Category: Business Nuts and Bolts


Using work time wisely

Filed Under: Business Nuts and Bolts by Debbie — Leave a comment
November 16, 2009

Today I found a good article entitled ‘Making the Most of Your Day as a Freelancer’ from FreelanceApple.com. This one made me think.

I know how easy it can be to get distracting when you’re working at home. Sometimes I’m really in a zone and don’t notice anything but what I’m working on, but there are other times when I can’t stay focused.

I think one of the reasons is, even after 4 1/2 years working on my own I still need some sort of routine to help me make the most of my time. Like today – I really intended to go to the gym this morning. The bag’s sitting there on the bed, packed and ready to go. But it’s 5:48 and it’s still sitting there.

I’m going to try to work up a schedule for the rest of the week and see if I can stick to it. Gym time three mornings per week (I need to get up earlier) and no peeking at email every 10 minutes.  It’ll be interesting to see (1) if I can do it and (2) what impact it has on my productivity.

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NOCO Hosting redesign is complete

Filed Under: Business Nuts and Bolts, Hosting, Redesign by Debbie — Leave a comment
October 22, 2009

Whew. I just launched the new version of the NOCO Hosting site. It’s been about a month in the making and a long weekend of coding, but I’m happy with it. I’m sending out a notice to all my hosting clients and an announcement about the new referral rewards plan.

I’d love to get my hosting list up to 100 clients. That’s the next big goal.

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New Kiva loans made today

Filed Under: Business Nuts and Bolts by Debbie — Leave a comment
September 27, 2009

My web design studio Red Kite Creative gives back by providing a microloan to Kiva businesses for every contract signed. I’m setting up three new loans this morning.

Follow Kiva on Twitter and Facebook.

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NOCO Hosting now on Twitter

Filed Under: Business Nuts and Bolts, Hosting, Social Tools by Debbie — Leave a comment
September 13, 2009

I finally broke down and got a Twitter account for NOCO Hosting (@nocohosting.com). And I just built a little Twitter background for it too.

I’m not sure how I’m going to use this – I can see using it for alerts and service updates, maybe special promotions, but I wonder how other hosting companies use Twitter… Other than spamming for business. I don’t intend to do that.

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Virtual phone number

Filed Under: Business Nuts and Bolts, Cool Tools by Debbie — Leave a comment
September 11, 2009

I’ve been working on really cranking up the quality and service of my hosting reseller company in the past few weeks, and decided that I need a dedicated phone number. I’m already using Google Voice for Red Kite Creative (yes, I got an invite last year, nyahhh), but I need something that’s only for NOCO Hosting.

I poked around for awhile tonight and finally decided to try Vumber since they have a free 30-day trial and I could get a local number. I just signed up, my number’s already active so we’ll see how it goes.

Here are some of Vumber’s features:

  • Free voicemail box
  • You can call out on your Vumber too
  • Many area codes and localities available
  • No per-minute charges
  • Forwarding to the number of your choice
  • Voicemail sent to you as email
  • Easy call control (ring-through, voicemail, etc.)
  • Caller ID
  • Call blocking

Vumber is $9.95 per month. Seems like a good idea and I saw a few other positive reviews about their service, so I’m a little excited to see how it works out.

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Managing my reseller hosting business

Filed Under: Business Nuts and Bolts, Hosting by Debbie — Leave a comment
September 5, 2009

This morning I spent a few hours make some adjustments to my reseller hosting:

  • I changed plans to quarterly and updated pricing based on the new billing frequency;
  • I updated the hosting plan tables in both my studio website and hosting site to reflect the new pricing, and also to update some of the offerings my host now has, such as additional software on the server;
  • I rewrote the text on my studio site to focus more on the value of having the web designer/developer also host the website;
  • I modified some text on the hosting site to reflect new prices and new specs from the host.

I also discovered that WHMCS had a new release – I’d noticed that there was a problem in one of the portal template pages, but the upgrade took care of it. Oh – and I noticed that my host is offering a free guide to reseller hosting, a big PDF download, so I got a copy of that.

I wrote up a short page to give to new clients describing why I’d like them to choose my hosting services:

  • All hosts do things a little differently and I will bill at the hourly rate to work on unfamiliar servers;
  • I won’t be able to easily contact their hosting support if needed;
  • Most important, I host my own business sites and know how reliable my services are.

This effort is just a part of the wide-ranging ‘business mod’ that I’m working my way through. I’m confident I’ll have a much tighter process in place when I finish in the next couple of months.

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