Professional Archives - Page 5 of 7

Focus in conversations

I think there’s been a great loss in the standard of conversation in recent years. As our attention span has been desecrated by the advent of “have it now” and “have it all”, I’ve noticed how people can’t concentrate during a conversation.

All too frequently now, conversation will jump around aimlessly. I was having a conversation the other day with a colleague who asked me a question, which I started to answer. Something in my response caused him to think of something else which he instantly blurted out. Either his attention is so poor that his brain couldn’t trust him to hold on to that thought until I was done with what I was saying, or he was never especially interested in the conversation to begin with that he didn’t want to hear what I had to say and just wanted to drive the conversation where he wanted or hear his own voice.

Either way, the ability to focus on one thing is greatly dwindling, much to my chagrin. I’m frequently having to refocus people who wander on tangents by repeating the last thing they said that was actually on topic so that they can proceed with what they were originally saying. This “shiny thing syndrome” is awfully frustrating and also quite rude.

The cost of doing business – my price is my price

I’m a business owner. As such, I incur costs from providing services to my clients, from banking fees for every transaction I process, to hosting fees for backing up my client’s sites before and during development.

An extremely important way that I build trust with my clients is that when I tell them a price, that’s the price they should pay. Sometimes less, but never more.

We’ve all experienced something similar to this situation: you sign up for a $40/month cell phone contract, but by the time they’ve added on line rental, roaming, credit card fees, voicemail, fees and taxes, your original “deal” isn’t quite the bargain that it sounded like.

Magical pony

Last week I got a rather obscure but very endearing compliment from one of my best clients. She’s the kind of client that you dream of working with, both in how she values what you do, and how her personality and working style match mine so well that has caused us to become friends through our working relationship.

You are, as I have stated multiple times in the past, a magical pony.

This compliment is one of several that I’ve had from her and I love it so much that I might start referring to myself as “the magical pony”.

Create a website for your children

As a web developer, with my own site for documenting my thoughts and life, it seemed very appropriate that the very same day I learned that we were pregnant with Ellie, I built her a website to document the pregnancy and then her life outside the womb. And just recently I followed suit when I found out that Jack was on the way.

To me, creating a website for my kids was chiefly important because I live so far away from my family. Being from the UK and living in the US, I have a whole group of people that I care about a lot, and whom would want to follow along with my children’s’ lives closely, even though we’ll only see each other every few years.

As a side benefit, it is an excellent way in this day and age to record your children’s’ lives. It’s the 21st century baby book, except that it’s living and breathing, can be updated regularly and everyone can see it (or everyone that you want to see it can see it).

Inspector’s Device Mode – render pages as mobile devices will

I recently stumbled upon a feature in Chrome’s Inspector Tools which is extremely handy for web developers.

Previously, I had been resizing my browser window to mimic what each web page would look like on mobile devices to see how my responsive design was working.

However, there’s a much better way. If you click on the mobile phone icon, a new display comes up showing the size of a mobile device display and how the page will look on that device.

The “awesome client” discount

It’s hard to get a good feel for who your clients are before you take them on, so sometimes you end up with clients that require a bit more hand-holding and a few more revisions than is ideal.

As such, your fees need to reflect the possibility that each project might take longer than expected because of this unknown. So when you have an awesome client and you don’t have to spend that extra time on the project (and in fact, can finish even quicker than normal), it’s nice to be able to give that money back in the form of an “awesome client discount”.

Smartest person in the room

If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.

Always strive to learn, and better yourself. Surround yourself with smart, intelligent, stimulating people that you revere and admire.

Should you give out your phone number?

When I first incorporated my business, I decided that I should really put my business phone number on my website, because people need to get in touch with me if I’m going to get any business, right?

I had secured a Google Voice number solely for business a while before, but hadn’t really put it to much use until this point. It still rings through to my personal cell phone, but gives me the option to disable it at any time (like when I’m on vacation, or sleeping) and to screen calls, record conversations etc.

My decision to put my phone number on my website wasn’t very well thought out though. I prefer to communicate via email for a few reasons:

Ditching Windows or being my own boss

When I quit my job and start working for myself full-time, I don’t know whether it will be more exciting to be my own boss (and thus, have the best boss in the world), or to never have to use Windows or any Microsoft product ever again. The ways in which they infuriate me never end.

The kind of clients that dreams are made of

Yesterday, I returned home to a little surprise in the mail. One of my long-standing clients for whom I don’t do a lot of work in grand scheme of things, had sent me a gift in the mail.

It really struck a chord with me, because I realised that I’d had a few clients now who have sent me gifts, which if you think about it is a bit unusual. I’m the contractor and they’re the client. They pay me to do work for them. I’m the one that should be thanking them for their business.

And yet, I’m getting gifts sent to me.

The gift wasn’t grand, but it was beautiful and thoughtful. She had selected some luxury caramels from what I gather is a local boutique confectioner and had them sent to me. I must say that it is the most attractive box of caramels I’ve ever seen and again and it was so thoughtful and strikingly alluring that I’ll never forget it.