CommandUI Launch, Membership Site Shortcut

Happy Monday morning! And I guess I should say… happy election eve? 🤣

Yeah, let’s be real…. tomorrow is a day a whole lot of people are paying close attention to. This US election has been a real doozie. All I know is that I hope it’ll all end soon and that the political division will die down.

I very intentionally keep politics out of this newsletter. That’s not what we do here. So, if you don’t mind, despite all the noise sure to happen as this election culminates tomorrow, I’m just going to dive right into the business of the week. 😇

And regardless of how this thing goes down, I’m going to be here. Doing my thang. 😎 And I hope you do the same.

So, let’s dive in. And make this week as successful as any other. Onward! 🙏

Membership Site Shortcut: Block Visibility Presets

Well, that’s not exactly a click-baity title. 🤣 But, I wanted to go over a cool shortcut and time-saver.

I’ve talked about the Block Visibility plugin before. Super useful plugin that allows you to set conditions on any block in the block editor to show or hide it based on criteria of your choosing. Things like:

• Show/hide things based on tags in your CRM (with integration with WP Fusion)
• Show/hide blocks based on date and time. Useful for time-based site components.
• Show/hide things based on location on your site (specific pages, categories, etc.)
• Show/hide things based on a user’s device (desktop vs mobile)
• The list goes on…

I use this plugin all the time on dynamic membership sites. It has so any uses. It is also completely free to use, which is really cool.

One of it’s abilities is to have rule sets. You can set up different criteria with and/or logic to fit the exact needs you want.

Thing is, it can take some time to put those rule sets together. A lot of clicks. And if you end up having to do that on every block that you need to conditionally control, that can take a lot of time.

So, the plugin has what’s called visibility presets. You can set up a collection of criteria with rule sets and do it one time. Then give that preset a name and then use it over and over again.

On one client’s site, for instance, I created a preset simply called “Members Only”. That rule set defined the exact tags needed to access members-only content. I even provided a bypass for Administrators. Then, as we build custom pages, it is super easy to show/hide entire blocks of content based on those criteria without having to re-build it every time.

This is a massive time saver. But it also allows you to control any element on your site using different criteria that suit your purposes.

Lessons From the CommandUI Launch

It has been awhile since I’ve seen a WordPress plugin launch with what appears to be a very well run product launch campaign. And CommandUI seems to have done that.

In short, CommandUI is a plugin that provides very quick keyboard navigation of the your WordPress site on both the front and back end. You’ve got a command bar which is globally accessible and allows you to quickly get around and perform admin actions using the keyboard only. And I will say, it is significantly faster than clicking around with the mouse.

Now, I was just watching from the outside on this launch. And it was smart how it was done.

• The product itself obviously solves a pain point, so there is definitely product/market fit. That’s super important for any product launch to work.
• He obviously sent out preview copies to influencers in the WordPress world and got social proof in advance.
• He launched a wait list first. So, while all this buzz is going round, the call to action was just to opt in. Oh, and he used FluentCRM for his list, I noticed. 😎
• After optin, you’re put into a viral campaign. You’re given a ranking on how fast you’d be able to access the launch deal. And the way to move up the priority list was to refer other people into CommandUI. Smart! So, WordPress people were all over social media promoting CommandUI before it had even launched.

This product is put out by Calvin Alkan. And I have to say, from the outside, this seems like one of the smartest product launches in the WordPress world I’ve seen in awhile.

Even if you take a look at his simple landing page, there’s lessons there that could be applied to your own launches on any product you may be looking to promote.

NOTE: Concierge Clients…. I acquired an agency license for this. So, I’m happy to install CommandUI on your site. In fact, I may do so anyway to help me save a lot of time getting around your site. 😇

This Week In Concierge

One of my internal projects right now is to make some changes and improvements to Concierge itself. One of those is that I’m developing a plugin for Concierge client sites.

This plugin will provide quick access to Concierge resources right from within WordPress itself. The goal is to streamline things further than what they are now.

While this is a work in progress, here’s a sneak peak of where it stands now…

While not everything will be done at the same time, some of what I have in mind with this are:

• Quick access to account features, credit balance, etc.
• Quick access to private Basecamp project and easy ability to add/assign a new task into Basecamp without having to leave WordPress
• Access to client training videos and support resources
• Perhaps inclusion of the task/service/credit history right inside of the dashboard
• Eventually, link to a client “operating manual” so each client will know where everything is managed and how their site is working

Aside from that, a lot of headway has been made to catch up on project work from the hurricane. Still a handful of projects running behind, but we’ll get there. Onward!

WordPress Quick Bits

CommandUI Launches. A new tool called CommandUI has launched and it had one heck of a viral marketing campaign. This tool is built to make WordPress much, MUCH faster to navigate using the keyboard. I picked up a license and am using it on BMA. It is definitely one heck of a time-saver once you get the hang of it. And I’m also looking forward to a ton more integrations to come. Good news for my Concierge clients is that I acquired an agency license, which means I can install it on your site, too. Just get in touch.

Uncanny Automator 6 is Out. The free version now supports Strip and MemberMouse integration, while the Pro version now supports imports, building your own triggers and actions, site activity tracking and more. Check out the full update on their blog.

WooCommerce Gets a new Logo. New logo…. woo cares? 😜 But, since WooCommerce is so popular, I guess it is news. And actually, I do think this new logo is a nice improvement and makes a lot of sense. You can check out the announcement on X.

Automattic And Matt Move To Dismiss Lawsuit. Mullenweg and Automattic filed a motion with the course to dismiss all but 2 of the 11 claims against them by WP Engine. Here is Automattic’s announcement of it. WPEngine has until November 4th (today) to respond, so we’ll see what happens.

Matt Continues Stupidity. You know, if Matt would have acted professionally over this whole affair, it would have been so much better. After all, his core complaint has some validity. But, the way he has conducted himself is just so incredibly childish. And apparently now, for some reason, he thinks threatening to steal and fork Paid Memberships Pro is a good idea. Read the post.

And, It Continues. There was going to be a big WordCamp in Sydney. The first fairly large WordCamp after Matt opened up this can of worms in Portland at WordCamp US. Apparently, some of event organizers don’t see eye to eye with Matt and tweeted about it. Matt then ordered them to take down the posts and they need to share their login details to their social media accounts. Here’s the story.

Matt Interviewed At TechCrunch. OK, just one more Matt update today… and that’s that he appeared at TechCrunch Disrupt and was interviewed over different issues. Of course, everything is WPEngine’s fault, if you believe hide side of things.

FluentCommunity Gets It’s Legs. The official launch of FluentCommunity is getting closer… with the official website now launched so you can check it out for yourself. This is the next major product release from the “Fluent” guys…. and this one is going to directly take on the world of community membership such as BuddyBoss. I’m looking forward to doing a full review of this because I think BuddyBoss needs a strong competitor.

SureCart Gets Payable Invoices. SureCart 2.4.0 introduces payable invoices, where you can set up an invoice for your customer and they can log in and pay that invoice, with all the perks of SureCart. Very cool.

Unhappy With Your Site’s Performance?

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Beware The Hidden Standard

When you are trying to get things done, one thing you need to be really careful of is the hidden standard.

What is a hidden standard?

It is a standard that is not defined. It cannot be defined. It is fuzzy. And it is usually based on a feeling and nothing more.

And nothing thwarts productivity more than a hidden standard.

As an example, when you’re working to prepare a new landing page, or a new site for launch, but you keep tweaking and trying to make it better endlessly….then you have a hidden standard. You have not defined what “DONE” looks like. You’re chasing something – a “perfect” site – but you don’t even know what it looks like. So, the wheels spin endlessly.

Unrelated to websites, I’ll give you another example with my own daughter.

When my daughter is working on school assignments, she sometimes ends up spending way too much time on one lesson. Reading it over and over. Taking notes that could be an art form on their own. It takes a long time…. because she’s chasing this feeling that she feels good about it.

But, with all that, the assignment was simply something like “Read Lesson 2”. It is simple.

She’s chasing a hidden standard.

She’s adding layers to the otherwise fairly simple task in front of her… and for reasons she can’t even clearly define.

So, I’ve been working with her to do something about it. And one thing I am doing with her is to set a deadline. To set an amount of time to do the lesson, realize what “done” looks like, and then that’s it. My goal here is to prepare her for future college work where her workload is going to be a lot higher and she needs to be able to get more done with her day.

The hidden standard to productivity is like trying to type a document with keys stuck on the keyboard.

Some call it “perfectionism”. But, it is the same thing. Perfectionism cannot be defined, either. Because it doesn’t exist.

So, the solution (I think) to this hidden standard is to make it not hidden anymore.

• Make it really specific. Make the outcome specific and define exactly what “DONE” looks like.
• Assign a deadline. And make it real. Don’t allow your task to expand endlessly because there’s no set time at which is must stop. Deadlines are important.

That fuzzy feeling of perfection people are chasing is nothing compared to the very concrete feeling of actually checking things off your todo list.