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Adam Kalsey

This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.

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Retainer offer

24 Jun 2003

A week ago I wrote that consultants who blog (including me) don’t get direct business from their weblog readers. It has occurred to me that I’ve never actually asked for business from my readers. One of the first things a salesmen learns is to ask for the sale, but I’ve never done that. So as something of an experiment, I’m going to make an offer that is exclusively open to you, my weblog readers.

The first 50 people who contact me will get can sign up for a retainer program that is normally only open to my past clients. For $100 a month, you’ll get two hours of consulting with a guaranteed minimum turnaround time of 2 business days. What sort of consulting? Just about anything Web related that you want.

  • Perl, ASP, or PHP development
  • Movable Type customization
  • Site design
  • Server management
  • Marketing
  • Product analysis
  • Lots of other things; just ask

Need more help than that? For $500 a month, you can get a full day of my undivided attention. I’ll spend a day every month on your site adding features, updating content, improving the design, standing on my head, or doing whatever else you want.

Think of me as a Web expert for hire. Retainers are billed monthly on six-month subscriptions.

Recently Written

Should individual people have OKRs?
May 14: A good OKR describes and measures an outcome, but it can be challenging to create an outcome-focused OKR for an individual.
10 OKR traps and how to avoid them
May 8: I’ve helped lots of teams implement OKRs or fix a broken OKR process. Here are the 10 most common problems I see, and what to do instead.
AI is Smart, But Wisdom Requires Judgement
May 3: AI can process data at lightning speed, but wisdom comes from human judgment—picking the best imperfect option when facts alone don’t point the way.
Decoding Product Leadership Titles
Mar 18: Not all product leadership titles mean what they sound like. ‘Head of Product’ can mean anything from a senior PM to a true VP. Here’s how to tell the difference.
What branding can teach about culture
Jan 8: Culture is your company’s point of view in action—a framework guiding behavior, even in the unknown. You can’t copy it; it must reflect your unique perspective.
Think Systems, not Symptoms
Dec 15: Piecemeal process creation frustrates teams and slows work. Stop patching problems and start solving systems. Adopting a systems thinking approach helps you design processes that are efficient, aligned with goals, and truly add value.
Your Policies Aren’t Your Culture
Dec 13: Policies guide behavior, but culture is the lived norms and values of your team. Policies reflect culture -- they don’t define it. Netflix’s parental leave shift didn’t change its culture of freedom and responsibility. It clarified how to live it.
Lighten Your Process Burden
Dec 7: Everyone hates oppressive processes, but somehow we keep managing to create them.

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