Archive for February, 2009

(adapted from material David posted to the discussion list of the STC Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG; used with permission)

Your local Chamber of Commerce is an excellent resource, whether you’re looking for a full-time position or a freelance project. In a large metropolitan region there may a number of them, and they are often called by different names, depending on the city or town. Find yours by searching the US Chamber of Commerce directory search page.

All Chambers have directories of their members, because they act as free advertising, and many members prefer to do business with other Chamber members. Many of these local directories are available to the public for free. Others are closed directories, available to members only. The contact information is always kept current since this is the information the Chamber uses to maintain communication with the member companies. In my experience, the information is about as close to 100% accurate as it is possible to get. I did a mailing to 350 companies in our area and I did not get even one of them back. Every one of them was delivered! You will not get that sort of result with a purchased mailing list.

The contacts tend to be senior executives and usually include phone numbers with extensions. Many times you will find a listing for something like the “J. R. Smith Company” and the contact will be “James R. Smith.” This type of information is golden.

Please be aware a company may be listed in more than one category or with two or more Chambers in an area. It is very helpful to keep all contact information as a master list in a Word document. This allows you to use the Find feature to check if you already have that company’s information. I just did a copy/paste and made a few edits to clean up the data. Keep track of your contacts using this document.

Medium-sized and smaller companies may be a better target than large corporations. Fortune 500 execs are managing businesses that are so large they do not have time to think about the small stuff. To them you are small stuff. With a smaller company, you will often get to talk to the person who owns the company instead of being screened out by a gatekeeper. Execs in medium/small companies tend to be more aware of the local business climate than their corporate counterparts are, and they can more easily take advantage of whatever opportunities come their way.

Make sure you have a quality website with samples and professional business cards before doing contacting people from the directory. Either of them may be requested, depending on how technologically current your contact is. Our site is designed as a capabilities brochure, and we direct people there if they want to “look at something.” Do not rely on the site to actually bring you business. Encourage people to bookmark your site for future use, even if they have no current need. Also offer to send or drop off a business card. You can use the “what if you need someone quickly” approach.

Encourage them to consider you for a long term but intermittent relationship, perhaps 15 hours per month. It is not worth the time for a placement company to handle this kind of business so you do need not compete with them. It is also useful if your income is coming from multiple sources, especially in the current economic situation. Make a point of mentioning that your rates are the same as a placement firm would pay you, less their markup (use the word profit). Instead of emphasizing the cost of your services, hammer on the savings of using you directly instead of through a placement firm.

Think of this as long-term marketing. You will probably find that very few companies have a current need. Any contract situations that might come up will probably be in the future, perhaps three to twelve months out. It will be necessary to keep in touch with the decision-maker as time goes on or all of your effort will be wasted.

What type of companies should you contact for technical communication work? Manufacturing companies and software houses often need help. Anything high tech is probably good. Also be aware many Chambers have an employment page where members list current openings. Most people do not know about these listings, but they can be a good source of leads.

(c)2009 David Cherney
David Cherney is a General Partner in The Baird Group, which provides technical communications and custom training services. He is also the Employment Co-Chair of the Northeast Ohio chapter of STC. His company website is located at http://www.thebairdgrp.com.

Have you visited Microsoft’s Help and Support web site, lately?

Noticed anything different?

Microsoft now offers a ‘Fix it’ option for a growing number of common issues. Instead of laboriously working your way through a 15-step procedure to solve a problem, you can click the Fix It button and Microsoft will fix the problem for you while you wander down to the kitchen for a snack, walk the dog, or cuddle the cat. (Sorry, my freelance lifestyle is getting in the way again. That should read: “wander down to the break room for a snack, go to the copier, or send the latest management memo to a colleague as a paper airplane over the cube wall.”)

I tested a few of the Fix It buttons, on knowledgebase articles I frequently use to troubleshoot clients’ problems with Outlook and Microsoft Word. They worked as advertised, quickly and correctly running the whole process with — so far — none of the gotchas I occasionally run into while manually managing the same procedure.

Personally, I’m always a little nervous when my computer hares off on its own to fiddle around under its own hood. But, this time, my fears weren’t justified. It remains to be seen how well the process will work with more complicated problems, though. Restoring Word toolbars and missing IE desktop icons isn’t rocket science, after all. But, it’s a good start.

The current economic disaster has caught many of our chapter members and their families. As with previous corporate layoffs, some people are trying to recover by starting their own businesses. This creates a nasty “Gotcha”if you are receiving unemployment benefits. According to the US Department of Labor, if you work on starting your own business, that can make you ineligible for unemployment benefits.

Unless, of course, you live in one of the seven states that has taken steps to make the whole process a bit more humane.

Fortunately for us, New York is one of the seven states that offers Self-Employment Assistance Benefits, according to this article from openforum.com.

From the article:
“Self-Employment Assistance offers dislocated workers the opportunity for early re-employment. The program is designed to encourage and enable unemployed workers to create their own jobs by starting their own small businesses.”

Rochester-area workers who think they would like to take advantage of this program are encouraged to visit RochesterWorks to verify their eligibility.