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I led a remote WordPress website management company to ~$137K MRR. AMA!

  1. 2

    Joe, what tools and processes have you used for managing community, onboarding customers, customer services, etc.?

    1. 1

      Yo!

      This is a pretty broad question that would probably take me a couple hours of podcasting to answer fully haha. But I'll give you the tools for each area at least here.

      MANAGING COMMUNITY

      ONBOARDING & SUPPORT

      I probably don't know the whole operational stack since my team manages all of this, but I do know the key pieces.

      1. 1

        Appreciate the mention!

  2. 2

    Hey again Joe, looking forward to the summit next week.

    What are the strategies/campaigns/decisions you credit towards driving the most 'new business'?

    1. 1

      Yo, Ron!

      I'd say our top 3 drivers of new business over the years have been (in order):

      1. Content marketing
      2. Affiliate marketing
      3. Community building, earning a good reputation, referrals

      I thought it was also important to note that one of our biggest drivers of growth (not from new clients, but current clients) has been expansion revenue. This means helping white-label partners add more care plans, upselling current care plan clients to more expensive care plans, etc. This doesn't drive new revenue but as we've growth, our Client Success team has made this a significant percentage of total monthly revenue growth.

  3. 2

    Yo Joe! Can't believe I missed the news about you passing on the CEO baton. Congratulations on that milestone.

    Other than your WPMRR work, do you see yourself starting any other large projects (even if purely creative and non-monetary) any time soon?

    1. 2

      Thanks, Channing! Just following in the footsteps of folks like Ryan Hoover :)

      Ways I've filled my time since taking a step back from day-to-day operations at the company:

      PERSONAL

      • Spend more time with my family, being more present in being the best husband/father I can be
      • Spend more time in MasterClass
      • Read more sci fi
      • Watch as much soccer as I can

      PROFESSIONAL

      I'll also add that I know large projects, whether purely creative and non-monetary OR professional will come but it's beautiful to have the time and space to let that happen organically. Many entrepreneurs jump into something new right away and while that works out in some cases, I've heard many that would urge folks to take their time. That's my mood right now :)

  4. 1

    Hi Joe - what new trends or ideas do you think are the most interesting or show the most potential that you would consider adopting? Is there any one technology or strategy you are looking into adopting, or general area of interest? Sorry if the question is a bit vague but I'm trying to not unintentionally box in responses.

    1. 1

      Hey, Eben!

      There are a few areas that have really drawn my attention recently that I'd like to learn more about:

      • No code
      • Freemium newsletters
      • Community building

      I'm giving the last of those a try now with the WPMRR Community. I've heard a lot about all 3 in the IH community recently and I think all 3 have good potential for business building given my non-technical background!

  5. 1

    What was the worst investment you made building WP Buffs to its current state?

    1. 1

      Hey, Quinn! In the journey of growing a company, we've made plenty of negative-ROI investments. To a point, this is necessary to experiment in different areas, learn what works (by learning what doesn't) and moving through the growth curve.

      The one investment that stands out to me that to this day has flopped is investing in a company/sales video for WP Buffs. We've tried 2x to do this, once with an animated video and once using more visuals from sites like artgrid.io. We've probably spent a combinted ~$6k on videos with no final product we've been happy with enough to go with and make public.

      If you have any recommendations for folks doing remote video work, I'd love an intro haha. Love this video for Super 2.0, something like this would be really cool for us :)

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