If you can’t see the video below, you can find it on Tim’s own Four Hour Work Week blog.
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If you’ve been contemplating a similar move, there are a few things you might want to consider before taking the plunge.

1. Create at least one stream of passive income to augment your savings. This can be a short book or e-book that you sell online, a software application, a lucrative affiliate relationship, or even just AdWords on your blog.
2. Join at least one professional association in your field, and do more than just sign the membership check. Get involved and share your information with potential readers, clients, and joint venture partners. In NAIWE, you have many ways to market your work. Once you add your own information, your member site can be the first place you send potential clients. They will see that you’re an active member of your professional association, and that can be a big boost to your credibility as a freelancer.
3. Reach out to others in your field and get to know them, either online or in person. This will give you a pool of people that you can network with and refer for jobs that don’t fit your skills.
4. If you are quitting to write books, have at least a portion written before you leave your job. This will give you something to build on and help you avoid the paralysis of the empty page/empty bank account syndrome.
5. Be sure you know your chosen field backward and forward. Go to conferences while you’re still working and make contacts and learn everything you can. Knowledge is power… and money.
6. Have a written business plan with cash flow projections. It may not be something that comes easily for writers and other creative types, but it’s essential. If you don’t know how to do this, visit your local branch of the Small Business Administration and schedule a consultation with a retired business person. This can be a tremendous help, and it costs nothing.
7. Know your own personality well, and be sure that you have the discipline it takes to treat your freelance career seriously.
8. Find other entrepreneurs to mingle with, and learn all you can about marketing. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working on a novel or landscaping or computer programming– the marketing step can make or break your business. One often-quoted statistic says that during the first three years of a business or project, you can expect to spend 75% of your time marketing. This may sound odd until you realize that marketing is just the process by which you notify the world of your creation. It takes awhile to effectively get the word out and create demand for your book, product, or service, but it can be done if you make it a major priority.

I’m always happy to see a new business launch or a new author be published. It takes courage to take the plunge, but it can pay off both financially and in lifestyle dividends. There’s nothing I appreciate more about my own freelance lifestyle than the ability to work when, where, and with whom I like. I believe that freelancing can be the best job in the world, and if you’re considering it, I wish you well!

Gardner responds by clearly reminding us all that we each create our own lucky breaks. She states, “You create the potential opportunities by networking with other writers and people in publishing. You create preparedness by being the best writer you can.” Yes! I can’t even begin to suppress the “I told you so!” that bubbled up as soon as I read this.

I’ve heard some people use the phrase “some people get all the breaks” as an excuse for lack of success, but really, it’s a success tip in disguise. Some people do get all the breaks, but that’s because they’ve positioned themselves well, they’ve honed their craft, and they’ve made the effort to network with others in their field. They didn’t wait for manna to fall from the sky; they went out and plowed the field and planted seed. What you do today will bear fruit in season.

We offer this program on a space-available basis– just watch the e-zine (The Edge– sign up for it at the home page, above) for details. Registration has just opened for a Fast Track for fall 2009. You may find the application and all the details at www.LuckyFreelancer.com.

Space is limited, so if you’d like to transform your business in time for 2010, be sure to sign up quickly. There’s also a $500 early bird discount for applications received by 31 August, so don’t delay!

If you’d like a printable mini-poster of the 7 Core Practices, you’ll be able to download it when you sign up for the e-zine.

TheCore Practices can help you become a Lucky Freelancer!

Some People Get All the Breaks

Practice #1: The Lucky Freelancer learns the mindsets and habits needed to spot and seize “the breaks.”

You’ve Got To Be In the Right Place At the Right Time

Practice #2: The Lucky Freelancer Learns How to Grow a Business Through Niching, Positioning, and Branding

You Don’t Want to Put All Your Eggs In One Basket

Practice #3: The Lucky Freelancer Learns How to Create Passive Income and Multiple Streams of Income

It’s All In Who You Know

Practice #4: The Lucky Freelancer Learns How to Build Business Through Networking, Joint Ventures, and Affiliates

You Have to Make Your Own Luck

Practice #5: The Lucky Freelancer Learns Effective, Low-Cost Marketing and Promotional Strategies

You’ve Got to Give to Get

Practice #6: The Lucky Freelancer Learns Smart Ways to Attract Ideal Clients

A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush

Practice #7: The Lucky Freelancer Learns Client Retention Strategies that Really Work

I received an e-mail a couple of weeks ago from a prospective member who was struggling to make an adequate living as a freelance copywriter. The writer’s credentials were outstanding, his list of previous clients was impressive, and his writing style was compelling, and yet he still struggled to stay afloat. His question was very basic; “I’m working 10 hours a day and barely making ends meet. How can I find more hours in the day?”

The question reminded me of the story that Stephen Covey tells in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (a book I recommend for entrepreneurs and anyone who wants to lead a more effective life) of the man who scaled a difficult wall, only to discover at the top that he’d been climbing the wrong wall. My correspondent didn’t need to know how to find more hours in his day, he needed to learn how to more effectively use the hours he had.

If you’re working ten hours a day and not making ends meet, something is wrong with your business model.  Since NAIWE is focused on helping members build solid, profitable freelance businesses, one of the things I enjoy doing is slipping a bit of quick coaching into e-mail responses. I asked the writer several strategic questions designed to help him think through the elements of his business and point him in a much more profitable direction. This morning, I got another e-mail from him:

“Thank you so much for the questions you sent. I was annoyed when I got them, thinking that I didn’t have time to answer a bunch of crazy questions, when I was bailing for dear life. I glanced over them, though, and the second question slapped me like a cold fish. You asked, “Do you ever bid too low for a job because you feel that if you charged for the real amount of time it would take, you wouldn’t get the job?

I realized that I do this all the time. I end up working for peanuts, when I could work a lot less if I got paid decently for what I did. I’m still thinking about this. Your questions are pointing me in a new direction, and I’m learning new things just by going through them. Finally, I feel hope. I think I can see how to make it after all!”

Knowing which wall to climb and what to do when you’re over the top is essential for becoming what I’ve called a Lucky Freelancer. Although it looks as though some people get all the breaks and are just plain lucky in their freelance business life, they’ve gotten that way by scaling the right wall, and learning what to do when they get where they want to go. “Lucky” is something that you can choose, but it takes time, effort, and purpose. Where are you on the path toward Lucky?

And when is an e-mail not an e-mail? When it’s a mini-coaching session! I’m pulling together some of my favorite coaching questions into a Lucky Freelancer Quiz that will be posted in the member area of NAIWE or available when you subscribe to The Edge, NAIWE’s free e-zine.

Socrates knew that questions are one of the most effective ways of making people think, and they work as well today as they did in ancient Greece. These questions should help you evaluate what you’re doing, assess whether it’s effective, and move you toward a better business model. If you work through them thoughtfully, you’ll find that they’ll change your mind, your habits, and your business. They’ll help you become a Lucky Freelancer.

If you’d like real-time, personal help with the transition, I’m offering the Lucky Freelancer Fast Track, a group-coaching session that begins in September. It’s like a mini-MBA in freelance business practices, and it’s guaranteed to prepare you for a very different, more successful business in 2010.

I had called my doctor’s office to request that my prescription be called in the mail-order pharmacy I usually work with. I’d mailed in the paper prescription, but it had apparently been lost or delayed, so I needed a refill by the end of the week. I provided all the relevant information for the refill nurse, but when I told her what pharmacy I used, her involuntary exclamation told me all I needed to know about the company’s attitude toward clients.

What about you and your company?

What do your clients say when your name comes up at a networking event? What do you want them to say? Like the pharmacy that sparked the nurse’s expression of loathing, do you make things hard for your clients, or do you smooth their path and take away stress?

Every other pharmacy I’ve used accepts prescription call-ins from the doctor; this one does not. Every other pharmacy I’ve used permits faxed prescriptions; this one does not. This pharmacy requires that new prescriptions, even if they are just an unchanged one-year renewal of a prescription that has been taken for years, be snail-mailed in. This is a) inconvenient; b) slow; c) archaic. As my grandmother would say, “Reee-DIC-ulous!”

I’ve heard small business owners declare that “It’s my business, and I’ll do what’s comfortable for me!” That’s a good policy when you’re strategically using it to plan your business, but when dealing with current clients, it can be business suicide. If your policies make your customers hate doing business with you, chances are that you’ll always be a very small business owner. It’s a choice.

If you’re in a business where people are compelled to work with you, you may survive, but if competition emerges, you’ll be in deep trouble. I would never do business with this arrogant company if it weren’t the only mail-order pharmacy associated with my HMO. The minute there is a better alternative, I will take my business elsewhere, but in the meantime, they remain a niggling annoyance.

So…how can you stay off the “Most Hated” list? Here are five tips:

1. Know what you want your clients to say about you, then purposefully create the customer service experience that earns that response.
2. Market to clients who are right for you. This way, you can create a good customer service experience that you enjoy providing (it is your business, after all!). If snail mail drives you crazy, don’t market to clients who love it. They may need your services, but they’ll hate the way you provide them, and you won’t get positive referrals from them (in fact, you’re likely to end up the subject of snarky blog posts and “worst customer service ever” conversations.
3. Make sure that your service delivery methods make your client’s life easier, rather than harder. It’s good to offer something more or something different than the competition, but make sure it’s a positive difference. My pharmacy is different, all right, but it’s a negative difference.
4. If you cannot accommodate a request, be willing to refer the client to someone who can. Many small business owners make the mistake of treating others in their field as adversaries, rather than colleagues. This is another way to ensure that you remain small. Establishing a network of trusted colleagues makes it possible to give and receive quality referrals, ensuring that each of you is able to grow and thrive in your own niche.
5. If a customer has a legitimate need or emergency, go the extra mile to accommodate them. The pharmacy’s insistence on snail mail would have ensured that I’d spend several days without the prescription if the nurse hadn’t found a creative solution to the problem. Guess who will get a positive referral from me?

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Would you like to use this article in your e-zine or blog? You have my permission, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:

Janice Campbell, the Lucky Freelancer(tm) Coach, has been a freelance writer and speaker for over two decades and is Director of the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (www.NAIWE.com), a unique, success-oriented professional organization. She is noted for providing concrete, step-by-step guidance for writers and editors who want to live the freelance life– profitably. In her mastermind and coaching programs, she teaches motivated freelancers how to apply the Seven Core Practices of the Lucky Freelancer. Janice writes daily, exploring new techniques and topics, and loves living the Lucky Freelancer lifestyle.