Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:06 Hello, and welcome back to the audience podcast. I'm your host Craig Hewitt. And this episode I'm joined by Ben Pines of Elementor. Ben is the head of content and product evangelist at elementary, which is the most popular website builder for WordPress. And this episode, Ben and I are going to kind of dive into what it really means to be a content creator. I think Elementor and cast are really aligned in this respect that we help enable people to create content online. But I think what we're going to do in this episode is kind of debunk some of the most popular myths out there about how easy it is to, to kind of make it as a content creator and kind of run a successful online business. So Ben, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 00:00:46 Yeah. Thank you. Hi Greg. Hi. How's it going? All right. It's great. I can't wait to dive in. It's my favorite topic.
Speaker 0 00:00:53 Awesome. Awesome. I like taking a bit of a contrarian stance on this. I think that in a way it's our responsibility as people that create content online to not just say, yeah, all you do is, you know, spin up WordPress site, use Elementor or start a podcast, get an audience. And you're going to be making, you know, a hundred thousand dollars a year right off the bat. And I think it's important for folks to say, yeah, you could, but there's a lot of things you have to do before you can get there because otherwise I think a lot of people would be quitting their jobs and trying to do this. And I think you and I can both attest that this is hard, right? There's a lot of competition out here and there's a lot of stuff that we all have to do. CLI I think let's start there. Like what's your kind of experience and stance on this?
Speaker 1 00:01:36 Well, I recently read like a, this big, there's a big yearly report by Upwork about freelancers and work. And it seems like this industry is growing at a huge rate, like freelancers work online, like millions of Americans and people from across the world. So it's a booming industry. People are pouring in and once they understand that the whole industry is moving online with COVID the importance of having an online presence has been made very clear, but the problem is that those people need to know the word, the ropes, it's a profession. It's something that requires investment. And when you go online and you search for information and you see, as you said, you see the YouTubers and influencers, what they preach is usually it's easy, just takes a few steps. And what ends up happening is this industry is overpopulated with unprofessional people. And that's a cycle because you end up with not professional websites and the business owners fail and the et cetera, et cetera, you just get spammed that accumulates and regenerates itself
Speaker 0 00:02:47 As you're kind of describing this, I'm just nodding my head and say, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I have a handful of like common traits that come to mind for me just in content creation in general, but also with podcasting. But I'm from your perspective, like what are some things that you see people doing that are mistakes as they kind of start down this path? Like what, if you see something go up and say, Ooh, that that person better change their path or they're kind of destined to fail.
Speaker 1 00:03:12 Okay. Let's start with positivity. The positive note is that the positive note is the initial motivation that people have. Like I want to have, I don't know if someone wants to be a digital nomads, the travel across the world have a creative profession, like create something. It doesn't matter if it's a website or a podcast or a YouTube channel. People now are earning their living, doing that. That's the initial positive starting point. But then you see people who actually have success online and it doesn't seem like they have dry credentials. You know, there's one kid that what he does is like toy reviews. And he has like 17 million subscribers. And there's one that tick-tock star. And what she does is like ten second dance videos. And you look at those and say like, I don't need, uh, to invest time. I just, I need to find that who can do it, what those people see is just the end result.
Speaker 1 00:04:11 They don't understand it because behind this kid and behind this girl, there's a lot of investment. You just see the end result, but there's a lot of production in thinking and strategy that made these people succeed and make millions of followers follow them. So that's the biggest mistake, like seeing that shiny influencer or star and saying to make it happen, I just need like finding a hook that's superficial, but salesy, and then I can make it. But the truth is that, uh, if you do want to make it, so the biggest mistake is just starting out without having a proper plan of investment. And the way to circumvent this mistake is just thinking of it the same way you would think of becoming a doctor or becoming a lawyer. Like first of all, to make what I do worthwhile. If it's a website, the websites I create need to be top-notch in terms of design marketing, and, uh, all the technical things.
Speaker 1 00:05:09 But also if I'm actually going to build a business around it, I also need to think of it as a business. So I need to learn all of the tricks of the trade of building a business. If it's, you know, again, strategy and sales and marketing. And so it's a huge investment. It's not very popular to like the quick success, uh, mentality of today, but it's possible if you do that and think of, you know, I'll invest, I don't know, half a year and go, go to courses and invest time in it. I think the, the reward is, is promising.
Speaker 0 00:05:39 One of the things that, that gives me a lot of hope for this path. You know, I, I have children, my daughter turned 10 yesterday, so 10 and eight. And I think like, they might not need to go to college or university. Right. They could just go and they finished high school and then they could go do this. And, you know, I run an online and they could too. And I think there that exists for people that are already in high school and college and, and, you know, postgraduates and stuff like that. But like you're saying, there is a lot for them to learn of the tricks of the trade. And I think one of the beauties of online businesses, the transparency that a lot of people and companies like ours have about how they work and what's successful and stuff like that. And even if it's kind of shown through say like Rose colored glasses, right?
Speaker 0 00:06:24 Like, Oh, you just do this. And then you're making, you know, $20,000 a month that that's obviously not the truth. So how can you leverage or take advantage of all of this wonderful content out there? You know, I'm thinking about folks like Pat Flynn, Wright, who is obviously like a really great content creator, super transparent, very successful. How can you take things that, that folks like that say in, in an industry or just in online business and kind of filter it to say, okay, I understand that, like, that's what they're saying, but they're already there. They've already made it. If I'm just starting, I need to like step back and consider the steps I need to take to get started on the right path.
Speaker 1 00:07:03 Yeah. Well, I would say that content made by leading figures is great. And I fully like, I love to get that content. I think that in the last 20 years there's been a lot of new professions. Think about it like 20 years ago, SEO expert content marketer, what designer and so on. And so there weren't these professions. So these are new professions and it's hard to find, like, I don't think the universities are keeping up with what the industry needs. The industry needs, you know, analysts and video produced. Like there's not enough programs that keep up to date. So that's on the one scale on the, on the second scale with consuming content that is from different, let's say that span the scope of what creation there. It's very easy to get to also get confused because you're going to social media marketing and that's the tunnel that you can deep dive endlessly and you go into affiliate marketing.
Speaker 1 00:08:01 So it's very hard. So a lot of people, and I've been talking to people in RD, industry and customers, and many of them kind of zigzag between things. So I would say the most important thing is if you find an issue you want to gain expertise at, then you can find the influencers and mentors that actually do that professionally. And you can just focus on that, clear the noise around that. And that's, that's a great way to kind of set up a success and say, like, say an investment, like in the next six months, I'm only going to invest in affiliate marketing. I'm going to take out all of the other noise. And just, what is your KPI? Like, how will you know that you reached the level of proficiency that you want in what design is it like? You're able to create the level of design that your friends will say, like, this is something a professional agency do. So set up that, think about that objective and, and results and strive for it. And don't let go until you reach that,
Speaker 0 00:09:03 Talking about kind of reaching that goal and kind of arriving one of the, I think challenges that I talk with my friends and colleagues in this space about is how marketing just in general and online content is so much more competitive than it's ever been, really, I guess. And as like head of content, I'm sure you can attest to this, but, but it's something that I'm sure you sit and think a lot about and you guys are excellent at it. As folks are trying to kinda like progress to the next step in their journey as a content creator and a marketer and a business person. I think one of the important things is deciding what's working and doing more of it and deciding what's not working and not doing any more of it. How do you make that decision at Elementor or how do you as a, a content creator make that decision of like, this is good. I want to do more of this, and this is not productive. We're not going to do this anymore.
Speaker 1 00:09:50 This is sometimes hard to make, especially if you, I mean, we publish like around four or five articles per week plus videos, plus we used to have a podcast of our own. So it's hard to kind of, if you create content that spans different areas, it's hard to, even if let's say you're an affiliate and you create different types of website, that also can be confusing because each one has their own parameters. If you run ads for certain parts of your content, or you run them on social, so you do need to build processes that will keep you informed for each type of content you create. So if you're like a freelancer and you only invest in, in like specific type of content, let's say you're a designer and you only use Instagram to publish your, your work and showcase your work. Then it's, the job is easier because in time you will see what's working and what's not, you know, with, with comments or likes, or, but if you're creating a vest like different types of, uh, of content, then you need to think of processes like more elaborate processes that involve, you know, analytics and setting up goals.
Speaker 1 00:10:59 And it's, it's a bit more complex, but it's the same process you decide on what are your KPIs and, and kind of monitor how, what works well, what, what does it
Speaker 0 00:11:09 In the kind of content space, who do you look to as like inspiration or who educates you around this kind of thing? Like what success means and how to measure it with marketing?
Speaker 1 00:11:20 Well, I recently had a webinar with one of my heroes, Andy Crestodina. So he did a whole episode about analytics for what designers, because this is a topic that usually people who actually build the websites don't monitor the results. So analytics is like, eh, originally thought of as a tool for, you know, you hire an SEO professional or a marketing person, but actually the people who build it, it's much more obvious that the people who build the site need to check and make sure that what they build actually has an impact on the business. So someone builds a website, not just to, you know, make sure that the branding is good and the site looks good. They have a business goal. They want customers to go in, look and buy from them. So here measurement is, is very important. So, uh, this is what, uh, Andy talks about.
Speaker 1 00:12:14 That's on the measurement aspects and I tend to switch between the different people that I, according to the mood I have. So yeah, I think, uh, it takes a lot of investment also to make sure that what you're creating is not just goal-oriented, but also is remarkable. So here I would go to recent content. I consumed by Seth Goden, who has a great course on that. And also several books on that, like how to create content that is remarkable enough to stand out among the crowd. And he has a whole philosophy on that with one of the things that he preaches is like, what you're saying can form an opinion. You can say something that forms an opinion on something, and that has power. Like if you think of a regular article that compares different things like website versus a landing page, I don't know, you think of reading this article. So one of the ways is just, you know, thinking about the pros and cons and grading, what you say, a moderate comparison between the two, but a different approach would be, I'll take a stance. And it's clear for someone reading is this guy cares about this topic and he wants us to think in a certain direction. So that's just one tip that you can do to make sure the content actually makes an impact. And it's not just technically organized to be friendly to search engines.
Speaker 0 00:13:41 Yeah. He had several really good, but I mean like purple cow comes to mind from Seth Godin as, as one of his most popular books. He's amazing marketer as you're describing that, that kind of trade-off or differences in approaches is, is something that, that we are focusing a lot on right now, which is like, we need to write about things that people are interested in and already searching for. So like writing for SEO to answer questions that, you know, our customers or potential customers already have, that's important, but also important. And I think much more difficult is yeah. Writing to tell a story and have a personality and be a brand is hard because it's risky and it takes guts and it might not work and you might piss people off. And yeah, I think that, I mean, that's something that we're starting to do more and more of now, maybe as we're a more mature brand ourselves, and maybe that's, that's part of this progression, but I find it daunting almost to, to make that leap and say, we're going to say, this is the best tool for this product or this, you know, goal or whatever.
Speaker 0 00:14:44 And this is the best approach for monitoring your marketing efforts. Like I just, yeah. I find it a little daunting to just take a stance. Like as a company like me personally, I'm fine with taking a stance, but as a company, I find it a little daunting. Like, I dunno, have you guys found that difficult to, to really pick a side and not piss off the other parties?
Speaker 1 00:15:04 You know, it's risky, you pick up, you pick a side and then you can make mistakes and the product that you, uh, recommended let's take the extreme approach. It turns out to be, I dunno, a scam or something, and you ended up, so I didn't, I just wanted to help. I, but that's, what's cool about this industry at this, uh, when you become a creative person, like someone who creates content or creates something, I think the thrill is like exploring the boundaries. Like you have to, okay. The thing is you have to piss some people off. You have to, you can't be just for the general crowd you have to, and again, Seth Godin talks a lot about the minimum viable audience that you like, you pick a certain personality type and you just delight them and everyone else you piss off. I think there's a lot of value in this. And I think if you think long-term, if you think about things like extreme, I want to eventually be invited to, I don't know, Ted talks or something nobody's going to invite you. If all of your career you pick the, the medium, like not careful and not saying things. So if you want in 10 years to be invited there, you need to kind of take a stent. I think also <inaudible> talks about this in his book, Lex one, the people that actually make it big are the ones that take the risks.
Speaker 0 00:16:29 Okay. So you kind of wanted to switch gears a little bit to get your take on things that like Elementor as a company and a group that sees a ton of people doing things on websites and in WordPress and online, like, what are you excited about? Like, what are you starting to see that people are doing? Or is it becoming more popular that, that folks maybe aren't aware of yet? And then like, maybe we need to be thinking about,
Speaker 1 00:16:54 Well at Elementor we started investing in thinking about how people can create more consistent websites that are even more professional. So our latest release included the design system features. So things like global colors and global DePaul graphy. So this is definitely a direction that is important to us to make it as easy and streamlined as possible for people to build more consistent and more professional a websites. So this is an exciting group.
Speaker 0 00:17:26 Something that I'm kind of constantly amazed by is, is the challenge of kind of keeping brand identity consistent as, as our website and the, the parts of our website grow. So I think that what you're talking about with the design components is really great, because I think it's easy, especially with WordPress where it's so easy to just add another plug in or add another thing that does something on your site, and then it has its own. So the ability to control that kind of all the way through makes a lot of sense slash I see a project that we're kind of embarking on internally now is just kind of auditing everything we do to make sure that yeah, all the typographic is the same. All the buttons are the same color and the same shies shape and fonts and all this kind of stuff. So that's, that's really cool.
Speaker 0 00:18:06 I'll check it out. One thing that we're recording this episode on, on Thanksgiving day in the U S it's a black Friday is tomorrow. And one thing that I'm amazed about is I've been kind of in the online business space for like six years now, it is how email and email marketing is still for a lot of people, like the best way to connect with our audience. Like, I think it's amazing. Like we have Tik TOK and Instagram and Twitter and all this kind of stuff and still email, which is God, it makes me feel old 30 years old at this point, like in the mainstream, like, uh, is the best way to go. And like, does that surprise you as a, as a marketer and someone that's kind of in this world?
Speaker 1 00:18:43 No, because I think the difference is that email is a lot more of your choice today. Like people want to have that, uh, control and, you know, you get bombarded by ads on Facebook and everywhere actually. So one of the best ways is either go to a magazine or a website that you really trust and follow that or more easily just subscribe and get it to your email. It's still hard to succeed in email because most people are, you know, I get, it's so hard to keep up with email today, but yeah, it's, it's going to remain because I think it's the Avenue that has the most, it gives the most choice to the, to the user, which is good. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:19:25 You said it's hard to succeed with email. I agree. I think it's just more and more competitive all the time. What things do you feel are getting more kind of difficult and competitive in the email kind of marketing space?
Speaker 1 00:19:37 I think it's just people with busy lives that, uh, need to filter out every email they get. So the only subscribed to thing that, you know, because it's not just reading the email, the email purpose is that people actually click on the links and read it. And so they need to, their mentality needs to be like, I need to spend time. Like I need to have enough time to, to read what I, uh, what I'm being sent to. So, uh, that's definitely a challenge. I think that people are more looking for content that again will stand out, but also will enrich their life somehow at the element. Or we now have webinars and courses that get a lot of popularity. I think because we sort of grew to become a, an expert and leader in, you know, the freelance web creation industry. I think people turn to us to learn the tricks of the trade and learn how to build a site with the mentor.
Speaker 1 00:20:38 And we do try to offer the kind of the proper way elementary is on over 6 million and rising websites across the world. I presume there's like 6 million different ways to, to build a website. And some of the ways, unfortunately, that I go in and look at the tutorials, they're not actually the proper way to build a site so people can use those methods and kind of have a problem along the way if they don't understand the basic of the right process to build a site. So in courses that we, uh, churn out, we try to make sure that we, we offer the method that our own users, that our own designers use in the company. Also, we release, uh, templates that, uh, again, if you kind of look into how each element in the template is made, we make sure everything is in the proper way and there's no glitches and no, and it's all like building processes and building the right methods of operation.
Speaker 0 00:21:40 One thing that, that I'm sure that you, you see as like head of content and more on the evangelist side, maybe it is like community around your brand. I know Elementor has a really strong brand and kind of community as a result of it. Is that something that you all actively try to, to kind of encourage and nurture, or has that been kind of spontaneous and how it's
Speaker 1 00:22:02 Developed? Yeah, for sure. We have a whole department meant for community. This has been a vital part of our company since day one. It's, it's a whole ecosystem. This ecosystem has a needs. I think a lot of companies don't think of the whole ecosystem and it's a problem. And th the huge advantage with an ecosystem is that you get, it's like a rainforest, you get all of know different parts nourishing each other. So you have add on developers that create hundreds of ways to extend the lament or make it a bigger project that it is because we have a limited set of developers that work according to our priority. And by having others developer, add-ons, it just expanded the product immensely. You have, uh, developers and designers that meet at meet ups online meetups now, and talk about the exchange methods and exchange the business tips. And you have just people who need websites for their business. So for us, meeting them and getting insights from them is very crucial and actually also impacts the product itself. So about 80% of what we develop actually comes from user requests and suggestions. So it's a great way to build a company.
Speaker 0 00:23:21 That's awesome. Kind of like really specifically, if you don't mind, like how do you interact with your partners and customers and things like that. I mean, like Facebook groups or your own kind of internal forums or support channels, like what's the, what are the methods of getting that feedback?
Speaker 1 00:23:36 So there's one Facebook group that is grown to like 85,000 members
Speaker 0 00:23:43 To 2025, maybe I think, so I feel I'm ashamed.
Speaker 1 00:23:48 Well, it started, it's not just four years ago. It was that, uh, that number. And, uh, also there are different groups across Facebook that are led by people that leaders that we direct with and communicate with. So we make sure there's a common, uh, discussion and, uh, everything, uh, if something needs our attention, we we're, uh, on it also, we started the meetups. It started not a long time before COVID started. Uh, so now we, we moved it to online meetups, but basically everything we do to try to make it, we consider the, the aspects of community. So even if we have a feature release, we create the content. So I would say that, uh, for me personally, and for a lot of the elementary employees, it's actual direct conversation. Like a lot of the insights are received from just we, we know the, the, the key figures and the leading designers, and we talk to them and can gain insights.
Speaker 1 00:24:50 So I still believe that there's a huge value in just taking someone for a, like a weekly conversation with someone and asking questions and sort of getting their opinion, just another black. We also have big data group. So spoiler alert, we're going to have a new release soon that is going to even improve. I can't say too much about it, but it's going to scale our efforts in terms of, uh, using the community to test the plugging before test the features before they come out. So that's a very exciting thing that's going to happen soon.
Speaker 0 00:25:27 Yeah, no, I think that kind of bringing this back to podcasting a little bit, talking about community people ask me, Craig, what's the most common thread you see with popular, successful podcasters. And it always is that the podcast is not the only thing they have to their brand. There is a community around it, whether it's a Slack channel or a Facebook group or circle, or an in-person, you know, church group or whatever the podcast is like, maybe the tip of the spear or just one thing they do. But then there's always this thing of a community that people continue the discussion and have their own discussions and is organic, you know, beyond them, because you can only do so much with, with content and with like, especially online brand and you need a way for people to connect and continue that conversation afterwards. I think some people are scared of that because they say like, Oh, I'm going to have online business, or I'm gonna have a podcast where I just sit and talk for 30 minutes in the mic and everybody listens. And then I have this business, but amazingly, I think that the community gets that almost offline analog feel back that we all really connect with. And to me, I think that's why it is so common and successful brands.
Speaker 1 00:26:34 I think there's something unique about podcasting, as opposed to, let's say a text creation when you write, it's very hard to kind of explore ideas. It's very hard. I mean, some writers can do that, but it's very hard. It takes years of experience to kind of explore ideas through writing, but it's very easy to explore ideas through just talking to someone or even having a podcast by yourself. Especially if you have a topic that you kind of think about and sort of a spill what you have in your mind. So I think that's something amazing about podcasting plus the fact that you don't have to, you know, uh, you can do it in your pajamas. Uh, one of my favorite podcasts is the corner Bryant broadcast. They talk about half an hour about what he dresses and how he comes in all pale without makeup recently, I haven't, I kind of neglected my podcast habits, but it's for a good cause because I started to hear a lot of audio books. So all my commutes, I think that's the biggest competitors you have is not like video it's like audio books.
Speaker 0 00:27:46 Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. In an amazingly, like in some ways they're coming together, you have, you look at shows like hardcore history, right? It's like three and a half hours. It's, it's an audience, a full audio book. I agree. And I think that generally that's, that's a good thing for folks to think about is like, your competition is not, you know, cast us competition is not Libsyn or SoundCloud or simple cast it's audio books, or just Spotify in general or not doing anything. Um,
Speaker 1 00:28:14 They really changed my life. I have to say. Great.
Speaker 0 00:28:19 What have you been listening to lately? Oh,
Speaker 1 00:28:20 Again, I'm just, just re I, I had a bug where I just had to start reviving my, my book consumption. So just the classics, I love classic books like this, the recent one is a Sylvia Plath, the, the bell jar. So yeah, just those books. I don't know, Henry Miller and, uh, yeah,
Speaker 0 00:28:43 That's awesome. It's really refreshing to hear someone like deep into online business, kind of getting back to the classics and out of always reading marketing stuff.
Speaker 1 00:28:53 When I was in there in university, I, I used to read a lot. And then when I, when I got to online marketing and actually work and everything, I neglected this habit, but I'm thinking about how to actually gain insights for, you know, marketing and business and branding from these books. I mean, they, they, yeah, I think that, that the acception of books that actually manage, if you think about how a book became successful and became a classic and sort of try to decipher how they made it. It's a very interesting question. If, if you're a content creator or some of the things about content standing out, I think the best ways is not look at the current. Not only look at the Gary V's of the industry, even they have insights to give you, but think of classics that survive 2000 years and see, say like, what did they do to make sure?
Speaker 1 00:29:51 And that's, again, coming, returning back to Nassim Taleb's book, where he talks about like, actually in his book antifragile, like how he actually bet mouse a, an Amazon, uh, you know, the Kindle, because he says books have been around for 2000 years. I don't believe in technology that exists. I actually, I love Kindle, but, uh, this is becoming a commercial for Amazon. Uh, but, uh, but yeah, I, I think about, I think this is a great tip for anyone who creates content. Like how has something survived a hundred years? Why do people still read it? And how can you make something that lasts?
Speaker 0 00:30:32 Well, I think that's a great place to, to wrap up Ben, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Really great conversation. I think folks will get a ton out of, of kind of listening to this and taking action as a result for folks who want to kind of follow you and kind of find out what you're up to and follow along. What's the best place to connect.
Speaker 1 00:30:48 The best place is the elementary blog. So subscribe to elementary.dot com and also our YouTube channel, which has over 200,000 subscribers. And, uh, it's, we try to put out the best tutorials and try to, uh, update, uh, users about the important feature releases. So that's another place.
Speaker 0 00:31:10 Awesome. Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 00:31:12 Thank you.
