April 17, 2025 at 01:53PM
Was a pain, but we overcame. https://t.co/2WQALCX9Rx https://t.co/msihxGr1cI
April 17, 2025 at 01:16PM
Anyone here the go-to for this or know someone who is? https://t.co/VG8alt9JsS
April 17, 2025 at 12:47PM
If anyone here wants to get in on this action, just lmk.
April 17, 2025 at 12:25PM
User Experience is a heck of a lot more than just the interface of a website or app…
It extends to EVERY area of a customer or user’s experience with your brand.
Something that grinds my gears and is terrible real-world UX now: businesses that have tied up most of their https://t.co/O69Xgb6sFp
April 17, 2025 at 12:15PM
To be honest, at this point in my career, I actually take a little offense when someone refers to me as just a “web designer” or “web developer”.
The real value in going down these career paths is growing to be much more of a higher-level strategist – really more of a business &
The value in being so much more than just a “web designer”
To be honest, at this point in my career, I actually take a little offense when someone refers to me as just a “web designer” or “web developer”.
The real value in going down these career paths is growing to be much more of a higher-level strategist – really more of a business & digital consultant.
Often a client will come to you to “help build a website”… and once you start talking you’ll uncover other areas that might tie into the website (or might not), that need to be worked through first.
Real example here for you: I just met with a local client in my office this morning.
This guy is a serial entrepreneur and has numerous businesses himself and with his family in the area. Lots of cool stuff that’s mainly offline.
While the conversation was framed to talk about the simple 1 or 2 page site we’re building, it quickly shifted focus into other, more important areas too.
Things like: payment processing – how will customers purchase online? (That one is easy).
How will customers purchase offline – what are the POS options, what about physical card processing? How can manage check payments for in-person and out-of-state orders?
How should we design & manage leave behinds for our sales team? Is social media marketing & content creation worth doing for this business?
These are not “website” topics. These are business topics and decisions. But ones that you probably know pretty well if you’ve been in the “web design” space for any number of years.
One of the coolest parts of being in this space, is the different types of businesses & operators you’ll meet. The knowledge and experience gained over even just a few years really starts to stack up and compound.
THIS is what makes you so dang valuable to your clients.
It’s not just about knowing a framework, or being great at WordPress or Webflow, or knowing how to get 100 on PageSpeed Insights. These things are all great… but they’re niched down so much into just the creative or technical aspects of the craft.
In my experience, overtime the expertise can and SHOULD shift into being able to point out blind spots in other ares too, and provide solutions and feedback to help these people hit their actual BUSINESS GOALS.
This is how you start off by being called on to “build a website”, and instead end up being a continuous trusted partner for your clients for so much more.
Long-term client relationships are the backbone of a successful agency
Long-term client relationships are the backbone of a successful agency.
I’m proud that we’ve had numerous clients stick with us after initial branding or site design & development projects for many years.
Our longest running client is at 17 years now (actually one of the very FIRST clients I ever had when I moved to Atlanta and started freelancing as a 18 year old).
While we’re definitely aiming to bring on new clients this year and beyond, we’re never going to lose site of keeping our existing ones happy.
Client retention is KEY.
A Builder’s Journal entry – Feb 22, 2024
Trying to grow a custom WP development shop solo is brutal.
I’m running on fumes here tonight after starting my day at 2am.
The seemingly obvious solution for being this loaded down with work would be to just hire… but that’s not so easy.
Hiring is tough and expensive as hell, and quickly burns cash (from my numerous attempts).
I’m being reminded again hardcore this week just how difficult the business model truly is. It’s easy to sell services and get some revenue growing, but it starts to crack pretty quickly.
There’s this weird balancing act of needing to have more revenue to grow, but there’s a lag between the revenue going high enough past my own personal needs to have enough to hire the PROPER talent.
Hiring cheap freelancers doesn’t solve anything (I’ve tried numerous global sources).
Finding people to be “in the trenches” with me is what it really needs… but that’s tough to find quickly and costs a lot.
Overall I’m still super grateful for the business and my clients, but definitely seeing that I should have done this hard push 10 years ago when I didn’t have a wife and young kids (and still had a lot more natural energy and excitement to push through the grind).
All of this means that I’ve decided to hold off on even finishing the website or properly “launching” ConfidentWP for now. I’ve got to figure out a way to manage the current workload a bit better over the next few weeks and then I’ll revisit.
P.S. It’s funny because my overall goal was to build this model to be my “day job” sorta gig, to still have some slivers of time outside of it to build my other digital ideas (job boards, directories, etc.)
But I can see now that without some MAJOR changes, I won’t have time to do anything other than collect domain names this year.
2024, the year I launch projects of my own that break-free from just client-service business models
I’m in a phase where I’m really enjoying my agency/consulting businesses.
It’s great cash flow, and I get to work with some awesome partners.
But with that said, I’m really eager and excited to launch some new projects this year that break free of the standard client-service model that I’ve always leaned on throughout my career. I’ve been dreaming for years of making money from a THING that I own vs. always just delivering more and more services.
I’ll be very transparent and say that you can earn a GREAT living with agency-type work, but it also takes a lot to make a lot. It’s very hard to ever get leverage or multiples of your efforts.
Even with hiring, building a team, or outsourcing… In my experience it’s hard to truly multiply things in a profitable and somewhat predictable way.
Since joining Twitter in 2022 I’ve learned a ton from some awesome people who have built amazing businesses using many of the same skills that I possess — WITHOUT just selling services.
These ideas keep me up at night, and constantly race through my mind.
2024 is the year I finally get a taste of these other business models.
How I build long-term partnerships vs. maximizing profit
Do great work.
Communicate often.
Deliver high value, for fair rates.
Repeat.
I look at clients as partners here at 397… It might sound cliche. But it’s true.
I’m not aiming to squeeze every ounce of profit from every project.
Instead, I’m aiming to be fair and let everyone make enough to WIN together.
I’m sure I could have made MORE money, faster on certain projects and with certain clients.
Hell, I CONTINUALLY have people in the industry and people here even tell me that we’re charging too little, and won’t be able to grow, etc.
There is some truth to pricing and refining service delivery enough to be able to scale, I won’t deny that.
BUT, by operating the way I’ve always operated I have clients and PARTNERS that have worked with me for many, many years.
I’d rather KEEP doing great work, for long-term partners rather than be constantly chasing down new leads to try and squeeze every drop of profit from.