Frye / Wiles Blog Archive for the ‘Business Operations’ Category
My laptop died last night. It was an undignified death, with the loud internal fan wheezing and gasping for air as I attempting to type out a simple email. The situation was this: mid-word, my computer failed to complete what I was inputting into its innards and like usual, I waited for the silver brick to just catch up to where I left off. It’s not that I’m a fast typist as much as my Dell Inspiron 6000 has a chronic case of Alzheimer’s. Last night it forgot to work; it forgot that it had a hard drive.
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Over the past week and a half, I was on a road trip of sorts up the Northern East coast to attend a wedding in Maryland, my girlfriends Psychology conference presentation in New Hampshire, and yet another wedding in Maine. This was a fun trip filled with plenty of sightseeing, new experiences, and lots of pre-wedding shenanigans with family and friends. Over the course of this trip, we stayed in a total of five hotels, two of which were actually more motel-ish.
Now, for better or worse, I don’t generally like to be without Internet access for too long. A day or two…okay, I can live with that, but more that that and I start to get twitchy. For whatever reason, I just like to be connected to what’s happening out in the world, or with work, or with my inbox, and I’d rather not let all that stuff linger around all untended to. Some might think this is really a thinly veiled Facebook or Myspace or Twitter addiction, but believe me that it’s not. While I frequent those social stops, I don’t feel any habitual need to drop anchor multiple times a day for hours at a time to go Facebooking (new verb?).
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So after a blog post I made a few months ago that garnered a lot of attention on a scam outfit known as the ‘Business Filings Division’ requesting - nay - demanding, that I pay $239 immediately to file my supposedly late Statement of Information filing for my LLC, this same group is at is again. This time in the guise of the ‘Corporate Filing Unit’ (they have also gone by the Annual Filing Division), we just received the same letter from these jokers now demanding $225 from us to once again file our Statement of Information. This despite the fact that it’s been filed, and despite the fact the these scammers are being investigated by the Attorney General in California. Ugh. They just don’t know when to say when.
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Also goes under the name “Annual Filings Division”
I just received a curious piece of mail from the ‘Business Filings Division’ regarding the Statement of Information filing for my Limited Liability Company. The ‘Business Filings Division’ is asking, or threatening in this case, for a $239 remit payment that is due immediately to file my Statement of Information…the Statement of Information that I filed over a month ago. Turns out, not surprisingly, that this letter is a complete scam as business statement filings are $20-$25 at the most. But it looks real legit on the surface; this notice has a government looking seal at the top left compete with what looks to be an eagle diving into the American flag, it has a control number and a CA LLC number with many digits after each one, a downtown Sacramento street address where most California business mail goes, a host of crazy corporation tax codes listed - it’s frickin’ brilliant.
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According to Business Week, they can be. Check out the “Invisible Hand” of the economy at its finest here. And no, I’m not talking about that big spaceship from the Star Wars Episode III!
The other day I was berating my 4-year-old iPod for once again dying on me before heading out to the office. Now, the iPod was almost fully charged and has been treated very well thus far in its lifespan. Technically speaking, it should work just fine. But alas, problems arise frequently with my portable music box.
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I’ve talked about it before but one of the things that’s always in a web designer / developer’s head is the issue of cash flow. In that, it’s great that you get to do what you love, but when there’s a snag on the clients side of things and the process stalls, cash flow becomes a problem assuming you didn’t collect a total up front fee.
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In the world of high-end medical equipment, there are some companies that know their niche and know it well. KPI Ultrasound is one of those companies. They are new and used ultrasound machine wholesalers that operate worldwide. They have a tremendous reputation for the quality of the equipment that they sell and the customer service quality they offer their clients.
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Being a small business in downtown Riverside has it’s up’s and downs. The up’s are pretty obvious; you’re close to just about everything and you have first hand knowledge about all the happenings within the community. One downside, at least for the purpose of this blog post, is the constant and persistent interruptions of your business by solicitors. The Frye / Wiles headquarters is located on the second floor of a very old building with no elevator. We have a very clear ‘NO SOLICITATION’ sign on the main office door.
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There is a brief, but sound article over at MarketingPilgrim.com that lists a few reasons why listing prices for marketing services on your website is not the best idea. We tend to agree. Having been in the web services business for a while now, the first question we’ll often receive when talking about what we do is ‘what do you charge’? There’s nothing wrong with that question, after all this is a business transaction, but much as the article suggests, your value as a firm is how you can shape perceptions of the client’s website and furthermore, how you can drive visitors to their website. Merely throwing out a price on your website could drive away clients without them even knowing how valuable you are. Some will think you’re too pricey, others will think you’re not pricey enough.
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