How to Keep Your Team Effective
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As your business grows you will, at some point, be faced with the decision to make a change from managing just yourself to managing a team. If that scares you stop the growth curve and be happy with running a solo business. For those that choose to move to a team structure, you no longer…
How you run your business shows your character
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Running a business tests your character in very hard ways. It deals with livelihoods and money which seems to bring out the worst in people. You’re going to get asked about competitors and a sure fire way to show your customer how poor your character is is to talk poorly about your competition. There are…
It Doesn’t Matter What You Like
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Recently, I was bidding on a project, in competition with a few other developers I know, and one of them won. According to the client the reason they didn’t go with me was my payment terms. For a 10-day project I wanted to get paid 50% up front and the rest after 10 business days.…
How I keep up with web technology
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The web moves fast. You learn one technology and guess what? Something better comes out. No longer is the thing you just learned the thing everyone is raving about. It’s this new thing you don’t know anymore. There is danger in changing things up all the time. That danger is that you never really become…
Why my initial client questions are not on my contact form
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I recently had a great question from a reader. After reading my posts on client vetting and looking at my business site this reader wanted to know why I don’t include my initial questions in my contact form — why I ask them in the first email instead. Process First off, while the reader is…
Sitting in the middle is nothing to be ashamed of
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We’ve got heroes all around us — people like DHH (founder of Ruby on Rails and Basecamp), Tim Ferris, Brennan Dunn, and Nathan Barry. For big WordPress shops, some of the heroes are 10up, Web Dev Studios, Human Made or Crowd Favorite. They are the stories of wild success out of seemingly nowhere (though most…
Don’t just focus on your rights
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Way to many of us service professionals get all wrapped up in what we deserve. How we should be treated. What we should be paid. What type of treatment does the client deserve though? Are you so wrapped up in what you deserve you don’t even bother to think about what your clients deserve.
I want to think I’m better than you
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One of the Slack channels I’m in has been getting pretty negative recently. On the particular day I’m thinking of a member of the WordPress community launched a new service. As with much marketing copy, his promotional announcement made some ‘bold’ claims. Not inaccurate, but bold given the skills of the developer. Soon after, the…
Client-Centered Web Development
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There’s a problem with my regular work, and I typically don’t see it. But that’s the problem — I don’t see it and that means my clients don’t see it either. But when building something as ephemeral as software, progress comes in fits and starts, sometimes to the point of feeling illusory. ~ The Grumpy…
4 Steps Towards Fulfillment
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What on earth does being fulfilled mean? Does it mean having all the money you want? Does it mean being ‘famous’ in your sphere of influence? Does it mean having a big house or fancy computer or fancy … whatever? It means none of those things. Another word I like to use for fulfillment is…
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