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For those of you I haven’t yet communicated with, I’m the new Support Manager at Salsa. I look forward to working with you, and hope to talk to you all at some stage.

I’m writing to let you know that we’re simplifying the way we charge for hosting & support. Since Salsa started in 2003, we’ve bundled support & hosting together, providing a heavily discounted hour of support as part of the monthly hosting costs. This has caused some complications & ambiguity, which I’m looking to resolve.

In brief, the net outcome of the changes below for most customers is that you will save $30/month (for the month’s you don’t use support). For those customers that regularly use support, you’ll pay an additional $20/month on those months, however still gain access to a heavily discounted first hour of assistance from Salsa. We’re also reducing our hourly rate back from $170 to $155.

For more details on these changes, please read on.

*** CURRENT MODEL
Our current charging model is:

- Shared hosting – $100/month, including 1 hour of $170 support
- Dedicated hosting – $250/month, including 1 hour of $170 support

Other support we provide includes:
- 30 day warranty (support required to fix in-scope work within the first 30 days of site going live)
- Training (which can use the hour of free support)

*** CHALLENGES
- The included hour of support creates significant ambiguity between what is chargeable support, and what is not for both Salsa, and for customers
- Some clients don’t use all of their support, and so feel they don’t get value for money
- It is sometimes unclear what support is provided under warranty, and what is included within the free hour of support

*** NEW SOLUTION
To alleviate these challenges, we’re now offering hosting only for a lower monthly fee, and you only pay for support if you use it! (I hear your sighs of relief).

As of November 1, 2011 all customers will now be charged according to our simplified model:

- Shared hosting – $70/month, including NO free support
- Dedicated hosting – $220/month, including NO free support (still $50 for each additional site)

If you do need support:
- First hour is discounted to $50, charged in full if you require any support – you then have an hour to utilise as you please
- Subsequent hours are charged at the standard Salsa hourly rate of $155/hour, charged in 15 minute increments

** NOTE – we’ve also decreased our hourly rate for support from $170+GST to $155+GST, effectively immediately, based on feedback from our customers.

We’ve also included some important notes from the agreement below, many of which aren’t new, but worth re-iterating:
- Any support now requested, whether via email, phone, or the support portal will attract a $50 cost (and provide you with access to 1 full hour of support)
- All support requested will be billed at the end of the month (there is no concept of free support offered by Salsa)
- The only time support may not be charged, is during the 30 day warranty period
- Any work done within the warranty period that is not within scope of the original project, will be charged
- Any support required will be subject to electronic confirmation (via email or the support portal) before Salsa proceeds to provide the support
- Discount bulk support packages are available if more time is needed on a monthly basis

An important excerpt from our hosting agreement which is worth mentioning here:

You acknowledge that your website is hosted on computer systems and servers, whose environment, systems, software versions, log files, and other operating environments are constantly changing on a daily basis in order to keep the server operating smoothly. You also acknowledge that beyond the expiration of the 30 day warranty period offered, that your website may fail due to technical or environmental reasons without your intervention, or Salsa’s.

Where your website (in whole) is completely off the air and inaccessible to the public internet, Salsa will work at no charge to rectify this and make the site available to public internet users. Any other lesser failure and remediation of such lesser failure, such as one part of the site functionality becoming unavailable, images not displaying, files not being up-loadable, or other partial failures are treated as support, and are billable.

You can read more about our hosting & support agreement at http://www.salsainternet.com.au/website-hosting-support-agreement.html

I trust there will be some questions about this, and hope to hear from you if you require any clarification.

You should expect your automated monthly charge to change to this new rate, starting from November 1.

Thanks a lot,

John.

August 25, 2003.  8 years ago today I sat at a 2nd hand desk in a spare bedroom (well, it was spare after we moved our 4 month old daughter into our room) of our 2 bedroom unit in Melbourne’s inner northern suburbs.  I stared at the screen of my 3-year-old self made PC, rolled up my sleeves, and started working… with absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Previously I was a lead developer for a large IT services firm.  I was made redundant during the DotCom bust, then spent a couple of months pondering life with my Fiance Nicole and our new baby Sienna – I actually considered getting out of IT all together.

My good friends Phil & Alfred asked me whether I’d be interested in running a new business idea they had – selling & building thousands (!!??) of websites using open source software for $99, and making money off the hosting & support.  Wow, how things have changed…

We hired our first employee a few weeks later (Murat, designer – family of course), then our second (Emil, developer – a close friend, who has recently re-joined the Salsa team actually!), then Nicole kicked us out of the house.

2004. We leased our first real office which was above a mechanical workshop in Northcote for $150/week, and then hired Conan & Hiroo, and shortly afterwards, Matt.  They helped us make a name for ourselves, and thankfully I’m still in touch with them (in fact I had a beer with Matty & Hiroo on Friday afternoon, along with half a dozen or so other x-Salsa employees).

2005. Over the coming year we met some amazing clients that had faith in us, and allowed us to learn & grow, including www.melbourneweddingregistry.com.au, who we still work with today.

2006. We moved into our 3rd location in Lygon St, East Brunswick, where Phil joined the business full time as our SEO Manager (and cold caller – that was funny).  We hired our first Office Manager, Rachel, and a series of developers that were to transform the Salsa business yet again to the agency it is today, including Sammy, Nathan, Chris, Steve, Dan (x2), Nick, Modi, & Alex (R.I.P Big Al, we miss ya).

2008. We moved into our current premises in Fitzroy, and now have a team of 29 staff across 3 countries, and about 200 loyal customers.  The journey continues – we keep changing the business, introducing new services, meeting new clients, and making great friends along the way.  Our staff are the difference for us – they’re the real Salsa.

I love what I do, what Salsa does for our customers, and that we’re able to provide jobs to some special people.

Since starting Salsa, I married my Fiance and we’ve had a couple more kids – my life has been amazing because of Nicole, and what Salsa has allowed us to do.  Nicole would kill me if I put a photo of her here, but here is one of our kids.

Adam DeGiorgio.

We take on a lot of customers that have come from bad (digital provider) relationships.  We have over the years lost a handful of customers for the same reason (not very often thankfully!).  In almost every case, I think the problems can be avoided by adhering to a few principles in how you deal with your digital agency (and how your digital agency deals with you too of course!!).

It’s all about a relationship of course – built on trust first and foremost.  The sales process usually helps get this sorted, and you choose someone you feel you can trust.  Once you’ve chosen the lucky company you wish to partner with, here are some tips to help the relationship last as long as possible.

1. Understand your warranty – Unfortunately many customers expect a website to have an unlimited warranty (or a long warranty period), and for the website to work as it did on day 1.  This isn’t the case.  Providing a website is like buying any other piece of software.   Websites live on servers and computers which change every day.   The software which drives your website (web server, database etc) is under constant maintenance and upgrade by your hosting providers.  Because of this changing environment in which your website lives, your Digital Agency partner will almost always place a time limit on warranty fixes.  This is often <90 days in length.  Therefore it’s important to get all your testing done during the warranty period to ensure everything is fixed within the price.  For a website, the provider will fix bugs after the expiration of the warranty period, but it needs to be paid for.

2. Understand your IP ownership rights - About 25% of the new clients we take on come from clients that have been burnt by the cost of having to revert to the software author of a proprietary content management system (CMS) which cannot be edited by you, or your chosen software developer (if that isn’t the original provider of the CMS software).  There are sometimes huge (tens of thousands a year!) license costs associated with these proprietary CMS systems which may be running your website, which cannot be avoided – and in some cases, you also can’t take the site elsewhere and are stuck with the original CMS vendor. Ouch!

3. Don’t be rude – Rude or aggressive emails which are personally insulting and take the focus off the issues and place it onto the people, rarely evokes the most helpful and useful response.    We hold ourselves to high standards of courtesy and professionalism at all times.  A polite but firm customer who points out problems and demands a sensible strategy to fix them, will ALWAYS get a better result, than a rude or insulting client who vents frustration and burns relationships in the process.

4. Remember its a partnership – As much as all businesses want more customers, this is a two way street.  Service providers are looking for long-term customers, and you are no doubt looking for a long-term service provider.  To achieve this requires productive, positive, supportive and respectful relationships.

5. The golden rule – It goes without saying that we all need to show respect, honesty, transparency and ethical behaviour in business.  If you treat your agency as you’d like to be treated – put yourself in their shoes – it usually all works out just fine.

A lot of our customers use POS systems to manage inventory, front of store transactions, etc.  The providers of this software are great at creating Point of Sale solutions – that’s what they do.   Some of these providers offer eCommerce software platforms (which integrate with their POS solution.  This is fine for customers with a need for a very simple eCommerce website.  For large companies wanting a professional approach to eCommerce, unfortunately these providers will sometimes be a bit opportunistic and over state the capabilities of these POS eCommerce solutions.   In short, it’s often the case that these eCommerce “add-on”s to a POS solution, are unsuitable for a professional eCommerce sites.

Apart from the fact that these eCommerce solutions are proprietary (see my post about the problems with this), they pose the following advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of an eCommerce solution offered by a POS provider

• They integrate seamlessly with the POS system – they’re created by the same vendor, so obviously work very well together.
• They’re typically much cheaper to setup.  The solutions are usually rather simple, and quick to setup, with a few configuration files, and few  template files to be edited to suit.

Disadvantages of an eCommerce solution offered by a POS provider

• They’re typically not SEO friendly (they may have some basic SEO capabilities) and they’re not built with SEO in mind.  They’re built with integration in mind, and the software vendors expertise is in POS systems, not eCommerce, so SEO is overlooked or given limited focus.
• Closed platform (proprietary).  As mentioned already, this makes it hard to customise, and almost impossible to partner with an expert eCommerce agency, as they’ll know almost nothing about the vendor’s system, and are unable to modify it to maximise your ROI.
• License costs – as with most proprietary software, there will be license costs.
• Product evolution – since the software has been written by a POS company – whose expertise and main focus is selling more POS systems, the product evolution will be slow in comparison to a dedicated eCommerce platform provider.
• Addons & customisations – if you need a new component built, or changes to the standard product, you need to pay the provider to do it – which is likely to take a while since they’re busy writing and selling POS solutions and may have many large customers – are you big enough to be a priority in their product development stream?

All of this is important to consider, however the overwhelming issue we see with most POS based proprietary eCommerce solutions is that they are an afterthought of the POS software;  they’re created to fill a perceived hole in the market, and while you may end up with a “suitable” software solution, you can often miss out on a “business changing”, well thought out, professionally executed, eCommerce solution that opens up a new channel to market for your business – which is what a good eCommerce solutoin is all about.

Who doesn’t love mobile apps? No question, they’re changing the way we do a lot of things – particularly communicate (have you seen heytell.com? Unbelievable!).  But does your business really need one?

I’m now starting to see apps made for the wrong reasons.  We’ve had customers ask us to build apps for things that just don’t need apps – I have to hose them down a little and help them understand why.

There is no doubt that mobile is huge – your website should have a mobile version – our new brand is being launched on July 1, and we’ll certainly have a specific mobile version of our site.  Nielson reported recently that smartphones account for 63% of the mobile market now, and as this continues to grow, users will require a more powerful mobile experience from the websites they visit on their phone.

mCommerce is also an incredibly fast growing industry.  Of PayPal 3.6 million active customers, 400,000 (over 10%) used PayPal on their phones in 2010, purchasing 2.5 million items from a mobile device – up from 1% in 2009… 1000% growth!

It’s crucial to understand however, that many brands and businesses just don’t need an actual app – a mobile enabled version of your website is fine, and in many cases, even more suitable, than an app.  Who, for example would download an app of the salsainternet.com.au website (except me!)? Apps are great if they actually provide extra functionality, that a person is actually likely to use, such as interacting with the phones camera or address book, for example.  Even GPS can be integrated with the site (as you can see on our customers mobile site – m.oovie.com.au).

Once you build an app, you’ve at the mercy of the platforms of the distributors – Apple, Google & Blackberry are often altering their systems, requiring further investment in updating apps to suit.  95% of what most people want to do on an app, is available on a mobile website.  In fact, business that are considering an app may want to consider a mobile site as a first step – it’s quicker, cheaper, and will give you some exposure into the mobile use of your brand before you take the plunge into an app. If you build it correctly, you can also leverage existing site content, so you only update content in one place, which is then reflected in your main site, and your mobile site.

Online retailers may benefit from actually having both a website and an app – I think this could only work if you’re a big brand, that users use for regular, repeat purchases!  oo.com.au (only online) have both, and believe that having the oo logo in the palm of the shoppers hand is priceless.  I’m not sure I agree,  since you can setup a mobile site to popup a message asking you to add an icon to your home screen – which effectively then has the same effect as an app icon.

Roses Only also have an app and mobile site – again, given the brand, and it’s likelihood for repeat purchases, running an app may very well be worth it – it’s also likely to make the purchase process incredibly simple for the user.  I can imagine getting a popup on your phone when it’s a week before your wife’s birthday, with a simple one click purchase to send her the same bouquet you sent her last time.  Awesome use of an app for a well established, popular retail brand.  Founder and CEO of Roses Only, James Stevens does agree however, that apps are not suitable for all brands – you wouldn’t necessarily buy large ticket items from an app, for example.

The take-out: If your app is just about delivering simplistic content – create a mobile site instead – not an app.  If you can actually deliver more useful, smart functionality that needs to either integrate with the phones technology, or something that can’t be done via the web browser, then you may very well need an app.

I’ve love to hear your thoughts, or of any other apps that you think are note worthy for our readers.

Thanks to BRW for some of the inspiration/stats in this article.

I’d like to think however, that there are a bunch of real, professional digital agencies that can help identify and solve your problems – not just grind out the work to solve a problem you think you’ve already identified.

A podcast I listened to recently (from an ad agency) mentioned that ad agencies started a trend – offering the same old solutions to any problem the customer threw at them – “You need a TV ad”.  Their customers became unsatisfied with the same solution to every problem.  The ROI of TV ads compared to online is another discussion all together, however we’re now seeing the really good agencies creating really effective campaigns that do really solve problems, and that are about more than TV ads.  Some of the banks are doing an amazing job of this.  I think this is what is now separating the big players from the jokers in the agency world – the ability to really identify the problem in the market, find out how the company can solve it, and then execute a genius plan to capture the heart of the consumers.

Companies are now starting to put more faith in really good ad agencies to help them identify and solve their problems.  Instead of banks saying “the competition is tough, we need to be in front of consumers more than everyone else, spend a zillion dollars on TV”, they’re now creating campaigns like the recent nab campaign which firstly identified the real problem (high interest rates, bad relationship with their bank, high cost/effort to exit), realised they have a solution (lower interest rates, payout exit fees, simple transition process) to the problem, then connected with their audience by executing a genius plan (humorous campaigns around portraying a human relationship breakup – with a bank).

We’re now seeing a lot more customers with real marketing problems coming to us with an open mind.  They tell us about their business, we try to understand the problems they can solve for their customers based on their strengths, then execute a web design and online marketing campaign to help solve the problems.

Every website should be created with the same perspective from the outset – what problems are we trying to solve, and how can a website do that?  Gone are the days of just creating a website because you have to – people want to engage with you online, they want to have their problems solved.

Websites delivered by Salsa Internet are designed to work and render correctly on popular browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome.

We are diligent in our efforts to ensure that we adhere to W3C web standards where appropriate, and we also support the commonly used browsers and browser versions on the internet.

We also make a reasonable effort in ensuring that websites we’ve built work and function correctly on newly released browsers, however due to the constantly changing nature of these technologies there is no guarantee that your websites will render correctly when using these browsers.

If you find that your web-pages are not displaying or functioning as expected on newly released browsers like IE9 or Firefox 4 for example, please get in touch with us and we will get back to you with a plan to resolve any such issues.

Salsa does plan to start supporting these new browsers as standard for all new work implemented in the very near future.

My head is spinning trying to keep up with all the latest and greatest.  I’m enjoying it; loving learning new things.  I’ve included a few items in this post, with my understanding of what they do, and some opinions on how useful they are/not, or might become…

Quora.com. Their home page describes it nicely – “A continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.”.  Basically someone posts a question, and people answer it.  Others then comment on, or vote for the answer.  The goal is that it will eventually create a useful body of content for people to use to find answers to common questions.  I guess it’s kind of like Google, except utilises the “crowd sourcing” concept to gather comments and votes to determine what is ranked higher, compared to Google which uses in-bound links & content to determine which results are given priority.

RockMelt.com. ANOTHER web browser!  If it is as good as it claims, I think it will be awesome (except for their terrible logo). I already run 3 browsers – Firefox for business, Chrome for personal, Safari to run my Google calendar. I’d likely drop Safari and use Chrome for Google Calendar, and perhaps rockmelt for personal if its good enough.  I’m waiting for my early access invite to arrive, but from watching the video on their site.  It appears to do something I’ve been whining about for ages – bringing all your social experiences together.  LOVE that idea. Can’t wait to try it.

blekko.com. (still in beta).  A new search engine. Are they bloody crazy?  Actually, it’s pretty cool.  Will it last? Who knows, it’s pretty out there!  The CEO seems like a nice guy (watch his demo video), so I hope they do.  Pretty tough competition – they’re striving to become “the 3rd biggest search engine” (to Google & YouTube I guess).  The short of it: each site in the search index is tagged with keywords. When you do a search, you can use a slash ‘/’ to refine or order your results based on those tags.  For example, search for “web developer”, then add /design to find those that also have a design team.  You can use /date to sort chronologically.  Blekko also has some pretty cool SEO features – allowing you to easily view links into a site and also SEO information.

If you have experience with any of these tools, and/or have an opinion on them, I’d love to hear it.

It’s become one of my new years resolutions – reduce interruptions.  As if there weren’t enough interruptions in a day; then came blog subscription notifications, Twitter, Facebook, an open plan office… etc, etc.  If we’re not talking to someone, we’re consuming media of some sort – all the time!  Don’t get me wrong, I love it – the digital age is incredible, but sometimes it drive me nuts. It scatters my thoughts.

I love interacting – it’s how I learn, grow (& sell!).  I just can’t help but notice how much more effective & productive I am when I’m not interacting!  It needs to be very, very carefully managed.  In fact, I think the ability to manage interruptions can seriously affect a career or a business.

If I’m in a “interrupted state” it’s really hard to focus on writing an important email, or proposal – things end up being done superficially, and without enough consideration.  This also extends to human interaction.  If you’re sitting with someone, having a conversation, or a quiet moment, and their phone is buzzing and burping constantly, distracting them from you – your interaction with them is also compromised.   How often do you get a message when spending time with your kids, and you whip out the phone to take a look?  People need to be present. Put down the iPhone and Blackberry and enjoy the personal company of the human(s) you’re sitting with right now (after you read this   ).

There are a bunch of other things to consider about having quiet time.  I’m compelled whenever I read something about these topics.  Here are some interesting thoughts to consider from others:

“If anything, it is having more choices that is driving more and more consumption. It’s our ability to fill those smaller time slots (like any idle moment of waiting in your life) with some form of media/entertainment (be it a quick glance of a Twitter feed or checking the sport scores on your mobile device)”.  From http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/you-do-this-more-than-sleeping-and-working/ – Mitch Joel.

This is a brilliant article – “A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the net, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is turning us into scattered and superficial thinkers”.  From http://m.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-the-internet-makes-us-stupid-20100909-15383.html – Nicholas Carr.

Here are some things I like to do to help:

Turn off notifications

When I get a new tweet, instant message, email or blog post to read, I don’t really need to know about it immediately.  Turn off the notification settings on these apps, and watch your focus increase.  The world isn’t going to end if you don’t respond immediately.  People will come tap you on the shoulder if they need to.

Don’t answer/respond to your phone

I’ve removed my office phone from the Sales ring group.  I can still answer the phone if I hear it ringing, and feel like answering it, but my desk phone doesn’t ring all the time now.  When I get home from work, my mobile phone gets shelved at least for the “rush hour” – I have quality time to spend with the family.  If too busy at work, I turn it onto silent.

Don’t check your emails

If you really think about it, how many emails do you get that require an immediate response – anything that can’t wait a few hours?  And if something was urgent, wouldn’t they just call you?  Probably.  Give it a try – don’t click on the mail link for a few hours, you won’t explode.  I like to deal with emails first thing in the morning, in the middle of the day, mid afternoon, then end of day. 3-4 times per day is often enough.

Work remotely (not from home)

I often stop at a cafe I pass on the way to work – it’s usually quiet, they have big tables, good coffee, and free wifi. I can work there for as long as I want, without interruption.  I don’t work from home for various reasons.  I have 3 energetic kids, a talkative wife (bless her), and am easily distracted by the never ending list of stuff to do around the house.

Disconnect from the internet

The web is the cause of most of the interruptions in our lives – turn the wifi off on the laptop now and again – works for me.

Get up early

This is likely the most effective of all the techniques I use.  Not only are early mornings naturally void of most distractions, but I also find myself most aware, clear-minded and thoughtful at this time of the day.  I honestly think of my best ideas first thing in the morning – however rare they may be!

Lists

Oh man, I LOVE “Things” on my Mac.  There are heaps of ways to keep a list – write it down, use notepad, outlook tasks, to-do pads – whatever.  Just write stuff down.  If you think of something to do when you’re in the middle of something else, add it to the list.  Don’t distract yourself and go “do it quickly” – add it to your list quickly, clear your mind of it, then continue to complete the task at hand, and come back to the list later.

Don’t be shy to say you’re too busy

I used to be worried about what people would think if I said “sorry I’m a bit busy, can you come back later”. Or “just let me finish what I’m doing, and I’ll pop over”.  Guess what? They don’t mind!

Prioritise

Don’t take it form me.  Covey and Blanchard had theories on how to prioritise tasks – I have the Covey quadrant pasted on the wall in front of my desk.  Quadrant 1 are highest priority, then 2, and so on…

Here is a run down: http://tinobox.com/wordpress/productivity/todo-sorting-by-coveys-and-blanchardquadrant/

Carve out interruption time

While at work, I find that the interruptions can build up quickly.  I often ignore them for a while, especially if in the middle of something that I want to finish.  When I’m done, I might spend 10 minutes reading emails, responding to Tweets, etc.  I do this every few hours.

In summary…

Sometimes I think of it as a mini-holiday.  When you go away on leave, everything continues one way or another, without you.  There is heaps to do when you get back, but everything is generally OK.  You come back refreshed, energised, and ready to be productive again.  Removing yourself from interruptions is similar, on a smaller scale.  Remove yourself, come back with a fresh mind, a clear list of things to do, and get cracking again.

Of course, these are just ideas, and in reality, we must be approachable, flexible and effective communicators.  I find that if I remind myself of these guidelines every now and again, and carve out the important quiet time, I’m more effective, less agitated, actually sell more business, and offer better leadership than when constantly distracted.  Interruptions are very, very expensive for our businesses, careers, and more importantly, our personal lives.

Joomla.org have gone through 14 beta releases so far, in their efforts to ensure the end product is robust and as bug free as possible.  It’s this dedication to quality that entices Salsa to continue to use and highly recommend Joomla for not only our own website, but those of most of our customers.

1.6 is planned to be released on November 29th, 2010.

Some of the principle differences of Joomla 1.6 include:

• New Access Control System – Allows site administrators control over who can view and manage content, removing the need to implement 3rd party components to deliver this functionality.
• Unlimited Depth Organizational Model – Gives site administrators and content creators user-defined category levels that allow for the creation of a category tree with as many or as few levels for organizing articles and other content as needed.  Previously, this functionality was also available via various plug-ins, with varying levels of complexity/cost to implement.
• One-Click Extension Updates – Allows users to keep sites secure and controlled by simplifying the process of updating extensions.  Similar to it’s competitors, Joomla will now allow you to easily update extensions with one click via the admin tool, rather than having to upload new files, install, etc.
• Semantic XHTML Layouts – Provides a better baseline for content presentation.  Will help in the delivery of accessible websites, and more consistency around content layout.

A more complete list can be seen here.

Any Joomla site can be upgraded/converted to 1.6, however the effort required to do so will vary considerably depending on:

• Version – The current version of your Joomla site will determine how much work is required to upgrade – some really old versions may require a re-build of some areas.
• Customisations – Although it is rare a Joomla site’s core infrastructure is customised, if it is, then there is more custom work required to implement any customisations.
• Components – The more components that are installed, the more work is required to upgrade the site – each component will likely require individual upgrade, and some may not have a 1.6 version available.

Our general advice is to wait a while before upgrading a site to ensure all required components are supported (the component vendors may take a while to implement 1.6 compatibility), and also to ensure any other production bugs are removed.

If you feel there are highly strategic benefits of upgrading your site immediately, we can provide some assistance and guidance about the best way to do this.