Yup! FreshBooks’ own Support Rockstars will be on-site in downtown Toronto at the Dark Horse Cafe on Wednesday, November 11th 2009 to answer any questions you have about FreshBooks, provide support or just to chat.

The Details:

Where? Dark Horse Espresso Bar, 215 Spadina Ave.
When? Wednesday, November 11, 2009.
When exactly? 4 P.M. – 8 P.M.
Who? YOU (and us!)

Drop in when you can, coffee’s on FreshBooks!

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Do you like cotton candy? Ever wanted to see yourself as a caricature? Always fantasized about being tied-up with your friends?

Well, FreshBooks turned five years old this year! And we’re throwing the best birthday party a five year old could hope for—loot bags included! It wouldn’t be a party without all of you, so be sure to RSVP for a great afternoon together of games, prizes and surprises you won’t want to miss!

When
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
4 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Where
High Park, Area 15 (Map of High Park)
Toronto, Ontario

Questions? Drop Rayanne a note at rayanne at freshbooks.com. Hope to see you there and THANK YOU for your support!

Check out our Valentine’s Day video dedicated to all of you, shot and produced by our very own, talented Randy.

FreshBooks 2009 Valentines Day Video from FreshBooks on Vimeo.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I was tasked with designing the FreshBooks iPhone application. The first thing I discovered was that Apple makes life unnecessarily difficult for people trying to design applications that match the iPhone style. They don’t have any ready-made GUI resources available for mockups. Even worse, their stock controls in Interface Builder don’t have all the visual options available that they use in their applications. Want a big red or green button like the ones in the clock application? Sorry, no can do. You will need to create your own.

This forced me to take screenshots of the stock iPhone applications and chop them into pieces in order to create mockups. The results were similar to the stock applications, but they felt dreary. They did not feel like something FreshBooks would create. They were too dark and ominous. We realized we were missing the opportunity to create something that would be distinctly FreshBooks—something bright, colorful, and fresh.

So we went back to the drawing board. While we wanted to keep the iPhone design guidelines, I also wanted to infuse the application with the FreshBooks brand. A new graphical aesthetic was needed; one that could be applied to all future FreshBooks applications, widgets, and gadgets. What we ended up with is very similar to the standard iPhone GUI, but makes use of a much fresher and bolder color palette.

In order to streamline future work on the iPhone application a proper set of reusable GUI elements were created. We are now making these elements available to all our 3^rd party developers to help you with your creations. This set of GUI elements should make it painless to develop iPhone applications that look great and fit the FreshBooks brand.

This file only includes the iPhone GUI elements that we needed for the FreshBooks Time Tracking application. For additional elements take a look at the Teehan + Lax iPhone GUI PSD or, if you use a Mac, the Ultimate iPhone Stencil for OmniGraffle.

Download the FreshBooks iPhone GUI PSD v1.0

On Wednesday September 3, 2008 at approximately 12:00 PM Eastern, your FreshBooks account will be unavailable for approximately five minutes while we switch to our new beefy database servers. We know this is early in the month and an inconvenient time for some, but it’s the best time for some very worthwhile reasons, so please bear with us.

Next, on Saturday September 6, 2008 Sunday, September 7, 2008 starting at approximately 11:30 PM 1:30 AM Eastern, your FreshBooks account and our public website will be unavailable while we move our web servers across our primary datacenter. We estimate this will take approximately one hour. You can monitor our progress at: http://status.freshbooks.com

If you have any questions about the changes or anything else please let us know.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and thank you in advance for you patience.

(Update: The start time for the second downtime described above was off by two hours because Rich can’t calculate time zone differences. September 7 at around 1:30 AM Eastern/5:30 AM GMT is correct.)

Today brings great news for Canadian merchants, straight from the PayPal Blog:

Canadian dollar transaction fees for receiving payments, for all merchant rate tiers, has [sic] been lowered from C$0.55 per transaction to C$0.30.

We’ve also lowered our currency conversion rate for some Canadian sellers that receive payments in U.S. dollars and withdraw those funds to a Canadian dollar bank account.

This brings Canadian pricing directly in line with the United States.

For PayPal merchants in Canada, these changes mean you’ll start saving money immediately, whether you’re collecting your payments in U.S. dollars or Canadian dollars. It also makes signing up with PayPal even more attractive.

Well, take a breath – and get an extension.

Your tax software service can probably do it online. If not – use Form 4868.

If you have a partnership or LLC filing as a partnership, or an estate (Form 1041) or trust (Form 1041), use IRS Form 7004.

The extensions are automatically accepted – no approval needed. Good for 6 months.

BUT, if you owe money, you need to pay. Drop by TaxWatch article at MarketWatch.com (it’s written by me) for tips on how to pay – especially if you don’t have money right now. In fact, read it BEFORE you finalize your tax return. You’re going to find one last way to cut last year’s taxes. But only if you put your tax return on extension.

Oh, let me dispell a rumor I just heard about extensions and the Stimulus Rebates. Some fool is spreading the rumor that you won’t get your rebate if you put your return on extension. That’s utter nonsense. You’ll get it. Perhaps a bit later. But it will come.

Happy Tax Day!

So there I was in McDonalds (shhhh, don’t tell) and I’m waiting in line and, honestly, I’m starting to get a tad cranky because well, if it’s called “fast food” shouldn’t it be FAST!

Well, on this particular occasion it wasn’t all that fast and my hunger pangs, magnified by the seductive smell of the fries, got me into a hyper critical state and I’m thinking all sorts of negative thoughts until I start to observe what’s going on around me.

Heck, from what I saw, those counter folks were doing things right. You might have some issues with the food itself, but the service and the sales techniques…those were right on target.

Here’s what we should learn from McD’s:

Do You Want Fries With That?

When you order a burger and the counter person asks “Would you like fries with that,” you’ve experienced a marketing tactic called cross-selling. This strategy encourages customers to purchase additional products and services that are related to the item they are already buying. Cross-selling doesn’t just work with fast food; it’s also a highly effective technique for any type of sales. Here are a few ideas to help you achieve cross-selling success in your business:

Service with a Smile

The success of cross-selling depends not only on the quality and value of the product, but also the customer service provided. Customer service begins with the very first encounter, either in person, through email, or on the phone. It’s true that you only get one chance to make a first impression. Every customer should always be greeted with enthusiasm and respect.

Listen to the Customer

Many sales opportunities arise by just listening to the customer. The simple skill of listening demonstrates that you are helpful and approachable. A good salesperson should be able to take information from the customer and inform them of all the products and services that would be benefit their needs. Customers appreciate being informed of additional products and services that could provide an added benefit to the item they already intend on purchasing.

How Well Do You Know Your Product?

Product knowledge is the key to successful sales. Successful salespeople know every detail of their products from how they work to when to use them. It’s essential that this knowledge be relayed to the customer to help them understand why they can benefit from your product. The product you are cross-selling should either be related or complementary to the original item the customer purchased. It’s unlikely to sell an add-on product or service that offers no additional value to the original product.

Don’t Forget to Ask

Many customers walk out the door without ever being asked whether they could benefit from related products. It should go without saying, but it is necessary to ask the customer whether they are interested. Even the best products and services won’t sell themselves. Sales must be initiated.

Follow-up

Numerous cross-selling opportunities are lost because the salesperson didn’t take the initiative to contact the customer regarding their original purchase. A quick follow-up call shows the customer that you truly care about their needs and not just the initial sale. This is a perfect time to find out whether they could benefit from related products or services. This simple act will open the door to a long-term sales relationship.

In the last release we were able to kill off our “default terms” preference for estimates and invoices — so now instead of having to go to “settings” and set your “default terms” you can set those terms *in context” as you create your first invoice.

First things first: you need to understand the market’s dynamics and market momentum.

Bear markets, recessions, bad times — they are (usually) preceded by good times, and it’s the good times where things begin to go bad.

Recessionary Psychology

When things are “good” (meaning business is booming), businesses don’t fixate on risk — they become desensitized to it. Human nature tricks people into believing that things will tend to stay as they are today. So when times are good, people tend to believe things will stay that way. Worse yet, people want to believe it — so denial can become a factor. As a result people tend to become overconfident and brazen; survival instincts become dulled.

The trouble is, change is constant — things are always shifting beneath the surface, and markets always cycle given enough time. Therefore when you think things are great, it’s precisely the time to start planning for the bad times.

Recessionary Dynamics

In service-oriented industries — especially in creative industries like film, marketing, etc. — growth leads to hiring because the business model scales with headcount. The growth and hiring is caused by positive things (new customers, increased demand, etc.) and the drive to add staff, in an effort to adequately service and onboard customers and projects, becomes the modus operandi.

Trouble is, growth leads to greater operating inefficiency in people powered organizations. Businesses need more support staff to help enable the contributors who drive the business — and it’s a vicious cycle.

The long and short of it is after a long period of growth starts to draw to a close, and the new work begins to dry up, growth slows, revenue flatlines and organizations are far less efficient than before the growth began.

Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, and this is a generalization, but it’s the experience of most businesses. There is no rocket science here, it’s all a cycle. It’s happened before and it will happen again.

The writing is on the wall

During each of my last two trips to NYC I hung out with creative professionals (creative directors, film people, developers, designers) at barcampNYC and at Media Bistro events and some other conferences. People at each of these events were talking about layoffs in their offices. In the bar at the Hilton I could not help but overhear an improtu interview going on. These are the unmistakable signs and it’s late in the game frankly. In my opinion, professional employment in NYC is a leading indicator. People in NYC are wise to the downturn. They’re making plans and you can too.

How to take advantage of a downturn

Now that the table is set and you understand the market dynamics at a high level, we’re good to go with what it means as a creative professional and how you can take advantage of the changing market.

Parting note: never forget change is opportunity.