I have about three ideas brewing for blog posts. However, in my defense, I’ve been fairly busy with Life. However not too busy to get my teeth cleaned (I actually forgot about the appointment until they called to confirm).
Before going in I made up my mind to give my Dentist one of my business cards. Admittedly the business card is more a prototype and contains information that can be used to find me on the Net. But it doesn’t contain my business website (working on that one); it has this blog though (a fair 2d if I may say so myself) and my Twitter profile. However what I didn’t count on was my not being able to give my pitch. So he has a card with no context. Now you may be saying, “why’d you give it to him then?” Fair Question. To which I reply: I believe it a Good Thing™ to advertise, generate Word-of-mouth, regardless…
What is my pitch and is it available when I can’t give it?
That got the wheels turning. I mean, Why am I self-employed? What makes me so special? Why should you choose me over anyone else? Questions to which I need to provide an answer. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had steady work since March. But, like everyone tells me, it can’t rain all the time, er, or the flipside: it has to rain some time.
Short of having a website for my company (again, working on it) I can use my blog to host my pitch. I’ll add a tab: “I’m Special” Look for it in the next couple of days. Until then…
Cheers!
That was a central question I faced during my self employment (artificially inducing urgency in projects that the client didn’t care about was the other one). I came to the conclusion that I was not, in the sense you’re talking about, “special”. I don’t want to be. It’s always nice when you can find a niche, a talent, and get it out there in some way that distinguishes you. We all like to be flowers.
But frankly I *like* being a “jack of all trades” with an *emphasis* on “master of none”. I simply want to solve interesting problems. I’ve found that neither self employment nor regular employment is a surefire route to that goal.
I don’t like pitches. I’m not a salesman, for better or worse. I’m sure you’re like me, in that we thrive on solving problems that people have *identified*, because then success or failure is easily measured on both ends. The best pitch I can give, in other words, is telling them what I do, what my experience is, and what the downside is – I have to be honest to be able to enjoy my work. Think about it: if there were no possibility of you making money off of this dentist, what would you say to him? THAT would be my pitch, with the addition of “you could also hire me”.
But then again, I’m not out there trying to grow into Google or Microsoft like some developers I know.