What Makes Me Different
Mostly neurodivergence. I’m crazy, but they tell me it’s good crazy. Most of the time, anyway.
My first business failed. I was nearly suspended from 2nd Grade for operating a business on school property. I lost my entire investment. While $10 may not sound like a lot of money, it is to an 8-year old!
I launched my first website for a paying client as a sophomore in high school. Somehow I didn’t realize I could actually build websites as a “real job”, so I got a Bachelors of Science in Psychology from Colorado State University. Along the way, I’ve worked as a Mobile DJ, Hot Dog Man, Radio Personality, SWAT Trainer, and Restaurant Manager.
I quit my job as a car salesman after a week because I wanted to be able to sleep at night and keep my soul. And that’s exactly what I told the Sales Manager when I turned in my keys.
I struck out on my own selling websites in 2007. That venture failed too; but my demo sites got me a job at a local web shop. It was there I built my first website on WordPress (v2.3.1) in 2008.
In 2011, I struck out on my own again! Armed with deeper experience and a vision to create an elite, agile-minded team that produces websites that make profound impacts on our clients’ businesses, I made 2 ½ million dollars.
Welcome to 2023. Websites are only one pixel-packed facet of a sprawling marketing landscape, obviously. As a Wizard of Ads Partner, I continue to build superior websites, speak truth to clients in a world of Digital Weasels, and assemble teams of my fellow high-performing creative-weirdo Partners to do all the rest.
Who I Can Help:
You.
I will help you. Even if we don’t end up working together, a single conversation will spark re-thinking of dusty paradigms and leave your mind forever altered. No drugs required.
How?
I slice through bullsh*t with critical thinking and human connection.
No ruler-wielding nun is coming to bloody your knuckles if you’re not on Facebook, Twitter, Insta, TikTok, Kik, twitch, Sharify, imgur, Pinterest, WhatsApp, YouTube, Triller, LinkedIn, Tumblupon, Snapchat, Reddit, Nextdoor, and Flixter. In fact, three of those I just made up. (which three are they?)
I believe in winning by choosing.
If you want to DO IT ALL, move along. I help my clients decide what to ignore so we can focus on what works. Aren’t you tired of marketers who make a slick pitch and plug you into a so-called “proven system”, only to next minimize their “client touches” so they can maximize their own profits? It’s not their fault, their incentives just suck.
I believe in “client touches”.
I believe humans respond to human connection.
I believe to win the attention of a too-busy public, you must do something new, surprising, and different that makes another human being laugh, cry, or get angry. That’s how you move the needle on the Who-Gives-A-Shit Meter™. Until that needle twitches – or jumps! – you’re just one of the 5,000-8,000 advertising messages our well-tuned brain-filters cast aside every. single. day.
Your ad is one of 56,000 that will bombard my brain this week. What will make me see it, hear it, remember it?
I believe what you want, what you crave – what you yearn for – is the simple truth. A straight shooter; someone you can trust; someone unafraid to tell you what you need to know rather than enticing you with fads and placating you with what you want to hear.
That’s me. And my incentives align.
You thrive on unvarnished truths. You relish making courageous decisions. You’d rather risk being wrong than ensure predictable mediocrity.
Who Is Not a Good Fit:
- Unproven business and/or low revenue
- Stuck on “We’ve always done it that way”
- “If you build it, they will come” syndrome
- Cannot measure effects of efforts.
- Insists on style preferences over strategy
- Death by committee
- Comparing against DIY options
- One-off projects or quick fixes
- Prefers to give orders rather than collaborate
- Addicted to buzz words and “the latest”
- Looking for the cheapest option
- Sharks
What I Do For Clients:
First, I’m a trusted advisor.
I will earn your trust by showing you the truth that lies beneath so much B.S. that permeates marketing, especially so-called “digital marketing”.
Then we experiment. With science!
The best marketing is experimental, unexpected, delivers delight, and focuses on your customer. The worst marketing is derivative copy-cat drivel that focuses on your company, product, or service.
If you want to follow industry standards, there’s plenty of folks ready to plug you into their off the shelf systems and help you blend into the wallpaper. If you want to set the industry standard, defy norms, laugh at limiting beliefs, and shake off the haters, give me a call. I’ll fly with you.
Do you want me, truth, science, and a fist full of Wizard of Ads Partners on your team?
Next, I’m a huge WordPress nerd.
Websites today are a tapestry of tracking, embedded services, API’s, and a thousand myriad ways to get distracted by “the latest!” red herrings from design trends to tech fads.
I obsessively focus on the most important factor of all:
The real experience of your real users.
That is what matters.
Don’t let condescending Digital Weasels convince you otherwise.
- I maintain WordPress (including WooCommerce) websites, making them more secure, more reliable, and faster.
- I revamp existing websites when the big problems lie in message and removing friction from the user experience.
- I build brand new websites when the good ‘ol ‘02 Franken-Civic has finally bit its last dust.
- I developed & maintain 53 bespoke WordPress Themes and Plugins for my clients.
- I develop MVP “Guerilla Software” as WordPress Plugins.
- Let’s say your business has a truly uniquely specific need that off-the-shelf software simply cannot quite handle. Yet, custom software development – the good stuff – has a 6-figure entrypoint with hefty ongoing maintenance costs.
- Before you invest in proper software development for mature, at-scale use, I create working software out of spit-balls, duct tape, and toothpicks. Then with Beta User feedback and rapid iteration, we evolve this thing to see if it really has life. If it does, we have a user-tested software with proven value that’s ready for prime-time investment. If not, we figured that out faster with less budget.
- “SEO” is a dirty TLA, but alas, we must address it. In my experience, more than 90% of SEO services are ripping you off – and a good portion of them know it.
- A very smart friend of mine recently said: “Anyone that definitively claims they know how something will affect your Google ranking is either lying or going to lose their job as a search engineer at Google for revealing it.”
- Yes, SEO is possible. No, it’s not magic – neither how to achieve it, nor what it will do for you.
- I don’t do Adwords or other PPC Management, for that I’ll bring in one of my Wizard of Ads partners.
For WordPress website maintenance, my company Press Managed has you covered.
For simple informational websites, reach for DINABY.
For complex websites and bespoke Plugins, you’ll want Copper Leaf Creative.
Ultimately, each of these only support your larger marketing effort – and that’s why I’m a Wizard of Ads Partner.
Finally, I’m a dot-connector.
They say you’re a product of your network. Here’s what I allow in my net:
Sales sharks prowl the car lot and swarm each potential sucker snapping at the possibility of selling them something and maxing out their commission.
Business sharks exploit people, their circumstances, their weaknesses, callous to any outcome but their own enrichment. (Ironically, this short-sightedness reliably fails shy of riches, wealth, and satisfaction.)
Sharks can go fend for themselves.
Your customers’ true best interests are in your heart. You believe in measuring success by multiple bottom lines. You don’t have to be a hippie, a social entrepreneur, or even a Certified B-Corp – you just have to be a human being, not a shark.
I connect dots between us civilized folk, nurturing a web of better people doing better work.
Success Stories:
I moved out of my parents house just once. Evidently that’s getting rarer these days.
A wedding event venue located on the backside of an industrial complex. By strategically wooing the bottom third of the wedding market with a redeveloped website featuring a powerful, evocative narrative, 37% more brides whisked through the magic portal that is their front door the next year.
The Wyoming Real Estate School – a whipper-snapper up-start compared to the Old-Boys-Club that dominated the state for the last decades – captured enough market share in their first 3 years to be comfortable. Then a national brand rode into town. With a fresh website, strong copy, and a home-grown strategy, 2022 was up 27%, and we’re just getting spooled up.
Look, if you made it this far, it’s time we met.
And if you just scrolled past all that text, we definitely need to chat because that’s how we both prefer to communicate.
Click the booking link below, or just go to chat.withgordon.com
I want to talk to you. Really.
Oh, did your BS detector just twitch? How could I possibly know I want to talk to you if I don’t even know who you are??
BECAUSE I don’t know who you are. Everybody can teach you something, if you just take the time to listen and learn it.
What will you teach me?
Let’s chat. I’m intrigued already.