Today I’m going to talk to you about the Unconventional Guide to Freelancing. I’ve got some hefty freelancing roots (hoo-boy) and I still spend quite a bit of time doing freelance-style work, and it would certainly have been nice if this guide had been available to me sooner. Instead of complaining, however, I’ll give you a solid run-through and my thoughts so that you can find it sooner than later, if it’s a resource that will benefit your current life and work. Good trade-off, I think. ;}
The Unconventional Guide to Freelancing
Overview: This “unconventional” Freelancing 301 course from Chris Guillebeau and Charlie Gilkey is actually the best guide to freelancing I’ve seen thus far, especially from a strategy point of view. When I was getting myself rolling, I spent a huge amount of time buying different resources for overlapping tidbits on freelancing and running a business, and if I’d found this first, I would have bought less and focused more.
If you’re freelancing now, but you don’t feel like you have enough business savvy to succeed the way you’d prefer, take a look at this one before spreading yourself too thin.
The Low-Down
The Unconventional Guide to Freelancing is meant to help service providers become solution providers, and build smart, sustainable businesses around their existing freelancing skills.
This guide’s for you if…
- You’re already a freelancer, or you’re about ready to take that step.
- You want to be in this for the long haul, because the idea of working for yourself the rest of your life thrills and fascinates you.
- It’s not all about the money for you; it’s about the quality of experience you can provide, your ability to do what you do best, and your ability to see your work as art.
- You feel fairly confident using computers and the internet, and you have no qualms about asking others for help when you need it.
- You basically know how to deal professionally with clients, and you basically know how to run a business. But you need to refine and improve, and you want to make sure you’re creating a smart, sustainable living for yourself.
- You’re a great technician. You know your craft. You just need to know how to be a good freelance business owner, too. Planning, finance, strategy — those words make you a little nervous, you’re not sure how to go about them properly… and you need some help.
This guide is an overview of the most important aspects of freelancing: Your personal effectiveness and well-being, how to land more clients and get paid on time, managing your business finances (and the stuck that goes with them), and working smarter instead of harder — that means strategy, folks, which is a salient, particular strength of our friend Mr. Gilkey.
What’s In There
Here are the primary contents of the Unconventional Guide to Freelancing:
- A very nice overview of the key lessons and recommended resources inside, so that you can figure out exactly where to start, or later, where to look for the information you need.
- The Unconventional Guide to Freelancing Ebook — more than 22,000 words of serious YUM. This was by far my favorite part.
- A checklist of agreements, contracts, and policies for your business, which is quite handy to have around (if I do say so myself).
- 4-10 interviews with great freelancers who know their shit (and interview transcripts to go with them). Among these are Marissa Bracke, Kyle Durand, Jess Reagan and Bob Poole — absolute gems, in my opinion. They cover business setup, the fear of selling, the benefits of great bookkeeping, the great battle against perfectionism, rights to completed client work, how to consider hiring virtual assistants — and yeah, way more.
Pricing and Options
If you’ve been to the link and clicked through to the buy page, you’ll have noticed that they’ve set up three-tier pricing, from $58 to $129. The package I have is the “B” option, for $79 — but I’ll tell you, I work with Charlie Gilkey every week, and if you can afford to get in on that 3 hours of follow-up group coaching calls, I feel pretty goddamn safe recommending it. If you need more personal help with your journey, grab session time with him where you can get it, especially if it’s only fifty bucks extra. Charlie has some serious mojo up both sleeves, and probably at least one pant leg.
The Strategy Gap
My favorite thing about this resource: The way Charlie covers all the varied aspects of a successful freelancing business, and how they fit together — and how he reminds the reader to dip back into strategical thinking periodically, to avoid the Most Awfullest, Most Pervasive Freelancer Pitfall.
I know this pitfall because I have been a frequent victim of it myself, and I need that reminder. Don’t get sucked into client work 24/7 — if you do, the client work will run out, and you will be left alone in your office wondering why nobody reminded you to…
- Think ahead! What do you want your business to accomplish, and how are you going to get it there?
- Market your business — not just to your whole audience, but to the individuals who comprise it. They want to hear from you!
- Remember that you aren’t stuck being “just” a service provider, and your business doesn’t have to be limited to the age old time-for-money exchange.
You’ve heard a version of this before, but it’s not just about remembering to market yourself. It’s much bigger than that — it’s the Strategy Gap. It’s the holistic overview of your business that allows you to manage all the moving pieces with intelligence and foresight.
No one seems to realize how important this is — and in all our travels through Internet Marketing Land, most of the gurus fail to mention it. If they do, they make vague references to it, and move on. We know there’s some thing we should be understanding about the forest of our business, in addition to the individual trees. But what? And how? And what part of it makes the smart, successful, sustainable freelancing business?
This product is a great way to introduce yourself to those last three questions… and their answers.
The Goodness of Chief Hats
My second favorite thing! Charlie’s explanation of the “Chiefs”. Not only is it fantastically cute, as a concept, but it’s insanely useful in practice. I’ve implemented my own series of hats at Ideaschema since discussing this with him, and the Unconventional Guide to Freelancing dramatically refined my understanding of these categories in just the last few weeks.
Big businesses have Chief Executive Officers and Chief Operations Officers and Chief Financial Officers and Chief Marketing Officers… but you have YOU. Understanding the different perspectives inherent in your business makes it oodles easier to keep things running smoothly, and this is definitely put across well in the ebook.
Any Misgivings?
I was really very happy with this one. If I had to dredge out some very minor misgivings, it would be that the additional materials don’t use the same, gorgeous design of the ebook itself. (The ebook is truly beautiful.) Some are closer, and some not so much.
I will say this, however: All the extra materials are very nicely organized, so even without a perfect design match-up, you won’t have any trouble finding the information you need. They’re very easy to read through. (I am especially fond of the interview transcripts. I love transcripts. LOVE. THEM.)
Who These People Are
A big ol’ chunk of my criteria for project reviews has to do with who the hell these people are — who created it? Who is benefiting from it? What do they do, and why? Do I want to support what they’re supporting — especially if it’s a product people pay for? In this case, there are two people in question. I know one better than the other, but I’ll tell you about both of them:
Chris Guillebeau. Chris is widely known to have spent an enormous amount of time traveling, writing, and providing materials to help remarkable people improve their lives and work. He produces “unconventional” manuals that speak on lifestyle business, art, personal freedom, effective social media strategy, and the battle against conventional beliefs. He supports such initiatives as Charity:Water and is very active in an ongoing effort to change the world for the better. He’s a very good dude with an excellent array of resources.
Charlie Gilkey. I’ve worked with Charlie for a year and a half now, and he never fails to surprise me with his compassion and insight into human and business subjects alike. He holds himself to a high standard, and it shows. Charlie provides one-on-one consulting services as well as a growing list of products and programs geared towards helping others thrive — so that they, too, can turn around and help someone else. He writes and speaks on the subjects of strategy, creativity, energy and productivity (among others), and it only gets better from there. Charlie is one of my absolute favorite hypercatalysts, and the rippling change effect he engenders has impressed me again and again. He inspires the people around him to want to be better and do better — and then he effectively helps them to succeed. Supporting his work is a no-brainer for me.
My Last Word
The Unconventional Guide to Freelancing is incredibly smart, insightful, and useful. It’s full of essential information about running a freelancing business that actually works. For the foreseeable future, this is the resource I’m going to recommend to everyone I meet who’s starting out in freelancing — period. I’ve gone through a hell of a lot of business development books and ebooks, and this is the best tool for its purpose in the whole pile.
If this overview has been helpful for you, we’d be very grateful if you’d make your purchase using our link, and support two great initiatives in one go. If you’re curious about how we decide to review projects and what’s most important to us when we do so, check out Ideaschema’s project review criteria.
Megan Elizabeth Morris (aka MEM, Megan the M.) is a bonafide professional catalyst and adventurer. She's the Ideaschema instigator, orchestrator and autodidact, and you can find out more about her by clicking here.Got an idea? Something we haven't thought of? Whatever you're thinking, we want to hear it. Please feel free to leave comments or email us by clicking here.
