7 Phases of Running A Freelance Business

Freelancing is a decent alternative if you’re a self-driven person who is a fast learner. Some people are well-organized, can use Google (or Stack Overflow, or other resources) quickly, read fast, and are not afraid of experimenting. With the right attitude through freelancing, you may improve your technical and business skills that you will need to start a freelance business. The caveat is in finding the right process for handling activities. Growing your freelance business often revolves around marketing and sales, negotiations, project planning, documentation, delivery milestones, financial management, and even legal cases. If you’re not passionate about any of… Continue Reading

How to Establish and Solidify the Technical Leadership in Your Company

I receive a good chunk of emails and messages from people in my network asking for general technical advice (infrastructure, architecture, picking the right platform or vendor, etc.) And many of them openly disclose they have spoken with 5–10 people and brainstormed over the different answers they get. Asking for a hundred different opinions may get confusing, though. I wouldn’t advise you to ask an open-ended question on Quora, Stack Overflow, social media, email blasts, personal networks, friends, and recommendations. Prepare that into multiple phases – half a dozen generic, high-end answers, sift through them, narrow down your options, iterate… Continue Reading

5 Business Process Challenges For Project Managers

Management and ownership are different. But are these truly incompatible? Successful business owners and entrepreneurs have simply struggled for a continuous period of time, juggling with anything and everything from legal and accounting through sales and marketing, IT, operations, recruitment, branding, management, negotiations, to name A FEW. This isn't necessarily a great thing if the vast majority of your time goes into dreadful stuff. I always cringe when I need to handle accounting or legal cases for over an hour! Experienced managers, however, are paramount to the future (and the growth cycles) of an organization. Yet, these are rare to… Continue Reading

32 Techniques for Stress Management

Excessive levels of stress—and the inability to deal with it—have been leading to major personal and professional outbursts, impacting the global economy. Stress.org's research indicates that 77% of people experience physical signs due to stress.One in three individuals feels they live with intense stress, and 73% believe it impacts their mental health. Forbes Magazine reports that the U.S. incurs nearly $190 billion yearly in stress-related healthcare costs. 55% of Americans report feeling stressed daily, exceeding the global average of 35%. Let's dive together in this overview of stress management techniques suitable for busy professionals, students, and individuals in all walks… Continue Reading

5 Powerful Sales Prospecting Strategies for SMEs

I remember landing my first consulting clients by sales prospecting through the following channels: Referral LinkedIn Cold outreach The first one came from a friend providing consulting in a different field. He did reach out to me and asked if I was interested - so that worked out pretty well (a warm reference plus a vetted client). #2 was through LinkedIn. I signed up in 2007, joined a few groups, added the folks in my circle. I met some local peers who were building a community of a sort - similar to what “LinkedIn Local” is nowadays. #3 was a… Continue Reading

Sales Tips For Bootstrapping a Development Startup

Software developers often think about starting a business of their own. There are freelance and remote working opportunities, the job requires understanding business models, and the pay is great. Of course, the tricky question is - how to land repetitive customers? 4 Strategies For Bootstrapping Without A Sales Background [caption id="attachment_13303" align="aligncenter" width="650"] Checklist from https://articles.bplans.com/business-startup-checklist/[/caption] Sales skills are paramount for founders. Founders are the best salespeople in a business over the first years. They are passionate enough to work crazy hours for minimal pay for years, living and breathing their own business. Founders know every aspect of their business… Continue Reading

7 Ways to Teach Your Staff ROI: The Pivot to Billable Activities

Building a successful organization requires a comprehensive business strategy across each of your departments. It is also closely related to your business model, the industry you belong to, the status of your finances, the available opportunities, and—of course—your team. While your senior management team may be aligned with the company goals and vision, you want to build a culture of self-managed rockstars. Otherwise, you'll fall into the trap of micromanagement. My guiding light is ROI.  Often, your resources are only limited. You do not have all the time to spend and disperse across hundreds of initiatives. There is always a… Continue Reading

How to Align Your Business Strategy Based on Client Feedback

Client feedback is one of your most important weapons to design a bullet-proof business strategy that scales.  Feedback can identify operational inefficiencies, helping you allocate resources more effectively. It also validates your business model, indicating readiness for scaling. Negative feedback serves as immediate quality control, allowing quick rectification of defects or service lapses, which in turn safeguards your brand reputation. The feedback that your clients give you is extremely powerful because you are getting paid for it, meaning that they are willing to invest in you and your services or solutions make sense.  You just need to reverse engineer what… Continue Reading

What You Need to Know About Repurposing Content for Social Media

Repurposing content for social media is an important addition to your content marketing strategy. One of the leading marketing influencers Neil Patel discussed why content repurposing is a good idea for driving traffic to your site and how it has worked for many known internet personalities in recent years. Repurposing content is crucial. It maximizes distribution and enhances effectiveness across channels. Treat each high-quality content piece as an asset—adaptable and reworkable for different purposes. For instance, after writing an in-depth blog post, continue. Break it into social media posts, create an infographic, or turn it into a podcast or video.… Continue Reading

11 Business Strategies for Freelance Writers and Content Firms to Land Clients

A report from Inc.com states that around $3.1 billion is being spent by blue chip businesses for remedial writing training, $2.9 billion of which is spent on current employees and not new hires. This indicates that quality writing and impeccable written content production remains to be highly in demand these days.  By recognizing the importance of this type of content, more and more businesses seek the services of a good freelance writer. However, in spite of the demand, the great number of freelance writers and firms offering content services on the internet seemed to find it hard to land clients.… Continue Reading