Archive for September, 2007

strag·e·dy [stra-jed-ee]
noun

1. A carefully devised plan of action to achieve a goal which leads to a tragic conclusion. Often implemented quickly, with great cheer and rejoicing.
2. The adaptation important to de-evolutionary success: a term that is often associated with those who manage to earn themselves a Darwin Award.

   Usage: “It was a stragedy to forgo a formal contract in order to create a casual go-with-the-flow atmosphere. Now we live in a trailer with three other families and a professional gambler named Buba.”

Nothing is more frustrating than to work hard and make a pile of money, only to lose it in a law suit or to the IRS. There are core people to each and every business team. Few are more important than your accountant and your lawyer. Having been through the selection process a few times, I figured it would be worth sharing some of the wisdom we have gained.
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In the process of interviewing people for the post of office / operations manager, we asked them to complete a business acumen final exam. Peter & I sat down and wrote a fictitious letter to a client containing pretty much all the major business mistakes we have made in the past number of years. Think you are ready for the big time? Give it a shot. Look for spelling, grammar, poor communication, business etiquette, a few small and a few HUGE no-nos. Rewrite this letter as if it was from your business to a client. You will probably need to ask questions and I am happy to answer in the comments.
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Base your success on happiness, and you will fail.

Happiness is the most common answer to the questions “what do you consider success?” I cringe each and every time I hear it. You see, ultimately, you have no control over your happiness. Tragedy strikes and your spouse dies. Your happiness instantly diminishes. Are you less successful because the feeling is gone? Not in the slightest.

We need to base our sense of success and self-worth on more than a fleeting emotion. This is important in both life and in business. There will be amazing days and infuriating days. From personal experience, if you are in business to be happy, you are in for a tough journey. So, if it isn’t happiness, how should we define success?
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I’ve always thought it was ironic when smokers “go out for a breath of fresh air”.

Recently, I found myself sympathizing with the plight of the proverbial smoker when I came under heavy fire from my friends for answering my iPhone email in front of them. So I left the company of friends to go outside and communicate with people by myself.

Having skipped many of Shane’s important emails in my attempts to skim read, I came to realize that I need a better system for checking my email in social settings. Checking my email while in the presence of my friends, my family, or especially my wife is a great way to misread emails AND piss off the people I’m with. It’s like missing two birds with one stone.
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Unlike most of the freelancers I meet, I started my freelance career charging by the hour. The CTO of the company, now one of my best friends, carefully watched my deliverables and my bills to make sure they matched his expectations. Knowing this was my first gig, he explained to me that the company was buying my expertise.

He encouraged me to charge, and charge well, when I knew what I was doing and was kicking butt. He also insisted that I learn on my own dollar and not penalize my client for any lack of productivity. Basically, even though we had agreed upon an hourly rate, he made it very clear he was paying for the end product, not all the time I may have been spending.

There are fundamentally two payment structures used by freelancers in today’s market:

Hourly is the exchange of a productive hour of expert work for an hourly rate. For $xx per hour, I will provide you the technical expertise you need to develop the API for this prototype.

Fixed price is the exchange of a pre-defined amount of work for a specific total dollar value. For $xx,xxx I will provide your company a new brand including colors, typeface, logo, business cards, store sign and letterhead.

Both approaches are common and each has their appropriate place and time. What fascinates me is the intense emotion that we often see (even among ourselves) regarding which to choose. So what are the pro’s and cons, how do you choose and how do you price yourself once you do?
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Using the Get Clients Now Marketing Program

The other day I heard business described as a leaky bucket. Simply put, your customers and their projects slowly leak out of your bucket and into someone else’s bucket unless you take steps to actively keep it full. As the owners, it is our job to keep the bucket full of water.

The only way to fill the bucket is through marketing and the sales. Marketing is the process of doing simple things repeatably over time to make people aware of your business. Coming from a programming background, I had no idea what I should do to fill my empty bucket. I did some homework (thank you Amazon) and ended up reading a book “Get Clients Now!” by C. J. Hayden.

I decided to do their program for 28 days and see if I get more customers. Looking back, I can say that the program worked great. I went from a wet behind the ears freelancer with one customer to a newly minted businessman juggling 6 customers in 28 days. What follows is a brief outline so you can see the process I went through.
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I’ve always been obsessed with books. You can get 80 years of a person’s condensed wisdom in 400 pages for twenty bucks. Amazing. And now with blogs I don’t even have to wait for the publishing process. There are a lot of people out there who write great content about all kinds of stuff. My personal passion - the process of building a company (big surprise there). As a result, I’ve developed a list of bookmarks I though might be worth sharing. I was going to write a nice little review for each one, but honestly, I’ll let them speak for themselves.
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There is only one way you cross a mine field. Find someone with bigger feet than you who has successfully crossed it in the past and carefully follow in their footsteps. In the minefield that is small business, not enough people take the time to find a mentor. Many of those who do, often pick the wrong one. Your long term odds go way up if you can find someone with the success you are seeking to take a vested interest in your business. So why should you have a mentor, and once you find the right one, what do you do?
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There have been “aha” moments in our business that have substantially affected our income. One was bookkeeping & clocking (read Are you working for free?). The second major “aha” was realizing that even though I work with technology each and every day - I am in a people business. I solve people problems. People decide whether or not to pay for my solutions. People drive most of our business through referrals and reputation. The fact is, you can geek out all you want, but if you can’t hang with people, you’ll always struggle. So let’s chat for a minute and talk about meeting new people and building your business.
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