Vox Fortis Communications

I applied for a writing gig that I saw listed the other day, and it asked to include a phone number so if they were interested you could be reached. My phone rang early afternoon, with good and bad news: They had filled the slot, but they really liked my cover letter and my site.

What followed was one of the more pleasant conversations I’ve had with a potential client in awhile, and I was actually slightly bummed to hear they’d keep me on file and to take care. It’s ok, it happens. One of the things they asked me was interesting, and it got me to thinking. I was posed the same question later by another group that I may do some SEO work for, and it showed me the way in which I’m different for my marketplace.

“I see you do SEO work. Tell me your best story about getting a business to the front page.” This surprised me momentarily, but I understand why it was asked.

Rewind to a few months ago, when I posted an ad for an SEO person on Guru. One of my regular gigs was overflowing with SEO requests and we needed an extra hand. The replies we got astounded me. It seemed as though 99% of the applicants couldn’t speak in layman’s terms, but the other part was the bragging about ranking for certain sites.

Look, it’s not that I don’t understand that. SEO is hard, ongoing work, and I’ve worked with a lot of uber-SEO people and that really is their ultimate goal. It was apparent to me in these phone talks I had with potential gigs and clients that they’re very used to hearing that stuff.

Here’s the catch.

If you’re thinking about doing SEO and get a list of sites and search terms to check out from a potential provider: click on the link. What does the site look like?

In my experience, there are the uber-SEO people, and then there are the regular ol’ people like me. I understand SEO, but I also use it as part of an overall marketing strategy. I can run really extensive reporting, and give you the really tired textbook suggestions and myths. But if your site looks awful just to show up on the coveted first page, you’ve accomplished very little. I see listings all the time for “Need SEO company with first page Google guarantee ASAP.”

I don’t even know how to start helping those people understand, but you’re obviously an intelligent and charming person because you’re here reading me, so that gives you a leg up:

1. Be wary of any place that guarantees you any kind of placement. White hat SEO won’t work that fast, and you black hat SEO tricks will get you nailed right quick. 

2. If you secure a company like that, be prepared for the fact your site will be coated in text, linked to from a ton of completely irrelevant sites, and will generally just annoy people in general.

3. Most importantly: if you make the first page of Google and everyone abandons ten seconds after they click your link because their eyes start to twitch, what have you accomplished?

SEO is simply a piece of the marketing puzzle, not the whole enchilada. Would you want an enchilada that has the world’s softest, warmest, yummiest tortilla and plastic meat on the inside? No. (Wow, what an analogy, even for me.)

Yes, SEO is important. I would never say it isn’t. (And if I do, remind me that it’s part of my livelihood.) But it’s not the only important thing when marketing your site.

What’s an enchilada with no meat, cheese, salsa, sour cream and guacamole? It’s an incredibly crappy site that can claim “But hey, I’m on the first page of Google.”

In honor of the complete and utter neglect of my poor blog, I give you a photo of a jackass. That would be me. My promise to myself to stay updated got seriously sidetracked by some seriously crazy days leading up to the holidays and something had to give. Unfortunately, it was the task that doesn’t pay me money, which is coincidentally the one that can’t fire me if it’s neglected.Still, I’m a jackass for falling so far behind.That said, it’s time to get back on track. I spent the morning invoicing and catching up on also-neglected admin work. (Which um…I just got done saying my blog doesn’t pay me. My clients won’t either, if I don’t invoice them, but I managed to slack off on that too.)

To be fair, I haven’t taken days off in a long time. I went straight from corporate burnout to freelancing full-time, so I was bound to crash from the adrenaline of it all. Suffice it to say, I relaxed fully, enjoyed my holidays, but am totally ready to start getting my brain working again. Part of wiping the cobwebs off my brain included looking at where I’m at from a client and payment perspective.

I made the decision I seem to make a few times a year where I say, “Well, I’ll go ahead and cancel my membership at Guru.com.” Like clockwork, it gave me a reason not to. Let me first say that I recognize most people don’t have great things to say about freelancing sites. I’m in another camp, but I also think I use it differently. The people I see getting most frustrated are the ones that try and pin their freelance money-making entirely on sites like Elance.com and Guru.com. When Elance overhauled its structure last month, a lot of contractors were rightfully very upset because really, no matter how Elance wants to spin it, the providers were getting screwed and not the buyers. (Catalyst Blogger’s update can also be read here. I have to give shouts to a fellow Philly-native, of course.) I personally never had luck with Elance, so I’m in the Guru camp, but I can completely understand why they’re upset.I use freelancing sites for specific reasons, and I think they’re beneficial if you apply the tenets we all know as freelancers. I see these tenets get suspended when it comes to these sites, but they have to be treated like any other marketing channel. Here’s what I mean:  

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. 

This is common advice among freelancers, business owners, and contractors. Do not tie yourself too heavily to one client, because if they go out of business, guess what? You might, too. Keep a constant and spread-out roster so you are self-sustaining. Places like Guru.com and Elance.com are no different.”But Susan,” you say, “I attract many clients by using that one site.” No, you really don’t unless you’re evolving them into longer-term relationships that can stand on their own outside of that site. The best illustration of that is the changes Elance made. You might have 100 potential clients on there, but because Elance changed, now you might not if you don’t want to pony up what I believe is a ridiculous amount of dough. In that way, you are putting your eggs in one basket because you’re relying on a single conduit to get you in front of those clients.

 Don’t bid on a job. Quote it.

This is a mentality thing that you might have to work at. I read a lot of “when I bid on a project” talk. Yes, in the site’s world, you’re bidding against others. But the minute you do that, you’ll start to lose. You cannot worry about what other people are bidding, because all it does it tempt you to get into a price war.

Don’t think of it as bidding on a job. Think of it as providing a quote to someone who is interested in your services. Every job quote I provide is what I’d quote anyone for copywriting or marketing…it isn’t less because of the medium I do it through. Sure, I probably don’t get a lot of jobs because of my price compared to someone in a third world country but I don’t want the job anyway if it’s not going to pay me my going rate. I don’t go on there and bid on every job. I’m selective, and trust me, you can usually tell on the job posting if it’s worth trying or not. Apply the same standards you would to any job you’re interested in.

Build repeat business.

When I was first starting out freelancing, I accepted small, one-off jobs because it was just supplemental income anyway. Nowadays, I scan through latest postings quickly if I have some time I could fill, and I only quote a job if it’s obviously something that could lead to a longer-term relationship.

Two of my favorite clients are groups I found on Guru. The one plainly said it would be a long-standing project management role. The other was for blog writing, but the client and I get along so well that he’s giving me a HUGE project that he trusts me with. He gives me stuff every week, and is one of the easiest people to get along with I’ve ever met. My project management client that I mentioned now trusts me to do more hours, and has started letting me flex my muscles in the area of SEO reporting and PPC as well. It’s amazing what can come from working consistently with people you like.

These are the basic things I apply to any client, no matter if they come from a site where you pay to gain access to job listings or not. Obviously, it’s worth the $80 or so per quarter to find that one diamond in the rough for me, because I get way more business from them than pays for the membership there. I also get invited to quote many projects thanks to my rating and portfolio information on there. (I rarely accept those, but occasionally I’ll throw my hat in the ring.) It was a good reminder to me the other day when I came on a writing listing for a company that looked promising. I quoted my hourly fee, and they responded with wonderful examples of what they’d need, and the fixed price was way more than fair for the work involved. They were polite, buttoned up, and obviously concerned with quality and not getting the cheapest person they possibly could. It was a good reminder that it’s a viable marketing avenue for me.

But, it’s not the only one. And it shouldn’t be your sole avenue of jobs, either.   

As much as I love my gadgets, I think it’s time to admit that I’m really old school when it comes to planners. There’s something about paper for me. The ability to easily flip through pages, erase, and see myself writing down a task that sticks in my brain, maybe.

Sometimes it’s not easy to come to these conclusions. They come at random moments, where you have these epiphanies at 1am, your tongue slightly sticking out of the side of your mouth, gripping your mouse and squinting at the screen to get the little appointment box to drag to the right time on your calendar, for instance.

Not that I’d know anything about this.

Working for yourself and managing your time is more challenging for some than others. I always get my stuff done, but I know I could do it more efficiently. Enter the paper planner crutch. Things like that you can control, but no matter how much you like to think you’re completely master of your own schedule as a freelancer, your days do have some pull over what gets done when.

How can you make this work for you without ripping your hair out?

1. Be honest with yourself.

There’s nothing wrong with admitting you totally suck at time management. There’s also nothing wrong with bragging if you’re great at it. Either way, this is a conversation you only have to have with yourself. (Not out loud. At least not with others present. Those that abandon the corporate route tend to get enough funny looks as it is.)

You need to figure out where you are when it comes to strengths and weaknesses in time management, and sometimes that takes a little pain. Take stock every so often of where you’re at, if possible. Are you sweating at 2am every other night of the week to hit a deadline? Are you finding that your days feel like a lot of reacting without a lot getting accomplished? This is the bigger picture, but once you start noticing your own patterns it will tell you a lot about where you’re dropping the ball. Maybe you have no clue how to say no to someone. Maybe you are always regretting the two hours you spent on your Xbox 360 instead of getting the x,y,z done. Odds are good that whatever gets you into time crunches, it has a consistent root cause.

So be honest about it. Don’t kick your own ass over it, but acknowledge it and figure out how to co-exist with it.

2. Figure out a solution.

For me, I sometimes have a hard time figuring out when things can get done by. I originally used my planner for scheduled calls and things of that nature. But, you know what? There were a lot of blocks being unused. I’m training myself to pencil in time for each project’s tasks (thanks to the life-saving to-dos and milestones I set up in Basecamp) so if someone says, “When can I have this?” I can easily glance and see how much time is already blocked off for other stuff.

Whether I actually work on it during that time, I’m finding is irrelevant, at least for me. I adhere to it as best as possible, but I’m finding it immensely helpful just to have a visual of what time is already committed to stuff.

Whatever your weak point is, accept that. It’s ok if you can’t change it, just figure out how to co-exist with it peacefully so it’s not obstructing your productivity or your client’s happiness.

3. Implement.

It’s hard to break a habit. It’s hard to start new ones sometimes, but critical to your success is your ability to manage YOU. Working for yourself will teach you things you never knew, but that doesn’t mean squat if you don’t grow and become a better professional for it. Put on your big-person dungaroos and go for it. Your clients, stress level, and coffeepot will thank you.

I pretty much look like that little skeleton right now. (Ok, I’m not that thin.)

But, I pretty much felt like death warmed over yesterday, after a whirlwind trip Thursday through Saturday. Many cups of coffee later, I resolved to answer the interview that Shane put up for us freelancers to try out. I can’t guarantee utterly witty responses, but I’ll do my best, feeling like a skeleton and all.

What’s your personal mission statement?

This has changed recently since being expelled from the bowels of corporate America. For the better, that is. My recently revised personal mission statement is: No more days full of dread, half-baked work, or time that’s obviously being wasted for too little pay. I choose to accept only projects that invigorate me, with people that make me smile and teach me new things…and hopefully I can teach them a thing or two along the way.

What’s the biggest mess you’ve dealt with this year?

Probably every job I had this year until I struck out on my own. I’d like to pick just one, but now that I’ve come out on the other side, it’s hard to separate one thing from another. Mostly it looks like a burning car wreck with buzzards circling. I’m pretty sure there might be a circus with an evil clown somehow involved in that landscape. However, I’m still coming through the detoxification process of corporate America. Once the disinfectant is working to capacity, the single biggest mess may become clearer, but for now, it’s mostly snippets in my head.

What current entrepreneurial efforts consume your time?

I’m lucky that I don’t have to do much marketing anymore. A lot of my day is communication with current clients, and I’m happy to say they’re all really fun people. (Yes, they read this. No, I’m not kissing up. They really are that fun.)

Why do you do what you do? What inspires you? When do you get most excited?

Being master of how I spend my time is inspiring. As someone whose parents both were enslaved in various ways to large corporations, I feel inspired that things have evolved so much for my generation. That we have the ability to work anywhere, with people that appreciate your talent regardless of location.

I wake up most mornings looking forward to my day, with very few exceptions.

Boxers or Briefs? or as Naomi says, Bikini or Thong, duh?!?

You should pay no mind to my skivvies.

What do you do when you’re not [designing | programming | managing | writing | toiling for the wo/man]?

I’m either face-planted into a book, or have an Xbox 360 controller in my hand.

What one thing made the biggest difference when getting started?

Other than the full support of The Man of the House, the freelancers I talked to before taking the plunge. Naomi was a hugely wonderful pillar of “you can do it”-ness, and has since become a very good friend. Freelance sites like Freelance Switch, Freelance Folder, and Shane and Peter kept me inspired that plenty of people work for themselves and succeed every day.

What’s your exit strategy?

I’m still working an entrance where I’m not tripping over my own feet. I’m a klutz.

What is the last thing that made you belly laugh?

Probably the dog earlier today. I can’t remember specifically, but most daily belly laughs can be attributed to her. (When she’s not teaching people marketing, of course.)

Have you ever been in business before?

Other than in high school, where I watched over-caffeinated, nannied-to-death rich heathens for way too little pay? No.

At what point do you consider yourself successful?

When I’m doing what I’m best at, getting paid fairly for it, and having a life outside of it as well.

What was your first experience with a computer?

My friend’s Macintosh. I can’t remember the game, but it was a rudimentary city skyline, with lines that would come down from the top of the screen. You’d have to position the mouse in its trajectory, and click the mouse button to detonate a something-or-another which would stop the line from colliding into the city.

Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates in a jello wrestling match, where’s your money?

Steve Jobs. Much as I love my Xbox 360, I tend to experience less frustration with my Mac and movies that come from Pixar.

Where do you do your best thinking?

In my robe with a cup of coffee. Location doesn’t seem to matter. It’s a highly technical experiment, obviously

What does your average daily work / life balance look like? How much time do you work, play and sleep?

Work has been eating up more time than it should the last week or two, but most of that has been related to an influx of clients where I’m trying to get up to speed.

Yes, that’s a disclaimer because the word “balance” in that question made my brain twitch momentarily.

I probably work 8-10 hours a day, play for 4-5 and sleep for about 8.

If I could introduce you to anyone, who would it be?

Do you know Johnny Depp? Then you’re of no use, Shane.

What stops you from giving up when you are frustrated?

I have an extreme aversion to failure. I will stick with things, projects included, far after my gut feeling about it is sending flashy red signs, red flags, red stop signs, and huge red middle fingers when I ignore it. I will get frustrated and say I’m giving up…but a few hours later, I’m there again, grinding my teeth and beint stubborn.

If Chuck Norris and Steven Hawking had a baby (hey it’s my damn interview), would you vote for her for president?

So it could perform the quart of blood technique while being a immobile in a wheelchair and solving the universe’s mysteries…absolutely. (You get bonus points if you can tell me what movie that technique is from.) Jeez, who wouldn’t with that kind of skill set on a resume?

And, as requested, the question I would add is:

When did you know it was time to stop accepting projects you hated simply to make crappy money, versus turning away a sure thing and waiting for a better fit?  

The past week taught me something, but I didn’t realize what it was until I was drinking coffee this morning. (Has anyone noticed this is where a lot of my entry ideas are spawned from? This is no accident.) The coffee wasn’t our usual brand, a fact I only mildly noticed while I was grinding it and muttering to myself.

Earlier this week, one of my clients and I realized we really needed to get some more resources on board. As her project manager, this was obviously something I was all for, because the squeeze was on our resources big time and I was sweating looking at the to-dos that had no contractor to call home until their completion. We put up two ads, one for a copywriter and one for an SEO person. Being on the “employer” side of that spectrum taught me a lot of things. These things have probably been mentioned a lot by other bloggers, but I didn’t get it until I saw it for myself. That said, here are things that hit me in the head like a two by four. (Which may be related to the caffeine headache, as the coffee is still brewing.) Granted, finding and applying for gigs can feel like a battlefield, but while you’re donning your helmet and kevlar vest, here are some magic bullets that I learned being the side of the place that needed a person and posted the ad.

Form letters are horrific.

These things really suck. Don’t use them. Please. First, it’s obvious that you didn’t remotely read the job description. You cut and pasted the same thing you sent to everyone else and hit “send.” Why would I want to get in touch with you? I know it saves you time, but as a contractor, you’re really in a service industry so it’s not about YOU. It’s about THEM. Don’t be the Paris Hilton of job ad response.

Get to the point, already.

This is actually a huge thing I noticed with the form letters. Long responses. I mean…scrolling and scrolling. Maybe this depends on the employer, but I can tell you that there’s no way I’m reading that. I’m glad you have a lot of experience, that’s very valuable. But it’s not valuable to list that you worked with Microsoft and then also mention you did SEO for Al’s Auto Parts. Who cares? If you worked with Microsoft, that matters. Al’s, though I’m sure was a great client, doesn’t matter under the shadow of a bigger company.

And if you’re writing 5 pages and it’s a form letter, you’re toast. It’s obvious in the intro that you didn’t read the job ad to begin with, yet you’re expecting me to read 5 pages about your glory? Mmmm….don’t think so.

Oh, and…just because you insert our name in the “Dear blah blah blah” opening and have things like “We would be pleased to speak with you about your [job ad need].” and then go one to talk about stuff not remotely relevant…that’s a form letter. I don’t care that you read enough of the ad to put in a name and what we were requesting. You don’t get partial credit for that.

What does the employer care about?

Ok, some job ads really don’t answer this well, at least in any obvious way. Some have a neon sign that screams, “Cheap person who doesn’t care about skill.” Unless you’re desperate for money, and some of us are around the holidays, keep moving. Potential clients aren’t going to show their hand in the job ad, but you can look for clues.

Did they ask for samples? Did they ask for references? If so, they care that you’ve done what they’re asking for. Pick two solid examples (Microsoft examples, not Al examples) and blow them out.

Did they ask for specific skills? It amazed me how absolutely clear I made the job description, yet people didn’t respond with experience at all related to it. Touch on the specifics of what they asked for. If you’re just ITCHING to tell them about something else, go ahead, but do not forfeit responding to their specific needs just scratch your own itch. If they want keyword research, give examples….and if you happen to write SEO content, YES mention that. But don’t talk about writing content without telling them you can do what they actually asked for in the first place. This was rampant in the results I saw. I had to get in touch and ask specific questions….questions which were, by the way, in the job ad to begin with.

What does this have to do with coffee?

My coffee this morning was great. It wasn’t the usual brand, but I didn’t notice. Know why? Because all I cared about what that it was halfway decent and stripped away the Ultimate Grouch Aura I have first thing in the morning.

Employers want what they want, and some things matter more than others. They might not care if you’re Starbucks or Folgers, but they want you to work in their coffee maker. Others might totally care if you’re Starbucks, and they’d be willing to pay for it. Figure out what they want and appeal to that. Don’t spend your time screaming about how you’re Folgers if their job ad made it clear they don’t care. You’re wasting your time, and you’re showing the employer that you don’t care what they need, just about what you can provide.

And in the end, you still won’t have helped their Ultimate Grouch Aura.

I’m non-grouchy 99.9% of the time. Subscribe and you can see for yourself.

A few weeks ago, I received one of the most generous gifts I’d ever gotten from a client. Technically, he isn’t even MY client. I do some work for a virtual marketing agency, and he’s their client. He had a humdinger of a online PR problem, and a small team of us cleaned it up for him. Business as usual, we were happy, birds were singing, dogs and cats played together nicely, etc. He wrote us a very nice email saying he’d love to take us out to dinner, upon which he had to be unfortunately reminded that we’re a virtual team. (We were immensely bummed.)

Then a box showed up on my front step, and I stared at it blankly for a few moments. It was fairly heavy and I recognized the name on the return address, but couldn’t figure out for the life of me what was being sent. I opened it up, and discovered a VERY nice bottle of red wine, and a gift card for 100 smackers to Ruth’s Chris steak house. I was totally floored.

There are a few lessons we can take from this, kids:

Saying “thanks” means a lot.

He didn’t have to send our team squat. He hired us to help him out and we did, but there are goodies of note on both sides of this equation. First, on the agency side, we delivered a lot faster than what we’d set up his expectation to be. (Frankly, I think we surprised ourselves, too!) We set the bar at a reasonable level and then blew the sucker out of the water.

On the client side, it reminds us that even if we work for ourselves and pay others in that endeavor, we need to say thank you sometimes. We are always a client to someone. Maybe it’s just when you’re picking up kitty litter at the grocery store, but when the checkout lady smiles and remembers your cat’s name, that’s pretty damned great customer service.

He is building loyalty.

I’m not saying that any client is more important that another. Service should be given regardless, because they’re all clients that want your expertise. But guess what? If he calls in a panic at 2am and wants to know where to locate the most expensive Happy Meal ever, guess who will be willing to drag herself out of bed and start combing the Internet? The girl who is groggy because she had some of the wine this client sent, that’s who.

Have you said thank you lately?

When I thought about it, this was quite a production for him. There were about 4 of us that work on his account regularly. He’s never met but one of us in person. How on earth does one even figure out what to get a group of people like that? Somehow he did. He took the time to figure out that there is a Ruth’s Chris steakhouse in my area. He took the time to pick out a great bottle of wine. He got them assembled into one package, got my address and had it mailed out in a pretty quick manner.

We took time in our day to work on his account because that’s our job. He took time out of his day to say thank you for doing it well.

With the holidays coming up, ’tis the season for saying thank you, even if it’s something you paid for to begin with. Besides, you never know when it might come in handy to have hired someone who could tell you what it costs to watch the wildebeest migration from a hot air balloon.

And if you need them to find out at 2am, it helps if you’ve recently told that someone “thank you” for the work they’ve done before.

One of the benefits of being entrepreneur is that you can decide how much or how little you want to work. You are the lucky dog who has a modicum of control over how much you’re making. (Assuming you’re landing jobs, of course.) But there is a huge limitation that us workaholics actually get visibly irate about: there are only so many hours in a day.

I can work 18 hours straight, because what I do rarely feels like work. I love it, I enjoy it, and all that huggy yummy stuff. Since I don’t want to make you feel motion sick, we won’t dwell on the yummies. Instead, let’s focus on those people who have managed to ride their entrepreneurial rollercoaster, and finally get over that huge, slow, crawl to finally hit the peak and take off rushing at a million miles an hour. This has been all around me recently, mostly notably with my friend Naomi who has now exploded onto the freelance scene thanks to her entry that pitched a tent on the front page of Digg.

As much as I love my work, there are only so many hours in the day, like I said. If you’re doing well, you can fill those, but how do you get to that next level? How do you manage to grow your deserted island into a little village full of natives? (Not like the ones in King Kong. If those are your natives, you need to consider exile.)

People that have managed to step off their island and grow it into a village have one of two ways they’ve managed to do this, aside from the fruity drinks with the little umbrella. (Those never hurt, but you’re more likely to get tourists than villagers that way.)

Way of the Solo Warrior #1: They are good at multiple things.

I fall into this category at the moment. My mind makes connections to stuff, especially business capability. I started in sales, and got interested in consumer behavior, so I landed in marketing. I always loved writing, so I took a job writing for consumer experience, which just so happened to be in the e-commerce division of a major retailer. That environment immersed me in how things work in the web world, and being an organized and pretty focused person, my skill set grew in things like managing projects and campaigns. I started digesting online marketing information and it made sense to me, so I grew into an online marketing role.

Here’s my point. Maybe having skills in underwater basket weaving and survival skills in the desert aren’t going to be a solid offering. But, if you can find related areas to what you do that you’re naturally good at, you’re increasing your skillset. The clients I work may only have little ol’ me, but I can write, market, do analytics, and manage projects and campaign strategy. Having that combo has proved to be pretty great, which is something I never would have thought. I read so many things about how you have to focus, capitalize on the whole Long Tail thing, and mostly wound up feeling like a scattered person who wasn’t sure what to offer.

I started offering up all things I was good at, and it’s worked well. I haven’t hit that all-important pinnacle on my roller-coaster ride yet. I’m still climbing up, but I think if keep plugging at it I’ll be plunging forth and looping upside down in no time. And, I do offer the fruity umbrella drinks, but the natives that seem keen to hang on my island for awhile stay anyway, so that’s kinda nice of them.

Way of the Solo Warrior #2: They have people that can do what they don’t.

Let’s say you’re really only good at one thing, and you know that. That’s absolutely awesome. I love to have people around that know one thing, but they know it so well that in my mind there’s no other resource on Earth who can possibly have half their knowledge in their puny little brains. Plenty of people make a great living doing this one thing they’re good at. The people with the grass village on the deserted island tend to have a network.

They mingle with other people that have a skill set that would complement theirs. There may be zero interest in learning what the other one knows, but when people know what they don’t know, they’re a force to be reckoned with. Seeking out those who know what you don’t is a valuable way to spend a little time each day. You never know when you’ll have a client that loves you so much they don’t want to use anyone else…even if they’re asking for things you don’t know how to do. Guess what? If you know someone who does, then you DO know how to do it by proxy. You have a person you can refer (if they’re not a jerk) or you can sub-contract out to (if their work doesn’t suck, no matter how much they know). You = rockstar to your client.

There are many other things that play into when and how your wee little business takes off, but these are the two I run into repeatedly. Feel free to share the others.

Speaking of building an island, feel free to join mine. We have frequent bonfires and roasted marshmallows.

I have a black lab pup who has an extraordinarily quirky habit: she makes piles of things. You let her outside, and she will literally spend hours nosing around in the woods, dragging sticks (and sometimes parts of fallen trees) into a designated area of the yard. (I have yet to figure out how she picks her coordinates). She will do this repeatedly, and you can’t distract her from it. She gets tunnel vision, and takes this personal task very seriously.

I was sitting on my front porch in the morning chill drinking that almighty first cup of coffee, watching her engage in her ritual. On this particular morning, she was working on two piles across the yard from one another as my gears were turning on a marketing plan for a client.

It suddenly hit me that her mystifying and endearing habit actually has some merit in the marketing world.

You make choices when you market.

Much like the aforementioned stick piles, you survey the landscape and pick certain things out of it to focus on:

1. What do you want your campaign to do? Sell stuff? Get people to hang around and comment? Entice people to pay your bills? (Good luck on that one.)
2. Who should you be asking to perform this action?
3. Where do you find those people?
4. How do you bridge those above three together?

Pile of Sticks #1: Your objective

You can’t do anything else until you figure out what you want the consumer to do. Trudge into your Forest of Big Ideas, and force yourself to pluck out a few twigs or maybe one or two big sticks. Avoid picking out a ginormous shrub, no matter how pretty it looks…too much going on, and besides, they can attract bees. These piles shouldn’t be too big. Resist that urge to grab the branch labeled “branding,” the one across from it named, “buy stuff” and the other one named “all information possible in the world so that hopefully something will stick.” (That’s a big sucker and it’s probably rotting with maggots all over it. I think that makes it clear how I feel about that method, no?)

You waste energy trying to drag the whole forest when you just need a few logs. Pick what’s most compelling and don’t get tempted by the stuff around it that will serve no purpose other than creating noise.

Pile of Sticks #2: Who might want to do the action?

I know that all of us would like to think what we offer appeals to everyone. As a business, it’s hard to get away from saying, “But who wouldn’t WANT to do this?” The answer to that is: plenty of people.

There are obvious examples, like trying to sell palm trees to someone in Maine. If you’re reading this, hopefully you’re not that guy, and if you are, I refuse to help you. My apologies.

If you’re selling something like propane to residential customers (which, frankly, is on my mind because AmeriGas is an evil empire and I just want my fireplace to work…but I digress) then you’re not going to pass out flyers at an apartment complex. So, that automatically has you pick out the sticks in the Demographic Forest for homeowners. Seems pretty obvious, but there are some other twigs you should throw on that pile. How about homebuilders? Strike up a deal for the neighborhood they’re building where you’ll provide a discounted service if they recommend you. Talk to realtors that might be selling newly constructed homes, or those that are selling existing ones to put in a good word for you.  (I’ll touch on that in a future entry about how NOT to get another referral, ever again….for now, read SmallFuel’s advice on Ditching the Hard Sell.)

Once you start seeking out your big sticks, you’ll see a lot of twigs on it. Make your pile.

Pile of Sticks #3: Finding these people

Thanks to the Internet, this can either be really easy, or really hard, depending on how you look at it. There’s tons of information, forums, online communities and more to find these people. That’s also the rain pain-in-the-butt part. There are SO many. If you are purely trying to network locally, city sites and getting out there to give the handshake is going to be effective for you. Hire someone to draw up press releases for you and get them into the local paper.

If location is no object for your business, then you have a lot of digging you can do. Network with people online constantly. Have a website, and be sure it doesn’t make people weep. (I have a whole list of examples.) Refresh your content, participate in communities, and seek possibilities to get connected through others via sites like LinkedIn.com.

Pile of Sticks #4: Create your message and disseminate accordingly.

See these piles you have, now? You have your objective, your market, your methods. Planning’s over, it’s time for the true test. Hopefuly before all this you have set up your brand and have all of that locked down. Now all you have to do is communicate it. How do you do that?

Put those piles together, grab a match, and light the fire.

And I don’t mean by using their handy calendar applications. 

There’s something to be said for visionaries. The world is full of people with the Next Big Idea, and all the grand schemes on how it’s going to materialize. Unfortunately, things get in the way of that…some people are great at ideas, but poor on execution. Some don’t know where to start. Sometimes they KNOW it’s a great idea, but they don’t have enough background in the market to give it traction.

That said, look at a phenomenon like Google. It was a search engine, people. With plenty of early dot com ones out there to compete with, dreamed up by two young guys, blah blah blah, the rest is history.

Is it really, though? The history was their initial idea, not the cutting edge of innovation in Internet-land that Google has become. How did these two idea guys get it done?

They planned it. They thought it out. They did their homework. They picked what they knew would work and started with that, and the rest became gravy.

Sometimes it’s a simple lesson, but one worth heeding: test the water before you jump in. Well, maybe not always, but if you see the shark fins, then it’s probably good advice. It can be tempting to want to run the gamut of Internet wonder with clients sometimes because you see the potential, but it’s important to remember that sometimes YOU need to keep your feet on the ground to be the best advocate for your client. If Sergey and Lawrence, the founders of Google, had put together a plan that included all the services that Google now offers (”oh! oh! we could have document sharing!”….”dude, no wait….CHATTING”) do you think the core of Google would be as well-honed as it is?

Probably not. Don’t spread your clients too thin on a ton of services. Take the time to listen, and start with the basics. If you’re a consultant, that same advice goes for you too, young man/lady. If you spread too thin, you will wind up giving nothing to your customers.

It’s about vision. Keep it laser-focused, but be nimble about the methods you use to attain it.

If you doubt the power of vision, check out the paper written by the Google founders while they were still at Stanford. Look at where their company is today.

Now tell me it’s not worth the time to plan a little.

I’ve been freelancing for years, but only have a few weeks under my belt doing it full-time. I started plugging away when I was a writer churning out stuff in a cube, at first for some extra income. After a few months I realized something crucial:

 I liked it.

I really liked writing newsletter content for dental practices one moment (so not kidding) and then helping devise e-mail strategies 5 minutes later. As an extreme multi-tasker who gets bored easily, having multiple clients was a natural fit for me. In the past year, things really started falling into place for me at a time where life was turning into a pressure cooker. New house, new job, finishing my MBA, and new freelance clients every other week. I could feel the squeeze, more and more every week. I knew something would have to give and I’d have to make a decision. That decision wound up happening suddenly a mere few weeks ago, and now that I’ve had time to reflect on pre-freelancing life and in-the-thick-of-it-pulling-up-by-my-bootstraps, I’ve come to some reflective conclusions.

Let me enlighten you as to what it’s like for me to make a decision about big things like this….it’s a humdinger of an experience. I’m an analytical person by nature, so first there’s the mental listing of every possible scenario. Then each of those has what ifs, which branch off into others and…you get the idea. Tailspin central. I’d look at freelancers that were doing it, and wonder, “How’d they KNOW?”

Here’s the thing, which is really freaky for any of you that think like me: You don’t know. It’s probability, not a proven science. There are certain factors that you weigh, and depending on whether the “yes” or “no” is heavier, you can use that. Which factors is probably the next question, and there are too many to list, even for me. But here are some biggies:

1. Do you have a client base built up?

If you’re mostly finding one-shot projects on bidding sites for peanuts, the heavier answer here for you is “no.” In that case, don’t quit your day job to sweat week-to-week. You’ll always sweat some as a freelancer, but steady clients are your deodarant.

2. Are you constantly underselling to land a gig?

If you weigh heavier on “yes,” then you need to stop it. Unless you’re totally without experience (and you shouldn’t even be considering making the jump if you’re in that camp anyway) don’t be cheap to land a gig. IttyBiz has a great explanation of why that I won’t even try and duplicate. If you’re finding clients that are paying a rate you’re not wincing over, you’re on more solid footing here.

3. Does it feel like your freelancing is getting in the way of your day job?

If the scales tip towards “yes,” then you might want to decide if freelancing full-time is what you want. If it feels like a nuisance and you have a problem being self-motivated, those are huge hurdles to overcome. This brings up the opposite, however…

4. Does it feel like your day job is getting in the way of your freelancing?

If so, maybe this is where your loyalty really lies. If you’re more interested and it doesn’t feel like work when you’re working on your clients’ projects…that should say something. ‘Nuff said.

5. Can you make enough to get by at first?

Even with a steady client base, you will struggle the first few months because you don’t get paid regularly. Plan for this. It’s feast or famine, and there’s not really any two ways around that. If you have the aforementioned steady clients each month, that certainly helps. If you’re not sure that you’d have enough for a can of beans and Saltines at the bare minimum, you have to crunch numbers. I know, it’s not fun, but you’ll thank yourself if you’re realistic. Try this calculator from Freelance Switch…it’s very eye-opening.

I was at the tipping point for my threshold of stress and work. Something had to give, and I had a lot of support in the decision which made it an easier one, but no less scary. You have to be intrepid, you have to be out there, and you have to be willing to take rejection and share your opinions and recommendations over and over again.

It was the best choice for me, and you’ll know if it’s something you really want. There’s no perfect moment, no matter how much you’d like to plan it…there’s just the probability of success. Stack the odds in your favor.