by Diane Erlich - Graphic Exchange magazine

your attention. Your client doesn’t needto know that.I also registered for a PST number.Nothing tells suppliers you are seriousabout your business as effectively as whenthey bill you, and you say you are PST-exemptand give them your number.(right) www.yellow.ca (CanadianYellow Business Directory Pages)will let you LIST YOURSELF forfree. For a modest fee it can bringyou to the top of the listings aswell as provide a link to yourhome page.(above) The Designers Resource (www.gain.org) isgreat for locating TRADE and PROFESSIONALASSOCIATIONS. Much of the information isAmerican but it also has links to the CanadianPrinting Industry Association (CPIA) and theCanadian Pulp & Paper Association (CPPA).(right) The Graphic Design Publishing Center News(www.graphic-design.com) is a U.S.-basedDISCUSSION BOARD for a wide range of topics,including discussions on pricing.DigitalEve (www.digitaleve.com):this group of women has beenextremely helpful in getting meNETWORKED with other peopleand organizations, as well asallowing me free promotionthrough their listings.SO…HOW’S IT GOING?The last year has had its share of “MaybeI should just find a job!”, and “How doesthis accounting software work exactly?”But I have managed to do some clientwork, although mostly I have been teaching.It started in December with a phonecall—was I able to teach a corporate classin PowerPoint for Mac? From there, I wasasked back to teach Office 2001 to thesame group.Still doing research. Still going afterclients. In January I had a panic attackthat I wouldn’t survive, so I took a parttimejob at a bookstore—which ended upbeing a great idea. As it turned out, itwasn’t about the money, but the networking.Not to mention that sitting on mybutt in front of a computer was not doingme any good physically.While I’m on the subject, eventhough it is important to be available forpotential clients, and even though you doneed to spend a large part of your day “inthe office”, try to spend an equal amountof time doing something else for yourself. The job at the bookstoreturned out to be not a defeat for my business but a greatsource of information, people contacts, and exercise.The funniest thing that happened in my panic to get some incomewas that I actually got what has turned into one of the bestthings that has happened to me yet—a part-time teaching contractat a local college. One semester has turned into another halfsemester, which in turn turned into night school, and in SeptemberI hope to be teaching three classes a week plus night school.I still have my share of clients. I haven’t made my first millionquite yet.But if I don’t, it doesn’t mean I failed. One of the best thingsin my “good idea” is actually working out fine: my business planis doing exactly what as it should, guiding me through the darknessto the light of a long overdue vacation, my first in five years.At times it was very hard to stay focused. The term I like to useis that “I am easily distracted by shiny things.” Although it’s a funnystatement, it’s very true. It’s easy to stray into surfing the Internetwhile doing research and land at what looks like an interestingsite—and three hours later you’ve done nothing. Then there’sthe element of friends and family who will call you during theday to chat. For some reason when I was working for someoneelse that wasn’t a problem, but now it’s a big deal.But no one is handing me deadlines at ten minutes to five andsaying I have to present in the morning. I can set up my own accountswith the printers I like and not the ones who happen to bedownstairs. And when I go on vacation, I can give myself a monthoff—or even take my laptop with me, in case I get seized by feelingsof insecurity.So here I am, two years later, coming up on the close of myfirst year end in business, and I’m still a self-employed free agent.And you know something? Just typing that still sends shiversdown my spine.Diane Erlich is president of Orchid Graphics, a Toronto-based design firm.She may be contacted at orchidgraphics@sympatico.ca.Graphic Exchange 15