2017 in Review

It’s so hard to believe that 2017 is nearly over. I feel like it was only a couple weeks ago that I sent my “New Year, New Training!” email to announce all of the excellent speakers that were coming this year.

In that email I said we would be hearing from 24 presenters at an average pace of two per month. I also mentioned that I had hired an assistant and that I was working on some other things I couldn’t share about at the time. Now that the year has passed, I’ve been longing to conduct a recap and see how I’ve done. I’ve now done just that and I thought I should share with you five major areas of focus for 2017:

  1. Loads of new training from lots of new faces
  2. Joining forces with 10 strategic media partners
  3. Hiring an assistant for the benefit of all
  4. Adding new services through private training
  5. New full-time focus on WPSessions

Let’s dig in!


1. Loads of new training

All told, I hosted 17 sessions this year. I fell short of the original plan to host 24 sessions, due largely to changes in schedules for our presenters, but I’m happy with every single one of these sessions!

Here’s the full list of sessions from 2017:

Mastering WordPress Troubleshooting with Kyle Maurer

Demystifying the Database with Benjamin Cool

The Modern Developer's Toolkit with Brian Richards

Lessons Learned Building a WordPress SaaS with Bryce Adams

Understanding & Supporting Web Accessibility with Rachel Cherry

Troubleshooting WordPress Performance with New Relic with Andrew Taylor

How to Train Your Clients (and Customers!) with Joe Casabona

What do you do with a problem? with Krissie VandeNoord

Don't Trust Your Clients with Kiko Doran

Progress Through Practice with Josepha Haden

Profitable Project Plans with Jennifer Bourn

Debugging Like a Pro with Brian Richards

What you didn't know you need to know about WordPress Databases with Gabor Javorsky

The Dating Game: Understanding Price Anchoring with Nathan Allotey

How to Sell Ongoing Service with Sara Dunn

Appearance Doesn't Matter if Nobody Visits with Andy Keson

12 tips for Better Content Creation with Peter DeHaan

What I find most remarkable about this list is that it would cost more than a full VIP Membership to buy only the presentations from 2017. Except, as a VIP you also get the entire backlog of sessions (another 60hrs of content), several highly-detailed courses, and discounts with popular products and services you’re probably using already. I’m just putting that observation out there, no pressure 🙂


2. Joining forces with awesome new partners

A major shift in how I previously operated the business occurred this spring when I began pursuing dedicated media partners, in lieu of one-off session sponsorships. Each of these partners help keep session broadcasts free and keep WPSessions running.

I had two rules for each of the partners I approached: 1) they had to be the producer of a tool or service that I use and love; 2) I would only forge 10 partnerships for the rest of the year. I want to be clear that I am the one who made first contact with each of these companies and I believe they’re the right/best answer in each of their domains.

With that, these are the awesome folks who made the cut:

  • SearchWP – WordPress core search sucks, and SearchWP fixes that in a big, big way. You can control which fields are included in search, how valuable each field is for ranking, and more. I can’t imagine launching a site that has visitor-facing search without this plugin.
  • SproutApps – Dan is the sole proprietor behind this incredible suite of tools made to make life for independent contractors and small businesses better: Sprout Invoices – an invoice generation and payment portal; Sprout Clients – a super simple CRM, and Help Scout Desk – a seamless integration between Help Scout and WordPress. All of them are awesome.
  • WP Migrate DB Pro – Effortlessly migrate content from one WP install to another. You can even push or pull data between sites in addition to doing a traditional export and import. CLI commands, media library integration, and other similarly great features make this my go-to tool for active development on all production sites and redesigns.
  • Beaver Builder – the only page builder that I even consider using. All content is compiled back to HTML and stored into the content area, portions can be saved as reusable template partials, and every single module can be handled differently for responsive layouts. They’re keeping a close eye on integration opportunities for Gutenberg too, so no need to worry about picking up a soon-to-be outmoded tool.
  • WooCommerce – the tool I use for every ecommerce site I build (including WPSessions). I love its flexibility and extensibility.
  • Sucuri – the only security company I trust with important sites. Sucuri provides monitoring and remediation services, among other things, to help you keep sites free from harm.
  • Gravity Forms – The form plugin I use on my site and sites I’m personally responsible for. I don’t think I’ve ever had a single complaint about using this plugin and the team continues to make it better each and every year.
  • WP All Import – The best tool I’ve found for bringing in foreign data into WordPress in a systemized way, without writing a pain-staking, custom migration script. Within WP you can specify the data source, drag & drop each piece of data into where it belongs (title, body, terms, meta, etc.), apply templates or transformations to each piece of data, and then save that import script for re-running again either manually or on an automated interval. It’s incredible.
  • Pantheon – the most agency- and developer-focused web host that I have found. Their infrastructure and tooling is pretty perfect for all of us, and perfect for our clients too. My two favorite things: 1) mutli-dev environments you can use to spin up individual sites for each feature being tested; 2) every account is free and fully-featured until you decide to launch the site to the public.
  • Hover – the only domain registrar I use and recommend (I seriously, genuinely love working with Hover). They have no upsells and zero friction between picking your domain and owning your domain. The DNS tools are crazy simple to operate. And all of it can be done effortlessly from your phone, too (I speak from first-hand experience, because that’s how I originally acquired WPSessions.com).

3. Hiring an assistant for the benefit of us all

Immediately at the start of the year I had the opportunity to hire Cate DeRosia as the first (and only) paid contractor to assist with WPSessions. Her help has been invaluable to me all throughout the year.

Most of Cate’s time and attention has been spent transcribing the back catalog of training videos. Thus far she has transcribed over 53 hours of video! Soon this effort will be visible to you as closed captions and on-page transcripts of our entire video library. This will allow you to read the training rather than listen, if that’s what you prefer, or jump to the specific section of video that narrates the subject you see in the transcript. I’m super excited to roll this out across 2018.

Besides transcribing, Cate has provided assistance with administrative work of the site: preparing session descriptions, navigating session scheduling, and other helpful tasks. I’m confident she would have been of even more help if I could have been bothered to properly outline and delegate other things that need to be done in this business.

In all, hiring Cate is handily the single best decision I made for WPSessions in a long time. I definitely recommend you consider hiring a quality assistant for your own work. But please find somebody else, because I really like having Cate in my corner and don’t want her to leave WPSessions for whatever exciting things you’re doing.


4. Introducing new services: private training

I actually piloted this service quietly in 2016 with two different teams, then rolled it out quietly again to two more teams here in 2017. This was one of those things I teased in my “New Year, New Training” email in January. Now I’d like to officially go on the record to say that Private, Team Training is something WPSessions proudly offers. I call it “team training”, but in reality it’s useful for individuals who want to increase their edge, teams who want to grow together, and your clients who need to learn how all of their new tools work.

Through this offering I am able to provide highly relevant and targeted training directly to you(r team or clients), in private, and deliver exactly what you need to learn at precisely the time it is most useful to learn it. For example, do you have a complex ecommerce project on the horizon? I can deliver a presentation, answer questions, review proposals or code, and help you move in the best possible direction. Need to learn how to better leverage the WP REST API? WP-CLI? Implement better workflow and project forecasting or management processes? Need a better on-boarding or vetting process for new hires? Yep, I can help with those, too.

I’ve worked with several leading WordPress agencies and shops, have run my own development and consultancy business since 1999, and have sold and built web services ranging from sub $1,000 to the many hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve managed teams of 3 and teams of 30. I’ve helped with hiring, training, leading, and developing. My experiences are varied and my insights are many. And I’d love to help you or your team learn, grow, and do better in 2018!

There is just one catch. This new level of service is extremely limited and only available through an application process. You can learn all about it and get in touch to discuss things further on the Team Training page.


5. A new full-time focus on WPSessions

I was also very quiet about this transition. In June I stepped away from many years of working in the agency space and leapt into full-time focus on all-things WPSessions. I didn’t want to make a lot of noise about it at the time because I knew how much work was still ahead of me steering WPSessions back towards a successful path. Now that we’re six months past the change I feel like it’s finally time to let the cat out of the bag.

A significant portion of my energy these past six months has actually gone towards developing two different on-boarding programs as part of the new team training service. The rest went towards coordinating ever-changing speaker schedules, speaking at and attending several conferences, and designing the upcoming training curriculum for 2018. If you’re reading things closely, good news, I’m about to reward you with a little nugget that most other people won’t hear about until a big announcement several months from now: I’m personally producing dozens of hours of short, focused tutorial videos to help you learn just-in-time what you need to know to complete a current task or project.

I’ve really enjoyed working only on WPSessions these past many months and am thrilled to have the opportunity to continue this focus throughout 2018. The business currently has enough cash reserves to fund me through May of 2018. Between now and then I’d like to sell enough VIP memberships or Team Training contracts to fund training and development through to 2019. That means, if you like what I’m producing here and want it to continue, you should consider investing into one of those. And if you don’t like it that much, no hard feelings! Perhaps the content that arrives in 2018 will change your mind 🙂


Thank you, and thank our media partners!

With all things considered, 2017 was an incredible year for WPSessions. I’m looking forward to making 2018 even better. This site wouldn’t be possible without the multitude of customers and media partners that I’ve had the privilege of working with throughout the year. If you’re in either group, thank you very much for funding this and investing in me, yourself, and the broader WordPress community.

If you’re a beneficiary of the training provided here, please reach out to each media partner and tell them “thank you”, too. Here’s a list of their twitter handles:


If you’d like to stay informed with all the good things that are coming to WPSessions, you should join the newsletter! I send out a once-per-month update and an occasional (but rare) announcement or reminder.

PS – Don’t miss out on the 12 Days of WPS give-away! There are 78 different prizes available, including a lifetime VIP membership. There are different prizes with new opportunities to enter every day.

The Next Great Big Give-Away: #WPS2WCUS

Introducing the next great big give-away

Good news everyone! I really enjoyed running last year’s give-away so I’m doing it again. The prizes are even sweeter this year and also more plentiful.

If you’ve been on the fence about becoming a VIP Member and indulging in our 70+ hours of WordPress training from many of the top WordPress experts, I would say now is a pretty good time to pull the trigger.

Not convinced? Let me give you 3 more good reasons to consider…

#1. I’m bringing you to WordCamp US

WordCamp US: Dec 4-6, 2015
I’m going to pay $2,000 (USD) of my own money to get you to the inaugural WordCamp US. If you haven’t heard anything about WCUS yet, let me take just a moment to tell you about it. WordCamp US will take place from December 4th-6th, 2015 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA – featuring two full days of sessions plus a contributor day. I can already tell that it’s going to be a lot of fun.

If you live within the continental United States this should be more than enough to cover your entire trip (flight, lodging, meals, etc). If you’re from outside the US it should, at the very least, be enough to pay for your flights and at least make the trip possible for you. The $40 event ticket is also on me, in addition to the $2,000 for travel, lodging, etc.


#2. You’ll get a Post Status Club membership.

PostStatus.com
I love Post Status. And the Post Status Club membership has made the site even sweeter. Every day – right now, even – people are hanging out in the Post Status slack channel talking about WordPress, Business, ecommerce, health, fitness, and just about every other topic that humans converse about.

Whenever relevant news happens you’re the first in-the-know because Brian Krogsgard, the man behind Post Status, personally writes you an email with the important details. These emails are never sent too often nor are they too infrequent, they arrive precisely when they need to. It’s the only newsletter I actually want to read.

I love Post Status so much I want to share it with you, which is why I’m going to buy you a year-long membership. If you’re already a PS Club member this will automatically extend your membership by another full year.

This means you’re also coming to the Post Status WordCamp US Party, a very exclusive event limited to Post Status Club members.


#3. Plus some super special, super secret swag.

WPSessions custom swag
Not very many people in this world have had an opportunity to get their hands on our limited-edition swag, but thanks to this give-away you will soon be able to count yourself among them. You’ll get a custom designed t-shirt, some sweet stickers, and a few awesome buttons. It’s all top-quality stuff that I’m sure you’ll love.


How many people can win?

One (1) randomly selected Grand Prize winner is going to get a $2,000 cash disbursement for attending WordCamp US, plus a free event ticket. They will also get a one-year membership (or membership extension) at PostStatus.com and invitation to the official Post Status WordCamp US Party. Finally, the winner will also get a custom WPSessions swag package.

Five (5) additional randomly selected winners will receive a one-year membership (or membership extension) at PostStatus.com and a custom WPSessions swag package.

Or, maybe more…


What are the odds of winning?

1 in 16, or better. Your specific odds of winning one of the prizes in our random drawing is entirely dependent on how many people register or renew their VIP Membership. I promise that your chance of winning will never be lower than 1 in 16.

How is this possible?
If more than 100 people register within this window I’ll double the prizes to ensure (and improve) your odds. This means two people coming to WCUS and 10 people winning a PS Club membership and swag pack. Yes, even if registration only reaches 101 people, we’ll still do double of everything. If more than 200 people register we’ll increase the prizes again.

If you do the math, 101 entries with 12 prizes means you’ll actually have roughly a 1 in 8 chance of winning something awesome, which is the same as if 50 people register. If only 30 people register you’ll have a 1 in 5 chance of winning. If only 6 people register, congratulations, you’re an automatic winner!


How can someone register?

This give-away is just for VIP Members. Specifically, VIP Members who register or renew their membership between today and Monday, October 26, 2015 by 11:59pm EST. And that’s all you have to do.

Actually, if you registered for a VIP Membership any time in the past couple of weeks you’re also automatically included, too.

Become a WPSessions VIP Member - Learn more


Rules for Entry

This give-away is restricted to WPSessions VIP Members only. All VIP Members who have registered or renewed during the contest dates are automatically registered and eligible to win, no additional purchase is necessary. Must be at least 18 years old at time of drawing to win. Open to all VIP Members, worldwide.

The grand prize cash prize will be disbursed only after winner submits flight and lodging receipts as proof of intent to travel. I earnestly want you join me at WCUS, that’s the whole point!

Read the full legal terms of the give-away.


Spread the word, increase the pot!

If you post about this on Facebook or tweet about this give-away on Twitter you won’t actually impact your entry in any way (positively or negatively). You may just improve everyone’s odds of winning something, though. As I mentioned above, as soon as we cross 100 registrations the prizes will double, crossing into 200 they will triple, and so on.

Please be sure to use the hashtag #WPS2WCSF anywhere you share this online.

I look forward to seeing you in the VIP community, and I look forward to bringing you with me to WordCamp US!

Become a VIP Member

 

Learn to Build Mobile Applications using WordPress!

The wait is finally over! This month we resume a regular schedule of amazing WordPress education. And that’s not all! This month I also get to reveal a new pricing structure and a new way to watch all of our sessions going forward.

 

New Session Structure!

The single biggest struggle of organizing the monthly sessions here at WPSessions has always been coordinating a window of time that works for all of our excellent presenters. This issue is compounded as they are rarely presenting from the same continent, let alone the same time zone.

To simplify everything, all of our sessions going forward will feature a single presenter who will be instructing on a single topic. We’ll balance this, too, with an increase in frequency of broadcasts. As our speakers are able, we will host more than one live event per month.

 

New Session Schedule!

Instead of hosting these uniformly on Saturday afternoons, we’re going to try something different. Because WPSessions has a world-wide audience, it’s impossible to pick a single day and time that works well for everyone. So, instead, we’re going to try a lot of different dates and times.

At this moment it is completely the speaker’s option on which day of the week and which time of day they present.

After we’ve gotten a few under our belt (or enough people sound-off in the comments about which days and times are best for their schedule) we’ll likely settle into a uniform and predictable schedule – possibly even ramping up to two live broadcasts at different times for the different hemispheres.

 

New Session Pricing!

Thanks to our amazing sponsors, LIVE broadcasts will be 100% free to everyone all spring and summer long. I’ve always wanted more people to be able to access this amazing content and be engaged during the live Q&A period during the event, so I reached out to some amazing folks and am finally able to do it.

The recorded content will remain a paid-only feature of the site, and VIP Members will still get the recordings included as part of their benefits.

 

This Month: Learn how to Build Mobile Applications Using WordPress

wpsession17_thumb Scott Bolinger is going to walk us through the easiest way forward with creating mobile apps using WordPress and JavaScript.

We’ll learn how to use the budding WP-API to make it easy to get data in and out of our WordPress site, how to build a lean front-end using AngularJS, and how to compile the whole site into a mobile application package that is ready to distribute via the various app stores.

You can attend this session having never used the WP REST API or any of the other technologies we’ll be discussing. No matter what, by the time the session is over you should have enough working knowledge to build a working mobile application using WordPress.

Learn More and Register Today

Five All-new VIP Courses Announced

Today I get to reveal to you the next five courses coming to WPSessions.

Even more exciting, I get to reveal to you the next five instructors who will be teaching those courses. These should all be names that you recognize, which is my favorite part about this. If you don’t know them already, be sure to follow them on Twitter so that you can get to know them. They’re just incredible!

All five of these courses are already in production and will be released as they’re ready. Our first course, Writing your First WordPress Plugin, is already available and ready for you.

Without any further ado, let’s take a look at the new courses!


mastering_sass

Greg Rickaby – Mastering Sass: Beginner to Expert

How many lines of CSS would you say go into the typical web project? What about just those lines for accommodating fluid, responsive break points? How about for browser compatibility? Typography rules? Color schemes?

The amount of CSS we use to make the web beautiful has increased in step with the amount of control granted to us by browser engines. And it is unlikely to decrease any time soon.

Enter Sass: an elegant solution to writing fewer lines of CSS while, at the same time, doing an order of magnitude more with them.

Recently, Sass was adopted by the core WordPress development team in order to optimize how the admin area of WordPress is styled. You probably already knew that, and you probably hear it mentioned everywhere because it is an extremely popular way to style the web.

Follow along with Greg as he carefully explains the basic building blocks of Sass, gradually walking you through to several expert design practices. Whether you’re afraid of Sass, are just starting to use it, or have been comfortable with it for some time, there is something for you in this course.

About Greg Rickaby
Greg stumbled upon WordPress in 2006 and has been converting PSD’s into child-themes ever since. He started as a freelancer and now works full-time with WebDevStudios as a Design Lead. You can find his blog at GregRickaby.com.

When offline, Greg loves to make homemade pizza and watch football (he’s part-owner of the Green Bay Packers). Saturday you’ll find him with a beer in one hand and grilling with the other. Sunday, he’ll be behind an audio console at Wiregrass Church – making praise and worship come to life.

Follow Greg on Twitter


optimize_wp

Zack Tollman – How to Optimize WordPress Performance

Zack Tollman loves WordPress performance. He has worked to optimize WordPress for peak performance on a number of sites. In this course, he shares all of the tips and secrets he’s collected over his experienced career.

The course begins by introducing a number of simple tools we can use to measure performance – if you can measure it, you can optimize it! Zach also starts off with explaining some of the most basic principles to website performance, from server response time through the entire cascade of HTTP requests and browser rendering. From there, we’ll focus on some of the server-side configurations you can do to improve site performance and then progress towards optimizing the rendering path on the front-end so that the most important elements load first and fastest.

The topic here is quite advanced, but Zack explains it with such relatable, easy-to-understand concepts that viewers of all skill levels will be able to follow along. He’s a master, and we’re thrilled to host him!

About Zack Tollman
Residing in Portland, Oregon, Zack longs for the cold, snowy days of his Alaskan youth. He enjoys strumming his guitar, playing hockey, and spending time with his wife and dog. Otherwise, you’ll find him at his computer meticulously spinning lines of clean WordPress code.

Follow Zack on Twitter.


membership_site

Chris Lema – How To Make a Membership Site

There are a lot of questions you need to answer before building a membership site. We’ve addressed many of those, in fact, in our session titled “Building Membership Sites”.

The list of tools available to help you build a membership site is almost endless. Oftentimes, it’s hard to know where to begin and which tools are best for your specific needs.

Chris Lema helps you cut through all of that. He lays out the feature sets of several popular choices for membership sites in a way that makes it incredibly easy to compare and decide what’s right for you. From here, we go through the process of actually building, populating, and testing the membership site; this course covers the entire experience, beginning to end.

About Chris Lema
Chris Lema is the CTO and Chief Strategist at Crowd Favorite. He’s also a daily blogger, a public speaker, and product strategist. He helps companies leverage WordPress, and helps WordPress companies find leverage.
Follow Chris on Twitter.


plugin_boilerplate

Tom McFarlin – Using the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate

Ever since creating the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate in 2011, Tom McFarlin has received numerous requests to detail exactly how he uses it and what incredible it can do. In this course, Tom takes us through all of that.

The WordPress Plugin Boilerplate is a standardized, organized, object-oriented foundation for building high-quality WordPress plugins. It follows WordPress coding standards and has received contributions from developers worldwide. In this course, we’ll talk through some of the organizational decisions that have gone into the Boilerplate, and we’ll take a look at how to build a WordPress plugin using the Boilerplate.

About Tom McFarlin
Tom McFarlin is a self-employed WordPress developer. He runs Pressware and lives just outside of Atlanta, Georgia with his wife, two daughters, and two dogs. He also blogs daily at tommcfarlin.com.

Follow Tom on Twitter.


unit_testing

Brian Richards – Up and Running with Unit Tests

Do you hate buggy software? I certainly do! One thing I hate even more, though, is creating buggy software.

After years of what I would call “traditional” development my eyes were opened to the power of Unit Tests. After that, everything changed. The way I used to build things included lots of manual testing, lots of broken code, and lots and lots of expletives. It’s one thing to write a function and assume it works, it’s another thing entirely to write a function and have it verifiably work, every time.

In this course we’ll start at the very, very beginning: What is a unit test, and why should you care? Then we’ll look at a couple of examples of what a unit test does, followed by a complete walkthrough the entire process of configuring your local development environment to support unit tests. We’ll also setup a new project with unit tests so that you can see how to set your best foot forward, as well as how to convert an existing project to use unit tests so that you can carefully and confidently refactor and improve legacy code. Finally, we’ll go the extra mile and setup remote, continuous testing integration. If you write software in any capacity, it is imperative that you learn and master the art of testing your code.

About Brian Richards
Hey, that’s me! I run WPSessions.com and get to build really cool things with WordPress (almost) every day.

Outside of WordPress, I spend a lot of my time chasing my two-year-old son around the house. And… that’s it really. I’m either building cool things with WordPress, thinking about building cool things with WordPress, or taking a break from WordPress and relaxing with my family.

Follow Brian on Twitter


VIP Exclusives

Each of these individual courses would be tremendously valuable on their own, and as a VIP Member you can access all of them!

If you haven’t already joined, or haven’t heard about the VIP program offered here, this should give you 5 compelling reasons to register. You’ll also gain access to every single live and recorded session we broadcast, all future courses, plus exclusive discounts from incredible shops and services, all for an entire year (and a few other things that are still forthcoming).

If you have any questions, I encourage you to leave them in the comments below or send them via the contact form.

Become a VIP

Announcing The Great Big Give-Away

WPS Great Big Give-Away

Finally. Finally I get to blow the lid off with this announcement I’ve been sitting on for months. MONTHS!

I’m paying $2,000 to bring one VIP to WCSF.

I’m giving one (1) lucky VIP Member a $2,000 USD cash prize specifically so they can join me at WordCamp San Francisco 2014 (WCSF). For everyone in the US, this should be enough to pay for your entire trip. For everyone outside the US, well, it should pay a good chunk of the way to get you here.

After four years of talking myself out of going, in 2013 I attended WCSF for the first time. My experience was beyond amazing, and I want to offer the same opportunity to you. If you’re serious about building websites with WordPress, you’ll seriously want to attend WCSF!

I’m also buying 3 VIPs a full-year membership elsewhere.

In addition to the grand prize of this give-away, I’m also providing three (3) other VIPs with a full year membership to any other training site of their choice, up to $350 per membership. Yes, I will pay more than what you paid to become a VIP for a premium membership at Lynda, or Treehouse, or Tuts+, or whatever other site you’d like to join – even if it’s not strictly related to web development!

The only hard requirement is that the site offers some level of instruction or education in order to help you better yourself. And, if it’s a really awesome site, I might join, too!

Who can win?

This give-away is exclusively for VIP Members. Plus, with the VIP program currently capped at a max of 100 members, this means each VIP has a 1 in 25 chance (or better) of winning one of these awesome prizes.

This is just my way of saying “thank you” to all VIPs for putting their faith in me and what I hope to accomplish with WPSessions in the next year.

Not a member yet? There’s still time!

The drawing for this give-away will not happen until August 1st. Everyone who registers as a VIP Member by 11:59pm PST on July 31st, 2014 is eligible to win. So, if you haven’t registered already, register to be a VIP today!

Become a VIP Today!

Rules for Entry

This give-away is restricted to VIP Members only. All VIP Members are automatically registered to win, no additional purchase is necessary. Must be at least 18 years old at time of drawing to win. Open to all VIP Members, worldwide.

The grand prize cash prize will be disbursed only after winner submits flight and lodging receipts as proof of intent to travel. I earnestly want you join me at WCSF, that’s the whole point!

Read the full legal terms of the give-away.

Get The Word Out!

I’d appreciate it greatly if you would share your thoughts about the give-away on your blog, via Twitter, Facebook, Google+, your local meetup, and anywhere else you talk about WordPress. Feel free to use the hashtag #WPS2WCSF. This has no impact on your chances of winning (neither positively nor negatively), it would just be you taking some time to be awesome. Of course, if you promoted it using an affiliate link, it could put money back in your pocket (30% of all referrals, in fact, if you’re also a VIP member).

VIP Prices Announced

wpsession_vipmember_thumbToday is the day! VIP Memberships are officially on sale.

For now they’re available by invitation only. I’ve already emailed my first 100 invitees with the opportunity to join. If you missed out on joining the invitation list, you can still sign up for the waiting list.

If any of the first 100 invitees fail to register by 9am EST on Tuesday I’ll be extending the same invitation to everyone on the waiting list.

The Price

VIP Memberships will start at $297/yr.

Yes, for less than the cost of a single college credit, you can get an entire year of education from the world’s foremost WordPress experts. That’s less than you would spend on a flight, or even a hotel room, when traveling to any WordCamp event – and those are only a single weekend!

How good is this offer? Well, let’s do some quick math.

At the rate of attending one $30 session per month, you’re already saving $63 per year. If you choose to attend both sessions each month, you’re saving $423 per year!

This doesn’t even factor in the many different benefits like your ability to download every video, watch all past sessions (a rolling $300 value), and all of the additional content that is VIP exclusive (in-depth courses, speaker video interviews, discounts to other WP shops, etc).

The Savings

All told, a VIP Membership contains approximately $1440 worth of priceable goods. At $297/yr, that’s already an 80% discount.

Early adopters won’t be paying $297, though. This week only, I’m introducing VIP Memberships at $247/yr, an immediate $50 savings to all of you amazing people ready to journey with me.

If you’re among the lucky group of people on on my invitation and waiting list, your price is even lower.

The first 100 people to register from either the invitation or waiting list will receive an additional $50 discount, bringing their grand total down to $197. That’s a full $100 off!

How do I register!?

Registration is currently by invitation only. You can request an invitation by clicking the banner below.

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Introducing the New VIP Program: Level Up Your WordPress

Update 2014-07-05: The VIP Invitation list is now full, but you can join the waiting list to be invited as soon as space is available by using the same registration form, linked below.

For months I’ve been coordinating, planning, and building the “next big thing” for WPSessions. Today I’m thrilled to share it with you: WPSessions VIP.

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I’ve grown tremendously as a developer in the past year – real, measurable, meaningful growth – much of it thanks to WPSessions instructors. WPSessions has budded into an incredible resource, not only for myself but for hundreds of others, too. I alluded to all of these things, plus the hint of more to come, in my Year in Review post a couple weeks back.

What is WPSessions VIP?

You can read all about the perks of being a VIP member on the VIP announcement page, but here’s the tl; dr version:

  • Access to all sessions – past, present, and future – for as long as you remain a member.
  • Access to all-new long-form courses – Pre-recorded, deep dives into specific WordPress topics (e.g. “Writing Your First WordPress Plugin”, “Understanding and Leveraging Caching”, “Building a Portfolio Site”, etc.).
  • Consistent New Content – Last year I committed to add 12 new sessions, we’re already at 8 this year and we’ve only just begun! I’ll continue to add live sessions and pre-recorded courses every month to the benefit of us all.
  • Downloadable Videos – Take the entirety of the WPS library wherever you go, even if you’re going – gasp – offline!
  • Exclusive Speaker Interviews – Watch and learn great behind-the-scenes details from many of the experts who present on WPS (and even some who haven’t, yet).
  • Member-only Discounts – Save bundles of money on quality products and services from companies you know and love
  • Better Affiliate Payout – VIP members will earn a 30% commission, instead of the standard 20%, on the affiliate program we just announced.
  • Community Forum – Discuss the sessions, courses, tricky project issues, whatever you have going on (note that StackExchange is an excellent place for WP-specific coding problems).

As you can see, the new program includes a ton of new benefits. Prices will be announced soon, and those on the invitation list will get the best deal.

Available by Invitation Only, with a discount

In order to provide the best possible experience and level of attention for VIP members, I’m limiting the registration to invitation only.

The first 100 people to register for the invitation list will also receive a nice discount towards their membership.

I’ll begin sending invitations early next week, so you have until Friday to get on the invitation list.

Is WPSessions VIP for you?

I know this program sounds pretty incredible, and I truly believe it is, but it’s not for everyone.

There are a lot of people looking to “become a WordPress expert in 24 hours”, and this isn’t going to do that (honestly, nothing can do that, and anyone who says differently is selling you lies). There are even more people looking to become incredible developers without putting in the necessary work. The VIP program isn’t for them.

The VIP program is for people who are serious about improving their skills, who understand that it’s only through determination and hard work that they will see measurable progress, and who choose to press forward because they know it’s worth it – both for themselves, and for their career. WPSessions VIP enables that process to happen faster, more thoroughly, and with a higher quality of mentor than you’ll find anywhere else.

I’m not selling some kind of magical shortcut here. I’m selling the right answers from the hard-won experience of other expert developers. It will help you to learn faster, but you need to put in the time to soak in these experiences and shared knowledge, and maximize your return on investing in yourself.

Request an invitation today

You can read all about the new VIP Program using the link below. Thank you for believing in WPSessions, and I truly hope I can help you be empowered by WordPress.

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