My first day at Pagely

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I’m excited to announce that I’ve joined the growing team at Pagely.

Starting today, for the first time in ten years, I have to report to someone — this guy. While the decision wasn’t easy at first, the more I talked to Sean about this role, the more I opened up to the idea of this new challenge. After all, some of the best chapters in life come from the biggest changes we make.

Let’s get the big heavy questions out of the way first: What’s up with this podcast? What about Conductor? The studio, and so on? Future content?

Slocum Studio

The team remains dedicated to servicing existing clients and new small businesses, looking for a hand in WordPress development. Over the last year, the team started to structure more formal offerings & support for those seeking guidance on their content marketing efforts as well, a focus for the team as time moves on.

So after 10 years, why the change?

If you’ve ever run a boutique agency, with 5+ people on payroll, you know the challenges all too well. With every hire comes the need to find new business, or focus on largely profitable projects. It’s very much like getting in the ring with an opponent two sizes above your weight class. Even if you manage to win against one heavy weight, you need to recover, get the work in, and repeat. Except in the custom client services world, you’re still throwing punches with one hand, while trying to practice, recover, and find the next opponent, with the other hand.

While the drama wasn’t like that at every turn, it really only takes a few of those rounds to feel like you’re being outclassed by the game. Mix that with a changing trend in the market — where’s all the leads from a year ago?! — and you have yourself a recipe for change.

Many more reasons are woven into the fabric here, but I’ll spare that solo violin for a video, or within my upcoming Season 6 interviews.

The Matt Report

The show must go on!

This podcast (and future podcasts) remain a passion project for me, and it was imperative that I remain in control of my show. So that’s not changing, and Season 6 is already starting to record new episodes. In fact, I’m even more excited to work on new content, because I’m forced to prioritize, ensuring that the time I do spend on it is used wisely.

Will the show still be sponsored? Yes. Can it be sponsored by competing WordPress hosts? Hell no, Pagely is the best managed WordPress host around, and if you want to explore your hosting options with us — contact me.

🙂

(Also, if your company wants to sponsor Matt Report Season 6, and is not a competing product to Pagely,  contact me.)

Conductor Plugin

The product lives on, new features are being released.

I’m still firm believer in this product, even though it’s dismissed against page builders — because it isn’t — and folks repeatedly tell me, they don’t hear people talking about it enough. The latter is most likely due to the fact it’s not a freemium product, a dominate model in this space. The customers that do use it, love it. It has a super-low rate of return, and it solves the right problem, for the right customer.

The future is bright for Conductor. Three years ago, people weren’t taking the same approach as us, and now I’m seeing more competitors enter the market with similar ideas. I’ll go out on a limb and say we were too early with our concept, but as people get over saturated by page builders, they’ll start to turn to high performing focused solutions like ours.

I’m seeing related products starting to take a content-first approach like Conductor, and it’s a mixed feelings bag of irony + determination. Look for exciting new developments coming from Conductor.

Future content

Moving forward, I think you’ll see more of me on YouTube — just what you wanted, right? More on that later.

I also have a new podcast coming out soon that I’ve co-created with THE Megan Gray. Non-WordPress related, so breathe easy. Also, more on that later.

What I’m excited for at Pagely

The challenge of something new and working with a team that is laser-focused on winning.

I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the handful of meetings I’ve joined, and I’m not ashamed of my current role as the new guy trying to make friends at the water cooler. So far, and I do mean so far, seeing I haven’t had my hands on anything yet, everyone seems welcoming. I’m sure that will change as I start tripping over myself in the next month or so.

It was extremely important that if I were to make a shift like this, that it would be with an organization that I have a lot of respect for, and had the same respect for me and others working there. If you’ve ever attended a Pressnomics event, you know how they roll, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it now.

And if you’re interested, consider learning more about why Pagely is the best managed host for concerned clients.

Josh promised me that selling mission-critical managed WordPress hosting is going to be fun, let’s see if he’s right.


Comments

13 responses to “My first day at Pagely”

  1. Congrats! Kudos on the road ahead and your next set of challenges.

    1. Thanks, Nathan!

  2. Congrats my dude. Can’t wait to see how you amplify Pagely’s hold on their market niche!

    The crew really doesn’t know what they’re in for, do they?!

  3. Great news. I certainly hope that it works out great for you.

  4. Congrats, man! Came as a huge surprise?

    Heads over to Twitter — to see what’s Tom McFarlin trolling Matt about, now that he’s at Pagely!

  5. Wow – that’s a big move. Congrats Matt – go get them!

  6. Congrats Matt! Looking forward to seeing what comes with this new chapter. Must be honest, though: I’m a little disappointed to see Matt Report continue. How can I ever have the number 1 podcast while you’re on the air?

  7. Many Congrats Matt.

    Your WordPress experience would come real handy in refining Pagely’s WordPress based offerings. Best wishes for the new role!

  8. Well done… For everything you’ve achieved so far and everything to come… All aspects of life.

    Much respect for such a big decision.

    Looking forward to the new podcast, more Matt report, hearing your progress and also conductor (I’m super happy to be a new customer and I totally see the value it gives… )

    All the best,
    Paul (a fan)

    1. Thanks for the support, Paul!

  9. All the best in your new role at Pagely, Matt!

  10. Fun analogy Matt…

    “throwing punches with one hand, while trying to practice, recover, and find the next opponent, with the other hand.”

    Be interested to hear about your experience of changing market trend in a future episode.

    All the best.

    1. Thanks, Jason. Look for a video from me soon 🙂

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