Great post, Jonathan. I think there’s something to be said for doing things “for love of the game.” I did a guest post recently…it got a smattering of traffic to my blog, but that’s not the reason I did it. I wrote about a topic I enjoy for a fellow freelancer who wanted to have me guest post. End of story. Incidentally, an offer to guest post at a bigger blog came along, which is very flattering and I’m excited about the opportunity.

But I completely agree that if you do things for a bunch of pre-determined outcomes you have built up in your head, you’re bound to be disappointed. There’s a reason for the cliche, “Do what you love and the work will come in.” So true.

Plus, I’m sorry, but it’s really obvious when someone is puckering up just because they want something else from you. I freelance so there’s less of that BS in my work life….if I liked it, I’d still be in my cubicle.

I think that you touched on the point without actually driving home the real point.

The people who are criticizing you for wanting to be successful and taking the steps to make yourself successful… they need to grow up and get out of their parent’s basement.

What they are trying to do is make you just as unsuccessful as they are. Why would you want to lower yourself to their abilities just because they complain that you’re not following the same dead-end path they are following?

If there’s a way to contribute AND be successful at what you do, DO IT.

I think you hit the nail on the head with this bit:

“There tends to be mindset among small business owners and freelancers that if you somehow gain some marketing advantage by simply doing what you’d normally do, but with a slightly elevated degree of effort or intention, that is a bad thing. In fact, the feeling of aversion can sometimes be so strong, it stops us from having conversations, interactions or doing things we’d normally do for fear of it being misconstrued as manipulation.”

I know that I have this problem in spades. I have no problems blogging about things and writing comments on other blogs, but as soon as it’s something related to my web app I’m paralysed with worrying that I’m being pushy, or somehow not authentic.

I even managed to dither over whether or not to include a link the the app in the paragraph above, but decided in the end that I was doing exactly what you were trying to warn us about

I think this article is great. I have found that there is nothing wrong with doing things that benefit you, especially if you would do them anyway without benefit. Sure it’s annoying when you know that people are just doing something to try to get something from it, but at the same time, we are all working to build our lives and companies so maybe we should cut ourselves all some slack and relax a bit more. Instead of being offended by people who suck up to us, we could take it as a compliment and a teaching opportunity. Helping other people succeed is never a bad idea. And neither is getting help from others.

Great post. I completely agree with everything. Freelancing has as much to do with networking and selling yourself as your ability to create great work in my opinion. But there is a point of crossing the line and selling yourself too much. As you said people will see right through that and be able to find the genuine people.

Keep the greed vs. need in check is what I always say.

Hey gang,

Interesting thoughts. It tends to be an issue that people don’t think about all that much, but feel strongly about once they begin to explore it. The funny thing is, it wasn’t even a thought when I was compiling my original round-table article, but since then, the issue as popped up a number of times.

In the blogging arena, there is the added tension between those who feel the medium should always remain the domain of pure-expression and conversation, completely devoid of commercialism. And, I get that. It’s just not my take on blogging. I believe authentic conversation and commercialism can both co-exist in blogging harmony.

And, I think this is a real issue, too, for freelancers, who so often tend to undervalue their contributions and view anything smacking of promotion as slimy to start with.

FYI - quick clarification, in case it wasn’t clear, the guy whose content was being attacked, who wears pajamas, teaches yoga, gives anonymously and uses the word “dude” as a comma was me. It’s my secret super-hero alter-ego when I’m not blogger, marketing, author, entrepreneur guy. Didn’t mean to sling any hash at anyone, not my style.

Nice article! I also want to reply with what Aaron said.
“Freelancing has as much to do with networking and selling yourself as your ability to create great work in my opinion. But there is a point of crossing the line and selling yourself too much. As you said people will see right through that and be able to find the genuine people.”
I think this is true, at least for me. I consider myself to be honest and genuine when it comes to my work. I don’t want to be one of those people that push and shove and lie to get jobs. My experience on that came from about a year ago when I worked with another graphic design freelancer. She’s about 10 years older than I am (I’m 25) so I thought she could teach me a few things. So during that one month I worked with her I saw what I didn’t want to become. Her main expertise is in print, and she knows very little about web design. But she took on these web design jobs anyway. I never saw her design any web pages, but she had showed me one she did. Sorry to say this, but it looked like she bought a template online and changed the images and text around. Now at the time, she knew that I knew web design (I was working as a web developer at the time). So why didn’t she say anything to me about the job? Also, personally I didn’t see how she could of kept clients because she seemed very rude and arrogant to me. She taught me a lot that month and now I know what not to do. I don’t want to act like I know asp.net when I don’t or I’m slammed with enough work, I would pass the job along. Why be selfish?

I’m not sure if that was off topic, but I really needed to share it.

I am a true believer in “word of mouth” marketing. Offline, word of mouth marketing starts by taking people out for coffee, talking about your business to your old college roomates, people you used to work with, etc…

The only difference online is that you don’t have deep face to face histories with most of the people that you interact with here. You wouldn’t feel bad about telling a potential client over coffee that you’re looking for new clients. Why should you feel bad about doing the equivalent here, online?

There is some kind of weird double standard when it comes to this sort of thing. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it seems similar to the double standard of a successful musical act being viewed as a “sell-out” because they are now stars. Or that an artist or writer must be starving and poor to have any real artistic integrity, as though selling work for good money somehow meant they were less of an artist. What-EVER. The difference between a good writer and a good writer who gets published is that the latter knows how to get published.

If you act with a deliberate, intentional, informed altruism, yes, you will reap what you sow. Everyone does, to some degree (bad things still happen to good people and vice versa). You never know how someone else is going to pay it forward. There is never a guarantee a favor will be returned, or how. You never know what’s going to happen. It’s not a direct cause-and-effect kind of thing.