The WP Minute+

Kurt von Ahnen: Hey everybody.

Welcome back to another fantastic episode
of whose WordPress Agency is this.

Anyway, my name is Kurt Van Onan and I'm
here with my wonderful co-host, Toby Kres.

And, we have a ton of
stuff to go through today.

I hope that you find it fun.

Toby, welcome to the call.

Toby Cryns: Thanks, Kurt.

So, a friend of mine was conversing with,
I was conversing with him earlier today.

and, He, the way he explained, I, I am,
I'm interpreting here, but he blew a big

sale, like a big sale by my standard,
like the dollar amount was more than

I've ever charged, put it that way.

and how he blew it, it made me think
like our businesses are defined by sales.

There's.

Nothing else that defines
it more than sales.

did you sell or did you not sell?

And it, it occurred to me that I've
done what he did probably many times.

And the gist of it is like usually
like, not always, but usually like

the more bureaucratic the organization
that you're dealing with, the

more meetings you're gonna have.

Yeah.

Just in the sales cycle, the more
they're gonna ask of you to, for

free stuff before they actually
pay you or sign any agreement.

Free time, free RFP responses, free ideas.

And so he's gone through and
he's been, communicating with

me for months now about this.

'cause I, I had actually
sent him the lead months ago.

'cause I didn't, I didn't wanna do it.

I, I know that that's a thing.

Like, I was like, I don't
wanna go to these meetings.

So I gave him the lead.

That's a lot of baggage.

Would you like to do it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it was a good lead
if you're into that.

and so.

I, I'm guessing this was like the sixth or
seventh meeting that he's had with them.

And, the gist of it, this is
how he explained it to me.

He is like, I think I blew it.

and I'm interpreting he sounded like
he went in there tired and ornery.

And pissy.

Mm-hmm.

Have you ever done that current?

Kurt von Ahnen: Well, I have, you
know, it's, it's amazing because,

being in business for decades.

Lends a lot of expertise
should we say, right?

That, that people new to,
to industry don't expect.

I have a saying in my training and it
is focused on the relationship and the

transactions will naturally follow.

If you are so focused on transaction,
you'll blow the relationship and the

relationship is what makes the sale.

So I always say focus
on the relationship and.

The transaction will naturally occur
and yeah, if you're ornery, if you're

tired, if you're tired of the BS and
another free meeting and a, you know,

what probably happens, especially in
these big situations is you end up

spending a bunch of time with soldiers
on the ground and you never get to, to

meet the general and get the approval.

It just seems like it
goes on and on and on.

I have shortcut this immensely
in my last 15 years of business.

I ask people straight up, Hey, is the
decision maker in this room today?

Are, are we moving forward or not?

And I set my expectations accordingly.

but that's part of the relationship.

If you are hungover, if you're sick.

If your kids kept you up all night, if
your spouse had you in the hospital,

you know, for, I had a mountain bike
race last weekend, two weekends ago,

and it was a husband and wife coaching
duo, and the woman of the couple had

an, an appendicitis had to go to the
hospital in the middle of the night.

Well, I didn't, we didn't need
either one of those coaches coming

to work with the kids that day.

You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm.

You haven't slept in mm-hmm.

40 hours.

cancel the appointment, reschedule,
put, make sure that you can show

up in a good frame of mind, because
if you are not in the proper frame

of mind, you're gonna blow it.

Toby Cryns: Yeah.

And I think like I.

That's, so that's something
that I continually learned.

It happened to me earlier this year, and
thankfully I had somebody set me straight

before I attended the meeting because
I was like, ah, we're not, it's one of

these things like, we're not quite ready.

It wasn't even like
that was in a bad mood.

It was just like, we're not quite ready.

And my, SEO guy, it was an SEO pitch.

He's like, Toby, let's cancel the
meeting and postpone it till we're ready.

Like, and, and he was
totally right, you know?

Yeah.

And I think.

What you said is spot on.

You're probably better off
canceling and rescheduling

Kurt von Ahnen: And there are
so many ways to do that where

you keep pride as a thing.

I.

Right, and I always say, you should
put pride in your back pocket.

Humility is much more attractive
than pride, but still there.

You don't wanna look like a moron, right?

So in your case, like you're preparing
for an SEO pitch, you're not quite ready.

It is so much better to just call the
client and say, Hey, I know we had an

appointment scheduled, but I really
want to value your time and I don't feel

like we're properly prepared to execute
this meeting at a high level right now.

Can we reschedule so we can be.

You know, more cognizant of the time
you're investing with us and make sure we

really bring the value and they're gonna
go, how are they gonna argue with that?

Right.

They're gonna go, okay, that
was transparent, helpful.

They thought about me.

Oh, perfect.

And then you buy yourself
the time and then you come in

and knock it out of the park.

Toby Cryns: Yeah, I think the, the,
maybe the moral of that story is

like, you might lose one out of
a hundred doing that, but like.

You're probably only putting
yourself in a stronger position.

Kurt von Ahnen: Yeah.

Yeah.

And I wanna be more, more forward.

I think here, Toby, I can tell that
you're a person that is, insightful and

self-reflecting and these types of things.

I am too, to a certain point.

And I think when we tell somebody.

Hey, I just really wanted to bring
some value to you and I'm not sure

we're at our A game right now.

Can we reschedule so that when
we see you, we bring our A game?

I just have a feeling that your a
game when you show up prepared is

probably a plus, plus plus compared
to the competition in your area.

Toby Cryns: And that's a great point.

Yeah.

Kurt von Ahnen: And, and if I'm just
being blunt, part of the strength of

dealing with Ano Nomas is that when
Ano Nomas has a meeting to show you

something, I'm showing you something.

I'm not wasting your time
and talking about, well, what

if this and what if that?

I'm saying you, we did
your needs assessment.

These were the results
of the needs assessment.

Here's a statement of work we agreed
to, and here's our first version.

In a lot of cases, our first
version, the customers go Holy crud.

'cause they're used to
getting jerked around.

Toby Cryns: Mm-hmm.

Also, if I could push back a
little on this, all that is true.

And yet I found myself on a sales
call just a week ago where I was

like, what was the topic of this call?

Like, why am I here?

And it was a legit call, like that was
scheduled and I was just not prepared.

and I feel like on shows like
these, like it, it's easy.

Like what people say is
like oftentimes like.

We're perfect.

We never screw this up, but I
just wanna throw that out there.

I was on a call.

It went okay.

could have gone way better
had I been at all prepared.

it just, it was one of these things
that was like, oh, I'm supposed to

be at a meeting in five minutes.

Who's this person?

Like, I just screwed up that way.

so I don't know.

I just wanted to share that if there's
any, like, I don't know, inexperience,

sales, the WordPress agency owners like.

Sometimes you're, you're, you have
to show up, you know, like just by,

malfeasance on your, your end, you know?

Kurt von Ahnen: Well, what you're
describing though is really the difference

between being an entrepreneur, right?

Being an an agency owner versus.

You know, someone in a cubicle,
in a corporate setting, right?

If, if I can, I don't have nightmares
about it or anything like that, but

when I worked at Suzuki, that was a big
corporate office, you know, and there was,

they had 14, I wanna say 14, 14 meeting
rooms in that place, you know, and you

had to book a meeting room and then you
had to, you know, you had to, you had

to be there at a certain time and get
out at a certain time and this, and you

had to execute this and execute that.

but what I learned about
working there was I.

They judged you more about how
you executed the meeting process

than the actual work that was
the result of the meeting.

It was, it was so bizarre.

Yeah.

And then you flip the script and you go,
well, I'm an agency owner now, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so, yeah, I'm efficient with the
meeting, but where my margins come

to life is when my processes, you
know, form a, form a process that

makes, makes a deliverable happen
in a timeline that is much more

condensed than what the client expects.

Right.

Yeah.

And that's where the margins come to life.

Toby Cryns: Well, you bring up an
interesting point, like if, if I

was trying to land a job with Suzu,
Suzuki or some big organization,

pretty much every big organization, I
think is kind of what you described.

Like they care more
about appearances Yeah.

Than about, than the
actual, the other stuff.

Yeah.

you should keep that in mind too.

Right.

Kurt von Ahnen: Yeah, yeah.

Show up on time, be prepared,
present well in the meeting.

And then after the meeting, you know,
I focus on knocking it out of the park.

I've got some really great processes
that I use to run our bus project,

manage what we do with our, with
our different players on the team.

And, I, it's funny because people
say, what do you really do?

And I say, and I'm like, well,
I'm really a project manager.

I'm a much better project manager
than I am a website designer.

You know, it just happens.

I work in the web field, but I'm able
to orchestrate people from all over

the globe on these different things
and have everything fall together

like a Lego set so that the project is
complete when it's due and under budget.

So that to me is what people
are really coming to me for.

all that creative stuff and all that
weird talk that people are having

now about vibe coding and all this
stuff, I think that's like superfluous

to what we actually deliver.

Toby Cryns: That's interesting.

Like, was talking with another friend
this week about, he's dealing with a,

a crappy project manager on a agency.

He's working, he owns an agency.

They're doing work for another agency and
he was like, this is the third project

manager I've worked with at this company.

The first two were great.

This one's new and he sucks, and like.

I used to think project manager
not long ago, like five years ago.

I was like, Ugh, I would hate to
be considered a project manager.

They make less money.

They have no power.

They get all the pressures, but I.

It is, it is true like it is if
you're an agency owner, it's one way

you can make your mark is like, if
you're a great project manager, you

don't have to be great at coding.

You don't have to be great at a lot
of other stuff, especially if you're

going for these bigger contracts.

'cause it's more about the process
than it is about the deliverable.

Kurt von Ahnen: Like, yeah.

Yeah.

I can't tell you how many times,
especially in the enterprise marketplace

of the bigger ticket jobs, and this is.

We talked about this on a couple
episodes ago where we said sometimes

the more money, the easier the job.

some of these enterprise jobs, I'll
say, oh, well we're working on this

design nuance, or We're, and, and
they just go, yeah, we don't care.

Where are the courses at?

You know, where, where's the function?

So how do I change a member's grade?

Like that's, that's what they care about.

And they don't care about, you know, this
widget, the shade of blue on this button.

They, you know, the, you
know, this has a drop shadow.

Like, they don't care
about any of that stuff.

It seems like they might down downstream,
but to launch the product, they're

more like, we're on a timeline.

We made a promise this would be
ready to go by such and such a date.

How we coming?

And it's, it's the small projects.

You know, where people have no paying
customers yet, they're launching

their first course, and they're like,
I really wanted a different shade

of blue with a drop shadow, and I
want a higher radius on this button.

And you're like, your
course isn't done yet.

Right.

You're selling a course, but you
don't have any course content.

And like, yeah, but I really want the
website to have a certain look and feel.

Toby Cryns: Right?

Yeah, totally.

Well, and and, and anybody who sells.

Every day knows, like all,
none of that stuff matters.

None of it matters.

Like, like it's what you're saying,
like, do they trust me or not?

Kurt von Ahnen: Like Yeah.

so I know we're off the rails, but
on a percentage basis, what the

clients you work with, how many
of them say, wow, I really need to

customize the, the, the checkout page.

Toby Cryns: Close to 0%.

Oh, yours?

Because the convers
conversations don't go there.

How about you

Kurt von Ahnen: like, it's
in the, in the courses space?

I ca Well, 'cause I do
support for lifter LMS, right?

So in the courses space, I,
I need to customize this.

How do I customize the checkout page?

How do I customize the login page?

And I'm like, if you've
already sold the course,

what, what is it about the checkout
page that you think is gonna change

their mind about buying your course?

Right, because the, the page was designed
to convert so other people that are

smarter than you, that, that, that
have paying customers, develop this.

And you are brand new to the space.

You don't have any paying customers
yet, but you want to customize

all of these, you know, dynamic.

Pages that are, they're templates.

They're, they're made a certain
way on purpose and, and it's,

the responses are always unique.

I'm always amazed.

'cause I, I always say, what about, you
know, what about the login page makes you

think someone's gonna ask for a refund?

They already paid and, and ran

people.

Toby Cryns: You're, it's not
your, it's not your pricing.

It's not your login page.

That's the problem.

It's the login page.

Kurt von Ahnen: Don't sell.

It's the login page.

They, they bought the course and,
and the course has value, but this

login page is just too much friction.

It's too much friction.

Toby Cryns: Yep.

Yep.

That's funny.

Yeah.

I, I always think like, just in general,
any question, any tech question, I'm

always like, how is this making you money?

If we do.

Like, how does this make you
more money if we fix this?

Like, and you can put,
insert any question in there.

Kurt von Ahnen: Well, and I feel
like, and I gotta remember that we

are making a show, Toby, you and I are
making a show that is for, agencies,

people that own agencies, and a lot
of these agencies are making marketing

products, brochure style websites.

So maybe they're not all about conversion.

Maybe they're not all about how many
people get to the checkout page.

A lot of websites don't have those things.

Mm-hmm.

But then it, it still comes to light of,
you know, how much of your time as an

agency owner is driven by nonsensical
nuance as opposed to core features

that drive functionality and make your
site do what it's supposed to do well.

Toby Cryns: Yeah.

And, yeah, exactly.

this kind of brings up another,
thing that I've been experiencing.

I'm selling my, I have.

I have an old house, a house that
we just moved out of that we're

selling and we're having like,
emotional, we're in like an emotional

low 'cause nobody wants to buy it.

And we're like, why not?

It's a great house.

and it reminded me of, there's this idea,
I think there's a book called The Messy

Middle, but the idea that like when you're
deep in a long project, the middle is.

Mucky or messy.

Like it's just, and I was thinking
like Frodo on Mount Doom, if you read

Lord of the Rings, this isn't in the,
the movie, I don't think, but like

he's sitting on Mount Doom with, with
Sam Wise and he's like, we're in the

middle of a great story and yeah,
we might die, but isn't this cool?

Isn't this cool?

and I was thinking like, I think all
businesses on all big projects, they

get, it gets really messy and mucky and.

It, it's hard for us as like the delivery
people to see through it, but I was

curious, Kurt, from your perspective.

You know, I think in general, businesses
try to, help, like part of our job is

to help our clients not see the muck
and to kind of like steer their eyes

to the things that are important.

But how do you communicate?

The mucky muck with clients and how
do you help them see through the

muck in the middle of a big project?

Kurt von Ahnen: I think that's
an unfair question to ask me if

we're thinking about parlaying this
information to other agency owners.

know, because I authored the book on
leadership and stuff like that, so I

come down to, I have some, people say
scripts are nasty, like salespeople

that use scripts, like that's nasty.

But what I call these is like.

verbal muscle memory, right?

So I have this verbal, verbal muscle
memory that I use with people.

Let's say I'm in the middle of a
project and it just seems like you get

to, like, you got the website, so you
got the WordPress tools in and you got

the, the plugins in, and you've got
the basic formatting and configuration

done, and you're starting to put in
the content, and then the, the client

just starts getting like all fractured.

Like they're just all over the place.

And that's kinda that
mucky middle thing, right?

a lot of times.

And, and this is, this is the
reason that I stopped telling

people I was a WordPress agency.

I'm not a WordPress agency.

I am a business consultancy.

And so I say, well, let's get,
let's get down to brass tacks.

What is it that you truly
deliver as a business?

What are your core ideologies
that you deliver as a business?

How do you deliver those, those
items, those goods or those services?

Right?

And then as we build the product
to message those items out.

If they start getting all weird and
distracted in the middle of the project,

I just say, Hey, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Let, let's gather up.

Let's circle the wagons and let's focus
again on what your core deliverables are

and how this website communicates that.

And then I say, my goal is to get
you published as soon as possible.

And we can always augment, modify, and
change as we go, but let's get you to a

launch date as quickly as possible with
a minimal viable product so that we can

start to communicate with your audience.

And that seems to get them back on track.

Like, 'cause then I go, so let's
get back to what are the minimal

viable requirements that we
need for this project to launch?

And, and that gets 'em refocused and
we just start to get back on point.

And it's, it becomes a, like,
smart goal setting, right?

is it strategic?

Is it measurable?

Is it achievable?

Is it time related?

And I just, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Right?

Toby Cryns: yeah.

And I imagine it's also like
self-talk, like Kurt, you know?

'cause they're asking all these weird
questions maybe in the middle and

you're like, Kurt, what's the goal here?

You know, sometimes like, what
are we trying to achieve today?

Kurt von Ahnen: Yeah.

What, yeah.

'cause it so many times I was just, I mean
this is so uncanny, but I was on a call

today with a client and they're building a
membership learning website and they were.

These membership tools are very confusing
because they install a membership

tool and most people don't recognize
there's nothing in there to manage

members in a membership tool like these.

I shouldn't say membership
tools, the community sites.

Mm-hmm.

So fluent community, body
boss, all these things.

They don't have tools that
manage the membership side of it.

And so you have these tools
and they're like, so how does

someone get to the newsfeed?

How does someone, I don't want
those people to get to the newsfeed.

They didn't buy the membership.

And I'm like, that's 'cause we need a
membership tool to be able to manage who

gets access to what levels of the site.

And you have to break all that down
and the customers start getting like,

poof, like fireworks have gone off and
the A DH D's kicking in and they're

just picking stuff outta the sky.

Yep.

And that's when I go, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

We gotta slow this down.

Let's put in a membership tool who
gets access to the community site.

Great.

We'll run that by tags.

We'll run that through the fluent CRM.

We'll do an automation.

We'll send an email and they
get access to that link.

Perfect.

We're done.

And then they go, oh, how did you do that?

I've been doing it for 22 years.

You know, let's, let's just
get you to the next problem.

This one's solved.

Toby Cryns: So you've just been
describing some really smart

decisions you've made, just like a
process for smart decision making.

But what's the worst business
decision you've ever made?

Kurt von Ahnen: I'm not gonna share her
name because I don't wanna get sued.

we all do it.

I think no matter the size of
your business, you're tempted to

do it like you talk to a client
or you're referred to a client.

So in this case, I was referred
to a client and I didn't wanna

look foolish in front of the
person that made the referral.

I wanted to honor that person.

And so I gave them too much time on
a call and I gave them too much free

information, and then they decided I
was a genius and wanted to hire me, and

the needs assessment wasn't really fully
done, but I threw a number out there

like, yeah, I can make it happen for this.

The person that made the referral.

Actually side stepped part of the project.

And so I should have been going through
that person and they should have been

the point of contact for the client.

But what happened was the client ended
up being a direct point of contact

with me and then tried to like, after
the fact say, well, I was under the

impression it was gonna this, it was
gonna, that it was gonna, the other

thing, and here's the truth of it, and
I'm just gonna be blunt and say it.

We needed the money.

Right.

So I was like, ah, do I give this person
their money back and tell 'em to hit the

skids or do I keep the project every time?

You have that doubt,
this is coming from me.

Give the money back, figure
it out some other way.

Give the money back.

this woman was incredibly unethical.

I wanna put this in my disclaimers.

I want to do this.

I, I'm gonna take this material
from this person's website and

embed it in my own website.

It's like horribly unethical things.

And I'm like, I can't do that for you.

And then every time I would call
her unethical for something,

she would get more angry at me.

so I built the website.

It was fully functional,
fully operational.

I gave her access to the website.

And then she disputed her fee with Stripe.

And Stripe took all the money.

So I did months of work.

I took hours and hours and hours of
Zoom calls I never should have taken.

And I worked with somebody that I
thought was a horrible, horrible person.

And I did it all in good faith
with a smile thinking at least I'm

getting paid and we need the money.

Mm-hmm.

And at the end, she stole the work, stole
the money, and Stripe never gave it back.

Yeah.

So that was my worst decision because
I knew I shouldn't have worked

with the person, but I did anyway.

Yeah.

How about you?

What's your worst decision?

Toby Cryns: Yeah, I think, it's
similar actually in the sense like,

it's like, you know, once you have
an established business and you're

like doing okay and you think you
can make it another month without a

whole problem occurring financially,

Kurt von Ahnen: you're gonna
buy meat instead of just beans.

Toby Cryns: Yeah.

Yeah.

but like, so I was working, the,
the gist of it is similar, but

like I did it for the money.

Like, and I, I shouldn't have, like I, I
knew in my heart, in my head that in I was

at a, a point where I could have walked
away and I stayed on for another three

months and took on a huge responsibility.

You know, just basically continued with
a different responsibility on a, and.

Like I re it, it didn't, you know, it was
just kinda like, yeah, the money was good.

They ended up paying, but like,
at the same time, it was like

a regret.

And this is the, the
lesson of a money ball too.

At the end when, Brad Pitt's, I don't
know if it, again, it might just be in

the book, but like basically Brad Pitt's
sitting there, uh uh, and the gist is

like, you shouldn't do it for the money.

Shouldn't do it for the money.

Yeah.

Doesn't matter how.

And he got offered millions
and millions, not Brad Pitt,

but his character in real life.

Billy Beam got offered
millions of dollars to skip.

His thing was he skipped college
and went straight to the pros.

But what he really wanted to
do was go to college and party

and play baseball in college.

so, yeah, if you can swing it now,
I'm not saying sometimes you need

the money and you, you know, you
do the best you can, but, I think

you gotta at least listen to your.

Head and heart in those cases.

And maybe that when you feel that
maybe it's like about setting better

boundaries around the project.

Yeah.

When you feel that.

Kurt von Ahnen: So I'm gonna hit
you with a personal question.

Hindsight being 2020, if you look
back, did you need the money?

Toby Cryns: No, not, oh, you mean,
for that project specifically?

Exactly.

Or No, I didn't.

I didn't.

Kurt von Ahnen: And that's
exactly where my head goes.

So when, so in the moment, we panic
and, and we don't allow ourselves to

make calm decisions, and that's when
we make bungled decisions and moves.

So when I look back on this
project, this project, by the way,

full disclosure, was only $3,000.

the amount of Zoom calls alone was worth
$3,000, let alone the woman was doing.

This woman was so greedy and so crazy
that she was, she was like a lunatic.

The reason I knew that she was
gonna ask for a refund was the last

Zoom call I had with her was in
one of those pay by the day motels.

Like she turned on the zoom call
and there was like a tornado

had went off in this hotel room.

And I'm like, what happened to her office?

Where's her house?

Where's where is this woman?

You know?

And I was like, oh, she's broke.

And now she's gonna
ask for her money back.

Right?

But it's like you see it and you know it.

And I foolishly stuck with the project
and looking back, hindsight being

2020, I didn't need that $3,000.

I didn't need that $3,000 at all.

Yeah, we just talked on our last
episode about how sometimes you fire

customers and, and when you let something
go, something better comes along.

Mm-hmm.

And right after she got all of her
money back from Stripe, I landed like

three great jobs right after that.

Yeah.

And I had the opportunity to
take great jobs before that

if I wasn't working with her.

Yeah.

You know?

Mm-hmm.

We gotta patient and we
gotta make smart choices.

Toby Cryns: And this, this leads me
to, A quote, somebody said maybe a

week or so ago, it says, at what point
do you say even your husband couldn't

take your BS and then set them loose,

even your husband couldn't take your bs.

Kurt von Ahnen: Would you
ever say that to somebody?

Toby Cryns: I wouldn't.

Would you, Kurt?

Kurt von Ahnen: No.

No.

I, I might rephrase it some,
but but I, I wouldn't say that.

yeah, when people act nuts, when they act.

Disconnected and, and crazy.

You gotta circle the wagons, man.

And you gotta be direct and be a
leader and say, Hey, as, as someone

that's managing this project, I feel
like we're off the rails a little bit.

We gotta gather this back up.

I've worked with projects before.

I have seen, I worked with
a wonderful lesbian couple.

They were hilarious.

And, we, we didn't align on
certain beliefs and stuff,

but, but they were hilarious.

Like they were, they,
they were into other like.

I'm a Christian, they were in other kinds
of religions and things and and then they

ended up breaking up through the deal.

But I saw it happening, like I saw
like, oh, they're not gonna make it.

and it's weird when you're just
a web person and you're working

on a project with a couple,
you can tell something's wrong.

I was doing one on a beautiful
couple from, Texas and.

they had someone in their family had
gotten injured and that postponed

the project for a little bit.

And then they're an older couple.

One of them started getting a
little more sickly, and I was

like, this ain't gonna work.

This ain't gonna work.

And we were so close to
launch and it never launched.

Right.

divorces, deaths, strokes, heart attacks.

I've seen it all.

Oh, yeah.

The divorce ones are hard
because it's like mm-hmm.

Who's in charge of the project then?

Right.

From a selfish perspective, who's, who am
I sending these invoices to Every month

Toby Cryns: there's an agency
in town that's going a bigger,

a bigger, agency in town.

They're going through a divorce
thing with their two co-owners.

I mean, the owners are
married, they're, you know.

Yeah.

And, and the, I only know 'cause my
friend was an employee there and like.

He's like, it's weird man, because like
one spouse will come and tell him to do

something, the other spouse will show up
a minute later and be like, don't do that.

Do this, don't do that, do this.

He's just like, I'm in the middle
of a freaking divorce thing now.

Like, yep.

Could we, Maybe, this might be the,
the all we have time for today.

We left a cliffhanger last week.

the question was, is managed WP dying,
but over the course, the course of the

week, I kind of was thinking about it
more deeply and the question is not for

me, it's not so much is managed WP dying.

That's a question I have, but
like the core of the question is

at what point as an agency owner
do you jump ship on a technology?

That is no longer getting the job done
for you and you have, knowing you have.

And so examples for me over the course
of time, 15 years ago, host Gator.

I jumped host Gator to someone else.

And, you know, divvy was a core
development tool I used to use.

I no longer use it.

we currently use Basecamp
for project management.

We're switching to Clickup and All
of these are big processes, have big

processes along, along with them.

'cause we have employees and a hundred
websites that we're migrating in some

cases and, you know, so when, how do
you think about infrastructure change

like that, like tech infrastructure?

Kurt von Ahnen: You mentioned
one that scares the, the, the

life outta me and that is.

If you as an agency wanna migrate
50 or a hundred or 200 or 400

websites, from one host to another.

And I'm gonna go back to, hey, if these
are brochure websites and you can do

like, you know, WP Vivid, vivid, WP,
whatever, and just migrate simple

sites over, like that's okay, great.

Perfect.

Whatever.

Have a great day.

Enjoy yourself.

If you're doing projects that have.

you know, shopping carts, courses,
you know, e-learning systems in them,

community sites, dynamic content where
like, this person paid a subscription

at midnight, but the website was
turned off at 1202 and then turned

back on at six o'clock in the morning.

And then.

All of those transactions for those eight
hours don't get recorded in the database.

Right?

And then you get all these support emails.

It just, managing it is crazy.

'cause then you end up
having to say, Hey Mr.

Customer, we're gonna be doing some
site maintenance, quote unquote, and

you're gonna be down for 24 hours.

And then you gotta pray that you
can get everything done in 24 hours.

it is difficult.

And I'm gonna go one step further.

I have been working in a host lately.

I can't explain it, Toby.

Everything is just more difficult.

Everything is more difficult, and
it's, it's a co-hosted, not co-hosted.

It's a, it's a co-managed situation,
so we're basically subcontracting

on this and it's like everything
needs an external crown job set up.

Everything needs PHP workers increased.

Everything needs, it's like what
is happening, like the sites

don't seem to function well unless
we dot every I across every T.

Whereas in other hosts, I go.

Slap up the website, put in
the tools, add an SMTP, Bob's

your uncle, we got a website.

and it's, it's just not
the same with other tools.

And you as an agency man, you gotta
know what you're getting into.

You can't just say, you know, how
many sites for how many dollars a

month and how do I access support?

And then move everything over.

You gotta know what you're
really stepping into.

Toby Cryns: And, and I think there's
a, a, a pretty big difference.

So like a lot of those
migrations probably.

Need like an internal person?

Yeah, like ideally it would
be like some employee at the

company that knows the system.

and a lot of times in agency land you
don't have that we're like external.

We're like just like, yeah,
we're gonna migrate the site.

You know, we don't know, we don't
know the business processes as deeply.

I moved, migrated, so I used to
work at Lumi deodorant and I was

their CTO and I managed a migration
of 300,000 WordPress users.

to Shopify users.

And these are paid
subscriptions and stuff?

Yeah.

we did it at noon.

This is a funny story too.

I'm, I it was my choice.

I'm like, we're doing it at
noon on a Friday and here's why.

And yeah, no noon on a Monday.

I think it was a Tuesday.

I'm like, we're doing it.

And this was pre-planned
and, and it was intentional.

'cause like how many times have
you experienced maybe like, we

need you to do this at midnight.

And you wake up at midnight, you
do it, but you're groggy, you miss

something, and then you go to bed,
and then in the morning there's

more problems because you miss those
eight hours or whatever, 1700 emails.

yeah.

And so I, I, I still get flack from it,
from the Lumi team because I'm like,

no, we're doing this at noon on Tuesday.

We're gonna have a good plan.

I'll be fully ready to go.

You'll be here to notice any issues.

We have everyone on the phone, like at the
distribution center, like, but that, like

for a lot of these, I imagine a lot of the
sites you would have to migrate if they

have a lot of like thousands of users.

You've, it's really tough to
do externally as an agency.

Kurt von Ahnen: Yeah.

In.

Upgrading.

So if you're on certain host packages
and you upgrade to a different

type of server within their system,
that always amazes me, right?

Because you can just hit them up on chat
and say, oh, I wanna move this website

to this other, you know, upgrade server.

And they just go, hold on, let me
look at that for you real quick.

And then 10 minutes later,
like, okay, it's ready to go.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm not a host.

Like I, I'm like, how did
that happen so quickly?

I go into the website, everything
works, everything's 10 times faster,

and you go, oh, that was great.

But if you gotta take that same
project and you gotta take it from,

you know, cloud ways to Kinter,
Kinter to WP Engine or whatever, it's.

It's a nightmare moving thousands of
users and all their content and then

doing that whole like screenshot exercise.

Like, okay, does the
homepage look the same?

Does the about page look the same?

Does the contact page look the same?

And then let's try and do a I.

You know, a make believe student
enrollment with a 99% off coupon.

And so we try that.

Then we go, oh crap, that doesn't work.

What's broken?

And then you gotta go through, okay,
you know, SMTP external chron, you, you

gotta make sure all the everything's
in place it, and then multiply that by

50 websites in a weekend or something.

It's crazy.

Toby Cryns: Yeah.

And it's weird that the in as I
thought about that, like the incentive

structure, it, it's, it's really.

The reason you need an internal
person for that migration is

like they're incentivized to
think through all those problems.

Whereas like an external agency like we
run, the incentives are just different.

Like we're not, even if we got fired, it's
probably not the end of our world like it

would be if you were an employee there.

and is they also like every minute
we spend on that project is a minute

we don't spend on another project.

Yep.

And other client's not getting
the attention, you know, the

phone call that they need where
I'm, you know, it's tricky.

It's really tricky, I think to
navigate as an agency owner.

Yeah.

Kurt von Ahnen: Yeah,
it's, I kind of dread it.

It's, I remember when I went
from, I used to have a ton of

stuff on Bluehost back in the day.

and I think a lot of
agencies start out this way.

So if you're in that position, don't
go, oh, Kurt's making me feel bad.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad.

You gotta start somewhere.

I used to love Bluehost 'cause I could
register unlimited URLs and I could

throw sites into my hosting account
and I could move things around.

And they were great for
like, proof of concept sites.

You know, like if I, I, I could throw a
lifter, LMS in there and, and I could,

you know, put in content and build a
course and let people see a sample of

what something was gonna look like.

But sooner or later I had projects
that had more success, more users,

and I had to say, okay, I need, I need
more bandwidth, I need less caching.

I need, you know, 'cause these
dynamic sites, if they're heavily

cashed, run into some problems.

And so I ended up having to move
some things over to a different host.

And that to me was like, oh, this is work.

This is, this is difficult.

And so now I try really hard to do
the research before the decision and

then make sure that when I make that
decision, I'm locked in for a while.

Toby Cryns: Yeah.

Yeah.

That's, the scars have bred
that planfulness in you.

Kurt von Ahnen: Yeah.

And then the other thing to
remember, and this is gonna, this

is just agency to agency advice.

If you choose a host that has a
bunch of extra bells and whistles,

just remember the people that you're
developing these projects for.

They don't need those bells and whistles.

Like, I don't share everything that
my host will do with my clients.

There's no way, like I'm not
gonna say, oh, you could have

unlimited emails on your URL.

Like, I'm right.

I'm just not, I am not babysitting 25.

Email accounts on, you know, well, I want
to have help at my URL services at my URL

uhhuh people at my u rl support at my url.

No, you don't.

No, you, you want info at
your URL and that's it.

That's all you get.

That is all you get.

That's all you get what email for you?

Yeah.

You could sign up for Google
Workspaces That'll run your email.

but it's, I'm very strategic about the way
that I manage that because even though the

host I chose will do all kinds of really
cool things, I am not giving my clients

exposure to the really cool things that
I have to manage and, and maintain and,

and keep the expectation level high with.

'cause all they really
wanted was the website.

Toby Cryns: Mm-hmm.

Cool.

Great way to end it.

Here, I'll take this out.

This has been an episode of
whose WordPress agency is this?

Anyway, with Kurt Van Onin and myself, Mr.

Toby Kres.

we'll see you next week.