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The WP Minute brings you news about WordPress in under 5 minutes -- every week! Follow The WP Minute for the WordPress headlines before you get lost in the headlines. Hosted by Matt Medeiros, host of The Matt Report podcast.
I really enjoyed the conversation
led by Brian cords on the topic
of version control for WordPress
developers and builders.
He was joined by my recurring co-host
mark Symansky, as he asked the tough
questions, many beginners might be
facing in their early development days.
Yes.
That's the same marks Umansky
that co-hosted the episode of the
crossroads of WordPress with me
last week on the WP minute, plus.
This post isn't just about the advantages
of using version control on your next
WordPress project, but more of an example
of how great the WordPress community is.
Market.
I have talked about building and
learning in public before, and that's
exactly what Brian's livestream was a
veteran WordPress developer, sharing
his experiences and teaching someone
coming up in the web agency world.
It's fascinating watching
mark learn in public.
I applaud him for having the humility
to put himself out there in an effort
to become a better agency owner.
Earlier in the year, I predicted that
we'd see more marks coming on to the
scene tools like Ella mentor and bricks.
Have onboarded more enterprising
individuals over the last few years to
kickstart their own web services business.
Most of them like mark never had
to crack open a code editor or
SSH into a server in reboot my SQL
service when it ran out of memory.
Being able to rapidly build
websites with a turnkey plugin
can be a blessing and a curse.
The theme of Brian's live stream
was partly to highlight some
of the weak links in the chain
when delivering client websites.
Certainly version control.
Isn't the answer to everything,
but it's a trait that you'll
see in more mature projects.
So when do you actually
invest in version control?
It depends.
And it might not be how, and when
you think, if we put the technical
term aside for a moment, let's
think about accountability instead.
Explore what your client
relationship looks like?
How much are they paying you?
How mission critical is the website
and who's on the hook for support.
Themes plugins tutorials, free code
snippets, all of that at our fingertips.
It's easy to pull something
off the shelf and shove it into
WordPress as a solution for clients.
No one is the wiser.
Until that off the shelf thing breaks,
lacks of feature or gets abandoned.
Say you delivered a $25,000
project to a client, but you
built the entire thing on quickly.
That's quickly with a C
when it closed now, what.
Or were you using search WP
on a bunch of nonprofit sites?
Then it was acquired by Austin motive
and the license fee doubled with
lots more upsells to other products.
Now what.
Now let's talk communication.
Novices might not mention
they're using a page builder
when they're quoting a client.
My God, what happens if they find out
I paid $59 for a plugin that they could
use themselves to build that site.
I sympathize with that imposter
syndrome years ago, I felt the same way.
Flip the script.
Instead you communicate in full
transparency with the customer.
Hey, based on your budget, I'll have to
build this site with a page builder tool.
It gets us 90% of the way
there, faster and cheaper,
but also has some limitations.
You'll save some money on the
services side, but you'll have
to purchase a license in order
for us to use it on your site.
If we had a bigger budget or more
time, we could get exactly what
you want with a custom theme.
It's spring in the U S so I'll
use this other analogy with my
desire to erect a shed in my yard.
Do I build it myself?
No.
Do I buy a prebuilt one from home Depot
and worry about the quality versus cost
spent or do I hire a builder knowing
it will last longer be exactly what
I want, but cost three times more.
Open communication will always work best
with clients, especially when you want to
set clear boundaries of accountability.
There's always a balance,
obviously version control.
Isn't the answer to this, but it is
part of an overall solution where more
mature agencies will measure the risk
when putting a project brief together.
Is this a mission critical feature?
Does the client have the budget?
Can we build this?
Do we want to build this?
Even if you don't register for your
first get hub account, after listening
to Brian's live stream the message
that there's a whole new layer above
basic page builder service, the
concept of building for continuity,
therefore increasing project deal size.
Is why this is a standout episode.
Catch the VOD replay and start
leveling up WordPress builder.