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!

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.

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.

• What is Marketing? Every Touch of the Customer. Everyone is in Sales and Marketing.
• Attitude is Everything. Sales is the transfer of Emotion. Enthusiasm pays off.
• USP. How are YOU Different? If you can’t answer that, pack it in because it’s all about price.
• Perceived Value. See above.
• Profit. You can sell below cost because everyone wants to get paid and get a raise.
• Engage the Prospect in Open Ended Questions so you can find the Pain.
• Sell to Verticals or Sell in Niches. Easier to be an Expert.
• Testimonials. A book or a video. Let others sell for you.

Gitomer says: “It’s not just product knowledge; it’s your insight and understanding of how the customer benefits and wins from it.”

We once talked to leaders of one of the nation’s top mental-health facilities, which was in the process of revamping its mission and goals. We were surprised to find that it had 11 core values. They were admirable–innovation, integrity, and so on. But values are supposed to guide behavior, and you can’t even remember 11 values, much less use them to make decisions. Stephen Hawking can think in 11-dimensional space, but you can’t. Practically speaking, having 11 values is equivalent to having no values. [fastcompany]

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[slideshare id=230753&doc=ideas-to-market-consulting-1200518347145130-2&w=425]

Sure, it would be great if IDEO could design your next product or the CEO of Texaco would introduce your sales guy to his purchasing department. It would be great if you had the resources to have a detail force at every retailer, or Russell Simmon’s PR firm or a page that got linked to from Yahoo’s home page. But they won’t, he won’t and you don’t. The art of marketing is not finding more money to do more marketing. It’s figuring out how to tell a story that spreads with the resources you’ve got.

The art to marketing is to Tell A Stroy that is compelling enough that it will spread like an Idea Virus. It starts with having a Remarkable Service or Offer. That’s why you can’t have a me-too. You want a me-only.

I talk about Focus a lot but I’m not sure everyone understands what I mean. It takes incredible Focus for a company to offer one truly great service along with incredible customer care. That takes laser-like Focus and concentration to keep your eye on that ball. And you can’t do that with a shotgun approach to offering everything to everyone. You don’t need 5 or ten good offerings — it starts with one remarkable one that makes you the best in your territory or market (however you define that).

These are the 10:

1. Plan- so you have a path
2. Strategy- not put out fires
3. Call your best customers just to make sure everything o.k., ask for referrals
4. Focus on goals
5. Marketing takes 6-9-12 months
6. Become info source- newsletter, podcast, blog, keep people thinking we know everything
7. Think tank for our biz, attorney, cpa, 2 best customers, 2 noncustomers
8. Hosted nonportable services- hosted exchange-makes you stickey, bells can’t do it
9. Get others organized
10. Phase out projects so goals met, not just GOAL

1. You can’t get (and retain) enough customers
2. You can’t make a profit
3. Cash Flow
4. You don’t run your business like a business
5. No planning
6. Failed execution

source: Dallas Biz Journal and this blog