In this video, we chat with Troy Dean, CEO of WPElevation, and discuss topics related to growing your business as a WordPress professional.
the thing is that if we solve a problem
here in the business then chances are
there are going to be lots of other
people around the world looking for
though a way to solve that same problem
hi Ella mentors in this video I go
in-depth with Troy Dean of WP elevation
as we discuss growing your business as a
wordpress professional and other topics
as well thank you for having me on it’s
a pleasure to talk to you again well I
have so many questions and I also got a
few questions from our community so I
want to jump right in let’s do it we
kind of I think our story how we met is
is kind of funny because actually
totally cold cold cold you try to get in
your podcast because it’s it’s such an
amazing program that you’re running and
and later you started making videos of
other Elementor to my surprise so can
you tell me how did that develop yeah so
you so it’s pretty interesting because I
had only recently discovered Elementor
and I kind of knew of it but I hadn’t
used it and so I started using it and
instantly I was impressed with its ease
of use and and the power and the
flexibility of it and so you know it’s
kind of funny when you start going down
a rabbit hole everything in the universe
kind of seems to conspire to help you on
that journey my wife is a psychologist
and she calls it that they call it the
attention bias so if you buy a new
Volkswagen all of a sudden you’re
driving around and all you see is
Volkswagens everywhere right
and so I discovered Elementor I was
using and I was playing with it and then
you reach down and you you said hey I
think I’d be a good guest on your
podcast I’m like this is perfect timing
I had you on the show and then I just
wanted to start in the interest of
complete transparency I wanted to start
teaching our team internally here how we
could start using Elementor to do some
things on our website that we’ve been
wanting to do one of the big problems
that we were trying to solve internally
here was the the speed of iteration
between us having an idea
getting it designed and then actually
deploying it on the website would take
could take you know ten days to two
weeks and that’s just because we’re a
slightly larger organization now that I
literally am NOT allowed to log into w
WP elevation website and start
installing plugins or doing things
because I generally break stuff and so
the team have locked me out so I saw
Elementor as a way of going wow this is
going to be such a great way for us to
quickly iterate on ideas and and so then
I started making videos to show our team
how we could use Elementor to do some
things and also I wanted to really I
wanted to produce the highest quality
WordPress training videos that I’d seen
so we’ve got a lot of equipment here in
a great studio and a great videographer
nice cameras nice lenses I wanted to do
something that was just a little bit
over and above the usual ScreenFlow that
everyone was kind of used to and so we
just and I said well I’m gonna start by
you know showing people how to use
Elementor to train our team and then
we’ll just share it on YouTube and then
we started sharing it with you guys and
and that whole thing is now kind of
snowballed into its own its own beast
and and we’re producing those
high-quality how-to videos on a regular
basis now yeah well you’re exploding I
mean the rate that you’re producing new
material and follow up what’s what’s
current is it’s really amazing and it I
think it’s a good it’s something that
it’s true of course to companies that
are starting to be bigger like yours but
also to small you know freelancers and
agencies that are just starting out and
they need to be as relevant as possible
because that’s how they compete with the
big companies yeah so yeah yeah
absolutely and and I mean and and the
thing I’ve always adopted this approach
that if we if we if I’m going to make a
video to train one of our team members
how to do something then I may as well
make that video the best I can make it
and share it with the with the wider
community because if if my team member
wants to know how to do that then there
are going to be thousands of other
people that want to know how to do it as
well so why just make a video for
internal purposes we may as well just
record it and publish it in fact we just
spent the afternoon at our branding
agency’s office on the other side of
town here in Melbourne doing a two hour
workshop on on how our our messaging is
going to change moving forward as we
change our business model here at WP
elevation and so we took our
videographer along with us and we all
put microphones on and we filmed the
whole workshop and he’s going to cut
that up into a series of you know videos
and we’re going to share that with our
community because I want the rest of our
team to see the workshop and also want
all of our customers and I want you guys
or on all of our partners or what the
whole WordPress community to see what
we’re doing here
that’s for me that’s always been the way
I’d learn it is I learned out loud and I
think it’s a great way to learn because
it it forces you to really up your game
and it keeps you accountable and if you
do it in public then you kind of can’t
you can’t pull the wool over your own
eyes for very long you know what I mean
because you’re publishing it out there
on the Internet yeah I think it’s for us
it’s it’s a huge what you’re talking
about is like I would categorize it like
whatever you’re already doing like
publish it to your audience and make it
something that is something you’re
marketing so I think for us it’s it’s
you know feature releases we release it
a feature we’re working on we’re going
to document it and make our marketing
around it in a correct but I think
that’s it’s something like documentation
like everyone is now like a documentary
of his own trial on business so yeah I I
have my help helped my wife with her
business recently she’s starting she’s
also starting a business and I’m
noticing she gets a review and I’m going
to write a post about it and help her
like it’s something that I’m sure it’s
going to be taught some time like how
are you going to document your life and
document your business
innatron yeah and if you’re right and
the thing is that if we solve a problem
here in the business then chances are
there are going to be lots of other
people around the world looking for
though a way to solve that same problem
right so it’s really simple if you just
you know do some basic kind of
optimization of the YouTube video or the
post on your website to tap into the
right kind of keywords so that when
someone in the
future is searching for you know how to
program a pop-up opt-in box in Elementor
they end up on YouTube there’s one of
our videos because we’ve used the right
keywords and but the other the other
trick is I think if you can make that
documentation entertaining in some way
that’s the next n yeah you get what you
get more buy-in from your own team
because you’re not just giving them
boring documentation so they’re enjoying
the process and you get more buy-in from
the community and you you end up with
more leads and more customers yeah and
if you make it funny it’s even better
because people love ya yeah of course of
course yeah that’s a huge thing and I
think for our audience is something I
mean we kind of share a similar audience
I mean I know from talking to a lot of
our community members people that get
drawn to Elementor are usually
freelancers and you know small agencies
and that’s kind of the people that go to
your course so can you tell us a bit
about that audience and I you call them
web consultants and how you reach from
one like being a small web designer to
developing to a bit web consultant and
sure so I think the definition for me of
a wordpress consultant is someone who is
building websites for clients using
WordPress as their main weapon of choice
but someone who is maybe who is
interested in not spending the rest of
their life actually on the tools so
they’re interested in the impact or the
end result that this website has on
their clients business and most of the
people that join our program are are
interested in how the website fits into
the overall business strategy for the
client most of our students are not just
developers who are turning Photoshop
files into WordPress themes they might
start off doing that
they very quickly realized that in order
to build a sustainable business
long-term they need to be adding more
value to their clients businesses and so
that’s part of the process that we take
them through now I think the reason that
elemental I think the reason there’s
such a good fit between what we’re doing
and what you’re doing is because and
I’ve thought long and hard about this
Elementor as fantastic as it is as a
page builder it still requires the
end-user to have gone through the
learning curve of mastering a
self-hosted WordPress installation and
that is going to eliminate most hobby
bloggers or most people who just want to
start a blog I mean if you just want to
start a blog you got a wordpress com
right and you can just start a blog of
wordpress.com or you can even start a
blog weeks or Squarespace and it’s
really easy there’s not much of a
learning curve but if you want to start
a hosting if you want to the flexibility
of installing your own plugins and you
want to really extend the functionality
of your own website you’re gonna have to
get your head around a self-hosted
install of WordPress and that is quite a
learning curve and so what happens is
the people that get through that
learning curve they end up with a
specialist skill set that they realize
is then valuable and they can
effectively sell that skill set to other
clients and they can start building
websites for other clients now Elementor
fits in to that equation because I I see
Elementor as a great way of optimizing
the manufacturing process if you like of
a website so instead of having to you
know start a theme from scratch and you
know build a whole bunch of you know
funky custom post types and do a whole
bunch of you know functions in the PHP I
mean you can literally I was just
talking about my designer this afternoon
at the branding agency he’s been playing
with elemental and Astro for the last
three weeks based on the videos of hours
that he’s been watching on YouTube and
he said dude I can build a website
they’ve always outsourced their web dev
to developers he said I can now build a
website for clients in-house without
touching any code I said exactly I mean
if this was around 10 years ago and I
started out
it would have been a whole other
ballgame so I think as much as I think
Elementor is great for WordPress users
who are not building a business doing
this for other clients they’re typically
not our target audience our target
audience other people that have realized
okay now that I have this knowledge and
I’ve done it for myself
here’s an opportunity to do this for
other people and actually build a
business building WordPress websites for
clients and realizing that the WordPress
website is just one part of the overall
solution that they’re providing because
typically when you launch a website for
a client within the coming weeks the
first bunch of questions you’re gonna
get is okay why am I not coming up on
page one of Google yeah so now all of a
sudden we’re having a conversation about
their SEO strategy and oh you know what
do we do with email marketing and so now
we’re having a conversation about their
email marketing strategy so can you talk
a bit more about beside about the skill
set of those people besides building a
self-hosted WordPress installation which
is something you can learn probably in
less than a day so what kind of skills
do you need to really start your
business going in terms of getting
clients and having an overall effect so
you know you need so this vividly Shay
but you know we have two ears and one
mouth right so you need to be a very
good listener you need to be able to
understand for you need to be able to
figure out the type of client that you
want to work with and and so I have a
very simple criteria for for working
this out right if I think about all the
projects that I’ve done over the years I
asked myself this question when I look
back at every product I say was it fun
that’s like the number one criteria for
me was this a fun project to work on yes
was it profitable sorry that’s the third
question was it fun as the first
question the second question is did I do
good work yes was it profitable yes if I
yes to all of those questions I say
right that’s the type of client I want
to work with in the future it’s their
fun to work with I do good work and
they’re profitable so therefore let me
tell you the types of projects I don’t
do I don’t do ecommerce anymore because
I’m not very good at it I will freely
admit I am terrible at WooCommerce so I
don’t do it anymore
right I don’t work with companies that I
that I have no passion for what it is
they’re doing like I couldn’t work with
a company that just makes steel pipes
for plumbers for example because I don’t
there’s no fire in my belly I don’t care
about that at all right what I love
about how you you describe this is that
you come from a more holistic approach
and that’s kind of how the place I’m
going I’ve I’ve been in there you know
in the this industry for a few years now
and I know there are types of people
there are I would categorize them as you
know maybe data-driven or SEO oriented
you having a lot of names but the idea
is that they’re eager to use as many
tools and analyze things methodically
and there’s a place for that I mean
that’s terrible I’m a Singh Lee helpful
but I think there’s another type maybe
that are more the fit for web
consultants that are more interested in
they don’t want a million tools they
don’t want to you know analyze
everything that I wise they were more
interested in strategy and in business
so how do you see the the difference
between those approaches yes so I think
the the question that you need to ask
yourself is am i creating the most value
that I possibly can for my client and so
that’s why I don’t work with companies
that I don’t find interesting or
exciting because I’m not adding the most
value because I’m kind of bored right or
I don’t do e-commerce cuz I’m not very
good at it if I’m adding the most value
to my clients and and I geek out over
the data sometimes and I love doing
conversion rate optimization and
all that kind of stuff but I
particularly like doing things like
conversion rate optimisation for
charities or nonprofits who are trying
to raise money for a cause right because
there they have more of a social
conscience they’re not just selling
widgets out the back of the factory so
the question you gotta ask yourself is
am i creating the most value possible
for this client because the truth is the
only way to position yourself as
different from everyone else and the
only way to I think to succeed this is
controversial then but the only way to
succeed as a wordpress consultant is to
actually stop selling WordPress websites
you got to change the conversation you
change the narrative so WordPress is
part of what we do but we are providing
you with a digital solution a digital
business strategy and it includes
WordPress and internally we have the
conversation about the tools that we’re
going to use to deliver that product or
that strategy to the client in the most
efficient and cost-effective manner and
that’s where something like Elementor
fits right in because it helps us speed
up our development workflow but I’m not
having a conversation with clients about
Elementor I’m not even having
conversation with clients about
WordPress I’m having a conversation with
clients about what it is they need is
there a good fit between what they need
and what we do really well and what we
what we enjoy doing and if there is
great then let’s work on this project
together and let’s work as a team and
let’s knock it out of the park I think
that’s smart because there’s now a
proliferation of I would say two types
of ways to succeed okay so there are you
know the the gurus that are more
self-help oriented you know you have
your Tim Ferriss and Tony Robbins and
Gary Vishniac and all those and on the
other hand you have the technical you
know teachers that are more inside the
WordPress community they’re teaching
everything like I think people had a son
of course and I think you’re somewhere
in the middle that is very much needed
because it balances both needs you do
need to have the right motivation have
the right mindset to succeed but you
also have to okay you have to start
working and
installing and doing all those technical
things yeah balanced yeah I mean if it’s
interesting I have been called the Tony
Robbins of the WordPress space before I
have been referred to that and that’s
okay I’m gonna take that as a compliment
I’m probably a little less kind of
rah-rah that than Tony Robbins but um I
think it is all mindset for me I mean I
went from you know building websites in
my bedroom for $1,200 which in Australia
by the way if you build a website for
$1,200 you know you’re gonna be hungry
and be poor very very quickly it’s not
sustainable Australia’s quite an
expensive country to live in so I just
want to acknowledge that for some people
listening to this they might think wow
$1,200 is a lot of money for a website
in Australia it’s not and I went from
building websites for $1,200 and in my
spare bedroom and very quickly got to a
place where I was building websites for
actually touching the code because I was
in you know hiring developers and
project managers to work with us on the
projects and the way that I did that was
I I wasn’t delivering anything different
in fact I realized that you have to work
as hard to build a five hundred dollar
website as you do to build a five
thousand dollar website the difference
between the two is the client that has a
five thousand dollar website actually
has a business model and has the
capacity to get a return on that five
thousand dollar investment and values
that $5,000 as an investment whereas the
person building a five hundred dollar
website or paying for a five hundred
dollar website typically speaking
they’re taking that money out of their
own savings account to pay for this
website because they have some idea that
they think might fly and they generally
don’t have a business model that’s going
to support getting a return on eating
more than five hundred dollars and just
because those clients exist and I have
empathy for them and I want them to
succeed doesn’t mean I have to be the
one to build the five hundred dollar
website I can refer them somewhere else
to get that job done I can tell them to
go to up work I can tell them to go to
you know codable not that they’re gonna
get a 500 on our website of codable
either but I can tell them to go to a
marketplace and or to you know manage
the project themself or to go two weeks
or Squarespace and just do it themselves
right so so and I heat us a lot ah you
know I feel sorry for this client I’ve
only got five hundred dollars and I know
I can help them you can but you can’t
stay in business helping clients for
$500 websites right in Australia you
can’t and in fact I would say most of
the developed world you can’t stay in
business if you’re building websites for
didn’t change the only thing that
changed was the conversation and the
quality of the client that I was talking
to and the quality of the client changed
because I started putting out content
educational content on the Internet
he’s a radical idea but I started
putting out educational content videos
on the on the internet and people
started calling me up and emailing me
saying hey you seem to know a thing or
two about this digital marketing thing
can you help us and I said yes I can and
we started working we started filtering
out clients you know and eventually we
got to a point where we had an
application form on our website and we
stated very clearly we don’t do websites
for anything less than three thousand
dollars and then it was five thousand
dollars and then it was seven thousand
dollars and then it was ten thousand
dollars so that was a period of time
that we we iterated on that but it all
started with us putting out the right
type of content to attract the right
type of clients to us rather than just
saying yes to anyone who walked in the
door I totally agree that content is the
the right way to I mean when you’re
focused on the right audience on the
you’re trying to achieve the the top of
the of the mark you’re gonna have to
attract attention
other than cold calling and and and
selling them and I think content is
great i I think actually that that video
is great because I’m seeing people that
started out people in our community like
dave roy and adam Pricer and ditch and
yourself the achievements they’ve made
in video I don’t think that you can
compare it to any other medium but the
thing is because I’m having a lot of
conversation we
people from our community some people
find it hard to be on camera mm-hmm so
how do you bridge the gap someone who’s
eager he has everything one stood to be
to be the best success that that he can
be yeah yeah how can you give them the
the what can I do if they don’t have the
natural you know the they don’t look as
well on screen like you do and and speak
well there’s a couple of things first of
all you know never come here where you
are today with where someone else is
who’s been doing it for 10 years right
that’s a rule number one never compare
yourself to anyone else because I will
watch videos that I make now and compare
them to videos that other people are
making who are in much larger
organizations with me was much more
revenue and much more resources and if I
spend too much time comparing what I’m
doing now with what they’re doing I just
feel bad about what I’m doing and I get
depressed and then I don’t want to get
on camera right because I feel like I’m
not as good
so never compare yourself to anyone else
the second thing is the only way to
overcome the only way to get better at
anything is practice right so give
yourself permission to make a video and
then never show anyone and know that
when you first start making videos and
you watch them back you are going to
hate them and you are going to suck at
it
right so give yourself permission to
suck at it and the third and a Jif but
just keep practicing and keep doing it
and the third thing I’ll say is this and
I actually heard this on a podcast by
Amy Porterfield she said every time she
gets self-conscious about making video
one of her coaches said to her you have
to remember it’s not about you it’s
about your audience and you have a
message to share so if you don’t make
this video you are doing your audience a
disservice by keeping your message from
them so just get out of your own way for
a minute and share your message with
your audience so they’re the three
mindset tricks that I would you know and
I haven’t always been this confident or
this relaxed on camera when I first
started out I you know like
I wasn’t very good at it and this is
taking me a long time to get this
confident nice relaxed well that’s a
great answer and it raised an another
question for me is people starting out
and just you know maybe they made a few
websites for their family and they
they’re thinking about maybe I can do
this for a living maybe I can quit my
job as a waitress or whatever and and do
this for a living when you want to
create content that’s great if you have
clients and you as we spoke you can talk
about it if you’re trying to create
content from from scratch from zero if
and you don’t have clients I think what
usually people do is like okay let’s
risk keyword research everything that’s
related to WordPress let’s start writing
about it or you know and it’s kind of
you know they get lost because of course
it’s overwhelming and it’s not genuinely
coming from a place that they have
experienced for so yeah what kind of
advice would you give them well I’ll
tell you exactly because we have just
been through and it feels like you’ve
set me up here to answer this question
but I just want to tell everyone we I
did not know you were gonna ask this
question right we have just been through
this keyword research exercise here
ourselves and we’ve spent a lot of time
and a fair bit of money going over the
keyword research and here’s the thing
that I have found and here’s the thing
that I fundamentally believe about the
WordPress space and about digital
marketing in general when it comes to
keyword research one is it’s a it’s a
it’s a lovely little bubble for all of
us to live in but that’s what it is it’s
a very very very small bubble so if you
start doing keyword research around
WordPress for example you’ll find there
might be a handful of keywords that get
any kind of search volume a month right
that is worth mentioning right there’s
there’s there are lots and lots and lots
and lots and lots of keywords that get
hardly any search volume and there’s
very few keywords that get a lot of
search volume and I can tell you the key
word that gets the most search volume in
the WordPress base is WordPress login
because people you mean you you just
think that through to its natural
conclusion right people have got a
wordpress site they go to Google and
they go WordPress login there one and I
had a log into their WordPress site yeah
I think most of those people are on
wordpress.com not wordpress.org so
that’s interesting second of all this
space is changing so quickly
man that by the time you figure out a
keyword that’s worth ranking for it’s
done it’s moved on right so I think for
me anyway our approach now is to produce
content that we need answers for
ourselves because chances are that if we
need the answer then other WordPress
consulting firms need the answer to
produce content that is shareable that
people will want to share so it’s got to
be high quality it’s got to be
educational and it’s got to be
entertaining sometimes we get all those
three right sometimes we miss the mark
but you know I think we do a pretty good
job and then we reach out to the people
that we mention in those videos and we
say hey Ben we thought you might like
this video about using Elementor to
build rapid prototypes and you know feel
free to share it with your audience and
then you link back to us and that is our
organic SEO strategy I have done a lot
of work on keyword research in this base
and I don’t think there’s enough search
volume around particular keywords to
produce content for keywords now that
doesn’t mean that keywords and SEO is
unimportant I think once you’ve produced
a flagship piece of content you can then
optimize it for certain key phrases and
keywords and you can produce a whole
bunch of other satellite content that
points back to your cornerstone flagship
piece as the authority piece and that is
definitely a strategy worth pursuing but
if you look at the the the top WordPress
ranking articles for WordPress related
things its general they’re generally
ranking for digital marketing or general
digital digital business terms not
WordPress specific terms so I don’t know
if that answers your question but that’s
kind of where I stand on the whole you
know keyword research
that I want to strengthen what you’re
saying I think that if you’re doing
content that you’re engaged with then
your content will be richer because
you’ll have the examples
it’ll just you’ll be aligned with what
you’re doing and that way your content
will be better so people think about how
can I create great content okay it needs
to be three thousand words with media
with images no it has to be it needs to
align with what you’re passionate about
and hopefully you’re passionate about
your work if nothing change your work
but correct oh then then leverage that
that’s wrong and so I think you can
optimize a post with making sure you’ve
got you know images with alt tags that
you’ve got you know subheadings that
you’ve got you know bullet pointed lists
that the the post is readable that it
flows well that it reads well that it’s
entertaining that it’s engaging I think
you can do all of those things with a
post but I don’t think you should start
producing content just to satisfy a
keyword search I think you should
produce content that you are genuinely
passionate about and then optimize it
for any relevant keywords that people
might be searching for because the other
thing the other thing to bear in mind is
that every day I can’t member what the
percentage is but every day there is a
ridiculously high percentage of searches
done in Google for the first time ever
so that is no one has ever searched for
this before every day there are millions
of searches done in Google for the first
time yeah so it’s impossible to stay
ahead of that curve I I had to I have to
ask you because it’s very interesting to
me I think there’s something similar
between how Elementor grew and how your
company grew and will keep growing in
the fact that you have a lot in the
WordPress community you have a lot of
like plugins that are owned by you know
someone one single developer and they’re
constrained they’re not built as a
company meaning they’re not built to
scale and they don’t give both in terms
of branding and in terms of actuality
they don’t give that the feeling of
here’s a company who is behind this and
you can feel
safe with it so can you speak about what
it’s like I mean it’s a broad question
because I’m also interested in how you
actually manage to to to create this
this feeling of it’s a company and we’re
you have a global company with employees
around the world audience around the
world yeah I mean it started out we had
a plugin called the video user manuals
plugin which is a plugin that puts a
bunch of video tutorials in your clients
dashboard to teach them how to use
WordPress and so we start and we have a
free plugin called white label CMS which
allows you to completely white label
WordPress so we started building an
email list just two of us myself or my
business partner started building an
email list off the free plugin and then
started building a list of customers off
the video user manuals plug-in and after
a couple of years we spent no time on
that man we spent like a couple of hours
every Tuesday morning on skype just
having a chat about things and having a
look at our Google Analytics and they’re
not really doing anything and not really
knowing what to do next but after a few
years I want to say like maybe three or
four years the video user manuals
plug-in was doing about a hundred and
twenty grand a year in recurring revenue
and so we looked at it went wow like we
spend no time on this thing at all and
it’s doing a hundred and twenty grand a
year in recurring what could we do if we
actually paid attention to this and and
and put some effort into it so we
started for the first time ever we
started emailing our list and asking
them what they wanted and they
overwhelmingly came back and told us
that they wanted business coaching they
wanted to learn how to grow their
business they wanted to learn how we
wrote proposals they wanted to learn you
know people would people knew that I was
involved in the video user manuals
plugin they would go check out my
website they would have a look at some
of the clients I’d work with that say
how do you land these clients how do you
run the meeting when you first turn up
what questions do you ask addy write a
proposal how do you do you keep talking
about prototypes what are they how do
you do them you know how do you get your
clients on maintenance plans and how do
you get referrals and all these
questions kept coming in via email and
I’m like you know what there are enough
people asking the same questions that we
can
turn this into a course or a business
coaching program so in 2013 we launched
and five years later we’re now eight
full time staff and another twenty two
contractors around the world who touched
the business on a almost a daily basis
we have videographers video editors
copywriters you know blog writers
project managers coaches mentors SEO you
know we have a chairman of the board we
just appointed a chairman of the board
to basically help mentor you increase
the frequency of your courses right yeah
so we we yeah so we we up until recently
I were up until now we’ve been having
three launches a year in June we’ll have
our fourth launch for this financial
year our financial year in Australia is
July to June and we’ve also been putting
the price up and the reason that we’ve
been putting the price up is because we
have more staff and more coaches and we
create more value in the course and we
have greater support mechanisms for our
students and the truth is now that these
business on a on the on an operational
level the business runs almost without
me I occasionally will run a coaching
call and and and and help people through
the questions with with Simon the other
coach here in Australia and so we’ll
help our students get through the
blueprint but the marketing side of
things the operations the customer
success manager our customer support
tickets that’s all managed by the team
so my job now is to help grow the
business and help expand the business so
that we can help more people but I’m not
actually on the tools’ doing the things
that I was doing three years ago which
is a good thing Ben because up until up
until a couple of years ago if I got hit
by a bus
then all of our students would be at
risk because I wouldn’t be here to help
them right and so part of me really
wanting to build some structure and
build a team in this business is to
de-risk the business a
against me being the only key person of
influence so I can now step away from
the business if I get sick or I got hit
by bus I could be away for the business
for six weeks and the business still
creates value for its customers and
still generates a profit for the
business which is a good player that’s a
good space to be in so how do you manage
your time like how do you focus you make
a dangerous assumption that I know how
to focus and that I know how to manage
my time Ben I do have a lot on my plate
it’s a it’s a daily practice trying to
work out what to prioritize I mentioned
before we’ve disappointed a chairman of
the board here and his role really is to
mentor myself and my business partner
through this next stage of growth so
that we can so that you know he can help
us help keep us accountable but you know
what it’s really simple
until you complicate things right yeah
there are you know what I mean they were
really only like there are really only
like three things that you need to be
focused on everyday at this stage you
know for me and and like so every day if
you get three big tasks done you know
you should go home right and I look at
the areas of the business and I said
okay how’s marketing doing how are we
doing from a marketing standpoint how
are we doing from a customer service
standpoint we call it customer success
so our our existing customers happy yep
that’s customer success marketing is are
we attracting new customers to the
program yes and then the third question
is how’s the team doing is everyone
happy on the team that’s cool the
they’re kind of three big questions I
think about everyday you know they’re
the three things that keep me awake at
night that’s cool and how do you follow
up on your on your cousin and your
customers your students and what kind of
results are are you seeing that’s that’s
a great question man so we’ve got a
couple of metrics here in the business
that we use to measure there I’m just
waving goodbye to our customer success
manager Jean who’s walking out the door
we have a couple of metrics that we use
in the business here to measure how well
we’re doing
in serving our customers one is the Net
Promoter Score which is you probably are
familiar with it but for those that
aren’t it’s a very simple question it’s
a one-question survey you send your
customers and you say on a scale of 1 to
friends to WP elevation the usual nip
primer and you can score anywhere from
minus 100 to positive a hundred that’s
the scale where your score can see
depending on whether people give you you
know what score they give you and if you
want to learn more about that people
should Google Net Promoter Score cuz
it’s actually quite a there’s a great
science behind it and I really believe
that it’s a good metric to let you know
how you’re tracking with your existing
customers so these the benchmark for a
business like ours which is kind of
business-to-business coaching and
education the benchmark for our business
is around about 40 so if you’re getting
about 40 out of anywhere from minus 100
to a positive 100 if you’re sitting at
positive 40 then you’re on track our
current Net Promoter Score is 84 so I
know we’re doing really well and the
people that say that they wouldn’t
recommend us the reason that they say
that is because they don’t want their
competitors to find out about EE
application right so the other metric
that we measure is our course completion
rates out of out of all the people that
join up for our course what percentage
of people actually complete the course
within three months of joining and we
know that most online courses have
course completion rates of around about
anywhere from two to ten percent in fact
the more people that you have enrolled
in the course the lower your course
completion rates so some of the
brilliant master master class and I
didn’t finish there you go there you go
so the really large universities that
put their courses up online they have
completion rates of about two percent
and that’s because the online
environment you can’t replicate a
classroom by just putting it online
there are things that you need to take
into consideration and it all comes down
to the user experience although the
customer experience the student
experience and so we work really hard to
nurture our students through the course
a lot of people sell an online course
and then when you enroll they’re like
hey thanks for a match I’ve got your
money and I’m gonna go sit on the beach
we know that when you enroll in our
course that’s when our work begins
because you’ve trusted us enough to make
an investment in the course it’s now our
responsibility to make sure you
implement and you get results so our
course completion rates at this at the
moment are about sixty-five percent so
the course complete the course within
three months they graduate they get
their certificate they print it out they
take a photo and they put it in our
Facebook group and it’s an incredible
sense of reward and it’s a great big
virtual hug that the community gives
them to congratulate them for completing
the course now to follow that through to
its logical conclusion to answer your
question some of the results that we get
and I can speak you know firsthand
experience whenever I travel and I meet
people who have been through the WP
elevation program usually this the story
and I can tell you an example of Chris
and amber Hines who I met at WordCamp us
in Philadelphia a couple of years ago
and Robert and Alyssa Simmons who I met
in our mastermind in Miami last year
both came up to him when they met me in
real life and said I want to thank you
so much because as a result of going
through WP elevation the husbands have
been able to quit their full-time job
work from home in the business full-time
with their wives and they are living the
dream because they get to spend all day
everyday at home with their wife and
some in some cases their children
running this business from home and
they’re not trudging off to a job that
they that makes them miserable anymore
I can’t put a value on that I don’t know
what that’s worth but I know that that’s
what gets me out of bed every day that’s
the success stories in that yeah it’s
totally satisfying and and that is worth
more than any amount of money you could
put in our bank account yeah that’s
amazing
I think we can kind of wrap things up I
want to ask you what you’re currently
working on and what you want to share
about what’s new yeah so
you know when we when we launched the WP
elevation course when we’ve remodeled it
and relaunched it three years ago it
what people were logging in and they
were blown away by how beautiful the
interface was and and how amazing it is
and it still is when people log in for
the first time now it’s amazing
if you’ve for me I see it every day and
for me I’m like ah okay what can we do
next like how can we innovate how can we
make it even a better experience so I’ll
give you one very specific example that
we’re working on if you watch one of the
videos in one of the modules in our
course and you’re like and all our
videos are pretty short by the way
they’re only about you know 8 to 10
minutes each but if you watch a video
and you’re like halfway through it and
the doorbell goes and you’re like ah I
gotta go I’m gonna watch this later and
maybe you leave the house and then you
get on the train and then you open the
website on your phone at the moment you
kind of got to go back and watch that
video from the start again right so
we’re working on and I know this can be
done and we’re exploring different
options now but I want to improve the
experience so much that when you get on
the train and you play that video it
just picks up from where you left off
menlik’s yeah right exactly like Netflix
right and and and there’s there’s a
whole bunch of other things that we’re
working on which it really are designed
to allow you so we’re working on some
ideas for some SMS BOTS some chat BOTS
and also we’ve we’ve built the first
prototype of and I haven’t never
announced this publicly been so this is
a coup we’ve we’ve actually built the
very first prototype about our very own
desktop app which is not available just
yet but the desktop app will kind of be
like Google Drive or Dropbox and so for
example when one of our community
members writes a new proposal template
for you know marketing funnels and they
contribute that to the program and it
gets approved and it officially gets
added to one of our official resources
then it automatically just syncs to your
desktop and you go oh wow WP elevation
there’s a new marketing funnel proposal
template instead of having a login of
the members website and get the updates
and go find it we can just stream these
documents directly to you to your
desktop so they’re the kinds of things
that we’re constantly thinking
how we improve the experience for our
students and how we help them implement
what we teach them so that it’s not just
information it’s actually implementation
I love your strive for perfection it’s
really admirable and how can people
reach you and you know start the course
can you share yes so the best place is
to come over to WP elevation comm or hit
us up on Facebook we’re very active on
Facebook and we monitor our our chat and
our messages very very diligently WP
elevation comm slash Facebook you can
check out some of our livestream videos
all the website WP elevation calm at the
moment I’m not sure when this goes live
but we are open I think the first week
of June so come you know end of May
early June you’ll be able to enroll in
the program that’s cool Thank You Troy
it’s been fun and enlightening I’m sure
we’re going to do a lot of more things
together so until next time thank you
everyone and this you see you later
awesome thanks for having me Ben
