I don’t have a lot of regrets, but I’ve got a lot of half assed stuff lying around the web. Stuff I didn’t quite finish, or that I abandoned. I’ve tinkered and been confounded by the idea that this could be it. Is it it? Is what I’m doing right now the end-all, be-all? Do I have joy from making a living as a web dev for baby boomers? Or is there more?
I’ve never once had poor intentions. I’ve never once set out with the intention to under-deliver (who does?), to stall, to be late. But as I sell stuff, I focus on the sales over the delivery. The marketing over the content. And it’s hurt. I’ve had to refund people, and I’ve lost clients. I’m good at selling and OK at execution. I’m vastly better at execution than I was two years ago, but this lack of execution has been a part of what has kept Flat Rate from being what it’s going to be, and Patriot Connect from being “done”.
I’m not hurting for money, finally. My hustle has made my debt load manageable. Flat Rate is handling the refund debt from the Winter ’09 Debacle (more on that later- 100% my fault) a little behind pace, but people are being made whole a person at a time. It’s working. I can get business and wake up and earn $3500 any day I want to. It’s a superpower of sorts: when the chips get too far down, I am able to earn money by smiling and dialing.
At will, but only when I need to. Only when security is threatened. It’s sort of like Popeye who waits till Bluto beats the tar out of him before he picks up a can of spinach, transforms his forearms into egg beaters and rips the soul from Bluto. I can’t turn it on at will, but I can do it an time I need to. I don’t know why that is.
But half assing stuff has got to go. I recently culled my product list at Flat Rate. I was selling 70% WP sites & 30% everything else. I have a process for sites. I have no process for other “social media services,” that’s able to be plug and play or even close to plug and play.
Why sell other things? Ego. I had this “one stop shop” dream that was largely ego driven, not driven by what customers wanted, or even by what I could do. I wanted to provided bullshit free web product-services to rotary club business. I was aghast when I saw what scummy companies did to good small business owners. I was aghast when I heard that big “reputable” companies claimed to “own the design” and that it wasn’t work for hire. What sick predators!
I wanted to fix that, and I wanted to defend small businesses against the social-media-predators. But in doing so, I became what I beheld. By not focusing and by offering products I barely cared about, I started under-delivering on both the “satellite” products and my “core” products. The erosion of standards continued.
I’ve always had the opposite problem: I can sell. I can get clients, and I can inspire people. I’m not always the best at delivering. My ego keeps wanting to mitgate that, but the things I need to improve on are delivery, customer service and speed. In that order, probably.
So, it’s time to upgrade what version of myself that I’m offering to people.
With that in mind some rules:
- Fewer projects till they are performing. (3 max)
- Performance is defined as $6,000 per month in revenue and under 2% refunds over a quarter. Then an additional project can be built.
- Have all content done before a new project is launched.
- No presales till product is 90% done.
- Have 6 months worth of content inventory before we start (or 80% if it’s a shorter class)
- Do what’s right for people.
- Make products turnkey and inclusive whenever possible.
- add content, and have everything done out of the box
- Have everything right from day one-prior to launch*
- Do everything we ask of people before we move on to the next batch of stuff.
- Take only what business we can deliver within 3-5 business days. (This is not an effective throttle, and most of the time the clients are still working with us on this)
- #6 can be relaxed once delivery standards are uniform and specs are done
- Hit deadlines.
- Refund money in lieu of doing more work that exceeds scope.
- Build cash reserve in the business of $12,000 at all times.
I’ll put more thought into it, but the bottom line is that we have to ante up the quality–fix what’s broken. Leanr from mistakes, get clear and coherent with stuff.
Then, we’ll go to the proverbial next level.
Image “courtesy” of Rework, a fabo book by 37 signals. They don’t know it’s here, so go buy their book. Today.
No related posts.
