WP Builds

This week we get to meet the man behind the Beaver Builder Facebook group - Dave Toomey. Many of you will know that there is a 8,000 strong group out there, but perhaps you didn’t know that it was not started by the folk over at Beaver Builder, but by a lone Irish fella called Dave Toomey. Turns out that running a large Facebook group involves quite a bit of work.

In this episode Nathan and David talk about GPL (General Public License). This is the license that allowed the work that was done webblog tool B2 to be used to make WordPress. It’s the licence that allowed WooCommerce to use the entire code of Jigoshop. What does this mean for those of us who built websites professionally with WordPress? How do premium theme and plugin providers survive?

In this episode we talk to Andre Gagnon from Project Huddle. Andre has been wrestling with the issue that we all face of trying to gain meaningful comments about static designs and website builds. Often, it’s tricky trying to communicate with clients, but he hopes to solve some of that! It’s worth listening to the very end as he’s a really lovely guy with some great advice!

In today's episode we talk to Puneet Sahalot. He is probably best known as the man behind Power Pack, a Beaver Builder addon pack over at wpbeaveraddons.com. We talk a little bit about what coming up next for PowerPack, but we also talk about two new products, Woo Pack and WP Fomo.

In this episode we interview Adam Hempenstall from BetterProposals.io, a company on a mission to make the dull job of writing proposal for your client work as painless as possible. We’ve all been there, you’ve had the client meeting, then you get back to the office to discover that you’ve lost your mojo, because you have to write that proposal and the blank page just kills your will to live! This can help!

In this weeks episode we discuss the thorny issue of how we communicate with clients; how we communicate our value to clients in the face of stiff competition from the likes of Squarespace and Wix. We talk about the way that we talk to clients and what we do to ensure that they 'get' what it is that we're trying to sell them.

We’re always in groups talking about WordPress software, but rarely do we talk about how we evaluate it. That’s what this episode is about. Do we:

Test software for ourselves?

Trust the views of leading influencers?

Follow the majority view?

We’re always in groups talking about WordPress software, but rarely do we talk about how we evaluate it. That’s what this episode is about. Do we:

Test software for ourselves?

Trust the views of leading influencers?

Follow the majority view?

How much are we swayed by our knowledge of the companies that make the software. Do we know what they stand for and believe in? Do we know them more by reputation. Does the personalities of developers and plugin owners matter?

Also what of pricing models? As Appsumo knows only too well most of us have an eye for a great deal, but are we wary of models that seem unsustainable in the long term?

Premium software in WordPress still seems to be relatively new so it was unlikely that we would come up with a perfect system for choosing the tools. Nevertheless we had a nice chat and hope the topic might generate further conversation.

News Section

Ah, yes about that … stuff definitely did happen this week. In fact had there been a news section in this episode we would have probably talked about:

1. GoDaddy’s recent subscription service for WordPress support.

goo.gl/ckRYq2

2. Possibility we would have talked about a new plug-in called Dobby that hides annoying admin notices.

goo.gl/TPEyRP

3. Chances are Nathan might have talked about how hackers are targeting fresh installs of WordPress.

goo.gl/ef9uFp

Unfortunately Nathan is still on his holiday and David(close to death, but heroically managing to get this episode out) has lost his voice!

Links

trends.builtwith.com (this was mentioned as tool for seeing what software is used on the web)

goo.gl/eGDhJJ

WPtoolkit. (this is the GPL club wrongly called Toolset in the episode)

goo.gl/wrqTps

We are not recommending GPL clubs. In fact this one already looks to be slow with updates.

Whatever I do on the internet these days, I seem to be being followed about by Mike Killen, the guest for this week. I see his face everywhere, posting here, in a sponsored post there, I cannot get away from him. The reason for this is that a) he’s really got an understanding how how to be on my radar with his products and services b) he’s just so damn handsome, so I cannot miss him when he does appear.

Whatever I do on the internet these days, I seem to be being followed about by Mike Killen, the guest for this week. I see his face everywhere, posting here, in a sponsored post there, I cannot get away from him. The reason for this is that a) he’s really got an understanding how how to be on my radar with his products and services b) he’s just so damn handsome, so I cannot miss him when he does appear.

Seriously, Mike knows really well how to get people that you don’t know to engage with your products and services. He does this with funnels. Now funnels to me are those tiny plastic cones that you got in class to pour chemicals from this jar in to that other jar… but to Mike, funnels are complex processes and systems that he designs all day long to slowly but surely guide leads from strangers into trusted customers.

Turns out that the complexity of it is not so complex after all, and Mike does his best to explain how funnels work, why we should use them and why WordPress is the best way that there is to glue the whole thing together.

Mike is the owner of sellyourservice.co.uk and a coach at WP Elevation. He’s a great guy to listen to and if this whole funnel thing scares you, then take a listen to this episode and calm yourself down!