There is no question that social networking sites are a hot topic in business these days. Whatever size company you run, you’re probably seeing notices for seminars and workshops on how to use Twitter or Facebook as part of your marketing strategy. Articles abound pointing to social media as the new “silver bullet” that gives you quick and easy access to a flood of new customers.

Unfortunately, many freelancers, particularly, have seized upon the concept of “social media networking for business” without taking the time to find the appropriate boundaries between “social” and “business.” This is in part because people who do, say, copywriting or website design tend to be “early adopters” of new tools and technology.

Sad to say, however, “early adopter” often means “someone who adopts or applies a new method without thinking about it very much.” Explore what some business people are leaving on their social networking sites, and you will quickly come to the conclusion that some of them are doing themselves more harm than good.

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Photo by Antediluvial.

With economic conditions rather on the grim side, it makes sense to look for ways to distinguish yourself from the competition, to strengthen your appeal to existing and potential clients. This goes beyond just a general increase in marketing activity. It is a matter of enhancing your value to your customers, of showing them how doing business with you can stretch their tight budgets a little farther.

Most freelancers can add value to the services they offer by tapping an area of expertise they may not realize they have. The fact is that as you work with clients and complete projects, you become more and more knowledgeable about the world your client contacts live in: their constraints, their needs, their preferences, their goals, their habits, their procedures, their biases and assumptions about working with people just like you.

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Read a few books and websites with marketing advice and you’ll soon encounter a discussion of the “elevator speech,” the compact little monologue you’re supposed to have prepared to deliver at a moment’s notice at networking opportunities and chance encounters.

The theory is that you should be able to present yourself effectively to a complete stranger in the time it would take you to share a ride in an elevator. Whether that is thirty seconds or a minute, or even slightly longer, you are supposed to distill the essence of who you are, what you do, and what you offer into an irresistible mini-pitch that opens up opportunities for you with new contacts.

Great idea. In fact, the only things wrong with it are:

1. the basic concept and expectations, and
2. its execution by most freelancers.

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A note before we get Will’s post started: winners of our birthday bash competition will be announced tomorrow! Now, for our regular programming… — Skellie

Although many experienced freelancers generally price on a project basis, there is still an hourly rate lurking behind their calculations, much of the time. We tend to derive those project rates from estimates of how much time a standard project typically requires. And we bid on new projects, that don’t fit established patterns, or tweak our project rates to fit unusual situations, all relying on some concept of an hourly rate — even if we don’t share that with the client.

Especially when you are new to freelancing (although it’s a lingering issue even for people who have been at this a while), the question of where to set that hourly rate consumes a lot of mental energy, and generates much stress.

Now, I’m not about to tell you what you should charge per hour of your time for the kind of work you do. But even more fundamental than the question of your “hourly rate” is the question of whether you calculate your bids based on your rate, or on your rates. Continue Reading

Image by Darwin Bell.

There are probably some types of food you like, and some you aren’t so crazy about. When you’ve just enjoyed one of your favorites, do you make your next snack something that complements your diet?

Or do you just have some more of the same?

As most of us know to the detriment of our own waistlines, the “balanced diet” is an elusive creature. We reach for the things we enjoy, the ones we’re comfortable with, without even thinking about it.

Your prospects and clients tend to do the same thing when they pull together their project teams. Instead of a “balanced diet” of the skills and knowledge needed to achieve the desired results, they pile on more of what they already have. They make their teams fatter without making them better.

As a freelancer, one of your challenges is helping your prospects get what they really need (you!), instead of just what feels good to them. When you complete the team, rather than just enlarge it, you produce results that will bring your clients back to you again and again. Continue Reading

Many of us, perhaps most of us, moved to freelancing from a “no” as much as from a “yes.” While we were attracted by what we believed (perhaps a bit naively) a freelancer’s life would be like, we were also saying “no” to a whole bunch of things that annoyed us about working in a larger organization. We figured we would say “no” to idiot bosses, endless meetings, mountains of paperwork, the need to look busy, dressing up, pretending to agree with stupid ideas, and so much more.

Of course, a couple of funny things happened on the way to the freelance life:

1. We discovered that most of these annoyances were still part of making a living through self-employment, and
2. We forgot all about that little word “no.”

Most of what you can do about #1 requires reversing #2. The most successful freelancers, the ones who are really happy in their work and life, are the ones who know how to say “no,” and often.
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