Yay for Deb!
Not only am I glad she’s back in all her Jediness, but also I am delighted she’s posted up a storm today.
I ended up being busy with business improvement. I created a passworded site for my clients. It has a blog on which I will update my whereabouts and availability (sort of a way of people knowing the answer to “is he in the office?"), post tips or links to tips, and whatever else seems useful to communicate with clients. It also has a contact form for e-mailing various addresses via the web, even if e-mail is down, and a second contact form that e-mails me at several addresses, including my cell phone, if it’s more of an emergency matter. Those are linked from the blog. I also made an “eyes only” page for key client contacts, where they can access absolutely every bit of contact info: pager, cell, office, and home numbers, plus multiple e-mail addresses. I recently had incidents where I didn’t have my cell and a client forgot I ever had a pager number, or the pager didn’t work and a client wasn’t attuned to the idea of using the cell number.
It also serves a marketing purpose. My third biggest client hasn’t had me do any work since August. This was a way to pop onto their radar in a way that looks cool and “big.” They mainly brought me in for one project, but it boggles me they don’t have or use regular computer support and maintenance. The other outfit I worked with administers their server and contracted to create a new web site, but they were $20 more an hour than me, and their guy I worked with was… limited. I felt like our rates were reversed most of the time I worked with him. I worry about them, because they are probably letting things slide, letting little problems grow to be big problems for which they then will call me. At least they were happy with my rates. There are a couple people I could do one-time computer cleanups for that I haven’t been able to bring myself to get back to yet because the person referring me whined about my rates, after hiring me because I was lower than the competition, and caught me at a weak moment so I charged no more than half-price. Now I can’t bring myself to go back to a place where they’re not going to want to pay me enough to cover what it would cost me were I having an employee do the work. There’s a lesson in the negative consequences of lowballing.
Anyway, I digress. I was just trying to pop in and show I was still alive and express my appreciation for Deb’s blaze of blogging. I have to go play with Veritas Backup Exec now.
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