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A client of mine was running their business in multiple geographic locations and they needed help to make their website service all of their markets seamlessly.  This is a case study on how I did this.

What They Wanted

They were running their business in multiple territories.  USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand and they wanted an easy way to display territory specific copies of their posts and pages both for content management simplification and for their site visitors.

They wanted to consolidate the three sites they currently supported into one.

The Solution

The solution for his was a little out of the box, I used a multiple language plugin called WPML.  This is usually used to display content in different languages but instead of installing multiple copies of the same copy in different langues.

How It Works

WPML give you the ability to store multiple versions of the same post or page and display it according to a language ( or in this case territory) selected by your site visitor .

An example;  the contact page, we had three versions,  it contained address, telephone and a Google map for each regional office in New York, London and Sydney.  There were also three contact form 7 forms to send to the appropriate staff in each region.

This is a very simple way to manage what used to be three complex websites with just one site and three copies of the content.  My client now manages one set of updates, one set of themes and plugins, a great time saving and a neat way to ensure site visitors get the correct content.

I’ve created a video showing the multiple language setup here, not quiet the multiple territories but you will get a feel for what the plugin can do.

Location detection

I also took advantage of the location detection features of WPML.  It looks at your IP address and browser location settings and makes a best guess as to a visitors location.

The appropriate local site is selected and displayed.

Some Of The Challenges

Here are some of the challenges I was able to overcome:

• Images with currency – some of the images used had US dollar amounts on them,  we needed GBP and AUD NZD images too. WPML allows you to translate or territorialise images so the correct one
• Home page slider – the home page slider used American english for some words, but in the UK and Australasian sliders that was not appropriate, so we were able to translate and host multiple sliders
• Multiple english versions – I was able to setup three versions of english on the site en_US en_GB and en_AU and treat them as three different languages thereby setting up three different territories.

It’s Not Just A Blog

There are dozens of other applications WordPress can be used for over and above a blogging platform, and here is yet another one.  Are you using WordPress in an unusual fashion that would make a good case study let me know.

When you think out of the box a little, there are plugins out there you can re-appropriate to do unusual jobs.

Wrap Up

If you want help creating a multiple territory website, contact me from my WordPress technical support page and get a no obligation quote.

Next up I’ll write a very similar case study on running a multiple currency on-line shop using some of the same tools and techniques.

Image by stevensnodgrass

Start 2013 with a brand new custom look and feel for your WordPress site.

Have you ever wanted a custom theme for you WordPress site, in this post I will talk about a new service for design I’ve found and how you can use our development skills to make that site a real live WordPress theme.

I’ve worked with a couple of clients who have used this service and the designs were great plus the output for my development team was first class.

Create a custom design

We don’t offer custom design services here at WPDude. but we have partnered with our friends at DesignContest.com to help you get the custom theme of your dreams.

How Design Contest Works

You submit your brief to Design Contest, then the designers there will compete to win your business.  You will see multiple designs, based upon your brief, then simply choose the one you love.

It’s risk free you only pay if a design you want is created for you.   Designs start at $499

Go check out their site for more details DesignContest.com

From Design To Custom Theme

This is where we come in, once you have your winning design from design Contest, pass it over to us and we can make it into an actual WordPress site.   We will:

• Setup a development environment on dev.wpdude.com/yourproject, copying over all of your existing post and pages so you can see your site develop with real content.
• Build out the theme to your new design.
• Involve you at all stages to test and approve the site
• Once you are happy we will make it live on your live domain name
• Test again to make sure everything is as expected.
• Provide any training or support you need to get the most from your new custom site.

If you already have a design we can do this without the help of Design Contest.

What It Costs

We are having a New Year special, all new site builds come at the fixed price of $999. Note this does not include the Design Contest costs.

Paypal Bill Me Later

Any custom work you commission is not cheap,  as you can see from the costs above, that is why I have teamed up with Paypal and their Bill me Later program. Using this feature of Paypal you can spread the cost of your new theme over six months at 0% APR (I sound like a car salesman 🙂 ) .  So if you want a custom theme but think the cost is prohibitive, you can use this service.

Limited Number

Building custom themes takes a lot of time, so we can only take on a small number per month.  If you are interested in a new theme for the new year, let us know from the form below and we will start the process.

We will work with you to get the design you want via designcontest.com  as your project manager, then make it a real life theme.

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One of the key tools in my WordPress technical support toolbox is Serverbuddy, this great little plugin helps to analyse your hosting configuration which in turn can help you trouble shoot problems with your WordPress install.

You can check out this plugin from the following link:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/serverbuddy-by-pluginbuddy/

What Does It Do?

It analyses your server environment and it tells you if you have an optimum configuration to run WordPress on.

Once you have installed the plugin, a new option is available under tools -> serverbuddy.  When you review that panel you are given an overview of your servers settings with a green, yellow or red lights depending upon whether or not your site is optimal or not.

Any red or yellow indicators should be fixed, and server buddy will give you directions to do that.

Types Of Things It Can Be Used For?

It’s got a load of uses, but here are some suggestions.

General health check – is your  WordPress running on an optimial configuration.

Memory problems – you can see how much memory is allocated to WordPress, if this is lower than the recommended amount you may get issues.

Security – server buddy checks for insecure file permissions.

Disk space issues – you can get a map of where the big files or the large number of files are living and delete where applicable if you are running out of disk space.

PHP settings – you can see the php settings assigned to your site, for example if you want to upload big files you might want to check out upload_max_filesize.

Cron Jobs – cron jobs are scheduled jobs that run on your site, an example might be check for plugin updates.  If you are seeing problems at a particular time of day, perhaps a scheduled job is causing that problem

One for The Techies

This plugin is really one for the techies out there, so this may not be everyone’s cup of tea (as we say in England), but I think it is worthwhile for everyone to do a general health check to see their server config is acceptable for a WordPress site.  Install it and make sure everything is green.

Image by johnseb

Originally published at wpdude.com

I’m not a problogger by any stretch of the imagination, I blog to support the WordPress Technical Support business I run here at WPDude.

After four years of blogging I’ve been able to switch off all paid advertising and support a team of two (soon to be three techies) in more work than they can handle, all because of blogging.  This post talks about how I’ve done this.

It’s Sure As Hell Not Get Rich Quick

Flip back to the previous paragraph.  Four years of blogging to get where I am.

If you think blogging is going to generate a ton of leads overnight, I’m sorry to upset you, blogging is a slow but sure marketing method. Once you get traction, and the search engines have a body of work for you, it’s a very low impact, always on and free form of marketing.

Blogging is passive (except the actual writing part) so I can market to people without actively being engaged, I can prove the expertise of me and my teams in WordPress through my posts and hopefully be in that persons mind when they need to engage a team to help with their site.

You need to be into blogging for the long haul, if you are still with me then please read on.

Blogging And SEO

As I write this I have 299 posts published on WPDude, that’s 299 chances to lure people into my site with a bite sized piece of my knowledge and a chance for me to expose them to my sales page.

I’ve written about a broad spectrum of WordPress topics so I can bring people into my sphere of influence and hopefully help them with my free content, and if they need it, help them on a paid basis too.

The large number of posts match to a large number of search queries and a wider range of people’s WordPress problems.

I have a couple of posts that bring me a lot of traffic, but I also have many many posts that bring a small trickle of traffic.  I’m pretty sure that the large body of work I have has contributed to my sucess with the search engines.

As I have blogged for such a long time, I’ve established authority with Google (I think – who really knows what they think) and it looks like I get good rankings for most things WordPress I talk about.

I’m not going in depth about seo in this post other than to say I use WordPress SEO by Yoast.  I write for people first then tweak slightly for search engine happiness.  Which leads me nicely to …

Who I Write For

Whenever I write a new blog posts I’m always thinking “Will this benefit the type of people who buy my services?”.  So for this posts for example I’m thinking, my clients have blogs, but they also have businesses, so they are using blogging as a lead generation strategy, bingo a match I can provide you free useful information and keep my name at the front of your mind.

I made the mistake in the early stages of this site of writing technical articles about WordPress, I was getting great traction with the WordPress development community, but they are not the type of people who want to do business with me, they can fix their own sites.

If you have one take away from this post, always think about your client when you post a blog.

What I Write

I write about things that will keep my clients informed about WordPress, show them what can be done with their sites and keep them abreast of the latest developments.

I always write from experience.  This is important, everything I write about I’ve used or done for real in my business of for my clients.  There is not theory, it’s all experienced based.

I like to write plugin reviews of new and interesting plugins I find that may be useful to my audience.

I also write articles on fixing the types of problems I see in the field, I call these case studies and they are great. They showcase my expertise while informing the reader, an under the radar marketing technique.

I write how to articles which will step you through fixing a problem.  These are good for showing your expertise and also showing your reader what can be done on their site.  If it is slightly technical it also shows your reader their knowledge gap, a gap they might like to plugin with expertise for hire,

I write direct sales articles when I’ve got a course or a special offer on.  This is where investing in you blog pays off, you have an audience willing to read your stuff, then when you have a sales or offer to give, your people will be engaged.  For example every year I run a holiday sale.  I’m based in the UK and we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving so I run a sale to plug that gap when I usually don’t get any work.

I also go off topic sometimes and write about online business, something I’m passionate about.

Blogging And Email Marketing

My blog feeds my email list too.  It makes being on my list a worthwhile thing.  I send out free updates to inform and educate then once in a while I send out a marketing offer.

Another thing with email and blogging is that it keeps your name and business in the fore front of peoples minds, Whenever I send out an email broadcast about a new posts I usually get a reply asking for a quote or two to fix a problem on someone’s site.

Guest Posting

I blog not only on my own site,  but I guest posts on other people sites too in an effort to increase my profile.  If you guest posts for someone with a bigger audience it’s a great way to expand your reach.  Busy bloggers or business owners are always happy to accept a high quality guest post.

This is something I’ve picked up again with a passion, tapping into someone else’s already established audience is a great way to boost your own profile.

I also accept guest posts here if you are interested.

Exposing Your Sales Funnel Through Blogging

This is where I’m spending a lot of my time at the moment, I’m analysing my traffic and finding ways to introduce people new to my blog to my sales page (It’s up at the top right in big red letters Hire Me, just in case you were wondering.)

It’s no good having a ton of traffic if people are completely missing the fact this is a business blog not a hobby blog or a pro-blog looking for advertising clicks.

Here are some of the techniques I use.

• Constant reference, in a subtle way to my service.  I’ve done this in the first paragraph.
• Differentiated menu items.
• In posts ads.  I’m testing a plugin at the minute that inserts ads after x paragraphs.
• Banner ad at the bottom of my posts.
• Sidebar banner ads.
• Reference to my services in the email update I send out about posts.  I have image banners.
• RSS footer links to my sales page.
• Hello bar, popups and welcome gates oh my (these may or may not be active when you visit due to split testing)

Frequency Of Blogging

I post once per week, and a little more if I’ve got some sort of launch on.  That’s all I need.  I’m not running a magazine style site where I need constant eyes on my sites for advertisers, I need a constant trickle of people into my sales funnel to keep me and my team busy.

I like to write longish posts so it takes me a couple of hours to write up, check and send out an email alert about a new posts.  Not a bad time to results ratio in my opinion.

Blogging Mistakes

I made a couple of blogging mistakes in my early days, here are a few:

RSS over Email – I just presumed that because I like RSS over email that everyone else will too, and I put off starting an email list for about 18 months (fool of a wpdude).  Get your email list up and running now.

Losing momentum – as the work starts to come, blogging gets dropped off, I had too much work for clients and my blogging efforts dropped off, big mistake. When the projects are done I had to turn back to paid advertising rather than have a steady stream of leads ready to turn into projects.

Blog on home page – I know I’m still making this mistake but your home page should advertise your business not your blog.  I’m working on this at the minute.

Giving a damn about non-clients trolls – I used to get caught up in criticism about my blog posts from people who would never buy my services (other techies for example) or from out and out trolls.  You need to spend your time on clients, not these type of people. Actively direct them away from your blog, these are not paying your way they are wasting your time.

I would love to hear you blogging mistakes in the comments.

Wrap Up

All of my business comes from new clients finding me via my blog or from referrals from people who have used my services,  this is a great place to be in.  It takes a long time and perseverance, but it’s well worth the blogging journey.

Can I leave you with a tongue in cheek quote

Advertising is Like Sex: Only Losers Pay for it. – Chris Guillibeau $100 Startup

 

Image by 66356408@N07

I made a commitment to myself earlier this to only blog from experience.  What does that mean?  It means that everything you read here at wpdude.com is something I’ve done.  No theory, no hypothetical situations, just things I really have experience with.

As a result I think my writing has improved, I think I can help you the reader and I’m definitely getting more feedback and shares when I blog from experience.

In this post I want to talk about what blogging from experience means to me.

People Want Real Not Hypothetical

I’ve been guilty in the past of blogging about things I’ve not tried, but things I’ve read about or know about in theory.  The trouble is people see through the fact you’ve not done it.  You cannot point to concrete things you have done and as a result I’ve found that those type of posts don’t resonate with people and I don’t get much feedback in the way of comments or share on social media.

Types Of Posts I’m Writing

I’m writing the following types of post now from my own experience:

Case studies – I write up real world problems I have solved on my own site or on my clients sites.

Plugin reviews – I’ve stopped writing plugin reviews for plugins I have not used for a prolonged period of time on my site.  In the past I’ve been guilty of writing plugin review for premium plugins I’ve only used for a very short time in the hope of chasing the dollar.  I cannot write about something I’ve not used in depth with any authority.

Online marketing strategies I have used on my own site – I love writing about online marketing, but I’ll only write about things I’ve tested here at wpdude.com.  For example  I don’t  think I’ve ever written about any Facebook strategies here at wpdude.com.  Why?  I don’t actively use Facebook  I don’t like the site very much in fact and I’m not interested in investing lots of marketing time there, contrary to what the social media gurus tell me.  So no real experience, no blog posts about FB.

People Want Real World Scenarios

People want actionable information, not fluff and theory.  They want to follow step by step processes that are know to work (in my opinion anyway).  They want to be follow the example of someone who has done what they want to do and has real world results.

There Is A Lot Of Stuff Out There

There are millions of blogger out there all vying for attention, all spinning the same yarn,  the only way I can see to differentiate myself is by telling my own personal story from my own personal experience.

What’s the point in adding to the info din unless it is with information you can stand behind?

Are You Blogging From Experience?

Are you telling your real story or faking it till you make it?

I’m a great believer in getting and using testimonials from my clients as part of my marketing.

This post is a combination of internet marketing techniques and WordPress plugins to show you how to make the most of client testimonials.

How Do I Know The Power Of Testimonials Work?

You may be a little cynical about testimonials, I think we have been yellow highlighter-ted to death by internet marketers with shiny testimonials about sub standard info products.  But if you use testimonials ethically from real clients whom you have helped, I think they works really well.

Social proof is one of those triggers all marketers talk about along with risk reversal and scarcity.  If you can prove you know what you are talking about and are not a nightmare to work with via testimonials you are one step closer to making a connection with a stranger from internet-land.

How do I know people read testimonials and that they work?

When someone submits a request for WordPress technical support, I use a plugin that tracks the referring page, and I see dozens of requests coming in to me where their referring page is my testimonials page, which means right before they submit a request, they are reading client testimonials and get a good feeling for me.

If you go to my sales page, there is a testimonial, which also links to my main testimonials page.  This is how I showcase my social proof.

How I Use Testimonials

I use/show testimonials in a number of ways:

On my sales page – I have a single testimonial at the bottom of my sales page, this then links to my main testimonials page.

From my menu bar – I make a big deal of highlighting and drawing people into my testimonials from the main menu.

From my sidebar – I have a rotating sidebar widget which shows random testimonials.

On demand – if people ask about a certain type of project and I have a testimonial from someone that I did that type of work for, I point people at that.

Asking for Testimonials

You should not be shy about asking for a testimonials.  If you do good work and your clients are happy they are usually more than happy to provide a testimonial for you.

The best time to do this is at the end of a project when the client has a warm glowing feeling about you and your service or product.

I usually add a line on my final invoice saying something along the lines of “if you were happy with the service, a testimonial is always appreciated”.  It will surprise you how many testimonials you get with this simple automated technique.

The Unspoken Benefit of the Testimonial Leaver

You as a purchasor of professional services should see the leaving of testimonials as a matter of course, but ask for  a link back to your site.

Not only does this increase the number of links back to your site (something Google loves) but it opens up the audience of your suppliers site to your site.

People do follow the links from my site back to my clients I can see that from my analytics, so use testimonials for your suppliers as a marketing tool

The Testimonial Plugins

There are a lot of plugins out there that help to collect and display plugins.  I currently use  wp-testimonials.  It allows me to collect testimonials, display them as a widget or use shortcodes to embed them into a page as I do from the menu above.

Check out the other testimonial plugins available http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/testimonials

It has it’s short comings, clients cannot add testimonials automatically , they need to send the message to me to add, the styling is not that great and it has not been updated in a long time.

The same thing goes for many of the other testimonial plugins I have tested, they are good but are not 100% right for me, that is why … dun dun durr fanfare …

I’m Writing An All Singing All Dancing Testimonial Plugin

Because I cannot find the perfect solution for my testimonial needs, I’m writing my own.  Here are the main features I’ll be adding

• Back end management of testimonials as custom post types
• Form for clients to submit their own testimonial
• Shortcodes to display one or more testimonials
• Testimonial sliders, again via shortcodes
• In theme function support for the above two
• Widgets to show testimonials in sidebar plus rotating them
• Gravatar support & client image / logo support
• Do follow link back to your client as a thank you.
• Multiple styles to change the look and feel of the testimonials

What Would You Like To See In A Testimonial Plugin?

I’m programming my plugin from scratch so what featured would you like to see in a testimonials plugin?

Oh, oh I’ve just had a brilliant feature idea, popup youtube video testimonials so people can wax lyrically about you via video, please add yours below.

Wrap Up

I seriously recommend that you get a testimonial showcase up and running to provide social proof you know what you are doing and that clients are more than happy to recommend you.

Image by vestman

Do you have the skills to sell WordPress technical support services?  If you do I would love to talk to you.

I’m building a freelance sales team to help generate new business here at WPDude.com.

The Role

I’m looking to recruit commission only freelance sales agent to help develop new business at WPDude.com.

Your task will be to prospect for and generate leads for our WordPress technical support services.

Once the client is into our quotation process we will take over preparing quotes, deliver the service and invoice clients.

Remuneration

We will pay a percentage of the final invoice price to our sales agents, full details to be discussed with potential sales agents.

Interested?

If you are interested complete the form below and I’ll  send you a document with details of the  role in detail.

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It’s that time of the year folks when I have my annual Holiday sale on all WordPress technical support services.

We Don’t Do Thanksgiving

In the UK we don’t celebrate thanksgiving so I always find myself at a loose end over the thanksgiving weekend since the vast majority of my clients are US based.

So each year I run a sale to keep my busy over the non-holiday period.

Here’s The Deal

You can sit back and enjoy the festivities with your family, argue over the turkey, knowing all the while your WordPress site is being repaired or improved AND you can have it all at 20% off the normal price.

The sale runs from today up until next Wednesday 21st so get your requests in now to take advantage of the savings.

Get A Quote

To get a quote go to my WordPress Technical Support page and let me know what help you need, I’ll send you a no obligation quote with 20% off the price.

The Not So Small Print

Sorry this discount only applies to new projects from today, if you have a project in the estimate process already the discount does not apply.

Image by eschipul

I was reading an excellent book recently by Colin Wright called Start a Freedom Business.  In it he talks about not only earning money from your business but earning back time.  It’s well worth a read, and at 77p for the Kindle edition it’s a steal.

In this post I want to talk about business design for the solopreneur and how you can earn back time something that really resonates with me.

Lifestyle Design

As a solopreneur you are ideally positioned to not only design your ideal business, but your ideal lifestyle.  If one of the things you would like from your solopreneur business is more time outside of your business to have a life then this is the site for you.

I’ll be talking about this extensively and I will be documenting my progress with some of my other very time intensive businesses as I re-engineer them, you’re welcome to come along for that ride.  I want a fulfilling business but I don’t want to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week.  I’ve been earning back time in many areas.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not lazy, I work really hard for my clients, but I think there is more to life than work, and if you work for yourself you are in the ideal position to get that balance correct.

The first thing you need to know is that selling your time on a 1-1 basis is never going to allow you to earn back time.  You need to think about how you can sell your expertise and skills passively so your business is generating income whilst you enjoy your earned back time.  Work On Your Business Not In It 

You need to leverage technology and systems to free up your time, time that is now earned back.  Remember this is your business, you can design it as you please, there is no face time for the solopreneur, if you don’t have to work, you can free up that time.  You don’t have to sit in that seat from 9-5.

This took a little getting used to personally.  I found myself free from work at 3pm, and I was looking around for other things to do, busy work to fill the rest of the day.  I felt a little guilty not working a full day.  Then I realised if I have met my income goals and have clients in the pipeline then it’s okay to goof off for the rest of the day.  I have learned to love the feeling of picking up my daughter from school happy in the fact I don’t have to go back to work and we can mess about, watch a DVD or do anything we damn well please.

How To Earn Back Time

Here are some of they ways you can earn back time.

Productise Your Knowledge – package up your expertise in such as way that it can be bought like a product, you can package up your knowledge as an ebook, video course, membership site, physical book or DVD.  This can then be sold without you giving over time.  What is more it can be sold over and over again.  As an aside read the Asset Snowball Effect to see how releasing time with products allows you to create more products and a snowball effect happens.

Sell other people’s knowledge – if you don’t have any products of your own, then the next best thing is to  sell other people’s knowledge as an affiliate, I’ll talk about affiliate marketing at a later date, but essentially you sell related products to your clients and get a commission.  For example over at wpdude.com I recommend premium themes and plugins to my clients, if they buy them through my affiliate link I get a commission.  This is not a huge income stream for me, but I regularly earn a couple of hundred dollars per month via affiliate systems, this adds up to a couple of hours that I don’t need to bill and is earned back time my my book.

Ditch the commute – work from home and ditch the hours you commute, I remember when I was working in offices, a couple of hours of my day were given over to sitting in a bus as I commuted into a large city centre in the UK.  Wasted hours that can be earned back.

Automate, Reduce and Systemise – I’ll not go on about this as I wrote about this over at Kiss My A.R.S, but if you reduce certain activities from your schedule you can earn back hours.

Limit Liabilities – a small lean business with low overheads needs to earn less meaning less hours

Right size your business – if twenty hours a week billable covers your expenses and allows you to fund the lifestyle you want then only put in 20 hours.  I’ve got a minimalist streak to me, I look around me and I have everything I need, I don’t need any more toys. I know the amount of income I need to sustain this lifestyle, if my business can generate my income requirements on a part time basis I’ve earned back my time.

Increase your rates – I’ve been experimenting with this extensively and I’ve got a stack of techniques to increase your rates without putting off clients, join my solopreneur mailing list to keep up to date on this topic.

Design Your Business

This is just a 101 intro to lifestyle and business design.  I want you to think about this when building your solopreneur business.  Get it right sized, don’t just focus on income, focus on quality of life too.

Want To Learn More Techniques Like This?

I’ll be teaching you how to design your solopreneur business so you can build not only the business, but the lifestyle you want in my  Solopreneurians coaching program.  In this weeks session I will show you “Why Webinars Work” an excellent way to market your business and deliver services in a smart way that can free up some of your time.  I’m offering a 14 day free trial membership of the inner circle, why not take advantage of that and learn all about webinars.

Image by 29254399

I want to talk about  the idea of password protecting your time.

If you are with me for the long haul you are going to hear me bleat on about time a lot, I’ll say it again, but a solopreneur has limited time, use it well and guard it from time bandits (completely unrelated link to the Time Bandits film),  people who will steal your time and give nothing in return.

One thing I do is password protect my time, you need a user ID and password to get access to my time.

What’s The Password

Kerching, money, only give away your time to your clients in exchange for cold hard cash.  Think about your time as you do your computer, create logical/financial access controls to your time.

As a solopreneur you will always be battling competing priorities marketing, finances, service or product delivery, the list goes on and one.  Getting access to you on a one to one basis is something you should charge for.

Guard Access To Your Time Jealously

Orders are nobody can see the Great Oz! Not nobody, not nohow! –The Wizard Of Oz

I’m not saying you should shut yourself off from your clients or customers like the Wizard of Oz , rather getting access to your time on a one to one basis should be considered a premium offering not something your customers can grab on demand for free.

Set Expectations

Let your clients or customers know that you have resources and offerings that can be accesses at any time for free from your website an FAQ for example, publish your expertise in blog posts people can refer to create videos etc., but if someone wants one to one time from you they have to pay for it.

Give Access On Your Schedule

If you are happy to give away access, don’t give away access on demand, don’t let people call you at any time during the day which will break your flow and stop your productivity, disconnect and create a firewall to your time and give access when you want, not when the demanding customers want you.

Give Away Smart Time Not 1-1 Time

If you really have to give away free time for marketing purposes for example, use smart tools to do this.  If you need to give product demonstrations, give a webinar for a dozen clients rather than doing it one to one.  Record the webinar and use it over and over again.

Productise Access

You can also create a product of your access, this may sound a little weird, but if people ask you the same question time and time again, why not create a short video as an answer and point people to that.  They get your access and your attention but in a productised manner.

Examples Of Guarding Your Access.

If potential clients want to get on the phone with you to “pick your brains” before signing up, that sounds more like a free consulting session to me.  I’ve been guilty of this in the past, getting on the phone, giving people an hour of my time in the chance I might get a gig, only to find they exhaust my expertise and waltz off into the night.  Politely tell them you are fully booked and can you write up their queries in an email that I can answer at a later date.

Instant messaging requests, the old “Can we have a quick Skype chat”  usually degenerates into a 30 minute back and forth session, the instant nature of chat software is a huge distraction, once they have you, they have 100% of your attention, log out of AIM sessions.

Being reactive in your inbox is anther way people (sometimes unintentionally) get instant access to your time.  Once an email lands it becomes your problem and we are conditioned to respond.

Techniques To Guard Your Access

I don’t publish a telephone number any more, and the one I have is a Skype in number that goes to my skype account.  Using this technique I can block out calls or simply mark myself as offline.   I don’t answer my mobile phone unless I know who it is.

Disable chat utilities.  I always log out of Google chat and Skype to stop people IMing me.

Something I don’t do well but am desperately trying to get to and that is checking email once or twice a day.  Once you get into your inbox, other people’s problems suddenly become yours and they get access to your  time via email replies.  Email is a terrible time suck.

If you get hundreds of comments on your blog posts, disable comments.

Don’t get me started on the black hole of time that is social media that’s a horse of another colour (two wizard of Oz references in one post, not many people can say they get to do that for a living).

Want My Password?

Two ways to login to my time are via my coaching services or theInner circle.  Buying my access this way gets you an instant login ID and password.

I may come over as cold and calculating in this post, but you will find giving away your time for free builds resentment in you, devalues your time in the eyes of your clients and it not great long term.  1-1 access should be premium. not something clients and customers have for free.

Are People Hacking Your Time?

How are people hacking into your time?  Emails, phone call, IM, Text messages, social media pokes, it’s time to change your password and setup the firewall.

Further Reading

Okay class, I’d like you to read chapter II – E is For Elimination from the The 4-Hour Workweek before next weeks lesson please.

Image by 33909700@N02

The limiting factor of all solopreneurs is time.   There is only you, and you have a constant amount of time.

If like me you don’t want to take on staff to create more available time in your business you have to use the constant of time in more efficient ways.  I’m  not talking about some anal time management, getting things done system, I’m talking about using your time in a smarter fashion by Automating Removing andSystemising.

Stage One: Audit Your Business

The first step is to audit how your business currently works.  I’m going to give a demo of how to do this to Solopreneurians members, but in short what I do is create a flowchart of the processes and interactions I have with my clients.

In the case of the process I did for wpdude.com this was two  pages long.  I’ve scanned them in for you to get a feel, it’s hand written.

PAGE ONE
PAGE TWO

Then you need to attack your business process using my three step A.R.S. formula.  Go through your process and see what can be automated, removed and systemised.

A is For Automation

Can you remove yourself and your time from any stage of the process by automation.  Can you bring in technology to do some of the manual work.  Automation give back time, removes any errors (computers rarely forget or add typos) and helps to stream line the process.

In my example I have highlighted a couple of areas where I did automate the process

Capturing potential customer details and adding them into my quotation and invoicing system Freshbooks was a pain, so I looked to automate this process  I bought a developers copy of Gravity Forms, a plugin for WordPress that allows me to display a form and capture user details.  The beauty of this is I can capture their details, and receive an email of their request but it also creates a new client in Freshbooks, and a blank quotation ready for me to fill in and send off, no copying and pasting no mistype just what the client sent in.  I reckon this has saved me 5 minutes per quote and as I write this I have sent out 1508 quotes; 125 hours is my guesstimate of time saved.  Three forty hour weeks.  Gravity forms also captures the clients email details and adds them to my mailing list if they want to be another great automation and time saving.

Invoice chase up is anther pain in my neck, Freshbooks has a late payment chase up email system.  It can be configured to send out a reminder email after x days to remind your client to pay.  I offer payment upon completion terms so I send out an email 7 days, 14 days 30 and 60 days automatically.  The language I use in each of the emails gets stronger each time, and when it gets to 60 days, I’m handing the problem over to Vinney and Paulie my fixers.  I don’t do anything but I have seen my invoices get paid 99% of the time through these emails.

If you are getting the same emails with queries automate the answering of them via a FAQ or point the issue out in your sales page.  Automating the answering of common questions is a simple way to free up time.

R is For Removal

This is probably the first thing you should do, but RAS is not as cool an acronym as ARS.  Before you automate or systemise any part of your process look deeply at it and ask yourself if it can be removed.  Do an 80/20 analysis of there your time is being spent, where most of your clients come from what are the most important parts of your business.

If you are doing something just because it is de rigueur but it is not bringing you results, before you try to automate or systemise it, simply dump it.

Shh don’t tell the social media consultants, but getting clients for WordPress technical support work via social media does not work, rather it does not work for me.  I get much better results from SEO and blogging, client referrals, marketing to my email list and PPC.  As a result I don’t market wpdude.com on twitter, I’ve dropped my wpdude Facebook account and Linkedin is nothing to me.  I’m looking at Google+ for my new project here at neil-matthews.com but social media is not a big deal for me when I have my wpdude.com hat on.

Social media is a huge time suck for little return so it has been removed.

I’ve got an evergreen catalog of WordPress blog posts that bring in a large number of people each day, I don’t need to be blogging each and every day, I publish very rarely on wpdude.com and I could if I wanted start recycling older posts to the front page of my blog to keep the content fresher.

I really work hard on my blog posts they take me hours to research and write so I’m doing less and less for wpdude.com, but more and more here at neil-matthews.com but that is the beauty of removal, it frees up time to do the things that matter.

S Is For Systems

If you can systemise your process and do it the same way each and everytime you can work faster, stop mistakes and make sure your product or service is delivered to your clients perfectly each time.  Less time spent fixing mistakes or omissions means more time on your core money making activities.

The audit process may be the first stage in setting up that system, you can see the flow of your client interactions, you can start to create your own service or product delivery system.

On the flow chart above you will see little email boxes where I interact with clients, at each of these stages I have canned responses in Gmail that I send out to them requesting login details, asking if I can sign off the project etc, these all came out of building a system to deliver WordPress technical support.

I don’t believe I’m about to say this but if you want to bring people such as VAs or full time staff a well documented system allows you to hand off part of your work much more easily.

Business Models

I did not include your business model in my A.R.S. process, this is a topic for a later date, but 90% of the time I spend in the above flow chart is in service delivery.  If I had a different business model that was not selling my time one to one I would free up a truck load of time to do other things such as marketing and business development.

But more about that in future posts, if you want to be kept up to date with my latest posts about building a one person business, why not join my mailing list.

Wrap Up

If you want to scale your solo-businesss and bring in more income, I recommend that you step back and look at your A.R.S.

Checking your ARS for sticky patches on a regular basis helps to keep your business moving smoothly and more efficiently.  Don’t be scared to experiment and remove processes that are not working for you.

If you are wondering about the schoolboy sniggering at the title and post is about, A.R.S. sounds like arse the British term for ass, note to self, if you have to explain your jokes it’s probably not very funny.