Mark’s Story

Last week, my dear friend Beverly called me. “You’ll never guess who is here at my place. Mark Schoofs.”

She continued, “I was telling Mark about this great entrepreneurial guy helping me grow and marketing my business. When he asked the guys name, and I told him ‘Phil Johncock,’ to which he replied, ‘Oh, I know Philip.’”

Small world.

Old Site in Front Page

What was even smaller was that Mark was in a bind, and I might have the perfect solution. He was excited about his new book that just came out, but challenged by how to sell his book on his website: LightAndLove.com.

One problem was that the site was designed by another guy with Front Page, which Mark doesn’t have or know how to use. Another was that Mark didn’t know how to set up his PayPal account to handle credit card charging for his book.

“Sure, you can pay a web designer to make changes you want to your Front Page site and add PayPal.  But, why? Especially since you can do it yourself faster and easier with WordPress … and get higher Google rankings, too.” I know because I’ve been using Front Page since 1997.

New Site in WordPress

Cut to the end … it took me 30 minutes to set up a new hosting service for his WordPress site and his Thesis theme, 2 hours to copy-and-paste content from his Front Page site (something he or almost any one else could have done), and 90 minutes to learn how to customize his PayPal account and link it to his new WordPress site.

On Saturday, Mark brought his lap top by, which overheated and crashed within 1 minute. His make-shift solution was to set it on a crate with a fan blowing underneath. He was elated to find out that WordPress isn’t a software program to be added to his computer but was on his hosting service … his lap top wouldn’t have to work so hard.

In a 2-hour tutorial, Mark learned enough about WordPress to hold him over until the next workshop. He got his first book sale online, too. And, his site is looking great … in just 6.5 hours. A big high 5 to Mark!

Check out Mark’s site and new book.