Winning Repeat Clients - Tip #4: Find Appropriate Times to be Personable

I've been quiet, yes. The shortest explanation is that I've been moving and doing things that lead up to moving.

Today I'm posting a 4th tip for turning your clients into repeat customers:

Find Appropriate Times to be Personable

It's not exactly rocket science that being personable can lead to better relationships, but the way you do it can make a big difference: for better or for worse.

The most important thing is to follow your client's lead. Some clients will want to learn about you and share about themselves. Others will prefer to stick to business.

I'm reminded of my experience with a certain financial planning company when my advisor insisted on having 10 minutes of small talk any time we were on the phone together. I didn't want to EVER be on the phone with him, but he would insist on quarterly calls, then insist on asking about acting, and writing, and volleyball ...

I am not the type to want to small talk with a stranger, and when it comes to customer service or any service, the more I can do online or for myself, the better. Many people my age or younger will feel the same way. If a little small talk happens naturally, that's cool with me, but this felt forced and he always asked the same exact questions. He never picked up on the fact that I wasn't into it, and the more I asked if we could just communicate via email, the harder he pushed for quarterly meetings on the phone. In the end, I moved all of my assets to another company and it's mostly because of this guy.

So, don't be that guy.

Seriously, do you not
sense my annoyance?

On the other hand, some personal connections can make work more pleasant and fun, and also can help with business. I have one client for whom I write blogs, website pages, newsletters, and books. We've worked together for over eight months now (wow, I hadn't done that math before!) and we have become friends. It was clear from the beginning that he wanted me to personally understand his passion for his business and the voice he wanted in the writing. He wants me to be excited about the topic and grow a passion for it too.

At first, I was resistant. I mean, after what you've read so far in this post, you're probably not surprised. My instinct is to be all business because I tend to focus on the task at hand, and expect others to want the same. Slowly I realized that with this client, allowing the personal connection in was helpful not only to him, but also to me. I was able to write better for him in a way that really connected with how he wanted to represent his business.

The point here is that learning a bit about your clients shows them respect and that you want to understand them and their needs. Especially if they are personally passionate about what they're asking you to write--which is generally the case for me, and I would think for many freelancers that work for individuals.

I hope these stories illustrate this tip well enough--I don't want to go overboard by now explaining what I want you to infer. Lastly though, I want to say that it's important to remember what you learn about your clients so that you can be personable when you want to. You may talk to 10 different clients a day (sometimes I have those days), but they still expect you to remember your discussions/emails/messages with them. I need to work on this one myself, any suggestions for a good tool?

P.S. - I cut my hairs and got new headshots!

Winning Repeat Clients - Tip #3: Teach Your Clients to Fish

It's been almost two months since I posted on this topic, so I'm overdue for another tip. Today's tip for converting freelance clients into repeat customers:

Teach Your Clients to Fish

You want to create value beyond what your competitors provide so you can either win more business or get paid more. A great way to do that is to help your clients do things on their own that you're now doing for them. That may sound contrary to a successful business model, but bear with me here ...

First, if you help your clients with grammar/formatting/writing stuff like I suggested in tip #2, they are going to start providing you with better written content ... hopefully. Say you charge 2c/word for editing and then you teach your client that one space between sentences is really the current trend and get them to start only using one. Well, now you can still charge 2c/word, but the same edit will take less time because you're not looking for this pesky little change over and over.

(Side tip: You can use Find features for spaces to quickly find these changes. You can search for "  " and replace with " ".)

If you could teach yourself out of a job by offering your client some better ways here and there, you've got bigger problems. You can create more value (and make more money) with your time and energy if your client learns to avoid some of the more common writing problems.

Another example, say your client is sending you 1000-word blog posts on topics that should really be kept to 600 words or less. You could keep editing them down to about 800 words at your 2c/word rate, or even keeping the same word count, without ever telling your client what they're doing wrong. I mean, you've only signed on for editing.

OR, you can explain to your client that you think shorter posts would work better in this instance. Suggest ways to keep the posts shorter or things that can be left out. Show them an example with a recent post and suggest they aim for less content the next time. You might be lowering your pay per post if you're charging on word count, but you're adding value to your client in a way that will keep them coming to you over your competitors.

In the end, you want to feel good about the value you're providing and if you keep your clients happy, you'll keep your clients.

When it's a good idea to use the "Public" privacy setting on a Facebook post

Officially I am a writer. But as a freelancer in charge of my own marketing/sales, I'm also becoming somewhat of a social media expert. So here's a short lesson that I wish everyone knew ... some of you already do, I know.

Pay attention to the privacy settings on your Facebook posts. This is not a "be safe, don't spread your info too wide" lesson (you can find those lessons out there, but they won't be from me). This is a lesson in using the Internet for maximum effectiveness.

For me, as I imagine is true for most, most of my personal posts are set to be shared with "Friends" (see pic). But here's the thing--if you post something you WANT to be shared beyond your friends, you need to change it to "Public." Otherwise it can never go past your little circle.

For example, you post a stray animal in need of a home, a link to a fundraiser, a link to your new blog (assuming you want maximum readership) ... change it to "Public." This means that while it will still only go to the news feeds of select friends decided by Facebook's crazy algorithms, it has the potential to be shared beyond your friend circle. It will be on your public profile and if a friend shares it, it will go to all of THEIR friends as opposed to just all of your MUTUAL friends.

Oh, and perhaps more importantly (because it's more common), if your friends comment, their friends may see that they commented. If your post is restricted to your friends, that won't ever happen.

I'm trying to change the situation when a friend says, "Please share!" and I want to help them ... but they have it set to just their friends. So I tell them, please change privacy, and then they do, and then all is right with the world. This is my attempt at a broader message and some hopefully helpful advice 

Did I get anything wrong, fellow social media gurus? I was going to say something about making sure to change it back with the next post, but I think Facebook changed that a little so I don't want to comment without more research. But generally, check! Don't want to make something public on accident.

Why I quit Fiverr

Welp, I touted Fiverr as one of the few freelancing sites I would suggest using in an earlier post ... mostly for its ease of use and "getting into the game."

I now retract that suggestion. 

Here's what I said originally:

"Fiverr is different [from oDesk and Elance]. It's more like a shopping site. You offer something for $5 (called a "gig") and people can buy it. For example, I have gigs for 500 words of editing, 50 words of copy writing, and some other fun things I've tried over time ... like providing feedback on online dating profiles. The best thing about this site is that the jobs come to you. No searching, no cover letters. The worst thing about this site, and this actually angers me, is that it takes 20%. So not only do you often end up working too hard for $5, but then you only get $4. Then you transfer it to PayPal and lose another small percentage. It should really be called Three-point-ninety-two-err. 

You might be wondering why I still use this site. Well, it's great to have tiny jobs that fill in the cracks. If I can ever drop a site because I'm just that busy, Fiverr will go first. I honestly think it's highway robbery for them to take 20%. I do pause my gigs pretty often when other work is keeping me busy (it's super-easy to do) ... but when I'm not, it's nice to have those little jobs."

For a little context, in about a year I've made $1000 on Fiverr overall, meaning I've made $200 for Fiverr. That's a lot in the context of these small gigs and most of it was within a few months. I had earned a Level 2 rating, which is a bigger deal than it sounds like. The only thing higher is Top Seller, which is decided by Fiverr staff on a one-by-one basis.

So first, I noticed a dramatic drop in my Fiverr jobs lately. No logical reason. I don't know what they changed and I didn't worry about it much because $3.92! Life goes on. I left my gigs up for what few small jobs might trickle in.

Recently I got one of those random and infrequent jobs, not for editing like I used to get DAILY, but through my gig for help with online dating profiles. The client wanted help with texting a girl. Yes, I know ... not exactly one of my typical clients, but I felt for him and I tried to help. He kept saying that Fiverr messages were not that convenient for real-time chatting, so multiple times I offered my Skype username. I know this is against Fiverr policy, so I said "S kype," which keeps the little warning from popping up.

I think because I did it like three times (he kept ignoring me), I got flagged. Notice I was not trying to make money outside of the site, but just do my job more easily. I got multiple emails saying my account was flagged. The next day I got emails that my Level 2 status had been removed, and then my Level 1. I had no activity on Fiverr during this time, just emails trickling in from them berating me for trying to use the best tool to do my work.

I also love that they try to say the policy is "to keep our community safe." Um, shenanigans ... it's because you don't want people skipping out on giving you your 20%. At least be honest about that.

Okay, despite all of that, it's Fiverr's prerogative to set its own policies and percentage takes. I know that. I chose to continue working with the company until now, and that's on me. I also think it might just be a bad place for freelancing, but perhaps not other things (like, oh, offering to sing a personalized Christmas carol in your underwear on video for $5). I'm just saying that going forward, here's a full list of reasons I will no longer user Fiverr:

• High percentage take (20% is well above industry norm and just ridiculous).
• Payment is slow. Most typically it takes two weeks to receive payment after a three-day period before order is considered "complete" (client can mark it complete sooner, but most don't bother), and then 11 days for payment to "clear." Enjoying floating my money, eh? Of course you then have to withdraw to PayPal, so if you want it in your BANK, that's another three business days.
• Being hard-nosed about not letting people chat outside of Fiverr. Until they have a fast and easy chat tool, that's not reasonable.
• Giving PayPal as the only reasonable option for withdrawing money, which then results in additional fees. Elance and oDesk charge their 10% or less fee and then send money directly to my bank for FREE.
• People can order gigs and you have no way of saying "No" without going through a cancelation process, which dings you. So Rando Brando can order my editing gig for $5 then ask me to write him 500 original words (minimum $25) and ... no easy way out.
• No way to cancel your account online. That's just ... annoying.

So, Fiverr, enjoy that $200 I made for you with little effort on your part, but the party is over. You know, that party in my wallet that you crashed and I didn't kick you out at first but now I am. That one. Buh-bye.

Winning Repeat Clients - Tip #2: Give Them Something Extra

Last month I posted tip #1 on this topic. It may sound trite, but communication is key. You can't get away from it. Now, onto today's tip:

My little gift to you ...

Give Them Something Extra

Your ultimate goal in a service industry is to provide value for your customers. If you make yourself more valuable than the next guy, clients will come back. Giving something extra not only adds value, but it also communicates that you care about your clients and are invested in their needs.

I'm going to cover two common ways that I give a little something extra in the context of editing clients (as opposed to writing clients):

1. Provide a bit of coaching
2. Find a small way to go beyond the scope of the work

Coaching
Most writers make the same mistakes over and over and simply taking the time to provide a bit of coaching can really make you stand out. As with any feedback, you need to be careful with its delivery. A few things to avoid ...

Be careful not to bombard them. If the client is consistently making eight different mistakes, pick two to share with them. No one wants to read a long list of things they did wrong from a stranger. Plus, it's not likely they can even take in eight corrections and be expected to really improve on them. Pick two, explain them well, and move on.

Be careful how you word it. Again, you don't want to upset anyone. In general, avoid any sentence that starts with "You," because it could come across as an accusation. Here's an option for wording:

"I noticed a couple things that pop up in your writing and 

wanted to explain why I changed them the way that I did."

Be specific. People are most likely to understand your suggestion and actually learn from it if you provide a specific example from their writing. Copy and paste the applicable sentence from the document you edited, then show what you changed and why.

Going Beyond
Ever heard the phrase, "under promise and over deliver"? It's truly a great way to keep clients happy. Finding yourself on the wrong side of what was expected can really rub someone the wrong way, even if you did a great job. Doing a little extra can help keep you on the right side of expectations.

I tend to find these opportunities without looking for them. For example, say I've been tasked with proofreading a document (and am only being paid a proofreading rate), but then I find an opportunity to completely reword a couple sentences in a way that I really think adds value. Most likely the writer in me will want to make these changes anyway.

Some things to consider here ... if a client only asks you to proofread, he may really only want you to proofread. Be careful with new clients. If you want to err on the side of caution, you can include only true proofreading in the document, but then suggest the reword as a comment in the document or in an email. This gives the client the option of using your suggestion, but still gives him a proofread version of the original just in case.

Okay, obvious perk to going beyond is that you're likely to have a happy client. Less obvious perk is that you're showing your client what you can do beyond proofreading. Next time maybe she will hire you for true editing. So you've just solidified a new client and also laid the groundwork for an increased rate ... just by doing something your itchy little writer fingers probably enjoyed anyway.

That's it for today! Any thoughts on these ways to give a little extra? Have you tried other tactics? Let me know below!

A freelancer's vacation: not so free?

Clearly not writing

I just returned from my first vacation as a freelancer. While I was away I learned a lot about my new "free" life.

I've always been really, really good at taking vacations. In my nine years as an IT Consultant, I never once had trouble forgetting about work and knowing that things would move along just fine without me. I actually find it a bit funny when people think they HAVE to check in on work if their jobs are similar to any of my consulting projects ... you know, when the worst thing that can happen for example is that those requirements don't get written by the arbitrary due date that only exists so that the Project Manager can say we have a goal, GASP!

Of course, for the sake of my coworkers, I did my best to leave things in a good state when I closed down my work PC on that last day before taking off (ew, bad flash backs of pre-Mac days), but whatever was done was done, and whatever wasn't would be handled by someone else or waiting for me when I got back. The world most certainly would not cease to exist.

Unsolicited advice from me: When you believe you are always needed at work and that you have to do everything you are asked, people will expect you to always be there and do everything you are asked. No one ever expected this of me because I didn't let them. One of my "secrets" to work-life balance.

Vacationing as a freelancer was very different. First, if I don't work, I don't get paid. Compare that to four weeks paid vacation, which I enjoyed for nine straight years--and always managed to use up each and every year (implied unsolicited advice #2!). As you might imagine, I can't really afford a two-week, unpaid vacation at this point in my adventure. Second, I work alone (mostly). No one to auto-forward my work emails to in my absence for things to be handled for me.

So, I expected to work some over my time away, to make a little money and keep projects moving, but two things got in the way. One, the distractions of family and my completely adorable two-month old niece who has stolen my heart.

Wouldn't you be distracted??

Two, unexpected connectivity issues during week #2. This is what it boiled down to:

• During Week #1 (full connectivity), I got much less done than I planned/wanted. This created more of a backlog of the things that "had" to get done for Week #2, and just created a general feeling of unrest/stress heading into Week #2.

• During Week #2 (very limited connectivity), I got almost nothing done. Every time we went into town I felt like I had to work first and felt rushed to finish whatever I felt "needed" to get done so that I could enjoy time in town with my family. I basically felt at least a little stressed about work until I got to the Denver airport on my way home and was able to catch up. 

This is what I learned:

I care too much about my clients! I left corporate America largely because I didn't care about telecom or cable or collections, so even if I liked some of the people, I didn't care about the end goal of my ultimate client (the big, bad corporation)--but I do care about my writing and editing clients and their end goals. Most of them are passionately pursuing something creative and depending on my help. This is one of the best parts of my job, but it complicates my vacations. That's why I need to ...

1. Plan better for time away, just like I would have at my old job. Tie up loose ends. Tell everyone I can think of (clients) that I will be gone and lean towards assuming I WON'T be available rather than I will be ... even if I think I will be. 



Excuse me cow, I need to get to town for internet access.

2. Put up an auto-reply on email. Would have helped my stress levels immensely to have an automated and professional explanation of my time away. I'm still kinda shocked at myself for not doing this in the first place.
3. Turn down work heading into a vacation. It's okay, I will still have money to eat (I think). Plus, my clients may depend on me, but I'm also not the only writer/editor out there. Again, the world will not end without me! They can find other help as needed, but they deserve advanced notice so they can plan.
4. Plan for enjoyable work on vacation. I did spend a good bit of vacation time editing a novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. Editing is my sweet spot and how I got into this mess in the first place. If I'm going to work on vacation, I should try to plan such that it's work I really like. That way when I get back, I have more time to catch up on everything else.

So, my free(lancing) life is not so free when it comes to vacation. Of course you give up some freedoms when you say goodbye to a high salary, paid vacations, full benefits, and on and on ... but I'll trade those freedoms any day for the flexibility and the joy that I get from freelancing. D'aww.

Winning Repeat Clients - Tip #1: Communicate Well and Often

The first "trick" to a successful freelancing career is to be good at what you're offering. I can't teach you that. Well, maybe some of it, but that's not the focus of today's post. I want to share my tips for making your clients really happy such that they return ... beyond just delivering what you promised.

I'm not a sales or marketing person (although I can write about those things - try me!) and I'm definitely not a schmoozer. I've started a career that I enjoy and I want my clients to be happy, so the things I'm going to tell you actually come naturally to me--most of the time. Occasionally I have to remind myself that these steps will help me build that solid base of customers that I need to really make this work. We all get a little lazy sometimes, right?

Anyway, let's dive in. Today's tip:

Communicate Well and Often

Repeat clients make me HAPPY

I could talk about communication for like 10 blogs worth of rambling, but I'm going to focus on one main idea for now: in short, keep your client updated on the project status before he has a reason to ask.

Often freelancers help from a distance. David Jones in San Francisco doesn't know who I am. He doesn't know that I'm working away on his project on my couch in Atlanta (oops, did I just tell you I work on my couch? crap). If he's a first-time customer, or even second- or third-time customer, he doesn't yet know that he can trust me to deliver by our deadline come hell or high water ... or that I will let him know if we're off track.

I had to learn this somewhat the hard way. I was used to my corporate job where everyone trusted me to do my work. When I first started freelancing, I would get annoyed with clients that emailed me with the old, "How's it going over there?" Now I know the secret: beat them to it. Just communicate. Tell them something. If you're merely a Skype handle four states over and a picture that's supposedly you, but maybe not, you can imagine how your client might get nervous when he doesn't hear from you regularly.

Tell your client when she can expect to hear from you next or when you expect to have the next "piece" completed, or even tell her you're going to be off-the-grid for a couple days and will be in touch next week. As a freelancer, you do have the luxury of setting your own schedule (that's one of the biggest perks for me), but you will make your life much easier if you communicate it to your clients when it makes sense.

Freelancing: How I got started, and how you can too

I started freelancing pretty much on a whim, which is how many things in my life begin. I'd always edited small things for family and friends, throughout college and since graduation. "Jacki, can you review my resume?" ... "Hey, I have this one paragraph that just doesn't sound right, can you look at it?" I'm not really sure how that even started.

I don't have an English degree. I actually took zero English or writing classes in college because I exempted whatever English requirements by getting a 5 on the AP English test. I'd never considered myself a great writer at that point and the 5 on the test honestly shocked me. I guess for that one day I was really good at analyzing poetry ... or maybe the subjective scorer was just feeling generous.

Maybe this was the fateful, drunken night ...

So yeah, I don't know how my editing for friends and family really started, but I know it led to one drunken conversation that changed everything. Yep, I was drunk and I was bragging. I overheard a friend talking about writing business proposals for her MBA class, and how hard it was to meld the pieces together when writing as a team. I proceeded to tell her how awesome I am at "that kinda thing." Editing together different voices and making them sound like one cohesive and clear thought process. I told her I'd be glad to help if she was ever in a bind.

She took me up on it. I think I edited two group business projects for her team and I refused payment. I didn't feel "qualified" to charge for these services. (That feeling took a while to kick and still peeks its head back out at me sometimes.) Anyway, she asked if I'd ever heard of oDesk, an online community for finding freelance jobs that many of her classmates had used before. I hadn't and I was intrigued. I got online that night and started submitting for editing and some admin-related jobs. Fourteen months later I left my job to freelance full-time.

I'll fast forward a bit here ... I now basically use three sites (although not all my clients come through these sites now, this is how I started and I still use them):

• Elance.com
• oDesk.com
• Fiverr.com (Update: I now do not use and specifically do not recommend Fiverr)

... in that order. I've tried others and I never end up staying with them. That's not to say these are the only good ones, but they're the ones I'm settled on for now. If I had the time, the next one on the list would be craigslist. Some people like to hire local even if they've never met you. I've gotten great jobs through craigslist, but it's not exactly as user-friendly as the other sites, which are specifically designed for this type of work.

The quickest way to start freelancing is to make profiles on these sites for any service you can offer remotely. Of course writing and editing are on the top of my list, but check out this full list of categories from oDesk.com (with my personal categories checked) ... these sites go well beyond writing and editing.

Reference: oDesk.com

Quick notes about these sites:

Elance and oDesk jobs are mostly applied for by the freelancer. You have your profile, you can upload samples, and you can take skills tests. Then you search for jobs and apply by writing a cover letter and perhaps providing other information, and by bidding on the job. You may also be invited to apply for a job, but that is less frequent.

Both sites take a cut, but it's 10% or less and that's pretty standard. They are giving you a very valuable service in that they connect you with people all over the world and protect you financially from fraud. So you can feel pretty safe and have lots of options and it certainly seems worth it to me.

The fees aren't the annoying part of the sites, it's the competition and the expectation of cheap services. You are not only connected to hirers all over the world, you're also competing with freelancers all over the world. Depending on where someone is living, he or she is often willing to work for much less than you are. It boils down to these few pointers:

1. You have to be willing to work for less to build up your profile and rating. Most people aren't going to hire you for top rates when you have no street cred on the site. Leave your ego at the door, at least for now. At the same time, you will start to learn that certain hirers are really looking for the cheapest possible work, which is almost always someone outside of the U.S. ... so you'll learn to start ignoring these jobs over time.
2. It's a numbers game. You have to be persistent and patient. Some hirers do truly want a really good writer (or other skill) and are willing to pay for it, but you have to find them. You learn to look for clues or certain signs, but you also just have to apply to a lot of jobs. Think of it as putting in your time as a newbie, earning your stripes, whatever.

That's really it. If you do these two things and you're decent at the skill you're offering, you will build up your profile, rating, and "hireability" over time.

Note on next two paragraphs: See above link to why I no longer use Fiverr!

Fiverr is different. It's more like a shopping site. You offer something for $5 (called a "gig") and people can buy it. For example, I have gigs for 500 words of editing, 50 words of copy writing, and some other fun things I've tried over time ... like providing feedback on online dating profiles. The best thing about this site is that the jobs come to you. No searching, no cover letters. The worst thing about this site, and this actually angers me, is that it takes 20%. So not only do you often end up working too hard for $5, but then you only get $4. Then you transfer it to PayPal and lose another small percentage. It should really be called Three-point-ninety-two-err.

You might be wondering why I still use this site. Well, it's great to have tiny jobs that fill in the cracks. If I can ever drop a site because I'm just that busy, Fiverr will go first. I honestly think it's highway robbery for them to take 20%. I do pause my gigs pretty often when other work is keeping me busy (it's super-easy to do) ... but when I'm not, it's nice to have those little jobs. 

Okay, I think that's enough for now! Head to one of these sites and give it a try, what do you have to lose? Feel free to ask any questions below.

31 and time to grow up?

I'm 31 years old. After 8.5 years of job security, high salaries, promotions, raises, and too many pats on the back to even begin counting, I left my career as an IT Consultant in corporate America in February of 2014. I left to pursue a career in freelance writing, editing, and perhaps acting. I copy write, ghost write, and edit pretty much anything. I'm not sure if acting will ever pay my bills or if that's even my goal, but it will always be how I spend a good part of my time. I'm finding a growing passion for writing and running my own business, and I'm open to either writing or acting getting more of my attention at any given moment.

This blog will serve a couple of purposes, if I choose to stick with it.

One, I like informal writing and the idea that it might entertain or advise others. I spend a lot of my days writing for other people or editing their words, and I love it, but I need to put my own words out here too. I'm also writing my own book, but more on that later.

Two, I think we are in an exciting time in which many people are learning to work for themselves or find more flexible ways to earn a living. In some ways it's really easy to go out on your own with something like writing, but it's not without challenges. If I can give people some help along the way or encouragement to give it a try, I want to. I think the world will get better each time someone decides to pursue a more creative or passionate way of earning a living: one that comes with more freedom, less meetings, and less bureaucracy.

So I'm writing this for me and, if you're an aspiring freelancer, I'm writing this for you. Well, maybe not this particular post, but I'll get there.

October 2008, 25 years old:
Shortest hair yet (and since)

Today I just want to touch briefly on something I'm struggling with ... and that is how hard it can be to make truly big life decisions. Not just the ones that seem big, but the ones that are big for you because you're you. Some people struggle to decide on a big haircut ... my drastic haircuts usually happen on a whim with some scissors in the bathroom, to be fixed later by a professional. No, I never regret it later.

I've never really had to make a decision that felt big to me. That may seem crazy to people who know me, or even only know me as much as you've learned so far from this blog, but any big decisions to this point in my life have felt like inevitabilities. The answer presented itself. The choice seemed obvious, at least to me.

Picking a college is one of the first big choices made by many American kids. In short, when I walked onto the Virginia Tech campus, I fell in love. I knew I had to make a decision, it was just a matter of which school. My reality at the time did not give me any room to consider not going to college, so I had to pick one, and the choice seemed clear.

Interviewing for jobs my senior year has some interesting highlights that might get shared later, but the important point here is that it was another obvious choice for me. Getting a "good job" right out of college was again the only option under my present reality. I struggled through interviews with "the big dogs," and hated all of them. The feeling was mutual. When I interviewed with CGI, still a great company, but with some notable culture differences from my prior interviewers, I actually enjoyed myself. I wanted to work there, no thought required. When they offered me work in Atlanta or Fairfax, Atlanta seemed the obvious choice. I'd heard a lot of bad press on Northern Virginia having gone to school with a bunch of kids that came from there (since then I've realized they probably weren't the best source of information, but anyway ... ); Atlanta was closer to my parents and had a cool reputation in my 22-year-old mind, and so I went.

May 2005: Graduation Day with a good friend

Since moving to Atlanta, I've moved neighborhoods and I bought my own condo. I decided not to get married. I bought my first car. I quit coaching volleyball. Obviously "the big guy" (at least that's how others see it) is my recent career change. Oh, and I've had many a drastic haircut. All of these decisions have one thing in common: they never felt like something I was picking, but rather going with the obvious choice ... what I had to do ... not because I didn't have freedom, but because it was just so clear to me what I wanted within the options I had. When you're having daily nightmares about coaching because the parents are crazy, when the best hybrid on the market at the time is a Prius and you just love it, when you only have one really good choice for a condo in your price range in the zip code where you want to live ... some decisions just fall into your lap.

Big girl pants?

Okay, so now, I want to move. I want to move out of my condo in Atlanta. That's the only thing I know for sure. I don't know if I want to move 5 miles southeast to a part of town I know I'd like ... or if I want to move to Seattle, or Amsterdam, or Charlotte, or LOS ANGELES? (Okay, no, probably not L.A.) This is new territory for me. I have no deadline for making a decision. I have no gut feelings telling me what to do, other than move neighborhoods. I have several priorities floating around in my head and adding to the confusion including being close to family (and which family members?), being close to the film industry, getting as fresh of a start as possible yet not wanting to run from my problems, weather, cost of living ... and tying this all into the theme of this blog, when you're a freelancer like me, the options are ENDLESS.

All of this has made me realize that if I move right now, no matter where I choose, it may be the biggest decision I've made so far ... because it's the first one that feels like it really requires decision-making, weighing options, and taking a risk. So that's got me wondering ... at 31 years old, am I finally going to be forced to grow up and put on my big girl pants? Well, I suppose it's time.