(I wrote this column for this month’s Freelancentral newsletter, inspired by a recent trip to Istanbul and Dubai.)

In my life BSMOB (Before Starting My Own Business), I always had a holiday to look forward to. I’d return from one and within two weeks, the next one would be booked. I’ve been lucky enough to travel extensively (thanks to a nine year stint in London, earning those lovely pounds). But since returning to Cape Town in 2004, and more specifically starting Freelancentral, finances and responsibilities have seriously curtailed my globetrotting.

But this month I’ve been able to travel again and I’d forgotten how refreshing and inspiring it is.

So here are my five reasons why I believe all freelancers, regardless of discipline, should travel regularly:

1. Reset your perspective. There’s nothing like 6,000 miles between you and your day-to-day stresses to make you realise that those things that you thought were super-critical really are not.
2. Unplug and be present. Going for a week or two without Twitter, Facebook, email and – gulp – even your cellphone (just ‘forget’ to ask your network to activate your international roaming…) is extremely liberating. For the first day or two, you’ll jump each time you hear a phone ring, or might have social media withdrawal, but it’s amazing how quickly you adjust to being unplugged. You’ll be a lot more present with the people around you and more aware of and receptive to everything you see and experience. Rather than multitasking, you’ll be able to focus on absorbing the place you’re visiting. While being connected certainly has its merits, being disconnected does too. And you may well find you are able to do without some of the noise when you get back. For example, I am going to be cutting down on my personal Twitter account dramatically as I didn’t miss it at all while I was away.
3. Get out of your comfort zone. For some people (yes, I am one), the ideal trip is landing in a remote island where no-one speaks a word of English, at 3am with no accommodation booked. For others, it’s about lounging around a 5 start beach resort and doing nothing more taxing than ordering a cocktail. Either way, breaking out of your routine, comfort zone and shaking up your habits (down to having something different for breakfast) will get you thinking differently.
4. Practice what you do, in a non-work way. If you’re a freelance writer, keep a travel journal and write about your experiences. Designer? Looks for interesting details in the buildings you see and sketch them. Photographer? Well, you’ll have a field day! Try your hand at a different skill too – I’m a writer but when I’m on holiday, I take thousands (literally) of photos and like to compile a small album of the most interesting ones when I get home. It won’t feel like work, but you’re still being creative – and this may even inspire your future projects. It will also be a good reminder of your trip – I love to reread my travel journals.
5. See how things are done elsewhere. And I don’t mean how people freelance in another country – rather tune into what products are popular and how they are marketed. The photo with this article is of an isotonic drink that apparently originated in Japan and is sold in several countries around the world. As a writer, I find the name ‘Pocari Sweat’ pretty amusing and totally off-putting… what’s a pocari and why is its sweat bottled?! One of my favourite things to do in another country is to wander around a supermarket for half an hour – it’s a great insight into the culture and how companies market in that country. Just because we do things a certain way here doesn’t mean we should get stuck in a rut – sometimes seeing how it’s done elsewhere can spark all sorts of ideas.

Obviously, freelancers can’t take off at the drop of a hat – you need to plan your income and cash flow before, during and after your travels, otherwise it can be extremely costly. But do try to make a plan to travel internationally at least once every two years – and go somewhere you’ve never been before. Planning in advance will often mean you can take advantage of special offers and cheap deals. Just because you’re freelancing doesn’t mean you should deny yourself a good break.

Bon voyage!

Three things are happening in my business in the space of a month which are both a little overwhelming and very exciting:

1. I’m officially launching a new division of Freelancentral, which will be an outsourced marketing consultancy. Already we’ve been working with a number of clients as their ‘virtual marketing manager’, helping them with their marketing, from strategy to implementation. It seems that there are companies out there who shy away from using agencies (because of perceived costs, agency-speak and – dare I say it – intimidation?) but who are not sure what sort of freelancers they need – or what they should ask them to do. That’s where I step in – offering a service that’s somewhere between freelancer and agency. Of course being able to draw on the Freelancentral pool of over 4,000 freelancers really helps when it comes to the implementation! But more about this soon…

2. I’m about to sign a lease for my first office premises ever. Working from a home office has been wonderful, but it’s time to get some dedicated space for the business. I’ve managed to find a place where I need only sign for 12 months, so that’s a little less scary. And I’m optimistic that we’ll need more space by this time next year anyway. The fun part is visualising what our idea working environment should be like – budget permitting, of course. There won’t be a nasty beech veneer desks, credenza or steel filing cabinet to be seen!

3. I’ve got an assistant and freelance project manager on board. It’s fantastic to be able to pass work over to them to handle. My workload had increased massively this year to the point where I’ve been having nightmares about it. Literally, I dream about infinite to-do lists and crashing websites. So while I still want to be involved in strategy and overseeing everything, there are many elements that I can delegate to people I trust. It’s exciting to start building a core team of great people and increasing our capacity to take on more, interesting projects.

So if I’m a little scarce posting on here, there are three good reasons. The new division is a few weeks away from launching – I’ll be back on here soon to introduce it.

Choosing a name for your pet is hard enough. Naming children is even worse. But naming a business must be the hardest.

Sure, your kids might hate you until they’re old enough to pop in at Home Affairs and change their name (I was lucky enough NOT to be named ‘Gaylyn’, despite that being my Dad’s first choice). Your pets won’t care. But your business’s name will impact on your clients, suppliers and staff.

What you call your business can also impact on its success. Is it memorable? Does it convey your brand values? Is it easy to spell, so people find your website quickly? Does it have positive connotations? Does it have any connotations at all? One of my freelancers wrote about this on Freelancentral recently and I feel her pain!

When I launched Freelancentral, I thought long and hard about what to call it and ended up choosing a name that ‘does what it says on the tin’. My web company suggested that I register www.freelancecentral.co.za (spot the small difference?) too and funnily enough, most of the site’s traffic comes via the mis-spelled domain. A lot of people also ask me how ‘Freelance’ is going. So even with a simple name, people can get it wrong.

Right now I’m christening my outsourced marketing consultancy. It’s been a nightmare trying to come up with a name that epitomises what we do. And once I’ve hit on something, I’ve been on a high for all of 30 seconds until an online search reveals that someone else thought of it first and the domains aren’t available.

Eventually I came up with a name that I think is perfect. And both the .com and .co.za domains were available (including the mis-spelled versions…) – hooray! As soon as the logo is finalised, I’ll do a Big Reveal here, so watch this space…

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, perhaps I should be pleased that someone stole the content from one of my articles and passed it off as her own (i.e. without crediting me or getting my permission to use it) on her website.

But I’m not pleased. I am shocked that someone who is in competition with me would do such a sneaky and underhand thing. Plagiarism is stealing. I am saddened that this sort of thing happens (a lot, according to some of my Twitter friends) – and I fail to understand why she thought I wouldn’t find out.

Instead of stealing my work, I wonder why she didn’t opt for link love or collaboration? She operates in a different part of the country – we might even have been able to refer clients to each other. Instead, she’s now on my blacklist.

Check whether your work has been plagiarised

Simply Google a phrase from something you’ve written and if it appears elsewhere online, it will come up in the search results. Sometimes people make small changes to word order (or in the case of my plagiariser, she added typos and deleted some examples) – this is to fool search engines into thinking it is not cut and paste content.

Another useful tool is CopyScape – which is actually what I used to discover that my work was being used elsewhere.

A final word

To the person who plagiarised my work: shame on you.

Your website may create a first impression of your company, but the first interaction a potential customer has with an actual person is just as important.

I recently purchased home gym equipment from a leading brand (no more naming and shaming… you’ll have to work it out ), stocked by a chain store. Instore, the brand’s huge pull-up banners impressed me with their positive messages of healthy living and energy – and promises of comprehensive after-sales support. A little plaque on the machine itself also promises friendly assistance from their customer service helpline.

I had trouble assembling the equipment so called the company for assistance. The lady who answered mumbled a subdued ‘Hello… Jane*’. She didn’t say the company’s name and I didn’t know if I’d called the right place. After repeating her name, the employee realised I was looking for the company’s name. Her listless tone was so at odds with the company’s image that I was quite taken aback.

At the end of the call I asked the employee if she was OK – she sounded so down throughout the conversation. Her response: ‘No… yes… um…’. Which was pretty much how the entire conversation had gone.

A business acquaintance of mine made a huge impression on me a few years ago. He’s extremely busy, but when I called him he answered with ‘Jo! How lovely to hear from you!’ His enthusiasm and genuine interest in talking to me was affirming and memorable.

The experience with the home gym company reminded me that in my own business I need to:

• Make sure all calls are answered with the company name as well as the staff member’s name (e.g. ‘Freelancentral, Jo speaking’).
• All calls are answered with enthusiasm (our most important brand value)
• We sound delighted to hear from callers (who are usually our clients).
• We are well-informed about our services and can answer queries intelligently and efficiently.

One side-effect of answering a call with enthusiasm is that it really takes the wind out of the sails of a grumpy caller. Being greeted in an energetic, genuine and positive way automatically puts a caller in a better mood.

Your brand is encompassed by EVERY touchpoint a customer has with you, your employees and your products. Are the people answering your phones creating the right first impression for your brand?

* Names have been changed to protect the apathetic.

Your customers are potentially your best salespeople. If you want to get them talking positively about your brand, consider thoughtful, low-cost, high impact touches that will surprise and delight them.

Pinelands in Cape Town is a sleepy suburb. People joke that if you move to Pinelands, you’ll never leave. It’s home to Old Mutual’s head office, schools named after colours, lots of families with 2.5 kids and a fair number of old age homes. It’s nice enough, but not the sort of place where you’d expect to be wowed by, well, anything.

Which is why Joe Fish is such a pleasant surprise. This little seafood restaurant on the edge of the suburb’s only notable shopping centre is not fancy, but it is a delight. Your chips arrive on your plate wrapped in a ‘newspaper’ cone – and when you ask for the bill, it’s delivered with marshmallow fish in a little tin ‘treasure’ chest. Quirky, memorable, fun – and the sort of thing you’d tell your friends about.

At Col’Cacchio pizzerias, customers get to take home miniature Tabasco bottles. Ideal, says now-loyal Col’Cacchio fan candieo via Twitter, who keeps hers on hand in case of ‘emergency oyster-eating’.

When you check your car in at the Long Beach Car Wash at the mall in Noordhoek, the staff record your cellphone number and hand you a voucher for a free coffee at Wimpy and a discount voucher for the mall’s Spur restaurant. When your car’s ready, they send you an SMS. How thoughtful! The cost to the car wash? Probably about 12c. The results? I’d guess high repeat business rates and customers who tell their friends about it.

In London in the mid 1990s, ordering stock images meant that the photolibraries would have to bike over the transparencies, which agencies would scan and return. One of the libraries used to send a small bag of sweets with each order. Guess who we bought images from most often? Yup, the photolibrary with the 10p jellybeans.

When you’re next considering how you can integrate online and social media with your traditional advertising and branding activity, take a step back and think about how you can add thoughtful little touches into your brand mix. Do it right and you’ll build amazing customer loyalty – and you might be surprised at the impact on your bottom line.

Just because you’re running an ad on a social networking site, doesn’t mean you can let your standards slip

Eagle-eyed typo police like me are everywhere!

I find it quite funny that 90% of these small ads on Facebook contain typos.

How hard is it to get one sentence correct?

Just goes to show there is plenty of potential work out there for us editors!

This afternoon I went to get my hair cut. I was going to treat myself to a cut and blow-dry at a high profile hair stylist’s salon in Westlake (the guy who runs it is a  well-known hair stylist, he’s booked up until August but one of his senior stylists had an opening). Not a good experience – but it’s given me food for thought:

First, I stopped by the salon on my way home the other day to make an appointment in person (and also check out the salon as I’d never been there before). They were closed. When I phoned the next day, I got their voicemail. Hmm. I hate leaving messages for appointments so I called again a couple of days later – voicemail again. Eventually I left a message. The next day someone called me back and scheduled me in for 3pm today.

Today I arrived at the salon at 2.59pm – I have a thing about punctuality and hate being late. I introduced myself and was told to take a seat. Fifteen minutes later I was still sitting there. Yes, the chairs were achingly trendy and leather-covered. Yes, the decor is very nice. But what I was there for was a haircut.

Just as I was about to get up and ask how much longer it would be, someone came over and (minus apology for keeping me waiting) showed me to a (rather hard) white leather chair, this time in front of the mirrors. Hooray, I thought, here we go. But no. I sat there like a spare part for another 5 minutes. Enough was enough and I started gathering my things to leave. A stylist appeared from nowhere and introduced herself as the person who would be doing my hair. No apology, no ’sorry to keep you waiting’.

By this stage I was pretty cross – I’d been kept waiting for 20 minutes with no apology, update or even an offer of refreshment. I’d scheduled my work and meetings around this appointment. I ended up walking out – and ultimately wasting 80 minutes (it was an hour round trip). The receptionist did call after me ‘We’ll give you a free treatment’. Oh yippee. Going back in there would be like sending food back at a restaurant – and I didn’t really want to find out what the hairdressers’ equivalent of spitting on your salad is…

What could the salon have done better in this case?

1. Don’t have your main landline on voicemail for days at a time. I didn’t know if they were still in business – and I’m probably not the only client who has wondered that, given the recession. I also had no idea when – or if – they’d call me back (to their credit, they did call within 24 hours). If I hadn’t had them recommended to me, I would have given up and gone elsewhere.

2. If you know in advance that appointments are running late, call your clients, apologise and ask them to come in 15 minutes later. But do this well before their appointments if you can, so they can plan their day and journey.

3. If clients arrive and it’s clearly going to be some time until they are seen, let them know immediately and apologise for it. Give them the option of popping out (this salon is in a small mall) and calling them when you’re ready for them. Or at least offer to get them tea, coffee or water while they wait. Respect your clients’ time and always apologise for wasting it. Keep them updated as to what is going on – don’t just plop them on the comfy chairs and ignore them.

5. If you have seriously annoyed a client, your damage control should be more than yelling a freebie offer after them as they head out the door. This salon has my phone number so what would really score points would be for someone to call me tomorrow, apologise, and make an effort to remedy the situation. Like offering me an appointment with the owner himself (or any senior stylist) at my earliest convenience. I don’t want freebies; I just want them to recognise that they messed up and show me that it is important to them to try to make it right.

These are such small things which cost practically nothing – but they can make a huge difference. I’m quite sad about today as I was really looking forward to a fab new haircut. Instead, I wasted half my afternoon and got a walk-in appointment for a trim (and a glass of water!) at a small local salon where the staff were friendly and efficient.

Have you had any experiences like this where a company either completely disrespected your time – or remedied an unhappy situation effectively? I’d love to hear about it.

Yesterday it was announced that South Africa experienced -6.4% growth in the last quarter. So we’ve finally joined the rest of the world in a recession.

Luckily, right now, I’m experiencing the opposite, and am billing over double year-on-year for the first 5 months of 2009. It’s not just me – two of my freelancer friends both posted on Facebook that they’d been at work since 2am and 3am this week and are overloaded with work. One is a graphic (print) designer; the other is a web designer and developer. Both are excellent at what they do.

I do get calls from freelancers who are panicking about the lack of work. My usual question is to ask ‘What are you doing to market yourself?’ – and usually the answer is ‘Erm, nothing… maybe just calling my usual clients to see if there is any work.’ That’s not enough in these times – active marketing is what will get your name out there and clients calling.

The work IS out there, and there’s a lot of it. You’ve just got to go and find it.

I wrote a column for IT Web this month about why it’s a good idea to outsource to the pros when it comes to marketing – specifically if you don’t have trained/experienced marketers in-house. DIY marketing can often do more harm than good!

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Marketing. It’s a word that strikes fear into the hearts of many business owners. It conjures up images of posh ad agencies and achingly trendy creatives; and meetings peppered with jargon like ‘integrated campaigns’, ’sticky strategies’ and ‘monetising your online presence’. Shudder.

All this can understandably make you run away very fast – and rather try to handle your marketing yourself. Tempting as this is, just don’t do it. Why?

1. You’ll look unprofessional. Don’t let amateurish or sub-standard marketing undermine your company’s reputation, products and services. Chances are you are not marketing experts and what you think is cool, might be a real no-no. (Check out YourLogoMakesMeBarf.com for some examples…) Rather get a professional to do it – whether it’s a marketing consultant to help you with strategy, a designer to do a good corporate ID or a writer/proofreader to ensure your copy is clean. The ’spar bath’s’ company that advertised in my local newspaper really should have done the latter. Yes, some clients will judge you based on poor grammar.
2. Spending time on activities that aren’t your core offering is a waste. Rather focus on what you do well. Maybe you’re a techie. Maybe you have a financial background. You can’t be a specialist in everything. So do what you do well, and outsource the rest. A good marketing person or creative will be able to complete the task much faster than you will anyway.
3. Just because you know your products inside out doesn’t mean you’ll be the best person to market them. In fact, usually this counts against you. Often because people know their industry so well, they assume a basic level of knowledge in their potential customers that just isn’t there. Get someone from outside your business to do your marketing and they’ll turn complex, technical or jargon-filled content into easily understandable messages.

Read the rest of my 10 tips here. What are your thoughts? Do leave a comment below