We’ve hit 100 tips! For the past 100 business days, I’ve been tweeting a daily consulting tip on the @artofgig twitter account, and compiling them here periodically. Here are all 100 tips in one document if you want to print them out. I am working on putting together a deck of cards with these tips, which will be available shortly, but feel free to make your own flashcards if you like.
Starting tomorrow, we’ll switch gears, and the daily tweet will focus on a different aspect of the art of gig.
Here are tips 91-100.
Consulting Tip #91: If you get bored easily, do not try to develop repeatable, polished workshops where you expect the content to converge to 100% reusability within a few iterations. Allow yourself to mess around with the material as much as you like to keep yourself interested.
Consulting Tip #92: Do not pitch a workshop when it is not in fact the right way to solve the client’s problem. Workshops are tempting because they seem like declining-cost/appreciating-value assets that compound in value with every delivery instance. This can be an illusion.
Consulting Tip #93: To keep yourself honest, and avoid rent-seeking temptations, progressively transform valuable things you learn into the lowest-cost delivery medium possible. The first time you offer an insight/idea, it might be worth $1000, but the 100th time should be free.
Consulting Tip #94: No matter how you drum up work, inbound leads almost always result in vastly superior gigs, so even if you start out with outbound, develop a plan to attract inbound.
Consulting Tip #95: When you get a referral via a trusted friend or existing client, do not try to close the deal solely on the strength of their recommendation. Take the time to establish some direct trust with an exploratory conversation.
Consulting Tip #96: Use exploratory conversations to actually explore rather than sell or pitch your services. If you walk into a conversation unable to imagine any circumstances under which you might be the one to say “No”, you’re not actually exploring.
Consulting Tip #97: Learn to switch gears from exploring to closing gigs in a professional, courteous way. Cover all essential details — rates, contracts, NDAs — efficiently, without awkwardness or embarrassment. That can cause confusion, delays, and misaligned expectations.
Consulting Tip #98: Arrange to get paid in the lowest-overhead way possible. The best case is a client’s admin using a corporate card to pay invoices online (the fee is worth it). The worst is a baroque vendor management system that might be so bad, it’s a reason to refuse a gig.
Consulting Tip #99: Every now and then, take a moment to appreciate the fact that you live in an era where you can enjoy such a stimulating, enriching, varied, and free-ranging working life. Thanks to the internet, we have access to a kind of deep fun few in history have had.
Consulting Tip #100: Never forget that the future of work is already here, and you’re it. You’re a pioneer. Act like one.
Here is Compilation #7 (76-90) if you want to backtrack and catch up.
P. S. I am working on putting together a deck of cards with these tips, which will be available shortly. You’ll be able to use that as a convenient set of prompts for your introspection sessions, discussions with other practitioners of the Art of Gig, etc.
If you’re active on twitter, and want to join the conversation there, follow @artofgig, introduce yourself via a reply to this pinned tweet, and follow some of your fellow subscribers on this list.