Monday Spark: You don’t have to start at the bottom.

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bottom of the ladderLast week I was speaking at an event in Austin, Texas, and had a chance to talk with dozens of freelancers at various stages of their careers.

I was particularly interested by what I heard from those people who had high-level, professional careers behind them and were now on the verge of starting a freelance business.

Here is the part that got me thinking. Several of those people seemed to assume that they had to get started on the bottom rung of the ladder as a freelancer. It’s as if a switch in careers somehow required that they start over and look only for low-paying, low-challenge projects.

Well, I don’t think that is necessary.

If you have some solid business experience behind you, why not start closer to the top?

OK, so you don’t yet have a ton of experience as a freelance writer or copywriter. So your first client probably won’t be with a sophisticated direct-response company that is used to working with A-level copywriters.

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Are you writing in Go-Away-Green?

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go away greenFirst let me explain what Go Away Green means. It’s the color Disney uses in its theme parks for any object or building they don’t want people to look at.

Garbage bins, fences, administrative buildings…stuff like that. They want your eyes focused on the rides, stores and scenery, not on the infrastructure.

The idea of Go Away Green is that it’s such a boring and unattractive color, your eyes just pass over it until they latch on to something more interesting.

The concept of Go Away Green is important to grasp when creating anything that is a combination of attraction + structure.

This certainly applies to web design and yes, also to writing and copywriting.

The “attraction” in what you write is the story you tell, the core of your message and the supporting information that surrounds it.

The “structure” of your writing represents all the words and sentences you use to set up the opening, create transitions throughout and wrap things up at the end.

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Monday Spark: To be happy, work on what you do best.

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doing something wellCompetence makes you feel good.

The task can be fairly ordinary, like making coffee. If you are good at making coffee – gourmet coffee, that is – the simple act of brewing a great pot of coffee will make you feel good.

Conversely, if this isn’t something you do well, and your dinner guest are all coffee snobs, the act of making coffee will probably make you feel anxious.

It’s not much different if you are an employee at a company. If you are good at what you do, you will likely enjoy your work. But when a colleague takes a sick day, and you have to take on her tasks, which you are not so good at, that sense of satisfaction quickly evaporates.

All this is a preamble to suggesting that in your freelance life you should pay more attention to what you do best.

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How to stop wasting time on learning new stuff.

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learning too muchIf I look back over the last 10 years, I can’t even imagine the number of things I have learned. For the sake of argument, let’s say I have learned 10,000 different things that might be useful to my work.

I have learned from articles and posts, from books I have read, from conversations I have had, and so on.

Now let’s say, out of those 10,000 things I have learned, I was smart enough to identify10 things which, if I applied them, could actually have a significant impact on my success. Those were 10 moments of learning that had the potential to transform my business in some meaningful way.

But out of those 10, how many did I actually apply? And of those lessons I have applied, did I work at them hard enough to achieve some positive change?

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Monday Spark: Overcome fear with practice and preparation [VIDEO]

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hadfield on fearA lot of freelancers find their forward momentum is slowed down by fear. Fear of making a cold call. Fear of reaching out to get work from a large or well-known company. Fear of charging more for their services. And so on.

And that’s perfectly natural. It’s normal to feel fear when facing an uncertain outcome.

But you don’t have to let it stop you.

One way to address fear is described really well by astronaut Chris Hadfield in the video below.

He is having a conversation with William Shatner. Hadfield is in the International Space Station and Shatner is at his home in California. And it seems they are big fans of each other’s work.

At one point in the interview, Shatner asks Hadfield how he manages to handle the fear he feels at dangerous moments, like when blasting off from earth.

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The cake baker’s guide to marketing your freelance business.

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freelancer cakeLet’s take part in a simple thought experiment…

Imagine we have a mutual friend, called Jane, who wants to start a home-based business…baking cakes.

First she goes to evening school and learns some professional-grade baking skills. Once she feels she has the level of skill she needs, she builds a beautiful website and opens her doors for business.

How do you think Jane will do?

Although we both want her business to thrive, in all honesty she probably won’t have much success. Perhaps she could sell enough cakes to call what she does a hobby, but she almost certainly won’t make a decent living.

How come?

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