Snowdrop

The following posts are hopefully related to "Snowdrop" in some way.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008, 7:09pm

How Do I Manage Growth at Snowdrop?

Snowdrop is running into a pretty cool problem: too much work.  I never really gave much thought to the idea that Snowdrop could eventually have too much work spread over too many projects, but after putting in 98 and 107 hours each of the last two weeks, respectively, I realized it’s time to start managing growth a little better.

To do this I’ll actively try two new things:

  1. Value My Time A Little More - Colleagues at work always ride me for charging too little, so from now on I will make a better effort to charge for value, not for time.  Through this I’ll probably piss off a few more people, but the clients I do take will be much more valuable.
  2. Ask For Help - If there are several interesting or profitable projects running in parallel, I’ll turn to colleagues, outsourcing websites, and other outlets to offload and share work.  I’ve already started to do this and it has worked out well so far.

May will be Snowdrop’s biggest month ever in terms of profit and revenue.  Since the beginning of the year, business has grown almost 300%, but to maintain that type of growth we need to be smart about our decisions.

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Thursday, May 8, 2008, 7:56pm

Worst. Blogger. Ever.

Somewhere in-between moving, learning about homeownership, and working I’ve managed to let this blog slip for almost a month.  Frankly I can’t believe that it’s already May and that I’ve been in this house for over two months.

Anyway, today I got the go-ahead on a very large project over at Snowdrop so I’m pretty excited.  Although I’ll be booked up pretty much solid for the next two months, I hope to make more of an effort on this blog and maybe even use it as a little vent when work starts to pile.

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Thursday, April 10, 2008, 9:02pm

SEO Really Does Work

Sometimes it’s hard to sell a business - especially a small business - on the concept of search engine optimization.  Despite having concrete numbers to analyze ROI, I think many business owners are less willing to go into something when they don’t quite understand how it works.

For example, would you pay someone a huge chunk of change to take your existing website, rework the underlying code (which you don’t understand), and then put it back online, only to have it look more or less identical to the previous version?  Would you pay someone to rewrite the content on your website to better match what people search for on the Internet? Believe me, it can be a tough sell.

This afternoon, however, I had a Snowdrop client who was originally skeptical about an SEO evaluation call me to say that sales are up by roughly 40% since February 15, the day we launched the newly optimized site.  Being an online content provider, search engine visitors are absolutely critical to the success of his business. Needless to say I was very happy to receive the feedback and the kind words, and it gave me even more faith in the rising SEO industry.

Once feedback like this makes its way down to small business owners and business at the local level, I think we’ll have much less difficulty finding local SEO work.

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Sunday, April 6, 2008, 10:00am

How Small Businesses Evolve

About a week ago I had a client ask me what Snowdrop Media specializes in.  By the way she asked me, I could tell that she really meant what was the real cash-cow service that Snowdrop offers to most, if not all, of its clients, perhaps trying to get a feel for what other local small businesses have done to promote themselves online.

For some reason, I found it difficult to answer this question.  I knew mostly all my work was for small businesses and individuals, and I knew it all related in some way to the web, but what do I really do most for clients?  I started out strictly doing web design and database access (CMS), then moved to mostly WordPress customizations and WordPress-powered applications, and then now more recently I’ve been doing a lot of SEO work.  So what’s the answer?

It’s funny how small businesses evolve based on the needs of their audiences.  As SEO/SEM has gained more of a solid reputation, I’ve experienced much more demand for that service.  Many businesses that previously took the leap online in the early 2000s are now looking for cleaner, more functional designs that play well with the major search engines rather than settling for brochure-type sites that only list available services.

So what’s my real point?  What your small business was two years ago may not be what it is today, and certainly won’t be what it is five years from now.  Whether your niche shrinks or grows, it also evolves. Even in a shrinking industry, a small business that evolves will succeed.

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