Jason Drohn's Scrapbook

Do Better Business By Shedding Bad Clients

Saturday, June 21st, 2008
Philadelphia - Old City: The Bourse

Image by wallyg via Flickr

I had an interesting experience yesterday. After lunch with a friend, I went back to his company who I have estimated some work for. The estimate that I wrote up went to the marketing director, so I just wanted to see if there was anything else he needed from me. Keep in mind, Tech Solution has helped this company through a couple tech related situations and didn’t expect payment because we knew that sooner or later a big project would come our way.

Well, that time has come. After negotiating the price down twice (taking almost $4,000 off the bottom line), the marketing director said he would get back to me within just a few days. There is no reason why the project shouldn’t get approved, so I started allocating resources (employees) and turning away some of the smaller work, or redirecting it to some of the referral companies I work with. Well, it’s been almost 4 weeks, so I stopped by to see if they needed anything else to move the project along…

When I walked in this guys office, I got a ‘deer in the headlights’ look. I barely said hi before he started saying he has been busy and he would have an answer for me soon. Then, after I left, he proceeded to climb all over his employee (my friend) about how I am a vendor and inexperienced and ‘wet behind the ears’ and on and on.

Guess what. They came to me. They asked me to solve their problems – and I would have loved to have them as a client but I hate bullshit. The client that eats away at time with maybe’s is one you and I don’t want to have.

Tech Solution’s project pipeline just got full – and this guys work isn’t included. I don’t care how much that estimate was. Tech Solution provides web services that help small businesses expand their presence.

The moral of the story is really pretty simple. The world of business is not run by older, complacent executives who are too busy running around barking orders at everyone to realize that the people who live and breathe technology are the ones who will help the company grow. And for as much money as this job is worth, I would rather accept 5 smaller, great clients who I can do direct referral campaigns through.

What about you? Ever had any clients that just pissed you off to the point of no end?

21.06.2008 Lead Story Comments

Crashed Servers And Plans For Expansion [Hackz Network]

Friday, June 20th, 2008
Multiple racks of servers, and how a data center commonly looks.

For those of you not reading MarketingHackz, you have missed out on a very frantic business owner. :0) Frantic because at the start of the week, we launched NetHackz.com which proceeded to succumb to the digg effect and crash only 13 hours into it… 18,800 uniques in a little over a half a day!

The frantic part was that I had to find hosting in a hurry and push all my client’s work aside so that I could get the site moved over to MediaTemple servers.

With that crisis behind us, it’s time to move on to bigger and brighter things!

Originally, I had planned on putting out a new Hackz site every three or so months. But as word traveled around the blogosphere and in my local area that the Hackz network would be expanding into new areas – writers all of a sudden started popping out of the woodwork. I have a tech investment writer (who is funny as shit and makes a ton of cash in tech stocks), a leadership blogger, a computer blogger, and another couple marketing bloggers…

Aside from making me extremely happy, that means I have a lot of work to do to get these sites set up, draw up contracts, and get the whole thing profitable before I start really paying people to write. Not to mention get advertising in place once some of the sites get ranked!

Other than that, things have been going well. Tech Solution is still pretty busy. I have implemented a referral program of sorts where the referrer gets $250 cash when we close a deal, be it web design or Internet marketing. I haven’t done any formal marketing of it, but plan to in the next couple weeks. If any of you are looking to make some quick cash – send some clients my way and you get paid! Just make sure that they mention your name!

By the way, anyone have any thoughts on writing for the Hackz network? You name the topic, and we can probably accommodate you :0)

Image via Wikipedia

20.06.2008 Features Comments

Be Smart – Not Perfect

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Chess Players in Dupont Circle

Image by dbking via Flickr

Yesterday, I got a call from a college friend who was all excited about his new project. It is a web based application that will ultimately help students establish portfolios, past work, etc for colleges. As he is telling me about all the bells and whistles, I couldn’t help by think – “Yes, but how are you going to make money?”

The bottom line is if you aren’t making money on your project, or mini-business, than how is it going to be sustainable? How are you going to be able to afford to continue dumping time into it?

Here are some things that caught my ear… And what I didn’t like about them.

Standards based coding is for proven applications – not startups

Standards based coding is great, and essential to any web-type business. You want to be as cross-browser compliant as possible, but you can’t sacrifice time in the initial stages of development. This is especially true of one and two person shops that are trying to get out the door and make some money.

Quickest path to cash is always, and will always be, the number one priority.

Web hosting should be done off-site, not in your office

I don’t care if you have all the money in the world – unless you have someone who is extremely well versed in network architecture, you shouldn’t be hosting web servers yourself. Especially in the early stages. I understand that you want your data to be secure and you want maximum uptime – but for all the time that my office Internet connection is down due to bugs running around in Time Warner’s wires I am glad I pay someone to do my hosting.

Government and small business grants won’t come

I have gotten accustomed to not relying on relief from anyone else when it comes to my business’ money. It doesn’t matter how many economic development agencies say they will help – money doesn’t come too readily. And if someone is pushing you to get into a business and you realistically can’t afford it without a grant of some kind – think long and hard about how bad you want to be a small business owner…

Business is about cash. It’s about revenue. And it’s about sustainability.

The rule of the day is this – if what you are doing isn’t directly related to your ‘Quickest path to cash’ then it’s a waste of time. If you find yourself caught up perfecting something that you plan on launching at a later time – STOP IT. In order for you to have a future in business, you need money. Which means you need to figure out how the best way to make it is. Forget that future product launch or future revision if the next one isn’t out the door yet!

With that being said, anyone have any small business grant horror stories? I am particularly jaded when it comes to that issue. I have been working with three different companies who are falling apart – and their angel in the sky is a development agency promising money.. I am seeing these people’s business crumble right before my eyes.

Zemanta Pixie

11.06.2008 business, general news Comments

Build Better Businesses. Period.

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
Developing countries excluding LDCs (Least Developed Countries)

Image via Wikipedia

One of the cardinal rules for bloggers is to never apologize.  Well, I am going to break it.  I’m sorry for being away for the better part of a month.  It’s been a hectic time in my life for a number or reasons, which I am going to go through shortly.

But before I do, I want to mention that JDsBlog is going to be taking a new twist.  We have always written about building businesses – but we are taking it to a new level.  We are going to do case studies about my businesses (as well as anyone else who wants to share their experiences).  We are going to talk about profit margins, hourly rates, hiring employees, economic development agencies and everything else.  We won’t be talking about cuddly bullshit that business books would have you believe where everyone wants everyone to succeed…  It’s not that way.  Business is about profit and sustainability.  Not hoping that you will be around in a year.

As far as JDsBlog goes… JDsBlog is returning to its roots – being a personal, business blog.  Blogging is about the person – not the concept.  Somewhere along the way, I forgot that and I apologize.

So, as far as what I have been up to -

Tech Solution

Tech Solution has been growing at a rate of 2 to 3 times per year.  The first year, revenue was $18,000; the second it was about $42,000; and this year…  Well this year I am looking at doing $40,000 just this summer.  That means Tech Solution is on it’s way to having its first $100,000+ year.  Not bad for a business that everyone thought was dead in the water before it was even started.

TS is why I have been away for so long.  I have been trying to close deals and train employees.

Employee Training

I would have to say that training employees is almost harder than overcoming all the obstacles in building a business.  This is probably one of the reasons that it’s easier to start with a partner – because you have two people that pretty much know what the other does and it’s easier to bring a third and a fourth along into the mix.  But when you only have a founder and a new hire – it makes things a little bit difficult.

New TS marketing and brand image

I have been trying to come up with a cohesive marketing campaign for Tech Solution’s Internet marketing side of the business.  With this roll-out is coming completely redesigned thank you cards, business cards, presentation folders, and a comprehensive four site Internet presence.

MarketingHackz.com and the Hackz Network

I have spent a lot of time building out the Hackz Network, which presently includes MarketingHackz.com and will soon include NetHackz.com.  Also in the pipeline are property investment and stock investment sites.  Those will be up towards the end of the summer.

Quick Asides..

I have also delved head first into reading productivity and traditional marketing books.  These include Getting Things Done and Gravitational Marketing.  I did a full implementation of GTD and love it; but it is taking some getting used to.

Thanks for sticking around

I want to make my final point by thanking all of you 600-700 RSS readers, and anyone who comes by JDsBlog through the search engines for sticking around.  My grammar isn’t always the best and my choice of words is a bit convoluted at times – but I guarantee you will build better businesses with the format we are going with from this point out.

No holds barred.

Take no prisoners.

To the point.

Build Better Businesses.

To your success,

Jason

10.06.2008 business Comments