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Some thoughts on finder’s fees

April 9, 2012 5 Comments

Last year somebody reached out to me and mentioned that they had a client they couldn’t take on so they wanted to pass them my way. I got some basic details about the project and it seemed like we’d be a good fit for what the client needed, so I said send ‘em over. The person said, “OK and then when you land the client, you can send me a 10% finder’s fee.” Without thinking much about it, I agreed. After getting off the phone and giving it some thought, I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it. On one hand, I may not have ever found that client, so getting 90% of something is better than 100% of nothing. But, on the other hand, the other developer was overloaded and wouldn’t have taken the project anyway and I felt like they were just trying to capitalize as they sent the client away. Either way, I wasn’t really happy. And, as luck would have it, it didn’t work out and we didn’t land the client so I didn’t have to deal with it anyway.

I go to a fair amount of WordCamps around the country with a bunch of other WordPress developers. When hanging out and talking with non-developers, one question that comes up from time to time is “Who is your competition?” My answer is always the same, “Everybody here. And nobody.”

I’m currently fielding more project enquiries than I could handle. Hell, my current project list is already insane and I’m telling anybody who calls that I’m booked through the middle of next month. And when they say that they can’t wait that long to get started, the next thing I do is send them an email with a list of other WordPress developers I know who may be able to squeeze them in. No request for a finder’s fee. Just trying to connect somebody who needs work done with somebody who may have time to do some work.

This past week I had another request from somebody asking for a finder’s fee. I politely told them that I don’t offer a finder’s fee and if they wanted to send the project to somebody else instead, that was fine with me. Once again, when I got off the phone, I stopped to think about the conversation. I’m wondering if I’m going about this all wrong? Am I missing out on a grip of cash by not requesting a finder’s fee from people I send leads to?

Oh, right, I almost forgot… I don’t care.

Here’s my thinking; if you are only interested in sending me the lead because you’re looking for a slice off the top as the client leaves your hands, do me a favor and just don’t send them my way. If you spent time with the client ahead of time and helped them sort out their RFP, you definitely should be paid for that. There’s even a word for what you did. They call it consulting. Consultants get paid. By the client. I am not your client.

So, yeah. After having some time to think about it, I’ll just go on record and say, “No, I will not send you a finder’s fee”. I’ll have to list this post right next to my “No, I will not sign your NDA post”

I’m curious what you think. What’s your take on finder’s fees? Do you ask for them? Do you pay them? Leave a comment and give me your angle on it.

 

 

Filed Under: Work Tagged With: ,

What do you use for small business accounting?

February 15, 2012 16 Comments

For the past 2 years I’ve been using Quickbooks to handle the book keeping for my business. But, I freakin’ love FreshBooks and I want to use it for invoicing. The problem that I have is that I can’t import FreshBooks invoices/payments in to Quickbooks so it means I have to do double entry in order to keep my Quickbooks accounts up to date. So I’m on the hunt for a replacement for Quickbooks.

My needs are pretty minimal. I need to be able to keep a journal for a paypal account and a checking account. I need to be able to enter bills for things like rent, hosting, contractors, etc… I then need to be able to track when I pay those invoices. And, as stated above, I want to be able to import (an auto-import would be ideal) invoices from Freshbooks. Even if I have to manually mark those invoices as paid, that’s fine.

I tried using Wave Accounting for a little bit, but didn’t care for it much. I’ve been looking around trying to find another solution, but I’m at a loss.

My wife suggested I ask my network of friends as they are a smart bunch and probably have this solved. So I’m asking, what accounting system do you use? Please leave a comment and let me know! I’d really appreciate it!

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Hire an assistant. Now!

July 25, 2011 17 Comments

When we started the company, there were three of us. The other two guys did the bulk of the design/development and I did some development, but mostly I ran the business. I spoke with all prospects, I managed all projects, dealt with accounting… all of it. Then earlier this year, one of those guys left to pursue other interests. Once he left, I took on the bulk of the design work on top of what was already on my plate. This was not a smart move.

For a couple months we rolled forward without making any significant changes to the way things were. We were working crazy hours to deal with everything on our plates and there was never a time when I felt like things were under control. I had lists of every shape and size. Notes on this project and that. But, there wasn’t anything that resembled a method to my madness. It was just… madness. Finally, when my stress level was reaching epic proportions, I made the decision. We need a project manager and we need one now!

As I started putting together the job description for this new position, I quickly realized that it wasn’t just a project manager I was looking for. I needed an assistant with project management skills. I interviewed half a dozen people for the position, but none felt perfect. As I was taking a couple of days to ponder my options, the exact person I had in mind for the position asked if the position was still available. Without a second thought, the position was hers. Welcome, Sarah.

Getting up to speed

Now that we had our person, the real fun begins. We set up an initial meeting to do a bit of a brain dump. I spoke for nearly 2 hours straight while she took notes. A lot of them. When the meeting ended and I saw the amount of information that had been floating around in my head, I was amazed. I knew I had been trying to manage a lot of information about a lot of projects, but seeing it all on paper was a real eye opener.

Over the next few weeks we worked together to find the processes that worked best for us. There is no such thing as a perfect solution when it comes to project management. We tried a few options and settled in on what felt comfortable. We’ve tweaked it over time and what we have now seems to be doing the trick. But, we’re still tweaking as we go.

Once we had the basic framework for project management in place, we started looking at all the areas of the business where she could take tasks off my plate. It should be no surprise that email was one of the first things that came up. On any given day I receive a handful emails from people looking for our services. I started by CC’ing Sarah on all client emails. Within a week she had taken over the ‘first line of defense’ answering the emails that have fairly standard responses. Over the next couple weeks she had taken over the bulk of all new prospect emails. If she did nothing else, she’d be worth her weight in gold! Lucky for me, this was only the beginning.

During those first couple weeks, Sarah turned my ramblings from that first meeting (along with all the emails and new prospects that had shown up since) in to an organized spreadsheet. We had tabs for existing projects, pipeline prospects and deals that we failed to capture. We’d meet a couple times a week to discuss each list. It’s amazing how a 10 minute meeting looking over a list can be so much more productive than 2 hours of pouring through your inbox trying to find all the details…

These are only a few of the things she’s taken off my desk so far. As we continue to refine our processes, I know there will be more.

The Payoff

As I said before, I had a lot of information floating around in my head. Since I was always so busy with everything that was on my plate at the moment, it was virtually impossible to step back and look ahead or behind. I was just rushing from project to project putting out whichever was the biggest fire.

About 4 weeks in to having Sarah on board I had that ‘A HA!’ moment that let me know I had made the right choice. I received an email from a prospect who I had talked to a couple months before. We had exchanged a few emails about a project, but it didn’t go anywhere and he ended up falling through the cracks. Sarah saw his name on that original list of prospects, reached out to him with a simple email asking if he was still in need of our services, and the next day he emails us asking for a contract and invoice so we could start his project. Without Sarah sending that email, it’s unlikely we would have landed that client.

While that is the most obvious example of the benefits of having an assistant, there are plenty of more subtle benefits as well. My time at my desk has been significantly more focused and productive now that I have less to manage on my own.

If I could give you just one piece of advice, stop trying to do it all yourself. Hire an assistant and in no time you’ll be wondering how you managed without them for so long.

Twitter Comments

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No, I will not sign your NDA

April 19, 2011 14 Comments

I’m the first point of contact for our small business. As such, I’m the one who reads all of the contact form submissions. Here is part of a form submission I received recently:

Before I talk to you about my project, I need you to sign an NDA.

What I think they really mean is: I don’t trust you.

The fact that you recently saw The Social Network and think every developer is going to steal your idea and turn it in to the next Facebook behind your back is not my problem.

I have a pretty standard response that I send to people who ask for an NDA. For my developer friends, I’m posting it here for you to use as you see fit:

No, I will not sign your NDA and here’s why; I don’t like signing anything that I don’t read and understand completely. Language in NDAs (and most contracts) love to throw in all sorts of legalese that just don’t give me a comfy feeling by signing without having somebody else take a look at it first. So this means that I’m 1-2 hours in, and maybe out of pocket if it turns out to be something I need to have a lawyer take a quick look at, and this is just to talk about YOUR project.

I have not looked at your NDA, but I give you my word that we are honest and trustworthy people and as programmers we are far too busy to be stealing any ideas to work on for ourselves.

I realize this doesn’t sit well with some people. If this is a show stopper and you need to find a different developer, we understand completely. However, I’d be more than happy to talk to you about your project with the understanding that any information you tell me IS held with the strictest confidence.

For any prospective clients who are turned off by this, I offer you this link. No hard feelings.

Twitter Comments

LookSharpDesign +2! RT @vegasgeek: Blog post (rant): http://vegasgeek.com/nda - No, I will not sign your NDA.
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williamsba I usually sign, but I'm a glutton for punishment :P RT @vegasgeek: Blog post (rant): http://vegasgeek.com/nda - No, I will not sign your NDA
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caseysoftware RT @vegasgeek: Blog post (rant): http://vegasgeek.com/nda - No, I will not sign your NDA.
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Today, we work on us

December 17, 2010 6 Comments

I’m sure you’ve heard the proverb “The shoemaker’s children are often shoeless”, right? When you are running a service based business, it’s inevitable; you are going to wake up one day and realize that everything about your business is out of date. Your website has 6 month old pricing, your brochures have photos of products that are collecting dust in the basement by now. You get the idea.

A couple months back, my partners and I came to the realization that we have been spending so much time working on client’s that we have totally been neglecting things that will ensure the long term success of our own business. Some of the things were simple, like setting up a newsletter signup form. Not a big deal, but if we don’t take the time to do it, another year will fly by and I’ll be saying, “gee, I sure wish we had done this a year ago…”

We tried to squeeze in some time here and there to get some things updated, but something would always come up. This was going to take a shift in the way we do things. We needed to do something big.

Internal Work Only Days
Starting at the beginning of November, we instituted a new rule at the office; No outside client work on Fridays. We work long hours on Monday-Thursday helping our clients, but on Fridays it is all about us!

Making your own internal rules is great, but we still have to answer to clients. I was a little concerned about having to explain this to new and existing clients. You never really know how people will react. Every response has been overwhelmingly positive. A lady I spoke with earlier this week said, “Congratulations! I wish we could do the same here!”

To be clear, this doesn’t mean we shut off the phone and stop answering emails. We are definitely available for our clients if there is an emergency. If a server is on fire, we’ll drop what we are doing and get right on it. But, changing the color of a link from blue to purple can wait until Monday.

Our results have been great. We have some new projects that we are working on that we’ll be releasing pretty soon. None of these would have happened if he hadn’t taken the time to focus on ourselves.

Give it a shot. If you aren’t able to give up a day a week, maybe take a day or two a month. Something, anything is better than nothing!

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Filed Under: Work

No new ideas Thursdays

December 6, 2010 Leave a Comment

I just finished watching this Ted talk given by Jason Fried (co-founder of 37signals) titled; Why work doesn’t happen at work.

This talk really hit home. For the final couple of years at my previous job we had enough meetings to make sure that it would be virtually impossible for people to get much done. What’s worse, just because the way my brain works, the lack of “getting stuff done” would turn in to stress. I would feel like I needed to come in earlier or stay later at the office until I had accomplished something productive. But, once you start going in early or staying late, that can cause stress in other areas of your life. It really was a no-win situation.

I’m happy to say, in my new gig, we don’t have a single scheduled internal meeting.

While listening to the Ted talk, Jason threw out the idea of “No talking Thursdays” and I literally laughed out loud. Not because I thought it was a silly idea. Quite the opposite, really. But, it reminded me of something my friend Jason Murphy and I had come up with a few years back; No New Ideas Thursdays. Here’s why:

Jason and had been friends and worked for the same company, but on two opposite ends of the building. Then, I got moved to an office right next to Jason’s. We weren’t working on the same team, per se. But, our goals were pretty similar and we would constantly chatter back and forth about how we could do this or that. The problem was, it wasn’t JUST work related stuff. We had a 1000 ideas for websites we wanted to build outside of work. Then we’d talk about how to build it, or how to market it, or software, or, or, or… It got to the point where we instituted No New Ideas Thursdays so that we would come in, sit down and actually work on one project for the entire day. It was amazingly helpful.

At 9seeds, we haven’t had to implement anything that drastic yet. Though, I believe we’ve each taken Radio Silence days where we just don’t start up IM or Skype and only check email every couple hours. If you have the opportunity, try it. It’s very productive!

If you work in a corporate job where you have to be somewhere from 9 to 5 (or 7 to 4 like at my previous job), take a few minutes and watch the video above. Then, send the link to your boss.

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Filed Under: Work

Working from home, month 1

February 27, 2010

Has it really been a month already? Wow, that was fast!

Working for myself from home has been really interesting. Before making the leap I spoke with many people about it. Everybody has their own concerns & ideas about what goes on when you work from home. Some are pretty accurate, some not so much.

One thing is for sure, there are a ton of things different about working in an office and working from home. Here are a few along with my thoughts.

Not waking up to an alarm
This may be the single greatest thing about working for myself. I wake up and get out of bed when I’m ready. I would love to tell you that I’m sleeping in until 10 each morning, but that’s simply not the case. I’m awake and at my desk by 8 or 8:15 each morning. But still, not having that alarm be the first thing I hear in the morning… glorious!

Working in your PJs (or sweats and a t-shirt)
It is said that working in your PJs is the #1 mistake made my people working from home. The idea being that if you are sloppy, your work will be sloppy. Bullshit. Working from home requires some discipline, for sure. But, if wearing sweats and a t-shirt magically makes you do half-assed work for your clients, you have far worse issues to deal with.

Time management and billing is tricky
One thing I’m realizing I need to get better at is separating the time I spend reviewing a project and time spent doing research for a project. It’s a subtle difference that boils down to billable time. With only so many hours in a day, I need to make sure I’m billing correctly for my time. Currently I’m not great at it, but I’m working on it.

Get organized
I’ve never been really good at keeping paperwork filed and organized. I’m quickly learning that if I don’t spend some time now getting in to a groove of doing this the right way, I’m going to be in bad shape in a few months. This is on my to do list for this weekend.

I need to set a schedule
This is another one of those things that is said to be a problem for people working from home. They don’t know when to get up and walk away. I am 100% guilty of this one. But, that shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody. Before quitting my job I would work from 7-4, come home, have dinner and then work until midnight or later. I’m not really doing anything much different now. But, I do see the need for some separation. Over the next 60 days, my goal is to get to a point where I’m working 60-70 hours per week.

Get out of the house!
I used to go out to lunch every day. Now, I usually grab some food from the kitchen and eat it at my desk. I know this is a terrible habit, but really, it’s only half of it. I need to spend more time out of the house in the evenings and weekends, too. It’s tough right now because our company is just getting off the ground and I want to do everything I can to make it a success. But I know that in the long run, for my and the company’s well being, it’s better if I step away from the computer for a while. I’m working on this, too.

Get back to blogging/podcasting!
This is just a recurring theme now. I need to set aside some time to do the things that helped me get to where I am. Blogging and Podcasting are things I enjoy very much. I used to do them both semi-regularly. Plus, they have the added benefit of being tools that help me in my business. Sorta makes this a no-brainer, right?

Overall, I couldn’t be happier with the way things are going. I’ve already learned some valuable lessons about working from home and I expect to learn a lot more as time rolls on.

Filed Under: Work

After 10 years, it's time to say goodbye

January 24, 2010

Many years ago I used to own a small web design company that I ran out of my house. The account manager where I hosted my client’s websites would often refer business to me when people would contact them for assistance. This is how I was introduced to Derek. He was overloaded with clients and needed some assistance. I stepped in and started doing work for him on a regular basis. We worked well together. For the next 18 months or so, Derek was my #1 client keeping me busy full time. With so much of my time being focused on just one client, I did the only thing that made sense. On January 1st of 2000, I dissolved my company and became the first employee of the Selling Source.

I could talk for hours about the great times I’ve had these past 10 years. From the very first holiday party where it was 4 of us going to dinner at TGI Fridays, to reaching such milestones as being listed on the Inc 500 list, twice! It has really been an amazing journey.

I’m proud to say that I’ve worked with some of the sharpest people in the industry. I’m lucky to say that I have become good friends with a great many of them. I will be forever grateful for my time at Selling Source for introducing me to such an incredible group of talented people.

And now I’m ready to start a brand new adventure. I can only hope my next 10 years are filled with as many great memories and relationships.

Cheers.

Filed Under: Work

Busy week in review

April 20, 2008

This past week was pretty busy. I started the week by flying to San Francisco for a trade show. The thing about trade shows, they are basically all the same. Maybe not the content, but everything else about them is identical. I’ll show you what I mean. Here was my trade show:

Day 1: Fly in the night before the show, eat dinner too late, go out for drinks and get to sleep way to late.
Day 2: Get up early, have a crappy breakfast, spend most of your day on your feet, go out to dinner too late, go to an industry party with an open bar, get to sleep way to late.
Day 3: Get up a little later, have a crappy breakfast, have very few meetings at the show because everybody else went out too late last night, too, eat dinner way to late, skip the industry party, go to sleep way to late.
Day 4: Get up and rush to the airport to fly home.

The show was good. I had some great meetings and made some decent deals. But still I arrived home totally bushed. On Thursday I planned on going to sleep around 10 PM so I could get a good night’s sleep. Instead I fell asleep at 8:15 and slept all night.

While I was in San Francisco, I did take a few photos that I’m pretty happy with. One of them was a 30 second exposure I took from my hotel room of the street below. I love catching the streaking lights of the cars on the road. I’m thrilled with how it came out. You can check them out over here.

Friday night we went back to Sam’s Town to play the 11 PM tourney. We started with 4 tables and it didn’t take that long to get down to the final table. We lost a couple players and when we got down to the final 5, I was the overwhelming chip leader. I then got unlucky in a couple hands and I was quickly the short stack. A few minutes later, I was out of the tournament in 5th place. That, as they say, is poker.

On Saturday I slept in. It was lovely. I woke up and watched some hockey. We then went to lunch and headed over to the Pinball Hall of Fame. Have I mentioned lately that I’m addicted to this place? My current list of favorite games are “Creature from the Black Lagoon”, “Star Trek”, and “Austin Powers”. I have had a few good games on Creature, but I feel like I’m about ready to break through and have a HUGE game. I currently have my name on the high score boards for 2 games (Star Trek & Funhouse) and I feel Creature is next on my list. Soon.

Saturday evening we ordered the UFC fight on pay-per-view and had a few friends over to watch. I have to say that watching UFC is way more fun with a group of people. I watch a fair bit of it on my own, but it’s just not the same.

Sunday is going to be low key. I need to rest up and get another good night’s sleep. I have a LOT of work to do this week. I would like to get out and take some more photos, but we’ll have to see how that shapes up.

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