The WP Minute+

Matt: Nat Miletich,
welcome to the WP Minute.

Nat: Nice.

Nice to be here.

Thanks for inviting me

Matt: I'd like to talk about the
challenges of freelancers running

a boutique agency, the general
throes of surviving as a small

business on the web these days.

But before we get to that, I know
you from your consistency and

your meme god levels on Twitter.

What's the secret there?

is that the biggest
marketing channel for you?

Nat: the, no, it's not.

It's actually probably my third biggest
and my first two are SEO and referrals.

but I love social media.

It's definitely a great marketing channel.

I've met a lot of cool people through
social media and I've really kind

of taken my agency to the next
level because of social media.

So I, I owe a lot to it,
but I also like to have fun.

I don't like to keep it
all like business on there.

So like, like it to be a bit
more entertaining than that.

Matt: you're the owner of Clio websites.

You can find it at C L I O web sites.

com.

a leading web design company, specializing
in custom websites, WordPress development,

and SEO challenge you for a little bit.

I know, we've chatted a bit
back and forth on Twitter.

I think at some point you were, recently
you were diving into web flow and you

kind of liked it, but hold that thought.

We're going to talk
about that in a moment.

where do you see.

The biggest challenges, maybe
for yourself, for small agencies

and freelancers who are focused
on WordPress headed into 2025.

Biggest challenges you
see headed into 2025.

Nat: I actually think for WordPress
agency specifically, it's sort of

that fragmentation of like different
ways of doing things in WordPress.

I think that, you know, WordPress
as a platform is, you know.

Solid choice.

I, we, you know, we keep investing in it.

I don't think it's going anywhere.

I think it has a bright future.

I think the biggest challenge for
people, especially new people trying

to get into things, and I can,
I'll provide some feedback and my

thoughts on that in a minute as well.

But I find if you're trying
to get into this sort of, you

know, WordPress landscape right
now, it's that fragmentation.

And, you know, because there's
like a million ways to make

a WordPress website, right?

You can use a page builder.

You can do a totally custom site.

You can use Gutenberg, full site
editing, you know, and depending on

which approach you take, it feels like.

You know, you, you might or might not
be setting yourself up for success.

Right.

so, so I think from my perspective, like
in the WordPress specifically in the

WordPress space, that's probably the
biggest challenge and the way to overcome

that challenge is to find something
that works for your agency or something

that you enjoy doing as a freelancer.

If it's a.

Website builder.

Great.

I mean, a page builder.

Great.

If it's a custom developed sites,
great, but, you know, focus on

one of those, learn it deeply and
kind of pursue it, you know, as a

solution that you offer to everybody.

Matt: The listener knows that I ran
an agency for about a decade, ran it

with my father still runs it today.

This goes back, I left the
agency when I started having kids

because I needed to make money.

So, it was about eight years ago.

Every agency owner knows that, you
know, you're a paycheck away from

bankruptcy when it comes to, you
know, clients and stuff like that.

But, when I started, it was
just like, hey, let me cast this

wide net, let me do anything.

Anything to get, revenue in the door.

I'm talking, again, way back, business
cards, logo design, like, whatever.

Social media management.

This was just casting this wide net.

And I quickly learned, like,
okay, I really need to dial in,

build a team, hyper focused on
WordPress, and get specialized.

Which then led me down a path of
going, my god, I can't stand the

web designer who comes in and
sells a website for 500 bucks.

Man, it drives me nuts.

Do you If you remember those days,
15, 18 years ago, do we, are we

challenged with that same like entry
level competition these days or is

now our competition like, Oh, our
customer can just do it themselves.

Now we really just have to skip ahead
and build them that five to 10, 000

website straight out of the gate.

Nat: Yeah, that's a great question.

And I think it kind of depends on where
you are at with your, in your journey.

I mean, like you said, it's tough, you
know, when you're getting started, how

do you distinguish yourself, especially
if you don't have a portfolio, if you

don't have clients, you don't have
referrals, you don't have contacts.

Right.

how do you 500 website?

Right.

That somebody else is going
to create, and get clients.

It's tough.

I think I'm not going to lie.

Like I think in the beginning stages,
that's probably the biggest challenge.

one of the mistakes I think I made
like early on is the same thing,

like trying to do everything at once.

I think there's a real
value in niching down.

Not niching down necessarily like,
you know, super niche out of the gate

because, you know, that's going to
be tough as well, but keeping it,

you know, sort of wide enough that
you open yourself up to, you know,

more opportunities, but then also.

Not trying to do everything, not trying
to do social media, marketing, websites,

SEO, and you know, all these services
may be focusing on, you know, WordPress

development, let's say, that's still
niche enough, you know, something

that's more hyper niche would be.

you know, WordPress development for law
agencies or something like that, right?

that's something I probably
wouldn't recommend somebody go

into, sort of as a starting step.

But keeping it wide enough and still
sort of niche enough, you know, finding

that balance is probably a good way to
protect yourself a little bit from from

those, you know, 500 jobs or whatever.

However, that being said, when
you're getting started, you

do have to start somewhere.

So, you know, I always tell people
I, you know, I'm a part of a

freelancing community, for example,
and that's probably the most common

question people have is like,
you know, how do you get started?

How do you get those first few clients?

And the reality is you're probably gonna
have to make those 500 websites, you know,

for the first few times in order to build
your network and build up your portfolio.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Matt: One of the first sets of
clients that, my father and I ran into

because he had just a whole bunch of,
other professional colleagues that,

that he knew was a big law firm.

And I remember sitting in that
room and I was only at the time.

I don't know, early 30s
or late 20s at the time.

And we're like, yeah, we,
our proposal started 2, 500.

Right.

And then, you know, and I sit
in the room and there's like 12

attorneys and they're looking at me
and I'm looking at them and I go.

Did I say 2, 500?

I meant 250, 000.

I want to add a few zeros just looking
at you all sitting in this room.

And that was this quick lesson, you
know, that I learned about packaging,

you know, positioning, having a
portfolio that you can lean on

experience and all this other stuff.

What I'm seeing today is even with
AI, and we'll talk about that in a

moment and how fast you can rapidly
develop with AI and the pros and cons.

The point I'm making is like this.

Human connection, I think is still the
challenge, like it was a challenge for

me back then because I didn't know what
I was getting myself into, I didn't know

the legal landscape, I couldn't speak
to it, and today, human interaction,

packaging, presentation, experience,
I think is going to be that next step.

You know, five years for boutique
agencies and freelancers.

Like, how can you make this a human
level that people are going to

appreciate, even though they might
know you're using AI on the back end?

is that a fair assessment?

How do you think about human
interaction relationships

Nat: Yeah.

No, that's a great question.

And I've seen that, I've seen those like
types of posts on social media before.

It's like people that use AI tools are
going to replace people that don't use

them versus as opposed to AI is going
to replace us making websites, right?

So there's a distinction there.

And I believe in that, like, you know,
use the AI tools in order to yeah.

Optimize your workflows a
little bit and speed things up.

but you know, you still that
like human interaction and that

customer service is still key.

I think for people as corny as that
sounds, it's like, you know, you

know, customer service is number one.

Well, it is actually, you know, it sounds
kind of funny, but, you know, we get

a lot of clients because people either
don't deliver what they said they would

deliver, or they don't deliver fast
enough, or they don't do a good enough

quality sort of product and stuff.

And so there's something
to be said, there for sure.

And, yeah, I think, I think
that humans sort of, yeah.

interaction is key, not just for,
you know, taking care of your current

clients, but also, getting new clients.

So, you know, that personal touch is gone.

now you get like, you know, how
many like newsletter or like sales

pitch emails do you get per day?

Right.

And they're all like generic and
you can tell like nobody, it's

like an AI thing or whatever.

Somebody automated it, you know, what,
you know, people are missing out on

these days is, you know, especially when
they're looking at client acquisition

is that personal touch, like you said.

So, for example, the things that do work.

that work on me as a business owner, but
also that work if you're trying to get

clients is something personalized, right?

Like, so you look at their website, you
say, okay, this needs to be improved.

You record a video and you say,
Hey, so and so here, I recorded a

video for your specific website.

Here's how we can improve it.

That's going to have a much,
higher close rate than just like

a, you know, spam email or an AI
generated sort of email or pitch.

Matt: Yeah.

One of the challenges we
started to hint at it.

We talked about, some dialogue we
might've had on Twitter with you

testing out web flow, maybe dipping
your toes into that category.

Do you see.

The CMS, WordPress, the CMS as, I don't
want to say challenge, but the idea

that folks have many choices now and
we've been waving the flag for open

source and GPL and, you know, own your
content and experience with WordPress.

But, you know, there's a lot of drama
and issues in this last back half

of the year surrounding WordPress.

Then these WebFlows and Squarespace's,
they look kind of nice and you're just

like, I just, I'll just pay you, you
know, I'll just pay the monthly fee.

Where do you land now that you've
had some time to experiment with

WebFlow and some of these other CMS's?

Nat: I mean, I still haven't found
anything better than WordPress,

and I love to experiment.

I, and we also, you know, honestly, we
didn't start off as a WordPress agency.

So I always say, like, you know,
I'm not saying WordPress is

going to be our tool forever.

We might, you know, in the future, if.

Something better comes along
and you know, we need to pivot.

We'll pivot just like we did in the past
before WordPress was a thing But you know

through my exploration and some of these
other tools, they all kind of have their

advantages and disadvantages I still
think as an overall package and the value

that you get Out of WordPress still can't
be matched by these other solutions.

with Webflow specifically, I
think it's mostly branding.

You know, I've had clients like we want
Webflow because it's new and it's cool.

You know, you can do animations
and stuff and you know, things

can fly in and all that.

And I'm like, well, we can
do that in WordPress too.

It's not.

Matt: Yeah.

Nat: but they're already sold.

They're like, no.

You know, WordPress is old.

Webflow is new.

We want the newest and greatest,
you know, kind of thing.

And, I mean, that's always
going to be the case.

Like I think your job as an agency owner
and as a technology person is to educate

your users a little bit as well to tell
them why, you know, maybe, you know,

WordPress is a better option for them.

And, and to approach it that way,
there's, you know, I've been, working

with Wix, Wix studio, quite a bit as well.

And there's, you know, some great stuff
that they do really well that I think

probably WordPress can learn from, right?

you know, for example, it's super simple.

CMS solution, for blogs.

Like there's no, like it's, you know,
it's a super easy, interface for clients

to go in and update or put in their
content, whereas in with WordPress,

it's, it can be a bit challenging
if you haven't used it before.

And, so yeah, we're always exploring,
but you know, I, I haven't found anything

better than WordPress when it comes to
the complete sort of package of offering

and features and stuff like that.

Matt: In your agency, do you
have a, stack that you use

depending on the type of client?

And what I mean by that is I know
some agencies are still running

Word with WordPress, but they're
using that at the higher end.

And then they have at the entry
level, they might use Webflow for

the entry level for like rapid
development and deployment of.

Whatever the client's, situation is,
but interior to WordPress, do you have a

particular stack you say, okay, if this
customer is below X amount of dollars,

we're just going to give them, I don't
know, cadence theme with this template

and we, you know, we move on, like, do
you have those kinds of stacks that you

use depending on the type of client?

Nat: Yeah.

we have, we actually use Elementor
pro for 90 percent of the projects.

we use bricks as well.

In some cases, we're still
exploring it a little bit.

we like page builders, because they.

Are easy for the client to
maintain their content later

and pages and stuff like that.

and for us, we've worked with it for
years that we know it's rapid for us,

no matter what, if we're making a small
website or a large website, you know,

all of my staff, they're like trained
on Elementor and Bricks and they can get

a site up, up and running in no time.

the issue with those page builders
sometimes is the, perceived

like performance and, you know,
people run into issues with.

You know, slowness and stuff like that.

But what we found through working
with both of those three years is

that we know how to use them properly
and how to tune them that, you know,

we still get excellent, page speed
results as well using those builders.

And so we try to standardize
as much as possible.

So every website, you know, we're not
going to use cadence on one generate press

on another element or on a third one.

We like to use Elementor on all
of the websites so that like we

basically, you know, we're very
familiar with it and super quick.

It just kind of improves our workflow
and speeds things up significantly.

Exactly.

Matt: somebody from my YouTube channel
sent me a contact, form asking, like,

she is, getting a little bit more serious
about her freelance and agency work.

And she was asking me like, Hey, I'm
drowning in options, you know, out here.

Right.

It's just like, I heard Elementor is good.

I heard Elementor is bad.

I heard Cadence is good.

I heard Bricks is, you know, there's all
these things that if you're looking to.

Start your freelance business.

I mean, God, imagine what your
customer is going through.

If you're having these challenges,
your customer is having the same thing.

I'm sure I wrote back and I was
like, look, I think if you're

looking for an ecosystem within an
ecosystem, Elementor is your best bet.

if you're looking for all the tools,
you're looking for one place to go and

learn this stuff, Elementor, possibly
Divi, with their new version coming.

and then you started like.

You take a step back and you go, okay,
if you want a hybrid theme, you know,

you're not going to have all the, like the
popups and the email SMTP service, like

the whole robust ecosystem that Elementor
has, but you want a hybrid approach.

Then it's like a cadence
or a generate press.

And then if you want like core
experience, you know, get ready with

2024, you know, and just like launch
a site, install jetpack and move on.

There's like these three tiers.

it's interesting how, WordPress
is shaping, the tooling around

WordPress is shaping up.

I don't have a direct question there,
but I don't know if you have any

other thoughts on like any kind of
like tier that you see happening

with how people use WordPress.

Nat: Yeah.

I mean, you know, it's a great question
and a great point where, like imagine

what clients are going through and
they're trying to decide what, you

know, what stack to use for WordPress.

What I usually recommend to freelancers
and agencies is To actually just like

learn one deeply versus, playing around
with generate press, playing around

with cadence, playing around with
Elementor and Divi because all of them

work slightly differently and you're
not really going to get into those

nuances without learning one deeply.

And that's why we use Elementor.

We find that between Elementor Pro.

Building the layouts in Elementor Pro
and doing some custom code stuff that we

pretty much can do everything with it.

And, you know, you get to
learn some of those nuances.

For example, you know, if you
have a slider, why can't I lazy

load my background images, right?

That's going to be very
specific to Elementor.

Some performance tools will be
able to do it a certain ways.

Other ones don't, won't.

And I'm sure there's a bunch of little
nuances like that for Divi as well, right?

Or GeneratePress or whatever, right?

So, you're not gonna really learn
those and have as much experience

if you're using Different kind
of tiers and solutions, I think.

So my advice has always been to
agencies and clients is to focus

on one and kind of learn it deeply.

And we've had some great success that way.

We, you know, created a bunch of
content around Elementor Speed, more

specifically, where we've had clients
approach us to be like, we love Elementor.

We want to stick with it.

We have an existing site.

The speed's killing us.

Can you fix it for us?

Or can you create a site that's like done
properly in Elementor that, you know,

meets PageSpeed Insights and gets great
scores on mobile and stuff like that.

Matt: Yeah, I wonder if you can
give us some insight into how you

have, created a sustainable agency.

and let me frame it for you.

When I started my agency,
I was doing everything.

and it was, you know, selling, supporting,
launching, designing, developing.

So there's always this
moment where you go.

I can't grow this business
if I'm doing this.

And the first thing I peeled off
was I can't do design and do all

this other stuff, hired a designer.

Then I quickly realized I can't
do the development with this

designer and grow the biz, hired
a developer, so on and so forth.

Project manager, accounting,
office management, all this

stuff slowly, just like.

Pulling myself out so that I
could sell and grow, the agency.

how, what does your
internal workflow look like?

Customer knocks on the door, I want
to quote, and then what happens

Nat: Yeah.

so for us, I'm in charge of the
sales mostly and, I was doing.

Matt: The most fun part.

Nat: fun part.

Yeah.

And I was doing, some project
management as well on the, you

know, various development projects
that we have in the, on, on the go.

I started like you, I had, you know, I
was a one man show for years and years.

And then I realized, okay, you know, as I
was starting to do a little bit more SEO

and marketing, I was getting more leads.

And so I was like, okay,
well, I can't be doing both.

I can't be building sites and.

you know, doing the sales and project
management and all that other stuff.

So I hired a developer first, so
I hired a developer and then I

hired another developer and then
I hired a designer and so forth.

So now my team is seven people plus me.

And, just through like different
needs and things that we

had, the different projects.

that's how the team kind of grew sort
of organically in terms of the workflow.

so we have leads coming through
mainly through SEO, through our

website or through referrals.

we usually start off with some
like pre qualifying questions in

terms of, you know, their budget.

We tell them our pricing up front, just
because we don't want to waste their time.

We don't want to waste our time
in terms of like jumping on a

call and trying to do sales.

If you know, their budget is a
thousand dollars and our minimum

site is like five, there's no point
really you know, wasting their time.

And so we try, we start with
some pre qualifying questions.

if they're a good fit, I start off with
an estimate, more detailed sort of project

proposal in terms of this is what you get.

This is how much it's
going to cost and so forth.

After they accept that.

Then we do, sort of like a,
we have a checklist, a sort

of a startup questionnaire.

and then once that's done, we assign
a developer to it, or a designer and

a developer to work through those
specs and sort of give them their

sort of phase one of the project.

And all that happens
fairly quickly for us.

My latest hire has been,
like a client manager.

So that's been really nice as
well, where somebody else can like.

Meet with the clients, you
know, manage the product.

Matt: I remember that.

That was the best.

Oh, it was the best.

Nat: Totally.

So I have really cut down on my meetings.

Matt: Yeah.

Nat: Yeah.

So that's kind of, you know,
sort of the beginning stages.

And then obviously there's a few
iterations in terms of like the

delivery and the testing and the
launch and, you know, pre and

post launch kind of checklist.

And, that's pretty much it.

We have, SOPs for all of those steps where
we have, you know, certain steps that

get taken, depending on where the project
is at and, works pretty smoothly so far.

I'm like a process improvement geek.

So, I love to dig into that
stuff and improve things

when I see there's an issue.

So.

Matt: Yeah.

I'm curious how you, this is a more
technical question, but I'm curious

how you handle, the workflow of
designing, let's say front end design.

If you're using Elementor or making
changes in Elementor or Bricks for that

matter, and you're making sort of like
this code level adjustments, but it's.

in the actual page builder itself.

How do you handle that revisioning?

so if, you know, one developer front
end developers working on your team,

then that person's out or transitions.

How do you like get that
next developer up to speed?

If it's not generally in like GitHub, all
version controlled, how do you solve that

complexity these days with page builders?

Nat: Yeah, that's a good one.

And we don't use get hub, or version
control, but we use it sometimes only

if the client, if it's a bigger project
and there's multiple developers involved

in, and it's developers that are not on,
on my team as well, then we'll use get,

get hub, but it's, it's fairly, Yeah,
it's fairly uncommon for us to do that.

So we mostly, use, Elementor Pro and
then we use a certain, we put the code

always in certain areas so that we know
exactly where to look if we have some

sort of, you know, cross development
going on between the different developers.

However, I like to also keep consistency
and keep one developer working.

on a project, mainly because of
that reason, because there's not

a lot of cross training required.

in some cases, we do have more than one
developer working on a certain project,

or we have somebody else take over if
there's something that's a higher priority

or something that's a specialization
of one of the other developers that

they have to jump onto something else.

So the key there is to keep
everything in one place.

So, for example, for us, if we're doing
certain types of changes, we'll put

everything Elementor has their own, like
custom code sort of section where you

can add different snippets and like,
you know, styling or code changes.

So they're always in one place.

They're always named a certain
way and we know exactly where to

look for other types of changes.

We also always use, child theme.

So for other types of changes,
they're always in the child theme.

So you always know, you know, where
to look for certain things so that

we don't like overwrite or clobber.

other people's changes, in terms of the
design itself and the actual development,

we always start with either a Figma
design, where we get the client to,

approve the design and Figma before
we started developing it, or we do

write an element or, like a homepage.

Design initially and then
they approve that and then we

proceed with the other stuff

Matt: Yeah.

Nat: And so those are kind of the two
approaches if it's more design heavy a

design heavy project where we think okay
This has to be done with a little bit

more care we'll do everything in Figma
first, but sometimes we go straight into

Elementor and we just Put up a home page
and get them to provide feedback on that

Matt: The dedicated listener is going to
be sick of hearing me talk about this AI.

I've been, learning it,
in an intense fashion.

I'm building micro
little ad hoc react apps.

I'm not touching WordPress, but it, what
it has done for me is give me a renewed.

sense of appreciation
for WordPress, right?

Like I could go and build my air
quotes own WordPress with like Claude

and cursor and deploy all this stuff.

That's great.

But if it's just there in that one
instance, there's nobody maintaining it.

There's no one critically
thinking about it.

Certainly not this guy.

And I'm not going to patch it and
make any kind of security updates.

So I have this like renewed, you know,
you know, thankfulness for WordPress

and like all of the stuff that
happens, because now you look at that,

if you spend like two weeks using.

A.

I.

To code stuff for you.

You'll go.

Oh, you know what?

Just give me this wordpress
thing off the shelf.

I don't care if it's old.

You know, I like it.

first sort of broad remark from you.

What's your take on A.

I.

In impacting your business?

Nat: yeah, it has been great.

I think, you know, for us, we
use it daily, for various things.

we do a bit of SEO as well.

It's very helpful there in order
to do planning and get ideas in

terms of content, and so forth.

We use it also for creating content
for clients when they're stuck

in terms of not being able to.

Figure out like what type
of pages do they need?

What type of content did they need on
those pages as a starting point where

we give them sort of a blueprint.

and they use it as a starting point to
develop their content for their website.

We also heavily use it for, Plugin and for
customizations on WordPress specifically.

So the chat bots are really good,
or chat clients, AI or open ai.

and Claude are very good at sort of
understanding the WordPress sort of

context as well, so you can ask it some
very specific WordPress related questions.

You know, I'm trying to
make this and this plugin.

How would you approach that?

And it gives you some snippets that
you can use in order to get a, get

a starting point and it's helpful.

I find even with the senior.

Developers where it gives them sort of an
idea of, you know, if they're not familiar

with a particular thing that they can, you
know, they're not going to copy and paste

that code, obviously, you know, they're
gonna, but it will give them ideas.

Oh, okay.

This is where I should look.

This is the hook, or this is what is
possible with this plugin or that plugin,

in order to, use it as a starting point.

So we like.

Now, I think we use it so much.

I don't, it's one of those things you
couldn't, we couldn't live without it.

You know, we didn't know what we
had, we didn't have before, but

definitely it's a renewed, our,
also appreciation for WordPress.

And like you said, the stability of the
platform and the having the team behind

it to, you know, patch it and improve
it and continue to evolve it as well.

Right.

Matt: Last month.

Last month or a couple months ago,
I was talking to my brother and he

was like, oh, if I would pay chat PT
like 400 bucks a month, you know, for

like the value that I get out of it.

And then they came out with their
pro version last week for 200 bucks.

I sent him a, yeah, I
sent him a text message.

I, I hope you're on that 200.

He was like, oh, well no.

Well, I'm not gonna get on it yet.

I'm like, oh,

Nat: That's right.

Matt: Praying to your AI gods now, huh?

For a lower price.

Yeah, no, that's fantastic.

I've been looking at it as,
WordPress, AI plus WordPress.

Hopefully AI helps
extend and augment that.

Um.

the stack that we already have,
like you shouldn't replace it.

And I've been thinking like we might
get to a point in agency world.

And I'm curious, obviously on, on your
take on this, but I think we might be

looking at a pricing grid for agencies
in the future where it's like, how many

humans do you want on your project?

Do you want one?

And 90 percent AI, or do you
want five in 50 percent AI?

And it's going to be just, I don't
have a reference for it yet, but

it's just gonna be wild to see how
pricing and how we put humans in front

of the client for that experience.

Just like we're buying CPUs on a server.

It's very matrix and scary to think
about it that way, but it's like

five humans on this project is going
to be a hundred thousand dollars,

you know, and the customers will
be like, yes, I want more humans in

Nat: That's right.

That's right.

You already see that in the S.

C.

O.

World for content creation, right?

So it's like, you know, almost
every content agency now is like

human generated content or A.

I.

Content.

Do you want one or the other?

Right?

And so it's I could see that happening as
well in the WordPress development world

or website development world in general.

I think, you know, I've
played around with the A.

I.

Tools.

I don't know if you have in terms
of these, AI web builders and stuff.

None of them have made me scared enough
to, you know, to look to shut the

agency down, yet, but you never know.

I mean, you know, I've, you know,
I'll always refer to something.

I've been doing this for a while.

I've had my business since 2007 and,
you know, we developed everything

from scratch in those days.

So when these.

Web builders came along.

I'm like, Oh crap, we're
going to be out of a job.

Like Wix came on.

I think one of the first ones where
it's like, make your own website.

Right.

I'm like, man, I don't know.

I think my days are numbered, right?

Like, I don't know how long we're
going to be making websites for people.

And you know, more and more of those
tools started to like come up in

terms of, you know, this thing can do
everything and the client is going to

do their, do this thing on their own.

And I've stopped worrying
about that because.

I've been in tech long enough to
know that, you know, something that

proliferates as much as WordPress
did, it's going to be very hard to

replace and it's going to take forever.

And then the second thing that I realized
in my career is that the clients that

want to do it on their own, you probably
don't want them as clients, you know,

so they're always going to find a way
to do it on their own and you shouldn't

be trying to win their business.

You want clients that, you know, Are
focused on growing their business

and leaving the web development or
marketing or whatever up to professionals

that, you know, do it for a living,
no matter what tools we use, right?

Matt: Yeah, one of the things that we
were talking about earlier is like, how

do we, you know, combat the 500 website
builder and a lot of this AI stuff, at

least the stuff that I've been using
to make like these react apps, what

that has done is throw me down this
rabbit hole of understanding all of the

frameworks that exist out in the world.

And you're just like, Oh,
like, this is why there are.

People looking at WordPress going,
WordPress, that thing's 20 years old, when

somebody's like, you have to run this new
framework that's only 6 months old, made

by 2 people living on top of a mountain,
you know, somewhere, and you're just like,

wait, this is the one I should be using?

And what I've come to realize is,
this, what this AI tooling does, maybe

specifically with like React apps, I don't
know, but this is just what I have found.

Is this almost feel like AI feels like
the page builders for WordPress 15 years

ago for that world and I've seen this
social shift just like I saw 15 years ago,

people going, don't use a page builder.

You're crazy.

Build it by hand.

That's the right way to do it.

Now I'm seeing these people in these
JavaScript frameworks, forums and

stuff go like, don't use AI, you
know, you know, you have to build it

by hand, you know, don't trust us.

And I'm looking at this going.

Yeah.

I heard you people 15, 20
years ago in WordPress.

So guess what?

It's coming for you just
like it came for us.

Nat: That's right.

That's right.

It's so funny.

I think that debate still goes
on page builders are crap.

Got to do a scratch or it's not good.

Right.

And, it's so funny.

I've had, I don't know,
we, I feel like almost.

One or two a month.

you know, the projects
that we do is converting.

Custom developed WordPress websites,
Intel, a mentor, because the clients are

sick of not being able to update anything.

So there's that side of
the equation as well.

Matt: Yeah.

He's Nat Militech.

You can find his website, cleowebsites.

com.

You can find him meming away at x.

com slash nat militech.

Nat, where else can
folks go to say thanks?

Nat: hit me up through my website.

That's my primary mode of communication.

or, I'm on all the socials.

I'm trying to be a little
bit more on LinkedIn.

So, connect with me on LinkedIn.

Matt: You and me both.

I'm just trying to make a
chat bot to do it for me.

Oh, thanks.

Thanks everybody for
listening or watching today.

So the WP minute dot com, the WP minute
dot com slash subscribe to stay connected

and we'll see you in the next episode.