Got Talent?
Talented singer or tuneless caterwauler?
A guy saws a dead cow in half and sells it to an art gallery for massive amounts of money.
A woman writes a book about a boy wizard and not only becomes rich, but incredibly famous.
Another guy standardises office software. His company becomes one of the biggest in the IT world and makes billions.
Another woman releases an album and her image is quickly plastered on the bedroom walls of million of teenagers.
Were they lucky or talented?
“Talent” is a funny thing: by definition it’s something that cannot be acquired through learning – a natural ability, a gift, flair, a facility with a certain activity that others can emulate but cannot necessarily achieve.
Even funnier is the way it is seen by different people. While some may believe any one of those individuals to be gifted, others will decry their ability, attributing it either to hard work, good fortune or clever advertising. Yet others will honestly hate whatever those people produce.
If a journalist says you’re talented, are you? What if the journos hate you but the public loves what you do? What if your partner thinks you’re the best thing since strawberry jam, but everyone else thinks you stink?
As a freelancer, it’s certain that you’ll run across job adverts asking for “talented” writers, designers, programmers and so on. But how do you know if you’re talented or not? It’s all so… subjective!
My advice? Don’t fret it.
Though they’re looking for talent, those employers are not actually expecting it: they’re expecting competence, skill and perhaps some experience. Actual talent would just be the cherry on top.
Competence trumps skill almost every day of the week. Especially in a global market.
Let’s say someone wants a writer to write 10 articles on Body Odor. He gets over thirty e-mails from different writers. A couple of them are willing to do the work for pennies on the dollar, a couple of them want a king’s ransom, and then there are a slew of people whose prices are within that customer’s budget. He’s going to look over those clients, glance at the resumes, find a couple that look like they have relevant experience, and contact them.
Are they more qualified than the ones charging a king’s ransom? In most cases the people charging an arm and a leg are those veterans who think that because they’ve spent X years in the industry they can charge obscene rates by default. These are the ones crying that they can’t find work, that people like me are stealing their jobs. But you know what? I stay busy, and I stay profitable, not necessarily by being the best thing since sliced bread (but slather me up with some jam and I’m a tasty little nugget!), but because I am COMPETENT and RELIABLE.
Reliability and competence are far more important in the global market than whether or not your resume is as long as the Nile River. People want someone who is going to conform to their ideals and write the content they want to see. They don’t want a writer who is going to fight them on ever editorial change, claiming that “Well, I’ve been doing this for 25 years and your opinion doesn’t matter because you are just a nobody client and *I* am a professional writer”. They want someone who is going to nod their head, take notes, get inside the head of the client, and write the article the client wants.
Talent helps. Education helps. Skill helps. But quality is the same thing as beauty…it’s only skin-deep, and it’s completely dependent upon who happens to be sitting in the driver’s chair pointing the finger.
“These are the ones crying that they can’t find work, that people like me are stealing their jobs. ”
How would you feel if the only jobs out there offered $1/500 word article?
In any case, marketing skill seems to be one of the most important out there. Technical niche is another. Skill is important enough. It seems to make the difference between those who make $1 and those who make considerably more. Of course, skill is irrelevant if you can’t deliver a product. And all that is irrelevant if you don’t have a customer, which leads back to marketing.
The rough draft of the artwork for my book is finished… the photographer has done his thing. I’m just waiting for the copies so that I can move onto touching up the images. Then there’s inserting the text into the images. Then there’s the marketing.
I can tell you a lot more about what it takes to put a book together now than I could have a year ago. It is like a mountain that you look at, which, because of its great size, seems so close. So, you start your hike. So many hours of hiking later, and it still seems so close, but not much closer than before. Perhaps it’s that dream where, rather than the hungry monster chasing after you and you cannot lose it, you are the monster which cannot catch the prey. But, like hiking for the mountain, eventually you get to the top, yes?
Since I’m still not at the top, looking down and enjoying the fruit of my labour, I cannot really say how worthy it has been of my effort, but it has been the greatest challenge of my life.
Skill is a funny thing. No one is perfect. So, you kind of have to understand the limitations of those who work for you. You have to find a way to make up for those limitations in one way or another, or else the product you have will not be the best you can make it. And, even if it is the best you can make it, it is questionable whether or not it will succeed financially to pay for your time and expense.
I can tell you it takes patience, perseverance, determination, strength, and faith, to name but a few aspects of character that’s been tested of me. The talents of a team, combined… are they enough to succeed?
You and I are going in different directions, Spike, but I feel that we face many of the same ultimate challenges.
In my effort, I have been the employer, the investor, the artistic director, and the author. In the end, it may fail, but at least I won’t look back on a life wondering what it would have been if I’d tried. I have put everything into it, and, if that’s all I get out of that, well, so be it.
Rowling, I recall, failed 16 times before she succeeded. And hell, now she’s one of the wealthiest authors in the world. I hope I have her tenacity and success, or at least a fraction of it.
Thankfully the market we use is the GLOBAL market, not regional. I can tell you this…in the two years I’ve been doing this I’ve never seen one of these so-called 1 dollar per 500 word articles. Ever. I’ve been getting paid an average of 25-30 USD per hour (50-60k USD a year) since I started freelancing.
Starting in January I’ll be bumping that up to 50-60 USD per hour, and I should start to see some passive income being generated from the website + the e-book I’m finishing up in December.
The only person standing between you and success is you. You can either get out there and make something of your life or you can continue to blame everyone else for your (generalization here; not pointing fingers) lack of progress in the career you have chosen.
Prior to freelancing I ran a construction company in Colorado as a 3rd generation contractor. Feel free to check my bio on my website. 100% of my credentials are verifiable. My family has generated over 750 million USD in business across the US over 72 years of business. I learned a lot regarding motivation and business before I moved, and then I took the same business savvy I used running my construction company into the market when I started freelancing after my wife and I moved to Bulgaria in 2008. If you only see 1 dollar articles, then you aren’t looking hard enough.
Know your niche. Browse for work. Constantly. Never accept no for a final answer. Knock down doors if you have to. You do what you have to do to put food on the table for your family. I’m 29 years old, 100% debt free, and my wife and I can afford to travel throughout the world 4-6 times a year. It’s not something that just magically fell into my lap because I’m “talented”.
I never finished high school. I never went to college. I am 100% self educated. I say none of this to be arrogant (although it might sound like it at first glance), but to prove a point. You can either let life control you, or you can control life. It might sound like a cheesy line from a cheesy motivational conference, but it’s true.
My very first writing gig was writing quests and storylines for an RPG for kids, based upon my passion for video games. That led to writing game guides for Killer Guides. I then took my construction knowledge and wrote some stuff for Home Anatomy. That led to working for Delegate2, Demand Studios, Green Diva Mom, Trav Buddy, Flashing Swords…the list could go on.
Do I get 100% of the jobs I query for? Absolutely not. But I do land the majority of them, and it’s not because of my education or my so-called talent, because as far as the industry is concerned I lack a formal education, therefore I lack serious credibility. But you know what? I spin a good yarn, I can get inside the heads of my client, I always deliver on-time, and I do whatever it takes to get the job done…even if that means working holidays or crazy hours to keep my word with a client.
Don’t hope for tenacity. Reach down, grab your pair, and get out there and kick the world’s ass!
It’s Horrible, Plz stop writing
How can the “Guy Saws”???
TW & Steven: Wonderful, thoughtful comments, thanks guys. Definitely some good advice from both of you for other folks – and I think we all agree that tenacity (or just being darned stubborn) helps enormously. I’m still convinced there’s more than a modicum of luck involved in the whole thing, to find good clients, but that goes for just about any business!
Ann: One-line reviews. Always loved them for their utter waste of bandwidth: no info, no opinion, no useful thoughts. Great stuff. As for “A guy saws”, I would assume that he does so with a saw, much like anyone else.
My Dear Spike,
Thanks for taking special care in retorting. One liners are the best way of expressing thoughts…….I think being such a GREAT WRITER … you must be aware of it. Moreover, I think my one liner touched your heart……..
oh… 1 more thing… from where do u get the hot pics of the sizzling babes, buddy……..
Ann: Since you love one-liners: (1) I disagree. (2) I don’t consider myself a great writer. (3) No, it didn’t. (4) Google image search.