There has been a lot of talk about the New 4.9.1 WordPress Update (Gutenberg) named after Johannes Gutenberg a printer, breaking from the Jazz-related titles in the past. Matt Mullenweg explains his thoughts on why they did what they did in this post on his blog.
There has been a lot of small business owners upset at the new turn the WordPress platform has taken, claiming it hurts their business. This is the point of my article.
You must evolve as your business ecosystem evolves, if you remain stagnant you will die off. The web and all of its parts continually need to grow and evolve as the internet users evolve. I have stated many times that many users will never see your desktop version of your website because the mobile market has overtaken the desktop market already and will continue to grow. More people are using their mobile devices to get the content they are wanting. At last check, WordPress has a 28% footprint across the web. They are working on a 51% adoption rate as they should to grow as a company. That is huge, not just for them but for the WordPress Community as well. Grow with us!
If you are a one-trick pony in the WordPress Community you are going to lose, you as an agency or freelancer need to grow and evolve. You need to follow the market and let the consumers drive your product and or service offerings or you will no longer be relevant.
If you are a plugin developer, there is still a market for what you are offering, but you might want to be looking at the future and follow your market and change as needed to stay in business.
If you are a theme developer, you might look at expanding your offerings. If you are in the WordPress Community and you are not following Make.WordPress.org you are just wrong. You need to be able to “work with” WordPress and how can you do that if you are not paying attention and contributing.
At Kendrick Creativ we have changed gears several times since our business started back in 1999. We have expanded and removed service offerings over the year to serve our customer base. Our services have always been driven by the market we serve. We have always been customer-centric and will continue to work toward being the best agency for our customers.
This is not a new development in business, this is something that has been going on since the beginning of business. It is simple supply and demand, if there is no demand for your product or service, there is not a reason to exist.
I have written about community collaborations in the past this is another way to stay relevant. If you offer a service or product and you know someone else in your community that could enhance your business and you could enhance theirs all while better serving the customer, that is a win-win-win. Everyone is happy and it makes sure your business can continue to succeed.
Look at some of the big business that no longer exists or had to file bankruptcy and become a much smaller business, because they did not move with the market.
- Compaq computers
- Woolworths
- Circuit City
- Enron
- Blockbuster
There are just a few, and unless you want to meet the same fate, you need to learn to be agile and move with your market and remain relivent to your customers. Some of you might not even be old enough to remember several of those companies. Here are two you should have heard of Kodak and Polaroid, they create the camera industry and we slowly phased out because they could not change with the market.
So when I hear people get upset about WordPress making changes that are a positive move for their company I have to ask. You know your business depends on their business to exist, are you working with them, or are you going all “Lone Ranger” and wondering why you are left in the dust?
I always say if you want to make a bunch of money, quit focusing on making a bunch of money focus on your customers and creating the best customer experience and the money will come from happy customers.
