What About Bob (Dunn)? Episode 58

Episode Transcript

Carrie: Howdy Howdy everybody you are listening to officehoursfm episode # 58. Today I’ve got Bob Dunn back in the house. Hey Bob! How are you doing?
Bob: Good. How are you doing Carrie?

Carrie: All right. I don’t know why I had to say it like how you duin? It just sort of…you’re on the complete other coast but it came out sort of goomba –ish. (laughing) For all the folks just tuning in thank you for joining us today. You can ask questions by tagging them with #officefm on Twitter or using @officehoursfm. Tweet to that on Twitter. If you’re using or watching this via the Google hangout there’s the little Q&A you can also send your questions in there. Or you can just wave your arm wildly wherever you’re sitting in and I have a new plugin that enables me to view that and know what your location is. Wouldn’t that be freaky? Today is sponsored by ManageWP who is the kind of one-stop shop dashboard for managing all of your WordPress sites. So if you’re managing more than one site go check them out and you can even do a free trial. ManageWP.com and that is a huge timesaver. Our other sponsor today we have Shay Bocks back. You may know Shay from the Foodie Pro Theme. This one’s so big that I have to take a sip water to get ready for it, Bob. Shay has unleashed the Design Biz crash course. It’s a five-day online course. But you can actually take it at your own pace if you do not want to go five consecutive days. She lays out what works for her and what has not worked for her in her freelance design business. I’ve been through it myself. Awesome. Shay’s got some great insights and is very honest. She’s offering 50 bucks off for you listeners, if you want to check that out and get $50 off go to officehours.fm/podcast/58 because this is episode 58 and with that let’s get rolling to the goodies. So Bob welcome back. It’s been…you were on episode #7 which makes it almost one year ago that you were on this podcast.

Bob: Wow, that long ago huh? I’ve aged. (laughing)

Carrie: I know. Your beard wasn’t gray the last time you were on.
Bob: Oh really? It’s you know…as I get more into this WordPress stuff the gray starts coming out more…so.

Carrie: For folks who haven’t had the chance to meet you, give us the quick rundown…who you are what you do.

Bob: Ok. I have a training-coaching business so I primarily focus on training groups like businesses and nonprofits and even corporate clients in WordPress. And then I also do one-on-one training. I’ve done that on line for several years. Just recently I am starting to do that in person as well. So it’s kind around those two areas and then I also offer workshops. I’ve done a lot of those in the past. Kind of took a break and now I’m back into doing it local workshops…quite a few of them. I have some new stuff going on with them. Basically in a nutshell trainer and coach of WordPress all the time.

Carrie: Well you clearly have a passion for teaching others. I don’t think you would survive very long in that segment without a love for teaching. I know you before you entered the WordPress world you had your own agency and you’ve done a lot of design work back when design work actually happened on a piece paper and went to the printing press. All those ages ago. What was your…like what made you say…I’m turning this off. I’m turning off this business and I think I’ll make a leap and hang out a shingle doing WordPress stuff. Was that kind of a scary leap or did you feel pretty confident about going into business?

 

Bob: Yeah you know it was probably because I started freelance I think in the late 80s.God, this is really going back. And then I started our business in ’92. It was a marketing and graphic design business. In the early 90s I was starting to do some web stuff. You know trying to understand it. I basically couldn’t stand doing it. It was HTML I can’t even remember…I’m trying to remember the software I was using. I was putting up these horrible looking brochure sites.  I look back at those…I always knew I had to get into that more. So when I start looking at WordPress around 2007 that’s when I thought man…this is pretty cool. So I dove into that more and more. By 2008 I decided ok I’m gonna start offering this for a service because of…it really boiled down to hey, now I can give something to clients that they can manage themselves because I just didn’t really want have to be always there for them changing content and stuff. Shortly after I started that…it was probably in 2009 or so…I’d done print forever…logos that whole smear of stuff. It was just becoming less and less important for people. There’s materials out there but it was dying and with logo design you know everything was starting to get around 2000 into crowdsourcing. It was hard to compete when you used to charge a couple thousand for a logo. Now everyone’s getting them for 99 bucks. I actually had looked at some of that stuff. I thought…a few people came to me and said I hey I got this logo for 99 bucks…I’m like…well you know that’s really not too bad for 99 bucks. At that point I thought…man…this print thing…I was getting kind of burned out on it. I was thinking man the WordPress was starting to pickup a little bit more. There was one day I just said I’m dropping all my print clients and focusing totally on line. And then when the economy kind of got weird. I think that was 2001-2002 the WordPress stuff was picking up and I just said screw it all. I’m just gonna do WordPress. I’m just gonna design WordPress sites. That’s all I’m gonna do. I kind of took a…it was kind of scary because I had a few good print jobs still here and there. I just told those people this is the last time I’m doing this. And fortunately I kind of entered it around that time was a prime time to enter it because it really took off in the direction that I’d hoped. So that was cool.

Carrie: Nice.Well quite a journey. And your journey is on going. You’ve hung out training space but your offerings have been sort of a metamorphosis over the time, even the time that I’ve known you. You’ve got a Podcast rocking now. I want to talk a little about that later and then you’re training is taking a little bit of a new direction so you’re wanting to…and correct me if I’m getting this wrong but basically teach workshops and be able to offer them for free to the community right there in your neck of the woods and then find corporate sponsorship if you will to underwrite the cost of that?

Bob: Right. Right. It’s something I’ve been toying with. I think I’ve been testing with it a lot because prior to about a year and a half ago…I must have done like 150 workshops in this area. I was doing free and paid workshops. I really enjoyed doing that and then during that time I was still doing design, so it was kind of like…you know I designed sites. The design part of things I liked but again I think just having done design for so long I was just getting tired of it. I kept wanting to build up the training so I added the group training. I’ve done some corporate training which I’m trying to build up on one side but the workshops…I went online for about a year and a half there was a point where I thought man I just don’t if I want do local workshops anymore. So I got in my pajamas and sat at the computer a year and a half and thought the globe is my customer. I’m on line now…even though I’d been before…and after about a year and a half of that I started to think I really miss workshops because there was just something about connecting with people in person. So last fall I decided to start them again. The thing with WordPress and you know this in the community… it’s very tough. Everybody expects something for free. We battle with this in every aspect of WordPress. You know things are going to be getting better direction. The workshops are especially tough unless are doing really comprehensive multi-day workshops. And I just noticed that people still were kind of looking for that free workshop. No matter what I did and sometimes you spend so much time trying to fill registrations and selling it that you don’t have as much time really putting in the energy into the actual workshop and finding the best way to give back. It’s just out there but the content all the stuff…I started thinking I actually approached Go Daddy on the initial concept of this. And Mendel…I’ve gotten to know him..I kind of you know turned my corner on Go Daddy. I was you know one of those Go Daddy whatever in the past. But the last year I saw a lot of things happening with them. I talked to Mendel. They’re really trying the going in the right direction and so I approached him and said how would you like to sponsor four workshops? We talked about it a bit and I explained how I would do this and they went for it. So those have been really great. When I was thinking of free workshops… there’s that… you know anybody can put out a free workshop or anybody can just say Oh! We’re gonna do it…and there’s the attrition thing. You’ve kind of got to over book because you’re gonna have certain no-shows. But what I realized is how can I do these free workshops because there’s a sector people that are just going…are kind starting out…their money… I almost think I’d rather have them investing their money in good themes and plug-ins and even if they need some help customizing instead of learning the basics of getting started. So that’s where the sponsorship thing came in. I kind of expanded on that. You know I won’t quite give the detail unless you want me to right now but it wasn’t just you know here’s a workshop sponsor. I’m really focusing on how to not just make these people customers long-term but advocates of the product. So some of the workshops I’m offering are going to be actually custom workshops around certain products. If you have a very best-selling plug-in; premium plug-in out there I’ll do a three hour workshop just on your plug-in. How people can use it, how people can get the most out of it and so you kind of get a customized workshop around your product or your service. That has just started. I just launched it Tuesday so you know I ‘ve got some work to do. (laughing)

Carrie: So when you do these custom workshops will you make them available after the fact via your website? Or…this is not the area…too bad.

Bob: Yeah. What I think I’m to do…actually going to do…is create like a small course. That small course is going to…I’m not going to get into videos or anything…but kind of a text screenshot course that basically walks through all the main highlights about that workshop. Make it available to attendees…I’m kind of throwing right around 30 days maybe I’ll make it available to them for 60 days…that way I can continue to give the sponsor more play for their money plus I’ll offer those courses at a minimal cost for people that didn’t attend the workshops. I can at least use that kind of ongoing and because a lot of these people when they come to my workshops…by the end my workshops they’re just cross eyed. You know they’re about ready to drop on the floor. They said Bob you told us so much stuff. So that will be a good follow-up. I try to follow the follow-up with resources and stuff but this will at least give them something to go back and revisit. Remember those little pieces they forgot.

 

Carrie: Ok. So I want to follow-up with you on the actual workshops and how those unfold but first let’s a bit about the sponsorship aspect. I think it’s really interesting way of funding. Clearly I do it here on the podcast. I know a lot of podcasts do that. It’s an interesting way of finding funds so that you can offer something for free to an audience. But you touched on this…the rub is how you make it so that your offering value to the people who are sponsoring you but you’re not being really annoying to your audience by just basically being a massive commercial. So when you approached Go Daddy did you sort of set the terms of engagement if you will? Or we they like ok when we do sponsorships these are the requirements.

Bob: Yeah. I basically said this is what you’re going to get for the money. So I laid out all the…you know they get their logo on my workshop…any advertising…I constantly talk about the upcoming…thanking them and stuff. And for that particular need… the audience…we picked workshops that would work for their audience which is kind of the people that are on the edge of thinking about starting WordPress site. So in the point work that…Yeah… they may be thinking about also purchasing hosting. What I do is…I bring in…in that particular case I bring in of part of my workshop that talks about hosting. I give a general overview of what kind of hosting is out there. You know shared, managed all the stuff like that. Then I basically give Go Daddy a 15 minute commercial talking about a specific service of theirs but I do it in the sense of value to the people. I don’t say you know you can do this and you can do this over and get this extra add-on and stuff that’s like if you have this hosting…for example, you could easily access the FTP information. I mean it’s just easy to find. So I explain to them why they may need that you know. Carrie may call you say what’s your FTP? And you’ll say duh? But in this particular case because of the way the hosting works and the features they give you it’s easy to find the information. You’ll be able to just pop in, check your dashboard do whatever they call back there and find that information and send it off to Carrie. So I tried it build in as more of a benefit and educate them why they would use these services. You know backup points all this stuff… why that’s important in the overall scheme and not just be saying buy this, buy this…

 

Carrie: Yeah. That makes total sense. You’re making a win all the way around. And speaking of FTP, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to go and help clients chase down their FTP. Usually they are just end up sending me their hosting login and say go get it. (laughing) . They don’t even know what they’re looking for.
Bob: Exactly.

 

Carrie: That’s a lot to ask of a non-technical person.

 

Bob: Oh yeah and it’s impossible to find it sometimes in some of these C panels.

 

Carrie: So speaking of money. A question from Davinder. He wants to know what made you switch from the paid membership model to the free model?

 

Bob: Ok. You know I did membership… I’ve done three membership sites and I just didn’t…you know. Two things…I think the membership arena even though it’s very promoted and there’s a lot of I think if you find the right niche you can get in there and do something. But it’s becoming a bit saturated. You have to be really careful jumping into membership. It’s membership building your site is like one 10th of doing a membership site. It’s easy to build a membership site. Building that community…there’s a lot to doing a membership site prior to launch…during launch… then of course continuing to do it. Myself…I just found that I was out there basically teaching what a lot of other videos sites did. There’s Shawn at WP 101. He’s had that for awhile. He does great stuff. I just got to point where I though ok what…I need to bring my personalization back into it. A lot of that has to do with in person versus online so that was a big thing and then you know you’ve got to realize especially depending what you can do some of the membership stuff you got to be constantly providing content for these people to want to stick around . If your doing it in a technological setting like WordPress you can talk to Sean anytime how many times do you update those videos? How many time do you have to update those tutorials because two or three things changed you know. Four times a year. So it’s… for me I just felt like it was first of all WordPress is saturated online. The learning WordPress and that…I just realized I wasn’t cut out for a membership site. It was just not the direction… the concept is wonderful. But getting in and working…. a lot of realization comes you come face-to-face with like you know no this isn’t just revenue constantly coming in. It’s constant work. It’s a lot of work and I’m willing to work but it just wasn’t my thing.

Carrie: It’s frightening. I’ve actually thought about doing the membership aspect. Offering some unique content just for members and so forth and it scared the crap out of me. That’s too much responsibility to know that I’m taking somebody’s money each month and you know…then there’s this pressure to come up with come up with stuff. It’s easier to leave it free and then be creative about monetizing in other ways.

Bob: Yeah.

Carrie: So by the way I’m going to try to mute myself if it happens again. I’m really close to an Air Force Base and I get F35s and F16s fly…I am in their flight path And whenever the 35s fly over my dogs bay. I don’t know if there is some frequency that just that particular plane and it’s just…yeah. So if you hear wild barks that’s what’s happening.

 

Bob: No problem. We’re not far from a military base either. When they’re out there doing their practice, out house shakes. You know the bombing and stuff. It’s interesting so I can relate.

Carrie: Yeah. I tried to complain about it. My husband says that’s the sound of freedom.
Bob: Yeah. That’s what we figure. They’ve got to do their thing.

Carrie: (laughing) We have really great question from Jackie and just to frame this Jackie is a developer… a freelance developer offering her services. I know that a lot of people who listen to the show fall into that category of either offering design, development or consulting. Something around WordPress services. In the WordPress space…I’m probably just framing this question too much…I should probably just ask the question. She says how do DIY users value developer and design services when WordPress is free and themes are either free or as low as 50 bucks? This is like the $99 dollar question. If you can get a $100 logo why pay $5000 for you to go do deep in depth brand research and come up with a logo.

Bob: Yeah. And it’s interesting because I think of you know when I started in design it was desktop publishing. That was kind of the issue. That you know years ago was the same thing. Desktop publishing…suddenly everybody was doing desktop publishing and they could do brochures for 10% of the price of what these graphic designers would do. I think it’s…you know…I don’t think there’s any pat answer. What I find with my clients is that a lot of them come to me thinking they want to be the do-it-yourselfer. Unfortunately it takes a bit of education here’s a perfect example…somebody came to the beginning workshop to me…a beginning workshop I did about a week ago…and it was going through all the basics…a five hour workshop learning all the basics of WordPress. Right away at beginning she start freaking out. Isn’t this a beginner course? This is way over my head. I said no we’re starting at Ground Zero. Here is what you have to deal with. She frowned a lot during the entire course during the workshop and stuff and then I got into themes and starting talking about choosing a theme. Then she really went whacko. She was holding her head and I thought she was just could collapse or something.

 

Carrie: That’s a very dramatic reaction.

Bob: (laughing) Yeah. But at a point…towards the end she said you know what? She says I’m so glad that I came to this workshop because I just realized that I need somebody else to do this. And she said I can…I understand now I can manage it but me doing what I thought I could do…because you know I don’t sugar coat things in my workshops. I go through and say this is you know everything that’s you got a learn and you can figure out. You don’t want to mess up this point. She suddenly realized that. So there are still people that…there are people that are gonna struggle…they’re gonna do it themselves. There is no way we can convince them to do otherwise. But I just find from a lot of people who come to me…their expectations and I can’t tell you how many times somebody has sat down with me…people will hire me the kind of help them decide what direction to go. They’ll just go through all the stuff and I’ll explain everything and say you can get this done you can do this yourself… this, this, this. And a lot of times it’s like the final thing is your best bet is hiring somebody. Find a good designer, developer. Don’t go out there and find the cheapest you know. Because likely you’re gonna be coming back to me or coming back to somebody else so it’s kind of that education process. Unfortunately, for every person is sometimes seems almost impossible but in a way it’s being very honest up front with people and I’m…I don’t beat around the bush and say oh I can do this I can do this and I go and Google it and figure out how to do it…come back and try to do it for them. I’ll just flat out say nope, I can’t do this. You need to have a developer do this if you really want it done right. So that’s how I get people to make that decision and sometimes they just need to almost experience it themselves. Hear what it really takes and that it isn’t just oh yeah…you can put up a site. This WordPress is easy. This thing’s enough to drive me nuts and I get the get the leftovers from that you know? The people where their expectations have not been met.

 

Carrie: (laughing) The leftovers. Bob gets the leftovers. That’s the quote of the show.

Bob: (laughing) That’s my new tagline.

 

Carrie: Well you know that user is never going to go away. That’s just a fact. There’s always be a DYI person who’s curious and wants to try and get in there and do it. That is ok. I think as freelancers it’s we get frustrated with that crowd because they undervalue our service, but on the other hand they’re getting exactly what they need or what they want without paying for it in some cases. So you know there’s legitimacy at both ends of the market I guess. But I was listening to a Podcast yesterday, it was either freelancer show or  the business of freelancing with Brendon Dunn. His guest was talking about if you’re having to sell the value of your services, you’re selling to the wrong crowd. Go to people who already understand the value of your services and then serve them. So it’s pushing a rock up a hill to try and convince that $50 person that it’s worth it to spend a few thousand dollars with you.

 

Bob: Yeah.
Carrie: Planes are coming over. Ok. I’ve got another question for you . Matt…our friends over at the Matt Report podcast.

Bob: Oh man. Oh God.

Carrie: He wants to know have you thought of any unique avenues to provide value to sponsors? And just as an example…or you don’t even need an example…you go…

Bob: No. You know I’m still kind of in that workspace or work area or whatever you want to call it. I just launched this is so I’ve really put out some stuff and they’re some different things. In fact Matt…he should know this…. we did talk a bit about it beforehand because I kind of got some feedback from him. There’s other ways…there’s other creative ways of doing it you know? It could even be that you are required…the thing is that I can say ok…let’s say it’s a plug-in workshop…and the sponsor…I say ok I’m gonna get x-amount people there. I am going to require everybody in the course to buy that plug-in. So they at least got the sales generated. The gray area that I’ve had to explain to a few people I’ve already talked about this about sponsoring and get it…is that I’m really…what I’m trying to do is not just build a sale right at that particular moment for that person but I’m also trying to build credibility for that vendor to everybody there…that yes I buy it now and maybe later but also now that I know what it can do…I’m in their learning it . Now I’m gonna start hopefully telling other people about it. I need this…I need this…so it’s kind of a long tail type of return for them in a lot of ways. But um…yeah…I’m still thinking….that’s gonna be a part that I’m going to be constantly trying to think of new ways and because I know that you know just from the questions I’ve have already…that are alive…I need to provide something. One guy did actually ask me…he said you know I understand also I’m kind of paying a bit for your reputation because people do had to have a tendency to trust you. I said that is part of it but it’s… those are such soft gray areas that sometimes you can’t wrap monetary return on that. So it’s gonna be…there’s challenges to it….but also I think there’s real potential so I just got gotta work this out. I’ll be working with each sponsor and if we can think of other creative ways to do things especially depending on their product or whatever…you know…it’s not gonna be this was set in stone. Let’s figure out another way to do this are the best way to get you a return on your investment.

 

Carrie: I love that. You’re right. That it is it is sort of the longtail approach but by way of it I don’t think that it…some of the value that you offer your sponsors doesn’t necessarily have to do with you getting them out in front of your audience. For instance on that that my very first job out of college that wasn’t a freelance gig was designing banner ads for a radio website. Four 68 x 60. I will never ever forget that dimension in banner ads. That’s horrible. But anyways when Matt sponsored this show a while back with his conductor plug-in he …of course I appreciated sponsorship. It was a new product and he didn’t have any affiliate banners. So I whipped up a couple of banners for him. I don’t know Matt…you can Tweet that was awful and completely a value less thing. But to me that was something that was not difficult for me to do that was hopefully helpful them. You know…I don’t know it’s interesting. I know we were not even going to….

Bob: That make sense.

Carrie: Somehow we’ve devolved into it a show about a sponsorship strategies. That could be topic all on it’s own. We had a question from Kelly. Hello Kelly. First time caller, longtime listener. I don’t know if she’s a longtime listener. But she says how do you think that Weebly, Wicks, etc. will impact WordPress for that DIY beginner crowd? I guess by the…and I’ll tack on to that question…by the time they get to you have they already ruled out Weebly and Wicks or are they are the still just… they don’t even know the difference and they’re just still kind of hmm…balling around?
Bob: Yeah. They pretty much have decided on WordPress. Sometimes I will have to talk them  into it. I actually had a couple people very minimal say..I’m going back to whatever you know. Because somebody mentioned Wicks or something like that just sounds like a lot easier approach to me. And I just say Ok Cool. Go for it. Because C can sit there and argue you know platform…and I can go…I always give them you know what I feel are the benefits… but you know most people do know they want to go with WordPress. They’re just not sure if they want to do it themselves or have somebody help them. As far as how they impact…I don’t know…that’s my guess is probably as good as yours or anybody else’s. There’s people that are…I think there’s enough out there… there’s enough people that are wanting to get online that those options are out there and I think so much is word-of-mouth with WordPress. Somebody will maybe be thinking about a Weebly or Wicks. But then somebody comes along that they hear talk about WordPress. And they’re telling them like oh I did this cool thing like this. And they realize that’s something they can’t do on that platform at all…or there’s limitations…so they’ll think …you know I like this WordPress thing. Yeah. I think it will have some impact but only time will tell. You know. It’s so hard. Sometimes trying to get to the minds of some of these people to I talk to it’s like I just got a point say whatever works for you…do it. Ok?

 

Carrie: (laughing) Well having been in this in the WordPress space and even in the technical space before WordPress for so long surprise to both of us and probably a lot of listeners is really hard to roll back the memory tape and think of a time when this was all overwhelmingly new. God Bless You Bob. You must be a very patient person. I think I’d get worn out with those beginners in a hurry.

 

Bob: (laughing) Yeah patience is huge.

 

Carrie: Maybe you can get a liquor company to sponsor your show. They’ll sponsor it in the form of sending you liquor to deal with the all those questions from new people. Ease your pain a little bit.

 

Bob: Yeah it’s in the works.

 

Carrie: Well let’s talk about your Podcast a little bit. So podcasting. Everybody’s getting into Podcasting. Present party and present self included. So how did you make the decision to take the show on the road?

 

Bob: Yeah. I feel bad talking about it because I’ve missed two weeks again. I still have got to get into a consistency here and I keep telling myself yes it will happen. In fact somebody was asking me about sponsoring my Podcast. I said that would be great. As soon as I can actually guarantee you that they’ll be every week so let me get on that. But I thought of podcasting back about…I bet four years ago…or five years ago. There was kind of this…podcasting was big and then it kind of mellowed out for a while again…and then just the last what…maybe the last couple years is been going on the up rise again. I remember going to a workshop…a couple friends I know that were actually doing podcasting for…they’ve been doing for years and years. I was all gung ho… I thought this is really cool? I got back started to get about it all and thought…man that’s a lot of work. And it just you know it just never transpired…I just put it off… I thought man I just can’t fit it in…it doesn’t really work for me now. So then when I started this one…I guess I started it probably last fall…I was just trying to think of….you know I want to throw podcasting into the mix. I want it to be…you know…I wanted to be a little bit different…where it’s…and shorter. So mine are like you know 5 minute to 15 minute podcasts. And just…what I wanted to do was one of the things that I always have people tell me over and over the last years when teaching them is they always send me a thing and they would always kind of encapsulate…Bob you know everybody always tells me how to do everything but your tutorials you also tell me why I should be doing this. They said that’s what we enjoy about it because you’re not just saying step A – 1 2 3 do it…now move on. You’re saying why I’m doing this and what the benefits of doing this are…so that was where I thought well I’ll go ahead and do something around why should I do ….duh…duh…duh…duh…why should I do …or why does this happen …or why is this happening rather than how to. I basically had the equipment and I just needed to carve in the time and do everything. I didn’t want to do an interview podcast because you have yours and there’s enough of those out there that are good quality podcasts. I thought I just don’t want to dive into that. (giggling). I wanted to kind of create my own little unique thing…and I think we lost Carrie there for a minute.

 

Carrie: Sorry. I was trying to unmute myself and turned off my video instead. Finger dexterity. Yeah. Still working on that.

 

Bob: Yeah. So I need to get back into it regularly. I do enjoy doing it and a lot of things I take out…come from….I see some conversation on Twitter happening or I’ll just think this podcast material and I’ll whip out a script for it and put it aside for the next week or whatever. Definitely just something…like I said.. just wanted to add to the mix.

Carrie: It’s fun. It’s a whole lot of fun. A lot of things I’ve been reading lately or maybe I’m just now getting the point and it’s been in front of me all along. But the idea of reproducing content. And over…I’ve been producing regular content for three or four years now and there’s a lot of it there. And there’s a lot of it there that could be you know may be repackaged and served up in a different format.  For example, you know eventually taking one of these podcasts and somehow you know working a blog post out of it. Or taking a collection of blog posts making an e-book out of it. Have you been able to repurpose any your…because you have a ton of videos…ebooks…you’ve got the whole nine yards…have you been able to reuse that in anyway?

Bob: Oh yeah. It’s amazing how much. I’ll take between my newsletter that I send out and the blog and just everything spurs something else. So I’m kind of reusing it but I’m updating it in one respect or another. So I can be writing a blog post on how to do something…right away I’m starting to think ok why should I be doing this? Ok, put that aside for the podcast because that will be perfect. I can always in the podcast say…duh..duh….duh…duh…now do want to know how to do this? Refer them back to an old post that I did that will actually walk them through the steps…so I may be saying why should you put social media icons and stuff on your blog. This is reason why. Now do you want use and maybe install them…check out this blog post. Yeah. I’m constantly finding…linking stuff …bringing stuff back and reviving it. I just did that with my list of stock photo resources.
Carrie: Ok.

 

Bob: It was quite a long list. I decided to drop all…it started out as a paid in the premium. But the more I added to it the more free resources I found and I thought well I’m just going to go ahead and convert this into all free resources. So I dropped off the paid ones on the list and started Tweeting it out again and I got a bunch of retweets and people going to it and got a bunch of…you know a little bit of spike on that old post because it was just re fixing it a little bit and reusing it. So yeah. I’m big on that. Especially you know I’ll look at that content and figure out what you can because you’ve got so much on there you’ve gotta take advantage of it somehow.

 

Carrie: I was talking to Rebecca Gill the other today and she was…I don’t even know what it was about…but she mentioned in Google Analytics and looking at who your refers are and what content their referring people to…and so just as an experiment today which…true confessions I have a really high bounce rate on my site. People pop in organically to read an article and then they’re out of are there. So I went and looked and I had a really high referral rate from something I never even heard of. I went and trailed around and I found the post that they were referring to. It was a post I wrote maybe 3 years ago. So again, this is an experiment and I just did it today so the jury still out. But I went and updated that post and instead of just sort of that ending it…I gave some options to continue browsing…to lead people to like resources on the site. That’s a little bit of tangent but maybe a tip out there for bloggers. If you’re looking to…you want to kind of maximize all that content you’ve already made an effort to out there and produce.

Bob: Yeah. Exactly.
Carrie: So switching gears a little bit. You’re very much in that beginner space. Do you have thoughts on the overall WordPress picture? More of that mid to enterprise level use?

Bob: You know I get people coming to me and then the other side of wanting to up my training for business and corporate training type of stuff…that’s where that is…in fact I was just talking to Matt, our friend. He was talking about how the enterprise…how more WordPress sites are showing up and that. Those people will need some kind of consulting guidance whatever. So I am dabbling in that…in that sense. And I do get a lot of people that come to me at all levels even though I’m good doing… they see I’m a beginner but there’s a lot of people that are at a point where I hate to say the next level because I hate that term but that’s what they’re doing. They’ve had a site and they’re wanting to change it over to WordPress or whatever and sometimes I’ve been consulting for that level and kind of given them ideas of how to approach a developer or designer…because they do want to go to somebody like that but they don’t really feel like they can articulate their needs or what they…they want to be a little bit more knowledgeable when they go in. So I give them just enough information where they just don’t go in and say I know all this, but they can go and feel like they can ask intelligent questions to a designer or developer. So that is…a lot of those clients are the bigger clients and they have a lot of needs and I just basically go down their needs list and say yup this is you no the approach want take on this…or this is realistic or this is…you know… overall you are probably looking at the site. You know if somebody came to me was all these needs. I want to build the site…duh…duh…duh..duh….a list this long…what do you think? I said to be honest I’m not a developer. Never been. But I would say your minimum say $20,000 for this site. Just looking at all this. She really started pairing it down quite quickly. I don’t have the budget for that.
Carrie: (laughing) This car doesn’t need wheels.

Bob: Really. So sometimes like I said people get it in their heads and I’m sure everybody out there…yourself included out there can relate to that you know. All these things but really they all look pretty simple and you should be able to whip them all together and sometimes given them realistic input there… that gets them a little bit more of a level where now they can approach somebody and their expectations are going to be you know distorted on either end and stuff so…I don’t’ know if that really answered your question of if I just got a tangent there but definitely looking at…

 

Carrie: That’s good conversation. I co-run a local meet up and whenever there are new WordPress users there…the question on it all the time is what plug-ins do i need? What plug-ins do I use? How would you answer that question especially if you’re looking at maybe free plug-ins…or how do you help them vet?

 

Bob: Yeah. Well basically I…first I tell them there isn’t any really…and people hate this when I say it…but there isn’t really…I don’t think there is one must have plug-in. There’s just too many variables. So I go through and try to figure out everything that they need as far as extended functionality that the plug-in would be…it it going to be activity Gravity Forms or do they really need Gravity Forms? So I get their…I go through their needs and I base the plug-ins on that. Of course there will always be certain ones that I’ll recommend you know for SEO or something like that. But I need to explain to them why. Ok I think you need this because of this. And you’re going to have to do this by installing this, you know. We just don’t install this and it magically happens. So it’s really on a need by need basis from site to site…because I’ll just be honest with you…well I can’t give you..you know…well everybody tells me I needed Kismet. Well do you have a blog? No. Are you using anything that your comments…no….nothing at all like that. Then I’m like ok …no let me explain why maybe you don’t need to install it in your particular situation. So there’s no… unfortunately I don’t have a list of these are the must-have plug-ins or the plug-ins even that I recommend most…I mean yeah some of them..they just go crazy. They want to put everything in there and they’ll want to…well anybody knows that. You know that. You’re laughing.

 

Carrie:It’s the more the merrier situation when it comes plug-ins right?

 

Bob: Right. Little toys and stuff. Same  with themes you know? We’re kind of at the same point with themes…trying to figure out which theme seem use and I’ve actually gone through two to three hours of coaching…I don’t know what you’d call it…consulting… with people just to find the right theme. So there’s a lot of.. to me it’s always don’t just put all this crap in and throw this theme on there just to get started. Do it kind of right in the first place…especially if you’re doing it yourself. You’re going to save a lot of time.
Carrie: Do you use…it made me think of getting on the phone with people and answering questions…but do you use Clarity or anything like that for kind of one off conversations that folks want to have with you?

 

Bob: Yeah. Actually I think you might have followed my…I’ve done my contact page so many different ways. I’ve made it very radical. I did Clarity for awhile nothing really happened so I took it off my site. I think I had an account b ut I just didn’t use it. I just added it again. So if somebody goes to my contacts page and I have all these…here’s all the choices. Contact me for workshop… or you know training or whatever. Then if they actually click the button that says I have a just a question or two about WordPress… they click on that and then it suddenly…I use a nice little conditional logic and a little paragraph shows up that says…oh good. Well you can call me on Clarity now. It was kind of a…I haven’t had anybody use it…I just recently did it…but it was kind of a way for me to work around nicely to tell people that…quit sending me your emails and asking me two or three WordPress questions. I get that a lot. I actually put up a pay wall one time where if anybody wanted to ask me the question, they pay 25 bucks. I actually had a few people doing that but then even then sometimes expectations were….I said pay me $25 dollars. I’ll give you $25 answer. They weren’t always that happy with my $25 answer. So clarity is there. I just haven’t…most people that I deal with will probably…they’ll just freak out with Clarity because they will be concerned about the time. How long of answer is going to take? You know they’ll be calculating right away.

 

Carrie: You know what? It’s a good thing for people to be aware of that. Same thing. I get a lot of questions coming in through my contact form. I could answer questions all day long and never get to work. So I modified it.. just like you…I’ve gone through many iterations of my contact form. But they way I have it right now…I’ve actually got a little checkbox that says I acknowledge that I might not receive a response to this. (chuckling) So if they’re contacting me on a project…same thing …using conditional logic… they’re going through that funnel. If they say Hey! I am just wanting to say hello which is basically the anybody can get in there… then they have to check the box acknowledging that. That has really cut down on the lot of superfluous questions. Then the people that do come through are very respectful about it. They say I understand you may not have time but I want run this you and I tell you what. When people approach you like that it makes you a lot more willing to want to give a $25 answer for free.

 

Bob: Yeah and I get tons of them. People wanting me to try out their plug-in or themes. Even if I put on my form you know if your wanting to do this… if i don’t know you I’m sorry. You know I may get around to it by my own power to try it out sometime so that’s what I get a ton of…just everybody who wants me to….

 

Carrie: Bob. That’s the price you pay for being famous. I want you to be thinking advice for our listeners if you get one piece of advice on working with… when those DIY clients come… how may be we can communicate with them in a way that’s not insulting but also communicate that maybe we’re not right fit for somebody that doesn’t have a big budget. Think about that. While you’re thinking, I wanted to remind everybody listening that you can subscribe to get reminders to the show @officehours.fm/subscribe and I sent that out on Thursday mornings before the podcast. I also like to…I started including just a little helpful blub, link or something I’ve read through the week that might be helpful. So hopefully you’re getting a little extra value from those just beyond the reminder. And also seriously big thanks to ManageWP who has sponsored every single show this year so far. Huge supporter of what I’m doing here and also just big supports of the WordPress community in general. So check them out. ManageWP.com and then Shay Bocks over there….and I don’t know why I just wanted to go bock…bock….bock like a chicken. I’m sorry Shay. I just ruined it. People probably made fun of you in elementary school. Now I’ve brought up terrible memories. Wow! I feel like a failure. So the DesignBiz crash course… if you are new to freelancing…get over there and pick that up. It’s really just practical tips on how to work from home, how to go out and generate new business. Good stuff and you can save 50 bucks on that by using the link on my site over at officehours.fm/Podcasts/58. So with that Bob, what advice would you give?

 

Bob: Ok. Two things. One is remember what it was like you know…I think that’s the biggest thing…is anybody that comes to you as a beginner and whatever point they are remember if you can reach back and remember how the first time you… when you opened up WordPress… if you can have that empathy and relate to what they’re going through that will show through and that means a lot to those people. That will really boost their confidence in you. Secondly I think…this seems like common sense…but be honest. I can’t tell you how many times somebody has approached me and I’ve just been flat-out saying no. I’m not the person for you. You need to do this…whatever. I give them some advice and they always come back to me almost every time and say you know… the one thing I appreciate was your honesty. You were right up front with me. You didn’t beat around the bush. I think what happens is you got to remember these people…a lot of these people have been screwed over some way or another, unfortunately. I get a lot of those people. They’ve have at least one really bad experience. I can’t always say it was their fault or the developer, or designers fault. I don’t go there. But if you can kind of at least you know and have a little patience with them..but also be up front with them. Don’t beat around the bush. Don’t waste your time. Don’t waste their time. If you feel it’s a red flag going off…you don’t say you suck…go away. You basically…you know…I don’t think I’m the person for this… you know…and if you can always have…of your course you don’t send somebody that you think is a bomb ready to go off to somebody else you know… but if you can at least say here are some suggestions. Do this. This may be the best route for you to go at this point. I think that goes a long way, because they are going to remember that. I have people coming back to the months sometimes years later and you know I appreciate what you said back then now I’m ready to do this I think you could help me. So…

 

Carrie: That’s fantastic vibes.

Bob: More feely good stuff.

 

Carrie: So even if you’re shutting a door saying I’m not the right fit. You’re at least not a dead end. You are pointing them in some other direction. That’s a great tip. Huge value there. Bob. I very much appreciate your time and being on the show today. Always a pleasure to have you. Maybe we should make this like the Annual Bob Dunn appearance.
Bob: Yeah. Why don’t we that? Every year. Pretty soon you can have the gray hair you know? Showing the transition after three or four years.

 

Carrie: You’ll eventually be bald. My hair will be gray and we’ll have the transition here. It would be so strange. What’s that?

 

Bob: I was just going to say…I love being on the show. Even though it’s only once a year.

Carrie: Well thank you. Where can people find you or follow up with you and find you on the web and learn more? Did I lose you?

 

Bob: I think you did for a minute. Now you’re back. Actually you asked people where they can find me. Umm…Bobwp.com. I actually have a slide on all my workshops and presentations that says Google Bobwp. That’s the easiest way to find me. You’ll fine me everywhere and anywhere.
Carrie: Sweet. And don’t get that confused with wpbob. Somebody entirely other I accidently landed on one time. Bobwp. Cool. Well Bob Dunn, thank you so very much. Have a wonderful afternoon and to everyone who took the time to tune in live… you rock! You’re awesome and thank for taking the time for listening. And for those of you who are catching this after the fact on iTunes or sound cloud or however it is that you listen in. We appreciate you listening too.  I’ll see everybody next Thursday. Bye!