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Stop Freelancing

robertnealan.com

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Re: Stop Freelancing

#91

Post by adambard »

lsc wrote: post #89
phamilton wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very simple change you could make to your writing would be to swap out commas for other punctuation. Parentheses, semicolons, and other less often used punctuation serve distinct purposes and add to readability. I'm no expert. Here is a stab at fixing a sentence of yours. >I mean, it's not perfect (or even very good by English-major standards) but compared to your average salesperson, well, I think highly of myself…

From a business writing standpoint? that whole sentence is superfluous. The whole thing is an insertion of humility, something that is important when speaking about yourself to other nerds, but is essentially social fluff. My takeaway is primarily not that I did verbosity wrong, though certainly that comment wasn't right, but that the verbosity itself is the problem. Take, for example one of the bits of writing I'm m…

I usually write whatever I would say, then go over it after and take out any words or phrases that might be superfluous, or that can possibly be removed. Wholesale removal of extraneous stuff goes a long way towards making yourself clearer. I'll occasionally leave things in that I feel add to my "voice", but more often than not, if a word can be removed, it is removed.

--- becomes ---

I write whatever I would say, then go over it and take out anything superfluous. It makes things clearer.

Re: Stop Freelancing

#92

Post by ChristopherM »

Tl;Dr "Perception is 9/10 of reality"

This was a good example of how it can yield results when selling your services. It's also very valuable if applied correctly to many areas of life. As an employee, customer, a defendant in a legal case, when you are trying to attract a mate, etc...

The important thing to remember is "how do others perceive me?". Based on that "what can I do to change their perception?" Of course you need to figure out what image you want to project; that image is also situation dependent.

Re: Stop Freelancing

#93

Post by Silhouette »

bdunn wrote: post #11

It really all boils down to risk management. If you're a self-identified say, "Ruby freelancer", the value proposition is "I am an independent Ruby developer for hire". For staff augmentation gigs or applying for a FT position, this is all well and good, because whoever's hiring is looking for warm bodies with specific technical capabilities. However, many companies are looking to solve specific business problems and…

I agree that seeing the problem from your client's point of view has great value, much more so than any particular technical skill that might be useful to solve that problem.

However, what you're describing isn't really risk management, it's just marketing. You want a prospect to believe that you have the ability to understand their problem and help them to solve it, because that will determine whether or not you get the gig and how favourable the terms are, but the real risk in hiring you for that gig depends on whether you actually have that ability.

Re: Stop Freelancing

#94

Post by jacques_chester »

twistedpair wrote: post #59
mjn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really depends a lot on the business. Even for consultants, many companies prefer to split business and technical consulting, sometimes contracting them out separately, or sometimes just contracting one of them out as needed. In that situation, they typically do not want the technical consultant involving themselves in the business case, because they were hired to solve a technical problem, not to second-guess t…

If only the delineation was so clear, yet often I've be asked to implement a technical solution to a political or social problem, where a technical solution was not even needed.

    No matter how it looks at first, it's always a people problem.
Gerald Weinberg, Secrets of Consulting.

Re: Stop Freelancing

#95

Post by manismku »

That's quite true. During past couple of months I have seen real talent is not sitting in front of your desk and do coding. This way you can walk but can't run. Everything depends how well you sell yourself and make good picture in others mind. Ultimately your goal is presence outside your desk / room. I will say what you have experienced is ground reality about how business works.

Re: Stop Freelancing

#96

Post by lukeholder »

lsc wrote: post #89
phamilton wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very simple change you could make to your writing would be to swap out commas for other punctuation. Parentheses, semicolons, and other less often used punctuation serve distinct purposes and add to readability. I'm no expert. Here is a stab at fixing a sentence of yours. >I mean, it's not perfect (or even very good by English-major standards) but compared to your average salesperson, well, I think highly of myself…

From a business writing standpoint? that whole sentence is superfluous. The whole thing is an insertion of humility, something that is important when speaking about yourself to other nerds, but is essentially social fluff. My takeaway is primarily not that I did verbosity wrong, though certainly that comment wasn't right, but that the verbosity itself is the problem. Take, for example one of the bits of writing I'm m…

For me that pdf chapter example was very hard to read.

Re: Stop Freelancing

#97

Post by mikkom »

> Behind the scenes barely anything has truly changed

This might be is different from country to country but legislation is usually very different when you are freelancing vs contracting as a company. So even if the author doesn't understand it yet, when shit hits the fan he will (and I don't want to sound too harsh but eventually with companies it always will).

Re: Stop Freelancing

#98

Post by marcamillion »

bdunn wrote: post #11

It really all boils down to risk management. If you're a self-identified say, "Ruby freelancer", the value proposition is "I am an independent Ruby developer for hire". For staff augmentation gigs or applying for a FT position, this is all well and good, because whoever's hiring is looking for warm bodies with specific technical capabilities. However, many companies are looking to solve specific business problems and…

This is very much on-point. Once I launched 5KMVP, people no longer focussed on the tech choices I made. They do ask what my stack is - I think because most of the crowd I cater to are more savvy and are curious - but for the most part they just care about getting an MVP at the end of the engagement.

It also works both ways, now that I am able to focus on just giving them an MVP I make recommendations along those lines. I can recommend that they use a Bootstrap template and they don't see it as "cheap design", but rather a "an affordable, clean interface that helps validate their hypothesis". Frees me to work on the business logic of what they want and the quirks of their application. I also make hosting recommendations based on who I know they are (people trying to get projects off the ground, so they are cash-flow sensitive).

The difference between the clients I get now and the ones I used to get are night and day, because there is no ambiguity in what the client wants and what I will give them.

Best decision from a "freelancing" perspective I have ever made.

Re: Stop Freelancing

#99

Post by yaelwrites »

I like this. It's all about positioning. I'm technically a freelance writer/editor, but I've found that when I call myself a "content strategist," I can command much higher wages doing the exact same work (since I have to do social, deep analytics, etc. as a writer anyway).

Re: Stop Freelancing

#100

Post by marknadal »

While I haven't gotten a business license, I have found that regularly increasing my hourly rate for new clients has done wonders, and moving from hourly to then daily to weekly rates. I now position myself as a data and code synchronization specialist, I guarantee my clients a seamless use of their data and code no matter where it is, and this is enough value that people are eagerly willing to pay. Be the specific solution for a company, then you'll be in charge - not the other way around.
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