CONTEST: Free One-Hour Business Consultation

I'm offering a free one-hour business consultation valued at $125 to the lucky winner of this contest. The rules are simple:

1. Write a comment to this post, explaining why you deserve or need the consultation
   
2. Sign up for my daily email

When the comment count reaches 100, I will choose one lucky winner....so, what's so special about a consultation with me? Well let me take a minute to boast...

A little about me

I graduated Suma Cum Laude in Math from Occidental College in 2003. I had two jobs at online publishing companies as web developer, then as IT/Web Manager, before taking the leap to full-time freelance work as a PHP/MySQL developer and consultant.

Within 3 months I had doubled my income at my previous job and within 1 year I was able to purchase a home for myself and my wife in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country - Pasadena, CA.

In summary, I was able to quickly identify the skills needed to become a successful freelance developer, and then I moved on to incorporate my business and currently, I manage manage around five developers at any given time depending on workload.

I had to learn almost everything about business on my own, and while I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity and for all it allowed me to learn, I hope to smooth out the transition for some of you who may not be as far along this path as I am.

I really look forward to working with you! You can ask any and all questions you may have - from how to manage your transition from a full time position, to how to sharpen you development skills, client negotiation skills, all the way through legal documents and best practices with contracts, project scopes, and other documents.

DEADLINE: May 1, 2008

AUDIO: Getting Started with Video Marketing

With the popularity of video sharing websites and the growing prevalence of video content on the web, you may be wondering how you can leverage this great media to expand your reach and get new business. And if you aren't wondering yet, start wondering!

Well, I had a chance to speak with an internet marketer who's been specializing lately on video marketing, and you can listen to our audio training call here. Some of the things we addressed were:

1. What are the basics of video marketing? How can sites like YouTube get you more business?
2. What are some best practices for quickly and efficiently making videos and getting them out to as wide an audience as possible.
3. How can you offer video marketin services to your clients as a package when you launch websites for them.
4. If you are approached to build a video website by a client, what are some key features you want to recommend for the site.

You Need an Elevator Pitch!

As a freelancer, you're constantly in sales mode. You want to present yourself well to the outside world, to existing clients, and potential clients. In order to do this, you should have a well-polished elevator pitch that you can share quickly and concisely with people you come into contact with.

First impressions matter. When people first meet you, and especially if they are not technical/design-saavy people - which most clients are not - they are not going to understand much of what you say, if you get too far into the details of what you do right away. They need something easy, digestable, and memorable - something that distinguishes you in their memory.

I think that, at least from my own personal experience, technical people tend to get into details to quickly. Someone asks you what you do - you start off by saying "I'm a programmer", and if they ask any follow up question, before you know it you're getting into your favorite object oriented framework, and the obscure bug that you started working on before lunch and which is dominating your mental activity at the moment!

If you don't have something quick and concise, they will just label you in their mind as a "computer guy" and will probly call you the next time their anti virus software is blocking their email!

OK, so what's your pitch, smart guy? ... I'm glad you asked :)

I run a small web development company that specializes in small to medium web applications, especially community websites. Two of the significant problems that I've solved within my own business are finding and converting good sales leads, as well as finding and managing good, cost-effective development and design talent. I enjoy mentoring other developers, as well as bringing value to my clients.

6 Firefox Extentions Every Developer Needs

I don't need to convince you why firefox is the best browser in the world, so let's get right into it. I want to go over some of the extensions that I love, and that you can't live without!

1. Web developer toolbar. Alright, that one was obvious. The main things I like about it though are the outline css elements, display form details, and clear cookies. Especially since I use Emacs for my html editing, it helps to be able to visualize my html/css every once in a while, especially when debugging some gnarly html tables.
   
   
2. MeasureIt. This one's great for pulling dimensions off the screen without having to do a screengrab and pull it into photoshop.
   
   
3. ColorZilla. When you need to get the hex code for a color on the screen, look no further! A handy-dandy color dropper.
   
   
4. Live HTTP Headers. I pull this bad-boy out of my back pocket for the more advanced ninja tactics when I'm trying to debug flash or ajax code. When you don't have a specific URL to hit when you're testing, use the live headers to see where your browser is pulling data from. Little annoying though how if you have gmail open and you're staring intensely at your header log, like every 5 seconds you see a hit to gmail.
   
   
5. Lorem Ipsum Generator. Nice little convenience tool for generating our favorite latin nonsense for design mockups, etc. The other way I usuall grab latin quickly if I don't have this installed, is by searching lorum ipsum on google, but the site you get to, always takes me like twice as long...so I like the extension a lot better.
   
   
6. Screengrab. Sweet little tool to pull a screen grab off your browser. Doesn't work with flash though. One of the recent features they did which I like is allowing you to grab a selected rectangle, instead of just grabbing the whole screen. One thing that doesn't seem to ever work the way I expect it to is the Copy feature - as opposed to the Save feature - it doesn't seem to let me paste it anywhere! Email, paint, or anything.

Now that you're strapped with your developer tools, you're ready to rock and roll. Now go build some cool stuff!

Don't Give Discounts

You can expect your clients from time to time to ask you for a discount. It may be an existing client or a new client - most of my tips here apply to the latter case, as obviously an existing client you will have a relationship with and will already have an understanding regarding pricing an quality with your client.

Below are the five reasons not to offer discounts to your clients when they ask.

1. They'll undervalue your services. Whether stated or not, the minute that you offer a discount on your services, the perceived value of your services just went down. You may feel that you are somehow doing the client a favor, although you will of course not state that explicitly. They, on the other hand, might even feel like they're doing you a favor because at least they're giving you the work, and if you accept the discount, they probly think that you need the work enough to accept a discount. Strange sort of contradiction...
   
   
2. They won't expect discounted quality. Even though they know they are paying less for the work, they will want you to pick up the slack. They will still expect the same level of support, and their internal vision of how the product should work will not be changed by the concept that they received a discount. And, in a sense, it's a valid point - for example, when you buy a discounted shirt at the store, you don't expect it to come without one sleave. Now, we know that consulting services are a different beast than retail products, but that mentality is still there.
   
   
3. They'll expect discounts in the future. If you accepted a discounted job once, what's to stop you from doing it again? Although its difficult because you feel like you are being inflexible, you have to realize that's just business, and if you do it once, they will expect it again down the line. You would do the same! If all of a sudden the store never had any more sales ever again, we would feel cheated in some way!

There was a post on a forums I frequent where a real-life scenario embodied exactly this situation. The developer gave the client a bit of a discount up front. Now when things got a little hairy with the project, the developer expected the client to have some level of flexibility, due to the discount. But the client didn't! They wanted their website to work exactly the way that they had imagined it initially - discount or no discount!

VIDEO: This Week in Review

Weekly review of my blog posts this week. I go over:

• Getting your portfolio up
• Managing client expectations
• Launching a newsletter
• Finding a good PHP programmer
• Book review: How to be a Rockstar Freelancer

Who wrote the book on freelancing?

If you're thinking about getting ready to take the leap into a freelancing career for yourself, you may be wondering...who wrote the book on freelancing? Is there a definitive source of information for all the complex quandries you will have - all the scenarios running through your brain, all the excitement? All the fear?

Well, I've taken a peek at How to be a Rockstar Freelancer and I think it does a pretty solid job! It is written by some guys who really have some great experience in freelancing and have an obvious passion for it. You get the vibe from the opening quote in the book:

"Beginning a freelancing career is one of the most exciting things you'll ever do. Maybe it's the thrill of giving your nine-to-five the flick, maybe it's the prospect of being your own boss, or maybe it's just the knowledge that you are the master of your own destiny."

Here are a list of the chapters and topics that are covered in this book:

1. Getting Started - what is freelancing, your job and freelancing on the side, etc.
   
2. Your Brand - what is branding for a freelancer, what can branding do for you?, etc.
   
3. The Working Day - home or office, a happy workplace, equipment, etc.
   
4. Getting Your First Projects - your portfolio, your first leads, referrals, etc.
   
5. Project Scope and Timing - taking a brief, documenting a brief, estimating timeframes, etc.
   
6. Pricing Yourself - your costs and your break-even rate, calculating your hourly, etc.
   
7. Doing the Project - setting expectations, tracking your hours, communication, etc.
   
8. Clients - leads and clients, essential client skills, etc.
   
9. Getting Paid - invoicing, cash flow, bookkeeping and accounts, etc.
   
10. Marketing Yourself - positioning yourself, marketing cycles, etc.
    
11. Expansion - subcontracting, partnerships, hiring staff, etc.

Notice that doing the project is #7 on the list! That is very true! There is much preparation that needs to be done - and much that I wish I would have done when I first first getting into this - in order to have a smooth ride along this path.