Drawing from my own 2009 experiences, of course.

 

Even automation that takes longer than it should to be implemented is a Good Thing. I spent a full week automating a process that, at the time, took me an entire 3-4 minutes a week to do “manually”. I felt pretty silly. Now, though, with the “sunk cost” firmly in the past, I’m happy as I can be that I no longer have to do that task each week. And I’m making plans to extend the automation to other, related tasks.

 

Never build what you can buy. I’ve followed this mantra for years. Still relying on it. I spent the most ever for an update of The Journal in third-party components and libraries. I even bought a whole new development PC specifically for The Journal 5/Project Vee. I earned it all back in the first couple weeks of the new release, just in upgrade fees. Because the total amount spent wasn’t that much, really (just under $4000). The biggest expenditure was My Own Time, spent lavishly over a 2 year period. I’ve gotten some of that time back already, though, with an eye to reclaiming more of it next year.

 

Don’t be afraid to raise your prices. If there’s been some significant inflation (for example, like we saw in 2008) since the last time you set your price, you need to put some thought into how much you might be undercharging. Then fix it. I’ve been going to the same stylist for my monthly haircut since 2000. She loves me (and my family). Not the least because I’ve given her permission 3 times now to raise her prices (in 2002, 2006, and now in 2010), and held her hand through the process. In all 3 cases it was obvious that her prices had fallen behind reality. Ironically enough, in that same stretch of time, I had only changed the price of The Journal once (in 2001). I hadn’t had a complaint about the price of The Journal in years. Which is never a good sign. Between November 2001 and August 2009 I calculated there had been about 22% inflation. I was way behind the curve. That’s fixed now.

 

Ship, damn it! Some products will never be “done”. You have to learn to recognize when you’re “done enough”, and ship already. Attaining perfection is a great goal, but it’s impossible to schedule–and hard on the revenue stream.

 

That’s about it, I think.

 

Happy New Year!

 

-David