Here to share how to successfully run a design company and build out WordPress products is 3.7 Designs design strategist Ross Johnson. Ross is also the creator of Project Panorama, a client-friendly project communication and project management tool.
Ross is giving away a professional and a single license of Project Panorama. To enter, leave a comment telling us the #1 thing that is killing your productivity in your business.
Update: Congratulations Simon Kelly and Chad Warner! Ross Johnson has chosen both of you as lucky winners! Thanks for your contribution and keep elevating!
If there’s one thing Ross knows it’s design! Even as a child he was interested in the world of design; his father was an architect and Ross loved the world of graphic design. With his father’s influence Ross has always searched for ways to make design practical, solutions-based but still attractive and inviting to the user.
While in high school he considered going into graphic design. The dot com bubble was blowing up, he saw designers with no college degrees being flown to Silicon Valley and making a major splash! However by the time he graduated the dot com bubble burst so he opted to pursue computer science rather than graphic design in college.
After college he began working in IT and found there was an overlap between web design and IT. At that time if you did IT you also were a web designer, so when he had attracted enough freelance clients he began to pursue design again.
In 2006 he saw his first WordPress dashboard. Although it wasn’t love at first he did come back to it a few years and a few evolutions later. The community of users was a big draw for him.
Today Ross and his team at 3.7 Designs in Ann Arbor, Michigan help businesses solve problems through design. His wife is the CEO and he’s the web specialist. In his role on the four-person team Ross wears numerous different hats! He spends about 40% of his day coding, another 10-20% on design and the rest on random admin tasks.
He also created Project Panorama, something he calls a light-weight and client-friendly project management and project communication tool. Project Panorama is an easier way for clients to get an update on the status of a project, rather than something like Asana or Basecamp.
On this episode of WP Elevation we also talk about what it’s like for Ross to work with his wife Lyndsay, where he sees the business and Project Panorama going in the future and his philosophy for handling important vs. urgent project matters. Check it out on today’s episode!
Q: What’s the #1 thing any freelancer needs to know?
A: Reinvestment.
Q: What’s the best thing you’ve done to find new customers?
A: Presenting, doing speaking engagements goes a long way.
Q: How do you stop competing on price?
A: Compete on quality.
Q: Any tips for writing better proposals?
A: Have a section specifically tailored sharing similar projects and clients you’ve worked with.
Q: What’s your favorite CRM tool?
A: Excel.
Q: What’s the best way to keep a project and a client on track?
A: Project Panorama.
Q: Any ideas for getting referrals from existing customers?
A: Ask!
Q: What’s the #1 thing you can do to differentiate yourself?
A: Focus on actually being different.
You can reach out and thank Ross on Twitter, or on his web site for 3.7 Designs or Project Panorama’s web site.
Ross suggested I interview John Hawkins from 9 Seeds in Las Vegas. John, keep your eyes on your inbox.
Hint: to enter the competition, leave a comment below telling us the #1 thing that kills productivity in your business!
36 Responses
#1 thing that kills productivity is not having a well defined road map of just what I should be working on day to day. At these times are when I am most vulnerable to shiny object syndrome.
#1 thing that kills productivity is not having a well defined road map of just what I should be working on day to day. At these times are when I am most vulnerable to shiny object syndrome.
Wow, love your website and designs, nice!
Getting out and presenting is something that’s on my goals this year, I’ll see if I can use your strategy to trick myself into thinking that I actually know what I’m talking about.
My number 1 productivity killer is reacting to client’s requests, unplanned changes and client support, especially when I have other active projects that I’m committed to.
Wow, love your website and designs, nice!
Getting out and presenting is something that’s on my goals this year, I’ll see if I can use your strategy to trick myself into thinking that I actually know what I’m talking about.
My number 1 productivity killer is reacting to client’s requests, unplanned changes and client support, especially when I have other active projects that I’m committed to.
I agree completely Michael. A prioritized road map is essential for remaining productive. Even if you’re not falling into the “shiny object syndrome” you can get caught up working on non-essential tasks which feels productive even when it really isn’t!
I agree completely Michael. A prioritized road map is essential for remaining productive. Even if you’re not falling into the “shiny object syndrome” you can get caught up working on non-essential tasks which feels productive even when it really isn’t!
Thanks Simon, much appreciated!
Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to be the number one expert on the subject you’re giving a presentation on, rather you just need to know more than your audience. Your typical audience member will know 1% of what you do, if you can educate them to be 5% more knowledgeable you’ve won — and this will still be utilizing only a small fraction of what you know.
Reacting to unexpected requests and support do take up a ton of time. What’s helped with us is to establish rates for different turn around times, this sets the expectation that clients should think ahead and notify us well before something needs to be done because it saves them money.
Thanks Simon, much appreciated!
Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to be the number one expert on the subject you’re giving a presentation on, rather you just need to know more than your audience. Your typical audience member will know 1% of what you do, if you can educate them to be 5% more knowledgeable you’ve won — and this will still be utilizing only a small fraction of what you know.
Reacting to unexpected requests and support do take up a ton of time. What’s helped with us is to establish rates for different turn around times, this sets the expectation that clients should think ahead and notify us well before something needs to be done because it saves them money.
Totally, thanks for the reply Ross!
Surrounding myself by people a lot smarter than me makes it difficult to think I know anything, but you’re totally right – just being able to teach that small fraction more than someone already knows is really valuable to them.
Rates for turnaround times is a great idea. As long as it’s all mapped out and known by the customer in advance then the decision to move forward is up to them. Good stuff, I’ll see what I can do with this 🙂
Totally, thanks for the reply Ross!
Surrounding myself by people a lot smarter than me makes it difficult to think I know anything, but you’re totally right – just being able to teach that small fraction more than someone already knows is really valuable to them.
Rates for turnaround times is a great idea. As long as it’s all mapped out and known by the customer in advance then the decision to move forward is up to them. Good stuff, I’ll see what I can do with this 🙂
Thanks for sharing your insights and experience, Ross. Great to hear a fellow Michigander on the show. 🙂 We met briefly last year when you spoke at WordCamp Grand Rapids.
Thanks for sharing your insights and experience, Ross. Great to hear a fellow Michigander on the show. 🙂 We met briefly last year when you spoke at WordCamp Grand Rapids.
Thanks for listening Chad! I definitely remember meeting at WCGR, hope to see you there again this year!
Thanks for listening Chad! I definitely remember meeting at WCGR, hope to see you there again this year!
Awesome episode! I’m a huge fan of Project Panorama.
As for productivity killers, a few not-so-obvious things that I’ve observed recently are lifestyle related factors like how much sleep I get, how comfortable my chair is, what I eat, the music I listen to, my posture and many others like that. All seem to in some way directly impact my ability to focus, my motivation and my commitment levels.
Awesome episode! I’m a huge fan of Project Panorama.
As for productivity killers, a few not-so-obvious things that I’ve observed recently are lifestyle related factors like how much sleep I get, how comfortable my chair is, what I eat, the music I listen to, my posture and many others like that. All seem to in some way directly impact my ability to focus, my motivation and my commitment levels.
Very insightful Kyle! I think a lot of people (my self included) are always looking for that next productivity “hack,” e.g. the GTD system or the pomodoro technique. Much of productivity is also motivation which is highly sensitive to how you treat your mind and body. This might be good inspiration for a blog post :O
Very insightful Kyle! I think a lot of people (my self included) are always looking for that next productivity “hack,” e.g. the GTD system or the pomodoro technique. Much of productivity is also motivation which is highly sensitive to how you treat your mind and body. This might be good inspiration for a blog post :O
Great episode! The #1 thing (besides cat videos!) that gets in the way of my productivity is organizing projects and responding to emails, so Project Panorama could be a help in eliminating some emails.
Great episode! The #1 thing (besides cat videos!) that gets in the way of my productivity is organizing projects and responding to emails, so Project Panorama could be a help in eliminating some emails.
I agree with unplanned requests, Simon. I recently hired an intern to take care of small requests and that has helped a lot with delegating and not getting caught up in small things 🙂
I agree with unplanned requests, Simon. I recently hired an intern to take care of small requests and that has helped a lot with delegating and not getting caught up in small things 🙂
I love shiny objects -especially if they are things that might possibly make me more productive, ironically!
I love shiny objects -especially if they are things that might possibly make me more productive, ironically!
That’s cool tlcdesiign, cheers for the tip! I’m finding it can be more work by hiring before processes have been built, so I’m focusing on the process and looking forward to being prepared for the next hire
That’s cool tlcdesiign, cheers for the tip! I’m finding it can be more work by hiring before processes have been built, so I’m focusing on the process and looking forward to being prepared for the next hire
Responding to e-mails is a hidden time suck! It *feels* like it only takes a few minutes, but if you consider the 15 minutes it takes to refocus on what ever complex task you were previously doing, answering 10 e-mails actually ends up taking a couple hours.
I’ve recently started responding to e-mails in batch, once in the morning and once in the afternoon and it’s been a huge productivity improvement.
Thanks for listening and commenting!
Responding to e-mails is a hidden time suck! It *feels* like it only takes a few minutes, but if you consider the 15 minutes it takes to refocus on what ever complex task you were previously doing, answering 10 e-mails actually ends up taking a couple hours.
I’ve recently started responding to e-mails in batch, once in the morning and once in the afternoon and it’s been a huge productivity improvement.
Thanks for listening and commenting!
Actually another trick that I use is scheduling e-mails. Sometimes if you respond right away it encourages quick responses, starting a dialog rather than complete, thought out messages.
If the e-mail I’m responding to isn’t urgent, I’ll schedule it for 4:00 p.m. encouraging the recipient to write a response that fully addresses the discussion reducing the amount of back and forth.
Actually another trick that I use is scheduling e-mails. Sometimes if you respond right away it encourages quick responses, starting a dialog rather than complete, thought out messages.
If the e-mail I’m responding to isn’t urgent, I’ll schedule it for 4:00 p.m. encouraging the recipient to write a response that fully addresses the discussion reducing the amount of back and forth.
Great discussion here! Thanks for sharing, Ross. I think the #1 thing killing my productivity is definitely the “shiny object syndrome.” I’m pretty new to WP and web dev in general, so every new tool or app I come across, I will at least learn a little bit about, just in case it might be useful at some point. I also really need to streamline my email and add some filters to help prioritize my communications.
Great discussion here! Thanks for sharing, Ross. I think the #1 thing killing my productivity is definitely the “shiny object syndrome.” I’m pretty new to WP and web dev in general, so every new tool or app I come across, I will at least learn a little bit about, just in case it might be useful at some point. I also really need to streamline my email and add some filters to help prioritize my communications.
Thanks for listening Evan! I don’t necessarily think that “shiny object syndrome” as you describe it is a bad thing. Learning about the new tools and apps add value to your skills and business. Maybe it’s just a matter of channeling that desire?
For example, at 3.7 we try and reserve one day a week for working on the business itself. If you were to record the tools and apps you come across and then spend a single day researching them you might get the same benefit without it effecting your productivity throughout the week.
I agree that e-mail is a huge productivity killer, I’ve had some success with filters and templates. Hope you can figure out what works for you!
Thanks for listening Evan! I don’t necessarily think that “shiny object syndrome” as you describe it is a bad thing. Learning about the new tools and apps add value to your skills and business. Maybe it’s just a matter of channeling that desire?
For example, at 3.7 we try and reserve one day a week for working on the business itself. If you were to record the tools and apps you come across and then spend a single day researching them you might get the same benefit without it effecting your productivity throughout the week.
I agree that e-mail is a huge productivity killer, I’ve had some success with filters and templates. Hope you can figure out what works for you!
In my day job, I work for a large enterprise where poor communication can often hinder my productivity. As I develop my new freelancing business on the side, I want to work hard to communicate clearly and regularly to build confidence with clients and potential future team members.
In my day job, I work for a large enterprise where poor communication can often hinder my productivity. As I develop my new freelancing business on the side, I want to work hard to communicate clearly and regularly to build confidence with clients and potential future team members.