Wordpress Leaks

Prior to selling my web agency, HotPress Web, last year and starting uGurus, a new venture to help web professionals become more profitable, I pitched a lot of website projects.

My proposal folder has over 950 bids in it. Of course I didn’t win all of these, but I did close several million dollars in website deals over my tenure. Our typical project was in the ballpark of $20,000. When I started out, I had a hard time winning $3,000 deals.

Until I learned how to sell and build value, I wasn’t getting paid enough. Sometimes it would take everything I could muster to win a project for $1,200. And I would end up promising $3,000 in services.

I was also spending a lot of time pitching business that never panned out. I had a hard time winning 1 in 10 bids. The time suck was draining away my hours to be productive outside of pitching business–like actually getting project work done.

I was frustrated. I began looking for answers.

The Status Quo

The typical process for me looked something like this:

1. A prospect calls me asking for website services
2. I ask what they need–a little info about their business and what kind of features and functionality they are thinking about
3. I demo what we can do (show the technology of the hour: WordPress,Drupal, Shopify,BigCommerce, LightCMS, Business Catalyst, etc)
4. I deep dive into the different functionality they need on their project and show them how it can be done
5. I send a proposal
6. I start following up

Inevitably I would get into some follow up conversations with the prospective customer about my platform of choice. Every time we would spend countless hours deep diving into the technology.

“Can it do this? What about…?”

Eventually the customer would tell me that the other company bidding on the project is using a different technology, usually something similar to what I was pushing.

Then it would happen: the technology debate.

• Is WordPress better than Drupal?
• Is Opensource better than Software as a Service?
• Who has control over the site?
• How is it backed up?
• Where will it be hosted?
• etc etc etc

The worst part about it was that most of this software we were debating was free and open. There was no cost associated with the platform. We were spending all of this energy debating something that really had no bearing on my expertise and the value I brought to the table.

Before I knew it, the customer was choosing between software platforms and not which company was going to provide the best solution.

As WordPress became more popular, it got worse. The technology debate softened, but then all of my competition was offering the same technology solution that I was. Instead of debating about the technology, I lost differentiation.

An Epiphany

As I sold more projects, worked with more businesses, visited more offices, I started to see patterns. I began thinking about what I was really doing.

Was web design just that? Designing web pages and loading content? Was it programming and open source and PHP this and .NET that? Or were we doing something much bigger for our customers?

I always assumed that when a customer called me for a website, that the problem they are trying to solve was: getting a new website. But it’s not.

Businesses are looking to solve sales, marketing, logistics, customer service, or public relations problems. Websites just happen to be a great solution to problems in those areas (and many others).

Zap! (Lightning strike.)

When business owners call and ask about getting a website, they are trying to solve an issue that goes beyond their request for some design and HTML. They couldn’t actually care less what platform you use. No matter how great WordPress is.

The #1 Problem

So I changed my approach. At first it was subtle adjustments.

I started listening more intently. I asked a lot of questions to try and get to the root problem that the customer faced in their business.

Let me provide some examples:

Old Approach:

• Customer: “We need to be able to update the content on our website.”
• Me: “Content management is what WordPress is all about.”

• Outcome: Sell a WordPress solution and compete with everyone else doing the same thing.

New Approach:

• Customer: “We need to be able to update the content on our website.”
• Me: “What kind of content do you plan on updating?”

• Customer: “Our products change quarterly. We also want to blog.”
• Me: “Why do your products change quarterly? And who is responsible for blogging?”

• Customer: “That is when our catalog gets updated. We haven’t thought about who will blog, we just know we need one.”
• Me: “Is it necessary for anyone to be aware of your catalog being updated, or do you just need the content changed? And besides knowing you need a blog, what is the problem that needs solving?”

• Customer: “Yes! We’d love our customers to get an email for a promotion each time our catalog is updated. We’d like to attract more customers through our blog – you know, let people know what we are up to.”

• Etc.

• Outcome: Eventually create a compelling solution for a dynamic website project, content management training, ghostwriter with SEO strategy for blog content, email marketing template creation, email marketing training, and some custom content development.

Instead of taking my prospects “stated needs” as absolute, I question all of them. Eventually they will fess up to the real problem they are most likely trying to solve: getting more customers.

The more I practiced this technique, the higher priced my proposals got (and the more I won).

My clients ate it up. No one else I was competing against talked like this. Everyone sold to the technology.

The Challenge

So I started to give myself challenges. I would see how long I could go with a client without ever mentioning the technology we planned to build on.

At first it was a meeting. Then two. By the time I sold my agency, on most deals I would go through seven or eight interactions in the sales cycle without ever talking about a lick of technology.

If you are having a hard time building value for your website services, then I have a challenge for you: stop selling the technology.

See how long you can go without mentioning WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Shopify, or whatever your technology poison is.

Original from: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/speckboy-design-magazine/~3/Ldoc74kTgOY/

It is a well known fact that WordPress is the most popular CMS today, and it powers websites from different niche and genres. In fact, even though it once began as a blogging tool, WordPress today has risen to great heights, catering to the needs of news websites, online portfolios, eCommerce sites as well as corporate websites, among many others.

However, in the light of such diverse uses, you have to wonder: has WordPress out-grown its blogging platform status? John O’Nolan has attempted to answer this question by talking about his new project called Ghost.

What is Ghost all about?

All can be traced back to Matt Mullenweg’s quote at State of the Word 2012: “66% of [users] said they use WordPress as a CMS and not as a blog.”

While there is no denying the fact that the beauty of WordPress lies in its ability to serve a wide audience, there is also a downside attached to it: WordPress is becoming more and more CMS-like, and its real prowess of being a publishers’ and bloggers’ best friend is getting lost amongst all this.

Of course, WordPress is probably better than most CMSs. However, it probably is no longer custom-made for blog publishing, and this very characteristic (or lack thereof) urged O’Nolan to com up with a solution, and he came up with Ghost.

Alright, so what exactly will Ghost do?

The initial plan for Ghost was to fork WordPress itself. Here is how O’Nolan describes his plan:

1. Revamped Dashboard and Interface: Ghost, according to O’Nolan, would have a Dashboard built for content publishers and bloggers. Similarly, the interface will make life easier by allowing you to “manage posts by actually seeing them”.
2. Writing Screen: Ghost is said to have a writing screen with a split view. But that’s not all. Unlike WordPress, you will not have to hop between keyboard and mouse to apply formatting. Plus, if you fancy Markdown, you’re gonna love this even more!
3. Less Tweaks: Ghost aims to do away with stuff such as admin color schemes, QuickPress, PressThis, Email-to-Post, Remote Publishing, etc.
4. No Native Commenting System: Ghost will have support for third-party systems, such as Disqus or Livefyre, but by its own accord, it will not have a native commenting mechanism.
5. Limited Backwards Compatibility: I’ll let O’Nolan speak about this himself, “Ghost would have cut-off points with major versions, allowing core developers to remove old code from the database and evolve the platform to allow it to improve. No one expects an app written for OSX 10.4 Tiger to work on OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion.”
6. Lesser Plugins: Again, another step towards being less bloated.
7. Truly, Open Source: The development would be open, and Ghost will be an entirely open source project. Since O’Nolan wrote that “Ghost would be free as in Mozilla, not as in Automattic”, I suppose Ghost may probably have an MPL, not GPL.

And… how well has Ghost been received?

Owing to the volume of positive feedback O’Nolan has received, he has stated that he will most likely pursue the development of Ghost and bring it into existence. Which is very exciting!

As of now, on the basis of suggestions from others and feedback to his initial idea, O’Nolan has talked about three potential routes:

• As a WordPress Fork: This has been the initial concept: make use of the WP codebase, and evolve it into a project that serves content creators.
• As a WP Plugin: Probably change /wp-admin to /ghost — easy to deploy and create, and doesn’t offend WordPress loyalists either.
• As a New Entity: To be fair, if you are forking WordPress, you’ll end up changing the codebase too much, and if you are really going to do that much editing, you might as well create a new software! (O’Nolan attributes this option to the responses at Hacker News).

Once again, it is still a concept, and the final route is obviously likely to change.

To Sum it Up…

Confession: I like the idea of Ghost.

Reason: Don’t get me wrong; I love WordPress! But of late, I’ve been favoring Habari and Wolf over WordPress for some of my smaller web projects. Why? Simply because I find the WordPress editor to be super-annoying at times, and the CMS itself is only one step short of becoming another semi-bloated Drupal. For running stuff such as a personal blog, WordPress is no longer my first choice.

What do you think of Ghost? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Original from: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/speckboy-design-magazine/~3/5SXSA3xeGWI/

It’s been almost twenty years since the first branded Content Management Systems (CMSs) hit the market. They were an unbearable kluge back then, and didn’t work well; but hey, if you had a bajillion dollars to toss at MarchFirst or any one of hundreds of other pre-dot-bomb era consultancies, you could have a half-baked Web CMS, delivered by a team of twenty dot-commers living large on VC funds, and talkin’ you up in Red Herring or Business 2.0 Magazine. Hey, who doesn’t want that?

The fast times flourished, and whoever could spew the most syllables per second of consultant-speak won the CMS implementation gig (seriously). Could designers design with it? Nope. Were writers or sitebuilders creating content with them? Not with WordPerfect or Claris Homepage in the next room.
Nope, CMSs’ usefulness was often an afterthought, when it came to users and customers. The complex and powerful “CMS” was useful for Web 1.0 investors though, as a shock and awe tool to generate a fast buck.

Pressure by the CIO to “use the software or else,” combined with a healthy dose of self-thought and fear, uncertainty and doubt by the ones supposed to be using the software (“He must know what he’s doing”) was cause enough for employees to be whisked off to week-long training camps (at company expense) to figure out how to get this line of type, to be part of that document, granting those people the ability to view this version, and those other people to edit, annnd ohhh crap. The server’s down. Crap, crap, crap. OK, do over.

The software wasn’t all bad; the basics were there, they were just often unsupported, as consultancies were busier lining up clients than servicing the ones already signed.

OK, you get that. So fast-forward out of that pre-2k mashugana.

Financial crashes have a way of humbling folks, and reminding them that tools need to be – I don’t know, the word “useful” comes to mind. The post 2k survivors did so for that reason. Painful as it was, dot-bombination was a natural filtration of the software industry. Useful won out then; and it’s winning now.

Subsequent financial crashes have kept CMSs focused on usability and utility. Pressure to compete due to shrinking budgets, a licensing revolution, social networking, integration with CRM, marketing analytics, mobile apps, server & cloud-based options; these and many other factors continue to push the CMS industry forward.

Exponential industry growth for both Open Source and Proprietary systems isn’t coming from the bottom-line get-rich-quick venture capitalists; it’s coming due to the most important investors of all: customers. Users, who need their software to be useful.

Usefulness is winning. Form is following function. Streamlined, purposeful applications and extensions, based on business needs are being accepted; creative freedom is now the expectation, not just a “want,” and finally, those delivering CMSs aren’t just listening; they’re delivering useful solutions.

It’s not perfect, and still has a long way to go, but the painful crash had a fortunate result, sobering up developers to focus on usefulness for designers, writers, sitebuilders and end users. So my recommendation?

Come close to the screen, so I can whisper this:

Dig in and embrace Content Management Systems now, while times are tough, and you can recognize what they’re truly meant to do. Technology is customer-driven right now, but there are clear warning signals of another VC explosion ahead. The cycle is at the right time to get in on it now, while it’s useful. But hurry, before the suits come back to confuse the marketplace!

“The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.” – Aristotle

I had to toss in that quote by Aristotle. It’s just a reminder that no matter how long the “usability suits” wax poetic on their unique skills, there’s a guy almost 2,500 years back, wearing sandals and a white piece of cloth who engraved what that consultant just said, in 70 characters (that’s less than a tweet).

Note: If you’re interested in seeing fifteen very useful CMSs in action, I invite you to the 2012 CMS Expo, coming up this May 8th, 9th and 10th in Evanston, Illinois. Designers, writers, developers and entrepreneurs have my guarantee, this will be an excellent use of your time.

Original from: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/speckboy-design-magazine/~3/5uMjc24M2go/