Opening Up - Comments

Jon Seymour: Out of Sorts

nospam@example.com (Jon Seymour) — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:05:10 -0500

Hey Todd, I didn't know about your blog. Pretty cool. What happened to Turtol? Keep in touch and thanks for the nice comments.

Todd D. Esposito: Why talking shop is a Bad Idea

nospam@example.com (Todd D. Esposito) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:06:43 -0600

Totally agree, Naomi. We've been there so often it hurts. Oh, and thanks for visiting!

The problem is often that it's hard for a non-savvy website owner (or prospective owner) to know what to expect, and so it's very easy for them to be led down the garden path.

In our business, when a client comes in, we do exactly what you suggest: listen, learn, then give considered advice. However, not every client comes in looking for design advice. Often, they ask the guy who did their business cards and logo to do their web site. THAT guy then figures out he's over his head, and calls us in to "implement" his "design."

Yeah, right. So we have to muster up as much tact and consideration as we can, and tell him AND HIS CLIENT why it won't work, why an all-Flash site is not such a great idea despite the "need" to maintain "font consistency" and on and on.

Some people get mad at us for this, but we've become really good at keeping everyone's pride intact while we redirect the uninitiated away from the uninformed.

Necessity is a Mother.

Naomi Niles: Why talking shop is a Bad Idea

nospam@example.com (Naomi Niles) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:34:12 -0600

I think this is why it's really important to find a good designer who has enough experience to guide a client through the best solutions.

Most of the time when we have potential clients approach us, they do it with a list like this: "I want a website in Joomla, it will have 5 pages, a flash rotating header, tags, and a contact form."

Usually, at that point we go over what the goals really are for the client and why they want to have the above things. Later, we might figure out that Joomla would be overkill and what they really need is a Wordpress site and no header at all.

It's really about caring for the best thing for the client's business and being communicative enough and asking enough questions to figure out what they really need.

I'm not criticizing anyone, but I think if a designer proposes you a lot of things just because they are cool, but aren't focused on solving a specific problem, you'd be better off finding someone more experienced.

Todd D. Esposito: Prior Art -- or -- How to Make Money in Open Source

nospam@example.com (Todd D. Esposito) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:46:26 -0600

Well, that's a hard question to answer well, for several reasons I alluded to in the post itself.

1 - We've only had the TurtolCMS in circulation for a few months now, so we don't have the traction it takes to see any real new business comes in from the "giving it away" aspect.

2 - But, we have generated some leads from giving it away. Yes, folks COULD install and run it themselves, but it's just plain easier to pay us to do it. Now, we can't retire yet on these few leads, but these are New Customers who came from OUTSIDE our network at nearly zero cost.

3 -Ssince we haven't try selling it, in the traditional sense, we have no point of comparison. So we can't say that proprietary works better than OSS in this particular market segment. We CAN say that we haven't spent any real money on advertising, packaging, cd-duplication, manual writing, help-desk training, call-center staffing or any of the things that naturally go along with trying to make enough money on For-Sale software. But for a very minor investment in time, we've improved our close rate on prospects who've come in from our network AND gotten a few jobs off-network. Sounds like a win to me.

This is a big subject, so I'm sure I'll be posting on it again, sooner than later.

shane: Prior Art -- or -- How to Make Money in Open Source

nospam@example.com (shane) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:12:26 -0600

It is the use of open-source as a business tool that you refer to. Wordpress being a solid example. So if we may ask - how has giving away your cms been working as opposed to selling it?