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Over at A Girl’s Guide to Project Management it’s Summer of Books month, which is an annual event focusing on project management book reviews and interviews with authors. I thought I’d spread the Summer of Books feeling to The Money Files as well, by taking a look at a book called The Wealthy Freelancer by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage (pictured below) and Ed Gandia.
It doesn’t sound much like a project management book, but I know that many of you run your own project management consultancy or training firms – or have aspirations to do so. It also contains information that’s relevant to people not working freelance or as a contractor, so despite the title there’s some good stuff in it for everyone who wants to get the most out of their income.
For example, try this: write down the pay increase you want. Now add 50%. The higher number is very likely to be achievable. Whether you are negotiating prices with your clients or a pay rise with your boss, that’s the number to start at.
The authors also recommend promoting yourself at every opportunity, and suggest your email signature as a good place to start. “You don’t have to come up with anything complicated or fancy,” they write. It’s enough to list your services under your name. If you are employed, make sure your job title and PMP designation (or other certifications) are mentioned to show people that you value your professional standing.
The book is based around 12 ‘secrets’. Number 5 looks at how to get customers coming back to you time after time. If you work on a freelance basis, these will be your consulting clients. If you are employed, these will be the internal customers whom you deliver projects for. There are 5 tips in this section:
- Be a joy to work with.
- Be professional.
- Deliver outstanding work.
- Be flexible.
- Thank clients frequently.
We all know that we should be pleasant and professional at work, but I’ve never thought of being ‘a joy’ before. “Don’t be unpleasant to work with by heaving an audible sigh when the client asks for minor revisions,” the authors write. “Make it your mission to be the person who delivers excellent work on every project, while making the entire process a treat for the client.”
How many of us do that? Project management processes can be difficult to understand and adhere to – I doubt many of our business stakeholders would say that working with a project manager is a “treat”. I hope that in your case, they do!
The other side of being ‘wealthy’ is having a fulfilled life and a good work/life balance. One of the chapters (Secret 9) focuses on this. It includes some productivity tips – nothing that you probably haven’t already come across in through GTD or in books like Make Every Second Count (Robert R. Bly).
However, the authors do discuss the interesting concept of incubation. When you have a difficult project to work on, or a complicated problem to solve, mentally label it ‘for incubation’ and file it away for a while. That could be a day, a week, or longer, but the important thing is that you have given your subconscious permission to mull over the idea without you actively participating in the thinking process. Put a note in your diary to come back to the problem in the future. Then, pull it out of the mental closet and see what you can do with it now. “Build incubation time into your project schedule,” the authors write. “Incubation can shave hours off the time it would normally take to get a project done.” When you come back to the idea, your incubation time should have given you the ability to see a possible answer or creative solution.
This book won’t tell you how to set up a business, but if you are considering becoming a project management contractor or running your own firm, this is a very useful book for starting out with the right attitude and with systems in place to support you as your enterprise grows. If you are not considering self-employment, there isn’t so much in it for you, but there are still some good points that are relevant to all projects and working with internal customers. However, I’d opt for another soft-skills, relationship-building, networking focused book instead, something like Stever Robbins’ book Get-It-Done Guy’s 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More, which also includes good tips about building relationships for productivity.
If you like the sound of The Wealthy Freelancer, you can get three chapters of the book free from the authors' website.
Posted on: August 20, 2011 09:46 AM |
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