I build theunglamorousweb.
Most of my work is for businesses you've never heard of. Braiding salons, a hair supplier, a pawn shop, a solar wholesaler, a couple of estate agents. None of them wanted an award. They wanted the phone to ring.
That turns out to be a good school. When someone is paying you out of this month's takings, you stop decorating and start asking what each page is actually for. Seven years of that made me quick, and made me fussy about the parts nobody photographs. How the catalogue is organised. Whether the owner can change a price without ringing me. What happens on a phone that's three years old.
I work mostly in WordPress because it's what these businesses can afford to keep running long after I'm gone. The craft is in making it behave. Cutting what it loads, building an admin the client isn't frightened of, and writing the code the page builder can't.
Four things I'll argue about.
Things I won't do to you.
Every agency owner I've spoken to has been burned by a freelancer, and it's almost never about skill. It's about behaviour. So here's what you can hold me to.
- Go quiet. If it's slipping, you hear it from me before you have to ask
- Vanish the day the invoice clears
- Blame your feedback for a deadline I agreed to
- Say yes to a date I already know I can't hit
- Hand you a site only I understand, then charge you to understand it
- Bill you for a ten minute text change
- Talk to your client behind you, or put my name anywhere near white label work