Roadfire Software

How To Be a Better Freelancer: Listen to Your Clients

2013-02-13T19:46:00-05:00

After reading Seth Godin’s post on how to listen, I realized that listening is the most important thing you can do in business (and in life). It’s how you make friends. It’s how you fall in love. It’s how you get more clients. It’s how you make happier clients (yep, you can make happier clients :).

A few days ago, I referred a developer to one of my clients. And today, my client emailed me saying the developer kept trying to push a retainer on him that was clearly out of the client’s budget and - it gets worse - it was absolutely not what the client needed. It’s a small amount of work. It’s sporadic and occasional. The retainer model clearly doesn’t fit. So the developer lost the deal because he didn’t listen - clearly he was focused on his best interests rather than the client’s best interests.

If you want to get more work, if you want to win more projects, if you want to be better at your job and better at life, listen. You need to listen to be successful. You need to listen to be a good consultant. And you need to listen to be a good friend.

If you’re a terrible listener and you know it, read Seth Godin’s post and start practicing now. Next time you’re in a conversation, focus on listening and understanding the other person. Repeat back to them what they’re saying in your own words. Say “I hear you saying…” and “it sounds like you want…” to prove to them (and to yourself) that you’re listening. Be an active listener, pay attention, and focus on them.

So the next time you’re talking to a client, a prospect, or a friend, make an effort to listen. I guarantee you they’ll appreciate it. And it just might be enough to make them decide to hire you, buy from you, or listen to you instead of the competition.

Year in Review: What did you ship in 2012?

2012-12-21T15:54:00-05:00

I always find it fascinating at the end of a year to look back and see what I accomplished. I enjoyed writing what I shipped in 2010 and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, too. So go ahead and look back on your year and tell us what you did in 2012. Here’s my list:

Increased our yearly revenue by 50% over 2011
Wrote an article about increasing profits in your freelancing business you might enjoy (hint hint :) that got us a huge spike in traffic. Credit for the spike goes to Brennan, Joanna, and everyone else who tweeted about it - thanks!
Started a newsletter aimed at helping freelancers build their business
Increased our capacity by hiring another developer (hey Mark!)
Built and launched My Index with a great team
Updated blockBUZZter to version 1.2
Developed and updated a few other apps

I had the privilege of working with some excellent teams on My Index and blockBUZZter, so they deserve a lot of the credit for getting those out the door.

Write up what you accomplished in 2012 and share it with us. And when you do, email me and let me know.

How to Increase Profits in Your Freelancing Business

2012-11-27T08:36:00-05:00

If you’re like me, you’re interested in anything that’ll help you grow profits in your freelance business. I’ve been reading a ton about this lately, and I think you’ll find the resources below to be useful in growing your business in the same way they’ve helped me to grow mine.

The Kalzumeus podcast by Patrick McKenzie (patio11) will teach you about pricing, business value, and consulting. You’ll make your clients happier and increase your rates as a result of listening, so you should subscribe now. Patrick’s mailing list is also full of goodies - sign up for it on his site. Patrick’s blog, podcast, and mailing list are the reason I found all the other resources in this post, so you need to read and listen to him.

Getting To Yes will help you to do a better job of negotiating. (By the way, that’s not an affiliate link, so you can trust that I just think it’s a great book.) You’ll learn to negotiate better as you consider your best alternative to negotiated agreement (BATNA) and focus on principles rather than positions (read the book for a thorough explanation). You’ll be able to negotiate better rates with your clients like I have. It’s useful for anyone who’s breathing (since everyone negotiates in some way every day), but especially for freelancers who want to learn to negotiate better rates. (And yes, I believe this is better for your clients, too.)

Double Your Freelancing Rate by Brennan Dunn will help you (yes, you guessed it) double your freelancing rate. It’s not all about you, though - after reading this book, I’ve been more focused on the value I provide to my clients. That is, I’m more concerned with making them more money. And clients who make more money are happier clients. Get the book - it’s more than worth the $49 it costs. Think about it this way: if you start charging only $25 more per hour (I’m convinced you can), it pays for itself in two hours of work. Go get it. Brennan also has an excellent podcast you should listen to if you’re serious about growing your freelancing business.

And finally, Copy Hackers by Joanna Wiebe will teach you a ton about writing copy that sells (whether you’re selling apps, services, or anything else). I’ve learned to write like a human and think about what you (my good-looking readers) want so I can give that to you. I’m on the mailing list, which you should sign up for if you want to increase your sales. I’ve gotten tons of practical advice that has helped me to increase app sales from my website, get more people to join my mailing list, and just write better in general (which is always a good thing). Additionally, if you sell apps (and want to increase your sales), you need to read How to Write an App Store Description and do what she says. She knows what she’s talking about.

I’m sure these resources will help you to increase your profits as a freelancer and make your clients happier as you focus on making them more money. If you have great freelancing resources to share that I missed, send me an email and let me know. And if you want more (free, exclusive) content like this, you should join our mailing list.

iFonts is now 50% off!

2012-09-19T09:11:00-04:00

To celebrate the launch of iOS 6 and the iPhone 5, iFonts, the definitive guide to iOS fonts, is now 50% off!

iOS 6 adds two new font families - Avenir (including Avenir Next and Avenir Next Condensed) and Symbol. The only other change since iOS 5.1 is that DBLCDTempBlack has been removed. Get iFonts on the App Store to see all the fonts on your iOS device.

Go Learn Git at try.github.com

2012-07-09T21:15:00-04:00

If you’ve been putting off learning git, quit procrastinating and go to try.github.com. It’s quick, easy, and will give you a basic understanding of what git does and how to use it.

Thanks to @chriscoyier and @searls for tweeting about this.

Git Pro Tip: How to List Tags that Contain a Commit with Git

2012-06-12T07:59:00-04:00

As an iOS developer on an app that communicates with a Rails backend, I often ask the Rails team whether a change has made it to production. This Git Pro Tip answers the question: “Is [some commit] in production yet?”

Prerequisites: the code in question is controlled with git and every production release is tagged in a way that clearly indicates it’s in production. (If you’re not doing that, start doing it now. I can’t help you until you’re tagging your production releases. Make sure to make your tags readable and descriptive, like prod-2012-06-11.) We’re going to use git to list all the tags for a commit to answer our question.

Now let’s get back to your question: “Did [some fix] make it to production yet?” I’ll use the commit SHA f011235 for this example - I happen to know that f011235 is the commit I need in production, thanks to a descriptive commit message (like “fixed #811”). So I want to know if f011235 in production yet. We can use git tag --contains <commit> to list all the tags that contain a commit. Since I’m tagging all my production releases as described above, I can just do this:

$ git tag --contains f011235 | grep prod

And bam! Here’s my answer:

prod-2012-06-11

Thanks to a descriptive tagging scheme, the output tells me that the change was installed in prod today, 2012-06-11. So the answer to my question: “Did [some fix] make it to production yet?” is, indeed, “Yes.” If the change has been in prod for a while, you may see more results here (one for each production release). If the command returns no results, it’s not in production.

The exception to this rule is when you cherry-picked the change from a branch. To check whether you’ve cherry-picked the change, run git cherry like so:

$ git cherry -v f011235

If the commit has not been cherry-picked, you won’t see any output and you can go home knowing that the fix is not in production. If the commit has been cherry-picked, you’ll see another commit in the output:

- 193d6132b6f445b350baaa6bd43c560cc8ee2c82 fixed #811

You can then use this commit in the git tag --contains command to see if the change is in production:

$ git tag --contains 193d613 | grep prod

And just like before, you’ll see at least one tag in the output if the change is in production; if you don’t see any, it’s not in production.

You may have already noticed that since the git tag --contains <commit> command lists the tags that contain a commit, it can also answer the question, “Where is this change installed?” Just drop the grep from the above command and run like this:

$ git tag --contains f011235

And you’ll get a list of all the tags that contain that commit:

prod-2012-06-11
staging-2012-06-07
staging-2012-06-01

I’ve found git tags to be useful for knowing what’s in production, how long a change has been in production, and what I’ve done since the last release.

If you’d like to comment on this, you can email me or follow me on Twitter since I don’t do comments on my blog.

New Fonts in iOS 5.1

2012-06-05T22:05:00-04:00

As iFonts will show you, iOS 5.1 brings new fonts to iPhone and iPad. AppleGothic has been replaced with Apple SD Gothic Neo Bold and Apple SD Gothic Neo Medium.

According to iLessons iLearned, these are Korean fonts. The Korean letters look much better in these fonts than the English ones, so if you’re going to use this font, I’d recommend writing something in Korean. :)

Check out these new fonts on your iPhone with iFonts, the black-and-whitest app for viewing what fonts are included in iOS.

No Comments

2012-01-04T17:16:00-05:00

Matt Gemmell recently wrote an article titled Comments Still Off in which he explained why he doesn’t allow comments on his blog. I’ve had comments off on my blog for a while, too, for mostly the same reasons.

In fact, I was inspired by Seth Godin’s post on the subject. The main benefit I get from not allowing comments is that I no longer write blog posts hoping for validation from them. I used to write posts then refresh the page like crazy just waiting for someone to comment. Not a problem any more.

I’ve also had bad experience in the past with spam and other awful, critical, degrading comments. Not allowing comments means I don’t have to moderate, and I don’t have to worry about getting such awful remarks on my blog. You can always interact with me on Twitter or by email or write your own post if you have something to say about my posts.

If you write a blog, consider switching your comments off - it’ll save you a lot of trouble.

Creating Good Slides

2012-01-01T00:00:00-05:00

I’ve been to lots of conferences, so I’ve seen lots of good presentations and lots of bad ones. I hope to see more good presentations, and since slides can make or break a presentation, I’ve put together a few rules for creating good slides.

Each slide should contain less than 10 words. The point is this: keep the text on the slides to a bare minimum. If I want to read what you have to say, I’ll find your blog or a book you wrote. I’m not sure I can emphasize this enough - keep text on your slides to a bare minimum so the audience can listen to you, rather than reading your slides.

Use text that has a high contrast with its background. This is easy enough if your slide uses a solid background. Where I often see issues is on slides that use an image for the background. Often I see dark text on a dark part of the image. This is easy to resolve - just use light text instead, or move the dark text to a light part of the background. Just make your text is readable from the back of the room. If it’s not, it’s either too small or doesn’t contrast enough with its background. Remember that your text is going to look much less readable on a projector in the presentation room than it does on your LCD, so err on the side of more contrast.

Use REALLY BIG fonts. Like I said in the last point, it needs to be readable from the back of the room. This probably means at least 60 points for ALL fonts, and maybe more. Using a REALLY BIG font also helps to ensure you don’t put too much text on the slide, as stated previously. Keep it short & simple.

So keep your slides short, use lots of contrast, and use REALLY BIG fonts. Your audience will appreciate it, and you’ll get compliments on your slide design, even if you think it’s nothing spectacular.

iFonts 1.5 released with VoiceOver support

2011-12-16T00:00:00-05:00

Hey, folks - version 1.5 of your favorite iPhone font app was just released with support for VoiceOver and UI improvements. If you want to know what fonts are in iOS 5.0, get iFonts on the App Store.

Learn Thai Squiggles 1.1 released!

2011-12-14T00:00:00-05:00

The best app for learning the Thai alphabet on your iPhone now has two vowels! Master the consonants and start learning the vowels with version 1.1 of Learn Thai Squiggles. Get it on the App Store.

New fonts in iOS 5

2011-10-13T00:00:00-04:00

iOS 5 introduces new fonts for iPhone, which now includes Papyrus, Gill Sans, additions to the Helvetica family, and more. Check them out with iFonts.

The Solio Bolt

2011-10-09T00:00:00-04:00

I’m really happy with my Solio Bolt. I got it a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been leaving it out in the sun almost every day.

I’ve found that it charges fairly slowly here in central Indiana, even in direct sunlight during the sunniest parts of the day. After a sunny week, it charged to a little over 40%. This should, in theory, charge my iPhone a little over halfway. So in a week of leaving the Bolt in the sun, I get enough energy to charge my iPhone from 20% to 80%.

So it’s a lot of work - I move the Bolt about once an hour to point it more directly toward the sun, move it to the other side of the house, whatever. And a week of this just to charge my iPhone halfway. But I still like it. I like using clean energy from the sun. Still, I look forward to the day when clean energy from the sun can be harnessed much more efficiently.

Thanks, Steve

2011-10-06T00:00:00-04:00

I love my job. I love writing apps for the best mobile operating system on the planet.

I have the privilege of doing what I love thanks to Steve Jobs. I write iOS apps for devices he invented. I do this on a MacBook Pro that he invented. I talk with clients on the iPhone he invented. And I really enjoy it.

Thanks, Steve, for making my job fun.

Mac App Store & Xcode

2011-10-06T00:00:00-04:00

I’m really glad Apple put Xcode in the Mac App Store. I like getting delta updates for such a huge app.

I’d like it even more if Apple created a place in the Mac App Store for registered iOS developers where we could get delta updates for betas from the App Store as soon as they’re released, rather than downloading another 2GB installer. The App Store has all the information it needs - you sign in with your Apple ID, which is what identifies you as a developer. Aside from being more convenient for developers, this would take some of the load off Apple’s servers, too, right?

And while we’re on the subject of being a developer - I’d like to be able to search iTunes any time for developer-only content, like the WWDC videos. Same applies here - I’m already signed in to iTunes with my Apple ID which is also my developer account, so they know I’m a developer. So why can’t I just search for developer content?

Someday, maybe. Someday.

iPhone 4S

2011-10-05T00:00:00-04:00

“The most amazing iPhone yet.” Apple has once again launched a better iPhone than last year’s. Siri, with its natural language processing, its ability to set reminders and get directions, and its WolframAlpha integration make this year’s iPhone a powerful productivity tool.

One of my biggest issues with using my amazing iPhone 4 is entering text. It slows me down more than anything. With dictation on the iPhone 4S, this is no longer an issue - I speak, it types.

Core Data - Getting more from your errors

2011-08-11T00:00:00-04:00

Great answer on Stack Overflow about getting more information from your Core Data errors.

Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit

2011-07-04T00:00:00-04:00

Thanks to Wincent for describing how to get git to display this message. Basically it boils down to this:

git config branch.master.remote origin

git config branch.master.merge refs/heads/master

Of course, if you’re working on a different branch, just use your branch name instead of master in all three places above.

iFonts 1.4 has fonts in the email

2011-06-25T00:00:00-04:00

The latest update to iFonts (your favorite iOS fonts app, I hope :)) now sends an email with the actual fonts instead of sending the entire list in Helvetica. The reason this wasn’t included in previous versions was that it didn’t look all that great in Gmail in the browser and I couldn’t figure out how to make it look good. Now it still doesn’t look great in Gmail in your browser, so if you want to see the actual fonts, open the email in Mail on your Mac or iOS device. It looks great in both of those. :) Oh, and it looks good in Sparrow, too.

7 Mac Apps I Love

2011-06-22T00:00:00-04:00

1Password
keeps all my passwords in one secure place, so I no longer have to (a) remember passwords or (b) reuse passwords (which is a terribly bad idea). Its browser plugins are excellent and make it fast & easy to login to websites.

Backblaze
securely backs up my Mac online. It runs in the background so I never notice it. It’s reassuring to me to have everything backed up online in addition to my Time Capsule.

Sparrow
has an archive button! This means no more dragging Gmail messages around in Mail. The threaded conversations are great, too.

Alfred
launches every app I use on my Mac. It’s by far my favorite app launcher - it has a great UI and it’s much faster than Spotlight. I also use it to find files & folders when I can’t remember where I put them…

Notational Velocity
is where I take notes on my Mac. It syncs with Simplenote, so I can also view and edit the notes on my iPad and iPhone.

Dropbox
syncs my 1Password passwords between my Mac, iPhone, iPad. I also use it for sharing files between team members - images, audio files, and a host of other things. It’s great to be able to drop a file into a folder on my Mac and have it automatically show up on my teammate’s computer.

ClipMenu
stores everything I’ve copied to my clipboard (well, the last 200 items or so). If you don’t have a clipboard history app, you need one. I like that with ClipMenu I can type a few letters to quickly jump to a text clip to re-copy the item.

What Mac apps do you love?