Guest Post: Michael Martine is the world’s #1 ranked blog consultant. In addition to the tons of free content at Remarkablogger, you can also take a free course valued at $49 on how to grow your blog traffic. You’ll find Michael on Twitter a lot (probably too much).
Do Freelancers Need to Have a Blog?
In a word, yes.
But of course, you want to know why freelancers need to blog. Blogging is a serious commitment of time and a little money (for a good design if you’re not a blog designer already). Freelancers need to blog for the same reasons any business does: to market their services. Can this be done without a blog? Yes, but not very well. All the other freelancers with blogs are going to clobber you: they will get more qualified traffic than you to their sites, they will rank higher in search than you, and their prospects will be more likely to trust and want to do business with them.
The truth is, it’s become something of an arms race. You’ve got to have a blog simply to play on par with your competition. But the reason this arms race began is because is blogs confer real advantages, and more and more freelancers (the web developers and designers first) wanted to have those advantages for themselves. Myself personally, I don’t know of a single successful freelancer who does not have a blog, period. Click to continue reading »
We’re doing an exciting promotion this week for our new book, The Wealthy Freelancer. So in keeping with the spirit of things, I decided to make today’s post an excerpt from the book. Enjoy!
—————
Take Time To Incubate
Before I sat down to write this chapter, I made some notes about the topics I wanted to cover. I planned out the stories and examples I wanted to use to reinforce the points I was going to make and mapped out my general approach to the subject matter. This is typical planning stuff. And you probably do something similar for the types of projects you handle as a freelancer. But then I did something you may not do. I stuck my notes in the project file folder and didn’t look at them again for a couple days. Why didn’t I just get started on the next step in the process — writing the darned thing — right away? Because I knew I would get this chapter done a lot faster if I gave it time to incubate.
I know what you’re thinking. “Take time off from a project to get it done sooner?” But giving a project some incubation time — especially between natural steps in the process such as planning and writing or writing and polishing — makes the work go much smoother and faster.
Of course, you know this already. Think of the last time you got stuck on a project. You’re working on a new computer program for a client and, no matter how much you rack your brain, you just can’t seem to make any progress. So you take a break, perhaps out of frustration, and go work on something else. Or take a walk. Or sleep on it. Then, when you return to the project again, what happens? Voilà! Things just seem to flow again. That’s incubation at work.
Marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is a master of using incubation to work more productively. In her booklet, No More Writer’s Block! she describes being able to write a press release in about 45 minutes when most other professionals take at least two hours or more. “I gather all the information I need,” she says, “then wait a day or two [incubation] until I feel like the press release is itching to come out of me. And that’s when I write it, quickly and easily.”
I’m not going to get into the science of how incubation works here. (As if I understood it!) Just know that when you take a physical break from a project, some part of your brain is still working on it. Your subconscious is churning away: generating new ideas, trying out different approaches to the problem, asking new questions, dreaming up inventive new approaches.
Do I hear someone balking, “I don’t have time to stick a project in a drawer for a couple days. I have tight deadlines to meet!” Well, if you have tight deadlines to meet, you need incubation more than ever. Think about it. Which would you rather do? Struggle with a project for six hours straight until you stumble, exhausted, to the finish line? Or spend a couple hours reviewing and absorbing the information, then taking a break for a few hours, then finishing the piece in another hour or two, feeling refreshed and energized? Ah …. I’d choose number two.
And by the way, incubation doesn’t have to take days or even hours. Sometimes all that’s required is a walk around the block.
–Steve Slaunwhite is the co-author of The Wealthy Freelancer. Grab your copy this week from Amazon.com and get up to $321 in free instructional materials. Details here >>
Photo Courtesy planetschwa on Flickr
Imagine that you’re having a tough day. Things aren’t going well. You’re feeling drained and unmotivated. It’s hard to paint a smile on your face. And when you do, it looks more like a grimace.
Of course, we all have days like these from time to time.
The problem is, as a freelance professional, feeling unmotivated can seriously affect your ability to do all the things you need to do that day.
You may not feel like starting work on that new client project, (you know, the one that’s due in just a few days), or making those follow-up calls, or getting those pitch letters in the mail, or updating your website.
That’s one of the challenges of being a freelancer. When you feel unmotivated, often
there’s no one else around to give you a lift. No colleagues to commiserate with. No boss to kick your you-know-what. You’re on your own.
So what do you do when you’re down in the dumps?
According to Steve Chandler, author of 100 Ways To Motivate Yourself, we all have personal motivation “ON” buttons that we can push at any time. We just have to know where those buttons are — and have them at our fingertips when we
need them the most.
Do you feel inspired when you read a favorite columnist or blog? (Like The Wealthy Freelancer!) Or upbeat when you hear a certain song on your iPod? Or less stressed when you sip tea at a favorite cafe? Or energized when you listen to a particular coach or speaker on a CD recording?
“Make it a personal commitment to notice everything that pushes your buttons,” says Chandler. “Make a note of everything that inspires you.” Once you do, you’ll have a repertoire of ways to feel motivated anytime you want to.
For example, if you’re working on a particularly tough freelance gig, and you’re feeling, well — let’s say less than enthusiastic — plug in a CD of your favorite music, pat your dog, or pick up the phone and chat with a close friend.
The point is to figure out what motivates you and then learn how to quickly turn that button on when you need it the most.
For example, I get a lift from reading inspiring passages from certain books. So I make sure I keep these within arms reach. I also have a few close colleagues I speak to (okay, bitch to) by phone from time to time.
What are YOUR motivation buttons? If you don’t know, find them. You can probably come up with a dozens ways to give yourself a boost anytime you need it.
And, as freelance professionals, we often need it. A lot.
———–
Steve Slaunwhite is the author of The Wealthy Freelancer, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting a Web Based Business, and 5 other books. You can find him here, at Starbucks, or at www.SteveSlaunwhite.com.
photo courtesy Flickr
I’ve tried a number of goal-setting programs and approaches over the years.
Some have been complex and required lots of coordination. Others were overly simplistic or lacked accountability elements that helped me stay on track.
But over the last few months I’ve been experimenting with a homegrown approach that so far has yielded far better results than anything else I’ve tried.
I call it the “Rule of 3” goal-setting program. Here’s how it works…
Click to continue reading »
Editor’s Note: If you’ve ever been told a freelancing horror story by a well-meaning friend or relative, this post is for you.
Professor MacDougall was an old marketing professor of mine.
He had a favourite catch phrase. And he was deadly, sometimes even menacing, with it. What I remember was the way he used to use it. Not really as a teaching aide, but rather like a weapon, which is why I remember this catch phrase, some 14 years after hearing it for the first time.
Click to continue reading »
During the past three years or so, I’ve been getting the royal treatment from a consultant who I nicknamed the “Queen of Follow-up”.
Her follow-up and stay-in-touch strategies are so effective that, in a short period of time, I went from not knowing who she was . . . to hiring her for several projects . . . to recommending her to many of my clients.
Here’s the story.
Click to continue reading »
If you follow the advice in this blog and our upcoming book, and if you craft and consistently execute a smart marketing plan, it won’t be long before you have more work than you can handle.
I realize this may sound like a pipe dream. It seemed like an impossible goal when I was starting out and was desperately looking for work. And a couple of times since then, when I lost big clients, I wondered if I’d ever be super-busy again.
But I’ve seen too many freelancers turn their businesses completely around in a matter of weeks to know that being booked solid is very achievable. And I’ve done it myself more than once.
So the issue is NOT whether or not it’s possible. The issue is what the heck you’re going to do once you have more work than you can take on.
Click to continue reading »
I’m really digging Twitter now. To me, it’s become a great place to exchange ideas, advice, questions and answers.
I’m enjoying being able to disseminate advice and information to freelancers in real time, it’s also helping me stay sane while Steve, Ed and I wait patiently for the The Wealthy Freelancer book to come out in March.
I’m just bursting with anticipation for you to read that book! So lately I’ve been tweeting bits and pieces of advice right from the pages of the book, and the other odd gem from the “cutting room floor”.
Some of these tips get retweeted too, which is always nice…
Click to continue reading »
As you stumble into the hospital emergency room, you try your best not to panic. At the check-in, the nurse notices you and asks, “What’s the problem?”
You reply, “Business is slow. My bank account is dropping faster than a thermometer in Kapuskasing. I need more clients and projects. And I need them now!”
The nurse responds sympathetically, “I’ll have a doctor see you as soon as possible.”
Fortunately, you don’t have to wait long. Within a few minutes you are guided to the physician’s cubicle where she examines your situation and then, finally, writes you a prescription. “Get this filled right away,” she says reassuringly as she hands you the piece of paper. “Follow the instructions and your business will start improving soon.”
What did the good doctor write on that prescription form? Let’s take a look:
Click to continue reading »
Tell me if you’ve ever been in this situation.
You’re in the early stages of building a full-time freelance business. Or maybe you’re trying to take your existing freelance business to a new level.
Either way, you have a big goal.
But you’re so far away from reaching it that you begin to question whether or not it’s even possible.
Maybe the income level you’re trying to reach sounds unbelievable.
Or perhaps the level of performance you’re trying to reach sounds impossible.
Or maybe you’re trying to maintain a high income but want to cut back on your hours by 30 percent.
It sounded like a good goal a few weeks ago when you wrote it down. But now that “reality” has set in, you’re wondering why you ever thought such a goal was possible.
So you either give up on the goal altogether. Or you shelve it for another time.
Sound familiar? I know I’ve done this countless times.
What’s the problem here? Why the self-sabotage? Why would we do this to ourselves?
Click to continue reading »
