In this episode, Simon Dickson from Code for the People talks us through landing big clients like The Rolling Stones and Stephen Fry, as well as why restricting yourself to WordPress and not using any other technology is a good thing.
Win a free coaching call with Troy Dean on Skype! Just tell us the best time you have spun a negative into a positive, or re-framed a situation to make a weakness a strength.
Congratulations Jenny on winning the Podcast Prize this week! August 2014
Some of the highlights of this episode include:
Here are Simon’s answers to the questions in our Elevation round. Watch the interview to get the full scoop.
Simon suggested I interview Caspar Hubinger from glueckpress.com.  Casper, keep your eyes on your inbox.
Hint: to enter the competition, leave a comment below and tell us about the best time you have spun a negative into a positive (or reframed a weakness into a strength).
3 Responses
How to spin a negative into a positive? Here is my best spin on the subject of fear:
“Fear is fuel for freedom.”
As a performer, I’ve felt the proverbial butterflies before a performance. Early on, I learned that turning that energy into fuel for the performance made the performance more meaningful. That energy gives you the freedom to express your passion without reservation.
In the end, fear is our friend.
A long time client was attacking a makeover of her site, and she announced that she was taking on an agency for this new site’s development. What was worse, the agency was brand new, founded by a couple of recent marketing school graduates. Her reasoning was that she thought their marketing “expertise” would bring something new to the table, and quite simply I think she wanted to give them a chance (she was generous that way).
I was dubious and of course a bit crushed, feeling that I had lost her business.
Luckily I still had her trust and was able to convince her to keep me on as a consultant, and to help liaison with the designers (who I had also worked with for years). Not long into the project we started seeing signs that this young agency was in over their heads. Deadlines were not being met. Simple design integration was going terribly awry. We knew they were inexperienced, but what we didn’t known is that they were also outsourcing the development to India. In English. Except that these French marketing students didn’t have a particularly high level of English.
It was a mess. The client didn’t want to hear it…not at first anyway.
In a gesture of good faith, I made an attempt at helping the communication between the agency and their sub-contractors along…but bad dev work doesn’t translate, not in any language.
I told my client to cut her losses and let me throw together a team. I could save the project. She agreed, and I did. One month later the site was online, and I continued to work on that project for another year following the launch.
The perceived weakness: I wasn’t an “agency” and didn’t have marketing skills (i.e. a diploma). The turn-around: I stuck by her, was always honest in my opinions, and ultimately got the job done. A project on the brink of failure was turned into a huge success!
Congratulations Jenny! Simon has awarded you the prize! He likes…”how she has accepted her limitation (scale, or perhaps the perception of scale) on one hand, but recognised her strength (client’s trust) on the other, and cultivated that. Great to hear that her patience won out!”