Almost on a daily basis, I come across opportunities to refer business to someone. Sometimes I’m asked for a resource, like if I know someone who can design business cards. Sometimes a possible connection just pops in my head, like if a person I come in contact with mentions something that reminds me of someone else or of an opportunity that might interest him or her. Other times, though, I miss the opportunity to make a referral simply because no one comes to mind right away. Yet, if I gave it some thought or asked some of my existing contacts, I’m sure I could easily find a resource to fill the need.

As a business owner, maximizing these opportunities is really important for several reasons:

1. It solidifies your place in the customer’s mind as a go-to resource, as someone who can always help solve problems and find solutions,
2. It reinforces relationships you’re building by showing your willingness to help those around you, and
3. It opens the door for reciprocal referrals between you and other service providers to which you regularly send business.

But how do you make sure you’re ready to act the minute an opportunity presents itself (or at least not very long afterward)?

Step 1: Have Tools in Place to Support You

There are tons of CRM and contact management applications available to help you manage an ever-growing database of connections. Highrise is my favorite; I like the simplicity and ease-of-use of 37Signals tools.

Of course, even the best tool won’t help you if you don’t populate it with data, and this can be the most intimidating part of starting to use contact management software. My recommendation is to ease into it. Start from today and add new contacts you come in contact with. To get existing contacts into the program, try adding a few each day until you have everyone set up. There are ways to import contacts from other programs, too. Just be sure to go through all applications and places where you currently keep information about contacts, including your email and social networking accounts, past blog entries (for example, if you interviewed someone for your site or they provided a guest post), and anywhere else you might find a long-lost resource.

The most important thing, though, is to be sure and tag each person in every way you might search for him or her. For example, you might tag a virtual assistant as VA, virtual assistant, web designer, website designer, etc., depending on that particular virtual assistant’s expertise and skill set.

Step 2: Get to Know the People in Your Network

Learn what your network does. Learn what they need. Recently, someone asked if I knew of anyone who did a particular type of web design. At the time, no one came to mind, but then just a week later, I met another person who fitted the bill. I did an email introduction, which will hopefully lead to shared referrals between the two of them.

Pay attention to the little details about people, even things like hobbies and past work experience. If someone is an avid reader, for instance, you might need a book recommendation one day, or maybe you’ll read a great book that you can pass along to that person. As you discover these little tidbits, enter them (again, as tags) in the person’s contact record.

Not only does paying attention to the “little things” help you along the way as a business owner, but it also deepens your relationships and builds your credibility.

Step 3: Keep Your Network Top of Mind.

Always be thinking of the people around you. How can you help them? How can you help not just your clients and followers, but also fellow business owners? Every connection, every referral and every introduction strengthens your network and your business. People will come to trust and depend on you for quality recommendations and resources to help them in their lives and businesses.

Step 4: Show Initiative

Show people you can help them. When someone asks for a web designer and that’s out of your area of expertise, go to your contact management software and search for “web designer” and see who shows up. Nothing will impress a customer more than you going the extra mile for him or her and sending over a list of quality web designers.

By developing a strong and comprehensive list of resources, it becomes even easier to take better care of your customers and clients, as well as all the relationships in your network, and of course, there’s something to be said for good karma and paying it forward.

What tips do you have for maintaining a better “little black book”?

Photo by Flickr user vince42, licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

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Flowz, the developer behind Raveal, has since introduced a variety of new features to try to up the game of the fledgling web site. Some of these are little more than aesthetic upgrades, but some are substantial improvements that really change the way the site works at its core.

Themes

Raveal now places a strong emphasis on what they call “Your Personal Brand.” It’s a concept not unfamiliar to us here at WebWorkerDaily. Part of that approach, as far as Raveal is concerned, involves letting you show off your skills, work history, and traits using a personalized theme.

Raveal themes work and look a lot like blog themes, for the most part, but some boast impressive features, like Flash integration, that really make them stand out. You can use the default set, create your own using a pre-made layout and some custom CSS, or choose from one of the available community themes (which is a little light on content right now). If you know a little about how CSS works, but aren’t comfortable building your own site from scratch, it’s a good set of tools to have.

I was a little miffed to find that there was no way to preview my profile unless I made it publicly available, which isn’t something I wanted to do before ensuring that my chosen theme would look good with my content. Even just a live preview of the theme in question with generic content would’ve been sufficient.

People Showcase

Want to get noticed? Flowz wants that for you, too. That’s why it introduced the “People Showcase,” a section which shows off the best and brightest of those found in there network. According to Flowz, being highlighted on the Showcase nets you an additional 400 views per month, a number the company says will grow as Raveal gains popularity.

There’s no word on how exactly people are chosen to appear in the Showcase, but in a blog post detailing the new feature, Flowz staff indicates that all you need do to be considered is make your profile publicly viewable. Presumably, staff members comb the public directory for talented individuals with complete, up-to-date profiles.

I like the presentation of the People Showcase, and the idea behind it, but only time will tell how the actual effect it will have on individual member’s career aspirations.

Company Profiles and Job Postings

Probably the biggest new feature is not on the employee side at all, but on the employer’s. Companies looking for prospects can now create a profile complete with a blog feed and job listings.

There’s even a back-end workflow that HR staff can use to manage applicants, allowing them to score potential employees as “Undecided,” “Thumbs Up,” or “Thumbs Down.” They can also keep notes on every application, the content of which can be shared with other staff who are assigned user privileges. Even if you want to share with someone who isn’t a Raveal user, you can do so using a Guest Pass.

Unfortunately, companies can only list one job posting at a time unless they pay for a Pro account, which ultimately hurts job searchers most of all. Hopefully the back-end workflow features prove worthwhile enough that companies end up going the pay route.

New Pro Features

A couple new features were obviously designed to make Raveal Pro accounts more appealing, as they’re only accessible once you switch to a paid account. The first is Voice, which allows you to pull content and comments from your blog, Twitter feed, Facebook, etc. to show off on your Raveal profile in addition to your standard Resumé and Portfolio information.

It’s definitely a bold step, and one that acknowledges that for many professionals working online today, their social media presence is as much a part of their career goals as is their work history. But it’s also risky, since we all know the dangers associated with allowing potential employers access to things like Facebook, which might not always paint you in the best possible light.

You can also now include an audio introduction if you have a Pro account. It’s interesting, but ultimately kind of gimmicky, in my opinion. Though I absolutely hate the sound of my recorded voice, so I might be biased.

One thing’s clear: Raveal is doing its best to stand out from the crowd and bring something truly new to the often arduous task of finding work online. Whether or not the specific things it’s trying are of value to you is another thing entirely. It’s definitely worth a look though, especially if you’re a content producer who isn’t getting anywhere with the established career finding resources online.

Have your tried the new features in Raveal?  Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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Here are a few ideas that might help you cut your greenhouse emissions and bump up the sustainability of your lifestyle.

You’re probably aware of the “three Rs”: reduce, reuse, recycle. Keep this mantra in mind as you approach an assessment of your remote working lifestyle. What can you do to you reduce your resource usage? Can you reuse objects rather than discard them? And where and how can you recycle the items you want or need to discard?

I use another set of criteria to assess prospective purchases of things like computers, office furniture, and so on:

Do I need it?
First, I try to work out if I really need the item, or if I can get by without it. For example, can I add memory to boost my computer’s capacity rather than buying a new machine?

How long will it last?
If I decide I really need to buy an item, I look at the products on offer and consider their lifetimes. I prefer to buy things that last and can be repaired or augmented, than things that can’t. For this reason, I have a second-hand wooden desk chair (yes, ergonomically it’s fine) rather than the latest high-tech number from a developing nation with a big pollution problem. I also try to consider the resources it took to create whatever I’m buying (as I’ll explain in a moment), though sometimes this can be difficult.

How will I dispose of it?
Finally, I consider the reusability and recyclability of the items I buy so that I know that when I finally need to discard my computer, phone, desk chair or lamp, I’ll know it’s not going into landfill. The best option, before recycling, is always reuse: Can your neighbor’s teenager use your old computer for school assignments? It may not meet your needs for processing or disk space, but someone you know might be glad to have it.

I find these criteria helpful for assessing new purchases. But there are a range of other considerations in the home office. Let’s look at them now.

Energy
There are three key power drains in my office: climate control, lighting and device usage.

When it’s cold do you put on a jumper or turn on the heater? Can you open your office windows on warm days? Do you turn your monitors and other devices off at night (and I mean off, not on standby)? Do you crank up your surround-sound system to get motivated, or put on some headphones and play an album through your computer? Outside your home office, do you drive to all your meetings (under the justification that you don’t have time to wait for the bus), or travel on public transport or your bike?

All “environmental” choices seem to have degrees of impact, and it’s definitely true with powered devices. For instance, task lighting is generally more efficient than overhead lighting, and fluorescent or LED technology is more efficient than incandescent bulbs. But ideally, you probably want to get some natural light happening in the home office — aren’t luxuries like fresh air and sunshine what remote working is all about?

Printing
The paperless office might be an ideal, but for many, it’s impossible. I try to keep my printing to a minimum. I buy recycled paper, and I print at draft quality to conserve ink. It’s easier on the wallet as well as the planet. Depending on the type of work you do, you might be able to find ways to curb paper usage, and use more environmentally sound printing products to boot. Don’t forget toner refilling services, either.

Recycling
Few of the offices I’ve worked in have had recycling on offer. But at home, I have all kinds of recycling — including organic waste. So I make sure to use them. Obviously, the types of materials that you can recycle will depend on the services in your area, but make sure you know what you can recycle, and see if you can reuse the items that aren’t recyclable.

Device choice and usage
Choosing low-energy devices is an essential consideration in the green home office. But, as I mentioned above, don’t neglect to look at the recyclability of the devices you buy, and to consider how long you think you’ll use them. Augmenting your systems with extra capacity, clearing old files from your hard drives, and using devices like phones until they die can be simple but good ways to do your bit.

Furniture
Your choice of office furniture — desks, shelves, chairs — is another area in which you can make greener choices if you need to. I’ve always used second-hand office furniture, because it’s affordable, and I can keep it out of landfill those few years longer. Second-hand stuff also meets my  recyclability criterion perfectly!

If you’re buying new furniture, look at the resources involved in the product. This can help you avoid accidentally buying computer desks made from rainforest timbers that would probably have served the planet better if they were still growing.

These are the kinds of things I’ve thought about in trying to make my home office more environmentally sound. What are your tips?

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Those are all very good uses, and benefit you as a web worker immensely. The only question I have as a visitor is, how do they benefit me? Yes, they help if I’m considering you as a prospective contractor for a job, but if I’m not, then the site quickly loses relevance. A blog should be doing work all the time, even when it isn’t speaking directly to your professional history and identity. Here’s how to make sure it is.

Keep ‘Em Coming

The best way to make sure a blog is doing work for you is to make sure that it will attract repeat visitors, even if those visitors aren’t currently interested in you professionally, since they may be at some later date. How do you get people to come back? Make sure they see your site as a growing, live resource.

Be a Research Assistant

The only way to do this is to make sure that you show them you can provide the information your visitors are looking for easier, quicker, and better than they can find it themselves. That doesn’t mean replicating Google search results. That means pre-searching, collecting, and annotating useful links and resources, and keeping them up to date. Case in point, if I’m looking for Twitter resources, I don’t go to Google, I go to TwiTip.com first.

Make link collections easy to find and clearly titled, possibly placing permalinks to relevant posts in your blog’s sidebar or header. Context and a human touch is especially important with these, since otherwise visitors will mistrust them as the products of automated web spiders and bots.

Humanize, Humanize, Humanize

That brings me to my next point, which is that you should make your blog as human as possible without being overly personal. I would avoid ads unless your blog is your primary source of income, or limit them to a very few which redirect to relevant sites to which you personally contribute or with which you’re involved.

The tone and content of your writing shouldn’t be too formal. The potential clients you want reading your blog probably spend a good chunk of their day reading formal business writing, press releases, etc., and your blog will fall off their radar if it comes across as too similar to those things. In the end, people are looking to connect with other people, not with dry instructional manuals.

Don’t Become a One-Trick Pony

Specialization is important. People respect specialists and look to them for solutions to pressing problems. That said, while there is nothing wrong with showing off your specialization on your blog, don’t make it the exclusive focus. You risk alienating everyone in your audience, and it will be especially hard to encourage repeat visits from casual readers.

It’s also important to show readers that you are not living inside a bubble. Web workers are prized for their ability to come up with non-linear solutions and adapt. That flexibility of mind will come across if you show a willingness to step outside your comfort zone once in a while and address different topics.

Get Beyond the “You” in Your Blog

Of course, since it represents you, it should primarily feature your content. That’s primarily, not exclusively. Having guest bloggers contribute content to your blog not only encourages an influx of readers who wouldn’t ordinarily find your site, but also provides a different take on who you are.

In soliciting guest posts, you present prospective clients with an example of your resourcefulness, and your ability to successfully network and make important connections in your chosen space. You also tell clients who you are by telling them who you associate with, something to keep in mind when selecting potential guest bloggers.

Some of these tips may be obvious, and others might not quite fit with what you have in mind, but at the very least, they should help you think more critically about how you represent yourself on the web, and that’s always a good thing.

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These resources can help increase your chances of finding freelance writing work. It’s important to remember that whatever romantic notions of the solitary writer you may have, being successful as a freelancer depends on community, and these resources provide a good starting point for building your own.

The Freelance Writer’s Helper

A fairly recent site, The Freelance Writer’s Helper is put together by Tim Beyers, a freelance writer who contributes to the investment blog The Mile High Fool. It’s a Google Notebook, which is perfect for the content, which is meant to be easy to search and be reference ready.

Along the left side you can find the links to all of the page’s subsections. Each subsection contains links to useful external sites, followed by a brief description. If nothing else, Tim has done a nice job of aggregating a considerable amount of information  valuable to freelancers hoping to write online in one convenient, central location.

The Freelance Writer’s helper is a living document, and Tim is always happy to receive suggestions for additional links he can add to the site to make it even more useful.

All Freelance Writing

Keeping in the spirit of aggregated content, All Freelance Writing is an ongoing blog that features a lot of resource lists and link collections. The blog’s authors do a really good job of organizing this mass of information in meaningful ways.

How-to articles are plentiful here, as are skill and trade refinement exercises, and professional development resources. There’s also a list of job offerings, which is updated once a week.

Jeff Gaulin Job Boards

Right away, you’ll note that JeffGaulin.com is a Canada-centric resource, but valuable nonetheless, especially if you find a job where you can work remotely, or if you’re willing to make a move in order to further your career. Jeff has somehow managed to make this site the go-to destination for journalists looking for work in Canada.

Jobs are broken down by area and by category, and those advertising on the site include heavy-hitters like Adbusters and AskMen.com. So far, his online listings are kind of slim, but hopefully, as the sector grows, the site will shift focus towards that kind of work.

There you go, three resources to make your freelance writing island a little less remote. It’s still a more isolated career choice than, say, working in a busy office, but you don’t have to do it without any help at all.

Are there any freelance writing communities you belong to or participate in?

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When I think about projects, I always separate them into two categories: revenue generating and non-revenue generating. A non-revenue generating project is almost always going to be a professional development activity, although revenue generating activities can be classified as professional development as well.

VirtualVocations: Paid Work

Finding revenue generating projects is probably the most difficult. My number one source is, unsurprisingly, the internet. Sites like Problogger.net provide great job boards where all of the work is done remotely, but it can feel a bit crowded there. I recently came across VirtualVocations, which features different kinds of job listings, and has a smaller user pool, meaning more chance to land any given job.

VirtualVocations features a lot of the more common teleworking positions, including marketing specialists, transcriptionists, writers, and programmers. As with many sites of this type, listings are a little hit-0r-miss, and sifting through them is mostly left to the job hunter’s discretion,

The nice thing about VirtualVocations is its community support. Possible scams are quickly flagged in the user forums, and members share job information and their experiences readily. There are also some handy resources available from the forums, like this rate sheet detailing how much you should charge for transcription services.

[places for writers]: Professional Growth

I’m not always out to get paid. Sometimes I want to hone my craft, which in my case means improving my writing. Places for writers offers me the opportunity to do so, and to contribute to the online literary community in the process.

Obviously, this one is a little skewed towards those of you working as writers, but there is no field of web work in which good writing skills will not pay off. The written word is still the primary means of internet communication, and in all cases, the better you are at communicating, the better you will be at your job.

Places for writers offers opportunities for those interested in all types of writing, from poetry to non-fiction. It features open calls for submissions from small press and literary publications, a few job listings (though these are not often updates), information on how to pursue writer’s grants, and resources for writers.

A lot of the content is Canada-focused, but in most cases, the information and resources are available and applicable to all those interested in improving their writing and adding to their clips.

I love having multiple things on the go, and sites like those I’ve listed here today help me achieve that. The only problem is avoiding a situation where I’ve taken on much more than I can handle, but that’s an entirely different article.

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Everyone, especially computer people, love lists of resources. I do as well, and I decided it’s time to share many of the resources that have helped me in my career. All of these resources (except for the print books) are either freeware, open source, or the application offers a free version.

Firefox

• Firebug – Essential tool for CSS/JavaScript debugging.
• YSlow – Firebug add-on to help determine performance bottlenecks.
• Web Developer Toolbar – Provides tools to compliment Firebug.
• Fireftp – The best FTP client and in a browser no less!
• Dust-Me Selectors – Scans the page against your current style sheet to determine extraneous styles.
• Server Spy – See the server technology for current page.
• Colorzilla – Awesome color picker.
• HTML Validator – Validate pages and clean them with this tool.
• IE Tab – View pages in IE inside Firefox.
• Selenium IDE – Record and playback end-user testing.
• X-Ray – Bookmarklet to examine elements in DOM.

Web Worker Applications

• Box.net – Backup your files with this tremendous tool.
• Harvest – Time tracking utility.
• Jott – Record messages from your phone and add them to various applications.
• Gliffy – MS Visio replacement for diagramming.
• Yugma – Free video conferencing.
• 101 Essential Freelancing Resources – Need more than we’ve got here?

Print Books

• Designing with Web Standards – A great introduction to web standards design by Jeffrey Zeldman.
• CSS: A Definitive Guide – Eric Meyer’s magnum opus on CSS.
• Don’t Make Me Think! – The acclaimed introduction to usability.
• Codin’ For the Web – Great book to teach application development to designers.
• Web Design in a Nutshell – Invaluable desktop reference.

Online Books

• Version Control with Subversion – Introduction to the precepts of Subversion.
• Getting Real – 37 Signals famous work on design.
• O’Reilly Library – Various O’Reilly books you can read online.
• The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web

Tutorials

• W3Schools.com – XHTML, CSS, PHP, SQL, XML, etc.
• Good Tutorials – Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, PHP, HTML, etc.
• PHP for the Absolute Beginner
• ASP.NET 2.0 Quickstart Tutorial
• Learn CSS Positioning in 10 Easy Steps

Editors

• CSS Vista = Neat CSS editor.
• PSPad – Simple, fast editor that I used for a long time.
• Aptana – Editor built on Eclipse that, I think, is the best out there.
• Microsoft Visual Web Developer – Free MS editor to create ASP.NET applications.
• SQLYog – GUI interface to MySQL.
• SQL Server Management Studio Express – The free edition of the GUI to SQL Server.

Templates

• Open Source Web Design
• Themebot – Themes for Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, and phpBB among others.
• Open Web Design
• The Open Design Community
• The CSS Tinderbox – CSS layouts.
• Little Boxes – CSS layouts.

Project Management/Version Control

• Assembla – Free TRAC/Subversion workspaces.
• TRAC – Slim, extensible SDLC tool.
• Subversion – The great open source source control.
• TortoiseSVN – GUI interface into Subversion via Windows shell.
• AnkhSVN – Browse Subversion repositories inside Visual Studio.

Testing/Validators

• UITest.com
• The Scrutinizer – SEO validators and analysis.
• Test Everything!
• Web Site Tools
• WAMP - Apache, MySQL, and PHP on Windows

Application Comparison

• Wiki Matrix – Compare wiki applications.
• Forum Matrix – Compare forum applications.
• WebBlog Matrix – Compare blog applications.
• The CMS Matrix – Compare CMS applications.
• OpenSourceCMS – Demo various CMS’.

Web Designer Blogs/News Aggregation

• Design Float – Digg style site for designers.
• Web Developer’s Handbook – More resources then you could ever need.
• CSS Juice – CSS tips and utilities.
• Smashing Magazine – The best resource for resources.
• .net Develop – Cutting-edge articles on web technology best practices.

Chris Poteet is a web application developer under his company name, Siolon.

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