The WPATX organizers have had numerous requests to devote more time to the "Business" of WordPress. Sandi Batik will lead this month's discussion which focuses on what it takes to build a successful freelance WordPress business.
This presentation focuses on the tools and techniques, as well as the some of the best practice processes to help you successfully build and manage your WordPress business. Topics will include prospecting, marketing, proposal writing, client interviews and on-boarding, project management, client management, project close-out and invoicing client follow-up and whatever else you might want to address in the time we have.
2. HandsOnWP.com @nick_batik @sandi_batik
Presenters
Sandi Batik
WordPress evangelist, consultant, trainer, curricula
developer, author, unapologetic geek, unrepentant
capitalist, lucky enough to do what I love everyday. I’ve
served as Austin WordPress Meetup co-organizer since
2010. With my husband Nick Batik, co-founded Pleiades
Publishing Services in 1992 and Hands-On WordPress
Training in 2010.
Follow me @sandi_batik / @WPATX
Contact me at: handsonwp.com
Nick Batik
Started in web development in 1994 and have been a
WordPress consultant, and web developer since
2007. A WordPress evangelist, I’ve served as Austin
WordPress Meetup co-organizer since 2010. With my
partner, co-founded Pleiades Publishing Services in
1992 and Hands-On WordPress Training in 2010.
Follow me @nick_batik / @WPATX
Contact me at: handsonwp.com
3. HandsOnWP.com @nick_batik @sandi_batik
The WordPress Freelancer's
Life in One Slide
• Prospecting
• Marketing
• Client Interviews
• Bid / Proposal writing
• Statements of Work &
Contracts
• On Boarding Clients
• Project Management
• Client Management
• Project Close-out and
Invoicing
• Client Follow-up - Keeping
Relation Ship Warm for
repeat work and Referrals
• Rinse and Repeat
4. HandsOnWP.com @nick_batik @sandi_batik
The First and Most Important Resource
in Your Freelancers Tools Box is You!
• Your Skill Set
• Your Work Habits
• Your Drive
• Your Goals
These determine the capacity & effectiveness of
your Freelancer's Toolbox
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Lets start will Your Person Goals
for your Freelance WordPress
Venture
• Do you have written 2016 Goals
for our Freelance Business?
• If No,
Then do that tomorrow morning
• If Yes,
Then —
6. HandsOnWP.com @nick_batik @sandi_batik
Steps to reach each goal
Start with questions.
• How much income do I need to clear, after taxes &
expenses, to live the way I want?
• How many hours do I need work to make that income?
• How many clients can I serve in that time frame— at
my current skill level, and still delight them?
• What web development tools will I use?
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Steps to reach each goal
• Are their any tools I should avoid for now?
• How many 'paid services' should I use, if any?
• To reach my goal, will I need to out-source some
of the work I bring in?
• If so, to whom?
• Do I have the skill set and tools to manage a team
of distributed workers?
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• Come up with Your Own Set of Questions
• WordPress Ecosystem has room for many
Niches
• Each Niche will lead to additional questions
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• Why should a WordPress Freelancer focus on
Niche opportunities?
• Since 2009, a Freelancer couldn’t say they could
do all things WordPress equally well
• Potential Clients are not looking for a
"Jack of All Trades"
• Clients want a professional with the resources
(team members) to get the job done right.
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WordPress offers niche
opportunities for:
• Theme Designers
• Theme Developers
• UX/UI Developers
• Database / Backend
Developers
• Plugin Developers
• Social Media Specialists
• SEO / In-Bound Marketing
Specialists
• Content Developer and
Managers
• Site Administrators and
Maintenance Managers
• Consultants
• Trainers
12. HandsOnWP.com @nick_batik @sandi_batik
Build a reputation as a professional
in your WordPress Niche
There are many ways to become known in your local and wider
WordPress Community
• Offer advice to those who need it on forums or comment sections of
other websites
• Volunteer to help others at local meetups
• Offer to present on your topic at a meetup, WordCamp, or other
professional conference
• Go outside the WordPress Bubble and offer to present at Chambers of
Commerce
• Do some free work for friends, family or a non-profit for a written
testimonial and referrals
13. HandsOnWP.com @nick_batik @sandi_batik
Build a reputation as a professional
in your WordPress Niche
• Doing a "freebie" for a non-profit is a good way to, "Do well by
doing good."
• Post regular tips and new techniques on your blogs
• Offer to guest blog on a colleague’s site
• Figure out a reciprocal discounted "Trade' price for professional
partners
• Build a custom theme for free download
• Develop a plugin that solves a problem and submit it to the WP
Repository
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Marketing You to Your
Niche
How is your web presence doing?
The bare-foot shoemaker syndrome
• You need a presence on the web to get a web based job.
• Designers need a portfolio
• Developers need a cool site and a link to Github to
showcase your code chops
• Content Developers need a blog full of well organized
clearly written content.
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Potential clients will judge you
by the work on your own site
• Which is bad news for those of us "too-busy" to
update our own, best marketing materials
• Using your own skill to attract clients to you, is
better then having to hunt them down
• Make time to be your own customer — design
and build ‘new shoes’ for your site
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How to Interview Your
Client
Here are some questions we ask clients to build a reliable scope of work
• Are we discussing a new site or is this a rework to an existing site?
• What is your site's purpose?
• What do you want site visitors to do once the come to your site
• How much content do you have as of now and how much will need to be created?
• Text
• Special offer landing pages
• Are the site’s graphics created already?
• Logo
• Images
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How to Interview Your
Client
• Will the site require multi media elements like video downloads?
• What is your budget?
• Are you looking multiple bids?
• If yes, have you prepared a requirements document to give to
potential bidders?
• Are you already familiar with WordPress?
• How familiar are you with WordPress?
• ⁃How much training will you need?
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How to Interview Your
Client
• Do you plan to build a mailing list withMailChimp, Constant Contact, etc.?
• ⁃Are you already signed up with one of these services?
• What will you offer for sign up —newsletters, downloads, other marketing?
• Is that content created? Will you need help creating it?
• Do you want specific features such as SEO, Google Analytics, social
media channels and eCommerce?
• Do you want us to do the maintenance and security for the site once it has
been launched?
• Can you choose the three sites you like and tell me specifically, did you
like about each?
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Bid and Proposals
Identify "Time Wasters" when experiencing
these to "Client Tells”:
• Lack of communication
• Followed immediately by unreasonable demands
• Obvious low-balling
• Indecisive or constantly unclear or evasive
• Don’t waste your time - Move on
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Budget
• It is a good practice to provide a couple options
to the client — a complete proposal for the things
they request and an addition option for niche
support services for Hosting, WordPress
Training, Copywriting, In-bound Marketing
support etc…
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Terms
Our proposals include:
• Details of how we will work together
• Our Payment terms including our deposit
policy.
• Our right to show our work to other clients
• etc…
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Should Freelancers use
contracts with EVERY client?
• Yes, because you NEVER know when the only
thing between you and a toxic client is written
and signed rules of engagements.
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Contract Killer is the contract that many WordPress
Professionals use
https://gist.github.com/malarkey/4031110
The popular open-source contract for web
designers and developers by Stuff & Nonsense
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On-line Tool for Contracts
and Payments
Bonsai
https://www.hellobonsai.com/
This service helps with administrative minutiae of
negotiating client agreements. It is an e-sign-
enabled contract tool that have already been
attorney approved
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On-Boarding and
ManagingClients
• Communicate clearly and have a written agenda for
ever meeting: on-line, phone or in person
• Send a bullet point summary email after the meeting
to be sure you both left with the same understanding
• STICK TO THE AGREED SCOPE OFF WORK IN
THE SIGN CONTRACT
• Signed change-orders that acknowledge change can
effect projected delivery date for ANY changes
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Project Management
• Freelancers Trade Hours for Dollars
• Even With a Value Pricing Model, Time IS Money
• That is why project management is a critical skill
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• There are a number of Project Management and
Productivity tools for the WordPress Freelancer
• Some are Free — some have a monthly fee.
• You will have to decide which works best for your
particular Niche and volume of work
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How can I manage my WordPress
projects more efficiently
Start automating some parts of your work flow
WordPress Developers can set up Capistrano or sign up for
DeployBot
• Automatically take care of your deployment to remote
servers
• Commit your latest version of the code
• Click a button and get your code live
• Caution: Learning Curve Involved
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WordPress Site Practitioners / Site Managers can
manage multiple environments and client
websites,using website management platforms like:
• ManageWP ( now Orion) https://managewp.com
• WP Remote https://wpremote.com/
Helps you monitor all of your sites and lets you
update all of them at once.
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• Theme Developers consider using a theme
framework instead and reuse components across
your sites
• Build a suite of plugins that could be bundled in
many sites instead of building all of them every
single time.
• Reuse code snippets that could be reused
across your different themes, and integrated with
your framework.
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General Productivity
and Connectivity
• Gartner Research announced that by 2020,
customers will manage 85% of their relationship
without talking to a human...
• Using services like Zapier and IFTTT will connect
your apps and build trigger-based flows between
them.
• Example: Gravity Forms can connect client
request from your website to your CRM and
project management system.
37. HandsOnWP.com @nick_batik @sandi_batik
Project management tickets and commits
• can be pushed to your HipChat room or Slack to
notifies your project team team members and
keep client connected with out a blizzard of
email.
39. HandsOnWP.com @nick_batik @sandi_batik
Project Closeout / Invoicing
• We keep job in a client accessible sandbox
• Once they approve the final site and we receive
our final payment we move it to their hosting
service
• Our invoice comes with the signed contract
• Change orders are invoiced and paid for before
the move
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Project Closeout / Invoicing
• We test all the links and give client 30-days to test
the site to the AGREED scope of work.
• If they have opted for a maintenance contract we
set up our tools and monitoring schedule.
• If we discussed a phase two during development,
we ask when they would like to schedule that time
• Ask for a testimonial
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Client Followup
• Did you have a great client experience?
• Polite, kind reasonable people need encouragement
• Send a Thank You Note
• A Nice Analog note - hand written - stamped-sent by snail
mail
• NextDayFlyers http://www.nextdayflyers.com/ produces
cheap, fast, customized note cards
• Find one way to help your client in their venture