Five Leadership Qualities That Make You a More Valuable Freelancer

December 22, 2015 by jennifer mcgahan Leave a Comment

Freelancing is on the rise.

At some point in your career, you’ll probably be in the position of either hiring a freelancer for a project, or offering your own skills in that role. So what makes a good one?

A-list freelancers are hard to pin down because of their agile, varied, and seemingly random skills. Raw talent and the ability to deliver work on deadline certainly contribute to a freelancer’s hire-ability, but really successful freelancers — those who are consistently in high demand — also have leadership skills that are easily distinguishable from average freelancers.

According to a recent survey, 77% of all freelancers claim passive reasons for freelancing, including the need to earn extra income on the side, a disinclination to work in an office, and “no other preferred career” — not exactly the most inspiring motivators for people whose success depends of exemplary service, and client referrals. If freelancing is merely a hobby, as soon as you interact with your client, it’ll be obvious.

True professionals edge out their competition by setting goals, and desiring deeper satisfaction and esteem from their work. They also pay high regard to personal development.

Top performing freelancers are in high demand because they develop personal qualities that elevate their basic services and enable them to work with a variety of clients. Good leadership qualities will not only make you a happier freelancer, able to deal with challenging clients and projects, but they’ll also attract others who want to work with you.

Do you want to be a superstar in your field, with plenty of repeat clients and referrals? Whether you’re a writer, graphic designer, web developer, or and expert in some other field; you must think like a leader.

These five essential qualities will make you shine.

Communication

If there’s one thing most freelancers agree on, it’s that regular clients are valuable and rare. Businesses hire freelancers for needs-based projects. Once the project is complete, the freelancer must find new clients, or bid on new projects. For freelancers, the revolving nature of the work keeps things interesting, but it also means dealing with a wide range of prospective customers and personalities.

“Excellent communication skills are a must.” According to ZipRecruiter.com, communication skill is the quality most requested by employers, mentioned in 51% of all employment ads. Freelancers that struggle to communicate are at a serious disadvantage, especially since they must customize their communication style to accommodate the work styles, cultures, and personalities of so many different prospects and clients.

The secret sauce? Learn and practice good listening, speaking and writing skills. In business, people portray varying levels of ability in getting their ideas across. Bridging the communication chasm allows you to share and interpret concepts and ideas that are important to your clients. Can’t write? Speak. Can’t talk? Write. Can’t speak or write? Listen and execute flawlessly.

Confidence

Most entrepreneurs recognize the importance of hiring people who are “smarter” than they are in certain areas of expertise. That’s why they hire freelancers instead of doing the work themselves.

They have a kernel of an idea, but they hire you for better, faster, experience-based results. If you’re new at freelancing, you may be tempted to “take orders” like a waiter, but you’ll gain your client’s respect if you trust your gut. Your expertise has value; sometimes it just takes confidence to voice your opinion about how to meet your client’s goals.

The reality is that many times the client doesn’t know the whole picture. Top-notch freelancers will step into their roles as experts, while still showing a humble intention to deliver great service.

Creativity and Intuition

No job is ever exactly the same. No matter how many times a freelancer approaches similar projects, it’s never a one-size-fits-all process. Repetition can dull results if you’re not taking a fresh approach to each new job. Even when you know your target market like the back of your hand, and develop your niche service around it, you should never keep your creative process locked in a box.

If you no longer flow with inspiration, you’re not going to have much fun, and neither will your client! Train yourself to see each new project with fresh eyes; tried and true expertise should never be equated with “lackluster and boring.”

Long-term professionals are proud of work they add to their portfolios. Your excitement and open-ness about each new project should keep your client intrigued enough to come back for more, and rave about you to others.

Education

The more you know, the more value you’ll add to your services. Most truly valuable freelancers make it a point to always be learning from others, both within and outside their field of expertise. An ongoing education makes you so valuable; you will be untouchable compared to the person in your industry who knows just one skill.

By the way, as this article suggests, business and leadership knowledge counts. Think you don’t have time to learn new skills? Then simply expose yourself to ideas, concepts, and trends your clients care about. Listen to audio books and relevant podcasts in your spare time to stay ahead of the game.

Enthusiasm For Others’ Success

This may be the most important leadership quality a freelancer possesses. A great leader offers encouragement and helps others accomplish their goals, which, as a freelancer, should be your goals, too.

You must be equally invested in your clients’ success as your own; otherwise your career is just a series of meaningless tasks. View your customers’ projects from their point of view to align your heart and skills with theirs.

As your leadership skills increase, both you and your clients will enjoy the benefits of higher standards.

Your turn: what other leadership skills are pertinent to your success as a freelancer?

Avoid Communication Breakdown; Find Cracks In Your Small Biz Culture

March 9, 2012 by jennifer mcgahan Leave a Comment

Communication breakdown on any level can identified and patched beforeyour business culture suffers major structural damage. It helps to know what you are looking for.

As the owner of any small business knows, excellent communication is crucial to your success. There are no corporate handbooks to rely on (unless you create them) and no one to pass the buck to. As your small business grows, the need for good communication increases. In fact, the small business owner’s lack of communication skills may even arrest his company’s growth.

The owner of a company I once worked for had an interesting way of communicating. Well respected in the industry for inventing an important piece of equipment, this older gentleman had grown his 20-year-old company to over 200 employees; the company had gone public, and its tools were the industry standard in its niche. The company was profitable and very successful.

But I constantly marveled at this man’s personal communication style. My office was close to his, and his voice carried; I would hear things like “You aren’t listening to a word I’m saying.” and “You don’t understand anything.”

No coincidence then that many of us employees did not have a clear job description. Looking back, it occurs to me that many of us were self-starters and adaptable to ongoing new conditions and shifting projects; in fact, you didn’t last long unless you had those qualities. And I’m sure it helped to be agreeable with the owner, especially in the company’s formative stages!

But during the years I was with the company there existed a palpable frustration among the executives and the board that the company was not growing and competing as well as it could have. You didn’t need to sit on the board to know this; the feeling permeated the mood of daily business from the top down.

Every small business has a unique culture, which begins with communication from the founder. Do you ever consider how effective your communication style is and how it molds your business?

When you find that you have miscommunicated some information to your customer or your team, the result is usually a scramble to make things right again. I would guess that it takes more time and effort to patch up the fallout of miscommunication than it would have taken to prepare effective communication in the first place.

“I don’t remember you telling me that.”
“Where is that written down?”
“I did not know that was important to you.”

If you’ve heard these words from others, then your message wasn’t clear. Unfortunately small business owners must accept that fact and take responsibility for the communication breakdown. The good news is that once we figure out where people get stuck, communication breakdown is easy to fix.

You may relate to these common reasons for lines getting crossed in small business communication:

• We simply don’t know what we don’t know. The problem at hand is new and we lack the process or tools to deal with it.

• We are not precise when relaying information. The basic guidelines are there, but the details are missing.

• We are not clear in our intentions or motives. The “how, when, and what” are important, but sometimes to be clear you must communicate the “why.” The reasons behind directions or descriptions are often the meat of the matter. “The Reason Why” fills in the spaces between the cold hard facts and illustrates the the foundation of the problem. It also shows that you have a sound basis for your recommendations because you’ve been there before.

• We omit important chunks of information because we assume our customer or team already knows what we know.

• We simply forget, or…

• We’re in too big a hurry to explain everything or document it.

• Sometimes we even withhold information, possibly stemming from some trepidation about ruffling someone’s feathers. We bite our tongues, thinking that a one-time occurrence will not be repeated. We may even downplay new information because we are covering for a previous failure to communicate something essential! Swallowing pertinent information to avoid confrontation is a downward spiral that will only come back to haunt you.

Even subtle messages can be misconstrued. Almost all business relationships have a built-in personal element; the connections we make with people make work enjoyable. But if you are the small business owner, pay attention to the messages you are sending. Miscommunication caused by “too-casual” business connections may also be the culprit that throws a wrench into your company’s operations and standards.

Company culture is the root of your company’s brand; it’s the company’s “inside” brand and it has everything to do with how communication flows between your company team members; and with customers, vendors and wholesalers. There are opportunities everywhere to improve!

Clear Communication Is Key To Small Business Growth

February 29, 2012 by jennifer mcgahan Leave a Comment

Good communication helps you connect with your customers; that’s a given. But communication also helps your business to evolve into a reliable entity. Is your communication “off the hook?” Or are you really making a connection?

A funny thing happened on the way to school last week that displayed perfectly how important it is to connect with people with clarity.

First, let me just say that I think my 13-year-old is probably too young to be drinking coffee (and she knows it), but she loves a half milk/half coffee concoction to start her day. Being a coffee lover myself, I get it; so we indulge together every now and then.

A couple of days ago she had one of those huge cups (the kind you hold in two hands) filled with coffee in the car. I was thinking it was going to spill so I told her to dump some out before she got in the car.

Her intuition told her — what she heard was — that I objected to her caffeine intake.

And right there, I was hit smack dab by how simple messages are so easily misconstrued when approached from two completely different realities.

I was thinking about the coffee spilling. She was worrying that I would give her a sermon about nutrition. I wasn’t communicating clearly. No harm done; we came to a quick understanding. But I got to thinking about business communication…

Do you ever infer some “other” meaning behind another’s words, either written or spoken? Do you ever project a message that doesn’t even come close to landing your intended result? Do you ever try to read minds based on YOUR past experiences, and not your customers’?

It happens with customers, with clients, with business associates and with friends and family about whom we care deeply. In most cases you work it out, but there are times when you can seriously wound a good relationship, or a valuable business liaison.

Clarity is a crucial part of a good connection. (Lucky for me, my business is email and copywriting; as a fellow email marketer recently said, “It’s just email…we’re not saving lives here.” Thank goodness.)

But even though communication and marketing is my thing, anyone can botch a message. Between you and me, I’m personally working on my delivery at all levels because growing a business requires well-communicated standards — through many channels.

Ironically, the very ability and desire to be adaptable can actually hold you back as a small business owner. A reluctance to communicate a clear procedure (or price, or delivery milestone, or vacation schedule) could prevent you from solidifying certain processes that would potentially help you and your clients to thrive.

What a missed opportunity to move forward!

Poor communication may also suck the fun out situations where you can afford to let go a bit. As in the example above, my kid’s enjoyment of her coffee was interrupted by a vague wariness of doing “something wrong.” Not my intention at all.

Whether in business or in “life,” clear and consistent communication helps you connect with others. It allows you to accomplish what’s important, and to be flexible when it’s necessary.

What about you? Do you find it easy to say what you mean in your customer communication? Are you ever surprised by the way people interpret your message?