June 21, 2007

I like this

There are two phone numbers on Steve Johnston's web site. One is an ordinary landline and the other a prominently-labeled premium rate (£1.50/minute) number. When I called him this morning I used the premium rate number. I did this deliberately, partly because I was kind of pleased to be offered the choice and partly because I had a feeling it might change the nature of our call a little bit.

I was right. Our conversation, which was quite friendly because I've known Steve for about ten years (although I don't think we've ever met - I did see him on Dragon's Den, though), was subtly different from an ordinary sales enquiry. When Steve picked up the phone we entered into a sort of mini contractual relationship. I paid for our chat. There was an implied SLA. I learnt some interesting stuff. Steve trousered about a tenner. Everybody's happy. Brilliant.

June 21, 2007 03:14 PM

Comments

A simple but effective way to charge for consultancy.

Steve, that URL should be...

http://www.johnston.co.uk

Posted by Jake Brumby at June 22, 2007 10:55 AM

Steve, just wanted to say that the moment you said you were giving up blogging for Twittering was the moment that you returned with force to blogging. Good decision - blogging beasts out Twittering any day. At least it does for me as I would never get to read your Twittering.
P.S. I sent you and email last night but your mailserver sent it back as undeliverable. It was about widgets.

Posted by Ivan at June 22, 2007 04:10 PM

Enjoying balancing twitter and blog right now - they're genuinely complementary. I have the mail server set up to bounce anything containing the string 'widget'...

Posted by Steve Bowbrick at June 22, 2007 10:44 PM