As I stated before, I am taking part in Seth Godin’s Freelancer Course at Udemy. In order for the learnings to resonate and stick I will try and share some of it with you. Here comes assignment no. 1, “Who are you?”:
What do you want to do? (Not your job but your work, now, tomorrow and in the future)
I want to build websites that help people grow their business. I want to empower my clients to use the full potential of their website.
For me, this includes:
- Empowering the client to grasp the potential of this tool and to choose to actively work with it. This means providing excellent content, updated regularly, or making accessibility her concern.
- Accessibility: Reaching from the very basic – extremely well structured content, clear goals, easy to work with user interface – to the more advanced, like building websites according to accessibility standards.
- Modern technology
- Inviting look and feel
Who do you want to change, and how do you want to change them?
I want to help clients to become knowledgeable website owners. I want them to understand that this website is a tool rather than a billboard. It’s more like a living creature that needs caring and nurturing. If you don’t work with it it’s not going to support your business, it might even do damage to it.
How much risk? (from 1 [a little] to 10 [bet everything]), how much are you willing to put at stake to make the change you seek?
Actually, I don’t see so much risk there, since I am already working in the field. The risk is spending my time to learn more about all the technical background. The risk is to fire a client who still just wants a billboard instead of a tool to work with.
Maybe the risk is also to actually go out there and propose what I mean to do. That scares me a lot more than to fire a client, which I actually have done a few times now. Once I announced this publicly I will be held accountable. I will need to be able to answer questions concerning my list up there.
I am not a fearful person, but that truly frightens me. So looking at the risk this way – maybe risk not everything, but let me be accountable for this. So give me an 8 and I am allowed to chicken out once in a while.
How much work are you willing to do to get there? Be specific about the tradeoffs!
My problem is not a more but rather a less. Meaning I tend to pack my days full to the brim with just about everything there is.
I need to get rid of some things in order to fit this in and still stay a healthy and happy human being. Like Seth points out in the video “A warrior without a King” – there is no point to freelancing if it only means to exploit yourself.
So the tradeoff is a very important point. For me, it means sticking to a schedule much more rigorously. I made a schedule that breaks up my workdays. There are time slots for certain client work, a time slot for paperwork, time slots for learning, you get the picture. So in order to pull this off I will probably need two time slots every week. Since the mornings are far more effective I will reserve two mornings per week in order to have enough space to develop the necessary skills.
Additionally, sleep earlier in order to be able to use the early mornings (6 to 6:45 a.m.) for some additional learning also adds up real quick.
Does this project matter enough for the risk and the effort you are putting into it?
Yes! It always tortures me to look at badly designed websites. I hate it when clients only go “half way” and the poor thing (the website 😉 ) remains untended a few weeks after the launch. I myself hate it when you are virtually not able to navigate a site.
It is a field I can get so excited and aggravated about. It is the most obvious thing to become an expert on how to do it in a good way.
Is it possible? Has anyone with your resources ever pulled anything off like this?
Yes, it definitely is possible. There are loads of well constructed sites out there.