Episode details
Jason Resnick (aka @rezzz) shares how he went from burnt out jack-of-all-trades to in-demand specialist.
Related Links
Transcript
Jonathan Stark
Hello and welcome to Ditching Hourly, I'm Jonathan Stark. Today I'm joined by guest Jason Resnick. Jason, welcome to the show.
Jason Resnick
Thanks for having me Jonathan.
Jonathan Stark
Can you tell folks who haven't heard of you before who you are and what you do?
Jason Resnick
Sure, as I said my name's Jason Resnick, Rezzz online as most people know who I am there. Yeah, I'm a web developer, I've been since the late 90's so showing my age a little bit. And yeah, and I've worked the full gamut from Fortune 50 companies to small agencies, largee agencies, consulting firms. And then I struck out on my own doing my own thing twice, the second time is in 2010 and I've been doing that full time every since.
Jonathan Stark
Excellent. So, the main reason, the impetus of this phone call is that ... I don't want to air too much dirty laundry but I was considering a platform migration from Drip to Convert Kit. So, anyone lisetening to this show I'm sure knows I sent out daily emails from a very heavy user of email automation, email marketing software, and it's one of my daily tools. So, small things really matter to me because it really adds up over time if there's small things that are annoying or not the way I'd like 'em or whatever the case may be.
Jonathan Stark
So, I was kind of, to be honest I was kind of ranting about this in a slack room that we're both in and as many times as we've talked in the past you were not pigeon holed in my mind as an email marketing platform guru the way that you are now. So, it was like we started talking and I was like, "Wow, Jason's got amazing answers to these questions. What's going on here?" So, tell me a little bit about ... And then, I came to realize oh this is your deal. So, could you tell people a little bit about your, I don't know I'll use the wrong word but sort of convert kit trusted partner or whatever it is and I think you're also a Drip one and that whole.
Jason Resnick
Yes.
Jonathan Stark
Talk a little bit about how that piece of it happened, the sort of partner thing.
Jason Resnick
Yeah. So, like I said I am a web developer. I focused ever since I started on my own I focused with e-commerce companies whether they were selling digital, physical products, membership websites, subscriptions, even non profits, basically anybody that was taking some sort of a transaction online. And as that grew and I really started to work, sort of fall into a specialty there where I was helping them decrease the time from the first interaction to their first purchase as well as creating repeat buyers and rating fans out of the customers. That was around I guess 2013, 2014 ish, I really started to look into email marketing. Because that was kind of, I mean obviously at that point in time it was out there, it was doing it, but it wasn't doing it at the level that it is now. But I was a web developer so when Drip came along I was taking a look at their API and to be able to do some of the things that Drip was able to do through the API meaning leveraging that subscriber data on the website making the experience on the website a little bit more personal based around whether you opened up the last email or not and these kind of things. And I mean you can do down the rabbit hole of personalization there but that was the genesis of where I am today because what I was doing with my clients as far as the development end of it people wanted more of the other stuff. They wanted the on site personalization. They wanted the beahavioral marketing that I was implementing more so than the custom development work that I was doing. 'Cause at the time and I still do this to this day is I sort of put that final 20% into their website. So, out of the box they install orld wcommerce or whatever. They get 80% of the way there, they see that it's working and getting traction and now they want to put the rest of their business into it whether that's inventory control or anything like that. So, I ...
Jonathan Stark
Can you sort of drill into that a little bit more? I want to make sure it's clear. So, when you say, "Put 80% into it", and you mentioned WooCommerce. I'm not a 100% sure I'm following so.
Jason Resnick
Sure. Yeah. So, I focus in on WooCommerce based customers and a lot of times the companies would install world commerce and find out that it was working for them just out of the box. They would be able to sell products, they would be able to do these things but then other areas of the business whether it was a brick and mortar business like I had one customer that was an ice cream shop that only could deliver to local areas because otherwise it would melt or whatever it is right?
Jonathan Stark
Yeah.
Jason Resnick
So, things like that right?
Jonathan Stark
So, that's what you meant when you said put the rest of the business into it?
Jason Resnick
Right.
Jonathan Stark
Okay I've gotcha.
Jason Resnick
So, but then I noticed a trend towards the behavioral marketing stuff, the email marketing, and automation, and things. And I decided that I could essentially do a lot of that stuff with Java Script code. I didn't need to be in the WooCommerce space, or Magento space, or any of that kind of stuff. So, I just gave it a shot and I basically said, "Okay I'll give this six months. I'm going to essentially slice that part of the business out and offer that as a service." And at that time it was just Drip and I wound up getting a couple of Shopify customers, a couple of Magento customers, and it worked out well. It was nice and easy for me to be able to implement that stuff over and over again. It was a platform that was working well.
Jason Resnick
Support was great too in the growing API there and all that other stuff. So, I was like, "Okay this is great". When they offered the consulting, I think they called it a certified consultant program or something like that, they knew who I was. 'Cause just in and around the community around Twitter and things like that I would jump into these conversations where Drip was mentioned and not to totally get into the weeds over there but I would just basically set up Zapya recipe to look for those mentions and then ping me in my own private Slack. So, I kind of jumped ahead of drip a lot of times in the conversations and I was just offer suggestions, or answers, or things like that because I was well versed in the platform. So ...
Jonathan Stark
Now is that ... Sorry to interrupt. Is that where these clients came from because they saw you and you put them ...
Jason Resnick
A lot of times.
Jonathan Stark
Okay.
Jason Resnick
Yeah. Yeah, a lot of times.
Jonathan Stark
So, basically you being helpful online in public brought you to the attention of Drip but also a bunch of clients who were evidently wrestling with these problems and then you just basically act like third party support in a way.
Jason Resnick
Exactly, exactly right.
Jonathan Stark
Awesome.
Jason Resnick
And they said, "Well we're opening up this consultancy platform, or certification program, or whatever you want to call it", which was really just a [inaudible] had to use Drip in the best way that they wanted you to use it. And so, I dove in. I was in the first co hort of those. I don't really think they have two of them. I'm not really sure how many co horts they had of that but it put me into the directory there. It put me into the cycle, the cog over there as well for custom requests that their customers were getting. So, they would feed leads over that they weren't going to handle but I could. So, that was the genesis of cover that service of my business and now that, over six months time became half of the revenue into my business.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, it's like ... I mean it's not, I almost said it's crazy but it's not crazy. I see that all the time. So, people pick a platform, it could be ... I talked to Ben on an earlier episode from KnapSack about the same exact thing with [inaudible] space. I've talked to Kurt Elster with Shopify. And now you talking about this with Drip and I will point out that the one thing that's in common with all three stories is that you guys were all really early.
Jason Resnick
Yeah. I mean I think that was the biggest thing because me being able to just jump ahead of Drip in a lot of the conversations on the social web so to speak allowed Drip to see who I was. And so, and people had one off questions,, or they would complain, or whatever it could be. I'd answer it either with a screen shot, or a link, or a knowledge based article, or whatever, or my own blog posts 'cause I would write about these things as well. But it was really that Drip would then say, "Hey look I think Jason can handle this for you here's his Twitter handle or here is his emailand you can have a [inaudible] conversation with him to do that. So, I've always looked at platforms as a tool. I mean even WooCommerce and WordPress same thing. I grew up doing Java development and Ruby development. I moved to Ruby on Rails and I just looked at it as a tool for providing a solution to my clients. So, with that being said similarly I did the same thing with ConvertKit.
Jonathan Stark
So, before we got there. Yeah. So, I'm dying to hear this too, but before we go there I want to ... And maybe you can't answer this, maybe you don't know the answer to this question. But what gave you the confidence to make that leap? So, you had to decide at some point to set up that Zap and to jump onto Twitter and jump in front of Drip support. What ... And do you remember? Was there a thing that you said ... Once there a moment when you were like, "I think this is going to be big", or was it more like you were really into the platform at the time, it was fun and you just liked answering the questions or maybe some other third option? Or do you just have natural business instincts and you were just following the interest of the prospects that you had been talking to?
Jason Resnick
I think a mixture to be honest. I'd like to say that I had the foresight to see that this was going to work but I just knew how I ran my business in the past and how I was able to jump into the conversations and solve problems even in the WordPress space world. I made relationships with tools that I use on a daily basis. So, I just thought okay well I can do the same thing with Drip and whether or not they see me or not I'm still helping other people solve problems. And I was getting clients in that way too. So, for me it was semi intentional and not so much. I mean I loved the platform, I loved what it was able to do, and just being able to geek out and be able to tie two things together in a nice way that created a more human experience online for the visitors, or the customers, or whoever they are that was, I was all for that.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah that's fun. Alright cool. So, the transition to convert kit, what went down there?
Jason Resnick
Yeah so, what was funny was that when I decided for myself to use Drip I, it was real, that was a complete timing thing because I literally decided to go to put all my email contacts and everything into Drip then about a week later I saw a ConvertKit. It was really just a timing thing and I was like, "Oh that's interesting they're kind of the same thing almost", and from my point of view at that point. But then so I kind of had an ear to the ground with ConvertKit and I always watched it and all that. And I guess it was just the engineering behind Drip and what Rob and Derek were doing.
Jason Resnick
For me Drip made more sense for what I needed it for, for my clients in my own business, but I never ignored ConvertKit. I love with Nathan's all about, and his culture, and everything he does over there. But there would be leads that would come to me that would say all the right things but then say one thing that they didn't need that Drip was very good at but ConvertKit wasn't or vice versa. I would just direct them to one or the other. So when, the thing that I took a step back was from Drip was when Leadpages entered the picture. Because that was at the time where I had already made, half m business now was Drip related. I hadn't posted anything online but my website or anything that was Drip certified, this is a service that I offer, anything like that. In fact, I was like, "Okay I'm stepping back from this because I don't know what Drip's going to even look like. I just don't know."
Jonathan Stark
Well, let's pause there 'cause you just said that you never put the Drip thing on your website?
Jason Resnick
No.
Jonathan Stark
So, all of your leads were from social media?
Jason Resnick
Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Yeah, either social media or through the directory.
Jonathan Stark
Right okay. Good. Good. Alright. Good, I think that's a very important point for people listening. They're like, "Wow he didn't even update his website".
Jason Resnick
Yeah, I mean for me what's funny is I get less than 20% of my clients, my services clients through my website. I mean that's just the way that, I don't know, the nature of my business and how I've structured my referral engine and all these other things. I'm a one man show so I don't need a 100 clients either. So, I have my eight and I'm good so.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, and what you do is so specific it's incredibly easy to recommend you. Somebody says, "Oh I'm thinking about migrating from ConvertKit to Drip or Drip to ConvertKit", immediately you're the only name that's going to pop into my head from now until infinity. So, right? So, it's like so easy. It's like ... Anyway, it's amazing. So, and I do want to call out one other thing that you alluded to which is that ... What you're talking about is a platform, especially what I refer to as a platform specialization and it has a lot of advantages and like all things it has pros and cons. And the, one of the cons is your fortunes are tied to the platform, hello flash developers. So, yeah so I just wanted to call that out explicitly. So, now you saw it. Lead page has acquired Drip. Rob and ... I'm sorry I don't know the other guys name.
Jason Resnick
Derek Rymer.
Jonathan Stark
Okay Rob and Derek, they're golden handcuffs, they're going to be out of the picture all of the sort of plates are in the air, what's going to happen? And if your whole business is built on top of Drip then of course that's going to give you pause, you're going to wonder what's going to happen. You're going to wonder what Lead Page is going to do with it. The guy that founded Lead Page has left so what is even going to happen here? How long until Sales Force buys them or whatever?
Jason Resnick
Right.
Jonathan Stark
So ...
Jason Resnick
I know all of those thoughts came into my head. I'm like okay does Google swoop in? I mean who's coming in right? So, yeah I literally took a step back and I even said to my wife I said, "Look this whole thing that I've been doing over the summer, carving out a part of my business now is falling apart, it could fall apart I don't know". So, I was just like, "Oh I want to take a step back". Still kind of just put it on cruise control, right? I still did what I did. I didn't really ramp up anything. Like I said I didn't put anything on the web on my site to talk about it. I kind of just wanted to see what would unfold there. And ...
Jonathan Stark
Now were you still doing this sort of answering bombing on Twitter or would you kind of?
Jason Resnick
Yeah. Yeah. I mean I still do. I do it today even. It's just, it's become a part of the process I guess.
Jonathan Stark
I've got to pause again 'cause that is a great point. That feeling, I can't think of ... I don't think ... I might of never met anybody who didn't enjoy helping someone else. I don't think I've ever met someone who didn't enjoy helping someone out whether it's introducing them to someone or giving them an answer to a question that they ... You know what kind of person wants to hold that kind of information back when they have it? I have expertise that can help this person who's in pain. It's just a natural human thing you want to do it but it acts as marketing. I almost don't want to call it marketing because that can turn people off but imagine if all day long "marketing your business" involved you helping people online? It's fun.
Jason Resnick
Right, yeah a 100%. I mean I come from, yeah I worked for the consulting firm where we worked for start ups and I literally ran the gamut of every tech coding standard of everything from Java, to PHP, to Com Objects, to .net, whatever language the company hired us for that's what we had to write. And so, I learned within a two year period I learned exactly what languages I liked and which languages I didn't and why I didn't and all that stuff. And I gravitated towards the open source sort of thing, that whole community and being able to help people and learn from other pieces of code, and all of that.
Jason Resnick
And so, I mean like I said I mean today one person had a problem with the faults in Drip and I'm like, "Okay just go to this screen under your account", and they're yellow and they can override them [inaudible 00:19:07]. It's part of the process. I saw it coming through my Slack channel and boom I had went and answered it and so on and so on. Who knows right? And so, for me it was just the way that ... I don't know. I've built my business on the back of being helped so why can't I help somebody else?
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, it's fun. It's like that's the thing it's fun. It is its on reward and oh by the way it ends up getting you money later. It's the best thing ever. Going out and helping people, I mean it almost gets cheezy like Tony Robbins level of, it's not karma it's more predictable than Karma. If you just help people all the time be better people are going to want to be around you and eventually someone's going to want to give you money and you can just fund this mission of helping people it's super kumbaya but I see it work over, and over, and over. Anyway. So, here you are, you've put all this work into this platform. You feel like you've built something. You're building some ... You've got some traction you're building repeat business then things are sort of thrown into uncertainty by the acquisition and what next?
Jason Resnick
Yeah, I mean the people that I worked closely with over at Drip specifically in and around the certification program, they were still there at that time. They were still saying all the right things and it still sort of felt comfortable but there was always this, it could be the New Yorker in me or whatever, but there's this thing in the back of my head where it's just like I don't know something's going to happen here. You know?
Jonathan Stark
Yeah.
Jason Resnick
But so I was just like alright I'll just do, I'm going to run my business the way I run my business. The same thing is always if WordPress went away, I chose WooComemrce. I mean in and around the WordPress space when I decided to niche down on WooCommerce that was before Automatic bought them. So, it was like I could have easily went with another plug in and been ground zero right?
Jonathan Stark
Yeah.
Jason Resnick
So ...
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, 'cause WooCommerce would have been the only game in town.
Jason Resnick
Right. So, I just thought back to that. I said, "Hey look it's not that LeadPages absorbs Drip and does nothing with it, and archives it in some [inaudible] backup somewhere. I mean you have MailChimp, you have other platforms, you have Infusionsoft, you have the knowledge, the process of what you do is there it's just a different tool to use it so.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, the outcome that the client wants is still achievable with one of these other platforms. So, you understand the problem, you understand the motivation, you understand the value of it to the clients, and if the tool goes away, whatever. If your table saw goes away okay I'll use a chop saw.
Jason Resnick
Yeah right. Yup, a 100%. And so, I was just like okay I can't sit back. I put the page up on my site. I did what I do, right? And then, knowing that Rob and Derek they ... Rob had to hang around for a couple of years, for me that was like okay once Rob's gone from Drip I guarantee you this whole things going to change and you can see it over the course of the two years that he was there. As it got closer, and closer, and closer it was almost like ... I don't know. Like somebody pushing somebody off of the end of the high dive or something. It was just one of those things and there was certain people, certain key connections that I had, relationships that I had built they were left, they went on other ventures and things. So, I didn't really even have too many contacts over there anymore.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, connections are starting to go away and I don't want it to turn into a bashing thing but Drip is definitely going, they've got a different strategy now they're going in a different direction. It's become quite obvious in the past week or two that they're focusing on e-commerce somehow and the language of the interface and everything is changing away from what I went to it for so whatever. They're making a decision ...
Jason Resnick
And that's fine. Yeah, and I had no problems with that. And but, for me and my business and my supporting my family and all that that's when I said, "Okay well let me go check out ConvertKit, let me se what they're all about". Nathan had reached out to me. I had corresponded with him through Twitter a few times.
Jonathan Stark
How'd that happen?
Jason Resnick
Just in the matter of the cocktail party that is Twitter rather.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah.
Jason Resnick
But he knew what I was doing with Drip he understood that and he was just kind of pinging me because I was doing the same thing with ConvertKit customers that I was doing with Drip where I would just set up that little notification system. And so, he was just curious and he reached out and he asked me a few questions just I guess just gauging really more along the lines of just research. What problems do you hear people talking about and things like that. So, just doing due diligence and all, and for me it was just like okay well there's no reason. I offer, I tell leads and clients that ConvertKit exists. Let me go through their certification program because [crosstalk]
Jonathan Stark
Yeah. I was going to say did it exist already or is he sort of feeling you out?
Jason Resnick
Yeah I mean I think it existed in part there and I guess what he was looking for was because he saw that I towed the line between business and engineering. Whereas most of the ConvertKit customers at the time, a couple of years back and it's still very much the same they're bloggers, they're creators, they're not necessarily hard core power API developers or anything like that that are trying to boost the business in that regard. So, whether or not he was doing that, but I looked at their directory and I felt that okay I could help in some way. I would be different than some of the other experts 'cause that's who they call them, experts because all of my knowledge, my developer background, my knowledge of API's and things like that.
Jason Resnick
So, I went through their program and met some nice people and similarly it just basically became another service that I ... It's the same, like I said, it's the same service it's just the different tools.So, now I offer the same thing it's just when a lead comes to me depending on, if they don't have either than I just do an evaluation and we find the best fit. Or if they come to me like some of the conversations that we had where you were thinking about switching. I've had those conversations with leads too. It's just the way I do business now. It's like I would say 75 to 80% of my revenue is driven by that part of my business.
Jonathan Stark
So, here's what's really cool about this is that of the folks that I've talked to on the podcast and elsewhere I can't think of another example that has, of another person who's such a clear example of multiple platforms of specializations at the same time. Usually they are either, I don't want to say overwhelming but it's fascinating that you're sort of dove tailing them and covering all of the bases in maintaining. I mean it's not, I'm not shocked by it but sort of kudos to you for keeping your eyes on the prize so to speak in that. You're not, yeah you're a Drip expert or you're a partner and a ConvertKit expert but that's not the point. All of the eggs that you put all in the same basket if there is one is delivering customer success to your clients in this particular way, these sorts of outcomes. And along the way yeah you're going to learn how to use the chop saw and the table saw and they don't really ...
Jonathan Stark
Well, here's a good question. Usually with the platform specialization the client does care. A lot of times they've already made the decision that they're going, that they either have decided or they're heavily favoring going with particular platform for particular thing. And then, they decide that oh we just need somebody to help us do it more quickly and efficiently, accurately, without stepping on land mines, that kind of thing. Is that the case, is that your experience or is it different in your case? Do people come to you and be like, "Hey we need a ConvertKit expert because we're definitely going to use ConvertKit or we're thinking about using ConvertKit." Or, do they come to you and say, "We're thinking about doing email marketing and integrating that with our website. What tools would you recommend?"
Jason Resnick
Yeah I think it's a mixture. I would say when I first started down this road it was more of the, "Hey we're thinking of email marketing what do you suggest?" Because they hadn't really doe it yet. Maybe they trialed one or the other or neither but they haven't really dove in. Now, that it's a little bit more mature I guess they already have an account with one or the other and they, either the accounts a mess or they're trying to do things that they haven't done before. Maybe they're just using it like an email blast and they have some lead [inaudible] and some forms but they want to integrate webinar selling. They want to integrate other tools into it. So, they haven't really gotten down that road and they're not really sure how to do all of that and that stuff scares them. So, I think that's, I mean it's a great question because I would definitely say that it's probably more of that now because of just the time that we live in.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, that's wild. It's interesting. I'm sort of, I'm still chewing on this idea. I haven't got, I usually have an opinion on everything immediately. I'm still chewing on this one of multiple simultaneous platform specializations. And the pivot that Drip's doing, the timing is wild because there's going to be a window of opportunity that reminds me of GDPR or a thing like that where there's this window of opportunity where they're going to be a whole bunch of people who want an even more specific service. Which is, "I've been using this thing that they're not going to do anymore how do I get onto ConvertKit?" And that's even more specific and I don't know if ... You've probably got checklists of here's what you do, and here are the things to consider, and different size clients. So, I don't know if we've talked ... We haven't really, we've kind of been dancing around the idea of productize services. We've talked about it kind of obliquely but when we were chatting in Slack earlier ... Refresh my memory. As I recall you have a specific productized service for migrating from one platform to the other right?
Jason Resnick
Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Yup.
Jonathan Stark
And how do you ... So, in the context of this show the listeners are used to me talking about productized services and I have a, I think I have a overly specific definition of it so let me just float that to you in case that's different than yours and then you can tell me how much you match up to it if at all.
Jason Resnick
Sure.
Jonathan Stark
So, to me a productized service is a relatively fixed scope service that you offer at a published price usually typically on your website. So, people would be able to come to your website and be like in your case be like, "Drip to ConvertKit migration 10 thousand dollars click here for more information, or click here to buy, or click here to apply, or whatever the call to action is". And that's just a generic sort of catch all definition. You haven't even put tons of stuff on your website if I remember correctly. You don't even have navigation to this product on your website. You're much more of a word of mouth/social media linking kind of guy it sounds like.
Jason Resnick
Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Yup.
Jonathan Stark
So, how does it work for you? What's your experience? Well, a whole bunch of questions. I suppose it would be interesting to give people a brief idea of process just so they can kind of wrap their heads around it. 'Cause you're a web developer, tons of developers are listening to this show and what's different way back in your experience of doing custom projects and client work? Just high touch one off custom projects where you're learning a new language to do the thing where you're just constantly on a learning curve you're never off the learning curve.
Jason Resnick
Right.
Jonathan Stark
How does that compare to doing "the same thing" over, and over, and over for clients?
Jason Resnick
Yeah, it's very different except for the fact that when I productized my web development services when I was doing, just I was a custom WooCommerce developer. I productized everything else around it. So, in other words we had weekly scrum calls which it's not the agile scrum I just called them scrum calls. They were just 15 minute catch up calls at the end of the week. Basically client communication, what the deliverables were, all of those things. I basically productized every piece of the puzzle other than the middle part. And then, the middle part was completely custom. So, similarly ...
Jonathan Stark
Meaning you created systems for all of the communications and all of the process and all of that stuff.
Jason Resnick
Right, how to buy from me, how to pay, all of that stuff was there and it was just really that middle piece of who you are and what you do is different right? So, similarly I did the same thing, I do the same thing with for example the migration service. The thing that is the custom part is everybody's business is different, everybody's set up is completely different. Some people have a naming convention for tags some people don't, most people don't.
Jonathan Stark
Yup guilty.
Jason Resnick
Most people ... I can't even tell you. Basically there's three kinds of users that I've found for any platform whether it's ConvertKit, Drip, or whatever. It's usually a power user like somebody that writes liquid code in their emails and basically understands the underpinnings of the platform and uses it to the best of it's ability which is a rare, they're rare. Then there's the middle ground folks who blast emails to segments, they have tagging around things, they have lead magnets, they use rules in amongst the rules to be if this that and that. They have some basic work flows. Those are usually the messiest type of accounts and they're often the accounts that like you were saying before the checklist comes in handy because they don't know, they can't remember all of the corners of the business until they switch. They're like, "Well this thing isn't working. I don't know about this thing."
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, it's brutal.
Jason Resnick
And then, the third one is people that are just the beginners. They're just like, "I signed up for Drip based off of some promotion or ConvertKit off of some promotion and I just blast my entire list every Thursday". And they have some tagging whatever, it's just really basic. So, I can usually get that picture just by logging in and then I could kind of go down that road. I basically have this discovery.
Jonathan Stark
Is this before they have paid or after?
Jason Resnick
This is after.
Jonathan Stark
Okay.
Jason Resnick
Alright. So, the service in of itself is that they send me an application of their account and I see if it's a good fit. There's different data points that I look for like subscriber count, and how well do they know the business, who am I talking to, those kind of things. I've heard you talk about this [inaudible] audience before as far as the project, I call it a project brief. And then, if it's a good fit then I say, "Okay this is great we can move forward basically here is, you pay we have a kick off call and we dive in".
Jonathan Stark
So, let me just call something out there. You understand this already but I just want to call it out which is that someone could fail that test yes?
Jason Resnick
Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Jonathan Stark
Yeah. So, that is the thing that is not obvious to lots of people when I'm standing on my soap box and telling the world what to do. The thing that a lot of people will scratch their heads because they're like, "But it'll blow up in my face because of these reasons". And the thing that they'll often miss is that you can say no to the ones that you can tell are going to blow up in your face. 'Cause most people are so, they don't get a lot of leads and they're sort of like not living hand to mouth but they just don't have a lot of leads so when a lead comes in they'll do whatever they have to do to try to close it which is a very different mindset to what you're describing and living. Which is that, look I do this thing, it's a relatively fixed scope, that's the key and if the person's scope isn't going to fit into what I offer here I'm going to say no. So, when people are like, "Well I can't charge only two thousand dollars for that". Because some clients will have a massive rats nest of problems and those are the clients you filter out.
Jason Resnick
Right.
Jonathan Stark
Sorry to interrupt I just had to ...
Jason Resnick
No, I would say no is a powerful word. I talk to a lot of freelancers and when they tell me that they're afraid to either put their price online or put a filter online that they're leads will dry up. I say, "That's a good thing, then you're only getting tire kickers". I mean who want tire kickers that they haven't really thought about their project? And part of my project brief is I want them to have stopped and think about what you want for five minutes. I don't want to just have a conversation, get on the phone with somebody because you had a conversation at a barbecue over the weekend. Think about what this does for your business. And so ...
Jonathan Stark
A client with no goals is unsatisfiable.
Jason Resnick
Right.
Jonathan Stark
So, that's [crosstalk]
Jason Resnick
Well unrealisticals.
Jonathan Stark
Sure that's bad too.
Jason Resnick
I mean just a case in point, some of the leads that leads that I say no immediately to are some of the folks that come in and they say, "I have 300 subscribers and I want to make a half a million dollars in six months". I say, "Okay, how's that happening?"
Jonathan Stark
I want that too.
Jason Resnick
Right. Like what are you selling a hundred thousand dollar service? I mean I don't know but. So, yeah and I say, "Well those goals are unrealistic". So, it's just that project brief for me is definitely my profit saver. I don't want to get a phone call if somebody hasn't thought about it. I don't want to hash out their problems. I want them to know what their problems are and that they're coming to me for a solution. So, what I do on the back of that kick off call and it's really a quick call. It's really just to get access if they haven't given it to me already. I usually put them through an onboarding process, an email that just goes out and says, "Here this is what I need from you". And then, the kick off call is really just, "Hey what are you struggling? Why are we doing this thing? I want to hear it in their voice. I want to see it on their face."
Jonathan Stark
Critical. Critical. Yup.
Jason Resnick
To understand really what they're struggling with so that I know whether to just stay away from certain things or gravitate towards other things. So, that's what that kick off call is critical for. So, then once I dive in and I kind of basically spend a half an hour in their account to see if I can get the majority or understand the majority of what they're doing in their account so that I could put the process in place to migrate them.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, and it also gives you that convo, that real time. And you do video usually?
Jason Resnick
Yes.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, so that conversation. You getting a lot of ... You're marinating yourself in their situation, in their goals, their wants, their needs, their dreams, their fears, their nightmares, and you're like, "Okay I'm going to feel for this". See, here's how I look at it. I'm putting words in your mouth. Here's how I look at it. When I do that what I'm doing is I'm learning as much about them as I can as quickly as I can so that I can make what I believe are good recommendations. Because there's a million ways to skin the cat and I'm not talking ... I'm talking about things maybe a little bit more broad than migration but still I mean they've got to be complicated. And you get to a point ...
Jason Resnick
Some are yeah.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, and sometimes there's a fork in the road and you as the expert there's pros and cons to both choices. But if you know the person, I don't know, something about the person ... If you know something about the person, or the business, or the goals, or something, you'd be like, "Oh option A is definitely, for these guys option A is the no brainer".
Jason Resnick
Right yeah. And that's the thing too is even on the socials, you hear Drip and ConvertKit in the same breath all the time. And I tell people this all of the time it's not apples to apples they are two different platforms, they're two different applications. It's more like an apple to an orange. One can do 80%o of what the other does. So how important is that other 20% to you and if it is that important is it that important that we either move, or do we find another solution to it, or what?
Jonathan Stark
Yup. Is there a work around? Is the switching cost worth it? Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Resnick
So, and that's really what that piece of that discovery is all about is to figure out exactly what are we moving, how are we moving it, and that fixed scope that I have really comes in and around the implementation side of things. So, if they, most people have three main forms, three or four main forms. If they have tons, like I've run into people that have 30 different lead magnets. I'm like, "Okay well we can either have one form and dictate the lead magnet that shoots out of that form or some streamline". If they're really insistent on having this big thing, of multiple forms or whatever, and I said, "ook that's not in this scope. I'll do this within the scope and this is an added cost. This could be a phase two kind of thing whatever."
Jonathan Stark
So, again I'm going to put words in your mouth. You would find this out early right very early?
Jason Resnick
Yes.
Jonathan Stark
So, they've paid you. You've had a kick off meeting, you've spent a half an hour on a phone call with them. Or actually you didn't say. How long is the phone call usually?
Jason Resnick
The phone call is usually about a half hour.
Jonathan Stark
Okay. And then a half an hour poking around in their account and you could find at this point that they've got 300 forms set up.
Jason Resnick
Right.
Jonathan Stark
And you email them or you call them or whatever. So, you make a recommendation, "We should probably pair this down. There's probably better ways to handle this and to be more efficient for you." "No, no, no, we need 300 forms." You're like, "I'm going to refund your money because this is not going to work".
Jason Resnick
Yeah, I've had the difficult conversations. I've never had to refund anybody but it's just it's more often than that this is how they knew how to do it and they didn't know how to do it the other way, or a better way, or a more efficient way, or a more manageable way. So, they appreciate the fact that I'm coming at them to try to make their life easier and they're like, "Oh I didn't know I could do it that way that's great".
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, usually they'll agree with you yes.
Jason Resnick
Right.
Jonathan Stark
Yes.
Jason Resnick
So, which makes my life easier and that's a part of that ... I'll be honest over the years I've been doing this almost a decade now full time for myself. That project brief has evolved where I have questions in there that are questions that could tell me if they are more receptive to suggestions or not. So, and that's part of that failure test is if they don't answer those questions in an appropriate way then I'm like, "Okay that's a red flag". So yeah, and that's really how it works and once we decide on some strategy then I just get to work and implement their migration and move forward.
Jason Resnick
I mean I have other productized services around that, things like evergreen newsletters or webinar implementations, things like that that are more really just that's the repeatable thing where it's the same thing. Maybe the integration's different but a webinar is a webinar. You have the primary to show up and then you have the follow up after it and that's the same sort of sequence and you're just directing people to a certain CTA, Call To Action. So, other than that otherwise the services that are offered are more on a recurring monthly basis where I'm helping them. I'm being their marketing engine so to speak I call it. Is because I help them build that foundation for their marketing and I help them with their strategy for their business. I don't do Facebook ads or any of that front facing stuff but I basically ... You feed your top of the funnel into it and this thing handles it.
Jonathan Stark
Yup. Okay. So, man we could two more episodes. We could do an entire episode on the project brief. We could do an entire episode on how you cross sell the services later. I'm super curious about that. But I think the point of this episode the thing I really want to get across to people is the sort of nuances and the day to day of doing productized services instead of one off constantly different custom projects for different kinds of people all the time using different tools. And you're such a great example of both extremes 'cause you are learning new languages to death. I haven't come across a lot of people who can say that they would learn .net to take a project on and then later in their career they're like, "I do Drip to ConvertKit migrations". [inaudible] You know what I mean?
Jason Resnick
Yeah.
Jonathan Stark
It's like the two polar ...
Jason Resnick
Yeah, I haven't run into [inaudible] either.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, these are the two opposite ends of the spectrum. So ...
Jason Resnick
For me it's ... I'll be honest the, I got burned out basically in 2011, 2012 bit time burned out. Where it was essentially a month after I proposed to my now wife. I said I was going back to work at a full time job because I felt like I was chasing my tail. I was doing a lot of Ruby on Rails projects, I was doing a lot of custom PHP projects, and it was like every three to six months I was going back to a technology and relearning what I missed because I wasn't on that kind of a project. And that's when I mean she showed support in me that I took completely unexpected and she said to me that, "Well that's now what you want to do". "I know that. So, and you know that so we'll figure it out one way or the other." I'm like, "Wait a second what?" She's the non gambler, the rock, I want to know what's going on kind of thing, and she's telling me this.
Jason Resnick
So, I was like alright I've got to figure this out. And that's when I first pivoted my business the first time to really focus in on one technology so I wasn't chasing my tail. I could become that expert in there. And so, now I just I niched down a couple of more times obviously but yeah I mean learning different platforms it's a tool. And yeah sure I know Drip a lot better than I know ConvertKit. I know ConvertKit very well by using it for the past couple of years but at the same time it's just, it's those little subtle nuances that at the beginning can get you into trouble. If you don't know that one platform can do something that the other doesn't and you suggest that other one that doesn't do that thing and then you find out that you can't do that that's where you get into problems.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, painting yourself into a corner that's the ...
Jason Resnick
It's the relationships with support teams and internal people on those platforms that really make a huge huge difference.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, that's sort of a surprise that's come out of this conversation for me. I wasn't expecting to get so much information about platform specialization but you are really really calling out all of the highlights, sort of the pros and cons of how to do it, what the important parts are. So, and honestly for developers a platform specialization is I mean I can't bring myself to say the word easy but it's less scary let's put it like that. It tends to be less scary for people than a vertical specialization where somebody says, "So I'm just going to build [inaudible] for dentists or I'm just going to build websites for dentists and I'm going to get amazing at servicing the dental industry. 'Cause my parents are both dentists. I know everything about being dentists and I love building websites so I'm just going to just specialize on dentists." People have a really really ... From experience I can tell you that people have a really hard time settling on a vertical specialization because they feel like they're throwing a dart, they're not committed to it, if it doesn't work immediately they switch to a different one.
Jonathan Stark
And the other thing people consider generally as a horizontal specialization like, "I'm going to be awesome at PHP or I'm going to be awesome at Rails". Rails is almost a platform, it depends on your buyer. But let's say PHP, I'm going to be amazing at Amazon Aurora or Lambda, or something really under the hood. And they just love the technology and they want to go deep on it. Platform specialization kind of like splits the difference and for people who are not savvy marketers but still want to focus, and still want to focus on a technology end goal.
Jonathan Stark
Platform specialization can be really good if you get in early like we talked about, if you develop relationships with the people inside of the platform which you just mentioned, and if the ... And your eyes are open to changes in the platform that can negatively affect your business. I think if you keep all of those things in mind a platform specialization might be, for a non trivial percentage of people listening to the show I think a platform specialization is a very interesting way to go when you're trying to get off of that hamster wheel and stop learning a new language every three to six months.
Jason Resnick
Yeah, I mean for me the productized services that I can, for lack of a better term it's basically the buying a box off a shelf. I don't have to worry about the vertical it is what it is, a migration. I don't care whether you're an e-commerce company, you're a coach, you're who knows, you sell physical products somewhere. That's irrelevant.
Jonathan Stark
It doesn't change the scope.
Jason Resnick
Right. Right. But the recurring services that I do for Monthly is vertical. I only stick to established online businesses that have, whether they're e-commerce membership sites, sales subscriptions, those kind of things. Because that's the business that I understand the most. I've been doing that, I've been working in and around that business for 15 plus years so I undertand that the most. If somebody came to me and said they were a speaker or a ...
Jonathan Stark
University.
Jason Resnick
Right. And they wanted that sort of recurring service. I couldn't help them as much in the marketing aspect because I wouldn't know what to expect. I'd have to do a lot of research around their market and it would be less profitable. So, not saying that I couldn't do that, those things but at the price point that I'm at this is what I understand and this is who I can serve and help the best.
Jonathan Stark
Right. So, to the dear listener. You know that sort of eye rolling commiseration that happens on places like Clients From Hell or just whatever at a meet up when you're having coffee with friends and you say, "Oh well there's always surprises on projects", that could be your fault. Because you're constantly doing something completely new.
Jason Resnick
Right. Right.
Jonathan Stark
And of course there are going to be way more surprises if you're essentially almost changing profession every client. "I'm going to be a plumber this week, and then I'm going to be a garbage man this week, and then I'm going to be a roofer the week after that, and then I'm going to work for Uber."
Jason Resnick
You're always a beginner.
Jonathan Stark
You're always a beginner.
Jason Resnick
Right yeah.
Jonathan Stark
It's like this sugar high of learning at first because you're like you. I love learning and maybe you're tapped into a client in a new industry or you're learning a new language and I always wanted to learn React. These guys want React. I've never done it before but I know JavaScript. I can hit the ground running. I can get up to speed over the weekend. Well, what that leads to is these horrible surprises that turn into scope creep. And yeah, so it's sort of a, not a self fulfilling prophecy but it's depressingly predictable from the outside.
Jason Resnick
Yeah, and it's hard for me. If I had to keep switching like that I think it would be harder for me to sell a recurring service because then I can' tell them when certain things would happen or be expecting. What are they going to get at the end of month one versus month six, those kind of things. I know what that looks like now. I mean what I do for my customers I can say, "Okay this is all a low hanging fruit. As we ramp up and we kind of clean you up a little bit and we get that foundation built over the first couple of weeks these are some of these other things we could chop off and you could start to see a return pretty easily."
Jason Resnick
So, as a beginner I don't know that I had that knowledge. I don't know that I would have been able to do that stuff. So, I think the vertical is for me anyway, it's crucial to specialization. Like I said, the smaller migrations in webinar implementations and those lead magnets, and all of those kind of boxes that you pull off the shelf for me makes it easier for somebody to work with me first without the commitment of their recurring. And then I sell them, whether the relationship works or not on that first go, it's easier to sell them on the recurring later.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, if you hit a home run it's, "How do we give this guy more money?"
Jason Resnick
Right.
Jonathan Stark
Yeah, of course. So cool. We should probably wrap and get into our weekends. I know we're both free for the weekend here. But thank you so much for ... That was ... I knew this was going to be good but this is even better than I expected so thanks a ton for sharing all of that experience with us.
Jason Resnick
Yeah no, thanks for having me. I appreciate it for sure.
Jonathan Stark
So, where should people go to find out more about you online?
Jason Resnick
Sure. You can find me Rezzz.com, that's with three Z's, R-E-Z-Z-Z.com or @Rezzz on Twitter.
Jonathan Stark
Three Z's also?
Jason Resnick
Yup.
Jonathan Stark
Alright folks, that's it for this week. I'm Jonathan Stark and I hope you join us again next time for Ditching Hourly. Bye.
Jonathan Stark
Would you like to learn how to get paid what you're worth? How about selling your expertise and not your labor? We work through all of this together in the pricing seminar. Pre registration starts soon and you can sign up to be on the first to know when early bird pricing is announced at ThePricingSeminar.com that URL again is ThePricingSeminar.com, hope to see you there.
Comments
Add new comment
Login to comment