I was scouring my new Twitter list of bloggers yesterday when I spotted one from my friend from the SOBCons I’ve attended, Chris Cree, who was saying he registered to attend the Orlando WordCamp in December. I got so excited about the potential about attending a WordPress event so close to home AND with a friend, I had to check my college final schedule. We have the option of a Friday or Sunday final exam for Spanish, so I’m opting for taking it on Friday night to get it off my mind.

I also contacted Michael Pretty about serving (volunteering) at the Genius Bar for WordPress help with themes, plugins, usage, etc. I’ve got a whole box of business cards for anyone who wants the follow-up treatment after the conference.

Raise your hand if you hate your job. Go ahead, your boss won’t know why you’re raising your hand in your cube. Unless you’re some freak of the system that landed in your dream job straight out of school, college, or the insane asylum, everyone has hated their job at some point or another. A certain percentage work through it to find joy in their work while the rest either find new employment or look forward to Monday Night Football and the weekend.

Getting fired from my last job just may have been the best thing that happened to me since a certain someone said, “I do,” but getting to this point has been a long journey for me. We can finally say the business is successful and sustainable. Every month we wonder who will be on my plate the next month, but the next month has been continually booked for months now. I have some insight into why I think Petersen Media Group is successful as a new business that started with zero capital.

Know Thy Customer

The first key to getting the work and completing the work as expected is to understand the scope and your customer’s tastes. For whatever reason the vast majority of my designs (all but two or three) go unchanged from what I set out to accomplish for the draft presentation of a site. When something just isn’t right about a design, try to take the initiative to change it before presenting it if your gut tells you that it is an improvement.

The Important Question Is:

What can I do to make the customer feel important. Clients are what puts food on the table, keeps the lights on, and a roof over our heads. There’s no denying that situation, so it’s best to figure out what to do on a project in the plan, estimate, or delivery that will make them a fan for life. New customers are great, but what’s better is a new customer who is so impressed with your work that they not only use you for a second project right away but tell their friends about their new site and how great their experience was dealing with you. THAT is where the stability comes, my friends.

Protect and Serve

Sometimes I amaze myself and dismay those who are aware of how much time I spend with clients at what lengths I go to for ensuring client satisfaction. It doesn’t serve me or my client to leave them unhappy with my product. It’s far better for everyone involved to do such a superior job that it creates a fan who can’t stop talking about me. Those people are out there and keep the work coming in week after week, sometimes day after day.

I’m not saying that you should work for free or under promise and over deliver. What I am saying is that you need to pick your battles with your clients and yourself to determine what it is worth to your business to eat some time or offer a discount for work that goes above and beyond.

To sign up for my e-mail list for WordPress tips and special offers, click here.

Every small business owner or freelancer has been there: working on a project that is going downhill. If it hasn’t happened, you haven’t been doing it long enough. For me, it happened about 9 weeks into working for myself when we went over a week without any new clients and I’d already finished all of the work that had come in. I was weak, vulnerable. I let the client run the show, so here is how I’ve avoided making the same mistake again.

• Whenever possible, I attempt to get as much information as possible about the project in writing before discussing over voice because calls can drag on.
• I try to limit calls to 30 minutes. That’s an acceptable loss of time if it doesn’t work out and also reasonably rolled into my project pricing so I can recoup the time if the project goes on the low end of time spent.
• I don’t barter for my services. There is no working for commission that may or may not come from a site or other delayed payment option. That will not pay my mortgage or put food on my table. That is a risk.
• I don’t negotiate my prices. My prices are fair, my service is impeccable, and my character is untarnished.
• Want to meet to discuss a potential project? Sure, but you’re paying a consulting fee if it doesn’t work out. I spent 3 hours at Panera (5 hours away from home) with someone who wanted to pay for the work with commission generated from the site. I’d like those 3 hours of my life back or the money due for that time.
• I try to determine as quickly as possible whether or not the task will involve a lot of technical changes (hosting or site platform) that will entail additional correspondence or labor. Some clients need ALL of the work done for them and don’t know any of their login information – they have to start over from scratch.
• I write the terms into every estimate and invoice I send to the client so it’s clear when payment is expected, what is included, when my tasks are done, etc.
• If things start to go badly, take the initiative and make contact to let them know the situation and discuss modification of terms or refunding their money after ensuring the project ends on good terms.
• I reserve the right to break my own rules in favor of the client, but I also reserve the right to stick to my guns.

Statistically speaking, I’d venture a guess that I have an 80% enrollment rating from any sort of contact, 95% invoicing of clients by referral, and only 1 “good terms” refund from 139 invoices when the scope changed too drastically.

I hope this helps you avoid your own client nightmares and leads to many happy encounters. Are there any additional tips or suggestions that you or your company use when feeling out potential clients?

Last week was full of papers due, studying for my second Spanish exam on Saturday, family time while my sister-in-law was back in town, and a whole slew of work projects. My backlog is a pretty long line now, but I’m working through it. Partially to explain why I may appear too busy for some of you and partially to actually create a list for me to see, here’s what is on my plate:

• E-commerce exam due Tuesday night
• Tech writing lab due Tuesday by 2pm
• Tech writing project due by next Tuesday at 2pm
• American Lit essay due next Tuesday at noon
• Equity in the Workplace discussion board posts y Wednesday at midnight
• Wrapping up a chef’s site
• Wrapping up a speaker’s site
• Getting into the Pearson book site to update for their latest book
• Wrapping up a personal blog
• Wrapping up a small packaging site
• Migrating a business site that b5 Media is dropping
• Converting a good friend’s site to Thesis and rocking it out
• Designing my parent’s blog around their newly-installed Thesis theme.
• Starting a packaging site project of epic proportions
• Starting a packaging site from another packager
• Send out our next newsletter
• Eat
• Sleep
• Be merry

The good news is that we have been blessed with income through the middle of December already, but I’ve got a lot of plates spinning that need to come down safely to not create a mess.

Three years ago today, at 1:00pm EST, a certain lady changed my life forever by saying two words, “I do.” Maybe it was,  “I will,” but that little detail is neither here nor there. What matters is that she said, “yes” to wanting to get married and followed through with it. What do I mean by saying such an extravagant statement about her life-changing commitment? I’m so glad you asked.

I used to be a mess. I couldn’t keep a dime in the bank. I had no clue how to dress in anything other than gray or tan. My car was always full of junk and my trunk was worse. Let’s not even talk about the bio-hazard that I called “my room” everywhere I lived. Seriously, we’re not going there. Right? Good. I couldn’t stay put in a job for more than three years… okay, so some things never change.

In my toast speech I said that sometimes two plus two does equal five – in our case, she more than completed me, she added to me more than I could have imagined would have happened. If I look good some day, it’s because of her. If I’m successful some day, it’s because of her. If I’ve got a spring in my step, it’s because of her. If I’m in a bad mood… well, that might be her, but don’t count on it – some of me has stuck around.

For anyone who missed the wedding, here are twenty-one of my favorite shots that tell the story.

I’m taking an exit requirement course with the general topic of equality in schools and the workplace. It’s my 3rd of its kind since meeting exit requirements for my A.A., so it’s getting pretty boring by this point. Anyway, I thought it might be some good conversation.

I think the first steps to reforming racism is to begin radical social reform in the form of slashing federal and state programs that encourage social delinquency. Here are three of the top social programs that are holding back the progress minorities are looking to achieve but are actually slaves to the system that created the programs. I say this as a former recipient of assistance for the extreme expenses associated with having cystic fibrosis. I’d never choose to limit myself to $1,000/mo income again just for that lousy assistance.

Welfare: gone – if you can’t work, then move in with family – if you had 4 kids with no mom or dad around to help, then you can’t afford to have had them in the first place. If you don’t pay for the car you bought or don’t pay for the insurance on the car you were given, they take it from you, and kids are more valuable than a car.

Social Security: completely broken. I’ve already paid more into it than I’ll ever get out and it sets people up with a false sense of security and entitlement that the gov’t will take care of them just because they worked or got injured. Retirement’s not a right and neither is gov’t spoon-feeding.

Bussing is racist in its purest form. Let me translate what the legislatures and school administrators are saying with a veil of compassion: “those kids are too poor, have too many issues at home, and are possibly too stupid to excel as a group, so if there are some shining stars, lets’ get them out of there to a ‘good school’” How about you hire the same caliber of teachers, pay them the same, fund them the same, and treat those kids like the other schools treat their kids? That’s the racism going on in school!

My wife and I are celebrating 3 years of wedded bliss this month and I was looking through our photos tonight. Here are some highlight photos of just the two of us. Any guesses as to which photo was taken first?

Some days I wish I was paying for an upgraded stat log with StatCounter… clearly someone got a hold of my business workhorse site URL (http://www.jessepetersen.com)and spread it around on September 23rd. 296 visitors and only 7 returning visitors viewed over 400 pages. A good day “at the office” and I didn’t even know it.

Yesterday (October 1st, 2009) our local free newspaper in Tampa (tbt* – http://tampabay.com/tbt/) published a verbatim letter to the editors that they received from an 11th grade student in the area who disagreed with Obama’s push for education reform that includes longer school years/weeks in a long-winded, error-laden piece of mess. Read the original letter to the editors here: “A student’s letter to tbt*”

I’ll be the first to tell you there are a lot of stupid people out there. Students, teachers, parents, workers, bosses… all walks of life. By definition, 50% of the population has a less than average intelligence – something to think about while driving. Despite those terrible statistics that Jay Leno exposes on a regular basis, don’t knock the rest of academia and those who love to learn and keep on learning after it’s not required.

That said, that article is a piece of work… I mean, a piece of art. I’ve spent a good many years proofreading papers and always spot typographic errors in publications. I was an editor for 3 years and know what things look like when a stupid person writes something. To even consider that letter to the editor as a contribution to society is laughable. Even numbskulls know about capitalizing sentences – what they don’t know is how to use parenthetical statements (which that person did twice). There is also a sign of significant intelligence in the actual ideas of the letter, though I’m not sure which provoked the tbt* editors more: the atrocious spelling or the position on the topic that the student took. The very existence of the letter should set off some alarms to the validity of the piece as written by an idiot.

Two more points for kickers: 1) would tbt* have published the piece if it was written with perfect prose – would it have made its way out of a pile of letters they receive every day? 2) if it was written by a dolt, they would have not known how poor the grammar was and would have omitted the request for anonymity.

Here is the first page of the replies to the editor that tbt* received in response to the student letter: Replies to the editor

I am calling for a full-scale investigation of the author to have tbt* report back that said author is actually an honor roll student with plans to attend the USF Honor’s College next fall, but is fearful of any action the university may take against their application if this was attributed to them.

Even with all of the right personal tools for business that get and grow your work, some tools are essential for one’s sanity or to just “get it all done.” With the exception of the latest addition to this list, my clients and my income would be seriously hampered by the elimination of just one of these tools and services. Some have analogues close enough in function that I would adjust, but a world without anything like it would be terrible for business at this point.

FreshBooks

What in the world did people do before invoicing was made so simple? I used PayPal for over a year with pretty good regularity and quickly tired of the steps it takes to create a new invoice and do any more than just one or two changes to it for repeat work. Then someone led me to FreshBooks in January, right before launching my company.

Transmit

Undoubtedly the best FTP client available for Mac, in my eyes at least. If you don’t know what FTP is yet, best be Googling that to manage your site better than those crappy host file managers. I’ve written articles on how to use FTP before, but they are other peoples’ property now, so I’d better write a new one, hadn’t I?

Transmit has so many great features:

• Multiple tabs for being in several clients’ sites at once without taking up extra screen real-estate
• Upload/Download progress icon in the Dock so I can be doing other things without watching it
• Drag and drop logins into various folders (I use “quick jobs,” “clients,” and “archives”) to keep it clean

Skype

I hate to use the phone for business, I really do. You wouldn’t suspect it once you get to know me (until you get to know me really well), but being on voice unnerves me because I always like to have time to respond to questions and situations, especially with a new client/situation. Here is where Skype comes into play.

I pay something like $30/yr to have a local phone number and unlimited calling in and out (free for US and Canada and all Internet-based calls using Skype IDs) for these advantages:

• My home and cell phone numbers stay private (e-mails come at 2am, you’d better believe calls would, too)
• I can literally “unplug” from work at any time by closing the lid on my laptop or closing the Skype client
• I can call using my iPhone Skype app so long as I’m in a wi-fi area – I can call from campus without giving out my cell number via caller ID
• If the number gets out to solicitors or whatnot, it’s totally painless to get a new number
• Free voicemail and caller history logs

Twitter/Tweetie

My business wouldn’t be where it is today without the existence or use of Twitter. One of my biggest clients and all of his referrals are due to Twitter: a simple tweet about using WordPress for business. My best friends are on Twitter conversing with me and we refer work to each other and it shows those listening in what I’m all about.

Tweetie is my favorite Twitter client for the Mac and iPhone (not paying the full-version price for the Mac just to get rid of the ads), but I use Tweetdeck for Windows when I’m on my desktop for whatever reason. Tweetie keeps my IDs in a column on the left side with dots to announce whether I have replies or DMs without having to watch them all stream. It also has the typical URL shortening, photo uploader, and follower management.

Photoshop

I love to design! I’m no Michelangelo, but I can hold my own and need some brushes and paint, man. I’ve been using Photoshop for years, and despite some friends moving on to some new programs, I use it for 90% of my graphics work, only departing to use Illustrator for my vector art for logos.

MailChimp

Something I just signed up for this week and would not give up this service easily. I’m still using the free version (500 subscribers, 3,000 e-mails per month) for a while longer, but for $10/mo they remove their badge at the bottom of your e-mails and also the monthly message limit for the same 500 subscriber limit.

I created a list from my clients, designed an e-mail campaign layout, wrote my e-mail with styles and social network links, and sent it off in under an hour. Now I’m able to track open rates, clickthroughs, unsubscribes, and even what links in the e-mail were clicked – visually, too. I replicated this e-mail to begin my next newsletter even more efficiently. By the way, you can sign up to receive my news, entertainment, and education by signing up here.