The rules that apply to the Ford’s and Apple’s of this world also apply to your local plumber, joiner and electrician. Recently, I wrote about the 10 personal branding habits of the professionals, which has been a very successful article, one that clearly resonates with a lot of businesses around the world. However, it’s not the rules that separate the large businesses from the smaller ones, but the words, phrases and terminology; big businesses are much more likely to have university educated marketeers who’re up on all the current business parlance. As for the small business? It’s all buzz words and jargon to them.

The cult of personality marketing

Over on Marketing Donut, a growing business services and advice web magazine, a title caught my eye — “I’m a small business – why do I need a brand?” It’s a good question. It’s also a very good article, too!

For the most part, talking about brand with small businesses is just confusing and stirs up more questions than it answers. However, the advice offered here in the above article is precisely the kind I offer to my clients, which makes the whole thing much more understandable to the plumbers, joiners and electricians of this world.

Oftentimes, the client will reply by saying: “Oh, so this is like a brand name, yeah?” So I find it’s better to let them make that connection, rather than me try and place it there. At that point, brand isn’t this big thing, but something they can not only get a fix on and pursue as a function of their own marketing, succeeding by the sheer weight of their own personality.

It’s easy to think of marketing, or any kind of promotional activity, as being external to you and your business, as if there’s no physical connection between the two. But that’s what brand is essentially all about; bridging the perception of your business with the business itself. In reality, you become the very essence of your marketing.

But even this sounds contrived and lofty, when for the most part a smile, a disarming joke, a professional approach to work and a little honesty are all hallmarks of someone who’s likely to do well from word-of-mouth marketing. And at that point, their brand begins to grow and grow.

Out there, all over the country, thousands of plumbers, car mechanics, joiners, painters, decorators and electricians have thriving local trades, all of which are directly attributable to them marketing themselves through their personalities.

The brand performance curve

I’ve found is that smaller businesses often feel a greater benefit from an improved brand image than larger more established businesses, with the plumber being a good example; you really wouldn’t expect your local plumber to have professionally designed and printed business cards, would you?

So that one thing makes a statement which implies someone who is established and professional enough to put their name to their service. Immediately, the perception of that business is lifted high above their competitors. But for the larger more established businesses, the effort required for differentiation is measurably more difficult. Why? Because it is expected that larger businesses have business cards, compliment slips, headed paper and envelopes, pretty girls answering telephone calls in plush office receptions, account handlers wearing crisp suits and wide smiles —here, differentiation demands extraordinary people making extraordinary effort because these businesses have ridden their brand performance up and over the curve and are now coasting along the plateau.

Do you still care about your brand?

You should. But I wouldn’t get too hung up about it, either. Many business people recognize their deficiencies, so if you can see where you’re going wrong, you’re already on the road to a remedy. That said, knowing that little changes can lead to better things for your small business, perhaps you ought to think big!

A while ago, I read 14 questions to ask your clients before and after a project, which I encourage you to read if you’re either a freelancer or aspiring project manager, or someone like me, a Jack of all trades. I decided to follow the article up with some insights of my own, gleaned from managing clients, their projects and their expectations.

But first of all, I’d like to add some questions of my own.

What do you need your website to do?

A stupid question? You’d be surprised. In the past, I’ve talked people out of having a website and told them to concentrate on the marketing methods that are proven to work, rather than experimenting with one that most likely won’t earn them a penny or raise their profile.

People still believe that “If we build, they will come” and that is not often the case. Sure, if you’re a hugely popular brand name, or you intend executing a marketing campaign to promote your website, I can help! But if it’s just a brochureware website, made up of few web pages and bunch of images — all of which you’re unlikely to update on a regular basis — there are better ways of marketing your business.

The needs of the client come second to those of their customers. The odd few people don’t like to hear that kind of talk because they have all kids of ideas about what they want, which don’t always align with what their customers need.

Are you sure?

This is an open ended question, applicable in so many ways. But don’t be afraid to ask! So many will shy away from second guessing a client. It’s not a requirement of the client to know exactly what they need. But once we’ve finally figured out what it is they do need, it is incumbent on them to pay for the whole of the journey, not just the getting there. By asking the right questions at the right time, you can avoid a lot of hassle for yourself and your client. Chances are, all of this stuff is new to them, so be their guide.

Be brave and ask.

Do you have the funds to see this project through?

Don’t be shy! Money is not a rude word. Be up-front and ask the client if they have the funds to meet with the project. Sometimes, the needs of the client exceed the budget and they will probably hope you’re going to come down on price.

It’s essential you have a process in place. If you’re dealing with a project that’s likely to be worth several thousand in web design and development costs, for example, you need to break the project down into smaller, deliverable parts, each of which being billable. This will ease your cash flow and help ease things financially, should the client pull out part way through.

Where do you want to be in 3-5 years time?

I first put this question to a friend of mine, not realizing at the time just a how powerful a motivator that question would be to her. It wasn’t until some time later that she thought about where she’d prefer to be and how that realization simply didn’t match her present direction in life. I change her life with a single ten word question.

You can write up all of the marketing and business plans you like, but just thinking about where you want to be in three or five years time is something totally different. And it’s not until you do this that you begin to appreciate what resources you’ll need access to if you’re going to make your dream come true.

Once you have a clearer thought in mind, the next thing to do is to put together a series of realistic, achievable strategies to help you get there. This isn’t just about having a bigger website, or just getting more clients / customers. This is about building sustainability into everything you do.

And now I’d like to expand on some of the questions in the Design Reviver article.

What is your company’s reputation?

I suspect many companies probably couldn’t answer this question. Many wouldn’t really know how to quantify any kind of sentiment amongst their customers, other than asking them directly, but that’s not quite the same thing.

Of course, reputation is action after the fact. What you really want to be doing is managing your companies brand right from the outset, mitigating some of the problems your reputation may inflicted upon it later on.

So what can you do to measure the value of your reputation? Well, this new social web offers many tools to monitor things like customer perception, for example.

Google Alerts is a free service that allows you to track certain keywords, such as your company name, which will offer some insight into what people may be saying about you.

Then there’s Twitter, which allows you to search for keywords and save the searches, functioning in much the same way as Google Alerts, but within Twitter itself.

What is your target audience?

Sometimes, this kind of question can have unexpected consequences. Be careful how you interpret their answer, because “target” can often be misconstrued as “idea”, and the ideal customer isn’t always the same as the ones they already have. In chasing down the ideal, there’s a danger of neglecting the needs of those they’re currently servicing.

It’s certainly a question that needs to be asked, but any provisions you choose to make, with respect to your website being re-design and / or re-developed, should be done so with an eye towards maintaining the same level of service your current crop of customers and come to expect.

Do you plan on having any revisions and updates done to this project?

This is a question I don’t actually ask in this way. The question arises as a result of establishing the clients broader needs. If it’s web application project, like To Book, then we build a series of plans, covering short-, medium- and long-term needs.

Building a website (and even more so a web application) is like building a house; it’s essential you get the foundations right at the outset. In most cases, I start by planning and then building a framework.

If a framework was a house, it would be the foundations, the wiring, the plumbing and the locks for all of the doors and windows. The actual plans, as well as the building materials are for the developers, like myself, to decide upon and ultimately build on top of the framework.

By establishing all of these things at outset, and by agreeing on what features are to be included and then expected one, two and then three years hence, I can get the foundations of the website in the right shape from the outset.

After all, there’s no point putting the foundations down for a bungalow if the client wants a four story office block in three years time!

Conclusion

Simply accepting a brief from a client is just negligent. You have a duty to ensure their expectations are realistic and achievable, or you’re just creating problems and storing them up for later on. Don’t just say “Yes!” to everything if you don’t agree or think / know there will be problems. If required, say “No.” and propose an alternative.

But above all, be brave and ask questions.

Image credited to Flickr and Draconis V.H.

When I walk into my gym, scattered on the reception counter is a collection of flyers and printed pamphlets promoting their various events. They’re on cork boards, stuck to walls, they’re announced over the speaker system, displayed on the flat TV screens in the gym, the changing rooms and the bar area — they’re promoting events everywhere throughout the gym.

Brilliant, eh? Well, nearly. To some extent, the strength of the message is being lost on those that are head-down busy like me; you’ve either got time or you haven’t. Promoting internally will have results, but people are increasingly becoming “ad’ blind”, and just don’t even see adverts. What’s needed is an elective process, one that people subscribe to.

Put your business through its paces

Much has been made of Facebook and many people labour under the impression that it’s is just for kids. Thankfully, that’s not the case. Because if it was, Octane wouldn’t be there.

For a business like Octane, community is a more difficult end goal to build because my offering is different. Blah, Blah! Technology has a very healthy Page, currently heading towards 400 fans. People appear to enjoy not only science, technology and social media.

So, my gym. They have a website, which I doubt is doing them an ounce of good. They have all of these great offers, promotions, give-aways, competitions etc, but the uptake isn’t as good as it could be.

Right now, they have all of these members, most of which elected to give up their email addresses when they joined. This being a private gym, membership isn’t exactly cheap — but the service and the facilities are excellent, I hasten to add! I reckon their demographic has a healthy bulge in the 30-35 year old area. I would say it’s not a great leap of speculation to imagine many of that group of people being on Facebook. And we already know they have a disposable income, so that’s a given.

Run a Page on Facebook

So let’s say my gym got themselves a Page on Facebook. What next? People. Specifically their members.

They’d need do a mail merge and ping out emails to all of their members with an announcement for their Page, with a list of features and benefits. The gym looks pro-active and score points for being in the face of their members.

Advice on Facebook — Creating a Landing Page for Twitter, Facebook.

Brand

Next up, they start a structured campaign of posting links to relevant content and internal promotions, such as:

1. dietary planning;
2. local sporting events (football, rugby etc);
3. competitions / give-aways;
4. up-coming acts at their very own night club and bar;
5. healthy eating ideas and recipes;
6. family events and kids sports days…

… offering up some good, sound advice to their members, for almost zero cost — they’ve usually got 3-4 people downstairs handling calls and shuffle paper around, all of whom could easily take on this task.

This is valuable know-how and advice, with experts on hand (those being the gym staff) to field questions, book one-to-one sessions, join classes etc.

In subtle but measurable ways, the perception of the gym shifts from just a company and to a brand — and from a gym to a place to meet people and build on your social life. The members now value what the gym represents and begin to talk.

Advice on branding — 10 personal branding habits of the professionals, Manage personal brand like a porn star.

Engagement

Pages on Facebook include the option to add Discussions, which are forums for people to discuss different topics. From personal experience, these either work or they don’t. But as a gym, they could post on a wide range of topics (protein supplements, types of pre and post work-out stretches, effects of alcohol, etc) and get people talking, asking questions and engaging.

When a curry night or a horse racing day comes up (among many others), they create an event for their Page, which then shows up on peoples front pages. The members then elect to say whether they’re to attend, not to attend, or say they’re not sure.

Over time, the gym can better gauge uptake for an event (what works, what doesn’t, when and why) and get an idea of how many are likely to attend. Plus, since people can share events with friends, they could invite someone as a guest, who might just turn into a member later on.

Conversation

The events go down a storm, as they usually do. The members and staff who were there took loads photos and recorded the odd video of dads dancing on their mobil phone, and later over the course of the following week post said photos and videos to the Page, tagging staff and other members.

People laugh, share comments, “like” photos, reminisce, strike up friendships and start conversations.

Community

Before long, members are organizing nights out, inviting fellow members and friends to fun runs, races, competitions, hiking trips, the list goes on. We’re no longer just members, nor are we just friends — we’re now a community.

Brand. Engagement. Conversation. Community. They’re all right there, for pennies. All without even breaking a sweat. Well almost. Like anything else that’s good in life, it takes time and effort. But if you invest both, then you invest wisely and be a winner.

If you’d like to know more about how social media and internet marketing can help your business, get in touch right now.

Image credited to Flickr and “I like”.

Assuming your staff’s Twitter / Facebook profiles are company owned, you could just point all their visitors from Twitter and Facebook to your very corporate “About Us” page, but that’s often a little staid and obvious. This is about social networking, and each person you designate as customer facing is just that — a person.

So rather than have a catch-all web page or blog article that just lumps everyone together into an amorphous blog of “we” and “us” business speak, why not let those people write something of their own in an article of their own? Why not let them talk about themselves, what they do, their interests, why they’re on Facebook, Twitter etc (here’s where corporate guidelines will need to be observed, to ensure some degree of consistency) and what their follow policy is?

If the social web is about the conversation, then what’s the conversation worth if we don’t talk to people? As I’ve said for years, people must first buy into people before they buy from people.

Taking things a step further, I’d recommend letting your team add photos of themselves, to give that personal touch, so that those in their social network can see the person they’re communicating with. Then add links to those personalized web pages into Facebook and Twitter, and voila! Everyone has their very own ‘landing page’.

What should a landing page include?

1. Start with something about you and your role in the business.
2. Then follow with something about you and your own interests, either within or outside the business.
3. Talk about why you’re on Twitter / Facebook and what you intend to get out of being their.
4. Discuss your follow policy — how and why you choose to follow certain people, and whether you reciprocate their following you.
5. The advantages of having landing pages

There are possible other advantages here, too. For example:

• If you choose to have each landing page as a blog article, then you have a collection of articles enriched with information about key members of staff, which will greatly increase the chances of your website being found. Let’s say you have a very active social networker on your team, having their name more visibly attached to your business increases your search visibility and helps with the smooth transition of trust between both you and your staff.
• If you have a socially active team, active in different social networks, your business stands a much greater chance of being exposed to a far wider and deeper audience, of not just prospective clients / customers, but of suppliers, industry leaders and possible future employees, or perhaps investors.

In creating landing pages for Twitter, Facebook et al, you’re people first and business second. And since business is all about people, coming second never looked so good.

Earlier this evening (which, by the time you read this will be the day before), I found a question on LinkedIn’s Q&A, asking: How do you promote your business / services / blog using LinkedIn?

Posting your blog articles and services web pages on LinkedIn

I thought this was an excellent question, so I decided to reply, and offer that reply here for all to read, but expanded with more detail.

Posting to related groups

It’s tempting to join a related group and just post your stuff there. While that is a legitimate avenue for promoting your articles, I would suggest you do so only when your article offers something, like advice, help, tips etc. Something people will find useful.

Some people can — and will — interpret the posting of your articles to groups as being “spammy” and overly self promotional. Often, the people that are being spammy don’t follow up any of the comments.

That’s the problem with pushing articles about your services — they’re out-and-out self-promotional. The focus needs to be on adding value to the members of the group. Give them something to remember you by.

Of course, there are exceptions, but you need to be totally sure you’re offering something that will really help people out and not come over as being just another sales pitch.

Posting to the Q&A

I personally answer questions on LinkedIn’s Q&A and reference some of my own articles, if (again) that article offers specific and related advice, particular to the question.

So by all means, post links to your own articles and web pages, so long as they’re relevant to the question and likely to help in answering it.

The goal is to be useful — I also post links to articles, written by other people, which helps demonstrate impartiality on my part.

Trust is a quality of relationships that doesn’t come quickly or cheaply, and isn’t bought, sold, nor is it transferrable. So ultimately, this is an exercise is acquiring trust.

Posting to your status

The status update is a good, simple method to promote your articles, but you really need to be already engaging with people for them to want to engage with you — it’s essentially like Twitter, so the same rules apply.

I use Twitter, and use HootSuite in particular, which is a web application that enhances Twitter by offering a lot more features, such as options to schedule messages (otherwise known as “Tweets”) and a option to shorten URLs so that they fit into the 140 character allowance.

HootSuite also allows you to connect to your LinkedIn account, so you can post messages straight to your LinkedIn profile’s status. I personally use this sparingly, instead only posting messages / updates that are specifically related to Octane and my business activities in general, or articles that people will find useful.

A recent example being an article on how to stop eleven hidden security threats, which came on the back of my own article offering seven security tips for your computer and the web.

My recommendations for posting articles and web pages to LinkedIn are:

1. Try to avoid posting general and off-topic status updates and instead focus on updates that a particular to you and your business activities.
2. If you post to groups, follow up any comments. Sounds obvious, I know, but you’d be surprised how many people just “fire and forget”.
3. When answering questions in the Q&A, why not suggest an expert? You’ll be helping to build trust with the person you’re suggesting, while demonstrating that you’re a good source for referrals.
4. Also, whatever you do, if you see a odd or apparently naive questions (of which there can be many), don’t be tempted fire off a glib or dismissive comment. LinkedIn is, after all, a network for professionals — so leave the stupid remarks to the amateurs.
5. Use something like Clicky web analytics to monitor the click activity of your articles in real time, in addition to using Google Analytics. Why? When you see clicks come in from a group, for example, follow the link back to see If there have been any comments and reply.
6. If you’re using a link shortening tool (like bit.ly or ow.ly, which is part of HootSuite) ensure you have an account with them, so you can view their own click traffic statistics.

Above all, make yourself a resource to other people, so that they value your contributions, and in turn value you.

But first, a story. Well, before the story, let’s have some background:

“According to a new analysis, one out of five web users still decides to leave the digital equivalent of a key under the doormat: they choose a simple, easily guessed password like ‘abc123′, ‘iloveyou’ or even ‘password’ to protect their data.”

When I first read about some of the terrible passwords people are still using, I really wasn’t surprised.

Shh .. can you keep a secret?

In one notable, recent example, I was asked by a former client to “fix” a web application I was developing so there was only the one username and password for everyone. At the time of being asked, I’d only set one account up, but someone had decided to share this account and soon after, people were signing in with the same account details.

The problem is, due to the security options I’d put in place, each person that signed in signed out the one previous. This was because the system couldn’t deal with two people signing in with the same account details. The client was dismayed.

“Why can’t we all sign in with the same details?”

They asked.

“Because the system doesn’t allow more than one person to have the same username and password.”

I replied.

“Can’t they just type their name in after they’ve signed in?”

They enquired.

“That’s the whole point of having a username; so the system knows who each user is.”

I replied calmly, trying not to sound patronizing or condescending. But the question, I suppose, is: why did they refuse to have a unique account for each member of staff?

Being a very large business that bestrides continents, they have thousands of staff all over the world, so issuing usernames and passwords for each member of staff would be a considerable undertaking, one their own IT people refused to manage, even though it was firmly within their remit. And, ultimately, no one could be bothered with having a new account to remember, on top of the ones they already have.

In the end, I came up with another solution, one that didn’t rely on usernames and passwords, one that was arguably as secure, but came with unique problems all of its own.

7 ways to keep your computer safe and stay secure on the web

Consider what you stand to lose if someone snags the password for your computer. For most people nowadays, they stand to lose just about everything.

So what can you do to stay safe and secure on the web? Here’s a collection of ideas for saving and storing all of those usernames and passwords to all of those websites and web applications you sign up to, as well as staying secure while using a computer:

1. Avoid obvious passwords — OK, this is obvious by now, but do not use regular names (your own, for example), words (“duck”, “apple”, “tea”, “foot”, “dog” etc), notable dates (your own birthday, or national events) or sequential letters and / or numbers (“qwerty”, “123456″ or “abc123″) for passwords.
2. Password protect your computer — Most computers (such as Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, Linux etc) have user accounts. Don’t use the default account, because that’s often the master administrator account. Instead, leave that alone and create a new one, just for you. Then, set it up so you have to sign in every time your computer restarts.
3. Be careful in public — If you’re sharing a computer, or using one in an internet cafe, do not allow the web browser to save your details. If someone else uses that computer and visits the same website, they could, potentially, sign in as you.
4. Do you own a Mac? Then go into your Applications folder, then the Utilities folder and find the Keychain Access application. By default, many applications store your details there. You can use Keychain Access to add Secure Notes and new Password Items, to store your details securely and safely. Also, you can use Keychain Access to retrieve account details, should you forget them.
5. Managing passwords on Microsoft Windows isn’t quite as straight forward; there isn’t an equivalent to Keychain Access. But there are tools built in that do help keep you safe — here’s how you manage stored usernames and passwords on Windows XP and Windows Vista.
6. Don’t share your accounts with other people — Sometimes, you’re rushed for time and someone needs to get into application X right away! Sign in for them, let them do their thing and then make sure they sign out afterwards.
7. Passwords on paper won’t do — Scribbling passwords down on scraps of paper, stuffed into draws isn’t optimal. You’re either going to lose them, or worse, someone will find them.
8. Complex is good — When choosing a password, remembering it isn’t the most important thing, not with the plethora of options for securely saving them to your computer. So choose one that’s more than ten digits, a mix of numbers and letters, both upper and lower case. Some software will even let you use punctuation marks and accents, like !@£$%^&*()¡€#¢∞§ which is even better, because then you have password that contains more combinations than there are grains of sand on every beach on earth.

Got a security tip to share? Let us know how you stay safe…

Image credited to Flickr and MissTessmacher.

Your ideas are your most valuable assets, even if you don’t realize it. But even a great idea is nothing if not acted upon. Sometimes, it’s necessary to share an idea, to make it real, but there are hazards to sharing ideas; you’re effectively giving them away.

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.” — Henry Ford

Crucially, it’s all about how you share an idea. And the best way to share an idea is to sell it to someone. No, I don’t mean to put a price tag on it and then hand the idea over once they’ve paid you, although that’s not a million miles from what happens in the end.

When I say sell, I mean to pitch an idea, as in to a client. A client will come to me with a problem, or a set of problems, and I’ll have a think about how I could fix those problems as quickly, efficiently and cost effectively as possible.

As was the case with the To Book hotel booking application I developed for Premier UK, when I came up with a very efficient way of processing bookings that kept the user on one page, minimizing the number of actions (and by extension, the number of clicks) they had to make.

The client calculated that using this one feature often shaved off between 30 and 60 seconds per booking, which is a massive time saving when you’re dealing with hundreds and sometimes thousands of bookings.

Would you like to know more about web applications, or perhaps you’d like to know what a web application is? Read on to find out more.

Protecting your ideas from theft — the big tease

Clearly, this is a very valuable idea, but it’s an idea that only really worked within the context of the web application itself, although I’m sure someone could easily replicate the idea elsewhere.

The thing is, once you come up with all of your clever and innovative solutions, the trick lies in how you pitch those ideas as features of something much bigger.

You want to say just enough to tease them with the benefits and the potential for cost savings, efficiency etc, but not give them too much information that they could go elsewhere with your ideas, leaving you out of pocket.

Using project management to profit from your ideas

For a business like mine, the up-front innovative thinking is a legitimate cost centre; one that requires your valuable time. But it’s hard to put a cost to those ideas up front, so you’re best bet is to recover the time from within the execution of the project itself, over time.

But the challenges are still present, even once the project is underway — what’s to stop a client committing to work, you spending a month implementing your ideas, and then having them walk away without paying a penny? This is why you must break the project down into key stages and charge based on the completion of those stages.

By doing this, you’re financially insulating yourself and at the same guarding your ideas. Typically, I’ll withhold the major ideas until later in the project, but this does depend on the client.

Would you like to know more about projects and payment planning? Read on to find out more.

Balancing your ideas — protection against exposure

Ultimately, it’s a balancing act. On the one hand, there’s your ideas and your natural urge to protect them, and on the other hand, before a client is prepared to make a decision, they need to know what that idea entails.

A good relationship with a client is always going to be the more ideal start to any project, but even that is no guarantee. So do you consider some kind of contract? Many businesses think this kind of formal arrangement will scare a client, but I’ve found many appreciate the effort and understand the potential protection a contract offers.

Those that dislike contracts might not be the best client to get involved with; are they really all that trust-worthy if they squirm at the prospect of putting their name to a mutually protective contractual agreement?

NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement)

You could also consider a NDA, or Non Disclosure Agreement, which could work within a pre-existing contractual agreement, and be applicable to a specific project only.

A NDA is essentially a brief that often contains commercially sensitive and very specific technical details. The purpose of the Non Disclosure Agreement is, as it’s name suggests, to ensure you do not disclose anything outlined within the agreement to which you’ve put your signature to.

IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) contract

Let’s imagine you need to use a third party to help out, perhaps providing programming services. Also, the client has come to you with a NDA, which you are obliged to sign. There’s a chance that during the course of the project you and your third party:

• could be providing intrinsically new methods / ways of accomplishing certain activities;
• as well as using code used elsewhere, from within previous projects of your own;
• and perhaps using commercial code for specific functions.

In these situations, you need to draw up an outline of who owns what aspects and which parties are entitled to do what with the various parts of the project, and perhaps for how long. If the client is willing to fully compensate you for your efforts, then fine.

However, if there are portions of code in there that belong to you or someone else, then some licensing arrangement may be required.

So the purpose of an Intellectual Property Rights contract is basically to protect the rights of your work, otherwise referred to as IP, or Intellectual Property.

Final thoughts

All of the above are personal / professional experiences of my own, drawn from over ten years of being in business. And as is the case with anything that involves contracts and signatures, it’s best to speak with a qualified legal adviser first, to ensure you’re using the right language, and that your agreements are enforceable, should either party break them.

Above all, don’t be put off by the pit falls and legal machinations. Just keep your mind open and those ideas flowing. You can always deal with the legalities later on.

Image credited to Flickr and Leff.

Automated versus Manual processing

A few weeks ago, a client of mine asked me if I could automate the processing of a list of data. I asked her to send me the list. In total, there were just over 30 items. My advice was to just process the whole thing manually. She wasn’t pleased, but worked her way through the list.

I’m a PHP developer, which means I can write all kinds of things for the web — everything from a simple scripts that automate response forms for websites, right up to full-blown web applications, that process vast amounts of commercially sensitive data.

So, depending on the circumstances, I can write small scripts to batch process things like lists. My client knows that I’m a programmer, which is why she asked about some automatic way of processing her list. But the thing is, I had to invoke Smallman’s first law of energy conservation:

“1st law — If you’re dealing with a single array (or column) of data that’s less than 100 items, do it manually. Beyond that (more than 100 items, or a list of multiple arrays), automate it, so long as it’s possible to do so in a fraction of the time it would take to process the list of data in its entirety manually.”

But my laws don’t just apply to processing data, they also apply to images / photographs, for example. Adobe Photoshop has some excellent batch processing tools.

Let’s say I have 10 images that need resizing, given my experience, I could probably do them manually in the time it would take to set up a batch process in Photoshop. But let’s say I have 10 high resolution images that need re-sizing, their colour profiles changing from RGB to CMYK, and then saving as JPEGs. At that point, it’s more than likely I’d save some time automating the whole thing — especially if there’s a chance of me repeating the process at some later date.

This is where I’d have a conversation with the client, asking them if there’s a chance I’d be repeating this process at some point.

Write once, process many times

Even though you’re solving a problem (not just for yourself but you’re client), it’s not the best way of spending your time. So even though you’ve automated a process, the client is still coming back to you with Microsoft Excel files or emails full of photographs, asking you to process them all.

Here’s where I take my automated process and turn the whole thing into a small web application, where the client can do the processing themselves:

“2nd law — If there’s any chance that an automated process will be repeated, give the power to the client (write an application or script) and let them process their own data.”

Of course, this might not apply to digital imagine processing, although there are ways of doing this, but the cost become prohibitive.

By handing the power to your client, you’re adding value to your service. At the same time, your time is freed up to do more meaningful things. By all means, charge the client for the effort you made handing the power to them, but make sure you explain the cost savings they’ll be making over time.

Let’s say the client needs to change the data in a table on a web page. Initially, I’ll do this manually. As time passes, the table gets bigger, with more columns. At some point, it’s just not practical for me to do this manually any more. This is where I write a script that allows the client to upload a .csv file and upload the table themselves.

A problem shared is a problem out-sourced

Have you ever been asked to do something that’s either right at the edge of your skill set, or just plain out of reach? Of course, it’s tempting to swat up and try doing it yourself. And good on you! However, in the meantime, there’s a deadline to meet, on top of which, are you actually making any money doing this?

“3rd law — If in performing an activity that’s not a core service you’re likely to lose money and / or exceed a deadline, out-source the work, or delegate to someone with the requisite skills.”

If this is something totally new to you, and it’s got an appreciable learning curve, there’s a better than average chance you’re not making a profit. Also, there’s no guarantee the quality will be sufficiently high enough to meet the exacting standards of your client. Worse still, you might not get the work done in time.

Of course, choosing to out-source or delegating the work to a colleague is no silver bullet, so it’s all about selecting the right person to execute the work for you. In the end, it’s better to get the work done right and on time than not at all.

If you think there’s a good chance of there being more of the same work in the future, there’s a good argument for learning on your own time and getting good enough to take the work on. But that’s your choice.

Working smart and not hard

I see so many people squander huge amounts of time, it’s unreal. They might feel they’ve done a good days work, but working hard is not nearly as rewarding as working smart, so long as you do it right.

If you’ve got your own tips for working smart, feel free to share them here…

You might dislike the idea that you follow set patterns, but if you’re running a business, you need to understand these processes in order to keep things running smoothly.

I single out the web because unless you’ve got a video connection, no one can see your expressions, hear the tone of your voice, see your gestures or the movement of your eyes — all of which are strong indicators of sincerity. Without those face-to-face guides, trust takes that much longer to earn.

In a recent article exploring a Google Labs experiment, I had this to say about the value of trust on the web:

“It is inevitable that trust will be the number one currency on the web. Trust is more easily given than it is bought. The more people who trust something or someone, the more value is given, which will therefore (most likely) attract more trust and amass more value.”

And trust as a currency — while being free from exchange rates — is often difficult to sell but earns some excellent interest.

Ways to earn trust in business

As a business owner, certain things have become clearer to me over the years. One of them is that people buy into people long before they buy into your products or services.

That’s why I enjoy meeting people face-to-face. This is my chance to make the most of my personal brand, that ‘brand’ being me!

I use my enthusiasm as a conduit for my business knowledge to show people that I care about what they do and how I might be able to make things better for them and their business.

For the impartial yet interested visitor coming to your website or ‘blog, they want to feel that you’re a person they can trust. They want to be able to use you and your services, while at the same time be confident that you’ll still be around the day after they’ve paid you.

They don’t want hidden costs, dodgy business practices or shoddy workmanship. They want demonstrable evidence of you being good enough for them to spend good money with, and that you’ll be around to support their present and future needs.

In short, they want to feel that they can trust you. But how do you convey all of your worthy and commendable values via the web, or from within a social network?

Testimonials

There’s just no substitute for a good referral, so word-of-mouth recommendations are still the top means of getting yourself known.

Word-of-mouth recommendations are by far the most cost-effective means of marketing, and only works because you were good enough to be recommended in the first place. And if you’re within a close-knit social network, there’s every chance this vocal referral will have an echo effect — being heard by many more businesses along the way.

If you have very satisfied customers and you’re sure they would have no problem singing your praises, then ask them for a testimonial. Ideally, this testimonial would come on company letterhead, written in hand, and signed personally — but that’s just an ideal!

Extending this ideal scenario further, maybe adding in a photograph of the aforementioned very satisfied customer along with their testimonial on your website will add that essential sense of trust. Additionally, getting your client to link to your website or ‘blog is even better.

Placement is also key. Some people might want to place all of their testimonials on one page, but I try to encourage my clients to place their testimonials within the web pages of a product or service that the testimonial relates to, assuming that’s the case.

Case Studies

So your customer is happy with their little lot. You’ve got paid, so you’re happy with your little lot, too. You look back on the job and realize that as well as learning some new things, you also managed to improve on many fronts — you hit the budget, breezed the deadline and managed to give your customer that little bit more than they’d asked for. I’d say that’s got the makings of a Case Study!

Put simply, a Case Study is a working, living documentary, evidencing your good work and the satisfaction of your customer. Ideally, a Case Study should be no more than a thousand words and should consist of four parts:

1. A summary of what was achieved, typically entitled as benefits in the form of bullet points. They should match the prior objectives of the company, and be implied in numerical form (ex. increased 20%)
2. A description of the project, the aims, the stakeholders and the particulars of the project.
3. A summary of what was achieved, typically entitled as benefits in the form of bullet points.
4. A conclusion, with supplementary links to the customers website and other related resources.

Why not add in a testimonial, right in the conclusion? Also, add in some photography, or maybe a picture of the client logo, their premises — something that’s going to add some visual interest. Also, if appropriate, link to the page on your website that relates to the products or services you supplied to the client.

Case Studies can be quite authoritative content for your website. So by adding in some strong words and phrases that relate very specifically to you, your customer and both your businesses, the search engines will make the most of that authority.

Standards, professional memberships and associations

Next time you’re given a business card from someone, look at the end of their name. Chances are, you’ll spot a bunch of letters.

If I wanted to, I could write my name as: Wayne Smallman ND, HND, Ba(hons). But for the most part, Wayne Smallman gets me by just fine!

When you see stuff like this, you’re given some vital information — that this individual had a formal education that resulted in a recognized qualification. So that’s years of studious education put to good use. If they providing a service to you, you’re probably going to benefit from their knowledge in some way.

If your business is ISO rated for example, or if you’re a British-based business and you’re an Investor in People, then your business has a valued, recognized accreditation that will open doors. In the case of the ISO 9001 rating, this means you have formal procedures in place that govern certain aspects of your business practices.

As for Investors in People: “Developed in 1990 by a partnership of leading businesses and national organisations, the Standard helps organisations to improve performance and realise objectives through the management and development of their people.”

In both instances, you have a wealth of trust that ought to be made a key feature of the benefits of using your business. Be sure to get the proper permission to make these associations and memberships known. Get the proper logos and add them into the relevant web pages and printed stationary.

It is easy to forget or underestimate the value of your “organic knowledge”, and your qualifications and accreditations are an integral part of that invaluable, ever-growing resource.

Trust as a value-added part of your business

By making the most of your qualifications, your accreditations, your more-than-happy client base, your professional associations, memberships and your processes & procedures, you have all of the ingredients to build a formidable series of Unique Selling Propositions, all of which will mature into a valuable and transferable store of trust.

So make the most of the respect your clients give to you every time they come back for more. Trust me — you’ll do just fine.

This article was first published on Octane’s sister blog, Blah, Blah! Technology, in an article entitled: “Earning trust in business“