Category: Business
The Consultant’s End Game
by
What’s your end game as a consultant? Have you even thought about it? Will you be happy working along as a solo designer or developer until the end of time? Want to become an agency? Well if you haven’t Aaron at Technosailor has, and his next step was going back to having a boss. As
My Quarterly Reading List
by
There are a few articles and podcasts episodes that come across my desk every 3 months. These are all things that changed my outlook on something I do daily, and continue to do so. So here’s the list. Business Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule: This article very accurately describes how much a meeting really costs a
Dancing with Prospective Clients
by
The first time you email/call a prospective client, you’re basically auditioning for them. Much like an actor you’re given a small window to impress the client so that, hopefully, they offer you the leading role. At least that’s how most people think about it. A Mutual Dance I think of the beginning of a client
Some Blogging Advice
by
How you get a successful blog is something I’ve been wrestling with lately. I took a few weeks off at Christmas, and I just feel out of the groove now. The ideas aren’t flowing like they were before the holidays. Lucky for me (and you really) Tom McFarlin is doing a podcast season on how
I’ll Always Do Some Client Work
by
Just before Christmas, Bill Erickson, wrote a great article about why he stays as a consultant. Basically he rarely charges hourly and pretty much only works on things that can be optimized. The more ‘custom’ a feature is the more you’re just trading time for money since it’s less likely you can use it again.
Tie Project Start to Client Deposits
by
Early in my consulting career I promised time to clients on projects that never ended up happening. That meant I turned down other work because I had already promised my time to someone that would never end up giving me money. Rookie mistake. Project Completion Length So how then do I deal with clients that
Technical Debt for Clients
by
If you’ve ever built a big software project you’re totally familiar with the idea of technical debt, but it’s unlikely that your clients are familiar with it. So lets figure out what it is, and what we can do about it. What is Technical debt Technical debt can also be caused by building a feature
Pricing your Services
by
I’ve been thinking about pricing a bunch lately, mainly because of my income goals for the year. Six Revisions has a great article to help you price your services and present it to clients. I already price based on value so the take aways for me are how I’m going to show my pricing. One
Don’t Sell Your Solution
by
As programmer we often get involved in discussions about the best way to implement a feature on a site. We can talk at length on why LESS is better than SASS, or why WordPress is a great base for an application framework and Ruby on Rails is a bad idea. Some other programmer can also
Developing Like a 2 Year Old
by
If you didn’t know already, I’ve got a 2 year old daughter. A 2 year old is 5 parts wonderful, and 5 parts a pain in the ass. For all the naughty things they do to push the limits, they do things that are absolutely awesome. One of the main objectives of my daughter lately