Welcome to another episode of Silence is Golden where we share invaluable tips for your WordPress business.
This is live TV guys! It took Ray and Troy a full 9 minutes to figure out that the audio wasn’t working and no one could hear what they were saying! Check out this classic moment when they realise:
Ok but seriously, we get the audio to work and dive into the latest news on a new client-side React App for writing and editing WordPress posts, we talk about geotargeting as well as the release of Slickmap Version 2.0. Then today's main topic is on how to write WordPress contracts to guarantee payment from clients.
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Stuff That Happened
A Client-Side React App for Writing and Editing WordPress Posts
WordPress developer Jason Bobich has created an open source client-side React app called “Just Write” that allows you to access any WordPress install that has the “Just Write” plugin installed, and write a post without all of the WordPress confusion of the dashboard. This is going to be great to give to your less tech-savvy clients. Find out more in this article from WP Tavern.
Geotargeting and SEO
Are you considering using a geotargeting tool on your WordPress site? Yoast explains how this impacts SEO in this quick 1-minute video. Also, be sure to click on the link in this article to the ultimate guide to the hreflang tag to get your head around how to tell Google which content it should serve for different parts of the world.
SlickMap CSS: A Visual Sitemapping Tool for Web Developers
Slickmap CSS is a simple stylesheet for displaying finished sitemaps directly from HTML unordered list navigation and Troy is pretty happy that they have finally released version 2.0. Find out more about the new features here.
Creative Burnout Is Inevitable. Here Are 10 Ways to Beat It
We all need to find that work/life balance so that we don't get burnt out. In this article, ten pros share their tricks for staying engaged with work. There are some great tips here. Ray especially thinks scheduling in a day off is really important, even though it seems impossible with the amount of work you have.
Troy and Ray disagree with one point made about working on a few projects at the same time to stay motivated. Research shows that multitasking is actually less productive.
Around the 14 minute mark, The guys also talk about the importance of self-care and becoming less focussed on your business. Not everyone wants to meditate but you can practice mindfulness by being completely present and in the moment and try to slow down.
This Pisses Me Off
Around the 14.30 minute-mark, Ray tells us what is pissing him off at the moment. His local café have decided to add a 1% credit card surcharge to his coffee. It also happened recently where he was booking a hotel and then all of a sudden there was an $8 booking fee at the end of the process.
His thoughts on this? Just build it into your overhead costs! Why create this bad user experience and make the customer feel that they are being ripped off? As a business owner, know what it costs to run your business and include these things in your overheads.
Let’s Get Unstuck
Around the 16.20 minute-mark, Troy lets us know that James Rose from Content Snare is interviewing him this week about recurring revenue. So Troy hijacks his Facebook group “Grow Your Web Design Business” where James asked his group if anyone has any questions about recurring revenue.
Victoria asked: What is the best way to sell maintenance is when 99% of clients don’t care about it.
Troy says that if clients don’t care about maintenance then stop selling them maintenance. What you have to do is figure out what it actually means to the client. Troy gives the example of when a client called him and told him he was worried to touch all of the update buttons in case he broke something and could Troy look after it for his peace of mind. This client didn’t want to buy maintenance, he wanted to buy peace of mind. So Troy created the “Peace of Mind” plan for him.
Don’t sell them maintenance. Sell them the outcome of the maintenance.
The Golden Nugget
As you all know, this month’s theme is all about profit. So if you haven’t already, make sure you check out our epic blog with 24 tips and tricks to help your business grow and sustain profitability.
Today we are going to focus on tip number 12 – contracts.
All too often people waste a lot of time having to chase clients for money and dealing with scope creep. So you need to be extremely clear from the beginning and set expectations in your contract.
This brings us to….
Tool of the Week
The tool of the week is the Contract Guide.
It's all you need to know about the WordPress freelancer contract to make your life much easier. But please note: always make sure it applies to your local jurisdiction and check things through with a lawyer.
So the aim with your contract (or as Troy likes to call it – “Mutual Agreement”) is to get clear with the client from the start to minimise any potential problems or disagreements.
Tune in at the 24-minute mark where Troy tells us about the one time he was taken to court and won the case because he had an agreement in place. For this contract, he used Andy Clarke’s open source contract.
You want to make sure that the contract stipulates that you own any of the intellectual property and are licencing it to your clients to use on their projects. This means that a client can’t turn around and say that they paid you for its ownership and stop you from using it on other websites.
Important Note: We are running digital businesses so we need to use digital signatures. We use Hello Sign. No paper involved!
Wrap Up
At the 30-minute mark, we wrap up the show by showing you our process to create the show and share some of our secrets!
So that's it for this week. If you haven't already, make sure you are signed up to the WP Wednesday to stay up to date with all the latest news and tech in the WordPress space.
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