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Verbatim text
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to episode number 132 of the agency trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee. And on today’s show, we’ll be talking with Michael MacGinty. He is a fellow WP innovator, a fellow agency trailblazer, and he’s sharing his story of how getting into the WordPress community has really helped his business. So sit back, relax. Don’t forget to join the WP Innovator Facebook group or wpinnovator.com/group and enjoy the show.
Michael MacGinty:
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 agency trailblazer.com. Welcome to a conversation with mister Lee Jackson. I think you all know my name.
Michael MacGinty:
But also with us today in the virtual studio surrounded by all of the technology that we have around us, which is basically just a microphone and an iPhone, I think, it’s mister Michael MacGinty. How are you today, sir?
Michael McGinty:
Morning, Lee. I’m exceedingly well on this beautiful day, and not so much technology in my office. I’m in County Donegal, which is the coolest place on the planet. You probably know that already, and you’ve probably got your tickets booked for the summer holidays. Totally. Beautiful day. Sun is shining. It’s absolutely gorgeous.
Michael McGinty:
So I couldn’t be any better. In fact, I’m so good. I’m nearly thinking about canceling my life insurance.
Michael MacGinty:
What? That that good. I think as well, Michael, we’d all just like to listen to you now talk with that accent for the next 30 minutes. So if I just go quiet, you just talk about anything you want, and we’ll just listen to the musical tones of your Irish accent. How does that sound?
Michael McGinty:
You know, it’s a funny thing when you’re at this end. We don’t think we have an accent. Really? Yeah. I think I sound like you. Well, maybe not quite like you, but, you know, I sound like lovely people.
Michael MacGinty:
With my Canadian accent as you’re making fun of me earlier.
Michael McGinty:
Yeah. I don’t know what your Canadian accent is like. But I know you’ve tried it with a few real Canadians, and that they’re not oppressed. So you can try your Irish accent if you like. And I certainly won’t try my English accent.
Michael MacGinty:
Well, whenever I do, the Irish accent is terry is terribly stereotypical, and it usually includes talking like a leprechaun or something like that. So I’m pretty sure that, I’ve offended most Irish people in the past. So I’m just gonna No.
Michael McGinty:
You’ve only you’ve only offended leprechauns. And do you know how many leprechauns there are? I don’t know how
Michael MacGinty:
many That’s
Michael McGinty:
the number of people you’ve upset.
Michael MacGinty:
Oh, okay. Well, that’d be none then, hopefully.
Michael McGinty:
That’d be none. Absolutely. Yeah.
Michael MacGinty:
Mate, we were just having a giggle, weren’t we, about your company name? You’ve got a great company name. I got it, straightaway. It’s Mean It, but you recently had to change your logo. Why was that?
Michael McGinty:
Well, the name of the company is Mean It. And, basically, what we say we mean, we mean it. But years ago you’re not even aware of this, but a long, long time ago when we set up the company, we were Harvard Innovations.
Michael MacGinty:
Oh, nice.
Michael McGinty:
Harvard Innovations. Yeah. Exactly. Well, my partner was from the States, and he wanted to open, an American office. So he was he was actually doing medicine in Dublin at the time, but he didn’t like it. He was doing it because his parents wanted him to do it. Oh, Joe, hope your parents aren’t listening. Anyway, we started doing websites, and the name Harvard Innovations came up because he wanted to basically live in Boston.
Michael McGinty:
That was his plan.
Michael MacGinty:
Mhmm.
Michael McGinty:
I gave a talk to the Chamber of Commerce about, I think 10 years ago in Galway. And after the talk, a guy came up to me and shook my hands and said, I really enjoyed that. I wish I could deal with you. And and then he went to walk away. And and I grabbed his hand and pulled it back and I said, sorry. I got the first bit, and that was great, but why could you not deal with this? And he said, with a name like that, I know I can’t afford you, and walked away. Dope. So same reaction as you just had, Harvard Innovations sounds expensive.
Michael McGinty:
I went back to the office. There were 2 guys at the time, 2 developers in the office. I told them what happened. This office was in Galway, and Paul, who was the senior developer at the time, had said, I wouldn’t mind, but our pricing is mean. I don’t know what mean means in the UK, but here it means low. So we did an all nighter, and we rebranded everything from Harvard Innovations with all its fancy, Globe logo to MeanWeb. And over the years, it’s became MeanIt. So, that’s how we got to MeanIt.
Michael MacGinty:
I think I like mean it better, because mean web kind of to me in the UK, sounds like you’re all just gonna be really grumpy web developers, which would actually We
Michael McGinty:
would actually do that too.
Michael MacGinty:
It would actually answer the stereotype, I think, wouldn’t it, of most web developers. We were having a we were having a laugh before the call as well, weren’t we, about if people thought it was mean IT as well. And you put you’ve put the lower cases as mean it. But then I was just thinking of the IT departments that I used to be a part of and and people just answering the phone going, hello, IT. What? No. You know, getting really stressed out with the, which, again, is consistent with most IT people because I used to be one, and I used to be one of those mean IT people who would basically ask if you’ve turned it off and back on again.
Michael McGinty:
And and Well, we we do get me with our clients, but we do get people ringing up and saying, my printer doesn’t work. Have you any idea why? Or the recent one was, my fax doesn’t work. Does my fax link to my computer? And I go, oh, see. Interesting. Fax are making a comeback.
Michael MacGinty:
Well, you said earlier, didn’t you, that, faxes are making a comeback because of GDPR or something?
Michael McGinty:
Yeah. Because of GDPR. We’ve got we do quite a lot of websites for legal firms, and legal firms are all now using their fax machines again for getting legal documents signed because of security. Scanning a document doesn’t really work. Faxing is just safer. It’s a direct line from one person to the other, and that document is used can be used in court without question. So that’s what they’re all doing. So the fax machines have all been dusted
Michael MacGinty:
off. So go and get your fax machines out, ladies and gentlemen, because the fax is back.
Michael McGinty:
The fax
Lee Matthew Jackson:
machine. Around
Michael McGinty:
the world.
Michael MacGinty:
Yeah. It’s pretty exciting. That’s that’s a domain name. That’s a campaign. It’s like records, isn’t it? You know, vinyl records.
Michael McGinty:
What are
Michael MacGinty:
they, Mac? What what what do you get?
Michael McGinty:
You’re a little bit older than me. You’re a little bit older than you. Yeah. Yeah. We it’s it’s where we’re used to. My my son is, what is 20, And he is using vinyl is his way to go. It’s, you hear this, my silky tones of jazz coming from his room. Usually, about 2 o’clock in the morning.
Michael McGinty:
Mhmm. But, yeah, it’s it’s it’s all vinyl.
Michael MacGinty:
No worries. Right. Well, give us an insight then, buddy, just into today what Mean It does as a business. So you’ve gone from being Harvard. You’ve gone from being Mean Web. You’re now Mean It. What are your core services, mate?
Michael McGinty:
Woah. Well, we’ve been doing this for 20 years badly.
Michael MacGinty:
Okay.
Michael McGinty:
And so much as we started doing it originally for an enterprise websites that we were working for fairly large companies in in Dublin, and everything was dot net. And over the years, we weren’t profitable, and we went to more of a mass market. Well, actually, we invested a lot of money and a lot of time. We invented a thing called a content management system. Oh. See yeah. It’s it’s a really good tool. Only problem it was was why that oh, huge, huge, massive.
Michael McGinty:
And everybody we talked to said it was a good idea, and, when we launched it, so, we launched it probably about the same time as WordPress. But we were so into it, we weren’t even realizing that half the world had invented the same thing and other people were doing it and doing it better. So we got bogged in with this, dot net framework that we had, We distracted us for a couple of years, and I guess we were trying to compete with the likes of Joomla. And eventually, we decided that Joomla was actually an easier tool for our clients to use. We started developing only Joomla websites, and we did that for a number of years. And if you’d suggested WordPress even 2 years ago, we would have said, look, it’s great for your blog, but that’s about it. Whereas last year, I guess, only just about last year, we were I felt the pain when
Michael MacGinty:
you said that, by the way.
Michael McGinty:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael MacGinty:
I’ve heard that line so many times. It looks really like kicking me in the balls.
Michael McGinty:
But but but well, you know I wouldn’t do that.
Michael MacGinty:
I know. You just did verbally. But, anyway, carry on. 2 years ago, you did. It’s alright. I know you’ve you’re redeemed now, by the way, but keep keep going.
Michael McGinty:
Yeah. Yeah. We saw the Light Glass just over a year ago, and we started doing websites. WordPress sort of crept in alongside Joomla, but when we were working with WordPress, we found that we could we could put you some really good sites in WordPress. But more importantly, this is where we’re probably going to disagree, we sort of moved into the Divi space. So for all of you Divvy lovers, yes, we are in Divvy.
Michael MacGinty:
You Divvy lovers out there.
Michael McGinty:
Yeah. And we won’t use the b word. We won’t use the b word or the b b word, but it was just a choice. We had to look. I you know, funny enough, I heard you talking about Beaver Builder.
Michael MacGinty:
Mhmm.
Michael McGinty:
I could have gone that route. We just when I looked at the support online for Divi and the number of plugins, I just went picked 1 one or other. I went for Divi, and we haven’t looked back. So every site we’ve developed in the past year has been on Divi. It’s easier for us to produce, but it’s also easier for our clients to work in. And that that’s really the reason why we’re we’re so happy with it. So as of this month, we’re we’re no longer even offering Joomla support. So if somebody has a Joomla website because we have been doing anywhere between 30 50 websites a year for a lot of years.
Michael McGinty:
So we’re referring our Joomla clients if they choose to stay on Joomla. We’re referring them to other companies, companies that we’re not affiliated to, just people who are competent in Joomla and have decided to stay with Joomla in the way that so many people would have stayed with faxes, and maybe Joomla will make a comeback.
Michael MacGinty:
Well, if you are if you are an agency who specializes in Joomla, you might wanna connect with mister Michael. You know? Yeah.
Michael McGinty:
Very happy. Yeah. Absolutely. Anybody who’s who’s staying there, we’re happy to talk to somebody who wants to look after some really nice clients. We probably have, wow, maybe a 100 people out there, a 100 companies. That’s amazing. I I like what you’re
Michael MacGinty:
doing there as well, Michael, mate, because, it’s very tempting for a business if somebody’s giving you money and saying, hey, could you, do this on our website? But it’s not your specialism. It still is kinda tempt well, I say it was your specialism, but it’s not your focus anymore. It’s still very tempting, isn’t it, to kind of hold on to the client and hold on to that to more invoicing coming in, etcetera. And it’s quite a brave decision, I think, to say, okay. I’m gonna put my stake in the ground, and we are WordPress, we are Divi. This is the way we go. This allows us to be productive. It allows us to make great sites.
Michael MacGinty:
It allows us to support our clients well, and we’re not gonna do anything else that will detract from that. So I’m giving you a big thumbs up from the Jackson there, mate.
Michael McGinty:
We went one step further. We used to offer, for ecommerce, it was Heikashop, so Jumil and Heikashop. For for enterprise ecommerce, it was Magento. Magento, shout out to Magento. It’s an incredible platform, and we don’t do it anymore. So we we used to have quite a large a la carte menu. We’re we’re now just on to the basic. You know, you come in here, you got WordPress, and I and probably it’s gonna be on Divi, unless there’s a good reason for it not to be.
Michael McGinty:
But, yeah, we’ll certainly look at other themes, and we do. We have some fantastic themes. But we no longer do Magento. We don’t do Hackenshop. We don’t do Joomla. We’re just just a WordPress agency. We’re so it could be boring, but it’s we’re doing good work.
Michael MacGinty:
That’s that’s an awesome story. Awesome journey, mate. To move from Joomla as well, I I congratulate you. I I used to support Joomla years ago, and it was let’s not even go there. So, it was it was a tough time. I did remember finding WordPress. I actually went down the Drupal route, originally, thinking that was gonna be the way to go, and went down a rabbit hole, and then eventually came back to WordPress. Annoyingly, I’d started off with WordPress.
Michael MacGinty:
I still had WordPress sites throughout everything, but I thought, like you very early on, that WordPress sites were blogs or small 5 page websites. So the minute I ever had big corporate clients, I’d be trying to put things out there with Joomla or Drupal, etcetera, and having a heck of a awful time. I think it was WordPress 3.0 came out with post types. And that was where everything changed for me because instantly I could do everything that I ever was trying to do with either Drupal or Joomla. I could do everything then within WordPress because that changed everything. You are able to create datasets. You’re able to create custom fields. It’s not that you couldn’t do it in the past in some way with WordPress, but it was a lot more complicated until WordPress 3.0.
Michael MacGinty:
And then that’s when we became just absolutely flat out a 100% WordPress agency with no other distractions other than this podcast, which distracts me daily. I love doing it, though.
Michael McGinty:
That’s you
Michael MacGinty:
know, I hate what that
Michael McGinty:
Are you wanna say to listeners that this is the only thing you do that’s a distraction? This one single podcast is the only thing Leech Jackson does when he’s not creating websites for clients? Is that it? Tell me the truth.
Michael MacGinty:
Well, pretty much, yeah, I I I have 3 at least 3 no. No. At least 3 3 podcast recordings a week, and then there’s the editing and writing or finding new people. I spend a lot of time on this podcast. It’s ridiculous. That’s a good thing, though.
Michael McGinty:
This podcast, is it? Is it
Michael MacGinty:
No. Now we’re getting right. Podcast? I was trying to not sound like a podcast addict. Yeah. We’ve got 2 other podcasts as well. So Yeah. Maybe maybe we should drop those in the show notes. And I and thanks thanks for the nice segue.
Michael MacGinty:
And, also, I’ve just been given the the church podcast as well. Thankfully, I don’t actually have to record anything. I just need to process that for them. But we’re gonna be putting our audio out for the church as well. Might drop that link in in the future as well. So, anyway What
Michael McGinty:
are you gonna do in your spare time?
Michael MacGinty:
I don’t know. Probably well, I do all this in my spare time as well. It’s great fun. I’m a geek. You’re the same, I’m sure. You know? Alright. Let’s let’s reverse that on you. When you’re not building WordPress websites and doing your business, how do you relax? This is this is a valid question.
Michael McGinty:
It is a valid question. Yeah. It’s the the reason why I do what I do, I guess. I’m a couple years older than you. I’m celebrating my 30th wedding anniversary this year.
Michael MacGinty:
Congratulations. That’s awesome.
Michael McGinty:
And that’s my first wife, by the way. Current and first. Nice. So 30 years with June. Then. No. I don’t I don’t think I’ve managed. This one keeps me going wonderfully well.
Michael McGinty:
30 very really good years. Some tough ones. And, you know, everybody has the tough ones. But in terms of marriage, best decision my wife hates me saying it, but it’s the best decision I never made. It was a decision made by my wife. She decided that I was the right the right one, and I wriggled as I had done in every other relationship to get out of it. And this one just said, no. No.
Michael McGinty:
I’m having you. And, I went along with that. It was the best decision that she ever made, and I’m certainly very happy for it. So 30 years later, we have because I was gonna say 20 kids. We got 4 kids. Yeah. We got 4 kids. So, everything I do, I guess so I said work is all about spending time with my family and friends.
Michael McGinty:
And I did say I think I did say at least once that we live in the coolest place on the planet. Did I did I mention that bit? About Donegal? Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. National Geographic said it’s so it’s in print. So it’s it’s on a website somewhere, so it’s gotta be a fact. So, 10 minutes from the beach, roughly.
Michael MacGinty:
10 minutes. That’s so nice. So is it the beach that you’re relaxing at? Because at the moment, you’ve actually created a picture where I don’t feel you can relax yet. So, with the 4 kids, etcetera. So is it the beach that you all head out to, or or what do you do? You mentioned jazz music earlier as well, I think.
Michael McGinty:
Well, funny enough, you know, for 13 years, we got into a motor home in June. At the end of June, we got into a motor home, and we headed up that would be an RV for our our American listeners. Yeah. And we headed from Donegal in the very northwest corner of Ireland to, maybe Rome and off to and turned right and went to the beach from there. Tuscany would have been a popular one, or going down to anywhere on the coast in Spain around the Barcelona area, just north in Calle de Palos Regal or down towards Alhante. And we would go to France quite a bit. So for 13 years, we packed up and went away. And I went to the UK in the early years, and I got a dish to allow me to get Internet access whilst I was traveling.
Michael McGinty:
So I was Skyping to clients and working from an air conditioned motor home for 13 years.
Michael MacGinty:
That sounds really cool.
Michael McGinty:
It was. Yeah. That’s quite a while ago, so it’s, yeah. It was a bit of achievement.
Michael MacGinty:
The company should have been called RV Creative or something. That would have been pretty wicked, you know.
Michael McGinty:
I hear a guy called David Blackman who runs a a podcast, a number of podcasts, and he does what we do. But he’s never in the one place. He’s always heading around America in his RV.
Michael MacGinty:
That sounds awesome. That’s kind of kind of my dream, I think, is to do something like that. We we spent a couple of months out in Florida, and that was awesome. Although, that wasn’t actually in an RV. That was just in a in a house out there. But just that idea of not being in the one place all the time. I I kind of find myself climbing up the walls if I’m not doing some sort of travelling. So,
Michael McGinty:
no. That’s very cool. Every time you you parked up somewhere, you were then trying to get your your dish to work properly. An inch could make a difference in those days. You know, 1 inch well, inch always makes a difference, but, trying to get the right signal in order to get your work done. Sometimes you have to tell the client, like, I’m sitting in Tuskegee in my, swimming suit here, and I’m just checking in with you to make sure everything is okay, but I really wanna go back to the beach. But, generally, clients didn’t know that I was sitting in a an air conditioned box somewhere on this on the Italian coast. So the so that that was a fantastic thing to do for 13 years.
Michael McGinty:
I would still be doing it this year, except we’ve got 4 busy kids. So one’s playing rugby up at Ulster. Another one is doing ballet ballet camp, I guess. Okay. One is just finished for exams. She’s in the UK. And the other guy is in the States, and he’s, well, he’s back for this week, but he’s come back to the States to work for the summer. And he goes back to college, I think, in September.
Michael McGinty:
So he’s just come back to have a little bit of time with us, so it it just doesn’t suit the kids for us to go away. But when all the kids are gone from home, so there’s 2 more to go, myself and Adele, we’ll basically just do the same thing. We’ll go away during the summer, and I will work on client sites. Ryanair was a godsend because it was the advent of Ryanair that allowed me to, travel to Italy and then come back 3 days later, do 2 or 3 days work, and then travel back out again. So, thank you, Ryanair.
Michael MacGinty:
That’s that’s amazing. I I love the idea. I I think I’d find the flying a little bit stressful because I’ve been on a few Ryanair flights where where their landing isn’t as so good. Have you been on a few of those where the landing, like, literally shudders the entire plane as you hit the ground?
Michael McGinty:
Yes.
Michael MacGinty:
I’ve been
Michael McGinty:
on a few of those. I’ve been on a few 18 hour layovers. Oh, really? But Wow. But it allowed me to do what I what I what I did. It’s, I never really had anything that was scary. I’ve had a few rough landings. But on our honeymoon, the engine on the plane coming back from the States, blew up. So nothing has been as traumatic as that emergency landing after our honeymoon.
Michael McGinty:
So,
Michael MacGinty:
that sounds incredibly scary. And we apologize to anyone that we’ve just given a few issues to. If you’re scared of flying, we should probably have given you a disclaimer. So we apologize now if you are wrapped up in the fetal position.
Michael McGinty:
You know, have have you had to be on a flight that didn’t work out?
Michael MacGinty:
Well, it that’s that’s good and and it’s actually safer than getting in a car. So, you know, let’s let’s just caveat that with a bit of flight advice from Lee and Michael today. Safer than a car, so don’t worry about it. Just chill and enjoy the
Michael McGinty:
I honestly encourage anybody who’s in our our industry to do the same thing. You know, get yourself out to some nice place in the sun. Get some time off. When you go away, you can bring a laptop with you. All you need is Wi Fi. In in those days, it wasn’t easy. I used to cycle. I could be cycling 20 miles with a laptop on my back to find a hotel.
Michael McGinty:
It was a it was a good hotel, like a 5 star hotel, where I could order coffee and go on the net for a couple of hours. But but nowadays, it’s it’s everywhere. You get Wi Fi more or less anywhere you go.
Michael MacGinty:
That’s true. I’ve got the BT plan, which is like British Telecom in the UK. And our plan means that pretty much anywhere I go, even some remote village, because of the way the network works, there is WiFi I can connect to. Because most people who have British Telecom in their house, which is, I don’t know, 50% of the nation, so there’s usually every other house has it. They have some little bit that shares a bit of their internet out to anyone who’s in the area. So, we’ve pretty much got UK wide coverage now of of really fast Internet. It’s ridiculous how accessible it is. So, yeah, I would totally echo that.
Michael MacGinty:
We very often will go on short breaks, maybe for 5 days or so to maybe the Cotswolds or up north. And, again, like Michael, just need a laptop and a bit of free Wi Fi. Let’s see if they’re a coffee shop or if you’ve got one of those plans. It’s great just to be somewhere else, isn’t it? I find I’m more creative in a different space than if I’m staying in the same space all the time. And one thing we’re considering doing, and I don’t know what your thoughts on this might might be, but we’re actually considering during this summer, not necessarily basing ourselves much in our office, but actually doing spells at different coffee shops in the local area, you know, within Northamptonshire or on a really nice sunny day, just kind of setting up on their grass bank somewhere or wherever or working in our garden sometimes. And just having some different working environments instead of looking at the same white walls all the time.
Michael McGinty:
Well, nowadays, there’s no excuse. You you can go pretty much anywhere. It’d be nice to be going places with the kids and and not actually be working. And I’ll be honest and say that during the 13 years that we went away, if I wasn’t married to such an incredible woman, The fact that I was working quite a bit on holidays probably added a little bit of stress, but, you know, my kids got used to it. They they weren’t living a high life when they were on these holidays, but they were getting away. And I think it’s made them what they are today. They’re they’re fine, outstanding young people. They work very hard.
Michael McGinty:
They’re self motivated. I’d like to think that they saw their mom and dad working pretty hard, but trying to enjoy quality time with the kids as well. So this whole thing about, you know, work life balance
Michael MacGinty:
Mhmm.
Michael McGinty:
If it’s 2 separate things, I’m never going to achieve it. It’s part of what we do. If somebody calls me on a Saturday, it’s a client with an issue, it doesn’t go to support. It it probably should do. But most of my clients I have a good relationship with. I enjoy what I do work wise. I think the the kids will probably hopefully see that, but it’s just part of what we do. And Adele is the same we do as a a fund manager, hedge fund manager.
Michael McGinty:
So hers is probably more stressful than mine. But again, she just makes the time to to get away. And if we’re going to Rome or going to Spain, she would quite often have done the driving. So she’d drive with the kids for 3 days, and I’d simply fly into Barcelona and get a train to the beach and join her there. So, she’s quite quite independently capable on her own. She doesn’t need me to get anywhere.
Michael MacGinty:
Amy Woods on a few podcasts ago said work life integration. I think work life balance is something that, like you said, is pretty hard to achieve. But, also, when you’re doing something you’d love, it’s not really work, is it? It’s, so it’s that integration of being able to do both to enjoy family time that you love to do and also enjoy the work that you’re doing as well. So I think it’s a lifelong it’s a lifelong journey, isn’t it, of working it out. I’m imagining just as I’m on my deathbed, I’ll just suddenly have a eureka moment of, ah, damn it.
Michael McGinty:
Another podcast I could have
Michael MacGinty:
done. Oh, dear. Well, you never know. They might have podcasting in heaven. I’ll have eternity to annoy everyone. So, that that sounds like a good plan. Now then.
Michael McGinty:
Getting back to the community.
Michael MacGinty:
Well, that’s exactly what I how the heck did you know that you’re reading my mind? It was going to be community because you’ve been doing this for 20 years, but me and you have only really known each other for a very short space of time. I believe you went to your first word camp. Was it your first word camp in London just a few weeks ago? That’s where me and you got to hang out together. How did you discover the online community? Because I believe it’s been a good thing for you.
Michael McGinty:
Well, when when I decided to go with WordPress, I had to come in and tell the guys that we’re we’re gonna do nothing but WordPress, so I had to do a little bit study to see where I was going. And I came across you talking about the b word. It was the WP Innovator Group, and I joined the builder.
Michael MacGinty:
For anyone, if you wanna know and go find a comfort as people builder.
Michael McGinty:
Yes. If you want the 2nd best, go with Beaver Builder. And if you want the best, go with Divvy.
Michael MacGinty:
What a comment. What? I have the editing power. I could add if I want to. I could even change your words around to make you How
Michael McGinty:
do you
Michael MacGinty:
make you say the opposite?
Michael McGinty:
I’m not recording this as well.
Michael MacGinty:
Oh, damn it. Alright. Keep going.
Michael McGinty:
Well, when I when I came across you talking about Beaver Builder, I I was persuaded to look at Beaver Builder, but what what actually happened was I got more interested in the whole WP Innovator group. Mhmm. And from WP Innovator group, you happen to be launching Agency Trailblazers. I don’t know whether your listeners know much about Agency Trailblazers, but it’s a a select group of people who simply join up in order to share experience and to discuss issues and problems. So it came up at exactly the right time. You only launched, I think, in January of this year, but That’s right. Yeah. I think I was one of the first through the door.
Michael McGinty:
You were. Wasn’t sure what I was getting into, like why agency trailblazers when I’m in WP Innovator, and there was a small fee for for joining. And I think I set up I probably started a a monthly a monthly direct debit or something. I can’t remember, but I think I paid by the month as opposed to buying Intuit for a year. And after the 1st week, I realized, oh, hell, why bother to write to direct that? But this is a fantastic group. I got some people. We were sharing issues and looking for solutions. There were people there who had gone through the same thing.
Michael McGinty:
We might have had 3 answers. We debate all 3 and work out what is the best way. So between all the members of that group, I realized that this group of people could put together the best way to run a small agency like ours. So I I think I contacted you and said that, look, I’m signing up for the year. I sent the invoice. This is already worth its weight in gold, so I highly recommend it. I have no idea whether the doors are open to people or how you work it, but certainly, I’ve met some wonderful people. Wonderful people.
Michael McGinty:
Got some great answers to some, difficult questions, so I do recommend Agency Trail Blazers.
Michael MacGinty:
Well, I I I actually didn’t realize you were gonna do that, so thank you very much, obviously. And that’s agencytrailblazer.com. And it’s been great as well just listening to how talking to other people has helped you solve problems. We don’t know what we don’t know, do we? And that’s the great thing about either Agency Trailblazer. But, also, if you’re not interested in joining the paid community, there is still the WP Innovative community as well. It’s great to be able to just put something out there, isn’t it, too? The community of people. And I think we’re in an industry where everybody just wants to help each other. In theory, we could all be going after the same clients.
Michael MacGinty:
And yet, I think there’s enough business for everyone. And we just all honest honestly wanna help each other out and, you know, support each other. And somebody will have experienced something that you have not yet. Maybe you’ll say, I’ve got this great idea, and I’m gonna approach my clients with this. And then someone else within the community who may have already been there and done that, well, the t shirt might say, well, sounds like a good idea on paper, but here are some warnings. Here is what we experienced. Maybe you could approach this slightly differently. And it’s a really great way.
Michael MacGinty:
So, I think I would encourage anyone who’s listening. If you are not part of a community, you’re just listening to podcasts, then go ahead and check out the, the free WP Innovator community. That’s on Facebook. That’s wpinnovator.comforward/group. And go and get to know everybody in there because there’s some awesome people. And there are also some great communities. We’ll and I’ll put a whole load of links in there as well. There’s communities run by multiple different people like Kim Doyle, which is the content creator community as well.
Michael MacGinty:
There’s all of these different groups of people that don’t just wanna help each other out. How was your experience, mate, with the the London WordCamp?
Michael McGinty:
Well, when I joined ATB, that led on to joining WPE, and that was just WPE Elevation was the name of that group. I did that 7 week course. I hadn’t done it when I got to London. I had started it, I think. I was in probably just in the new intake. So in fact, I hadn’t started. It was just I’d signed up to it, but it hadn’t kicked off. But when I got to London, I’ll be totally honest, I don’t generally get sick, but as you know, I was.
Michael McGinty:
So I never heard of a 3 week cold. That was a new one on me. If someone had said to me I’ve had a cold for 3 weeks, I would’ve I would’ve laughed. I probably still do. You did look rough, mate. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks a lot.
Michael McGinty:
I felt a lot rough, and I had met so many really nice people through agency trailblazers, and I had sort of said to you, because you’ve been asked to speak there, and I sort of said to you, go for it. You know, we’ll all be there to to hear you. And I sort of guess I bullied a few people and said, look, you know, London is a good place to go because there’s easy access for all of us. Mhmm. So I did get there. I was running on a very low low battery, but I did get there. I even got a hug from you, which is pretty pretty, you know, the I I wouldn’t have hugged you if you’d been in the same condition that I was in, but, it that’s the sort of community that we’re in. You know? It’s a I wasn’t so
Michael MacGinty:
sure about that. The the butt pinch he gave me, though. I I did feel
Michael McGinty:
a little uncomfortable, but anyway That that
Michael MacGinty:
was Imogen Allen. That wasn’t me
Michael McGinty:
at all. Oh, was it? Oh, wow. But it it was a good few days. It was it was it was just great to connect with people. You meet people who are virtually connected to you. Mhmm. You know, we’re virtually connected to people in the States, and you probably met a few after your trip to Florida. Yeah.
Michael McGinty:
But when you actually get to talk to somebody, at a word camp, it just I don’t know. It it it joins dots that you didn’t even know were there. So you get a level of closeness and trust. A lot of us trust, actually, you look somebody in the eye. I think you’ve probably joined, Peach and Neri’s group as well where she’s talking about design for web. Wonderful, wonderful. Again, this this is this is just somebody who’s got so much experience in design, distilling it for, I think she says geeks and nerds and web developers, which is great. She’s translating design for us in a way that makes it easy for us to understand, comprehend, and and work out what the user experience is.
Michael McGinty:
So it it’s been it’s only just started, but that all came from her going to WordCamp and talking to people like you, like me, and working out that these guys haven’t a clue. They haven’t a clue.
Michael MacGinty:
Yeah. Most of us in WordPress space, and while I can’t speak for everyone, but a lot of people I’ve experienced, we we’ve all come from the development or the use background, and and design is still something that feels like a a very, complicated art to us, isn’t it?
Michael McGinty:
It’s changing all the time. You know, you’re you’re you’re developing websites for desktop and then a variety of different sizes of screen. And then some idiot comes up with a phone where everybody can see it on the screen. It’s only the size of the palm of your hand.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yes, Steve. What was that all about?
Michael McGinty:
Yeah. God, we were just getting the hang of this until he comes along and screws the
Michael MacGinty:
whole thing up. And and then he says, no Flash either. What was that all about? I was loving doing Flash animations. They were great fun.
Michael McGinty:
Well, you can always go back to your clients and say, look. That website won’t work anymore. You need a new one.
Michael MacGinty:
That’s true. That’s true. Although, we never actually built websites in Flash. We just did we just did the animations. They were cool.
Michael McGinty:
Well, WordCamp worked out. I don’t know how well it worked out for you, because I actually missed you talking after all of that. I I went over, and I would just could not I did get there on that first day, but I didn’t get to hear you. But I heard you were incredible. I don’t know. Is is that recorded? Can people actually listen to your WordCamp talk?
Michael MacGinty:
Well, I was just double checking whilst you were, being very kind. And I’ve tapped my name into WordPress TV, and I’m not in there yet. So Peaches
Michael McGinty:
Profanities. Probably profanities. They don’t like profanities.
Michael MacGinty:
Peaches’ talk from a when she was in, I think she was in Spain.
Michael McGinty:
Spain.
Michael MacGinty:
That’s gone live.
Michael McGinty:
Okay.
Michael MacGinty:
But that was 2 weeks before Word Capital London. So I think there’s probably another couple of weeks yet until, until my talk’s on on there. But as soon as my talk is on there, on WordPress TV, I’ll make sure I link to it in the show notes of this episode. So we’ll we’ll circle back around. And we’ll also, obviously, share it in the communities as well. Because I wanna watch it back because there wasn’t a lot of nice feedback, but I haven’t actually had an opportunity to watch myself back and decide whether or not I was any good. So
Michael McGinty:
Well, there’s some great photographs. You look pretty relaxed. You look like you were you were in full flow.
Michael MacGinty:
So I’ve I’ve mastered the art of breathing in permanently.
Michael McGinty:
Well, if you if you do get live events, send me the link. I’d I’d like to hear what I didn’t hear, but I’m still glad I got there for the rest of that day and for the following day. And, like, even managed to get a few beers in with a few people after on the Saturday evening, which was good. So shout out to Dave Herbert, Emmett John Allen, Mike Hillen, Rich Flynn, so we we we just connected in a way, even since that word count, we talk to each other every second day. It’s like having somebody else in the business. So we can bitch about scope creep, which is the, you know, the issue. It’s the issue. It’s not going away.
Michael McGinty:
But certainly using using WordPress and using Divi as well, we have found that we are trying to help clients get a solution from us that they will use as opposed to get a solution from us where they’d not trust us and like us, and they ring us every time or email us every time they want to make a change to the website. So we’re doing our best to empower our clients Yeah. To that end, I suppose, we’re we’re pushing them on training in a way that we didn’t used to. We’re pushing them on care plans in a way that we didn’t used to. But pack part of the package with us nowadays is that we don’t really want a client who doesn’t want to use the tool that we produce for them, because scope creep, even last Friday, we had somebody who was sending over changes to a new website before it’s even gone live. So we said, you know what? Stop. We’re gonna give you an hour of training, and we’re gonna show you how to make these changes because a lot of them are just it’s just textual, and Yeah. You would do this quicker than email us.
Michael McGinty:
So we did that, and he spent the weekend making changes. And I’m pretty sure that saved us about, I don’t know, a couple of hours of toing and froing an email to change a little bit of text in in different boxes. So and he and he and he’s wonderfully happy with his solution.
Michael MacGinty:
Well, that’s good as well because he’s empowered by it, and he can do things whenever he wants to, rather than back in the day when you used to have to wait 6 weeks for the web developer to change the telephone number. And it was annoying for the web developer as well, because they just wanted to be working on a different project rather than going back and going through old HTML code.
Michael McGinty:
So it sounds like sorry. The guy yesterday is a he has a website. He wanted some changes done to it, but his web developer is gone, which is it’s it’s one of those magic tricks with web developers. So many of them disappear into thin air. You know? Is it a story or do they just get taken away by Martians, but their telephone number rings out, their website is gone, they’re not even at home anymore, but he had an Adobe Business Catalyst website Yeah. Yeah. And he couldn’t do anything about it. And because of GDPR, he called an IT company, had a real IT company, had referred him to us, and he called to say, could I take the website done? Because he was afraid he’d be in breach of GDPR.
Michael McGinty:
So what what I suggest is you just make some changes and to your work your your privacy policy, make some changes to your website and the way you collect data, and he said, but we can’t do that with our website. I’ve been told we can’t do that with our website. So he sent me his access details, and lo and behold, 40 minutes later, his website is actually optimized better as well and is GDPR much more GDPR compliant. I’m not sure I can actually say something is a 100% GDPR compliant, but it’s a lot better, and the client’s a lot happier. And and, he doesn’t need a new website, but the tool when I was in working on the tool yesterday, it’s such a dog. It’s the sort of thing that people were were giving to clients and expecting them to use, or or or was it that they were expecting that the client would always come back to get the work done? I’m not too sure. But maybe we weren’t doing the right thing for clients Yeah. Or the tools weren’t available, but they are now.
Michael MacGinty:
I think I think a big thing was that the tools weren’t available, or the tools that were available were a little bit too complicated for clients to use as well. I mean, if you think of Dream was it Dreamweaver? Dreamweaver. Those things. Yeah. FrontPage. They they looked like they would solve the problem, but they were a little bit still a little bit too complicated for clients to understand. And, also, if not used correctly, could essentially ruin or butcher a website. So, I remember I actually gave up doing web development for a while because I thought FrontPage was going to replace me.
Michael MacGinty:
And then, I soon realized that no one could actually figure out how to use FrontPage, and so I was back in business. That was back when I was a teenager. Started doing my first websites in 1999 when I had hair. But that’s a
Michael McGinty:
That’s a sore point, isn’t it?
Michael MacGinty:
It is a real sore point, man. I was so annoyed about this.
Michael McGinty:
Yeah. Yeah. You know I told you that I thought this was gonna be a video interview, so I had my hair done. Shut up. Don’t worry. If you if you say if you if you’ve met me, hair only grows in one half of my head, and I’m I’m slow to have that cut off. But I I just don’t wanna join the Baldys.
Michael MacGinty:
At least you’ve not done a Donald on us and, you know, kind of done a very elaborate arrangement of hair to give you some kind of strange quiff.
Michael McGinty:
Not yet.
Michael MacGinty:
Not yet. Although, that’s coming. I can’t wait. So it sounds to me, though, that there’s been a massive shift in your business then. Has that been a result of connecting with people online then? So you said you were pushing care plans, for example, and things like that. So that’s regular revenue and all those sorts of things. Have these been a result of community? Do you think your business would be where it is today if you had not have spent the last year to, well, 6 months to a year connecting with the likes of Imagen and all those awesome people online?
Michael McGinty:
No. There
Michael MacGinty:
you go. Did you did you want a zip line, Jerome? I knew you were gonna do that. I went I went along and said, but I literally knew you were gonna be awkward and say that.
Michael McGinty:
Yeah. All of this stuff, we’ve always offered care plans. Like, you know, for years, we’ve offered care plans. But did we push them? No. We didn’t push them. So our priority this year is to get the existing clients onto care plans, and all new clients get offered a web solution that works for them
Michael MacGinty:
Mhmm.
Michael McGinty:
Delivers the results that we’ve agreed they need, but only if they invest in a care plan. Because, when you buy a car, you know the old adage, buy a car, you get it serviced, you put fuel in, you get oil. You change the tires. You got insured. You got a road tax, all that sort of stuff on a website. Pretty much comes with all the same thing. You you need someone to support you, but, ideally, you want to be able to use the platform, and you don’t want to be worried about security. So, ideally, pay somebody to do your servicing and make the tool work for you.
Michael McGinty:
So, I know a lot of people sell websites on the basis of price because they get badgered into by clients who want the the lowest price. Everybody who calls looking for a website generally starts with, I’m just looking for a quote, how much would a website be? And if you called an architect and said, I’m looking for a house, how much would a house be? It it even sounds ridiculous. You know? I’m looking for a house. How much is a house? If it’s being built, you can get a price for a house. But until a website’s being built, you really don’t know what’s involved. And we can give you ballparks, but, care plans are are key. I guess the difference with being part of the communities that we’re now part of is our approach to how we offer it has changed. So there are a lot of smart people out there, when we post this issue and say, you know, we’re we’re getting no uptake, somebody will come back with a a 9 email string that explains to clients in short emails how things could be dire if they don’t invest in a care plan.
Michael McGinty:
So we’re following good advice from people who’ve sort of gone before us. And Yeah. You get one guy who’s good on care plans, you got another guy who’s good on multi sites, you get another guy who’s good on hosting. It’s quite incredible. We’ve gone from having, myself and John work in the office and Damien is part time, our graphic designers are all contract. Yep. So, Idel is in the office, he looks after finance, but but really, we if we have a a challenge, we try and work it out between us and we we Google it, but now we don’t. We just go to, Agency Trailblazer or WPE or WP Innovator.
Michael McGinty:
We we pose a question and people come back with answer. And people take so much trouble to review a site. It’s actually quite amazing to see the the level of input you get from people if you post up a website and say, I’ve just built this website. What do you think? And people will will critique it and send you back constructive criticism. It’s it’s quite amazing. It’s mind bending when you see the the amount of time people give in this community. So, yeah, I’m I’m I’m any work camp coming up, if I was gonna say to you, there is due to be a WordCamp in the Midland somewhere, I think maybe in Birmingham later on this year, which hopefully we’ll all get to again.
Michael MacGinty:
So excited to see you at Birmingham as well and any WordCamp. If you don’t go to a WordCamp, folks, or never been sorry or even just a local WordPress meetup, be sure to go check them out. There are some really, really nice people out there. I think I think me and you are just community advocates, aren’t we, right now? We’re we’re pushing community. What I would also recommend you do, guys, if you are in a position where you are trying to sell care plans, because it’s not necessarily just about making money. It’s obviously great to have that reoccurring revenue, but it’s also helpful for the client. You know? And with GDPR out, making sure your site is updated, is secured, is looked after is really important because you’re protecting the data that’s within that website. I’d recommend you also listen to episode number 117 with Ed Ellingham, where he talks about generating recurring revenue and how he sells, his packages.
Michael MacGinty:
He gives some advice because he has a 100% uptake with all of his web clients with regards to taking on their packages. And then we also did a podcast recently, which is probably already out of date because GDPR seems to change all the time. But there is episode number 127 where we talk about GDPR for websites and drop a few value bombs in there as well. Because there are a few things in there, a few nuggets of wisdom that you can use to be encouraging your clients to do their due diligence, and therefore take you up on your website care plans. Because I think that’s really important as well. So, Michael, we’ve talked about community for a lot of this. Therefore, where are the best places for people to find you? And then we will give you another hug and kick you off the show.
Michael McGinty:
Meanit Web Design Agency, so it’s Meanit dot ie. Ie because it’s the iris, d l d r, to be sure. Mhmm. Michael MacGinty,
Michael MacGinty:
that’s a
Michael McGinty:
there’s an a. We discussed that as well. Not all Irish people are emcees, so it’s Michael MacGinty in LinkedIn. But Meanit web design should get you anywhere at all, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat. My my, son is getting me to put some time into Insta, so, we might get down and dirty with Instagram as well. But, the easiest place to find us is just mean it dot ie or at the next word count.
Michael MacGinty:
It’s mean it dot ie and all the socials are
Lee Matthew Jackson:
at the top. I wouldn’t recommend
Michael MacGinty:
you get down and dirty on Instagram, by the
Lee Matthew Jackson:
way, because I think that’s against their policy.
Michael MacGinty:
I’m here all day. Here all day. But, yeah, the social icons are at the top of me net dot a e. What we will do though is we will collate all those as well and put them in the show notes because Michael is a good friend. I always enjoy chatting with him and have a good laugh, and I’m sure you will too if you connect with him. Mate, thank you so much for your time and have an awesome day.
Michael McGinty:
Okay. So from the coolest place in the planet in Donegal, it’s, goodbye from Minut. Good to talk to you, Lee.
Michael MacGinty:
Cheers.
Michael McGinty:
Looking forward to seeing you soon. Bye.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And that wraps up today’s show. I got to admit, during most of it, it really felt like I was interviewing Roy from the IT crowd.
Michael MacGinty:
I absolutely love Michael’s accent.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, let us know. If you’re on iTunes, was Apple Podcasts now? Whatever it’s called, please do leave us a review. However, you consume this podcast, it really helps us to know that you love what we’re doing. So go ahead and leave us a good old 5 star review. And if you don’t like what we’re doing, then just don’t tell anyone. Let’s just keep that one a secret. That would be really, really kind.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Don’t forget, we have the free Facebook group where we’re all hanging out in there. That’s wpinnovator.com/group. And if you’re interested in being a agency trailblazer, over on agencytrailblazer.com, you will find all of the information that you would need to join in that community there as well. Alright. You are all freaking awesome. We will see you in the communities. Have a wonderful week, and we’ll see you in the next episode.
