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I know --- you weren’t there because you had very valid (or invalid) reasons. The thing is, if this happened a couple of years back, I wouldn’t have joined too.
Before, I never really found value in going to Christmas parties — wearing themed costumes and following dress codes, exchanging gifts, eating various food, singing songs and dancing crazily with everyone else around you — in short, being silly crazy for a day.
It all changed, however, for me when I decided to be in this world - the online freelancing industry (or well — maybe it changed when I had a girlfriend who encouraged me to socialize haha!).
Kidding aside, I’m about to tell you 7 reasons why you should have joined the Christmas party last December 7, 2019.
Here’s one obvious reason that you seem to not give too much importance on but I'm about to tell you why you definitely should.
Jason Dulay, Anna Soriano, Honey Eduque, & Bong Isleta — you’ve seen them through the screens of your laptops, tablets, phones, or whatever gadget you use to consume the content given by the VA Bootcamp team.
Yes, I know you already know how awesome they are. You have seen them in the “mentor” mode. You have seen what you like about them so much.
BUT — have you seen them in their most candid moments? Joining the Christmas party would mean you get to mingle with them in a state where there’s no mentor-mentee. There’s just human you and human them.
This is where you CAN use your unfair advantage — you are a member of the Bootcamp, you can ASK them anything with a 99% chance of getting answered as soon as you finish asking the question (1% is when they’re busy eating lol).
Speaking of eating…
The Christmas party has filled me with insights and testimonials (I myself even gave my own testimonial to the VA Bootcamp!).
If you’ve read reason 1, you know what I did here. No? Okay, here goes my NOT-so-secret — I leveraged my UNFAIR advantage.
Since I am part of the internal team, I mingled with the other freelancers who I knew were offering the same skills as I am, and asked them how they got their biggest clients.
You see my point? 😁
Okay — you might be wondering why I considered this as part of the list of reasons why you should have joined the Christmas party.
The very reason why is you get to use these pictures to open a conversation with one of them so you can solicit insights from them without having to think of a NOT-awkward opener. Familiar? Yep, another use case of your UNFAIR advantage.
Which brings me to the next reason.
Wow, I think I’m giving away too much of my secrets in this blog post. Haha!
If I were you, I’d definitely save up for next year’s Christmas party moving forward. 😁 Again, parties are organized to celebrate occasions AND to socialize. If you value your time, you SHOULD have an ULTERIOR motive when joining these parties.
Write down one main goal, no matter how big or small it is, and do your best to bring that goal home after the party ends.
I actually met someone from the party who did this. And when realized he was doing this same thing, I spent extra time talking with him (after-after-party) because I wanted to help him achieve his ulterior motive. Kudos to Doods, more about him on reason 6. 😉
Talking about ulterior motives, this can be one. If you’re a total newbie to the freelancing world — no clients, but is doing everything to get one — then you HAD a chance at that party.
How, you ask? Mingle with the people who joined - not all of you are beginners. Some have been in the industry for 2, 3, 5, 10 years. Some have decided not to handle more than X number of clients per month. If you did this, you could have gotten REFERRALS.
Referral = client = money = freelancing career. 😉
Doods did this perfectly. If you don’t know him and you were there last Saturday, he’s easy to remember. He was the one who won the best-dressed award, UNDRESSED.
Still gets me when I think about it, lol but he mentioned something that caught my attention when we had the chance to chit chat which had me wondering the entire time — he said he was planning to pull a Viktor Navorski (The Terminal) and basically live inside the airport for more than 24 hours (his flight was Monday 4am).
When I asked why, he reasoned out that he has this tendency to be kuripot ALL THE TIME but — I dug deeper and asked why he booked a flight more than 24 hours after the Christmas party (because I was curious nga ‘di ba?).
To my surprise, he came back with this answer:
“I was looking to connect with someone here HOPING to have a LIFE-CHANGING conversation which could possibly lead to another 1-on-1 meet up the next day.”
That was his ulterior motive and when it dawned on me — the conversations we had after that was simply fulfilling.
At the end of the day, it really boils down to who you really are, what your story is, and how you fight-fail-bounce back-win.
The best thing is, what you get from every in-person meet up is totally up to you to decide.
So again, if I were you — I’d save up and look forward to future in-person meet ups that come my way.
See you around! 😃
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Good information. Lucky me I found your blog by chance (stumbleupon). I’ve book marked it for later!