• Pick a weapon of choice

Today, it seems like every web designer and developer has a different content management that they use. Some are better than others, but who’s to tell them what to use? Some prefer WordPress, some prefer Drupal, some prefer Joomla, some prefer Magento over OsCommerce, and some prefer writing everything from scratch (which I would not recommend unless you just crave the challenge.) No single decision of CMS platform is wrong. Although, I would say that some CMS’s are a better fit than others when choosing which CMS to use. For example, you wouldn’t use WordPress to create an eCommerce website for over 8,000 products… it just isn’t realistic.

I said all of that to say this. When in the web design business, a lot of your tasks seem repetitive. You will re-produce similar characteristics on each site you make, and will run into the same issues time and time again – it is best to know how to resolve these issues by knowing your CMS of choice inside and out. Instead of trying to master WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, OsCommerce, vBulletin, phpBB…(the list goes on and on and on)… try to master just one or two of them. In some cases, if the CMS is flexible enough (such as Drupal) you can do pretty much anything you want with it.

Over the years, I’ve used a lot of content management systems, including all of the ones listed above. I’ve built my knowledge around the ones that I like (in my case this would be WordPress and Magento). Because I’ve had  a lot of experience with these, I’m comfortable working with them. In months and years to come, I would like to make the transition to mastering Drupal, due to it’s flexibility and endless possibilities. If you’re not familiar with the flexibility of Drupal, I would recommend checking out the different Drupal distributions.

• Do work for yourself

This tip could be interpreted in a few different ways, most of which apply. One thing that is a big misconception in the service industry is that “the customer is always right”. The customer is not always right. The customer may know what they want or what they would like to have, but it may not be the most beneficial thing for the customer. Instead of fulfilling every need of the customer, consult with them to what you think is best. If you know, for a fact, that what the client is wanting will hurt them in the long run, simply don’t do it and refuse service to them. If you wouldn’t do it for yourself, don’t do it for your customer. Sure, business is business and money is money, but the web design industry is about more than just making a buck… in order to have repeat customers, you have to produce a high quality product that will produce results. If the customer doesn’t get this from you, they won’t be back, regardless of whether or not it is what they wanted to begin with.

The second way that this could be interpreted could be more focused on who you hire, when you hire them, and whether or not you really need them or not. Of course, hiring employees and outsourcing is a part of almost every business, but investing more time into doing something yourself results in spending less money on employee expenses. The purpose of a business is to make money. If you don’t need someone, don’t hire them. Don’t hire until you have absolutely no more time to do it yourself and have no other option.

• Be Creative

This is pretty obvious. If you’re not creative, you’re going to look like every other company on the block (or online). People are so accustomed to having advertisements thrown in their face that they have adapted to ignore them. Think of the advertisements that you have saw or heard in the past hour or two. If you can’t remember any of them, then they must not have caught your attention and the advertiser lost your business because they did not catch your attention. Most business are too vague and bland for people to remember. Truth is “Come buy from us, we have great deals” simply just doesn’t cut it anymore.

How is your business unique? How do you stand out? Maybe having a pink flamingo with sunglasses sipping a Piña colada doesn’t seem like a good idea for creating a professional business, and maybe you’re right – but I bet people would remember it. Being professional isn’t always better. Being known means being in business.

•  Quality over Quanity

It’s better to produce 5 really great websites than it is to produce 15 mediocre websites. Developing a relationship with your client is more than a “one and done” scenario. In most cases, when you provide quality work for a client, they trust you for anything else that they need in the future. Choosing a web design service is almost as bad as gambling – sure everyone says that they can get the job done but how well is that job going to be accomplished once they’re done.

Producing better quality doesn’t mean only in the jobs that you do for your client, it also means after sale support. If a client is really satisfied with their website but has questions on how to update it or trying to get something fixed – be there to help them. Otherwise they’ll see right through you and know that you’re only looking for the next dollar. Business owners (and most clients) don’t have time to be concerned with simple tasks. In the eyes of a client, updating their website should be a simple task – because they have other things to worry about such as running a business, changing pricing, and making profits to stay in business.

• Don’t be afraid to say no

I’m sure you’ve heard it before in the business world. When someone asks “Can you do this for me” the answer should always be “Yes!” So many people have said it, it must be true, right? Wrong. If you cannot effectively produce the quality that your client needs, don’t accept the project. If you know that the client is unknowingly asking you to do a years worth of work for pocket change, don’t accept the project. If you know that the project that your client is wanting will hurt their company in the long run, don’t be a part of it. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty, but at the same time, don’t agree to something that is flat out ridiculous.

Clients have the privilege of choosing from a number of web design or marketing firms based on who they think is qualified to work for their company and their companies budget. If you don’t think that your company is the right fit, don’t take the business. In some peoples opinion, this may be bad business to reject a customer – but I look at it this way: If you can’t do the job or don’t think that it is in the best interest for the client then don’t say you will. This tip alone builds integrity in your company that is easy for your client base to see.

Having a small client base of 5 loyal companies who trust in you, your work, and your advice is easier to manage than having 20 not so loyal companies who only want you to “make a website”. The web design and development industry is more than just making a website. Having a website that produces no profit or sales will not yield a satisfied customer.

Having an online business is not only easier, but also cheaper. When you open up a local business you have a variety of permits you have to obtain and a location to buy – which might cost several thousands of dollars that you don’t have or want to risk borrowing, so unfortunately you might be forced to get a loan and spend years paying it off. Having an online business means just the opposite. There is very little risk and not a lot of up front expenses. Putting up a website is as simple as buying a domain name, buying hosting, and uploading files. Putting a little bit of time in making your website look good and making sure that you’re products are well listed and appealing to potential customers can save you a lot of money in the long run. Throwing money at a problem does not always solve it. Putting the time forth, however, normally gets things done a lot more effectively.

Computers, phones, and laptops don’t cost as much as they did ten years ago and the cost goes down every year. Therefore, it is a wise decision to start a business online – after all, the internet is here to stay.

When you need to update your online store, all you have to do is find a computer and it is accessible from anywhere in the world. Having to drive to work or get up early just to make it to the office is a thing of the past. The time that is normally spent on driving to work can be spent doing other tasks that could be more helpful, such as processing the orders that came through on your website from the night before. Having this flexibility allows people to not only cut expenses, but also start businesses from their own home. What once would take an entire office or team to accomplished can now be accomplished on a single laptop computer.

Business online is much different than business in a local environment – not only in a buyers perspective, but also in an employers perspective. When a business owner needs to hire a new employee to do a certain task, they are given the constraint of having only their local community to choose from. With the internet being global, online businesses can now hire employees globally and accomplish the same tasks just as efficiently. Maybe you don’t want to hire locally because you can’t find anyone that can do the job at the price you want? No problem – there’s a whole world out there who wants to do business with you, you just have to open the doors to your online business.

The simple answer is Magento. Magento is a versatile and powerful product management and shopping cart system that allows any business to take their business and grow an online presence. Although, I will admit that when I first started using Magento for client’s websites, it was hard to get used to the large file structure and different frameworks that it uses such as Mage and Zend. As a learning Magento developer, I found that learning which file to edit and how the files interact with one another was the hardest part of the whole process.

Another thing that was a little hard to grasp was mass uploading products. The first Magento project that I created was for an online wholesaler who distributed over 8,000 products online. Getting these products into the right store categories was a headache, but once it was finished it was well worth it.

Magento is open source and has a large number of great developers behind it. Magento is a system that is sophisticated enough to manage everything that an online store needs, while at the same time, is easy enough for the average business owner to log in and change what needs to be changed (i.e. prices, product descriptions, cross sales, promotions, coupon codes..etc). Not only is Magento equipped with everything that the store owner needs out-of-the-box, there are also a large number of great plugins and modules that can be installed directly to the website through Magento Connect – which can be accessed directly through the back admin panel of the magento store.

As stated before, there are many different highly noted eCommerce platforms to choose from such as OsCommerce, Drupal + Ubercart, Joomla + VirtueMart, OpenCart, ZenCart, CubeCart, and many others that I’ve failed to mention. (Note: I say highly noted because I only have experience with OsCommerce and Magento).

Although each of the above eCommerce systems have their own perks and benefits, I chose to pick one that I thought was a good solution and built my knowledge around it. I’m sure that other eCommerce systems are capable of being great solutions as well, and possibly even better considering each projects unique needs.

Magento also offers a new service known as Magento Go for business and store owners who do not want to spend a lot of time and money on hiring a designer and developer to completely customize their website to their liking, and is a great solution for people on a smaller budget or are just starting out.

All in all, I would recommend Magento to anyone who is looking for an eCommerce solution. Magento supports many feature and is used by a lot of successful businesses such as FOX, Ford, The North Face, Vizio, Office Max, K-Swiss, and many more.

If you’re a designer or developer who is interested in learning a new eCommerce system, my advice would be to pick one that supports the features that you’ll be using the most and functionality that you need and stick with it. If you’re a Drupal user who is comfortable with the framework, Drupal + Ubercart may be a better fit than Magento (and likewise with Joomla).

Feel free to post a comment on which platform you use and why you chose to use it.

• Drupal is a CMS.

Yes. Drupal is a CMS, as well as a framework. Although I wouldn’t really even consider it much of a framework because the API changes dramatically every 6 months.

• Drupal is flexible

Yeah, sure, Drupal is very flexible. I’m not denying the fact that Drupal is a great platform to do a lot of cool stuff on – such as Open Atrium. But the fact is, that people are more concerned with being able to get a website up and start publishing their content instead of having worry about taking 4 hours to figure out how to put “the box on the left”.

• Most new websites are made with WordPress

Statistics

Why? It’s not hard to figure out. It’s pretty easy to figure out actually. WordPress is easier than Drupal. In the original post that I made, I never said that Drupal was impossible to figure out, I just said that the complexity of WordPress was a lot more simpler than Drupal.

• Drupal claims “without a line of code”

My main focus on the article regarding WordPress vs. Drupal was to state that WordPress was simpler for the common user. (You know, those who typically have a life outside of learning how to write code for complex API’s and just want a website to get some content online). The purpose was to prove the whole “build a website without typing a line of code” theory wrong. I’m sure open atrium wasn’t built in a WYSIWYG editor, wouldn’t you agree?

• Flexibility can be achieved with WordPress, just as it can with Drupal.

As stated above, Drupal has great flexibility – but denying the fact that WordPress has the ability to be as flexible wouldn’t be accurate. As stated in the previous article, Drupal has 6,000 modules. Of those 6,000, how many are kept maintained? Of those that are kept maintained, how long will they be maintained and will they continue to be developed when the next version of Drupal comes out?

Also, eventhough WordPress and Drupal are both CMS’s, it’s kinda like comparing apples to oranges. I, personally, would not use Drupal for a blog – because I would choose WordPress. I would not use Drupal for eCommerce – because I would choose Magento. I would not use Drupal for a forum – because I would use vBulletin. So no, Drupal and WordPress technically aren’t the same things.

A lot of people compare Drupal to Lego building blocks. You start with the foundation and build on top of it. I have an analogy (at least for a large part of newer people to Drupal) of my own. Drupal is like a Rubik cube. Sure, some people know how to solve it, but for those who have never messed with it are clueless – at least for development anyways. Contrib means having to rely on other people to keep their stuff up to date in order to keep your website up to date as well. If I’m building a $10,000+ project for a client, I’d rather have more than “We can fix that problem whenever the module developer updates their module” to tell my customer.

Anyways, I’m rambling. Bottom line… The flexibility can be arguable between Drupal and WordPress – that’s not my argument, I don’t care to argue about it, I don’t have time to argue about it. To each their own. As far as simplicity goes, it’s WordPress by far. Don’t get me wrong, Drupal is a great project. I would love to see Drupal grow as a community and a product, but the complexity of the API is only going to discourage new users from using it – I’ve seen it happen on countless occasions.

• Step 1: Write a business plan.

Knowing what you’re going to do before you actually do it is a great thing to know. Instead of making decisions on the fly, have a general idea of what you’re going to do or want to do. Don’t consider your business plan a “business plan”. Think of it as a “to do list’ instead. A plan is generally a list of things that will go wrong. A to-do list is a list of things that are of high importance on your agenda that you need to do in order to get the ball rolling.

• Step 2: Make sure you have the money and time.

You should know not to start a business if you do not have the time to start and maintain it. You don’t always have to have the money because you are able to get a loan but it takes more time, so right now it’s more important to worry about time you have to spend on your business. Most businesses choose to throw more money at problems rather than more time, resulting in unnecessary spending and profit losses.

• Step 3: Ask for help or find business partner.

Make sure there is someone there supporting you through every step of starting your business. It’s easier to stay motivated and focused if you have someone that is going to admire the work that you do and say “good job” every now and then. The expression “two heads are better than one” is used a lot. In some cases, this isn’t always true. For example… making your business appealing to you will also make your business appealing to others. Small companies have a benefit over larger companies, in that larger companies use a board of directors or multiple people that make decisions. When more people are involved, businesses are less flexible. Don’t let your size bother you, because in all actuality, being small is an advantage. Without a little social interaction in our lives, things tend to be boring. You may also decide to have a business partner, but make sure that you and your partner are on the same page when it comes to business goals and where the business should be headed. Two heads aren’t always better. One is much more efficient if you’re motivated, have a clear mind, and produce work or goods that only you would consider buying. If you wouldn’t like it, why would you expect someone else to?

• Step 4:  Determine the legal structure for your business.

When starting a business you must make sure you are qualified for starting and maintaining the business. There are things such as taxes and permits you will need to obtain. Understand local licensing requirements can and will vary depending on the state that your business is in.

• Step 5: Find location.

If you want to start a local business then you must choose a good location. When choosing a good location you need to know where people like to go and where you can be seen in the open. On the other hand, which is going to be more cost efficient? Do you absolutely have to have a showroom? Can you share office space with another company? Maybe, perhaps, you can even do your work from home and cut out the expense of having an additional bill altogether.

• Step 6: Register business name.

Your business’ legal name is required on all government forms and applications.  It is different in each state. To find out how to register for one in your state go to this website http://www.sba.gov/content/register-your-fictitious-or-doing-business-dba-name/

• Step 7: Get a tax identification number.

This can be obtained from the IRS. (Phone: 1-800-829-4933). You are responsible for any and all income that you make through your business when it comes tax time.

• Step 8: Register for state and local taxes, business license, and permits.

As you probably already know tax laws are different for each state, but in most states you are required to obtain a tax permit. Business licenses differ in every state, but more information can be obtained from your local courthouse.

• Step 9:  Learn the legal steps you need to take to hire employees.

To hire employees you need to obtain an employment identification number. You can do this through the IRS.

• Step 10: Start your business.

Once you’ve done the appropriate steps to becoming a legal business, it’s time to start getting the rocket off of the launch pad. Do everything that needs to be done. This may be including renting office space, having business cards created, or networking with people who can help you. Don’t make the mistake of hiring a lot of people as soon as your business starts. Don’t hire until you absolutely have to. This is a common mistake that a lot of businesses make. Hiring a lot of people can not only drain your money supply quickly, but it can also be unnecessary.

• Step 12: Advertise!

As you can see above the steps are not that easy and it takes time, so make sure you have it before you start your business. The last step you saw was the step to advertise. Advertising is a great thing when starting a business because you can get more business and become more popular, but don’t make the mistake of investing too much money in advertising and being too far in debt that you can’t get out. Make sure that you take baby steps in achieving your goals. Larger decisions lead to larger consequences, where smaller steps generally lead to smaller consequences. It is easier to get and find more business by advertising, but make sure you are prepared to handle the workload that this creates. Advertising is also good for finding employees and hiring. Now you should understand the basic steps for starting a business.

Step 13: Don’t rush it! Don’t forget the details!

If you were paying attention to the step numbers, you would see that step number 11 was left out. This isn’t because we don’t know how to count, it is because our last and final step is about paying attention to details. Starting a business is not an easy task. Sure, with today’s technology we are given access to more resources and advertising, but business is still business. Make sure you pay attention to details, especially when first beginning your business. Small details now could mean a big deal down the road. Just make sure you have everything in order before taking the next step.

The original article rated, both drupal and wordpress, on a 10 point scale – 10 being the hardest and 1 being the easiest.

Keep in mind that I have 10+ years of experience in design and development, mainly in CSS and PHP. That being said, the article claimed that if WordPress was a 6 on the level of difficulty, then Drupal was a 4.

Let me be the first to say that this couldn’t be more untrue. When you first install Drupal you are presented with a blog-like plain-jane website with not much functionality. In order to take advantage of everything that Drupal has to offer, you first have to grasp the concept of contrib modules from the drupal.org website.

After you understand what the most popular modules do, you then have to install them and figure out how to use them, which is no easy walk in the park. Some modules appear to do nothing, and can be very confusing.

Drupal prides itself on having a large number of contrib modules and a large developer base – since it has over 6,000 modules to choose from. The problem is that most of these modules aren’t maintained and can cause a lot of problems with your website if you’re not careful. If a developer stops updating their module, you’re then forced to learn the God awful API and develop your own or find an alternative module.

When I first started using Drupal, the idea of theme design and development was very confusing to me so I decided to sign up for an online tutorial video series (only to find out that 90% of their videos were from Drupal 6 instead of Drupal 7 and are way outdated, but that’s beside the point). Theme design was pretty easy after I figured out what I was doing, but getting blocks and specific things on a page can be a pain in the ass sometimes. For example, I spent three hours trying to figure out how to place a search box on both the homepage and the sidebar of the internal pages – it’s not as user friendly as it claims to be.

On top of it all, in order to really grasp the full functionality and flexibility of Drupal development, you have to first grasp the complex (and constantly getting more complex) Drupal API. I have been a PHP developer for years, but taking one look at the Drupal API makes me sick. It is way too complex to be considered “easy”. It uses complex array’s for just about everything that the site produces, and the API documentation on drupal.org is by far the most confusing thing I have ever tried to comprehend.

WordPress on the other hand, I had no problem catching on to. Developing themes for WordPress… simple. Finding plugins for WordPress… simple. Every problem that I have ever encountered with WordPress I have been able to solve with a few minutes worth of research on Google.

I can’t remember where I found the original article that compared the difficulty of Drupal to WordPress, but I do have some of my own figures.

10 being the most, 1 being the least:

Usibility

Drupal: 8 (if you can figure out the complex API, if not… then I would give it a 4)
WordPress: 8

Flexibility

Drupal: 8 (once again, if you can figure it out.. if not.. then I’d give it a 4)
WordPress: 7

Complexity

Drupal: 8
WordPress: 3

User Friendly Administration

Drupal: 5
WordPress: 10

All in all, Drupal focuses their marketing on being able to make a website without writing a single line of code. If someone has personally been able to create a Drupal website without writing any code, please leave me a comment because I would like to hear from you – you may be the only person in the world who has achieve this task.

Rework isn’t a very long book and I finished it in a couple of nights by reading for just an hour of two per night – and I’m no speed reader. The book is divided by topics rather than chapters and there is a picture representing each topic what seems like every other page, making this book only about half as long as it actually looks.

Although I don’t agree with every detail in the book, it does bring up a lot of good points and still believe that this is a great book. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys new ideas regarding business and management.

If you’re interested, you can pick up a copy on Amazon.

Maybe you know of some of the great folks that run and operate Ingram’s, or maybe you have bought from them before, but what you may not have known is that a very little portion of their sales are made locally. Ingram’s water and air has been in business for over 15 years. In 2003 they chose to expand their business even further and develop an eCommerce website. In 2009, Captiv8 Creative had the privilege to help Ingram’s expand their online growth and marketing campaigns even further as full-time in-house web development and online marketing. Now, in 2011, Ingram’s is noted as one of the top 5000 fastest growing companies in the United States (otherwise known as the INC 5000).

A lot of hard work and planning has gone into the different projects that we have completed along the way, and we will continue to work with these guys for many years to come.

Our Task

Ingram’s Water and Air wanted a robust eCommerce website developed for their alloysafe.com domain name as a secondary source of income from their main website, ingramswaterandair.com. Because the OSCommerce platform is somewhat outdated, we chose to use Magento to develop this new site.

With over 7,000 heating and air conditioning, water treatment, and air purification products to add to the website, we knew that the platform would have to be flexible and stable. Importing the products from the Ingram’s existing OSCommerce website to Magento did seem to be somewhat of an issue, but once we figured it out, everything else was easy.

Much to our surprise, Magento turned out to be extremely nice – although the file structure seems to be extremely large and it requiring a lot of server resources.

Magento provides features that OSCommerce could not, and has an extremely clean and easy to navigate back admin panel. Alloysafe was our first Magento success.

When a number of people specialize in a particular area, the topic can become confusing due to the amount of specifications and vocabulary that is used. In the heating and air conditioning, or HVAC, industry, this is no different. When people shop for a new system, they don’t want to be bothered with having to research new words or understand new concepts.

Because of the complexity of Ingram’s industry, we decided that it would be best if we could provide customers with a simple, easy to understand, popup window that a customer could view when they didn’t understand a particular topic. The original idea behind this was to have somewhat of a “virtual sales person” that could guide the buyer though different aspects of choosing the right system for their home.

Of course, like all projects, a lot of work was involved. To get the videos recorded, we first had to write the scripts in order for the actors to know what to say. After all 40 scripts were written, we sent them off for recording.

When we finally received the raw footage from these videos we decided that it would be best if we kept them in a separate part of the website so that the user could still browse without being interupted – there is nothing that will make a customer leave faster than having a video popup and play every time they click to a new page.

Once we had these videos all put together on a separate popup-video type of display, we then went in and added the appropriate FAQ’s to the categories on the Ingram’s website – resulting in a virtual salesperson that they can call on when they don’t understand something.