Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to the WP Innovator Podcast, the podcast for web designers and design agencies, exploring the world of WordPress and online business. And now your host, Lee Jackson. Hi, and welcome to episode 41 of the WP Innovator Podcast. This is your host, Lee, and we’ve got a great episode with you today. We’re gonna be talking to Leslie, who is a web developer, web designer, who specializes in using Divi and creating child themes for Divi as well. So really cool episode, great to find out more about Divi, especially now that they have just launched as well. Their new amazing 3.0, which is all of the front-end editing that was missing in the past. So really interesting episode. If you’re not already a part of the Facebook group, then please do come and join us. Let’s talk about visual builders. It’ll be great to have a conversation with you. Come on over to leejacksondev.com/group, and you’ll be redirected to the Facebook group. It’s a great private area, and there are some cool cat pictures in there. That Chris J. Powell, thanks so much for the great cat pictures just the other day. All right, guys, I’m gonna not spoil it. I’m just gonna hand over to other Lee and Leslie now. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Hello, this is Lee at the WP Innovator podcast, and I’m really, really excited to introduce you to Leslie Bernal. Leslie, how are you?
Leslie Bernal:
I’m great, hello, hello.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Hello, Leslie, I’m really, I’m excited to interview you, because we became friends through, I think it was the WP Innovator group, and we just kind of hit it off. We keep kind of putting cheeky comments on each other’s Facebook posts and get on really well. And I thought, you know what, I’d really love just to have a coffee or a beer or something like that on the podcast with you. So here I am with my tea, not quite so exciting. And here we are, having a good chat, so.
Leslie Bernal:
Yes, thank you so much for inviting me. I’ve got my coffee. I’m ready to go and talk about work for the rest of the day.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s a rock and roll. Well, I’m gonna do the, this is your life bit that I kind of have to do at the beginning, so let’s go for that. She’s a Texas based WordPress web designer who is in love with Divi. So me and you may have a bit of an issue.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Because I think you know how much I love Beaver Build here.
Leslie Bernal:
I do, yeah, I’ve heard that on your podcast.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Indeed, but hopefully you’re gonna convert me. So, well, maybe you won’t, I don’t know, let’s find out. She’s been using it since its release, which was back in 1803, so that’s really quite impressive. And she now sells premium child themes for it, which is freaking awesome. And you’ve got a background in graphic design and you love to collaborate and stick with the front end design when you can. So that was the, this is your life. How about you take it from here and just say hi and give people an introduction to the world of Leslie.
Leslie Bernal:
Awesome, well, I kind of got into web design later. I went back to school in my 30s. I got my degree in graphic design, thinking I would be like a freelance print designer, but that wasn’t really a thing here. So I couldn’t find work. It was either go to an agency or try to find a different job. But everybody I talked to wanted a website and I was kind of anti-web in college. I didn’t want to learn to code. It did not interest me at all. I skated by, we were kind of required to learn the basics of it. So I knew a bit about it. And I don’t know how I stumbled upon WordPress, but I did and I found that it was kind of good for me because I wasn’t super techie. I couldn’t really write a lot of scripts or anything from scratch, but I knew enough HTML and CSS to design pretty decently. So I got into WordPress, then kind of stumbled upon elegant themes pre-Divvy era and started using some of their themes. I also use some theme forest ones, things like that kind of played around with those. But yeah, and I kind of just got stuck. Once Divvy came out, I kind of, I really liked it. They’ve kept improving it. I learned it. So, you know, kind of, I knew it kind of in and out. So I was like, well, why use anything else if I know how to manipulate it really well. So yeah, that was kind of the beginning of my Divvy expertise.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, where did the name a girl and her Mac come from?
Leslie Bernal:
That was a school project in college. We had to come up with a fake company and a fake logo, and that is literally the same logo I had in college, except my glasses were green at the time. All I did was change them to red and I changed the font on the logo. But I did not want to, I was like, I don’t want to put any, you know, anyone put a lot of effort and I was like, you know, that was kind of cute. Why not just use it? And yeah, I was like, let’s just try that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So if you want to go check out her college project logo, it’s a girl and her Mac dot design.
Leslie Bernal:
It’s worked out pretty well, I gotta say.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s pretty awesome. The fact that you changed the glasses from green to red, I’m just thinking right now, you know, who was it? Like, was it Pepsi or someone recently just paid out like several million or gazillion or whatever. It was ridiculous. Just to slightly change the way the Pepsi logo looks.
Leslie Bernal:
Right.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. I mean, how much did you have to invest to change from green to red?
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Right? Pretty much nothing. Yeah. And I really do have glasses. So I was like, okay, I had, it was like important to me to make sure they were red.
Leslie Bernal:
And you’ve got pencils in your hair there as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, that’s the only part that’s not true. I don’t, I don’t see it in my hair. But.
Leslie Bernal:
A girl and her Mac, that’s freaking awesome. So you said you got a background of HTML, CSS. Did that help you with Divi itself? Get your head around Divi? Because the thing I always see is that there’s these great page builders out there. There is obviously Beaver Builder. And there’s Divi and others, things like that as well. But I sometimes wonder whether or not people who don’t have a bit of HTML or CSS experience, especially when it comes to things as well, like layouts and columns and that. I wonder whether or not, like, they can actually get the most out of these products. What are your thoughts there?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, I’m actually, I’m an admin of several Divi Facebook groups. And there’s all levels of users in there. So I see firsthand, people come in and they’re completely kind of lost. You know, they’re not, the Divi, the builder is easy to use as far as drag and drop. But as far as styling, like you mentioned, it’s not the easiest thing to do for a complete beginner who knows no coding. But what’s kind of cool, you know, it came in the child theme, business kind of came in and elegant things actually gives away a lot of free layouts and free little styling things to like extender plugins and things like that. So it’s really not very hard to make it look good if you don’t know a lot of code. And there’s actually courses out now for Divi coding. There’s a woman named Michelle Noonan, SJ James also had a course. So there’s resources out there strictly for Divi.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah. Well, yeah, I’ve seen a lot of people kind of base entire businesses around it, haven’t they? As yourself, you are, you know, ’cause your website is very clearly about Divi.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m going in the direction of client, but yeah, that’s kind of, I mean, I don’t know, it’s just blowing up and I have people contacting me asking if I work with Divi. So then I was like, well, maybe I’ll just put it on my site that I, you know, that I do know about it. And it’s been great so far.
Leslie Bernal:
I am making a massive mental note right now to put Beaver Builder all over my site. I mean, we literally work with Beaver Builder all the time now. We bake it into everything we build. And I’m thinking, oh crap, it’s still quite early right now in Beaver Builder’s kind of iteration in its history. It’s only like a year and a half old. So I might be able to get up there on the search results. What was I thinking? Oh my gosh.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’ve actually never used it, but I’ve only heard good, well, great things really. I’ve only used Visual Composer.
Leslie Bernal:
It’s because you listened to the WP in a podcast. Sorry, carry on. I couldn’t resist.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
When I was still using ThemeForce themes, a lot of them came baked with Visual Composer and I was not very happy with that plugin. So, and then I just happened to find Divi at that time, but I’ve heard great things about Beaver Builder. So I don’t know if it ever comes up, I’d certainly try it.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah, brilliant. Well, I wasn’t trying to convert you there. It was more just the fact that you thought, you saw that people wanted, you know, people were talking about Divi and people were interested in as to whether or not you were using it. So now you’re actually, not only are you saying, “Hey, I’m about Divi, I know how to use it. I’m a Divi specialist.” And also I presume you’re gonna get some good search results as well, ’cause people are searching for a girl with a Mac who does Divi. No, no, seriously, but you know, you’re gonna get some good search results as well. And I’m thinking it’s early in the world of Beaver Builder, it’s a year old. So I imagine me now and everyone else who listens to this show who uses Beaver Builder, are gonna start slapping that all over their website. If you haven’t already. I was just thinking, “Ah, crap, I missed an obvious one there.” That’s incredible. So how did you get then? So you’ve gone from, you’re a designer, you’re looking at design to print, your real is not much out there in the freelance world. Kind of what was the very early, can you remember like the first site you tried to put together and how did that project go?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, at the time, since I couldn’t find work, I was working at a cafe as just like a, sort of not really a waitress, but we made prep the food and whatever, made smoothies. It was inside of a gym. So it was just kind of a mostly smoothies. And they wanted a website. So I was like, “Well, let me take a stab at it.” It wasn’t a bad website. I mostly stuck to my illustrations ’cause I love Illustrator. So at the time I made all these little foodie illustrations, whatever, and tried to compensate for my lack of web design skills with that. But yeah, I remember that and it was, it didn’t stay up long. I think they hired a professional after that to change it.
Leslie Bernal:
Oh, it’s a shame you don’t like still have it to look back at.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No, I don’t, but yeah, that was my first website that I remember doing.
Leslie Bernal:
I’m pretty sure my first website says something along the lines of that I was like this really important CEO, trying to make myself look massive. It was hilarious. That was the first business website. Before then it was a geek website about pulling apart a computer. Just to establish me as a quintessential, complete geek. Was that a WordPress site? Or was that just you putting together something HTML?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That was an HTML site. Yeah, and I think I put in a slider so I was pretty happy with myself.
Leslie Bernal:
That was pretty awesome. And then when did you get into like, how did you then make that transition? You’ve dabbled with HTML CSS build and all the complexities that probably come with that. What was the shift to, oh crap, look at this WordPress?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think I had started a blog. And it was kind of easy to use. And then I saw, I probably researched and saw articles that it could use WordPress for a site. And then I found Theme Forest and I was like, wow, these are, at the time I was like, do I even have to design? Look at all these freaking things. They’re like, they’re compact. But yeah, and that’s kind of where I started playing around was with the Theme Forest themes. And I think I saw an ad in my Facebook feed or something from Elegant Themes. And their whole, I had never seen a studio put out like what is like maybe 50 themes for one price. I was like, hey, that’s a good deal. You know, let me try that. And yeah, and then I just kind of maybe out of habit or complacency, I just kind of stuck with it.
Leslie Bernal:
I remember when Elegant Themes first came out, it was like one guy on his own. I don’t know if it still is. And I think it was something like 29 books. And if I’d have spent like 40 books, I could have got lifetime membership.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. I regret not making that purchase.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah. Yeah, that would be Nick. And I actually, I gotta say, I got to meet him at WordCamp recently. So I was pretty star struck in my big geek world. So, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Hashtag name drop.
Leslie Bernal:
Yes.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, I know him. We’re like that, you know, my old friend Nick.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And the great news is everyone who’s listening is Leslie is gonna make an introduction to Nick to get him on the podcast. Thank you so much. I was so kind. I can edit that out if that’s not true. So you said you worked with Elegant Themes, no, no, start again, Theme Forest. You then moved obviously to Elegant Themes. So here’s a big question then. I’m thinking there’s 50 themes in there roughly, approximately, I don’t know, there’s 80 something nowadays, isn’t there? Back when I started, there was 20. So, I mean, if you’re gonna publish websites, there’s a tough question now. Are you not worried that all your websites would look the same or am I misunderstanding how a theme business might work? What would you do to, you know, what do you do with these themes to give people that more unique look and feel?
Leslie Bernal:
Well, it hasn’t been an issue with Divvy. Prior to that, yeah, when I used other themes, I didn’t do a lot of tweaking. It really hadn’t even occurred to me to tweak them. I thought they looked good as is. And it wasn’t till they had put out, I think it was their first contest, Elegant Themes’ first contest to show how you change their themes. And I was like, well, I kind of did some tweaking on this one, it was for a nonprofit that I did for a wildlife camp here in Texas. And I did end up missing with their files and I had never really done that. So I entered and I was, I didn’t win or anything, but I was like on an honorable mentions list or whatever and it was featured. And I was like, hey, you can really actually tweak, you know, the PHP files. Like, I didn’t really thought of it. And then as when Divvy came out, it’s so it’s, you know, it’s pretty vanilla out of the box, it’s pretty, it’s nice. It’s, there’s a lot of white space, it’s clean. There’s, you know, it’s modern looking, whatever. But because I’ve learned so much over these past few years with CSS, I can make them all look pretty as different as I want them to. I’ll put it that way. Some clients don’t want it that different. Others will tell me, don’t make it look like Divvy. And I like those challenges. So, so it’s because of my learning, you know, this whole time that’s what’s helped me be able to manipulate basically the theme.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I love that you’ve said this. I guess the reason why I put you on the spot there for the question is, is that a lot of people out there think, oh, I can create a web business out of just selling themes and installing them for other people, et cetera, and putting in the content, which is great. But, you know, it is totally possible to do that, but it’s really cool when someone actually says, you know, can offer the full range. Yes, it’s cheaper to get for the client to get a theme and to have that installed and put their content in. But then being able to get that extra value from an expert like you, who can do all of the HTML, the CSS, do PHP, create the child theme, and do far more complicated things than Divvy, or whichever theme it is that you’re working with was originally for. So, yeah, that’s really cool. And it’s, again, something that I think is a high value. That’s a high value that people should pay for, because I guess my mum could potentially work out how to install a theme. I’d hate to see the results, though. I think I remember the first theme I installed, and that was Donkeys years ago. I think it was, no, I can’t remember. It was just awful. Like, I couldn’t even work out how to get images to float to the right. It was that complicated to me. Like rocket science, even though I was a coder myself. I was, what is this sorcery?
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah, yeah, I remember feeling pretty inept in the beginning.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, I imagine that you, in that case, spent many, many hours kind of working things out, and nowadays it’s just a breeze, and you can just plow through them.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah, I mean, I do still take a lot, like some online courses, and there’s a company here in town that offers free workshops on their meetup page and stuff like that. So, I do still try, there’s a lot I need to learn and still, I want to know. I like looking at codrops a lot and seeing all their cool things they come up with and try to put them in Divi. So yeah, I still like learning and playing around and seeing what else can be done. But yeah, it’s fun. I love CSF, I love styling.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
What’s codrops? I’ve not heard of this, I feel like I should have.
Leslie Bernal:
Maybe it’s Timpanis.net, but I call it codrops. Or maybe they’re–
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I found it, yeah, codrops.
Leslie Bernal:
But yeah, it’s just kind of a library where people kind of put up their, these sort of looks that they’ve come up with and they’ll put the code in, you just got to know how to, you know, and put it in your own site. But there’s a lot of cool features to find there for inspiration and try to figure out how they do stuff. I love like dissecting things that I see, you know, I’ll just use my inspect element or try to see if I can figure out how they did that. That’s how I learn a lot of things really.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s exactly how I learned development. I was looking at other people’s code and then trying to do it myself.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Using bits of theirs, obviously open source, you know, don’t, no one sue me please.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But looking at other open source code.
Leslie Bernal:
Come on, Ed, at least, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And then trying to work out how the hell, this is amazing, I’m looking at the site right now. And there is crap ton of stuff. There’s already three things that I think, I was trying to work out how to do it yesterday. What is going on? This is amazing, a 3D interactive mall map. If you’re in the market for a 3D interactive mall map, there is one on TYMPANUS.NET forward slash codrops. That is such a good call. We’re gonna get the one in the show notes. So over the last few years then, as a web developer with WordPress with Divi, so super niche there, what’s been your biggest challenge?
Leslie Bernal:
Um, hmm.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
There you go, put you on the spot there. You should know this question was coming.
Leslie Bernal:
No, right?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
What’s your biggest challenge?
Leslie Bernal:
So Larisha asked me that the other day when she was interviewing me and I went totally blank.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, I feel a little blank for some reason. I know I’ve had challenges. You know, honestly, how to talk and deal with clients. There’s so many, there’s just such a gamut of what they know and don’t know about web design or you know, absolutely nothing, but they want to learn. And I’m not really a teacher. I’m more of like, you know, you can hire me to do maintenance and I can show you some blog type of stuff, but I can’t teach you how to code. Like that’s just not my, that’s not what I wanna do. That’s not what I got into this for. But you know, I’ve had to learn how to just kinda deal with people really. You know, it wasn’t, I don’t know, I’m not like perfect at it. I’m pretty easy to talk to, but when it comes to like design stuff, or if I’ve had clients who tell me they want something that I think is really ugly, you know, it’s a kind of a line you gotta walk and how you speak to them about it. You know, you can’t just say, well, you have shitty taste. So like, you know, so that’s been a challenge for me for sure is how to deal with clients.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah, I get you. I mean, you could tell the client that I guess.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I mean, I’ve fired two clients, only two, which is not bad, I think for almost four years.
Leslie Bernal:
Just clapping, it takes a lot of guts to do that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, it took me a year and a half with one guy, but you know, eventually.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So because-
Leslie Bernal:
Well, I ended up putting a FAQ, I’m sorry, I ended up putting a FAQ on my site that I really try to get people to read before they actually hire me. So they know how I am, how I work, that I’m the professional, you know, this is not a couple of cooks in the kitchen, I think is how I put it. You know, like just trust me, trust me to do my job and it’ll go smoothly.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That is really good. Too many cooks in the kitchen is one of those things that we’ll tend to use in some of our projects. We’ll talk to the client and we’ll say, “Okay, at this point, you kinda need to back off, “because right now we’re focusing “on just doing some of the work now.”
Leslie Bernal:
Right.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And then we will get your valued opinion.
Leslie Bernal:
You’re breaking the ticket.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
We will get your valued opinion on this date, so please hold back.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Otherwise we start doing QA before we’ve even finished the product and then it can be quite intense. You mentioned then, with regards to the client as well then, do you find you get a lot of after care needs and how do you deal with that, if you do?
Leslie Bernal:
For the most part, the ones who come to me and I do the whole design and everything, they’re on a maintenance plan and I’m their web, I call it my, I’m their web gal. A lot of times they just, you know, email me changes that they need and I put them in within 24 to 48 hours, it includes hosting and all that. So yeah, it’s gone pretty smoothly for the most part. A few will wanna have their own hosting and all their own stuff and I don’t mind that at all. I think it’s kind of a good business move. But yeah, and then, you know, sometimes I charge hourly if they just have something they need fixed once in a while.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, that’s really good. I mean, with most of the ones I’ll build, I tend not to offer, well, I tend to offer the plans but most people say no. So how do you, how have you kind of, have you just sold that as if you buy a website, you also get the whole plan from me for a year or is it just happened by accident? Because I can’t seem to encourage anyone to do it.
Leslie Bernal:
I think it’s because they know so little about it and a lot of them don’t really want to have to know the details or, you know, get too techy about it. I kind of, I had a couple of niche markets in acne skin care and then in some farmers market vendors, I just kind of, I got lucky in meeting people who knew people. So I’ve done like 10 acne sites and all of them, since they know each other, they just say, hey, just hire her, let her do your stuff, you know, and, you know, just pay her and that’s kind of how it works. So, and yeah, so most of the time, it’s just kind of by happy accident that they just let me do everything.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No, well, that’s good. It’s something I found difficult. I mean, a lot of the agencies that work with me will, they won’t do the aftercare either. They’ll be trying to sell the aftercare to the client as well because otherwise it becomes just a, you know, it’s just a one stop then, isn’t it? They come for the website and then that’s it, the relationships lost. I mean, thankfully for me, I keep the relationship with the agencies anyway, so, but they find it’s very difficult to then kind of pass that on. So I was just interested in that and how you’re managing that. That’s really freaking awesome. And it’s good then ’cause you, you’re actually putting in content for the men as well. So like making a few design tweaks or putting in content for them so they don’t have to.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah, and I can’t mess it up.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That is so true. Now, tell me, and I know we’re going all over the place with these questions, but you’re a super interesting person and you’re doing all sorts with Divi. How did the child themes happen? ‘Cause you offer your own child themes, I believe.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah, it actually came about because somebody else was starting them, my friend Gino, who’s he kind of, I came into the Facebook Divi groups kind of later, they’d been around for about a year or whatever, but apparently there was this whole world building in Divi child themes or whatever. And I made friends, I became friends with him on Facebook. We chatted a lot, he gave me a lot of business advice and I saw that he was doing it and a few others were doing it. And I was like, well, I can do that. And he kind of helped me and encouraged me. In fact, he packaged up the first one for me called Reese because I was so scared of packaging it up. I was like, can I just hire, can he help me do it? And then after that, I figured it out. And I was like, why did I, why was I so scared? It was super easy. But yeah, so–
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Reese is beautiful, by the way, I have to say.
Leslie Bernal:
Thank you. – Absolutely gorgeous.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Thank you. But yeah, I saw other people doing it, I was like, well, I can do that, so I did.
Leslie Bernal:
Nice. – Basically what that came about.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I instantly had that sunk, anything you can do, I got it.
Leslie Bernal:
You’re right.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And well, if you go check out a girlandhermack.design, if you’ve got Divi, then there are some excellent child themes. This feels like an advertorial, it’s an advert, doesn’t it, at this point?
Leslie Bernal:
I know, I’m sorry. – This totally is. Go check ’em out, they’re so totally. Go check out, especially if you’re a photographer or a wedding photographer or something like that, Reese is freaking gorgeous. I love it, that would be perfect for that sort of thing. And then there is some nice one pages as well. Well, there you go, that’s beautiful. Sorry, I gotta close these now ’cause I’m finding them all distracting. I’m playing with the sliders and stuff. And one of those people that, you know, like Dog on Earth and he’s like, “I’ve just met you “and I love you.” And then he’s kind of like, off he goes. So I’m interested, you do a design audit, how did that happen?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh gosh, I love that. I just put that out maybe about two months ago. I don’t know what brought about the idea. I think I had a client who kept asking me to kind of fix some little design changes. And I love sticking to the design. I don’t call myself a developer, yes, I develop the sites, but I pretty much stick to the designer moniker. And I was like, well, you know, I see a lot of people in the Facebook groups that I’m in and they have a lot of trouble, you know, getting the style, you know, accomplishing what they want basically. So I was like, well, let me just try this, you know, it’s a small chunk of time. You can see what I can do. If you like what I do, you can hire me for more time. And I called it an audit, just cut, that’s kind of what it is to me. I just kind of go through and see what really needs help as far as typography, colors, colors is a big deal. I don’t understand why people put such ugly colors together, but it happens a lot. But yeah, it’s so much fun for me ’cause I get to just play with so many different people’s sites and, you know, and they love it. And they were just like, oh my God, thank you, you know.
Leslie Bernal:
So is that like anyone with an existing site and you’ll say, hey, here’s some ideas. You know, that shade of green is very garish. Let’s tone that down slightly and here’s some nice images to use. And I suggest you do this. Or is this something where they have to have a WordPress Divi site?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Right now it is Divi because that’s what I’m super comfortable with. I might open it up to other things, but as far as right now, I know I don’t see that happening anytime soon. But right now it is Divi just ’cause, you know, I saw the mark, I saw the need for it. So I was like, hey, let me do this. And it’s, I get a lot of orders for that, to be honest. And in fact, I’ve had a few agencies just decide to contract me out for their design work for their web clients. So yeah, it’s, it felt good.
Leslie Bernal:
Thank you, awesome. Yeah, I think as well, you don’t need to change for anytime soon. You know, Divi, and we’re gonna talk about this in a second, but Divi is evolving. They’re doing a very exciting evolution. You showed me a preview of that. I can’t wait to talk about that next. But Divi is definitely going from strength to strength. The groups that I’m in, I mean, I don’t even have Divi and I’m in the Divi groups ’cause I find it interesting to see what’s going on in there and I’ll tend to give free CSS advice ’cause it’s just something I like to do and I’m messing great people in those groups. But I’ve forgotten where I was going with that now. I just know that we need to talk about the next, oh yeah, I know. But you know, it’s really cool that you’re sticking with this. Divi is growing, this is your niche. So if you then try to kind of mess it up with lots of other products out there as well, it could start to become a very mixed message. Whereas people know to go to you for Divi Design Build for audits, for fixing, for support. You are the Divi girl with a Mac. There you go. New company name. Just a very slight, I think yellow glasses and that should sort that one out.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Leslie Bernal:
All right, so I alluded to Divi kind of evolving. Tell us all about the wonderful work you’re doing in the beta program, sorry, of Divi 3 and what it’s all about.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, it’s a front end builder that they’re introducing. It’s pretty freaking cool. It’s pretty freaking fast. I don’t know a lot about this React platform that they’re using or software or whatever, but apparently it’s like, it’s really good. So that’s what they’ve rebuilt the builder with. So there’s a bit of a learning curve. I’m not anti front end builder, but I guess because visual composer left such a bad taste in my mouth, when elegant themes first started talking about front end builder, I was like, oh my God, please no. I don’t want that bloat on my site and blah, blah, blah. Like I hate front end builders. But after seeing it and playing with it, it’s pretty cool. I can see how a lot of beginners and DIYers, could really get a lot out of it. So yeah, I think it’s gonna really change their game up even more and bring in even more Divi users, which is awesome ’cause maybe that means more business for me. So, but it’s really cool. And it’s coming out the seventh. I can’t say a whole lot about the features that are in it other than that it’s a front end builder, but yeah, it’s awesome.
Leslie Bernal:
Have you found any advantage to being able to see what it is you’re doing at the same time? Because– – I think it’s time, the time efficiency, ’cause I do a lot of back and forth within my tabs. – Yes.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And even though the back end builder does have a preview function, I just personally don’t like to use that. I prefer to toggle. So I could see how time could be really slimmed down when building.
Leslie Bernal:
I guess that the other danger, which is one of the things, one of the negatives I have about front end builder, even beaver builder, is that the client can kind of very easily start to experiment and make something that looks so freaking good when you did it. But then they start to mess it up because they wanna experiment, ’cause they can see things happening live in front of them and before they know it, they’ve really messed up the site.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Like the shiny new toy, you know, it’s very attractive.
Leslie Bernal:
This is amazing. Look, Gladys, I could just click on this and change the color. Oh my gosh, how do I change it back? Leslie!
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, yeah, I see your point for sure, yeah.
Leslie Bernal:
And there’s a question. No, I might sound like a Divi now, but I think is Divi just a theme? It’s not like a plugin that can be installed on any other theme, is it? It’s a theme framework and you make child themes and this Divi 3 is also gonna just be an upgrade. Is that right?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No, they do have a Divi builder plugin that can be used on any other theme.
Leslie Bernal:
I did not.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I have not tried it personally, but yeah, there are people out there using, you know, whatever, maybe Aveda or I don’t know, other ones.
Leslie Bernal:
I don’t swear, sorry.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’ve never used Aveda, but I heard it.
Leslie Bernal:
Stop it, stop it. Too many sleepless nights, carry on.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But yeah, you can put the Divi builder plugin on any other theme. You don’t need it on Divi. I always have to read it in the Facebook groups. A lot of people accidentally put it on their Divi theme and you don’t need it. But yeah, they’ve given it to the world, not just Divi world, so.
Leslie Bernal:
I did not know that. There you go. Maybe they need to work on their wording slightly on their website. I did really have a good explore. ‘Cause I haven’t bought it, you know, I haven’t bought the package or anything. I’ve been, obviously I’ve kind of got no need to, but I do want other people to know about what else is out there. And I know a lot of developers and a lot of web designers, you know, in our industry and in the WP Innovator group as well, that absolutely love and swear by Divi. So I kind of feel like I’m gonna need to buy it at some point and play with it as well. Check it out and see what I like and dislike about it. So I’m sure I love it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I do have to say something. What I really keeps me sticking with Divi also is I have some clients, you know, a few couple years back who put a theme forest theme on and the agency just went away. They stopped updating the theme. So I don’t have that concern here because I know elegant themes is not going anywhere. They’re continuing to progress. And I don’t have that worry that, hey, is this theme just gonna stop being compatible and break or what? So that’s a big deal for me is why I stick with Divi. So that’s good. And that’s again why we stick with Beaver Builder because they’re growing quite quickly. Although on the flip side, kind of the comfort I’ll take from if I was totally dedicated to Divi is that if Divi, the company behind Divi went kaput, the code is still there. And I believe that some of that, I’m pretty sure they will be under a GPL model of some sort. You know, so you can still edit the code. If they went away, there are billions of web developers around the world that could help support a Berg or just upgrade, you know, kind of upgrade certain depreciated functions or whatever needs to be done to keep the theme compatible for the latest version of WordPress. So it’s not the end of the world, I guess, if those companies did go bust at some point.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah, that’s true.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So that’s some of the comfort I take. It’s like, it’s not gonna happen, you know, touch wood. Just touching wood if you can hear that, but it’s not gonna happen. But you know, if it did, hey, it’s, we can access the code. We are not screwed by a closed source system, which I do hate. So, there you go. All right, well, we’ve talked about Divi and we’ve talked about WordPress. Now, is there actually a WordPress plugin, not Divi, that you would recommend people go check out and why?
Leslie Bernal:
Okay, I knew this was gonna be a tough one ’cause I only put like security and SEO stuff.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
This is a good thing to talk about. So if it’s security, tell us what it is and recommend it ’cause that’s a hugely missed thing.
Leslie Bernal:
Well, I tend to stick with security and WordPress still. My friends use iThemes a lot. I had backup buddy and I wasn’t impressed with it, so I haven’t given all my money to iThemes, but I’ve heard iThemes security is great. I guess, you know, barring the go-tos. I would have to say there is one called use any font. I know how to bring in fonts, but a lot of people don’t and use any font is a really good one to bring non-Google fonts or, you know, just not your standard fonts into your site.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That is such a good call.
Leslie Bernal:
I believe it’s free too, so.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It is free, I’m looking, I’d never heard of it and this is something that, you know, I’ve had people asking me, we do a software as a service version of WordPress where people in a particular niche industry will connect in and build their sites, et cetera and this looks pretty cool ’cause otherwise they’re just stuck with, just stuck with the Google fonts that we load in, which is pretty good. So that’s use any font and with regards to security, that was the security and word fence ’cause we’ll put those in the show notes as well, which are two real valid things. Security is something that is so often missed. Not, I believe, by the people listening, but then at the same time, you might be wondering what are the most recommended security and I’m gonna back you up with word fence. If your site’s ever hacked, word fence is pretty awesome because it will actually compare your code, so you’ll call WordPress code to the code on, you know, there’s available on WordPress and see are there any changes, et cetera, so it can then flag up pay. There’s some unusual code in your WP config file, you know, that’s probably gonna be the culprit and then you can find this weird line which you can then delete out of your WordPress file, et cetera and then security, is it the security, do you have the security services in the full firewall or do you just use their free plugin?
Leslie Bernal:
I just use their free plugin. I’ve thankfully, I mean, I have, I’ve not, ever since I moved to SiteGround, I feel a lot more secure and I haven’t really dished out the money for a service. I was, I don’t, I won’t say what company it was, but I was hacked on a, it was substandard hosting. I knew it at the time, but it was what I could afford and I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have security plugins, I didn’t have child themes, I didn’t have backups, I didn’t do any of that in the beginning. So yeah, it took getting hacked. Actually, I got hacked. It’s for me to really actually put some time aside to learn about security, especially for WordPress. So, so yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s awesome. And SiteGround, I’ve only just experienced SiteGround really in the last six months or so. They’ve got some pretty cool services which we went around of. They like, for, I think it’s like a couple of extra quid. So that’s pounds in English money. They have this security scanner as well and all sorts of different things that we’ve been playing around with. We’re not using any sites kind of live with it. I just wanted to figure it out ’cause a lot of people with WordPress have talked about SiteGround. What are your experiences with it then so far?
Leslie Bernal:
Pretty good. In fact, when I was going to get it, I heard Ray reviews about their customer support and that’s actually been the only downside for me is sometimes I feel like they don’t even read my tickets but for the most part, I don’t even really need to contact support too many times but there’s just been a couple of times where like, what the heck, what happened to that awesome support I heard about? But as far as speed and low time and stuff like that, I’m pretty happy with it. I’m like I mentioned before, I’m not super geeky developer so the backend and the C-Panel, I can navigate through pretty easily. Yeah, and yeah, I like it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s awesome. I feel like that’s a question we should probably impact a bit more as well ’cause everyone in this WPNVA group is using WordPress, sorry, is using hosting at some point and I am intrigued as to who uses what and what are their experiences and in the next few months, I’m gonna be doing a podathon where there’s gonna be a podcast every day and one of them is talking about hosting and it’s gonna be talking about my own experiences with hosting and how we’ve kind of come across certain hurdles and fix certain problems. So, but SiteGround, yeah, for us, is definitely a new one, not using it kind of as a mainstay but we’re trying to experiment with different hosts to see what they have to offer and it does look pretty cool. I’m gonna admit I’ve not had to do any support tickets yet ’cause we’re just using it at Dev Server but should be interesting to see how that goes. Well, there you go. So, you mentioned earlier on because I’ve got this amazing memory that you like to keep teaching yourself stuff and that is freaking awesome. That’s really important. As an entrepreneur, it’s good to keep filling our brains with stuff. So, are there any online resources that you tend to go to to help fill your brain and to learn from that you could recommend? People go check out? I had taken something on the Code Academy once, I think it was for CSS. I actually have, I’m scheduled to go to a few meetups coming up in my town. I would actually tell everybody to check out what’s in your town that you can see in person. I prefer to kind of learn like that as well as the online stuff but I think meetups are kind of blowing up as far as what’s out there to teach about WordPress. I think like five groups just popped up in my town in the past few months and most are led by reputable people and companies and stuff. So, it’s pretty cool. I would check that out, Code Academy. I’ve heard linda.com is awesome. I know it’s been around a while and it’s got good reputation. But yeah, there’s all kinds of things out there now. There’s really no excuse for not learning if you really want. I’m intrigued by this meetup idea. So, everyone know, I think you’ve hit something really unique and actually something very true there. A lot of us will go ahead and learn online. We’ll sit behind our computer hidden away and learn through, watch following a course or reading a big blog and then having a fiddle ourselves. But there’s something really cool, isn’t there, about being in a room with other people as a networking opportunity. There’s the fact that you’re not on your own all the time. You’re meeting new friends and also learning from people in a room. It’s rather exciting. How do you–
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah, I think I’m gonna know who you might work with maybe.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Exactly. Yeah, there’s these opportunities there. So, I kind of feel like I’m missing a trick here as well ’cause I’ll go to the sorts of events where I know my clients are. So, I’ll kind of network with those guys. But I don’t think actually maybe I should be looking at more local meetups here. ‘Cause I know there’s a lot of web meetups here. They’re not necessarily WordPress based, but that doesn’t matter because there’s just people there I can go and hang out with and go meet and learn from and vice versa. How do you find these sorts of meetups? Is that through meetup.com or are you having a resource?
Leslie Bernal:
I put their app on my phone and it alerts me of something that’s WordPress or code related is new. I have the one I’m scheduled next is for JavaScript. I’m kind of scared of all those languages. I try not to touch them ’cause I don’t wanna break my site. But I’m really intrigued. I have a lot of developer friends and I’m just so impressed by what they can do with a little bit of script. And it’s something I’ve always wanted to learn and been kind of scared of doing it. But so yeah, I’m taking a free beginner course in JavaScript that’s being held by this company in town. So yeah, it’s pretty awesome.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That is incredible. That is so cool. I’ll tell you what, JavaScript is amazing. I’m one of those people who loves CSS so much. I am convinced that you can do everything in CSS. And I’ll sit there for absolutely hours trying to make something work in CSS. And then eventually I have to do this kind of like humble walk to JavaScript. And ask very kindly if JavaScript will let me do a couple of on-click events. So it’s mainly because of browser compatibility. CSS can do it, but you’ll find that certain browsers just do not react in the same way.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah, it really bums me out. I come up with these things that I do on my site and then I’m like, oh man, it doesn’t work in Firefox. Now I have to click, you know, I was like, man. Come on, catch up with Chrome.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, here’s a good question then. So with Divi, you’re using the Visual Builder, is everything automatically compatible with everything? Or do you find that sometimes you will create something with Divi and it does look naff in a certain browser?
Leslie Bernal:
It has, I wouldn’t say it’s because of Divi though, it’s because of the CSS that I, like for example, in Rees I put the text to go around the, on the about page text goes around the circle image, circle image and that won’t work in, I believe it’s Firefox or Safari. So I have a rounded square to compensate, but that’s because of the CSS, not because of Divi. And maybe there is better CSS out there, that’s what I happened to find when I was stumbling through all, I mean, it’s the internet, you can get lost and looking for cool CSS snippets.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, not anymore with code, whatever that code thing was that you mentioned earlier. Yeah, exactly, carry on.
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah, but no, I wouldn’t say Divi has as any, I’ve had not had any issues with Divi showing up weird. I should actually put an asterisk to that. Internet Explorer, I can’t help you, there’s just nothing I can do about that. I don’t even, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Internet one now?
Leslie Bernal:
Yeah. I’ve had the occasional client be like, well, I don’t, it doesn’t look like that. And I’m like, what are you using? I’m like, I’m an internet explorer. Like, why didn’t I ask you that when you were hiring me? I should have asked what you used because I just can’t, I can’t promise anything.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, we’ve kind of built that into our terms now. And very soon, Internet Explorer, I mean, it’s the very last version of Internet Explorer will support, but I don’t think there’s any other versions. Now we’re already on the second iteration of Edge. So at some point, I’m gonna have to say, no, no more IE at all, it’s done. So yeah, that’s an interesting question. Probably be worth us striking up a conversation about that on the WP Innovator group as well.
Leslie Bernal:
Right.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
We’re press, no, we’re press, you know, HTML or website compatibility, and what do you do and what do you cover? But I remember years ago, I forgot to say, we are not compatible with every single browser under the planet. And I had a client that was looking like at a three version, old version of Opera and also had something like IE seven and eight as well. They were looking at, and I was just like, this is ridiculous. Let me explain to you what you are asking me to do. You’re asking me to make this comparison.
Leslie Bernal:
That’s it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m not gonna say it.
Leslie Bernal:
I’m not gonna say it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Eventually they had to say, all right, we get it. But I learned from that, like, oh, I probably, you know, it’s kind of my fault as well. I didn’t explain, so I’m like, okay. From now on, it’s like right up front, now you know. And then there’s called a crappy browser tax if you want me to do anything for an older browser. That’s awesome. Well, here’s the last question then to put you on the spot. You have been a divvy extraordinaire for the past few years making amazing sites. Is there anything that you would, any kind of one piece of sage, piece of advice that you would give to people that they could apply to their business today? And then we’ll say goodbye.
Leslie Bernal:
I would say connect with others in any way you can, whether it’s a Facebook group or a meetup. Any kind of online forum. Before I found these divvy Facebook groups, you know, I work from home. I’m alone a lot, just me and my dogs. And there was just no information coming in other than what I saw on the internet, but it wasn’t really helpful. I wasn’t speaking with people who do what I do, who have the problems that I have, the issues I come across. And it is just so helpful if you just make a few friends online even. And just kind of, you know, maybe start, I have my own little Slack group now with my closest friends that I’ve met through the Facebook groups. And in fact, I do want to throw this out there. We got to meet each other in person for the first time recently at a word camp. And it was so freaking awesome. So yeah, I mean, things like that can happen where you form real friendships and real relationships. I would say don’t, if you’re doing this at home, don’t sit there alone with just your computer. Try to connect with people in some way and not just, you know, maybe not just ask a question every now and then, but message them, you know, just kind of get a bit more personal about it because so many people are doing what you do.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Exactly. And there you go. So the girl with a Mac actually practices this as well because we’re Facebook friends now and we’re forever commenting and giggling on each of those things. I think I gave her the most ultimate compliment the other day because I thought she was 30 and it turns out she’s not. I’m not gonna say what age. 40.
Leslie Bernal:
You know, but we could have a laugh about things like that as well. So it’s so cool to meet with other people. For me as well, it was actually Blab that kind of got me into meeting with other people. Rest in peace, Blab. I feel like we should have a minute silence ’cause that was announced just the other day. Good tid, but I met most of the people that I now engage with on the internet and kind of then kind of grown with. It started off with Blab and then we kind of moved all over to WordPress and then built up the friendships there. And we, let’s put a quick tag in there with the networking episodes that I talk for about 50 minutes. If you can bear my voice for 50 minutes, guys, I do recommend going and listening to the networking one ’cause I also talk about the importance of creating those relationships and meeting other people. It’s good both for networking and obviously generating business, but it’s also good to have freaking friends ’cause friends are awesome. And I’m talking to my friend right now, Leslie, on the podcast. So high five, Leslie. Leslie, how can everyone get in touch with you and then we’re gonna kick you off. My email is a [email protected]. Of course, my Twitter is a girl in her Mac. My Instagram is a girl in her Mac. I make it pretty easy for people to find me. So yeah. – My consistency. Love it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, although there is a girl out there who will not give up her domain. And she doesn’t even blog anymore, but whatever. So yeah, I’m a agirlandhermac.design is my website.
Leslie Bernal:
Which is superior to a .com. Come on, that says everything. It’s a girl with her Mac who designs a Mac that is thankfully a lot better now, which you had a lot of problems with.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, I did. It’s all fixed. Yeah, she’s working good.
Leslie Bernal:
What’s she called? Have you got a pet name?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You know, I don’t. No, I just say she.
Leslie Bernal:
Let’s call her Bessie.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, maybe. I don’t let anybody touch her. When I was having her worked on, I was like, just please be careful.
Leslie Bernal:
Sweet sleepless nights.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
They’re like, come on, Jake. This is what we do.
Leslie Bernal:
Oh man. Hey, you’re freaking awesome. Thanks so much for being on the show. You’re gonna be two weeks from now, I believe.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, you’re two weeks from now. You’ll be live.
Leslie Bernal:
Woo!
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So make sure you tell all your friends. Have a wonderful day, mate. Thanks so much for being on.
Leslie Bernal:
Thank you so much.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Take care.
Leslie Bernal:
Bye-bye.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, that wraps up episode 41, but guys, 42 is gonna be just as exciting. We’re talking to Rebecca Gill, who is a renowned legend in the WordPress space as an SEO expert. And it’s something that all of us as agency owners wanna know more about. If you’re an SEO expert, listen anyway, because she’s got some great tips which you’ll just refresh your knowledge. But if like me, you’re more new to this space or you find this like rocket science sometimes, then this is gonna be a great episode. She drops value bombs galore, and she also talks about some of the online training that she’s got just a phenomenal episode. So super, super, super, super, I can speak. Super excited to get that one live on Monday. Don’t forget, Facebook group is lejacksondev.com/group. And guys, if you enjoy the WP Innovator podcast, then how about you head on over to iTunes and tell the world. And if you don’t enjoy the WP Innovator podcast, then how about you don’t head over to iTunes and that’ll just be our little secret. All right, have a freaking awesome week. Cheerio.
