Category : Business

in Productivity
dropbox

Dropbox Advice for Working with Teams & Contractors

Like most people in the industry, I use Dropbox to share files with client, team members, and contractors. For what it is, Dropbox is the cornerstone of file sharing services. Despite it’s easy of use and simple sharing solutions, it does have its drawbacks. Recently I had the sickening experience of realizing one of my contractors deleted a folder of three years and several thousand dollars worth of work. Needless to say, I almost passed out at the keyboard when I learned this.
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in Social Media
6

The Best Tumblr Blogs for Designers & Developers

It seems like there are all these posts floating around the web about the best blogs and websites to follow for any given subject. These are great for finding new websites and RSS feeds to follow. After looking at a few of these, I noticed that not many of them included Tumblr blogs. And none of them featured Tumblr blogs exclusively. I rather enjoy the ease of browsing my Tumblr feed, so I thought I would share some of the best design and development related Tumblr feeds out there.
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in Social Media

Custom Google Reader Themes

Much like my search for the perfect project management app, I have always searched for the perfect RSS feed reader. I have used a number of them over the years. For the longest time I used NetVibes, which is great, but I decided to scale back my information intake, so it was a bit more than I needed. I do enjoy a few of the paid RSS readers, but can’t bring my self to pay for them.

While I hunted for the perfect RSS reader I stumbled across some custom themes for Google Reader. I never really used the Google Reader because I hated the way it looked. It was just to comprate and depressing looking. However, these Google Reader themes I cam across really spice up its design, some of them even add some much appreciated functionality.

I could only find a few worth mentioning. I would be interested to hear if you know of any others.

1. Feedly

If you dig the newspaper and magazine style RSS readers out there like Early Edition, you will probably appreciate this Google Reader theme. It sports a more newspaper like layout vs. a traditional blog reader layout. Works well if you only subscribe to a handful of blogs. Also includes developers ads.

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2. Helvetireader

This is arguably one of the more popular Google Reader themes out there. It was designed and developer by amazing Jon Hicks. If you appreciate minimalism and good aesthetics, this is the Google Reader theme for you.

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3. Pure Reader

The Pure Reader is one of the best Google Reader themes I have seen for those of you that subscribe to a large list of blogs. It uses a nice accordion style drop down in the sidebar to help you manage a plethora of RSS feeds nicely.

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4. Lucidia

Lucidia is another minimal Google Reader theme much like the Helvetireader theme by Jon Hicks. Its uses a minimal layout and is free of distraction, allowing you to focus on whats important, the content.

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5. Mac OSx Style

As the name suggests, this Google Reader theme has a style that many Mac users will be familiar with. According to Google search results, this may be the second most popular Google Reader theme out there.

in Clients

Design for the Customers You Don’t Have

When doing any sort of redesign work on the web, you want to keep your existing customers in mind. You have no doubt done countless hours of research and user testing to get your business and website to where it is today. It is probably even safe to say that you have a very good understand of your customers and who they are.

Thats all fine and dandy. Great even.

But, to me it seems flawed to only take into account your current customers when doing any sort of research, planning, or designing. If you only ever take your current customers into account, how can you ever plan on growing your business?

Yes, if you understand your current customer and make website for them, your company will most likely grow at a steady rate. Again, this is fine if its the way you want to do things. But, most business owners I know are constantly looking to the future and how they can grow their business.

By growing a business, one would assumes you are looking to acquire customers that are different from the ones you currently have. These new customers may be fairly similar to the ones your currently have or the may be extremely different. So do yourself a favor, when doing your research and user testing, get feedback from people outside of your customer profile.

Getting feedback from people outside of your typical customer profile will help give you valuable insights on how to grow your business to appeal to a wider variety of people.

in Freelancing

Are you the real client from hell?

It is easy for us to blame our frustration with a particular project on the client. Like it or not, we often think of clients as a necessary evil to the work we do. I know thats a sad way to think, but we all know its true.

I have no doubt that many, if not all, of you have experienced the “client from hell.” You know the one Im talking about. The one that has no sense of style and wants everything “bigger and shinier.” Or perhaps they change their mind about the project every step of the way. Regardless of the story, the end result is always the same, frustration to the point you want to shoot yourself in the head.

Now, I want to propose something and please don’t shoot me in the head for it.

What if, in fact, you are the client from hell?

By that I mean, what if you are the real reason behind the frustration?

Think about this for a minute; most of your clients probably come to you with no experience in how the design and development of a website works. They may have some ideas, preconceived notions, and maybe even a touch of experience. But, for the most part they are uneducated in the matter.

So, it stands to reason that if we fail to educate our clients from the get go, we are in fact doing them a diservice. We are allowing them to become the client from hell through our own doing.

I encourage you to take a step back and review you client education process. How much do you educate your client? What sort of tools or materials do you give your client to educate themselves with?

in Freelancing

The Art of Client Payment

Over the years I have learned a thing or two about clients and their money. You generally have two sort of clients, those who have no problem spending money and those who want to hold on to every penny they can. The information below will walk you through how to determine what type of client you are dealing with, how to charge them, and what to do if they don’t pay.

Step 1 – Determine the Type of Client

If you can evaluate the type of client you are talking to right away in your initial sales call, you stand a much better chance of landing the job. Being able to know what type of client you are dealing with early on will allow you to adjust your sales pitch and payment options to something thats more likely to appeal to them.

So, how do you determine the type of client you are working with in your initial sales call?

Here are a few things I have learned:

  • Clients with budgets around $2,000 to $3,000 are typically funding projects out of their own pocket as an investment. This means they are emotionally invested to the project and to their money. Make them feel comfortable with you as a person and offer milestone payments and you are sure to get the job.
  • Clients who are reluctant to give you their budget are generally bad news. These tend to be the clients who constantly ask for more than they payed for and don’t really appreciate the cost of good web work.
  • A good client will understand why you need to know their budget. Simply tell the client that you need to know their budget so that you have a better idea of what solutions can be achieved within that budget.
  • Clients with budgets over $5,000 tend to understand how freelancers work and generally don’t have a problem with a 50/50 payment plan. This is how they are generally used to doing business. Larger budget clients don’t like the idea of a lot of smaller milestone payments.
  • If you do get a client with a budget of $5,000+ who is a bit reluctant to do a 50/50 payment plan because they have never worked with you, offer them a quarterly payment plan where they can pay a top loaded deposit and then 3 more payments over the course of the project. Think of this as milestone payments for big budgets.

Step 2 – Explain the Payment Terms Clearly

It is important that even in the initial phone call with a client that you outline the payment process in detail. It’s always upsetting when you end a call with a new client by them asking you to send them an invoice, only have them call you back asking why they have to pay so much up front. Or worse still, thinking you explained the milestone payments to the client, but them getting upset when you ask for money in the middle of the project.

Im sure most of you know how to explain a 50/50 payment plan, but some of you may be new to the idea of milestone payments, so let me take a minute to explain this idea and why it works so well for freelancers and lower budget clients.

Milestone Payments Explained
It is funny to me how excited we as a society get at the idea of monthly payments. Ok, maybe we dont get excited about the idea of monthly payments, but we get excited about not having to fork over large chunks of money at once. This idea of monthly payments is something that can also work well in the design industry. You would be surprised how many time I have sealed a $5,000+ job because I told them I would do milestone payments vs. the traditional 50/50 split.