I updated my site yesterday. It has lighter colors, a cleaner look, fonts that are easier to read, topics drop down in the navigation, and the ability to subscribe to my blog via email. It’s free daily updates (well daily if I were to blog daily). Plus I’ll be doing a few holiday give aways this month. First come first serve. You wont want to miss this.

CBS Casting: The Amazing Race | Desarae A. Veit.

The New Rules of Viral Marketing – David Meerman Scott
Marketing Apple – MarketingApple.com
Masters of Marketing – Startup Internet Marketing
Podcast Marketing eBook – Christopher S. Penn
Google Adwords Secrets – SEOBook
Get Viral Get Visitors – Stacie Mahoe
Marketing With Case Studies – Dynamic Copywriting
How to Write a Marketing Plan – Geisheker Group
SEO for WordPress blogs – Blizzard Internet
Social Web Analytics – Social Web Analytics
Geeks Guide to Promoting Yourself With Twitter – Geekpreneur
The Zen of Blogging – Hunter Nutall
What is Social Media – iCrossing
A Primer in Social Media – SmashLab
Effective Internet Presence – Effective Internet Presence
Introduction to Good Usability – Peter Pixel
Increasing the Response to Your Email Marketing Program – CRM Transformation
We Have a Website. Now What? – Craig Rentmeester
Blogs & Social Media – PRSA The Podcast Customer Revealed – Edison Media Research

Well I guess I’ve already started this post off on the wrong foot being that I fully intend to be the jackass in this post. I get a lot of nice tweets, comments and emails but every so often I get someone who hates the material, medium, my grammar or just wants to be a jerk. Today I got this:

jon (email address removed to protect the uninnocent) gave private feedback from http://desaraeveit.com/blog/Agency-Couture/2010/11/getting-paid-building-contracts-and-client-considerations-when-working-for-yourself/ .

stop

please stop blogging.

I’m sad
Products: Web Design, Customer Service and Project Management, Social Media, Search Engine Optimization

Yep, that’s it word-for-word. Minus the fact that I removed his email just to be nice. I decided to send him a response email but just in case that was a fake address, I guess this blog post will have to do as my public response.

I’m sick of spam, jokers, and rude hecklers who refuse to do anything themselves but are more then willing to take it upon themselves to criticize my work. I don’t even mind the criticism so much as the fact that most of it isn’t even helpful. My message to you, is this: If you don’t like it, tell me why or be constructive in your criticism. Otherwise either stop reading or just bugger off.

I’m not saying I’m an angel or that what I write is perfect, or that I don’t want criticism. For everyone other than Jon and my other 2-5 hecklers, take this for what it is and with a grain of salt.

I understand the concern of a company not wanting to pay out large amounts of cash up front, wait no I don’t, and here is why. When I start a project with someone think of that first payment as a retainer, deposit, or good faith to get you started. If you are working for a company and are not on their pay roll this is your salary. It is my salary and how I pay my bills.

Payments

There are a few ways I normally offer to do payment plans.

• 50% up front and once it’s half way done another 25% and then the final 25% before the project is handed over to the client with a signed contract saying they approve the site and no more changes are needed.
• Monthly payments (good luck with this one unless you set their credit card up on auto payment)
• Weekly payments (again, good luck)
• Payments in fourths (25% up front and then another twenty-five percent once you’ve reached certain milestones)
• Hourly rate which is paid out weekly, monthly and often with a retainer
• Monthly retainer (I prefer this one, with an up front advance like a lease on my time.)
• Cash – BAD IDEA. Can’t track it, prove it was sent, prove it wasn’t sent, and leaves no paper trail (no pun intended).

Payment Options

• Check – If you can ever get them to send it to you this is a nice option, if it doesn’t bounce because you don’t have to pay fees to cash it (well except your business banking fees).
• Paypal - Convenient for receiving money online. You are initially capped at taking out $500/month unless you prove who you are. Receiving auto payments from this service is expensive. If you are sending goods, make sure your descriptions are thorough or else your buyer can claim it was grossly mis-represented and Paypal will always side with the buyer on this one. Contracts are there to save your ass, so don’t half-ass them.
• Google Checkout - Very similar to Paypal, and occasionally slightly cheaper on how much their rape your paychecks. Both programs take somewhere in the 2-4% range from whatever money you receive.
• Money Order or Wire Transfer – I refuse to get paid via this way. It’s all around inconvenient for both parties in my opinion.
• Various online checkout services that let you receive auto payments, credit cards, e-checks, and debit cards are convenient but expensive if you don’t make over $4000 gross each month. The setup fee averages about $90 with an average monthly fee between $40-$130 and sometimes they also do per-transaction fees or percentage of money received.

Considerations

• Late Fees - some states restrict how much you can bill an individual, so make sure their company is legitimately registered with an EIN number from the state.
• Small Claims Court – If you’re client refuses to pay you, this is a last line of defense for getting that money they owe you. Make sure you have a contract, any emails affirming they owe you and the project, and warning letters. You may want a lawyer if the bills exceed $5000. Remember if you are suing a business and not a person, the business can claim bankruptcy without hurting that person’s credit, so try not to get to the point where they owe you crazy amounts of cash.
• Creditors - They will want a percentage of whatever money they recover, which you should just accept if you can’t get the money yourself. Some money is better than no money right? They may also want an upfront or retainer fee.
• Copyright & Intellectual Property - Who owns the right to the work you’ve done pre-payment and when the work is finished? This includes brainstorming and training (you may want to say so in your contract). So if they don’t pay you, they have no right to use that information or hire another company to take the ideas or work you’ve done for them and give it to someone else.
• Money Lost – This is important to put into contracts with contractors and clients. Basically if you want paid for money you could have made but didn’t because of all the time you had to waste hunting them down for payment, or time you spent working with them and then they play the hide and seek game add in fees, court costs, lawyer fees, and any other fees you would want them to pay for negligence. In the case of contractors, what if they dilly dally, are inefficient, constantly give you poor-quality work, or do something in a meeting that is so embarrassing you lose a client? That information can also go into contracts.
• NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) – What can you talk about or not talk about when a project is finished, when you can talk about it, how that information can be used in future projects, and whether or not you are allowed to outsource work to other contractors or companies.

Thoughts? Recommendations? We live, we learn, and share that information to help others avoid the same mistakes and snake bites. My biggest snake bite is the client who let’s me finish their work then goes MIA on paying me.

I’m more of a pilot, flying, fast trip and go have fun kind of person vs. 12-40 hours of driving to my destination kind of person. So my plan to drive a ton this week is not one that fills me full of excitement, except knowing how much more stuff I get to bring with me.

DRIVING ENTERTAINMENT

I was suppose to leave today, but my dad is flying in tonight to help me drive tomorrow. I’ve already downloaded a few audio books that are LONG to entertain me. Among the titles: Eat. Pray. Love. (already seen/loved the movie), Trust Agents (own the book and love his blog but reading it straight through got too hard), Learn French by Podcast, and a puppy training book. I’m open to recommendations, just add them into the comments. Speaking of books, I get a few freebies every month from wonderful publishers wanting me to write reviews of their client’s books. I’m a tad behind on them and have decided to bring them with me and when I’m done with each book I’ll write a review and give the book away to someone who subscribes to my YouTube channel, Blog, Twitter, and Facebook.com/AgencyCouture (yes all 4).

I kind of wish publishers would just give me a code to download these books on my iPad via Barnes and Noble, iTunes, Kindle, or Borders applications (yes I have them all and use them). Why do I use all of them? Not all the applications have all the books I want. Each one does different discounts each month.

Money & Meetups

I’m for sure going to visit Iowa on Monday, South Dakota on Tuesday, Montana on Wednesday and Washington state Wednesday or Thursday. Anyone want to grab coffee or do a meetup, let me know. Otherwise I’m for sure going to visit California and Texas. I’ll come to your town if you have work or a speaking engagement for me. What kind of work? Speaking on personal branding or online business strategy and tools, web design, SEO, or community management (social media/strategy). I would love to find a company who needs full time social media help in the travel industry or adventure sports. Ideal companies would be: hotel chains, kyaking, biking, RV, aviation, travel agencies, scuba diving, wine companies, vineyards or something similar. If you have a connection or know of a company that would be open to chatting please let me know.