Q&A with Stephanie Hudson of FocusWP

You may have seen Stephanie Hudson on Facebook. She’s hard to miss. She has bright red hair and a personality to match! And she loves her WordPress and to prove it, she will send you a pair of 3D glasses. 

In this Q&A article, we will:

• Learn how Stephanie created a unique branding concept using 3D glasses, inspired by an image with red and blue lines, symbolizing their motto, “Focus on what you love; leave the rest to us.”
• Learn how Stephanie uses a creative marketing gimmick by sending 3D glasses as a physical lead magnet, offering a tangible and memorable experience in a digital world, encouraging recipients to share photos on social media.
• Learn how Stephanie turned a health scare into a learning experience, emphasizing the importance of business preparedness, such as maintaining up-to-date project records and ensuring trusted colleagues can manage her business in emergencies.

And a lot more! Let’s get ready, shall we?

How is the web care business doing for you and members of your community?

Do you think managed care services from hosting companies have affected web care businesses?

$99 a month never changed anyone’s life, but as freelancers or agency owners steadily convert each new project into monthly recurring revenue, $99 at a time, that starts to add up. Care plans can be foundational elements in the construction of a sustainable business with regular recurring revenue. Eventually, those care plans can become the bread and butter of a web business, smoothing out the ups & downs that we all know too well in this industry. 

I don’t really see managed hosting as a threat to care plans. The fact of the matter is, it’s never really been about pushing the update button. It’s more about knowing when and what to update, and, more importantly, what to do when something goes wrong with one of those updates. That said, we can’t be complacent. Make use of your care plan to stay in touch with your clients, and remind them how valuable you are. Send reports monthly or quarterly. I know they don’t read them, that’s irrelevant. You have landed in their inbox with an entire pdf full of all the work you’ve done for them. Even if they never open the email, just seeing your name with an attachment gets the message across. 

How did the 3D glasses and website design come about? I would imagine that people like getting those glasses in the mail. I know I did! 

My business partner Tom and I were trying to come up with our branding and our vibe and everything. In the course of Googling for inspo (inspiration), I found an image of the word FOCUS that wasn’t exactly 3D, but it had these red and blue lines that made it 3D-ish. I was immediately drawn to it, and when I showed Tom, he loved it, too. 3D images look a bit blurry or “off” to the naked eye, and I loved the irony of the word “focus” being, well, NOT in focus. We like to use the expression, “Focus on what you love; Leave the rest to us.” There are a lot of fun plays on words with it. 

Once we had the concept, we went to work building our 3D world. And anybody who knows me knows that I can take an idea and absolutely run it into the ground. So when I was thinking about building a website with a bunch of 3D elements, I thought, “Well, that’s something really different and fun – if you have 3D glasses. But who has those lying around?”

I’m not one to let a little inconvenience like that get in the way of an absurd idea, though, so I solved the problem: “I know! I’ll just mail ‘em some!” But, again, it couldn’t just be that simple. You see, I love sending cards and care packages. And I love getting mail. Doesn’t everybody? Not junk or bills, but how exciting is it to open your mailbox and find a handwritten card? 

It just hardly happens anymore, which makes it such a special thing. Everything is digital. Our downloads folders are overloaded with e-books and checklists and swipe files and other digital freebies. So I thought, what if our lead magnet was an actual physical, three dimensional (obvi) thing that we mail to people and they could hold it in their hands? And then also hopefully take a photo of themselves with it and post it on social media and things like that, of course! So it became this little experiment. Honestly, it’s really nothing more than a gimmick. It’s just something silly, but I think it’s fun. So I keep mailing out 3D glasses to anyone who wants a pair.

When I go to WordCamps or other conferences, instead of handing out a business card or yet another pen with a logo on it, I hand out 3D glasses. I put a little NFC sticker on them that when you tap your phone to it, it opens to a page with my contact info and a video of me. I get a lot of great feedback from handing those out. It’s memorable and fun, just a little bit different. And really, in marketing, isn’t being memorable what it’s all about?

Most people in WordPress know you for FocusWP, but when did you start Enjoy Sweet Tea? What was behind the idea to start your brand for breweries?

The first iteration of Sweet Tea Marketing began in 2016 with a business partner here in Charlotte, NC, and in 2018, I took sole ownership of the biz. We had a couple of local brewery clients and I thought, how could you pick a better niche?? I am a craft beer fan, and I love hanging out in breweries. I’m also fascinated by the science that goes into brewing beer. I designed service offerings tailored to large, established breweries; ones starting to grow; and also those just starting out—sometimes before they even have a building to brew in! I built a WaaS (Website as a Service) catering specifically to the latter: a gorgeous, fast website, with all the functionality a new brewery might need, for a low monthly subscription. 

I was ready to launch my lovely, shiny new WaaS in March 2020. Yep, THAT March 2020. The one where all the breweries were forced to close down. It was brutal. More so for them, of course, but I was so pumped about my new offer and it was a real disappointment to realize it was immediately dead in the water. 

I weathered the storm and stuck around, but the industry has never been the same, so I “retired” the Craft Brewery Marketing division of Sweet Tea in 2022. 

Sweet Tea Marketing is still plugging along. These days FocusWP is my primary (ahem) focus, but remaining active part time in my agency helps me better serve our agency customers at FocusWP because I am actively going through the same things they are, dealing with the same pain points, and wishing for the same perfect projects.

You had a health scare last year. What did you learn about being a business owner and how are you taking the message to others?

I learned a LOT. First of all, if you are going to go into a coma, do NOT do so while traveling. That will be super inconvenient for both yourself and your family. 

When it comes to business, keep up-to-date records on open projects, and leave a key under the proverbial mat so a trusted colleague or friend can access the necessary accounts to look after your clients, pay the bills, etc. 

I had a lot of precautions in place (it helps to have an entire white label company on call!), but I have made many changes since being back in the saddle. I’ve actually documented the systems I have been building and am working on a free course to help other solopreneurs to be prepared. 

One tip I never thought I would give is: Make sure someone knows the passcode to your phone! Our phones are sacred and private. The last thing any of us want to think about is our mom scrolling through our phone, looking for things and randomly clicking stuff while we lay there incapacitated and unable to make it stop. The hard truth is, no matter how prepared you are with everything else, someone is going to need access to your phone at some point (freaking 2FA!!). 

How do you see the future of WordPress and website care evolving? 

The one thing I know for certain is that AI is going to change everything. It’s already happening. Code, images (with corresponding ALT text!), copy, even complete websites can be generated in seconds.

When it comes to the future of WordPress, that’s a more complex question. There are so many factors at play. You don’t have to spend much time on X to know that there are a lot of folks frustrated with WP – the tech, the organization behind it, or both. WP has such a foothold on the internet as we know it, it isn’t going anywhere this week. But, it doesn’t take a wild imagination to see software like that eventually going the way of the fax machine.

Wrapping it up

Being a WordPress website consultant comes with many challenges. For Stephanie, a healthcare emergency almost derailed her business. Because of that, she is committed to helping others avoid the challenged she had.

What kinds of challenges have you had in your business? Let us know in the MainWP Users Facebook Group.