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Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer Podcast. This is an Agency Life episode coming to you every Wednesday and Friday, where we interview an agency owner from around the world, asking them the same questions because we’re all different, but we’re all the same. So let’s listen and learn from each other. This podcast is brought to you by the agency Trailblazer Community. Is agency life stressing you out then? It is our mission to help you build an agency that you love. We’ve created a community which includes the Agency Reset roadmap, that will allow you to get your agency back on the right track. We also have lots of noble, straight to the point, easy to consume workshops. We have a thriving community of other agency owners, and we all wrap up every month with a mastermind call with myself and sometimes a special guest where we unpack your questions. For more details, check out agencytrailblazer.com. Welcome to another episode of Hashtag Agency Life. And on today’s show, we have the wonderful Mr.Ed Ellingham. How are you today?
Ed Ellingham:
I’m doing all right. How are you? I’m doing.
Lee:
Alright. I’m really glad you’re wearing the beaver builder cap.
Ed Ellingham:
Got to represent.
Lee:
Got to represent. You look a little bit like Paul Lacey right now because that’s what he does with his beaver builder camp. You know, being all cool and awesome.
Ed Ellingham:
I can make up for. I got, like, a motley crew shirt from, like, 1985 on.
Lee:
It’s such a good t shirt. You know what I mean? I used to describe. I used to describe web designers as folks who live at home with their parents, wearing t shirts like the one you’re just wearing. Thankfully, you don’t live with your parents, though.
Ed Ellingham:
No, I don’t live with my parents.
Lee:
So you’re kind of half the stereotype, which is cool. I also have a wonderful range of really old t shirts that I don’t ever want to get rid of.
Ed Ellingham:
Because I just still wear them.
Lee:
I’m actually older than you as well. I think I’m 36 now.
Ed Ellingham:
Oh well, 30 for you young whippersnapper.
Lee:
How have you even heard of Motley Crue?
Ed Ellingham:
It was the first concert I ever went to when.
Lee:
I was a lad. Anyway, let’s dive in and find out about your agency. So, mate, first question is tell us the name of your agency and what it is that you do.
Ed Ellingham:
So the name of the agency is actually cloud nine communications. And we provide web design for small businesses and non-profits and such. But a main part of our business is maintenance and management for WordPress websites, which we’ve rebranded that service into Cloud Care WP awesome.
Lee:
And if we were going to have a party and get some special t shirts printed for the party, how old would cloud care WP be?
Ed Ellingham:
Cloud care? WP would be January 1st of this year, but cloud nine is November 6th of 2014, which I had to look up to answer this question.
Lee:
So that’s about so that’s four years old. So and so. And in a realistic world, your agency is four years old and beyond. Right. But the brand of cloud care WP itself.
Ed Ellingham:
That’s a that’s a new it’s it’s a service that we’ve offered almost since the beginning, but rebranded it so we could target existing websites, which we were getting a lot of already.
Lee:
So that’s awesome. And it’s exactly what we’ve talked about in the past about kind of sometimes it’s really helpful to productize and even give a brand and an own unique identity to a particular service you do so that it’ll stand out from the rest. I love what you guys are doing, and people who know us in the WP innovator community will know that me and you actually do a lot of work together. You work on a lot of our sites as well, which is awesome. So folks, if you are looking if you’re an agency owner who is looking for a third party to help them out with the support, etc., then editor does do white labelling as well and does a phenomenal job with that and his team. So that’s awesome. All right. Shall we unpack your setup after that little advertorial that was not paid?
Ed Ellingham:
Sure.
Lee:
Let’s do it. All right. So how many people have you currently got in your team?
Ed Ellingham:
So for the most part, it’s my wife and myself. However, we do have subcontractors that we work with all over the place. A graphic designer out of Canada. And, um, we’ve tried to bring on a consistent team members for other things, but never found that right match. You know, I’m kind of a strict on how I want things done, so.
Lee:
You look very strict and scary.
Ed Ellingham:
I’m not very.
Lee:
Good at sarcasm. That was English sarcasm, by the way. No worries. And, uh, is your office then all set up at home, or do you go off to work in a coworking space?
Ed Ellingham:
No, no. So we work out of the house. Um, we ended up in a situation where we bought a house much larger than what we’ll ever need. And we have empty rooms, so. Wow. I have plenty of office space, which is, um, probably rare for most people. Yeah. So we work out of the house, and then what we do is we use our local chamber of commerce for face to face meetings during business hours. That’s good. We’re a member with a private club here in town, so it’s like a kind of like a bar with a lock on the door, and we’ll meet with clients after hours there. So those two things solve the issue of meeting with people.
Lee:
That’s that’s really great idea. We’ve talked quite a lot. A lot of the people who’ve been on Hashtag Life so far have been in a similar, similar situation. They’ll either use coworking spaces or they’ll use their home office like you’re doing, and then meet the problems of not having a physical, permanent location by using those third parties like the meeting rooms, etc.. And I think it’s a massive trend, isn’t it, for a lot of agencies to really cut back and become a leaner sort of setup. Why pay, you know, one, two, £3,000 a month on rent and rates when you could all be based at home and still have meetings when and when and if you need to? Right.
Ed Ellingham:
And we did look into getting a space. And when you ask a web designer why they need an office space, it’s always to meet with clients to be able to meet with people. So we just solve that problem in a much more affordable way. Exactly. Yeah. The only problem that the only thing that I miss is going home after work. There’s. There’s no going home. You walk.
Lee:
Out the back door and walk around the house and then.
Ed Ellingham:
Walk back. Climb out the window. Honey, I’ll come back in through the front door.
Lee:
Well, which which floor are you on?
Ed Ellingham:
Because I’m on the second floor. Don’t say it was going to be easy. Well.
Lee:
That’ll be Ed. That’s brilliant. Okay, so, husband and wife team. Brilliant. You’ve got some contractors as well. So you’ve got a growing team. Me and you have been chatting about a couple of the guys that you’ve added to your team, which has been phenomenal. Um, could you describe the team culture that you are trying to foster as you grow your agency?
Ed Ellingham:
So, you know, I always like to kind of keep things easy going and laid back, but I have a certain way that I like things done. And, you know, we always try and focus on that. But for the most part, there’s not a huge culture per se, because a lot of people do their own thing and we just collaborate. And, um, a lot of people ask how, you know, you and your wife work together. And the thing is, is her and I worked together with another business I owned a million years ago. Um, the job that I had prior to starting this business, we worked together there for many years. We’ve pretty much always worked together. It’s just not a problem.
Lee:
That’s good. It does help if you’re not, like, fighting all the time and killing each other.
Ed Ellingham:
So it’s. Yeah, it’s it’s I’m it’s just not an issue.
Lee:
Well, it sounds like to me your culture is very much based around trust. You didn’t say the words yourself, but you’re saying that, you know, you are letting people get on with what it is they need to do. You can absolutely contract and trust that they will do the job. Obviously, you alluded to in the manner that you would also see fit. So you’ve got a very clear grasp on how you want things done and how you want to look after your clients. And once your your contractors have been onboarded, now it’s over to trust you. Go ahead and do your thing. I’m not going to stand and breathe down your neck. And that sounds pretty good to me because I’ve had old bosses breathing down my neck.
Ed Ellingham:
We’ve all had that.
Lee:
I can’t even.
Ed Ellingham:
Spell.
Lee:
When someone stood behind me or Typekit. I’m just. I just like, lose every skill known to man. It’s like if you if you imagine playing darts or something and you’re on the you’ve got the winning throw and you just lose the ability to throw a dart and you end up throwing it the opposite direction. I’ve done that before. Anyway, moving on then, and let’s talk about your your mission. And, um, for people who’ve listened to your podcast, they’ve already had a bit of a teaser to what your mission and your, your niche is. So could you just explain to us, I know you kind of got a couple of areas that you predominantly focus on, but can you explain to us, um, the, the key industries slash niches that you are focussed on.
Ed Ellingham:
So I mean, um, we haven’t niched down as well as I’d like to, of course, but you know, I it’s because I just kind of want to help everybody all the time. So any small business, you know, we we’ll try and make it work. We work a lot with non-profits as well. And one particular niche that we do like to chase is municipalities. Um, they typically need things to be safe and secure and maintained, and they’re just comfortable and familiar with that. I mean, they’re they’re literally maintaining a city so they understand taking care of a website. They get it. And what’s really nice about them is when you deal with a client like that, they have yearly budgets. So you’re never chasing monthly money. So you charge yearly and they pay yearly and they really give you no grief. Um, they’re a great client to have. They really are. And if you’re not, if you’re, um, kind of on the, uh, more of the developer spectrum of things where you’re not a marketing guy, you’re also not selling anything.
Ed Ellingham:
I mean, you still have to have clear call to actions and stuff, but they’re never you’re not trying to increase the revenue. By no means. You’re just building a resource that’s useful for their residents. So it’s, you know, there’s there’s perks to it there, but they get it. You’re not trying to sell maintenance plan to somebody that’s like, I can take I.
Lee:
Just spent all this money on a website. Why do I need a maintenance plan? I don’t I’ll press update.
Ed Ellingham:
Yeah, right.
Lee:
Exactly. We’ve heard all that, mate.
Ed Ellingham:
We actually checked the website after we press update, though. That’s the big difference. True.
Lee:
And then I already alluded to as well. Obviously you guys have got the the agency white labelling service as well that you guys offer and you partner with other agencies and provide that service as well.
Ed Ellingham:
Yes, yes. So um, cloud care is very focussed on web design agencies and we like to also provide that extra level of service that a lot of agencies need. You know, you got a lot of designers and marketers and you know, they’ll use Beaver Builder or Divi or something. And everything has its limitations until you get into code. And then we can provide that extra. We’re happy to to help with that too. You know, you guys are working on a website for a client of ours. You know, you need this to do this thing. We’re happy to try and solve that. You know, we want to build. We don’t want to have clients. We want to have partnerships. You know, we want to have a partnership with an agency and work together on on helping each other grow.
Lee:
And I love your consistency, because again, we’ll put a link to your previous episode, but you pretty much said that word for word, I think in the episode. It’s definitely clearly, it’s a very clear vision that you have both for the municipality and.
Ed Ellingham:
It’s not an elevator pitch, you know, it’s it’s what I, I truly like to do and how I like to do it. And I love why we prefer the recurring revenue model, because I really hate to charge anybody for anything. So if I can just bill somebody monthly, then do whatever you need. That is way easier for me. I’m just I don’t even want to look at how much time I spend on things at the time. I just want to get them done.
Lee:
Literally goes against every bone in my body. But I know you absolutely, absolutely wired up a completely different way, so I’m just going to have to accept that.
Ed Ellingham:
Well, it’s not about it’s not about wasting time. It’s more like, I don’t want to. I don’t want to build people by the minute, or I just want to give me a task. I’ll take care of it for you.
Lee:
I remember, but I think you you were talking about trading time for money and everything. So again, a big plug for the episode. Off the top of my head, I’m going to guess it was like episode 136, but I could be completely wrong. But it’s around that number. We’ll make sure there is a show note, um, addition in the show notes, so please be sure to check below if you are on YouTube or if you are listening to the podcast. Have a look at your podcast player. There will be some show notes and go and check out that episode all about reoccurring revenue with Ed. It was a brilliant episode and a really, really great journey, um, as well. So, um, I also want to explain something. If somebody’s been wondering what the hell we mean by municipalities, then we mean local government or council, um, councils or parish councils, that sort of thing, depending on where you are in the world. Um, that’s what a municipality would be looking after.
Lee:
The, the local area. So cool. All right. So now we’ve got all that out of the way, and I’m now the new walking dictionary. The next question is, um, and maybe we should frame this in. Should we frame this? I’ll let you decide how you answer this. The question is what is the main problem that you solve. And I’m obviously aware you’ve got two, you know, different niches. So I don’t know if there’s a one particular thing that you can hone in on.
Ed Ellingham:
So on one hand, um, you know, what we like to solve is taking the burden off of the client, of having to deal with the website, you know, even though it seems simple for them to log in and change text. One thing you got to remember is a lot of these clients don’t do that for six months. So them logging in and changing text is like a daunting task for them, because they really just don’t know how to do it. They don’t remember how to do it. You could show them a million times. So we just we take all that, you know, we handle the domain registration. We we host the website, we handle the maintenance, the management You send us a support ticket and we’ll just take care of whatever task you have. So really, the website is something that everybody needs, but they kind of need somebody to take care of it for them. A business owner can make a lot more money running their business than trying to learn my job.
Ed Ellingham:
And that’s where we we provide that, that area. However, the other thing that I always like to solve for clients is when we’re building a website, I try not to just focus on the lead generation strategy or the marketing aspect of it. It’s like, how can we take this and make your job easier? So there’s a lot of times that we can take a look at at the website. And then the way that they handle things through their day to day life. Um, and we can combine those things and automate those things and just simplify. And, you know, you can build a website and save a client tonnes of hours every year by handling things differently on it. And that’s something I think people do need to focus more on, is it’s just not making money. It’s saving time. A website is kind of like having another employee. If you do it right.
Lee:
You may have guessed it is a good friend of mine, and what he’s just said is also absolutely true because there have been multiple emails I’ve received over the last few months where Ed said, oh, I recommend this plugin. This is going to save you an awful lot of time, or I recommend we do this because that is going to be far more efficient. So this is a guy who practises what he preaches. This sounds like an advertorial for you, Ed, but I am sorry, I just I’m just raving about my mate, so that’s fine. Anyway, let’s continue. And we’re going to talk about marketing you’ve just alluded to let’s Make your Life easier and all that sort of stuff. So how are you generating leads as an agency?
Ed Ellingham:
So there’s a couple of ways that most of our leads are word of mouth, okay. However, one thing that we found successful and this kind of touches on another podcast you’ve had recently, which is doing, um, website audits. So there there’s this great tool that we’re just starting with and haven’t had a tonne of success with yet. That was on one of your podcasts. That does work really great, and I just want to mention it. It’s worth doing the free trial for sure.
Lee:
Um, oh, with my website audit. Website audit.
Ed Ellingham:
Yeah. It’s worth check it out if you guys can make it work, it’s worth it. However, um, what we’ve done in the past, I don’t mean to sound shady or anything, but when you’re trying to drum up business, if you start cold calling businesses and just saying that we were doing some internal training, uh, we ran a website audit for that purpose to go through it, I have it we’re going to archive it. Would you like a copy of it? And we’ve done that and it leads to work. It really does. You get people that that don’t even think about their website, and you brought it to their attention. Instead of offering them something for sale, you just offer them a freebie. And that was it. And then they want to talk with you. So I do suggest that that does work. Um, however, we’re not very good at following through on on marketing our for ourselves, because what happens? I’m sure other agencies are really going to understand this, uh, is it’s kind of like a roller coaster where you get slow and then you do a bunch of marketing for yourself to try and get business, and then you get hammered with business.
Ed Ellingham:
Well, now you’re really busy, so you don’t do any more business. You don’t do any more marketing for yourself, and then it goes back up. So it’s just this, you know, this constant cycle. I wish I had a salesperson that just worked.
Lee:
Yeah. Feast and famine, isn’t it? It’s how do you keep the the pipeline going consistently whilst also looking after the work that you have. That’s that’s a good one. All right. Um, here’s a question for you. And people get a little bit deep on this sometimes. And that’s absolutely absolutely cool. But how do you measure success when you’re looking at your business? What would be a measurement of success for you?
Ed Ellingham:
Well, it’s clearly how many toys I can buy for my childhood that I couldn’t afford back then. Um, no. I mean, I think a lot of and there’s a saying that is, you know, a, an entrepreneur will work 70 hours a week not to work 40. And I think for a lot of us, success is just the ability to not work for somebody else. I mean, let’s be realistic. Once you start a business, you work for a hundred other people is really how it goes. But yeah. Um, you know, that alone is success. If you can, if you can have that that dream of being an entrepreneur and pay your bills, that’s pretty successful. You know, I mean, at that point.
Lee:
No, that’s that’s absolutely wonderful. If you can look after if you can pay your bills, you can keep going. You can have have family time, you can have a house with too many rooms and work in it then great. You you are already successful. I love that, um, about you as well mate, because a lot, a lot of people will tend to become unhappy with whatever it is they’ve got. A lot of us won’t necessarily have a. All right, well, this is this is a success level. This is if I have achieved this. This is good. This is successful because people are constantly thinking of what is the next.
Ed Ellingham:
It’s very subjective.
Lee:
Yeah, exactly. I’m. What’s the next step? So we never actually take a moment to just enjoy what we’ve already achieved and go, oh wow, I’ve got a house, I’ve been paying my bills. And yeah, I.
Ed Ellingham:
Mean, I think a lot of times if you just look at two years ago and look at today, it’s very rare, you’re going to look at that and and not see improvement, you know, and I think you’ve had Mike Killeen on here before right.
Lee:
Oh yeah. About three times now.
Ed Ellingham:
He said a quote. And this isn’t going to be an accurate quote, but it was something along the lines of and he may be quoting somebody else, but it was something along the lines of if you do anything long enough, it will eventually become successful. Basically, yeah. So, you know, you’ll have your ups and downs, but if you just keep pushing, eventually you’ll get to where you’re trying to get to and the length of that period is probably going to be different for everybody. Yeah, but if you just keep pushing and I definitely like that.
Lee:
Mm. That’s good. I’m loving what you’re saying. I think a lot of people will resonate and perhaps look at where they are at the moment. And it might be I’m hoping it’ll be a massive encouragement to to them as well. So thanks for sharing. Sure. Right. I want to do some confession time. So it’s just you and me, mate, and a few thousand people around the world who are listening in, so don’t worry. Um, but I’d love you to confess to us what? You feel the biggest problem you guys have as an agency right now that you’d love to solve?
Ed Ellingham:
I, I would probably say that my biggest issue, and I don’t know if there’s a solution for it, is I bounce around a lot on stuff. So, uh, I could have one thing assigned to me for the day. And at at 9:00 in the morning, that phone rings, and then it just it’s just, you know, I can’t I can’t stay on task. I think that that comes to anybody that wears a lot of hats in their business, you know. So it’s really hard to stay on task for things. So some that should take a day takes a week. And it’s it’s very, very frustrating. And then there’s always a new sale on Appsumo. And then you got to check that out. And, and then somebody mentions you in a Facebook group and you got to check that out. And then, you know, and then you’re on Facebook. So then that just that’s a whole other tunnel. I mean, you just, you know, then you start scrolling.
Lee:
Have a look at stay focussed with a D and you can instal that on Chrome browser. And what that’ll do is that’ll set like a ten minute or whatever minute limit of I’m allowed to spend up to ten minutes on the internet for the entire day on the following productivity draining websites. And that could be no kidding. Yeah, exactly. So that by the end you’ve used that 10 minutes or 20 minutes, whatever you’ve given yourself of procrastination in the day. It will then just say, hey, get back to work. So that’ll stop you from going on. Wow.
Ed Ellingham:
Um, because, yeah.
Lee:
What I also do nowadays, this is just stuff because what you’ve described is totally me. You know, I’ve done I’ve been very guilty of the bouncing around. And the other thing I do is I try not to have too many tabs open, because then I do forget what I’m doing, because suddenly I get distracted by something on another page, and then I’ve gone down a rabbit hole. I also don’t look at my emails all the time, and I use a system called Sanebox as well, where a lot of the spams will just put in certain folders, but certain emails as well. I’ll put okay, I can see them all right. I don’t need to deal with them until tomorrow, so I’ll tick them all and drag them into the send me them back tomorrow, um, routine, etc.. So there’s just a lot of things that I can do to focus myself. And then finally, another thing I do is I write down at the beginning of the day the like one, 2 or 3 things I really do need to achieve that have to have a line through them, as in they’re complete.
Lee:
Um, so that I can at least do those three things in and amongst all the other stuff. Have you seen the film up with the Dog? And he’s like, hi. I just met you. I love you, squirrel.
Ed Ellingham:
Oh, yeah.
Lee:
I think that’s me and you, mate.
Ed Ellingham:
No, no, I that that pretty well describes it. I have a second monitor on my, my setup that always has email open, and, uh, I bet smashing this monitor would probably save me hours a week.
Lee:
True. You do monitor a support desk though, so I suppose it is slightly different for you. You guys with your SLAs etc.. Um, but hey.
Ed Ellingham:
Yes, yes. And that’s and we’re all a.
Lee:
Work in progress.
Ed Ellingham:
Aren’t we? And everything else, we’re.
Lee:
Being refined over time, aren’t we?
Ed Ellingham:
So absolutely.
Lee:
You know, by the time we’re 90, we’ll be perfect. I’m sure. So. All right. Well, your business is in your house of many rooms. Um, and your business is also with your wife. So how do you switch off?
Ed Ellingham:
So.
Lee:
And if the answer is you don’t, that’s also a viable answer.
Ed Ellingham:
I do, and I don’t. So, um, you know, I like to step away and we have dinner and then, you know, watch TV and TV is a very good way for me to focus on something else. Yeah. So even when I read a book, um, I’ll especially when it’s a work related book or something that’s been suggested in a group, you start, your mind starts wandering, I’ll be on another chapter and go, what the heck just happened in the past 100 pages? I have no idea. I, I start my my mind is thinking about my business while I’m reading. So TV you know they call it the idiot box. Well it works. Yep. And that’s that’s one way to shut down. Um, but for us, there’s never an email shutdown. So every waking hour when my phone buzzes, I have to look at it to make sure a website didn’t go down or a server didn’t go down, which we have additional monitoring for that where other people handle that too.
Ed Ellingham:
But, um, I don’t like to rely on other people when it comes to downtime, so if I can jump on it, I jump on it.
Lee:
I think me and you need to work on that. We need a serious conversation offline. Uh, no, I’m messing with you, man. But yeah, no, that’s that. I think I would throw that into your problem bucket as well. Um, just the, the the emails coming in. Um, because I’m still working on that. I’ve managed to stop after five. I know you’re in a slightly different position, but if there is a third party involved. Um, yeah, there might be ways of getting around that, but I am totally with you. 100% on the idiot box. I love Netflix, that’s been my saving grace, I think, for the last, uh, maybe a year or two, which is because they’ve got so much good content.
Ed Ellingham:
The content is excellent. It’s exactly.
Lee:
So I can literally just sit and binge for 2 or 3 hours and think of nothing but what I’m watching. Um, and like you, if I try and read a book, I’ve been thinking about the business the whole time, and I’ve no idea what happened to.
Ed Ellingham:
Bring up something that’s relevant. And then your mind starts going, oh, that’s great. And then you start. Your mind goes somewhere else.
Lee:
You’re still turning the page, but reading. What’s with that? Here’s something I always struggle with. Um, we’re really busy. Um, you know, we’ll work the 9 to 5. Like you said, we sometimes can work 70 hours a week as agency owners, and we’re sat down a lot. Um, do you, uh, do you have any tips for for how you guys stay healthy or try and invest in your own fitness, etc.?
Ed Ellingham:
So what we do is we take a mile, uh, a little over a mile, usually about a mile and a quarter walk every day after after dinner, which has become excellent. You know, it’s it’s really enjoyable to just kind of leave it. Come on. I literally don’t leave the house for work. I mean, it’s nice to just see what the see what the sky looks like again, you know? Yeah. So it’s it’s great. And it really does make a difference. Uh.
Lee:
When you said that, I just had a kind of a The Hills Are alive moment of you kind of walking out into the back garden and kind of spinning around, and the Julie Andrews style music playing, uh, because you’ve literally worked.
Ed Ellingham:
Because it’s so sunny outside.
Speaker 3
What is this? I’m a sucker in.
Lee:
Winter, though. Surely when it’s dark, when you get out.
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah.
Lee:
You’ll have to switch a roo and do the walk in the mornings. So. All right, well, we are coming in to land, and I know this is probably going to be the hardest question for somebody like you to answer, because I’m going to make you only choose one tool. And I know, like me, you love Appsumo and all of the other stuff that’s out there, and you have shiny object syndrome like me as well. And you go try out these new tools in that. But is there any one tool that you can just commit to for this call to say, you know what, this tool is phenomenal and has been really helpful in my agency.
Speaker 3
You can do it. Come on. So it’s just if I was.
Ed Ellingham:
You and I know you want to commit to one tool, but if I was going to say a WordPress tool, it’d be Beaver Builder. And I’m really struggling because Beaver Builder is very important to my business. Um, it just is. Uh, but if I was going to go along the lines of.
Lee:
I’m not going to allow anything else, I agree with Beaver Builder.
Ed Ellingham:
Okay. Yeah, I’ll.
Ed Ellingham:
I’ll stick with that. Beaver builder is. It’s phenomenal. And when I, when I, uh, because we used to use divi and I don’t mean to create any haters or, you know, anything like that here, but we used to use Divi and I was a die hard Divi fan. And then I took the WP elevation course, and they brought up Beaver Builder and I was like, I’ll check it out. And I did that for about three seconds and was like, I can do this with Divi. Yep. And then I tried it again later. And now when I go to my Divi sites to do updates, it is daunting, I hate it, I feel so restricted to be in their beaver builder is just. That’s the tool for me. And Divi can be the tool for somebody else.
Lee:
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. Totally agree. Um, Beaver builder again for our agency, as you know, has been amazing for the last three years and completely changed the way that we allow people to update their websites, etc. and it allows us to keep them on brand, which is crazy when you think of the old days when we used to have loads of advanced custom fields with repeaters and tabs, and they couldn’t really see what they were doing. Um, and they were also like ruining it with too much content or throwing in Comic Sans and all sorts of stuff like that. So with Beaver Builder, we’ve been able to just lock people down as well as give them the flexibility of making, you know.
Ed Ellingham:
Right
Lee:
Laying out the page but not butchering it so we can at least then say, hey, look, we built this site for someone and this is what they’re doing with it, and not be ashamed of what they’ve done with it. So totally.
Ed Ellingham:
Awesome.
Ed Ellingham:
Since the launch of Beaver Themer Custom Fields for us has made a huge leap forward. So now where we used to not use custom fields at all with Beaver Builder, uh, now we use custom fields a lot with Beaver Themer because that’s another tool that a comp that complements Beaver Builder that everybody should check out.
Ed Ellingham:
I knew you’d sneak another one in
Ed Ellingham:
so. Well, it’s come on. It’s like the same thing.It’s just it’s for. Yeah. It’s not another tool. It’s part of the same suite of tools.
Lee:
Yeah. No worries mate. I love hanging out with you and having a chat. So it was great to have you on the show. And, um, I’m a big fan of your work, and I really appreciate as well, outside of the business, your friendship as well. So it’s phenomenal. And also the contributions that you make inside of the WP Innovator Facebook group. Folks, if you’re not in there, go and check that out on agencytrailblazer.com/group. We might change the name of the group one day, but I think we’re all a little bit of WP innovators at heart. Um even though I changed the name over a year ago. So thank you very much for your time folks. If you want to connect with Ed Cloud WP comm, I’ll put all of the links in the show notes, recommend you make friends with this guy because he is a solid geezer. Thank you buddy and have a wonderful day.
Ed Ellingham:
Yeah. You too. Thank you.
Lee:
All righty. Cheerio.
