One of the top 7 soft skills necessary for a leading freelancer: communication

English Original: 7 Soft Skills Freelance Web Designer must have PT1

freelance, it is between "work" and "entrepreneurship" between a middle form. Now with the increasingly mature remote working conditions, more and more people choose to take the fate of their own hands, but how to truly become the industry's top freelancer? How to effectively build your own personal brand? In addition to your own cicatrization (professional skills), you need to develop 7 soft skills. This series will be introduced to them, please stay tuned. The author of this article is Alex Devero, freelance senior web designer.

Every successful web designer often cannot rely on a craft chuangjianghu, he needs a set of skill sets, including hard and soft skills. The so-called hard skills, such as programming and design, simply rely on these things can not guarantee your career smooth sailing, put you on the phone ringing, customers more than let you overwhelmed. If you really want to have a strong competitive edge in the global market, soft skills are the other leg that you walk forward steadily. In this article, I'll cover 7 soft skills in more detail, and with the expertise of the previous ones, you can step into the top position of the industry, let's start!

　　Soft Skills PK Hard Skills

We should first make a clear distinction between "soft and hard", so as to facilitate the following unfolding narrative. The simplest definition of a hard skill is that it is specific to a particular job that needs to be acquired by investing in your time to learn and practice. Some of the more typical hard skills include "learning a Foreign language", "engaging in development work in front-end or back-end", which can be quantified and graded.

Soft skills have a little bit of a difference. First, it's hard to quantify compared to hard skills. These skills are not for a particular industry or for a particular job. The core of soft skills is "people", but also the skills of dealing with people, which is related to your EQ. In other words, it's your empathy. Today, soft skills are becoming increasingly important for employees, especially those who are on the path of freelancing. From this point of view, whether you start a business, a freelance job, or a working white-collar, who can master these soft skills, who can run in front of others.

　　One of the soft skills: communication

People freelance web designers to deal with customers, communication is the necessary skills. And often freelancers and customers in this area there are a variety of complaints about each other, in fact, the final word is to communicate two words. Over the years, I've been counting how many times I've heard clients complaining in my ear, like, "I've got a web designer in charge of developing this project, and everything seemed great at first, but it didn't last!" 」

Then he began to talk: "The time spent on communication is getting longer, and if I want to know the progress of the current project, I have to write a written email to the designer to send it to me." Otherwise, I will confused, nothing is clear. "If you have experience in recruiting web designers and any freelancer, is this scenario familiar to you?" And from a freelancer, is this scenario familiar?

Let's be honest, we're not perfect. We always make mistakes every now and then. One day you will forget to send a progress report to your client, or it may be that the pressure on your shoulders is too high to see the time line getting closer and you are busy completing the project without having time to send an email. Well, let me tell you something: whether it is a bad memory or too much pressure, this is not an excuse for you to reduce the quality of communication between you and the customer!

From the beginning, you decided to take the job, and promised to finish it, you present to the client is professional, now things go wrong, there are some unexpected variables, this time you should insist on your professionalism. If you really have a bad memory and make mistakes, write it down and write down all the things you do next, and don't count on your brain, memory is unreliable, especially if you're under a lot of stress.

　　Plan everything

First, the time to send the message regularly is marked on your calendar or "to-do List" to set a reminder function. If you don't use these tools until now,

Now it takes 5 minutes to pick one. My personal advice is to select the "To Do List" app Wunderlist. For calendars, I use Google calendar. Whether it is paper or electronic tools, you must make sure you use it handy. 2nd, please ensure that the project communication will be conducted regularly with your clients.

This may not be easy from the start, but it's the simplest and quickest way to improve your "communication" soft skills. So, give yourself a few minutes to clear your calendar about what time each client is communicating with. And then copy it all over to the "to-do list" and think that if you don't do it, the work may not happen and you'll forget it.

Finally, remember two points. First of all, your schedule and "to-do List" Are your friends, not your enemies. They will help you build strong relationships with your clients and earn more and more income, and 2nd, through these small details, you will be more and more professional in front of outsiders. Soft skills will give you a super-strong competitive advantage.

　　When you are in doubt, ask.

In communicating with customers, the most important suggestion is to ask questions whenever you have any doubts. Unless you have a very deep experience now, be sure to communicate with your customers in advance if you encounter any problems or if you have any fresh ideas in mind. Otherwise, any time "forget it's not necessary to ask" the idea will bring the frustration of their own outcome, it is likely to the end of the customer to give you something to refuse. I've been through it all.

About a year ago, a big company came to me as a web designer, my job description was "refactoring" (that is, cleaning up the mess that has accumulated over the years), designing a new front-end framework to replace the existing one, making the site more responsive. In the process of working, I feel that in the design of more than 10 changes, this will improve the quality of the entire site, and from the design aesthetics will be very OK. Then, I made a mistake. I didn't give this idea to anyone. I'm referring to any member of the client's management team who doesn't know about the project, and I'm going straight to the landing level of the idea.

About one months ago, I took out the final product, I thought the management team would be pleasantly surprised and gave me a big bonus, but unfortunately, none of this happened. The problem is that my entire design mentality does not fit with the company's brand tone. When I argued that you should reconsider brand positioning, they all thought about not paying me to get out of the way directly. One lesson learned in this is: "You don't get the reward you own, you underestimate yourself." 」

Fortunately for me, they eventually accepted my work (in addition to the design changes), so I finally got the reward. At the time of leaving the conference room, a manager at the scene gave me advice: Never ever do anything without authorization from anyone. Finally, the more serious impact of this incident was that until I wrote the article today, the company never looked for me.

My bitter lesson tells you that everything needs to be communicated with your customers in advance, no matter how well you think your ideas are, and always communicate with them before you act. The customer is not your girlfriend, they do not need surprises, the final title of the work is theirs, you are the extension of their will, that's all.

Let me give you one more example, the story is very short. Once the company hired me to design a few HTML banners, in this banner is missing the main font, at that time I do not want to annoy the customer's mentality, and do not want to bear the risk of delayed delivery, so I chose the Web page relatively safe, more similar fonts. So, another mistake was made.

So the company informed me that the font is wrong. This time of luck and inexplicable came on my head, the company to my overall work is still satisfied, so I escaped the punishment. You see, this story tells you two things: first of all, before you act to confirm what the customer gave you, the content is complete, you must be sure that in order to complete the project all the conditions you have, there is no "maybe" or "probably" such words.

Second, once you find that something is missing from the customer's delivery, you need to react quickly now. You only have to get the customer to complete the things before you can act, do not like me as a self-assertion, even if you want to replace, fill, also have to tell the employer beforehand.

In communication skills, it's very important to admit that you don't know something. Japan has a very good proverb to share with you: "Those who ask questions may look dumb for 5 minutes, but those who don't ask questions will spend the rest of their lives in the dumb." 」

　　Let the communication become clear, concise, simply.

The last essential thing to do in maintaining communication is to make communication clear, concise, and simply. The first is to remove the jargon, sometimes you choose to cooperate with the company or individual, they do not know the industry's professional terminology. So please choose to use the language you normally use. If you have to choose to use some technical terminology, please take extra time to explain the meaning clearly.

The 2nd requirement is to make communication shorter and more efficient. Although this article is not short, but believe it or not, I really hate very long mail. In most cases, my messages are very short and are divided into several main points, respectively. I think 70% of my e-mails can become Weibo.

The point here is that you have to talk to the key, simple and concise. If you want to raise your budget now so you can buy something extra, explain it in a short piece of text, and if you're already behind the project schedule and need to move the timeline back, then you'll also make a simple explanation of why you're behind schedule. In short, you must give the customer the facts, if you want to introduce an idea, the pros and cons of the idea are listed, so that your customers choose their own.

That's all.

What your clients want to know is just what's going on, how it happens, and you just give it to them and you'll regain your trust soon. They'll think you're a professional, not just a new recruit from the college. Some people don't dare to tell their customers all the steps of a job, they feel that the more information they give them, the greater the resistance they will face. From their point of view, the less information is given, the better.

　　Adjust perspective

The above view is only set up in one case: you do not give sufficient justification, or you give these reasons in an inappropriate way. Your reasons are untenable and customers cannot agree with them. If the problem you are facing is this situation, then you and I advise you to change your perspective, from your customer's point of view, you will understand the customer's position.

Often this time, you need to rethink how you interpret the problem, or come up with a solution. Regardless of how the practice, is to take the interests of customers as the focus and starting point.

In addition, you need to "constantly" reflect on your ideas, especially when you want to report to the client, this conversion perspective will not only strengthen your soft skills, but also can help you to achieve personal growth, so that you develop enough "empathy." So, always remember what the customer's perspective is.

There are times when your client is completely ignorant, because you are mixed with too many professional nouns, you may be accustomed to these concepts, but the customer is not every day in your work environment, so you should have some proper terminology to build some relatively clear links, And a clearer explanation of their attention.

Now that you have chosen a freelance career, part of your responsibility is to connect two disparate worlds so that people from another world can walk in.

　　The danger of excessive communication

There are times when people's problems are "over-communicating" and you put yourself at the risk of being dismissed. Why? Because your customers have been unbearable, you a letter after another letter, did not play, and finally hit the ceiling: "I asked you to what is it?!" "In my career, I have never experienced this situation, and I certainly have been opened, but not once because of" over-communication ", but probably because the communication is not enough. From the people around me, whether it is a boy or a girl, a total of 15 people, never because of "over-exchange" things have been dismissed.

So the concept of "over-communication" is somewhat vague, and its boundaries can be large and small. A restrained and quiet person, one weeks may be to the client to write two reports of the nature of the mail; an outward-going person may report to the client every day.

But in my opinion, it can be a little more in charge of "over-exchange" a security category, that is, if you one weeks with the customer's traffic limit two to four communication (including e-mail, Slack, Skype and other chat applications), then I think there is no "excessive" in communication.

　　Risk of delay

The last and most important aspect of soft skills is no delay. In general, this question is divided into two areas: first, because of your various concerns, delays in communication, for example, when you mess up something, you do not want to tell your customers the truth, and secondly, let your emotions for a long time can not calm down. For example, you meet a very big fire, suddenly let customers see you are not known, the side of terror.

Let's start with the first delay, the delay that happens when the error occurs, the reluctance to notify the customer, and now you have two options: either you're taking a remedial action now, or you're telling the customer the truth as quickly as you can. The longer you drag, the greater the probability of errors appearing.

Put down your self-esteem, face, admit that this is your own mistake, as in the Daily Project review, let the content become refined, explain what happened, why it happened, and most importantly, how can you make up, and finally promise to the customer that this error will never happen again.

If the second kind of delay, I give the strategy is to wait, give yourself 15 minutes of quiet period, or a day of time so that you can re-organize your thoughts, do not make some hindsight to think about the very thing. Remember, if you say something, whether it's verbal or e-mail, it's hard for you to withdraw. So don't let a moment's mood beat your sanity, give yourself a little time to adjust your breath.

One of the more useful techniques is to write down the email, but don't click Send, you can record all your thoughts 1510, save it as a draft, and then look at this article when you are completely calm down. If you really want to send, then you can click Send. At least this is a decision made under a sensible mindset.

This is the first of 7 skills, and each of the next articles will reveal a skill.

Transcend tech2ipo/Building compiled by Creative

http://news.cnblogs.com/n/542498/

One of the top 7 soft skills necessary for a leading Freelancer: communication (RPM)