Web Designer: Have You Been in an Echo Chamber?
Are you a web designer stuck in an echo chamber? Find out the signs and how to diversify your ideas.
Are you a web designer who feels stuck in a loop? This video investigates the phenomenon of echo chambers and their effect on your work. We’ll discuss how surrounding yourself with similar voices can limit your innovation. Learn how to challenge your thinking and foster a more inclusive design approach. Tune in now to redefine your creative process and elevate your designs.
With Special Guest Mark Szymanski
#1 – Mark, can you give the audience a more detailed introduction on how you got involved in web design, development, and WordPress?
#2 – You recently did a YouTube video called ” Have I Been in an Echo Chamber? ” what were the main points you wanted people to get from the video?
#3 – How do you feel AI will change the web design and WordPress plugin marketing over the next couple of years
#4 – based on your experience, what are a couple of the main things new clients care about when selecting a web designer?
#5 – Have you got any advice on dealing with new possible clients that you would like to share with the tribe?
#5— What AI tools do you personally use to help you run your business?
#6—If you had your time machine (H. G. Wells) and could travel back to the beginning of your career, what advice would you give?
This Week Show’s Sponsors
LifterLMS: LifterLMS
Convesio: Convesio
Omnisend: Omnisend
The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:20.700] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the WP Tonic Show. This is episode 950. We got a friend of the show returning. We got Mark Schamansky. I’ve pronounced his surname reasonably okay. Not a total S fart, it asked, but reasonably good. In this show, we will discuss a video post that Mark did that I think has some real relevance at the beginning of 2025. It was. Have you been in an echo chamber? Are you a WordPress professional? Mark had a little bit of a rant. I thought it was pretty interesting. We will discuss that and where we find the WordPress professional market at the beginning of 2025. So, Mark, would you give us a quick 10, 20-second intro? When we go into the central part of the interview, I will ask you to provide an extended team trial.
[00:01:32.250] – Mark Szymanski
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, Mark Smansky. Currently, I make YouTube content about WordPress and all sorts of stuff. I’ve been going through the journey over the last year and a half because I’ve had an agency since 2017, but I’m just now diving in over the previous year and a half into the actual community. As you guys know, I don’t have to tell you, it is wild and wonderful. There’s a lot of things to learn. That’s been my last recent escapade here.
[00:01:58.650] – Jonathan Denwood
Mark’s had an eventful month. He’s a bit of an amateur hockey player and ice hockey. Unfortunately, he and his team played a local Canadian squad. And Mark got a little bit injured, didn’t you, Mark? The Canadians weren’t too happy with you, were they, Mark?
[00:02:18.860] – Mark Szymanski
Yeah, you’re hyping it up a lot. It was a lot less romantic or crazy than that. But yeah, it took a stick up here to the face. Luckily, we’re healing up okay now. You are? I’ve been looking rough and looking rough for a while. He was.
[00:02:33.010] – Jonathan Denwood
He always looked like me. But that’s what you get when you play the Canadians at present. So, Kurt got my co-host, Kirk. Would you like to introduce yourself to your new listeners of yours?
[00:02:49.410] – Kurt von Ahnen
I want to remind the listeners that Bones heal and Chicks dig scars. I run Manana No Mas. We focus mainly on membership and learning websites. I work with Jonathan at WP-Tonic and the great folks at Lifter LMS.
[00:03:05.090] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, that’s great. Like I say, we’re going to have a fantastic discussion of where the WordPress professional web design market is at the beginning of 2025. But before we go into the meat and potatoes of this great show, I’ve got a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks.
[00:03:25.310] – Mark Szymanski
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[00:04:02.880] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re coming back, folks. Also, I want to point out we got a fantastic resource for the WordPress professional. We got a list of the best plugins and services for the WordPress professional. It will save you a ton of time trawled in the internet or put in AI prompts and getting a load of giblish. You can get this fantastic free resource by going over to WP wb-tonic. Com/deals, wb-tonic. Com/deals. You find all the goodies there, my beloved WordPress professionals. What more could you ask for? Probably a lot more, but that’s all you’re going to get from that particular resource. I’ve made a career of disappointed. No, it’s a fabulous resource, and it will save you a ton of your time. It’s all stuff that we use, that WP tonic, and we recommend. There’s some great deals from some of the major sponsors. Like I say, what more could you ask for? So, Mark, you came on my radar with having an interview with Matt Modias, who’s also a friend of the show. So first of all, how do you know Matt? How did you build a relationship with Matt Madeas? I’ve been trying for years, but I felt that he wants that.
[00:05:36.750] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, he comes on the show every three, six months after he’s forgotten the gruesomeness of the previous experience. But he’s all He kept his distance from me, but I understand I would do the same if I was him. How was you introduced to the great man?
[00:05:56.790] – Mark Szymanski
Yeah, he’s a tough nut to crack. I guess I’m just lucky I don’t know. I don’t know what happened there. But I think it was almost exactly a year ago. I made a video about… I just looked at the DM because I just sent it to him because it came up or something in a screenshot. And I think I made a video. I just started making, like I was saying earlier, I started making videos in late 2023 about WordPress specifically on my channel and diving into the community and all that stuff. And I think it was a live stream or something about a It was some live stream about some current event or something like that. I think it might have been in response to Brian Cordes at the time, maybe something he was doing, I think was in the message that Matt sent me. He just hit me up and he was like, Hey, you want to come on the show? Then the rest is history there. I’ve been on WP Minute a bunch. Obviously, I’ve been here a bunch. Just, again, the last year plus of my career, so to speak, has literally been trying to understand what you guys have been going through for the last however many years, 10, 20, in 15 years.
[00:07:00.760] – Mark Szymanski
So I’ve packed a lot of conversations in that amount of time.
[00:07:06.340] – Jonathan Denwood
I know it look haggard, but I’m not sure. It has been almost 10 years, actually. Not as long as Matt, but about two, three years before he was in podcasting, I got him into it. So what led you… I think we discussed this before. I think you got a job with, I think it was a regional real estate brokerage as their digital manager. I think. Is that correct? That’s how you really got into this area and then you run your own agency. Is that about, correct?
[00:07:46.830] – Mark Szymanski
That is it. Yeah, it was a franchise of a RE/MAX. It was a good experience. I was there for three years. I learned a lot from the other people in the marketing and tech space that they had on staff. And then discovered WordPress there, started building the side hustle a little bit, left right before COVID times and just been, haven’t had a job since. I just been running the agency, doing the content, everything like that.
[00:08:10.370] – Jonathan Denwood
Over to you, Kurt.
[00:08:13.680] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I think the meat of it this week, Jonathan and I both saw your video on Have I been in an echo chamber? It was a good… You were like, I’m not sure if I’m even going to put this out or not. Then we’re like, of course, you put it out because you’re like some content king lately.
[00:08:31.660] – Jonathan Denwood
But we were both taken back by it because we’ve had a lot of the similar conversations.
[00:08:42.130] – Kurt von Ahnen
It is weird when someone says, oh, I need a website for my company. Do a needs assessment. You talk to them, and how much is it going to cost? And you’re like, well, that’s going to be $22,000. Or that’s going to be $26,000.
[00:08:53.880] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, I talked to someone else.
[00:08:55.550] – Kurt von Ahnen
They said they could do it for $6,000. And you’re like, well, good luck with that. But it is super interesting to see your perspective. I thought we’d pull some more of that out of you if we could.
[00:09:08.420] – Mark Szymanski
For sure. Yeah, I do my weekly livestream. I just ended it. It was at 11: 00 before this. And there’s a lot of that. It was me recalibrating on everything. The high level, we could dig into it more. The high level is that because of everything I just said in the last 5, 10 minutes here, I haven’t been focusing enough on the agency thing. Because I went so deep into the WordPress community side, it literally has become an echo chamber for me. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I’m just saying that that’s all I’ve been consuming. I literally only consume other WordPress creators on YouTube, and I’ve changed all the inputs for the last year, year and a half, I’ve been like that. Now, super beneficial if you want to learn WordPress, learn the community, and really get a feel for that. That’s definitely happened. However, I’ve really put the agency on the back burner in a lot of senses. I haven’t had too many sales calls. I didn’t have too many sales calls in 2024. And what that has done for me is now every time I look at a website or digital marketing, I look at it from the lens of all these other technicians, essentially, is one of the motifs there, that are looking at websites, people that are live breathe, eat, sleep, just specifically WordPress or web design.
[00:10:20.160] – Mark Szymanski
And I haven’t really understood the perspective of the average business owner. And then I have a sales call like that off of a referral. And this person is like… And it’s not even like they’re wrong because it’s their own perception. Websites are an illusion. We just need something simple. You’re pitching us on this five grand thing or whatever. We knew these other guys that can do it for one grand. You seem like they literally say on the call as I’m educating them, hey, you really seem like a pro in your industry. We just don’t need that. And that’s totally fine. But I was on this call and I’m like, this is really interesting because I haven’t heard this type of shit ever, as much less recently. And I’m just trying to really get a grasp for what the actual market understands once and what they perceive our industry to be. It was so enlightening.
[00:11:06.270] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m pulling faces. If you’re just listening, I’m pulling faces because all throughout my whole career, I’ve heard stuff like that.
[00:11:16.620] – Mark Szymanski
I just think it’s definitely… I’ve gotten that, too. It’s like it’s to continue to happen, and maybe I’m learning a little bit of it now for sure. But I do think if we move it in the future, it’s just going to continue to compound, I feel like, with all the extra things that are available to them now and as we’re seeing AI technology and all that stuff go. I don’t know, it just got me thinking about a lot of those things.
[00:11:38.440] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I don’t think you’re off the mark by much. The client has a role just like we have a role. Our role as an agency is how can we do the least amount of work for the most amount of margin? Let’s just be real. That’s business in any frame one. Then the customer’s role is, how can I get the most amount of work out of this guy for the least amount of budget? That’s the role in the negotiating role. That’s the thing. But I think the verbiage that clients have become comfortable in using is somewhat of the surprise. When they start out with, well, all you got to do is, I know right away, here comes the low ball. All you got to do is take our existing style guide and plug it into this framework. They make it sound like 15 minutes while a boom, while a bang, it’s done. And it’s not. I felt in your video that you touched on a topic that’s worth diving into, if we could, as a follow-up, is encouraging agencies to have a niche, to have a niche. Earlier, I saw you doing a ton of stuff on dynamic websites and using custom fields and all that.
[00:12:54.540] – Kurt von Ahnen
I really felt like, wow, this guy is really going to corner the market or get to be known as the guy, the expert, that can do more than a brochure site. I think that’s where a lot of agencies get stuck.
[00:13:07.340] – Mark Szymanski
You’re saying in brochure land?
[00:13:09.130] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. I’m going to make a five-page website. If you’re going to sell five-page templated websites and you’re going to try and grow an agency that’s going to scale up to 15, 20, 30, $80,000 projects off that modality, it’s probably not going to work.
[00:13:27.250] – Mark Szymanski
I would agree with that. One of the things after talking to people much more experienced, successful and smarter than I am over these last weeks, months, even the year entirely, is that I’ve realized that I don’t know if the low templated approach is really something that’s going to be incredibly viable for much longer. And regardless of its viability, I don’t know if I really like it. Like you said, Kurt, I appreciate that. I’m the dynamic data guy. I really do love those types of things. The trouble, at least for me, is that you got to be able to sell that in a way where it’s not technical. If I talk to somebody right now on my channel, if they understand the concepts of dynamic data or they understand what that opens the door for them, they totally get it. But you have to spin that and sell that in a way, obviously, that is in business terms.
[00:14:13.660] – Jonathan Denwood
I think that niche, that conversation is really aimed at the WordPress professional market, not the end user market, you might think. There’s two areas that I thought would be interesting to the listeners of this podcast is the actual end user market, I see it very similar to the car maintenance service business, which is a very large industry and Kirk has experience in the motor maintenance industry. But depending on what, there’s enormous DIY market in the car repair business. There’s an enormous section of the market people wouldn’t even think of doing maintenance on their car. They take it to either dealership or they take it to a secondary player that’s non-franchis franchise. Then there’s a whole group of the luxury franchise dealership or more niche focus, secondary market. But it’s an enormously fragmented market. The car a rebeer business with different types of price points and users. I see the web design industry in a similar silo. In Northern Nevada, and I used to work for one, there’s about four to five major digital agencies. None of them would take a job on less than 10,000. They wouldn’t even look at it. They don’t get all their work from Northern Nevada.
[00:16:07.240] – Jonathan Denwood
They try and pitch work nationally, but they also dominate the local market at a certain price point. Then there’s the other area where I think in the professional WordPress market, it is Echo chamber because I’m not going to name them, but there’s certain communities, so Certain forums, certain slack channels that really promote, if you are involved in them or you are part of them, well, my clients are always happy and my minimum price is 12 We always get good results and everything’s fantastic. Our onboarding process is fantastic. Our clients always recommend them. I never have to do any advertising or SEO because I just get recommendations all the time and everything’s fantastic. And I know it’s shit. I just know it’s utter crap. I can’t be out of it, Mark. So what’s your response to the two things I’ve laid out to you?
[00:17:23.270] – Mark Szymanski
I mean, on that second portion there, I would agree. There’s probably a fair amount of people. I try to be as As honest as possible, especially through my YouTube channel with what I’m going through and everything like that. But I think there’s a lot of people that probably just highlight the pros rather than some of the cons of this industry, because I think about it at a grander scale. I don’t see how it could only be rainbows and butterflies. You said that you claimed that they do. So I’m totally with you on that.
[00:17:54.920] – Jonathan Denwood
I think- Well, you can have the best onboarding experience, documentation, videos. But if the client The new client doesn’t watch the videos, doesn’t read any of the documentation, refuses, gives you the retainer check and you cash it. But are you going to force them? Are you going to make them do a quiz to make sure that… It is absolute nonsense, isn’t it? I would say so.
[00:18:24.780] – Mark Szymanski
I would say, yeah. There’s a couple of points there. I think there’s ways to make those processes agencies and those things better for you as an agency. Just as the retainer check thing. I would always have them have a card on file and auto charge them for those types of things, just little mechanical things like that. But I I just… I would really ask you guys because you guys have more experience than I do in these areas. Do you think moving forward here that we’re going to see more… Do you think that the lower ticket offer website Are they going away? Do you think you see those going away or the opportunity for that being less? What I personally see is I see a lot of people that want to be web designers, think they can build websites, varying levels of skill and everything like that, and not trying to tell people not to get in the industry. But what I am telling people, I feel like part of my responsibility is, if you’re trying to get into this, I feel like if you’re trying to just feed the absolute lowest possible request, maybe start there.
[00:19:26.590] – Mark Szymanski
But I don’t know if you can live there and actually sustain a job. If you don’t want to have a job and you want to have this be your income, I don’t know if I could have success there. It hasn’t really worked for me. That’s why I think that trying to go up market a little bit if you can, but there’s a sweet spot. You can’t go to the 10 up level by yourself. I don’t know what your guys’ experience has been. Where do you guys find… Do you guys have a sweet spot? Do you guys have… I mean, do you guys have individual niches? But I think for me, it’s businesses that are established and they need… Almost they upgrades in this century because they have the money. So I feel like the sweet spot for me is probably like $7,500 to $20,000. It’s a business that’s just churning stuff like a construction engineering I mean, civil engineering, like surveying or whatever. That’s not a lot of money for them because they have so many years of experience and they’re just like, not maybe super duper profitable, but they keep going. They just have that legacy.
[00:20:28.310] – Mark Szymanski
And they probably have never cared the website aspect of it, but they know that they need something better.
[00:20:34.230] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. I personally feel the first part of that question is answered by process. Is productizing something that is repeatable but personal enough that the entry-level web buyer knows that they bought something that was productized but was able to be personalized. That’s something my agency does. We really address startups in a very aggressive way because I’m in a small town in Kansas. There’s a ton of small companies here that have dysfunctional or critical error websites that they haven’t fixed in years. We come in to the area and we say, here’s a product templated template type of offer where you come in, you change your heading, your picture, your content, and we host it for you. We’ll do the updates for you. We’ll make sure the website stays alive. But this is a minimal offer. This gets you online and gets you And then unlike you, from a very transparent agency perspective, I’ve skipped over the $7,000-12,000, $7,000-$15,000 web proposals lately because I found that the last 18 to 24 months that most people in that budget range really want a 35 or $50,000 website, have a $12,000 budget, and don’t have the assets or the processes or the internal mechanisms to provide what I need to finish a quality product because it’s not a templatized product anymore.
[00:22:06.140] – Kurt von Ahnen
Now it’s a custom product where I require information and content from them to make it successful. Typically, they don’t have the internal structures to make that reality come true. It ends up being a very tense thing. When I go above that budget range, I find that I’m dealing with companies that have that internal structure, a marketing department, a style guide, and content to build off Yeah.
[00:22:31.700] – Jonathan Denwood
Kirk specializes in motorsport and local in his physical area, and he helps me in the educational community membership because that’s my specialty. But I think anything over $3,000 to $5,000, I have paid discovery. They never really want to pay for it. But I just say to them, I can give you a quote. If you don’t, we have a paid discovery process, and I give them a rough idea how much the paid discovery process would be, and we give them a detailed document, and if they accept our quotation, we will knock the discovery charge off. But if it’s If it’s between three and five, they pay up from. I’m not going to write a 20-page discovery document. It really has to be a very clarified project of what I’m going to give them or what WP Tonic is going to give them, because it’s linked to what Kirk said at the beginning, which applies to all clientele, but definitely between the three to 5,000, is that their objective is to get the most value out of you as possible. So scope creep is something that strongly has to be dealt with because they just see it as a process of getting the maximum value out of you.
[00:24:31.680] – Jonathan Denwood
So they’re going to be relentless in attempting to do that because they’re not being awful or terrible people, but that’s just the realities of the situation. What do you reckon? How would you respond, Mark?
[00:24:55.840] – Mark Szymanski
Well, I would say first with a question is, did you send- Oh, you love the question? I’m an avid learner. I have to ask the question.
[00:25:04.610] – Jonathan Denwood
What’s your opinion, Mark? Come on, am I talking rubbish? What’s your own view on it?
[00:25:11.110] – Mark Szymanski
Well, the way that I truthfully process that is that you’re talking from experience. I mean, it’s definitely can’t be rubbish. If you’re not, obviously you’re truthful. So if you’re being truthful with that, then I don’t really have anything to necessarily dispute that, which is also why I said in my livestream an hour ago that I need to start going back to a little bit more of the agency stuff because I need to actually have more real world experience on how to deal with these types of clients and these types of situations and see what works for me. And then maybe other people can try that. The reason I’m asking the question is because how many people do you get to actually go for the paid discovery piece? Because I’ve heard that it’s a really cool idea. It makes total sense on paper. But how many of them actually end up going for that?
[00:25:55.680] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, that’s down to you. If it’s over $5,000 and they won’t pay for paid discovery, I don’t do the job.
[00:26:04.940] – Mark Szymanski
Okay. Well, I’m just asking you, if you pitch this to 100 people, how many took it?
[00:26:09.050] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, it’s just- I can’t actually remember, to be quite frank, because if I only had that position in the last two years because I used to oscillate. Every time I oscillate, when I looked at my profit margin, the actual profit, some of these projects, I was earning a minimum wage when I took out the freelancers that were working for me. Obviously, it depends on the relation because some freelancers, subcontractors that are working for you, they have the attitude that they’re doing you a favor. It’s not in their… Well, they don’t want to think this way, that you have brought the client to them. You have done the hunting, you have done the The endless Zooms, the endless discussions before pre-signing a contract. You are the individual that has to deal with their complaints or difficult scenarios. They are resentful of the profit that you’re making because they think they’re doing all the work, but they don’t understand that you’re the one that’s taking the risk, and you I brought the client. Other subcontractors understand that. But fundamentally, it’s down to you. I view, mate, and there is no right or wrong, because if you need a job to pay your rent that month, you’re just going to have to eat it up and not insist and pay discovery.
[00:27:55.160] – Jonathan Denwood
But if you can get the scenario where your basic costs I’ve met every month and you don’t have to put up with that bullshit. Because fundamentally, what the client is saying to you is they want you to take the margin risk. They don’t want to take the margin risk. They’re asking you to take the margin risk. Well, in the building industry, nobody would take on a large project without a detailed discovery process because it would lead to bankruptcy.
[00:28:32.450] – Mark Szymanski
Yeah, 100 %.
[00:28:34.370] – Jonathan Denwood
So that’s my answer. It’s really down to you. Either you’re going to let people walk because they want or they’re going to say, yes, Well, yeah, I agree.
[00:28:48.170] – Mark Szymanski
I think that, and Curtis brings up a good point in the chat, their discovery is a requirement. I think that there’s different types, obviously. I would think that the thing that I’m calling on when I put together that thought process This right now of the ideal range of seven, let’s say 5 to 20,000. Kurt’s experience has me thinking a little interesting thinking a little differently.
[00:29:14.230] – Jonathan Denwood
Can I just interrupt, can I need to just clarify. Obviously, because we’re dealing with membership, community, a lot of customization, if you get over 5,000, if you’re talking… I really hate this term, which is becoming demic brochure site. What the hell does that really mean? If you got a business that’s making a lot of income from their website, yeah, it could be not e-commerce, it could be just a brochure site. But if they’re doing business to business and their contract’s 100,000 plus, and they’re getting most of those leads from their website, that’s so-called brochure site. It’s rather important, isn’t it? If they’re selling a product business to consumer and it’s only three dollars and they’re only making 60,000 a year gross profit, you’re not going to get five grand out of somebody that’s in that scenario. So it really just depends on what they’re making from the website, doesn’t it, really, doesn’t it?
[00:30:16.080] – Mark Szymanski
Well, that’s the thing, and that’s the crossroads that I feel like a lot of people are at, and myself included. I feel like I have to do a better job if I’m actually going to dive deeply into the agency space in knowing who I’m talking to. It’s like you get on the phone with somebody and it’s almost like you either have to know beforehand or you have to know or you literally almost have to ask. I don’t know. I’m not saying just ask directly, but you have to have a good vibe of what their actual annual revenue is or something, because that’s going to I think there’s probably some stats that are going to clearly indicate like, oh, if this is a million dollar business, they’re willing to pay at least so much for their marketing budget, whether or not they have a real marketing budget or not or whatever. Hopefully they do. You can get some ideas there. All I’m saying is I’ve been on way too many calls and way too many conversations in the past with people that have no money. And then I think for some reason they’re going to pay me to build their website.
[00:31:05.050] – Mark Szymanski
It’s a silly spot that I put myself in too many times. And that’s why I think that the best clients that I’ve ever had, they are what I said they are. And again, I haven’t dealt with every archetype, but they’re a company that is established for maybe 20, 30 years plus. They’ve made money offline from their referral networks and everything like that for the most part. But the one client I’m referencing in my head, they had a one-page Wix website doing absolutely nothing for their business other than just completely being an illusion. They knew that they needed something more. They didn’t need anything super extravagant, but we could always do more for them if they do want to go deeper into the digital marketing space. Sell them a website between $10,000 and $15,000. That is way better than what they had. Absolutely an upgrade. The whole time I’m thinking that in my head, I’m thinking like, this isn’t anything crazy, but it’s way better than what they had. It is going to move the needle. It’s going to make them better. Layer in some, obviously, some to make it better on their end from an operational perspective with employee application forms and systematizing lead flow and things like that in there.
[00:32:09.020] – Mark Szymanski
Then this is the key, though. Last point. The key is that that client, because whatever set of variables, they saw me as the expert. They weren’t one of these people that like, oh, why are you doing it this way? Or can you do it whatever? It’s hard to find, probably, I’m sure, because everybody’s an expert nowadays in websites because it’s just on the Internet But they’re always building a skyscraper. They’re always hoping for. Exactly. But my thing is, if you can find that, that is maybe a diamond in the rough, so to speak, and harder to find. But that’s who I want to target more of because it was just a very good process. They appreciated my professionalism and what I was doing and my knowledge. They also were in a position to actually pay at least a somewhat reasonable sum of money. Now, you don’t have to do it like that. Obviously, there’s different forms, but I just think that those ones in particular are the ones that worked the best for me, and that’s the ones that I’m going to try to find more of.
[00:33:03.660] – Jonathan Denwood
Before we go for a break, I just want to give you this story, Mark. It was about four years ago, and they’re still the existing client, but they were going to do a redesign of their existing website. They’ve been a client of me for maintenance and other jobs for about three or four years beforehand. For political reasons and the way I was positioned, blah, blah, blah. They didn’t actually see me as a credible resource to rebuild their website. They went out for tenure to get quotes. This is quite a large organization, and they had a budget of about 100,000. And I was quite bitter that I hadn’t even been asked for a quote, but I had to just suck it up and just move on as you do. It was really fantastic that I wasn’t seen as credible because they went out to their market and they got a couple of quotes and they went with a particular digital agency that I actually know quite well. The quote was probably about 120,000. They had endless meetings, and I was I asked to attend some of those meetings as a favor, and I did. I don’t know why, because my thoughts weren’t really…
[00:34:38.840] – Jonathan Denwood
My input wasn’t listened to, in my opinion. There was conversation after conversation, and I could see that this project wasn’t going well. A lot of it was down to the client because the people they put in charge were junior, and a couple of the senior members of staff really excused themselves to avoid responsibility, in my opinion. And it just went pair. It was just going down the wrong route. To defend the agency, they had loads, which I have mixed feelings about this particular agency because I really don’t get on with the principle of the agency that well. I find him a particular A relatively arrogant individual, highly successful, but extremely arrogant. They kept saying to the client, at These meetings, this won’t be done. We’re not blah, blah, blah. I’m not going to go into too much detail. The client wasn’t listening. When they got the website, they were deeply unhappy with the website. They They got their final bill, and it was over budget because of total scope creep and endless meetings and no decisions being made. They blame the agency for everything. Like I said, I don’t really get on with the principle of this agency.
[00:36:24.470] – Jonathan Denwood
But I’m not going to say facts are facts. Actually, it was the client, not the agency. The reason I’m giving you this story is whatever price point you’re at, whatever, this is the experience agencies that has over 50 staff. Between 50 and 100 people work for this agency. They got experience facing project managers. It still went totally peer-shaped, and they were They’re going to train under the train, and this organization will never work with them. So whatever price point you’re at, you’re going to have troubles.
[00:37:13.290] – Mark Szymanski
I mean, for sure. I I think there’s a golden business model or golden market. And I’m sure there’s pros and cons to all of them for sure. I do feel like from my limited experience, and you guys might have different experience, is this that people with, we’ll just call it less money, more the startups and everything like that. Definitely, I like Kurt’s model, going around basically locally and starting those things up. My follow-up questions would be like, what’s the lifetime value end up being there? Again, in some sense, it’s like goodwill because if it’s local and everything like that, you’re definitely building rapport with those people. But my thing is, I feel that we’re in a business to business industry. We’re helping other businesses. We’re not helping consumers. So I would like to, if I can, deal with businesses that are going to continue to grow. I feel like the level of businesses that fail or the level of people that are half baked on the idea of actually going the distance, so to speak, to do what it is. Obviously, again, Kurt, love the model, but I think that there’s probably a certain amount of those people that just stagnate or they don’t grow anymore.
[00:38:19.880] – Mark Szymanski
Maybe it still works. Obviously, you get the initial, you get the recurring. But my thing is, if I can move the needle for people that are of higher or the businesses are more mature, if I can get in with those people from credibility-wise here, there, the stuff that I’m doing on YouTube or whatever to use that as leverage, I think with me personally, it’s more something that I’m interested in pursuing. I think it could be better for me, just with all the variables that are me. But is that for everyone? Probably not. I think that it definitely does make sense to go the other route if that’s something that speaks to you more or if you have more leads, literally, that you could pull from in that realm. I think that’s a huge part of it.
[00:39:03.800] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah.
[00:39:04.150] – Kurt von Ahnen
What is unique in the small town is I’m part of the chamber of commerce. Jonathan came out to visit. I took him to a startup hutch meeting. We met 15, 20 other business owners. But if you become part of the community and you build, because I know that you work from a consultative standpoint, too. You consult with these people, you stay in touch with them, you have a relationship, that lifetime value does continue to grow. If If you build the starter version, you know what it is. If you want to expand it and add tools and develop it, you can have a lifetime value that continues to increase at a pace that matches their growth, which to me is, I’m in it for the long haul with these startups, which makes it a whole lot more fun.
[00:39:50.420] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re going to go for our break. I think we’ve had a good discussion in the first half. Half awful done. Mark’s listened. Mark’s asked these questions We’re going for our break. We’ll be back in a few moments.
[00:40:06.610] – Mark Szymanski
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[00:40:32.530] – Mark Szymanski
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[00:41:15.860] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re coming back, folks. We’ve had a great discussion. Before we go into the second half, if you’re looking for a great hosting partner that has deep roots in the WordPress community, why don’t you look as a WordPress professional at Hosting with WP Tonic? We specialize in membership learning management systems and buddy boss websites and their demands. We offer a ton of value. If that is of interest to you, go over to wp-tonic. Com/partners, wp-tonic. Com/partners. Fill in the form, we can have a chat and we can build something special together. I think it’s part of the first discussion, and hopefully people got… I just thought it’s a great industry if you can get some success. It’s a great WordPress community as well. It’s definitely got very open. There’s a lot of fabulous great people in it. Obviously, every industry have some that are not so great. But in general, I think the WordPress community and the caliber of people over the years I’ve had on this podcast has been impressive. I don’t want it to come across as a downer, but the reality is it’s really easy to get into web design and development to some degree.
[00:42:45.470] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s much harder to make a consistent living at it. It’s a brutal industry, but a lot of industries are brutal. But How do you see AI changing this? Because this has been a big discussion in the WordPress professional market, hasn’t it? It’s all over the place. Now, Matt, has done a couple of things about this, but you’ve had a little while to have some thoughts about it. Have you come to any concrete conclusions where you think things are going?
[00:43:24.290] – Mark Szymanski
Yeah, I can’t predict the future, but honestly, I’m- Oh, can’t you? Not, unfortunately. Unfortunately, I I could. But I think that I’m honestly, I don’t want to say I’m pessimistic, but I’m definitely not optimistic about the majority of web designers. If we be completely objective here, it’s easy to get into web design and everybody and their mom thinks they’re like a web designer in a way, right? Now, I’m all for people continuing to get in and learn and everything. I just think that when you get in, you need, especially right now, if you’re getting into this, you need to have the right mindset. You need to realize that there’s only a few more years before AI can actually build a solid thing. It can already do that. There’s already products in WordPress, specifically, that type some stuff in and you get the block editor version of a very simple website. Now, do they look a little cookie cutter to us? Yes. But again, I spoke in that video, like we were talking about in the beginning, I spoke in my live stream recently. I don’t know if clients really care that much because there’s so many websites out there and a lot of them do look similar.
[00:44:28.360] – Mark Szymanski
I don’t know if they care that much about the beautiful design esthetic and everything like that. A good business owner is going to care if it makes money for them, either directly or indirectly, like we were talking about. I would probably continue. This is like every other industry. If you’re not taking it seriously, you’re probably going to get screwed and you’re probably going to find it way harder to make money. If you do actually want to do right by your clients, if you want to make them money and understand this is a B2B industry and you have to benefit them, then you’re probably going to be fine. I do think, though, that AI is changing so rapidly that we’re It’s almost like we all see it, but we’re not internalizing how fast it’s moving. I guess, fortunately, unfortunately, I’m young and I’m going to see a lot more of stuff happen. But I do think my life is going to be very different by the time I’m 40. In 11 years, it’s going to be like there’s a lot more technology. The only saving grace here, the main saving grace, is I look at my Twitter feed, my X feed, and I’m like, there’s a lot of stuff going on that I should probably be paying attention The beautiful part and whatever part, because we know this, the clients, the prospects that we might be talking to, if I can’t keep up, there’s zero % chance that they’re keeping up with the concepts.
[00:45:43.470] – Mark Szymanski
So the good part about that is that we just need to be a little bit further ahead of them and we could leverage the tools that we’re afraid of, possibly. That’s the first part. The somewhat bad part is that you’re going to get clients be like, oh, can’t AI do this? We were talking about earlier where it’s real simple or whatever. So that’s going to be a little bit of a hard conversation an education piece. But I think ultimately that this is going to continue to change heavily. I think that we’re not that far off from the less serious web designers being like, I’m either just going to have to use the AI tools or I’m going to have to do something else because they’re changing super rapidly. I don’t think everyone’s in danger. But again, I would say the non-serious ones need to really be cognizant.
[00:46:24.290] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I totally disagree with you to some extent, but I want to leave that to hopefully somebody bonus content we got to do because Kirk has to leave just before 10: 00 for another online duty he’s got to do. So hopefully we can discuss that. But what I would say, and I want to get Kirk’s input on this is there are certain things that I agree with you, Mark, but the main thing is I think the people that are listening to this podcast and the people that watch your content, which is aimed at the WordPress professional, web design professional, it’s a bubble. It’s a bubble. It’s a bubble of people that are really interested in AI that use prompts. I use a ton of AI technology But we’re in a bubble. When you’re talking to the startup, small businesses that Kirk’s talking to, when I talk to people outside this bubble, this echo chamber, let’s go back to the title of your video, the Echo chamber. We’re living in a bubble to some degree. What do you reckon, Kirk? Because I think it’s a bubble, it’s echo chamber to some degree.
[00:47:42.820] – Kurt von Ahnen
I agree with the bubble concept and the idea of AI fatigue that the general public senses. You open up your email and there’s 25 email messages in there about the death of Opus AI, the death of whatever, this new tool that’s going to… The death of YouTube. No, there’s no death of YouTube. Stop with the nonsense. I think that people are getting a little bit like, Stop with the nonsense, about some of these AI tools. But when I think about web development for clients specifically, I think about the awesome tool that Cadence put out or the relationship that Zip WP has with ASTRA and the idea that we used to create, Hey, pick from this template, and now we say, What’s the company name? What’s a paragraph about the company, select these pictures, select your layout, and it works. Do you still need to fix it? Yeah, just like everything else.
[00:48:39.540] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, but, Kirk, I don’t really see that as any… It moves on the difference between having a large library of templates and that. It might move on the need for customization by 10, 15 %, but I don’t really… It’s really impressive But I tend to think- Does it achieve getting anything for the client? Because both me and Kirk are in the e-learning space, and there’s a couple of online forums, stroke Zooms that I regularly attend, and so does Kirk. Here’s a large mixture of other professionals with a mixture of end-users trying to build their businesses online. They get totally fixated about technology, and they totally lose the plot of what they should be really focused on is actually marketing and actually getting some end users that buy their products.
[00:49:48.050] – Kurt von Ahnen
Build and sell.
[00:49:49.160] – Jonathan Denwood
They get totally insnared in buying the right plugin or that, and they have absolutely no focus makers about how they’re going to get actual people to buy their product. Then what is the point unless you have a certain amount of qualified leads coming to your website and the message on the website actually gets those people to do some action? Isn’t it all a waste of time, Mark?
[00:50:22.190] – Mark Szymanski
Yeah. I mean, if you’re talking about freelancers, I talked about this earlier was the technician concept. I think a lot of people found out how to build websites, and then they I tried to build a business from that. And that could work if you spend enough time in the entrepreneurial sense of it. If you know how to build websites, that doesn’t mean you know how to build an agency. And I’m speaking even for myself a little bit because that’s how I started. You have to realize that, like you just said, Jonathan, there’s a lot more than just being able to put the pixels where they need to or do dynamic data or whatever like that. To mold that AI conversation, I see where you’re coming from. I personally just think that we’re literally trying to predict the future here and see what’s going to happen. I think that we’re all… I don’t think it’s so much of a bubble as in we’re all early adopters to this. And eventually, it’s on phones. There is going to be AI in every aspect of life. Now, how long is it going to take for the random person down at the grocery store going to be using it heavily?
[00:51:31.000] – Mark Szymanski
I don’t know. Do I think, though, that a lot of business owners are going to go and build their own websites with AI? I see we’re coming from there. But if they understand how much time and money that might save them, maybe. I don’t think we’re going to have a ton of business owners building their own websites with AI, but I do think that there’s going to be a lot of other pieces of it that are going to make it faster. Now, what I do is I now speak into this AI and it gives me better copy to write and better different things like that. There’s just a lot of things that have improved my quality of life. As soon as you get the layperson seeing that, if they can tune AI to be more beneficial for an average person, they’re definitely going to use it. Are they all going to be building websites? Not necessarily. But then we’re going to have an issue of This is just my opinion.
[00:52:18.000] – Jonathan Denwood
A company that really is focused on wanting to grow their business, that is time poor. The last bloody thing they want to do is mess around with a website because they’re busy doing proposals, going out, meeting customers, dealing with customers complaints or inquiries and running their businesses. The only people that want to mess around with this stuff are the power DIY types or the people that haven’t got a budget. Anybody that is running a real business that’s dealing He’s dealing with the thousand issues that I have to do every week. They do not… Obviously, there’s some tight people that don’t want to spend any money. There always are. There’s always, and you get this in the motor Our industry, I go back, you get somebody that’s bought $100,000 BMW, and he doesn’t want to pay $1,000 to have a great job. He will do the breaks himself. I’ve met those types, that they’re always around. They want top dollar for themselves, and they expect everybody else to work for minimum wage. There’s a lot of those types around, and you got to avoid them like the vague because you don’t want to do any business with them because you’re not going to make any money.
[00:53:53.540] – Jonathan Denwood
But I think the other types, they’re looking for value, but they’re looking for a result. I actually think AI makes the situation even worse, not better. But that’s just my opinion. Let’s go, because Kurt’s going to go off soon. Let’s go to question six, and then we can wrap it up. Are you okay for some bonus content, Mark? Sure. For sure, yeah. Let’s go off to question six of our list. If you had your own time machine, HDR Wells, and you can go back and you could tell yourself one thing at the start of your web development design career, little tip apart from not coming on this podcast, not allowed. What would you tell yourself, Mark?
[00:54:43.990] – Mark Szymanski
I can’t remember what I said the first time I got asked this question, but I’d probably tell myself something- Mark, so aren’t we? I’d probably tell myself something different. I think what I’d say to myself now is be a better… I need to focus more on the business and get myself out of the company as fast as possible. I never focused on that part. I need to focus on that now because I don’t think I want to be a technician for the rest of my life. It’s an important skill, but I want to remove myself a little bit more from it and still know it, but ultimately focus on driving revenue because I’ve never done that.
[00:55:20.400] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Well, my only focus at WP-Tonic is to promote the business online. That’s all. I could save money and do some of the work myself, but my only focus is promoting WP-Tonic and getting leads. That’s all I do every week, and that’s all I’m focused on because that’s all that matters. Nothing else matters. You can’t be a technician and do marketing successfully. You can only do that as a subcontractor where your subcontract model works, but that has its problems. But if you’re going from business to business or business consumer, you have to have somebody who’s just focused on lead generation. Because otherwise, it ain’t work out for you, in my opinion. So, Mark, what’s the best way for people? Let’s start with Kirk. Sorry, Kirk, what’s the best way for people to learn more about you, Kirk?
[00:56:30.300] – Kurt von Ahnen
For business, mañana nomás. Anything mañana nomás online typically leads to me, and then on our services. LinkedIn is the jam if you want to connect from person to person. I’m the only current fan on LinkedIn. When you get there, you know you got me.
[00:56:47.350] – Jonathan Denwood
So, Mark, what’s the best way for people to follow you and learn more about the content you’re producing weekly?
[00:56:54.860] – Mark Szymanski
I’m on YouTube, Mark Simansky, if you can spell that. What’s It’s Fitted is the easiest way to find all my stuff.
[00:57:00.380] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s been answering it, but I think I’ve done a better job this episode, haven’t I?
[00:57:06.700] – Mark Szymanski
If you don’t want to spell it, go to my. Bio, that’s all my links and everything there. So that’s the easiest way. I appreciate you guys having me. Thanks so much.
[00:57:15.270] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s been a blast. We’re going to wrap it up. We will have some bonus content when we discuss the online reality, a bit more about AI and how to get leads, and the internal plugin WordPress community, where we find ourselves at the beginning of 2025 in February. It should be a great discussion, Cushion; you can see this bonus content by going to the Wp-tonic. Com to the YouTube channel and subscribe to that channel. That would be fantastic. We have the central part of the interview and the bonus content. We will return next week with our roundtable show, which is always fun and controversial. We take the Mickey out of everything and everybody. That would be great; we would love for you to join that as well. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye. Hey, thanks for listening. We do appreciate it. Why not visit the Mastermind Facebook group? Also, to keep up with the latest news, click Wp-tonic—com/newsletter. We’ll see you next time.
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