Last week, I attended the first-ever Creative Freelancer Conference in Chicago. I tend to be a little bit skeptical about conferences in general because they require a pretty significant financial investment in travel and conference fees, take you away from three days of billable project hours, and you never really know how much you’re going to get out of it. Since this was the first conference, the stakes were even higher, and I worried that I was just going to be wasting my time and money.
I was wrong to worry.
I have to give them a round of applause for pulling this all together so successfully on their first try. Approximately 250 attendees converged to learn about a variety of topics. We were reminded of some very important ideas:
1. You are a small business owner. Don’t neglect the business aspects and devalue your worth.
2. Don’t let the business own you. The trick to work/life balance is to have a life. You don’t have to answer the phone at 9:00 on Saturday just because it rings.
3. Never market yourself as a generalist. You can always do a variety of work, but focus your marketing on an area that you really love, and be targeted.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask for money, especially if the project scope starts creeping away. Your mechanic and plumber don’t hesitate to tell you that it’s going to cost more, so why should you absorb the costs for scope creep?
5. Contracts, contracts, proposals, negotiations and contracts.
6. Network, network, network (yes, some of the sessions had overlapping themes).
I left inspired to make some significant changes in my business practices, my marketing and my work environment. It’s not anything that can happen overnight, but it has me excited about tackling new challenges on Tuesday when the Labor Day weekend has ended.
Even if I hadn’t gotten one ounce of useful information from the sessions, the networking opportunities were amazing. How many times have I needed to find a web designer, photographer, videographer or logo specialist and not known where to look? I left Chicago with a stack of business cards an inch thick, some great ideas for projects and a great assortment of colleagues to draw upon for future projects.
I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference!
All that, AND good cheese.