It’s cold out, it’s been raining for what feels like years, you’re stuck on your project/writing/design/life.  My tip?  Stop thinking so much!  Look outside your own brain for some inspiration.  It’s a big world out there and there’s always inspiration around you.  Here’s some of the ways I try to kick-start my brain on a really miserable day.

Got an empty wall? Fill it with inspiration

In my little home office, I have an inspiration wall.  This started as a few postcards on a cork noticeboard when we first moved into our home.  Then, my husband wanted to add some more photos to ‘his’ part of the board.  Then, I wanted to add some cards to ‘my’ side of the board.  There’s only so much inspiration a little cork board can provide!

One morning, I walked into an inspiration office!  My husband had repainted one wall with two floor to ceiling speech bubbles.  Within each bubble, he’d put up all the postcards, clippings and photos we’d both been keeping (hoarding). Now, we both have a huge inspiration bubble.  It won’t win us any Homes and Gardens awards but, every day, it serves its purpose.  Stuck on a project or a blog post, I’ll turn away from my computer and look at my inspiration bubble, filled with postcards of Degas, Kandinsky, Picasso, Da Vinci; clippings of city skylines being built in the 30s and 40s; Charlie Brown and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. These are things I love in life and, when the weather’s lousy and all I can see out of my window is the cat being blown around by the wind, I can look over to my bubble for inspiration and sunshine. And yes, my wall is full of art, architecture and cartoons while husband’s is full of music, music and more music (and some cats)!

Spend a half hour surfing the net for inspirational people

The Guardian’s list of Top female activists and campaigners

Women crossing the English Channel for charity

First person to ski across Antarctica and she’s a British woman: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/23/felicity-aston-ski-solo-antarctica?newsfeed=true

Get dancing!

Put on your favourite music and have a private dance session – you’re working from home so no one can judge your Monica dancing.

Get outside

Yep, it’s miserable outside but going out for a half hour walk will definitely blow the cobwebs away. Have a purpose to your walk rather than wandering aimlessly as a casual stroll is hell in bad weather. I’m taking my own advice and, as soon as I’ve posted this piece, I’m going to wrap up warm and go to the local shops for some bread and milk.

Exercise your mind in other ways

Pick up a crossword or a Sudoku puzzle; try a new craft like my fabulous first attempt at crochet; write some limericks; try your hand at baking bread; learn a card trick. You get the idea – anything that gets your brain working in a different direction than usual.

Well, I’m off now to hopefully not get swept away in my search for bread. I hope I’ve inspired you a little bit on this gloomy day or just made you laugh out loud at my truly epic crochet attempt. What inspires you on a gloomy day? Let me know in the comments below or on twitter @susebb.

The Telegraph reported on Mr Horobin’s talk on spelling, punctuation and his new book and his questioning of how important the apostrophe really is “to the preservation of our society”. The professor also blogged about the problematic apostrophe.

So, is this the end of written English as we know it? Two comments put it more succinctly than I can.  The question of why use something in written English that’s not used in spoken English is trumped on the professor’s blog by Keith Robertson’s comment of

 ’Couldn’ t we say the same about capital letters’.

On the Telegraph article, ‘fullbird’ commented that,

‘Grammar is the difference between

“helping your Uncle Jack off a horse”

and

“helping your uncle jack off a horse” .’

My innocent brain went to the murderous meaning of the second sentence rather than any lewd meaning!

I’ll raise my hand to grammar policing

I admit it, I’m a stickler for apostrophes in their correct places. Seeing signs without apostrophes where they should be, or in the wrong places, does give me a case of the twitchy eye. But, it is difficult to always know the correct placement. That doesn’t mean we can’t all learn – we evolve and learn just as much as the language we use.

If we take out all apostrophes and start using one word for ‘their’, ‘there’ and ‘they’re’, where will it all end? Dogs and cats, living together, mass hysteria?

or will it just add to the trend for a mismatch between what companies expect from job applicants and what they increasingly receive from all ages (but especially young people who can’t get past the ‘gatekeeping’ application form stage for jobs and no longer have the dedicated careers advice service in schools and colleges to help them)?

Language and spelling and grammar – they all change over time and yes, we don’t write like wot Chaucer did no more. But, in our current time, so that sentences that are written down do make sense, the apostrophe is still a mighty force that is greatly needed. Taking the professor’s advice, which of these sentences feels right to you?

Their kids didn’t live with them in the house over there, they lived with their grandparents instead.

 

There kids didnt live with them in the house over there they lived with there grandparents instead

I don’t have a definitive answer, I’m just not ready to start throwing away my apostrophes. Let’s leave the last word to Douglas Adams and do let me know your views on all this kerfuffle in the comments below or on twitter @susebb.

“And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before–and thus was the Empire forged.”

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Image from Lee Haywood, under Creative Commons license

If you’re interested in sustainable business and how to be more ethical in your business, do pop over to the Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce website and take a look at the interview. The Chamber’s website is being revamped but that means you currently can’t leave comments on guest posts there.

So, if you like the post or just want to comment on sustainable business and all things green, come back here and comment below.

If you’re part of the Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce, you can also be part of their Green Chamber Collective. Already a member and want to create a Statement of Aspiration? Get in touch with the Chamber.

For me, today is all about the love!
I’m a big fan of all celebrations, the cheesier the better, but I always look for a way to make the day memorable without wrecking my already pretty light impact on this big old earth of ours (coming soon to this blog: how to live and work ethically).

So, today, think about what you can do for someone else, who you can show some love to.

You don’t have to give anything tacky, just use your words.

Write that letter to your relative that you’ve been meaning to get around to.

Meet up with an old friend for a walk around your local park.

Tell someone close to you how much their support and friendship means to you.

Go and see an elderly neighbour for a chat and a cup of tea. Don’t know your neighbours? There are local charity schemes that match you with an older person in your neighbourhood. Take a look at Age UK’s website for their Befriending and Good Neighbour schemes.

These are all small gestures but they can mean a lot to someone else and you can feel positive about today without indulging in all the plastic heart nonsense.

As for me, I’m going to be walking around all day with a smile on my face (cheesemeister, I know!) and letting those close to me know just how much they mean to me.

What are you going to be doing for Valentine’s Day? Show me some love in the comments below.

Heart photo from CarbonNYC with Creative Commons

Not sure about a prospective client? Going back and forth on whether to work with someone? The answer’s in you!

What can your gut tell you?

So, you’ve gone through a brief with a potential client but something just doesn’t feel quite right. Ignore your gut instinct, to cut and run, at your peril. Ignoring that base feeling can mean you end up:

• Not getting paid;
• Involved in a never ending project for not very much money;
• Finding yourself at a moral dilemma about the work you’re being expected to complete;
• A combination of all of the above.

Your gut will be the first to react so listen to it.

So, you’re chatting to a prospective client, they want some work done, you’re talking through Budget/Timescale/their audience/their style or tone of voice/how many pages/how many words (You are asking those questions, aren’t you? If you’re not, then you should be!), what are some pointers that should have your gut up in arms?

“I don’t have a [marketing] budget”

You can try to get round this zinger by asking them for a ballpark figure, for example, “roughly, what are you looking to spend?” Carol Tice ran a great webinar with Ed Gandia, all about qualifying prospects*. Work out your own ballpark figure for the kind of work you’re discussing and see if it fits with theirs.

“What do you charge for a or b or c?” and expecting a response from you straightaway

You want to be pushing the Value in what you do, not the Price. You are not selling widgets or sprockets, you are selling your experience which is all kept in your brain. Brains shouldn’t come cheap! Don’t feel pressure into giving an immediate answer to any briefing conversation.
Tell them you’ll get back to them then take the time to look over all of your notes from the conversation (you have been taking notes, haven’t you?), work out if the project is something you want to do and have the time to do, work out your quote and then send it to them in writing, along with your Terms and Conditions so that they get a really good view of how you work.

“Mildred [not her real name] used someone from [the Philippines; China; various 'freelancer' job sites] and she got the same thing for £50 so that’s what I’m looking to spend”

Other freelancers, much greater than I, have spoken out about the low cost outsourcing that plagues us all. Don’t stand for it. Politely, always politely, let them know that your rates and high quality of work reflect your experience. If they want to go to any of the above, let them. Sometimes, you’ll get them back again when they see what a truly awful job they receive for that kind of money.

“I’m not sure what I want but I know what I don’t want”

There are many, many instances on Clients from Hell where freelancers didn’t listen to their gut at the briefing/prospect stage. They’re then subjected to repeated conversations throughout the long and dragged out project, usually along the lines of “well, I know I said I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but it’s not what you’ve done for me”. If, with some prompting and ideas from you in that initial conversation, they still don’t know what they want, then JUST SAY NO.

There’s a heap of other warning phrases so comment below if you want to add some of your own zingers.

There’s also just that feeling, about anything to do with the prospect, that just makes you feel queasy or fluttery in your guts – acknowledge that feeling.

So, what will listening to your gut do for you?

In the long run, it’ll save you

• Time;
• Money;
• Face – let me give you an equation for this:
  Not listening to your gut and taking a potentially troublesome client on + time wasted trying to give them what they want and failing (as they don’t know what they want) = the best you can do for them < what they wanted (but didn’t know they wanted) = unhappy client + networking/contacts/social media = them badmouthing you about what a poor job you did for them = your reputation going downhill
• Your other clients;
• Your sanity.

Can you wish for anything more in life? All, just from paying attention to those guts of yours.

So, do you listen to your gut instincts and always say no when you start hearing or seeing these warning signs or do you march on regardless? I’m always interested to hear about your experiences so comment below and tell me more.

*This webinar is no longer available but Ed’s International Freelancers Academy series is definitely worth signing up for! And no, I’m not an affiliate of his or Carol Tice, I just think they both give great advice.

Embroidered guts by Hey Paul Studios with Creative Commons
Jello Brains photo by SkPy with Creative Commons

The holidays mean different things to different people. For some, it’s a time for reflection on the past year; for others, it’s a time to feel surrounded by family, friends, food and drink! For me, it’s a chance to say “thank you”. Thank you to everyone who has supported me in my freelancing adventure so far, thank you to all of the writers and bloggers out there who have taught me something this year or just made me laugh out loud.

Thank you to those of you who take the time to read my blog posts and respond with thoughtful comments and thank you to all you social media followers out there too. Thank you to my poor, suffering hubby and my ever whiny cat!

Most of all, I just wanted to wish all of you a very happy holiday, however you spend your time, and here’s to the excitement of the coming year, whatever it may bring!

Happy holidays everyone and see you all again in 2013!

Image by ElizabethHurdy, under Creative Commons

Here is a lesson in bombarding your users with unfriendly English.

I opened the proposed Data Usage Policy and ran it through some diagnostics. Here are the results to provide some food for thought for you all about how Facebook communicates with us.

Readability statistics in MS Word

This one document is 9,111 words long! Who has the time to read it?!

Just before I checked out Facebook’s email, I just happened to have read Good Copy, Bad Copy’s blog post on tools for better business writing – a great article dissecting a previously awful piece of writing from JJB Sports. Good Copy, Bad Copy recommended three tools to help your business writing so I figured I’d run that Facebook policy and see what each tool came up with. Here are the results.

The Writer’s Diet

A high proportion of abstract nouns!
(The Writer’s Diet)

Drivel Defence

The longest sentence has 77 WORDS! My old English teacher is currently cracking her knuckles ready for a long tussle with Facebook’s wordsmiths.
(Drive Defence tool)

And finally

The Gunning Fog Index

Well done Facebook, you need to be educated to university/college degree level to be able to understand your data use policy.
(The Gunning Fog Index)

Any clearer? No?

I enjoy taking documents such as this and turning them into Plain English but I really doubt Facebook will be calling me anytime soon. I also just don’t have the time or patience right now to even attempt a rewrite of that one policy, even for intellectual argument’s sake. All I want to know is what’s changing and when, that’s all.

So, come on Facebook, you’re currently getting a resounding F in Plain English – please try harder.

What do you think of Facebook’s proposed policy changes? Did you read them? Did you understand them? Can you explain them to the rest of us in sentences of 7 words or less? Comment below and make my day!

Just keep going! As a writer with a very strong procrastination gene, this is a reminder that EVERYTHING I write is useful somehow, whether it’s to get me unstuck from a particular sentence or phrase or just to keep that pen in motion until I come up with something better! Keep writing everyone, it’s all worth it!

Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.

What’s in it for me? (no, not you, them, your currently hypothetical customers)

How to write an attention grabbing home page

Easy – don’t go on and on about yourself! Save your detailed love affair with all things You for your About page (though, actually, don’t – your About page should still be about what you can do for your customer). Take a look at my new Home page.

I made a big mistake with my first Home page – I thought my website visitors would need a hand figuring out where everything was on my site so the writing went like this:
Take a look at my portfolio, take a look at my blog, etc. etc. blah blah fishcakes.

I’d made the classic mistake of trying to show what I’m good at when I should have been saying ‘here’s how your service can be improved’ with a smaller implication that it’s me that can help you do so. My new Home page rectifies that rookie website mistake.

No, seriously, what’s in it for me?

Let’s run through an example.

SB Sprockets sells sprockets (I have no idea what sprockets are but they always seem to come up in marketing examples so let’s just go with it for now). The sprocket market is a crowded place so how does SB Sprockets get noticed? Yes, having a great call to action in a sidebar is a winner as is great web design but what to do about that attention grabbing writing?

Would you quickly click off this:

SB Sprockets is based in Cockneyville, near Eastendtown, in the UK and employs 50 staff. We have been in existence for fifty years and supply to manufacturers in Tellytown and Catsville. Take a look at our website and get in touch.

or would this grab your attention (if you were of the sprocket buying mindset):

Need to speed up your manufacturing process?

SB Sprockets can help you improve your logistics, establish better production line control and improve efficiency.

Get in touch now.

Yes, extreme examples of both but have you spotted the difference? Example 1 is all about the business, citing local areas that could mean absolutely nothing to the website visitor and screams boring and old fashioned. Example 2 is all about the benefits to the website visitor’s business, regardless of the actual product being sold, and answers the question of ‘what’s in it for me’.

How can I build it and will Kevin Costner come visit?

Take a good, hard look at your Home page – is it selling the benefits of your service and including a great Call to Action for visitors?

Take a good, hard look at what the other guys are doing – pick a handful of competitors’ websites and compare their writing on their Home pages – what stands out the most, what gets you clicking off the page straightaway, are there any patterns in the writing and can you stand out from those patterns? I’m in no way advocating copying competitor websites, just look for patterns and styles of writing that appeal to you – you’re a visitor too and an expert in your field!

If you’re not sure or you don’t even want to think about words and marketing, hire a copywriter. We’re experienced writers and know what sells.  Hiring a copywriter is an interactive process – we will ask you a lot of questions about your business and come up with content that will keep those hypothetical customers on your website and, hopefully, get them to get in touch with you.

Surely it’s not that easy?

There’s a raft of information out there about how to improve your website and raise sales but they all come down to this – straightaway, answer the question of ‘what’s in it for me’ for your website visitors and they’ll stick around for more. Keep answering that question on every page of your site and you could be on to a winner!

Sadly, it’s very unlikely that The Costner will come visit and let you know your business is “neat” but let me know if he does!

Like my advice? Go on, comment, you know you want to! Also, subscribe for more helpful advice and news and Tweet me too!

 Ruskin quote photo by Eric F. Savage (creative commons)

Warning – adorkable cat pics follow!

Tenacity

Every day, Pukey the cat plays with a little squeaky mouse. He pounces on it, gets it in his teeth, rolls it around with his front paws. He does this every.single.day.  Does my cat think it’s a real mouse or is he sharpening his claws for that unexpected moment when a real mouse darkens his path outside and he’s ready to pounce with all his might?

Lesson learned:  Freelancing is your business, keep at it! You never know when that pile of prospecting emails will pay off; when your constant networking will start to work. Keep up a great level of customer service with everyone you encounter and be prepared for that unexpected phonecall.
A sidenote: honing those hunting skills is paying off for Pukey if the ‘presents’ of dead birds are anything to go by.

Sleep

I know cats sleep a lot but I think Pukey’s going for the world record! Not while his male owner is home, nope, he’s the keeper of the kitty treats and therefore much more entertaining.  I’m the one who gets to listen to those snores, snuffles and kitty dreams all day.  Sleeping is Pukey’s job and he is very good at it.

Lesson learned: get enough sleep and look after your health. Starting your own business can quickly eat away at your life. Remember that vision when you started? Was a better work/life balance in there?  No matter what your working pattern is, enough sleep is essential so you can keep going.  Put that laptop down and get a nap! While you’re at it, remove anything even vaguely work-like from your bedroom including your phone.  Use a real alarm clock, not the one on your phone. You’re less likely to check your email/go on the net/worry if your phone’s in another room and out of sight.

Also, take a tip from Pukey – hydrate!

Rise above the politics

My cat sits outside, high on a gate post, watching over our street.  His day might consist of a bit of scratching but most of it will be saying hello to his kitty neighbours and staring disdainfully at dogs being walked. He doesn’t fight with dogs, he considers himself a step above them. He know which cats are friendly and which cats to avoid.  He doesn’t get involved in other cats fighting and only gets into fights when necessary.  All barking dogs are studiously ignored.

Lesson learned: Having clients means keeping a respectful distance from any office politics – try not to get involved in in-fighting, you’ll only lessen your own reputation by doing so.

Reach for the impossible

Pukey thinks it’s entirely possible that one day that gigantic seagull will land within his reach and he’ll catch him.  He may be kidding himself but at least he’s daring to dream.

Lesson learned: ask for that slightly higher rate; go for that project that you think is beyond your abilities. What’s the worst that could happen? You get a big fat no. So what? There might be another seagull hovering overhead.

Stretch your abilities

Pukey is a big cat, over four feet long and possibly related to a tiger! He likes nothing better than a long snooze and a big stretch afterwards.

Lesson learned:
A lot of us start off as freelancers calling ourselves one thing

“I’m a graphic designer”

“I’m a copywriter”

only to find that one single job title doesn’t fit. Freelancing gives us the ability to stretch ourselves beyond that job title. What other skills do you have that you can make use of in your business?

I started freelancing as a copywriter but quickly realised that I was ignoring a wealth of experience in strategy and planning, so I’m now stretching myself to create marketing strategy workshops which will help clients develop their marketing plans with a
no-nonsense approach.  I’ve also started to write news pieces and proposals for magazine articles, again I’m stretching myself and gaining experience as a writer beyond copywriting.

What’s your pet taught you?

I’m sure Pukey will continue to teach me more life lessons as we continue on this freelancing journey together.  One inadvertent lesson has been to get away from my home office and go talk to people!  If you think the cat’s talking back to you, go and meet a friend for coffee.  The cat won’t mind, he’ll be too busy sleeping!

Is your pet an essential part of your freelancing business or an unpaid guru of life lessons?  Let me know.