Today I speak to Tom Fallowfield, founder of Ugli Web Design.  As my brother, he was one of the first people I spoke to about my redundancy. His comment, ‘If you work that hard for other people, why don’t you work that hard for yourself?’ was enough for me to head to Companies House registration page. Here he shares tried & tested experience on pricing, proposals & passwords. 

Ugli assists SME clients in adopting internet & e-commerce technologies to find the opportunities in this weird new world which we’ve all suddenly landed in: [email protected] 

Tom’s advice:

• There is nothing to be afraid of when becoming self employed
• Your work ethic can be far stronger for yourself than when working for others
• Know your pricing and don’t be too cheap 
• Always put yourself in the customer’s shoes, price yourself by value. Think about what value it has to them rather than the cost to you 
• Always know why you’re different to the competition & price yourself accordingly 
• Don’t win the work at all costs: you’ll be on the back foot, the client will treat you accordingly & it will become hard to earn your workload well
• Always ask for feedback, especially on the declined proposals
• The proposal just needs to satisfy the task at hand, it is to win the business & get the client to the next stage, nothing more
• Draft your website content before briefing a web designer - it’ll save you time & money. Live with it for a little while before contracting it out
• Why password security is so important given how many people are trying to hack sites all the time. Do not use dictionary words
• Why SEO is important to get right to win new business. Inbound links to your content will get promoted
• Website text (not just images) is vital for SEO, but don’t overdo the keywords. "Keyword stuffing" will get you penalised
• Google/Facebook Ads (PPC) is an alternative to SEO: rapid results but can be expensive
• Delegating is important, delegate anything you don't love doing
• Hiring people dramatically changes your business immediately. Making these decisions upfront and quickly needn't be scary either and you (probably) won’t regret it 

Links

• LastPassthe password keeping site that syncs between phone & desktop. They offer a free of charge service which I've been using. This post is unpaid however there is an affiliate link you can use here should you want to support the podcast. 
• Ali Reid is still running Turtle Media in HK 
• The cheesy American consulting book Tom mentioned is available here

Hosted by Juliet Fallowfield, founder of PR for startups advisory Fallow, Field & Mason, How To Start Up hopes to bring you confidence, encouragement and reassurance that you’re on the right track. Feedback welcome: [email protected]

Recorded, edited & published by Juliet Fallowfield in September 2020.
MUSIC CREDIT  Funk Game Loop by Kevin MacLeod.  Link & License

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