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With Jean absent this Episode, James has Chris Wallace on to guest host.

(Nope, not THAT Chris Wallace.)

This is the Chris of Lift UX, Faithmade, ChurchThemes, Remote Jobs, etc…who is just as good, if not better than THAT  Chris Wallace.

(No offense to the Fox News anchor.)

Topics Include:

• James inquires about Andy Wilkerson’s recent acquisition of UpThemes and Chris’s branding.
• Chris talks faith, in correlation to his businesses.
• Chris talks about working with AMC and developing their second screen experiences.
  • Pioneering a new way to watch and interact with TV.
• What’s next in line for Chris and team.
• James talks plans for his own team at WP Ninjas come 2017.
• Working with a small team
  • Team Culture
  • Personal Challenges
  • “I’m not building a business. I’m building a team, and THEY’RE building a business.” – James
  • Chris on functioning as a remote team.
  • James on having local office oriented team.
  • What is culture?
    • “What you allow, what you disallow, what you celebrate, what you discipline.”
    • “You can’t over communicate.” – Chris

Featured on the Show:

• UpThemes
• Lift UX
• Faithmade
• Remote Jobs
• ChurchThemes
• Pagely
• You can follow Chris on his Twitter @chriswallace
• …or at his personal blog, here!

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Guest hosting this episode, we have none other than WordPress giant, Chris Lema!

Blogger, consultant, motivational speaker, etc., Chris brings his experience and perspective to Mastermind.fm for your listening pleasure.

No matter your business, you’d be hard pressed to walk away from a talk with Chris and not learn something of value.

Topics Include:

• Chris’s take on CaboPress.
  • Motivations
  • Intention
  • Fruits of the Conference
    • Takeaways
• Pricing
  • Geographic Pricing
• Segmentation
• SAAS (Software as a Service)
  • Chris teases an upcoming solution.

Featured on the Show:

• CaboPress
• Chris’s Professional Website

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Our hosts are back after a busy time indeed.

Jean attended Web Summit in Portugal, James went to Cabo for CaboPress!

So, for your listening pleasure, the two of them sit down and jive about what they learned, big takeaways, and critiques of the conferences themselves.

Topics Include:

• Thorough CaboPress Overview
  • The unique approach to the session-less vacation conference.
  • Very Exclusive, with around 50 attendees.
  • Takeaways are applicable to any business.
  • Discussions on:
    • Branding
    • Hiring
    • Founder issues
    • Running/Building a SAAS (Software as a Service)
    • Acquisitions
    • Pricing
• Brief Web Summit Overview
  • Multi-conference approach
    • 1 ticket = access to 21 conferences
    • Over 50, 000 attendees!
  • Forward looking, all inclusive conference.
  • Featured something for virtually everyone, be it entrepreneur, big business, the tech savvy, analysts, etc.

Featured on the Show:

CaboPress

Web Summit

LifterLMS

PressNomics

Other Impressions on CaboPress:

Robby McCullough

Steph Wells

David Payette

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You read that right, back to basics it is!

James and Jean are back at it dialogue style, as you, the listener, are treated to pro-tips that are simple, often overlooked, and immensely beneficial.

In this episode, Mastermind.FM asks and elaborates on, “What’s your vision?”
“What’s the purpose of your company, and you as a business owner?”

Topics Include:

• The difference between a vision and a mission.
  • Defining both.
  • What you should be doing to promote each.
  • Finding values in the mission, or mission statement.
• Uniting your team by demonstrating your values.
  • “It’s good to be good.” Live it.
• Helping others be successful
  • Proving the best products, resources, and services available.
• How all of the above is ultimately cyclical.
• Tips on how to proceed in finding your mission and vision.
  • Determine what’s important.
  • What do you want to accomplish?
  • “Don’t be boring.”
  • “Be a cheerleader.”
• If you have a good team, you will be surrounded by good ideas.
• Correlating values and accountability.
• Just because a mission statement may sound generic, doesn’t mean it lacks heart.
  • Personalize your mission.
• Positivity, optimism, James’ essential core & how that drives him.
• Being organic.
• The Decision Matrix & why it’s awesome.

Switching things up in closing, both our hosts let loose some candid humor, letting their hair down, humbly requesting your continued feedback and input.
You, the listeners, have made this possible.
So too it is indeed, that you all continue to be the true drive behind Mastermind.FM.

Featured on the Show:

Apply Filters Podcast

Decision Matrix (further iteration)

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This episode James and Jean are joined by Robert Abela, an EU based freelance IT consultant and WordPress Security Professional with WP White Security.

Robert is a major player in advocacy for WordPress security, and owns the No. 1 WordPress Monitoring & Audit Trail Plugin. Additionally, aside from his own security blog, Robert is also a guest blogger on many web-security blogs and websites.

Topics Include:

• Robert’s journey with WordPress.
  • It all started as a hobby.
  • Robert developed on the side, but never considered himself a developer.
  • At the same time he had a WordPress security consultancy business.
  • He began working with a friend, but development was sporadic.
  • After searching on a shoestring budget, Robert started working with a part-time dev.
  • Started his premium add-on model.
  • A multitude of competitor plugins were launched.
    • His developer saw this as a sign of defeat and jumped ship.
    • To make things worse, competitors knew popular people in the community and received a lot of coverage.
  • Down but not out, Robert considered pulling the plug.
    • Unstable sales resulted in a personal lost of $8,000 in the first year.
    • Obligated to increase the sales – Robert sought to expose the add-ons without “in your face” advertising.
    • His execution resulted in increased revenue, sales, and popularity. $30+k revenue this year.
  • WP Security Audit Log is now the Number 1 plugin amongst its competitors (in terms of active downloads).
• Lessons learned:
  • Never give up, but be realistic!
  • Numbers/statistics are a good indication of how successful your product will be.
  • Keep an eye on the competition, though don’t let that hold back a good idea or plan.
  • It’s important to be first on the market, but it’s not the end of the world if you’re not.
  • Success is not easy! If it were easy, everyone would be successful.
• The Plugin/Security:
  • Hardening
  • Blocking (firewalls, etc.)
  • Control (privileges/permissions)
  • Logging
    • Keeping a watchful eye.
    • Easing the process of troubleshooting.
    • Detecting possible attack attempts.
    • Doing forensics work in the unfortunate case of a hack cleanup.

Featured on the Show:

• WP WhiteSecurity
• WP Security Audit Log
• Ninja Demo