Jesse Friedman talks with Elise Prather, WP Cloud sales team member, about ethical sales practices in hosting. They discuss building relationships over using fear tactics, consultative approaches versus high-pressure sales, and how hosting companies can hit revenue targets while maintaining trust. Elise shares strategies for creating genuine partnerships with customers without compromising ethics or community values.

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• (00:00) - Teaser
• (00:36) - Introduction
• (02:02) - Working at Automattic
• (03:23) - Current Hosting Conditions
• (06:01) - Ethics in Sales and Building Trust
• (09:24) - Hosting Sales Strategies and Relationship Building
• (18:18) - Challenges and Ethical Dilemmas in Hosting Sales
• (28:16) - Conclusion

Jesse Friedman continues his conversation with Ivan Pjano and Dale Obradović from Ivapix about building premium WordPress hosting without competing solely on price. They discuss automated real-time failover, custom panel design focused on user experience, and how listening to customer feedback helps small hosting companies deliver enterprise-level features while maintaining quality over quantity.

Click here to watch a video of this episode.

Links:

• Ivapix
• Cloudfest
• Avjar
• Moć planine
• Material Design

• (00:00) - Teaser
• (00:32) - Introduction
• (01:04) -  Meeting at CloudFest
• (03:50) - What Is Automated Real-Time Failover, and Why Does It Matter?
• (05:41) - The Imapct of Great Hosting
• (11:27) - How and Why to Design a Good User Panel
• (15:24) - Empowering Agencies and Freelancers
• (20:17) - The Importance of Customer Feedback
• (27:32) - Conclusion

Jesse Friedman interviews Ivan Pjano and Dale Obradović from Ivapix about their custom WordPress hosting dashboard built on WP Cloud. They discuss flexible pay-per-site pricing, eliminating rigid hosting packages, and creating simplified panels focused solely on WordPress instead of bloated universal control panels that overwhelm users with unnecessary features.

• (00:00) - What Happens in WordPress Hosting When Customers Choose What They Need?
• (03:29) - The Value of Ad Hoc Partnerships
• (06:32) - Building a WordPress-Only Dashboard
• (10:20) - Breaking Free from Rigid Hosting Packages
• (16:13) - Why Universal Panels Don't Always Work for WordPress
• (18:41) - Customer Choice Over Company Convenience
• (21:59) - How to Scale with Customers in Mind

• Ivapix
• CloudFest