VOLUME 20, ISSUE 3 – MARCH 2021
THIS MONTH’S MENU:
I. APPETIZER: DO YOU CONTROL YOUR DEVICES—OR VICE VERSA?
When All FLCWs Have Is Our Time, We Need to Protect It.
II. “FIELD” GREENS: ARE YOU PERSONALIZING YOUR BUSINESS?
Marketing Pro: Answering All Your Email Humanizes You and Delivers Benefits.
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: WHAT ARE YOU WEARING TODAY?
Small-Biz Coach Underscores the “Little Thing” that Makes a BIG Difference!
IV. DESSERT: SWEET SUCCESS STORIES & TIPS
TWFW’s Brush with Hollywood Fame (& I Had NO Clue!)
TIP: Successful FLCW Says Flat-rate Quotes Mark You as a Pro
I. APPETIZER: DO YOU CONTROL YOUR DEVICES—OR VICE VERSA?
When All FLCWs Have Is Our Time, We Need to Protect It.
As FLCWs, our time is our money. And we need to be vigilant about who takes that time, especially those claiming to provide a valuable service in return.
Read a fascinating and exceptionally engaging book a few months back: Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, by Cal Newport, professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University.
Newport explores how we’ve become addicted to our devices (no newsflash there…), becoming overwhelmed, stressed and depressed by the very tools that were supposed to enhance our lives.
He examines what happened, why it happened, why our thought processes around the adoption of various apps, tools and platforms is suspect (at best), and how we can be far more intentional in our choices, sharing cool stories of people who did just that.
Central to one’s “detox” efforts, he asserts, is the 30-day digital moratorium (except for essential business activities). During that hiatus, the key is to find offline activities (hobbies, sports, etc.) to replace screen time.
Without them, it’s easy to fall back into bad habits. But, with them, as many discovered, “screen time” totally loses its appeal.
He encourages readers to go from being at the mercy of the creators of these tools, to choosing which we’ll engage in (and how), after doing a careful and precise cost/benefit analysis (C/BA). He says…
“[T]reat the minutes of our life as a concrete and valuable substance—arguably the most valuable substance we possess—and…always reckon with how much of this life we trade for the various activities we allow to claim our time.”
As for my “…at the mercy of the creators of these tools” comment above… Melodramatic? Not at all. Check out this short video from a remorseful Sean Parker, a co-founder of Facebook, on his 2017 “Mea Culpa” tour.
In it, he discusses the initial planning of FB, noting, “The thought process was all about, ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’” The more time you spend there, the more money they make.
FB (and all the others) was never just an innocent tool to keep up with friends and family. They’ve invested billions in perfecting the art of “brain hacking,” in order to create addicts (they do call us Facebook “users”). An angry, passionate Bill Maher talked about this back in 2017 as well (profanity alert).
It’s not enough that an app offers the possibility of some value. Most will, if engaged with long enough, but at what cost?
He even invokes Thoreau and his seminal work, Walden, to draw a perfect parallel between the C/BA Thoreau did (i.e., to determine how much “life” he had to give up, by working, to support his intentionally simpler lifestyle) to the C/BA we should undertake in this realm.
No, I’m not addicted (besides a few “down-the-YouTube-rabbit-hole” moments) to FB, Twitter, Instagram, et al. But I’m deeply troubled by that ubiquitous scene of virtually everyone staring at their phones, and knowing they’re spending many more hours a day at it (5.4, according to studies) doing the same thing.
Friends routinely scoff at my alarmism. No matter; I know it’s far more insidious than “just an occasional timesuck.” If checking your phone becomes a constant habit, your productivity—heck, your likelihood of professional success—will suffer. Period. Newport agrees (emphasis mine), offering up this gem:
“The urge to check Twitter or refresh Reddit becomes a nervous twitch that shatters uninterrupted time into shards too small to support the presence necessary for an intentional life.”
Watched The Social Dilemma? Do. Covers a lot of the same ground. Chilling, maddening stuff. On this “put-down-that-@#$%!-phone” note, let’s eat!
II. “FIELD” GREENS: ARE YOU PERSONALIZING YOUR BUSINESS?
Marketing Pro: Answering All Your Email Humanizes You and Delivers Benefits.
Great tip from copywriting/marketing maven and coach, Marcia Yudkin, that appeared as one of her recent “Marketing Minutes” (subscribe here).
Obviously, as practicing copywriters, we’re going to answer emails from potential clients, but if you have (or plan to ever have) your own newsletter, or sell any info-products or services to other “creatives,” get in the habit of replying to everyone.
I personally thank every buyer of my products (usually to their shock; often, they ask if it’s an autoresponder, and I’m pleased to say no), and do my utmost to reply to emails from ezine subscribers or general inquiries about the field.
Sure, an occasional email falls through the cracks, but that’s the exception, not the rule. As I’ve learned firsthand, and Marcia underscores below, those who deliver the personal touch and engage with their “peeps” will reap benefits.
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs and a ForbesWoman Top 20 Blogger, responds personally to every new subscriber to her newsletter who writes to say why they signed up. She notes:
“That is me, not a bot or an assistant or a script,” adding, “The hour or two a week I spend corresponding with readers often leads to opportunities. And even when it doesn’t, it helps me understand what readers value.”
Handley adds that while growth often comes from taking “human fingerprints” off one’s operations, exactly the opposite pays off, too.
This reminded me of the time I emailed an editor of a newsletter about too many typos in one issue and he replied with a couple of friendly questions. That led to an extended exchange, which in turn led to paid writing for his company for two years. Both he and I benefited from not delegating or automating that correspondence.
Some business and lifestyle coaches insist that answering your own email makes you seem like a nobody. I say that inflating your importance makes you pretentious, not efficient.
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: WHAT ARE YOU WEARING TODAY?
Small-Biz Coach Underscores the “Little Thing” that Makes a BIG Difference!
Love this piece from Atlanta small-business coach, friend and colleague
Ed Gandia. It may seem like a “light” issue, but as Ed sees it, it’s anything but.
I agree. How you dress often drives how you feel about yourself, which drives your confidence level, which, in our business, is everything. Thanks, Ed!
Are you still in your pajamas? Hey, if it’s the weekend, that’s OK. But if you’re reading this on a workday—and you’re still in your pajamas—that could be a problem.
Are Pajamas Really a Badge of Freedom?
I’ve been working from home since 2000. At first, one of my favorite aspects of this arrangement was the ability to work in my PJ’s. I loved not having to shave every day. Or having to wear regular clothes. It was liberating!
But after several years of doing this, I noticed something. I didn’t like how this made me feel about myself or my work. I’d come downstairs for lunch, unshaved, wearing lounge pants, a pajama shirt and house slippers.
I’d end my workday at 5:00 or 6:00 pm…still in my pajamas.
UPS would show up at my door with a package that needed a signature. Family members would have friends over. And I looked like a total slob. I started to feel like a slob, too!
How You Dress Can Impact How You Feel
I’d tell myself that I didn’t care. It was the UPS guy, not a client. But I did care. Because dressing this way was starting to impact my internal self-talk. My psyche. The image I had of myself. And I started to wonder how it might be impacting my business.
So, a few years ago I decided to try something different. I started to “dress up” for work. Nothing fancy. Just a pair of jeans, a nice t-shirt and some sneakers (or nice flip flops in the summer).
I felt better almost instantly. It was remarkable! These good feelings translated into more positive self-talk. Which led to a better self-image. Which improved my confidence.
The improved self-confidence translated into better-quality work and more effective phone conversations with clients. Which made me feel even better about myself.
Look, I’m not here to judge. If wearing PJ’s or sweatpants makes you feel better and more relaxed, then, that’s great. But if you’ve sometimes wondered if it’s worth “dressing up” for work, why not give it a shot?
Try it for a week. You may find you feel better about yourself. And you won’t have to scramble when a client asks for an on-camera Zoom call!
IV. DESSERT: SWEET SUCCESS STORY & TIP
TWFW’s Brush with Hollywood Fame (& I Had NO Clue!)
TIP: Successful FLCW Says Flat-rate Quotes Mark You as a Pro
OK, this month’s success story is an exercise in personal vanity… 😉 But one you’ll likely get a kick out of; needless to say, I did. After that, Atlanta financial services writer, Don Sadler eloquently serves up yet another good reason to quote clients flat project rates, not hourlies. Thanks, Don!
I got an email from friend and fellow long-time FLCW, OH-based Gery Deer. I’d asked Gery to provide a blurb for my upcoming 3rd edition of TWFW, which he was happy to do. In one of the emails back and forth, he wrote:
“I was playing some Christmas movies in the background as I was working today, and happened to glance up during one featuring Rob Lowe and I saw something very familiar on his work table. He’s an aspiring author in the story, it’s at Christmas time, and I haven’t got far enough in it to know what else is going on. But check out the attached picture. I assume you knew it was in there?”
As a matter of fact, I was completely clueless about this unsolicited “product placement” (which, methinks, dates back to the early 2000s), and don’t even know which movie it was, but, regardless, what a fun, cool thing!
Bottom line, when you put your blood, sweat and tears out into the world, you never know where it might show up!
I’ve long been a proponent of charging flat fees instead of hourly rates for freelance writing work and a recent conversation with a new client reminded me why. She said another writer had done a good job on a project for her (a whitepaper) but was too expensive, so I asked her what this writer charged.
She said $200 an hour, and the whitepaper ended up being $3,000. I can’t imagine quoting a client $200 an hour for freelance writing!
I routinely make this or more, but as Peter’s noted many times, you should know what your hourly rate is, but only for your internal calculation of flat fees, not something you’d ever quote to a client.
I think that 90% or more of clients would balk at this kind of hourly rate, even in the financial services industry, which pays higher rates for experienced and well-qualified writers. “That’s what lawyers charge, not freelance writers!” the typical client might think.
But, the issue goes even deeper… I always want a prospect to be thinking of me as a professional service provider, who provides a custom, specialty service for a set price (given their parameters), not an hourly-wage worker.
Sure, $200 an hour is a high-end “hourly-wager,” but, to my mind, it smacks a bit of arrogance, not professionalism.
Because I’m quoting a fixed price, not an hourly rate, that client knows, upfront, exactly what the project will cost. And that also marks me as a professional, which, on some level, won’t happen for someone quoting an hourly rate.
I don’t know if my new client thought $200 an hour or $3,000 for the whitepaper in total, was too expensive, but I say, if the writer had just quoted the total project fee upfront, minus any discussion of hourly rates, the professionalism conveyed by that would raise their value in the client’s mind.
And as such, if the writer took the opportunity to explain why $3K wasn’t an outrageous fee for a project like this (which I told the client, BTW), it would carry more weight. Instead, the client went shopping for another writer (me) who won’t make the same mistake.