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Oh we so love e-mail. It’s fast, it’s a nice archive. We don’t have to get out of bed to send our first e-mail of the day (sometimes). But is e-mail the best way to communicate with your clients? Is it the best way to do business and send proposals? I don’t think so — and here’s a few reasons why.

The Digital Divide

As most of us are web workers, communicating via e-mail, VoIP and IM is second nature. The freelancer lifestyle in most cases means that we do the bulk of the work ourselves. Fast communication in these cases is crucial, but sometimes it can cost us projects. Why e-mail is bad:

Lack of emotion. Business is business, but people get emotional. No — I’m not talking about crying over your invoices or clients giving you a big hug when you finish their logo. I’m talking about the voice, the face, the stance, the actual reaction. You don’t get any of this via e-mail. Is the client really happy with the logo? Is he really that ecstatic? Does he hate your press release proposal or just think it needs a few tweaks?

Magnification. The purest form of communication, the written word. One word, one sentence can mean so many things to so many people. Find a potential client who doesn’t know (and doesn’t need to know) how to write well and you’ll really enjoy those e-mails…

Going back and forth. Sometimes you literally don’t understand what the client wants you to do. Examples are nice, but what about graphic design? Do you really want the client to draw over your beautiful proposal? What if he gets the idea to change your color scheme?

Show You’re Serious

Lots of people tell me they’ve gotten projects before simply because the other party didn’t bother to show up for the meeting. Clients have also told me that they’ve hired on this basis. Not showing your proposal personally is the same as not showing up to your first meeting with a client — except it can only end badly for you.

It’s all about the How. Remember Steve Jobs’ manila envelope? Do you remember the MacBook Air as “the thinnest laptop in the world” or “the laptop that can fit in a tiny, little, manilla envelope”? This is the exact same reason you need to present your proposal personally. The tone of your voice, the way you present it: it all influences your client’s final decision. The e-mail route seems easier at first glance, but it’s not as effective.

The truth is at the meeting. The first time the client looks, reads or listens to your work, no matter if it’s a press release, a website design or a musical composition, you have to be there. Some people will try to hide their thoughts for various reasons, but not many people can hide their initial reactions. They don’t need to. You’ll be able to see why Mr. Smith likes or doesn’t like your proposal. Not only that, but you’ll see just how much he likes it (or doesn’t like it!).

We all walk the walk. Your client has his or her own worries, hobbies, etc. E-mail conversations rarely end with a chat about what wine you both like. A designer or writer can, and should be able to, learn more from this kind of information than from the 30 page brief for the project.

But…

It takes time to arrange meetings. Aren’t you a freelancer? Aren’t you your own boss? Meetings should take minutes, not hours. Plan for them, expect them.

It forces me to see that client I don’t like. In this case you have more serious problems than meeting with your client. If you don’t like the client, don’t work for them. It’s as simple as that. If the project is well-paid and this is the reason you want to continue working for them, by all means, continue — but you must meet with them. It can only hurt you when you misunderstand that review e-mail for your proposal after the 10th revision.

It just takes time. Yes, it does. You can always take your bike: it’s good exercise. You’ll learn new things about your clients, which makes you a better contractor. You may actually start to like the person who thinks your work is worth their time and money, even if they haven’t made a stellar first-impression.

Let’s go analogue

We want to be treated seriously — like the big boys. We can’t, shouldn’t and won’t escape from meeting with our clients because sometimes it just makes sense. Some meetings will be time-wasters — that’s true — but knowing what your client is really thinking and the emotion he or she is showing while thinking that thought will make a huge difference.

Landing a project? Making the project outstanding? With our new found freedom as freelancers it’s time to take responsibility and show our clients that we mean business. The web worker, the digital creative — it doesn’t matter. Like any good thing in the world, meetings will do us good if we use them with care.

Original post by FreelanceSwitch.com

If you’ve been listening to the podcasts here at FreelanceSwitch.com, you know that I am a sucker for nice office supplies. Anything with color, anything with a cute design…these are the things that make my office a restful, organized place for me.

But there is that time of year that stirs it all up for me—when I need to refill my planner.

Don’t ask me why, but I can never find the pages with the layout that I like. I go from store to store each year searching for weekly pages with horizontal daily planning room. Instead, I find pages with tiny one-inch columns and scores of hourly markers down the side that are ideal mostly for busy doctors. This is my challenge.

I own one of those fake leather binder types of planners, which cost me about $40 a few years back. (It’s about 5”x8”, and a dull shade of wondrous lavender, to boot!) To save on buying a new planner each year, I always plan on getting refill pages for it to kick off the New Year when I’ve run out of old pages. Simple, right?

This is always a nightmare for me. Every. Single. Year.

I began this year’s hunt in December, as dates were starting to fill up for January. Having nowhere to write things down, I began to panic and reach for the Post-It’s. I’m a very visual kind of gal and I need to have things organized in simple, bulleted lists. I also need the right planner pages. To me, this means having a yearly tabbed calendar and weekly pages where I can prioritize my to-do list horizontally. It’s just what works for me.

After hunting around on the Internet and finding the pages I liked, I balked at the price. Here they were—perfect pristine refill pages without the number slots. There were simply about 10 or so lines to write out my list of to-do’s each day. There were no restrictive columns or unsightly extras—just what I needed. They ran about $25. But they had a garden design. I can’t even grow weeds in a pot. I decided to shop around.

Then came the Moleskine. I was set on getting one of their planners because everyone raves about them. So I thought I’d give Old Lav a rest. Just when I ordered it on Amazon, the universe must have somehow collided. About a week later (and closer to January, with dates piling up on Post-It™ notes, now) Amazon emails me to tell me they’re out of that planner. Do I want to reorder in the smaller size?

No way, Jose. Again, I need simple clean pages. Why is this so hard? And is everyone on earth really writing in one-inch columns and enjoying it? (It’s okay if you are.)

Back to the Drawing Board

Finally, after popping in countless office supply stores, I decided to follow the bread crumbs back to Target, where I found my pages last year after weeks of toil. Surely, they would have them!

But no! The small selection of pages all that had vertical columns running down the pages, with those ever-so-annoying hourly slots. There are tons of pages that enable you to plan your whole day over the span of two pages, but I realize I would be wasting paper that way.

Alas, there is a light. I found the tabbed calendar pages where you can see a month over two pages and bought those there. They were six bucks. Came home and put them in. Okay, Kristen, I thought to myself. You’re halfway there. You just need the pages where you have your week spread out over two pages and you have plenty of space to make your obsessive (sometimes color-coded) to-do lists.

A few days later, after a trip to Barnes and Noble, I score a cute lavender planner for just six bucks. I decided to stop being fanatical and just settle for what’s out there. Now my Target pages are obsolete, but at least I have a planner. After going through and writing birthdays and now importing my January reminders into the thing, I realize it’s true—I just can’t do this all year. I can’t ignore the numbers running down the sides of the pages. I can’t make my handwriting smaller to fit in these puny columns. So I slept on it. Woke up, tossed the planner in the garbage, and went to a different Staples.

Perfection at Last

There before me, like a Christmas miracle, are my pages. On the bottom row where no one would ever see them, among countless planner refill pages with icky designs and planner pages that promise maximum organization but make me want to shoot myself, they are there. Unfortunately the only design is pink and purple flowers, but they are at least there. I can live with flowers after all. The pages are about 12 dollars. But I don’t care—I’ve got to have them. If I don’t end this debacle once and for all, I may start writing February’s deadlines into the wood on my desk.

And so, the great calendar debacle ends. After weeks of countless shopping. After seeing droves of brand new organizers with the pages I like in them staring before me, I have managed not to rip them out and run out of stores. After seeing thousands of columns on plain black-and-white pages, I have risen above and not given in. I’ve conquered.

What You Need to Run Your Business—No Matter How Bizarre

Aside from my bizarre quirk about the right planner refill pages, there is a moral to the story, I swear.

Whatever you need to do business, get it. It could be the right lamp or that desk that’s perfectly ergonomical. It could be the printer that flawlessly fits on your desk, as opposed to the one you’d have to rewire your entire office to accommodate. It could be planner refill pages that suit your to-do list style.

Whatever it is, don’t sacrifice your comfort. These things may seem small, but they are everything when it comes to helping you run your business smoothly. And you’re worth it.

I do realize I am a bit obsessive. But after filling in dates and writing my infamous to-do lists in this, my official new calendar of 2008, I can tell you the year already looks even better. At least on paper.

Kristen Fischer is a freelance writer and author living in New Jersey. Her first book, Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs is available at www.creativelyselfemployed.com.

Original post by FreelanceSwitch.com