RA: , an experienced IT support contractor speaks to Andy about some of his self-promotion techniques as a contractor. This is part 1 of a 2 part special series on marketing yourself.

3: Marketing Secrets Part 1: Tips From the Coalface

Andy White: I’m talking to Raju Aziz who has been an IT Contractor for twelve years. Raju hello, how are you doing?

Raju Aziz: : Hello, not too bad Andy, how are you doing?

AW: Pretty good thanks. Now I want to talk today about marketing secrets because freelancers have to market themselves of course. As a freelancer you have to do all of these things that were perhaps done for you when you were working for someone else. What top tips can you give us on actually marketing your services?

RA: I think what you need to do, you need to have a really good CV that needs to be precise and I think at the most it needs to be two at the absolute most three pages. It needs to be presentable. The best way to do it normally is to send it to a few agencies and do a follow up telephone call to them. Ask them what they think of your CV, if it was good, whether they can use the CV or whether they’d be prepared to represent you looking for work. One of the other tips as well, if you do actually speak to agencies and make sure you do follow up calls basically most agencies will have a priority list and they’ll have four or five freelancers that they’re prepared to use at that current time and it’s important for you to get on that list and the best way to do that is to actually ring them or hassle them and say “is there anything that’s come in today?” Basically make yourself known well to them and get on their list.

AW: What do you think about online CVs? I’ve spoken to a few people that have their CVs online, good or bad in your opinion?

RA: Well I mean it allows obviously perspective employers to view your CV online in their own time which is a good thing but if you do forward anything like that then you should always there again follow up with a phone call. Make sure that if you do send your CV in to a particular job that you have a cover letter as well and that you tailor that cover letter more specifically to that role. It’s not a matter of lying or twisting the truth it’s basically you want that role and you need to be able to …….you know your skill set but you need to put it in a way that obviously they want to read it as well so it’s important for you to do all of these things.

AW: Fantastic. Any other tips you can give us?

RA: Well basically, don’t be afraid to speak to friends, old colleagues, and old work colleagues. I wouldn’t necessarily think it’s a good idea to do cold calling to employers because they probably get a lot of that from the agencies in any case so we are heavily reliant on agencies so it maybe advantageous to actually, once you’ve got a relationship with your agency or the person working at the agency is to go and meet them, take them for a beer. You know build up a relationship and don’t just do that once when your in a contract, do this all the time, keep continuing to do the search, keep continuing to make your contacts, keep speaking to the agencies because obviously staff in agencies they’ve got a very high turnover as well so one week you may know the person that’s dealing with your contract and then next week it might be somebody else. So make sure you stay in communication with your agency.

AW: What’s your opinion of people that want to break away from agencies and try and find work directly without the intervention of an agency? Have you got much experience of that Raju?

RA: Well I must admit, to be totally honest, it’s only been like one or two contracts that I’ve actually been able to do that with. There are a few pitfalls there. Basically, because you’re getting paid by the agency so you’ve got a definite wage coming in. Sometimes, if you work directly to an employer, obviously you have to do the invoicing, you have to chase up the invoicing etc etc. So ok, yes, you don’t’ pay the percentage to the agency but then sometimes it’s advantageous to do that as regards the finances. I think on the whole, in England at the moment, it’s quite difficult to keep a stream of people or perspective employers working direct to them so I think on the whole, at the moment, agencies is one of the main routes.

AW: Yes, because if you’re working for an agency, you’ve got that sort of buffer haven’t you. They can pay you on a regular basis and I know some of these big companies can be quite difficult to get money out of, can’t they, in a timely manner.

RA: That’s right, I mean obviously most companies will work on a 30 day basis but sometimes if they want to, they can defer that a little bit so it depends on how well your finances are etc. So if you are prepared to do that, then it’s worth while obviously bypassing the agency and going in that percentage which their cut is but I think on the whole myself I’ve been quite happy with most of the agencies that I’ve worked for and yes I think that is the main route at the moment.

AW: Because the interesting thing is, if you’re solely working through agencies, you are effectively only marketing to those agencies aren’t you?

RA: That’s right.

AW: Which I guess comprises your CV. What about referrals from previous clients, do you make use of that much?

RA: Well I’ve been quite fortunate really because I’ve been called back on several occasions for most of my employers so this is where it’s important to make sure that you do do a good job. Don’t burn your bridges when you finish a contract but unfortunately yes to be able to gain recommendations, I suppose the only real way that we can see a recommendation is that I obviously use a lot of these employers as referees and they will recommend me if contract work comes up so that is one form of recommendation I suppose.

AW: So in a way, your track record is one of your strongest assets really isn’t it?

RA: Definitely, definitely. I mean it’s been quite difficult to keep my CV down to three pages but what I tend to do is, the older contacts I’ll just do like a one-liner but yes definitely you can go through my CV and you’ll see the same names coming up. The thing is that at the end of the day the level that we’re at, you build your level up higher and higher and the way that you speak to say a colleague that’s on the permanent side, you always try and stay well with your colleagues because one day he maybe a manager.

AW: Yeh because the people you’re working with, whether you’re a freelancer or a permanent, you’ll never know who they’re going to end up being in relation to you in the future do you?

RA: That’s right and certainly in my case, people have actually said well they’ve done really well, they’ve become managers and I’ve spoken to them just by chance and they said “oh ok yeh” and they’ve asked me to come back and work for them so yes it’s important to get on well with everybody. Definitely. Even if it’s in a difficult situation, it’s definitely advantageous for you, if not now, at a later stage, for this to happen.

AW: So use your top people skills at all times.

RA: Well this is it. I try to. I may not be successful all the time but definitely I think that’s got to be part of your character. You’ve got to want to be that way and then this is why I think it’s important to be a really good freelancer, contractor you’ve got to have that ability to get on well with people and be diplomatic and it’s definitely an advantage if people call you back. It’s a good reflection.

AW: Any other ideas that we haven’t spoken about?

RA: All I can say is, don’t be afraid and that it may be a big jump for yourselves to move from permanent to freelance but if you know your work and you’re confident that you can do your work well then you’ll have no problems gaining work. It’s just a matter of being disciplined on some of the other things that we’ve discussed previously like paperwork, having good relationships with everybody but, on the whole, enjoy yourself, don’t work too hard, make sure you take a few holidays because that’s one of the benefits of being a contractor is that when you finish your contract and you feel able to work things out, you can normally take say a couple of weeks in between contracts and spend some of the lovely money you’ve earned.

AW: That’s right. We’ve all heard stories of contractors that will work six months of the year then spend the other six months travelling, assuming of course they don’t have families.

RA: You can still do that if you’ve got a family. It’s just that obviously, if your family’s quite young that’s not a problem but yeh when your kids get a bit older then things start to get a bit more expensive so you need to work more months (laughs).

AW: Yes absolutely. Well thank you very much for talking to us again Raju and perhaps you’ll speak to us again in the future. Is that alright with you?

RA: Yes no problem at all.

AW: Keep up the good work.

RA: Thank you.

AW: See you then. Bye.

Great interview with Raju there Darren. What are your thoughts?

Darren Fell: I love the idea of actually getting the CV online. I think it is so so important to actually be able to send the links to perspective employers. Just get your CV up there, get a site up there if you can and put your latest projects up there and if you’re a programmer, why not show off your latest technology. I’ve just seen a CV for Crunch from a great Java programmer who’s Ajaxed up his CV so it’s not just a bog standard HTML one it’s Ajaxed. You can grab sections, move it around the screen in the web browser and it’s utterly brilliant. It’s just showing off how good the guy is so yeh I think that’s really important.

AW: That is just so cool. So his actual CV is demonstrating his skills.

DF: Absolutely. I mean, I don’t know too much about Ajax myself other than the fact that I want Ajax technology in the Crunch system to get ultimate usability. Things you never normally could do in the world of the browser but you can grab sections, you can do things all interoperability within the actual page and no refreshing so yes he’s showing off how good he is in that particular field and no doubt many other fields.

AW: Now Darren, I know you’ve got some good thoughts on marketing from what Raju was saying. Your thoughts sir?

DF: Raju again, has picked up on a classic thing. Now I’ve somehow, naturally started doing that when I set up Pure and that the most important thing is to tell absolutely everybody so you’ve left this nice comforting world of the institutionalised corporate where you’ve been paid your regular salary and you’re given the work on a regular basis, in fact quite frankly you’d prefer not be given work because your getting paid that standard salary. Well that all disappears when you go freelancing and the freedom is fantastic but you’ve got to market yourself so I’d say tell everybody and I mean everybody, girlfriend, wife, husband, boyfriend, cousins, aunties, uncles and I am seriously talking about everybody. People you work with, especially past colleagues at work anybody you can think about. Tell them what you do, tell them what your skill sets are. It can be a very harmless conversation ring up or email “do you know what I’m doing? I’ve finally left bla bla corporation and I’ve set up my own company and here’s my online CV and I’m loving it, its great!” and it’s a damn good excuse to tell them what you’re doing because you never know in this networking, you’re actually doing, what business you might find from it. You never know, your girlfriend might speak to someone at her work and her mate at works boyfriend has set up a business and he needs a programmer for this, he needs a website designer and they’re going to put you in touch so that’s the first thing I’d say just get networking through everybody you know and that’s the first point.

AW: Now that kind of leads us on to what we’re going to be talking about on our next episode aren’t we because we are going to be talking to Paul Silver I believe aren’t we.

DF: Yes. Paul Silver is a very interesting chap. He set up Brighton Farm. I think it’s under Brightonfarm.com and it’s almost like a consortium, that sounds like a too strong a word, an official word but it’s a group of freelancers more in the programming and the HMTL and the web design world, a cold fusion. All those little technologies in the new media world. He’s put them all together to network amongst each other to find more business to help the market and that’s the other thing I’d say to networking. Normally most freelancers go “urgh I don’t want to go to networking functions there’s going to be a load of boring people.”

You do your little mini elevator pitch and then go on with your glass of wine to speak to the next person and you really don’t want to be there and I know how that feels but what Paul’s done and what he’d talk about in the next episode is the way he set up Brighton Farm. Again, we’re talking about Brighton’s locality in this podcast and it’s held at the Hampton Arms which is a pub and they just meet every Wednesday at 8pm and have beers and just chat and already, Paul has put forward, just by him networking up there, another Java programmer for the Crunch system, James Cohen, I think his name is and I’ll be meeting up with him today so there’s just an instant example how networking, really quite an enjoyable networking session, can work out well.

AW: Well we look forward to that very much and Darren Fell thank you very very much indeed. See you next time.

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