As many of you know, you see the threads about <<< my business >>>... Bad communication, etc. How i have my "cheerleaders" and all that jazz. <<< my business >>> was started last year in January, January 14th to be exact. So it has been running for about a year and a half. When I started it, the management niche was not very saturated. There was 4 big names at the time, easyservermanagement, rfxn, cheetaweb, rackaid. Rfxn was primarily security at that time but i have noticed hes moved up to doing administration work also. In this time period I have noticed its harder to get clients, and when you do get clients they expect more for less money. I guess I can attribute that to the companys that have been poping up. I noticed one the other day, that claimed to be certified etc, but in his profile his birth year is 1988.. which makes him 16 or 17.. Ok i guess. It's becoming a competative market. Lets jump to a new topic:

Communication made by myself.. I will fully admit, I am no good at communication. No good at all. I try my best but it just does not work. When a thread pops up I always see someone saying something to the terms of "i dont know why he doesnt just hire someone to help". I have done that. I have done that many times. Ive probably hired around 10 or 11 people. They all end up wandering off and pretty soon i see them working for someone else, or they have some life crisis and dont have time anymore.. Ok i can deal with that. But leaves me doing all the work once again... Right now I am doing all the work. Communication is the key to business.. I know that.

Another thing people mention ALOT is.. your prices are cheap. You should raise them you will get higher quality clients, or stuff simular to that.. Done it.. tried it... seems like lower quality clients came... Oh well happens.

One of the recent delima's I have experienced is lack of internet connectivity.. I had to basically close shop for around two weeks because the connection was soo poor.. They came and fixed it.. But it appears to be going again.. JUST GREAT...

Oh another thing I love is non payers or people that chargeback... This is something I have been seeing more and more and I find it more and more amusing everytime I see it. I dont accept anymore until work is done and the person is satisfied with it. I just wont accept it.. But people feel like they need to take advantage of that.. Ok w/e I just live with it. But what makes me angry is the people that feel they need to chargeback when everything is perfectly fine. I have also experienced a few times clients who i do the work for and its working perfectly, time to collect money and they say oh some other company fixed it... No they didnt I fixed it... but i deal with it...

Heres a classic senario I get alot...

Person sends in an urgent request at night.. I feel like they need help so i reply to it. (normal hours are 9-5pst). We throw some emails back and forth.. Keep in mind, theres less then an hour on this ticket from me receiving it... we get to the point of passing login and i receive it... Within a few more minutes i get a email from the same person saying nevermind I have another company/person working on it..maybe next time... THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING.

One thing I have learned in this business.. You make 5 steps ahead you go back 4. I hire people and it starts going good... |1|2|3|4|5 = 5 steps.. Now we are getting somewhere! Nope... move back 4 steps, employee's went MIA.... grrr and here comes the wht thread...


Right now I am at the point, I dont know what i want to do. Continue... or start closing up shop and finishing existing contracts.


if this isent proper here, do with as you like.

I could be an intern.

Originally posted by thelinuxguy
Nope... move back 4 steps, employee's went MIA.... grrr and here comes the wht thread...

Maybe you should start with your hiring practices?

How have you hiring employees in the past and what could you do to make their employment sustainable? Obviously, your former employees have gone MIA because they were either 1) unhappy, 2) didn't think it was worth it, and/or 3) didn't understand requirements for the position?

Communication issues aside, I think that is really the only thing I can provide you to consider as I can't say I have much knowledge in managing a developing business.

I think some of your loyal customers will say it'll definitely be worth it to keep your business going. But then again, the ultimate question is, is it worth it to you. If you feel it's not, you might want to evaluate what you want to pursue next.

Good luck to you.

You should always look to hire people who live near you. So, that they don't randomly go MIA.

I wouldn't quit just yet. I would take it as a challenge to continue and make it a profitable business.

Steve if you get to the point you need 10 employees it's time to get an office and have them work there 9-5 . That's my take on it but I've never maintained a management company.

I never had 10 employee's at once, but i have hired around 10 different people.

Put simply Steve, you've great technical skill and knowledge.

I never had a problem with commuinication with you - and you are still the best I found with DirectAdmin servers. I think that you need to round the edges off a little - for instance for the long time I used your services your support desk came and went as did various billing systems. It'd just seem a little more professional perhaps?

You might want to have a checklist/questionairre that clients complete when they request a service, and you might want to provide them with a response (it could all be cut/paste or database driven. Those sort of touches would improve communication and seem more professional and therefore you'd be able to command a higher price?

Just some hopefully constructive suggestions :)

I agree, communication is definitely the problem here. Hire someone competent to answer sales/support tickets for you if you don't have time yourself. Just a suggestion.

. Hire someone competent to answer sales/support tickets for you if you don't have time yourself.


been there done that.

Hey Man - here few suggestion for you:

1) Don't gave up so easy it's allways bad and good times

2) Don't do ANYTHING except your job - leave all other duties to specially trained personal

3) Don't answer ANY tickets in non-business hours - this is only produce headaches for you - make it clear - you available ONLY from xx am to xx pm 5 days a week - this will prevent a lot of stupid treats on WHT - "Sales support is limited on weekend" REMOVE that and REST on weekends. Unless you expand you team and can offer extra hours.

4) Try to establish service contracts for management for "stable" webhosting company's - DONT try to make it cheapest, but EXPLAIN to CORPORATE customer WHY your better then $29/month server monitoring kids with less then 1 year expirience (prepare GOOD resume with examples of your work). I would go with EXPERT even if this cost me 3-5 times MORE - I wouldn't hire this "kids" who manage/secure servers for $50. In another words work for your name and don't invest too much time with "kid" hosters as well - so little outcome and too much pain :)

5) About chargebacks - work with your credit card processor and ask customer SIGNED agreement prior start of work and hire lawyer to prepare one.

Regards

Steve

it seems like you have good intentions, but bad business practice.

I am guessing since your rates are low, you are trying to hire some low budget techs.. and either over/under working them with bad communication.

You should hire ONE tech at a time, hire them on full time check their resume/references and do a proper interview. The complete hiring process.

You will get better results like this.

Best of luck

I must confess that when I first read this thread, it made me angry. And to date, with rack911-related threads, I have tried to bite my tongue and just stay away. Otherwise, I would just unleash and tear a strip off Steve for screwing up his business. (We've butted heads in the past, and Steve knows how I feel about him)

But I just can't contain myself in this case. I have to air my opinion.

Originally posted by thelinuxguy
Communication made by myself.. I will fully admit, I am no good at communication. No good at all. I try my best but it just does not work.

Well, at least you have the cojons to admit you suck at communication. But I don't buy the excuse that you couldn't do better.

Steve, you happen to be in a business that inherently requires a great deal of accountability and responsibility, and therefore trust. When someone (essentially) gives you the keys to their house (root access), they're entrusting you with their business. This is not fun and games, it's real business, real people.

So after you email back and forth, set a price, and then the customer sends you root access, you then have a responsibility to perform as promised. When you then just fall off the face of the earth, it is totally inexcusable. Totally inexcusable. It doesn't matter that they haven't paid you yet. You still owe them timely performance(as promised).

I could post links to countless threads that demonstrate your disappearing acts. But I'll just post one to make my point.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=428545

Here's a guy, Chris, who entrusted you to do a job, and once he sent you root access, you disappeared.

Honestly, Steve, I have no idea how you could reconcile this as acceptable behavior in your mind. It is shameful and abhorrently irresponsible business practices. Your customers deserve better.

As well, it is a total crock that you blame it on inadequate staff. Come on. The buck stops here. You own the business. So if an employee falls short, then you need to pick up the ball. That's what business is about. Geez. Do I even have to explain this??

Person sends in an urgent request at night.. I feel like they need help so i reply to it. (normal hours are 9-5pst). We throw some emails back and forth.. Keep in mind, theres less then an hour on this ticket from me receiving it... we get to the point of passing login and i receive it... Within a few more minutes i get a email from the same person saying nevermind I have another company/person working on it..maybe next time... THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING.

You're kidding, right? You have the audacity to complain about a frustrating customer??? You have left a trail of customers who are totally frustrated by your disappearing acts, yet you dare to post about customers who are acting inappropriately?? Totally insane.

Ironically, in spite of the lack of time you claim you have to run your business, you took the time to pen this thread. And you posted replies to it in a timely manner. Yet, you have unanswered support tickets. Do you see the irony in this? ;)

Bottom line: Take a course in business practices/ethics and/or time management and/or customer service. Then come back and give it another go. If you continue as you are, aside from screwing up your rep more than you already have, you will also be playing with people's businesses, which is totally unacceptable.

Steve, it may seem I'm just attacking you in this post. But if the truth be known, I am just incredibly frustrated to see such great talent/knowledge get wasted. You can clearly dance circles around a server. You clearly have a God given talent. I admire your skillset. Yet, it's being wasted due to your inability to manage a business properly. Bloody waste, I say...

BTW, do yourself a favor and reply to Chris (eMax), as you will likely not hear the end of it until you do... ;)

Vito

I have to agree with vito. The last thing you should do is abandon your customers.

Originally posted by thelinuxguy
Communication made by myself.. I will fully admit, I am no good at communication. No good at all. I try my best but it just does not work. When a thread pops up I always see someone saying something to the terms of "i dont know why he doesnt just hire someone to help". I have done that. I have done that many times. Ive probably hired around 10 or 11 people. They all end up wandering off and pretty soon i see them working for someone else, or they have some life crisis and dont have time anymore..

Look at the specific problem about communication. People aren't saying that you don't say things clearly. They're saying that you don't get back to them at all -- that you leave people hanging. Responding to emails doesn't require any special skill, just the commitment to respond to all of them. Perhaps you could set aside 2 times each day when you go through your in-box and make sure you haven't left anyone waiting to hear from you.

As for hiring someone, you might have just had a streak of bad luck, or maybe you didn't choose well, or perhaps these people didn't have compelling reasons to stay. Did you have good communication with them? If they felt the same problem that posters here complain about, that might be why they all moved on for various reasons.

We all have our weak areas. We may never be as fully competent in these areas as we'd like to be, but we can improve them to some degree. I've read how talented you are at what you do, and I encourage you to continue at your business -- as long as you make sure that you respond to all of your clients all the time.

Lois

Running your own business is a full time job, no matter what field it is in. You need to establish a set hours for your business such as 9-5, monday to friday or you'll either get burnt out or your lover will get very pissed off with you.

If you need to provide support on weekends (as nearly all hosting companies do), hire a techy. Do some research on this techy, put them on trial first and if hes good make sure you treat them well and pay them what they are worth. Do what your good at, then delegate the rest.

Don't answer ANY tickets in non-business hours - this is only produce headaches for you - make it clear - you available ONLY from xx am to xx pm 5 days a week
I recommend doing this as well (like i mentioned in the first paragraph of my post) however I would make a modification.
I would say that tickets will only be answered during business hours (as mentioned above) however you do provide a "emergency/priority support" service at X amount per hour. Make it worth your while.

As for complaining customers, dont get annoyed at them, use them to help your business, put yourself in their shoes and see what you look like on their side. Most frusturations are usually a lack of communication, if your servers are down email them and say what the situation is "our datacenters are experiencing outages etc..".
Treat them as you would like to be treated, if a server went down for me (if i were a customer of another service) I usually wouldnt be too phased as long as I knew what happened and when I could expect it otherwise people will think the worst that your a fly-by-night host and ran off with my payment.
If you can convert a annoying naggy customer into a happy customer they can put that energy into recommending you.

Learn how to dis-arm an angry customer (I learnt by working at a video store for 2 years ;) ) by listening to them even if it is totally stupid, offer then a solution and apologise if it was your fault.


As for your prices, dont play the budget game unless you already are one of the big boys and have a business plan to support it.

Customer support is more important than your prices.
My prices are more expensive than most hosts but I still get customers and the best type, the mommy-and-daddy hostees who upload and dont touch the site for months. Why? because I am good at customer service (the video store again), I look after them and make them feel like they are my most important client. The pricing and features I provide with my hosting arent very important to them.
People look at perceived value and if they dont know all the techy stuff about servers (as most dont otherwise they'd do it themselfs) they will think that the $15 host is only half as good as the $30 host.

I guess you need to hire a good HR persona first.
company management is as hard as security management

Growing is always mixed with pain, don't worry, you will get there

Greetings Steve:

Do you think the issue about your public confession of hacking, stealing, and pointing a client's domain to a porn site helped or hurt your business?

Granted, I’m glad you told the truth; but do you think that the event itself was wrong?

Yes, I understand about forgiveness and the ability for a person or company to change. But Doctor's who commit malpractice are not allowed to practice medicine for life.

In terms of moving forward, in our ten years of business, I've found that hiring quality, in-house, staff for managed services and managed security businesses goes a long way.

While we’ve had employee turn over during those ten years, the fact they are employees gives a level of control in terms of enforcing quality standards, along with policies, and procedures.

I could not imagine hiring server administrators who will have complete root access without face-to-face interviews, without 90 days of probation, and without daily (and I do mean daily) checks on their progress and quality.

Also, as mentioned, prompt communication and continued communication do wonders. Sometimes we do get chided for how much we communicate with our clients, but we’ve found prompt initial, continuous during the actual work, and regular follow up communication does wonders.

Steve, while I personally can never approve of the hacking and stealing that you publicly admitted was done by yourself; I do admire your technical skills and ability. While my personal opinion on whether such activity leads to stoppage, I admire your desire to continue to strive, and grow.

Thank you.

-- Peter M. Abraham

Per your pricing....

You charge $30 an hour for work. Most high level sys admins of your caliber charge $75-$200/hr. for custom work.

Even look at geeksquad.com and their pricing. They charge home users $79 to talk on the phone for 10 minutes about virus removal and dealing with error messages.

Your time is your most valuable commodity. I wouldn't think of doing a job such as this for less than $xxx per hour charged for all projects.

The prices may seem excessive because of your current client base, but they are mid range for the business world. Clean up your image, focus on real business clients, wow them with your service and support, and you'll have less clients that pay you a lot more, and your headaches will go away (provided you stay on top of things).

You are trying to offer a service based product, while competing on budget prices, making you into a commodity, which results in very low customer loyalty. Maybe try and partner with a good business person, get some funding from family, banks, etc... and a launch a legitimate business complete with an office, employees on site, etc... I seem to remember not long ago your "workstation" being a rickety chair in front of a desk in your bedroom.

Good luck.

- John C.

I know personally from when I attempted to use you, I was emailing you telling you that I was being hacked I asked when you could start. My question was not about price or skills. I knew you were qualified. But then you tried to talk me out of the fact. your not getting dosd someone is not hitting your shell. I dont know what you know but I am atleast somewhat competent in this area.


So as you addmitted communication should be worked on first.

Don't give up looks like you have a great buisness.

Just round the edges of some.

Just my 2cents.

-Jim

The trouble is Steve, that unless you can communicate in-house -- with your own techs -- not even they can do the job for you.

It is like tying my hands behind my back, sitting me in a chair, and telling me to type. ;)

There are many really good folks out there who could help you, but do they want to work for you? Should they? Because if you can't tell your employees what's going on behind-the-scenes, then it just makes their job supremely frustrating. They can't tell people information they don't have, or don't know.

As others have said, employees leave for a reason. If you've cycled through 10 or 11 of them, that's not a coincidence. Look internally to find out where the problem lies.

:D Bailey

Originally posted by dynamicnet
Greetings Steve:

Do you think the issue about your public confession of hacking, stealing, and pointing a client's domain to a porn site helped or hurt your business?

Granted, I’m glad you told the truth; but do you think that the event itself was wrong?

..

Thank you.

-- Peter M. Abraham

Peter,

I have just finished reading that very lengthy thread that you are referring to, and I would have to say it hurt his business. My impression, just from reading that thread, is that this guy has some sort of "untouchable" guru like reputation - considering all the posters who where defending his actions.

15 months later and the support doesnt seem to be there any more - is that a correct assumption?

Closed by request of the thread starter.