A productive day

Despite my fury this morning, I have done a lot of work. Five documents for a favourite client, the document for the annoying client and some proofreading for a new client I've just picked up from a networking website (plus a long phone call with her and drafting a contract as she will be sending me work on a daily basis). I had a long chat with my graphic designer about the website we are working on for our mutual client. I didn't even start the copy today but we have drafted a sitemap and worked out which pages will be done for which phase. And we threw some ideas around, as I always have the sales aspect in mind for clients and what will or will not work. I also sent out a bunch of invoices and caught up with some of my accounts, called the chamber of commerce yet again about my fees, e-mailed a client about feature writing for her website and e-mailed my accountant about the looming tax return.

Let me tell you about my graphic designer - he's great to work with. We met last year at a networking meeting, swapped business cards and arranged to meet for a pint one lunchtime. He actually has an office about three minutes' walk from me, which is very convenient now I'm no longer driving. Anyway, we hit it off because we like to work in a similar way. Shortly after, I got a call from a client who need a website overhaul. I agreed to take on the job and then it turned out her web designer had gone off to Bahrain or somewhere and was no longer available. So I brought my graphic designer in on the project. We worked amazingly well together on that first job and, since then, have worked together on other projects. This current one is the biggest yet that we have worked on together and has underlined yet again what a great team we make. We are so in tune with each other - he has the ability to see how the words need to work with the design, while I understand the importance of the design when it comes to the patter.

I love the fact that he's local - it's so easy to organise meetings if we are working on joint projects. Like me, he's from elsewhere too, so we also share the fact that we've both only been living in our town a couple of years. It's great to have someone like this you can trust to deliver a good job - he's really talented and easy to rub along with too. On the current project, we have so far created three exhibition banners and a brochure. Now we're doing the company website. There will be other stuff down the line, such as magazine advertisements.

Today he passed on my contact details to a local photographer who wants to use my services. This is useful for me not just in terms of earning from him but also working together in the future. I never know if I will land a client who suddenly needs a good local photographer as well.

That's it for this week. It's gone 5 and I have a glass of wine in my hand. Time to enjoy the sunshine and look forward to the weekend...