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 the WP Innovator Podcast. This is your host, Lee Jackson, and this is episode 30-something. Yes, we’re having so many episodes now, I’m running out of memory. So we’re going to upgrade my memory. And until then, if you’re not part of the WP Innovator Facebook group, then head on over to leejaxondev.com/group and it will redirect you there. We’re a bunch of nutters, but we’re a good bunch of nutters. And we’re talking about WordPress and running our agencies, our web design businesses, etc. And until then, enjoy the show. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night. Please do not sue me, Truman Show, stealing that.
Mike Killen
I just realised that’s it. That’s it.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Cut. It’s Lee. Hey, hey everyone, it’s Lee and we have Mike, Michael, Mikey, Mike Killen on the show.
Mike Killen
Hello.
Lee Matthew Jackson
If you don’t know— well, well, mate, I’m doing fine. How are you doing?
Mike Killen
Oh yeah, very good. Sorry, I’ll let you carry on with your intros.
Lee Matthew Jackson
No, no, that’s fine. Well, this is how the intros are meant to go. They’re meant to be natural and messy. That’s actually how I like— when I first started the podcast, I wanted everything to be perfect. And I’ve kind of realised that that’s just kind of boring.
Mike Killen
Yeah, sure.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, so let’s just keep going with the flow. This is fun. If you want to just shout like in the middle of my speech, just go for it. It’ll be funny. Just tell me you’ve got Tourette’s or something. That’d be hilarious. All right, so, uh, yeah, but anyway, if you don’t know Michael, he is— what is it? Well, here’s a question for you. Is it— would you prefer Michael, Mike?
Mike Killen
Uh, Mike is typically what I go by.
Lee Matthew Jackson
No worries. The only reason why I keep saying Michael is because it’s on my screen on the, uh, on, um, on Skype. So I don’t know, like my brain’s drawn towards the name. So it is definitely Mike. Mike. We’ll stick with Mike, which is very cool. I like that name. If I could have been called any other name other than Lee, it would have been Mike.
Mike Killen
Oh, I’ve listened to your other podcasts. You said that to everybody.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Actually, this is the first time I’ve used that one.
Mike Killen
All right. Yeah. Very privileged.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Thank you. In 30, you’ll be episode 32, I think. So this will be the first time I’ve used it. Anyway, sorry, we digress. Obviously, Mike is the man from Devon Digital Design. That is a beautiful area of England, which is far more beautiful than where I live. And he is the agency owner there. He also runs Sell Your Service, which is focused on creating marketing funnels, which I can’t wait to drain your mind of. Sure, mate. Advanced warning. And also works with the Troy Dean and his team over at WP Elevation. That was my, um, that was my Australian accent there.
Mike Killen
That was good.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Elevation.
Mike Killen
Elevation. Yeah, almost a bit Kiwi there, but yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
But I, mate, I am pretty jealous.
Mike Killen
Yeah, no, it was, um, in regards to working with WP Elevation. Yes, yes, because it kind of came out. Thanks very much. Yeah, you know, it’s, um, both had to be cultivated over many, many years of hard work, you know. Um, but no, work a load of tea in my mouth then as well. Perfect, perfect. We don’t have a camera as well, so I can’t time that kind of stuff.
Lee Matthew Jackson
No, no, this is good.
Mike Killen
But, um, no, working with WP Ears, uh, it’s, it’s a real privilege, frankly, because, you know, they’ve been so influential in the WordPress space. Yes. Uh, and basically, I guess we’ll go over kind of the, the history of other stuff, but, uh, Troy asked me to come on as a coach. So I’m one of their coaches, and I, my kind of particular area is building marketing funnels and, and the marketing side of, uh, you know, digital stuff like WordPress. And he kind of sheepishly put towards me, said, oh, Mike, you know, we’re wanting to do more of the the marketing funnels and content marketing and stuff. Do you know anyone that would work and suit for it? And I kind of thought, well, yeah, I could do it, but I thought there’s no way in the world I’d be able to put myself forward for that, you know. Um, and he sort of came back to me a couple of days later, he was like, you obviously didn’t get the hint. What I want, Mike, is for you to be the content marketer. And it kind of snowballed from there. And yeah, I was out in, out in Melbourne a couple of months ago with the team and we just kind of piled through for a week, just worked really heavily on their business.
Mike Killen
Uh, and they’ve got some very, very cool stuff coming out. So yeah, it’s, um, kind of nerve-wracking working for, you know, someone that you look up to like Troy, you know? Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I was saying just before this podcast as well, wasn’t I, that, um, when we had Troy, Troy was episode 3, I think.
Mike Killen
Yeah. Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Um, you know, so I was very green behind the ears and he was so nice and so kind and was really encouraging, right? I mean, I didn’t get to record that bit, but afterwards he just gave me a little speech on, you know, how well I was doing and encouraging me. And that was, that was really good. So yeah, he’s a great guy. Uh, it’s funny, isn’t it? Like we, we kind of put people on these pedestals a little bit and we get a bit scared of them and then we realise actually they’re all really cool.
Mike Killen
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Um, and really nice and human as well.
Mike Killen
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So, uh, so, and so is Mike, as you can hear, um, cultivates his hair very well and, and, and obviously he’s on my business. So mate, um, this has kind of been a messy start and that’s exactly the start I love. But could you just give us kind of some kind of rewind, maybe not too far back, back into the early ’80s when you were born? Yeah, but it just kind of backfire enough to, you know, a bit about who you are, you know, obviously where you’re from and that sort of thing, your hobbies, what you like for breakfast, and then kind of what does your life look like right now as well? What are you up to with all the different fingers in all the different pies that you’re doing? It would be great just to get an insight into the life that is Mike.
Mike Killen
Yeah, it’s funny because I was, I was kind of looking back a little while ago and I felt I hadn’t been making progress on my business. And my girlfriend suggested, right, write down the things that you can do now that you couldn’t do a year ago. And it’s surprising. It’s a little exercise that I might start doing more often because I was like, oh yeah, you know, I have come quite far. Like the business has come quite far. And I think I’ve nurtured a couple of people. But basically it started when I went to uni, I did product design and I kind of thought, I’m going to be one of these influential graphic and product designers like Alessi, like the people I really looked up to. And about a year into it, I realised I can’t draw for love nor money. I was like, this is going to be a problem. So I tacked on a marketing side. And it turns out I was quite good at doing the marketing side of a product. So although my products were kind of naff, to be honest, the marketing side stood out and I always seemed to scrape by and get slightly better grades purely because I made them think my products were way better than they were.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Good marketing, obviously.
Mike Killen
Well, yeah, exactly. And so after that, I had a couple of regular marketing jobs and worked my way up. And I did door-to-door sales for a bit, which is awful, and then worked for a couple of car hire companies. And bit by bit, I was poached by a big US corporate company to do their digital marketing and be their UK digital marketing representative. And I was about 23 at the time, and I thought, well, I’ve made it, right? Throwing crazy corporate money at me. I had a car, credit card, you know, company card. I had my own office, all this kind of stuff. And then I walked into the office building one day and the entire floor was empty. And I was like, this isn’t good. Called my manager, and turns out I’d been made redundant, but I hadn’t been told yet. Oh no. Yeah. So within the space of about 24 hours, my company card, my company car, all my money. And if you’re 23 and they pay you, you know, however much, you tend not to save that much.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Nope.
Mike Killen
You know, I remember that. Yeah, right. And I was like, I’ve literally got nothing. So I built up, and you kind of follow that process. And sometimes, depending on who I’m telling the storey to, I’ll say— if I’m telling it to family, I’ll say, and then I set up Devon Digital Design as a way to get myself back on my feet. But the truth is actually I spent the last of my money taking my brothers and I to Las Vegas, and we basically went there for 10 days.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And wait, no, that sounds— this sounds like a movie.
Mike Killen
No, literally, I was— I’ve been made redundant. I got home to my flat and was like, well, I’m not gonna be able to afford the rent this month. Wow. Called up my brothers and said, I’ve just been made redundant. I’m buying us some tickets to Vegas. We’re leaving in a week or whatever. And then sheepishly had to call up my mum and said, look, I need somewhere to stay. And basically we did go to Vegas. I lost, well, I didn’t have any money to go out there with, but I didn’t come back with any more is basically the problem. And I kind of thought, okay, well, what do I want to do? And that’s when I set up Devon Digital Design, which was all I wanted to do is build websites and do some marketing for people. I had a really small vision for it. I just wanted to do that and do it well. And I came across a couple of coaches like Sean Mize, Frank Kern, Ryan Dice, Troy from WPE, and bit by bit I kind of built it out. And what we found is that I don’t like building websites, I like helping other people build websites, and we have a designer and developer do that.
Mike Killen
But what I really like doing is building marketing funnels, which basically helps you help— it finds an audience, you know, and it helps capture leads and grow your business. And I didn’t really think I was doing anything that special until someone said to me, a competitor of mine said, would you be able to teach me to do what you did. And I was kind of hesitant at first, and I was like, all right, well, I’m going to put together a really quick video. And that’s now spiralled and spiralled. We’ve got a course coming out soon on basically how to turn a WordPress site into a marketing funnel. And that was around the same time that Troy said, well, we want you to come on board of WP Elevation. So I hope it happened organically because I really don’t like when people are like, oh, I’m a, you know, I’m a chiropractor, and also I do a little bit of this on the side and this on the side. And it’s like, I’m hoping it keeps tight because a couple of times I’ve kept my eye off the ball. But, um, yeah, that’s basically it. It was spawned out of redundancy, which I know is quite a common theme for a lot of the other guys you have on here.
Lee Matthew Jackson
It is, it is, yes. Um, and it’s— if people kind of get— you kind of get forced into it, don’t you? You’re like, I’ve got to do something.
Mike Killen
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And people are often thinking, I’m gonna— I will start a business eventually, but it takes that kind of that trigger, doesn’t it? I’ve got to pay rent. Yeah, I now need to do something. So yeah, so let’s talk about that. You know, because people, people say, yeah, and this, and that’s how it was birthed. But how did you get started? Let’s talk about that for a bit. I’m intrigued. Like, you’ve got no money.
Mike Killen
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
How did you start a web development company?
Mike Killen
I basically was like, right, I’ve got to remember all this website stuff that I’ve been getting other people to do and kind of put together a website. And it’s weird, I released it out to the world and I had a few people who, again, at the time— this is what the biggest thing I’ve noticed is that who you look up to might not necessarily be the same person you up to a year later, because the people who I thought knew what they were doing with websites said, yeah, your first site, it’s not that good. It’s got a couple of things wrong with it. And so it’s evolved over the time. And it was basically, I’m going to set up a site. And I’m going to try and find someone who needs a website. That was literally my business model. I did get some funding from the Prince’s Trust, which was kind of cool. And that helped, you know, get me together some advertising pieces and just a cheap laptop and stuff to be able to do things on. But that was pretty much it. I kind of sat down and said, I want to build a website.
Mike Killen
After I built my first website, and then a colleague of mine who does my hosting and he does my email and does our telephone lines and stuff, he said, ah, you should cheque out WordPress. I was like, what do you know? Like, you know, um, and I was like, ah, fine. Reluctantly I tried it out, and I didn’t sleep that night, you know, because I was just like, this is mental. I cannot believe I can do all this stuff. And this was back in 2012, I want to say.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah.
Mike Killen
So it was— WordPress was big, but I don’t think it had the level of plugins and attention to detail that it’s got now. And so yeah, basically bit by bit pulled together a WordPress site, and all I wanted to do was find customers who wanted to build WordPress sites. And the fastest way I found to do that was to go to networking events and just say to people, you know, I’d really love to build a site for you and like give talks as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah.
Mike Killen
Like people say, oh, could you give a talk on what a website needs and stuff like that? And I’ll be honest, they weren’t profitable sites, but they did teach me a lot about managing customer expectations and what the hell an invoice is and stuff like that, you know, and presumably helped pay that rent as well and all the other stuff. Just about.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah.
Mike Killen
Yeah. Because there’s that horrible, like, you need cash flow and that’s the, that’s the biggest problem I face. Like every other business, cash flow is the problem, right? Um, and the concept of recurring revenue customers hadn’t really occurred to me until quite late. So I was chasing customers and trying to find new ways of working, and I fell into that trap of thinking, well, if I release another product, if I do social media training as well, if I do SEO as well and all these other things, that’s what will help it. But it still basically is the same process of pay me once and the project is done.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah.
Mike Killen
So it wasn’t until we started building basically care plans and consulting into it. We don’t call it consulting, but that’s basically what it is into what we built as websites and said, no, these are mandatory. And also we found as soon as we started, I say we because I do have a business partner who’s based in the States and we actually kind of share customers across the UK and the US. And we found if we charged over a certain amount, we found that breaking point to be around £3,500, about $6,000. All of a sudden the quality of customer changed. Yeah, it were now no longer difficult to work with and kind of penny-pinching. They actually said, well, you’re the expert and we want to return on this, so we’ll trust what you said, you know. And that basically came down to, well, I’m going to charge more. I didn’t, I didn’t do anything different. My process wasn’t any different. My websites weren’t any better. I literally just decided this is the price of a website now.
Lee Matthew Jackson
It’s amazing, that journey. I, I hope people who are starting agencies are able to, you know, not devalue themselves and start too low because it’s the same journey. I think you’ll have heard on previous episodes I’ve said similar things, haven’t I, where I started off way, way, way, way too low, working really hard. The cash flow was really hard to manage and I was thinking, is this my life now? Yeah. And then, you know, finding that price point of, oh, actually, if, you know, you get a really different type of client when, when, and, and when you charge more. And you still, you’re, you, you actually end up making less sales and making more money as well. And you want to work really well for them and do amazing work and give them the return on their investment because they paid you good money and you want to look after them.
Mike Killen
Yeah. And I think one thing our industry is terrible at— so I love WordCamp, and I think as like our plugins and stuff go, we’re pretty generous with what like it’s $30. Some of these plugins are like $39 US dollars, and they just do incredible things, you know. But one thing our industry is really, really terrible at is telling people to raise their prices. If you go to a WordCamp and say, I think I’m going to raise my prices, you will get booed and said that people will say, you know, well, I’m only charging this much. And the problem is, I think a lot of people feel that you can only charge more if you’re of a certain calibre, or if you’ve cut your teeth, or you’ve been in the industry a certain amount of time. And people who have been in the industry for a long time, they don’t want you to raise your prices because it makes them look bad. But the truth is that raising your prices has got nothing to do with what you deliver. It’s basically, I’m going to charge this now. It’s— you are already building $10,000 sites, £6,000 sites, you’re already building them.
Mike Killen
And so much of it’s to do with the way that you talk to customers as well. Very little has got to do with the actual site that you build.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That is such good advice, and it does worry me as well when people enter the plugin market at a low price, because I guess it’s not— eventually it’s not going to be sustainable unless you’re very lucky and you become like Basecamp, who— I mean, Basecamp is not a WordPress plugin, but they started their project management software at something like $20 or even $10, I think. It was something ridiculously cheap, but they were very lucky and they’ve become millionaires as a result. But in the world of WordPress, especially with plugins and than that. There are a lot of plugins out there, so you might as well charge a decent price. And I wouldn’t think twice, to be honest, about paying, you know, $200, $300 for plugins. And I do all the time, being a builder. I mean, what’s that? I think it’s $600, I think it was the first time. Yeah, yeah, for that, because I bought the agency licence, so I spent $600 on it or something like that. And then obviously my renewal is cheaper, which is great. I love the fact they give you a reduction every year. But, you know, still, the, the value I’m getting from that is immense.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And also the support I’m getting from them because I’m paying more, etc. And they can— they’ve got a better business model result of that, you know, I’m enjoying much better support as well from, from those guys as well.
Mike Killen
But that’s— that point has now come up twice, both on my side and like you mentioned on plugins. It’s support. That is what you’re paying for. That’s what generates you revenue. If you are willing to provide that support, even if saying— and one of our packages says you’ll get Mike’s personal mobile phone number, and like, that’s worth extra because people can call me up and say, look, we need, we need to get in contact with you because we need something. But I am more than happy to pay for premium plugins, if I know that rather than just go on a forum, I can open a ticket. The hosting company that I use is WordPress-specific, it’s not WP Engine. It’s not a big shout out or anything, but they’re called This Is Tap. They’re based in the UK. And the support is outstanding. Like, and I’m happy to pay and they often say, oh, really sorry, this has happened. You know, let’s do a refund. I’m like, no, I don’t want a refund. I want you to fix the problem. And they’re always there. They’re willing to open that communication. But the same even with high-quality plugins, you know, you can get people to take a look at it.
Mike Killen
And that’s what you pay for. That’s what I’m happy to pay for as well. And I say to a couple of the guys I outsource to, I’m like, don’t be afraid to charge me a little bit more than this because it’s important that you stay profitable because otherwise I won’t be able to use you again in the future if you stop doing this.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Amen, brother. Yeah. Preach it, brother.
Mike Killen
Preach it. Preach it.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, I’ve heard of TAP actually. It’s funny you should say that. This is TAP. I’ve reached out to them quite recently for an interview because it’d be great to chat to those guys as well.
Mike Killen
Yeah, they’re good. Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So they’ve, they had said they will, so we’re going to get that arranged. So look forward, coming soon. Also, we have a special offer for WP Innovator listeners. Mike is going to give you his mobile telephone number now for 20 minutes.
Mike Killen
Sorry, did you blur that out? Obviously I can’t tell because you’ve edited it, but it sounds like you blurred it out.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Uh, yeah, probably. Yeah. That was, we’ll blame the audio guy that processes the audio.
Mike Killen
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And the reminder of that number again. Mate, you’re braver than I am giving your mobile number out.
Mike Killen
But, uh, to be fair, it’s not pro— only 2 customers have ever bought it. It’s more, it’s more like a, you can have this if you want. Um, because the number that on our, on our site that we are actually now removing, we’re moving to a, like, a standardised number, is like, it’s kind of like a work mobile, and I don’t even take it with me anymore. Like, just, it just sits in the office.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Um, yeah, in fact, you, you don’t have a number on your website, and I think not on your Devon, uh, the Devon Digital.
Mike Killen
We tried to remove it, but I think some people have scraped it somewhere because I occasionally get, um, what do you call, like, um, recruitment calls and stuff. All right, must be somewhere, but for the life of me, I cannot find it. Maybe it’s on LinkedIn or something.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I imagine that— well, they might be going on to archive.org. Oh yeah, because your very first website on at least Devon Digital was 2013. I was having a look at it whilst you were chatting.
Mike Killen
That’s the white one, right? Oh man, yeah. See, I looked back and I was like, actually, that is not the worst site I’ve ever made. But that was wholly hand-coded, right?
Lee Matthew Jackson
It was pretty good though, because you were talking about jargon, digital marketing, what is digital marketing. You were already giving away great advice to people.
Mike Killen
Mate, you, you do your research, don’t you?
Lee Matthew Jackson
I do my research. You’ve got to know who you’re talking to, otherwise it would be dead obvious and embarrassing.
Mike Killen
Yeah, yeah, that’s true.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah. Okay, so this is, um, Mike, and, um, he does WordPress. So Mike, how are you today?
Mike Killen
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that’s a good point.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Uh, hashtag awkward. Oh no, that’s brilliant. And you’re great friends to talk to, so, so this is good. So, um, so you— so obviously we’ve talked about this digital agency, we’ve gone into pricing, which is definitely a subject that’s really close to my heart. Um, what— at what point kind of did you make that shift? I mean, you’ve not necessarily made the shift because you still run the agency, but at what point did the sell your service— how did that get birthed? Obviously you found you were becoming passionate, or already were passionate about marketing funnels, but how did the sell your service idea get birthed and launched?
Mike Killen
Well, it was kind of like I was going through a lot of courses and stuff, and I was like, yeah, it’s all good and well, people telling me like the, the theory behind building a marketing funnel. Um, and I was kind of chatting away to a couple of mates of mine like locally, and they said, oh, well, we’d love to know how you did it, because I had built these marketing funnels for my sites and for my customers’ sites. Um, and they said, well, they don’t really work, do they? I said, well, I get a notification every time I make between $9 and $39, and I roughly $100 a day. Just, I don’t, I hate the term passive income because an enormous amount of work goes into it, but I don’t actually manufacture, so to speak, the sale, right? And when that doesn’t, I basically brought up my PayPal. I said, look, I’ll show you today, today. Oh, and there’s another one’s just come through. And they’re small sales, but they happen very regularly. And they were like, is, how could you do that? Can you teach me how to do that? I was like, well, yeah, it’s a WordPress site and some MailChimp, like I don’t know, there’s nothing else you need to know.
Mike Killen
So basically, we put together this course and we sold it, uh, and it did pretty well. We went straight in at $97 a month, uh, but what we found, and this apparently is not uncommon, is that the course turnover was very high. Like, people would buy it, but they’d only stay for maybe 3 or 4 months while they consumed all the content, and then they’d leave. And I was like, well, this is unsustainable, really. So basically, we closed down access, we restructured the course we kept all the exact same content, but what changed is, uh, the way that, you know, we actually deliver it. It’s drip-fed now, uh, it’s an upfront cost, um, and it’s like a more broken-down structured process. Like, one video will be, this is how we embed a contact form, this is the exact plugin we use. So it’s much, much, much smaller steps. And yeah, it basically came out of just telling people how I was doing stuff kind of already or for other customers, you know.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s so cool. So here’s a, here’s a question for you. You know all about marketing funnels, but I imagine there are definitely some agencies listening in or web designers who build websites and they want to be able to service their clients better. They hear the phrase marketing funnel, yeah, but they actually don’t know what it is and are maybe too afraid to ask. So I’m going to ask the question: what the beep is a marketing funnel? Can you give us the the, the Mike kind of 18-point sermon on marketing funnels starting now.
Mike Killen
We’ll pause it and then I’ll go and think of something clever and we’ll come back and start.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That was me rewinding, actually.
Mike Killen
That’s very good. That’s— yeah, that’s good. So yeah, a marketing funnel. Yeah, so the first point—
Lee Matthew Jackson
I cover hours later. Hi again, Mike, how are you doing? So that question again.
Mike Killen
Yeah, so a marketing funnel, right? Easy peasy. So I think the biggest, the biggest question that I come up with, the biggest objection is designers and developers say, I’m not a marketer. And I come across and I know I come across as very marketing-led and I like marketing and I’m happy to call myself that. But the truth is that a website kind of already is most of a marketing funnel, right? A marketing funnel is basically the name we give to a process of being able to drive traffic to a website, capture leads from that traffic. So capture contact information— that’s all a lead is, is contact information and a name, basically. That’s a lead. And then convert those leads into sales, but without someone having to physically sit down and talk to you. That is literally it. It’s— you’ve got your website, driving traffic back to the website, capturing leads from that traffic, and then later on selling to them on automation.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That is the best description I’ve heard in a long time.
Mike Killen
It’s— but that’s all it is, right? And most people are trying to do that with their website already. And I think the easiest example is if we spend money on advertising, uh, and people are taken back to a product page for a website, I know from experience and from looking at other industry data, that’s about a 1 in 10,000 conversion. So if we drive 10,000 people and we’re paying roughly 50 pence a click, that’s 5 grand that you’ve got to pay to get people to a product page and one person buys, that person has to spend at least $5,000. That activity—
Lee Matthew Jackson
you’re not selling it to me right now, right?
Mike Killen
Exactly. And that’s exactly right. And that sounds kind of dumb. And that’s kind of the way that people went for a long, long time. Yeah. And so what we do now is we went, all right, well, how do we usually do it anyway? If you walk into a shop and you see the, the clerk behind the counter, they don’t go, hey, do you want to buy $5,000 worth of stuff? They don’t yell at you or anything. They say they let you get on with what you’re going to do. They take a look at what you’re browsing and they see you pick up certain bits and pieces. And if they know what they’re doing, they’re going to say, if there’s anything I can help you with, let me know. And when they say, oh yeah, and let’s say cookware, I think is the best example, right? And you go into a cookware shop and they go, yeah, I’m looking at some new kitchen knives. And all of a sudden the clerk starts talking to you about what it is you want the knives for, what’s your budget. They’re not selling to you at all. They’re just talking to you and giving you valuable information.
Mike Killen
They’re giving you reviews, they’re giving you their opinion. They might bring someone else over to talk you a little bit through it and give you a bit of demonstration. That’s the marketing bit, right? And they basically said, well, why don’t we just put that on the website? So when people come to the site, instead of trying to sell to them, we give them value. And that turned into a blog, right? So we now write blog posts and we give value and free content and useful stuff away. And instead of people going, this is useful, I’m going to go and do it for free. What they end up saying is, I really trust this website and I really trust this business, so therefore I’m more likely to believe that something can help me when they put it in front of me, you know, a few weeks or a few months down the line. And that’s all we’re trying to do. We just, we just change the structure of a website slightly, um, to, you know, help increase the amount of trust that people see in you.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s such a good visual. I think for a lot of people it really helps to kind of tell a storey behind, to explain something, and just being able to picture going into the cookware workshop and having that person come up and talk to you and give you, you know, that, that free information, that free advice, etc., that value, and then you end up making the purchase as well, and then translating that straight back into the idea of a website. I’ve literally never heard anyone describe it like that, and I’m just like, whoa. Well, yeah, I’m going to use that. I’m stealing that.
Mike Killen
I wish I could say that I came up with it. I think Sean Mize is one of the coaches I work with. He, he basically— we’re having an email conversation and he said, well, because I was really struggling with selling my marketing funnels. I was really good at it with other people, like I could do it with their products but I was struggling with mine. And he and I had an email conversation. He said, well, at the end of it, Mike, this is your copy that you’re going to put on the website because I’ve just been asking you these questions and you’ve answered them. And now a marketing funnel sounds more attractive to me. And that was basically it. That was— I think that was the first post we published was basically a transcript of what, what he wrote.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s awesome.
Mike Killen
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So we’ll thank him and you as well for sharing that and educating me. Me and, and the audience on marketing funnels. Just annoying I had to wait 3 hours for the answer, that was all.
Mike Killen
Well, it was worth it. I appreciate you hanging on as well. Time period of me just thinking, that was really good of you. Thanks.
Lee Matthew Jackson
No worries. Yeah, I had dinner and everything. No, that, that’s fantastic. So go ahead, cheque out sellyourservice.co.uk, wasn’t it?
Mike Killen
Yeah, from memory.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So yeah, from memory. And I actually remember, I actually remember receiving, I I think I can’t quite remember how I got onto your website, but I do remember then eventually— so I think it was through Facebook. I think I saw something on a Facebook post.
Mike Killen
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And then I went and read an article, and then I think I ended up buying— I think you, you were selling emails that convert or something like that. I remember buying some of those.
Mike Killen
Yes.
Lee Matthew Jackson
You know, and they’re small, small product purchases, etc. But I think I’ve bought maybe 2 or 3 different things from you.
Mike Killen
I can tell you, I can tell you exactly what you’ve bought, buddy, by just going into your, uh— yeah, no, no. Well, this is a cool thing, right? This is, this is where it does—
Lee Matthew Jackson
isn’t there a data protection?
Mike Killen
Yeah. And I’m going to read that out like, uh, that naughty website.
Lee Matthew Jackson
No, I’m joking, carry on.
Mike Killen
No, it’s— it’s—
Lee Matthew Jackson
go on, tell me, what have I bought?
Mike Killen
If you’re on it right, right now. Um, no, well, I can see the tags, and this is the thing, this is the majority of what I use is, is MailChimp, right? And MailChimp gets a bad rap because people say it’s very simplistic, and they’re right, it doesn’t do a huge amount of stuff that, say, Infusionsoft does or Marketo. Um, now I use those bigger pieces of kit for a lot of things, for a lot of my bigger corporate clients and stuff. And I’ll be honest, this is the biggest thing and kind of the most common question that people, after they say, look, we want to build these funnels, they always say, what tool should I use? And the truth is that I’m going to quote Bruce Lee. You might have heard of him. He said, I don’t fear the man who’s practised 10,000 kicks. I fear the man who’s practised one kick 10,000 times. And what I took from that is that he’s He said, if you take one tool, and if everyone else says don’t use it, okay, that’s fine. But you get good with that tool, no matter how simplistic it is, it’s going to be way more powerful than you hopping from tool to tool to tool to tool to tool.
Mike Killen
Because the truth is, most of them do 90% of what you need them to do anyway. Some people will naturally find other things easier to use and stuff. But if you— if your budget only stretches to MailChimp or GetResponse or anything like Use it and use it to the point where you feel, I am outgrowing this and need to invest in something else. Don’t just hop from tool to tool because I promise you, how many times have we all bought plugins and themes that we thought were going to do everything we needed to straight out of the box? And truth, you end up having to learn everything anyway. You invest in it twice. First you buy it, but then you invest in the time it takes to rebuild it. You have to rebuild it. Unpackaged the plugin and you’re like, why doesn’t my site look like the demo site? And it’s like, well, you need an enormous amount of work behind it. You know, the tool just enables you to do it. So yeah, that’s— we just build them on Mailchimp, uh, and Mailchimp has enough functionality for me to be able to see the tags that people are in, the groups that people are in.
Mike Killen
You know, I can see what my customers have bought, and if their rating has dropped off over a certain time, I basically send them an email and say, hey, What am I doing differently that’s meaning you’re not responding to me anymore? And that’s kind of the core of marketing. It just allows us to kind of have conversations with people. That’s so cool. Easy peasy, mate.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Easy peasy, mate. I love that idea. So what you’re actually saying in short is become a Bruce Lee ninja of whatever tool it is you have.
Mike Killen
If that’s what you want to call it, buddy. And I’m 100% on board with that.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I’m glad.
Mike Killen
Yeah, that’s absolutely what you should be doing.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Become a Bruce Lee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The word ninja gets a bad rap, doesn’t it? Because it’s kind of overused nowadays. Like, you know, everyone’s saying I’m a ninja at this, a ninja at that. But I kind of get it. I actually understand it now you’ve said that. I’m like, yeah, I get that. Become really good at that one tool.
Mike Killen
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And use it to the best of its ability. And when you do outgrow it, fine, outgrow it. But, you know, until then, um, in fact, that’s what we’ve done as a business with Basecamp. We’ve used Basecamp for absolutely freaking years, but we have definitely outgrown it, and we’re on a transition now. I think we’re going over to Teamwork, which kind of gives us that next level with the Gantt charts and everything. Um, so, but you know, we’ve, we’ve used Basecamp to bits. Like, what we don’t know about our Basecamp is not worth knowing as far as we’re concerned. I could probably do a course on how to use Basecamp.
Mike Killen
Definitely should do a course on it, mate.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I’ve actually got Basecamp open on my, one of my tabs. I can see it, you know, because I still live in it. That runs my entire business. But you know, we’re going to move it across now because we do need more visibility, etc. Yeah, of Gantt charts and stuff like that. So hey, I was taking your advice without realising isn’t it?
Mike Killen
Build a course, mate. Build a course on something that you can do.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Well, this is where I want to get to. How did you— how did you, um, like, what, what technology did you use for building a course?
Mike Killen
All right, do you know, no one’s ever asked me this before, and I’m really glad you asked me because I’ve been wanting to tell people this for ages.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Brilliant.
Mike Killen
So, uh, I basically was like, right, I want to teach people how to build a WordPress marketing funnel using any WordPress website and MailChimp. That’s what I build day in, day out. I want to tell people how to do So, you know, I invested in the screen recording capture software and editing software, and I have a membership plugin that does all this kind of stuff. But the, the way that the course was started and the way it was built is I started from the very top and I opened up my Workflowy. So I use Workflowy as like my life. Yeah. Um, and it’s basically, for those who don’t know, it’s a list app, and that’s all it does. It builds bullet point lists, but then you can have another list under each bullet point and then another list under each one of those bullet points and go infinitely down as many layers as you want. So I basically was like, right, what’s the first thing I do? I said, the first thing I do is I set up my MailChimp account, and I set up my list, and I set up a group. And then I instal a WordPress theme.
Mike Killen
And I just went from steps 1 to— I think we ended up like going close to 1,000 steps of just everything that I did. And then I started grouping them together. I said, okay, well, are those— is that part of one process? Is that part of one thing that I do? And then we grouped those together. And what we ended up coming up with is 6 stages, roughly 6 or 7 stages. Each one of those has roughly 6 or 7 steps inside it. And I went, right, well, that’s my script. And I’m gonna build a funnel from start to finish, and I’m gonna record it, and I’m gonna cut it up by those little steps. And that’s the course. It basically is now 6 modules split into 6 different lessons, which bizarrely enough— not to go on about Troy too much, but he started Rockstar Empires, and that’s kind of a lot of where he’s going towards. He now teaches people how to build courses, and that’s one of the big points, is split it up into 6 big chunks that then become 6 steps within it. And that’s all I did. I wrote a long list and I recorded myself doing it with— I use Camtasia Yeah, but that’s basically it.
Mike Killen
There’s nothing— I was really surprised at how quickly I created it.
Lee Matthew Jackson
How quickly was that?
Mike Killen
Uh, I think the whole thing was done within a week.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That is impressive.
Mike Killen
Like editing, recording, all being cut up. Um, it’s now just sitting on the site ready to be launched, basically.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s incredible. I was intrigued because, I mean, I’ve written kind of outlines to courses, but I’ve never really launched. I, uh, what I have done in the past as well is I’ve kind of put messages out there, is anyone interested in this particular course? I get maybe 3 pre-interests. So I’m like, okay, well, I’ll— I won’t bother with that then.
Mike Killen
Yeah. And this is like, yeah, the smaller— you mentioned that you’ve bought a couple of my smaller products, and like, it’s like I said, it’s maybe we sell about 5, between 5 and 10 a day.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah.
Mike Killen
And a lot of those are related to the course, right? So we work backwards and we say, okay, the core offer, the core course is how to build a marketing funnel. That’s actually quite a lot for people to get their heads around in the first place. So I was like, well, what’s one of the smaller steps? I said, typically there’s a lot of emails that have to be written in a marketing automation funnel. So maybe if I just gave people those emails, they just— and that was it. That was that part done. And we’ve got a webinar coming up where it’s like, I’ll just teach you how to do the WordPress side of it, or I’ll give you the funnel plan for free and the map. So I broke it out into loads of other, like, splinter products is one of the terms it’s called. So you take the core version of whatever you’re doing and you break it out into little splinter versions. And some things I’d give away and some things I’d charge bit for. And that to me gave me a really strong indication that people want this stuff. They just don’t know that it happens to be part of a larger course, you know.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s a really good idea. And is that a little bit like those, you know, the small micropayments that you get people to do small little bits and then that, you know, that then encourages them on to more?
Mike Killen
Yeah. And that’s— this is again, this is absolutely nothing I’ve come up with. This is part of the Ryan Dice CVO model on Digital Marketer. That’s better. You know, if you go to— if you cheque that out, it’s just tonnes and tonnes and tonnes on how to build these marketing funnels. They call it a CVO, so a customer value optimisation, which is very American and very marketing. But the concept is, you know, you are trying to sell too much at once. You need to scale it back, give people some value first, and see how much interest it garners. You know, I mean, we, we even just do we do like, um, what do we call them? I can’t remember what we call them now. Uh, no smoke without fire or smoke test or something. Yeah, where we’ll write 2 or 3 blog posts for a customer, but we’ll basically call the blog post what the final product is, right? And we’ve even done this for like, um, fireplaces. So how to choose the right fireplace for your business, and we’ll put that on Outbrain. And again, for those who don’t know what Outbrain is, it’s basically an online application that manages where you put content.
Mike Killen
So as opposed to just putting it on Facebook, you can put it all around the web and all these websites like Sky and CNN and stuff. And we put the blog post there and we basically see and we go, oh, this gets quite a lot of traffic. You have to pay for it, but it does get quite a lot of traffic. That to me is a good indicator. This is something that people are interested in, you know?
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah. Um, and then yeah, I wondered what, you know, I’ve seen Outbrain. It’s at the, yeah, it’s at the bottom of Sky News and I ended seeing all these articles and I end up thinking they’re part of Sky News. I’m like, what’s this? And then following it on. So maybe I’ve seen some of your stuff. You never know.
Mike Killen
You never will know, buddy. You never know.
Lee Matthew Jackson
But you might.
Mike Killen
I might do. I can tell, of course.
Lee Matthew Jackson
With retargeting pixels and all the other stuff that you marketers use.
Mike Killen
Sick marketers.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Sick marketers. That’s hilarious. It’s kind of scary though, isn’t it? Sometimes as well, you’re like, Like, you’ll be on, I don’t know, I’ve had it, I’ve sometimes done it where I’ve had a conversation with my wife about buying a shed and then somehow Amazon within 24 hours is putting sheds in my Facebook feed.
Mike Killen
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And I say, hey, Lee, I’m like, how did you do that, Amazon? Because I don’t believe I actually typed that shed into Google.
Mike Killen
This is fascinating. Okay. Because I was having this conversation with a friend of mine who works in PR and they said, okay, on average, people have about 8 touch points before they make a purchase, right? It’s very rarely one, but you’re typically— and when they say touch points, let’s say you’re looking at your shed, you might review a couple of sheds or maybe look at, you know, some products on Amazon and stuff like that. What’s really interesting is that as a buyer, we don’t think we are being influenced. We don’t think that those are touch points when we go and review shed sites and reviewing sites and stuff. We don’t think that we are making that journey towards buying. And so we think when we’ve purchased it, we go, well, that was one interaction. Whereas typically what they found is it’s between 8 and 11. And yeah, you talk about things like, you know, retargeting and all this kind of stuff. But the truth is that a lot of it we’re doing for ourselves, you know? Yeah, it’s terrifying.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I’ve been unconsciously on a journey.
Mike Killen
Yeah. Sleep buying a shed, sleep review reading. It’s a really common problem.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, actually I have been on Facebook half asleep like 3 AM in the morning and then like woken up the next day thinking, I hope I didn’t write anything like weird.
Mike Killen
Yeah, yeah, sleep-deprived state.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Like, yeah, do you ever do that? You’re like fast asleep, wake up 3 AM, you like feel a little bit awake and you end up just grabbing your phone and just—
Mike Killen
I typically use Imgur, it’s like a dumb image sharing website, and I’ll find that I instinctively go to it. I’m just kind of browsing through these images and like commenting and liking, and then when I come back to my phone in the I’m like, who the hell has been using my phone? Why did I like this picture of a gorilla, you know, doing a somersault? Like, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So that sounds cool. I want to see that picture.
Mike Killen
I’ll share it with you, buddy. It’s pretty good.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s brilliant. You should put some of them in the WP Innovator group.
Mike Killen
I can do that.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Oh, leejacksondev.com/group. You’ll be redirected. And there is some cat pictures in there now, I think. I think Dan Connor posted a cat picture and someone else did. I think we got our first spam as well the other day.
Mike Killen
Oh, good.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah. So I think, I think I need to go and double check. I think it looked like spam. So I think I probably need to delete it. I’ve got to say, I think you’re doing an outstanding job.
Mike Killen
Job with your group because ours has run away with us and it’s now just me posting in there. I’m trying to, trying to get garner interest back up because it was just flooded with spammers. But you have guys coming on there and kind of asking actual questions. I think you’re doing a stellar job with that group.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Thanks, buddy. Yeah. So that’s leejacksondev.com/group, as endorsed by Mike Killen.
Mike Killen
It is endorsed. Has my seal of approval, mate.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Seal of approval.
Mike Killen
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s awesome. Awesome. So I always ask this because we all love WordPress. Are there a couple of WordPress plugins that you love that you’d want people to go and cheque out?
Mike Killen
Uh, I can’t remember how often Gravity Forms is mentioned. How— I can’t remember how often that’s mentioned.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I actually don’t know if it’s been mentioned. People mention Yoast as like the go-to, but, uh, no, I’m not— I don’t like Yoast particularly, but Gravity Forms, I’m not sure. I think I’ve mentioned it maybe.
Mike Killen
Gravity Forms is like my go-to plugin for everything. I instal it— those who don’t know, it’s basically a form builder. But it has so many add-ons and it’s such an incredible bit of kit that it also provides an enormous amount of my automation. Like, it syncs with everything. And I’m like, well, if I’ve got a problem between something talking to something else, I’ll see if Gravity— oh, it does— Gravity Forms has that add-on. So I’m a massive fan of Gravity Forms. And also, my plugins are really boring. I thought I was going to say things like Beaver Builder and stuff, but I think I’ve said that too much. Yeah. So I think mine would be—
Lee Matthew Jackson
I was thinking of renaming the podcast to the Beaver Builder Podcast.
Mike Killen
Lee Jackson loves Beaver Builder.
Lee Matthew Jackson
There we go. Do you reckon?
Mike Killen
Just put it on the back burner, mate. See what— yeah. I would say, yeah, Advanced Custom Fields, ACF, is the other one.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I love that.
Mike Killen
Yeah, it’s like, I don’t, I don’t exploit it as much as you can do, but like something I’ve done recently I had my business partner was like, Mike, how big is your social media team now? Because you’re just posting constantly and it seems you’re creating new stuff constantly. I was like, I’m gonna let you in on a secret, Mark. I literally cheated it. And basically all I did— this is what I do for like all my blog posts now— is Advanced Custom Fields. I’ve said, right, I want 8 fields at the bottom. For those who don’t know, Advanced Custom Fields, you can add extra fields to any post type within WordPress. And it sounds very, very simplistic, but it can do some killer, killer things. And we basically said, right, at the end of every blog post, have 8 fields labelled tweet 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. I fill those in now with what I would want to be tweets. And then I go into Zapier. And Zapier then just says, right, every time a new blog post is published, wait a day, look for field tweet 1, and post that tweet out.
Mike Killen
Next day, look for field tweet to post that tweet out. And so now all of my posts which are published, we publish maybe 2 a week, are automatically just socially generated completely on automation, all from advanced custom fields. So yeah, it does a lot of hard work for me.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I, I’m kind of a bit speechless.
Mike Killen
How’s that for lazy?
Lee Matthew Jackson
Well, no, it’s a really freaking good idea. Yeah, honestly, I was like, you know, and then, then when you get to number 8, can you like loop it back? Yes, you can in theory keep going.
Mike Killen
What we’re trying to do now is we’re trying to collate those 8 tweets into Google Sheets with Zapier.
Lee Matthew Jackson
What does collate mean?
Mike Killen
Sorry, collate basically means like push to scrape together. So if you’ve got 8 random posts out to collate them, which would be bring them to one place, right?
Lee Matthew Jackson
Nice.
Mike Killen
So we have 8 tweets throughout 8 days. I’m going to collate— bless you. Yeah, excuse me. Someone outside my office door.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That was a really loud sneeze, wasn’t it?
Mike Killen
I don’t even know who that is because there’s no No one else here. That’s terrifying.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Carry on.
Mike Killen
Um, and, um, we want to put those into a Google Sheet and then say every time Google Sheets has got X amount of content in it, post it out again, clear it, and then start again. So we’re hoping to try and do a 30-day cycle, um, but it’s, it’s proving trickier than we thought. But yeah, for the time being, for all new content All our new social media posting is taken care of on automation now.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I had noticed a marked increase in your social activity as well. I did not know that’s what you were doing.
Mike Killen
And this is the funny thing as well. We’ve, we track and monitor everything. I’m obsessed with it. And we do get, we know we get at least between 50 and 100 clicks per post now every time we post something out because we post to a variety of platforms. So I say it pays off because I know that every time I do that on automation, I’m guaranteed between 50 and 100 clicks. I know roughly my conversion rate, which is about, um, 10% on some of those social posts. So I know that every post going out will bring me between 5 and 10 new email leads in. And that’s when we get like towards proper marketing funnels. That’s kind of what all the big deal is, because you can measure it and you can say to customers, wouldn’t you like 5 new leads every single week on clockwork. And they go, yeah, that sounds great. And that’s all we do basically. We build them out bit by bit, you know, but it just starts with writing blog content basically.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I think you’re really cool.
Mike Killen
I am pretty cool, aren’t I?
Lee Matthew Jackson
I think you’re pretty awesome, mate. That was a bit heartfelt. I was listening to you like, it’s the funny thing, like, you’re so cool. That’s amazing. I love this.
Mike Killen
Come across podcasts like this and I was like, this is, this is the thing I genuinely— everyone says about WordPress, but I think it’s about our industry. It’s just awesome being able to talk with other people about this kind of stuff, particularly as a lot of people in our industry are like solopreneurs, you know. So it’s really important that they have this community. And, you know, I haven’t— I’m not doing anything I haven’t learned from anyone, you know, bigger than me. You know, there’s some very, very, very smart people out there. And it’s just also I’m super lazy. So I want to only do things once, you know, which is why automation—
Lee Matthew Jackson
that’s what makes it good entrepreneur though, mate.
Mike Killen
Apparently so.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Apparently so. Lazy people make the best entrepreneurs. So the kid who’s not listening in school right now, don’t worry, they’re going to be a millionaire.
Mike Killen
Yeah, don’t worry about that.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, because that was me, except I’m not a millionaire yet.
Mike Killen
Not long though, right?
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, no, totally. It’s all part of the plan. 5-year plan that resets every year, but you know, it’s a 5-year plan. I think it’s been a 5-year plan for 10 years, but yeah, something like eventually Actually, that’s how it goes, bud. That’s awesome, mate. You’re a legend. I, I, I’d love to sap more of your brain.
Mike Killen
Um, it’s been a pleasure being on the podcast, mate. Honestly, honestly, you are doing a stellar job with your podcast because there’s a lot of like, like the Zero podcast and stuff like that that I listen to that are very prescribed and very American, and they’re fine and they, they’re short, but these ones, it’s like, uh, it’s kind of like sitting down with a couple of guys and just listening to their conversation. And it’s— there’s something really refreshing and very intuitive about that. So I think you’re doing a stand-up job with your, um, with your podcast.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Thank you. All right, well, here’s— there’s a clink of a beer just coming at you right there.
Mike Killen
I will take it. Thank you.
Lee Matthew Jackson
There you go. Oh, thanks for that. Well, how— I mean, we’ve dropped your links, but how can people connect with you? What’s the best way for people to connect with you? And then we’ll We’ll give you a high five and all that jazz.
Mike Killen
The best way is on Twitter, which is @Mike_Killen, K-I-double-L-E-N for November. Or if you go to sellyourservice.co.uk, I will try to get your email address out of you, so have no fear. If you go to the site, I will do my best to try and get your email address out of me. But yeah, Twitter’s probably best.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I think the first time I visited your site, you had my email. Email address within 3 seconds.
Mike Killen
Yeah, that’s what I tried to do.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I think that’s because you had a very, very good lead, um, into it, and I was like, oh yes, that’s me, I need, I need to know that.
Mike Killen
Yeah, it was weird.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Here’s my email address.
Mike Killen
Yeah, a lot of people are like, oh, you know, I don’t want to be seen as spammy. I’m like, well, if you think your offer is spammy, then it is, right? I’ve never understood that, like, oh, we should— we’re sending too many emails or whatever, or we’re trying to capture leads too quickly. I’m like, well, But now I agree, I’ve actually toned back my lead capture process because it can get very irritating. But particularly with things like emails, if you’re sending them and you think that they’re spammy, then you obviously don’t think there’s enough value in them to be sent in the first place. Like, I’d rather receive one email a day that was super, super valuable than one email a month that wasn’t. So I think a lot of people are like, oh, emails and leads and stuff. Give something away that’s useful. It’s not that hard.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I need to do that more. I’ve got a good list building up now through the podcast and everything, and I definitely don’t send enough emails.
Mike Killen
Email marketing, mate. As much as that, you could sell your new course on there.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, I could do. I, I think you and me are going to have to have lots and lots of conversations. You’re gonna— I need more help. I need to get over to WP Elevation as well and do all those courses.
Mike Killen
Yeah, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
In fact, I was a member a long time ago, uh, probably in the early days, um, but, uh, yeah, that was that, about 2 years ago?
Mike Killen
Yeah, yeah. Now we probably would have been hanging around in the forums at the same time. We probably were then, shy little WordPress developers.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, wet behind the ears. Yeah, mate, thanks so much for being honest.
Mike Killen
It’s been a pleasure.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, honestly, I want to have you on again because this has just been like, like you said, like a chat in the pub. I’ve loved it.
Mike Killen
So I love that. And we should do a meetup for realsies.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yes, let’s do that. Yep, we’ll do that. Yeah, you are in Devon, aren’t you? I’m guessing from the name of the other—
Mike Killen
I’m in Devon. Yeah, where are you based?
Lee Matthew Jackson
I’m based in Northampton.
Mike Killen
Oh, okay. Uh, I’m trying to think. I think we’re trying—
Lee Matthew Jackson
London is quite middle, I think.
Mike Killen
Yeah, London.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I think London’s nearer to me than you. I just think I’m being lazy.
Mike Killen
That’s okay.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I’m in London at the weekend.
Mike Killen
Yeah, we’ll figure something out.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Nice one. Anyone else in London or near Devon in the UK? Because we do have a good UK audience. Yeah, about 20% UK audience. Hi everyone. Yeah, be great to have a meetup sometime and beer, because beer But yeah, full stop. Full stop. All right, buddy. Have an awesome evening because it’s evening for both of us. Yes. Uh, unlike Bob, who’s still in the morning. I interviewed Bob just before you, Bob WP. That’ll be episode 30.
Mike Killen
Outstanding.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Outstanding. And you’ll be episode 31, I believe. That’s in 2 weeks’ time.
Mike Killen
Cool. Cool, man. I’ll be tuning in, mate.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah. So will I because I’ve enjoyed this and I want to enjoy it all over again.
Mike Killen
Good stuff.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Take care of yourself, mate.
Mike Killen
You too, mate.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Awesome evening.
Mike Killen
Bye now.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Bye. And that’s it, the end of episode 32. Yep, I worked out that it was episode 32. I did a little bit of counting. I’m really proud of myself for getting there. 3, 2, way to go, Lee. Remember the Facebook group, LeeJacksonDev.com/group. It’s going to redirect you to that Facebook group. I’m going to keep talking about it until you come and join and let’s have a great conversation. Also, if you want to reach out, let’s have a chat, talk about what you’d like to hear on the show, head on over to LeeJacksonDev.com/contact and fill in the form. Let me know what your thoughts are, what you love, what you hate. Actually, if you hate something, be really nice about it though, because I might cry. Anyway, have a freaking awesome week. Thanks for listening, and I’ll say it again, keep innovating.
