Category: Small Business and Freelance

Fear of networking

In all of the advice for small businesses (of which there is scads around at the moment – look here, and here and here…) there is generally a rec0mmendation somewhere that the key means of generating new business leads is networking.  In my head networking just means meeting people and making connections; hopefully not leaving them thinking that you’re an idiot, and if possible having a mutually beneficial conversation which leaves both of you thinking you might like to work together in future.  It happens spontaneously in meetings, on train journeys, in the pub, online.  And there’s an element of matchmaking in it – I really love introducing people to each other if I think they could help each other out.

How did this entirely natural and civilised idea turn into Business Networking Events?  It’s just speed dating for office workers – ie even less fun than normal speed dating looks and done in business suits.  I have been to one of these events.  It was one of the most buttock-clenchingly embarrassing evenings I’ve ever spent and I couldn’t wait to get away.  I’m not sure they even work – has anyone ever walked away from a networking event with a firm lead on some work (or is it just my social ineptitude which makes me unable to do it? ) But I guess needs must, and as the outlook for small businesses gets bleaker I shall shine my shoes, brush my hair, arm myself with a sheaf of business cards and hit the networking trail.  So, any advice on how to make it a) more productive and b) less painful?

Digital immigrant

The worst, the very worst thing about working for yourself is that there is no-one around who can help when things go wrong.    No-one to stock up on pens, paper  and printer cartridges; no-one  to unblock the photocopier or report the fault on the phone line.  And most of all, no IT department.

I’ve spent interminable hours recently  not solving a really simple problem with my laptop, and building up a store of rage, frustration, inadequacy and self-loathing it might take therapy to release.   It would probably take any 13-year old a moment to fix this.  She probably wouldn’t  have to break off texting while she did it.  Sadly I don’t know any 13-year olds.   I am going to have to buy in techie support at heart-breaking cost, and take it on the chin when I’m treated like the local village idiot for not being able to sort this out by myself.  What does anyone else do?

I’ll show you mine, if…

Google reader turned this up in my inbox this morning – a  post from American media strategist BL Ochman about the difficulty of finding out what other people charge for a job.  As she says:

“You are more likely to know what your best friend eats for breakfast or how many times a week he or she has sex, than how much money they make.

Despite all the Web 2.0 talk of transparency, openness, and honesty, you’d be hard pressed to find out what most new media consultants charge.”

Her point is that there is no  reason why consultants should be secretive about the rates they charge – so why does no-one ever say?  It would certainly be helpful to know.  One of the things I found hardest when I set myself up was knowing how much to charge for different pieces of work.  It’s really hard to know if you are pricing yourself out of a market, or seriously under-charging.  Unless you’re lucky enough to know  friendly freelancers who work in your field and are happy to discuss their rates, you have nothing to compare yourself to.   If you get it wrong,  and I really under-charged a couple of clients at the beginning,  it’s hard to get the rate back up to where you want to be for repeat business.  In my experience the conversation about fees always feels as though everyone concerned  is somehow embarrassed to be speaking about something so tawdry.  Is that a particularly British thing – or is it just me?

As a  reasonably well-established freelance myself now, I understand the fear of being undercut by some young whipper-snapper who knows my rate and sees the chance to snaffle my business.  But in my experience price is not generally the deciding factor in whether or not I get a job. That has much more to do with experience, track record and contacts.

I worked for the Government Equalities Office earlier this year, as the  Equality Bill was being prepared.  One of the things they want to do is make it harder for companies to hide what staff are paid . They also want to encourage companies to publish their  gender pay gap.  This would make it easier for new entrants to an industry to tell whether what they were being offered was fair (it suddenly seems a long time ago that there were jobs around to apply for!)   Openness seems to me to be a good thing, but if you’re a freelance there’s not much information to go on.  The best thing I’ve found is the PR Week salary survey, but that’s tied very closely to agency roles which don’t necesarily equate to other types of work.  So, should we all come clean?  And if I show you mine, will you show me yours?

Taking Care of Business

I’ve been listening to Jerry Springer being interviewed on 5Live  this morning (ah, the joys of working from home…) I was mentally tuning in and out of the interview as my attention was caught on other things, but what came through was his apparent disdain for the output of his own show.  He’d rather be back in politics or hosting a sports show “but that’s not what I’m hired for” (sorry Jerry, I may be paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it)

Now, my opinion of the Jerry Springer show and its  counterpart, Jeremy Kyle, can wait for another day when I feel  in need of  something to vent some rage on (there’s a clue in the link…).  What snagged my attention today was the idea that doing something you seem to despise is OK  if  it’s how you earn a living.  This whole issue has been bubbling round in my head for a while  and has cropped up in some unexpected places recently – the mighty Seth touched on it in his blog just a few days ago.   I’m particularly exercised by it now because I’m currently working for an organisation which has done some things I’ve disagreed with pretty vehemently in the past (I’m OK with the project I’m on at the moment, though).

I can’t be alone in wondering about the ethics of communicating on behalf of organisations I disagree with.  When I was temping years ago I told the agency I was working for that I didn’t want to be considered for a job they had with BAT;  and there are other organisations you can think of that you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole – anybody fancy being press officer for the BNP?      So how bad do organisations have to be before we feel the obligation to walk away?  And in these recessionary times, with alternative jobs pretty thin on the ground,  would the building society accept my righteous glow as part-payment on the mortgage?

Reality Bites

A friend and fellow freelancer told me a story yesterday which made my blood run cold.  Two days before starting work on  a new contract, her client demanded that she cut her fee by 40%.

She was able to walk away from the work.  As recession snaps at our heels, I do wonder if gazundering on this scale is going to become more widespread, and if it does are we just going to have to put up with it?  Personally I haven’t found my rates being queried, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to get companies to pay within a reasonable time.  Worst so far was a very well known company who took 75 days to cough up from receipt of my invoice – this means that work I did in June/July I got paid for in October.  Fortunately I wasn’t relying on it to pay the mortgage!

Ian Monk at PR Week has been looking at the issue of late payment for small business for quite a while now and has reported on some real horror stories, including business being closed by cashflow problems, which make my experience look mild in comparison.   I appreciate that the economy is hurting everyone, self-employed or not, but if we’re doing the work surely the very least we should expect is to be paid for it on time?

In case it’s useful to anyone, here is the Better Payment Practice campaign with advice about late payment legislation for small businesses.  And here is a report on FreelanceUK about how useful the legislation is proving in practice…