Business

  • April 9, 2021

    The Wix / WordPress Campaign Exposes Some Ugly Trends in Both Communities

    Let me start with a full disclosure: I got the Bose headphones. Wix reached out in January and cryptically wanted to send me “swag” because I’m a “WordPress influencer.” If it weren’t for my Year of Opportunity, I may have passed them up completely. I’m grateful they selected me, and find more humor in the campaign than malice. But as this, and the WordPress community’s reaction to it, has been rattling around in my head all week, there are a few thoughts I’d like to share.

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  • April 2, 2021

    What Prepared Plumbers Can Teach You About Winning Business

    Recently, my wife and I noticed our faucet was leaking. Now, I’m not a DIY guy. I’m thankful that computers exist because I can’t do anything with my hands. But I decided to try to fix it myself. Long story short…it didn’t work. I brought the faucet neck to Home Depot and they were less than helpful. So we called two plumbers. One was the clear winner, and here’s why (and what you can learn from them).

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  • March 19, 2021

    When You Should Own the Platform vs. Paying for a Service

    Quick note! Subscribers to my newsletter, Build Something Weekly, got a sneak preview of this post earlier this week. I don’t always publish what I write there here though, so for my best thoughts you should totally subscribe.

    My favorite episode of Looney Toons is Baseball Bugs. Bugs Bunny is heckling the Gashouse Gorillas and when they hear him, they make him play every position against them. He makes the winning catch by taking a cab out of the ball part, all the way to the Statute of Liberty.

    While this is a funny cartoon, it’s no way to run a business. Playing every position (owner, accountant, sales, customer service, etc) can take a lot out of you, and prevent you from properly growing your business. One role that should require heavy consideration is tech support: when it comes to using your own tool vs. paying for a service, what should you do?

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  • February 23, 2021

    Why the WordPress.com / Spotify Deal is Bad for Podcasting

    Imagine going to one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant. He makes you his signature dish – Beef Wellington. After eating what is sure to be the best Beef Wellington you’ve ever had, you go to the kitchen to give your compliments to the chef. You notice he has some cooked steak left over. You say, “You’ve already done the hard part. Why don’t you just serve it for lunch tomorrow?”

    He’s going to explain to you that the left overs won’t be nearly as good tomorrow as it is tonight. That the steak was made for his Beef Wellington and he’d need to exert effort to create a dish fitting for lunch, for the left over steak.

    While I’m no Michelin chef, I do create a lot of content. And you can’t just throw the left overs out there and expect the same quality content. So why are WordPress.com and Spotify telling us to do that?

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  • February 18, 2021

    What Baby Clothes Can Teach You About Understanding Your Customers

    If you’re a parent, you’re probably familiar with something that’s been recently reintroduced into my life. It’s 2 am, and my 7-month-old son wakes up and is in need of a new diaper and bottle. So I get up and head into his room. I’m half asleep, I need to undo his PJs, change the diaper, and redo the PJs. And there is one type of PJs that are head and shoulders above the rest: the reverse zip PJs. So good in fact, that I’m certain they were designed by parents that had the same exact experience I’ve shared.

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  • February 14, 2021

    Why Not Wanting to Pay for Software is Holding Your Business Back

    Earlier this month, Elementor announced that they are increasing their prices. Most notably, 1000 sites (called the Agency Plan) is moving from $199/year to $999/year. This is only for new customers but, as is common when software pricing changes, people are outraged. Not only is this sort of outrage getting old, but I would argue that if you’re not willing to pay what software is worth, you will never grow as a business. And not for the reason you think.

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  • January 31, 2021

    5 Insanely Impactful Books That Helped My Business

    I feel like I’m getting this in just under the wire (as in, published in January), but the new year has a lot of folks thinking about their business and how they can improve, or they are thinking about starting a new business. While some of the best business knowledge comes with experience, I feel like there’s more advice out there than ever before. It’s hard to know what’s good and what’s bad.

    With nearly 20 of freelancing under my belt at this point, there’s lots of things I learned the hard way (through experience), and lots of things I learned through books. To help you cut through the cruft, here are 5 of the most impactful books for my business.

  • January 5, 2021

    If You’re Afraid of Automattic Making $5K Websites, You Need to Change Your Approach

    Recently, WordPress.com/Automattic “entered” the sub-$5,000 website market by announcing a new program, as reported by WordPress Tavern. Naturally, the reaction was mixed, but there seems to be a lot of anger that Automattic would do such a thing, which could potentially kill competition because it’s so big. Here’s the thing: If you think you’re competing with Automattic for sub-$5,000 websites, you need to change your approach.

  • November 9, 2020

    I’ve Been Hiring A Lot

    My aspirations of being self-employed full time have always been about me running my own little business. I never figured I’d be hiring anyone to help me – employee or contractor. I like to say that when you’re a younger business owner (or person, I suppose), your surplus is time. I never wanted to buy premium software if I could make it work myself. I never wanted to hire anyone if I could figure it out.

    As you (or your business) grows, you have more responsibilities. More clients or oveerhead. Maybe you have a family or other obligations. Time becomes a premium, and hopefully money is the surplus. Even if it’s not money, it’s value. And lately I’ve been seeing the value in hiring people so I can be more effective with my time.

    It Started As an Experiment

    My first hire was someone off of Fiverr to edit my podcast for me. Yes it was a side gig but editing took way too much time for me. I had a day job, and only limited time for my side work. The value proposition made hiring an editor an easy win: for $15-25 he’d edit my episodes. This task took me over an hour, and would cost me over $100. Like I said – easy win.

    It Started to Grow

    While I’ve left that first editor, I’ve moved on to another I’m very happy with and things are pumping on all cylinders. Since then I also hired 2-3 transcribers, depending on the project and needs.

    This was another easy win for me because I was using Rev, and my transcribers were more affordable and integrate right into my process. It’s nice to be in contact with a single person who works with you long term.

    Now both editor and transcriber work together thanks to mypodcast process automation. New episode goes in Dropbox. Editor edits and re-uploads. Transcriber transcribes.

    Hiring a Video Editor

    The next contractor I hired was for something I’m fully capable of doing. In-fact, people hire me to do it. But when it comes to creating my own courses, the most time consuming part thatI don’t have to dois editing the videos.

    Editing was always a barrier to finishing the projects too. I’d be pretty spent after writing and recording hours of video content, just to need to spend more hours editing. Plus, if my tired eyes are the only ones watching, I was more prone to error.

    LinkedIn Learning Showed Me the Way

    When I started making courses for LinkedIn Learning, I got first-hand experience of just being able to focus on the content, and handing off the editing to someone else. It was liberating.

    So for my more recent course releases, I decided to hire a video editor who recommended. As a bonus, he has experience editing for Treehouse, so he’s used to working on similar content.

    This means great communication, and needing to explain fewer things. As soon as it makes sense, I’ll likely have him edit myYouTubevideos too.

    Up Next: A Virtual Assistant

    That brings us to today, and my next hire: a virtual assistant (VA). This is something I’ve been turning over in my mind for at least 2 years, but I’ve never been able to pull the trigger.

    When the pandemic hit and I was working fewer hours – my daughter’s daycare shut down – I made a list of all thing things I did that I didn’t need to do, but couldn’t automate. The list was long.

    But I was still able to get work done for at least 2 hours per day, during my daughter’s nap and various times when she had the iPad. That all changed when my son was born.

    My wife went back to work in October and we’re keeping the kids out of daycare for now, so I have virtual no time to get work down, save for 30-45 minutes when they are both napping at the same time. What pushed me to finally hire a VA was frantically trying to do data entry while both of my kids napped.

    I thought, “Why am I stressing to get work I don’t need to do, done?”

    The Process So Far

    The process so far has been:

    1. Make a list of all the things I’d want my VA to do
    2. Look for good places to hire a VA
    3. Sign up and look at candidates that fit the bill
    4. Send a list of questions
    5. Review applications

    I still have some applications out and will definitely go more into depth once I make a hire I’m happy with, but I’m thankful for friends who’ve been through the process before.

    Side Note: Documenting What I Do

    One side note I wanted to mention was I’m also going through and documenting what I do, mostly with quick explainer videos. This should ease the on-boarding process.

    However, I’ve also read that having a VA can help you define your processes, so I’m keeping an open mind.

    Any advice or pitfalls? Let me know in the comments!

  • October 5, 2020

    My Landing Page Checklist

    Lately I’ve been building a bunch of landing pages for various projects, courses, and digital events. And ever since reading Marketing Made Simple by Donald Miller, I’ve been putting a lot more effort into them in hopes that they provide better information and convert. To make sure I cover everything I need to, here’s my check list.

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