What I’ve been up to: Consulting

Just change your Job Title to Consultant and add three zeroes

Just kidding. I’m not sleazy. But I have shifted my focus to re-positioning myself as a consultant. I want Good to not be known as a generalist tech shop, but as a shop that goes really deep on one or two things — namely, building great apps for the web and mobile devices.

However, not all of my skills and interests can be summed up into Good’s focus. I’m interested in a plethora of other things; namely, launching other companies, contributing to technology education and innovation, helping other business owners / freelancers become more efficient, and many other things.

If I had to sum up everything into one statement: I’m really interested in moving Mississippi forward in technology. Designing and building beautiful applications certainly plays a part in that, but it certainly won’t be the only force of change. There must be education. Interest levels must grow. Talent must remain here. Old habits and ways of thinking must die. I could easily turn this post into a rant about all the things we must consider and overcome, but I’ll save that for later.

To avoid being too vague (I’m not a fan of being too much of a generalist) , here are a few specific areas I’m providing consulting services:

Small Businesses Tech Consulting

I’m now providing Tech Audits for Small Businesses. I spend time learning about the business — how it provides value to its customers, how each role works each day, what logistics are involved to keep it running, what kind of tech is currently being used for these things, etc.

From there, I can provide a list of recommendations and connect the business with the right people for the job. Sure, if they’d be a good fit for custom internal software or a new website, I’ll shamelessly recommend Good, but often times I’ll recommend someone for IT infrastructural-related tasks (which I’m not interested in at all) or even something as simple as a password management app (so they’ll stop writing all the passwords on sticky notes in front of their computers).

One related area I’m specifically interested in right now is how Shopify can help small businesses in the area. I’ve used Shopify on smaller scales in the past, but lately as I’ve learned more I’ve realized how powerful of a platform they’ve built, especially for local retailers. I’d be interested to know if any readers here have had experience setting up more complex systems using Shopify — let me buy you lunch sometime and glean some knowledge!

All of this allows me to help small business owners see how much technology really can save them time and money, which I hope in turn causes them to invest in things I recommend. They get some education and gain trust in technology — both of which are things are paramount in moving Mississippi forward.

Marketing Agencies

I’ve worked with many marketing agencies over the years subcontracting through Good, and I’ve spotted a few needs that I’m now trying to meet. These are the main three:

Website Performance Audits

Probably more often than not, websites get shipped in a good enough state all the time as opposed to great. This is true beyond the marketing agency world — this is true across all of web development. Managers agree to deadlines that are too soon, business-y people make commitments they shouldn’t, unexpected issues come up in the codebase or its dependencies, clients get too demanding, you name it. What I’d like to do here is take an existing site from good enough to great. I just happen to be focused on marketing agencies because I already have existing relationships with many.

WordPress Security Audits

This is another problem I’ve encountered, especially in agency world where WordPress is typically the CMS of choice. A site may get launched and seldom (if ever) be updated — even when major security updates are released in WordPress Core. I’ve seen this, combined with the pressure of tight deadlines and juggling multiple projects at once, cause major security holes to go unnoticed until after a hack has occurred. That’s not a liability you want, especially as a marketing agency.

WordPress DevOps Automation

Related to the Security Audits above is helping introduce agencies to the idea of automated updates and testing, similar to how WP Engine handles the process for sites hosted on its platform.

Freelancers / Solopreneurs

This is one of my favorite areas of focus for consulting, because I’m a huge fan of the freelance life. But I’m only a fan of the freelance life to the extent that it works for the freelancer and not against. Freelancers should be able dictate how, when and where they work. If they aren’t, then what’s the point of freelancing?

One thing that can stand in the way of this administrative tasks. When I was solo, I had to learn a lot of stuff through a lot of error, and it left me working very long, unhealthy hours and feeling extremely burned out. So I’m helping freelancers get administrative processes in place so they can use their time focusing on doing instead of managing.

Here’s some of the things I’ve been helping out with:

1. Setup (Business formation, bookkeeping, invoicing, etc.)
2. Productivity (How to guard their time)
3. Sales (Keeping the pipeline full)
4. Negotiation (How to land the deals they want)

I have other areas I’ve thought about providing consulting services for, but these are the three I’ve honed in on at the moment. In addition to simply expanding the scope of what I offer a bit, the hope is that increasing education about technology, growing trust in technology, and generating more economic activity in the technology sector will help move Mississippi forward.

This post is a continuation of a series of updates of what I’ve been up to this year. Here’s the original outline. As always, you can hit me up on Twitter with any comments / questions / profanities.