UPWORD Consulting - Week 7

Maintenance

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Hey, everyone, welcome to week seven in module three. And in this module, we're going to be going over maintenance. Um, in the next module, we'll talk about hosting that's for more advanced. If you're feeling uncomfortable, I'm going to show you kind of how I do it. Um, but for this module, we're going to go over exactly how I set up maintenance, how people pay for it, kind of what's the flow. How do I have it set up? How do I automate it as much as possible? Um, so that you can offer your clients maintenance right out of the gate. After that 30 days that's included and start having recurring revenue. Um, so you'll see, I'm on my side. I'm actually logged into WordPress. This is the site that is included with this course. Uh, I will be doing a full training on this entire site that is included in the following week. Uh, but for now, uh, I'm going to walk you through exactly how I set this up. So you'll see under services, I have WordPress maintenance. Um, and so after a client, whether I'm doing an ad campaign, I send them here or I send my clients, um, that need maintenance continuing on because they don't want to deal with it. Um, I send them to this page. Um, it talks to everything about it, everything that they need to know. And then at the bottom are these three different plans. I'm going to walk you through kind of the details of each plan and why set it up this way. Um, and then you can kind of use this as a reference and really make this your own pricing. However, it makes sense for your agency and your business, feel free to adjust it. This is the way that I set this up and it seems to work really well for me. Um, so the first plan you'll see here is the starter it's 49 bucks a month. Um, and this is just the basic, so you'll see that we do daily code and database backups. Um, so that's through, um, if you saw the launch setting up updraft, um, and make sure you download that launch thing, it there's links to all the plugins. Um, and then either every couple of weeks or every month we update plugins and the theme that they're using, um, this needs to be done so that you don't have security flaws, uh, additional security. We make sure that the word friends security plugged in plugin is installed. If they don't have security, make sure that it's set up properly so that it is as secure as possible. Um, if they have CloudFlare already, then we integrate that just to make sure it's a couple settings to change to make sure you're protected and then included with this is two hours of edits or bug fixes per month. Um, so that's just what we include for this starter plan. Essentially, this comes out to $25 an hour for these edits. Uh, plus they get all these additional things added in fantastic, simple, and you'll see these three crossed out items, um, is the 20% discount for additional edits. Uh, and what that is, is people on these two higher plans with me, if there's something out of scope, if there's a new project, I discount it 20%, um, for them as kind of like a thank you, being, uh, a maintenance client of ours. So, um, this works really well. People do like it, and I make sure I always set that as a line item saying, here's what it would have cost, but since you're on these two maintenance plans with us, here's your 20% discount. We also do not do WordPress speed optimization at this level. Um, and we don't integrate CloudFlare because that just takes a bit more time and there's going to be a bit more cost, um, for that. Um, I also don't mention hosting on this page, um, at the moment mostly to show you guys what I do. Um, and then, so now moving over to the established plan, this is 99 bucks a month. So at the same thing from the other sides, it's daily code and database backups, updating plugins and themes, additional security. This is where we'll integrate CloudFlare cause it's great for speed. Um, and it's great for security. Um, and I'm just a big fan of it all around. We also do full WordPress speed optimization. So, um, if I am launching a client that's already built in, if it's a client that we didn't build their website, this is kind of the first thing that we do. Uh, and then essentially doubles the amount of hours they get for just edits, bug fixes, just stuff that comes up. Um, and then they get that 20% discount for additional edits. Um, then the last one is 1 99, basically, same thing. Uh, and then I say phone support so they can call us. Um, and then they get, uh, unlimited edits, bug fixes. This you might want to play around with. It really just depends. Um, most people select this plan. Um, so having 50 or 60 sites, you really see that the revenue starts to build up. And I would really say that all sides get updated. We check every site, um, continuously we monitor it, but really, I would say 80% of our clients, we don't really even hear from, uh, so it's nice that if they need something, we know exactly where everything's at. Um, but we just take care of the easy stuff for them. And then if they need anything great, but the majority of my clients don't actually need edits. They just like that everything is safe, secure, and that someone's on it if they need it. Um, so that, so these are the different plans offer. So you'll see here, I'm on the checkout page, obviously my information, um, they can enter a promo code if you do that, there'll be a whole training for this, of how you do that. And it's showing that it's $99 today. Uh, then recurring totals would be $90, $99 a month. First renewal is, uh, August 12th. So, uh, you see in my tested to have cars store, but that won't be there. If they're new, they just put in their card information, um, expiration and CBC, uh, and then once you hit purchase maintenance that will purchase it, they will get their receipts from Stripe. It will set up the subscription automatically. And then I'm going to walk you through. Klayvio how I set this up for the two different services. Um, so this is the WordPress maintenance. Um, and let me head over to Klaviyo to show you exactly how I have this setup. Okay. So you'll see here now I'm logged in, uh, I'm in my account and here are the different flows. So I've got maintenance, transactional, and WP speed transactional, and I'll show you that, uh, the speed side of things, that's just a one-off purchase, um, that we do, but this is the majority of what we do is the maintenance stuff. Um, so let me show you this flow. It's essentially just a single email. Um, so the email's really simple, straightforward, personalize it, put it in their first name. Um, and then you'll see in the email, we've just got a nice image, uh, and I can include this image for you guys down below in the resources also include this copy. Um, so we just send an email saying, here's the next steps that we need. Um, one create your account on our project management website. So we use fresh desk, I'll show you that, but there's two different options that you can use for this and you just linked directly to it. Um, and then we want them to create an admin account for us, uh, under, uh, just the kind of general email I have that my developers use, uh, and then we'll need access to their server. So just telling them, please create a ticket and send the FTP information for your server. Cause we need to access that. Um, so that we just have access to everything. If we need to fix something or update something, um, that's pretty much what we need. So when that gets, when someone makes a purchase, they get a receipt and then they get this email. And one thing I want to show you, um, with Klaviyo specifically is you have to let them know that this is going to be a transactional email. And so you just email their support or create a ticket, and then they set it to transactional because you're limited to what you can do. Um, and I also want to show you the triggers. I have this set up as, so it's, whenever over a WooCommerce order is placed, that's what triggers the flow. Uh, and then I filter it by product names, contain maintenance. So someone places, an order and the product name contains maintenance in it. They're going to get this email. Um, and so that's basically the flow. And then, uh, I'm going to show you now we use Freshdesk. I'm going to show you two different options. Um, but basically you want to have a platform, a ticketing platform that you push everyone to. Um, especially if you're kind of by yourself. When I was doing this alone, before I had a team, think I got up to about 40 sites before I started to need help, uh, getting maxed out. Um, but that we're really just depending what's going on with your agency, but if you're just a solo preneur, if you're just a one man show having those tickets, even in that case makes life so much easier because you can respond, you keep everything tracked. If things are open closed, um, it's been a game changer. And then if you have a team, you just plug them directly into your ticketing system and you can kind of get out of your own way and focus more on growing your business instead of into the day to day. Um, so either way I highly recommend, um, having a ticketing system, I'm going to actually log in. I'm going to show you what we have for fresh desk. Uh, it's a bit more expensive and I'm also going to show you another option that we actually used for the upward side of things. So, um, just a little bit more cost-effective solution. Um, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it's enough to, uh, look professional and get the job done. So let's hop over to there. All right. So, so we'll cut that out. All right. So this is the backend backend of fresh desk. Um, I really do like this platform. They have a lot of cool stuff. It is a bit more pricier, but it's got a lot of features that I really liked. So for me, it's worth spending the extra to kind of just sleep better at night, have some, uh, tools that we need. I'm not going to walk you through all of this. Just want to show you essentially what this looks like. So you'll see this customer images, not showing up on site. Um, they'll explain it. They put exactly what's in it, all the details. Um, and we just go back and forth until it's closed. Um, and then once it's closed, it's signed out and there's a whole lot you can do with this. Um, moving to a ticketing system was an absolute game changer for me. It kept me organized. It keeps clients happy. Um, I push everyone there and what it's now allowing me to do is focus more on my business instead of being in my business and trying to deal with all this. Um, so that is fresh desk. It's a bit more expensive, um, but worth it, if you can afford it, if you've got the cashflow, I recommend it. Uh, and I'm also going to show you another option, which is a less expensive, has less bells and whistles, but we'll do the job, uh, pretty well. So this is option two, it's called taxi. Uh, this is actually what we use for the course. Um, if there's any tickets, uh, the reason why is I didn't need as many bells and whistles for Upwork for the core side of things as my agency needs when I'm dealing directly with clients and projects like that. Um, so what's great is one to three agents is $15 a month. Um, so it's a lot less expensive. I believe fresh desk is I want to say 50 to $60 per month per agent. So this is definitely a good way to go. If you're just getting started out. If you don't have the cashflow, this will absolutely do the job. Um, you could definitely feel comfortable with it. I'm using it for the upward course. So it really kind of comes down to your needs, look at the features, what you need. Um, this is a great way to start if you're not sure, but I just highly recommend staying, uh, using a ticketing system so that you stay organized. It will help you keep your head on straight with everything coming in. Again, especially if you're a one man show, this will help you just throughout the day, keep your head on straight. Um, and so that is the maintenance side of things. That's from start to finish how we do it. Um, whenever there's an issue, we just tell the clients, log in, create a ticket, get all the information it's all in a nice thread, keeps you organized. And then when you're at a place that you can bring someone else on to manage that, um, that's where I'm at. Now. I've got a team that just manages that side of things. Uh, it makes life so much easier. And then if they have questions you can just get right in the ticket, either respond directly to the client or give the information to your team that they need. Um, I just highly recommend you do this right out of the gate. If you're trying to do like base camp and email clients, we'll do whatever is the path of least resistance. Um, so if you just kind of set this up from the get-go and just push them towards creating a ticket for everything, uh, that will make your life so much easier to make your inbox way less cluttered and you just sleep better at night. Um, so that is the whole process I do for maintenance and down below, make sure you get all the resources, um, emails, texts, copy, everything is there for you. Um, and in the next module, I'm going to quickly go over what I do for hosting. So if you're a bit more advanced and you would like to offer a hosting, um, what started it for me was, um, just working with terrible servers and I just needed a solution. I feel comfortable enough with the right support through a hosting company, to be able to take that on myself. Um, so if you don't feel comfortable with that at all, um, don't worry about it. Hosting is not something you have to deal with. Um, I was safe, stay focused on the maintenance side because hosting opens up kind of a technical can of worms that you may or may not want to deal with right out of the gate. So let's hop over that module and I'm going to walk you through how I set everything up for hosting. Okay.