Open Circles Academy - Business Bootcamp

Just two days to turn your business around

It wasn’t that I was sceptical really, I just came to Bootcamp with some measure of reserve. After all, since starting as a ZZPer (Sole proprietor) three years ago I have been to several seminars, workshops, training sessions. Effective? Some, not all. 

But, if I am perfectly honest, my business doesn’t resemble the vision I had for it when I started out. Oh, I am earning a living but I often feel frustrated and unfulfilled. But more than that, I find I am working from invoice to invoice and the vision I had of finally integrating my creative abilities into my daily activities has not been as structured as I had promised myself.

I took a month off in November, and wrote substantively on my latest novel, but when December came around and two potentially large jobs didn’t materialise and I didn’t have enough alternatives in the pipeline, depression set in. And creativity flew out the window.

So, with nothing to lose, I took myself off to Bootcamp.

It didn’t take long for me to throw off the reserve and throw myself into the weekend 100%. In Nisandeh’s (Neta) words:

I showed up

I participated

What I learned is too much to list.  But a couple of important insights were:

I do not need to stop writing in order to concentrate on the business. The writing is still where I feel the most passion. What I need do is see my writing as part of the business so I should take my quest for a publisher more seriously and set aside time for that in my agenda in the same way I plan the translations and copywriting (the current source of income). My writing is a potential source of passive income, which will liberate me from living from invoice to invoice.

I learned that it’s a good thing that I am able to see the big picture for others and to give useful advice. It doesn’t matter that this is free of charge. It’s the way I make a contribution at the moment. I have a knack for connecting people, so I will just do it, and not even think in terms of personal reward.

The contract I make with myself is just as binding as the one with someone else. If I break a promise to myself, I stop believing in myself. And if I stop believing in myself, how can I convince anyone else to believe in me?

It’s ok to ask for help and I don’t have to do everything alone. Multitasking is also not necessary and not beneficial. Plan the agenda and do one thing at a time.

The list goes on. I came away from Bootcamp overflowing with ideas. And how did I shift from being reserved to being bowled over? That’s the power of Bootcamp.

Bootcamp gives the insights, the tools and the motivation. But it’s what happens now that’s important. It’s the promise to implement the principles, set goals and stick to them, to keep going no matter what that will ensure success. That’s just for starters.

 One weekend that can turn your business around!

Speed dating for the small businessperson, in my hometown!

If anyone were to ask me to name one good thing to come of the current economic crisis, my answer would be, that it ´encouraged´ many of us to take matters into our own hands career wise. Company after company has been forced to downsize, declare bankruptcy or restart, sending many talented people home, jobless, and with little prospect of finding another position.

What do you do in an economy with limited opportunity and where, if you manage to find a job, in a buyer’s market, you never quite feel comfortable and at ease? You are, after all, only one of countless potential employees and if you do not meet the mark there’s a queue of people out there, some younger, some cheaper, some, though less experienced are more flexible ready to take your place, so be eternally grateful that you were chosen. Well, it’s hard to be grateful, spontaneous, and productive when you are constantly looking over your shoulder. It’s hard to be up beat when you are riddled with insecurity.

Take matters into your own hands. Create your own opportunities. Take the time to evaluate your skills, experience, personality, and just what it is that makes you unique and special. Think about your inherent strengths, too. List all the things you do and that make you feel good about yourself. And when you’ve done that, take the plunge, and set up a business.

And that’s what countless people have done. It’s the trend, the way of the future. Offering your services as a ‘freelancer’ or independent entrepreneur is good for you: as long as you deliver the service you promise, you are free to complete the project in a way that best suits you. It is also good for the client/company who hires your services: no extra ballast on the payroll, and no contract of employment, just billing for services rendered.

Easy, you say. And it is, once you have acquired the knack of finding and keeping a steady flow of clients, have learned to maintain a simple bookkeeping system, have learned how to deal with overdue invoices, tax returns and time management, to name but a few issues that might arise.

Yesterday in Alphen aan den Rijn a group of experts in the field offered their services to newly established small businesses to discuss just such issues, and offer information on how to deal with them.

Organized and sponsored by BuildaSite, Patoir vd Vlugt & Verkade, Primo Boekhouden, Stichting Ondernemersklankbord, Kamer van Koophandel (C of C) and Communicatiebureau Vet-Gedrukt, this team of professionals made time to support the up and coming ZZP (Independent Sole Proprietors) community in Alphen aan den Rijn, free of charge, I might add!

It is a rare thing these days, to receive and invitation to an event of this type, free of charge. When I mentioned it to a colleague ZZPer, she, not unexpectedly said, ‘what’s the catch?’ And who can blame her? Phrases like, ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’ come to mind. But, I was there, and I can honestly say, I didn’t pay a cent. But more than that, I was given a top quality evening, with an opportunity to talk to more experienced business people, to exchange ideas with other up and coming independents.

And the meal was great, too!

After an introduction by each sponsor, the ZZPers split up into groups. In a period of ten minutes, each group member had to introduce himself, his company and the services he offered. There was also opportunity to talk about the difficulties encountered; the group could then offer solutions, or where appropriate suggest the expertise available in that particular area. Short, to the point and very useful.

Ten minutes later, a sort of musical chairs took place, and the ZZPers shuffled about and formed new groups and again each was given the opportunity to introduce him or herself and talk about their business and services.

One ZZPer might have difficulty setting up and maintaining a simple bookkeeping system, another, like me, may be less able to sell themselves or network efficiently. One ZZPer might just offer a service another needs. And so, like with speed dating matches were made and meetings set up.

Basically, what happened was exactly the principle Marcus Buckingham and others describe in their textbooks on developing strengths and minimising weaknesses. By pairing up with others, we are able to ‘delegate’ our weakness to someone else, whose strength it is, and thus minimise stress and make time free to perform the tasks we are good at, and that we offer through our businesses.

As a business graduate, I don’t have a problem maintaining a simple bookkeeping system: I do not have a shoebox full of receipts and my invoicing system is no more complicated than it needs to be. As a writer and designer, I communicate through my blog and my website. But, when it comes to physically ‘being there’ and presenting my business, it’s another story. But thanks to the generosity of the group who organized last evening’s event, even I am learning to network and be proud of what I do.

They lowered the bar a little and showed me that, should I need it, I have a group of experts to fall back on, should I need their support.

Thanks for their generosity.

An abundant supply is a dangerous thing

In my last post I wrote about my thinking process. Well, one important issue that has been on my mind a lot is abundance and supply. Bear with me, I know this diverges from creative writing. But this sort of thing can also block creativity. I know it frustrates me at times.
As you all know by now, as well as being a novelist, I also have my own company, which was set up to facilitate companies who have an increasing need for professional bilingual correspondence and publications. Although I have a couple of regular clients I still scour the net for ad hoc projects and/or new openings. What I come across disappoints me.
I am having difficulty getting my head around the state of the freelance writers market at the moment.
From what I can ascertain the market must be completely saturated. It´s as though all of us who have, for whatever reason, stopped working for someone else, and have created some romantic notion of what it would be like to be our own boss, are offering our services on the freelance writers’ market. Oh, I am not saying we´re not talented, or efficient, or creative, but we are flooding the market and this is having significant consequences.
Before I was a writer, I was (and of course I still am) a business graduate. I studied macro and micro economics, accounting and business policy. Naturally I am familiar with the concepts of Supply and Demand. This concept has a significant influence on market conditions and pricing. It is supply and demand that I will be looking at in this article. Supply and demand in relation to the freelance writing market, and how this effects remuneration. When demand exceeds supply then conditions are favourable for the supplier and vice versa.
Looking at it from my own point of view: I have signed up for several freelance sites, hoping that way to spread the word about my writing and translating abilities. However, for every project I bid on, I am but one on an enormous list of possible candidates. So, supply is abundant. There is a flux of supply. There we all are, offering our services, and the demand is scarce relative to the supply. So it becomes a buyers’ market. And what happens then? Prices fall, and we as freelancers are almost the underdog. I have been stunned at the number of writing projects offering no more than $1,00 for a 350 – 400 word article. I am stunned too, that this is the criterion used by the ‘demandor’ rather than quality of writing when choosing their freelancer. I am stunned too, at the number of writers who bid on such projects, allowing the value of their labours to sink so low. In one case a contract was for 5 articles per day, at the royal rate of $3,00 per article. Come on people, that’s $15,00 a day! You can’t tell me that’s the dream job you had in mind when you became a freelancer. Come on companies, do you honestly believe that quality, professional texts will cost so little?
In an ideal situation, quantity of supply should be critically measured against the quality of this excess. Or is the quality still relatively high but the freelancer’s purse so empty he is prepared to work for a pittance? Perhaps the economic crisis and a general lack of funds has caused everyone to lower their quality standards and look at everything in purely financial terms. The potential client has limited funds, the freelancer is willing to take ridiculous cuts in earnings just to win the client over. I used to work for a company that had as its slogan “Price-quality ratio”, which to me was a good business motto to live by. However, we seem to have replaced it with “always the cheapest” and I wonder if this is the right trend to follow.
Then there’s the translation market. For years the going rate for translations was on average $0,10 per word, sometimes more. On occasion when the project was large a project price would be negotiated, usually based on the estimated number of hours to be spent on the project and at an hourly rate of $ 40,00 or thereabouts. These days you´re lucky to be offered half of that!!! And who says the translators who use CAT systems will deliver better work than those who don´t?
And what can we do about it? As long as there are enough freelancers out there prepared to work for sub-standard earnings, those of us who put value on our services are going to suffer. Quality writers and translators should want their earnings to reflect their level of expertise and those who are prepared to work for ‘a dollar a day’ are lowering the standards of the writing and translation industry. It seems only writers and translators who marry their services to web design and/or content are reaping the benefits right now. Anyone who can put ‘web’ into his/her profile can apparently create his own demand. Demand for high remuneration. Designers are the elite of the freelance world at the moment and I take my hat off to everyone who earns his real market value. But that shouldn’t automatically decrease the value of the other professionals such as writers and translators.
We read The Secret and are told that we live in a universe of abundance. That does not mean we become victim to the apparent abundance and that we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the seemingly endless supply of freelancers such as ourselves. The Secret also reminds us that out of that abundance we should receive our fair share. And a ‘dollar a day’ is only our fair share if we don’t believe we are worth more.
So, going back to the law of Supply and Demand. If enough of us refuse to respond to requests that are little above an insult to our professionalism, then supply will become more scarce and the clients will have more difficulty fulfilling their demands. We as a professional group need to create some demand of our own. Demand for a respectful remuneration for quality services rendered. We have to remove ourselves from the websites and forums where these rates are the norm. Boycott the ‘dollar a day’ clients.
We need to create an industry minimum and all of us need to stick to it. All other sectors have them. We have the minimum wage laws, minimum youth wage laws and other protective legislation. Why then, as freelancers, are we prepared to accept wage conditions that we would have refused to work for when in regular employment?
It is up to us to have some self respect, and to demand the same respect from prospective clients.