WP Elevation WordPress Business Podcast

Watch the video of this podcast here.

A Bit About Adam
Adam discovered his interest in the web after he graduated from college, originally as a carpenter. But went back to school to learn web design and creation. He currently owns and operates the popular web design company Bottomless Design which also focuses on theme development.

Adam lives a natural lifestyle, so he likes to extend that to his business and work with clients that are doing a similar thing. More on this to come!

Working from Home
Adam says that the key to working from home is to have a quitting time and then honouring it. If you work too late into the evening then it’s harder to switch off when it’s time to go to bed. He is realistic about the amount of work that he can get done in the day so that he can get a good night’s sleep.

He tries to draw that line because it can be easy to take one more email or something on your to-do list at the end of a day until it is nearly time for bed!

Have clear boundaries and know what your dedicated work times are.

Bootstrapping the Company
Adam was working for a company full-time running their website but started his own company on the side working in the evenings and on weekends. He did that for a while and didn’t have a lot of free time but it gave him the freedom to be in control of his business. He could be selective about his clients and by doing this, he built up a clientele that he was proud to work with and found his niche.

Troy mentions here that working with the wrong clients can actually set you back. But it is hard to do this when you need the income, so this is a great way to start your company off with the right foundation. You just need to be willing to put the hours in at the beginning.

The Name - Bottomless Design
The name of his company, Bottomless Design, came from the idea of the bottomless well of information, but it also has an ulterior meaning. The second meaning is that working from home allows Adam to literally be bottomless, or without pants, for as long as he likes!

Client Services vs Product
He was inspired at a WordCamp by a speaker who said that you can do the same work over and over or you can build something once and sell that over and over.

It was then that he decided to start creating themes.  Once he finished creating his first theme, he put in his notice at his full-time job as theme creation could now be his recurring revenue.

Differentiating
Theme design is a saturated marketplace but Adam's take on it is that there are a lot of themes out there, but you never take them out of the box and use it exactly how it is. You always end up changing it.

Adam started out by making a list of what he looks for in a theme and then decided to make themes that could work for many different people.

For some reason though, Adam said that most of his clients are women. He didn’t target that audience, but he finds that with his designs and the way he runs his business means that they gravitated towards his company. He then started looking at each of the scenarios, goals and audience for his clients and then built themes based on that.

Adam's niche is female clientele in the health, wellness and the natural world. He lives a natural life, eats natural food and uses natural cleaning products so he wants his business to be an extension of that. He wanted to work on projects which are fulfilling for him.

Adam turns down work if it isn’t aligned with industries with a natural bend. Recently he had someone who was adamant that Adam build him a website, but it was about guns. This is totally against his brand so he passed on it. He is more interested in building relationships with the clients where there is trust and respect.

How to Say No
Adam has never had a problem with saying no. When he was starting out, he had that mentality that he didn’t need to take on anything that he didn't want to and that mentality kept going even once he left his full-time job. He says that he has busy periods and slow periods. If someone isn’t a good fit in a slow period, he still doesn’t worry about it because he takes that quieter time to improve his business and sees that as a gift.

When you have a recurring revenue, it gives you the freedom to say no. 

Tune in around the 40-minute mark where Adam talks about Mojo why he chose Mojo MarketPlace over ThemeForest to sell his themes.

[vum-bigtweet tweet="Have the confidence to say no. It’s freeing and opens up other opportunities for you - @BottomlessDsign"]

Adam's Top Tips

• Have boundaries to keep your work-life balance. Know what they are and stick to them.
• Recurring income which will support you in the quiet times and gives you the freedom to say no to work that you don’t want.
• Know your value and educate the client how cheaper means cutting corners and inexperience.
• Make proposals easy for the client to say yes by detailing the value that’s in it for them.
• Make certain that the client is satisfied with the experience and have a referral policy with an incentive.
• Let your personality shine through. Allow the client to feel the connection. It will create a better work environment, more trust and more respect and a better product in the end.

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Watch the video of this podcast here.

A Bit About Kronda
Kronda is a WordPress Consultant turned digital marketer. In 2017 she decided to change her company to focus on marketing and automation. She helps mainly service based, non-technical businesses with their online marketing and helps them put systems into place that will really help them grow their business in a way that is sustainable for them.

Life Before the Blueprint
Kronda just reached the 5-year mark with her business. She tells us about when she started out and how she would make websites for anyone because she needed the income. Even then she knew that she was going to fire the difficult clients as soon as she could afford to.

Kronda would check in with the clients that she had made websites for and very often they had been hacked or they hadn’t done much with the site so it wasn’t actually helping their company at all.

Kronda started following WP Elevation about two years into her business. She couldn’t afford to join WP Elevation at the time so she made the most of the free content. Then six months later when she joined the Blueprint course she leveled up and has been levelling up ever since.

The WP Elevation Community
Once Kronda joined WPE she was eager to get the all of the information and put it into practice. It took a while to get through the course whilst running her own business but she really enjoyed the content and would look forward to her Friday nights in with the course.

Kronda found the community support to be amazing. She says that it is a group of so-called “competitors” who really just help each other to succeed with an abundance mindset. Questions, rants, whatever! There is always someone there for you.

Kronda tells us that she has made a lot of mistakes in building her business. So when she gets to a point when she feels in over her head, she asks the group for help. There have always been people who have helped her out in those time and people with similar stories.

At the 9.35 minute mark Kronda shares her experience of taking the Blueprint course and gives some good advice to people who are thinking of taking the course or about to start it.

Life After the Course
She fired most of her clients in December last year and told them that her business was moving in a different direction and offered her new services to them. One of the main things she took away from the course, was the importance of recurring revenue so she set up cares plans and changed the business focus to marketing automation.

The course allowed Kronda to shift her mindset from having to chase after new clients to making herself the prize. She started to filter clients out by having requirements that they needed to meet. When you’re new in business, you just have to get people to pay you money. So she started asking herself “What am I good at?” “What do I enjoy working on?”. She now makes people fit her criteria before letting them into her business. She says that when you’re in the service industry you are really partnering with the client which means the relationship matters a lot. So now not everyone makes it in and she is very selective about that.

One of the things that used to frustrate her when she was starting out in the first 2 years of her business was non-technical clients. They would come to her and ask for her help and they wouldn’t even know who their host was. So that was the catalyst for her to create a course based on the WP Elevation structure of recorded lessons and coaching calls.

Kronda couldn’t afford to work for her clients anymore based on their budgets so she wanted a way she could still make money but give people a path to level up to where they need to be. By creating the courses she could scale and reach more people.

As her business took off, she had many people come to her for business advice. And because she loves automation, she automated her answer with this blog post about WP Elevation. We love it!

Favourite Tool
Kronda says her favourite tool is Astra which is a lite weight theme framework. The Astra sties plugin gives you access to starter websites too which makes building websites a piece of cake!

Her advice? The course is amazing but you need to implement it!

We are super proud of what Kronda has achieved. If you have any questions or comments on this show, please feel free to let us know in the seciton below.

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Watch the video of this podcast here.

About Chris
Chris Lema spends his days helping businesses create operation plans for profit, growth and excellence in customer service. This involves dedicating the majority of his time to working on company analysis and communicating with clients or team members.

Chris is also a well-known member of the WordPress community who is often found speaking at WordCamps and other WordPress events all over the globe.

He says that his role is to "fix companies so they work better". At Crowd Favorite he manages the service side of things. That includes managing the software engineers, project managers as well as doing strategic work to help the company grow.

A Bit of Background
Chris studied social welfare after high school where he learned how to build organisations, mobilise people and enact policies. After college, he changed gears and began working at a government research lab. At the lab, he learned how to build the first computer-based online learning management system.

This was back in the early days of the Internet when programming was so new that there was nowhere to learn it. Chris and his team learned by trial and error, spending many nights working on networks and coding.

Chris claims that he was a terrible student, but as soon as he immersed himself in the real world, he was completely engaged in technology and business-related problem solving and eventually became a WordPress consultant.

Staying on Task
Chris talks about the importance of goals and discipline to work as effectively as you can. Here's how:

• First, define what roles you play in the company.
• In each role, you need to have one or two goals. You can look at the long-term goals for a bigger picture, but more importantly, make sure you have some on a monthly, quarterly and annual level.
• Every task you do should be working towards those goals.  When you’re in the realm of doing that you are on task. When you’re pulled by others into other tasks, you are likely off task.
• High performers can only focus on the top one or two things on that list. And if someone comes to you with a problem which isn’t at crises level, it is not worth your time to solve it. There will be problems all the time but if it's not in your top three priorities then delegate it.

Helping Companies Grow
Chris talks about the importance of retaining staff. In order to do this, you need to keep growing the company and creating new roles for people to move into.

He talks about how outdated the factory model is. The aim of that is to get people to do the same task over and over and refine it until you have high performance. However, in the real world, if you are asking a high performer to do the same task over and over, you will lose them pretty quickly.

The moment they understand that you are interested in their career path then they will perform highly.

What WordPress Needs in Order to Grow
Chris says that it needs to meet the needs of two different audiences at the same time- low end and high end. The market at the low end need cheap websites and this demand is growing. However, WordPress is also very popular with clients in the enterprise space. The difficulty here is that both of their needs are not in alignment and there is no product manager for WordPress to create a strategy to manage this.

In order to be sustainable in what you’re doing and to develop a following and a brand, you need to focus on these three things:

• Generosity: Share everything you know
• Genuine affection: You have to learn to like everyone
  Focus on the grind: You just have to do it and keep doing it.[/wpecallout]
  Chris' Top Tips
  The number one thing that any freelancer needs to know is to raise your rates
• Write like a human and your proposal will stand out
  Constant, consistent, regular communication with your clients will keep a project and a client on track

Ask for referrals right after they’ve seen the benefits. That might be three months after the project. Most people ask right after they finish a project, but you want them to see clearly the return on investment

Wrap Up
There’s so much more in this podcast, so make sure you listen in. Chris has an awesome take on why the WordPress community works as well as it does. They also talk about getting starstruck at WordCamps and how to approach these people. And just what is the future for the premium plugin ecosystem?

Let us know what you think of this podcast in the comments below!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video of this podcast here.

You’ve most likely heard of Seth Godin; he’s a New York Times best-selling author who is known for his marketing genius. As you might imagine he’s done the interview circuit countless times, so his advice in this episode is gold.

Kristina's Challenges
Kristina Romero has a successful consulting business she has built from the ground up. She started out as a WordPress specialist helping people design and code their sites.

From there she got involved with WP Elevation and expanded into the consulting side of things and even added maintenance plans to receive a recurring revenue.

Kristina identifies the following as the main challenges in her business:

• Lack of time. She does a full-time job within part time hours as well as being a mother of three.
• She wants strategies to increase profit without having to work more hours
• She is trying to branch out to an online training environment for all businesses
• She has a lot of ideas and doesn’t know how to apply them

Charge More and Work Less
Seth's first piece of advice is to go beyond being a job and be someone who is unique and doesn’t have a problem charging a premium because you’re the only one who does it. A lot of freelancers feel that in order to be better, you have to do more work. But then you are overextending yourself and your work suffers.

The best thing to do is to work yourself up the ladder so you can charge more and work less.  If you’re getting paid by the hour, you're probably not doing it right.

Seth gives some golden advice here and says: sell stuff to people who want to buy and can afford to buy it.

The key element is specialisation. Be specific about what you offer, you’ll position yourself ahead of everyone else by doing so.

Getting Through the Lean Period
Troy asks Seth how to get through that lean period when you are becoming a specialist? Seth gives the following advice:

• Cut your costs, don’t go on holiday or eat out and get through the dip. You need to sit there and wait until you break through to the other side and not keep running after the next shiny object
• Earn the right to speak with authority about what you are wanting to be specific at
• Build something that people already want to buy

Kristina says that she never had to pick a speciality because work just seemed to keep coming in but Seth says – "don’t overthink it." You already have these people that trust you, billing relationship. Your speciality could be “these are my clients”. So instead of finding new stuff to sell to people, work with who you already have.

Productisation
They tackle the subject of moving from the freelancing world to creating products. Seth says it is pretty hard to do, so when you are starting something new ask yourself why you’re doing it. Is it to make more money or is it for the craft of creating something? Focus on doing things for the craft, not to have a bigger impact or more money in your bank accounts.

Ask yourself - what would you have to do in the insight that you deliver, the quality that you deliver, what assets do you need to have to be able to charge triple what you are charging now? Leverage your network to build an asset or a circle of people who are desperate to be in the circle.

Personal Connection
Kristina says she’s great at connecting with clients and explaining to them why they need to buy from her. But lately she’s been trying to reach the masses through email or social media without that personal connection, and she receives no interaction.

Seth's advice? Don’t do it! He says if you're not good at reaching the masses, then focus more on the personal connections. Find clients who are worth every bit of care and charisma you can bring them because digital stuff is hard to sell.

Scaling Impact
Stop looking for more people to impact, have a greater impact on the people you already have. Deeper rather than wider is compelling. They then get you the next people because you have changed them so much.

Otherwise, come up with a funnel system that people are eager to participate in to be able to scale your impact.

Wrap Up
How awesome is Seth? There are some great stories and analogies in here so make sure you listen in. Let us know what you think about this podcast in the comments below.

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Watch the video podcast here.

A Bit of Background
Guy rose to fame as Chief Evangelist at Apple, where he worked to show people all over the world how Apple products and software could make their lives better.

He was raised in a lower middle-class family in Honolulu and really had no idea what he wanted to be when he grew up. He was studying Psych at Stanford when his friend, Mike Boich, introduced him to the Apple I. So Guy went out and bought himself an Apple IIe which absolutely blew his mind.

Guy started his career in the jewelry business where he learned some valuable lessons about the importance of sales. Sometime later his friend Mike, who was an employee of Apple, hired Guy as Chief Evangelist.

Guy worked at Apple from 1983 – 1987 which was in the time where Steve Jobs left and came back. He has since been involved in many other ventures, including another stint at Apple from 1995 to 1997 where he helped to revive the Macintosh. However, his main endeavours over the years have been speaking, writing and consulting.

What is a Chief Evangelist?
Guy explains that an evangelist simply shares the good news about something with people.

He actually believes in the products he sells (Mac and Canva) so there is a purity to the marketing and sales. He truly believes in his heart that he is bringing good news and he gets paid to do that. Even from being on this podcast which gets listened to by around 3,000 people, those people try it, love it and spread the word.

He does a lot of social media and speaks 50-70 times a year, does around 25 webinars and a lot of podcasting particularly when a book is launching. He has Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, email, Skype - everything! He makes sure that he spreads the good news everywhere!

Canva
In 2014, he resurrected his chief evangelist role for Canva, which provides an easy online graphic design service. Canva’s goal is to democratize design and Guy is passionate about helping the little guy to have the chance to compete with the big wigs!

Guy said that he truly believes in Canva because he works a lot with social media. He wasn’t going to learn photoshop with its thousands of tools so he found Canva very empowering. Canva reached out to him and now it's his job to get the message out there about how good it is.

Guys tells us about his version of the "golden touch" which is "whatever is gold, Guy touches".  He says that the key to marketing and sales is to find or create something great. It’s so easy to evangelize for a great product.

When you’re starting out, you need to pay your dues. Don’t have the attitude that you're not going to do anything for free or on spec. When Guy started speaking, he spoke for free and that’s how you get known.

Your goal should be to have a valuable service that is unique. If it’s valuable but not unique, it’s always about price. If it’s unique but not valuable, nobody will be interested.

At the end of the day, the key is to do a good job. This is how you get referrals and differentiate yourself.

Well, there you have it! Make sure you listen in because Guy is really funny and an engaging speaker! You can see why his Ted talks are so popular. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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Watch the video podcast here.

A Bit About Hugh

Hugh is a cartoonist, creative director and co-founder of Gapingvoid, a company that transforms business through art. He is intensely interested in what makes people tick and combines that with what they do for a living. Our work is such a huge part of our lives and so this is why his artistic focus is on the work environment, instead of making art for people’s homes or other places. And he’s been hugely successful in doing so.

Hugh is also the author of the book Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity.

Career
In 1995, Hugh was a struggling artist in London. It was the early days of the Internet and the very pioneer days of blogging. As a struggling artist, he realised that blogging was a tool that could help him earn a living by reaching people directly with his work.

Blogging gave him a powerful medium to reach his audience and has been a huge part of his journey.

Hugh now makes motivational art. He believes passionately that the right location, the right office, the right layout, and the right décor can be incredibly powerful. And art is really the key. Art disrupts and drives behaviour because it bundles together our primary drivers as human beings: love, hate, fear, beauty and sadness.

Getting Clients
Hugh explains that his business grew organically because he had fans inside businesses and they would buy a piece of his art that inspired them and then others would ask where they got it. He realised that art could really motivate people in the workplace.

Hugh also says that it is important to find the customers that your competition doesn’t want. They weren’t interested in the customers with the biggest budget, they wanted the companies with the biggest problems.

His advice is to go after a niche nobody else has thought of. "Too many people are trying to sell the same stuff to the same people."

Gapingvoid had unique offerings so they didn’t have to compete on price. Hugh says that if you’re competing on price then you’re not differentiating your offers enough.

Hugh's Hot Tips

• Know when to say no
• Be clear about what you want when writing proposals then the easier it is to write
• In order to keep your projects on track, you have to be vigilant and realistic when setting deadlines. Build in time for unforeseen events and constantly communicate with clients

There's so much more in this episode, so be sure to listen in and let us know what you think in the comments below!

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In this episode, Troy talks to Hugh MacLeod who knows a thing or two about differentiating yourself, finding your niche and going for it. If you’re struggling to find clients, or just interested in an inspiring story of one man’s unlikely path to success, then listen in.

Watch the video podcast here.

A Bit of Background
At 17 Ben pooled together all the money he made as a summer camp counsellor and bought his first computer. He joined some online forums where he learned how to import clothing from India and sell it at a profit. Eventually, that small business venture ended after the Canadian Government closed the loophole and he couldn’t import anymore.

That wasn't the end of his entrepreneurial journey though. Some years later after being let go from a job, Ben overheard some business owners talking about getting their website built in India but Ben chimed in and said that he could do it. He was given a $300 budget and nothing else! With no website creation training, he found WordPress and created the site.

And so, his WordPress career began!

Fostering Relationships
Ben says that he is the marketing and business development person in his company. The number one thing he does is foster and grow relationships between his company and potential clients and he relies on his team to do what they do.

Goal Setting
Every day Ben and his team make a list of three things that they want to accomplish. He empowers his team to remind him to do that too!

One goal should align with the company's annual goals. Two of the other things are a little more tactical to get the sprint done.

They use the Agile Development Method and the tool they use is Pivotal Tracker which is an Agile project management system where every task belongs to a story you want to tell.

Every two weeks they have an acceptance meeting where Ben acts as the customer and he evaluates whether he would accept the piece of the product or not.

Ben's advice is to explore the Agile development method if you’re not making much progress in your business. Once they implemented this strategy it was transformative for Sidekick Pro and their productivity.

Is Sidekick Pro a Competitor for Video User Manuals?
They are in the same space but hear about the differences at the 23-minute mark.

Business Development
There are people who are awesome at what they do but perhaps don't put enough emphasis on the importance of forming relationships. That is the core of business development.

Ben's advice is that if you want to be successful, show up on time, dress to play and talk to people. He started talking to people at WordCamps and that is where he has been able to get a lot of his business. He says that you will see some of the big names within the WordPress space there, and you will be surprised that most of them are in fact very approachable.

Ben's Business Development Tips

• Don't forget that overnight success takes years
• Talk to people and be sincere and apologise for mistakes
• Have an awesome product
• Know when to shut up and just give a demo
• Hustle in a genuine way

Business Incubators
Ben and his business partner Bart co-founded Sidekick Pro and located it within a business incubation environment. With the support of small business owners, Sidekick Pro blossomed and graduated from this environment to stand on its own two feet.

As a team of eight, Sidekick Pro has expanded to accommodate the likes of NYU, providing tutorials for students and staff on some of the steps to set up a blog on the NYU blog site.

Ben's Secrets to Success

• Getting customers. The best thing Ben has done to get new business is to go to WordCamps.
• Know your value. Have an awesome product, and know why your product will benefit the people who will use it.
• Proposals. Have an editor and don’t click “Send” until someone else has read what you’ve written.
• Get Referred. Referrals are all about relationships. If you want referrals, give referrals. (Awesome advice!)
• Differentiate yourself. Simply by being yourself.

Well, well... weren't they some awesome tips from Ben! Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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Watch the video podcast here.

Sarah runs a successful business with Cindy Kendrick called Codebrain Media, a company which helps build custom websites, custom plugins, manages migrations and marketing. She also spends a lot of her time working with the team at ServerPress.com with product development and social media. And then there is their latest project - the OptimaList WordPress Plugin.

From Full-Time Mum to Entrepreneur
Sarah started spending time on the internet when her children were babies. She began blogging as a means to occupy herself during their naptime. Sarah also created a group for mothers in her area to support each other, socialise and network.

Eventually, Sarah learned HTML and CSS by playing around with features on her blog. Her proficiency in writing online grew, and soon a friend asked Sarah to help with content writing using WordPress. That helped Sarah realise the potential of making money online and opened her eyes to new possibilities.

Today, Sarah dedicates the majority of her time to working on business development and communicating with clients. She also keeps busy collaborating with the team at ServerPress with product development and social media. In addition to being a successful product developer, she also teaches ballet and when she’s not working, Sarah loves spending her time outdoors with her children.

Small vs Big Clients
Sarah tells us that they have a wonderful client who is a small business with a lot of legacy content that they are moving over to WordPress. This company listens and is really appreciative of their experience. So this type of client is Sarah's ideal as they are easy and enjoyable to work with.

Her and her business partner, Cindy, have both worked on huge enterprise level builds but they enjoy working with the smaller business by helping them come up with affordable solutions for their company. This is very rewarding work for Sarah.

Big Teams vs Small Teams
Sarah prefers to work in smaller teams because she is very invested in her projects as well as her employees which makes it hard to manage large enterprise clients as well as the number of developers and designers that you need to hire to look after those clients.

Sarah wants to bring her best to the table and working with a larger team meant she was thinly spread. She needs a lot of autonomy in her schedule and she wants to have the freedom to work when she wants to so it can fit in with being a mum.

Larger teams take up more time and you have to be dedicated to a 10-15 hour day for those larger builds. Sarah did this for six months and then went back to working with a small team who she found to be more efficient and effective.

Takeaways from Working with Bigger Teams
Sarah says that working on those bigger projects with a larger team teaches you a lot. She says that you develop your professional ability because you have to manage your time, your workflow and be professional at all times. There is more breathing room in a small team. However, she realises that after achieving what she did with the bigger projects, just how valuable she is. "You can appreciate how much you do know and walk away with more self-worth."

She tells us that it may be the right fit for some, but just not for her.

OptimaList WordPress Plugin
Sarah co-developed the OptimaList plugin which is a to-do list for WordPress. Her business partner had been developing a to-do list plugin for 5-years called "Cleverness To-Do List" which was quite successful, but it became time for a complete overhaul. So they leveraged Cindy's customer base and have been blown away at the market need for this product and have seen how people use it for all kinds of things.

Sarah and Cindy needed $800 to pay for the business expenses, so they threw it out there and people donated! They are humbled by the people that supported them and their generosity.

Tune in at the 35-minute mark to hear Troy and Sarah discuss the WordPress community and why WordCamps are so valuable.

ServerPress
Sarah explains to us what the ServerPress product "DesktopServer" is. Basically, you download DesktopServer and in a few minutes, you have your own local development environment which is WordPress optimised. It is super simple to use and you can change things with immediate results all on your local system. You don’t even need to use cowboy coding!

Side note from Troy - Do not use Cowboy Coding on your websites people! 

Find out more about the benefits and how to use this plugin around the 40-minute mark.

Sarah's Golden Nugget Tips

• Manage your time. Sarah uses a handwritten to-do list every day and is a big advocate of Franklin Planner’s method (see the link below). She remembers things better when she writes it down.
• Use Twitter campaigns to get new customers. Sarah does sponsored Tweets because they are easy to do and you can segment your market very quickly. She has never spent more than $100 on a campaign and the ROI is amazing.
• Take your time to write proposals. Be thorough, and actually spend time with your clients in scoping discovery. Build the relationship and use your discernment in regard to charging people for the discovery process as you might not want to charge the smaller businesses that just don't have the money.

Well, there you have it... we told you Sarah is a superwoman! Let us know what you think about the podcast in the comments below!

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Watch the video podcast here.

Remkus has made a substantial name for himself in the world of website creation and is a force to be reckoned with!

Tune in at the 6.20 minute to listen to Remkus’ story and how he turned a side project of building websites into a very successful business and how he discovered WordPress.

Investing Knowledge
One of Remkus' favourite quotes is by Benjamin Franklin:

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

From day one he has always wanted to invest. He always looks at the bigger picture and when he starts something new, he asks how this relates to stuff he already knows. So he is continually learning. He learns how to extend one idea to the next idea and keep going.

WordCamp
Remkus is well known in the WordCamp space being a co-founder of WordCamp Europe. He says it hasn’t necessarily attracted clients, however, other people in the business who couldn’t take on projects within a particular scope would refer the work on to him.

It is hard to measure the success of being visible at WordCamps. It has had some benefits but it hasn’t been a conscious decision for him.

Remkus doesn’t get nervous speaking to crowds. He has had a lot of experience in public speaking: even before he got into WordPress he had been a trainer and taught 20-50 people at a time.  He also knows what he is talking about, which is the main thing! He says that if you are less secure about yourself, that will be magnified on the stage. The more you do it though, the easier it gets.

Stress Less
By nature, Remkus says that he overanalyses. He doesn’t talk shop after 8 pm and he does this to protect himself. If he does have to do something work related after 8 pm then he will sleep in a little later. When he catches himself worrying, he either meditates or uses self-hypnosis to get to sleep.

Worrying about something that might not happen is a waste of energy.

Remkus owes his success to many things but credits his ability to “turn off” worrying as a substantial advantage. He also sustains an interest in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). It breaks down communication into your neuro senses and your linguistic patterns. It’s a great discovery to learn about yourself.

Remkus has a family with three children and enjoys anything automobile related, particularly Mercedes and Porches. He is also an avid strength trainer and he enjoys getting out of his mind and focusing on something physical. He pushes his boundaries every time he does that.

Tune in around the 34-minute mark where Remkus talks to us about API and his predictions for WordPress.

Mind Mapping
Your conscious mind can only do a few things at the one time. The other stuff you do is on automatic pilot. You can bring stuff from your conscious mind to your unconscious mind so that it becomes an automatic thing.

If you keep a lot of stuff in your head and you're mulling it over, without getting it out of your head then you’re going to rely on your mental capabilities all the time. You need to clear your head to focus. So if you are mulling over an idea, then jot it down as a mind map.

The way it's structured makes it more pleasant to see the larger picture. You can draw them on paper or there is a software tool XMind that you can use.

Remkus' Secrets to Success

• Know how to sell yourself and produce quality work.
• Don’t compete on price. Compete on quality. Compete on skill set. Compete on knowledge.
• Don’t overdo it when it comes to writing proposals. That’s assuming that you know how to write an elaborate proposal. Don’t be the person who writes those 25-30 page proposals. Be certain that what you put in there is necessary. It’s basically you selling you instead of you listing what needs to be done.
• ActiveCollab is his favourite project management tool.
• Understand what scope creep is. Have an agreement on when it is creeping. Be active with the client. You already have the client. He’s not going to run away.

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