At least the Powerball tells the truth. In a state run lottery, the deal is very simple: You pay your money, you take your chances. The government randomly chooses a winner and the winner gets a big prize and everyone else gets nothing. But there are lotteries all around us, hidden in plain sight. There is the lottery of higher education. You spend 12 years of your life, dancing with school and y

Justin Ferriman didn’t set out to build one of the most successful WordPress plugins of all time. In fact, he didn’t even consider himself a developer. But with a deep background in eLearning and a sharp eye for market opportunities, he turned a gap in the WordPress ecosystem into a multi-million-dollar business. LearnDash, the popular learning management system (LMS) plugin for WordPress, wasn’t

Recently, our team uncovered a particularly sneaky piece of malware tucked away in a place many WordPress users don’t even know exists: the mu-plugins folder. In fact, back in March, we saw a similar trend with hidden malware in this very directory, as detailed in our post Hidden Malware Strikes Again: MU-Plugins Under Attack. This current infection was designed to be quiet, persistent, and very

Tourfic can transform WordPress sites into travel platforms by managing hotels, tours, apartments, and car rentals through WooCommerce. This Tourific discovery will show you how the plugin tackles booking fragmentation while maintaining its functionality.

Privacy compliance is something practically every site needs, so a useable and feature-rich solution should be on your list. Our WPLP Compliance Platform review takes a plugin contender for a spin.

Is it okay to dress your cat in a ridiculous costume? What about giving a poodle a haircut that subjects him to ridicule? The cat and the dog probably don’t know or care, but we think less of their person if it happens. At Disney, the costumed characters need security guards. Kids (and more often) adults would bother or even pinch the characters, figuring that if they were in costume, they weren’

I’m not saying I exploited my position as managing editor to meet one of my favorite YouTubers… … but I will say that I’m unreasonably excited to share today’s interview. And, my selfishness aside, this former Disney marketer has a lot to learn from. Today’s master turned his covid furlough hobby into a highly successful YouTube channel with nearly 4 million subscribers and a cookbook on the New

Managing a pest control business means juggling customer appointments, technician schedules, service plans, and follow-ups. A traditional spreadsheet or generic tool simply can’t keep up. That’s why teams are turning to CRMs for pest control — built for these unique needs. A recent study found 30% of field service companies increased customer retention by using a CRM. In fact, Rentokil Initial,

Sucuri is pleased to announce the completion of a product upgrade with our new Backups platform. For those already subscribed to our Backups platform, you will begin to see (over the next week or so), a new destination for where to access your new Backups. For those who have never purchased our Backups before, you will automatically be routed to the new experience moving forward.

Brands want to know that they are on the right track toward achieving their goals. That’s why measurement matters. Key performance indicators (KPIs) often give leaders signals to determine if what they’re doing is working or if they need to adjust. A client I worked with a while back wanted to ensure they were effectively engaging the African-American and Hispanic communities as a part of their

When I first started building websites with WordPress, choosing hosting was nothing like it is today. There were fewer hosting providers, most of them slow, and almost all locked you into a long-term plan without much flexibility. Now, things have changed for the better. You can choose between monthly or yearly hosting plans that actually fit your budget and goals, without sacrificing performance

It’s easy to imagine that we should do our work and then, when it doesn’t work as we hope, improvise to fix it. But perhaps our work is to show up ready and willing to deal with a future we didn’t expect. I keep writing about it because we all need to keep thinking about it. Especially me. My friend Ava curated this list: The only run is the long run. – https://seths.blog/2022/07/strength-through

A useful metaphor from juggling: When you find yourself lunging for a ball or club, let it drop. will always lead to a drop sooner or later, and it pays to skip the lunge and simply begin again, on better terms.

It’s tempting to seek out the easy gigs and the straightforward projects. But of course, if they’re the easy ones, there’s probably quite a few people eager to do them. So your ability to add unique value goes down. The alternative is to find and focus on the projects that take insight, guts and a tolerance for risk. The projects that involve significant human connection and effort.

Should you have to? I made a mistake. I used a QR code service a year ago, and now that my year’s payment is up, they’re going to delete the code. It turns out I wasn’t buying what they promised, and the fine print of their terms of service back them up. I won’t be back to them any time soon, I switched to Unitag, happily paying them a little more to get a lot more in return. A few weeks ago, WeT

Managing investor relationships isn’t like managing any old leads or sales deals. Investment firms deal with high-stakes portfolios, detailed reporting cycles, and strict compliance rules — all of which require special consideration. To stay competitive, modern firms need investment management CRMs that support fundraising, investor communications, and regulatory workflows and can grow with them.

Managing a successful gym requires more than just great equipment and passionate trainers. With fitness members increasingly expecting seamless digital experiences, gyms need robust customer relationship management (CRM) systems to handle everything from lead nurturing to membership retention. Gold’s Gym SoCal achieved its best six months of sales in history after implementing HubSpot’s unified C

In the construction industry, managing client relationships isn’t as simple as logging a few notes and tracking emails. With long project cycles, complex stakeholder networks, on-site and off-site coordination, and a steady stream of subcontractors, suppliers, and clients, construction businesses have unique customer relationship management (CRM) needs far beyond the average sales pipeline. That’

When I launched my first WordPress site, privacy laws were pretty straightforward. You added a privacy policy, maybe updated your terms of service, and moved on. But things have changed in recent years. States like Utah have introduced strict privacy laws that apply to businesses worldwide, even if you’re not based in the U.S. Under the Utah Consumer Privacy Act (UCPA), you could face fines of up

School is a training ground for task-based thinking. “Will this be on the test?” You finish your homework and then you can go out and play. This is one reason educators are flummoxed by chatGPT–it upsets the calibrated balance of effort in the task of homework and essays. The essay was not the point, the effort was. Schooling is organized this way because most industrial work is.

Last month, a customer contacted us after noticing their WordPress website was unexpectedly redirecting to a spam domain. The redirection occurred approximately 4-5 seconds after a user landed on the site. Upon closer inspection of the site’s source code we found a suspicious Google Tag Manager loading. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen GTM abused. Earlier this year, we analyzed a credit card

I’ve recently been using Substack to find new music to listen to. That’s probably not quite what its founders had in mind, but it has a ton of newsletters written by people who just really love music. It’s less professional music criticism and more “hey, this album was great, give it a listen.” That’s not the only off-label use for Substack. Today’s master of marketing is also a Substack fan — an

Nonprofits face distinct challenges when it comes to managing relationships and driving engagement. Unlike for-profit businesses, nonprofits must balance limited budgets with the need to maintain strong donor relationships, manage volunteers, run programming, and track impact, often across dispersed teams. These unique demands require tools that go beyond traditional customer management.

For the past few months, I‘ve been deep in the trenches testing the latest AI models, spending $200 a month on ChatGPT Pro, and building games with AI that would have required entire development teams just months ago. I’ve watched reasoning models solve problems that stump PhD mathematicians. What I’m seeing isn‘t just incremental improvement; it’s a complete phase change. After countless hours t

Is your organic traffic steadily declining ? There’s a clear reason why. AI tools like ChatGPT have transformed the way people search for information. Instead of clicking through different sites, users are used to concisely getting answers from their favorite AI tools. Google followed suit with AI Overviews to protect its search dominance. The result? Zero-click searches are rising .

Have you ever poured hours into a YouTube video that racked up views but barely moved the needle on sales? Or maybe you’ve wondered why some marketers keep generating leads and revenue from videos they made years ago, while yours fade into the digital void? The difference isn’t luck or timing—it’s structure. Strategic scripting, built […] The post appeared first on Social Media Examiner .

First mistake: If you meet a talking dog in the street and it makes a few grammatical errors or speaks with an accent, you don’t use a few errors to dismiss the fact that this is an actual talking dog. It’s amazing. It might even be worth having it join your team. Second mistake: If a talking dog tells you something, that doesn’t mean it’s true. Check the work. Even if your dog’s name is Claude.

Social media businesses face unique challenges in managing customer relationships across multiple platforms while scaling their operations. With over 5.24 billion social media users worldwide , social media companies must integrate their CRM systems with social platforms to capture every interaction and convert engagement into revenue. HubSpot’s CRM helps social media companies streamline their

Through advanced AI integration and comprehensive design tools, the Crafto theme wants to change how you approach building a WordPress website. This Crafto discovery is going to show you how developer ThemeZaa combines AI with professional design options to deliver websites that almost build themselves. The post ” ” first appeared on WP Mayor .

LinkedIn is the highest ROI channel for career growth, but many people aren’t prioritizing it — yet. I’m convinced most people don’t realize the goldmine they’re sitting on, for both their personal brand and their company. Posting content isn’t just for entrepreneurs or job seekers. Employees are a company’s best marketing assets on LinkedIn, from interns to the CEO. But this tactic only works if

Are you feeling the pressure to do something with AI but unsure what that means for your business? Have you invested in AI tools or formed a task force, only to wonder why you’re still not seeing meaningful results? Without a unifying strategy, even the best AI tools can create more noise than results. A […]

Are you struggling to create marketing content that not only resonates but drives real business results? Wondering how to transform customer wins into compelling proof that influences buyers at every stage of their journey? Customer stories are one of the most versatile and high-impact marketing assets available to modern marketers. In this article, you’ll discover […]

It’s all too easy to be familiar with being underappreciated. Customers, clients, vendors, colleagues–we’d like them to notice and acknowledge our efforts on their behalf. When we pay attention to appreciation, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that there’s rarely enough. Contrast this with the rare experience of being overappreciated . Getting more credit, support and benefit of the doubt than

Client relationships are the lifeblood of any legal practice, but managing them effectively poses unique challenges. Law firms must balance client confidentiality, complex case timelines, and regulatory requirements while delivering timely, personalized service. These demands make traditional client management tools inadequate for the legal industry. That’s where Customer Relationship Management

Let’s be honest — running a dental practice is challenging enough without juggling spreadsheets, missed follow-ups, and disconnected systems. Between managing patient relationships, scheduling appointments, and nurturing new leads, you need technology that actually works for you, not against you. That‘s where the right CRM comes in. We’ve researched the top customer relationship management soluti

Venture capital (VC) firms have unique relationship management needs that many customer relationship management (CRM) systems don’t address. They manage complex deal flows and must nurture and maintain long-term relationships with founders and partners. A venture capital CRM can work wonders to stay competitive and organized. Modern CRMs can help VCs streamline operations, uncover relationship

WordPress 6.8.2 is now available! This minor release includes fixes for 20 Core tickets and 15 Block Editor issues . For a full list of bug fixes, please refer to the release candidate announcement. WordPress 6.8.2 is a short-cycle maintenance release. More maintenance releases may be made available throughout 2025. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process w

Managing a WordPress team means juggling client calls, development sprints, and project statuses across tools. ClickUp Brain could be your team’s AI command center as it offers project updating, transcription for client meetings, and task creation. Join me as I introduce you to ClickUp Brain!

I can’t tell you how many creators I’ve spoken with who feel trapped on Substack. It’s incredibly easy to get started, but that simplicity comes at a cost. As soon as you want to change a font, create a custom landing page, or add more advanced features, the platform’s limitations become frustrating fast. And those limitations go beyond design. The deeper issue is control. On Substack, you don’t

If you’ve been following the AI space lately, it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning in acronyms and version numbers. OpenAI has been on a roll with new model releases, updates, and features that are reshaping how we interact with AI. From powerful reasoning models like o3 and 04-mini to the mind-blowing potential of ChatGPT Memory, OpenAI is beating even their own performance predictions. In thi

We’ve been busy little devs, hunched over our computers typing furiously until our eyes burn and our wrists ache, to bring you new features and functionalities on all our products. But then we asked ourselves, “ If a plugin update falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it really make a sound? ” AND, we also realized that our members (like Justin, see below) get a geeky lil

Everything that happened yesterday, and the yesterdays before that, is real. It happened. Perhaps it’s the hard work you did to earn a degree, or a significant error that cost you and others a great deal.