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Selected quotes:

" I was skeptical because I didn't understand how you guys were making any money on it. International people, but it's it definitely seemed too good to be true. Because, you know, we've pulled in freelancers, certainly for more than your monthly cost just for a single project. And it's been a mixed bag and whether it went well or not."

"A third of the internet is on WordPress or something. But we could not find people that were a good combination of knew their stuff, and then reliable and good with communication. And sometimes we found experts who were great. They were expensive, and we wouldn't hear from them for a week. And it was just like, so I think that's the big piece. It's not just the technical ability. It's "Do we hear back from you?"."

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1. Hi Eagan, what is the name of your company?

We started as Get Found Madison (SEO Agency), and we also have Caravan Digital (E-Commerce, PPC, Paid Social, Email). We're very slowly trying to rebrand to Caravan Digital, so we're not as local as Madison, the name of our town in Wisconsin in the US. So we're trying to go more broad. Caravan Digital was for e-commerce, and now we're thinking, okay, how do we make this multipurpose, how can we touch on the senior living as well, and then other verticals? So, we niched, and now we're de-niching. We kind of have two brand names right now, https://getfoundmadison.com/ and https://www.caravandigital.com/

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2. What is the size of your agency?‍

Basically, 5 full-time employees and some freelancers.

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3. Can you give an overview of Caravan Digital?

We are a digital marketing agency. We've worked with local businesses, we're good with E-commerce businesses, and in some cases, B2B as well. We really started in SEO, and we've gotten more into Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads. And email marketing, particularly the automation piece of getting a lead magnet and setting up flows. If it's email, we use Klaviyo to help customers help our clients drive more sales through their email lists in an automated way. So not just newsletters, but a kind of smart automation, with the shopping cart and with the website.

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4. What is your main offer?‍

The offer that we're working with right now is for senior living. Assisted living memory care- these are the facilities that take care of the elderly in the US. And we're testing out an offer to just do pay for performance. And we only get paid if they get new residents. So we're running Google, Bing, and Facebook ads on their behalf. We're helping them track those leads and ideally follow up with those leads and get them booked into tours and sales meetings. And we only get paid if they get a new resident moving. So unlike other agencies or other offers, where you pay on a project basis, or a setup fee, or retainer,we do all that up front, I pay my team, and then the client pays for the ads. And when the ads work, we basically get a piece of the first month's rent.
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5. Awesome! And in what is your role? What do you do in the business?

On a good day, I'm Head of Sales and Marketing. I think I often get involved, again, with client work in terms of setting strategy or troubleshooting when there are problems as well. But in general, I want my team to be managing the clients and doing the fulfillment and for me to be doing the marketing and the sales and getting us new clients.
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6. Interesting. And what are some common challenges faced by businesses in your industry?

I think differentiation is a challenge. And even as I'm talking to senior living, assisted living companies, and I'm telling them that this is a pay for performance thing, they're saying, “well, how do you do it?” I say, we use Google ads, Bing Ads, Facebook ads, and they respond: “Oh, we've tried that. We've already done that.” I'm showing in some cases going from 82% occupancy to 95% and a half percent occupancy in nine months. The way we're differentiating is just when we get paid. It's not just about results. It's kind of the relationship with the communication, setting expectations. Website stuff also comes up all the time.  When we're trying to drive traffic and they're having all kinds of technical issues. The site's too slow. They're having errors or things aren't working on the site, or things are breaking, or they don't look good on mobile, or all kinds of other issues. And those are just huge headaches for us that we don't want to deal with.

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7. Next question is, what problems or challenges were you facing that led you to seek our service? 

It's been an ongoing challenge when clients need WordPress support or WooCommerce support. We have all kinds of technical challenges that are out of our wheelhouse. We often guide especially local business clients to WordPress, but we don't welcome all the headaches that come with that. And for us, that's updates, that's things breaking, that's technical issues. It's often annoying niggling little design issues or responsiveness issues. It can be front end, it can be back end stuff, it's just not what we're trying to work on. We're trying to drive traffic and get more business for our clients. And when something breaks, it's a huge headache for us.

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8. What caught your attention about using Work Hero?

The DC (Dynamite Circle) connection was helpful. There's some context there: what we're doing, what kind of businesses we have, and then the particularly appealing about your offer was the flat fee. As we talked about, it was like, we've got a handful of clients there who just need some WordPress development. And so I think I think that was particularly a good fit, it helps, it's helpful for me to be able to plan that this is a set amount, even so that I can know and plan on it. I think of it more as a fixed cost rather than a variable cost. And that's helpful for me to know here's what we pay Work Hero that covers WordPress needs for any of our clients on WordPress. I think with the flat fee and the unlimited fixes I was skeptical because I didn't understand how they were making any money. International team, but it definitely seemed too good to be true. Because, we've pulled in freelancers for more than your monthly cost just for a single project and it's been a mixed bag whether it went well or not.

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9. Have you tried a service like ours before?

Not on an ongoing retainer basis. It's always been ad hoc stuff through up work and things like that. And we knew it was it was puzzling to us, because it's the whole thing. A third of the internet is on WordPress. But we could not find people that were a good combination of knew their stuff, and then reliable and good with communication. And sometimes we found experts who were great. They were expensive, and we wouldn't hear from them for a week. So I think that's the big piece, it’s not just the technical ability. It's "Do we hear back from you?”‍

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10. Makes total sense. And what solutions did you have before using us?

I had someone in house who was a computer science graduate, but still a very junior developer and didn't really know WordPress specifically. I've worked with people locally in our town, who are very good senior WordPress developers, but they don't charge enough they're too busy and like they don't have enough time. They're very good when they're good, but then like spotty in terms of support. And then the other thing I would say is just freelancers on sites like Upwork. And I would say that was always just a crapshoot.

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11. What reservations did you have before starting with us?

I was just wondering if it really was possible was too good to be true. I was thinking, how good is this support going to be? What will they be able to do? And I think an ongoing question, which is maybe now what you're asking is just what are the things that fall outside the scope of work or where I know I should go to someone else and kind of in our experience. If we're redoing a site, if we're launching a lot of designs that I kind of asked my team for feedback too, because they're working with you guys as well. And they said, Work Hero is great on tickets. They're great on site speed, and many other things. 
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12. This is the last question. It's like, tell us which category below you like most about work here and why. We have trust performance, resolute resolution, time communication and security.

Resolution time is very good. Again, contrasting that with local senior WordPress developers we've worked with where we wouldn't hear back from them. So that's a big deal. You guys know what you're doing as well. Trust and security are all there. I think you guys are hitting the sweet spot for agencies. And you're responsive. And that's what we really need.

Thank you so much, Eagan!

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* Value calculated based on a US$80/h WP US developer versus the total Eagan has spent with us using us for 477 hours in the past 1.5 years.

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