Success in Sweatpants

I’ve missed two days of posting this week. That’s not good, because I promised you I would post every week day.

But the reason for the missed posts is positive: I’ve been super busy with paying projects! Quite a change from the start of this revenue quest.

Let’s review. I started out to share my journey from “Eek! A critical contract got canceled!!” to “I need to organize my busy project schedule!”

Well, I have arrived at that point. I got on Elance to bring in business right away while I teed up a white-paper-focused practice, and ended up with lots of awards, some of which may very well turn into repeat clients. Along with that, my client got my contract extended another three months (phew!).

While the immediate pressure is off, I’m not complacent. I consider the almost-cancellation of the contract a wake up call; the contract has a 30-day cancellation clause, so no matter how long the duration is, truth is that I only have 30 days’ worth of security on that engagement. So, now that I can breathe a bit more comfortably, I’m putting things into place to avoid that situation by:

• Decreasing my outlay on discretionary and household expenses
• Working on cutting a chunk out of my fixed monthly costs
• Putting any extra funds I end up with into my savings account
• Continuing to work Elance on a regular basis
• Continuing to tee up the white paper practice

This is in addition to continuing to produce good results on the contract gig so that I stand a chance of another extension when the time comes.

But even if that extension doesn’t happen, in three months’ time I will have enough of a financial cushion (something I always had pre-recession) to weather a drop in revenues for a short time while I bring in new clients.

Even though things have kind of gotten back into equilibrium, I’m not going to stop posting here. The only thing I’m doing is adjusting my commitment: Instead of posting every week day, I will post no less than twice per week. And I will continue to keep the “coach shield” down and share whatever is going on, up/down/sideways.