Thanks again to Bob Calandra for his insights and advice on how to create value and repeat business in a shaky economy. Again, if you want to pick up his book (and I highly recommend it), you can find it at Amazon.com. One of the book’s tips is “Add Technology to Your Brand.” That begs…
Keeping Your Freelance Job
When good friend and former colleague Bob Calandra told me he was publishing his newest book How to Keep Your Job in a Tough Competitive Market (available at Amazon.com), my first thought was it’s about time. That’s for two reasons: 1) the topic is as timely as it’s ever going to get, and 2) Bob…
Working for the Weekend
Now that I’ve planted that ear worm firmly… Because things were slow, I decided to head off to spend some quality time with the parents, the husband, and the fish I’m about to catch (there’s confidence for you!). And because I made that decision, the work came rolling in. I mean, where last week there…
Our Business Model is You’re Wrong
Thanks to Sid Prince for sending me a link to a Wall Street Journal article that’s a mirror image to my ongoing eFax problem. In the article, Jason Zweig relates his story about a defunct AOL account that had somehow incurred charges. When he received a call from a collection agency, Jason decided to call…
It’s Raining, It’s Pouring
So I took Devon’s advice and decided I’d spend yesterday getting busy on one of my books (actually couldn’t decide which one at first). When I opened the document and started typing, the emails started coming in. First the request from a regular client for more work. Cool. Easy job, quick cash, fast payment. A…
Branching Out
Even though some months are painful to review, I’m glad I do monthly assessments. It’s so much easier to pull myself back on track monthly rather than trying to recoup tons of lost dollars and clients 8 months or so out. So now to the recouping part. My usual methods have fallen flat with just…
Monthly Assessment – June
Oh yes it is that time again. Time for all of us to let the mothballs out of the Excel program and share how the month has been. Want me to start? Where to start? How about at the beginning? Queries –I burned up the bandwidth this month. I put out at least 5 new…
New Week, New Perspective
If I could bottle last week, I’d secure it in indestructible plastic lined with asbestos, wrap it in material fit to withstand nuclear blasts, label it poisonous, and wail it off the tail end of a fast-moving jet from 30,000 feet. Yea, that bad. It seems the conflicts were everywhere. Home life was a lesson…
The Return of the Low-ballers
A Twitter acquaintance got in touch with me recently to get some suggestions/feedback/potential help on a project. He and I hit it off and we were both excited about this potential new project. Then we gave the client the price, which was more than fair and probably a bit on the low side, gauging the…
Free? Right.
On a client project recently I received a file that had to be opened via a program called eFax viewer. How to get this? Simple. Go to the eFax website and download it for free. Okay, I started to, got sidetracked and forgot. Wait! There came an email from the company reminding me to complete…