Growing A Digital Agency with Paul Lacey KDS: 018

Paul Lacey is one of those people that once you get to know him you feel like you’ve known him forever (or wish you had).

I felt like I could have talked to Paul for hours, but since we’re a good 8 hours apart I thought it would be nice to let him enjoy the rest of his evening. Paul is one of the brilliant minds at Dickiebirds Studio as well as creating amazing themes for GeneratePress and now… he’s creating something amazing for Beaver Builder! ROWS!

We recorded this a while ago and at the time of recording, the rows for Beaver Builder were pretty hush-hush, but the team at Beaver Builder has officially announced rows so the cat is out of the bag so-to-speak. Paul sort of ‘fell into’ web design while going to University, one thing led to another, he continued freelancing and he ended up working for agencies before launching his own agency with his business partner Peter.

Paul shared a candid conversation about the ‘slow breakdown’ of their agency and how he felt that he had his own personal mental breakdown during the process. He realized they were more or less taking on any job that came in and there was no growth, which attributed to the slow decline of how they were feeling about what they were doing.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”I realized there was a slow breakdown of the agency. @wp_paullacey” quote=”I realized there was a slow breakdown of the agency. @wp_paullacey” theme=”style6″]

After landing a large UI/UX project and realizing they had underpriced the project he realized what they were doing wasn’t really working.

They took a hiatus from the brand, which no one even noticed, which is when he realized he needed to step back and get some clarity on what he was doing and where he wanted to go with his business.

Questions I Asked Paul

1. Can you share your story of what you were doing before launching Dickiebirds?
2. What do you guys do at Dickiebirds?
3. Where do you see WordPress Design heading?
4. How has your business and agency changed over the last couple of years?
5. What are some of the things you see people doing successfully in this space?
6. What’s coming for the remainder of 2018?

[click_to_tweet tweet=”I was that person who said ‘I don’t need Facebook, Twitter… its rubbish’ @wp_paullacey ” quote=”I was that person who said ‘I don’t need Facebook, Twitter… its rubbish’ @wp_paullacey” theme=”style6″]

What You’re Going to Learn

• How Paul sharing ‘how’ he was doing things completely shifted his perspective on social media
• Why he used to think Twitter and Facebook and rubbish, and how he’s completely changed his mind
• When Paul realized he needed to create a brand, not just a business
• How he decided he needed to start marketing (outside of his local business)
• What it looked like for him to start creating a strong personal profile
• What Paul would tell someone who feels like the WordPress web designs space is changing and is struggling

Where to Connect with Paul

Dickiebirds Studio Site | Facebook | YouTube