Are you asking yourself these 3 questions before you write an estimate?
by
To get work you need to send out estimates. Good ones should take a fair bit of time to get right. How do you structure your estimates though? How do you make them something that ‘sells’ the clients on your services? How do you make sure that you’ve covered the real needs of the clients,
No I haven’t built ‘exactly’ your solution before, sort of
by
If you haven’t heard it yet you’re going to hear it: We like you and are impressed with your portfolio, but we don’t see something exactly like what we want to do so we want to talk more about it. You know that you’re right. I haven’t built exactly your system before. And it doesn’t
Why I don’t throw things in, and you shouldn’t either
by
I know you’re expecting to read about how clients asking you to throw features in devalues your work. It shows you that they don’t value you and it’s a red flag about working with them, because there is always going to be one more thing that should get ‘thrown in’. You expect me to tell
You shouldn’t build ‘neat’ sites
by
I’ve heard it and you’ve heard it. Actually, we’ve probably both said it. Ooooooohhhhh we should do that…it would be a ‘neat’ feature on the site. Really, I know I’ve said it and so have you. But it’s totally wrong. You shouldn’t add that ’neat’ feature because your client or you want it. NEAT is
How do you bill an unscopeable project
by
Ideally you’re going to get a project and talk to the client and come up with a fixed list of things that you need to do for the project. Sure, they almost always change a bit as you go, but that initial list is what you start with and what you base all your scope/project
Make it easy for productivity to find you
by
Days spent in ‘flow’ is the dream of any creative. Programmers dream of writing code that works the first time, while your fingers fly gracefully across the keyboard and unicorns dance to the beauty of your code. Designers solve the client problem first, try and get sent gift baskets as clients weep and thank them
How much do you follow up with clients?
by
Client work is what really pays my bills. Not the business book I wrote or the WordPress book, though they add a bit to the bottom line. Since it’s client work that pays the bills, I need to keep in touch with possible leads and older, awesome clients. Following up on possible projects I know
Jealousy never thinks about time
by
Did you know that I teach programming at BCIT? I currently teach a few courses. I’m currently teaching an advanced WordPress developer class. We’re learning about AJAX requests, programming design patterns, transients, and a whole bunch of other WordPress things. And I seem pretty smart to my students. There is so much to learn and
I was a guest on Genesis Office Hours
by
The awesome Carrie Dils runs the Genesis Office hours podcast and I was lucky enough to be asked to be a guest along with Angie Meeker. We talked about how many WordPress people are just ‘building stuff’ for clients not focusing on actually solving real business problems for them. Go listen to the episode.
Round Tripping to BeachPress mostly via bike
by
For me, BeachPress started 2 days early with travel. If you’re less interested in the cycling and travel portions and just want what I thought of BeachPress – read this post instead After a standard Friday morning involving my Mastermind Group and some extra family hang out time I loaded up my bike with my
Start Building Your Knowledge
Are you looking to be more creative, to connect your ideas?
