Kyle Van Deusen

WordPress, agency life, and entrepreneur observations

Excerpts from The Friday Chaser

  • Sales call process

    As cringy as it’s been, I’ve started rewatching my sales call recordings. I started recording them earlier this year (and no, no one has ever had a problem with it 🤷), so I have a…

    Oct 16, 2026

  • Don’t say no for them

    I still remember making my first website sale. I couldn’t believe that someone was going to pay me $500 to build a website. It honestly felt like winning the lottery. I’ve been thinking about that…

    Oct 9, 2026

  • A good enough excuse

    I’ve always been a competitive person. When there’s something I need to do, but I can’t find the motivation to get it done, I will often “gamify” it. It’s a cheap trick to play on…

    Oct 2, 2026

  • Between thinking and doing

    It’s funny how one tiny thing can make or break an entire day. An email from a client telling you how much they love their new website and thanking you for all your hard work…

    Sep 25, 2026

  • The juice isn’t worth the squeeze

    It’s one of my all-time favorite sayings: “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze”. In case that’s an American or southern thing, all it means is that the reward isn’t worth the effort. Or, in business…

    Sep 18, 2026

  • What’s in your way?

    When I get stuck on something, I have this bad habit of thinking that I can just keep doing more and pushing harder to brute force my way through it. It’s the kind of “solution”…

    Sep 11, 2026

  • Why all your leads are referrals

    There are two big used car dealerships in town. The first one is just 5-minutes down the road. A nice facility, and they have a few cars you’re interested in. The second one is a…

    Sep 4, 2026

  • One business development task a day

    It’s been years now since I first heard this advice, but it’s one of the few that stuck with me since the moment it left Pete Everitt’s lips. One business development task a day. I…

    Aug 28, 2026

  • Your tribe is good for your soul

    Attendance was noticeably down at WordCamp US this year. That was especially evident at the vendor hall, where my usual haul of swag yielded just one free shirt! And, everyone was right… Phoenix in August…

    Aug 21, 2026

  • Are you a gatekeeper?

    This week I’ve spent 5 hours looking at 40 agency owners’ books. That’s Board Meeting week inside our TABLE groups where we drop the normal agenda so everyone can report on how things went in…

    Aug 14, 2026

  • Be-Back Bus

    I knew when the “developer” who was going to take over my client’s site 2 years ago didn’t know how to migrate a website or point DNS that it would eventually end in disaster. Honestly,…

    Aug 7, 2026

  • Try failing more

    I remember back when I started my business, I had a lot of wacky ideas. I printed flyers and slipped them under the door of the downtown businesses. I set up a system to help…

    Jul 31, 2026

  • Maybe this time will be different

    This week I had the opportunity to be interviewed on The Melapress Show. It was a fun conversation where we talked about qualifying clients, the sales process, and paid discovery. But afterward, it was the…

    Jul 24, 2026

  • Confidence is the byproduct of the routine

    Twelve minutes into a sales call this week, I insulted the prospect’s entire business model. Not on purpose… It just… fell out. The entire call, I couldn’t find my words. I bounced back and forth…

    Jul 17, 2026

  • The tide going out

    Summer is in full effect (at least for those of us up here in the northern half of the globe). While our industry isn’t as seasonal as something like a ski resort, there are patterns….

    Jul 10, 2026

  • The opportunity telescope

    This week we closed out a month, a quarter, and officially crossed the half-way mark on the year. How’s it going for you, {name}? More importantly, how are you measuring things? Since very few of…

    Jul 3, 2026

  • It never pencils out

    I had a conversation this week with some other agency owners about their “favorite clients”. You probably have a client or two that comes to mind instantly. They let you do your thing. They pay…

    Jun 26, 2026

  • Someone else will

    There’s a concern I hear a lot when agency owners talk about going back to existing clients and pitching new work. People are worried that if they suggest accessibility fixes or SEO improvements their clients…

    Jun 19, 2026

  • What happens next

    I try not to do a lot of content on AI. Not that I’m not thinking about it, simultaneously impressed and disgusted by it, and using it… It just seems like you’re probably already getting…

    Jun 12, 2026

  • After you get a nibble

    As we wrap up this mini-series on the most underrated agency assets, we’re going to take a slight detour away from “marketing” in the traditional sense. In the past 4 issues, we’ve talked a lot…

    Jun 5, 2026