The Builders

I get to be a nerd today and get excited about a WordPress plugin!  I've grown to love Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) over the past few years running my web design agency.  In the past I didn't want 'another plugin' and I created a lot of custom code that leveraged WordPress' core features (eg, metaboxes and the customizer). Today though, I reach for ACF more often than not.  In this podcast I tell the story around the transition, the influence Hexater themes had on my approach to themes, how I broke from that, how I now use it when I'm building custom themes for clients.. and dig into the plugin itself a bit and why I find it such an important solution in my toolkit.

I'm joined by Matthew Biggar in this episode.  Listen in as we discuss video, social media, building brand, audiences and more!  Are you interested in how you can leverage video in your business?  Then this IS the episode for you.  That's his speciality! Matthew's been using video and teaching others how to use video for years!  He's had his own production company and in recent years pivoted and started his own YouTube channel.  We discuss playing the long game, building audiences, we touch on analytics, how to tie all your web properties together and so much more.  Check it out!

An episode about building a podcast on The Builders Podcast...  need I say more?  As with all the content we talk about on this podcast, I'm talking from the trenches; talking to what I'm doing and have experience with.  The past 20 episodes has been a journey.  I've learned a number of lessons, have a pretty good feel for what we're doing now, the benefits.. and I'm ready to share my experience so far and some lessons. Buckle up as I dig into the 'why'.  Why I still am doing solo episodes (like this one) while still doing guests, why I keep things simple (hint: avoiding stress points).  I talk to the value I'm getting from having guests.. more importantly the value my listeners get!  Also I dispense some lessons.. starting a podcast and keeping it simple.  Enjoy!

Join me for a discussion with Jenney Denney.  She's been doing digital marketing for over 15 years, runs an agency and has a lot experience and knowledge to share!  We get to know more about her, the journey and how she landed where she is today.  What influenced her, what guides her... We also talk about her experience with virtual teams.  She's lead large teams in virtual environments; her first team in 2006!  Before many companies even thought about it.  So I asked her about her experience with that and what tips or insights she might be able to offer.  We also talked about starting and building a business in general.  I found her REALLY inspiring.. I hope you get a chance to listen in! :)

Join me for a discussion with Shoumo Ganguly.  Shoumo is a business consultant and expert on the topic of business models.  With a long and storied career with many large corporations (from IBM, projects with Toyota and a long stint at PricewaterhouseCoopers) he's got a lot of experience and insights to bring to the table. As I do with all my guests in our first episode, we get to know him.. he tells his story from his roots in India, to the story of his career and his arrival in America in 1999.  He walks us through what's influenced him and what led him to starting his own consulting business. Then to cap it off we dive into his ideas around Business Models.. how he's take things he learned in the corporate world and molded it, boiled it down for small businesses.  If you're starting a new business or building one, there are some great nuggets in this episode. Don't miss it!

This episode is for freelancers or agencies that would like to hear a perspective from someone that sets up and manages hosting for clients.  OR it's for businesses that would like to extract some thoughts around the importance of choosing a good web host and what the process is around moving to a new server and web host. Whether you're just launching a website or have an existing, growing business, your server is an essential piece to insure your customers can purchase, visitors can access your content or you can generate leads.  You don't ever want to be in the position where you're talking to your developer or hosting company and "this is costing me money" comes out of your mouth. 

In this episode I talk about how to infuse flexibility in your business in that you can handle spikes in your volume without hiring a huge team off the bat.  And why you may not want internal hiring to be your only solution to getting stuff done. What avenues are out there for your business to operate like a cloud computer or server platform where you can scale it up or down depending on the time of the year, amount of business coming in and so on.  A powerful solution that can help you take on more.. but better be prepared for the valleys.

In this episode I'm having a conversation with 2 other web developers.  We start by diving into their backgrounds and journey.  Ryan's been a web developer for over 15 years.  Danielle's been at it for around 9 years.  Both, like myself, focus a lot on WordPress, but we talk about 'what else' we do or will be doing.  We all worked together as a team in a previous company; that's how we met. Some of the topics we cover are related to being a freelancer vs agency, how we define our business, niches, our history with WordPress, what challenges we all face.. which includes that dreaded "Imposter Syndrome" and how we each think about and deal with it.  And cats.. some references to cats. :-)

In this episode I talk about generating ideas and brainstorming.  This something I take very seriously in my own business.  It's a never ending process...  and often ideas simmer for long periods so I can develop them.  When they are ready, they may see the light. I touch on a recent idea that is just now seeing the light of day.  It's something that started to gel around a year ago.  I thought of a name for a product, bought the domain, have thought about the sales page, how I'll market it and who my audience is; I didn't start start developing the product until this past week.

This episode digs into the awesomeness of WooCommerce - a WordPress eCommerce plugin.  I have been using and developing with WooCommerce for years.  It's my go to solution if one of my clients needs to sell products on their website (digital or physical). We have an eCommerce WordPress theme at Hexater called, Furniture Shop.  Hexater.com itself is driven by a cart-less install of WooCommerce (we use Freemius for the cart).  I've built and manage WooCommerce for clients. WooCommerce is great to use out of the box, but you can also customize it to be whatever you want it to be.