It Sure Beats Working

Best Thing I've Read This Year (so far)

"Your way will be unlike anyone else's, although you will share a deep camaraderie with others on this path.  Being your own boss is both heady and humbling, but it's seldom boring"

-- Barbara J. Winter, Making a Living Without a Job

Better Than a Contract

I had lunch with an old friend yesterday.  We worked together at the same company for years and now both work solo.

We were talking about 2009 and he was asking what I had done to lock down my largest clients for the coming year, in case they had budget cuts and wanted to cancel our contract. 

I told him I hadn't thought about it.  In fact, I don't have contracts with any of my clients.  I write up a brief agreement when we start, just to make sure everybody's clear on the arrangement, but from them on, I just invoice quarterly.  They (or I) can stop whenever we want.

He thought this was strange; how would I keep them if they decided to cut back?  What leverage would I have?

I have to admit, I initially thought that he had a good point.  And I decided to do something about it when I got back to my office.

But then, a little while later and back in my car, I remembered that I don't want clients who -- for whatever reason -- don't want to work with me anymore.  I only want the people who are thrilled to pay me each month for the work I do... not the ones who are waiting for the contract to expire.

Here's how I look at it:  When you start focusing on how to "lock people down," you stop focusing on how to do your best work.  Given the choice between the risk of losing a client, and the risk of just going through the motions for the money until the deal runs out, I'll take the former every time.

Turn Down Your Radio

Lots of bad news out there these days.  Or so I've been told... I don't listen to it. 

Every time a story comes on the radio (or TV or newspaper or whatever) whose purpose is to give me one more view into what's going wrong, I shut it off.

Here's how I look at it: The "economy" is an average of what's going on in general.  It matters if you're an economist, or a member of the media, or an academic, or anyone else whose job it is to report on and predict trends.

But it's still an average of what's going on in general.  I don't live in general -- I live a single, specific life with a single specific business.  And so while I care about the people and businesses whose lives are hurt by the down economy, mine isn't (and will never be) one of them.  I make my own economy.

Is it naive?  Or unrealistic?  Or just plain irresponsible to focus on what's going well and ignore anything bad in the belief that we all make our own future? 

I don't know.  But I do know this:  That's what "they" told me nine years ago when I quit a comfy job, even though I had no clients and no business plan.   

So I say keep pedaling, keep creating, keep focusing on whatever it is you do.  And keep your finger on your radio's off switch.

Get Your Team Together

I had a little scare the other day.  An old client called to say that a newsletter my company designed for him five years ago may have included images that were not licensed.  Stolen, in other words.  The owner of the images was now demanding payment from my client.

Uh oh.  I outsource design and had no idea if the images were licensed. 

So I called my designer.  And I called my attorney.

The good news is that the images were in fact licensed and we were fine.  But it got me thinking... thinking about the importance of having a great team behind me.

I like to say that "I work alone."  But it's not quite true.  Yes, I'm the only employee of my company, but when I took score the other day I realized that I work with a designer, attorney, accountant, financial planer, business coach, web technician, IT support, and several copywriters.

I also realized the other day how important it is to have an "all-star" team of players.  My designer had an immediate answer; my attorney told me just what to do.  Specialists who know their stuff and who are available and can be counted on when I need them.

So I guess the lesson is this:  Don't skimp on these people.  I don't like spending money on "overhead" and my team isn't the cheapest (by a long shot).  But they sure are good.

When the phone rings with a problem -- at 3 a.m. or otherwise -- make sure you've already put your team in place. 

Enjoy Your Latte

I just read another one of those "Save $15 a week by cutting back on your Starbucks visits" articles.  You know, the ones that are supposed to help you tough it out until the economy gets better.

You know what?  I say ignore that line of thinking.  Two reasons:

1. It's exactly when times are tough that you most appreciate those little treats.  If you're feeling the pinch, you're probably not taking the family bike trip to Italy next summer, so the special drink is all the more sweet.

2. It's focusing on the wrong side of the equation.  $15 a week is only $750 a year... a lot of missed enjoyment for not a lot of money.  I know, if I invested it at 7% for 30 years, blah, blah, blah.  The thing is, it's a lot easier to earn another $750 than save $750, and this kind of advice always strikes me as paying attention to the wrong variable.  Yes your ends need to meet, but I find it easier (and a lot more fun) to raise my income than reduce my overhead.

The fact is, this advice is appropriate for someone with a job (i.e, a more or less fixed income). 

You and I, on the other hand, don't have jobs.  We have skills that we know how to sell to others and down economy or not, the sky is the limit.

So here's what I recommend:  Drive to Starbucks, order the biggest, most delicious, most expensive drink on the menu and find yourself a nice cozy chair.  Then spend a couple of hours figuring out how you're going to make more money, with a particular focus on the problems you're particularly good at solving.  You'll regain your confidence, your excitement and your vision (not to mention enjoying your drink).

No Security Is Total Security

A couple of years ago I had a client who accounted for a lot of my annual revenue –- too much.

I understood the (smart) conventional wisdom about not putting too many eggs in one client basket, but what could I do… they kept throwing more work (and money) at me.

I started to worry about them. I wondered what it meant when one of my e-mails to them went unanswered. I wondered how changes in the economy would hurt their business. I wondered what would happen if they decided one day that they didn’t need me any more. I wondered how long it would last.

And then one day it hit me: Without intending to, I had turned this client into my employer. A reliable, steady, large paycheck in return for owning my concern and attention. I had turned over my freedom for security.  So I pulled back. I eased out of the work until before long, they had dropped down as a proportion of my overall business to become just one more great client.

One (of many) things I love about working for myself is that nobody owns me. And thanks to that experience, I know now that as soon as one client becomes so large that I start worrying about what they’re going to decide or become or think, it’s time to cut back.

Because in the end, the only real job security is knowing that you don’t need any.

Blog or E-Newsletter?

Jen, one of my e-newslettter readers, wrote last week to ask which is better, blogs or e-newsletters.  I gave her my stock answer (see below), although frankly, as I reread it today, I think the technology is a little bit beside the point.

As a solo professional, I think the question is, how can you systematically, position yourself as expert, stay in touch with your existing relationships, build trust, attract the "right clients" while filtering out the "bad clients," find your voice, and not spend too much time or money in the process?  For me, E-Newsletters fulfill all that and more.  But if you find you can get most of these things done using some other approach (blogs or whatever), I think you're on the right track.

Here's my response to Jen...

Good question.  Three big advantages of a newsletter over a blog as a marketing tool for professional service providers (my focus):

- A newsletter is an email; a blog is a web site.  Emails arrive in the inbox, the place all of us check constantly.  If you put your stuff on a web site, I may never go back.  Yes, people can subscribe to your blog, although I guess at that point it becomes an e-newsletter.

- A newsletter has a schedule (monthly usually); a blog doesn't.  Just publishing monthly on a schedule is the hardest part of having a newsletter for my busy professional service clients.  Telling them that they can now publish whenever they feel like it is like telling someone that their gym is now open 24 hours a day... most people have trouble just getting in there twice a week. So the lack of a schedule isn't an advantage, it makes it harder to do (witness how many blogs start strong and then fizzle out to nothing).  And frankly, even if you did publish twice a week, who really wants to read all that anyway?

- Newsletters are about strengthening relationships with the people you already know -- it's relationship marketing on a larger scale.  I'm not (particularly) interested in boosting my Google rankings, the key benefit of blogs that's always cited.  That's fine if it happens, but way too random and in terms of a strategy, I ignore "strangers."   The best clients are those who know you over a long period of time and one day call.

Thanks for getting me thinking, Jen!

Narrow Marketing = Expert Status

I spoke at an event last night on the topic of "owning a niche," or Narrow Marketing as I like to call it. 

I have to say, if you asked me to put my finger on the one thing that has contributed the most to whatever solo professional success I've had (other than my incredible good looks) is the fact that I occupy a very, very narrow niche: email newsletters.

Simple question for you.  In each pair below, which of the two choices do you assume is more expert at what they do?:

Attorney, or Divorce attorney for lesbian couples

Freelance writer, or White paper specialist for the computer industry

Auto mechanic, or Auto mechanic for BMW's

Isn't it clearly the latter in each case?  And isn't it amazing how by knowing nothing more than a phrase describing a specialty, you naturally assume that with it comes expertise?

If you're not narrow, you're working harder to market your business than necessary.

Celebrate, Celebrate

The other day I sent out an invitation for the annual summer birthday party of my company, Blue Penguin (8 years).

I invite everyone who subscribes to my twice-monthly newsletter, with a simple offer:  Come to a local (fantastic) outdoor ice cream place, chat with other folks for a couple of hours, eat great ice cream.  All my treat.  Pretty good deal all around.

The first one I did was in 2005, at my five year anniversary.  My coach had harassed me (as she always does) with the question: "How are you going to celebrate this achievement?"  And so the ice cream party was born.

I've come to learn that celebration -- particularly when you work alone -- is an important part of running a business.  It's easy to just move from one project to the next, or to think to yourself that you're "not quite there yet." 

Thanks to my coach's relentless prodding, I've come to find that there are always things worth celebrating.  So, how about you?  How are you going to celebrate.....?

Ironing Out the Rankles

So I'm eating my bagel, sipping my coffee, reading the Boston Business Journal this morning and minding my own business.

When suddenly, I come upon page 10 of the July 11th edition and spot this headline:  "Commuter railing: Travel time rankles most readers."  Apparently, the  folks at the BBJ asked their readers to answer the following question:

"Which work-related thing would you like the most independence from?"  Here are the top five answers, in descending order of frequency:

My commute -- 35%
My 9-5 schedule -- 34%
My boss -- 17%
My co-workers -- 9%
My office dress code -- 5%

And as I sat there at 10am, in shorts and a T-shirt, 1 mile from my home and 1.5 miles from my office, with not a boss or co-worker in sight, I realized that as a solo professional, once more, we've got it made.