Experts such as Peter Bowerman of The Well-Fed Writer write that nothing beats cold calling. When you’ve exhausted your list of prospects, however, and your calendar of networking events, it’s still possible to find the odd job via job ad.
Coffee Break: Why Are We Afraid To Put Ourselves Out There?
August 1, 2008 by 2 Comments
This past week, I’ve had to face the fact that — if I don’t begin to self-market myself more aggressively — my at-home business will never grow. Which is why I focused on self-marketing all week long, with:
- How To Market Yourself: Strengthening Your Web Presence
- Product Placement: The Resume T-Shirt
- How To Market Yourself: Getting Out More, and
- Product Placement: Business Cards
Still, even when we know all there is to know about the logistics of self-marketing, we can still have difficulty implementing the necessary steps. Much of this is due to fear.
Product Placement: Business Cards
July 31, 2008 by 2 Comments
Yesterday, I posted about getting out more. Hopefully, when you do eventually get out, you’ll remember to bring your business cards with you.
Oddly enough, many freelancers don’t think to get business cards done up for themselves, especially when they’re just starting out. I suppose that, for them, business cards were something they received from full-time employers in order to confer legitimacy upon themselves.
Thing is, they can provide legitimacy to your freelance business as well (in addition to making in-person networking easier and more fruitful).
How To Market Yourself: Getting Out More
July 30, 2008 by 1 Comment
The other day, we discussed using online social networking for our own selfish, self-marketing needs.
Now comes the hard part.
Though I myself can be a bit…um…socially challenged when it comes to facing a group of complete strangers (liquor helps), I’ve found that meeting someone face-to-face can do wonders for making you stick out in one’s mind.
So I’d like to suggest leaving your computers behind, at least for an evening, and checking out some of the following settings:
Product Placement: The Resume T-Shirt
July 29, 2008 by 3 Comments
If you’re interested in practicing a rather…exhibitionistic form of guerrilla self-marketing, there’s nothing like wearing your expertise on your sleeve. Literally.
How To Market Yourself: Strengthening Your Web Presence
July 28, 2008 by 5 Comments
When I left my full-time job about a year ago, I was lucky in that I didn’t need to actively seek out work. My one regular proofing gig was snagged through a job ad forwarded to me by a former classmate. And all my other work came to me similarly, through friends and former co-workers who were aware that I was forging ahead on my own.
Such passivity only works up to a point, though and, recently, I found that I had hit a wall. If I wanted to grow my business, I had to bust my ass a bit more. This terrified me. I’m a shy gal, and had probably ended up as a writer/proofreader because of the quiet reclusiveness it afforded me. Thankfully, it’s possible to cover a lot of ground marketing-wise on the web alone:
Coffee Break: Staying Focused Is Tough
July 25, 2008 by 3 Comments
What’s your biggest distraction when it comes to working from home?
I often find myself being distracted by…everything. Reality television. The mail. Even housework! Stuff I would usually avoid like the plague at any other time.
And it seems that remaining in front of my computer can be just as dangerous, if not more so.
My 5 Favorite Things In: One Person/Multiple Careers
July 24, 2008 by 4 Comments
When I first read Marci Alboher’s One Person/Multiple Careers, I felt vindicated. After all, while I had been happily frolicking from interest to interest, maintaining a comprehensive list of things I wanted to do and accomplish in my lifetime, my husband had been calling me unfocused. Unfocused! Can you believe it!?
Alboher’s book assured me that I wasn’t a weirdo for wanting to do so much. She wrote that “slashes” (those receiving income through multiple avenues) seem more satisfied, and less oppressed, than those holding only one job.
I immediately read the passage aloud to my husband and made nyah nyah sounds at him, my immature way of announcing victory. The reasons you should pick up this book as well
Unpaid Internships: Something White People Like!
July 23, 2008 by Leave a Comment
My buddy Christina recently sent me a link to Stuff White People Like in response to my most recent post.
Despite being a comprehensive blog-catalog of things I actually do like, I’ve never read the blog. Shame on me! Because they just-as-recently posted about Unpaid Internships.
They totally reveal the utter ridiculousness of the internship concept but, truth be told, everything I wrote previously is still true. It’s one messed up world we live in, that’s for sure.
How To Make It Big While Working for Free
July 23, 2008 by 3 Comments
After completing the weirdest college internship ever (writing adult content for the Phoenix Media/Communications Group), I thought I was done providing free labor in order to cement my career success.
Faced with a long, drawn-out period of unemployment one year out of college, however, I was forced to consider the benefits of a post-college internship.
I ended up interning for the editorial department of the Feminist Press, an incredibly idyllic period in my life. It led to an eventual full-time job within the academic book publishing world.
And so, when I was considering a career change two years later, it made sense to embrace the short-term detriments of a low-income internship as a means of working toward longer-term benefits.
So I’m a huge advocate of the post-college internship. Do you remain unconvinced that such a situation could be worth it? Here are the reasons that I champion temporarily unpaid labor:
