Posts Tagged ‘SME’

So how long does a typical project take you?  From initial signing of the contract to delivery to the customer – is it a day?  A week?  A month?  A year?   More importantly, how long do your customers think it takes you?

I have talked in the past about the difference between needed activity time verses the actual amount of effort (including why you should bill for the needed activity).  But the other part of the time equation is how long it is assumed it would take.

Needed, vs Actual vs Assumed

So let’s take an example project which is going to take you 2 weeks to complete.   You have your shortcuts, the code (or designs) you can re-use, which means if you were starting from scratch without the short cuts, it would take you really 4 weeks (which is what you should be charging your customers).  But how long should you tell your customer it will take?   Should you say you can deliver it in 2 weeks, or 4?

If it was my project, and assuming the customer is not giving us rock hard ‘we must have it by’ delivery dates, I would say it would be delivered in 5 or 6 weeks.  Of course, they would be quoted and billed the 4 weeks of effort, but the extra time gives me breathing room.

It’s important to remember that we are the experts in our particular field, we have the knowledge of how long things take and what our schedules are like.  It will be assumed we know what we are talking about.  Put it this way, if you received a quote to build an extension on your house and the builders said it would be complete in 15 weeks, are you going to argue and start trying to manage their time?  Or would you assume they know what they are talking about?

Projects are never brick shaped

One of the problems with running projects in our companies is that projects are never ever brick shaped.  They never just ‘start’, run for a period of time, and then just finish.  I would argue that they are more diamond shaped.  They start gradually (whilst dates, specifications and designs are agreed), have a mass of activity in the middle, and then sort of fade out (you deliver, they test, you wait for sign-off).

So treating projects as neat squares, that take 3 or 4 weeks, then connect to the next project never works.  Making this assumption means we will end up with slack time between projects whilst we try to win more work, or wait for the next project to be agreed.

As per the diagram above, I treat my projects as diamonds, fitted together, with one project starting up whilst the previous finishes.   And the easiest way to manage this is to add the ‘assumed’ slack time onto the project which means I have more room to fit the project pieces together.

Plus, it means I am never late delivering projects, the customer is delighted when I deliver early, and I don’t end up with the slack time between projects.

So how do you join your projects together?

Do you keep a journal?  I don’t mean a scheduling of upcoming events and appointments, I mean a historical diary – as in the things that teenage girls are normally associated with (that may seem slightly sexist, but it’s generally accepted that boys don’t keep diaries).

Diaries and Journals can be life savers for contractors, freelancers and small business owners when you need to refer back about when things happened, who said what, when and the timeline of problems.   Somebody who can say in a meeting “Phil confirmed to switch off the server at 4:15pm on Tuesday 12^th” is going to be believed more than somebody who responds with “yes, but somebody, I think it was Tony, said not to – he may have said this on the Monday or the Wednesday – I think it may have been Wednesday”.

Diaries and journals don’t have to be big.  Business journals don’t have to be war and peace on everything that happened at every point in a day, but can be very useful to record key points as they occur.

I keep an electronic journal and quick but important events I like to record include:

• Go ahead’s during phone calls
• Key decisions (during a meeting or a chat, somebody says to go with option A or delay the project)
• When people promise to get back to me
• Dates when I send out documents, contracts or invoices
• Notes about disagreements, who was involved and how it was resolved

There are plenty of ways of keeping a journal.  For some, paper will work, but for me Electronic is best.  I keep an electronic journal on my Android Tablet (always with me during the working day).  Having an electronic journal means I can very quickly add a note, categorize it (normally by customer/prospect) and then quickly search for the key information.

Electronic journals are available on PCs (one is already available in Outlook), for iPhones/iPADS and of course Android (I use Orange Diary for android which I can recommend).

Making an entry during a phone conversation or meeting takes me just 10 or 20 seconds, but it has saved my bacon on a number of occasions.

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.

Brrrrrr.  This morning as I started the car, the temperature sensor declared that outside, the temperature had dropped to a rather chilly 8 degrees C.   That means autumn is just around the corner, and that for me means only one thing – Holiday Time.

As a SME, I used to hate holidays.   I love the travel, and the sights, the sounds and the relaxation, but I used to hate the chaos it caused to my business (plus the weeks of not earning money).    But, I think I have holidays organised now (touch wood) so that they have minimum impact to my business.

As I prepare for my annual BIG get away (we have several trips a year, but the BIG one is for 2 or 3 weeks), may I present my (updated) system of dealing with holidays and vacations:

1. Plan Ahead – this is the key.  As you will see below, I start thinking about my holidays as soon as they are booked.   Planning ahead means that my business can run itself for a while.  Get the plans down on paper (or electronic to do list) and I then work my way through them before the holiday comes around.
2. Work Ahead – The next crucial tip is to work ahead – have things under my belt which can be delivered just before I leave, or whilst I am away.   Customers don’t want to know that your holiday to Hawaii is going to affect their delivery, so if a project is scheduled to occur whilst I am away, I factor in extra time into the project, and get things ready but hold them back.   I can then deliver items just before I go (leaving them to test and approve whilst I am away) or have thoroughly tested deliveries ready for delivery whilst I am away.  In this way, it would appear that the project is progressing whilst I am away.  One thing I have learnt is don’t send risky (new tech required) deliveries the day before you go – instead send it a day or two before to allow them to read what is required, ask any questions, and you time to deal with any issues.
3. Communicate – Let everybody know who needs to know about the holiday, and as soon as possible.   I bring it up in meetings early in the year, and then remind people again a week or so before I go.  Communicate to customers, suppliers, family, friends, call answering service – everybody.
4. Support Systems – Your customers may need supporting whilst you are away, so don’t be afraid to bring in a freelancing friend who you can set up in your systems to answer support emails or even visit/dial in to customers.  I tend to set them up on my email system, and then have support emails forwarded on to them, which also allows them to reply using my companies email system (so it comes from somebody else in my company).   I have also developed a remote SQL execution system – on my phone I can type in a SQL statement, which is sent to a customers server (by email), picked up, and the results sent back to me by email.   99% of support for my customers is based around SQL Database (or data) problems, so using this system, I can look at data and do everything from change scripts to bounce servers from anywhere in the world.
5. Just in case accessibility – We are all connected by our mobile phones, but holidays need a little thought.  Don’t forget to check your phone works in the country you will be travelling to, that you have set up international roaming plans, you have a phone charger in your suitcase, and a travel power adaptor.   It is also worthwhile packing a few mobile charging battery packs – for when a wall socket charge is not possible.  Its also worth printing important phone numbers, IP addresses and passwords just in case your phone is lost or damaged.
6. Backups – Don’t forget to backup everything before you go.  Backup servers, laptops, computers, phones – and then put the backup media in your car whilst you are away, using you car as a safe.  Also, copy critical files and deliveries for ongoing projects and support to on-line systems you can access anywhere such as Dropbox – this means you can then access the files from around the world or deliver them to the customers as a release from the beach/pool.
7. Remote Wetware – By wetware, I am talking about a person who you know and trust, who you can give access to your home, office or virtual environment.   As a backup plan, if everything else fails, you can ask them to pop over, and talk them through sending emails, restart servers or make phone calls for you.
8. Catch Up – I have also found it is most useful to leave 2 extra days on the back of my scheduled holiday time for catch up.  Once you get home, there will be post, emails and problems to sort out.  These catch-up days have been life savers in the past.

I am pretty sure you recognise the image on the right as a thing called the ‘sales pipeline’; the mythical funnel shaped flow of a sale process, with lots of customers going in the top (at the prospect stage), which then get whittled down in number, to eventually hit the thin bottom of the funnel as sales.  The sales pipeline has been around for decades.

Well, here is a confession. . . . I don’t have a sales pipeline shaped like this.

Whilst I am on confessions, I am going to say something pretty radical, which goes against everything which is 21^st century…. I don’t do Social Media sales.

Social Media – Not for Me

My company does not have a facebook page, it doesn’t have a twitter profile, and it doesn’t even get mentioned in Google+.

The reason is simple – I am still not convinced that social media works for small companies.    Oh, it may work for Nike, McDonalds and NASA. . . but who wants to follow the tweets of my company?  Nobody.   It would be wasted effort.

I have read all the blog posts and books which talk about making yourself a Leader in your field via social media – and they may work for marketing gurus or Business Leaders, but for a small company such as me – nah. . . . it just isn’t going to work.

I have my own personal Twitter accounts, Facebook Account, Goole+ and Linked in.   But they are mine, for my own social use (mainly about business growth) – they don’t try and sell my company.

My company sales Pipe

The sales pipe above, and social media is all wrong for me.  It’s too ‘scatter gun’.   People talk about using Social Media to get as many people in as possible, get them crammed into the top of the funnel, and don’t engage – just hope that you don’t piss them off so much and they stick around and eventually buy something from you. . . at somewhere down the line.

So my sales pipe is just that – it’s not a funnel, but a pipe.  Narrow at the top, narrow at the bottom.  I work with just a handful of prospects, and lead them through the process, to the final sale.   When I need to engage with them, I pick up the phone or visit them.

It may not be right for everybody, but its real, and it has helped me drive my sales up and up, and made 2011 my best year so far.

Maybe being non-social media, non-email campaign, but being Pro real conversation and meeting makes me and my company different.  Maybe that’s one of my USPs.

What do you think?

As the saying goes, Business is Business.   However, different businesses have different ways of doing business.

What is typical for one company may be completely different for another.  These differences can be exaggerated and highlighted when a freelancer or small business works with a larger company.   Whilst a large business may be stuck in procedures, committees and rules, being a smaller more dynamic company means that we can make decisions and change direction in an instant.

You may be proud of the way that you do business.  You may have ways of working which bring numerous advantages to your customers.  But if your customers have never dealt with freelancers or small companies before, the advantages will not be working to your advantage.  Your customers just may not know what to expect.

Which is why you may need a Working Practices paper.  This is a short guide which says how you prefer to work;  the steps you follow, that you would prefer your customers to follow, and which sells their advantages.   You don’t have to make it too heavy on the sales speak, but if your processes indicate the advantages, it becomes a valuable tool.

Not only does it add extra ‘bumf’ to your sales hand-out pack, not only does it give another reason for them to pick you over a competitor, but it also sets a baseline on how you want them to work.

Now I am not talking Terms and Conditions here.  Terms are all the legal rubbish you need to protect yourself.  Your practices are how you work with the client – do you meet, is it by email only, how quickly you respond, do you get sign off before you start work, etc.

As an example, here is a copy of my Working Practices (click to zoom, print or save):

Having just (foolishly) paid for an extended warranty on  a washing machine that already has a 10 year guarantee (doh), warranties and guarantees have been on my mind recently.   In business, it’s hard to imagine any company that should not offer some form of warranty.   But if you don’t specify the specific terms, the customers can only guess what is reasonable.

If you buy a chocolate bar and open it to find it spoilt, you would expect you have a right to return it to the shop for a refund.  The same is true for a washing machine – if it suddenly stops or floods your kitchen, I am sure you will dig out the warranty card and the receipt to see if you are calling a repairman, or the store you purchased it from.

But what about our own small business products, and even services?  Do you, and should you, offer any warranty or guarantee on your own business?

Warranty on Service and products

Clearly on products, the customer can expect them to work.  But what about services?   If you work to provide a web site, software or consultancy and the customer finds mistakes (errors in the text or parts that are incorrect), do you expect the customer to correct them, would you charge for such corrections, or do you correct for free?  If you accept the responsibility, how long should you make corrections for?

Peace of Mind

Clearly, warranties are there for peace of mind.  They are insurance against you (as a supplier) making mistakes and delivering faulty products or services.  As such, any warranty or guarantee should be part of your sales pitch to have any value.  If only mentioned after delivery, they are just a cost with no value to you as a supplier.

Any form of warranty or guarantee should also give you peace of mind.  It should say what is reasonable, and what is unacceptable.  Without a warranty clause, how do you deal with customers who complain about a bug 6 years after using the software or web site?

My Own Warranty Clause

For my own company, the warranty is presented to the customer as part of the sales pitch – it’s part of the value add – the reason to buy from me.  It helps remove risk to both parties.  It therefore appears in my sales material, in the quotations I provide, and also in my terms and conditions.

I factor in some small post-delivery corrective action into my quote figures, and provide a warranty for corrections for the first 12 months after supply (for smaller projects, this may be reduced).  But, and here is the important bit, I limit the warranty in terms of the original design and customer process/data.  If they change or break something on their side of the fence, then the warranty becomes null and void.

Take for instance, a data reporting project.   My warranty (basic) terms would say:

The solution provided would be supported by {mycompany} for the first 12 months after delivery without further charge or restriction within our normal terms of service and within our normal working times of 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday excluding public holidays.   This is also restricted to:

• Support within scope of delivery (brief description here, database format, source database, etc)
• Where the source databases matches the original source database (i.e, no new fields are supported, source fields or data formats changed, etc)
• Based on original requirements

So what are you doing about your warranty?

If you are a Freelancer or Small Business Owner in the UK, it may interest you to know that a new magazine has been created just for you.   The BritishSME magazine is very new, with just 2 issues under its belt, produced every 6 months, with lots of great information for all types of small companies.

The initial two editions covers such topics as tax changes, staffing, insurance, bank lending, and all kinds of other small business news.   What is also useful is a range of ‘Best Buy’ tables for company banking, credit cards, mortgages (for Buy to Lets) and insurance.

The magazine is produced in both electronic and printed versions – you can read the editions without signing up but by signing up you can have the magazine delivered to your in tray or letter box.

As a say, it’s a new magazine, but I for one wish them the best of luck.    You can read/download existing issues or sign up for future issues here.