This episode is a special edition outlining who we are, where we came from and what we use to operate our day to day business.
Keegan 0:00
What’s up internet, welcome to a very special edition of Divi addicts. Today, we’re going a whole different direction. We’ve done an intro. And we’ve had a couple episodes in here now, really just the first two. But this is a special 2.5 edition. And this is where I wanted to talk a little bit more about who we are, what Keegan Lanier Media is, why we’re here, and how we’re doing what we’re doing. So without further ado, let’s jump right in.
Keegan 0:26
So to tell you a little bit about who we are, we got to go back way in the time, back to the year 97. So I was Yeah, I was a little kid, I was in junior high. And I was working just for fun building websites of some things that I was interested in. And were hand coding, right in HTML from scratch. And then we learned the wonderful world of iframes. And then that took it to a whole new level with navigation. And, you know, it was an interesting time, there was no wasn’t a WordPress, there wasn’t this massive CMS system, there weren’t these pre made themes that you could buy. And there weren’t these dynamic websites the way they are. Now everything was hard coded. Everything was typed in, there was no real CSS. It was just straight up HTML static sites. And I was building websites about South Park, it was really super culturally hot at the time. Another interest was roller coasters. And that was another one of professional wrestling, it’s always been a passion of mine. Maybe thinking about starting another podcast on the side of this about wrestling. But that’s a complete side note.
Keegan 0:26
But it all started at that time, and got the interest got the bug for designing and building and keeping websites. And then lifestart and got into high school started working, did a little bit of design, a little bit of Photoshop and a few things here and there. But most of it was all taught, self taught, get into college, a little bit more building custom computers, doing a little bit of coding a little bit of gaming, and then got into the professional world and the website building and all that just kind of went to the side because life got really, really busy.
Keegan 2:04
Once that all started to settle down about six or seven years into the career, I decided I needed that creative outlet again. And so I returned to the world of design and websites and started getting back into Photoshop, really polishing off the skills, started looking at what WordPress was and how it was, how was being managed, how you installed it, the theme development community, all of that, and tried a few themes along the way, tried x theme by theme co tried Jupiter and then found Divi and first I thought, I don’t know if it’s worth it, you know, the one theme you gotta buy a subscription. You know, do I want to do that versus paying a one time fee and look at all the other pieces that Elegant Themes had and I was like I’m maybe I’ll take a leap to a couple 100 bucks. Let’s get the lifetime subscription and be done with it. If it works out great. If it doesn’t, you know, maybe we’ll just chalk it up to being a learning experience.
Keegan 3:02
Well, that turned out to be one of the best decisions that we could have possibly made as a business as a person as a designer, and what eventually is led to keep in Lanier media. So the year is 2015 now and we find Divi, we get into Divi we buy a lifetime subscription, we start designing websites, we build our first Divi site, and this is before Divi Builder. But already, I could see, you know, I could see things that reminded me of Photoshop, the way the layers and the sections and all those things were put together reminded me a little bit of Photoshop reminded me of building blocks to going back to my years as a kid building Legos.
Keegan 3:41
So I love that I really love that part of Divi, it just made sense to me as a as a builder as a really non techie, but kind of self taught techie designer. It really just it worked and it made sense. And so I started building a couple sites and then got a couple clients and built a few sites for them using Divi and the workflow was just so easy. And then they added in the Divi library and the Divi Builder and it became even easier. And then they added custom font uploads and all of these other things which made it even easier to design and resulted in higher quality design, more consistent process, which is amazing for a business. And, you know, then there’s so many other pieces that fell into place. We started learning about the community, people like Geno Quiroz, Josh Hall, a lot of the different communities in Facebook groups for Divi, and it’s just it’s snowballed into what’s really turned our business into a streamlined process and a really fast moving, fast developing process. And it’s it we’re so excited that we found Divi because it has completely revolutionized the business, that design agency and it’s revolutionized the way we work the way we operate.
Keegan 4:55
But Divi is not the only process. So the only platform that we use You know, I know a lot of people out there who were thinking about getting into freelance design kind of wonder, what’s the sweep? What’s the whole process from beginning to end? How do I do this. And I can tell you from our perspective, we’ve used Trello, we use Google suite or G Suite. Because Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Gmail, that whole deal is just unbelievably easy to to use. It’s great having Google Drive, all of our info is backed up, we can share folders specifically with clients so that we can work out of the same info, they can submit, copy, and images and all those things that will allow us to speed up the process of the design. Plus, if they want to update a new item and drop a new image in, they could do that right there, from the Google Drive photos, or from the Google Drive folders.
Keegan 5:50
And then, you know, Trello has made it so that we can just create a template for the whole process. And just as we go through the process, check things off moving from needs to be done to in process to complete, and just use that G to D setup and roll through it. But the great thing is that it also can be shared with the client. So it’s just another layer of visibility and transparency, which, in my opinion, is key to building great loyalty great brands, it’s just, it’s just one of those things you want to do so that people can see exactly where they stand where the process is that and they will be left in the dark not knowing how things are progressing. Because a lot of times, you know, we collect 50%, upfront of the fee of the project. And so people, as soon as money becomes, you know, starts changing hands, people want to know where they stand, they want to make sure that they’re not, you know, getting taken, they want to make sure that their money is going to something that they’re going to really enjoy and something that’s going to pay off, and that they’re not just wasting money.
Keegan 6:54
So you want to be very upfront, because it builds that loyalty. That takes us back to our main goal and main mission is that we want to build a relationship with our clients. We want to build a long term relationship, and we want to be considered an extension of their team, if not an actual part of their team. You know, we feel like that’s critical for long term success. We’re not looking for transactional, you know, transactions, we want to make sure that that we become first in our clients minds. And we want to be it we don’t even want them to think about, well, something’s messed up, we have an issue, we want to add something who do we go to? No, no, we already know the answer is keep them in Lanier Media. And that’s our goal is create that.
Keegan 7:40
So this episode is gone a little bit more long form than some of the first two. But the idea behind this was to talk about who we are, let you all know, what we’re about what we use, and where we’re heading, you know, and where we’re heading is, we want to be the agency of choice, we want to be the design of choice for brands, more importantly, personal brands. And there’s a few niche markets, we’ve worked with quite a few professional musicians, we’re working with a few nonprofits. So we want to kind of keep our scope very niche and work with, you know, personal brands, nonprofits, and with no professional musicians. But we’re open to work with anyone we’ve worked with, you know, app developers, we’ve worked with a karate business that’s been in business for 40 years. So we’ve worked a plethora of different businesses.
Keegan 8:32
And really, we just want to be known as the agency that is all about building a relationship with the customer. You know, services. Number one, we want to be available, whenever things are need to get done. We want to follow up relentlessly and make sure that the projects are hitting timelines. So that’s who we are. That’s our goals. And that’s what we want to accomplish. And that’s how we want to be seen in the market. But we are 100% committed to Divi as a platform and getting GDPR compliant. And looking to the future of what WordPress is going to be, you know, with Gutenberg as the editor and how that’s going to impact the design. We were constantly educating ourselves on what those things look like. And so the next evolution of who we are, it’s not just being a design company, but it’s also being an educational company. It’s one that our goal is to is to really showcase step by step processes for how you can start your own website because we know what it’s like to bootstrap a business.
Keegan 9:36
We’re bootstrapping a business right now. And anything we can do to help any up and coming entrepreneur take this on their own, save themselves some dollars and get this going. I think is going to is going to bring tremendous value to you as a young brand new business owner or as a personal brand. It’s going to help you elevate yourself to the next level and elevate your brand to the next level. So if we can ever help, we’re happy to give advice. We’re happy to show you the way but through our blog content, we’re going to create tutorials and courses that are going to help you really develop your personal brand or your business brand, and get your website started. That’s our that’s going to always be our ultimate goal, educate and support.
Keegan 10:22
So, we hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. Really, really, truly thank you all for being here for what’s now three episodes really two and a half. And I don’t know, we can’t say thank you enough for the great feedback. We appreciate everything that we’re hearing all the great feedback is, is just amazing. So thank you all for listening. Thanks for being here again for another episode. Feel free to follow us on Twitter at Keegan Lanier Media or hit us up on Facebook and Instagram at Keegan linear media. Give us a like a follow up, comment. Connect with us in the DMS. Do whatever you want to do hit us up wherever you feel the most comfortable and we look forward to chatting with you. We’ll catch you in the next video. My video What are we talking about? reverse. catch you in the next podcast.