Is the Webflow Certified Partner Programme any good?
Welcome to the visual team. Hi, Matt.
Matt:Hey, Aline. Sorry. I I was, like, a bit do you know do you
Ailín:I was, like, 2 of them of you that was, like, you know, spins out west. Hey, and welcome to this radio show. We're we're enthusiastic.
Matt:I felt more like Les Dennis on Family Fortunes. That's what came into my mind, but then that showed my age. So a lot of lot of people don't know who Les Dennis is.
Ailín:I don't. I don't. He's
Matt:a led a legend of the daytime TV scene in the UK. Family Fortunes. You know Family Fortunes?
Ailín:Didn't. None of us.
Matt:Oh, man.
Ailín:We didn't have, UK TV. We had Irish TV.
Matt:Yeah. I feel for you. I do feel for you.
Ailín:Yeah. Sometimes.
Matt:It's like Fireman Sam. You never had Fireman Sam?
Ailín:No. I don't. Kind of. I don't even remember it.
Matt:So so Fireman Sam is actually a Welsh cartoon that they they, like, Wales actually has a really vibrant sort of cartoon, industry. Like, a lot of creative people in Cardiff, a lot of good studios. But obviously, it doesn't take off until it gets into the English language. And everyone thinks it's Far Musaam, but it's like Santan. So and
Ailín:Oh, no way. It was in Welsh First.
Matt:Welsh First.
Ailín:Yeah. Yeah. Oh, nice.
Matt:A lot a lot of them are. And, yeah, like, just showing my kids now. And even my wife is like, Farmer Sam. And now my my little guy is like, that's Farmer Sam. Like, oh, yeah.
Matt:He's Welsh. Cool.
Ailín:Well, you have to yeah. Like, we would have had more, like, American stuff. There would have been Irish Irish kids shows, but we would have bought the Irish TV channels would have bought, like, cheap American cartoons. Because you have to remember, like, in the early nineties, it was still, like, anything but from what's from England.
Matt:Yeah. No. Yeah. I don't
Ailín:because, like, they're they're still, like, a huge, like, no matter what we think, one thing we don't want to be. We don't know what we are, but we definitely don't wanna be English. And, like, that's you know, there's there was people working in RTE in the late eighties nineties who whose parents definitely were around during the civil war and at the end of the war of independence. So, like, if you think of you would have probably had family who, had, like, a direct connection to World War 2. Irish kids in the nineties would have had direct connections to the War of Independence.
Ailín:So it's not it's not a big jump.
Matt:No. Yeah. So bottoming
Ailín:things off, like, they're definitely in the, you know, in the the boardrooms of RTE and stuff is like, oh, we could get Fireman Sam. We're not getting that English show. Okay. Let's get the American version of was wasn't it Action Man and GI Joe? 1 was English and one was American.
Matt:Oh, was
Ailín:it? I think that's the difference. Yeah. Action Man and GI Joe. So we would have had the the American version.
Matt:Oh, fair play.
Ailín:So all all the stuff I remember was, was, like, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Captain Planet, stuff like that. But then if you were up up around Dublin and further north, you could have your antennas could have picked up BBC Northern Ireland, so you got the Yeah. You got the English channels. But down in the very southwest of Ireland, you couldn't get any of it.
Matt:No. You're a long way from from the UK and from, from America, so you have to buy them in.
Ailín:Yeah. We had 2 channels. And then and then there was an Irish all Irish channel, and then there was the 4th channel, which basically was called It's funny.
Matt:It's like a lot of my, a lot of my family, so, like, my brother in law's would would give me perspective on on Ireland when they were growing up versus the UK when I was growing up, you know. And we're very similar ages. And they're like, Matt, you have to remember, Ireland was a very, very poor country.
Ailín:Oh, yeah.
Matt:And you look at Ireland now and you go, like, one of the richest in Europe in terms of GDP, you know, the standard of living, everything is just sky high. And and it's very as a as someone who's only moved here in the last 5 years, it's quite hard to understand what they're talking about. But it's only when you see pictures of, like, Aoife's uncle, and they're they're standing there. And it's it looks like it's the 19 twenties, and it's the 19 eighties. You know?
Ailín:Yeah. The eighties were bad.
Matt:Yeah. It's, but anyway, we we we need to do a history podcast where you just tell me the history and I just listen, and then I'll tell you the history of Wales and you just listen. It is
Ailín:it is a mad one, though. Like, because, like, I never I never experienced any of that. Like well, I was when I was born, Ireland was pretty poor, but you don't remember anything. But my whole life was Ireland as a confident, successful country. And then we got the shit kicked out of us by the global recession, and then we had our own property crash.
Ailín:And we're just recovering from that. And we're dealing with all the the social impact still of something that catastrophic. Like, we're incredibly wealthy, but we're like, as a country, but there's still a lot of people that are who are not wealthy, been completely left behind by the recovery. So, yeah, it's it's a it's it's a mad dynamic. Every the Ireland is there was a saying that one politician back about 15 years ago said we're closer to Boston than Berlin.
Ailín:So we're, like, we're trying to play both fields. Like, do we want to be, like, a European country with all the benefits of your high taxation, high high kinda social welfare net? Or do we want to be like a low tax, high productivity, pull yourself up by your bootstraps country? And we're trying to play both both sides of the coin. And, yeah, it's what it is.
Matt:And it's one for another day. But I'm I'm gonna do one of my segues onto what we're gonna talk about today, which is being a Webflow partner. And, actually, it has a few parallels is that, you know, the Webflow partner is it a partner program, let's call it? It's gone through lots of different guises. I know that you were the first you say you say you were the first Irish Webflow partner.
Ailín:Yeah. They were called I don't know if we were called experts or partners or Experts or yeah. Because what was the dude's name? Like, I literally had a call with someone and because there was, like, a Typeform form, and it had UK in there, and I was like, I'm not fucking putting down that I'm in the UK. I'm in Ireland.
Ailín:And I had been meeting with this this guy, and, yeah, he was like, I saw him type into the database, Ireland. Now you can add Ireland to your profile. So so, yeah, that that was that was funny. But it it was very different, it's very different to what it is now. It was kinda kinda set similar there for a long while.
Ailín:The partner program, I know the the entry level got a little bit harder over time, and now it's this new fancy new partner hub. There's new kind of recommendations. And, yeah, all last year, I think we all got, like, 50% points or something to try and get from partner to premium partner. And I can safely say there's absolutely no way that I'm gonna hit premium partner.
Matt:Yeah. Okay. So so let let's let's recap. Okay? So, yeah, I think when it started, it was you were a Webflow expert.
Matt:But you was it was kind of trying to be almost a a certificate or a a little bit of a, a bit of quality control maybe. You know? So if you were a Webflow expert, you would kind of be vetted to be able to use Webflow. Yeah. And I remember you had to go through you had to basically take the certificate, so you had to go through multiple choice questions.
Matt:And I remember starting it, I think, 4 or 5 times and just going, do you know what? I I keep getting this random, really obscure CSS rule wrong or this I can't do this with the CMS, but I said you could do it with the CMS. And in the end, actually, I I just so I just left it because I I did a bit of, like, you know, I did a bit of sort of, quizzing people and go, is it worth being the expert? I used to do it every year. Worth being an expert.
Matt:They're like, nah. Sometimes it is. I get good leads or someone say, I don't really get good leads, or it's worth putting on your profile or your your portfolio site. Anyway, I didn't do it, and I only did it, last year because, because it it they revamped it. I did the same exams.
Matt:I used AI to pass it. That's that's that's how boring the exam was, but also how I found it. I like, I worked for 80 20, one of the, you know, one of the, at the time, one of the top, Webflow agencies. It's now you know, it's one of the top enterprise Webflow agencies. I got invited to, you know, the partner program.
Matt:I still wasn't officially a partner And get asked for feedback. We had this podcast. There was lots of stuff going on, and I couldn't even pass the exams to become a so I had to use I had chat to the p next to me and go, no. Copying the question. It told me the answer.
Matt:I put it in. And that's that's how I got my PDFs. You know? I've I've stuck them on my wall. I don't have them on my wall.
Matt:I don't know where they are.
Ailín:Right beside your little little kids' mural there behind you.
Matt:Yeah. Exactly. They value the dinosaurs and my certificates. That's what that's what feeds them every day. No.
Matt:But, obviously, right now, they've made a little bit more of a, concerted effort to streamline the the program, let's call it. And you basically the idea is you become a certified Webflow partner, and that the idea is and I'm I'm sort of taking this from their their landing page is you can stand out and grow your business, you enjoy enhanced support and training, and you connect with a thriving community of like minded professionals. So all sounds very good. So you have, you have certified partner, and then you have premium partner. And I think one of the biggest benefits one of the the the kickbacks is that you for every site plan that you, sort of introduce to Webflow So a client comes to you and goes, hey.
Matt:Can you help me build a a Webflow site? And you go, yeah. No problem. And you introduce them and say, oh, you should pick this plan. You get 20% of that plan as a kickback for the 1st year.
Matt:If it's an enterprise plan, you get 10% of the enterprise plan value, but only for 12 months. So that is the kinda headline in terms of you know, it makes makes me a little bit of money on the side. And then you get access to a partner hub. You get beta access to, new features coming out. You get you you know, we have a Slack channel where we will talk and help each other solve problems, newsletters, calendar events.
Matt:I think there's an in person event as well you can go to. I think there was one in was it Toronto last year? You get a badge that you can put on your, like, lapel or on your on your portfolio. And you get things like office hours where you can go and ask questions and stuff. But it's interesting because one of the main elements that I thought being a partner would do would be drive additional leads.
Matt:So, you know, obviously, if you're a partner, you get put onto their directory, and clients or prospective clients can come on, search for whoever, like they do on Upwork or something like that, I guess. And, they can browse your showcase portfolio and press hire me. And if you're available, they get I think it sends an email through to your account, and you can start a conversation. You know? But not much more than that, but that's, I think, the main idea of being a partner was to well, for me at least was like, well, I it wouldn't be bad to get a few more leads coming through into my inbox, and I don't have to work too hard for them because, you know, people are coming to Webflow to find experts.
Matt:But, yeah, I I thought maybe we could dive into some of the good things, some of the not so good things, and some of the things that maybe we think could be improved. Because I think, actually, on the wire on the wires, I. E. In some of the Slack channels in the partner program is, there's a few, you know, a few comments on it not working as they thought people thought it would do, questions about how you earn, commissions, you earn points when you refer new customers, and all this kind of stuff. So, yeah, what what's your experience of being a certified partner?
Ailín:So there's there's 2 two experiences. Like, at the very start, it was definitely, it it definitely was very valuable. But, like, when I was, like, I was when I was becoming a I was like, the partner program literally I think it came out in, like, a February or something. It came out really basic. I remember I missed out on becoming a Shopify expert, and and they were doing there was there did some Webflow did something similar where they were just, like, 3 websites up to a certain standard, follow do a few tests, and you're in.
Ailín:Because they were trying to, like, capture, a cohort of experts. And I remember Shopify did something similar and did a big push for this, and I missed out. And then the Shopify closed it. And I was like, oh, shit. That was stupid, because I was pretty proficient in Shopify at the time, and I was working a lot with it.
Ailín:Not, as not really as a business, but Flutter, as an employee. And having missed out on that opportunity when Webflow announced that they were doing it, I I made sure that I wasn't missing out on it. And the the Webflow kind of developer community or and designer community was was relatively was way smaller than it is now. So even, like, a simple Google search of, like, Webflow expert, your your your website was, like, popping up pretty easily. And there was very little competition.
Ailín:So people were finding you quite easily, and then the and seeing that you're an official expert. That way, like, just through, I suppose, osmosis or the fact that you have a little badge or you're able to claim that you're a Webflow expert. That way, it it drove a lot of traffic and a lot of leads. And then later on, maybe 2 years later, there was a push as Webflow grew to get more people on, and that became less. This is around the time, actually, that, like, Finsuite released client first that, that I noticed that being a Webflow expert was less it was giving me less leads, and that was probably just because there was more Webflow experts.
Ailín:And then when then they created the, like, marketplace. And that I was pretty, active with that marketplace for a long while where I was making sure that I was always available. I just found that the leads were, they weren't they weren't, high value. They were asking a lot for very little reward, which wasn't great. And I I wasn't, I didn't take on many of them.
Ailín:And then but I did get quite a few inquiries. I got quite a lot of inquiries, but usually my rates would be too high. And, but even though, like, Webflow did have on on your profile your your your starting points and all that, but it didn't, didn't matter. They they all seem to be, like, cheaper, lower lower value, asking a lot with a very tight budget kind of stuff. And then, that all dried up.
Ailín:So so it's gone through 2 kind of waves. And then there was the release of this new, partner program, which I think it's kinda cool. Like, it's there's a nice dashboard. It's, it's there seems to be a lot of, resources there for you to use and to to help you, like, take your business to the next level and all that. But this was my kind of work.
Ailín:I went from like, I was doing maybe 20 websites a year, and I try I paired it back to 10 to 12 higher value as 20, 25 websites a year. And then I brought it back to 10 to 12, but charging way more. And then I ended up retaining less clients at higher retainers, and then I ended up with 1 huge client and a few small clients few other clients. And now I was taken on by that client as a job. So from the current iteration of I think if you what is it to get to a premium, you need is it 2,700 points or something or 2,800 points?
Ailín:And it from my last calculation, it was about 15 CMS websites, basic plans, which is a lot of websites to be chucking out in a year. To me, that seems like if I wanted to hit that target, I would go back to what you know, Alene Tobin, Webflow partner 4 years ago where I was charging less and produce and and putting out more websites instead of what I am now, which is, like, one big client and maintaining a huge plat huge, yeah, like a big product. So in that sense, I think it's cool that they have set it up in a way that there is a distinction between 2 different, there's 2 different levels. But, essentially, to me, it just it it's it's saying that you got more people onto the platform than someone else. It's not really telling people about your skill set, which is, may maybe there's a next step in that.
Matt:Yeah. No. No. It's interesting, isn't it? Because, yeah, I think you you're probably coming from the same spot as a lot of people.
Matt:Even now with with with the new dashboard, it is designed primarily to encourage, volume of volume of clients, let's say, but, really, it's volume of site plans. So the more site plans you can push through Webflow in a in a 12 month period. So a January to when it was it yeah. January to so for February to January, oddly, the more points you get because you get points points win the prizes. So you get more points for a a business plan than you would a CMS plan.
Matt:And then you get the 20% kickback of the site plan revenue for for that site. So, you know, if you sold if you did one site, what do you get? You get $50.55 a year kickback. Not so a year. In the 1st year, you'll get they'll kick back $55.
Matt:That that would be a site plan for 12 months, a CMS site plan. And then I think you get what do you get? A 100 and CMS 150 points for that CMS plan. And you need, I think, 3 3,000 or, yeah, 2,800, something like that, points to go up to become a premium partner. What happens when you become a premium partner is you don't get any more commission or any sort of monetary kickback.
Matt:You just get more sort of benefits from I don't like, Webflow, you can call a person. Like, you get a back phone to a person rather than a Slack channel and stuff like that. You
Ailín:you might they might
Matt:send you a t shirt. Might send you
Ailín:a t shirt. You look better. Like, if someone sees if someone lands onto your website and sees that I'm your partner and you're a premium partner, and we both wrote the exact same quote, everyone wrote it to you. Like, that's that's the real value in these things. Like, when I was like, I literally had people say, oh, yeah, we got the exact same quote.
Ailín:So you're a partner. We're going with you for that reason. So, like,
Matt:no, that makes sense.
Ailín:There is a value to it. And, like, if you play the game and you get yourself to a premium partner, like, you will see rewards to it because the the client doesn't know or care. They they just see premium versus partner, and they're like, oh, this is better. The eyeball test says this person's better. So it definitely is, there isn't there is an intrinsic value that,
Matt:So you still need that's the thing. You still need to do the volume. That's that's and that's where that's where I I think as you've you've highlighted, you've
Ailín:you've I'm just trying to say that, you know, like, let's not be flippant about it and say that you get a backbone and a T shirt. Like, there is there is definitely a tangible value to being a Wix expert, a Shopify expert, a Webflow partner, and and a Webflow premium partner will get you
Matt:I guess that's that's why
Ailín:up against like, if you're up if there are 3 people and someone says, I'm a Webflow expert with no creds, and then someone shows that they're a Webflow partner
Matt:You've got a good point. But if we go, okay. Look. You might get even you might get twice as many leads if you're a premium partner than being a normal partner, let's say. Yeah.
Matt:Let's just put that out there. That's that sounds like a great deal. I I should get go and get the badge. Well, that's that's a 100% a 0 at the moment for me in the last 6 months. So I'm even getting that badge, I'm not gonna it's not gonna revolutionize my pipeline of of leads coming through.
Matt:Now it might be that all these premium partners are getting loads of leads because there's so many of them that the the normal partners aren't getting any. But I think as a lead generation, platform, it doesn't really work at the moment. Now that might be a symptom of there being lots and lots and lots more Webflow developers than there were previously. So that makes sense. You know?
Matt:There's a the demand has gone up, obviously, as we've seen more people recognize Webflow as a a great platform to use, but the amount of supply of experts has also possibly gone up. So, and and that's not to say it's, a bad thing, but it might be actually the suppliers come from all over the world. And we know how accessible workflow is in terms of the skill set. It's like it doesn't math. You know, you don't have to live in America.
Matt:You don't have to live in the UK or Ireland or it's it's one of these tools where you can literally have a laptop in the middle of the Arctic, and you can churn out unbelievable work for clients. So so it's breaking down that stuff. So may maybe that's a that's they've got a lot of supply, and it doesn't quite, it's too much supply for demand at the moment. So I think the as a as a lead generation, I think the general vibe is it it doesn't do what it maybe says on the tin. I think you're right.
Matt:Like, if you get a badge, that's gonna give you an edge. Anything like that gives you an edge. But the the biggest thing that, that I see that isn't really working is this idea of being a partner. Because, like, you have you've moved from, say, 20 sites a year through to working with high value long term clients. Like, it happens that you get employed full time by one of them, but I have I have a few high value long term clients.
Matt:And the reason they are long term is because I invest the time in making sure the platform works for them. I I've been I've got one client, and I've done probably 3 different bills for them. And the reason is new features come out, and I go, hey, guys. What about this new feature that Webflow just released? It's gonna make this easier.
Matt:We can roll out a better, knowledge center, or we can, what have we done recently? Like, things like Wiz comes along with overlaying Wiz store. A lot of the tool like Outsetter comes along. Hey. Look.
Matt:We can build a membership platform on this. And you start and the more and more you do it, the more the bigger plans they buy, they now go to a business plan, and then they go and they now they're putting more CMS items on this. It's not 10,000. They're going to 20,000. So the revenue for Webflow is going up and up and up, which it should do because the platform's getting better.
Matt:But I have zero incentive on on the partner program to to well, I don't get any I don't get any extra points because they're not a new client to Webflow. I don't get any recognition in the partner program that longevity means anything. And I'm not saying I should do or anyone who does, but it seems that I will be getting penalized as a partner for not doing, as you said, like, lower price, high volume, get them out the door. Because if I do a 5 100 quid website and they sign up to a CMS plan, it's the same as if I do a $20,000 job and they buy a CMS, site plan. You know?
Matt:It's just that's where I think there's a a slight misalignment. I've, you know, I've got I've got sort of I'm on affiliate plans with, say, outset, for example. Good good example. Lots of people know who that setter are. They they, like, MemberStat.
Matt:They do a membership platform. If you if you're an affiliate, if you introduce a new client to them, you get kickbacks for life. Mhmm. So as long as they're a client so the more valuable they are to a client to our setter, the more sort of kickbacks you
Ailín:get, which is their little way of
Matt:saying thank you. Yeah. And it and it sort of like And Shopify's And it's a line, isn't it?
Ailín:To maintain Shopify partner, status, you had to do 4 websites a year, introduce 4 new clients a year, and provided you introduce 4 new a year, you got recurring you they called it, a revenue share of 20%. Revenue share for life. But you had to keep you know, that was their thing. It's like it's like 4 websites a year. You get, and, you know, and then that compounds, you know.
Ailín:It's not a huge amount of money, but it compounds. And you're like, oh, yeah. There's my little Shopify kickback. Yeah. I I I do have to say when when Webflow did originally release their their, like, affiliate or their partner commission.
Ailín:I was just like, meh, this doesn't incentivize me to sell more web Webflow plans, really. And I I was just like, it's not, yeah, like, 12 months of something small. Yeah. It's it's nice, but it there was no it wasn't, enough for me to be, like in the same way that Shopify did incentivize me to sell more Shopify websites. Kind of it actually drove me more in the direction of high quality long term clients as opposed to,
Matt:well, I guess that's the thing is it isn't it? It it it's not worth your while. You literally you have to churn out a huge amount of of sites to make the kickback worth your while. But if it compounded, then you might be able to go, do you know what? If I do a really good job here, I this client will use Webflow for a long time.
Matt:And, also, you know, I might do a site in January, February, and then a new feature comes out in November, and I go, hey. Do you know what? This client could really use this. I'm gonna go in. And I may lowball that offer and go, hey.
Matt:I'm gonna do this for half the price I normally would. Knowing that that will keep them on the on the platform for longer, everyone wins. Win, win, win, win, win. But there's no incentive from a monetary point of view for for partners to go and help other, helps clients build up the feature set that they're using in Webflow because there's no kickback for that. And, also, the the weird the weird thing is is the scheme runs, as I said, February to January, and I have a number of points that I've earned, let's call them, this year.
Matt:If I want to go up a level, I have to I have to sell I have to earn another 2,000 points, which is not gonna happen. But even if I sell another 1,000 points this week and I get those 1,000 points on January 1st, Sorry. February 1st, they all get reset to 0 again, and I have to start again. So the whole the whole platform, the whole system just seems like they've gone, hey. Let's do year to year.
Matt:We'll borrow the affiliate thing. That's how it works. But I think they've just kind of, like, missed it. Yeah. I don't I don't know what the solution is.
Matt:I think, you know, even enough as a straightforward affiliate with no cap on commission or duration, As you said, even that probably wouldn't even make me sell more websites because it's not worth it. Like, if I get 55 quid extra a year for a site, it will compound, but it will take a long, a long time to compound. So it's not like I'm gonna get you know, go out and go crazy on selling websites. But it feels like they've just gone for a half half baked version, which doesn't reward long term. It doesn't really really reward short term.
Ailín:It doesn't reward it's it's quite a lot of stuff it doesn't reward. Like, it Yeah. I I was given someone approached me because I was Ireland's first Webflow expert in the last 12 months to upgrade their Webflow website to a Webflow ecommerce website. And, like, we all know that there is, like, a bit of trepidation in the Webflow world about ecommerce. It is not as good as other products out there, but it's it is so nice to build with.
Ailín:Like, the user experience that you can design and build, you know, and just look at the most successful websites in the world, take ideas from it, and copy it, and put it in there with no limitations, is unbelievable. Like, the potential for, like, we could do a whole podcast and, like, the potential of Webflow ecommerce in in terms of, like, user experience, and if you start using heat maps, it's, like, it's so I I do think there's so much potential, and it could be incredibly powerful. But I've upgraded this website. I've built this website. I've I've added, I don't know, like, 500 products and upgraded it from their CMS to, like, the $70 a month Webflow ecommerce plan that you when you upgrade, you don't get a kickback either.
Matt:Yeah. You you don't get points or prizes.
Ailín:Yeah. And, actually, this is something that's really interesting is that the ecommerce the points you get for ecommerce are incredibly high. So they're, like, incentivizing you to, to sell the ecommerce product, which to me, it's like that's and for for for me, I think that's really cool because I'm thinking, are they actually do they want to sell more ecommerce websites? Because if they do wanna sell more ecommerce websites, that means they have to invest more in Webflow ecommerce. I don't know.
Ailín:I'm kind of been doing a rope a dope here in my own mind.
Matt:No. No. You're you're right.
Ailín:Like, hitting Muhammad Ali up against ropes here. Like, is this the right thing to do? But,
Matt:But but you're right. Like, that's the thing that we do is you look at that and go, do you know what? If I get them onto an ecommerce plan, that's 5th like, an advanced one. It's 1500 points. That's that's 10 times more than a CMS plan.
Matt:So you're right. It's like they're not gonna incentivize that if in 6 months time, they're gonna go, do you know what? We're not doing ecommerce anymore. They're gonna do that because they wanna get clients on there and start be start pushing the feature set more
Ailín:and more
Matt:and more and building a an ecommerce powerhouse. You're right. It's it's but you don't see any of that now because the they were a plan that has existed, and you did all the hard work. And let's say, we're not saying you should get a kickback, but the fact that it's there seems to me put
Ailín:Do you know what it actually does? It incentivizes you to, like, duplicate a website and and It does.
Matt:I've done it. I've done it. I've done it.
Ailín:Yeah. I'm not I'm not updating this one. I'm gonna duplicate build on my end and, yeah, send it back to the client. Well, I do that anyway. Like, I would have done that anyway, like, in terms of security.
Ailín:Duplicate the site, bring it on to my platform. Once everything's approved, send it back just so that I don't end up, like, getting kicked off and not getting paid kinda thing. So I've I I do tend to do that if there's a live site, but it is it incentivizes that kind of, sneakiness more than it does.
Matt:And and it is you do feel sneaky
Ailín:because Sneaky.
Matt:We know. Like, there was someone the other day going, hey. Look. I've got I've had a client come here, and they they had a bad experience with a dev. And so they want me to take this on, and we're really gonna go to town.
Matt:We've got a new design, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, but the they haven't used a framework CSS framework in their build. So what should I do? Should I should I redo it on a blank project and use client first or use Lumos or whatever? And it's like, you you you come at it from a technical point of view. It's like, okay.
Matt:Yeah. Yeah. Stick a framework in. Start a new project. How many pages have I got?
Matt:You know, you need to go back so you can go forward, all that kind of stuff. But you add this on, it's like, definitely do a new project because you get extra points. And you might be at the end of January, and you need a 100 points to reach the next level. Now this is a very rare thing to do, I think, because I don't think people are actually in that that position when that happens. But it's a case of it is all the incentives are completely misaligned.
Matt:They're not aligned with the client. They're not aligned with the freelancer or the agency, and they're not actually aligned with Webflow because they're not trying to incentivize long term planning or long term, what's the word, long term loyalty from developers helping clients stick with Webflow. Because, you know, like, you're you went for the ecommerce stuff not because of the points. You just happen to to, do it because you like the the platform. But the fact is that means that if the points were worth something and they there was a little bit of kickback, it might have swayed you to put a even in your tone of voice when you propose, hey.
Matt:You could go Shopify, or you could go Webflow, you know, just because of that. But it even that's not really aligned. So it's I know it's it's early days, but I feel like I don't know.
Ailín:Do you know the people that it it really doesn't it it kind of assumes that everybody is their own business. Like, it doesn't, this will be really interesting for, like, agencies, like, bigger agencies and hiring. Like, how do you, let's say, you're, you know, you're medium size agency aspiring to be enterprise. And we all like, the agency world is, like, you hire freelancers. Like, you know what the platform premium partner like, people will be coming to you going, hey.
Ailín:I'm a premium partner. And they would just be like, let me see your skill set. Like, it doesn't it one, it doesn't help that business hire talent underneath them. And then it doesn't recognize the talent that is working for that agency that is churning out really high quality work. Because Unless unless they're not putting site plans on
Matt:Unless they're doing the whole, I remember you telling me this last year was you get hired because you're a you've got an enterprise. You've worked on an enterprise site. Therefore, you're an enterprise person. Therefore, you get hired into an agency so they can stick an enterprise badge on their on their
Ailín:no. It wasn't quite like that. It was I, I can't quite remember it, but I think you need a 3 Webflow experts on your team in order to apply for enterprise stuff.
Matt:Oh, there we go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Ailín:Yeah. So there was I was approached a few times by not Enterprise Now, but by people who wanted me to, bring them through the the partner process and get them to partner status.
Matt:Yeah. Hitchhike. A bit of a hitchhike through to the through through border control.
Ailín:Which was very complimentary at the time, but at the same time, I was like, I don't know. The the those those requests didn't work out.
Matt:Yeah. But it but, anyway, yeah, it's it that I think that's where we are with it, really, isn't it? It's it's the general vibe, at least on various Slack channels, is community like, subcommunities in Webflow is that it it's not really hitting hitting the straps that it should be. It's not serving the purpose. Now I know there are there are talk of changes and upgrades and all sorts of stuff coming down the the pipeline, but no one really knows what they are yet.
Matt:And and to be honest, I'm not sure what a perfect partner program would look like. But, you know, I like there's so many platforms out there like Upwork and Contra and oh, there's, you know, all sorts of marketplaces out there where you can hire people. And to get to validate quality isn't just putting a badge on someone. It's not volume of, work done. That's not in my mind, that's not really this day and age, at least, it's not a, a measure of quality.
Matt:But so it's it's very hard to to put in a a program that is a lead generator and rewards longevity on the other end. So, you know, I've
Ailín:The way Shopify did it, you know, it's a while. I actually just got kicked out of my Shopify partner program because I didn't have enough I've I haven't used my developer, portal in a very long time. But, so I I said already, I didn't I missed out on the opportunity to become a Shopify expert, but it was very easy to become a Shopify partner. So they distinguish between experts and partners, and experts was like a closed shop. Yeah.
Ailín:And you could apply, and you kept I kept getting rejected. But, like, that very first initial drive to get experts in the door, that was a much lower barrier for entry, and, like, I really regret not getting in there. But there's a there was a significant difference. You can be a partner, and then over time, through trust, good work, client I don't know. I don't I don't know how you become a Shopify expert, but maybe you become a Shopify expert.
Ailín:And that that is so valuable that you're in this, like, exclusive club. Even if you're doing, like, a 100 websites a year or one website a year, you're an exclusive expert that not many people can get into. Whereas the partner program is much more about, like as I said, you you build a site, transfer it over to the client, you get kickback. You if you do 4 websites a year, you keep getting kickback kickback, and you can compound that. So So, there's a distinction between experts and partners.
Ailín:And then, obviously, then the no. It's as I said, it's been a while, but there's various levels of partnership and expertise. So that was that was a very clever way of distinguishing between, skill set and then, encouraging you to become, like, a free partner, and it was very straightforward and and to start selling the Shopify platform. So, yeah, that that I I found how they did it very compelling. There was there was incentive to sell websites.
Ailín:There was incentive to get better. There was incentives to
Matt:Keep keep your clients on
Ailín:Shopify? Yeah. Keep them on it. Yeah. Well, yeah.
Ailín:It there there was. And and migrate people over, like, and the reason I moved to Webflow is because it was just it was still, like, customizing Shopify stuff. It was still very template based, which also made it very easy to, like, build and churn stuff. But, like, that bespoke website wasn't, was very difficult to build in in Shopify. And and that's kinda why I went over to Webflow, was building up bespoke.
Matt:It's funny it's funny you say that because I was working for a company, and they were using Shopify, and they were using an agency, Shopify agency. And I was brought in on a UX sort of UX role product UX role. And to communicate my my UX ideas to improve the conversion rate, I used Webflow. I didn't use Figma. I used Webflow.
Matt:And I would instead of sort of Wow. And I would it it got me in trouble not because it was bad. It was because it it moved so much quicker than the Shopify agency who were using, you know, liquid and Yeah. The agency model. So much so that I'm I firmly believe I wasn't invited to certain meetings because I would have a prototype that wasn't just a Figma prototype, but was actually a prototype with a Shopify buy button on it that I would you know, one of those Shopify snippets you add on.
Matt:Yeah. Yeah. You could actually I could actually build the whole thing in a couple of weeks. Instead of talking about it, I just build it. Whereas they would have an 8 week program to to build it and then and the prices they were charging.
Matt:Oh my dear. It was like because it was Shopify is that that more complex to build, you have to you know, even even liquid. Once you get your head around it, it's easy enough. But even behind the liquid, it's it's, you know, it's tricky. Being an expert is being an expert, you know, is, the prices they were charging was off the I was like, I could do this for, I could do this for you in house now, if we use, if you use Webflow, you know, And okay.
Matt:There were there are lots of other things that Shopify brought to the table, in terms of the platform. We know it's a good platform. But that's how I that's oddly how I got into it. And it's that's that's where maybe it's quite hard, I think, because the Shopify system is a lot more mature in terms of, as you say, partners and experts. There are like the old agency world, like the creative agency world.
Matt:There are certain things that lock people in. You know? There's certain boy I say boys club in inverted commas, but, you know, to get into the experts club, you probably it wasn't all about super being super talented. There are other things involved. You know?
Matt:I think with the with the Webflow one, it's really hard because how do you assess if someone is a good partner? Let's call them partners because we're all partners. Because in Webflow, building a Webflow website for someone is I don't know. It's just there's so many different skill sets involved. And so many so many people have, good bits and not so good bits.
Matt:You know? You like, there's the design side. There's the animation side. There's the technical development side. There's the UX side.
Matt:There's the project management side. There's the project delivery side. There's the QA. There's there's so many aspects of being delivering a good site. To assess that is actually really hard.
Matt:You can't assess it with multiple shortest questionnaires that you can do with Chat TTP. This is You can't assess it doing that. There's no way you you can weed out the the really good from the not so good. You know, you can tell when you walk into a room. Even some of the conferences we've been to, you can tell some of the agency owners.
Matt:You can tell why they're invited to the top table at the enterprise because they have a gravitas. They have a way of dealing with people. They have, positivity. They have, you know, they they have a team of people who may be not front of house, but are so good at animation or really good at understanding UX or shithop designers. So it's really it's not an easy task.
Matt:But the only way to do it, I think, is to be a bit more hands on. It It can't be algorithmic. It can't be can't be number of points you've earned. It can't be number of sites you've churned out or any anything like that. I think if you wanna be a premium partner or let's call them a Webflow expert, Webflow need to invest time in vetting the real people who can do deliver real top quality time and time again.
Matt:And that's not just whiz bang sites or selling as many CMS plans as you as you can or because as you know, like, you can do a site for 500 quid and sell a CMS plan. Boom. Boom. Boom. Before you know it, you're a premium partner.
Matt:Does that mean you're good? Does that mean that the person, as you said, looking at the badge going, oh, they're a premium partner. They're getting value for money. Well, they might never have built a componentized system ever before, or they might not have looked at SEO before, or they might not have done any animations before. Because why?
Matt:Because they just did mom and pop shops, you know, cheap and cheerful, off you go templated sites. You know, I'm not saying that's what premium partners do, but you could. So I think yeah. I just it's hard, but I think they if they want to make it valuable, I e you know you know, the taxi the taxi badges in New York. You know?
Matt:You you have to pay, I don't know how many 1,000.
Ailín:Oh, insane money. Just badgers. Insane
Matt:money. It's because they're worth something. But, like, having a premium badge, all it all it says, premium partner badge, all it says is you can sell CMS plans. You can sell business plans. That's all it says.
Matt:It doesn't say anything about the quality of the site or anything like that. So that's where that's where I I've got no no sort of
Ailín:So how much how much do you get for a CMS plan or, like, a business plan every month?
Matt:Well, a CMS plan, points wise, you get a 150 points per
Ailín:second. Like, how much do you get back kickback a month?
Matt:Oh, kickback. So, what, $23 is a CMS plan. So you would get $4? You get no. You get, yeah, 5 yeah.
Matt:Just under $5.
Ailín:We'll just say $5. $5 a month.
Matt:And a business plan, you would get, what's that, $40. So you would get just under $5.
Ailín:Business plan because you're you're, like, you're upselling, and you're trying to get
Matt:Oh, yeah. I'm upselling to get my extra $3 a month. Yeah.
Ailín:You're right.
Matt:Woo hoo. So
Ailín:you need 1,000 websites to get 10 k a month.
Matt:Oh, dear.
Ailín:Going back to our 10 how to get 10 k a month. Sell 1,000 Webflow websites a year.
Matt:Easy as that. That could be my, like, next LinkedIn post, actually.
Ailín:Yeah. There you go. And then you sell them for 500 you could sell them for a $100, and then you get another $100,000.
Matt:Oh, man. And or I could join their affiliate scheme as well. That might be more efficient. I don't think that do that. That gets much.
Ailín:That would be affiliates.
Matt:But then I could add Jetboost in, get affiliates on Jetboost and I could add a outset or even though they don't need memberships to it. Do you know? No, but you're right. You're right. It's like it.
Matt:I, it kind of just makes it a mockery that really doesn't it. It's just, I just don't like it at, as you said, it's got a nice dashboard. It's got a nice landing page Said you get you get invited to partner events and stuff, which I think
Ailín:actually would be worth
Matt:a lot more. But
Ailín:Okay. I've been a little bit cynical about it there, but it does also reward, like how many how many points is it for the business plan?
Matt:250. 250.
Ailín:250. So that's 10 plans. 11 12 plans a year? Twelve websites a year? So, like, if you're selling 12 that's kinda what I said I was doing was 10 to 12 higher end or medium to higher end websites a year.
Ailín:It does reward it in that sense if you're selling them as business plans. You know?
Matt:Well well
Ailín:You kinda you do have to be you're not you may not be giving the you the client exactly what they want in terms of hosting. It might be a little upselling the hosting a little bit to them.
Matt:But but even if you do, that you you're getting 960 a grand a year kickback.
Ailín:Oh, no. I'm I'm not really saying with the kickback. I'm just saying as
Matt:Yeah. But then
Ailín:you become
Matt:a pre
Ailín:a premium partner. Premium partner, and it's like
Matt:And then you get then you get a a they send you a cap.
Ailín:Well, you'll be able to get you'll be able you'll sell more websites next year. That would be what I think. Like, there there is there is a certain sense of, like, they are rewarding consistency. Like, if you think of it in terms of the business plan and not the lower plans, like, that is that's not a huge amount of websites for, a a freelancer that's going like b to b. Not not, but, like, then if you say retaining clients, it gets gets a bit complicated.
Matt:Yeah. And they they they can't compete with that. You know? A retainer for me isn't is not you know, that's a that's a no brainer compared to trying to get a new client. As as the whole business world knows, a an existing client is so much cheaper to obtain because they're already a client and more profitable to have as a customer.
Matt:It's just that's the nature of every business in the world. So it's a case of, like, they can't compete with that. Yeah. Maybe they don't don't don't want to, but that's why Actually,
Ailín:that's something that I'd see what happened is that, you know, in your first two years, you might hit that 10 to 12 websites a year. Like, if you're just a freelancer and you're you're hitting 15 websites a year, but then, like, after after 2 years, and this actually happened to me, you're, like, maintaining those clients who are just coming back for this is broken, that is broken. I wanna update this. I wanna add a newsletter. I wanted all these small jobs and then trying to do another 15 clients here.
Ailín:That becomes that becomes difficult. I hope I And it's not
Matt:and it and it's not I don't think it's the way they should be trying to push people either. I think it it should be about fostering and compounding relationships and quality and and taking you know, I I've got a I've got a client now, my favorite client. I've been working with them for 3 or 4 years. And I I would love one day for them to be a showcase in Webflow. You know?
Matt:I'd love it. But the reason they're gonna get there is because Webflow is a platform that they can grow with. They're adding features that that make it easier to work with. There are apps that come out that you can integrate. And I'd like to think that I have a little bit of a role in allowing them to to make the most out of that platform.
Matt:So, you know, it's shared success. Wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't it? But, anyway, we we've labored the point on this, but it's just say, like, I'm sure Webflow, speaking to lots of people in the background and coming up with lots of random ideas, and they'll relaunch Webflow Partners in 6 months or the conference or whatever. And everyone will get free T shirts. And we'll all smile and be happy again.
Ailín:Alright, Matt.
Matt:On that note, on that note, we'll, we'll see you next week.
Ailín:Alright. Good luck. Good luck. Bye bye. Bye.
