Archive for the ‘Business Rants’ Category

Closing the store is the brave thing to do. …You are daring to imagine that you could have a different life. Oh, I know it doesn’t feel like that. You feel like a big fat failure. But you’re not. You’re marching into the unknown, armed with … nothing. Have a sandwich.

~ Birdie Conrad, from the film You’ve Got Mail, Warner Brothers , 1998

One of the things I find most annoying about the Internet is that it’s constantly changing.   Resources come, resources go, Google changes its rules, new social media appears, web services are created, and just as fast – things disappear.    I have lost count of the number of blogs, feeds, twitter uses I have subscribed to which have just…. faded away.

They don’t end, or stop, or conclude – they just…. fade.

In 2011 I made some big decisions.    I decided to end the development of two software products I had developed, I fired three customers (I tried to fire five but two gave me reason to reconsider) and I called it a day on two or three personal projects (which were not going anywhere).

As Birdie Conrad says (from the quote above), closure of anything can be a tough call, but sometimes it’s the brave (and right thing to do).

As freelancers and business owners, we are told we need to expand all of the time – more clients, better clients, more work, more projects.  Growth (we are told) is good.

But, sometimes all that is really needed is to call it time on the things that are holding us back – the bad customers, the waste of time projects, the pet activities which are distracting us.  When I have taken the difficult decision to make the brave move and cut these things off, I have always found that it creates a vacuum of time and effort which is quickly filled by new customers and new work.

So what are the things that are holding you back, that you need to cut off and close, in order to move forward?

It’s also useful to plan ahead, and know things that will also come to a conclusion at a future date.  This helps us know when we will have spare time and resource in the future which aids in planning.

As an example of this, this blog will end on the last day of December this year (2012) – that’s the date when I will make a final goodbye entry.   There is plenty of time between now and then, but I don’t want it to just fade… it will conclude.   Which will allow me more time to move forward on other things.   But plenty of advice from me between now and then.

And what about you.   Any brave moves you can make this year?

Today, I had a run in with another small company.  I know the company name and I know that they sell items via Amazon – but that’s all I really know about them.  I don’t know how big they are, how high their turnover is, or even where they are based.

When I recently purchased an electronic device from Amazon, this company was recommended as the supplier.  The Amazon supplier page gave me an automated delivery date range – fair enough.  The order was placed, and I received a nice order confirmation from the company confirming the delivery date originally presented – all good stuff.

Except the item didn’t arrive.  In fact, by the due date, it had not even been despatched.

It needed me to chase the company for them to provide another date.  Now not only did they fail to give a reason for it not being despatched, but they also failed to offer an apology.   They don’t know what the item is for – it could be for me, or for somebody’s birthday or for a work project – they don’t know what impact a late delivery will have.

So I did what I always do, went back onto Amazon and gave them a negative review.  Nothing too harsh, just a “Missed the promised delivery date”.

The request for credit where credit was not due

My negative remark triggered an email from them saying (and I cut and paste here)… “We would like to plead with you regarding your feedback.  We are a small business  and would like to politely request that you consider changing this to a positive review as a negative feedback will adversely affect our small family business should you decide not to”.

So despite them missing their target, they actually want a good review?  They want me to lie?  You note that they don’t ask me to remove the negative comment – no, they want me to replace with a positive.

Price Verses Quality

So this takes us to the point of this transaction conflict and what I did wrong.  I went for somebody cheap, and what  I should have done is find a balance of cheap(ish) and reliable.

This if the difference between consumer spending and business spending.  Consumers are swayed a great deal by price, whereas businesses buy on risk, reliability and then price.  If we do business to business work, being Mr or Mrs Cheap and reducing the quality may put us at risk.

All businesses are at risk of having negative reviews placed against us.  Ebay, Amazon and business review sites makes it very easy for anybody to vent their anger about us.  Even for small shops or companies who think they are too small for such rants, anybody can vent their wrath on a blog site.

For big multi nationals, a few negative posts will get lost in the PR positive noise that they create so will have minimum impact.  But for us small businesses, one negative review can really hurt us.

So is it better to be cheap and let people down, or price for quality and deliver what you promise?  Or as a wise business coach once told me; Quality will be remembered long after Price has been forgotten.

Health and Safety, Human Rights, Data Protection, Pounds verses Kilos, Gallons verses Litres and of course the Euro – all of these pitiful excuses for ‘making our lives better’ are brought to us by the fools that sit and pass laws for the whole of Europe in Brussels.

Clearly life is still too easy for us in the UK, especially if you run a small business, so the EU ministers have been at it again.  You may be aware that there is now in force, a revision of the EU’s Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive that was introduced to protect users privacy by requiring explicit consent before (most)* cookies can be placed on a computer or mobile device by a web site.

In a nutshell, this means that you must get permission to use cookies for site personalization, web analytics and ad targeting if you operate from any EU state.   So, if for instance your web site uses Google Analytics, or Google Adwords, most forms of order systems, embedded YouTube videos, or even some forms of contact us web forms, you are now by law required to produce a warning for your web site visitors.

Making the Web Unusable

If you operate a web site within the European Union (including the UK), you now have 4 options to get your house in order:

1. Do nothing (which can leave you open to possible fines for non compliance)
2. Don’t accept cookies (remove all the analytics, order processing and any other cookie code)
3. Ask for permission (which is what the EU wants you to do)
4. Move your company outside of the EU

Reasonably, only the 3rd is a viable option for any serious business which means working towards compliance. The problem is, most EU nations have no law in place yet, and there are no clear guidelines for which cookies are acceptable and not.  Some fuzzy guidelines have been provided by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office – the UK’s information privacy cheerleader. The ICO has put together a downloadable document that serves as a “starting point for getting compliant,” rather than a definitive guide.

But what it means is that if you want to continue to use cookies – you need to change your web to put up large and obvious pop-ups saying “We are tracking you – is this ok?”, with the option to disable the features using cookies if they say NO.

This will make the web a much more annoying place for all concerned.

You have until May 21^st, 2012

If you were not aware, the law is actually already in place – you should be complying with the ‘guidelines’ now.  However, the EU has granted a 1 year ‘settle in’ period, which means your changes do not have to be in place until 21^st May 2012.   This date will soon come around, so maybe it’s worth thinking about your options now.

What I am doing about it

I am fortunate that the only cookies I need on my web site is the ones used by Google Analytics and Google Optimisation.   At a push, it would not be the end of the word to disable or remove them.  For other businesses, removing cookies could be more serious.

I have decided not to produce pop-ups on my web site or my blog – simply because this is a law I really don’t agree with.   However, at the same time I don’t want to leave myself open to possible business fines.

So my middle ground solution is, I am going to put a line at the bottom of all effected pages stating:

Under the European Union Electronic Communications Directive, please be advised that this site uses cookies from Google Analytics to record pages you are viewing to help us improve our site

Clearly this is fairly long, so I imagine the text will need to be fairly small to make it fit.    To this, I will like to another page that talks about the directive, what it means and why I use analytics.  After all, one of the items detailed in the ICO’s document states “If the ICO were to receive a complaint about a website, we would expect an organisation’s response to set out how they have considered the points above and that they have a realistic plan to achieve compliance. We would handle this sort of response very differently to one from an organisation which decides to avoid making any change to current practice.”

So the simple statement means I have made a start, which means in the unlikely event somebody does have a word about my business, I am not avoiding the problem, which means I get a warning rather than a fine.

Have you ever been on a web site looking for information, and the first thing they present is a “Will you take a survey” pop-up?   What about where you order something, and they demand your phone number – it’s a mandatory option – you must give them a number – so you make one up.  Or how about a web site which demands you select your STATE from a drop down list, but you live in the UK, Germany or South America – so you end up picking Alaska because it’s the first on the list?

Now don’t get me wrong, all of this can provide useful information – but there is a time, and a place, and a question of is it relevant.   I would suspect that the pop-up surveys would only be used by people with an axe to grind (or those who are really, really bored).  I would also suspect that all the phone numbers held in peoples databases are wrong – if you FORCE me to provide a phone number to order a pair of socks on your web site, you can bet your going to get a “99999999” phone number.

There are some exceptions.   Based on advice from blogs of master marketers that I read, pop-up ‘follow me on twitter’ or pop-up/side bar ‘join my mailing list’ have a value – but to ask for a survey for a first time visitor – just seems like a bad idea.

If you are going to ask for surveys, send them out to people you know and make sure they are relevant.  And if you’re going to ask for phone numbers or other personal information, make them optional and remember that not everybody lives in the same country as you.

I have spent this weekend in Paris to celebrate my wife’s 40^th Birthday.   As part of this trip, we visited a fabulous restaurant called Le Fermette Marbeuf.  The restaurant is very pricey, but the food is very good and the decoration is exquisite.  But in spite of spending an awful lot of money with them, the service was nothing short of shocking.

We both ordered starters, main courses and deserts.   My wife received her starter and I got. . .  an empty plate.  Yes, they actually brought me a plate with nothing on.    We explained that I had ordered a starter, but they didn’t seem at all fussed – they disappeared to check on the starter.   About 30 minutes later, two more plates arrived – with our main courses.   When I explained I was missing a starter, the waiter just shrugged, and wandered away.

So OK, they had made a mistake – they had goofed.  They were very busy, and maybe they didn’t have enough staff.  They had somehow lost an order for a starter (or turned my order into an order for “Starter La Empty-Plate”).   But, we all make mistakes in business.  It’s how you handle them that makes the difference.

The head waiter could have come over to apologise – but no.  They could have offered me something in return, but no.   Instead, when I was presented with the bill, they said because of their mistake, they had not charged me for the starter I hadn’t received.  Well shucks – that’s good of them. 

Business Mistakes are an inconvenience.  They will always be an inconvenience to somebody – the question is – who?    If you make a mistake – you deliver late, you miss something off, you forget something, is it good enough to just say “sorry” and expect your customers to deal with the inconvenience?   If this is the case, would you expect repeat business, quick and easy payment, and recommendations?  Or would you expect complaints, bad reviews (that internet is a powerful place for people with axes to grind) and problems in the future?

I for one want a simple life – a stress free life.  Which is why whenever I do make mistakes (it happens), I make sure my customers are not inconvenienced.

What about you?

Yesterday afternoon I attended a short workshop on gaining more Freelance business.  They had two freelance leaders who talked for 20 minutes each, and both of them told the same story – to gain more business you have to be #1 in your sector.

In a lot of small business and freelance books, I have read the same thing;   Be number one, be the industry expert, be the go-to company, be the market leader.    Really?!?   I mean…. Really?!?!?

That idea may work for big companies in niche areas – where you can throw more money, more staff, more advertising and more service to be number one.   I suspect for the VAST majority of small businesses (including consultants, contractors and freelancers), you have tens of thousands of people up and down the country who do the same as you – how can you ever hope to be number one?

And if you can’t, why are the ‘experts’ telling you to try?   It’s a hopeless, thankless, impossible task.

Which is why I am happy to be number two, or number 10, or number 501.   I really don’t care what number I am.

What I care about is being real, being approachable, having a clear message, having clear and reasonable prices, and being there when somebody is looking for me (or a company like me).

So you be number One if that works for you.  Me, I am too busy being what my customers need.

I love tools.  I love automation.   Oh, and I love shortcuts.    

When I am working on a project, if I perform a task which I need to do over again and again, I find nothing more rewarding than working out a better way of doing it. Be it a tool, a system or an automated way of carrying out the task, if I can save time by re-use or simplification, it gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

But, this also causes a problem.  A problem you also have.  A problem that you may not even know you have.  

You see, as you work, you gain experience (and tools and snippets and shortcuts and a million other ways of saving time).   But, when you quote customers for work, what are you quoting for?

Take the version of you that existed 5 years ago.   If you did some work on a project, I am sure that it would take much longer to complete than it does today.   5 years ago you were groping in the dark, feeling your way.  Today, you can wiz through projects thanks to your accumulated knowledge, skills and shortcuts.

But what are you charging your customers for.   Are you charging them for the time that it would take a reasonable person to complete the task, or the more experienced super-you??  What happens in another 5 years with even more efficiencies – do you charge them even less

Are you, essentially, cutting your own throat?!?  Are you turning yourself into a busy cheap fool?   Or are you factoring the old you into your proposal figures so in fact, you are generating more money through efficiency?

Sorry, this is a bit of a rant.   But I want to talk about train travel in the UK.   Actually, I want to talk about trains compared to cars as an option when it comes to business travel.   I am sure that whatever it is you do, whether you are a contractor, a freelancer or work/own a small business, you need to travel for your business.   And I bet you keep hitting the same old question when it comes to travel – do I drive, or do I go by train.

I see trains in the UK as one of the pointers why the UK is in trouble.    If I wanted to travel to say Edinburgh or Prague (or any other European city) I have a choice of which airline I want to use.  I can compare prices, I can compare rates, I can compare service, and make a choice.   But when it comes to Train travel, you are stuck with the operator that runs the line you need to use for your destination.

But the train operators are pricing themselves out of the market.  

I have to travel from my home office in Hampshire, to Nottingham.   By car, this is a distance of 165 miles.  At current HIGH petrol prices, it will cost me 17p a mile to drive (not including car costs such as car, insurance, tax etc).  That equates to £29 to get there.  Of course I would charge the customer the taxable limit of 40p a mile, so that’s £66 each way.   To drive, it will take around 2 hours 44 minutes.  I get to sit in a comfortable clean car, that’s warm, listen to my music, but I have the downside of wasted time behind the wheel.

For the train, the exact same journey would cost me £69.70 – each way – or £40 more than the cost of the petrol.  The train journey will take 3hours 48minutes – over an hour longer than the car journey.    With the train there are the possibilities of delays, cancellations, and of course a fight for a seat, but it does offer the advantage of possibly doing some work (IF I can get a seat).

It’s a spiral – in the wrong direction.  Train prices go up, so people avoid the trains,  so the train companies make less money, so they have to put the prices up, so more people avoid the trains.  The only solution thus far is to prop up the train operating companies with tax payers money.  But either the TRAIN ‘product’ works, or it doesn’t – if it’s a good product, fast, clean and a better alternative to driving, then people will use it and it will fund itself.  If it doesn’t work – if it’s more expensive, slower, and more stressful than driving, then the product does not work and like any other business with a bad product, it should be allowed to DIE.  Only then will it get re-launched with a set-up and price structure that makes sense.