張幼人 / Yoren Chang: Going Global with Your WordPress Skills

Going Global with Your WordPress Skills
精鍊 WordPress 打開全球市場

With your WordPress skills, you can build a global freelancing business no matter where you live. As a long time freelancer who worked for small businesses and organizations in Taiwan, Yoren had zero connection with foreign clients before 2014. In this talk, she’d love to share how she rebuilt her business and now serves a global audience, 95% of which are clients in the U.S. and Europe.
講者在 2014 年以前即專門採用 WordPress 開發網站，當時僅以臺灣本地中、小型企業與組織為服務對象。此後數年至今，歐美地區客戶佔比逐漸提高至 95% 以上。如果妳/你也希望憑藉著在 WordPress 方面的專長，不管是樣板設計、外掛開發或是網站維運，都能以全球為事業版圖，在任何自己想要的時間和地點工作，講者將分享自身經驗，希望大家看見更多自由工作的可能性。

Transcript

1. Going Global with Your WordPress Skills
2. Hi, I'm Yoren Chang. I do WordPress development for a living. Have been freelancing for more than 10 years. Currently based in Taipei, Taiwan.
3. It's my first WordCamp and public English presentation! I'm quite nervous about it. Hope you'll find the information I'm about to deliver valuable, and helpful to your freelancing career.
4. I'll share my experience on: • How I grew my business from serving small organizations in Taiwan; • To a global audience, 95% of them now are based in the U.S. and Europe; • In roughly 4 years or so.
5. Back to late 2013
6. • I have been focusing on custom WordPress development for > 4 years. • I worked with local governments, universities and small businesses/organizations in Taiwan.
7. My (past) clients include • National Taiwan University • National Taiwan Normal University • Soochow University • Fichet • Taipei City Government • New Taipei City Government • JumpFromPaper
8. Reinvented My Business
9. Why (1/2) • Local market went silent; • Got fewer inquiries than before; • Found it hard to increase project sizes.
10. Why (2/2) • Was more confident in the future of WordPress; • Wanted to be recognized in the global WordPress community.
11. Started from 2014
12. • I created a blog in English: https://1fix.io. • Also created a few feature plugins on WP.org. • Signed up for several WordPress online groups and forums.
13. • The Kindle book "Everything I Know" by Paul Jarvis. • Signed up for The Creative Class online course by Paul Jarvis. • Signed up for Double Your Freelancing by Brennan Dunn.
14. I learned • How to position • What's my niche in the WordPress market • Who's my target audience
15. About Time!
16. • Got my first few gigs from the CC Slack community. • Budgets from USD $800-2,000 or so.
17. Said YES to Every Opportunity
18. • Working with Laura and Client Portal. • Becoming a Codeable expert. • Working on projects for Gravity Flow and Gravity Forms.
19. How I Met Laura and Client Portal
20. Client Portal - Keep your clients deliverables in one place CLIENT-PORTAL Client Portal (1/2) • It helps freelancers look professional • By simplifying the onboarding process and organizing the deliverables elegantly
21. Client Portal (2/2) • Laura had such an awesome idea and l helped to turn it into a premium WordPress plugin. • Taking care of support tickets help me a lot on improving the product.
22. How I Joined Codeable • A client (who I met via my blog) suggested me to try a few professional platforms when I‘m looking for more projects to work on. • I tried Crew first but got rejected right away. • I applied for Codeable then, and I waited for 6 months to hear back from them. (Now most applicants get a reply within one week.)
23. Screening, Trial and Be Certified • The screening process included the application, a test project, an interview online and live coding test. • When I passed all of them, I started a trial on Codeable for 45 days or so. • In the trial period I charged and got paid as all certified experts.
24. What I Love About Codeable (1/2) • The screening process shows humanity and respects all applicants. • Experts are expected to use similar hourly rates that starts from USD $60. • Don‘t do bidding. The final price is the average of all quotes but excludes extreme ones.
25. What I Love About Codeable (2/2) • Running the expert community like a pro. • Offering a helping hand whenever you’re in need. • Handling disputes so you don‘t have to worry about the money stuff.
26. Looking Back: Two Years With Codeable NATHAN ELLO Numbers don‘t lie • One of best experts Nathan Ello earned USD $131,473 in his first year on Codeable! • I‘m not full-time on Codeable (I know, it’s not a good excuse!) and my first year revenue is around USD $43,000. • My average project size now is USD $1,400, which I can usually finish and get paid in two weeks.
27. Work for Gravity Flow and Gravity Forms • When I saw a project on Codeable posted by Steve Henty, I was eager to respond. • But he hired the other expert for that project . • Hadn’t I initiated the talk then, I wouldn’t work with him and Gravity Forms now .
28. WooCommerce - Gravity Flow GRAVITY FLOW Gravity Flow • A business automation tool. • When you use Gravity Forms to take submissions, you can automate the later process with Gravity Flow. • You can approve entries, ask users to input more details, add signatures etc. You can even automate your WooCommerce orders with it.
29. Gravity Forms and Rocket Genius • Steve kindly introduced me to Rocket Genius. • I have joined the developer team as a contractor for 8 months. • Learn much more than doing client jobs when working with developers much experienced than you.
30. Final Thoughts
31. Final Thoughts (1/3) • People who hire remotely don’t micro manage. • Cash flow is much healthier for freelancers when you have weekly cash income, and that can break the "feast or famine" cycle.
32. Final Thoughts (2/3) • If you really have solid WordPress skills, the projects all over the world are waiting for you. • Don’t let language barriers (or anything) stop you.
33. Final Thoughts (3/3) • Join Codeable!! • Would love to help if you have any questions. • Reach out to me yoren@1fix.io or @1fixdotio on Twitter.