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Paul Alborough

23 Feb

Welcome to a fab new Saturday Business Chat! Today I’m thrilled to feature my old friend, Paul Alborough, aka Professor Elemental, a rapper – but wait – in the Brit hop tradition, all Steampunk and Englishness and marvellousness.

Back in the day, we used to commute up to Barnet together. I’d be reading the latest tome from my TBR, and Paul would be scribbling lyrics on an A4 pad. One of the most memorable features of my time at that company was the off-the-cuff rap Paul did for me at my leaving tea. Since then, he’s devoted considerable time and effort to building his music career, and is now doing Professor Elemental stuff full time – well done, Paul! Let’s find out how he did it. And you HAVE to look at his videos. Remember Tone and his model dinosaurs? This stuff is just as cool. Don’t I know some excellent people!

What’s your business called? When did you set it up?

Professor Elemental is the name of the business and the character that I perform as. I have been working full time as the good Professor since January 2012.

What made you decide to set up your own business?

I was quite happy just rapping as a hobby to supplement my day job, then was lucky enough to enjoy a bit of success with it. As the amount of work as an emcee grew, so did my day job career (as a teacher), and I was forced to choose between the two. Inevitably, being a mad professor was more interesting than being a regular teacher.

What made you decide to go into this particular business area?

It was only as I got more into doing shows and realised that it was a possible way to make money out of rapping without being signed. I’ve always loved emceeing in it’s many different forms.

Had you run your own business before?

Nope. I have done a lot of rap workshops, but never as a full-time business.

How did you do it? Did you launch full-time, start off with a part-time or full-time job to keep you going … ?

I ran the two parallel careers for about a year. This was a very stressful in itself, but did allow me to keep the risks to a minimum when I finally made the jump into ful- time creativity. It feels a lot nicer risking everything when you have a bit of safety net either financially or in terms of other work.

What do you wish someone had told you before you started?

‘ITS LATER THAN YOU THINK! Sort your life out, you lazy sod!’ I would have liked them to have shouted that to me while shaking me by the lapels. I probably would have cried, but it would have been worth it.

What would you go back and tell your newly entrepreneurial self?

I am still pretty new I suppose- but I am definitely learning that people value you more if you value yourself. Both creatively and financially.

What do you wish you’d done differently?

Got started earlier and not been so pessimistic about my chances of doing this for a profession. I might have saved myself a few years of life wasted in call centres.

What are you glad you did?

Working with other people. Working for yourself doesn’t mean that you have to shoulder it alone and having a good accountant, amazing booking agent and brilliant folk to collaborate with makes the whole process more fun.

What’s your top business tip?

Acheiving your dreams is entirely possible. Particularly if your dreams are relatively modest.

Oh, and be nice to people at every level of your business. That really can’t be overstated.

How has it gone since you started? Have you grown, diversified or stayed the same?

I have diversified as much as possible. I’m trying to say yes to as many good things as possible and it’s leading to some brilliant, unexpected places. So far there’s been a comic, a web series and some most unexpected gigs.

Where do you see yourself and your business in a year’s time?

I’m thoroughly enjoying the freedom to take the professor character into some new and exciting places. There are a few things in the pipeline that might change my life completely. And if not, if things carry on just as they are, then I will be very happy indeed.

I don’t usually include people’s answer to the last question in the published interviews, but I had to here …

Are you happy for me to contact you in a year’s time from posting the interview, to see how you’re doing and conduct another short interview?

Yes, unless it has all gone wrong and I am destitute , living underneath Brighton pier. In which case another interview might be too depressing.

Somehow, I don’t think that will be the case! But isn’t it interesting that in the world of rap and the world of editing, we still like to do things carefully, have backup and do things nicely! Good luck to Paul / the Professor and his modest ambitions!

The Professor Elemental website can be found at www.professorelemental.com and I recommend taking a look at his rather marvellous YouTube videos. He’s on Facebook, and of course you can get in touch via email.

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, please see more freelancer chat, the index to all the interviewees, and information on how you can have your business featured.

 
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Posted by on February 23, 2013 in Business, New skills, Small Business Chat

 

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On tax

12 Dec

tax paidI paid my tax bill yesterday, as you can see from the accompanying picture. I have been thinking about this subject recently, as there has been a furore over Starbucks, Amazon, etc., as well as various celebrities and people who are (in my opinion) rich enough already, using loopholes and legal means to squirrel away as much money for themselves as they can, ignoring what taxes are for, what they pay for, and the benefit they bring to the society among which and from which they make their money.

I’m not going to get overly political here. No, I’m not a fan of the present government, and on how they are distributing public funds, but the fact that there are any public funds to distribute in the first place is down in large part to people who do pay their tax.

I’m actually quite annoyed (especially in the year where I must pay double tax because of the payment on account system) that other companies operating in the UK are behaving like this, and giving businesses a bad name, too.

I have been checking on a few companies that I use recently to make sure I am making the most ethical choices I can (hooray for Eat. and Lush!). And it struck me that I should make some sort of statement on my own position regarding tax.

Statement on Libro and tax

I confirm that Libro is a British entity fully subjected to UK taxes. I have no cross-border arrangements that transfer profits to lower tax countries.

I pay a fair amount of tax and I claim back what I consider to be fair (expenses like reference books, memberships of organisations and a small amount towards the heating and lighting of the part of the house occupied by my office).

I do not engage in any tax avoidance (that’s the legal one: it’s tax evasion that’s the “bad” one) practices, even were they to be officially legal. I do not claim for anything I do not have, and all payments, including cash payments and tips, are put through my books, recorded and entered into the calculations that work out my tax burden.

I operate in what I consider to be an ethical and fair way, and this extends to my relationship with HMRC.

Other posts about Libro and tax

I’m obviously quite interested in tax, as I’ve published these other two posts on the topic:

Why I do my tax return in April

Income tax payment on account

 

Thanks for reading – do share if you find this useful or interesting (there are many buttons just below) or tell me whether you’ve posted up a statement on your tax position if you’re a small or medium sized business.

 
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Posted by on December 12, 2012 in Business

 

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A quick note …

12 Oct

New subscribers to / readers of this blog might be interested in my more personal reflections on being a full-time self-employed person over on my personal blog, Libro Full Time. If you just want the business stuff, select the self-employment category from the cloud, or if you want everything (business stuff and book reviews), just take a look at the blog or the About page. Thank you!

 
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Posted by on October 12, 2012 in Business

 

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Top Ten Tips for Working with Clients

19 Sep

As a freelancer, I’ve spent three years (so far) learning how to deal with lots of different clients. I hope that these tips will help you get the most out of the relationship. If you work with freelancers, you might find this article useful, too.

1. Communicate

This is the top tip, and comes into many of the other sections. Be clear about what you do, how much it costs, and when you can do it. Communicate the way in which you work to your client up front. Keep on top of the project and let them know how it’s going. Tell them what to expect, then fulfil that expectation and communicate that you have done so.

2. Manage expectations

It’s always best, in my opinion, to promise low and deliver high. I always add a little time when I’m offering a deadline, and almost always exceed expectations that way. If you are going to miss a deadline, let the client know – this only usually happens when it’s the client who sets the deadline. I’ve only missed one deadline, by half an hour – but there was good reason for it, and I let my client know in advance.

If you’re undertaking a project for someone and they’ve not used a freelancer before, explain the process and what they can expect from it. If you need to tell clients about your terms and conditions, send those along with your initial quotation. If an urgent job will cost more, tell the client in advance.

If you can’t offer the service you would want to offer, a “no” said honestly and in good faith is better than a “yes” that isn’t meant. Your client will respect you more for it.

3. Keep to deadlines

If you promise to return a piece of work to a client by a particular date and time, do your utmost to do this. Work all night if you have set an unrealistic deadline (and learn from that!). When I started freelancing, I found that freelancers have a very bad reputation around this issue. Ignoring deadlines makes you look arrogant at best, incompetent at worst. It’s not hard to plan ahead, and it’s not hard to say no (eventually).

This also applies to invoicing. If I’ve arranged to invoice the client directly after finishing the work, I do so. If they are on a monthly invoice in arrears, they are sent their invoice at the end of the month. If this is a bit much, it’s something you can easily automate or outsource.

4. Treat your client as a human being

Even if your client is a huge faceless entity, you will be dealing with a person at that client. Remember that they’re a human being, with other concerns than you and the project you’re both working on. They may be trapped between you and their own boss or client (I work for several freelance journalists and translation agencies, for example) and may have other pressures. If they’re a student or a new member of staff, they may be unsure as to how to work with you!

5. Inform your client about your availability

If you’ve got a holiday booked, you don’t work on weekends, or you stop at 9pm at latest, let your clients know. When I book a holiday, I send an email to my main regular clients a few months before, remind the biggest ones a month before, put a note in my signature then set up an auto reply on my email. Out of courtesy, I do communicate with them by email when I’m away, but only to remind them I am away!

6. Have backup

For my major clients, I have colleagues who do the same line of work as me and can pick up work if I’m unwell or on holiday, or very busy with a pre-booked job. I also have a list of people I can refer clients on to if I can’t book them in myself.

7. Respect your clients

Professionally and personally. You’re the expert in what you do, but they’re the expert in what they do. Treat them as you would expect them to treat you. Be as robust as you need to be, but always be courteous.

If you feel the need to let off steam about a tricky client or project, please do it privately! I have a private group of fellow editors who I can ask questions and share good and bad days – and sometimes people do make us a bit cross, but just don’t broadcast this in public. It’s not very professional, and it can reflect on you very badly.

You may have specific points with this according to the industry you’re in. I personally avoid pointing out horrible grammar and spelling mistakes on signs and menus in public. Amusing as I find these, a lot of my clients are using English as a second or third language, have issues with their English skills, or are just not very confident, and the last thing I would want to do would be to be seen to be mocking less-than-perfect English.

8. Work with your client’s working methods

You have to be flexible if you’re going to be good at freelancing for different clients. They all have different requirements and ways of working, and my reaction to this can go from noting which transcription clients need a time stamp every 5 minutes and which need it every 10 minutes, to communicating via email, the phone or a face-to-face meeting, whatever the client prefers.

I do impose my own working methods on them to an extent, for example encouraging them to use comments and Track Changes to comment on texts I’ve produced for them. But if they choose not to do that, I’ll work with how they want to work.

9. Share the joy

I have a list of people who do what I do who I will recommend to any clients I can’t fit in. I don’t consider them as competitors – yes, we’re in the same line of business, but everyone gets work they can’t do for whatever reason, and I’d rather have a known person I can send them to, knowing they are likely to do a decent job. This saves clients (particularly students) from getting ripped off, and I think it presents a professional attitude to the prospective client, too.

10. Say thank you

I try to say thank you whenever a client pays me. I also thank them for being particularly good clients – the student who doesn’t automatically “accept all changes” but asks me questions about their English, the writer who’s produced an interesting book … and if a client has a product or service I think is particularly good, I’ll pop a link on my links page here and tell people about their book, service or product. It doesn’t cost anything to say thank you, after all, and it gives your client a great final impression of you!

I hope you’ve found these top ten tips for working as a freelancer helpful. If one has struck you as particularly useful, or you have others to suggest, please comment. And you might be interested in my top ten tips for clients working with freelancers!

Why not have a look at my other tips for freelancers, small businesses, etc. – roam around the right-hand sidebar or click on the links!

 
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Posted by on September 19, 2012 in Business, Organisation

 

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Top Ten Tips for Working with Freelancers

12 Sep

As a freelancer, I come across all sorts of clients and all sorts of behaviour. If you want to get the best out of the freelancers you use, whether you’re a tiny company outsourcing to an accountant and a copywriter or part of a huge tech company with hundreds of freelance programmers on your books, these tips will help you get the most out of the relationship.

1. Communicate

This is tip number one, and feeds into so many others of the top ten. Be clear in your initial communications. Express your requirements clearly. If anything changes: the project, the deadline, the date you can deliver the project to them, your expectations – tell your freelancer. They’re not a mind reader: you need to tell them.

2. Manage expectations

If you commission a chatty, friendly blog post and you get a piece of corporate spin, did you really express what it was that you wanted? Again, freelancers are not mind-readers. A good writer can write in whatever style you want – but they do need guidance. Like a computer, a freelancer will absorb your instructions and produce output to the brief given.

A good freelancer will check what you want, and in some cases will send you over a questionnaire to fill in or have a chat with you over the phone. Use this opportunity.

3. Keep to deadlines

If you promise to deliver a project specification, a document, a set of keys, whatever, to your freelancer, on a particular day at a particular time, then either keep to that agreement or, if you can’t, let them know as far in advance as you possibly can. Everyone has sudden last-minute issues and no one minds that, but freelancers do mind booking in a job, possibly turning away other clients because that time is booked, then no work arriving.

Similarly, if your end deadline changes, keep your freelancer informed, give them the chance to adjust their schedule, and understand if they can’t. Perhaps you’re a journalist and your editor changes when they need that interview write-up – let your transcriber know as soon as possible and show willing to pay an urgent fee or make the deadline as flexible as possible.

This applies to payments, too. Make your company’s payment schedule clear in advance (no – “oh, yes, it’s a 60 day payment schedule; didn’t I tell you?” please) and make sure you pay on time or let the freelancer know if you can’t.

4. Treat your freelancer as a human being

This seems to apply especially in office-type services, such as editing and virtual secretarial services. Several colleagues have commented privately that they feel like some of their clients think of them as a piece of office machinery, like a printer or network cable, and are then scandalised when real life – an emergency, a holiday – intervenes. Just because you can’t see your freelancer doesn’t mean they don’t have a face and a life! (I’m lucky, pretty well all of my clients treat me well and even let me go on holiday occasionally!)

5. Inform your freelancer about your availability

If you’re going on holiday, or you don’t work Mondays, let the person you’ve commissioned know. They might have a question and not be able to get in touch with you. Leading on to …

6. Have backup

Is there someone else in your organisation who could pick up the reins with your freelancer(s) if you were to go off sick or go on holiday? I’ve had situations where my contact at a client’s office has gone out sick, and no one’s been told about the projects I’m working on or when I should be paid.

7. Respect your freelancer

Professionally and personally. They’re the expert in what they do, just like you’re the expert in what you do. You’ve hired them to do a job, so let them do that job. If you feel you know how to do whatever you’re asking them to do, remember that it might be a part of your job, but it’s their speciality. Of course it’s fine to ask questions, but if you’ve chosen right, from a recommendation or by checking out the freelancer’s references and experience, let them get on with their job.

Having said that, I’m pretty sure I’ve typed some terrible mis-hearings into transcriptions I’ve done for clients, but I’ve never (thankfully) seen them laughing about it in public. Don’t make assumptions about their private life – it’s polite to ask if they mind working through the weekend on your project, even if they’ve done so before. I don’t mind working odd hours for my clients, as I make up for it with long lunch breaks with gym sessions and a sit in the garden, but I appreciate it when they realise that I have a life, too!

8. Work with your freelancer’s working methods

Although a good freelancer will adapt the way they work to suit you to a certain extent, there are times when you need to fit in with how they work. For example, if a client needs to comment on a text I’ve produced for them, I request them to do so in Track Changes, rather than colouring in bits of text and writing comments in the text. It’s easier for me to work my way through the comments, saving the client time and money if they are on an hourly rate, and I will always take a moment to explain how to do it.

9. Share the joy

If someone does a good job for you, offer them a reference or testimonial. Tell other people about their services. I get most of my work through recommendations, and it’s a great way for clients to get freelancers they know will be good, and freelancers to get clients who are likely to go with them because their friend or colleague has recommended them.

A freelancer who knows you’ve recommended them on to your friends and colleagues will be more loyal to you. They’ll want to do a good job for you, so you recommend them again!

10. Say thank you

On the day I wrote this post, I’d been up since 5.30 am to turn around a very urgent project for a client. What really did make that worthwhile? The client coming back to me to say a big thank you. It really does matter; it doesn’t take a moment, and it cheers everyone up.

I hope you’ve found these top ten tips for working with freelancers helpful. If one has struck you as particularly useful, or you have others to suggest, please comment. And you might be interested in my top ten tips for freelancers, too!

Why not have a look at my other tips for freelancers, small businesses, etc. – roam around the right-hand sidebar or click on the links!

 
4 Comments

Posted by on September 12, 2012 in Business, Organisation

 

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Keep an eye on your stats

17 Aug

Do you ever look at your blog or website statistics? If you don’t, I’m going to show you why you should. If you do, do you get all you can out of them? Do you look at them actively or passively?

Note: this post uses examples from the WordPress.com statistics pages, because that’s the blogging/website platform I use. But all of the standard blogging sites, plus Google Analytics, Statcounter and other analysis tools will offer you similar information, with similar headings.

Why should I look at my statistics?

Looking at your statistics can help you tailor your blog to match what your readers want, and will also alert you to who is talking about you and where they are doing so. You can also measure the success of your attempts to build your audience through posting on social media and other blogs and sites. Here are some of the things you can find out …

  • Which posts or pages are people looking at a lot … and which ones are they ignoring?
  • Is there a kind of post that people are particularly interested in?
  • When do people read your posts?
  • How do people find you (social media, web searches … )
  • What search terms do they use?
  • Where do your readers go next – what links do they click?
  • Are people finding your site via other sites and blogs?

How do I find and view my blog / website statistics?

Usually you’ll have some kind of button or menu option called Statistics or Analytics. On WordPress, you will find a Stats option when you go into your blog, or you can click on the bar chart at the top of the screen. Once you’ve found them, you’ll find a screen something like this:

Now we’ve located our stats, let’s look in more detail about what they can tell us.

How do I tell how many times my blog posts have been viewed?

One of the important ones to look at is your most popular pages. We’re looking at one day here, and I can see that my blog post on on route or en route is, yet again, the most popular.

But I can also see what other posts and pages have been popular (and if I click on yesterday or summaries I can see previous days’ stats, while if I click on the magnifying glass next to the number, I can see all the views for that post). This is useful, as I can tell how I’m doing in the search engines, if it’s an older post, or whether my alerts are doing well, if it’s today’s post going up the ratings.

How do I tell how people have found my blog or website?

It’s very useful to know how people are finding your blog. You should have a section of statistics called something like referrers or referrals. Here are mine for a particular day.

You can glean all sorts of information from this. At the top you can see I get most of my hits from search engines (over 70 of that day’s hits so far), then Facebook (1) and Twitter (2), then a variety of websites and blogs that I’ll go through in a minute. This has changed – when you’re new to blogging, you’ll get most of your hits from Facebook and Twitter and other social media, as your friends will be looking at your posts and you will be promoting them on social media. As your blog gets indexed on the search engines, results will start showing up from them.

Looking at the pages from which your readers have come can be SO useful. Here’s what I can learn from this one:

3 comes from one of the people I’ve featured on my blog blogging about my feature herself – a great link-back that Google will like indexing. 4 is from an answer I gave (with a link) on an expert site. 5 is from a comment I made on someone’s blog. 6 is from my other blog. 7 is from a list of editors a client added to her website (very valuable). 8 is from WordPress itself, probably someone surfing through tags, and 9 is from my old LiveJournal blog, where I post links to this blog/website.

All good stuff, and I can say thank you to people who have sent readers my way, or even find out when they’ve done so (all these links can be clicked, so I can see exactly what people have said). Now, what about those search engines?

How can I find out what search terms people have used to find my site?

You should have a heading like Search Terms somewhere on your stats page. This offers a world of exciting information.

Clicking on Other search terms will give you the rest of the terms people have searched on – that they will only have tried once (or only one person has tried).

For a start, you can see exactly what people are searching for. It might be useful to change the wording on your blog posts to get further up the search results for a popular term. It’s also worth searching for these terms yourself and seeing where on the Google results page they appear. Another useful point is it can give you ideas for future blog posts. I noticed that someone had found me while searching for Autocorrect, which I had mentioned in a blog post. So then I wrote a post on Autocorrect itself, which has been quite popular.

It can also be quite amusing to see what people search for. Someone once came through to my blog having searched for “persuasive piece on children believing in the tooth fairy” – I think they may have been disappointed (they found me because I mention the tooth fairy in an example sentence explaining a word definition).

How can I see where my blog readers are?

On WordPress you can see a rather nifty world map with the countries from which your visitors have come from highlighted.

This is more of a fun distraction than a useful tool, to be honest, but if you discover an anomaly, for example if you’re in the UK and you get a lot of visitors from Brazil, you could consider tailoring some of your blog posts for this market. I get a lot of international visitors, so I’m going to make sure I talk about my work with non-native speakers of English soon.

Is my website traffic increasing? What did I do to make that happen?

As well as today’s data, you can usually see a month or year’s worth, too. If I look at the traffic on my website and blog over time, I can see that it started increasing at the beginning of 2011.

What did I do at the time of that red arrow? Started writing this blog!

Do people read my blog more at the weekends?

Looking at your daily traffic will show peaks and troughs. If your blog is more popular at the weekends, it might be good to post new content then. If I drill down into one of my blog posts, the ever-popular “What do I do if my comment boxes go tiny in Word?”, I can see that it’s not read very often at the weekends.

This says to me that office workers are looking for and using this post, so I can make sure I post more for that kind of audience and save other new posts for the weekends.

Where do my website visitors go when they leave my site?

This is usually found under the heading Referrals, or maybe Click-throughs. Here’s a good representative one of mine from a few days ago:

Looking at clickthroughs from my website

You can see that the click-throughs fall into a few groups. 1 is my ebook, which I have linked to in a blog post and on the site itself. Hooray – my PR campaign is starting to work! 2 is a click to my Livejournal blog, linked to on my website. 3 is a pair of pages on this website, filed under my old url but I can see people are navigating around the site and sticking around. 4 and 5 are both links I have on blog posts; 5 is also on my references page. And all those marked 6 are websites of people I’ve featured on my blog, showing that I’m helping them get some traffic, too.

So there we go. Look at those statistics, whether you’re using WordPress or another host for your blog. And look at them actively: think about what they mean and how they can help you to find out how to tailor your blog to your audience and drive more traffic to your blog or website.

If you’ve enjoyed this post, please click on one of the share buttons below, or leave me a comment. Especially if you’ve had any amusing search terms recently!

 
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Posted by on August 17, 2012 in Blogging, Business, New skills, Organisation, Writing

 

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A new publication from Libro

13 Aug

How I Conquered High Cholesterol Through Diet and Exercise As well as writing and editing for other people, I have been busy writing my own guide to dealing with high cholesterol through diet and exercise. I’ve published it on Kindle and it’s available now. If you or a family member or friend has been diagnosed with high cholesterol, whether or not you are taking statins at the moment, this guide can help you reduce your intake of saturated fat and increase your intake of substances that promote cholesterol reduction, so that you could possibly come off statins or not go on them in the first place.

I’m not making any wild promises, but this system has worked for me and some of my friends, and the book cuts to the chase with easy-to-remember guidelines. It does try to accentuate the positive, so there’s lots of information on what you CAN eat and enjoy.

If you’re interested, please click through. There are some great reviews on there right now. And even if you don’t decide to buy a copy, please consider clicking on the “Like” button. Enjoy!

 
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Posted by on August 13, 2012 in Business, Ebooks, Writing

 

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Happy Birthday, Libro!

01 Aug

Happy birthday, Libro

I’m proud to celebrate Libro’s third birthday today! In August 2009, I really had no idea that I would be working for myself full time, doing such varied things as transcription, writing and editing as well as thesis proofreading, which is what I started out doing.

I am going to have a small celebration at some stage soon, perhaps with friends of Libro, perhaps just with Matthew. I was considering marking the occasion by buying myself something, perhaps a piece of jewellery. But then I had a better idea.

I’ve been doing Kiva loans for a while now: we’ve got two loans on the go and re-loan them as they get paid back. Now I’ve helped to fund five more women entrepreneurs (which means those loans will be on-going too and help more people as they get paid back). Kiva funds grassroots organisations that help people do small, sustainable things that will make a difference to their lives. Here are the groups and people I’ve chosen to donate to. I’ve also made a donation to LUCIA, a charity close to my heart, run by friends from the Library where I used to work, who do the same kind of work in Ethiopia.

So, I’ve helped these women:

These ladies are in Paraguay, where my friend Sandy spent her year out at University, and they make textiles, which is an interest of mine.

This lady from the Lebanon supplies special food for Ramadan – an appropriate time of year to lend to her!

This group of ladies in Mali (location of Timbuktu, twin town of Hay-on-Wye) have already had and repaid several loans.

This lady goes spear fishing to send her children to school. A bit different from sitting at a desk typing to afford to buy millions of books!

And this lady is from Georgia – I met someone from Georgia at the Social Media Surgery last month, so that seemed appropriate.

If you want to start using Kiva, you can have a FREE $25 Kiva loan to make to an individual or organisation: follow this link to sign up and get your first loan for free! (the management of Kiva have sponsored a certain number of free loans to encourage people to sign up).

Thank you for everyone’s support of me and Libro over these three exciting years. Here’s to the next three!

There had to be a cuppa and a bun somewhere in this post …

 
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Posted by on August 1, 2012 in Business, Celebration, Ethics

 

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Sally Evans-Darby

14 Jul

Welcome to Saturday Business chat. It’s time for another new chat today, and we’re meeting Sally Evans-Darby from Write Sense Media, a very new business, which has only been going for a few months. Sally’s had some very nice things to say about this interview series: when asked if it’s OK to contact her in a year for a catch up, she said, “Absolutely – and thanks so much for this one! Great way to encourage people to reflect on their own businesses, but more importantly, to build up an information database of lots of different people’s experiences. It’s always so useful to read about others’ experiences in something you are thinking of trying out” – which is great for me to hear.

I do meet people who read all of these interviews and find them useful – if you’re one of them, do post to let me know! In the meantime, let’s find out what Sally has learned so far …

What’s your business called? When did you set it up?

Write Sense Media – launched in February 2012. The name was a suggestion from my other half and it just stuck. Write Sense Media offers proofreading, editing and writing services.

What made you decide to set up your own business?

I’ve worked both in-house and freelance as a proofreader and writer, but mostly in-house (read: full-time, 9-5 day job with ‘living for the weekend’ mentality and everything else that lifestyle comes with!). I had thought about being purely freelance before but just didn’t think I would be able to sustain it as a living. Then came a brainwave in the early part of this year where I realised that working freelance was exactly what I needed to be doing. Looking at my life and my career as a whole, I just couldn’t see myself always working in an office for an employer. There would have to come a time where I did the work I love (i.e. editing, proofing, writing) but for myself and with my own values/strategy rather than the views of my employer. So I thought, why not now? Life is short; I decided to just go for it.

What made you decide to go into this particular business area?

I’ve always been into words, whether that’s word-play, crosswords, finding out new words, learning about language. Plus, I’ve always been a mean speller! In primary school I remember the class being asked to look at what the difference was between an old map listing a village as ‘Bishop’s Lydeard’ and a new one as ‘Bishops Lydeard’. I was the only one who noticed the missing apostrophe in the new version. I guess you could say I’ve always had a knack for looking at words, the way they’re presented, and picking them apart.

I love words. As a lot of logophiles will say, I’m terrible with numbers – figures don’t make sense to my brain, but letters do.

I should mention too that I hadn’t realised until this year that there was a genuine career path budding editors/proofreaders can take. The internet is a wonderful resource in this respect. Browsing other proofreaders’ websites, including yours, Liz, made me realise there was a whole world out there of people who read, edit and write for a living – and I wanted to be part of it.

Had you run your own business before?

No – the idea of ‘running my own business’ has always been something I’m slightly sceptical about. I don’t see myself as the particularly entrepreneurial type and I worried about practical things like sustaining this in the long-term. But making the leap and deciding to have my own business was completely the right thing for me. I just had to realise that.

How did you do it? Did you launch full-time, start off with a part-time or full-time job to keep you going … ?

I still had a full-time job when I started up Write Sense Media, because I knew it was going to take time to build things up: create and add content to a website, start a blog, start networking, start making contacts with clients. I see my business as a huge round object that started off stationary, and which took a lot of effort and work to get rolling. Once it was rolling, however, its own momentum keeps it rolling. It’s just that initial struggle into being that every business must go through that means you have to keep a job at first, unless you’ve had the foresight to build up a nest egg beforehand.

What do you wish someone had told you before you started?

That it would take some time but I just had to hang in there and things would work out.

What would you go back and tell your newly entrepreneurial self?

To devote every spare hour I could to Write Sense Media. That I was on the right track and I just had to keep going.

What do you wish you’d done differently?

I wish I’d been able to devote more time to it and of course it would have been a luxury to not have to work full time at the same time.

What are you glad you did?

I’m glad I made my website one of my top priorities, and that I went to my brother, Scott Darby (http://scottdarby.com/), for his invaluable help with this. I’m not the most technical person, so him helping me with this was essential! I’m proud of the result and feel it represents me and my business well, so I’m glad I took the time to make this happen.

What’s your top business tip?

Be yourself. Don’t try to be someone you’re not – whether you’re using your ‘voice’ on the internet, phone, in person, always just be yourself. People respond to people who are human. Also never act desperate, even if you are!

How has it gone since you started? Have you grown, diversified or stayed the same?

So far, in the short time since I started Write Sense Media, my overall ‘vision’ has pretty much stayed the same. I expect things to change though in the future and am open to change. I’m ready to roll with the punches, and keep my business current and alive.

Where do you see yourself and your business in a year’s time?

I truly hope to see my business flourishing and for me to feel much more in control of my life! I hope to have a diverse client base and to have built up lots of long-lasting relationships. I hope to have been to a few SfEP (Society for Editors and Proofreaders) events and to have met other people working in the same field.

I do like “never act desperate, even if you are!” and I’m glad to have been something of an inspiration. It can indeed be frustrating starting up part time and not having all the time you want to devote to your new business, but it’s also a safer way to do it for those of us who are maybe not the traditional type of entrepreneur. Good luck, Sally, and I’ll look forward to seeing how you’re getting on in a year’s time!

Read Sally’s 2013 interview.

Oh, and for anyone who is curious about why I feature people you could see as competitors in this series; I’d rather see them as colleagues! And it’s worth remembering that much of the interest I get in my own blogs and website is generated by so-called competitors, something I talked about a few weeks ago.

You can find Sally’s website at www.writesensemedia.co.uk and, of course, email her.

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, please see more freelancer chat, the index to all the interviewees, and information on how you can have your business featured.

 
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Posted by on July 14, 2012 in Business, New skills, Small Business Chat

 

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On Mutual Support

04 Jul

Recently, I was invited to present at a training morning on small business and social media. I’m always happy to help other small businesses and community organisations learn about the things I’ve picked up over the years, and, while presenting my case study as a business person who has used social media to get an audience and clients, I emphasised the idea of mutual support.

I talked mainly about retweeting on Twitter and also about the way I feature other small businesses in my “Small Business / Freelance Chat” posts on my blog. I also talked about how some editing colleagues (who I do NOT see as competitors) kindly shared some of my blog posts on various forums to which they belong, which helped a couple of my posts go “viral” (500 hits in a couple of days is a big deal to me).

So I just wanted to take a moment to mention some of the kind instances of support I’ve had from other people in the editing / small business community (and, of course, encourage you to look at their resources too).

Louise Harnby kindly featured my Word help posts as her Link of the Week recently. This and her weekly round-up which included it again have collected me over 40 hits on my own website/blog so far. Add to that a couple of entries on her weekly round-up post for others of my posts, and she’s sent over 50 visitors my way in the past month. Thanks, Louise!

The University of Kent Careers Service found my post on starting a career in proofreading and linked to it on their Careers in Publishing web page. I’ve had a few hits a day from that since that happened.

Editor colleague, Kathy O’Moore Klopf, who is a constant support and fount of information, often (make that usually) shares my links to posts made in Facebook and Twitter. She also shares them with other communities she’s in, via forums and other discussion areas. Of course, I do the same for her! She is one of the people who helped me to those 500 pageviews.

An editors’ forum called The Editor’s POV mentioned my Stress post in one of their weekly round-up articles, and quite a few people popped over to have a look.

And last week, Nicky Getgood from TalkAboutLocal featured me in an article about people who use Twitter, Facebook and other free tools for marketing, information sharing and awareness raising.

All of these different posts in different places give me …

  • A new audience who may not have come across me yet
  • The chance to help more people, as well as to market myself to them – both are truly equally important to me
  • Link-backs, i.e. my URL on their page – Google likes these as they confirm that the site being linked to is valid and useful – so it helps me in their search results

And all this is on top of the retweeting and Facebook sharing – I’ve explained elsewhere why that is important to small businesses.

So, thank you to everyone who’s talked about me on their websites, here is some mutual support back, and if you have a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a website or blog, do share other people’s resources – it’s really worthwhile and can make a friendly small business person very happy!

 
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Posted by on July 4, 2012 in Business, Ethics

 

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