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This is BizCraft, the podcast about the business side of web design, recorded live almost every two weeks. Your hosts are Carl Smith (@carlsmith) of nGen Works and Gene Crawford (@genecrawford) of UnmatchedStyle.

In this, for real; LIVE episode, Carl and Gene talk about “Shit that matters” – but mostly we talk about Prince.

We lost Prince today…

From: Aaron Griswold

From: Brad Colbow

Carl: H20

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This is BizCraft, the podcast about the business side of web design, recorded live almost every two weeks. Your hosts are Carl Smith (@carlsmith) of nGen Works and Gene Crawford (@genecrawford) of UnmatchedStyle.

In this Episode of BizCraft we remember why we even started doing what we do and talked about some life goals and career goals.

When we get caught up in cogs and the busy world we work in and forget why we started.

Know Your Why

Life goals vs. Career goals.

Gene: NonChalant Blonde IPA Ardwolf

Download MP3 (41 MB / 00:48:44)

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This is BizCraft, the podcast about the business side of web design, recorded live almost every two weeks. Your hosts are Carl Smith (@carlsmith) of nGen Works and Gene Crawford (@genecrawford) of UnmatchedStyle.

In this Episode of BizCraft we answer a listener question, we discuss sustainability and how not to be a jerk doing it.

We had a follow up question from Harry O’Connor who recently posted to us “again”… on the show before last show’s post.

Main question here is about “sustainability” of the services company/web design shop.

Actually I have some further points/questions which maybe you can discuss? don’t worry if not, but I think they are relevant, certainly to me anyway.

So our company, Voodoochilli, is based in a very small city (70K people I think) but we are very well known locally, and get plenty of work and are rarely quiet. I had an enquiry today from a potential client who is unhappy with one of our competitors. They have been locked into a 3 year contract with them with no access to the CMS which is built, but only used by the web dev team. This really surprised me, because we always build in a CMS for the client and we don’t lock clients into contracts, especially clients like this small charity that is trying to make the world a better place. But it seems some, if not all of our competitors are doing this in order to make a profit. Maybe this is standard practice and I just assumed otherwise?

So this got me thinking – what makes us sustainable? Clearly locking your clients into a contract is sustainable over the duration of the contract as you are getting paid over the time, sometimes without doing any work. What we try to do is satisfy the client’s needs so that they will refer us to other clients or will want more work done later – to retain them not forcibly, but because they want to stay, you know, to be good to them. So I think all of this is all very noble, but from a business point of view I do see the benefits of limiting access to a CMS and forcing a maintenance contract, although ethically I’m not sure it is something I would consider.

So I guess my question is, where do you find the balance between being the good guy and being the sociopathic money making business machine? Is there a happy middle place? We are a small business and we discount for charities, do pro bono work, offer free advice etc, and we do ok, but many of our competitors are pretty shrewd business types (that is being polite) that charge more, care less and certainly seem to be making more money. How can we achieve more without being bad people, or is that simply not possible? Are perhaps we trying too hard to be nice, after all, this is business?

My last question – I promise, is, how do I find out what my competitors are charging? I have had “clients” turn out to be just competitors in the past, asking for quotes etc. Is there a good way to find out without this duplicity? Straight up asking your clients “what did they charge you?” seems a bit rude somehow.

Sorry if this turned into a bit of a diatribe/rant, but I literally just replied to a client and so it got me thinking and I’d certainly love to hear your thoughts on it. Thanks again!

End of the year stuff:

Carl’s complaint about “future Carl”; this is a tough time of year, the end of it that is.

Gene: NonChalant Blonde IPA Ardwolf

Download MP3 (41 MB / 01:02:19)

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This is BizCraft, the podcast about the business side of web design, recorded live almost every two weeks. Your hosts are Carl Smith (@carlsmith) of nGen Works and Gene Crawford (@genecrawford) of UnmatchedStyle.

In this Episode of BizCraft we answer a listener question, we discuss local markets, raising rates, pricing and getting along.

We answered a question from Harry O’Connor who recently posted to us on the last show’s post.

Firstly, a question about price. I run my business in a small city, and we are competitively priced, however I feel we are charging less than we are worth. In one of your episodes you said that if you could go back in time 10 years you would charge more than the $100/p/h you charged initially. That is quite a bit more than we charge and our company has been running for over a decade – bear in mind we are in the UK. So how does one increase prices in a location where there is not a lot of wealth and web design isn’t seen as something that should cost a lot? We have slowly increased our prices over the years, but if we were to double it I don’t think that would be good for our business.

What we covered:

Secondly, how does a small business make that leap into finding dream clients? This isn’t silicon valley – so what can we do to network with exciting businesses we would like to work with that are not geographically close?

We covered this post by Austin Church as part two of this episode: Jobs Aren’t Assets: 8 Ways for Creatives to Make More Money

Gene: Two Brothers Cane and Ebel – Red Rye Ale

Download MP3 (41 MB / 00:42:09)

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We are now also syndicated on Stitcher.

This is BizCraft, the podcast about the business side of web design, recorded live almost every two weeks. Your hosts are Carl Smith (@carlsmith) of nGen Works and Gene Crawford (@genecrawford) of UnmatchedStyle.

In this Episode of BizCraft we talk about Risk (with a big R) and losing passion for what you do then finally companies surviving founders.

Episode Flow:

Gene: Stone Brewing Arrogant Bastard

Download MP3 (41 MB / 00:42:48)

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We are now also syndicated on Stitcher.

This is BizCraft, the podcast about the business side of web design, recorded live almost every two weeks. Your hosts are Carl Smith (@carlsmith) of nGen Works and Gene Crawford (@genecrawford) of UnmatchedStyle.

Stories:

2) Slack – how we use it.

3) Project Payment Collections

4) The absolute worst client you ever did work for?

Gene: Sam Adams – Okotberfest

Download MP3 (41 MB / 00:42:48)

iTunes / RSS feed / Get Email Updates

We are now also syndicated on Stitcher.

This is BizCraft, the podcast about the business side of web design, recorded live almost every two weeks. Your hosts are Carl Smith (@carlsmith) of nGen Works and Gene Crawford (@genecrawford) of UnmatchedStyle.

Carl has an in depth conversation with former Happy Cog and Bureau co-founder Greg Storey, the Original Airbag himself to see what he’s been up to since leaving Happy Cog.

Follow Greg on Twitter: @Brilliantcrank

Show Flow: