Found this nice little article on easy ways to keep the clients happy on the Content Maven site today. The one about asking for feedback is one I should work on.

Meryl suggests ‘ask one yes/no question and one open-ended question: “Are you happy with the work you’re getting from me?” and “What can I do to better serve you?”’

I’ve been following a thread on my Women Designers Group mailing list where one of the designers shared some language from their contract, and a number of others commented that it sounded apologetic. Like ‘if I do this for you I will have to bill you for it.’

One of the respondees was dead on – saying that hey – this isn’t a hobby! This is a full-time (or more than full-time) professional job. There’s no need to apologize to someone you’ve worked for when it’s time to be paid.

I’ve struggled lately with billing for hourly work. Do I charge up front? Do I invoice on the back end? I’ve found that I have a few clients that I always invoice that pay extremely promptly – no worries there. I have a few others that I’ve invoiced once that took weeks and weeks to pay; that won’t happen again. I hate having to ask for money that’s owed me and sound like I’m apologizing for troubling them again, and again…

I wrote a letter that I’m going to send to all current clients detailing the new payment method for hourly work – either:

1. purchase a block of time, 2-8 hours, up front at a discount,
2. purchase time in 30 minute chunks with a credit card on my website, or
3. give me credit card information to keep on file and I will charge upon their approval of the work I’ve done for them (or within 5 business days if they don’t respond to my request for review).

This might not go over well with everyone and that’s okay. I don’ t like rushing to complete a short project for a client then waiting 3-4 weeks for a check, that’s just not cool. But I will continue to invoice my very good clients who have always respected my time and expediency.

This is funny – but still, it’s pretty scary stuff. That expression on the designer’s face as he descends into the abyss? I know that look.

After screwing around for hours with IE6 in CMS Made Simple (which I’m really happy with, BTW, as a new user) I was pleased to find this extremely helpful tip this morning:

The Universal IE Hack

Another hot tip? Go on then.

Last year saw the launch of IE7. IE6 is still a widely used browser and IE8 beta is out of the starting blocks. A lot of IE hacks? Nope. Simply use the Universal IE Hack. Place the following code in the Head of your document:

<!--[if IE]>
<style>
html, body, * {
  display: none;
}
</style>
<![endif]-->

This supersedes all documented IE hacks to date. Enjoy.

Tell me that’s not useful.

I just got my second fillup with my Yamaha Vino 125, and I’m averaging between 72 and 80 mpg. The scoot is rated to 96 mpg, but the way I’m riding (short trips, fast starts because I’m trying to get away from cars at lights and stopsigns) and the fact that the engine has only 180 miles on it are affecting that, I think. I’m going to keep track of the mileage indefinitely.

It is just ridiculously fun to ride, though.

I have a good problem. Before this week I was busy. This week so far, I’ve won four new projects – one big, one moderately-sized, small, and one just a few hours of work. I’m meeting with one client to launch my current largest project tomorrow so that one will be out of the way, and my second-largest one may be in launch mode in the next two weeks.

It’s a good problem to have, but it’s a little overwhelming right now!

How many clients is too many? I don’t think I’ve hit that point but it’s getting close. Two of the new ones won’t be starting up for several weeks so that helps too.

I just have this thing that I like to tackle big problems in long uninterrupted sessions – when I have meetings every day at all kinds of hours, like this week and last, that breaks my zennish rhythm. I wish I could break some of these big problems down into smaller chunks but sometimes the chunks are still multi-day ordeals.

Lately I’ve had a number of clients who insist that a CMS is the only way they’ll have a new site because it ‘will save them so much money’ when they don’t have to get a designer to make changes for them. The majority of them don’t understand that besides the increased up-front costs, there are other considerations down the road that cost both time and money. This is a great article on the hidden costs of running a CMS by Paul Boag of Boagworld.

If a client is going to make a couple of text changes a few times per year and wants Joomla, I try to dissuade them. Big CMS’s are overkill for many small businesses especially when they have one or two CMS editors. They often don’t get that a powerful CMS comes with a big learning curve and has so many features that it can be overwhelming.

For those types of clients, I use one of the tiny page-based CMS’s like Snippetmaster or Flyspeck. They’re cheap, easy to implement and do exactly one thing – let the client edit or add text and images to an existing page.

I’ve gotten three new clients in the past two weeks, all from referrals from existing happy clients. What’s a good way to reward them?

In the past I’ve used free dinners, movie tickets, cookie delivery service and books. I think the one that met with the most delight was the movie tickets – the Cinemark in Fort Collins has these in the form of a gift card and the Carmike has gift certificates, but also has a horribly slow website.

You can order Fandango Bucks online and send it via email to your client immediately. This is nice but I like giving them the option of getting drinks and snacks too – Fandango Bucks are only for movies and then you still have to pay the surcharge.