Here’s an insightful post from Seth Godin: Freelancer Empathy.
The opportunity isn’t to race to the bottom…
The goal is to be the first choice for people who couldn’t imagine doing it themselves, simply because their work is too important or your work is too good for them to ignore.
It’s much too easy to blame generative AI. It’s harder to prove why you’re better.
Photo by Pablo Merchán Montes on Unsplash
A tasty perspective from Seth Godin’s blog:
The best, freshest spices still taste like the spice that’s on the label, but they taste more like themselves.
That’s what successful brands and freelancers do as well. They relentlessly do the work to act more like themselves.
Read the post, here …and decide what you taste like.
Photo by Anju Ravindranath on Unsplash
(I wrote this for my Burning Pine site, but then realised it belongs on here, too.)
When you’re a small business, a micro business or a freelancer, it’s different.
Whatever you do centres on you. That’s not an ego thing. It’s just that clients are buying “you” – the unique blend of experience, skills, understanding and relationship you bring.
Here are a few tips and reminders for those who find they’ve inadvertently become their own brand.
It’s probably not your professional skill. If you are a designer, writer or accountant, your clients are probably not (just) buying pictures, words and numbers. You may be an average financial adviser or marketer who is exceptionally good at listening and empathising. You may be an SEO expert or trainer on the invoice, but your value is in being a sounding-board, informal coach or counsellor. It can be hard, but you need to understand what the client is buying, as well as what you’re selling. That’s not easy to put in a brochure, but it’s what drives loyalty, repeat business and referrals.
That’s your job. Leave your ego at the door and make your client look great to their boss or the board. That’s what pulls you up through their organisation and across the organisations of their career path, building a network of contacts and new clients as you go.
Get up, get dressed, be at your desk. Even though “dressed” is seldom a suit and tie. Even though “desk” isn’t in an office with a PA. Written back when Blackberry was still a thing, there’s a lot of value in Nicholas Bate’s Professionalism 101 (here as a handy download). Nicholas is now at Hunter Gatherer 21C.
What do you think? What have I missed?
Photo by Marcus Neto on Unsplash
Seth Godin is always worth reading.
Here he is on the importance of recognising what type of indie (independent, i.e. sovereign professional) you really are…
Independent workers, founders, creators and organizers are often lumped together with a simple term, but that one-size-fits-all model fits no one.
Read, and select, here.
Continue reading “On Indies and little breaks – @ThisIsSeth”
Seth Godin posts a couple of considerations for independents.
Firstly, on time and deadlines…
It’s amazing how much slack people will give you if you’re proactive about what you see and what you know. No need to make promises you can’t keep, and no need to hide from the promises you’ve made.
Secondly on the different strategies available, along with the consequences…
1. Honor the noise in your head.
2. Embrace your market.
3. Stay busy.
Two pithy posts worth a deep ponder. Read them here and here.
Photo by Nicolas Hoizey on Unsplash
Here’s an important question for sovereign professionals. Are you doing the important part or the hard part?
It may not be what you think:
Continue reading “Important versus hard – @ThisIsSeth”
Creative services show the biggest growth in two reports on the freelance and independent sector in the US and UK.
In the UK, Simply Business reports a 31% year-on-year growth in the number of freelancers. They note that:
Continue reading “Creatives lead the way in freelance growth”the real growth in this space is being driven by a wave of emerging lifestyle and creative businesses. This suggests that more people are attempting to turn their hobbies and passions into businesses.
Losing your job can be hard. For some, though, it’s the spur they need to start out on their own.
Here’s some interesting research from Harvard Business Review (Eliana Crosina of Babson College and Michael G. Pratt of the Carroll School of Management, Boston College). The researchers find that such job-seekers fall into two categories: Recreators and Repurposers:
Continue reading “Getting laid off. Starting again. @HarvardBiz”
Freelancers and independents rely on their connections for their next project. After all, you stand or fall by your reputation. But how do you build your network of connections if you’re not naturally gregarious?
Here are some tips and links for making the most of your least favourite activity.
Continue reading “Connecting for quiet people”
The Modern Stoicism site has just posted an expanded version of Freelancing, Stoicism and Stress. I am both grateful and humbled.
Hopefully, fellow independent professionals will find it informative and perhaps useful, too.
Many thanks to Modern Stoicism’s editor Greg Sadler for his support.
The Modern Stoicism article is here.
The shorter original, elsewhere on this site, is here.
Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash