The quick update for Usable Web Solutions, LLC is that I carried through on my plans to remove all of my third party clients and now the business operates as a shell corporation that owns several independent websites. While I enjoyed working with most of my clients most of the time, I began to run into issues where certain clients just wouldn’t pay for my services. In business, I live by a simple code – you pay a person/company what you promised to pay them, assuming that the good or service provided was of the expected quality. Simple. I never had a complaint about the very high standards that I set for my work; rather, the clients who stopped paying me ran into their own financial troubles and their financial troubles became my issue. Not good. As you might suspect, once those clients stopped paying regularly I cut them off and canceled those contracts.

Then I ran into several issues where clients began to think that since I was their website designer, then I was also their in-house technology person. They were wrong. Some folks just didn’t understand that the guy who makes your website isn’t the guy who is tasked with fixing your Microsoft Word when a document doesn’t open… particularly when the contract you signed with that website guy clearly states his responsibilities being tied solely to your website presence! Thankfully, I only had one or two of these clients over the years (each with several websites, come to think of it). Spinning them off to other web designers in the area was an easy decision when their contracts came due.

And then there was my favorite type of head-shaking client – the ones who knew almost nothing about technology, but they would boss me around demanding that complex activities (think highly sophisticated database building) take place in a matter of days. I had one client that demanded an integrated third party payment system be installed on their website by the end of the day. Granted, if they were using PayPal or Google Wallet that would have been an annoying, but rather easy task. But, as I’m sure you suspect by this point, they didn’t want to use the easy option. They wanted to use the most complex, obscure website payment system on the internet. What fun?! After I finished that job (it took a weekend to get it working correctly), I let that client know in advance of their contract expiring that I wasn’t going to renew it and they should find another company for their website services. Last I checked, their website still hadn’t been updated and I spun them off as a client some 3 or 4 years ago.

Sure, I had many great clients, but my aggravating ones easily won the day and forced me out of the third party website management business. It just wasn’t worth the aggravation.

Today, I keep Usable Web Solutions, LLC open and I use it to manage and build my own suite of websites. You’re reading my personal blog site – JerseySmarts.com. In the coming weeks, I plan to release some new websites and reintroduce some of my old websites that I’ve retired over the years. None of these websites will have input or management-level requirements from anyone on the outside of Usable Web Solutions, LLC (and as the guy who owns and operates that company, what I’m really saying here is that I’m going to manage the suite of websites myself). Having all of my websites managed under my own banner and operated by me and me alone should make the entire management process flow much easier.

That’s your quick update on Usable Web Solutions, LLC. It was my first small business and the first major success that I had as a business owner. Here’s hoping for many more similar successes in my future!

Happy Five Year Anniversary!

And, honestly, that strategy pretty much worked.

However, what I learned as I went along was that my original intention of focusing on websites for start-up businesses was a losing proposition. The truth is that many local start-up businesses do not (and will not) generate any revenue from their website. And as we saw over the last few years with the tough economy, when times are tough companies begin to cut costs. So, if you’re a small business owner and you have to decide what gets cut in your budget – do you opt for cutting your website services or for cutting your salary?

I think we all know how that usually ends up…

Over the last few years, I’ve had a surprisingly large number of clients simply stop paying me for contracted services (i.e. deadbeats). In fact, altogether I’ve had 36 contracted clients since I opened up Usable Web Solutions, LLC. Actually, that’s not a bad amount of clients to sign up over a five year period considering that this website company is my side gig after my day job, teaching at the local university, and teaching at the online college. But to get back to the deadbeat clients – of the 36 contracts I signed in the last five years, 12 of my clients turned out to be deadbeats.

It’s an astonishing number when you think about it. A full third of my clients either just stopped paying, were horrible clients and screwed me out of contracted revenue, or just randomly disappeared. It’s outrageous. But, like I said above, I learned as I went along and what I learned was interesting on its face, but not totally surprising.

When I was working with outside clients, the chances of me getting screwed over were 1 in 2. However, when I was working with websites that I had a direct stake in, the chances of me getting screwed over were 0%. Some of you may ask, “what does it mean that you had a direct stake in the website?” Good question. As it turns out, of the 36 contracts that I signed over the last five years, 10 of them were with myself! That’s right – my best client looks at me in the mirror every morning.

Websites that fall within the boundaries of me having a stake in them include the one that you’re reading right now – JerseySmarts.com. In addition, I own 3 professional wrestling websites, 2 fraternity websites, 2 websites that are nothing more than domains right now, the actual Usable Web Solutions, LLC website, and a photo hosting website for my Mother’s eBay sales. Over the course of the last five years I’ve actually owned more than these 10 websites, but I’ve been shedding the websites that don’t turn a profit.

About two years ago, it became glaringly apparent that the majority of Usable Web Solution, LLC’s revenue was earned via advertising on the websites that I had a direct stake in. Further, it became apparent that with at least half of my outside clients screwing me over, chances were that I was wasting my time with them. So I began doing what any good businessman would do – I began shedding the outside clients and increasing my investment in the revenue generating websites.

From my perspective, this change in strategy from focusing on local nonprofits and start-up businesses to focusing on websites that I have a direct stake in paid off. For example, in its first three years of operations, Usable Web Solutions, LLC was losing money each year. Sure, it wasn’t losing huge sums of money, but it was losing money nonetheless. However, in the last two years the company has lost much less money. Now, some folks will read that and say that it’s still losing money and that’s true. But there’s no comparison between losing, say, $1,000 during one of the first three years of operations and losing, say, $20 during one of the last two years of operations.

Besides, the truth is that these losses are simply based on income versus expenses. Anyone who works in accounting could look at my books and know that, in terms of real dollars, Usable Web Solutions, LLC has been generating revenue since I started shedding the deadbeats. It’s been great, actually.

And that’s about as succinct a wrap up that I can provide after five years as a small business owner! I suspect that during the next five years I’ll continue this trend of shedding third party clients (I still have some) and focusing more on the websites that I have a direct stake in because – at the end of the day – it makes smart business sense.

Now, I’ve had deadbeat clients in the past that simply went away and stopped paying for their services. What’s worse, I’ve had deadbeat clients who were actually my close friends from college and members of the same fraternity as me – two populations that you’d never expect to be deadbeats. However, over the course of this week I’ve had to deal with two deadbeat clients much more than I could have imagined. And what’s more amazing to me is that my contractual obligations to both of these particular deadbeats expired over the summer and they were alerted (numerous times) that they needed to find a new website provider. Did they get off their asses and take care of the online portion of their businesses?

Of course not!

Actually, let me go into some greater detail on one of these idiots… This client’s contract expired over the summer so I sent a notice that I was not renewing services (bear in mind that I hadn’t been paid for any of my services in over a year anyway – the definition of deadbeat). When the contract expired, I took the website down. About a month goes by and the client comes back and is complaining that the website is down. Okay. I told them that the website could very easily be restored if I received the back payment that I was owed.

And, like any good deadbeat, this idiot paid me 70% of what I was owed and I agreed to put the website back up, but make no changes as she requested. Then the deadbeat said that there were no contracts or extension notices in her file so she weren’t even sure if I was their web provider.

What an idiot.

By the way, this is a common tactic of deadbeats and scumbag business people. I know – I used to work for one of the biggest ones in New Jersey. The scumbag business person will act like they are the victim 99 times out of 100 (read on to see how this particular client played the victim this week). Anyway, I went into my files and gave this client copies of the initial contract and the two year extension letter. I also printed another termination letter saying that our agreement was over and ended and that I would be very happy to transfer the entire website off of my servers once I was paid in full. The client responded by contacting me late last week saying to call her when I had a chance. I called her office last Friday and they tell me that she doesn’t work on Fridays. Nice. I e-mailed her that I just left her a message at her office and she said to call her on Tuesday. And, as you might imagine, Tuesday comes around and I called her office at 3pm only to learn that she was already gone for the day. Fine, whatever. I called back on Wednesday morning at 10:30am and guess who’s not in the office yet.

That’s right! You got it! This deadbeat wasn’t even in the office by 10:30am. What type of small business owner isn’t already in motion for a few hours by 10:30am on a Wednesday?!

However, on Wednesday afternoon I receive an e-mail from the deadbeat saying that now it’s Wednesday and I haven’t reached out to her and what’s the problem. Good grief. I sent a pleasant little note back saying that I’ve actually left two messages for her and that I’m waiting for her to respond to either of them. She, of course, did not respond so I gave her a call on Thursday afternoon around 4pm and she was actually in the office.

Now, like I said earlier, deadbeats have to play the role of the victim. When this one got on the phone she said, “Hi.” And I responded with, “Hello! How are you, Deadbeat?” Obviously, I used the deadbeat’s real name. She said, “Fine,” in about as dull and annoyed a voice as you could imagine. And that was the conversation opener. Since I’ve dealt with and worked for scumbags in the past, I knew exactly where this was going and I prepared myself to have some fun. I said, “So I received your message-” and she interrupted me with, “Yeah you claim you’ve been reaching out and you can’t get me. Well, I’m here now.”

Oh, what a pity?! It would appear that this deadbeat is a victim, right? Poor her – sitting there and having to actually do work with one of her contractors! Oh – the horror! It gets better.

So I responded with something like, “Yeah I saw your e-mail. So do you have a new web provider in mind that I can work with to transfer the services?” And she said something like, “Yes. And he’s offering services much cheaper than what we’ve been paying-” so then I cut her off and in my rosiest, happiest voice I said, “Right! So if you could get me his information, I’ll be happy to contact him and work to complete the transfer.”

You see, having worked for a scumbag, I saw that “pity me, I’m a victim” card being played way before this deadbeat began dealing it out – thus why I cut her off when she lied about being offered cheaper services. How do I know that she lied about the cost of the services? Easy! I’m actively engaged in this work and I know what my competitors charge. I typically charge between 25% and 50% of what every single one of my competitors charge (except this one guy who does websites in the area and charges an exorbitant fee – I’m about 10% of his costs).

The conversation pretty much ended after that with the deadbeat saying that she’d e-mail me her new web person’s contact information. I responded with a dreadfully cheery, “Wonderful! Thank you!” Which she followed up with a half-asleep, extremely aggravated, “Bye,” before she hung up. It’s always the same with scumbag business people and deadbeats – they all act the same, they all talk the same, they’re all the victims in situations where they try to screw their contractors. I’ve seen it before, I’ve worked for it before, and I’ve watched it be disassembled before (which is what makes me so good at dealing with these scumbags).

Anyway, I’ll be glad when these deadbeats are out of my portfolio. One of the lessons that I’ve learned thus far in owning a small business is that scam artists and deadbeats will try to take advantage of you all of the time. In my world and with my hectic schedule, I don’t have time for the bullshit so I don’t have time for the deadbeats. Usable Web Solutions, LLC will be a stronger, faster, more profitable company once I get these idiots out of my hair.

And now, after four years of owning a small website company in New Jersey, I’ve decided to share just a few pearls of wisdom that I’ve picked up from the last few years. For those of you who are looking to start your own businesses, maybe this information may come in helpful.

• The Competition Will Lie.Since the economy went south in the last year and a half I’ve learned that the competition – even for a small website company like mine – will do whatever it takes to steal away your business. In my line of work this translates to: No web designer will ever give any credit to any other web designer – ever! And it’s the truth!

  I’ve found that no matter how great, how near-perfect, or how absolutely outstanding a website that you create for a client, some huckster will try to convince that client that you’ve done a shitty job and that they could do a much better job. I’ve been diligent in fighting back against the hucksters which relatively few of my clients have come into contact with (thank God it’s relatively few of them). What always gets me over in the end is the fact that I’m completely truthful and up front with my clients.

  When a huckster says that they can get my client to be the top result in Google searches, I explain to them how they do this by using AdWords and buying the advertisements above certain search results. And then I show my clients the real price to buy these types of ads (dirt cheap) and they compare those prices to what the hucksters try to sell them and they are floored by the difference every single time. These hucksters come in trying to sell advertising packages worth thousands of dollars when, in reality, the service that they “provide” can cost my client nothing more than a few minutes of time and less than $100 each month. Remarkable.

• The State Takes Their Pound of Flesh. Each year I have to pay the State of New Jersey $50 so I can be in “good standing.” I’m not sure why I have to make this payment, but I have to make it every year. None of my company’s contact information ever changes and I have no tax obligations to the state, yet I have to make this payment every year. I don’t have the time to attempt to figure out the State of New Jersey, but I invite you to have a wonderful time trying to understand why I have to make this payment…
• Most Clients Don’t “Get” My Company’s Services. Believe it or not, I actually turn away quite a bit of new business. My reasons for turning away new business usually have to do with my personal and professional time constraints, but sometimes it has to do with sensing a bad thing coming…

  You see, after four years of owning and operating this company it has become very apparent to me that most people don’t understand the difference between a web design and maintenance firm and a “go to guy” for all computer-related problems. For example, I have a client that calls me once every two or three months to tell me that their e-mail doesn’t work. And, every two or three months, I remotely check their e-mail servers and, invariably, they are perfectly fine. Then I go on to tell them that they probably have (another) virus on their computer and that they should call a computer repair person if they can’t get the virus off of the system themselves. I’m a website guy, not a computer repair guy!

  Other times I get clients that want me to do advanced software programming to make their companies integrate better with their websites – I have no idea how to do that stuff! Those are not the type of services that I offer.

• Typically, Friends Are the Worst Clients. I’m blessed to have a great deal of friends and professional networks to tap into if an occasion to do so ever comes up. However, I’ve learned that when friends or professional acquaintances come to me to be their “web guy,” it usually will end in a friendly “parting of ways” after about a year. The problem, as I suggest in the point above, is that my friends and professional associations tend to think that I am going to be more than just a web designer for them because we have that outside relationship.

  Unfortunately, just because I know someone outside of my website company doesn’t mean that I’ve acquired new skills that I will use to their benefit! I offer a price break to those friends and professional associates that choose to engage my web company’s services, but I simply cannot offer services that I don’t know how to do – no matter what my relationship is with the client.

• Some People Are Just Deadbeats. Sometimes you have a deadbeat client and you have to face that fact. You may not want to admit that your buddy or a friend of a friend is a deadbeat, but if they don’t pay their bills on time and they make your life a living hell just to have them meet their contractual obligations then guess what – they’re a deadbeat. I have two or three deadbeat clients that I’m looking to spin off in the coming year. I have to get rid of them – they’re just more trouble than they’re worth and they take time away from my paying clients and new clients that will likely be better to work with than they are…

The final thing that I’ve learned over the last four years is that as long as I keep a day job (which I intend to always keep!), I can’t run Usable Web Solutions, LLC by myself. Thankfully, I have two paid consultants that I can farm different types of work out to when the need arises. I also have two or three other consultants that I can engage on a case-by-case basis.

Here’s to four more great years of Usable Web Solutions, LLC!

I’ve also darkened the background on which you are reading right now. For those of you that liked the brighter white background, I’m sorry – it just hurt my eyes too much so I had to change it. Chances are I spend a lot more time on this website that most of the readers so I have to be sure that simply looking at the website doesn’t bother me!

I’m always looking for new ideas, so let me know if you have any thoughts. Right now I think the site is somewhat boring in its approach, but that’s because I’m not currently integrating pictures and other multimedia into the various entries. That should be changing soon. Also, I have some graphics that I’ll be adding to the sidebar sooner or later (for example, the link to my Facebook pictures). I’m debating whether or not to even keep the Google image gallery, so I can’t guarantee that the Google images link will reappear.

Frankly, I wanted to do these revisions to JerseySmarts.com in November, right around the one year anniversary of merging JerseySmarts.com and Joe’s Journal. However, sometimes you just have to act on the momentum in your head and make the changes while you’re motivated!

Again, I’m always open to your thoughts and ideas, so please feel free to send them over.

But hang in there, I don’t think that there will be any major changes besides going back to a 2 column format for the time being (which is really a revision being made to the core design of the blog for better use with Facebook). Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns as I work out some of the kinks. Thanks!

Literally thousands of young web entrepreneurs started out with free websites built at GeoCities. Most of us, of course, started on the site when it was privately owned. However, after a number of years (and a healthy number of subscribers), the entire system was sold to Yahoo and things went downhill from there. Yahoo cut the amount of bandwidth allowed to users and immediately instituted a pay-for-service option that gave the user essentially what they used to have for free. Lucky for me, it was around this time that I started dabbling in the actual purchase of domain names and hosting packages to manage my web needs.

Yahoo also shortened the URLs (which may have been best for everyone involved), but they shortened them to your user id. I don’t think that I hide my name from anyone on this blog, but I didn’t want my wrestling website to become geocities.com/jpalazzolo. How weird would that be?

Anyway, here is the message I received from Yahoo about the closing of GeoCities:

Very sad. Hopefully, someone will come along and try to buy the GeoCities asset from Yahoo and breathe some new life into this once great service for young web entrepreneurs and people who were just looking for a little place of their own online.

Today, I was working at the library. Some punks thought it would be funny to shit in a book, close it and return it in the drop box. The fact that it was sitting outside in the ninety degree heat for a couple hours did not help the stench; it was everywhere and I had to clean the mess. FML

Ha ha ha!!! Who shits in a library book?!

The “FML” at the end of each quip is the person saying “Fuck My Life!” If you go to the site, you’ll see that there are two options for the readers to vote on the various FMLs – either you can tell the person that their life really is fucked (in other words, whatever they’re writing about really is a shitty situation) or you can tell them that they deserve what they had coming to them. For example, this person deserved what they had coming to them:

Today, while watching The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh with my 5 year old, I realized why the kangaroo’s name is Kanga, and why her son’s name is Roo. Kanga-Roo. Get it? Yeah. I didn’t until today. I’m 47. FML

See? Who couldn’t figure that out?

You also have the option of writing a comment on the post and it appears that some people really get into some back and forth spats in the comments. Anyway, here are some other quips from the site that I got a kick out of:

Today, was my wedding. After eating, I had an urge to fart. I let one rip just before my husband and I were called to do the garter dance. He seductively tried to use his teeth to remove the garter and came out from under my dress dry heaving. I dutch ovened my husband in front of everyone. FML

Today, my little cousin came to visit my family. I haven’t seen him in a while so I figured he missed me. Thinking so, I tried to hug him. While going in for the hug, he punched me in the balls and called me a faggot. FML

Today, the dentist sneezed in my mouth. FML

Today, I was at walmart when my stomach began to hurt. I quickly waddled to the restroom in pain. As soon as I got in the stall, a huge crap exploded out of me. The child in the stall next to me started crying. When her mom asked what was wrong she said that I’d “killed her nose”. FML

Go over and check out the site – I guarantee that you’ll enjoy it!