Wp Elevation Wordpress Business Podcast

Watch the video of this podcast here. David Hobson has been working online for most of his career, and when he can’t find a way to do something he turns to technology for the answer. Since working at Foundr with Nathan Chan, he’s been using LinkedIn as a tool for business development. He likes it because it’s measurable and practical. In fact, he’s had such great success with it that he has become the go-to guy for growing and accelerating a business with LinkedIn. When I asked him why WordPress consultants need to be savvy with their use of LinkedIn, he said it is an important social media platform especially for consultants. The primary reason is that LinkedIn is the professional social media platform today. It’s important to remember it exists and it is part of your brand and your online presence. The reason LinkedIn is so key is because a lot of people trust what they see on LinkedIn versus websites and other platforms. LinkedIn has a high trust rating; it's verified versus

Watch the video of this podcast here. Have you ever noticed the same ad popping up on different sites while you’re surfing the web? That’s a form of retargeting, and it can be highly lucrative when done properly. An expert on that subject and all things pay-per-click (PPC) is Mike Rhodes. Mike is a PPC and AdWords specialist and the founder of Web Savvy, a done-for-you digital marketing services agency. He joins us to talk about the three steps to properly using Google’s display network and more on today’s edition of WP Elevation! Mike Rhodes has been in the PPC and AdWords space since 2004 and has grown from a one-man shop to a team over a dozen people. He credits that team and the culture they’ve created to the tremendous growth they’ve seen over the last decade. One of the things they’ve learned to do so well is using Google’s display network. I asked Mike to share his insights on using that network with a lead gen system that is working. He said there are tw

Watch the video of this podcast here. Nik Thakorlal specializes in lead generation products and helping businesses grow through high yield lead generation. He also owns a software company, despite not having a background in software development. The first thing we talk about was how he recruits his team members. He explains the initial step when building your team is to understand what you want to get done now and also in the future. His strategy is to build a team that scales as the business grows, no matter what industry you serve or what position you are hiring for. To do this you need to get a vision of where you want to be in the future and recruit from that vision. From there, come up with a project or test case that replicates what it would be like in the future and test the candidates with that and then hire people based on who delivered the best results. Nik created his contests so the winner gets a prize of a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. He has done this effectively after discovering inte

Watch the video of this podcast here.   Nate Wright is a developer at heart. In fact, for the last three years as the creator and founder of Theme of the Crop, he’s built a suite of plugins using hooks extensively and has always designed his themes to deliberately integrate with his plugins.When asked how he recommends finding the right niche for you, Nate has some advice borne of personal experience. The first thing he recommends if picking an area you are interested in, otherwise you might bore yourself working on something you don’t care about! His next recommendation is to get a sense of who you will be dealing with within that niche. Is it mainly business owners, small organizations with lots of red tape, or hobbyists? Once you know that then you can get a clear idea of what the relationship will be like with your people. You can take it a step further and narrow the niche down even more once you know the groups within it. Nate explains a struggle he’s experienced in his niche.

Watch the video of this podcast here. Kate Toon has been working in the advertising world for almost 20 years, and she got her start in the digital era back in 1997. She’s worked with such notable clients as eHarmony, Curash, and Kmart; her first major digital job was creating Marks and Spencer’s e-commerce website which was one of the first online shops in the UK. Today she has evolved her expertise to SEO copywriting and consulting, and also offers SEO courses, memberships, conferences, and podcasts. Kate is the founder of The Clever Copywriting School and The Recipe for SEO Success eCourse, as well as co-host on the Hot Copy Podcast. She also just wrote her first business book and is now promoting it. In other words, she’s incredibly busy and productive! Because of her extensive experience and knowledge, I was excited to bring her on the show today. We talk about why it's important for you as a developer to create a solid SEO foundation for your clients and why you need to pay attention t

Watch the video of this podcast here. In his role with GoDaddy, Andy is a member of the content team and works on content in one form or another, including everything from webinars to blog posts to ebooks. But his primary focus is on his GoDaddy pro clients and helping them take full advantage of the Pro features available to them. He also has an extensive background in communities, but today we are focusing on his knowledge of content. And that knowledge can be perfectly summed up with his 7 Ps of content creation. The 7 Ps were born when he was working with a lot of B2B and small agencies. He found templating processes was helpful to implement things faster so more work could get done. He also began to consider if the same approach could be applied to content creation. He wondered if there was a framework that could act as a standard references and ensure all bases were covered while creating content consistently over time? He answered those questions and ponderings with the 7 Ps of content creation! They a

Watch the video of this podcast here. Simon’s career began in the world of print marketing and media. His role was to sell ad space in architecture and construction magazines, to architecture and construction companies. About a year later he took a job with Ignite Media Brands, a solutions agency for channels with digital and broadcast. They worked with companies like MTV, Nickelodeon, and National Geographic. It was a good place to cut his teeth, and learn the ins and outs of working with major brands.From there he joined MR9, a leader in the digital media scene. MR9 was a joint venture between Microsoft and a broadcast network called Channel 9. While working with them Simon produced content for clients like L'Oreal and BMW.However not long ago the entrepreneurial bug bit him and he struck out on his own with Content Kite. Content Kite works predominantly with digital agencies by creating content for them and helping them acquire leads and sales through content. With his extensive background in content

Watch the video of this podcast here. Back in 2009, Eric Hamm got his start with a theme called Frugal. As he continued to teach himself code, he continued to build - first Frugal, then Catalyst Theme, then Dynamik. Eventually, he moved everything over to Genesis. Since his start, he’s witnessed a lot of big changes and embraced challenges like the demand for responsive design a few years ago, as well as the advent of parent and child themes, among others. In the last year, however, he has witnessed an explosion in page builder plugins. Personally, he's developed the Beaver extender plugin for Beaver Builder; Eric says it's so popular because of its compatibility and it’s huge supportive community. He has also noticed people wanting to do more drag and drop for their websites, and more features are going from backend to front end. Those changes are affecting how themes are coded and how UIs are presented, among other things.   I also asked him how he balances his work time with his family tim

Watch the video of this podcast here. When I first heard the title of Carrie Dils’ book I knew immediately I wanted to have her on the show! It’s called Real World Freelancing: The No Bullsh*t Survival Guide, and Carrie says the content is based on the roadmap she wished she had had when starting out at 22.On this episode of WP Elevation, Carrie and I talk about that book as well as her tips for freelancers on how to manage their time, their finances and their mental health. When it comes to managing your time as a freelancer, Carrie understands it can be difficult. She says that it is one of the hardest things to wrangle! You can get distracted so easily, especially when you aren't working for anyone else or don’t have hard deadlines to keep you on track.The key to managing your time is to track it. You want to know where you are spending your time, first and foremost. A great way to do this is with the Rescue Time app. It is a free app that you can configure to track where you spend your t

Watch the video of this podcast here. Jack Arturo’s journey began like many people’s: he was a Wordpress developer who learned the ropes while working for a big company. After a spell, he went out on his own as a freelancer. But being the savvy entrepreneur he is, when multiple clients began asking him for a similar product plugin, he listened. With the help of one client, in particular, Jack took an idea for a plugin and ran with it. He created WP Fusion, a product that would automatically add people’s signup information from Wordpress websites into InfusionSoft. From there he expanded it to include other CRMs like Ontraport, Convert Kit and also for membership site programs like Woo Commerce, Ultimate Member, etc.On this episode, Jack explains why and when WP Fusion is important for businesses. Because WP Fusion essentially connects a Wordpress website to a CRM, it is not necessary for every stage of business. But as the business grows it becomes important. The bigger a business becomes, t

Watch the video of this podcast here. When Brian Gardner began his entrepreneurial journey he never thought productizing development is what he would end up doing! But it has become the cornerstone of his work. He says at the beginning of his journey he was new to WordPress. He noticed everyone was doing free themes, and there was no premium theme market.At the time he was just trying to freelance because he loved the idea of blogging and had begun to really like the design world. One day he did a freelance theme project for a client who didn't like it, the project was too forward-thinking!Naturally, Brian was upset that his client wasn't happy with the product. But, on a whim, he asked the followers of his blog if they would buy it, and they snatched it up! They loved it and within months Brian had generated upwards of $40k. And he realized he was on to something, he saw an opportunity for commoditization. That was the start of his Revolution theme and the start of his journey.When asked how to start product

Justin Ferriman is a passionate expert on all things e-learning. He made his bones early on as an e-learning consultant setting up global training programs and services for Fortune 500 companies. WordPress had always been a hobby on the side until one day a typical conversation changed all of that.He was discussing what learning management system to use on a particular project, Moodle was given as one among others. And that gave Justin an idea, he wondered if there was a learning management system for WordPress. Later he looked online and found nothing. Acting on inspiration, he set up a blog and started writing about the concept and his idea. He also set up an email form so people could opt in if they wanted to learn more. He kept the blog going, writing about his favorite topics of WordPress, learning management and e-learning. There was great interest in his plugin idea, so he talked it over with his wife, and they decided to give it a shot.They went through the process of having the plugin developed by an

Watch the video of this podcast here. Dre’s passion for security and educating people about risk and prevention clearly translates in his delivery of information and strategies in his discussion with Kristina. Let's Begin With Some Dre- Stats: There are 1.1 billion active websites on the internet today 33 percent are powered by some sort of CMS (so there is a lot of vulnerable code out there) 73 percent of this 33 percent are powered by 4 platforms specifically - Drupal, Magento, WordPress, and Joomla Over 47 percent of the companies running websites on their own have no way of tracking open source code. They aren't updating or changing components in an intuitive way, using correct standards What Does This Mean for Us as Wordpress Consultants? This is an opportunity for us to increase the longevity of our client relationship. We can help them grow their site and increase the return on their initial investment through on going work. Dre sees a website as a living organism

On the show today the five of us talk about what you can expect on the upcoming episodes of WP Elevation. In handing over the reigns, I’m humbled and chuffed to have these four extraordinary coaches step in and become regular hosts. And I’m also freaked out to let go! But after two years of weekly shows, I needed to refresh and reinvigorate what we were doing and where we were going with the WP Elevation podcast. My first question to these four was about what is most exciting for them in becoming hosts. Kristina is delighted for the opportunity to talk with the great minds in this space, and she thinks it's cool to connect with these guests in a more personal way, after knowing them through social media.For example, she has recorded an interview with Dre Armeda of Sucuri. They both have daughters - he has four and Kristina has one - who all have a common obsession with the movie Frozen! She said it was fun to connect on that level, and then launch into a discussion about website security. Mike is

For this week’s show, I sat down with one of WP Elevation’s business coaches, Kristina Romero, to speak with Jeff and Vlad. We started off by asking them about their backgrounds. Now, if you’ve ever used ManageWP, you probably already know about Vlad and how he became an entrepreneur. But just in case you haven’t, here’s the scoop: he was working as a developer in 2007 when he quit his job and decided to start a blog. Like so many of us, he tried out a number of different platforms until he found WordPress. It felt so natural and easy to use, he was hooked. From there, was inevitable that he would branch out into creating plugins, becoming a consultant, and even authoring books on the subject. Now, he’s the head of ManageWP, a simple and elegant platform for automating workflows and keeping clients’ WordPress sites up to date. Jeff, on the other hand, has a very different background. As a nerd growing up in Silicon Valley, he came of age during the dot com boom, worki

Having just turned 80, Michael E Gerber is more motivated than ever to transform the state of small business around the world. In this very special episode of the WP Elevation podcast, I had the good fortune to speak with the godfather of small business systems and growth about his new mission. Michael wrote his first book "The E-Myth" in 1986, however it was "The E-Myth Revisited" released in 1995 that went on to become one of the top selling small-business books of all time. In fact, Tim Ferriss includes it as one of only four books in his required reading list. Michael Gerber's work has had a profound impact on my business and my life over the last 10 years, so I was thrilled when I was given the opportunity to interview him on the podcast. I was curious as to what makes Michael tick and why he is so passionate about helping small business. Throughout the course of the 45 minutes we spent together, I discovered that he believes small business is the vehicle through which the individual can take responsibil

Our guest for Episode #107 of the WP Elevation Podcast is none other than our very own Mike Killen! Mike, along with being one of our three WP Elevation coaches, is a UK-based lead generation expert with years of marketing funnel expertise to share with us. He offered us valuable advice on the importance of quality web content, what qualifies as good promotion, and why marketing isn’t more important than generating solid leads. Mike had a very interesting past before getting into lead generation. At 10-years-old, his stepfather bought home a PC. It enthralled Mike. After learning about Flash, he began to get deep into coding and networking–so deep that he became a de-facto security risk at his secondary school! Mike had a childhood love for dinosaurs and was close to studying paleontology at University before someone told him how low-paying the field was. After taking a year off to figure it out, he dived into the marketing field. Mike was made redundant at an agency he was working for and went to

In this very special episode of the WP Elevation podcast, I sat down in the flesh with my good friend David Jenyns and talked about the fact that he's written a bloody book! This is no e-book kids, it's a real, paperback book with thud factor. We also hugged on the couch to prove that we're actually doing this interview in real life. We discuss the process of writing a book, the marketing strategy for a book, how to become an Amazon bestseller, and of course, we touch on the subject matter of the book too - how to produce "Authority Content" - and how to do it fast. Plus, find out how you can get the kindle version of the book absolutely free!!! Visit the WP Elevation website for more details.

Part 5 of Troy’s 5-Series Podcast- How He Went From Unemployable University Dropout to Building a Successful Online Business With Recurring Revenue

Part 4 of Troy’s 5-Series Podcast Detailing How He Went From Unemployable University Dropout to Building a Successful Online Business With Recurring Revenue