On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends.

Season 1 of the Watchful podcast ended last week with Episode 20, featuring Brian Sooy.

So what are we doing here with one more episode?

We have a special interview with Vic Drover. Normally, Vic is one of my co-hosts on the Watchful pod, but today I'm turning the tables on him.

Vic has gone through a lot of ups-and-downs over the last year as he's tried to kickstart a new era of growth for Watchful, which is now a 7-year old company.

Vic tells the story of the last 18 months, which has included buying out partners and building a new team, rebranding, pushing ahead in Joomla and WordPress, auto-updates, acquisitions, and much more. You might also want to check out Vic's video overview of Watchful.

The post Season #1, Bonus Episode – Vic Drover appeared first on Watchful.

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. In this episode, we’re talking with Brian Sooy.

Brian has a successful agency called AESPIRE in Ohio in the United States. And he just celebrated 25 years in the web development and digital marketing industry. He uses websites built with Joomla and other tools as part of a larger marketing service.

Brian bases all his marketing on a framework called Story Brand. I found this approach fascinating - I read up on Story Brand and started to see ways to apply the framework to Watchful. In this episode, we talk a lot about story telling and how to make your customer into the hero of your company’s narrative.

The post Episode 20 – Brian Sooy appeared first on Watchful.

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends.

In this episode, we’re talking with Kimberly Lipari. She’s the CEO of Valet, an agency that focuses on WordPress support and development. She’s also one of the lead organizers for WordCamp US. This year the event is going virtual for the first time and we chatted with Kimberly about the challenges of moving such a big event online.

Kimberly is incredibly self-aware and engaging. We really liked the personal approach she takes at Valet, both with her team and with her clients. We chatted about the importance of connecting with people and being vulnerable, how Valet has grown and contracted over the years, and how they see themselves as a non-traditional partner to their clients.

The post Episode 19 – Kimberly Lipari appeared first on Watchful.

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. In this episode, we’re talking with Teresa Smith and Jennifer Marriott from Red Sage Communications.

Red Sage is a successful female-owned digital agency with two locations in Alabama in the American southeast. They pay good salaries and take care of their staff with excellent benefits. And they've been growing, even during the pandemic. We talk with them about how they’ve managed to grow during bumpy times. They credit their deep roots in the local community and also their use of modern tools, including time-tracking. They tell us how Red Sage uses Watchful to manage a network of over 200 client sites.

The post Episode 18 – Teresa Smith and Jennifer Marriott appeared first on Watchful.

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends.

On this episode of the pod, we’re talking with Andrew Palmer. Andrew manages over 300 sites at his digital agency in the UK and describes himself as an “accidental entrepreneur”.

Andrew may be an “accidental entrepreneur” but he is a fascinating and successful one. He has interests in restaurants, SaaS services, marketplaces, a development company that he has grown in India and much more. He has strong opinions and creative ideas. 

Here are some of Andrew's many projects:

Here's the balloon guy that Andrew mentions in the podcast:

The post Episode 17 – Andrew Palmer appeared first on Watchful.

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re talking with Nathan Ingram. He’s a growth coach for WordPress agency owners and the founder of MonsterContracts.com.

Nathan is really in the sweet spot for this podcast. He’s been building websites for customers for 25 years and runs his own agency. Nathan uses all his experience to coach new agency users and produce resources to help them out. Nathan's episode is high energy, engaging, and full of great advice.

The post Episode 16 – Nathan Ingram appeared first on Watchful.

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends.

On this episode of the pod, we’re talking with Mike Demo. Mike has had a long career building websites at digital agencies. He now works at Web Ventures, an investment subsidiary of InMotion Hosting.

Mike is a long-time friend of both of ours. In fact, he’s a long-time friend of a lot of people. Mike’s career has been built on relationships. First, he was a salesperson for web agencies, bringing in high-value projects. At Web Ventures he uses his relationships with people in the WordPress community to look for business to invest in.

We ask Mike about how to move your agency upmarket and close big deals. We also discuss how to make your agency more valuable for sale.

The post Episode 15 – Mike Demo appeared first on Watchful.

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re talking with Brian Mitchell.

Brian is the newly minted President of Open Source Matters, the legal and financial organization that backs the Joomla project. He runs his own web agency called Intergen. In fact, his office is just north of Milwaukee, about a 20 minute drive from Vic's office.

InterGen started as a non-profit to help volunteer organizations and they still use a .org domain name. Over the years, Brian's work grew to include more web design and now they focus on premium hosting. Brian has been thinking for years about how to build successful non-profits and he’s a good fit as the new figurehead of the Joomla community.

The post Episode 14 – Brian Mitchell appeared first on Watchful.

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we're speaking with Adam Silver.

No, this isn't the commissioner of the NBA, but rather one of WordPress’ most prolific podcasters. He’s also an agency owner and serial start-up founder.

Adam runs several podcasts including the KitchenSinkWP podcast where he talks frankly about his experience in the  WordPress industry. These podcasts help drive business to ConciergeWP, which is his WordPress agency. A lot of what we talk about in this episode focuses on benefits of having a community-minded approach, helping and connecting people.

The post Episode 13 – Adam Silver appeared first on Watchful.

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re speaking with Nicola Fleming.

Nicola and I got to talking over email about her growing business, our shared involvement in the sport of rugby, and the winding paths of our careers.

Nicola runs a one-person agency called WebCoast in Australia. We originally started talking with her with about upgrading her Watchful account. We were curious about how she successfully manages a large number of clients, across Joomla and WordPress. It turns out her success is based on having a very clear knowledge of her target audience; in which she's developed processes for building and maintaining their sites.

The post Episode 12 – Nicola Fleming appeared first on Watchful.