It’s the day after Christmas and I want to sleep, but I couldn’t miss this update. On the 23rd I finished work discouraged. I was working four leads for bigger jobs and one I hadn’t heard from in a week, one in two days, one had been awarded to someone else, and one hadn’t responded since my bid. I knew that the holidays kept people from responding as quickly, but I was looking at a holiday with now work – not a cheery prospect.<\/p>\n
On Monday evening I had a conference with a client who wants a pet product designed. Having not gotten good responses from my (beautiful! but long) word doc project plans, I sent a condensed version of the plan in a message along with a (slightly lower) price (because I had no other jobs). And he said yes! Miracle one: I had another job lined up.<\/p>\n
I spent most of the night of the 23rd working to finish up my mirror and locket job, staying up past four. I woke up to great news: the sprinkler emitter job, the one I wrote about two weeks ago which had been silent for 8 days, wrote back to accept my proposal. They’d received my email asking about further questions and wishing a happy holiday, and apologized for the delay. Miracle two: I have a big job lined up.<\/p>\n
So now I’m awaiting first payment on two jobs. I’ve gone ahead and started work on the requirements and concepts, and I really am hoping that they don’t back out. My basic theory is to treat the clients as friends and partners, and not be too strict about a couple days either side for payments, which I think will last until I get burned.<\/p>\n
Keeping my fingers crossed that I wake up tomorrow $2k richer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s the day after Christmas and I want to sleep, but I couldn’t miss this update. On the 23rd I finished work discouraged. I was working four leads for bigger jobs and one I hadn’t heard from in a week, one in two days, one had been awarded to someone else, and one hadn’t responded … <\/p>\n