Vox Fortis Communications

I don’t know about all of you, but I never get to read all the stuff that’s in my RSS every day. It’s too crazy how often Lifehacker updates. I can keep up with the once a day posters, but my BoingBoing feed is a lost cause. I’d love to find some new blogs about small business, but I have no clue when I’d squeeze that into my day…somewhere between my phone calls where I’m simultaneously answering emails, maybe? Yeah. Not ideal.

A few weeks ago, Shane was all, “Pssst. I’m working on something cool.” So of course I’m all, “Your wife is pregnant?” Well, no. But until the human baby makes an appearance, he’d been putting intense work into another baby: Sproutwire.

I shamelessly love the Shane and Peter blog as it is, so I was intrigued to hear there was another project in the works. And it’s so genius, and created by a group that specializes in UI anyway, I’m just geekily excited to be in on the beta. The site is called Sproutwire, and it will serve as a hub for articles related to small business, vetted and served up to you on a gorgeous Sproutwire silver-platter-like-designed site every single day.

For people like us that can’t get enough reading about small business, this is a Godsend.

You know what else is a Godsend? ME. (I’ve always wanted to be able to say that.) As a reader of my blog, and because Shane is one of my blogosphere homeboys, you can get a sneak peek at the beta launch as well. Follow this link, input your email and you’re in line for when they lift the veil on the beta version this Friday.

See? You knew there was a reason you came here. So go. Now. Do I need to say it again? Go sign up for Sproutwire beta, fool!

Before we get to the second lesson in the puppy SEO series, I had an epiphany while I was traveling this past week about creature comforts.

I am pathetically addicted to electronics. Save for a novel of some sort, when I travel there are some items guaranteed to be in my carry-on bag (which won’t include anything liquid related thanks to the brain children of Homeland Security…I use expensive crap on my hair and already learned that lesson the hard way): ye olde Nintendo DS (with a copy of Yoshi’s Island or a Kirby title, since you’re curious about the levels of my immaturity), the iPod, and my laptop.

Of course, all of these things require electricity. And you know what? No friggin’ airline has the same way of providing power, if at all. I considered getting this, but then read up on the airline I was taking only to find out that basically….you get no power to your seat, fool. You will be confined to a 5-6 hour cross-country flight, sweating as your battery meters peters out to nothingness.

What does this have to do with anything, other than me being a high-maintenance nerd? I’ll tell you what.

Earlier in the week I met with a new group that has presented a really awesome partnership opportunity for me. Ironically, the president and I are alums from the same company, though at different times. He’s refreshingly together (you deal with enough business owners who have no clue what’s going on or what they want, and you appreciate the ones who have their act together) but at one point he said something like, “I’m sorry, I know I’m structured, it’s left over from corporate America.”

I never expect clients to do anything differently than what they’re comfortable with. It’s the creature comfort factor. Maybe I’m a flexible person by nature, but I’ve heard some horror stories come from clients about freelancers they’ve worked with. Yes, we all need to set boundaries from freaky extremists to keep our lives sane, but part of being in business for yourself means giving clients what they need and what they’re comfortable with. It’s a fine line, and you will certainly find employers/clients that will push the boundary.

Be reasonable. Don’t force feed clients things they’re obviously not comfortable with. Working with a lot of freelancers can make people who need your expertise feel like me when trying to find an airline power source: no two are ever the same, and they don’t want to spend money on something if it’s not gonna work. Being flexible and reasonable is something that takes practice and negotiation. Hopping a cross-country flight isn’t exactly part of my normal day, and it came sooner than I thought it would, but the bottom line was that a group I work with needed me to do it. It’s a group I thoroughly enjoy working with and am already learning so much from, so that’s a movable boundary in my world. They’re knee deep into a campaign, and didn’t want to run outta juice for their DS.

So, that was my mini-epiphany for the week as I grumbled my way through the headache that the world of travel has become. That, and in general, flying sucks…but I can’t think of a snappy way to equate to working for yourself, so this is what you get.

For more on being what your clients need, check out this entry. And if you still are liking what you see, subscribe to me.

I got in the car yesterday to go to the post office. As a regular community member over at BookMooch, I had a moocher who was waiting on a novel I’d recently finished. I live in an wee town in Virginia on the skirts of a metro area. This should not be any kind of production whatsoever…less than 5 minutes to the post office, tops. (Plus, I’m an impatient person, so…there’s that.)

I turned out of my development onto the main road where they were doing road work. Nothing big, one of those little buggy deals that punches squares into the asphalt (or is it concrete?) so they can insert the reflectors along the dividing line.

I sat and waited, and I started to get edgy. I watched the Highly Unnecessary Eighty Point Turn of the buggy, orchestrated by a construction guy who had originally stopped me by doing a hand wave while not even turned in my direction. He also had a walkie-talkie that didn’t appear to be getting any use.

Finally, I go on my way. On the way back, it was another annoying experience, but for a different reason.

As I drove toward the site, there was another guy there, but I saw a ray of hope in the situation because he had one of those tall signs. You know the kind “slow” on one side, “stop” on the other.

That’s where the hope ended, as I drove closer and could see him better. I was, by the way, driving closer because his sign had the “slow” turned towards my little car. Then I noticed his hand waving, indicating a stop….while not looking at me.

I stopped, utterly confused. Could I go? Was this a test? Was there a hidden camera looking to see how many citizens would just blow by? I looked around for an answer from the pine trees on either side of me. I looked back at the guy.

No eye contact, no nothing. I didn’t even know if he realized I was there. Maybe he wanted me to go but has a hand tic and I was going to make him feel bad by responding to that and not the friggin’ HUGE orange sign he appeared to be in control of.

As you can see, this was turning into a borderline existential crisis for someone that overthinks things as much as I do.

It’s also a really, really good example of your role with the clients.

You are the conductor.

Your client audience is looking to you for direction. They want a confident recommendation based on the expertise they’re working with you for. Don’t overwhelm them with choices or decisions on services they don’t know anything about. The best way to avoid that is to ask questions initially, and ask a lot of them. The key is to not ask questions about whether they want an email campaign or not. The key is to ask, overall, what they don’t have that they know they need. What struggles are they having? Don’t add to their pain, find out what it is and cure it.

Conductors serve more than just an audience.

They serve the musicians.

Whether it’s a client’s web page, their seo, their copy (or maybe all three) you will be directing the orchestrations that will make things happen. You’re the person that will stand there, conduct, and then turn to face the audience of your clientele, and it had better to be thunderous applause. If it’s not, it’s your fault. You can’t turn around, shrug, and say, “That tuba player sucks.”

The tuba player might suck, but it’s your job to keep that from the client and make him play better. That, or find another tuba player.

Don’t mix signals. In either direction.

Like my friend who had the “slow” sign in one hand the “c’mon, move it along” in the other, don’t confuse your clients. No matter what’s going on with the orchestrations behind the curtain of their project, convey what’s important for them to know. Give a reliable quote for the services they need (which goes along with the question asking I just kicked your tush over). If you assume they understand what everything includes, you’re in for trouble. Nickel and diming over things will confuse your client and could make them feel like you’re putting one over on them. Things like “Oh, I thought I was just writing your copy…it didn’t include any revisions or editing.” I don’t mean major, huge project scope changes, but things that should naturally come with any package. Deliver consistency so people will buy tickets for repeat showings.

Don’t overwhelm while trying to show off.

Although this is probably more apt to match with bands infamous for long, drawn out jam sessions that make some of us weep with boredom, I’m sticking to my analogy, dangit.

Remember, they hired you to do something they couldn’t. The more complicated you make it seem, the more horror you’ll see on their faces. Sure, if they ask to see the sheet music then show it to them. But don’t conduct, try and teach them how to conduct, make revisions to the sheet music…you get the point.

Keep practicing.

You’ll stumble. I guarantee you will. You’ll eat some costs and time you didn’t account for, you’ll work with bad contractors who are handling pieces of projects, and you’ll probably wind up firing that tuba player.

The good thing is, most people weren’t born like Beethoven. You won’t wave that baton and get perfection at first, but you will get more efficient every time you do it and will eventually be on the way to creating your own little masterpiece of a business.

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?  

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.