How you respond makes all the difference

One of the things I noticed when I did the original Freelance Survey was approximately 20% of people working in freelance were negative. Maybe it was miles on the clock, the quality of clients faced, the lack of support or hard knocks. Perhaps it was that certain personalities don’t play well with others and therefore find freelance an easier career path. Or maybe it was simply that the people who need the most help and are having the hardest time are going to be drawn towards a survey where they can off-load.

It isn’t a judgement issue. It’s an issue of ensuring that no matter the reason, the attitude you have towards freelancing doesn’t become damaged over time, or exacerbate any native cynicism you may have.

As I mentioned in the very beginning, freelancing is a very thankless gig. If you came to this career looking for praise and accolades or to avoid negative evaluations from the boss, you’re in for a rude shock. Most of what we get back from our clients is criticism and feedback about making changes, being off target, specifications not being met and generally changing the work.

Sometimes, they have it totally wrong. And sometimes, it’s totally justified.

But not matter which way the axe falls, it still hurts and it still builds up over time. So you need to take responsibility for ensuring that this feedback and criticism doesn’t eat away at you.

First step- listen

If the client is crazy, at least you’ll get a handle on what kind of crazy you are dealing with. If they have a point and you’re feeling sensitive, buy yourself some time to get over that. I employ the LAER model.

Listen to what they have to say
Acknowledge they have a concern (legit or not, that doesn’t matter. We all like to feel validated)
Explore the situation – so ask for extra details, try to get a sense of them, look for underlying issues that may be influencing their behaviour
Respond – not react. Don’t go down the blame route.

Simply stick to the facts, sum up the LAER elements and offer a solution.

Even if your client is way off beam (or you are), responding with warmth and grace is the only way to ensure you minimise the problems.

Practise this model, see how you go. Apply it when things in your personal life start looking hairy with the partner, kids or the tradie finishing your renovations. The more you LAER, the better you’ll get at handling those moments where you need to justify your work and approach.

Second step- Drop the “all about me” stuff

I learnt a very long time ago that if you put yourself at the centre of your client experience, you make no room for the client. Steven Pressfield (author of Do the Work- get that book, its awesome!) talks about:

An amateur makes their creative practise all about them and constantly seeks praise for the work;
A professional is enamoured with the process and quality of the work they produce so doesn’t need to externalise the seals of approval.

Now in this day and age of social media, some freelancers cheerfully make themselves into rock star personas, sharing their intimate details, chasing praise, whining about clients to get their fans on board and seeking someone to fill the void of quietly working away.

Freelancing is isolating. Certain personalities really struggle with that alone stuff. They also struggle with imposter syndrome. We all feel at times we have no idea what we’re doing and need to feel valuable.

HOWEVER...

This can lead to all sorts of problems as the desire to seek connection starts to interfere with a professional presentation.

The whole rant on social media and constantly seeking praise stuff is highly unprofessional. Not only that, but it teaches you not to take the feedback you receive seriously. And it can manifest in passive aggressive blog posts and policies that have no place in freelancing, like not offering refunds for shoddy goods.

It walks that fine line between confidence and full blown narcissism. That in turn makes people egotistical and defensive. And very freaking clueless because the ears close over and the learning stops.

One thing I do know from all my coaching calls and talking to Freelance Jungle participants who are feeling burn out, stressed and fed up with freelancing, there is a high level of social media usage. This is usually accompanied with an extraordinary level of over-exposure.

Make sure there is a distance between your personal life and what you are willing to put online. And stop the attitude and ego. It’s boring for us and only causing stress for you.

Exercise:

• Review your social media, emails and website with a critical “I don’t know you yet” eye

• Are you letting too much hang out? Are you forgetting to be a human?

• Write down 6 ways you can improve your customer conversation by tweaking your marketing attitude (so the persona you present through that marketing)

Some examples of attitude that break the mould in a reasonably OK way:
The Middle Finger Project
Science Babe
Glenn Murray

Third step- become a company

The sooner you make the separation between you as the person and you as the freelancer, the better off you will be. This is because you’ll be putting less of yourself out there for scrutiny. The feedback you receive will be about the work, not you. And things will stop being less personal.

I openly encourage freelancers to use a nom de plume or a trading name as opposed to their own name. I do this because it allows you to demonstrate your creativity through inventing something that appeals to your potential audience. I also do it because the persona is separate from you as a person. It gives that layer of protection.

You may not agree with me on that. But consider this:

• Do you think Prince (or the dude formerly known as Prince) is squealing over the dishes and macking out his suit when he’s watching TV?

• Do you think Madonna wears her cone bra and leotards to a friend’s birthday dinner?

• Have you ever seen Richard Branson turning up to a press conference in his Nekka island attire?

• How annoying is Bono when he’s trying to push his personal views through his musical persona?

Have you ever wondered why stars are so protective of their exercise time, walks on the city streets and hate having their garbage riffled through? Beyond the stupid invasion of privacy, it’s because who they present to you in a public and as a working entrepreneur and creative practitioner is not who they are 24/7.

It’s exhausting not having privacy, secrets and moments to scratch.

So foster that layer of protection between you and your audience. Build a layer between professional you and personal you. You’ll be surprised how easy it also makes it to say no to work on weekends, cancelling your holidays for projects and other such fanciful life intrusions when you build a Chinese wall around work you and home you.

Exercise:

• Review your current marketing presentation via online and offline profiles

• How can you better capture the professional you?

• What can you do to separate your brand from your person? Do you need to register a business name? Start ‘trading as...’?

• Write a list of things you admire about other freelancers and business entrepreneurs in their presentation on social media.

• Now write a list of things that make you cringe.

• What’s your list of things you can do that is somewhere in between?

Next lesson, we take on avoiding freelance distractions.