Is WHMCS only for techies?

[MarkB]

Matt,

 

I'm wanting to use WMCS (2 licenses) however I'm more of

a business person than a techie. That is why I hire techies.

1. Last night I posted to this forum, offering to pay someone twenty bucks
   as a consulting fee, if they answer my pre-purchase questions by phone.
    
    
   
2. Your moderator deleted the post, saying that I was advertising.
   It seems that "advertising" in the forum rules was meant
   for advertising of a website, or a product or service being
   sold for money, or solicitations for joining mailing lists or free
   websites, all that sort of thing.
    
    
   
3. On the contrary, this forum should actually assist non-techie folks
   by offering a sub-forum where people could post and consultants can be hired.
   

A business person keeps his focus on running the business, on marketing, business development/partnering, and so forth. (Matt, you should be catering to this type of customer!)

 

If I were running an automotive repair shop, I would hire mechanics. My focus would be on advertising and marketing, making appearances on Car Talk (the radio show here in town) and attending Chamber of Commerce and networking group meetings. But what I would NOT be doing is working on the cars.

 

Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the one-man business, in fact I encourage business startups and small businesses, and I volunteer my time to the U.S. Government SBA (Small Business Administration) SCORE program, teaching classes geared towards startups/newbies.

 

So Matt a question for you:

In order to purchase and use your product, do you expect your customer to be a techie, to hang out on the forums, to have a moderate technical knowledge, and like everyone else here to always be attempting to expand their low-level knowledge of your product? (analogy: In the old days, one had to be a techie in order to setup and use a PC; but nowadays any lay person can do that)

 

Second question, would you consider catering to the higher level business person, who desires to not become a self-taught expert in WHMCS including the inner workings, tricks, how-to's and intricicies of the software..... but instead would like to just hire someone thru this forum to accomplish a quick task? (e.g. an install, a customization, a debug, a configuration or integration, etc)

 

What I intended to do is purchase 2 whmcs licenses (to start with) and hire technical talent, so I kinda figured that this forum would be the ideal place to find them.

 

Mark

[Matt]

Short answer: no.

 

Longer answer: Installation, Configuration & Customisation services are something we offer directly so all you need to do is open a ticket detailing what you need and we can take it from there. WHMCS is in fact very easy to install, customise & use so many (inc. non-technically minded business people) don't even need those services to get up and running with WHMCS. While your last post may not have been directly advertising, for users to reply to it, they would have been advertising their services and I suspect that is why it was removed re the advertising rule.

 

Matt

[Drac0]

If your looking for someone to manage WHMCS for you, you may need to look in other locations, as it was pointed out to you that soliciting on the forums is against the rules.

 

You may want to try out http://www.rentacoder.com/ or other sites like it. I've used them in the past for both finding work and outsourcing too.

[BionicInternet]

Mark,

 

Can I just butt in here.

 

WHMCS is built for everyone! It does indeed take a few days to get to know your way around the system. Once you know your way around it, its all fine and dandy from there on.

 

Your second question, Matt and his guys are pretty damm good at doing the ole custom work and at a good price. They done a fair few bits on our WHMCS and its been a pleasure

 

I hope this helps.

[MarkB]

While your last post may not have been directly advertising, for users to reply to it, they would have been advertising their services and I suspect that is why it was removed re the advertising rule.

 

Matt

 

Thanks for that explanation, I was kinda scratching my head as to what happened there.

[MarkB]

Thanks for elaborating on your installation and customization services. Btw I had intended on ordering both. (the customization service w/b for setting up a header/footer extracted from a Joomla template) As for the quickie 5 minute phone consult, in a previous support ticket you mentioned that any call would cost a premium price, regardless of length of the call--and I understand totally why you do that, you're ultra busy and can't be bothered with accepting phone calls (neither can I!) so you charge a premium price to ward off most people and make it worth your while for those that accept paying that price.

 

Mark

Edited November 26, 2008 by MarkB
typo

[Zorro67]

mark, fully understand where you are coming from on the marketing side of things, although I have to confess that understnding what the product can do, has given me the ability to broaden both the functionality (mostly through others) and therefore my business model.

 

(By the way I am a marketer, not a coder)

 

Can i suggest an alternative? (which I don't think is against forum rule)

 

have a look at a couple of the topics that are relevenat to what you are trying to achieve, pick out 3 or 4 of the prolific posters, and send them a PM asking if they do custom work.

 

If they reply, they might be a good fit for you.

 

And if you'd like the inside skinny on how a marketer might best use WHMCS, feel free to PM me - at no charge.