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 WP Innovator podcast, the podcast for web designers and design agencies exploring the world of WordPress and online business. And now your host, Lee Jackson. Hi, and welcome to episode number 60 of the WP Innovator podcast. This is your host, Lee Jackson, and today you can enjoy the Canadian tones of Curtis McHale telling us how he has run his agency and the freaking amazing lessons he has. Also do note that there are some amazing show notes available to you on leejacksondev.com Episode 60 where you can get hold of the email template that he mentions. And we’ve also given you the full transcription of this episode because there is so much gold in it, we figured you’d probably want to print it off and read it as some good bedtime reading. So remember, there is also the Facebook group that you can be a part of that’s over on LeeJacksonDev.com group, where we talk about WordPress, talk about agency life and share cat pictures, which is obviously essential to the Internet and keeps it going and all that jazz. And without further ado, I am going to shut up and let you enjoy episode 60.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Hello and welcome to the WP Innovator podcast. This is your host, Lee, and today I’ve got a fellow Canadian who sounds Canadian on the line called Curtis McHale. How you doing, mate?
Curtis McHale:
I am great. And you don’t sound Canadian.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I know. It’s insane, isn’t it? So we were born, like, in the same. I think we’re pretty much in the same city.
Curtis McHale:
Probably St Catherine’s.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Curtis McHale:
I was born in Saint Catharines, so we’re practically twinsies.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s amazing.
Curtis McHale:
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And, yeah, I moved out of St Catharines when I was four and I’ve been living in the UK too. But this is not about me, of course. Oh, well, yeah, you can tell with your accent, you know, other side of Canada now, that is.
Curtis McHale:
I am.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, guys, if you don’t know Curtis, he is. Has got a lot more hair than me, despite being Canadian and born in the same. In the same city. And he is a guy who kind of has done what I think we’ve all done in life, which is worked your ass off and not been able to see the family at all. And then he’s managed to turn that around and he’s turned that into an entire online business where he’s helping people around the world kind of get out of that rut of being kind of work. Not workaholics, but kind of stuck and trapped in work or just like stuck with finding leads. So that was my introduction, mate, and I probably murdered that. But if you could give us a better introduction as to who you are, what you’re all about, that’d be fantastic.
Curtis McHale:
So you said, I’m Curtis. I have been self employed for, I guess, coming up on eight years now. Yeah, like my kids have never known me not to be self employed and I spent most of the beginning of that working with WordPress only really, and being a developer. And now I do more and more coaching to help people run a better business because I made a lot of mistakes and I can like to help people not make all those mistakes because they suck.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
The people do or the mistakes do.
Curtis McHale:
The mistakes suck. Sometimes the people suck too. That was the mistake you took on the wrong client.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, yeah. So, all right, well tell me, let’s do a quick rewind. How did you get started in the business?
Curtis McHale:
I actually have a counseling degree is my formal training and I didn’t want to work with whiny people. And I had enjoyed the web because my dad actually worked at IBM too. So it was always, you know, a little bit technical. And I taught myself how to build websites while taking a counseling degree. And about three months before I finished, told my wife I wasn’t going to go into counseling, I was going to go build websites. And she took a deep breath and then said, okay. And that’s kind of it really. And then I came back to the coaching aspect because coaching people aren’t whiny.
Curtis McHale:
Business people generally aren’t whiny. They want to make some real action and start making more money and having, having more freedom. Right. I guess freedom of money, freedom of time are the two things that I help a lot of people with.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, I mean, reading through your website the other day, you were telling the story about how you felt you were working 99% of the time despite working from home. Can you kind of describe that in a little bit more detail to see if we’ve got a few people listening that might be able to kind of empathize with that either right now or in the past?
Curtis McHale:
For a long time when I worked at home, I did what almost everybody does, right? Email, even email on my old terrible phone. I don’t remember what it was, but it felt so innovative then and I could answer them. And I worked. I worked so much. I worked way too much. And sometimes at the beginning that’s what you have to do, but I was super tired of it really quick. And you have to do it sometimes at the beginning just to get anything going. Right.
Curtis McHale:
Like when I first started marketing my business, I sent out 10 contacts a day, five days a week to somebody. They were mostly terrible somebody’s, which is why I had to send out 10 a day, five days a week for like two years to keep the business running. But they took that massive action to get it going. But it sucked. I didn’t get to spend the time with my wife I wanted to. I didn’t get to, you know, eventually see my kid. I got out of most of that before we had a kid, but I didn’t get to do that. I didn’t get to go kayaking, didn’t get to do lots of stuff that I wanted to do.
Curtis McHale:
And so I worked myself out of it. Now I rent an office that’s about six kilometers, I don’t know. So it’s at three miles for the American listeners from my house. And I rarely even take my laptop home with me. It sits at my office. So if I can’t do anything, I don’t have email on my phone. I go home and hang out with the kids. The only work related stuff I do is I read business books and take notes and sometimes write about them at home because that’s what I choose to do.
Curtis McHale:
So I don’t, I suppose when it’s something I can put down at any moment, I don’t view it as work. It’s what I choose to do with my free time then.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So you’ve got like another computer at home for that. Oh, you write in a notebook.
Curtis McHale:
My notes in a book on a book are actually in a notebook.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
What is this book you speak of?
Curtis McHale:
I use notebooks all the time. I have a field notes expedition in my pocket and I write down, uh, all the, all notes like that. So even stuff like when you’re in a client meeting, did you know that pulling your phone out to take notes actually decreases the level of communication between people? There’s a measurable difference in that. So I don’t do it. I pull it out. If I pull it out, I pull it out and I say, I’m just gonna turn this off. Uh, and I put it down back in my bag and I pull out my paper notebook and take notes that way. Uh, and then there’s also a measurable difference in your learning ability for any type of information, like lecture style information or in books when you take the time to write it down.
Curtis McHale:
It also makes you vet the information and synthesize it instead of just copying every beta. Great. It’s easy. All this, this is a great quote in a book and you just like highlight in Kindle and shoot it off to whatever, Right? But I, while I do read on a Kindle and I do highlight and do sometimes put a blurb in the Kindle, I hand write the quotes out in a notebook and then I type them in later so I make it harder for myself and it makes for something to be choosy. And even some of the notes on books, I end up with like 10,000 words on a book. Once I’ve typed it in, I realize it’s 10,000 words and that’s fine. But I took the time to write out each quote.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, I imagine there was a time when you didn’t have time to do all this. What was kind of the catalyst for the change? Was there one particular realization that you needed to change this, or was it a series of things that happened over a few years to get to the stage of where you’re at?
Curtis McHale:
Probably the biggest marker in change was I took a job for a WordPress agency because I was tired of working with clients. And clients were all things that were bad with what I was doing in the web. And I quite quickly realized that I hated working for somebody and I was a terrible employee. I was a terrible employee. That’s how I actually let off the conversation after three months. Said I can’t imagine I’m a good employee because I’m pretty sure I’d fire myself. And I’m not happy. So like, why don’t we just figure out how we don’t work together anymore and we leave each other with respect and the boss was like, sounds good.
Curtis McHale:
And then I left. But coming out of that, I decided I had to get serious about it. And right around that time, I had done Brennan Dunn’s double your freelance rate course and I had really started digging into business reading thanks to my wife who used to run like a high six figures Canoe Shop sales floor. And so I started really digging into that and changing what I did. I started instituting like the first bits of my client vetting process and I started. So I started saying no. I started saying, I only take calls one day a week. This is my ideal week.
Curtis McHale:
This is what I will stick to. Yeah. And then I just started going in that one year, I doubled my income. So I jumped into the six figures. Just starting to set up some. What are what, looking back, are very rudimentary processes. They’re not anywhere near what I have today. But they were so helpful because it just meant I didn’t have to make those decisions.
Curtis McHale:
Right. The client doesn’t answer the nine questions. I just don’t get on the phone. That’s fine. So I didn’t worry about it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That makes sense. I like the fact that it is. It just started with very simple changes. Which already helped you. Was it W said or anyway. Significantly.
Curtis McHale:
Yeah. About double. Yeah, it would be about double.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s amazing. And was. Was it you said who was the name? Was it Brennan Dunn you mentioned?
Curtis McHale:
Yeah, Brennan Dunn.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Brennan Dunn.
Curtis McHale:
So now I’m actually. If you look up his little courses, you’ll see my picture as one of the podcast interviews for like the case studies and talking about the course. But he was probably one of the catalysts along with listening to some stuff from Dave Ramsey, who can be a little abrasive. Just a warning if you’re gonna listen to his stuff and Dan Miller and Michael Hyatt and a bunch of other things. And now say now. I’m at the point where I read about 45 business books a year and I write about many of them on my site as well. I probably read 60 books a year, but the rest are fiction, a good
Lee Matthew Jackson:
bit of fiction mixed in. Any particular fiction you like there?
Curtis McHale:
Oh, I just finished the Wheel of Time series which feels tired, feels a little slow, maybe in the middle somewhere, but then gets good again. It’s 14 books, so there’s lots of, lots of stuff after. It feels a little slow.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So I don’t know. What is that? Sci fi, Fantasy.
Curtis McHale:
Sci fi, Fantasy, fantasy magic and you know, dude who can channel magic and change the world and stuff. Fighting the bad dude.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And presumably you came off the Twilight series just and then went into that. I’m joking with you, man.
Curtis McHale:
No, I have a little girl, so who knows, maybe I’ll get to read Twilight. And I have read Lemony Snicket this year and all of Harry Potter because my little kid is shown interest and just judging it for her. But no, no Twilight for me. Unless I have to.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, you might have to at some point. I’m a teenager. I had to go. I had that awkward moment in the cinema when we’re watching it with my 13 year old and I’m like, this is, this is wrong. What do I do? I’m the only guy in the entire cinema. I feel awkward.
Curtis McHale:
I watched Frozen Yesterday because my 3 year old came up while I was in the bathroom and started singing to me, do you want to build a snowman? Ride your bike around the hall. I was like, you want to watch Frozen?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yes, actually, I really like that film though, all the time in the world for that one. We’ve seen it like a hundred times. So. So like at what point then over the last few years have you got to, you know, to being able to fit in? You said 60 books. You’re writing about the books etceter. Etc. I mean how much? How much? I presume I’m still running your agency. Are you as well or.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, so. So how many hours are you kind of dedicating to agency life?
Curtis McHale:
And agency life is still most of my time if I look at it like that. I generally would devote all of to most of Tuesday. Tuesday is usually my new client calls.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Okay.
Curtis McHale:
And all of Wednesday and all of Thursday towards actually building sites. I just launched a membership site on WooCommerce last week. Two weeks ago. We’re still doing a few cleanup and little weird bug fixes we’re chasing down. But my coaching. So all Mondays I write or read and I usually cut Mondays by noon. Tuesdays is my longer day and then because with calls and I also find that the most tiring day with new clients. And then I also do my every week I have a current call with my current client as well because that is.
Curtis McHale:
It’s amazing how much better that makes any problem in a project just fixes it like instantly when you talk to someone. And I’ll often do video with that as well. And then Wednesday is all about client work and Thursday is all about client work. I don’t really come in and do a little meditation thing with an app called Calm. And then I just. Because it helps me focus. And then I do client work all day and I check email for 25 minutes and if I don’t get to it, I don’t get to it. I don’t worry about it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I feel like we forgot Friday or I may have missed it.
Curtis McHale:
Oh sorry. Friday is all coaching. So in the mastermind groups or in the one on one coaching that I do. So Friday is a little bit of split. I’ll put up my blog post or I’ll write some stuff in the morning and I have a coaching call. I have a little bit of a break and another coaching call and I go home by about 2:00 in the afternoon. So now I do start most days at like 4:45. I get up and go work out and I get into the office by like 7.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, I’m quite an early bird so I can, I can definitely kind of connect with that one. The getting up early, doing something in the morning usually not exercise for me it’s usually meditation or reading or something like that. And then I’ll be in the office early getting started. Guys, if you’re interested in following what Curtis does here, if you head on over to curtismcale ca, you can see his website. He’s got a great blog in there and also just a bit of history as well. So don’t do it whilst driving though. Of course. And I’ll make sure I put this in the show notes, but it’s curtismcale ca.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
When did this site launch itself, mate?
Curtis McHale:
Oh, I’ve had this site for a long time. If you dig back. It was originally my marketing site for my agency. There’s old WordPress post stuff in there. When I was using custom post types because they were cutting edge in beta, I used those. I actually remember sitting at a word camp and people were talking about it and I was like, you clearly have never used them because that is absolutely not how it works. I spent a week figuring out that does not work like it says it should. Yeah, I used those before they were out officially.
Curtis McHale:
So that’s in there. And then it’s probably the last three, four years that it’s been really focused on business stuff. So it’s a little bit all over for a bit and then much more focused on business stuff. Although I throw in the odd personal post occasionally and then any of the nerdy gear stuff I like to write about because I like to do mountaineering and biking and other stuff like that too. Goes on other sites.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But that is mainly where people would go to connect with you in.
Curtis McHale:
Yeah, absolutely.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. In helping kind of get out of the. Working your ass off all the time or finding the right clients, etc.
Curtis McHale:
Absolutely. That is the spot to go.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. Now, you also run the smart Business show, say, podcast. What led you to launch that?
Curtis McHale:
It was another way for me to think about the ideas that I want to write about. It is if you really, if you pay very much attention to the podcast and the writing, you’ll see that I’ll talk about something often in the podcast first, because it was like five points on a page and it wasn’t a blog post yet. And the process of me writing a bit of a summary about it and then, and then taking those points and taking to talk about them and then kind of coming back to them a couple months later and mulling them over turned into a couple thousand word blog post. And really podcasts are very effective medium to get out to people. Right. I listen to, I don’t know, a bunch of Podcasts all the time as well. So they’re a very effective medium. Some people just aren’t going to listen, aren’t going to go read your site.
Curtis McHale:
So podcasts, I find good. They’re fun. I enjoy the interaction, although I don’t. I’m just starting to do more interviews on my show, but it is a good way just to. To get out and to talk to more people and to be where they are.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So you definitely sound like someone who processes a lot and that’s processing through doing a lot of writing as well as doing it through the show as well. So is that what has led to your book that’s upcoming?
Curtis McHale:
Yeah, yeah. It actually started as an entirely different book last January. Really. And because I’d like to release at least one book a here to really start to again, the process of writing and the process of teaching anything really helps you know what you know and know what you don’t know. So I started writing the book and was like, I don’t know about that yet. Like, okay, this is what I think you should do. But I haven’t tried it. And so I started trying more things with my own marketing and seeing how it brought in clients and talking to.
Curtis McHale:
Asking better questions in my case studies for clients to see how, like, how did my marketing work? My. I just did. It’s up on my site, sfndesign catch and I can send you that link if you don’t find it. But I just did a case study with one of my clients and she says one of the questions is, so why did you choose me? How did I address. She’s like, clearly you didn’t need the work. You weren’t telling me that I needed to hear to try and convince me to work for you, like, to work with you. You said, yeah, we can probably do that. And when I.
Curtis McHale:
And I’m not sure if she said it after or before, but she even said that, like, when I said, okay, well can we do this next week? And you said, no. Oh, well, when can I get a proposal? Probably in two to three weeks. She’s like, you were the exact person that I wanted to work with. I knew it right away.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No way. And a lot of us panic at that point, don’t we think, oh, crap, give me 24 hours. And they’re like freaking around, trying to get. Get it over.
Curtis McHale:
And so with my ideal week, like, I know. So like I said, I have nine, eight or nine questions that I ask you if you even want to get on the phone with me, including, like, who are the decision makers? What about your budget? And, you know, some clients say, I don’t know about the budget. We say, well, is $3,000 expensive? Or 5 or 9 or 15? And at some point they go, ooh, that’s expensive. And that’s their budget. But if they want to answer those questions, I just say, hey, I can’t get on the phone. Sorry.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
They specifically have to do all nine of those questions?
Curtis McHale:
Yeah, within reason. Sometimes they’ I think it’s this, but I really don’t know. That’s why I’m talking to you. Well, okay. That’s we. I know where you’re at then. Right? Yeah. And most of the questions are revolving on why you want to do this, not what the project is.
Curtis McHale:
I talk very little around technically what the project is with the client, because most of the times we talk like nerds and they don’t want to hear it. I think even in the case study, the case study video I just did with that person, I said, yeah. And they all talked like nerds, didn’t they? She’s like, I didn’t understand half of what they said. And so I will sometimes talk out loud to the client. And I was like, I’m going to talk nerd for a second here, and I’ll talk about it, because I’m thinking through it as we go. And I’ll say, okay, what that all means for you is your site will do A, B, and C. Does that sound like what you want? Am I making sense? And if they say no, then I say, okay, well, let’s go at this again. And we try it again, because I may still think I’m on the right spot, and maybe I just communicated wrong, because there’s always three things said.
Curtis McHale:
There’s what I thought I said, what I actually said, which is likely different, and then what you heard, which is also different and takes in, like, our own contexts as well. Right.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So you’re acting almost like your own translator there, aren’t you? As well? So a bit of geek. Geek, yeah.
Curtis McHale:
You have to do it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And do you get them to talk that back to you as well as to what they understand?
Curtis McHale:
Absolutely. Also, at the end of most calls, I will send out, here’s a written, here’s like, the three high points we talked about. Does this make sense to you? Is that what you think the three high points were? And most times at this point, I’m pretty good on it. And sometimes they say, what? No, no, no, no, no, we don’t want to work on that stuff. At all. This is what I thought was the important stuff was. Okay, let’s go at this again and talk about it again. Yeah, that call is so crucial to running a good project because bad things are going to happen.
Curtis McHale:
You’re going to miss the mark. You’re not going to miscommunicate. And that call just makes it so easy to resolve. I find I’ve got on calls with a client and the email was like, I don’t like working with you. This is terrible. And we get on the call and we talk for half an hour and they say, hey, all right, let’s go at this again. And they’re sending me referrals a week later.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s amazing. Now, you did say that your book was going to be something completely different. What was it and how did it turn into? Well, the current book, which we haven’t even mentioned yet. We weren’t. We’ve not given it a subject yet, but I’ll let you tell that story.
Curtis McHale:
So the original book actually have released already. It’s called a effective client email. And I was going to update it and I was going to provide some more marketing resources. And the more I wrote the little chunk that was marketing, I was like, this is more than like a little chunk of a book. It’s like 10,000 words and I’m not even halfway through the outline yet. And so it, I pulled it out and made its own book. And then I will still update the other one, Effective client emails, because I have more email templates to use and some more thoughts around that, but it is its own standalone thing still.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And what’s, what’s the new book?
Curtis McHale:
The new book is called finding and marketing to your niche. Because you just, you can’t do everything, so.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, you can’t. And how did you find your niche? What is your niche in your agency?
Curtis McHale:
I work exclusively with e commerce membership sites. That’s it. I want to help you get onto a good platform, which in my opinion is say, Restrict Content Pro or WooCommerce or Easy Digital downloads. Those are the ones that I prefer most. Wp. E commerce is also good. Those are the three I prefer most currently and just help. I want to do the same thing with my coaching clients that I want to do with my development clients.
Curtis McHale:
I want to help you run the business you want so you can live the life you want to live. Because they don’t want to deal with problems. They don’t want to be like, oh, look, my site’s down and it takes me like a million hours to Set up a podcast, update links in six spots. They don’t want that. They want to generate the content and go hang out with their kids or go run or do whatever they want to do. So I do the same thing for both people really.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So the coaching clients, are they the same target audience or are they someone else?
Curtis McHale:
They are mostly developers, almost all in WordPress and definitely all in the technical fields at this point. Well, I have found with a number of my clients we end up talking like, and they’ll talk about some business idea. I’m like, that’s a terrible idea. And I’ll tell them why. And they’re like, really? You should do some coaching. I was like, well, I actually do look at my site over here and so many of my development clients listen to my podcast and they’ll say, I heard you say this about our project without using my name. I said, yes, I did. And they’re never mad about it.
Curtis McHale:
They just think it’s funny because like, yeah, that was about what happened. You’re right. And then they also, they also think it’s funny when you hear like, this is why I did it because I’m giving advice on freelancers, how to. Or business owners how to deal with a client like that. And they laughed. It’s like, that’s exactly what you did. And I totally felt cool with it. But even seeing the other side of it, they think that’s fine.
Curtis McHale:
So I have a number of my own clients from development that follow my site as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No way. So I would actually be your target audience for the, for your coaching, as would probably most of the people listening to the podcast.
Curtis McHale:
Absolutely.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
This podcast is WordPress developers, WordPress design, et cetera, who either freelance or they are running multimedium sized data. Guys, if any of this is triggering any interest, remember it’s curtismical ca. Check the show notes, you can find out all about this wonderful guy. And also just check out his particular niche as well, which is on SFN Design CA where he’s making membership sites mate. What? How did you kind of transition into membership sites? How did you choose that as your niche?
Curtis McHale:
I started off like most people, building themes. Actually it’s not as SFN design because at one point I thought I could design and I, I cannot. I cannot.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m sending people to the wrong site now. Go on then.
Curtis McHale:
No, no, that’s what the site was. That’s called SFN Design. Yeah, because I needed. In fact, it’s SFN for some funky name design for a design shop. That’s what it came up with.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Curtis McHale:
And. But I can’t. I develop. That’s what I do. If you have a design, I can extend it to include Woocommerce or whatever, but that’s all I can do. Yeah. And how did I get into it? I just kept doing a refining process of deciding which projects I liked, which clients I liked and what was the most profitable. And it continued to center in on E commerce and E commerce and E commerce.
Curtis McHale:
Now do I build themes? Absolutely. When a client comes, hey, I’ve got a design. Can you set me up an e commerce site? Yes, I can. But I don’t advertise that. I just build theme because that’s not where the value is really. The client’s not coming to me for building their theme. They’re coming to me for setting up their e commerce site. And that’s why I can charge a healthy five figures for it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Guys, I’m just going to repeat something that Curtis said. Which clients do you like and projects as well? And what is the most profitable? I think that’s gold just there in that one line because a lot of us are taking on pretty much anything and everything that’s thrown at us because of the feast and famine mindset. We think our crap. I need to get this business in and we’ll essentially take money from anyone. I have done that many times. You know what? I even did it six months ago. I actually accepted a job I knew was wrong, but there was good money in it. And I hated every single minute of that project and wished I’d never did it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And it wasn’t profitable either because in the end I misunderstood what they needed. They didn’t communicate it well and it ended up being something that just lasted months. It was awful.
Curtis McHale:
Yeah, that’d be absolutely lying to say. I never do that. Of course, I’ve done it in the last year as well. I just finally got underneath out from underneath that project like partway through a year. It took way longer than it should have. They were way this was in my mind year. They were like texting me all the time and doing this and doing that. And I was like, I don’t want this stuff at all.
Curtis McHale:
Compare that to a project that I just finished up. You search read aloud Revival. That is a homeschooling site. And we’d have our hour call and we’d talk a bit about the site. Then we’d laugh about our kids mostly.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s amazing.
Curtis McHale:
I can actually see if we were out in that area, I’d go and Take my kids and she’s got kids about the same age and some older ones and we take our families together and just go hang out at the park and stuff. That’s the type of client I want. I’m like, I could genuinely see hanging out together.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Brilliant. That’s the sort of client I want as well. And I’m glad you confessed that you still make that mistake as well. Or still have at least made that mistake.
Curtis McHale:
Absolutely.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
In the more recent past. Because sometimes you listen to people who sound like they’ve got the ideal working scenario. But it is kind of reassuring that sometimes we do make the odd little slip up.
Curtis McHale:
Oh, absolutely. Even this time last year, almost. Probably right. Almost exactly this week, maybe just a week earlier, I did not send some of my nine questions. They were a good referral from a client that had money and I knew the market that they were in as well, so I didn’t ask the budget question. And we talked a bunch and I gave them a proposal and they were all on board. They said, this is so good and I sent that and they were like, this is 10 grand. Yeah, only make $1,000 a year on the site.
Curtis McHale:
Wrote back, well, that’d be dumb to do it. Sorry for wasting your time. Clearly we should have communicated this upfront. That is my fault for not asking these questions. This is what I should have sent you and that’s it. And in fact, that’s probably the last project I didn’t win proposal wise. Once I sent out a proposal because I did not ask the right questions. It’s not because someone else won it.
Curtis McHale:
I suppose maybe someone else did the work for less money somewhere else, but I wasn’t up against anyone else. I just didn’t ask the right questions.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Now you’ve mentioned that you asked about nine questions. Are these questions that are unique to every project or are these the same nine questions that you have found are perfect every time?
Curtis McHale:
They’re like 99% the same. Let me bring up my email book because I got them in there.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Is this The Effective Client Email 1?
Curtis McHale:
This is the effective client email intro. I’m trying to find it now. Initial email, Initial prospect email. There we go. And the nine questions are. It says eight here, so I need to update that because I’m pretty sure it’s nine now. So why do you need whatever the feature is now and why is it more important than something else you could be building? Have clients or internal staff been asking for whatever we’re going to build the feature? That’s important because then you’re gauging where value is. If it’s internal, then some of your value may be intangible.
Curtis McHale:
Right? The boss wants something so that he can take vacation. He wants something automated. What would happen if we didn’t do whatever we need to build? What opportunities would your business lose? What will happen to your business when we finish this project? How is it going to take your business to the next level? That’s one question. How are we going to measure the success of what we’re building? Is it time saved? More conversions to email, more sales, whatever. What’s your time frame for completion? What is the budget you have allotted for the project? And who are the decision makers that decided the project goes forward? Those are the eight questions in the original one. I think there’s a ninth but I don’t remember what it is right now.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No way. So guys, you can go ahead and find that again. That’s over on Curtis McHale. I’ll put the link in the show notes. What I’ll do is I’ll put a quick link in there as well so you can go check that out. But that’s.
Curtis McHale:
I will send you that email too to put up with this show.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Sweet.
Curtis McHale:
The whole email.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, that’d be awesome. I’ll put that in there as well. And I’m going to grab me this book as well. It sounds like I need to have a good read of this. Now how are you generating leads? Because that’s something of interest now. So obviously we’ve talked about, you’ve kind of worked out your niche, what you love doing and the sort of clients you love working with. And obviously you’ve got the email that you’ll send to said clients if they approach you. But how are you finding these perfect types of clients to work with?
Curtis McHale:
Most of it’s referrals really. Referrals from the developers that I use their tools. So easy digital downloads sends. I’m on their referral list. When you fill out the form for like custom development. I am one of the developers that get that referrals from other colleagues. So again, the one client I’ve talked about a few times I at Read Aloud Revival she said that she talked to like five people and they said ah, I don’t think I can do this, it’s above what I can do. But you should talk to Curtis.
Curtis McHale:
And she heard that like three or four times and then she talked to me and I was clearly running a different game than anyone else she had talked to because I was. When I said, when she said, hey, let’s talk. I said, okay, here’s my schedule. After she’d answered the nine questions and she said, that’s not for two weeks. And I said, yes, that’s correct. Because she is correct. That is not for two weeks. And that’s the first time she could get in.
Curtis McHale:
I just said, I’m busy. That’s when you can get in. And she said, oh, this is totally different. Like it’s not what I dealt with so far. And then we talked a couple times and I said, there’s no way I can do the project yet. I don’t have the information. Here’s the five things we need to decide first, and if I’m going to decide these three, which are totally on me, then we have the discovery project. It’s two grand, that’s it.
Curtis McHale:
And she said, well, when can you do that? Like two months. She said, okay. And she did that. Yeah. So everyone has to answer those questions or that email.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Guys, if you’re listening to Curtis right now, and that sounds like either stressful or scary, I’ve got to admit that I have actually dealt with. So I’ve gone through a whole rebrand process for my business. So we’re going to be transitioning from Lee Jackson Dev to a completely different name because we want to set up ourselves up as an agency. And the designers that I worked with worked in a very similar way to you, mate. So rather than them necessarily rushing to serve me, I was kind of on their schedule. They treat me very nicely and respectfully throughout the whole process, but it was like a whole two month process where in the end I was like, I wasn’t expecting them to jump to things and rush or anything. I was just trusting them, following their lead, enjoying the process and the design that’s come out of it is on the money. I’m so excited to launch it next year.
Curtis McHale:
And I’ll tell clients in that once we get on a call or even sometimes an email, you’ll find someone who does it faster than me. And if that’s what you want, then you should go with them. Yes, I’m not the best fit. Then you’ll find someone that does it cheaper than me. You should absolutely do that. I do that in my call. I try to tell clients why I am a bad choice. I’m sure you can find someone cheaper.
Curtis McHale:
Why don’t you go with them?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I feel like I’ve heard you saying that somewhere before, telling people why you are not the best fit for them. Where have I heard that? It must have been You. I think maybe I’ve heard it from you before.
Curtis McHale:
Then I think Jonathan Stark says it a bunch, too. And I remember listening to him a while ago and sort of formalizing how I did it because I didn’t have a formalized process for it. But again, maybe you should hire an intern. I’m sure you can find someone overseas that will do it cheaper than me or someone who. Just a student who can do a reasonable job and do it cheaper. I’m sure you can. Why don’t you just hire someone inside that you can pay less for this? Why don’t you pay for this service over here that’s cheaper? And every time you say that, they’re also saying, oh, no, no, I can’t do that because. And they’re telling you why they.
Curtis McHale:
They’re telling themselves as well why they should keep working.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s actually quite a good way, isn’t it? Because if you think about it, if they think, oh, yeah, well, I could hire someone internally, but then I’d need to try and explain to them what it is. And there’s a huge risk that that person wouldn’t necessarily know what they’re doing. And by the end of it, they’re actually selling themselves on you, aren’t they, in the end?
Curtis McHale:
Absolutely.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. And also playing by the rules that you’re helping to establish this is the way the client relationship is going to work rather than you necessarily, you know, because one of the things I get a lot that I find really frustrating is someone will send a proposal in the morning. They expect me to have consumed the proposal and even be able to quote them by the end of the day. And I’m saying, no, we need to actually have a discovery meeting about these sorts of things, you know. And again, I found myself, you know, falling into the trap of thinking, oh, crap, I better hurry up then and put something together, you know, lick my finger in the air sort of thing.
Curtis McHale:
And yeah, and that’s what I say when someone says, well, how much is it going to cost? I don’t know how much is a house? I don’t know what goes in it. Are we doing granite countertops or are we doing what, how many rooms? I even said, when they say, we need this this afternoon, I said, you realize when you say we need this this afternoon, I’m going to take whatever I think it is and multiply it by 50 because I have to guess. I’m taking all the risk then at guessing what you really want.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m so stealing that.
Curtis McHale:
And they say, what I Get you mentioned proposals. When I get an RFP request for a proposal, I answer back and say, hey, I don’t do these because there’s 99% of the time is a preferred contractor and it’s not me because I didn’t help you write it. So I’m not wasting my time. Have a good day.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I like that.
Curtis McHale:
Something along those lines again, it’s in that book and if it’s not, it’s definitely in the new version because I just looked at it as I found the email and some of them just say, someone get mad. And I have a email template that lets me write a four letter word that I would like to say sometimes and writes back out, thank you very much, good luck with your project. And that’s all I return at that point. If they are belligerent even no matter how many times they email thank you very much, good luck with your project. I don’t say anything else.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Wow.
Curtis McHale:
But every once.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s actually your disguise for the big F bomb.
Curtis McHale:
Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So for you, you feel like you’re saying F you but actually the email
Curtis McHale:
I get to type it out. My computer uses. I use Alfred now or. But textexpander whatever changes it into thank you very much, good luck with your project.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
What if it went wrong one day?
Curtis McHale:
Well, I already decided to want to work with them, so the worst they’re gonna do was get mad at me back whatever. And then I. Yeah, and then some. At least one client a year that I send that says, well, I just didn’t even know how to approach this process. Like there is no preferred contract. You’re like, I just wrote this. Can you take a look? And I just finished one earlier this year for that. And he’s like, I don’t even know how to do this.
Curtis McHale:
Can you look at it? And I said, okay, I’ll put in 20 minutes and scan through it and let you know what I think of your overall thing. And I went through it and I was like, your first idea is dumb. You’d never do that. Anyone that says they’re going to do it is going to inflate your price drastically because you want to. Do you want a subdomain for every page or something? Something. It’s like, that’s dumb. You can’t do that. Or you can.
Curtis McHale:
It’s just stupid. And there’s like your second idea, also a bad idea. Here’s why. Third idea, also terrible idea. Here’s why. I think if this is the project you want, I am not interested in any fashion. And he came back and said, okay, well what would make sense then? Because other people are quoting me like, hi, five figures to do this. Well, this is what would make sense.
Curtis McHale:
This is a discovery project. Would you like to do that? And we can hash out exactly what this would mean. And he said, absolutely.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Wow.
Curtis McHale:
I’m much more likely to jump in on discovery projects a little faster because they’re a short term engagement and it’s a way of gauging whether we are compatible. Right. So two grand, I’ll spend two weeks working with you. We have two calls. Usually I produce a report. I produce, here’s what I’ll do, here’s what it takes, and here is your proposal. Although even if I do a discovery project, I do not necessarily send a proposal for the big thing because if it turns out that they’re terrible to work with, I just say, and I’m not interested right now.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s good. That is the good thing about discovery. You know, it’s something that we’ve, we’ve done for the last year and a half now is actually paid discovery. Because in the past I would be giving them tons and tons of stuff away for free and then people would essentially take that and give it to another developer and that would just be, that would crucify me. I’d be so upset. But also, I have also found that during the discovery process there’s been a few people that I just really didn’t like. So I was able to give them a document that said, this is exactly what you want. Given the experience I’ve got, I can help you understand what technology.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Now here’s some recommended guys I suggest you go talk to who can help you deliver it. That’s worked out well, so we’ve not fallen out, but it’s just for me it’s been like a, that was a lucky escape. We got some money and we added amazing value to the client. But at the same time, I totally don’t want to work with them in the future on a web project because you know that it’s going to be like, I know, design by committee or whatever the problem is going to be. You just know it. Or one guy was just frankly rude all the time. Just short emails. He was all right on the phone, but in the emails he was always short.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And it just really bugged me. And they had a wrote, you know, we were nearly about to kick off the project and I just wrote to him and just said, you know what, you’re rude. I don’t want to work with you. And he was like, oh, let me down. And stuff like that. I was like, well, I made no promises to you. You just don’t want to work.
Curtis McHale:
I had a client once that just kept going into verbal tirades with profanity on the phone. And I kept hanging up the phone on him because he wouldn’t even let me talk. And probably the fourth time, he’s like, man, you keep getting disconnected. And I was like, no, I keep hanging up. He said what? I was like, if you swear again, I am hanging up. I am not taking your call again. That is not how anyone talks to me. I don’t care what you choose to use as your language.
Curtis McHale:
That is not how we talk, though. Oh, sorry. And he was much better for the rest of the project, and it was a good project because I can. I established a firm boundary about what we did and did not do as business people.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s really good. I like that. Guys, you can find the. Well, you can find the upcoming book at curtismkell ca Finding marketing niche. But again, we’ll put the link in the show notes so you can just click on it and be super lazy. And there’s an email subscription box there to be told when that one is. And also the effective client email book, I’ll put a link in the show notes as well, so you can go and check that out for those nine questions. That’s so cool.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So you’re going to be trying to write now, try and write a book every single year. Is that.
Curtis McHale:
Yeah, I find writing really easy, actually. So it doesn’t feel super hard to me. That is something that feels easy. And so the things that I need to do actually more of is like this. Getting it on podcasts or getting out to talk to other people more. So I find that a lot more draining. And so it is not the thing I naturally gravitate towards. And we all have something like that.
Curtis McHale:
Some people are. They love the big group and they love hanging out with people. And I look at that and think, ugh, sucks. I hate it. Like, wordcamps are actually tough for me generally. I find going to a conference generally very tough and draining. I don’t want to go to the after party. I want to go back to a hotel room and relax for an hour.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s exactly how I feel about a lot of those events as well. I don’t like too many people around. I like my own company or the company of Ace rather than people. It’s just too draining.
Curtis McHale:
I was the. I was the 18 year old who left his own surprise birthday party because like 50 people there and I was like, seriously, nobody knows me here. And I just left. But you know, now my wife invites our friends and their kids over and like we have a pizza or because I love pizza, homemade pizza or something like, hey, that sounds great. That’s a. That’s my party. I like that. Right.
Curtis McHale:
I hang out with some friends, watch the kids, play at the park or go on a hike. That sounds great.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Totally. I’m with you there, man. I’ll have to. I’ll give you a shout next time we’re in Canada because you said you make homemade pizza.
Curtis McHale:
We. Yep, homemade pizza.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Every Friday night is pizza night if you’re ever in the area.
Curtis McHale:
I was like, a little. Every Friday night?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Curtis McHale:
And we actually love having people over for Friday pizza. So by all means. My email is on my site. Send me an email.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’ll start getting loads of people. Actually we don’t have that many listeners. I’d be quite surprised if you suddenly got loads of people rocking up to your house. I’m like, ah, crap. I get more downloads than I realized. This is amazing.
Curtis McHale:
It’d be great. I’d love it. You got little kids though. You got little kids and you might have to watch Frozen, so.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Nothing wrong with Frozen. I feel like we. I feel like we should pop a link into the Frozen DVD or something like that as well on Amazon because we’ve mentioned this now at least twice. So let’s just switch gear into WordPress just a little bit because obviously you’ve used it now for a long time. We’ll say. I think you said eight years abroad.
Curtis McHale:
I’ve been self employed. Eight years I’ve been using it. Oh, you’ve been using it a little bit before.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Sweet.
Curtis McHale:
Might be at the 10 year mark. I don’t think I’m quite with the inception, but I look at some of the old interfaces, I’m like, I remember
Lee Matthew Jackson:
that over the years, is there any particular plugin or two or three if you can’t like pick one that you absolutely love or you recommend people go check out.
Curtis McHale:
I couldn’t. My job would be way more difficult if I didn’t use Migrate DB Pro. That is amazing. I love it as a developer for being able to do everything like migrate my sites back and forth. It’s so easy and it just keeps getting better and better and better. I love it. Brad does. Awesome.
Curtis McHale:
I can’t wait until they do the. The Site Diff plugin where you can push content. You can take like your staging site and your development site and work on the staging site and then push your content from the staging site to the development site without killing the development site, like the new orders or something. I’m super looking forward to that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That sounds insane.
Curtis McHale:
From. What’s it called? Delicious Brains is the name of their company and they do migrate DB Pro. So get on their email list because if you can find out about that, it’s. It looks amazing. And I know Brad Tunard is awesome. He’s another fellow Canuck, Although on the other coast. And then Drip. I love the Drip.
Curtis McHale:
I suppose it’s only sort of a WordPress plugin because they have an email marketing plugin, but the things it lets you do with your email list are nothing short of awesome. I love it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So what is Drip exactly?
Curtis McHale:
Because I’ve heard some email marketing and it lets me do stuff. So I just did a presale of my book and it let me say email people again and bug them to buy the book. If they didn’t buy it yet. And. But if they opened the email and added it to Cart but didn’t buy it, I want to send them a slightly different email. Right. And let me target all of those type of things for people. And I can say who added to Cart and still never ordered? Because I’m going to email them and say, hey, if you didn’t order, that’s totally fine.
Curtis McHale:
You didn’t see the value. I just would like to know why you didn’t find the value. Is there any feedback around that?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s good because that helps you change your message if needed.
Curtis McHale:
Yeah, that’s right. And I think, I know I’m looking and scanning through that, looking at a lot of my readers who’ve done that. I know them like we have talked on Skype. I. If they didn’t see value and I asked, I’ll just say, oh, this is why I didn’t. That’s fine. Because if you didn’t see value, you shouldn’t buy it. That would be dumb.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Although I am a bit of an impulsive buyer, I see what, like one line, it’s never usually the main copy that gets me. It’s usually a headline, my assumption, and then. And then a purchase. And then halfway through something later, I’m like, I’m not sure I bought this. I need to start reading the small print a bit more. I need to stop skimming. I’m too much of a skim reader.
Curtis McHale:
Yeah. I think outside of that, Kraken is the other one. I love and I use all the time, which is an image optimization plugin and it lets you put in the image and it strips out, does a whole bunch of the save for web stuff and reduces your image size. Called Kraken.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Kraken, is that. What is it? K with a C. Kraken.
Curtis McHale:
K, R, A K, E, N. Kraken. Kraken IO I think is their actual site because you have to purchase but it’s super cheap. It’s like I think I paid $5 a month for like 500 megs. Yeah, Kraken IO for 500 megs of image optimization. So I saved web briefly if it’s like a multi megabyte image, but that’s it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Used by the likes of Microsoft, Kia, Nvidia, nasdaq, Tesla.
Curtis McHale:
I saw Chris Lem, I said, hey, this is a good plugin. I looked at it and said that does look a good plugin. And I bought it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
All right, so we’ve got delicious brains who do WP Migrate DB Pro. We’ve got Drip by leadpages, that’s Strip Co, and then we’ve got Kraken. That’s Kraken I.O. which is the image optimizer. That’s a good list mate. None of them have ever been mentioned ever on the podcast. I’m always happy when that happens. And no one mentions Yoast for a change because that’s usually the full.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
The fallback.
Curtis McHale:
I’ve got that installed. I just look at it and I think it’s the best SEO plugin. So you use it because it’s there? I don’t know. Yeah, it doesn’t excite me as some of the other ones.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s true. I use it because I have to. But there’s never ever been anything that seems to be a good alternative. I’ve tried the all in one SEO, but I’m kind of a bit. I’m one of those people who likes pretty looking things and the only one SEO looks like it’s not been finished. CSS wide. Yeah, padding that doesn’t look right. Stupid little things.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m sure it’s a really powerful plugin, but if something doesn’t look nice in the admin, I just kind of don’t.
Curtis McHale:
Drives me bonkers. I find that with like even. I was looking at the Starbucks site this morning as they’re saying play Starbucks for life. And I went through the process and it’s like, this is terrible. I’m never going to do this and quit. Just drives me bonkers. And I’m complaining because I know the Starbucks people fairly well. My local Starbucks.
Curtis McHale:
And I’m complaining to them. They’re like, of course you’d complain about this, Curtis. Yes, well, look, it’s terrible. And they’re like, I never even saw that. But this is off. Shouldn’t be that far apart.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No, the line, Line speed. Line height is wrong. What’s going on here? Yeah, there’s no, there’s no padding here. It’s. It drives me mad. That’s kind of a good thing, though. It means you’re in the right industry, mate. You know, if things like that bother you and same here.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And people listening, then you’re in the right industry. That’s one thing. Now before you go, buddy, because we’re nearly running out of time, but I did hear, I’m pretty sure I heard you mention we, which. Which presumably means you’ve got either some staff or contractors that work with you, or is it just.
Curtis McHale:
Yeah, I have an editor for my site and I have a bookkeeper to do the bookkeeping because I hate that. And then I have the odd contractor that comes in and out. The contractors I like to hire, though, don’t need my input at all. So I hire one guy, John Campbell, often. And with one client, I’d actually sent a referral and it didn’t work out very well. And so he wanted me to be involved in the project basically as insurance. That’s all he wanted. And I hired my friend John and just kept charging my rates and John charged less, despite me continually prodding him to charge more.
Curtis McHale:
And I just marked it up and John did everything. I just sent out an invoice and said, this is how much it costs. And I got 100% payment upfront. And eventually when the client was like, I don’t know if I can afford this next project. And he told me why, I said, why don’t I just work with John? That’s the type of people I want to work with because I especially development wise, I don’t want to be in managing things like all the time. I. That is probably the thing I like least about development. When someone says, hey, my site’s not working.
Curtis McHale:
And I want to say, I don’t care. I’m. I’m hiking with my kids. I literally don’t care. I don’t want the call. I don’t want to hear about it. So that’s one of the reasons that I’m moving more to coaching and very. Being very limited in how I do do my development work in the future.
Curtis McHale:
And making it very clear about what I respond to and what I do not respond to.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Really good guys. I think one of the takeaways I’m getting from this is, you know, know what you like to do, know where you want to be, and try and aim towards that. So you’re being very, very deliberate about your decisions, deliberate about the clients you’re taking on, about the sort of work you’re doing. So, guys, it’s curtismcchale. Ca. How else can people connect with you, mate?
Curtis McHale:
I’m Curtis McHale. Everywhere, all lowercase on all the social networks that matter and connect with me there. If you’re gonna follow me on Instagram, expect, like pictures of my kids doing stuff and hiking and snow. Snow in August and snowball fights because we like to go in the mountains and some business stuff as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But so when you say the. The ones that matter, I presume that means you’re also on MySpace as well.
Curtis McHale:
No, there was a time I have. Who remembers Blello? I have a Blello shirt because I was like one of the top engagers at first and who knows where that went now.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I don’t even know what that is.
Curtis McHale:
Yeah, that’s right. I’m gonna have to Google. And then there’s new ones like Ello just came out and all these other things. And I. I don’t have time for
Lee Matthew Jackson:
that quote unquote Facebook killers that if
Curtis McHale:
you’re comparing to something else, you’re not going to kill it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, no. Do you remember that one that came out for Google? I think it was called like, cool or something. C U I L. It was a, like a search engine.
Curtis McHale:
Oh, yeah, yeah, I do remember that. I didn’t use it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No, no, neither did I. I used it for like five seconds.
Curtis McHale:
I was like, no, I didn’t even do that. Nope. There was a time when I spent a lot more time looking at all these new stuff and like jumped in anything internety. And I do not do that now. When I get home, my phone goes in the charging drawer and stays there for the most part.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I feel like that is some advice I should take because I got told off at the weekend by my wife for being on the phone too much.
Curtis McHale:
So I tell my kids to my 6 year old, say, daddy, you shouldn’t have your phone right now. And I’ll hand it to her and she’ll go put it in the drawer.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, really? I need to do that?
Curtis McHale:
Absolutely. Now she’s rude. We have a talk about that. But if you want to say Daddy, we should be coloring now. We should be doing something else. Okay. I hand it to her and she puts it away.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s deep. I think I’ll struggle, but I’m going to. Guys, hold me accountable. Hold me.
Curtis McHale:
It feels great. I stopped taking my phone to bed about six months ago and I just set the alarm on my Fitbit and it feels great. I’m not up. Like, I don’t realize. Suddenly I’m up, like looking at pictures on Instagram for three hours. I just go to bed. I read a little bit on a fiction and go to bed.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Good, because the. The light of the phone as well and all that sort of stuff and even the flashing light and just being there, it’s. It’s at the back of your mind. Someone told me to do it just a couple of weeks ago and now you’ve mentioned it as well. I feel like I need to. So I’m going to go ahead. I’m going to experiment and try this as part of my New Year’s resolution because what the hey, this is a good excuse. Isn’t it just about to be January? In fact, this will be live in January, I think.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
January. Yeah, Early January. This episode will be live. It’s cool. So, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Thank you so much for your time. You’re a legend. And I’m going to have to let you go because our time is up.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But I appreciate it, curtismcchale, CA or curtismikhale. Pretty much anywhere that matters on social media. Yep, that sums you up. Thanks. Have a great day.
Curtis McHale:
Bye.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Bye. And there you have it, the end of episode number 60. I’m sure you’ll agree that was freaking epic. Remember, head on over to leejacksondev.com episode 60. That’s six zero. In case you thought it was a really long URL, that’s episode six. Zero. And you can go ahead and find all the show notes, you can find the full transcription of this episode, like I said earlier, and also the email template that Curtis shared with us on the podcast.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Now then, Remember Facebook group Leejacksondev.com group the Internet needs cat pictures. It’s important you join. And next week we’re going to be interviewing someone special who’s going to talk all about building a world websites in a day and how she has created an amazing business model with it. So I’m not going to tell you any more. I’m going to let you look forward and tune in next week on the WP Innovator podcast. Oh, pretty cool. I’m going to keep that in. All right? Don’t forget, keep innovating.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And don’t forget, send cat pictures on the Facebook group because it keeps the Internet going. It’s really important. All right, bye.
