I was still running my business as a sole-proprietor vs. a corporation.
I was paying myself on the fly vs. a roper payroll.
I wasn’t having my taxes done by a real accountant.
I wasn’t paying my taxes quarterly.

The end result of all that laziness is a huge bill at the end of the year. One I usually didn’t have the money for. I mean we are talking close to, or over $10,000. As such, I am still paying for those mistakes in a monthly bill to the tax man.

So this week, I’d just like to talk about how you stay organized as far as finance goes. What apps do you use to mange your money, both personal and business? What sort of business entity are you and why? Do you use an accountant or payroll service? If so, how did you find them and how much do they cost?

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To me, theres something comforting about regimented and planned out week. Knowing that I only have from this time to this time to accomplish a task offers some peace of mind. Because, after that allotted amount of time is done, I know that I don’t have to think about said activity again. Having a certain amount of time to accomplish something also seems to make one work a little more focused.

I also like the idea of a planned out week so that I could schedule tasks I normally would put off and never get done. Things like bookkeeping, customer management, and other boring business tasks are things I often never end up doing because they are boring. Even though these tasks would only take a few minutes if I did them each day, I usually put them off until each one is easily a days worth of work.

This week I am going to try and keep a strict routine. I will post it online and give daily updates on my progress, as well as my thoughts on working with a strict routine. I encourage you to do the same, as well as check up on my during the day via Titter or Facebook to see how I’m doing.

So, the question of the week, do you have a daily routine and if so, how do you manage to stick to it?

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Ever since I started Outlaw Design Blog I always wanted to do something to help the community polish their skills and allow them to show off to the community. In the early days I used a Flickr pool, but that didn’t really have the effect I wanted. It really was just more of a pool where readers could show of their work. I wanted something a bit more social and thought provoking.

When I was a professional photographer I had a book that was geared at teaching you how to shoot stock photography. The better part of the book was very specific assignments aimed at helping you build up your collection of stock photography. That is what I hope to achieve with the weekly challenges.

To start out, the weekly challenges will have to be a bit more basic so that they can gain some participation and popularity. Eventually though, I would like these challenges to help you produce something that you can put in your portfolio.

How it Works

The rules are simple, every two weeks I will post a new challenge in the forums. You will have up to two weeks to complete the challenge.

At the end of the two weeks, a celebrity judge will choose the winner.

Each week there will be a prize awarded to the winner chosen by the celebrity judge.

Weekly Challenge #1

For the inaugural launch of the weekly design challenge I decided to keep it basic with a simple wallpaper design.

Challenge:
Create a desktop wallpaper with an ampersand theme.

Prize:
Mac Divvy App – http://mizage.com/divvy/

Judge:
Rogie of Komodo Media – http://www.komodomedia.com/

Deadline:
2/21/11

For example:

• How many of you send out a thank you letter after the end of the project?
• Have you ever sent out a “how’s my driving” type survey to clients?
• Do you regularly check in on clients to see if they need something new or additional help?
• Do you use a ticketing system for clients to contact you later on down the road if they need help?

It just seems to me that if we as freelancers put as much time into our customer service and support as big industries did, business would improve. I think that by improving your customer service and doings ome of the things mentioned above, that not only would your business improve, but that you would improve as a designer/developer and business owner.

What sort of customer service & support do you offer?

Personally, I’m as guilty as the next guy in the sense that I don’t really offer or do anything. Im always available to my clients via email, IM, or phone, but thats where it stops. One of my plans for this year is to work on a better email customer service system. I want to try and create a set of auto reply emails that get sent out to new leads (w/o being spammy) to check up on theme if I don’t hear back from them.

I also want to setup a set of emails that auto send after the end of a project that include a survey about our work, request for a testimonial, and periodic emails checking in on them to see if they need any new help.

Thoughts?

Maybe I am one of a few, but I havent visited a industry news sharing sites like Design Float or Design Bump, in a long time. I’m wondering if I am the only one. I’m wondering if you prefer the more niche news sharing sites or the major news sharing sites for your industry specific news.

If you are interested in sharing your thoughts, please take this quick poll: http://verifyapp.com/p/5366

My Thoughts

I remember when Design Float first came out and it was all the rage among the community. It was almost an overnight success. As a blog owner, I found myself constantly coming back to the site to add my links and content to the news feed. That however, was pretty much the extent of my activity on the site. I very rarely went to the site looking for news items and almost never used it to promote content I found online.

In defense of Design Float, I never really did that on Digg either. I’m just not a major news sharing site player I guess.

It seems to me though, that at first glance, sites like Design Float appear to offer a lot of value to visitors. However, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that the majority of the traffic and activity on these niche sites are from the bloggers who submit their news to them.

If thats the case, it would seem that these niche news sites are heavily influenced by whoever the most active users are. This is of course unfair to visitors and users and something Digg had to work very hard at countering. Yes, many of these niche sites have measures in place to help prevent this, but nothing that can’t easily be “hacked.”

As a visitor, I just don’t really see the value in these niche news sharing sites. But, as I said before, Im not really a news sharing site kind of guy.

What do you think?

If you are interested in sharing your thoughts, please take this quick poll: http://verifyapp.com/p/5366

Im actually working on a post form sometime in the next few weeks that is nothing but a collection of people in the industry that I look up to and respect. It includes lots of local people as well as those that I have only ever admired from afar. It is a collection of designer, business owners, and even some developers.

So, I was just wondering who you look up to in your industry and why?

As I said before, I’m working on a post that answers this question, but the sake of this discussion, here is one of my top picks:

[sws_2_column title=""] [/sws_2_column] [sws_2_columns_last title="Carl Smith of Ngen Works"]I first learned of Carl at a local web design Meetup group where he spoke on the topic of user testing. Since then I have stalked him religiously. Ok, maybe not stocked, but definitely kept tabs on. Carl is just one of those “really good dudes.” Hes always happy to help, take the time to listen, and has some really great advice and experiences to share. I ad more him for that and for what he has turned ngen works into over the years.[/sws_2_columns_last]
Be on the lookout for my post where I stroke the egos of those who have inspired me to be a better designer, better businessman, and all around better person.

Something about a new year always seems to inspire people to make things happen. So will you be making things happen this year? If so, what do you have in the works?

I mentioned last week about my new plans for Outlaw Design Blog already. My big project for the new year though is to launch Outlaw Themes. As the name suggests, it’s a theme shop. Yes, I know there are a ton out there already, but is it really so bad to have another quality one to browse?

The theme shop should be launching in the next few weeks with at least three WordPress themes. If you want a sneak peak at the design for Outlaw Themes, check out our Facebook page and browse the photo galleries. http://www.facebook.com/OutlawDesignBlog

We all have a few things on our personal wish list that we want, but can’t buy for whatever reason. Since it is depressing to think about things we can’t have, lets lighten the mood a little by doing a littler pretending.

Lets, for a moment, pretend that one of our clients was so pleased with the job we had just done for them, that they bought us a $1000 Amazon gift card to show their appreciation. The only catch is that it has to be some sort of design related gear that will help you run your business smoother or help make you better at what you do.

You are free to buy as many things as you want, you just have to keep it under $1000. After all, you aren’t made of money.

For the sake of this experimentation in imagination, lets use the Amazon Computer Category as our baseline for setting the price. Don’t get to caught up in the specifics of each item. I’m just more interested in what tickles your fancy.

Image was purchased from Shutterstock Images

First let me tell you just a little about what I had in mind.

The webinars would be about an hour long and completely interactive, as most good webinars are. During the course of the webinar, I would talk and teach the group about the desired topic. Towards the end of the lesson, I would open the floor for question on the topic. After the webinar was over, I would create a MP3 file of the lesson and PDF of the lesson and have it emailed to you shortly after the webinar.

What do you think?

Do you have any ideas or suggestions?

Please take the short 5 question survey to let me know what topics you are interested in. If you include your email address in the poll, I will send you a discount code for the first webinar.

What I would like to talk about today is how you set your prices.

When it comes to tangible products its pretty easy to figure out a price. You just take the cost of the product and increase it based on supply and demand. An old rule of thumb is a 75% increase based on what you pay. Obviously this isn’t always the case as supply and demand can play a major role in pricing.

With digital products and design services though it isn’t that easy. There are a lot more factors to consider and usually a lot less costs involved. Some people set their hourly rate based on skill level, while others come up with their hourly rate based on how much money they need to survive.

I know there are a number of tools out there to help you get that magic number, but I am more interested in hearing how established designers, developers, and freelancers have come up with their rates for hourly and per project charges.