At IM Spring Break, the talk from attendees that hold a W-2 is that they want to be a freelancer. (What’s a W-2? An employee).

Do you want to be a Freelancer or an Entrepreneur? Big difference. A freelancer is, in the words of E-Myth, a Technician. He trades hours for money and has traded in his W-2 to have a job in his own business. An Entrepreneur is going to move beyond being a Technician, outsource work, manage projects and people, and some day convert that leverage for a beach location.

What freelancers forget is that as a W-2, other departments/employees handle customer service, IT, HR, sales, accounts receivable, admin tasks, payroll, etc. As a freelancer, YOU will be handling ALL of that stuff. It means you will spend about 35-45% of your time doing anything BUT those tasks you love. That becomes a bummer.

Straddling the W-2 means that you have a full-time job but you are taking in some freelance work until you can get enough of a base of work to leave your W-2.

How can you market your services? Many ways: blogging, slideshare.net, freelance sites (guru.com, ifreelance, elance.com, odesk), speaking, webinars, and other ways. Get started and see what happens.

One last hint: set up an LLC or S-Corp so that your payments go to a corporate entity and you get some tax benefits. A few other resources: your CPA (you have one right?), a financial planner, corporate lawyer, Board of Advisors, SCORE, and a Mentor). Good luck!

CFO’s don’t think 2009 will be the year of recovery – “83 percent predicting we won’t see relief until the first half of 2010 or later,” according to the TechJournalSouth.

Options CFO’s  are considering or using to avoid layoffs include:

1. Redistribution of responsibilities;
2. elimination of bonuses;
3. restructuring;
4. reduced payroll and
5. options to telecommute.”

Reduced payroll can include: shortened work weeks; no overtime; mandatory time off; pay cuts. Although employees get disgruntled with these measures, a frank discussion with employees should help everyone understand that it is far better to take a little less now than to be unemployed altogether.

In reports I am seeing, companies are refraining from touching health benefits but are suspending 401K matches and other monetary benefits.

And here are twenty more from TechRepublic’s article “Layoff: A Four-Letter Word in Any Economy,” by Steven Martin, president of Profit Professionals of Business Solutions – The Positive Way.

Here are some tips I have gathered from others on selling in tough times.

Top Tip:  Stay Close to Your Best Customers!

From Keith Rosen:

I.  Isolate the objection
G. Gain permission to have a dialogue.
O. Offer solutions or new possibilities.

Sandler’s Why Salespeople Fail (e-book for no charge):

How to Sell Anything by Jim Connolly

Are you utilizing Referrals and Video Testimonial? (LinkedIn Recommendations?)

Not everyone is going to buy, but if you are selling on value and still not closing enough, perhaps you need to look at your Enrollment process. The Enrollment process is how you enroll prospects into the client fold of your consulting practice. In today’s economy, your enrollment process has to be fine tuned.  It is all about having a conversation about Their agenda and goals – and then how you can deliver value.