Serenity Tip: Partner Up

Last week, I wrote about working with groups of other freelancers to increase the numbers of queries you send. But what if you don't have a crowd of fellow freelancers to lean on, or even three more? Could you find one?

Here's why you should.

The advice to partner up isn't just good when you're a little kid faced with crossing a busy street. If you're a freelancer looking to navigate the sometimes-treacherous world of freelance business ownership, you need a buddy, too.

In a formal capacity, this is what I do with my coaching clients: I help them navigate the freelance business world. We come up with markets, we set deadlines, and when we talk, they report back on their progress. I hold them accountable.

My support as a coach carries more weight because my clients are paying for me to be their accountability buddy. You can create that system with another freelancer, however. You just have to find the right freelancer.

She has to work at a similar pace as you

If you want to send a query a day and your goal buddy wants to send one a month, you may not help one another. Instead, the one looking to send a query a day may feel slowed down by the once-a-monther; and the once-a-monther may find herself comparing herself to the uber-prolific one and beating herself up. That doesn't help anyone and doesn't get either of you closer to a sale or a more serene business life.

She has to show up

Sure it's obvious, but it's also one of the most important requirements. If you agree to call each other once a day, she has to show up. And so do you for that matter. A flaky goal buddy will leave you working by yourself, and that will defeat the whole point of seeking support.

She has to be your cheerleader, not your critic

If you find yourself dreading talking to your goal buddy or you find it excruciating to stay on the phone with her because all she does is complain about what's not working, it won't help. It could even feed your own self-doubt and run down your stamina. Keep looking.

The only way to know if your goal buddy is right for you is to try it out. Sure, do a gut check when you first talk to each other, but then take the plunge, with the caveat that you'll reassess the relationship at a predetermined interval. I recommend a month, but you might know after two weeks. Or a day. Who knows?

Now that you've got a buddy, set goals for working together. Ask each other:

• What freelancing task do you struggle most with?
• What kind of support has worked for you in the past?
• What kind has derailed you?
  
• What step do you want to be held accountable to?
• What do you promise to do if you don't meet your goal?

With a freelance friend, we made a bet: We'd each send a query a day, and if either of us didn't make it for a month, we'd buy the other dinner. If we both did it, we'd split the meal, ideally with all the money we were making from our sales. It was a fun way to have it mean something and to build our freelance friendship.

Who can you recruit as your goal buddy for the month?

Photo by Rob Hoey.

30-Day Persistence Challenge: Help with the Hardest Tasks

Yesterday, I wrote about Peter Ubel's unique prescription for overcoming lackluster persistence: "Marial Law." For those of you to whom such an approach is off-putting, consider that Ubel offers softer ways to enforce the structures we created yesterday.

Here's one:

Help!

I've been waffling on contacting new markets lately, as I've written before. Instead of trying harder and harder to force myself to want to do it, I simply asked for help. Some fellow freelancers are running their own query-a-day challenge and I asked if I could join them. Someone else had to drop out, I dropped in, and now I get daily emails from another reporter reporting how well she's doing.

This approach targets something else Ubel talks about in another part of the interview. Speaking of the irrationality of he real estate or fiscal markets, he said:

"We are social beings, too, and frequently judge our own decisions by seeing what other people are doing. If my neighbor added a new kitchen with a home equity loan, I might assume that is a good idea for me, even if a more rational weightong of my finances would suggest otherwise."

He's detailing a negative use of our social instinct, but setting up a "query buddy," "declutter buddy" or some other action partner is a way to harness that instinct for good.

Action: Take a look around your social network (and maybe developing a social network is a persistence project you have to work on in itself).

• Is there anyone in it who is struggling with the same thing you are?
• Is there someone who wants to tackle it the same way you do?
• Is there someone who's temperment meshes well with you and with whom you welcome closer contact?

You can answer these questions simply by talking to friends, sending a few emails or even posting to freelance boards about your quandry. Even if you don't find a goal buddy, you're likely to find people willing to commiserate.

I've written before about the power of support and finding the right support person. Those rules apply here, as well.

Photo by D3 San Francisco.

30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: 2009 Modules Part 2

This is the fourth in a series of modules you can choose from to start making a business plan as you go. The first post laid out modules for your values and mission. The second laid out modules for assessing 2008. The third laid out your financial goals for 2009. And now, we start with the modules that will help you meet those goals.

So if the last post scared you, this one will start giving you answers. Let's get to it!

Remember: You can start anywhere. I've suggested an order, but please don't let it stop you. Pick one, do it, and go back to work.

Where You'll Get the Money
For me, this is the fun part. There are lots of ways to do this. Some freelancers, like Katrina Ramser, come up with exactly how much money they expect each client to give them in 2009 and where she has holes to fill to meet those goals.

I do it a little differently.

I play around with the work types I do and their average pay (department: $1600; short: $300; feature: $3000; etc.) to come up with five or six different scenarios that will help me make my goal.

It's similar to the way novelist and writing instructor Elizabeth Stark describes putting together a piece of fiction. She says, "Putting chunks together is exactly how to build a story." I would say that putting together pieces of income is how you make a living as a freelancer. She goes on to say:

A story was usually about at least two things, two unexpectedly juxtaposed things, out of which a third–call it meaning [ed. note: for our purposes, we'll call it self-sufficiency]–emerged. The tension in story comes where the crosscurrents create suction, movement, a whirlpool.

Try laying out your cards. Shuffle the deck and try it another way. Card by card, lay out the story, until it’s one you’ve never heard before but which you know to be true.

It's the same for coming up with how you'll make your income goal. Lay out the different types of work you do one by one and put them together: two features a month will get you your income goal, perhaps. Or maybe two shorts, a department and a feature. Or some other combination.

Come up with a bunch of these and you'll have the combinations in your head as you query and put together your work for a month. Will it help you meet your financial goals? Now you'll know. This flexibility shows me that there are lots of ways to meet my financial goals.

You may find that none of the work you do will get you to your income goal. Or you may find that one feature client isn't enough an you'll need more. That's okay. I have been there. The next post will show you how to find clients that will get you to your income goals.

30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: How Kim Does It

There are as many ways to do business plans as there are creative professionals. But you wouldn't know that looking at the business planning section of your local library. So in this challenge, I've enlisted some friends and colleagues to describe the way they found their business plans and what works for them. I'm hoping one of them will inspire you.

Today's post comes from freelancer Kimberly Olson , who has covered many topics, including architecture and design, health, business and technology, for 15 years. How does she do it? It turns out she asks herself some simple questions. Here, she shares them with you.

Some say January 1 is a day like any other. Nothing to get excited about. I couldn’t disagree more. The New Year—as arbitrary as the date may be—offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on what’s working and what’s not. For me, it’s a time filled with the hope of new possibilities.

So as 2009 approaches, I’ve been immersed in what has become an annual ritual—setting my business goals for the upcoming year.

Whether you want to raise your income or take a longer vacation this year, you need a game plan. Developing a clear strategy with small, doable steps will help keep you on track. So plop down with paper and pen and answer the following questions:

What do you want to achieve in 2009?
Would you like to bring in ten new clients? Create a Web site for your business? Get more media attention? Write down your goals—and be specific.

What action steps will you take to get there?
Think about the steps you’ll need to take to achieve each goal. If you dream of getting your Web site up, you’ll need to write your Web content (or hire someone to do it). Find a Web designer. Research Web hosting companies. Jot down the tasks involved and estimate how long each step will take.

Bonus points: Develop a task schedule to help you stick with your program. If your goal is to bring in more clients, for example, make a commitment to reach out to a specific number of prospective clients each month. Then, beginning in January, keep a log of your accomplishments to track your progress and stay motivated.

What barriers might prevent you from taking your action steps?
Think about what has prevented you from achieving your goal in the past and come up with some strategies for overcoming barriers. If you still haven’t taken that evening marketing class, why not ask a friend to join you? We’re more likely to follow through if we know someone else is counting on us.

Who will be your support person?
No matter how committed you are to achieving your goal, there will be days when you’ll wonder what you were thinking when you decided to boost your profile by doing a public speaking engagement for 500 people. On days like these, it’s important to have someone to turn to who can cheer you on. Support people may also have helpful ideas for overcoming barriers to success.

How will you reward yourself?
Setting up a reward system for yourself can help keep you motivated throughout the year. You released your first e-newsletter? Treat yourself to a movie. You just scored that blue-chip client? Schedule a massage. Of course, as you achieve these mini-steps, the greatest reward will be forthcoming—as your business booms!

30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: Goals vs. Actions

Day 5's goal: Focus on your part.

I asked several freelancers to tell me their biggest obstacle to creating a business plan and one of the most commonly recurring reasons was that they didn't see the point. Freelancer (and personal mentor) Conn Hallinan had this to say:

How do you make a business plan if you have no control over the means of distribution? It is the same reason peasants during the Middle Ages didn't have a business plan: they had no power over anything, plus they had to bow to their lords (just like us!). For instance: My business plan is to write four 5,000 word articles for The New Yorker at $3 a word, and an 8,000 word piece for Atlantic at $4 a word. Also I intend to produce five other magazine pieces at $2 a word, minimum 4,000 words. That's my plan, and after I have smoked this really good stuff that someone from Humboldt gave me it seems perfectly reasonable. Once the stuff wears off, it is back to begging for four magazine pieces at $1 a word, and an every other week column at $75 a pop. So, good business plan: have a partner who is too smart to try and make their living as a writer.

To which I say: Good point. We don't control the means of production. We can't make the New Yorker hire us.

Does that mean we shouldn't have business plans? I argue no, and I'll tell you why.

To use the words of business planning guru Tim Berry, whom I interviewed for a forthcoming blog post on this site, "If I'm a fisherman, I can't control how much fish I catch. But I sure as heck can control what stream I'm fishing in."

Having a business plan is not Secret-style fantasy. It isn't magic. You can't just "conceive it, believe it, receive it." You have to plan it, practice it and produce it. A business plan isn't about the end results but the steps you'll take to try to get there.

Want to write for The New Yorker? I can think of a few steps to get there:

• Figure out who writes for them now and what path they took to get there. Are there intermediary magazines you should try to break into on the way to getting to The New Yorker?
  
• Ask for an informational interview from one or two contributors. You really can. They're people just like you and me.
  
• Subscribe to the magazine and the intermediary magazines.
  
• Study their content to get a sense of which stories would be appropriate for them.
• Improve your craft to bring your writing to be up to The New Yorker's standards. That may mean taking a class. It may mean experimenting with different styles. It may mean reading books. Figure out what will work for you.
  

And most important:

• Query them. Every month. Even if you get a "no" every time--or worse, no response at all. I queried The New Yorker this year. They turned my story down. They were very polite about it. Nice people there at The New Yorker.

Those four steps? That's what goes on your business plan--not "write four stories for the New Yorker at $3/word." You can't control whether they buy the stories. But you can control how you act.

And there's evidence that it does work. This week I met a freelancer who said he queried a big-name magazine regularly for four years before he broke in. But he finally did. Now he writes for them regularly.

And it's true in my life. I'm close to breaking into one of my target markets because I followed the steps above. I increased my income. If the measure of your success is The New Yorker or Atlantic, you won't feel successful and a business plan will feel like a waste. But if your measure of success is progress, your business plan will help you accomplish your goals.

30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: Checking On Progress

Day 3's goal: Reflect back.

Yesterday I wrote about what I hoped having a business plan would have done for me this year. Did it work?

My general sense is yes. I've had an incredibly abundant year. You wouldn't know by looking at my business we were in a recession this year. My income is near the highest it's ever been--whether working for myself or for someone else full-time. Plus, I've had time to do a lot of the things I love and take care of myself.

But the goal of a business plan is not to plan based on my general sense. It's to be concrete and see what worked. It's an inventory.

So let's get to brass tacks. In last year's biz plan cheat sheet, I listed six goals: an income goal, a time goal, target markets, outgoing clients, major new expenditures, and marketing goals.

Here's how they played out (with some generalities to protect a teensy bit of my privacy):

Income Goal:
Set at: A third more than my 2007 income.
Why: Calculated what I needed to live on plus goals for the year.
Result: I didn't hit the mark, but I will have increased my income by more than $10,000 this year if my projections for December are accurate.

Time Goal:
Set at: Spend five hours a week on querying. Record work hours by task (income work, non-income work, querying, and networking).
Why: To keep my business growing and break into target markets; to know how I'm spending my work time.
Result: Mostly successful. I didn't do it perfectly, but I did record my time from March through the end of the year. Aside from two weeks where I spent nine and 10 hours, respectively, querying, I didn't hit the five-hour-a-week goal.

Target Markets:
Set at: Five consumer pubs and about 20 custom publications.
Why: To do more of the work I love, to earn a sustainable income and be able to use my business to support a rich, full life.
Result: Some progress. Of the five publications, I dropped one, queried another four times, and have another publication considering a story idea after building a relationship with the editor through regular querying. The other two, I've queried only sporadically. Of the custom publications, I queried only a few.

Outgoing Clients:
Set at: Three clients who were no longer fitting in my business model.
Why: Either because of pay limitations or because my professional interests changed.
Result: Imperfect. I parted on pretty good terms with one, did one final story for the second and, for the third, I'm working on a story for right now. But I did drastically cut back with all three.

Major New Expenses:
Set at: Some personal (vacations, saving for Xmas without using a credit card, and moving); some professional (health expenses, computer repairs and an ergonomic office chair).
Why: To have a rich full life that clears my mind for great work, and to work more productively and healthfully.
Result: Mostly good. I saved enough for Xmas presents without having to go into debt and I did get to take vacations. I also saved enough money to start going to the chiropractor and see a nutritionist, which are huge for me. I'll be buying the office chair this month. The only down side? I still haven't moved.

Marketing Goals:
Set at: Send three queries a week to higher-paying markets. Do no query markets paying less than $1/word.
Why: To increase my income, do more features and write the stories that I want to write.
Result: I'm happy to say that I did this fairly consistently. There were some weeks when I didn't query at all, of course. And some weeks I queried more than the requisite three.

Now, does it mean the plan wasn't successful just because I didn't achieve all my goals? Not to me. The point of planning to guide myself in the direction I want to head--not to reach the destination. It's to help me track what that path might look like and give me some concrete steps to take to get there. I don't believe I would have accomplished what I did without the plan.

Do you have goals for those five categories? How did you do compared to what you'd hoped to accomplish this year?