But, no fear, I’m pretty much sure that both conferences will be back in some shape or form in 2016.

Please feel free to get in touch if you have ideas, would like to speak, like to sponsor etc etc

Joel

p.s. The Business of Web Design Podcast will still carry on, albeit it in a more ad hoc manner

It gives me great pleasure to announce a new member of the tboWD family; we’ve given birth to a beautiful, bouncing, baby book.

>> Buy your copy now for £9.99 (+VAT) <<

The book is called ‘Experiences – Volume 1‘ and contains 24 short articles from folks in the web & creative sector. My idea is to create something which is pickup-able, browse-able and relevant – hopefully you’ll agree that we’ve achieved that and much more.

Big thanks to the following contributors without who’s input, this book would not exist:

Pete Seymour*, Liz Elcoate, Phil Murphy, Christian Senior, Danny Bluestone, Kristina Auckland, Simon Jones, Jack Barber, Jamie Huskisson, Katie Cory, Matt Newton, Kelly Molson, Keir Whitaker, Steve Kirtley, Darren Beale, Kirsty Bourgoine, Alex Brooke, Shane Hudson, Richard Askew, Dan Davies, Caroline Smith, Andy Robinson, Craig Francis and last my not least, Matt Hill.

(Thanks also to Pete as he designed and typeset everything).

So, what are you waiting for? BUY NOW

Joel

p.s. there are some typos on the book; consider those freebies rather than the product of slack proofreading from plank here (lesson learned!)

The person was recommended to me as they were trying to get into the web dev/design industry; they already had some skills and they were working in a related industry.

The person wanted a full time job; freelancing can be a bit daunting (hence this site!). They had no related work projects under their belt but they did had a decent blog which showed they knew what they were talking about.

In no particular order, here are some ideas:

Twitter

They weren’t strong on Twitter. Their website didn’t mention it (come on, make it easy for people). Twitter is a great place to form relationships and get on people’s radar. Who should this person target? Well, potential local employers for one plus other key people in the local web community. Same goes for linkedin.

Work = Marketing

Work begets work. Saying what you can do something and doing it are two separate things. You need work to show people what you can do & for you to blog about. If no-one is paying you, work on personal projects or do free stuff. Better though would be to reach out on Twitter and see if anyone wants any low end help on projects; explaining that it’ll be evening/weekend work will work for many people as long as they are told. Once people know what you do they are able to recommend you – simple as that.

Get involved in the local web community, events etc. Explain to people what you do and you’ll end up getting some bits of work – that’s a start. Explain what permie role you’re looking for and people will end up listening out for you; if they don’t know you, don’t know what you want – then they cannot do that – sounds obvious but it has to be stated.

Reach Out

I wouldn’t look on job boards for openings etc. I’d hand pick the companies you’d like to work at, research them and reach out to them. By reach out I don’t mean an email saying “Hi, I’m looking for a job, here’s my CV” I mean something more like:

“Hi, we’ve spoken on Twitter a few times and I was wondering if we could meet up for a coffee so I could ask your advice. I’m currently working as X,Y,Z but I have skills in A,B,C and am looking to take the next move. I’d love a couple of moments of your time to hear your thoughts, as someone who employs tech folk. about my approach & what I should do.”

Hopefully you can see this is a totally different type of approach that just blasting in a CV (tip: no-one wants to read a CV). Many companies are always on the look out for talent; irrespective of what their vacancies page says. If you show up as a proactive, interesting person then who do you think will be top of the list when it comes to interviews?

So, that’s just some basic tips. There’s nothing rocket science there but many people don’t do it because, in all truth, it’s much easier to hide behind uploading your CV to a job board & crossing your fingers – that’s a process which we can pretend is us finding a job but, in truth, we have to be a lot more proactive than that if we want to stand out in a crowded market.

Joel

(c) Paul Cornish

I’m back from a well deserved break now that the Cardiff conference is done and dusted. Already the day seems a long time away (although, that A/V system will always give me nightmares ;).

A big, big thanks to to all for coming; the speakers were amazing and the audience were enthusiastic and talkative. Tweets like this really make it all worth while:

(more here…)

Here’s a link to all the photos of the day, please credit Paul Cornish if you use any.

I’ll save you a blow by blow account of the day; both Steven Morgan and Mike Hince have penned some great write ups (please shout out if you want yours added here).

Final Thoughts

If you attended, please respond to the feedback questionnaire as that really helps (I’ll send an email reminder shortly).

Don’t forget that we have a one-off, mini-event which is happening as part of Bournemouth’s Silicon Beach festival. If you’re free on the 1st of Sept, come along.

Joel

p.s. Steve Kirtley vanished before we did the group photo. So, it’s not a conspiracy against him (although I’m sure he’ll have something to say about it ;)

We have a winner!

Bribed the kids to help me with my entry for the #tboSelfie competition to win tickets to @tboWebDesign conference! pic.twitter.com/UOGJv0JQyF

— Phil Matthews (@philmatthews) June 14, 2014

Extra points were awarded for the number of t-shirts featured, overall cuteness and building in a responsive design reference. Well done Phil, we’ll be in touch by DM on Twitter.

Let’s take a look at some of our other gorgeous The Business Of Web Design models. Thanks everyone!

@tboWebDesign rocking the building site geek look for #tboselfie pic.twitter.com/3jJak3ClGr — Darren Beale (@bealers) July 1, 2014

Wearing my @tboWebDesign tshirt for the #tboSelfie comp! Aberporth and the wooden Dolphin. pic.twitter.com/3zpzkhdwWh

— Inspired Worx (@InspiredWorx) June 26, 2014

Hey @tboWebDesign, does this count for the #TBOselfie competition?? ~ grin! http://t.co/bVsB4oq9AU

— KirstyBurgoine (@KirstyBurgoine) June 14, 2014

We’d still love to see you rocking your t-shirt, so get yours here and show us your best side!

T-Shirts are £9.99 (ex-VAT and postage), if you need it sent further afield, please get in touch and we’ll sort it out.

They come in M,L,XL and a variety of splendid colours.

Second Wednesday’s pre-show event

On the day before (that’s Thr the 17th), the lovely guys from Nottingham’s Second Wednesday are arranging a free, evening, web event at bar ZeroDegrees on West Street. Note, you don’t have to be attending the main conference to attend this. Tickets for the pre-show event are on eventbrite.

The Day Itself

The conference on Friday is at the Atrium in central Cardiff – about 10 mins walk from the train station.

Update: There is a large car park right opposite The Atrium. From memory it’s not expensive and there is one or two machines where you can pay by card (rather than having to have the flipping right change etc).

Doors will be open from about 08:15 for teas & coffee with registration from 08:30 and kick off at 09:30.

The day will finish around 17:30 where we’ll have a Q&A session so put your thinking caps on now.

There is a canteen at the venue but you may well want to have wander and grab something else. The awesome burger joint Grazing Shed is only a few mins away and well worth a visit.

Here is a Foursquare list of the venue, the train station & places to eat.

There are still tickets left for the main event so, if you still fancy coming, please grab yours now.

Please shout out if you have any questions and myself or Helen will sort you out.

See you next week!

Joel

Our venue is Clearleft’s lovely 68 Middle St. on the night before Responsive Day Out.

Unlike many things in life, this is a FREE event. I’m also trying to get some FREE beer as well (we’ll see).

>> tickets are free <<

The event will run from around 19:00* and we’ll have a few talks plus some Q&A at the end.

As usual the talks will be all about the business end of things (we’ll leave handling responsive images etc to the next day’s event).

The roadshow is all part of promoting next month’s The Business of Web Design conference which is happening in Cardiff (main conference tickets available here).

(*Exact timing to be confirmed)

Confirmed speakers (I’ll flesh this out shortly)

• Joel Hughes (me, sorry about that, title: “Lessons I’ve (slowly) learnt from running a web business“)
• Elliot Taylor (tbc)
• Jo Petty (‘A Crash Course on the Freelance Experience‘)
• Richard Jones (Title: “how to make a living by giving things away (or surviving in a open source world‘)
• Q&A session (the floor is yours!)

Grab your free tickets from eventbrite asap

Joel

p.s. full speaker details

Joel Hughes

(me) I’ve been working in the web for over fifteen years and been running my currently company since 2001. In that time I’ve worked in loads of roles and made loads of mistakes ;) I’m currently focussed on growing by business and trying to get better at all of the non-web tech things which typically hold back freelancers & agencies; i.e. the business side of web design.

Richard Jones

Richard is the Technical Director of i-KOS digital services, an agency specialising in e-Commerce and Drupal. Most recently he has lead the redevelopment of the lush.co.uk site as it moved to Drupal and is the author of “Getting Started with Drupal Commerce”. He is also a regular speaker at Drupal Community events other conferences related to the e-commerce world.

Jo Petty

Elliot Taylor

After working as a manager I moved to the other side of the table and setup an ECommerce agency (raison.co). As we’ve grown we’ve become more specialised and learnt a huge amount. I’ll be talking about what we’ve learnt over the last three years and how to scale up from freelancer to agency.

There will be a happening the night before the conference and you can check for details in the post ‘Pre-show event‘.

There’s also a Foursquare list of good places to know in Cardiff while you’re in the ‘hood.

Here are some hotel ideas.

Hotels in Cardiff City Centre

Cardiff’s got loads of hotels for all budgets. Check out Tripadvisor or see what you think of these:

Premier Inn

Holiday Inn

Maldron

Novotel

Park Plaza

Radisson Blu

Big Sleep

Mecure Holland House

Thistle The Parc

Hotels in Cardiff Bay

If you fancy staying by the sea, Cardiff Bay is lovely and about a 30 minute walk (1.2 miles) or short taxi ride to the conference venue.

Future Inns

Jolyons Boutique Hotel

Travelodge

However, it wasn’t to be. Budget ended up probably being the deal breaker (even though I’d explained my price range from day 1) and, as I don’t really do anything bespoke for much under £5K, that was that.

Now if folks just flat out don’t have the money, then that’s fine. But I don’t normally allow them to get far along the process: begone tyre kickers!

But if there is wiggle room in the price where, if the client can just grasp the added value I bring to the table, then they’ll make that leap. It’s where potential client’s don’t make that leap that concerns me.

In my experience, on referred work, more often than not – I’ll win it.

However, when you’ve had good feelings about a project and lose out, it can hurt; it can dent your pride.

And that’s natural.

But my thoughts now are to turn this into a learning vehicle.

I’ve put together a list of questions, particular to my business, which I’ll ask for permission to send through for the not-to-be-client to answer. In this case the person was more than happy to oblige.

If there are areas where my sales process or offering can be improved, then I need to hear about them so I can adapt and evolve. And I need to be big enough to take criticism on the chin.

Don’t get mad. Get even.

Joel

The Pentax P30 camera

I’ve spent a lot of time in my career as a freelancer and I’ve also spent a good period of time having to hire freelancers; the question of hourly rate always crops up.

The problem is that hourly rates are kinda flawed.

But, before I get into that, I want to tell you something about cameras*

(*bare with me).

Warning: Long Winded Metaphor Coming Up!

At the top of the post is the Pentax P-30 film camera; a classic. When I used to shoot film I had loads of these babies; they are simple & effective; a veritable work horse (in fact, I’ve still got a couple somewhere).

Cameras work by exposing an image onto light sensitive material; in the case of the P30 that light sensitive material is the film you load in the back (modern day digital cameras have a light sensor instead).

The key with photography is getting the exposure right.

To simplify things let’s say that the exposure is controlled by two main devices; shutter speed and aperture. Shutter speed says how long the exposure lasts; setting 1/25 means we open the shutter for 1/25th of a second, allowing in light for that duration. Aperture relates to the internal iris mechanism in the lens itself; this controls the amount of light which passes through the camera; throw the iris wide open with (say) F1.2 and you’re letting light flood in; close it off to F22 and only a small amount trickles through (albeit through the sharpest, middle part of the lens).

So, the exposure is a balance of your shutter speed and your aperture. This means that there is more than one exposure value possible.

I.e. you could expose correctly with any of the following aperture/shutter combinations:

• f/8 at 1/125 sec
• f/5.6 at 1/250 sec
• f/4 at 1/500
• f/2.8 at 1/1000
• f/2 at 1/2000

…as they all result in the same amount of light hitting the film; cool eh? Where a combination with a fast shutter speed allows you to freeze action, or a combination with a higher F number is better for landscapes and detail.

Why the HELL am I telling you this?!

Ok, that’s a fair enough question.

My point is this: as a supplier your hourly rate is a very rough gauge for how good you are; I’m more interested in whether you can do a good job done in a reasonable amount of time.

If you wade in with (say) an hourly rate of £100 then, if everyone else is £50, that’s a big ask. You may be amazing and the job may have taken you an hour (whilst someone at £35 may have taken 2 days!), but I won’t know that as that big rate may have scared me off. So, how about this, why not quote a more average rate; and then get what amount you want by upping the time you bill?

Crazy eh?

You might be reading this and thinking I’m saying that you should fleece people or be dishonest; nah, that’s not really where I’m coming from. I’m just saying that if you are losing work all the time (because of your hourly rate) then why not try lowering it but bill the time to make the rate you want? Chances are, if you are good and do things in a reasonable amount of time anyway, then the supplier won’t care two hoots. You get the rate you want, the supplier gets the work they want.

If the supplier doesn’t like the work you do or thinks it takes too long then you’ll go your separate ways anyway. If the supplier is happy, then you’ll carry on working together. If you feel bad about overstating your hours then ask to up your hourly rate after a while but, of course, now you can state your hours correctly and, ultimately, you’ll be billing the same amount – fair enough?

Take this with a pinch of salt but, at the same time, remember that to win new business we sometimes need to have some low hanging fruit which allows people to taste our services in the first place.

Joel