In this episode, Matt Medeiros continues the impromptu Season 6 with his interview with Tom McFarlin. Tom is a developer and business owner in the WordPress community but is not solely dependent on WordPress. He balances his consulting and development business along with teaching and blogging with a focus on Object Oriented Programming (OOP) encouraging people to write good code.
Listen to the episode
What you will learn from this Episode: * Tom has a membership area with Digital courses on his site TomMcfarlin.com. (1:10) * Pressware has been growing over the past 7 years and provides consulting, custom plugin and development functionality. (2:43) * Tom's blog has moved into a combination of free posts along with paid content for members. (2:28)
Marketing your product: * The marketing strategy is not just a focus this year for the membership site launch. (3:39) * Building strong content will take time and people can sign up as needed or when they recognize the value. (8:02) * Blogging with great content with authority takes a lot of work. (8:52) * The current blog is established and is being published with a set schedule. (9:42) * Word of mouth and posting to Twitter have been the best marketing strategy so far. (13:34) * The blog material is being updated with interesting and new material that is being discovered by new developers. (15:59) * Tom's blog is very genuine reflecting his personality. (19:48) * Networking at events is a great way to meet the authentic blogger or WordPress owner. (21:40) * It is difficult to build an audience using YouTube because the videos come off as being instructional or tutorials on a software product. (23:37)
The Future of WordPress: * Consultants have been the boots on the ground for WordPress. (27:24) * Blue collar digital workers are becoming a commoditized service becoming people who can fix the code of products that were created. (28:40) * There is a consumer level of technology that may always need fixing. (30:09) * There may always be a WordPress but consultants may not be directing or taking customers where they want to go with the software. (31:41) * WordPress is getting wider with the options of where people want to take it. (32:47) * Jetpack (or other WordPress plugins) will probably be part of WordPress moving forward and may not be offered as individual products. (36:07) * The individual user seems to be the new direction for the growth of WordPress. (37:37) * Plugin development and sales may not take the same direction that themes have. (42:17) * Pressware was named without "WP" intentionally even though it is software built on WordPress. (42:54)
Building a Business: * If you are going to be working for yourself you need to learn about running a business and know that you should be able to manage a team of developers, contractors, designers, etc. (44:39) * Understand the value of the dollar when you are in business and understand where the money goes. (46:47) * If you are working in the U.S. make sure you have a great CPA. (48:48) * As your business grows you will need to learn to let go of many things and delegate to good people. (49:49) * Make sure you have a set ending time to the day when the work discussion ends. (52:18)
Episode Resources: Pressware TomMcFarlin.com WordCamp US Troy Dean