Being accessible to clients to build strong relationships

ezsmith397 on August 23, 2023

Hot take for this new Productized Services wave: you’re hurting yourself by not being accessible to your clients for phone calls & meetings.
 
I get it, having tons of meetings & calls all day is hard if you also have to be the one producing the work.
 
But without that personal & real interaction, you’re gonna struggle to build a long-term relationship with them.
 
To be real… Some days I get swarmed with meetings, calls, or consulting through issues…
 
And have to work late or extra hours for the regular “production” work that I had planned. (This part will be resolved this year as I grow my team)
 
But all of my clients know, like & trust me BECAUSE of the efforts and attention invested into our relationship.
 
While the concept of being able to make a shit-ton of money WITHOUT doing the hard part of client-service work sounds alluring… It’s not very realistic for most of us in my opinion.
 
Digging in, accepting the type of business I’m actually in (and finding ways to streamline it and make it operate more efficiently where I can) is the way I’ve built my career… And the way I plan to continue building my business for years to come.

Learning how to integrate areas of focus in digital proejcts for overall success

ezsmith397 on August 23, 2023

Professional observation over my 16 years of career in website management & working with digital teams:

The person (or team) that focuses on one specialty, will likely over-index the importance of that one area.

There’s nothing wrong with this, and it makes sense…

I mean just think about it.

When you spend your entire day, week, and career focused on just one of these areas like cookie compliance, page speed, conversion optimization, or brand design, etc.

It makes sense for you to ZOOM so far in that you can’t always see the importance of the other areas.

This is a very good thing — as it allows people to be true subject matter experts in their area of focus.

The important part if you’re working at a more holistic level though, is to understand and be able to fit the puzzle pieces of these different inputs together.

If you DON’T fit them together — the whole project can suffer.

What good is a fast website that doesn’t collect the data needed for marketing purposes?

Or what good is a beautifully branded page that does not convert?

You see the point? (I’m sure you can imagine numerous scenarios like this yourself)

A major part of my career has been being able to integrate and balance the needs and requirements of various experts…

So that the WHOLE project goes to plan and works.

This means learning how to compromise in some areas.

It also means being good at communicating what is possible, and what’s plausible at a higher level across different parts of a project.

These are the sorta skills and expertise that you build up over your career and make your input extremely valuable beyond just being a “web developer” or “WordPress designer” or some other singular title.

Partnerships vs. One-off Projects

ezsmith397 on August 18, 2023

For 5+ years I’ve focused on partnerships with creative agencies & internal B2B marketing teams to provide ongoing WP consulting, dev & support services.

With our agency partners — we’re providing technical advising, development, launch & post-launch support as needed for projects that the agency owns & controls.

With our B2B marketing team partners, we’re working more as an extension of their marketing team — providing infrastructure, consulting & development services to align with marketing goals.

There are numerous ways to build a business, but I’ve always preferred more long-term partnerships vs. one-off projects.
Working like this provides a better outcome for our partners and our company, where we’re not starting over again and again to “ramp up”.

The knowledge & experience with each partner compounds over time for great results.