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On Friday 21 July 2006 15:23, John Garison wrote:
> I dunno, Al. When I was freelancing (and I'm back at it again
> </shameless plug>) I had a circle of friends and we all passed leads and
> jobs amongst each other when something came across our plate that we
> couldn't handle. I ended up getting a lot of jobs through friends, and
> vice versa.
>
> Cooperation is sometimes the better game to play than competition. I'd
> rather have my clients happy by getting their work done even if it's
> temporarily by someone else than having them grumbling about me not
> being responsive to their needs.
Fully agree here. My experience of cooperation has been enjoyable. In fact,
working the market together has opened opportunities I probably would not
have encountered had I been closed shop about things. Placing a list of
customers on my website has not stopped work, it increased it. Having
cooperation with others has enabled me to have the capacity required in order
to cater for demand. As my network has grown, so has the workflow and it is
not uncommon for myself to earn a commission from passing the work along, or
for me to pay a commission when receiving work.
In the end your customers will always work with you while you provide value.
The price of which is not always measured in monetary terms. From our
perspective, as the open documentation company, complete transparency, open
methodologies and technologies have resulted great value for ourselves and
our customers (both technical writers and technology vendors).
--
Ask me about the Monkey.
Sean Wheller
Technical Author
sean -at- inwords -dot- co -dot- za
+27-84-854-9408 http://www.inwords.co.za
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