It’s much, much harder than keeping up with the Kardashians.

No matter how gifted you are at your craft, someone somewhere is better. And it’s immensely depressing when you meet that someone.

I’ve just spent four days at one of the prettiest places on earth, thanks to a generous client. We were having what is called a moderation workshop. The author of a book, as well as a team of teachers, editors, and sometimes potential clients, sit together with the manuscript and point out the pros and cons.

It’s a very intensive process, and often, participants don’t sleep – which is ironic because you’re put up in the prettiest places, with the prettiest beds. My room, for example, was right at the beach, so I could hear the waves  and smell the fishermen. The resort also had a disco, seven pools, 25 water slides, go karting, and a gym … none of which I used.

Anyway, the people at the workshop were very, very good. They pointed out things that I’d never have thought of. They’re not quite rivals, since they don’t work freelance, but they had me reconsidering my vocation. It was like jogging with Usain Bolt.

Fortunately for me, these team members live far, far away, and we’re unlikely to fight over clients. But it did make me wonder about other freelancers within the same work pool.

In any field, you’ll have thousands of competitors. A lot of them will be better than you. But that doesn’t mean they have to earn more than you do. You just have to stand out. Find what Kelvin calls your Unique Selling Point.

When I first read that article, I got slightly depressed, because I couldn’t really think of one. But the thing is you don’t have to spot one. You just need to make one.

Case in point. My ‘rivals’ are brilliant editors. Yet the client included me in the team. Why? Well, for one thing, I’ve handled previous projects in the series, so I have some experience with it. Also, I’m a writer as well as an editor, so I can bring in some flair and creative license.

It might also help that I’m assertive, cheeky, and have purple hair. I admired the put-together look of a fellow editor – she’s so beautiful and stylish. She’s a total MILF, and you can’t tell she has teenage children. Although she’s a lot of fun, she’s quiet and reserved, and it takes some coaxing to bring her bubbly side out. Conversely, it’s easy to get some pep out of me, and when you’re working 12 hours straight for days in a row, it helps to have pep[si] in the room.

There’s someone else I look up. She’s efficient, professional, and very grown up. We recently got pitched for different parts of the same project. She won quality control, because she’s got that no-nonsense thing going. I got creative … mostly because I have purple hair. The client saw each of our selling points and used them to build a cohesive team.

As a business person, be sure to floss your USP. It could be speaking politely, finding out the kids’ names, getting some nail art, wearing a power suit, walking in rollerblades, or riding a bicycle to work. Find the one thing that makes you different from other people in your filed.

Me, I like nice people. I’ve often bought a basic product from a nice salesman instead of a perfect one from some guy with ATT.  So build that thing that makes you seem different. It could be what wins that tender.

Crystal Ading’ is a professional author, editor, rock lover and mother. Her work is available through www.threeceebee.com.

I picked this line off some song by Jua Cali … I think … it sounds like something he would say. And it’s a fairly good description of what I do. However, being a fundi is rarely a compliment.

‘Fundi’ is a generic Kenyan term for anything from a tailor to a plumber. They usually work off the street, in little stalls, sheet-metal shacks, or low rent premises. They generally have a specialist trade, but they will fix anything. That’s why the furniture fundi owns a sewing machine, just like the tailor fundi and the shoemaker fundi. Similarly, the electronics fundi will claim to fix anything from your short circuited TV to your overflowing sewer system.

Being a yuppie fundi – like me – means I will willingly handle anything from transcriptions to instruction labels on a VCR. This can be good thing, because I’m versatile. But it can also go terribly wrong. Allow me to demonstrate.

My daughter is at an age where her shoes [and bags, and socks, and white stockings] need repair every day. So two days after I bought her Bata Prefects, I was at a fundi asking him to reinforce the stitchery.

He was drunk, did a shoddy job, and overcharged me. So even though I was unusually polite, and I chat with him every day, I’ve never taken him anything else to fix.

A few weeks back, the shoes were spoilt again so I went to a second shoe fundi. This one has a sewing machine. He made me wait a while as he conversed in vernacular. I understand the language quite well, but I didn’t join in.

Slight digression: when dealing with fundis, it helps to speak their language. They will claim you as one of their own and give you a better deal. Ignore this at your peril. Sadly, I am sometimes arrogant among ‘my own’. Mostly because I’ve seen the negative side of ethnicity, so I prefer to ignore it. I didn’t identify myself as ‘theirs’.

Despite the long wait, he did a good job, so I gladly went again.

On the second visit, I took a school bag to have the zipper fixed. Again, I ignored the language factor, and again I was kept waiting. This time, he charged me for a job he didn’t do – he struggled to fix the zip for ten minutes, concluded that it was impossible, suggested I buy a new zip, then didn’t refund my money. Hmph.

So yesterday I went armed with the new zip, the shoes, a jacket, and two more damaged bags. I budgeted 200. He quoted 250. I offered to sit and wait, he stubbornly declined. We compromised – I could sit and wait for half the work, then I’d come get the rest later. Fair enough.

Lesson two in Fundi Mangement is to sit there until your work is done. Firstly because everybody else does, so the moment you leave, the fundi will serve another sit-in client. Secondly because it’s extremely annoying, and will therefore get the job done faster. Nobody likes you watching while they work. Except maybe footballers. And porn stars.

I came back promptly at 3, and in true fundi fashion, the fundi told me that he was ‘almost done’ and that I should sit for just a few minutes. Luckily for him, I was in major PMS, so I lowered my head and grumbled on the inside, but I didn’t say anything out loud. Yet.

After maybe ten minutes, I asked him what was going on. He said his sewing machine was broken, so he had given my jacket to the fundi next door to mend. Fair enough. At least the shoes were done.

I waited ten more minutes before telling him to give me my jacket and I’d get it done elsewhere. He spoke through the wall – in the secret language that I fully comprehend – and asked his fellow fundi to hurry up. Then he went next door to see what was going on. I followed him.

The work hadn’t even started.

I calmly asked the man to give me back my jacket. He started to protest, but was instructed – in the hidden language – to comply, so he did. I then asked for the shoes, only to see my fundi pick them up and begin to stitch frantically.

Nkt.

He tried to calm me down, but I stood over him until he was done, yelling a few choice words in a voice far calmer than I thought I was capable of. The man was afraid, I could see that. I wonder how he’d react to my standard temper tantrum.

Actually, I wonder why I didn’t throw my standard temper tantrum. I must be getting old.

In the end, I took my barely finished shoes and my barely started jacket to a second fundi – who, again, spoke the secret language – and sat while she stitched it. She was all smiles at first, but hiked the agreed price halfway through because ‘the fabric was messing her machine’. I was too tired to argue.

A simple two-minute collection run ended up in an hour that was so frustrating, I ended up needing a drink.

When you run your own business, do not be mistaken for a fundi – ever. Be versatile, have affordable premises, provide many services, learn many trades.

But when it comes to delivering on time, having endless excuses and doing shoddy work, do not be the quick-fix guy.

We often go to fundis because we have no choice. I used three neighbourhood people and got equally disappointed. But I’ll keep going back to them because living with an almost-tween, I will constantly need stuff fixed on the cheap. That means I either buy new items all the time, or I go to the fundi since ‘I have no otherwise’.

But to thrive in your business, don’t be your customer’s otherwise – be their preference.

Crystal Ading’ is a professional author, editor, rock lover and mother. Her work is available through www.threeceebee.com.

As a new business owner, one of the biggest problems that you’ll face is proving to new clients that you have the experience as a business to meet their needs. It’s just human nature. Everyone is careful with their money and they would rather go with a company that has a proven track record and not someone doing the work “on the side.” In some ways, it becomes a Catch-22. You can’t get clients until you have experience, and you can’t get experience until you get clients. As a new business, we faced similar problems and had some tough times getting clients for a while. We learned some “tricks” to make our business look bigger than it actually was – how to “fake it till you make it”, to borrow the saying

How to Make Your Business Look Bigger than it Really is

1. Give Away Your Service for “Free” – This is a common piece of advice that you’ll see and something that I don’t really like, so we put a little spin on it. You don’t want to attract people who are just looking for a deal. It’s the wrong kind of client who will take advantage of you and never be happy with the service that you provide. However, it’s still a good way to get the credentials you need to refer to when selling your product or service to other businesses. What we did is give away our products to our clients at our “expense”. Usually, there was some sort of “Cost of Goods Sold” that we incurred and we told them up front about this. They were willing to pay this token amount because they knew it was still a great deal, and we got some money, and the test clients that we wanted. In fact, we often used these clients to test our product (again, we disclosed this too) so it was actually just part of product development.
2. Hire a Receptionist – This is one of my favorite tricks that we used. By having someone answer all your incoming calls, your business suddenly gains a huge amount of credibility. Once businesses can support someone to answer the phones, most people will think that it’s successful. So what we did was hire someone at Kshs 10,000 per month to answer any incoming calls that we got. She would answer the calls and just e-mail us the messages or call us back if it was urgent. It didn’t take too much time for her and it was cheap enough for us. We just provided her with a mobile phone.
3. Outsource your Work – One of the more subtle ways to look bigger than you actually are is to outsource your work and then refer to them when talking to clients. If a client is asking you to complete some work and you say “I’ll have to check with my designer to see when I can get that to you”, it sounds a lot better than, “I’m really swamped this week – I’ll try to get to it when I can”. You also can say that you have several people working in your business. Probably a little too much in the gray area, but if you’re asked point-blank and saying you’re a one-person shop won’t work, it’ll do. Even if you tell clients you outsource most of the work, it’s usually ok, because it sounds like you’re a growing business.
4. Work with Partners – Besides coming with a stable full of qualified clients, one of the reasons that we wanted to work with partners when selling our products was that it afforded us the chance to build up our client list on our partners’ back. While we can’t refer to these clients directly when talking to prospects (or we just say that we have them through a partner agreement), we can still cite experience that we have working with clients.

Lying directly to your prospects isn’t a good idea because they’ll figure you out eventually. But if you can fake it till you make it by using the tips outlined above, you will find that it becomes much easier to attract new clients as prospects know that you are a successful business with a good track record.

How else can you fake it?