The Comment That Was So Good I Decided To Make It A Guest Post
Attention RSS readers who are not here talking smack in the comments… The ever-wonderful Michael Martine of Remarkablogger wrote a comment on my most recent post that I liked so much, I’m putting it here. Whoever invented push-button publishing probably regrets letting it get into my hands.
“First of all most of the people reading ProBlogger aren’t making shit, so that explains a lot. Darren’s topics run the gamut and are useful to other types of bloggers as well–except business bloggers, but that’s where I come in.
I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to find good designers or blog consultants, but it is. I guess there aren’t very many of us. I’ve landed a few clients who told me they found me via my comments at ProBlogger. Hint, hint. ;)
We all know there are people who simply decide something and then go about it and they haven’t A CLUE. I mean, people who wake up one day and say “I’m going to open a store!” and of course the store is a miserable failure.
The growth trend of “itty bizzes” (or maybe that should be itty bizzez?) means there are a shit-ton of new people out there wearing more hats than they should. They’ll hire an accountant but design their own gobstopper website in FrontPage.
There is no reason on this earth why anyone should have to make the same mistakes as everyone else when starting a blog. It’s like people are still teenagers who think they’re the only ones going through life. Get help. If you charged yourself at your own hourly rate for all the mistakes on your blog, would it be worth the money? Well, then hire somebody. Preferably me.
Good call on this one, Naomi.”
If you are one of those people currently being bullied into being a better blogger (holy alliteration, Batman!) you should subscribe to Michael’s feed. It’s cool and all, but if you subscribe you get a monster of an ebook on business blogging. It’s not your mother’s 12-page ebook.
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I guess you must’ve touched a nerve! :) By the way, I vote that the plural of Bizz is Bizzez. I know I don’t get a vote, but whatever. Any time you feel you’re just not busy ENOUGH, you’re welcome to write a guest post on my blog.
@ Michael - I’m still recovering from the alliteration. I didn’t mean it, I swear. Bizzez is da bidness. Bizzez it is. My tongue is hurting from typing this.
Michael makes some excellent points.
“They’ll hire an accountant but design their own gobstopper website in FrontPage.”
Yes! This sort of thing is a plague in the web design business. At my former employer once, a law firm contacted us about designing a website for them. They balked when they were told the company had a $500 minimum fee for any web design work. It was a law firm for crying out loud!
Then, just to cap things off, two days later the secretary comes by the office with a CD. Turns out that she had decided it couldn’t be that hard to design a website, so she built the whole thing in Microsoft Word!
Of course, when we loaded it, some of the images weren’t there and several of the links were broken. She asked if we couldn’t just fix it. We said yes, but we’d have to charge for design work. So instead she told us to just put it online as it was, broken images and links included.
Wow. That was a bit of a rant. It’s just a bit frustrating when people don’t value your work.
The moral of the story? If you want to avoid that law firm’s fate, hire me. ;-)
(Feel free to edit if that’s too commercial for you, Naomi. :-) )
Ha! That’s hilarious. Not too commercial. Bring it on. It’s like a fucking auction around here these days.
You type with your tongue? Pictures, please.
lol Joshua…
I was wincing as I read that… and I completely sympathise.
:)
I agree, that comment was post worthy! I have to admit I’ve ranted about that a few times myself on my main website and other peoples website.
A few of my blog buddies have caught the make money online fever and have websites dedicated for that purpose. They are trying to roll with the pros, but they need to learn the basics first. How in the world can you possibly create a website about making money online when you don’t even know the basics? Some of the advice they have given makes me cringe at times I’ve corrected them (politely of course.)
Realizing that I cannot possibly do it all I’m hiring a designer for my main website and then ATW.
I both completely and absolutely agree… and completely and absolutely disagree, just for fun.
Especially for Itty Bizzez (another non-counting vote for the ‘ez’ plural, even though it’s already been decided on), I happen to be of the opinion that someone starting out with a small business shouldn’t be investing a lot of money into services at the beginning of the learning curve, for a couple of reasons:
#1: They don’t know what they want, or what their business is going to evolve into yet. Investing $2K-$5K in website design is, I think unnecessary in the beginning, unless someone is absolutely fearful of technology and doesn’t have the DIY skills at all. It also depends on whether you trying to break into a high-end market. But for most micro-itty-bizz types, they’re just looking to connect with regular folks, and a simple, straightforward design works just fine to start.
#2: Without knowing more about their own business, or about websites, it’s really easy to invest in someone who can take you for a ride, even if they don’t mean to. Most web designers I’ve seen are great people, with good hearts, who are more of either the artist type, or the techno-geek type, and don’t hardly know anything about business.
These kinds of folks will take your money with the greatest of intentions, and build you a website… and completely miss out on important strategic/marketinng/business structure issues, not to mention CONTENT. :)
I think DIY has a place in the beginning- and, as the business grows, you invest.
And another thing- service providers (me among them from time to time, when I forget) have a desire to protect our clients from making a mistakes.
Which is a mistake.
Mistakes and failures build a business faster than anything else, if someone is willing to learn. Of course, this takes an entrepreneurial mindset, meaning a willing a to experiment, take some risks, try things out, and fail as often and as quickly as possible, learning as you go.
I often advise newcomers to Heart of Business to start with the very low-end offers: a book, an online community, some learning packages, and to try it out for themselves- experiment, see what you think.
Before someone hires me for expensive high-end services or classes, I like to see that they’ve had a track record of trying and experimenting- otherwise I wonder if their investment will really pay off.
Okay, enough for a Sunday morning. Thanks for letting me vent on your blog. :)
By way, I don’t disagree with you.
I disagree with you FOR ME, but I agree that there are far too many fools who should use professional services.
Glad to have found you, by the way. I “Thumbs upped” you at Stumbleupon, added you to my RSS and I’m sure I’ll be finding opportunities to link to you in my own blogging and self-employment related posts.
@ Mark Silver - $2-$5k? Holy smokes! Lol, I wish Naomi paid me that well…LOL
I however, completely agree with you - the business owner definitely needs to be dedicated to succeed at all costs before plopping down cash for a custom design. It makes no sense to go into business with a half-ass business plan and a great looking design.
Many people do, and most often they’re the ones with the DIY designs, too. Comic Sans MS, anyone?
You’ve got a point, but you’re also missing something. If you do the design yourself, you learn how. Maybe you suck for a while, but you also get side benefits that have the potential to improve your blog in other ways. If you want to make money fast, go ahead and outsource it. If you have the aptitude and the interest to learn to do it yourself and aren’t in such a hurry, take the time. Or do both. Buy your design, then teach yourself to tweak it.
Like everything else in business, if it’s core to your money maker: do it yourself or setup some sort of long-term relationship with your source. If not, outsource it.
@andrew
Another thing that bears repeating: if you don’t have worthwhile content, the design is completely irrelevant. If you have really exceptional content, that may be just as true.
Most websites should be worrying about their content a lot more than their design. All the beauty in the world isn’t going to turn a “me-too” scraper site into a profitable enterprise.
@anthony
True. But a really bad design (like Michael’s Comic Sans comment) can hurt you a lot worse relative to an OK design than an excellent design could help.
Full disclosure: I’m no sort of pro-blogger… yet. I probably don’t even qualify as a blogger, seeing as I currently have exactly one post written.
@andrew
“Full disclosure: I’m no sort of pro-blogger… yet. I probably don’t even qualify as a blogger, seeing as I currently have exactly one post written.”
Ahh, but tomorrow you may have two.. and the day after, perhaps three.. so when do you think you become “Pro” ? :-)