September 8, 2024 • 49 mins
FROM ARCHIVE With WordPress powering a third of the internet, Alex Denning offers a look at his journey and the innovative strategies his agency employs to support WordPress businesses. From his early days at Miniclip to founding WP Shout and ultimately Ellipsis, Alex's story is a testament to the power of passion and persistence.
Curious about the steps of building a successful remote team? Alex opens up about the challenges he faced transitioning from a solo freelancer to managing a diverse team. Drawing from the principles in "High Output Management," he emphasizes the importance of delegation and trust. You'll find out how Alex leverages his network within the WordPress community and the strategic roles within his team to propel Ellipsis Marketing forward. Learn why autonomy and progress are crucial for a thriving team dynamic.
Struggling with remote work productivity? This episode covers mastering the art of "deep work." Alex shares practical tips on using tools like Basecamp for asynchronous communication and timers for focused work periods. Whether you're trying to balance homeschooling or seeking ways to maintain your energy levels, this conversation offers tips to optimize your remote work environment.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (00:00):
Hello everybody.
It's Alex again from the RemoteWork Life podcast.
I hope you're doing well.
I have another exceptionalguest with me today.
I have Alex Denning, who is thefounder of Ellipsis Marketing.
Now, ellipsis is a digitalmarketing agency for WordPress
businesses, and their clientsare WordPress product businesses
(00:23):
and WordPress agencies, and Iwant to say a big thank you,
alex, to you for joining metoday on the Remote Work Life
podcast.
Yeah, thanks for having meExcellent and, as I always do,
I'm quite inquisitive when itcomes to getting to know my
guests.
I want to know their backstory.
How do they get to where theyare now?
(00:45):
So, alex, uh, please tell us.
Tell us, how did you get to uh,becoming the founder of
ellipsis?
Alex Denning (00:55):
sure?
Um, so I have been workingremotely full-time for the last
four years now and I've beenrunning Ellipsis for most of
that time.
As you mentioned, we live inthe WordPress ecosystem, so
(01:16):
WordPress powers a third of theinternet and there's a big
ecosystem of products andagencies product conservators
around that, and thosebusinesses help people do more
stuff with their websites.
So like on the agency side, forexample.
So like all the Facebook'snon-Facebook product stuff runs
(01:40):
on WordPress.
One of our clients handles thatfor them On the product side.
You might want a contact formon WordPress and one of our
clients handles that for them Onthe product side.
You might want a contact formand then you can post a plug-in
to do that.
Or you might want a contactform which integrates with your
CRM and does a whole bunch ofautomation stuff and also lets
you sell stuff and you can seehow it gets out of hand quite
(02:01):
quickly.
That's where we live, that'swhat we do.
Um, how did I end up here?
I, I guess by accident, because, um, I like solving problems,
um, and, yeah, I get to solvethem all day and people pay me
(02:21):
money for them.
So I've been involved in, like,the wordpress space for a long
time, um.
So I knew a lot of peoplearound there, so I uh started
off just doing bits of work,freelance, um, and it was stuff
I enjoyed doing.
And then I was as a freelancer,I was booked out the whole time
.
So at that point it was eitherlike, do you do that forever?
(02:43):
Maybe put your rates up a bit?
Um, I decided that I didn'twant to do that.
I wanted to be able to solvemore problems for people, um, so
that's why I started the agencyand wordpress.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (02:56):
I didn't realize it was a third of the
internet that wordpress powersat the minute.
I'm a big wordpress fan myself.
It's just such an intuitivepiece of actually you know what
I mean if it's intuitive to me.
Maybe that's minute I'm a bigwordpress fan myself.
It's just such an intuitivepiece of well, actually, you
know what I mean.
If it's intuitive to me, maybethat's because I'm in it quite
often.
I'm not a program or anythinglike that, but I can actually
get work my way around it nowthat I've been in it for years.
But it's one of those thingsthat is just so relatively easy
(03:21):
to understand for a newbie onceyou sort of get your head around
it, would you say a big problem, a big project that, uh, we,
the community, have been workingon.
Alex Denning (03:30):
It's open source, so, like, uh, everyone can
contribute.
Um, a big problem we have beenworking on is how to make this
initial experience a lot better.
Um, so last year, I guess theend of the year before that um.
So last year, I guess the endof the year before that uh, with
wordpress 5, there was a neweditor, um, which has some
teething issues, but goingforward, that's going to make
(03:51):
that a lot easier to do.
Um and the.
The market that everyone'sinterested in, um is the, the
small business with no website.
Um, because that's how a lot ofpeople get started and those
obviously sometimes turn intobigger businesses, um, or even
just medium-sized ones.
Um, and it's that initialexperience that, uh, we're
(04:15):
trying to work on.
So, yeah, you're I.
I could tell you didn't want tosay it's hard to use, yeah I
didn't want to say that I meanit is at times.
We're working on it, yeah soit's hard to use.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (04:28):
Don't bother using it, just go to alex
and he'll sort you out.
Basically is what we're tryingto say.
But I think what's soattractive about wordpress where
small business is a business isa concern is the, I suppose,
the barrier to entry.
Well, if you look beyond thetech, it's, it's pretty, it's
pretty good and it's you canbolt things on and it's scalable
and you can make it look reallyprofessional if you're working
(04:51):
with the right people.
Alex Denning (04:52):
So, uh, yeah, exactly so.
So we don't make websites.
Our clients are the people whomake the stuff that you can bolt
on um.
So yeah, we're all all workingon that yeah.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (05:04):
So alex is the guy that can really sort of
, yeah, um, do all the singingand dancing in terms of the, the
marketing behind all of that,and but I think, yeah, wordpress
is.
I love wordpress.
What can I say anyway?
Well, alex, I mean, I know thisas well from looking.
Obviously, I've done my mybackground research on you.
(05:25):
You did a, you did a degree inin politics and international
studies and you've had quite aninteresting journey since since
then.
Tell us a bit more about that II'm especially interested in in
mini clip yeah, so, um, yeah,so, I did a degree in politics.
Alex Denning (05:48):
Um, I have never really used it.
I guess it like taught me howto like think critically.
Um, I do use that a lot, so Ican I can write very long things
, so maybe that was useful.
Um, before that, though, I uhworked at miniclipcom, um, which
(06:11):
is now a mobile games company.
At the time, it was for, like,free casual games Um years ago.
Minicabcom was uh like theplace where you'd spend your
(06:34):
lunch breaks, um, and I got thatjob because I knew someone from
the WordPress community who wastheir director of web
development, who, uh, long storyshort, I now co-author a weekly
newsletter with um, and hedoesn't.
He also works remotely now anddoesn't work at Winnipeg as well
(06:56):
oh, so yeah, I did this.
I did their social media um,which is cool, and that I
learned a lot about that.
That was an office job inLondon and, yeah, it was my job
to keep the community updatedabout the stuff we're doing with
(07:16):
our games.
That's something a lot about,like the working in a
results-orientated environment.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (07:27):
Yeah, it was good fun In terms of you
obviously made your progress nowwhere you, I suppose, went more
and graduated towards theentrepreneurial side of things.
You had WordPress, WP Shout,which looks like again very much
a strong WordPress connectionthere, and tell us a bit about
(07:49):
that and then, after actuallyactually told us about, after
you've told us about that, tellus about your typical clients at
the moment sure, um, so don'tbe.
Alex Denning (07:58):
Shout is a WordPress development tutorial
blog, and and it's still goingtoday, although I haven't run it
for I think like six or sevenyears.
Um, and yeah, it teaches peoplewordpress development.
When I was first figuring outstuff with wordpress, uh, I
(08:20):
wanted to know how to do thingsand I couldn't find that.
Um, and, being quite naive atthe time, I thought, oh, I know
I can figure this out and I knowall the answers.
So I made that website and thatwas where I first got to see
what growing an audience lookedlike and all that stuff.
And that was really helpfulearlier on for just figuring
(08:44):
stuff out.
So that's also where a lot ofthe WordPress connections come
from.
So, even though that was sevenyears ago, you can draw a
straight line through there.
That was our new Bennett miniclip, and here we are.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (08:58):
And you haven't looked back since.
And now you're working.
You've established yourself asa freelance worker.
How was that transition fromfreelance to to a business owner
?
Alex Denning (09:09):
yeah.
So, um, as I said, I was as afreelancer.
I was booked out all the time,um, it was just a good problem
to have, but still a problem, um.
So I knew I wanted to be ableto solve more problems and that
meant growing a team.
Um, to start with, I justgradually started working with
(09:32):
freelancers on individualprojects, um, and then over time
, I started getting a bit morerevenue and just took things
very slowly.
Um, there are four of us now, um, we're currently hiring number
five.
Um, and we're now at a pointwhere we can pick that up quite
(09:53):
quickly.
Um, because we've got all thestructures in place.
But it, yeah, it took a whileto to really get used to it.
I had to.
I now don't know what's goingon with client work In the best
possible way, yeah, but it tookme, like, I guess, a year, 18
months, to be okay with that.
(10:14):
We're now at a point where Ican totally trust my team to get
on with stuff, and I guess itwasn't I didn't trust them
before.
It was that I just needed tolet it go.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (10:28):
It's funny because we just had a
conversation with another remoteworking practitioner who's been
in the game for quite a while,pilar Orti, and she was
literally words you've justdescribed there, the words
you've just articulated, arejust exactly what she said in
terms of letting go and justallowing the team to get on with
(10:51):
it.
Alex Denning (10:53):
Something that I kind of big, really useful book
I read last year.
It's called High OutputManagement.
It's by the former president ofintel.
Um, there's one thing in thathe was, uh, saying that he's
this analogy where I want todelegate to you holding these
(11:15):
scissors.
And you give your team memberthe scissors, but then you hold
on to them by the top so theycan't take them.
And then you say, why didn'tyou take, why aren't you holding
the scissors?
I, it's because you haven't letgo of the scissors.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (11:27):
And I just read that and thought, oh,
that's me I like that analogy,though, because it's just yeah,
it's good, it's good, it sayseverything.
Only one goal.
I mean, if you don't let go ofthe scissors, how are they
supposed to get on with thingsand start the work?
Alex Denning (11:41):
yeah, so after uh , I, you know, let go of being
responsible for holding thescissors, then we start to make
a bit of progress excellent.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (11:53):
So what's the makeup of your team now?
Alex Denning (11:56):
you said you've got four on the team yeah, so,
um, we have a head of contentand conversions and Natasha
leads our content and conversionfocused projects.
So that's like regular contentmarketing stuff, which is
(12:20):
probably most of our work day today, as well as our copy
projects.
And recently we've had an emailinto the mix as well, um,
because again, it was justresponding to what people were
asking us for.
Um, and people were asking usfor email or other people
weren't doing their email and itwas a really good opportunity,
so we figured we needed to stepin for people.
(12:40):
Um, uh, kaylee's our SEOspecialist.
She's our SEO content manager.
She does our specialist SEOstuff and also a lot of the
content process.
She joined Zella this year Justmore capacity and expertise
(13:01):
around SEO, which has been greatso far.
Peter handles our promotion andoutreach stuff.
We're currently hiring aconversions manager, um, who's
gonna just add more capacity, um, for our conversion focus
projects.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (13:20):
Okay, okay yeah, that's good.
I mean what I'd suggest as well.
If that is you, if you'relistening out there and you are
a conversions manager or haveworked in cro, yeah, yeah we
stopped using cro because ourclients didn't know what it
(13:41):
meant.
Yeah, exactly cro, if you, ifyou know what that word means,
then you're probably the personfor this job.
So what I urge you to do is getacross to Ellipsis' website,
which is getellipsiscom, andhave a look before you reach out
(14:03):
and speak to anybody or replyto the job or anything like that
.
Alex Denning (14:07):
look at the website something I should do
which I haven't done is we don'thave a careers page, so if you
want to actually apply, uh it'soff.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (14:13):
we work remotelycom I'll tell you what,
though.
There's so many smallbusinesses that don't have a
careers page, but I think justas important as the career
having a careers page is have ishaving the content, so that
people can understand what thebusiness is about.
Alex Denning (14:28):
And yeah, so we do have that, and we're so small
that when people tell me thatthey've been following us for a
long time in their cover letters, I just don't believe them
there's a tip for you don't justuh put that into your cover
letter.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (14:46):
Make it a bit more, pay a bit more
attention to detail, and I thinkit would help as well if you
know a thing or two, I guess,about wordpress, I'd assume yeah
, although that's not actually,that's not as essential as you
would think, we can teach thewordpress stuff.
I want the like marketingexpertise okay, well, big clue
(15:08):
for you there.
I mean, it's not every day thatyou get to hear the founder or
the the owner of a business talkabout the kind of person that
they want in the job, so it's amassive clue for you there.
If you're, you're out therelistening and you need need work
at the moment.
So check out, get ellipsiscomand the team's content, seo,
promotions and outreach andyou're that conversions person
(15:29):
who's just waiting to apply tothis job.
Alex Denning (15:32):
Yeah.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (15:33):
Okay, who knows, who knows, okay.
So we've talked a bit aboutEllipsis and how it all got
together and a little bit, Isuppose in a little while we're
going to talk about what thispodcast was really.
What I really want to talkabout this podcast because Alex
(15:53):
is really focused on reallybeing able to focus while
working, and I know that's a bigproblem, especially for people
who are new to remote work, butit's not exclusively to that, um
, to those sorts of people,because remote work has its
challenges in terms of work andin the I guess, in the climate
(16:17):
that we're living in now, we'renot going to obviously go too
much into that, but in theclimate that we're living in now
, I myself am at home.
Believe it or not, I'm at homewith my kids you would never
know but I'm mixinghomeschooling with work.
So I'm trying to really putslots in place where I can do
(16:39):
the homeschooling, which we dida bit in the morning, and then
focus on my work and then otherstuff around that.
So alex, I hope can help me interms of understanding what's
called deep working.
Have you ever heard thatexpression before?
Deep working?
So we're going to focus a biton that in a moment, but before
we go to that, I want to talk abit more about your team, alex.
(17:00):
In terms of what because I meanI know there's some, obviously,
managers out there, they'relistening in terms of how
they've gone from being in aco-located scenario to now being
in a scenario where they'reforced to work remotely and
they've had some challengesthemselves or having some
challenges themselves.
What challenges do you havewhen you were first starting out
(17:23):
, other than you mentioned the,the trust issue and the letting
go issue, any other challengesthat you had?
Alex Denning (17:28):
yeah.
So, um, I do think that doingremote work is hard.
I think it's really good, but Ialso think it's hard, um, and
it's.
It took me like years to getproperly into a rhythm that
really worked long term.
(17:49):
So if, yeah, as we're recordingthis, there's a global pandemic
going on, and if you areworking from home for the first
time, or you normally do it oneor two days a week, and now
you're doing it all the time, itis going to be a shock, and my
fear is that unless yeah, Iguess unless people take the, I
(18:22):
feel like people might have abad time and that would be bad,
and that, instead of this beinga great remote work opportunity,
people might experience it forthe first time.
I think it's rubbish.
Um, yeah, yeah, and then goback to it.
It is hard, it doesn't requireadapting.
Um, there's a couple of thingsthat we do.
So this deep work idea is athing that I like.
Personally, I'm a big fan of um.
(18:46):
We structure our communicationasynchronously.
Um, whether you want to do thatfor working from home for two
months, I don't know, because itrequires, like, I guess, if you
, if you, communicatedifferently, it requires a
totally different way of working, of course.
So we use Basecamp, and thatmeans that it is set up for
(19:12):
asynchronous communication, ieeverything's on a task and when
you need something, you can saywhat you need on that task.
It then goes to whoever you'vesent it to and they've got the
time to write like a properresponse when it suits them, um,
rather than just sending offpings through slack or whatever
(19:38):
um and demanding uh attentionimmediately.
That lets people like we talkabout protecting attention um,
and respond when they're able to.
For me, that that is thatunlocks like the.
The big benefit of uh remotework, which is you can set up
your day to be able to focus howyou want to do.
(19:59):
If you've got to deal with uhlike teaching your kids in the
morning, then you can set asidethe time later on, um to make
the progress.
That's really interesting, um.
We'll talk about them more in asecond.
One of the other things, though,that we have done, that has
been um really good, and I don'tknow that that many remote
(20:25):
companies do it.
We sat down to try and work outwhat was good and bad about
being remote, and one of thethings you do lose is kind of
just spontaneous collaboration,yes, so we just tried to work
out how to add that back in.
So we ended up with a monthlyco-working day.
(20:48):
So we specifically set aside aday where we specifically
co-work and we do screen sharingand we do a group call.
I'll do a team update to startwith and then we'll go through
some general issues and then, ifwe've got specific things to
work through even if we don'tneed everyone there, we've got
(21:08):
everyone there and then thatcreates the opportunities for
the more random collaborationyou might get.
In an office you also lose somegeneral chats harder.
Yeah, definitely, if you useSlack, maybe you can have a
general channel or a randomchannel and do that kind of
(21:30):
thing there.
As we don't, that's a bitharder.
So solution again we justschedule a monthly call in which
we just have a chat.
I know some people do thatweekly because we're in
different time zones.
We found that monthly workedbetter.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (21:53):
Is everything that you do?
Is everything that you doasynchronous, then, given that
you're in different time zones?
Alex Denning (22:00):
so, uh, we default to asynchronous, um, it
probably sounds a lot moreefficient than it is in the.
I haven't looked at base campsince we started recording, but
as soon as we're finished I willcheck it, um, and if if anyone
needs anything from me, I willrespond to that immediately.
(22:21):
Base camp also does haveone-to-one chat as well as group
chat, um, and we do use those afair bit.
In general, though, the likegeneral approach is to uh
respond asynchronously, um, andwhen you do need that time to to
say I'm doing something else,I'm not going to respond to
(22:41):
stuff.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (22:42):
Uh, that's absolutely fine no, I get it
and I it's.
I hear what you're saying aswell about the adaptation and I
I am slightly worried as well interms of the, the, the actual.
You mentioned the pandemicbecause originally the kind of
posts that you were seeingacross social media were okay.
(23:02):
So now that we're we're beingforced to work remotely,
everybody's going to see thebenefits of working remotely.
But that's not necessarily thecase because there's so many.
There is a period of adaptationand you know, my fear is that
people may kind of shy away fromit because of the.
This whole experience is justeverything on top of them all at
(23:25):
once, when you know that thisexperience that we're we're I
guess we're in now to me is notreally a true reflection of what
it is to to be able to workremotely because you have so
much more food in them than youdo right at this moment, you
know.
Alex Denning (23:40):
So, yeah, yeah, so I'm working from home right
now.
I normally go to a co-workingspace.
Even that's uh, that's justlike going to an office and I
spend my mornings there and Icycle in and it's nice being at
home all the time.
I don't like doing that and Isort of like took some time to
adapt.
What getting a co-working spacewas actually one of the things
(24:01):
that uh took that time, um, andwas really helpful.
So, so, if it isn't becauseyou're having a crisis, just
give it a bit more time.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (24:13):
Yeah, well , yeah, I'd second that because
it's just, you shouldn't bestuck in one room or one place,
you should have a bit of varietythere.
But yeah, we can't because ofthe way things are at the moment
.
But okay, well, yeah, I meansimilar challenges.
I mean, don't just think you'realone in terms of the
challenges.
As you've heard, alex has hadhis challenges.
(24:36):
It's taken him a while to adapt.
It took me a while to adapt aswell.
So I just think the best thingto do is just talk to somebody
who has either had similarchallenges to yourself or just
just talk, just just um, talkabout them, and, like Alex did
he, they talked about you knowwhat the benefits are and what
(25:00):
remote work is all about, and Ithink that communication in
itself, getting it out into theopen, can actually, uh, at least
start to remedy the situation.
You know?
Alex Denning (25:12):
Yeah, for sure.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (25:15):
In terms of, you know, let's talk
pre-pandemic.
Yeah, what effect did remotework have on your life in
general?
Alex Denning (25:35):
life in general.
So I guess the main thing isthat, uh, the most like
practical thing is that my wifeneeds to move for work, like two
years ago, and sure, no problem.
And if, uh, I'd been stucksomewhere else, that would be
really difficult.
Having that, uh, flexibility ishuge.
And if she needs me again likeI guess I missed my co-working
space but, uh, I'm sure they'llhave me back or I can find a new
(25:57):
one is those I can work fromanywhere.
That's the big one.
Um, and yeah, I mean, internally, we talk a lot about like
setting the environment that youneed personally to be able to
do really good work.
Um, and that is, uh, yeah, Imean that's like what that's.
(26:24):
One of the things that reallymotivates me is having a really
good impact, having to do reallygood stuff.
Um, and yeah, this like deepwork idea we've touched on is
one of the ways that Ipersonally find really effective
for me to be able to do that.
Um, like, I guess I run aremote business and that's
(26:46):
pretty cool, I think, if we'dhave to, if we'd have to get an
office or whatever.
That's a whole different world.
I don't know how to lease anoffice.
I don't want to know how tolease an office.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (26:58):
I don't blame you with all the costs and
all that sort of thing, but ifyou're comfortable in that
environment, which noteverybody's comfortable with
remote work, but if you are,then do it, okay, well, I I mean
, as we've touched on deep work,let's let's get into the whole
topic of deep work, because thiscould provide you with some,
some ideas in terms of, uh, notjust the scenario you're in at
(27:21):
the moment, but your future, howyou can apply it to, to your
work in general, not you know.
So let's, let's get into that,shall we?
What?
What does it mean?
What does deep work mean?
And sure, yeah, let's do that.
Alex Denning (27:35):
Do work as a thesis by a computer science
professor called cal newport um,in which he argues that being
able to focus for sustainedperiods of time is increasingly
a competitive advantage and thatwe've forgotten how to do it.
(27:57):
And people mainly do so-calledshallow work, which he defines
as things that aren't hard andor you could easily train
someone to do in, say, sixmonths, um, whereas a deep work
is a thing that provides theseoutside returns for and it is
something that, specifically,you can do, no one else can do,
(28:19):
um, and that's where you reallydrive value.
And, yeah, I came across thisidea when I was starting to work
remotely.
That's really shaped how I doit.
It is not especially complex,that's basically it.
He has written a book on itwhich I'd probably recommend,
(28:42):
but it's like okay, the book'sgood because it repeats the
message so much, um, if you justgot it from that brief summary,
then you're all good well, whatI'll do is I'll leave any sort
of resources that we talk aboutin the show notes, because I
think this is useful.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (29:02):
This is really not.
It's useful, yeah, so I'llleave that in the show notes.
What I'm going to ask as wellabout I mean, obviously we're on
this segment now about deepwork.
What are there any particularsorts of tasks that deep work is
suited to, or is it justgenerally across the board?
Alex Denning (29:17):
yeah, so, um, what cal recommends is splitting
up your deep and shallow work.
Um.
I also mix in another bookrecommendation, uh, something
called a book called work clean,uh, which is actually about how
chefs organize their uhworkstations, and one of the
(29:42):
ideas in that book is is processtime, um, and if, if you're a
chef like you, you need to chopup your veg before I don't know
what I'm talking about.
You gotta chop out your vegbefore you do the other chef
stuff, that's really on the sideyeah, um, so in in practical
(30:05):
terms, that just that idea fromthat book was really helpful.
Um, and say I schedule in, sayafter lunch, half an hour
process time and that's where Ideal with my emails.
That's how I go on slack andcheck um any wordpress stuff.
So I go on twitter, um, andrespond to anything that needs
like under five minutes, sayanything over, that is your deep
(30:29):
work, um, and I guess you mightneed to.
So like sending a specific hardemail could be one bit of deep
work.
Got a right proposal.
Um, you might specificallyschedule that in um, say we're
working on, say I'm working onsome strategy stuff for a client
.
I like to work out the wholeday for that and I don't have
(30:52):
any process time on those days,and that means that when you say
, have your lunch, you've gotthe opportunity to take a break.
But also maybe you come up withthe extra ideas which are going
to move the needle for theclient.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (31:06):
Right, and that deep work, yeah, you've
kind of given a good, a goodview of that, so it could be
anything.
I suppose it's not necessarilya standard time, but anything
over that's anything.
That is not quick work,essentially something that
requires you to really sort offocus, sit down and really um,
(31:31):
let's call it 20 minutes, 20minutes?
Alex Denning (31:34):
okay, it's an email that requires a like, just
a response, then that's idealcandidate for your process time.
Um, if it's something thatrequires more thought, it's
something to set aside.
So the big advantage of that is, uh, that you are much more
effective with what when you aredoing stuff.
(31:55):
So it's not, oh, I see an email, I reply and it interrupts me
and I get back to doing whateverI was doing before.
Is you?
Because you focus all yourattention and don't have these
distractions available?
Um, it means that you're ableto get them much more rich
insights and better results thatonly you can get, um, and
(32:20):
that's why it's so powerful andwhat are your?
Alex Wilson-Campbell (32:26):
how do you go about achieving an
environment?
I don't know Achieving yourenvironment for deep work.
Alex Denning (32:38):
So I need to know I'm not going to be distracted.
That's a good one.
I know a lot of people usenoise-canceling headphones.
I actually use commercial eardefenders.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (32:50):
Okay, Fair enough, that is really focusing
.
Oh my gosh.
Alex Denning (32:55):
Yeah, because I just couldn't find any
noise-cancelling headphones Iliked.
I'll blame you, I'll put thoseon.
So if I'm at the co-workingspace, for example, I found I
wasn't getting good deep workthere and it was because there
was too much happening.
So I needed to block out soundsand I now sit in the corner.
(33:16):
So I just know I'm not going tobe distracted If I am at home.
I just find having headphoneson helps.
Just a personal thing.
Um, and yeah, I mean it's likethe system has taken me is
always evolving.
I have a daily planner whichhas hours and I block out um
(33:43):
process time and deep work timein that.
So I know, like after this call, I'm going to do this, as we
discussed.
I'm realistically going torespond to my base count
messages and then I've gotsomething else to do.
That means a lot of frictionbecause the next action you've
got to take is kind of automatedthere's no, the procrastination
(34:06):
happens when you're not surewhat to do next.
Automated, there's no, theprocrastination happens when
you're not sure what to do next.
So this just makes it easy torealize what you've got to work
on.
Um, well, the deep work stuff istaking breaks as well.
Um, so I take a lot of breaksand I eat a lot of food because
I found that's what I need to uhbe able to do this stuff
(34:26):
effectively.
For a while the focusing istiring and for a while I get to
half past five and I just wantto sit on the sofa all evening.
That's no use.
So, uh, I now take a slightlylonger lunch break and might
have more to eat and the.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (34:42):
You know, that's fixed it but you find
that you get more done then thanyou used to before deep work
for sure.
Alex Denning (34:50):
Yeah, um.
I now, for one of my thingsthis year is actually do less
work um, so I've cut my hoursslightly, um, and I'm pretty
sure that I get more done?
Alex Wilson-Campbell (35:06):
yeah, do you also, I guess.
For this, then to work, youalso have to your team has to
know when you've got thesesections of right exactly yeah,
right.
Alex Denning (35:18):
So if, if you were working on a in a business
where, uh, fast responses werevalued, um, this would be tricky
or you'd have to set.
You'd have to clearly setboundaries to like 10 till 12 in
the morning, like, uh, I'll getback to you after lunch or
whatever, and that time um is myset aside time.
(35:40):
There are ways like that youcould deal with it.
I know some people put it ontheir calendars, um, when
they're dealing with uh,protecting their time, like that
, and that also lets your teamknow what's happening.
So one of the things that well,I guess one of the things that
(36:00):
I get to do because I am my boss, is that I can set those
expectations internally and it'slike we trust you to get on
with stuff.
We need to keep stuff moving,but it's a balance.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (36:18):
And is deep work, then is that
something that you think, likeyou said, it may suit some
businesses, it may not, but ifyou are in that, if that is part
of your, I suppose your culture, I guess in many ways um, is it
something that everybody needsto be, um doing, or does it suit
(36:43):
some people and not others?
I guess?
Alex Denning (36:45):
yeah.
So this is something that worksfor me, um, and I'm happy to
preach it, but it's notsomething that's going to work
for everyone.
With all this like productivitystuff, it's all about working
out what works for you andhaving a continually evolving
system.
I think before I did this, Ihad like other stuff, and
(37:07):
there's there's.
There's no shortage of adviceon the internet about how to do
your work.
Yeah, often from people whodon't, who aren't doing their
own work, because they'rewriting the advice Exactly.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (37:17):
So I'm hesitant to.
Alex Denning (37:19):
I don't think anything works for everyone.
Um, I think deep work can workfor, uh, pretty much every like
knowledge business, and Isuspect so.
And the example this issomething that comes up in the
book the examples of where thereis pushback because thinking,
oh, that I can't do that becauseI have these special
(37:41):
circumstances.
My clients need to hear backfrom me faster.
The cow talks about in the book, like they probably don't would
your.
Does your client want to havean email?
I responded to within fiveminutes, or is half an hour?
Okay, and they get betterresults as a result.
They'll take the better results, of course.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (37:58):
And I suppose that's what remote work
is all about is the outcomes, isthe results.
Alex Denning (38:07):
So it's not.
Yeah, it's all about freedom,and maybe you're working from a
different time zone or whatever.
Yeah, you know, those are someof the nice things that
currently we can't leave ourhouses, we don't get but normal
times that's, yeah, what remoteactually looks like.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (38:27):
And I mean you talked about your process.
Do you have like a typical daythen, in terms of is it hyper
structured?
Alex Denning (38:35):
I do the same thing every single day.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (38:37):
I was going to say, yeah, you sound
like you structure everything tothe end.
Alex Denning (38:44):
Some of my team don't and one of Peter, travels
a lot.
I don't work and travel becauseI just can't.
Um, yeah, I didn't say anythingevery day and uh, I just find
that helps me.
That's what works for me.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (39:02):
May not work for everyone and I think
you're right, and I think thatthat's what it comes down to.
It comes down to what works foryou.
But I mean, in that sense, youcan also you can also have a
hybrid, I suppose, where you'redoing a bit of deep work and
you're doing a bit of shallowwork, or you know working how
(39:23):
you want to work, if you seewhat I mean.
So it doesn't necessarily haveto be deep work throughout the
whole day, or or a certain setstructure or criteria throughout
the whole day.
I think I wanted to get alex onand talk about deep work is
deep work because I want you to,I suppose, be familiar with it
and aware of, of a method of, ofdoing better work, and listen
(39:44):
to his strategies as well andhis mindset about, about getting
things, things done.
And I, I, I, when I come tothink of it now, I do have
periods.
I did where, even though Ididn't know it, where I do do
deep work, although what I need,probably need to do is have
more focus periods, especiallynow because I'm still getting to
(40:06):
grips with the wholehomeschooling plus plus work
scenario.
So I'm going to sort of startto really sort of well have
started to designate areas of mycalendar to do focused pieces
of work, and then you know,mixing it in with other stuff as
well, you know excellent do you?
Alex Denning (40:26):
want to talk.
Do you want to talk toolsquickly?
And yeah, let's talk tools.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (40:29):
Yeah, let's talk about tools.
Let's talk about tools go forit in.
Alex Denning (40:31):
about tools Go for it In terms of the tools
that you use.
I've tried literally everything.
So here's the kitchen.
So I've got this thing here.
This is a Timeler Okay Timeler.
It's a little like eight-sideddice, essentially.
But you put what you're doing,this is what it says email.
(40:55):
You put what you're doing tolike this one says email.
You put it you're doing on yourdesk, and then it connects your
computer via bluetooth and thenit tracks your time wow, okay
pretty simple like you could.
Just.
This costs like 50 quid.
You could just make it, get adice and write some things on it
and that would be fine.
Um, the real benefit of this isit.
It makes you consciously sayI'm doing this now, and then you
(41:15):
put it down and then yourcomputer goes.
Time started tracking.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (41:19):
That's pretty cool oh, that is very
cool.
Who makes that?
Do you know, is it is it's uh,I think it's.
Alex Denning (41:25):
It's an independent company.
If you google time, you'll findit mueller.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (41:29):
Okay, I'll have a look for that.
Never come across that in mylife.
Alex Denning (41:31):
Okay, that's a time pretty cool uh, I use a mac
app called focus, or do youthink it's like?
Hey, focuscom?
Uh, for blocking websites.
That was a huge thing to startwith.
I don't use that so muchanymore.
All of these like block yourfacebook news feed, block your
twitter, whatever it is, um, ifyou're in the habit of
(41:52):
constantly checking stuff, thenhaving a thing to stop you from
checking it is very helpful.
Um, and there I'm sure thereare like chrome versions or
windows versions or whatever.
Um, I, I have a kitchen timeron my desk, so if I want to do
something for an hour, like putit on for an hour, I just find
(42:14):
like the ticking reminds me tokeep focused.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (42:19):
I tell you what certain background noises
can be stimulating in that sense, and ticking.
Alex Denning (42:25):
That's another thing about setting intentions.
It's like I'm going to do thisfor half an hour off the go and
then when you get to half anhour and it rings, you know
you've done it or you haven't,in which case you can deal with
that.
Then why not?
Why not?
Yeah, uh, yeah, and just likein general, I don't have like
email open other than when it'sprocessing time.
(42:48):
Um, that's slack open, facebook, twitter, all that stuff I'm
guessing you don't.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (42:54):
You don't have things like your, your
social open, obviously, and news.
I suppose the temptationnowadays is to be constantly
especially if people are notused to working from home is to
be constantly checking on thenews yeah, I should get the
newspaper, which is unheard of.
Alex Denning (43:13):
What's a newspaper people are saying I
know?
Uh, yeah, so, uh, cam newporthas a very good blog, he's a
deep work guy and uh, one of thethings uh that he mentioned in
a passing comment was how aboutgetting the newspaper, and
that's so.
I get the economist weekly, um,and, yeah, I really like it.
(43:35):
It shows me like what hashappened and I I don't miss
anything.
I do miss things, but itdoesn't matter.
I get what's happened afterit's happened, not what's
happening.
But what am I going to do with?
Alex Wilson-Campbell (43:47):
that information?
Yeah, exactly, yeah, exceptworry about it these days,
anyway.
Yeah, yeah, no, I get that, andI think I stopped getting
newspapers and I I keeppromising myself I need to start
getting a delivery of thenewspaper to you.
Know it's, it's, it's good justto have something in your home
sometimes, you know, just um,rather than having, like you
(44:08):
said, constantly checking feedsor yeah.
So I think, uh, newspapers area good idea.
So you got a timer.
You've got, hey, you've got,hey, focus.
You've got a newspaper andyou've got, uh, a timer.
So you've got the kitchen sink.
You've got the kitchen sink.
You're churning through thework by the sounds of it.
Alex Denning (44:26):
That's good, that's great yeah, I mean, it's
not like I, it's not like Iactually use all of those at the
same time.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (44:35):
They're just like things that are there.
You know, I'm going to look atthat Timeler because that to me,
is a good idea.
I'm going to look for that.
So, alex, what's in the offingfor Ellipsipsis?
What's other than you you'rehiring?
Alex Denning (44:53):
obviously that sounds like you're growing, then
, right yeah, yeah, we doubledour revenue last year and we are
going to try and do it againthis year.
Well, we need more capacity tobe able to do that, and that's
why we are hiring.
We may need to hire someoneelse as well, which would be
(45:14):
cool.
That's going to let us do morestuff, um, and it's just more
stuff I want to do.
I like I talk a lot aboutsolving problems.
At the start, I just likesolving problems, and there's
more stuff I want to work on, um, and that is what drives the
growth for me.
We may stop when I get bored ofsolving problems or need to
(45:39):
solve a different problem, butfor now, there's just more I
wanted to do, and I think we canhelp our clients a lot more.
So, yeah, that's our focus thisyear.
We're also trying to become a BCorporation.
Oh, nice, nice.
It's a voluntary standard forethical businesses.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (46:02):
Yeah, I used to belong to a B.
Alex Denning (46:03):
Corp.
All right, yeah, yes, so farit's been hard, just a lot of
requirements to meet and wedon't meet most of them right
now, but we're working on it.
Hopefully we can do that thisyear and that's just a nice
(46:24):
external standard to adhere to.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (46:27):
No, that's nice, it's good and I think
that growth I like the idea ofgrowth.
That's the first thing.
The second idea is and Iactually put out a podcast about
problem solving the day I thinkagain, now more than ever, I
think people want to work withpeople who solve problems, as
opposed to somebody coming upand saying I can do SEO or I can
(46:50):
do content or I can help yourWordPress business to get better
, but how can you do that?
What problems am I having thatyou can solve?
So I like that approach, Alex.
And so, before we wrap up, then, one question that I usually
ask is what's the most?
(47:12):
I?
You work in cold, cold workingspaces when you can and you work
at home.
Are there any other sort ofdifferent types of spaces that
you you've worked in at all?
Alex Denning (47:23):
uh, really boring at this question.
I, yeah, um, so I did try liketraveling and working and I do
love traveling, um, my wife andI go to a lot of places.
I just found that I'm not goodat work, mixing work and travel,
so I don't, um, I go to a, sowe're remote, but we meet up a
(47:46):
couple times a year.
So like, uh, that maybe counts.
We went to the.
We had a team meetup in theNetherlands, which was cool.
I had some fun working fromArizona for a conference last
year.
I did, but it's not like I'm atthe beach.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (48:05):
Well, I'll tell you what, though, alex.
I mean you see quite a lot ofI've said this before you see a
lot of videos on YouTube andacross social media of these
people living the laptoplifestyle with their laptop on
their lap from the beach orwherever.
Yes, those people do exist,cause I've interviewed some and
there's some really great peopledoing it.
But I think those people, thosegurus, make it look really easy
(48:27):
and, look, make it look asthough it's a walk in the park,
just to sort of rock up to thebeach or to go to Arizona and
just work from from anywhere.
It's not, it's not that easy,it's, it's.
It's.
It requires planning in itselfand requires coordinating,
especially if you've got a teamyeah, some people can do that.
Alex Denning (48:45):
I just personally can't.
I'm just like, when I'm workingI'm just on and I just need to
be on or off for the work stuff.
I can't mix it.
If you can, then like go for itand just make sure you get an
app that gets your sound out ofyour laptop.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (49:01):
Yeah, well , let's hope somebody invents
something like that.
Well, alex, it's been greatspeaking to you.
I want to wish you all the bestwith ellipsis and I would urge,
as I said, everybody to getacross or go across to alex's
website, which is getellipsiscom.
Um, at the time of posting this, alex is hiring, so I hope you
(49:25):
get this message before beforeum, I I post before he's not
hiring, so get across togetellipsiscom.
And, alex, I just want to thankyou for joining us on the
podcast and I want to just wishyou all the best with Ellipsis.
Alex Denning (49:43):
Thanks so much.
It's been really good.
Speak to you soon.
All right Cheers.
Hello everybody.
It's Alex again from the RemoteWork Life podcast.
I hope you're doing well.
I have another exceptionalguest with me today.
I have Alex Denning, who is thefounder of Ellipsis Marketing.
Now, ellipsis is a digitalmarketing agency for WordPress
businesses, and their clientsare WordPress product businesses
(00:23):
and WordPress agencies, and Iwant to say a big thank you,
alex, to you for joining metoday on the Remote Work Life
podcast.
Yeah, thanks for having meExcellent and, as I always do,
I'm quite inquisitive when itcomes to getting to know my
guests.
I want to know their backstory.
How do they get to where theyare now?
(00:45):
So, alex, uh, please tell us.
Tell us, how did you get to uh,becoming the founder of
ellipsis?
Alex Denning (00:55):
sure?
Um, so I have been workingremotely full-time for the last
four years now and I've beenrunning Ellipsis for most of
that time.
As you mentioned, we live inthe WordPress ecosystem, so
(01:16):
WordPress powers a third of theinternet and there's a big
ecosystem of products andagencies product conservators
around that, and thosebusinesses help people do more
stuff with their websites.
So like on the agency side, forexample.
So like all the Facebook'snon-Facebook product stuff runs
(01:40):
on WordPress.
One of our clients handles thatfor them On the product side.
You might want a contact formon WordPress and one of our
clients handles that for them Onthe product side.
You might want a contact formand then you can post a plug-in
to do that.
Or you might want a contactform which integrates with your
CRM and does a whole bunch ofautomation stuff and also lets
you sell stuff and you can seehow it gets out of hand quite
(02:01):
quickly.
That's where we live, that'swhat we do.
Um, how did I end up here?
I, I guess by accident, because, um, I like solving problems,
um, and, yeah, I get to solvethem all day and people pay me
(02:21):
money for them.
So I've been involved in, like,the wordpress space for a long
time, um.
So I knew a lot of peoplearound there, so I uh started
off just doing bits of work,freelance, um, and it was stuff
I enjoyed doing.
And then I was as a freelancer,I was booked out the whole time
.
So at that point it was eitherlike, do you do that forever?
(02:43):
Maybe put your rates up a bit?
Um, I decided that I didn'twant to do that.
I wanted to be able to solvemore problems for people, um, so
that's why I started the agencyand wordpress.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (02:56):
I didn't realize it was a third of the
internet that wordpress powersat the minute.
I'm a big wordpress fan myself.
It's just such an intuitivepiece of actually you know what
I mean if it's intuitive to me.
Maybe that's minute I'm a bigwordpress fan myself.
It's just such an intuitivepiece of well, actually, you
know what I mean.
If it's intuitive to me, maybethat's because I'm in it quite
often.
I'm not a program or anythinglike that, but I can actually
get work my way around it nowthat I've been in it for years.
But it's one of those thingsthat is just so relatively easy
(03:21):
to understand for a newbie onceyou sort of get your head around
it, would you say a big problem, a big project that, uh, we,
the community, have been workingon.
Alex Denning (03:30):
It's open source, so, like, uh, everyone can
contribute.
Um, a big problem we have beenworking on is how to make this
initial experience a lot better.
Um, so last year, I guess theend of the year before that um.
So last year, I guess the endof the year before that uh, with
wordpress 5, there was a neweditor, um, which has some
teething issues, but goingforward, that's going to make
(03:51):
that a lot easier to do.
Um and the.
The market that everyone'sinterested in, um is the, the
small business with no website.
Um, because that's how a lot ofpeople get started and those
obviously sometimes turn intobigger businesses, um, or even
just medium-sized ones.
Um, and it's that initialexperience that, uh, we're
(04:15):
trying to work on.
So, yeah, you're I.
I could tell you didn't want tosay it's hard to use, yeah I
didn't want to say that I meanit is at times.
We're working on it, yeah soit's hard to use.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (04:28):
Don't bother using it, just go to alex
and he'll sort you out.
Basically is what we're tryingto say.
But I think what's soattractive about wordpress where
small business is a business isa concern is the, I suppose,
the barrier to entry.
Well, if you look beyond thetech, it's, it's pretty, it's
pretty good and it's you canbolt things on and it's scalable
and you can make it look reallyprofessional if you're working
(04:51):
with the right people.
Alex Denning (04:52):
So, uh, yeah, exactly so.
So we don't make websites.
Our clients are the people whomake the stuff that you can bolt
on um.
So yeah, we're all all workingon that yeah.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (05:04):
So alex is the guy that can really sort of
, yeah, um, do all the singingand dancing in terms of the, the
marketing behind all of that,and but I think, yeah, wordpress
is.
I love wordpress.
What can I say anyway?
Well, alex, I mean, I know thisas well from looking.
Obviously, I've done my mybackground research on you.
(05:25):
You did a, you did a degree inin politics and international
studies and you've had quite aninteresting journey since since
then.
Tell us a bit more about that II'm especially interested in in
mini clip yeah, so, um, yeah,so, I did a degree in politics.
Alex Denning (05:48):
Um, I have never really used it.
I guess it like taught me howto like think critically.
Um, I do use that a lot, so Ican I can write very long things
, so maybe that was useful.
Um, before that, though, I uhworked at miniclipcom, um, which
(06:11):
is now a mobile games company.
At the time, it was for, like,free casual games Um years ago.
Minicabcom was uh like theplace where you'd spend your
(06:34):
lunch breaks, um, and I got thatjob because I knew someone from
the WordPress community who wastheir director of web
development, who, uh, long storyshort, I now co-author a weekly
newsletter with um, and hedoesn't.
He also works remotely now anddoesn't work at Winnipeg as well
(06:56):
oh, so yeah, I did this.
I did their social media um,which is cool, and that I
learned a lot about that.
That was an office job inLondon and, yeah, it was my job
to keep the community updatedabout the stuff we're doing with
(07:16):
our games.
That's something a lot about,like the working in a
results-orientated environment.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (07:27):
Yeah, it was good fun In terms of you
obviously made your progress nowwhere you, I suppose, went more
and graduated towards theentrepreneurial side of things.
You had WordPress, WP Shout,which looks like again very much
a strong WordPress connectionthere, and tell us a bit about
(07:49):
that and then, after actuallyactually told us about, after
you've told us about that, tellus about your typical clients at
the moment sure, um, so don'tbe.
Alex Denning (07:58):
Shout is a WordPress development tutorial
blog, and and it's still goingtoday, although I haven't run it
for I think like six or sevenyears.
Um, and yeah, it teaches peoplewordpress development.
When I was first figuring outstuff with wordpress, uh, I
(08:20):
wanted to know how to do thingsand I couldn't find that.
Um, and, being quite naive atthe time, I thought, oh, I know
I can figure this out and I knowall the answers.
So I made that website and thatwas where I first got to see
what growing an audience lookedlike and all that stuff.
And that was really helpfulearlier on for just figuring
(08:44):
stuff out.
So that's also where a lot ofthe WordPress connections come
from.
So, even though that was sevenyears ago, you can draw a
straight line through there.
That was our new Bennett miniclip, and here we are.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (08:58):
And you haven't looked back since.
And now you're working.
You've established yourself asa freelance worker.
How was that transition fromfreelance to to a business owner
?
Alex Denning (09:09):
yeah.
So, um, as I said, I was as afreelancer.
I was booked out all the time,um, it was just a good problem
to have, but still a problem, um.
So I knew I wanted to be ableto solve more problems and that
meant growing a team.
Um, to start with, I justgradually started working with
(09:32):
freelancers on individualprojects, um, and then over time
, I started getting a bit morerevenue and just took things
very slowly.
Um, there are four of us now, um, we're currently hiring number
five.
Um, and we're now at a pointwhere we can pick that up quite
(09:53):
quickly.
Um, because we've got all thestructures in place.
But it, yeah, it took a whileto to really get used to it.
I had to.
I now don't know what's goingon with client work In the best
possible way, yeah, but it tookme, like, I guess, a year, 18
months, to be okay with that.
(10:14):
We're now at a point where Ican totally trust my team to get
on with stuff, and I guess itwasn't I didn't trust them
before.
It was that I just needed tolet it go.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (10:28):
It's funny because we just had a
conversation with another remoteworking practitioner who's been
in the game for quite a while,pilar Orti, and she was
literally words you've justdescribed there, the words
you've just articulated, arejust exactly what she said in
terms of letting go and justallowing the team to get on with
(10:51):
it.
Alex Denning (10:53):
Something that I kind of big, really useful book
I read last year.
It's called High OutputManagement.
It's by the former president ofintel.
Um, there's one thing in thathe was, uh, saying that he's
this analogy where I want todelegate to you holding these
(11:15):
scissors.
And you give your team memberthe scissors, but then you hold
on to them by the top so theycan't take them.
And then you say, why didn'tyou take, why aren't you holding
the scissors?
I, it's because you haven't letgo of the scissors.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (11:27):
And I just read that and thought, oh,
that's me I like that analogy,though, because it's just yeah,
it's good, it's good, it sayseverything.
Only one goal.
I mean, if you don't let go ofthe scissors, how are they
supposed to get on with thingsand start the work?
Alex Denning (11:41):
yeah, so after uh , I, you know, let go of being
responsible for holding thescissors, then we start to make
a bit of progress excellent.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (11:53):
So what's the makeup of your team now?
Alex Denning (11:56):
you said you've got four on the team yeah, so,
um, we have a head of contentand conversions and Natasha
leads our content and conversionfocused projects.
So that's like regular contentmarketing stuff, which is
(12:20):
probably most of our work day today, as well as our copy
projects.
And recently we've had an emailinto the mix as well, um,
because again, it was justresponding to what people were
asking us for.
Um, and people were asking usfor email or other people
weren't doing their email and itwas a really good opportunity,
so we figured we needed to stepin for people.
(12:40):
Um, uh, kaylee's our SEOspecialist.
She's our SEO content manager.
She does our specialist SEOstuff and also a lot of the
content process.
She joined Zella this year Justmore capacity and expertise
(13:01):
around SEO, which has been greatso far.
Peter handles our promotion andoutreach stuff.
We're currently hiring aconversions manager, um, who's
gonna just add more capacity, um, for our conversion focus
projects.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (13:20):
Okay, okay yeah, that's good.
I mean what I'd suggest as well.
If that is you, if you'relistening out there and you are
a conversions manager or haveworked in cro, yeah, yeah we
stopped using cro because ourclients didn't know what it
(13:41):
meant.
Yeah, exactly cro, if you, ifyou know what that word means,
then you're probably the personfor this job.
So what I urge you to do is getacross to Ellipsis' website,
which is getellipsiscom, andhave a look before you reach out
(14:03):
and speak to anybody or replyto the job or anything like that
.
Alex Denning (14:07):
look at the website something I should do
which I haven't done is we don'thave a careers page, so if you
want to actually apply, uh it'soff.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (14:13):
we work remotelycom I'll tell you what,
though.
There's so many smallbusinesses that don't have a
careers page, but I think justas important as the career
having a careers page is have ishaving the content, so that
people can understand what thebusiness is about.
Alex Denning (14:28):
And yeah, so we do have that, and we're so small
that when people tell me thatthey've been following us for a
long time in their cover letters, I just don't believe them
there's a tip for you don't justuh put that into your cover
letter.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (14:46):
Make it a bit more, pay a bit more
attention to detail, and I thinkit would help as well if you
know a thing or two, I guess,about wordpress, I'd assume yeah
, although that's not actually,that's not as essential as you
would think, we can teach thewordpress stuff.
I want the like marketingexpertise okay, well, big clue
(15:08):
for you there.
I mean, it's not every day thatyou get to hear the founder or
the the owner of a business talkabout the kind of person that
they want in the job, so it's amassive clue for you there.
If you're, you're out therelistening and you need need work
at the moment.
So check out, get ellipsiscomand the team's content, seo,
promotions and outreach andyou're that conversions person
(15:29):
who's just waiting to apply tothis job.
Alex Denning (15:32):
Yeah.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (15:33):
Okay, who knows, who knows, okay.
So we've talked a bit aboutEllipsis and how it all got
together and a little bit, Isuppose in a little while we're
going to talk about what thispodcast was really.
What I really want to talkabout this podcast because Alex
(15:53):
is really focused on reallybeing able to focus while
working, and I know that's a bigproblem, especially for people
who are new to remote work, butit's not exclusively to that, um
, to those sorts of people,because remote work has its
challenges in terms of work andin the I guess, in the climate
(16:17):
that we're living in now, we'renot going to obviously go too
much into that, but in theclimate that we're living in now
, I myself am at home.
Believe it or not, I'm at homewith my kids you would never
know but I'm mixinghomeschooling with work.
So I'm trying to really putslots in place where I can do
(16:39):
the homeschooling, which we dida bit in the morning, and then
focus on my work and then otherstuff around that.
So alex, I hope can help me interms of understanding what's
called deep working.
Have you ever heard thatexpression before?
Deep working?
So we're going to focus a biton that in a moment, but before
we go to that, I want to talk abit more about your team, alex.
(17:00):
In terms of what because I meanI know there's some, obviously,
managers out there, they'relistening in terms of how
they've gone from being in aco-located scenario to now being
in a scenario where they'reforced to work remotely and
they've had some challengesthemselves or having some
challenges themselves.
What challenges do you havewhen you were first starting out
(17:23):
, other than you mentioned the,the trust issue and the letting
go issue, any other challengesthat you had?
Alex Denning (17:28):
yeah.
So, um, I do think that doingremote work is hard.
I think it's really good, but Ialso think it's hard, um, and
it's.
It took me like years to getproperly into a rhythm that
really worked long term.
(17:49):
So if, yeah, as we're recordingthis, there's a global pandemic
going on, and if you areworking from home for the first
time, or you normally do it oneor two days a week, and now
you're doing it all the time, itis going to be a shock, and my
fear is that unless yeah, Iguess unless people take the, I
(18:22):
feel like people might have abad time and that would be bad,
and that, instead of this beinga great remote work opportunity,
people might experience it forthe first time.
I think it's rubbish.
Um, yeah, yeah, and then goback to it.
It is hard, it doesn't requireadapting.
Um, there's a couple of thingsthat we do.
So this deep work idea is athing that I like.
Personally, I'm a big fan of um.
(18:46):
We structure our communicationasynchronously.
Um, whether you want to do thatfor working from home for two
months, I don't know, because itrequires, like, I guess, if you
, if you, communicatedifferently, it requires a
totally different way of working, of course.
So we use Basecamp, and thatmeans that it is set up for
(19:12):
asynchronous communication, ieeverything's on a task and when
you need something, you can saywhat you need on that task.
It then goes to whoever you'vesent it to and they've got the
time to write like a properresponse when it suits them, um,
rather than just sending offpings through slack or whatever
(19:38):
um and demanding uh attentionimmediately.
That lets people like we talkabout protecting attention um,
and respond when they're able to.
For me, that that is thatunlocks like the.
The big benefit of uh remotework, which is you can set up
your day to be able to focus howyou want to do.
(19:59):
If you've got to deal with uhlike teaching your kids in the
morning, then you can set asidethe time later on, um to make
the progress.
That's really interesting, um.
We'll talk about them more in asecond.
One of the other things, though,that we have done, that has
been um really good, and I don'tknow that that many remote
(20:25):
companies do it.
We sat down to try and work outwhat was good and bad about
being remote, and one of thethings you do lose is kind of
just spontaneous collaboration,yes, so we just tried to work
out how to add that back in.
So we ended up with a monthlyco-working day.
(20:48):
So we specifically set aside aday where we specifically
co-work and we do screen sharingand we do a group call.
I'll do a team update to startwith and then we'll go through
some general issues and then, ifwe've got specific things to
work through even if we don'tneed everyone there, we've got
(21:08):
everyone there and then thatcreates the opportunities for
the more random collaborationyou might get.
In an office you also lose somegeneral chats harder.
Yeah, definitely, if you useSlack, maybe you can have a
general channel or a randomchannel and do that kind of
(21:30):
thing there.
As we don't, that's a bitharder.
So solution again we justschedule a monthly call in which
we just have a chat.
I know some people do thatweekly because we're in
different time zones.
We found that monthly workedbetter.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (21:53):
Is everything that you do?
Is everything that you doasynchronous, then, given that
you're in different time zones?
Alex Denning (22:00):
so, uh, we default to asynchronous, um, it
probably sounds a lot moreefficient than it is in the.
I haven't looked at base campsince we started recording, but
as soon as we're finished I willcheck it, um, and if if anyone
needs anything from me, I willrespond to that immediately.
(22:21):
Base camp also does haveone-to-one chat as well as group
chat, um, and we do use those afair bit.
In general, though, the likegeneral approach is to uh
respond asynchronously, um, andwhen you do need that time to to
say I'm doing something else,I'm not going to respond to
(22:41):
stuff.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (22:42):
Uh, that's absolutely fine no, I get it
and I it's.
I hear what you're saying aswell about the adaptation and I
I am slightly worried as well interms of the, the, the actual.
You mentioned the pandemicbecause originally the kind of
posts that you were seeingacross social media were okay.
(23:02):
So now that we're we're beingforced to work remotely,
everybody's going to see thebenefits of working remotely.
But that's not necessarily thecase because there's so many.
There is a period of adaptationand you know, my fear is that
people may kind of shy away fromit because of the.
This whole experience is justeverything on top of them all at
(23:25):
once, when you know that thisexperience that we're we're I
guess we're in now to me is notreally a true reflection of what
it is to to be able to workremotely because you have so
much more food in them than youdo right at this moment, you
know.
Alex Denning (23:40):
So, yeah, yeah, so I'm working from home right
now.
I normally go to a co-workingspace.
Even that's uh, that's justlike going to an office and I
spend my mornings there and Icycle in and it's nice being at
home all the time.
I don't like doing that and Isort of like took some time to
adapt.
What getting a co-working spacewas actually one of the things
(24:01):
that uh took that time, um, andwas really helpful.
So, so, if it isn't becauseyou're having a crisis, just
give it a bit more time.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (24:13):
Yeah, well , yeah, I'd second that because
it's just, you shouldn't bestuck in one room or one place,
you should have a bit of varietythere.
But yeah, we can't because ofthe way things are at the moment
.
But okay, well, yeah, I meansimilar challenges.
I mean, don't just think you'realone in terms of the
challenges.
As you've heard, alex has hadhis challenges.
(24:36):
It's taken him a while to adapt.
It took me a while to adapt aswell.
So I just think the best thingto do is just talk to somebody
who has either had similarchallenges to yourself or just
just talk, just just um, talkabout them, and, like Alex did
he, they talked about you knowwhat the benefits are and what
(25:00):
remote work is all about, and Ithink that communication in
itself, getting it out into theopen, can actually, uh, at least
start to remedy the situation.
You know?
Alex Denning (25:12):
Yeah, for sure.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (25:15):
In terms of, you know, let's talk
pre-pandemic.
Yeah, what effect did remotework have on your life in
general?
Alex Denning (25:35):
life in general.
So I guess the main thing isthat, uh, the most like
practical thing is that my wifeneeds to move for work, like two
years ago, and sure, no problem.
And if, uh, I'd been stucksomewhere else, that would be
really difficult.
Having that, uh, flexibility ishuge.
And if she needs me again likeI guess I missed my co-working
space but, uh, I'm sure they'llhave me back or I can find a new
(25:57):
one is those I can work fromanywhere.
That's the big one.
Um, and yeah, I mean, internally, we talk a lot about like
setting the environment that youneed personally to be able to
do really good work.
Um, and that is, uh, yeah, Imean that's like what that's.
(26:24):
One of the things that reallymotivates me is having a really
good impact, having to do reallygood stuff.
Um, and yeah, this like deepwork idea we've touched on is
one of the ways that Ipersonally find really effective
for me to be able to do that.
Um, like, I guess I run aremote business and that's
(26:46):
pretty cool, I think, if we'dhave to, if we'd have to get an
office or whatever.
That's a whole different world.
I don't know how to lease anoffice.
I don't want to know how tolease an office.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (26:58):
I don't blame you with all the costs and
all that sort of thing, but ifyou're comfortable in that
environment, which noteverybody's comfortable with
remote work, but if you are,then do it, okay, well, I I mean
, as we've touched on deep work,let's let's get into the whole
topic of deep work, because thiscould provide you with some,
some ideas in terms of, uh, notjust the scenario you're in at
(27:21):
the moment, but your future, howyou can apply it to, to your
work in general, not you know.
So let's, let's get into that,shall we?
What?
What does it mean?
What does deep work mean?
And sure, yeah, let's do that.
Alex Denning (27:35):
Do work as a thesis by a computer science
professor called cal newport um,in which he argues that being
able to focus for sustainedperiods of time is increasingly
a competitive advantage and thatwe've forgotten how to do it.
(27:57):
And people mainly do so-calledshallow work, which he defines
as things that aren't hard andor you could easily train
someone to do in, say, sixmonths, um, whereas a deep work
is a thing that provides theseoutside returns for and it is
something that, specifically,you can do, no one else can do,
(28:19):
um, and that's where you reallydrive value.
And, yeah, I came across thisidea when I was starting to work
remotely.
That's really shaped how I doit.
It is not especially complex,that's basically it.
He has written a book on itwhich I'd probably recommend,
(28:42):
but it's like okay, the book'sgood because it repeats the
message so much, um, if you justgot it from that brief summary,
then you're all good well, whatI'll do is I'll leave any sort
of resources that we talk aboutin the show notes, because I
think this is useful.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (29:02):
This is really not.
It's useful, yeah, so I'llleave that in the show notes.
What I'm going to ask as wellabout I mean, obviously we're on
this segment now about deepwork.
What are there any particularsorts of tasks that deep work is
suited to, or is it justgenerally across the board?
Alex Denning (29:17):
yeah, so, um, what cal recommends is splitting
up your deep and shallow work.
Um.
I also mix in another bookrecommendation, uh, something
called a book called work clean,uh, which is actually about how
chefs organize their uhworkstations, and one of the
(29:42):
ideas in that book is is processtime, um, and if, if you're a
chef like you, you need to chopup your veg before I don't know
what I'm talking about.
You gotta chop out your vegbefore you do the other chef
stuff, that's really on the sideyeah, um, so in in practical
(30:05):
terms, that just that idea fromthat book was really helpful.
Um, and say I schedule in, sayafter lunch, half an hour
process time and that's where Ideal with my emails.
That's how I go on slack andcheck um any wordpress stuff.
So I go on twitter, um, andrespond to anything that needs
like under five minutes, sayanything over, that is your deep
(30:29):
work, um, and I guess you mightneed to.
So like sending a specific hardemail could be one bit of deep
work.
Got a right proposal.
Um, you might specificallyschedule that in um, say we're
working on, say I'm working onsome strategy stuff for a client
.
I like to work out the wholeday for that and I don't have
(30:52):
any process time on those days,and that means that when you say
, have your lunch, you've gotthe opportunity to take a break.
But also maybe you come up withthe extra ideas which are going
to move the needle for theclient.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (31:06):
Right, and that deep work, yeah, you've
kind of given a good, a goodview of that, so it could be
anything.
I suppose it's not necessarilya standard time, but anything
over that's anything.
That is not quick work,essentially something that
requires you to really sort offocus, sit down and really um,
(31:31):
let's call it 20 minutes, 20minutes?
Alex Denning (31:34):
okay, it's an email that requires a like, just
a response, then that's idealcandidate for your process time.
Um, if it's something thatrequires more thought, it's
something to set aside.
So the big advantage of that is, uh, that you are much more
effective with what when you aredoing stuff.
(31:55):
So it's not, oh, I see an email, I reply and it interrupts me
and I get back to doing whateverI was doing before.
Is you?
Because you focus all yourattention and don't have these
distractions available?
Um, it means that you're ableto get them much more rich
insights and better results thatonly you can get, um, and
(32:20):
that's why it's so powerful andwhat are your?
Alex Wilson-Campbell (32:26):
how do you go about achieving an
environment?
I don't know Achieving yourenvironment for deep work.
Alex Denning (32:38):
So I need to know I'm not going to be distracted.
That's a good one.
I know a lot of people usenoise-canceling headphones.
I actually use commercial eardefenders.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (32:50):
Okay, Fair enough, that is really focusing
.
Oh my gosh.
Alex Denning (32:55):
Yeah, because I just couldn't find any
noise-cancelling headphones Iliked.
I'll blame you, I'll put thoseon.
So if I'm at the co-workingspace, for example, I found I
wasn't getting good deep workthere and it was because there
was too much happening.
So I needed to block out soundsand I now sit in the corner.
(33:16):
So I just know I'm not going tobe distracted If I am at home.
I just find having headphoneson helps.
Just a personal thing.
Um, and yeah, I mean it's likethe system has taken me is
always evolving.
I have a daily planner whichhas hours and I block out um
(33:43):
process time and deep work timein that.
So I know, like after this call, I'm going to do this, as we
discussed.
I'm realistically going torespond to my base count
messages and then I've gotsomething else to do.
That means a lot of frictionbecause the next action you've
got to take is kind of automatedthere's no, the procrastination
(34:06):
happens when you're not surewhat to do next.
Automated, there's no, theprocrastination happens when
you're not sure what to do next.
So this just makes it easy torealize what you've got to work
on.
Um, well, the deep work stuff istaking breaks as well.
Um, so I take a lot of breaksand I eat a lot of food because
I found that's what I need to uhbe able to do this stuff
(34:26):
effectively.
For a while the focusing istiring and for a while I get to
half past five and I just wantto sit on the sofa all evening.
That's no use.
So, uh, I now take a slightlylonger lunch break and might
have more to eat and the.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (34:42):
You know, that's fixed it but you find
that you get more done then thanyou used to before deep work
for sure.
Alex Denning (34:50):
Yeah, um.
I now, for one of my thingsthis year is actually do less
work um, so I've cut my hoursslightly, um, and I'm pretty
sure that I get more done?
Alex Wilson-Campbell (35:06):
yeah, do you also, I guess.
For this, then to work, youalso have to your team has to
know when you've got thesesections of right exactly yeah,
right.
Alex Denning (35:18):
So if, if you were working on a in a business
where, uh, fast responses werevalued, um, this would be tricky
or you'd have to set.
You'd have to clearly setboundaries to like 10 till 12 in
the morning, like, uh, I'll getback to you after lunch or
whatever, and that time um is myset aside time.
(35:40):
There are ways like that youcould deal with it.
I know some people put it ontheir calendars, um, when
they're dealing with uh,protecting their time, like that
, and that also lets your teamknow what's happening.
So one of the things that well,I guess one of the things that
(36:00):
I get to do because I am my boss, is that I can set those
expectations internally and it'slike we trust you to get on
with stuff.
We need to keep stuff moving,but it's a balance.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (36:18):
And is deep work, then is that
something that you think, likeyou said, it may suit some
businesses, it may not, but ifyou are in that, if that is part
of your, I suppose your culture, I guess in many ways um, is it
something that everybody needsto be, um doing, or does it suit
(36:43):
some people and not others?
I guess?
Alex Denning (36:45):
yeah.
So this is something that worksfor me, um, and I'm happy to
preach it, but it's notsomething that's going to work
for everyone.
With all this like productivitystuff, it's all about working
out what works for you andhaving a continually evolving
system.
I think before I did this, Ihad like other stuff, and
(37:07):
there's there's.
There's no shortage of adviceon the internet about how to do
your work.
Yeah, often from people whodon't, who aren't doing their
own work, because they'rewriting the advice Exactly.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (37:17):
So I'm hesitant to.
Alex Denning (37:19):
I don't think anything works for everyone.
Um, I think deep work can workfor, uh, pretty much every like
knowledge business, and Isuspect so.
And the example this issomething that comes up in the
book the examples of where thereis pushback because thinking,
oh, that I can't do that becauseI have these special
(37:41):
circumstances.
My clients need to hear backfrom me faster.
The cow talks about in the book, like they probably don't would
your.
Does your client want to havean email?
I responded to within fiveminutes, or is half an hour?
Okay, and they get betterresults as a result.
They'll take the better results, of course.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (37:58):
And I suppose that's what remote work
is all about is the outcomes, isthe results.
Alex Denning (38:07):
So it's not.
Yeah, it's all about freedom,and maybe you're working from a
different time zone or whatever.
Yeah, you know, those are someof the nice things that
currently we can't leave ourhouses, we don't get but normal
times that's, yeah, what remoteactually looks like.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (38:27):
And I mean you talked about your process.
Do you have like a typical daythen, in terms of is it hyper
structured?
Alex Denning (38:35):
I do the same thing every single day.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (38:37):
I was going to say, yeah, you sound
like you structure everything tothe end.
Alex Denning (38:44):
Some of my team don't and one of Peter, travels
a lot.
I don't work and travel becauseI just can't.
Um, yeah, I didn't say anythingevery day and uh, I just find
that helps me.
That's what works for me.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (39:02):
May not work for everyone and I think
you're right, and I think thatthat's what it comes down to.
It comes down to what works foryou.
But I mean, in that sense, youcan also you can also have a
hybrid, I suppose, where you'redoing a bit of deep work and
you're doing a bit of shallowwork, or you know working how
(39:23):
you want to work, if you seewhat I mean.
So it doesn't necessarily haveto be deep work throughout the
whole day, or or a certain setstructure or criteria throughout
the whole day.
I think I wanted to get alex onand talk about deep work is
deep work because I want you to,I suppose, be familiar with it
and aware of, of a method of, ofdoing better work, and listen
(39:44):
to his strategies as well andhis mindset about, about getting
things, things done.
And I, I, I, when I come tothink of it now, I do have
periods.
I did where, even though Ididn't know it, where I do do
deep work, although what I need,probably need to do is have
more focus periods, especiallynow because I'm still getting to
(40:06):
grips with the wholehomeschooling plus plus work
scenario.
So I'm going to sort of startto really sort of well have
started to designate areas of mycalendar to do focused pieces
of work, and then you know,mixing it in with other stuff as
well, you know excellent do you?
Alex Denning (40:26):
want to talk.
Do you want to talk toolsquickly?
And yeah, let's talk tools.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (40:29):
Yeah, let's talk about tools.
Let's talk about tools go forit in.
Alex Denning (40:31):
about tools Go for it In terms of the tools
that you use.
I've tried literally everything.
So here's the kitchen.
So I've got this thing here.
This is a Timeler Okay Timeler.
It's a little like eight-sideddice, essentially.
But you put what you're doing,this is what it says email.
(40:55):
You put what you're doing tolike this one says email.
You put it you're doing on yourdesk, and then it connects your
computer via bluetooth and thenit tracks your time wow, okay
pretty simple like you could.
Just.
This costs like 50 quid.
You could just make it, get adice and write some things on it
and that would be fine.
Um, the real benefit of this isit.
It makes you consciously sayI'm doing this now, and then you
(41:15):
put it down and then yourcomputer goes.
Time started tracking.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (41:19):
That's pretty cool oh, that is very
cool.
Who makes that?
Do you know, is it is it's uh,I think it's.
Alex Denning (41:25):
It's an independent company.
If you google time, you'll findit mueller.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (41:29):
Okay, I'll have a look for that.
Never come across that in mylife.
Alex Denning (41:31):
Okay, that's a time pretty cool uh, I use a mac
app called focus, or do youthink it's like?
Hey, focuscom?
Uh, for blocking websites.
That was a huge thing to startwith.
I don't use that so muchanymore.
All of these like block yourfacebook news feed, block your
twitter, whatever it is, um, ifyou're in the habit of
(41:52):
constantly checking stuff, thenhaving a thing to stop you from
checking it is very helpful.
Um, and there I'm sure thereare like chrome versions or
windows versions or whatever.
Um, I, I have a kitchen timeron my desk, so if I want to do
something for an hour, like putit on for an hour, I just find
(42:14):
like the ticking reminds me tokeep focused.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (42:19):
I tell you what certain background noises
can be stimulating in that sense, and ticking.
Alex Denning (42:25):
That's another thing about setting intentions.
It's like I'm going to do thisfor half an hour off the go and
then when you get to half anhour and it rings, you know
you've done it or you haven't,in which case you can deal with
that.
Then why not?
Why not?
Yeah, uh, yeah, and just likein general, I don't have like
email open other than when it'sprocessing time.
(42:48):
Um, that's slack open, facebook, twitter, all that stuff I'm
guessing you don't.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (42:54):
You don't have things like your, your
social open, obviously, and news.
I suppose the temptationnowadays is to be constantly
especially if people are notused to working from home is to
be constantly checking on thenews yeah, I should get the
newspaper, which is unheard of.
Alex Denning (43:13):
What's a newspaper people are saying I
know?
Uh, yeah, so, uh, cam newporthas a very good blog, he's a
deep work guy and uh, one of thethings uh that he mentioned in
a passing comment was how aboutgetting the newspaper, and
that's so.
I get the economist weekly, um,and, yeah, I really like it.
(43:35):
It shows me like what hashappened and I I don't miss
anything.
I do miss things, but itdoesn't matter.
I get what's happened afterit's happened, not what's
happening.
But what am I going to do with?
Alex Wilson-Campbell (43:47):
that information?
Yeah, exactly, yeah, exceptworry about it these days,
anyway.
Yeah, yeah, no, I get that, andI think I stopped getting
newspapers and I I keeppromising myself I need to start
getting a delivery of thenewspaper to you.
Know it's, it's, it's good justto have something in your home
sometimes, you know, just um,rather than having, like you
(44:08):
said, constantly checking feedsor yeah.
So I think, uh, newspapers area good idea.
So you got a timer.
You've got, hey, you've got,hey, focus.
You've got a newspaper andyou've got, uh, a timer.
So you've got the kitchen sink.
You've got the kitchen sink.
You're churning through thework by the sounds of it.
Alex Denning (44:26):
That's good, that's great yeah, I mean, it's
not like I, it's not like Iactually use all of those at the
same time.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (44:35):
They're just like things that are there.
You know, I'm going to look atthat Timeler because that to me,
is a good idea.
I'm going to look for that.
So, alex, what's in the offingfor Ellipsipsis?
What's other than you you'rehiring?
Alex Denning (44:53):
obviously that sounds like you're growing, then
, right yeah, yeah, we doubledour revenue last year and we are
going to try and do it againthis year.
Well, we need more capacity tobe able to do that, and that's
why we are hiring.
We may need to hire someoneelse as well, which would be
(45:14):
cool.
That's going to let us do morestuff, um, and it's just more
stuff I want to do.
I like I talk a lot aboutsolving problems.
At the start, I just likesolving problems, and there's
more stuff I want to work on, um, and that is what drives the
growth for me.
We may stop when I get bored ofsolving problems or need to
(45:39):
solve a different problem, butfor now, there's just more I
wanted to do, and I think we canhelp our clients a lot more.
So, yeah, that's our focus thisyear.
We're also trying to become a BCorporation.
Oh, nice, nice.
It's a voluntary standard forethical businesses.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (46:02):
Yeah, I used to belong to a B.
Alex Denning (46:03):
Corp.
All right, yeah, yes, so farit's been hard, just a lot of
requirements to meet and wedon't meet most of them right
now, but we're working on it.
Hopefully we can do that thisyear and that's just a nice
(46:24):
external standard to adhere to.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (46:27):
No, that's nice, it's good and I think
that growth I like the idea ofgrowth.
That's the first thing.
The second idea is and Iactually put out a podcast about
problem solving the day I thinkagain, now more than ever, I
think people want to work withpeople who solve problems, as
opposed to somebody coming upand saying I can do SEO or I can
(46:50):
do content or I can help yourWordPress business to get better
, but how can you do that?
What problems am I having thatyou can solve?
So I like that approach, Alex.
And so, before we wrap up, then, one question that I usually
ask is what's the most?
(47:12):
I?
You work in cold, cold workingspaces when you can and you work
at home.
Are there any other sort ofdifferent types of spaces that
you you've worked in at all?
Alex Denning (47:23):
uh, really boring at this question.
I, yeah, um, so I did try liketraveling and working and I do
love traveling, um, my wife andI go to a lot of places.
I just found that I'm not goodat work, mixing work and travel,
so I don't, um, I go to a, sowe're remote, but we meet up a
(47:46):
couple times a year.
So like, uh, that maybe counts.
We went to the.
We had a team meetup in theNetherlands, which was cool.
I had some fun working fromArizona for a conference last
year.
I did, but it's not like I'm atthe beach.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (48:05):
Well, I'll tell you what, though, alex.
I mean you see quite a lot ofI've said this before you see a
lot of videos on YouTube andacross social media of these
people living the laptoplifestyle with their laptop on
their lap from the beach orwherever.
Yes, those people do exist,cause I've interviewed some and
there's some really great peopledoing it.
But I think those people, thosegurus, make it look really easy
(48:27):
and, look, make it look asthough it's a walk in the park,
just to sort of rock up to thebeach or to go to Arizona and
just work from from anywhere.
It's not, it's not that easy,it's, it's.
It's.
It requires planning in itselfand requires coordinating,
especially if you've got a teamyeah, some people can do that.
Alex Denning (48:45):
I just personally can't.
I'm just like, when I'm workingI'm just on and I just need to
be on or off for the work stuff.
I can't mix it.
If you can, then like go for itand just make sure you get an
app that gets your sound out ofyour laptop.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (49:01):
Yeah, well , let's hope somebody invents
something like that.
Well, alex, it's been greatspeaking to you.
I want to wish you all the bestwith ellipsis and I would urge,
as I said, everybody to getacross or go across to alex's
website, which is getellipsiscom.
Um, at the time of posting this, alex is hiring, so I hope you
(49:25):
get this message before beforeum, I I post before he's not
hiring, so get across togetellipsiscom.
And, alex, I just want to thankyou for joining us on the
podcast and I want to just wishyou all the best with Ellipsis.
Alex Denning (49:43):
Thanks so much.
It's been really good.
Speak to you soon.
All right Cheers.
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