Running a "successful" WordPress business - my talk from the WP Cape Town Meetup
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Running a "successful" WordPress business - my talk from the WP Cape Town Meetup
- 1. The Business of WordPress Miriam Schwab WP Cape Town Meetup April 10, 2014
- 2. The miracle of South African manners.
- 4. 8 Years in the WP biz 3 WordCamps organized 100+ WP sites built 5 Continents with clients
- 5. 1. Diversify your services
- 6. Us, looking for new projects.
- 8. The Zen of Recurring Revenue
- 9. Breakdown of services today WordPress sites 70% WP Hosting/Maintenance 10% Digital Mktg. 10% Courses/consulting 10%
- 10. Goal breakdown of services WordPress sites 40% WP Hosting/Maintenance 30% Digital Mktg. 20% Courses/consulting 10%
- 11. 2. Much ado about clients & chemistry
- 12. Who is your ideal client? Budget Industry Referral Timeline Mentsch?
- 13. Same conditions… Client 1 Client 2 Industry Tech Tech Project Manager X X Type of project Theme + custom design Theme + custom design Designer Theirs Theirs Developer Y Y
- 15. Results: Client 2 “Grumble, grumble, you provide bad service, we don’t like you. Grrrrrrr.”
- 16. Conclusion: we can only do our best. (So go have a cuppa.)
- 17. 3. CRM. Now.
- 18. Global Workforce: 3.4 billion (IDC)
- 19. Using CRM: 15 million (SugarCRM)
- 21. 56% 44% Using CRM No CRM Forrester CRM Study Q3 2012
- 22. CRM Options
- 23. Zoho CRM
- 24. 4. Be prepared for growth
- 25. Hiring What you are looking for • Experience • Portfolio • Personality • References • Test them! What they are looking for • Compensation • Respect • Opportunity to learn • Flexibility • Passion
- 27. You might be fired.
- 28. 5. Finding your price.
- 29. Open Source means it’s free, so why do you cost so much?
- 30. I read that WP is easy, so can’t you just add this feature?
- 31. You will always cost more, and less, than others
- 32. x = number of billable hours per month = 60% of available work hours y = overall overhead per month (salary, taxes, rent, office expenses) z = profit goals a = hourly rate (y + z) / x = a
- 33. Differentiate yourself • Service • Skills • Holistic • Give • Social media • Teach • Organize • Publish • Wow them
- 34. THANKS! Miriam Schwab miriam@illuminea.com Learn more about illuminea at illuminea.com
- 35. Credits Photos • Church of All Nations – Wikipedia • Western Wall – Wikipedia • Armenian Quarter – Jaime.Silva, Flickr • Southpark image – Southpark downloads • Running guys in black and white – New Old Stock • Sunset – Unsplash • The Aussie Troops – Flickr Links • IDC report on CRM • SugarCRM data on usage • ReadWrite web on CRM
Editor's Notes
- A bit about me and illuminea – how I got started in business and WP
- With all due respect to WP, the whole running after projects that start and end is time consuming, and means you don’t know what’s happening next month. We realized after a few years of doing that, that it was too stressful. So we came up with additional and ongoing services to offer your clients. Maintenance, hosting, support, reporting.
- Recurring: SEO, hosting, maintenance
- Ask audience for some things that make the ideal client
- Hiring
- You may not think you’ll ever reach the stage where you want to spend money, but you will (God willing). And it sneaks up on you. Hiring is one of the riskiest things you will do. So start collecting talent today. Meet someone good? Write their details down and store them for the day you need to grow your team.
- Freelancers are uber-important. They are your elasticity. Cloud servers - they’re all about increasing your resources when you need them, shrinking when you don’t. That’s where amazing freelancers can help you out. Keep a good database of freelancers you can turn to when you need a few more hours of someone’s time, temporarily, but don’t need to hire. If you can create an ongoing relationship with freelancers, it’s win-win. They know they can expect work from you, and you have somewhere to turn when in need.