Mind Dump

The owner of a business, many things happen and many insights are developed. This is where I will share them.

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Working with clients

I have had a contract now for my other business Niteowl Creative. The contract has taken months of communication or lack there of. The problem being that I am getting no feed back, and no content provided when requested. The site looks great and features everything requested.

I decided that I’m done. No more chasing, I’ve met my responsibilities with this project. Here is your final invoice, you have 30 days to request any content changes or notify me of any broken functionality to be covered by our warranty.

This wasn’t ideal for them. Here comes a list of 30 updates. Great. Not too bad for time but irritating because up until this email they hadn’t answered any of mine for 2 months.

Working through these changes I’m noticing they’re requesting updates that are completed already, or are party to previous requested content.

My reply makes these notes and again requests content. Let’s see how this goes. I’ll keep you updated with the next post.

To be continued…

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Never Ending Projects

Lately I have noticed a struggle to communicate effectively with clients. Highly detailed estimates and invoices just don’t seem to be cutting it.

Currently we are attempting to complete a project which has been quite difficult. The site itself isn’t difficult, the communications between myself and the client are. The phone calls and emails are rarely answered on their end and when they are, it is weeks later.

I just received an email stating that the site is not as expected. The content is copied from their old site and photos need to be changed.

I had requested during the design and planning stage for the content and photos. I made it very clear that we were not writing copy for this specific project as the budget did not allow. I selected several stock photos for their approval as they were limited with photography, and got zero feedback.

I’m not certain of how to move forward. This is a difficult situation as we are not used to projects taking this long, or being this difficult to complete. I have requested an hour to talk over the site and make a list of all the changes requested. Content is an easily adjusted medium as long as we are provided what we need to do so.

Let’s hope this works out. It’s time to close this.

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Small Business Pricing

In my particular business, products are not able to be physically held. Therefore I find that clients put a very low value on them. Which isn’t the case. To build a website properly with great quality takes time!

We were finding that it can be difficult for smaller businesses to come up with $2000 right now for a deposit and $2000 6-8 weeks later. That’s $4000 for a website. That’s a small website, so imagine upwards of $10,000.

We have put together subscription options for websites. This allows your $4000 website to be spread over 6 months to allow for affordability for small business.

What do you think about our model?

www.niteowlcreative.com

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Redundancy & Common Sense

Some days are just difficult to deal with people’s thoughts and expectations. Being the owner of a business almost requires a psychology degree to understand the choices that people make.

Having being asked to do updates / fixes for a client for the 5th time (after the client breaking it multiple times) I get a surprise IG post with me tagged. This post is showing the error and publicly announcing that I haven’t fixed it (I was asked earlier in the day and hadn’t gotten to it yet).

There are a few problems with this.

1. I was asked to fix a problem which is being caused by the client after multiple times of being taught how NOT to get this error.

2. IG is public. Call me. Text me. Email me. Send me a Facebook message or some other form of less professional contact which isn’t extremely unprofessional such as a public social media post.

3. If you DO choose to post to the public about it, give a background and explain that it’s not my fault that the error is there yet again.

4. Don’t expect me to jump when you snap your fingers for a mediocre issue which doesn’t impact anyone. I have 100 other clients I am doing work for and my team is busy. Be patient.

Choosing the right way to deal with things is so important these days. Don’t single someone out on social media in attempt to make them move quicker, it will only cause issues for you down the road.

Possible law suits even, depending on what the post is about. Deformation of character or slander are pretty serious. Especially when it involves a young business.

Be smart please. Communicate wisely.

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Balances Make Me Crazy

It was inevitable. I knew going into business for myself meant that I would be carrying a past due account or two from completed work. But when your balance hits upwards of 40k and your clients just don’t seem to want to pay on time, where do we go from here?

Luckily enough I make enough to live, even with the balance I’m carrying. I’m just as busy as the next business owner but when your excuse for non payment is due to being a busy business owner I just need to laugh. So, you haven’t paid rent, mortgage, taxes or any other bills in the last 90 days!? Why am I at the bottom of your list.

Without me, your web presence would be minimal. Your web presence makes you money. Therefore, you should be paying your bills to ensure your online revenue continues flowing in.

Don’t get me wrong. I may forget about a bill here or there. I’m sure Enbridge has sent me a notice before, and I know Rogers has. But I pay my bills. When clients pay theirs, I pay my contractors as well. It’s the circle of life with a business.

So let’s just all be friends. Stop being crazy and telling me the cheque is in the mail and making me wait 8 weeks before it is actually cut and sent. Don’t make up excuses like being “too busy” because you are a business owner. I understand being busy, I don’t understand taking advantage of it to avoid bills.

Thank You.

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We have put up another version of our website. It's still very much a work in progress. Sometimes when you do what we do it is hard to find time to focus on your own projects since there are so many client projects on the go. We will continue building our portfolio, refining our content and publishing articles because that's what we need to do. Please visit http://niteowlcreative.com Thank you

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Entrepreneurship -

“It’s easy. I’ll just work from home”, “it can’t be that hard”

A few things new entrepreneurs think when they’re in the early planning stages. Yea, I am one of them. The thing is, for me, this is my office some evenings. I grab my laptop, connect to my home network and work away.

There are other benefits and draw backs. One draw back being, if you do not have enough self restraint you could find yourself digging a hole you just can’t seem to get out of. If you’re lucky enough to get the work then it’s a never ending task list and you’re behind. If you cannot find the work, you’re digging a big hole and it’s full of debt.

It’s a fine line but I really wouldn’t trade my job for anything. I love what I do. I plan online marketing experiences for thousands of people world wide. I share my experiences and share my knowledge with those who may need my help and I get to do it from home, with a team that is located through out my Country.

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Multiple Emails - Every morning I fuel up with a large cup of coffee. I sort my emails. I make my task list for the day, and I work through them. Having clients send me 10-15 scattered emails through the day however makes my job atleast 15% more difficult as I need to compile the content into my tasks to ensure things aren't missed. I highly urge clients to sit and compile data and use Dropbox for photos. Send me word documents with your content and photos sorted nicely in folders within your content folder in Dropbox. Let's work together. Be organized and accomplish our goals with as little hiccups as possible.

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Project Timelines -

It’s difficult. It can be hard to manage project timelines and the expectations of clients

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Every project is different, there are many different variables. We all have a good sense of how long something you’re familiar with building should take but let’s take into consideration a couple of the most crucial parts of building a website that could delay the timeline.

1. Approval - we need step by step approvals. The longer these are drawn out, the longer the project takes. If you’re not sure what you want, we cannot deliver it without possibly trying multiple times.

2. Delayed content - yes, it’s true. Content is quite necessary when building a website. In order to do it effectively we need the right information.

3. Scope Creep - when you have a proposed timeline which includes specific details for a project and you add to it as time goes, this adds to the deadline. Additionally, changing content does take time, so make sure that is correct the first time around as well.

It’s very easy for projects to move on time. But it also, just as easy for things to slide and details to get lost in translation.

Everyone needs to have a great idea of what is expected to finish a project on time. So let’s just all communicate!

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Hiring a professional - Today I had a wonderful conversation with someone regarding the use of a student to provide a design for their government funded project. My argument being their request for a quote from my company and using that to obtain the grant in which they required to carry out their event, and then choosing a student willing to work at 10% of our rate. To me, having the funding to carry out a project as proposed and getting great high quality work is much more important than saving a few dollars and choosing a student who has no prior experience in working with clients and providing them the results they require. But, maybe not everyone wants the best for their company. Maybe they're just happy working and if their non-profit is doing "good enough" then that is all that matters. To me, I'd prefer a nice mansion if I can afford it than a potential crap house.

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Google Authenticator I ran into Google Authenticator today for the first time while working with Mailchimp for a client. I really do not believe the best way to prove a user is legitimate is to be using an application which forces someone to download an app on their mobile phone and scan a page to get a password. What if I didn't have a mobile phone? What if I didn't have room for another app? What if I simply do not wish to use Google apps on my phone? Don't get me wrong. Security is a must these days and I'm not against Google but this seems quite counter productive. Thoughts?

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Project Management - Lately I've been finding myself a bit overloaded and am finding I am forgetting some pretty important updates. I am implementing the use of #clear and my #iCal to help me remember. Setting up a basic list which is heat map oriented and devoting a single day through the week to work backwards to ensure that any tasks which have gotten pushed to the bottom get completed. I could use a complicated application but why? This has notifications as reminders and a list. I have it on all of my devices now. I believe this should help.

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Working from home - This could both be a good or bad situation. I sit here in my track pants with my Air working on some coding for a magazine subscription based site while my wife and kid watch nursery rhymes on tv. I suppose I'm focused on working but it's a slippery slope to spending an entire day in my track pants on the couch. I'm just now forcing myself (9:45am) to go have a shower and become a human for the day to finish up some work.

[dribbblepopular]

Kitty Hawk Branding Microsite http://ift.tt/1LUx8ET

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This is a great way to show off your branding and specifications which surround the use of your branding materials such as your logo, typefaces, spacing etc.

Having a simple branding micro site like this could be the most simplistic and convenient way to share with anyone who may be in need.

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As the owner of a digital marketing company, I normally get asked this vary question - "can you get me to the top of page 1 for this keyword?". The thing is... Yes, I could. But it's not just that single keyword you're needing to focus on, and it's not going to happen over night. SEO takes time, effort, research and skill. Many of our clients at Niteowl Creative are very well ranked. It has to do with content development and basic SEO tricks. But there are a lot of factors and it doesn't happen over night. Please read the link from Forbes that is attached.

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Recently I have noticed a steady trend with small business owners… They’re almost ignorant to the facts.

Fact: you’re not going to see a growth in your business without a strong online presence.

Fact: your branding NEEDS to speak for itself.

Fact: you will get every bit back that you put into your business and then some. Invest in your business because it is your life.

Too many small business owners gripe over stagnant, non growth… But are too afraid to take the steps necessary to increase their online presence. It’s 2016, your online presence is almost as important as changing your underwear on a daily basis.

Learn more from Niteowl Creative

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