Nine Unconventional Ways Freelancers Landed Gigs

According to a recent study by Upwork and the Freelancers Union, the most common places for freelancers to pick up work are friends and family (36%), professional contacts (35%), and online job platforms (29%) like Upwork, Freelancer.com, Guru, and even Craigslist.

This breakdown spells trouble for some. American workers looking for projects on online marketplaces, for instance, are often competing with workers who live in countries where the dollar is strong. That means many foreign workers can accept far lower rates. If you can hire someone to transcribe an interview for $3 an hour, you aren’t giving that contract to a freelancer charging $15.

So where else can freelancers find work? Just ask these ten people, who picked up gigs in some unexpected places.

1. TAP YOUR DATING LIFE

Joy Yap found freelance work by unintentionally mixing business with pleasure. She went on a Tinder date with an entrepreneur who was just about to launch a company.

They didn’t hit it off romantically, Yap recalls. But, remembering her line of work, the entrepreneur reached out a couple months later with an offer to do some freelance marketing for his startup. “I agreed!” she says. “I’ve been doing freelance work for him off and on for about a year now, and saw the company grow from inception into a million dollar company today.”

Anyone who’s used an app like Tinder knows that modern dating often involves a little harmless cyber-stalking to gather extra intel on the person you’ve just met or are planning to meet. “One funny way I got a client on Fiverr,” says Alex Genadinik, referring to the gig marketplace, “was from a girl I was dating about a year ago. Early on during our dating, she and her friends decided to Google my name, which is very unique, and my Fiverr profile was one of the things that came up in their search.”

The woman and her friends shared Genadinik’s Fiverr profile with someone they knew who was looking for his line of freelance work, and the two ended up striking a deal. “All along I thought he was just a regular client that randomly found me on the internet,” says Genadinik. It was only months later that the woman let him know she’d played professional matchmaker. “[It] was pretty embarrassing for me because everyone was clued in except me,” Genadinik says, but hey—he got the work.

2. ADVERTISE IN REAL TIME

If you’re a freelancer, chances are you’ve sat at coffee shops with your nose in your laptop. So why not let passersby know exactly what you’re doing and that you’re available for hire?

Shayla Price says she landed a gig by creating and placing a makeshift placard saying “freelance writer” in front of her computer while working at Starbucks and other public places. Price says she’s received a few inquiries every time she whips out the placard.

3. EMAIL THE CEO DIRECTLY

“I’ve been obsessed with a large, multinational hair care brand for many years now,” says Termeh Mazhari, “so when I became a freelancer, I decided to just email the CEO directly.”

Going straight to the source may sound like a waste of time—execs usually aren’t the ones hiring contractors. But in Mazhari’s case, it paid off. “I told her about myself and the value I could bring to the company, and to my great surprise her assistant wrote me back and arranged a meeting with the CEO at their posh Manhattan office!”

What’s more, Mazhari landed more than just a tiny one-off project this way. “I ended up getting a year-long consulting gig with the brand, even though they already had a large internal PR team as well as multiple external agencies working with them.”

4. HUSTLE FOR FACEBOOK SHOUT-OUTS

After Stephanie Moore got laid off, she decided freelance full time and turned to Facebook to market her services.

“It started with one client . . . that I met through Facebook. She was very popular with a national brand,” Moore recalls, so she decided to attend one of the client’s networking events. There, Moore told her she wanted to “shift my focus from marketing and design to PR,” and the client “agreed to be my guinea pig.”

Their bargain went like this: “After each big accomplishment,” Moore says, “she would shout me out on Facebook as her publicist. Every time she tagged me, there was a guaranteed client on the way. All of her friends and potential clients began to reach out and ask for press releases, designs, etc. The more work I did, the more tagging I would get.” By tapping into one happy client with the influence to amplify Moore’s work, offers began piling up. “People would post my designs tagging me in the post, almost bragging that Stephanie Moore did it.”

Like another “solopreneur” who recently shared her method with Fast Company, Moore never thought Facebook could drive so much of her business—95% of which she now estimates comes from the social network.

5. OWN YOUR OUT-OF-THE-BOX THINKING

If you want to freelance, you have to be willing to share your ideas, even if you’re not sure they will be well received. Don’t wait for the perfect, full-proof pitch to go out and get your gig.

Just look at Chris Post. He held steadfast to his out-of-the-box thinking when he was building his freelance business. He says,

“At the time, just about every local property management company was trying to hold onto and gain tenants by offering them one or more months of free rent.

I had previously worked as a commercial real estate agent, and made a pitch to a property management company I was friendly with from that time: Instead of offering free rent to tenants, offer marketing assistance in the form of a free website in exchange for signing a year lease. They would spend less paying me to build a website than they would lose by deducting a month’s worth of rent.”

Post’s freelance career has now become a full-blown web development and marketing company called Post Modern Marketing.

6. NETWORK ON INSTAGRAM

Mallory Musante is one of the co-founders of Bold & Pop, a collective of social media, branding and web design freelancers. While they mainly find new clients from referrals, they occasionally use freelancing sites to find work. In this case, they sent a proposal to a client, researched the company a little further, and decided to follow all of their social media accounts. Musante never heard back so assumed the company had gone with another freelancer.

But wait—Instagram to the rescue. She says, “we were surprised when we received an email through our website requesting more information on our social media marketing services. While they didn’t remember us submitting a proposal on the freelancing site, we were able to catch their eye on Instagram by occasionally networking with them.”

7. PARTICIPATE IN YOUR COMMUNITY

Abandoning the traditional workplace can feel isolating, participating in your local community can be a remedy, as well as a fantastic place to drum up freelance work. Photographer Tammy Lamoureux shares a great example of community involvement leading to jobs.

“Wanting to get more product photography gigs, we started hitting up our local craft fairs and farmer’s markets.  We get a room full of small businesses who will most likely need professional photos of their merchandise at some point or another.  So, go around from booth to booth and chat with the vendors. Take some photos of their products and make sure to get their contact info so you can send them the shots later.  They will appreciate the free photos, and you’ll be top of mind the next time they are in need of some product photos. We did this at one craft fair, and ended up with five new clients for about 2 hours worth of work.”

8. GO WITH YOUR GUT

Kelly Boyer Sagert’s usually picks freelance work based on the right amount of income attached to it. But sometimes, she decides to go with a gut feeling to see what happens. She explains how one of those gut-driven exceptions landed her unexpectedly great work:

“A few years ago, a nonprofit agency asked me to take their research about the first woman to solo hike the Appalachian Trail and turn it into an ebook. I did — and then they asked for it to also be written as a first person storytelling performance, so I did. Concurrently, the agency was having some of their video footage turned into a mini-documentary and discovered that they couldn’t get the grant funding they wanted/needed unless a play was written on the subject. So, I wrote a play script and we talked to a theater that had produced some of my work in the past, and they put on the play. So, the funding was secured, the documentary was created and, since my play was used as the foundation, I got writing credits — and the documentary was picked up by PBS: Trail Magic: the Grandma Gatewood Story.”

9. TELL PROSPECTS WHAT THEIR COMPETITORS ARE UP TO

If one company is looking for services, then their competitors are probably looking, too—or will want to as soon as they learn of it.

“I had one company contact me for a strategic marketing plan for the upcoming year,” recalls freelancer Stephen Twomey. He saw that as not just one potential opportunity but several. “I knew they were looking at other consultants as well.”

“So, since I knew company A was looking for something, I contacted companies B, C, [and] D and mentioned that one of their main competitors was looking for strategic marketing consulting”—without mentioning which one. Twomey says “Company A ended up going with a different [contractor], but company C actually bought a consulting package.”

The services you offer may not belong in a creative field, but it still often takes ingenuity to land those gigs in the first place. For just about every freelancer, thinking outside the box can really pay off.

Have you landed freelance gigs in an unusual way? Share your story in the comments below, on Twitter, or send me an email.

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Diversity and Inclusion: A Simple Break Down

As someone who worked with different Kenyan tribes when running hotels and safaris, diversity and inclusion is a topic that is important to me.

And it should be important to you too. Why? Because employee diversity has measurable, positive effects on organizational success. Plus, on a macro level, due to the global political environment, employees are personally concerned with diversity and inclusion (D&I) issues (including gender pay equity) and want their employers to offer perspective on those issues. In this way, D&I now touches employee engagement, human rights and social justice.

Today I want to break down D&I simply, for those who see diversity and inclusion as an insurmountable challenge to tackle. We’ll start with outlining how D&I benefits company performance, including information which can be used to urge leaders to take D&I initiatives more seriously. Then, I’ll discuss how to foster inclusion at work—because what’s the point of a diverse workforce if employees don’t feel included in company culture, decision-making and upward mobility? Lastly, I’ll review some challenges that diversity brings to company culture and performance.

Four Ways Diversity Benefits Company Performance

Here are four examples of the measurable, positive effects that employee diversity has on organizational success:

1. Women increase equity, sales and ROI

Catalyst took a look at Fortune 500 companies with women on their board of directors and found that these which co? those that focus on D&I? companies had a higher return on equity by at least 53%, were superior in sales by at least 42%, and had a higher ROI, to the tune of 66%. Those are not small numbers.

2. Diverse top teams = top financial performers

McKinsey quarterly reported that between 2008 and 2010, companies with more diverse top teams were also top financial performers.

3. Diversity and inclusion identified as key driver of innovation

When 321 executives at large global enterprises ($500 million plus in annual revenues) were surveyed for the Fostering Innovation Through a Diverse Workforce study, diversity and inclusion were identified as the key driver of not only internal innovation, but also business growth.

4. Diverse groups are superior problem solvers

Groups of diverse problem solvers outperformed groups of high-ability problem solvers, according to a study by Lu Hong and Scott E. Page.

Creating a diverse staff and culture is only the first step. It doesn’t do much good without inclusion, which takes effort. Because what’s the point of a room full of diverse thinkers when no one feels empowered to share their thoughts? Here are three tips to foster a sense of inclusion amongst a diverse workforce:

How Managers Foster A Sense Of Inclusion Among A Diverse Workforce

1. Coach People To Listen More and Interrupt Less

Listening is a key element of inclusion, and while it sounds simple, it actually requires practice and intention. Leaders and managers need to coach people to listen more and interrupt less. They need to listen with their whole selves—taking into account the words, body language and energy of the communicator.

2. Encourage Equal Stage Time in All Meetings

We’ve all been in meetings that were dominated by the person with the loudest voice. And unfortunately, the “squeaky wheel” strategy does sometimes garner results in the business world. This is the opposite of inclusion. Encourage meetings where all speak up equally. This will take some careful management at first, but with time the culture of the meetings will change, and more voices will be heard.

3. Work On Your Own Bias

Our own bias can greatly influence decision-making, often preventing inclusion unconsciously. Here are six quick tips for working on our own biases.

• Start by taking the IAT test to identify biases you have that yet may be unaware of: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
• Watch your language. Biased language is ingrained in how we speak, but can exclude diverse employees. For example, “Okay you guys, let’s get down to work,” does not include female members of the team.
• Identify particular elements in company processes that function as entry points for bias. For example, is your hiring committee all male? People tend to be drawn to others like themselves. If you identify your hiring committee as largely dominated by one gender or ethnicity, change it up.
• Include positive images of diverse groups in the workplace such as posters, newsletters, videos, reports and podcasts. This helps our brains make positive associations with groups we may otherwise be unconsciously biased toward.
• Visualize a positive interaction with toward with those you have a bias against. Visualization is powerful and can actually alter the brain.
• Encourage workers to call out bias and hold each other accountable. Yes, that means calling out leaders too.
  
  

The Challenges Diversity Brings To Company Performance Or Company Culture

Diversity increases different ways of seeing the world and how people work. For example, how a person from the U.S. views time versus how a person from China views time may be drastically different. Learning the cultural differences between team members strengthens team understanding.

In addition, the complexity of ideas increases with more diverse teams. This is more difficult to manage than homogenous ideas, which require less debate to come to agreement and make decisions. While diversity breeds innovation, it can also present a challenge and requires careful communication skills.

Welcoming diversity and inclusion into your organization is critical. I urge all leaders to take an honest look at where diversity and inclusion stands in their organization, and make it a strategic priority.

Share your questions about diversity and inclusion in the comment section below, via email, or on Twitter. Myself or members of my community will do our best to answer!

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Four Tips to Navigate Working from Home

I talk for a living, whether it’s through keynotes, employee trainings, executive coaching, human capital consulting, writing articles or just a chat with a client. I’m lucky enough to have clients from a variety of industries and sectors, giving me a wide view of how organizations are handling similar situations. This week alone I had the honor to chat with people from large consulting firms, start-ups, Federal government, tech firms, mid-size companies, biopharma organizations, large school systems, manufacturing firms, real estate industry leaders, and HR professionals. I learned a lot of best practices for navigating the Covid-19 work from home (WFH) situation and I’d like to share those with you here.

Schedule daily white space

Someone said to me, “It’s just telework. It’s not a big deal.” Wrong. It’s not just telework and it is a big deal. Why? Because the old paradigm of telework was that you worked from home 1-2 days/week, usually while others in your home were at work and/or school. Now everyone is working and learning under one roof, which adds complexity to the situation. I have it fairly easy; our high school daughter can self-manage her day. However, I have one client who has 3 children under the age of 5 at home while both he and his wife are trying to work. Ouch! That’s a tough situation!

So what are organizations doing to manage this? One best practice is to create intentional white space and schedule set times for team calls. One firm only holds calls from 8:30am-noon and then 2-5pm, local time. This allows people to have a midday break to attend to their own personal needs or the needs of those who live with them.

Learn together

It’s easy to disengage on employee development right now. I’ve heard “Training and development is a non-essential, so we’re cutting the live employee training we had planned”. I get it; financial stability and cash flow is vital right now. However, don’t forget about your teams who want to feel a sense of normalcy. So instead of offering a live employee development training, conduct a 60-minute virtual ‘lunch and learn’ on living through change or a 45-minute webinar about stress management instead. It’s easy to do and shows the teams that you are still there for them.

Lempathy

It’s easy to lose focus when WFH, so set clear focus on short term goals and how the goals align with the organizational mission. Create a 2-minute podcast or video to remind your team what you’re working on and use shared docs to create accountability.

It’s also easy to tilt toward excessive empathy, such as “It’s OK that Biva didn’t achieve his tasks today. He has 4 kids at home.” Giving a pass every once in awhile shows flexibility; excessive empathy breeds missed deadlines. Souse ‘both/and’ instead; in other words, try “Wow! Having four kids at home while working is hard. How can you achieve the biggest deadline today and have the kids home? What’s the first step? Second step?” Bottom line: show you care AND that goals still need to be completed. One of my coaching clients calls this “lempathy”: leading with empathy. It works for him; see if it works for you.

Focus on self-care

Stress manifests in different ways, for different reasons. In general, there are three pillars of health: physical, mental and emotional. Take a self-assessment and ask yourself how you’re doing on:

Physical: Maintaining the nutrition, sleep and exercise that your body needs

Mental: Focusing on the task at hand

Emotional: Self-regulating your emotions appropriately with those around you

Whatever you do to manage your WFH situation, remember to keep it fun! People want to feel connected; they are looking for the water cooler experience, where they can just have a fun chat for a few minutes with each other. So set this up with virtual coffee chats, happy hours, walks, exercise classes and even hobby times (knitting anyone?). One company in Boston creates daily entertainment videos for the employee’s children to watch while the parent is working. Another organization spreads smiles via Skype. What will work for you?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Four Resources to Help Employees Manage Change

I recently had the honor and privilege to be interviewed by different publications about changing work dynamics, managing difficult employees and the future of our workforce. The new era of workforce management is here; I hope our interview discussions help you plan for the future in these times of change.

When I spoke to Bindu Nair, editor at The Smart Manager, we discussed various ways to manage unmanageable people and situations.

Supported by my years of experience as a front line coach and consultant, we outlined how to help those unmanageable employees who torment other employees. The methodology we recommend consists of five steps: Commit or quit; Communicate; Clarify goals and roles; Coach; and Create accountability. How can you use this methodology? First, the manager needs to decide to retain this unmanageable employee or not. Ultimately, it’s not only about making that employee accountable; it’s also about the manager’s commitment to the employee’s success. Next, the employee should be clear on what goals she is expected to achieve.

Successful organizations not only manage employees; they also create and manage successful teams. During another discussion with The Uncommon League, we mused about preparing individuals and teams for employee training. What tips did we discuss? First, explain the training context to increase the chances of employees attending that training. Second, build organizational interest in what they will learn, to attract other employees who want to learn these skills as well.

Successful organizations are also nimble and adapt to change, which is important because the way people are choosing to work has changed. Discussing the trends that are shaping the future workforce with Brown Wallace on The Bridge Revisited, we shared our thoughts about the personality traits and key differences of each generation in the workforce. The discussion also included the impact of women starting their own businesses, the importance of workplace diversity and the increasing trend of freelancing. If leaders develop a strategy without knowing about these workforce trends, they will be shooting into the dark.

Finally, at the Women’s Foodservice Forum we exchanged views on how freelancers and contract workers can provide fresh perspectives and help organizations move toward success. To effectively leverage their talents and capabilities, leaders must integrate freelancers in the workplace culture, articulate clear expectations, touch base regularly, and recognize results.

I’d love to hear how you are managing workforce challenges. What works for you and what doesn’t? What results have you seen? 

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Three Tips to Manage a Toxic Work Environment

Organizations are full of individual and group relationships. Even if you work on a small team in a mid-size organization, it’s possible to have over 25 different working relationships when you consider a relationship with each person on your team, peers, colleagues on other teams, clients and vendors.

According to the 2014 Globe force survey, 78 percent of people who work between 30 to 50 hours per week actually spend more time with their coworkers than with their families. Having friends at work increases organizational commitment, improves employee engagement and increases overall employee satisfaction levels. However, unhealthy work relationships decrease each one of these factors. 

Impact of unhealthy work relationships

A Harvard Business Review article states that there are three traits top leaders use to maintain healthy and powerful relationships: a clear purpose, an understanding of the kind of relationship needed and a commitment to pursue that relationship even in the hard times. In addition, healthy relationships include trust, integrity and respect.

While we all want healthy work relationships, unhealthy work relationships can develop. Unhealthy work relationships lead to workplace stress, higher disengagement and lack of loyalty. About $500 billion is lost by the US economy because of workplace stress. According to a study by Queens School of Business and Gallup, disengaged workers have 37% higher absenteeism, 49% more accidents, and 60% more errors and defects. Lack of loyalty leads to the increase in voluntary turnover by about 50%.

One thing that creates unhealthy work relations is organizational power dynamics, which refer to how different levels of employees deal with each other and where one of these employees / groups is more dominant than the other employee/group. This use of dominance does not involve use of force; instead it uses workplace influence, which could be created by gender, organizational hierarchy, ethnicity, social bias and other factors.

The development of careers, particularly at senior levels, depends on acquiring power. How does this happen? Individuals gain power in absolute terms at someone else’s expense. As most organizations have a pyramid structure, there is a scarcity of positions as one moves up the organizational hierarchy. This is what determines how the power dynamics play out.

How can leaders spot unhealthy power dynamics before the workplace relationships become toxic?

Three Tips for Managing Workplace Power Dynamics

1. Create clear, professional boundaries

Regardless of the organizational size, ensure there are established, professional boundaries in the workplace. For example, if a boss calls a direct report on the weekend, is the direct report expected to return the call on the weekend or on Monday? Is alcohol allowed on the workplace premises and if so, what are the norms when someone says something inappropriate or wants to drive while under the influence of alcohol? Finally, what is allowed or not allowed while traveling? Establishing workplace norms prevents an imbalanced power dynamic from occurring.

2. Monitor language

Words matter because words become thoughts and thoughts become behavior. So be mindful of the accepted organizational verbiage. Expressions such as ‘Man up!’ or ‘Don’t be so emotional and sensitive’ are generally said by one gender about another gender and therefore sexist. ‘You don’t understand how the game works’ shows an imbalanced power dynamic, as one person implies that s/he is smarter or more experienced than the other. Someone regularly saying, ‘That’s not what happened’ can create a feeling of gas lighting, making the other person question reality and become subservient in the power dynamics. So listen for language that may inadvertently create an unhealthy power dynamic.

3. Notice office volatility

Employees are human, and regardless of how talented they are, every person has flaws. Some of those shortcomings may create a volatile work environment, which creates havoc on work relationships and causes stress for everyone. The key to managing this volatile environment is to manage individual responses. Take time to learn what triggers people’s emotions and avoid conversations that can contribute to the overall volatility. Employees need to stay calm rather than engage in office drama.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Five Tools to Successfully Work from Home

Coronavirus is causing organizations to shift toward telework. Though telework is not new, employees now are working remotely more often, which changes team dynamics. There are tools available that can help organizations streamline remote employee management, enhance professional skills and collaborate successfully.

Some of the most popular tools for remote teams are:

1. Project management: Asana
2. Video conferencing: Skype and Zoom
3. Team communication: Slack
4. Cloud storage and file sharing: Dropbox

Let’s learn more about each tool, to help you better identify the best one for your team.

Project Management: Asana

Skype is a popular voice communication service. People can share instant messages, hold video calls and share screens, as well as call Skype numbers and landline/mobile numbers.

Asana’s key features include project management, task management and file sharing. Asana has numerous features to manage complex projects, so build in time to master the learning curve and eventually manage projects more efficiently.

Want to learn about similar tools?  Check out Trello, Proofhub, ProjectManager.com and Workzone.

Video Conferencing: Skype

Asana is an online management tool that helps teams stay focused on daily tasks, goals and projects. It’s known for its simple functionality, clean design and elegant usability.

This tool offers cross-platform support and is an excellent instant messaging tool, which is important for document collaboration.

Some of the alternatives for Skype include WhatsApp, Telegram and Viber.

Video Conferencing: Zoom

Zoom is a video communication tool. Widely used for virtual meetings, webinars and virtual conferences, it’s a great way of connecting via video when team members and clients are unable to meet in person.

The tool’s key features include video meetings, voice calls, hosted webinars, messaging and file sharing. Some users have had issues with unpredictable video quality so check your bandwidth before you begin working.

Some excellent alternates to Zoom include GoToMeeting, Webex and Adobe Connect.

Team Communication: Slack

Slack is a popular communication tool that brings remote teams together by having all communication in one place. It can also be used for instant messaging and collaboration.

The key features include instant messaging, file sharing, voice and video calls, as well as screen sharing. Some people find Slack hard to search so check it out for yourself.

A few of the alternatives for Slack include Microsoft Teams, Rocket Chat and Flock.

Cloud Storage and File Sharing: Dropbox

Dropbox, popularly known for online file sharing and storage, helps teams working remotely and saves time tracking down files. It is a modern workspace where all files can be stored together in one place and remote workers can easily sync and share documents.

In general, Dropbox is better for casual files; you may not want to store sensitive files here. Some of the alternatives for Dropbox include Google Drive, OneDrive and Box.com.

Technology helps us keep up with the changing times, where telecommuting and remote work is more of a need and requirement. These collaboration tools make it easier to achieve business goals by providing platforms to work more efficiently, regardless of where the employees are located. Once you pick your tool, you may want some tips on how to best present yourself on video. Check out this blog, from our speaker coach, Jezra Kaye.

Want to develop your remote-based employees, but don’t know how? We can help! We’ve designed and delivered interactive webinars for over a decade on a range of management and leadership topics.

I’d love to hear from you. How are you coping in these stressful times? What tools are you working with and what has been your experience?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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