Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Business Connections

As I have mentioned before, I use LinkedIn and Google+ to make business connections. I will friend anyone who asks on these social networking websites. I give advice on LinkedIn in some of the freelancing groups and I give advice on here. Most of it is general, and I don't mind doing it. However, I recently had someone connect with me on LinkedIn and then ask to critique his stuff.

I know it sounds heartless, but I don't even critique/ edit my close friends' stuff for free. I have had two or three friends who were "writing a book," and they wanted me to either be their writing partners (i.e. encourage them to keep writing it by pestering them weekly) or to edit it. At this point, I said, "Sure, this is how much I charge..." and then they dropped the subject.

Sorry, I feed my family with my work. Every minute I spend working on something other than what I am getting paid to do is that much food I am taking away from my kids. My husband's paycheck pays the bills; mine pays gas, food, and to grow my business. So, when this person asked me, I calmly quoted my rates and referred him to my Guru profile link.

I have recently had someone contact me outside of Guru about doing freelancing. Expanding my work beyond Guru would be the next logical step in my freelance business growth. However, I have not made a final decision about it yet. I will keep you posted. Guru (or elance) is a lot safer than going it on your own.

No comments:

Post a Comment