Make Your Own Lane: Choose Who You Want To Work With

It is your choice if you want to handpick the kind of clients you want to work with, knowing that the project will add value to your experience, learning and earnings or be at the mercy of clients who would choose to work with you.

Take Control

What may apparently seem like a great project may actually turn miserable, time consuming that lead to huge waste of bandwidth and unnecessary stress in the following cases: 

If the project owner (The client) is in control of everything

Looking to pay cheap or pick your brain for free. 

Asking for samples to gauge your competence while you have dozens of client testimonials that speak volumes about your good work

Ask yourself

How can a pitch deck or presentation or business plan sample of Real Estate industry tell the prospect how good you can do something similar for a company that deals with dairy products in a different geography altogether?

Turn the table

Clients who genuinely want good work on professional terms are open to suggestions and will never compromise on quality of work.

I have worked with clients who did not have the budget or who could not afford to pay my charges end to end, so they got a small part done by me to suit their budget and also build the required relationship quotient for future needs.

Top Four Tips – Client / Project Evaluation Prior To Engagement

I Timelines

If someone is asking for a business plan within 24 hours, isn’t that a huge hint about the client’s sensibility and sensitivity quotient?

a)   He is not even bothered about how you will deliver it.

b)   He is expecting you, though unspoken, to abandon all work you are currently doing for other clients and prioritize his assignment

c)   Even worse, if he is willing to pay more for this turn around – He actually believes there are people who will commit the impossible for a few dollars. He probably does this based on this past interaction with other freelancers who were willing.

II Take Charge

Do not give the power in someone else’s hands – You not only refuse such assignments upfront, you rationalize your decision of doing so by educating the client about the probable consequences of a quick TAT: 

a)   The project will be under researched.

b)   It affects buyer’s credibility to deliver such below standard work to an intelligent target audience.

c)   The client needs to use his best people skills to negotiate timelines with his audience instead of trying to negotiate turn around time with you.

Client is likely to value your work and perspectives, if what you say actually activates his thinking cell about how his decision to insist on incredible TAT can affect his end business outcomes.

III Try Paid Sample

It will be misleading to proceed with this assumption that all buyers on freelancing portals are low paying clients. There are many who are just being cautious due to past experiences or lack of domain knowledge or judgment to assess the right freelancer for their work. As a precautionary measure, they can give you small assignment before they let you do the big project

Do not be in that race to test who charges the lowest fees.

Do propose to do a quick paid assignment to be on the same page regarding quality work, timelines, competence.

Ask yourself again

Why do they need samples of other business, if you are willing to give them a paid sample for their own business?

IV Bid or Pitch

Bids are for newbies – who are new to online income, new to freelancing portals and new to the whole concept of trading skills.

Once you have a rough idea of what niche skills you have, where it fits in best, who is willing to pay for that, you know where to pitch instead of being limited to freelancing portals. Pitch is the fastest way to build an enterprise of your own,

Freelance marketplaces is your practice pad, a starting point and that is it. It is not your end all future. It is just one of the avenues/ revenue streams/ income options.

Try twitter platform to pitch your skills and drop a comment about  your experience for peer support

***Click here to open your Payza account to receive your online income***

Make Your Own Lane: Towards Collaborative Economy

I had posted this on linkedIn  some time back and I did not receive a single response. 

There are so many consulting firms, startups, training companies, coaches, motivators and yet not a single case study that captures outcome that is quantifiable.

We are seriously having a tough time finding accountable coaches to expand our team.

How We Work

While we already have a virtual team that support our projects with teeny weeny jobs if at all the “Thinker” of the team does not have bandwidth to do those - non-core pieces like “Formatting”; “Web Research”; “Branding”; “Scribble to Smart Art”; “Cropping Images”; “Basic animation”; “uploading logo” “Typing” “Micro blogs” “Manage social media” “forum posting” "virtual assistance" etc.

The project lead who front ends the client, leads the project, coaches the team on live projects is the one who owns outcomes signed off with client.

Here the learning and teaching is for mastery of skills to deliver outcomes and has nothing to do with scores, grades or certification.

Chemistry With Passion

One of my students has this inexplicable liking for typing and is never bored.

Another student is so fond of reading and researching competitive intelligence

I love to do power point presentations – I enjoy brain storming on the story board and working on winning themes that will transfer conviction to the target audience.

I am a very happy person when I have a deck to do. I like to think about it even during my casual evening walks, research extensively, build my confidence, create the story board, rationalize each piece, prepare the presenter, design it well for effective visual communication and then send it to my client.

Another subject that excites me is startups – I may not always know the industry or the domain. I do know business, what an investor wants to see in a business and its team, the learning curve of an entrepreneur, the support a business owner is likely to need. I got a hang of this after collectively supporting over 70 clients across the globe.

Even as my house was getting painted and I stood near the stairs watching my stuff in the corridor, I talk to someone about how they can establish income online. Does that feel like work? I was educating a prospect about available avenues and possibly who will end up buying one of my products - The Beginner's Guide

The point I am trying to make:

The quiet moments of perfection come in when you are alone and mentally seeking. I find many people paranoid about the current job market and they just jump into a course like Digital Marketing or Google Analytics or whatever is trending without giving personal and natural inclination a chance.

Find your passion and make that your primary service offering.

Commitment To Outcomes

Outcomes are almost a natural progression from passion. What is done with passion is never left mid-way and there is a mental inclination to see the end of your intervention to measure impact.

Being in HR for 15 years does not mean, when you choose to freelance or build a startup or your alternative service portfolio to acquire new clients, you have to stick to the same domain.

Alternate Learning

Don't you spend a considerable time planning your travels, retreats and trips at least three times a year? You voluntarily take this up while your fellow travelers just travel leaving the coordinating piece completely on you. Now, why not do that for others? Will it feel like work? Will you then not be excited about your Mondays too? Will you not be ready to talk to that Airbnb host even on your off day, for clients who completely trust you with their trip's itinerary?

You go the extra mile because you know how it feels when something goes wrong in a trip, which could severely impact traveler's experience - What you do is out of your passion and what you deliver is outcomes.

If you switch to a calling you love, it is never work - it is passion and you will not rest till you achieve outcomes. As this is soul based and not exactly goal based, you will tend to learn in every way possible to master and be your best - online, social, micro, read, engage a specialist, experiential or on the job.

Credibility with recommendations

You can lead the sales team in a large corporation. That does not automatically qualify you to recommend sales strategy to an upcoming startup. What you recommend should suit the business in scope. 

How can a client trust your recommendation if you are not ready to walk your talk till it delivers results?

Recently while explaining the BECKON Framework and Four Quadrant pricing that we follow to a potential accountable coach - after exchange of roughly 10 pages of how and why with illustration and examples, the discussion faded to oblivion.

Another mail exchange with a employee cum consultant ended almost the same way.

They are ready to do the work, execute the order, even own outcomes in exchange of a higher fee, however not ready to refund in case the recommendations do not deliver results.

Our Rationale: Deliver outcomes or be ready to refund

We are moving towards a more collaborative economy, where experts engage, brain storm, the interns learn, deliver fundamental pieces of a project, the leads do the thinking and the client relation management for repeat business.

This arrangement is in place of standard hiring of full time resources and the surest way to succeed with this people's model is by delivering outcomes.

Write to advocating.outcomes@gmail.com to know more about outcomes driven coaching/ consulting.

Write to us, if you want to be BECKON Coach so that we can mail you the qualifying questionnaire.

Learning: The Buzz Around Up-skill, Re-skill, Re-train Today.. Now!

The crisis

Cutting jobs

 Mass layoff

The captions

Automation

Digital services

Global economy

Machine learning

Robot process automation

Skills not relevant

Artificial Intelligence

Algorithm

The consequence

Jobs at stake

Redundancy

Deferred salary hike

Voluntary retirement scheme for senior employees

The cover up

Employee's poor performance as per industry standards 

Company norms.

The case

Is it relevant only to IT sector?

Will this die down soon?

If you belong to any other sector/ industry - Retail, manufacturing or pharmaceuticals, is that a safe zone without skill enhancement?

Example, if you are social media manager of a company, is it okay to remain with your current skills for tomorrow?

Even if the buzz around the layoffs that have hit the IT sector in India dies down, the need is pretty obvious. To stay relevant, you have to work on your self, your skills, your personal growth - with or without the triggers that make news.

A 34 year old mother with two toddlers had received her Master’s degree in computer application in the year 2007. She has lost confidence in the subjects and she never even bothered to create an email ID for herself. A few months back. in an attempt to establish income online, she created email ID, SKYPE ID, profiles in freelancing portals, did a short project in Real Estate sector by researching target audience for a Nevada client and created a Facebook page for her embroidery craft. She did not have a monitor initially and managed to learn on her mobile.

Why do I need to mention this? It is not about what your qualifications are, it is about what you are willing to do proactively to acquire new learning, new skills, take infant steps to chase a purpose and not as a reaction to an emerging situation.

Are you driven by purpose or by circumstances?

The Conclusion

AI has direct impact on jobs. Based on adult learning theory (Constructivist) I would like to research how one (without any external dependence on coaches) can build on their existing knowledge to grasp new concepts in a meaningful way and achieve desired outcomes that is measurable/ quantifiable.

By the time BOTS get their jobs, the affected lot evolves as better thinking beings with better skills and capability, future ready for better projects that is beyond the capacity of BOTS or the like

You learn in phases, learn for results and learn with awareness.

If there is any buzz that you got to follow, it is buzz within - that you need to learn, pick a new skill, get ahead in the learning life cycle and a little closer to outcomes that you desire.

This article here in Harvard Business Review tells why people should have two careers

People from different walks of life, with different levels of academic qualifications are switching careers or looking to start up something that they can do not only for extra income but also to give a platform to a latent skill.

A skill that did not find prominence in their corporate career - their love for art, or their ability to click a shot, or the resonating voice they have. Many want to sell those little skills they have as services and they do not have much clarity how to begin. They are more than open to acquire this new skill to work for clients independently without a title or the backup of a company.

The Beginner's Guide is primarily to address their concerns and get them started.

To know more, click here or write to advocating.outcomes@gmail.com

Writing Kit: My Writing Is Not 100% Error Free - Buyers Still Pay $135 For 900 Words

Non Native Freelance Writers should look for work in their home country – That’s the standard advice I read in many forums. That kind of makes you doubt the possible success for ESL writers. I take heart from these

I do not get paid for great language or error free writing. In fact I do not take risk of writing a long paragraph, apprehensive that I may mess with my prepositions.

(I do not have an editor as of now. So please bear with me)

I give that royal jazz that people remember short notes and quickly switch to bullets in my writing, like these:

·         I am not a native English speaker. 

·         I am not the Ad-words or search engine optimization expert either. 

·         I have not done my Masters in business or any other stream.

·         I am not tech savvy

(I am not playing safe here. The bullets are true. So is the rationale – People do tend to remember short notes)

Another truth is, I actually failed in Physics during graduation and I really did not have the patience to go through those practical classes in Optics and do those measurements all over again. It was just a pursuit for degree and I got my Bachelors in Arts. Some things I do is because the whole world is doing – absolute herd mentality.

(That makes me truly, sincerely and faithfully average, isn’t it?)

English was my first language.

That is just name sake. I had to learn the national language Hindi and the local language of the state Kannada. Compared to my command on these two, English was definitely first all the way. My family speaks Bengali, the language of Tagore and Satyajit Ray.

After having completed writing assignments for corporate and native English buyers and having published books in English that did not really make it to the best seller list, I realized I needed to re-visit my grammar lessons if I had to make a living* writing.

(*Make a living = Earning big like my global counter parts from English speaking countries)

I love writing.

I cannot help that. I seriously love writing. I deviated from paid blogs to business writing. Today when buyers ask me for writing samples trying to figure out why I charge $135 for writing 700 words, I can read and hear them loud.

(Like seriously? A dollar is lot more in your country)

I do not charge for what I write, but the way I think. Simple!

Custom Offer Snapshot

(The other document indicated in the screenshot above is mostly standard freebies which make the writing valuable to them)

Switching to write business plans in story board format was a conscious decision because I knew I was not very good in spinning articles. Grammar is, has been and will always remain a pain for me. I am better off with cutting content like power supply and outlining winning storyboards.

By the way, what was 900 words in March this year, is now 700 words only. We are in the era of shrinking word count, diminishing attention span and vanishing focus. Writing that short about a business idea and yet engaging audience’s mind is a Herculean task. I was okay to deal with this challenge compared to writing 1500 words error free article in perfect English.

The fundamental thought is not to write what target audience may or may not read. The idea is to write what you definitely want them to read.

(Skipping sections is a way of reading).

This breaks a couple of myths for ESL writers.

Myth #1:     You have to be exceptional in writing.

Contradicting popular opinion, I can comfortably say no to this as I am not even close to being exceptional.

·         I  have the right ideas

·         I sequence them well in a story board

·         I ensure my readers have one or two takeaway/ learning

·         I do some research

·         I just manage to spice it up with outdated humor.

(I will tie up with an editor to manage those prepositions someday)

Myth #2:     English fluency is a must.

I am yet to go back to my Grammar books. All I have learnt is to fit my current writing skills along with my weaknesses in a market that suit both parties. They manage the minor edits and tweaks that come naturally to them while I manage the major creative thinking and writing from scratch part.

Here is a buyer who selflessly points out a grammatical error in my profile, to brighten my chances in the freelance market. He appreciates the way I think/ work and is aware English is not my first language.

(There is a world out there that is a lot more generous than you think)

1.   Tough part is to accept that you have poor command on the language

2.   Tiring part is the ongoing struggle to compete with the best

3.   Testing part is to figure what skills can you couple your writing with

Once you are done with these three, you have arrived.

4.   Triumph part is to compensate average writing with exceptional research or creative thinking or whatever you are good at.

If the four T s here are defining different stages of writing nirvana, which stage are you now?

Is a vacation with family enough?

An Altlearn Ventures Program: O Square (Outcomes Oriented)

Your family deserves more than just a vacation!

O Square is an Outcome Oriented Opportunity to learn alternative earning scope based on your passion, talent, free time and sheer grit!

The laptop work style from home for more family time.