Angela:
Welcome to Women in WP, a bimonthly podcast about women who blog, design, develop and more in the WordPress community.
Angela:
(silence)
Angela:
Hi, welcome to Women in WP. Today’s episode is sponsored by Ninja Forms, a professional form building plugin for WordPress. I’m Angela Bowman.
Amy:
I’m Amy Madison.
Tracy:
And I’m Tracy Abbs.
Angela:
Our guest today is Maddy Osman. Joining us from Lakewood, Colorado. Maddy writes content for your favorite WordPress brands, translating developers speak into actionable advice for the layperson. Welcome Maddy.
Maddy:
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
Angela:
We’d like to start off each episode asking our guests how they got into WordPress. How did you get started?
Maddy:
So I learned web design at a young age. It was just something to do to pass the time. And it was in college that I was looking for jobs, looking for something to support my activities there, and I stumbled upon a listing for just like a basic web designer job. It was for the department of student life, so it was the opportunity to work with a bunch to different student organizations, some of the events on campus, and even like the bookstore. And we actually, when I first started that job, we used a CMS called Silverstripe, which was something that my boss had decided on for a lot of these student org websites, because it was set up such that you can set up that like backend view for the student orgs were going to use it in a way that they couldn’t break anything, but they could still make their uploads and make changes and things like that without having to go through us.
Maddy:
And so while I was in that job, we just experimented with a bunch of different CMSs. I think my boss is just trying to figure out like what is going to be the best fit for our ultimate end users. And so eventually we had a project and it was for the student video productions, student org. And so they were producing their own videos, short things and like documentary style films and things like that, everything in between. And so they wanted something, we were actually developing their website. I can’t remember what CMS it was, it might have been Junelaw, but they wanted to have a blog aspect of it. And so that’s when we sort of stumbled across WordPress and decided to really use it for the first time in that department across all these different websites we have built.
Maddy:
And so I think I found a bootstrap theme and I just, it was very basic, just kind of learning the ins and outs of the platform. But for me it was love at first sight. Once I used that, I was like, I’m over you Silverstripe, goodbye. No, thanks. I mean, it worked, but they’re just so different.
Angela:
This will be the tagline for the episode. Maddy Osman, WordPress, love at first sight.
Amy:
Goodbye Silverstripe.
Maddy:
Yep. There you go.
Amy:
See, I was going to go goodbye Silverstripe.
Angela:
I like that too.
Maddy:
Bye, later.
Amy:
I am now looking up Silverstripe because I have never heard of it.
Maddy:
And I’m sure it’s gone through so many changes since this must have been 10 plus years ago that we were going through this process, and again, it works for different things. But WordPress, it just works for so many other things.
Amy:
Yeah, no, I mean, that’s what we’re here for, because we all agree with that statement.
Maddy:
We’re in the right place.
Amy:
So you were doing, you moved everybody away from Silverstripe, goodbye Silverstripe, into WordPress and lived happily ever after.
Maddy:
Something like that. I mean, I think that my boss, he still works there today, so he might still be, he’s a shiny object person, like I think many of us are. Like it’s just, there’s so many different things you could do. It’s fun to try out different things and it does get you out of your comfort zone to learn these other CMSs and how they work and sort of like the adapted nature of PHP that you work in each one of these. And so he’s probably still playing around with different ones, but I will say that after we did that, there was another hire, another web develop and he was a lot more technical than I was. And then I think it was pretty much completely WordPress at that point because they had this person in place who was very knowledgeable, who had like much more experience with WordPress. But yes, definitely a lot of websites for student orgs were built on WordPress since.
Amy:
Wow. And now you are doing SEO content writing. Can you tell us how did you get into that?
Maddy:
Sure. Yeah. So it definitely seems like a big difference, but it was really the WordPress and the web design background that I had that led me to that. And so essentially what happened was in that same job, this was really a critical job for me. My boss said, hey, I have this freelance project, I don’t have time to take it on, but maybe you’d be interested. And it was friend of his, it was somebody who just needed a very basic sort of portfolio website of sorts. And I was like, oh, I could do this? I had always seen work as being the type of thing where it’s like you do the job interview and you have this whole application process and then you do all the paperwork to get onboarded and whatever. I’m sure all of us have gone through this where you have this idea of what work is, especially as a younger person where you’re used to people telling you what to do and how things are.
Maddy:
But then my boss just drops this in my lap. He’s like, hey, you want another job? I’m like, okay. So, I met with the client, I got an idea of what he was looking for. I did use my boss as a mentor in this situation since he was close to this person. He knew what he wanted and I could kind of show him what I was working on before going back to the client. And so that experience was really where I realized, like I don’t have to work for somebody else necessarily. But at the same time, I think I was very aware that the environment I was in being in college, it was a good opportunity for me to kind of suck in all that I could, the knowledge, the networking, learning how to learn and all that good stuff.
Maddy:
So I think people talk about how college a lot nowadays. Is it useful? Is it not? I think it really depends, but I think for me it wasn’t necessarily the education that was important from what I got out of college, it was everything around that. And so that’s why it helped me. But anyway, leaving this job, graduating and sort of going into my adult work world, I knew I wanted to work for somebody when I graduated, because I wanted that perspective going into my adult life. And I don’t think I was fully sold on the idea of supporting myself through freelancing. Freelancing at that point was still an exciting thing. It was something where I was like, oh, I can make extra money, but it wasn’t necessarily something I was ready to lean on.
Maddy:
So I got a job working at Groupon. I did inside sales for them, which was so critical to what I do now, honestly. Almost every person who comes to me asking for freelance writing advice, I say, go to sales shop first, let somebody else pay for that training, get compensated while you learn that stuff. So yeah. So while I was at Groupon, I took on another couple freelance assignments. One of them was working for a brand that has grown exponentially since then. And every time I go back to Chicago, I patronize their salad vending machines. It’s called Farmer’s Fridge, and they just deal with salad machines.
Tracy:
There was one of those in the airport and I was like, I’m curious.
Maddy:
So good. Every time I go to Chicago, I get like three things from the vetting machine at the airport. So they were a brand new brand at that point and they were just establishing their social media presence. And so I kind of helped them just kick it off. And from there I had got a couple of different writing assignments and I think that that also came from that first job because when I was working in the department of student life, I was given the opportunity to also contribute to that blog and to help with their social media. So that’s kind of where like the social media and the blogging stuff comes into play. So anyway, essentially I graduated, I got this first job, I took a couple freelance job was on the side. I got another job after that and it was at that job that I decided that I wanted to quit to do my own thing full time.
Maddy:
And so at that point I was still entertaining doing websites, doing social, doing content. And it was only really in the last maybe two or so years that I really doubled down on just content, but that was the progression. It was like this job in college, my first job after kind of learning how to be entrepreneurial in a way because that’s, I think what sales is, and then taking on these extra projects. And then eventually at this other job I had, somebody that I had done some surveillance work with said, hey, I have enough work that should cover your rent and your very basic needs. You would still want to have other clients, but I have enough stuff. If you want to make the leap, I will have guaranteed work for you. And so that’s what made me decide to quit and do it full time. I had a little bit of a safety net.
Tracy:
I think that is, I mean, because I also started doing freelance in college. Granted that was back in like 2001 where everyone’s like, the internet, like I need an internet for me for my web’s business. So they were like, oh a college student that will make my internet for me. Great.
Maddy:
The good old days.
Tracy:
So yeah, exactly. Back when we had to call it the internet.
Maddy:
The AOL CDs in the mail.
Amy:
I had a 300 baud modem. Let me just tell you, and when I upgraded to 1,200, it was a big deal.
Maddy:
Oh my God.
Tracy:
So fast, you better put your seatbelt on and you’re going to get a speeding ticket with that. Woo.
Amy:
You didn’t get to read as many book pages while you’re waiting for your internet to load when you have 1,200 baud modem, let me tell you that.
Maddy:
That’s true. Less of a commute.
Tracy:
Exactly. So, the freelance during college and that debate, whether her like, oh, is college worth it? This yada yada yada, because I’ve been hearing a lot from, especially like gen Z of like, well it’s not worth it or they were doing the same thing that I was doing. Like I was teaching several years ago and half of my students were millennials, half were gen Z and the gen Zs all like, oh yeah, I have this startup and I’ve got this and I work with this. And I’m like, that is what it is. Because then you are using that college time and that’s developing that network, that’s getting those skills and absolutely, that’s so great. I love it and it really does make that well rounded.
Maddy:
Right. I think you have to like learn the rules too, before you can break them. That’s why I wanted that first job out of school. I was like, I want to see how corporate America even just exists, how it operates.
Angela:
Yeah. I mean my first job out of college was, I had a liberal arts degree in religious studies and my first job was in a software company and I became a project leader for a technical writing group. And so I learned a lot about branding and how to write, like all the branding people make you write very specifically because you can’t wreck the brand. You can’t use the brand name as a possessive and you learn a lot of great rules, and with technical writing you learn so much on the job. And I, while having to be an eight to five slave and commute, I was commuting to Denver, is hard. You do learn, you learn so much in those. And I miss it actually, because I felt like in a corporate or even a software environment, you’re kind of on this leading edge all the time and you’re learning so much.
Angela:
And since I’ve been freelancing for a million years now, it’s like, I mean, partly being in WordPress, you can force yourself to participate in conferences and stuff and stay more on the edge. But nothing like being in a software company will just keep you right on the edge of your seat and feeling like you know all the inside track on things before the general public does. And I so miss that part of it, is there anything that you do you miss about working for other people or are you just loving, loving just being on your own? Do you miss, I don’t know, like I feel like I’m my own worst boss. How are you as a boss, Maddy, for yourself?
Amy:
I’m the best boss to myself.
Maddy:
You have to be, right? Nobody else is. So yeah, I mean I think corporate America teaches you a lot. And I think something that I was thinking while you were talking is, it also teaches you how you don’t want to be. Because at my first job there was a point in time where Groupon had all the sales people stay overtime for three weeks in a row. This happened twice while I worked there and we weren’t given a choice, it was like your job, you can choose to leave this job or you can choose to do this, but we were on salary and we were, what is it? Non-exempt or exempt. So we didn’t get overtime pay because we also had the commission and Groupon eventually lost a class action lawsuit where they had to pay us like a pittance of what that would’ve been worth.
Maddy:
But during that time morale was very low and it was because partially Groupon just acted based on like how their stock price moved. And it just never really performed while I was there. And so, we were constantly up against this stock price, which we had maybe indirect control of, but not short term control of, but that’s how they treat to us. And so, I remember very distinctly one day receiving an email that said, if you don’t want to be here, your seat is valuable to us. And so we need to put somebody else in there if you’re not in it. And just looking back, I mean, it was just, it was a very toxic place to be.
Maddy:
And this was, like all of us were performers, otherwise we wouldn’t have been there because they would’ve gotten us out. So it’s just, I learned from that and that I would never want to create that work environment for my team. And so I think I’m just very hyper aware of what are good working conditions and how can I create something that somebody would actually want to work at and then also want to perform at because they feel like their basic needs are met and that they are empowered to do great work but maybe not micromanaged like I was at Groupon. So I don’t know. It’s I think that I’m still learning to be a great boss, but I think that I’m probably at least a good boss because I have that perspective, and I think the past couple years I’ve learned a lot of about even work life balance.
Maddy:
When I first started freelancing full time, it was all nights and weekends for probably two or three years. And then it got to a point where I told myself this is unsustainable. And so nowadays, maybe the past year or two, I’ve been very strict about keeping my weekends sacred, just like no work enters this. I have to get outside. I have to bake something. I have to do some art. I have to do something that’s completely different than what I do the rest of the week so that I can then recharge and be the person I need to be Monday through Friday.
Angela:
Yeah.
Tracy:
Oh my gosh. That’s such a good point. And I am so bad at it.
Maddy:
I was too.
Tracy:
I’m just drawn to the computer, like a moth to a flame, even on weekends and evenings. It’s like, I need some new hobbies.
Maddy:
Do any of you watch The Real Housewives of Orange County? This probably won’t hit in this podcast, but there’s this one character Vicky and she’s a workaholic. Everybody makes fun of her for it, but she’s like, I just love work. And I feel like that’s who I was. I was Vicky. I loved it. I still do love it, but I’ve realized I need to cut myself off. I have to, otherwise everything, you get to a point where you’re looking at your emails and you’re like, I can’t act on these. I don’t have anything left because I’ve been working too long. So I have to stop and then tomorrow I could probably act on these.
Amy:
And that is so valuable, this insight, because I think so many people are going to be able to identify with that. I know I am, because I also really just love my work. I love it. And I get up in the morning and I’m excited to go to work but I just-
Maddy:
Which is great.
Amy:
Yeah. But then I can’t stop. And then I do, I get the burnout just like that. Even though I love it, I get the burnout. So that’s our new thing, women in WordPress, stop the burnout and take a break.
Maddy:
Totally.
Tracy:
Hashtag, take a break. [inaudible 00:19:05]
Amy:
I want to jump back and ask about something because I know you said it took about two years to kind of narrow your focus and really focus on the SEO content writing. And I think for a lot of us that work in tech, you tend to try to be all things to everybody. The social media and the developer, the SEO and the digital marketing and reputation management, everybody comes to you and wants you to do it all. And I want to ask, how hard has it been to really like tell people, no, I can’t, I’m not going to do X, Y or Z, I’m only doing this. Because they think if you’re in tech then you can fix their email and everything else.
Tracy:
My printer isn’t printing.
Amy:
The email is the one I get the most.
Maddy:
Oh my God. Yeah. I think with that specifically, sometimes it’s just like deferral, like oh, that’s not really my area of expertise. I wouldn’t be good at that so I don’t want to waste your time with trying to figure it out. For the other stuff, in terms of just trying to set boundaries and things like that. So we’re still, I guess we’re still taking on projects that even go outside of my basic scope, of like we do sort of like SEO blog content. That’s really what we’re absolutely best at, but people come to us and they’re like, well, we need an ebook or we need a landing page. We need an email sequence. And it’s like, technically a lot of that stuff still applies. I’m very upfront with people and I say, that is not our core competency, but if you work with us on this other stuff, then we probably have a good enough grasp of your brand to be able to translate it to these things.
Maddy:
When people come to me with website stuff or social media stuff, or even things that are kind of ancillary to what we do. So like backlink building or content distribution, those are things that I would love to be able to offer as a service in the future but I just don’t have enough control over the situation right now. I don’t have enough of a process. So I try to curate a list of people that I can send other people to. So for me, it’s just trying to pay it forward, pass it on as a referral. And then those things often come back to me as well, referrals back. So the benefit being that me saying, me putting up boundaries where it’s like, we don’t do this anymore. I can’t help you with that. This person can help you with that. It’s actually a better thing because then I get more of the projects that I really want to do.
Maddy:
And I think the takeaway for anybody listening is, oh, I want to do all these things, but it’s a lot to manage. All the things that you take on that are not your ideal project, that’s time that you could be doing your ideal project or you could be looking for, you could be doing the business development for that ideal project. And so ultimately it comes down to energy management. We only have so much effort we can put into every day and all my effort goes into developing our processes, so that when I do have a new assignment for somebody, it’s just very clear what I expect of them and what sort of like the output should look like. I can’t do that for websites and social and content. I can do it for content really well, I think, and I can expand that to many different types of content, but I can’t expand it to doing that and many different types of websites and many different types of social platform promotion.
Angela:
You know, that’s so amazing you bring that up. I just had a talk with someone who does just what you do, in Denver. And she’s working with one of my clients’ websites to write content for them, but he hosts webinars too. And so they were writing blog posts about the webinars, but then they had these specialized webinar landing pages someone had designed for them with all these custom fields and all this stuff. And her person, she has a person like you have a person that she hires to populate. These things had to spend this extraordinary amount of time to get everything hooked up and everything set up very complicated. And I spent time with her and I’m like, I’m the developer person but I inherited the site as well, so I didn’t make all these decisions.
Angela:
And so I found ways, like we’re just going to simplify it, and she said, exactly what you said. It’s like her core competency is to get this SEO content out there. If she’s spending two hours to post a webinar because of all the crazy stuff that they’ve set up to go with it, it’s like why? We have a blog post, just put the registration form there, done, and simplifying it all. And I think that that’s something that clients need to hear a lot of, because I think sometimes clients can put in these roadblocks because they want to do all these fancy, crazy things and the ROI on that, isn’t that great. It’s like the time is so much better spent in this rich content that you’re building than all these bells and whistles that you’ve got going on on other places on the site. So I think it’s always worth talking to the developer of the site to say, can we just simplify how we’re doing all this so we can just get this SEO stuff out there?
Maddy:
Yeah. I think that’s a great point too, which is that sometimes simplification ultimately is better, even though you might be able to hook it up to all these different tools and systems you’re using, there might be a better way to do it. Something that distinctly comes to mind during the pandemic was everybody wanted to start an e-commerce store because obviously there was less in person commerce happening. And I remember seeing some local Colorado cattle farmer who put up just like a very, it might have even been like a Google forms or something like that, like order form. And it’s like, it worked for him, he didn’t need the whole enterprise e-commerce website because it was just this guy selling his beef and he got all the information he needed on the form and did what he had to do to process the orders. And it’s like, just get the form up, right? You can build the fancy thing around it, but just like get started and do the simple thing.
Angela:
Yeah, I encountered that guy.
Tracy:
Please tell me that automated an email that says where’s the beef because otherwise that’s a huge missed opportunity.
Maddy:
Yeah. That might have been a trademark violation.
Tracy:
Where’s the beef?
Maddy:
But I didn’t order, so I can’t say for sure.
Tracy:
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Amy:
Well, speaking of automation, one of the reasons I knew your name before this podcast was because of the Zapier meetup, that you’re an organizer of and automation is one of my hobbies. So can you tell us more about what you’re doing with that and all the automation secrets we need to know?
Maddy:
I don’t know if we have time for all, but-
Amy:
We’ll make time.
Maddy:
… I can give you a couple. All right, hold our schedules.
Angela:
What automation should everyone really be considering doing? What are your top three automations?
Maddy:
Probably something to do with client onboarding or contractor onboarding. Those are probably the things that I’m obsessing about right now, is how to create a better but also more automated experience. So just to give some examples. So in this topic of automation, I think it’s also worth bringing up the topic of no code tools. So we use a tool at the Blogsmith called Process Street, and I landed on it after trying like a billion and a half project management tools. All the typical ones, Asana, Trello, Basecamp, whatever, and then also trying some other ones that are a little bit outside the norm, like Freedcamp, Nifty. I kind of like just played around with all of them because I’m very distracted by shiny things, but I’m also searching for very specific features and I never found all of them in one tool.
Maddy:
So then I started using Process Street and it allows you to build very, like however you want them workflows, where you can add conditional logic, so that fields only show up when you want them to or in certain situations. You can kind of dynamically assign different people in different roles to different tasks. You can also create due dates that are based on previous due dates. And so all these different things combined allowed me to build out a workflow primarily for any new blog content. We create any new content in general that we create. And so now at this point in time, I’ve been building it over the past year, year and a half. It has like 120 steps on it but any given project is only going to show some of them because only some of them are going to be relevant. And so it’s things like, does a client need to approve an outline before we start drafting it? That’s a step. Does the writer need to do edits after the editor goes through their draft? That’s a step.
Maddy:
And I can adjust it so that they’re not seeing like you need to do edits, if you don’t need to do edits. And so that’s what’s great. It’s like I can show people exactly what’s expected of them, exactly where we’re at in the workflow, and then I can also take the different inputs that people put into it and show it as a variable on like another part. So I can restrict who can see what parts of it. And so the way that I’ve worked that to be useful for my business is I’ve created a roadmap for the client so they can see, okay, here’s where it’s at. The outline’s done, the edits are done. Okay, now it’s ready for you, here’s the link, stuff like that. And also it can also draw on other fields that are relevant so that they understand this is what we understand of the scope of this but if you see anything wrong let us know.
Maddy:
So I think that using tools like that has been something that has helped me take my business to the next level, because it’s like, if I would’ve had to do that in Freedcamp or Asana or whatever, it would’ve been needlessly complicated. It would’ve been something that every task would’ve had to be adjusted for every certain situation. And it would be a lot more human inputs, and I think that’s what automation helps with. To be human is to err. We make mistakes, it’s just a part of what we do. And so to have that computer component where it’s like, okay, no, it’s just based on logic. You just have to select the right things, whatever, that just helps make sure that there’s less confusion for everybody and that we’re only focusing on the details that actually are going to help move this project forward and not getting confused by the details that are probably going to take away from making progress.
Tracy:
I need this in my life. Because the thing that I was, I think what I always get stuck on and why I stop using the project management stuff, one, I don’t have the attention span to actually put the systems in place and everything. But also I’m like, but this changes, that logic portion of it, that’s the key because this isn’t something like, it’s not like a creative work, is not A, B, C, D, done. It’s sometimes A, Z, whatever, Q, nine or I don’t even know, like all over the place. But then yeah, I love that.
Maddy:
Yeah. And I think something that’s worth mentioning too, is it allows you to build workflows for different clients because all of our clients operate very similarly, but some of them want that outline approval. Some of them want us to pitch them topics. Some of them are sending us content briefs and some of want to do a couple rounds of revisions. And then some of them have certain project management tools that we need to interact with. Trello, Asana to say, hey, this is ready because that’s your workflow. So that’s really the benefit of something like Process Street, is you can build your workflow for these different clients and do it in a seamless way so that it’s not just like throwing your hands up into there every time you get a new assignment, it’s like, no, we know how to do this. It’s in the tool.
Amy:
Interesting.
Tracy:
Amazing.
Amy:
And you’ve got a meetup all about automation. Tell us about the meetup?
Maddy:
Yeah. So the automation with Zapier meetup is something that I started with Joe Kassana and James Rose. Both of them also love automation stuff, and actually Joe’s going to be stepping back a little bit because I think this is public knowledge, but maybe I shouldn’t say. Well, he has a baby on the way, it’s coming in December. So it’s like really soon. So I think that’s public knowledge at this point. But anyway. [crosstalk 00:33:21] Sure. Yeah. Maybe I can ask him too.
Angela:
Now it’s public knowledge.
Maddy:
It’s public knowledge. So Jeff, Jeff Gamit, one of Angela’s friends as well, is going to be stepping to be our co-organizer. And again, lots of automation knowledge between the three of us, especially them. I’m more of the person who just like moves stuff forward and who attends and wants to learn. But I think it’s a great meetup for anybody who like me just wants to learn from other people’s processes. I think that’s how we learn automation right now while we’re still kind of figuring out what it is and what it like within our workflows. It’s just easiest to figure it out by kind of hearing someone else’s logic.
Amy:
Yeah. I’m always asking people, what are your favorite Zaps? What are your favorite workflow in Zapier? Because I just, I love, the more steps the better. I just love to see how-
Tracy:
She’s a hit at cocktail parties.
Amy:
Yeah.
Maddy:
Tell me about your Zaps.
Amy:
Yeah. People look at me funny. It’s not, it doesn’t-
Tracy:
She says it in a drunken voice too.
Angela:
Tell me about it.
Amy:
If you don’t like Zaps, I don’t like you.
Angela:
You show me your Zaps I’ll show you mine.
Maddy:
I’ll be sure to have a monitor.
Tracy:
Oh my goodness, this took a turn.
Amy:
Oh, you know, yeah. No, the client onboarding Zap is kind of my favorite thing that I’ve ever done. And just being able to say here, go this and do this thing. And then like, everything that would’ve taken me an hour to do is just done automatically. And I think every person that works in our freelance web dev type field should have something like that. And if you don’t, I am probably judging you.
Maddy:
Yeah. I mean, and then-
Amy:
Sorry Tracy.
Maddy:
… the other benefit of that besides not having to do it yourself, is I think it just presents you as a professional who has their shit together. Like this is what we do, when we work with a new client, you have to sign this, you have to agree to this, you got to read this over, and that’s how it is. And then I think that that also gets more respect from the clients as well. So it makes you look professional, but it also kind of forces them to respect you as a fellow professional. And so yeah, whatever you can do to sort of standardize will not only save you time, but it will also win you more respect from these clients, because there’s just going to be less to wonder about, what’s it like to work with you, here it is. It’s all laid out for you.
Amy:
Yeah. So I have this 10 step Zap that I set up for onboarding and the very first step after they submit the form, is that they’re immediately added to a list that I have that sends them a series of emails over the course of seven days that educates them on our process. And I don’t know how many times people have given me feedback about, this is such useful information broken up into readable bits. So it’s not like, here’s the cyclopedia that you have to read today. They just get a little email every day, but that’s just one step and it starts a seven step series, but now it’s all information that I don’t have to manually tell them. And it’s something that [crosstalk 00:36:46] you can just do that one step in an automation and save yourself so much time.
Maddy:
Seriously. Yeah, and I think something like that too, you could hook up to your initial proposal. And so it’s like setting up a Zap where you just input, what’s their name, what’s the business, what’s their email, and then it can seed all these other things so that you don’t have to manually do all that stuff. Or at least you could start it and you might have to customize, but you can at least get it started.
Amy:
Yeah. Yeah. No, I can talk about making Zaps all day, but I won’t because Tracy’s is over here about ready to fall asleep.
Tracy:
You’re welcome to make these for me because I… [crosstalk 00:37:34] For practice or something.
Angela:
I need someone to tell me.
Amy:
Yeah, I had to upgrade. I keep having to upgrade my Zapier account because it’s just not giving me enough Zaps or enough [crosstalk 00:37:46] or enough, I don’t know, whatever.
Maddy:
That’s how they get you.
Amy:
That is. Like I started the free one and then it’s like, no, I’m going to need more. And I upgraded and then after a while it’s like, no, I kept getting to the limit and I’m like, oh, I’m going to have to upgrade again.
Maddy:
That’s kind of where I’m at.
Amy:
I’ve never regretted it. I’ve never regretted that update.
Maddy:
No, because it saves you hiring like a whole-time person to do all these manual tasks that honestly wouldn’t be worth their time anyway. So I would rather pay Zapier, whatever it is. I think my plan it’s like 50 bucks a month right now. And I have yet to hit that limit but one of these days.
Amy:
That’s exactly where I am too. But yeah, you could hire like a VA to do these things for you. But then it’s like, why? Is that going to be $50 a month or is that going to be less? I think it’s going to be more than $50 a month.
Maddy:
Probably.
Amy:
So I’ve saved myself some money.
Maddy:
Definitely.
Amy:
Well, we are so happy to have had you today on the show. Before we go, we first want to thank are sponsored Ninja Forms for being a supporter of Women in WP. And if you could tell everybody where they can find you online.
Maddy:
Sure. So if you want to learn more about my company, it’s the blogsmith.com and then I’m probably most active on Twitter. So if you have any questions, I’m always happy to help. I’m @MaddyOsmond.
Amy:
Awesome. Thank you for being here.
Angela:
Yeah. And this episode is going to air, I believe on Monday, October 18th, and that evening, Maddy will be on the Boulder WordPress meetup talking about mental wellness and a panel discussion with Corey Miller, Lindsey Miller, Michelle Frechette and Patrick Roland. So if you’re listening to this the day of Monday, October 18th, you can join us at gotomeetup.com and look up the Boulder WordPress meetup.
Amy:
I’m excited for that one.
Angela:
Yes.
Tracy:
Thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter or join our Facebook group. We would be honored if you subscribe to the show. You can find us on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and iTunes. Finally, if you want to be on the show or know someone who would, visit our website at womeninwp.com. Until next time.
This episode is sponsored by Ninja Forms
