The 10 Commandments of Freelance Marketing

Well, if the Vatican can come up with Ten Commandments for driving. (For those who missed it, Rome spoke a couple of weeks ago. My personal favorite: Thou Shalt Not Kill. That's probably because, as a product marketer, I'm all in favor of repurposing existing content wherever possible. Thou Shalt Not Kill is time-honored, proven messaging, that's for sure.)

In any case, here are my Ten Commandments for Freelance Marketing:

I.       Thou shall treat the customer's strategy, product,
           positioning, market, story, reputation, and budget as
           if thou worked for the company full time and/or as if
          any of the above are thine own.

II.      Thou shall not lie to the customer about their
            strategy, product, positioning, market,
            story,  reputation, and budget. (Thou shall try to be
            gentle with strong, contradictory opinions; unless,
            of course, gentle does not work with thy customer.
            Then thou can be more forceful and, perhaps, even
            raise up thy voice and  asketh, "Are thou out of thy
            mind?")

III.    Thou shall not lie to the outside world on behalf of thy
           customer, neither shall thou badmouth the customer,
            except privately to thy closest friends and family
           (even when thy customer seems to deserve it).

IV.     Thou shall strenuously advise thy customer not to do
            something thou think is stupid.

V.      If the customer decides to do it anyway, thou shall tell
           them thou can't be involved, or shut thy mouth and
          doeth the work.

VI.   If it fails, thou shall not say 'I told you so.'

VII. If it succeeds, thou shall admit that thou didn't think it
          would. (But thou shall abstain from flogging thyself in
          front of the customer. No needeth reminding the
          person paying the bills that thou can be as wrong and
          stupid as the next marketing consultant.)

VIII. Thou shall try thy damnedest to deliver what thou
            promised, when thou promised it, and for how much
           thou promised it for. If thou find thyself going off
           track on any of these dimensions, thou shall tell the
           customer as soon as possible.

IX.    Thou shall not help thyself to customer tschotkes
           unless they invite thou to.

X.      It goeth without sayething that thou shall avoid  
           getting thyself involved in any internal political
           struggles. This can getteth thou killed.

There is, of course, nothing holy about these particular Ten Commandments. No stone tablets. No Moses. No going to hell. They just happen to be mine, and there may well be some sins of omission here. Doest thou have any more to addeth?