Nathan Wrigley: [00:00:00] Welcome to the WP Builds podcast. Bringing you the latest news from the WordPress community. Welcome your hosts, David Waumsley, and Nathan Wrigley.
Hello there and welcome to episode number 267 of the WP Builds podcast. It's nice to have you with us. This episode is entitled. Where's the next client coming from. It was published on Thursday, the 24th of February, 2022. My name's Nathan Wrigley, and I'll be joined in just a moment so that David Walmsley and I can give you series one episode six of our WordPress business bootcamp series. We're going right back to the beginning of our website building journey. And we're trying to relearn everything and put a bit of a microscope on all of the different processes that we had along the way.
So we're [00:01:00] figuring out all about clients today. But before that, a little bit of housekeeping. WP Builds.com. That's our website. If you're interested in the things that we do, we produce typically two bits of content each week. Number one of those is the, this week in WordPress show, that's live it's recorded every Monday. You can find that at forward slash live.
Alternatively, we put it out on Tuesday as a podcast episode, but we also do the Thursday podcast, which is what you're listening to now. And if you're curious about keeping in touch with what we make over at WP Builds, then head to WP Builds.com. Forward slash subscribe. That's w P belts.com forward slash subscribe and sign up to the newsletters there. Join our YouTube channel. You get the idea. There's lots of different places where you can keep in touch with what we do.
And other useful page might be our deals. Page WP Builds.com forward slash deals. I keep saying it's a bit like black Friday, but every day of the week over there, you're going to find coupon codes for all sorts of WordPress related stuff could be plugins, themes [00:02:00] blocks. You get the idea, but there's loads and loads of value in there.
And it's there every single day of the year. So once more. WP Builds.com. Forward slash deals. And one more thing, if you like the idea of having a little community. And when I say little, I really do mean little. You can find [email protected], and yes, that is a URL. WP Builds.social. It's a mustard on install and there's about 60 plus people there at the moment. And it might be quite nice to grow that little community and see if we can get some conversations started over there.
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Okay. Today, we're talking about David Walmsley and I are talking about where do our clients come from? Like I said, at the top, we're rewinding the clock beginning, our WordPress business journeys, one small. I'm trying to figure out where on earth did the clients come from. If you're very lucky, they've just dropped out of the sky.
More likely you've had to do a load of work and figuring out this stuff on the way. And so we talk about that. What kind of things can you attend? What events, local business meetups. Maybe you could leverage your friendships. Maybe it's blogging, maybe it's social interactions in random places. Maybe it's social media. There's all sorts of different ways. And David and I discussed that today.
I hope that you enjoy the podcast.
David Waumsley: Welcome to another in our business bootcamp series, where we relearn everything we know [00:04:00] about building WordPress sites and running a web design business from start to finish we're on season one, where we're looking at what needs to happen before a build starts. And we're on the sixth and final episode of this season where we're asking the question, where will we get our next clients from?
So
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. That's it sounds very grandiose. When you say we're in season end of season one,
David Waumsley: know I love it.
Nathan Wrigley: like a load happened.
Yeah.
David Waumsley: I've got into binge watching series is on Netflix and stuff, it just sounds like really grand.
Nathan Wrigley: Yes. Yeah. What we'll be able to tell you what happens in season two at the end of this, because David's got this old carefully maps out.
David Waumsley: Yes,
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, so what's the premise today. The next client, where's the next client coming from? This is, this stands in contrast to our first client, because the whole premise of the series so far is that we've had pretend client, Mrs.
A who was a lawyer, but at some point [00:05:00] during, let's say we've imagined we've successfully landed her as a client. We've begun all that.
work. You can't wait until that website is finished in order to get the next one lined up. You have to be juggling multiple things at once. So how do we find more clients?
We've been lucky with the first one. does the second, third and fourth come from?
David Waumsley: Yeah, exactly. So we'll talk about the different routes, which we've talked about before together, but at the end, we can just take a look because we've got our two different approaches. We're going your traditional route, where you've sent in a proposal and the contract. And I can go in this more agile route where I've got a sprints of works, which has fixed fees, but it could go any direction.
So w we can look at how that might impact on how we get our next clients. But I think the thing is I've noticed this recently, I've seen a couple of polls in Facebook groups asking about this is a common one, where do you get your clients from and were stepping into the shoes of being, we've just been lucky to [00:06:00] get this person.
And nearly the answer that you get from most people is really unsatisfactory. If you're starting out, which is, oh, they just turn up or they refer referrals and that's really all that people get. So explore. Shall we? The other options here with that
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
And there's absolutely loads of different ways. And also what I would say is that, and I think probably you, and I've both learned this along our journey is the. Yolo way is not my way and my way will not be your way. And the same will be true for just about everybody that's listening. I think a lot of it resides on your personality and what you are prepared to do.
And that's definitely going to be red lines, which will inhibit you. Certainly inhibit me from doing certain things, which other people are very successful at. So I don't think there's too much anxiety necessary if you're not doing it in inverted commerce, the successful way that you read in all these other Facebook groups, essentially if you are getting clients whatever way is working for you, [00:07:00] that's your way.
And if you can perfect it and make it work and a nice steady flow of clients, it's got nothing to do with any technique you've ever heard from anybody else who cares so long as it's working.
David Waumsley: exactly. And the type of client you want to work with is going to change how you're going to go about marketing. But yeah. Should we talk about the kind of first route? And that's got a lot of things under this umbrella of networking. So I say network, do Nathan, you go you
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
My, my experience, I, okay, so let's begin. Let's reiterate what I just said. If networking works for you, whatever that might mean, networking might be different. My experience of it, as you're about to find out is basically horrific then. All power to you. But for me, I really, my personality, it doesn't feel like it fits very well with networking.
I associate networking with things like breakfasts or lunches [00:08:00] or evening meals, where a bunch of people who on the whole don't know each other very well, but have a business interest in the local area or in some niche get together. Have a bit of a bit of a drink, have a bit of a chat. Sometimes it's built around a presentation of something or other, and then the intention is that everybody gets up and introduces themselves and starts to mingle.
And you try to share out the work that's available and I've just found this whole system to be. It's something that I find massively unpleasant. I'm not very good in those situations. I tend to sit back. I essentially just want to talk to one person and get to know that person for the whole hour, to three minutes here, four minutes there.
And
I'm often struck by the people that seem to be successful in that situation. Just how different they are to me, they're prepared to walk up to complete strangers and announce themselves and talk immediately about their business.
[00:09:00]
Nathan Wrigley: Whereas I just want to get The people. Yeah, So there we go. I fell at the, first hurdle, which is networking.
David Waumsley: Yeah the, I've never been part of a business meetup when one of my brothers goes to these kinds of things. But my only experiences I've mentioned before was going to some courses where if you like business owners with sites were learning how to manage their sites. So Google analytics, those kinds of things.
And when I mentioned what I was doing, didn't have that kind of grown to be. And I thought probably what it'd be like in local business meetups, there's going to be somebody like me trying to sell some online service to people and they won't like it. So I've I've avoided since really, I was traveling before I got into this business, so it's not been something I could easily do.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah the intention, I think at these networking sessions is to spread yourself reasonably thin, to make the most of the opportunity. Here's a bunch of 20 people in the room. It would be good if you could speak to as many of those 20 as [00:10:00] possible. However, as I said, I just want to get to know somebody quite well.
And so every time I've done it, essentially I've ended up. Talking to one or two people for the entire time. And what's interesting is they're clearly in the same boat as me because they're speaking to me for the whole time, they haven't felt the urge to go, all right, nice to meet you. Bye-bye and off they go, they've kept with me for the whole time.
And very often we've talked about how we find this whole situation. Very uncomfortable. Interestingly though, I did actually get a bit of work out of the one or two people that I spoke to. It didn't work the other way because in, in every situation where that happened there, what they had as a business was of no interest to me at all. but it turned out that they did need a website. So I suppose I shouldn't be rating it so badly because some work did come out of it. But I think if you're very gregarious and you're very outgoing you have that certain sort of confidence in yourself and being able to walk up to strangers [00:11:00] and launch into your perhaps pre-prepared.
It doesn't have to be pre-prepared if you're very good in those situations and feel that you can do yourself justice, then I guess go for it. It will probably benefit you greatly. But I think it's just a personality type and I'll bet there's a bunch of people listening who totally identify with what I'm saying equally.
There's probably a load of people listening, who are just saying sharp. Nice. And you just get on being cry baby.
David Waumsley: but it the scenario you're describing sounds to me like business speed, dating,
Nathan Wrigley: that's what
David Waumsley: color, what.
Nathan Wrigley: a really great description of it. That is what it felt like. And so involved in some sort of network organization and you think, wow, Nathan, you just had a really bad experience. I did quite a few times. That's always the way it played out. Maybe things have moved on and I just was in the wrong room wrong organization.
David Waumsley: A lot [00:12:00] of these meetings. I'm very naive when it comes to this, but then a lot of these our presentation to be done. Local business people you could offer something as a presentation. So imagine you say, can I go and talk about, how you might be able to get more traffic for your site or some of the key areas where your site might be letting you down and you're not really pitching, you're just giving this information for things that they could do to their sites.
And then just let them know who you are. sounds you're a speaker in that situation.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. And also I've said multiple times on this podcast, I can do this level of public speaking, where I'm basically talking to you, David or an interview guest, and I'm looking at a screen. I'm happy with that. But in, in public doing a stand up in front of 20 people is, would fill me with dreads.
So I think I've just basically got on lucky. And the reason I know that because I have several friends who attend, I have to say they don't attend the same ones that I did because they don't [00:13:00] live where I live, but they attend regularly sessions. And in one case in particular that I'm thinking about what goes into it, but it has transformed their business.
They are incredibly successful and they he's got nothing to do with web development, I should say. And they completely put all of it. They reckon that most of their work comes through connections from network sessions or connections. Gained at you. Do you know what I mean? Like the proxy, somebody that you met at a networking session then goes out and sells your service on behalf of you.
But it all ties up to the networking infrastructure and they love it.
David Waumsley: Yeah. Yeah. The deal. The other thing is making friends in related industries is another way of doing that. So you might be able to recommend, I don't know if you know somebody in print that you could recommend them for that work and they recommend you for the web work, that kind of stuff.
Nathan Wrigley: The whole thing always just seemed very cold [00:14:00] to me. It always seemed like there was. Yeah, it was basically just a bunch of cold leads in one room at the same time. And you had to just convince them in about five or six minutes. That's what it looked like anyway that you had what they needed to do.
And so it, I don't know, he'd always just sound, felt a little bit disingenuous to me, but
yeah, I should stop. I should stop banging on it. Cause it's obviously working for some people.
David Waumsley: Yeah. Friends and family, that is a kind of network in of its own. Some people are vague cagey about what they do for a living. Other people just want to pass that on to let people know that I do this, but
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. So
David Waumsley: you?
Nathan Wrigley: we're lumping friends and family and all sorts of different things into networking. So what we've so far is that business meet up for breakfast or whatever it might be. But so w maybe we should differentiate now, w we're moving [00:15:00] into more friends and family networking stuff. Yeah.
That's definitely worked for me. Random events have worked for
Just bumped into somebody and got talking to somebody. I was telling you a story just before we begin about something
That happened a couple of few weeks ago, where, there's no good reason at all that I should have had any expectation of building a website off the back of it.
But somebody found me just recently and said, actually, can we chat about having a website built? I don't know if anything will come of it or what have you, but it was just a completely random social situation.
David Waumsley: Yeah. I think some people are very good at doing that wherever they find themselves friends of ours traveled like me I think there were a lot smarter on engaging people in conversations, as they move it around on an airplane that might chapter, somebody gets to learn about them, tell them what they do.
And it might just into something I'm pretty poor at that kind of stuff.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
David Waumsley: going to try and get a bit better because it's a nice way to get work because it feels natural. [00:16:00] Talking about the pros really of the whole networking thing. It's difficult when it's a forced situation, but generally if we go with the idea that people do buy from people and that they, we are as human beings, hard way to trust those people, we know, then, it's got to best way of finding new work.
Isn't it?
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
It always felt to me like I'm going to employ somebody to fix my boiler. Who's been recommended to me by somebody that I know who's had their boiler fixed. It's just a kind of human nature. Isn't it? I don't quite know where that comes from. I'd rather phone that person up and exhaust that possibility before I went on to.
Onto Google and trusted some sort of star rating system over the personal recommendation. Now that could be completely ridiculous. It may be that, these websites that [00:17:00] of various different things are actually very effective and they categorize things well, and star ratings do actually work.
But me, Yeah.
the personal thing is always going to Trump. If I know them or know somebody that knows them, it definitely makes a difference. And that feels like a really good use of your time
David Waumsley: Yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: those connections and anybody that you've worked with. So for example, our fictional client, Mrs.
A if she's your first client, you've got to hit that one out the park and make sure that she knows that available for more work. And she's got any friends or colleagues or, family members
David Waumsley: Okay.
Nathan Wrigley: be in need of a website, send them my way, kinds of things. I think it's like building a spider's web over.
It might not be a fruit very quickly, but over time, if you endeavor to build that spider's web and connect all these friendship dots and connects all these clients with friends and make the client, your friend, and talk to people like you said, on the Boston [00:18:00] open about it, that overtime totally will work, but it might be a long story getting it built.
David Waumsley: Yeah. We skipped over that section,
We were talking about that we're asking about whether existing clients are led onto more work. And in my case, a lot, the last couple, the one I'm doing presently looks like they'll have a second site. And the one before that turned into three with a recommendation coming through them and then previous hour, I've got seven sites by one client and that's made me realize myself that I need to take a bit more interest in the client I've got, which is why I wanted to talk about this at this point, rather than save it till the end.
Because. I've really learned a little bit about that often though is more than one website in people, but when they contact you, they are thinking only about this particular project, but they want to do I've really opened my eyes up to the fact [00:19:00] that I have to spend a bit more time than in a bit more about the client themselves and what they do outside of this one build.
Nathan Wrigley: think that works both ways. I think not
Are your clients very likely to have. Morph more fingers in more parties than you know about. Cause they may, they may have a shop or something and that's the site that you're currently building, but it may be that, have more than a shop.
They might have something else. And unless you ask those questions, not going to know equally. I was really guilty of not letting them know the different things that I could do. And whilst I don't do so much of that anymore in the day I used to do sending out emails. That was a part of my business, but I would fail to mention it on multiple occasions.
And then in the end, somehow that conversation would get broached and I'd say, oh Yeah.
I can do that. And they'd say, oh, we never knew you did that. So I think you've got to be open to letting them know about all the services that you do, as well as [00:20:00] asking them about all the services that they provide.
David Waumsley: And the interesting thing is I think a lot of the work that's come in is they've come to me because they want a website and they, some of them have got some skills in building those the baby and the attempt, but they realized this one needs a bit of functionality that they don't understand.
So they've talked about that and really, once I've had that first conversation about what they want and they can't do mostly I'm finding out what they really want, which is usually more leads and more traffic to their site, which opens it up wider. So often what I've found out is that. They've done some building of their own on sites where I might be able to help with them, but they've not even crossed their minds and it wouldn't have crossed my mind if I hadn't gone down the kind of path with them talking about more things than they would have done in the early days.
So I'm definitely looking into existing clients while I'm building the site, because that's the time while you building it, when you're going to talk to them the most and understand a bit more about [00:21:00] them, to represent them properly. So I just think, yeah, I've got to be more open to that in future.
Nathan Wrigley: I don't have any data on it, but I'm imagining it is way easier to get more work out of existing clients than it
David Waumsley: Yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: find new clients every time for the, the schedule available. I could be wrong about that. Maybe somebody can tell us the data that really highlights what the truth is there, but it feels like if you've got a good relationship and you've struck up a good relationship with somebody, a bit of a no brainer, isn't it.
If you can become the default go-to website person, then there's work there. That would be easier to find than if you had to start from scratch every single time. I am. curious about your clients who come back and do multiple sites with you. Is that because they're starting the site again, over and over, it's two years and it's gone out of date and they just want a different feel and look to it, or is it that they.[00:22:00]
Literally got different arms to their, they've got more irons in the fire. They're like an octopus with different tentacles, different businesses. So my question really is, are they rebuilding the same site or is it just different businesses that they need help with?
David Waumsley: Yeah there are different businesses, so there's a different take on it. The presence site at the moment, it seems vacant because they've got a, not going to really talk too much about them, but they've got
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
David Waumsley: place of business, which I was trying to sell, which other people who do the same job with them.
So they've almost got they could be booking rooms in this place. That could be one website. They also got to sell their services, which they carry out within those rooms. And also their services could also work very well as a separate thing online as an online thing only so effectively, they could go down the route of three sites out of one initial site.
Now I don't know if that's going to happen, but similar things happened with somebody else as well. They've got these [00:23:00] extra. Kind of waste. They can present what they do. So there's that. But also the one when I mentioned there was seven that's interesting. Cause that business just changed over time.
So three separate websites were built, were brought together under one roof and then they, so two of them disappeared and one extra one came in. But then on top of that, they decided that they needed to niche with certain of the things to different markets. So new websites are paired and then the most recent one because they need to go for a market, a European market rather than a UK one with a particular brand that they've got.
So endlessly, these new sites keep coming out of this scene. Configuration first it was companies it was the type of product they were selling and it was the type of people that suddenly their product to it into different websites.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
Yeah.
but also I'm glad that we've raised that point because if you are fresh to this. Oh, I can, who knows? You may be doing it for years and never [00:24:00] really got this point. And I didn't, but it is worth asking, isn't it's worth getting these people on the phone or whatever way you communicate best and saying, what else do you need help with in the, on, in the online sphere?
Cause we can probably do a lot more than we've currently been been able easier to get your clients already got to give you more work probably than it is to find new work. Speaking of new work, the last point on your list that you created on under the networking session is about content creation, blogging and making blog posts.
And presumably nowadays we're talking about you tubing and podcasting and what have you do you see that as an important bit? Did you ever stick with the blogging? Did that ever work for you?
David Waumsley: Yeah it's over six years of doing this kind of stuff, including this podcast and the YouTube stuff and that, and not a single client that is suitable for me, that some inquiries, just not the right type of business, they want something [00:25:00] different for me. So in terms of making websites for people, absolutely no use at all.
The good side of it is, although it's not generated work. Where friends do to start starting content,
Nathan Wrigley: this is the good side. Okay. Got it. yeah,
yeah just double-checking. yeah,
but it's interesting. If you think about the nature of this podcast, we totally misaligned it. If we want it to get clients from it. Cause we're, our audience is very much talking to people who already do what we do.
But if we decided to do a podcast or I don't know all about car mechanics things that, when you are mechanic, that would for me. That somebody's got an expertise and you need something done. And so you go to them, I think we've just chosen the wrong audience.
How dare you, our audience be the wrong audience. You just, can you phone David up immediately and offer him some work?
David Waumsley: Thing is you've just tied up something which we should mention at the [00:26:00] end, when we start talking about the change, this agile challenge, that the thing that I'm trying to do, because that links in to make him my content, maybe turn into work, anyway, oh we'll come back to that.
But one thing I wanted to mention just on the friends and family, I have this theory, I'm pretty, I'm sure it's true. My old colleague who got me all the work in the first place, I got started because I helped somebody out, which was networking for no cost, and that led to some work.
So I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for helping out a friend. I think I've always felt is that you could make a good business out of friends and family. Cause if on average, I think there was some statistics. Most people know, or have contacts with about a thousand people. You think how many people now need a website of some kind or another, you've probably without going out and marketing at all.
If you just know how to communicate with your friends and family could probably run a good business on that.
Nathan Wrigley: I'm going to, I'm going [00:27:00] to agree with that, but I'm also going to spell out the obvious. Chasm a base that's there in the, falling out with
Somebody that you work with is less likely to come back and bite you, then out with a close family member by United. So be mindful that we do sometimes fall out with clients or it doesn't quite work out.
And if they're a close friend, you may need to many to waive that in the balance because
David Waumsley: Yes, it's likely you don't want to be well I've been something that's changed over the years I've been doing it is that I'm much less precious about things, but in the earlier days I would have fallen out with, I would have no friends or family. I think if I was building
Nathan Wrigley: yeah.
David Waumsley: nowadays, yeah.
I'm a bit more relaxed. So
Nathan Wrigley: I know people who've been very successful with blogging as a strategy, but they have been incredibly driven and very regular. And [00:28:00] that I feel nowadays is pretty much the only way to do it Weekly, possibly more frequent than that. Article's aimed directly at a problem that your niche face faces with large amounts of data driven in there and larger amounts of thought put into the length of the article and the quality of the article and so on.
But I do know people who've turned that into a, from zero to hero, basically in a very short space of time. They managed to make their business successful because of blogging. But I think you need to get onto that
roller coaster, knowing that it's a long journey.
David Waumsley: Yeah, I don't, for kind of the work that I want, it's not really a sensible strategy because to be honest, once you started making successful content, you might as well just become a content creator because there's probably more money in that than there is building websites people,
Nathan Wrigley: yeah. That's an interesting point. Yeah. Yeah.
David Waumsley: Yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: Up networking? [00:29:00]
David Waumsley: yeah, done.
Nathan Wrigley: Okay. So I'm just going to reiterate, so we've done local business meetups, friends and family random strangers. little bit helping people out and then content creation, particularly blogging.
Alright, great. Okay. So now we're going on to the next one, which you've titled cold calling.
David Waumsley: Yeah. This could be anything really again sending out email sequences to target websites that you've seen. You've I've done that and you've done that on the phone. I've done that with an email sequence where
Nathan Wrigley: Yep.
David Waumsley: to a whole bunch of people who you thought their site's falling apart and they need updating.
And you told me you did a similar
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I did it. And I'm sure the same will be true of you over the last decade. There's been definite moments in our industry where
Been a great excuse, shall we say.
David Waumsley: Yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: reach out to people. So for example, the moment where [00:30:00] decided that SSL certificates needed to be across the web, that felt like a real moment where you could reach out to people who genuinely didn't know that was happening. And you could say to them, look, are you prepared for this? And that cold email was actually of some use and then responsive websites became a thing. and so on. And it felt like the last one of those is Google's core web vitals. The move to making those things happen, felt like that was possibly a moment.
But with that one, I think is very technical and difficult for just about anybody, including us to understand, let alone trying to explain that to a client. So I picked my moment based around responsive sites. So I, all I did really was go out and found sites that were unresponsive in the local area. And I wrote, I think probably about 40 emails, largely off attempts. Introducing myself explaining the problem. And I wrote something specific to all of them. So it was, on your [00:31:00] homepage, you've got this particular problem and I would explain it. So it was pretty obvious to them if they read it that that I was talking to them, not just some generic email didn't work at all.
Failure.
David Waumsley: yeah, I did the same problem. Somewhere between 40 and 60 emails, we sent out to people who didn't have a certificate wasn't mobile responsive, and there would be some other issue with a site, but I didn't really on the issues where their sites. I just said that, this was a kind of special deal.
If you like to quickly make a new modern site that might do this, it's only hinting. I didn't want to say you've got a problem and here's the solution. But, I only got one, it led to one small meeting, which went nowhere and I just thought it was what I expected, to be honest. I just wanted
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
David Waumsley: test it out.
Nathan Wrigley: Mine led to in, I think of, let's say our sent 40, that feels about the number I had one reply, which [00:32:00] led to an email exchange, which probably led to, five or six backwards and then it just went cold. So in the end, nothing happened. yeah.
David Waumsley: Yeah. I think, cold calling can work. If you're trying, you're trying to get better. Of, 10,000 per project, then it makes sense. But for someone like me who might, think, go for the smallest website and those were the people, you know what they're going to give me, they're going to give me, 500 quid or something like that.
Maybe a thousand, because they gotta to be these people who are not looking after the site. So they probably just not worth it. And I just tested it just out of interest to see how it would work and who would pick up the emails and it was on a sequence. It ran for, I think, three emails.
So yeah, didn't I think,
but
Nathan Wrigley: exactly flavor of, there was a sequence and it was supposed to do this, that, and the other, [00:33:00] I don't know, maybe it's just me and you in this case, not wording that correctly, or maybe we just didn't play the odds enough. Maybe it needed to be more like 500 emails instead of 40, but, it, it just didn't feel like it was going anywhere to me.
And the amount of time that I spent doing that
David Waumsley: Yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: anything. So I quickly could tell it, cause you can't keep drowning. In that kind of exercise if it's costing you time and money so wound it up. So Yeah.
the whole cold emailing thing didn't work for me. I did once cold calling
David Waumsley: Yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: similar enterprise, really just the same moment in time.
I think probably it was where, I could speak to somebody. I can't remember how it worked. There was some service back in the day and I'm sure there's services that assist you with this. You would type in to the Sasebo. Platform was called the name of the business. And it would return you an email address and a telephone number.
[00:34:00] So it was obviously scraping the internet somehow and give you their name. And then I would phone up and ask to speak to that person. And I did that at a couple of exactly the same problem. Nobody wanted to hear from me. They had a busy day, they would just like anything to get me off the phone, which I was more than happy with because frankly I was feeling horrible and I wanted to get off the phone as well.
So don't have a great experience to share with that. But again, if you're really good at that sort of stuff,
The state we were, salespeople, estate agents. If you work in a travel firm or whatever, it might be. Some people are just born with that gift aren't they just have it.
can like, me sitting next to them and talking to the exact same person, I would get nowhere. And those people who've got that gift and that talent and have educated themselves in how it works. They can. They can, in, in the phrase, they can send some cell sound to the Arabs.
If you know what I mean, there's just [00:35:00] easy to do.
David Waumsley: And this is a kind of mindset because I'm the last person you would expect to be quite good at cold calling. But that used to be my job training people to get these surveys for the government. And they did it for 15 years and I did the job myself. And you get into that mentality where your response figures, how many successes you've had with the addresses you've given is your badge of honor.
you really get into it, but it's very difficult to have that mindset and also have the kind of empathy talking to Jeanette. They I couldn't combine them. So I couldn't do what I did in a previous life but I think successful. People turning businesses, the, maybe put a calling card before and then they settled call up some other time and do that in the same way that we would do that in my job.
And people employ salespeople to do that. There was some people are really [email protected]. They employ people to go around to easy businesses states and drops [00:36:00] on the golf and talk to people. And as soon as there's any sort of vague interest in what their mate might need to offer, they will just keep following up because they're just salespeople, but that mentality and it, it's really successful for them.
I think that business yell.com and they have another Hybu is their name. I think for that online enterprise, has a kind of bad reputation, but it's more for the quality of the website, but their Salesforce or remarkably successful.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
They've obviously trained their staff to do that. I suddenly what's coming into my mind is that I think I am. I think I am predisposed to. To be what's the word here tip to be really mindful and a bit cynical of advertising. I don't know where that's come from, to be honest with you. When I see adverts on the television and they make bold claims, I often find myself touching and say, oh, it doesn't do that.[00:37:00]
They'll say, that face cream that can't possibly do all those things. And you're just bamboozling us with clever words, which don't mean anything, some pseudo science jargon. And I find myself doing this and I wonder if rarely I'm not doing myself any favors because I see when people try to sell to me, I see it as that.
And I see the possibility for me being bamboozled into a service or a product that I really need. As an example, somebody came around the other day and just knocked on the door. And
was about you can't make it up. It's the UK is most prolific horror show. It's selling windows and I don't quite know how it happened, but the guy got me at the wrong moment.
And I, I just, I think more to make him go away than anything else. Like I said, oh yeah.
sure. Phoned me up. And of course he did phone me up and then I had to extricate myself from that. But it was quite interesting, the language that you used, I could [00:38:00] feel myself being manipulated, he was asking things like do you have a wife?
And I'm like what's this got to do with anything? Okay I'll tell it. Yes, I've got work. Can we make sure she's there as well? And at this point I'm like, no, this is not happening. You are just trying to stack the odds in your favor anyway, total tangent there. But wonder if I'm not the best person to talk on this particular subject because I feel the more we're talking about it, the more predisposed I am to be suspicious of things like cold.
David Waumsley: yeah, obviously face-to-face works the best. My organization trying to gather statistics, an awful lot of money for us to keep knocking on people's doors and show our faces compared to any other form over the telephone or anything. because once somebody has got to know you, once you've got over that hurdle, it's always that tricky bit when you first meet them and it's what do you want them?
You can see the cynicism. And there's [00:39:00] kind of ways of dealing with that. But yeah, it's again about people, isn't it, people buy from people and it's very difficult to extricate yourself from, and in a pleasant engagement with another human being.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah,
It's interesting. But cold calling for me has never worked. I'll tell you a story about my accountant. Who's got this really quite, I
David Waumsley: Yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: ingenious idea. he does cold leafleting, which is to say, but it's targeted cold leafleting. He's an accountant. And so obviously he's trying to drum up new business.
So his primary audience for new businesses who need an accountant. And what he does is he goes around the town, doing his normal work, driving his family around. Being around on business, but his car always has a constant supply of leaflets promoting his accountancy firm. And whenever he sees a business, that's gone out of business.
In other words, he sees a shop front that is now [00:40:00] empty. There was last week, there was a business they're selling something this week, that shop is empty. He just pulls over the car and he throws a bunch of his leaflets in knowing that at some point a business will go into that, take it over, take on the lease and we'll need probably accountancy services.
And he's convinced it pays off tenfold. It's a few seconds out of his day to screech the car to a whole,
David Waumsley: Yeah,
Nathan Wrigley: in and walk off. That's the end of it for him. He doesn't do any sort of follow-up and he's absolutely sure that's worked because he sees the leaflets coming back.
David Waumsley: I think it's fabulous. That was an idea.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. It's really
David Waumsley: that.
Nathan Wrigley: isn't it? It's not going
David Waumsley: Yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: on an international scale, but if you are in the local area, would say that technique could bear fruit for websites. Because as in the same way that a new business is going to need an accountancy firm, probably they're also probably going to need a website.
I Never tried it, but I always thought that. was worth a shot at least. [00:41:00]
David Waumsley: And it moves into our next section, which is just marketing on an offline marketing. So online, there's obviously our websites where we can advertise and ads, Google ads we can put on lead magnets, which I think you said you used as well. Haven't you
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
David Waumsley: to get people's email address.
Nathan Wrigley: yeah. Yeah.
There's all sorts. Isn't it? Facebook ads I've used Google ads. I've used. I've tried lead magnets and all these kinds of things I'm feeling now that we're 40 minutes into this episode. I'm feeling that I don't know if you're feeling this as well. I'm feeling like I've, poo-pooed absolutely everything that's come along, said, oh, this doesn't work.
That doesn't work. And I'm going to continue that terrible trend because I have tried Facebook ads and that has worked for me in the past. I won't go into that, but that has worked, but Google ads largely because I couldn't summon up the energy to keep tweaking them and altering them that eventually I curtailed because it didn't appear to bear fruit for [00:42:00] me and the lead magnet that I had on my website, again, probably because it had the wrong messaging.
And I think the sequence was too long and it was asking too many questions and, I just think there should have been a lot shorter. I I didn't get a lot out of that either, but I know that these tech tactics do work and they are certainly worth following at the early stages. If you can make it.
David Waumsley: I've not really any of these and I don't expect people to come to my website. Cause I got no location. I think if you're competing locally, you can try and. You can try and meet your website, do well in search rankings for your area, but I don't have that. Yeah. So I got nothing when it comes to online marketing, really?
Nathan Wrigley: I think
Facebook ads in particular. Just because of the signals that they get. If you're if you're a Facebook user and you are, I don't know, joining all sorts of local business meetup groups, and, you're clearly [00:43:00] searching for things which identify you as a startup business, in need of startup business services.
I think that could bear fruit because the targeting that they've got is just extraordinary now, whether or not you like that is one other conversation
I think that might be worthwhile injecting
some time into looking how Facebook ad works and the audience that you could possibly build up there, because they really do seem to have an incredible knowledge about who you are and what it is that you need at this moment.
You've seen it for yourself, right? You browsing on Facebook and suddenly you realize that there's an ad there for something that you actually do need. And it's what is the signal they got for that? No idea. But there it is right in front of me.
David Waumsley: Yeah. The offline efforts really are always going to be local aren't they? I can't think of the higher course. So local papers, radios, billboards, posters, that kind of thing.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Did you ever do any of that? Do you ever get into,
David Waumsley: [00:44:00] No. It's one of the embarrassing things I keep returning to my famous poster idea, which I'm going to be putting
up on this railway station.
I'm still saving that one. I've still, when I've got my plan of what's going on that poster, I'm still going to use that, but otherwise, no.
Nathan Wrigley: I've I've toyed with this idea. I, local newspaper, there is still a local newspaper here, it's now once a week, by all accounts, it's read by all most nobody. And I have no.
idea how it continues to. Exist, other than, the advertising revenue I can't for a minute, imagine they make money out of sales of the actual paper.
So that, that ship locally, for me, at least long ago, sailed local radio is still going again. I don't know, in this era of Spotify and, on demand, tele all competing for our attention. I don't know if local radio is still winning, but occasionally when I do [00:45:00] switch it on it's full of adverts for local companies, and it's very inexpensive to put those ads on.
So where I live, that might be something I would consider the toyed with the idea of putting a local billboard, like an actual advertising hoarding in the local. Ground. It seemed like a really demographic the sort of rugby crowd and have, seems to be a lot of people in that demographic anyway, starting up businesses.
And what have you never did do it, but a friend of mine who is in the same business as us, he has done it and he continues to do it. And he's been gone for probably five or six years with a hold, an advertising, hoarding in a sports ground and totally worked never gone into the arena of creating knickknacks, pads of paper and calendars.
And you wrote down fridge, magnets, never. I've never done any of that. Maybe that's a nice way to keep people thinking about you that were already your customers, especially the calendar, because it's there all year. [00:46:00] But never done any of that either.
David Waumsley: No, I've not really done anything like that. I've often thought that there might be ways of being able to attract attention in a local area by maybe, I don't know, making a big public show of a challenge to make some charitable sites or something like that in a very, a way that might include a lot of people.
And because people are trying to fill up their kind of radio, local radio stations and the local papers with something, you might get some attention, but that's all I've ever thought about doing.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. That's a lot of options though. That's the important thing to,
Isn't it? It's just a, we're trying to, although we seem to be, like I said earlier, poo-pooing everything we are at least raising them and you can try these out on your own. So moving on.
David Waumsley: Yeah, we just wanted to the last bit ready, which I just wanted to throw in the traditional agile kind of approach here. So it's really, I guess my kind of propaganda with this thing. And I did some stuff over on [00:47:00] my simple revolutions
blog touching on
this yeah. By promotion,
Nathan Wrigley: Wait a sec. I've just realized I haven't been recording because when you drop back in,
David Waumsley: it was off.
Nathan Wrigley: I have to set you up on a channel and I didn't, it didn't occur
So
we'll have to go back Bulger. Sorry about that. It's totally my fault. And I've only just spotted it. You will now be recording. Do you mind if we just go back and do that little bit again?
David Waumsley: yeah.
So
Nathan Wrigley: So we're going back to the question of me saying I've done none of the local stuff. Have you ever done any of that?
David Waumsley: Okay. No, I've not done any local stuff. Cause I was traveling before I really got into trying to find some web clients. But I've often thought that, you could create events in a local area because people want to fill up [00:48:00] their radio stations and newspapers and stuff with something. So if you, else did something like that, where they made the big show of doing a free charitable site and made it very public and very challenging.
So build it in a quick time and ask people to get involved in it. So I think there were ways you could do that kind of stuff. If you've got a local audience.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I think so. And I think, although you and I are obviously not the place to shout about the benefits of this, cause it's not been working too well for us. At least we've highlighted the fact that there's all these different things, local radio billboards, posters, fridge, magnets, calendars leafleting, cold calling all of that all available.
If it fits your personality.
Okay. Moving on.
David Waumsley: we'll just, yeah, we'll just end up a bit because this kind of agile approach thing is new to both of us. And that's something that I'm exploring with my group. just wanted to contrast that when it comes to the marketing. Agile doesn't [00:49:00] offer anything when it comes to marketing, but it does have its agile manifesto, it's about individuals and interactions over processes and tools and customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
And when you start to think about these key values and stuff and delivering to clients, it starts to make you think a little bit, I think about how we would do our messaging to get new clients. So I've got a bit of a thing at the moment. We taught must go back a little bit. We did a whole series didn't we on a book called watertight marketing, we looked down the sales funnel starting at the top where people first hear about you and the emotional impact hours.
And it works down through all the processes. I think it was quite interesting. I did this on kind of my own blog, looking at that from an agile perspective. And it has made me think about how I'm going to change my messaging from the beginning to way from
We can do for you. We can get you more [00:50:00] business leads, where you can have a beautiful site to us show you what you can do, because I'm thinking now what still in a lot of my business is people that are going off, even people that are my customers go and do in other sites with page builders.
And some people come in now too, with things that they've already started building with a page builder, and then they need help. I wanted to get in a little bit ahead of and say I use a page builder, will I do some content or get the message over? If you're wondering whether you want to do a pace build or hire a web designer, why not just have the best of both and get someone and work together?
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I like it. That's an interesting approach. Just curious with these new leads that you're hoping to generate.
David Waumsley: Yeah,
Nathan Wrigley: word agile?
David Waumsley: no, I just, I don't, it's not a term I've used at all when having conversations with people about doing the work. Cause I don't need to, I just really explained the logic about how me might work. So
yeah, [00:51:00]
Nathan Wrigley: like DIY or do it with me and yeah,
All those kind
David Waumsley: yeah. In a way, I'm just talking about what they need in the same way that I would with the traditional model. All I'm doing is changing it. But the other thing, can I just throw in about one of the thing that there's a big influence to me, which is a Daniel pink book called drive, which talks about motivation.
And it's a very academic book. It's based on a lot of research done by serious organizations about how it's influencing, how we're looking at work and it's influenced in agile as well, because it's realizing that people. I'm not really rewarded by financial gain, unless it's a really menial tasks that you needed to do.
People just need to learn to do stuff. They like to master instruments in their free time that weekend. And they like being able to self-determine. And I think, building that into an offering for a website where you can help them to feel like they do something is very much the agile approach, isn't it working as part of [00:52:00] teams.
And I think it allows you to put over a different kind of marketing to what with the traditional. Basically you say, we can deliver you this kind of website, but you really need to meet people at the point where they've already decided they're going to commit a significant amount of money to that
Nathan Wrigley: I guess time will tell whether or not those conversations are easy or hard to convert.
David Waumsley: yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: obviously from my perspective doing the waterfall, the traditional, here's a proposal, here's a figure it's going to cost you on here's the deadlines and so on. I
I think that's, I think that's just a really easy to understand methodology for anybody.
Who's getting a website built because what you've always done. You wanna, you want to get. How's extended. You're going to pay the builder and hopefully you're going to get them on a kind fixed rate. You know what the project costs are and everything it's just no explaining to be done there.
Obvious. [00:53:00] And I think would fit well with marketing, sorry, not marketing department, accountancy departments of firms. They just want to be clear much it's going to cost us. And we know that it's never going to go beyond the bounds of that. And I think that you'll have a bit of explaining to do.
And whilst there's easy
To that use of it'll be a small amount of money frequently, hopefully, and we'll do it and we'll do it in collaboration with each other. The opposite, I think will be true for a certain amount of people. They just want it off their desk. They don't want to do it with you.
They just want it off the desk. They want to scope it out and then move on and carry on with their working life and pay the bill when it's done. And everybody's
happy.
David Waumsley: no, I know that. And you mentioned before the calls about how you add two quotes in, and one was given in hourly and one was given with a fixed fee and that the fixed fee seemed more appealing just because of that. You knew where you were
Nathan Wrigley: is for a big Aish, not big at all, by any stretch of the imagination, but in my life, big like a conversion property [00:54:00] garish, garage. And it's not particularly cheap, but I just like the, I like the reassurance is the figure. And, and
If it strays over that figure if they suddenly discover some hidden lurking problem that nobody foresaw that's on them, that's for them to figure out.
And it's got to be done under the auspices of that budget.
David Waumsley: Yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: the other builder, who's offering the exact same solution, but is going to charge me out. It worries me could get away, little minor delays. And I think that's a concern that people might have, if they don't trust you, they might not be convinced that you're going to work particularly fast because it's in your interest for things to take a little bit longer, shall we say?
And those kinds of concerns, I think you'll have to assuage people's fears in that regard.
David Waumsley: Yeah. Did address this and do the posting cause it's one that I've read a lot on. [00:55:00] Other people's says exactly the same about that. How do you, okay. Sounds nice. You work as a team and then you buy sprints as you need it, but people like a fixed figure. But I think when I've read about, and there was one particularly Dutch web design company taught, did two articles about it and the how they'd lost clients, because they explained the logic of it.
And they still went with a fixed fee because they just couldn't get it. And some people were angry. It's what kind of business are you where you can't give a clear quote? And but actually my answer to this one is they, I think they will get you stuck in the process of these rather than the principle of it, because in certainly on our level, it does make a difference.
The customer's always right. They come in, they say, what do you think it'll take? And I say in my time it will be an estimate of. But that's me doing the process and then you would have to follow my process, but I leave it these sprints. So I say it will be this number of sprints if we're doing it, where you leave me with the control.
However, what [00:56:00] happens with these things is that you probably want to respond to creative changes you have, and if that happens, then we can work together and then you set the budget and that's basically it. You give them the quote and then you give them the option also to change their mind and be more involved.
And I think that's the best of both. And I think that's what agile should be trying to do it. Shouldn't be trying to say this is better than a traditional approach. It clearly isn't. If the client leaves you to get on with it and follow your process, then you can give them a clear quote in the same way.
As if you were to go to a car mechanic, most of the time, they're going to be able to estimate how long it fixes it. If you were to go and get. Spanner out and try and help them with it. You'll mess it up and it'll take longer.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. See how that goes.
David Waumsley: yeah, so sometimes it's really worked well with the clients because they've, I've estimated there are two sprints and because they know that they can work with me because the process allows that then they really get a move on and get into it and then they [00:57:00] cut their time down.
So they control the budget to their favor. So I see, I just think the agile route just gives us an option. It's not, it's an option for when things that you thought you knew at the beginning, don't turn out the way you expect to tell them it gives you a route out in a way for the client to change their mind rather than forcing them.
Nathan Wrigley: Okay. I think we've probably got everything that we wanted to do there in terms of, where's your
David Waumsley: think so.
Nathan Wrigley: client coming from? That's the end of season one. I'm going to make a public apology. And I feel like I've been down on marketing during the whole episode. And it's not really my place to say that, these things don't work.
It's I feel that don't work for me because of how my personality works and how inept I am at following things up. so.
just want to clear that off at the end.
David Waumsley: But I don't think you've needed it. And I think that's the one thing that it reminds you. I think the whole thing about marketing, whichever approaches you're using, they're just the processes. It's still, how much [00:58:00] of a human you are in those throughout whichever method you use,
Nathan Wrigley: yeah.
David Waumsley: I
Nathan Wrigley: That's
David Waumsley: think if you meet people anyway and they come to you, then you don't need it.
If not, there are these other ideas, but I still think humanity is the thing that makes it work.
Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. it's a good eight years. It's a good point. Okay. So series one is over. Do you
David Waumsley: Yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: briefly say
David Waumsley: Oh, yes.
Nathan Wrigley: on in series two? Just keep it to a minute or so.
David Waumsley: Yeah. Yeah, season two is going to be the build design, which is layout laying out content and brand in that kind of stuff. So we'll be looking at copy site structure, home page layouts, Brandon, that kind of stuff is aesthetics.
Nathan Wrigley: Perfect. So that'll, that will come your way in a couple of weeks time, but Yeah.
for now, enjoy that series
David Waumsley: me too.
Nathan Wrigley: Thanks, David. That was brilliant.
David Waumsley: Thank you. Bye.
Nathan Wrigley: That's it for this podcast. I hope that you enjoyed it. It is always a pleasure to chat to David Walmsley [00:59:00] about these things. Perhaps you have an ingenious way of finding clients that we didn't mention. Perhaps you've found clients in mysterious and unusual ways, or perhaps just something that we missed out.
If you'd like to give us some commentary, head over to WP Builds.com and search for episode number 267. Alternatively, you can go to WP Builds.com forward slash Facebook for our 3000 plus member, community. All very polite and all very good natured. It's all about WordPress and it's lovely to have such a nice community there. That's WP Builds.com forward slash Facebook, and you can always leave a comment there.
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Okay. We will be back next week. Next week, there'll be an interview because we flip flop between them David and I. So look for that. Also our, this weekend WordPress show coming out every Monday, [email protected] forward slash live. I hope you have a lovely week. Stay safe. Here comes some cheesy music.
Bye-bye for now.
