Entries from August 2007 ↓

Leo Babauta has another great post up on FreelanceSwitch about setting and meeting deadlines. His advice covers the gamut from don’t overcommit to stay up late if you plan badly. And he provides several great tips for project planning and project management. Nothing earth-shattering here, but good, solid tips that are worth printing out and [...]

Especially when starting out, it’s hard to get your mind around the fact that prospects and clients aren’t really interested in you and what’s important to you. It’s all about them, as far as they’re concerned. Sure, you might get lucky once in awhile and manage to run across somebody who not only needs your services but also shares your aesthetic values. But that’s a rare condition.

Finding niches as a web designer is similar to finding niches in any profession. Key to selecting a niche, in my opinion, is to determine which niche companies want and are willing to pay for what you are offering. It’s great to only work for the kinds of companies you know well and like, but that’s not always realistic.

Sorry I’ve been a bit slow updating posts this week, but like many of you, I have freelance work that I take on. In addition to working on an ongoing contract, I’ve been putting together a proposal for a new contract. Add to that my bout of hay fever and things start falling through the cracks. Fortunately, I’ve got good control over things now and you should be seeing a steady flow of posts coming your way, continuing my series on niche marketing. But if I was really swamped, I might have to consider cutting my losses on any work that was just not cost-effective.

I feel that I may have given short shrift to technical writing niches, in my effort to keep my post to a reasonable length. I just want to add a few more points, specific to technical writers and technical writer jobs.