Podcasts about wp site care

With the kick-off episode of Season 8, Matt Mederios interviews Ryan Sullivan about entrepreneurial fears and changes that occur in a business. Ryan recently sold WP Site Care, a maintenance business to Southern Web and wrote an article about this change. Matt is now working for Pagely. They each have an honest discussion of what happens to all business owners and what changes they see occurring around WordPress. (more…)

With the kick-off episode of Season 8, Matt Mederios interviews Ryan Sullivan about entrepreneurial fears and changes that occur in a business. Ryan recently sold WP Site Care, a maintenance business to Southern Web and wrote an article about this change. Matt is now working for Pagely. They each have an honest discussion of what happens to all business owners and what changes they see occurring around WordPress. Listen to this episode: Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners Ryan Sullivan on joining Southern Web Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / 00:53:48 Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:53:48 What you will learn from this Episode: The WordPress market is changing and does not seem to be centered around productized services anymore. (3:03) The trend has been that the customer wants to go to one vendor that is offering a wide range of services. (3:38) Many other platforms are pitching simplicity to website customers. (5:11) It appears to be easy to spin up a WordPress business and people want to start a business to create revenue right away without making a big commitment about what it takes to run the business with great service. (6:40) To be a solid WordPress consultant today, you should look to specialize for the greatest opportunity. (ex: writing WooCommerce APIs) (25:39) Marketing is often a missed opportunity for most providers. The most successful marketing for people comes from when you solve a problem that somebody is having. (27:37) Entrepreneurs need to build a brand that sustains it beyond the operational running of it. You do not have to be good at everything. (30:46) Common Business Mistakes: It is hard to identify when a progressive slide is occurring in your business and when you should be asking for help. (13:33) Use Software that can solve a lot of problems that you bump up against operationally. (14:12) Get your ducks in a row before you start adding employees. (14:35) Make sure you understand money and how finance works in the context of your business. (15:04) Finding a consultant or CPA at the beginning can keep you focused on running your business. (15:33) Do not let the unexpected sale or growth of the business trip you up as you are scaling your business. (16:30) People start off not charging enough for their product or service. (17:46) Adjusting prices as your business grows is necessary to support your current clients. (18:48) Business Growing Pains: Identify what your weaknesses are early and reach out to people that can help you focus on what you enjoy doing. (32:32) Know that you are not alone in your startup effort. (35:00) If you have investors, know that they are investing in you (not the idea). (37:00) Know that businesses change and that everyone struggles. (40:06) Do not let social media impact your progress and efforts. (42:51) You can use the realistic metric of 1000 fans as a reference point for your social media success. (44:19) Your digital handshake is what helps you compete with the massive players online. (46:30) Episode Resources: Changes E-Myth Revisited Gusto Jason Resnick A Thousand Raving Fans The Matt Report Gutenberg Conductor Plugin To Stay in Touch with Ryan: Southern Web Ryan on Twitter To stay connected with the Matt Report, head on over to mattreport.com/subscribe. Featured image credit If you like the show, please leave a 5 Star review over on the Matt Report on iTunes. ★ Support this podcast ★

Ryan Sullivan is the founder of WP Site Care, a business that helps service and maintain WordPress sites. In this episode, we talk about building a business that meets a need and defines expectations, some great tools for running a support business, and what customer care really means. Show Notes Ryan on Twitter WP Site […] The post Episode 45: Ryan Sullivan and WP Site Care appeared first on How I Built It.

WordPress support companies are one of the fastest growing business models that I’ve seen in our space in quite some time. The concept being, for a monthly fee, you get a dedicated WordPress support company that can tackle all of your technical needs — around your WordPress website. Here’s the issue, it’s easy to start a company like this, but it’s not easy to keep it sustainable. How do you survive as a business owner? That’s what Ryan Sullivan of WP Site Care joins us to talk about on today’s episode. (more…)

WordPress support companies are one of the fastest growing business models that I've seen in our space in quite some time. The concept being, for a monthly fee, you get a dedicated WordPress support company that can tackle all of your technical needs — around your WordPress website. Here's the issue, it's easy to start a company like this, but it's not easy to keep it sustainable. How do you survive as a business owner? That's what Ryan Sullivan of WP Site Care joins us to talk about on today's episode. Interview with Ryan Sullivan of WP Site Care Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners S4 E9: Ryan Sullivan of WP Site Care 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 WordPress support businesses My first Matt Report Startup challenge featured WP Curve, who entered the market offering a shockingly low-cost monthly offering. A price point that spurred attraction to their services, ultimately lead to fast-paced growth and a recent acquisition by GoDaddy. On the flip side, their growth spawned a lot of “me too” companies, that simply copied their model and charged a dollar less. I commend Sullivan for his ability to navigate these waters, and continue to find growth. It's a testament to sticking with something, and realizing you're in it for the long-haul, not the short-term cash grab. If you enjoyed this episode, watch: 15 Ways to make money with WordPress The links WP Site Care Ryan Sullivan on Twitter ★ Support this podcast ★

On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Megan Gray, a passionate — probably one of the most passionate — freelance graphic designers I know. She lives on the edge of a canyon in Orange County, California, where she runs her business, House of Grays. Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why 201,344 website owners trust StudioPress, the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins. Launch your new site today! In this 34-minute episode Brian Gardner, Lauren Mancke, and Megan Gray discuss: Starting House of Grays in Orange County, CA Designing for the people Keeping focused among distraction Experience gained while working in a traditional agency The onboarding process of custom projects Creative outlets beyond the 9 to 5 Following your own path instead of looking to others Filtering out the noise Listen to StudioPress FM below ... Download MP3Subscribe by RSSSubscribe in iTunes The Show Notes Visit House of Grays House of Grays’ Work House of Grays’ Blog Follow House of Grays on Twitter Follow House of Grays on Instagram The Transcript How to Stay Creative in a Distracted World Voiceover: Rainmaker FM. StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as StudioPress founder Brian Gardner and VP of StudioPress Lauren Mancke share their expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform. Lauren Mancke: On this week’s episode, Brian and I are joined by Megan Gray to discuss being a creative entrepreneur in a distracted and often chaotic world. Brian Gardner: Hey everyone. Welcome to StudioPress FM. I am your host Brian Gardner. I am joined, as always, with my co-host, the vice president of StudioPress, Lauren Mancke. Lauren Mancke: Thank you for joining us again this week as we continue with another episode in our series of talking to members of the design community. Starting House of Grays in Orange County, CA Brian Gardner: Today we are joined by Megan Gray who is a passionate, probably one of the most passionate, freelance graphic designers I know. She lives literally on the edge of a canyon in Orange County, California where she runs her business House of Grays. Megan, it’s a huge pleasure to have you on the show. Welcome to StudioPress FM. Megan Gray: Thank you. I am so happy to be here. Brian Gardner: All right. Let’s talk about Megan Gray. Taken verbatim from your website, you live on the edge of a canyon which is primarily literal in your life but I’m guessing there’s some figurative relevance here. Also, why I knew you’d be a great fit to talk about being a creative entrepreneur in a distracted world. Let’s start at the beginning and go through the early years of your life all the way back from diapers, all the way to where you are now in the OC. How did all of this happen? Megan Gray: First, I had never thought about the metaphor of how I live on the edge of a canyon. So thank you for that. Yeah, so I guess I won’t go all the way back to diapers because that will bore everybody but I will say that I had always thought of myself as a writer and that was what I did by trade for quite a while. I worked as an editor and writer for newspapers in the DC area. I always felt like I wanted to be a designer, have a creative profession but I felt, maybe an inferiority complex, but I felt like that was something that was always out of my reach or that was better than me because I couldn’t draw, and I thought that that was what it took to be a creative professional or be an artist. If I look back from where I sit today and I look back at all the things I was interested in or the fact that I was using Photoshop to make flyers for things in college or that I would spend hours customizing my SmugMug website for my friend’s photos with HTML and CSS. I look back and I see that’s where I was heading but I remember at the time that felt like something cool people did and I wasn’t one of them. I just kind of chugged along doing the writing and editing thing until at some point the publisher of one of the newspapers got a temper tantrum and fired the whole design team. Overnight I had to learn InDesign and layout two papers and get them to the press on time. That’s kind of when I felt like I had been beaten into the gang. I was ready to go. From then on it was all design for me. Then we moved to California for my husband’s job. He works at Blizzard Entertainment, which is a pretty well known video game company. That really opened up a whole new world for me in design and creativity and moving to California because of the community here and just the design style. Yeah, a lot of different cool companies to work for here locally. That’s the journey. Designing For the People Lauren Mancke: I can relate a little bit to the traditional arts thing because I felt the same way. I’m not a great painter or drawer so when I was looking at a major I was nervous about doing just traditional graphic arts because you have to take all those classes. I can relate to that a bit. Your website says, you have a tag line on the about page that says, “Design for the people”. What is it about people that pulls you in? Megan Gray: I guess it’s just when somebody is doing what they love. It doesn’t matter if it’s an electrical company or jewelry making or just another creative. It’s just so compelling to me and it’s almost contagious when you work around people that are passionate about what they do. It shows up in the way that they are always there. They’re always responsive. They have ideas. They’re dedicated. They’re just excited about it. That’s irresistible to me in the sense that … I don’t care what their style is, I don’t care what their industry is, I just want to partner with them in their success and bring whatever I can to the table to help them get further faster. That is something that took me a while to realize but I used to care more about their aesthetic style or even the industry or the budget. But, now I’m just so excited to work with people who love what they do. Brian Gardner: Does that get you into any problems? Perfect segue into just the idea of being kind of crazy and chaotic and schedules and so forth. The fact that you like people and working with people, does that enable you to possibly take on projects you shouldn’t that might not be a good fit just because immediately you’re like, “Yes, people. I want to take it.” Or are you able to filter through and say, “I love people, but I need to take on certain types of projects so I don’t kill myself trying to take on everything?” Megan Gray: Totally. I see what you’re saying. For me, part of what I love about those people is that they tend to be respectful of my craft, which always includes them having some sort of mindset about that good work isn’t free or cheap, and that they also have some degree of success. I guess the short answer would be that it doesn’t really create any problems because I think when you really feel sure that you know what you love and the type of work that you want to do, it makes it really clear for me when it’s not the right work or not the right person. So I have no problem anymore passing on the projects that I know aren’t right for me. The people who are really passionate and show up and do this work and love what they do, they tend to get projects done on time, they pay quickly or early, and it just seems to be a more pointed, focused process from start to finish for me. Brian Gardner: Yeah, we talked to Bill Erickson a little while back just about the process of his leads and how he generates leads and the filtering process. He says the contact page, there’s sort of a questionnaire type of page, if you ask enough questions, you can siphon out the people who will admit by filling out certain things that they’re not the right fit. What is your screening process on the front end before you even get to a point where you would talk to them? Is that set up in a way where, maybe it’s by budget or something that will kind of trim out those that aren’t the right fit without even having to correspond with them? Megan Gray: Yeah, I think somewhat differently than Bill Erickson. People know more of what they want when they look for a designer. I think developers, people are a little less educated on what makes a good developer or an expert developer. They’re just happy to find one. You probably have to do a little bit more qualifying of the leads. Whereas, when you get to my site, if you don’t like peach or pastels or anything that’s a little different, you’re already not going to contact me. There’s some trimming that already happens before I even get to people. Having a drop down default in the budget, I often get people who are like, “Is that your minimum? Because I can’t …” Then I know where they’re at with budget. People who are wary that I even ask for a budget like I’m a shady mechanic, I know we’re off to a bad start. Then a lot of times I can tell if people are just going down the Genesis Developers list and copy and pasting a form letter. Or they say, “I’m looking for someone who doesn’t like just the pretty things” and I’m like, “Why are you contacting me? Like, did you look at I can tell if people are interested in hiring me specifically and when they are, it goes great. When they are not, it can still go great, but a lot of the times I’m not really what they’re looking for and I help them find that out. Brian Gardner: Yeah, Lauren did a great job when we redesigned StudioPress and updated the Genesis Developers page by showcasing a select amount, I think it was four, of the latest portfolio shots of each developer. That is also sort of our way to help in that process of filtering through people. People can just scan the visuals really quickly and say, “Ah, peach and pastel. I love beachy stuff. I’m going to check her out.” Then you know it’s an alignment already built in. Megan Gray: I totally get that. I agree with that design. I think also, I have noticed that has happened less, like the form letters, and I don’t know exactly where that comes from, but I do think there’s more of a quick visual cue now to see, “Ah, that’s not for me” or, “I love that.” Keeping Focused Among Distraction Brian Gardner: Okay, people; husband, kids, two kids now. How is the balancing work and family thing going on? I know that just recently you ended up … This was a question I was going to ask you later but it’s a good time now. You had recently cultivated your own office space, which is out of house, and all of that. I kind of wink at you here, because I follow you on social media and all that, and I can see the ups and downs as they come along with where you’re going with this. How is balancing work/life for you going right now? Megan Gray: It’s really challenging. I won’t sugarcoat it. Having two kids is more than twice as difficult for balancing it all for me right now. But, I do think that I’m able to compartmentalize it. Just like if it’s not kids, it’s something else that people have outside of their work life where drawing those boundaries and just kind of … It sounds defeated, but it’s not lowering my expectations so that I’m not the person who has no kids or no family life and I can just work at all hours as long as I want whenever I want. In that way, it has helped me be more focused about the time that I am working instead of just meandering through my day. Speaking of my studio space, when I’m there I notice that there are people who can move just at their own creative slower pace. Then there are those of us who have to pick up kids at 4 or some other commitment and we’re very heads down and focused on our work. For me, it’s just helped me be more organized. When I’m not, it’s very difficult to manage. The office space, one of the reasons definitely, I sought that out was because I needed a little bit of a clearer boundary between my home life and my work life. Also, I think that when you work for yourself, by yourself, it’s really good to get out there. My space, in particular, is a mix of other types of creatives. It’s not all designers. At the moment, I think I’m the only designer. More photographers and event planners and sign artists because Laguna Beach is a great community for that. We’ve got guys who make surf boards from agave by hand in the back. Lots of interesting things. I find that there are days where I just need to get out and be around other people making things and doing things. Sometimes somebody will say, “Hey, I need a logo to paint on this surf board” and then I’m right there. Or I need somebody to print business cards and it’s sort of a cooperative that way. Then there are days where I definitely need to stay at home and not go around all the energy and be really productive. It’s nice to have more options. Lauren Mancke: I’m a bit jealous, because I really miss my old office space. It comes up a lot, it seems like, lately on these podcasts. I have planned for my new office. There’s a new coworking place in my town, too, that just opened up that looks pretty cool. It’s their second location so I might be hitting that up more frequently. Megan Gray: Yeah, coworking is nice when you can just drop in on the days that you need to get out of your head and then retreat when you need to get back in your head. I found that coworking in some cases here, there’s a couple choices in Orange County, but I worry about my productivity where it’s a really social element. In the studio that’s over by Laguna Beach I have my own actual office instead of a drop-in desk. That’s been huge for me. Brian Gardner: All right, let’s take a quick break here for an advertisement because at StudioPress FM that is how we roll. If you are a digital business looking to elevate your brand, Infinity Pro, a recently released theme by me, was made just for you. It’s an elegant, responsive way to introduce your online presence. With all the options we’ve packed into Infinity Pro to customize your customer’s experience, it’s also one of the most flexible StudioPress themed releases to date. Did we mention it’s compatible with WooCommerce? Find Infinity Pro, along with more than 50 other great themes, at StudioPress.com/themes. Experience Gained While Working in a Traditional Agency Brian Gardner: All right. Let’s turn back the clock a few years and discuss your tenure at 10up. For those who don’t know, 10up is a brilliant WordPress high-end agency led by Jake Goldman, a friend of mine and friend of Megan’s. They do high-end client’s work such as Microsoft, Google, Entertainment Weekly, to name a few. As an independent creative, how did you end up in a situation where you’re working for the man? Megan Gray: The man Jake Goldman? Brian Gardner: Yes. Megan Gray: Jake actually, I think, discovered me on Twitter, if I remember correctly, and reached out to me. I hadn’t been seeking out an opportunity like that, but I was immediately interested when we discussed things. I thought, “Take a shot, level up my skills, learn from some really great engineers” and that’s pretty much what happened. I started there as a project manager, which I think that became clear pretty quickly that that was not the best fit for me. I moved into a design role and worked on some of the internal products that they were developing at the time. That’s how I found myself there and it was a great experience. Brian Gardner: What did you learn while you were there? I had been following you and we had known each other before you went to 10up and I was actually a little bit shocked because, first of all, there’s creatives who need to work. In other words, they’re the breadwinner of their family and they have to just make decisions that sometimes aren’t necessarily what I think they would love to do. This was one of those cases where I was like, “I don’t think Megan has to take on a full-time job in order to live and eat and all of that.” I was somewhat confused, almost, in a sense because I was like, “She seems like such an open creative.” I was curious behind the rationale as to why you would have taken that. I think we’ve had a few people on this show who have also done that too, where you get to a point where you’re kind of done, and Lauren, we’ve talked about this before even with you in your own agency, that you get to a point where sometimes you’re just so tired trying to generate business and sometimes it’s just easier, or maybe your family situation warrants it, where you need something more stable and whatnot, so you make that call. For you, it just didn’t seem like that was the case. Megan Gray: It wasn’t the case that I was forced into looking for a stable thing. It certainly helped and I benefited from it, but for me the drive was, and this is maybe a little crazy, but when something scares the crap out of me, I make myself do it. For me, at the time, where I was in my career, 10up was the gold standard of tough agency gigs to get into in this space. I did not feel like I was up to the challenge so I made myself do it. When I got in there I was very intimidated, because then and now I think some of the best people in the business work there and they were good at their jobs. I was coming from a place of being a freelancer who just didn’t have that agency experience or tons of experience in general. I got good quickly. I guess what I learned from there is just how to be a smarter designer and consider things more from an engineering perspective. When I got there I was making pretty things. I think that after leaving there I made smarter things and I made better decisions and I thought about the whole picture of web design and product development more than I did before. I made some great friendships and people I trust who I still call on today and say, “Hey, this is an idea I have. Is it crazy?” They’re still some of the people I lean on constantly. Lauren Mancke: I think, for me, choosing to leave the agency that I had built was a big decision because it was not really the stress of generating leads. It was almost like there were too many leads coming my way. It was hard to turn everything down to make time. I knew I wanted to start a family. I couldn’t spend 80 hours a week working. What are some things in your current situation that cause you stress? Are there any things that get in the way of your productivity that you’ve been able to work out a way around those things? Megan Gray: I think what we touched on before, the family thing, with two kids that I really want to build my life around, the idea that I can be there for them when they need me at school or when they’re sick or when they’re having a bad day. That’s been a big challenge. Also just, I would say I’m my own challenge. When I get burnout or I feel uninspired or just not into it in the moment, trying to reinvigorate that creative energy that I have. Other challenges of just life stuff honestly. Life in southern California makes inner things chaotic and challenging. Taking that time away in my studio and just kind of re-centering and reflecting on what I’m doing has really helped me maintain that focus. Brian Gardner: Yeah, hanging out at Disneyland every other week also does that. Although I haven’t seen you post pictures of that lately. Megan Gray: Yeah, I don’t really do the Disneyland thing anymore. It’s a little too much for me. A little too much. Brian Gardner: That’s not too far from where you’re at, right? That’s in Anaheim. Megan Gray: Yeah, it’s like 20 or 30 minutes. We used to have that annual pass and then it was just like, “Hey, I don’t think we’re having fun here anymore. It’s super overwhelming to come every week. Why do we keep forcing ourselves to do this?” The Onboarding Process of Custom Projects Lauren Mancke: What is the typical process you have for bringing a new client on board? You touched on it a little bit earlier about some of the things, they’ve already seen your work, they like what you do. Is there any other criteria that you specifically look for when you’re talking to a person about a potential project that’s the right fit for you? Megan Gray: Yeah, I tend to now book a couple months out and it’s usually a pretty big red flag when somebody cannot wait at all. We just talk a little bit about money and timeline and the standard housekeeping things. I really whittled down the number of email exchanges I go through before I either close the deal or move on. One of the ways I’ve done that is just a really simple pricing PDF that I have that goes over simple packages that I offer, the prices for everything and the process and what it does and does not include. That’s been a friendly little barrier to entry to working with me. Then, when I bring them on board, I know it’s really popular to automate a lot of that process now, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that because I really like the personal connection. I like doing things similar but differently a little bit every time. So I just kind of walk them through and onboard everyone just a little bit differently because no two projects are the same. Yeah, and it’s pretty clear process of designing and building out everything from there. Brian Gardner: Speaking of projects, are there any in particular that stand out to you as being Megan’s favorite projects and whatnot? Megan Gray: I didn’t prepare for that. You know, I don’t think so at the moment. I’m just doing a little bit of everything. One of the projects I did earlier this year was for a pop-up dinner company that had services. Their first pop-up dinner was actually in Lima, Peru and I got to be involved in the logo, the branding, the messaging. I actually threw up a quick site with a Café Pro theme for that. Then we actually had videography, photography. That was a really fun and meaningful project for me, although it had a smaller reach. It was really hands on, a big collaboration with different creatives and videographers. That was just called Salt. That’s in my portfolio. That was an exciting one for me and it has a little video with it. Brian Gardner: What is your favorite element of design? You just talked about how some of them you’ve done multiple elements of the whole process. Is logo your favorite part? Is overall site design your favorite part? What part of design in general do you think is the thing that brings the most joy to your life? Megan Gray: Right now it’s actually just the strategy and the messaging, with the copy writing, so it’s kind of going back to my roots as a writer. That’s something I’m actually helping WP Site Care with right now is just re-strategizing or re-branding their messaging, all their on boarding materials, the customer messages. Everything that is less the production design and actual visual design and more of the whole brand experience and all the little touch points from social media to just all the interactions that they have with the customer, which is new for me to be really, really engaged with that. Creative Outlets Beyond the 9 to 5 Lauren Mancke: So outside of designing, if you’re anything like me, I have a Halloween costume problem. Basically, I just spend way too much time creating costumes and it’s just really something I enjoy. I just like to do things outside of my regular medium which is digital. Designing things that are interior design or designing labels for my hot sauce or stuff like that really, really brings me a lot of fun, enjoyment, just to do a design for myself. Is there any other types of design that you like to work on? Megan Gray: I do a lot of those little personal projects that you were kind of describing as well. Nothing as cool as that mini Hamilton costume that you shared. It’s just little things where … I definitely am into interior design and everything in my house being my way. Brian Gardner: Not Ron’s way. Your way. Megan Gray: My way. Little things like I put a blend of essential oils for my kids when I was gone and I printed labels and made a whole packaging thing for them. I guess that’s not something that normal people do, now that I think about it, but it’s something I enjoy. Lauren Mancke: The Hamilton costume really everybody is impressed because that photo is so good. My friend is a photographer. Everyone is impressed I think with the photo more than the costume. Megan Gray: No, I don’t think so. I was interested in the gold buttons. Lauren Mancke: Those were just brads on white duct tape. Not super time-consuming. I think we did it in under an hour. Megan Gray: I think it’s the idea that’s impressive. The brads and the duct tape instead of buttons. Just the creativity. But, the photo is great too. Lauren Mancke: The kid has really long hair, so that makes it too, I think. Megan Gray: It’s perfection. Brian Gardner: All right, so outside of being creative, I know even when we’re not being creative we’re still being creative, because that’s just sort of our human nature. What are the things, Megan, and I want to hear from Lauren too on this one. Megan, what are the things outside of even being creative when you’re not being creative that you do to pass the time? I like to run. Even in that, I find creativity but I don’t exercise creativity in that. I just, I run. What are the things you do that are completely creatively agnostic that take up your time or just help you decompress and get your mind off things and whatnot? Megan Gray: Yeah, I’ve recently gotten into podcasts and I just consume them like crazy. They just give me all sorts of ideas and weirdly make me a better writer to listen to. Then I’ve gotten into yoga, which, I used to laugh at people who did yoga, but I really like it now. I find that, this is probably not the answer you’re expecting, but I find that when other people like to do creative things … Like at my son’s school people DIY a lot of cool stuff. They’re making an adventure playground. I feel like I just want to do accountant, data entry stuff because I feel like I use up every bit of creativity I have at work. I feel like I want the antithesis of that when I have down time. I guess I do like to consume other people’s creative work, but when it comes to DIY or anything like that I feel totally tapped out. It’s easy to be creative digitally, because you can easily undo or reproduce or replicate things. When I go to DIY something I’m like, “Ugh, command Z”. I have to start over. Lauren Mancke: Undo that glue. Megan Gray: Yeah, undo that. “I want a copy of this, so I’m just going to keep cloning it. No? I have to make more myself? Huh.” It’s just interesting, because I found that I tend to like to enjoy other people’s creativity in my downtime, but as far as making things like crafty Lauren I just, I don t know, I don’t have it. I don t have it. Lauren Mancke: I think I’m crafty to a certain extent of, that it’s something that s not … takes patience. Like painting or anything for me that has to be very meticulous, I don’t have the patience for that. If it can be something done quickly, duct tape, you know, add duct tape to a sweater, I got that. If I had to sew that, that would take too much time. Megan Gray: Yeah, I hear you. Following Your Own Path Instead of Looking to Others Brian Gardner: All right. What else does Megan Gray stand for, outside of design, being a mom and a wife, and all that kind of stuff? What else would you be defined as, in terms of leaving a legacy? What are the things in your life, when you find time and can fit them into a crazy and chaotic schedule, that you want to be known as? Megan Gray: I like to sort of be a champion for the little guy to the extent that I can. Part of my tagline, “Design for the people,” that’s kind of what that’s about as well, which is that I have never had the interest that other designers have to work on something that everyone will touch. That doesn’t inspire to me or call to me to be a big name or work for big names. I’ve always really liked to work for the small businesses and the people trying to make it. I really like to reach out and share or be vulnerable with something, like whether it’s a postpartum experience or a growing up a certain way experience. I like to write and speak to those people. Not that I think I’m so impactful that I can help thousands, but I always believe if I can help one person make a leg up in their business or one person who is struggling with something postpartum or one person who thinks that they don’t deserve to be a designer, then to me that is something I’m really interested in. It really drives why I work independently so that I can do that. Lauren Mancke: What advice would you give, because you’ve touched on this a little bit just a second ago and before in the podcast, about when you’re a young creative that insecurity that you feel? What advice could you give any young creatives out there listening right now? Megan Gray: I think they key is to just go in the direction of what you love. That might not always be the popular thing or the thing that everyone else is doing. But, if you start early doing what you love and you just keep at it, you’re going to be the best person who does that thing. You are going to be happier than the people who are doing whatever is trendy or popular or lucrative at the moment. I think it’s really easy to get distracted by someone else’s podcast or someone else’s e-course or someone else’s new theme or product. I think if those things interest you or speak to you, yes, chase them. If you just feel like you need to keep up with what everyone else is doing to stay relevant, I just think no. Do what you love if you have the position to do so. Just be who you are and that will always, I think, win out and catch up with … You would be your biggest success. Filtering Out The Noise Megan Gray: To expand on that I guess just a little, to maybe keep it going is, I struggle. I think we all struggle. Anyone sitting here on a podcast in a position to offer advice, even those people, we don’t know. I don’t think anyone has it figured out. I think there’s so much noise now with social media and constantly seeing what everyone is doing or one-tenth of what they’re doing, like their good spots. I think it’s really hard to, on the one hand, consume what other people are creating to inspire yourself, and then also to block out the noise and filter it to be like, “That’s great, but this is who I am, and this is what I am doing and that is enough.” It’s a real challenge to pay attention but filter out the noise. Brian Gardner: Yeah, I guess where I was going with that is, in my life, when I came up for the idea for this show, kind of a chaotic world, I think of people who are getting on a train or a bus or driving in traffic and doing what the world sees as being busy and chaotic. In my mind, I work from home and I get into my office, sit in my chair, like at 6am and do some things. I spend a lot of time online in my chair doing stuff. I’m not necessarily busy externally. In other words, I don’t have things to do and errands to do and all that kind of stuff. Thankfully, Shelly can take care of a lot of that stuff. In my head I am very busy by way of things you mentioned, things, people you see online, the noise, the emulating that I want to do when I see something on Dribble from guys like Bill. That is, in it’s own sense, a way of being mentally busy where … This leads into my next question which is who are the people that you look up to and the ones that … When I ask that question to myself I’m like, “Well, who do I look up to? It’s the people who I wish I could emulate.” People who I want to rip off and in fun and tongue in cheek say, “I love that design. I’m going to steal it.” Who are the people in the creative space, they don’t have to necessarily be designers, they could be musicians or whatever, that bring to you a breath of fresh creative air and some inspiration and things that help bring you down from the business rather than add to it? Megan Gray: Yeah, a designer specifically that I’ve just always admired is Jesse BC or Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain. He used to be 31Three and I think he’s with Shopify now. I’ve always loved how he is just so absolutely masterful with his craft. His designs are how I found him. I always thought, “Wow, that’s a real designer. That’s real stuff.” Back when I was just doing whatever. Then I met him at Circles Conference and I was just blown away by how quiet and reserved and humbled he was. I introduced myself, and then awkwardly like I am, I said, “Oh, I don’t mean to keep you” and he’s like, “No, talk to me about what you’re doing, what you’re working on.” I was like, “What? What is this?” I’ve always just loved how he’s not particularly self-promoting. He’s not particularly out there trying to be the biggest and the best. He’s just quietly, comfortably kicking all kinds of ass in this way that feels really genuine and authentic to me. Then on a more of a business perspective and somebody who is doing what they do, I still continue to think of Jake Goldman, former boss at 10up, as one of my mentors who I still reach out to who is somebody who just does not care what other people think of him. Or he does, but it does not influence his decisions. He is just everyday, everyday he is the same person. He is consistent and true to himself. That is really inspiring to me because I struggle with that. A lot of us struggle with that. Those are two people that I think I can look to when I need a little inspiration or a fresh take. Lauren Mancke: That’s some really good advice. We’re really happy you were able to come on the show today, Megan. Thank you so much for all of the wisdom you’ve imparted. Do you have any other words for our listeners? Megan Gray: I don’t. I think the closing is just to block out the noise and keep doing you and it will get you wherever you’re trying to go, I think. Brian Gardner: There we go. Words from Megan Gray. Everybody at StudioPress FM. Thank you so much for listening. In the show notes, on the show page, we have all kinds of great links to Megan so you can follow her, you can look at her work. If you’re looking for someone to design something for you and you don’t mind pastels and beaches, then check out Megan’s portfolio. Megan Gray: Thank you so much. Brian Gardner: Until next week. Thanks again for listening.

On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Shay Bocks of Feast Design Company. Shay started hustlin’ in 2008 to connect her creative gifts and ravenous curiosity with the ambition of creative entrepreneurs. Nowadays, that dream has manifested into a full-time operation serving other dreamers just like herself. Within the Genesis community, Shay is best known for her Foodie Pro theme, one that has continually been the #1 selling theme on StudioPress. She followed that up with a theme called Brunch Pro, and just recently released another one called Cook’d Pro. In this 31-minute episode Brian Gardner, Lauren Mancke, and Shay Bocks discuss: How Shay’s first 7 jobs shaped what she does today Challenges she faces as a small business owner The popularity of the Foodie Pro Theme What makes a successful food blogging brand A recipe solution: the Cookbook Plugin Listen to StudioPress FM below ... Download MP3Subscribe by RSSSubscribe in iTunes The Show Notes Follow Feast Design Co. on Twitter FeastDesignCo.com Foodie Pro Theme Brunch Pro Theme Cookbook Plugin The Transcript The Business of Food Blogging: Is it Lucrative? Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Well, some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit, and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. You can find out more at Rainmaker.FM/Summit. We’ll be talking about Digital Commerce Summit in more detail as it gets closer, but for now, I’d like to let a few attendees from our past events speak for us. Attendee 1: For me, it’s just hearing from the experts. This is my first industry event, so it’s awesome to learn new stuff and also get confirmation that we’re not doing it completely wrong where I work. Attendee 2: The best part of the conference for me is being able to mingle with the people and realize that you have connections with everyone here. It feels like LinkedIn Live. I also love the parties after each day being able to talk to the speakers, talk to other people who are here for the first time, people who have been here before. Attendee 3: I think the best part of the conference for me is understanding how I can service my customers a little more easily. Seeing all the different facets and components of various enterprises then helps me pick the best tools. Jerod Morris: Hey, we agree — one of the biggest reasons we host the conference a every year is so that we can learn how to service our customers, people like you, more easily. Here are just a few more words from folks who have come to our past live events. Attendee 4: It’s really fun. I think it’s a great mix of beginner information and advanced information. I’m really learning a lot, and having a lot of fun. Attendee 5: The conference is great, especially because it’s a single-track conference where you don’t get distracted by, “Which session should I go to?” and, “Am I missing something?” Attendee 6: The training and everything, the speakers have been awesome, but I think the coolest aspect for me has been connecting with those people who are putting it on and then other attendees. Jerod Morris: That’s it for now. There’s a lot more to come on Digital Commerce Summit, and I really hope to see you there in October. Again, to get all the details and the very best deal on tickets, head over to Rainmaker.FM/Summit. Voiceover: StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as StudioPress founder Brian Gardner and VP of StudioPress Lauren Mancke share their expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform. Lauren Mancke: On this week’s episode, Brian and I will discuss the business of food blogging with Shay Bocks of Feast Design Company. Brian Gardner: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to StudioPress FM. I am your host, Brian Gardner, and I’m joined, as usual, with the vice president of StudioPress, Lauren Mancke. We’re excited to talk to Shay today because we’re continuing our series here where we’re talking to members and experts, mind you, of the Genesis community. We’re going to just jump right into it. Today, we’re joined by Shay Bocks of Feast Design Company. Shay started hustling in 2008 to connect her creative gifts and ravenous curiosity with the ambition of creative entrepreneurs. Nowadays, that dream has manifested into a full-time operation of serving other dreamers just like herself. Now, within the Genesis community, Shay is best known for her Foodie Pro Theme, one that has continually been the number one selling theme on StudioPress. She followed that up with a theme called Brunch Pro and just recently released a new third food-blogging theme called Cook’d Pro. Shay, it’s a huge pleasure for Lauren and I to have you on the show today. Welcome. Shay Bocks: Thank you. I’m super honored to be here with the likes of you guys. Y’all are my heroes, so this is awesome. Brian Gardner: Ah, the y’all has already started. Shay Bocks: Oh yeah, absolutely. Brian Gardner: I love talking to you because you have such a great accent. It’s awesome. I love it. It makes me smile. Lauren Mancke: I didn’t even notice. That’s how we talk around here. Shay Bocks: Exactly. Lauren knows what I mean. Brian Gardner: So I’m the outsider is what you’re saying? Shay Bocks: Yeah. Shay Bocks: Before we start talking to Shay, the Shay of 2016, I thought it would be fun to head back in time a little bit. Last week on Twitter, there was this hashtag going around called the #FirstSevenJobs. Everybody would Tweet the first seven jobs that they had, and then they used the hashtag. Anyone you were following, you can kind of see what they were up to in years past. Some people flipped hamburgers, and other people were DJs and stuff like that. Let’s talk about when you were younger — you’re still young — but younger than you are now. Before you became this Internet powerhouse, what did you do before this? How Shay’s First 7 Jobs Shaped What She Does Today Shay Bocks: I’m super excited you asked this. A lot of times, those hashtags go around, and it’s kind of silly what people do. But when I actually sat down and wrote out my first seven jobs, it was a realization as to how all of those previous, kind of insignificant jobs, that you start out with really informed what I’m doing now. It’s kind of cool to see how that turned out. The first job I had was actually when I was 15. I became a youth facilitator for a major nonviolence organization. I got to travel around the world with McGruff the Crime Dog, if you remember him. I also got to work with a lot of teens and teach adults how to work with teens, and we lobbied politicians. The biggest thing that I got out of that was that, when I got this insight into using creative solutions to solve problems because we worked with these teens to create media campaigns and we sat in think tanks with refugees from Uganda and different things like that, that had to be the best job that I could have ever hoped for, especially when I was only 15 years old. Brian Gardner: Sure. Shay Bocks: From there, I did something way more boring. I worked as a service coordinator for an HVAC company. I had to switch gears from that and do something a little bit more exciting. I went to New York to live as a live-in nanny. I worked for a single mom, who was really this big-shot corporate creative in New York — really got to see how she leveraged her skills for what she was doing at the time. I’m sure she’s still doing amazing things. After that job was over with, I came back to Chesapeake, Virginia, and worked as an office manager at a radiator repair shop. It was owned by friends of ours. I would say that one taught me how to work with difficult people and how to get invoices paid, but in a very nice way, to make sure the people were happy at the end of the day. Once I was done with that job, I actually left there to move to Texas with my husband at the time, and because we were in an area full of other Army wives, it was so difficult to find a job. I ended up working as a makeup artist at Glamour Shots. I would say that this job was least in-line with my own personality and my values. But now looking back, I can say that’s definitively where I learned how to use Photoshop and how to make a sale. Once my husband deployed and I had our baby — Steve deployed when our baby was two months old — I didn’t want to leave the baby, so I decided to become certified in Army childcare. I ran a 24-hour care for infants out of my home. At any given time, I would have four infants at my house, like all the time. That was my first lucrative business venture. Even though what I was doing was very different from what I’m doing now, I learned so much about business by doing that. I have to tell a short little story and say that the way I got most of my clients, or families that I worked with, was actually by turning a Myspace page into a website. I didn’t know much about web design at the time, but I knew how to manipulate the HTML in Myspace. When someone would come to my Myspace page, it looked like a website. It didn’t look anything like a Myspace page. That seemed to impress families for some reason. Brian Gardner: Lauren, did she just say Myspace? Shay Bocks: I did. Brian Gardner: Let’s talk GeoCities and Myspace on StudioPress FM. That’s awesome. Go on. Shay Bocks: That’s how I learned how to code, just being straight up with you. Brian Gardner: Hey, that’s what we want to hear. Shay Bocks: After doing that, I decided to start designing for other Army wives, and thinking back on it now, it was really kind of desperate and ridiculous. But I created graphics for Army wives so that, while their soldiers were gone it was like these little blinky graphics with pictures of them and their soldiers, and “Oh I love you,” “I miss you,” and all of that kind of stuff. Then, from there I realized that, “Well, these same Army wives are starting to build their own businesses, and they need websites.” There were a lot of bloggers, so I figured out how to create blog designs for these Army wives, which then went down a whole path that led me to where I am now. Brian Gardner: Yeah. I had two jobs, basically, before this web thing. The first was a manager at a convenient store, and that gave me the experience of customer service and how important that is. That is something that, for very obvious reasons, has come through when I started StudioPress and having to deal with people and why giving them the benefit of the doubt and being as helpful and generous as I can. Then, the second job after that was project manager at an architectural firm. That experience put me in front of a computer all day, which basically gave me access to teach myself everything I know now, which was, back in that day, all Microsoft Windows, Excel, Word, Outlook, and all that stuff. When I was kind of getting bored with what I was doing, I went online and started teaching myself things. So, yes, to your point, when you look back at the jobs that you had, in some fashion you could probably pull some nugget of how that helped you establish your Internet entrepreneurship that we all have. You know what I mean? Shay Bocks: Absolutely. I completely agree with you on that. Lauren Mancke: Shay, you’re clearly a talented designer, and you’re quite savvy from a business side of things. How did you decide to become an Internet entrepreneur? Why Shay Decided to Become an Internet Entrepreneur Shay Bocks: That’s a loaded question. I think the best Internet entrepreneurs get to call themselves that because they followed some kind of magnetic pull from the universe, I guess. That might be kind of a woo-woo way of explaining it. I know that, in my case, all I did was allowed myself to be curious and to dig in when I really didn’t know what I was doing — then to recognize opportunities that intersected with the path that I was already on. I was open to success and so it has found me — and it’s still finding me. I think I am just at the beginning of this journey, but that’s not to discredit the intense amount of work I’ve put into my business or how I’ve leveraged my skillset to do it. I guess that’s just my attempt at a balanced answer for you. Lauren Mancke: I know having kids and being a single mom is probably difficult. What other challenges do you face with running your business? Challenges Shay Faces As a Small Business Owner Shay Bocks: I think I have a very unique perspective that’s valuable to the audience I serve. My current challenge is being able to scale that and to build a team that serves even more bloggers seamlessly, just as I would. For me, I want to do so many things. My list is big. But you’re right — I’m a mom, and a single mom at that, without a lot of support on the home front. Being able to balance this ambition with the recognition of what I can actually get done in a day is really hard. That’s where my team is coming in, and I can’t even begin to describe what a difference that’s made for me and the people that we’re serving. Speaking of my team. Last month, I got to promote my creative assistant to full-time designer, and I’m super excited because he’s coming with me to Circles next month. You’ll get to meet him while we’re there. Brian Gardner: That’s awesome. I know last year that was the first time you and I got a chance to meet face to face. Lauren Mancke: Yeah and us too. Brian Gardner: Yeah. Lauren, unfortunately, can’t join us this year because of family reasons. Shay Bocks: Oh pooh. Lauren Mancke: I’m in the family way. Brian Gardner: Yeah. You’ve got a couple buns in the oven, now that we’re going with this food and baking concept. We will definitely miss you, Lauren, there at Circles conference, but Shay, I cannot wait to see you again. Shay Bocks: Same here. Brian Gardner: We’ll get to, Shay, how you and I kind of met online here in a minute. As an outsider looking in, I’m always fascinated, and we just talked to Rebecca at Web Savvy Marketing about this, there are things about people that I see from my perspective that really make me happy and proud to call people as friends and fellow entrepreneurs. Watching your journey from when we first met as struggling single mom trying to make money and kind of figure this out, to where you’re at now, having developed a team, multiple products. You just announced some stuff, which we’ll also get to, and knowing the road ahead for you is probably way longer than it is behind you, it’s just so fun. As a cheerleader, kind of sit on the sidelines of your life and your journey and just watch that stuff go down. See how things play out and pictures that you post. Having people to your place to do pictures and staging, all of that stuff. I’m so happy and proud of where you’ve gone, and I cannot wait to see where you go — quick aside there. Let’s go back because I want to talk about Foodie. I mean that’s the elephant in the room. At some point, we’re all going to look back and say that just changed and revolutionized food blogging as it is now. Foodie Pro was a theme that you designed. It’s really where our paths crossed on the Internet. I think you were on my radar, and I saw a link to something. Someone Tweeted something. I went there, and I instantly said, “That is a theme we have to have on StudioPress.” I don’t remember the exact chain of events, but I’m sure I probably just emailed you and said, “Hey. I’m Brian, founder of StudioPress. Want to sell your theme? See a lot of opportunity. Are you interested?” From that, it’s probably a pretty obvious question to answer here, but what is the effect that Foodie itself has had on your business as it is right now? The Popularity of the Foodie Pro Theme Shay Bocks: Yeah, absolutely. That moment that you just talked about, where you reached out to me and said, “Hey, I want to sell this on StudioPress,” that was a pivotal moment in my journey. I was already on the path towards working more with food bloggers. I think I saw where things were headed with this industry, and I wanted to be a part of that. But it was really getting Foodie on StudioPress and opening that up to such a bigger audience and such a wider breadth of online contributors that really kind of set all of this into motion. I think just being able to have something like Foodie online in a mass setting for all of these newbie food bloggers who are just starting out, who don’t even know yet if they have something to contribute to the online world, but being able to say, “Hey, this is a theme that was built for me, and this is how I can get started.” I think that has been tremendous, at least for the food bloggers I’ve talked to. They have at least a starting point. Once they have that WordPress installed, the Genesis Framework installed, and the Foodie child theme installed, they know that now they can just write something, press publish, and worry about the rest later, figure it out later. Foodie is giving them that start, which I think is incredible. Brian Gardner: So quick aside here — Lauren and I, every month we get a report of sales on StudioPress, and every month we think to ourselves, “Is this the month?” Lauren, correct me if I’m wrong. I think there was one month at one point. Lauren Mancke: Yeah, there was one month. Brian Gardner: Every month we wait to get the report. We’re like, “Ah, she did it again. Foodie’s the number one selling theme on StudioPress,” which, of course, is not us being selfish. It’s just more of a fun game than anything. So food blogging — that’s obviously something that we want to talk about today. It’s quite the rage, and has been probably for at least two or three years. Now, I don’t necessarily think it’s in a saturated state, but it’s sort of getting close. But it’s so popular, and people are still doing it. People are still starting it. It seems like every day people are starting up a new food blog. A lot of popular sites out there, such as Pinch of Yum, Minimalist Baker, run by John and Dana. John’s a good friend of mine. Cookie and Kate is another one. What’s the deal? The whole food-blogging theme, just talk to us about what it is and why it’s such a rage. Why a Personal Brand Is Essential to Building a Successful Food Blog Shay Bocks: Yeah. I think food blogging may be big, and you’re right — some people may even say it’s an industry that’s getting over-saturated. I actually hope to hear more voices getting into this food conversation. There are so many food blogs out there, but you know why? It’s because of the mom that’s sitting down every Sunday afternoon wondering what the hell she’s going to get into her kids bellies this week, or the millions of people who are suffering with chronic conditions and are looking at their diets to help them tackle the challenges that they’re facing. There’s so much room in this space because eating is a need that humans will always have. Discovering ways to use food to make life easier, happier, sexier, and even divinely inspired, that’s where food bloggers come in. I don’t think people realize how incredibly influential this industry is. These bloggers are the ones behind the recipes and magazines that you read, the cookbooks you rely on, on the cooking shows you’re watching, and especially in the recipes that you seek out on Pinterest. Brands notice, too. That’s why so many food bloggers are doing so well online. Lauren Mancke: My husband, he actually went to culinary school, just for fun, so he’s a classically trained chef. People are always telling us that we should start a food blog because I can take the pictures, he can cook the food. And is it really all that simple? I think about how much time and effort that would take, and I think it’s a common misconception about building a successful food blog is that it’s that easy. What do you think about that? Shay Bocks: Yeah. I definitely have to agree with you. It’s not some fly-by-night operation. I would say that I think you should start a food blog because I would certainly read it. I would enjoy it. I think it would be valuable to a lot of people, but I would not say it’s all that easy to do. It’s easy to do as a hobby. If you’re looking to really make an impact with your blog, it’s not a hobby. In order to really build an influential food blog, you have to have a personal brand. A lot of work goes into building a personal brand. That’s just my take on it. Getting started is easy, but actually making an impact with your blog, that’s not easy. The people who are doing it, they need to be recognized for the work they’re putting into their blogs. Brian Gardner: One of my favorite decisions you’ve made, and you and I had many conversations during the success of Foodie when it started out — “What’s next for Shay? What’s phase two? What’s the next thing?” We have kind of joked — at some point, that ship will sail, right? Shay Bocks: Right. Brian Gardner: We talked about just different ideas of themes that you could do next, so one of the things you did that made me super proud, and I was just so excited, was when you decided to go with the second theme, also food blogging. At that point, I think you kind of said, “This is where I’m going to plant my flag. I’m not going to try to just go all over and be everything. I’m going to become the food blog person.” As I mentioned earlier on the show, we’ve got a third theme that just came out called Cook’d. It’s been fun to watch you stick with that and ride that horse further past Foodie by introducing a couple of other well-designed themes. Then, of course, you renamed your business Feast Design Company, obviously to go along with the food-blogging theme, which I thought was another brilliant move. Lauren Mancke: I love that. Brian Gardner: Yeah. Shay Bocks: Thank you. Brian Gardner: Kudos to you. Lauren Mancke: I saw that, and I was like, “Oh yes, I love that.” Shay Bocks: That means a lot to me that you say that. We went through a lot of hemming and hawing over that, about what we should call ourselves. It’s hard to name anything. I just kept saying to myself, “Feast your eyes on this.” The word ‘feast’ just kept coming up, and because it’s such food-related and reminds people of jubilant Thanksgivings or a time when people are coming together, that’s what we went with. Brian Gardner: Okay. Walk us through some of the typical, and sometimes very lucrative, monetization strategies. I mentioned, Pinch of Yum, they have a course. John and Dana at Minimalist Baker, they have things that they’re doing. There are a lot of opportunities for people outside of just the advertisement or things like that. How can people make money with the food blog? How to Make Money with a Food Blog Shay Bocks: Yeah. We get new food bloggers in, and they’re like, “Oh, I want to monetize. Let me put some Google Ads on my website,” and I have to kind of sit down and educate them and say, “You’re not really going to make money that way.” Ads are valuable for blogs that have a ton of traffic, but we’re starting to see food bloggers branch out into other avenues of monetizing, which is really exciting. You see sites like I Am Baker, where she has a huge partnership with a big brand, McCormick Seasonings, and she’s putting out content left and right. That’s supported by that brand that supports her online business, but it’s also extremely valuable to the people that she’s writing for. Then we have, you mentioned Pinch of Yum and Minimalist Baker. They do make a lot of money on ad revenue because they have the traffic to support it, but they’re also diversified revenue. They have products of their own. They’re using affiliate links. They’re just tapping into every lucrative avenue they can get their hands on, and it’s working for them, which is wonderful. Then you have other big hitters like Pioneer Woman. She started as a blogger, and she leveraged her personal brand to put out a cookbook. I think she has her own Food Network show. There are endless possibilities. What I’m looking forward to seeing is even more creative solutions, stuff we haven’t even seen before. Brian Gardner: If you’re looking for those types of ideas — I know John and Dana do this at Minimalist Baker, I’m not sure how often — but a lot of these popular food blogs are doing the transparency thing with their monthly reports, right? Where they go top to bottom and actually show you how diversified their income stream is. There’s things that even I see on there where I’m like, “Wow, I would have never thought of trying to monetize that way.” A lot of them are even supported by web-hosting companies for people who are searching for how to start a food blog, right? They go through and walk you through, and they recommend themes, such as the ones that you have with us on StudioPress and hosting, so there’s that and the obvious courses. Food Photography School, I think, is a course. I can’t remember if that’s Pinch of Yum? Shay Bocks: Both Pinch of Yum and Minimalist Baker have photography courses, which is awesome. Brian Gardner: Yeah. Education and training — if you have thousands of followers that are trying to basically replicate your success, that’s a great opportunity to basically teach them how you did what you did, which gives them value and you revenue. Lots of opportunities to make money in food blogs. Shay Bocks: Absolutely. Lauren Mancke: Say I was going to start a food blog, or have some sort of food-blogging aspect to a website, what do you think some of the obstacles I would face would be in order to make it big? Obstacles to Growing a Big, Successful Food Blog Shay Bocks: I think the first thing that I see most new food bloggers doing is that they’re trying too much to be just like the people who are successful at food blogging. Brian, you mentioned a second ago that Pinch of Yum and Minimalist Baker have some education and training aspects to their products. I think those kinds of things are incredibly valuable, but the problem comes in when a new food blogger tries to copy exactly what they’re doing. New food bloggers coming into the realm need to take that information, learn from it, but then also figure out what’s making them unique. There may be a 100,000 paleo blogs out there, but your unique perspective is what’s going to make your blog different, what’s going to make it stand out, or what’s going to make people want to link to it. What people are going to want to consume and eat up. Brian Gardner: No pun intended, right? Shay Bocks: Yeah, exactly. Lauren Mancke: Pun intended. Brian Gardner: She walked right into that one. Shay Bocks: Yeah. I think it’s really important to set yourself apart, but doing it in a way that’s not competitive. This blue ocean strategy — if anyone knows about me — it’s being able to have a unique perspective, something valuable to present to the world, but in a way that’s really collaborative with others in the space. Brian Gardner: Yeah. Food blogging isn’t the only space. We even see that within the Genesis ecosystem and people who are selling themes. The unique voice, I’m so glad that you alluded to that. That is so important because so many people just try to replicate success without there being any kind of unique positioning. Back in the day, I don’t know if you know who this is, but Jeremy Shoemaker, a guy named ShoeMoney back in the day, made a ton of money doing stuff with the ringtones. So everybody wanted to be the next ShoeMoney and do the exact same thing. So all of a sudden, you had a bunch of cloned sites. Even back when Darren Rowse was starting out with ProBlogger and all of that, everyone, kind of like a flock of sheep, just tried to basically do the same thing on a different domain name. So I think, now, in this even not so saturated market with food blogging, there’s still so many opportunities. You even mentioned it earlier, just the different types of sort of layers within that where you can create — whether it’s paleo, whether it’s this or that, or how it applies to wellness, like Katie is doing at Wellness Mama, just kind of how that allows you the opportunity to serve a very specific audience. Maybe it’s gluten-free. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s desserts. Food blogging is a big, big ocean. We would encourage anyone who was looking to start a food blog to just find a unique element. Maybe it applies to you as a person and your personality. Maybe there’s some flamboyance involved, so you’re like RedHotChef.com or something like that, where you bring a certain kind of flavor to it. Okay. Give our listeners who are interested in food blogging some trade secrets. In other words, what are some things that they should focus on when they are trying to start their successful food-blogging brand? Where to Focus Your Food-Blogging Brand: A Unique Perspective and a Specific Audience Shay Bocks: I’d say the number one point is, what I said before, building your personal brand and focusing on what makes your prospective unique. Second, I would say speaking to a specific reader or target audience. When I do strategy sessions with potential clients or some of the people we work with on themes, we get really specific about who the target audience is. I don’t mean 35- to 45-year-old women with a college education. I mean like what are this person’s deep desires, fears? What are her mantras? What does she get up in the morning for? What makes her frustrated, sad, or discouraged? Then speaking to that one particular person in everything that you write or any image you put up online or anything. Have that person in your mind when you’re putting anything up online. Then, I would say the last point is just following your intuition about what opportunities make the most sense in building your own online empire. Not all solutions are going to be right for you, so you have to have kind of a gut check with anything you do. A Recipe Solution: The Cookbook Plugin Brian Gardner: Okay. Here’s where I’m going to jump in and ask the bonus question: The Cookbook Plugin. Yesterday, you made a big announcement online with the folks at WP Site Care about a plugin I knew about for some time. In fact, you and I had separate conversations about something we were going to consider doing, but never did. For our listeners, I’m going to read this straight from your sales page, just so they know what we are talking about. Here’s what Shay and friends have to say. “Start and grow your blog with a recipe plugin that actually works. All the existing WordPress recipe plugins are busted, poorly supported, hard to use, or just plan ugly. We’ve built a feature-rich recipe solution that is crafted with care, well-built, it looks beautiful, and works the way that food bloggers do. You can get excited about publishing new recipes again.” Care to go more into this, Shay? Shay Bocks: Well, it’s interesting, when you say it, that sounds a little harsh. I will say that there are a lot of well-meaning developers out there who are trying to solve the issue of recipe plugins for food bloggers. Anyone familiar with this space knows the past few months have been really volatile when it comes to recipe plugins. Some plugins are being dropped completely. Some are just not being well-supported. The ones that are being well-supported are just kind of really overly bloated, ugly, or not easy to use. Those are harsh judgments, but these are the things we’re hearing from our customers on a daily basis. They want to know, “Which recipe plugin do you recommend?” I have to honestly say I can’t in good faith recommend any of them. I’ll tell them what their options are. I’ll tell them what I think the pros and cons are, but I don’t feel comfortable about any of them. It was in this moment of frustration, really — actually, a few years of frustration — talking with some colleagues over at WP Site Care, figuring out that what people need is a supported plugin that’s going to stick around, be well-developed, and be beautiful. So we decided to build it. We decided we’re tired of waiting for other people to do it. It’s time for us to do something about this. I think bloggers are tired of every week trying to figure out, “Should I switch plugins? What’s the right software to install this week?” Bloggers need something consistent and something that’s really dedicated to working the way they do. That’s why we started on this path. We’ve got a solid plugin that is in its final stages of just wrapping it up, getting it tested, and getting it ready for everyone to use. We decided to go ahead and announce it yesterday and let everyone know that it’s coming. We’re excited about what this going to mean for recipe publishers. Brian Gardner: To me, it makes a lot of sense. We do the same thing at Copyblogger or excuse me, Rainmaker Digital is our new name. If we get frustrated with a solution that’s out there or we need something for our own internal use, we just go ahead and build it. Then if it makes sense, we release that to the public. For you, so many people who are using the food-blogging themes that you’re designing, even from your prospective, it probably makes it easier to have the control over what does this plugin or the functionality for what most food bloggers are going to need. It’s easy to work with that because you built it rather than having to be frustrated with the reliance on somebody else’s development, and sometimes changing code, markup, or whatever. It’s kind of like in-housing the solution. Obvious reasons include you guys get to make money on it yourself, and things like that. Then, it just makes it much more of a pitch to say, “Hey, I recommend this because it works well with the stuff that we’ve built.” Kudos to you guys for ceasing that opportunity and running with it. Shay Bocks: Thank you. I want to say #truth. All of that is wonderful. I completely agree with you. Lauren Mancke: I’ve really enjoyed all your thoughts, Shay. Do you have anything else to add? Shay Bocks: Just that I’m honored to be able to connect food bloggers with the amazing tools over at StudioPress. Of the major contributions in this space, you guys are such a big hitter, and I so appreciate how you’ve embraced me and my people. Brian Gardner: Yeah. Well, that’s going to continue to go even further. I have some ideas that, Shay, you and I will talk about offline, just about how to leverage the stuff that you’ve built, the stuff that we’ve built, our audience, and how to put that together and really present a unified front when it comes to food blogging and people building their personal brands for that. Speaking of personal brands, I have a question for those who are listening in. Are you looking to build a better brand for your blog? Well, Shay has created an actionable five-part challenge, and with that, you’ll have just the right tactics you need to build a digital design and brand. This will help lead you to a profitable website — and best of all, it’s free. Sign up, and get your first challenge delivered immediately. For more information, you can check it out over at FeastDesignCo.com/5-days. We’ll also include a link to that on the show page. If you like what you heard on today’s show, you can find more episodes of StudioPress FM at, you guessed it, StudioPress.FM. You can also help Lauren and I hit the main stage by subscribing to the show on iTunes. It’s a great way to never, ever miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next week.

Angular Remote Conf   02:01 - Roy Sivan Introduction Twitter GitHub Blog The WP Crowd Podcast 02:23 - Ryan Sullivan Introduction Twitter WP Site Care LoopConf 02:40 - WordPress and Angular 05:00 - Authentication and Security OAuth A Brief Introduction to WordPress Nonces Hire Otto 07:38 - Data and Plugging Angular Into APIs AppPresser 12:54 - The REST API and Plugins; Custom Plugins Help Scout Asana Harvest Chargify 21:23 - Displaying Data in WordPress Using Angular Stripe Keen IO 25:01 - Tutorials AngularJS and WordPress: Building a Single-Page Application with Roy Sivan JavaScript for WordPress Angular-Wordpress-Theme AngularJS-Boilerplate Josh Pollock angular-wp-front-end WordPress.tv   Picks Mailgun (Lukas) Geoff Goodman updated the embedded view on Plunker (Lukas) Procrastinate on Purpose: 5 Permissions to Multiply Your Time by Rory Vaden (Chuck) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (Chuck) Postmatic (Roy) Caldera Forms (Roy) Calypso (Ryan) AppPresser (Ryan) LoopConf (Ryan)

Angular Remote Conf   02:01 - Roy Sivan Introduction Twitter GitHub Blog The WP Crowd Podcast 02:23 - Ryan Sullivan Introduction Twitter WP Site Care LoopConf 02:40 - WordPress and Angular 05:00 - Authentication and Security OAuth A Brief Introduction to WordPress Nonces Hire Otto 07:38 - Data and Plugging Angular Into APIs AppPresser 12:54 - The REST API and Plugins; Custom Plugins Help Scout Asana Harvest Chargify 21:23 - Displaying Data in WordPress Using Angular Stripe Keen IO 25:01 - Tutorials AngularJS and WordPress: Building a Single-Page Application with Roy Sivan JavaScript for WordPress Angular-Wordpress-Theme AngularJS-Boilerplate Josh Pollock angular-wp-front-end WordPress.tv   Picks Mailgun (Lukas) Geoff Goodman updated the embedded view on Plunker (Lukas) Procrastinate on Purpose: 5 Permissions to Multiply Your Time by Rory Vaden (Chuck) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (Chuck) Postmatic (Roy) Caldera Forms (Roy) Calypso (Ryan) AppPresser (Ryan) LoopConf (Ryan)

Angular Remote Conf   02:01 - Roy Sivan Introduction Twitter GitHub Blog The WP Crowd Podcast 02:23 - Ryan Sullivan Introduction Twitter WP Site Care LoopConf 02:40 - WordPress and Angular 05:00 - Authentication and Security OAuth A Brief Introduction to WordPress Nonces Hire Otto 07:38 - Data and Plugging Angular Into APIs AppPresser 12:54 - The REST API and Plugins; Custom Plugins Help Scout Asana Harvest Chargify 21:23 - Displaying Data in WordPress Using Angular Stripe Keen IO 25:01 - Tutorials AngularJS and WordPress: Building a Single-Page Application with Roy Sivan JavaScript for WordPress Angular-Wordpress-Theme AngularJS-Boilerplate Josh Pollock angular-wp-front-end WordPress.tv   Picks Mailgun (Lukas) Geoff Goodman updated the embedded view on Plunker (Lukas) Procrastinate on Purpose: 5 Permissions to Multiply Your Time by Rory Vaden (Chuck) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (Chuck) Postmatic (Roy) Caldera Forms (Roy) Calypso (Ryan) AppPresser (Ryan) LoopConf (Ryan)

Host Ryan Sullivan.  I’m a big fan of WordPress and I started WP Site Care. When I’m not behind a computer you can find me playing superheroes with my three boys, or trying to spend quality time the my amazing better half, Jackie. Utah is home, and I love to spend time in the mountains […] The post Episode 078: Lifestyle Business appeared first on DradCast.

With us this week, we have Ryan Sullivan and Rob Neu to talk all about WordPress (and WordPress business). Together they run WP Site Care (of which Ryan is the Founder), Flagship WP (where they’re both Co-Founders), and they also organize the new developer-centric WordPress conference, LoopConf. Show Links WP Site Care Flagship LoopConf Hybrid […]

  Ryan Sullivan started out as a freelancer building websites for clients until his freelance business got so busy he no longer had time to go to work. So he quit his day job and founded WP Site Care, a WordPress maintenance business that takes the stress out of WordPress and turns technology into an asset instead of a barrier. The post Episode #54 Ryan Sullivan from WP SiteCare appeared first on WP Elevation.