DEAR READERS,

While the restrictions for the economy and society are slowly being eased after the various ´Corona Lockdowns´ around the globe, the current situation is not easy for companies and freelancers. According to our current Lunendonk study, the lockdowns and restrictions resulted in the number of freelancer projects declining significantly.

At least, there are numerous aid programmes that can help the self-employed. There are also some voluntary initiatives, such as the ´Corona Job Fee´, for which the freelancer.international group has just received the award ´SOCIALLY ENGAGED 2020´.

Moreover, our popular guest article will deal with barriers that prevent you from living a successful life and our freelancer article will define how an already successful coaching process can be enhanced and perfected. In the end, our freelancer joke compares the work ethic of employees and freelancers.

Despite the Corona crisis, I hope you enjoy reading and, of course, as always, good business!

Rainer Kurz

The Ministry of Economics, Labour and Housing Construction of Baden-Wurttemberg/Germany awarded the 'Socially Engaged 2020' award to us as part of the small and medium-sized enterprises prize for social responsibility. The award was presented by the Minister of Economic Affairs Dr. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut in Germany.

The freelancer.international group is involved in various social projects, especially in the context of the employment initiative Jobs-for-Refugees and the job placement initiative “Corona Job Fairy”. freelancer.international Managing Director Dr. Rainer Kurz: 'A special thanks and great appreciation goes to our employees and voluntary supporters of our initiatives. For us, the placement of freelancers is not only an economic activity but also a social good'.

The SME Award for Social Responsibility honours small and medium-sized companies for their voluntary social commitment.

The goal of the Ministry of Economics, Labour and Housing Construction is to promote the concept of sustainable corporate management in the sense of so-called 'Corporate Social Responsibility'. One of the criteria for awarding the prize to us is the cooperation between private companies and non-profit organizations. Successful cooperation between these two players strengthens society and helps to solve social and societal problems. They serve as role models and good examples. According to the Ministry, the voluntary social commitment of companies is an expression of social responsibility and thus forms the basis for a stable, supportive and open society.

The award is already the third official recognition of charitable activities of the freelancer.international group. Previously we received the Demography Excellence Award and were nominated for the German Engagement Award.

In their latest IT freelancer study, market research company Lunendonk asked the ten leading freelance brokers about the sales impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. They expect a decline in sales of three per cent in 2020. 'Compared to other B2B services markets, this is a rather optimistic forecast,' says Jonas Lunendonk, describing the situation. It would not be surprising, for example, if sales shrank even more in 2020. For example, some service companies are reporting a drop in turnover of more than 30 per cent drop for the second quarter of 2020.

In some areas, however, the Corona crisis also led to increased demand. For instance, experts in cloud technologies were in high demand during the pandemic.

However, revenue expectations for 2021 are again considerably optimistic. For the period after the Corona crisis, digitisation, IT modernisation, cloud and transformation projects will likely result in an increasing number of projects, many requiring freelancers.

Before the pandemic, many companies suffered from a lack of skilled workers. Although this shortage is currently less severe, it will become noticeable again when the economy returns to a growth path.

Defining goals and successfully implementing them is usually easier said than done! One of the reasons for this could be that your goals have not been well documented or concretely formulated. Lack of discipline can also be an important factor in the implementation of the success in your planned goals.

The bestselling author Alan Weiss proposes the iconic 'One-Percent-Rule'. With this approach, he encourages readers to aim to be better every day by simply just one per cent. Purely mathematically, your own abilities will double itself every 70 days. Imagine if you could build up such a clear advantage in your business! You are probably asking yourself how to do something like this. Well, you must be open to learning and use every opportunity to experience something new. This can be done in different ways, for example, an article in a trade magazine, a tip from a colleague, an important note in a blog or newly acquired skills from a seminar. The possibilities are practically endless, you simply have to be attentive and take every opportunity to learn something new or innovative and try it out.

In addition to your actual subject area, there are many other areas where you can improve further. Just think about how you could better negotiate agreements with your customers, how you could make presentations more successful or how you could stay motivated every day despite setbacks and stress. Or perhaps it is how to optimally prepare for customer meetings, how to develop your leadership skills, or how to improve your innovation skills? The list can be continued indefinitely and there are infinite ways we can improve our business expertise and knowledge.

The 'one per cent approach' helps you to continuously improve and stay one step ahead of the competition. This can also lead to innovative product and sales ideas. For example, freelancer Amor Daouadi offers his customers a 10 per cent discount if they pay the total amount at the beginning of the project, and he guarantees professional and high-quality consulting work. This way, he is able to achieve a completion rate of 75 per cent. This method is particularly successful with large companies, as many department heads and managers know that their project could no longer be overturned by any cost savings.

Registered service providers can present themselves with a short article in the freelancer.international news. In this issue, we present a multiple book author with a doctorate who has almost 20 years of first and second level management and leadership experience in medium-sized corporations.
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Coaching is a process clarification aimed at reviewing existing activities, behaviours and assessments in the client´s field of work. During the coaching interview, it is decided if adaptations of existing activities are necessary or if completely new activities emerge as more productive. Following from this, it is then found out together how this can best be done. In principle, the various components of the situation and its implementation should, therefore, be analysed, evaluated and solved.

The to-do lists summarise the coaching session and contain a future picture of the activities and the expected results. A to-do list is designed in such a way that future situations can be dealt with successfully and the client can go into her reality in a stabilised way. The to-do list also includes the objective in the sense of a personal agreement on objectives, the description of the strategies and measures for achieving the objective, the persons involved and the underlying business or action processes.
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'Do you believe in life after death?' A freelance project manager asks his employee. 'Yes?', he answers in a bewildered manner.

'That explains everything! Soon after you went to your father ́s funeral yesterday, he came here and asked where you were!”