For those of you that are here because you went to my Late Lunch Presentation today- Welcome, you wonderful, attractive, successful person! If you didn’t attend my presentation, what the hell bro, I thought we were friends?
Below you’ll find some links, resources and articles relevant to what we were talking about. Some are probably already on your radar (or sublimely obvious), but in the interest of being thorough, I’ve tried to post everything. I’ve also posted links to some books that I felt really helped me out.
STARTING OUT
A Comprehensive Guide to Starting Your Freelance Career – FreelanceSwitch.com is an excellent resource just overall, but this is a really great guide for those starting out. Essentially it’s a more detailed version of what we talked about today.
7 Pinterest Boards to Follow for your Career – Mostly just tips and inspiration, but worth checking out.
How to Brand Yourself: An Introduction – For those using their own names as a business name, some good starting points.
Behance.net – If you don’t have the time or skills to develop your own site, you might want to consider hosting a portfolio here. Simple and attractive interface.
WordPress.org – This is the CMS I use for my site and I would recommend it to anyone starting out. So customizable and it’s great for relative newbies and power users.
My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire – Michelle Goodman – This book is aimed a little more at women, but I found it to be immensely helpful when I was just starting out.
OPENING UP SHOP & ANNOUNCING YOURSELF.COM
15 Social Media Tips from Dr. Seuss – Just a fun list that should help you get into social media and give you some ideas.
30 Terrible Pieces of Social Media Advice You Should Ignore – I could distill this article down to the statement “There’s no universal answer for what you should do in social media,” but that would ignore that there’s some really great stuff in this read.
5 Simple Tips to Improve Your Facebook Fan Page – Good things to know, I see a lot of bad Facebook Fan Pages out there and these are simple fixes.
Top 5 Things to Know About Pinterest for Businesses – If you’re on the visual side of the business, this can help you out. I’m not too into Pinterest myself, but it has uses.
WHEN YOUR BUSINESS IS ROLLING
Five Ways to Kill it as a Freelancer – Nice little list of easy tips to keep your business coming in.
WHEN YOU’RE STUCK IN A RUT
10 Daily Habits to Empower and Strengthen You as a Professional Creative Person – Tips for revitalizing your creative and business mojo.
It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be – Paul Arden – One of my favourite books to thumb through whenever I need a lift. I can honestly say this has been one of my best “business” book purchases.
8 Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity and Stifle Your Success – Bad things, stop doing them!
Is It Possible to Have Too Many Ideas? – Yes, it’s possible. And not acting on them can cause you to feel inadequate, which leads to stagnation. Read this.
Secrets of Digital Illustration: A Master Class in Commercial Image-Making – Lawrence Zeegen – For the illustrators, of course, I love this book. A great source of inspiration and info for commercial illustrators but fine artists and designers can get something from this too.
ON SUCCESS
Handling Success Harder than Handling Adversity – This is a sports article, but it’s oddly applicable for all of us. Winning makes you complacent, strive to always be better.
Well, that’s about it for tips. If you attended, I hope you enjoyed the presentation!