Episode 43: Yvette Sonneveld

Hallway Chats: Episode 43 - Yvette Sonneveld

Introducing Yvette Sonneveld

Yvette is a WordPress enthusiast living in The Netherlands. She attended and volunteered at her first WordCamp in Miami in 2014. Yvette has been on the WordPress Marketing Team since WordCamp Europe in 2017.

Show Notes

Website | Inbound Marketing Bliss
Twitter | @yvettesonneveld

Episode Transcript

Liam: This is Hallway Chats, where we talk with some of the unique people in and around WordPress.

Tara: Together, we meet and chat with folks you may not know about in our community.

Liam: With our guests, we’ll explore stories of living – and of making a living with WordPress.

Tara: Today’s show is brought to you in part by Liquid Web.

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Liam: Liquid Web is offering Hallway Chats listeners 33% off for the first three months. Go to Liquidweb.com and use the coupon code, HALLWAYCHATS, all one word, to sign up.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is Episode 43.

Tara: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Tara Claeys.

Liam: And I’m Liam Dempsey. Today, we’re joined by Yvette Sonneveld. Way back in 1999, Yvette taught herself HTML and CSS using library books and notepad. In 2005, she fell in love with WordPress. Yvette tended and volunteered at her first WordCamp which was WordCamp Miami in 2014. Yvette has been on a community rollercoaster ever since WordCamp Europe in 2017. Hi, Yvette, welcome.

Yvette: Hey, Liam. Hey, Tara. Thanks for having me.

Tara: Welcome. We’re glad to have you here, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself after Liam’s introduction?

Yvette: Yes, sure. I’m Yvette Sonneveld, obviously. 44, mother of two amazing kids, married to a lovely husband, moved back to the Netherlands about one and a half years ago, after we lived abroad for 16 years. Worked freelance from home, which is amazing because your balance with family really works out. I am a total WordPress community junky now.

Tara: Oh, I can relate to that. Were you living in the States when you were living abroad or where were you living?

Yvette: No, I actually lived on a small island in the Caribbean called Curacao. I lived there from 2001 to 2005 and then again from 2008 until 2016. And in between, we lived in Ontario, Canada for three years.

Tara: Wow, that explains how you were able to go to WordCamp Miami in 2014, I guess. You were relatively in the same general area at the time?

Yvette: Yes, it was about two-and-a-half-hour flight and the island we lived at that point didn’t really have internet marketing conferences so I had to fly abroad all by myself and that was so scary.

Tara: Oh. And what was it like living on a small Caribbean island? Were you doing WordPress while you were there?

Yvette: The first time, I wasn’t. First time I was a part of that period. I was working on building my business, I was still coding in HTML and CSS at that point. The second time, I actually adopted WordPress back when I lived in Ontario. When I got back to Curacao, I was working with WordPress already. And with my kids, I had a baby the second time so working from home was just perfect and people were really starting to adopt WordPress so that would count wonderfully well, actually, yes.

Tara: And I can imagine how difficult it would be to be living in a beutifull Caribbean island with a baby and try to prioritize some WordPress work in there. What was that like? Was it a good escape for you? Is it kind of a gradual evolution of your exposure and experience due to those circumstances?

Yvette: It was a little bit of both. One of the things that I really loved about Curacao is that even though you wouldn’t expect it on a small island, it does have all the facilities.My daughter would go to daycare for a few parts of the day each week. And then I would still do some work when she was having naps. And my son would sort of move around all that, he would have school in the morning, so I’d work in the morning, then in the afternoon, he would always need like an hour of screen time to kick back, and then we do some work there, too.

Tara: I know it is such a vacation place, it’s hard to imagine, actually, doing work there. It must have been a challenge. But it sounds like it’s setup for that, once you live there, I assume it’s like anywhere else. Once you’re living there, it’s not as much of a novelty, the novelty wears off.

Yvette: Yeah, it’s as horrible as it may sound. At some point, choosing between going to the beach or going to the beach or, hmm, maybe going to the beach.

Liam: Now you’re just rubbing it in. [laughter]

Yvette: It does get boring, not well.

Tara: Yeah, and you can only drink so many fruity-rum drinks, I guess, before it’s likely to take its toll on you. [laughs]

Yvette: That too, absolutely. And even though it’s a small island and the weather is always nice, you have to put food on the table too, work needs to be done.

Tara: Sure. How old are your kids now?

Yvette: Right now, they’re eight and 14.

Tara: Okay, so they’re a bit older. Have you seen your business evolve and progress and grow as your children have grown? Did it start out small when they were younger?

Yvette: Yes, absolutely. But with all these national moves, it also goes like in phases, especially when we knew that we were going to move back to the Netherlands. I intentionally cut back my business for more than one and a half years because I knew that this transition was going to be huge with them in this age, and then we’re so very aware, and my son in his teenage years, that had a huge impact so I had to prepare for that. Then when you sort of minimize your business for one and a half years, you do lose clients. Before, what always happened was that I would bring my clients with me that would stick with me for usually anywhere between six months and two years, and then started dwindling away because they were starting to miss the face-to-face contact, and that would give me the chance to start building up my business again. And here, because I really wasn’t working very much, I lost clients earlier, which I totally understand. But when I started my business back up spring of 2017, this whole community thing really helped because all of a sudden, I knew so many people. Even though I am Dutch, I didn’t know one single WordPress person in the Netherlands. And then in Paris, I got to know many more WordPress people from the US but also a lot more from Europe.

Liam: I’ve got a two-fold question for you is, tell me a little bit about your clientele and how it’s evolved the type of individuals or businesses or organizations that you served as you’ve moved around from Curacao to Canada and back to Curacao and now back to the Netherlands. And then really going back to your intro about this community rollercoaster since 2017 since you’ve just touched on the community and how that’s helped your business. After you tell us about your client base, tell us a little bit about how you got involved with the community and what’s that meant to you, what has it meant to your business as well?

Yvette: Yes, let me start with how my business evolved. Way back when I started coding, but also had a background in hospitality and services marketing, what started happening was that people would approach me to create a website. What would happen was that they wouldn’t even have any clue of who their ideal client was or what their competition did. Neither did they have any sort of decent-looking logo so getting those things and some logo design. But over the years, I realized that I needed some sort of niche or some sort of specialization to be able to continue to compete. On the tiny island like Curacao, there’s not a lot of people that do WordPress development for smaller businesses. They usually work with bigger businesses. That really helped. But over time, I started specializing in real estate clients and financial services industry clients. That helped me get sort of that specialization, and since I still continue to work with businesses that had teams of up to 15 employees, they were still in the position where they loved to work with a generalist. I found that sort of sweet spot for me where I could do different several things. From marketing to creating web pages, sometimes still websites, but also writing copy where helping me not to get bored and get that variation in my day, and serving them well because they didn’t have the general knowledge to work with specialists. And I didn’t have the budget to work with specialists, they would really help out with someone who was sort of– I’m the general practitioner. Some people with businesses on a higher level, they need to brainstorm but when your business is still under 15 people, you are pretty well off with generalist.

Liam: Sure. And then let’s transition, if you would, into WordCamp Europe. Tell us about that and the community?

Yvette: Looking back to that WordCamp, I remembered signing up for the WordCamp realizing that this was going to be an event for 2500-3000 people and that sort of freaked me out. What I already did back in Miami to deal with that panic zone where I sort of feared I would end up in, was to sign up as a volunteer so I did that for WordCamp Europe, too. But then there were like 300 volunteers. So I was, “Okay, what if I go day earlier and also do this contributor thing?” I had no idea what they do there. I always thought it was just for techy people, just for back-end developers, etc. But now they’re telling me they’re having a marketing team, too. I know some stuff about marketing. Let’s just go there and see how things play out. There were a few people from the US, amongst them Bridget Willard, and they sort of expected that they would have five, six people show up for the marketing team, right? All of a sudden, there were like, I don’t know, 35.

Tara: Wow.

Yvette: There was a lack of tables, there was a lack of chairs, nobody really knew how to solve that. That is one of the things, I think, that I am good at. And I would see someone struggle, then they switched lips and I just go into help mode. I started arranging tables and chairs. Before I knew it, I was speaking to one of the other guys who mentioned that his team needed to get some more direction, and he was thinking about some sort of approach to management. “Hey, well, I work with Asana, I work with Trello, what do you think?” And he was a big fan of Trello, so before we knew it, we were organizing all those tasks. With the result, all of a sudden, I was just in the middle of the marketing team. That was one part but a lot of the marketing people were speakers, too. And then a lot of the Dutch people that I somehow came across, who were also very friendly and encouraging and welcoming, they were speakers, too. When I had this sort of on my bucket list but it was still in the page five or six, let’s say in five years, because that’s way too scary still. And they started encouraging me. “If you have a story to tell, why don’t you just sign up and see how it goes? The first time you probably won’t be picked anyways. And if so, then you have this deadline and you’ll figure it out.” Nah, not quite ready for that. Then I was invited to participate in the interview with Bridget and Jen on their Blab show. I can do that, that’s friends, and I sort of like that. I did that and they kept nudging me about the speaking thing. At some point, I somehow found the courage to send a proposal for the talk and like, “Okay, let’s do this about my way of using volunteering to keep out of freaking out mode and getting to know people like that.” And I guess the organization liked that. Other than I totally expected, all of a sudden, there was this email like, “Congratulations, your talk has been picked.” I’m like, “What?”

Tara: Yeah, that’s awesome.

Yvette: “I don’t know if I’m ready, you guys promised that I wouldn’t be picked at first.”

Tara: Now you have to prepare your talk.

Yvette: Then I had to prepare my talk, yes. I did that and then I had the most, most amazing MC who was so encouraging and she was an MC during WordCamp Europe as well. I thought she was a rockstar, and then she told me that she had been freaking out and she said, “You know, the one thing that helped me so much was this–” Was somebody that told her and she shared that with me, that the one thing that keeps me going within this community and keeps me finding the courage to stretch again and again is that this lady once told me, “You know what? We are the WordPress people, we want you to succeed. Nobody wants you to fail, everybody wants you to thrive and to succeed.” That’s still like my mantra, that helped me so much.

Tara: That’s a great segway into the question we want to ask you, which is about what is your definition of success, either in your work life or personal life, or both?

Yvette: That’s a great question and I really try to think about that. I think there’s a few ingredients that I count to what success is. The first one is being able to let go of perfectionism because it kills your energy, it kills joy, and I have been trying to mold myself to whatever I thought other people were expecting of me for years and years. And it didn’t make me happier, it didn’t make my friends happier, simply didn’t work. Once I was sort of able to let go of the perfectionism and just be who I was, and help people from a perspective of helping, getting paid for it, sure. But being able to just sharing, I will help you, I have expertise, but I don’t promise that this will work. It is like health care, right? Web development, internet marketing. Just that openness, that honesty, letting go of perfectionism, that’s a big ingredient of allowing me to grow to this point. And another thing still is instead of molding to what I expected that others wanted me to be, finding my kind of crazy instead. Finding the people around me that would just accept me for who I was but also encourage me and believe me and nudge me to keep growing. I think that is two, and then three is always looking for balance, balance between time for work, time for family, time for friends, time to recharge, time to hustle, finding balance. And not that I’ve always worked, not that it always plays out, but keeping that in mind definitely helps.

Liam: Sure, sure. That’s a pretty comprehensive definition, it’s letting go of that emphasis on being perfect and finding a community or building a community around you that supports you where you are perfect, but also accepts your flaws. And then looking for that balance of the many aspects of your life and trying to balance it when you can and being okay if it gets out of whack, and then just adjusting it and not seeing it as, “Oh my gosh, I’m totally not managing a good balance.” It’s, “Okay, I’m not having a good balance, I need to fix that.” I think that’s a very holistic and healthy approach. Thank you for sharing that, let me ask you then, what is the most important thing you do every day to either achieve or maintain your definition of success? How do you get at that every day?

Yvette: There’s few things I try to do, one of them being trying to really take care of my body, my soul so that I’m able to be there for others, too. I mean, I’m a woman, I’m a girl, I love chocolate and I love red wine.

Liam: I am not a woman nor am I a girl but I also love chocolate and red wine. [laughter]

Yvette: But again, everything in balance. I try to make sure that I really get a lot of fruits and veggies and water to keep my system healthy and balance that out with a decent portion of stuff that are maybe even not so healthy. Other than that, I really try to get a lot of fresh air into my system, to get the cobwebs out of my brain and to bring my heart rate up every once in a while. I really find that keeps my energy level at a much better rate. If I don’t do things like this within a day or two, three, I find my energy level drop. That is what I do and I really try to stay connected because I can just talk to my computer and drum out code and copy and plans, but if I don’t find time to recharge as well, again, my productivity will drop and whatever I do just lacks, despite that people like what I bring.

Liam: What do you do for connectivity or getting out and getting fresh air, what does that mean for you?

Yvette: There’s a few things that I do. Again, here in the area, I’m pretty well connected with WordPress friends, but also, all of a sudden, I live much closer to my friends of my youth and my college time. They were a 10-hour flight away for years and now all of a sudden, it’s a one-hour drive so I really make time for them, and then family, of course. When it comes to being outdoors to relax, recharge, and workout, there’s a few things I do. I love to just go out on my bike in parks, I play tennis, I love that, and just go for a walk.

Tara: I was going to ask you about bicycling because that’s one of the things I think of when I think of your country. When I think of the Netherlands, I think of the bicycling.

Yvette: Yeah, that was one of the things when we moved back one and a half years ago, and I still can just enjoy to hop on my bike and be at a grocery store within three or four minutes. Whereas before in Ontario, in Curacao, I had to be in my car for 20 minutes. Yeah, that’s so easy here.

Tara: And all of the cars are very familiar and comfortable with cyclists there, too, I don’t think there’s the tension between cyclists and motorists, as there is in the US. Being a cyclist myself, I’m super sensitive to the stereotypical aggressive cyclists who makes the drivers have to slow down and that kind of thing. [laughs]

Yvette: No, they’re very used to them here. There is so many bike paths to keep bikers safe. I mean, kids nine, 10 years old go by bike by themselves independently to school here so we have to make sure that they’re safe.

Tara: Yeah, that’s really neat. What is your favorite thing to do every day? Is there something that you have a routine of something that is your favorite? Or maybe there’s something in WordPress that you like to do, that’s your favorite thing to do in WordPress? One or the other or both?

Yvette: I love variety. For so many years, I tried to do what people tend to say, like a routine in the morning so I get productive, it just doesn’t work when my body screams that I need to go outside. I just better go outside because I won’t get any work done. When I come home after I drop my daughter off at school and my head says, “I have this one idea.” And I just need to sit behind my computer and write down. I do that, I think I sort of learned to live with the winds of my not-so-standard system. I think if there’s one thing, it’s that I live for variety.

Liam: That’s really interesting. I find myself in a similar vein and variety is one of the aspects of the way I try to craft my business is providing a variety of services, when to be well-rounded, but to also maintain a professional interest. Yvette, I’m going to change some gears on you, speaking of bicycles, change gears on you, and ask you about, what’s the single most valuable piece of advice, be it personal or professional, or maybe a mix of both that you’ve ever received and incorporated into your life?

Yvette: I remember that question and I remember what I– there was on thing that I remember that I did write down to prepare for it before this conversation. And that absolutely is find your kind of crazy. Make sure that you’re surrounded with people–

Liam: Find your kind of crazy? I love it.

Yvette: Yeah, find your kind of crazy, I don’t try to be whatever somebody else, or what you think, that’s first– people not only try to conform to others, but they try to conform to what they think others want them to be.

Tara: I love that.

Yvette: I’m 44 years old, it took me at least 36 years to figure that one out. Now that I’m able to surround myself with my kind of crazy, the creatives and the nerds, I just dare stand up and say, “I’m a nerd and I’m proud of it.” If there is one thing, yes, that is the single best piece of advice that someone ever gave to me and it makes such a difference in my life. I really, really try to teach my kids the same thing, especially my son in his teenage years, he’s under so much pressure. The things that he needs to do, and things that some of his wannabe buddies sort of want him to be. You know what? Find, stick to the friends that you can really feel you can be yourself with, and invest in those. And the other ones, you know, they’re good to hang out when it suits you and don’t get pressurized, just be yourself.

Liam: That’s so valuable. It’s kind of a silly phrase but it’s such simple and such valuable advice. I wonder how you came to that conclusion. You somewhat jokingly said it took you 36 years to figure that out, is that something that you figured out, I’ll say, in a professional environment and then applied to your personal life? I know they interweave. Or did you find that out personally and then start to think about how that would work in the professional? Kind of which came first? Where did that revelation come into your life and how did you embrace it?

Yvette: That’s definitely a story of a good stew where you would just have a lot of stuff simmer over time and then you taste again, “There’s still something missing.” And that stew sort of started with the fact that I was bullied as a kid so I tried all the recipes to fit in and in the end, I didn’t work out. I tried working with psychologists and yes, they helped me sort of accept me for who I was and sort of deal with what I was dealing with but in the end, I was still thinking small and I was still dealing a lot with what we know call Imposter Syndrome. This is one of the things, I still remember very much that in this spring of 2014, I wanted something different and I was done with playing small and all imposter thing, and I wanted to find another way to deal with this. Then I decided to give myself stretches, challenges if you will, and one of my first challenges was to travel to a foreign country to go to an internet marketing conference and present myself as a professional. But I had to go out of my regular circle to do that. That was impossible, I had to go out of my comfort zone to start practicing that. And that first marketing conference was WordCamp so that’s how I got into this community. And then every time I challenged myself to go to a new conference or try something new, I would grow again and again so it would encourage me to keep seeking those sort of experiences. And then a friend that I got to know during a very small mastermind group that I did in Pensacola in 2015. She sort of shared that at some point and it stuck, she was the one that said, “We just need to find your own kind of crazy.” And it stuck, and I’ve tried to do that ever since.

Tara: Did you discover that while you were traveling to different countries? Because I imagine that that could either be a help in terms of meeting new communities and adjusting to life in different countries, and changing your friends, and meeting new friends. Or did that come, like you said, in 2014 and changed the way that you approached being an expat, I guess?

Yvette: I think it had a lot to do, of course, living in different countries and adjusting yourself, changes in ways, it makes you more flexible, if you will, because you have to find a new group of people to interact with every single time. But ever since I started hanging out with WordPress people, too, and other internet marketing professionals, I found that a lot of business owners that run businesses based on sort of creative services are very sensitive, too. I think that makes sense with this great MP and sensitivity go along, they just go hand in hand because you cannot be creative without being sensitive. I experience that so many among us had felt like being the square peg in the round hole. And the more we started hanging out together, the more we felt sort of comfortable with each other because we all had felt like that. I think that’s sort of the way that this whole your own kind of crazy started growing on me. Because we are in a way very alike.

Tara: Yeah, have you looked for that domain? I’m tempted to look it up right now.

Yvette: I have had so many domain dreams and ideas and I have recently cut back. I just can’t still even find the focus. I’m still planning to find more focus for blogging but I’m going to stick it to just one domain. Too many ideas, it won’t work.

Liam: Good idea. Yvette, I think I can speak for Tara and from me when I say that we absolutely love your kind of crazy. We are out of time, thank you very, very much for joining us. I’ve really enjoyed your candor and your story and the way that you shared it with us. Thank you very much for making the time for us today, it’s been great chatting with you.

Yvette: Well, thank you, Tara, and thank you, Liam, for having me. That was lots of fun. Yes, if I can inspire other people to also find their kind of crazy and be a bit more happy in this crazy world then that just makes me so crazy happy.

Tara: Well, I’ve really enjoyed chatting with you and I’m going to check on that domain for you anyway. [laughter]

Liam: Yvette, While Tara looks up that domain name, can you tell us where people can find you online?

Yvette: Yes, my business website is Inboundmarketingbliss.com. Inbound marketing, I think most WordPress people sort of had forever that term, and bliss, it’s just something that resonates with me because it’s contentment and that perfectly imperfect kind of stuff.

Liam: There we go. Thank you so much for joining us, lovely to chat with you, have a grea t afternoon.

Tara: thanks, Yvette.

Yvette: Likewise, and take care. We’ll talk soon. Bye-bye.

Tara: Bye.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.

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