I had the good fortune of being on the WP Elevation podcast a couple of months ago and after talking with Troy I KNEW I needed to get him on my show (which, FYI, the interview was recorded before 3.9 was released).
I have to warn you though.
There is a TON of information in this episode. Information that you can take and apply to your WordPress Business immediately.
I love that Troy takes a business approach to WordPress (of course while loving it and working with it all the time). As someone who isn't a coder or programmer but has built a thriving business with WordPress I was thrilled to get Troy's insights and experiences on building a successful business with WordPress.
From Voice Over artist and Musician to WordPress
Like many other people with WordPress, Troy started building websites for friends and once he found WordPress he never looked back. He did a lot of client sites for people in his industry (voice over / music studios) and began his freelance design. He looked at his journey as a paid education and from day one approached it as a business and knew the key to growing his business is leverage.
"One of my passions is leverage"
- Troy Dean
Building the platform for leverage.
Troy knew something early on that took me a lot longer to learn... it's NOT cost effective to do little support jobs for clients. Which is what inspired him to create a 'user manual' for a client of hist (over 100 pages, printed and delivered to his client, which allowed the client to manage their site and kept him free from niggly support calls).
Video User Manuals is Born
Realizing he created something that gave him massive leverage, Troy took his PDF to his friend and now business partner, who said "we need to turn this into a plugin".
You'll hear how Troy and Bryan have built a team that keeps Video User Manuals up to date (in different accents even! AND.. it will shortly be launched in Spanish!).
Building a Team
I loved that Troy approached building a team from a perspective of value. Meaning, if he brought on more people to his team could he then provide more value to his audience? Would the team allow him more time to create content, connect with his audience and grow his business?
Brilliant.
WP Elevation
WP Elevation was born out of necessity. For the audience.
They asked their audience why they hadn't purchased the Video User Manuals and the answer they got was overwhelming.
"We don't have enough clients! How do we get more clients?"
You're going to have to listen to how they approached the launch of this, met the demand and their business blew up. I don't want to give too much away (truly, the interview is great!). They launched WP Elevation to a limited number of people, closed it for a couple months, got their systems in place and re-opened the doors.
And haven't looked back since.
Make sure to check out WP Elevation, Video User Manuals and connect with Troy, you won't be disappointed.
Links from this episode
Video User Manuals
WP Elevation
Troy Dean
Troy Dean - The Voice Over artist
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