Alex “Nice Hair” Vasquez got his start in WordPress by working the docks for Jimmy “the pincer” Spiccoli. What started as a fish-punching summer job turned into a multi-thousand dollar business. Alex is survived by his future daughter, Alex Jr. an apple and two half-eaten gobstoppers.
What should we know about you that you haven’t included in your brief, third-person, professional biography?
I’m Alex Vasquez, a WordPress Developer and owner of DigiSavvy, a boutique digital studio providing digital marketing and custom web development services.
What is “the Machine” and why should we want to automate against it?
“The Machine” is a metaphor for handling day to day business operations. If you’re running your own business or small agency then you know what it means to wear multiple hats. If you can automate things then automate them! I’ve worked hard to develop automated processes that help move my sales funnel along from general inquiry thru to project onboarding and finally off-boarding.
You’re preparing for a long journey and you know you’ll need to do plenty of automation on the way but you’re only allowed to bring one tool, which do you choose and why?
The magic that has helped me go the most is tough. ActiveCampaign and Co-Schedule have been huge additions to my business. But if you jerky people are only letting me choose one, then it has to be ActiveCampaign.
Why should we trust you, a former fish-puncher, to provide us with good strategies?
Can you really trust a fish puncher? No. I always took driving advice from people who have been in the most accidents. I prefer not to be a member of any club who would have me as a member. Take from that what you will, child of the corn! =)
What one thing can we start automating today that we might not have considered?
I think automating your sales funnel or lead intake is a great place to start with automation. It requires thought, but if you lay down a good process for yourself, you can save a lot of time and mental bandwidth by letting people qualify themselves for your service offerings and follow up with them. You can ping old clients you worked with and get more work out of them. Just by “fooling around” I added just over 2k in additional revenue by sending an automated campaign to old clients who I wasn’t work with, but still had websites I worked on for them. It’s not rocket science. It takes time and thought.
Head over to Club Alabam at 1:30pm on Sunday, September 11 at WordCamp Los Angeles 2016 to catch Alex’s presentation, Automating Against the Machine, and stick around for theAfternoon Business Panel (Moderated by Steve Zehngut) with Alex, Libby Barker, and Matt Cromwell in the same room at 3:30pm.