Case Study: Tara Berg

How did you find out about WP Rockstar? 

So I was actually just going back through my emails because I have been lurking in the space. and my first email from Julia comes back to 2020. So I yeah, I just had always been lurking in that area.

I'm not sure how I originally stumbled on her group, but it looked like maybe it was just a free webinar type thing. and then. Yeah, so I just lurked for a while and then I was ready to quit my job, and that's what spurred me into actually taking the step. I thought about it every time enrollment came around.

But that's what made me take that step. 

What was your life like before you completed or joined WP Rockstar? 

So I actually, I know this is one of the questions later down, but I actually had put together a few websites before the whole time I was working, I actually had probably been managing some websites for about five years.

I'm in a little bit of a different demographic than a lot of the people who just join, but I think once I was able to join, I was so much more confident in what I was able to do. The websites and stuff that I had done before, were for friends and family and stuff, and I was more confident to be able to go out and do this for strangers and things like that.

Were you charging for the websites?

A lot of it was friends and family. I had charged for one of them. And it was a friend of a friend type situation. I didn't charge him very much, but I did charge for one of them. That was a long time ago. 

What actions did you take as a result of taking the course and being part of the community? 

My favorite takeaway, is I was able before I was just like, yeah, I can build you a website. And I'd sit there and pray that they didn't want anything super fancy.

But knowing that I had a community to be able to answer questions, and I had different ways I could figure things out. 

My favorite takeaway is that I can now walk into a meeting with clients and just be like, what's your dream for your website? And they can throw anything they want. Oh, what if we had something that did this and that had this functionality?

And I know that at some point I can get to a bottom, get to the bottom of their requests and be able to deliver that for them.

Did you have any experience with freelancing?

Not really. So I was a teacher, and just doing a couple of websites on the side trying to build that. It took me having to completely leave teaching to actually be able to build a profitable business. That was the only experience that I had had with freelancing up until that point.

Were those websites on WordPress? 

They were WordPress. Yeah.

Did you have any experience with coding before? 

Yeah, I actually learned HTML in eighth grade, I learned that that was one of the classes I got to take in school, and for whatever reason, it just stuck. I don't know why, because it doesn't seem like something that would just stick after you're not using it all the time.

But, so I did that a little bit. And I was teaching computer classes and business classes, so I actually taught myself CSS to be able to teach to my students. So I did have some, some familiarity with that at that point also. 

I never would have thought that that would have benefited me, but it did. 

How long did it take you to earn your investment back? 

I earned my investment back almost immediately. When I had announced that I was not returning to my classroom and that I was doing something else.

I'm really lucky that I live in a pretty rural area. So we actually had a lot of places in town that didn't have websites. The first website I did, after joining WP Rockstar, was for our public library. And so, and that was that almost immediately that was almost happening at the same time.

I was pretty lucky in that I already had some things on the docket.

How did you get in touch with the library? 

Somebody from the board ran into me at the library because my kids and I go every week and said, oh, hey, I hear you're doing this now.

We really could use one. Yeah, so it was a personal invitation. 

Can you talk a little bit about this project? 

It was, I mean, it was larger. Their biggest thing is they wanted something to be able to link their new card catalog to because they were doing a major tech update within the building.

They didn't really have one. And so, I want to say it was 6 or 7 pages. We did an event calendar. We did contact forms and things like that. And, I wouldn't say it was bigger than the one I had built than any that I had built from the ground up previously.

But, yeah, it was big for me in that I know that that's a really big figurehead in our community. And so, that was exciting to be able to be part of that because, I don't know, a few months ago, I actually just wrapped up our county's website because our county didn't even have one.

And so it's been fun to be able to do some of these higher profile websites that I know are really being utilized. So that's awesome. 

And can you tell, any difference in how it was like to build a website before when you were doing it just for friends and family and doing it now?

So my biggest actually, one of my biggest reasons, for joining WP Rockstar one was the community. And like I said, being able to confidently answer anybody's request was really important and really exciting for me. 

But the other big reason that I joined was because I needed some help wrapping my brain around the processes. So from getting a client to off boarding a client, how to deal with some of that other stuff that comes along with it.

That was where I was completely lost and that was honestly my driving motivation to join WP Rockstar. And so that's something that keeps improving as I go. I would say that the first website was still pretty rocky in the process department, because I'm trying to do WP Rockstar and at the same time doing the website and just searching for the things that I need.

I would just say that the ability to be able to come at it professionally was really important.

And so that is one of the areas that has made a huge difference is, knowing how to write a proposal and, how to collect information from clients and, and content and things like that. That was one of the huge takeaways for me, because I already knew a lot of the technical stuff.

I already knew how to build a WordPress website. I knew how to code and things like that. but the processes were huge. 

Would you be able to talk a little bit about your price range?

I know it's hard. and I find myself doing the thing you're not supposed to do. And sometimes I charge for the client because I'm like, well, you're only a one person fresh entrepreneur. 

I don't want to charge you a whole lot or whatever. 

And so that's hard. Especially because a lot of my business, I have a few clients outside of my community, but for the most part, a lot of my business is people I know personally.

And so it makes it really difficult. but I will say, I think the library website, the first website that I did after WP Rockstar, I charged about $3,000 cause it was larger and I felt like I had the experience I know, the $1,000 is a marker in WP Rockstar, but I felt like I had the experience to go past that a little bit.

And I was doing other things. I set up all of their Google, their search engine stuff and their analytics and I was doing the whole package. I wanted to make sure that they were left in really good shape. So that's where I started.

I essentially launched my business full time in June of last year because it was right around the end of the school year. and so from June to September, the end of that fiscal year, I made about $11,000, which was awesome. I wasn't expecting to do quite so well. It just depended on the size and the scope and things like that.

I felt like once I hit that point again that I could deliver on any request that somebody gave me.

Once I hit that point, that's when I was like, okay, we can add this a little bit because literally they could ask me to build something crazy. And I feel like I can do it. 

And so, I think that that's where I really felt like I had been set apart from, like, previous me building websites to the new, new and improved website builder 

What are your future plans?

Part of the bonus that came with my WP Rockstar was, 1:1 call with Julia, and she encouraged me because she was like, oh, you're already going. 

So she encouraged me to think about starting an agency, and I would love to be able to hire a couple of other people.

I'm even thinking about people in my community who really could use something I would love to empower them to be able to work from home like I do. because it's been life changing. so I'm not there yet.

I don't feel like I'm consistent enough to be able to take on anybody else. But that's my goal, is to be able to employ a couple of other people or contract with a couple of other people. In order to help me get my work done when I am busy and to be able to provide that opportunity, especially in our area where there's not a whole lot of opportunities like this.

Did you feel supported when going through the course and being part of the community? 

Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I know I can see in the group sometimes the people that don't have my background in coding and stuff and how frustrated they get. And I always feel really bad. I was really lucky that I didn't have a whole lot of questions going through.

I didn't need a ton of support, but I will say, I have had a few client things. I had one client, and she essentially hired me for troubleshooting, and she had a lot of trouble. So, being able to ask questions in the group and get some supportive answers. And even when there wasn't a clear answer, just like, I'm not sure you could try this, but I think everyone is super nice and helpful.

You know, I haven't been attending my coaching calls and stuff like I should. I always forget, two days are hard. But when Shannon does the co-working and stuff like that, she's always super, super willing to help anybody figure things out. And any of the coaches I know Tim starts every week, saying, hey, what should we learn about this week or whatever, so.

Or every month. I feel like everyone has been super supportive and it's. Yeah, it's been really great. 

What stood out to you about GeekPack and WP Rockstar?

I definitely think the people, the support. Everyone is so down to earth and so easy to talk to.

And easy to ask questions of. I have never felt like, oh, that's a stupid question. I shouldn't ask that. I feel like it's a very safe space for asking questions, which is really awesome, because sometimes you'll get into these techie spaces and feel like, oh my gosh, everyone knows so much more than I do. And I just feel like, WP Rockstar, GeekPack, they don't have that barrier.

And I love the way the courses are laid out. Because again, I needed very specific things. When I first started to try to get my first client going. And so the ability to be able to cherry pick what I needed at first and then go back and do everything was really awesome for me just because I needed something in the moment.

And then I could go back and like, look at the whole picture.

What would you say to someone who's on the fence about joining WP Rockstar?

I mean, I definitely would encourage it. You know, I hung in the background for years. And I jumped when I was ready, and I don't regret not doing it sooner, I guess. I needed to be in a space where I could work. 

I think that if I had done it even the year before, when I was still teaching and stuff, I don't know that I would have touched it.

I think it would have been one of those courses, too, that just sat there and didn't get used. so I feel like somebody who needs to jump should be ready to work on it. 

I definitely think it's life changing, and I feel like it's life changing on so many different levels because, again, I came in with a much higher skill set than a lot of people do, but you could come in at nothing. 

I mean, all of the framework is there. I went through module one anyway. and all of the framework is there to be able to build a website from the ground up. so, yeah, I don't see a situation where someone wouldn't be successful using it. 

What is your number one tip for someone who wants to learn a new skill? 

My number one tip is to not be afraid to make mistakes. I see I've taught computer stuff for a long time, and then just lurking in groups and training my clients to use their websites and stuff. I see a lot of hesitance toward technology like, oh, I'm going to break it.

I'm going to mess something up and I was training some clients the other day on using their own website and I said, don't mess it up. But in all reality, if you do mess it up, we have backups and we can restore it. And, so something I try to stress to people is that just every mistake you make pretty much can be undone.

You know, as long as you have backups. but every mistake you make can be undone. And that's how you're going to learn, is if you go in and try things. and so don't be afraid of messing something up. Sometimes you do have to just get in there and try it and try a different line of code, see if it works.

If it doesn't, just take that line of code back out. 

And that's a really easy thing for me to say because I just am like that. I will go in and start messing with things, get it, get a staging site going, start messing with things. I mean, that has been my biggest. 

I feel like that's why I'm successful is because I just jump in and try to figure things out. And I think that that's really important in a tech related job like this. Because, it changes all the time. 

You're never going to know absolutely everything there is to know. And so when you're faced with an odd request it's just gather as much information as you can and then try some things out and see, see what you come up with.

And I think that's a really important skill to have.