Our first live Facebook webinar sparked a lot of interest among our community members, who submitted dozens of questions to our guest and online marketing expert, Troy Dean. For those who missed it, we have recorded and summarized the webinar for you. Enjoy!
we are live with Troy Dean for our live
webinar how to grow your website
building business hi Troy how are you hi
Ben thanks for having me you can hear me
dit latently yeah very clear so if we
have an awesome webinar first of all I’d
love to have some comments from users
that everything is functional yeah I see
it it’s live right now I see people are
watching it we will have a session we
got some amazing questions about growing
your business from our community which
we will actually touch upon an answer
and then I’ll have some questions of my
own and finally we will have some live
questions as well so great to hear that
far and Dave hi Dave dave is here so
yeah first I’d like to introduce Troy
before this is not the official start
because we’re going to give it a few
minutes for people to join but Troy if
you don’t already know Troy and WP
elevation Troy’s an online marketing
speaker coach consultant and podcaster
he specializes in helping businesses and
entrepreneurs use the internet to
attract new customers and build our
communities also Troy is the co-founder
of video and user manuals the great
plugin and of course WP elevation which
is the probably most professional
educational course for WordPress
consultants out there was that accurate
is that a good intro that sounds pretty
good yeah ok so let’s see what I’m
guilty as charged on all of those things
yeah so I actually had a ton of
questions and a ton of good material
that I wanted to explore in this webinar
but then I got I posted the this webinar
event and actually got better questions
from the actual users and what can be
better than you know having
this communication this direct
communication with our community this
sort of live podcast is a new a new
thing that we’re doing it’s great to
have someone an expert like Troy to be
pioneering this so yeah so let’s see
that I’ll cover the topics that we will
cover in this webinar we will talk about
in elementary in our content we usually
talk a lot about tutorials like
technical tutorials how to create
landing pages how to create different
websites but there’s actually a larger
aspect to this whole thing and managing
a website building business is a lot
more than design at the design and
creation process one hundred percent
high day for you watching by the way it
says that your microphones a little
quiet compared to mine there is I mean
there’s a lot that goes into there’s a
lot that into managing a website
building business that and and you know
a lot of us end up in business by
accident a lot of us end up in business
because people discover that we know how
to build websites and then they offer to
start paying us to build those websites
until then we have to think about things
like cash flow and invoicing project
management client relationships managing
client expectations marketing legal
stuff accounting cash flow you know
profitability there’s a whole bunch of
stuff that goes along with just that’s
not just as Island development now the
caveat here is if you are designing or
developing websites for an agency so if
the agency is the client and you’re a
developer for example and you’re just
doing all their dev work then you may
not have as many of those problems to
solve because they will be the ones
going and getting the client doing the
design work and the strategy and
managing where they kind of stuff and
you’re just doing the dev work so that
might be a simpler business model I
think there are some risks in that
business model too because you end up
getting a
lot of revenue from one client which is
risky but if you are in the business of
building your own business as a web
consultant then yeah you are responsible
for you know finding clients managing
their expectations and delivering on
your promise so it’s a you can very
quickly start to have a lot of headaches
that you know it very quickly goes from
being something that’s super fun just
mucking around on the internet and
building and building websites quickly
to then then going all right this is a
serious business and they’re a whole
other series of headaches that come
along with it and ideally you do that
but still have fun in the process
yeah and having one client it’s a bit
like being an employee even you’re know
even though you’re set as a freelancer
it’s kind of the same so I think the
majority do have to manage the clients
and their expectations and how not to
give too much focus on one client and
all the rest of the the challenges that
goes with it yeah 100% and by the way
your microphone sounds a bit louder now
which is good and in fact in Australia
if you if you generate more than 80% of
your income from one client so if you’re
a freelancer and you’re getting 80
percent of your income from one client
then that client actually has to treat
you as a what we call a PAYG employee or
in the States I think you might be
called an FTE a full-time employee so
they have to pay using a pension they
have to pay your holidays all that kind
of stuff they have to treat you as an
employee so there are definitely risks
in getting too much work from from a
small number of clients amazing so to
those that just jumped in to this live
webinar that we’re having we’re actually
gonna have a reverse live webinar
meaning we will take we got so such an
amazing questions from the audience that
we want to start with them and then
progress and talk about other issues as
well and the first question comes from
Burt Virgin sir sorry if I mispronounced
any of the names which programming
languages are absolute
necessary to build websites with a
plugin like Elementor or is none also
good well I think it’s good if you
understand a little bit of HTML and CSS
but I am a firm believer that you can
absolutely build websites for clients
and build a very good business building
websites but lines without touching any
code it is handy if you understand a
little bit of HTML and CSS of course a
lot of people are going to disagree with
me and a lot of people are gonna say
that you have to be a JavaScript ninja
and you’ve got to understand know
jeaious and and react and all the
JavaScript platforms I’m not a hardcore
developer I do know HTML and CSS and PHP
and a little bit of jQuery but I haven’t
coded for a long time maybe tweaking CSS
is the most that I think you need to be
able to do definitely and I think
there’s also a difference between being
able to create with something a language
like PHP and being able to you know
debug and sometimes people who start
dabbling with PHP and code they have a
success they managed to accomplish
something I don’t know a certain
function but then if something breaks if
there’s an update or something changes
that’s a whole other issue finding a
whole other skill sets even yeah a
hundred percent being able to you know
debug things is is probably a good skill
to have but it’s a slippery slope and
you know a lot of people end up down
that rabbit hole because they think that
there’s value in being a really good
developer or a really good coder now I
think if you’re building software for
example I imagine that you guys have a
team of very good developers who
understand code PHP primarily because
you are building software if you are in
the business of building websites don’t
mistake yourself for a software
developer not building software you are
building websites and you don’t need to
be a fantastic developer or a strong
coder to build valuable websites for
your clients and therefore build a
valuable business so what are the skills
that you would recommend I’m starting
out building what
sytze what are the skills that I should
put time and effort into gaining so I
think you need to understand I mean if
you look at this from the journey of the
clients so I first start interacting
with a client and I’m gonna build a
website for them the first thing I need
to be able to do is I need to be able to
take a brief from that client and
understand exactly what it is they’re
trying to achieve second of all I need
to understand I think you need to
understand user experience I think
that’s an important skill so for example
if you’re building an e-commerce website
for a client you need to understand what
a great user experience is on a checkout
page and what a poor user experience is
on a checkout page you need to
understand the difference between you
know good user experience and bad user
experience secondly I think you need to
have excellent communication skills and
I think assertiveness now assertiveness
is a soft skill that a lot of people
overlook and I think it’s a bit of an
art developing assertiveness but
assertiveness basically means that if
you make a mistake that you can talk to
the client and and without being
emotional or without it without it
souring the relationship you can just
admit the mistake that you’ve made
apologize tell them how you’re going to
correct things and move on and
conversely if a client’s dragging their
feet with content you can pick up the
phone and say listen we’re on a
production schedule here in order for us
to get your website live by next
Wednesday
I need that content by the close of
business today you’ve had two weeks come
on I need you to get a move on
a lot of people find that kind of
confrontation difficult with clients so
I think some basic assertiveness is also
really important you also need to
understand how to use WordPress and you
know preferably Elementor and the
plugins and you probably need from a tip
the most technical thing I think you
probably need to understand is staging
and version control so you need to
really understand how you can build
something on a staging environment and
then push it to a live site so that
you’re not you know cowboy coding on a
live environment particularly if it’s a
website that’s just generating a lot of
revenue for the client like in the in
the case of an e-commerce website for
example and what is the importance of
being excelling at design skills well
again I mean
I think you know if you’re if you’re a
fit the journey that I’ve been through
and that I’ve seen you know three and a
half thousand people that have been
through w elevation now over the last
five and a half years the journey that
you go through is you end up at some
point doing less design and development
and more client management and business
development so if you’re if you’re a
strong designer then you might position
yourself as the design go-to person for
agencies or development houses who are
good at development but need a designer
I was on a call with someone this
morning from New Zealand who has a good
development team but they partner with a
designer who works in the co-working
space with them because they are not
strong in design
so again if you’re a strong designer and
that’s your only skill set you know yes
you’re going to be able to offer those
design skills to agencies who don’t have
design skills but you know you if you if
you become a specialist too much you’re
going to put yourself in a in a in a
pigeonhole if you like are in a box and
at some point I think you need to be
able to get off the tools and look at
growing your business and getting other
people to become the design specialist
and the development specialist in them
you know the SEO specialist you can’t be
everything to everyone
and most of us start out with a a skill
that we enjoy I started out doing SEO
and a little bit of programming I’m a
terrible designer but I very quickly
realized that the most valuable thing I
could do was to go and talk to clients
and grow the business and get other
people to come in and and specialize in
in you know SEO and coding and
development and hosting and all that
kind of stuff perfect I’m not sure if
that answers the question but I think so
Henry Ramirez asks is it better to pitch
as an agency even if you’re alone or a
personal brand works well you know I
don’t think it matters as long as you’re
authentic so if it’s just you then you
know there’s no need to go into a try
and say hey well here’s my company
called Acme websites and you know it’s
just me but that’s okay I’ve got a bunch
of freelancers that I can use
you know if need be
I don’t you need to be you know that
kind of transparent about it but if
somebody asks you know who’s on the team
then you can just say look I’m the Prime
I’m the prime business owner here and I
have a network of contractors and
freelancers that I pull in on projects
to help me out
I think that the the problem is when
people first start out they’re a little
bit insecure which is perfectly normal
and perfectly understandable because
it’s new and everyone’s a little bit
kind of scared a bit nervous and so that
the temptation is to go in and say we
this and we that and we this when it’s
just you and maybe one developer
somewhere who you know can help you out
and so I think you just need to be
authentic and just be honest with the
client if it comes up but in terms of
the branding I started out as Troy Dean
I then had an agency called Tonto
digital I then went back to Troy Dean
because I wanted to go back out and do
my own thing I’m a bigot I’m a big fan
of personal branding I think it’s a
faster way to build trust with people if
they just know who you are they know
what your name is another and they know
what you stand for yeah and I think also
that both options are viable but you
need to realize that there are different
ways in which you need to brand if
you’re branding for your personal brand
or as an agency because for your
personal brand you’re gonna have to put
yourself out there and that is sometimes
not the right fit for for you know
introverts so have your picture have
your videos so maybe decide on that term
yeah yeah Boren asks how can we build
our brand so we don’t have to depend on
any freelancing marketplace to find web
development jobs that’s a good question
this is a great question and so now I’m
gonna do a complete backflip on
something I said earlier I mean it when
you’re first starting out you do need to
specialize now I don’t mean that you
need to become a fantastic developer or
a fantastic designer or you know a
world-class
SEO but I do mean that you need to be
able to you need to specialize in
solving a bit
the problem for a particular type of
customer and so the way either ways to
approach this is I look at the projects
that I worked on the early days and the
most rewarding projects for me there are
three rules that I have at a project one
did we have fun – did we do good work
three was it profitable if I’m taking
all those boxes then I want more of that
type of client and for me it ended up
being people companies in the post
production in the film and television
post-production industry in Melbourne
and nonprofits they were the two niches
that I ended up specialising in because
I understood them I had friends in those
industries I understood their pain
points and so I think what you need to
do is you need to specialize in solving
a particular problem let me just do with
a marketplace question here for a second
we’ve got one of our members in WP
elevation who has been so successful on
up work they put his picture on a
billboard in Times Square in New York
City at work actually you must Victor’s
victory Marez is his name he’s a WP
elevation member he’s now actually I
think he’s taken our enterprise job with
Dow Jones but he was so successful on up
work that they approached him and said
can we use your photo as a case study on
a billboard him Times Square in New York
City because he would how to use up work
to generate leads but then he had a
process that he took those leads through
where he continually added value so that
and and re manage their expectations so
that no we’re no longer you know
charging twenty five thirty dollars an
hour we’re just using up work to get in
front of a bunch of people but he
specialized in a particular thing he
became very good at it he he taught at
local schools
he had group is he was here only on our
pork or did he try both it was he was
getting leads from elsewhere but he was
getting a lot of leads from up work and
he was at the premium end of up work and
he was you know he was charging well
above what you would expect like
multiples of what you would expect you
could get from up work so that the point
is that even if you’re on up work if you
if you or any marketplace if you go to
that marketplace just hoping to find
work you end up trying everyone and you
end up becoming a general as
and the only thing you’ve got to compete
with is price so it’s a race to the
bottom you have to be the cheapest or
the fastest and so the way to avoid that
is to become known as the person that
solves that particular problem for that
type of client and then specialize in
that now if you’re not a friend of Mines
great at ecommerce conversions so he
publishes blog posts on why a narrow
checkout page will convert better than a
wide checkout page
I mean he’s Ober nerdy about e-commerce
but he loves it and that’s what he does
and they’re all of his clients like
another buddy who just does dental
practices he basically just does mark
online marketing for dental practices
and he’s absolutely killing it if you
any other type of business and you’re
not gonna hear stories like I’m sorry I
can’t help you I specialize in online
marketing for dental practices so at
some point you have to pick the corner
of the room that you want to own and you
have to specialize and become known as
that person that’s the way to elevate
yourself up the ranks on the
marketplaces and ultimately get off the
marketplaces and build your own client
base yeah I think by default people that
join marketplaces it feels at first a
bit like you’re part of you know crowd
apart you don’t have your but that’s not
true because if you think about Airbnb
there are some assets there that you
know skyrocketed and got a lot more
business because they were on a European
being as opposed to doing it on their
own yeah so market rates are can be
great so a marketplace is just the
channel through which you can
communicate to the market what your
value proposition is the biggest problem
with people when they join a
marketplaces they don’t have a value
proposition because no one’s ever taught
them how to put together a value
proposition so they just get on the
marketplace and they put themself up as
a wordpress developer and as I said when
you do that then it’s just a race to the
bottom on price because there’s nothing
unique that you’re offering yeah well
the next question is something that I’d
like to pause because we talked a bit
about it on the pre-interview and I
think it’s very interesting your
perspective on this James Morgan asks
have you found that showcasing a page
builder like Elementor is a selling
point or have you found that most
customers do not understand the benefits
of a Dementor
this is yeah this is a good question and
I ever this is come two parts to this I
have a particular take on this and I’ve
been saying for a long time that if you
are I don’t mention technology in my
sales process or my proposal process
unless somebody knocks on my door and
says can you build me a WordPress
website and my answer that that will be
well I can build you a website it might
be on WordPress but let’s have a
conversation about what it is you need
and then we will recommend the best
solution for you which may be WordPress
it probably will be but you know it
could be a Facebook page depending on
what it is you need so let’s have a
conversation about what it is you need
so I think the problem is because
WordPress is is so well known now and
the plugins available and the themes and
the page builders available is that if
you start having a conversation with a
client about the technology that you’re
going to use you run the risk of that
client coming back and saying well I
found this plug-in on code Canyon and
you know I think it’s gonna be great for
this and it’s only 15 dollars so and all
of a sudden we’re talking about a
commodity now so I’ve never let the
client dictate the technology that we
use and if they start to talk about the
technology I say to them well if you
know what you’re doing here then why are
you hiring me like why don’t you just go
and do it yourself if you’re hiring me
then let me choose the technology stack
because I’m more experienced at this
than you that’s why you’re hiring me to
do it having said that I would so as a
rule I wouldn’t you I wouldn’t mention
plugins or themes or anything when I’m
talking to the client in the proposal I
might I might line-item some of the
technology that we use I probably will
mention WordPress is a content
management system having said that in
the sales process I will definitely show
the client how easy their website is
going to be to update in the future and
that will definitely include screenshots
of things like Elementor and you know
maybe things like gravity forms or you
know the events calendar plug-in or
whatever it is we’re using for their
particular solution WooCommerce whatever
it is your SEO so I will definitely use
the technology and in this case
Elementor to show them how easy their
website is going to be to manage moving
forward but I won’t get stuck in having
a conversation about the technology
because that’s not the
on a conversation you want to have with
with the client does that make sense
definitely it makes sense and I’d I’d
like to also ask a follow-up like later
on
how will you educate the client about
Elementor or other plugins yeah well
it’s funny you mentioned that bin
because that’s a nice segue and you take
me up beautifully we have a plugin
called video user manuals and that’s
basically so what happened is the reason
the plug-in exists and this is not a
pitch for the plug-in but the reason the
plug-in exists is because when I
discovered WordPress I built my own
content management system in notepad
plus on an old sony vaio laptop right
and I discovered WordPress and then I
realized very quickly oh wow WordPress
does a whole bunch of stuff that I don’t
have to do again like building user
permissions and user logins and you know
usernames and passwords WordPress does
that out-of-the-box so there’s something
I never have to do again and that opened
my mind to how can i leverage technology
so that I can replicate repeatable
things without having to do them over
and over again and one of the first
things was I’m gonna have to teach my
clients how to use WordPress so I locked
myself in a room and wrote a 100-page
document teaching them how to use
WordPress this is back in 2008 how to
use WordPress as an editor and I sent it
up to a friend of mine and we partnered
up and we built a plug-in and turned it
into videos now the point of the story
is usually what happens is when we hand
over a website on one of the things that
we teach our WP elevation members is
when you hand over a website there’s a
there’s a checklist and a strategy that
you go through and part of that strategy
is getting them to log in to the members
to the WordPress dashboard and have a
look at the video user manuals plug-in
and show them all of the videos in there
that teach them how to use WordPress and
a whole bunch of plugins that go along
with it like gravity forms Yoast SEO
WooCommerce and we are in the process at
the moment of talking with a few people
as you know about adding elements or
videos to the video user manuals plugin
and even and even if even if at this
point we didn’t have
Elementor videos you can add your own
videos to that to that muggins like a
custom post type for testimonials or
something you can add your own custom
videos to it so that’s the process and
it allows the Banger the designer can
choose which plugins to to have it
appear on their clients site in fact I
think so there’s some there’s some
smarts in there so that if if
WooCommerce and Yoast SEO were installed
it will just show them by default but
you can turn them off if you’ve only
given your client editor access and you
don’t want them messing around with
things then you can just turn certain
videos off you can turn the entire
sections off there’s also a bunch of
videos in there about Google Analytics
courtesy of our friends at UM at Google
Analytics so that’s that’s the and the
reason we do that is because we don’t
want to be answering the same question
over and over again how do I add an
image to my website and left align it
with the text well here we go here’s a
video we make once and we just show that
to all of our clients rather than
repeating ourselves in you know
answering the same questions that’s
smart
I want to talk about it again later but
first Berwyn Francis
kodanda asks I’m from the Philippines
and my question is how to address
offshore clients concerns with regards
to payments and warranties is it enough
to use PayPal as mode of invoicing
that’s a very good question I am NOT a
lawyer so I can’t really answer the
warranty side of things however I will
say this that some government
organizations or nonprofits will have
some regulations around where their data
is hosted which will make it tricky if
you are and we’ve come across this
before we have staff in the Philippines
we’ve had staff in India before we’ve
had staff in America so it does make a
tricky sometimes you need to make sure
you you understand if the client has any
regulations about where their data is
hosted and if it can or can’t be hosted
across the border so you need to check
that but again a lot of lawyers so you
probably need to get some advice around
that in terms of the the invoicing we’ve
used PayPal for years I would you know
maybe get waves accounting program which
is a fantastic free accounting program
it allows you to
and invoices to clients and get them
paid I definitely use wait pallet option
waves waves accounting program is a
fantastic free program and there’s
designed for freelancers to get started
so there’s a whole bunch of stuff that
it does for free in fact you can run a
pretty good freelance business on waves
and not even not even have to upgrade to
their paid platform so that’s what I
would use I would send them an invoice
and then have your paypal details there
as a payment definitely acceptable to do
that you just want to check yourself
around the the hosting of data in in
other countries just make sure you cover
yourself there great Martine asked what
is better sending cold emails or cold
calling clients nada
I don’t like Kohli look if you’re gonna
do a cold outreach cold email is better
than cold calling however I prefer warm
emailing and warm calling so I I think
the best in our approach the best
strategy has always been to email people
with content not to email people with a
peach and so here’s he was our content
strategy and our basically our Legion
strategy for two years with the agency
we did this again for a two year period
with WP elevation we produce we first
things first understand who your
customer is to know your customer or the
type of customer that you want to work
with understand what their problem is
and then come up with one flagship piece
of content that massively helps them
solve their problem so when we had the
digital agency we came up with a series
of videos called the sixty second lesson
and we had 16 videos that we shot in one
afternoon on an iPhone nothing fancy and
those 16 videos were 60 seconds long
each and they solved one very specific
problem about digital marketing so in
the first one I talked about what a
landing page was and the second one I
talked about what a lead capture form
was in the next one I talked about what
a headline was then I talked about how
to split test a headline very specific
very short punchy videos I’d ripped them
out one per week over a 16 week period
that’s four months we did no other lead
gen for the next two years we had enough
leads coming through
discovering us on YouTube and Vimeo this
is back in 2009 a YouTube and Vimeo
people were finding our videos and we
were sharing it with our audience we
were just sharing those videos around
with everyone we knew and they were
passing it on and sharing it with their
friends because they were kind of
entertaining and they were you know
interesting and they were useful and
that’s how we generate our leads now
with WP elevation we wrote out a list of
a hundred and one ideas that you could
implement in your business to position
yourself as a premium consultant rather
than just a freelancer and we put
together a presentation called 101 ways
to elevate yourself and demand higher
fees we went and presented that at
WordCamp Melbourne at WordCamp Chicago
at WordCamp Phoenix in Arizona and that
was our Legion strategy for two years
that one piece of content we cut it up
into 101 different episodes of a little
podcast and 101 videos on YouTube it was
one piece of content that we just sliced
and diced into a whole bunch of
different 101 blog posts that became our
organic lead generator for two years for
WP elevation so the point is develop one
stupidly valuable piece of content and
then slice and dice it up into as many
formats as you possibly can and get it
in front of people and I think I’ve
forgotten the question that’s reason to
email people right that’s a warm email
and if you if you’re clever all you want
is you want people to hit your website
to engage in that content then you’ve
got a remarketing list that you can
start to remarket them to get them back
to a strategy call or a discovery call
or a free webinar that you’re running
that promotes your senses well this is a
great transition to talking about I mean
if you’re slicing 15 pieces of content
that can easily translate to some sort
of autoresponder and some sort of funnel
and that’s the question that is
interesting to a lot of our users so
what is your take on setting up funnels
and managing them and and using them so
he’s gonna tip the whole funnel idea on
its head right because the biggest
problem I see with funnels is it
people think you know funnels are really
sexy and they are when funnels work they
very sexy because they generate cash
while you sleep right it’s a true story
I’m living proof of it and so are you
probably so far very sexy in there and
they’re they’re a big shiny object but
the problem is at the end of the funnel
if you’re selling services you’ve got to
have what’s called a conversion event
you’ve got to have a way for the person
that’s been through that funnel to
engage your services and so most people
go and build a funnel they build a
landing page they put together a lead
magnet they put together a bunch of
email autoresponders they get it out
there they start getting traffic a few
people sign up and then they don’t know
what to do with the people that signed
up so before you build a funnel and
here’s here’s my controversial approach
to funnels a funnel should only be used
to scale an existing business model that
is already working and what I mean by
that is this if you can if you can
generate a lead either using you know
networking or picking up the phone or
Facebook groups or LinkedIn groups or
posting on your blog or whatever if you
can generate a lead get that person
engaged in your content and a through
facebook chat or email get them on the
phone have a conversation understand
their needs put together a proposal get
them to sign off on the proposal and pay
you money for a website if you’ve worked
out how to do that once then the
conversion event is the phone call that
gets them to hire you right now what
we’ve got to do is put a funnel in front
of that conversion event the funnel is
the last thing that should happen and
should only be there to scale an
existing sales process that’s already
working most people build the funnel but
that I never sales and that half a year
building the funnel they don’t have they
don’t have it made that how they convert
people to clients and then they have to
remake the funnel because probably
they’re going to discover a few things
they’re doing wrong it’s great and only
I did this many many many many many
times I had lots of funnels out there on
people signing up and went nowhere
because I had no conversion event
because I didn’t have a sales system in
place so the most important thing is
being able to take someone who you know
maybe knows you a little bit
and convert them into a paying customer
once you’ve got that figured out then go
build your funnel and the funnel really
is you know the clients that you’ve
worked with just ask yourself what are
the problems that I solved for them
building a website
it wasn’t building a website or websites
just a vehicle that helps them solve the
problem so what is the problem that I
solved by building them a website then
just publish a whole bunch of great
content around those particular problems
use your content upgrade whether it’s a
checklist or a cheat sheet or something
as a lead magnet and once they sign up
for the for the content upgrade nurture
them with email and then get them onto
that conversion event that’s the way a
sales funnel is supposed to work in in
my mind definitely
Richard bland asks how did you
transition from being one person
managing some clients to growing a team
to do to do it for you and had time to
work on sales on sales funnel and
content yeah it’s a great question
there’s two parts to this first of all
hire really good people so have a hiring
process in place don’t just hire people
because a great friend of mine
Nikesh Nichol I’ll who’s also one of my
mentors he said to me once you don’t
hire people because they’re available
right you hire people because they’re
really good at what they do you don’t
have to hire people full time you can
start working with contractors and
freelancers but use people who are
really good at what they do not just
because they’re available so overall
number one is have a hiring process in
place you know typically speaking I like
to work with people on a couple of
projects before we decide to hire them
so we’ll work with them as a contractor
doing some social media links or yeah
relenting yeah exactly and then if it
works out and we like them or we get
along and they’re a good fit and good
communicators are there going to be a
good addition to our culture
then we’ll offer them a job you know as
an employee so rule number one do you
find freelancers don’t you find them
they like they prefer to stay
freelancers no I mean what generally we
find out are three recommendations from
other staff who work for us and we know
the people who
to us are looking for employment and so
the job will work with them as a
contractor as a freelancer and then
after you know four or six week period
if things are working out then we’ll
offer them employment so I you know we
have a few consultants who work with us
at the moment who are never going to be
employees because they’re running
they’re effectively running their own
businesses but ultimately I want to be
able to do everything in-house with
employees so one have a good recruitment
process – the biggest problem that I
find with freelancers who become
business owners is they become the
bottleneck so what happens is you end up
[Laughter]
growing right now so you end up with a
bunch of people in the business and you
end up then just answering a million
questions a day or you end up trying to
write documentation and procedures so
that they can go do their job so here’s
my approach to hiring people and again
the Rayman Raving is now my friend Nick
who’s taught me about this you use
robots in other words automation
software to scale and leverage things
that can be scaled right so you use
things like zapier or you use api so you
use you know integrations to remove data
entry and then you use human beings to
think creatively about solving problems
in the business so why we have more
processes written in our business in the
last six months than we’d ever had and I
have not written one of those processes
because we have empowered the team not
only have we made it a requirement but
we’ve empowered the team with the tools
and the training and the system they
need to document their own position so
that if they want to take a holiday
someone else can come in and sit in for
four weeks and do their job while
they’re awake right so that is part of
their job requirement now and we’ve
trained them how to do that very simply
it doesn’t it’s not a big time-consuming
thing which kind of task
can you show like posting to Facebook or
which kind of test is absent when we run
a webinar for example an hour webinar
needs to get uploaded to our members
website and so there’s a process that
needs to happen there that we need to
download the video from Vimeo
we need to you know share at the members
website we need to make sure the privacy
settings are right on Vimeo we then need
to you know put an email out to our
members let them know the recordings
being updated so there’s a few moving
parts it’s probably you know half hour
team are watching this and it takes a
lot longer than that but I’m making an
assumption it’s about a half hour or 45
minutes job and that that process has to
be written up because there are a few
moving parts in that process so the per
the best person to write the process is
the person who does it most of the time
which in our case would be Michelle or
Charmaine who work in our office in
Manila in the Philippines so they are
writing the processes now here’s the
thing that we’ve learned and a lot of
this comes from a guy by the name of Sam
carpenter wrote a fantastic book called
work the system I strongly recommend it
and we actually hired his business
partner Josh they come into our company
and coaches through this process it was
an expensive exercise but it was
definitely worth the investment
basically the process gets written from
the bottom up so whoever’s doing the
process right so it was doing the job on
a weekly daily monthly basis they’re the
ones that write the documentation they
submit it up to their supervisor who
looks at it reviews it yep okay this is
cool once it’s approved then it goes
into the official document library of
the company and the idea with those
processes is that someone who knows how
to use the computer and knows their way
around the internet but doesn’t really
know your business can probably come in
off the street follow that process and
with a couple of practice runs then they
can follow the process if it’s so
technical that you need a degree to
follow the process then the process is
not simple enough you need to make it so
that Johnny off the street can come in
and basically follow it up for a couple
of training sessions the other thing I
want to say about hiring is you need to
empower people to make decisions and
this is probably the biggest the biggest
insight that I can give in terms of
building a team you need to empower
people to make decisions and know that
if they make the wrong decision that
you’ve got their back and that you will
support them and that you will coach
them through it and you will help them
get up and dust off their wings and get
back out there and the best way I know
how to do that and it’s a process that
we’ve gone through over the last two
years is really defining the vision of
our company
and the values by which we operate so
our number-one value here at WP
elevation is to help people and have fun
so when we need to make a decision
because someone sends in a support
ticket or you know or someone’s got a
problem with the the video user mediums
plug-in if we know that potentially a
bunch of their client websites are being
impacted by one of our plugins we have a
we don’t even have a rule we just no you
drop everything and get in there and fix
that website for that customer because
rule number one is help people and have
fun and there’s nothing fun and nothing
helpful about my website being down
because your plugins broken so I’m like
I can’t wait you know three days for an
answer
so you use the values to empower your
team to make decisions and let your vet
you make your valuables very visible and
very clear across the company and then
let your team know you’ll never get
penalized for making the wrong decision
but you will get penalized for not
making a decision and coming to me with
a million questions every day because
there’s only one of me I can’t answer
that many questions a day you’ve got to
actually step up make your own decisions
and know that if it’s the wrong decision
it’s okay I got you I’ll get you through
it I’ll take the blame and we’ll sort it
out I think that’s great because having
this golden rule like a golden rule to
steer the ship even if it’s not the most
optimized or or most you’re not pointing
to the best direction at least you’re
heading to the same direction and
eventually you’ll get out of the forest
or you know that’s right exactly
we call it the North Star it really is
the the guiding light and what you
realize as a business owner is that you
know people do things differently and
the flip side of this is I’ve been
pleasantly surprised more often than not
I’m pleasantly surprised at the talent
and the skills that our team bring and
things happen in the business now and
I’m like wow I would never have thought
to do that and that’s awesome
I’m in fact I had a joke before we got
on this call Simon was in here making a
how-to video for a YouTube channel and I
said you guys need anything from me and
max our producer and Simon both said no
just get out of the way and I said oh so
you know that you’re on I think when you
start are telling you just to get out of
the way
that’s a happy day I think that’s even a
line in in the book daodejing
you know sorry to be a bit educational
and but there’s a line there that the
good leader is the leader that doesn’t
participate yes on that line that’s
right it’s the difference between
leadership and management you know
management you know you’re looking over
your shoulder telling you how to do your
job that’s a horrible experience for
everyone
leadership is I’m walking forward I’m
blazing the trail I’m leading the
company down this path if you fall over
I will come back and help you and I want
to make sure you’ve got everything you
need to do your job but I can’t do your
job for you and I can’t watch you do
your job every day you’re gonna have to
make some decisions and that’s a great
personal development opportunity for the
whole team to go on that learning
journey and people want that people want
to go on people want to develop
personally they want to grow they want
personal growth in fact it’s actually I
think the number one reason people leave
jobs and leave employment is because
then they don’t feel like they’re
growing individually they feel like
they’re just on the hamster wheel so if
you can empower your team with training
and tools and whatever they need to
continue to grow we’re very lucky here
we’ve never had anyone leave the
organization we’re a team of 12 now plus
a whole bunch of contractors and you
know we try and build a very open
educational supportive culture that’s
amazing I have a live question here from
Kieran Gleeson how is the how is best to
formally agree up front what will be
done think a scope of works but smaller
clients may not like this idea of sign
up before any work is done sure it’s a
good question and the way one approach
is to chunk it down into smaller
bite-size engagements so instead of
saying your client I think I understand
what you want and I want to build a
website for you and it’s going to cost
$6,000 what you could say is I think I
know what you want but what I would love
to do is I would love to build a
prototype for you first and that might
be $1200 and if we get that right then
at least I know what it is you want you
know how it’s going to
function in the browser and if we sign
off on that then we can move forward to
the next stage which will be some user
experience design so we’ll basically
make it look on brand and we’ll give it
a really nice skin and make it look like
it belongs to your brand and then if
we’re happy with that then we can
actually go forth and develop it into a
actual website with all the right moving
parts hosting security SEO or that kind
of stuff and a content management system
and then we can launch it so you might
end up building three little products
for them and at any point during that
that engagement they can bow out and say
you know what I love the prototype
here’s the $1500 or the $1200 we agreed
to but I don’t want to move forward on
this project now because I’ve actually
rethought everything and we need to go
back to the drawing board and at that
point you’re like okay no problem I’ve
been paid for the work I’ve done so far
it’s a smaller engagement so that you
don’t need as much trust and it’s a
shorter sales cycle it’s the quickest
way to get clients it’s amazing how this
works on every business because even if
you’re going to a class or a course you
have one trial course that you have to
pay for and then you can decide if you
are going to continue or not sure
exactly and Miao san-feng I love the
names that come up so diverse in the
group how to handle the most difficult
part collect the content and pictures
from clients oh that’s a topic I wanted
to touch on so I’m glad to keep track of
the process and push clients to meet
deadlines now I know you are you you’ve
posted a great article on it I’ve read
and yeah it’s a whole I would say
philosophy or theory how to because I
know it’s a huge challenge
yes designers find out only when they
stumble upon the fact that they have
built an amazing sites an amazing site
but the the the images are pixelated or
or non-existent so so what’s the short
what’s the the short version of this end
yeah you wrote like five thousand words
on it so we did we just published an
epic blog post recently that that had a
collect content from clients and it’s
tastic it’s a great blog post go and
check it out however I will say this
there are a couple of shortcuts one yeah
and I learned this from Andy Clark from
stuff and nonsense in the UK he’s one of
my web design heroes I was very
fortunate a little while ago he came out
to Australia and he came and visit us
here in the studio and I recorded a live
podcast with him in the office and I was
beside myself with excitement anyway he
said he taught me this concept ten years
ago when in one of his books designed
from the inside out I am at a loss as to
how anyone can design a website unless
they already have the content from the
client because you don’t know what it is
you’re designing you’re basically
designing a website with stock images
and lorem ipsum and that’s always going
to look beautiful right so just get all
of the content first before you even
accept a deposit or a proposal accepted
from the client so my first question is
to the client do you what my first
question is do you have a budget for
this project and if so what is it let’s
have a talk about that so that we can
see if we’re on the same page second of
all do you have your content organized
our year we’ve got content great I want
to see it before I agree to take the
project on because I need to factor that
into the scope of work now if I can’t
show me the content well-organized and
all ready to go and well labeled there
are two things are going to happen first
of all I go away until you’ve got your
content ready and then I’ll come back or
I’ll do the content for you or with you
and we will charge you accordingly
that I wanted to touch up upon that
because that’s in the pre-interview we
also talked about that and you made a
great point that it can be in the
beginning or in the middle if you see
the client has issues with that it can
be generating content writing content or
SEO or any any topic you can step in and
do the job for them or you can mitigate
with an an export and still charge in
all areas you charge the client is
willing to charge because obviously if
they’re not delusional they know they
they don’t can do it themselves
and some actually had experience here
with
like Wiest we had a few struggles with
all the equipment and buying it and kasi
knew someone so the whole process was so
much easier when you know someone you
have an employee that know someone and
mitigates and doesn’t take that all of
the question marks is is this
professional really a professional so
it’s you you you don’t know how much you
can help the client and offer and turn
it into a service yeah a hundred percent
a good friend of mine mark Rhodes wrote
a fabulous book with Perry Marshall it’s
called the complete guide to AdWords it
was it was one of the first books on
AdWords and it’s an absolute epic book
and a best-seller he’s a good friend of
mine he says he always said he’s saying
is don’t ask who sorry
don’t ask how ask who so clients when it
comes to doing content our clients are
usually are not equipped to do content
they’re not copywriters they’re not
photographers they’re not stylists
they’re not product stylist they don’t
know how to write engaging copy they
don’t understand how to do this that’s
why they’re hiring you so if they’re
stuck you can either skill up and learn
how to do it for them and add it on as a
service or you can partner with
copywriters and you know photographers
and designers and stylists and UX people
or whatever to actually do it for them
relying on an unskilled client and I
mean that respectfully relying on an
unskilled client to write content is
going to hold up the project and damage
your profitability every single day of
the week because the one thing that will
kill the profitability of your business
is a project that’s supposed to take
four weeks that takes four months that
is an open loop in your business that is
that is draining profitability until
that loop is shut well this is a good
transition to Beau and Douglas this
question how do you set and I’ve talked
about it in a recent interview with more
which is one of your graduates how do
you define the service boundaries
clearly well there’s a couple of ways
you can do it we use a we have a
proposal template and we use
title I spoke about before from stuff in
monsoons he’s got a fabulous open source
contract called the contract killer that
you can get it started nonsense and it
basically is a web design contract and
it clearly outlines what it is we do and
what it is we don’t do and so he’s very
clear that he does not do content at all
he does design and he’ll develop the
website but he will not do content so
once the website is done he’ll hand it
over he’ll either if you if you’re not
doing content he’ll either hand it over
with stock images and say there you go
or he just won’t start the project and
unless you’ve got your content ready
which is his his standard modus operandi
stick is to say if you hadn’t got your
content ready I’m not even starting the
project and then he works in weekly
sprints so someone hires even he says
great you’ve got me for a week I’m just
working on your project for a week and
we’ll get it done and just be very clear
with them with what you do and what you
don’t do now if you’re working on a
project with a client and they start
asking questions like well we really
need someone to do the copywriting for
us if you’re not a copywriter just say I
can try and find a good copywriter I’ve
got a good network of people I can tap
into I mean if you’re part of the
elemental community Facebook group
you’ve got 25,000 people that you can
tap into I’m sure there’s a good cop who
can help you out it’s a great internal
economy just say look I’ll put my
feelers out and and we’ll find a
copywriter for the project but that is
going to incur some charges because
obviously we have to pay the copywriter
might be afraid to just say these
additional services are going to cost
more money it’s as simple as that
and if the client is demanding is like
too demanding on your own services that
you promised but just too demanding
calling every day and asking for more
tweaks constantly how do you set the
limit you talked a bit about
assertiveness but so it’s you know again
getting so one of the things that really
worked for us is getting payments along
the way so this is where prototyping
really changed our business workflow
here’s a prototype which is a prototype
it’s just a black and white version of Z
you know the the website with no real
typography or colors involved no
branding elements it’s just a black and
white version of it and you get them
playing with the functionality in the
browser this is great for WooCommerce
websites or anything with a member
ship login or any LMS online course
platforms anything that’s a little bit
more complicated than a standard
brochure site get them playing with the
prototype in the browser and get them to
approve the functionality in the browser
keep that on a separate subdomain copy
it over to the another subdomain so you
might have prototype dot blood comm then
you might have design blood comm and
then once they’ve approved the design if
there’s if they look at the design and
they’re like well you know where’s the
bit west where the clients can login and
reorder the order that they ordered last
month and you say let’s get back to the
prototype it wasn’t on and you signed
off on the prototype and you made a
payment so two things we do we use
hellosign comm they’re a bunch of
WordPress plugins you can use to do this
as well we basically get electronic
signatures on prototype design and
finished product yeah so deposit upfront
prototype 10% on design temp cent on
development and 10% on launch that’s a
good example right and we use hello sign
to get them to sign off at each stage
and we get them to make installment
payments throughout the process and if
they don’t pay the installment we stop
work you’ve got to make that payment so
that we can move on because we’re
incurring hard costs developing your
website there are software licenses
there’s hosting there’s security there’s
backups there’s all sorts of stuff that
we’re paying for to develop your website
so we need some more money to keep the
machine going it’s very difficult for
someone to go back and say that you’re
you know that you’re off track once
they’ve approved a proto so I’ve been
already paid for it Troy it’s been
amazing we’ve we’ve been there almost an
hour for at least three more hours
in terms that a hundred percent of the
this talk this webinar has been user
questions and that’s not what I
initially set out for and it’s amazing
to see this turnaround generated by our
community and I know many of the viewers
are interested in seeing the recording
of it so we will have a recording on
YouTube with all the links and important
references that you mentioned in our
black blog as well
and of course we didn’t cover so many
topics but the only answer I can give is
just people join your course and get all
that amazing benefits because it’s so
different to run a business with a
certain I would say you know processes
in mind and and direction in mind as
opposed to just winging it yeah the the
number one thing the number one thing I
see with freelancers is a lack of
confidence and which is totally
understandable but the quickest way to
build confidence is they have a process
behind you that that you can rely on so
you never in a position where you don’t
know what to do because the process
tells you what you’re supposed to do
next when the client comes back and
starts moving the scope you’ve got a
process when they haven’t paid their
bill you’ve got a process processes are
the things that give you confidence so
that’s it if there’s one takeaway I can
give people here if you’re feeling you
know a lack of confidence we’re dealing
with clients and growing your business
have a look at your processes and make
sure you’ve got those systems and
processes in place because they’re the
thing that will give you the confidence
yeah that’s exactly what we’re also
actually working on in in Elementor if
you you’ve noticed the recent finder
release say yesterday so it’s exactly to
speed up your process how you do things
make it easier for you so how can people
reach you and study the course and
everything yeah so WP elevation comm is
where people can reach out to us we have
a weekly webinar that we run in in fact
it’s a webinar that runs most of the
time these days you can jump on a
webinar learn all about it
and yet WP elevation comm is the best
place there or our facebook page which
is WP elevation comm slash Facebook you
can learn a lot over there as well okay
thank you very much Troy and we will
continue to answer a few questions in
their community so feel free to keep
posting and until next time I hope we
can do this again
it’s been fun yeah bye bye everyone
explain
