Saturday, August 16, 2014

You are a Person - and so are They

First off, my sincerest apologies to any offended androids out there. I mean person in the most respectful sense, quite literally meaning "being that is unique and deserves respect." That fact that most are human is just totally coincidental.

Let's get to the point. Tuesday, in an awesome group I'm a part of on Facebook called the 10 Minute Novelists, I saw quite an interesting post from a member named Stephanie.

It was as follows:

"The thing that scares me most about moving forward as a professional writer offering services to businesses in my area is the worry that I've put something on my website that shouldn't be there...
Sometimes blogging gets more personal than it should."

I feel like a lot of us are so often frightened by the idea of a client seeing something personal and deciding not to hire due to that thing. This is a problematic outlook for our future, future clients, and even other future contractors.

The thing that everyone needs to realize is that, simply put, people are people. People will do people things. They'll make mistakes, talk about chocolate cake, decide that they don't like baked beans, marry someone, and have kids. Everything is just a part of the package.

While a client expects a certain level of professionalism from their contractors (and their contractors expect the same in return, mind you) there is a level of a certain quality that makes or breaks the work relationship: Personality.

You are more likely to be hired if you are personable. Why is this? Because clients don't want to hire someone that is unapproachable, cold, and hard to discuss things with. If they see the little things on your blog that seem "a little to personal" for a work relationship, they should then identify it with the fact that you are a living, breathing person.

Here's something even more important though: Would you really want to work with someone who decided not to work with you because they looked at your blog and saw you got a new lizard last Sunday?

Keeping your personal life out on your blog enables you to draw in the clientele you'd like to work with. Ought you to use better grammar and spend more time on the business aspect? Maybe. But don't change anything else about it.

-Alexandria Hathaway
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlexandriaMazareth
Twitter: @AlexandriaMWolf
Deviantart: http://littlewolfdreamer.deviantart.com/
 

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