Last Friday, I had the honour to speak at Western Australia’s premier web conference, Edge of the Web.

My talk, titled ‘Services, SItes & Snakeoil’ was a 45 minute run down on the state of the web industry, examples of possibly unsavory behavior amongst the industry, and suggested actions to put into place to encourage better ethical decisions in the future.

I also handed out paper, and requested people jot down some of their own thoughts, which I’ll be sharing here in the near future. Right near the end of the talk, I dropped mention of the wiki environment that a bunch of us have started, in order to work through the concept of a ‘Code of Conduct’ or some-such. I’d love to see you join us there, at www.webindustrycode.org

Please enjoy the presentation above, and if you like it, share it with your colleagues. Thanks to Matt Didcoe, Ashul Shah, Helen Burgess and the tram at Partner and Prosper for the great conference – it really was a fantastic event.

Feedback on my talk, or the slides above? Hit me up in the comments.

Does it feel like email is controlling your life? Find yourself checking your email every 10 minutes during your waking hours? We all lead busy lives, and with increased pressure on productivity, we’re all looking at ways to save time. If you’re like me, you probably receive more than your fair share of email — I receive more than 100 emails a day on average — so how do you cope with increasing email loads?

I have a simple system that has worked for some time, and I’d like to share it. Basically, I tend to use my inbox as an email task list, with the majority of my day-to-day activities found here. I check my email every hour or so, depending on my schedule. I read new emails, then sort through older ones that still remain in my inbox.

“The five Ds” is what I call my approach. As I traverse my inbox, I complete one of five actions with every email:

Do
If the email requires a response or an action, and it will take me less than a minute or two, I’ll do it straight away. Otherwise, I leave it in the inbox for a second perusal.

Delegate
Many of the emails I receive are related to tasks that my business is undertaking. If the email can be handled by a team member closer to the project or topic at hand, I’ll delegate the response to that person.

Defer
If the action or response is going to take longer than the time I have right now, I’ll defer processing it and leave it in my inbox for later. Typically I set aside at least 20-30 minutes per day for those larger responses or tasks.

Drop
If I’ve dealt with the email or there’s no further action required other than me reading it, I’ll drop it into the appropriate subfolder. I typically keep my folder structure minimalist, with just about all email ending up in my “year” folder — for example, “2009″ for this year’s emails. That way, your inbox is compact and tidy.

Delete
If the email is spam or holds no future value for archiving, I’ll delete it. I do hoard emails though; the many gigabytes of email I’ve sent and received over the last decade — and still have — proves this. I tend to keep all emails relating to projects or clients indefinitely.

If you’re nodding your head and thinking, “That sounds a lot like Dave Allen’s Getting Things Done system,” you’d be correct. I haven’t read the book personally, and the approach is my own, but if you’re interested in learning getting, I’ve heard it’s a worthwhile read.

If you find that you treat your inbox like a task list, I’d encourage you to trial this method. Let me know what you think.

This post first appeared as part of Issue 450 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

Many people I’ve spoken to recently have repeated the same words: new enquiries are down, because people are wary of starting new projects in the current climate. This is an excellent opportunity for you to increase your focus on sales, and there’s no better customer to sell to than an existing one.

Ask any successful salesperson and she’ll tell you — it’s cheaper and often easier to sell to an existing consumer, than to sell to a new one.

Think about it. With a new prospect, you need to build a relationship, gain their trust, explain the merits of your product or service, prove to them you have the skills and reputation, and that they stand to benefit from what you can offer. Then, you still need to procure that sale — a lengthy process indeed.

With an existing client, you’ve already achieved the above (I hope!). You can skip most of that, and jump straight to offering solutions to their requirements.

“But we only built their web site a year ago,” I hear you say. Start by looking at your current offerings, and see if there’s a service or product that you’ve developed since you last spoke to them that they may be interested in.

Then, consider what else they may need.

Perhaps they’ve created dozens of pages of bad content in the content management system (CMS) you installed for them. You could approach them and suggest you edit their copy. Maybe they’ve lost their way with search engine optimization, and you need to help tune their web site back to perfection.

Does the client have an email newsletter? You can design and develop a system for them to be able to send regular newsletters out. Maybe they started small on the Web, but now could be a time to speak to them about adding ecommerce or installing a CMS, so they can take care of maintenance themselves.

These may often seem small compared to your standard projects, however a handful of these jobs can easily fill gaps in your schedule, and help you touch base with a rejuvenated customer.

Let me know how you go. I’d be interested to see what products or services you create as additional extras.

This post first appeared as part of Issue 438 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

Recently, we’ve been talking about increasing sales, reinforcing branding, reducing costs, and other ways to survive a rough economic year. Another very important strategy to keep the cash flowing is debt collection.

Debt collection can literally make or break your business. Failing to follow up with debtors regularly could make you end up with zero in the bank. It’s a fact that the older a debt becomes, the harder it is to collect.

It’s vital that you create a process for dealing with debtors and stick with it. The more you enforce this, the quicker clients learn to stay within your terms of trade.

Here are seven tips to avoid the debtor drama:

Tip 1: Accept plenty of payment methods
Five years ago, just about all of my clients paid by cheque. Now, cheques would account for just 5% of our receivables. The majority of our clients pay by direct bank transfer, which is better for us: the money is available quicker, and there’s less risk of a bounced cheque.

We also have some clients who pay by credit card. Sure, we take a small hit on the fees, yet we find many clients are keen to pay by credit cards to solve their own short-term cashflow issues. Speak to your bank or find a payment gateway for safe credit card transactions.

The more payment methods you offer debtors, the less excuses they have to neglect paying.

Tip 2: Ask for a deposit up-front
I’ve always asked for a minimum 40% of the project total as a deposit before starting work on a project, and rarely does a client complain. Asking for a deposit up-front means that you’re establishing the client is serious and can pay their bills. If they’re unable to pay the deposit, how will they pay for the rest of the project?

Tip 3: Spell out terms clearly and regularly
Be sure to include your payment terms within your proposals, and that the due date is clearly marked on all invoices. I know a person who even sends meeting requests as calendar reminders to their clients when they send the invoices.

Be very clear with due dates — make the date as large and as bold as the total on your invoice.

Tip 4: Follow up immediately
The day after your invoice was due is the best time to send a polite, yet firm, email enquiring when they expect to pay, and if there’s any issue. Include a copy of the invoice as an attachment, and let them know you’ll call in a few days time if you don’t hear from them.

Set the tone carefully though; you want to sound helpful and genuinely concerned they may have misplaced the invoice, rather than threatening or angry.

A week later, if the payment is still yet to be received, call and ask them when they expect to pay. This way, you’re forcing the client to declare a date, which they’ll be less likely to break. Follow up with an email, confirming the date you expect to receive the payment.

Tip 5: Increase the pressure
Close the cycle. As the debt becomes older, follow up more frequently. Become firmer with each communication, but never become angry or personal. If you host the web site, consider turning their site off until payment is made, or hold back on code or any deliverables that you still have.

Tip 6: Offer repayment schedules
If the client is having genuine trouble paying you, call and discuss a workable payment plan. Of course, it’s preferable to have the entire balance in your bank instead, but it’s still better than receiving none of it. Be sure to put the schedule in writing, and follow up on every payment to ensure it’s adhered to.

Tip 7: Find a good debt collector
If the worst happens, and two months later you’re still without payment, you may want to hand the matter to a debt collection agency. These agencies often take a small percentage of the overall debt if they can collect it, so at least you’ll receive the majority of the debt.

Good luck, and here’s hoping it’ll be unnecessary to resort to any of these tactics!

This post first appeared as part of Issue 440 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

It’s personally gratifying for me to read the comments on posts and articles (as well as the recent calls, emails, etc) I have previously written about the fine line of ethics in business, particularly in the web industry, and read so many other industry players agree with me on what’s right or wrong.

I have had my fair share of debate as well; sure, it’s easy for me to say what I believe is ethical and what isn’t, and that it isn’t a definitive line, and I am publishing what I think is right or wrong. As far as I am concerned, that’s the point. It is MY personal view on what is ethical and what’s isn’t, or what is in the grey area in-between. Sure, there’s no list of boundaries and that it is my personal view, however I like to believe with twenty years of business management and ownership in various forms, I can speak from my own personal experience.

Let’s be frank here. I would never steal someone else’s design and call it my own. I wouldn’t use competitors intellectual data or client lists for my own advantage, I wouldn’t advertise using AdWords and specifically target searches for competitor business names or trademarks. There’s a stack of other things I also wouldn’t do, yet I haven’t written about.

The responses from my most recent two posts have inspired me to work further on the idea of an opt-in code of conduct, something I have been discussing and thinking about for a few years now. If I did start to facilitate a list or a code or whatever we call it, and open it to peer review, do you believe it would be worthwhile? Would you consider be involved in guiding it? Would you even consider adopting it?

Be keen to hear your feedback – shout out in a comment below…

I’ve been involved in the Perth web design industry for 15 years now, and have often referred to my business, Bam Creative as a Perth web design company. That’d be correct; we’re based in Perth, Western Australia and we offer web design and web development and other associated services.

A cursory glance at a number of other websites of Perth web design businesses, shows that the phrase ‘Perth web design’ appears on nearly all of them. Bam Creative certainly has used this phrase since we started in 2002.

So it came as quite a surprise to me, when I was alerted to the fact a local company has applied for a trademark on the term ‘Perth web design’. In fact, they only lodged the application last month, on the 20th December 2010.

Now, I’m no trademark attorney, but in my humble opinion, it seems somewhat far-fetched that an application for such a generic phrase could be accepted, however we all know that law and reality don’t always see eye to eye.

On this information page on IP Australia, it states that…

Types of trade marks that are difficult to register
A trade mark that describes your goods (eg. radios) and services (eg. electrician). It must not be a sign that other traders may wish to use to promote or describe their goods and services, nor can it mislead the public about the nature of your goods and services.

It is also very difficult to register a geographic name or a common surname as a trade mark, however, someone who has used one extensively for a considerable period of time may be able to achieve registration.

Given that the application is for terms that describe services, as well as a geographic location, I would imagine that this would get rejected, however it sure is an interesting case, and I for one will be watching it closely.

Searching the IP Australia ATMOSS database of lodged trademark applications, you’ll see that application 1400795 is applying for the term “Perth web design” as a trademark, in the class of web portal services, which includes designing or hosting of web sites. (The easiest way to search is to ‘Login as Guest’, then use the second search box, and enter the application number 1400795).

The application is currently at a status of ‘Indexing Approved’, which simply means it has been added to the database. The next step from here, is for the examination to be undertaken, before being accepted and published for the opposition period of three months.

If you are involved in the Perth web design industry, and keen to oppose this trademark application, should it be required, then there is a Guide to opposing registration of another person’s trade mark available on the IP Australia website, along with a number of other guides.

I’ll post an update to the application when it has moved through the appropriate processes…

I had a very interesting package waiting for me this week when I returned to the Bam Creative offices, after my recent leave.

An anonymous package containing the entire client list for a competing Perth web company. No note, no handwriting, just a typewritten address on the front of the envelope, mailed form the city, to make it harder to trace.

It contains the company name, primary contact name and phone, their postal address and email address for every client (I’m assuming) of a competitor.

I did what most people I would hope would do; I called the victim company, and let them know what had happened. I haven’t read it, nor will I be using it for any gain of my own.

Meanwhile, I also mentioned this on Twitter. Following that mention, I had five other Perth based web companies let me know that they had also received the same package. They all mentioned they had shredded it, or returned it to the victim company.

Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here, and assume someone is wanting us to use the information to hurt this other company. This is sad and frightening on a number of levels.

Firstly, they believe some of the recipients would actually use this data. I don’t believe they are giving us the credit we deserve – we’re an ethical bunch here, and not interested in mining other companies contact lists to approach their clients.

Secondly, if it is an existing or former employee, what are the chances, if they get found out, that they’ll ever land another job in the industry here? Imagine if you knew they did this at their last place of employ – what’s stopping them from doing it again, this time to you?

Thirdly – the damage of having client contacts details revealed like this is possibly an area the Privacy Act would also cover. Even unwittingly, the victim company could get into trouble over this behaviour.

My twitter buddy, Steven Clark, has written a blog post about this experience over on his blog – I recommend you check it out.

If you were the person who sent this to me, as well as at least five other companies, then shame on you. I’d hate for you to be the owner of a business, and have this happen to yourself. I’m assuming you no longer work there, but if you do, then my advice is to find a new job. Thanks but no thanks; we’re not playing your unethical game.

I was recently lucky to be given the opportunity to get my hands on a DYMO LabelWriter 450. I’m not known to take products for review purposes, having turned down the last few because they didn’t interest me, but being the stationery and office supplies geek I am, I couldn’t pass up this great opportunity.

The package arrived recently, and when I unpacked it, I became a fan of the LabelWriter, just on aesthetics alone. The device looks straight out of a science fiction film; curvy and cool looking, a great item to have on your desk.

We own a small handheld label writer at home, and I was expecting something similar – was I wrong! This little DYMO beauty has all the features…

• Cross platform – both PC and Mac out of the box
• Print one to hundreds of labels (a whopping 51 labels a minute)
• Thermal printing – no ink/toner worries or mess
• 600 x 300 dpi print resolution
• Small desk footprint – doesn’t take up much room
• USB connection and power cord included

Keen to give it a go, I spent a few minutes working out how to load the labels and plug it all in without reading any of the provided instructions – once I had it all hooked up, I checked the manual to be sure, and voila – for someone who has never used a USB label printer before, I guessed right, it was intuitive to install.

Included is a DVD with software for both Mac and Windows, which was handy, because in the last few weeks, I’ve tried the LabelWriter 450 out with both. Installation is quick, and the designer in me was impressed with the range of standard design tools that are built into the DYMO software.

The LabelWriter 450 works well on both my office PC running Windows 7, as well as the Apple MacBook Pro at home. Its compact, lightweight design makes it easy to carry from one to the other, and doesn’t have that beige ugly look that other label printers and devices sometimes have.

I’m soon going to have everything at both home and the office nicely labelled – it’s a cinch to use. I must admit, I haven’t tried printing address labels yet, but with an inbuilt address book, and merging functionality, I can see great uses if you do short run mailing as well.

You can even print straight from Outlook, Word, Excel, all the usual suspects, without having to go back to the DYMO software, which is super handy too.

In summary, if you’ve got a stack of files, boxes or tape/CD media that needs sorting out, or regularly send mail to various contacts, the LabelWriter 450 will make those chores far easier, and perhaps even enjoyable.

I’m glad I did accept the opportunity to try out the LabelWriter 450 – it’s a great little device, and really handy for those organisational types such as myself.

More information can be found here on the DYMO website.

Disclaimer: I was provided a Dymo LabelWriter 450 for review. As always, I made it clear to the supplier that this does not mean that it buys a positive review. Any reviews I do are based on my actual experience and beliefs; which are not affected by offers of free product.

I’ve previously written blog posts and articles about some ethical dilemmas that face small businesses, particularly web companies, in the last few years, such as my posts about design theft particularly around websites copying our work. There’s another topic that I’ve now had some personal experience with; using trademarks or business names in advertising on Google results.

But first some quick background for those less web savvy. Google has a great system called AdWords, which we’ve worked with before, having used it for advertising both our business, as well as on behalf of a number of our clients. Basically, you can define what keywords and phrases you want to display your advertisement under, and craft an appropriate advertisement to show.

It’s all pay-per-click, so it’s low risk (if you know what you’re doing!), and can be great for short term promotions and the like.

Now, in the past, we’ve had clients become excited when you say they can choose the phrases the ad will appear under. For example, in our own case, we’ve used terms such as ‘Web design perth’, ‘website design perth’, ‘perth web design’ and so on.

It doesn’t take long for a few people to realise that you could do the nasty on a competitor by using their trademarks, business or product names as your target terms. Thankfully, this is where Google has a fairly good trademark policy in place. Not only is it unethical (which our clients normally quickly admit), it is against Google AdWords policy.

I’m not a lawyer, but it looks like it could be against Australian law, as claimed in that famous case a few years ago ‘Trading Post v ACCC‘, where the ACCC said that using a competitor’s trademark to target AdWords campaigns was considered misleading conduct.

So it came as somewhat a surprise recently to find out that two of our fellow Western Australian web design companies are doing the same thing to us.

See the screen grab above – when you search on Google Australia for “bam creative” you’ll currently see two advertisements targeting a trademark and company name which Bam Creative Pty Ltd owns.

On one hand, it could be considered flattery they’d go to all that trouble to target people searching our company name, however on the other, people could say it could be called devious, misleading and possibly, illegal.

What do you think? Is this sort of advertising fair game or not? Comments welcome!

If you’ve ever read the biographies of famous contemporary entrepreneurs, you’ll learn stories of how they started a roadside lemonade stand when they were 15, or sold baseball cards to schoolyard friends at the age of 14.

When I was 14, I worked at a fast-food outlet, and spent my money on comics and going to the movies with friends.

I recently had an opportunity to talk to Lachy Groom, a young entrepreneur from Australia; after a lengthy email conversation, I found out he was only 14 years old! The opportunity to find out what goes on in the mind of a very young entrepreneur was irresistible.

Lachy currently runs two businesses: book review web site, Uncoverr.com (disclaimer: SitePoint currently advertise on this site) and blog XHTML/CSS service, PSDtoWordPress.com. Lachy calls himself a web developer who started off as an XHTML/CSS coder three or four years ago.

What is the startup story behind your business? When did it start?

I started when I was 10 or 11, I think. My granddad taught me HTML and I became quite good; I learned about CSS on W3Schools and then I wanted to find out how to make my site live. I found out about free hosts and learned from there.

I started off taking client work and converting PSDs to XHTML/CSS. I made quite a bit of money and so started other sites, sold them, and moved on. Now my two main projects are Uncoverr.com which SitePoint has been nice enough to sponsor, and PSDtoWordPress.com.

Your parents — how do they feel about having a 14-year-old entrepreneur in the house?

Heh, they’re fine about it. It was a bit of trouble convincing them to let me use their PayPal account at first, but then my mum registered one in her name that I can use myself. They leave me to it; I guess to them it’s just like me having a part-time job.

With school and social life, you must be busy. What does an average day (during school term) consist of?

I’ll wake up at 7.00 a.m. and leave for school by 8.00 a.m. After school I usually play sport for a couple of hours, and then relax until dinner time.

Then, once I’ve had dinner, I’ll usually do two hours of work, as well as chat to my friends over Instant Message and on Facebook.

What’s your definition of success, and do you believe you’ve achieved it yet?

To be honest I’ve yet to really think about it. I think success is a very subjective term; to me it’s just completing my goals, and accomplishing what I wanted to finish in that day. If you complete your to-do list for that day plus a little more, it was a successful day ;). Some days I’m successful, some days otherwise. I feel though, in an overall sense, that success is just about being happy with where you are at in life. So, I think I’m yet to be successful, but will be in 4-10 years :).

What do you imagine you’ll be doing when you turn 18 years old?

I hope I’ll be running a startup or a design firm somewhere in Miami or Chicago. I’m currently in Western Australia but I have aspirations to move to the US. I hope to stay in the web industry running a company. Otherwise I’ll probably be a lawyer or an engineer.

What advice would you give to other teenage entrepreneurs?

NETWORK! I think the word teenage is irrelevant, and that advice is the same for any entrepreneur. I like the saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I think that’s really true. But if I was to give advice straight to teens, it would be to have a good work/life balance. Make sure you enjoy yourself, that’s all that matters.

Thanks Lachy for your answers, and I look forward to watching your success in the coming years ahead.

This post first appeared as part of Issue 430 of the SitePoint Tribune, a very popular email newsletter that I am co-editor of. Thanks to SitePoint for allowing me to reproduce the work here.