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FREELANCERS SPEAK ON THEIR BEST BUSINESS PRACTICES
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In my business I fear growth and how people perceive my business. I never studied business so now I have a coach who is helping me to improve my profile and help structure the business.
As a solo-preneur, the fear of choosing a name for my business is holding me back. I want to come up with a clever, creative name but I'm much better with images than with words. I'm afraid clients will think my designs will be stodgy if I don't have a cool, trendy name.
So...how are you doing on naming your business? Bounce some ideas off on us!
My fear is how people will perceive me.
Having others design on my behalf (under my name) used to be a fear.
I guess, our fears are diverse and dynamic. They vary from industry to industry and business to business. For example, for a web designing company like SocialDesignGuru the primary concern should be the changing algorithmic requirements of search engines to make a search engine friendly design. Pace of innovation and change is very fast, therefore such companies find it hard to be as responsive as possible.
I fear no clients; I fear bad clients. With the pace of change in everything, it's almost impossible to keep up with the pace of technology, marketing, business (local and global), as well as spend time being creative AND be a business person, too. Oh, and then there's finding time to keep yourself inspired creatively and maybe, just maybe, a little downtime in there, too.
Three BIG FEARS:
1. Being known always as that little (but talented) graphic designer freelancer thingy over there. I am a company. I want to be known as that and hired because I do more than just make things pretty.
2. Not being able to end the cycle of not charging clients more for services. I have some really loyal clients, but they are loyal small clients. If I charge more, will they go some place else before I have a chance to land loyal bigger clients?
3. Not realizing, building and executing that SOMETHING that is bigger than myself. I’m thinking of that really big, audacious project that inspires and achieves and makes a difference. Like Design for Change. I have no idea what this big, audacious project will be and that, in itself, is a fear.
Thanks, Luke. It’s good to write it out loud. When fear starts to get the better of me, I think of the line from Dune “Fear is the mind killer.” Don’t I know it.
Great question!
I think I fear a project being completely off target--and the client flipping out on me. Though I've got processes to connect with the client's vision and align my plan, it's just a fear out there. Probably quite irrational, never happened, but it's probably my biggest fear. An irate client that won't give me the time to fix something...and that's the worst, I imagine, if you know you are way off on what they wanted.
I don't really fear anything in business (I don't have a life threatening career.) I just have greater respect for some things than others. Whenever I do feel like fear is trying to creep into my life, I just remind myself that 90% of the things we worry about never come to fruition anyway - so get out there, take a chance, LIVE!
Great question Luke =)