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For long-form interviews, news, and commentary about the WordPress ecosystem. This is the companion show to The WP Minute, your favorite 5-minutes of WordPress news every week.
Eric Karkovack (00:00)
Hi everyone, and welcome to the WP Minute. I'm Eric Karkovack. Allow me to start today's episode with a statement. Teaching people how to use WordPress is hard. Where do you even start? What should you focus on? How do we get our point across without overwhelming users? Allie Nimmons knows a lot about this subject.
As the author of the WordPress Essentials course on LinkedIn Learning, Allie has helped countless users get acquainted with the CMS. She's now the head of technology and product at WebProGeeks and the co-founder of Underrepresented in Tech. ⁓ and she's also an accomplished voice actor. Wait till you hear that golden voice. Ali, welcome to the WP Minute.
Allie Nimmons (00:41)
Yeah.
Hi, Eric. Thank you so much for for having me on.
Eric Karkovack (00:48)
I I feel like I I've h I've been listening to your voice for so many years. I feel like you should be on national ads, selling us insurance, selling us pizza, selling us new cars. You have that kind of voice. Well, I know you I I saw you did a video game, right? A b a Barbie video game?
Allie Nimmons (00:58)
If you know somebody, I would love to. If you if you know someone.
Yeah.
I through a bizarre sequence of events I met the right people and persons and had the right conversations and they needed a a ⁓ a secondary character in a video game and I sent them my reel and they were like, All right, come record. So I I went to c I didn't make any money on it 'cause I spent what they paid me on the flight and hotel to California, but I like, It's totally worth it. ⁓ and yeah, it was a really, really cool experience. I got to record ⁓
Eric Karkovack (01:30)
Okay.
Allie Nimmons (01:36)
in like a real recording studio where I think where they recorded things like ⁓ they had like God of War and stuff on the walls, like all kinds of really cool games. It was such a amazing, fantastic experience.
Eric Karkovack (01:43)
Wow.
I can only imagine. That's such a cool side side gig. I d I I I I can do an announcer voice if I really try, but you just have it naturally, so you have a gift. You're very fortunate. Well, I I wanted to start just with a little bit about your background because you do come from a different
Allie Nimmons (02:00)
Thank you.
Eric Karkovack (02:09)
Discipline, right? You you ⁓ according to your website well, you you dropped out of theater school to start coding. How did that come about? What what about coding got you?
Allie Nimmons (02:17)
Yeah.
So yeah, I'd I'd been doing theater since I mean, before I was born. My mom is a stage manager and costume designer and she's been doing that since she was sixteen. so it is in my blood. I was in my first show when I was five. and you know, single mom, only child after school, I just had to go to work with her. and so work meant sitting under the production table while
like during rehearsals. So I got to sit and watch actors and watch singers and ⁓ I think most influential to me was watching directors who I think I picked up a lot of my educational skills through absorbing things that I watched directors talk about because directors have to be incredible communicators and make the actors feel very comfortable in order to, you know, get the results that they want. ⁓
So yeah, I went to I went to Florida State University for theater and ⁓ I really didn't like it. It was I realized very quickly that everyone that I was in school with really was dedicated to making this a career by any means necessary, right? There's that starving actor trope, right, of where you you wait tables for ten years and you audition and audition and audition until you get something. I didn't want it that bad.
I wasn't really willing to I I'd always done theater as a fun hobby, as a fun side thing, and it was a part of my life, but it wasn't like a driving force. ⁓ so I realized pretty quickly that I was not nearly as passionate about this as as the kids I was going to school with. so I left school and I kind of wandered around a little bit and I took some time to like think, which personally I think every kid out of high school should.
Should that's my philosophy is I think every kid at high school should take some time if they can before going to college. ⁓ I wish that I had done that. ⁓ but I literally remember sitting and thinking to myself, what could I do that is creative and still, you know, aesthetic in a way, like ⁓ aesthetically creative where I can create visual things, but that I can make money at.
Eric Karkovack (04:14)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons (04:39)
But I don't
have to wait tables for lots of years and hope that I get a break. And web design was one of the first things that came to me, either th either that I saw or that I thought of. and at the time I didn't I didn't I don't think I owned a computer. and I went to the library and I got books on HTML and CSS and I star started teaching myself the semantics of those languages, like on paper in a notebook. Just trying to like
absorb that information t until I could get a computer and actually start doing things. and yeah, I got a ⁓ eventually got a junior developer job at a agency in ⁓ Boca, Florida. And through that job I attended my first WordCamp. And then that was immediately like my trajectory into like being ingressing myself into the WordPress community.
Eric Karkovack (05:33)
So you've you pretty much got there and and it's like this is for me, this is where I belong.
Allie Nimmons (05:37)
Yeah. Yeah, I saw people
up there speaking and that was definitely like, this is kind of like theater, right? Like there is a theatrical performance element to this that I'm very familiar with and comfortable with. So I attended my first WordCamp in twenty seventeen and then I applied to speak at WordCamp Miami in twenty nineteen and I was accepted and that was my first talk and it was awesome.
Eric Karkovack (06:01)
I can imagine that acting experience really does translate onto the stage when you're giving a presentation, right? ⁓ and of course you've got the voice acting chops too, so you've you've got a good yeah, I mean, when you give a talk, I imagine people are just on the edge of their seats the entire time.
Allie Nimmons (06:16)
I would hope so. I would like to think so.
⁓ I mean, yeah, the acting background gives you ⁓ hard skills, you know, getting your cadence and your speed and what's the word? That's funny, I can't think of it. ⁓ Annunciation, you know, making your voice very clear and being able to project and honestly just having the confidence of being on a stage because being on a stage in front of a bunch of people.
Who are expecting something from you is very terrifying. I I definitely understand that. Yeah. And I still get scared. Every time I have to go up on a stage, there's a couple minutes beforehand where I get that fight or flight where I'm like, okay, I I actually have to do this. But as soon as I'm up there, it it it all goes away. And that's really, really, really just experience. Like anybody who is ever scared of getting up on a stage, I I just have like there is no magic cure, you just have to do it until it feels better. And that's hard.
Eric Karkovack (06:47)
It is. I've done it.
Allie Nimmons (07:13)
But there is no way to just get over it. You have to do it and learn that when you're up there, nothing bad is gonna happen. Right? Like there have been times where I've lost my train of thought or the computer got messed up or the audio got messed up. And ⁓ particularly with WordPress, what I learned very quickly is nobody is sitting in the audience waiting for you to fail. Everyone wants you to succeed. ⁓ so even when something does go wrong, there's a lot of empathy.
Eric Karkovack (07:23)
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons (07:43)
⁓ and and not a lot of judgment and I think that makes it a really good ⁓ pathway for people who are interested in things like public speaking to get up there and talk.
Eric Karkovack (07:53)
It is, yeah. I I I I kinda made a pact with myself years ago 'cause I am kind of an introvert. I don't I don't like get around in crowds very often, but I told myself I was going to speak at a word camp and I've done it a few times and it's like i it it really is
Allie Nimmons (07:59)
Okay.
Eric Karkovack (08:08)
It's not it's not nearly as bad as you might think. And and the audience is forgiving 'cause I stumble over my words too. And it just it's you don't feel like you're I mean, this isn't like a political convention or something where you have to make that speech perfect or else y you're gonna lose, you know. ⁓ everybody wants to learn, everybody's there for a reason and it's like, okay, you're accepted and that that's that's the important thing, you know. And they just go up there and have fun.
Allie Nimmons (08:22)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And even if
you stumble, I mean, there are people who are sitting in the audience, maybe half the audience at any given time is thinking, Well, I I couldn't even go up there. Like, at least they're up there doing it. I I couldn't do that, right? So yeah, there really is not any ego or judgment that I've seen, ⁓ with the speakers of of these events. We're all just here to learn and
Eric Karkovack (08:40)
Yeah, yeah.
Allie Nimmons (08:53)
I think the the more terrifying thing for me is when I'm done talking and then people come up and they wanna talk to me. And I'm like, my gosh, okay, well I don't have slides for this. I didn't prepare for this.
Eric Karkovack (08:59)
yeah, yeah. That's it.
'Cause someone
would inevitably ask you that question that you weren't prepared for. But at least you're doing it on the small one-to-one scale, then you're not doing it in front of the entire crowd. So I how did you end up in teaching WordPress? How how did you come to realize like, okay, I I I think I'm I'm ready to actually teach others to use this platform?
Allie Nimmons (09:11)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. ⁓
don't even really know to be perfectly honest with you. I met I always feel like I'm gonna mispronounce his last name, Morton Ran Hendrickson, I think. Right. I met him I think it was twenty nineteen at WordCamp US in St. Louis, if that's the right maybe that was the it couldn't have been twenty twenty 'cause that was already the pandemic. So I think it was twenty nineteen. We met in St. Louis. ⁓
Eric Karkovack (09:40)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons (09:57)
We were standing in a Starbucks. It was like in between things going on at at the event and a bunch of people were crowded into a Starbucks and he and I happened to just be kind of next to each other and we started talking and we had a really, really amazing conversation. And I had seen he was the first person I ever saw speak at a WordCamp. I saw him in twenty seventeen. I have pictures and I was just like, I wanna be this guy. I wanna be able to do this. So I told him that. I had my fangirl moment where I'm like, my gosh, you're so amazing.
Eric Karkovack (10:22)
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons (10:25)
and
we kept in touch and when he decided that he wanted to move away from because he was the originator I don't know if he was the originator, but he had been doing the WordPress Essentials course on LinkedIn Learning for a lot of years. and he was, you know, those courses t tend to get updated on a regular basis to keep up with the software. So he was taking care of that course for a long time and he wanted to move away from it and he sent me a message and asked if I wanted to talk to somebody at LinkedIn Learning about
Eric Karkovack (10:36)
I remember, yeah.
Allie Nimmons (10:54)
⁓ potentially taking that course over. And I was like, sure, why not? That sounds great. so I think it was like a mixture of being at the right place at the right time and ⁓ you know, whatever I said, something I said stuck out to him and he thought about me for for that opportunity. And yeah, I did my first course with them in twenty twenty. And I did my last course with them
Eric Karkovack (11:00)
Ha ha ha.
Allie Nimmons (11:23)
Twenty twenty four.
Eric Karkovack (11:26)
Yes. So you hadn't necessarily been working with clients one on one a whole lot, but it just this opportunity comes up to to to take over the course and you jump at it.
Allie Nimmons (11:35)
Yeah, ha I
mean I had been working with clients a lot. ⁓ and I had my own ⁓ like internal methods and and practices and things about training and and education. So that did translate really well into the course, but I don't know how public I was about that. I don't know how much I talked about those things prior to starting the course. I might have done, but I can't remember. but yeah, no, I had been working with clients since twenty nineteen.
No, I'm sorry, since twenty seventeen. ⁓ when I left that job. I'd been working with clients for about two years and I continued working with clients ⁓ until fairly recently.
Eric Karkovack (12:17)
Okay, so
I I ha I know like here at the WP Minute we've done a few free courses in the last year. I've I've gone through the process of writing them, recording them, running them by other people to see what they think. And I I feel like I've learned a lot in that in that process. How how did that affect you having to go through and and a course that I mean and the courses of course we have are you know, are for a smaller audience, but you have a very broad generalized audience that may never have seen WordPress before. How how
How that impact you and what what lessons did you learn?
Allie Nimmons (12:52)
Hmm,
that's a good question. ⁓ well, I was able to completely start from scratch with that course. I'd never watched it. I never watched Martin's version of it. I just started completely from where I thought made sense. and what did I learn from it? I feel like I learned all kinds of little things along the way. I mean, my main focus for that course was, like you said, I imagined that I was talking to somebody who
Eric Karkovack (13:06)
That makes sense though.
Allie Nimmons (13:20)
was not necessarily trying to make a career out of WordPress, but needed WordPress for their career. So someone who just opened a business and they need a website and they need that website to be really strong and they're not interested in being a developer, but they need to be able to manage this tool properly. and so I feel like looking at it in that way, I mean that was a lot of the clients that I had. So a lot of the things that I was already doing translated
translated very quickly to those courses that I did. Because I did a s I did WordPress Essentials and I did one, two, three, four, five others on different WordPress topics. so yeah, I'm kind of drawing a blank on exactly like a a thing I necessarily learned. I mean I learned a lot about the technical process. the people at LinkedIn Learning were very they really had their system down, they were very precise, they knew exactly what they wanted. ⁓
Eric Karkovack (14:11)
Sure.
Allie Nimmons (14:20)
So that was really interesting.
Eric Karkovack (14:21)
Was there lot of back and
forth with them about different things? Like I I can imagine working for someone, you know, that sort of company that, you know, their business is learning. So they probably had very specific ideas, I imagine.
Allie Nimmons (14:33)
Yeah,
there I mean their processes were very specific. Like I had to, you know, work in their documents and things like that. but they were not they were they gave me a lot of freedom in terms of what I was actually making. as long as I kind of stayed within the general parameters of what they wanted. I it could be as long or as short as I wanted. I could have as many slides or as many demos as I needed. yeah, no, they were they're very open and the you know, we would decide on a topic.
I would have a couple months to write it, we would ⁓ review it in a couple of meetings, and then I would either go to California to record it, or they would send me recording equipment, depending on, you know, what was going on. ⁓ and yeah, their main focus, they really trusted me a lot with the content, and their main focus was, you know, their job was to make sure that everything looked and sounded right. and it was my job to make sure that everything actually made sense.
Eric Karkovack (15:30)
Well that that's nice to have a partner in that because it i it it's a lot of I could just say from personal experience, it's a lot when you're trying to do all the things at once rather than you know just focus on the the content aspect of it. ⁓ it it is a long process. Now I mean you've so I mean you've taken all this experience you had and you put it into these courses. Now I I kinda wanna focus on the one-to-one teaching that we often do because our a lot of our audience, including myself, I'm a freelancer. ⁓ we have a lot of agency folks who who tune into
Allie Nimmons (15:38)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Karkovack (16:00)
the show. ⁓ Teaching is is one of those things that it comes with the territory, right? It's something that we do for our clients to help them learn how to you know manage certain portions of their website. ⁓ And it's a challenge because a lot of us ⁓ are very technically minded. We speak in jargon. We don't always think about the person who is just being introduced to WordPress. ⁓ What advice do you have for for those
Those of us in the industry who are training others, what should we keep in mind when we're ⁓ thinking about training?
Allie Nimmons (16:38)
I would say start keeping a list of all of the things that your clients ask you. that to you, you're like, well obviously XYZ is the answer, right? Like if a client asks you, well, how come I how come I have to put if I want to blog, how come I have to publish those in the post section? Why can't I just post it as a page? We know the answer to that. But to someone just walking in, that's not necessarily intuitive, maybe. ⁓
So keep a blog of all of those things, of all those questions that people ask you, because you'll start to identify patterns of
I want to say this really kindly, where WordPress is not as intuitive as it could be, I think there are a lot of things about WordPress that are not as beginner-friendly as they could be. And so identifying those things. So for example, one of the things I really like to do when I hand a site over is adjust the dashboard so that the client can log in. And if if all they're doing with that site is blogging, really the only option they have is to go into posts.
Eric Karkovack (17:25)
Yeah, yeah.
Allie Nimmons (17:48)
Right. And if they need to go into the administrator account to do other things, they can do that, but they can have an account just to go ahead and post things and they don't have that whole menu and all those other things to be there to overwhelm them. ⁓ because in my experience, even if I'm super gung ho about training, I get a lot of clients who are like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't want to touch it, I don't want to break it, I'm not a technical person, I'm scared, and you have to
Eliminate that fear for them so that they will be open to being trained. Like you could be the best teacher in the world, but if the client does not believe that they can do it, they're not gonna wanna sit in a training session with you. They're not gonna wanna read through any documentation you give them. ⁓ so yeah, I think my my advice would be really pay attention to the questions that people are asking. ⁓ go on WordPress.tv and and look through some of the talks that people have given that are very
beginner level basic things. because yeah, once when you've been using WordPress for 15 years or however long it's been around, ⁓ yeah, you take for granted the things that are now second nature to you. So you kind of have to unlearn a little bit and put yourself in a begin beginner's perspective. and start with those foundational things. So starting with outs those foundational things and then making it more approachable of an experience.
for the client actually participate in. 'cause I do it is really scary sometimes to log into a site and there's eighty five million things that you can click on and you don't know which one you're supposed to click on and you feel like if I click on the wrong thing the whole site will break. You're not gonna wanna interact with it then. Yeah.
Eric Karkovack (19:29)
Exactly.
Yeah, I I I I found that, you know, just doing one on ones with clients, they tend to, you know, they kinda get that aha moment after a little bit. ⁓ it just takes a little bit of time and patience, I think, to to get them to to see that you're not really gonna break anything. You know, you're gonna be okay, you know and and you know, if you have questions, I think that's also a an important thing, right? Just make sure that they know somebody's there to help them when they need it.
Allie Nimmons (19:38)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, exactly.
Eric Karkovack (20:00)
So w have you noticed any certain patterns with users over the years? Like there's some things that ⁓ nobody gets right away, or or that that they you know, that just the common struggles that that you notice when working with with beginners or, you know, and and I think we'll we'll get to it in a little bit more experienced users even.
Allie Nimmons (20:22)
That's good question. I think the thing that I've noticed a lot recently is if a client is trying to update something on the site. So if they're trying to add a new page or add new content, there's a real challenge in keeping things consistent. So, you know, if I've designed a site and I know that all of these certain types of headings are styled in this one way, they might go in and use a different type of heading that I wouldn't use for that section.
Or they would use a different block. Like, you know, in the in the block builder we ha or so I use Kadence a lot for a lot of my my sites and they have a a text block and there's also the native paragraph block. So they might not be sure which one they're supposed to use and they might use the wrong one. So I think having them understand a sense of not even understand, but having it be easy for them to accomplish a sense of consistency can be a challenge.
Eric Karkovack (21:06)
Yes.
Allie Nimmons (21:22)
And s so then when they look at the front end of the site, it doesn't look the way that they want or it doesn't look the way that they expect and they don't know why. ⁓ and I think that that goes into also just design practices of you know, maybe setting up templates or things like that to make sure things are easier. But it's I think one of the challenges, particularly with page builders, even though I love page builders, is they kind of seem approachable.
at first glance, but if you're like, well, I can't figure out how to center this or I can't figure out how to get this link to open in a new tab and you're you're going through all of these different options, I think people tend to get lost in all the options, in all of the settings and all of the tabs and things like that. ⁓ which again is
It's like WordPress's fault, but it's not WordPress's fault. There's just so much that this tool can do that at a certain point I think it gets scary for people to look at. 'cause they're overwhelmed with that with that choice. so yeah, I think the thing that I noticed the most that people struggle with is getting things updated in a way that requires like design. So like for somebody to just go ahead and write a blog post and publish it.
that tends to be pretty easy. But if somebody wants to add a new section to a page, even if it's to us it's like, it's just an image and a a few lines of text, to them that is insurmountable and doesn't come out the way that they liked or the way that they wanted and they get frustrated. So yeah, I think being able to maintain that sense of visual consistency, which keeps the the site looking good is a challenge for a lot of people.
Eric Karkovack (23:06)
That is. I I I know that and there's like a disconnect with the block editor sometimes too, because I I have I still have clients that refuse to use it. ⁓ even if I try to, you know, say, hey, well, if you want this layout, this is really the way you have to do it. But ⁓ you know, I I found like bl adding block patterns for certain things to try and keep consistency does help a little bit once you get them to understand like how to add a block pattern where they are, you know, that kind of makes it easier. It's like, okay, you can go and fill in the blanks, because that's kind of like what we used to do with custom fields.
Allie Nimmons (23:30)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Karkovack (23:36)
like five ten years ago, you'd have a st ⁓ a template of nothing but custom fields that just for them to fill out and that way they can't break anything in the design and it's just easier for them. But you know in the age of blocks it's a little different. But
Allie Nimmons (23:36)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Karkovack (23:51)
So so have you run into folks and I think we probably all have, that think they know more than they do and ⁓ kind of ⁓ take things in a bad direction because of that? How do you work with people that that maybe are a little too bold in what they're what they're doing?
Allie Nimmons (24:08)
That's really good question. I have definitely met people who think that they know more than what they do. ⁓ I wouldn't necessarily say about learning WordPress. trying to think.
Eric Karkovack (24:24)
Well I know even with AI now, I get people that write to me and say, well I could just do this in AI. Okay, go ahead.
Allie Nimmons (24:30)
I ta I talked
to somebody very recently who wanted to talk to me about working on their WordPress site with them and getting it up to date and getting it getting it all ready. And one of the first things they told me was, Well, WordPress isn't gonna exist in a couple of years anyway, it's all gonna be AI. And I like, Well, wait a minute. Don't know that I agree with that. that's a crazy thing to say to a to a a WordPress developer that you're trying to work with, but ⁓
You know, I I I explained to them my perspective on that situation, which that's probably a whole other podcast episode. so yeah, I've I've met a lot of people who have opinions and thoughts and experiences with WordPress, that I kind of have to gently maybe unteach them some things and educate them on different things. ⁓ like educating on the different I recently had somebody ask me to help them with a site, because their their menu
was opening like full screen. It was like a vertical side menu and it was taking up the whole page. And she was like, my menu opens into a new page. And I was like, that how is that possible? To her, that's what it looked like. So I was like, I'm I'm sh that's a theme customizer setting probably we can adjust that. And then when she gave me access to her site, it was a WordPress dot com site, not a self hosted site, which I'm not very well versed with using dot com sites. So but she was adamant that, you know
Eric Karkovack (25:30)
Okay.
Allie Nimmons (25:57)
I should be able to fix this. I should be able to help her. And I'm like, I think you might just have to pick a new theme. I don't know. So like, yeah, there's and I and I had to try to, you know, provide some education on what the difference and the benefits and pros and cons are of dot com versus dot org. ⁓ I mean that's that's one of the trickiest things I think to educate people on is the difference between those two things. And ⁓
Eric Karkovack (26:20)
Yes.
Allie Nimmons (26:25)
I think it's a little bit by design that it's confusing, unfortunately. ⁓ but I think over the years we've gotten pretty good at helping people understand the difference between the two because it's one of the biggest questions I think that people misunderstand about WordPress when they first learn about it.
Eric Karkovack (26:40)
And it's a different experience for the user too on the back end. It you know, ⁓ WordPress.com does do some things differently. ⁓ I think they've kind of changed that a little bit in recent years, that it's a little more like, you know, the the the standalone version, but still a different experience and and for a developer you may not have access as readily to certain things like like that menu.
Allie Nimmons (26:43)
Very different.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. I just I I haven't logged on. That was the first time I'd logged into a dot com site in a lot of years and I was completely lost. It was actually an interesting experience of like how somebody might feel logging into a WordPress site for the first time. It was like I had no idea where to go to find that menu setting. And eventually I think I realized it was just it's just a part of that theme and there isn't really a lot of customization options for that.
So we had to try to find a new theme. ⁓ but yeah, it was very it was very bizarre experience to be like, I'm in WordPress but this is like an alternate universe version of WordPress.
Eric Karkovack (27:32)
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah, if you're not used to being in it every day, it's like a it is a it is a different deal and you can get e even as someone who has a lot of experience, it's like you do have to kind of click around a little bit to figure out where you are. Now, I what how how do you work with folks that really are true beginners? Like what what do you focus on? Like because
Allie Nimmons (27:55)
Yeah.
Eric Karkovack (28:07)
You know, it I like for me I've tried to focus on the areas I know they're going to have to touch. But there are also, as you said, fundamentals. So how do you balance that? Like what you know, do you do you go through like multiple sessions with somebody or is it is it really just one long ⁓ you know, marathon session to to get people up to speed?
Allie Nimmons (28:13)
Mm.
⁓
I think it's really important to start training at the very beginning. So when you're talking to them about even in like a proposal that proposal period where they haven't even hired you yet, there are ways that you can start building the vocabulary with them of okay, well how many pages do you need versus how many posts? What's the difference? This is the difference. ⁓
getting them to understand maybe the difference between different e commerce tools and like as you're building that project with them, I think there are ways that you can work in the vocabulary and maybe even showing them, like, okay, well, if you want all these pages, here's what it'll look like, you know, if you want all these pages versus we could put it on one page. Like I think there's ways that you can start the training very early. ⁓
And then every every touch point I think there are opportunities that you can find to not even in a teaching way, but just to c to continue to use the vocabulary to gently correct when if they're misusing things or misunderstanding things, taking the time to actually identify that. ⁓ which I think is the benefit of working with s like individual clients or small businesses over giant corporate companies, because you can sit and actually have conversations. ⁓
Eric Karkovack (29:46)
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons (29:50)
And really look at things deeply together. and learn how they learn and learn how they think about things. at the end of a project I always schedule a training call that they can invite as many people as they want if they want other people on the team. within reason it can be as long as you want. and and then it's recorded, they get sent that to them later. I used to have a whole training packet, like a whole PDF document.
that they could refer to and I realized after time that that was overwhelming for people and they didn't really use it. ⁓ and then like you said before, being available consistently afterward and
Eric Karkovack (30:23)
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons (30:31)
in your a personal approach, making sure that they really truly understand that you don't think they're stupid for asking a question. It's not embarrassing. If you have to ask the same question six times, I'm not gonna be annoyed. I'm not gonna be ticked off at you. I'm here to help you to I'm not here to just give you a tool. I'm here so that you can use it and make the best out of it. I think a lot of people
just feel very self-conscious where it's like I'm a grown adult and I feel like I have to relearn I have to learn something that I haven't had to like really deeply learn something since I was maybe a lot younger. I think that can be feel it feel really icky for some people to feel that level of uncertainty about something and feel like they're not smart about it or something. So I think it's kind of up to you as if you're the designer, developer, account manager, customer success, whatever it is your role is that you're helping them with this.
Eric Karkovack (31:11)
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons (31:29)
Like you as a person have to be open so that they are receptive to that training. Did I answer your question? I feel like I went off on a on a tangent there.
Eric Karkovack (31:39)
No, I think you did answer the question. I I was gonna mention that
Yeah, I I I always try to go in and say, Okay, when we're doing the training I'll say, you know, now you're gonna have questions. I don't expect you to remember every bit of this as we're going through it, because it's an overview, right? It's not you know, and it's always different when you're in there yourself for the first time. So you try to be you know, try to understand their point of view. It's like, yeah, if I were in their shoes, right, I'm going to probably forget half of what they told me wh when I go in there and do it myself for the first time. So having that training
Allie Nimmons (31:53)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Karkovack (32:13)
Training videos i is awesome that they can go back and look at that. And you mentioned the PDFs. I was that was actually my follow-up question because I you know, I find myself like I'm always better at writing things than I am at at actually just explaining them verbally, ⁓ especially in a one-on-one training. ⁓ so do you
Allie Nimmons (32:17)
Yeah.
Eric Karkovack (32:38)
Do you find that useful at all to have like documentation or even like just pre-recorded videos, screen captures and things like that that they can reference?
Allie Nimmons (32:45)
Yeah. Absolutely. I think
yeah, I think a lot of that is really helpful. I think you kind of have to learn or just ask the client, you know, are you somebody who you would rather have stuff to read? Are you somebody that you just want, you know, some screenshots? Do you want to have a video walkthrough? learn what it is that they, you know, their learning style. ⁓ even though I think that we've we found that those to be that's a kind of a myth that people have different learning styles.
but they're learning preference, I'll say, if they prefer to be able to go and watch a video. Or I mean we have some some clients ⁓ at Web Pro Geeks where I work now who they want to just be able to call my boss and get on a call with her and do it together. And if you're willing to do that, or if that client is willing to pay you for that, why not? You know? ⁓ some people just kind of need somebody to sit there with them to to build up that confidence. So
Eric Karkovack (33:17)
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons (33:44)
I think there's a lot of options and even if you just have a list, like a playlist of YouTube videos from other places, because I think but there's this whole perspective that with the internet and YouTube you can go online, you can learn anything, but there's so much out there that you don't quite always know is this the video I should be watching? Is this correct? Is this all the information? Is this up to date? So if you have a playlist of videos from, you know
WordCamp Talks or WP Beginner or WP101 and ⁓ I mean dot organ dot com all have great training videos. I've done some of them. They're I think they're pretty good. you know, building that list just to give them a roadmap of this is kind of the right area. And then they can branch off, you know, if they're watching a video about updating a plugin and then they see something about, you know
Eric Karkovack (34:22)
Yeah.
Allie Nimmons (34:38)
plug in conflicts and how to troubleshoot that and they're interested, they can branch off and they can begin to feel that confidence of like, I actually really do know what I'm talking about now. ⁓ but yeah, I think at the core of it is discovering the degree to which they do want to be trained because some people really just want a site and then they want to pay you to manage it and they don't want to have to touch it. So in that case wasting your time trying to really get deep into training with them is not going to help you.
Some people want some training, they want some things to refer to, and some people really wanna be deep in the understanding of it. So I think understanding that first, understanding what their preferences are, and then making that into the process the whole time. ⁓ that's the way that I found the most success with it.
Eric Karkovack (35:27)
Yeah, it's important to know who you're working with and you know, I feel like you have to be a motivator as much as you are a teacher. You know, just that that kind of coaching and and I know you you've you've doing some coaching, right? So you're you're you're ⁓ helping people with with their WordPress sites, that getting them to ⁓ kinda understand where they're at and and s tell you you can do this. You you're not, you know, it you're not gonna kill anybody, you're not gonna hurt anything.
Allie Nimmons (35:35)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nope.
Yeah, it'll all be fine. ⁓ I recently wrote some ⁓ documents documentation for our company. we use help scout and we have a little like ⁓
collection of docs that we like to just give to clients directly ⁓ on certain things. And I w wrote one recently about how to give direction or feedback or edits to a designer or developer. ⁓ and things, you know, that help us to do our jobs better. And I think if you have things like that during the process, that's another way to establish that vocabulary. ⁓
And you work in little teaching moments through things like that. so you know, it's like if if you need me to update a video link on a page, I need you to tell me what page it is. I need you to tell me the URL of the page, not just, you know, my services page. You might have six services pages. I need you to tell me the URL. This is where the URL is, this is what it looks like.
This is the domain, this is the URL, right? Like there's all these opportunities when you're discussing other parts of the project where you can ⁓ educate them without them really knowing that they're being trained, sort of.
Eric Karkovack (37:24)
That's a good idea, yeah. ⁓ the more I think the more, you know, more you can little things you can do like that, the the better off your relationship is gonna be, the more trust you build and they're gonna feel good about what they're doing. Any any other advice you want to give to to maybe the freelancer or agency person that ⁓ is working with clients, training them on how to use WordPress?
Allie Nimmons (37:35)
Yeah, agreed.
⁓
it's just a really important step. I feel like gets overlooked a lot. Not only because it's it's the right thing to do, but you know, if you deliver a a site to somebody and they don't feel confident with it, they're scared of it, they don't like logging into it, they don't want to update it, they don't want to make content or, you know, software updates to it, it's going to die. Like the site is going to atrophy.
it's not gonna be helpful for them for their business probably if they're not keeping it up to date and growing with it and scaling with it. And then eventually they're gonna say, well this site sucks. I'm gonna hire somebody else to redo it. And there goes the work that you did. if they feel comfortable with it, they can work with it, they can update it, they feel comfortable to come to you if they really do get stuck. Not only is that site gonna last longer for them, it'll be there in your portfolio for longer.
And that's a happier client that's going to like when I was freelancing, almost all of my new business at a certain point was coming from referrals from customers or clients rather that were happy and mentioned me to somebody else and then I got a call. So having that person walk away really happy and really confident, ⁓ that really benefits you if you want to think of it as well, how does this benefit me ⁓ from a business perspective?
you're making an investment into hopefully the next client that you might get, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Karkovack (39:21)
Exactly, exactly. It's a it's a long term thing and it's not
just get me through this thirty minute training and then I'm done with this person. It it is like that investment, you want to have that relationship for a for a good long time. Well Ali, I I appreciate you so much for for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us. ⁓ where can folks get a hold of you online?
Allie Nimmons (39:28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
⁓
Allenimans.com. It's A L L I E N I O N S. ⁓ that's where all of my stuff is, all my information, contact forms, stuff like that. I do have site audit services and I have I just started doing one on one hourly WordPress consult, so there's information on there. I'm on LinkedIn here and there. That's really the only social media that I'm on at this point, but I don't check it very often. So yeah, AliNimans.com is
Really the best way to get in touch?
Eric Karkovack (40:13)
Alright, well there you have it, folks. Thank you so much, Allie, and thanks to everyone who watched and listened. And please like, share, ⁓ and spread the word about the WP Minute, because we're ⁓ listener supported. So come visit us at the WP Minute.com slash subscribe, grab our newsletter, see what's new. I write a weekly column in there as well. so we'll see you next time. Thank you.
Allie Nimmons (40:16)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm.