The Site Doctor is hiring!

Despite all the doom and gloom surrounding the pending credit crunch, we're hiring as work is piling in and we need help :). So if you're a developer, designer, sales person, marketing guru -or you're just plain bored check out The Site Doctor's vacancies page for the great posts currently up for grabs!

Not sure why you should come and work with us? There are way too many reasons to list in one go but here are my top 5:

• You'll have a great boss (ok I'm a touch biased)
• We have 20% time (every Friday we down tools and do something cool -that doesn't relate to the main projects you're working on at the time -more about that another day)
• We're committed to your development and will fund courses etc
• There are bonuses to be had for referrals and working hard!
• You get your Birthday as an additional bank holiday so you never need to worry about booking it off again!

Oh and there's free Tea and Coffee -so I guess that's 6 reasons to get in touch.

For more information about the posts available (more being added later this week) check out The Site Doctor vacancies page.

Site, Sight, Stacey, Stacie and all the other ways you can spell The Site Doctor wrong

One of the quandaries I've had for a while with The Site Doctor is our name, it sounds silly but I've lost count of the number of times I've had to spell out "site", it may not be too obvious why at first glance but there's two common spellings of "site" -one relates to websites, building etc, the other opticians (sight). Silly eh!

It has never really bothered me in the past but now that I have Stacey working with me we run into another issue -not only does she have a difficult to spell surname (Shapcott), people use so many inflections of "Stacey" it's comical. So this week I've taken it upon myself to sort this and have gone all out creating email aliases (we used to just have name@, name.lastname@, initiallastname@) but Stacey now has Stacie, Stace, Stacee and numerous other counterparts.

In an effort to make life easier for our clients, we've also got a few more domain names that point to our main domain name which include:

www.thesitedoc.co.uk

www.thesitedr.co.uk

www.sitedoc.co.uk

and my favourite:

www.thesightdoctor.co.uk

A little overkill perhaps but for the sake of £20 I thought it was worth it ;)

Moral of the story: Don't have a long winded name that has words that sound similar to others in it ;)

Stacey's first day and the company is incorporated

Today is Stacey's second day and change is already abreast, Monday was somewhat quiet on the business front with Gym, Hair Cuts, Lunch, Shopping and numerous phone calls but today things have really started moving -the first port of call was going Ltd:

Congratulations...

We are pleased to advise you that your company, THE SITE DOCTOR LTD has been accepted for incorporation by Companies House

To my foreign readers this means that my West Midlands based web design company The Site Doctor is now officially listed with Companies House -we've got a certificate 'n everything...

Although it was a "real" company, now the main benefit is If The Site Doctor Ltd was to go bankrupt, each shareholder is responsible only for the amount they have invested in the company -so if The Site Doctor Ltd was to go bankrupt (which I hope it doesn't!) I won't lose our house!

Watch this space as The Site Doctor Ltd and it's new branding will be launched later this month...

The turnover challenge 2008

I'm always up for a laugh and a challenge -especially where business is concerned, without pushing yourself I think your company will just shrivel up and die. This time however I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew -which may very well result in public humiliation, women's clothing and the most bizarre gym session ever!

While "playing" squash the other day with a mate of mine -Ian- who runs Avant Garde - a hair salon based in my local gym Next Generation and I jested about challenging each other to increasing our turnover to (for me anyway) ridiculous heights for the tax return 08/09 and so began the turnover challenge 2008.

The aim of the game is simple -we have to turnover more than £x00,000 in the next tax year. For a little more fun we decided to add in a forfeit for the company who earned the least. What's the forfeit I hear you cry! Well that's what's up for debate at the moment but basically it should be:

• Fun!
• Suitably humiliating to make sure you don't want to lose!
• Non-financial
• Non-harmful to us (i.e. no tattoos, piercing's etc)
• Non-harmful to the businesses
• Non-harmful to others
• Legal!

We've come up with a few ideas but I thought I'd throw it out there for other ideas as I'm sure something amusing will come up! My fav's so far:

1. A gym session in women's clothing: miniskirt, sports top and high heels (knowing Ian he'll wear the panties too!)
2. Do a parachute -though I think that's something I want to try anyhow...
3. Paragliding/Snowboarding/Other etc in the nuddy
4. (Me) -become a hairdresser (Ian) -learn to code

The thing I like about the gym session is that it's scaleable i.e. "for every £10k difference in turnover, the other has to run for another minute on the treadmill..."

If you don't think that's a hard challenge, put it this way, to meet the target we've both got to more than double our turnover. If neither of us make it I suggest you get a weeks pass at my local gym -Next Generation April 2009!

You've got until April 1st 2008 to get the forfeit ideas in...

How is your business perceived? You'll soon find out when you break big news...

What I have found the most incredible about Stacey leaving her job to come work with me is the fact that you soon start to find out how people perceive your business. I try not to talk to people in too much depth about what's going on with The Site Doctor as generally when people ask "How's the business going?" I've realised they don't want you to reel off how much debt you're in (they're not sure whether to pity you or whether you're asking for money) -or how much money you're making (which is just seen as gloating) but with something as momentums as this people start sticking their oar in...

Although after talking it through with them people can see that it's going to make life better all round (and hopefully richer in the longer term -not just financially) the initial reaction is generally one of amazement that we'd even be considering it what with the company being so "small". People find it very hard to comprehend that although we work from an office at the back of the house, the business earns enough to support the two of us.

I realise they don't mean to be insulting in anyway and they only have our best interests at heart but sometimes the cliches rule through -I think my favourite comment was from my mother who after listening to the reasoning behind the move (which included making a saving as we won't initially need to get a larger office to accommodate the new staff) said that we would need to get an office straight away, "a flag ship office" as she put it.

A little bewildered as to why she would say such a thing her response made me smile even more "it will appear more professional to the outside world". I admit, getting an office is on the cards for next year however the fact that in the 5 years we've now been operating I know of only one occasion when we've had a client ask to come to our offices so why incur such an expense merely for show? Of course what she meant to say however was "it would appear more professional to the family" ;)

I should add at this point that I love my mother to bits but I am still astonished at the assumptions people make about a business based on what they see (rather than hear).

February 8th - a date for your diary!

Well it's been a hectic few days what with breaking the news to everyone and getting things in place but we've finally got Stacey's management to give her a leaving date -February 8^th. It's still a fair way off but a lot better than we were expecting (sometime in March) so we can't complain.

I just hope the new office is in place in time -let alone the new website (still very much in development)!

The office to end all offices

Some of you have already heard about my miss fortune with the office flooding. It's thrown things up in the air somewhat at a time when I could really do without it.

The bonus however is that I get to have a nice new office fitted (hopefully on the insurance) but that's turning out to be a saga in itself. As with any large expenditure we've gone out and got a few quotes from companies such as Sharps, Neville Johnson and some other smaller companies to get an idea of costs etc. To say there is a wide range in the price is an understatement -they range from £1,000 to over £16,000! The office is only 9ft x 9ft which means it'd be £1,777 per square foot! How nuts is that!!

Anyway, I thought people might like to see what I'm thinking about having fitted atm.

Now that Stacey is soon going to be working with me we ideally I need to cram (and it is a matter of cramming) two people into the office space and I think the solution of having the two terminals sitting back to back but offset like this will work nicely. The other problem I have is the size of my screens, at the moment they measure 115cm wide and my old desk meant I was sitting too close to them and would end up with screen burn but this design should allow me to sit far enough away.

I'll probably remove it shortly but the program that I used to layout the room has a 3D export that you can checkout at: www.thesitedoctor.co.uk/office/

The morning after the day before

So it's done :) Stacey's out, though it wasn't easy. Her boss made her explain her reasons for leaving to the Finance Director and basically justify herself for leaving.

After talking about it we think that's because there's more to this than they're letting on as it seems really odd she needs to justify leaving but that's not for discussion here :) so YEY the clocks ticking! We're waiting for a leaving date at the moment but be sure there'll be a ticker at the bottom of my blog soon!

Good on Stacey for sticking up for her cause! Now to tell the friends and family who'll be more than discouraging I'm sure.

Friday - crunch time

So today's Friday and saga of Stacey's rejected  resignation is about to climax, I don't know about you but I'm excited ;)

Who thinks she'll cave in and accept their silly offer? And what'll that wizard be I wonder ;)

Tune in tomorrow for an update!

I don't think she'll cave in, I think she'll stick at it...

Day 2 - Did she or didn't she?

Ok, so the attempt at drama failed! Believe it or not Stacey had the guts to do it, she handed in her resignation so it's only a matter of months/weeks before she's working with me full time right? Well we're not sure...

Turns out that when she handed in her letter of resignation her boss refused to accept it (being the diligent worker that she is I can completely understand that!) and instead he told her that he was going to put it in his drawer and not mention it to anyone to give her time to re-think and discuss it on Friday.

So the question is, will Stacey give in and chose the route of more money and/or less working hours over working with me? Well the suspense is killing me -probably more than you but I doubt she'll stay as she's already made up her mind and has started to get excited.

As far as the risk element goes -which is what I think would put her off- she's realised:

1. There's enough work for her to do here
2. If there isn't she can get another job
3. She's chartered which means companies are screaming out for her skills so she can do agency work...

All good in my books but we'll have to wait until Friday to find out!

I can only imagine how the conversation went:

Stacey: "Please accept my resignation, here's a letter explaining why"

Boss: "No, sorry, I won't. Nope, no way, you can't"

Stacey: "Well I am, it's not you, it's me"

Boss: "Tell you what, lets hide this letter and pretend it wasn't written, I won't tell if you don't"

Stacey: "I'm still leaving"

Boss: "Tell me what you want that'll make you stay -more money? Fewer hours? Less work..."

Stacey: "Nothing, I'm leaving"

Boss: "Well, have a think, lets not rush into anything"

Stacey: "I've been thinking about it for months, I'm leaving"

Boss: "Lets discuss it on Friday, have a think about what you want/need and I'll sort it"

Stacey: "Fine whatever makes it easier for you. I'm still leaving"

TOP SECRET - Today's the day!

Ok so today's quite an exciting -and pretty scary day. After a few months of speculating, Stacey has finally decided to hand in her notice and come and work with me full time. It's scary because although I know it'll make her much happier and drive the business forward but it also means that the business will now be the bread winner (main household earner) so there's no more time for messing around!

I think it'll be quite an interesting time both for us and for others worried about doing the same sort of thing so I'm going to try and keep a fairly up-to-date diary of the events, trials and tribulations here.

The main concern from Stacey's point of view is that as it's a web development business she can't add anything to it which I personally think is tosh as there is a lot of non-specialised work involved in running a business which she will be able to do and there are many paid aspects of our work that she can get involved with as well.

Anyway, here goes, lets just hope she remembers to hand in her notice ;)