WP Elevation WordPress Business Podcast

Watch the video of this podcast here.

How Your Grew Her Business... Fast!

She started as a social media consultant and ran a consultancy for four years purely from word of mouth referrals. However, she got to the point where she was burnt out with too many clients and working solo.

She explains that this YouTube thing all started by accident!  Her clients kept asking her the same questions and she was constantly on phone calls and in meetings which were a waste of her time. So she decided to do a YouTube tutorial about live streaming for your business and how to use Periscope which had just come out.

She sent it to her clients, not thinking much of it, but by the next day, she had 1,000 views. (Which has now grown to 80,000 views.) This is when she realised the power of Search on YouTube and making videos that people are looking for. And that’s how she built her channel up so fast within only two years.

The beauty of YouTube is that it is free marketing. You aren’t paying to get views and she gets leads every single day. So why isn’t everyone using it?

Why Should People Be Using YouTube for Their Business?

You can teach your customers. This is the main reason to use it. It is an educational platform to give  “How To” tutorials and to do them in a way that is unique to you.
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world (Google is the first)
Creating content that your customers are looking for is how you grow and gain momentum really fast and you build your lead generation machine... literally while you sleep!
It’s free! People are happy to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to have an advert placed at certain times of the day! This is out there 24 hours a day at no cost. She does pay for advertising now that she has traction though, so combined with her YouTube tutorials, that works great for her. However, you need to have a little bit of money in the bank before you invest in advertising.
[vum-bigtweet tweet="Grow your business fast with YouTube. Listen in to @ylenarduzzi on the WPE podcast"]

What Is the First Step to Making a Video?

Listen to your customers. If you don’t have customers yet, go to your competitors and see what comments they are getting and what is being asked. Check for FAQ pages because if one person is asking it, there are thousands more that are asking too.

Why Would I Give Away This Information for Free?

People often ask y why they would post information on how to do something when they want to get paid to do it for them instead. y says that people are inherently lazy and when videos get too technical and “make your head want to explode” that’s when you go to the expert and ask for help - which is now you!

y says that she puts so much information out on her YouTube channel for free because the more value she puts out in her videos, the higher she ranks, the more comments she gets, Google then favours the content, the more people see it through Search, the more people say “She is the expert, I want her to teach me and I’m going to buy her stuff”!

[vum-bigtweet tweet="When it comes to content “The more you give, the more you’re going to get in return” @ylenarduzzi on WPE podcast"]

If you're worried that you have missed the boat on using YouTube for your business, it isn't too late. y says that all you need to do is out-value your competitors on there!

What If You Don’t Have the Best Equipment?

She started out with an $80 webcam (the C920), a LAV microphone and instead of using a tripod she used a stack of books and sat in front of the window. She did that for the first year when she got her first 50,000 subscribers on YouTube! The production quality doesn’t need to be high, what does need to be good is the content.

[wpecallout title="Gold Nugget Tip:" align="left" image="/wp-content/themes/wpelevation/images/callout/nuggets.png"]Take your ego out of the equation, don’t worry about what you look like and just start with what you have.

“There is something to be said for authenticity and using what you have.”

If you have a phone then you can start making videos - no excuses![/wpecallout]

Listen in at the 15-mark where y tells us about making her first viral video in her pyjamas!

As a recovering perfectionist, y has learned that “done is better than perfect”. Just get your content out there and make sure it works before you start tweaking or changing things. If you compare the quality of production from when she started to now, it has improved so much, but that has taken a lot of time and she was able to do that because YouTube grew her resources to be able to. Just be truthful about where you’re at.

Tune in at the 20-minute mark, where y offers tips on how to get over the fear of being on camera.

[wpecallout title="Bonus Tip: Get to the Point!" align="left" image="/wp-content/themes/wpelevation/images/callout/inspiration.png"]Long intros and explaining why people should watch the video are two of the biggest killers for attention. The longer that people watch your video, the higher you will rank.[/wpecallout]

Posting Strategy

y does 1 video a week. It is too hard to run a business and do more than that. Each video takes a lot of work even in the uploading to get it optimised. Quality over quantity but keep it consistent.

People make the mistake of making content and then just moving on to making the next pieces of content. You need to take the time to get it out there. Promote and optimise it.

Even if you have a small following on IG, share your video, because that is how it is going to grow. The work is not done when you hit publish.

There is so much more gold in here so make sure you listen in!

How have you been able to grow your business on Youtube? Let us know below!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video of this podcast here.

Donovan Janus is the CEO of 17hats which is an all in one business management app where you can manage client communications, proposals, contracts, bookkeeping and more.

His idea for the software happened when he was working for an online gallery system at the time. The company was trying to generate and followup leads but they were wasting too much time on these processes. (And we all know, as business owners, we never have enough time!)

He tried to find a complete solution for the client onboarding process, but nothing such as this existed at the time. So, he decided to build it himself, and despite being told they were crazy, the demand for the product was huge and the company grew quickly.

Donovan says that an influential book for him has been “The E-Myth” by Michael E. Gerber which explores the different stages of growth within a business. One of the stages is when you become ashamed of your business - which is where Donovan was at the beginning of this year. They had been in business for two years and had grown to 75 employees, but he started to see the cracks in the foundations of the business and was embarrassed, especially about their lack of customer support.

They had launched a service called “Ally” where they actually run businesses for people and it was meant to have superior customer service. Whilst it was a good idea, it became too much and they weren’t ready for it.

Two years in and they realised that they needed to make changes because the way it was going wasn’t sustainable. They had to start again from basics and turn everything back around which took a whole year to do. They shut down the Ally service and brought those people to customer support. These were people who have actually run businesses before so the support went from something that was embarrassing to “a point of pride”.

Donovan tells us that recently he ran into his business coach from when he was 18. After discussing his business ventures with him, the coach told him that they had failed because he over-complicated them!

1. His first business was successful, but then he added too many products
2. The second company was going ok until he added more complication by introducing a photo app.
3. And now with 17hats, he had added a human service to a software company

Donovan has learned that often people overcomplicate their business because a client has suggested an idea. But if a client does this, you need to ask yourself what the side effects of this will be.

[wpecallout title="Gold Nugget Take-Away:" align="left" image="/wp-content/themes/wpelevation/images/callout/nuggets.png"]Don’t overcomplicate things when it comes to your business![/wpecallout]

Donovan says that the first thing you should do is define your mission and vision. He did this with his team before they even started the coding for the product. A couple of months ago they reviewed their mission and they were surprised to see how much they had got off track.

One of the things that they always wanted to be was affordable for small business owners. However,  not only had they raised the price, but they had also overcomplicated it with three different pricing plans. So they have now lowered the pricing and gone back to one plan.

If you don’t take the time to define your mission and vision, as a result you have a harder time making decisions. Defining this gives you so much clarity.

The company has gone through many structural changes as it has grown. One of the challenges has been that as the company grows, processes slow down because everyone wants to put in their opinion and different people have to sign off on things. So they have simplified the structure and they work from a 90-day roadmap where everyone knows what they need to do and they have the full responsibility for that without having to go through all of the red tape.

Now he has time to get back to programming!

1.The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. He turns to this book for inspiration just to know that the things that they are going through are normal.

2.The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz. This will take you back to foundations and what matters most in management such as bad clients and employees, and how to handle those situations.

The company uses Slack but he is trying to limit how much they use that. He tells his employees that every time they send a message, that it costs $5. Why?  Because it stops their workflow and switches their intention. (It’s all about focussing people!)

A fun exercise to do with your employees so you can see how less productive you are when you multi-task:

1. Write down the sentence “I am good at multitasking”
2. Underneath each letter in this sentence, write a number counting up from 1.
3. This time try writing the letter and then the number, the next letter and the next number etc

See how much longer that took! By focusing on one thing at a time, you get so much time back.

So there you have it. Some simple but awesome tips to help you get back to what is important in business. Tune in for that and more on this week’s WP Elevation Podcast!

We would love to hear your thoughts on Donovan’s advice. Have you experienced any of these struggles and simplified your business as a result?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video of this podcast here.

Kim’s Business Transitions

Kim started her own business in 2008 and it has evolved so much over years. She started out thinking that she would be a millionaire from being an Information Marketer but that didn’t work out. That’s when she discovered WordPress and got sidetracked. She named her company “WordPress Chick” which she says was a ballsy name to claim but she stuck with it and figured it out as she went along!

At first, she was bartering for websites and got a couple of people to help her and one thing led to another and it wasn’t long until she had built up an agency and an outsourcing company.

She started podcasting and realised she was much more of a content creator and connector. She loved being able to connect with people and use her voice. She says “I’d rather be the star than the producer” She was having fun and saw the validation that she was getting just from using her voice and being herself.

Kim explains that it got to a point where she was tired of building everyone else’s businesses and so now she has now made the scary leap of faith to wrap up all service work with the WordPress Chick and go all in with a web app with her business partner - Gordon Orlick (Spelling? Cant find anything on him on the internet)

I talk to Kim about starting out and how you never know where you’re going to end up. Kim says she has reinvented herself so many times. She gets inspiration from motivational speakers everywhere she goes and is passionate about audio. “I always have stuff in my ears” and she says she loves it because it is the easiest type of content to listen to and it can be anywhere you go. So podcasting is something she will definitely keep going with, but now it is to build her own business.

Kim's App

Kim talks about how she got her inspiration for her app. She was about to buy a product online and as she was filling in the data about herself, she realised how much this person would then know about her and it was all very valuable data. This got her thinking… creating quizzes is hard work. It has to be engaging, draw in right audience and yet be valuable data that you are collecting.

She asked her partner Gordon to hop on board and they hired a developer. They are creating an app called “Lead Surveys” to help people gain valuable data and leads for their business.

She is nurturing the culture of “Lead Surveys” and making the voice be fun and playful. She also says that she is taking her audience on the journey with them into development.

Kim’s Advice on Changing the Direction of Your Business

• Find a Partner That You Connect With. She says that Gordon and her connect, so they work well together. He knows the technical side and she knows the marketing.
• Build Your Audience First. Before Kim transitioned, she already had an audience and relationships with this audience who trust her. She says that nothing compares to the relationships that you build when it comes to marketing.
• Become a Student of Marketing. Kim observed people who were getting right and learned from what they were doing.
• Build a Solid Foundation. Paid ads don’t do anything unless you have a solid foundation for your business.Focus on the fundamentals and get them set up right.
• Document and share the journey and show up as yourself. Love this! Be authentic - People will feel it!
• Course Correct. If you haven’t got the right formula, change it and move on!
• Put Useful Content Out There. Make value deposits. By doing this, she was able to build trust with her audience that she knows what she is doing. Once you have the audience you can monetize this. “You have to give without expectations.”
• Don’t worry about being judged. Just be a decent human being and show up genuinely! When you are vulnerable, people will like you. This is more important than the technical stuff.

Running a Business and Dealing With Personal Tragedy

I also talk to Kim about what happens when you experience an unexpected crises in your life and how this impacts your career. Kim lost her husband 14 years ago when he was in a car accident. At the time she was working in retail management whilst raising her two children who were ages six and two.

She talks openly about her grief and how it was surreal for such a long time. She kept working full time despite being in shock for a good year. She then became quite angry and she didn’t know how she wanted her life to be. So she took a leave of absence and found a grief counsellor to work through it. This started her on her journey to reinventing herself as well as her career.

She eventually got herself fired from her retail job and tried different things but got to a point where she knew she “couldn’t keep doing things the same and expecting a different result.” She wanted to move gently through her life and be in the moment. She had listened to so many motivational speakers for years but it took her a long time to put all the things she knew about how to live a peaceful life into practice.

Everyone is going through a challenge of their own so being vulnerable with our stories also helps us connect to people. Recently Kim wrote a blog post about her husband’s death and her journey since then. She said that this is one of her most shared blog posts and within an hour she had received 30 emails. All because this was a connection piece. But she also says to baby step your way into the sharing.

Some Advice on Dealing with Grief and Work

• Prepare financially so that you have peace of mind, such as life insurance.
• You never want to be ready for devastation and you can’t prepare for it emotionally. But she says you must always put yourself first. There are times when you’re thinking “I’ve just got to survive”. In those times, just let go of your business - it isn’t the priority. You have to take care of yourself. So focus on that personal foundation spiritually and physically.
• Make sure you have proper support around you and a network of friends and family.
• Kim’s therapist asked her to meditate for five minutes a day for 30 days. After one week she noticed the difference. Her weekend was relaxed and she was able to come back to Monday knowing she can deal with it. Very good tip! Especially for those who think that they don’t have enough time for anything!
• Prioritise a little bit of time to make sure you are filling up your cup. Take baby steps with this too and find what works for you. As for me, I find it hard to meditate so I listen to the “Slo-mo” podcast. ?? (gin- cant find a link for this). Try it if meditation isn’t your cup of tea!

So there you have it. Kim is awesome right? There was so much more in this podcast, so listen in and let us know what you think. Have you been through crises whilst trying to run your business? How did you get through? We would love to hear your comments below.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video of this podcast here.

A Bit About Andrew
Andrew started out in banking in the late 90’s, but after 15 years he realised that he had become an angry young man. It became clear to him when he would talk to people out and about, that there were so many myths out there about finance and he saw so many people that couldn’t manage their own financial affairs. So, he set up a website in 2011 and published a lot of free information which he was able to compile into his best-selling book “How to Own the World”. He describes the book as “an idiots guide to finance with a sophisticated overlay”.

Why Is Financial Literacy so Important for People Who Are Self-Employed?
With your own business, your income can have an uncertainty to it. You have times when the money is coming in and times when things are slow. However, if you learn about finance and make sensible investments, it won’t be long until you can build a nest egg which can throw off returns itself.

The Golden Rule
Andrew says that The Richest Man in Babylon, by George Clason, is an odd book but the one thing he took away from it was “Always put 10% of everything you earn into investments”. Sometimes you obviously can’t do this, especially when you are starting out, but as soon as you have income, put 10% of whatever you have made that month either into an investment account or into sensible investments. Having your own business puts you at risk of an impoverished retirement unless you apply this strategy.

He explains it like this - if Great Aunt Agatha put $5,000 into a tax-free account (like an ISA) for your newborn baby and you were able to achieve 10% interest rate, how much would that child have on their 55th birthday when they can legally retire? $945,000! So really your biggest ally in investment is time. Securing something like this early on in your life = winning!

Pension Funds. Do We Really Need Them?

People tell Andrew that “pension funds are shit” on a regular basis! However, he says that this isn’t true. A pension is a tax sheltered account in which you can do thousands of things. The first thing people may do when they realise that they need to put money away is open a savings account, but keep in mind that if that savings account has an interest rate that is lower than inflation then you are actually losing money.

Ok, so What Do We Do from a Base Level?

• Save 10% of what you earn (unless you are at a development stage in your business then that can be an exception eg. buying equipment)
• Find the optimal tax sheltered account (He recommends an ISA for those in the UK as it has fewer risks and you can access it when you need rather than at retirement)
• Set up a direct debit with a quality stock broking firm. He has used eight but has ended up using Hargreaves Lansdown. They are a bit more expensive but they have good customer service and good reputation. AJ Bell also has good reviews. But all that matters is that the company that you use has access to a wide range of investments

But I’m Nervous to Invest!

If you are conservative and worried, at least just let your cash build up. Although, you may want to listen in at the 21-minute mark to hear why Andrew believes investing is the right option (and he provides more tips on how to do it safely).  One thing that might reassure you is that when you are investing for a nest egg and long-term pension fund over many years, it is completely different to day trading and much less risky.

It’s All About the Fundamentals

Mike talks about the fact that there are many books these days that are actually easy to read and can help you understand the fundamentals of finance. Some examples are David Lynch’s “Beating the Market” and Warren Buffet’s books which explain that you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to invest. What you do need to know is:

• What is a share?
• What is the stock market?
• What are interest rates?
• What is inflation?
• How do you invest sensibly?

“If you’re looking to educate yourself about finances, seek out stuff about the fundamentals not about what the latest stock is or the latest fad is”

Andrew has a list on his website “The Top 8 best Finance Books of all Time”. If you want to learn the fundamentals, he recommends “The Ascent of Money” by Niall Ferguson.  This book asks “what is money?”. The more knowledge you have on finance, the more interesting it becomes!

And to Wrap up…

Mike talks about the huge amount of fear around money that we have in the freelance and entrepreneurial world simply because we are not educated on it. I hear you though - who has the time?! But Andrew talks about the importance of not parking this. If you can invest wisely then you have the ability to make the same amount of money from your savings and investments as you made from your business. Get a savings habit and “it’s remarkable how quickly your pot fills”. For those who are interested, there is an app called “Money Box” which Mike and Andrew recommend to help you stick to a savings plan.

Tune in to find out more on the history of finance and the trends of the stock market. As I said, this is an important podcast! Andrew talks about ISA accounts which are available in the UK, but we would love to know who you use in your country and any other finance tips that have worked for you.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video of this podcast here.

How Did Content Snare Start?

James and Mark started out as Software Engineers but they decided to start their own company, Aktura Technology, in 2010 and worked mostly on creating websites and SaaS (Software as a Service) apps.

They stumbled onto a very annoying problem when working in web development – it is difficult getting information from clients to create web content! (Sound familiar anyone?) They decided to do some research and spoke with many other web developers who all shared the same frustration. James and Mark knew that there could be a software tool to overcome this problem. So, they created Content Snare which is helping web developers drastically save time and the hassle of having to chase up clients for content. Go guys!

Education Marketing

Ok, so they had the awesome product idea and knew there was a demand for it, so how did they start building an audience even before the launch? James explained that throughout the development process, they used education based marketing to build their audience. Helping people for free and educating them in your area of expertise is how you start building your audience.

Getting Inspired!

James says that his inspiration comes from a lot of different things. He goes to live events as much as possible not just to listen to speakers but to network and be around people on the same page who are going through the same struggles. He doesn’t like to hero worship, but he does think that there are people out there who are real and humble such as James Schramko and Dan Norris. These are two examples of people who have built solid communities and are good at what they do. He also likes to listen to Tim Ferris podcasts, and guess who he has been a follower of for quite a while? That’s right peeps - WP Elevation!

Experimenting with Different Marketing Tools

Cath asks if he uses any technology to help with their social media marketing and James says that they trialled Thunderclap but they didn’t get too much leverage from that. He found Facebook ads to be quite successful though and will be getting those up and running again. He wants to continue to experiment and next, they will be trying Reddit ads.

It was interesting to hear James talk about his stand out marketing experiment which was the share competition that they ran on Facebook. The competition was that you could unlock two months of access to Content Snare for free if you shared the post with enough people. By running this competition, they doubled their email list in two days. Read the blog here: https://contentsnare.com/giveaway-helped-double-email-list-2-days/

James talks about the stress he feels of running his company and that it is hard not to dwell on things. They have had times where they’ve made some mistakes along the way and even lost money on getting external developers at one stage. He says that it is inevitable that you will make small mistakes along the way, but you just keep going and doing everything you can to get more leads.

James talks about the stress he feels of running his company and that it is hard not to dwell on things. They have had times where they’ve made some mistakes along the way and even lost money on getting external developers at one stage. He says that it is inevitable that you will make small mistakes along the way, but you just keep going and doing everything you can to get more leads.

Where to for Content Snare?

They will continue to develop Content Snare with WordPress integration being the highest priority on the list. What a challenge!

All this and more in our chat with James Rose.

Have you launched a product? What worked for you and what didn’t? Share your thoughts, comments or questions for James below.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video of this podcast here.

Jeff Bullas started out his career as a teacher but his heart wasn’t in it, so he “fired” himself and started to create content about each new tech revolution – PC, web, and now his content is around social media and marketing your business.

He was one of the early adopters of blogging in 2009 and practised inbound marketing. He was inspired by the book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” by David Meerman Scott, as he liked the idea of attracting customers rather than going out to chase them.

His blog, which started out as a passion project, has ended up being a huge success that it is today. We urge you to visit jeffbullas.com/bio and check out his long list of bragging rights. He is currently in Forbes’ Top 20 Influencers of CMOs.

Blogging Within a Saturated Market

With the blogosphere being such a saturated market these days, Troy asks whether Jeff’s success was also a matter of good timing and whether this kind of success is still possible today. Jeff explains that in business, timing is everything but it isn’t impossible to be a success. It requires persistence and needs passion. If you don’t have these things, then it is going to be hard to show up every day. “Look at me- I am one of the oldest social media bloggers on the planet!” Anything is possible!

Staying Motivated When There Is No Activity on Your Posts

Jeff talks about the social web and how it provides motivation by validating your creation. “That’s why it is important to share your creation with the planet and push it out on social media.” It is also an indicator of what is working and what isn’t.

‘Content marketing' is two words – you have to create good content and then you have to market it; you have to persist. Get your content out there on as many channels as possible such as email, social media and through influencers.

Approaching Influencers

Troy asks the great question that if Jeff is approached with an article, what would make it a no-brainer for him to share it?

Jeff explains that:

• The content must be good. He simply shares what he likes
• It must add value to his audience
• It must be relevant
• If it takes up too much of his time and they don’t make it easy for him, then he won’t bother with it!

Getting Inspired

It’s sometimes difficult to stay inspired especially when you aren't seeing the results straight away. But don’t give up peeps! Jeff gives some great advice –

It’s not a get rich quick scheme; you need to give it time and it has to be driven by true passion and purpose.

Your mindset has to be very much that ‘it is a long game'. You have to have patience and persistence if you want to be a success.

He recommends Cal Newport’s book “Deep Work” which talks about how to start your day. For Jeff, he gets up at 4.30am, meditates for 15 minutes, writes, publishes it on social media then goes to work.

He also mentions a great quote from Stephen King, “If you want to write a lot, then you need to read a lot.” Creativity comes from reading books that are going to inspire you.

Jeff's Content Marketing tips:

1. Build a tribe on Twitter
2. Discover tools to automate sharing your social media posts
3. Create content that is evergreen and doesn’t date easily
4. Post regularly. Jeff posts on Twitter every 15 mins using Agora Pulse which doubles the engagement
5. Create an email list. Jeff continues with his email list because engagement on any platform decreases over time so “you have to keep growing just to stand still”. He uses InfusionSoft which has plugins and add-ons which are used by most of the top bloggers in the world. It isn’t very user-friendly though, so you may want to look into other options like:
   
   1. Marketo for bigger businesses
   2. ClickFunnels for small to medium businesses.
   3. MailChimp if you’re starting out so you don’t over complicate it

How to Get the Information out to as Many People in Your Niche as Possible

Ask yourself the question ‘Who is in front of your target audience?'

For example, you might want to talk to the person who provides software to your niche and do a deal with them.

Where Does Jeff’s Business Come From?

He says that having multiple revenue streams is important. Ad revenue is outdated now so they use influencer marketing projects, sponsorship, speaking, helping people on content and courses, and a blogging course which they sell.

At the end of the day though, he says that people just want to learn from people who are doing and not the people who are just talking about it. He is simply learning how to be an entrepreneur and sharing his journey along the way.

What Is the Best Converting Lead Magnet That Jeff Has Ever Produced?

Jeff tells us that ‘101+ Traffic Tips to Grow Your Website Traffic Without Paying Google or Facebook a Cent' started as a blog which became so popular that he made into a 55-page E-book. Genius!

Reach out

You can reach out and thank Jeff on his Twitter @jeffbullas or on LinkedIn

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video of this podcast here.

Who is Karim Marucchi?
Karim’s company, Crowd Favorite, is a WordPress speciality development shop that works specifically integrating WordPress into large enterprise systems. The company is an amalgamation of three companies that came together around 4 years ago for their complementary specialisations. These were - Karim’s original company, VeloMedia, the late Alex King’s, Crowd Favorite and James Archer’s design firm, Forty.

Although Karim’s background is in architecture, in 1994 he founded one of LA’s first web agencies. (One of only three in LA! How awesome is that!) In 1997 when the internet was growing fast, they were acquired by a large famous firm that went public. When he left that company, he went to work for a major advertising group in Europe. He then founded another company there and took it public on the Italian stock exchange and worked with a major European conglomerate to buy small web shops and place them into advertising agencies who needed digital departments.

Troy asks how he was able to make these risky decisions with an architecture background. I mean, can you naturally be so good at this stuff, right? He explains that he came from a family who had a similar business but in construction, then he learned along the way and just felt his way through it.

According to Karim There Are 3 Categories of Acquiring a New Company:
For large agencies buying medium sized agencies, they are looking to grow revenue and sometimes to acquire a specific client.
Market verticalisation / specialisation: for when the acquiring company lacks expertise in a certain area such as design they may work with an external company before they bring them in house.
Acqui-hiring: when you bring in one or two experts to be able to handle more projects. This is a financial play though because it may bring revenue up, but you also have more production hours to sell. You need a stable pipeline to be able to do this.

Karim’s motivation for acquiring was market specialisation. All three of the companies were well known for their specialisations, so they brought the teams together rather than have one company take over and lead with its culture. He explains that they did this without funding which gave them a short runway to experiment with new ventures and business units. However, on the flipside, there was no one breathing down their necks to work within a timeline or within a financial budget.

Specialisation and Choosing a Niche
Karim’s advice on this is that you either be all things to all people but you need to be 500-5,000 people to do that properly otherwise you should start specialising. You can be general if you are a small shop but make sure you find someone that doesn't do what you do and partner up!

FOMO!
The question on so many people’s lips is that if you specialise, won't you miss out revenue by passing up other work? More words from the wise - you always have fomo of what you could be doing; it takes discipline.

“If you’re chasing everything, you’re going to end up having a problem” @karimmarucchi talks about specialising on the @wpelevation podcast

If you're working solo or within a small business, some of the things you should be thinking about in order to make your business more valuable and potentially sellable are:

Fill the gaps. Find people who fill gaps in your knowledge or area of expertise.
Make yourself redundant. Be able to go on vacation without anything blowing up while you’re away!

Expand your sales team even if you’re only a team of three! You need someone out there looking for your next client while you work on the project.

This leads Troy to ask about the people who don’t want to relinquish control because they think that others can't do a good job like you can. Karim’s advice is simple - how much do you want to suffer? You can continue to do it that way or you can be a bit more disciplined about it and get to live a little!

Karim’s Advice on Hiring
Usually, you want to hire people you like, but don’t do this. Rather make sure you hire the people who will challenge you and are different to you. Just don’t get in your comfort zone and that will keep you on your toes.

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Pippin Williamson has reached the goal we all dream of- having a company that can run itself. But how did he get there? And what happens when you get there?

First up, Cath tackles a very important question - how did Pippin get such a cool name!? Well, you will just have to listen to find out!

We then move on to where Pippin got started and how his business grew. He explains that he started out by creating plugins just for fun (as you do!) Then when he started doing some freelance web development work, he used his own plugins to solve all the problems that he was encountering along the way.

This was in 2010-2011, before we had cool things like Google fonts and options in CSS. So, he would create plugins according to what he needed. Tune in at the 6.30 minute mark to find out what problems he faced and what plugins he created for this.

Pippin started selling his plugins on codecanyon.net (run by envatomarket). However, he wanted to be able to sell them for himself, so he created a tool to be able to that. This is now the well-known plugin - Easy Digital Downloads

Pippin speaks about how he had previously been able to manage his small projects himself, but Easy Digital Downloads was growing fast that he needed to start bringing in a team to help.

Cath makes a good point that sharing the responsibility of your own project can be quite daunting. Pippin gives some great advice here – he uses his own products to run his company. By doing this he has a first-hand experience of what problems may arise and how they can provide a solution. This gives you “the incentive to make your products awesome” as Cath points out.

“Being my own customer might be one of the most valuable positions I have ever put myself in” @pippinsplugins on the WPE Podcast

Cath asks Pippin if he ever gets called entrepreneurial and he explains quite humbly that he doesn’t think of himself that way. Most of his friends and family have very little understanding of what he actually does and wouldn’t say that about him. However, people with an understanding of what his business is all about may refer to him as an entrepreneur.

"All I’m trying to do is keep the business running, that's all it is!" @pippinsplugins talks being an entrepreneur on the WPE Podcast

Cath asks if he still has his own clients and he explains that they rarely do custom development and if they do, it is directly related to their existing products in cases where the product can get close, but not quite close enough to what the client wants.

Tips for growing your company and staying motivated:

1. Be your own customer to ensure your product is the best it can be
2. Hand over the reigns to employees and look at the bigger picture rather than get caught in the small details
3. Have a project outside of your business and switch off digitally!

We then move on to motivation - Pippin explains that you will absolutely get lulls in your energy along the way. The most significant lull for him being just last year when the company had got to a point where it was running itself. This was hard for him as he had come from a background of having to do it all for himself. This created a mental state of “I don’t know what to do with myself”. It took him quite some time to realise that he just needed another project, because for a while he wondered whether he was bored with the product and the company.  

Great problem to have, right? Tune in at the 13-minute mark to hear Pippin’s other thoughts on lulls in energy and what happens when you get bored.

So where to now for Sandhill? They are working on a brand new product which he can’t share too much on at the moment but you can visit www.sellbird.com for a bit more information They are also constantly pushing their current products and they are contemplating the possibility of bringing back a product or two. So, stay tuned peeps!

Cath asks Pippin about how he runs his team of 15 people. Pippin says that there is no tier system but that the majority are in support. He also has about 5 developers who jump into support from time to time. This is a great way for them to get an understanding of what is happening with the products and this can sometimes then turn into a development project. He has about 1-3 people steering each project and he oversees all of these.

He finds that when he hands over the reins to let others lead that they “grow better and move forward faster because it allows me to step back and look at it from a much broader perspective as opposed to stuck in the finer details.”

And this beer thing… well he fell in love with brewing when his wife bought him a homebrew kit years ago. Now his brother and he are planning to open a local brewery which will open in 2018!

Initially he thought he should just blog about beer but he tried it and didn’t like it. He realised that he needs to disconnect from digital world. “You need to switch off, disconnect and relinquish control”. Some great advice for those who are finding themselves in a lull!

Enjoy today’s show with the legendary Pippin!

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Dustin is the director of customer experience operations at WP Engine. He has seen the business grow exponentially. He began four years ago as the 47th employee, and things have taken off from there. He leads two teams that focus on customer experience and delivering quality support. It’s their goal to make sure that their customers have the best and most seamless experience possible within the platform.

People create websites to take their message to the world. They don’t create websites to get bogged down in backups, updates, and other maintenance duties. Dustin reminds his customer experience teams to understand how important the website is to the customer when it comes to sharing the customer’s message. It’s easy to forget that this website may be what puts food on the customer’s table, and how serious it is to the customer when the site is down.

He encourages his team to be empathetic and quick to help people in anyway they can. Building the client relationship through support is really important. One challenge support people deal with is when updates break something on the site. Dustin offers great tips on staying on top of things and avoiding possible issues that can happen when updating WordPress and plugins.

Quality Support and Being Proactive About Upgrading Websites Safely

1. Subscribe to the releases section of the WordPress.org blog
2. Release candidates are what gets launched
3. Understand the new WordPress changes
4. Then apply those changes back to your site and the plugins you use

Reminding support people that they are the experts and the only ones who can help the customer helps keep the support team grounded when dealing with the more difficult customers. The team has a responsibility to help the customers in the most empathetic way possible by owning the situation and being the calm, clear voice. Bringing communication and calmness to the situation is good.

It’s human nature to match communication, so by being cool and calm can help encourage panicky customers to be cool and calm. With other customers, support is encouraged to let them talk. Then support can accept the blame and own the fact that a mistake has been made. This technique can diffuse the entire situation. Telling the upset customer that they are right, and it is not acceptable makes it is easier to move forward and deal with the issues.

Dustin moved to Nashville about a year and a half ago. As someone already involved in the WordPress community, he knew about WordCamp Nashville, and he knew he wanted to get involved. You’ll want to listen around the 15 minute mark when Dustin shares how he was selected to be one of the organizers of the event. They are planning for about 2500 attendees and are in the process of speaker selection.

They are basing their selections on the survey results of last year and what people really want to hear. They are also focusing on new and hot topics that may not have even existed last year. They also know how it is difficult to navigate from a developer to an agency. Entrepreneurship is hot right now and they want help freelancers expand their businesses by “standing on the shoulder of giants” and learning how successful agencies have already done it.

Other cool and new topics at WordCamp will include headless WordPress which decouples the front and back end by using an API to connect the backend WordPress data with any type of front end. This opens up possibilities for enterprise use of WordPress along with new and innovative front end user interfaces. The technology is fun, but the people are the backbone of the event. Dustin is excited about allowing communities to interact and all of the great things to come.

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Brad has always been involved in technology in some way. In 2004, he started a web development company. He spent about five years building Joomla websites, but he realized that he needed to switch to WordPress when he noticed the robust WordPress community and the available plugins.

He then hired his first full-time employee, a WordPress developer named Lucas Karpiuk who is still with him today. They then became a WordPress development shop around 2009 and would code PSD files into websites for agencies. Brad had an ‘aha’ moment when he noticed his clients were coming back for support, and he transitioned GoWP to a WordPress support provider.

Hosting used to be a recurring revenue safety net for development companies, but with increasing support needs WordPress maintenance can be a source of recurring revenue for your website business. You can even bill throughout the month to have consistent money coming in. Don’t miss Brad’s tip around the 5-minute mark for having consistent income and simplifying the billing process.

The majority of tasks done at GoWP are what they consider ‘tier 1’ tasks, which are things that can be done in the admin panel. These tasks also tend to get positive reviews. It’s freeing to have a monthly or per job fee structure that allows for helping the customer without bothering with keeping track of time.

‘Tier 2’ are what they consider HTML, CSS and JavaScript, whereas ‘tier 3’ is more advanced PHP. They still monitor internal metrics for the types of support that they are billing the flat fees for. They also monitor who is doing what. With the internal procedures in place, it’s time to focus on getting customers to sign up for flat rate plans by emphasizing convenience and value.

Positioning to Get Customers to Sign up for Support Plans:

Survey customers - ask questions that emphasize DIY drawbacks
Focus on the customers hatred of hourly billing and the unknown
Make the case for your service based on survey results

Offering a stand alone service to your existing agency customers and existing contacts is a great way to acquire new customers for your service and maintenance plans. For web developers, offering a yearly service plan is a smart tactic. Selling a service to people who already trust you is key.

Brad employs a team of developers because he believes that to really do WordPress support well developers are needed. Having someone who can create themes and plugins from scratch and who has an intimate knowledge of the WordPress Codex creates a troubleshooting framework.

Documenting help procedures can free up time and scale a support business. Brad’s team has a process for everything from beginning with step one. It also makes training and adding employees easier. He also feels that honesty up front is important. Be open about what your business does not do, as well as, what it does.

This is a great conversation with a lot of information about building and developing a support business from billing to operational procedures. We also talk about the all important aspect of being honest with customers and managing expectations.

Be sure to tune in to capture all the gold nuggets.

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