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How and when to say ‘no’ to a potential client

November 24, 2017

- by James Rose

Finding freelance work takes a lot of effort — it can make you want to say ‘yes’ to any money-making opportunity that comes along. But it’s important to know how and when to say ‘no’ to a potential client if you want to get paid what you’re worth, scale your business, and consistently deliver quality […]

How to budget like a boss and stress less

September 12, 2017

- by James Rose

I swear nearly every time I hear a podcast or read an article aimed at web agencies, the "feast or famine" cycle gets a mention. If you haven't already heard of it, it's the tendency for web agencies to have a ton of work on all at once, right before a slow period where we […]

How Content Snare hit #2 on Product Hunt

August 15, 2017

- by James Rose

Content Snare is a tool for gathering content from clients. It's aimed at digital agencies, designers and people that are plagued my clients taking forever to send information. Last Thursday, it went live on Product Hunt (PH). Like every good SaaS boy should, I’d planned the launch (nowhere near as meticulously as some others) in […]

How a giveaway helped double our email list in 2 days

- by James Rose

It took about 2 hours to set up a simple giveaway that doubled our email list in 2 days. It even went on to nearly double our marketing efforts for the next 3 months. Today’s post is a little different to what we normally write about. Normally we focus on helping you grow your web […]

Get more referrals through relationships

- by James Rose

By implementing a simple change to my weekly routine, we get a whole lot more referrals. Instead of hours spent at local networking events each week, I spend about an hour of my time every Wednesday morning. This post will show you my exact process and explain why it works. Non-strategic networking is a time […]

How to choose the best project management software for your web design agency

- by James Rose

If you’re a web designer that’s in the market for project management software, we’ve got you covered. Read on to learn what to look for in a project management system and some of the best tools available.

This productivity hack gets more done and grows your business

- by James Rose

Back at Tropical Think Tank in the Philippines, I met the all-round good bloke and productivity-meister Mike Vardy. During some pool masterminds (over many-a-cocktail) and his time on stage, Mike dropped loads of productivity bombs. These have been the catalyst for some massive shifts in my business. One of those was daily theming. I can […]

How looking for "free" or "cheap" is poisoning your business

- by James Rose

"I'm looking for some free software to manage all my projects" "Does anyone know a free alternative to XYZ?" "I really like tool XYZ, but it's too expensive" These are questions you see over and over in different business groups - people looking for free or cheap stuff. Sometimes it's software and sometimes it's freelance […]

Game changing way to build websites for clients

February 28, 2017

- by James Rose

This post dives into an exciting new tool from the guys over at Beaver Builder. It's no secret that I freakin' love Beaver Builder. It's completely changed the way (and speed with which) we build websites. If you don't already know, Beaver Builder is a page builder for WordPress. It stands out from other builders […]

How to differentiate yourself in a world full of web designers

February 27, 2017

- by James Rose

You’ve probably already noticed…. there are SO many web designers on this planet. It’s crazy. It seems like every man and their dog offer web design as at least part of their business. Everyone seems to know a “web designer”. There are things we can blame for this (like the low barrier to entry) but that’s not […]

8 reasons we almost never use ThemeForest Themes

February 21, 2017

- by James Rose

Do you use ThemeForest themes for your clients? If so, you might find this post contentious, or at least interesting. Over the years of building websites for clients, I was asked about a lot of different TF themes. I of course told them what I thought. The response is usually “What’s wrong with ThemeForest?” This post aims to […]

Why you shouldn't be a 'kitchen sink' agency

February 13, 2017

- by James Rose

One Saturday afternoon, Brian sat at his computer. His most important client had a Monday deadline for a design revision, and he hadn’t even started yet. The day before, he’d had to decline his friends invitation to go camping. That whole week he’d been insanely busy. Brian had sorted hundreds of emails, managed social media […]

Facebook groups for web designers

January 19, 2017

- by James Rose

Over the last few months, I’ve been checking out lots of different communities that web designers can go to for advice. I’m not talking about design inspiration or purely technical advice, instead advice for running a great business. There are loads of different communities all over the web including LinkedIn, Facebook and the good old […]

Must-have blog plugins for more engagement, traffic and leads

January 13, 2017

- by James Rose

So you are serious about content marketing. You are pushing out a quality blog post at least once a month (I hope more) and sharing it out to all your social media profiles. Maybe you are getting a few likes on those posts. But the real question is… are you getting new business from all […]

How to get web design clients

January 11, 2017

- by James Rose

How to get web design clients - Without knocking on doors or cold calling When people first signed up for Content Snare, they are asked one simple question: What is the single biggest challenge you face in your web design business? The most common response is getting content out of clients. Given they had just […]

How to choose the best CRM for web designers

December 21, 2016

- by Nicholas Edwards

A great CRM can be a game-changer for web design businesses, but choosing the right one can be tricky. In this article, we’ll give you all the information you need to choose the best CRM for web designers.

6 business tools and hacks to improve productivity

December 8, 2016

- by James Rose

Do you know that feeling when you find some web app or tool that you just know is going to make your life that much easier? Sometimes I’ll get so freakin excited that I’ll do a little dance around the office. This has happened a few times over the years. From the big stuff that helps you […]

How we preview websites to clients (with development web hosting)

November 17, 2016

- by James Rose

When it comes time to show your clients what their website looks like before going live, it can cause a lot of extra work. The best way we’ve found is to upload the website to a development server. Here the client can see exactly what the website will look like. It seems this is a much […]

Client website content checklist (with a template)

November 15, 2016

- by James Rose

Digital agencies know how hard it is to collect information from clients. If you’re struggling with this, read on to see the ultimate client website content checklist.

Getting content from your clients (and putting it in your contract)

November 1, 2016

- by James Rose

Almost every website job that gets delayed is because of content. It is a big decision for a client to commit to paying you to build them a website. For them, it can feel like they’ve already done a lot of hard work just to get to that point. They often forget that this is […]

4 ways to deal with clients taking weeks to give you content

October 24, 2016

- by James Rose

Even before building Content Snare, I'd spoken with hundreds of different web design and development businesses about the favourite parts of their business through to the biggest challenges. Then as we went on to start building Content Snare, I interviewed around 20 businesses to really deep dive into the biggest issues they faced in their […]

How we hired an amazing web design project manager & virtual assistant

October 15, 2016

- by James Rose

I was chatting with a potential new client about coming on board with our On Demand Web Guy service. They were totally sold on the concept but there was one obstacle. The boss had told my contact to outsource. “Try Upwork” was the advice... Possibly the worst outsourcing advice ever. But this is so common. […]

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