Author: Curtis McHale

  • How to Guarantee Bad Client Work

    How to Guarantee Bad Client Work

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    I know that almost no one reading this post is planning to serve their clients poorly. Poor service creeps up on us as we build a few bad decisions on top of each other. Want to know what many of those descisions are? Make it about you The big daddy to all the points below

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  • Screw waiting for your client to pay you

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    I’ve written before about the practice of paying people after your client pays you. My short take is that it’s totally not acceptable. You should have the cash in your business to pay people. Well Andy Clarke at Unfinished Business agrees very strongly with me in episode 30. They talk about a bunch more things

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  • Slow down later

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    Just to set the tone right away stop lying to yourself. Now to start the story. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away there was a freelancer. This freelancer was just strating their business and was working full time plus on the side for the fledging business. One Friday their friend called

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  • Marginal gains are what it’s all about

    Marginal gains are what it’s all about

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    A while back saw @johnsaddington tweet about yet another book that wasn’t all the marketing hype said it would be. When I probed further he pointed me to this blog post. The short version is that the book content didn’t ‘stick’ in his life. John has an interesting point here about the things we keep

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  • Evernote as my GTD reference

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    Any productivity system is really about growth and learning. You learn how your brain best processes random bits of information in to tasks. That also changes over time, and someone else’s system may not work exactly for you. As I’ve been reading Getting Things Done again I’ve been realizing that there were components of the

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  • You need to anticipate your time realistically

    You need to anticipate your time realistically

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    This is an excerpt from my upcoming book “Don’t be an Idiot: Run a Viable Business”. Join the email list to get updated on the project, get advanced access and some extra snippets of free content. When I started freelancing a ‘huge’ project was $5k. When I say huge I mean that I dreamed of

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  • Who do you Choose?

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    Chris Lema wrote a great article about choosing his wife over startups. There is a man who has learned what matters in life and it shows. I think it’s just a bit unfortunate he didn’t stop working crazy hours until after he met her, but we were all young and not so wise once. If

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  • That place deep inside filled

    That place deep inside filled

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    I’ve written already about how I take time off for me so that I can recharge and give my full attention to the work at hand. I’ve typically been riding my bicycle lately but due to a sick wife last weekend I ended up hiking with my 2 year old daughter. You know what there

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  • Launch Video

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    It’s hard to put in typed words what you can say. Here is a video I recorded for the launch of “Don’t be an Idiot: Learn to run a viable business“. Sign up on the mailing list above to get updates, coupons, and a sneak peak at the content. WOOHOO BOOK LAUNCH!

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  • I’m writing a book about Running a Viable Business

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    Today the teasing is over and you can sign up to get notified of the new book I’m writing called “Don’t be an Idiot: Running a Viable Business”. The Why I’m writing the book because over the last year I’ve been talking with a bunch of small business owners. A constant theme has been that

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