home » personal

A rather momentous decision

by Paula | 21 December 2009 | permalink | comments
Tags: news, personal

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been making a rather momentous decision. Or I should say, the decision has made itself and I’ve been allowing it to form more completely in my head and my heart.

I’ve decided I am not going to build websites for individual small business owners anymore. These folks have been my bread-and-butter for about 10 years now, first as a freelancer and then as owner of my little biz Rabbit Mountain.

Don’t get me wrong, I love individual small business owners. I am one, after all. But I’ve found that the amount of hand-holding and education I have to do ends up being a money-losing situation. I’ve tried charging for being on-call 24/7 and/or for training, but no one wants to pay for this and in the end website issues go unresolved and I look like a dolt who builds half-assed websites. I’ve tried flatly refusing to work beyond the confines of the contract, but what do you do when a client calls you up in tears? I know the smart business response is to simply say, I’m sorry I can’t help you with that it’s not in the contract, but then (a) I feel really bad leaving someone so upset; (b) word will get around my small town that I do not provide adequate customer service. Competition is brutal as it is without having an obstacle like that to overcome.

So in the end, my relationship with my individual business owner clients ends up being like some sort of codependency thing or something, with me enabling their lack of understanding at my own expense. I just simply can’t do it anymore.

I do have a few ideas what I will do with Rabbit Mountain. Top of the list is some sort of e-book, webinar, in-person seminar or something like that which teaches individual small business owners and solo entrepreneurs what they need — nay, NEEEEEED — to know about the web. The web is not optional anymore; any business that does not have at minimum a functioning, up-to-date website is sacrificing something like 60% of prospective leads. Not worrying about the web is as bad as not worrying about unlocking the front door or answering the phone.

I also wouldn’t mind trying simply building sites to sell. These could range anywhere from simple blogs all the way up to complex ecommerce sites. In at least one instance, I have a full web infrastructure in mind for a type of venture that doesn’t exist yet.

I may also just fold Rabbit Mountain, get a job, and blog about whatever the hell I want. My interests extend far beyond just business, and as fascinating and promising as I think a decentralized capitalism is, it is not my sole obsession by any means. Well over half my books are on subjects related to spirituality; and probably about half of those are about astrology. I also have many books pertaining to anthropology, mythology, various sciences especially physics and astronomy, the arts especially anything related to printing and lithography… on and on. Oh and of course, computer geeky stuff from detailed technical manuals up to high-level, long-term social implications type stuff.

So, all this is up in the air. All I know for certain at this point is that after this past year, I can’t go back to doing what I was before for both financial and peace-of-mind reasons.