Hopefully this is OK, I'm sort of leaning on the previous OK we've had to post contract & work openings...

You probably know from my various rantings that I operate a software & web development business out of Cairns. We have a few staff in a modest office in town. I'd put up the company website URLs, but I don't want the top 3 results in Google for my company to be some QGL stoner calling me a cunt..

Anyway, for the past few months revenues have been steadily declining while our suppliers seem to be finding shiny new ways to shaft us. Things are not grim but definetly bleak - I don't want to give someone a layoff for a Chrissy or new year present.

We need web jobs, particularly web design. Our rates are pretty reasonable (100+GST) and our primary in house designer is really awesome at what she does and has an uncanny ability to get the design right for the client.

We'll do an epic job beyond spec on any work I can get her as I just want to retain the employee into the medium term as we really value her performance and ethic.

We will forward a 10% commish of remitted invoices to anyone who finds us the job. All we really want is for you to keep us in mind so you can go "I know a guy" if someone is bitching about their website - could be some easy Chrissy free monies!

Yeah tough luck mate; you better show us some examples. Who's going to recommend you without having any idea of the quality of your work?

Advertise in the yellow pages...cunt...

Seriously though as dais said hardly going to recommend without at least seeing some of your portfolio.

100 bucks a site, no wonder you're struggling!

I've gotten out of building client websites, but when I did my clients would pay a minimum of $2500 for an incredibly basic site with less than 12 pages possible, no content or heavy graphics work, they kind of pick the design from a list of prefabricated ones, takes 4 hours to basically generate the site from templates, and then they pay like $50 a month for as long as they want that site to stay alive. Anything more costs more, some sites we did cost $30000.

I have no idea what sort of idiot would pay that kind of money - but they did, several businesses a week.

yeh I think he's talking about the chargeout rate

Shameless self promotion! ... without promoting anything.

I iz confuzd

If you're actually interested take the effort to send me a PM and I'll obviously line you up with samples ... Otherwise what are you bitching about? I explained why I didn't want to link the company URL here, its just too conspicuous on Google.

We do have an advertising spend for print media, but thanks for the pro tip!

And yeh .. that's obviously a charge out rate sigh.

last edited by Hogfather at 12:17:25 04/Nov/09

what do I win for suggesting http://haystack.com/australia ?

Wheres the free money ?
I only wanted a little.

expand your horizons would be my suggestion, there isn't much money to be made in web design imo
With buyers putting their money out for tenders you're going to be fighting an uphill battle

are you also offering web hosting? professional services?
firewall management?
email management?
voip system/hosting etc?

its pretty easy to get into it, you don't even have to buy the equipment
just resell other peoples services until you get on your feet

Move into the adult industry. My brother makes shit loads of money designing sites in the adult industry. Basically just alters templates he already has and churns them out for $'s.

expand your horizons would be my suggestion, there isn't much money to be made in web design imo
With buyers putting their money out for tenders you're going to be fighting an uphill battle

are you also offering web hosting? professional services?
firewall management?
email management?
voip system/hosting etc?

I agree - we make a lot more money in software development and web hosting than we do out of pure design.

We got the designer as part of an acquisition this year. She's dedicated and talented and we don't want to let her go, but the rest of the shop can't prop up design indefinitely if the work isn't coming in.

A hard-nose business evaluation is that if the work isn't there the position isn't valid and we should go back to out-sourcing design. But I've decided to try promoting the work we do in the field and give it six months, because I'm not a cunt to Staff :p

Have you tried looking at jobs on elance or similiar sites? Might not be high paying or prestigious but might hold off needing to retrench people.

Yeh we've signed up to a few of those and issued some quotes (sometimes stupidly low, approaching wage rates) to try and keep the position viable over summer. Its just a massively competitive sector for some reason.

We have way too much work on, and no designers. Doubt they will outsource tho, but ill see what i can do.

10% commish

nice. that'd be some of the most satisfying money ever.

Mmm, I need a pretty basic thing made up. Something that displays a gig guide type thing like http://www.brismetal.com/brismetal/gigguide.htm but has a backend so promoters can add their own gigs. I'm a php/sql nub though. Would this cost much? I don't really make anything from the site is all so couldn't really front up a large sum heh.

Edit, I really should be making something from it, there's around 5-600,000 page views a month. I just got shafted by google and haven't looked for any other ad suppliers yet.

last edited by Syco at 23:16:50 04/Nov/09