Jamie Harrop | Young Entrepreneur

Google Analytics Lacking in Percentage Conversions

Jamie Harrop — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:03:27 +0000

Because it’s Saturday, and because I haven’t had a rant in a while, I gathered now would be a good time. It will be short, sweet and simple. And hopefully make some sense.

I’ve just spent the morning putting together a template that I’m going to use to send monthly traffic reports to my Web site development customers.

I’m using Google Analytics to supply the results, and all I’m doing is the labour intensive job of searching, analysing and recording the results. For somebody not used to looking at Web stats (the customer), all the jargon and fancy figures can often be very confusing. This service is meant to solve that problem.

Country of Origin

Knowing the country of origin of your visitors is important to any business. If 95% of your traffic comes from the USA, but you only serve the UK, you need to do something to start attracting more UK traffic and less US traffic (US traffic eats your bandwidth, produces no sales, and takes time as you reply to their emails to tell them you can’t serve to their country).

Google Analytics is great. It supplies this information, and it even gets down to city level (although not all that reliably, because I could be in Scotland of Northern England and still have my location show as London because that’s where my ISP is located).

Lack of Percentages

But the visitor location report in Google Analytics is rendered almost useless. That’s because it doesn’t show you the percentage of visitors that come from each location. It only shows you raw visitor numbers.

So What’s the Problem?

Let’s imagine I received a large spike in traffic last month. As a result, Google Analytics naturally shows more visitors from more locations when compared to other months. This makes it very hard to compare whether the percentage of visitors from one location is naturally going up or down. A simple percentage would solve that. By having a percentage, I’d be able to see 40% of my visitors two months ago were from the UK, and 60% were from the UK last month. If my market was UK customers, that would give me a pretty good indication that the marketing that caused the spike in traffic would be a good marketing method to use in the future, because it boosted my visitors from the UK by 20%. Of course, in raw figures, US visitors also went up in numbers because of that traffic spike, but if I saw it as a percentage I would see the figure actually went down.

Come on Google. We’re so used to you making our jobs easy. Why not convert your location figures in to percentages?

/Jamie waits for the smart ass to show him exactly where the percentage based figures are.

Update: Well, apparently my rant wasn’t needed. And the smart ass I was waiting for actually came along (Thanks Nathan. ) You can view country of origin as percentages, but it’s well hidden. Once inside the “Map Overlay” section of Google Analytics, you need to change the graph view to a pie chart using the buttons on the right side next to the “Views” text. Once changed to a pie chart, the percentages are there. I guess I don’t mind making myself look a fool if I learn something new in the process.

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5 Ways to Maintain Your Business Passion

Jamie Harrop — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:40:21 +0000

With 27 comments, a feature article on Brazen Careerist, a mention on John Chow Dot Com, and more track backs than I care to think about, it’s safe to say my 5 Ways to Lose Passion for Your Business article was a popular read for many.

**You Can Avoid Losing Your Passion**

Just a few minutes ago, I was chatting on Twitter with my good friend and Belfast Web developer, Seamus Clarke. We were chatting about my venture back in to Web development with my new company, solution.14.

How do you intend avoiding those dreaded 5 reasons for losing your passion?

The Irish always have a knack of asking such crazy questions! I mean, I’m just going to avoid doing those five things I listed in the previous post! Right? Wrong! Because that’s what I tried to do last time. I never intended to have a lack of self discipline or a lack of trust in others and I never tried to forget about my customers. It just happened.

It’s Time to be Proactive

With solution.14, I intend to be proactive in my approach. Here are the five ways I intend to use to avoid losing my passion.

1. Outsource & Trust

I intend to outsource all my design and coding work. Those are the two most time consuming parts of any Web development project. For the most part, I’ll act as nothing more than a project manager, outsourcing to Web designers and developers just as capable as me while I sit back and focus on keeping the customer happy and entertained and indeed focus on bringing in more customers. As the owner of the business, every moment I spend designing, coding, writing copy, or maintaining Web sites is time that could and should be spent on communicating with past, present and future customers.

**“Trust in others is the difference between owning your business and your business owning you“**

Those are the words of my good friend and former business partner, Paul Hirsch. He hit the nail on the head in that one sentence alone.

2. Finish Pre Deadline

My second point of my previous post discussed how I over-promised and under-delivered. I fell in to the trap of promising the world when meeting a customer, and then only being able to give her a country.

Switching that around and under-promising to allow you to over-deliver is not easy. It’s going to take time and practice, but in the seven short days I’ve been operating I’ve found there is one thing we can easily do to impress a client. Over-estimate how long the project will take, then finish the work in less days than you estimated.

Just last week I had a customer who offered a four day deadline. I rejected the deadline and told him I’d have it finished the next day. In the end, I had it finished the same day he contracted me for the work. His response? “WOW. That was quick!” His words, not mine.

That same client emailed me 24 hours later to say how impressed he was. He happened to say I was the best freelancer he has ever worked with. (You should have seen my head grow!). Three days later he emailed again. This time he was wracking his brain to find a way he could work with me again. When somebody is trying to create extra work just to work with you some more, you know you far, far exceeded their expectations.

Finishing work pre deadline isn’t the hardest of tasks when you’re doing the work yourself. But it’s even easier when you outsource. Contractors have this uncanny ability to come in on deadline. Every. Single. Time. I put this down to the small chunks of work. If I outsource the design to one person and the coding to another, both contractors only have half as much work as they’re used to having. Smaller projects are easier to estimate and manage. Next time you outsource in small chunks, add 24-48 hours on to each estimate from the contractor before passing the timeline on to the customer. Of course, don’t tell your contractor this. You don’t want him or her to know they have an extra 24 hours to complete the work, because then you’re unable to over-deliver to the client.

3. Market. Measure. Entertain.

My third point on my previous post is the most important. You work in, not on your business. You become an employee of your own business with no manager looking on.

Outsourcing kills two birds with one stone. When you outsource, you free up time to work on your business. You free up time to write those thank you letters to customers, to take the client out for dinner, to market your business, to make phone calls and conduct surveys.

4. Regular Customer Contact

Remember this: When you receive a signed contract for some work, you don’t just receive a new project. You receive a new customer.

That customer will still be there long after you have finished the project and the contract has become obsolete.

A customer really is for life.

Over the past seven days I’ve hung on to this mantra and applied it across the board, from customers to prospects to suppliers to contractors.

After I completed the work I mentioned above, I sent a thank you letter via snail-mail, along with a receipt for payment and a copy of the project report. This project report is a print out of a database report that contains the dates all project milestones were achieved, such as when the contract was received, when the first invoice was sent, when payment was received and when the work was completed. It also includes my notes from the initial meeting with the client which, along with the quality Web site I just gave them, reiterates how well I understood and met their needs.

I Amazed the Reception Girls

I had a meeting on Monday morning with a new startup Web development firm. We met just to bounce ideas and talk a little about my past marketing efforts.

After the meeting, I asked the receptionists at the office block to give me a tour and provide some quotes for potential office space. The tour was very interesting and I went away with some useful quotes that the girls in reception had quickly produced for me on the spur of the moment.

Once home, the first thing I did was write, print and mail two letters. One to the new development firm and one to the girls in reception.

Today, I heard back from the guys at the office. They spoke with the girls in reception and they mentioned how grateful they were for my letter. You see, for a new media firm, there’s no better way to stand out than to give somebody a personal note on real, printed paper. Not email. But real, quality paper.

5. Make the Business Fun

But all this is useless unless the business is fun. And it’s not down to your customers, your colleagues, your contractors or your suppliers to make your business fun and exciting. It’s down to you. It’s down to you to ensure you do the things you want and enjoy doing, and outsource the rest. It’s down to you to exceed your customers expectations, because as well as making them feel good, it also makes you feel great. There hasn’t been a time yet when I’ve walked to the postbox to post a thank you letter and I haven’t had a smile on face. It’s exciting and satisfying to know I’m doing something that other Web development firms don’t do. It’s satisfying to know that everybody my business comes in to contact with knows I care about them and their business.

1. Outsource anything that isn’t getting you new clients and you don’t enjoy
2. Exceed your customers expectations by over-estimating the timeframe
3. Use time saved by outsourcing to do things that bring in new business and ensure that past and present customers are happy
4. Keep in touch with customers. Use snail mail. It helps you stand out, pleases the client and gives you that warm fuzzy feeling inside
5. Make your business fun. For both you and your customers. Do what you enjoy. Outsource the rest.

Most important of all…

Never (ever!) meet a customers expectations. It just isn’t good enough. Always exceed their expectations

How do you exceed your customers expectations? Do you often surprise them? How do you maintain your passion and keep it exciting?

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Charging Per Hour Is Stupid!

Jamie Harrop — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:51:59 +0000

$70 per hour. That was my Web design rate. A typical fee for a decent Web developer. Not the highest by a long shot, but not the lowest either.

A client calls. You ask him lots of questions to determine his needs. You estimate in your head how long each task will take, then convert that to a dollar amount using your hourly rate. You present a quote, the client accepts and then you do the work.

There Lies the Problem

A job you estimated at 10 hours does in fact take 15 hours. There’s a little scope creep from the customer and the job generally takes longer than you expected.

And then a job that took you two hours ($140) makes your client $10,000 in 12 months.

Where is the Logic in Charging Per Hour?

There is no logic. Why should you charge just $140 when the value of your work is worth $10,000 every 12 months? $100,000 profit if kept for 10 years. And you charged just $140!

These may seem like crazy figures, but I’ve done work that took me just a few hours and have seen the direct impact of my work make the customer several thousand extra dollars in profit each year.

Don’t charge per hour. It’s easy, yes. But also useless.

Charge based on the value of the product or service you’re providing. If you estimate your service is going to make a client $10,000 per year, charge that client $7,000. Even if it’s only going to take a few hours.

Justify the Cost

Will a customer really pay $7,000 for what accounts for no more than half a days work? Sure, if you show them they’ll make an extra $10,000 in the next 12 months. And $10,000 a year after that. And the year after that.

Charge based on your service value. Justify the cost. And stop losing money by charging per hour.

PS. Yet again, I have to thank Brendon Sinclair and his Web Design Business Kit for helping me understand this concept. It’s a concept I’ve heard of many times, but until I read Brendon’s book I simply didn’t “get it”. Brendon, I’m trying not to give away all the secrets in your book, but sometimes your words are far too valuable to keep to myself.

Do you charge by the hour? Have you ever charged based on your service value? Let us know in the comments!

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5 Ways to Lose Passion for Your Business

Jamie Harrop — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:51:57 +0000

There’s no more important factor when it comes to running your own business. You need to be passionate about your idea, your customers, your colleagues and your work. So when you lose that passion, you find yourself in the deep end of an Olympic sized swimming pool with weights attached to your face.

How Do I Know?

I know, because in the final 12 months of running my own Web development company, I lost my passion. At the time, I thought I had lost the passion for Web development and the industry I was in. But as I’ve come to learn in the month since I stepped down as co-owner, my passion for the Web development industry is still there and strong. It was the passion for the business that I had lost.

How Did I lose My Passion?

Here is my five step process to losing your passion for your business.

Lack of Self Discipline

You try to do it all. You try to market, sell, quote, invoice, design, code and optimise. You don’t trust others to do the job to your high standard, and you struggle to grasp the concept that paying for sub contractors actually increases profits, as opposed to decreases profits.

You Promise More Than You Can Give

You over-promise and under-deliver, when you should be under-promising and over-delivering. You fall in to the moment of the meeting and promise far more to the client than you can give. You should step back, promise what you can give, and then give more as and when the time is right. Stop over-promising in an attempt to secure a contract, because the repeat work and referrals from the happy clients who you under-promised and over-delivered to will far outweigh the one or two lost contracts that arose when you didn’t promise enough. Think long term. Think repeat work and referrals. Don’t just think of the one contract in front of you.

You Work in Your Business as Opposed to on Your Business

Rather than stepping back to analyse, market and sell your business, you dive straight in to the shop floor work that your employees or contractors should be doing. You become an employee of your own business, working from project to project without stepping back to run your business. Suddenly, you find your business has one extra employee but no manager. A clear recipe for disaster.

You Forget About Your Customers

You complete a piece of work for a customer and never speak to him or her again. You treat them as though you just passed them on the street. A quick “Hello” and nothing more. You begin to provide average or mediocre service to most clients, and bad service to the rest. No client receives exceptional service… because you’re working in, not on your business.

You Compete On Price

You sense a client is running a small business and doesn’t have a huge budget. You present a proposal with a quote much lower than normal for that type of work. After all, $1,000 is better than nothing, even if the work is worth $3,000, right? Wrong! Never compete on price. Ever! You’re worth what your skills are worth, so unless you just lost half your skills overnight, you should charge what you’re worth. Besides, clients always refer similar clients. So Old Joe who you charged $1,000 for a $3,000 project will refer Old Bill who in turn will expect his $1,000 product. Of course, he wants the same quality that Joe got. The $3,000 quality. Again, the value gained from higher priced contracts and higher valued referrals far outweighs the contracts you’ll lose because your quote was outside a customers budget.

Those are my five traps to fall in to in order to ensure you lose your passion for your business. Five traps I fell in to over the past 12 months, but have been lucky to get out of.

Don’t make the same mistakes I did. Your passion and business depend on it!

Do you still have the passion for your business that you had on day one? Do you find yourself working in and not on your business? Let us know in the comments!

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New About Page - Including Video

Jamie Harrop — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:24:13 +0000

Afternoon all. It’s bonfire night here in the UK, which means plenty of fire, fireworks and sparklers. And after yesterdays events in the US, I gathered today would be a good day to ease down and provide something a little more fun.

So without further ado, I introduce my new about page, complete with video and photos.

I actually intend to change the video next week to have something more interesting (hope to get outside, on location, at some of the areas I’ve mentioned on my blog), but hopefully this current video is a little more interesting than an essay of text.

For those of you who have never seen my face before… welcome to the freak show.

Enjoy!