Good morning and happy Monday. 🥰 

And here we are with the first issue of this newsletter which is branded as The Morning WP! It’s the new name, ladies and gents. 😉 And we’re going to go ahead and retire “The Edge” moving forward.

While it is mainly just a name change, I’m also brainstorming ways of making this newsletter even better. One of them (and you’re going to see it below) is to have more defined “Sections” within each issue. For now, we’re rollin’ with:

Growth Strategy: This section will be a strategy or tactic specific to business growth and making more money.

Site Strategy: This is going to be a tactic specific to your site and how to make it better, convert better, or automate. This one’s more technical.

Tool Of The Week: Kinda self-explanatory what this will be. 😉 

WP Tech Buzz Of The Week: As we have for awhile, this will be a rundown of what’s new or interesting in the WordPress space.

Now, I may make adjustments. I may add or rename things. We shall see. You have suggestions for me? Hit reply and tell me. Would love to hear any and all suggestions.

Also, I am toying with the idea of adding a second issue of this newsletter each week. Not sure yet… cuz of time and all. But, how would you feel about two issues of The Morning WP each week? Or heck… every weekday? 🙃 What do you think?

Selling services online is incredibly popular… and frankly the shortest path to revenue for your site. Way easier than making some big online course. 😉 

But, most people offer their services in a way which doesn’t sell very well. So, here’s a strategy for how to sell your services to increase your conversion rate. It’s actually pretty simple.

Here’s what’s on the menu for this issue…

GROWTH STRATEGY: How to sell more services on your site

SITE STRATEGY: An appointment schedule for your site you fully control

TOOL OF THE WEEK: A massive time saver for organizing your images

WP TECH BUZZ OF THE WEEK

Featured This Week

How To Sell More Services (Or Coaching)

Many of us sell services on our website. Whether it be “done for you” services, coaching, or any other service which takes time. In fact, I’ve said before that this is often the fastest path to revenue. Many times, it beats the snot out of doing all the legwork to create online courses and other info products.

But, so many service providers give calls to action that just don’t convert. They don’t sell very well.

Stuff like “contact us for an estimate” is the worst way to do it. Requiring your prospects to jump through hoops like that doesn’t give any idea what it will cost. It takes time. It is annoying. And you’re going to have a ton of people who just never bother to contact you for that estimate.

I also see a lot of coaches who sell their time by the hour. Or a certain number of calls per month. These kinds of time-based packages don’t usually convert well either. Nobody wants to buy your time.

Keep in mind…. people want to buy outcomes. And they want those outcomes NOW.

People also like to know upfront what something is going to cost. They’re not keen on open-ended projects.

So, the strategy is simple: productize your service(s).

Literally, take what you do… and package it into various products with set prices. Or take certain project types you find yourself doing more often… package it up into a pre-packaged product and give it a name and sell it using an upfront price.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean you don’t do more custom stuff for larger projects. It just means you have some offers that you can sell as products. And the delivery of those projects is some repeatable, packaged thing you can provide to people quickly.

Not everything you do as a service provider has to be custom. Sometimes, it can (and should) be a product. A systematized, repeatable, quickly delivered outcome with an upfront price. Even provide a promise of quick delivery… because people want what they want QUICKLY and will indeed pay for that speed.

You better believe I’m over here in my own business building this exact strategy into my business. Other than Concierge service, pretty much all project work done right now is done using service credits. That’s people buying time, essentially. And that’s not a recipe for growth at all. I’m very well aware of this. So, be on the lookout for some changes where I implement productized services. It’s coming. Soon. 😉 

No need to do all that legwork to create yet another online course. You can create great offers much more quickly by pre-packaging “done for you” services for your target market.

An Appointment Scheduler You Control

I’ve had a lot of people ask me my recommendation for an appointment scheduler. They want to give people the ability to schedule calls with them via their site. Should you use Calendly or some other tool?

First off, unless there’s a compelling reason to use an outside tool, my natural inclination is toward “digital sovereignty”. Not only that, it is nice when you can build the mechanics of your business right into your own platform and integrate it fully.

For this reason, I use Simply Schedule Appointments.

This is a WordPress plugin that will enable you to build your scheduler right into your website. Not only that, but this flexibility allows the scheduler to be built right into your tech stack so that it can be automated. Here’s a video & article on the site where I first talked about this…

Want to have your scheduler built right into a form? If you use Gravity Forms or Formidable Forms, you can do that. I’ll be working on them to get Fluent Forms support. 😉 

Want to trigger automations (like send automatic email campaigns after they schedule a call), that’s easy. The integration with WP Fusion means you can add tags and trigger anything you’d like. And the Lite version of WP Fusion will work.

There’s just no need to get into another recurring subscription for something like Calendly to get the good features. And when you use Simply Schedule Appointments, the code is all on your own site so you control it.

Organize Your Images With Eagle

This tool is not a plugin or a web-based tool. It is actually an application you install to your computer. And I freakin’ love it.

When you build websites (either for others or even just for yourself) or write blog posts, you usually have images and screenshots you need to archive. Eagle is the best app I’ve found that allows you to keep an image library and have it actually be usable.

I use Eagle to archive all the images I use in my blog posts in case I ever need them again. I keep feature images, stock photos, company logos, my own logos… all of it inside of Eagle. And it keeps me from having to hunt through my computer’s file system looking for some image without remembering where it is or what it’s filename is.

Handy as hell.