WEBVTT

1
00:00:02.399 --> 00:00:09.280
All right, we're coming up live. A little bit of music for everyone that will probably cut just a little short, but to give everyone a moment to

2
00:00:09.280 --> 00:00:27.359
understand. [Music]

3
00:00:27.359 --> 00:00:37.489
Oh yeah. [Music]

4
00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:43.760
Don't claim to know your story. Don't even have mine. In the search for glory,

5
00:00:43.760 --> 00:00:49.200
gone with them sacred rules of old. They went missing.

6
00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:55.538
Down high 49. [Music]

7
00:00:55.920 --> 00:01:01.879
Devils at the crossroads sitting doing time.

8
00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:08.640
Preacher man discovered passed down from saint to sage like a kindhearted lover

9
00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:14.080
who's been lost on this stage. Went missing

10
00:01:14.080 --> 00:01:20.720
down high 49. [Music]

11
00:01:20.720 --> 00:01:26.759
Devil's at the crossroads sitting to his side.

12
00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:30.680
Come on now.

13
00:01:32.660 --> 00:01:56.640
[Music]

14
00:01:56.640 --> 00:02:05.040
Not saying they are the answer. Not saying they're right or wrong. I ain't no text and dancer knows where I belong.

15
00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:10.479
went missing down Highway 49.

16
00:02:10.479 --> 00:02:18.860
Highway 49. Devils at the crossroads into town.

17
00:02:18.860 --> 00:02:24.560
[Music] Chunky and the trigger to see who done

18
00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:30.239
the crime. Captain pulled the trigger. Guess who's doing time? They went

19
00:02:30.239 --> 00:02:37.160
missing down highway 49.

20
00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:44.000
Devil's at the crossroads. Is he yours or is he mine?

21
00:02:44.000 --> 00:03:14.569
Is he yours or is he mine? [Music]

22
00:03:15.200 --> 00:03:21.040
Don't claim to know your story. Don't even have my own. I search for glory.

23
00:03:21.040 --> 00:03:26.480
wrong with them sacred rules of old. We're missing

24
00:03:26.480 --> 00:03:31.000
down highway 49.

25
00:03:33.120 --> 00:03:39.159
Devils at the crossroads sitting doing town.

26
00:03:41.440 --> 00:03:47.360
Devil's at a crossroads. Joker's doing fine.

27
00:03:47.360 --> 00:03:59.040
just been doing. [Music]

28
00:03:59.040 --> 00:04:04.560
There we go. Nice little intro. It is time for the show. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for

29
00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:11.360
WordPress plugins A to Zed, not Z.

30
00:04:11.360 --> 00:04:17.919
Welcome to another episode of WP Plugins A to Zed interview show. In this episode, we are talking with James

31
00:04:17.919 --> 00:04:24.639
Welbus, who recently swapped the traditional WordPress Kool-Aid for an Etch license after nearly switching to

32
00:04:24.639 --> 00:04:29.720
Statamatic. Stay tuned for more.

33
00:04:30.400 --> 00:04:37.840
WordPress, the king of content management systems, powering the web with over 80,000 plugins to choose from.

34
00:04:37.840 --> 00:04:43.600
How do you sort the junk from the gems? Welcome to WP Plugins A to Zed, where

35
00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:50.400
we've been keeping the pulse of WordPress alive for over 16 incredible years. Join us every week for an

36
00:04:50.400 --> 00:04:57.680
unrehearsed real talk breakdowns of the latest and greatest plugins, developer, and community member interviews. Some

37
00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:05.040
weeks, Amber and I team up to dig in. Others, I'm flying solo, unpacking WordPress news, demoing a standout

38
00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:10.880
plugin, or sharing tips to power up your site. No scripts, no fluff, just the

39
00:05:10.880 --> 00:05:16.400
good stuff from A to Z. So plug in and let's get rolling.

40
00:05:16.400 --> 00:05:23.840
Oh, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you happen to be hiding out on Globe today. It's another interview for WP Plugins A to Zed, where

41
00:05:23.840 --> 00:05:29.840
we're diving deep into the world WordPress innovation and branding with a true veteran of the game. Today we're

42
00:05:29.840 --> 00:05:36.000
thrilled to have James Weldus, the founder and strategist behind Apex Branding and Design, a fullervice agency

43
00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:41.919
that's evolved from his humble Cedar Rapids web design beginnings in 2014 to

44
00:05:41.919 --> 00:05:47.039
a powerhouse helping businesses rebrand and thrive. With over a decade of

45
00:05:47.039 --> 00:05:53.360
WordPress wizardry under his belt, starting from building sites as a kid, James has recently traded into

46
00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:58.639
traditional WordPress Kool-Aid for an Etch license and nearly jumping ship to

47
00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:05.520
Statamatic along the way. As a cigar smoking, Guinness enjoying WordPress dork, husband, dad, and grandpa. He's

48
00:06:05.520 --> 00:06:12.960
not just about code. He's a master of strategy, client magic, and even plug-in prototypes through his prototype WP

49
00:06:12.960 --> 00:06:19.600
service. Stick around as we unpack his journey, branding tips for the WordPress community, and why he's etching a fresh

50
00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:26.160
path in word in web development. Let's get into it. Welcome to the show, James.

51
00:06:26.160 --> 00:06:31.919
Wow. Um, thank you for having me. I have to say that I didn't write any of that.

52
00:06:31.919 --> 00:06:38.800
And if you if you don't already sell your services as a bio author, you you should

53
00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:45.120
be marketing that. Well, you know, I I had a little help to be honest on that. You know, that's that's where AI comes

54
00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:52.000
in real handy is it can write some fantastic bios if you give it the right prompts. Yeah. Um, you must have done a little

55
00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:58.479
bit of research, too. Oh, absolutely. I've I have made it a a point to research all of my guests as

56
00:06:58.479 --> 00:07:04.880
best I can to find out who they are. Um, so that way all the listeners get a

57
00:07:04.880 --> 00:07:10.479
really good interview and find out a bit about you. Starting with that, we're going to work with a little bit of your

58
00:07:10.479 --> 00:07:16.880
background. So, you've been into WordPress for what you jokingly call a number of years that reveals your old.

59
00:07:16.880 --> 00:07:22.800
Can you tell us a bit about how you got started with WordPress and what drew you into it initially?

60
00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:28.000
Yeah, so I absolutely hated WordPress the first time I looked at it. Um, the

61
00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:33.440
reason for that is, you know, I never took web development seriously. When I

62
00:07:33.440 --> 00:07:38.639
was 12, I was I thought my friend was a wizard because he could make basic

63
00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:43.680
crappy little websites. And then he told me I kept asking him to teach me how to do that. And finally, he was like,

64
00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:51.520
"Dude, just right click on a website and click view source." I was like, "What?" All right. So, I did that and I saw the

65
00:07:51.520 --> 00:07:58.479
code of a website, which back then was much much simpler. And you actually could just look at the source code of a website and teach yourself how HTML

66
00:07:58.479 --> 00:08:06.720
works back then. So, I did that. Thought it was cool. I felt super smart. Um, didn't do anything with it. Years later,

67
00:08:06.720 --> 00:08:12.879
um, I was I started to hear about this thing called WordPress. And so I was looking into WordPress. And there was a

68
00:08:12.879 --> 00:08:19.680
number of things that that I hated. And the only reason I hated them was because I I was just ignorant. I didn't know

69
00:08:19.680 --> 00:08:26.080
anything about uh how a dynamic website, what a dynamic website even was. I didn't understand what a database was or

70
00:08:26.080 --> 00:08:32.240
how that worked. I remember creating a page in a WordPress site and then going

71
00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:38.000
in and trying to find that file like the about.html

72
00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:44.640
and I was like where is it? I just created a page in the dashboard. Where is the corresponding file for that page

73
00:08:44.640 --> 00:08:50.880
in the in the file manager? Because I didn't understand that there was no file. It was in the database and you know templates and all that stuff. So

74
00:08:50.880 --> 00:08:56.480
that frustrated me. Um, this was way back in the day before page builders and

75
00:08:56.480 --> 00:09:01.760
so I would spend so much time trying to find a theme that I liked and then I would install a theme and then my site

76
00:09:01.760 --> 00:09:08.080
would not look anything like the demo from the website. So things like that just really frustrated me and so I hated

77
00:09:08.080 --> 00:09:14.640
it and I just like I don't understand why anybody uses this and um I just stuck with it. I just kept I was I was

78
00:09:14.640 --> 00:09:20.240
still intrigued because I thought so many people use it. It you know it's got to be me. It's not WordPress. this guy,

79
00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:25.360
I must be the reason that this is a bad experience. I need to actually figure out what's going on here. And I did. So,

80
00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:31.120
eventually I I learned how it actually works and I I discovered what a database was and what templates were and blah

81
00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:36.320
blah blah. And and so then I kind of became a WordPress guy and I that's I

82
00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:42.320
started sipping on the Kool-Aid back then. I I was mixing it back then.

83
00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:49.279
Yeah, I was I was all I was all part of all the word camps here in uh lower

84
00:09:49.279 --> 00:09:55.760
Vancouver Island during the first couple of years. So, your agency and since you started

85
00:09:55.760 --> 00:10:01.040
figuring it out, you started an agency in 2014, the Cedar Rapids web design.

86
00:10:01.040 --> 00:10:06.560
So, can you tell us a bit about those early days as a new business owner, you know, working your way through the

87
00:10:06.560 --> 00:10:13.279
marketing, sales, clients? What were the biggest lessons that shaped you rebranding to Apex Branding and Design?

88
00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:21.600
Oh man. Um yeah, so the early days um I think the

89
00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:27.839
first technically the first client I ever had uh which tanked my career at

90
00:10:27.839 --> 00:10:35.200
GoDaddy was uh GoDaddy switched from their old website builder to a new

91
00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:40.800
website builder and they weren't it wasn't like compatible. So if you wanted to use the new website builder, you had

92
00:10:40.800 --> 00:10:47.360
to rebuild your entire website with it, right? So, I put out like a YouTube video.

93
00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:54.160
It was just like, "Hey, if you're on the old GoDaddy website builder and you want to use the new one, like, I'll redo that

94
00:10:54.160 --> 00:11:01.200
for you. Like, I'll build it." And I charged somebody 100 bucks to rebuild your website. That's when I discovered that these easy page builders are not as

95
00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:08.000
easy as they want you to think they are. And I was like, I can't believe I'm doing all this work for $100. But that

96
00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:13.040
was my probably my first ever paid client

97
00:11:13.040 --> 00:11:19.680
experience and I don't even know if at that point I I had started Cedar Rapids Web Design yet. Um I remember getting

98
00:11:19.680 --> 00:11:24.959
probably my first real client I would call it. Uh he paid me $1,000 which I

99
00:11:24.959 --> 00:11:30.640
thought was basically a million dollars back then. And we never even went live with the site. I really didn't know what

100
00:11:30.640 --> 00:11:37.279
I was doing. I absolutely blame myself. Um, he says that he just gave up on the project because he got moved in his job

101
00:11:37.279 --> 00:11:42.560
and he didn't want to deal with it anymore. And I'm almost certain it was because I wasn't doing anything good for

102
00:11:42.560 --> 00:11:48.079
him at the time. And uh, but it just it got better. You know, I got another

103
00:11:48.079 --> 00:11:53.760
client who actually uh, appreciated the work that I was doing. I I learned I knew kind of knew what I was doing by

104
00:11:53.760 --> 00:11:59.920
that point. I actually made her an actual decent website that did what she wanted it to do and so on and so forth.

105
00:11:59.920 --> 00:12:07.519
You you just get better and better. But that was kind of the early days. Um, and and the rebrand happened not long not

106
00:12:07.519 --> 00:12:13.600
too long ago, probably longer than it feels like. Um, but uh, it it was

107
00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:20.399
basically, as you mentioned, my old business was Cedar Rapids Web Design. So, I live in Cedar Rapids and I do web

108
00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:26.000
design, technically web development. I'm not a designer, but I realized that I

109
00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:32.480
didn't want to only do things for people who live in Cedar Rapids. didn't only want to do websites. I didn't want to

110
00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:39.440
pigeon hole myself in that way. So that's where the rebrand came. Apex branding and design. That basically is a

111
00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:44.800
vague nebulous of whatever. I can do whatever I want with a with a business name like that. So um I can do whatever

112
00:12:44.800 --> 00:12:51.440
I want. I can do it for whomever I want in whatever city, state, country that I want. So that's kind of where the the

113
00:12:51.440 --> 00:12:57.920
biggest reason the rebrand came about. The other interesting thing is uh with

114
00:12:57.920 --> 00:13:04.480
your rebranding to Apex, you also rebranded to your BS podcast.

115
00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:11.920
Although that was seems like it's shortlived. You might want to revive that because uh some of the episodes were actually pretty good to listen to.

116
00:13:11.920 --> 00:13:18.320
I appreciate you saying that. Um that was a lot of fun. that happened during COVID and then the place where we were

117
00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:23.440
recording COVID related reasons, we weren't able

118
00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:28.880
to record there anymore. And so, um, and then my co-host Sarah, she doesn't

119
00:13:28.880 --> 00:13:34.480
really, she kind of got out of the marketing game. Um, I would consider

120
00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:40.000
possibly bringing that back. It would be a hassle, especially to try and revive

121
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:48.160
the actual same exact podcast because I had a company that was managing and producing it for me. So, I don't even know if I would be able to just jump in

122
00:13:48.160 --> 00:13:54.079
with another episode or if I would have to like start over from scratch. Pick it up. That was a lot of fun.

123
00:13:54.079 --> 00:13:59.680
Just pick it up where it leaves off. I do that. I've got several podcasts that are defunct and every once in a while I

124
00:13:59.680 --> 00:14:05.440
decide to revive them and start producing new episodes. Yeah, I just pick it up where I left off even

125
00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:11.360
if it's been three, four or five years as if I just went on a hiatus.

126
00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:18.079
So at any rate though, what was interesting was is when you rebranded, you got into the marketing of brand

127
00:14:18.079 --> 00:14:23.440
strategists and working as a brand strategist. How how has that evolved

128
00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:29.360
your business to doing things? It's just finding sites.

129
00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:36.320
Honestly, it really hasn't yet. Um, I spent so much time trying to learn as

130
00:14:36.320 --> 00:14:44.160
much as I could about branding and um, I've really only had one client

131
00:14:44.160 --> 00:14:52.639
where I got to actually help them craft their brand and that was a lot of fun. Um, and years later she ended up

132
00:14:52.639 --> 00:14:59.040
shutting that business down. So, which was I felt bad for her because she was doing so well um for so many years and

133
00:14:59.040 --> 00:15:04.079
I'm not actually sure what happened. She just kind of said one day that she's she

134
00:15:04.079 --> 00:15:09.120
had a space in the mall and she said she's leaving that space and going back to working out of her basically her

135
00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:16.560
home. She's setting up a studio there. She taught music lessons. So, that was it was sad to see her see that happen to

136
00:15:16.560 --> 00:15:22.800
her after she'd been doing so well for so many years. And um I absolutely loved working on that project. And it's it's

137
00:15:22.800 --> 00:15:28.720
just sad because I I can't show that to people now. I can't say go look at this um brand that we did because it doesn't

138
00:15:28.720 --> 00:15:34.959
exist anymore. But um I loved it. I have a designer who I usually hire for most

139
00:15:34.959 --> 00:15:41.279
of the design things that I need and he designed a beautiful website. Um I built it in WordPress. We got to work with her

140
00:15:41.279 --> 00:15:46.399
to um come up with her new logo. She came up with the name which was really clever. I mentioned we live in Cedar

141
00:15:46.399 --> 00:15:53.360
Rapids and she teaches music lessons. So, she came up with the name Cedar Rap City School of Music and I really like I

142
00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:58.800
think her her wife came up with that name. Um, I wish I could say that I did

143
00:15:58.800 --> 00:16:06.160
because that's clever name, but we did everything else besides a name and it was a lot of fun and I even commissioned a videographer, film producer to record

144
00:16:06.160 --> 00:16:12.480
a short documentary about that process, which if I remember correctly, I think that is still on the homepage of my

145
00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:18.720
website. been around did run into the uh the

146
00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:25.759
client uh thing about the music that you did for old logo compared to their new

147
00:16:25.759 --> 00:16:31.040
logo except oh very you know that aspect now let's

148
00:16:31.040 --> 00:16:36.800
uh dive into a few of the WordPress tools you know as a self-proclaimed

149
00:16:36.800 --> 00:16:43.759
WordPress dork what is the one plugin or feature in WordPress you couldn't live without early on in

150
00:16:43.759 --> 00:16:49.199
not currently But early on, what what did you really have to have in every

151
00:16:49.199 --> 00:16:56.000
website you built? And then you can tack on how to kids changed over.

152
00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:01.920
Yeah. So, I have such a terrible memory. I don't even remember

153
00:17:01.920 --> 00:17:07.600
what I was doing in the very early days. I think I was probably doing what a lot of people do and just googling, you

154
00:17:07.600 --> 00:17:15.038
know, I need a plugin for this. But then I took a job working for an agency and that I basically just adopted sort

155
00:17:15.039 --> 00:17:20.880
of their workflow because it just worked. It was good. It was good stuff. They use a a form plugin called

156
00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:27.280
Formidable Forms. So I got myself a lifetime license on that and I've been using that for like over a decade. Just

157
00:17:27.280 --> 00:17:33.280
about every website has a form on it, even if it's just a simple contact form. So pretty much every site I build is

158
00:17:33.280 --> 00:17:39.919
going to get Formidable Forms installed. Um nowadays of course uh advanced custom

159
00:17:39.919 --> 00:17:45.440
fields I used to use custom post type UI to create post types and then you would

160
00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:50.880
use ACF for custom fields but now the ACF also does post types. Sorry AC CPT

161
00:17:50.880 --> 00:17:56.240
UI but you know there's really no reason um

162
00:17:56.240 --> 00:18:02.880
yeah so ACF definitely on just about every site. Um SMTP I use a what's it

163
00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:09.840
called? I think it's just called like WP or SMTP mail or something like that. It's there's there's so many of the free

164
00:18:09.840 --> 00:18:17.440
simple SMTP plugins. They all basically do the same thing. Yep. Yep. So that gets on just about

165
00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:24.320
every website. And then I use I just use the free version because I just need to connect to you know my SMTP service

166
00:18:24.320 --> 00:18:31.039
which I use Brebo which used to be called Sendin Blue. Um, yeah, those three plugins pretty

167
00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:39.080
much just about at every single website. And then I until recently I was using them for the theme/builder.

168
00:18:41.360 --> 00:18:48.080
Okay. Well, as this leads us on into our next one, as uh you've recently stopped drinking the WordPress Kool-Aid for the

169
00:18:48.080 --> 00:18:53.600
most part and bought yourself an Edge license. I mean, you haven't completely stopped using WordPress. Still using

170
00:18:53.600 --> 00:18:58.960
WordPress, but you're Etch as your connection into it now.

171
00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:04.799
and almost going to Static. I'd never even heard of Stamatic looking all this

172
00:19:04.799 --> 00:19:11.919
stuff up. What frustrations with WordPress led to those choices uh going

173
00:19:11.919 --> 00:19:17.120
that way? Um you already made mentions here and there about themes and digging

174
00:19:17.120 --> 00:19:24.320
into them and the problems of dealing with the themeing systems. I've gone through dozens of them myself over the

175
00:19:24.320 --> 00:19:31.840
for a couple three years. I was working with Gravity Genesis. That's I got I got I got hooked

176
00:19:31.840 --> 00:19:38.799
into WordPress and got hooked into the Genesis and they started changing and beatic and

177
00:19:38.799 --> 00:19:45.200
then I started all the add-on themes, the themes that come with 42 plugins that can never be updated and crashed

178
00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:51.280
everything and then I finally ended up realizing and settling down on a completely blank slate theme that wasn't

179
00:19:51.280 --> 00:20:00.320
the theme and everything from scratch on top of that. Mhm. So enough of me and so what tell talk to

180
00:20:00.320 --> 00:20:08.000
us about how you stopped the the Kool-Aid ended up with etch you know why were you headed for um stomatic and then

181
00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:16.400
what drove what drove you to edge. So I was still drinking the Kool-Aid

182
00:20:16.400 --> 00:20:22.559
until fairly recently. Um, and by drinking the Kool-Aid, I mean, I was one of those guys who would try to convince

183
00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:28.400
people how easy to use WordPress was. And people would say, "Oh, WordPress is not user friendly." And I'd be like,

184
00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:34.320
"You're crazy. It's so user friendly." And just ignoring the fact that none of my clients felt that it was user

185
00:20:34.320 --> 00:20:44.000
friendly. Like, oh, that they're just special. They don't, you know, they don't matter. It's definitely super user friendly. Um, and I think I also kind of

186
00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:50.720
had to believe that, at least for a little bit. I had a job working for Liquid Web as a product owner. I started

187
00:20:50.720 --> 00:20:59.600
in customer support for the events calendar. Eventually was product owner for um Restrict Content Pro and a new

188
00:20:59.600 --> 00:21:08.400
membership plug-in called Member Dash. And then I was product owner for Learn Dash Premium Add-ons. And so,

189
00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:14.559
you know, we we all just sort of were like, "Yeah, WordPress is great. It's it's for everybody. It's for the It's

190
00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:23.039
for the absolute noob. It's for the professional. It's for everybody in between. Um, and then I started I saw

191
00:21:23.039 --> 00:21:29.280
like a a post or a video, probably just a Twitter post uh from Kevin Giri and

192
00:21:29.280 --> 00:21:36.640
he's talking about, you know, what he talks about. And I I remember thinking like not

193
00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:41.760
really liking him at first because, you know, it takes a while to wean yourself off the Kool-Aid. So I I was like, nah,

194
00:21:41.760 --> 00:21:47.039
he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's just some elitist guy who, you know, he just wants to feel smart and

195
00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:53.200
wants everyone to think he's super smart. But I just kept reading more things he was saying and it I it just I

196
00:21:53.200 --> 00:21:58.240
just started to realize that I didn't have any sort of uh like rebuttals to

197
00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:03.840
anything that he was saying. The things he was saying made me feel upset, but I couldn't describe why I felt that way

198
00:22:03.840 --> 00:22:10.400
and I couldn't refute anything that he was saying. And then when my clients I

199
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:15.919
started to notice things that my clients would say and it started to

200
00:22:15.919 --> 00:22:22.159
kind of click and I started to realize, you know, WordPress really isn't all that user friendly for for an

201
00:22:22.159 --> 00:22:28.760
absolute noob. And I started to try and um

202
00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:34.559
imagine that I was a noob. Like, okay, pretend I've never used WordPress before. And I just imagining the process

203
00:22:34.559 --> 00:22:41.440
of getting a website up and going. And I was like, there's no way my wife could do this. She's a smart lady. She knows

204
00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:47.280
how to use a computer. She has to use a computer at work. She's an occupational therapy assistant. She's a smart person.

205
00:22:47.280 --> 00:22:52.880
She'd There's no way that she would get a a good-looking, functional WordPress

206
00:22:52.880 --> 00:23:00.240
website. She would give up and she'd be way too frustrated. If she had to build a website, she would probably use something like Squarespace.

207
00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:05.360
And so then I just started consuming everything Kevin said, not agreeing with

208
00:23:05.360 --> 00:23:12.240
everything he said, but agreeing with most things that he said. And uh and then my friend, my designer that I

209
00:23:12.240 --> 00:23:20.480
mentioned, he's also a developer, and he complains about WordPress all the time. He uses it when he has to. Um I don't

210
00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:26.159
know. My is my computer making? That's mine. I forgot to turn off my I forgot to turn off my notifications. I

211
00:23:26.159 --> 00:23:31.679
seem to do that on a regular basis with every show. I've turned them off. I've turned them off now. So when the emails

212
00:23:31.679 --> 00:23:39.200
come through in the next five minutes or 10 minutes, they won't ping us. Okay, cool. Um, so my designer is also a

213
00:23:39.200 --> 00:23:45.280
developer and he started using something called October CMS years ago and he's been using that for several years and

214
00:23:45.280 --> 00:23:50.400
then he recently has started using Statam and he's been talking about how great

215
00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:55.520
that is. And I I haven't looked into Statmick very much yet, but I was I was

216
00:23:55.520 --> 00:24:01.679
starting to. I followed the founder on Twitter. Um, he's a funny guy. Even if you're not into static, I'd recommend

217
00:24:01.679 --> 00:24:07.600
following him. Um, and I was just kind of starting to think about

218
00:24:07.600 --> 00:24:14.000
possibly jumping ship away from WordPress because I was kind of getting tired of

219
00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:19.039
not I didn't feel like WordPress was built for me. I felt like you either had

220
00:24:19.039 --> 00:24:25.600
to be a complete noob and use a page builder like I was doing. I was using themey, which if you don't know what the themey is, it's just another like

221
00:24:25.600 --> 00:24:30.720
element or divvy, whatever. It's a page builder. Themifi. I know them. Well, I've I've

222
00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:36.640
run into it a few times. Yep. And I really like it as far as page builders go, but I I was getting kind of

223
00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:44.720
frustrated because it's either you do that, you use a page builder, or you use Gutenberg like a total noob, or you

224
00:24:44.720 --> 00:24:50.640
build everything from complete scratch, which I also was dabbling in. Um, I was

225
00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:56.880
starting to use AI to generate layouts and then take that layout and use another AI to turn

226
00:24:56.880 --> 00:25:03.360
it into an actual block and, you know, then I put that block on the website and I would get pixel perfect. You know,

227
00:25:03.360 --> 00:25:09.279
websites look exactly like the mockup, whatever. And that was kind of fun for a little bit, but I know that I would have

228
00:25:09.279 --> 00:25:14.400
gotten tired of doing that if I started doing that for clients all the time. um

229
00:25:14.400 --> 00:25:20.480
just being in React all the time and you know having to build stuff. So it felt like you either had to be a complete

230
00:25:20.480 --> 00:25:26.640
noob or just an absolute freaking legend of a developer and I'm not either one of those things.

231
00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:33.279
And so I was starting to think that maybe I would look at other options and uh Statam just seemed like the right now

232
00:25:33.279 --> 00:25:40.240
it's kind of a it's what people are talking about. If you're going to leave WordPress you're you're probably going to be looking at something like Statam.

233
00:25:40.240 --> 00:25:46.080
And then Edge that's when Edge came along. And I, you know, I was watching what Kevin was talking about and he kept talking about this new thing that was

234
00:25:46.080 --> 00:25:52.240
coming, but he was being super vague about it and I didn't know what it was and is it going to be a page builder? What is it? I was not one of the people

235
00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:57.840
who was brave enough to purchase a license before they'd even started writing code yet, which I know a lot of

236
00:25:57.840 --> 00:26:03.200
people did that, but I had not experienced automatic CSS or frames. So,

237
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:08.320
I wasn't like, you know, a Kevin Giri fanboy yet. I had to see the product

238
00:26:08.320 --> 00:26:15.679
before I jumped on and and but after I saw him once he once he started demoing the product on YouTube I was like this

239
00:26:15.679 --> 00:26:22.159
is what I need. This is for people like me and it will make building a website a lot more enjoyable than fussing around

240
00:26:22.159 --> 00:26:28.640
with the page builder. You've been working with Edge for a while. So much so that you're starting

241
00:26:28.640 --> 00:26:34.080
to create contributions for it now. here. I I looked at it when he first

242
00:26:34.080 --> 00:26:42.400
introduced it and he caught he caught my eye back around the beginning of this year when they had that crazy uh YouTube

243
00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:47.679
video. They did that created all kinds of drama for a little while. But I did

244
00:26:47.679 --> 00:26:54.720
look at his stuff, but it was not some place I wanted to go. I dug a little bit deeper into it and

245
00:26:54.720 --> 00:26:59.840
been doing the research here for this interview here and I still don't I I

246
00:26:59.840 --> 00:27:04.880
have my mind partly wrapped around what Edge does. And as you mentioned before,

247
00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:11.760
you said you could talk about Etch all day. So, we're going to put you to the test on that one. And we're going to we're going to dive into Etch. I know

248
00:27:11.760 --> 00:27:18.799
this is going to sound like a thing, a promotion for Etch by the time we're done, but hey, get over it, folks. The Kool-Aid and WordPress are is made from

249
00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:24.480
all kinds of ingredients and I've been mixing it for 17 years now.

250
00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:30.880
For a while there I stopped for a while there I stopped delivering it but uh I've started delivering it back again

251
00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:37.760
and all these new things in WordPress has revitalized it and brought it back to the four and even etch is a good

252
00:27:37.760 --> 00:27:43.039
point of it. By the way, coming back to the etch, I see that it's it helps you

253
00:27:43.039 --> 00:27:50.000
build from my perspective, there are different elements that you build that you then put onto your page and it

254
00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:56.159
integrates them into Gutenberg for blocks. Now, I'm not a Gutenberg fan. I'll admit it. I don't use Gutenberg at

255
00:27:56.159 --> 00:28:02.080
all. Um, we we use Elementor for our site building. It's not just a page

256
00:28:02.080 --> 00:28:09.039
builder get into the back end of it and doing things. So as you mentioned yes you either have

257
00:28:09.039 --> 00:28:15.520
to be Gutenberg beginner hardcore developer or somewhere in between which lands you in a page

258
00:28:15.520 --> 00:28:21.440
builder or a helper page builder such as I see Etch as. How does Etch integrate

259
00:28:21.440 --> 00:28:26.640
to say all different sorts of plugins for example say Woo Commerce or the new

260
00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:32.399
Fluent Cart. So,

261
00:28:32.399 --> 00:28:38.799
um, Etch, I don't know if Kevin will like me saying this, but if I was to try to describe what Etch is, I would say

262
00:28:38.799 --> 00:28:45.440
it's like Dreamweaver for WordPress. You remember Dreamweaver? Oh, I built my first websites using

263
00:28:45.440 --> 00:28:51.440
Dreamweaver. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's Everybody knows what Dreamweaver is. My first five

264
00:28:51.440 --> 00:28:57.679
years was Dreamweaver and PHP and CSS. Yeah. And it was so cool because it

265
00:28:57.679 --> 00:29:03.600
would preview what you were doing. So you would type code on the bottom and you would see in real time what you're doing

266
00:29:03.600 --> 00:29:09.520
which felt like magic back then but you know today it's not that magical but yeah Dreamweaver was kind of a game

267
00:29:09.520 --> 00:29:16.559
changer back in the day and that's how Etch is to me I when you're in there

268
00:29:16.559 --> 00:29:22.559
you're typing HTML you're seeing what you're doing you know in real time you add some CSS you see what what's

269
00:29:22.559 --> 00:29:28.159
happening in real time so you're you

270
00:29:28.159 --> 00:29:33.279
know you have access to the code. It almost doesn't even seem like that's a good way to describe it because you

271
00:29:33.279 --> 00:29:38.320
don't just have access to the code. That's just what itch is, is you coding your website. It's not like you're using

272
00:29:38.320 --> 00:29:45.760
a page builder and then oh, I can go access the code if I need to. You're building your website with HTML. If you

273
00:29:45.760 --> 00:29:51.039
click, they do have buttons. So, like if you want to add a a section, you click the section button. All that does is

274
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:57.679
literally add a section element into your HTML. There's not a bunch of wrappers like you get with Elementor

275
00:29:57.679 --> 00:30:04.000
Divy where you you add a section and then you go look at the code on the front end and it's div div

276
00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:09.360
like a a paragraph. It's none of that crap. It's just pure HTML, pure CSS,

277
00:30:09.360 --> 00:30:15.440
pure JavaScript. Um, and then it has tools that let you

278
00:30:15.440 --> 00:30:21.919
do WordPress stuff. So like you're working with WordPress, you obviously need to be able to loop through something, right? So there's a very easy

279
00:30:21.919 --> 00:30:28.799
loop syntax that you use to loop through a custom post type or you can loop through a JSON object. And again, this

280
00:30:28.799 --> 00:30:36.080
you'll see that syntax in your editor, but when you look at the front end, it's not adding any more wrappers. You can't see that you did a loop on the front

281
00:30:36.080 --> 00:30:42.480
end. All you see is a grid of images. There's no clue when you look at the code that that's actually a loop of

282
00:30:42.480 --> 00:30:48.000
custom post types, right? Or a JSON object. So it's just very very clean code.

283
00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:53.840
And um you can just about do anything you would normally do in WordPress. Like I said, loops and there's conditionals

284
00:30:53.840 --> 00:31:00.159
and um JSON objects. It's it's just very powerful.

285
00:31:00.159 --> 00:31:06.960
And with the powerful of this is how does it work say bringing in something

286
00:31:06.960 --> 00:31:13.520
like um short codes from plugins that or short codes.

287
00:31:13.520 --> 00:31:18.799
So yeah, that's a great question. Right now, if you want to add a short code or

288
00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:25.279
like a block that um either a core block or like a block that a plug-in is adding to your website, you have to do that in

289
00:31:25.279 --> 00:31:31.039
the in the block editor. So, and I think they said that, you know, eventually

290
00:31:31.039 --> 00:31:37.519
you'll be able to do this stuff from within the etch editor. But let's say I want to add a formidable forms to my page. I just save what I'm doing in

291
00:31:37.519 --> 00:31:42.640
Etch. I click the button to go look at the block editor. Everything I did in Etch is now there in the block editor.

292
00:31:42.640 --> 00:31:48.640
like you mentioned earlier, it it turns everything you do into blocks, right? So, you'll be looking at the block

293
00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:54.559
editor and you'll see everything that you did and you can drop your formidable forms block or you can drop a short code

294
00:31:54.559 --> 00:31:59.760
block and put in your formidable form short code. Save it. Go back to the edge

295
00:31:59.760 --> 00:32:06.480
editor and it doesn't render it yet. It just shows a like a block and it says um

296
00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:12.399
like short code pass through or block pass through or something to that effect. So you know when you're looking that there's a block there's a

297
00:32:12.399 --> 00:32:18.320
formidable forms block right there and then on the front end it it renders just like it normally would. So it's a little

298
00:32:18.320 --> 00:32:23.760
bit of a of a workaround at the moment because you have to leave edge go into the block editor and then come back to

299
00:32:23.760 --> 00:32:29.840
Edge. But you it does work. It works just fine. Okay. That's it. That's the thing is I I

300
00:32:29.840 --> 00:32:36.799
was wrapping my head around all of the aspects of everything that goes into a WordPress site like the ones I build. I

301
00:32:36.799 --> 00:32:42.640
build oftentimes sites that have e-commerce stores, the forms, sometimes

302
00:32:42.640 --> 00:32:49.279
membership sites included, then they have their then they have their blog with custom post types, etc. So, it's

303
00:32:49.279 --> 00:32:55.279
like and what I saw with my brief research of Edge is a it's an editor. I

304
00:32:55.279 --> 00:33:00.799
like your description of it as a Dreamweaver for the code because that made it make all the more sense to me

305
00:33:00.799 --> 00:33:06.159
watching the few videos I did on how it was used.

306
00:33:06.159 --> 00:33:11.679
So with Edge, what other things um you know brought you to brought you to Edge

307
00:33:11.679 --> 00:33:19.519
besides this and getting away from the theme development or the themes like themeify builders I should build page

308
00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:27.519
builders could be worse. You could have been using Divvy. Oh gosh. I since I started using

309
00:33:27.519 --> 00:33:32.960
Etch, I have moved one client site away from Elementor to Edge and I've moved

310
00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:38.880
another one from Divvy to Edge. Um I just I

311
00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:44.480
I don't like Elementor and I think most of that is because I'm so used to themify, but I really don't like DBY.

312
00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:52.320
Like I just don't understand how DBY works, how anybody uses it. The the UI is just so confusing to me. It seems

313
00:33:52.320 --> 00:33:57.919
like doing simple things is very difficult in Dibby. Yeah. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I

314
00:33:57.919 --> 00:34:03.039
inherited a site like that. Didn't take me long to move them out of there. Um Oh, man.

315
00:34:03.039 --> 00:34:08.240
But yeah, it's there's there's a lot of challenges in those in those aspects here. I don't

316
00:34:08.240 --> 00:34:14.960
like to bate all the different competitions and problems. Uh the off-hand comments about what I've done

317
00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:20.158
with them. Now you built um how you just mentioned two websites

318
00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:26.240
that you moved into Etch. What kind of what kind of processing was that? Did that take a a long time to do or was it

319
00:34:26.240 --> 00:34:32.560
pretty straightforward to them over? Sure. Um one random aside, I wonder if

320
00:34:32.560 --> 00:34:39.118
you could give that page that you're looking at a hard reload page that I'm looking that video. Yeah. You have Apex branding

321
00:34:39.119 --> 00:34:44.398
up. Oh, I all I all I did was I keep changing things.

322
00:34:44.399 --> 00:34:50.720
No, I know. I just I the video should be showing up if you do a hard reload. That's all I'm saying. Oh, the Oh, the video um on your

323
00:34:50.720 --> 00:34:56.720
homepage. Yeah. Um but Oh. Oh, there's the video. Well, the

324
00:34:56.720 --> 00:35:02.320
video never showed up the first time. Yeah, I was using Adam Pryer's uh Presto

325
00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:07.440
plugin, video player, and it had an update available. I updated it and now the video is showing.

326
00:35:07.440 --> 00:35:13.520
So, I don't know what I don't know. Um, but to answer your question, yeah, it really,

327
00:35:13.520 --> 00:35:18.640
um, one of the sites took a little bit longer than the other because it just

328
00:35:18.640 --> 00:35:24.320
had a little bit more going on. Um, but it really didn't take a whole lot of

329
00:35:24.320 --> 00:35:31.520
time, especially with that site, the site that that had a little bit more going on. I was also able to utilize

330
00:35:31.520 --> 00:35:38.079
components, which I haven't mentioned yet. Um it for folks who for folks who

331
00:35:38.079 --> 00:35:43.680
are actual web developers, they know what that a component is like an actual term that means a real thing. So if

332
00:35:43.680 --> 00:35:50.800
you're building like apps in JavaScript or even PHP, like you can create a component and a component is a reusable

333
00:35:50.800 --> 00:35:57.119
bit of code that for the most part, you know, is exactly the same in every instance. But if you utilize things like

334
00:35:57.119 --> 00:36:04.320
props then you can like modify this instance in a little bit this way and modify this other instance that way. But

335
00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:10.400
then overall globally if you want to change something in all the components you just have to change it one time in

336
00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:15.440
the in a component and then that change you know takes place in all the components right so it's very it's a

337
00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:21.119
very very useful tool to use components in web development and etch has a

338
00:36:21.119 --> 00:36:28.240
component feature that is very very much like what you would expect as a web

339
00:36:28.240 --> 00:36:33.359
developer coming from building actual components in JavaScript or whatever some page builders have things like

340
00:36:33.359 --> 00:36:39.040
theme by and whatnot, they have a component-like feature that is they

341
00:36:39.040 --> 00:36:47.520
usually call it like a template or something. Um, and they're okay, but they're just not quite like actual

342
00:36:47.520 --> 00:36:54.640
components. So, I was able to utilize components quite a bit for for instance, just about every page had the same sort

343
00:36:54.640 --> 00:36:59.760
of hero lay uh hero section layout. So, there was a background image which was

344
00:36:59.760 --> 00:37:06.160
different on every page. There's a title, which of course is different for every page, and there would be like a little blurb of text, which is different

345
00:37:06.160 --> 00:37:12.960
for every page, but it was the same exact layout. So, I was able to create a a hero component that was exactly the

346
00:37:12.960 --> 00:37:19.280
same, but it had three props. The background image, title, and the description. So, I could drop a

347
00:37:19.280 --> 00:37:25.119
component on the page and then just type in the the title would be dynamic. It would just pull in the page title. So, I

348
00:37:25.119 --> 00:37:30.320
didn't even have to mess with that. The image would just be the featured image of the page. I could have made a custom

349
00:37:30.320 --> 00:37:36.720
field for that, but why when there's already a featured image? So, I just up add a featured image to the page and that shows up in the hero section as the

350
00:37:36.720 --> 00:37:41.839
background image. And then I think I just used like excerpt or something for

351
00:37:41.839 --> 00:37:47.920
the for the uh little blurb. Or maybe I had a I might have actually just manually typed that in. But the point is

352
00:37:47.920 --> 00:37:53.440
it was very easy. I create a new page. I drop the component. All I have to do is say here's the image. Here's the

353
00:37:53.440 --> 00:38:00.320
description. Boom. That entire hero section is done. It's styled exactly the way it's supposed to be. Um, and if I

354
00:38:00.320 --> 00:38:05.760
ever need to change that styling for whatever reason, maybe I want to make the font bigger or change the spacing, I

355
00:38:05.760 --> 00:38:10.800
just have to make that change once and that change will take effect on every every instance of that component

356
00:38:10.800 --> 00:38:17.040
throughout the website. So, utilizing things like that sped the process up for sure. Uh, made it a lot easier to to do.

357
00:38:17.040 --> 00:38:23.119
And there was other there were other components that were I didn't even bother putting props because they're exactly the same on every page. like

358
00:38:23.119 --> 00:38:30.800
there's a testimonials component that just has it's a very nice layout that shows cycles through uh testimonials

359
00:38:30.800 --> 00:38:36.960
which is a custom post type. So that was super easy. Every time I want to put that on the page, I just click add

360
00:38:36.960 --> 00:38:42.720
component uh testimonials. Done. Moving on to the next section. Right. So

361
00:38:42.720 --> 00:38:49.760
um it's just stuff like that just actually makes building a website with etch like enjoyable. Um, I was

362
00:38:49.760 --> 00:38:57.280
definitely getting burned out building building things in theme. Um, and dabbling with the like I said

363
00:38:57.280 --> 00:39:02.320
building custom blocks for everything. I was hadn't even done that on a client site yet and I was already starting to

364
00:39:02.320 --> 00:39:08.720
get burned out trying to do that. So, sounds like it's uh sounds like Etch is

365
00:39:08.720 --> 00:39:14.079
uh pretty useful in multiple areas, more so than I thought. I may dig down into

366
00:39:14.079 --> 00:39:21.040
it and see what it can do. Yeah, absolutely. Especially if you You used Dreamweaver for five years and and

367
00:39:21.040 --> 00:39:26.160
you're you're that kind of developer originally. You're actually actually a

368
00:39:26.160 --> 00:39:32.560
developer. I I gotten lazy over the last 10 years. I was originally me too because I was

369
00:39:32.560 --> 00:39:39.280
originally, but I I got lazy and lazy as as the tools got simpler and simpler. I got lazier and lazier. And

370
00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:46.800
it's just having that knowledge allows me when something frustrates me, I can just go into the code and fix it.

371
00:39:46.800 --> 00:39:54.240
Yeah. That is 100% that's me as well. I I learned CSS and then basically

372
00:39:54.240 --> 00:39:59.680
never had to use it in a real in a real project. I would like you said if

373
00:39:59.680 --> 00:40:04.880
something wasn't doing what I wanted to do in the page builder then I would go in and modify the CSS but I didn't

374
00:40:04.880 --> 00:40:11.359
really know I never developed any actual real skills as a front-end developer.

375
00:40:11.359 --> 00:40:18.560
And since using Etch and watching a bunch of Kevin's videos and watch watching other people's videos, um, just

376
00:40:18.560 --> 00:40:24.320
having the background of knowing how HTML and CSS and JavaScript works, even though I never really got into those

377
00:40:24.320 --> 00:40:30.240
things at a professional level, Etch has increased my skill in those in those

378
00:40:30.240 --> 00:40:37.839
areas a lot just in the past few months. would yeah I I actually did develop some skills back in my Dreamweaver days and

379
00:40:37.839 --> 00:40:43.839
using PHP and integrating what led me to WordPress was in my early

380
00:40:43.839 --> 00:40:50.240
days I was had all these different shareware PHP programs that I used for

381
00:40:50.240 --> 00:40:55.920
building websites with different functions had to calls and bring I had

382
00:40:55.920 --> 00:41:01.440
one client one time that insisted we have a right-hand column menu back in

383
00:41:01.440 --> 00:41:06.720
those early days next to impossible to stick a menu to the right hand side.

384
00:41:06.720 --> 00:41:12.560
Took took me a couple of weeks of of coding to figure out how to stick it to the right hand side for and keep it

385
00:41:12.560 --> 00:41:17.680
there. Mhm. Did you ever build a site with um

386
00:41:17.680 --> 00:41:25.680
frames, not frames? Oh, yeah. Frames. I I used to build I used to build sites and that was the that was where I started was in

387
00:41:25.680 --> 00:41:33.760
and then I realized these frames were a pain in the neck because they kept breaking. Yeah. Yeah. But that's that was like my

388
00:41:33.760 --> 00:41:39.760
first experience with a I'm going to call it a dynamic website. Yeah. Where you could you could create a a

389
00:41:39.760 --> 00:41:46.560
header.html. Yeah. And and just put that on every page in the in the frame.

390
00:41:46.560 --> 00:41:53.599
I've still got I've still got some old code from those early web pages. I I'm a I'm a data hoarder. I've got data going

391
00:41:53.599 --> 00:42:00.240
all the way back to my early days in the late. Does HTML 5 even support frames? like

392
00:42:00.240 --> 00:42:05.920
could you actually do that if you wanted? I have no clue. I've never even thought to check into it because I once I got

393
00:42:05.920 --> 00:42:12.000
hoo once I got hooked into WordPress and the way it works, I was like I didn't have to bother with all of that anymore.

394
00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:17.920
I just that information got pushed back to the back of my head where it's no longer you.

395
00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:23.200
Yeah. Yeah. That's been the joys of being in this as long as I have. I've seen a lot

396
00:42:23.200 --> 00:42:30.240
of things come and go and I've been part of part of the mess along the way.

397
00:42:30.240 --> 00:42:36.240
So, let's let's well, we've talked quite a bit about Etch here, and let's talk a little bit about your branding and

398
00:42:36.240 --> 00:42:44.319
WordPress community stuff. You know, you've been to events like Groundhog Day where you've talked about uh marketing,

399
00:42:44.319 --> 00:42:51.920
great marketer, full of BS, you know, your brand strategy. Well, how does uh strong branding help

400
00:42:51.920 --> 00:42:59.280
WordPress professionals stand out in the freelance market, which is where the vast majority of them are?

401
00:42:59.280 --> 00:43:06.400
Yeah, you you really did your research, man. I'm I'm impressed. Uh, like I said, man, I I I want people to I

402
00:43:06.400 --> 00:43:12.400
want to we want to find out about my guests and that's one of the goals of this show going forward is the guests

403
00:43:12.400 --> 00:43:18.400
get surprised by things. Even the last couple of guests, well, was it I did the interview with it was

404
00:43:18.400 --> 00:43:25.280
the co-founder of Termageddon. I found out about his beer bong. Pulled that out for

405
00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:31.440
him. There you go. That's that's awesome. Um, yeah,

406
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:39.760
branding branding is very important and there's a lot of you can I mean, man, you can get down

407
00:43:39.760 --> 00:43:46.800
some really interesting rabbit holes if you start like doing some searches for like what's more important, branding or

408
00:43:46.800 --> 00:43:52.240
marketing or what's the difference between branding and marketing? And people will like fight each other on

409
00:43:52.240 --> 00:43:58.000
this topic. It's very strange. Um, I heard I saw somebody I saw a post one

410
00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:04.640
time that kind of made me chuckle. It said, um, marketing is when you tell people you're really good. I'm going to

411
00:44:04.640 --> 00:44:10.720
say at kissing. You're a very good kisser. Branding is when other people are saying that you're a good kisser.

412
00:44:10.720 --> 00:44:15.760
And I think that's I think both of those things are important. If you are good at

413
00:44:15.760 --> 00:44:21.520
something, you need to be telling people that. But if you can get other people to be talking about how good you are at

414
00:44:21.520 --> 00:44:29.119
something, that's even better. Because of course I'm going to say I'm a great web developer. But what does that mean

415
00:44:29.119 --> 00:44:35.599
if you don't really know who I am? Anybody's I'm no one who's in the web development business is going to go around saying they're bad at it, right?

416
00:44:35.599 --> 00:44:41.440
So that doesn't carry as much weight when I tell you that I'm good at something. But if somebody else says,

417
00:44:41.440 --> 00:44:47.680
"Oh yeah, I know that guy. He built a website. It was great." That carries a lot more weight with people. So it's

418
00:44:47.680 --> 00:44:54.640
very important that you consider your brand. Um, Marty Newire,

419
00:44:54.640 --> 00:45:02.240
see if I can remember this. Uh, Marty Numeer is kind of, some people call him the godfather of branding. And, uh, he

420
00:45:02.240 --> 00:45:09.200
defines your brand as, um, oh gosh, I'm blanking out. It's been so

421
00:45:09.200 --> 00:45:14.520
long since I've thought about some of this stuff. Um,

422
00:45:16.720 --> 00:45:23.440
that's going to come to me later. I'll have to bring it back up. But essentially, oh, it's a gut feeling. It's a it's a gut feeling. When somebody

423
00:45:23.440 --> 00:45:29.839
said hears your name or sees your logo or sees your business name, they get a gut feeling.

424
00:45:29.839 --> 00:45:35.040
And I butchered that quote, but that's according to Marty Nummire, that's what your brand is. It's it's more of a it's

425
00:45:35.040 --> 00:45:42.160
a feeling. When somebody experiences you and your business, how does that make them feel? When you see an Apple logo,

426
00:45:42.160 --> 00:45:49.359
how does that make you feel? versus if you look at a Android logo or HP or Lenovo logo. A lot of people would say,

427
00:45:49.359 --> 00:45:55.760
"I don't feel anything when I see an HP logo because who cares?" For a lot of people, HP is just another one of many

428
00:45:55.760 --> 00:46:01.119
PC manufacturers. But people see an Apple logo or they see the Android logo

429
00:46:01.119 --> 00:46:06.319
and now suddenly they're getting feelings inside, good or bad. Um, and so

430
00:46:06.319 --> 00:46:11.520
it's very important that you you keep that in mind when you're when you're marketing. So, I'm not going to sit here

431
00:46:11.520 --> 00:46:17.200
and say, "Oh, forget about marketing. All you need to focus on is your brand." That's stupid. When you're doing your

432
00:46:17.200 --> 00:46:24.000
marketing, you need to be thinking about your brand. When you're hiring somebody to work customer service, you should be

433
00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:29.280
thinking about your brand. When you're trying to decide which materials you're

434
00:46:29.280 --> 00:46:35.200
going to purchase to build your widget, you should be thinking about your brand. Basically, every decision you do should

435
00:46:35.200 --> 00:46:43.400
be done through the lens of what is my brand? How do I want people to feel when they see me, hear me, look at me?

436
00:46:43.760 --> 00:46:51.599
Now, with that, many WordPress users focus on tech as

437
00:46:51.599 --> 00:46:56.880
strategy and creativity. And what's a common branding mistake you see

438
00:46:56.880 --> 00:47:03.520
in the word? Um, well, the biggest branding mistake I

439
00:47:03.520 --> 00:47:10.960
see in general is people just not caring about their brand. Um, one thing I like to say is if everybody has a brand

440
00:47:10.960 --> 00:47:16.960
whether you think you do or not. So if you if you think because I saw one guy posted something on LinkedIn a while

441
00:47:16.960 --> 00:47:23.040
back and he said don't even think about your brand for the first five years of your business. And I'm like what are you

442
00:47:23.040 --> 00:47:29.359
talking about? And I think he was he was talking about like don't don't hire

443
00:47:29.359 --> 00:47:34.800
somebody don't pay somebody thousands of dollars like Fabian Garhalter. He's also

444
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:40.240
he's another he's not the godfather of branding. He's much younger than Marty Nummire, but he's sort of one of the big

445
00:47:40.240 --> 00:47:46.400
names right now in the arena of branding. And he charges upwards of

446
00:47:46.400 --> 00:47:51.599
probably over $10,000 right now for like a single day of branding consulting. And

447
00:47:51.599 --> 00:47:59.119
so I think this guy is saying don't do that on day one. And I would probably agree with that. However, I would never

448
00:47:59.119 --> 00:48:05.520
tell someone to not think about branding or not worry about branding until five years in because if you do that, you're

449
00:48:05.520 --> 00:48:11.520
going to end up with a brand anyways and it's probably not going to be the brand that you want. And now you have to try

450
00:48:11.520 --> 00:48:17.839
to undo that. And it's very difficult to to undo a bad brand or change a brand.

451
00:48:17.839 --> 00:48:23.359
So, at least think about it from day one. Even if you're not paying a consultant for it, you should at least

452
00:48:23.359 --> 00:48:31.839
be thinking about it. Sounds like you should always be thinking about how you present yourself along the way. Know I said I've been

453
00:48:31.839 --> 00:48:39.200
doing this for 26 years and initially my company brand was Smart Pump Enterprise.

454
00:48:39.200 --> 00:48:44.559
Uh 911 did away with uh the use of that name.

455
00:48:44.559 --> 00:48:50.319
Yep. And uh so I rebranded myself as John Overall and I stayed as John Overall who

456
00:48:50.319 --> 00:48:56.960
I am. I only recently rebranded myself changes

457
00:48:56.960 --> 00:49:03.359
that are coming in this five years managed to maintain those brand way and

458
00:49:03.359 --> 00:49:10.559
in particular the most interesting thing I found and something I've suggested to people is if you've picked a name but

459
00:49:10.559 --> 00:49:17.520
it's not working try rebranding as yourself if you're just an independent developer because people like deal with

460
00:49:17.520 --> 00:49:23.920
people I found my business jumped dramatically when I re

461
00:49:23.920 --> 00:49:30.079
Yeah, those interesting things. Absolutely. All right. Well, at this point here, what I'm going to do, uh, we've got a

462
00:49:30.079 --> 00:49:35.920
couple more things I want to ask you about, but I'm going to, uh, cut off for those of you that are listening in the

463
00:49:35.920 --> 00:49:41.200
downloads right now that are listening to the podcast feed. You're going to have to sneak back over to the YouTube

464
00:49:41.200 --> 00:49:46.960
channel to catch the bit. For all of you, Wow, we've got eight people sitting there in the YouTube channel. Hey, say

465
00:49:46.960 --> 00:49:52.720
hi, folks. We greatly appreciate it. Comments, try to make them in here. Oh, is that how you pronounce Hey, Blake.

466
00:49:52.720 --> 00:49:59.680
Blake popped off. So, I I did I did I get Welbus right for your last name? Because you did. Blake just po he popped off in the in

467
00:49:59.680 --> 00:50:04.800
the comments. Is that how you pronounce James's last name? I thought it was Wells.

468
00:50:04.800 --> 00:50:10.800
Yeah. No, you got it right. And that is the most common uh Welbs is the most common attempt.

469
00:50:10.800 --> 00:50:16.160
Oh, and and and Blake's sharing the whole podcast with his whole office right now. Thanks, Blake. We greatly

470
00:50:16.160 --> 00:50:23.599
appreciate it. All right. So, that's Blake Whittle. All right. So, everyone say hi in there. And we will be

471
00:50:23.599 --> 00:50:30.000
back after I let my girl take us on out of here. And this is for those of you in the downloads listening to the podcast

472
00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:36.160
feed. Come on back over to the YouTube channel and catch the rest of the show. There'll be a few minutes of stuff here.

473
00:50:36.160 --> 00:50:42.279
Don't run away, James. I will be right back after our

474
00:50:42.960 --> 00:50:48.480
reminders for the show. All the show notes can be found at wpplugins.com.

475
00:50:48.480 --> 00:50:55.440
And while you're there, subscribe to the newsletter for more useful information delivered directly to your inbox. WP

476
00:50:55.440 --> 00:51:02.079
Plugins A to Zed is a show that offers honest and unbiased reviews of plugins created by you, the developers, because

477
00:51:02.079 --> 00:51:09.160
you support the show. Help keep the show honest and unbiased by going to wpplugins.com/donate

478
00:51:09.200 --> 00:51:15.359
and set the donation level that fits your budget. Help us make the show better for you by subscribing and

479
00:51:15.359 --> 00:51:23.119
reviewing the show through your favorite podcast app. You can also watch the show live on YouTube at WP Plugins A to Z.

480
00:51:23.119 --> 00:51:29.680
And remember to subscribe and hit the bell to get notifications of all new videos. You can also follow the show on

481
00:51:29.680 --> 00:51:36.000
X at WP Plugins A to Z. John can be reached directly through the website

482
00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:41.680
wppproadz.com or email him at johnwpro.ca.

483
00:51:41.680 --> 00:51:48.079
Amber can also be contacted through the website at wproz.com

484
00:51:48.079 --> 00:51:52.839
or email her directly amberwpro.ca.

485
00:51:54.960 --> 00:52:01.160
Thanks for joining us. Have a great day and we'll see you next week.

486
00:52:08.480 --> 00:52:15.200
All right, we're back. For those on the YouTube channel listening, the reason I do that is this is a live to tape show.

487
00:52:15.200 --> 00:52:23.200
Uh that is the taped version out into the podcast feed for those who want to that segment of the show.

488
00:52:23.200 --> 00:52:29.680
So any what I've got here is just some, you know, some future advice, couple of personal things that we want to dig into

489
00:52:29.680 --> 00:52:37.359
a little bit. Looking ahead in your point of view, where do you see WordPress heading with especially in the

490
00:52:37.359 --> 00:52:42.720
last year with so many changes having occurred and so much drama in and around

491
00:52:42.720 --> 00:52:48.000
the WordPress community. It's been very in it's been very entertaining. It helped actually reinvigorate me for

492
00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:53.200
working WordPress. I was getting so bored with it. Um, how might tools like

493
00:52:53.200 --> 00:53:01.040
Etch or Stematic influence the community? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I

494
00:53:01.040 --> 00:53:06.319
don't know how much Etch has influenced other company

495
00:53:06.319 --> 00:53:12.800
companies in WordPress yet, but I think that there are I think that there are companies that are starting to come

496
00:53:12.800 --> 00:53:20.000
around to the ideas that the Etch team had already come around to. And you can see that

497
00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:25.200
when you look at things like um I think divvy 5 is the newest version and people

498
00:53:25.200 --> 00:53:32.400
are talking about how great that is because they're I think they're really cutting down on all the bloat uh like

499
00:53:32.400 --> 00:53:40.240
containers and just divs inside of divs inside of divs. They're apparently cutting down on that. I've heard Elementor is jumping on board with like

500
00:53:40.240 --> 00:53:45.839
a class-based system for for developing things. Yep, they are. That's that's I've been

501
00:53:45.839 --> 00:53:52.079
experimenting periodically with their new class-based uh editor. They haven't released it yet. It's still in alpha

502
00:53:52.079 --> 00:53:58.720
alpha beta, I should say. Okay. So, I I it seems like

503
00:53:58.720 --> 00:54:05.760
maybe the community is slowly starting to shift in a direction that Kevin and

504
00:54:05.760 --> 00:54:12.559
his team shifted to two years ago. Um maybe even longer if you because really

505
00:54:12.559 --> 00:54:17.760
probably Automatic CSS was probably uh the

506
00:54:17.760 --> 00:54:25.040
beginning of of Kevin and his team's shift in that direction where they're trying to make developing a website in

507
00:54:25.040 --> 00:54:30.079
WordPress uh something that you can actually do properly rather than using

508
00:54:30.079 --> 00:54:36.000
all of these proprietary builders and dealing with Gutenberg's nonsense. That

509
00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:44.000
was kind of the beginning. And so I it's it looks like maybe WordPress is heading in that direction. Um, I don't know I

510
00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:52.960
don't know if something like Elementor would ever be the kind of thing that I would enjoy using, but if it if it at

511
00:54:52.960 --> 00:55:00.000
least shifts more in the direction of allowing real people to build websites

512
00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:08.160
the proper way or at least closer to the proper way, I can only see that as a good thing. WordPress itself,

513
00:55:08.160 --> 00:55:13.440
I don't know, man. I it's hard to tell the direction that a

514
00:55:13.440 --> 00:55:19.200
product is going to go when what when it's moving so slowly you know

515
00:55:19.200 --> 00:55:27.839
that has been one of problems slow that has been one of its problems over the years WordPress is now 21 I think

516
00:55:27.839 --> 00:55:33.520
and in the beginning it moved very rapidly and very quickly and lots of

517
00:55:33.520 --> 00:55:40.960
quick changes like I've been working with WordPress since version 1.9 give or Okay.

518
00:55:40.960 --> 00:55:46.240
But it was making major advances very quickly and then it got from my

519
00:55:46.240 --> 00:55:55.440
perspective it got bloated with um call it um decisions by decisions by

520
00:55:55.440 --> 00:56:01.359
committee is what is as is how I put it. It's like uh dealing with a corporate uh client.

521
00:56:01.359 --> 00:56:07.680
Everything you do is a committee decision and it sometimes takes you what should what you should accomplish in a

522
00:56:07.680 --> 00:56:13.760
week can take two months to accomplish. Has to go through this this group and this group and sometimes it has to go up

523
00:56:13.760 --> 00:56:20.160
to head office etc. um decisions by committee and that's one of the things I see with WordPress and

524
00:56:20.160 --> 00:56:26.640
they've had things that have been on their plate for about a decade or more cleaning up the

525
00:56:26.640 --> 00:56:34.000
the uh media section up and that's never been done. So yeah, so I've seen lots of

526
00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:41.040
those things happen and it does move slow unfortunately, but where it sits now is pretty decent

527
00:56:41.040 --> 00:56:46.400
with all the add-ons. That was one of the best things that that WordPress allowed is the ability for people to

528
00:56:46.400 --> 00:56:52.799
just plug into it with different aspects. Sounds like Etch has been able to do.

529
00:56:52.799 --> 00:56:58.240
Yeah. And I mean Etch is the Etch is the only reason I'm not looking at other options right now. So that's absolutely

530
00:56:58.240 --> 00:57:05.599
correct. Like if if you're going to go this strategy of trying to keep

531
00:57:05.599 --> 00:57:10.880
WordPress itself super bare bones and allow other people to hook into it and

532
00:57:10.880 --> 00:57:16.000
sort of rely on them to make it great, then you just have to really hope that

533
00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:22.480
that uh great people make great stuff. And I feel like,

534
00:57:22.480 --> 00:57:27.520
you know, that hasn't been happening. I don't it's subjective. Like people say,

535
00:57:27.520 --> 00:57:33.760
"Oh, Elementor is great. Look at the market share. Elementor has so many customers." Oh, they refer they were first to the uh

536
00:57:33.760 --> 00:57:40.480
to the trough. Yeah. And so I know it's kind of subjective, but in my opinion, I haven't

537
00:57:40.480 --> 00:57:45.760
seen anything really great happening in the WordPress space for a while. Etch is

538
00:57:45.760 --> 00:57:52.960
the first thing that that has really um just surprised and and impressed me. I

539
00:57:52.960 --> 00:57:58.079
I've been having some conversations uh with some folks even just today. Um I

540
00:57:58.079 --> 00:58:03.280
was talking to to Remiss and I was talking to a couple other people. Yeah.

541
00:58:03.280 --> 00:58:08.640
About it. I've had conversations. I saw our that that little comments on Twitter started a whole feed. That was

542
00:58:08.640 --> 00:58:15.760
actually kind of entertaining. Yeah. Yeah. And there's just so many people that for whatever reason they

543
00:58:15.760 --> 00:58:21.119
feel like they have to come to WordPress's defense. And I get some

544
00:58:21.119 --> 00:58:27.359
people if you work for automatic or whatever, I kind of I kind of get it. But if you don't work for automatic, I

545
00:58:27.359 --> 00:58:33.920
don't understand why people take criticisms to WordPress so personally.

546
00:58:33.920 --> 00:58:40.000
Good question. Nothing gets nothing gets better because everybody who's involved just pretends

547
00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:47.440
that it's great all the time. You've got to be open to the criticisms or ideas. And when somebody says so,

548
00:58:47.440 --> 00:58:53.119
yeah, sometimes it hurts if it's your own little pet project, but sometimes it helps you rethink your direction you're

549
00:58:53.119 --> 00:58:59.839
going. That's happened to me multiple times in life. Got several people around me that uh do that.

550
00:58:59.839 --> 00:59:06.720
Take take me down a notch when I'm getting to uh lack of better term, egotistical on what I'm doing.

551
00:59:06.720 --> 00:59:14.720
Yeah, absolutely. I one of the spicier things I've said that um I know will rub

552
00:59:14.720 --> 00:59:19.839
a lot of people the wrong way is I don't think that opensource software is any

553
00:59:19.839 --> 00:59:25.520
better than closed source software. No I think there's a lot of what

554
00:59:25.520 --> 00:59:33.040
I say the advantage to open source software is it's the the um access to it

555
00:59:33.040 --> 00:59:39.119
is easier for someone to build a business on top of it. Yeah. And there's there's there's a lot

556
00:59:39.119 --> 00:59:45.040
of people who are they they almost treat open source as like a religion. Like

557
00:59:45.040 --> 00:59:50.480
they think if something is open source, they automatically assume it's good. They're like, I love this because it's

558
00:59:50.480 --> 00:59:56.400
open source. And I'm like, well, what if it's terrible though? Like just because it's open source doesn't mean it's

559
00:59:56.400 --> 01:00:04.799
great. And just because it's closed source doesn't mean it's bad. Yeah. Um, and so for me, WordPress is

560
01:00:04.799 --> 01:00:10.480
really my only experience with open source software. And if I'm being completely honest, based on that, I'm

561
01:00:10.480 --> 01:00:15.920
not a fan of open source software just because I look at WordPress and I see,

562
01:00:15.920 --> 01:00:22.000
you know, I see Gutenberg, which looks like a a side project of some college student his sophomore year of computer

563
01:00:22.000 --> 01:00:27.599
sciences, and it's been eight years. And when I say things like that, it pisses a lot of people off. And I'm

564
01:00:27.599 --> 01:00:34.000
like, well, how many PRs have you submitted to Gutenberg? Like, well, none. Like, well then why do you care? Why are you so mad that somebody's

565
01:00:34.000 --> 01:00:39.520
criticizing how slow Gutenberg has progressed? Why is it that that the Etch

566
01:00:39.520 --> 01:00:44.960
team can do what they've done in one year and Guten Gutenberg after eight

567
01:00:44.960 --> 01:00:50.799
years, it still feels like a beta product? Well, that people just don't like that. That was what I thought it was when they

568
01:00:50.799 --> 01:00:57.440
forced it into the core in 2020 and it's like, oh, keep it as a plugin.

569
01:00:57.440 --> 01:01:04.400
And it's one of the things I do because I when we build a lot a lot of the websites we build for clients we turn

570
01:01:04.400 --> 01:01:11.920
over the content production to the client and we've had to make sure that they can't load up the Gutenberg

571
01:01:11.920 --> 01:01:17.040
templates the blocks because they're not intuitive for people who don't

572
01:01:17.040 --> 01:01:25.040
understand for people building content need that basic that basic editor but it says title here

573
01:01:25.040 --> 01:01:31.520
content here couple other things here, you know, use custom post types, custom fields, you fill out all that stuff. PE,

574
01:01:31.520 --> 01:01:38.160
your average user understands that quite well, whereas they don't understand. I still have a tough time wrapping my self

575
01:01:38.160 --> 01:01:45.920
around a block editor when I'm forced to use this. Like, wait, is this my title or is this my content?

576
01:01:45.920 --> 01:01:51.200
So, yeah. And that that's the whole problem I've always had with it is those things. Yes.

577
01:01:51.200 --> 01:01:56.640
Uh Ryan over there at InfluenceWP. I love his there. Rainbows, unicorns, and

578
01:01:56.640 --> 01:02:02.640
wppers. That's the open source. But I I've been working with open source software. It used to be called shareware

579
01:02:02.640 --> 01:02:08.240
back in the day. Been using shareware and freeear since the beginning of the internet.

580
01:02:08.240 --> 01:02:16.079
Fact, I still have a few sharewware and freeware programs that I've been converting over to WordPress uh plugins

581
01:02:16.079 --> 01:02:22.960
because they're nothing but JavaScript and you just have to rewrite JavaScript to work in word plugins.

582
01:02:22.960 --> 01:02:30.240
Yeah. And I really I love blocks. Okay. I love blocks as a replacement for short

583
01:02:30.240 --> 01:02:36.720
codes. We've all we've all added a short code where we had to go look at the docs and the short code is like a mile long

584
01:02:36.720 --> 01:02:41.839
because we got to add all these attributes to make it do what we want. And replace

585
01:02:41.839 --> 01:02:47.839
that nonsense with a block that has a UI and settings and toggle switches and stuff to just very easily do what you

586
01:02:47.839 --> 01:02:54.640
want to do. Yeah. Blocks are a thousand times better than short codes. And that in my opinion is what Gutenberg should

587
01:02:54.640 --> 01:03:00.559
be. Gutenberg should just be blocks. Make it easy to make new blocks. Make it

588
01:03:00.559 --> 01:03:06.880
easy to extend existing blocks and just focus on banging out blocks. And eight

589
01:03:06.880 --> 01:03:12.559
years later, people are actually excited about the fact that you can control the

590
01:03:12.559 --> 01:03:17.680
border radius on a block. Now, after eight eight years of this page builder,

591
01:03:17.680 --> 01:03:22.720
I thought that was rather comical on that when I saw that. It's like, really? It took that long.

592
01:03:22.720 --> 01:03:29.440
And you can't comment on that. People get all mad at you. Oh, why can't you just be happy? Why can't you just celebrate the wins? I I can't I can't

593
01:03:29.440 --> 01:03:34.559
celebrate border radius after eight years. I'm sorry.

594
01:03:34.559 --> 01:03:40.000
Well, on that lovely note, um I think we'll start to wrap it up. This has been

595
01:03:40.000 --> 01:03:45.839
uh one of my longer interviews in a while. Thank you very much for that. Um,

596
01:03:45.839 --> 01:03:51.920
one last brief question though on a personal note. As a father, grandfather, enthusiast,

597
01:03:51.920 --> 01:04:00.160
uh, woodworking, soccer, cigars, Guinness, how do you balance your family life and running a creative agency?

598
01:04:00.160 --> 01:04:06.319
Oh, it's easy. The secret is to just not do any of it very well.

599
01:04:06.319 --> 01:04:12.799
Not my coffee. That's that's a half joke. Um I it is

600
01:04:12.799 --> 01:04:19.039
hard. It's difficult to balance all that. And the the short answer is you just make sacrifices. So you're not

601
01:04:19.039 --> 01:04:24.480
you're not building as many things out of it would as you would like. You're not smoking as many cigars as you would like. You're not playing soccer as much

602
01:04:24.480 --> 01:04:30.799
as you would like. You have to have priorities. You have to do what's best for you and your family.

603
01:04:30.799 --> 01:04:36.799
And try to try to just not kill yourself with work. you know, this hustle culture. I'm I'm definitely not on board

604
01:04:36.799 --> 01:04:44.079
with the hustle culture where people think you got to be working, you know, 10, 12, 14 hours a day. It's like, like

605
01:04:44.079 --> 01:04:50.400
you mentioned earlier before we started the podcast, like you you can choose to try to make money. Every second of your

606
01:04:50.400 --> 01:04:56.480
life can be trying to make money or you can actually try to have a life and enjoy yourself. And that's what I that's what I try to lean

607
01:04:56.480 --> 01:05:03.520
towards. Yeah, that's why my that's why my agency is not very large. It's large enough to support us, but it keeps us from having

608
01:05:03.520 --> 01:05:09.760
to spend 14 days at it. Enjoy time this week. My daughter's

609
01:05:09.760 --> 01:05:16.240
getting married this week, so it's going to be a gonna be a gonna be a crazy week.

610
01:05:16.240 --> 01:05:22.480
Congrats. Yeah. Well, congrats to her. Congrats to her with a good man. So, on

611
01:05:22.480 --> 01:05:27.839
that note, thank you very much, James. I greatly appreciate your time here in the show. Thank you everyone who showed up

612
01:05:27.839 --> 01:05:36.240
and listened to the show or almost the entire show. We've we hit a peak of 10 people here on it or peak loads. Sounds

613
01:05:36.240 --> 01:05:42.640
like um Etch may have been a uh a prompter for any Rick. With that, we're

614
01:05:42.640 --> 01:05:49.760
going to play a little music to carry everyone out of here. Don't run away on me, James. I'll come back to you after we exit the show here so you listen to

615
01:05:49.760 --> 01:05:54.039
the music one more time.

616
01:05:54.799 --> 01:06:00.359
We're going to make time stand still.

617
01:06:07.039 --> 01:06:13.839
A quarter after midnight and I'm watching the wall.

618
01:06:13.839 --> 01:06:20.720
Sometimes I feel so uptight I just can't sleep at all.

619
01:06:20.720 --> 01:06:27.119
every day doing the same old thing. We're losing time.

620
01:06:27.119 --> 01:06:33.480
The weekend comes, we got to have some fun and rewind.

621
01:06:34.400 --> 01:06:41.599
These are the days of thunder. We're going to make time stand still. We

622
01:06:41.599 --> 01:06:48.640
got to feel the hunger hanging over the edge just to taste the thrill.

623
01:06:48.640 --> 01:06:51.710
[Music]

624
01:06:54.960 --> 01:07:01.839
I feel the rope tightening, choking off our air.

625
01:07:01.839 --> 01:07:08.480
We need to grab some lightning. Friday's almost here.

626
01:07:08.480 --> 01:07:15.400
Caught in a web. We need to cut this thread. We're hanging by.

627
01:07:15.440 --> 01:07:21.480
Where is it? said you have to be half dead to survive.

628
01:07:22.400 --> 01:07:29.599
These are the days of thunder. We're going to make time stand still. We

629
01:07:29.599 --> 01:07:36.680
got to feel the hunger hanging over the edge just to taste the thrill.

630
01:07:36.680 --> 01:07:47.730
[Music]

631
01:07:49.839 --> 01:07:56.960
These are the days of thunder. We're going to make time stand still. We

632
01:07:56.960 --> 01:08:04.079
got to feel the hunger. Hanging over the edge just to taste the thrill. These are

633
01:08:04.079 --> 01:08:10.720
the days of thunder. We're going to make time stand still. We

634
01:08:10.720 --> 01:08:19.239
got to feel the hunger hanging over the edge just to taste the thrill.

635
01:08:22.480 --> 01:08:26.838
These are the days of thunder.

636
01:08:32.080 --> 01:08:39.040
All righty, folks. That's all we got now. Take care. Bye-bye. Oh my god, that is amazing.

637
01:08:39.040 --> 01:08:41.920
Oh no.