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Concrete Impact on a Client’s Business
As a developer, I rarely get to see or hear what kind of net effect the things I develop have on a client’s financial well being. I get contracted to build something, build it, and move on. Sometimes I get contracted to make modifications to a previous project, but that doesn’t happen too often. Recently, one of my clients approached me about making modifications to a quoting system that I had developed. The system is encapsulated in a series of WordPress administrative panels and a widget. You can check out the finished product at the Modernistic carpet cleaner website. Use the zip code 48201 to test out the widget. Anyways, the client came back for modifications because he wanted to add a reporting system. Turns out, the quote form has been quite successful. I could barely believe the numbers when … Continue reading
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Finding Sponsors
Freelance Camp Santa Cruz 2008 was exceptional, emotionally charged and a total win for our local community. The amount of interaction and support that came out of that event had a direct impact on the rebirth of the freelance / tech community that is rapidly growing in Santa Cruz today. It was a catalyst. If you are involved in the local community, or wish you were, I cannot imagine a more powerful way to get involved. No bar camp in your town yet? Grab some people and start one.
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The Answer is Change
About 10 minutes ago, I filled out a survey sent to me by a friend for the Santa Clara Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. The goal, as best as I understood it, was to look at personality traits of entrepreneurs. As I often do when asked personality questions, I struggled between providing my default tendencies or my consciously developed patterns. The survey questions freeze my personality at a specific instance in time. Had they asked these questions while I was in college, during my first company or perhaps when my second company was failing they would have found a very different set of responses. I found myself choosing a number of answers while thinking, “but that is because I chose to change that and now am comfortable with ….”.
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Contracts: The Shane & Peter Inc. Contract
I’ve finally gotten around to generalizing our contract to share with our community. Please be advised that if you use this template, you are using it at your own risk and that we are not responsible for your use of our contract. Also please take it to your lawyer and have it reviewed before you use it (and feel free to let us know if you have any suggestions for improving ours) Download the Shane & Peter Client Contract…
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Freelancer’s Guide to Sales: Followthrough
Quite often sales is like dating. The no-no’s in the land of courtship are exactly the same cardinal sins of the land of sales. Talking about yourself through the whole meeting. Never asking any questions about your date’s situation and needs. Taking the time to ask those questions, and not listen to their answers. Thanking them repeatedly in a gushing and desperate manner for meeting with you. Forgetting to make a friend. If you were a gecko on the wall of a meeting where those occurred, you would probably wince, laugh or both. And yet we have all done them. Peter and I often talk in detail about sales, and yesterday, the conversation fell upon one of the most detrimental sales bloopers: walking away without booking another meeting in your calendar. What is your goal if you go out on … Continue reading
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Sign Off Etiquette
As fun as it can be to let a project drag on for eternity, and as much as I thoroughly enjoy working for free, one of the best things I can do for my relationship with my client is to define a clear end point for the project. I need sign off. The problem, is how do I terminate a project in such a way as to strengthen my ongoing relationship?
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Word of The Day: Intaxication
in·tax·i·ca·tion [in-tak-si-key-shuhn] noun The physiological state produced by prolonged exposure to finances and tax preparation. A sense of enthusiasm, frenzy, or madness arising from fantasies of spending a tax refund. Poisoning by gigantic tax payment. Examples: The government emptied my bank account, inducing a severe case of intaxication.
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Go to the Dentist
Hopefully you brush your teeth. You floss. You use anti-bacterial mouth rinse. You chew sugar free gum between meals. But if you don’t go to the dentist, you might end up having to get gum surgery like me. Go to the dentist regularly, it is worth the money even if you don’t have insurance. As I did not have dental insurance, and personally have no love for the experience of visiting my dentist, I let it go for the first few years of running my business. I was broke after all. When I finally did get dental insurance last year and popped in for a visit, the hygienist looked at me with an aghast expression and asked how long it had been since my last visit. FIVE AND A HALF YEARS, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!? Needless to say, it … Continue reading
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Life is Sales
I often find myself people watching as I work in coffee shops. A parent trying to explain to their toddler why it is not okay to scream at the top of her voice. The owner showing his employee how the coffee has to be brewed in a certain manner. The teenage girl offering coy glances to the guy next to me all dressed in leather and tattoos. The man in a suit to my right, chatting on the phone with a potential client, answering their questions. The puppy at my feet staring at me patiently hoping I might drop some crumb. Too often, as contractors, we associate sales with the slicked back hair, polyester suit of the hollywood 70′s car salesman, when in fact you and I sell each and every day of our lives. When my wife and I … Continue reading
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Building a Remote Team
Lately we have been investing a lot of time and energy into sproutwire.com instead of sales. Meanwhile, our team has often been idle, developing their side projects, as we hunt for work. One great benefit and risk of working with independent contractors is that they are required to have other sources of income. This is great because it means we are not responsible for keeping our team working full time, but it is dangerous because it can easily lead to attrition. Eventually we all need to get paid. So how do we manage to keep together?
