Project
Leaders in Business
A training and membership website the client's own team keeps changing
Leaders in Business helps accounting firms move beyond compliance work into structured, paid advisory work for their clients. They run certification training through the year. Member firms log into an Advisory Workspace, and there is a library of articles and podcast episodes behind it. I built the website that sells all of that, and I have looked after it ever since.
Project Scope
- WordPress website design and build
- Page layouts the client can edit themselves
- A custom layout built for them
- Training dates entered once, shown everywhere
- Making the site load faster
- Hosting and ongoing support
The challenge
This is a business that changes faster than a website usually does. The training calendar turns over every month. The way they describe what they sell has been sharpened more than once. Whole pages get written, tested and rewritten while a campaign is running. A website that needs a developer for every one of those changes stops being an asset and starts being a queue.
There was a second problem, and it was the kind you only notice at the worst moment. On a slower connection the homepage arrived in pieces, so for a few seconds a first-time visitor watched a half-built page assemble itself. Nothing was broken. It just looked like it was.
What I built
A WordPress website built around one idea: the things the client changes often, they should be able to change themselves, and the things that repeat across pages should only ever be typed once.
Pages the team rebuilds themselves
Every page is assembled from sections the marketing team can move, copy and rewrite. New landing page for a campaign, new run of the training schedule, a whole page reordered: none of it comes near me.
Training dates entered once
The certification dates show up on several pages. Now they are typed on the one page that holds the master list and every other page follows. Before that they were copied by hand onto each page, so keeping them in step was a job that came round again every time the calendar turned over.
A custom piece when the tools ran out
They wanted a specific way of showing their Advisory Workspace on the site that no off-the-shelf option could do. I built it to order and handed it back as something they can use themselves, with a short list of settings so adding an item involves no design decisions.
Arrives in one piece
The page was loading its parts in the wrong order, so a visitor watched it assemble itself. I reordered how it loads, and now it arrives in one piece even on a slow connection.
Across the site
Training dates, typed once and shown everywhere
The resource library on a phone
The result
Since the site went live the business has repositioned itself around what it now calls its Strategic Advisory Operating System. New language, new navigation, new pages, a different first impression on the homepage. All of it landed on the same website, most of it done by their own team, and none of it needed a rebuild.
Visitors can filter the library down to just the articles or just the podcast episodes, so somebody looking for one kind of thing gets that kind of thing. The training dates are typed in one place and every page that shows them stays in step. And the homepage arrives whole on a slow connection, which is the sort of fix nobody notices once it is done.
If your website has to keep up with a business that keeps moving, I would like to hear about it. See how I approach WordPress website design and WordPress consulting, read the LEGO Star Wars exhibition build for another site the client runs themselves, or get in touch.
We loved working with Phil to build the Leaders in Business website.
Phil is incredibly easy to deal with, works fast, and really understands what you’re trying to achieve. The quality of his work is outstanding, and he made the whole process simple from start to finish.
We were so impressed that we’re now recommending Phil to our clients and members who want a high-quality website delivered without the usual fuss.
Highly recommend Phil - thanks again for a great job!
Common questions about this project
Yes, and they do. The marketing team builds new pages and reworks existing ones without me, and most changes never reach me at all. That was the design goal.
I build the missing piece and hand it back as something they can use themselves. When Leaders in Business wanted a particular way of showing their Advisory Workspace on the site, I built that layout for them and gave it a short list of settings, so they can add an item or change the order without needing me and without making any design decisions.
The certification dates appear on several pages. They are entered once on the page that holds the master list, and every other page that shows them follows automatically. Before that each page carried its own copy, so keeping them in step was a manual job that came round again every time the calendar turned over.
Yes. The site is on a server I run and manage, with monitoring, backups and updates handled at my end. Having the build and the hosting in one place means a problem gets diagnosed and fixed in one conversation rather than three.
Regularly. The common thread is a business whose offering changes faster than a website normally does: new course dates, new pricing, new language for what they sell. Those sites need to be built so the client can make ordinary changes without a developer, and so the parts that repeat across pages are only entered once.
Yes. I am based in Geelong and work with clients across Australia. Leaders in Business is a Melbourne business and the whole engagement has run remotely, which is normal for this kind of ongoing work.
