get all of those pieces right, the business is just going to fall in your lap.

Angie Colee:

And to those people I say those are the ones that I specifically say your website does not matter right now. You need to go out and figure out how you can help people. Don't worry about your messaging if you don't even know what you're offering to people. Go talk to somebody, listen for an opportunity to help, like when they say oh God, I just really. You know, I hate writing emails. That is the bane of my existence. And you go, well, I happen to write emails. Is that something that you need help with? Let's talk, we can figure out. Maybe we can work together right, a sales conversation can be just that easy. And then, after you work with a certain number of people on those emails, you start to notice patterns and now you can go back to your website and be like okay, so with my last few clients, we worked on this problem, this problem, this problem. Now you've got the words for your website.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

And that's exactly why I changed that. That's. There was a good few reasons, but that was the biggest reason why I moved to co-creation because I was creating these beautiful WordPress sites and, honestly, they frightened the shit out of my clients to go in there and make a change Like I'm going to break it. I've spent all this money. I'm going to break it.

Angie Colee:

That's me.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

I was like this is not right. Like this is just not right. This is crazy, like as far as I'm concerned, because like it's just my personality I have to get in, I have to break stuff and make it to know and I need to do that. It's like the way my brain works, like I have to be able to take it apart or I don't want it. You know, it's like I don't, I can't have something that's just like pristine and sitting there like to be admired. It just doesn't work for me.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

But with co-creation, the point is is to get them to go in there, because I can see all of these clients that I have. They think they know what their business is, they think they know who their customer is, but until you've been in front of your first year's worth of clients, you don't know. So, yes, get a website done, but my God, make sure you can get right in there and make changes, because every client you take on is going to change who your customer is, what your business is, who you think you are on a fundamental level. And, honestly, it's just there's no excuses these days because you can pop on Canva now and two clicks you can have a website on Canva as part of your Canva plan and like they're great. You know they're not a full website, but it is enough to get you started. That's enough for me to hire you is knowing that you're professional. You've just got this page.

Angie Colee:

It is done. You, you can do that for free right now in the free plans. Exactly. I totally I co-sign that because I think that that's that's the wheel spinning that I'm talking about, exactly Like somebody that's going oh God, well, I can't get out there and get business until I spend at least $5,000 creating this website and getting all of my business cards and stuff like that. I go to events and people ask me for my business card and I tell them I don't have one.

Angie Colee:

I don't have one either, you don't have a business card Like, yeah, okay, so I'll be honest, if you give me your business card, I'm probably going to throw it away because my brain doesn't retain information that way. What I would rather do is have a really deep conversation with just a few people and my brain etches your face into the database and I go oh, I know this person, even if next time we walk into the room and I'm like what is your name? My brain yeets names for some reason, but I always recognize faces. Oh my God, I remember. You Remind me what your name is real quick. It's so good to see you give me a hug, like much rather do that than pass around business cards.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

I'm like I'll look at a business card a couple days later and go who.

Angie Colee:

The hell was that I?

Orla Fitzmaurice:

told you that's exactly like I've got. I find them every so often. I'm like gosh.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

I don't even remember who that person is, you know like it's the conversation and, honestly, it's when it comes to the networking, it's linkedin, because I connect to them and then I hear the message again and that reinforces who that person was like. So, like I would rather, when I have a chat to somebody, I don't really care about your business card, I just want to connect to you and you know, that's what it's, that's what all the business is, isn't it just connecting to you? And that's what a website does. It really gives you a point of connection and it really helps you refine your message and it helps you refine where you are, and that again I keep running back to like I swear to God, my own best sales card here. I should record this, in fact, to co-creation again, to stop the procrastination it is done in a day and I mean it.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Like we hop on, you know, for a session and it is done in that four hour session. We press publish at the end because it is. There's no way that I want you to have a perfect website. If it's perfect, you are not going to touch it. This thing is so perfect, I can't touch it. I need the clients to be in there making changes. I need them to be in there adding new clients up feeling like that they can change this copy because it doesn't represent them anymore. They just have to get that fluidity and then add to this yes, when the time is right, then and you know, what your message is.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Oh, my god, there are so many amazing designers out there. There's so many amazing custom web designers moved to those agencies who will take your hand and create something kick-ass for you. Go there, it's just incredible people for all stages of this process. So it's just right stage, right service.

Angie Colee:

Oh yeah, I think that brings it full circle perfectly. Like, if you're scared of AI, connection is the thing Like that's going to become even more important as technology gets more advanced being able to build and maintain real, actual human relationships and I'm not just talking about superficial. We're all smiley, happy all the time, right, the people that know me, the people that see this side of me, the podcast host, the chipper, happy one. Don't know how many times I've canceled recordings because I'm having a bad day, or like one day I pinched my shoulder and I was in severe pain, like I can't bring this person out. On those days I'm not shiny and happy all the time.

Angie Colee:

But I also know that the relationships I've built, I've put more into those relationships so that I can withdraw a little bit every once in a while when I need a little bit of grace and understanding Me. Having a bad day doesn't destroy anything.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

Yeah, I'm the exact same. It's great that this is becoming more socially acceptable. Now, like you, don't have to show up as all business, business, business all day long. Like you know, we do want to do business with people, and people have families. People have lives. Contrary to popular belief over the last hundred years, people have hormones. Like your body reacts differently on different days, there's external circumstances and life is messy, and that's why business has to be sustainable. And I don't mean ecologically sustainable That'd be great too I mean sustainable for you, for your family, for your community, for everything. Know, yes, it's just crazy that this has become this hammer on the head thing when it should be something that's so beautiful, so sustainable and so connecting.

Angie Colee:

Yes, every time oh, and you can't tell me that perfection is what people admire. Nope, like nothing on this earth, like, even if you look at the, the, the canvases underneath the, the leonardo da vinci paintings.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

You can see how many different layers.

Angie Colee:

Yeah, so there's layers, onions have layers, people have layers. We're gonna quote track to wrap up this episode. All right, before I go all the way down the rabbit hole, please this has been fantastic Tell us a little bit more about how we can learn about this wonderful website in a day process.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

You can just go to my website fancy that, which is just orlafitscom. So, yeah, everything is up there, or it should be up there. It's up there imperfectly, but have a chat. The main thing is just have a chat, because I do think that I'm sure there's lots of other people doing this too, but it is a relationship and so it's about just having a chat and seeing if you feel comfortable with me, I feel comfortable with you, and then you create something great.

Orla Fitzmaurice:

So it is just about having a chat and seeing if it's the right road for you, and if it's not, I generally advise people. Then it's like, okay, I don't think this is the right road for you right now, but I think this may be, and that could be just me explaining what you do to get it up yourself, like using things like Canva and all that, or it could be saying no, I think you're at that next stage. You need to work with an agency, you need to work with custom designers, you need to move to that stage. So it's very much about figuring out what's the right path for you. But, yeah, all my stuff links to all of the many myriad things that I end up doing are on orlapetscom.

Angie Colee:

Awesome. I'll make sure there's a clickable link in the show notes. Thank you again for being such a wonderful guest. Thank you so much. That's all for now. If you want to keep that kick-ass energy high, please take a minute to share this episode with someone that might need a high-octane dose of you Can Do it. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the Permission to Kick-Ass podcast on Apple Podcasts, spotify and wherever you stream your podcasts. I'm your host, angie Coley, and I'm here rooting for you. Thanks for listening and let's go kick some ass.