Troy Dean came onto my radar at the end of 2013 when I discovered his first product, Video User Manuals, which I still install on all my client’s sites. That got me on his mailing list, and so I received promotions every so often for webinars about WP Elevation, a business training program for WordPress consultants.
Being new to having a business and strapped for cash, I rode the free train and consumed lots of webinars, blog posts and free downloads. But then I did a very unusual thing and actually applied what I learned to running my business. I know, weird right?
Things got better, and in fall of 2015, I finally took the plunge and joined the course, which I still consider to be the best decision I ever made for my business. Sure, the information is good, but there’s something Troy has figured out that most people selling courses and blueprints don’t get. I’ll get to that in a bit.
What You Get When You Join WP Elevation
WP Elevation is a six-week course that gives you a framework and a blueprint for running a WordPress consulting business. From attracting and qualifying clients to delivering projects to asking for referrals, it’s all in there. Here are the specific modules:
- Pre-Flight Check Take stock of where you’re at and make sure your website is actually a marketing tool for getting new business.
- Incoming How to people come into your business? Do you have a system to make sure you’re working with your ideal client? Incoming is all about creating a system for qualifying and on-boarding clients so that you don’t have to guess at the next step. And it all starts with finding out if your potential customer is a good fit.
- Positioning is all about making sure you’re presenting yourself and your value to the right clients in the right way. Many people will say you can’t make money building WordPress sites because people can just hire cheap developers on Upwork. I went on a rant about that. WP Elevation teaches you to solve problems instead of just building websites.
- Proposals By the time you write a proposal, the client should have written most of it for you, by answer questions about the problems they need solved. WPE gives a systemized process[1] for writing proposals that work, without spending all day on it.
- Anti-Follow up Ever send out a proposal and then wonder how soon you should follow-up? You don’t want to seem desperate, but you don’t want to lose out either. Anti-follow up is a strategy that shows your potential client why they don’t want to miss out on working with you.
- Delivery Great you got the job! Now what? There's a system for that too. You’ll learn how to onboard clients and manage their expectations, establish communication channels, run project update meetings, manage change requests and scope creep, and launch the finished project.
Create repeatable processes for common tasks in your business - Referral Machine Now you’ve got more and more happy clients. Wouldn’t you like more clients just like them? Well, you should ask for referrals! In this module, you learn a process (there's that word again) for checking in post-project and asking for referrals.
Outstanding Support
While you’re learning all this, there are weekly coaching calls to answer your questions and help with implementing everything. There are now four WP Elevation coaches in different parts of the world, so you’re sure to find a coaching call in a time zone that matches your schedule. And if not, they’re all recorded and uploaded to the member's website within a day.
Every coach started out as a WP Elevation member and were so successful and so generous in helping others in the program, that they were asked to officially join the team.
You also have access to the entire community of current students and alumni via the member website forums and the private Facebook group.
Bonus Course Content
All of the above is plenty to keep you busy. It’s been just over two years since I joined, and I’m still working on implementing everything I learned. Fortunately, as a new member, you will only have access to the flagship Blueprint course.
As you move through, you’ll begin to unlock bonus courses related to the modules you’ve completed. Let’s face it, you can’t cover everything in one course, and trying to do so would be overwhelming.
As I write this, I count 24 bonus courses in the WP Elevation membership site, 49 stand-alone webinars, 81 recorded coaching calls, and 5 bonus courses.
Resources
As both coaches and fellow members answer questions and share resources in the forums and Facebook group, a ton of knowledge, resources and tools have been shared. Recently, the WPE team have collected most of these resources into a Wiki inside the membership site, organized by relevance to the different modules in the course.
What struck me about WPE was how thoroughly the path is laid out for each and every module. As an example, in the Incoming module, you learn about the importance of the Website Worksheet. But you don’t just learn why and how to do it, you then get the download you can use to import the whole form directly into your site instead of having to create it from scratch. Troy thinks about all the challenges, all the objections, and then strips them all away so there’s nothing left but your excuses and a hard look in the mirror.
The Secret Ingredient
Earlier I mentioned that Troy has figured out something that a lot of people with very good content haven’t figured out. That something is the community. And I’m not just talking about the gathering of a group of people in a centralized virtual space.
If you talk to Troy for five minutes, you will understand that when he says helping people grow their businesses is what gets him out of bed in the morning, he absolutely means it. He has set the tone for the community that has evolved over the past three years, such that a group of people who are on the surface, competitors in the same industry, don’t hesitate to leap over each other in service to helping others in the group and sharing the things that are working (or not working) in our businesses.
How My Business Has Changed
A few weeks ago, I was listening to one of the bonus courses and I thought to myself, If I had learned this three years ago, it would have saved me $50,000 dollars Building a business can be a lonely endeavor and many people go into it not knowing what they don’t know. And that can be extremely costly.
Whenever I have a question about how I should handle something in my business, I know have an immediate repository of both recorded information and a community of hundreds of fellow travelers and business advisors. And sharing the things I’ve figured out along the way also helps reinforce it for myself.
[Tweet “My only regret about WP Elevation is that I didn’t join sooner. http://karvel.me/joinwpe”]
I not quite jokingly refer to Troy as my ‘business man crush’ I was fortunate to have the opportunity to fly from Portland to LA for the day this past summer just to meet him in person and give him a big hug. (It was cheaper than flying to Australia).
I've become obsessed with systems and processes in my business and becoming more efficient. This is great for me, because it's how I'll finally achieve the elusive unicorn of ‘work / life balance.' But it's also great for my clients, because I no longer think in terms of building websites, but instead think about using technology solutions to grow their business.
A Word of Warning
I had a period where I joined all the things, in search of the next great piece of knowledge that was going to transform my business. I’ve gotten value from everything I’ve done, but the value only comes when you actually do the work. If you’re someone who is continually chasing the next big fix, but you never sit down and do the boring drudgery of just getting. shit. done., then think hard about whether this (or anything else like it) will help you.
Every single one of my wins hasn’t come because of Troy, but because I took action on what I learned. And having been asked for endless coffee dates and given a bunch of advice, I now understand why Troy practically does cartwheels when I say to him, “I did this thing you said to do and lo and behold it worked!” It’s because many will pay for a course like this and think the transformation is in the joining. But the transformation is in the work. You will get out of this course exactly what you put into it.
[Tweet “The transformation is in the work. Roll up your sleeves and leave your excuses at the door.”]
If you think WP Elevation is for you, Troy and the WPE team are running a webinar on how to build a wildly successful WordPress business.
During the free webinar, you will learn:
- The secret to getting paid more for your WordPress projects (and it’s not what you might think)
- How you can build a successful business without having to sell $10K websites (I know, this goes against what everyone is saying – but he'll prove it on this call with a real-life case study)
- How to stop discounting just to get the gig (you’ll never have to explain to a client why you’re a LOT more expensive than hiring someone on Upwork again!)
Troy is also going to explain why NOW really are the golden days for WordPress consultants and how you can get a massive headstart on the competition and almost guarantee your business is a success.
PLUS: he'll be hanging around after the call to answer all of your questions in a special live Q & A session.
There are 4 dates you can pick from, click now to choose a date. You’re not going to want to miss this!
Click here to choose a webinar date.
- Are you noticing a theme? You won’t be able to scale your business until you create systems and process for repeated tasks.
- Featured image by #wocintechchat
