Introducing FQ: Freelancer Intelligence

Learn a better setup for a freelancer / client relationship

At a previous full-time job, they made everyone take an emotional intelligence course. It was actually one of the best mandated courses I’ve ever taken.

It taught me how to recognize my own reactions to work situations and how to manage and/or diffuse them successfully. It was the only course I ever recommended to my staff when I became a senior manager.

Now that I’ve been a freelancer for a decade plus, I feel like we need a “freelancer intelligence” course too. Instead of EQ (emotional quotient or intelligence), there should be FQ, freelancer intelligence.

Defining FQ

EQ is the “ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions of others.”

FQ should be similarly defined, as the “ability to identify and manage one’s own work and that of freelancers they hire.”

That means knowing your workflow, how your company hires and pays external contractors/resources, understanding the tools that best accomplish this.

It also means understanding that your freelancer is not at your beck and call. They’re not sitting at their desk, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for you to assign…