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00:00 when I’m do it. So, we got the intros,
00:02 the extras, and a couple other minor
00:03 bits in here. So, that uh like I said,
00:06 it’s recorded live to tape.
00:09 Cool. All right, we’re live. All right,
00:12 this is a bit of a pre-stream, everyone.
00:13 Welcome to the show. I’ve got Phil’s
00:16 story here, but we got full intros
00:18 coming in in just a few minutes, and it
00:21 will be a very entertaining show. And
00:24 since we’re rolling up to time, a little
00:26 bit of music carry us up to full
00:28 showtime. The days of
00:31 thunder. We’re going to make time stand
00:43 still. A quarter after
00:47 midnight and I’m watching the
00:50 wall. Sometimes I feel so
00:53 uptight. I just can’t sleep at all.
00:58 every day doing the same old thing.
01:01 We’re losing
01:03 time. The weekend comes, we got to have
01:07 some fun and
01:11 rewind. These are the days of
01:14 thunder. We’re going to make time stand
01:18 still. We got to feel the hunger hanging
01:22 over the edge just to taste
01:31 the I feel the rope
01:35 tightening choking up our
01:38 air. We need to grab some
01:42 lightning. Friday’s almost
01:45 here. Caught in a web. We need to cut
01:48 this thread. We’re hanging
01:52 by. Where is it said you have to be half
01:55 dead to
01:59 survive? These are the days of
02:02 thunder. We’re going to make time stand
02:06 still. We got to feel the hunger hanging
02:10 over the edge just to taste
02:26 these are the days of
02:29 thunder. We’re going to make time stand
02:33 still. We got to feel the hunger hanging
02:37 over the edge just to taste the thrill.
02:41 These are the days of
02:43 thunder. But we’re going to make time
02:46 stand still. We got to feel the hunger.
02:50 hanging over the edges to taste the
02:59 B. These are the
03:09 days. There we are. It is time, ladies
03:14 and gentlemen. It is time for WordPress
03:16 plugins A to Zed. Not Z H. Welcome to WP
03:24 Plugins A to
03:26 Zed. It’s episode 68. Glow behind the
03:30 globe. Phil stories journey to SAS
03:34 success. And we’re
03:39 off. WordPress, the king of content
03:42 management systems, powering the web
03:44 with over 80,000 plugins to choose from.
03:47 How do you sort the junk? from the gems.
03:50 Welcome to WP Plugins A to Zed, where
03:53 we’ve been keeping the pulse of
03:54 WordPress alive for over 16 incredible
03:57 years. Join us every week for an
03:60 unrehearsed real talk breakdowns of the
04:02 latest and greatest plugins, developer,
04:04 and community member interviews. Some
04:07 weeks, Amber and I team up to dig in.
04:09 Others, I’m flying solo, unpacking
04:12 WordPress news, demoing a standout
04:14 plugin, or sharing tips to power up your
04:17 site. No scripts, no fluff, just the
04:20 good stuff from A to Z. So, plug in and
04:23 let’s get
04:26 rolling. Good morning, good afternoon,
04:28 or good evening, wherever you happen to
04:29 be hiding out there on the globe today.
04:30 Coming to you direct from the brewery
04:32 overlook in beautiful southern Vancouver
04:35 Island. I’m John Overall and in today’s
04:38 show we’re journeying through the
04:40 radiant WordPress cosmos with a true
04:42 innovator who’s transforming how
04:44 agencies agent
04:47 agencies shine. Phil Story, the founder
04:50 of Glow, joins us to share his decadel
04:52 long enterprise and WordPress agency
04:54 support and maintenance. We’ll dive into
04:56 his insights on building reliable
04:58 reoccurring revenue, streamlining
05:00 processes, educating clients, crafting
05:03 price strategies, and delivering real
05:05 value through care plans. Lessons honed
05:08 from years of speaking with agencies
05:10 about what truly works. Plus, we’ll
05:12 explore Glow’s origin story and Phil’s
05:15 vision for his future. Whether you’re a
05:17 plug-in enthusiast or WordPress agency
05:19 owner, this episode is packed with a
05:22 glowing wisdom you won’t want to mi
05:25 miss. Welcome to the show, Phil. I hope
05:27 that wasn’t too much for you. No, that
05:30 was great. Thanks, John. Thanks for
05:31 having me. I’m loving the amount of glow
05:33 puns you managed to get in a couple.
05:36 Impressive. I only tripped over one or
05:38 two.
05:41 No, it’s good to be here, mate. Thank
05:42 you. Thank you for having me. Excited to
05:44 uh Yeah. to uh Yeah. to be on the show.
05:46 Well, I was glad when you reached out to
05:48 me and when I looked into it and it’s
05:49 like, wow, okay, this is kind of cool
05:51 because I’ve been working myself trying
05:53 to get my agency moving forward in the
05:56 right direction and you’ve been doing a
05:59 lot of things. You had a few suggestions
06:00 on things you want to talk about here
06:03 and you know, there’s just some really
06:06 great stuff that is happening and
06:08 WordPress itself is moving in unique
06:12 directions right now. Nobody knows
06:14 absolutely what’s going to happen and
06:16 how it’s going to flow but the software
06:18 itself I believe is not going anywhere
06:20 and the way it’s going to be managed is
06:22 going to change. So tell us a little bit
06:26 about who Glow is and where it came
06:29 from.
06:31 Yeah, sure man. Um so I mean you
06:33 mentioned it briefly in the intro about
06:34 my career. So yeah just just over 10
06:37 years really. So I actually have a
06:39 degree in construction. So like it was a
06:42 completely like unrelated I mean a lot
06:44 of people have done that right they have
06:45 a a degree that’s got absolutely nothing
06:47 to do what they’re actually doing now
06:49 right so uh yeah a lot of money spent a
06:52 lot of time spent at university to end
06:54 up basically doing absolutely nothing to
06:56 do with what I spent all that time and
06:57 money on but you know that’s life um but
07:02 it ultimately you know that change of
07:04 direction for me did did lead me to to
07:06 today you know and and and running glow
07:08 so yeah I mean I guess a little bit
07:11 background would be that I ultimately
07:13 sort of stepped out of that construction
07:14 world after university and and taught
07:16 myself, you know, HTML and CSS, right?
07:19 There was a really good website. You may
07:21 you may have come across it yourself at
07:22 some point, John, or anybody listening.
07:24 It was called linda.com.
07:26 I do remember that one. Yeah, I think
07:28 they were based in I think they were
07:30 California based and I think LinkedIn
07:31 bought them in the end, actually.
07:33 Um, but it was just like an amazing
07:36 resource of of tutorials and and videos
07:39 on like how to do and you know how to
07:41 start uh you know careers in in web and
07:45 graphic designs and video production.
07:47 You name it kind of they had everything
07:48 on there and that was really my sort of
07:50 starting point uh into the world of of
07:53 web design. This is obviously before I
07:54 set my business up, but it was there
07:56 that I came across WordPress for the
07:58 first time. And that was, yeah, it was
07:59 around sort of 2010, 2011. And up to
08:02 that point, I’d kind of been building
08:05 sort of, you know, as you do when you
08:06 start out a web design business,
08:07 building websites for like your family
08:09 members in the local town, the local
08:11 area. Um, but they were all sort of
08:13 static HTML and CSS stuff. So, when I
08:15 came across WordPress, it was kind of a
08:17 bit of a an eye openener for me really.
08:19 And that really began, like I said,
08:21 yeah, sort of a 10-15 year career of of
08:23 of running a web design agency. Part of
08:25 that on my own with a small team, part
08:27 of that in a partnership with somebody
08:29 else who we ended up splitting, right?
08:31 We had a a team of about seven or eight
08:33 of us at one stage there. But um but a
08:37 big part of what I’ve always done in my
08:39 web design agency career is offer an
08:42 ongoing support and maintenance service.
08:43 So we we always had that as a service
08:45 offering, right? Um, and throughout that
08:48 time used kind of a different
08:50 combination of tools which ultimately
08:52 led me to starting Glow
08:55 because we could just never quite find
08:58 one that did exactly what we needed it
08:60 to really. We were sort of always mish
09:02 mashing other ones together. Um, so
09:04 really Glow started originally as a as
09:06 something for our business. We just
09:08 wanted to create something that we could
09:09 use for our business internally and then
09:11 of course we realized the opportunity to
09:13 expand that a bit further and maybe you
09:15 know other agencies around the world
09:16 might have also wanted that. So uh I’m
09:19 pleased to say we’ve been proven right
09:21 about that. Of course yeah that’s um
09:24 yeah a bit of an intro I guess into kind
09:25 of where we where we came about. Well
09:27 the maintenance part of WordPress is
09:29 partly what kept my business going
09:31 during the slow periods
09:33 you know. Yeah, that and of course my
09:35 big thing when I got into this was web
09:37 hosting which I still which I still do.
09:39 I still run a boutique hosting service
09:42 with you know a few servers and limit
09:44 the clients I get but the maintenance
09:47 was also a major component you know
09:49 especially after you spend a lot of time
09:51 creating a website for a client and
09:53 everything then you want to keep them as
09:56 a client and make sure they always have
09:58 that fantastic site you just built.
10:02 Yeah, exactly. And that was that was
10:04 probably something that I got into. It
10:06 was maybe like a year after I set up in
10:07 business. Um you know, obviously very
10:09 new to business generally. I can
10:11 actually remember vividly still remember
10:13 uh sitting in my parents’ kitchen
10:15 talking to them about my web design
10:17 business, how it was going. And I
10:18 remember saying to them, you know, it’s
10:20 going quite well like we’re getting, you
10:21 know, project work in.
10:23 I I’ I’d joined a local networking group
10:26 and it was just amazing for generating
10:28 new clients, but I didn’t have that
10:30 recurring revenue, you know, and as you
10:32 were saying how that sort of saved you
10:33 on a, you know, more than one occasions
10:35 in in sort of quiet periods of project
10:38 work. I didn’t have that at that point
10:40 and I knew I really needed to create
10:41 that recurring revenue to sort of, you
10:43 know, I guess future proof the business
10:45 in a way for for for exactly the sorts
10:46 of situations that you described there.
10:48 So yeah, that was something I I guess I
10:51 managed to get into sort of setting up
10:53 fairly on in my my career in my journey
10:55 as running a running a web design
10:57 business. So yeah, I think it’s a an
10:59 absolutely crucial part of any web
11:00 design business, right, is that is that
11:02 ongoing support revenue that you can
11:04 create. So talking about that, what
11:07 would you say could be some of the
11:09 biggest mistakes you’ve seen WordPress
11:11 agencies make when setting up their
11:13 support maintenance plans for their
11:15 clients?
11:16 It’s a good question.
11:18 Um, well, not selling them at all.
11:21 That’s a that’s that’s a that’s a major
11:22 one. Yes. Not selling them. Yeah, I have
11:24 I have come across that more often than
11:26 you would than you would think. And
11:27 actually with Yeah. and and with
11:30 agencies that are I mean I don’t have
11:33 any data on this but if I was you know
11:35 finger in the wind I would say that the
11:37 smaller agencies you know the the
11:40 oneperson operators small agencies
11:43 have it together better with the whole
11:45 support and maintenance offering than
11:46 the than the sort of the larger agencies
11:48 and that again like I said no data to
11:50 back this up but just my experience of
11:53 talking to hundreds and hundreds of
11:55 different agencies over the last few
11:56 years I often come across those who are
11:60 very established agencies doing very
12:02 very well. They offer you know like a
12:04 plethora of services. So they got the
12:06 full digital offering of SEO, PPC,
12:08 social, email marketing, you know, and
12:11 web design and kind of support is just
12:12 kind of one of the services that they
12:15 might offer. But typically speaking to a
12:17 lot of those, they’ve sort of spent
12:20 their their their years as an agency
12:22 building sites and hosting them. You
12:24 mentioned hosting a minute ago. They
12:26 obviously they always sell the hosting,
12:28 but I’ve I’ve spoken to so many that
12:30 never just never never sold the sort of
12:32 the ongoing and support and maintenance.
12:34 And not only that, not only did they not
12:36 sell it, whenever they then got asked to
12:38 do any of that work by the client, they
12:40 just did it for free. So, you know, and
12:43 it’s quite amazing because honestly,
12:44 like you talk to some of these agencies
12:46 who clearly they’ve got their, you know,
12:47 together generally because they,
12:49 you know, they’re an established agency,
12:51 but they’re miss I mean some of them, I
12:52 mean, they could be missing out on, you
12:54 know, 10, 15, 20K a month. Some of these
12:56 agencies, you know, they’ve got hundreds
12:58 of sites that they’ve built over the
12:59 years, right? And never sold this this
13:03 um this this support package. So, so
13:05 that’s one thing. Not selling it is
13:07 obviously a, you know, a miss. Um I
13:10 think that the moment in which they
13:12 decide to try and sell it would be
13:14 another mistake. So commonly um agencies
13:18 will kind of leave the conversation of
13:20 maintenance and support to to to after
13:23 they’ve built the site. And if you think
13:25 about that from the client’s
13:27 perspective, all along the journey
13:29 you’ve been telling them, we’re going to
13:31 build you a site and it’s going to cost
13:32 you $5,000 or whatever it is, right?
13:35 um no mention of maintenance and
13:37 support, you know, and it’s a 10-week
13:39 project. And you get to the end of the
13:40 10 weeks and the agency goes to the
13:41 client, uh right, you now need to choose
13:43 a maintenance package. It’s going to be
13:45 $100 a client goes, whoa, well, you you
13:48 didn’t tell me about this before we
13:49 started working together, right? So, I
13:51 think naturally that then becomes a
13:53 harder sell, right? Because it’s you’re
13:55 sort of surprising the client with it. I
13:57 mean, you may obviously convert some
13:59 still if you do a good job of it, but
14:01 you’re going to you’re going to have a
14:02 much better chance of converting that
14:04 client onto a maintenance package if you
14:06 talk to them about it upfront and you
14:08 put it in your proposal and you you
14:10 know, you tell them about the quality of
14:12 your afterare and show them some reviews
14:14 from customers who love your support
14:16 service and that sort of stuff. So, I
14:18 think there are a couple of key ones
14:19 really, John, in terms of Yeah,
14:21 absolutely. That that sounds like a big
14:24 one there. That is to make sure you, you
14:26 know, approach them while you’re in the
14:27 middle of the project to Yeah. get them
14:30 used to the idea of, hey, yes, it’s
14:32 costing this much to build it, but
14:34 there’s ongoing maintenance. It’s like
14:36 having your car. You’ve got to change
14:38 the oil, fix the tires, you know, you’ve
14:40 got you’ve got the house you own, but
14:42 yet you still got to occasionally clean
14:44 the plumbing, you know, and you know,
14:46 mow the lawn, you know, the maintenance,
14:48 the stuff that just goes because Well,
14:51 it’s not so much that websites wear out,
14:53 it’s that technology advances too fast.
14:56 And if they’re not keeping up with the
14:57 website quits
14:59 functioning and Exactly. And that car
15:02 analogy is one that I used to use quite
15:03 quite often actually just to try and
15:05 help particularly the the the least
15:07 technical clients kind of try and
15:08 understand a bit more about it. But
15:10 often you didn’t you didn’t even need
15:11 that really if you did just did a good
15:13 job of explaining why the support and
15:16 maintenance package is needed
15:18 afterwards. If you did a good job of
15:19 that in the proposal stage up front,
15:21 it’s quite an easy sell really because
15:24 even for those smaller clients that
15:26 don’t have much of a budget, most
15:28 businesses, as long as they’re, you
15:30 know, they’re, you know, they’re a
15:31 decent business and they’re making some
15:32 money, they can afford $50, $50 a month,
15:35 right? To make sure that their website
15:36 is protected, right? And then you can
15:38 obviously upsell them onto higher
15:39 packages if they want some more support
15:41 or it’s an e-commerce website that needs
15:43 more mate or whatever, you know? Well,
15:45 so also one of the nice things I found
15:47 is a client that starts small, as they
15:49 grow, their needs increase and you just
15:53 you just increase the cost to them
15:55 appropriately as their needs increase.
15:58 Yeah. Yeah. Precisely. And it’s
15:60 obviously very easy to do that, isn’t
16:01 it? So, um, yeah, I think there’s, yeah,
16:05 there’s almost sort of no reason, you
16:06 know, why you wouldn’t sort of sell a
16:08 supportive m maintenance package. I
16:09 think and and that whole, you know, when
16:12 to sell it thing is such a crucial part
16:14 of it because, you know, those those
16:16 larger agencies that I described earlier
16:19 who, you know, they’ve been established
16:21 for 10, 15 years. They’ve been building
16:22 websites and hosting them but not
16:24 maintaining them. I’ve spoken to plenty
16:27 of those now and they’re kind of like,
16:28 well, we get it. Um, but how do we now
16:32 go back and sell maintenance to these
16:33 websites where, you know, we’ve been
16:34 hosting it for $300 a year for 10 years
16:37 and now we’re saying it’s going to be
16:38 $50 a month for maintenance as well. You
16:41 know, that’s hard, right? That’s very
16:42 hard to do. That’s a tough one. Yes. I I
16:45 It’s a tough one. Been down that road
16:47 myself. Yeah. Yeah. I did in the early
16:50 days as well, but it’s No, it’s a tough
16:51 one. I think I think you can always
16:53 start now though with obviously with new
16:56 projects. So you can just say, and I
16:58 know a lot of agencies now, they just
16:59 mandate it. So they just say, you know,
17:01 if if you’re coming to us for a proposal
17:03 on your website, you will be going on to
17:05 a maintenance and support package after
17:07 we’ve built this website if you want to
17:08 work with us. Yeah. Um and if you don’t
17:11 take that, you you’re not working with
17:13 us kind of thing, you know, good luck.
17:15 The way to keep them the way to keep
17:17 them there and keep them uh doing what
17:18 you need to do. Yeah. Yeah, it is for
17:22 sure. So you had mentioned before, you
17:24 know, you were interested in talking
17:26 about setting up efficient internal
17:29 processes. What do you mean by that?
17:32 This will be on the application that I
17:34 put on to show, wouldn’t it? It would
17:36 be, which is about two months ago. I’m
17:37 I’m I’m pull I’m pulling notes from
17:39 everywhere. You know, sometimes internal
17:42 processes. Yeah. I mean, it’s not the
17:45 most exciting topic in the world, is it
17:46 as as a headline, but it’s important,
17:49 right, in in any in any business. Um, I
17:52 think if I if I’m sort of relating that
17:55 directly to running a web design
17:56 business, which obviously I did for for
17:58 many years, and I’m sure quite a few
18:00 people listening to this, um, might be
18:03 might be in the same position. Um, I
18:06 think for me it’s it’s one of the most
18:09 important things to make sure that you
18:10 do well, right, to help you grow the
18:12 business is have efficient systems and
18:14 processes. Um, it’s one of those things
18:16 that I remember when I was starting out
18:17 in business, whenever I used to attend
18:19 like local networking events and anybody
18:21 used to stand up and talk about systems
18:23 and processes, I’d always think,
18:25 yeah, not that important. You know, I’m
18:28 not going to speak to those guys. And
18:29 that you obviously that was silly of me
18:30 to be like that, but that’s how I was in
18:32 the early days. I was more sort of we
18:34 need to get the sales, we need to, you
18:35 know, we need to get clients that, you
18:37 know, that was the big focus, which
18:38 obviously is important as well. But uh
18:40 yeah, if I could wind the clock back
18:42 there to my sort of day one in business,
18:44 I would be setting up Yeah. systems and
18:46 processes that have, you know, detailed,
18:48 you know, written explanations of how we
18:50 do everything in the business. It makes
18:52 everything easier, right? It makes
18:54 customer support easier, customer
18:55 success easier. It makes onboarding new
18:57 members of staff easier, right? Because
18:59 everything’s documented. Um, but I mean,
19:02 yeah, I mean, it’s such a big topic. I
19:03 mean, obviously generally it could also
19:05 include the actual software you use,
19:06 right?
19:07 that. But let’s let’s break it up just a
19:10 little bit then. Yeah, sure. When you’re
19:12 when you’re talking about say you’ve got
19:15 a business, either you’ve been going a
19:17 while, you haven’t done the internal
19:19 processes or you’re starting from
19:20 scratch, where would be the beginning
19:24 stage
19:25 of beginning to create the internal
19:28 processes? What would you do?
19:31 I would be personally I would document
19:33 what you do every day. So, I mean,
19:35 again, I’m not sure exactly who’s
19:37 listening to the show. It might be if
19:38 it’s if it’s one person operators, this
19:39 is going to be easier for me to explain.
19:41 If it’s teams of teams of people, then
19:43 it’s different, but I imagine the same
19:45 rules apply generally. It’s a little bit
19:46 of everyone who listens to the show.
19:48 Yeah. Okay. We got we got your very
19:50 beginning WordPress listeners and we’ve
19:53 got just a few agencies that listen to
19:55 us. Okay. Cool. Cool. I think just I
19:57 mean just documenting what you do would
19:59 be an obvious first step, right?
20:02 So this is this is nothing new, right,
20:04 that I’m that I’m explaining here
20:06 either. I’m sure we’ve all heard this
20:08 many times before from different places,
20:10 right? But literally, you know, if
20:12 you’ve got nothing in place at the
20:13 moment in terms of internal systems,
20:15 processes, documentation,
20:17 I think for the first week or two or
20:19 three, it’s just writing down literally
20:22 what you do each day. Yeah. So today
20:25 might be, you know, appear on John’s
20:27 podcast and tomorrow, you know, and uh
20:30 respond to emails and then uh uh uh
20:32 update the accounting software and then
20:34 talk to the developers about the new
20:35 feature, whatever, whatever that might
20:37 be. Open a spreadsheet in Google Sheets
20:40 and just write it down. Monday I did A B
20:42 CDE E and just for now just create a
20:45 list. Yeah. So then once you’re sort of
20:47 two, three weeks in, you’re probably
20:50 going to be repeating stuff you’ve
20:51 already written down. Yeah. because
20:53 there’s only a certain amount of things
20:54 that we do, right, in running a
20:56 business. So, I think once you’ve then
20:57 got that initial list, it’s then going a
21:00 level deeper and writing down, you know,
21:04 what not just what you did, but how did
21:06 you do what you did? Yeah. So, you could
21:08 use a tool like uh notion or Google Docs
21:12 or anything really. I mean, notion is
21:13 very good in how it brings things
21:14 together actually. I think and it is
21:16 something that we use having previously
21:17 tried to do it in uh docs but um you
21:21 know you can set up a free notion
21:23 account and split your business into the
21:24 core areas and then write down you know
21:27 the the extra detail of that list that
21:28 you’ve created for two or three weeks so
21:30 you can split your business into you
21:32 know the marketing function sales uh
21:35 operations product and services
21:38 um yeah keep it to those broad
21:40 categories and then go into each one of
21:42 those and write down the relevant things
21:44 that you do and
21:45 Yeah, you know, if you’re off sick or
21:47 somebody comes in that’s new or you’ve
21:49 got a new support person or a customer
21:51 asks a question about, you know, how do
21:53 I do this or a client says, you know,
21:55 what did we agree here or or how can I
21:57 do this with my website, everything’s
21:59 written down. Yeah. And you don’t have
22:01 to keep coming up with the, you know,
22:02 different answers each time. You just go
22:03 and pick that answer and give it back to
22:05 the client. So, like I said, it’s a very
22:07 broad topic, right? And that’s an
22:08 example of what you could do to sort of
22:10 start getting a little more efficient if
22:11 you don’t have those things in place. uh
22:14 already and then obviously another part
22:17 of that whole thing is the actual tools
22:20 that you use right so the software that
22:23 you use each day to help you I don’t
22:25 know automate a process that you’re
22:27 doing manually at the moment or save the
22:29 business some money by using one tool
22:32 that does the same as three different
22:33 ones that you’re using at the moment for
22:35 example so um I think it should be
22:37 something that just as business owners
22:39 generally we should just review on a you
22:42 could review it monthly or you could
22:43 review it quarterly or every six months.
22:45 Just do that little internal review of
22:48 systems and software and processes in
22:50 the business and can you make any cost
22:52 savings or can you make something take a
22:54 bit less time or all of these little
22:57 gains just ultimately help you run a
22:59 more efficient business and a more
23:00 profitable one as well? Oh, absolutely.
23:03 And that’s the one thing that’s
23:05 important is to make it a more
23:06 profitable business. Thinking thinking
23:09 of profits, you’ve you’ve also made
23:11 mention in that little thing you sent me
23:13 talking about setting up pricing
23:15 strategies, client education,
23:19 you know, um pricing strategies for uh
23:21 web design agencies. What’s that? Did
23:24 you say pricing strategies for for web
23:26 design agencies? Well, for web design
23:27 agencies, you know, delivering well uh
23:30 value through support care plans.
23:32 Oh, specifically related to care plans.
23:34 I see. Yeah. Um I think yeah I mean it’s
23:37 just something I’ve been focusing on
23:38 quite a lot in the last few months. Um
23:40 I’m creating um like a document at the
23:43 moment on kind of pricing generally in
23:45 the WordPress care plans uh
23:47 market because it’s a question I guess
23:50 get asked a lot on on LinkedIn. So I’m
23:53 very visible on on LinkedIn. I post very
23:55 regularly always talking about
23:57 WordPress. Of course very often it’s
23:59 WordPress uh support and maintenance
24:01 stuff that I talk about. Um, and I often
24:04 get people commenting or sending me a
24:05 message in in the DMs, you know, about
24:07 pricing. You know, how do I set up
24:10 pricing for my website support business
24:12 and what should I charge clients? And
24:14 again, you would be surprised at the
24:16 size of companies that get in touch and
24:17 ask this question. You know, there are
24:19 some decentsiz agencies that ask this.
24:21 So, you know, it’s not just um, you
24:23 know, people are just getting going and
24:24 just setting up a web design business.
24:26 It’s kind of larger, more established
24:28 teams as well. So, it’s a common
24:30 question. It’s obviously one that’s
24:31 quite important to make sure that you
24:33 know you’re charging the client the
24:34 right amount of money, but also the
24:36 right amount of money in terms of being
24:37 profitable for you in the business. So,
24:39 I think there’s a few ways that you can
24:42 um you know, ensure that you’re sort of
24:43 ticking ticking all of those boxes. I
24:47 tried a sort of a various, you know, uh
24:51 array of setups for for pricing for the
24:53 support and maintenance stuff over the
24:54 years. you know, sort of changing the
24:56 number of plans that we offered,
24:58 certainly changing the kind of price
24:59 that we offered, changing what we
25:00 included in each plan. You know, so an
25:03 example of that was that in the early
25:04 days, we included website hosting as
25:07 part of our support packages. Uh, and
25:09 later down the line kind of remove the
25:11 hosting out and charge that as a as a as
25:13 a separate amount. So, you’d sort of get
25:15 that annual hosting revenue from the
25:17 clients and then also the monthly
25:19 support and maintenance because I mean
25:21 they are different effectively, right?
25:22 The hosting is, we all know what hosting
25:24 is, right? We know what that is. And
25:25 then the support and maintenance is more
25:27 of the ongoing care and maintenance
25:29 stuff. So, we use them differently. And
25:32 of course, then they are different
25:33 revenue streams at that point. They
25:35 absolutely are two different revenue
25:36 streams. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice to hear.
25:39 Nice to hear you’re in agreement there,
25:41 John. Well, you know, I I’ve got a fair
25:42 number of clients on on just plain
25:44 hosting. I’ve still got clients on
25:46 hosting and maintenance. And I think
25:48 I’ve got one or two clients that I
25:50 strictly just do their maintenance
25:51 because they’re hosted somewhere else.
25:53 Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that’s that’s
25:55 another another thing. I mean, I do see
25:56 quite a few few agencies who don’t take
25:58 that on, right? If they haven’t built
25:60 the site, they’re not doing the
26:01 maintenance. But yeah. Yeah. Everybody’s
26:03 different, I guess, with that. You Well,
26:05 you know, just a choice, isn’t it? A lot
26:07 of mine are a lot of my clients I’ve had
26:10 for eight plus years and some of them
26:13 came to me back in the day when they
26:15 preferred to stay with whatever hosting
26:16 provider they were and it’s like okay
26:18 fine I can work with this hosting
26:19 provider because they’re very similar to
26:21 my server setup. Some there’s been a
26:23 couple of hosting providers they want me
26:25 to said you know what unless you move
26:27 I’m not touching it. Yeah. because it’s
26:31 just so different
26:32 because anyone who knows anything about
26:34 hosting realizes that every server is
26:37 set up just a little bit different.
26:39 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It’s not
26:41 worth the risk either. Usually, right,
26:42 for one for one client, you know, um
26:46 most of the time at least it’s not uh
26:48 it’s not worth taking it on and then
26:50 some kind of issue happening in you not
26:51 having a clue how to resolve it for
26:53 them, right? Just that’s only ever going
26:55 to reflect badly on you, isn’t it? So,
26:57 yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, a
27:02 piece of advice you could give a
27:03 WordPress agency just starting to offer
27:06 maintenance service, what would you give
27:08 them to help ensure long-term success?
27:11 Oh, good question. Uh, a couple of
27:13 things. Make sure you charge the, you
27:14 know, the right amount of money. Now,
27:16 obviously, people are in different parts
27:18 of the world listening to this. Uh, but
27:21 I think just don’t just don’t be cheap,
27:23 right? Because again, I have I’ve seen
27:25 this. I mean I start by the way this is
27:27 all from experience and learning myself.
27:29 So um what you’re offering the client
27:33 there is a very valuable service very
27:36 valuable. Number one just actually being
27:39 there to help them when they need it
27:42 that is immensely valuable because the
27:44 amount of web developers out there who
27:46 build sites for clients and then
27:47 disappear and the client can never get a
27:48 hold of them. There’s unfortunately
27:50 still too many of them. Mhm. So the fact
27:52 that you are offering this service and
27:54 saying look if you need us we’re here
27:56 and you can reach us you know Monday to
27:58 Saturday you know 8:00 a.m. 5 whatever
28:00 it might be and really just giving that
28:02 quality afterare service that is
28:04 extremely
28:05 valuable alone that’s extremely valuable
28:08 but then add on all of the other stuff
28:10 that you’re doing for them from a
28:11 maintenance perspective you know keeping
28:13 things backed up monitoring uptime
28:15 updating plugins monitoring performance
28:18 what whatever those things are checking
28:20 for security vulnerabilities and fixing
28:22 them proactively when you think about
28:24 the client their website very often is
28:28 like should be best salesperson for a
28:30 start. So, it’s very often like their
28:32 livelihood particularly for these
28:34 smaller smaller clients that you know
28:36 lots of us have had and um having it
28:39 very well looked after is a massive
28:41 thing, you know, in ensuring the success
28:44 of their business. So, if you rock up
28:46 and you say, “Yeah, it’s£10 a month for
28:48 me to support and maintain site.” It’s
28:50 like, well, it’s so much more valuable
28:52 than that, the service that you’re
28:53 providing. So, that’s number one is like
28:54 think carefully about your pricing and
28:56 make sure you charge, you know, a good
28:58 amount of money. Obviously, you don’t
28:59 have to rip them off. Of course, I’m not
29:01 suggesting that, but just don’t don’t
29:03 make it so cheap that it’s, you know,
29:04 you’re kind of shooting yourself in the
29:06 foot really, I guess, from from day one,
29:08 right? Um, so that would be number one,
29:10 charge them the right amount of money. I
29:11 think number two is always always add it
29:15 to your proposals of of web design
29:17 projects. So, um, if a client is coming
29:20 to you and you’ve got to the stage of
29:21 writing a proposal for them, whatever
29:23 your process looks like for sales, it
29:26 invariably comes to a point where you
29:27 write a proposal for them. So, in that
29:30 proposal, always add a section. I mean,
29:32 you might have it templated, right? But
29:34 so, all in that template, make sure you
29:36 have a section for um care plans or
29:38 supported maintenance packages or
29:40 whatever you want to call it. List your
29:42 plans. List the prices of each one and
29:45 and and what’s included in each one. And
29:47 then when when you are then presenting
29:49 that proposal to the client on a video
29:51 call or in person or
29:53 whatever, spend some time in that during
29:55 that proposal presentation on support
29:58 and maintenance and explain to them this
29:60 is what’s included. This is how we’re
30:01 going to look after you. This is how you
30:03 can get hold of us. This the here are
30:05 the plans for you to choose from and and
30:07 here’s you know John from you know X
30:10 company who absolutely loves our support
30:12 service and here’s what he said about
30:13 that. Spend time on that. Now,
30:15 obviously, you’re trying to sell them a
30:16 new website, so that will form the
30:18 majority of the presentation. But don’t
30:20 miss that support and maintenance bit
30:22 because it’s an easy part to sell and
30:25 it’s the right time to sell it. And when
30:27 the uh project comes to an end, it’s
30:29 just okay, which of the packages do you
30:30 want to select? And it’s not a surprise
30:31 because you’ve already talked to them
30:33 about it. So, I could probably go on
30:35 forever, John, about that, but I think
30:36 they would be my two my two uh yeah, two
30:39 main ones really. That’s quite all
30:40 right. Well, that leads us up to talking
30:43 about Glow itself and what Glow offers
30:47 because I to be honest until you reached
30:49 out to me, I hadn’t even heard of you.
30:52 Okay. So, I did do a little research
30:54 down into it and wandered through your
30:56 website a little bit and I found, okay,
30:57 it’s a a it’s a
31:01 WordPress maintenance uh forget the term
31:04 platform platform for people, agencies
31:07 or whatever, managing multiple sites to
31:09 be able to manage them in one area. But
31:11 you have some features that I’ve never
31:14 seen from any of the other offerings out
31:16 there such as WP Manage and there’s a
31:19 dozen or more of them doing this. Yeah,
31:21 there’s a few these days. Yeah. Well, I
31:23 I’ve seen a lot of them come and go over
31:24 the years. Um, yes, true, true as well.
31:27 Yeah, but you’ve got you’ve got options
31:29 here such as a support ticket service,
31:32 you know, client reports, backups, um,
31:35 uptime reports, you know, timeline,
31:38 multiple sites, uh,
31:41 uh, team. There was another couple items
31:43 in there that I thought I saw such as
31:45 some stats and other things. So tell us
31:48 a little bit about Glow and what your
31:51 offerings are from that.
31:53 Yeah, sure. So, so um I I briefly
31:56 mentioned at the start how how Glow came
31:58 about without adding too much detail at
32:00 that point, but um just to put a kind of
32:03 a bit of a story on it. So when I was
32:05 running my agency in uh in the UK,
32:09 um we had diff different systems coming
32:12 back to systems, we had different
32:13 systems in place for for handling
32:15 support and maintenance. So, um, with
32:18 every supporter maintenance package, as
32:20 the name suggests, you’ve got the
32:22 support element and you’ve got the
32:23 maintenance element, right? So, you’ve
32:24 got the support bit is clients reaching
32:26 out and saying, “Hey, Phil, the contact
32:28 form’s broken on our website. We need a
32:30 fixing, please.” Or, “John’s just joined
32:33 our team. Here’s his headsh shot and his
32:35 bio. Please add him to the about us
32:37 page.” Or whatever those fixes and
32:39 content changes might be. You’ve got the
32:41 support element that you’re charging the
32:43 client for and then you’ve got the
32:44 maintenance element where you’re
32:46 updating the plugins and you’re taking
32:47 backups every day and you’re monitoring
32:49 uptime or you know whatever that
32:51 whatever that might be. And then the
32:53 third element is the reporting. Yeah.
32:55 You’re showing the client, you know, for
32:57 that $100 a month that you’re spending
32:58 with us on sport and maintenance, here’s
33:00 all the stuff that we’re doing, Mr. and
33:02 Mrs. clients, here’s all the value that
33:04 you’re getting for that $100 uh every
33:07 month. And we just had we just had
33:09 everything disjointed. We were trying to
33:10 handle support requests on email, which
33:12 works to a point. If you’ve got a few
33:14 clients, you can do it on email. As soon
33:16 as you get over certainly into double
33:18 figures, you need some kind of ticketing
33:20 system to help you do that better. Even
33:22 more so, if you’ve got a team of people,
33:23 email’s an absolute disaster. That’s
33:25 exactly why ticket systems exist uh in
33:27 the first place. Um and just to labor
33:31 the point I guess a bit on the support
33:32 side that is the most important part of
33:35 this service that you’re providing to
33:36 the client by a distance when you
33:40 consider client retention. So if you
33:43 want your client to remain a client for
33:45 a long time you better do a really good
33:47 job of providing support to them when
33:49 they need it. Right. Um every client in
33:52 the world understands the difference
33:53 between good support and bad support.
33:56 Yeah. Oh yeah. If the support is really
33:57 good, yeah, if the support’s really
33:59 good, they’re getting fast responses,
34:01 the team’s empathetic in replying to
34:02 you, you’re you’re not going to leave.
34:05 Yeah. As a client, you wouldn’t leave.
34:06 There’s no reason for you to leave. If
34:07 you if the support’s really bad and you
34:09 can’t get a hold of the agency or they
34:11 don’t reply for a week or they’re really
34:12 slow or they don’t answer your request
34:15 properly, it doesn’t matter how good
34:18 that agency is at updating plugins and
34:21 taking backups. None of that matters
34:23 because the support quality is so bad.
34:25 So the client leaves. So when we were
34:29 obviously running, you know, when I was
34:30 running my agency, we were analyzing all
34:32 of that. We realized that we couldn’t
34:33 stay with email forever to handle
34:35 support requests. So we got a support
34:36 ticket system. Was it was it was called
34:38 Fresh Desk. Actually, you’ve probably
34:39 heard. I remember that one. Yeah. Mult
34:41 multi-million dollar company. It’s an
34:43 amazing ticket system. So we were using
34:45 that and we were using uh manage WP,
34:47 which you mentioned before. Um they were
34:49 the first in this space of WordPress
34:50 management tools. They got purchased by
34:52 GoDaddy a few years ago. Um, and that
34:54 was great. You know, it was great for a
34:56 time. Um, it helped, you know, when
34:58 going from nothing to using manage WP
34:60 was very was very good, but we still had
35:02 things separate and ultimately we wanted
35:05 it all in one place for efficiency of
35:06 our team. They kind of line around one
35:08 login, one dashboard, one source of
35:10 truth for everything for all the sites
35:12 that we’re managing, including support.
35:14 So, support, maintenance, and reporting.
35:16 And it didn’t exist, John. And you’ve
35:17 sort of highlighted a minute ago really
35:19 that you’ve you’ve come across features
35:20 of Glow that don’t you’ve not seen
35:22 anywhere else in these platforms before
35:23 and right that’s because they still
35:25 don’t exist in in any of our competitors
35:28 uh products either. So yeah that sort of
35:30 marriage of support maintenance and
35:32 reporting in one dashboard is really I
35:34 guess our USP uh I suppose. Um, yeah,
35:38 but it’s really about that sort of
35:40 productivity and efficiency of teams
35:41 being able to just Yeah. one dashboard,
35:43 one login and they’ve got everything
35:44 they need to kind of run that support
35:46 and maintenance service in the in the
35:49 agency. Yeah. I haven’t had a chance to
35:51 test out your software yet, but one
35:53 question I’ve got is for example, the
35:56 clients trying to reach out to, you
35:58 know, you’re supporting them, can they
36:00 do they do they reach out to you through
36:02 the back end of their website dashboard?
36:05 Are are you talking here about as in if
36:08 you were an agency your clients or
36:10 customers of Glow? Yeah, your clients.
36:12 My my clients because I’m using your
36:14 service to service my clients and my
36:17 clients need to reach out to me. Is
36:18 there like something in do I put because
36:21 I know this would be put as a plugin
36:23 onto their site I assume. That’s right.
36:25 That’s correct. And then from there they
36:27 log into their website to do whatever
36:28 their weekly updates or their changes or
36:31 whatever for their content or their
36:33 products. But is there a link? right
36:35 there that they go, “Oh, I need to reach
36:36 out to my support.”
36:39 Good question. There’s two ways that the
36:41 there’s two ways your client can raise a
36:43 support request to the agency. Yeah. So,
36:46 number one is just by sending an email.
36:49 So, the the the agency who of course is
36:51 the is the Glow customer. Yeah. They
36:53 have the Glow account. They are able to
36:55 set up a couple of white label features,
36:57 but one of those is a is a support email
36:59 address. Okay. Okay. And and what that
37:02 means is when your clients then email
37:04 that address that email then gets
37:07 forwarded into Glow as a ticket. Okay.
37:09 Okay. So for the agency to manage
37:11 internally from their Glow dashboard.
37:13 It’s just there as an inbox of tickets
37:15 in Glow. All the client has to do is
37:17 just fire off an email. Well, that
37:18 that’s the important thing is it’s easy
37:20 for the That’s the important thing.
37:22 Exactly.
37:23 uh they can log into kind of their view
37:26 of Glow as a client and raise a ticket
37:28 from the dashboard, but I this is off
37:31 the top of my head. The last time I
37:32 checked the the stats, it was something
37:34 like 94% of tickets raised are by email.
37:37 Yes. So that kind of gives you an idea
37:39 of what the client wants to do. Yeah.
37:40 They don’t really want to log in. They
37:41 just want to send an email. So you have
37:43 both of those options. The one you
37:45 described is one we’re looking at
37:46 actually, John. So, okay. Um, a link
37:48 within the WordPress dashboard to raise
37:51 a ticket as well for the client. Um,
37:53 it’s not something we’ve added yet, but
37:54 I’m sure will be something that we we
37:56 add in the future. It’s just it’s just
37:58 one of the ways I think of doing things.
37:60 It’s probably because I spend so much
38:01 time in a WordPress dashboard. Yeah. No,
38:03 it makes sense that you’re not the first
38:04 person to suggest it either. So, yeah, I
38:06 think uh yeah, quite so basically the
38:08 clients reach out to you through a
38:09 standard email address that you’ve set
38:11 up pop into Globe. Okay. Exactly.
38:14 Exactly. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
38:16 Now, some of the other items you’ve got
38:18 in here, your client reports, you know,
38:20 you briefly touched on that. What kind
38:22 of reports does it generate for for you
38:25 to give your clients? And you mentioned
38:27 white labeling. Is it all white labeled?
38:29 So, it doesn’t carry Glow’s uh logos or
38:32 anything when you submit it to your
38:34 client. Yeah, exactly. So, um, I always
38:37 say if if I was an agency signing up for
38:39 a Glow account, the first thing I would
38:41 do is just add my, you know, my brand,
38:43 my logo and color scheme and that sort
38:45 of stuff. Um, because you only have to
38:48 do it once and then it’s done forever
38:50 basically. So, whenever you create
38:52 reports uh, inside Glow, which you can
38:55 automate by the way, so you should just
38:57 set them up, set them up once and then
38:58 they can run on a schedule. So, you
39:00 know, send a report to my client on the
39:02 first Monday of every month, for
39:03 example, and then Glow will compile and
39:05 send it every month. Mh. Um, and it will
39:08 come from, you know, an email address of
39:11 your agency as well. It won’t say that
39:13 it’s come from Glow, right? It’ll say
39:14 it’s come from, you know, my agency or
39:16 whatever it’s called. Um, but in terms
39:19 of reporting, uh, it’s a very sort of
39:22 slick, smart, modern looking report.
39:24 It’s easy to understand. It’s easy to
39:26 create and customize uh by the agency.
39:28 fully customizable. You can change the
39:30 page order. You can change the language,
39:32 you know, if it needs to be in Spanish
39:34 or French or something else, you can you
39:36 can do that as well. Um, and then it
39:38 obviously just sort of compiles the
39:40 information about that website from your
39:43 Glow account based on the work that
39:45 you’ve done and the support that you
39:46 might have helped the client with. Um,
39:49 the time that you might have spent on on
39:51 various activities, that could all be
39:52 recorded and added in there. Okay. Um,
39:54 but that automated feature is really
39:56 nice because it basically just means you
39:58 just set it up once and then it’ll do
39:60 it. So there’s components inside Glow
40:03 account itself. So I’m working on a
40:05 client site. I make notes inside a glow
40:07 account and it compiles it for whatever
40:09 client is that’s right on that and then
40:12 that’s how it generates the reports. So
40:14 exactly right. So let let’s say you
40:17 excuse me let’s say you update 10
40:19 plugins for clienta a.com and you do
40:22 that from the glow
40:23 dashboard for each of those 10 plugins
40:26 that gets updated it just fires a little
40:28 note to that website within the glow
40:30 dashboard. So you could then go to that
40:31 website within glow and it will say you
40:34 know John updated Yoast SEO to version
40:37 25 and Phil updated you know advanced
40:40 custom fields to version five or
40:42 whatever it might be. Okay. And it just
40:44 keeps that little um you know, a bit
40:46 like an activity log plugin sort of
40:48 similar to that. It keeps that little
40:50 record as well. Well, the activity log
40:51 is very important. Um I’ve learned I’ve
40:54 learned that one not quite the hard way,
40:56 but it saved my butt once when a client
40:59 went in and updated stuff, they broke
41:01 the site, then blame me. And when I
41:03 pulled up the log, it’s like, “No, you
41:06 did this.” And they’re like, “Oh, Glo.”
41:09 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Glow will do the same.
41:11 Glow will tell you again any actions
41:13 that happened in WordPress, it will
41:14 record. Okay, so Glow records them if
41:16 someone makes the actions in WordPress.
41:19 Correct. Ah, see that that that that was
41:21 the key I was getting to was to make
41:22 sure it not only records them if you do
41:24 the actions in Glow, but it goes back
41:27 the other way. Okay. Yeah, it and it
41:29 tells you who did it as well, which
41:30 obviously an important piece of the
41:31 puzzle. It’s a very important piece of
41:33 the puzzle when something breaks. It is.
41:35 It is, mate. Yeah. No, so it kind of
41:37 Yeah. Runs runs two ways like that. Now,
41:39 for the for the time being in terms of
41:41 recording actions from WordPress to
41:44 Glow, it’s only actions related to core
41:47 plugins and themes. So, updates,
41:49 activations, deactivations, installs,
41:52 deletes. Yeah, at the moment it’s um it
41:55 doesn’t include sort of, you know, edits
41:57 to pages or deleting a post or we’ve had
42:00 a few requests for us to to add those
42:02 things. So, we may well do in the
42:04 future, but no, at this point, it’s just
42:06 core plugins theme. There’s there’s
42:07 other there’s other tracking plugins
42:09 that you can use to to track that
42:12 information. Very true. Yeah. Every site
42:15 I build gets one of those so that I know
42:17 who’s doing what. Yeah. Yeah. Very
42:19 useful indeed. Yeah. Yeah. Learned that
42:21 one the hard way years ago is to not
42:24 just because something goes wrong,
42:26 you’re the one that gets blamed no
42:28 matter who did it. Yes, indeed. Yeah.
42:30 Well, you’re the the first port of call,
42:32 aren’t you?
42:33 So you’ve got other little pieces into
42:35 the site here such as performance. You
42:38 know what is the performance function
42:40 here for it? It’s an integration with
42:42 Google page speed insights. So it’s just
42:45 an automated daily scan of all of your
42:47 clients websites and then it gives you
42:49 just a nice little sort of neat daily
42:51 history of those uh those performance
42:53 scans. So across desktop and mobile we
42:56 we’ve all run a Google page speed
42:57 insights report before on a website I’m
42:59 sure. So you’ll you’ll um you know
43:02 you’ll see that sort of um opportunities
43:05 section I think they call it uh you know
43:08 that sort of tells you to I don’t know
43:09 eliminate vendor blocking resources and
43:11 update this and change that and this
43:13 that and the other. So you get that each
43:15 day. Um and then in terms of the report
43:19 uh that goes to the client it will just
43:21 sort of aggregate that performance
43:22 information. So if you’re sending
43:24 monthly reports, it will show the
43:26 client, you know, the average load speed
43:28 in this month or the average performance
43:30 score out of 100 for desktop this month
43:33 or whatever. So yeah, um yeah, there’s
43:37 kind of nothing for the agency to to do
43:39 with that particular feature because it
43:40 just runs fully automated in the
43:41 background. But we get a lot of nice
43:43 feedback about the history section of
43:44 that. So So it sort of shows the
43:46 dayby-day um yeah uh difference in in
43:50 performance scores. It’s quite helpful,
43:51 right? because I don’t know if you see
43:53 that today the performance score is 30%
43:55 lower than it was yesterday that tells
43:57 me that something’s significant has
43:59 probably changed on the site right you
44:00 might want to do something about it and
44:01 check it over so it’s quite it’s quite
44:03 helpful dig into it and find out what’s
44:05 up all right so you’ve been emphasizing
44:07 you know the real value of the of
44:10 support and yeah can you share a success
44:13 story where an agency using glow
44:16 significantly improved their uh client
44:18 relationships
44:19 I can’t I can’t name names
44:21 Um but we had we had a an agency that
44:24 managed about the last time I checked
44:26 about 350 websites based in the UK in in
44:29 uh north of England in Yorkshire and
44:32 they firstly were not using any
44:34 maintenance system beforehand
44:37 uh which is quite amazing on that. Wow.
44:38 That’s impressive with that many
44:40 websites. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but they were
44:44 using email for support. And as their
44:47 team was growing, they were just running
44:49 into issue after issue pretty pretty
44:51 much every week. So they had uh emails
44:53 marked as red that should have been
44:55 unread because they hadn’t been dealt
44:56 with and the other way around. They were
44:59 having to sort of forward emails on to
45:00 other teammates for them to deal with
45:02 it. And it was just a mess basically. So
45:05 uh moving it into this one unified
45:07 dashboard with Glow has saved them hours
45:09 and hours of time. Uh and really their
45:12 big reason for doing it apart from the
45:14 saving of the time was their sort of
45:15 client uh contract renewals on a they
45:18 they run renewals on a 12- monthly basis
45:21 and they have a meeting with every
45:22 client every 12 months to say this is
45:24 what we’ve done. This is why we want you
45:26 to sign up again. This is how much it’s
45:27 going to cost. Uh and Glow’s reporting
45:30 has been massive for that. So not only
45:32 the reporting but the logging of what we
45:35 were just talking about there. So, the
45:36 logging of any activity that’s taken
45:38 place uh in WordPress because um they
45:42 have I think about 95% of their plug-in
45:45 updates on auto update in WordPress.
45:49 Now, a lot of agencies would never do
45:50 that, you know, as long as they as long
45:52 as they live. Uh but these guys do
45:54 because they pretty much build every
45:55 single website in pretty much exactly
45:57 the same way. Same template, same set of
45:59 plugins. Yep. So, it’s very uniform. So,
46:01 they they have faith in the plugins they
46:02 use. Okay. Precisely. Um, so what they
46:06 really needed from Glow as well was this
46:08 ability to make sure that Glow records
46:10 all of those automated updates in
46:12 WordPress. Mh. Because they didn’t want
46:14 to have to go and add them in manually
46:16 for the reports for 350 websites, right?
46:19 So that that that that uh uh feature we
46:22 were talking about a minute ago where it
46:23 logs all of that stuff into our timeline
46:25 feature is a is a big massive one for
46:27 them. So yeah, it’s been a big one for
46:30 sort of streamlining their support
46:31 operations, saving them a lot of time,
46:33 and then helping with those uh yearly
46:36 contract renewals as well with clients.
46:38 So yeah, that’s a good one. But we have
46:40 agencies managing, you know, five or six
46:42 sites. We have agencies managing four or
46:44 500 sites. So it’s Yeah. Yeah. But you
46:46 have a nice variation across the board
46:48 of what it is. I think it’s a good
46:51 representation of the WordPress
46:52 ecosystem really, isn’t it? There’s lot,
46:54 you know, there’s lots of us little
46:55 little guys out there and then there’s
46:56 lots of, you know, very established
46:58 agencies building amazing sites really
46:60 with it as well. So, it’s there is there
47:02 is and over the years I’ve seen seen
47:05 them grow and come and go and seen some
47:08 go from I’ve seen a few go from next to
47:11 nothing to highly successful. Yep. You
47:14 know, so pretty quickly as well. Yeah.
47:15 And yeah, the WordPress community and
47:17 WordPress uh ecosystem has been quite an
47:20 incredible journey because I joined it
47:22 back at WordPress 2.0.
47:25 Okay. Wow. Yeah. So, well, in the
47:28 beginning, it’s still going pretty
47:28 strong, really. It’s still going very
47:30 strong. I was I was part of the uh teams
47:32 that helped mix the Kool-Aid to spread
47:34 the WordPress world. I was in the early
47:36 word camps. I I created I created
47:39 courses and I used to teach it at night
47:41 school here in my local community to
47:43 people on WordPress. So cool. In fact, I
47:46 still have a couple three clients I got
47:47 from that time period, too. Wow. That’s
47:50 a that’s a long-standing client for
47:52 sure. I mean, that’s the reason it’s so
47:54 successful. Well, a huge reason for why
47:56 it’s so successful. The whole community
47:58 aspect is incredible really. The the
47:60 whole community aspect is incredible and
48:01 where it’s been going has been quite
48:03 interesting, especially the last year as
48:05 to Yeah, indeed. Yeah. What I what I’ve
48:08 seen in the last year myself with it is
48:10 I’ve seen a re a resurgence of
48:13 excitement in WordPress again. Something
48:16 I haven’t seen since the beginning. And
48:19 partly what I see is I see a younger
48:20 generation coming into it. You know, the
48:23 the millennials and the zoomers that are
48:26 starting to enter into the internet
48:28 field. I mean, there’s some amazing
48:30 products being built for it as well at
48:32 the moment. kind of extending that
48:34 whole, you know, uh that whole ecosystem
48:37 that there really is um yeah, every
48:40 seems to be every sort of month that,
48:41 you know, if I get an update from the
48:44 WordPress weekly newsletter or WP
48:46 founders or whatever, there’s always
48:47 something really cool that someone else
48:49 has built, you know, which is which is
48:50 great and, you know, is a huge part of
48:53 us keeping the whole ecosystem going,
48:55 you know, against
48:57 um you know, the threat of competiting,
48:60 you know, competing CMS systems. But the
49:02 last time I saw some results on, you
49:04 know, the uh market share and that
49:05 stuff, it was still impressively strong,
49:08 right? Um despite all of those new
49:10 modern it’s it’s holding in the 40%
49:13 range is where it’s holding. Yeah. And
49:15 precisely you it’s really hard to get
49:18 much past the 40% range unless unless
49:21 you happen to be like Google Search who
49:23 managed to get so far ahead. But for
49:26 everything else, 40% of the market is a
49:29 massive chunk of the market, which means
49:31 there’s lots of opportunity for anyone
49:34 who wants to enter that market. You
49:37 know, all you got to do is find your
49:38 particular niche of that market you want
49:40 to go after. That’s right. That’s right.
49:42 Yep. Yep. Millions and millions of
49:44 people literally. Yeah. Quite literally
49:47 on all of that. Well, that’s been all
49:50 great, Phil. I appreciate you coming.
49:51 This is the point where you get to tell
49:53 everyone where they can find you, what
49:55 they can do, and uh Oh, nice.
49:58 No, it’s been a it’s been a it’s been a
50:01 pleasure, mate. Sorry, I just cut I cut
50:02 you off there, but I’ll I’ll continue
50:04 and and and if you’ve got another
50:06 question, feel free. But yeah, uh best
50:08 place is the website, right? You know,
50:10 for glow generally. Um so you could
50:12 Google Glow WP for example and would
50:15 appear nice at the top there. The
50:17 website itself is
50:19 getglow.io. So, ge tg g l o w.io.
50:24 Uh, you’ll find a lot of the stuff that
50:25 me and John have just been talking about
50:27 there. And then, as I said before, I’m
50:29 very I’m very active on LinkedIn. So, if
50:31 you just search Phil’s story on
50:33 LinkedIn, hopefully I’ll appear fairly
50:35 high on that list of people, but um
50:37 you’ve you’ve seen my face here on the
50:38 video as well, so you’ll notice me there
50:40 on LinkedIn for my profile as well. But
50:41 yeah, like I said, always very active on
50:43 there. Always talking about WordPress
50:45 support, maintenance stuff. So feel free
50:46 to sort of say hello there as well if
50:48 you’re an agency and you’re you know uh
50:50 managing multiple sites and you want to
50:52 do a bit of a better job and you know
50:54 particularly around support stuff. Uh
50:55 yeah, always always happy to chat. Yeah.
50:58 And for those of you listening in the
50:59 download for the podcast, you can go
51:01 watch the video where I’ve been sharing
51:03 the screenshots of everything we’ve been
51:05 talking about while we were while uh
51:07 Phil was talking. Awesome. So you can go
51:09 check out some of the stuff that was
51:11 highlighted and pointed out on the Glow
51:13 website. With all of that being said,
51:16 we’re going to let our girl take us on
51:18 out of here. Don’t run away on me, Phil.
51:19 Uh, we’ll be right back after the
51:24 credits here. Reminders for the show.
51:27 All show notes can be found at
51:30 wpplugins.com. And while you’re there,
51:32 subscribe to the newsletter for more
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52:18 to get notifications of all new videos.
52:20 Follow the show on Twitter at WP Plugins
52:24 A to Z. John can also be reached at his
52:27 website
52:28 johnoverall.com or email him directly
52:31 john@wpro.ca.
52:33 CA. Thanks for joining us and have a
52:36 great day.
52:42 Thanks for listening to the show. This
52:44 show is copyright by
52:46 johnoverall.com. So until next time,
52:48 have yourselves a good morning, good
52:50 afternoon, or good evening wherever you
52:51 happen to be out there on the globe
52:52 today.
53:11 Okay, we’re still live on YouTube, just
53:13 so you know. And uh this is a point here
53:17 where if we have any last minute things
53:19 to babble about um about the about your
53:22 offerings or anything, we can share it
53:25 with those that hang around on the
53:26 YouTube channel. So, thanks everyone for
53:28 showing up. Uh, thanks again to Ryan
53:30 from InfluenceWP for popping in the
53:32 show, making a couple of comments. Ah,
53:35 cool. Uh, yeah, I spoke to Ryan a few
53:37 months ago, actually. Yeah, he’s uh I
53:38 interviewed him um Yeah, I saw that.
53:41 Yeah, back in the back when I first
53:43 started doing my interviews again. He
53:45 was one of the he was the first
53:46 interview I did when I started bringing
53:47 him back. Oh, nice. Oh, yeah. He says,
53:51 “Tell Phil to quit dodging him.”
53:55 Sorry, Ryan.
53:57 Well, I mean I it is true. I did speak
53:59 to Ryan a few months ago, but if I
54:01 forgot to reply, I apologize, sir. I
54:03 will be uh I will be in touch.
54:07 No, it’s it’s great. And uh so I I do
54:10 like what’s happening and I do like some
54:12 of the changes and I do like what Ryan
54:14 is creating over on Influence WP. That’s
54:16 a quite the system there.
54:19 Yeah, if I remember right, it’s a
54:20 there’s a it’s a well part of it is a
54:23 directory, right, of um it’s a big part
54:26 is a directory, but it’s a place where a
54:29 place where people can actually
54:30 recommend stuff and his directory is
54:33 more about uh the business offering a
54:36 discount, not him collecting it as a uh
54:39 affiliate. Yeah, he’s not using
54:42 affiliate links. the business is
54:43 offering a discount that they don’t
54:45 normally offer to anyone else. It’s a
54:49 unique discount that’s only available
54:50 there. So that’s right. Yeah. Yeah. And
54:54 it’s becoming quite I have now been
54:57 Yeah. No, that’s good. That’s good to
54:59 hear. I have now been uh well and truly
55:02 reminded to get back to get back to him.
55:06 Yeah. I put I put I put my web hosting
55:08 business up on that one. So that and my
55:11 that and my podcast. So to get a little
55:13 more know
55:15 but at any rate what’ll happen here is
55:18 uh I will email you and let you know
55:21 when the regular part of the podcast the
55:24 just downloadable goes live but the
55:26 YouTube version is live now and once I
55:28 finish this it’ll just continue on for
55:31 everyone else. We managed to hit some
55:34 decent views so it’s all good. All
55:36 right. Well thanks everyone on YouTube.
55:37 We’re going to cut the stream