Articles And Guides On Freelancing

This guest post is brought to you by Francesca Geens, a UK based technology and productivity strategist, who loves nothing more than simplifying and untangling the way people do their work.

The problem with most articles on productivity is that they do one of two very annoying things.

They either list ten million ‘essential’ apps, or they prescribe the author’s own ‘system’.

Unfortunately, neither of these approaches results in the reader becoming more productive.

Why?

Because reading about and playing with a ton of new apps is one of the greatest productivity sucks around! You probably already have the right tools but you are not using them well.

The prescribed methodologies only work for a lucky few. Everyone else ends up more stressed because their new ‘system’ is not working for them.  That’s because everyone is different.

Isn’t there another way?

How about we look at what successful independent consultants do to be their most productive and effective selves?

No list of essential tools coming up folks. And plenty of different approaches.

Read on to build your own productivity toolbox.

Conferences are a hell of a lot of fun. When done right, they’re also very rewarding — both for the organizer and the attendees. I get to meet many of my customers in person, which to be honest is a bit of an ego boost. And the people who go usually get much more than they put into it… new connections, new friendships, and new ideas.

The problem is that from a business + focus perspective, DYFConf hasn’t been the best “product” for my company.

Every year we’ve either lost money or broken even.

Every year we’ve just barely had enough attendees (I was almost on the hook for paying for about a dozen empty hotel rooms last year because of how hotel group discount blocks work.)

Every year we’ve struggled to even secure 2 or 3 sponsors to help offset costs.

And every year it’s taken dozens of hours of time to promote, get speakers, deal with the venues, etc.

So from a purely business perspective — there are other things we should be doing. But until now, I’ve justified it. “It’s good for the brand. It’s good for attendees.”

“Choosing a niche,” or coming up with strong business positioning, is one of the most difficult exercises for many of the freelancers I’ve worked with over the years.

I think they point to a big disconnect between what niching actually is and what niching is thought to be.

What does it mean to niche?

Every transaction requires an application.

If I’m going to buy a new computer, justifying the purchase requires me to think about how I’ll use the laptop to better my business or my life. Why I end up buying a laptop is different than why you might buy that same laptop.

Likewise, hiring a freelancer (for the sake of argument, let’s say a freelance web designer) requires the business owner to rationalize how they’ll use the web designer to achieve the end they have in mind.

Consider for a moment the lifecycle that goes into hiring somebody like you:

1. A business becomes aware of a problem that they have
2. They realize that this problem can be solved
3. They then determine someone like you can solve the problem
4. They seek out people like you

That flow carries a lot of risk.

Companies that could benefit from working with you easily fall out of that funnel. Most businesses never realize that they even have a problem, or that it can be solved. And the ones who do realize that they have a solvable problem don’t know that finding someone like you is the best way to solve it.

For every one business that makes it to the end of that funnel, dozens or hundreds self-select out of it.

So to plant your flag and say “I’m a web designer, hire me!” you’re excluding a large part of the available market from ever finding you because they…

• Don’t know they have a problem that you can help them solve
• If they are aware of the problem, don’t know it can be solved
• Don’t know that a provider like you can solve their problem