Tag: Freelancing

Work February 20, 2026February 20, 2026

Don’t panic! Don’t predict!

Nicholas Bate at Hunter Gatherer 21C offers some perspective on AI.

We either wildly overestimate the short-term impact of new technologies (remember when blockchain was going to replace every institution within five years?) or we catastrophically underestimate their long-term consequences. Nobody building the early internet imagined it would reshape elections, create trillion-dollar companies, or leave millions of people psychologically dependent on dopamine hits from their phones.

Read and reflect, here.

Photo by Ksenia Yakovleva on Unsplash

Freelancing, Work February 20, 2026February 20, 2026

Innovation eating freelancers’ lunch?

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.

Read the full post, here.

Photo by Pablo Merchán Montes on Unsplash

Freelancing January 9, 2026January 9, 2026

Be more spice – Seth’s Blog

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

Freelancing, Work November 27, 2025November 27, 2025

When YOU are the brand: Tips for sovereign professionals and micro-agencies

(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.

Understand your USP

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.

Make your client look great

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.

Always be professional

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.

And, always be tolerant, patient and resilient

“Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.33)
Be patient: you’re not your client’s top priority. You’re not top of anyone’s mind all day every day.
Be resilient: “Choose not to be harmed – and you won’t feel harmed.” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.7); “More things frighten us than really affect us, and we are more often afflicted in thought than in fact.” (Seneca, Letters on Ethics, 13.4)

What do you think? What have I missed?

Photo by Marcus Neto on Unsplash

Work September 10, 2021

The Stoic and the sale – Kasey Pierce

This is good. Stoicism and salesmanship, especially as it relates to creatives and reluctant sellers.

Being published in indie publishing is a lot like starting in acting, none of us are experts, everyone is trying to get noticed, and it’s not at all glamorous. Although it is an honor and privilege to be published, to get your book in the hands of the people, to find your readers, takes some elbow grease. This means…you become a salesperson.

Photo by Ethan Hu on Unsplash

Tools & kit March 31, 2021March 31, 2021

New tools for timesheets and blogs – @TimeCamp and @NewsBlur

I have new tools to play with.

Timesheets

I’m a writer and I work, almost exclusively, on a value basis: we agree a price and I deliver.

Charging by the hour/day or, worse, per word is a killer for both quality and trust.

However, I’ve always kept timesheets for my own analysis, so that I can see how much those value-based projects actually cost me in bloody, sweaty, teary hours. They used to be simple Excel spreadsheets, one for every project, so I could work out the actual cost per hour arising from either my poor estimating or delightful rat-holing. But, I always knew that created hidden gaps.

Continue reading →

Uncategorized March 17, 2021March 17, 2021

Too scared to sell yourself? – @SPressfield

An excellent post from author Steven Pressfield about the painful, self-marketing aspect of being a writer. It’s relevant for all independent professionals.

For the past few months I’ve been working full-time promoting my just-published novel, A Man at Arms, and I have to tell you … I am waaaay out of my comfort zone.

But, Steven offers an alternative mindset to the usual reluctance we feel.

Here’s how I feel about it. I don’t see it as selfish (though no doubt there are self-interested elements in there.) For me, it’s about fidelity to the book and, especially, to the characters.

It’s about fidelity to the work.

If you do good work, it deserves to be shared.

Read the rest, here.

Steven, of course, wrote The War of Art, an essential guide to getting things done. I’ve just replaced my copy. He also coined the mantra,