Episode 67: Sally Gradle

Sally Gradle is a WordPress business owner living in Northern Illinois with her husband. Her hobbies include gardening, knitting and crochet, and cooking.

Introducing Sally Gradle

Sally Gradle is a WordPress business owner living in Northern Illinois with her husband. Her hobbies include gardening, knitting and crochet, and cooking.

Show Notes

Website | Blue Orchid Web Development

Twitter | @yepitssal

Episode Transcript

Tara: This is Hallway Chats, where we meet people who use WordPress.

Liam: We ask questions, and our guests share their stories, ideas and perspectives. And now the conversation begins. This is Episode 67.

Tara: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Tara Claeys.

Liam: And I’m Liam Dempsey. Today, we’re joined by Sally Gradle. Sally says that though she is newish to WordPress, she has been on the planet for a while. She lives in Northern Illinois with her husband, they’re recent empty nesters and enjoying it. Her hobbies include gardening, knitting and crochet, and cooking. Welcome, Sally.

Sally: Thanks. I’m glad to be here.

Tara: Hi, Sally. It’s great to see you. Thanks for joining us here in the hallway, virtual hallway. Can you tell us and everyone listening a little bit more about yourself?

Sally: Sure. As you said in the intro, I live in Northern Illinois. I’m about 40 miles straight west of Chicago, and it’s kind of the perfect place to live because I can get into the city easily or into the country easily. It’s just really nice. My WordPress career is actually kind of my second career. I came originally from manufacturing but kept running into code and processes so it was kind of a natural evolution to eventually go into working with WordPress and building websites and working in programming, things like that.

Tara: What type of manufacturing? Tell us a little bit more about your background?

Sally: Sure. They were small manufacturers generally. The company I worked the longest for made traffic control devices. Traffic cones, and barrels, and message boards, all that kind of stuff you run into in construction. [laughs]

Tara: Yeah, I would think that message boards and that type of thing have evoloved How long have those been around? Electronic?

Sally: Quite a long. During the time that I worked there, the increases and improvements in the technology was pretty amazing. Just LED lights, when they first came into being, you had to put all kinds of lenses on it. Like, a lens almost like on a lighthouse to make it brighter. But then as LEDs improved, you didn’t have to do that. It’s really fascinating to see that ram up so fast.

Tara: So what kind of role did you have in that job? it sounds like you were exposed at least to the technology. You talked about how that kind of helped you transition.

Sally: Yeah, I was in office administration mostly. It was a small company so I pretty much was the IT department because I had the patience to figure things out.

Tara: Yeah. And how did you discover WordPress?

Sally: I discovered WordPress through Treehouse. It is an online learning company. Liam’s nodding his head, he knows it. That’s where I first started learning HTML, CSS, and all that. And then I saw a little course on WordPress. I’ve heard of that, let’s check it out. I went through the course and I said, “This is it. This is where I want to work and the space I want to be in.”

Liam: Was that Zac Gordon’s course on Treehouse?

Sally: Yes, it was. Zac’s amazing. [laughs]

Liam: He’s a great guy, I’ve got a lot of time for him.

Tara: Yeah, we have him here locally in the DC area, we’re lucky we get to see him now and then.

Sally: Oh, good.

Tara: Yeah. But I think probably anybody who’s touched on WordPress has seen Zac on Treehouse at one point or another. He’s great.

Sally: I’m working through his ‘Learn Javascript Deeply’ course now too because we were given that directive, we were given that homework to learn that.

Tara: That’s right. Do you prefer sort of that code and development end of stuff or you kind of make– or you are soup to nuts unicorn? You make websites from scratch and all the way to finish, right?

Sally: Yes. I do custom and semi-custom making use of all the told. I’m not an artist. When I need art direction and things like that, I will reach out to designers and artists. I can make something look nice, but to make it look really ‘wow’ and when people are paying for custom, they need ‘wow’, that’s when I reach out to the designers to help me with colors and good layouts and good graphics and things like that.

Tara: From a development standpoint, are you spending most of your day doing code? What does your day look like in your– you run your own company, is that right?

Sally: Yes. My day is more front-end really, design and layout and thinking about the information flow and the interface and the experience, but I’m not afraid to jump into code if something’s not working right. I’ll write CSS if I want something to be particular because I usually do. I’m kind of a brat though, out of the box is never good enough for me.

Tara: Well, perfectionism is a virtue and a curse I think.

Liam: So let me ask you this. As you were getting through the courses on Treehouse and starting to get into WordPress, how did that come about as a career? Did somebody say, “Hey, can you help me make a website?” Or did you say to yourself, “I can probably make some money on this?” How did development and growth of your business come about?

Sally: A little of both. I was doing kind of side work through one of the freelance sites and just trying to build up my skills and build a little portfolio and things like that. I was working in– this was my last real job, was with a large nationwide company in admin and I was just really frustrated with the culture there and the lack of opportunity that would be there for me. Some people absolutely thrived in it, I did not. I was talking with someone about it and she said, “Well, this is what we’ve chosen.” And that was a huge eye-opener for me. Because I thought, “Wow, that sounds limiting but it’s actually not.” Because that means you can unchoose it.

Liam: Yeah, choose something else.

Sally: So I did. And I talked with my husband and we looked at what’s what and who’s who. I said, “Yeah, I can do this. I can leave that and start a whole new business and a whole new career.” So I did. That’s actually kind of– I explained on my website the evolution of the name of my company, it’s Blue Orchid Web Development. Blue because 80% of the world, my favorite color, is blue. And the orchid because I realized there’s a saying that even an orchid growing in the wrong place is a weave. I realized I was an orchid trying to be in the roses. It wasn’t ever going to fit. If you’re an orchid being an orchid, don’t try being anything else. If you’re a rose, be a rose, stop trying to be anything else.

Liam: You’ve peaked my interest. How long between ‘we’ve chosen to be here’ or ‘this is what we’ve chosen’ and starting web became Blue Orchid Web Development?

Sally: Months, just a few months.

Liam: That’s quick.

Sally: Yeah.

Tara: Were you at all hesitant in terms of working for yourself? Not just from a financial standpoint. I know you said you talked about that with your husband, but that’s a huge lifestyle change and time management and all of that kind of things. How did that transition go for you? Also, just running a business, and getting business and all of those things. How would that transition go for you?

Sally: The transition was alright. I had actually– several years ago, I had another business that was providing outsource admin work for local businesses. So I had a little bit of experience with that. I hope this time I did it better. You know, you try to learn things you do in the past. The transition this time has been a lot easier. The general environment in the world for freelancers is a lot better than it used to be with the increases in technology, and the ability to communicate with one another, it’s just so much more open. And there’s so many more tools than there used to be.

Tara: Yeah, and it sounds like also your background had some sort of operational– as you described it, sort of, you were the IT person and probably many other people in that job, so you probably had a handle of it on multitasking and doing all kinds of things to make a business run. I imagine that you build in that experience to run your own business too?

Sally: I did. I’m very much a process thinker. And I’ve heard people say you’re either strategic or you’re tactical. I’m very tactical. I can just usually figure out how to get things done, and what needs to happen and in what order. It’s kind of the same as laying out the flow of information on a website. How do I need someone to move through this information or how can they move through easily to get what they need out of it? It’s been long-term, I kind of can’t turn it off. My family calls me a compulsive planner.

Tara: Yes. I’ve been accused of that. [laughter] That’s a good transition into me asking you some questions not just about your work but sort of about you and your life and your family. You said that you are a recent empty nester, and how is that adjustment going?

Sally: It’s pretty great. It was hard, of course, our daughter lives in another town here in Illinois. She’s a teacher. And then our son lives in another state and he’s working in a business. It was sad to see them go, but at the same time, I thought, “Okay, this means we did it right. This is what’s supposed to happen.” They’re happy and successful and that’s really all you can ask for. Then we’re just free to do whatever we want. It’s pretty great. It’s only been a couple of months since our son moved out so we’re still trying to figure out, “Hey, what do we want to do next? Where do we want to go? What do we want to see?”

Tara: I love it. You can open your mind a little bit. You said a ‘ding-ding’ word in there, which is success. You talked about your kids being successful. You know, we like to talk about success. I’m going to ask you about success and how you define it. Your children are successful, how do you define that for them, for you, what does that mean?

Sally: Am I happy in what I’m doing and can I pay my bills? That’s important. I’m free to choose what I want to do, that feels like to me the biggest success is you have freedom to choose what you want to do, either personally or professionally. And the biggest thing for me is can I make something better, can I make something better, can I make a process better, can I make someone else more successful in what they’re trying to do, can I provide an improvement somewhere.

Tara: Yeah. That’s a good definition. Do you think that if you look back on your previous career, do you think that you would have defined it differently? I asked that because you talked about freedom to choose and you mentioned that sort of lightbulb that went off in your last job where you realized that you have the freedom to choose. I’m just wondering how you would have maybe defined success before you realized that?

Sally: Actually, probably still the same way. One thing that will frustrate me is if I know we can improve something and I’m not able or allowed to do it. That will frustrate me a lot. So just being able to see that something can be improved or how it needs to be improved, and being able to do that is a huge success.

Liam: Do you run into that much with your current business or is that thinking more back to past jobs and careers?

Sally: I don’t run into the frustration aspect. Usually, I’m presented with the challenge and now I’m free to think about the best ways to meet that challenge and accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish. I joke with people that if people in the general public knew how much time developers spend googling things, they might think we don’t know anything. But the truth is we know where to look for what we’re trying to do.

Tara: That’s right, yeah. And what to use and not use when you find things as well. That’s true. You defined yourself as a planner, what are some things or maybe the most important thing that you do or some things that you do every day towards this idea, this definition of success?

Sally: The most important thing I do is spend time in meditation and prayer because that centers me. I tend to get a little wound up about things, I’m a little anxious. So that brings it down to, okay, I don’t have to solve everything right now and everything’s not on me, and things will happen as they’re supposed to happen. That’s the first thing I do. Then I look at my calendar, I do that the night before and the morning of and think about what needs to be done today, what needs to be done on Wednesday, what needs to be done next week, and plan out the steps on that, and try not to overload myself with things that all have to be done on Wednesday.

Tara: You approach short-term each night and each morning, you review what you got, and then you also look at your week ahead. And then how about bigger picture stuff?

Sally: Bigger picture stuff, if I know about it ahead of time, it goes on the calendar. Ever since my children were little, if it wasn’t on the calendar, it doesn’t exist. It has to be on the calendar.

Tara: That’s the planner.

Sally: And then I try to think about how long things take and then you always add another 20% at least on that because things go wrong. So I think about, by the end of next year, I want to have x amount of income or I want to be able to do certain things. I want to be able to pay for my own insurance for example. Or I want to be able to buy a new computer and monitor by this point. So I have goals and steps that I need to reach those goals.

Liam: How long does your night before and morning of review of calendar last because that’s something we hear a fair number of people do. But at the same token, we hear a lot of people say they’re so busy and they overload themselves, and, “I got to the end of the day and I did one thing.” How does that look? Aside from this opening up the calendar, “Oh, yeah. I got to call the client, I’ve got lunch here at this place, I’ve got to launch the site on Friday so I need to get these three tasks up that.” What is that night before, that evening before process look like for you?

Sally: One of my favorite things to do is check things off the to-do list. And I use the Todoist program because then I can put everything personal and professional on one list. I do have recurring tasks that I do every day, that review actually is one of them. So I sit down and– I try throughout the day, as I accomplish things to check them off, but I sit down and look at, “Okay, what got accomplished?” It’s almost like a bullet journal approach without doing a bullet journal. What things are no longer important, what things need to be done tomorrow, what can be pushed off. It takes maybe a maximum of 20 minutes really thinking about that. And then in the morning, since I’ve done that, it’s just kind of the, “Oh, I’m coming out of the fog and I’m having some coffee and, yes, I need to do that first.” [laughs]

Tara: Yes, I think that’s a good process. I’ve been doing that for a while as well and I find it very helpful. Things don’t slip through quite as often, they still do somehow, I don’t know how that is but they still do.

Liam: Let me ask you this, since you both do this. Work week is roughly five days. Out of the five, on average, how many nights before are you doing that 20-minute review process? Are you five for five most weeks, are you four for five, three for five? And I’m not saying it to try to put you on the spot and make you look bad. I’m just kind of wondering about the process and the flow and how easy it is to find time at the end of the day, because that’s what I really struggled with, to do something at the end of the day when family’s coming in, family responsibilities are taking over, that kind of stuff.

Sally: It’s really six days because I’ll start Sunday evening for what’s happening on Monday. And if I’ve been faithful in doing it at the end of the day, Friday, that Sunday evening is pretty easy to do. It’s just the reminder of, “Okay, this is the mindset I need to have, these are the things I need to do. I need to be out the door by eight, whatever.” So probably six nights awake. The thing I do struggle with is ending the day because when you work from your home, the personal and professional blend together. I have to very consciously say, “At six o’clock, I need to stop and eat.”

Tara: Especially when you’re an empty nester and you don’t have kids to take care of, and maybe your husband’s working, or other things are going on, it’s a lot easier to come back. I sometimes do that shut down at 10 o’clock at night before I go to bed. It’s not really the end of my– maybe I really stop working working at six or seven but I realize I hadn’t done it so I would do that before I go to bed even if it takes me five minutes to look at what I have and write it down in a little– I’m using a new journal called the Panda Journal, and it not only does that but it also has you in the morning write down three things you’re grateful for, and three things you’re excited about. And then at the end of the day, what your wins were. It doesn’t take me 20 minutes, though, you must be very thorough I breeze through it pretty quickly.

Sally: [laughs] That’s a good approach. And 20 minutes is kind of maximum, sometimes it’s because I’m moving things into folders, I’m terrible about this, putting things on my desktop. Sometimes it’s moving things in my folders where they need to be and making notes for myself and things like that.

Tara: What is your biggest challenge, Sally?

Sally: Building a clientele. I think like most freelancers, I think that’s the biggest challenge is building a clientele and balancing out the new business with the ongoing business, creating those constant revenue streams. Same challenges, I think, that everybody has.

Liam: How are you currently doing business development? How do you bring in new clients?

Sally: The best tool really is networking.

Liam: Agreed. What does that look like for you?

Sally: For me. I attend a regular monthly meetup that’s WordPress focused here in the suburbs. I attend another meetup that’s– it’s people that work in all facets of tech. Some are web developers and some are sysadmins. The neat thing about that is we have a presentation once a month, and maybe it’s not a tool that I especially use but I usually get something out of it. Some kind of process or way of thinking. And again, just building those relationships and building community even if I’ve never worked directly with that person, building that community. Then when they’re looking for someone or I’m looking for someone, we can communicate that way. Then I also belong to a coworking and makerspace where, again, it’s people from all different disciplines and we all– it’s become quite a little incubator, there are several of us that are small business people that have really grown our businesses by being in contact with our community.

Liam: Sure. And how many days do you hit that coworking space? You mentioned working at home sometimes.

Sally: I try to get here at least three days a week. Some days, I just want to get up and pour some coffee and start working. Especially, if I’ve got a big project. I just start right away and then have to remind myself to take a minute and breathe and look at what I need to do and don’t go off the rails. But yeah, I try to get there at least three days a week.

Tara: Yeah, I heard a lot about the coworking space being, not just good for your own productivity and your own ability to separate your day and your time, but also, like you said, to network. Are you finding clients at your coworking space or ideas for clients or other networking opportunities through that?

Sally: I have actually, yeah.

Tara: That’s great, cool. I’m going to make another jump and ask you another one of our questions and that’s about advice, since you’re sharing some advice with us, it seems like it. What would you say, if you look back, is some of the best advice that you’ve received and implemented in your life, whether for your business or for your personal life?

Sally: It’s again, be true to yourself. Be the orchid if you’re the orchid. Don’t try to be something you’re not, it will never ever work. If you’re an introvert, don’t try to be an extrovert and vice versa. If you’re tactical, don’t try to be strategic, and the other way around. You just don’t have the tools. So be who you are and work with what you do best. If you do what you do best, you will be successful.

Liam: I think that’s a great bit of advice. Become who you really are. It can be a challenge to figure out who we are though, isn’t it?

Sally: Yes, definitely. Especially, if you have people around you who want you to be like them, because it’s more comfortable, you’re more comfortable around people who are like you. So that’s really hard to say, “You know what? That just doesn’t fit for me.”

Tara: It is also tempting sometimes to try to fit in.

Sally: Definitely.

Tara: Not just for the teenage children that you’re telling them that they don’t have to, but I think in the adult world as well. Some of that imposter syndrome term that we hear all the time, I think is related to that idea of wanting to fit in or wanting to be– not wanting to be perceived as not knowing something or not fitting in. That’s a common thread throughout life. But keeping in mind your advice is a good idea to keep in mind about who you truly are.

Sally: I recently embraced the idea that it’s okay to say, “I don’t know.” It has to be okay to say, “I don’t know.” As long as you follow it up with, “I don’t know, let’s find out.” Or, “I don’t know, but this person over here does, so let’s ask them.”

Liam: Yeah, I love that. But I also love the, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” [laughter] Not to say that everything should be that. The client says, “Hey, can you do this?”, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” But kind of on this finding yourself bigger picture issues, there are things about which we just don’t care about. It’s not a priority for us to throw us off our track and get us to derail.

Sally: I agree. You can’t put your energy everywhere so you have to put your energy where it’s important to you and where you can do something.

Tara: Yeah, I’m pondering. I have a question. I’m not sure where to take this question. You mentioned something about always doing better, getting better, remind me?

Sally: Making something better.

Tara: Making something better. Does that apply– I’m going to get really deep to maybe go off on the tangent, we don’t have much time left so sorry. But how does that apply if you’re true to yourself, if you’re being true to yourself but you’re also seeking the best version of yourself. Does that mean that your true self is malleable? Where does that trueness fall? Where is that?

Sally: This goes back to something I learned in manufacturing. I worked in lean manufacturing, so some of our audience will probably have heard of that before. It’s a system of constant improvement. You make a change, “Did it work? Yes or no? Okay great, if it worked, great. Now, what’s the next thing we can do to make things better?” Being true to yourself is– when you make that change, did that work? Is that really true to me or am I trying to be something I’m not? And if it did work, “Okay, did I do it well? Is that a skill I need to improve or not?” It’s just that constant examining of how do I make it better. Big or small, what can I do to make this better?

Liam: And that requires a certain mindfulness in that for asking ourselves, “Did that work?” We have to be mindful of what we actually did. “We’ve got to try harder this week.” Sounds great on a Sunday evening but what does try harder mean. Is that to-do items, does that mean I’m going to focus more?

Sally: You have to look at what’s your purpose. What are you trying to accomplish? Is what you’re doing serving that purpose? In the business, it’s like being true to your vision and mission. Will these actions serve that mission or is this off-message?

Tara: I think when Liam and I talked about success, he had a very clear definition in that approaching everything with love type of idea, that ultimate overriding concept that you’re talking about. I think I was thinking about– if I’m true to myself, am I a bitch? [laughter]

Sally: Some days, yes I am.

Tara: Or do I try not to be? I guess that’s kind of where I am.

Sally: I don’t want to be, but some days are just not good days. [laughs]

Liam: Emotions happen, Tara, emotions happen.

Tara: But is that my true self? I don’t know.

Sally: You know what? It’s not because it bothers you, so it’s not your true self and you know that.

Liam: I know you’re being silly with that word, I get that. But it’s really kind of unpacking. What about when you’re being cantankerous, is it because you’re mad or is it because as we’ve seen with Serena Williams, you’re being forceful and direct in a way that culture and society doesn’t always appreciate or respect? What is happening and what is the challenge? Does that sit within something that you, Tara, or me, Liam, or Sally, in our own world needs to work on to get better at or is it something that as a group, we need to work and change society? I think that’s where things like mindfulness and asking ourselves question, and to Sally’s point, “Is this working? Is it not? Do we change?”

Sally: “Does this bother me because I’m being a brat about it or does it bother me because it’s actually wrong?”

Tara: I love that. Thank you for going down that deep philosophical path. I appreciate the conversation very much. It’s definitely been a good hallway chat that we have to wrap up, I think, now on that very deep philosophical note so everyone listening can go off pondering who their true self is.

Liam: That was good questioning, Tara Claeys, well done, thank you.

Sally: Well done.

Tara: Well, Sally inspired me. Where can people find the true Sally Gradle online?

Sally: People can find the true Sally Gradle on Twitter. I’m at JustSal. Just me. My website is Blue Orchid Website. Yeah, those are probably the best two ways to find me.

Tara: Great. Thank you so much, thanks for sharing your story and all your thoughts. We really do appreciate it, Sally.

Sally: Oh, I’m glad to be here.

Liam: It was great to meet you, have a great day.

Sally: You too.

Tara: Bye.

Liam: Bye-bye.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.