http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog Thoughts on small business, the web industry and more, from Miles Burke, Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur and Geek. Sun, 31 Jul 2011 12:19:49 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Services, Sites & Snakeoil 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, ... http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog/2011/07/31/ethics-in-the-web-industry/ 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 ... http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog/2011/05/05/control-that-inbox/ You've started tracking your time, and are increasingly aware of the amount of five minute freebies you are currently giving away in support requests and tiny content fixes. What you need is a way to keep the administration of invoicing those small blocks of time to a minimum -- for you, ... http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog/2011/04/30/do-you-have-five-minutes/ A common complaint when speaking to managers of web teams, is the often large disconnect between being busy, and the goal of all business, being profitable. I had the same dilemma years ago. We'd start on projects, feel like we're doing the hours expected and a few small jobs in between ... http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog/2011/04/27/the-best-kept-secret/ I've received a few reader emails recently, asking me what I think of different online and offline accounting packages, and which one I use. Well, I'm an old-fashioned type, so I use an offline accounting package. This is primarily because there's more than one business entity I'm involved with that uses ... http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog/2011/04/22/manage-your-money/ Many of us recently had a short holiday to celebrate Easter. Regardless of how you feel about the religious significance, it's important to embrace a well-deserved break once in a while. I've written before about managing the tricky balance between work and life. It seems, however, from what I've been reading ... http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog/2011/04/19/keeping-life-and-work-apart/ 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 ... http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog/2011/04/14/grow-your-own-sales/ Two weeks ago, I made the journey to New Zealand to attend the well-known web conference, Webstock. On my first day there, I spotted a man wearing a bright yellow T-shirt which read: Remember me? I met you at Webstock looking for a job. What a great idea! Here he is, ... http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog/2011/04/06/interview-with-chris-winchester/ I recently sent an email to about eight different companies looking for accommodation for a holiday I plan to take in a few months. They all have web sites, they all published email addresses, and you know how many replied within 24 hours? Two. Using this very simple market research, 75% ... http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog/2011/03/30/reply-to-your-emails/ 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 ... http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog/2011/02/08/seven-tips-to-make-debtors-pay/