[thelist] Site Copycat (Special Circumstances Involved)
David Bindel
dbindel at austin.rr.com
Fri Jun 20 18:28:49 CDT 2003
> From: Behalf Of Richard Bennett
> Sent: Friday, June 20, 2003 7:03 PM
>
> One thing to keep in mind is, he might seem like a clueless
> copycat whose undercutting you and stealing your clients and
> work, but that's seen from your point of view.
> From my point of view, as a tax-paying freelancer who has to
> support a
> family, you are that annoying college student who is working
> from his parents basement, undercharging his customers,
> making it harder for me to ask a reasonable rate because
> there's always someones son who's studying IT and will do it
> for less.
I've had a similar rant going in my head for the last couple days about
3rd World programmers who will develop a shopping cart superior to
osCommerce for $5...
> And I am the thorn in the side of larger webdev
> companies, because my hourly rate is half of what they
> charge, because I don't have to employ someone to do the job
> etc etc. This is the way things are in business. You have to
> position yourself by being positive about your own work, not
> by wasting energy on putting others down.
I am being positive about my work. I'm being proud of my work, I'm
sticking up for it. I don't want it being copied and resold to someone
else's clients.
> I would suggest reading a few books about business psychology
> - one good one I remember was called 'Getting past no' . The
> essence is, to use the possitive aspects of a negative
> situation to your advantage.
I'll look into it.
> You could use the situation to your advantage.
> You can tell him that you enjoyed teaching him what he knows
> for free, but once money is involved, you need your cut too,
> as partners.
> You could decide decide to market php-driven site-templates,
> and use him as a guinypig.
But I don't want to work *with* him... he has nothing to offer to me.
Like I said, he's clueless when it comes to development. That's why he
copied my stuff in the first place.
> You could possition yourself as the local server-side guru,
I'm from Texas, he's from New York (damn Yankee! :P)... It's not really
an issue of who's boss on the local level.
Thanks for the suggestions,
David
--
David I. Bindel
Website Development
dbindel at austin.rr.com
www.davidbindel.com
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