WordPress Workshop - Last Chance!

[Lynn Terry]

I've had lots of questions & feedback about the interview I did with Christina Hills earlier this week. We discussed her workshop that starts next week. If you missed that, you can catch the entire replay here:

http://www.websitecreationworkshop.com/lynn/

Some of the feedback was regarding the price of the live workshop. Other feedback questioned my objective. Here's the scoop:

I signed up for this workshop. For what it's worth to anyone, I paid full price on my Mastercard and went with the payment plan option.

I did the free interview with Christina so that you'd have an opportunity to see what it's all about yourself.

The number one issue I hear from people every day is how frustrated they are with the technical learning curve or with outsourcing site & blog design.

I've been involved in web dev for more than 10 years and even *I* signed up. I admit my skills are old school. I definitely want to master the various uses of WordPress as I move forward with my online business.

I shared more of my thoughts on that here:
http://www.clicknewz.com/2299/create-cool-sites/

You'll notice the deadline mentioned on that page. Since there were questions, Christina very genoursly extended the deadline *for our group only*:

http://www.websitecreationworkshop.c...lynnextension/

If you heard the interview live, or you listen in to the replay, you'll hear Christina mention a bonus. That is a private stand-alone training webinar on using WordPress to set up your own membership site.

You had to be one of the first 24 people to register for the workshop to get that bonus. There are a few spots left for you to grab that bonus - if you get in now.

I was first in line for that one

The final deadline for the workshop registration is 11am Eastern on Saturday morning (3/27). The next workshop won't begin until Fall...

[Engage]

The number one issue I hear from people every day is how frustrated they are with the technical learning curve or with outsourcing site & blog design.

A Wordpress workshop sounds like a great solution for many people, especially pros. I can understand why you would take the class Lynn.

Ok, here's my frustration, which you hopefully won't have to hear every day.

Technical learning curves, outsourcing, and blog design are all unnecessary burdens, that so many webmasters seem determined to take upon themselves.

Creating a website can be close to as easy as posting on this forum. For many webmasters, perhaps most, there really isn't a compelling reason to use software that is so complicated that they need a workshop to understand it.

Online success is not a function of how many features we can operate. As example, let's take Lynn's clicknewz.com blog.

Why do you read it? Why do you take Lynn's advice seriously? Why does Lynn have a solid online reputation, that fuels her success to ever higher levels?

It's not the features on her sites. It's not technology.

It's her, it's Lynn. It's her writing, her content, her personality, her willingness to help, her ability to build and sustain relationships.

If we dumped all the technology on Lynn's site, Lynn will still be popular. If we dumped Lynn from Lynn's site, we'd have nothing. We'd have one of my sites!

I am far more technically capable than Lynn. I can code my own version of Wordpress from scratch. I am a major nerd, and have features, features, features out the ears.

But you aren't reading my site, are you? You aren't joining my forum. You aren't buying my products, or taking my advice.

So who do you want to be? Me? Or Lynn?

The problem with all the so many features in so many programs is that they give us so many things to fiddle with other than what really matters. The massive feature pile distracts us from laser focusing on giving readers what they really want.

Great content, from somebody they can trust.

Imagine we have been hired by the New York Times to write a daily column on our topic. Our job at the Times will live or die based on only one thing. The words in our column.

Does our content stand on it's own, typed on a piece of paper, in a plain text file, or plain text email? If not, features aren't the solution.

Ok, let's wrap up this wild rant with a simple constructive suggestion.

Perhaps the single most productive thing each of us can do is be clear about who we are.

Are we nerds? Or are we authors?

Do we want to work upstairs in the editorial office, or downstairs in the printing press boiler room?

Pick one, and be really good at it.

[Lynn Terry]

You make some good points, but A LOT of time and money has gone into the sites I manage that attract the readership that they do - and the affiliate sites that engage visitors and make sales.

I outsource a lot, but I do some things myself - and it takes me forever. I really want to improve my skills and kick out some great looking sites on the WordPress platform. So I'm super excited about the workshop. I already have a project lined up for my "test site" to work with hands-on and then take live afterward.

In the end, you need both. You need marketing *and* presentation. Presell will definitely go a long way even with bad design and poor copy. But I can tell you firsthand that one of my most-visited sales pages does NOT convert to cold visitors (people who don't know me very well). On the flip side, I've signed up for and purchased from many people I didn't know at all because of the way the offer was presented...

[Engage]

Hi Lynn, thanks so much for replying to my post.

I hope my writing was decent enough to make clear I'm not trying to suggest how you should run your sites. Like I would know. I was sincere when I said I understood why you would want to master Wordpress.

And of course readers should consider the workshop if they share your interest in learning more about Wordpress. Clearly, that would describe many thousands of happy Wordpress users.

Perhaps this isn't the best place to do it, but I'm trying to address webmaster culture as a whole, and offer non-technical folks another way to think about the challenges they face. Apologies, it's my job to be chronically obsessed with this topic...

The number one issue I hear from people every day is how frustrated they are with the technical learning curve...

Climbing the technical learning curve is surely one way to address this challenge. That's the route I've gone myself. If I used Wordpress, I would take the workshop.

For other people, stepping off of the technical learning curve may be a better solution.

I'm trying to propose that the market you and I both wish to serve might be significantly expanded, if folks understand that becoming a web technician is optional.

I agree that a pleasant and orderly presentation does matter. We might observe that we have a pleasant and orderly presentation here on this forum, without any of the posters needing to be technologists.

I apologize for butting in to your announcement!

It's clear that like your other users, I'm frustrated too. My frustration is that while I've become skilled at lifting the burden of this technical learning curve, I still stink at persuading users to let go of the burden, as you can see here.

What I can see clearly in my own situation, is that more technology is not the solution.

[Lynn Terry]

No apology necessary - I appreciate a good discussion

We're all coming at this from different backgrounds and varying skill levels. Getting a site online is key to doing online business, and is going to be a hurdle whether you're going the DIY route or trying to outsource (something you don't really know yourself). I hear the phrase "pulling my hair out" on a daily basis from both sides of that coin. And of course, I've been there myself.

Your frame of reference is interesting. How did you overcome the technical hurdle yourself? I learned the hard way, through trial and error, enough to get by on the new design landscapes... but not enough to create engaging presentations.

Of course I used to, as I started out in web dev - but back in the 90's that was a completely different set of code and way of doing things.

[Engage]

No apology necessary - I appreciate a good discussion

I know you do, and enjoy that about you.

My situation is that I appreciate good discussions just a little bit too much, thus practicing manners and occasionally even restraint (gasp!) is part of my learning curve.

We're all coming at this from different backgrounds and varying skill levels.

Very true of course. I surely don't mean to suggest a one size fits all strategy.

My interest is in what I see as the majority of the market, folks who want to communicate and earn, but not wrestle with technostuff.

Getting a site online is key to doing online business, and is going to be a hurdle whether you're going the DIY route or trying to outsource

Well, that's what I'm attempting to politely debate. Is posting on this forum a hurdle? Getting a site online doesn't have to be much more difficult than posting on this forum.

But it depends of course. If one's business plan really does require a certain set of advanced features, then one has to jump over that hurdle.

My point is that for most many users, perhaps most, (not all) advanced features are more distraction than asset.

I hear the phrase "pulling my hair out" on a daily basis from both sides of that coin. And of course, I've been there myself.

When it comes to marketing, I have no hair left, gone completely bald. I'm pulling on my ears now.

Your frame of reference is interesting.

Thank you, that's all I'm trying to achieve. You know, at it heart, web biz is really show biz, and this is my little act. Stay tuned, the dancing bears are up next!

How did you overcome the technical hurdle yourself?

Well, here's my little story. I'm the third generation of publishing technology (my dad and grandfather both printers) in my family. So for me, rampant code nerd disease is an incurable condition.

The paradigm I have in mind is that same model the publishing industry has used for centuries, I didn't invent it.

There are the writers/editors, and the guys who run the printing presses. Outside of the net, no serious publication has the same people doing both tasks.

I'm saying this to myself as much as any reader here.

[Lynn Terry]

That's true to an extent, regarding content publishers. But entrepreneurs as a whole tend to take on every role in their business to start. That's why The E-Myth Revisited is such a popular book.

I'm currently reading The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz, which talks about getting out of respond/react mode and back into creative mode. Especially important for entrepreneur types.

If you saw what I see every day, or even what I experience personally, you'd get my meaning I imagine. It's definitely a hurdle. It's not just about publishing content - or "doing what you love". It's about being able to present that in such a way that it appeals to and engages your ideal readers.

I have 50 copies of an awesome book that I won't even GIVE AWAY because the book cover is so tacky. Design matters.

But I do agree that it shouldn't be an issue. You either have to master it, or you need to know enough to know what the heck you're outsourcing - and not to get sold all kinds of crap you don't need because you don't know any better. There's no way around it (the design aspect) if you want to get into web publishing... and be taken seriously.

[Engage]

Hi again Lynn,

What I'm seeing is that our respective outlooks are complementary.

As I see it, you are in the top 1% of webmasters, and forum members here are in the top 25%. Anybody who is wise enough to come here and get advice from you is way ahead of most webmasters, no kidding.

I believe you are talking about yourself, and some percentage of members here, and I am talking about some percentage of members here (those banging their heads the hardest), AND the other 75% of people who would like to publish and earn online.

As example of this other 75%, my wife is very bright, and has some very neat things she could share online, but she would never get Wordpress working in any circumstance short of a life or death situation. She's just not technical, her talents lie elsewhere. To be fair to my wife, I couldn't get WP working either. :-)

I meet people like this all the time across the net. They are bright, and write quite interesting posts, but just aren't well suited to the webmaster technology dance, or to the 5,000 different business models dance. These are the people that interest me the most because imho, they are the majority of the market.

Ok, enough blowharding theory, let's get on to a tangible example of serving this portion of the market.

Awhile back I coded a site builder (not currently for sale).

What I did was preinstall a neutral background in to every account, and give the site owner control over only the logo at top of page, and the optional headshot at top of sidebar.

Other than selecting and uploading these one or two images, there is no site design work for the user to do. None.

No features for user to install. None.

No distractions to content, links and income. None.

No excuses for not getting right to work immediately. None.

Here's a sample site:

http://sample.nature-search-sitebuilder.com/

Does that site look as good as yours? No way!

Does that site look at least as good as many or most online? To me, it does. And not only that, as you can clearly see, the content really rocks!!! :-)

Will many users rebel against this lack of flexibility? You bet.

And some of these rebelers will indeed be people like you who really should be using Wordpress.

Many of the rebelers will be folks who aren't actually ready to get down to work, and so want to spend months reading ebooks and fiddling with their site design first.

To me, just one opinion, the serious non-technical publishers will choose a tool that allows them to get to work immediately, the same day, without delay, and without hurdles and headaches.

By suggesting the workshop, you're offering your members an alternative to .....

The number one issue I hear from people every day is how frustrated they are with the technical learning curve or with outsourcing site & blog design.

That's what I'm trying to do too, coming from the other direction.

Thanks again for the chat! And I do realize you probably have 1,000 other things to do, so please don't feel obligated to continue unless it interests you.

[Lynn Terry]

Oh, it interests me

I'm still trying to figure out your exact position...

If people just want to publish great content, there are platforms out there with push button design & features: blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc.

It's like the difference between setting up at the craft fair, and having your own craft store. And the appearance of that storefront and/or word of mouth referrals is what will bring people through the door.

If it weren't an issue, it wouldn't be such a hot topic - and such a hot market. But it is.

Is your take that it shouldn't be an issue at all?

[Engage]

Oh, it interests me

Ok, great. Thanks for helping me think all this through.

I'm still trying to figure out your exact position...

Well, we're both trying to tackle this problem...

...is how frustrated they are with the technical learning curve or with outsourcing site & blog design.

As a marketer, you are offering a workshop which helps people climb the technical learning curve, which is a good solution for many users.

As a nerd, it interests me to try to eliminate the technical learning curve for another group of users.

And obviously, I'm clearly not the only nerd on the net who does that kind of work. I'm just the only one here perhaps?

As a related issue, it interests me to wonder how many people might be well served by setting aside the 34,987,678 online business plan ebooks etc, and redirecting their energy in to a focus on simpler plans like content, links and Adsense.

Lots and lots of people fall in to analysis paralysis, and are never seen again. A lost opportunity for them, and for us.

Overall, on a variety of topics, the concept of "less is more" interests me.

Is your take that it shouldn't be an issue at all?

Do you mean graphic design? If yes, I wouldn't want to make some global declaration that claims to apply to all situations. Just trying to present options.

I hope this ok! I will remove this immediately once you've seen it.

Here's your new blog.

http://sample.nature-search-sitebuilder.com/index.cgi

Your real blog is definitely better, but couldn't those who want to keep it simple get a good start this way too?

I'm just saying, if someone is frustrated with both technical and business complications, they have the option to opt out of both.

The best, most well read, authors in the world know little to nothing about web technology and graphic design. They are too busy being great authors.

Thanks again for the chat!