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405: Accruing Technical Debt

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Topics:

  • Jerry brings up clients that you need to be more up front with billing for your time so there is no confusion that can lead to an unpaid bill.

  • He talks about one particular client that has aging hardware/software and they are scrambling for support. He tries to set expectations early.

  • That rings a familiar bell for Joe who might be more inclined to start helping someone right away.

  • With Sam’s monthly clients, he has formal paperwork that mentions “discovery”. Often times customers are more inclined to accept that if they know it will save them costs moving forward if you are already familiar with their environment.

  • Jerry talks about smaller clients to possibly start small and move incrementally to earn some money up front.

  • “Technical debt” is a term Joe coins from all of this.

  • Realizing Joe may have missed an opportunity for calling out chargeable items, he realizes that he may need to get more comfortable onboarding a larger client.

  • Sam talks about he learned from a similar situation.

  • Jerry talks about a very strange problem his client who could not find any of her mail, her inbox was empty (and Time Machine wouldn’t work!)

  • Joe remembers back when emails would disappear after updating to Catalina.

  • The group discusses the many issues everyone has with mail and the recovery service.

  • Tim Nyberg of The Mac Guys shared some feedback about using the mobile support feature of Splashtop which leads into a conversation about using it.

  • He has a remote support feature on his website (themacguys.com) that helps you download the correct version of Splashtop.

  • Sam has to break the news that he had to let go of a really nice office space.