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Saturday freelance chat – Andrew Donnelly

13 Aug

After a brief hiatus, the Libro blog is back with the next in our series of Saturday freelancer interviews. It’s been a difficult time for businesses and society over the past week, but one way we can pick ourselves up and drive the recovery forward is to get on with business as usual, ensuring we’re making money to put back into our local economies.

So, my next subject is Andrew Donnelly, who set up a mobile apps and websites development company that’s been running for just a year.  Andrew’s followed yet another path as he started his business, continuing to work as a contractor to bring in the money (so a bit like soft-launchers like me, who are still employed part-time, but a little bit more independent).  Andrew’s another 4N member and he talks about the value of networking – but in his case, being in the right place at the right time and embracing the opportunities offered by new technologies have kickstarted his new career.

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

My business is called iphonemobileapp and has been set up for 1 year now. We specialise in the development of Apps and Websites to run on mobile devices.

What made you decide to set up your own business?

Having always been interested in mobile development, it was becoming frustrating working on mobile IT only in short bursts when the work came in, rather than full-time.

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

It’s always been a big area of interest of mine; even before iPhones were launched I was interested in development on phones. When the iPhone came out, it was the perfect opportunity for me.

Had you run your own business before?

I had contracted for 7 years previously.

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

In between freelance work, I have taken contracts to keep the money coming in to pay the bills. When I have downtime, I’m still working, but on my skills, aiming to improve them more and more.

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

That I could do it. Like everyone taking that big leap, it can be really scary at first. One year down the line, my confidence is high and the timing seems right for what I have done.

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

Plan, Plan, Plan and more Plans; it’s all well and good having an idea, but as time went on, putting a business plan together helped me stay focused and gave me goals to achieve.

What do you wish you’d done differently?

Networked a lot more in the early days. Having just discovered networking, it’s a breath of fresh air to me and my business. Not so much in sales, but in terms of contacts and opportunities.

What are you glad you did?

Worked hard – it’s not a 9-5 job, it’s a 24/7 365 days a year thing. You have just got to keep at it.

What’s your top business tip? 

Trust your gut feeling a lot more than you do. It’s generally 99% right.

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

Still the same size, but now I have access to a lot of contacts to help me out.

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

Hopefully on a much more solid footing, with a good client base. (Find out what he’s doing a year on!)

If you’re interested in knowing more, Andrew’s website is down at the moment for contractual reasons, but his phone number is 07795 511 083 and you can Tweet him.

Thank you for being my first app developer interviewee, Andrew! Click here for more freelancer chat.

 
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Posted by on August 13, 2011 in Business, New skills, Small Business Chat

 

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Saturday freelance chat – Matthew Marron

06 Aug

Welcome to another Freelancer chat!  Today we’re talking to Matthew Marron.  I met Matt via the 4N networking site forums and was impressed by the fact that he’s a student who’s already carving out a great career as a freelancer.  Although I did type up the odd thesis when I was a student, I would never have dared to try to go it alone and be completely self-employed, so I really admire anyone who’s trying to do that.  Matt’s website is here – and let’s now learn more about how he took the plunge and decided to go it alone.  I do like his answer to “What do you wish someone had told you before you started”!

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

My business is called Matthew Marron Graphic Design and I first started freelancing around 3 years ago.

What made you decide to set up your own business?

I was still at college and just didn’t seem to be learning enough, and I realised I was at the age where I could start to be taken seriously by clients.  My work was well above the standard needed, so it made sense to start earning a bit of experience and portfolio work as well as a bit of money!

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

Graphic Design is my passion; it’s as simple as that. I live and breathe it and have a lot of inspiration boiling inside of me!

Had you run your own business before?

Nah – I’d messed about with bits of freelancing throughout High School but I was entirely self taught in Photoshop back then and working at 72dpi, which meant everything I did looked terrible when printed.

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

It was just gradual, I do it alongside my University degree which helps me pay for living costs, and this in turn will set me up for going full-time after graduating next year.

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

Where the tree of clients is planted, and directions on how to get to it!

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

Plan my time better and don’t let £30 jobs have lots of amendments!

What do you wish you’d done differently?

Same as the above really; I was a bit too nice and a bit too cheap at first. I was getting lots of cheap work but the amendments meant that I was spending a lot more time than planned on what were supposed to be 1 hour jobs!

What are you glad you did?

Started in the first place.  Graphic Design is a hard game to get started in and I think too many people just assume they won’t be able to get work if they start up on their own.

What’s your top business tip?

Go for it!  It applies to everyone, but especially students who have a lot of spare time. If they’re good at what they do, they have nothing to lose, and the experience is priceless.

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

I only really try to get work during the holidays, which works really well for me, as I get a lot of work when I’m off uni and then I get a steady stream of work during term time on the back of that.

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

Full-time! Huddersfield University has a business start-up scheme which helps with office space and free phones, and this, combined with the connections I have steadily built up, will hopefully help me land on my feet.

Libro of course wishes Matt the best of luck with his future endeavours! You can find the Matthew Marron website at www.matthewmarron.co.uk and contact him via email info@matthewmarron.co.uk, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mmarrondesign or on Twitter: @matthewmarron

Click here for more freelancer chat.

 
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Posted by on August 6, 2011 in Business, New skills, Small Business Chat

 

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Guest blog spots available here!

05 Aug

August and September are traditionally Libro’s busiest months, and this year is no exception – as well as the usual dissertations from students, I’ve been expanding my client base in all sorts of ways.  Of course (of course!) I’m able to support and complete all the projects I’ve taken on, but it struck me that I could take my own advice about outsourcing and share the joy of running this blog …

So, for a limited number of weeks through August and September, I’m offering my Wednesday blog post slot to people who would like to express themselves and talk about anything that fits into the general subjects I blog about already.   I ran some guest posts earlier in the year, and this is an extension of that, but rather than being very sporadic, there will be a series of them, starting the week after next. Get your thinking caps on!

What’s in it for you?

One word: exposure. Let people see how you can write, what you’re passionate about. Share your ideas. And of course, there will be a link to your blog, website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, etc.  I will promote the posts through my usual channels – and I get quite a lot of hits on back issues of the blog from people searching for the topics they’re interested in. And by reading the other posts in the series, you might get some new ideas, too!

What’s in it for me?

I’m looking to fill a gap that I’m a little bit too busy to fill at the moment – but also to share new ideas and new writers with my readers. I’m also hoping, of course, that you’ll blog/tweet/update your Facebook status, etc., about your lovely new guest blog post, bringing more readers to this blog in turn.  I’ve found with my Freelancer Chat interviews that the interviewee and I can really drive a lot of click-throughs between our sites if we both talk about the post to our circles of influence.

What can you blog about?

I don’t want to limit you, so if you’ve got a good idea of a subject to write about, let me know anyway.  The subjects I tend to write about on here are …

  • writing, language and words
  • business matters – especially as they relate to small businesses, startups, freelancers and entrepreneurs
  • personal development – learning experiences
  • social media and marketing
  • what exactly I do in my day-to-day work

How to submit a guest blog post (and the small print)

You can submit your guest blog post via email or via my contact form.

I reserve the right to accept or reject your post.  I also reserve the right to do a little light editing on your post – nothing major, but if some spellings and grammar need a tidy-up, I will tidy them up.  I’m really careful about how I write my posts, so I need to make sure any guest posts I host are as tidy as they can be, too.

I’ll let you know when your post has arrived.  If I think it needs some editing (more words, fewer words, more on a particular subject) or I don’t think it’s suitable, I’ll let you know. And I’ll let you know when I publish it, and send you the URL, so you can talk about it online and show off your work.

 
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Posted by on August 5, 2011 in Blogging, Guest posts

 

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Saturday freelance chat – Carl Nixon

25 Jun

Welcome to my second interview with a fellow freelancer.  These are running every Saturday, and are aimed at sharing our experiences in setting up and running our own businesses.  This does gives people a chance to showcase their businesses, but the main aim is to share and encourage.  Each interview includes the same questions, and I’ll be revisiting my interviewees a year after their original interview is published, to see how things are going.

Today we’re going to meet Carl Nixon; I first came across Carl on the 4Networking forums and he’s also on Twitter.  Carl is based in Wales and his business, Excel Expert, has been going for 2 years, so it’s about the same age as Libro.

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

It is called Excel Expert and we are just coming up to our 2nd birthday.

What made you decide to set up your own business?

Mainly being bored of my job. I worked for Admiral Insurance for 10 years setting up and maintain their systems and procedures for the elephant.co.uk brand. Once all the bugs were worked out there was very little challenge left so I found myself just turning up for work at 9, wasting my day and going home at 5.  I should have left years before but it was a genuinely good place to work and I was a part of a great team

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

I’ve been a geek and a lover of all things maths all my life so it was almost a no-brainer. I could have equally gone down the database route rather than the spreadsheet route, but I chose spreadsheets because there was less competition. It’s really strange, because databases are becoming our main focus.

Had you run your own business before?

Prior to working for Admiral I ran businesses for other people but never my own.

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 started out with the aim of starting part-time and going full-time when I hit a certain turnover. However I was never going to hit that threshold because I never had the time to produce that much turnover. So I just bit the bullet and went for it.

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

Expect to spend several times more money and time on marketing than you plan to.

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

Spend more time on marketing and concentrate earlier on eliminating the marketing, working,  marketing, working cycle.

What do you wish you’d done differently?

Not left it until I was 40 to start up a business

What are you glad you did?

Making the leap from part-time to full-time. It is a big leap of faith but it just makes it so much easier to get your business really going.

What’s your top business tip?

Has to be fail fast – As soon as you see something not working or going wrong, get right on it. Either fix it or bin it.

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

We tried to diversify but it was a nightmare. By offering more core services you dilute your marketing message and as a result it becomes weak and doesn’t have so much reach and impact.

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

Hopefully employing people so I can take on more work.

Carl’s website is here and you can call him on 029 2125 1450

Thank you for joining in with the interviews, Carl!  The information on going full-time from part-time was particularly interesting for me, and I’ll be interested to see how things are going in a year’s time, as we’re in fairly similar lines of business but with different expansion plans. Here’s how Carl is doing two years down the line …

Click here for more freelancer chat.

 
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Posted by on June 25, 2011 in Business, New skills, Small Business Chat

 

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5 top tips for working from home

27 Apr

This month’s guest post is from Annabelle Beckwith of Yara Consulting and Coach Me Confident. I met Anna on our very first day at University (ahem) years ago, and we’ve been friends ever since. Anna was always the dynamic, arty one, full of ideas and enthusiasm, whereas I was more of a plodder. I don’t think either of us would have thought that, (ahem) years on, we’d both be running our very different businesses! Anna’s company Yara offers innovative and exciting training methods that really work – she’s been doing it longer than me, and working full-time from home, so many of us could benefit from her tips for making a home office work well and smoothly. Over to you, Anna …

Working From Home – 5 top tips

Several years ago, I worked from a rather expensive city centre office, in the mistaken belief that it would impress my clients. Sitting on the crowded commuter train one morning, it occurred to me that working from home would be a far more sensible option, cutting down massively on costs and travel and, well … just making an awful lot more sense.

Working from home, of course, has massive advantages – the flexibility and the comfort factor among them. It does, though need a different mindset. Here are my top 5 tips for anyone thinking of working from home:

1. Get organised!

If, like me, you’re not the world’s tidiest person, you will need to exert some self discipline to keep your work in order. This will range from organising your work space (so you don’t scatter things around the house and end up losing half of it), to ensuring that you have some sort of filing system, to making sure that you keep track of your finances.

It might seem like a bit of a faff to spend time at the beginning setting up a few systems, but believe me, it will be time well invested, and you’ll feel the benefit of it later on!

2. Set your goals

Two big areas for me at the start of my working-from-home career were goal setting and prioritising. The freedom of working from home can be such that it’s easy to end up running round like a headless chicken, doing lots of ‘stuff’ but not actually achieving anything.

Make sure you have clear goals about what you want to achieve, and devise a plan or schedule that will enable you to keep track of it all, and get the work done.

3. Learn to prioritise

Prioritisation is another key area for the home-worker: with no-one else telling you what to do, it’s important that you prioritise the right tasks. Avoid the temptation to do the things you like doing, or can get out of the way quickly and prioritise on the basis of how urgent and/or important something is (Steven Covey). Brian Tracy’s book ‘Eat That Frog’ is a good one on this subject.

4. Find your balance

When I first started working from home, people would say to me, “how do you deal with all the distractions?” as if the lure of daytime TV or endless cups of tea might overwhelm the necessity to actually do some work.

I’m sure that most home-workers will find that the reverse is true: it can actually be difficult to switch off. I often find myself writing blogs or e-mails later in the evening, when my kids are asking me to spend time with them.

Don’t lose sight of the reason for actually working from home in the first place (in my case, to be able to spend more time with my kids). Make sure you strike a healthy balance.

5. Join a network

One of the drawbacks of working from home – particularly if you’re working full time – is that you don’t have the advantage of being able to socialise with colleagues. Join some networks – online ones like LinkedIn are great, but find some that have local meetings and will enable you to make some new contacts and meet other people in the same boat.

Who knows – it may even lead to more business!

If you’ve enjoyed this guest post, you can find more like it, including a great recent series on goal-setting, on the Yara blog.

 
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Posted by on April 27, 2011 in Blogging, Business, Guest posts, Organisation

 

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On a different type of language

30 Mar

Time for another guest post, this time from Gary Jones. I met Gary through my hobby of BookCrossing and have done some copyediting work for him to complement his web development skills. I really like this beautiful meditation on a very different kind of language from that usually discussed on here.

Here’s what Gary sent me when I asked for a biography – I can’t put it better myself, so I won’t!

Gary Jones is a freelance web developer from Basingstoke with a keen interest in anything to do with the web. He specialises in WordPress sites using the Genesis theme framework. You can follow Gary on Twitter.

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I write code for a living. It could be in one of many languages, but all require careful checking as one misplaced or missing character could cause a fatal error and kill a website completely. Debugging code can be fun, or it can take hours to find where one single comma or semi colon is missing. There are many types of error within code, but pretty much all of them can come down to one thing – human error.

Code can have a beauty of its own. Whereas an author might weave a lavish scene with in-depth explanations of intricate details, the most impressive code is often the smallest fragment that does most of the work; one line of code that culminates from the conditional logic, foreach and while loops, switch statements and concatenations that kick-starts the application into life.

Encapsulations, polymorphism and synchronicity await those who dare to delve a little deeper. Code patterns, gradual degradation, progressive enhancements, refactorisations, even the terms related to code are elegant, and that’s just what good code should be – elegant, accurate and concise.

 
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Posted by on March 30, 2011 in Guest posts, Language use, Writing

 

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Buzzwords in business and elsewhere

02 Mar

Time for another guest post, this time from Bernadette Jones from first4admin. Bernadette runs a Virtual Assistance company which offers administrative and secretarial support – and I work with her when she needs to offer my particular services to a client. She has also been a vital support to me in my first steps into the business of Networking, generously sharing tips and hints on how to proceed.

When I asked people if they would like to post a guest post on this blog, I didn’t specify what I wanted them to talk about, as long as it was related to words, business, etc., i.e. loosely related to the usual subjects of this blog. We’ve had Linda Gillard on creative writing, and we’ve got posts on training and writing marketing materials coming up. But for now – well, what are your favourite new buzzwords?

Buzzwords to the rescue!

Words are marvellous and buzzwords, in particular, are becoming more and more frequent. I stumbled across the word “greentailing” the other day, which defines either the selling of environmentally friendly products, or the use of eco-friendly methods in order to run a business. “Greentailer” is the noun derived from this word. Companies such as Walmart are pioneers of this form of retailing, and this form of business can only prove to become more popular as people are now more aware of environmental issues and are more likely to purchase from a company showing that it has the environment at the core of its business ethics.

Another buzz word which I have heard more and more of my friends use now is “glamping” which is used to define a luxury way of camping – brilliant! I have yet to hire a tepee or a yurt in order to camp, but I have already purchased Cool Camping England, published by Jonathan Knight, Paul Marsden and Andy Stothert. This is an excellent publication, giving information about very special places to camp in England. It is going to be one of my resolutions for 2011 to find a glamorous way of camping. Roll on the Summer!

“App” is also another buzzword which I particularly find appealing, and the American Dialect Society have elected the word “app”, which is a computer or smartphone application, as Word of the Year for 2010.

No doubt 2011 will serve to be another year where more and more buzzwords become more commonplace.

 
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Posted by on March 2, 2011 in Blogging, Business, Guest posts, Language use

 

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A guest post from author Linda Gillard

19 Jan

Linda Gillard now lives on the Isle of Arran, after spending six years living on the Isle of Skye and a short time in Glasgow. Having been through three careers, as an actor, journalist and teacher, she wrote her first novel, EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY, which was published by Transita in 2005. Linda’s second novel A LIFETIME BURNING was published in 2006, also by Transita. Her third novel, STAR GAZING, set on the Isle of Skye and in Edinburgh, was published by Piatkus in 2008. STAR GAZING has been short-listed for three awards, including the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romantic Novel of the Year and was voted “Favourite Romantic Novel 1960-2010” by readers of Woman’s Weekly magazine.

More about Linda and her books can be found here.

I met Linda through my work bringing Transita and BookCrossing together, which got Transita’s books well-known and BookCrossed (and purchased!) all over the world. Linda is a generous author – generous with contact with her readers and with connecting with the wider public. She has given talks and run hugely popular writers’ workshops at BookCrossing Conventions, as well as appearing at local meetings and maintaining contact with her fans. I have been privileged to read several of Linda’s novels in manuscript form and am looking forward to a long and happy association with Linda and her novels.

THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING LIKE THE TRUTH
Linda Gillard

When starting out as writers we have to learn the difference between something being true and something being convincing. Student writers often think a faithful, unflinching account of real-life events and feelings is enough to make something readable, even publishable. This is not the case. This kind of writing is therapeutic. It may be truthful, but it probably isn’t publishable. It might not even be readable!

Arguably, all writing is therapeutic to some extent and most writers begin writing therapeutically, but we need to move on from there if we’re to develop our writing skills, especially if we seek publication, because truth is stranger than fiction.

If you find this idea difficult, think about raising money for a charity and the photographs or news footage you might use in your campaign. You wouldn’t use material so upsetting that people would turn the page of the magazine or switch channels. You want to disturb, but not repel. Unvarnished truth might not serve your purpose.

This isn’t a cop-out, it’s careful mediation. If we record “undigested” truth in therapeutic writing, its therapeutic value exists only for the author, not the reader. We aren’t writing for an audience, but for ourselves. This might be a good starting point for fiction but it cannot be the ultimate goal because truth doesn’t necessarily convince readers or editors!

When I wrote my first novel EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY (Transita) I wanted to use my own experience of mental illness as my raw material but I decided to fictionalise my experience completely. (This was no hardship – it was bad enough living my life; I certainly didn’t want to write about it! But I did want to tackle the issues.) I managed to avoid some common first-novel pitfalls by thoroughly “digesting” my experience, to the extent that the story was no longer recognisable as my life, the heroine no longer recognisable as me.

It was only after I’d finished the novel that I realised I’d rejected veracity in favour of emotional authenticity. This is in my opinion an essential creative process if the raw material of our lives is to be transformed into readable fiction. Paradoxically, fiction can tell truer truths! If a reader is to believe (or suspend disbelief), truth must be edited and presented in the best form to do the job.

This is what good fiction is: true lies.

 
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Posted by on January 19, 2011 in Blogging, Guest posts, Writing

 

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More blogging for 2011…

06 Jan

I’ve been reading a lot of information in various networking groups I belong to, about the value of blogging regularly to keep in touch with clients and colleagues, spread the word about your services, etc. So I’ve decided to try to update the Libro blog at least twice a month.

Which is 26 topics I need to think of.

So, kind readers – why not suggest something (polite!) I could write a blog post about? Maybe a tricky point of grammar, my favourite punctuation mark, what I actually do day-to-day… please do add a comment and I’ll take inspiration from you!

Also, look out for guest posts by my friends, associates and clients! If you’d like to contribute a guest post yourself, please get in touch. The post will need to be on a topic vaguely related to what I do, or business in general, and I’ll probably run my proof-reader’s eye over it before I publish it, but you’re welcome to make a suggestion and have a go, even if you’ve never blogged before!

 
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Posted by on January 6, 2011 in Blogging

 

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