4 ms·

I know that "don't call yourself a programmer" is advice you often give. So let me ask you a question - I'm now starting a freelance company. We are 3 programme

by edanm 15y ago

I know that "don't call yourself a programmer" is advice you often give. So let me ask you a question - I'm now starting a freelance company. We are 3 programmers. Right now, we build web and mobile applications for hire. What should we be doing to "rebrand" ourselves in a way that will get us more money? I ask this here and not in email in the hopes that your answer will help other people as well.

patio11 15y ago
What should we be doing to "rebrand" ourselves in a way that will get us more money? We solve businesses problems and, in the process, make them gobsmacking amounts of money by increasing revenue and cutting costs. Computers and telephones are sometimes involved.
- edanm 15y ago
  Alright. Given that, how do you find customers? It's pretty easy for me to market us as "we do freelance programming". It's something most people that I talk to understand. I'm not sure how to market myself as a "solver of business problems". Keep in mind we don't really know SEO that well.
  - alinajaf 15y ago
    I'd like to know patio11's opinion on this too, but for me, networking face-to-face with non-technical business people has done a lot to show me how valuable the basic knowledge I _do_ have is. Though you may not think you know much about SEO or conversion, explaining the benefits that you pick up from casual reading on HN tends to bring the business cards out pretty quick.
  - rmc 15y ago
    I dunno, people who know programming know they need progammers. What kind of problems can be solved with programming, but the people don't know what programming is?
adrianhoward 15y ago
Stop talking about job titles. Stop talking about the things that you do. Instead talk about increased ROI, more conversions, decreased support costs, better PR, etc. Talk to potential customers about their problems first. Then give them solutions to their problems. Ideally have stories from previous customers about those areas. Stories sell much better than skill lists. For example a while back I sent this letter (lightly edited to removed some identifying material). <quote> Hi $joe, Thanks for talking to me last week about $company. From our chat it looks like your biggest problem was transitioning from startup geeks to long term customers. I think we can help. We worked with $similar-company who had the same sort of issue reaching their long-term market. After helping them re-build their on- and off-line marketing materials their sales team saw a big increase in qualified leads, which helped them save money and focus their sales folk on some new markets. Conversions also increased significantly. If you like I can put you in contact with their CTO and head of sales who can talk about their experiences with us. If you'd like to talk about this further we should meet up. I could come and meet you next Friday afternoon in your offices. Drop me a line if this sounds interesting or if you have any further questions. Cheers, Adrian </quote> Note how I'm not talking about user interviews, analysing their search engine results, a new visual design, user testing, new CMS, web design, HTML5, jQuery, agile development, etc. Despite the fact that we did it all for $similar-company. Instead I'm saying "You told me this was you're biggest problem. Look we solved it for $other-company. Here are some people you can talk to for verification. Here is what you should do next". Find out their biggest business problems. Show them you can help them solve it. Leave out the details of how until the last possible moment.
- edanm 15y ago
  I agree with this in theory. Here's our problem: What we're mostly looking for is customers who need to build systems, and come to use to build them. Whether it's doing it per-hour, or taking some product specification and building it. What we aren't doing is going to companies that already have systems, and improving them. We're more focused on building products from scratch. It's possible that the problem is with our focus - but this seems the most natural fit for us right now. So I guess these are the questions: 1. Should we be focusing elsewhere? 2. If so, how do we find the kind of customers you're talking about? 3. If not, how do we take a customer, who's a lone guy or a company with a new product, and use the techniques above to present ourselves differently?

by edanm 15y ago

patio11 15y ago

What should we be doing to "rebrand" ourselves in a way that will get us more money? We solve businesses problems and, in the process, make them gobsmacking amounts of money by increasing revenue and cutting costs. Computers and telephones are sometimes involved.

edanm 15y ago
Alright. Given that, how do you find customers? It's pretty easy for me to market us as "we do freelance programming". It's something most people that I talk to understand. I'm not sure how to market myself as a "solver of business problems". Keep in mind we don't really know SEO that well.
- alinajaf 15y ago
  I'd like to know patio11's opinion on this too, but for me, networking face-to-face with non-technical business people has done a lot to show me how valuable the basic knowledge I _do_ have is. Though you may not think you know much about SEO or conversion, explaining the benefits that you pick up from casual reading on HN tends to bring the business cards out pretty quick.
- rmc 15y ago
  I dunno, people who know programming know they need progammers. What kind of problems can be solved with programming, but the people don't know what programming is?

adrianhoward 15y ago

Stop talking about job titles. Stop talking about the things that you do. Instead talk about increased ROI, more conversions, decreased support costs, better PR, etc. Talk to potential customers about their problems first. Then give them solutions to their problems. Ideally have stories from previous customers about those areas. Stories sell much better than skill lists. For example a while back I sent this letter (lightly edited to removed some identifying material). <quote> Hi $joe, Thanks for talking to me last week about $company. From our chat it looks like your biggest problem was transitioning from startup geeks to long term customers. I think we can help. We worked with $similar-company who had the same sort of issue reaching their long-term market. After helping them re-build their on- and off-line marketing materials their sales team saw a big increase in qualified leads, which helped them save money and focus their sales folk on some new markets. Conversions also increased significantly. If you like I can put you in contact with their CTO and head of sales who can talk about their experiences with us. If you'd like to talk about this further we should meet up. I could come and meet you next Friday afternoon in your offices. Drop me a line if this sounds interesting or if you have any further questions. Cheers, Adrian </quote> Note how I'm not talking about user interviews, analysing their search engine results, a new visual design, user testing, new CMS, web design, HTML5, jQuery, agile development, etc. Despite the fact that we did it all for $similar-company. Instead I'm saying "You told me this was you're biggest problem. Look we solved it for $other-company. Here are some people you can talk to for verification. Here is what you should do next". Find out their biggest business problems. Show them you can help them solve it. Leave out the details of how until the last possible moment.

edanm 15y ago
I agree with this in theory. Here's our problem: What we're mostly looking for is customers who need to build systems, and come to use to build them. Whether it's doing it per-hour, or taking some product specification and building it. What we aren't doing is going to companies that already have systems, and improving them. We're more focused on building products from scratch. It's possible that the problem is with our focus - but this seems the most natural fit for us right now. So I guess these are the questions: 1. Should we be focusing elsewhere? 2. If so, how do we find the kind of customers you're talking about? 3. If not, how do we take a customer, who's a lone guy or a company with a new product, and use the techniques above to present ourselves differently?