I’ve learned a few things in my life. Some things – things you’d expect me to have learned a long time ago – I’ve only recently come to actually understand and integrate into my way of thinking. The lesson I’ve most recently realized has become a part of me is one of those simple and basic concepts you’d think any child would know: never play dirty.

It was probably two years ago when something happened that taught me this lesson; I supposed I would have agreed with you (before that) had you told me: “Shawn, never do things that are under-handed. Playing dirty is unacceptable.” I would have said, “Yeah, you’re right; ok.” But I’d never had to experience what that really meant. Until one day, at my new job.

Someone, somewhere, a person who wouldn’t reveal themself, was harrasing my boss and the employees. We were receiving mocking, critical emails about our websites. We saw intrusion attempts on other sites we ran. We looked for evidence, and we found a suspect in a previous unhappy (“disgruntled” I think is the word most often used for these people) employee who was fired.

I won’t go into how we knew…but we knew. Too many things pointed to this specific person as the culprit. This person even emailed one of our people to ask how a website was doing, as if a website needed checking-up on. That website was the same one we found compromised a short time previously.

So naturally, I was incensed (“pissed” is a word often used for how I felt). I looked up this person, and found a blog entry that attacked my place of employment and, on a personal level, attacked my employer. So…I decided to go black hat on ‘em. I spammed the search engine results every which way, and knocked him out of the top ten for his own name.

I thought it was kinda funny. My coworkers couldn’t believe it. My office had no idea such a thing was even possible. And then I felt bad about doing it.
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The well-known phrase, “knowledge is power” is taken as gospel truth. People say it as if somehow having knowledge places lightening bolts in your hands and you have “power”. Power to do what, exactly? No one usually asks that. And what sort of knowledge is required, anyway?
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So the NFL is sending “cease and desist” letters to local shop owners (here in New Orleans) because they print and sell “Who Dat” t-shirts. Why? Because (and this is news to me) the NFL supposedly owns (or copyrighted, or trademarked) the phrase “Who Dat”. At least, that’s what they claim.

So the shop Fleurty Girl is abiding by the legal threat handed to them by the NFL. Too bad that the NFL has to pick on this shop (and I have to assume a few other retailers have received similar letters).

I would agree with the NFL’s action in protecting their trademark…if it was something they came up with. However, I remember seeing the phrase “Who Dat?” used for virtually my whole life. As far as I can remember, it began as a home-grown rallying cry – locally thought up by who-knows-who and hand-printed on posterboard and such, to be help up during games, or scrawled on the back on car windshields with shoe polish. So now the NFL claims it’s theirs?

[In fact, the phrase "Who Dat" has been around way before the NFL or even football...it was part of the vaudeville/minstrel tradition for many many years, and only LATER become incorporated into New Orleans' football culture. Again: it's something that organically grew out of New Orleans' unique way of doing things. It should NOT be allowed to be another opportunity for the NFL to make some extra dollars.]

Ridiculous. Some things need to be left alone. Especially something dear and special to local New Orleanians. Leave us what is ours, NFL.

PS – Buy whatever else FleurtyGirl is selling. Support them!

There are a lot of “reasons” being given (on the news, in the papers, and from the honest truthful unmanipulative mouths of political leaders) for our failed economy. (And I do mean “failed” – not just failing. We have a corpse on our hands, I don’t care how many times you put the shock paddles on it.) And you probably just have a big-picture-type of idea of “why”. Something to do with the real estate bubble, gas prices, and the free market failing us.

Does this sound familiar? Because if you’re in the same boat as most Americans, it should sound familiar. We aren’t exactly sure what vehicle brought us to our current destination, but we know we don’t want to be here any more. And Uncle Sam’s coming to rescue us. We just have to wait for him to come pick us up.

Only thing is…from past experience, we know we shouldn’t really trust Uncle Sam.

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There’s a great deal of information on how to get more clients. This info is aimed at businesses and consultants who need more money, which means they need more business, which means they need to secure more clients…which means they need to sell more.

After all, when you look in the business section of your local Barnes & Noble and see how many books (basically) address this concern, it has to be the “main thing”, right? Right?

Not necessarily. I would have you take a look at the problem from a slightly different angle and consider another way to approach the problem.

First, ask yourself the question:  “Am I charging enough for my services?”

Yes, you read that correctly. The problem may be with the class of clients you’re currently getting – and by charging more you will definitely be abandoning them, but the “positive” is that you’ll be classifying your business as one that serves a higher class of client.

I have to quote a commenter on a blog a read.

I asked a friend once, “how do you get those huge contracts?”. His response: “charge a lot”.

His point, obviously, is that when he charged more than the next provider he appeared to me a better provider.

The principle of “perceived value” isn’t a made-up fairy tale – it’s quite real and can have definite effects on your level of business and type of clientele.

So, in short, the answer to your problem of “not enough” may have more to do with quality than with quantity. And as risky as it may seem, sometimes raising your prices may be the answer.