Patience – why it’s a virtue and how I need more of it
Discouragement – the daily snare
Waiting – Indigo and I hate it
Losing – hopefully only temporarily
These were all potential titles for this post I haven’t written. As you can guess, I haven’t has much good news since last time. Or at least, it feels that way.
I’ve spent overwhelmingly more time talking to a handful of clients about a few jobs than I have spent actually producing anything. And my reward has been, drum roll please: silence.
Now, I like silence. This week I went up to the mountains and sat on a peak looking over the mountain ranges below and marinated in the silence. But this silence is different.
With the sprinkler job, which seemed so sure, I didn’t bid with a prototype, and when they asked about the possibility I sent back an amendment. I responded quickly, provided a reasonable solution, I thought, and have since been greeted with: silence.
With the phone lamp design contest I spent several hours designing, speaking to the project lead, tweaking and expanding. They were to decide on Monday, and since Monday afternoon I have had: silence.
A few days ago I spoke to a guy who wants to repurpose used kegs. I spent several hours creating a proposal to days ago and sent it off and have since been accompanied by: silence.
And of course there’s surf guy who is always lagging in communication. But at least with him I expect the silence.
With the others I’m trying to quickly figure out what I’m doing wrong, because after investing 4 – 10 hours in each of these jobs, something I’m doing seems to be scaring them off.
Whatever it is, I need to figure it out quickly. Of the five jobs I was hoping for, I’ve got one proposal left to write. Again, the client seems very positive about working together. And it would be a fun job, something that would really stretch my creativity. But how do I land it?
Here’s hoping for a Christmas miracle where all the silence turns to Elance deposits.