In the run up to my new e-course’s launch on Wednesday March 10th, I’ll be giving away 10 courses for free.

The offer is inclusive to fans of the Red Lemon Club Google+ Page

For a chance of getting hold of a free, instantly downloadable copy of the course: ‘The Freelancer’s Guide to Winning Incredible Clients through Google+ Mastery’ (and several bonuses), which shows freelancers, and entrepreneurs, everything you need to know to use Google+ for winning great, ongoing projects and clients, you need to do the following:

1. Log in or sign up for a Google+ account.

2. Go to the Red Lemon Club Google Page, and add us to one of your circles if you haven’t already.

3. Write a wall post or comment stating why you want the course.

..And that’s it!

The ten winners will be announced through the Google+ page, as well as the Red Lemon Club site on Tuesday Feb 6th.

Good luck!

My course for freelancers on using Google+ to win clients proudly launches on 7th February. To help me get the word out, I need some help from you guys.

For some of you who can help with a tweet or two on Twitter, I am giving away 5 free 60-day visible advertising spots right here on Red Lemon Club, as well as Ape on the Moon (100,000+ visits per month combined) and the RLC newsletter (4700+ subscribers). That’s worth $200 each! So you get plenty of promotion.

On top of that, I’ll send you a free copy of my new ebook ‘5 Steps to a Solid Twitter Network‘ worth $27, which shows you exactly how to build up a large and targeted network on Twitter.

These ads will be pushed up to the top so they’re nice and visible. I can personally help with banner design if you need it.

Just copy the following tweet into your Twitter ‘What’s Happening’ box for a chance to win:

Get ready for NEW e-course for freelancers from @redlemonclub on using Google+ to win great clients. Learn more: http://bit.ly/wlXZIR

Winners for the ad spots are announced here, on Sunday evening 5th February.

Best of luck!

Though winning projects will depend on what jobs are out there, the services you provide and the quality of your work, there are several things you can do, as you go about using social media, to help push the likelihood of winning work in your favour:

1. Add prospects to your social networks

You may have lots of connections on Twitter, but are they really likely to ever be clients of yours, or just friends, or, at worst, indifferent to what you share? The main reason for you not attracting paying clients on social media sites, is because they simply are not in your network.

This owes itself to: a) You aren’t reaching out to or adding them in the first place, and b) You are not sharing updates, content and information that is truly of interest to them, as we talk about next.

2. Create content that is of interest to prospects

This is something that ties in very closely with the previous point because without relevant content to your prospects, people are unlikely to follow you. In the world of social media, those that win, are those who help others, are sources of interesting information and those who care about others.

Think about what it is that people who have the potential of hiring you would be interested in and include it.

In this environment, it’s not how good you are as a designer that gets people’s attention, it’s how valuable an asset to your network you are. Once this has been established, people start to hire you.

3. Maintaining professionality online

A great deal of people are failing to win any clients or projects online because they simply don’t treat that space with much professionalism. This does not mean being all corporate, traditionalist and boring. Far, far from it.

Those that are winning work and interest on social networks are those people who have mastered the balance of staying professional, whilst maintaining the interest and enthusiasm in their follower’s, all the way along.

This means reducing the amount of junk you share, creating a professional profile, bio and about area, having a decent photo of yourself, being courteous, and so on.

4. Interspersing valuable content with a few references to your own work

Steer clear of sharing constant updates specifically to your own work, portfolio and other promotions online. Maintain a balance of having people interested in you and caring about you in return, whilst also sharing occasional updates to what you are doing professionally (ideally also of interest!). Keep it to a ratio of around 10 percent promotion and 90 percent sharing good, interesting stuff.

You will find that good things come to you, when the majority of what you do, online and offline, is in adding to the success and joy of others. Filling in the gaps with a little self promotion is one of the best strategies.

5. Contact people individually

Reaching out directly to someone who you think you could work with through an ‘@’ mention, email or direct message can be a powerful way of establishing solid contact with them, which could eventually lead to being hired. Find people who you think could genuinely use your services, then come up with a good reason you think you could work with them.

I would not recommend approaching people without having established some form of rapport beforehand. This rapport can of course be built up on social networks themselves!

6. Sharing your portfolio/website at the right moments

When the opportunity arises, such as when someone mentions their own work in a discussion, or when the topic of the kind of work you are in comes up in the comments on a post, you could provide feedback, and share your own work too.

Doing this means the self promotion isn’t quite so blatant as otherwise, and for the most part, will be a welcome addition to the interaction in question.

7. Collaborating with other people

You can use social networks to find other people who could join forces with you in a joint venture, for the purpose of promoting each other’s services and products. People are more likely to take notice when you are promoting someone else’s work, than your own (obviously you will be keen on sharing your own work). As such, joint promotion ventures can be very useful.

For example, you could join up with someone who has a mailing list to swap a mention on each other’s lists. Doing this could open up a whole list of responsive clients in one go. Or you could do a feature of someone on your blog in return for the same from their side, or simply swapping a share (a post, a photo album, a link to work) in Google+, for example.

I’d love to hear any further comments from you, as well as a tweet or share of the article with your friends, which you can do below.

My online course: ‘The Freelancer’s Guide to Winning Incredible Clients through Google+ Mastery‘ can be purchased and downloaded instantly here.

Make sure you don’t neglect that element of you. You can do this by using your imagination, and then using it some more. Spend time writing down or sketching out your imaginative ideas whenever you can, like a child would plan building his fort. Bring a notebook around with you to document your plans, dreams and ideas.

Quit using up all your imagination on worrying, and create a vision that motivates you.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and ruin a smooth, positive and ultimately fruitful experience on social networks for yourself, as well as others through engaging in a heavy-handed way. From personal experience and having had a look around to see where people tend to be going wrong, I’ve compiled a little list of the big ones.

1. Being impersonal

I mean this in two ways. Firstly, incorporate some personality into your posts and your engagement. This doesn’t mean being bouncy and bubbly all the time, unless you want to and if that suits you, fine. It’s more about being human, and not appearing to be an automated robot churning out posts.

Secondly, I’m talking about when people substitute making a connection with a person for being more efficient. An example of this would be in copy and pasting the same message sent out to several people, or tagging many people in one message meant for all of them. This doesn’t show much care for an individual, and will most likely not mean much to them. So when you reach out to people, show them that the interaction is directed to them.

2. Always writing for yourself, not your audience

It’s ok to share things that interest you, but bear in mind, that, especially as you want to attract the attention of prospects and others, you want to be prioritising the sharing of information and updates that you know will be of interest to them. This is one of the major misunderstandings of social media. It doesn’t need to be about you all the time!

This is why circles on Google+ is so useful, because it allows you to share specific content to specific people.

3. Not interacting enough

Obviously if you have a large network with tonnes of people messaging you, responding to everything can be tricky. However, it’s important you maintain a good level of engagement with your connections, as well as responding to what people are saying, asking, commenting on, etc. Be the person who comments the most within your own discussion threads.

Showing that you care will demonstrate to others that you take your connections seriously and strengthen your network as a result.

4. Treating it as a space for advertising

You will vapourise your network by constantly promoting your services and products on G+.

Remember that it is a platform for building, expanding and maintaining relationships, so directly selling to people will distance yourself from them. Keep any ‘selling’ to about 10% and the rest to 90%.

5. Not listening

Social media is not a one-way system, so be aware of what people in your network, as well as those who could potentially be in your network are saying, what their needs are, what their feedback is, and what they are saying about you. I’m sure you’ve heard how listening is vital to any relationship!

6. Being brash, and marginalising people

Steer clear of sharing stuff that could be disagreeable, controversial or even offensive to people. You might feel passionate about something that stands you firmly in one group as opposed to another, such as a political camp, but be aware that you could be losing fans and followers this way, so better just stay away from anything that could be considered a ‘touchy‘ subject.

Further comments will win kudos and compliments from me!

Go a step further than taking deep breaths, by actually strengthening and increasing the capacity of your lungs, which will in turn positively affect your breathing, increase oxygen levels, and ultimately your brain power.

Swimming laps under water will do this, as will running, playing sports and regular deep breathing exercises. If you ever wanted a way to noticeably increase your creativity and intelligence, this is it.

As ever, please share this via one of the buttons below!

Getting ‘rich’, well maybe not immediately, but could there be some true-tested ways for freelancers like us to generate some cashflow over days instead of months, especially in tough times?

Keeping the freelance money coming in at a steady pace is something I like to help out with on Red Lemon Club, but it can sometimes be tricky, especially if you are just starting out.

It’s inadvisable to quit your job before you begin to earn a regular income from freelancing, but from what I’ve learnt, and from people who have done it, there are a few ways to generate extra cash quickly, for support when you experience a lull, at any point in your career.

Each method will obviously depend on your own ability to put in the work, and I do mean work, motivation, and in some cases, the kinds of skills you possess. It is always best to work from your strengths, before choosing a method at random.

Here are 18 ways I’ve discovered that could earn you money quickly:

1. Consult

Think of what you know or what you are good at. People are out there willing to pay you for your knowledge.  You could set up a site or use an existing one to answer questions for a charge, for example. Set up a Paypal link and get paid instantly before sending over an answer.

2. Sell your stuff

Things you own that don’t really get used much, including things in the garage and your attic, can be sold online, on eBay, or even at a garage sale. The beauty of the Internet means you can your stuff within a few days.

3. Create a simple physical product and sell it

Consider what skills you have that would allow you to make quick products, people would like that could be sold at craft markets like Etsy or Ebay. You could create little characters made of bottles, pillows, small paintings, illustrations; the list goes on. Zazzle and Cafepress allow you to create products with your own designs on that they will make for you too.

4. Offer services through online classifieds and freelance sites

Use your existing skill as a freelancer or something else you’re good at, and offer your services online. Classifieds sites like Craigslist and Elance are places to place ads and to find people needing your services.

5. Do local, physical jobs

Put up an ad in your local area for services you can offer like cleaning, washing cars, raking leaves and walking dogs. You could also go around knocking on doors and asking.

You will be surprised at how many people are willing to pay you for doing some work, especially if it is on the spot for them.

6. Create a small downloadable product to sell

Put together a simple guide or ebook using pdf software, your knowledge, and/or even use previously written material with no copyright (known as ‘Public Label Rights’) that you can recreate into your own material. Sell the product via your blog or site, or partner with someone else who has access to followers, newsletter followers, and more.

7. Cut expenses

This is one of the best ways to not only make savings, but effectively create money by withholding on the things you normally spend money on day to day.

Have a look at what you spend money on and cut out what you don’t need, such as coffees away from home, eating out, magazine subscriptions, and gym memberships.

8. Resell stuff online

There are some great profits to be made on buying products for cheap somewhere and reselling them elsewhere, namely online.

Examples of this include buying physical things at a car boot sale at a bargain, and reselling them online to a more discerning market.

9. Create graphics and themes

You could create graphics including logos, templates, icons, buttons, web elements, wordpress or Tumblr themes, book covers, blog themes and illustrations for digital marketplaces like Graphic River or Template Sold. Decent designs on sites with busy marketplaces, can get you sales very quickly.

10. Advertise affiliate products on your blog

If you have a good means to market products, via a blog or to Twitter followers, or a mailing list, for example, you could sell affiliate products and earn a commission on each sold.

Clickbank and Amazon Associates (as well as right here in Red Lemon Club!) are places to go to find products to sell on behalf of others. In many cases, you can a earn a large share on each product, so selling to plenty of the right audience can be very fruitful.

11. Create basic sites for businesses or make basic sites and sell them

If you are good with designing websites, you could have a look for websites of companies that are relatively poor and suggest you redesign them for a fee.

Or, you can figure out what sites people are willing to buy as potential sources of income, build them (or buy them cheap and redesign), add some affiliate products and some content, perhaps a logo, and sell it on a site like Flippa. I’ve personally seen great results selling sites that people want to potentially make money from themselves, through doing this.

12. Write for other blogs or websites that pay

Many people do pay for decent quality written content. Have a hunt around for places that need you to write articles, ‘How-To’s’, tutorials, product and service reviews, stories, interview, and so on.

13. Earn through Youtube videos

Create videos for popular sites like YouTube and sell your own stuff, merchandise or affiliate products via links under the videos. You could, for example post reviews of popular products ou know about and sell the product itself and earn a commission when people buy this way.

If you have a really popular video, you can earn from the advertisements YouTube place next to it as well.

14. Tutoring people

Let people know of your willingness to teach people or groups of people for a fee in your local area. You can be paid immediately at the end of each class. Create a web page also, and even tutor people via Skype or Google Hangout.

15. Sell quick services on Fiverr.com

You could provide a service that doesn’t take too much out of your day via Fiverr, a site that costs users five dollars for jobs other members provide. Earning five dollars for a job may not sound like much, but if you plan carefully and assess the competition, it will build up, and you get paid instantly.

16. Skill brokerage

If you can help other people who provide services, like other freelancers you might know, for example, and come to an agreement on earning a commission on every job that you can get for them, you could earn some quick cash from this. As an example, you could set up a quick web design service site, and earn a commission of 25% for each job that this creates for your web designer friends.

17. Sell ad space on your site

If you have a site with a decent amount of traffic coming through it, ask around (people who know you first) for those willing to pay for a banner, text or other ad on the site. Buy Sell Ads is a great tool for automating this process, so that you place a box on your site, and the rest of the work is left to them, including being able to be searched for on their network.

18. Product/asset brokerage

Offer to help sell products and physical items like cars, furniture and computers for people that don’t know where to start, earning a commission that you negotiate on the item sold.

My dad, for example, had a large volume of valuable books that he wanted to get rid of, and I was able to sell them online and agree on a 25% commission on the value of the sale (What are sons for?!).

Other ideas, do post them in the comments below!

If you don’t have Chrome, I suggest you download and use it. It does seem better and quicker to me, and it generally integrates better with all of Google’s services.

I’ve had a go on many of the available extensions, and have seen that some are useful, and others aren’t really worth it. Here are my top 8 in no order that are worth installing, especially for freelancers using Google+ professionally.

For each of the following, click the name of the extension to be taken to a page where you can click ‘+ Add to Chrome’ to install it.

1. SG Plus

This is useful for being able to see your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and RSS streams inside your Google+ stream. The extension also provides options so that you can share your Google+ updates in Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Very useful.

2. Surplus

This is handy for displaying your notifications ‘red square’ in your browser from any web page, not just Google+.

It also allows you to create and respond to posts from within its popup, and read your notifications.

3. Replies and more for Google+

A nice tool that adds a ‘reply to author’ button underneath posts. This basically means it will tag the author of the post so that your comment goes directly to them.

4. Helper

With the ability to re-share posts to Twitter (as well as translate text, see desktop notifications, and bookmark to Delicious) this can be used as a handy ‘retweet’ tool.

5. Plus One Anything

This installs a ‘+1′ button next to the address bar in your Chrome browser, and means you can +1 any website (your seal of approval that can be seen by friends and contacts), even those whose webmaster hasn’t added one.

6. Photo Zoom

Take the strain out of your eyes by using this extension to enlarge photos just by hovering over them.

7. Usability Boost

This one improves the readability of posts and other sections in Google+ by defining edges more, as well as allowing you to star posts to read later. It just makes Google+ a little easier to use.

8. Google+ Directory

Here is a useful search directory for other Google+ users that you can add to your own circles, right from within your browser. You can specify quite focused search terms in finding people to network with, and be found by others.

As Google+ expands, and more people create more extensions, this list will be added to, and some extensions will probably fall off this list. I’d love you, the keen reader, to add any others you think help enhance your Google+ experience.

Thank you!

The thing is though, they really are important, and really can get you some awesome achievements if you stick to them. But how to stick to them? Sometimes it’s hard to motivate ourselves towards goals.

The reason for this is probably that you haven’t set your goal posts wide enough, and you’re simply not aiming for something that moves you. Another reason could be that, even though you’ve set yourself a big goal, deep down you lack the belief that the goal really is for you.

To get round this, and to really motivate you, create a ‘career-shifter goal’.

This is a major goal that, were you to achieve it, it would noticeably change your own career for the good. Such a goal might be to write a best-selling book, get on the radio, work with a particular dream client, and so on.

This is the kind of goal that will re-kindle any sense of excitement you have about what you do.

Spend some time thinking about the goal. Make sure the prospect of achieving it is something that really excites you and make sure it has a specific deadline. Often this one goal will help you reach other goals associated with your business too.

Here are some more ‘career-shifter’ goal ideas:

• Have a solo gallery exhibition of your work by Sept 13th 2013
• Host an event by 1st January 2015
• Sell 50 products in a month by March 1st 2014
• Win a BAFTA by January 30th 2017
• Write a newspaper article by Sept 1st 2014
• Work with a fortune 500 company by February 3rd 2015
• Get 5000 hits on YouTube by December 24th 2012
• Receive fanmail by July 23rd 2016

Best of luck! What career-shifter goals will you set?

So much so, that I’ve compiled this handy little list, not intended to scare, just to get people thinking about what they might be missing out on by not throwing themselves into the Google+ social theatre. That includes you.

Here is that list:

1. Losing out on much better control

Google+ is just miles ahead when it comes to functionality. Every feature such as sharing posts, editing photos, and following feeds has a built in control that is very powerful, and puts you the user in control at every point during your Google+ experience.

Things like being able to share to certain circles, lock posts for re-sharing, view posts from particular geographic areas, dragging and dropping media into posts from elsewhere and more, allow you to really be on top of everything when it comes to managing how you engage with others, as well as your own content and data. This is important when it comes to using this for professional purposes and coming across as such.

One in depth example of the control you have with Google+ is through its picture tagging function. While Facebook doesn’t warn its users whenever a photo of one user is tagged in an album, Google+ deals with this by giving users the ability to choose which users that can tag you.

2. Not being part of a professional social environment

What is very evident from using Google+, is the sense of professionalism that the site creates in the way that its features and interface are designed, as well as in the attention to making things secure and private.

Google has made it easy to reduce clutter and noise on the platform through allowing users to restrict the content they see and take out elements within profiles themselves. This combined with the fact that the interface and overall design is cleaner and better designed, adds to the professionalism of it.

Google has been strict about security in order to reduce spammers and other unwanted characters that have a negative effect on the experience of its users. Facebook and Twitter have trouble with fake accounts and spamming, not to mention being overly busy (think endless farmville invites on Facebook) and this is something that Google is seeking to avoid.

Google is also proving to manage data much more effectively and has shown to in the past. Having also learnt from Facebook’s mistakes, Google+’s offering has shown itself to be very secure.

With the ‘Data Liberation’ tool, you can be very explicit about what gets shared, and where, as well as what doesn’t. There is total control for all your work, and all your information on Google+.

All of this combines to create an environment that is very preferential to professionals, including freelancers looking to engage with and build networks of great people.

3. Not targeting what you share to the right people

The ‘Circles’ function in Google+ is an excellent way of allowing you to share certain things with certain people that you have organised into specific labelled groups.

If you have had trouble with promoting your work on other social networks and elsewhere, much of it will be to do with the fact that you are sending out content to anyone and everyone without thinking about how something can be targeted. This is absolutely essential to promotion these days, and Google+ has cracked it in finding a way for you to do this.

Circles allows you to share work with people you want feedback from, for example, without concerning anyone else.

You might want to build up a circle of art director contacts, for example, and regularly show them updates of the work you have been creating, and engaging with only those people strategically.

4. Not taking advantage of better contact-building capabilities

Interacting with people is a crucial part of gathering support, fans, connections, exposure and ultimately paid work for freelancers. Doing so online to complement your engagement in the ‘real world’ can be very powerful if done correctly.

Google+ allows users to reach out to potential clients, key influencers and others who support your freelancing business in better and more effective ways.

Firstly, because the system allows you to follow the updates of people without them needing to accept a friend request, you are in a better position to attract connections by engaging with their content and mentioning their name appropriately through ‘+ tagging’, in a similar way to Twitter, so that you get on someone’s radar.

This means that people are more likely to begin to see your own value and add you to their circles. The open (yet secure) system also allows your updates to filter through the Google+ network (depending on who you want to share with) so that you pick up more fans and prospects as well.

Secondly, the circles tool allows you to share the right information with the relevant people, which allows for the sharing of content in a much more targeted way.

This is very powerful when we are talking about relationship- building. Thirdly, the highly superior search function inside Google+ makes searching for people, as well as content to share and engage with much easier.

This is not to mention the fact that profiles and brand pages, including yours will favourably appear in Google’s search engine results too. Fourthly, circles enables you to group your contacts easily and visibly, so that you can group people that need to be contacted, for example, or simply use circles to store contacts, like an address book.

The extended circles element will even allow you to share your updates with people you follow who haven’t followed you back yet.

5. Wasting valuable time by not using Google+ as your professional ‘social hub’

Google+ allows you to focus pretty much all of your professional promotion and engagement activity in one place.

For example, you can send updates that you post on Google+ automatically to Twitter and Facebook, so you never have to leave Google. Creative freelancers can use Google+ as their first port of call for showing prospects their secondary portfolio, as well as bio, collaborate through hangouts and grouped circles, and gain critical feedback on work, for example, all through the tools on Google+.

Being tied in to other Google products and services like documents and Gmail, means you can get a lot done from one place via the Google bar that shows up at the top of the screen.

What this all means is that you will be in a position to streamline your self promotion and engagement activities and bring a lot of your focus, including actually getting work done, into one place.

Many more features, including streamlining your network outside of Google+, will be revealed in our course on Google+ tailored especially for freelancing professionals.

6. Being forgotten by Google’s powerful search engine

Being associated with Google+ means that everything that originates from you, including your profile, and brand page, will attract preference from Google’s powerful, and well known, search engine, so that you, your brand and your shared content will be found more easily.

The value this presents for self-promotion is very evident.

Google is taking a very strong interest in material that is being shared socially, i.e. on Google+, and will make sure that socially-shared material gains priority through their engine.

Google’s recent introduction of the +1 button means that anything that receives a +1 (similar to Facebook’s ‘like’) will gain even more preference through Google search.

As everything shared in Google+, including images now, has a +1 button linked to it, there is a lot of scope for gaining huge exposure through this.

7. Failing to be part of Google+’s growth and integration

With 40 million users joining Google+ in its first four months of existence, there clearly will be no shortage of users that will serve to further drive and support it.

What you needn’t worry about is if Google+ failed to get anywhere close to Facebook numbers of users. It’s the quality of users it attracts that is important for freelancers, and with fewer users, the more you stand out as a professional in any case. Google+ has the benefit of being part of the Google family, and this means being able to integrate them into the system.

A lot is yet to come, but things like Google’s search engine, Gmail, Picasa for pictures, YouTube and Documents will bring big benefits to a presence on Google+.

As well as having an excellent mobile version of Google+, Google’s Android operating system is getting a lot of people very excited about the integration of app design within the Google+ system, so there’s plenty of opportunity there.

8. Missing out on Google+’s excellent collaboration tools

Collaboration, sharing and discussion is obviously a key requirement of a freelancing professional or independent worker.

Google+ provides a host of tools that allow this to be done smoothly and effectively. Adding people you want to collaborate with to a specific circle, if they do the same, allows you to send through updates that can be shared with the ‘team’ you are collaborating with.

Apart from chat, Google+ ‘Hangouts’ is another method for collaboration, which allows groups to discuss projects via a simple video feed. Many are saying that Google circles is just as effective a tool as Basecamp, a highly sophisticated project management and collaboration tool.

As Google+ is free, the benefits of this alone are clear.

Perhaps this little list has built up something of an appetite for wanting to try out Google+ for professional and fun reasons.

We’re about to launch a step-by-step course especially for freelancers on exactly how to use Google+ for winning clients and more. If you’d like more information on the course and to keep up with the launch, have a look here.

I’d love for you to share this post with your freelancer friends via the buttons below. That would be appreciated! Comments are welcome.