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Bridget Willard

Marketing for WordPress Developers: Are you taking on new clients?
Client work is great. But how do your Twitter followers, let alone your friends, know if you’re taking on new clients and projects. And if so, which ones?

You do refer and take referrals, right?

What is Marketing?

Marketing is basic communication of your goods and services. Simple enough, right? So why do so many WordPress developers fail to tell their potential customers that they are available?
There could be many reasons, but let’s start with a simple, actionable goal.

Audit your website and Twitter bio.

Audit Your Website

You may need a third party on this one. Don’t look at the code or the design. Instead, look to see where a potential customer would know the following:
1. Are you accepting new work?
2. What kind of work do you specialize in?
3. How does someone contact you?
You could go further with:
1. Do you have a portfolio?
2. Do you have recommendations?
3. Do you list your clients?
But that is way extra credit.

Your services page should be clear in the main navigation and not buried. This is for potential customers and for your friends who are looking to refer you. If your friends are like me, they check your website first.

Audit Your Twitter Bio

What does your Twitter bio say? Does it say you’re a “WordPress Developer.” That’s awesome. Your peers know who you are. But does the general public. I’m going to say a hard “no.”

If you build websites, and taking on work, I’d strongly suggest that your Twitter bio says “I build websites” in some form.

Here are a couple of quick Google Search Screenshots that should help convince you.

Notice that it says “web designer” or “website” in most of the suggestions. Also, the “People also ask” section is a good source of headlines for future blog posts like, “How Much Does It Cost To Hire Someone to Build A Website?”

Oh, and please put a link to your website on your Twitter.

More questions?

I’d love to help you. And, yes, I am taking on marketing consulting clients.

Below is my form.

[caldera_form id=”CF59e795482d092″]
July 16, 2018
SaaS: The Cost of Doing Business Online
Updated 2/14/23

So many small business owners think doing business online means they save money. Well, you could save money, but then you would be compromising on your tech stack.

So many people think “online” means “free.” It used to, for sure.

For example, many small businesses ask me how much they should budget for marketing. The answer is 15% of your gross revenue. Sound high? Maybe. But do you want to grow? It goes with website hosts, too. If you’re paying less than $25 for a web host, it’s time to upgrade.

So what is the cost of doing business online? In this post, I detail my own SasS expenses to give you an idea of how much to budget.

I originally wrote this in 2018 when my SaaS subscriptions were $125. Those were the days. You won’t need all of the services, but you will have some.

Software as a Service (Saas)

Software as a Service basically means you can get a service through a webpage. Wikipedia has a better definition. The point is, that digital space has a cost. Software over the cloud has a cost. Clouds are not free.

Traditional Services

Traditional services like accounting and law typically charge retainers and charge by 15 minute increments. We never question this. So why not value our own time?

This also includes monthly, recurring costs like cable (internet provider), electricity (to power and charge the devices you use to get to the cloud), cell phones to work remotely and call clients, as well as a percentage of your mortgage/rent or co-working fees.

This isn’t the place for it, but please understand your costs as an agency. Understanding your costs allows you to charge for your value.

My Monthly SaaS Costs

I spend quite a bit of money for cloud-based tools that I deem necessary to run my Marketing Consultancy.

Here are my monthly Saas Costs.

Of course, these are rounded to the nearest dollar and don’t include yearly licences.
- Postmatic (for content delivery and commenting) $20
- Dropbox (for website & photo backups) $21
- Backblaze (backup computer) $15
- Loom (video tutorials for clients) $10
- Lumen5 (video from text) $15
- Apple (cloud storage) $4
- Bitly (link shortening) $37
- Hootsuite (manage client social accounts) $75
- Xero (invoicing clients) $37
- Canva.com (making graphics) $27
- Calendly (to schedule appointments) $15
- Zoom (client meetings) $16
- GSuite (for domain name email) $24
- Plugin Rank (for plugin stats) $9
- Castos (podcast hosting) $49
- Mailchimp (email marketing) $21
- Termageddon (privacy policy) $10
- Basecamp (project management) $21
- Twitter Blue (edit tweets) $11
The total amount I spend monthly on things specifically to run my business is $467.

This doesn’t include traditional services and utilities like fiber internet ($67), cell phone ($99), electricity ($58) , or the $122 I can legally write off of my rent for my home office.

If my math is correct, that’s $813 I need just to operate monthly.

With a 20% self-employment tax (that we all should be saving), the client who you charge $1,000 a month only yields $233 profit.

We haven’t even talked about my time; just the fixed monthly nut.

The second and third, fourth and fifth clients start adding to the your net profit.

Why am I writing about job costing and the cost of doing online business?

As someone who spent almost 15 years in construction accounting, it baffles me that the majority of WordPress freelancers don’t:
- Track their time (even as a sample to average out)
- Attach costs to jobs
- Find out their operating cost before determining pricing
It’s another blog post or WordCamp talk to properly give an overview, but the point is that costs are costs. Figure out what you need in your workflow and do it. If you can’t afford those tools, then charge more to your clients.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Nothing is free. Your time isn’t free. Even if you don’t have to pay for software (like WordPress.org), someone still has to implement it, you still have to design a site, and it still has to be hosted. A modern website requires at least three different businesses that will be paid just to have a free website.

Your business matters. Stop trying to do everything for free. Invest in your dream. No one else should care about your business more than you do.

Once you figure out your operating costs, feel free to reach out to me when you’re ready to add marketing.
July 5, 2018
Valuing Volunteerism: A Cost Perspective
Valuing volunteerism is a two-sided coin. It’s always nice to be appreciated by the nonprofit we serve, but we also need to understand the cost. Volunteerism isn’t without a cost or a value. So in our effort to not just recruit but retain and manage volunteers, how can we have a proper respect?

It really starts with ourselves. We need to understand our personal costs and values.

Do is the new give.

“Do something great.”
“Do something.”
“Do.”

Many of us believe in nonprofits and we donate both time and money to support the causes closest to our hearts.

I believe in supporting nonprofits financially and with my time and I’m public with this donation that appears in my sidebar. As a business, I want my clients to know that I also use funds to make this world a better place.

I am a recurring donor to 4Ocean, Oxfam, and freeCodeCamp. I also support Aspen Camp with Amazon Smile purchases.

I also volunteer with Make WordPress, WordCamp Orange County, WordCamp Los Angeles, and Women Who WP.

It’s good for our souls to give back to the world, to the things that gave us a start, as it gives us a healthy perspective and stimulates gratitude.

Why do we volunteer?

Volunteering is good for our souls. Volunteering is a way to align our values with the world.

I’ve volunteered for all of my adult life with many kinds of nonprofits. I’ve gone through burnout, elation, and everything in between.

As a freelancer, business owner, or even employee, it’s important to understand both the cost and value of volunteerism.

What is the cost of volunteering?

One of the costs of volunteering besides our time is burnout. It’s a real thing.

Why do we burnout?

There are many reasons but one is that we don’t understand how much time we spend.

[bctt tweet=”We burn out from volunteering because we don’t understand the value of our time.” username=”BridgetMWillard”]

(This is partly why I rant so much about job costing and sample time tracking if you’ve ever spoken to me in person.)

If we don’t understand how we spend our time, it’s too easy to say yes to everything. But at some point, there will be a cost. That could be suffering client work, personal relationships, or health.

Another very easily solved reason is a lack of appreciation. But that’s on the “managing volunteers” side of this conversation.

So, what if our volunteerism had an invoice?

Time is one of the only unsustainable resources we truly have. Our time has both a cost and a value.

Sometimes to gain perspective is to tie our time to a dollar amount. Though it doesn’t speak to all of the value, it’s one way to show others and ourselves that our work, though unpaid, matters.

Maybe if we treated our volunteer work like it was a client, it would give other people a perspective of the worth. To gain a perspective for myself, I ran the numbers on just one of my volunteer efforts.

What if WordCamp Orange County was my client? This would be the invoice based upon my current pricing.
- Five months of weekly 1/2 hour meeting:
  - 20 meetings at 1/2 of my rate $75 = $1500
- Social media management:
  - Facebook: $350/mo x 5 = $1750
  - Twitter basic: $350 x 5 = $1750
- Total in kind donation $5,000
Maybe if we treated our volunteer work like it was a client, it would give other people a perspective of the worth.

— Bridget Willard (@BridgetMWillard) June 16, 2018

For example, 5 months of weekly 1/2 hour meetings for #WCOC.

20 meetings at 1/2 of my rate $75 = $1500

Social media management
Facebook: $350/mo x 5 = $1750
Twitter basic: $350 x 5 = $1750

Total in kind donation $5,000

— Bridget Willard (@BridgetMWillard) June 16, 2018

Volunteerism Matters

Besides all of the people I’ve met, relationships I’ve formed, valuable conversations that changed my life, clients I’ve gained, and people I’ve encouraged, there is a monetary value on your time.

Spend it well. Remember your why.

As I told a friend this past weekend at WordCamp Europe,

“If we ever forget that this is about the people, we’ve completely lost our way.”

Go serve, do it for others, but take care of yourself.

Clark Tibbs
June 19, 2018