Over the past few weeks, I’ve received a few emails from different people asking for advice or enquiring about my help with digital work (to compliment their print offerings) and the common theme amongst these enquiries seems to be cheap prices/low budgets. Now, I’m all for websites being affordable but there comes a point when you can’t make a living if you’re charging people £300 to make their website.

There is undoubtedly a market in this price range -  for small businesses/individuals who cannot afford anything more than this but it doesn’t necessarily mean this is the market for you. It’s very important to remember that aside from the actual physical work of building the website you’ve also got to win the gig, communicate with the client, plan projects, chase payments and keep your other clients happy all at the same time. If your prices are too low you can’t do all of those to a high enough standard.

My personal business model

It never fails to surprise me how many web designers/developers go freelance and think that means they have to go out and win small business clients and produce the work as well. The reason being because that’s a really difficult thing to do. Personally, my business model is different and I spend most of my work time working on-site in the offices of bigger digital agencies and, more often than not, this work is based upon a day rate. Provided you can stay in demand this is a very good model because:

1. (Most) agencies know the ‘going rate’ for work and while they may try to negotiate down they won’t expect you to work for next to nothing.
2. Lots of agencies use freelancers and communicate with each other to find the best freelancers – so once you’ve done a good job at one agency, the word quickly spreads the other jobs come quite easily.

The other advantage is that in most cases, on-site day-rate agency work means that you only work 9-5 (or whatever that particular agency’s hours are). Yes, sometimes this may be longer and sometimes you may find yourself still on-site at 9pm but this is rare in my experience.

An alternative is to offer fixed prices as opposed to a day rate. I sometimes do this but, to be honest, most of the agencies who hire me simply want someone on-site who can work on a raft of different projects so quoting a fixed price is impossible for this type of booking. Every ‘how to be a freelancer’ article I’ve ever read has said you need to work to fixed prices and not hourly/day-rates. However, in my experience – and maybe it’s just the specific type of work that I do – that agency clients simply don’t want this.

A quick word about day rates

You set your day rate to account for the fact that you won’t work every day of the month – if bookings dry up, you need to take holidays/sick days or you need to buy new equipment every now and again.

Agencies hiring you won’t expect to pay you the equivalent of their full-time staff e.g. if their staff get paid around £30-25k per year ( averaging at £100 per day) they won’t expect that your day rate should be £100*. Whereas, if your target market is small businesses you may find yourself justifying your day-rate/overall prices constantly.

* If the agency looking to hire you does expect you to work for £100 a day then you simply move on to the next agency who understands industry pricing levels. If an agency doesn’t get freelancer prices it’s likely they’re undercharging for their own services and if they’re getting the fundamentals, like pricing, wrong what else are they getting wrong?

Summary

I hope this post serves as an answer, for the next time I get asked if I can produce a website for next to no budget or if a family member/friend refer on a colleague (who has a great idea for an ebay/facebook/google clone) because they think I pull websites out of a hat for £300 a pop.

You are the expert not the customer

The premise behind The Home Show, is that people feel their current home isn’t performing well enough for them. They can’t afford or don’t want to move homes so they want to improve what they have. This leads to them calling George, and he realigns their homes for them.

Straight off the bat, George makes it clear that he is the expert. He consults the clients on the redesign of their home but has complete and utter final say even to the point where he gets the family to move out whilst the work is going on and doesn’t let them see the finished work until it is completed. Admittedly, part of this is pure showmanship for the television audience but the main point here, is that George’s clients are in no doubt who the expert is and trust him so much that they are willing to give him complete free reign.

The budget does not stretch

At the start George asks the family for their budget. If it’s small, then he scales down his plans, if the budget is large he scales them up. At no point does he throw in freebies for the family. In fact at the end of the project if he has run out of budget often the family are left with an empty room which they are (nicely) told to do up themselves when they can because the budget wouldn’t stretch.

The budget is always realistic too, the family don’t expect £200 to buy them a loft conversion. In most cases people are dealing with their life savings and George is never dismissive if their budget is smaller than he needs but at the same time he lets the client know exactly how much work they can get for that.

Usability is king

Before starting any work or conceiving any ideas, George moves into the family home for a short period of time and tries to understand what problems the family are facing with their current design. He does not come along with a new design already in his thoughts rather, he takes the time to work out what the problems are first hand and how best to solve them. Often the families can’t express what is wrong with their homes just that there is something wrong. This simple usability studies that George carries out enable him, the expert, to see exactly what problems the family are facing and he can then use his expertise to fix them.

Your clients may find their websites aren’t performing but they don’t know why – and why should they -  they just want it to work and to make them money. Sitting down with people who use the site and watching them can be a real eye opener on how the website can be improved.

Gauge client’s tastes

Another tactic George uses to ensure he doesn’t create a redesign that the client hates, is to ensure he knows what style the client likes. He usually takes the parents of the family to a furniture shop and asks them to pick out their favourite chair or another item of furniture. he uses this test as a way to gauge what the client si looking for. He isn’t asking the client which chair they want in their newly redesign home but what style/type/feeling of chair. From this information he creates a design that the clien twill like.

In web design, a good technique with clients is to ask them to supply a list of websites they like. Provided you don’t get wacky responses, this is a great way to find out what type of design they might like and not to waste too muhc of your time creating designs that they may hate.

Explain your design decisions

Finally upon finishing the job, George guides the family around the new home, showing them each room, in the order he wants and constantly explaining what he’s done and why he’s done it. This helps them appreciate his design skills even more because he makes them realise that he’s not just put a wall there or removed a wall because he likes the look of it, he’s done it for a good reason and by explaining he wins the family’s hearts and minds.

If you hand a design over to a client and simply expect them to ‘get it’ straight away you may be in for a shock. They may be expecting something different or may not like the idea of something until they understand why. ‘Where’s the spinning logo I asked for?’ they may say but you have to be there and explain why you haven’t given them that  spinning logo.

Summary

A lot of web designers think that the because the web is a new medium, they can ignore common business practice but they can’t because whilst there are some differences to web design and other industries, the basic principles of business and client management still apply.

The building trade is a great comparison because the projects there are often unique and cannot be priced up instantly which is similar to web projects where virtually every project is different despite having shared features like headers, footer, images, etc. By using other industries as a guide it you can use the knowledge those industries have gained to your advantage in web design.

The fact that I found myself thoroughly enjoying it and feeling it was the best money I’d spent in a long time says a whole lot more.

Upon starting freelancing I made the bold decision to do my own taxes. The forms seem relatively simple and by reading up online in various sources I’ve been able to piece together what I should/shouldn’t be claiming for.

Honestly, I’ve avoided using an accountant for fear that any money they may save me may have simply ending up being their fee. So it was great to have some questions answered and for the most part, to be told that I (along with the other participants who filled in their own returns too) were doing it correctly but could probably save a few more pennies as well.

Best practice

With regards to the tax the second best thing I’ve done is to keep quite meticulous records of how much money has been coming in and how much money has been going out in the form of expenses. Keeping hold of all those bus tickets and purchase receipts is an arduous task that I’d rather not have to do but I’m rather do it as I go along instead of collating it all a week before my tax is due.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the best thing I’ve done is to save all the tax money in advance. Whenever an invoice is paid I automatically put a percentage of that away into a separate bank account and do not try not to think about it. I even, and this is where you’ll hate me, put in more than I need to — roughly I should be saving 25% but I very strictly save 35% which is admittedly a struggle but that extra money is a welcome bonus at the end of the tax year when I need new equipment or a holiday.

I also try my best not to think of an invoice’s value as being all mine. If the invoice is worth £1000 I do my damnedest to only think of it as £700 (or even less). Sitting there thinking ‘I’m getting paid £1000 next week so I can go and spend £1000‘ would only lead to a tragically short-lived business career.

Admittedly, it can be an absolute wrench to be paid a sizeable sum of money only to realise a significant portion of that simply is not mine. This way of thinking definitely has to be factored into the rates I charge to people which is another reason why I turn away requests for websites at rock bottom prices.

Summary

I was very happy with the course and I’d be very interested in similar courses like this that help with my business. I got to meet some very interesting people who weren’t web designers including make-up artists and TV directors and that made it even more interesting.

‘Saving Time and Money for Freelancers‘ was put on by Northwest Vision and Media and presented by Jonathan Ford.

Cart45 was built (in theory) to rival Actinic – as an easy to use ecommerce platform that would be as easy to install and operate for a online shopkeeper as WordPress is for a blogger.

The product was built, it had some great features but it didn’t sell like hotcakes… so why not?

1: A lack of features

If you’ve read Getting Real, you’ll know it’s good to launch a product with fewer features than your competition, but sadly our web app was lacking in some really important areas – mostly payment gateway integration. Launching with only Protx/Google Checkout was a big problem and, although I may be wrong, I think it made a lot of people not want to buy an online store that couldn’t process payments with their bank and/or Paypal.

I have to take a share of the blame here; my lack of API integration skills at the time meant that it took a long time to get those APIs working and with no budget for extra developers – that played havoc with the schedule.

2: A lack of time

I wrote Cart45 on my own, in its entirety, within 7 months, with around 2 months spent working on other projects, that is a long time but for a one man development team it wasn’t long enough. For a piece of software where the target market involves people downloading and installing the product upon countless different server setups – there simply wasn’t enough time to cover the test base and get everything right.

By the time the product was finished, we had just about run of time (I suspect, we’d run out of budget too but that was not my area so I can’t confirm that.) Consequently, there was no steam left to power on with the most important aspect of the launch – sales. There wasn’t even time to launch a proper demo version of the site and populate it with products/content.

3: A lack of time management

More important than the aforementioned lack of time was a lack of a proper time/project management. Having never written a full web app before I could only estimate the time it would take. We also lacked a definitive feature set – and as such, time overran whenever someone came up with a new feature or a new way of doing things. Failing to document, at the start, the exact requirements and define a schedule (that couldn’t be interrupted by other projects) was a major flaw in the plan.

4: A lack of budget and resources

As much as I like to work alone, getting things done efficiently without having to worry about fixing other people’s errant code – I can struggle at times. During development there were times where I had to do things I wasn’t 100% confident with: Protx’s API was one such thing but there wasn’t anyone else about I could outsource to and so it took longer and wasn’t done as well.

Now that I work for myself, I always factor into project quotations the cost and time of a subcontractor to perform specialist tasks.

5: A lack of interest from the world

My boss took on the task of promoting the app and did a fantastic job driving traffic to the sales site but after a week or so that traffic trailed off quite sharply and, sadly, never picked up again.

The people we contacted to try and get buzz weren’t overly interested and didn’t share our enthusiasm. Once again, this wasn’t my role so I can’t really state how well oiled our PR machine was but it’s clear that we didn’t gain the necessary trust and therefore exposure in blogs, trade magazines that would be needed to sell to hundreds of people which would have made the venture profitable.

The fact that there was very little marketing budget, meant that sustaining a promotional campaign without paying for advertising* wasn’t possible. I’m not saying that paying for advertising is the only way to market your product – you can do it in other ways but, whether you pay for marketing with your time and effort or with bank notes – it’s never free.

* Disclaimer: We did take out some banner space on some targeted websites which did bring in some good traffic.

Summary

I think a lot of people, myself included, think that creating a web app is an easy option. You can code it for free then post a link to it on twitter and suddenly you’ll sell thousands – but it doesn’t work like that. Some web developers with huge blog subscribers can work on an app/ebook and rely upon those followers to spread the word and keep marketing costs down but most people can’t do that.

Also, the success of a web app does not depend solely upon the greatest and/or uniqueness of the idea. It’s how well you apply that idea along with hard work and a little bit of luck that will make it successful.

I hope this has been good a good read and I hope it encourages some wannabe web app developers out there to perform a little bit more professionally through the process of conceiving and launching a new business.

Readers of this blog will know I’m partial to beating myself up over mistakes I’ve made but I’ll always try and take the positive out of the error and learn from it. You may also know I like to be as open as possible about how much things cost, hence me writing ‘How much does it cost to be a freelance web developer?‘; this burglary started out as a major inconvenience but has slowly escalated into a major financial loss.

Values of good stolen

The thieves, clearly Apple fan boys at heart, made off with an iMac, a macbook, a 5th Generation 80Gb iPod and an old Sony Ericsson W850i. This puts the cost of the stolen items at around £2200 give or take.

The good news

Thankfully the thieves had no interest in my Time Machine powered external hard drive so thankfully when I purchased a replacement iMac I was able to backup all my data to the new machine – the only things I lost were 3-4 days worth of MySQL data (not much) and the serial number for a piece of software.

I did however have to take time off from my schedule to meet Loss Adjustors, phone insurance companies, tear my hair out and curse the world. All in all, I lost around five days of production spread over two projects. Luckily none of my contracts included lateness penalty clauses and both my clients were very understanding of the situation.

The thieves also seemed to miss a lot of items including: credit cards, cash, jewellery and that was a massive relief. Quite frankly, these guys must have been wearing clappers – in and out in in less than a minute, had they took time to look around we could have been looking at losing everything we owned. Take away the Apple goods and most of our electrical items are pretty old and/or second-hand. They left our old school CRT television I suspect because it was a: too big/heavy and b: has no market value whatsoever. They even perused our stereo and decided it wasn’t worth the bother to steal it.

The bad news

Then came the bad news, my home contents insurers, or more accurately the third party loss adjustors, were turning the screws and were attempting to get out of the insurance for a couple of reasons. Firstly, a technicality on the policy triggered a massive £1,500 excess then the final blow came: it turns out if you have a home office, you need separate business insurance – regardless of whether your computers are used for personal usage as well as business usage – there’s a chance they’re not covered. The combination of the huge excess and the computers being removed from the claim took the value of the claim down to zero.

Currently we’re disputing the ruling. Who knows perhaps we’ll win and get some money back but at this stage who knows how it will go.

Damage limitation

Thankfully, this wasn’t as disastrous as it could have been. It sounds ridiculous but I was quite grateful that the burglars left the house in a relatively undisturbed state – they took the computers and left practically no mess (except the broken window). I’ve also been fastidiously saving a portion of my earnings since going freelance in case of such a rainy day therefore, buying a replacement iMac has set me back, left me out of pocket but fortunately, not destitute.

I’ve had my iMac fail before and not had Time Machine setup properly which resulted in me losing months of important data so I’d learnt my lessons with backups and upon seeing that the thieves left the backup drive made me weep with joy. Had I lost that data I would have been up shit creek – make no mistake.

Summary

Hopefully, this post doesn’t come across as a plea for sympathy; I got burgled: I should have put better security on my home; I should have realised that business insurance was needed for anything I use to work with regardless of its personal use; I should have hidden all expensive items away when I left my home unattended for the night; and I should have read and re-read my insurance policy and policy booklet from cover to cover and eliminated any potential for the insurers to wriggle out of paying up.

Much as I love to learn from my mistakes, this was a truly expensive one I could have done without but hopefully, someone reading this today will go and reread their insurance policy or investigate buisness insurance for their home office and I’ll have saved someone from the trouble I’ve been through.

Nathan Beck is a web designer currently working for Flame Digital in Manchester and somehow he finds the time to write a popular web design blog called Red Swish.

Why did you decide to start a blog?

Nathan: I started Redswish at the end of January purely to see what all this fuss was about blogging. I had spare time on my hands as I was freelancing from home and it was an experiment, to see if I enjoyed it and also to see if it was really worth my time. In July I came to the conclusion that blogging was definitely for me and it was time to actually make Redswish look half-decent (because trust me, the first design was a mess). Since then I’ve been trying to put more time, research and effort in to my posts in the hope that they’ll prove useful to people, and to a large extent my writing’s been received well!

How do you find the time to update it and come up with new topics?

Nathan: I struggle. Balancing full-time work, the odd bit of freelance, relaxation (reading & playing Xbox), spending time with friends and then putting together blog posts does take some effort. I’ll sometimes find myself writing till 2/3am in the morning whilst I’m maintaining a train of thought. But when I look at my stats, subscribers and the comments I get, it all makes it worthwhile. The site doesn’t make any money but it’s not about that. Knowing that I’m writing for people that appreciate it inspires me to carry on.

I usually create an initial draft post whenever I get an idea for an article, however I may not go back to that draft for months. It’s rare that I suddenly get an idea for post, churn it out then publish it. Some articles sit waiting to go live for weeks.

Do you think blogging has increased your profile?

Nathan: Absolutely. I’ve had job offers, requests for freelance writing and interviews like this. There’s even been the odd occasion where I’ve met people that have frequented Redswish and never realised I was behind it. Not that I need Redswish to massage my ego, it’s just nice to be recognised for your efforts.

Has the blog led to any unforeseen benefits?

Nathan: Unforeseen benefits? Nothing that springs to mind. Apart from the above, it’s not like I’ve had girls asking me out on dates or anything because ‘I’m that guy behind Redswish’… although that would be awesome!

What other methods of self promotion do you use?

Nathan: Now I’m full-time at Flame, self-promotion’s not an issue like it was when I was freelancing and trying to bring in work. But I enjoy networking. I’m a big fan of Twitter, though little else online. The majority of other social networking sites throw too much bullshit at you, I enjoy Twitter for it’s simplicity. Off the computer, I attend the occasional meet-up and am always happy to contact fellow designers when I appreciate their work. That’s not so much for the purpose of self-promotion but it does get your name around.

Of course being good at what you do helps, other people will spread the word for you if you stand out. I’ve yet to reach that stage but I’ve had the pleasure of working with some people who are so skilled, you hear about them everywhere. Maybe that will be me one day :)

Your experiences

Do you maintain a blog? Have you found it useful for self-promotional purposes?

Self promotion mini-series articles

• Part 1: Entering/winning awards
• Part 2: Speaking at events
• Part 3: Blogging

Dan Donald is a web developer currently working fulltime for RetroFuzz in Manchester and taking on freelance work too. Dan has recently started to speak at events: so far, he has featured on a panel with Elliot Jay Stocks at Web Developers Conference in Bristol and spoke at several Barcamps.

How did get your first speaking gig?

Dan: It was quite random but I think Twitter played a big part in it. Part of trying to raise awareness of my name in the industry has just been to try and take part and be vocal if I have something to add to a conversation. I think Alex (one of the organisers) saw some of that and checked my blog out and offered me the gig.

Why have you decided to make the leap into public speaking?

Dan: For me, it helps to consolidate what I know and question it. You can do your job fine but when you have to articulate what it is you do to a group of people, it’s a different experience entirely. My big thing is the social web and the more social psychology aspects, which is more theoretical than practical, but at BarCamps I’ve had the chance to give that an outlet and get over my nerves in talking to an audience.

Have your talks/panels led to any unforeseen benefits?

Dan: I think to expect work to come directly from them would be expecting too much too soon. I think you have to be realistic and look at it as a means of self-promotion but one that takes time. If you look at what Elliot Jay Stocks has done over the last year or so with being a lot more seen at events and read on the web and in print. I’m looking to slowly build a niche and so I don’t have any expectations of results, whereas for Elliot, who is full-time freelance, it might well be more about being visible for credibility and work offers.

I guess one benefit is that at BarCamps and other events is that you can get to meet some really interesting people. At BarCampBrighton3 after dConstruct, many of the speakers were there as well as guys from MySpace and The Guardian so you have a chat over a beer and really learn something.

What advice would you offer to someone who wanted to follow your lead?

Dan: Don’t be afraid! I know the first BarCamp I went to I was really nervous about giving a presentation. I hadn’t been to hardly any conferences or meet-ups so I didn’t know what to expect; whether other developers had the whole one-upmanship thing. I talked about what I knew and wanted to encourage debate at the end – I knew I didn’t have all the answers nor was Ian authority on my topic, so I wanted to hear what other like-minded people thought.

It’s worth going to something like GeekUp, venturing to a BarCamp and getting to a conference like dConstruct or Future of Web Design – meet some people, start getting involved. Blog about your experiences and keep in touch with the people you meet, if only through Twitter.

What other methods of self promotion do you use?

Dan: I don’t do much freelance so I’m not tracking down all the opportunities I could, but I’m trying to build up my ‘personal brand’ (hate that term) and so once I settled on a name I wanted to use (Here in the Hive), I use it for anything related to me as a developer on the web. I read everything I can and comment when I have something to say so using MyBlogLog and setting up a Gravatar is a very simple way of having your image follow you around the web. I try to blog fairly often and use Twitter a fair bit too. Part of it is finding your niche, where you maybe fit into the spectrum of things from design, developer, front-end guy, hard-core coder, etc and build up a name for what you know and can do.

Your experiences

Have you done any public speaking or would you like to in the future?

Self promotion mini-series articles

• Part 1: Entering/winning awards
• Part 2: Speaking at events
• Part 3: Blogging

Matt Booth is a freelance Flash developer based in the North West and working for clients such as LOVE Creative, Poke, and McFaul to name but a few. The work Matt has done while freelancing earned him a Big Chip Award in 2008. He is also the organiser of the creative meet-up group, Northern Digitals.

Why did you decide to enter the Big Chip awards?

Matt: I’ve had success in previous Big Chip Awards while working full-time and I wanted to see how I would fair since going freelance.

For a freelancer the awards are an important self promotional tool. All I was hoping for was to be shortlisted, giving me a news article to approach potential clients with.

I entered the awards myself asking a couple of clients to write a few words on what it had been like working with me. I feel this swung it for me really.

Do you think winning the award has led to an increase in business?

Matt: Winning the award has certainly raised my profile but I can’t say if it has directly led to an increase in business

Although the Big Chip Awards are very well know and respected in the North, a lot of my work comes from other areas so I did have to go on a bit of a PR offensive to let people know about the awards themselves and my success in them.

Has winning the award led to any unforeseen benefits?

Matt: Yes it has. This year I’ve been lucky to be featured in a couple of trade publications including a few issues of Computer Arts Projects. Although this came from approaching them myself rather than the awards directly, they were very keen to hear my take on them.

I have now built up a great relationship with the magazine will be working with them more next year including my first tutorial for them in January’s issue.

Do you think the award has increased your credibility in the eyes of existing/potential clients?

Matt: I’ve not had potential clients contacting me as a direct result of the award, but when approaching new clients winning the award is just as an important part of my portfolio as who I’ve worked for.

What other methods of self promotion do you use?

Matt: Self promotion for me as a freelancer is extremely important but relatively simple. If people aren’t aware of you, you are unlikely to get work. So I concentrate on contacting the agencies, designers, developers I want to work with wherever they may be. I contact the publications in the hope of some coverage and I’m making more of an effort to get involved with relevant meetup groups. Also using sites such as Linked-in, Behance, Carbonmade is a simple way to get noticed.

It’s an ongoing task though so I will be looking at new ways of self promotion in the new year.

You’ve also recently started a local meetup group. What’s the reasoning behind that?

Matt: I found myself complaining about the lack of meet up groups in and around Manchester for creatives as well as a lack of communication between the agencies.

I find myself working in London quite a lot and there are dozens of informal meet up groups and events you can attend during the week.

So one Friday afternoon I decided stop complaining and set Northern Digitals up. The response has been fantastic with around 170 members so far and around 40-50 people from all aspects of the creative industry coming along to each event.

The idea is simple really and nothing new. It’s an informal meet up on the first Thursday of every month where creatives get together in a bar in Manchester and make new contacts.

I will also be looking at developing Northern Digitals in the new year, but more news on that will follow.

Has the meetup group had any positive effects on your business?

Matt: I wouldn’t say it has had a positive effect on my business in terms of getting work, but what it has done is strengthen my list contacts, after meeting designers, photographers, illustrators, developers etc I wouldn’t have normally met. The great thing about the meet up is that it has done exactly the same for the people who attend, which was the main reason for setting it up.

Your experiences

Have you been nominated or won any industry awards? Have they lead to any work related benefits?

Self promotion mini-series articles

• Part 1: Entering/winning awards
• Part 2: Speaking at events
• Part 3: Blogging

This week, I posted several yellow boxes to my best clients of 2008 as a way of saying thank you and also as a way of saying ‘hello, don’t forget about me.’

Why?

I’ve worked in offices before and xmas means one thing; presents from suppliers. These bribes gifts usually come in the form of bottles of wine or similar – one year I got a dog blanket from Google!

For some reason, freelancers don’t tend to do this or should I say, they don’t always see themselves as a supplier and often don’t realise that these little touches can set them apart from the competition.

My hope is that it says two things:

1. Thank you.
2. and that I’m a little more professional/creative than some other freelancers.

It’s worth mentioning that this tactic really wasn’t as cynical as it could appear. 2008 really was great for me and I really did want to say thank you to the people who made it so much fun (and financially rewarding).

What was in the boxes

The boxes contained lots of yellow things including: highlighter pens, packets of juicy fruit chewing gum, dried custard, and M&Ms and also a few other fun yellow things such as a toy car and a rubber duck.

Let’s not go overboard here, I could have put in some really expensive yellow trinkets in the boxes but that wasn’t really the point; the point was the packaging. I wanted to create an experience for the people receiving and opening the box; something that made them laugh and possibly made the colleagues around them wish that they’d been sent a yellow box too.

Hmm…

Yes, I know it’s a little camp to be sending clients little yellow boxes; especially considering all but one box went to male clients. I think that because it’s xmas and because of the content of the boxes any awkwardness can be overlooked – just. It’s an important point, while it’s important to appear friendly it’s more important to not been seen as creepy and weird and I think, I managed to stay on the right side of the line.

If you want to receive a yellow box (or similar) next xmas you’ll have to hire me.

Did you receive a yellow box? What did you think? Or did you send your clients a little gift to say thanks this year?

What happened

If you’re unaware of the situation, here’s a short synopsis: Ryan Carson, of Carsonified, announces on twitter that it’s a sad day at the office. After some probing (also via twitter) Carson announces that his company has had to make some employees redundant. A little while later, Carson publishes a blog post about how small businesses can avoid the problems a recession brings and part of that post details what employees can do to avoid being made redundant.

The tone of the blog post seems to lay the blame of the employees redundancies upon their own shoulders as opposed to those of management and a lot of people commented on the post with comments to that effect.

Hmm…

A lot of the hullabaloo seems to permeate around the idea that Ryan Carson, is a god-like figure that should admired at all cost and that his observations on small internet businesses were once golden but now those same opinions are worthless – furthermore, he’s an insensitive prat.

Whereas in reality, all this situation has exposed is the fact that Carson is a human, as opposed to the web superhero some built him up to be. The bottom-line is this: yes, Carson has offered good advice in the past and no, the fact that his company has had to make some employees redundant does not mean that his previous advice was worthless and nor will be his future advice. In fact, having gone through this dreadful situation, I believe will make the Carsonified leader a better businessman.

For me, the commenter Pascal put it best when he said:

People seem hurt to find out that you are just human, that you weren’t writing the Gospel according to Ryan but are merely sharing your observations on business life for people to assimilate into their own approaches.

But was it insensitive to blog about the redundancies?

It would seem so, however, Carson has claimed that he had his employee’s permission to publish this article and I believe it has damaged Carson’s reputation far more than that of his former employees’. I’d be rather surprised if those three people had not received job offers already by now. I fully imagine, many an employer would see that fact that some Carsonified staff are now available as a golden opportunity to get some very good workers onboard.

It’s very difficult to say whether the decision to make people redundant was a good or a bad business decision, nobody except for those involved in running the business have all the facts to make that judgement call. At this stage, it’s also impossible to declare this as a PR disaster, after all, Carsonified’s early bird discounted tickets sold out as planned on Monday not long after the incident and I for one, bought a ticket. So, without trivialising the redundancies, it would seem on the surface that the only damage done is that of a bruised ego for Mr Carson.

Summary

Whether or not, it was morally justified to write the original post, it was certainly interesting and I definitely learnt a lot from it. Blunt articles of this nature, may make for upsetting reading for some but I think we should all be grateful that people like Ryan Carson are taking the time to blog about their businesses and the (harsh) lessons they’re constantly learning.

Did you follow the Carsonified carnage on the blogosphere? What’s your take on it all?