Muhammad Saleem is a social media consultant and a top-ranked community member on multiple social news sites.

This post is part 5 of 10 in our groundbreaking series on how freelancers can use social media and the principles of simplicity to build their business.

Day 5 – The Fifth Law of Simplicity: Differences

Simplicity and complexity need each other.

Maeda perfectly captures the necessity of acknowledging the importance of differences and contrast. “Even a child that is allowed to eat ice cream three meals a day will eventually tire his sweet tooth.” Thus, to prevent yourself from falling in a rut, and to prevent your audience or clients from getting bored with you, your content/services, it is important to create differences, and help them appreciate these differences. I have previously extolled the virtues of narrowing down your goals and having a laser-sharp focus on what you want to do, and this is not in contradiction to that. Continue Reading

Image by m-louis.

One of the biggest challenges involved in freelance work is reaching and maintaining a steady workload. For many freelancers finding new clients can be a time-consuming process, which leaves less time for income-producing work. What if this effort could be reduced or eliminated? You could more completely dedicate your focus to earning money and doing a great job.

Increasing the amount of referral business you receive can be one of the most effective ways to reduce the amount of time that is spent on no-income producing activities. Actively working to increase referrals from clients, friends, and family is often not a priority, as many freelancers feel that is not in their control. Instead, they just wait — and hope — that someone sends them a referral. Continue Reading

Muhammad Saleem is a social media consultant and a top-ranked community member on multiple social news sites.

This post is part 1 of 10 in our groundbreaking series on how freelancers can use social media and the principles of simplicity to build their business.

We as human beings are always striving for efficiency. However, the harder we try, we somehow manage to complicate things for ourselves.

Just as we’re getting a foothold in the offline world, we have to compete in the online world.

Just as we think we have a fair presence, we’re rudely awakened by newer technologies that help new entrants propel themselves forward faster than we imagine.

Making changes and embracing new ideas and technologies can be difficult. Especially considering the prevailing notion that once you get sucked into the world of new media (i.e. the social web or web 2.0) that it will consume you and all your time and that there will be no turning back.

The idea behind this 10-part series is very simple. First, we want to disprove the notion that it’s either your business or the new web by providing a set of “tricks” that help you separate the signal from the noise and integrate useful technologies in your daily workflow. The tools that various social media sites provide us are revolutionizing how we conduct our business and our relationships online, and there is no reason that anyone should be left out. Continue Reading

Muhammad Saleem, author of our upcoming
'Social Media and Simplicity' series.

In the next few hours we’ll be publishing part 1 in a revolutionary 10 part series authored by one of the web’s most influential figures, Muhammed Saleem. Muhammad is a freelancer, social media power user (which includes being the #2 ranked user on Digg.com), social media consultant at the esteemed Pronet Advertising and someone with an unsurpassed knowledge of social media and web 2.0.

If you’ve ever wondered about how you can use the web’s newest communities to promote and grow your freelancing business, this ‘Social Media and Simplicity’ series will serve as a definitive guide.

Posts in the series will be published every second day, to provide a healthy balance between the type of FSw content you know and love and this cutting-edge guide.

We’re excited to bring this series to you. For your convenience, you’ll be able to navigate through the entire series from this post as new installments are published.

Part 1: Reduce
Part 2: Organize
Part 3: Time
Part 4: Learn

Image by foundphotoslj.

A constant problem in the life of every freelance writer is the requirement to promote your writing services while allowing enough time to actually provide them. Time management is tricky enough when working from home, and it’s very easy to become swamped in marketing activities, thereby taking away valuable writing time from your busy schedule.

So how can you free up more writing time without letting your business disappear into obscurity? And is it possible to keep new business coming in, without infringing on the copy production line? This article illustrates five easy-to-implement marketing methods that will help you strike that all important balance.

1. Create Standard Templates

It sounds rather obvious, but creating templates for frequently used documents can not only provide huge time savings, but also enhance your company’s professional profile.

For example, press releases all contain the same basic information: who, what, where, why, and when. A template can have the “who” and “why” completed in advance, and sometimes even the “where”, before you sit down to write the release. Continue Reading

Image by Computer Science Geek.

Do you remember that feeling as a child of not ever being afraid to try new things? Nuh uh, me neither.

And yet as children one of the primary ways we learn and grow is by experimenting and testing — forever pushing the boundaries of what we can do and what’s ‘allowed’. Yet somewhere along the path to adulthood, fear took over…

A fear of failure, a fear of making mistakes, a fear of standing out, a fear of being different, a fear of trying new things.

So here you are today running a modestly (very?) successful freelancing business or wondering how to get started. What’s the main thing holding you back from going to the next level? Fear.

If you’re a relatively experienced freelancer, have you sometimes thought you yourself: “I wonder what would happen if I [fill in the blank]?” but then listed over a dozen reasons why you shouldn’t try? In today’s world where businesses can be launched or tested on a shoestring budget, what is it that holds us back?

There’s great quote by Price Pritchett, the organizational change guru, which goes like this:

“If you send a rocket towards the moon, about ninety percent of the time it’s off course – it “fails” its way to the moon by continually making mistakes and correcting them”.

If you weren’t afraid, what would you try out today to take your freelancing business to the next level?

Here are some ideas to get you started… Continue Reading

On my way home from a conference recently, I sat next to a blonde woman in her mid-40’s wearing matching Prada shoes and bag. From the looks of her, a successful businesswoman.

I couldn’t help peeking over her shoulder and saw that she was composing email messages in Outlook. I assumed she had just attended a meeting and was diligently doing her follow up. The problem was that every single message she wrote was the same — and really boring, in my opinion.

“Dear Blank, it was a pleasure to meet you at the meeting this weekend and I hope we can meet again soon.”

That was it. No reference to who she is or what they talked about or what ideas she has had since they met or what they could do together in the future.

Anyone who knows me (or has heard my networking presentations) knows that I am a follow up freak. But I’d say it’s better not to follow up than to write the type of generic follow up messages this woman was about to send out.
Continue Reading

As a freelancer, you’re constantly judged by the work you’ve done and who you’ve worked for.

Imagine if you could add a bunch of high profile names to your list of clients — or add a redesign of a Technorati Top 100 blog to your profile. Too good to be true, right?

I don’t think so.

If you can think of ‘payment’ beyond dollars and cents, all of the above is entirely possible. You can be paid in promotion, or in added reputation to your freelancing business — things that are easy and free for a big-time client to give, but incredibly valuable things to receive. In this post, I’ll be providing 12 things you can do to add value to your freelancing business and build your profile as a freelancer.

High-profile freelancers can charge their dream rates and receive a steady stream of work offers, so these things are all worth doing.
Continue Reading

1. Your prospects need you. Do you imagine that by promoting yourself, you are intruding on or interrupting your prospect? Are you thinking, “They won’t want what I have,” or “They’ve probably already got someone.” Well, as Stock Photography Guru, Rohn Engh, likes to say, “At this very moment, your prospects are waiting for you.” Whether it’s true about a specific prospect is irrelevant; if you approach each prospect with that frame of mind, you’ll make a better presentation.
2. Your prospects want to look good. Things are kind of scary out there. No matter the industry, from copywriting to graphic design, things aren’t the way they used to be — not for you and not for them. So what they want from you, over and above what they’re asking for, is that you make them look good; that’s your real job.
3. Your prospects are, well, lazy. That means you have to do some of their work: help them find you, help them contact you and then, of course, help them work with you. The fewer obstacles they have to surpass, the more likely they are to follow through, and the more likely you are to get the work.

Continue Reading

Anyone of a certain age will know the name Evel Knievel. He was an icon and hero for kids growing up in the 1970′s. For anyone who the Evel Knievel has passed by, he was a famous American motorbike stunt driver and daredevil, known for tearing it up and causing a spectacle both on and off his bike. While most of us do not aspire to have our faces printed on children’s lunch boxes, there is a lot we freelancers can learn from his story!

1. He wasn’t the best, he was the best known – Evel Knievel wasn’t the first, he wasn’t the best, but if you think of motorbike stunts then you probably think of him. As freelancers we often strive to develop our skills without realizing that promotion is just as important. How can you make your name the first customers think of?
2. He wasn’t unique but he was remarkable - If you think being remarkable is all about being unique or innovative then think again. It wasn’t what Evel did that made him remarkable but the way he did it.

Continue Reading

One of the key pieces of advice you’ll hear from any marketing guru is this:

Understand your target market.

It’s short, it’s simple and it’s effective. And yet I suspect that very few of us really ever follow the advice and do this.

I sound like a parrot when I talk to clients about how to improve their marketing, “You’ve got to understand your target market, if you don’t understand them, you won’t know where to find them, what they’re looking for and what they respond to” – it’s one of the most common phrases you’ll hear me say to clients who wonder why people aren’t beating down their doors to work with them.

The problem is however, that unless you know who your market is and how/where to find out more about them, it can feel like a guessing game and a big fat waste of time.

Here are some of the places you can turn to, to help you find out more about your target market and what really gets them going…

Continue Reading

I’ve noticed that when it comes to marketing, freelancers are firmly split into two camps:

• The first are freelancers who realise the absolute importance of marketing their freelancing services in a strategic, well-planned manner.
• The second are freelancers who only think about marketing themselves when they’re running low on clients and money.

Which camp do you belong to?

One of the biggest brand management companies in the world is quite clearly a master of branding and marketing; it is the force behind billion dollar brands such as Duracell, Gillette, Max Factor, Pampers, Lacoste, Pringles, Tampax. Seriously, if they can sell a vile, disgusting liquid like Sunny Delight and convince parents that it’s healthy and kids that it’s cool to drink, they know what they’re doing!

Here are three of the most important things they do when it comes to marketing: Continue Reading