Podcasts about using wordpress

Show DescriptionWe're getting some feelings out about WordPress and Matt Mullenweg vs WP Engine drama, as well as the Web Components conversation that happened this past week. Listen on Website →Links WP Engine sues WordPress co-creator Mullenweg and Automattic, alleging abuse of power | TechCrunch Automattic demanded a cut of WP Engine's revenue before starting WordPress battle - The Verge WP Engine Banned from Using WordPress.org Resources – WP Tavern The WordPress vs. WP Engine drama, explained | TechCrunch Matt Mullenweg: ‘WordPress.org just belongs to me' - The Verge WP Engine Term Sheet Theo and Matt Mullenweg Matt Discusses WordPress WCUS 2024 Q&A Modern WordPress Learning Automattic | Five for the Future | WordPress.org Automattic Alignment Matt Mullenweg Calls Out GoDaddy Matt Mullenweg Charitable Contributions Lee Wittlinger Location WebOps Platform WP Engine Hacker Interview WordPress.com WordPress Hosting Web Components Present Web Components Are Not the Future Sponsors

One of the benefits of being a web designer is your option to build recurring revenue. As a WordPress web designer, I learned that one of the best ways to do this was to offer a hosting and maintenance plan. Or “care plan” as it's more commonly referred to these days.For years, it was my assumption that if you use self-hosted platforms like SquareSpace, WixStudio, Webflow, Showit, etc then you can't offer care plans because there's no plugins to update or advanced security to monitor. But I was wrong...you CAN offer care plans (even if you're NOT using WordPress!!)A great example of this is Eleanor Mayrhofer, a SquareSpace web designer and member of my community Web Designer Pro™.On a recent weekly coaching call, Eleanor and I chatted together about how she could build up more recurring income as a SquareSpace designer and we came up with offering an “SOS” plan.​​SOS stands for "Strategy, Optimization & Support"Eleanor launched her SOS plan and literally overnight generated a few hundred dollars per month of recurring revenue with this plan and her clients are loving it! She's on the podcast this week pulling back the curtain on her plan!We cover:What she includes in her SOS planHow she prices itHow she sold it to existing clients and got several signupsHow her SOS plans work alongside her growth/marketing plansHow she's protecting her time with this new service by going slow and steady with promoting itFor all the links mentioned and to see Eleanor's SOS plan for reference, head over to joshhall.co/331, and hey, drop us a comment if this episode helps you out!Special Featured Link:Check out Eleanor's SOS plan at: https://www.eleanormayrhofer.com/support-optimization-strategyLinks Mentioned:My website maintenance plan course Get all links and resources mentioned along with a full transcription at:https://joshhall.co/331The Web Design Business Podcast is available on:Apple - https://apple.co/36wnnc3Spotify - https://spoti.fi/36ttMEor wherever you get your podcastsView all Web Design Business Podcasts with show notes and full transcriptions at: https://joshhall.co/podcastGet instant access to my brand new (free) 50 minute video masterclass on how to scale your web design business, your way.

Got a Minute? Checkout today's episode of The Guy R Cook Report podcast - the Google Doc for this episode is @ Are you using WordPress with Podcasting efforts ----more---- Support this podcast Subscribe where you listen to podcasts I help goal oriented business owners that run established companies to leverage the power of the internet Contact Guy R Cook @ https://guyrcook.com The Website Design Questionnaire https://guycook.wordpress.com/start-with-a-plan/ In the meantime, go ahead follow me on Twitter: @guyrcookreport Click to Tweet Be a patron of The Guy R Cook Report. Your help is appreciated.   Contact Guy R Cook https://theguyrcookreport.com/#theguyrcookreport Follow The Guy R Cook Report on Podbean iPhone and Android App | Podbean   https://bit.ly/3m6TJDV Thanks for listening, viewing or reading the show notes for this episode. This episode of The Guy R Cook Report is on YouTube too @ This episode of The Guy R Cook Report Have a great new year, and hopefully your efforts to Entertain, Educate, Convince or Inspire are in play vDomainHosting, Inc 3110 S Neel Place Kennewick, WA 509-200-1429

In this episode, we're shaking things up in our ongoing series "Rethinking Podcast Norms" discussing whether traditional podcasting approaches still hold water or if it's time for a refresh. Today, we tackle the common question, "does my podcast need a website"? Episode Highlights: [2:37] The unexpected quiet start and the anticipation of a lively room [4:12] Ice-Breaker: “If you were to record an episode completely outside of your usual format or topic range, what would it be about?" [6:07] Podcasting formats and topics. [11:04] Podcasting, religion, and personal experiences. [16:08] Podcasting norms and website necessity. [21:12] The importance of having a website for podcast hosts. [26:31] The importance of websites for audience development and marketing. [28:19] Podcast websites and SEO value. [33:35] Website hosting and domain names for podcasters. [41:18] Using WordPress for community building and messaging. [44:13] Building and using community platforms for websites and podcasts. [48:08] Using Pinnacle.ai for business and customer service. [50:47] Podcast listening habits and website engagement. [53:33] Using GPT to curate podcast episodes based on listener surveys. [55:45] Rethinking norms in podcasting. [56:44] Podcasting goals and website importance. Links & Resources: Our new website: https://www.podpage.com/pmc/ PodPage: https://www.podpage.com/?via=ironickmedia Kajabi: https://kajabi.com/ BuddyBoss: https://www.buddyboss.com/ Side Hustle Nation (shared by Billy Thorpe): https://www.sidehustlenation.com/personalized-playlist/ If today's discussion sparked a new idea or challenged your existing podcasting norms, we'd love to hear about it. Remember, the podcasting world continue to evolve, and there's always room for innovation and growth. Please rate, follow, share, and leave a review if today's episode got you thinking. Until next time, keep pushing the boundaries and happy podcasting! Join us LIVE every weekday morning at 7am ET (US) on ⁠Clubhouse⁠: ⁠https://www.clubhouse.com/house/empowered-podcasting-e6nlrk0w⁠ (Coming soon to LinkedIn Live...) Brought to you by ⁠iRonickMedia.com⁠ and ⁠NextGenPodcaster.com⁠ Please note that some links may be affiliate links, which support the hosts of the PMC. Thank you! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/podmornchat/message

This edition we dive into: • HubSpot's recent product announcements and what we can learn from them • Is HubSpot a CRM or a Customer Platform? • Campaign Assistant, now with added AI • Prospecting tool benefits • The Workflow cleanup feature is pretty handy • Using WordPress and HubSpot CMS together • HubSpot Guide Creator • What languages does HubSpot Chatbot support • Workflow action: Future Date Calculator • Adding Emojis to record sections • How to reduce hard bounce rate on email sends • Midjourney prompt of the week • HubSpot's CRM puzzle • Moving notes from HubSpot records to another portal Full show notes available at: https://www.hubshots.com/episodes/episode-304 Recorded: Wednesday 04 October 2023 | Published: Friday 13 October 2023

Episode Highlights:The Growth of Lone Rock Point [00:00:32] JJ discusses the growth of his agency, Lone Rock Point, from 4-5 people in spring 2020 to 16 people now.Remote-first Approach [00:02:29] JJ talks about adopting a remote-first organizational structure from the beginning and how they didn't miss a beat when the pandemic hit in 2020.Focus on Public Sector and NASA [00:04:02] JJ explains his background in government contracting and how his agency focuses on working with the public sector, particularly in the federal level, including clients like NASA.The federal government ecosystem [00:11:29] Discussion on the ecosystem and governance of federal government agencies, including guidance and policies.Starting Lone Rock Point [00:13:39] JJ's decision to start his own agency after exploring side hustles and feeling the desire to be more entrepreneurial.Niching down to WordPress [00:18:25] The growth and success of Lone Rock Point after focusing on WordPress as their main service offering.Topic 1: Using WordPress as a Content Management System [00:22:17] Discussion on using WordPress as a content management system and adapting WooCommerce for check payments.Topic 2: WordPress and the Public Sector [00:22:58] Exploration of using WordPress in the public sector, particularly in government agencies like NASA, for managing and publishing content.Topic 3: Web Modernization Project with NASA [00:28:26] Overview of a web modernization project with NASA, including evaluating different CMS options and deciding to invest in WordPress.The SEO and Accessibility Tools in WordPress [00:32:35] Discusses the real-time analysis tools in WordPress for SEO and accessibility, such as Yoast, and how they differentiate it from other CMS platforms.The Resources and Knowledge Sharing in the WordPress Community [00:34:57] Explains the abundance of resources, knowledge sharing, and community support available in the WordPress ecosystem compared to other CMS platforms.The Importance of Open Source and User Experience in WordPress [00:37:11] Highlights the significance of open source adoption in the public sector and how WordPress's user experience and inclusivity differentiate it from commercial solutions.

On the podcast today, we have Patrick Posner. Patrick is a solopreneur and has been developing with WordPress since 2010. He's worked in many environments, as a freelancer, a senior developer in a WordPress product company, and since 2020 he's been working full time on his own projects. One of his projects is a plugin called Simply Static. Its purpose is to make a static version of your website. This, of course, begs the question, what is a static site? We explore the idea of 'flattening' your website, only putting the files needed for your website, whilst taking WordPress offline. We get into the pros and the cons of why you might wish to do this as well as some plugins and services which will enable this. It's a really interesting subject and one that you might like to explore, and this podcast is a great primer for that.

On the podcast today we have Chris Badgett. Chris is behind LifterLMS, which is a learning management system built as a WordPress plugin. He's been in the WordPress space since 2008, and has moved his agency away from general website building to concentrating upon e-learning membership sites, course creation and marketing automation. He's on the podcast today to talk about how WordPress and e-learning are a good fit. Although there's a flourishing SaaS side to e-learning, Chris is convinced that WordPress allows you to make your LMS site exactly what you want. You won't be facing the limitations imposed upon you by the platform, and can, if you have the time and skills, modify almost anything to suit your brand and niche. We begin by talking through how well a WordPress based LMS site can scale. We then get into a broad conversation about how online courses have taken off in the last few years. Even before global lockdowns, individuals and businesses were adopting online courses in innovative ways to educate their customers, staff, and the wider public. It's an interesting podcast and digs into yet another area where WordPress can help people thrive online.

On the podcast today we have Chris Badgett. Chris is behind LifterLMS, which is a learning management system built as a WordPress plugin. He's been in the WordPress space since 2008, and has moved his agency away from general website building to concentrating upon e-learning membership sites, course creation and marketing automation. He's on the podcast today to talk about how WordPress and e-learning are a good fit. Although there's a flourishing SaaS side to e-learning, Chris is convinced that WordPress allows you to make your LMS site exactly what you want. You won't be facing the limitations imposed upon you by the platform, and can, if you have the time and skills, modify almost anything to suit your brand and niche. We begin by talking through how well a WordPress based LMS site can scale. We then get into a broad conversation about how online courses have taken off in the last few years. Even before global lockdowns, individuals and businesses were adopting online courses in innovative ways to educate their customers, staff, and the wider public. It's an interesting podcast and digs into yet another area where WordPress can help people thrive online.

Easily start using Wordpress.org for your business website! It can be a little overwhelming to understand all the moving parts within Wordpress, but I'm here to break it down for you. Plus, help you understand how to make Wordpress easier for you to use. 

This episode is sponsored by Tonic.ai – where your data is modeled from your production data to help you tell an identical story in your testing environments.[00:01 - 07:22] Opening Segment Need to generate fake data that looks, acts, and behaves like production data for your test environments? Check out Tonic.ai!Head over to https://www.tonic.ai/ and sign up today for a free two weeks trial sandbox!From full-time employment to consultancyOn why he calls his business the banana stand“There's always money in the banana stand.”[07:23 - 21:54] Doing His Own Thing and Gaining IndependenceAvdi on the difference between consultancy versus the banana stand modelWriting his e-book and getting into screencastsHow he managed a startup business, consultancy, and being a new father at onceThe reason behind the rebrand: From RubyTapas to Graceful.DevWhy Avdi is done subscribing to the corporate cultureThe unconscious bias in recruitment[21:55 - 31:42] Building on WordPressWhy Avdi chose WordPress as the platform for his businessWhat are the advantages over the other platforms?WordPress plugins: What you need to knowKeeping track of the changes and updates on the platform[31:43 - 41:46] Closing SegmentWhat's next for AvdiHis advice on delegating and building your email listFinal wordsTweetable Quotes“There's always the risk. There are no guarantees in this industry. There are no  guaranteed retirement plans.” - Avdi Grimm“I think a lot of people in software are completely focused on either financial scaling or on like user scaling. The kind of scaling you need to plan for is devolving stuff from yourself, removing yourself as a bottleneck” - Avdi Grimm“Anything that I'm thinking of delegating or automating, always do it manually first, and do it manually for a while first and get a really good idea of what it is that I'm either delegating or automating.” - Avdi GrimmResources Mentionedhttps://www.tonic.ai/ - Sign up now for a two-week free trial!Exceptional Ruby by Avdi Grimm - Get a copy of Avdi's e-book at https://store.avdi.codes/l/NWtnkWordPressConvertKitLearnDashMemberPressWooCommerceConnect with Avdi on his site and on Graceful.Dev! Follow him on LinkedIn, too!Let's Connect! You can connect with me, Dr.  McKayla on Instagram, Twitter and Youtube to look into engineering software, and learn from experienced developers and thought leaders from around the world about how they develop software!LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who wants to know more about the engineering software world. Your ratings and reviews help get the podcast in front of new listeners. _______Transcription[00:00:00] Dr. McKayla: Hello, and welcome to the Software Engineering Unlocked podcast. I'm your host, Dr. McKayla and today after pleasure to talk to Avdi Grimm. But before I start, let me introduce you to an amazing startup that's sponsoring today's episode, Tonic.ai, the fake data company. So what does Tonic.ai do? I'm sure you know how complex and cumbersome it is to create quality test data.[00:00:27] Dr. McKayla: It's a never-ending chore that eats into valuable engineering resources. Random data doesn't do it and production data is neither safe nor legal for developers to use. What if you could mimic your entire production database to create a realistic dataset with zero sensitive data? That sounds amazing, right? Tonic.ai does exactly that. [00:00:50] Dr. McKayla: With Tonic.ai, you can generate fake data that looks, acts, and behaves like production data because it's made from production. Yet, Tonic.ai guarantees privacy so your data sets are safe to share with developers, QA, data scientists, heck, even distributed teams around the world. Visit Tonic.ai to sign up today or click the link in the show notes to get a free two weeks trial sandbox.[00:01:14] Dr. McKayla: But now back to Avdi. Avdi has been a developer for over 20 years and runs, similar to me, a training and consulting business. The main difference is that he has been doing this already for over 10 years. So I'm super thrilled to pick his brain today around everything business-related. He's also a consulting pair-programmer and the author of several popular Ruby programming books and has several courses on this subject on his website, Graceful.Dev, formerly RubyTapas.com. So I'm super thrilled that he's here with me today. Avdi, welcome to my show. I'm very excited. [00:01:51] Avdi Grimm: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. [00:01:53] Dr. McKayla: Yeah, I'm super excited. So I've been following your journey on Twitter and so on for quite some time. Very inspirational as well. And I have a lot of questions around how you run your business and why you're running the business and what we can learn from you, right, a seasoned entrepreneur and self-employed person to also maybe get a little bit more independence in our life, right? So this is probably the main goal for myself, for everything that I do is flexibility and independence. So why are you running your own business and how does this come about? Why are you not a software developer in a company somewhere?[00:02:32] Avdi Grimm: Right, yeah. I mean, to some degree, I feel like it's almost an inevitable career arc for somebody in software. You know, I know people who have avoided it, but a lot of the people that I kind of looked up to over the years went through, you know, they went through the full-time employment phase and then they gradually kind of moved out to becoming consultants and having various other side businesses.[00:02:55] Avdi Grimm: And, you know, come to think of it, I never really thought about this much before. I had the example of my dad who worked in software and hardware design, and he was an independent consultant I was growing up. So that was kind of normalized to me to, like, have your own thing [00:03:08] Dr. McKayla: Yeah, for me was quite different. Yeah. [00:03:11] Avdi Grimm: I think that I, I saw that on the horizon maybe from earlier than some people do, just because it was, it was normalized for me, you know? And it just seemed like that's what a lot of my heroes did in the industry was eventually they became consultants. [00:03:26] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. Yeah, it's good if you have like role models. For me, it was quite the difference. I always saw it that I will work at the company for a really long time and, you know, climb the career ladder somewhere. Actually, I started a family that I saw, oh, this is not working out as I expected. And as I would like it to work out, right? And so this was a little bit why I changed the thing. So you call it a banana stand. You don't call it like an enterprise or something. Why do you call it the banana stand? And what's your philosophy for your business? How do you run it? [00:04:00] Avdi Grimm: So, yeah., I've started using the term banana stand recently, especially as I've been kind of reflecting back on, you know, over a decade of doing this and, like, my style of, of running the business and writing a little bit more about that. So the, the term banana stand, it comes from, the show Arrested Development in which one of the characters says to another, this character is trying to save the family business and his dad who is in prison keeps telling him there's always money in the banana stand, which he completely misinterprets the message and winds up, burning down a banana stand that's full of literal money in the walls. I apologize if I've spoiled the show for you, but it's been out for a while. But you know, like, that phrase stuck with me. There's always money in the banana stand and that's kind of the way that I look at it.[00:04:48] Avdi Grimm: So there's kind of two sides to this, this independent business for me. There's the consulting side. And then there's the product side, product being kind of a broad term for selling books, selling courses, selling workshops. It's kind of a loose definition of product, but it's definitely distinct from the consulting side of my business, which is more like, you know, hourly consulting on people's projects.[00:05:12] Avdi Grimm: And I definitely look at the product side as a banana stand as like something that I kind of run casually, even if I'm putting most of my time into it now. I still run it kind of like lazily and you know, and it's my own banana stand to putter around in. I'm not, like, beholden to any, like, schedules and I'm not on any kind of like track of, I have to, you know, make this much money.[00:05:35] Avdi Grimm: I have to, like, make sure that my VCs get a payoff and stuff like that. It's just kind of like, you know, I get the putter around in the banana stand and work on whatever I feel like. And, you know, that phrase there's always money in the banana stand is kind of like that has informed the way I think about employment a lot, because, for me, if I'm in between jobs, I used to think of it as in between jobs, I don't think of it that way anymore, but if I'm in between jobs, quote, unquote, that's not like a time to panic and, you know, and, like, do all the interviews and freak out about how I'm unemployed. That's time to just focus on the banana stand.[00:06:12] Avdi Grimm: And until something comes along, that makes sense. And I think that's been helpful to have that. And, yeah, that side of my business, really like, so we talked about consulting, but that side really came from early on, getting into e-book sales, which we can talk about how that story went if you want. [00:06:28] Dr. McKayla: So if I understand that you would say there's the consulting, which is, you know, it's something that you have continuously to invest in and also make some contracts around that.[00:06:37] Dr. McKayla: I'm also doing some consulting, which means like now I'm dedicating, let's say 30 hours for this project for three months, right? And so you are more or less sold out for that time? [00:06:48] Avdi Grimm: It's kind of like a real job.[00:06:49] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. It's like a real job, only that you have all the risks as well, which is even worse.[00:06:58] Avdi Grimm: But there's a lot more, even there there's a lot more independence. And honestly, you know, one of the things that I value on the consulting side is that, I mean, yeah, you have the risk, but there's always the risk. There are no guarantees in this industry. There are no guaranteed retirement plans.[00:07:13] Avdi Grimm: And what I don't have to do is I don't have to buy into a lot of corporate mission and values BS that I don't believe in. [00:07:22] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. So you have your consultancy and then in between those consultancy gigs, right, when there are no consultancy gigs, you're not freaking out, you're working on your banana stand and you grow that, right? And the good thing it's about the products and, you know, this mindset, I think, is that even a little bit of work on them pays off, right? So it's a little bit like an investment. So you create another free course, maybe, and you have like a, you know, a good lead magnet, have people that are interested in your work.[00:07:53] Dr. McKayla: Then you create a paid course when you have time and so on. And it stays, right? It's something that's there for longer, whereby the consulting, it comes, it brings normally quite good money, from my experience, right? In a very short amount of time, but then it goes away as well. While the banana stand, maybe it's a little bit, it's not this boom, now we have like all this money. But it's also not going away, right? Yeah, exactly. It's a snowball. It's a flywheel somehow, right? Yeah. [00:08:20] Avdi Grimm: Yeah. I mean, you know, a consulting gig is one big blizzard that, you know, that melts the next week and a banana stand is a snowball that you just kind of gradually roll over the years.[00:08:32] Dr. McKayla: And so how long did it take for you to have this banana stand where you could say, well, I have some predictable income that, you know, makes me sleep at night? . [00:08:43] Avdi Grimm: So actually I think, you know, my trajectory there probably was a little different from a lot of people's. I kind of, you know, I put along having the book, the e-book business on the side for a few years, and that really just fell out of speaking.[00:08:58] Avdi Grimm: It happened because I was giving talks at software conferences. And I was pouring a ton of time and energy into researching these talks. And I was like, you know, I wonder if there's a way to kind of recoup. You know, I have all this material that I put together. I can't fit it all into a talk.[00:09:14] Avdi Grimm: And I wonder if there's a way to like recoup the energy that I've been putting into this. And that was really the origin of the first book, which was Exceptional Ruby, which is about error handling and failure management and I made a book out of like the, all the extra material that I put together for that.[00:09:29] Avdi Grimm: And that was that kind of launched things. And so that was kind of a side business. It was a nice little side business for a couple of years. And then what changed was I decided to get into screencasting. I've been doing the books, I've been doing some podcasting and this was around, you know, this was like 20, maybe 2010, 2011, 2012.[00:09:52] Avdi Grimm: A lot of programming screencasts started taking off. And I decided to get into that business. And I had a vision of like, what if we did that only much shorter and more focused? And, you know, just do like five minutes or less. You know, get one idea across at a time. And so, unlike most banana stand efforts, that was really like a do or die, not do or die.[00:10:13] Avdi Grimm: I don't like that terminology that was a go big or go home. That's the phrase I'm looking for, go big or go home because I knew how much energy went into video production and it is a lot. And so it was like, okay, this is a project that I'm going to test the waters. If it does well, I'm going to try, you know, the only way this works is if I can make it into my full-time job, otherwise I'll just stop. And yeah, I got really lucky. I was coming in at a good time. People really liked the format. And so within, I think around a year or two, I was able to say, I don't actually need other jobs right now with the RubyTapas screencasts. [00:10:49] Dr. McKayla: Oh, yeah. That's nice. [00:10:51] Avdi Grimm: Yeah. So that was, that was kind of like line goes up. That was less, you know, slowly rolling snowball.[00:10:56] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. And how much time did you spend in this line goes up phase? You know, because somehow when you're focusing on something, like doing the screencasts, you're not having an income, right? And then if you go to consulting, you don't have the time. So you have to switch between those boats of not having time or not having money. So how did you handle that at that time? [00:11:17] Avdi Grimm: I didn't sleep. I had at least one new baby at the time, too. And, like, I was working consulting gigs. I don't know. It's kind of a blur at this point. I don't think that I could do that kind of thing again, unless it was a great need. 'Cause I was also, at that point at the beginning, I was producing three episodes a week. [00:11:41] Dr. McKayla: Wow. Yeah, that's a lot. [00:11:43] Avdi Grimm: Yeah. I was doing a lot at once and it was kind of nuts. [00:11:46] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. And I actually really liked, with the whole style also, when I look through your blog posts and everything, right, you have your own style. You didn't call it like Professional Ruby screencast, you call it RubyTapas, right? And the tapas probably transport the message of it's small pieces of very digestible, tasty things, right? [00:12:09] Avdi Grimm: And I feel like some of that probably also fell out of just like the Ruby, like, the community has always been super whimsical and kind of silly. And so, you know, I can't take full credit for that approach. [00:12:22] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. But recently, I don't know exactly when, but you rebranded your whole RubyTapas into Graceful.Dev, why is that? For me, it seems like it's now broader and there can be more happening, but what's your strategic vision behind, you know, going from RubyTapas to...[00:12:40] Avdi Grimm: I do not do strategic visions. I used to, but, man, I avoid strategy as much as possible now. I mean, that's okay. That's not true. I do a little, I do a little. But I try not... [00:12:54] Dr. McKayla: You definitely have some reasoning behind it, right? [00:12:56] Avdi Grimm: I try not to have five-year goals. Let's put it that way. I don't do goals. There's definitely some reasoning there. There's a direction there. I mean, the direction was one that I've honestly had in the back of my mind for a really long time. A lot of people don't know that, like, the same day in, like, 2011 or whenever it was that I registered RubyTapas.com and associated addresses. I also registered CodeTapas.com.[00:13:20] Dr. McKayla: Okay.[00:13:21] Avdi Grimm: So like, you know, I never wanted to completely limit myself to Ruby, strictly Ruby content. You know, I've worked in, God, like a dozen languages over the course of my career. And Ruby was just an area that I wound up focusing on a lot and wound up making a lot of money in. And enjoying, I really, really enjoy the language still and the community as well.[00:13:42] Avdi Grimm: But I always had in the back of my mind, you know, that I would expand, but, you know, I didn't wound up not using as you'll notice. I wound up not using CodeTapas as the branding 'cause I was really, like, moving in a different direction, broadening not just in, like, in the technologies that I want to cover, but also I just spend a lot more of my time thinking about broader topics like, the sustainability of the development that we do and systems thinking, understanding the systems in which we work and the systems that cause the work that we have to exist. And yeah, so just, for a lot of reasons, it made more sense to me. And in some of my talks, I've been really focusing on the concept of grace.[00:14:21] Avdi Grimm: So it just made more sense to me to move in that, that branding direction. And then recently I had the opportunity to finally, like, do a lot of the heavy lifting of moving content over. And so I took that. [00:14:33] Dr. McKayla: Where did this opportunity come from? [00:14:35] Avdi Grimm: Well, so I had a point a few years back where I was like, okay, you know what? I've been sort of off on my own, doing my own thing for a long time. I would like to get back into, like, the hustle and bustle of being part of a big team that's making something real in the world. And I spent, I don't know, a year or so interviewing pretty seriously at a bunch of different places. And that did not go as expected.[00:15:00] Avdi Grimm: And I finally decided that I, wasn't going to focus on that anymore after all. And I was just going to get back to the banana stand 'cause there's always money in the banana stand. And that has been actually an immensely satisfying experience, kind of coming back to it with a fresh, fresh, like maybe this is my calling perspective.[00:15:18] Dr. McKayla: Yeah, I actually followed this journey a little bit on your Twitter, you were sharing it with us and also the hassle of the whole, you know, getting naked in front of strangers, you know, and really selling yourself. And I mean, you have been in the industry for so long, you have shared your learning.[00:15:38] Dr. McKayla: You know, you have some portfolio online. It's not like somebody comes and has no idea about you, but still, it felt like at least what I got out of the tweets, right. What I read into them was that every interview was a little bit, it wasn't really like keeping your dignity, right? So you had really to get naked in front of them to do all these silly things.[00:16:03] Avdi Grimm: You know, I wouldn't, I actually, I would argue that it's not, it wasn't really about being naked. It wasn't really being, about being transparent. It was about people wanting you to do a very special dance for them that strokes their ego and me being at a point in my career and life where I'm just like, I'm not going to do that. Why would I do that? Looking back I got some actually really nice offers from some, you know, well, large companies anyway, but in the end I was not comfortable taking any of them. And in part, because of what I saw during the interview process.[00:16:39] Dr. McKayla: Okay, what did you see? [00:16:41] Avdi Grimm: Well, you know, so actually, let me tell you about something I just heard recently from a friend of mine, because I hear the same story over and over again. Like my story, what I've realized is my story is not at all unique. So just the other day I heard the story again of like, basically, you know, an extremely senior well-respected brilliant engineer gets asked by a friend that works at a FAANG, you know, works at one of these giant unicorn Silicon valley darlings, gets asked to come interview there. It's like, we'd love, you know, I'd love to work with you here, which is basically what happened to me, a number of different places. And, you know, so they kind of go into the interview silo and then they go through this process where in, you know, in this particular case, like they got interviewed by someone who was totally unrelated to the group that wanted to hire them because this is the way the process works. You know, we don't want bias in the system. There's a lot in these processes that are supposedly about eliminating bias, it's actually creating it.[00:17:42] Avdi Grimm: We can talk about that more in a minute, but, you know, was interviewed by someone totally unrelated to that team. And basically, they were like, you know, show that, you know, by heart, my favorite algorithm,[00:17:55] Avdi Grimm: I happen to have a favorite algorithm. You're going to show me that you can, you can identify that I'm thinking of this algorithm and then you can write it by heart. And like that wasn't an algorithm that this engineer had used before. And so it wasn't one they thought of, you know, I've got a lot of stuff in my background where it's like, I know of algorithms that probably most engineers haven't heard of because they happen to be useful for networking middlewares and I hear this all the time.[00:18:18] Avdi Grimm: Anyway, they got flunked out because they couldn't, you know, reproduce somebody's favorite algorithm from, by heart. And this is somebody with, like, close to my level of experience. It's nuts. And I keep hearing this. It's actually, you know, I've heard this from a lot of people, with my, lot of friends of mine, with my level of experience in the industry, that these systems, they're really tuned to find people that are exactly like the people who designed the system in as many ways as possible. [00:18:47] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. [00:18:48] Avdi Grimm: Like, for me, I don't care. I am a white guy with plenty of opportunities and a banana stand. You know, I can fall out of a process like that and be fine. But what I'm seeing is that these processes are also, I mean, they're very gatekeep-y and they're very clicky. They're very in-crowd, they're very, very, like, we are expecting people that sort of show the secret insignia of a very select group of Silicon Valley insiders, basically. [00:19:18] Dr. McKayla: I think one of the problems is also that they often require a tremendous amount of preparation, right? And if you think you are an experienced engineer, maybe at that point, you have a family, for example, around, right.[00:19:33] Dr. McKayla: And some other commitments, it gets really hard to study some, you know, lead code examples, just to be as fast as, you know, somebody else, right? And I think this is also something that I criticize a lot when I'm thinking, and then you don't even need that, you know, you don't need that knowledge. You could really solve real-world problems.[00:19:51] Dr. McKayla: You have some experience and background, right, that you have worked on. And it's probably also super challenging. So looking really at what that person has already achieved in the last, let's say 15 years would be, you know, and then really let them explain that in-depth, which shows that they probably can learn, you know, whatever problem or solve whatever problem you throw at them. It would be a much better way than, you know, getting back to bubble sort and, you know, and linked list or something, right?[00:20:19] Avdi Grimm: And this, this is a big part of where the bias is in the system, and this is why I get sort of morally outraged by it, you know? I don't do well in these, you know, I might not do well in these because I'm at a point where I just can't be arsed to do that much homework of like learning somebody's arbitrary favorite algorithm.[00:20:36] Avdi Grimm: But what they're implicitly biasing towards is the sort of stereotypical young white dude that has all the time in the world and doesn't have a family to support and doesn't have any disabilities. And, you know, I could list off a lot of, you know, a whole lot of privileges there that go into that sort of their really looking for that person who has nothing else going on in their life.[00:20:59] Dr. McKayla: Exactly. [00:21:00] Avdi Grimm: You know, so that they can then like induct them into the cult of your passion is your software career. And that bugs the heck out of me, you know, and I see this really like, you know, who is really hurting is people that come from backgrounds that aren't like mine and have other stuff. They have people that they're taking care of. They have kids, they have elderly parents, they have families that they're sending money to, and they can't afford a, you know, a break in their income while they spend six months, you know, doing nothing but the interview game. You know, there are so many things, and the people that are, you know, so many minorities in this country already have, in the world or, you know, minoritized people, I shouldn't say have so many other calls on their time because of the way society is already stacked against them. That it makes it impossible to jump through these. [00:21:48] Dr. McKayla: Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. Yeah. [00:21:51] Avdi Grimm: Sorry, I get worked up.[00:21:53] Dr. McKayla: No, I want to come back a little bit to your banana stand again because this is the way out for, for you. And it's a little bit the way out for me as well, right? So with Graceful.Dev, I don't know if you had that before. You had RubyTapas and you had like the courses, but Graceful.Dev is now a full-fledged membership site, right? So you have different courses and you build it on top of WordPress. Why did you go this route? I mean, you could have like your courses on some third-party platform, right? From, I don't know, Teachable or whatnot, you know, many, many different PODR and so on. But you host it yourself and then you have the membership site as well. And you do that. Why does choice, like, I'm also thinking about right now, awesomecodereviews.Com for example, runs on, I switched from WordPress to Gatsby. So it's a static side and I'm thinking on how to give it a membership capabilities.[00:22:49] Dr. McKayla: And I looked at SurplusCI and so on, but why did you go for WordPress? And are you happy with it? And what's the philosophy behind it? What do people get from this membership? What do you want to build? Probably there's a community behind, right? And some, some visions that you have for that.[00:23:06] Avdi Grimm: This is an opinion I've kind of come to over years of using many different systems. And there's continuum here because you know, a lot of people running, particularly running education sites for developers have rolled their own system from scratch. They've built their own servers or their own applications.[00:23:26] Avdi Grimm: And so, you know, there's that continuum all the way from roll your own to, you know, use a completely hosted service, like Podia, Thinkific, whatever, you know, and I've, I've tried a lot of these different things. I started Ruby topis out on somebody else's platform.[00:23:39] Avdi Grimm: And it was super limiting. You know, there would be things that people were asking for for years and they just, that feature wasn't a priority for the platform because you're competing, you know, you're competing with all the other people who use the platform. And for, you know, whose feature is most important.[00:23:54] Avdi Grimm: So it was very limiting to use a hosted platform, and I've periodically I try them again and they're always, there's always like something pretty early on, it's like, wow, I really need this feature. And I don't have it. But I've also toyed with building my own. I did that for a few years and you know, what I realized was, if I did that, my show was going to become about building an app to support the show, because that's what I was going to be spending all my time on, because it's a lot of work to build.[00:24:23] Dr. McKayla: It's a lot of work, yeah. [00:24:25] Avdi Grimm: People don't realize, you know, how many features are expected in an application that sells content and serves content and keeps track of people's progress in the content, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.[00:24:38] Avdi Grimm: And yeah, I just, that was not the show that I wanted to be doing was, you know, I didn't want to be like here's videos about how to build a place that hosts these videos. So WordPress has turned out to be a really happy medium kind of between those two extremes. WordPress is just incredibly mature software.[00:24:56] Avdi Grimm: There's a lot of people in, particularly, the developer world that are kind of biased against WordPress and sadly against like the PHP ecosystem entirely, which I think is really undeserved. There's a lot of really, really good people working in this space. And the ecosystem is just amazing because you can kind of build anything you want and you can get as little or as much support as you want.[00:25:20] Avdi Grimm: You know, it's easy enough to build your own plugins for WordPress to just do a little tweak here, a little tweak there. You know, the architecture of it really supports the idea of exposing everything it does as hooks. And then you can hook your own stuff into those hooks, which is why it has this great plugin ecosystem.[00:25:36] Avdi Grimm: But one of the really cool things about the plugin ecosystem around WordPress is A, there is a plugin for everything, like, anything you might want to do. Somebody has got a plugin for it. And B, usually they have, like, a premium version, which comes with support. And I have had the best experience with premium plugins for WordPress.[00:25:55] Avdi Grimm: Like, you know, people just like being very responsive to the people that are giving them money and coming back and, you know, with bug fixes or like going into the, you know, going into your site and making, figuring out why it's not working. And so it's like, it's one of the rare places I've seen that people are putting out a ton of open-source software, but also getting paid for their work.[00:26:16] Avdi Grimm: Because all these plugins, like the base version at least, is always open source. And then basically you're paying them for maybe some premium features, but mainly for a support contract and, you know, and so people are making their living, creating open-source software. And I think that's pretty cool. And it's also, it also has done really well for my business. [00:26:32] Dr. McKayla: Yeah, and it's true. And so when I'm thinking about your course software, did you get a plugin for that? Or did you have to write it yourself or do you have like a plugin and then extend that on your own? How does that work? You're hosting your videos, but then they're also like, you know, questionnaires, for example, some quizzes, you know, as you said, you see that people, you know, it somehow tracks the progress of the people. It has to know that you're a member that can access that course, the other course. All of that functionality, does it come out of the box with some plugins for WordPress? Or did you have to implement that yourself or was it a mixture that you're actually getting a plugin and then you can, you know, enhance that with your own code?[00:27:15] Avdi Grimm: Great question. So, there are two to three categories of plugins that go into a site like this. I mean, my website has a lot more plugins than that, but there's sort of maybe three basic pieces. And one is  learning management system LMS, otherwise known as courseware. So that's a category of plugins I could probably reel off maybe six of them off the top of my head, I'm personally using LearnDash, which is one of the older ones and one of the more, probably the most popular one in WordPress right now. And it's very mature. It's a little clunky for me sometimes because it's really targeting in many ways, it's targeting like serious learning institutions where they have like accreditation concerns and certificates.[00:27:59] Avdi Grimm: And like, you can't take this course until you take this other course, lot of stuff that I don't care about. On the flip side, it's very mature. They handle all the things that I might want to put into it. They just also, also a lot of stuff that I don't care about. And then, so you've got, like, there's learning management, that's one. There's membership, which is like another whole category of plugins, which are generally focused around, given this account, what material does this person have access to? And that includes courses, like what courses does this person have access to. [00:28:28] Dr. McKayla: So they work nice together, LearnDash and the membership thing. [00:28:30] Avdi Grimm: Yeah, so generally what you see, so I'm using LearnDash on the LMS side, I'm currently using MemberPress, which is one of the more popular membership management plugins.[00:28:39] Avdi Grimm: Generally these plugins, they work hard to work with each other, you know, different teams usually, but they work hard to work with each other because that's where a lot of the value comes from. And so they have explicit support for each other. And then the third piece often is like your e-commerce, how you sell the thing.[00:28:56] Avdi Grimm: And that is often a separate plugin as well. Like in the WordPress ecosystem, it's usually WooCommerce. Sometimes it's EDD, Easy Digital Downloads. Now I've reeled these off like they are distinctly separate categories, but actually almost everyone in each of these spaces will happily give you like all of the above kind of in one.[00:29:18] Avdi Grimm: Because they all kind of, they'd grow, all gradually expand out to include each other's features. So like LearnDash, you can do a pretty basic membership management using the groups that are built into LearnDash. You can sell courses directly. Like they have Stripe integration and stuff directly from LearnDash if you want to, it's kind of basic, but it's totally there.[00:29:36] Avdi Grimm: MemberPress recently introduced their own courseware plugin for MemberPress. You can just like stick with that company if you want, as long as you're okay with like a more basic courseware offering. They also have the storefront part built in if you want to use it. So there's a lot of blur between these plugins as well.[00:29:54] Avdi Grimm: Yeah. [00:29:55] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. Okay, cool. And so are you then enhancing that, is that possible, especially if you have like the paid version, could you just write that? And then how do you keep track of your own changes and new updates that are coming from the team? How do you integrate those things? [00:30:09] Avdi Grimm: So one of the marks of a good industrial strength WordPress plugin is that they have well-defined hooks. You know, I was talking about like, WordPress is built on the concept of hooks. They have well-defined hooks that are documented. And so, like the ones that I work with do, they have good documentation sites and they have all these hooks that you can like, here's how you change this, you know, here's how you hook your own thing into this particular part of the interface or this particular process.[00:30:36] Avdi Grimm: And then, so what I have is what they call a site-specific plugin that I keep under version control, and I have a deployment system for that pushes it out to my way. And my site-specific plugin, basically just very selectively has a few, there's a few hooks where I want to customize something in one of those other plugins.[00:30:54] Avdi Grimm: And it just like hooks its own handler into just the, like the very specific hook that is one tiny piece that I care about changing. It's very small. The site-specific plugin is very small. I try to keep it very small and very focused. [00:31:07] Dr. McKayla: Okay. But so it has a valid defined API or hooks that you can really enhance. You're not going in and hacking in their, in their code base, right? So you're on the outside, whatever they allow you to change. [00:31:18] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. And if you're going to really get into this ecosystem, that's one of the things you want to keep your eye out for is like, does it seem like these people are really supporting that kind of external hooks?[00:31:28] Dr. McKayla: Yeah, it sounds very interesting. And I know quite a couple of people that are running WordPress websites and have a lot of, you know, like you said, WooCommerce, or like a membership sites and they're very, very happy with it. Maybe my last question for you is around, you said you are not going to plan for five years and so on, right? But I think everybody has some, some vision you know, some, some reasons why you'd be doing things like transitioning from RubyTapas to Graceful.Dev, right? What do you see yourself, do you want to do, is there a possibility that Graceful.Dev is really your full time thing and that you're not doing any consulting or do you want to keep doing consulting on the side? Or, you know, where are you heading towards, what's your ideal case?[00:32:16] Avdi Grimm: I wish I had a good answer for you. You know, I want to keep being able to do what feels right at the time, which is kind of what I'm doing right now. You know, Graceful.Dev is supporting me pretty decently along, you know, that alongside of my other, you know, other products and things. You know, I take consulting gigs as they look interesting.[00:32:35] Dr. McKayla: Yeah, and are you a solopreneur or do you have, like, a team that really helps you? [00:32:39] Avdi Grimm: Oh yeah. Good question. I don't have any full-time employees for years and years. I've employed people very part-time here and there, only ever like a handful only ever like maybe three to five at most, at any given time. Actually five is probably more than I have, but like I have somebody that's I've worked with for a long time, that handles kind of first line of support.[00:32:59] Avdi Grimm: So support emails first go to them and then they escalate them to me. I have somebody I'm working with now who's doing a lot of, like, helping me with content, like doing video editing or fixing up blog posts that have become, like their formatting has gone wonky or is out of date or something like that. Yeah. So I have a few people that just like very part-time helpers.[00:33:21] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. I'm currently right now in this position of getting people and I find it really difficult finding the right people because, you know, if you're already in this, okay, I need help now. I don't know how you overcame that stuff, but for me, it's like, I need help now, and I can't grow, you know, without this help. But I also can't really make the time to find the right people and to teach them and do onboarding. [00:33:44] Avdi Grimm: And that is, that is the classic catch-22. And there's no easy way out of it. You know, the point where you absolutely don't have, like, you don't have the overhead space to train somebody, but you need to train somebody in order to get the overhead space.[00:34:00] Avdi Grimm: Yeah, I wish I had an easy answer for that one, like that parts of slog. And eventually you kind of pull your head above it, but it's hard because, yeah, like the effort involved in like getting through that catch-22 is exhausting. I will say this about it. And, and this has informed my work for a long time.[00:34:20] Avdi Grimm: This is the most important kind of scaling to plan for. I think a lot of people in software are completely focused on either financial scaling or on like user scaling, you know, the, your user base scaling up like our, will our code base support unicorn scale. That is by far like the least common form of scaling that you have to support.[00:34:42] Avdi Grimm: The kind of scaling you need to plan for is devolving stuff from yourself. Taking, removing yourself as a bottleneck. That is the most urgent and immediate form of scaling that you're going to face. And so one of the reasons, I have a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons that I use WordPress is because it is the dominant player.[00:35:02] Avdi Grimm: Like, it powers like half the web now, and there is this huge ecosystem. And if I need somebody to do like copy editing, I don't need to teach them how to use GitHub and like commit things, you know, I don't need to find a copy editor, but then teach them how to use my special, precious bespoke system.[00:35:20] Avdi Grimm: They know how to use WordPress, whoever they are, they know how to use WordPress. And you know, if I need to get somebody, you know, if I want some help with my site because I don't have time to diagnose one particular bug, it's really easy to find WordPress consultants, and there's just so many things there where it's easy to find people that can do the thing that you need help with.[00:35:44] Avdi Grimm: And that's just as a general kind of policy. That's one of my biggest considerations when choosing anything is not, you know, not is this going to scale up, but can I scale it away from me? Can, you know, can I remove myself as the bottleneck for this in the future? [00:36:00] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. Yeah. That's such a good mindset. And I'm currently learning a lot with it and you know, it takes much more time and much more energy than I thought, but I also see that, you know, if you have already one person, right, so finding this one person, it means that you have to work with six different people. And then you realize, oh, it's, you know, it's, it's making more trouble that what I'm getting out of.[00:36:23] Avdi Grimm: Yeah. And I should say here, like, use my bad example for learning. I hit a crash at one point where I really wasn't like I was, my outgo was bigger than my income. And a big piece of that was that I had, I had tried to devolve too much of myself. You know, I tried to become too big and pay too many people to do too many different things.[00:36:45] Avdi Grimm: And the funny thing about what was happening there was that I was still swamped. I still had too little time. And it was because I had basically, you know, installed myself as a manager and I was spending all of my time helping people get unstuck and managing things. And so, yeah, it's really easy, like once you, once you kind of start going down that delegation road, it's really easy to go too far. [00:37:10] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think one step at a time and keeping the focus like I really would like to create more content, have more of this really quality time doing what I love to do like teaching, thinking about content, writing blog posts, right?[00:37:25] Dr. McKayla: This is really what gives me energy and less about the administrative stuff. But then, as you say, I have to be real careful not to get people adding to my administrative stuff. So, yeah. But yeah, very, very good.[00:37:38] Avdi Grimm: I think it's important to always know that like you can do the thing. One of my personal policies is like, anything that I'm thinking of delegating or automating, always do it manually first and do it manually for a while first and get a really good idea of what it is that I'm either delegating or automating.[00:37:55] Avdi Grimm: And usually what I discover is that I can automate less of it than I was planning. And it's enough. Or I can delegate less of it than I was planning and it's enough, but yeah, as it's always very tempting to be like, man, there's this one aspect of my business. I just don't want to think about at all. And so I want to delegate, delegate that part of it.[00:38:13] Avdi Grimm: And I think that's really dangerous though, that leads down that road of like now I'm just jammed up managing everyone and paying too much, you know, not balancing my books. [00:38:22] Dr. McKayla: Yeah. I think that's true. [00:38:25] Dr. McKayla: Do the thing the hard way for a while, figure out the smallest piece of it that you can automate or delegate.[00:38:31] Dr. McKayla: Yeah, cool. So Avdi, thank you so much for sharing all your insights. Is there something like, if there are developers out there that think, oh, I would like to have some side hustle, you know, get a little bit more independence or maybe even go full in, what do you think what is a, is a good strategy nowadays?[00:38:50] Dr. McKayla: You know, when there are already so many, screencasts, when they're already, you know, so many other things, so many blog posts, so many podcasts and so on. What do you think? How should people start doing it? Is a blog still a good first outlet? [00:39:04] Avdi Grimm: There's no going wrong with blogging. Honestly, like, it really doesn't matter like what your plan is. Get good at writing about things. Like, practice writing. It's just that I feel like that skill has informed, has improved so many other aspects of my business and of my career. I mean, writing about what you learn is such great practice for even if you just stay a regular developer, you're going to be a better developer because you are better at explaining and documenting your work to other developers. And so like, yeah, there's just no downside to getting in the habit of writing all the time about the work that you're doing. [00:39:46] Dr. McKayla: Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, I think so too. I think that's a such a good advice. There's I think there's so many positive things that can come, be that job opportunities or maybe you have to jump on, you know, you get better as, as you said, in your communication skills, better at communicating with your colleagues and so on. So yeah, I think this is a great, this is really a great insight. Thank you so much, Avdi. [00:40:09] Avdi Grimm: Oh, I have one other thing on that, on that note that I should include. Start building your, your mailing list now. [00:40:16] Dr. McKayla: Mailing list, yeah. Good idea. Independent mailing list, I would say.[00:40:20] Avdi Grimm: You know, do that blog thing and then slap, you know, go with ConvertKit or something and slap a mailing list, subscribe on that thing, and just start collecting that snowball now, because that, it takes a long time, but oh my gosh, the opportunities that come out of having a good mailing list. There's nothing else like it.[00:40:38] Dr. McKayla: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I think that's a great add, great addition to what you said before. So Avdi, thank you so much for taking the time and talking with me and sharing everything with my listeners and yeah, have a good day.[00:40:53] Avdi Grimm: Thank you so much for this. I really enjoyed it. [00:40:55] Dr. McKayla: I enjoyed it too. Thank you so much. Bye bye. [00:40:58] Dr. McKayla: This was another episode of the Software Engineering Unlocked podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, please help me spread the word about the podcast, send the episode to a friend via email, Twitter, LinkedIn, well, whatever messaging system you use. Or give it a positive review on your favorite podcasting platforms such as Spotify or iTunes. This would mean really a lot to me. So thank you for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and I will talk to you in two weeks. Bye.

Did You Hear About the Latest Rip-Off? Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) Are Already Losing Steam! [10:54] How Law Enforcement Tracks Bitcoin! It is Absolutely NOT Anonymous [20:05] The FBI Is Actively Removing Malware From Private Machines -- Without The Owner's Permission [29:10] Why and When You Shouldn't Trust QR Codes [41:08] Cybercrime in Russia Tracked to a Single Office Building in Moscow! [52:29] The Newest Phishing Scams [01:01:32] Using Wordpress? How Supply Chain Attacks are Hurting Your Business Website [01:10:43] Cybersecurity Tools You Should Be Using! Jam packed today. We're going to start with non fungible tokens. If you don't know what those are, this is a very big deal because so many people are investing in them right now. Are they really investments? I've got a bit of a blow back here. Most people think that Bitcoin is anonymous. We're going to talk about how it absolutely is not. [00:00:20] We're going to talk about anonymous. In fact, the Russians, Microsoft, what they're doing against the Russians and this little comedic thing about cars. [00:00:28] NFTs are very big deal. [00:00:31] I'm going to pull up here on my screen right now. This is a picture of Mr. Jack Dorsey. We'll go full screen, an article from a website called CoinDesk. CoinDesk is one of these sites that really tries to track what's happening out there in the Bitcoin community. Of course, nowadays it's much more than Bitcoin. [00:00:53] Isn't it? We're talking about all kinds of. Different currencies that have a blockchain backend. They're called cryptocurrencies basically. But the big one was of course, Bitcoin. And there is a whole concept. Now, when we're talking about things like cryptocurrencies and these non fungible tokens. People have been investing them in them. [00:01:19] Like crazy people are making millions of dollars every week. Now, remember, I am not an investment advisor and particularly I'm not your investment advisor. So take all the. To your investment advisor. I'm not telling you to buy them. I am telling you to be cautious here though, because these non fungible tokens are designed to give you the ability to be able to just, own something in the digital world. [00:01:48] What might you own in the digital world? We've had a lot of different stuff. We've seen some just crazy monkey things. Have you seen those? These little pictures of monkeys are. Graphic designed and it's all animated. If you will. It's like cartoons and people pay money for them. One of the things that people paid money for was the rights to the first tweet ever on Twitter. [00:02:16] So that's what you're getting. When we're talking about an NFT on a non fungible transaction, it is now yours. So this particular NFT we're talking about was of our friend here, Jack Dorsey. We'll pull it up again, this article, and he had a tweet that was sold last year for $48 million. That is a lot of money. [00:02:43] So people look at this as an investment, but it's not the same as hanging art on the wall. You've got a Picasso that has some intrinsic value. It's a painting. It has all the oil paint on that, it was designed by and painted by a crazy man years ago. And you can take that Picasso and you can. [00:03:07] Turn it around and sell it. It has some real value. If you own the rights to something, let's say it's one of these monkey pictures. It reminds me of a postage stamp and you paid real money for it. Some of these things are going, as I said, for over a million dollars and this Jack Dorsey first tweet went for $48 million. [00:03:27] So let's say that's what you did, right? You bought this thing for $48 million. Really? What do you have? Because anybody can go online and look at that tweet. Anybody can print it up and stick it on a wall. Anybody can go out and get that picture of the monkeys right there. The guy drew, and you can look at it. [00:03:51] In fact, I can pull it up right now, if you want to do. But people paid real money for that. So they've got what really? What do they have? You can't take it off the wall, like you're Picasso and salad, right? Or Banksy, if you're into the more modern art, it's just not. What is doable? How do you make this work? [00:04:12] Only the NFT only gives you bragging rights in reality. That's what it does. You have bragging rights because you could take that digital picture and make a hundred quadrillion copies. Yeah, you'd still own the NFT you would still have in the blockchain for whatever NFT company you're using the rights to it. [00:04:37] They would say this, you owned it. So let's talk about the blockchain behind it. There are a lot of companies that are trying to give you that. Okay. All right. I get it. Yeah, I get to to own it. But who's running the blockchain behind it. Who's validating that you own it with Bitcoin and many of these other blockchain currencies that are out there. [00:05:04] There are various. Companies and individuals who are registered, who have all of the paperwork, if you will saying who owns, how much of what, and who paid, who and everything. And that by the way, is why it takes so long for some of these Bitcoin and other transactions to occur. But how about the NFT? There are tons of companies out there that say they will certify the NFT. [00:05:34] So it gets to be real problem. And when we get into this Jack Dorsey tweet and this article about it, which are will, let me pull it up again here for you guys. This guy, Sina S bought the very first tweet ever from Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey for $2.9 million last year. And he decided that he wanted to sell it. [00:06:03] So he listed it for sale again at $48 million last week. Real. He put it up for open bid and this article and CoinDesk is talking about that. And you can see that if you're watching me on rumble or YouTube, I'm showing you my screen here right now. But this Iranian born crypto entrepreneur named of again. [00:06:28] As TAVI purchased it for $2.9 million in March, 2021. Last Thursday, he announced on Twitter where out, that he wanted to sell this and Ft. And he said, Hey, listen, I'm going to put 50% of the proceeds to charity. The auction closed, this was an open auction. People could go and bid on it and head auction closed. [00:06:55] With an offer of basically $288, $277 at current prices when this article was written $277 and the lowest bid was $6. And as I recall, this is not in this article, but there were only. I handful of bids. Like when I say handful, I mean a half a dozen beds. Crazy. This is a real problem because the deadline is over. [00:07:27] He paid how much for it, right? How much did he pay? Pull that up again. $2.9 million last year. And his highest bid was in the neighborhood of $280. Isn't that crazy. So did he get money on this? Did he win money on this? I don't know. I'm looking at those saying is it worth it to buy something like that? [00:07:54] That you might think, oh, the very first apple computer, an apple. While that's going to be worth some serious money. Yeah, it is. It's something, you can grab onto, you can hold onto it, it's something and you can sell it. You can trade it. You can take a picture of it. You can't make digital copies of it. [00:08:15] You, you, it's a physical thing. That's worth something. Same thing with that Picasso on the wall, it's really worth something that has some basic intrinsic value. Jack's true tweet. The very first tweet. How much is that thing worth? It basically nothing. So the tweet is showing he'll pull it up on the screen again that he's selling ad Jack 2000 6 0 3 21 at eight 50 14:00 PM. [00:08:46] Just setting up my Twitter. So there you go. There's Jack is very first to. And it's absolutely amazing. Is it worth it? Let me pull up some other stuff here for you guys. I'm going to pull this up here is Coinbase launching an NFT marketplace in hopes of appealing to crypto on mainstream users. So here's some examples from a man and FTEs. [00:09:11] I'm going to zoom in on this for those of you guys watching on rumble or on Twitter. All right. Mean. Yeah actually you can see it on Twitter too, but YouTube, here you go. Here's some NFTs it's artwork and it's a creature. So you can buy creature number 7, 8 0 6 right now for six Eve. So let me see. [00:09:34] Value of six. Ethereum is what ether, M two us dollars. So for 3000. And $84. As of right now, you can get a crappy picture that even I could have draw okay. Of this guy and look at all of the work this artist has put in. There's how many of these up here? 1, 2, 3, 4, or five, 10 of them. And it's the same head. [00:10:03] Each time it looks like this almost the same eyes. He changes colors and he's got different background. It's absolutely not. So that's what they're trying to do right now, trying to sell these NFT. So who's going to buy that. Who's going to pay $3,000 for artwork that hunter Biden could have done with a straw. [00:10:25] Anchored around. Here's another one. This is from ledger insights. NBA's launching dynamic NFTs for fans, baseball cards for the NBA that are basically just worthless. They're NF. Non fungible tokens. It has taken the crypto world by storm and people are losing millions as you look, but it really is changing the e-commerce world. [00:10:54] Bitcoin blockchain. All of the rage, a lot of people are talking about it, but I got to say most people who are talking. I don't know much about it. And when it comes to anonymity, Bitcoin is probably the worst thing you could possibly do. It's amazing. [00:11:12] There are a lot of misconceptions out there when it comes to technology, you have almost any kind of technology and blockchain and Bitcoin are examples of a very misunderstood technology. [00:11:25] Now I'm not talking about how does it work? How are these ledgers maintained? How does this whole mining thing work? Why has Chan. Bandit. Why are a lot of countries going away from it, one country. Now the dictator said, yeah, we're going to use Bitcoin as our we're official currency. In addition to the U S dollar what's going on. [00:11:48] It is complicated behind the scenes. It's complicated to use. Although there are some entrepreneurs that have made some great strides there. I saw a documentary on what has been happening in that one country. I mentioned. They are able to pay in us dollars using Bitcoin. So they'll go up to a vendor on the street. [00:12:13] Quite literally they'll have their smartphone with them. The vendor has their smartphone. They type in 15 cents for the taco and a hit send. It goes to the other person and they have 15 cents worth of Bitcoin. By the way, these types of micro-transactions with the way Bitcoin is structured behind the scenes, make things even less manageable in the Bitcoin world than they have been in the past. [00:12:40] And that's why in case you didn't know, Bitcoin is making some major changes here fairly soon. They've got to change the way all of this ledger stuff works because it takes too long. To record and authorized transactions. And these ledgers just get way too long when it comes to all of these kinds of microtransaction. [00:13:04] So there's stuff going on, Bitcoin, there, there are many of these types of currencies out there. Theories comes one. You've heard about doge coin because of course that's Elon Musk has been talking about and many others and they're all different somewhat, but the main concepts are the. One of the big concepts, I'm going to pull an article up here on the screen for those watching on YouTube or also on rumble. [00:13:30] But this is an article from our friends at wired magazine. And now you have subscribed to wired for many years. This particular one is about what wired is calling the crypto. Trap now that's a very big deal. It is a trap and it's a trap and a lot of different ways. And that's what we're going to talk about right now. [00:13:56] Crypto is not what its name implies. A lot of people look at it and say, oh, crypto that's cryptography. That's like the German enigma machine in world war two and all of this new, great crypto that we have nowadays. And there are some pretty amazing new cryptographic technologies that we've been using, but no, that's not. [00:14:17] What's really going on. You see the basic premise behind all of these technologies is the concept of having a. And this wallet has a unique identifier. It has a number assigned to it. So if I'm sending money to you, I'm going to have your wallet, ID, your wallet number, and I'm going to now send you some amount of fraction, most likely of a cryptocurrency and it's certainly if it's Bitcoin, it's almost certainly a fraction. [00:14:49] And so I'm going to send you $100 worth of, let's say. What ends up happening now is these ledgers, which are public, are all going to record the Craig's sent you a hundred dollars worth of Bitcoin. Of course, it's going to be in a fraction of a Bitcoin. So sometimes there's rounding errors is not going to be really exactly a hundred dollars. [00:15:12] Plus there's the amazing amount of. Tivoli volatility in the cyber currencies. So even though I meant just hitting a hundred dollars, mine ended up being 110 of it goes up. It might be 90. If it goes down you get that. You don't understand how that works. So the problem now is I have sent you a hundred dollars. [00:15:33] And public ledgers that anyone can gain access to now say wallet number 1, 2, 3, 4 cent, a hundred dollars, two wallet, number 5, 6, 7, 8. Obviously the wallet, our bruises, a lot longer than that. So then it's fine. And there's a degree of anonymity there it's really called pseudo anonymity because in reality, it's not completely anonymous because people know the transaction occurred and they know the wallet numbers. [00:16:03] Correct. It's like a bank account, and if I'm putting money into your bank account, that bank account number knows that the money came from a check that I wrote. Can you imagine that someone writing a check and that check I had a number on it, a bank account number, right? So it can all be tracked while much. [00:16:19] The same thing is true when it comes to cryptocurrencies, these cryptocurrencies are in public ledgers and those public ledgers can be used with a little bit of work to figure out. Who you are. So this article here from our friends at wired gets really hairy. And it might be of interest to you to read, but this is talking about a take-down that happened, and this is a massive take down. [00:16:51] This take down was of a whole group of people who were involved in some really nasty stuff. In this particular case, what it was kitty. Just a terrible thing and the abuse surrounding it. So this logical goes into not a lot of detail. I'm not going to read it because here on the air, because I don't want to upset too many people. [00:17:15] Cause it's some of the details of this evening to think about them are incredible. But. This the police broke into this middle-class suburb home in the outskirts of Atlanta. And he there was Homeland security. It was a guy from the IRS and they came in, they took all of their electronic devices. [00:17:38] They separated the family, putting the father who is an assistant principal at the local high school assistant printers. And he was the target of this investigation. So they had him in one room, they had his wife and another room and they put the two kids into a third room and they started questioning him. [00:18:00] Now, this is part of a takedown of a, as I said, a whole ring of these people, including this assistant. Principal at a school. Can you believe that? So this IRS guy had flown in from Washington DC to have a look over what was going on, but this agent from the IRS and his partner whose name is let's see, his name was Jenn S Scouts. [00:18:26] I probably got that wrong. And Tigran GAM bar Yan, Cambodian, and they had a small group of investigators and they were at a whole bunch of different federal agencies, not just the IRS. What once seemed to be. Untraceable was no longer untraceable. Now I've talked on this show before about a lecture I went to by the secret service about how they had tracked down and shut down the world's largest website that was being used to sell illegal materials online. [00:19:01] And it's fascinating what they did. But frankly, they're calling this particular boss to proof of concept and that's why they are IRS was in on this as well, but it was huge. Here's a quote from the IRS agent in this wired magazine article. He's saying he remembers how the gravity of this whole thing. [00:19:21] Let me pull this up on the screen too. So you can read along here, but this was a high school administrator, a husband, and a father of two, whether he was guilty or innocent. The accusations, this team of law enforcement agents were leveling against. There are mere presence in the home would almost certainly ruin his life. [00:19:44] And he, as well as these other people were counting on anonymity from Bitcoin. Now, obviously I'm glad they got taken down, but listen, folks, if you think that it's safe, that it's anonymous, it ain't Bitcoin just ain't there. Craig peterson.com stick around. [00:20:05] I've been blamed for really complaining about people not updating their software. And that includes things like firewalls. The FBI has stepped in and they are going ahead and doing updates for you. [00:20:21] What should we be doing as a country? [00:20:26] People are. Updating their software. They're not updating their hardware. And particularly our hardware take a look at what's been happening with the firewalls and the firewall concerns. Everybody has some sort of firewall will almost everybody, but enough people that we can say, everybody has a firewall, you get your internet from you, name it. [00:20:50] And because of the fact they're using something called Nat network address translation, they've got some sort of firewall in front of you. So for instance, You've got your phone, right? You're using your phone and it's got internet on it. You're going through whoever your carrier is. And that carrier is giving you internet access, right? [00:21:14] They don't have enough IP addresses, particularly IPV four, in order for you to get your very own unique little address out on the. No they do. When it comes to V6 things a little bit different, but your device is not completely exposed on the internet. Windows comes to the fire. And by default, the windows firewall is turned on. [00:21:35] Now this gets more than a little concerning because that firewall that's turned on. Isn't really doing anything because I've got a firewall turned on and yet every service is accessible from outside, which is defeating the purpose of the firewall. Again, it's a complaint I've had about Microsoft now for. [00:21:55] Decades, which is they have features that are just check boxes. Yes. Yes. It's got a firewall. Yeah, it's turned on, but the features don't work. So having a firewall and having everything open defeats the purpose of a firewall max do not have a firewall turned on by default, but they do have their services to say. [00:22:18] Which is just as effective if not more effective. So one of the things we advise people to do is go into your windows system, into the firewalls and your security settings, and turn off any services that you're not using. If you're not sharing file systems, then turn that off. In other words, You're mounting the G drive or whatever you might call it from another computer, then you don't need it. [00:22:44] If you're not as server for what's called SMB, then you don't need to share it. So turn off everything that you don't need. That's going to happen is one of your programs isn't going to work, right? And the, what you did last year, you're going to turn it back on and you can do a lot of research online to find out what they are. [00:23:04] We have over 200 settings that we change in windows. When we get a customer. Now on the Mac side, you can turn it on. I liked turning it on. I liked turning off the ability to see my machine. So in other words, the ability to be able to. So I turned it on and I enable specific services. And again, you can do some research on that. [00:23:30] I've got an improving windows security course that people have taken, and we should probably do that again, if not just have some free webinars on how to do this. So you guys can learn how to do it, but not that hard to do. Anyhow, bottom line is. People aren't updating their computers, even the Macs and windows. [00:23:51] We have a client that would just started a new client and we're tightening things up and we've been finding Mac computers that are major multiple major revisions behind. And that to me is shocking. Apple Macs are just so easy to update. It is extremely rare that an apple update will make your computer break unlike in the windows world, where it's pretty common. [00:24:17] So windows guys, I can understand, but your even more exposed, your bigger target, you need to keep up to date. So how about all of the other equipment that we. I've had warnings again and again, with you guys about what's happening with our smart devices that are out there, right? Our security cameras we have up in the corner, right? [00:24:41] We have these smart thermostats, people are using the list goes on and on of all of this equipment that we're using that is exposing us because when was the last time you have. How about the firmware in your router or your wifi, right? Some of the devices that I recommend to people, and if you have any questions, just email me and e@craigpeterson.com. [00:25:05] I can give you recommendations, even if you're a home user. Although my business obviously is working with businesses on what kind of wifi to buy, what you should get, what you should do. I don't charge for any of that stuff. Okay. You get it. But you have to ask. Me@craigpeterson.com. So you get this information and you go ahead and you buy whatever it is, but you don't keep it up to date, which is why I tend to only recommend stuff that automatically updates. [00:25:33] But that also means every few years you're going to have to replace it because unless you're using the good Cisco equipment where you can get a seven year life out of it you're not going to find that in consumer grid. So what's happened here. I'm going to pull this up on my screen for people watching this on YouTube or on rumble. [00:25:52] But here is a thing that came straight out of our friends here from the FBI. This is from CSO. This is a a magazine that I do follow. But they're talking about what they call psych clock. Blink. So the article says for the second time in a year, the FBI has used search and seizure warrant to clean malware from devices owned by private businesses and users without their explicit approval. [00:26:25] The FBI used this approach to disrupt a botnet, believed to be the creation of right. Government hackers. So the calling this SYEP clock cycle clubs, blink malware discovered earlier this year. So here's the problem. What do you do if you're the federal government, how do you try and keep your country safe? [00:26:51] Now we know. We've got these military contractors. They make missiles that take out missiles, right? The provide defensive systems. You've heard of iron dome from years ago, all the way through all of the current stuff. That's what they do, but what do they do? What can they do when there's a botnet? A botnet is where there are multiple computers in this case, probably tens of thousands of computers located in the United States that are acting like sleeper. [00:27:21] They sit there and they wait for commands as to what they should do. Should they try and attack a machine? Should they try and spread more? Malware, what should they be doing? And the, these things are vicious. They are absolutely nasty. And in this case, we're looking at Russian malware. So Russia effectively like the Americans. [00:27:44] You might remember that TV show. It was great show, but that. Computers that are owned by you and me and our businesses and government agencies that are under the control of the Russians. Now you don't even know it. You're using your computer. You're playing games. You're going to Facebook, whatever it is you do on your computer. [00:28:06] Your computer is under command and control of the Russians. So the FBI goes to a court and says, Hey, we've got to go ahead and shut this down. We need a warrant. They get the warrant and the search and seizure warrant lets them now. Get on to these machines that are part of the bot net or the controlling machines for the bot net, and either remove the malware or go ahead and take control of the botnet themselves. [00:28:34] So it can't be used. And by the way, our friends at Microsoft they've gotten involved in this too, which is really frankly, cool in shutting down some of these botnets, Hey, I want to encourage everyone. Take a couple of minutes, go to Craig peterson.com/subscribe. That's Craig Peterson. CREI G P T R S O N. [00:28:57] And subscribe, and I'll be sending you a special report on passwords. Plus two more. I send out the most popular special reports that anybody has ever asked for. [00:29:10] Hey, I've got a little bit more to discuss on what's happening with Russia and Microsoft and more, but I'm also going to talk about QR codes. There is a great explanation. That's in your newsletter from Monday about why you shouldn't trust 'em. [00:29:26] Let's finish up this Russian thing. And then we're going to get into why you cannot trust QR codes and a brand new way. [00:29:36] The bad guys are using QR codes to really mess with us. Now, if you're watching over on either YouTube or on rumble, you'll see this. Let me pull up my screen for you. But here we go. Okay. This is very interesting. Then the last segment, we talked a little bit about what our friends over at the FBI had been doing, which is they have been removing malware from people's computers because people haven't been keeping their computers up-to-date right. [00:30:11] Part of the botnets. So we explained. At the FBI, isn't the only one out there trying to stop these Russians and the hackers anonymous has been very big at it. In fact, let me pull up this other article. This is from security affairs. And here we go. And it's talking about this whole army of these anonymous hackers. [00:30:35] Now none of us have been a nightmare for many businesses that they didn't like. I had an anonymous we'll go ahead and they'll do usually pretty basic stuff. They'll do denial of service attacks and some other things, so they don't like you because of. The don't say gay bill in Florida, and, without bothering to do any research, they'll just start attacking organizations that support it, or organizations that don't support it depending on how they want to do it. So this is an interesting article here, because it's talking about these various. Websites that they've hacked. Now, some of them are government site and some of them are private industries. Now, one of the cool things, bad things about hacking private industry and releasing the emails is now the competitors to these businesses know what they're doing. [00:31:31] And in some cases there's proprietary technology that's being released. Now, when it comes to Russian proprietary technology. The Western world doesn't care a whole lot about some of it, but here's some examples of what these hacktivists of GoDaddy. This is a company called forest 37,000 emails stolen from the company, Russian logging and wood manufacturing firm. [00:31:55] Again, it would give a little bit of an idea into the whole Russian, what are they doing? In the forest industry. This one, I think is a little more concerning for the Russians Aero gap. This is an engineering company that focuses in the oil and gas industry. Their clients include a whole bunch of Russian companies. [00:32:15] They've leaked approximately 100,000 emails from Aero gas. That is a huge deal because so much of the country's revenue, the number one industry in Russia is oil and gas. Petro Fort one of the largest office space and business centers in St. Petersburg, the hackers have leaked approximately 300,000 emails from Petro fork. [00:32:41] Again, you can use that to find out what's happening in your economy. What. Doing how are businesses doing? Are they going to go under so you can see some tweets here. I've got them up on my screen on YouTube and rumble anonymous. What they're saying that they've done and you can follow anonymous directly on Twitter. [00:32:59] Particularly fond of them. They've done a lot of things that I disagree with. This is really telling us about a whole new approach to warfare, right back in the day, you and I couldn't get involved, we could potentially take up arms and go and fight right there and think about the Spanish American war. [00:33:18] Think about what's happening now in Ukraine, where Americans have just gone over there. Taken up firearms in order to help them defend Ukraine. People who are maybe of Ukrainian descent, maybe not right. We have never seen this type of involvement by average citizens because anonymous is not like some big fancy company or government agency anonymous is a bunch of people who are trying to be anonymous and do something. [00:33:50] So they stole 145 gigabytes. Look at this. It's just crazy. So he. The anonymous Twitter thread itself, right? Talking about what. It's absolutely incredible. Incredible. So that's what anonymous is up to. They are hacking Russia and they're hacking Russia in a big way. Now, next stop. We have our friends at Microsoft. [00:34:15] Microsoft has been seizing Russian domains that they are accusing of having been linked to these Russian hackers that have been going after think tanks and government agencies in the U S and the. He knew, I shouldn't say which I'm sure includes the UK cause UK has gotten involved. So this article from the verge is talking about how Microsoft has seized seven domains, belonging to fancy bear apt 28 which is we've seen them active in a number of companies here, right in the Northeast United States. [00:34:57] These companies who are. Trying to provide materials, software, hardware for government contracts, right? So they're not even direct government contractors for the feds. They are just a sub contractors. And then we've seen fancy bear in there. We've seen the Chinese in these companies. It's incredible. [00:35:19] They have no. DIA that all of their intellectual property is being stolen, which is why the federal government has started cracking down on contractors and subcontractors and the, this whole paragraph 70 12 thing. We're getting geeky here, but companies that have to protect even unclassified information, confidential, classified, and they haven't been so Microsoft. [00:35:46] Obtained a court order. You can see this on my screen, over at YouTube and at rumble to take control of each domain on April six, that then started redirecting them to a sinkhole. So what they do is they take control of the DNS for the domain. So the root name servers, now, point to a Microsoft name server, and then send them to a sinkhole. [00:36:09] A sinkhole is basically nowhere you go there. There's nothing on the site, right? Or in this case also servers used by cybersecurity experts to capture and analyze malicious connections. And they'll do this. Oftentimes, when we're talking about these botnets, like we talked about a little earlier today, so apparently they're trying to establish long-term access to the system. [00:36:33] So the targets, what did we just talk about? Long-term acts. But net, right? That's what button that saw. So Microsoft has gotten involved. They've been doing this now for a little while. It's obviously not their normal business model, but it is something that they've been doing. They were also, by the way, the fancy bear link to these cyber attacks on the DNC in 2016. [00:36:57] And they also targeted the UFC election in 2020, which is why, part of the reason why anyways, don't use electronic equipment for our elections, have paper ballot, have people count those ballots yet it takes longer. You can't have the instant thing on TV, which is why all of these new services, they all don't do that. [00:37:18] That's ridiculous. But it's the only thing we can guarantee that these guys, like I got it up on the screen again. Fancy bear the Chinese et cetera. It's the only way they can get in. And if we were doing paper ballots and we had bipartisan people counting the ballots and independence, counting the ballots, observing this, we wouldn't have all of these problems that we had with the last election where people were saying it was stolen. [00:37:48] It was hacked. How do we know it was stolen? How do we know it? Wasn't stolen? How, go back to paper ballots, get rid of the scanning machines and particularly get rid of these electronic voting machines where you touch the screen to cast your vote. Those things are ridiculous. What if there's a software bug in it? [00:38:06] How can you go back and change the vote? People that complained about it again, and wait a minute. I voted for this guy and you had to record my vote for the other guy. It's ridiculous. Anyways. Back to QR codes. Okay. I'm going to pull this up on this screen because I think this is a cool article here. [00:38:25] This is from a, actually a site over in India. It's called scroll.in, and they're talking in here about how hazardous it can be. To use QR codes. Now they're not saying don't use QR codes, we've all had to use them. I've got up on my screen, this picture of being at a table. And you scan the QR code in order to get the menu. [00:38:48] In order to order, I did that. I was in Vermont and we were riding motorcycles or buddy, and I go into the little tiny. Restaurant, small restaurant and I had a half a dozen tables and they didn't have menus. You scanned it, the QR code that was there on the table and you placed your order. And off it goes a lot of places they've been doing that with menus. [00:39:11] You've seen that more and more saves them money as well and lets them change their prices more frequently. Yeah. Thanks for that inflation guys. Why shouldn't you use these QR codes? Why should you be extra careful? Here's the answer. QR codes are the URL of a webpage. That's the bottom line. Would you click a random URL that came in an email? [00:39:37] Would you click on a random URL in an ad or on a web page? We certainly know better than to cook URLs in our email. But that's exactly what the QR code is. And on top of it, the URL in a QR code tends to be what we call a shortened URL. So it might be Bitly, so might be bit.ally/and then some random characters. [00:40:04] How do you know where it's going to take? You don't all you know, is it's going to take you to Bitly, but that Bitly URL could be sending you to a malicious site. And now your phone could be hacked. It could be using your phone for Bitcoin mining for who knows what. So be very careful and the bad guys are using these in a different way that you might not have seen before, which is they are embedding QR code graphics. [00:40:34] Into emails. And they're thinking that people are going to hold up their phone to the email and what are they going to do? They're going to scan the QR code that was in their email. And now they're in trouble. Yeah, that's simple. Hey, visit me online. Craig peterson.com. Make sure you sign up for my newsletter. [00:40:53] Craig peterson.com/subscribe course, Craig Peterson, S O n.com. And I'm going to send you. Top three special reports, absolutely free. We got to take care of these bad guys. [00:41:08] This is a big deal, quite literally a big deal. Russian malware. We have been able to track it down now, track it down to a single site. Yeah. All of these bad guys are in one building in Moscow. [00:41:25] Hi everybody. Of course, you're listening to Craig Peterson. Thanks for taking a little bit out of your day today. As we continue to really talk about the stuff that's most important in the world, and there could be nothing more important, I think, than some of our cyber security, our lives, our fortunes, et cetera. [00:41:44] Last year we have to pay attention to well, This is a very big story and it's a bit of a scary one as well. We've had a lot of ransomware over the years and a lot of ransomware. Have you had it yourself? I bet you, if you haven't, someone who has had ransomware because frankly it is pervasive in every aspect of pretty much everybody's life out there. [00:42:12] So when you get hit with ransomware, Lately something a little different has happened. It's really gone through three phases. The first phase was the ransomware would get on to your system. Usually it came as an attachment, probably embedded in like a word file it's been embedded in PDFs, embedded in all kinds of stuff. [00:42:35] Even drive by downloads on websites, have brought malware. But in this case yeah, it was annoying. It was a problem. It would give you a red screen. You've probably seen it before warning about the ransomware and it told you, okay, here's what you can do to get your files back. And in order to get your files back, you usually. [00:42:57] To go to some exchange online, take dollars, buy of course, Bitcoin, or some other cryptocurrency. And then that cryptocurrency would be used in exchange now for you to get a key that would hopefully decrypt everything. And in reality, it often didn't encrypt hardly anything. So it's been a problem and a problem for a lot of people. [00:43:23] The FBI said that at the time. So this is a gen one of ransomware. You were lucky if 50% of the time you got all your data back, gen two of ransomware is when the bad guys started getting a little bit smarter. They didn't just take your files. Thumb and then say, Hey, pay up buddy. What they did at this point is that got onto your systems and they poked around. [00:43:46] They went we call in the industry, east west on the network. So they got onto you, maybe your kid's computer may, maybe you were hooked up via VPN to the office to do work. And it wasn't a great VPN. And the kid's computer had that virus and that virus weaseled his way all the way over the VPN, directly to the office, because remember. [00:44:09] VPNs are. A network private in that. Yeah. Okay. It's encrypted. And so someone who's got a wire tap isn't necessarily going to get anything, but it's a VPN, it's a tunnel. And that tunnel was used a many times for malware, like brand summer to creep over to the office network. That's an east west is going from. [00:44:30] One machine to another machine. And in businesses, man, you saw that one a lot as that ransomware moved around. So that was the second one. So the rents were going on the machine. It would then look for files that is. You might not want to have exposed. So it looked for files with bank account numbers in them, social security numbers, maybe intellectual property. [00:44:57] We saw a lot of that. Theft is continuing to go on primarily from the Chinese and then an intellectual property theft. And what happened next? While of course it ended up moving the data, the files, and then what they would do. It's encrypt your desk. So before they gripped your desk, they got copies of all of the stuff they thought might be important to you. [00:45:20] So now the threat was in version two of ransomware pay up, or if you don't pay up, you are going to have to pay us to not release your files. If you didn't want all of that client information online, if by law, you would get nailed for having that client information out online. And that's true in most states now, and the federal government's from putting some teeth on some of their laws as well, then what are you going to do? [00:45:49] Yeah, you paid the. So that was version two version three that we're seeing right now of ransomware is simply destructive. And if you go way back in history, you may remember I got hit with the Morris worm, which was one of the first pieces of nastiness out on the internet. And that was early nineties. [00:46:13] My business that I owned and was running, got hit with this thing. Even before that, There was ran. There was a nasty where viruses, if you will, that would get on the computer and destroy everything. It was just a malicious, as I remember, somebody at UC Berkeley, some researcher in it. And he didn't like what that of the researchers were saying about him. [00:46:35] So he put some floppy disk together and on them, he put. Erasing malware and shared all of the stats with anybody. And of course, you plugged that disc into your, that little floppy disc into your windows computer. And it says, okay, I'm going to go ahead and open it up. And, oh, look at this, a virus. [00:46:56] And so he then wiped out the computer of everybody else. That was a competitor of his out there in the industry. Yeah, a little bit of a problem if he asked me, so how did that end up getting around? What ended up happening while everybody got really upset with him, nobody really found out what was happening, who did it, et cetera. [00:47:19] That's what's happened. Now, so version three of malware is like some of the very first malware we ever saw version three of ransomware. So some, again, some of that very first ransomware was pretty nasty is not the sort of stuff you want to see running destroying files, but at least you could get back from a. [00:47:40] Nowadays, a lot of people are doing backups by attaching a disc directly to their machine, or they're backing up to another machine on the same network. Remember that whole east west thing, you didn't want the data going back and forth, it causes problems. Yeah. So what happens now? The Russians apparently are just trying to cause havoc with businesses, anybody who has decided that they're going to be anti-Russian in any way there they're attacking. [00:48:13] So they'll, reraise your desks. They'll erase all of your data. If you have backups on that thumb drive or that USB external. The good news erase that if you have backups on another machine, on the network, hopefully from their standpoint, there'll be able to get onto that machine and erase all of your backups, which is again, why we'd like 3, 2, 1 backups. [00:48:34] At the very least, there's some others that are even better. And if you're interested, send me an email me@craigpeterson.com. I'll send you a webinar that I did on this. I'm not charging you for. But it was a free webinar to begin with what a webinar on backup and how to backup properly and why to do it this way. [00:48:54] Again, me, M E Craig peterson.com. Be glad to do that. What we're seeing now is a huge problem. Let me see if this is going to work for us. Yeah. Okay. It is. I am, by the way, live here we go on my computer. So people who are watching. I can see my desktop. So here we go. This is Russian companies who are linked to this Russian malware. [00:49:24] Ransomware are hiding in plain sight is what they're calling it. So what does it mean. To hide in plain sight. While in this case, what it means is money that's been paid by American businesses to these Russian ransomware gangs, some of who by the way, are actively going after anyone that criticizes Russia found these American researchers. [00:49:50] Yeah. Led to one of Moscow's most prestigious addresses. You can see it up here on my screen. This is a New York times article. It's just a random actor, journalism people, sometimes even the New York times gets it. And they're saying millions of dollars have gone through this. So they've been tracing. [00:50:10] Where did they go? The Biden administration has also apparently zeroed in on the building is called Federation tower east. It's the tallest skyscraper in the Russian Capitol. How would that be to have a business and just this beautiful tall skyscraper and have a view that would be really cool. So they have targeted some companies in the tower. [00:50:32] As what it's trying to do is stop the ransomware guy gang. Maiden cryptocurrencies. Russian law enforcement usually has an answer to why don't you just shut down these bad guys that are out there trying to steal all of our money. They say there is no case open in Russian jurisdiction. There are no victims. [00:50:51] How do you expect us to prosecute these honorable people? That apparently is a quote from this Massachusetts based secure cybersecurity. Called recorded future, but I'm looking at a picture it's up on my screen right now. You guys can see it, but this is the Moscow financial district called Moscow city. [00:51:10] 97 floor Federation tower east. This is really pretty, you wouldn't know this isn't like London or any other major European capital. There's some cranes in the background building up new buildings. The cyber crime is really fueling some growth there in Moscow, which is, if you ask me the exact reason why lad is happy as a clam to just go ahead and have these Russian cyber crime guys. [00:51:43] Just go and bring money in right. Money is bringing in great money for them. The treasury department, by the way, it's estimated the Americans have paid $1.6 billion in ransom since 2011. Huge one ransomware strain called RIAA committed an estimated $162 million. Last year. It is really something. [00:52:07] So when we come back, we've got a lot more to talk about. We're going to talk about the cloud. If it's more secure or why is it calm, broken, give masks work. Why aren't they working right. Anyways, we'll talk about that. When we get back and visit me online, Craig Peter sohn.com. [00:52:26] Stick around. [00:52:29] I hate to say it, but there's another big scam out there right now. And it is hitting many of us, particularly the elderly quite hard. We're going to talk about that right now, what you can do about it and how you can recognize when it's happening. [00:52:45] Interesting article that came out this week in wired. [00:52:49] It's actually in Wired's. Let's see, what is a March 2022 issue. It wasn't this week. Nevermind. And it's talking about a serious problem. I'm going to show you guys who are watching I have this on rumble, YouTube, Facebook as well. So you guys can see along and of course, right here, too. [00:53:11] Now let's not forget about that, but this is an article that says we were calling or excuse me, they were calling for help. Then they stole. Thousands of dollars. I'm going to read parts of this article. It's just amazing. It's by Becca, Andrew's a back channel. What is that? Okay, so that's just a cat. [00:53:33] On December more one December morning, my mother's phone rang. She tugged the iPhone from the holster. She kept clipped to the waist, her blue jeans and wondered who might be calling perhaps somebody from the church who was checking in on her recovery from Corona virus. Hello. She said the voice that greeted her was masculine. [00:53:53] This is just great writing. The color sounded concerned and he told her something was. With her Amazon account, somebody has access to your bank accounts through Amazon and they can take all your money. I'm calling to it. Her mind raced or Lord, she prayed silently. The voice was warm and reassuring them. [00:54:15] My mom tried to focus closely on his words. My dad was driving to work in his truck and she was home alone. She'd been cooped up in the house for weeks with COVID isolated from her community and she missed the bomb. Friendly voice. I D I just love her language here. It's just phenomenal. She tried to steady herself. [00:54:36] The man said he needed to make sure the money was safe. He transferred her to a different male voice. Soothing reassuring, calm. She promised not to hang up a brain injury decades earlier, made it hard for her to follow his instructions, but she stuck with it. The voice explained slowly, carefully, how to swipe and tap her phone until she had installed an app that allowed him to see what was happening on her screen. [00:55:07] Now. You followed her every move. After some hour, she mentioned she had to relieve herself hours. It's okay. I'll stay on the line. He said she parked the phone, outside the bathroom and picked it back up. When she was done as Nooner approached, she told him I have to eat. I'll wait. It's okay. Don't hang up. [00:55:28] We'll lose all our progress. She set the phone down on the counter to make a sandwich, then pulled some chips from the cabinet and padded over to the kitchen. The phone buzz with the text. It was my father checking in. She typed back that there was a problem, but she was fixing it. She had it all taken care of. [00:55:48] She tapped the tiny white arrow next to the message field to send her reply. And then she heard the voice, its volume elevated as sounded angry. She frowned and brought the phone back up to her ear. Why would you do that? You can't tell anyone what if he's in. She felt confused that didn't make any sense, but she also didn't fully trust herself. [00:56:10] She was worn. From her slow recovery and the steroid, she was taken as a treatment, gave her a hollow buzz of energy. Now I want you guys to go have a look at this over on wired site. Read the whole article. It is a phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. But what it's doing is telling the story of this woman who was trying to, do the right thing, trusting other people, which many of us do? [00:56:40] I have a default trust with a little trepidation. I will admit that, but with the whole. Down the thing that happened, many of us have just been longing for a little bit of companionship and to hear a stranger who's trying to help out. That's a huge plus it goes on in this article and talks about how reassuring these guys were and what they did. [00:57:06] She installed this cash app and opened up PayPal downloaded. Coinbase set up Zelle so she could send money directly from her bank account. She doesn't know about any of these things. It's just incredible. So the afternoon wore on and the guy said Hey, we're almost done. And her husband of course, was on his way back. [00:57:30] And the sun was down. Father got home. He noticed right away that something was off. And she said she took care of it. And you said you took care of what I'm not supposed to tell you. It said, so the scammer had siphoned away. All of her personal information, the scammers had your social security number, date of birth driver's license number, and about $11,000. [00:57:55] These new financial apps like Zelle and others that are legitimate PayPal apps, right? Zell, you can use to send money legitimately to someone else. But it links into your bank account. That's why I don't like them. I have a friend that's been pushing me. Oh, this happens. Great. It saves you so much money on gas. [00:58:15] Look at how much money I've saved any. He sent a screenshot of it and I re I went online and had a look. And guess what? I read, reviews it again, like this tied into her bank account directly. And. What can happen? Like here, everything was emptied. So in the next few months this author of the story and her father tried to undo the damage. [00:58:40] Very frustrating, getting scanned of course, is really dehumanizing and it just breaks your trust and other people. How could someone do something like that? It's just incredible. Got to go through the stages of grief and everything. She got a, she talked to people, she said she got chili half replies, or just as often silence. [00:59:05] And she was calling around trying to find someone for some empathy. Okay. It's just incredible. Great article. If you can still find it, the March issue of wired, I'm sure it's available online. This goes on. And talks about her mother's seizures getting worse. And of course now they don't have the cash that they had been saving. [00:59:27] And it just very depressing. Now I have this, you might remember about a year ago, I talked about it. I had something like this happen to a friend of mine and I'm still not quite sure what happened, but it looks like it was a password sprain or password stuffing. And they got into his, the app that his company uses to pay people and sure enough, they got in and they directed his next two paychecks to their own account, which went right out of the country like that. [01:00:05] These are bad people. And how do you deal with this? It's incredible because if you've got someone like her mother who has mental problems due to no fault of her own and is a very trusting woman, what do you do? She's walking around all day with her phone on her hip. That's how we started this out. [01:00:27] Do you take that phone away from him? Th that would be dangerous, frankly. So this is a very problem. They had a USAA account was her bank account. USAA is usually good about this sort of stuff. In fact, my other friend had USAA as well. But they did help deactivate Zelle, but they didn't do anything about the $999 that were transferred through it. [01:00:51] Very bad. So they figured out maybe we should change our passwords. She had them change them. And if you would like information about password managers, again, I'm not selling anything. I'd be glad to send them to you. If you sign up for my email list, you're going to get them automatically. Craig peterson.com. [01:01:11] I've got a bunch of data information I want in your hands. It talks about the free stuff, talks about the paid stuff. None of which I'm selling you. Craig Peter sohn.com. Sign up right there on the top of the page. Thanks. Stick around. [01:01:32] We've had some serious supply chain attacks over the last couple of years. And they have caused all kinds of problems for tens of thousands of businesses. If you use WordPress, there was one of those this week. [01:01:47] We have had supply chain problems. Like you wouldn't believe. So let's start out by explaining what is a supply chain problem? [01:01:58] In this case, we're narrowing it down to cybersecurity because we've had supply chain problems from everything from our toilet paper to the food we eat. But what I'm talking about right now is. Supply chains when it comes to cyber security. And one of the biggest problems we had was a company that's supposedly providing cyber security for businesses, right? [01:02:29] Some of the biggest businesses in the world. And I'm looking at an article right now from security Boulevard, say saying how to protect the supply chain from vulnerable third party code. It can be a script that's downloaded online. It can be an open source library. We've seen big problems with get hub lately and pulling in libraries. [01:02:51] We've seen big problems with what are called containers lately, which are little mini versions of computers with all of the software. They're all ready to go. Ready and raring to go. All kinds of supply chain issues for a very long time now. And these supply chain, cyber attacks have been hitting some of our cybersecurity companies, really the hardest I'm pulling this up on my screen right now, if you're watching this on rumble or on YouTube, and you can see links to those, by the way, in my emails, I send out every week. [01:03:28] Craig peterson.com. Craig peterson.com. But you can see here, supply chain hits cybersecurity hard supply chain security is not a problem. It's a predicament. That's uninteresting look because we have to use some of the supply chain stuff. Seesaw the FBI or a sheer wean cybersecurity advisories because of the Russian attack over on Ukraine. [01:03:55] And then the U S the weakest link in supply chain security fears of rising fuel SISA FBI NSA and gestural partners. Issue is advisories Toyota stops production after possible cyber attack at a supplier. Isn't that something this goes on and on. What's a guy to do, right? Many of us are using websites to, in order to run our businesses. [01:04:24] Heck we got websites for our soccer team, for the kids, we got websites for pretty much everything that's out there today and those websites need software in order to run. So the basic idea of the website is nowadays. Content management system, they called CMS CMSs and there have been a lot over the years. [01:04:46] I've used quite a few myself off and on. This is very interesting though, because this particular piece of. Is code that runs a website. I'm going to show you this article from ARS Technica here on the screen, but it's talking about millions of WordPress sites that got a forced update to patch critical plugin flaws. [01:05:13] So when we're talking about supply chain, in this case, we're talking about something. WordPress right. And this WordPress software as good as it is, can have bugs. So WordPress is the content management system. So you load stuff up into, in fact, I'll bring up my site right now. So I'm going to bring up the Craig peterson.com. [01:05:37] And on my site, I have all kinds of stuff, which is why it's so slow to load. I've got to fix that one of these days, but this is an example of a WordPress site. So you can see right at the top of the site, I've got watch this week, show jobs, or top, of course, that was last week. You can watch it on rumble or a new tube, and then it's got my latest show. [01:05:59] So if you click on one of these, here you go. And you can listen to it. Starts right out here. C ta-da. So there, you can listen to my podcast right there on the site, and I've got an automated transcript of it. It's for you, depending on what you want. It's got links over here to take you to iTunes or YouTube or Spotify or SoundCloud or iHeart or Google player audible. [01:06:26] All of these links take you to different places. And this site in survey, Program a site in HTML. What we're doing is we're working. Putting some data in, so we say, okay, I want a default page. Somebody else has already set it up. Somebody else has already got an old program. It just works. And it's all right there for me. [01:06:49] Here's some related posts on the side. Here's the most popular ones that we have right now. This is a content management system. And specifically this of course is WordPress. So what happened. If I had a, yeah. And here's what it looks like over an audible, you can listen for free on. This is what happened this last week, WordPress, which has this great software that I use and tens of thousands of others use out there very popular. [01:07:27] And in order to make it easy for me to have my website, probably your business, probably your kids' soccer club, you name it is using WordPress. It's just over the top hop healer. It is using code that was written by other people. The reason we can make programs so quickly nowadays is we're relying on other programs. [01:07:51] So we'll go ahead and we'll grab this program that does this part of what we need to have done, and ta-da we're up and we're running. I just have to write the glue right? To put it together. The API calls, whatever it might be, because the idea is let's make it easier for programmers. So you've got something called get hub here. [01:08:11] Let me pull it up so you can see that you can go online if you're following along. To get hub.com. And as it says right there on their front page where the world builds software as a beautiful world, isn't it? That blue, you can see the air around it. And that's what it's doing is where the world builds software. [01:08:33] So let's say we want something. What do we want? What's a, let's say we want something to make a chess program. We can talk about chess and let's say, oh, you have to. I Dan didn't want to do this, so I'm just going to skip that for now. But it would come up and tell me, okay here's all of the chess programs that are out there and I find one, that's close to what I want to do. [01:08:54] So what do I do? Point while I go ahead and have a look at the license, a lot of the programs up there have a very open license, so I can just take that code, modify it. And I have a chess program without having to write a chess. It's really that simple that's part of the supply chain. If you bought my chest program, you would actually not just be getting the code that I wrote, which is typically just glue code with maybe some API APIs or application programming interfaces. [01:09:25] In other words, you're using someone else's code would now make it who's program. It's like the Pharaoh's barge. It would make it other people's programs. Not my. So you got to figure out what's in my supply chain. I've got a new client. I do work as a virtual chief information security officer. [01:09:46] Actually, it's a fractional Cecil. And as a fractional Cecil, one of the things I have to do is look at the whole supply chain. Who are they buying even physical things from. And could there be. Did it into their software, into their systems, something that might be coming from yet another supplier. Man, does this get complicated? [01:10:09] Very fast, but this week, our friends at WordPress, they went ahead and forced all WordPress sites to update. Very good. Okay. Otherwise, people could have downloaded a full backup of the sites that are out there, something you really just don't want to happen. Anyways. Go right now, Craig Peter sohn.com while the bits are still hot and sign up right there. [01:10:36] Craig peterson.com for the newsletter and get those special reports that are going to get you started. [01:10:43] This is the moment you've been waiting for. We're going to talk about free cybersecurity services and tools that you can use. Now you have to be a little bit of a cybersecurity expert to use them, but not much. This is from the government. [01:10:59] This is I think an amazing thing. This only came out within the last few weeks. [01:11:07] I have it up on my screen. There we go right now, for those of you who are watching on rumble or YouTube, you can see it right there, free cybersecurity services and tools from. The cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency SISA reminds me of Marvel was shield, that really long name that came up with an acronym for as though they weren't aiming for that acronym in the first place, but there are some tools that you can use there's tools that I use as a cybersecurity professional. [01:11:42] And some of them are obviously going to be pretty darn. Complex. And if you're looking at my screen right now, or if you want to go online at csun.gov/free-cybersecurity-services, dash, and the as tools, or just look it up online, you'll find this on my website as well. I'm going to try and make sure I get that up. [01:12:07] But what they have done is they're showing you what they call their key or the known exploited vulnerabilities. Okay. And this is where they are showing the CVEs, which are. The frankly, these are the ones that I use. It is published by nest, which is the national institutes of standard and Sanders and technology. [01:12:31] And this gives all of the details. So this is CVE 20 21, 27. Okay, and this is detail, and of course I would be using detail. And it's telling you, here's the advisories, there's one from get hub Excel. Leon has one. Here's the weaknesses, the SA the known soccer configurations. So you can find where they all are at and everything. [01:12:56] So all of the details. So they're telling you about that. These are the ones, this was in the vendor product. Project, I should say. So we'll look at the data added to catalog. Here are a few in Cisco right now. So this is their small business series of routers, which we do not use for anyone because they don't provide the type of security you want, but Cisco is taking care of the problems, right? [01:13:23] Many of these update themselves, here's Microsoft windows. And installer contains an unexpected unspecified vulnerability, which allows for privilege escalation, a lot of stuff this week, this is crazy Apache Tomcat, which I am never been a fan of and problems. So all of these came out. On March 3rd and more rights. [01:13:47] This is just page one. So let's look at page two here. Oh wow. More Microsoft Excel exchange server, some more Cisco vulnerabilities. Why Cisco? Why Microsoft? Because they are frankly. The big boys on the block, that why do you Rob the bank? Because that's where the money is. So they list all of those right here, as he said, does the warning you do use multifactor authentication? [01:14:16] I don't want to sound like a broken record, so I'm not going to say use multifactor authentication today. Okay. I just refuse to say use multi-factor authentication. And this one talks about what it is, right? Many names. Now they're trying to make this. But really a Fido key fast at any online considered the gold standard or multi-factor authentication Walt for online. [01:14:40] It is websites, but not for authors. So how would you know that if you weren't an expert? So yeah, this is the government talking, right? So they have the service. So what does, what do I do right? Me, Mr. Idiot. I click on this and they are talking about the service that they've got them showing it up on the screen. [01:15:02] It's called SISA insight. And they're talking about website, defacement, destructive malware, or not Petya want to cry, right? All these things. What can you do

You want to start an online personal brand business. That's great! I converted my business from offering on site services to other businesses to an online business and I must say, that it's a lot better to make money without having to leave the house, than it is to having to go to another business and be onsite, driving around all over the place and putting up with all the gas, car and toll expenses. Not to mention eating out all the time. It gets real expensive, real fast. The key to building a PROFITABLE personal brand business is to use the stair-step approach. And a quick shout out to Mike Kim for this concept. I heard this through his coaching program and I'd like to pass it along to you as well. It helped me to understand, first, what's necessary, and then in what order to do them in. The idea is that even if you have the correct elements, it's better to build them in this logical order. Otherwise it's like having the correct digits for a phone number, but having them in the wrong order.So, what are the 7 P's to a personal brand business?1.    Personal story2.    Platform3.    Positioning4.    Product5.    Packaging6.    Pitch7.    Partners We'll go over each step one by one, and get into more details about how each step compliments the one before it and is in this particular order for a reason.No one step can be independent without all the others in place.Personal StoryThe first step, Personal Story, is the foundation of your personal brand business. It all starts with having the right kind of story to tell instead of a sales pitch. Storytelling has become the new way of selling that is much more effective approach than ‘Here is my thing that I want you to buy. Isn't it great?”And I mentioned in episode 57 ‘The Three Critical Stories You'll Need for Your Small Business' and about how storytelling is critical for your sales in your business.People don't really care about a story about your business and why it exists. People care about THEIR story and if you can or can't help them. In the book ‘Building a Story Brand', Donald Miller says “Your customer should be the hero of the story, not your brand. This is the secret every profoundly successful business understands.”Pretty websites don't sell things. Words sell things.So what's your message? Can you say it easily? Is it simple, relevant and repeatable? How many offers are you missing because potential customers can't figure out what your offer is within 5 seconds of visiting your website?PlatformIf you don't have a website and a blog in today's online world, you don't exist. Using WordPress, these two things can be easily set up in short order if you have the textual content and images to use in advance. If you need help with that, email me at tom@tomclairmont.com and we can talk about what you need and who I can connect you with to help you through that part of the process. Remember to use the story part of the message that we just went through above. Two Big MistakesA lot of websites make two mistakes with the content that's being used.1.        The first mistake that brands make is that they fail to focus on the aspects of their offer that will help people survive and thrive. All great stories are about survival-either physical, emotional, relational, or spiritual. A story about anything else won't work to captivate an audience.If we position our products and services as anything but an aid in helping people survive and thrive, good luck selling anything to anybody.2.        The second mistake brands make with their message is that they cause their customers to burn too many mental calories in an effort to understand their offer. It's just not simple enough. It's like they have to run a mental treadmill to figure it all out. This is how you lose customers.The most powerful tool we can use to organize information so people don't have to burn too many mental calories is a story. But the key here, is clarity. Your customers will have questions. If you aren't answering those questions, they'll move on to someone else. If the story isn't clear, the message just becomes noise. What we think we are saying to our customers and what they are hearing can be two different things.A good story can hold someone's attention for hours. Why do I have attention problems and daydream far too often, but then when a good movie is on, don't have attention problems at all? Because the story of the movie is meeting the criteria for giving my mind and emotions what it wants. The story of the movie (or book) is doing the daydreaming for us. Here is the structure of nearly every story you see or hear in movies and the most popular books, in a nutshell. A character who wants something, encounters a problem before they can get it. At the peak of their despair, a guide steps into action, helps them avoid failure and ends in a success. Your personal story is the foundation for you, marketing your business in a voice that is unmistakably yours.What point of view will you tell the story?•         Bird's eye- giving the overview of your story in general terms•         Eye to eye- giving the details from a more personal perspective PlatformIn this day and age, far too many people are relying on just Facebook or a couple of social media platforms as the sole basis for their business. Social media has its place, but should not be a substitute for a traditional, but necessary website.All the content that's placed on the social media platform is owned by them. You don't own it, and they can block you or take you down if they decide to do that.With a website, you own the domain name, the account, the content, and you control the uptime and visibility (if you keep paying for the account). You control who has access to the information you're putting on the website as well.When you have your own website with an internal blog or a Podcast, you control the content and don't have to worry about another service forcing your hand with how your information is managed.You've probably heard me talk many times about the advantages of having a Podcast and I'll keep it brief this time, but if my Podcast hosting provider goes out of business, I still have all the episodes on my computer to upload to another hosting service. They're still my episode recordings. It's still my Show. Nobody can take that away from me. There are some pretty generic elements that need to be in place to having a solid platform for your startup business. This next step will go over these elements from a high level perspective only.  Positioning Yourself The purpose of this step is to provide you with a clearer understanding where you stand relative to the competition. What do you give that your competitors can't provide? What is yourunique selling point (USP)?What do I give that my competitors can't provide? •         personal experience with online tech•         more affordable pricing•         numerous free online tools•         over a dozen e-books on various small business topics•         tech support on a number of online personal brand issues•         mindset coaching What I can't give that my competitors can:•         Large number of blog or podcast postings•         large supply of videos on the same topics•         One new E-book per week There are two things necessary for positioning:•         Strategies (master plan, grand design) a ‘how' and not a ‘what'•         Tactics (plans, procedure) “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” What are the differences? My goal is to ‘position myself as a sought after small business launch coach'. The strategy is the ‘how' the goal will be accomplished.•         Website•         Social media marketing•         Blog•         Podcast•         Videos•         Speaking Tactic:•         Create content for the blog and podcast and social media•         Play one type of ‘music'-one continuous message that stays on the same theme•         Connect with leaders in the same space as where I want to go in the industry•         Post to social media on a regular basis with a consistent message•         Create one Podcast episode each week on a useful, relevant topic on the theme of starting an online business or Podcast Goal: Increase passive income stream1.        Strategy: Create digital downloads of content that is both relevant and provides value in either the process of starting a business or to help improve the motivation or mindset of the person desiring to start a business 2.        Tactic: a.        Promote value of the digital download content to prospective or active clients through the website, blog, podcast and social mediab.       Communicate on a regular basis with email listDo you want to start your own Podcast? Download the FREE E-book I have for you 'Starting a Podcast Mini-Course'.FREE Webinar video series: Starting a PodcastNeed help getting your online business or Podcast started? Book a call through Tom's Online CalendarCheck out my FREE, E-book of the Month Club that deals with a lot of the core issues that small business startups can have.Website: www.tomclairmont.comFree Resources: www.tomclairmont.com/resourcesLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasclairmont/We'd love to hear from you about this episode! Click on this link to rate the episode or leave a comment and get a free gift: Episode RatingSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/small-biz-essentials/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Using WordPress for your enterprise site? Improve your SEO strategy with these plugins and other tips to help improve search rankings.Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/enterprise-seo-wordpress/-Having 1st aired in 2009, with over 3.6 million downloads in 100+ counties, “SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing” has become one of the longest-running and most authoritative podcasts for staying ahead of the perpetually changing digital marketing landscape.Great for marketers, business owners, and agencies from novice to experienced in using the internet to market and grow a brand!You can also watch his episode here: https://youtu.be/vfhPsL7YZS0Find out more here: bestseopodcast.comMore Resources:https://www.ewrdigital.com/https://cohosta.com/https://protestimonial.com/

There are many factors to consider when choosing the framework or platform you are going to use to build your microSaaS product. Solo-founders-programmers who are considering to use WordPress often ask the question: What is the biggest advantage of building a microSaaS using WP? Answer: You will 100% own and control your platform. In this episode I look at some objective factors to demonstrate what an advantage this ownership is for an entrepreneur. If you are interested in learning more and WordPress, plugins programming, and microSaaS, join us at wpPluginCollege.com Leveraging WordPress as a Development Framework We have already discussed this in detail in a previous article, but to summarize, here are 3 big advantages to using WP: #1 – Robust, Flexible, Reliable Tech-Stack #2 – Benefits of Open-Source #3 – The Gigantic WP Ecosystem = Thousands of plugins / themes / consultants / companies generating $600 billion But when you talk to successful solo-founders / solo-programmers, they will often reply that the number one thing they value the most is ownership and control - both of their online products and businesses, as well as their time and attention. So does WordPress offer this advantage? Yes it does! To demonstrate how WP enables this ownership, let's look at 4 factors we can use to evaluate this objectively: Startup-ability Scalability Sustainability Sale-ability Startup-ability By startup-ability I mean the difficulty level of getting a microSaaS project up and running as a bootstrapped startup. With 100% control, you can run your SaaS virtually anywhere (shared, server, VPS, cloud) Theoretically the lowest possible startup costs (mostly hosting) Contrast with bubble.io (hundreds $/month) Scalability This relates to the number of users you will have, the amount of content/data stored, the number of visitors, etc. With lower recurring costs, WP allows you to keep scaled down and still be profitable Also allows you to easily scale up with cloud servers WP is demonstrated to be able to handle incredibly large projects (wordpress.com) Sustainability This means the long term stability of the product / business you are creating. The main thing you need to watch is risk caused by your development choices. WordPress offers a huge advanatge in that you control everything and can move the entire system to any server or system. Reduced risk from the platform (like bubble.io) from:going out of business flagging your usage, users, content raising prices Sale-ability Even though we are focusing most of our energy at developing long-term, sustainable, micro-scaled businesses, we also should look at possible end-games. One of the rip-cords you can pull is the sale of your microSaaS. Developing it in WordPress gives you some real advantages. You own a tangible propertyyour configurations your custom plugin code your domain and intellectual property You can easily backup, export everything

As part of our series from https://wpPluginCollege.com on 7 different products that can be created using the WordPress plugin programming framework, we are looking at a type of web app. Data-driven, web applications are software that helps businesses, corporations, non-profits, and government organizations collect, store, and analyze data. These are usually complex in terms of data storage and customer requirements. The programmer that has the right skill set can develop these applications for clients, and this can be a very lucrative business. I have built many of these data-driven web apps for use by large organizations. The beauty of using WordPress is that you can make the app mobile friendly very easily. You also have access to a lot of useful database functions for storing and accessing any type of data. I finish off the episode with a short coaching section where I talk about thinking outside of the product box. Please visit the website to get the visuals.

Learn about the process of using WordPress and LifterLMS to deploy the course marketplace business model with Adrian Nutiu in this episode of the LMScast podcast hosted by Chris Badgett from LifterLMS. Adrian shares his story of why he ended up choosing WordPress to build his sites and LifterLMS as the learning management system he uses to power his course marketplace website. About 20 years ago, Adrian started his internet journey, and it really changed his life with the ability to connect with others and start an educational project. MadBright (formerly Yumva) is an educational project Adrian started in the … Using WordPress and LifterLMS to Deploy the Course Marketplace Business Model with Adrian Nutiu Read More » The post Using WordPress and LifterLMS to Deploy the Course Marketplace Business Model with Adrian Nutiu appeared first on LMScast - LifterLMS Podcast.

Update your WordPress app, and you can set reminders for writing. Currently, you can set days, but you can't set specific times to build a blogging habit. However, I have had feedback that this will be coming in a future update. Please find out more information in this blog post by WordPress, and build a blogging habit today! If you enjoyed this post, please consider supporting me on Ko-Fi.

In this episode, I want to share with you how to build a business website using WordPress.  A website is the foundation of your Internet presence.  It gives you complete control over your content and layout.  A website can perform a number of tasks like email signups, website forms and ecommerce.  Website analytics can give insight into your website visitors.  Finally, I will demonstrate how to build a business website using a WordPress theme and plugin.  For the video of this podcast, please go to https://digitalmarketingextreme.com/how-to/how-to-build-a-business-website-using-wordpress/.Digital Marketing Extreme is your source for digital marketing tips and techniques for your home service business.  Learn more about digital marketing at https://digitalmarketingextreme.com.

Step by step guide showing you how to start a blog using Wordpress. Visit https://thebloggerunion.com/how-to-start-a-blog/ to download the worksheets and follow along. Click here to purchase Hostgator Hosting: http://partners.hostgator.com/A5yXj What we'll cover What is Hosting? Buying Your Blog's Web Hosting - The Affordable Way Installing Wordpress on Your Website Logging in to your blog's dashboard Next, I recommend you watch our video Wordpress 101 to learn how Wordpress works and how to customize your blog to make it your own. To watch a video of this episode visit The Blogger Union YouTube Channel. Want to be part of the live audience during our next episode? Register to become a member at thebloggerunion.com/register and you'll receive email notifications for upcoming webinars, in-person events, and other opportunities. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thebloggerunion/support

In Episode 23, Ken & Brian dive into building a website using WordPress vs HTML Coding! Enjoy the episode and make sure you give us that 5 Star rating!! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app (https://anchor.fm/app) Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/clicksandbricks/support (https://anchor.fm/clicksandbricks/support) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Episode 23, Ken & Brian dive into building a website using WordPress vs HTML Coding! Enjoy the episode and make sure you give us that 5 Star rating!! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app (https://anchor.fm/app) Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/clicksandbricks/support (https://anchor.fm/clicksandbricks/support) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Page SEO Tutorial 2019 - SEO Training and search engine optimization consulting for all types of websites. Local SEO , GMB , Affiliate. 11 years of passion through digital marketing. Learn more SEO and digital marketing free: Reach out:https://chrispalmermarketing.com/ Learn SEO : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8P0dc0Zn2gf8L6tJi_k6xg? Message me: https://facebook.com/chrispalmerseo/ Join the group: https://facebook.com/groups/chrispalmerseo/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/seopalmer/ Chris Palmer Marketing 30 W Broad St fl2 Tamaqua Pa 18252 (570) 810-1080Rank A Website #1 On Google Using Wordpress --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrsplmr/support

Visit https://www.spreaker.com/show/digital-marketing-legend-leaks and listen to Legend's secretive podcast.Who is “Srinidhi Ranganathan”?Digital Marketing Legend "Srinidhi Ranganathan" is the Director of Digital Marketing at First Look Digital Marketing Solutions (India's First Artificial Intelligence Powered Digital Marketing company) located in Bangalore, India and is one of the top instructors in India who is teaching futuristic marketing-related courses on Udemy. He is a Technologist, Digital Marketing Coach, Author, and Video Creation Specialist with over 12+ years of experience and has worked at top companies in India. Having over 6 Lakh students on Udemy - he has facilitated digital marketing analysis and provided state-of-the-art marketing strategy ideas and tactical execution plans for top marketing companies in India including startups, SMB's and MNC's. This includes strategic brainstorming sessions, Artificial Intelligence-powered market analysis, market research related to digital performance, support of various AIDM marketing initiatives for new product and consumer promotional launches, etc.Srinidhi gained popularity through his unique, practical yet engaging training methodologies he utilizes to teach during the training sessions. Some of his training methods include gamified learning experiences conducted by virtual writing and teaching robots like "Aera 2.0" that prompts behavioural changes in students and bring forth a new kind of fascination among the crowd. These robots are virtual humans having super-intelligence capabilities. They can autonomously train anyone on topics ranging from ABC to Rocket Science, without human intervention.Srinidhi's passionate fans call him a "Digital Marketing Legend" and he's busy working on creating new virtual and humanoid robots to revolutionize education in India and the world.He is deemed to be an innovator in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Digital Marketing and is someone who has embraced many ideas and has created various environments in which team members are taught the required AI automation tools and resources to challenge the status quo, push boundaries and achieve super-extensive growth. His courses are a testament to where the future is actually heading.Legend's YouTube Channel:Full Free 11 Hours Digital Marketing Course - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qJWb-Vtbhs&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=1Extract Billions of Email's (Email Marketing Course) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXLrWdf3f70&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=5&t=269sArtificial Intelligence in Digital Marketing (Full Guide for 2021) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acSYPzX0gz8&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=4&t=1sCreate a Google-like Search Engine in Minutes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgWY4eVpHNo&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=9&t=86sEarn Money Blogging without writing a word in 2021 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI6pY0YTHLc&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=6Mini-SEO Course 2021 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDPslvkQyPk&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=10&t=749sUltimate Graphic Design Course (Cloud Photo Editing of the Decade) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOZaRM2duFE&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=3WordPress CMS Full Course 2021 Edition - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR8xRU1vus4&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=13&t=556sCreate a humanoid Robot Now (Secret Tutorial 2021) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hgljxLEezA&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=88&t=10sFree Mentorship in Artificial Intelligence (AI) Digital Marketing for 2021 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATuqwMU9kfs&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=11Social Media Extreme Hacks Secretive Tutorial 2021 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7_um4yfHkg&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=83Video Backlinks Course Tutorial to Skyrocket Viral Traffic - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCN7a1oQKb8&list=PL7iVMyVUvAra2egy90W498ItgO3UUc-Tr&index=96

This is part 2 of "Here Is Why I Choose WordPress Over Webflow". If you haven't listened to part 1 yet, we encourage you to go back a few episodes to listen to it because this podcast episode picks up from where we left off on part 1. Here are Jesus' thoughts on this matter: WordPress is superior when it comes to scalability and performance. Using open-source software has many more benefits than using a proprietary application.

This week I discuss using WordPress as an auction platform. [powerpress]

Interested in this check out this link provided by CDI world

Internal link building is the strategy marketing people often forget, as it can take a lot of time if you don't do it right. In this episode I dig into my favourite WordPress plugin.

There are literally hundreds of ways to build your email list online. Today, we will talk about using two tools that work well together. Using WordPress and aWeber to build your list. Getting a WordPress web site If you don't already have your own WordPress site, you can get it from click eCourse platform. We include in the free options the ability to setup your own WordPress blog. Just go to https://clikecourse.com and click register on top right to get your free account. If you're on mobile, first click the hamburger menu item To reveal the Register menu item You will see a register account popup. Click on Continue with Facebook (or it may say Continue as YOURNAME) to use Facebook login (or you can enter email, you'll just need click link in email to validate) You'll see the Facebook popup asking for permissions. Click on the Continue as YOURNAME button. You should see a message that registration with Facebook was... READ MORE and WATCH VIDEO at https://jeansergegagnon.com/course-income-secrets-310---how-to-use-only-aweber-and-wordpress-to-build-your-email-list/

Let's talk Serverless - including using WordPress Serverless, how to solve a problem like local databases, and edge functions with Netlify and beyond.

Welcome to HubShots Episode 219: How to use Service Hub for Sales, Inserting tracking using the WordPress Plugin and LinkedIn Ads retargeting This episode we discuss: • HubSpot quick updates • Using the HubSpot WordPress plugin to insert LI and FB pixels • Using HubSpot Service Hub for sales follow ups • Using LinkedIn Sponsored InMail with retargeting campaigns • Bing Ads adding LinkedIn targeting Full show notes available at: www.hubshots.com/episodes/episode-219 HubShots, the podcast for marketing managers and sales professionals who use HubSpot, hosted by Ian Jacob from Search & Be Found and Craig Bailey from XEN Systems. Recorded: Wednesday 16 September 2020 | Published: Friday 18 September 2020

One of the fastest-growing niches in WordPress is the use of WordPress to power the growth engine for SaaS-based businesses. But how are SaaS companies specifically using a WordPress front-end to drive growth for a SaaS-based product on the back-end?In this episode of PressThis, Matthew Quirie and Larry Vollmer share their ideas about how SaaS companies can leverage WordPress as an engine of growth. Matt and Larry discuss how SaaS companies are using WordPress to drive their marketing funnel, clever ways WordPress can be integrated with SaaS checkout or fulfillment systems, and general strategies for leveraging WordPress for SaaS that you could use in your business or with your next SaaS-based agency client.If you've always wondered how SaaS companies could get the most out of WordPress, don't miss this episode of PressThis now!

In this week’s episode of The Private Practice Elevation podcast, we’re talking about 5 mistakes you’ll want to avoid when using WordPress. Are you using or trying to use WordPress for your private practice website? There are plenty of us that take on the learning curve in order to give your online marketing a solid foundation. There is a lot to learn-- but you don't have to do it on your own!  In order to save you time, frustration and the use of a lot of swear words aimed at WordPress, I’ll walk you through the 5 major mistakes you’ll want to avoid.

Hello and welcome, today's podcast guest is Jonathan Denwood from WP-tonic.com who is based out in Nevada in the United States. He has a lot of experience in helping people to automate and systematise their online businesses by using WordPress.He's a huge advocate for using WordPress as a platform for all that it's capable of versus using some of the new all-in-one hosted solutions like Kartra or Kajabi. It's a really interesting discussion because a lot of the internet seems to be going towards that direction. We speak to the benefits of keeping everything on WordPress and how you can automate and systemize your online businessTopics We Discuss:Helping people build successful online courses.Getting started with online coursesWordpress vs all-in-one solutions for course creatorsThis episode is for you if you're a freelancer digital nomad or aspiring online entrepreneur who's interested in creating your own course.It is also for you if you run your business on WordPress.I learned a lot of new information in this episodeSubscribe, leave a review and share this episode with any Facebook groups that you think will benefit from this episode. Thanks for tuning in!https://digitalnomadcafe.com/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Using WordPress and want to offer multiple languages? TranspatePress is a super simple, visual way to do that. Point, click, type, save, done! Easy as that. It's like a Page Builder for translations. You can translate anything on the page, post or ever WooCommerce products. There's a ton in the free version, but we also talk about the premium options which you can purchase too. It's a very mature offering and seems like a great WordPress translation solution. Check out the WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast to find out more about it and how it works...

Using WordPress and want to offer multiple languages? TranspatePress is a super simple, visual way to do that. Point, click, type, save, done! Easy as that. It's like a Page Builder for translations. You can translate anything on the page, post or ever WooCommerce products. There's a ton in the free version, but we also talk about the premium options which you can purchase too. It's a very mature offering and seems like a great WordPress translation solution. Check out the WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast to find out more about it and how it works...

Using WordPress and want to offer multiple languages? TranspatePress is a super simple, visual way to do that. Point, click, type, save, done! Easy as that. It's like a Page Builder for translations. You can translate anything on the page, post or ever WooCommerce products. There's a ton in the free version, but we also talk about the premium options which you can purchase too. It's a very mature offering and seems like a great WordPress translation solution. Check out the WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast to find out more about it and how it works...

In today's episode, we help Mike move from a client-based business to an online membership. FULL TRANSCRIPT Jocelyn Sams: Hey y'all. On today's podcast, we help Mike move from a client-based business to an online membership. Shane Sams: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast where life always comes before work. We're your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. We're a real family that figured out how to make our entire living online. Now, we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life? All right. Let's get started. Shane Sams: What's going on everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. It is great to be back with you again today. Super excited to talk to another member of the Flip Your Life community, and we are pumped up about today's guest because we have been trying to get him on the show for a while now. Not only is this one of our amazing international members of the Flip Your Life community, but it's also someone that actually we have met in person, believe it or not, even though they had to fly all the way across the world to do it. We want to welcome to the show all the way from Melbourne, Australia, today Mike Giuliano. Mike, what's up, brother? Mike Giuliano: Hey. Hey, guys. Thanks very much for having me. I am also super excited and pumped. And, yes, we've tried to get this going and I'm glad we're ready to go. Shane Sams: Apparently, it's hard to coordinate when you're 15 time zones apart. I don't know. It's like, what is it 7:30 AM there right now, and it's like 4:30 PM, or something like that. Mike Giuliano: It's, yeah, that's right. Shane Sams: So thank you for being the one that had to get up early. I really appreciate that, man. Shane Sams: But listen, we had a great time with Mike last year at Flip Your Life LIVE, him and his wife Pat made the long trip all the way. And we kind of followed along with their journey, because they were posting in the Flip Your Life LIVE Facebook group. Jocelyn Sams: Because they had to leave like days early, of course. Shane Sams: Right, before everybody else, where did you land? You landed in, like, Memphis, and rented a car, like drove over to Nashville, or something like that? Mike Giuliano: Yeah, that's right. So we landed in L.A. and then caught a flight over, and then got to hire a Mustang, so the convertible, that was pretty cool. And got to enjoy the south a little bit. So, yeah. It took us a while to get there, but we were revved when we got there. Shane Sams: So what did you think about the ... what's it- Jocelyn Sams: Had you ever been to the south before? Shane Sams: Had you ever been there, yeah. And then what'd you think about it? Mike Giuliano: Okay, so I've been to U.S. between 12 and 15 times. Never been to the south. First time. I've got plenty of friends in the south. And we loved it. We loved the people, we loved everything about the south. So we have dear friends in Minnesota, and they were shocked when I said, "You know what, I wanna move to the south." Shane Sams: So we have got a conversion. We have someone converting to southern life. That is what I'm talking about right now. Jocelyn Sams: Well we have other Australian friends who came over for the event, and they also loved the south. And anyone who has been to the United States from another country, you know that the south is not Los Angeles or New York, or you know ... The places people typically go in the United States. The south is very different. Shane Sams: I'm super excited that you'll be coming back to the south this year for Flip Your Life LIVE in Lexington, Kentucky, correct? Mike Giuliano: Yes sir, yeah, we can't wait. It's only a few months away, so yeah, it'll be cool. Shane Sams: Well we're gonna get more into that later and talk about your journey, what's got you to this point today, where we're at. But tell us a little bit more about your guys' background, tell us about you and your online business, and what you've been doing for a living over the past few years. Mike Giuliano: Yeah, sure. Over the last 20 years, I've been a digital strategist. So basically that's helping companies grow online. Website development, SEO services, social media, commercialization, reputation management. And I've done work for all sorts of companies. Councils, government departments, Australia Spy Agency, large corporations, small business, it runs the gamut. That's what I've been doing the last 20 years. Shane Sams: What was it like? Can you tell us what you were doing for the Australia Spy Agency? Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, that one kinda like, piques interest. Shane Sams: That one stuck out to me. I'm like, "Is this, like, covert stuff? Are you, like, classified and sworn to secrecy?" Mike Giuliano: No, so what we've got, it's called SEO, so with SEO I help them do some online marketing. Shane Sams: Okay, good. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that you weren't really secretly taping me and I was being investigated here, by the Australian secret service. Jocelyn Sams: So are you ... You don't have to answer this, but are you or are you not coming to the south as part of a witness protection plan? Shane Sams: Is this a spy system? Are you spying on us, is that what's happening here? Jocelyn Sams: You don't have to answer that. Mike Giuliano: Hey, I'll take any excuse to move to the south, so ... Shane Sams: That's right. Mike Giuliano: I'm coming to learn and grow the business. Shane Sams: Alright, so let me ... Okay, so you been doing this for 20 years, you've been helping people at SEO, working in WordPress, working in different development for websites and things like that. And this has all been one-on-one client work, like really intense, really up in each other's faces. Meetings and talking to people, and you're wanting to transition into more of an online membership model, so you don't have to do so much of that time for dollar stuff. Correct? Mike Giuliano: That's correct, yeah. Some of those contracts I've had a few years, some of them a few months, some of them are project by project. But it means that I have to go to the client, I have to be with the client, and I'm locked into their meetings and their terms. So, yeah. So that's why I want to move to a membership model, to have more freedom. Shane Sams: So tell us what your membership model looks like. What kind of service are you gonna providing, in a scalable way, charging a low monthly price? What are you gonna be doing for people to be able to transition into that? What is your new online business, what's it going to look like? Mike Giuliano: So what's happened is, over the years, I've had small businesses contact me when they had their website get hacked. When they've tried to do an update on WordPress and it's destroyed their site. So I know that there's a need out there for small businesses to have the protection that the large companies take for granted, basically, because they've got the marketing dollars to pay for that. So what I've been able to do is, get all my services, so we'll keep your website updated, we'll do your daily backups, we'll do all your plugin updates. Every day we scan to make sure your updating plugins, themes, core files, your security. We provide real time hacking protection. If you're gonna need common site real time backups. Mike Giuliano: So we package that into our membership site and we've got three different levels there. And it makes it affordable for anyone who's got a WordPress site, to have the same protection that the large companies get. Shane Sams: That's very interesting because, just today, I was answering some questions inside of the forums in the Flip Your Life community, and one of the big things that we see a lot is people will start working in WordPress, and they'll get a little freaked out. Not because of using WordPress. Using WordPress itself is really easy. It's almost like using Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, or even saving files on your computer. It's just, you know, the categories are kind of the folders, the posts are kind of the ... or the pages are just kind of saved in things. It's really easy to actually create stuff in WordPress. Shane Sams: But that's where they get freaked out. It's when those little numbers by the update buttons pop up and you got a red three, and it's like oh, you need to update this, update this, but then you click a button and everything on your site breaks. Right? Or you get in, like we did one time ... One time we logged in to flippedlifestyle.com, and instead of me and Jocelyn and our podcast staring back at us, it was a skull and crossbones and a terrorist organization, who had overwritten our page. Jocelyn Sams: That was fun. Shane Sams: That was fun. And we didn't know anything about security, anything about updating plugins or- Jocelyn Sams: You learn real fast when something like that happens. Shane Sams: Yeah. We were literally in Disney World, we were walking out the door, the kids were in a stroller. And I looked down at the site and I went, "Uh. Hold on a second." Jocelyn Sams: "We have a problem." Shane Sams: "Something's wrong." So basically what you're saying is, for someone who is scared of that stuff or is not as tech savvy to set up backups, to do those updates and to ... You're just kinda gonna be the one stop shop, click the button, here we go, we'll take care of it for you. Now you can focus on making content or products, or whatever else you're doing on your website. Right? Mike Giuliano: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And also on top of that, my experience with the large companies and government departments is, reporting's important. So on top of providing that protection, the backup, we also provide monthly reports. So every month we're gonna give the client an SEO report. So we'll tell them how they're doing with their keywords so they know if they're improving or if they're going back a little bit. We also give them a monthly site audit, so that tells them little things that they can, little and big things that can make changes to their website. So the more changes you make, the better you tweak your site, the better you're gonna rank, and the better usability experience that customers or visitors get. And the more comfortable customers feel, the more they're gonna stay on your site, take that call of action, or purchase that product. Mike Giuliano: And also on top of that, we provide back end and video tutorials as well, just to teach people that don't know certain things in WordPress, how they can accomplish certain things, and improve their site. Shane Sams: So this is amazing, because this membership is very different than a lot of the ones that we feature on the show, because it really is a service. It's not really just a content-based or a teaching or learning how to do stuff. You do have a component like that, like you just said, there's WordPress tutorials that go deeper into using the platform. But primarily, this is a service-based, scalable, monthly membership. So as you grow I'm sure you'll have a team, or I don't know exactly how you're doing this on the back end, if some of it's automated or whatever. But you're basically saying, "Well, for every one of these team members I can have X clients." And that becomes infinitely scalable without you. Shane Sams: And that's really what we're talking about about passive income. About creating a freedom online and creating a business where you're not trading time for dollars. It doesn't have to be log in, watch course, ask questions, or whatever. It can be a service. You can totally take a service that you're doing one on one now, and figure out a way to systemize it in a way where you can grow it. You can scale it, and it doesn't involve you actually touching the keyboard everyday. And that's just a really interesting concept, and I think this is gonna go over like gangbusters, actually. So, good job, dude. Mike Giuliano: Ah, thank you. Ah, thank you. Shane Sams: So tell us a little bit more about how you came up with this idea. When did you start really thinking about transitioning? When did you start thinking, putting the idea together? Or when did you just decide, "Man, I've had enough of this client stuff. I've gotta find something else." Did you hear one of our podcasts? Did you get an idea? Where did that part of this journey start? Mike Giuliano: Well see, this is the interesting thing, but also it's the embarrassing thing. I'm in the digital realm, so I've always heard of people turning an idea into a online product. I mean, me personally, I own over 800 domain names. So I'm big in the marketing sphere on line, but it's always been for clients. Mike Giuliano: So one day I was listening to a podcast, and you and Jocelyn were being interviewed. And I thought, man, number one, I love the accent. And number two, you guys were so candid and honest, and I was taken back by that. So I quickly looked up Flip Your Life and then started listening to your own podcast, subscribed. And my wife used to have a bridal shop, which was about a 60 minute commute. And we actually home school. And so, our whole family would listen to Flip Your Life. And my kids know, if there's one, there's a hundred. If there's a hundred, there's a thousand. So they can recite that. And, you know, they did caught on the southern voice a little bit as well. Mike Giuliano: So, we would listen to you guys every morning and every afternoon. Through rush hour traffic. And that's when you mentioned about Flip Your Life LIVE. I thought, you know what, this is what I'm gonna do. So I looked over at my wife ... We were actually, when we decided to go to Flip Your Life LIVE and heard about it, we were driving to a country location to celebrate our anniversary. We looked at each other and thought you know what, this is the time, let's do it. And we signed up! Jocelyn Sams: So I have to ask you one thing, because when you guys were at our event, you told me that you had gotten Pat to listen to the show, but at first she didn't really love it so much. Tell us a little bit about that. Mike Giuliano: Yes. So she said she couldn't really listen to it because she felt that the accents were a bit strong. And me and the kids love the accent. So for a while she didn't want to listen. But then she didn't have a choice. There's five people in our family, four of us wanted to listen, so we listened. Shane Sams: Love it. Mike Giuliano: But you know what, the voice kept on chipping away at her. Her guard up, and then eventually she thought you know what, these guys actually make sense. Same thing, she saw the honesty come through. And the fact that you guys genuinely care. That's the difference. I mean, you can open up Facebook, open up any website, go to Google, and see ads for heaps of programs that quote unquote teach you how to make money, but they don't care. And they don't really work. Whereas that was the difference, the fact that you guys genuinely care and you're there for the whole journey. Shane Sams: That's amazing. Jocelyn Sams: Well, what makes me so happy about that is that you guys cared enough and were willing to make the investment in time and money to fly all the way to literally the other side of the earth to come to our event. And not only did you do it once, but you found enough value in it that you're going to do it again. Shane Sams: Yeah, that's incredible. Jocelyn Sams: And for me, that is just the ultimate, I don't know what you would say, I guess compliment, to what we do, is that you were willing to do that not just once, but you're willing to do it twice. And that just makes me really happy. Shane Sams: Yeah, I've got an awesome picture of me and you and Jocelyn and Pat sitting at a table at the event. And it really ... You know, we took hundreds of photos at the event. And I love all of, I mean I really appreciate every photo that I have with every member and every listener that was there. But that one really did stick out to me when I was looking through it, because every ... I actually have it, I think it's on the sales page right now for next year's event. And I've actually got it in my ... I keep a folder that's the main items from Flip Your Life LIVE last year. And that one just really is the one that reminds me that we really can reach out and impact people all over the world. And that you can. You can help anybody with a WordPress website anywhere in the world. And if anybody listening to this podcast right now, if you'll just pick your rock up and throw it in the pond, you're gonna ripple out and impact somebody, somewhere, that you just could never do if you didn't start an online business. Shane Sams: But I really do love that picture of all four of us, 'cause it just encapsulates everything that we wanted to do with the Flip Your Life community and Flip Your Life LIVE, and that was bring together family-focused like minded people, to really push their business and their life forward. Jocelyn Sams: While we're on that subject, we've started selling tickets for next year. We are almost sold out of VIP right now, and we're still working on selling general admission. But as you were the person who probably traveled the furthest of anyone else at our event, if someone was thinking about should they come or should they not, what would you say to them? Mike Giuliano: Yeah, book it in. Definitely, it's a no brainer. From my personal perspective, it was really what I ... It was the kick in the pants that I needed, to move from having to do work for clients to having the freedom. And now, like you said, we've signed up for September coming up, 2019, and now it's about growing what I've created through being inspired through you guys. And I was, I tell you what, when you were sending out those emails saying, "Okay, we're gonna open registration," I was just hanging out. And being in Australia, I know I'm the last one to get the email. And I wanted to be the first one to book into VIP. As soon as I saw it, I booked it, man. Shane Sams: Nice man, that's amazing. That's awesome Jocelyn Sams: We love it. And we're so glad that you guys came, we're so glad that you're coming back. Shane Sams: We just had a VIP meeting too, Mike, and we've got so many ... Jocelyn Sams: We've got some surprises for you. Shane Sams: We were actually looking at each other over this meeting, with our live event coordinator the other day, we were looking down going, "This is ridiculous, what the VIP people are gonna be getting." So, it's gonna be phat. You're gonna enjoy it. Shane Sams: So once you signed up for the event, now this is where you started thinking about your idea, and you really took some action and started putting this together. 'Cause that's one thing we really focus on with Flip Your Life LIVE, is getting stuff done before you get there. Like, I'm actually, at the very beginning of April, we're about to start going through the entire Flip Your Life blueprint, live with me, with the attendees, to prepare everybody for the event. Everybody always asks us, "What if I haven't gotten anything started? What if I haven't got an idea yet? What if I've not done anything?" Well that's okay, 'cause you're going to get a live walkthrough of the blueprint, and we're also gonna do a business audit, for our more advanced members that maybe already have a successful membership. And we're literally preparing every week, doing these live trainings with the attendees, to get stuff done before the event. So what did you do before Flip Your Life LIVE last year? Mike Giuliano: Before Flip Your Life LIVE, obviously the first thing was to think of, okay, what can I provide, what service or product can I provide to help people in business? And using my skill set for the last 20 years, I came up with WP Safe Care. So first was coming up with that concept. Mike Giuliano: And then the next thing was mapping out, okay, how is it gonna roll out, and what am I gonna offer. Now, what I didn't do is really attend to those early calling sessions being provided, the live sessions. I needed to do more of that. And that's where last year's Flip Your Life I fell a little bit short, and I encourage anyone listening that if you booked in, please please please, do your homework, attend every session and every recording, because it will make your life easier at the actual event. So, yeah. Shane Sams: Yeah, that's what we talked about at the event. You were running the idea by us, me and Jocelyn were sitting with you talking about that. And we were going through that, and I was like, "You've known about this for months, what are you doing? Like why don't you just build this thing?" And you were like, "I know, I know, I know." Mike Giuliano: Yep, I know. It was crazy, and probably because I was sort of stuck in that rut, and having to do work for clients, and maintain the clients that I had. But yeah, even if your listeners take an hour every day to work on their project leading up to Flip Your Life LIVE 2019, it's definitely well worth it. Shane Sams: Now, I know you have taken massive action since Flip Your Life LIVE, because you left with momentum, you got home, and you really really started making this transition to, "I have to build out everything so that I get to leave client work and do this membership site" So, tell us where you are right now when it comes to building this thing, getting it ready for launch. What does it look like now, is it all done, is it all finished? Mike Giuliano: Yeah, so everything's completed. I actually took the files off the site last night, so it is live. I've got a handful of clients that I've been doing this for, testing the system and testing the concept, and that's working really well. So I am ready to go. Shane Sams: Awesome. So we're ready to launch then. That's what we're really gonna talk about the rest of the podcast, is how to get this thing launched, okay? So basically, someone could give you money today and log in and use this service, correct? Mike Giuliano: Absolutely. Yep, it's ready to go. Shane Sams: Alright. See, that's the magic time. That's the product first mentality. Once you get to that point, everything else is just finding people to buy it. That's where that saying comes from, "If you can find one, you can find a hundred and one or a thousand and one." You know? So that's what we've gotta do, is get this thing out there. So what is your ... We might have a couple questions here. We're gonna talk through launching this thing, rolling it out, but ... What is your specific question right now that you might have. Let's just start with the first one. Mike Giuliano: The first question would be, I've got three membership levels. It's what do we call them? So we had a contentious discussion, a heated debate in the household. So I've got three, I've given them certain names, and some people said I should call them Bronze, Silver, and Gold. And other people said I should call them Small, Medium, and Large. So it's, what do I call my three levels? Shane Sams: What do you want to call them? Mike Giuliano: What I have called them is Pinello, which is the $59 a month, and you get a certain amount of service. Arcano, which is $79 a month, and you get a few more things. And then Di Fara, which is $99 a month, and you get some more syncing and some more reports. Shane Sams: Okay, Mike, I'm just a simple man from Kentucky. I don't- Jocelyn Sams: We're both sitting here looking at each other like, what? Shane Sams: What are those words, what do those words even mean? Like, what are those words? I don't ... Mike Giuliano: So, my daughter was the only one who liked them, everybody else hated them. These are three incredible, famous, New York pizza makers. I love making pizzas, I've got a massive pizza oven in my back yard, and that's what I try to do every week, make Napoli style pizzas. So these guys are my pizza heroes. Shane Sams: Those are your pizza heroes, okay. Okay. So, well ... I've never- Jocelyn Sams: This is the first time I've ever seen Shane speechless on this podcast. Shane Sams: 'Cause you're saying those words, and I'm like, "Man, I don't understand the words that are coming out of your mouth." I don't even know what that meant. I thought you were speaking a different language, and I thought, "Man, I thought Australian's spoke English." I didn't know what was going on. Okay. Mike Giuliano: They're all Italian surnames, that's what they are. Shane Sams: I got it, okay. Italian sur, okay. What do you think? What do you think about naming? Jocelyn Sams: Okay, here's the thing. No matter what you call them, people probably won't know the difference. And they're going to refer to them to whatever they feel like referring to them. So in other words, what I'm trying to say is, I think that you are making a big deal out of something that's not really a big deal. Shane Sams: So basically it's, yeah. There is some argument, I think, for clear naming. Our plans are, we have a standard plan, a premium plan, and we used to call it exclusive, but now we changed it to accelerator, or whatever. Jocelyn Sams: But most people probably wouldn't know that. Shane Sams: They still don't know what it means, they just know that one's cheaper and one's more expensive than the other. Right? Jocelyn Sams: And so, if someone wrote in, they might say, "Hey, I'm on the middle plan, or the higher plan, or the basic plan," or whatever. So what I'm trying to tell you is, don't let this get in your way. Call them whatever you wanna call them, and it really doesn't matter. Shane Sams: It will not impact sales. It actually could be a good thing, 'cause people will be like, "Oo, fancy." Right? Jocelyn Sams: But these are the types of decisions that people let stand in their way when they're trying to start selling something, when they're trying to change something. They let little things like this just stop them in their tracks. So you know, you could have been marketing this forever, but you haven't done it because maybe you didn't think the names were a hundred percent right. No one will remember them anyway. Shane Sams: Yeah, I mean basically, the list of services is what people are gonna read. And they're gonna click the price that makes the most sense to them. So, I wouldn't worry too much about the naming. If you wanna have fun with it, it's your business. Have fun with it. If you fall on the more logical clear side of small, medium, large, there's nothing wrong with that either. And anybody out there that's naming anything, I don't care if it's naming your domain name, naming your business, naming your product, naming your course, whatever it is. Just name it. It doesn't really matter, that's not what's gonna sell product. Jocelyn Sams: You can always change it. If later on there's some kind of a issue with it, then change it. We've changed our product names a million times. It's not a big deal. Shane Sams: Yeah. And I don't even know ... The correct technical coaching answer, what I would give you is, "Well, sir, you should split test that. You should have a page where half the people go to, with the fancy fun pizza names. And half with the other names." So there is a merit to that, if you want to do that later. But, bro, I mean it's ... I don't know. I kinda like it. I kinda like the crazy names, myself. Mike Giuliano: Yes. Shane Sams: Maybe your niche can be Pizza Fan WordPress Users. It's only people who know the greatest pizza people in the planet. So, okay. Shane Sams: Alright. So we've cleared up the name issue. So let's go deeper. So what else do you need to work through to get this thing really launched and start promoting this thing hardcore? Mike Giuliano: Okay, so I've three price brackets that I feel are reasonably priced. Just not sure how the market's gonna accept that price bracket. Apart from providing all the security and the updates and backups, we also evaluate by providing the reports. It's a holistic service to help someone grow, but doing graded online business and WordPress site, but doing it on a mass level. So just the pricing bit was the other sticking point. Shane Sams: Okay, so you've got 59, 79, and 99. Mike Giuliano: Yes sir. Shane Sams: Usually I don't really worry about the middle price, 'cause a lot of times people are drawn to it just for what it is. But what is the major difference between 59 and 199? Mike Giuliano: Okay, so 59, you get all the- Shane Sams: I'm sorry, 99. I meant 99. Mike Giuliano: Yeah. So all three of them, you get all of your backups, updates, real-time hacking protection, and real-time backup. You get that with all of them. You get the SEO report and the side order report and you get tutorials with all of them. With the 99, if you're a product-based business, an eCommerce site, we'll sync all your products through Root Commerce. We'll sync it with eBay, Amazon, Facebook, Google products. And we also provide you three competitor analysis. So you tell us your three competitors, and every month we're gonna give you an SEO insider report on those competitors, so you know what they're doing. So that helps you stay sharp on your game. Shane Sams: Hmm. Jocelyn Sams: Okay. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of value. Shane Sams: Yeah, so what do you get on the middle plan? What's the differentiator in the middle plan? Mike Giuliano: The middle plan, if you're an eCommerce site, if you got Root Commerce, then we do eBay product syncing and Amazon. Shane Sams: Okay. So- Mike Giuliano: We've had clients in the past where they'd dedicate one staff member just to do eBay, or just to do Amazon, whereas we automate this process. The site maintains their products in Root Commerce, and then we sync it with those different channels. Shane Sams: The thing that I'm hearing that kinda scares me with the way you've divided up this pricing is, it almost feels like, hey, all WordPress users can use the 59, but it sounds like 79 and 99 are both really really focused on eCommerce. You know? Mike Giuliano: Yeah. Shane Sams: And I'm afraid that you've almost got two products here. That might be why your pricing feels a little wonky. So if I come to you and I'm a WordPress person and I'm selling courses. I'm not even gonna look at 79 and 99. And that's not what the point of having three prices is. The point is figuring out what people can afford, and giving them the value that matches that. So I'm wondering if you shouldn't move all of the eCommerce type benefits up to that $99 level and maybe charge 199 for that. And then do something else for the other two. Like the other two could just be, like 59 for just the protection, or 79 for protection plus reports. And then you've got this big package that says the eCommerce Pro Package, or whatever. 'Cause, right now, if I'm not doing anything on eBay or any of that other stuff, I'm gonna just overlook any other benefits of the other two packages. Does that make sense? Mike Giuliano: Yes, absolutely. Shane Sams: Yeah. So I wonder if you could do like 59, 99 and 199. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, I think the 99 sounds a little low for the type of value that you'd be providing with the upper limit package. But the beautiful thing about this type of service is that there are a lot of similar types of service. Not exactly to what you're doing, but people who provide maintenance or different services for WordPress sites. So that gives you a really good place where you can go and look and see what other people are doing in similar spaces. Shane Sams: I can tell you right now, we have paid up to 199 a month just for updating plugins. Mike Giuliano: Yeah, yeah. Shane Sams: We have a business that's doing that, but everyone won't be able to do that. Some people would only be able to pay maybe 59 for updating plugins and stuff. What I'm saying is, you're giving so much value, and some of it might not be relevant to all WordPress users in those other two packages. So you gotta figure out a way to go 59, 99, and something bigger for all that other stuff. And you'll make more money that way, for sure. Mike Giuliano: Yeah, that's gold. That's brilliant. I'm gonna do that, absolutely. Shane Sams: So basically let's say this ... In general, I'm trying to think of a way to theme this for everybody listening. So basically your core service is usually that lowest price. And then your core service plus a bonus is the middle price. So the bonus there is the reporting, right? Mike Giuliano: Yeah. Shane Sams: And then the big package usually has extra services. Right? So for example, if you look at our package, we have a standard membership, that's our lowest price. Like 19 a month right now. So you can go in and watch videos and talk on the forums. Right? Okay? Mike Giuliano: Yeah. Shane Sams: So our bonus that comes in the middle package, our premium package, which is I think $49 a month right now, is you get two member calls with me and Jocelyn every single month. And you get to actually come ask us questions on those member calls. Right? So see, what we've done is, that applies to everybody. You know what I mean? Shane Sams: Now our third tier has things like access, additional resources, and that's really what this eCommerce really bonus package thing is, right? And what it'll do, you're almost having three options but two products, really. 'Cause that eCommerce people are gonna jump on that last package every time. 'Cause they know the value. So that's really what you're doing with your tiers, is you're trying to figure out a way to get people to move up the ladder, or to buy a different product completely. So you need to package it that way so it's not so much conf ... 'Cause if I was on your website and I just had a WordPress website, I'd be like, "Ah, man, I can totally get away with 59 bucks, I don't even need to think about the other two. I'm not on eBay." Right? Mike Giuliano: Yeah, you're right, yeah. Shane Sams: So if you wanna open this up to the masses, you're gonna have to change that just a little bit. Mike Giuliano: Yeah, absolutely, will do. I'll get that done today. Shane Sams: Okay? Alright. So I think we've figured out how we've named your pizza packages, right? We've got some pricing things figured out, we've talked a little bit about how to structure a three-tiered offer. So what do we need to do now to launch this thing? You've opened the doors, right? Mike Giuliano: Yeah. Shane Sams: So we can't just build it and hope people will come. What's your plan going forward now, to roll this out to the masses? Mike Giuliano: Number one, I'm gonna start providing hints and tips on SEO. So basically providing light coaching on how people can grow their websites from an SEO point of view. So I'm gonna be publishing that on the different social media channels. I'm putting together a report that people can download that will summarize, okay, an action plan of what you need to do. So everything will be actionable items to help you grow your ... That's the whole thing. Helping you grow your business online. So I'm providing that content for free. To get the WP Safecare branding out there, and the packages out there. Shane Sams: I wonder if you should actually say how to grow your business with WordPress. Instead of how to grow it online? 'Cause that's really the goal, right? Is WordPress. Mike Giuliano: Yeah, yeah. Shane Sams: So like, how to grow your business using WordPress. There was a discussion today in the forums actually, like should I build my website on ClickFunnels, should I use WordPress, WordPress scares me. That's really the exact conversation that you're trying to have here, right? Is like, "No, WordPress is awesome, let me just show you how to keep it safe so that you can grow your business effectively." You know what I mean? Mike Giuliano: Yeah, yeah. Shane Sams: What's your opt-in gonna be? What are you gonna be getting leads with? What's the free deal? Mike Giuliano: I'm putting together a free report on some actionable items to move forward with your WordPress. Shane Sams: Security or just using WordPress? Mike Giuliano: From an SEO point of view. And what you need to do to your WordPress site to grow from an SEO point of view. Because that's the foundation. If you're not seen on Google, well, you're not seen. Normally. So that's gonna be the, providing that free report and getting people in like that. Shane Sams: I have an idea, but it might freak you out. Mike Giuliano: Freak me out. Go for it. Shane Sams: I wonder if your freebie should actually not be all of your WordPress training. Mike Giuliano: Yep, okay. Shane Sams: 'Cause all your stuff is SEO, but at the end of your article, imagine if you said, "Oh yeah, you gotta do this, this, and this, oh but by the way, if you're not using WordPress, doesn't matter anyway." You're not gonna be ... You need to use WordPress, don't worry, I'm gonna teach you how to use WordPress completely. 'Cause people sell that. Like actually sell courses how to do that, right? Mike Giuliano: Yeah. Shane Sams: So if you became this person who was the go-to person to learn how to use Word ... You can learn how to use WordPress and still not know how to protect it and back it up and do all those things. I'm talking about making good posts, SEO posts, the difference in posts and pages, and even deeper stuff. Like sidebar structures and how to use widgets. All the things these videos you've got teaching people how to use WordPress. That still doesn't infringe on your core offer. Like at all. Shane Sams: So I wonder if you shouldn't be like ... You can still write about SEO and write about using WordPress and maybe be like a little news person, who, anytime something updates in WordPress you have an article about it or whatever. You just type up a little blog post about 5.03's release or whatever. Or you have a plugin of the week. Whatever it is. You're just really focused on helping business owners use WordPress better. You can dabble in marketing, dabble in SEO, but like ... Man, if you were sitting there and you were like, "Do you wanna get more out of WordPress? Well, join our free community and get access to a hundred videos learning how to use WordPress." Shane Sams: Now you definitely have a business owner that's interested in WordPress, probably using it, definitely needs your service. And it feels like you're stripping value out of your product, but you're really not, 'cause that's not your offer. Your offer is WP Safe. Right? Mike Giuliano: Yeah. Shane Sams: So why not just be the ultimate guy for business owners using WordPress? And then bam, secure, secure ... Your list would probably explode 'cause you could ... Like, "Join my community for free. Get access to all of our WordPress trainings." Boom. And now you just follow up with, is your WordPress site safe? Right? Mike Giuliano: Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Shane Sams: Does that scare you? Does that scare you to let all that content out? Mike Giuliano: Yeah, well it's funny because the video tutorials are part of the packing, but I could take them and make them free and get people in like that. And the crazy thing is, because I've been doing this for so long, I've created training manuals for my large corporates teaching this stuff on how to use WordPress. So I've actually got a lot of the content already. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, and you don't have to feel like you have to use every single bit for free, either. Maybe you could use part of it for free and then have the other behind the paywall, and that's totally fine. Shane Sams: Yeah. And it's just the way you present it. All content wants to be free anyway. Everything in those videos, I hate to tell you, is on YouTube, and I could go find it. But I gotta find it. That's the problem. Right? Mike Giuliano: Right. Shane Sams: So your offer is you get to get it not free, but here's what you put in your package. Priority support and content coaching. And they can go ask, "Hey, where's a video about setting up a new sidebar or a specific page?" Oh, yeah. Well, priority support will answer that question for them, but it won't do it for the free level. So you could draw your line there too. If you want help going through the trainings, that's inside the $59 thing. Whatever. But then if you just wanna use it yourself, hey, DIY community, people can get in there and talk to each other. But you have guaranteed people using WordPress. That's amazing. Right? Mike Giuliano: Yeah. Fantastic. Shane Sams: How many videos do you have? Mike Giuliano: Over 100, I think about 125, something like that. Shane Sams: You have 125 blog posts written if you do this too, because every week you could release one training with a blog post, maybe a transcript. And at the bottom it can say, "Hey, we have 99 more of these inside the community." 'Cause they're all spread out among your website, they can dig and hunt, but they're really all in one place with a nice organized system if they were starting from scratch in the community. So they're basically getting curation in the free level, but you can use those as blog posts now everywhere. Upload them to YouTube, whatever. Build your audience. Mike Giuliano: That's fantastic, yeah. That's brilliant. Shane Sams: Love it. Jocelyn Sams: Alright. Well I think that you have some solid direction. I cannot wait to hear bout your launch. When is that going to be? Mike Giuliano: Okay, so I'm gonna put all those things in place. Change the pricing, change the name. Not the name of the levels, but have an eCommerce level and then the other two levels. So I'm aiming to go full on live in two weeks. Shane Sams: Alright. So are you gonna launch, real quick, with a webinar? Are you gonna do just adds to your site? Or are you gonna just kinda slow roll it out, everything's ready to go, and you're just gonna start cranking out content? What's the plan? Mike Giuliano: I'm gonna be running ads. Shane Sams: You're gonna be running ads. Jocelyn Sams: Alright, awesome. Well, I cannot wait to hear more about it in the community. I know you will be posting a success story so we can all live through you vicariously. It is going to be awesome. Shane Sams: And we are going to celebrate massive business ... What do you have? You've got like, what, 16 weeks? No wait, you got about 20 weeks between now and Flip Your Life LIVE. So you gotta be rolling into Lexington, Kentucky, man, like, "Guys. Went on the podcast, dropped a hundred, two hundred members. I found one, and then I found a hundred and one, and then I found whatever and one." Right? We're gonna be celebrating that downtown Lexington this September. Sound good? Mike Giuliano: Sounds good, looking forward to it, man. That's gonna be awesome. Shane Sams: Alright guys. That was a great conversation with Mike, today about his business. Talked about a lot of things we don't get to talk about sometimes on the podcast. Service-based memberships, getting into those price points. And even some of those things that hold us up, like naming. I can't wait to see what Mike does over the next few months. Shane Sams: And we would love for you to take massive action over the next few months as well. And we'd love to see you at Flip Your Life LIVE to celebrate all of the accomplishments, all the things that you're gonna be doing in your online business over the next few months. If you'd like to meet us, meet Mike, and meet everybody else that's coming to Flip Your Life LIVE, this is an open event. Anybody that's listening, anybody in our community, anybody anywhere in the Flipped Lifestyle universe, can come and hang out with us and Mike at Flip Your Life LIVE 2019. All you have to do is go to flippedlifestyle.com/live. That's L-I-V-E. And you can grab a ticket to the number one event for family-focused entrepreneurs. Man, it's gonna be a great room, a lot of great people are gonna be there, and we cannot wait to introduce you to our hometown, basically, where Jocelyn and I met. Lexington, Kentucky. It's gonna be an amazing event. We can't wait to see you there. Shane Sams: Alright guys, that is all the time that we have for today. Thank you so much for listening to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. If we can help you in any way inside the Flip Your Life community, we would love to do that. But until next time, get out there, take action, do whatever it takes to flip your life. Jocelyn Sams: Bye. Links and resources mentioned on today's show: Mike's Website Flip Your Life LIVE 2019 Tickets & Registration Information Flip Your Life community Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what's possible for your family! Join the Flip Your Life Community NOW for as little as $19 per month! https://flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife

It's all the rage isn't it? Set up an online course and teach the world about the things you know! You've seen the Facebook ads. You've sat down and thought about all the great content they you'll teach to your students, made some videos, created some handouts, even devised some tests that the students will have to complete to graduate. But then the daunting question arises... how do I actually get this online? Lifter LMS might be the answer...

It's all the rage isn't it? Set up an online course and teach the world about the things you know! You've seen the Facebook ads. You've sat down and thought about all the great content they you'll teach to your students, made some videos, created some handouts, even devised some tests that the students will have to complete to graduate. But then the daunting question arises... how do I actually get this online? Lifter LMS might be the answer...

Jeff sits down with Syed Balkhi from WPBeginner.com to discuss how WordPress can be used as a communication tool for teachers and parents, as well as how it can be used as a powerful digital portfolio tool. About WPBeginnerWPBeginner is a free WordPress resource site for Beginners. WPBeginner was founded in July 2009 by Syed Balkhi. The main goal of this site is to provide quality tips, tricks, hacks, and other WordPress resources that allows WordPress beginners to improve their site(s). Links of Interesthttp://www.wpbeginner.com (http://www.wpbeginner.com) http://youtube.com/wpbeginner (WPBeginner Youtube) http://www.twitter.com/wpbeginner (@WPBeginner) http://www.twitter.com/syedbalkhi (@syedbalkhi) About our GuestSyed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner. He is known for his aggressive marketing skills, creative designs, and expertise in SEO. Syed has been in the industry for over eight years, and he has worked with some of the top brands in the industry. He is known as “the WordPress Ninja” among our clients because he is a total WordPress Geek. He used to blog at http://www.balkhis.com (Balkhis.com). Check it out, and follow him on http://twitter.com/syedbalkhi (twitter). Recorded in 2015

Today we talked about the price of using WordPress. No, it's not a long sob story about how the wife and kid left us! Those trailer park days are behind us now! The topic came out of a Facebook discussion around a plugin release. It got us thinking about our expectations as "professional" builders of websites.

Today we talked about the price of using WordPress. No, it's not a long sob story about how the wife and kid left us! Those trailer park days are behind us now! The topic came out of a Facebook discussion around a plugin release. It got us thinking about our expectations as "professional" builders of websites.

Everyone is guilty of this at one time or another, even me sometimes... Getting too carried away and biting off more than you can chew... Filling up the "to-do list" (yuck) with way too much "stuff" Then, it's a huge distraction and that big long list becomes a thing you're scared to look at, or maybe even you feel bad when you do... I can also relate to my mindset ten years ago when even five minutes of money-making activities per day seemed like "too much work" for me... Send a quick email in the morning? I can't do that every day... People tell me to blog or post a daily video? How will I have time for anything else? "Forget about a daily podcast..." I expected myself to post once a day for maybe 4-5 days and then quit! Sound familiar? Of course it does... don't pretend it doesn't! So what changed? This... Insight #1: Exterminate "Not-Invented-Here" Syndrome and Used the Right Tools Don't invent from scratch if you can help it. In this day and age, you don't need to know HTML, CSS, how to edit graphics and upload files. Just use WordPress, grab whatever beautiful theme you want to use for your design (most look like you paid thousands of dollars), and you can grab whatever plugins you want to add pop-ups, social share links, and so on. Just grab what gets it done now instead of delaying yourself months or even years for no reason... Insight #2: Stop Switching Gears and "Chunk" Instead Speaking of WordPress, use its scheduling feature. Scheduling is one of the few hidden "Easter eggs" hidden in WordPress and I'm constantly amazed at how few people know that this is a thing... Here's how it works: let's say you create a WordPress blog and you decide that once per day, you want to post a new video reviewing the latest iPhone or Android app... That's a huge time commitment. Literally every day, you're going to have to login and research that latest app. There's no guarantee that you'll find something good. Maybe you won't be motivated that day. Maybe you'll have something better to do or a huge emergency will come up and stop you... And then... you might miss a day, two days, a week, and then think to yourself... it's been three months since I posted a video about the latest app. It wasn't a priority then, so why should it be a priority now? Posting one or two videos didn't seem to get me much traction, and maybe if I'd posted 50 to 100 videos I'd see real results, but who has that sort of patience? Solution: Schedule several posts every time. With WordPress, you can add a new "post" (journal entry) and Publish it, or set it to go live instantly. Or, you can change the date to go live tomorrow, in a week, or two weeks. WordPress has built-in drip content (just set the date and time of your posts into the future) without any special plugins. Just imagine, on a Monday, grabbing five YouTube videos from various sources reviewing the latest apps (with your link at the bottom) and you'll set those posts to go live on Tuesday morning, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Or, how about this: on April 1st, schedule two weekly posts in advance. That means that on April 1st, you just scheduled posts on your blog for April 1st and April 8th... Then, on April 8th, you already had that day scheduled. You schedule your two videos to go live on April 15th and April 22nd... Keep this up for 10 weeks (three to five minutes per day) and by June 3rd, you're already scheduled ahead to mid-August. And by August, you're scheduled ahead until the following year. Just by posting more than what you need, the website (WordPress) will work on autopilot for you, even after you've put it out of your mind. Constantly switching gears and putting out fires is a MASSIVE time waster. Avoid it by chunking up your tasks and scheduling things out on autopilot for many weeks to come. Insight #3: Imagine a Clear CONCRETE Vision of What the Future LOOKS Like It sounds super hokey, but most self-help (Napoleon Hill type of stuff) revolves around you usin...

In this episode we hear stories from JS for WP Influencer, Roy Sivan, about his experience Learning JavaScript Deeply. Roy is one of the leading Angular for WordPress developers and has his own show at The WP Crowd. He also gives great advice for people looking to Learn JavaScript Deeply on their own as well. If you want to hear Roy get controversial, skip to about 16 1/2 minutes into the show.

Rachel Carden is a web developer & designer within the student affairs division at the University of Alabama. Carden is also the driving force behind the latest WordPress conference, WPCampus. In today's episode, we discuss the different challenges of managing web projects at large universities and the challenges that come with starting a new community movement. The insights shared in this episode will help WordPress consultants and community organizers alike. It's common for the average WordPress consultant to stick with small business websites as their core competency. Clients aside, these types of projects aren't very complex and they don't require over-the-top deliverables. It's familiar territory: a responsive theme, traditional navigation, and a standard content layout. Apply the talents to build websites like that on repeat, coupled with great customer service, and you've created a strong business model for yourself. Moving up market to service higher education and offer premium WordPress services takes a different route, however. Deliverables become more robust and often need to scale well beyond a shared hosting account of your normal mom-and-pop shop. Moreover, fully understanding how these organizations function becomes more important than how well you can write scalable code. When folks wonder why they can't write proper estimates or lose out on project bids, it's often because they don't fully understand their customer's market. This goes further than just your customer's customer. The more you know about how these organizations move and decide on web projects, the better prepared you will be for the next big sales call. If you're looking to service more higher-ed clients, Rachel dives really deep in this episode. Listen to the episode [smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/matt-report/wpcampus-higher-education-and-wordpress” title=”WPCampus: Higher Education and WordPress” artist=”Matt Report” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ] WPCampus Where WordPress meets higher education From a one-page website and slack account, to a global movement of over 300 members in a matter of months. If you're in higher-ed as a WordPress user, consultant or job-seeker this is going to be an amazing community to stay-tuned to. If you want to have your hand in deciding the direction of topics and the first meetup location, I strongly suggest that you join their slack channel and get to know everyone. This is one event that I'm eagerly watching and excited to see succeed. Important links mentioned: Rachel Carden @bamadesigner http://bamadesigner.com/ University of Alabama WPCampus http://wpcampus.org/data A WordPress conference for higher education: coming to a campus near you? Using WordPress in the World of Higher Education ★ Support this podcast ★

Are you ready to learn how to find a niche business? One of the things I really want to do for MattReport.com is to seek out folks who use WordPress in their business that aren't designers or developers. The average folks who actually use the software and not just live under the hood.  I want them to share their story or insight to help us improve WordPress and our own businesses. John Nemo is such a person. He's a marketer and all around business guy that founded the Nemo Media Group. I invited John on to the show so he could share his unique angle with us. Get your pen and paper ready — John's about to school you on improving your bottom line! John Nemo on building a niche business using WordPress as the platform Watch on YouTube Listen to the audio version Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners Start a niche business using WordPress Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window Full disclosure, John is a client of mine. More importantly, he's a friend online. John and I crossed virtual paths a few years ago talking about inbound marketing and building business in general. When he needed WordPress help, he reached out to me. Since then we've forged a strong working relationship that I hope lasts for years. “So why do I care Matt?” you might be saying to yourself. Here is why you should care… Being human sells John and I get into a great conversation about connecting with our clients on a real human level. He tells this story about how we connected and his experience with using my firm. The take away from this is, you don't always have to be selling. I never sold to John, but he knew I did “things” with WordPress. There's a great part in the interview where John talks about sharing favorite sports moments with his clients. So you will see, it does not have to be 100% business 100% of time! When you start your WordPress business, don't have tunnel vision and expect to be talking like a robot 24/7. Enjoy what you do and take time to really connect with clients. Finding that niche I'll be honest with you — it takes time. A lot of people set out to research a niche and I think that can be a dangerous thing. Dangerous because you might find a niche for the sake of niche and have ZERO connection to that business. If you're not passionate about something or can't find an angle to use what you're currently good at, chances are it's not going to pair up well. John services the debt collection industry. How “fun” is that? It's not and that's the point! He's able to inject today's tech and marketing tactics into an industry that is as old as the phone book. What niche are you going after? What do you think? I want to know if I'm wasting my time… Do you like stories from the “outsiders?” The non typical WordPress developer or designer who has a great story to share? Folks who can help us with our own business or give us insight about WordPress form the outside. Please comment below and if you want to stay connected with the latest interviews go to http:http://mattreport.com//subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

Some of us love what we do and some of us do not. Tom McFarlin joined me to talk about building his WordPress freelance career. He's a partner at 8bit and co-creator of  The Standard Theme. He works with a wide range of clients and considers himself successful in doing so. It's not because of the money he makes – but that he loves what he does. I was delighted to have Tom on and share his experiences with us. Let's sit back and watch this amazing interview! Tom McFarlin on WordPress freelancing, building a team, and doing what you love Click to watch Listen to the audio version Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners Tom McFarlin: How to make a living and find success using WordPress Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window The journey Here's what I love about Tom's journey: it's authentic. There was no master plan or cunning strategy. It was hard work, making connections, and building a product that someone loves that brought him his success. Tom has a lot of different identities online. From his freelancing portfolio, working with 8bit, to downloadable themes. He keeps this all organized using exceptional time management skills. He shares some of his tips with us in the video. Building a team via networking And we're not talking LinkedIN. Tom has been involved with the WordPress community since he started coding plugins. He also shares that getting involved with others and putting your work out as soon as you can is one of the best steps a young freelancer can do. It was by taking these steps, Tom was noticed from others in the community and how the guys at 8bit brought him in. What did you think? Episode #4 in the can! What do you think so far? I'm still working on the technicalities and interview questions as we move along. Want different questions? Shorter interviews? Let me know in the comments! ★ Support this podcast ★

Making money while you sleep is awesome. Making money while you sleep using WordPress is even better. Meet Brian Casel of CasJam Media. In episode #3 of The Matt Report, Brian and I discuss the life of a freelancer transitioning into a solo entrepreneur with a software as a service product. Brian built his product Restaurant Engine on WordPress. It's a place for small business eateries to come and start an affordable website. Continue to the interview to get all the great details of his journey. Listen to the audio version Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners Launching a SaaS product using WordPress with Brian Casel Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window What you're going to get from this This was an amazing episode that went a bit longer than I expected. But that's OK because you're going to benefit from it. We talked about his journey from WordPress designer, virtual studio manager, to product designer for his new venture. The journey that he took to get there was found by satisfying his own itch in our industry. He found a need within his own client set, built a product, and now caters to them with an affordable valuable solution. Tons of great take aways from this. Struggling with supporting your own client base? Just when I thought supporting clients with a SaaS prodcut was going to be the number one issue — it wasn't. Brian shares some great insights on how he supports his clients and how he actually enjoys doing it. He looks at support as a great feedback mechanism to help mature and expand on product offerings. He also shares some of the tools and tactics he uses to connect with users online. How do you find customers online? The million dollar question. Brian and I will discuss some of the methods he uses to attract more customers. We also talk about how efforts need to be made offline in today's noisy social media driven web. Looking for that right client? It might take more than a tweet or wall post. I'm still trucking on Lots of things still cooking for The Matt Report. I'm only 3 episodes in and I hope you're all enjoying it. I still need to improve as a host and I plan on it. Would love to know what you think in the comments below! ★ Support this podcast ★

Are you a curious developer and wonder what platform a website is built on? Well wonder no more. Add this extension to chrome and you’ll know exactly what CMS a site is using.