Have You Heard Me Talk About Product Roadmaps? I may have told you in a previous conversation that I would never provide a product roadmap. I reiterated the statement during a meeting today. It’s possible that you’ll conclude that I detest roadmaps, but that’s not accurate. It’s also possible that you believe that I believe a product plan should never be shared or published, albeit that is also partially untrue. Before we begin, there is a question we need to address. What Kind of Product Roadmap Are We Talking About? We must be clear about our intentions before posing a “do you” or “don’t you” question. Typically, when one discusses a roadmap, two elements come to mind:   A list of features Delivery dates of those features If you mean something like that when you talk about a product roadmap, then I would advise against sharing that kind of roadmap. Why do I advise against disclosing that information? I can personally attest to three of the following reasons: If your list doesn’t include their request, customer may become irate Giving clients the option to express their wishes to you is a terrific concept, but if that feature disappears off your roadmap, you may have a significant problem on your hands. It doesn’t take long for complaints, rage, irritation, and cancellations to surface. Competitors may anticipate your moves and outmanoeuvre you. It is never a good idea to tell your rivals where you are headed rather than where you have been. Product roadmaps are among the tools that seasoned rivals can use to guide their own efforts, much like job postings or available positions. . Prospects see something is in the future and delay their purchase A public roadmap’s objective is frequently to engage and entice new users to register. However, if your prospects determine that they’ll just come back later, it might occasionally work against you. keep in mind that this does not even account for the possibility of missing your date, which might occur and affect any of the above situations. What Kind of Roadmap Do I Suggest Publishing? Although I oppose the publication of characteristics and dates, I am amenable to something alternative. When I informed you about roadmap themes, you saw this picture. It isn’t precisely the same, is it? It appears to be a product roadmap, for sure. However, there are no dates listed. It is mostly a representation of quarters. There aren’t any features either. Rather, it presents topics. You can more clearly communicate your focus on upgrades, differentiators, and other things by using product roadmap themes. (You’re free to utilise themes I didn’t use.) However, it does not prepare you for those annoying dynamics mentioned earlier. So sure, I’m all for sharing it if you’re talking about a theme-based roadmap without any deadlines. nonetheless, it’s not your typical product roadmap. Those have the potential to harm you more than they do good, in my opinion.   That is, of course, the experience of one individual. Your mileage might be different. Roadmaps are a team sport, as I stated previously. Thus, involve your group and choose what is most effective for you.    

Is Your WordPress Site on Shared Hosting? You probably expect me to advise switching to managed hosting if you have a WordPress website hosted on shared hosting. However, I’m not. Today, I’d want to discuss a plugin that is, hands down, the simplest way to speed up your website. Well, that’s a hefty assertion. The simplest way to increase the speed of your shared hosting WordPress website. What is Cache? Customers can avoid waiting for the server to retrieve slow resources (like databases) by using caching (and caching plugins), which make copies of the content that is most frequently visited and store it for use in future requests. When a new visitor requests a page from your website, WordPress typically processes their request using PHP and SQL to assemble the content for the user to see. The HTML that was previously built is stored in a cache and is made accessible to subsequent requests. Response times become extremely quick as a result. Why Use a Caching Plugin? Why is using a caching plugin recommended? It’s easy. to make your website faster. One of the quickest ways to improve the speed at which your website loads is by caching, aside from image compression. Better Google page speed scores follow from this. It is sure to excite consumers and might even boost the ranking of your content in Google search results.   Most Caching Plugins Are Complex The problem with shared hosting is that the resources you can use are frequently restricted, and some cache plugins aren’t very reliable. The fact that caching plugins frequently have five to ten configuration pages full of settings you need to adjust in order for caching to function presents another difficulty. The issue with that is that you might not even be aware of what all the settings and choices do if you’re not an expert on caches. It’s been known that some plugins can slow down your website only because you configured it wrong.   If You’re On Shared Hosting, Here’s What You Need The WordPress repository contains an enormous number of caching plugins. But keep in mind that I promised to share the simplest one at the beginning of this essay. Recently, Surge was released by a seasoned WordPress developer. It’s free. It is fast. It works on shared hosting. It’s not the simplest way to speed up your WordPress website on shared hosting, though. That’s because there are absolutely no settings! As I’ve already mentioned, I love Nitro. It’s not free, though. It also contains settings; you can still access the settings page even if you choose to have only one option handle everything for you. Surge is not like that. You’re done after installing it and turning on the plugin. To make it function, there is nothing else you need to do. I think that’s quite remarkable.  

Difficult Conversations Aren’t About the Words I don’t know about you, but I get sweaty during tough talks. They aggravate me. However, I’ve encountered enough of them over the years to be aware of three things:   They’re going to happen. They’re never about the thing being discussed. You can actually get better at them.   What is is the first truth. However, it’s worthwhile to pause and investigate the second. That exchange when a client wants to dispute the charge because they don’t agree with it? Money is not the main concern. Money is never the main factor. They eventually started to feel ignored, undervalued, and irrelevant, which made them miserable. That’s the main idea here. Icy reaction or cold shoulder? It might have nothing to do with the previous exchange. Alternatively, it could have to do with recently found facts or a feeling that the truth was concealed. It’s rarely, if ever, about what you first believe it to be or what they claim it’s about. Fortunately, you can improve your ability to handle challenging interactions and avoid being frozen, locked up, or retreating within yourself. Pause on the Facts, Emotions are Key One fact that relates to what I said in my last paragraph is that most difficult talks don’t truly centre on the facts. We’d like to think so. Frequently, we rely on the facts in the hopes that they will support our position. However, facts have little to nothing to do with a difficult talk. It’s not simply about feelings. They are the main force. After all, it’s simple to assume good intent when there is no disagreement. It starts to be helpful when there is a real obstacle. And accepting that challenge means trying to emotionally connect in addition to assuming good intent. Did you try to walk in their shoes? Have you considered what might have actually injured them? And how examining the murkier side of the equation might help you earn respect and trust. Eliminate Blame and Embrace Narratives Working with clients in the agency business may lead to discussions about that latest bill. or the subsequent milestone payment. All of a sudden, you’re having a discussion about how your employees haven’t performed up to par. Most of us, of course, have anecdotes about all the missteps our clients have made. Now is not the moment to assign blame. Rather, concentrate on the aspect of their story that you can accept. More context is always helpful. The majority of circumstances are significantly more intricate than the short story we tell ourselves. So delve in and learn more about the background. This will assist you in converting your basic 2D representations of their “side” into accurate 3D representations of what transpired. Steve, my friend and Zeek’s owner, is really gracious about this. He will enter a meeting with one goal in mind: to comprehend the circumstances and any previously unknown portions of the narrative. He approaches with the working hypothesis that there’s more for him to learn, and then he uses that to serve his customers better. Remember, That You Can Improve at Tough Conversation My buddy Jennifer Bourn is one of my favourite people in the world because she’s had so many difficult talks. She stays out of their way. Similar to Steve, she approaches every encounter with the intention of improving rather than winning. The other day, we were discussing this in relation to agency owners and the difficult talks they must have—almost every day. I then made the decision to interview her. Additionally, you can register (it’s free) to hear me ask her all the hard questions regarding difficult talks and to receive access to the scripts she has prepared so you won’t be caught off guard. This Thursday is the webinar, titled “Why didn’t I think of that?” and it’s everything you, as an agency owner, wish you had known how to say when things became bad.    

There Are Two Kinds of People The tweet that reads, “If you bought something that’s normally $1,000 and you paid $750, you didn’t save $250, you spent $750,” is probably one you’ve seen. Perhaps now you wouldn’t use the $750. But you could be caught if we tamper with the numbers. Because the majority of us persuade ourselves to spend the 65% or 75% when we notice a significant discount (such as 25% or 35% off). Why? since we are inspired by the presentation. Not only does it grab our interest, but it also activates the neural pathway that persuades us to accept the offer. But here’s the catch. After reading everything, you might have said to yourself, “That stuff never tricks me.” You would also be correct. because different people have different motivations. There are some who are “away” and those who are “towards.” Either you’re driven towards a goal or you’re driven away from an outcome. Furthermore, since there are two types of people, it is unlikely that one presentation strategy will be accepted by all. How Can You Tell Who is Who? Consider yourself speaking with a potential client as a freelancer or agency owner. It’s conceivable that you’ll wonder, “How would you define success?” You take that action as a result of years of experience teaching you to always match your work to the objectives of your clients. However, it’s also possible that you’ve heard—and perhaps even internalized—that your prospect was an away person or an approach person. just by the way they responded to the query. Towards answers sound like this: We want to be the market leader We want to drive growth by double digits We want to eliminate the competition Away answers sound like this: We need greater efficiency in our ad spend (stop wasting money) We need to lower our attrition / churn (stop customers from walking away) I don’t want people putting us in that category (stop being compared to xx) You are being told where one individual wants to go. They’re heading in the right direction. The other is expressing to you what they hope to eradicate or cease to exist. They’re fleeing (thankfully) from something. One has the drive to accomplish something. The other is attempting to prevent anything from occurring. Why Is This So Important? This is significant for more than simply independent contractors and businesses that offer services to clients. It’s also intended for those in product marketing. since they desire interesting stuff for all users. It is a fact that each of us has a default perspective on things. Our internal strategy (towards or away) guides our thought process while creating new items. However, you’ll probably lose half of your audience if you let your marketing strategy dictate how you go about things. It Matters How You Say Things Assume you are discussing your recent achievements with someone or draughting case studies. They could be expressed as follows: 75% Year over Year (YoY) increase in traffic 15% Revenue increase YoY 50% Increase in Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) We would probably consider all those outcomes to be fantastic. However, some people can be wary of accepting whatever they see that seems to solely be positive. They may use greater caution. So how could you modify the same outcomes? Eliminated 80% of website performance issues (driving high traffic growth) Streamlined delivery process, driving 15% savings to the bottom line Reduced ineffective marketing channels (increasing ROAS by 50%) Though fashioned differently, the story is the same. That’s what I’m arguing today. There are two types of individuals. They have distinct ways of hearing and listening. You still have the ability to access both of them, though. All you have to do is master two distinct storytelling techniques.