The Kim Doyal Show

Beaver Themer was the initial reason I asked Robby to come back on the podcast (of course representing the Beaver Builder team).

This was my second 'three-peat' guest on the podcast and I couldn't be happier that Robby McCullough joined me to represent Beaver Builder for the third time on the show.

Needless to say, we talked about Beaver Themer, but we also talked about the amazing year and journey that the Beaver Builder team (and company) has gone through. I couldn't be happier for them, their success and the amazing community that has grown from one simple idea.

The simple idea to streamline the site building process.

Questions I Asked Robby

Congratulations on the 3 Year Birthday of Beaver Builder! Super exciting! What's changed for you guys since the first interview we did?

Can we talk a little bit about the partnership with GoDaddy? How did that come about?

The Beaver Builder Community is pretty amazing, how does that make you guys feel to see such a strong community that has grown from your product?

How many downloads have you guys had of both plugins (the free & premium)?

Let's talk Beaver Themer. Can you explain to the listeners what Beaver Themer is?

What are the best uses for Beaver Themer?

How long was Beaver Themer in the making?

Next is the new UI for Beaver Builder, when is that coming out?

What You're Going to Learn

Why the Beaver Builder team started with a premium product and then released a free version

The changes they made to the plugin specifically to incorporate it into the GoDaddy on-boarding process

How the Beaver Builder Facebook community was started (shout out to Dave Toomey)

What the Beaver Builder team thinks about the third party ecosystem that has evolved from their product

Who they've followed for inspiration to grow their support and ecosystem

What Robby's thoughts are on pricing in the WordPress space

How they've grown with the team

What's coming with the Builder 2.0

Where to Connect with Beaver Builder

Website | Facebook Group | Twitter

Links from this episode

Beaver Builder

Beaver Themer

Beaver Lodge

PowerPack for Beaver Builder

Ultimate Beaver Addons

Beaver Builder Swag Store

I'm totally going to date myself here... but as soon as I wrote 'Let's Get Personal' in the post title the song "Let's Get Physical" by Olivia Newton-John popped into my head and has been stuck on loop.

Although I will say that I was still in elementary school when this song came out (trying to hold on to as much of my youth as I can I guess).

I've gotten a wee bit obsessed with where things are headed in terms of personalization in marketing.

I'm sure I would have dipped my toes in eventually, but as soon as we started working on LeadSurveys and what we wanted it to do, down the rabbit hole I went.

I'll talk a little more about LeadSurveys in a minute, but let's talk about personalization.

There are a few terms you're probably familiar with when it comes to personalization. You've seen people use custom fields or merge tags in email marketing (ex: Hi {first_name} and it automatically inserts your first name into the body of the email, or whatever name you gave them when you signed up in the first name field. ;- )).

No doubt you've experienced some of this when you're online shopping and next thing you know you see ads everywhere for a product you were looking at a few days prior. This is the magic of retargeting.

 

It might feel a little creepy (Lord knows all of our action online is creating data for someone), but it's also making sure you only see ads for things you're interested in (note: I'm not saying you will only see ads for things you're interested in. It depends on how many ads are on a site you're looking at and the type of advertising the site owner is using).

Things are going to get a lot more personal.

I've mentioned in a few of my recent emails that I'm moving from Active Campaign to Drip. I've been really happy with Active Campaign but as I started digging into more automation I realized that Drip has way more potential with their features than Active Campaign does. I also read a great article by Andre' Chaperon where he explained in full detail the power of Drip and he more or less convinced me.

I definitely have plenty to learn with Drip, but that's O.K., I'm in this for the long haul.

Taking the time to set up these automations and send the right message to the right people at the right time will be golden.

Here are a few of the things you're going to see more of when it comes to personalization:

What does all this mean for you?

You don't have to change everything you're doing, but you should start preparing for these options.

The first thing I would recommend you do is to make sure you're using an ESP (email service provider) that has the power to do all of this (obviously my recommendation is Drip). If you're using an ESP that doesn't allow tagging or segmenting, then you should move to one that will does this now and start segmenting your subscribers.

I recently wrote on post in more depth over at LeadSurveys that will explain where to start with this.

Read 'Segmenting Subscribers: Why You Need to and Where to Start'

I cannot recommend ENOUGH that you should NOT jump into every element of this at once.

If all of this is new to you then you should simply start by planning and get the basics set up. Begin by segmenting your subscribers and deciding what the customer journey (or path) is going to be. You don't need to start building crazy funnels with upsells, downsells, etc. Start collecting emails and segmenting subscribers.

That's step 1.

How I'm doing all this...

I've got the basics set up. I have a tagging framework that makes sense to me and follow-up sequences for each. The next step will be a more in-depth sequence with triggers built into the sequences.

My challenge will be managing all of this while doing my daily emails. I love doing the daily emails and won't be changing that anytime soon, so I need to figure out the best way to use both without people being sick of hearing from me.

I've mentioned how much I love the Beaver Builder community a few times now (on top of loving Beaver Builder in general), Davinder is the perfect example of why this community is so awesome. I've had the good fortune of getting to know Davinder this past year and he never ceases to amaze me with how much he produces (and this is just the stuff we get to see... he has client work too. He's brilliant at producing and creating).

One thing Davinder does better than anyone else I've seen is aggregate content.

His site, ProBeaver does this for all things Beaver Builder.

Anytime I have someone who wants information on Beaver Builder I send them to ProBeaver. He's also recently launched another site, TheWPDaily.com, which yep, brings you WordPress news daily!

 

Questions I Asked Davinder

Before we talk about ProBeaver, what were you doing before launching this site?

What made you decide to go all in with Beaver Builder?

Creating a niche site around one specific tool in WordPress is a great idea. I’m a huge fan of niching down within WordPress… any recommendations for someone who might be interested in doing something similar?

I also believe that content marketing is one of the best ways to grow your audience and build affiliate income. You create the weekly ProBeaver post and email about all things BB. How much time do you spend on aggregating the content?

You just recently released the Beaver Builder Resource guide. I noticed you did a pay what you want model (or free download). What made you decide to go this route instead of a paid ebook?

I’m assuming you’re an affiliate (hoping) for everything you support and recommend. What has worked well for you in promoting affiliate products?

What’s coming for ProBeaver?

What You're Going to Learn

How Davinder launched ProBeaver without any specific plan or strategy

How sharing and documenting helped grow ProBeaver

How Davinder used Dropbox to help create ProBeaver

Why the Beaver Builder Facebook group is Davinder's favorite Facebook group... ever

What Davinder thinks about some of the managed WordPress hosting options (and which ones serve beginners)

What Davinder has been working on (and how you can get more news from him daily)

Where to Connect with Davinder

ProBeaver Website | Facebook | Twitter

Thank you to my sponsor, LiquidWeb, for sponsoring this episode.

I’ve been thinking about this milestone episode for a while now.

I knew I was coming up on episode 150 and wanted to make sure it was a solo show so I could do a recap of what podcasting has done for myself and my business.

I should be beyond episode 150 at this point (I had a few periods in the first couple of years where I had breaks in the show, unfortunately) but I’m here and it’s time to celebrate.

I’ll be doing a live stream a few days after this episode goes live with some giveaways for my audience (you have to attend live to get the giveaways), so be sure to like my Facebook page and pay attention to the events! 

Moving onto my Business & Life Lessons

 

Confidence

I’ve always considered myself a pretty confident person, but it took a lot longer to get over the imposter syndrome in my business than I ever thought it would. For the first 5 years, I really struggled with “who I am to teach this, or talk about this” (this being WordPress) because I wasn’t a coder or programmer. Eventually, I took a strong stance from that place.

I wasn’t a coder or programmer, but I had built a business around WordPress because of my love of WordPress. Plain and simple.

As I figured things out I would share them.

Simple, not rocket science, right?

Yet for some reason, the simplest things aren't always the easiest things.

I've said this many times and it bears repeating for this episode. I launched the podcast simply because I wanted to have more fun. I had zero expectations nor did I have a strategy. I just wanted to bring more of 'me' into my business and have fun while I did it (I was pretty deep in the thick of client work during this time and really feel like I needed something that was mine).

The more I showed up as myself, the more the podcast grew. What I was saying was resonating with people and the feedback was beyond encouraging.

Choosing to 'show up', be me, interview interesting people and let the rest work itself out was the best thing I could have done.

Had I waited until I had a strategy for the podcast I can guarantee you it wouldn't have launched when it did. Podcasts weren't new, but there were far less at the time than there are today.

Doing the podcast gave me the confidence I needed in my business to really show up.

Connections & Relationships

As much fun as I have doing the show, the connections, and relationships that have come out of the podcast is without a doubt the biggest gift of them all.

It's so easy to get caught up in our businesses and just getting the work done. Sometimes taking the time to connect with people feels like a luxury or something we fit in after the work is done. Having the podcast has sort of 'forced' me to keep connecting with people and extend my relationships.

You can scale your business on your own, but it's a lot more fun and happens much quicker when you have people to share it with and support you along the way.

And at the end of the day, the podcast is a way to use the platform I've built to share someone else's message (or product or service). It's a genuine give for my guest and my audience.

I truly feel giddy when I think about the people who have become friends simply by connecting through the podcast. They've made a difference in my life whether it was business advice, a good laugh or helping me to see something from a different perspective.

It makes me feel like a little kid when I think about how many more awesome people I have yet to connect with.

 

Sh*t Happens... and it's O.K

We've heard all the inspirational sayings like,

"Fail hard, fail fast"...

"It doesn't matter what happens to us, what matters is how we handle it."

"If it doesn't challenge you, it won't change you."

You get the point.

The challenge when you're going through something like this is that it can feel overwhelming, frustrating, and lonely.

Thanks to my awesome web host, LiquidWeb, for sponsoring the podcast.

This is one of my first official '3-peat' guests on the show, and I couldn't be more excited to have my friend, Troy Dean back on the podcast.

Getting to know Troy the last few years has been nothing but inspiring.

I won't get into a bunch of mushiness over Troy today, but suffice it to say I have a ton of respect for who he is and what he's created in his business (and life).

We talked a lot about WP Elevation on this episode but we also went in a direction I hadn't expected. We got into mindset, abundance, and beliefs.

I already thought the world of Troy so it was fun to see where our philosophies lined up in this space as well. In many ways, I feel like I'm finally getting how all of this really fits together. And when I say 'all of this', I mean how what goes on in our head impacts our business (and that you can't really separate the two).

Troy also shared some very exciting news on the show... he's going to be a Dad! Very soon! I think he's about a month out from the due date as this airs. I'm super excited for Troy & his wife (I had the pleasure of meeting her when they were on their California tour last summer).

 

Questions I Asked Troy

You've had a busy year since you were on the show last (almost a year ago exactly). Let's do a quick update for the listeners first.

I want to talk about the WordPress Business space a little bit (how things are changing, acquisitions, etc.). Not to assume you have a crystal ball, but where do you think things are headed?

You’ve changed your business model quite a bit since our first interview. Can you share a little bit of your journey over the last three years and what’s brought you to where you are?

Let’s shift directions a bit to the small business owner / solopreneur. One thing I’ve been on a little bit of a rant about over the last couple of years is pricing, particularly in the WordPress space.

I know you talk about this a lot in WP Elevation. And of course I assume everyone listening is familiar with WP Elevation, but for the listeners who aren’t familiar, can you explain what WP Elevation is?

How can people get more leverage out of the work they’re already doing?

Who is WP Elevation for?

What You're Going to Learn

Why Troy shifted from a membership model to a course model for WP Elevation

How WP Elevation created the foundation for Rockstar Empires

Troy's thoughts on the space of WordPress Businesses

What Troy listens to that inspires him to keep challenging himself

How creating processes for their staff creates what they teach for the customers & students

How people are discovering WordPress every day, and what that means for business

Why Troy believes in an abundant universe

Troy's prediction for SaaS & the role with WordPress

Where to Connect with Troy

Website | Facebook | Twitter

This episode is sponsored by my awesome web host, LiquidWeb.

I've wanted to write a book for a while now.

My guess is that many of you have thought of writing a book too, but the thought of it seems a little overwhelming or you're not sure where to start.

The first time I thought of writing a book was probably a couple years into my business when I had gotten to the other side of some very difficult times in my life. I was (and still am), in awe of all the possibilities the internet provides.

As someone who has been an avid reader my entire life (and spent 10 years in the book industry), the stories of inspiration and hope drive me the most (and yes, I love a good novel too).

This is why we love the 'hero's journey', isn't it?

As entrepreneur's, we all feel that "call to adventure" (the first step in the hero's journey, thank you, Joseph Campbell).

Which is also why I was excited to talk to Jesse Krieger, of Entrepreneur's Press. Jesse's own story is full of adventure, challenges, and opportunities. Which all led him to create his publishing company that helps entrepreneurs get their message out to the world through publishing their own books.

 

Before you jump into the interview, make sure to sign up for the free online book summit:

Sign up for the online book summit here

Questions I Asked Jesse

Before we get into the publishing side of your business, you have a fascinating background! Can you share your journey from musician, to USB store owner to Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press (before you published your first book)?

Let’s talk about your first book, Lifestyle Entrepreneur. What was it about and how did it come about?

When did you decide to go all in with helping entrepreneurs become published authors?

I'm sure a lot of people would like to write a book but think they don’t have it in them or aren’t sure about whether it’s worth the time and energy. What are your thoughts?

I spent 10 years in the book industry and am a huge reader… there are books on every topic imaginable. How do you guide clients who think their market wouldn’t really be served by a book?

What are some of the benefits of having a book?

I would assume that the promotion is as important as the production. What should someone know about the promotion side of things?

What You're Going to Learn

How Jesse's career as a musician led him to Southeast Asia

How he got his first book published in Malaysia

The difference between the publishing world in Asia and the U.S. and what his book tour was like

How he launched his company, Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press

How you can write a book, even if you're not sure where to start

The different ways you can get your book written

How to join Jesse's free online book summit

Where to Connect with Jesse

Website | Twitter | Facebook

Thank you to my sponsor and awesome web host, LiquidWeb for sponsoring this episode.

I wish I could tell you that SEO was something I got excited about.

For me, it's one of those necessary evils. Over the years I've gotten better at it (although I'm still not a fan of keyword research... also a necessary evil, but all worth the time and effort) and can see the results of my efforts.

All of that was before I connected with Phil Singleton, one of the authors of SEO for Growth.

Phil got me to think of SEO in a whole new way.

Mainly because he believes that SEO isn't simply the tactics that have been used. It's the bigger picture. SEO for Growth incorporates content marketing and social media (and we all know how I feel about content, don't we?). I could have talked to Phil for hours... not only is he a great guest with a ton of energy, he's like this massive wealth of knowledge. You're definitely going to want to take notes or at least download the transcripts (you can grab them at the end of the post, I've got an opt-in for you to get them).

Questions I Asked Phil

First, you’ve had a pretty fascinating career that led to your SEO path. Can you share that journey with the listeners?

Since we can’t cover the entire book in an hour (and want people to buy the book anyways), there are a few things I picked out that I thought would be most helpful for my audience. A little basic question, but can you explain inbound marketing?

You talk about why 99% of websites fail. Are there a couple common things you see a lot of people doing?

Can you help me get over my hatred of keyword research?

Are there a couple tips or best practices you can share about link building? I know I personally don’t have a solid strategy for this because I’m not exactly sure where to start.

How does social media tie in with SEO?

I’m a huge fan of creating, producing content. I still see so many people struggle with this. Any advice?

 

What You're Going to Learn

How working overseas and learning Mandarin led Phil towards entrepreneurship and owning his own agency

Why Phil thinks podcasting is one of the most over-looked opportunities for SEO

Phil's opinion on guest posting (hint: it's not dead and is still a great way to build quality links)

Why web designers have a huge opportunity right now

How to leverage relationships and influencers for SEO and traffic

How they used influencers to amplify the book marketing

How social media works with SEO (despite what Google says or doesn't say)

Get SEO for Growth 

Where to Connect with Phil

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Links from this episode

SEO for Growth website

Chief Marketing Officers at Work - Josh Steimle

Anne Handley

Thanks to LiquidWeb for sponsoring this episode of The WordPress Chick Podcast

After years of having a team for development, I knew it was time to get some help to speed up my site.

I'd done plenty of things on my own (caching, CDN, deleting plugins, etc.), but the truth is this isn't my wheelhouse. And I had zero desire to learn how to do these things.

Since I've been publishing a lot more content and putting a conscious effort into driving traffic to my site I knew I needed to optimize it. I also wanted someone to go through things that may have been done quickly as opposed to correctly and clean up things (this sounds so ambiguous as I'm writing it, but trust me, I had a plan).

The first thing I thought was that I would go to WPCurve.

Then realized I couldn't... when I wanted to sign up they weren't taking new customers due to the recent acquisition by GoDaddy.

Hmm... fortunately, I happen to be in a private Facebook Group and someone had posted a request for a review of their site, ValiusWP. I don't remember exactly what the question about their site was but when I saw that they offered WordPress support I went instantly over to the site (talk about the power of sharing in Facebook Groups, right?).

 

I signed up for the plan that included site optimization.

Hallelujah!

My site speed increased by a couple seconds... WOOHOO!

Each week I get a website care report that lists:

Massive peace of mind.

Their support is amazing (during normal business hours I get a response in less than 15 min? Usually sooner). I knew I wanted to have them on the podcast to spread the word (I've already referred a couple friends). If you're considering looking for support for your site (unlimited small jobs), look no further.

Questions I Asked Steven

What were you & Kolby (his business partner) doing before launching WP Valius?

Where did the name come from?

How did you and Kolby connect?

What made you decide to launch a subscription model support company?

What are some of the common things people request help for?

I signed up for the site optimization and LOVE it. What are the biggest issues you see with site optimization?

How's the growth and marketing for the company going?

What You're Going to Learn

How quickly they got up and running with their support model

How they approached pricing

How big their team is

Some of the most common issues people have

What defines a 'small job' (unlimited 3o minute tasks)

Which plugins they use (they have a basic plugin library)

How you can get started with ValiusWP

Where to Connect with Steven & ValiusWP

Website | Twitter | Facebook

This episode is sponsored by LiquidWeb... Managed WordPress Hosting Done Right (my words).

One of my favorite non-fiction books of all time is 'The Obstacle is The Way" by Ryan Holiday. Last year he released "Ego is the Enemy", which comes as a close second.

What do I love so much about these books?

The stories.

True stories.

Of people who have come before us, faced adversity, lived by their convictions, and stood for something. Having been born in San Francisco (a 5th generation) and raised a 49er fan, it didn't come as much of a surprise when Ryan referenced the late, great Bill Walsh.

I'm not about to start spewing NFL statistics, but I don't think there are many people that would argue if I said Bill Walsh was one of the game's greatest coaches. Of all time.

Here's why Ryan Holiday was so influenced by Bill Walsh's book, The Score Takes Care of Itself.

"Walsh took the 49ers from the worst team in football to the Super Bowl in less than 3 years. How? Not with a grand vision or pure ambition, but with what he called the Standard of Performance. That is: How to practice. How to dress. How to hold the ball. Where to be on a play down the very inch. Which skills mattered for each position. How much effort to give. By upholding these standards—whatever they happen to be for your chosen craft—success will take care of itself."

-Ryan Holiday (from his post, Books to Base Your Life On)

What do these books have to do with online marketing?

Everything.

 

When you hear the term 'internet marketing' does your mind automatically go to images of young guys posing in front of Ferrari's, mansions, yachts, and all their friends living the 'laptop lifestyle'?

Yea.

Me too.

Before I come off like a complete hypocrite, I will say that I bought into the 'laptop lifestyle' for a bit. When I was part of the mastermind for a couple years I thought that meant you were successful. It was almost as though if you were showing your fabulous lifestyle then you weren't successful.

No one told me I needed to buy into this, I went willingly.

Why?

Because I didn't trust myself. I didn't trust that how I wanted to live my life, what type of business I wanted and getting there on my own terms was enough.

I had some success, but it wasn't sustainable.

I was spending a lot of money in hopes of making a lot of money.

It was exhausting.

I had some amazing experiences, met some wonderful people and learned a lot. It was because of the mastermind that I started paid traffic (Facebook ads). I also learned how I didn't want to run my business.

I also learned how I didn't want to run my business.

After a very busy 2015, I needed to take a break. Regroup. I realized with all the travel I did for business in 2015 I didn't feel energized.

I felt drained (none of the trips were restful or a vacation).

Which is why it's refreshing to see the 'laptop lifestyle' on its way out.

I was talking with a friend last week who is involved in Facebook advertising and she said that the ads that used to work on Facebook (flashy cars, expensive lifestyle) are no longer working.

Can I get an AMEN?!

 

I love that the push for a certain lifestyle has worn out it's welcome. I think we've all grown weary of what we see online... the pictures that show the fabulous life, the perfect family, the amazing trips, etc. Not that those things don't deserve to be celebrated because they do. When you work hard for something you absolutely should celebrate it. But those are moments, not our lives. And it's vitally important that we learn to keep those moments in perspective. If the 'amazing' moments carry so much weight in our lives how do we feel when we're not living in a constant state of awesomeness?

Do we appreciate the day to day goodness in our lives?

Or are we constantly in a state of never being happy with where we are.

I know that's exactly what happened for me.

This episode is sponsored by my awesome web host, LiquidWeb

I think at some point many web developers are posed with the question of growing their business into an agency or staying on the solo path (even if you have a team, you may choose to stay small).

I waffled with this for a long time. You guys have heard me say over and over again that it had never been my intention to build websites. I fell in love with WordPress, started playing around with it and the next thing I knew I was bartering a website in exchange to having some tile done in my house. At the time, it was a win-win. Looking back sometimes I wonder if it was choosing the wrong fork in the road, but I guess that's how we learn, right?

Fast forward to a few years after that first project and I had hired a developer and a designer. The only problem with doing this was that I never really learned to properly price my projects.

A couple years after having hired the developer and designer I had a project manager and an outsourcing company (other WordPress site builders, like myself, were using my developers and designers). At the time it seemed like a smart decision. It was great cash flow and didn't require much on my end. It did, however, give me a much higher overhead than I ever wanted and all of the sudden I felt trapped.

 

The good news is if you really love what you're doing and have a passion for building websites, you can learn how to scale your business into an agency with larger projects that are much more profitable than the freelancing only route.

That's what Brent Weaver of Ugurus learned.

Brent got into website building at a young age, continued doing so with a good friend (still his business partner), learned a lot of the mistakes we all make along the way, then figured out how to scale his business the right way.

Questions I Asked Brent

Before we get into Ugurus, what were you doing before you launched the company?

What brought you to creating Ugurus? (Why did you start the company?)

When you launched Ugurus, was the Bootcamp your first product?

What are some of the things that get in the way of people creating an agency (moving from freelancer or solo entrepreneur to agency owner)

When I was looking at the 10 weeks of the bootcamp, one of the things that stood out to me was in week 4, the anatomy of the $10k project: Discover why you need to transition how you present yourself. I noticed a huge difference once I scaled my team and it wasn't just me. Any tips you can share without giving away your course?

Are there common characteristics you find that make someone a good agency owner (vs. staying a freelancer)?

When should someone consider expanding their team?

When's the next Bootcamp?

What You're Going to Learn

What Brent was doing in Australia for 6 months and how he realized cubicle life wasn't for him

How he and his partner almost ran their business into the ground

When it's good to have office space (what are the 'right reasons')

How investing in mentoring and coaches shifted the business (and created a business they could sell after 12 years)

When Brent realized there was something to the teaching and training he was doing (hint: he was creating content)

What the first Ugurus course was

How they've built their team of coaches

What courses Ugurus offers

Like Brent mentioned in the episode, you can get access to their Web Design Sales kit! Just click the button below to get free access!

Where to Connect with Brent

Website | Twitter | Facebook