Rethinking Innovation And Simplifying Business With Victor Ramirez

Victor Ramirez:

Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here and just warning, there is a dog.

Jennifer Bourn:

I love it! Zeus is kind of famous from being on your stories across Instagram and he’s got some stylish clothes too.

Victor Ramirez:

Yeah, and now I introduce him in all my presentations. I’m like, “Father of Zeus.” He only has 50 followers. So if you want to check him out on Instagram: @thencamezeus.

Jennifer Bourn:

Fantastic. you got started in digital in high school. You work the Dow Jones defining WordPress at NewsCorp. You were at the knot and you run an agency with a small team.

I want to know a little bit more about this. What did your career path look like and how did you get to where you are today?

Victor Ramirez:

Yeah. So, my father was an actuarial scientist, which means an insurance person. And so the way it used to work was you would take a 2000-page book and say, you’re a smoker, 35 years old, and you swing to page 5,000, do some calculations — then computers were introduced and my dad had to learn computers.

He would give not me, but all four children, a computer to share that sat in the living room every year. I think having to you know, share the computer forced me to be very efficient with it but also to learn to treat it well. If one of us broke it, the other kids were like, “Hey, you got to fix this thing.”

I always had that throughout my life. I was a musician. I got into acting. But I really didn’t pursue tech because I graduated high school in 2002. You know, the tech bubble burst and so no one told me to stay in tech, no one said, “Hey, you should still learn to code because it’s going to control everything.”

After high school, I was a tattooist. Then next to the tattoo shop was a bar, which led to me running the bar. And then I did well, which led to me running multiple bars and then ending up in New York City, running bars and nightclubs there.

And then again, it came back to digital because I was always building a website for some project that was on some art thing. And then we paid someone three to $5,000 for a small WordPress website and they did a lot of stuff that wasn’t like the way we needed it. And when I tried to debate with the developer, he was like, “Those aren’t important things.”

So I ended up joining WordPress NYC where Steve Bruner has run it for, I think, 10 years now. I was like, Let me like share, let me help, let me teach.” Because I did have some things to share. That led to becoming a core organizer and then that’s how I worked with a company called MakerBot. Through that, We Work wanted us to host events and I specifically became a We Work influencer at one point in Soho, New York.

From there I was recruited at Dow Jones, and the only reason I got recruited Dow Jones — and that really hockey-sticked my career — was that I was the only person willing to work in New York City. I’m the only subject matter expert within the region, but then all of a sudden Gutenberg was changing, and I was like, “All right, let me invest in myself.”

I was working with five of the largest WordPress agencies in the world on multiple projects, and in those two years, I think I learned more than I did in 20 years of business. But all my nightclub experience, my tattooist experience, all my art experience really helped me because I could meet with a journalist and I knew what they were dealing with. I knew what they were struggling with. I could meet with a developer and know what they’re dealing with. But also I knew, from being a bartender, how to deal with tough people.

You know, when you’re at Dow Jones News Corp and listen to show succession, it’s loosely based on the Rupert Murdoch family, right? So, there were times when there was a lot of drama going on and the agencies I can’t talk about much, but we had to deal with it. I would I joke I am the best at the game of Office Thrones and that’s how I was able to really succeed.

Jennifer Bourn:

I love the diversity in the background of what you’ve done and I love that you said, “Only one to work New York City.” That job really changed the trajectory of things. So many times we’re presented with these opportunities, but you have to be willing to take them or you have to be willing to make that leap or step off that ledge and maybe do something somebody else isn’t willing to do.

Victor Ramirez:

Yeah, and the other thing, because I know again, a lot of people listen to this and they’re like, “Oh, it sounds like a flaky person.” It’s not flaky to listen. Right?

It drives me nuts now, I’ll interview for an engineering manager position and the reason I didn’t get it at Dow Jones was I was too busy leading the program when they were about to give me a new director role. My mother passed in Christmas 2019, and so I left before I got promoted. When I joined The Knot, where I was previously at, I was supposed to get a two-person team and the pandemic happened.

My manager experience — I managed a nightclub where we had 20 full-time staff and anywhere from 100 to 400 auxiliary staff like medical EMTs, security, bartenders, vendors, all that stuff. And so, you know, I know how to talk to people.

You know, sometimes I think when people get into tech or WordPress, they close their ears to other things. Like, what could you know about my life or my business? And I was very lucky, in where I had a director teacher who told me, listen to everyone, no story is unique, don’t think you’ve heard this story before. The stories can be unique but no experience is unique.

I have a lot of friends who are in makeup, hair, salon services. Their biggest complaint was that Amazon was killing them. So they wanted to do this big e-commerce site and I was like, “Look could do that or we can build your first site, that’s going to have your and you’re gonna interview them for the recommended products. Then we’re going to use an affiliate link builder that recognizes products, them to Amazon.” And so that person was like, “Whoa, whoa, you get my business.”

And so the only way I even knew how to think about that was with that network. Right now, we’re doing a couple of projects where I called someone I haven’t spoken to in 10 years. I found out his company is doing the EMT work for the Met Gala. And now, I’m connecting with another business that needs medical services with their deployments.

And I’m saying I’m getting you connected. And now, they’re going to pay it forward. I pay people back with my tech skills and they pay it forward.

Jennifer Bourn:

There is a gold nugget hidden in there, and it is the fact that you reach out. You reach out to your network. A network is so hugely valuable. So much of business and opportunity are tied to who you know. Saying, when you are available for work, “I am available.” Saying, “Who’s got work? What do you need? How can I help?”

So many people just sit behind their computers and think I hope somebody fills out my inquiry form today. And the chances of that happening, if you do a lot of SEO and you put a lot of effort into marketing, might be pretty good that’s never going to be as good as that personal connection and reaching out.

Victor Ramirez:

I also think there’s a lot of anxiety on both sides. If you look at my roles, if you look at the work I’ve done, a lot of people think they can’t afford me and that’s why now I’m trying to update my content — update our product offerings on our website. So when they do go to look for me, it kind of lessens the load.

But a lot of the time, you’re assuming that people have the time to view your website. Like I’ve had some very important people I’ve met and they would never read my website. So it’s better to reach out.

I’ll go back to the nightclub business. I’m going to open a bar and nightclub in my neighborhood. It’s scary, but what have you got to lose by reaching out to everyone?

The other thing is you don’t know what’s going to happen.

I had a thing where I made a network connection and someone said, yeah, I’m expanding Planet Fitness to Ireland and we need to have a party and I can’t find a place in Dublin. “Oh, my cousins own bars in Dublin, why don’t I introduce you?” And then now this guy who led the global expansion of Planet Fitness to Ireland — he owes me a favor, we’re friends.

I don’t go to meet with these people and think, “What can I get?” That’s not how it works. I’m just like, “Hey, you’re an interesting person. I admire you,” and they think, “I’m an extrovert and I admire you.” then if it works, it works.

Jennifer Bourn:

I love that. Showing up with the intention to just really build a great relationship. I’m interested in what you’re doing, you’re interested in what I’m doing. Let’s have a conversation. Let’s see what happens — because it’s true, you never know who’s in their network and who they’re connected to and where those may lead.

They may lead nowhere and just be a really great fulfilling relationship. Or they may lead to something. But if you don’t take the time to get to know people and have conversations and talk to them, then you close yourself off to those kinds of things. So I absolutely love that.

I want to touch on some of the things that you’ve got on your plate.

• You teach high school kids to code and are a mentor.
• You are a bi-coastal dog dad.
• You do the meetup and run a WordPress-centric Twitter space.
• You DJ, produce music, and have a jewelry company Stay Gold.
• And that’s not even everything you’ve got your hands in.

How do you find time to do all of these things?

Victor Ramirez:

Yeah, it’s kind of funny and it blurs the lines. I don’t see the meetup as work. I use it as a challenge. For example, I was trying to really explain how I see Gutenberg and so I was like, “Okay, I’ll schedule four meetups.”

I didn’t even have the curriculum ready. I wrote them in outline format. I write on my phone when I’m waiting for a coffee, instead of playing on Instagram. And don’t get me wrong, you could fall into that portal sometimes, but I have Writer on my phone — it’s Mark Down — and I’ll write while I’m waiting for a friend, while I’m waiting for the check.

So, that makes the meetup easy. I come up with an idea, I book it to hold myself accountable, then I write the slides. And it’s like 30 hours in two months, which sounds like a lot, but the ROI of the meetup is huge. It helps my online brand presence. If you google Victor Ramirez WordPress, I look wonderful. I look beautiful. My reputation is great.

It also helps with networking, I can say to a student, “Hey, look, you should come check this out. Hey, I know you’re struggling with this. Come check it out.” So the meetup is almost like my open mic or it’s like office hours — and now it’s almost a marketing tool. So in reality, I’m squeezing the most juice from the piece of fruit that is the meetup.

And then, before anyone thinks I’m crazy, the jewelry company that’s related. I went to get a piece engraved, the master engraver turned out to be a tattooist — an immediate connection. And So I was like, “Look, I know what you’re dealing with. I’m going to try not to waste your time.” He was so impressed that he was like, I want you to talk to another jeweler, talk to him about the problem.

They were taking 20 hours just to get a scope on engraving. So, the jewelry company I’m building is a platform and portal for master engravers that work with guns, jewelry, and anything that gets engraved. So I’m taking, you know, a 20-hour transaction time to 15 minutes. But the reason I know I can do it is because I know WordPress, I know personalization, and I’ve done it before.

That’s why it seems like I have a lot going on, but when I really break it down, it’s the same.

And again, I had a friend whose family owned a bakery when I was 17, so this is 20 years ago — and his father was throwing out two garbage pails of bagels every day. And so he said, “Dad, why are we throwing these out? Let’s put him in the slicer and make bagel chips.” And then those bagel chips, as long as they were within like certain boundaries, would get shredded up and turned into soup.

And now, I do this in my personal life. I take everything and I bring it back into my bag of tricks. So when you’re a DJ, right? DJing is listening to the room, reading the room, and then adjusting the music based on the room. If you see people standing on the sides, no one’s tapping their toes, everyone’s looking at their feet, you’ve got to change the tune.

I was this big DJ in the early two-thousands, And I’d get $3000 a show because I had 500 CDs And I knew how to lift the room And so it’s, it’s really hard to do. And so that’s the same thing now that I’m doing with WordPress. I’m just listening to the room, reading the room, and playing the appropriate tracks — and then continually repeating that process.

Jennifer Bourn:

I love that thread all the way through everything you’re doing. It isn’t like they’re completely separate things you’re juggling different things. There’s this common thread that’s pulling them all together and your experience from one is benefiting the other and there’s this really nice synergy.

And going back to your words about community and having a place to say, “Hey, go check this out, come here and learn…”

Brian and I were co-organizers of the Sacramento WordPress Meetup for seven years, and then we did five WordCamp Sacramentos. Having that community to be able to drive people into — when we’re having conversations and they’re wanting to learn about WordPress or they’re wanting to learn about tools — to be able to say, “Go to the meetup,” or, “We’re not a great fit for you, come to the meetup, meet people in your community that are doing something like you, or meet five people that could possibly help you and talk to them face to face. Have the conversation, see who you connect with, and then have a conversation about potentially hiring somebody.”

Paying it forward and giving makes such a huge difference.

Victor Ramirez:

Yeah, and I’m not saying to not go and chase clients and do the things you gotta do. I, at one point, was pitching everyone Upwork. I was on an Upwork billboard in Times Square while at Dow Jones because we got six figures in business from Upwork.

We had a client last year that was a very profitable client and we fired them because they were starting to eat into our own time.

And I’ll meet people who are like working 60 hours a week on bad clients, and I have to say, “Look, you’re spending sixty hours a week on these bad clients, you could make the same amount of money pouring beers at the bar 20 hours a week and then focus on your community and build your network and your skills first.”

Jennifer Bourn:

It’s so true, especially when you’re letting scope get out of control — you’re letting clients dictate things, and you end up working for so little per hour that it becomes not worth it.

Victor Ramirez:

Yeah.

Jennifer Bourn:

So you mentioned firing a client. And I know you’ve had some other points in agency life where things, maybe weren’t going as smooth as you thought. In 2021, from what I understand, kind of blew things up. Tell us what was going on in your agency and kind of what happened.

Victor Ramirez:

Yeah.

So, we were able to attract really big clients and we’re between two and six developers at a time, with a project manager. And the way we’re able to deliver that is because of my practices.

So for example, even before a developer can submit code, we check for accessibility, we check for the WordPress standards. We even check for performance issues. We also have very strict guidelines. We can take a Figma file, if it meets our standards, and roll out a fully custom WordPress website in about two weeks because we have kind of these formulas.

But if the client doesn’t follow that it falls apart.

And so what happened was we’re delivering $100,000 to $500,000 a year contracts with a four four-person team, and we had a manager who was hands-off. This manager was great but he brought in a new developer and the developer came in and, repositioned herself as a product manager. And so all of a sudden, she would say, “Well, we know you like that plugin and it’s $150 but I found this plugin and it’s $50,” and it would become five hours, 20 hours, 30 hours.

The other way we’re able to scale so quickly. I’m not on the calls. I trust my product managers. I trust my engineers but this new product manager came in and they were like, “Well, we want to know how you came to that conclusion.” They don’t know what they’re talking about but because this person was the inside person, they were able to galvanize behind their logic.

So now we’re starting to do this kind of tiered thing, of like, you can get it but if you want it custom, it’s 10 times the price. And so we did it with two or three projects. We partnered with another WordPress person, got it done in two weeks, and they were kind of like, ” It’s done?” Yeah. Yeah. It is all there and they were like, “Wow, we’re getting sites done in two weeks.”

We essentially blew up the whole thing.

Instead of saying, “Hey, let’s get these clients that are giving us $200,000 to $400,000 in hourly work, let’s go and get these clients that give us $5,000 to $20,000 for a product or pre-configured thing.” And it’s been working better for us.

So that’s what we flipped on last year and yeah, we fired that client. They were stunned. We found another agency and did a beautiful offboarding in four weeks. When we left, the four engineers looked terrified because they were like, “How were you able to do this with only two engineers?”

Jennifer Bourn:

So, you had to completely change your approach to working with clients.

Victor Ramirez:

Yeah. We’re selling WordPress because it’s ubiquitous. But we are also going to sell our flavor of WordPress. As long as you’re on WP Engine, Pantheon, or Kinsta, we’ll support you. If you’re not, you can’t be our client.

I have this formula where I say to clients, “Look, I can go with your custom solution, but here’s why I’m not going to…”

• I have a team to maintain. You’re actually distracting them from leveling up.
• I have a team that wants to grow their careers. You’re distracting them from career growth because the tool that you use does not benefit them.
• I am building a business, you’re distracting my business from scaling and keeping up with tools that benefit my other clients.

And that’s the pitch because our pre-product for the new default WordPress is that you have to get the WP Reset. So, if you have an existing site, we have to reset your WordPress site to follow the WordPress standards — because a lot of third-party plugins don’t — and then we are unable to make predictable changes to their website.

Jennifer Bourn:

I really love that you’ve put that of stake in the stand and said, “This is our opinion. This is how we think things should be done. This is the way we think they should be built. These are the tools we recommend, and this is how we work. And if you don’t like that, then you’re not a fit.

That is how I grew Bourn Creative over the years.

Doing the same on a different level, on a different scale, but saying, “This is the platform we’re using, this is the set of tools that we believe in,” and then learning them deeply — learning all the ins and outs — because that’s when profitability really comes into play.

Confidence really attracts people and brings people to you. It inspires clients to say, “Yep, that’s what I want.” Because they don’t know what they don’t know, and they might’ve done a little bit of research and they might come to the table thinking, “This is what I want.” But I love that you’re not afraid to say, “That’s interesting, but I disagree or I don’t think that’s a good idea and here’s why. Let’s talk about it.”

Victor Ramirez:

Yeah. I don’t want to debate plugin pricing. What I want to debate is whether each form should get a receipt, whether each form should touch the database, what form data should collect, what regions should each form exist in, and if it’s not allowed to be used in a region for privacy reasons, how do we make that form work?

Jennifer Bourn:

I would probably agree with you there.

Now, I want to talk a little bit about the impact some of this has had. You run a really tight, small team. You’re able to turn sites very quickly but you’re not spending eight hours a day churning through work to get that done or working nights and weekends to get those projects done in two weeks.

How has establishing your new WordPress default been able to empower your team to work faster or to get stuff done in less time?

Victor Ramirez:

It’s probably like 100-150 hours in two weeks between a three-person team.

The way we’re able to do that is back to bagel chips.

For every single piece of code in every previous project, we copied that repo because it’s GPL GNU. What I will do is I will go into JIRA and write a ticket, go into GitHub grab the link to the sample code, bring it over and put it as a reference in my JIRA ticket. And be like, “This has already been done before. We’re doing the standard format. Here’s a link to the gravity form to download the XML.”

And then what ends up happening is the developers free their minds.

We have a spreadsheet that pulls from the WordPress API, a list of all the blocks and then what we do is to go through almost like a shopping list and then they get the default blocks. There are no conversations with the developer. We just say, “Hey, here’s the spreadsheet, fill it out.” It’s a 30-minute conversation and we get great clients because essentially what we’re doing is we’re making them not have to think.

It’s almost like walking into the house and saying, I want coffee. Okay. Arabica, hot, cold, espresso. Right?

Let’s think about Five Guys. You can get a burger and fries, Impossible Burger and fries, cheese, toppings, whatever, that’s it. You’re getting a burger on a bun. We’re not going to chop it up and make a cheese steak. So think about that.

And now we’re getting better at writing content so it’s almost like we’re automating our entire communication. You shouldn’t have to say anything twice if you mean it. Right?

Jennifer Bourn:

Okay. I love the fact that you are reusing and repurposing, everything that you’re doing in your business from documenting and saving the code that you’re writing to the emails and the messages to the client. I’ve used this approach in my business for years. If I can’t use this at least three times, I’m not doing it. If it is a one-time use case, then likely, It’s not a good use of my time.

And so I love the fact that you’re saving and reusing and going back to things you’ve already done. Instead of starting from scratch, and having a developer say, “Okay, how do I do this?” It’s like, “Nope. We’ve done this before. Here’s where it’s at. Take a look at this.”

You’re setting your future selves up for greater success, right, and giving your future self that gift of having that documented, of having that written down, of having a good system in place.

Now, you are now bi-coastal. You’re in LA and you’re in Philly. How are you managing two locations going back and forth right now with remote work? That’s easier than it’s ever been in the past, but how has that changed things for you?

Victor Ramirez:

To be honest, it hasn’t changed in a negative any way. And this is like really nerdy… the same way that I manage my business is how I manage my life. And so I have a recurring monthly task that is like, “Plan LA return next month.” And if I don’t do it, I am not going to LA this coming month. I just delay it. But the micro repeating project that kicks off in Todoist is all the things that must be done.

Even as a traveler, I’m an efficient traveler. I’m the person who has a toiletry bag ready to go with all my toiletries filled in it.

Jennifer Bourn:

We do too! We’re like, how hard is it?! Buy double of everything? Keep it ready to go.

Victor Ramirez:

Or, just buy airplane bottles and fill them every time you get back. That’s like your project.

Jennifer Bourn:

Oh, my gosh, I love it. We started doing it because of Brian’s fire department days. He always had his fire department bag packed.

Victor Ramirez:

Yup.

Jennifer Bourn:

And so we started doing that for vacations and we got one for each kid, nobody had to stress. out We’re like just grab that bag and go. And it was so, so much easier.

We did that with baby stuff too. When I had a baby, when my kids were really little — people are like, ” Oh, you have a baby. It’s okay. If you’re late,” and I’m like, “No, if you’re late, that’s totally disrespectful. I will be there on time.” And I did that by having double of everything and we always kept one full diaper bag, change of clothes, everything we needed in the car. All I had to do is grab the bottle bag and go. I didn’t have to think about anything.

So the fact that you just said that… It makes my heart so happy.

Victor Ramirez:

Even now, like looking at this desk, I always need my laptop. I need my Remarkable. I have my iPad and my phone and my chargers. I have an iPhone charger, a laptop charger, and my vitamins — I have all the cords that I need in my book bag — in my travel bag — so all I need to do is take the laptop.

And it’s the same thing with moving. With also being remote, I set up an automation in my Google calendar now where it will adjust when I change time zones. And in Cali, in my brother’s house, I keep two containers. The minute I go back, I pick up the two containers, go to my new house, take the one container, go to the bedroom and bathroom, unpack it, take the other container, go to my office unpack it, and I’m ready to go.

Travel is one of those things that is so unpredictable. It could blow up your life. So, if you have that bag, all of a sudden that vacation you had to take 10 hours to pack for takes one hour.

Jennifer Bourn:

You are so speaking my language.

When we first started road-tripping as a family, it would take us forever to pack all the gear and all the things for four people to go hiking and everything. And now we’ve got these containers, just like you said, that are prepacked. They go in the truck. We know it has everything that we need. We have our checklist, we have all the things done and it’s so amazing to be at that point.

Victor Ramirez:

Also, I have ADHD. I take 45 milligrams of Adderall a day just to function, and it actually has eased my ADHD anxiety. A lot of people have ADHD and anxiety. The one thing they’re told is to get an accountability partner. It’s a lot easier to get your friend to show up for an eight-hour “Let’s become super packer session” than it is for them to check in with you every day.

And so if you have anxiety about packing, anxiety about doing things, like maintaining this pre-packed thing. I just do it once a month. Once a month and like, it’s not perfect. Right? But with ADHD, people they’re always late because they’re always like one more thing, one more thing. With me, I’m like, no more things. I grab it, throw it in the bag, and it kind of removes all those boundaries.

I saw this meme the other day. “ADHD is like going to clean your room and then, oh, look at this cool notebook, I used to be such a good drawer. Let me find 10 websites about drawing. Cool. I’m enrolled in a drawing course. Oh, just kidding. I’ve got to clean my room now.” With this, you’re removing all that.

Many people are going to be like, Hey, can we hang out this weekend? Because I want to see if you can help me build my little pack. And that for me is fun. Like I like helping my friends craft and whatever.

But I think people need to understand, like, it’s not the effort of trying to be supermom — because you could be that organized too — it means that you can come to happy hour. You can walk with me, my dog. It’s all these things that you’re wasting your time with. You don’t have to.

Jennifer Bourn:

I like that you tied it back to reducing anxiety, That it is about saving time, but it’s also about reducing anxiety, reducing stress, removing those things from your life. It’s about simplifying and making things easier and making life calmer. Right? And that is a really big deal.

Victor Ramirez:

And it’s stressful the first time. The eight hours is gonna be stressful, putting it together, but it pays in dividends for the rest of your life.

Jennifer Bourn:

It does. I’ve got three questions to wrap us up. What tool can you not live without? Something that you wish you had discovered earlier in your life?

Victor Ramirez:

A personal profit and loss statement.

Jennifer Bourn:

Ooh.

Victor Ramirez:

Because I have my job or I have jobs, I have a business, and then I happen to have other businesses. I have freelance things. I put all of those into a large custom P&L that I made and then I project my income, I project things I want to do… and listen, I feel bad for people today. It’s not a political thing to say that we are suffering from a lot of consumerism. Right? And consumerism can lead to anxiety and depression.

And I have so many friends between 25 and 30 — “Oh I have 10 weddings to go to.” Well, you don’t have to go to those weddings. My ex-girlfriend — eight years together — through those eight years, different generations of people were going through weddings, and I had to work with her and say, look we need to put this into our personal P&L.

And that’s how I was able to move to LA. I could say, look, if I quit my job, I have this much savings. And by the way, in a P&L you’re accounting for that. Now I have an apartment in LA. that’s an added expense. And when I did the personal P&L of owning an apartment and furnishing the apartment and whatever, it cost me more. It costs me more than intermittently renting an apartment every other month, but I cashflow because I’m required to put in a $6,000 deposit.

And so a personal P&L helps with that. And one of the things I do is every quarter I evaluate: Am I hitting my goals? What are all the things that are valuable to me in the lifestyle I’m living?

So when I moved to Philadelphia, I wanted a high rise — big views — where I could build a custom office in walking distance to a coffee shop. It would have been like $10,000 in New York City. I pay $2,500 a month here in Philadelphia. But because of the P&L I could say, “Look, I’m actually saving a lot more money and that’s going to afford me to live in LA.” It’s able to give you a picture and evaluate on a month-by-month basis, how you personally are doing and then set goals.

Jennifer Bourn:

That’s awesome. When days don’t go, according to plan, how do you keep yourself focused? How do you stay in a positive head space and kind of get back into that mode that you need to be in to get stuff done?

Victor Ramirez:

Um, my morning routine is almost like a mental reset.

I use a black washcloth with cold water to exfoliate my whole face, brush my teeth, mouthwash, a coffee, music that’s calming — and it’s like my whole morning routine. I make my bed. I open all the blinds for the sun in which wakes up my dog. And then I walk my dog.

And then the other thing I’m doing now: I go to the gym. And my logic right now is if I can’t do 30 minutes, I do 10. If I’m not in the mood to do a full upper body routine, I’ll do like a treadmill for 30 minutes.

And so I will say, look, I focused on number one today. My health is there. My sleep is there. This isn’t real. Look, we’re not curing cancer with a lot of the marketing we do. We’re not saving the world. And that’s kind of my attitude. I also try to do this thing too now where like I’ll draft nasty emails and then not send them until the morning. And I’m like, “Oh, let me write this in a less nasty way. Let me be a little more concise.”

Jennifer Bourn:

Oh, that’s a great idea.

Victor Ramirez:

Now we are writing into our MSA that we only communicate in 24-hour windows. And we use Monster Contracts. In that MSA, [Nathan] has a great escalation chart that we borrowed. One, the site aesthetically looks fine. Users are able to complete the business tasks they want to do. The company is not losing.

Jennifer Bourn:

Right.

Victor Ramirez:

And then for “Okay. You’re losing money. You can call us.” If you violate that, we’re gonna charge $500. And with the reset, because we’re going to start promoting it, clients have accepted that. You work with people who I have entrusted to follow my process. We do like the Gary Vaynerchuk thing. It’s $2,000 a week and you get one phone call. Call me a jerk if you want, but what you’re costing my business.

And this is the last thing I’ll say: there’s a book called The Anxiety Toolkit. I’ve gifted it 10 times during the pandemic. The Anxiety Toolkit — I recommend the paper version — it’s a 100-page binder about all the different ways to deal with anxiety that not only clients cause, but life causes.

And the reason efficient, unlike most psychology anecdotal, the book starts almost like a Jennifer Bourn thing. There’s a quiz in the beginning, you know, “On a scale of one to 10, when someone critiques me, I take it and just move on, or I write nasty emails and talk about how much I hate them and dah, dah, dah — that’s rumination. And so by the end of the quiz, if you have fours, you should do things like a manifestation or talk about what could happen if you don’t do this or talk about the positives to do it.

And that Anxiety Toolkit really helps. Those coping mechanisms for me — like when someone annoys me — I’m just like, “All right, let me do manifestation, let me do deep breathing, let me go for a walk, let me make a list.”

Jennifer Bourn:

Fantastic. So Victor, if people want more Victor in their lives, if they want to connect with you and learn more about you, where can they connect with you personally and where can they find your agency?

Victor Ramirez:

If they type Victor, Ramirez, WordPress into Google, everything comes up — my agency and my personal site, my Twitter. I’m like highly ranked enough now that all my tweets show up in Google. The best way if you have a question is to go on Twitter.

I do not accept DMs. There was a great little slide I found on Instagram about how to DM. Listen, Jennifer Bourn is a very busy person. can’t just DM and say, “Hi.” You should say, “Hi Jennifer. I was one of your students and I took your course, and I did this and I did that. I know you’re really busy. If you could read this one page where I put you as like a…” You know, little things like that, and then people like, “I’d love to give the approval of this testimony because you made it so easy.”

Yeah, don’t DM me, but if you have a question, come to WP Friday, message me on Twitter because then it helps the overall group, and then when you search for me, I run WP NYC… And I’m available through that.

So Victor Ramirez WordPress or Victor Ramirez WP NYC — all my links show up and you can RSVP to our upcoming meetups. If you attend the one that I’m speaking at, I’m happy to take questions related to the topic. And that’s the best way to get in touch.

Jennifer Bourn:

And you have a meetup series about analytics. Tell me a little bit about that.

Victor Ramirez:

So it’s a six-part series. there are a lot of changes that are coming to the digital landscape as far as privacy and security goes, that WordPress is not ready for. Um, so the first part of this series is to understand how analytics works with WordPress.

The second part of the series is about how to migrate to your own open-source analytics, because obviously when people say analytics, they say Google. Right? But with privacy, that can be blocked.

The third part of this series and beyond is how to take that analytic data, how to store it, how to leverage it, and how to surface it in your WordPress website.

And we’re partnering with hopefully, a company named Avo, which is Avo.App. They are a data schema management tool and they’re open source, and a company called Rudder Stack, which is a customer data platform system, and they are open source.

Jennifer Bourn:

And are those being recorded?

Victor Ramirez:

They will be recorded.

Jennifer Bourn:

Fantastic. So you can check out Victor’s series that’s coming through WP NYC on analytics. They will be recorded. So you’ll be able to reference those even if you can’t make one.

And thank you so much for coming and sharing your journey of seeking satisfaction.

Victor Ramirez:

Thank you for having me.

Jennifer Bourn:

If you enjoyed this episode of Seeking Satisfaction, subscribe for new show updates at jenniferbourn.com/seeking-satisfaction. And please leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform.

If you would like to hear more from Victor and learn not only how to think about the software you use in your business, but also how to connect the different tools you use to streamline and make your work easier, check out the Seeking Satisfaction Extra Minutes Membership.

Members receive Extra Minutes from podcast guests like Victor to provide valuable training to help you do better business. You can find details about the Extra Minutes Membership and Victor’s bonus training in the show notes.

Until next time, may you live inspired, embrace imperfection, seek satisfaction, and have a fabulous day.

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