Mastermind.fm

The European investor's favorite podcast.

Episode 92 – A Look Into the WordPress Plugin Economy with Brian Link

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Brian Link started “The Plugin Economy” as an owner of a small WordPress plugin in order to get more feedback from other developers of small to medium-sized plugins. He wanted to share what he was learning from them with the community, so the interviews began.

In this episode, I took the opportunity to ask Brian about what he has learned from the more than 30 interviews he has done so far. We discuss a variety of topics, from choosing a niche to marketing the plugin, and the lessons learned from our mistakes so far.

If you’re thinking of starting a small plugin or theme business, or you’re already running one, then this episode is for you. If you agree or disagree with anything we said during the discussion, let me know in the comments below. Let’s share our experiences and help each other out.

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Episode 91 – Exploring Different WordPress Businesses with Joe Casabona – Part 2

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In episode 89, Joe Casabona and I started a discussion on some of the alternative WordPress business out there, other than the usual plugin or theme development.

In part 2 we continue that discussion, delving into the world of teaching WordPress and teaching others how to run a WordPress business. Our discussion ranges from our irritation with those who think building WordPress sites for clients is easy, to the importance of finding the right name for a business, and why we need to educate the WordPress community about all this and more.

Joe is graciously offering all Mastermind.fm listeners with a 50% discount on his “Creating Online Courses” course. It teaches you how to build online courses and Joe shares his own experiences with you along the way. Just click here and follow the steps to get half off using the discount code MASTERMIND.Creating Online Courses by Joe Casabona Creator Courses

 

Show Notes

Episode 90 – James & Jean Discuss the Future of Mastermind.fm

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In today’s episode, Jean and James discuss their retirement from Mastermind.fm and usher in a new era during which the show will be hosted by Mark Zahra.

We discuss what’s been going on in our lives and businesses over the past year and how we arrived to the decision to stop hosting the show. It’s definitely been a great run however it is now time for someone else to take over, and we are convinced that Mark will be doing a great job. You’ve already heard Mark on some of the last few episodes, and one of the main reasons why we decided to keep the show going is because we both really enjoyed listening to these last few episodes.

We talk about what’s next for us in business and also discuss some of our recently discovered productivity hacks and books we read. Since there’s lots of changes happening in our business lives lately, we also discuss the topic of change and evolving. It seems that as we age and also gain more and more experience in the business world, our desires change, and one thing we both feel is a stronger attraction towards brick-and-mortar businesses, which we might be getting into in the near future.

James is certainly not retiring from podcasting, in fact he is already running another show, Adventures in Businessing. He doesn’t exclude doing more shows and also recommends a few of his favorite podcasts during this episode.

For those of you who are interested in podcasting, James also shares his equipment setup towards the end of the show. If you’re looking after having a professional setup, you should definitely listen carefully to that part, while if you’re looking for a modest setup to just get started, check out the equipment mentioned by Jean.

It’s been a great experience for us doing this podcast, and we highly appreciate the support from our audience. It would be awesome if you could take a few minutes to leave a review on iTunes and let us know what you like and want to hear more about in future episodes hosted by Mark. Thank you for everything!

Mentioned Resources

Episode 89 – Exploring Different WordPress Businesses with Joe Casabona – Part 1

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In this episode, Mark Zahra from WP Mayor, WP RSS Aggregator and EDD Bookings continues his foray into podcasting through a long discussion with Joe Casabona.

Joe Casabona has been around WordPress for many years, starting off like many of us building small WordPress sites, to now coaching and teaching others about WordPress and how to run a business around it.

Mark got in touch with Joe recently in the Post Status slack community and through their conversations, he learnt about how Joe transitioned from working for Crowd Favorite while working side-jobs as a freelancer to freelancing full-time in various, less-discussed areas of WordPress.

The call lasted almost an hour and a half. That’s why we have split the episode into two parts. In part one Mark and Joe discuss Joe’s background, the struggles he faced and benefits he got in transitioning to freelance, as well as his popular podcast, How I Built It, and what he has learnt from the interviews.

Given that the podcast has surpassed 67 episodes now, we hear Joe’s thoughts on WordPress businesses as well as development. The two then delve into the shifts that have been happening in the way products are built, the ways they are marketed, and the problems being faced by product owners today within the WordPress community.

The discussion finally turns to hosting a podcast and how this can be made into a business of its own. Similarly to Mastermind FM, Joe’s podcast began as a mastermind with other individuals and grew from there.

Part two, which will be coming in a couple of weeks, will discuss other projects that Joe has undertaken – a WordPress Business Coaching Program as well as Creator Courses. Sign up below to get notified when it’s published.

Show Notes:

Episode 88 – Why Great Customer Service Succeeds, with Expert Shep Hyken

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Mark Zahra takes over for the first episode of 2018 to discuss a topic he has grown passionate for; customer service.

Having been involved in support for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin for around 3 years, growing from a support engineer to head of support, and now being part of the team preparing the EDD Bookings plugin for its re-launch, Mark strives to improve the customer service their team provides.

As part of his research, he came across a Facebook live video hosted by HelpScout CEO Nick Francis, in which Nick interviews Customer Service expert Shep Hyken. After getting in touch with the two, Mark reached out to Shep who agreed to be a part of this Mastermind.FM episode.

Shep gives us a brief overview of his background and what led him to becoming a customer service and experience expert, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author, as well as being inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement in the speaking profession.

Mark goes on to ask Shep a number of questions regarding how support differs between large companies such as Amazon and the smaller teams in the WordPress eco-system. This leads to a discussion about the words “satisfied” and “fine”, and how these are not words you want to hear as the individual providing support.

The discussion then turns onto customer loyalty, first and last impressions, and how you should be handling upset or irate customers. For anyone that has provided any form of customer service, you would know that these situations are inevitable, so knowing how to deal with them is of utmost importance.

Last but not least, Mark and Shep discuss a few tools that can be used for customer service, from chat to social media. Shep goes as far as to discourage the use of a ticketing system, which is something that is widespread in the world of WordPress plugins and themes. Can this change in the future with the introduction of other tools such as live chat and chatbots?

There are also a couple of fun, short stories from Shep’s experiences thrown in there that we’re sure you’ll love. If you don’t, well then, customer service isn’t for you.

Shep Hyken is the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations.

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