This Business About Business Cards

Websites are pivotal when working for yourself. Most people know this, they accept this, and they're thoroughly baffled by how to make it happen. Luckily for me, my experience as a project manager for two agencies specializing in building websites has given me some inside know-how on easy ways to make a website. The business cards were another story.

To get nice high quality business cards, you need design files. While I have more design skills than the average Jill, my experience is limited to saving files for web, not print. So I needed the help of designer, which can get expensive if you don't know people.

I should mention now that I am extremely blessed. I have some of the most fantastic connections in the city of Orlando. If you do not, then you need to figure out how to meet the people in your city who can hook you up and do it, but that's a subject for another post.

A very close friend of mine is one of the most talented people I know. She's been behind me the whole way supporting me in every step. She's my cheerleader, my mentor, and just an all-around great friend. I'm lucky that professionally she is also a designer. She is the genius behind my Managed By Rita logo, she collaborated on my website content, and she is the designer of my beautiful business cards.

She is also a full-time art director and part-time graphics professor for a local college, so understandably there was a waiting period for her to make room in her schedule. There were some missed opportunities during this waiting period, and I'll admit I was bummed. Nothing makes you look more unprepared and unreliable than when you're done giving your pitch about yourself and what  you can do for a person and you have nothing to show for it.

Oh you're in social media? Great! Give me your card. I'd love to chat with you sometime about business.

***crickets***

Oops, well, I don't have them yet, but let me give you my number and email on this scrap of paper you're sure to lose in three minutes. Don't hesitate to give me a call...

I have since received my business cards, and they were 100% worth the wait. Not only do I now come equipped with my second most important piece of marketing materials (website being the first here), but they're eye-catching, unique, and something people will remember. Even more important is that through all those missed opportunities I've learned one of the most important lessons in business. Be prepared. Every day. Every time. With everyone you meet.

The Freelancer Signal

So is freelancing mostly sitting around in your batcave waiting for the Rita signal to go up and then you mete out some piping hot social media marketing justice? Because that's how I imagine it.

My friend asked me that in a text message shortly after I'd told him my decision to freelance full-time. I answered with my attempt at a quip:

That's pretty accurate. Don't tell anyone though. Gotta keep my secret identity under wraps.

How awesome it would be if my desk were actually located in my freelancing "batcave," (or butterfly cave in my case) and it was as easy as waiting for the call. There I'd sit, typing furiously on my laptop and my eyes drift to the window as they so often do. Staring off into space, my butterfly signal appears lighting up the sky (a pretty amazing feat seeing as I work during normal daylight business hours...). I jump up, don my super freelancer cape, and fly off to the social media marketing rescue for the client in distress.

Yes, how amazing that would be. But alas, it is not so easy. First of all, as if I need to say it, there's no such thing as a freelancing signal. Secondly, most people don't know they need social media help, and if they do they don't know how to find it. Therefore, a big part of my job is to go out find those distressed clients myself. Then I need to sell them on their own need for help and me as the solution to their problems.

Networking. Selling your image. Showing up everyday. That's how we freelancers get it done. 

The Coffee House Office

Nowadays, if you visit a coffee shop in Orlando during the day, whether it be Starbucks or a little local hole-in-the-wall, you're likely to encounter the mass of freelancers setting up shop. You'll know them by the open laptops, headphones in their ears, papers and notebooks scattered over the table they'll occupy for hours at a time, and they're those pesky people who take calls while you're trying to read your book over your flavored coffee beverage. 

What can I say? Coffee is apart of our culture. For so many of my cohorts in this business, 2 am is when they tell me they're the most creative. The problem with that being your preferred time to work is that your clients are conducting business at the normal 9 to 5 hours. This has led to a high dependency on caffeine for many who work in the middle of the night but still have to "show up" during the day. 

More than just the coffee, the draw is getting out of our home offices for a while. Working from home doesn't always need to mean being at home. Personally, I need my time being exposed to other people or I'd go crazy. We're not all introverts who choose to work this way because we're too antisocial to handle an office full of people.

In fact, the choice to work for myself from home was a big one for me. I labored over the fear I'd become lonely and end up miserable. The coffee house office was my solution though, and swayed my choice to cut ties with the corporate life. Turns out, I get to be more sociable. Instead of the same faces day in and day out, I meet new people frequently.

For a social butterfly like me working in a social industry, this is quite perfect. 

  

What Do You Do?

It's a simple question. Most people have no trouble answering quickly and succinctly. I'm a doctor. I'm a teacher. I'm a general contractor. However, for me this question poses quite a few complications in answering with ease.

It is possible I take the question too literally. What do I do? Well, every day I wake up to snuggles and kisses with the world's most handsome little man. That is, unless he's sick or he woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. Then, I wake up to whining and tantrums.

Once I've handled my mommy duties for the morning – breakfast, clothes, teeth, and the dreaded daily battle get him loaded in the car and even worse to drop him off at day care – I move on to the work that pays.

I spend the bulk of my day on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and at times Pinterest. Most of the time is on the clock and some of it is personal time just fiddling around. The rest of my "work day" is juggled between various blogging interfaces, websites, and email accounts.

I ride my bike often, practice yoga, meditate, and have lunch with friends and colleagues whenever I can.

I'm a coffee house expert. I know which have internet problems and at what time of day they're most prone to experience them. I have preferences to which I will use as my office any given day depending on what my work load looks like because I know which will have the most conducive environment.

I play pool on Wednesday nights, where I've become the bar room's official website and social media consultant (something I really should consider charging for but what can you do when it's friends asking right?).

I recently opened my own social media management business, so "Business Owner," or "Entrepreneur" should be added to the list somewhere.

I could also answer with, "I'm a writer," or "I'm a photographer."

A very dear friend of mine who hates cleaning pays me to tidy up her house for her on Fridays, so let's add "housekeeper" (which was actually implied with the mommy role).

So there you go. Now, if we ever meet and you ask me that question you will know why I pause before answering. You'll understand why I sputter out some over complicated answer that has you thinking, man I was just trying to make small talk. 

I know that's not what people are after when they ask me what I do. I know they don't want a literal rundown of what I do on a daily basis. They want to know how I earn my money. (That's really what people should ask. Who pays you?)

But truly, I just find this question a difficult one to answer. Perhaps it's because I have a problem with identifying myself under a job title. Perhaps it's because I don't have your typical 9 to 5 job with an office, name tag, and a phone extension.

I guess what I should choose for my answer is, "I'm a freelancer." Yeah, freelancer, we'll go with that.