Here’s how I behave as a freelance service provider: A lot of service providers work like this. We give away a lot of advice for free. We lead with service, not with paid services. Your attitude makes a difference There’s a right and wrong way to approach a service provider like me. Approach us the…
People who work tend to drift into work they tolerate. They miss the chance to deliberately expand the parts of work that they love. Do an audit at least once a year of what parts of your work you find rewarding. That way, you can continue to shift your work in the directions that will…
Given the churn that’s going on now in technical fields, there are likely millions of formerly employed people who have been laid off and are asking, “Should I become a consultant?” This also applies to people who’ve retired or left a long-term job and aren’t quite ready to hang it up completely. If you’ve got…
I’ve just reviewed my freelance business for 2025 and 2026. I’ve reached a milestone. Every dollar I made came from prior relationships. None of it came from outbound marketing or cold leads. Here’s where my clients came from. I do no outbound email marketing and no advertising. I do effectively no public speaking. I buy…
It always pays to look back at your work for the year and see what you’ve learned, how you’ve grown, and what you like doing most. As a freelancer who carefully tracks my business, I’m in an ideal position to do a retrospective. I hope you can learn a bit from my own reflections on…
Most of you reading this have a job. You have a steady paycheck and health benefits. Good for you. A job is great if you don’t want to think too hard about what you’re going to do every day — your bosses mostly figure that out for you. But even if you have a job,…
For many decades, I worked for companies. I defined my work by those organizations and their goals. That’s was always a tradeoff. For the last ten years, I’ve worked for myself, ostensibly independent. I found my own clients, set my own hours, generated my own revenue, and made my own choices. It’s a great way…
My company WOBS continues successfully in 2025, ten years after I started it. Many things about what I do have changed, but others have remained constant. I thought it might be instructive to describe my journey as a freelance writer, editor, and ghostwriter. Fundamental principles When I started, I had a clear idea of what…
A friend of mine once confided in me that she was having trouble getting paid for her freelance work. After a little conversation, we figured out that she wasn’t sending invoices because she was embarrassed to talk about money with the client. No bill, no pay. It is embarrassing to talk about money. We’d all…