I catch myself doing this from time to time. And I always want to slap myself.

It’s what Mike Monteiro of Mule Design calls ‘negotiating on behalf of the client.’

Which means, when wrestling with an estimate or a quote or a proposal, we end up finding all sorts of reasons to lower the fee. I was a master at this.

“Don’t get too greedy here, champ. Might be plenty of work behind this . . . These little companies never have any money . . . I could really, really use an assignment for next week . . . I don’t have a ton of experience with this yet . . . I bet they are talking to three other freelancers who are really cheap . . . I bet they are talking to freelancers who are really expensive . . . This is my one chance at this client . . . Once I do a few of these, I can really crank them out fast . . .”

All this is before a client actually bitches about the price, mind you.

These are just voices in our heads.

We need to quit that. We need to quit bargaining against ourselves. It’s not our job.

Why do we do this?

I know, I know, the obvious reason is that we’re afraid we won’t get the assignment. Because of ‘the economy’ and ‘rampant competition’ and nobody has any money. We need to be competitive and realistic and reasonable.

And there’s the magical belief that the lower your fee, the better your chance of getting the job. Low price, lower resistance, more chance of work.

Phooey. If that were true, the cheaper freelancers would be the busiest. They would be scooping up the all the assignments. Which ain’t remotely so.

The real reason for bargaining ourselves down is a little more embarrassing.

We’re chicken.

Sometimes, it feels safer being cheaper. It’s easier to hide down there in the small digits.

Charging a lot feels scary. “What will the client want for all that?” “How good will I have to be?” “I don’t want all that hassle.”

(This is all before the client says a word, mind you.)

With a higher fee, your brain thinks you’re really sticking yourself out there. Which is mostly imaginary, of course.

Me, I lost thousands one year just because one client, one rude client said, “Holy cow, kid. You have one hugely inflated opinion of yourself. You ain’t nearly that good.”

I was so gun shy after that, I went in low for months, even before the client said a thing. I bargained myself down just fine. The clients never had to say a word. It cost me maybe the price of a car.

But it sure felt safer. More comfortable.

It wasn’t of course. It was just me being chicken.

If the client beefs and tries to beat down the fee, that’s one thing. From there, you get to decide yes or no. That’s your call.

But don’t beat yourself up first. Even if it feels the safer way out.

- – -

You might also like this:

Pricing is Mostly in Your Head.

It’s a Freelancery guest post on Lori Widmer’s Words on the Page blog.

1.

You should lose at least one out of four assignments because you’re too expensive. If you land every job, you’re not charging enough, or, you are irresistibly charming. Either way, you should charge more.

2.

Time from first contact with a client, to seeing any money from them: minimum 30 days. Yes, even if you get money up front. It will take them that long to decide. There is no fast money. Especially when you need it.

3.

To accurately figure out how long a job will take, give it your best estimate, then add 10%. Then double it. Then ditch that number and recalculate. You will still be wrong. If it takes less time than you figured, you forgot something. Or the client will hate it.

4.

For every person on the client side who must approve your work, add 12% to the fee.  (20% for any spouse or brother-in-law.)

5.

For every ten new people you talk to, five will call you back. Three will try you on an assignment. One will turn out to be a long-term client with a decent budget. Somewhere in there will also be a lunatic. Just hope it’s not the one with the money.

6.

To determine your hourly rate, start with the annual income you need. Divide by 2,000. Take your monthly expenses, divide by 160. Add. Or just pick $150 per hour and see what happens.

7.

The day after you receive a huge check, your productivity will drop an average of 82%.

8.

Technically, there are always two days of leeway in any deadline. If you’re running behind, it’s three days.

9.

On a $1000 project, you will need to endure $1000 worth of pain and effort. For a $300 project, it’s about the same.

10.

When discussing your fee, every time you say ‘Um. . .’ you give away 15%. If you clear your throat, you’re working for minimum wage.

—

Now, continue to:

The Freelancer’s Right to Bail™

 The Freelancer’s Soul-Saving Mind Hack

Maybe it’s some nuisance item to be checked off a to-do list. Or maybe it’s something they need, kind of, but it doesn’t matter how good it is, or who does it. You are auto insurance.  Gutter cleaning. Someone to mow the lawn.

No, this not about your value as a human being, your worth on this planet. It’s only about how the client perceives things.

They want someone to ‘write up some verbage’ for the website.*  Someone to put these instructions into French, so we can get this stuff shipped to Canada. Someone to draw a picture of a swordfish for our menus. I have worked this low country, writing two-line descriptions for 63 varieties of electrical cable. It was mostly typing.

Your only chance here is to be the cheapest, fastest, most convenient one around. And even then, you will make more money mowing lawns. Move on. Wrong work, wrong clients.

—

Next worse place is where your clients care about the work, mostly, but don’t have the money.

The local cupcake shop needs a website. But they only have $427. They will drive you insane for that $427. The only hope here is to be impossibly fast, efficient, and still cheap. Recycle and reuse. Do them by the dozen. Keep your overhead low.

Long-term potential: zero. Take this stuff to start, then move on up. Right work, wrong clients.

—-

Then, there are clients who have the money, but the project is rather low priority. It’s not make or break. They don’t live or die by their logos, their social media, or how well their website reads in German.

I’m sitting on three of these toothache clients right now, all referrals from friends who I wanted to accommodate. The problem: they delay and cancel conference calls. They don’t look at stuff you sent a week ago. There is no urgency. Projects drag. You will get paid, but the project will take forever.

It’s not your fault. Their minds are elsewhere.  Right work, wrong clients.

Bottom line: Take these when you must. You will not get prime rate, nor find any repeat business here. Charge money up front: No check, no start. Keep looking.

—

Maybe you’re doing something that is clearly needed, well-recognized, but clients perceive it as relatively low value, routine, or a commodity.

They’d never think of publishing without proofreading and copyediting, but well, there’s only so much they’d pay for that.

After all, the website for the Editorial Freelancers Association says proofreading should cost $30 to $35 per hour. Copyediting, light: $40.

Your options? It’s hard to be seen as a genius rock star here. Try being delightfully fun to work with. Or robotically and rigidly punctual. Maybe you can be surprisingly fast. (By fast, you mean “By Friday,” not “Just an hour and a half.”) You can get maybe 20% more per hour.

Or specialize in an impossibly arcane and ugly form of proofreading or copyediting, such as SEC filings EU publications, or pharmaceutical submissions to the FDA. You will want to die, but you might get double per hour.

—

Next to best, is working with clients whose business depends heavily on what you do. The e-commerce website manager who needs kick-ass designers and coders. The news publication that publishes in three languages. The upstart tech company trying hard to compete with fat-cat corporations. They use a lot of what you make, and they care.

Or maybe it’s the manager or coordinator whose job is to buy what you do.

The marketing guy, the global relations manager, the technical editor, the publications director. They are looking for writers, translators, illustrators. It’s what they do. They have budgets. Their careers depend on looking good.

But, it also means they assuredly have freelancers on their rosters already. Sometimes, they are hard to get to. It can take time to win them over and get yourself a chance. But they can’t survive without you, or at least people like you. They are worth the chase.

Anyone who has made a big splash in the business works for people like this. That’s where your career is. They are pro buyers. You should start looking for them the first day you go freelance.

—-

Oh, and there is the client in pain. The client dangling off a cliff.

A month ago, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, needed to respond to a shitstorm of bad publicity in China. So he issued a statement in Chinese.

I can guarantee you whoever did that translation wasn’t charging the usual XX dollars per 250 words. There might have been nine translators working that, some from the Chinese side, some from the English side.  I don’t know. Maybe they worked all night. I don’t know.

But for sure, there were some handsome fees changing hands there. People got noticed, got on  lists.

There is money in being a savior.

—

* Just for the record it’s not ‘verbage’ but ‘verbiage’, which connotes blather of too many words. When people ask for that, I usally recommend cabbage instead.

I had no writing credentials, no body of work. My track record was about as long as my thumb.

Also, most of my clients were much older than me. They saw me as some slightly amusing kid.

The only way to get around my lack of experience, the only way to get a crack at an assignment was to be bold, opinionated, and irreverent.

I expounded from books I had read, or pontificated straight out of my ass.

The vibe was — although I never actually said it — you can get way better work than the stuff you have now.

All I could do was promise freshness, surprise, something new. Not the same old stuff.

“Let me try something. If you hate it, fire me.”

Many times they fired me, but sometimes they didn’t. I gathered some clients.

. . .

Years later, most of my clients were about my age. We were contemporaries at the same stages in our careers. We saw each other in each other. We worked like co-conspirators, doing cool stuff to wow the higher-ups, to dazzle the rookies with our consummate skill. Things were good.

. . .

Over time, though, those folks moved on.

My clients started to get younger than me. Then younger and younger all the time. (On the phone, they sometimes sounded like they were thirteen for chrissakes.) That worried me.

So I cleverly decided to change my pitch and ‘rebrand’ myself.

Instead of the bold and irreverent kid, I was now the cagey and wily veteran, the scarred and savvy writer who had grappled with every marketing issue there ever was, at least nine times each.

I had a barge load of experience now, so I played up my 97 years at the keyboard, the 4,998 projects I delivered, in every medium and venue, with a track record four miles long. I was the repository, the archives of know-how. Experience on rails.

And mostly, people yawned.

Never got much traction with the ‘wily veteran’ thing.

Apparently, after you have about 7 years of experience, no one cares any more. “Over 26 years of experience” doesn’t win you any more points or land you any more work. In fact, I think it suggests calcification, rigidity, recycling of ideas. (“Geez, this old gal was copyediting when I was nine years old.”)

Then I figured it out.

I was yacking about experience and track record when what they really wanted to buy was sharply-done work. Work that would make them look good. Who cared that I’d been doing this since the 1900′s? Nobody.

What worked was to go back into newbie mode.

The only way to get around my too-long experience, the only way to get a crack at an assignment was to be bold, opinionated, and irreverent.

I expounded and pontificated and challenged the ‘conventional’ wisdom.

The vibe was — although I never actually said it — you can get way better work than the stuff you have now.

All I could do was promise freshness, surprise, something new. Not the same old stuff.

“Let me try something. If you hate it, fire me.”

Low-baggage, higher-income freelancing.

That’s because the freelance business model is inherently simple. Elegantly simple.

The simpler you keep it, the more profitable it is. You’ll be happier when you’re working pure. The business screams for simplicity.

Whenever my fellow bandits and I have driven ourselves into a ditch, it’s because we made things too complicated, or we jumped out of the truck to go chasing rabbits.

Start winnowing this afternoon. You will feel lighter and cleaner.

Less stuff, more work

How much gear does it take to ply your trade?

I bet it would all fit in a backpack. It would certainly fit in the overhead compartment.

What do you need, really?

A laptop, some software, an internet connection. Probably a cell phone. The email addresses of people you know.

Maybe all you need is your paintbox and easel. If you’re a designer, or if you write code, get a big monitor if you want.

Okay, and those pens you like.

But everything else is just baggage. The weight of it will drag you down and complicate things. Worse, that extraneous stuff will steal brain cycles from what matters.

When a hurricane knocked out my power for eleven days, I had to work like Charles Dickens, writing in pencil on lined paper near the light of a window. And by candle at night.

Yes, writing copy 1880′s-style was a pain in the ass, but it was a revelation. (For like the third time.) I realized I could still do 92% of what really matters in my business, which is putting new sentences on a blank page. It was just me and the work. That’s where the money is. All that gear I had to plug in? Peripheral convenience, maybe. Not core.

Leo Tolstoy built the 938 pages of War and Peace with only a pen and some bottles of ink. Legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson reinvented photojournalism with a simple camera and a basic 50mm lens. Do I truly need a room full of electronic crap to write a 700-word article?

I’m not arguing against tools or technology. I’m advising you to stop needlessly cluttering up your business life with stuff that doesn’t matter, with junk that lets you pretend you are actually doing something. I can scold you only because I am a master at diverting myself with such nonsense.

For years I was addicted to Staples office supplies. I would buy baskets of notepads, sticky notes, microfiber mouse pads, colored file folders, bulldog clips. I would agonize between the narrow-ruled, or wide-ruled composition books. Each time, I thought I had found the secret getting my act together, finding my identity.

None of it made a lick of difference. Ever. 

I would fantasize what they’d say about me, the ingeniously famous copywriter, in that article they were going to write.  “His favored tools? The decidedly retro Palomino Blackwing pencils 602 with the removable erasers, and the Field Notes FN-02 plain paper version.”  They never wrote that article, never asked me that. I bought those pencils for nothing.

I had the same problem with apps. Each new download was going to make me a killer copywriting machine.

Never happened. Not once.

The rule is, if the app hasn’t made you $63,000 or more, or you haven’t touched it in a month, delete the thing. It is just mud on your shoes.

If you manage to double your business this year, it won’t be because you switched to online invoicing, or because you chose Emma over Mail Chimp for your email campaign, or because you fired up Notational Velocity, or because you integrated Pinterest, Twitter, and Google+ into your social media strategy.

It will be because you got really good, and found a way to delight some clients, or thought of something interesting to say. Everything else is the in the 10% category, “other.”

Clean out your head

You don’t need a productivity tool. You don’t need ‘Getting things done.’ That is for coporate drones.

Here’s the lean and simple version.

First thing, when you hit the desk in the morning, dig into the paying work that is on your desk.

Do the paying work first. Start with the work nearest to an invoice.

When you finish with the paying work, look for other work. You send emails, offer ideas, do estimates and proposals, contact people you once worked with, talk to colleagues about getting referrals. You check in with your best clients.

Or  – but be careful here —  you’re creating things that will attract clients.

Maybe a blog, an online portfolio, provocative articles, prototypes, YouTube videos. I say be careful because it’s easy to get sucked deep into the technicalities and busywork of it all and forget what you’re doing. You are trying to attract clients, or to build something to link to when you contact them. Simple.

You have one plan for the day. You’re delivering work, or you’re talking to people about work. You cannot make it simpler. You can only gum it up.

The proportions will change day to day. But the to-do list is always the same. Do not over-think this.

Empty the junk drawer

This morning I saw that someone had unsubscribed from the The Freelancery. I don’t know who it was.

My first reaction was that sting of rejection. Someone found the blog useless. Or they moved on.

Either way, ouch.

But whoever it was, they did the right thing. They’re streamlining, lightening the load.

Wait, I didn’t mean that.

It matters. Feeling like a pro helps you get through the day. And when you’re a pro, clients sense it.

I thought I became a ‘professional’ the first time I wrote some stuff and got paid for it.

I hung out my sign. I landed an assignment. They gave me a check.

Ergo, a pro.

Not quite.

Later, when my sole source of income was writing copy for money, I could fill out forms and applications and list my occupation as Writer.

Under ‘Employer’ I could write Self’.

A pro.

But that wasn’t it, either.

Once, I was on a conference call with four marketing people at a fancy corporation. They all made much more money than me. They had MBAs and ran big departments. They were blathering about how to handle this project.

None of them had any clue how to write this, how to crack this nut.

I was listening, not saying anything. I was thinking “Duh, guys, this is not rocket surgery. I know exactly how to do this.”

I felt a little pro there.

Another time, I was on a conference call with some very smart people at a fancy agency. None of them had any clue what to do, how to crack this nut.

I was listening, not saying anything. I was thinking, “Hell, I have no idea how to do this, either.”

But I wasn’t worried. I trusted that when I got to the keyboard and started typing, the answer would eventually show up. As long as I did the work, things would happen.

I felt pretty pro there.

My designer friend Dave, who is even more grizzled than me, adds these:

“Here’s a pro: When your insides are cramping and bubbling with some intestinal malady, or your personal life is in high drama, or it’s one of those days you feel like a no-talent impostor, you can still put a solid and workmanlike job on the client’s desk. Pros aren’t fragile. Pros can work in the rain.”

I love this one from fellow writer Ivana:

“When the client craps all over your work, ticking off 23 things that are wrong with it (most of which she asked for) and all you want to do is fire off a diatribe refuting each point in withering detail, while simultaneously making obscene gestures at the screen with both arms.”

“Either that, or you want to quit.”

“But the next morning you put all that aside, and figure out how to push the thing forward anyway. That is pro.”

“You have to stand back a bit from what you do. You can’t tie your ego too closely with your craft, your skill. Don’t confuse what you do with who you are.That’s amateur.

“It’s never about you. It’s about the work.”

When the bell rings, when the curtain goes up, you’re on. And you’re ready.

That is pro.

If you get famous at your craft, it will be under your name. Not under something like The Write Stuff. 

If you are truly a company, meaning you have nine or eleven or three people working for you, then bill yourself as a company if you wish.

But for what you and I do all day, your name is always better, even if you do run a company.

Andy Warhol had twenty or thirty people doing paintings and artwork for him. It was a company. But people remember Andy Warhol, not “PopArt Creative Associates.”

I know, the idea is, if you bill yourself as company, or a design studio, or a translation group, or a marketing agency, you will seem bigger, more respectable.

No you won’t.

I get emails all the time that say, “I’m Dan Melnick, CEO of Content Creations, Inc.” Of course, when I check out the web site, it’s clear there is only Dan and maybe a part-time assistant or dogwalker. Phony pretension. It ain’t fooling clients, either.

(Just for the record: Unless you have more than 120 employees you are NOT the CEO. When you have oh, say, 12 Officers, and perhaps four of them are Executive Officers, and of those, you are the Chief one, then you can anoint yourself CEO. Otherwise, it is a flatulent title.)

Or perhaps, it’s your goal to build a company some day.

Then wait till you build one. And even then, you’d be better off going from “Maria Sante” to “Maria Sante Studio.”  It will still be you, only bigger.

Or, there’s the notion that if you call yourself BatShit Crazy Design, it will be far more ‘catchy’ and memorable than using your name, which may be uninspiring.

Maybe. But all you’re doing is giving clients more things to remember, more things to figure out.

Better to say, “Stan Morgan, BatShit Crazy.”  Everyone will get that. And they’ll know exactly who they’re working with.

If you have a company name now, maybe because you did an LLC or Corp, or your country requires a business name, or you registered the domain name, that’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Use it on your official invoices, or government paperwork.

I’m guessing most clients don’t know, or don’t remember, that company name anyway.

They say “I work with Amy Lerner.”  ”Hey, call Ivan Rabova. He’s good.”

Go with your name first.

Be you.

“I’m much too introverted to freelance,” she said. “I could never go out and sell myself.”

Whoa, I thought. That’s an interesting perception. And so utterly backwards.

If anything, freelancing is the ideal career for us card-carrying introverts. You can freelance your way to fame, fortune, and freedom without undue schmoozing or “going out and selling yourself.”

(You can also freelance admirably well as an officially-diagnosed extravert, too. Although you’ll do it differently. More about that in a minute.)

Just for review, here’s what we’re talking about:

If you’re an introvert, it does not mean you’re shy, or insecure, a hermit or a misanthrope.

It just means you’re perfectly comfortable being alone, intently working, reading, making something, figuring things out. Your brain works best when the office door is closed.

You enjoy the company of other people just fine, but only one or two of them at a time. And not all day.

To you, having a clear calendar on a Tuesday, with no meetings or conference calls, is a gift from heaven.

After enduring a three-hour, nine-person meeting, your head is spinning. You say, “Thank God. Now I can get something done.”

At a party among strangers, you can be charming and engaging enough, perhaps even irresistible. (That is me, in spades.) But it’s work. It drains you. After a couple hours of non-stop conversation, you are nudging your spouse toward the door. (That is me, in spades.)

And for every hour of such socializing, you require four hours of not socializing to recharge. Preferably five.

If you’re an extravert, it doesn’t mean you are super confident, cheerful, likable, or devoted to humanity.

It only means you feel most energized and alive when around people. The more, the better. You are happiest at weddings, conferences, meetings, presentations, banquets, conference calls, sales calls. You draw strength from the multitudes.

You can work alone in the office when you must. But after 56 minutes (at most) the solitary confinement becomes intolerable. You reach for the phone (without realizing it), or call a meeting, or head out in search of other humans. Your brain works best when you’re talking, presenting, collaborating, arguing, and bouncing ideas around. You are most productive on your feet, in a room full of people, freewheeling and jotting on a whiteboard. A clear calendar is depressing.

After a two-hour meeting, you are jazzed up. “Man, we got a lot done.”

At a party, you hold court in groups of three or four.  You move around a lot. And you’re the one being nudged by your partner, usually around 1:15 am. But instead of going home, you just downsize. You invite a smaller group out for drinks to keep things going.

Yes, overly simplified. But enough for now.

Who we are

According to writer Susan Cain, who has a book and a TED talk on the subject, about 30% of the free-living population are introverts. Maybe 60% or more are extraverts. The world is stacked that way.

But among us freelancers, it’s the other way around.

Don’t ask me for data, but at least 70% of us sole practitioners lean toward the introvert end of the scale.

It makes sense. Introverts are naturally drawn to the crafts, trades, and disciplines that are practiced solo — not the kind of work you do in a crowd. We like to draw, program, write, design, carve, compose, translate, fix things. Give us a block of stone, a chisel, and four hours alone, we’re happy. Working on a committee?  Blech.

Sure, eight people in a room can ‘brainstorm’ a marketing campaign with all sorts of synergystical magic. (Or constipated groupthink, whatever.) But you can’t write the web site that way. Someone needs to sit at the desk and craft the damn thing.

That’s where introverts come in.

We’re the people who go deep, then come back with something good.

You can build a hell of a freelance career doing that.

Yes, but what about “going out and selling yourself?”

Forget that. Not necessary at all, at least the way most people think of “selling”.

How introverts freelance

I love how a grey-beard illustrator thinks of it : ”I send my work out there to meet people and shake hands. I’m better off staying here and drawing.”

Fact is, most freelancers win clients on the strength of their work and their ideas, how well they deliver what clients like. It’s not about force of personality or charisma, or being the most vocal at a meeting.

You do your “selling” the way you prefer to work: with time to think.

All the ‘good stuff’ about yourself, the part where you’re a genius and all, the things you could never blather about in person, that goes on your website. Or your CV. Or your blog. You fill a portfolio with work. Or even speculative, experimental work. Or you do a video “interview” with yourself.

You expand your reach by contributing articles, participating in forums, sending pleasant emails to other freelancers. You’re a writer, contact designers. Send a note to someone whose work you like.

Instead of working the room wearing a smile and name tag, you send a few thoughtful emails to companies or agencies you might like to work with. Send some sketches or doodles. Whatever it is you do.

Of course, you’re keeping in touch with everyone you already know. And oddly enough, I think introverts are more comfortable with a small group of tight working relationships. We’re better at one-to-one, I think, than the extravert who wants to know everyone, who always wants to invite others into the conversation. Not needed. You can build a thriving career on Ten True Fans.

And when a client does call, you listen more than you talk. You keep saying, “Hmm, tell me more.” Unlike our extravert brethren, we don’t try to talk our way into friendship, or talk our way into a sale. We shut up and let the client talk. They like that.

Instead of talking about yourself, or trying to wing it and kick ideas around, you tell them their project is intriguing and you’d like to think about it for a bit, and get back to them with some ideas.

Which means you get to hang up, and figure it out. You think for a day, or a morning, and spend an hour or so tinkering with an email, or some quick doodles, or something to send back. No socializing needed. Or, you can say, “No thanks.”

You can touch 24 people in an afternoon like this, without subjecting yourself to an exhausting meet-and-greet, industry conference, or client meeting. Yes, in a pinch, you can do all of that. But it’s not you. It takes way too much prep, too much energy. Cede that territory to people who live for it.

I know, there are pressures to be more outgoing, more dynamic, more dazzling in a crowd. The world gives status points for that. And you’ll hear advice about ‘stepping outside your comfort zone’, ‘putting yourself out there.’  ’Do what you’re afraid to do.’  In other words, to be more successful, you have to be an extravert.  No you don’t.

It’s always better to go with your own grain. Do what you’re good at, how your brain works. You will never out-socialize an extravert.

And an extravert will never out-deep you.

How extraverts freelance

Don’t get me wrong. I love extraverts. I always wanted to date them. (The female ones at least.)  I like to watch the full-on extraverts at a backyard party in the summer — wondering how the hell they think of so many things to say. (But still wanting to leave after an hour or so.)

As freelancers, though, they go a different route.

My friend Laurie came from the publishing world. She quit her job because of the politics and low pay. But when she went freelance, writing technical manuals and training books, she damn near went crazy.

She was not cut out to spend all day by herself writing. In time, she morphed into actually doing the training, giving courses, working closely with companies surveying employees, trying to figure out what instruction would be most helpful. She’s freelance, but spends all day in meetings and classes.

Very similar story with a graphic designer I worked with a few years back. In the busy hubbub of an agency, with people around all day, she was comfortable.

Freelancing on her own, doing identities and logos, she was way too fidgety. Last I heard, she was a ‘branding consultant’. She does this participatory thing, where she helps executives think through what they want to be as company. They brainstorm things at meetings, sketch out logos in groups, develop ‘brand messages.’  She is in the studio maybe one day a week, four days at clients’ offices. She naturally gravitated toward clients who wanted a facilitator, a collaborator  They like participating in the whole process.

Often, an innie will team up with an outie. Stacy, who did the work, partnered with Brian who landed clients, did lunches, and got meetings. In a way, they were the perfect complements.

But within eight months, they had weekly shouting matches in the office, each claiming they were the only one doing anything. The partnership ended in a fistfight in the parking lot.

A week later, though, Brian had four new clients. And Stacy had the office to himself again.

—

Outtakes:

Things I cut from the piece, because they didn’t quite fit, and because you’re supposed to ‘kill all your darlings, but I thought I’d used them anyway:

—-

There are days when I wish I could just do the talking, pestering, cajoling, negotiating, and then get paid.  In fact, there’s a common bitching point in my circle of bandits: So now, after two lunches, six conference calls, two amended proposals, a long call with the boss, two more conference calls, and six days of waiting I have simply won the right to spend 67 hours actually doing the damn work.

- – -

Extraverts may love people. But that doesn’t mean people necessarily like being around them. You can be an irritating extravert, too.

—

I once worked with video producer who didn’t like to “think too much” about a presentation. He preferred to walk in and wing it. (Me, I would need to pace around my office for like a day practicing aloud, rehearsing until my mouth went dry.)  He thought better when he was talking. I think better before talking.

—

Extraverts send much shorter emails. I’m trying gamely to work with a client who’s a non-stop talker, but shitty emailer.  ”Just make the opening section about how we care about the industry and. . . . etc. etc, and so on. Call me.”

—

First of all, you can’t go out there and sell yourself as if you were an insurance policy or a used car. I tried that. I’m embarrassed to say, I read books on salesmanship. I learned techniques like the ‘forced-choice close’, the ‘alternate advance’ and the ‘hook and tie-down.’ In practice it was painful. One client said, “Geez, that was the worst forced-choice close I ever heard.”

—

How do you play it? How eager should you sound?

The answer is:  About 74% eager.

And be eager about the right thing.

I have gotten this wrong about eleven different ways.

Example.

I noticed that when I tried to turn down a project, or a potential client, for whatever reason, they would often keep calling anyway.

Many times — not always, but sometimes — they would come back with “If your schedule is tight now, would April work better?. . . “Actually, we could get more budget for this if needed . . .”  or, “You wouldn’t have to handle the technical section. We would write that in-house.”

Hmm. It gave me a genius idea. The trick was to play hard to get. At least a little. It’s human nature to lust for that shiny apple just out of reach, right?

You see, with my consummate skill, I was in such demand that, well, sometimes it’s difficult to get me. And you sorta have to sell me on the project.

So for a while there, I went 32% eager. (Same as 68% aloof, technically.)

When a call came in, I would do that thing where you pout out your lower lip and blow upward to lift the hair off your forehead. “I’ll have to look at the schedule here. Could I get back to you tomorrow?” . . . or “You sell conveyor systems? Gee, that sounds . . . well, uh.  Can I get back to you tomorrow?”

But I would be clever. I wouldn’t email them until the day after tomorrow, when their desire had simmered to a fever pitch.

Of course, by then, the client was happily working with another freelancer who wasn’t such an arrogant ass. “Oh, sorry. We figured you didn’t give a shit.”

Hmm.

So I did the prudent thing. I swung wildly to the opposite extreme.

I started leaping all over every project, inquiry, or half-serious email that came in the door. I went 104% eager, several points into irritating range.

I was a-bubble with energy, percolating with confidence. “Yep. Can do it by Friday, sure”. . . “Yes, I’ve done 87 projects just like this” . . . “I can send you samples”  . . . “Whatever you want.”

After all, who wouldn’t want an enthusiastic freelancer?

I would email them every nine hours. “Just wondering, have you made a decision yet?” . . .  ”Just wanted to send these references ” . . . “We might be able to do this for about $200 less if that’s an issue” . . . “Here’s my cell number in case you need to call after midnight.”

And, naturally, they shunned me as if I had festering sores and bad breath.

I reeked of desperation, like a starving loser who hadn’t done a job in weeks.

They didn’t see enthusiasm. They saw a pest-in-the ass.

There’s a PR director named Janis who, to this day, won’t open my emails.

Okay. What works?

You’re aching to land this person as a client. The project is dead-on perfect for you. There is apparently money here. This is the best thing to cross your desk this month.

How do you play it?

The pro move:  What intrigues you is the project. You are fascinated by the unique creative or technical issues. You’re attracted to the subject matter (which is dear to your heart).

You’re enlivened by the possibility of doing something cool, or breaking some new ground, or untangling this particular knot.

You are pretty sure, pretty confident, there is a way to do this.

Which means your follow-up is about the project. The client’s mission. Her challenge. What she is trying to do. She wants to feel that you’re engaged. That you get it.

(You know this, of course, because you’ve been listening more than talking.)

The discussion is always about them. Not you.

And it’s never that you want the job, never that you need the work right now, and heavens, never that you need the money. Even if you do.

Your follow-up email starts with, “I’ve been thinking. . . what if. . .”

Clients seem to love the notion that someone has been thinking about them.

You share ideas. You ask a few questions to clarify, to show you’re interested in the situation.

The overall vibe:  You’re interested. “Of the four things I’d want to do this month, this would be number two. Maybe number one. You’re on the right track here. I’d love to work on this.”  But, shrug, if it doesn’t come together this time, that’s okay. Let’s talk again sometime.”

The best closing line I have ever found for any email, proposal, follow-up, or phone call:

“This could be good.”

But how do you do that? 

I’ve been asking questions, swapping stories, and debating with my fellow bandits and independents. They include grizzled pros, as well as some annoyingly successful upstarts

All of us have racked up good years, galactically stellar years, and not-so-good years. What works? What doesn’t?

Some fascinating themes kept coming up again and again. I’m relaying them here.

We started in Part I, which involved focusing on having good days. And on skipping the happy resolutions and goal-setting. 

We continue . . .

—-

Cultivate some luck

None of us liked to talk too deeply about this. Partly for fear of jinxing it, and partly because the idea is a bit unsettling.

But it’s about as true as it gets: Your career can often be pushed along — at high velocity and on short notice — by luck. Pure dumb luck.

You can go from pooping along to soaring in a matter of weeks, all due to an unpredictable and random chain of collisions out there in the universe. But that is not entirely a bad thing.

I was once catapulted into a lucrative run of work for six months (where that 25K thing happened) primarily because a VP at a big technology company shattered her ankle on a ski trip.

A designer friend landed a semi-famous client mainly because she happened to be at her desk at 1:15 am, and answered her phone. “Ah, a fellow night owl,” said the client.

I guarantee you, there’s a scriptwriter out there who fell into an unexpected assignment last week only because I screwed up and couldn’t get to a meeting downtown and was summarily kicked off the project.

My friend Bill, a freelance composer and sound designer, started a side venture where he took parts from an old junk car and fashioned musical instruments from them. He wrote some original music and formed a band. But the concept never took off. He shelved the whole thing.

Six months later he got a call from a big-ass film company in Europe. They were creating a high-budget commercial for Ford. They had seen stories about his project. They wondered if he could create futuristic instruments from pieces of the new Ford. They had six figures to spend. Was he game? (Duh.)

For weeks, you send out emails, make calls, work your network. Nothing much happens. Then, when you’re about to apply for a job at Starbucks, you get a call from a friend of a friend of someone who was once your brother’s boss. You have no idea who he is, but he has plenty of money and inexplicably thinks you a genius.

Work can land on your desk through an improbable chain of hops, skips and ricochets that you couldn’t map out if you tried. It can make for a hell of a year. And it often does.

Does that seem unfair? Too capricious? It most certainly is. But all of us have seen it happen. All of us owe a chunk of our careers to luck no matter how much we like to think otherwise.

But there is a catch.

This is not an excuse to sit around and wait to be ‘discovered.’ That never works.

This is not an excuse to whine about not getting any breaks. Nor is it an excuse to bad-mouth that buffoon with no talent who blunders ass-first into a pile of money and recognition. (It is more professional to curse the guy only in private, to yourself.)

Okay. So what do?

“Sure as hell,” says a fellow writer even more veteran than me, “The minute I start counting on luck, and come to expect it, that’s when the freelance gods turn off the spigot. Those sons of bitches are smart.”  He tends toward ‘woo’ a bit. But he’s dead right.

You can’t force luck. But you can nurture it, set it up. But you can’t game it.

There’s an old golfer’s maxim: “The harder I practice, the luckier I get.”

So put yourself out there. You can’t get lucky holed up at your desk.

Put your work out there. Interview yourself on your web site on video. Designer Andrea Mignolo has released a bunch of WordPress themes out into the world. All for free. Her name and karma benefit immensely.

How many people even know you exist? (No this is not about PR, this is not ‘exposure’. This not about gaming SEO for your name. This is about making things and trying stuff.)

Send complimentary and appreciative emails to people. Make sure everyone you meet knows what you do. The more ping-pong balls you fire into the universe, the better your chance of bouncing off something good. Be generous. Encourage a young freelancer who is even more clueless than you. When you see something you like, send a note and say so. (Without asking for work.)

Most of the time, nothing will come of this. But do it well and sincerely and you will tip things in your favor. Just enough.

Here’s the other half of luck.

Be ready.

If your dream client called this afternoon, out of the blue, with a luscious high-profile project, could you pull it off? Would you have the chops?

(This is why, of course, you are always trying to get better. You are always honing and practicing. You want your spear limber and sharp. Just in case.)

Or if you really weren’t ‘qualified’, would you have the stones to try it anyway?

“Say yes first,” says my late-night designer. “You can always panic later if you want.”

Oh. And when you’re touched by luck, offer up some gratitude. Really. In whatever manner you wish. I don’t know why it should matter, but it most certainly makes a huge difference. Forget this at your peril.

Embrace that pain

Is there something about freelancing really sucks for you right now?

Something that causes a god-awful ache in your gut in the middle of the night? Something that chafes and burns at you all day long?

Good.

You have most of what you need to crank up your business a few notches. And fast.

Fact is, the more we thought about it, the more we realized that pain and discomfort are perhaps the most unsung, most unheralded motivators of freelancers and other human beings. Fear works, too. (Fear is just pain, anticipated.)

Most of us will run longer and faster away from pain, than we would run toward glory. That hazy, beckoning vision on the horizon? Nice. Pretty. But you’ll get much farther if something’s behind you, trying to chew your ass.

You know that freelancer with that cast-iron discipline, the endless energy and impeccable self-organization? The one who puts up five blog posts, wraps up three assignments, does a quick conference call, gets interviewed on a podcast, then has breakfast?  The kind of freelancer you want to smack, just once?

Here’s our observation:  What’s cranking this guy’s engine isn’t “ambition.” It’s not that he has built up his willpower. It’s not that he’s learned how to be ‘results-oriented’, or has mastered ‘productivity.’

What gets him up and working at 5:30 am is the absolutely intolerable thought of somehow not making 250K a year. The ghastly pain of crapping out. Having two empty hours in his schedule makes him twitch and fidget uncontrollably. He just can’t help himself. There is no decision-making, goal-setting, visualizing, daily affirmations or any such happy talk.

It’s just too painful not to do it. He cannot help himself. There is no discussion.

(And all those years I figured I was just lazy? Nah. I just have a higher pain tolerance, I guess.)

Watch the YouTube video of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. Watch the race where he doesn’t come in first. Notice the look on his face when he checks the scoreboard. He looks as if his liver had been pulled out and his dog just died.  I’m guessing that’s what pushed him into a cold practice pool every morning year after year. The spectre of coming in second was too awful to contemplate. So in he dove.

That’s the good thing about working from pain. You don’t have to remind yourself to get to work. You don’t have to write lists or read blog posts for inspiration. The itch is so bad, you get up and work. Sort of like a full-body case of restless leg syndrome. There is no sitting down.

And it doesn’t matter if you don’t know the fix, can’t figure out the right answer.

Okay, so what sort of pain propelled our renegades onward and upward?

“How about having to borrow from your daughter to make the mortgage? So humiliated, I kicked in the afterburners and cracked three big clients in 32 days. For work I was too scared to pursue before.”

“Trying to wangle assignments from creative directors fifteen years younger than me. And getting turned down.”

“At the desk at 9pm, plowing through most numbing, low-paying dreck there is. For clients who don’t give a shit. Just because it’s ‘safe.’”

“Seeing kick-ass design work on the web. And realizing I wasn’t doing anything like that.”

“Realizing that I’m clinging too hard to a craft that doesn’t much matter any more.”

“Watching the look in my wife’s face.”

“The thought of telling the kids we couldn’t go to the beach this summer.”

That’s the kind of pain that can change things, get things moving.

—

Man, I didn’t want to end this post on a down note. It took too long to write as it is. I was hoping it would be good.

Maybe this will pick it up.

Story.

I used to be far too intimidated by big, important clients. They had work. They had money. I wanted work, I wanted money. I was hoping they would give me some. I spent way too much time being intimidated.

Once, I was in a client’s office. (Back when we used to go to client’s offices.) He owned a big company.

We were sitting at his conference table. He was chewing me out. I was apparently hopeless and talent-less. Maybe I was. I was nineteen seconds from getting fired.

Anyway, back on his desk, his phone rang. He got up to answer it, but caught an ankle on the leg of the conference table. He fell and went skimming across the white oak floor, like a walrus in a suit.

A $200 shoe flew off. (The other $200 shoe stayed on.) A button popped on his shirt. His glasses went sideways. He flailed on the floor.

I went to help him up. He grabbed my hand, with his glasses all askew, and his stocking foot slipping on the floor. As I hoisted him up, he let loose a fart. There was no way to pretend it didn’t happen. It was a full-on executive fart.

When he finally got himself together again, he was a pussy cat. No more yelling at me. He realized he had lost some status.

Now, when I feel myself getting too intimidated by a client, by someone who seems way smarter and richer and better than me, I remember that incident.

I think, “I bet if you tripped over the conference table, and I went to help you up, things would pretty much even out here.”

And I feel better.

Did that help?