Want to land the big client? What happens when they ask for a $1 million insurance policy?

Welcome to the big league.

My next guest is C.C. Chapman author of Content Rules and Amazing Things Will Happen. In this interview we talk about what it’s really like dealing with a big client and how you should be ready for the challenge. C.C. used WordPress for big brand projects and then later sold the agency in 2009. Let’s dive right in and listen to this great story!

C.C. Chapman interview: landing the big client and getting ready to scale

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What we’re learning in this episode

I didn’t know where to begin summarizing this episode (because it’s so epic), so I’ll do a bullet point outline:

His only regret, not self promoting harder

Everyone is afraid to sell and it drives me nuts.

C.C. knew his first book Content Rules was top notch – but even he admits he didn’t push it hard enough. When you know you have something great, tell the world. Why not? What do you have to lose?

You don’t have to be all, “Pitchy pitchy, selly sell.” about it. (Thanks Chris Brogan)

Promote w...

Let’s cut to the chase.

WordCamp’s are great, but it’s a breeding ground for our competition. I know, I know — we’re all friends here. Just hear out my next guest.

John is a master marketer and business builder. He uses WordPress to write his blog which ultimately lead to publishing his book, Brand Against the Machine.

He joins us to talk about improving our business and ultimately our bottom line. If you’re someone who dosen’t want to come out of the basement from coding, don’t bother pressing on to this interview. If you’re ready to kick ass and take names later, potentially saying goodbye to your coding buddy at the next WC — hit play now!

John Morgan on bullshit radars, understanding customers, and quitting your competition

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Are you ready for the cold hard facts?

What do I love about John? No bullshit, straight talking, all around awesomeness.

But he’s not all flash. He’s been marketing and building businesses for 12 years. So yes, there’s plenty to learn from him.

Knowledge vs know how

If you’re someone looking to hire a WordPress developer or designer, listen up.

John makes the point, with WordPress at such a low barrier to entry, there are people that know about WordPress “stuff” and then there’s the people that have the know-how and there’s a big difference.

Ask your next WordPress hire if they have actually built, supported, and launched th...

Want to learn how to be more productive in your freelance career or WordPress business?

If you answered yes, you’ve come to the right place.

Meet Mike Vardy a productivityist by day, author and blogger by night. I invited Mike on to the show to talk to us about becoming more lean and mean with our daily work habits and freelance business. That’s not all Mike is good for — he’s been using WordPress for years and has some amazing feedback.

Let’s dive in!

Mike Vardy interview about using WordPress as an Editor and Productivityist

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“There’s nothing worse than submitting an article to an editor and it’s written in Word”

Why I interviewed Mike and why you should care

Aside from the fact he’s downright awesome — he’s giving us another angle.

I think it’s super important to talk to the users of WordPress so we — as the “pro” — can fully understand how the people on the outside view the software.

You might be doing this already with your own client base. Listening is a very important piece to becoming a better freelancer or small business entrepreneur. We need to take into account how the people are interacting with the product and service we put out.

What does WordPress mean...

Literally, the lights went out in this episode!

But hey, if you’re listening to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher – you won’t even notice.

Seriously though, what happens when the lights go out on your client’s WordPress website? Mika leads the WordPress support team at Dreamhost and is part of the core WordPress team reviewing plugins into the repo.

If you’re looking to learn more about supporting clients, dealing with shared hosting and the WordPress community – this is the episode for you!

Mika Epstein Interview. Supporting WordPress at Dreamhost and the community

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When the lights go out on your client

How do you handle support issues with your client?

What happens when the problem isn’t on your end, but the 3rd party you host with?

Mika is the head of Dreamhost WordPress support, so we get into a lot of the behind the scene details at the popular hosting company. We’re also taking the lessons learned from a big company like Dreamhost and filtering them down to the ground level of supporting your own client base.

If your practice is a large agency or you’re just a single freelancer with a dozen accounts — this is the episode for you.

The WordPress community

Are you looking to give back to WordPress and the community?

A lot of folks are always looking to give back.

I don’t like to play favorites, but this has been one of the best interviews so far.

Cory Miller has built a massively successful WordPress business over at ithemes. In my eyes, he is the quintessential entrepreneur. He embodies talent, drive, and the desire to succeed.

If you want to learn how to get your business to the million dollar mark, strap in and get your notebook ready!

Cory Miller on building a multi million dollar business

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Every day is a new challenge

If you’re an entrepreneur or looking to grow your business — this is an amazing interview.

I’m not just talking WordPress either.

Cory is giving us advice that will work in life and in business. That’s what makes him successful. He’s seeing past clean code, optimized frameworks, dollars and cents. He’s speaking to us on a real human level. Chris Brogan would be proud.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Passion is something that every single person on the team should have. The hardest part of this roller coaster ride of building a business is building that team. It’s not easy and it’s going to take it’s tolls – but the reward is amazing.

Skills can be taught, but the drive to get someone to be successful for the organization is what needs to be found. There are no rock stars, everyone is in it together.

What do you think about Cory’s story? I would love to hear your comments below.

Now liv...

Becoming an entrepreneur takes a special person.

Some might say passionate, driven, and even crazy.

I only have two words to describe Mr. Saddington: Focus and clarity.

If you’re running your first startup or third, you need to watch (or listen) to this interview with creator of the Standard theme, founder of 8bit, and now Chief God Mode of WPDaily.co.

John Saddington interview

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Focus and clarity

This interview brought me down memory lane. Standard theme was my very first premium theme for WordPress.

Five years ago, I never thought I would be interviewing the creator of this powerful theme let alone interview the lead the developer of the current version.

During this interview, John made me realize the power of a focused mindset and having a clear vision of where you’re going.

We must clearly define who we are, what we want, and how we’re going to get there. The vision only makes the prize juicier. If you’re not constantly challenging status quo – you’re going to be stuck in the middle for quite a while.

Noticed I said, “who we are.”

I feel this is the most underrated part of our careers. If we can not properly define who we are, how can we define what we offer clients? If we don’t fully understand what makes us tick, our products ...

The Matt Report is all about learning from other WordPress entrepreneurs and their respective business.

We’re not just listening to the journey of designers and developers — but also marketers, author’s, and today’s guest a marketplace founder. If you’re thinking of starting your own marketplace or just about to start selling your first plugin, you want to tune into Pippin Williamson.

Pippin Williamson of Pippin’s Plugins

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Starting a marketplace

What comes first? The chicken or the egg?

That’s the age old question of starting a marketplace. So how did Pippin start his WordPress plugin business?

For starters he created well crafted plugins that were needed in the WordPress market. Second, he backed up his promise with amazing customer service. If you’re a developer looking to start your business, pay close attention to the value of customer support. If you’re someone shopping for a WordPress plugin, evaluate who you’re purchasing from and their commitment to supporting clients.

Pippin brings us through an amazing journey. From starting out as a freelancer to becoming a well known WordPress plugin developer and a leading plugin marketplace site.

It’s not all rainbows

The passive income world can play tricks on us. Some folks lead us to believe that we just upload our digital product and the customers will come. Never mind the startup media covering startup’s landing millions in investment for the most simplistic of ideas.

Running a business that scales is hard work.

In the interview we talk about scaling a support team, bringing on more staff, compensa...

Every business is faced with the question, “how are we going to make money?”

The web app world is no stranger to this question. A majority of startups go the freemium route. The model that offers a free or limited access level to a product, with an up sell to the paid premium accounts.

If you’re new to the WordPress entrepreneurial space you might be researching the success rate of this model. So today, I introduce you to Jason Coleman of Paid Membership Pro. He’s created one of the leading WordPress membership plugins with a freemium model to generate more interested leads to convert to paid.

Watch this interview and learn how Jason has taken charge with freemium!

Interview with Jason Coleman of Paid Membership Pro

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The freemium model for WordPress plugins

What do you think of Jason’s model of going freemium?

Here’s what it all boils down to: support.

Folks are really paying you for support of the plugin or theme you’re providing. Even if it’s a service you’re offering, there are plenty of other competitors to turn to. My pal Andy talked about the value of customer service in this interview. 

So if you look at capturing more downloads (read: leads) of your plugin or theme perhaps freemium is the way to go? If the end user needs help, they can pay y...

How do you land the $100k project? Watch this interview with Jose Caballer.

If you’re a freelancer, startup, or growing agency one thing you will always face is how to charge more for your work.

In today’s startup scene and rapidly growing WordPress ecosystem we hear how many of us are turning to a product business. No more trading time for money. No more client services and what color blue you should pick.

What if you didn’t have to stress when dealing with web design clients?

Nirvana you say?

In the latest episode of the MattReport I interview Jose Caballer founder of The Skool and The Groop to teach us how he started to land $100k+ projects.

Interview with Jose Caballer

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“I thought I had a tumor.” – Jose on client work

There were so many great points about client work that Jose brought up in this interview — but one that struck a chord with me was how it affected his health.

There was a time in his career that he constantly had headaches. Unsure of what was happening, he spent thousands of dollars to get himself checked out. The hospital and doctors couldn’t find anything.

Shortly after a project he was working on was over, the headaches vanished.

Coincidence?

I think this speaks volumes about the amount of stress we put on ourselves when we aren’t adhering to the right kind of client with the right process in place. These experiences drove Jose to start the Skool and deliver a set of process tools for all of us to learn from.

Throughout many of my interviews, when I ask “how do you deal with the $500 client?” the common answer is “find one that will pay more.”

I reali...

Are you ready to learn how to find a niche business?

One of the things I really want to do for MattReport.com is to seek out folks who use WordPress in their business that aren’t designers or developers. The average folks who actually use the software and not just live under the hood.  I want them to share their story or insight to help us improve WordPress and our own businesses.

John Nemo is such a person.

He’s a marketer and all around business guy that founded the Nemo Media Group. I invited John on to the show so he could share his unique angle with us.

Get your pen and paper ready — John’s about to school you on improving your bottom line!

John Nemo on building a niche business using WordPress as the platform

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Full disclosure, John is a client of mine.

More importantly, he’s a friend online. John and I crossed virtual paths a few years ago talking about inbound marketing and building business in general. When he needed WordPress help, he reached out to me.

Since then we’ve forged a strong working relationship that I hope lasts for years.

“So why do I care Matt?” you might be saying to yourself.

Here is why you should care…

Being human sells

John and I get into a great conversation about connecting with our clients on a real human level.

He tells this story about how we connected and his experience with using my firm. The take away from this is, you don’t always have to be selling.

I never sold to John, but he knew I did “things” with WordPress.

There’s a great...