2017 Year End Wrap Up

2017

2017 brought the first full year of my new company name and I welcomed many new awesome clients. I completed over 500 separate tasks, built 5 new websites, and am currently hosting/maintaining 30 websites, almost all using WordPress but a few with a Ruby-based CMS called Jekyll. I also spent considerable time dealing with a few rogue clients, which prompted me to improve my filtering of new project requests. I’m now much stricter than I used to be, and this aligns well with one of my company goals – to have great, ongoing relationships with my clients.

One thing I struggled with is the fact that I get so many emails on any given day. Some are simple questions, some require a one sentence reply, but the vast majority of them are tasks, work requests and assignments. Keeping everything straight was/is difficult. I’ve tried for many years using a combination of email and a project management system (like Basecamp, Teamwork, Proofhub, Asana – you name it, I’ve tried it) but nothing was optimal.

2018

In 2018 I am implementing a new customer support system where all of the tasks, work requests and assignments will reside. One system to rule them all, if you’re familiar with the fellowship of the ring 🙂 All my requests will reside in this system, and every client will get a login to see their requests – and be able to set priority, needed completion dates etc. All my clients will have more information at their fingertips, be in more control, and I’ll be able to work more efficiently.

In 2018, I’ll be releasing at least one new subscription-based service to align the fact that the most successful websites are those continually improved month after month.

I plan to blog A LOT more about a number of different topics, move more websites to static-flat file websites, engage with the website security community and network more.

Thanks for reading and see you around the Interweb!