First of all, thanks so much to all of you who came to see me at SxSW interactive. The Saturday panel “Your First Year as a Freelancer” was packed — we expected about 10-15 folks, got 40 instead. If you want to know what happened, or are just curious to continue hooking up with folks who were there, or want to forge your own connections, feel free to follow the #geektopeak or #g2p hashtags on Twitter.

For those of you not on Twitter yet, shame on you! Get on there! You can find me tweeting as @myerman.

I had the opportunity to talk with many of you during SxSW, and by talk I don’t just mean talk, I also mean “have beers with!” (It’s good to actually meet some of you face to face.) One thing kept coming up over and over: clients suck.

Yes, some of them do. Not all of them, but a surprisingly large number of them certainly do. The bad thing is, it only takes one schlemiel in a crowd of 100 to stink up the whole place, and this goes doubly so when it involves cash, check, or charge. Particularly if you’re desperately trying to stay out of that group of people known as “the foreclosed.”

One of the biggest paradoxical rules of business has to do with money and good/bad times. If there’s good times, everyone throws money around just to get your attention. You might be so busy that even if a client walked into your office with a wheelbarrow full of kruggerands, you still wouldn’t be able to respond to them. And of course, during bad times, it seems that all you meet are the nasty little chiselers who want you to do things for free (or pay them, if at all possible, for the privilege of wasting the precious hours you have left on Earth).

So look around at your stable of clients (and possible clients) and ask yourself these questions:

• Is there anyone on the list that makes you cringe? Like, you’d rather saw your own ears off then be with that person? And I’m talking mean, nasty, racist, sexist, ageist, classist? Anything like that?
• Is there anyone on the list who repeatedly crashes through the boundaries you’ve set up for accepted, normative communication? Stalks you on Twitter or Facebook? Calls you at all hours? Emails you 173 times a day? Then faxes you to tell you about the emails? Sends a courier to your home office to perform an interpretive dance that summarizes all past communications to date?
• How about anyone who repeatedly makes a whole bunch of changes to stuff at the last minute, can’t find a solid rationale for anything he/she says, or just wants to mess about and then blame you when things don’t come off as planned? Especially if there’s a spouse involved with big hair and $5,000 shoes and a little dog in a purse who flies in, blows air kisses, and says, “This should be pink!” then leaves for a day at the spa? (Don’t ask. Really.)
• How about the guys who screw around with the finances? Any check bouncers? Guys who repeatedly say the check is in the mail? Guys who argue with you, saying weeks later out of the blue that what you’ve done isn’t good enough? Guys who want to nickel and dime you to death?
• How about anyone who you’re charging 50% or 60% your normal rate? And who still insist on bad behavior like anything previously mentioned?

If you’re normal, you have three or four folks like this in your stable (or your pipeline). Once you identify them, you have to make a choice. You can either do your best to get rid of them, or you can live with them–but if you do the latter, you can’t burn up anyone else’s atmosphere with the bitching and moaning. (I did this for far too long, my wife getting the brunt of it, and for that I’m sorry. Those guys making my life miserable weren’t worth it.)

So how do you get rid of the sucky clients? Here’s a little program:

1. First, try to talk to them about what you find offensive or intolerable. If they’re calling you at odd hours, remind them when business hours are. Set up a policy for the next client. Set some boundaries! I had tr0uble with that my first few years, and yeah, I’m still working on it.Some of the offenders will go, “Oh, hey, sorry about that!” and it’ll be mostly done except for a few slip-ups in the future. And some will take their business elsewhere. Either way, you’ve taken the right first step in the escalation process.
2. If they still don’t get it, don’t want to hear it, don’t seem to understand, that’s okay. Just tell them that their rate is going up. It’s called a PITA charge, or Pain In The Ass charge, but you don’t need to tell them about it. If they’re at your full rate, add 15%. If they’re below your full rate for any reason, move them to the full rate immediately.
3. If you’ve already levied a PITA fee, do it again, or put them on a retainer basis. Charge them $1500, $2000, or $2500 a month no matter how much they use you. Make it a one-year contract. For those of you just tuning in, no I am NOT saying that retainers are punishment tools. I have retainer agreements with the best people in the galaxy, client-wise.
4. Under no circumstances should you broadcast your disgust over the social media airwaves. You will lose this fight in a bad way. Just don’t go there.However, if they start a fight on social media, you must counter with the facts. Don’t be emotional, and try to keep the fight clean. Don’t pick your fight out in public, but do it in places where other contractors, consultants, freelancers, and such will see it and be warned to run far, far away (places like the Writing Mafia group on LinkedIn).

That’s it! Anyone else have horror stories about sucky clients or tips for dealing with them?

Certain animals (like magpies, raccoons, and pack rats) collect lots and lots of shiny objects to decorate their nests, attract mates, or because collecting them gives them some kind of rush. Primates (and that means you too, dear reader!) also love to collect stuff. My mom is the most fantastic pack-rat you’ll ever meet, as are several uncles and aunts–all of them lived through the Great Depression or grew up as “po’ folks” in the country.

I think the same thing is happening in the social media scene. We love those shiny new objects, right? Whether its checking out some new social bookmarking site, downloading an iPhone game with a social media component, blogging, or joining yet another social networking site, most of us who are out here have four-dimensional social graphs that are almost impossible to tease out. And only a handful of our friends, family, customers, and colleagues overlap from one  social media playground to any other. (And its not like we’re all hanging out at naughty swinger sites or something. It’s just that only a few of my Facebook friends are part of my LinkedIn network, and only a few of either are part of my Twitter scene.)

I’m not sure if all this activity is still healthy or not, or whether we’re just now in the realm of collecting shiny stuff just for the sake of collection; I fear that we are just feeding some kind of atavistic impulse to hoard in a time of want instead of actually using these tools as they were intended: to share information, connect with people, hang out, have fun.

The question is, as a consultant/freelancer, are you involved in the social media scene? If you’re not, you better get in the game, and do it in a way that will help you grow your business (if you like, we can have this discussion during SxSW). If you are involved in social media, what are you doing to give to the community? What are you taking from the community? Is there an imbalance there, on either side of the equation? Are you having fun? Are you doing things strategically?

Here’s a little nursery rhyme about magpies:

Every time I hear someone say, “I don’t use social media–that’s just greasy kids stuff” I just want to pull my hair out. Wake up people! There are some serious numbers all across the board for social media, and we ain’t just talkin’ ’bout blogging. Other social media activities, like rating content, reading/viewing content, and sharing content also rate high.

Let’s take B2B buyers as a group. Most of you should be interested in this demographic, because after all, as a techie consultant, you’re probably running into these folks at one point or another. Think they’re not using social media tools? Think again! According to Forrester research, they’re one of the most highly involved groups of people they’ve ever sampled!

Some highlights from this research (start by looking at the right two columns):

• 91% of these technology decision-makers were Spectators – the highest number I’ve ever seen in a Social Technographics Profile. This means you can count on the fact that your buyers are reading blogs, watching user generated video, and participating in other social media. Note that 69% of them said they were using this technology for business purposes.
• Only 5% are non-participants (Inactives).
• 55% of these decision-makers were in social networks (Joiners) — despite as mature businesspeople and not college students, you’d think they’d be participating a lot less.
• 43% are creating media (blogs, uploading videos or articles, etc.) and 58% are Critics, reacting to content they see in social formats. Again the numbers are very high compared to other groups we’ve surveyed, and again the level of participation for business purposes is also very high.

What does this mean for you? If you’re a B2B marketer and you’re not using social technologies in your marketing, it means you’re late. We’ve seen a lot of excellent activity here from the likes of Dell and National Instruments (both won Forrester Groundswell awards) but a lot of the blogs, communities, and other social outreach from business to business companies is less than mature, to say the least. This is your chance to stand out. Take this report and show it to your boss to convince her that it’s time to get started.

Read their blog post here.

Some more wisdom in From Geek to Peak:

Okay, it’s time to stretch your legs and leave that great little home office. You don’t want to publish your home address to clients, prospects, and colleagues for any number of reasons, if only just to maintain privacy. Trust me on this–you don’t want some client showing up at your house at 2pm on a Saturday wanting to discuss some code you wrote for him.

Find the nearest mailing center that lets you use a “suite” address (as opposed to a “PO box” which looks a bit cheesy) and go rent a box. My local UPS store (about 3 miles down the road) lets me rent a medium-sized mailbox for less than $200 a year. They also offer a bunch of other amenities that you will find indispensable:

•  They accept and sign for all kinds of packages
•  You can ship UPS letters and packages from there
• You can send certified mail there
• They can hold your mail if you go on vacation
• They can send and receive faxes
• They can make your copies (and even bind them)
•  They can shred your documents for you

When you sign up, they’ll ask for some photo ID and a list of everyone who is allowed to get mail there for you. You’ll get some keys and a sheet of paper with your address on it once you get back to the home office, put this address on your web site.

It’s up to you whether you tell people that you’ve set this up. Some folks are still strangely leery of working with a consultant who isn’t in a real office. I started out at home, then officed in four different locations around Austin before landing back in my home office and staying there. During the five years that I officed outside the home, I held exactly six meetings with clients at the office, and only had one client ask if I had an office. Most of my meetings occurred at the client offices, or neutral ground, like a Starbucks.

What this told me is that you really don’t need an office–save the money you would otherwise spend on this meaningless status symbol and put it to good use elsewhere (like pumping up your retirement).

Yet another bit o’ wisdom in From Geek to Peak:

Ten or fifteen years ago, every discussion of setting up a home office always came with this “hush-hush” air. Nobody who worked at home wanted the secret to get out. I guess everyone thought that home workers just sat around in their pajamas all day.

Maybe they do, but I don’t, and neither do any of the home-based consultants and freelancers I know. I mention this only because you’re just starting out, and that means you need to set up a home office–going out and renting an expensive office is something you just don’t need right now. Remember, first we need to get a few customers and then we can start spending money. Having a fancy office isn’t going to help you with new customer acquisition, believe me.

So let’s take stock and get a basic work environment set up. We’ll have plenty of time to get the details sorted out later. Remember, we’ve got 72 hours.

Do you have a spare bedroom with a door? That’s the ideal. The door is the most important part. You’ll want to close your door to keep out dogs, kids, and the bored friend or spouse who thinks, “Hey, he’s just sitting there not doing anything, maybe I can talk to him.” It’s also good to be able to close the door to make phone calls in private and relative quiet (I have a Yorkie who loves to bark, so quiet is always important).

Having a separate room is also important when considering the psychological and tax-based issues surrounding home office work. By having a separate room, you send a clear signal to everyone that when you enter that room, play time is over–you are working. If you just use this room for business, then you might be able to get a tax break (please talk to your accountant about that, but not now! Remember, the clock is ticking!)

If you don’t have a spare room, pick a corner of a room farthest away from major activity centers in your home. Don’t pick a place close to the kitchen, laundry, living room (with its distracting TV) or master bedroom (if you have to work late, this gets awkward; ditto if you do any video conferencing).

If you don’t have a spare corner in an isolated part of the house, I hope you have a laptop, because you’ll be moving around a bit–out to the balcony or porch, your living room, maybe a local coffee house.

The next important thing is a good chair. You’re going to be sitting in it a lot, so please get a good one–the best money can buy. If funds are tight, at least get something with a cushion for your derriere and the small of your back. Hopefully it also adjusts up and down, because it has to interface nicely with your desk.

The desk can be anything, really. The most important part for me is that it be at the right height and that it offer plenty of open space because I tend to pile things here and there as I work on stuff. You’ll have other requirements, I’m sure. I picked up a good second hand desk for $20 at a scratch and dent store. Another guy I know uses a card table. Still another uses an old door set up on glass blocks.

Next, make sure that you have a good light on your desk–I like the full-spectrum lights because they provide better visibility and don’t mess with colors and such. The idea is that they closely replicate natural sunlight. Good light gives your eyes a break, and you need your peepers in top condition.

That’s it–that’s all you need right now in terms of office stuff. Later on, you’ll pick up a filing cabinet, maybe a shredder, but there’s time enough for all that after the magic 72 hour clock runs out.

Now, I’m assuming that you have either a desktop or laptop computer in your possession, along with some kind of broadband connection to the Internet (cable, DSL, etc). If you don’t, run (do not walk) to your local computer store (I’m an Apple guy, so I haunt the Apple Store regularly) and get something. Since you’ll be traveling some (even if just locally) it’s smart to get a laptop, but some folks just can’t work on one, and need a desktop. Either way, get the best, most powerful machine money can buy. You just can’t live as a technical consultant without one, and I mention it only because there is a slight chance that someone reading this might be without one.

Here’s another assumption–you have some kind of cell phone or smartphone. If you don’t, go get one. Again, I’m an Apple guy, so I have an iPhone, giving me maps for when I get lost (frequently), email send/receive, web browsing, instant messaging, and all kinds of other features besides being able to make and take calls.

You have plenty of time later to decide if you want a dedicated phone line and/or a fax machine in your home office–these kind of lines can get expensive, and you’ll probably find that use your cell phone and email more often.

 

  

 

If you’ve heard me do my Marketing 2.0 presentation, you’re familiar with the slide showing the old-fashioned radio from the 1940s with WIIFM emblazoned across it.

What’s WIIFM? It’s the most popular radio station on planet Earth. Every single person is tuned into it 18 or more hours each and every day. It is the single biggest key to your success as a marketer, as a businessperson, hell, as a person.

If you can broadcast on this station, you will earn respect, fame, fortune, friends, and your just reward.

So what is this radio station? Well, it isn’t a radio station really. WIIFM stands for “What’s In It For Me?” and its the (usually) unstated question that plays out in the minds of every single person at every single interaction point with any messaging.

Let me give you a few examples. You’re rifling through your favorite business magazine, and every time you encounter an article or ad, you think to yourself…how does this relate to me? What do I get out of paying attention to this particular page?

Advertising maestros and journalists both know that they have to craft skillful headlines, use stunning graphics, and entice people with teasers or offers to get them to pay attention, but attention isn’t enough. At some point, you have to make them care. You have to make them really care.

What if you saw a headline for a story about surviving a recession, and you yourself own a company that’s about to be hard hit by the recession? Would you care enough to read the story?

What if, after reading the first three or four paragraphs, you realize the author has come up with ideas that nobody else has (and you know this because you’ve read 100 articles on beating the recession)? Would you care to keep reading then?

Another scenario: you’re at a cocktail party, networking with colleagues. A person you hardly know walks up to you and starts talking to you about some gizmo his company makes. You really don’t care to talk to him, because you can’t relate what he’s saying to your life and business.

What if that person told you he is best friends with your college roommate? The college roommate who happens to be your boss?

Or what if he told you that the gizmo his company makes can offer a lifeline of salvation for one of your clients?

What about it? Is there something in it for you now?

See how easily the WIIFM message cuts through the clutter? It’s the double-edged sword of relevance and audience analysis that makes WIIFM so handy to have in the marketing fight.

If you understand your audience (and its needs) and bring them something relevant (i.e., you know they’re listening to the WIIFM spectrum) they will pay attention to you–maybe long enough for you to make a case for your product or service.

What can you use to broadcast on this station?

Blogs, wikis, podcasts, digg, flickr, rails, MVC applications — man, when does it ever stop? Welcome to the brave new world of Marketing 2.0. I occasionally give this little speech (slide deck and audio coming soon) about the emergence of Marketing 2.0. It’s a complete b.s. title for something that is so powerful and emergent that it threatens to do away with a large chunk of the old-world Marketing 1.0 thinking.

Okay, wise guy–what’s Marketing 1.0? What is Marketing 2.0? What in the world am I talking about? Well, think of Marketing 1.0 as the Advertising model. Grab a megaphone and shout at people over and over and over until they finally give you money.

Marketing 2.0 is about getting back to the basics of marketing before the Rise of Advertising. Conversations that are two-way. Relationships built on trust. High-integrity activities and offerings instead of cheap messaging stunts like 30-second ads and full-color inserts that do nothing but increase the agency’s bottom line.

B2B companies aren’t composed of idiots, after all. They’re not going to buy your services if you just show up with an ad. You’ve got enough work cut out for you if you show up with white papers, podcasts, and a blog.

Every time you have to make a spending decision on marketing, think about what will bring more value, build up your marketing assets?

• T-shirts…or teleseminars?
• Sponsoring an event…or holding a workshop?
• Coffee mugs….or case studies?
• Brochures….or a webinar?

It’s not that hard to see once you put it into that kind of perspective.

Here’s another little bit from my book, From Geek to Peak:

If you don’t use LinkedIn, start now. Build a profile and start connecting with others. I am an open networker (this means I promise to “not know you” if you ask to connect) and of this writing I’m reaching 400 contacts on LinkedIn. Just do a search for myerman and you’ll find me–if you want to connect with me, send me an invite.

In any case, there’s a section of LinkedIn called Answers. Members are free to ask questions on virtually any subject. You’re going to ask the LinkedIn marketplace something that relates to your consulting niche. You want to find out if they buy your services, and what they liked or didn’t like about the last person they worked with. Make sure that people understand you’re gathering information, and not just peddling your wares.

Here’s an example of an effective question and backup detail:

What are the top three things you liked/disliked about working with a freelance X?

Clarification: I am starting out as a freelance X and am doing some preliminary market research. I want to find out what buyers of my services (specifically A, B, and C) have experienced in the past. What were things you really liked about working with people like me? What were things you didn’t like?

Your question will remain “live” on LinkedIn for about a week, and with any luck, you’ll get a flood of responses in your email inbox. Many people will offer more than the requisite three things they liked/disliked. Others will point you to online resources.

By the way, having done some of this kind of research, I will guarantee you that some (or all) of the following will appear on the list of things that people don’t like about working with a freelancer or consultant:

• Failure to communicate properly
• Failure to properly set expectations
• Failure to meet deadlines

     

 

Tina Brown’s great piece, “The Gig Economy” over at the Daily Beast, reminds us that the nut is the nut, and you have to do what you must to make that nut:

Gigs: a bunch of free-floating projects, consultancies, and part-time bits and pieces they try and stitch together to make what they refer to wryly as “the Nut”—the sum that allows them to hang on to the apartment, the health-care policy, the baby sitter, and the school fees.

There’s nothing more miserable then just covering the nut, pay period after pay period. As a self-employed consultant, contractor, or freelancer, yes, there’s a sense of pride that you’re actually making it out on your own, but if you’re just scraping by, it doesn’t take long for the anxiety to set in.

You keep thinking, at the back of your mind–hey, I only have $20 bucks left over after I pay all the bills and stock the fridge, how am I going to retire eventually? Or you lay awake hoping that your kid doesn’t get sick or that the car’s transmission doesn’t frack itself up.

After a while, just making the nut will lead to entropy. You have to get past that point, get into the land of plenty. If you’re on the edge, it only takes a slight breeze to send you into oblivion.

Always be looking for another source of revenue–a better client, high-profit projects, higher-level consulting, a book deal, guest blogging opportunities that will drive traffic your way, speaking engagements.

But when times are good, never forget the nut. It will always be there, no matter its size. And also know this: that good times don’t last forever, so you’d better get some discipline (the kind you have during bad times) while times are good to take the edge off when the bad times show up.

The story in Slate (”Bitter Brew“) is about a young NYC couple opening a coffee shop, but it could also be about anyone who starts any kind of business. The only thing that saves us as IT/technical consultants is the fact that we can run a highly profitable consulting practice out of a spare bedroom and avoid all the high-as-a-cat’s-ass rents in the “big city.”

Anyway, it’s not just about coffeehouses vs. consulting, it’s about really having a business model (and loving it) as much as having an idea for a business (and loving it). Without a good business model, you’re sunk. The only way this couple could have stayed afloat is to rethink their entire “cozy coffeehouse” idea–it simply wasn’t getting enough foot traffic to support the sales they needed.

Here’s the opener:

You know that charming little cafe on New York’s Lower East Side that just closed after a mere six months in business—where coffee was served on silver trays with a glass of water and a little chocolate cookie? The one that, as you calmly and correctly observed, was doomed from its inception because it was too precious and too offbeat? The one you still kind of fell for, the way one falls for a tubercular maiden? Yeah, that one was mine.

The scary part is that you think you can do better.

And here’s a bit from the end:

There was, of course, one way to make the cafe viable: It was written into the Golden Rule itself. My wife Lily and I could work there, full-time, save on the payroll, and gerrymander the rest of the budget to allow for lower sales. Guess what, dear dreamers? The psychological gap between working in a cafe because it’s fun and romantic and doing the exact same thing because you have to is enormous. Within weeks, Lily and I—previously ensconced in an enviably stress-free marriage—were at each other’s throats. I hesitate to say which was worse: working the same shift or alternating. Each option presented its own small tortures. Two highly educated professionals with artistic aspirations have just put themselves—or, as we saw it, each other—on $8-per-hour jobs slinging coffee. After four more months, we grew suspicious of each other’s motives, obsessively kept track of each other’s contributions to the cause (”You worked three days last week!”), and generally waltzed on the edge of divorce. The marriage appears to have been saved by a well-timed bankruptcy.

Looking back, we (incredibly) should have heeded the advice of bad-boy chef Anthony Bourdain, who wrote our epitaph in Kitchen Confidential: “The most dangerous species of owner … is the one who gets into the business for love.”

Ah, Mr. Bourain, how right you are.