One of my favorite shows is NCIS. At somepoint Agent Kate Todd (Sasha Alexander) decided that she didn’t want to be part of the show (it sucks, but I understand), so they replaced her. However, it just seems that the dynamic has gone. Don’t get me wrong, I like the show still, but it just seems a little off.
One of the many things that I do is building low-cost turn key IP based PBX’s. They are great, and they provide a “big company” feel at a fraction of the cost. As a par of that, we have hire professional voice tallent to record the welcoming message. I have seen various charges for that, but generally I see between $35 - $70 per hour. The messages are generally about 1 - 2 minutes of recording, and I’m more than happy to pay the hour rate for teh recording (b/c you paying for the time, the talent, the recording gear they use, etc), I’m even more than happy to pay over the hourly rate if my customer really likes the voice.
So, anyway, my customer first wanted a “20ish-30ish female” voice, so I posted the project as such. Of the 50 or so bids I got on the project there was 1 person with a british accent. My customer liked it, however the person wanted $200 for it (way too steep), so I contacted the person, and they stated that they were flexable and they offered $140…I countered with $90. Then the person stated that $100 was their minimum, and $130 was their final offer. My customer (who is a lawyer, and a darn good one at that) makes almost that much for 1 hour of his time. Anyway, I let it go…negoiation over…but, if my customer really wanted it, I would have gone for it.
So, my customer wanted a “british” accent. Well, the original post only had 1 british accent. So, I opened a new project asking for specifically a british accent. Well, the origional person flamed me saying I was wasting peoples time, a fraud, and that they were going to report me. Ummm…the “Delete Post” button looked appealing 
So, now, no matter what, I will not use that person…EVER…not to mention they just look like a sore looser.
My point to all this is “Don’t publically berate a potentional customer, in front of others” EVER. You look bad and you lose business.
This is a GREAT article on being a business consultant, but a lot of things also apply just to regular owners as well.
In running my business I frequently have people say to me “but, XXX hosting company offers 100x more than you do, at only a $1.99, why should I choose you”. The answer is quite frankly, that we provide a better service. We don’t pack too many sites on the server, where it can’t handle the load, and the server goes down (for the record ALL our shared hosting servers load is less that 0.9). Plus, we have qualified people to keep the running, patched with the latests and greatest (sable versions). AND we have smart people ready and able to answer questions ranging from “how do I configure my email account” to “why doesn’t this script work”. In some cases you really do get what you pay for. If you just don’t care if your site goes down for a little bit here and there, or that the support is a little “under par”, then these “cheap” places are for you. But, if you want to have a server (and company) with a good uptime, and want to be able to talk to someone knowledgeable, this consider paying a little more.
To illustrate my point, Andy Owen, has written a wonderful artice about his experence with Go-Daddy, please click Read More to see his article.
Note: I normally just link to stories, but I wanted to copy this one, so I would always have it. The original article is here.
I have posted new pictures of Michael in the Gallery.
Here’s a list of the 14 “worst” coporations, and examples of corporate greed (from war crimes, torture, toxic dumping, to stifling freedom of speech)
Well, the temp dropped to 23 F, and it rained. There’s a thick layer of ice on EVERYTHING. Including my car, which I cannot get into (both a blessing and a curse). With ice, comes cold…FREEZING WET HORRIBLE cold. We decided to move to Texas for a variety of reaons…one of those being, it’s WARM.
Well, anyway…it’s cold, it’s wet. Oye.