A Friend A Day Sends Success Your Way
December 1, 2007 by Deb
Filed under Freelance Writing
My friend Ryan Caldwell at Performancing encourages us all to make a friend a day. Indeed through Ryan I made many friends, and thanks to those new friends I’m making more. Friendship is viral. Whether in real life or online, making friends every day is a good thing.
It’s Who You Know
Here’s why it’s good to make a lot of friends in this business:
- Your friends offer you their overflow. I can’t tell you how many of my friends offer to outsource projects to me when they have too much work.
- Your friends make good references. Yes indeedy. No one gives the love like a friends.
- Your friends know people. You want to know people too. Especially people in the same business.
- Your friends help when you’re lonely. Even if it’s a Twitter or Skype buddy, it’s nice to have people to talk to when the day gets too quiet.
Friends make you smile You can’t have too many of them.
Did you write something nice yet?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I was just starting out, I was surprised by how much business was sent my way by my personal friends. My best client came via a friend and others have put me in touch with others who hire writers. It’s been more productive than the more “traditional” forms of networking, IMO.
hi pie, you forgot the part where you can give your FRIEND some overflow, too!
That is so true! Wanna be my friend so I can get your overflow? ROFL I love your posts Deb and I love, love that picture of the kittens. They are so adorable.
Yippe skippy. Let’s be friends. Is it really friendship if you’re just being nice to people in order to get them to give you stuff? Seems like all this social networking and “friend” stuff you keep mentioning is nothing like friendship at all, just a shallow way to try and make more money.
Hey, more power to you if it works. But maybe “leech buddies” would be a better term.
Oops. I guess that wasn’t nice. Oh well.
@Blogginess,
Thanks for stopping by and welcome to FWJ. I believer friendship is give and take. My friends (and we’re all friends here, I hope) know I would go to the ends of the earth for them.
While they do help with networking, they also help with moral support and just being there when you need your faith in humanity restored.
The good thing about friendship is that friends usually give without expecting anything in return. This community, and the blogosphere in general has taught me the value of friendship and community which is why I’m always looking for ways to pay it forward.
@ Deb You can’t see it, but I applauded when I read your last post.
@HerBlogginess – If you’re implying that Deb is leeching off of others I’d like to suggest you stick around a bit more and learn more about her. Most of us owe our careers to her. She allows us to benefit from her traffic, grants us access to the best jobs and teaches us the little things other writers and bloggers don’t share too much.
I don’t know any writer or blogger who gives of herself as much as Deb so no leeching there.
I agree. Writing/blogging is a pretty lonely business, especially for those of us who are used to interacting with a lot of people at a business. I just started blogging for b5media (on smallbusinessboomers.com) and I am finding that commenters can be turned into friends.
Thanks for the good post.
Jean
@Lisa I have to agree, Deb definitely GIVES. I think that herblogginess may have been making a comment to my previous comment about being friends and taking overflow…but I figured typing ROFL would have acknowledged it as joke; just making a point that unfortunately people do act like that; only want to be friends so they can get more…ya know…the me,me,me syndrome.
Deb,
Please kiss those kitty faces for me and scruff their little heads.
About online friends etc, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of bloggers do use social networking to make contacts, rather than friends. Contacts can result in a one hand washes the other type of thing, even if not a friendship.
I mean, I don’t know anyone here well enough to call them a true friend (in the old fashioned sense of the word), but there are several people I’ve made contact with through this blog (Deb and Jodee included) who I would help out if they needed it, and they’ve helped me out.
As freelancers it pays to make contacts, not for leeching (or even friendship necessarily) but because it pays to expand our networks work-wise. I have a list of 20 or more people from this blog alone who I know what type of work they do and keep their info on hand for referring clients who approach me with work I don’t do (from press release writing to soccer blogging). That alone is a value to me, because I can save my clients time and keep them happy. I’ve also gotten several job offers from people who know me through this blog and others, so it goes both ways.
I really need to write something nice after the negative week. Maybe a new recipe on the tea blog, something sweet and fruity, then share the results with some friends and record their reactions. Anything would be better than this past week.
About the friends…you’re so right. I’ve made more friends in this line of work than any other. There have only been a couple of real stinkers, but the positive people have outweighed the negative by a hundredfold. It doesn’t really matter to me about the overflow/work help, just the adult human contact is the very best payoff of all. For work at home mothers, this advice concerning friendship is crucial. Thanks for a great post.
Since I cannot write something nice on my blog yet, because it is still down (bad week), I will write something nice here.
I beleive that people should get along and learn by each others mistakes as well as positive outcomes. If everyone works together for support and honesty, the world of freelance writing would be so much nicer.
My quote, “Do not criticize me for writing what I write and do not bad mouth me because you think you are superior to me. We are both people trying to make a living in this world. If you feel the need to say something bad about me, please keep it to yourself, I am happy with my work and myself.”
Everyone would be so much happier if people would practice this, don’t you think?
Pam