Viewing content categorized as Insights

It’s Good to Become a Beginner Again

in Insights by THOMAS GRIFFIN • November 4, 2019 • Leave a Comment

I’ve become a beginner again.

You know, for the last 10 or so years of my life, I’ve been working in the WordPress space developing products. I’m still intimately involved in that process every day at Awesome Motive, but it is no longer in the same capacity as before. I used to build them myself; now I lead and inspire others to do the building instead.

When you do the same thing for 10 years, you develop certain skills. You transition from a beginner to knowledgeable practitioner to seasoned veteran to expert. It’s a natural pattern for anyone in … [continue reading]

How I Grew My Email List by 800% in Two Weeks

in Business, Insights by THOMAS GRIFFIN • July 2, 2015 • 1 Comment

Yes – you read that title correctly. I was able to grow my email list by 800% in just two weeks! Bazinga!

When I decided to look over the stats today, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I had hoped that some of the things I was implementing on my site would result in higher conversions, but I never expected the growth to be so rapid and sustained. In fact, today is not counted in this calculation, but based on the subscriber growth rate for today, it will continue to beat the previous day average of the last two weeks.… [continue reading]

How to Build a Successful WordPress Product

in Business, Insights, WordPress by THOMAS GRIFFIN • December 7, 2014 • 10 Comments

I just returned from WordCamp Orlando 2014, and I was asked numerous times over the course of the weekend on how to build a successful WordPress product.

That is an excellent question. Most people struggle to make the transition from one type of business (typically freelance or consulting) to the product business and never realize their dream of running a successful product business. While I’m not sure there is one surefire formula to success, I do believe that I have learned a few key things from creating multiple successful products in the WordPress ecosystem.

This is not an exhaustive … [continue reading]

Goal Setting is Key

in Business, Insights by THOMAS GRIFFIN • October 25, 2013 • Leave a Comment

The more I desire to achieve, the more I am certain that goal setting is absolutely vital to those achievements.

A few months ago, I had a very scary thought come through my head. As I was reflecting back on my years in high school, I wondered to myself: “What in the world did I do those 4 years?”

A random, seemingly harmless question suddenly sent chills down my spine. I could not recall one single instance where I did something that was intentional. I couldn’t recall a time where I set out a goal, worked towards that goal and … [continue reading]

Managing Expectations

in Business, Insights by THOMAS GRIFFIN • August 14, 2013 • Leave a Comment

It is your job as a service professional to manage expectations. Are you actively managing them?

Managing expectations is one of the most important (*most* important in my book) aspects of doing any type of business with other people. When you successfully manage expectations, both parties are mutually satisfied and eager to continue doing business with one another.

I don’t think I can stress enough how critical it is that you set proper, reasonable expectations for any work that you do. By setting up expectation boundaries, you prevent incidents from creating more havoc than they should.

Under promising and … [continue reading]

User Interface != Conversions

in Insights, WordPress by THOMAS GRIFFIN • August 9, 2013 • 10 Comments

As you all may or may not know, I am the creator and developer of Soliloquy, the best responsive WordPress slider plugin.

I am always trying to improve the experience my customers receive when interacting with Soliloquy, so one of the ways I approached this was to try and ease the pain of upgrading from Soliloquy Lite to Soliloquy.

I built this really awesome upgrade experience in Soliloquy Lite, and I have demonstrated how it works in the video below.

Freaking sweet upgrade experience, right?

User Interface != Conversions

Which leads me to the title of this post – … [continue reading]

Inside my WordPress Developer Toolbox