Category: Being the boss

This is about work from the managing side. Freelancing, entrepreneuring, consulting: having to make the decisions as the person in charge. In charge of your work, in charge of your life — so work-life balance factors in, too.

About Free Consulting [en]

Regularly, I’m approached by people who would like to see me for a chat or a coffee. Sometimes I know the person in question, and sometimes I don’t. Usually, the topic of the chat/coffee will be:

  • tell me about their product/startup/idea and get my feedback on it;
  • discuss common business opportunities.

Now, first, let me state that there is nothing wrong with informal chats about things. But it can be quite a can of worms when you start putting your nose into the issue of “what do I do for free, what do I get paid for?”

I’ve written at least two articles on the topic (both in French). One was a rant about being asked to do things for free (or almost) again and again, and the second more recent one is about giving away 80% of my work for free.

Do you see the contradiction? Therein lies the can of wriggly worms.

There are situations where I do things “for free” and am very happy to do so. Usually, at least one of the following applies:

  • it’s my project or idea (blogging is the most obvious example)
  • it’s for a close friend or somebody I have a close “two-way” professional relationship with
  • there is an obvious long-term benefit in it for me.

As you can see, all this is very “me-centred”. To be honest, if I don’t see what I’m getting out of it, then it feels like work and I am going to charge for it (so that I get something — cash — out of it).

Now, there are a few other things to take into account:

  • there are limits to what I’ll do for free even for close friends or colleagues
  • I’m happy to provide “brain time” in social settings like conferences, apéros, etc. — because of the “networking” atmosphere which allows me to manage my involvement comfortably, and because I’m there anyway
  • I don’t usually take time to go and take a “networking coffee” with people I do not know unless it is clear that we are discussing a concrete business opportunity for me, or I have a specific reason for wanting to get to know them (I prefer to spend my available “coffee time” seeing my friends)
  • I see a lot of new products fly by me and rarely stop to investigate beyond a cursory glance unless (a) that cursory glance “hooks” me (b) my network keeps drawing my attention towards something (this means I don’t pay any attention to press releases or “pushed” information about new stuff)
  • the amount of current paid work I’m doing clearly has an influence on how flexible I am with my “brain time”
  • “mutual business opportunities” can be more or less one-sided (ie, be of more interest to one party than the other) — for them to be “mutual” my interest needs to be pretty obvious to me from the start (and it usually is — if I need to be convinced or talked into something, it’s usually a bad sign)
  • I rely on “gut feeling” rather than hard-and-fast rules.

So, here would be my advice to people getting in touch with me and who are not part of my “inner circle”:

  • if you’re approaching me for paid work or a concrete business opportunity, be upfront about it in your intial contact (or I might imagine you just want to pick my brains for free)
  • if you’d like to pick my brains for free, arrange to meet me in a social setting (conference, Bloggy Friday, apéro, p’tit déj, networking event, etc.) and bear in mind that it will remain superficial — picking my brains until there is nothing left is a privilege people pay for 😉
  • don’t ask me to do for free things I normally charge for (consulting, training, speaking, writing, setting up websites/blogs and managing them, promoting events…)

This sounds very restrictive for somebody who believes in a marketing model based on providing roughly 80% of her value to the world for free. At least, it does to me — but only if I forget that things work pretty differently for the “inner circle” mentioned above.

I guess that’s the hard truth: how much we know each other has a great influence on what I’ll do for you for free.

But that’s kind of how the world works, isn’t it?

Finding a Balance in Office Work: Long-Term Projects [en]

[fr] Quelques réflexions sur comment je m'organise pour mon travail "de bureau", et la difficulté que j'ai à avancer sur les projets "long terme, pas urgents".

Here is an umpteenth post about my journey figuring out how to “be the boss of me” — getting work done and still having a life as a freelancer.

Honestly, I have not been doing too badly this year. It’s even been pretty good. 🙂

The other day, when I was catching up with Suw, I told her that I was now pretty competent at managing my days, but not that good at looking beyond that. What I mean is that I have a system to keep track of the next things I need to do, and I’m much better than I used to be at evaluating what can get done in a given day. I still tend to be a bit ambitious, but overall my “day plans” are pretty realistic.

Proof of that, in my opinion:

  • I now very rarely have a day where I’m “running” or “scrambling”
  • I rarely have to work during the week-end or the evening to do stuff that “absolutely needs to get done and I haven’t managed to squeeze it in yet”.

So, the next step is the week. I’m still using maker days and manager days (it’s not perfect, sometimes I give in and sacrifice a maker day, but overall I’m getting increasingly better at sticking to my plan). What I’d like to think about here (you read me right, I’m writing this post to think something over) is what I do (or try to do) during my office “maker” days.

Here’s what I’ve identified so far:

  1. daily business: checking e-mails, taking phone calls, hanging out on Twitter/IM, responding to prospective clients, journalists, people who want to pick my brains, dealing with little emergencies, reading stuff online
  2. “regular” paid work: these are gigs that are long-term and require a little work every day or every week at least, and therefore fall in the “daily business” category too, but are for a client who is paying
  3. my projects: taking care of eclau, Bloggy Fridays
  4. my “promotional” stuff: blogging, keeping my websites up-to-date (technically and content-wise — ahem), writing, planning ebooks but not writing them, preparing general documentation to promote what I do to prospective clients, research
  5. accounting and administrivia: personal and professional, including writing to the gérance to ask them to change the windows so we can save on heating
  6. support network: I have a bunch of friends I’m in regular contact with to talk things over (their things, my things)

OK, the list is a bit messy, but it’s a start. I know that one thing that can usually “kill” an office day is when I’m asked to do a one-off, time-limited gig by a client: for example, a 2-4 hour WordPress training/coaching session. The reason for that is that this kind of gig pays immediately: shortest path to money. So usually, when I make exceptions and kill a maker day, it’s because there is immediate money at stake (as long as it doesn’t compromise the work I need to do for my “regular” paying clients, of course).

Items 1, 2, 3 and 6 of the list above are not really a source of trouble right now. I mean, that’s what I spend my time doing.

Items 4 and 5, on the other hand, are problematic: I keep falling behind. In the case of accounting and administrivia, as they are something I get in trouble about if I don’t do them for long enough, every now and again I go “gosh, am behind, gotta spend a day on it” and I get it done. But I have trouble with regularity (less and less though, to be fair with myself).

The big painful one is what I call “my promotional stuff”. It’s long-term. If I don’t do it, there are no direct consequences. It does not involve other people. Summary:

  • it’s for me, so it tends to end up less high priority than all the rest that is “for others”;
  • no time constraints, so it is less high priority than emergencies and deadlines;
  • some of it is actually difficult for me (preparing promotional copy for example).

So, here are some of the items that are on this long-suffering list of things I want to do but never get around to doing because there is always more urgent stuff to take care of:

  • upgrade WordPress and plugins on a bunch of my sites
  • do something about the horribly out-of-date content on my professional site (organize another WPD?)
  • get a proper lifestream up and running (as Nathalie aptly put it earlier this morning, “FriendFeed is nice and all, but I never go there”)
  • start writing the blasted ebook 😉
  • write more fiction
  • write up shiny material explaining what I do (including “terms and conditions”) that I can send or give out to my clients and prospects (including sending stuff to schools saying “I give talks” and “looking for somebody to teach a few hours on social media over the next academic year?”)
  • catch up with my photo uploading on Flickr (in a way, yes, this also ends up being a “promotional” activity)
  • blog more (you’re getting tired of hearing it, but look, it’s working).

I’ve tried a few times to state (to myself, that is) “Friday afternoon is for administrivia and accounting” but weeks are so short that my resolve usually falls down the drain. I’m thinking that I should firewall time to work on these “longer-term” projects each week — but again, I look at my calendar and think “ugh”. A day a week? Sounds like a minimum when I look at the list right above, but quite impossible when I think of what my usual weeks are like. On the other hand, I do have (what feels to me like) quite a relaxed workstyle, so maybe if I did firewall a day off I’d discover I’m perfectly capable of dealing with the rest of my work on the other four days.

So, the questions for me remain:

  • how many office days vs. meeting days in a week? (right now I try to have three office days, but don’t always manage)
  • what’s the best way to build in time for long-term projects which tend to stagnate at the bottom of the priority list? (firewall a day or half a day off each week, or every two weeks, or something else…)

Dear readers: your insight is much appreciated. How do you do this? Do you do it? What have you tried? How did you fail? How did you succeed?

I Need to Blog! [en]

[fr] Ma vie a pris une jolie forme cette année. Par contre, j'ai un peu négligé mon blog ces derniers temps (je ne dis pas ça par culpabilité, mais parce qu'un sentiment de "j'ai besoin de bloguer!" vient de me prendre aux tripes).

Here we are again. Another long break on CTTS (unplanned, as always) and another “OMG I need to blog more!” post.

But this isn’t a “I feel guilty, my poor readers, I’ve abandoned you” one. I don’t do those, you should know by now.

No, it’s a cri du coeur: I just sent this tweet a few minutes ago, and immediately after was overcome by an urge to blog — 140 characters just didn’t cut it.

I’ve been working too much these last weeks — enjoying life, too, though. I honestly have a very good (happy) “work-life” balance (yeah, I know the expression is loaded, bear with me). But I miss writing here, and I’ve only just realized to what extent.

Once before — OK, maybe more than once — I took the decision to start my work day by writing a blog post. I did it for some time (my excuses, I can’t dig it out of my archives, see the sad mess my blog still is). But then stress shows up again, and emergencies, and… I stop.

I think that the problem with writing a blog post to start off the day is that it can be pretty quick (this one is only taking maximum 15 minutes or so of my time) but it can also take half a day. So, maybe I need to do it this way:

I will start my workday by writing a blog post, but if after an hour of blogging I have not hit “Publish” I will save my post and continue it on the next day.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is that I need to build in time for research and fooling around online into my weeks. At this stage, I’ve successfully managed to:

  • have a morning and evening routine and regular sleeping hours
  • exercise 30 minutes on my bike every day (give or take one a week, roughly)
  • take lunch breaks
  • have an end to my business day
  • separate maker days and manager days
  • plan regular mini-vacations (a few days at the chalet)
  • have a social life (yes!)
  • have “downtime” for myself at home
  • unclutter the worst parts of my flat in 15-minute increments
  • clean the flat roughly once a week
  • keep my inbox regularly empty, or at least under one screenful
  • set up a “next action” list system, which, whilst not kosher GTD, works pretty well for me
  • keep my accounting up-to-date and my finances in order.

Two years ago, none of this was working. I’m pretty proud of how far I’ve come! So, next missions: blogging and research.

Donner 80%, ou la loi de Paréto appliquée aux métiers des idées [fr]

On est tous familiers avec la loi de Pareto: 20% d’effort pour 80% de l’effet, etc.

L’an dernier, à SoloCamp, Dennis Howlett nous en a proposé une application en réponse à la question (qui torturait plusieurs d’entre nous): sachant que donner gratuitement est une forme de marketing très efficace, surtout dans les métiers des social medias, où mettre la limite? Combien donner? Quand commencer à faire payer? Comment ne pas se faire avoir, sans pour autant devenir radins?

Eh bien, sa réponse m’a stupéfaite, j’avoue, et bien tranquillisée. D’après lui, quand on est dans les métiers de la “propriété intellectuelle” (en gros, ce qu’on offre à nos clients, ce sont principalement des idées), une bonne ligne de conduite est de considérer qu’on va donner gratuitement (ou presque) 80% et faire payer (cher) les 20% restants.

Donner 80%!

Je suis presque tombée de ma chaise.

Puis, sachant que Dennis est quelqu’un qui réussit plutôt bien en affaires, que j’avais depuis un moment le sentiment désagréable que je donnais de moins en moins et que mon business en pâtissait, je me suis un peu détendue, et j’ai décidé de garder en tête ce principe.

Et si j’y réfléchis et que je fais un peu l’inventaire de mon “travail gratuit”, je me rends compte qu’on y est assez vite:

– tout ce que je publie sur ce blog et ailleurs sur internet
– les Bloggy Fridays
– l’eclau
– les repas, pots, “petites discussions” où je fais du “consulting gratuit” en échange d’une pizza ou de la reconnaissance éternelle de mon interlocuteur
– organiser Going Solo et SoloCamp (c’était pas censé, mais ça a fini par l’être, du travail “gratuit”)
– les personnes que je dépanne à l’oeil, en ligne et hors ligne
– les interviews accordés aux journalistes, participations non rémunérées à tables rondes et autres événements…

Je pourrais continuer encore la liste.

Bien entendu, il y a un retour sur investissement, là. C’est mon budget marketing, si on veut, toute l’énergie que je mets dans ces diverses activités. C’est “ce qui me fait”, aussi, et j’en suis bien consciente. Mais rien de tout ça ne remplit directement le compte en banque: ça fait partie des 80% grosso modo de mon temps-énergie que je ne facture à personne, et durant lequel je “travaille gratuitement”, suivant quelle définition on donne à “travailler” et “gratuitement”.

Me voici donc à répondre enfin à M. Fontana d’Universal, mon interlocuteur contradictoire lors du “débat” sur le piratage à la RSR1 il y a quelques mois, lorsqu’il demandait (ironiquement et sûr de sa réponse) si j’avais l’habitude de travailler à 100% et de n’être payée qu’à 50%. (L’homme de paille favori de mes détracteurs concernant les questions de partage de fichiers semble être que je ne veux pas que les artistes soient payés pour leur travail…)

Oui, oui, Monsieur — et même plus que ce que vous imaginez. C’est comme ça que ça fonctionne, dans mon métier.

Vous me voyez venir: si l’on accepte de sortir d’une mentalité d’employés (ou pire, de rentiers), on pourrait sans beaucoup de difficulté appliquer ce genre de raisonnement au monde des oeuvres de l’esprit en général, y compris la musique. Pour les détails, il faudra repasser, car je ne les ai pas (j’en entends déjà qui hurlent) — mais n’y a-t-il pas là quelque chose à creuser?

When You Can't Afford to Take a Break… [en]

[fr] Quand on est tellement stressé et occupé qu'on ne peut pas se permettre de prendre une pause ou des vacances... c'est là qu'il faut vraiment le faire. Apprenez à reconnaître ce signal d'alarme et à l'écouter!

…that’s when you really need to take one.

I’ve seen this time and time again, in me and others. The clearest warning sign that one is doing “too much” and needs to take a break, a day off, or even a vacation is this feeling that one has no time to do so.

The few times in my life when I’ve come near to breaking down from too much work and stress, there was the common feeling: “I really could do with a break, but there is no way I can take one now.”

To help gain some perspective, imagine that you fall so ill you can’t work, or get in an accident that lands you at hospital for 3 weeks (my experience is also that when you really need a break, there is a risk you might find a creative way to give yourself one).

So, next time you feel you’re so swamped you really can’t afford to take a break… listen to that warning signal, cancel some commitments, renegotiate that deadline, and take that break!

A Networking Secret [en]

[fr] Pour "réseauter", la meilleure méthode reste encore d'oublier le réseautage, et de s'intéresser aux personnes.

Without really trying to, I’ve ended up with a rather large and powerful network. Often, I’m asked how I did it. “How do you network?”

A lot of it comes naturally to me, and I honestly don’t really know what advice to give apart from the following:

All you really need to do is be interested in people. Forget about “networking”.

Working Too Much or Not Enough? [en]

[fr] J'ai souvent du mal à savoir si je travaille trop ou pas assez. Mon entourage me donne les deux retours.

I’m very bad at evaluating how much I work. Not in the sense that I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent in the office or on a given project (I know how to look at the clock and add up, even if I don’t usually bill for my time) — but more as in I don’t really know if I’m slacking or “working hard”.

There are days where I feel that I have been working hard for weeks or months. But then there are others where I look at my lifestyle and find it pretty relaxed, overall.

People around me also have differing opinions: sometimes I get the feedback that I should take my work more seriously (“work harder!”) and sometimes — more often, I have to admit — I get amazement or admiration for the amount of things I’m doing.

I guess this ambivalence in my auto-evaluation reflects an ambivalence in my attitude towards work. Part of me has a heavy workaholic streak (I can get “lost” in work easily, and tend to be a little obsessive and perfectionist, which results in difficulty stopping once I get started) but another part of me strongly resists working a lot and wants to have free time and a leisurely pace of life (that was already the case when I was in school: good enough grades, but never really liked studying too hard).

And in the end, what is working “enough”? I think there are cultural standards here, and that “working hard” in the US (for example) is not exactly the same thing as “working hard” here in Europe.

Thoughts?

Maker Days and Manager Days [en]

A few months ago I wrote an article called Office vs. Errand Days, where I explained that I had started grouping my errands on certain days and making sure that I had meeting-free office days on others.

I’ve just finished reading Paul Graham’s excellent essay Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule, and realized that what I have been doing is separating my days into “manager’s schedule days” and “maker’s schedule days”.

As a freelancer, I am both: I’m the manager who meets people, has speculative meetings, receives new clients or gets interviewed by journalists. But I’m also the maker: a whole bunch of what I get paid for has to be done quietly in the office. And a whole bunch of what I need to do to get paid work also happens in the office.

So, if I’m not careful, I let the manager’s schedule take over my week, I’m super-busy but I don’t really get any paid work done, or proper prospecting.

So, here’s to grabbing my calendar again and making sure I put enough “maker days” into each of my weeks. And here’s to saying “no” firmly but gently when asked to interrupt one of my “maker days”. Even if I’m the person I need to say no to.

There is Work and Work [en]

We freelancers know it: there are many kinds of work. Non-freelancers probably know it too, but let’s stick to the freelance way of life for the sake of this article.

There is work that gets you paid. There is work that doesn’t get you paid, but that you need to do in order to get the work that will get you paid.

There is also work that you have decided to do and planned, and work that you just happen to do.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the last distinction lately.

Three years ago, I had a big client project and was going through a slow procrastinative summer. At one point, I decided to stop worrying and embrace my summer days: I would work from 9am to noon and then would be free to do whatever I wanted.

It worked really well. I made quick progress on the project and got to enjoy my summer.

This year, I’m having a slow summer too. The weather is nice, people are on holiday, I’m learning to sail, and I’m not swamped with work (I am busy with lots of things, though, I think that’ll never change). And honestly, when I look at my productivity certain most days, I might not be working less if I had decided to do the 9-12.

Deciding to work 9-12 does not mean that I stop myself from working in the afternoons. It means that I don’t have to work in the afternoons. And this is where the work you plan and the work that just happens comes in.

I rediscovered this when I started working in my coworking space, eclau: office hours started to be devoted to “things I had to do” for work, and sometimes, in the evenings or week-ends, I would do some light work that I felt like doing (work that doesn’t feel like work). Blogging, for example. Fooling around online. Sometimes, even doing my accounting because I felt like it. But nothing because I felt I ought to do it.

So, next year, I’m thinking of trying the 9-12 during the summer months. Work well three hours, then do something else or allow myself to be completely unproductive in the afternoon.

Hell, why wait until next year? I’m starting tomorrow.

Se protéger sans s'aliéner ses clients [fr]

Cela fait plusieurs semaines (ou peut-être même mois) que cette thématique me préoccupe: comment, en tant qu’indépendante, puis-je me protéger (financièrement) sans pour autant que cela soit rebutant pour mes clients?

Je m’explique.

Une bonne part de mes mandats sont ponctuels et consistent à passer du temps avec un client (cours/formations WordPress en particulier). La plupart de mes clients sont des particuliers, des indépendants, ou de toutes petites entreprises, voire des startups.

Ce dont je souffre? Les annulations de dernière minute.

Je bloque une demi-journée de travail avec un client, souvent plusieurs semaines à l’avance. Je refuse d’autres engagements pour cette demi-journée, j’organise mon agenda autour. Niveau finances, même si je sais qu’il ne faut pas vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué, je tiens compte du revenu lié à ce mandat dans mon budget.

Quand le client annule, c’est pour ma pomme (et récemment, cela m’est arrivé deux fois en une semaine, le soir d’avant).

Lorsqu’il s’agit de mandats pour des entreprises (souvent pour des montants plus importants), mon système est simple: je facture un acompte de 50% non remboursable lorsque l’on se met d’accord sur le mandat.

Entre indépendants, par exemple avec mon graphiste de voisin à l’eclau, on échange volontiers nos “histoires de clients” et les difficultés auxquelles on fait malheureusement face. Et j’ai réalisé qu’il y a une problématique spécifique aux cours.

Pour un graphiste, ou une personne qui comme moi fait des sites web, ou n’importe qui qui livre un produit au client, le risque est d’avoir fait le travail, livré le produit, et de se retrouver avec une facture que le client ne règle pas. C’est embêtant, mais il est incontestable que le travail a été fait et que c’est au client de payer (il le fait ou non, c’est une autre histoire).

Pour un formateur, ou un conférencier, c’est différent: lorsque le client annule, on n’a pas encore effectué de “travail”. Je ne pense pas que le client dans cette situation soit conscient d’à quel point il lèse l’indépendant — et difficile de venir après coup avec une facture pour “frais d’annulation”. Le manque à gagner, pourtant, est bien là. Dans les cas que je mentionne il y a quelques semaines, j’ai dû refuser un rendez-vous à une cliente alors qu’elle en aurait eu besoin parce que mon agenda était plein — et quand l’agenda se vide à la dernière minute, il est en général trop tard pour le remplir en catastrophe. Le temps réservé est bel et bien perdu.

Dans ces circonstances, comment se protéger? Comment faire passer le message qu’une fois le rendez-vous pris, c’est un engagement ferme, et que ce n’est pas comme chez le médecin, où la liste d’attente garantit presque certainement qu’un rendez-vous annulé pourra être “utilisé” par un autre patient (et encore… nombre de médecins ou professions similaires facturent les rendez-vous annulés moins de 24h à l’avance).

Toutes les solutions auxquelles je peux penser me paraissent rebutantes pour le client. Je me vois difficilement demander un acompte de 50% ou un paiement d’avance à quelqu’un qui vient prendre deux heures de “cours de blog”. Quand on vient prendre un cours, on s’attend à payer si le cours est donné, et à ne pas payer s’il n’a pas lieu. Un des “arguments de vente” de ma façon de procéder, c’est que c’est simple et rapide: le client vient, on passe une demi-journée ensemble, il repart avec un site web qu’il sait mettre à jour. Si je commence à rajouter des choses comme des acomptes, j’ai l’impression que c’est contre-productif.

J’ai songé à n’introduire les acomptes qu’après une annulation, partant de l’idée qu’un client qui annule ou repousse un rendez-vous une fois est plus susceptible de le faire à nouveau. Mais je ne veux pas rentrer dans une logique de “punition”. Du coup, peut-être expliquer (à l’aide d’un document genre “conditions du mandat”) que normalement je demande un acompte pour tout mandat, que pour certains mandats je laisse tomber l’acompte, mais qu’en contrepartie le client s’engage à ne pas annuler ni déplacer une fois le rendez-vous pris?

Faire signer un bon de commande stipulant qu’en cas d’annulation par le client une fois le rendez-vous pris, la somme est due?

Vous voyez que tout cela n’est pas très sympa. En même temps, on n’est pas là pour être sympa — c’est du business.

Le problème est encore pire avec les particuliers à qui je donne des cours à l’heure, à 100 ou 120.- — je devrais peut-être proposer des abonnements? Ça ne protège même pas des annulations, zut.

Ne vous méprenez pas: je comprends. Je souffre moi-même d’une bonne dose de désorganisation (je me soigne) qui fait que cela m’arrive (ne dites pas à mes clients!!) d’oublier des rendez-vous, Dieu merci c’est rare, de déplacer, d’annuler… Et même, des fois, cela m’arrange qu’un client annule, point de vue emploi du temps (point de vue finances, jamais). On est humains.

Mais il demeure que je ne trouve pas normal qu’un client puisse se retirer d’un engagement pris “juste comme ça”.

Si vous avez déjà planché sur le problème et que vous avez des solutions à proposer, je suis preneuse! Très preneuse!