In this episode, I’m chatting with Joe Casabona of WP in One Month and How I Built It. We’re chatting about front end development, having empathy and stepping into the WP education space.

Joe shares a wealth of knowledge on how he’s helping others learn WordPress and why he started his new podcast, How I Built It. There is one common thread in everything Joe does, and it is helping others. He truly has the heart of a teacher.

Joe Casabona is a Front End Developer that works in WordPress…a lot. In 2014, he authored a book called Responsive Design with WordPress and 2 other books on web development.

He also develops courses on WP in One Month and hosts the How I Built It podcast.

Check out LearnDash. Easily transform your WordPress site into a powerful learning management system using LearnDash.

Sell e-learning courses, track user progress, deliver certificates, and much more! LearnDash is trusted by major universities, million dollar marketers, training organizations, and bloggers worldwide.

Discover more at LearnDash.com

In this episode, I’m chatting with Shawn Hesketh of WP101 on how his growing business is helping designers and developers provide highly effective WordPress training for clients.

Shawn is the Voice of WordPress for so many of us. His company, WP101 produces high quality, professional videos and offers them through the WP101 plugin and at WP101.com.

Shawn shares his wealth of knowledge on producing WordPress training courses and even shares helpful tips on how to create your own screencasts.

My name is Shawn Hesketh, and for 26 years, I enjoyed a rewarding career as a freelance designer.

Over the years, I built countless WordPress sites for my clients. To get my clients up to speed as quickly as possible, I also provided one-on-one WordPress training.

But one-on-one training just isn’t feasible for everyone. So in 2008, I created a WordPress 101 video “crash course” to help beginners learn how to use WordPress in as little time as possible.

Microphones: Blue Yeti and Rode Podcaster.
Screencast Tools: Screenflow and Camtasia
Audio Enhancements: Garageband and Audacity

Shawn talks about why he chose LifterLMS for their membership course platform.

Shawn’s blog: ShawnHesketh.com

This episode may also be found on the Rethink.fm Youtube channel

In this episode, I’m chatting with Chris Ford who is leveraging her talents as a successful web designer to empower others. We discuss how her 20 years of web design experience is creating new opportunities in her career evolution.

There’s one common thread in Chris Ford’s 20 year web design career: learning new web design tools, techniques and processes, then teaching them to others.

She passionately believes that education is one of the most overlooked and underused ways to improve the user experience of a website or product.

Chris is currently in the process of rebooting Creativity Included, her design and branding company, to focus on education for both designers and product businesses.

Chris mentioned Webflow during the podcast as the tool she uses for wire-framing and mockups.

This episode is available on Youtube: Rethinkfm Episode 4.

In this episode, I’m chatting with Erin E Flynn about mastering client communications.

To be successful in your freelance business it is crucial that you develop solid communication skills for managing clients and projects. Erin shares tips on how to avoid nightmare clients, and become efficient and effective with your client communications.

It is a skill that everyone will benefit from.

Erin has been making websites since 1999, and started her own web design and development company in 2012. After a few years creating websites for clients, Erin shifted her business. Now, her primary business is helping other designers and developers navigate the difficult waters of entrepreneurship by providing courses and guides to teach everything from how to start a web design business to how to deal with nightmare clients.

When she’s not teaching designers or working with her own design/development clients, Erin can be found exploring the mountains near her home in Aspen, Colorado.

Keep an eye out for Erin’s development agency that will be launching this fall!

A few resources suggested on this topic:

Project Management Tools:

Freedcamp

Basecamp

Erin’s website has some very helpful tips on client communications.

This episode is alo available on YouTube.

In this episode, I’m chatting with Sallie Goetsch about Content Audits and how they can save you development time.

If you’ve every had a project with a lot of existing content, performing an audit of that content BEFORE you begin any design or development work, will save you time. We’ll talk about what it is and how to go about performing one.

It is a valuable service to offer that benefits both you and your client.

Sallie Goetsch (rhymes with ‘sketch’) first got online in 1985, via the mainframe at Brown University.

She founded an online journal in 1993 and built her first HTML website in 1994. Since discovering WordPress in 2005, she hasn’t looked back. Sallie became the organizer of the East Bay WordPress Meetup in Oakland, California, in 2009.

Sallie has produced WordPress videos for Peachpit Press, taught introductory WordPress classes for Mediabistro, and acted as Technical Reviewer for O’Reilly’s WordPress: The Missing Manual. She runs her WP Fangirl consulting and development business from her home in Oakley, which she shares with her husband and two cats.

A few resources suggested on this topic:

Plugins:

Content Audit Plugin

Export WordPress data to XML/CSV Plugin

Books:

Content Strategy for the Web (Voices That Matter)

Content Strategy for WordPress: Structured content and sustainable workflows for a future-proof site

This episode is all about content. My guest John Locke and I talk about developing a content first strategy when working on client projects.

Since 2012, John has been helping business owners in Sacramento and across the country. His WordPress consultancy, Lockedown Design, helps businesses improve their SEO, launch and improve their e-commerce stores, and solves business critical problems on their WordPress websites. John also serves the WordPress community as a co-organizer the Sacramento WordPress Meetup and as the co-host of the WP-Tonic podcast.

In this episode, I’m talking about how the idea for Rethink.fm came to be. Tonya Mork shares her thoughts on WordPress, code, and workflow.

Tonya teaches programming, how to think about code, and how to build WordPress products (themes and plugins) at Know the Code.

She is always examining the way we do things to find a better path, one that is more efficient, effective, that moves us forward, and is balanced with the intent. She loves sharing ideas, planting seeds, and inspiring others to consider a different approach. She is an engineer, innovator and a forward-thinker.