Successful Blog

How Do You Know When You're Ready to Move to the Next Level?

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This guest post was contributed by friend and SOB, Sheila Scarborough. Her advice here is flawless and based in deep expertise. –ME “Liz” Strauss

Moving To The Next Level

by Sheila Scarborough

Most entrepreneurial online “digital creatives” find that their business moves through a progression.

At first, many writers, Web designers or other content providers often take most any job as long as it pays. In the quest to amass a decent portfolio or group of clips, it’s easy to succumb to the siren offers of “revenue sharing” or “exposure” or “future growth,” rather than demanding a higher per-word or per-project rate.

Blog for $50/month and post 5-7 times a week? Sure!

Heck, blog for nothing and hope for some ad revenue? Sure!

Anything to get a toe-hold as a freelancer.

There comes a time, however, when the digital entrepreneur is ready to truly make a living in his or her area of expertise, maybe even to be able to drop the side job that actually pays most of the bills.

How do you know when you’re getting ready to move to the next level?

I’ve asked myself that question a lot lately, as I approach two years as an active freelancer (a writer and blogger, in my case.) Here are some benchmarks that I’ve stumbled across at this juncture; you may find some similarities to your own situation, or as a newbie you can look forward to someday grappling with these turning points:

1) You can’t work by the seat of your pants anymore.

Perhaps you have more than one blogging commitment, plus offline work and some clients and consulting. Life starts to implode, you meet all of your deadlines but just barely, you gain twenty pounds, the house is a wreck and upon awakening you think, “Oh, no, I have no idea what I’m blogging about today, plus there’s a client meeting that I’m not ready for this afternoon and an article deadline by close of business.”

It’s time for a schedule, because it’s time to admit that this is your job and you’ve gotta get organized. Big wall calendar, some online software, a PDA, an old-school Filofax, whatever — you’re at the stage when you must get a grip on the madness. It’s time to hire a CPA for taxes, it’s time to buy Quickbooks or other bookkeeping software to track invoices, it’s time to buff up that blog/Web site, it’s time to….move into the bigger leagues.

2) You are ready to build a specific or at least semi-defined expertise.

At first, entrepreneurs will do most anything to make a buck, even if it isn’t what they like or isn’t what they’re very good at. For a PayPal transfer or an actual check, I’d write about most any topic when I first started out, for any publication that was halfway legitimate.

At some point, however, you know which subjects really make your heart sing, which ones call forth your best work, and it’s time to begin to focus and hone your expertise and creative efforts.

For writers, this is the moment to say, “You know, I write mostly about X, Y and Z. Someday I’d like to touch on A and B, but right now, I specialize in X, Y and Z.”

This is different from what you said in the beginning, which was roughly, “I’ll write about anything.”

3) Your time and effort are worth something to you.

At first, many digital creatives are so eager to succeed, they’ll leave no stone unturned to get their business off the ground. They sign up for every e-newsletter and magazine that seems professionally helpful, they have a gazillion RSS feeds, they go to every meeting that seems like a good networking opportunity, and the answer to every problem is to throw more work hours at it.

I personally have reached the point of admitting that I can’t know everything. I can’t read it all, can’t track all the feeds, can’t answer all the emails and memes, and most importantly, I should not feel horribly guilty about it.

To do my best work, I can no longer allow myself to overload my own brain. It’s time to prune the RSS feeds, not follow everyone on Twitter who follows me, unsubscribe from emails that I don’t really read nor care about, all so that I can concentrate on the information flow that is most helpful in my work.

It’s also time to be paid what I’m worth (for a writer, that’s no less than US$0.50/word and preferably US$1.00/word, and roughly $20/post for blogging) and to cast an unfriendly gimlet eye on work that may require a lot of wheel-spinning for a monetary pittance. Some occasional work may be worth lower or even no pay, for a variety of reasons, but my going-in position has shifted to an expectation of decent pay for the work that I do, rather than pleased gratitude that anyone pays me at all.

It’s scary to realize that your baby, your business, is at a turning point, but the good news is that it’s time to make some tough career focus decisions because….you’ve done well and are ready to do even better!

–Sheila Scarborough You’ll find Sheila and her blogs at SheilaScarborough.com

Isn’t Shelia amazing? So why not tell her? How will you know when you’re at the next level? Could you be there already?

–Liz
Work with Liz!!

Related
Sheila Scarborough Is a B.A.D Blogger
Roving Sheila at SXSW 03 -09-07
Roving Sheila at SXSW 03-10-07
Roving Sheila at SXSW 03-11-07 and 03-12-07
Roving Sheila at SXSW Finale

Post Card 1: Just Got to the Hotel

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Post Cards from the Fake Liz Strauss (written by the real one)

I figure if Dan Lyons can write the fake Steve Jobs, I can do one better . . . I’m writing these post cards before I go on the UK trip with Ann Michael. Consider it a fictional account of real people we might have met, real places we might have visited, and real things that did or didn’t happen as told by the fake myself. Some things actually might have occurred. Like I said, I’m writing this before we go. –Liz

Re: Dec. 2, 2007

Hi, Everyone!
We’ve landed safely at about 11:00 a.m. London time and we’re exhausted. should have slept on the flight coming over, but we both worked, and worked, and worked instead.

With an 8-hour flight and a captive audience like that, we couldn’t pass up a chance to put on an impromptu seminar on blogging. By the end of the week, the blogosphere should grow by another hundred blogs.

Then there was the incredible paper work that comes with changing the world. . . .

The 80-mile foot trek through Heathrow to the passport station was relatively uneventful — if you don’t count the girl, dog, scarecrow, tin man, and lion who walked alongside us on our way there. (They said they were headed to meet an important man in a small town called OZ. I didn’t know that was in England. . . .)

At the passport checkpoint, the man asked why we came. We said we were bloggers attending a conference. I think he heard “floggers,” because he said to encourage our friends to give the poor sods a break if we could.

Tower of London, seen from the river, with a view of Traitors Gate, created by Viki Male 17/09/03 16:38

We had chartered a special private train into the city, complete with private staff and a three-course meal, for only us and our baggage. It didn’t come so we took the same train as everyone else.

The ride in was smooth, except for the jolting ride part.

Our hotel is the most expensive hotel in all of Europe — you could call it a castle. I’ve heard that some people do. More on that later. We’re out the door for lunch with Karin H. . . . YEA!

Yours truly,

Liz's Signature

The Fake Liz Strauss

PS We spent the night knitting sweaters for poor children in Siberia.

In the Company of Dots

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Connecting dots with The Idea Dude

Connecting Dots logo

I overheard the following conversation…

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Liz: Whoa! Look around us! Everyone is so . . . busy. We almost can’t see each other. What’s wrong with enjoying the folks we care about as we move through our lives?

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Phil: Surely, we can draw on others to help us make it great. Albert Schweitzer said…At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

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Lisa: I agree. As you wander around the blogiverse you find remarkable and passionate people expressing their deepest values as an offer to you. They intrinsically link their core values to every post, every action, every gesture.

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Glenda: Iteraction is where the magic of blogging occurs and, sometimes, it can be quite amazing. That is why I blog the way I do.

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Mike: Every new interaction is a gift. People who believe in this model of universal reflection of gifts are setting themselves up to be delighted again and again! Doesn’t that sound like a good life investment strategy?

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Rick: If we have felt something, if we have thought something, there is at least one other person in the world who has felt or thought something similar, if not the same thing. We are their voice, as well as our own. We are never alone.

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Liz: A truly successful and outstanding blog also has meaning. Somehow, in some way to each individual, it makes a difference by adding something of value to being one who visits. You might call that spirit. You might call that direction or focus. I call that soul.

So what was unique about this conversation? It didn’t happen over the dinner table. It didn’t even happen in the same point in time.

Instead it was a synergy of thinking stretching across time and space.
Spanning months of blogging, the thoughts flocked here to Toronto from different states and different cities. From Chicago, Virginia, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Wisconsin.

That is way cool to be in the company of greatness!
May the dots be with you!

Vern, The Idea Dude

Thanks to Week 110 SOBs

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muddy teal strip A

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

While I'm Gone, I Hope

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I've been thinking . . .

what I’d hope you might remember while I’m gone.

You see I’m leaving on a plane tonight, and I’m not taking my computer.

I would hope you’ll still stop to see the surprises I’ve left behind. Several folks have contributed some wonderful writing, and I’ve put together a little some thing too. I hope you’ll share your thoughts in the comments. Though I won’t be here, the sidebar will be fully stocked with beverages and snacks and you can pass on what you like via the “Share This” button at the end of each post.

hope

Hope you’re smiling.
Hope you’re having fun.
Hope you’ve found a way lighten your heart and your load this holiday season.

Meanwhile, I’ll be drumming some work so that I can keep this joint afloat. So keep me in your thoughts . . . and most all, know I hope you’ll be nice.

Liz's Signature

SOB Business Cafe 11-30-07

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Everyone take a second to click through to vote for Glenda today! Bookmark the site and keep voting. Let’s whether we can put her in first place. We’re awfully good at community. Why not this?

Design Your Writing Life explains how to get your life in gear for the new year.

chrisbrogan.com explains how social networks deliver value.

Anubis Marketing explains the value of planning how what we’re going to have to set aside for 2008 in terms of the internet.

Codswallop explains how to “working with Excel and want take your Excel skills to the next level.”

Copyblogger explains how we might need to sober up before we hit the publishing wall with a publishing accident.

The Artsy Asylum explains a “brave new world where you can socialize, theorize, benefit from others’ thinking, network, all from your bedroom wearing jammies.”

How to Save the World explains that meaning is part love and magic.

Related ala carte selections include

Jonathan Fields explains how “a good chunk of your weight gain, moodiness and brain-fog may be due to your sleep habits.”

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss