It’s been a month since Gigantc launched and fortunately I’ve been incredibly busy. Here are a few things that I’ve learned my first month on the job.
1) Don’t burn bridges.
We all want to have that amazing feeling of telling everyone that we hated working with to f-off when we quit a job. I once witnessed a fellow co-worker quit in a way that would rival Scarface from Half Baked. I was working as a bartender for a mexican restaurant in LaCrosse Wisconsin and one of the cooks (who was aptly nicknamed “Sunshine”) got fed up and walked out into the middle of the dining room and yelled,
“Attention everyone. I am the head cook here. I fucking QUIT…and by the way I spit in all of your food.”
I’m sure that felt amazing, but the consequence was that he never worked as a line cook again in LaCrosse again.
One of my first clients was someone I worked with at my former job, and a few other people from my old employer have expressed interest in working with my company. It’s a great initial base of people to work with. If you did good work and were well respected, they are going to want to work with you again. And everyone always feels more comfortable hiring someone that they know well. As much fun as it is to leave in a blaze of glory, it might cost you some clients at a time when you really need some.
2) Social networks are awesome.
I’m a somewhat humble person…somewhat. Those of you who know me personally vs professionally can debate that among yourselves. When I started Gigantc I didn’t shout from the top of the social media hills. Some of it had to do with the fact that I was currently employed and I didn’t want let people I worked with know I was quitting. The other part was that I felt that it would come off as spammy and actually annoy my friends and followers. I wanted to get everything perfect and completely setup before I told everyone. During my first few weeks I made the mistake of putting myself in a self-imposed social network silence. But my wife wasn’t in one (which is something that she won’t stop reminding me off.) A simple congratulatory post from her directed at me and Gigantc actually landed me quite a bit of business and it wasn’t even from people in her social circle. The power of social networks is that you have friends, who have different friends who have different friends. It adds up exponentially and can be a great way to land some clients in your first month, even if you don’t personally know them. My advice: get the word out on social networks, and encourage you social base to help you out. 99% of them could probably care less, but it only takes one or two to land you some gigs.
3) Don’t wait, just get started.
I still don’t have a finished web site. I know, that’s crazy for a person who is going into web development. In fact I might be a huge mistake on my part. Only time will tell. But the truth is, I’m really busy with client designs right now and I don’t have a ton of extra time to work on my own stuff. Although building my site might lead to money in the long run, it isn’t paying the bills right now. I jumped into client work from day one and didn’t look back. You’re not going to get paid until you finish some jobs and if you are too busy doing things for yourself, that first month is going to hurt your pocketbook. Word of mouth will bring in better higher quality clients than a web page will, so just get to work. You can finish everything else later.
4) Caffeine.
Late nights blend into early mornings. Pretty much all aspects of my day seem to be fueled by caffeine. Get ready, you are going to build up quite a tolerance to the stuff. My mornings start off with Kirkland Dark Roast from Costco, afternoons I hit a little Gunpowder Green from Adagio and my night shift is usually fueled by Rockstar Recovery. You know…you gotta mix it up. In fact, I’m going to go make some right now.
Later.