Networking is one of the best way to grow a new business, check to see if there is a BNI group in your area.

Make sure you get email addresses from your customers and send them a monthly newsletter with tips and virus warnings.

Testimonials from past clients can make your website look more trustworthy so make sure you ask for them.

Tell your new customers that you grow your business on word of mouth and you'll give them... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 9:46 AM on July 25, 2008 marked best answer

I'd like to be selfish and suggest my city, but New Orleans needs you more.

And it's an awesome place.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 9:30 AM on April 5, 2008

Three methods that work for me are Networking, Partnerships, and Direct Marketing.

Networking: Go to a few BNI meetings and find one that seems to have people in industries you could help out. Join and participate.

Partnerships: Find Freelancers or other small businesses whose services are complimentary (graphic designers, copywriters, marketing companies) but don't do the web work themselves. Start trading clients back and forth.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 7:50 AM on March 30, 2008

I use Visio
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 11:11 AM on February 21, 2008

This sounds perfectly normal to my Cincinnati ears, but there's a lot of us micks here in the 'nati
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 11:10 AM on February 21, 2008

Love by happenstance
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 9:14 AM on February 14, 2008

We use to use it a lot in elementary school (the late 80's) to mean a dirty person, someone who needed a good scrubbing
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 7:14 PM on January 12, 2008

Everything I've read has been the exact opposite.

(sorry, I'm too lazy to go digging through my books for support)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 7:52 PM on January 11, 2008

Mail them a copy with an explanation of how to use it, "keep this in your waiting area."

Mailing is cheap and then you can count your circulation numbers as the number of people you mail it to instead of the number of people who accept it when hand-delivered.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 2:55 PM on January 11, 2008

I just read these three posts over at The Simple Dollar this morning:

Fifteen Free Things To Do During A Money-Free Weekend
Fifteen More Free Things To Do During A Money-Free Weekend
Fifteen Ideas For A Deeply Fulfilling Money Free... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 2:37 PM on January 11, 2008 marked best answer

I made the same mistake myself at just went to a notary. They told me I screwed up and they couldn't notarize it as she did just that.

Dress nice, shave, don't look poor.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 2:52 PM on December 31, 2007

With gifts they say it's the thought that counts.

Gift cards mean you don't (that's why I get them for my family)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 12:25 PM on December 22, 2007

I don't know about 'Left' but lumping Catholics together with the Christian Right is a mistake. Most of my Catholic relatives have the same disdain for fundies that I have.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 9:11 AM on November 24, 2007

5 years experience at 4 stores in 3 different neighborhoods:

College stores are busy but the kids don't tip

Forget the flashlight, get a million candlepower light you can plug into the cigarette lighter.

Don't wait around for one more delivery to come out of the oven, get in and out as fast as possible.

Work to close, that last hour is good money

Tuesday's... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 10:57 AM on November 22, 2007

Round 2:

Get your manager to give free pizza to the local cops (then you can have a little more leeway on the road).

When you're really busy and late with the pizza if you learn to come across as doing your best and sincerely sorry you can actually make better tips (pitty tip!).

Ask the manager if you can take any mistake pizza at the end of the night, head to the closest dorms and sell them for $5 a pop.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 5:06 PM on November 22, 2007

Greaters Locations
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 12:49 PM on November 3, 2007

After doing what the above suggest to pinpoint the problem call up several repair places and tell them what you think the problem is and ask what they estimate the repair charge would be. They shouldn't have a problem telling you.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 8:26 AM on October 28, 2007

Call and ask to redo your payment schedule to something more affordable.

Everytime I've had to deal with the IRS I've been surprised at how nice and helpful they are (I guess I should stop being surprised but I'm always convinced that the next call will go to the IRS Agent from Hell).
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 4:53 AM on October 17, 2007

Cincy MeFi Meetup!

I've lived here all 31 of my years. The first 27 in the city and now I live up north. Email me if you have any questions.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 5:02 PM on October 6, 2007

My company's Name is CRM Holdings Limited.

Thank God for DBAs
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 1:12 PM on September 22, 2007

No credentials but a network of people that can refer you will be a big help.

If you're going to be targeting small to mid-size businesses BNI is a great place to start building.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 10:21 AM on September 13, 2007

My wife and I looked into buying it on our own and it would have been at least $900 a month and wouldn't cover anything for a year.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 12:21 PM on September 8, 2007

Raise it up of the table some. I found a couple caps from soda bottles under the back two itty-bitty raisers works wonders.

Make sure the area around it is open and well ventilated,
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 2:08 PM on August 26, 2007

If you're in to podcasts check out Bill Caskey's Advanced Selling Podcast for a selling approach that is the opposite of used-car hucksterism.

His book is good too.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 9:08 AM on August 9, 2007

here's a funny translation of the warnings GSK issued with the drug.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 3:09 PM on July 11, 2007

Our taxes are being prepared professionally, but we get the stock IRS answer from him and wanted more perspective.

Find a different professional.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 9:47 AM on July 7, 2007

If you were to hire me I'd present 2 custom designs, build you a nice SEO friendly xhtml/css template out of the one you prefer, integrate it into wordpress and charge you $3500-$6000 depending on specifics (and it would be mobile phone friendly too).

I'd also throw in an email newsletter template and give you a few ideas on how to build your list (both online and with comment cards and wait staff incentives to capture emails in-store). I'd also give you a few ideas on... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 3:06 PM on June 22, 2007

This will be the second time I second ASmallOrange for hosting.

Thanks to ASO my long nightmare of finding a decent host is at an end.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 10:20 AM on June 23, 2007

Cincinnati Chili
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 8:34 AM on June 11, 2007

I own a dell XPS M1210, I love it.

Buy a Mac and replace bootcamp with parallels when v3 comes out.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 8:00 AM on June 3, 2007

Find a designer or 2 you trust and can work with long-term with.

Tell them you'll be selling their services and can they give you a fixed price for the standard 2 versions of home page and internal page + 2 rounds of revisions.

Promote your self as a web design studio (your customers will not make the distinction between designing and developing, so use their terms).

Add designer's cost + 25% for overhead into the design... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 7:54 AM on June 3, 2007

My aunt was a waitress at an hi-end restaurant, she got fired because she made a big stink about the fact that they were reusing the bread from the complimentary bread basket.

This was in 1983 though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 3:38 PM on June 1, 2007

Due to my mother's disability I had to pay for the last 2 years of my own High School education (The public school was a joke).

Start learning to support yourself now, it's not to late.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 8:42 AM on May 26, 2007

I've got 5 different hosting accounts.

I like a small orange the best for reliability, features, service, and their forum is a great place to find answers to hosting and coding issues.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 6:23 AM on May 15, 2007

Loud blinkers, minimal blind-spots
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 9:03 AM on May 12, 2007

why not hidden fields with the original value?

if foo != foo1
update
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 2:58 PM on May 11, 2007

I don't have a title on my cards. If one is required for a form I just put "owner."
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 1:04 PM on May 3, 2007

Burt's Bees, Tom's of Maine
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 7:56 PM on April 28, 2007

I've got a 12" Dell mx1210 and love it.

I have a 24" monitor at home and another at the office so I only use the small screen as a secondary display for Outlook or when I'm traveling.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 9:05 PM on April 8, 2007 marked best answer

It's happened to me and to my wife.

In the state of Ohio they don't have to tell you your license is under suspension.

We got it both cleared up by just telling the truth to the judge (they don't hear the truth to often, so it's a nice change of pace for them)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 8:06 AM on March 28, 2007

I own this computer right now (it's my 5th dell) and I love it. No problems, plays latest games fine (I got the upgraded graphics card and the 2gigs of RAM), handles work stuff great (web dev, lots of programs open at the same time)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 6:38 AM on March 7, 2007

Wordpress. Do a search on google for wordpress CMS plugins to look at some of the plugins out there that make it an even more powerful CMS then what you get right out of the box
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 3:33 PM on February 15, 2007

My step-brother is 1/8 Cherokee and he can only grow a goatee. Looks clean shaven outside of that area
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 6:13 AM on February 12, 2007

FYI: Dreamweaver's FTP is a bit klunky and may time-out on you after using it a few times.

Shut down Dreamweaver completely and restart and it should start working again.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 3:19 PM on February 9, 2007

I want to an inner-city Catholic high school where Catholics were the minority.

It was just the only decent school in the area
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 11:35 AM on February 3, 2007

I think of incoming phone calls as interruptions and I hate voicemail. Luckily I have have a phone system that emails me mp3s of my voicemails.

I listen to them with 10-15 minutes of the call and reply via email most of the time. If a phone call is needed, I'll pick up and call.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 3:04 PM on January 31, 2007

Was it a few large files or several smaller?

A shit-load of small files (like pictures) take a lot longer.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 3:29 PM on January 27, 2007

To prove your more than just studing up on these 2 teams make a joke about how many Bengals players have been arrested this season (9).

Who-Dey!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 6:05 PM on January 25, 2007

1a) Update the dress code and be very specific, it's the start of a new year, perfect time.

1b) Give everyone a $50 Target gift card

2) Get some polo shirts with your logo printed on them
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 1:19 PM on January 17, 2007

I had mine (and adenoids) out when I was 6, I got ice cream!

The only scary part was waking up face down witha string of bloody saliva coming from my mouth to a bloody spot on the bed. Soon forgot because of the ice cream.

And the nurses all doted on me 'cause I was such a little trooper.

Did I mention the ice cream?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Mick at 5:14 AM on January 15, 2007