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The Transcript

Is WordPress the Right Solution for Building Your Online Business?

Voiceover: Rainmaker FM.

You’re listening to The Digital Entrepreneur, the show for folks who want to discover smarter ways to create and sell profitable digital goods and services. This podcast is a production of Digital Commerce Institute, the place to be for digital entrepreneurs. For more information, go to Rainmaker.FM/DigitalCommerce.

Sean Jackson: Welcome to The Digital Entrepreneur. I’m Sean Jackson.

Jessica Frick: And I’m Jessica Frick. Sean, last episode we were talking about whether you need to use WordPress if you’re just starting out or whether you can get away with using something like Squarespace, Wix, or Medium. What do you think?

Should You Use WordPress If You Are Just Starting Out?

Sean Jackson: Ah, well, it’s interesting that you ask that question. I’m going to give you my honest opinion. I think that if you start small, you will be small, but if you start big, you’re going to be big. Let me explain that.

Jessica Frick: I was going to say, I hope you do.

Sean Jackson: What I mean by that is this. I think that if you’re going to take the time to learn how to be a digital entrepreneur — if you’re going to take the time to really go out there and start putting out content, start selling digital goods online — then starting with something super easy means that when you get bigger, you’re going to have to learn something new. And you have to almost repeat the process over and over and over again.

So in my opinion, you should go ahead and start with WordPress, by default, and take the time to learn how to use that platform. Or if you’re really into digital goods, you go to something like Rainmaker Platform.

In other words, you go to the platform that is going to sustain you when you find that success that learning will come from. If you start out really small, if you go and, “Oh, I’m going to put something on Medium. Oh, I like Medium. Oh, look somebody liked it,” then you’ll learn how to use Medium really well. But as your business takes off, then you have to learn something new and something new.

So why not just take the learning curve upfront? Go to something like WordPress first or Rainmaker, and just learn it inside and out so that you can stay there for the long term. That’s my opinion. What’s yours?

Jessica Frick: Well, I disagree with you. Shocking. But not everybody needs the power of Rainmaker, and not everybody needs the flexibility of WordPress, I guess, for lack of a better term. Something like Squarespace may not be as flexible.

But as far as pricing and support is concerned, if you’re just starting out and you don’t know how to do any of this — you just want a website. You want to get your content up. You want to be done with it for a super low price, and you don’t really care about all of the bells and whistles that are offered through WordPress — I think something like Squarespace is totally fine, or Wix, or Wubu, or I don’t know. They’re all these dorky names, aren’t they?

Sean Jackson: Yeah, but you really made the point, though, if you don’t care, and I think that goes to the heart of it. If you care to do something, then I say go into it full force. Learn everything you can about it because it’s going to take time for you to master the subject. If you ve finally figured out content — let’s say you do a Squarespace thing or you throw something on Medium — and you start to figure that out and you start to see what’s working — then you want to say to somebody, Now, radically transform all that and hope that you can take it with you, by the way.

That you don’t have to redo it all from scratch through a massive copying and pasting to go over to the next platform, and the next platform. When people ask me, “Should I use Rainmaker, or should I use WordPress?” It comes down to this: “What is the end goal that you have in mind?” Because whatever that end goal is, might as well be on that platform from day one so that over time you become a master of it.

And while I like reading on Medium, are you really going to build a digital business on Medium? Are you really going to build it on Squarespace? No.

Jessica Frick: But Medium’s not for business per se. Medium is for content distribution. I think for that purpose it’s totally fine.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, but they have Medium for Publishers now. Granted, you got to remember, Medium right now is facing some unique challenges, to say the least.

Jessica Frick: Yeah, I don’t think I’d want to be on that team right now. The ax flying around there withstanding, there are some benefits. With other opportunities that are not WordPress, I think for some people it’s just what you want to do. That said, obviously, my paychecks come from a WordPress-based company. I firmly believe in the benefits, but I don’t know that it’s necessary for everybody. I’m a Honda girl, but I don’t necessarily think that anybody who doesn’t drive a Honda is wrong.

Sean Jackson: Right. It really comes down to your learning philosophy. I think it also comes down to your risk profile. And that’s where the decision really has to be individualized. If you want to start out with the least amount of risk possible — just to see if what you’re doing is resonating, just to put your toe into the stream — then I would definitely say Medium for Publishers is probably not a bad way to go.

Buy a domain. That’ll probably be the most expensive thing you buy. Buy a domain, and put it on something light like a Squarespace, like that medium, and just test it knowing that your risk profile is, If it fails, I bail. If it fails, I bail. Done. But if your risk profile is a little higher — if you are truly committed to the cause, if you’re really going to jump off the cliff — then might as well go to the endgame. That, I think, comes down to a very individual decision.

I tend to think, though — and this is why I would push back to you — if you’re just dipping your toe in the water, the moment that water feels at all uncomfortable, you’re out. You forget about it. You’re done. But if you’ve committed time to build in a WordPress site or committed time to putting in Rainmaker, you’re not going to vacate it just because you ran into a little bump in the road, if the water didn’t suit your temperature needs.

So I do think at the end it comes down to the individual and what their appetite is, but for me — if you’re committed, if you really want to be what you internalize that you can be — then might as well start using the platforms that you’ll be using in the future.

I’ll leave you with the last word.

Jessica Frick: I’ll agree that you do get what you pay for also. If you have a regular business, you’re going to pay physical rent. People will look at hosting and say, “Oh my gosh, $12 is obviously better than $30,” but you do get what you pay for. A $12 hosting plan is going to do different stuff than a $50 hosting plan, or more.

So I will agree with that, and I think if you are serious about business, you should probably have a serious business option. I will also say that I can see benefits for some brands that choose to have a presence on Tumblr, for example.

Sean Jackson: Good point.

Jessica Frick: There is a certain level of discovery that comes with that and Medium. Back in the day, you remember Blogger, that you could find people that way. It really depends, like you said, on the learning curve and really what you want to do. Is it a real business? Is it just content? And how much do you care about future planning?

Sean Jackson: What do you think, folks? What do you think about what we just said? Is it better to start out small — dip your toe in the water, take a little less risk — or should you go ahead and bite the bullet and go for the big-boy stuff? Let us know what you think by sending an email to Digits@Rainmaker.FM or sign up for our text messaging at 313131 with the keyword ‘DIGITS.’ Either way, we’d love to hear what you have to say, and we’ll be right back after the short break.

Voiceover: The Digital Entrepreneur is brought to you by the all-new StudioPress Sites. A turnkey solution that combines the ease of an all-in-one website builder with the flexible power of WordPress. It’s perfect for bloggers, podcasters, and affiliate marketers — as well as those selling physical goods, digital downloads, and membership programs. If you’re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 200,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress right now.

How a Person with No Programming Skills to Start With Created a Hugely Popular, and Profitable, WordPress Plugin

Sean Jackson: Welcome back from the break, everyone. We are joined by a very special guest today, aren’t we, Jess? Would you please introduce him?

Jessica Frick: Well, he’s a personal friend and someone who has helped me personally and professionally with WordPress. We have Andrew Norcross. Andrew is a WordPress developer based in Tampa, Florida. He is also founder and president of Reaktiv Studios, which is one of 13 WordPress VIP consultancies that you could get to work with you on WordPress. He also created the very popular Design Palette Pro, which is a paid WordPress plugin that helps you make WordPress sites beautiful.

Sean Jackson: Hey, Andrew Norcross, thank you for being on the show.

Andrew Norcross: Thanks for having me.

Sean Jackson: Well, I want to get into this because I started my journey, if you will, with the Copyblogger, Rainmaker ecosystem because I had an idea for a plugin. That plugin idea became Scribe, and it was funny because I had really not used WordPress up until that point. But then when I started getting into it, seeing its deficiency, I had this idea, and I managed to cobble together something. I’ve actually built a plugin with, obviously, developers.

You, however, have been building plugins forever. Let’s give our audience a little bit of your history first in the WordPress plugin ecosystem, what you’ve done, and more importantly, why you have done it.

Andrew Norcross: Sure. I’ve overall been doing this for coming up on 10 years now, and like many people, I sort of fell into it. I worked in finance for close to 10 years before I did this. I started doing this just because I was bored, and I was unhappy with my job at the time. What I did initially was simply, actually, funny enough, I kept a column in TweetDeck searching the phrase ‘WordPress help.’ That was how I found my first clients, but that was where I got going with it. Interestingly enough, I had never used WordPress before I developed on top of it.

Sean Jackson: I know how that is.

Andrew Norcross: I don’t write much, and it was simply one of those things where actually I learned it because a friend of mine is an author and needed his site to be moved. I’m like, “I’m sure I can figure that out.” I’d never even seen PHP in my life at that point, and I just assumed I would be able to figure it out. I did, but it took a while. And I made a whole lot of mistakes along the way. Through a chain of events that I didn’t anticipate, nor could they be duplicated, I ended up doing this full time.

I started making small plugins that solved, again, one or two problems because I was finding that I was having to repeat myself all the time. So I would just make the plugin. I would actually get it into the repository, and then I could just install it on client sites as I was working. It’s kind of snowballed from there. I built one or two that got bigger. At this point, I’ve got somewhere — between the repository, GitHub, and a handful of other places — probably 50 or 60 plugins maybe.

Sean Jackson: Wow. Well, let’s talk about that for a second, though, because here’s the thing. You, obviously, being self-taught, you went through the discipline that was required to really learn through it by refactoring, by looking at code, by applying what you were seeing, and putting it to work. It was definitely an arduous journey to be certain, but then over time, you started to get into it more.

Obviously, Design Palette Pro, if you were to have a claim to fame, anyone in the WordPress ecosystem, Design Palette Pro would probably be a brand they recognize. But I want to talk a little bit more about the economics of it. You’ve gone through a lot in the development side, but you also had to figure out, “Okay, I built this thing. What do I do now?” because some of it is just client work. It was pretty easy. “Hey, I need it for a client. I’ll build it. I’ll put it out there. If anyone else uses it, great, but my client is paying me.”

I want to talk more about how you look at the business side of the WordPress plugin ecosystem.

Andrew Norcross: Sure. With Design Palette, I was working for a marketing company for about a year or so, and I built it for them to use internally. It was a much, much stripped-down version of what it is now. It was on the older version of Genesis — I think like the 1.7 or the 1.8 era — and again, I put it up there and kind of let it do its thing. I updated it once or twice and just let it go from there.

What we kept seeing actually on the agency side, on the client’s side, was there was a gap of people. There was people that were fine taking a theme the way it looks, installing it, putting up whatever they wanted, and going about their day.

Then there were people that clearly needed a designer and a developer to build exactly what they needed because they needed something very particular and very specific. But there were a lot of people in the middle that needed a little bit of design. They were comfortable doing it themselves. Whether or not they were qualified, that’s not my business. But they needed a coat of paint. They wanted to personalize it and make it their own, but they didn’t need to move things around. They didn’t need overhaul code.

So for folks that have a job. They have a life. They need a website for whatever they wanted to do. They didn’t have the patience. They didn’t have the capability. They didn’t know where to even start to try to learn when seemingly all they wanted was, “I just want colors and fonts. I want it to look like my own.” Then they couldn’t afford a designer/developer because, again, what they needed really wasn’t in that caliber. This kind of came out of that.

Why Building a WordPress Product Is the Easy Part, and What the Real Challenges Are in Profiting From WordPress

Sean Jackson: Let’s go through this because you spent a lot of time on it, but then you said, at some point, “It’s ready.” So you decided to put it up for sale by yourself — what did you do thereafter? We said this earlier in the run-up to this show, that sometimes building the product is not the hard part. It does take a lot of time, and you do need to think through it. But there’s a whole other aspect to it.

So you built Design Palette Pro after doing numerous plugins. Really learning through seeing where you saw the fit for it. Building on the Genesis Framework, which is part of StudioPress. So then, at that point, you’re like, “Okay, I’ve got it. It’s ready.” What did you decide next? Where did you come up with the pricing? How did you come up with the distribution? What was that point that you said, “Okay, I’ve got it built. What do I do now?”

Andrew Norcross: Sure. The first thing was I knew that it was going to be large enough that it warranted its own site. I already had the name on that first version of it that I built like two years prior, so I used that. I went and got the domain. They were all available. I did the standard get a couple of misspellings and just make sure everything’s set up.

Built the site, and sold it using EDD, Easy Digital Downloads, because not only did I know that it worked because I was using it for something else, I knew that it solved the problem that I wanted to solve, which was selling digital products, creating license keys, and doing all that stuff. I didn’t need to worry about shipping anything. All that extra stuff that comes with some other e-commerce. Also, I knew the developer. I knew Pippen. So I knew that if something came up, I could ask, and I could get an answer.

That’s always been a big thing for me. The stuff that I use that I don’t build, I want to be able to know that I could ping somebody and get it solved. Initially, I had it up on my site, and most developers — and I will put myself in this category — are horrible at marketing. I built it. I released it. I tweeted about it. I did all the things that I thought I was supposed to do.

What I didn’t actually really figure out was any sales channels other than just it existing. I reached out to people that I knew. I reached out to some folks I knew both in the Genesis space and just in the overall WordPress space. Again, gave out some free copies.

I put up a live demo, which I think helped a lot in the beginning because then people could just go click around and see what it did, and made myself available to people who wanted to learn about it. We did some sponsorships with WordCamps. I spread it out. Then we had actually had the discussion with you all — with StudioPress — about some partnerships stuff. We went through all that, and that was another like six to nine months by the time all that was set up.

Then, by that point, I had worked out some of the initial bugs. I worked out some of the edge cases that, again, I never thought about until somebody used it, and it went from there. Then it took off because, obviously, there’s sales channels available that I myself would never have.

Sean Jackson: Sure. Let’s go through that because, again, when you said you’d launched it out there, and I think everybody kind of does the same thing, “I’ve built it. Now, world, come en mass and buy it from me.” You get it out there, and sales, I assume, were fairly slow in the beginning, right?

Andrew Norcross: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah.

Sean Jackson: So you had to work a little harder. You had to put a demo up together, so people could play with it. You try to get more word out there, so people would sit there and stop scratching their head and say, “What the heck is this?” so that you have some context to what you were selling. Then, it was really through a partnership, and were we kind of your first big partner for Design Palette Pro, or did you have others? Or did you have an affiliate program? That was something else I wanted to cover.

Andrew Norcross: Yeah. You all are the only partner really. We do have an affiliate program. We can obviously jump into that in a little bit, but I’m not one to just partner for the sake of partnering. I would never want to partner with someone that adds liability to what I’m doing without there being any sort of there’s obviously risk/reward.

But I felt comfortable with you all knowing that you’re not going anywhere. You’re not trying to bleed every dollar out of somebody. There’s other companies and stuff you’ve seen, I’m sure, both in WordPress and everywhere, where they’re trying to make as fast money as possible because they know that in a year or 18 months, it’s going to be gone, or they’re going to move on.

I knew I wasn’t going anywhere, so I knew that the fact that it could be more of a long-term thing. That’s why we had all those conversations. Furthermore, you all are Genesis.

Sean Jackson: Right. That helps.

Andrew Norcross: Yeah. My product works on Genesis. It was a natural fit for what I was doing because it solved the problem that you had, and you solved the problem that I had, which was marketing channels and reaching a wider audience.

Sean Jackson: I think that kind of gets to it because, much like you, when I had built the technology behind Scribe, I went to Brian Clark. I knew Copyblogger. I was a fan of Copyblogger. I literally met him at a conference, pulled him aside, showed him what I was working on, said, “This would be a perfect fit for your audience.”

I think that story that you shared, that I’ve experienced, that I think is very common — much more common — is probably something that a lot of people who are building products now don’t always think through. The product is maybe the easiest point because you can at least solve it. If there’s a bug, you can fix it. It is those extended partnerships and finding them that may be the inflection point to a product gaining wide success.

But I want to continue on with this. Let me give you my argument against the WordPress plugin ecosystem. Because I’ve got your story down, but WordPress is under GPL, which technically means if I download something, I can tweak the heck out of it and use it for how I see fit. How can anyone make a living in a WordPress plugin GPL system? Seriously, how can anybody make money from doing that?

How to Use License Keys to Make Your Plugin Profitable (If You’re Prepared to Follow Through)

Andrew Norcross: Well, the easy answer is we’re both basically on the clock right now having this conversation, so it works. But the whole idea, like Design Palette has license keys, and they get a year of support and updates.

Sean Jackson: Stop there right for a second. A license key — so what you put into your product was, “I’m going to put some way of identifying that this product belongs to this person. So if this person asks for support, then I know they’ve bought it, and they are entitled to support.” Is that essentially correct?

Andrew Norcross: Correct.

Sean Jackson: Okay, so if they don’t renew or if they don’t have a key, then that means you’re basically not supporting them. Is that the demarcation of value, if you will, from the free open-source to the paid version?

Andrew Norcross: Correct. Yeah, and mind you, it’s still open-source. It’s still GPL. If someone wanted to take it, fork it, whatever, I legally could not stop them. Obviously, I could make them take out any sort of trademarks, branding, things like that. The amount of effort that it would take for me to try to police that is not worth what little payoff there may be. My time is better spent doing other things.

Sean Jackson: I want to go on that because this is a very, very important point. We have seen this repeatedly, which is why I asked you the question. I think when people come out into this space, when they are really thinking about the WordPress ecosystem, what they fundamentally do not understand is that, in the paid market space, it is as much about what the product does as the support that you to provide to it — because there will be times you run into a problem.

You want to know that somebody is there willing to fix those problems, to address those problems, to continue to iterate on the product so that it continues to get better. I often find that in WordPress, people are like, “Why isn’t it free? Why isn’t it free?”

Well, do you want to have these benefits? Because if you don’t, then you’re fine. But if you want to have more features and improvements, and addressing the issues that you’re facing, there is a cost that is associated to it, which factors into the pricing that you put for the product.

Andrew Norcross: Exactly. It’s one of those things where, yeah, there’s always going to be some people where they complain about the price. Or they don’t like that it’s not free. Or they want support and updates lifetime. I understand where they’re coming from — I don’t agree with them — but my feeling on the whole thing has always been I either release it for free or I charge for it.

Personally, we don’t do any freemium products. I know that works for other folks. Some folks have the extension model where the core or whatever it is, is free, but then all the other stuff is paid. Those models work for more ecosystem-type plugins, especially like, again, an e-commerce and things like that.

For me, and it kind of goes back to that thing about the partnership, my face is on the website, and I’m sure that there are some people who buy it because they know who I am, even if I don’t know who they are. There’s a level of trust there.

I have zero problem paying for plugins, themes, or obviously, hosting. I have no problem paying for things if they provide value, if they fulfill a need, and I can look at it and go, “Okay, I’m going to spend X amount on this, but I’m going to save 3X time because I’m not having to build it myself. And I’m not having to do all those things” — so there’s always that trade-off.

I think what some people who get into the product space think that, well, again, once they build it, then they’re done — and that’s when it starts. Building it is pregame, and then the day that it’s live, that’s when it starts because now, yeah, I have to support it. I have to handle tickets. I have people on my team that help me with those. I have to continuously do all the marketing, the updates, adding features, and streamlining things along with keeping up-to-date with WordPress core to make sure that if they change anything that my stuff goes with it, or in your case Genesis as well.

There’s obviously that ongoing work, which I knew that signing up for it. I had built and released enough plugins, and enough of them had gotten popular, to where I had a decent idea as to what the expectation of support would be.

Sean Jackson: Right.

From Filling the Void to Gaining Traction: How to Get Your Plugin Built and Selling

Sean Jackson: Let’s go through this because now you’ve got me excited about building plugins again. I do think there are a lot of digital entrepreneurs out there who are much like I was, who saw a void, if you will, in the ecosystem. This is the other thing. There’s a lot of plugins out there, but not all of which are supported. They make a lot of claims that they cannot fulfill, or if they do try to fulfill them, they don’t do it very well.

I do think that, if anything, in the WordPress plugin ecosystem, there is an active market. Trust me, I’m the actual guy who writes the check that we send to you every month, so I know there’s an active, viable market for WordPress plugins. I want to step back into the role of a digital entrepreneur. I see a void in the market for X. I think the WordPress ecosystem is a place that I want to be a part of because I have, for whatever reason, some experience in it.

If building the product is truly easy, what are the key things that a person like me needs to focus on when thinking about hiring an outside developer? Because I will tell you right now, my first blush, Andrew, is just to go into Upwork and put a thing out there and say, “Hey, I got this idea. I’ll spend $1,000 on it. Will somebody build it for me?”

So really walk through the idea of someone like me coming to someone like you, and really trying to think, “I want this to be a real, viable commercial product.” What are some of the things I should thinking about from the get go? Because, trust me, you’re right. It’s a pregame show for this. The whole game is once it’s built, but let’s get the damn thing built first. Talk to me about that.

Andrew Norcross: Yeah. The first thing is actually trying to figure out if what you think is a void actually exists. I say that because the first paid plugin I ever built did ratings. It would give you little stars, and on the front-end, people could rate whatever they wanted. I sold, I think, maybe 20 copies of it.

At the time, there was like one plugin that was out there that did that, and it was garbage. It as bloated. It was really old. A lot of the architecture was supporting WordPress before custom post types. It was a nightmare to work with. I saw that, and I had to set up something similar on some client’s stuff for them. I go, “Okay, well, if this is the best one that’s out there, I know that I can build something better because I have, and there must be a market for this” — and there was not, at all.

Then I built another small plugin that I literally built in a weekend because Carrie Dils asked how a particular function worked in WordPress. I’m like, “Oh, well let me show you,” and I wrote just some real quick code sitting in my recliner with my laptop. I sent her the thing, and she’s like, “Oh, okay. Well, what about this?” Then it turned into a plugin over the weekend without any intent on doing so. I did zero research, obviously, because I was just answering her question. That one sold a pretty decent amount.

So I saw both sides of it. I saw that, “Okay, I had no idea what the market was, and it worked.” I was convinced of a market that didn’t exist. Because there’s so many plugins out there and most of them are free, not only is it having to solve the problem, but you have to solve it in a way that someone is willing to spend money as opposed to getting 80 percent of their problem solved for free.

Obviously, there’s some amazing free plugins out there, but there’s many out there that do most of what you want to do. It works but it’s not exactly the way that you want, or it’s a little more heavy-handed than you wish it was, things like that — but it’s free. So people will still be like, “Well, I’m willing to deal with this inconvenience because I don’t have to spend any money on it,” as opposed to spending money and then, “Am I getting what I want? Am I getting what I expect to do?”

As you alluded to, there’s some out there that make claims that nobody could ever back up. I notice that more on the theme side than on the plugin side, but it’s obviously moved over as well. I think a lot of plugin developers get into the mindset of trying to solve every problem that their product possibly can, and that has never worked for me.

One of my most popular plugins, I have a huge refactor that I’m afraid to release because I don’t want to break 50,000 sites. So the idea that you can just walk into the space and be like, “Hey, here’s a new thing,” it’s not going to get a lot of traction.

The other thing is, when people who are not part of the WordPress community come in immediately with a commercial product, having never done anything with anybody, there’s a lot of skepticism. And it’s warranted because there’s people that, “Oh, I can make a quick buck off the WordPress space. I’m going to do that.” Those often don’t work either because there’s no community. Nobody knows who they are. It’s like, “Yeah, are you going to be here in six months? Are you going to be here in a year when I have a problem with this or when WordPress updates something?”

It’s not like you make a product, put it in a store, then the store sells it, you get your money, and that’s that. Software’s a living thing, so it’s making that deeper commitment to maintain the product, work with it, work through all the bugs, edge cases, and people that were like, “This Jeep would be really awesome if it would float and then go 100 miles an hour.”

Sean Jackson: It’s funny because what you said there, I think there’s a lot of wisdom, and I’m going to kind of sum it up because we’re getting to the end of our time together. But you said something right off the bat that I think if you are looking in the WordPress space, you have to have some appreciation for it to begin with because there are known players in there.

You mentioned Carrie Dils. She’s a known player in there. You’re a known player in there. There’s a lot of people who are known personalities with proven personalities, proven developers that already are well-respected. I think that’s the first step that any digital entrepreneur really needs to think about once they start looking at it and saying, “You know, I do think there’s something here,” and talking to someone like you. Talking to someone who is known in the space so that they can bounce these ideas off.

I would definitely think, in your particular case, if I came to you with some crazy solution — let’s say I want to do a new SEO plugin. I saw a Yoast’s plugin, but I want to do something a lot better. You’ve been in this space long enough, you’re like, “Well, what do you really want to do?” I think part of that initial side from the digital entrepreneur is talking to someone who knows this space, who develops in this space, who is known as a professional developer in this space, and really using that as the first filter point.

I don’t think you’re going to waste your time with somebody crazy unless they’re going to write you a giant check, but even then you may say no because they’re an idiot, right?

The other aspect that you said, too, is that by working with known commodities in the space, then they will probably be around. Their reputation is going to extend far beyond the work that they just do for you. That’s also important.

I will say that when we built Scribe, I had someone who actually came from a computer science degree. He was not as well-known in the WordPress space, but he was making a living in the WordPress space. In fact, he was going after ‘WordPress developer’ was his primary keywords that he was targeting. I knew that he was going to have to be around because that’s where his career path was leaning towards.

I definitely think that right there is probably something that our audience, as digital entrepreneurs, if they’re thinking about this, is to spend time not only researching the void, but researching the people who are filling the voids as they are there and talking to people that are known and reputable.

Andrew Norcross: To be able to market anything, free or paid, there’s got to be some trust and some credibility there, and that has to be earned. Whether it’s earned on your own by ‘getting in the trenches’ and doing the work there, or if it’s co-opting with somebody else who already has that standing and is willing to put their name on you. Without that, I think it’s just dead in the water. You might sell 20, you might sell 50, but it’s going to be discouraging.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, and to end up this interview, I think you’ve said it best — building the product is really just the pregame. It’s the practice. It’s getting ready for the real game. Once that thing is built, there are a whole host of other issues that make coming up with the product seem so easy in retrospect.

Hey, Andrew Norcross, thank you so much for being on our show today and for your insight and wisdom to share. I can’t thank you enough.

Andrew Norcross: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Sean Jackson: Hey, everyone, this is Sean Jackson, the host of The Digital Entrepreneur. I want to ask you a simple question. What is your business framework for selling digital goods online? Now, if the question perplexes you, don’t worry — you are not alone. Most people don’t realize that the most successful digital entrepreneurs have a framework or a general process for creating and selling their digital goods in the online space.

One of the best free resources is Digital Commerce Academy. Digital Commerce Academy combines online learning with case studies and webinars created by people who make a living selling digital goods online. The best part is that this material is free when you register. Are you interested in joining? Well, I’ll make it easy for you. If you’re listening to this show on your phone and are in the continental United States, I want you to send a text message to 313131 with the keyword ‘DIGITS.’ When you send that text message, we will send you a link to the registration form right to your phone.

Are you outside the United States? Don’t worry. Just send us an email to Digits@Rainmaker.FM. Either way, we’ll send you a link to the registration form so that you can sign up for free for Digital Commerce Academy, and as a special bonus, we will also subscribe you to our newsletter when you text or email us so that you can stay informed with the latest insights from the show.

And don’t worry — we respect your privacy. We will not share your email or phone number, and you can easily unsubscribe at any time. If you want to start building or improving your framework for selling digital goods online, then please send a text to 313131 with the keyword ‘DIGITS,’ or send us an email at Digits@Rainmaker.FM. You won’t be disappointed.

Question for the Week: Does SEO Still Matter?

Sean Jackson: We’re back from the break, everyone. Jessica, what is the question for next week we are going to talk about?

Jessica Frick: Okay, this one’s going to have people lining up with pitchforks. Sean, does SEO still matter?

Sean Jackson: Okay. You do know my history, right?

Jessica Frick: I know, but I want to know what you think.

Sean Jackson: You do know that I actually am a patent holder on some SEO-esque type of things, right? I’m going to answer that with an affirmative response. What would you say?

Jessica Frick: I would say sometimes, not always.

Sean Jackson: Oh wow. Can you be any more non-committal?

Jessica Frick: I would say it doesn’t always matter.

Sean Jackson: Well, we will have a very interesting back and forth on that particular response on the next episode of The Digital Entrepreneur. Have a great week, everyone.

Jessica Frick: Have a great week.

The Transcript

6 Business Insights That Could Radically Increase Your Online Engagement in 2017

Voiceover: Rainmaker.FM.

You’re listening to The Digital Entrepreneur, the show for folks who want to discover smarter ways to create and sell profitable digital goods and services. This podcast is a production of Digital Commerce Institute, the place to be for digital entrepreneurs. DCI features an in-depth, ongoing instructional academy, plus a live education and networking summit where entrepreneurs from across the globe meet in person. For more information, go to Rainmaker.FM/DigitalCommerce.

Sean Jackson: Welcome to The Digital Entrepreneur. I’m Sean Jackson.

Jessica Frick: I’m Jessica Frick. I am really excited to ask you, Sean, this week’s question.

Sean Jackson: What is it, Jess? Now, for those who don’t know, we always end our show with a question for the week. Now, Jessica and I are going to debate it. Jess, what was the question that we left everyone hanging with last week?

How to Turn Daily Distractions Like Email into Something That Improves Your Productivity

Jessica Frick: Well, last week we talked about social media accounts and got to hear how wrong you are, but this week we get to hear how wrong you are where it relates to email. Is email a time saver or a time suck?

Sean Jackson: It is a time suck, okay.

Jessica Frick: You’re insane.

Sean Jackson: I’m telling you now, it is a giant time suck. Maybe it’s our generation, too. One thing about email, when it comes to people of a certain age, email is our default communication system. For my daughter, literally her email app on her phone is in a folder called ‘Old People Stuff.’

Jessica Frick: Whoa.

Sean Jackson: I would definitely say email, whether it’s a time saver or time suck, greatly depends upon your age. If you’re too young, you don’t really care about email. It’s for password-retrieval purpose.

Jessica Frick: Oh my gosh.

Sean Jackson: Let me tell you why I think email is a time suck.

Jessica Frick: All right.

Sean Jackson: I don’t think people use email properly. That’s why it’s a time suck. I think that too many times people are so addicted to their mobile device, to their desktop device that they’ll have multiple tabs open, but there will always be that tab to their email program. It’ll have a little alert on there telling you how many unread messages you have. Or it’ll be you get on your phone, and there’s that little icon with that little red circle that says, “You have 55,000 unread messages.”

I think what it does is that it is a time suck because of the way we use it. It is constantly drawing our attention to it. For example, if you go on vacation, which I know you never do, but if you ever went on a vacation, what you would find is that what is a real vacation? If you’re checking email, is that really a vacation? No.

Jessica Frick: It can be if you enjoy it.

Sean Jackson: No. So it is a complete time suck because people don’t use email correctly. What do you say?

Jessica Frick: Well, I say that I would agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.

Sean Jackson: Okay, well, give me another point. That’s not the point of this. Give me the counterpoint.

Jessica Frick: Counterpoint is, well, yes, I will acquiesce that some people do use email wrong. For example, us, we’re in a virtual workspace. Can you imagine if every time we needed to talk about something we had to actually talk about it over the phone or in person?

Sean Jackson: Well, that we use Slack for all of it.

Jessica Frick: Exactly. Well, Slack or email because email is for long-form stuff if we have to get somebody to sign off on something or strategize something where it’s not in a chat room. I feel that email is better for addressing specific things without the nuances and distraction of that immediate feedback loop.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, but here’s the thing. You spend so much time on email going back and forth when picking up the phone could solve about 20 hours of back-and-forth dialog on the email message. To me, that’s where I get so adamant about email. Not only do we not use it right, but then we go back and forth and things can be misconstrued. Your tone in there, god forbid you put all caps in something, right?

So to me, email can be just an incredible waste of an entire day, especially if you let it pile up and then you’re having to go through and go through and the anxiousness that comes from that. I would disagree with you. I don’t think if there’s any time savings per say. I think there are certain times when it is appropriate, but picking up the phone and talking to someone is, in many ways, a faster form of communication than going back and forth on email. What say you?

Jessica Frick: Well, speaking of old people stuff, how many people do we work with who forget what you guys just talked about yesterday?

Sean Jackson: Yeah, good point.

Jessica Frick: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to go back to the email and say, “Actually, we talked about this on February 22nd, 2015.”

Sean Jackson: Yeah, I know. Next to the send feature on email, it’s the search feature I use the most.

Jessica Frick: Exactly. How much time do you save with that? Email is more than just that one to one. It’s also a group situation. How many times have you been on a conference call that could have been solved with an email?

Sean Jackson: Yeah, you know, if we talked more on the phone, then I would agree with you, but I think we’ve become overly reliant upon it. I think there is a value in picking up the phone and talking to people. I think there’s a value in putting together a webinar, let’s say, where people can have a voice and talk. I think it has more value to look at other alternatives — only because I, again, will push back on this, saying I think people use email incorrectly.

Jessica Frick: I think I would agree with you on that part.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, and here’s why. I think we leave it always on, so I literally, literally just before the show was using the restroom.

Jessica Frick: TMI, Sean!

Sean Jackson: Yeah, I know, I know. Getting really personal, folks. Cover your ears, folks. I was sitting there, and the guy in the urinal next to me was checking his phone. He was coming in, and he was checking his phone. He was going on and et cetera, and he was reading through all these emails, et cetera. Because I know the guy, I wasn’t just talking to a stranger, I said, “Look, email so permeates our business life.”

So what I have done — and I would highly recommend everyone think about this — on my mobile devices, I turned automatic email off.

Jessica Frick: Like when it refreshes?

Sean Jackson: Yeah, I have to go get the email. I don’t let it just sit there and come to my phone automatically so that, every time I pick up my phone, I see this little red circle with 20,000 things that I haven’t done.

The reason I do that is because it goes to the greater point about email and most communication in general — given the tremendous amounts of ways that we do communicate, blocking off time is the best way to manage all forms of communication. Having it always on can be and is a huge distraction to productivity.

Turning your email auto fetch to manual means that, when you’re ready to check your email, then you are in the right mindset. Otherwise, you just ignore it.

I will tell you, doing that, Jess, has saved my weekends with my family. I’m dead serious because, when I pick up my phone, I’m not like, “Oh my gosh, there’s an email I have to respond to.” No. I have certain times when I work, and I have certain times I spend with my family. Turning off email auto fetch and making it a manual process allows me to control the way that I spend my time in communication.

What say you?

Jessica Frick: Well, I like the idea of block scheduling. I’ve never been able to make it stick because so much of what I do is fluid. Somebody might need to get in touch with me right now, and it can’t wait eight hours until my next email block. Like our colleague Matt, he handles a lot of our server operations, and he has a tremendous workload on any given day. If he always makes himself available, he gets distracted and isn’t able to accomplish the huge feats that he does on a regular basis.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, that’s true.

Jessica Frick: He needs to have that focus, but at the same time I can’t imagine how he’d survive if he had too many group phone calls. The best way to get him is email.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, and I will say this, that there is a time and place for it. I think it’s up to you who’s listening to this to really think about your communication plan. How you interact with the communication streams that you have coming at you and really think about it for a second. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it is not a time suck.

Jessica Frick: There is no maybe.

Sean Jackson: No, there is. There is. But again, by controlling your communication stream, you may find yourself to be more productive. Certainly, there are times when you’re sitting around waiting for that one email communication to come in, but I think that if it’s that damn urgent pick up the damn phone and talk to somebody. Jess, I’ll let you end our argument with your point.

Jessica Frick: If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can contact us at Digits@Rainmaker.FM. That’s our email address.

Sean Jackson: Wow, that was a heck of a plug, and way to go to, Jess. We’ll be right back after this short break.

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Trends in Mobile, Native Advertising, Online Video, and Direct Mail You Should Be Paying Attention To

Sean Jackson: Welcome back from the break, everyone. I’m Sean Jackson and joined by Jessica Frick. Jessica, for this particular segment, I want to talk about focus points for 2017. Some ideas for you to focus on for your online business.

Jess, I’m going to go ahead and let you give your top three focus areas that you think our audience should be looking at 2017.

Jessica Frick: Well, my first one is going to be live video.

Sean Jackson: Now, what do you mean by that? What do you mean by live video?

Jessica Frick: I feel like more and more brands are getting into the live video business. Even those that you’d be like, “Well, what could you possibly do a video about?” But they’re all in there, and they’re using Facebook Live or YouTube. I feel that that medium has become a very strong way to reach your audience, and people love it.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, so let me push back on that for a second. Let’s say I sell a digital good, an ebook, a software, a membership system, et cetera. Let’s say I’m not selling a physical product, which tends to lend itself to a video format. What type of live video ideas should someone in the digital goods space be thinking about?

Jessica Frick: I think it depends on the product or service, but people can talk to you. You might be discussing one of the areas of your expertise. Or you know what, maybe you’re just walking around a downtown area that looks really cool, and you just wanted to hang out with your friends and talk about this new book you’re selling.

Sean Jackson: Yeah. Here’s a couple of ideas. Whiteboards, obviously, certainly over at Moz, they do Whiteboard Friday. I think certainly webinars fall into that space, but whiteboards, a constant stream of just very simplistic style of video composition where great audio using your phone. Certainly, talking to customers.

At the end of the day, there may be customers of yours in your local town — just getting together and talking through their issues. When it comes to the digital goods space, you have to be a little bit more creative with video, but at the same time, you don’t have to feel like you’re limited either because you can talk about bigger ideas using video.

Jessica Frick: That dovetails with my next thing — 360 video and imagery. Are you seeing so many people are using that? It goes virtual reality, augmented reality, that kind of immersive experience is becoming more and more popular. I feel like a lot of brands can leverage that to help them.

For a digital entrepreneur, giving them an immersive experience inside it could even be your office. I know that sounds so stupid, but I would totally look at that. Not only would I look at that, but I’d be zooming in on your desk.

Sean Jackson: Right, giving a little bit more appealing to the lifestyle aspect of what you sell, right?

Jessica Frick: Yeah.

Sean Jackson: Certainly, there’s some people who really promote the freedom lifestyle. Your freedom to be anywhere, right? Well, reinforce that.

Jessica Frick: Yeah, you’re hanging out on the beach doing your work.

Sean Jackson: Right, exactly, because you’re hanging out on the beach doing your work. So again, sharing information around there. Certainly, with augmented reality, virtual reality, and some of the other things that are in the pipe and coming down further, I think it really comes down to content creativity. What is a piece of content that is visual that can be associated with both your brand and your product to reinforce it, right?

Then, through that, give them something that is a little bit different. Again, a lot of people are doing gaming right now. The YouTube channels that are coming up where people are touring houses. Certainly, if you’re in the real estate segment, man, you’ve got to be thinking, “What are some of the ways that I can really get above the noise?” And augmented and video virtually reality are methods for doing that, especially where there’s a physical aspect to what you provide online.

Jessica Frick: Completely agree.

Sean Jackson: What’s your third one?

Jessica Frick: The third one and you and I talked a little bit about all of these earlier, but I’m going to make a last-second decision and change my third one. I think physical mail is going to come back.

Sean Jackson: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Tell me why you think that.

Jessica Frick: Even if you run a digital business, nobody is using actual mail anymore except for the phone companies and the utility companies. How much do you love getting stuff in the mail? I give Amazon all kinds of money just to send me cool stuff.

Sean Jackson: I know.

Jessica Frick: Post cards. I can remember being young, and my mom started getting these weird random post cards from some dude that she didn’t know. But they were all like these rural places with these photos of cool farms. She couldn’t figure it out. Anyway, cut to the chase, the last post card in the series turns out this guy actually worked for a new popcorn company, and they were selling popcorn.

So she’s getting all these random post cards. I want to say there were four or five before he revealed himself, but you can bet your bottom dollar that she bought that popcorn all the time.

Sean Jackson: Yeah. You are absolutely 100 percent spot on. I was thinking about including that actually, so you jumped me on that one. That’s fine. No, I did. You took my idea. I’m looking at it. I’m tapping the desk right now. You took my idea. Let me explain why, folks.

Here’s why. When you start to look at all that data that you’re getting in on both your visitors and your customers — and we talked in the last episode about Clearbit API, which I particularly like — you are starting to get a lot of data about these people. Reaching out to them with something like, I don’t know, a sticker.

Jessica Frick: Oh yes, people love stickers!

Sean Jackson: A sticker for their laptop. One of the things I have on my laptop is a laptop cover that’s really cool. Every time I pull out my laptop, people look at my computer and go, “Oh my gosh, where did you get that cover, that wrap that you put on the front?”

It doesn’t have to very expensive, but what about that social acknowledgement that you could generate with a sticker of some sort — just sending it out to people whom you’ve been able to identify on your site either by them filling out a form or you’re just coming up and being smart about it and saying, “Oh I realize who this is person is,” looking at data sources, and sending them something inexpensive that builds social currency for your online brand.

I will tell you, you send a sticker or a wrap or something like that, people will be Tweeting about it. They’ll be showing you. It really is something so easy, but it requires you to think outside of the Twitter-verse.

Jessica Frick: Yes, and you’re engaging another sense all together, that tactile sensory experience. I’m touching the same sticker you touched. There’s a human connection going on here.

Sean Jackson: That’s right, and it doesn’t have to be expensive folks. All right. So, Jess, you stole my idea, so I’m down to two. I had three, wow. Man, I’m never going to do a pre-call with you. Man, forget that.

Jessica Frick: Sorry.

Sean Jackson: Here’s my big focus I think people should be thinking about for 2017, and it’s going to go into the mobile space. I know, mobile, mobile, mobile — but here’s why. We have really transcended past the mobile-responsive age to the mobile-first age. Let me explain that.

As content creators, we spend all of our time in a desktop-style environment. It’s conducive to the way that we operate, so we have a natural bias to the desktop experience. Knowing that, in certain categories, especially the consumer side, and even in the B2B side, people are consuming information more and more on a mobile device.

In the consumer side, it’s over 50 percent. It’s looking at 60, 70. Heck, even on LinkedIn, a business social media network, most of the content consumption is on a mobile device because executives are reading, learning, and listening to these things as they are in transit. Where I would say that a mobile-first design means that you look at your site purely from the mobile experience first. That if you go into some tool like Chrome, for instance, the Chrome web browser, they have developer tools in there that will allow you to see your site in a mobile environment.

Start thinking about what are the features that are on my site that are not applicable to the mobile experience? I’m talking about forms on your site. I’m talking about content on your site, video. I just went to a site that was on Shark Tank. I was watching Shark Tank, and I went to their site on my mobile device, which is probably how a majority of people watching Shark Tank are going to look at these companies.

I looked at their home page, and I was disappointed. You could tell that it was trying to be responsive, but it just didn’t work. All of that traffic flooding to them, and your first experience is, “Eh, the text looks weird. It doesn’t respond properly.” I’m not saying it wasn’t responsive. It didn’t respond properly because they didn’t look at it from the mobile-first viewpoint because the people who built the website were sitting at the desktop.

I would say that looking at a site, number one, is the current focus. The second big focus area for 2017 goes in line with that, which is really about text messaging. Now, this is something that, again, I have been on a rant for the past two years as I’ve been really thinking about a mobile-first world.

Certainly, video is a big part of content consumption in the mobile world. No question about it. If you have children, you know exactly what I mean. But on top of that, text messaging. You know we went through the app phase where in-app notifications and popping things to your phone, and everybody got annoyed with that because every app wanted to send you a push notification.

The text messaging still out-performs push notification. It has more people using text, more people who are seeing it because, really, unless you unsubscribe, you’re going to see the text. Then, I would also say that, when people are viewing your site and there’s a call to action where you want them to fill in something about themselves, the default of your name and email is laborious and tedious on a mobile device versus just putting in your 10-digit phone number from the United States.

Think about those forms, those calls to action you have on your site, and find a way to intelligently, say, if you’re on the desktop, putting in your name and email is not a big deal. But if it’s a mobile, it better transfer over to a text input and a real input so that the keyboard even goes to numbers, not letters, right? So they can easily put in their telephone number and, again, access, consume, or get a part of your subscription.

Does it cost a little more? Yes — but I want to tell you, folks, email costs. Everybody thinks email is free. It’s not. You pay something for email management over time. Text messaging is no different.

Jessica Frick: You know, Sean, I remember when you first started talking to me about this a couple years ago, and I rolled my eyes. One of the things that’s so annoying about working with you is how often this happens. I roll my eyes, and I’m like, “Oh, Sean, bless your heart.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, you don’t get it.

Jessica Frick: “You think of just the cutest ideas that are never going to work.” Here we are two years later, and I’m getting text messages from certain organizations — and I’m responding. They’re like, “Do you want to find out if there’s a meetup in your area? A for yes, B for no.” And I’m choosing my own adventure with these people via text. They’re like, “Send a 2 if you want to send $2 for this,” and I’m doing it.

Sean Jackson: Yeah. Look at the last campaign. Candidates would have their text messaging number on the podium because they know that they don’t need people to download an app just so they can send their communication. Text is still the fastest way.

I went shopping the other day, and I went to Bed Bath & Beyond. Because I’m on Bed Bath & Beyond text-messaging system, the coupons are sent to me now right to my phone. I don’t have an app or anything like that. Here’s the thing — even when they expire, they give a little note that says ‘resend.’ If you’re a part of the Bed Bath & Beyond and you just hit resend, they’ll give you the current coupon.

Jessica Frick: What? I didn’t know that.

Sean Jackson: Yes, I know. I was trying to use the coupon and it expired. So I went to the text messaging. It just said ‘resend,’ and it came back.

Jessica Frick: Oh my gosh.

Sean Jackson: I know. That’s where I think, again, smart online entrepreneurs are thinking about, “What are we doing today? How are people working today, and what will carry me through to the next several years?” Then I’m going to end, and I’ll put my third one in since you copped one of mine, I’m going to come in. I’m going to take your original idea, which is online ads.

Jessica Frick: Yes.

Sean Jackson: Now, here’s where I think we were kind of moving to. I think if you really look at native advertising, which is essentially paid content, I really think focusing in 2017 on native advertising — using the content networks out there, Google, et cetera — where you can really be intelligent about tagging people as they come to your site, using remarketing to use rich media ads to drive them to content.

Primarily, in my opinion should be video content, but regardless, it can be long form text content, doesn’t matter. Remarketing and focusing on putting your own native advertising together. So if they visit a page about blue socks, then they’re seeing the blue socks ad, not just ads for socks. If they’re reading about hosting, they are coming in, and you’re tagging them and putting something out for them. So being a lot more intelligent about people who come to your site, remarketing to them based on the words that are on that page so that they’re given different ads based on the content they consume.

Let’s recap this, so we can finish off this segment. Jess had number one, live video to focus on — 100 percent agree with that one. Secondly, virtual reality. Certainly, figuring out how to engage people with this new and emerging media. Then third one, of course, offline. Figuring out ways to use traditional mail to get to people and give them, as I pointed out, social currency, something that they can have a brand affiliation that doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg to do.

Jessica Frick: Love it.

Sean Jackson: And my three points were mobile-first design, focusing on that site, looking at it from a mobile experience first and making sure it works perfectly for that, then the desktop. Text messaging, just being smarter about using text messaging, capturing text messaging. There’s a lot of services out there. I happen to use EZ Texting.

I find it to be fairly affordable, very intuitive, and easy. Then, of course, the third aspect that I was talking about which is really about using native advertising, but be very strategic about it. Looking at the per page or the categories of content that you have and using remarketing to drive people back to those calls to action that are related to the content they just read. Those are the six focus areas for 2017. I’m sure there’s many more, but that’s what we could come up with.

Jessica Frick: You can do it, guys.

Sean Jackson: Folks, we’ll be right back after this short break.

Sean Jackson: Hey, everyone. This is Sean Jackson, the host of The Digital Entrepreneur. I want to ask you a simple question. What is your business framework for selling digital goods online? Now, if the question perplexes you, don’t worry — you’re not alone. Most people don’t realize that the most successful digital entrepreneurs have a framework or a general process for creating and selling their digital goods in the online space.

One of the best free resources is Digital Commerce Academy. Digital Commerce Academy combines online learning with case studies and webinars created by people who make a living selling digital goods online. The best part is that this material is free when you register. Are you interested in joining? Well, I’ll make it easy for you. If you’re listening to the show on your phone and are in the continental United States, I want you to send a text message to 313131 with the key word ‘DIGITS.’ When you send that text message, we will send you a link to the registration form right to your phone.

Are you outside the United States? Don’t worry. Just send us an email to Digits@Rainmaker.FM. Either way, we’ll send you a link to the registration form so that you can sign up for free for Digital Commerce Academy. As a special bonus, we will also subscribe you to our newsletter when you text or email us so that you can stay informed with the latest insights from the show.

And don’t worry — we respect your privacy. We will not share your email or phone number, and you can easily unsubscribe at any time. If you want to start building or improving your framework for selling digital goods online, then please send a text to 313131 with the keyword ‘DIGITS,’ or send us an email at Digits@Rainmaker.FM. You won’t be disappointed.

The Latest Book You Should Be Reading and a Killer Tool That Will Help You Manage Your Online Ads

Sean Jackson: Welcome back, everyone. For this segment, we always like to talk about sites, tools, information, and things that we think are very valuable to your online experience. Jess, I’m going to go ahead and start off on this one. Is that all right?

Jessica Frick: Have at it, Sean.

Sean Jackson: I have now found an author that I am absolutely just enamored with. His name is Adam Grant. Now Adam Grant is the new Malcolm Gladwell.

Jessica Frick: That’s a pretty big statement.

Sean Jackson: In fact, Malcolm Gladwell says he’s the new Malcolm Gladwell.

Jessica Frick: Really?

Sean Jackson: Adam Grant is a professor, I believe out of Warden or Chicago I can’t remember. He’s a big thinker. He has written a series of books, one Givers and Takers, which just had true impact in my life, but there was another one — which is how I first ran into him — which is called Originals: How Non-Conformists Change the World, basically.

He goes through and debunks a lot of the preconceptions that we have about success in general. One of the things that he really pointed out in there and he uses a ton of illustrative examples, from Dean Kamen and et cetera, but what he really pointed out was where original thinkers come from and how they actually can do things differently.

He gave a great story, and I use this all the time. He gave a great story in this book to illustrate his point about this study that people were doing about support centers. Specifically, what were the attributes that made someone very good at customer support? They looked at everything. They looked at education, background, demographic data. It didn’t matter.

They looked at all sorts of personality traits, and they could not find any direct correlation between what made someone really, really good at customer support, and succeeded over the long run in customer support, versus those that didn’t. Until they looked into how people filled out their job application online.

Jessica Frick: What?

Sean Jackson: I know. When they researched that, here’s what they found. People that used Internet Explorer and Safari generally were not very good at customer support.

Jessica Frick: Huh.

Sean Jackson: People who used Firefox and Chrome did exceptionally well.

Jessica Frick: Firefox!

Sean Jackson: I know. Now, think about that. Here is what he was pointing out.

Jessica Frick: Who still uses Internet Explorer?

Sean Jackson: Exactly. Internet Explorer and Safari are the default browsers that come with your OS, right?

Jessica Frick: Oh, I can see that.

Sean Jackson: They’re the default ones. Now, think about what you have to do to put Firefox and Chrome. First, you have to go out there and find them. Then you have install them. You have to want the advantages of speed, performance, and security that you feel that they bring to it versus just using what you see in front of you.

When they started dividing people up based on the type of browser they use, what they found were people that went and used Firefox and Chrome were more inclined to find solutions to people’s problems outside of the little box of solutions they were given in customer supports. They were willing to go above and beyond to find solutions versus people that just would deal with the status quo — which, again, goes back to Internet Explorer and Safari. Isn’t that crazy?

Jessica Frick: That is fascinating. I would’ve never made that connection, but you’re right. You’re absolutely right.

Sean Jackson: I told you — he’s the new Gladwell, right? He totally takes something really arcane and really espouses through them. He talks about the Warby Parker guys, who were actually students of his, one of the founders of Warby Parker. He actually had a chance to invest in that company, and he didn’t because his preconceived mindset was, “Entrepreneurs are risk takers. They put everything to the wind, and they’ll risk it all on a roll of the dice.”

When he met with the Warby Parker founders when they were starting out, they were highly risk averse — highly risk averse — and they would take small, incremental steps to get towards a goal. What he found in looking at other entrepreneurs, the people that we really think are the big entrepreneurs, what he found was they were highly risk averse. They would take small, incremental steps and remove risk from the equation as they continued to build their business up.

It’s this type of different type of thinking that make people, what he basically prefaces, original thinkers, people who are willing to go and do different things than the status quo, who are willing to take risks in measured increments — not just throw it out and hope that it lands on black. That was the type of thinking that he really highlighted in his book.

So the name of the books is Originals by Adam Grant. I highly recommend it, especially if you’re in the online space because you’re probably just strange to begin with. You’re not the status quo. You’ve taken a risk to go out there and leave the 9 to 5 job to get into the online space, and I think you will find this book to really appeal to you. I’d also say, his other book, Give and Take — I already called it Givers and Takers, but it’s Give and Take — that was one of his first books and, again, really a powerful author. Easy to read, very insightful.

That’s my tip for the week. Jess, what do you have?

Jessica Frick: Well, I kind of dovetail on that to say, if you’re not super risk taker-y there we go, that was really well said, Jess. I am admittedly a little risk averse. I like to know what I’m getting into. I like certainties over uncertainties. It’s probably why I would have unfortunately passed on Warby Parker, too, but one of the ways that I help us make sure that we know what we’re getting into before we get into it with actual money is using a cool tool called SEM Rush.

I handle our ads, and I don’t like treating the money like so many other people in the world seem to. You know just throw some money at it, see what sticks, and then do more of that. I like to really research these keywords, and I like to research the competitors. I like to know what’s happening in the market.

I like to know if one of the main keywords I want to go after just had a huge drop in people buying it. Those sorts of things save us money. I’d rather learn from your mistakes.

Sean Jackson: Right, and you think SEM Rush is a tool that helps you do that?

Jessica Frick: I do. And I feel that by learning what our competitors do, I can compete better. I feel that we have a definite leg up on the competition because we know not only what they’re doing, but what they’ve done.

Sean Jackson: Well, it goes back, too, because then they know what we’re doing.

Jessica Frick: Well, they do. They do, but at the same time, we also are always looking forward not backward. Beyond just that, I think it’s important to still pay attention to rank even though there’s always these algorithm changes and stuff like that. Whether you’re entering a new market or just increasing your presence in one that you’ve been in, I feel it’s important to see who’s moving up in the scales there. Am I?

Sean Jackson: I think you’re right because, again, keying off what I was just talking about, risk mitigation, the more that you can research, the more that you experiment in small, incremental ways, and find things that work, knowing what may not be working for someone else. These are important insights, and I definitely agree. There’s a lot of great tools out there, folks. And just so you know, we don’t get compensated for this.

Jessica Frick: No. This is something that we buy. We pay for this. We’re not including an affiliate link here. I do use other tools, but I have found the SEM Rush interface to be so user-friendly that I am completely comfortable recommending it to any digital entrepreneur who is considering entering the paid placement space.

Sean Jackson: There we go. All right.

Question for the Week: If You Are Just Starting Out Online, Should You Use WordPress Or Medium?

Sean Jackson: So, Jess, we’re coming to the end of the show, and we’re going to leave our audience with a question of the week. I want everyone to really think about this because I’ve been asked this question by people from the outside looking to come into the digital entrepreneur space, who are looking to maybe give up their traditional office-esque job or want to experiment with the online marketing, online selling of digital goods.

So here’s the question to leave you with. Should you start your online business using WordPress or start with something like Medium’s publisher, Squarespace, Wix, et cetera? Should you go out of the box with WordPress, just make the investment of time there, or should you start with something a little simpler like Medium and Squarespace to start building an online presence.

So, Jess, we’re going to talk about that and, like we do at the top of every show, debate it profusely.

Jessica Frick: Now, Sean, do you promise if I give my actual opinion I’m not going to get fired since we’re a WordPress host?

Sean Jackson: No. We can’t agree, though, Jess. That’s the key to an argument. We both have two sides.

Jessica Frick: I know, we can’t agree. But see, here’s the thing — and this is going to surprise you. I’m going to tell you that I don’t think you need to be on self-hosted WordPress.

Sean Jackson: Ooh, well, I will leave you hanging with my response to her proposition on the next episode of Digital Entrepreneur. You folks have a great week now, okay?

The Transcript

Can Customer Insights Really Drive Innovation for Your Online Business?

Voiceover: Rainmaker.FM.

You’re listening to The Digital Entrepreneur, the show for folks who want to discover smarter ways to create and sell profitable digital goods and services. This podcast is a production of Digital Commerce Institute, the place to be for digital entrepreneurs. DCI features an in-depth, ongoing instructional academy, plus a live education and networking summit where entrepreneurs from across the globe meet in person. For more information, go to Rainmaker.FM/DigitalCommerce.

Sean Jackson: Welcome to The Digital Entrepreneur, everyone. I’m your host Sean Jackson.

Jessica Frick: And I’m Jessica Frick.

Sean Jackson: We are the new hosts of The Digital Entrepreneur. Welcome, welcome, everyone. The format of the show is going to be a little different. If you’ve been listening in the past, you’re going to see some changes. Part of those changes is going to be right at the top of the show because Jessica and I are going to bring up a topic, and we’re going to take opposing sides. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Why You Should, or Should Not, Abandon Social Media

Sean Jackson: Jessica, you ready for a little bit one-on-one, mano-a-mano debate?

Jessica Frick: We are coming out of the gate with a fire this time.

Sean Jackson: That’s absolutely true. Okay. So, Jessica, what is the topic for the week?

Jessica Frick: Okay, this one is going to get kind of heated. Should you nuke your social media accounts?

Sean Jackson: Absolutely.

Jessica Frick: You’re out of your head, Sean.

Sean Jackson: Absolutely. You should nuke those suckers right now. Okay, all right. Let me clarify.

Jessica Frick: You’re insane, but yes, please.

Sean Jackson: Let me clarify really quickly what I mean by the nuking.

Jessica Frick: Okay.

Sean Jackson: There’s no question that social media when it first started out was a phenomenal tool. From Myspace to Friendster, to LinkedIn, to what’s that other one? Oh, Facebook. It was a great way to have conversations, but as content marketing has been on the rise, right now social media is a wonderful syndication platform for all of that juicy content that you create up.

Other than that, why waste your time on it? Why waste your time trying to engage with anybody on that? Just use it as a publishing tool and call it a day. If someone likes it, Retweets it, thumbs it, hearts it, whatever they do on these things — let them do that. But for the real entrepreneur, the time is better spent not getting into little cat fights on Twitter, the time spent on working your online business. What say you, Jess?

Jessica Frick: I say you’re wrong. How are you going to grow your audience if all you’re doing is speaking into an echo chamber? Are you going to take out a billboard?

Sean Jackson: Yes, yes, pretty much. Think about it. Look at it. Look at Pinterest.

Jessica Frick: Put an ad in the newspaper?

Sean Jackson: Yes, exactly. You put the ad in the newspaper, which is called Craigslist nowadays. No, think about it. Look at Pinterest is a phenomenal tool. Now, I’m sure and I know, for instance, that many people follow others on there, but what are they following? They’re following the content that these people put on the thing.

Yes, if you want to have a one-on-one conversation with Aunt Millie, sure you could do that over the phone, on Facebook, via email, but at the end of the day, the conversational aspect of social media is really not there — so why even worry your head about it? Just put the social share icon, once you publish that piece of content, get it into those social media channels, and call it a day.

Jessica Frick: I can tell from your position on this, Sean, that you don’t run an eShop selling mason jars because Pinterest is basically made for that.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, but are you really having a conversation? Come on, let’s think, really.

Jessica Frick: I’m not saying you should have a conversation. I’m saying there’s definitely value in maintaining it. Now, I’m not saying that, as you astutely noted, you need to get into the scratching and gnashing on Twitter. You certainly shouldn’t go on there and just be a link farm that just constantly broadcasts. But if you’re not engaging with people, if you’re not creating that relationship that’s not just one way, giving people a reason to know, like, and trust you, what exactly are you doing to build your business?

Sean Jackson: You’re spending time on your website, which is where you probably should be spending your time anyway. Now, think about it. It kills me. I ran into this very nice young lady who is a new blogger out there. She’s got a fashion blog. She was very excited because she’s got some followers online, and she’s putting things on her blog. It’s really kind of cool because she’s mixing music and fashion together, so she’s literally playing a guitar with things that she’s wearing. It was cool, it was catchy. But you know what she didn’t consider?

Jessica Frick: What?

Sean Jackson: Email. Like maybe people on your site, instead of just clicking on an affiliate link, maybe they should be signing up for an email list that you have. Why is that?

Because if she’s spending all of her time engaging on social media, then she’s not spending time on the site and doing things like build an email list, which will probably bring more revenue to her than sitting there liking, thumbing, and whatever the other things they do on those things to build that ‘one-on-one special relationship.’ What say you?

Jessica Frick: I say, you just need a hug, Sean, because you are just a little sourpuss today.

Sean Jackson: No, no. Here’s another thing, if we’re really going to get on this. Why spend time on things that are not mobile-first consumption? To that aspect I would say, then why not spending all your time creating videos and putting it on YouTube?

Jessica Frick: Well, why not? Wouldn’t that be considered social media?

Sean Jackson: Yeah, it’s publishing, though. It’s content syndication to a social media site. Really, if you’re getting a comment or two in your YouTube, hopefully it’s not something really spammy or stupid. Really, do you want to spend all your time doing that? Just saying, “Hey, here’s the video. Here’s the call to action” — which most people forget to put in, right? Let’s be honest.

Jessica Frick: Yeah, I’ll agree with that.

Sean Jackson: Instead, they’re like, “Oh, I want to put it out there to see if anyone’s viewed it or liked it,” or, “Maybe they did leave a comment.”

Jessica Frick: Well, yeah, there’s a real risk for social media to become another vanity metric. But I think that it does hold value when used in proper proportion to the rest of your marketing mix. Obviously, if you are spending time on social media at the cost of working on a great website or sending important emails that really make a difference, then you might need to look at how much you’re doing it. But everything in moderation.

Just cutting it off, I think it also depends on what kind of business you’re running. If you’re talking to a digital entrepreneur, some businesses will need social more than others.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, well, I would put it further down the list, spend more time on your website, and think a little bit more about how to increase conversions thereof than worrying about whether Aunt Millie is liking your latest post on Instagram. All right.

Jessica Frick: We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, but I will say I’m going to sell a lot more mason jars than you are.

Sean Jackson: There you go. Folks, what do you think? Am I completely crazy, is Jessica brilliant, or does she completely not get it? We want to hear from you, so as part of this show, we set up a special email address at Digits@Rainmaker.FM. You can send us an email to Digits@Rainmaker.FM and let us know what you think. Go ahead, what is your viewpoint? Is social media really worth it, or should you just go ahead and nuke your accounts? Send us an email, and let us know. We’ll be right back after this break.

Hey, everyone, this is Sean Jackson, the host of The Digital Entrepreneur. I want to ask you a simple question. What is your business framework for selling digital goods online? Now, if the question perplexes you, don’t worry. You are not alone. Most people don’t realize that the most successful digital entrepreneurs have a framework or general process for creating and selling their digital goods in the online space. And one of the best free resources is Digital Commerce Academy.

Digital Commerce Academy combines online learning with case studies and webinars created by people who make a living selling digital goods online. The best part is that this material is free when you register. Are you interested in joining? Well, I’ll make it easy for you.

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As a special bonus, we will also subscribe you to our newsletter when you text or email us so that you can stay informed with the latest insights from the show. And don’t worry, we respect your privacy. We will not share your email or phone number, and you can easily unsubscribe at any time. If you want to start building or improving your framework for selling digital goods online, then please send a text to 313131 with the keyword ‘digits,’ or send us an email at Digits@Rainmaker.FM. You won’t be disappointed.

How You Can Apply the Theory of Jobs To Be Done to Your Online Efforts

Sean Jackson: Welcome back from the break, everyone. For this segment, we’re going to do it a little different than other shows where we generally have interviews. For this particular segment, we are going to discuss a book that Jessica and I have both read called Competing Against Luck by Clayton Christensen.

Now, that name may sound familiar to you because Clayton wrote a seminal piece of work back in the ’90s called The Innovator’s Dilemma.

Competing Against Luck is centered on the following premise, that people hire a product or service to do a specific job for them. In other words, that people are not thinking of the features and benefits that you provide with your product or service, but that they are really using your product or service to specifically fill a job that they have in their life — that will either help them save time, get something done faster, etcetera.

To discuss this book, Jess, I’d like to get your thoughts on it. Certainly, I personally felt that it was a really unique way at looking at online products and services. What did you think of it?

Jessica Frick: Well, I think it’s important, not just for the creation of products and services, but working out and fine-tuning how you talk to potential customers about your product and service. I love the fact that he leads off talking about how most companies are doing data wrong. And I agree — it’s so alluring to want to see data points, connect them, and figure that is correctly correlated to a customer cause, but that’s not always the case. Usually customer behavior is more disruptive.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, exactly. That brings up a great point. It was funny — we are awash in a ton of data right now, so everybody looks for, “Well, this person looks like this. They read that. They live here. They earn this. They do this for a living.” By having all those data points, we feel like, “Oh, we know our customer,” when the reality is, we probably don’t.

One of the stories in the book that I thought was hilariously funny was milkshakes. Let me talk to you about milkshakes for a second. There was a fast food chain that sells milkshakes, along with other things that they had, and they did notice that in the morning they had a lot of milkshake sales. They’re like, “Well, that’s kind of an interesting part,” so they went through your typical demographic data.

Who were the people buying milkshakes? What do they look like? Where do they drive? What etcetera? — all the demographic things that you would come up with. But they never answered the question — why were people buying milkshakes in the morning? It turns out that milkshakes, and specifically buying in the morning, had a very specific job. Do you know what that job was, Jess?

Jessica Frick: What was the job, Sean?

Sean Jackson: The job was, because in a long commute, people wanted something that would fulfill them, that was convenient and easy, and did not require a lot of thought process to fill them up and was easy for them to consume while they drove.

Now, coffee is a great, but the problem with coffee, of course, is it’s very, very hot. And it’s not very easy to drink as hot as it is, and it also does not fill you up enough so that on a long commute, by the time you get to the office, that mid-morning craving that you have for food, knowing that lunch is a couple hours away, coffee wouldn’t solve that job.

People were literally hiring a milkshake as a form of on-the-road food to make sure that, when they got to their job, they were filled enough to get them through to their lunch break. Isn’t that crazy?

Jessica Frick: It’s crazy — but imagine how many people wouldn’t get to that if they weren’t asking the right questions. That’s why I think this is so applicable to digital entrepreneurs. Remembering that what people are actually doing — and you and me, too, we do it all day, every day with every dollar we spend — when you spend your money, you’re hiring a product or service for a job. If they do a great job, then you keep hiring them. If they don’t, then you fire them and look for an alternative solution.

Sean Jackson: That’s right. You look at Uber. Uber being another great example. If you really boil Uber down, it really did two things. It basically allows you to call for a car, and it shows you where the car was in relationship to you. But why was the job that you wanted? The job that you wanted is you needed immediate transportation, and you wanted to know that it was on its way, right? You can get a cab anywhere, right? New York is complete with them.

Yet Uber comes on the scene, and now cabs become just kind of a passé thing. They both essentially as a feature did the same thing, which is transport you from point A to point B. But there was a very fundamental difference about the job that you hire Uber to do versus the job that you hire a cab to do.

I think when you look at your online products and services, certainly there’s a bigger reason why people are buying it. That bigger reason is probably because they’re looking at a job they need fulfilled, and if your product or service can fulfill that, then it’s hired. But moment that it fails at that job, then they’re going to fire it right away.

I think there’s a lot of things that he put into that book about how you can really kind of spot some of these things. Jess, what are some of the ways that you can spot opportunities where you can create a product and service that fulfills a job?

Jessica Frick: I love the one that he was talking about Quicken. When Intuit realized that there were a bunch of small businesses using Quicken, which was originally intended just for individuals. So they’re bending and shaping it to meet their needs, so Intuit was able to create a business solution. I think we all know how that story ends.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, and think about it. They were doing workarounds to it, so that’s another opportunity.

Jessica Frick: Exactly. Make it easier for them to do the job they want.

Sean Jackson: That’s right. That’s another very, very great example of how you can see how are people getting from point A to point B, and what are the bends that they’re having to make to their processes that are causing them some problems. Literally, think about it. Your product or service becomes the person that gives them the resume and says, “I can take care of that job for you.”

It’s not surprising to me about this concept, and I’ll tell you why. Back in the 19th century, back in the 1800s, technology was not anywhere close to what it is today, obviously. People would literally hire someone to do the most minute details of daily life for them. Today, we have all sorts of technology that makes us more productive.

We don’t need to hire very many people to do a lot of things that just 100 years ago would take a whole staff to do. To me, that concept of how we look at the past and all the people we would hire to do little things for us, now, because of technology, has changed.

When you think of your online product as a solution to a job, that if somebody has this job that needs to be done, then my product or service is the way that it’s going to get done — and it’s going to be done better than if you tried to do that job on your own. I think that concept really changes the way that online entrepreneurs should look at their products and services.

Jessica Frick: I think that by understanding that you’re going to be able to speak better to prospective clients. Let’s be real — not everybody’s going to be the right fit for you. But for those who are, make them understand why you’re the best. By clearly articulating the job to be done, and done well, I think your sales are going to increase exponentially. Satisfaction, too.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, that’s a great point. Let’s use it in case of something that relates to us, hosting. When you look at hosting, do you really care about the bits and bytes that are on that server? Of course you don’t.

Jessica Frick: Nobody cares about ones and zeros, nobody.

Sean Jackson: That’s right. What they care about is, “Is my site going to stay up? Is there going to be somebody who’s knowledgeable to take care of the issues that I have? Is it something that I can quickly get done without having to bring in a technical team to make it happen?” That’s what you hire hosting for, for goodness sake. You want it because you have a specific path, and you don’t want your hosting provider constantly going down because the job you’re hiring it for is to keep your presence up.

And quite frankly, do you really care about their backup storage being on this type of server versus that? No — you just want to know that, if it goes down, it’s restored, and it better not go down because what you’re hiring it for is to stay up all the time. That’s how that thinking can apply, certainly in the online space. Jess, what are some other examples in the online space you could share?

Jessica Frick: Well, I’m thinking about that as both a job that you want to avoid because you don’t want to have to deal with your site going down, doing your own manual backups and restarts, and all that stuff. You would talk to somebody both from that perspective and also from a job that needs to be done well, just to begin with.

But there’s also that difference thing, like we were talking about with Quicken, people using a product different than they were expecting. I’m thinking about DayQuil and NyQuil. So you’re sitting on the product team of NyQuil, and your sales have gone through the roof this year. And you’re like, “Oh my god, everybody’s got a cold.” Well, you dig a little deeper, start asking the right questions, and you find out that people are actually using NyQuil to go to sleep, even when they’re not sick.

Sean Jackson: Right. And they created up?

Jessica Frick: ZzzQuil.

Sean Jackson: That’s right. But I think in the online space, too, it goes to that, a fundamental idea of asking why. “Why do you need what I have? What is it that is driving below the surface?” I think of membership sites, certainly — why do people sign up for a membership site? I actually think there are different jobs people want done with a membership site. I think understanding that really helps in how you craft and manage a membership site.

Some people may go to a membership site because they really do need quality information — a content repository of some sort. Some people may go to a membership site because they’re alone, and they want someone to talk to in real time, or near real time as the case may be. They may go to a membership site because they are really afraid, and they just want somebody that they can trust to kind of guide them along a path.

There’s so many reasons why someone would just sign up for a membership site and be willing to pay a lot for it. If you ask the question, “What job is that person hiring my membership site to do? What job are people downloading my plugin to do? What is the job that they need fulfilled?” Because the moment that you fail at that job, they’re going to fire you, but they’re hiring you because they need something done.

Understanding what they need done is not going to be about the standard generic demographic information where people come in and say, “We know our customers because we know where they live, what color their hair is, what color their eyes are, what they read, and blah, blah, blah.” It’s because they’re hiring it to do something else.

Jess, I’m going to leave the last word for you. What are your final thoughts on Clayton Christensen’s book of Competing Against Luck?

Jessica Frick: Never stop listening.

Sean Jackson: I think you’re right. Never stop listening. Always be asking why. I think if you take a chance to read through that book, you’ll find your own insight. We’ll be back after this break.

You know, this show’s success is based on how well we are at helping you succeed. Are we giving you insights that help your online business? Are we providing you with the types of resources you need to grow and prosper? Or are we just wasting your time? Regardless of your response, we would like to hear from you. Just send an email to Digits@Rainmaker.FM.

No, we’re not going to spam you or sign you up for something you don’t want. Digits@Rainmaker.FM is our public email address, so you can provide the feedback we need to help you. If you are enjoying the show, want to stay up-to-date with every episode, and live in the continental United States, then send us a text message to 313131 with the keyword ‘digits.’ If you’re outside the continental United States, you can still send us an email to Digits@Rainmaker.FM. We want to hear from you because you are the most important part of the show.

One more thing, when you contact us we will send you information on Digital Commerce Academy, a free resource that will help you create and sell digital goods online. Don’t worry — you have the option of signing up for Digital Commerce Academy. This is not some automated ploy to spam you. We truly want to hear from you, so whether you are on your phone or at your desk, feel free to reach out and let us know how we are doing and, more importantly, how we can help you succeed.

The Tools and Information Website Sites That May Help You Improve Your Online Efforts

Sean Jackson: Welcome back from the break, everyone. In this segment, Jess and I share some tools and information sources that we particularly find useful for digital entrepreneurs. Let’s start off with tools, Jess. We’re just going to cover two of them real quickly. What is a tool that you think is absolutely essential for digital entrepreneurs?

Jessica Frick: Well, I know this week and pretty much every day, my most essential tool is Slack. If you’re not already using Slack, this is not an ad, by the way, go to Slack.com and check it out. We could not function as a team without it. The cool thing is, even if you are disparate teams or just want to join a community discussion, keep your finger on the pulse of a community, and everything going on in it, jump on the Slack channel and you can join individual channels within that community, stay informed, and really develop relationships and that ongoing one-on-one communication.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, it’s funny because, for a while, we have experimented with HipChat. We used HipChat for a while, certainly Skype. Really, Slack has been really transformational for us as a company and just across the board. I’ve actually been very impressed with Slack. You know my feelings about social media, Jess, so anything that’s not distracting. I do think when it comes to that kind of one-on-one, or really just the pulse of what’s going on, I tend to like Slack. I have a different tool to talk about that I think is really, really cool.

Jessica Frick: What’s yours, Sean?

Sean Jackson: Clearbit API. Now let me explain

Jessica Frick: Oh boy.

Sean Jackson: I know, now I’m getting all technical on you, folks.

Jessica Frick: It’s going to get nerdy up in here.

Sean Jackson: It’s going to get very nerdy, but let me explain what Clearbit is. So Clearbit API, we have experimented with lots of tools in the company that help us understand who our customers are based on their email address. We have tried a variety of services, and we finally have put some side-by-side comparisons. I’m going to tell you now, Clearbit API has been, bar none, one of the best tools out there for really understanding who that person is behind an email address.

The nice part about it, it’s free. It also integrates with Google Sheets. Let me tell you what you can do with it.

Jessica Frick: Sexy.

Sean Jackson: Let’s say you have a newsletter subscriber list. You can take those email addresses from your newsletter, put them into a Google Sheet — only 1,000, sorry, that’s the limit, nothing I can do about it — put in your Clearbit API key, and it will go through every one of those email address.

When it finds information in their database, it will tell you their LinkedIn profile, their Facebook profile, their Twitter followers, their website, their company name, their title. Any and everything you want to know. How big is their company? Where do they live? What country are they in? Literally, the amount of data from one email address is mind boggling, absolutely mind boggling.

Jessica Frick: And creepy.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, it is.

Jessica Frick: I saw myself on it. I’m like, “Oh my gosh.”

Sean Jackson: I know, I remember that. That was weird, too. It was like, “That’s Jess, oh my gosh.” But it will tell you all sorts of information — some of which, Jess, you might want to take off the web, I’m just saying.

Jessica Frick: Yeah.

Sean Jackson: The nice thing is, again, if you’re not a programmer, you can use Google Sheets, which obviously is free, you can use the Clearbit API, and you can bring in a segment. If you’ve got an email list that you have, if you’ve got a series of email addresses from purchases made on your site, go really look at Clearbit API.

Also, I know they have a function that integrates with Google Analytics, so now, they can start pulling some of that data into analytics. By all means, I will tell you, folks, again, we don’t have affiliate commissions on the show. I don’t care if you buy it or not. I’m just telling you from our experience, both with Slack and Clearbit, they are very much a part of the tools that we use to run the online business that is Rainmaker Digital.

Sean Jackson: Speaking of, Jess, what about sources of information? Because that’s another part. We have our tools, and we have our information. I want to tell you my favorite, and then I want to hear what is your favorite. My favorite source of information right now is BusinessInsider.com. Silicon Valley Insider is kind of how it started out with. Business Insider, and I want to tell you why. I’ve had Feedly account with RSS feeds from a whole variety of sources for quite some time now, but I have to go set that thing up, right?

One of the things I liked about Business Insider is it really gave me all of the kind of the business news, the online news, the things that were happening that would maybe demand my attention. I almost want to think of it as a very sophisticated way of curated business and online information, really. That way if you see something, you can drill into it a little bit more.

The other thing that I like about Business Insider is they’re really on the forefront of online publishing. Henry Blodget, who runs Business Insider, gave a phenomenal speech about how they’ve been using video and how, as a publisher, they’ve morphed their video content to really appeal to people who are consuming it on social media sites, etcetera.

As both a company and as a source of information, specifically in the business space and in the tech space, I find Business Insider to be one of the first places I go to every day. Jess, what about you?

Jessica Frick: Well, when you first said it, I’m one of those weird people that actually reads news about other industries because I like those disparate connections. Then I was like, “Well, our industry would probably be Adweek.” That’s my junk food industry news. You know what’s so bad? As much as I like just gawking at Adweek, because it really does feel like junk food. Sorry, Adweek, I love you guys. I really do. But it’s Marketing Land. I’m on their list. I get their emails every single day, and that’s a real source that I check every day. I’ve been on their daily list forever, too.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, I think you always have to step outside of the little box that you happen to inhabit. I think certainly finding other sources of information and other tools that may enhance it. This is going to be a regular feature of the show, folks. Jess and I will absolutely, time permitting, go through tools and information sources that may be of interest and help you.

Jess, we’re coming to the end of the show, but I did want to leave our audience with a topic to think about that you and I will be debating next week. The topic to think about is this — is email a time saver, or is email a time suck? We would like to know what you think.

Jess, which side do you want to argue on that one?

Jessica Frick: Email is a time saver.

Sean Jackson: Oh, you know what I’m going to say.

Jessica Frick: I know you’re going to say it’s a suck, but you’re wrong.

Sean Jackson: Well, folks, we hope you tune in next week to hear where Jess and I come down on this. If you’d like to participate in the conversation, if you have a thought about email as a time saver or a time suck, go ahead, take a moment, and send an email to Digits@Rainmaker.FM. We’d love to hear from you, and definitely, if we like it, we may read it on the show next week.

Jessica Frick: Especially if you say Sean’s wrong.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, my wife tells me that all the time. So, folks, that will be this episode of Digital Entrepreneur with your new host Sean Jackson and …

Jessica Frick: Jessica Frick.

Sean Jackson: And we will catch you on the next episode. You have a great week.