Try This
By WaltKania
This is a spooky phenomenon that I cannot explain. Don’t ask me what’s behind it, or how it works.
But you can apparently invoke this to your advantage, almost at will.
Let’s say your workload starts to slow down. Or you want to expand your stable of true fans. Or maybe you’re just itching for fresh faces and different work.
So you start to reach out more. Instead of waiting, you begin pursuing.
You contact a few companies you’d like to work with. You call people you haven’t spoken to in a while. You send ideas to your clients to plant the seeds for new assignments. You hustle.
And after a few days of this, or maybe a week, or even two weeks, lo and behold, new stuff happens.
New work shows up. New clients ask about a project or two. Inquiries land in your inbox. The pot begins to bubble again.
But here’s the odd part: none of the new stuff comes from the people or projects you were chasing. None of it.
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Starting Out
By WaltKania
What if you haven’t amassed a huge body of work to show clients?
Re-do something that bugs you. Alan Siegel re-imagined the typical credit card agreement. Opened some eyes with it, too.
Or what if your portfolio is 82% skunk work that you’d rather keep under the bed?
No problem.
Dazzle them with makeovers. Redesigns. Rewrites.
It’s actually a more interesting way to convey your skills, your voice, your sensibilities.
Befores and afters
Find some website home pages, or marketing copy, or photos, or interfaces, or whatever it is you make.
Then re-cast them as YOU would do them.
Pick examples that bug you. Or examples from the types of clients you want to work with.
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Try This
By WaltKania
For ideas on the marketing side of freelancing, read Seth Godin. The refrain: Be unforgettably remarkable or go home.
For help with the head-game, creative, staying-sane part, read Steven Pressfield: Amazing stuff happens when you quit diddling and do your work.
Today Pressfield interviews Godin as part of a new series on the creative [...]
Try This
By WaltKania
How much stuff do you need on your freelance web site? How many words, pictures, samples, blog posts and pages does it take to prompt a phone call or inquiry?
Probably a lot less than you think. (Well, way less than I used to think.)
Click for the full effect. All 6kb of it.
I’ve been all over the map on this question. I’ve tried fat and rich websites. And bare bones. And in between.
But I’m thinking there’s a lot of power in being more lean. Laconic. Not so talkative. It’s smarter not to say everything. Let the customer fill in the rest, the way they want to.
Example. I’ve bumped into this web site for Oak Studios several times now, and have always been intrigued.
Continue . . . »
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