A good deal of work to do yesterday, part of which included preparing invoices. Love that part of the job! Today is a bit of invoicing as well, along with lining up more work for January. I suspect I’ll be really busy anyway, but just in case. Never stop marketing. Where have you heard that before?
Back to our plan. We’re on the home stretch now. You’ve put together a good plan to keep your business in good shape, and you’ve factored in growth. Now let’s add some continuing education to your plan.
Why? Because you want to grow as a writer and begin to offer more services, which lets you raise your rates to match those skills. So what skills would you like to add? Do you want to learn how to write press releases? White papers? Marketing plans? Novels? Whatever you choose, there will be plenty of educational options.
Choosing requires some thought. You can get the wrong course without realizing it. Most courses or webinars do not offer refunds, so choose carefully. Once, I signed up for a writing course in which the instructor was a hands-off type. She was also in love with her own brilliance. Our daily readings/lectures were 115 pages minimum each day. Then she required four lengthy assignments per day. I couldn’t keep up. It was quite obvious the course was intended for people who weren’t working all day. Had I known, I’d have never signed up.
Where you learn is as important as what you learn. So when considering courses and workshops, consider these factors:
Are you earning skills or accreditation? If you’re trying to add press releases to your skill set, you probably won’t need to pay for accredited courses. However, if you’re looking to add say technical writing or medical proofreading, look for learning opportunities that offer designations you can then use to promote yourself. Find out if there’s any leverage to be had or any client requirements by gaining accreditation.
What are the options? You can pay for a six-week webinar series or a three-month college course. There are one-day workshops, one-hour workshops, etc. Also, you can choose from phone, self-paced, in-person, or any other conceivable learning environment. Look for a time frame and learning environment that fits your needs best.
Who is teaching? Probably the most critical point to consider is who will be instructing you. Is this someone with enough background for that particular subject? What are his or her credentials? Does the instructor’s outline make sense or align with what you’re hoping to learn? Does the instructor market the courses sensibly, giving you detailed information on the courses and what you can expect to learn? Do you trust this person? Can you get feedback from past students? Pay attention to how the instructor is communicating the offer – that will give you an idea of how that course will be presented. Does that style appeal to you?
What does the material look like? You don’t need a ton of material to make a great course. You need concise, sensibly presented materials that give you enough information to do the job correctly. Is your instructor organizing the materials in a way that creates a good flow of information? Will you be able to go from course to projects once you’ve finished the course, or will you be required to take more courses? What are the course requirements? If the instructor hasn’t spelled that out, ask.
How many new skills you add to your current experience is up to you. But building at least one educational training session into your business plan is a smart idea for writers who want to expand their capabilities.
Have you attended any webinars, seminars, workshops, or courses over the last year?
If so, did you think you received good value for your money?
Were you able to apply the skills you learned and gain new clients? Why or why not?
10 responses to “Your Online Business Planning Session: Part Five”
Like many writers, I'm one who loves to learn new things. In the beginning, I had an Achilles heel when it came to buying books.
Some were great investments and paid for themselves many times over. Others were pretty disappointing. I know video is all the rage (and I AM a visual person), but when I am learning some online techie or software thing, I need a written step-by-step as well.
I tend to go for the freebie webinars because of the time investment. I have no qualms about jumping off early if it stinks. Of course, with many of those, what you are getting is a sales pitch for something much more costly. I don't mind that if it's not obnoxious selling.
I also paid the bigger $ for a white paper boot camp. It was definitely worth it and white papers became an anchor of my business writing.
I tend to steer away from the big $ webinars like the Summit coming up for small businesses. I know it has tons of top names and I am sure there will be good things to learn, but between the $ and the time, for me, the negatives outweigh the positives.
I tend to go for downloadable resources that I can read at leisure. I don't always want to spend an hour or more at a webinar that's a thinly disguised sales session. That said, I have had some good conversations via Skype calls and dial-in group meetings.
As a teacher, I feel it's important for the students to know what they're getting into. If you take my courses, the butt goes into the seat and you write. Period. No excuses, no "I ran out of time". It's very clear, both in the blurb, in the chat before the course, and in the Welcome message. You have time to use the escape hatch before we commence. Write or leave, those are the choices.
If you want poor work habits enabled, if you want to be told it's okay not to meet deadlines — go somewhere else.
I'm a tough teacher, but my students leave with something tangible, and, in the last year, a solid number landed contracts and/or sold pieces started/worked on in class.
I don't use my classes as a sales pitch. I have a section with links to other workshops and other materials, but, I know from my experience as a student, nothing makes me feel more cheated than going to a workshop/webinar and being given 1% of the information promised, and expected to pay additional monies for the rest of what the workshop supposedly covers.
To me, that's a scam. And I see it frequently in workshops. You're offered a tease, and actually only get the information if you pay extra.
I took several classes this past year that were a disappointment. The teacher wasn't around much, we were talked AT instead of given the opportunity to practice putting theories into practice in the safe environment of the classroom with guidance, and additional materials for additional dollars were dangled in front of us. If I can't trust you to cough up what I believe I've paid for now (according to the way the workshop was marketed), why would I pay additional money for other material that's also bound to fall short? My trust has been broken.
I also can't stand it when a teacher/workshop leader renames the same class and uses the same material while pretending it's something totally different. Even when I'm asked to give another section of a workshop, I tweak it depending on the energy of the room. No two workshops are ever identical. I think it's really important — be in tune to the moment, don't use the same material over and over because you want to prep once, get paid 27 times. Be attuned to the students and what's happening in the moment, and adjust accordingly.
You'll have a sore butt and sore fingers and be exhausted after one of my classes — but you'll have a solid piece of work.
As far as skills, I have to figure out what I want to learn next, where I want to spread my wings a little. I want to shake things up a bit.
Popping in from my blogging hiatus to offer a tip. For those of us who like the structure of a real classroom, auditing courses is something to look into. Many colleges charge half price if you're not looking to earn credits, and you get the exact same instruction a broke college student gets. That's the route I opted for late last year when I took a screenwriting course at a local university. And since mine was a weekender class, my classmates were more in my age range, so the peer feedback was beneficial as well. I'd likely not have gotten that with an online course.
Cathy, I don't enjoy video seminars much. That said, the International Freelancers Day was all video, and it was fantastic. It was free, too, so that helped. 🙂 I have to have something I can read over later, as well.
Sharon, I'm much more into the self-paced stuff, too. I like that I can continue working on projects – because they ALWAYS come in by the bucketloads the minute that nonrefundable fee is paid – and get to the course as I have time.
Devon, the difference between your course and the one I took – you let everyone know in several ways that it was an intensive course. This other woman billed this as more of a fun time. Sorry, it was not fun, nor did she have anything useful to say in those reams of daily lessons. Not only was she verbose, she was boring. I've attended any number of webinars and online courses and hers was the worst. Ever. Her one lesson on editing and brevity was ridiculously long and poorly written. I nearly offered to edit her course lectures for a fee.
One of the last screenwriting workshops I went to was free, but the guy offered only a tiny bit of practical information before launching into an hour-long infomercial on the software he was hawking that would make the process so much easier. When he finally opened it up to questions, people were hungry for the practical information he never got to, but his answers were pretty much, "This product does all of the formatting for you, and offers tips on plotting and blah, blah, blah." I wanted to shake the guy and say, "Real writers don't want to let a computer program generate story ideas!"
I've also seen self-proclaimed writing experts I know through LinkedIn pitching me their not-so-cheap webinars, online classes and coaching services. Fine, but try marketing to people with less experience than you, not more. Why would I want someone with fewer (and lesser) credits than I have teaching me how to break into "lucrative" markets that I surpassed a decade ago? (I guess this gripe fits better with the Know Your Audience topic.)
Kathy, it's great seeing you here. I hope the blog will be back in 2012? Super advice, per usual. Your point about peer critique is especially good. It helps to have more than one set of eyes going over your work.
Paula, I've seen some of the same marketing mistakes. Writers at mid-level can certainly sell their webinars, but to beginning writers, not people who have been in the business for years.
The most irksome thing about one particular mid-level "writing expert" who kept pitching me about his or her webinars, coaching services and e-books, etc… was that we were LinkedIn contacts so all he or she had to do was glance at my profile to realize I was not in his or her target audience. Smart marketing or no marketing at all.
Off topic: How can four separate clients ALL have bookkeeping glitches stalling my payments in the same month? One is the chronic late payer, one is a long-time client with bugs in a new direct deposit system, a third is a new client, and the fourth is a long-time reliable client who apparently misplaced the invoice during the post-Thanksgiving pre-Christmas rush; luckily I thought to contact the lone editor on duty this week and he's pushing payment through ASAP. Seriously, what are the odds?
End-of-the-year budget crunch, Paula. Bet on it. If it were me, I'd ask point blank if you can expect the check before the holidays. Why not? It's your money they're hanging on to.
I did that. Favorite Editor is out for the holidays, and her boss is the one rushing it through. Late-Payer replied claiming he mailed my check "late Wednesday" (meaning he was about to write it as soon as he hit "send"). The folks with the direct deposit glitch think they figured it out – my next payment from them should come by the end of the year.
Most of these places are already well into their 2012 budgets; Fave Ed and the glitchy client have hefty freelance budgets, so it's not a budget crunch for either of them – they're honest and won't make assignments they can't pay for. (Late Payer, not so much.)