Fearless Freelancing

Pretend for a moment that you were starting over. That you were setting up your writing or consulting business for the very first time. What would you do differently? It’s a brand new world out there. Or is it?If you are slightly fossilized like me, then perhaps when you first hung out your shingle, fax machines were so “de rigueur” that you actually charged your clients for each page you faxed to them. Not for the content, but for the cost of toner! You think I’m joking right? Not so. In the mid-80s I worked for a PR firm that did exactly that. Apparently this was quite common “back in the day” - when email and the Internet were virtually non-existent. And a corporate web site was unheard of, well, because it was unheard of.

It’s a little ironic. At one time, not having a fax number would be considered very strange. In the fast-paced world of the 80’s, a fax machine gave you the edge over your competition down the street that depended on courier service. Then everyone got fax machines and the playing field got level again. We still have these anchor weights around, but they act mostly as dust catchers because email and Acrobat have made them almost redundant.

So here we all are in 2008 chained 24/7 to our cell phones. Our Palm Pilots are our diaries of choice, and our BlackBerrys are not just a food choice anymore. We get anxious about conversion rates on our web sites; we wonder whether our intranets are worth their high cost of maintenance; and is anyone reading our double opt-in newsletter anyway?

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February 29th, 2008
Comments:No Comment Category: From the Fearless Files

Last month I received three very similar e-mails. What they had in common was a disheartened and disheartening plea for advice on how to fix their sagging freelance careers.They were all bright people. They were all more than competent at the services they were offering. Since they had been successful in the past, all had been down the marketing road before and knew the rules. Yet somehow, as their businesses were in a bit of a down period, they were feeling “the fear”. So much so, they were even considering going over to the dark side of corporate employment.

There is not a freelancer alive, yours truly included, who doesn’t go through this from time to time. Every once in a while, a recruiter will approach me, dangling the possibility of a fat paycheck and lifetime benefits, and I am tempted by the siren call of security. Then I think of my stomach. Having been there before, I know I would have a knot in it the first day I stepped on the elevator to go to my new job. That snaps me back to reality right quick. So if you have always hated an office environment you should resist too. Listen to your gut….it gives you a very strong signal of who you really are. Read more…

February 29th, 2008
Comments:No Comment Category: Landing Clients