My 7-year-old son just won his purple belt for Kempo Karate. 🥋💜
He put in a lot of hard work and persistence this time, but it was a different story at the end of last year.
Success From Failure
He failed his blue belt grading for the second time, and there were tears, confusion and anger. To be brutally honest, he didn’t put much effort into the gradings and seemed a bit bored and lacklustre throughout. Still, it’s hard to watch your kid fail at anything.
He wanted to quit. Actually, he demanded to quit karate right then, throwing his beloved green belt to the gym floor. 😡 🤯
Wise Words
At home, once he’d somewhat calmed down and was settled, my wife and I had a tough conversation with him about trying your best, persistence and putting in that extra bit of effort, but he was still adamant that he didn’t “ever in a million years” want to go back.
Do you know what I said to him?
“You can quit karate if you want to, but not on a bad day. Wait until you have a really good day, and if you still want to quit karate on that day, you can.”
Dad
I can’t remember where I heard the quote, “Never quit on a bad day!” but it’s served me well throughout my business career.
I Googled the quote, and many people claim to be the first to say it, but it doesn’t matter who said it first. It’s the semantics, the meaning, that matters.
After 50 years, you’d think one would be a master of all emotions. Yeah, Nah.
This newsletter is about persistence and not giving up when 💩 hits the fan.
The Tough Times
Running your own business as a WordPress professional comes with an assault of tough situations, each one of which could be a cause for giving up. Here are some common “bad-day” situations WordPress freelancers can struggle with, where quitting may seem an option.
Client Acquisition
Having a steady stream of leads at the top of your funnel (ToFu) and having the steps to convert them to paying clients can seem daunting for many WordPress freelancers.
It’s easy to give up during a dry season when you’ve not had any new client work for six months.
💡 Try This Instead
Spend the downtime improving your lead-generation skills. Come up with a content marketing strategy that targets the top, middle and bottom of your sales funnel.
Set a target of increasing your ToFu by 10% over the next quarter. More leads in give you a greater chance of converting them to paying clients at the bottom of the funnel (BoFu).
Pricing and Negotiation
Are prospective clients not happy with your pricing quotes? Has your 10th successive quote been rejected for being too costly? I’ve been there.
💡 Try This Instead
Concentrate on demonstrating the value you bring to your clients. What’s your unique selling point (USP) that differentiates you from the rest of the pack?
It’s not all about the money. Your quote may not clearly outline the value of you.
🪄 Pro Tip: If a client wants to get into a price negotiation with you, never back down from your original price. Instead, offer to drop or move project components to a second project phase to lower the overall cost.
Time Management
As a freelancer, you are your only time resource. Juggling multiple projects, curveballs, and support issues can result in everything crashing down around you. Suddenly that house of cards you’ve been stacking up falls to pieces.
Now is a good time to jack it in, right? Oh no!
💡 Try This Instead
Take a step back and look at your workload. Are you biting off more than you can chew? What areas of your business are you spending too much time on, and can you streamline or automate tasks?
Suppose you develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) for repetitive tasks. In that case, you can farm those out to a virtual assistant (VA), freeing up your valuable time to work on project work.
Money In vs Money Out
Is your business a leaky ship when it comes to expenses? This “bad day” issue goes hand-in-hand with client acquisition. Stress can quickly set in if you’ve not enough money to pay the bills at the end of the month.
I’ve known WordPress freelancers who quit running their businesses after running up huge expenses and returned to corporate employment just to get money to pay the bills. This happened frequently during the pandemic.
💡 Try This Instead
Ensure you track business income and expenses monthly. You don’t need fancy accounting software; a simple spreadsheet will do. That’s what I use.
I have three tabs; “Cashflow Summary”, “Cash In”, and “Cash Out”.
The summary tells me a forecast for cash-in for the 1st and 2nd half of the year and the average monthly profit.
I can easily see my expenses on a single sheet, so I know where to spin down services if the money coming in is getting tight. I also look at this spreadsheet regularly as part of an SOP. There’s no use putting things like this in place and not using them.
Run a lean business.
Scope Creep
Yeah, it happens even if you’ve been in business for as many years as I have. I’m pretty good at minimising scope creep because I’ve learned how to handle client conversations when this happens. I also have a pretty tight contract.
If you’re just starting out as a WordPress freelance professional, scope creep is high up on the list for “bad-day” scenarios. It’s extra work you haven’t budgeted for, so in essence, you’re doing additional work for no money, and that’s very stressful.
I’ve been brought into projects as an expert mediator when contracts have not been in place, and the client is pushing for “critical features” to be implemented to a project that is already nine months overdue, the budget is exhausted, and the developer is seriously eyeing up the cricket bat in the corner. 🏏
💡 Try This Instead
Have a watertight signed contract for any client work. Even if the client’s work is an “emergency fix”. Get a signed contract in place before you touch any client website.
Your Scope of Work (SoW) contract should outline the scope of work, the estimate for the work (yes, “estimate”), your and the client’s responsibilities, and a timeframe for completion. You should also consider creating a Master Services Agreement (MSA), which outlines the generic legal terms for all your services.
The two documents, SoW and MSA, should be signed and make up your project contractual agreement.
Life-Work Balance
This one is a doozy. Again, I know several WordPress professionals who have come close to quitting their businesses because of an unbalanced life-work priority.
I understand that bills need to be paid and deadlines must be met. However, surely you are running your business so that you can have a better lifestyle?
There was a reason you quit your full-time corporate employment or saw a niche opportunity, and it probably wasn’t to work even more hours in a day for less money.
If you feel you’re treading water to keep your business afloat and your family and friends are being put on the back burner, I urge you to STOP and REVIEW your priorities. 🛑✋
💡 Try This Instead
On a blank sheet of paper, write down ten reasons why family and friends are important to you.
Underneath, write the ten most important things you want to do with, achieve or provide for family and friends this year.
You now have a basic lifestyle framework of important goals you want to achieve.
Use this and your business growth goals to keep your work-life balance in check. Even better would be to think of how to use your business goals to achieve your lifestyle goals.
Family First
For me, family is the most important factor. I work to provide for my family and give them the opportunities to be the best person and live the best life they can.
Does that mean owning a big mansion, a Tesla and going on twenty holidays a year?
Nope.
For me, it means watching my boy’s delight in achieving a new belt grade at karate. Something I can do because I set and stick to my own work hours. It’s enjoying a foodie show with my wife because I don’t have to work on a Saturday.
And… move aside Tesla. I’m saving for a Polestar 3. 🚗
Quit On A Good Day
So if times are tough running your WordPress business, don’t quit there and then. Wait until you have the best day to consider if this is still the right direction for you.
There are plenty of resources you can use to help get your business back on track, making a profit and growing successfully.
💪 I’ll be launching my WP Accelerator programme later this year. It’s a 12-Week structured coaching programme for WordPress designers & developers to help them grow their businesses. Get on the waitlist for the launch discount!
Until next time,
Wil.
