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Brick No140: 47 Cries For Help
By Matt Weston, Thursday 14 April 2005 47 Cries For Help I'm about to break a promise. Last week, I said I'd run another, long overdue, batch of reader websites for you to critique. I invited you to send in your new, impending and broken sites. And I said I'd print the best this week. But that's not going to happen, at least not this week. I've been sandwiched between the end of one project and the start of another, and haven't yet been able to give your requests the attention they deserve. At the last count, I'd received some 47 cries for help. (And that's AFTER I'd weeded out the dozen or so that didn't include any details apart from the web address, and the dirty dozen or so that were just trying to hoodwink me into plugging a corporate site to 10,500 small business owners.) By next week, I promise, I'll have picked 5 from 47. But today, an opportunity to tie up a few loose ends . . . No to PR In 140 Bricks, I've never written up a press release. And I get, ooh, 20 press releases and follow-up calls a week. Seth Godin says what I've thought for the last year, but not articulated. Link. If you're the PR from TV Licensing who thinks that she knows what small businesses "need to read" better than I do, or simply an honest small business owner wanting a plug, this is how to appear in Business Bricks: TALK BACK. In fact, the surest way to appear in Business Bricks is to disagree vehemently with something I've written. Some examples: Brick No124. Readers write to right my wrongs on the first episode of BBC2's Dragon's Den. Brick No107. A row with Row. Reader Iain Row on why you CAN use the web to cut costs. Brick No98. Reader Robert Chapman flashes his teeth in defence of author Michael Gerber. His first five words: "Matt You Are So Wrong." Brick No87. Two dozen web designers slate my amateurish approach to web design. (You can just hit reply, type and send.) You pick them like they pick you Next up, from across the pond, Jason Fried of 37 Signals gathers up the loose ends of Brick No125: "Saying Yes or No to a client is a business decision just like any other business decision you have to make. "Should we rent this space or that space? Should we buy this computer or that computer? Should we host on a virtual server or a dedicated server? Should I hire this person or not? "And that last point is critical: Should I hire this person or not? Just replace person with client and you’ll start to see the connection. Even though a client is really hiring you, in many ways you’re hiring them right back." Read the full piece. 37 Signals produce, amongst other things, this great tool. Make a list. Share it with others. And Jason is on the money with this one. Most of us are way more picky as buyers or recruiters than we are as sellers. In fact, most of us start out in business with the idea that a sale is a sale is a sale. (It isn't.) Remember the Australian dentist, Paddi Lund? He transformed his business by breaking his customers into Type A, Type B and Type C groups, and firing the Type Cs. And he took pickiness to the extreme. You could only become a new customer if a Type A customer referred you. But the best way to avoid this firing is to hire the right customers in the first place. You might be thinking that being this picky is unrealistic. But, more often than not, you spend more time servicing the wrong customers than it would take to hire the right customers. And you might be thinking that the word "hire" suggests two fingers to "the customer is king (or queen)". Again, it doesn't. The surest way to lose sight of your respect for your customers is to take on the wrong customers in the first place. Bric-A-Brac (1) Jason Fried wrote this follow up to his piece on "hiring" the right clients. Once you've hired the right client, he suggests you tell your client to pick two from three. (Based on the old "Pick two: good, fast or cheap".) Celeb blogger Jason Kottke gives some variations: Elegant, documented, on time. Privacy, accuracy, security. Have fun, do good, stay out of trouble. Study, socialize, sleep. Diverse, free, equal. Fast, efficient, useful. Cheap, healthy, tasty. Secure, usable, affordable. Short, memorable, unique. Cheap, light, strong. (2) I see Lydia Ross and Chrissie Slater of Scratch & Newton got a good write-up in The Independent last Sunday. Both are long-time BB readers, made it down to London from Leeds for our national meet-up last November, and donated to appear in the Brickies Directory. I won't publish the link to the online Indy as, ludicrously, it asks you to "click here to buy the full story". But, if you, or a loved one, own a pet rabbit or guinea pig, visit the S&N site. Remember to sign up: back to top |
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