I attended a Chicago Women in Publishing (CWIP) event last night—Freelance Edge. This was my first CWIP event as a full-fledged member of the organization, and I was excited about the prospect of learning some novel marketing techniques to grow my business.
The introductory speaker, Kelly James-Enger, was very enjoyable—entertaining, insightful, witty, and informative. Having published a wide variety of books, articles, and other material, James-Enger had a lot of valuable information to share. I was most intrigued by her concepts regarding making more money via freelancing. (“Six Figure Freelancing”? Yes, please.) I particularly liked hearing that when she first started in this business, she had virtually no experience as a journalist. In fact, she had been an attorney for years. That was encouraging and inspiring to me.
James-Enger shared several useful insights with us, and the majority of these centered on the ideas of mindset, efficiency, and connections. Using each of these elements to your advantage is basically what will enable success—all tangible and accessible suggestions for action.
After the introductory session, the group broke into two separate targeted panels. There was one for folks interested in potentially making the shift from full-time employment to full-time freelancing, and the other (the one I attended) was targeted toward established freelancers looking for advanced marketing strategies. While there was some good information offered, I found the opening session to be considerably more useful for me.
Many of the ideas that James-Enger had shared were reinforced here. The panel discussion was not quite as “advanced” as I might have liked it to be. There was a lengthy conversation about the use of social media and blogging, but essentially I would have liked to take away some more innovative strategies and tactics to enhance business success. I felt that the opening portion of the event was strongest and most successful. Overall, I am glad that I attended, and I definitely jumped into my work today with a renewed energy and fresh focus.
