Did you miss me?
Yes, there hasn’t been a Zzing update since July but don’t worry, your computer hasn’t broken down, I haven’t been in the Big Brother house and I haven’t decided to become a nun. I was simply snowed under with work so couldn’t write any updates. For those of you with long memories, my last instalment did predict that I would be up to my eyeballs in work for all of July and August and most of September, and boy, how right I was.
My biggest contract of my short time in this crazy world of freelance marketing has now completed. It was the delivery of an educational programme into schools working with some of the UK’s leading employers and brands. It was a full-on two and a half months in delivery, especially with the schools on summer break during that time, but it all came good in the end and now I’m moving onto pastures and sectors new. I’m pleased to say I learnt a hell of a lot during the contract though, mainly due to the different style required for copywriting in the education industry. I guess I’m so used to working in the private sector and working for corporate clients that my copywriting needed to be worked on to suit the education market. It was like going back to school (excuse the pun).
A good learning curve though.
I’m now immersed in the world of market research. Surveys, focus groups and analysis. I’m just working on one and have two in the pipeline awaiting client approval, but October and November are looking good for work. It’s nice that they are all varied clients too, social sector, public sector and private sector – they say that variety is the spice of life.
However, as the year quickly slips away from us I do have a pressing deadline to meet.
#dah dun dah!# My tax return.
I’ve got to get it done by the end of October but it shouldn’t be too bad as it’s only for the first three months of my business – so for those of you avid readers of this blog from its inception, you’ll have guessed that it’s not going to be the biggest of tasks! A task however, that must be done otherwise HMRC will be after me. Shame I’m not Portsmouth Football Club as I could simply write that little tax bill off......
I’ve been going on my own for nine months at the end of September. I can’t believe all those months ago sat in my little office at home, looking out at the snow and putting another jumper on *distant violins play* that I would be in the position that I am in now where I’m actually looking to hire some freelance staff for help during October whilst I have three market research projects on the go alongside the usual PR and branding work.
I don’t need staff full-time, just to help out when all the work comes in at once and I’ve had two and a half months of working until the early hours and every weekend so I’m going to see if it helps the workload my sanity. I also have a rather large box of Zzing promotional flyers which I had printed back in May and have never sent out due to my workload. I’d really like to try and get these out before the end of the year otherwise I can see the box becoming a makeshift coffee table in the office by December.
Has anyone else been seeing a return on their online social networking? One of my clients, cfes Ltd has started seeing a great return on enquiries through their website and an increase in website traffic through the references I’ve been using on Twitter – if you want to follow them (go on, you know you do, its @cfesltd). Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn – it all helps your traffic peeps, you never know whose out there reading your ramblings – just keep it clean and non-slanderous!
I suppose now I have slightly more free-time I need to get cracking on the wedding planning. Well, the main bits are sorted and booked, venue, caterer, photographer etc. I’ve been told by my best friend that I have to go wedding dress shopping even though I know what dress I’m getting – apparently it’s an ‘experience’. An ‘experience’ is running the bulls at Pamplona, but you won’t get me running from a herd of marauding bulls. But I think my friend may be right about going and trying on reams of white satin and taffeta. Apparently, this is what all brides do, I’ve seen the TV programmes on BBC3 about it – it seems to involve drinking champagne, wearing false nails and throwing tantrums. Now the champagne I can handle.....
Anyhow, enough ramblings for now, I’ll leave you with a picture I took last Friday evening as I signed off finally from the large education contract and the boy and I treated ourselves to fish and chips sat in a park by Southampton water, watching the sun go down.
