Review: Enhanced Freelance

You’ve probably heard about the benefits of mastermind groups. Simply put, they’re groups of people who come together to help each other grow their businesses to greater levels of success.

Some are very informal – they get together for lunch and brainstorming once a month. Others are quite formal, with applications before acceptance, hefty dues, and accountability requirements.

Being part of a mastermind group exposes you to ideas that you never would have thought of on your own.

There’s a good reason why such groups exist. Being part of a mastermind group exposes you to ideas that you never would have thought of on your own. And you’ll have a built-in support crew to turn to when things get rough. Better yet, your knowledge and experience can be useful to others.

The trouble with mastermind groups and freelancers is that we are – how to say this nicely – frugal. We’re power users of any free online tools we can find. (Yours Truly, an unabashed user of Open Office, Gmail, and Google Calendar, pleads guilty as charged.)

Part of this unwillingness to spend money is due to the shoestring nature of businesses in a slow economy. For many of us, frugality is a necessity. However, there comes a time when we will need to spend money to make money.

Enter Enhanced Freelance. This is a new members-only site created by veteran freelancer writer (and FreelanceSwitch regular) Thursday Bram and Jennifer Stakes Roberts. Memberships are $19 per month, which ought to appeal to even the most frugal of freelancers.

What do you get for $19 a month?

• Teaching modules that cover topics like selling, building an e-mail list, creating a blog, effective use of social media, and growing your business through public speaking.
• A discussion forum where you can get those nagging freelance questions answered by others who’ve been there and done that.
• A growing eBook library with some very impressive titles that you, an Enhanced Freelance member, can download for free. Current titles include The Freelancers Guide to Managing Projects by Jen Stakes Roberts, and Market Your Freelance Writing in 31 Days, The Freelance Writer’s Guide to Passive Income, and Making Money From Your Writing, by Thursday Bram.
• Tools and resources that don’t make it onto the site unless the Enhanced Freelance team heartily recommends them.
• Interviews with successful freelancers. These interviews focus on the steps they’ve taken to improve their careers.
• Chances to win tickets to events like Day Camp 4 Developers. In the future, Enhanced Freelance will offer recordings of events.

Note: On the Enhanced Freelance site, Bram and Roberts say, “We’d like to note that these materials are geared towards intermediate freelancers. We’ve got resources for newer freelancers who need to ‘catch up,’ but the modules and other materials are written based on the assumption that you’re already comfortable with the mechanics of freelancing.”

So, who are these people?

As mentioned above, Thursday Bram is a veteran freelancer who frequently contributes to this site. In addition to FreelanceSwitch, she has shared her freelancing expertise with readers of FreelanceWritingGigs.com and WebWorkerDaily.com. On the Enhanced Freelance site, she says, “All that advice adds up to a few drops in the bucket, though, and there’s a need for a comprehensive resource on building up your freelance career beyond the basics.”

Co-founder Jennifer Stakes Roberts adds, “You know when you’re in a room with some like-minded people and you’re all bouncing ideas off each other? You can’t get the words out fast enough to keep up?“

Every so often you meet a person or a group of people who are totally on your wavelength and you have conversations where things end up happening. That’s how companies get started or inventions happen. Everyone is perfectly talented in their own right, but sometimes you get that extra spark when you put them in a room together.

“Enhanced Freelance is all about creating a space where freelancers can use our materials as a jumping-off point, ask questions and test ideas to get that fire going.” This mastermind group is where you can learn to take your freelance business to a more successful level, form partnerships, and focus on improving specific areas of your business.