Posts Tagged ‘thing’

This morning I had a fairly heated email exchange with a freelancing friend who accused me of being confused in what I do.   In a nutshell, his email stated “How can you run a web blog about freelancing? You’re not a freelancer”.    Hmmmmmm.  His argument was, because I worked for a Limited Company (which I help set up) and we now employed a handful of staff, I was… a business.

To some people, there are clean lines which say whether you are a contractor, a freelancer, an SME, or a fully fledged business.   For me, the lines are so fuzzy to make any differentiation impossible.  Let’s put it this way…

You may a contractor, and contractors work for a contracted period of time, at a customer’s site.  But I have known freelancers who work on a project, at a customer’s office on projects with a known end date – so does that not make them a contractor?  And contracts generally start Limited companies for the tax breaks, so they are also a business.

You may be a freelancer – which typically means working for customers on generally fixed price work, on a project.  But then, for larger projects you may outsource elements to other people, or team up to use other peoples skills, and if its invoiced through one company, doesn’t that make them small business?

So what about me, working in a small limited company, which employees a handful of staff – some permanent and some not so (you pick whether they are contractors or freelancers).  My company performs work in the same way as freelancers- for customers, maybe supplying one person, sometimes a small team – so are we not freelancers?

The reason I raise all of this (apart from the fact that I got a little annoyed in my friends branding accusations) is that at the end of the day, however you want to brand yourself, if you have made the commitment to go it alone that you have the right to call yourself whatever titles you want – even if you do end up working in teams for some projects.

So throw away the titles, the slots, the boxes and the stereotypes.  Instead, enjoy the freedom that being a contractor/freelancer/business owner provides.

Have you ever noticed that when it comes to mobile (cell) phone numbers, that there is no set rules on how you say the number?   With land lines numbers, everybody generally uses the format of 5-3-3 when saying a phone number – so “01256 123456” is said as “01256-123-456”.  Its short, punchy, and it works for everybody (for London, the leading 5 gets replaced with 3 or 4 leading).

But with mobiles, after the leading “07” bit, there is no rules for the grouping – it all depends on the number you have.  But if you group your number one way, and somebody repeats it with different groupings, it’s easy not to recognise your own number.   If my number is “07780123456”, I might say “077-80-12-34-56”.  Someone repeating it back to me might say my number is “07-780-123-456” – it sounds completely different and makes me double check and think about what is being said.

This mixed-format confusion can be used to great advantage when replaying requirements back to customers.  After they are done stating all of their requirements, by repeating their requirements back to them in a different order (either by voice or in an email), the changed and mixed context forces them to think about what they have said, what you have noted, and also if it is really what they want.   I also like to throw in the word “only” (or just) as well here and there, just for good measure.

A requirement of “We want a web application that allows UK students to enter their accommodation details on a form, and this gets saved onto a SQL Server database which we can produce ad-hoc reports from”, when mixed and repeated back, might become…

“So let me check I have this right.  You want to produce some ad-hoc reports from a SQL Server database.  This database will only be populated from a web-based data entry form that we would develop, and would be made available only to UK based students who would use the form to enter just the details of their accommodation”.

I have used it a number of times where the customer has then commented with something like “well, it sounds like something is missing..” or “yes, but we also need…” after they have specified all their requirements.

Using this technique I have saved myself a lot of headaches during project delivery by making sure the customer has detailed everything that is required by double checking what they really want, which has led to more of the work being detailed up front (with a higher price tag) and saves the last minute “oh, I forgot I needed…” conversations on delivery day.

When I want to buy media items such as DVDs or BluRay films, I will head on over to either Amazon or Play.com.   In terms of price, stock availability and delivery, there is not much difference between the two sites.   However, one major advantage which Amazon has that Play (and others) has yet to take advantage of is the “Wish List”.

Wish lists are great for storing future shopping items.  When you find something but can’t quite afford to purchase it right now, putting it in your wish list means its there for the future.  You wont forget about it, you don’t need to search for it again, and you can share your wish list with friends come Christmas or your birthday.

As a small business owner, I don’t really sell anything on the web other than my services (and membership to a couple of sites).  If I did sell anything physical, I would definitely be adding a “Wish list” section on my web site.  But even though I dont sell any physical goods, I can still take advantage of the Wish List with my customers.

Sometimes, customers will ask for a quotation for work with options – such as how much to create a new report, and how much to make the report available in a stand alone web app, and how much to include graphs in the report?   I will produce a quotation which details the different options – one with the report, one with the report AND making it in a stand alone web app, and finally the cost to include graphs.

When customers accept the quotation, clearly they have a choice of which option to take, and sometimes, they will take the cheaper option without the add-ons.   And this is where the service wish list comes in.   They may not have taken the add-on options because of timing, or price, or a whole host of other factors, but they have already told you that the need is there.

So in these situations, I crack on and do the development, make the delivery and raise the invoice.  But then, I will raise a new quotation which I send them for the options not selected, so when they do have the time, the money, or a stronger desire, the price to fulfil their wish list is at hand and ready to be ordered.

After 127 freelance and small business posts in this blog, and as it’s the start of a new week (when this gets posted), I hope you will forgive me with this ‘out there’ entry.   But following on from my last entry on how to deal with business problems, I wanted to share with you my own personal way of moving forward through problem or idea walls.

Have you ever heard of a floatation tank?   In case you haven’t, a flotation tank is a big box, fall of salt warm water at body temperature, which you lie in, float, and then the lid of the box is closed.    You float there, your head back in the water, the water in your ears, in the total darkness.   It may sound scary, but the idea is with no external stimulation, everything goes inwards, and you find solutions to all your problems.  I know how it sounds – Just stay with me on this for a moment… ok?

Clearly I am not going to suggest installing a floatation tank in your house.  But I recreate the idea as much as possible at home in my bath.   When I get really stuck, I have a long hot bath, and recreate the floatation tank experience as much as possible by blocking out light from windows and doors to make the bathroom as dark as possible.   I don’t use salt water, but I ease down on anything perfumed in the water – so it’s as neutral as possible.  Then I just lay back, head in the water, let the water in my ears – and close my eyes and relax.  All I can see is black, all I can hear is my own heartbeat in my ears, and all I can feel is the water.

Ok, this sounds all kind of new wave and hippy – I know.  Really, I do.  When I first heard and tried this, I thought the same.   But the trick is once you are relaxed, think of a business problem (lack of customers, money issues, whatever) and then let the thought go, don’t think of it any more – just recline there, try to keep your mind blank.  You may feel daft for 5 minutes, feel the need to switch on the light or grab a book after another 5 – but stick with it.    I promise, with nothing else to stimulate the brain, something spooky will happen after fifteen or twenty minutes – suddenly ideas will start popping.

And when I say ideas will pop, they will come thick and fast – solution after solution, idea after idea – think and fast, lots of ideas to resolve your problem.   For me, this technique never ever fails.   But, there is a tricky part to this – the ideas are really fleeting – get them down on paper or tape otherwise they will evaporate – don’t try to remember them all, after the 3^rd one the 1^st will be lost.    I keep a pen and paper by the bath, and then write them down (in the dark, sometimes its hard to read afterwards) – turning on the light breaks the cycle and the ideas will stop flowing.

As I say, I know how it sounds, I really do.  But trust me, it works.

One of the various techniques for web site promotion that people talk about in blogs and podcasts is self promotion through content.  This includes blog posts, forum discussions, and electronic value add documents.   Documents can be cut down specifications, guides (Top 50 reasons why….), reviews, and other type of document which promotes you as a subject matter expert.  And lets not forget, a document can act as a bait to prospect customers, providing enough information to gain their interest or start them on a path, but not enough to complete the journey – if you details are then at hand when they reach their limit, that’s where you step in.

But presenting the information and documents can be a tricky business.   Some people say that you should provide a download link (after prompting the user for their contact details), and some say you should email them out again after capturing contact details.

However, I have found in the past that capturing contact details via web forms and pop-ups can be very hit or miss – with lots of gmail and hotmail email addresses registered, and names such as “kdsh” (random swipe of the keyboard).   I prefer to just make the information generally available, in a somewhat protected form, but with my contact information included as the last page – this seems to build more trust, and for me, generates more interest than email addresses which are from throw away email services.

For presenting documents to a user, I would like to suggest the use of a new web presentation service – Issuu.  Issuu is a free service, and allows you to present your documents in a nice page turn style as shown below (note the left and right arrows on the edges of the page to turn the pages).  The example below is one of my HL7 health integration ADT specifications – but note the last page with my contact details.

Issuu allows you to do the small page turn view as shown below, or you can click on the document to zoom in, and change the way that the pages are displayed.  It supports most file formats including PDF, word, graphic files etc.  It also has a professional version (paid) which allows for more options for display, and integration.

I had the opportunity to sit in a sales presentation earlier in this week, but this time I was working as a consultant and was sitting at the table, having the presentation given to me (and a few other people).  The presentation consisted of the usual powerpoint show, a brief demo and then a Question and Answer session.

At the end of the presentation, one of the senior managers sitting at the table asked the question “What are the benefits of your system?”  The salesman giving the presentation paused, thought about the question, and then gave a 5 minute reply – which completely failed to answer the question.

What he said was “Oh, the system is written in the latest technology, it provides a full user guide, we provide full training as part of installation, etc etc etc blah blah blah”.

To be honest, it was a fairly impressive list.  But it wasn’t a list of benefits – it was a list of features.   Every product and service has features – but its hard for these to make a sale – it’s the benefits that make the sale.

Benefits should/would include: “The user guide means that the answers are always at hand and therefore will save you time, the latest technology is used so that the software will have a longer shelf life and thus will reduce your support costs, etc etc. “ Benefits answers the big question – what’s in it for me?!?

The salesman’s list of features, didn’t list a single benefit, and the team decided not to recommend purchasing the product.

It’s a lesson well learnt, and I will be sure to include the benefits of my services and products in my future pitches.

So what are the benefits of your products and services?

When I started freelancing, I had one big, huge, massive fault.  It was this; I tried to do too much.

Imagine if you will, sitting in front of your local doctor.  Lets say you have gone to see him or her because you have a toe that hurts – they prod it, examine it, Errrrrm about it, Ahhh about it, step back and say ‘I know what’s wrong, your toe is suffering from {make up your own diagnosis here}’.   Everything is great.  The doctor knows what they are doing, they are professional, and they get on with the job.  They have your confidence.   Perfect.

Now, imagine as you are putting your shoe back on, you mention you are next off to see your accountants about your books and the doctor says ‘I can help with that, let me take a look’.  Erm, something wrong with that picture.   As you leave, somebody in the office remarks that the windows in the doctors office are dirty ‘Oh I can do that as well’ says the doctor and starts to wipe the windows down.   Now you feel uneasy about your toe – time for a second opinion?

Customers respect professionals because of their skills.   Yes, they want a ‘can do’ attitude, but only when it is in regards to your skill set.   When you offer to do too much or spread yourself too thin across the skills base, your main skill is undervalued.

It took a meeting at a customer’s office with my (then) boss to make me realise this.  As they presented problems I was the person to say “I can do that”, right up to the point my boss leaned across, and whispered in my ear “shut up and stick to the principles”.

It was a lesson well learned.

Back in the dark old days of being a permi, one of the things that I used to hate, above all others, was office politics.   Manager to worker, Manager to manager, customer to supplier, everywhere I looked political games were being played – and there was never ever any winners to this game – just people with different degrees of loosing.

So when I switched to being a contractor/freelancer, I thought I had left all of the politics behind.  However, human nature being what it is, its so hard to avoid being dragged in to the game, with people asking my opinion, asking what I would do, how I would play a situation and so on.

However, I am really trying my hardest to avoid this game.  It’s why I got out of being a permi in the first place.  Thank you, but no thank you.   If somebody wants to play office politics to get a better desk, a bigger office, a pay rise, a promotion, to see somebody fired, to see a company eat itself – well that’s up to them.  As for me, well I am just a temp – for a day, for a contract, for a year – I am just a temp.

So I have no axes to grind, no plots to plan, no desires for a pay rise or a promotion because… because I am a temp, and it doesn’t effect me.  When my contract is up, when the project is delivered, I am out of there.

I am doing my best to sing the mantra of ‘it doesn’t concern me’ as I go about my freelancing and contracting work.   It means I can work on my business, on my project and move onto the next thing – but as I say, sometimes it’s just so hard to avoid the office politics game.

How do you deal with office politics?

A man who insists on walking up stream against the flow of water, will only realise his mistake once he is drown.  
Chinese proverb

A list of old technology for you: Cassette tapes, floppy disks, modems, walkmans, arcade games, VHS tapes (and recorders), Black and White Televisions, pagers, fax machines, Visual Basic (v4, v5 or v6) and Compact Disks.  Ok, so maybe CDs are not dead, but the time is coming when they will be a thing of memory.

As the news filtered down that the iPAD was selling at 3 every second, and apple are selling even more of the 4^th generation of the iPhone, we can all imagine the land fill that will be created as everybody sells the iPhone 3’s for the new sleeker, sexier, faster iPhone.   Change is a certainty, progress is optional.

As a fairly old freelancer, I have watched lots of technology come and go.  All of it served its purpose at the time, but now none of it is used, and in time nobody will remember it.   When change occurs, whatever the form, there will always be people who are scared because, well, change can be scary.  Whether it’s the latest phone, a change in direction in your work life, a change in your personal situation, or a change of health.  But change can sometimes be good.

As the old Chinese proverb teaches us, we can fight change all we want, but sometimes (more often than not) by the time you realise change is happening, it is too late to fight the change.  Best go with the change, otherwise you will end up drowned.

But there is a third way.  Rather than fight the change, or be swept along with the flow, the other option is simply to move out of the path, let it pass you by, and look for the solid ground where you can create your niche.  In Freelancing, landing the customers is all about have a niece, where you stand out, excel and don’t try to fit in.  If you are just another programmer, or writer, or marketing consultant, how can you be spotted amongst the throng?

Seth Godins always good at spotting the third way, so let me leave you with some of Seths thoughts on the iPAD revolution….

Steve Jobs reports today that Apple is selling an iPad every three seconds.  This is a pretty urgent moment for my friends on the Kindle team….

…..You either become the best and only platform for consuming books worth buying or you fail. And the only way to create that footprint in the face of an iPad is to make it so cheap to buy and use it’s irresistible.

I saw a two-year old kid (in diapers, in a stroller), using an iPod Touch today. Not just looking at it, but browsing menus and interacting. This is a revolution, guys.

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At the start of this week, I was talking to a potential customer and made a mistake.  I have seen the mistake made time and time again by other people, but I still fell into the same trap.  The mistake was this – I assumed I knew what the customer wanted.

This potential customer had dropped me a fairly long email wanting a quote for a data migration from one database format to another.   As the customer was in a different time zone and had indicated they would be travelling, it meant that a phone conversation was difficult, I replied with an equally long email stating how we could help, how I would migrate the data, and how I would provide a migrated database for them to load on their new system.  It was quite detailed, priced up and I thought everything was great.

However, I then received a reply saying that they assumed that I would be providing the migration not only as a live migration run, but with 2 test migrations.  At this point, I had the option of correcting their incorrect assumption and increasing the quote.  I was actually sat in front of outlook, typing a reply when it suddenly struck me.   We had both made incorrect assumptions, and I was asking them to pay for both mistakes.

As I say, I have seen the mistake of assumption made time and time again, and here I had made the exact same mistake.   What I should have done is with the initial email, confirmed I was happy to do the work, but asked for some more information and questions – how many migrations, how many test runs, was each run to and from the same database locations, formats, versions etc.

In the end it all turned good.  I won the new business and customer, but only by agreeing to do extra migration runs (which are an automated process so it’s just a button press) at the original cost.

My tip: don’t be afraid to ask as many questions as is needed to remove all the assumptions (or at least, put the assumptions down in the quote so everybody is clear).