Tag Archives: executive

Tips on optimising your professionalism as a freelancer 

When I set up G75 Media in 2007, I’ll admit my working setup wasn’t very professional. I was based in the spare room of my parents’ house, where I’d temporarily returned after a long-term relationship broke down. I was using a glass-topped console table as a desk, with an old personal tower PC underneath and a briefcase of paperwork wedged against the table leg because I had no storage.

Yet to a customer, G75 Media looked professional from day one. Its director (me) arrived punctually for meetings, smartly dressed and fully briefed on the agenda. Emails were sent with full contact details, through a proprietary email account linked to the newly launched (and quite stylish by the standards of the time) website where our services were comprehensively extolled. G75 Media had a dedicated phone number and embossed letterheaded stationery, while my car at the time sported a personalised registration plate and rear window sticker promoting the brand. You wouldn’t have known I spent part of Christmas Day 2007 sat at that drawerless desk in my pants, drafting up social media posts for the coming months.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail

As a small business owner, entrepreneur or sole trader, optimising your professionalism is essential if you want to be taken seriously. Yet many people – often those with the security of salaried employment, and particularly those with union backing – feel little pressure to constantly operate to their best. However, that’s no reason for the rest of us to lower our standards. That’s why I’ve put together a short guide on optimising your professionalism for anyone just starting out in business – graduates, second lifers and people wanting to bring an entrepreneurial idea into existence. It’s not difficult, but it does require common sense and attention to detail.

1. Dress smartly for every occasion.

I recently read a story about a man who attended a video call on his day off, dressed in a shirt and tie…and nothing else. When a cable worked loose behind his computer, he stood up to fix it and revealed far more than his fellow Teams callers had expected. People still judge you by your attire, even when you’re working remotely, so dress smartly – above and below the waist.

2. Ensure your technology is reliable.

I have terrible problems on my laptop with Microsoft Teams, which never works as it should. I now conduct all Teams calls on my phone. However, optimising your professionalism involves – as I do – buying a stand, raising it to a healthy height, ensuring the background looks neat and smart, dialling in before the call to test the camera and microphone. Pre-empt any known issues in advance

3. Always check written communications for accuracy.

I don’t expect you to be a superb writer if you work in engineering or sales or other unrelated disciplines. What I do expect is for you to spell my name correctly, proofread your emails and ensure your contact details are up to date. It’s amazing how often I get emails containing obvious errors. This also applies to social media output, press releases, financial documentation and so on.

4. Don’t be presumptuous.

If I’ve never spoken to you before, contacting me at 3am via WhatsApp doesn’t create a good first impression. Nor does the use of emoji, or unnecessary abbreviations, or loathsome Americanisms like ‘gotten’ or ‘get-go’. Optimising your professionalism means assuming formality is required until you’re familiar/confident/friendly enough with specific people to chat to them like a pal.

5. Get back to people.

If someone asks me to email them/arrange an interview/make a payment, I do it. Yet if I ask them, they often don’t. Few things are more irritating to a pressurised executive than being ghosted, ignored or forgotten about. We’re all busy, but that’s not a good enough excuse to forget appointments, fail to respond to emails or miss deadlines. Which brings me onto…

6. Use a project management app to keep on top of your workload.

I have a Trello board with To Do, To Send and Next Week headings. As work comes in, I make a note of it using a different coloured sticker for each client in the To Do column. When I’ve produced a first draft, it’s dragged into the To Send tab with a note of the due day. If it’s recurring, I move it to Next Week once it’s filed. I never miss a deadline, and all it takes is a few moments of daily organisation.

7. Don’t claim to be an expert if you aren’t.

Freelancing is a fragile profession, where you’re only ever one email or phone call away from gaining or losing a client. However, that’s no reason to fake it. When I last advertised a freelance writing job, I received dozens of applications from people barely able to string a sentence together. Feigning expertise might get you a gig, but you’ll quickly lose it in bad circumstances. Stay in your lane.

8. Invest in good-quality, reliable technology.

I once worked for a magazine publisher who lost her entire history of business records when her laptop failed. Why didn’t she back up her data? Why didn’t she upgrade her old laptop? Buying quality hardware means less downtime and more reliable operations. This extends to computers and printers, phones and website/domain/email hosting, cloud storage – and even your car.

I could have gone on to mention many other points, including diversifying your business’s activities into other markets, but optimising your professionalism generally requires a simple blend of common sense and pragmatism. It means not over-promising and then under-delivering. It means meeting your scheduled deadlines and not allowing personal issues (we’ve all got some going on) to diminish your professionalism. Above all, it means being polite and approachable to everyone, regardless of family pressures or health ailments. And if that’s something you’re struggling to find among the contractors and freelancers you’re currently using, contact G75 Media to find out how a true professional can benefit your brand or business in terms of optimising your professionalism.

What we’ve learned over the last 18 years

Time travel never seems to work out in the movies, but I wish I could pop back in time for five minutes and have a word with my younger self. Not to urge caution, or plead for different life choices to be made – I have surprisingly few regrets as the spare tyre and crease lines of middle age manifest. Rather, I wish I’d been more knowledgeable about business when I decided to found my own limited company, exactly 18 years ago today (this article was published on Friday the 7th of November).

I’ve learned a great deal in my time as a freelance writer, and it’s easy to overlook how significant some of those lessons have been. I’ve never been overly keen on reflection, since it’s always more productive to look forwards than backwards, but I’ve been on a typically dramatic entrepreneurial journey since November 2007. These are the key messages I’d pass onto my younger self, if I was able to momentarily jump back in time to the days of waiting for my Certificate of Incorporation to arrive from Companies House…

Patience is a virtue

If I had a pound for every time I’d lay awake worrying about an unpaid invoice which would subsequently be paid…I’d be better off than I am. And I’d have slept more. Even if you’re a paragon of efficiency like me, other people aren’t. They can be forgetful, lazy and even downright incompetent. Being patient is a valuable personality trait, because you’ll spend plenty of time waiting for other people to sign off on work/respond to enquiries/pay invoices.

Other people are winging it too

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve left a meeting with a prospective or current client shaking my head at their unprofessionalism. You’re not the only one juggling a family with work, or battling ill health. You’re certainly not the only one with impostor syndrome, or a sense of inadequacy. However, you are the only one who truly knows what’s going on below the surface and behind the scenes. To everyone else, you’re just another professional, so act accordingly and they won’t know any differently.

Stick to what you love doing – if you can

In my career as a journalist and freelance writer, I have written or edited around 11,000 pieces of work. I’ve enjoyed the vast majority of these, yet the ones I didn’t enjoy stick in my mind. They fall into two categories – unusual assignments from existing clients, or work I accepted because I needed the money. It’s easier, quicker and more enjoyable to focus on the topics, industries and work you’re naturally interested in, where possible. Don’t apply for jobs you don’t really want to get.

It’s who you know, not what you know

Just before writing this article, I had an interview for a freelance writer role. The client approached me (always a welcome development) because a staff member I worked with years ago when she was at another company saw a LinkedIn post I’d published and remembered me. It helps that we got on well back in the day, and I was as professional then as I’ve always been. Job opportunities become more frequent as you make more contacts, expand your network and increase your portfolio.

Trying to second guess the future is pointless

As well as worrying about invoices, I also spent a lot of time anticipating a future that didn’t pan out as expected. I founded G75 Media to act as a freelance writer for local clients in Lanarkshire (hence the postcode-based name), but a third of our clients are now in America. I now live in England, and G75 Media does much more than just providing freelance writer services. Had I known all this in advance, I might have approached everything from marketing campaigns to my choice of accountant rather differently…

While the business has evolved in directions I never anticipated, I still recognise my 2007-era self in those early emails, invoices and articles. Some ventures, like my attempt to crack the UAE market, ended in disappointment, and nobody (least of all me) foresaw the global financial crisis which hindered G75 Media’s early years. You won’t win all your battles, either. You won’t ace every interview. You certainly won’t get every invoice paid. Yet the above advice remains valid for anyone starting out as an entrepreneur, manufacturer, freelance writer or any other branch of self-employment.