173 Emily White on Partnerships in WordPress and Building a LIfestyle Agency

Our guest this week is Emily White, of Emily White Designs. Emily has a successful business developing custom Genesis WordPress themes with her development partner, Greg Young. Emily clearly knows her customer base and is focused on giving her clients a fantastic customer experience. This interview shows you can still be successful running a small agency.   Emily White Designs https://www.emilywhitedesigns.com/   ==================   Our episode this week is sponsored by LiquidWeb. Liquid Web is offering a 33% discount for your first 6 months of managed WordPress hosting. Head over to https://LiquidWeb.com/wordpress and use the code WPTONIC33 at checkout for your discount.   ==================   Table of Contents for Episode 173 0:00 Podcast Intros 3:05 How Emily first got started with web design and development. 5:09 Finding a target market can be difficult. How did Emily find her target market? 6:53 Emily's thoughts on content marketing, and why she has that stance. 8:47 How Emily evolved her pricing structure over time. 12:39 What sort of client screening does Emily do to determine who she takes on as a client? 17:10 What process did Emily go through to find a development partner? 21:13 What is the difference in perception between a freelancer and an agency, even if that agency is two or three people? 23:26 The major differences in projects when you have a partnership as opposed to trying to contract out different pieces of the project. 25:20 Emily talks about working with an university on her agency's largest project to date. 28:32 Does Emily design for mobile first or desktop first on most projects? 29:35 Gathering content for web projects is a bit easier with professional bloggers. 31:51 The benefit that professional bloggers get from having a custom made design. 36:08 How Emily came to use Genesis as a theme framework, and the advantages of that community. 39:22 What advice Emily would give to budding web designers. 40:49 Steps you should take to define your ideal client. 43:45 Who else should we have on the show? 44:58 Podcast outros.   ===================   Links mentioned during the show:   Genesis Framework http://my.studiopress.com/themes/genesis/   The Big Web Show 53: Raising Rates (Start at about 38:27) http://5by5.tv/bigwebshow/53   Basecamp https://basecamp.com/   Clients From Heaven (WordCamp San Antonio 2016) https://www.emilywhitedesigns.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/wcsatx.pdf   ===================   Find bonus content for this episode on the WP-Tonic website: https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/173-emily-white-partnerships-wordpress/   ===================   Subscribe to WP-Tonic on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wp-tonic-wordpress-podcast/id893083124?mt=2   ===================   WP-Tonic is both a WordPress maintenance and support service, and the publisher of a twice-weekly WordPress business podcast.