[Intro music] Freelance Radio, Episode 41: My Freelance Dilemma.
John: Welcome to Freelance Radio the audio show by about and for freelancers the official podcast of FreelanceSwitch.com the freelancing blog. I’m your host John Brougher technology and new media specialist from Washington, D.C., U.S. of A., I’m joined as always by our panel of first class freelancers, we have Kristen Fischer, freelance writer and author of Creatively Self Employed and Ramen Noodles Rent and Resumes: An After-College Guide to Life. How are you doing today Kristen?
Kristen: What up, I’m doing pretty good it’s a nice weekend and I’m gonna try not to work this weekend.
John: Yay.
Kristen: Yeah, I’m gonna try not to work this weekend and try to force myself to do other things.
John: It’s frigid here, is it cold in New Jersey? It’s cold here.
Kristen: It’s getting cold it was down in the twenties up around New York City and low thirties so that’s a little beyond my comfort zone I can deal with fifties and sixties, I love me the fall but It’s getting a little –
John: I felt like we didn’t have a Fall.
Kristen: No we didn’t. It’s gone.
John: The place that always has perfect temperature also has some of our panelists. We also have Dickie Adams web and print designer, technologist, jack of all trades freelancer from Portland Oregon land of the warm climes and sunny skies, how are you doing today?
Dickie: Except it’s rainy cold and sad.
John: Ha, East Coast wins.
Kristen: How cold?
Dickie: We did have Fall, that came through but it’s been dropping down on the forties, the other day was like sixty degrees I couldn’t believe it, It was nice –
John: Wow
Dickie: — Sunny and beautiful.
John: It seems so long ago.
Dickie: It seems so long ago.
John: And of course all our Australians and Southern Hemisphere listeners are laughing at us because –
Kristen: Ha, ha.
Dickie: They get theirs.
John: Also from the greater Poland Metropolitan area we also have Von Glitchska illustrator designer, avid teacher, how are you doing today Von?
Von: I am doing pretty good considering how early it is.
John: For those of you who don’t know we’re recording about, what is it like, 2AM pacific over there.
[Laughter]
John: It’s a late night podcast here, the coffee’s flowing and hopefully we’re gonna have a high energy podcast. We’re doing a lot of morning recordings lately so gotta keep it high energy, high adrenaline. Folks we have a great episode for you today, this is our overview part of the episode where we talk about all our topics we’re gonna discuss. The theme of this episode comes from Kristen, I think it’s a fantastic idea, we’re gonna talk about what we call My Freelance Dilemma sort of an issue that we’re dealing with right now as we speak in our freelancing life, just to show you how we work through problems as well as a cross section of what our day to day life is like, we’re going to reach into our mail bag where we have a listener question and Thomas has actually given us an audio question that had to do with client personal problems and I think it’s something that’s maybe very specific but is probably something we’re gonna deal with on some level in all of our freelancing lives, and then we have our freelance writing recommend section where we talk about just some sort of tool or web site, something that helps us in our day to day lives or our freelancing. The main topic we’re gonna discuss is My Freelance Dilemma so Kristen Fischer this is your brain child, can you talk to us about a particular freelancing problem that you’re maybe going through right now, you’re in the middle of and what you’re doing to solve it?
Kristen: Yeah, sometimes I think we’re so full of answers for everyone else and I wanted our listeners to know that we’re freelancers like everyone else and even though some of us have been in business a little bit longer maybe we’re still going through issues, we still have problems, we’re still real people and I don’t care if we even focus on mine because I’d love to hear if other people have this dilemma on the panel or our listeners and what they do. One of the things I did when I made my new year’s resolutions, back when I was a year younger, was I made them public and I told everybody that– most of you know I do copywriting which is business writing, brochures, websites, sometimes pretty boring stuff and I’m an author — my ultimate goal is to really focus more on books, I’ve been publishing for some small magazines but I’d really like to get on a lot of the big women’s magazines so my goal for the year was to do my query letters.
John: Yes, these are your pitches right? Your story pitches.
Kristen: Yeah, we’ll talk about the magazines. To get published in a magazine you pretty much have to write a query letter, a pitch letter “Here’s what I wanna write about and blah blah blah” and every writer who tries to do this knows, even the successful ones, that it’s really hard to find the right editor, get their contact information, these people are always moving, changing jobs and it’s not like you can go on Red Book magazine’s website and they say “Hey I’m the editor, please email me all your pitches” they really don’t have time to hear from you, it goes to an intern or an editorial assistant. Obviously the other hard part is getting a fresh idea, a lot of other people have the same ideas so why would they pick me to write it, so that was my dilemma, I wanted to start querying more so my resolution was to do three queries a month and I’ve stuck to it pretty well, I can’t say that every month I have done three but I started a list of contacts and I’m keeping my contacts in an Excel spreadsheet, because that’s my new way of technology and I’m getting in touch with editors. I’ve had a couple calls to discuss ideas and I’m getting there but I think the overall dilemma is I don’t feel like I have enough time or that I make enough time to put into this because it’s related to my writing but if I have a deadline for a website and that’s my priority you know, making my mortgage every month is my priority.
John: Right.
Kristen: I know a lot of creative people do kind of.. It’s not just fun stuff but they do stuff they really enjoy, thing is I can’t just turn off copywriting. I’m really weird I have to have the right beverage, I have to have the house quiet, sometimes I need to turn the telephone off, I give myself a lot of options if I don’t feel like being at my desk, and this goes for work too, I have a laptop, you guys know I laptop in bed a lot, love that, it’s just really hard for me to make the time and I don’t wanna say “I can’t find the time” ’cause I don’t want to be the victim but it’s just really hard for me to make time because I feel I could be doing a lot more if I could just make the time but at the end of the week I’m fried, you know what I mean?
John: Right.
Kristen: So, that’s my dilemma.
Dickie: So Kristen my challenge for you and my challenge for anybody who has a similar dilemma, is you keep a journal of your time, outside of work stuff.
Kristen: What I do with my time?
Dickie: Yeah.
Kristen: Nah I don’t have time for that
[Everybody laughs]
Dickie: I mean, what do you do in your non freelancing hours?
Kristen: Hm, I do watch T.V a lot less, sometimes at night I’m tired and I read, I go to the gym.
Dickie: Yep, I would put together a little journal, even for like a week and note what you do during the week and if this is really important to you, I think you’ll see that you probably watch more T.V than you think.
Kristen: Okay.
Dickie: There’s probably some things that you’ll look at and go “oh, you know what I don’t really care about this as much as I care about this” you’ll start adjusting for those. You know personally I have the same problem, I think to myself “oh I don’t have time to do that, I don’t have time to do this” but if I start breaking down how many hours that I play the Xbox this week, “oh” –
John: I don’t wanna know. I do not wanna know that number.
Dickie: –You know I kind of do have time if I decided that I really wanted to pursue that avenue.
Kristen: I see, I know what you’re saying ’cause I do see times where I’m like, okay if I finish working or I have an early day where I’m done at 3 or 4 in the afternoon, I make dinner and then I’m like “okay you have the whole night,” I don’t know if it’s a creative thing, I have to be in the right mood, a lot of people have writer’s block and I really don’t suffer from that a lot it’s just making the time to get in the mode, do you know what I mean? If I have time, I have the whole night free I’m like “ugh, I just don’t feel like doing that.”
Dickie: I disagree that it’s because you have writer’s block.
Kristen: Oh it’s not writers block at all I just can’t get into it.
Dickie: I’m gonna say this because this is how I work as well.
Kristen: Nah that’s fine go ahead.
Dickie: It’s because we’re lazy, and it’s easier not to take on the challenge than it is to take on the challenge.
Kristen: Yeah, of course it is.
Dickie: What I have to do is say if I get to a position where I’m like “I don’t really want to do that.” I think, “how many times have I put this off? Is this important to me am I ever going to do it? “If the answer is yes this is important to me and I want to do it, you know what I’m going to sit down and work on it for 15 minutes right now, and just put down whatever I can and it’s like John’s recommendation two episode’s ago that we recorded, the November writing piece, I took that to a friend of mine and challenged him with it because he’s been talking about writing his book, his fantasy novel, for ages and I said “You know what Josh I challenge you to do this. I wanna see you produce this, work on it, you can find the time you can make this work it’s only 1500 words a day, and it doesn’t have to be fully edited by the time you get finished, just start hashing it out, if you succeed I’ll give you a prize at the end.”
Kristen: Will you give me a prize Dickie?
Dickie: If you wanna take on a challenge like that, that would be fine, if that’s what works for you that’s what you have to do for yourself, if I accomplish ‘X’ goal, which is the way they talk in those self help type solutions, you need to have things in your immediate area that are goals for yourself, visible goals that you can accomplish, if that’s what gonna work for you, if it’s some drive that you can’t have Starbucks that day until you’ve written –
Kristen: It’s just cruel.
John: And unusual.
Dickie: — 15 minutes on the task, even if it’s just for helping to smorgas an outline you will create for yourself an environs where you want to work on this, going back to the time thing I realize reading is a great hobby but sometimes you have to step away from your pleasure mode if you want to accomplish these things on your list.
John: There could be a few things going on there too, I think that both of your points are well taken I think one is maybe what we’re talking about here is an issue of time, reallocating time in a way that is more suited to what we actually want to be spending our time on. There’s also maybe a starting thing, I don’t know if this is particularly your challenge Kristen.
Kristen: No I think you have it, go on brother.
John: Well one of the things that I always end up doing is, especially with writing unfortunately with longer form things, I say “oh man in order to write ‘X’ I need 15 hours of straight free time.”
Kristen: Yes, that’s it, that’s my problem.
Dickie: But that’s not true.
John: Right but that’s Dickie’s point and I think that’s a mental block that so many of us have but it’s just not true because 1. We can accomplish quite a bit in 15 minutes. 2. The bigger barrier and the more important thing to do, and I’m stealing this from one of the self helpey people, is to constantly start, the problem isn’t “oh I need to figure out how to get to finished”, that’s not the point, finishing will take care of itself, it’s to be continually starting. It’s something I still deal with so I can’t really say it’s something that I’ve solved, just the idea that “no John, you don’t need two hours to write this article, you need to write one paragraph” and then see where you are, eventually what I think tends to happen is that it takes care of itself after that first ten minutes, you’re over your mental block, you realize that you’re in a better working state, you start to get into that mole mode.
Kristen: You got it.
Von: I’ll confirm that, that’s exactly the case in my opinion, I think if you look at those times when you’re inspired and that kind of creative flow comes easily to you, you just find yourself getting in the groove.
Kristen: Then I go for it.
Von: Yeah, you go for it, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been in the groove where I haven’t made myself specifically set aside time to draw and just do creative things on my own but I’ve been doing it because I’ve been inspired. It’s almost easier for me when I’m in that mode to find the time to get stuff done, above and beyond other things. It’s hard for me to find the time to do what I need to do, that’s when I use excuses like “well, I just don’t have time to do that” or “I’d like to get to that someday “there’s some tangent there when you’re in that mode, it’s a lot easier to create that time, when you’re not in that mindset you say “I can’t find that time “when you really can it’s just a matter of whether you’re gonna motivate yourself whether to do it or not. I’m not completely sure how to flip that switch, I wish I could just push a button and all of a sudden ‘Bing!’ I’m in hyper mode or whatever you wanna call it. Especially with writing, the way John described it, I’m super intimidated and it’s like this monkey on my back, for instance this next book I’m working on I still haven’t fully jumped into it but I know when the first deadline’s due, so I know in the back of my head “okay you better be working on this, you better start on it “then there’s this part of me that’s so intimidated I don’t even want to think about it, I don’t know where to start but I know as soon as I just jump into it and do it, it’s going to be way easier than what I think it’s gonna be. It’s always easier than you imagined.
Dickie: In the same regard I’m gonna talk about a freelance dilemma, not to sidetrack Kristen’s, to relate to what Von is saying, I’m shooting a wedding next week, when I was first hearing about this I got the “I don’t know how I’m going to do this, what I’m gonna be like” and then I started just breaking everything down into little sub projects, sub work, for Von it’s the sketches, maybe we’re not gonna complete the whole thing but maybe just sketch a little bit of it, scratch out some ideas and brain storm. Maybe for Kristen it’s, you’re going to put together your first paragraph or chapters outline. That’s how I accomplish a lot of the tasks I work on, if I can find a way to break down the tasks, then I can take those individual tasks and say “okay I can work on this little task for 15 minutes.” As Kristen you can say “I’m going to write a book,” the first task you’re going to do is put together a basic outline, and then write a basic introduction, all though I write in reverse from the back forward finishing with the introduction stuff when I write reviews, start breaking down into the smallest pieces possible and say “okay I can work on this one, today I’m gonna spend 15 minutes in my lunch break on this small task or I’m gonna process five photos or play around with six photos right now “and knock those out of the 300 I need to do. Generally what I find is that after I get rolling I’ll do more, I’ll cover two pages versus one, fifteen photos rather than five, all of a sudden that groove comes back because I’m inspired, I’m working, it’s working for me, if it’s not working for me after working on it for a little while, I’ll just stop, I’ll put it away and say “okay I can re start that, that wasn’t too bad for me”, going back is even easier.
John: I want to tie back to something you said earlier Dickie was that idea of just starting on something, especially if you can tie it to some sort of reward is really crucial because one of the things I’ve heard mentioned, and it resonates so much with me, when we put things off, when we say “oh man, it’s gonna take four uninterrupted hours for me to do X or Y or finish Z” what I tend to do is try to escape by doing something I enjoy so “I don’t want to think about this I’m going to go watch a movie” or “I don’t want to think about this I’m gonna go play a video game or something”, so then it becomes even more hardly wired into my head because I associate not working with reward. What ends up happening is I want to start working on my projects even less because I haven’t had any sort of positive reinforcement to getting there whereas childish as this sounds on some level, if I do ten minutes of work, it usually turns into way more than that, if I can just start with ten minutes and then reward myself even for just a little bit of progress with a movie or whatever your positive reinforcement is, then I unconsciously start to make that tie between the reward and between my project, it becomes this cycle either for good or for ill, I think what you talked about with rewards and rewarding yourself for doing good is key.
Kristen: I agree I think you have to treat yourself like a five year old child and say “okay Kristen you can go do A, B and C.” With my copy writing I’m so good at that, I’ve got that down, I don’t get writer’s block when I’m doing that kind of work, I think it’s just such intense work, writing a letter is not hard for me, a huge editor at a big magazine was like “Your query was awesome”, she took the time to actually talk to me, I’m hopefully getting an article, landing something big soon, hopefully I’ll be able to report that to you guys soon. The sitting down to it, I agree that I’m limiting myself by saying I need a day off to do that, I’ve written in my planner, I’ve tried that approach, I’m a very visual person just so you guys know what I’ve tried and what I’m doing, maybe I need to move all my work to four or five days a week and trying to take a weekend, then there’s trade offs, Sunday is NFL Sunday, I’m watching football, I’m not giving that up, as long as I have my NFL and never get published in a magazine I don’t care.
Dickie: What I would do is, if you’ve got the letter already templated out then pick a time.
Kristen: I think I want to do half day Friday’s.
Dickie: I wouldn’t do that because what you’ll do is you’ll get to that half day Friday and you’ll procrastinate and you won’t do it.
Kristen: I don’t procrastinate it’s –
Dickie: Ah da da da, we all do.
Kristen: I’m trying to be open, maybe it needs to be on a Wednesday.
Dickie: I would say every day.
Kristin: Every day?
Dickie: Yeah, every day for the next let’s say two to three weeks you’re going to send one, or you’re at least going to write one out, you don’t have to send it.
Kristen: Okay.
John: I believe in you.
Dickie: Only spend 15 minutes on it, so that it’s easy for you.
Kristen: Let’s set this up so I can report back in two weeks. For the next two weeks I will do one query a day and that will make up for all resolutions.
Dickie: Let’s say you’re going to do four a week, you get Friday’s off.
John: I’m not to quibble too much here Dickie but, you shouldn’t also jump too far from something small.
Dickie: In this case for Kristen she’s already got the template written.
Kristen: Letters are not hard for me to write, I have ideas written down, just getting in the mode.
Dickie: Yeah she just needs to write the letters out, you don’t have to complete a letter a day, you just have to work on one every day.
John: Okay that’s fair, I think my only concern is always the gym thing, I haven’t been to the gym in six months now I’m going to go every day for the next five weeks and then I end up going twice and then, do you know what I mean?
Dickie: Oh absolutely but Kristen if you make it through this then, you need to talk with your husband but, if you make it through this –
Kristen: Why do I need to talk to my husband?
Dickie: I’ll explain in a minute, if you make it through the task, this is about accountability, four days a week you get Friday’s off, you do it for the next two weeks you get to go to your favorite place for dinner.
Kristen: That’s not really a good reward for me.
Dickie: Then you make it something that’s gonna work as a reward for you.
Kristen: I really don’t feel like I need a reward, the challenge will help me.
Dickie: You need a reward, even if it’s tiny.
John: I think it should be big for two weeks!
Dickie: Baaah two weeks is nothin’, if you can do it for a year then I’ll buy you a reward.
John: Wow, drill sergeant Dickie Adams over here.
Dickie: Do something that you enjoy with your husband that you don’t do very often, have coffee together without electronics, go see a football game together even if it’s a high school play. Something like that, something that you enjoy that he can also enjoy but something you probably enjoy more than he does.
Kristen: Why do I have to do something with him, maybe the reward is not doing something with him.
[Laughter]
Dickie: Maybe you need a pedicure with the girlfriends or something like that maybe that spa you have been writing for.
Von: I have a question, not for you Dickie but just addressing –
John: Oooh, wow, not for YOU Dickie, jeez.
Dickie: I’m gonna turn off my microphone now.
Von: It’s early in the morning! This is addressed to you (Kristen) I’m just curious about your setup, do you work on a laptop or do you have multiple screens?
Kristen: I have a desktop, I re did my whole office to get myself in the creative mode to make it a fun, creative, happy place and I have a laptop, If I don’t feel like being in an office and sitting up right I have the flexibility to be mobile, that works for me a lot.
Von: The reason why I ask, I found out a few years back that I need to do conceptual work just thinking through stuff writing it down, not necessarily drawing it all, thinking through ideas, capturing them by writing them down, I can get that out a lot easier, off site, from where I do most of my work. Any time I need to work out an outline or need to write it out I always take my laptop and go outside somewhere and once I have it done then I come back and feel like I accomplished something and that I can move on. If I’m working on something and I don’t want to sit and dwell on it and try to hammer it out all in one sitting I keep it open but off to the side of my screen, I have two monitors actually so it’s a little easier doing this, I always have it there so I’m not forgetting about it during the day, then as I’m working and an idea hits me I’ll just go there and peck in that little idea, add to it then go back to what I’m working on, that way it’s like a progressive thing.
Kristen: I like that idea, it’s different, I like getting off site. That might be good for me, where I do my copy writing they have no Wi Fi but it might be good, I can just work in a Microsoft word document.
Von: You need to go into mole mode.
Kristen: I think if I block off time, set a half day or at 4pm every day, is that what I’m doing ‘yes, sir’ Dickie?
Dickie: Yes, except I would do it in the morning.
Kristen: But I’m going to the gym in the morning.
Dickie: When you get back from the gym you get to work on this.
John: Wow, Dickie Adams ladies and gentlemen.
Dickie: If you do it in the afternoon it’s too easy to let it slide.
Kristen: Okay, but now I have to disagree with you because I’ve learned the patters that work, for me.
Dickie: If that works for you but if it were me, once afternoon hits I may just go slide into the kitchen and start working on dinner.
Kristen: We’re not cooking in the next two weeks we’re getting take out every night then, using the crock pot. Here is what I’m gonna do to wrap this up and bring the peace back to the panel, I’m gonna do Monday to Thursday for the next two weeks every day, 3 or 4 o’ clock, late afternoon, I’m gonna have my half hour to an hour queries, that works for me I’m really good at the end of the day, I think setting aside that time would be good for me, I think the challenge, as controlling as you are, works for me, I think it will help me.
Dickie: What’s your reward? Are you going to buy yourself something nice?
Kristen: Gonna get another cat.
Dickie: If that’s something that you’ve been looking forward to use that as your reward, more cats.
Kristen: No we just got a cat last month, we can’t have anymore cats in this house.
Dickie: Like something you’ve been looking forward to, print out a picture of it and stick it in front of you so you’re looking at it for the next two weeks.
Kristen: The spa or something like that would be a huge enticer, shopping works.
Dickie: Make sure you follow through on it, if you don’t follow through on what your reward was then you’re gonna be disappointed and you won’t want to do this again.
Kristen: Okay so I’m officially taking the Dickie Adams two week challenge, I will report back guys, I will make a detailed log of –
John: Freelance T.V it should be a reality T.V show.
Kristen: I’m thinking like The Biggest Loser where they’re always screaming at Jillian Michaels “I hate you!” and she’s like “I hate you too!”
John: It’ll be over Skype.
Dickie: Except I don’t really hate you Kristen.
Kristen: Yeah but can I write I hate you on twitter every day like “Dickie Adams is the bane of my existence.”
[Von laughs]
Dickie: Yes if you wanna do that that’s fine by me, I’ll quietly block and ignore you.
Kristen: Aw.
John: Ooo! That was cold, and that’s not the weather you know what I’m saying.
Kristen: I’m gonna pull out my planner right now –
Dickie: That’s the other thing I was gonna say, drop the planner, switch to something that can bring something up on your screen, for this task, just for this task alone.
Kristen: I’m not a digital person I like to write things down.
Dickie: I know you’re not a digital person but I’m gonna make you into one.
John: I’m gonna make you into one soldier!
Dickie: No, no, I don’t want you to lose your planner completely all I’m saying is for this particular piece, go out to calendar.google.com and create little entries, so they’ll pop up on your screen or e-mail you that say “Work on this.”
Kristen: Alright I will embrace that.
Dickie: Write it down in your planner as well, anything you can do to help serve as a reminder in the next couple of weeks, will help you solidify this as a habit. After the first couple weeks you decide you don’t like the Google calendar that’s fine but I think you’ll find you’ll like the little pop up message, your day planner won’t do that.
Kristen: I will be a guinea pig, I’m signing in I’m gonna get started, once we wrap up this episode. I have to say I’m not as motivated about the challenge anymore, I think it will be cool to come back to the listeners and say what I’ve done, it is the end of the year I think it’s a good idea as a reminder for keeping up with your resolutions. I haven’t always done three queries a month and this will help me make up for that, I do plan to do one a day, that’s not hard for me.
Dickie: Then when you start the next year you’ll feel like “you know what, I can do this.”
Kristen: Is that a backed Dickie Adams guarantee?
Dickie: Well no I think if you really try to do it this way that when it comes time to think about your resolutions you’ll think “maybe I didn’t do three but I realized that I can do” rather than say “I’m going to do three a week” I’m going to say “I’m going to work on this four days a week throughout the whole year” rather than have to, make a more simplistic goal like I’m going to work on them, and you may put out five.
Kristen: It is working, I’m talking to magazines now, people are actually responding to my queries which a lot of writers know is really hard, they’re giving me feedback, I’ve got some things cooking for possible publications, it is working but I’m at the point of mid level career, I feel like this is one of the things I wanna do in life and I’m not getting any younger, people at my age are making careers out of the magazine thing. I don’t want to stop copy writing but it’s my goal.
Dickie: In my opinion this can serve as one of those turning points where either you do or you don’t, if you do, you can be extremely successful. I think you can do this.
Kristen: It’s on like donkey kong.
Dickie: I wanna be able to tell people “oh yeah I know Kristen Fischer, yeah, she’s my Jersey girl. She asked me to call her Kris, her and her cats.”
John: Oh yeah K.F. And I talk all the time.
Von: Dickie can you do a favor for me right now and just say “I live in a van down by the river.”
Dickie: I live in a van down by the river.
[Laughter]
John: Dickie Adams motivational speaker.
Kristen: Everybody else in the panel is gonna have to bring up their freelance dilemma, they’re gonna have to take it too, there might be a challenge from Kristen Fischer.
John: What I think would be good, I don’t know if there’s a great way to enforce this because we’re not unfortunately geographically anywhere near the same area, obviously some sort of individual rewards for what we’re each trying to accomplish but also some sort of group bet either for mutual success or even further drive us there, but it’s hard because we’re not geographically in the same place so like a ’somebody has to buy dinner’ thing doesn’t work in the same way.
Dickie: I say if we all meet our goals, we’re gonna talk about them in the next couple of episodes, we should pick a central location.
John: Kansas?
Dickie: Well I dunno about Kansas is there any good place to eat in Kansas.
John: Ooo wow, we just lost an entire state of people.
[Laughter]
Dickie: Let’s chit chat about what’s the easiest plane flights for all of us to get to some place.
John: Australia.
Dickie: Meet for dinner, in like San Francisco.
John: Of course it’s on the West Coast.
Kristen: I was just going to say that, it couldn’t be on the East Coast, not that I have anything against the West Coast.
John: Wow, wow, really?
Kristen: how about we just get Kristen writing okay guys. We’re not going to be friends by the end of this if everyone keeps this up.
Dickie: Let’s figure out like you said John some sort of universal reward to get together.
Kristen: My reward is seeing my name in print man, when I get the contract from one of these magazines –
Dickie: We’re not talking about you anymore, we’re talking about the team.
John: Ooo, Dickie Adams, wow, yikes. You can’t edit that out folks, you can not edit that out. We have to record in the morning more often. Soon we’re gonna be that morning show, I have sound effects ‘Honk, honk!’ Welcome to the morning zoo here at freelance radio, woo! Crazy contest coming up.
Kristen: This is good stuff, we need a little flavor.
John: I do like that we have individual tasks and rewards but also some sort of group thing, we’ll think on it, we’ll make it happen. Today’s freelance dilemma we talked about Kristen but the other panelists are up for it, Kristen this just means when you get to Dickie that you have to lay into him.
Kristen: Oh I’m going to town.
Dickie: You can try.
John: Oo! Fiesty, Dickie Adams fiesty.
Kristen: I really didn’t mean for this to be ripping everybody apart, there don’t have to be challenges for everyone else I just thought it would be a cool idea to –
Dickie: Yeah, well that’s what growth is about it’s about challenges, if you don’t challenge yourself –
Kristen: You watch too much reality T.V.
Dickie: But if you don’t challenge yourself you don’t grow.
Von: That’s true.
Kristen: Okay where’s our freelance question, please, now.
[laughter]
Dickie: Before we get to that John I wanna say one more thing, not to Kristen, this is more for the listeners in general. All of us do this podcast to help you guys out as well as help each other out, my challenge for the readers is if you have something like this where you want us to do a little challenge for you, you’re trying to work through something, post it in the comments section in this particular podcast we’d be happy to give you some insight even if it’s not on the air, maybe we can help give you a little challenge and reward to accomplish something.
John: Absolutely, if you do want to get in contact with us the best way is, if you don’t already read the FreelanceSwitch.com blog you absolutely should because it covers a lot of the same topics we talk about here and many others. Also e-mail us directly at freelanceradio@freelanceswitch.com, do feel free to get in contact with us. Now we do have a mail bag question, it relates to the broader question about dilemmas, it’s a question from Thomas from the great nation of Austria. Thomas take it away.
Thomas: Hello to the freelance radio team, my name is Thomas and I live in Austria, I have a question, English is not my mother language so please be patient, one of my clients recently had a very personal crisis because of his wife, his wife has had cancer and died a couple of days ago, it’s not really an economical problem for me because we’ve been friends for 15 years now but in different situations it would be delicate, how would you react, would you strictly be to the business, I think it’s a really hard question because we usually have a phone call or e-mail twice or thrice a week now the communication is lying down since then. Maybe one of you has had experience in the past with it, thank you for the great show, maybe you can discuss this question, you don’t have to put me on the air I don’t think that’s a great idea. Kind regards from good old Europe, Austria.
John: So as you can tell we completely ignored your suggestion that we not air this so I apologize if that’s embarrassing. I think this is an interesting question, Von Glitchska I’ll direct this question to you, what kind of advice would you give Thomas in his specific situation, long time friend, how to get that communication back up, but also generally what would you do in these situations.
Von: It’s unique because he knows this person, because he already knows this person he’s familiar with what he’s going through, we don’t usually know what’s happening because we don’t have that connection. It’s a good reminder that when communication does break down don’t fly off the handle or act on it in a negative way, take into consideration that you might not have the complete back story, somebody might legitimately be going through a personal crisis. I had one particular client who I didn’t hear for from months, it wasn’t a big deal getting the project wrapped up so I could invoice it but I was curious as to where they had gone etc. I shot an e-mail through that said “Can you update me on how you want to proceed going forward” I got an email back and it turns out his wife had died and I had no idea, if I would’ve just sent an e mail like “Why have you fallen off the face of the earth I need to get this invoice out” it would’ve come off really cold from his point of view, don’t jump to conclusions, take into consideration that you don’t know the full story most of the time. I think how he can help his friend is be patient, let him know you’re going to continue to be his friend, you can’t rush the grieving process, let him know when he’s ready to continue you’ll move forward with it.
John: Dickie same sort of questions, specifically for Thomas and then generally speaking, how do you deal with these situations?
Dickie: Argh, while business is business and for the most part you can’t let that cross over, I also think it’s extremely important in business and life in general to have some empathy for folks, it doesn’t happen as often as I would like. Even if your client is behind on billing help them on getting to that next stage in their life, very calmly, quietly. I think in this case the best thing to do is approach them and ask “How can I help you?” Speaking more in a general term here, there’s nothing wrong with going to a client and say “Hey, is everything okay?”, if they mention some disaster say to them “I’m so sorry” have that good bed side manner, confirm with them if there’s anything else you can do for them, gently slide into the “How can I make this easier on you and us, do you need some more time, how about I delay the next invoice until such and such date, you just let me know what works best for you”, as long as you don’t feel this customer is really pulling your leg this will go a long way in developing that relationship for the future, make sure you have that ongoing contact with the customer, it’s a rough situation I think the only thing you can do is be kind about it you’ll find that the reward is often times better than really fighting over getting your money back.
John: Yeah absolutely, Kristen Fischer same question any thoughts for Thomas specifically and then general thoughts on tough personal situations?
Kristen: Yeah, good question Thomas. I don’t know if he was owed money from the friend, establish one communication that’s not about business at all “I’m so sorry your mother passed”, I’ve had people tell me their mother is sick and I just imagine it happening to me and just wanting someone to say “I’m sorry about that” I would reach out if it’s a close client, send a hand written note card, send an e-mail, make the first communication nothing about business and then in a few weeks if they owed you money I’d pass along the invoice and say “Here’s the invoice, I understand you’ve been away from work or may be busy, take your time” it depends how much money they owe you, I would just try to be as polite as possible, I think if you keep it open to them and not pushing then hopefully they would respond and be timely about payment. It’s also a good conversation piece, to show concern, ask how their mother is doing, I am concerned because I imagine it happen to me, reach out to that person and leave business behind if their close to you and matter to you.
John: Absolutely, so Thomas I hope that does help, it’s never an easy situation to deal with even when it’s a friend, good luck with the situation and let us know how it goes and I hope only the best for you. That was our mail bag and please feel free to submit any questions to us again, you can go through our website online there’s a form that’s easy to fill out or you can e-mail us directly at freelanceradio@freelanceswitch.com we do love to hear listener questions and it’s always great to answer directly to something you folks are thinking about.
Now we’re at our freelance radio recommend section where we talk about recommendations of a website, a tool, something that helps us a lot in our day to day lives or in our freelancing. Kristen Fischer what’s your freelance radio recommendation today?
Kristen: It’s the blog of Claudine Hellmuth, she’s a listener and she’s a fun creative soul she does these amazing collages, a very disctintive look of art, mixed media work. A shining example of someone who has turned their freelance passion into something really amazing, she has her own line of products, she was on Martha Stewart last year and I’m so proud of her. I’m going to put her blog in the show notes it’s a fun blog to look at, if you’re into crafting even if you’re not it’s interesting to see what she does, it’s claudinehellmuth.blogspot.com, enjoy it.
John: Fantastic, Claudine I hope you hear this shout out here. Dickie Adams what’s your freelance radio reccomendation today?
Dickie: Mine is a company called FotoFlot.com they do photography mounting, framing, what’s unique about it is they mount it onto dark acrylic and custom cut the edges then the mounting mechanism is either a wall mount or a desk stand but it’s a magnetic mount, so on the wall it looks like the photo is floating. They run in various sizes and prices anywhere from 3×4 aspect ratio for fifty bucks up to 15×30 for like $185. Good guys to work with, they’re very helpful, I ordered a black and white in a sepia tone and the image quality is really nice, the reason I’m looking at this is like a value add to some of the photography stuff I do, working with clients to say we can help you produce something like this. It’s a really neat product and I’m excited to pass this on to some other folks.
John: That’s fantastic, this looks great, great way to display things. Von Glitchska what’s your freelance radio recommendation for today?
Von: I’m addicted to RSS feeds, it’s a great way to get a lot of cool content, one site I was turned onto this past week is notcot.org, essentially it’s an aggregator that flows through all kinds of cool stuff, if you’re familiar with another site called thecoolhunter.net it kinda works the same way, they take really nice creative content, be it architectural, art, craft or tech, little snippets flow through and give you a link so you can go to the site. It’s a fun way to put your finger on the pulse of what’s cool across the internet, that’s my recommend.
John: That’s great. You can never have too much cool stuff. My freelance radio recommendation today is probably something I’ve talked about before, I apologize if I’ve given it time already, I think it fits in perfectly with our theme here, it’s a website called the dayzeroproject.com, the idea is that you create a list of 101 things that you want to get done in 1001 days, which works out to be a little less than three years. You set yourself measurable goals, “I want to finish this many books or queries” etc. the reason they pick 101 and 1001 is kind of arbitrary it’s so you can remember it but 1. It’s enough time to actually get alot of things done 2. It’s also enough time to not worry about alot of things that crop up during your year, you don’t have to worry “Oh is my vacation time going to be a part of this” it forces you to think about what you really want to get done, all too often it’s so easy to look back at the last year and say oh yeah I got some stuff done I guess, if I look back at the last month I think I’ve been humming along and it’s been great and I’ve enjoyed it but I haven’t achieved my goals. One of the things they recommend is to make your challenges public, put up the list on the blog. It’s terrifically inspirational, these are the 101 things I keep putting off but now I’m actually going to do them.You can change it to however you want to do it, I know someone who’s doing 99 in 909 days.
Thank you for a great episode I want to thank Kristen Fischer author of Creatively Self Employed and Ramen Noodles Rent and Resumes: An After-College Guide to Life for her participation in the Dickie Adams boot camp today and Dickie Adams web and print designer, technologist, jack of all trades freelancer as well as avid drill sargeant and Von Glitchska illustrator designer and avid teacher. Thank you to the panel and the listeners, as always you can contact us online at freelanceradio@freelanceswitch.com. Thanks everybody have a great one, bye bye.
Kristen: Peace out.
Von: Salaam.
Dickie: Bye.