If you are a WordPress developer, I have want it to you that could save you hours of time every month, and could be worth thousands of dollars in increased profits every year.
I should say that this is a client of mine, but I only take on clients who have amazing products or services to offer, so I’m more than happy to promote this product.
First, a bit of essential business theory…
The 80:20 Rule
You have probably heard of the 8020 rule used somewhere. I was recently invited to review a new book on the topic, written by Perry Marshall. I can honestly tell you it blew my mind.
Basically, this rule, also known as the “Pareto principle”, says that 80% of the benefits of any activity tends to be a product of 20% of the work that’s done.
Here’s how Wikipedia introduces it…
Business-management consultant Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population; he developed the principle by observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas. [source]
It applies in so many situations, I can’t even begin to give you an idea… Donations from donors, work by volunteers, sales per customer, sales per salesperson… These are just a few of the areas where the 80:20 rule applies.
But perhaps the most significant area, particularly if you are a freelancer, is how the AT 20 rule applies to the time you spend on projects.
The shocking fact is that 20% of the time you spend working delivers 80% of the value. But that also means that the majority (80%) of your time is really wasted, generating only 20% of the value (i.e. profits).
What we must do then is “work smarter, not harder”. This much is pretty obvious. However, I find it’s an awful lot harder to distinguish the productive (top 20%) time from the unproductive 80% that I really need to stop doing!
One really useful rule is simply to spot any tasks that you do more than once, and which don’t have to be done more than once (if you are being totally honest with yourself).
My advice to anyone who works in any kind of creative industry (and I include web design, marketing, and programming in that) is to keep challenging yourself, and ask the question, “Could somebody else feasibly do this, or does it have to be me?”
Let me give you a few examples…
- What admin tasks do you do that could be done more cheaply by someone else (e.g. a virtual assistant)?
- How much time do you spend checking stats, like analytics, without generating actionable intelligence? Maybe you don’t really need to do it!
- What else do you do every day, every week, or every month, that is repetitive, compulsive, and is not 100% necessary?
Here’s the thing… It is really, really difficult to generate the level of truthfulness with yourself that can help you identify these areas!
My number one recommendation for WordPress designers and developers
This applies to an area that you probably haven’t even considered.
This is training and supporting your clients in using the WordPress platform. We have found that it typically takes two to three hours to give a new client a tour of the WordPress back-end. The problem is that many clients need refreshers, reminders, all have questions, probably on a monthly basis.
That means that you can end up supporting existing clients, answering the same questions over and over again. Now that’s okay, on one level, if you like supporting clients – and if they are paying you every hour that you spent training them!
But I’ll bet you aren’t being paid for this time – right?
And of course it gets worse… One of the client’s team leaves, and somebody else joins, now they need training in WordPress. You don’t like to say no, so more of your time is drained away.
Then we have the problem when a new version of WordPress comes out! What do you do? Do you train your client again? Do you create a new manual or video recording for them? Or, do you keep them on the older version, which could bring its own risks?!
Fortunately, Video User Manuals takes all of these headaches away from you. They provide an easy-to-use plug-in that you can install on up to 100 client websites for a very modest monthly fee of $24.
Their plug-in gives your clients access to a comprehensive range of WordPress training videos, always kept up-to-date with the latest stable release of WordPress, even available in multiple languages and different English accents!
Image may be NSFW.
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How much could this save you?
Let’s say your regular hourly rate is $50 per hour… You deliver one WordPress project per month to a new client, and each client uses four hours of your time.
It doesn’t take much working out to see that every project costs you $200 in time spent delivering training and answering WordPress questions. Of course, this is what’s known as an “opportunity cost”, but that’s still a very real cost, because it’s four hours that you can’t spend earning money.
So you could be earning that $200 more every month, simply by signing up to this system! That’s a $176 saving, every month. Plus there’s less headaches, less being distracted and pulled off your paying work, and what’s more your clients will actually prefer it! Because now they can get their WordPress questions answered immediately, the moment those questions arise.
Check out Video User Manuals’ site to learn more, and to sign up.
They even offer a complete 60 day money back guarantee, so there’s really nothing to lose.
Plus, the package includes training videos for WooCommerce and Yoast’s popular SEO plugin!
And you can put your own branding on the product, so it looks like it comes from you (very slick), and there’s also a white-labelled WordPress manual you can give to your clients too!
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