[Intro music] Freelance Radio, Episode 42: Dickie’s Freelance Dilemma.
John: Welcome to freelance radio the radio show by about and for freelancers the official podcast of FreelanceSwitch.com the freelancing blog. I’m your host John Brougher tech and new media specialist from Washington, D.C, U.S of A and I’m joined as always by our panel of first class freelancers, we have Kirsten 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?
Kirsten: I’m doing good, I have a noisy visitor in my office who keeps coming back, that would be my cat Brady named after Tom Brady, so if you hear “shut up, move, get out of here I hate you!” that’s me talking to my cat.
John: Your husband.
Kirsten: Yeah or my husband, my cat is nine months old, he’s nuts I like having a cat in the office but this guy’s in everything I think he wants to start writing.
John: Is it cold it is really cold where I am, is it cold in New Jersey?
Kirsten: No, we’ve had a freakishly mild day I think it was about 55, I was outside I thought “this is the last day to plant bulbs for the spring” but I didn’t do it.
John: We have Dickie Adams web and print designer, technologist, jack of all trades, master of all trades freelancer from Portland, Oregon, how are you doing today Dickie, warm?
Dickie: No, it’s freezing, frigid, like 19.
John: 19? Fahrenheit?
Dickie: Yes, it’s been cold, just happy that we haven’t had any precipitation or we’d be Iceland.
John: That’s a little too close to absolute zero for me, that’s rough. We have Von Glitschka illustrator, designer, avid teacher also suffering in the sub 20F weather out there.
Von: I’m doing pretty good the weather is brutal though, I was in the backyard before breaking up the ice that’s in our pond, it’s getting chilly.
John: You have a pond?
Von: Yeah I have a Koi pond in my backyard so the Koi fish are going dormant right now, they won’t eat for 3 months.
John: That will save you so much money.
Dickie: If only we could do that with our children.
John: Honey just go to sleep for 3 months “okay”. We have a great episode for you today the theme of our episode we’re talking about our freelance dilemmas, last time we spoke about Kristen’s freelance dilemma and it became a group therapy session there were a lot of good ideas, we’ll check in with Kristen and see where things are with that, we’re gonna move onto Dickie and put him on the hot seat and roast him talk about what his freelance dilemma is and some possible solutions if we have any then reach into our mailbag, if you want your mailbag question to be featured you can contact us at freelance radio at FreelanceSwitch.com, Clint has a great question and we love specific questions because they tend to resonate across the specifics and really analyze a particular issue, he’s asked a question about what do with a client if a competitor comes a knockin’, then finally we have our freelance radio recommend section where we go around the panel and recommend a website, blog, tool or something that helps us get by in our day to day freelancing lives. First off Kristen, if you don’t mind, how is your freelance dilemma going? Last time I remember we spoke about pitches but in general how did the boot camp go, how are you doing with that so far?
Kirsten: Oh my, I want to let our listeners know that it was like an involuntary boot camp it turned into “I challenge you, no I challenge you!” then it turned into me being challenged, I have to tell you it didn’t go how I thought it would, like how Dickie wanted it to, I still feel like I got a lot out of it and am in a better place but if you guys recall I wanted to take a half day Friday to write my letters and Dickie said no you have to do it four times a week and that worked for the first week but I got very busy, I had other copy writing stuff to do .
John: Uh oh.
Kirsten: Let me say my piece, I feel like I can just drop things and get into it more but I knew from the start the valuable take away was you have to do what works for you so the idea of the challenge was good but for me to go from nothing to four times a week it would be like John said like joining a gym when you hardly go, I got some query letters out, I think four times a week was too much of a dive.
John: Dickie Adams how does that make you feel?
Dickie: I’m crying in my heart.
Kirsten: Oh shush, I did it I made the Google alert and everything.
Dickie: For one week.
Kirsten: Then I got a huge project in that could pay my mortgage, so weigh it out.
Dickie: So Thanksgiving I’ll give you a break for Thursday but you could’ve done two times that, you said you got a big project my only question is was the project so big you had no time for anything else?
Kirsten: It was that big.
Dickie: That’s fine, I have no problem with that.
Kirsten: I think in January when things are a bit quieter I’ll do it every Friday, set up a Google alert, if you remember I wanted to write it down in pretty pens.
Dickie: No you need to use technology and your pretty pens.
Kirsten: Why? ‘Cause you say so?
Dickie: No because your pretty pens don’t pop up in your face and say “by the way have you done this yet?”
Kirsten: No they do.
Dickie: No they don’t, unless you have magical paper they don’t talk to you at all.
Kirsten: Oh my goodness Dickie, why do you irritate me?
Dickie: It doesn’t bother me that you needed to take some time away from it but I do disagree that four times a week is too hard, the reason I say that is because the first week you were able to do it and the second week you were busy with other things, of course that had to get set aside and in the holiday season it’s going to be harder to do that, I’m not disappointed at all.
John: “I’m not angry I’m just disappointed.”
Dickie: I’m not disappointed, I think when you get to the first of the year you’ll find it easier and keep it at four time a week as your optimal goal, when you don’t make it four times a week look back and think what did I do that replaced these four times, was it more important for life than writing it today then if the answer is yes then that’s okay.
Kirsten: Don’t you think you’re going a little Jilian Michaels, Biggest Loser on me? Four days a week, I felt more like I was able to just jump into it and do it you have to just challenge yourself a little bit if you do it too much you’ll have an aversion to it.
Dickie: My point is, to go to the quote that I saw on somebody’s beach house, which said “time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time”, I think if you seriously look at it, I did this for myself too, like I could do more, I spend a lot of time not and finding reasons not to do it. It’s better for me to set a higher expectation and if I don’t reach them not to come down on myself for not meeting them but to give myself a reason to say “did I fail to meet or exceed my expectations?” and I know what I expect from myself, but if you wanna do nothing…
Kirsten: I didn’t say nothing I said every Friday, half day Friday, nice relaxing.
Dickie: If you can’t be patriot strong then maybe you should find another team.
Kirsten: The team’s not doing good so you can’t even bring that up, next topic.
John: It’s interesting to me because I’m the one who said the gym analogy, you don’t go from zero to nothing, I think Dickie has a point, not so much in a Jilian Michaels sense, the key is if you’re able to do something once is that you can do It again, that doesn’t mean it’s easy or recommended or what I might suggest that applies to us, all of us change behaviors, whatever we do that we do it for a month and then reassess, the answer may be it’s awful it took 15 hrs out of my work week, 1. It wasn’t fun 2. I wasn’t getting better 3. Ultimately it wasn’t proving to be what I wanted it to be, that’s fine I think but I think it’s too early, it’s like a mini check in.
Kirsten: It’s bad timing January will be better, to paint the picture for you I’m not the writer who looks at the phone waiting for it to ring I’m honestly slammed and I’m not trying to rub it into anybody who Is doing that but right now, I’m at a point in my career where I’m slammed, for financial reasons I really have to take every project I can get but I like the concept of a challenge I do in January, I think I’ll pick it back up.
Dickie: I will adjust my challenge I will say that the challenge starts January 4th and my challenge is for you to do it four times a week for a month.
John: You did it once.
Kirsten: Can you come to my house and cook dinners for me please?
Dickie: Nope you don’t have to write the full letter you just have to work on it, you can work on the same letter four times, the reason why I say a month is when you hit the month I’m gonna ask you to do another month. I don’t want to turn this into anything bizarre or weird but I went on a diet in September, part of this diet was you had to change everything you did, the first week, first nine days it was just rough then the next couple weeks it was really hard not to drink a Coke or have some sugar but by the time the first month was over and I was in what was called Phase 3 I realized my habits were changing and now I’m down another pound and a half, I’m down 27 pounds?
John: Nice.
[Applause]
Dickie: I’m not going hungry I don’t feel like I have to eat lots and I’m not trying to turn this into a diet thing but the point is I can now have some candy but it doesn’t have the same affect on me, I’ve set a habit where I eat differently, same thing for these challenges that can force it to be a habit it’s like, John you recommended write once a day for the month of December, you get yourself in the habit and you go “that wasn’t as bad as I thought.”
John: Exactly.
Dickie: Then the next month maybe you’ll just do a little more bust a ball out the first day then I don’t have to worry about it at all, I want to make sure you feel like you still have free time not turning your life into virgin America next super billionaire type person, I find for most people you have to give up too much of your life to have life afterwards in my opinion, I will change my challenge to starting January 4th.
John: I think this is something we can apply to other dilemmas because I bet it’s almost always behavioral so thank you Kristen for the update, rock on.
Kirsten: Not a problem, let’s talk about Dickie’s many dilemmas.
John: Dickie Adams let’s talk about some of the freelance dilemmas that you face.
Dickie: Mine is probably something that is similar amongst other people, I’m just too awesome, that’s what John had said to me prior to this call starting.
John: That’s what I thought it was going to be.
Dickie: No, it’s not the case, my problem is that I’m too much of a perfectionist, I like things to be just perfect before I let anybody else use, see, do, have, if it’s something I have to let them have it before it’s not completely perfect I mumble and grumble about it that leads to projects being left in limbo, my board game is one of them it’s so close to write a sales sheet for it’s not even funny but I’ve backed away from it and started on another game design, I probably claim to be a jack of all trades because I do so many things, I know what the fix is, you have to be forced to release some stuff by doing some photography pieces it was really hard or me, I did my first real wedding shoot last month.
John: Yay.
Dickie: It was rough because I didn’t expect things to turn out right it’s even worse than dealing with clients when you’re doing design stuff you have a limited amount of time you get one shot at it but the customer came back and said they loved the photos and loved everything that I did so on and so forth so I’m like that’s good so I’ve been doing some family Christmas portraits kinda like I like the portraits but I don’t really like them but they paid me for them so now I have to put them up there, they have to see them so that’s my freelance dilemma, the over commitment to perfection.
John: I want to hear what Von has to say about this but I’m gonna throw out there Dickie just to roast you a bit I feel like it’s not the best dilemma for this show if you’re already taking steps, that’s unfair, “here’s my dilemma but it’s pretty much done.”
Dickie: It’s accountability.
John: Von Glitschka, Dickie Adams is the paragon of perfection, how do we deal with this? How do we help this man.
Von: I understand what he’s saying, there’s times where I’m hesitant to post something because I don’t feel it’s my best work not because I didn’t wanna do it better but either because of the time restraints or window of opportunity or client insisting upon certain changes it’s not as strong as it could be I have that inner debate with myself, do I even put this up because I don’t want people looking at it, so I can understand when Dickie’s talking about some photographs that he feels less than excited about posting and sharing with the world, I’ve been there many times but to be completely honest I agree with what you said I thought that was a lame dilemma, I think he could scrutinize his ways a little more.
Dickie: What are you trying to say?
Von: I’m not laying a smack down here.
John: This will be the final episode of freelance radio.
[Laughter]
Von: That sounded really bad, I didn’t mean that.
John: “I know for a fact that Dickie could find a better flaw, just take my word for it.”
Von: That’s not what I meant I just thought, I think he’s a fabulous photographer I’ve seen some of the prints he’s had run onto large format, mounts that go on his wall, they’re pretty spectacular I’ve never seen him take a bad picture, I’d like to see one of them to see if it’s only bad in his eyes or if I would even agree with it being not that great.
Dickie: It’s not even just pictures, let’s get down to the nitty gritty of one item in particular I can think about, Razzo emailing me saying “hey can you put together some stuff for a portfolio so we can put it on our site?” I’m like I could do that, a month later it’s like eh I don’t really want to do that I mean I want to but what would I put up there, what am I gonna say, what items am I gonna pick, should I do all photos, the ones I like right now, do I want to show my design stuff?
Von: I think that’s a better representation of a dilemma for you, right there.
Dickie: It still comes down to the same base issue.
Von: But that’s a practical problem you have, I think that has the potential of effecting getting more work whereas the other one is just your personal preference.
John: Well Kristen do you have any Jilian Michaels challenge for Dickie?
Kirsten: No I want to assess and gruel the situation for a moment, is the perfection in anything that makes you money or just personal stuff?
Dickie: Perfection in my life is just about everything.
Kirsten: Runs rampant.
Dickie: I want everything to be perfect, I’ve got music that I’ve written that I haven’t released because it’s not perfect.
Kirsten: The reason that I’m asking, I really think in this case and I’ve met a lot of writers like this, they write the same sentence and throw away the draft then when the deadline is up they have nothing to show for it so what I’m saying is, in some cases this could hurt your business because if you’re so worked up about it you might miss a deadline, the project may be delayed, I don’t have the challenge yet but sometimes when I’m working I give it to the client because I have a deadline for the first draft and I want to see what they say anyway, likely nothing is going to be perfect I learn that very quickly and roughly because I used to be so insulted when people had revisions now I tell my clients don’t expect for it to be completely perfect or everything you envisioned, you want to add your own touch to it, fine tune it, most clients want to add revisions.
Dickie: Which is what I do when I write.
Kirsten: So you’re not missing projects or work because of this?
Dickie: No not at all it comes more down to, protecting the ego?
Kirsten: I’m on a radio show with three men I think I know about the ego honey.
[Laughter]
Dickie: But you do good work, when people ask for writers I put you out there, I’ve seen what you do so I put your name out there .
Kirsten: If you don’t like something and you’re on a deadline, what do you do?
Dickie: Let’s say it’s a review and I can think of one in particular that I did for FreelanceSwitch.com that was really, mind blowingly dull to write but the reality is it has to get done, so in those situations I write the reviews backwards rather than the introduction all the way through, I start with the little easy bits at the bottom I put in the price, the pros and cons then I start working my way backwards writing the individual sections, which bores me out of my mind, I usually say “there’s the first draft, you take a look I’m gonna take another look and another day and make sure that it’s right” and then I might go back edit a couple things, switch some lines up and then I’ll say “okay it’s ready it’s good enough to post.” I don’t have this problem with my writing, I have this problem with my art meaning music meaning design, photography.
Kirsten: I think that’s because it’s so personal and a reflection of who we are, a lot of people do have that issue.
Dickie: Exactly.
Kirsten: I think in some cases, I don’t know if I have somewhat of a challenge but I think in some cases especially if you’re antagonizing people with “is this good, is this good?” or not but I think sometimes you just have to give it up to a point where you need to let go.
John: Von and Kristen I’ll need some help with this but I think I actually have a challenge for Dickie, your problem is legit I’m still gonna boo it, but it’s legit enough.
Kirsten: It’s legit.
John: You have a lot for these different projects small and large that are not getting completed or completed on some level, what I would suggest and like I said Von and Kristen help me shape this because I don’t know if this is the perfect way to do it but I feel like what we wanna do here, I like this month thing and I feel we can extend it further, is Dickie I’d like you to start to make a list, devote some time to it and it will never be done just make a list of all these projects, step 1. Step 2. Being once you’ve made a significant headway on that list I would try to organize them by how complete they are, like the Razzo thing that you have a query or letter from but you don’t actually have any thing there yet and some thing where you need to press the publish button or tweak it a little I would say for a month try to finish one of those almost done projects, each week, is that enough?
Kirsten: Four times a week, no I’m just kidding.
[Laughter]
John: Try to finish like 16 every day.
Von: Publish 4 games in a week.
John: So the answer is yes Dickie? Does that sound fair one project a week so by the end of the month you have four almost done projects finished?
Kirsten: I like where it’s going John I definitely think once the list is out you’ll be golden and I like the challenge.
Von: If I can suggest one thing, I talk to designers that don’t have their site worked out they struggle with getting it out because by the time they get to it again they don’t like the look of it so they re start it, they never get to the point of putting it up, what I usually say to people who are running into that is just put up a splash page that has your contact information and create a PDF that’s a good representation, not all of your work but cherry pick some good one’s put a PDF together and upload that, link it on your splash page so if people go to your domain it’s not blank, they can see you can do this, ask them to request more samples if they need to see it then that way you’re not handicapping yourself from promotion.
Dickie: I understand that, my first reaction to the list is, I have a list.
Kirsten: He has the list, he’s perfect.
John: Essentially a fake problem guys.
Dickie: No, no, no they just run through my mind I think about them I have the pieces in front of me a lot of the times I can see one of the board game pieces right now looking at me from underneath a hat.
Kirsten: Do you put them as a to do, when I have lame stuff to do I put it in my planner.
Dickie: It’s gotta pop up in your face, no I don’t do that Kristen, because it’s not something I have to do for making money.
Kirsten: You’re exactly like me then, I agree.
Dickie: If it’s something I need to do for money, important for career development in my full time job then I have lists and it pops up in my face and tells me the thing I need to make sure I do, for the items that are not as vital for example the board game design stuff where I don’t have to do, I don’t put them on a calendar because I don’t have to complete them, it’s not the notification of it that’s the problem, I may be 99c away from a dollar as far as the project completion is concerned and I’ll go back and just re work the whole thing.
Kirsten: You are that person, you drive me crazy and I don’t know how to fix you people! I really don’t know how to challenge you.
Dickie: When I write music I’ll do the same thing, I’ll be pretty close to having a song done and if I show it to people they’ll be like “oh yeah this is great!” and I’ll go “this sounds a lot like this song” and scrap the whole thing.
Kirsten: Maybe part of this is to focus on one initiative for a certain feasible amount of time.
Dickie: I don’t like to focus on one initiative that’s my problem.
Kirsten: Well I didn’t like to work four days a week on something honey.
John: Ooh.
Kirsten: Maybe for a month you focus on your game, yeah I’d get money if I landed an article but it wasn’t necessary I had plenty of regular work, I was in the same situation because when a project came up I’d do that because that’s the mortgage.
Dickie: I understand, are we talking about you again?
John: Dickie your resistance is very, very strong I gotta say.
Dickie: So now you understand that this is not just an easy off, this is a pretty big dilemma.
John: I’m just saying a challenge has been leveled, a similar challenge as you laid before and now you seem unwilling to take your own challenge, you’re willing to give out the challenge but not take it.
Dickie: Your challenge is I’m supposed to finish one item a week? From a list of set items, is that what your challenge is?
Kirsten: If it’s feasible, can you do a game in a month, just one thing.
Dickie: I might be able to finish the one game.
John: Sorry Dickie you’re breaking up I can’t hear excuses over this phone.
Dickie: One that’s almost finished I have re worked the pieces, what I need to do next is re print and re cut the pieces so that I can beta test.
Kirsten: The challenge is to prioritize it then to focus on that one thing, without any of the other creative projects, one thing a week. Sometimes I want to work on a bunch of different things, I have to work on just one thing, maybe that’s your challenge. I was like chastised, come on.
John: The challenge has been issued, through all of your excuses I think that is an accept?
Dickie: Yep.
John: So starting January 4th, if it’s good enough for Kristen.
Dickie: Forget January 4th I don’t need a month off, I’ll start next week.
John: Ooh, I wish someone else would host so I could do colour commentary on this.
Dickie: I just wanted to hear Kristen’s reaction, it was very quiet.
Kirsten: No, bring it, we have Christmas, do you know what it’s like to bake cookies for about a thousand freakin’ people, shop for the whole family.
Dickie: I already did.
Kirsten: He’s so cruel guys, somebody help me, he’s so cruel.
Dickie: I was just giving you a hard time, I really do need to finish this board game project, get the sales sheet done before the end of the year.
Kirsten: Go brethren, go.
John: Okay so starting next week Dickie’s going to complete a project a week then report back and we’ll say that’s not good enough you need to do more and make you do more.
Dickie: Unless I complete the projects and then what?
John: Even better then it will be easier.
Dickie: I had a prize for Kristen if she did her four weeks.
John: What’s the prize for Dickie? Fatherhood? I guess that’s taken.
[Laughter]
Dickie: I got a prize ready for you.
John: Wasn’t that prize that Kristen would get herself?
Dickie: No, no I think I will let Kristen have another chance at her prize come January.
John: This is getting circus like but I love it, reality T.V show freelance radio, the real world time to get real. So Dickie Adams challenge has been leveled we’re on like Lebrun, time to go, so we’re gonna have a mini check in from Dickie, maybe there’ll be sadness maybe there’ll be tears, you have to check in with us to see. That was Dickie’s freelance dilemma, the theme of the episode, we’ll see how that challenge goes, I’m excited it should be interesting. Now we’re gonna reach into our mailbag, we have a great question from Clint, it’s a specific question but I really think it resonates with a lot of different folks, so Clint says:
“Excellent podcast you guys do great work and I really appreciate your insights, I have a quick question for your consideration and discussion, here’s the scenario, let’s say that you have one client that hired you to do some work two years ago and since that time this client has fed you a fairly consistent amount of work I’ll estimate three jobs a year now let’s imagine that one of your clients top competitor’s approaches you and wants to hire you for similar work how would you handle the situation? Obviously you’re not a full time employee of your first client but you have established some kind of relationship with them ethically could you take work from your competitor after all it’s just business or should you turn down the work out of consideration for your first client, thanks would love to hear your thoughts on this.” So Von Glitschka, long time client, for the record this person is in the video industry so three projects a year may sound like not that much but three video projects a year can be quite substantial and now one of the top competitors is saying “hey we’d love to hire you” for very similar work. Von Glitschka have you been in this situation, what do you say to Clint?
Von: I have been in that situation, I’ve done a lot of work for Upper Deck which is a trading part company, I had another trading part company contact me and ask me if I would do work for them and I turned them down, I have no signed agreement with Upper Deck but they’ve been so good about giving me work over the years that I wanted to honor that relationship and not compromise it by going over and working for their competition. I think that does bring up some really good ethical questions, as far as myself personally I would think it’s unethical to do that at least without talking to your current client you’re working with but if you just talk to them they might think something’s weird in terms of you even bringing it up, in my opinion if you have a client who’s giving you a steady amount of work that you’ve built that relationship with, they’re depending on you to have their best interests in mind and you compromise that ideal if you work for their competition so I wouldn’t think that would be an ethical thing to do, that’s how I’d answer that.
John: That’s interesting, Kristen same question, have you been in this situation and what do you have to say to Clint strategy wise?
Kirsten: Same thing as Von really I definitely think there has to be a level of honesty, I would never just do that, I did have a similar issue, the client that served me better, I’m not going to give you the story but I think you have to be honest, if there’s written agreements involved you have to honor them but you also need to evaluate the situation because even just bringing it up could hurt that relationship, you have to asses are they really giving me tonnes of work do I even want to mess with it, there’s not right answer but these are things to consider.
John: Absolutely, now Kristen this might be a sticky situation but do you feel like your choice was the right one? Did it work out to your benefit as well?
Kirsten: I had a client that worked for a company and then he went on his own and when he came back and wanted me to do marketing for his new company his old company contacted me I was very straight forward with them because this guy that had gone on his own he has a really good marketing foresight and I’m definitely going to work with him and I told the company I am working for him, he has no problem if I work with you I brought it up to him and they were like no thank you I think I picked the right guy in this case, it worked out better for me in this case. If it was my best client I wouldn’t even go to them I wouldn’t consider it.
John: Dickie do you have any strategies for Clint?
Dickie: I feel like we’re watching an episode of madmen, the tomahawk airlines.
John: (Whispers “I don’t watch Madmen, don’t tell anybody”)
Kirsten: I don’t either but I kind of follow it.
Dickie: I think it’s a dangerous situation the best thing to do is check first with the company that he’s working for now to determine whether or not doing something for the competition is going to be a negative in their eyes, they may not care, if they say no then you need to evaluate the relationship, if they relationship you have now is one where you feel it’s important to maintain and move ahead with, bringing in money and providing you good work and you enjoy with working with and for then you should listen to what they have to say, if they are the type of client where everything’s a hassle and so on and so forth then the other option is decide whether or not you have to fire yourself from them to work for the other company. In computer consulting often times your doing work for the same people all over the place and it doesn’t matter if you’re working for the competition in design work it does matter because you don’t want to be producing similar items for similar companies if you’re doing more technical things I wouldn’t worry about it at all.
Von: I have an interesting story a creative person told me when I was traveling a couple weeks back, you remember when the Windows marketing campaign came out and it was like video of people saying I am PC and there’s an oceanographer, they’re trying to pitch Windows Vista by pitching that campaign that I am PC and it showed PC users and different types of professions so on and so forth and then it came out through a YouTube video where the firm that created those advertisements did it all on Mac’s, it was a big controversy, what happened between that time and now, I was talking to this agency guy he was telling me that Microsoft moved to a different agency and they came in and said look if you want this account you’re going to have to get rid of all your Mac’s, replace your whole infrastructure with PC’s and then we’ll give you our account and they did, they replaced all their Mac’s with PC’s, just so they would avoid that potential of conflict of interest. The more I thought about that the more it irritated me if I was putting myself in the position of a creative person at that agency, what If I was working at an agency and Microsoft came in and said that to that agency would I stay there? Would I be so adamant about working on a Mac I couldn’t live in those circumstances, it made me all upset thinking about it I couldn’t imagine being a creative and having to make that decision.
John: So if someone had made that awful choice contract to you, you would’ve had choice paralysis? It’s just you though not a whole agency of people right.
Von: I had Corel Draw contact me years ago and they were looking for an illustrator to do some type of marketing thing that they could use in advertising but they needed to find somebody who used Corel Draw, the agency that was working with Corel at that time was actually offering to buy me Corel so I could do the illustration in it because I didn’t use Corel and I agreed to it because I said if they’re willing to buy me the app and give me the time I’ll learn it and do it but they never did they ended up going somewhere else, I should point out that I do work for different clients that in and of themselves they’re technically competitors it’s not like any one of those are full time clients where they are an account of mine, I’ve done logo designs for multiple marketing firms, all these multiple marketing firms are competing to get who they want as clients, they’re all using me to do their branding and logo’s for them, I’m helping them compete with each other, it’s kind of weird when you get behind the scenes and see who’s everybody working with. It’s like they’re all in bed together for lack of a better analogy. Years ago I was offered an art direction position at Adidas America, we went into their ‘top secret’ area where they were coming up with new shoe designs they were telling me that as soon as it leaves their studio the Adidas, Nike, Reebok and it heads to the facilities that manufacture the shoes it’s like the secrets out, everybody knows what everyone is doing as soon as it hits the factory floor overseas. You can only do so much to secure your advantage, you could say, I think that applies when you’re working with a client, you’re going to keep whatever you’re doing for them under wraps, honour non disclosure agreements, you still have to make a living so unless they pay you out right to not work for somebody else you can’t afford to do a one time gig now I won’t do any other work for that type of client moving forward because I work for you, I just don’t want the person who asked the question to think that’s the case because I can’t honor that because I have to make a living.
John: There’s always a happy medium but it’s a good point to keep in mind. Clint I hope that helps I know whenever there’s ethics involved everything just gets more and more complicated, please tell us how it goes and let us know your thoughts if you have follow up questions or anything like that contact us at freelance radio at FreelanceSwitch.com. Now we have our freelance radio recommend section where we go around the panel and we talk about a tool or website or something that helps us get through our freelancing day, Dickie Adams you were on the hot seat earlier you’re on the hot seat again, what is your freelance radio recommendation for today?
Dickie: I am unafraid, mine is a shop called Three Potato Four, it’s an interesting, unique shop, I haven’t had a chance to order anything yet but they have a lot of collected type items, letter press initials set, they do collections, custom signs it’s unique it’s artsy, run by a couple of designers, I like them.
John: That’s great so ThreePotatoFourShop.com and again for all these links and other notes we have our show notes online at FreelanceSwitch.com/podcasts, you should be checking out the site anyway because it has a lot of great articles unrelated to what we talk about here but related to freelancing. Kristen Fischer what is your freelance radio recommendation for today?
Kirsten: You guys know I’m a big beverage person, not the alcoholic kind only sometimes, only when mommy’s had a bad day, today is not alcoholic it’s tea, I love tea and I love England and there is a wonderful tea that comes out of there that I miraculous get in the U.S and it’s called The London Cuppa and it’s just a plain black tea, if you want something that holds milk or lemon well it’s The London Cuppa like cuppa tea, I wouldn’t of recommended it but the website is so cool, beware of awesome British jingles, even if you don’t like tea, it’s fun, it’s England and it makes me happy.
Dickie: Do you like your tea just straight out teabags or do you do loose leaf as well?
Kirsten: I don’t do loose leaf, I’m not there yet, I haven’t invested I know I have to go to Teavana and all that, I’m not a connoisseur yet but I do like tea a lot.
Dickie: I shall issue another challenge then.
Kirsten: No, jeez.
Dickie: I am interested in the flavor of their tea though I might have to try some.
Kirsten: If I send you a nice Christmas card maybe I’ll chuck one in your envelope.
[Laughter]
Von: Here’s some cool fact about black tea that I saw on the history channel or something, this is really fascinating, it was on dirty jobs, he went to a tea place, Tazo maybe, they keep black tea in a completely separate part of the warehouse because unlike the other teas which are derived from leaves black tea is derived almost sponge like so it will soak up whatever’s around it in a room so they have to keep it separate, I thought that was interesting I had no idea, sponge juice.
John: Tea’s are awesome. Tea is a frequent theme of our podcast here, so London Cuppa.
Kirsten: In the US you can get it at Marshall’s or Home Goods, that’s our little secret, otherwise you have to get it shipped and it’s very pricey so whenever I can find it I buy it.
John: I bet to all the UK listeners this is very uninteresting because your tea is always awesome but for us TheLondonCuppa.com, so Von Glitschka what is your freelance radio recommend section for today?
Von: I have one that’ll give you some good laughs, it’s called Clients From Hell, you can check out the link in the show notes, it’s real world submissions of comments that real world clients have said to other designers and they share amongst this website, it’s a fun site to click through and read all the submissions, it’s pretty crazy what client’s say sometimes so that’s a fun website to go through and a practical one, I wanted to share this, I don’t know if other people do this I do it all the time, when I need to charge my digital camera or iPhone I’m always looking for an outlet to plug my little power brick into, this place called FastMac.com they’re selling a wall outlet that has two USB plugs built in to it, I thought that’s just awesome, I’ve pre ordered a couple of them for my office, it’s something every designer needs but I’ve never seen it handled in such a simple elegant way.
John: I think the idea of power outlets with USB ports is both amazing hilarious and crazy all in one, it’s only ten dollars folks. It’s rather a long URL so we’re going to leave that for the show notes but it’s via FastMac.com, the store there. ClientsFromHell.tumblr.com, also in the show notes. My recommendation this week is unfortunately not as practical as I would like, I try to make sure my picks are thing I use and interact with on a petty regular basis this is a web comic that I only recently discovered but is such a great, great thing it’s called ThisIsIndexed.com I may have recommended this in the past, it is written by Jessica Haughey who has a brilliant sense of humour, everyday she comes up with a new diagram or graph that she writes on an index card and puts on as a web comic, lots of hilarious observations on life, a daily web comic, very, very funny, very insightful often with great commentary on life or living, brings a smile to my face almost every day. Lots of fun stuff from us today, more challenges, more anger, hopefully not the last freelance episode you will ever hear, that just means more updates, who knows what’s going to happen in the next episode, is Von going to be in the hot seat, am I going to be in the hot seat, probably not because I get to control the content but is Von going to be in the hot seat? Absolutely. Tune in next time, thank you very much to Kristen Fischer author of Creatively Self Employed and Ramen Noodles Rent and Resumes: An After-College Guide to Life, thank you to Dickie Adams web and print designer, technologist, jack of all trades freelancer and accepter of the big, big challenge from Portland, Oregon and Von Glitschka illustrator, designer and avid teacher also out of the 19 degree wasteland that is the greater Oregon area, thank you to all of our panellists and all of you, the audience, you’re why we do this, if you have any questions whatsoever freelance radio at FreelanceSwitch.com or you can check us out online at FreelanceSwitch.com/podcasts, have a great one everyone, see you soon, bye bye.
Von: Salaam.
Dickie: Bye.