Wp Elevation Wordpress Business Podcast

Do you ever wish you could move away from just taking orders from others about what they want from a WordPress site? Or maybe become known as a thought leader instead of just another developer? This week’s guest has a plan for building authority and finding your voice as a consultant. In this episode, I talk with Philip Morgan about his Coder to Consultant program and the importance of business development in finding clients that allow you to do more than fill WordPress development requests. Making the move from developer to consultant may seem daunting, but Philip lays out how you can do it, and why it’s important for the longevity of your career. The ‘Oh Crap’ Moment Philip began to notice a pattern over the course of his career. Every 5-7 years, the demand for certain development skills would decline as new skill sets entered the market and became in-demand from clients. He saw developers have what he describes as an “oh crap” moment when they realized that their skills

It’s easy to get distracted from crazy headlines and overnight success stories. The truth is, that these stories almost always just focus on the highlights and disregard the challenges and hardships people go through. Today’s guest, Miles Beckler truly represents a rags-to-riches journey. Miles Beckler is a digital marketer, world traveller, and content genius. He runs Ask-Angels, a meditation website which has over 150,000 subscribers and attracts 8 million visits per year. In this episode, you’ll learn how to get through hard times, grow a loyal audience and build a business that you can be proud of. Background In 2009, Miles and his wife co-founded Ask-Angels, a spirituality website selling guided meditations and other meditation products. After some success, friends and colleagues started asking Miles how he was able to travel the world while working on his digital marketing projects. This prompted Miles to start offering insights and coaching via online video on how he was able to succe

Neil Patel has been on my wishlist of podcast guests for quite some time now. He’s the co-founder of so many amazing tools that all of us digital marketers use, like Kissmetrics, Crazy Egg, and Ubersuggest. He gets over 3 million hits on his website per month! And if I had known inviting him was as easy as sending an email, he would have been in the guest seat much, much earlier. Luckily for us, he’s here today on WP Elevation Podcast, and in this episode we talk about how to optimise user experience on your website. The Personal Brand of Neil Patel If you ask Neil how he feels about personal brands, he’ll tell you that corporate brands are far more successful. He just fell into his own personal brand by accident. When he was first starting out, he couldn't afford Google AdWords, so he started blogging. That Quick Sprout personal blog ultimately built his name as the personal brand we all recognize today. It was through blogging that he shared his experiences and frustrations with online mar

At leas one-third of the people we know are introverts. Should introverts push themselves to become extroverts or can they stay in their comfort zones and still build successful businesses? Today we speak with Matthew Pollard, the “Rapid Growth Guy” and self-professed introverted entrepreneur. In this episode, Matthew talks about growing 5 multi-million dollar businesses from the ground up before turning thirty. Background Matthew is originally from a small town in Au​stralia, ​Craigieburn but is now mainly based in the U.S. He​ m​ade the switch to the States after travelling the world to the U.S., Europe and South America. After meeting the love of his life in Texas, he decided to stay in America. He was still drawn to the travelling entrepreneur lifestyle, so he launched his first online business. Preferring to stay behind the computer, Matthew was convinced that selling to people by phone or in person was a waste of time. Had he known back then what he knows now about sales, he says he would ha

We all want to build better WordPress websites. Unfortunately, they don’t always end up looking great. If there was a way that you could bundle it all and build a website in, say, a weekend, would you take it? Well then, brace yourself, because it IS possible to build a WordPress site in a weekend! In this episode, we get a little help from Matthew Averkamp who knows all about building a website in a matter of days. I spoke with Matthew about Launch Party, his new course and toolkit for beginner WordPress site builders. He’s created a program that can teach anyone how to build a website from scratch. Here at WPE we call it “a website in bag” because it literally comes with everything, all the way down to customizable color schemes. Tune in now to hear Matt and I talk about where he came up with the idea and why he’s offering his courses and templates absolutely 100% free forever. Like Father, Like Son Matt has been building his own businesses for the past 15 years, but his first

Should you start a podcast or are you already too late? There's a lot that goes into running a podcast, but Joe Casabona is here to help us out. Joe is a Wordpress developer, podcaster and online course creator. Joe also teaches computer science and literacy at the the University of Scranton. Today, Joe joins us and dives into the art of podcasting. Learn how to start your own show, make money and crucial mistakes to avoid. Content Is The King One of the main challenges faced by new podcasters is making sure they’re consistently putting out enough quality content to keep their audience's attention. It can be hard to build a loyal following when starting out, but delivering regular high-quality content is key. Joe releases two seasons a year, each containing between 22 and 24 episodes. For Joe’s podcast, this is enough content to keep his viewers engaged. The amount you need to produce, though, will vary based on on your podcast topic and how long it has been running. How Do You Find Guests? The be

From an individual standpoint, it's easy for a lot of us to see the appeal of working remotely; you can work from home, from the coffee shop, on the road or even in the air. But when it comes to working as a team, remote work can pose a few extra challenges. This week's guest is here to talk to us about how you can build a great remote team, keep them productive and accountable, and retain great talent while scaling up. Rob Rawson is something of an expert when it comes to remote work; he runs TimeDoctor and Staff, two services for managing remote teams. Oh, and right now, he oversees a team of over 80 employees in 28 countries, every single one of them working remotely. The Problem Working remotely solves a lot of problems for employees: it cuts out unwanted commutes, gives you freedom to travel, and lets you work in your own space and under your own dress code. But working with and for a group of people you’ve met a handful of times, if ever, can be isolating. Done badly, remote working can seriously

Many of us have a love-hate relationship with LinkedIn; we’ve all got profiles, and we get connection requests, sure—but do we really know what we’re doing with it? With a decade of experience, todays’s guest, John Bellamy is here to show how to profit from LinkedIn and turn it into a money making machine. Background A fellow Aussie, John Bellamy is from the Gold Coast, and while recording this episode he confirmed he was actively wearing board shorts. Apart from that, his career trajectory started around 1999, when he was working for direct mail communications company SellMap, in the “junk mail” (i.e. unaddressed advertising mailers) division. While there, he learned marketing techniques from a variety of different angles, but as he moved up through the ranks, it became clearer and clearer to him that this wasn’t his permanent career. “I always knew that I wanted to go and work for myself,” he tells Troy. “I always knew that the corporate world

How do you go from dropping out of university and paying bills by doing odd freelance jobs to running an award-winning WordPress development agency? 93Digital founder and managing director Alex Price is here to tell us how. After breaking into the world of freelance development at just 19 years old, Alex has rapidly expanded his one-man WordPress business into a thriving agency in the heart of London, where a team of developers and designers create websites for such high-profile clients as Amnesty International and the University of London. Having built his business from the ground up, you could say he knows a thing or two about scaling. Importance of Starting Slow While it’s safe to say that he didn’t specifically dream of being a WordPress developer as a child, ever since childhood Alex has valued his independence pretty highly. He was eager to gain financial independence even as a teenager, and that’s how he found his way into web development—something he was good at, he enjoyed, an

One of the best things about WordPress is the tight-knit, supportive community of designers and developers that has sprung up around it over the years—so how can you make the most of it for your business? Nathan Ingram, WordPress business coach and head of training at iThemes, is here to tell us. Appearing on this episode with a wall of lanyards from past WordCamps behind him, Nathan is a familiar face at WordPress community events all over the US these days. Even though he fell into WordPress somewhat by accident, and his rise to becoming one of the most respected trainers and coaches in the business is a story of adaptation, overcoming impostor syndrome, and learning to play to his own strengths and let other people play to theirs. How It All Started As a child, Nathan wanted to be a scientist, although he was never exactly sure what kind. While he ended up going a different way when he grew up, he never lost his sense of curiosity, and he still considers himself a full-fledged geek and a “magne

Cash Flow ProblemsColin Hewitt is no stranger to the struggles business owners face in trying to manage cash flow. That’s how he came up with the idea for Float six years ago. After graduating from university with a degree in Computer Science, and after a year of freelancing, Colin decided to launch a digital agency. It was here that he gained first-hand experience in the issue he would eventually solve. In order to get a sense for his business’s cash flow, Colin first managed his finances in a notebook. Then, he began using a spreadsheet. The problem was, it took hours to enter, calculate and manipulate the data. Needless to say, the process was time-consuming, error-ridden and stressful. A Cash Flow Forecasting Solution Was BornColin believed there had to be a better way to answer the question: “Do we have enough cash in the bank?”And this is what Float is for. Float is a cash flow projection tool that integrates with accounting software Xero and QuickBooks. It takes all the dat

Neuro-Linguistic Processing, or NLP, is one of the many psychological coaching tools out there that some people completely swear by, while others think it’s just another pop-psychology fad. Our guest Nick Cownie, armed with a clinical background, has made a name for himself by distilling a lot of overwrought NLP techniques down to just their most essential components, and he’s here to tell us about how to put them to good use—and tell us a harrowing tale of being kidnapped and left in the desert! Background Nick Cownie is a sales psychology consultant, NLP consultant and practitioner based out of Wagga Wagga. Originally trained in traditional Chinese medicine after his health sciences degree, he worked in a clinical setting for fifteen years before moving into NLP. He and his wife were early adopters of the training and coaching methods that are standard today, moving their mindset training services online back when that was unheard of in the field. A method that matters In a landscape prett

So many of us take pride in offering high-touch, customized service experiences for our clients, where everything is tailored to each client’s specific needs—so why is this week’s guest finding so much success doing the opposite with his product? Matt Johnson, of Pursuing Results, is a former WordPress developer who pivoted his business into a podcast production company, and he offers his production services as a full-package, standardized product. He sat down to talk with us about what that means, why it works, how other professionals can implement and scale the product model in their own businesses, and where the future of podcasting is headed. The Beginning Matt got his start in WordPress development building a website for a piano studio, and then later built another for his first consulting client, which led him into the world of real estate. From there, he learned the benefits of optimizing teams and processes well enough to able to step back from the day-to-day. It was also where he fi

In a world with more distractions than ever before, people are flocking to productivity apps and organization tools to try to keep themselves on-task from day to day. With messages, articles, ads and notifications competing for our attention every minute, it’s no surprise that we’re jumping at the promise of a high-tech solution to help us manage our priorities. However is getting your life together really a matter of finding the right app to do it for you? Entrepreneur Adam Jelic doesn’t think so. In an increasingly app-focused market, Adam has found success with his line of artfully-designed goal-setting stationery. Good old-fashioned paper stationery. Unconventional goals Originally from Melbourne, Adam Jelic founded goal-centric stationery company MiGoals in 2010 out of his garage - in true entrepreneurial fashion. It's a bit ironic that becoming a professional planner wasn’t what he originally set out to do. First, Adam took some graphic design classes, had his try at profess

You can’t be a successful entrepreneur without learning to love sleazy sales tactics and marketing yourself like crazy, right? Wrong! It really doesn't have to be that way. This week's guest, Dave Foy is nothing short of an icon in WordPress design circles, and he’s pretty popular with us here at WP Elevation. Despite his humble beginnings as an HTML hobbyist in the late 90s, he’s made a serious name for himself as an instructor with his Design Build Web online courses and YouTube tutorials. Tune in to hear exactly how Dave found his success. Background Dave started out as a teacher in his early twenties, mostly teaching primary school kids. He enjoyed the actual teaching part, but he struggled a lot with the bureaucracy in schools, as well as the impermanence. Programs were frequently abandoned and replaced, kids were constantly moving on to new classes, and he hated not being able to see things through until they were finished. Leap of Faith #1 Dave felt a need to actually make things

Watch the video of this podcast here. Profit First: A Lesson LearnedThe recording above is a lengthy one, but I’ll try to do it justice by summarizing the essential bits for you here. Be sure to watch it in full as Mike not only digs into his history as an entrepreneur but also tells the story of what motivated him to begin writing books about profit. I suspect many of you will have experienced similar lessons of your own at some point. Mike’s StoryMoney matters a great deal in the grand scheme of success… so why do many business owners handle it so poorly? Take Mike, for example. Over the course of his career as an entrepreneur, he owned and sold over a dozen businesses. His first two sales netted him a good profit, but he let his arrogance and ignorance dictate his next moves… which ultimately led to his downfall. “I thought I was god’s gift to entrepreneurship and became a dick.” As a result, he lost everything after 10 new businesses he hastily launched as an An

Watch the video of this podcast here. A Brief Intro to Jamie HillJamie Hill considers himself a dad (to three kids, two dogs, and two cats) first and a business owner second. He and his wife partnered together six years ago to purchase and operate iNovate Marketing, a web design and marketing agency. While it’s seen lots of success in that time, it wasn’t allowing Jamie to focus on his top priority very well. Before the BlueprintLike the influencers he follows (Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone), Jamie was all about the grind before signing up for the Blueprint course. As you can imagine, 16 hours of work a day, 3 hours of sleep every night, and making time for the family in between can only lead to one thing: Burnout. When Jamie first encountered WP Elevation, he worried that his business wasn’t the target audience as many of the webinars seemed to be geared towards freelancers and small agencies. His company, on the other hand, was well-established, had 20 or so employees, and was quite pr

Watch the video of this podcast here. A Brief Background for Monique DubbelmanMonique Dubbelman has played a role in design for a few decades now. Back in the late ‘80s, she trained to be a graphical engineer. That role eventually led to management positions in the print industry, which eventually gave way to the digital world we all know and work in now. After print died down, Monique made a decision to move away, both literally and figuratively, from her work. She moved to the countryside in the Netherlands about 15 years ago and built her own webshop for organic gardening. And this was just the start. Life Before the BlueprintMonique officially began building websites with BOE!media in 2011. While she was happy working as a designer and a builder, she found that her business model was not scalable. She was working on demand and compromising on price for the small business clients she worked for. So, she began looking for the next phase of her career. It was at that time when Beaver Builder pointed he

Watch the video of this podcast here. A Brief Introduction to Shane SyddallShane Syddall unofficially entered the digital marketing space nine years ago when he began designing websites for clients. The number of clients who asked for help outside of web design was increasing, so he pivoted his business three years ago to focus on digital marketing services such as SEO. He currently owns and operates Sparta Digital which brings digital marketing and web design services to small businesses looking to compete with enterprises. Before the Blueprint CourseAs Shane explains in the podcast, he began his career in coding. That’s what he excelled at and so the business management piece was something he struggled with before the Blueprint. It was so hard for him, in fact, that he had to take money from his family in order to put food on the table. There were a number of reasons why Shane struggled in the beginning: He didn’t charge enough for his services. He wasn’t putting together good proposals.

Watch the video of this podcast here. A Bit About Bret PhillipsBret Phillips began (like so many of us do in this space) believing he could launch a full-service agency and handle it all on his own. As we all know, however, that can be a very difficult feat to pull off. Eventually, he decided to scale his Web Devils agency back to something smaller and more focused; specifically, it became a custom WordPress development business. It wasn’t until he entered the Blueprint program and got his company, pricing, and processes under control that he was able to merge it with Sideways8, an Atlanta-based digital marketing agency that does it all. He now uses Blueprint to refine processes for his business as well as for Sideways8. Life Before BlueprintAs Bret summed it up: “Life was hard.” Prior to implementing the Blueprint into his business, Bret and his small team of contractors were getting by with only just enough revenue. Their agency only handled WordPress development projects, which meant no