Brian's Blog » Business

When a client says, “I used to do…”

Brian — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:33:17 +0000

Watch out when a client starts saying things like:

“I used to do a lot of design work…”

“I’m a bit of a graphic artist myself…”

“I do a bit of programming in my spare time. NoSQL style databases are more efficient than relational databases.”

These are warnings signs that your client is a control freak and wants to be very much involved in the design and construction of your project. Likely he or she wants to be involved in the project to the extent that it will drive you crazy and cost you more in the long run. The customer will try and see how much work they can squeeze out of you, and likely will not be very satisfied by the work you produce.

So when you hear things like this, instantly you should double the price and expect much more work from the customer.

Make a Popup Window Like Popup Domination for Free

Brian — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 20:57:55 +0000

If you’re one of those Internet marketing people looking to make big bucks through affiliate marketing and email lists, I will show you how to make one of those modal pop up windows similar to what Popup Domination offers, for free using open source tools and a little HTML and JavaScript. All for free! I won’t even ask you for your email address! How nice is that? But you can donate to my PayPal account if obliged. Take a look at a quick demo of how the code works.

The code shown below uses JQuery, along with some custom CSS to stylize the pop up window and backdrop colour. One thing to be careful with the code below is that the HTML in the .html code block must all be on one line.

So if you find the code below useful, why not donate some of the money you saved on not buying Popup Domination to my PayPal account? One, five, or ten dollars is fine by me! If I get a lot of donations I’ll improve the code, write better tutorials, and program more useful tools.

Your Sample Website

This is the normal text that sits in the background of your website.

Tell me what you think of the code in the comments, let me know if you had any problems, or suggest any improvements!

Think Local for New Ideas

Brian — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 12:00:24 +0000

If you want to create a killer app, think local.

Don’t try to solve a big problem or try to tackle a large audience. Target the audience that is around you. If your idea is good, it will catch on and then you can scale.

Seek out partnerships with local organizations with talented and skilled staff, and definitely look for people who work in areas that interest you. Work together and build something great.

Facebook originally targeted a local audience, solving a problem that was very local to the community.

Freshbooks is The Best Book Keeping System for Freelancers and Small Business

Brian — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:31:56 +0000

There are two fundamental things any small business or freelancer must do in order to be successful:

Bill your clients
Make sure you clients pay you

Sadly since freelances and small business owners are always too busy doing the work they enjoy, the accounting side of things almost always never gets done, or done right.

A Successful Small Business is One That Hires an Accountant

I once had someone tell me that he started his business so he didn’t have to have his hands tied down by accountants–he’s now bankrupt. Certainly, having an accountant is a valuable resource; however, you may not be making enough revenue to hire an accountant, or your work is something that you are doing part time. The solution that I have found to this problem is simple: Freshbooks.

Not Only is Freshbooks Simple, It Works!

With Freshbooks, you enter your customer’s details, such as address, contact, email address, etc., and then you build an invoice, and click ‘Send Invoice.’ That’s it! You’re done. Your customer will receive the invoice in their email.

What Happens If Your Customer Doesn’t Use Their Email Much?

Simple. Freshbooks give you the option to have your invoices mailed to your customers. They will print an invoice for you, with your company’s logo, fold it, put it in an envelope, and mail it to your customer. All for just $1.39 per invoice mailed. And, this feature is great if you have reoccurring billing, your invoices will be mailed automatically every billing cycle.

About Those Customers Who Forget to Pay

Finally, in my opinion, Freshbooks killer feature is the reminder emails it will send to your customers if they do not pay. There’s nothing that seems to get your clients attention more than receiving an email that says, “Your invoice is overdue.” Since I’ve started using Freshbooks I have yet to have a customer miss a billing cycle. And all of this is one without my intervention.

I could talk endlessly about how great is the Freshbooks system–it seems like every feature, from the API, time tracking, to its dashboard makes the money side of business easier, but there’s one point I want to emphasize. If you’re trying to program your own billing system, forget it and just subscribe to Freshbooks. You are not in business to program billing systems, and what you think is an easy problem can get very complicated fast. Especially when one of your system tests accidentally sends your customers 100 invoices for $999 each.

Please use Freshbooks instead. It’s free to try for 3 clients.