The taxonomy of bad freelancers

Reading "Freelance Screw-offs" this morning at Lori Widmer's Words on the Page blog, I was reminded of one of the reasons I got into freelancing in the first place: As an editor, I knew quite a few freelancers who weren't particularly skilled writers or adequately responsive to my needs. Missed deadlines, botched assignments, and a bucketful of excuses is no way to go through life, son.

Yet, they seemed to make enough money to survive. I figured I could do better, simply by operating as a business rather than someone who took assignments for granted and expected a dollar a word for a mail-it-in effort.

In any case, I highly recommend a click over to Lori's blog, whether to make yourself feel better (you'd never make any of those mistakes, right?) or to remind yourself to hew to a higher standard -- and avoid a place in the taxonomy of bad freelancers.

Father's Day musing: Is entrepreneurship genetic?

Is entrepreneurship genetic? As the freelancer son of a self-employed dad, it didn't surprise me to learn that a study from Case Western Reserve University discovered a hereditary component: roughly one third to 40 percent of the tendency to be an entrepreneur is innate rather than taught. Independence, tolerance for risk, ability to recognize opportunity, and leadership are all affected by your genes. The study's author, Scott Shane, published "Born Entrepreneurs, Born Leaders: How Your Genes Affect Your Worklife" this spring.

My dad died a few weeks before Father's Day in 2000. (Far too young, five months shy of his 60th birthday.) Like me, he had spent his early career in corporate jobs — in sales rather than editorial — before becoming self-employed. A few months into my first "real world" job after college, I was whining to him on the phone about some office injustice or another, and he came right out and said, "You know, you're eventually going to work for yourself."

As is the case for many hereditary traits, it took an environmental trigger to actualize my entrepreneurial gene as a freelancer not quite a decade later. In fact, I made the freelance leap just a few months before my dad passed away, but I sensed that among all the people who were worried as hell about me and my family surviving (me included), he wasn't concerned in the slightest — he was proud I had the cojones to do it and knew that I'd succeed.

I'd also like to think he knew he had set a business example I could follow:

• He worked hard in bursts (and took plenty of time off, even random weekdays)
• He saved enough money during good times that we could squeeze through the occasional rough patch
• He celebrated success when he made a big sale (I can still taste the sicky-sweet André Cold Duck on my mind's tongue)
• He was a bullheaded optimist (even during the gawdawful Carter years, when he netted $0.00 a couple of times)
• He pretty much didn't give a crap about what other people thought 

The time-worn saying is that "the older I get, the smarter my old man was." I don't know if he gave me a freelance gene or sales DNA...and ultimately, it doesn't matter. Regardless of my nature, I value and appreciate my nurture more. Thanks, Dad.

UPDATE: More fatherly wisdom in my new Dr. Freelance post: "Why you need a go to hell fund."

The photo at the top is from '84, when I caddied for my dad in the finals of the golf club championship at our home course south of Boston. He didn't win, but played a gritty, grinding match in his typical style.

Paging Dr. Freelance

I've been populating content into a separate blogging project for a while, and it's high time to release it into the wild: DoctorFreelance.com.

I receive thought-provoking questions on a regular basis from a variety of colleagues, friends and over-the-transom folks, and I thought that an advice column for freelancers (or for clients with questions about working with their creative independent contractors) would be the ideal format to amplify that. The healthcare theme, ripe with metaphors of diagnosis, sickness, healing and wellness, seemed just goofy enough to be perfect for me.

And my parents always wanted me to be a doctor.

I'll still be posting regularly here at Jake's Takes, continuing to focus on my usual "business anecdotes with a moral" theme.

Is self employment really what you want?

I recently had lunch with a longtime friend and business associate, let's call her Kathy, who got laid off a few months ago. She's been filling the time with intermittent freelance gigs, but her frustration is palpable--having been at her previous corporate employer for more than a decade, and given the state of the economy, perhaps that's no surprise.

So our conversation turned to what she has found most difficult about self employment and the freelance world. For Kathy, it's "Not knowing where my next project is going to come from, or when it's going to happen."

That intrigued me, because I'd say that's one of the aspects I like *most* about running my own business. I totally groove on the excitement of not knowing what's around the next bend, what that next phone ring will bring. Sure, sometimes it takes a bit longer than you'd like, but eventually the committed entrepreneur needs to come to grips with it. If not, you're likely better off in an office environment where the assignments (and paychecks) come more regularly. No shame in that, though probably best recognized early on. A desperate freelancer can't be a successful one.

Kathy also made an important point for those of us who are in a position to help someone who's unemployed or underemployed. She said it's amazing to see the number of people who she thought she could depend on who suddenly weren't available when she ran into tough times. If you're a writer, editor or graphic designer, a free resume/cover letter polish goes a long way; if you're a web guru, provide some help to someone who could use an online portfolio. Lend a sympathetic ear. Make a phone call. Send an email. Pay it forward.

Escaping the Freelance Habitrail

"Whenever aspiring writers ask me for advice, I usually tell ’em this: Don’t just write there, do something. Learn how to shingle a roof, or tap-dance, or raise sled dogs. Because if you don’t do anything, you wind up [someone] for whom words are props and codes and metaphors but no longer expressive of anything real."
--Mark Steyn

Whether or not you embrace author/commentator Mark Steyn's worldview or political leanings, there's no question that he's an incisive and vivid writer. The point he makes here is an essential one, because it points toward the value of being a multidimensional human being, not just a skilled rearranger of words. We are the sum of our experiences; as a writer's career progresses, a danger lurks in remaining immersed solely in the world of language. It's where we're comfortable, often too much so.

I'd argue that it's even truer for those of us who transact in the corporate realm--clients dig insights that come from outside the advertising/marketing Habitrail. Reading about diverse topics can help, but nothing tops experiencing something out of the ordinary, or even experiencing the ordinary itself.

5 conversation killers in a first-client meeting

Driving through the mountains east of Pittsburgh yesterday, I caught a fuzzy radio broadcast with a great tease: "After the break...the 7 worst types of small talk."

Alas, the actual segment wasn't as juicy as I'd hoped--the guest's verboten topics were the things you could probably guess if you've ever been to a cocktail party: Don't talk about your golf game (no one cares, even other golfers), wine (unless you're sure the other person is a oenophile), what route you took to the party (ZZZZ), kids (no one cares, even other parents), dreams (unless you want to be flagged as a flake), and stocks (you're probably either bragging or whining). The signal faded out before the final one, but I'm guessing it was religion, politics or sex.

But it did strike me that there's an analogy for freelancers headed into a meeting with a prospective client, when the inevitable lull in conversation comes around but the sale hasn't closed. The nervousness and excitement can cause us to blurt, blab or otherwise inject nonsense in ways that can be every bit as deadly as the items above:

• Talking about how slow business has been (smells like eau de desperation)
  
• Talking about being super busy (it's a fine line between being highly sought and overwhelmed)
  
• Recounting a tale of bad or unruly clients (risky, though you might be able to get away with something that's funny and has a happy ending)
  
• Penalty fees/rules/restrictions (e.g., number of rounds of revisions)
  
• Talking too much, period (even if it's positive and upbeat stuff)
  

You need to know yourself and how you react under the pressure of the first meeting. Better to be armed with a bunch of good questions that can drive the conversation where you want it to go. Ask the client if it's OK to record the conversation, and then listen to it afterward to identify the weak points of your presentation. And for the love of all that's holy...please don't talk about the weather.

An open letter to the White House "Jobs and Economic Growth Forum"

Dear Friends:

Perhaps my invitation to today's White House forum got lost in the mail, but no worries--I'm not the kind of guy to risk a felony by crashing a party at your place.

While you were jawboning at roundtables and breakout sessions, talking about not talking about 30,000-foot solutions, munching on bagels and sipping fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice, it was an average day out here in the real world. The vast majority of your fellow citizens were busy at our desks, in the fields, at chalkboards, behind the wheel, on duty or patrol, working on projects, prospecting for new business, keeping people healthy and safe, and, depending on whose numbers you believe, 10.5 to 20 percent of us were simply looking for gainful employment.

As some are fond of saying, let me be clear. I'm not writing to whine--I love what I do. The reason I wanted to drop you a line is because of a couple of conversations I've had this week among peers and associates. You've surely heard the old aphorism that "the market hates uncertainty," and I'd say that fairly represents the feeling at the grassroots business level. Those of us microbusinesses that don't really register on your radar (because we don't have lobbyists, lawyers, stock tickers, or labor unions), well, we're a little freaked out. We're scared that The Powers That Be are going to bail out another company, bank or governmental entity, fund alarmist "emergencies," hire more bureaucrats, print money 24-7, or tax the bejeezus out of us, or all of the above.

Meanwhile, we small fry don't have the luxury of spending money we don't have currently or won't have in the future. We know we're not going to get billions of dollars in bonuses (*cough* Goldman Sachs *cough*). We wouldn't be eligible for unemployment benefits, so we just keep figuring out what we need to do in order to pay the bills. There ain't no such thing as "too small to fail."

You want more businesses to hire people? Start eliminating uncertainty. Stop wasting money on crap.

Then again, the realistic side of me reckons not much will come out of your little summit. (I've been to my share of forums, so I know that the baloney gets sliced pretty thin, and have heard the 4 p.m. cry of "More coffee, stat!") Indeed, the most comforting item I saw about your exclusive confab was a single sentence tucked way down at the tail end of an AP story: "Administration officials said they don't expect major policy announcements from the forum."

But, just for giggles, I'll look forward to seeing the meeting minutes once you've typed 'em up. Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,
Jake Poinier
Boomvang Creative Group
Phoenix, Ariz.

11 Myths of Owning a Small Business

No matter how creative you are, your success as a freelancer ultimately hinges on your abilities as a businessperson. So, the headline "11 Myths of Owning a Small Business" in the Nov. 17 Forbes.com Entrepreneurs Newsletter caught my attention. And, as is always the case in listy-number thangs, I sat down to see how my experiences matched up with their opinions.

My conclusion? It's worth taking two minutes to read the article and another two minutes to run through the slide show, since the text only reveals some of the myths. (Which seemed goofy to me, but whatever.) I found myself agreeing with most, particularly how you can't "do it all yourself" and how risk-taking and passion are often overstated or overrated. Some of the myths don't really apply, such as "you can set your own schedule," but that may be more aimed at the bricks-and-mortar entrepreneurs in the Forbes audience. (Then again, deadlines can surely box you in if you let them.)

By the way, you can sign up for Forbes's free email newsletters in the right-hand column at the link, about halfway down the page. I've found there's usually at least one freelancer-applicable article per issue, sometimes more.

"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone"

Posting about Miracle last week got me to thinking about my single favorite Herb Brooks quote from the movie. "You think you can win on talent alone? Gentlemen, you don't have enough talent to win on talent alone"--as he runs them through interminable, brutal drills immediately after a distracted pre-Olympics effort against Norway.

The point obviously applies as well to business as it does to sports, maybe even more so, because sports is more meritocratic. It's generally easier to judge athletic performance in terms of scoring, defense, and times than it is to measure business outcomes at a personal level. In the corporate world, there are usually too many variables (unless you are a front-line salesperson), and that dynamic compounds for creatives, because we're usually several steps removed from the sale.

So, what lies in the abyss beyond pure talent? Here are two thoughts...

Measure what you can, when you can: Marketing master Denny Hatch always talks about how direct mail is the acid test of creative skills. It is nothing if brutally honest, because it proves whether something got read and provoked an action. Even if you're not working on a direct-response project, is there something about your project you can measure? Can you test Sample A against Sample B? Did you create a more-efficient process that saved a quantifiable amount of money? (For the love of all that's holy, no focus groups, please.)

Augment your talent with superior internal or external customer service: Let's face it, creative brains come preinstalled with a hypercritical streak; some of us just do a better job of hiding it. A crabby SOB like baseball pitcher Randy Johnson can get away with it because he throws 100 mph, and people indulge photographer Annie Leibovitz's tantrums because of her skill behind the lens. I don't have that option. Whether you're a solo act or in an agency or corporate creative department, you can set yourself apart by developing a reputation for being easy to work with in addition to being talented. Take criticism objectively. Be flexible and come up with alternatives pre-emptively. Chant "Serenity now" until you've chased away the demons.

***

Follow up: Some interesting background about Friday's video in this article, How 4-year-old boy mastered 'Miracle' speech in YouTube hit.

What, exactly, are you scared of?

If Facebook is a 24-7 gathering with friends, LinkedIn is the neverending tradeshow mixer, except that it's your gluteus that aches instead of your feet. The vast majority of conversations veer toward the tedious and self-promotional, and tediously self-promotional, but every once in a while there's an item that sparks a vigorous professional discussion.

Over the weekend, a guy claiming decades of freelance experience was asking for advice on acquiring new clients, since his usual contacts had dried up with business and referrals. Recommendations were all over the board; I was among the many who opined that cold-calling was the best approach. Everyone had positive, concrete, go-git-'em suggestions.

In response, he acknowledged that cold-calling was probably the right move, but then proceeded to explain the reasons he didn't really want to (he hates rejection, takes it personally). He added that what he *really* wanted to know was "what job title" he should be approaching at graphics companies to get work. Finally, he said that two emergency projects had come in, and so he was busy again. KThxBye.

I can't fathom how someone could survive or enjoy entrepreneurship with that kind of attitude. I also wondered what kind of customer service he delivers. Beyond that, what I really don't get is his fear of selling himself and his services, if he indeed approaches this as a business. Is a "no" honestly something that you should take personally? There's enormous peace of mind derived from being emotionally objective in the sales process. You are not your job. Rejection is no more a condemnation than acceptance is an indication that you're a wonderful human being.

Monetizing Your Brain

An old editor of mine used to keep a folder into which he'd toss ideas that were interesting but not quite broad enough to warrant coverage. Once he had a critical mass of related or semi-related tinder, the spark was lit.

That thought occurred to me this week as...

• a discussion on Linked In's LinkEds & Writers group posed the question "how much should I charge for editing web sites?"
  
• an article on Freelance-Zone dug into how the time-value of money affects freelancers, and
  
• I picked up a copy of Chris Anderson's Free: The Future of a Radical Price.
  

For any business, pricing your product or service properly is absolutely critical to survival, let alone profitability. Your spreadsheet includes not just the hard costs and time to execute the project, but the overhead costs--everything from the furniture, office supplies and utilities to healthcare and insurance.

My experience is that creatives in general (and freelancers in particular) tend to shoot too low--whether it's due to lack of experience, poor business sense, or simply undercharging for doing something they enjoy. Obviously, it's difficult to always put a monetary figure on something you've produced through nothing other than the gray matter between your ears. But one thing is for certain: If you fail to price your skills right, your clients will surely fail to value them properly.

Vacation, all I ever wanted

I always find it curious when self-employed folk resist taking a vacation, as if the world would stop spinning in their absence. No, you don't get paid while you're gone. No, an important new business call might come in and there's no one there to answer it. It's the circle of life, Simba.

So, today we're off--sans kids and sans electronic connectivity--to Cape Breton and Newfoundland for 10 days of simply messing around in boats, on bicycles, and on beaches.

I'll look forward to catching up with all y'all upon our return on July 26. Be well and be good. But not too good.

Freelancer's Guide to Getting Paid--on Time

A few weeks ago, a commenter asked me to address how freelancers can deal with slow-pay or no-pay clients. Seems like we've tapped into a trend, based on today's Wall Street Journal article titled "Freelancers' Guide to Getting Paid--on Time" [subscription required*]. The WSJ article cites a stat from the Freelancers Union that 77% of their members have clients who didn't pay at least once. Frankly, that seems low, unless a lot of their members haven't been around very long.

In any case, their first few solutions are what I use for my own business--no rocket science, just common sense: Don't be embarrassed about asking for what you're owed, try going straight to accounting if you're getting a runaround, withhold future work (politely but firmly), and offer alternative payment plans (two or three installments, for example).

The other three solutions, however, come with caveats. "Consider adding late fees," as the author admits, may get you labeled as high maintenance. "Consider working with freelance-liaison firms" is all well and good if you want to go the Guru or oDesk route, but as I've said many times here, I don't. And the final solution, "Sue the company in small claims court," isn't something I particularly want to get involved in. Mercifully, I've never gotten skunked on a job large enough that would have made it worth the money and psychological capital to pursue.

Here's the deal: The riskiest job is the first job you do with someone, particularly in a crappy economy. So, some suggestions in addition to those above...

• Be realistic. If you're soliciting new business now, you need to accept that there will be flakeouts. I experienced it in 2000-01, the same thing is true now, and it's part of being in business for yourself. Don't spend the money before the check has cleared.
  
• Request a deposit on new jobs and on existing clients who have had payment challenges in the past. This serves a tri-fold purpose: 1) It gets you some money upfront, 2) it confirms that the client is serious and 3) it provides some negotiating leverage. If someone won't agree to pay a deposit, that is a major slow-pay/no-pay warning sign.
  
• Be patient. The best way to ensure you get paid on time is to work for people with whom you've developed a business relationship of trust. There are no shortcuts.
  

I was hoping to find a guy wearing the traditional barrel-and-suspenders outfit for today's clip art, but no luck.

*The Wall Street Journal is the only online subscription that I pay to receive, and it is absolutely worth the $103 a year.

The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup principle, in action

During the '70s and '80s, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups ran a famous ad campaign in which a person carrying a chocolate bar and another carrying a jar of peanut butter would run into each other, and, after a flash of indignation, discover what a delicious combination the two flavors made together. I'd rank it as one of the most memorable ads of my childhood.

So, this morning, a college friend of mine alerted me to the Venn diagram you see above, while a post over at the rough-and-tumble Why Advertising Sucks raised a discussion about how you define success, and how others often try to define it for you.

To me, standing at the intersection of visual diagram and blog post, it seemed like peanut butter smashing into chocolate--better together than separate.

At the risk of going all Zen on you, I offer no answers of my own here--I only suggest that each one illuminates simple truths that are worth pondering for yourself.

Note: In the interest of giving credit where it's due, there's also a discussion about the "How to be happy in business" diagram over at What Consumes Me, the blogging home of its creator, Bud Caddell.

How do you treat your one-off clients?

In an ideal world, a creative in the marketing/advertising space lives in a sort of Lake Wobegon of clients--everyone's smart, loyal, pays well and has above-average products and services for you to work with. Alas, we don't live in that world.

So I think back to a day on my cross-country drive, somewhere in Nowheresville, Texas. I'd stopped at a little diner for gas and lunch, and was astounded by the friendliness of the crew--big smiles and hearty howdoyoudos as if I were a long-lost cousin whom they'd been expecting all along. The chicken sandwich, fried okra, and shake were splendid.

Realistically, though, what's the business benefit to acting like that? I have to imagine 99.99% of their traffic is from passers-through who'll never be back, and who couldn't possibly offer word-of-mouth benefits.

Anyway, my reason for bringing it up is that they taught me a simple, elegant lesson that stuck with me: Even a one-off client is worth your best effort, just for the sheer principle of the matter. I feel obligated to pass this little diner's story along. Maybe that's why they do it.

The photo is our dog, Bagheera, posing in the wee hours in front of the trailer we towed from Phoenix to Fredericton. I bought it from a farrier, but have since removed the upper lettering so that it reads "Experienced * Dependable"...because I'd be unable to shoe someone's horse if asked.

Do Millennials have the right entrepreneurial stuff?

As a dad and rowing coach who spends a lot of time with GenY/Net Generation/Millennials, I thought this Forbes article offered some interesting insights about the impact of social factors on the up-and-coming generation's business style. It's worth reading the whole thing, but the author's basic thesis is that Millies may be a bit too interested in consensus (thanks, Barney) to have the negotiating knack and bullheaded streak an entrepreneur requires.

The skeptic in me has always been a bit wary about broad-brushing an entire generation--I'm more inclined to think there's a bell curve to it. Sure, I'm a guilty-as-charged GenXer, but I know plenty of people in my cohort who don't fit the type. It often smacks of simplistic marketing.

On the other hand, the phrase "The Everybody Gets A Trophy generation" made me laugh out loud. Scary true, and my kids' bookshelves prove it.