In this presentation from RubyFringe, Obie Fernandez talks about his experience with founding and running HashRocket, a boutique web consultancy and product shop.
Obie explains the experience with selling - both at Thoughtworks and HashRocket. He gives valuable practical tips for selling, what to watch out for and how to always keep in control of the process as compared to the client calling all the shots, and when to fire clients if necessary.
The tips go into detail of, eg. how to to define how to treat the code created in the process of the project (what code belongs to the customer and which can become part of the developers tool chest) and other topics concerning contracts. The talk also mentions the question of how much to charge per hour as a Rails developer - and why this rate is justifiable. Furthermore, it mentions crucial tips such as to avoid travelling and a few useful book tips for selling and marketing.
Watch Obie Fernandez' Do the Hustle.
Obie explains the experience with selling - both at Thoughtworks and HashRocket. He gives valuable practical tips for selling, what to watch out for and how to always keep in control of the process as compared to the client calling all the shots, and when to fire clients if necessary.
The tips go into detail of, eg. how to to define how to treat the code created in the process of the project (what code belongs to the customer and which can become part of the developers tool chest) and other topics concerning contracts. The talk also mentions the question of how much to charge per hour as a Rails developer - and why this rate is justifiable. Furthermore, it mentions crucial tips such as to avoid travelling and a few useful book tips for selling and marketing.
Watch Obie Fernandez' Do the Hustle.
Community comments
Outstanding presentation
by Vic _,
Re: Outstanding presentation
by M V,
Re: Outstanding presentation
by Ali Motaz,
Re: Outstanding presentation
by eric weisenheimer,
Re: Outstanding presentation
by Stefan Tilkov,
Re: Outstanding presentation
by Ali Motaz,
Re: Outstanding presentation
by Leandro Silva,
Slides
by Mark Richman,
Outstanding presentation
by Vic _,
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Wow, great presentation by Obie.
eom.
.V
Re: Outstanding presentation
by M V,
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Truly great presentation.
Slides
by Mark Richman,
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Where can I get a PDF or PPT of Obie's slides?
Re: Outstanding presentation
by Ali Motaz,
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Great!
This could backfire on Obie, he exposed himself as a salesman and not a techie, this totally ruins and go against what people would respect him for.
"Make your clients fear you!" ... bad
"Make your clients respect you!" ... good
"Charge as high as you can" ... bad
"Charge as low as you can" ... good
Toe support this, I remember in a paper about Dell, they were talking about how they offer custom services to large clients or deals, by for example preloading the new computers with the software he needs for each user. They said it would cost the client -i dont recall the exact number from the paper - for example 20 $, they said they could have charged him 15 $, and the client would still take it, but no, Dell charges 5 $!
As another example, the whole outsourcing business is based on this concept, offering as low as they can!
I understand, premium products to maintain their image need to charge premium prices, but obie didnt go their, his pricing discussion was weak, why would anyone be impressed by this talk
Read a marketing book if you wonna learn or get serious about pricing, there is a lot more to it if you wonna be scientific and systematic about it, else your number will be just a guess, a shot in the dark that could win or miss, and even this argument is acutally better advice than obie gave
obie must be doing something right, else people wouldnt be impressed by the little he say, he does seem to have created an audience ... but not matter how good he is, what he said in this presentation is nothing at all!
Re: Outstanding presentation
by eric weisenheimer,
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So... how much do you make a year? Sorry but some of us have no interest in charging as little as possible for our services.
Re: Outstanding presentation
by Stefan Tilkov,
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Ali, Vic, and M: Would you be nice enough to edit your profile and put in your real name? Although we haven’t published any restriction from using aliases, the intent for InfoQ discussions is to maintain a level of professionalism, in which using real names is an important factor. Thanks!
Re: Outstanding presentation
by Ali Motaz,
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Also please add the ability to edit or at least delete posted reply, you can see I missed the allowed html note in my previous message
;)
Re: Outstanding presentation
by Leandro Silva,
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Great!!!