Moving On in Business

Being a PHP programmer for quite a while has meant I have built up a bit of a customer base. These days because I have increased rates most clients have gone to what I would consider a more 3rd world country employee - which is up to them. I generally only have one client at the moment and that's it.

So I've decided to move on. I'm not working for third world rates and have decided to work on developing the "tools" I have had in mind for a long time now. I also spend a small amount of time affiliate marketing. I'm not really interested in always spending my time in client work.

But moving on just seems sort of weird and working on these tools could mean not getting an income for awhile. I get small amounts from affiliate marketing and my sales/hosting business.

What would you do in my situation and where would you head towards?

Thanks in advance for the responses.

Stick with what you enjoy doing. If you enjoy coding, keep at it, just change your target market for higher paying clients - people pay for quality! Or, even better come up with a product idea, build and market it.

Do what you do best and like to do. Do not keep all of your eggs in one basket.

I've been trying to get out of the consulting business for 5 years, but keep getting pulled back in. I have diversified into an online store, affiliate marketing and other areas. Try a lot of differnt things to see what you like to do and find out what you are good at.

I'm seeking more independence from customers. That's my goal. Little by little I am achieving it.

Think about using your programming skills to develop a sellable software product. I have one friend who came up with a software product that has become a very popular WordPress plugin. It is one of the few plugins that people are willing to buy, because it generates income for them. He tells me that it has been successful beyond his dreams. I will not mention the product because I do not want to see 50 people try to cash in on his success. ;)

Think in terms of providing "solutions." Some of the best money making ideas provide solutions for common problems.

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Originally Posted by Nathan

Being a PHP programmer for quite a while has meant I have built up a bit of a customer base. ....
So I've decided to move on. I'm not working for third world rates and have decided to work on developing the "tools" I have had in mind for a long time now.

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If you really are good at the programming, you might not give it up entirely, especially until you have new income rolling.

One thing you might consider: moving to more flat rate work, sometimes this can be productive for consultant and client. I used to do hourly work only and now do a lot of flat rate work. Took me a while to figure out how to price and write the agreements, but now I actually like flat rate work better. It tends to force management of feature expectations, price expectations. AND I get paid well for the things I know WELL and fair (not as well) for the things I don't know as well. So I get some jobs I get 2-3X my old hourly rate and some jobs I get 1/3 - 1/2 my old hourly rate.

The important part is: I keep earning and I keep learning.

Since you mentioned cheap outsourcing -- it has also allowed me to occasionally use cheap outsourcing myself. Somehow it fits the my mind set on the customer flat rate jobs and the customers don't care (when I tell them I have a "specialist" helping out in one area). Funny thing, I use hourly on my outsourcing (with not to exceed caps).

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Originally Posted by Nathan

But moving on just seems sort of weird and working on these tools could mean not getting an income for awhile. I get small amounts from affiliate marketing and my sales/hosting business.

What would you do in my situation and where would you head towards?

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Really depends on what you mean by tools and how much risk you are willing to take.
Are you talking about income producing websites of your own?
Are you talking about software tools you would sell?
Or am I missing the point here?

By tools I either mean income producing websites that target a specific group of people or some kind of software for sale.

My sales and hosting businesses both bring in a bit of income and affiliate marketing is starting to bring in a bit more so I suppose I wouldn't be totally out of an income.

Thanks for the replies!

Aren't you still making lots of money, Nathan, according to your signature? ;)

I say think again about your tools ideas, do the proper research and if you believe the ideas are sound and the tools will sell - go for it!

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Originally Posted by DomainMagnate

Aren't you still making lots of money, Nathan, according to your signature? ;)

I say think again about your tools ideas, do the proper research and if you believe the ideas are sound and the tools will sell - go for it!

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Affiliate marketing goes up and down. Google slaps all your campaigns - you loose all your income, which happened to me this month. I only have one campaign running at the moment.

I stupidly put a lot of cash on my debit card that I shouldn't of as well.... not a good month for me.

As a programmer myself, I find that working for clients is stressful, time consuming and not very lucrative. In fact I did the last job for free since I didn't want to be "owned" by the client but rather have them in a position of owing me a favor down the road.

Better to use your programming skills to give you an advantage in marketing above the people that can't code, I think. For example, instead of writing articles like everyone else, you create the tool to make the job easier for everyone else.

A lot of very successful marketers are either coders or people that are good at specifying code. With code, we can create products or produce dynamic sites like no other since we wrote the scripts or got the scripts created according to our detailed specs.

Yeah I'm bit of a programmer myself, self taught. What you describe is exactly how I perceive it. Having these skills would give you really competitive edge in creating any type of website you want. No more will you have to rely on crappy pre-made scripts.:thumbup:

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Originally Posted by Andy101

As a programmer myself, I find that working for clients is stressful, time consuming and not very lucrative. In fact I did the last job for free since I didn't want to be "owned" by the client but rather have them in a position of owing me a favor down the road.

Better to use your programming skills to give you an advantage in marketing above the people that can't code, I think. For example, instead of writing articles like everyone else, you create the tool to make the job easier for everyone else.

A lot of very successful marketers are either coders or people that are good at specifying code. With code, we can create products or produce dynamic sites like no other since we wrote the scripts or got the scripts created according to our detailed specs.

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There are really a lot of routes you could take in this situation. In the end, you want to be doing something that you enjoy. Even if it pays a little less than something else you could have done, work feels much better when it doesn't really feel like work :)