The 3 ingredients we need for a great sandwich (generation)
It’s finally happened; I am a sandwich.
One minute I’m rolling in at 3 a.m. after a night out of with friends for drinks and the next minute I’m groggily looking at the child standing in front of me saying; “It’s 3 a.m. – get you’re own drink.”
Between raising kids, figuring out our-not-so-assured financial futures and surfing medical sites to figure out what’s really going on with our parents’ health, the cool kid in all of us is getting squeezed.
And the two end pieces are feeling mighty stale.
Education and health care. Within the walls of these public institutions – our local schools and hospitals – our greatest hopes and fears play out. We send our children to school each morning with the hope they’ll fall in love with learning, and we wait and worry when our parents’ go to the clinic for tests. This is what it means to be the sandwich generation; we care for those we love, both young and old.
Here are the 3 ingredients we need to be the greatest sandwich generation:
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A little free advice…about free services
I’ve got one rule about free services: Don’t kill your business with kindness.
Having a creative job is cool and odds are you know people who:
(a) think it’s really great you’re doing what you love;
(b) don’t know how you make a living at it, and,
(c) wonder if you’d be willing to donate your services to this great project they’re working on.
Tis true. Creative people are often asked to provide free services, otherwise known as ‘donating your time’.
Let’s call it what it really is – volunteer work – and that’s something you do in your spare time, after the paid work is complete.
Unlike other volunteer work where people are asked to help drive seniors to voting stations, man the welcome booth at a tournament or sell raffle tickets, creative entrepreneurs are most often asked to perform their core talent – for free. That’s a losing proposition because it burns through your time and your creative energy with no benefit to you.
For instance, I am at my most creative in the morning, so I reserve that time for writing. I start to fade around 2 p.m., so from mid-afternoon on I take care of administrative issues (bill payments, email responses etc) or I research upcoming projects. That means my peak earning hours are from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. If I use that time to do some volunteer writing, I will burn through that day’s creative energy and have nothing left for myself and my business. That’s the real cost of kindness for a creative entrepreneur.
Consider this: last week, as I wrote out a cheque for my accountant, I looked at Michael and said; ‘She’s worth every penny’.
I said the same thing about the contractor who built our back deck, the landscape designer who plotted out our deer-resistent garden and the instructor now teaching our kid to swim. Those services are important to us. We want a guarantee of quality and we get that by paying for it.
The same is true for career visual artists, sculptors, musicians, sound engineers, web designers, graphic designers, craftspeople, photographers and writers. Hire a professional for a guarantee of quality.
There are three options available for the kind-hearted entrepreneur:
- Refuse all volunteer work connected to your area of expertise: This is the easiest answer. Refuse all requests for free services by simply explaining you do not provide free services. This would include sitting on volunteer boards, which want you for your talent, not your driver’s license.
- Provide a special rate for non-profit charities: Some creative types will charge a reduced rate (between 30 and 50 per cent off) for charities. Only choose this option if you earn enough revenue to absorb the discount. Remember, your first priority is to make enough money to afford your life.
- Volunteer for one organization: If you’ve got a passion for something in your community, by all means volunteer your services. Just do it for the right reasons – you want to do good – and not because you think it might lead to new business. It rarely does and when it doesn’t, you’ll grow to resent it and that’s not good for you or the organization. Be clear upfront with the other board members that while you’re happy to provide these free services, your paying clients will always have priority over your volunteer activities. If you do volunteer board work, be sure to set project timelines with fellow board members, so they understand how much (or how little) time you can give to a project.
There is one other thing all creative entrepreneurs can do: work and live by example. Don’t ask your fellow creative types for free work (unless you give it in return).
Creative entrepreneurs straddle two worlds, that of the arts and of business. We produce works of quality, expertise and artistry. It marks us as professionals – and professionals get paid.
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Living on the Edge
On April 30th, I was the opening speaker at Tech SouthEast‘s Innovative NB conference at the Hotel Beausejour in Moncton. I was asked to share some of the stories I wrote about in Saint John’s Smart 7 application, the third New Brunswick city to earn the designation. Fredericton and Moncton were named to the Top 7 in 2009. Below is the story I told.
______
There’s an old tourism slogan that states “Saint John: Where it All Begins”. It’s a perfect description of Saint John’s place in New Brunswick’s modern history. As everyone knows Saint John is Canada’s first incorporated city. I like to call it Canada’s Original City because that is what it is – the first community to be granted local government, in 1785. It remained the only locally-governed city in British North America for 50 years.
Its early civic leaders, made up of American exiles, brought with them ideas of local self-rule and industrious trade that had been the signatures of life in Colonial America. This ex-pat community quickly set about re-establishing trade and social ties with people in Boston and New York, a cross-border tie that gave Saint John merchants a broader world-view. This was further expanded with the arrival of European immigrants through the 1800s, an influx that created an equal mix of business opportunities and social problems. The city developed innovative new programs and services in response, creating a surprising number of Canadian firsts, including:
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The 3 things you need to know about yourself… to land a great client
I’ve covered a lot of elections and over the years I’ve heard all sorts of strategies for how to win. There is one simple truth that has stuck with me. It was offered up by one of New Brunswick’s card-carrying characters – political operative, cabinet minister and now senator, Percy Mockler. He likes to say that the most important part of a campaign is what happens at a voter’s door: you have to knock on it and ask for their support.
Running a business is a lot like that too. You’ve got to ask people to hire you.
For a lot of us, self-promotion makes us uncomfortable, particularly if our work involves creating something that carries a piece of ourselves within it. As you’ll often hear an artist say in an interview; ‘I like to let the work speak for itself’. Ask me about the topic of one of my stories and I’ll happily blather on about what I did to get the story, the stuff I left out and my opinion of the situation. But ask me what I think of my work? I’ll stammer, look at the floor and mumble something about being so fortunate to make a living doing what I love.
This is no way to land a big contract.
The freelance marketplace is competitive. To get the best clients, you’re going to need to set yourself apart from others in your field. To do that, you’ll need to provide a very specific definition of what you do and why.
Ask yourself these three questions:
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The Artsy Entrepreneur: On becoming a number & other stuff
Dry cough, wet rain. Ugh.
Home office couch beckons me.
Monday blogs are hard.
It’s the last week of April, which means its time to haul out my envelope marked ‘Q1 receipts’ and put together my HST return for the Canada Revenue Agency (which I still call Revenue Canada). A morning of paperwork lies ahead of me – the business side of being an artsy entrepreneur.
In the beginning I hated figuring out my taxes. I was a writer, a card-carrying member of the creative class. I specialized in double entendres, not double entry. However, shortly after deciding to become a freelance writer, an acquaintance took me out for a coffee (tea for me) and told me to get an HST number. What he said made sense and now I’m passing that advice on to all of you.
Lisa’s 4 Steps to becoming an Artsy Entrepreneur (part 2)
3. Get an HST number
Why? Because clients prefer to work with freelancers who have an HST number because it:
- Suggests a level of professionalism; and,
- Suggests you are successful, which means you’re good.
You must file your HST returns quarterly. You must also track your business expenses. The HST you spend on items for your business are credits that will reduce your overall HST bill.
Register for an HST number here. Most freelancers start off as sole proprietors, what I like to call the low-maintenance business model. The next step up is incorporation but don’t make that choice without first consulting an accountant.
Your HST number doubles as your business number with CRA. It’s how they’ll keep track of you – and you can keep track of CRA, which is notoriously slow at updating its records on any small business. Keep a log of each call you make to CRA (yes, you will have to call them every now and then), noting the date, the name of the person you spoke with and the reason for the call. It is your record of your interaction with CRA in case of a disagreement between you and CRA over some aspect of your file.
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