Where do I find networking?
On the afternoon of December 25 last year, Christmas Day, I came across a short article by Marina Chekmysheva on LinkedIn titled "I'm not good at networking" (in Portuguese). Many thoughts came up while reading it, and I reflected on how I feel about my small business. It was as if this article had appeared in my feed to push me out of my comfort zone, an exercise I've only recently started.
Despite being extremely communicative, I'm a rather shy person. It's been quite demanding in the last few months to focus on Bardo Editorial as my sole source of income. Anyone who works as a freelancer understands the challenges of creating a solid network. Interestingly, my small network has kept me going as a freelancer for many years now. As I read Marina's article, I thought about colleagues, friends, and family who have supported me and recognized my work as an editor and translator, and I felt immense appreciation for them.
Over the last few months, many of them received messages from different mediums about the new Bardo website. The new site was in the making for over six months, and there's still work to do. [I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the ever-talented Maria Luiza Rodrigues for creating Bardo's visual identity.]
Bardo's website is up and running. It is multilingual (still editing Portuguese and Spanish), and there are virtual cards you can upload and share. Bardo's incredible team of professionals is full of experience in this world of language, design, and, not least, culture, which no translator, proofreader, or designer could survive without to achieve excellence in their work.
I am passionate about languages and writing; hence, I'm passionate about Bardo. Bardo is not just a small business that provides editorial and graphic design services. Bardo is much more than that. It is a way to do something that brings me pleasure and joy, and it is a way of supporting my network and their cluster. But what do I mean by that?
I have included Bardo's mission and a section about tiered pricing on our homepage, albeit briefly. I have been using tiered pricing for at least five years now, and this practice has always proved effective and fair from my perspective, but most importantly, because this practice is part of Bardo's mission. And what is that mission?
Bardo's mission is to contribute to people and businesses that can benefit from and need our services. We create opportunities for them without underselling the work done by each member at Bardo. Our mission is to make knowledge accessible and to be part of transformational changes. We want to be part of an inclusive society that considers the personal and cultural circumstances of everyone who contacts us about a service.
I would like to draw your attention here to Andréa Vidal's post on LinkedIn (also in Portuguese) about her experience with a request for a "quick look" at a student's assignment and how this diminishes the role of proofreaders and editors. She says that the fact that we don't know the peculiarities of other jobs doesn't give us the right to reduce their value. And I absolutely agree with her. Why am I drawing attention to this?
Using tiered pricing while creating opportunities for those who need to hire a service ensures that the professional is not undervalued and eliminates the need for negotiation. The difference at Bardo is that our tiered pricing does not alter the service provided, nurturing this relationship of creating opportunities.
And what does all this have to do with networking?
In addition to the services we provide and much more than networking, we create bonds at Bardo. Reflecting on how these two things are interconnected seems essential when defining where we want to go and how we want to interact with the world.
This short article is, therefore, an invitation to do so. It's an invitation to join Bardo and spread this mission of valuing the jobs and functions we do—whatever they may be—creating opportunities and thinking about personal interactions beyond networking and the corporate world, bringing this relationship to a side where there is more companionship and less competition. And thus transforming the idea of networking so that it happens in a more organic, inclusive, and supportive way.
I hope reading this will inspire you to embark on this journey with me and Bardo and, if possible, to support each other.
Where do I find networking? by Irina Migliari | Bardo Editorial is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
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