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November 22, 2008

60 More Places to Get Design Inspiration – Online and Off by Cyan Ta’eed

Filed under: tools — Tags: designs, fonts, freelance, web — Harsha M V @ 12:15 pm

A few weeks ago we published a list of 34 places to get design inspiration online and off and it proved to be one of our most popular articles to date. So today we journey back out to the world of design inspiration to bring you many, many more places to get inspiration – 60 to be precise.

I have literally been combing the web and have unearthed so many great sites and places that I’d never seen. From advertising to architecture, graphics to web, art to design, there’s a bit of everything. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed finding them and that they inspire some of the great works of tomorrow!

39 websites packed with inspiration…

Desktopography

Desktopography.net

If you’re going to spend all day at your desk, you should have an inspirational wallpaper to blow your mind every time you close a window. Desktopography features some of the most visually stunning wallpapers around – all based on nature themes so that you can fool you eyes into thinking you’ve been outdoors sometime this month.

The Ad Generator

TheAdGenerator.org

Out of all the sites listed here, this is probably the most innovative. By pairing up words set in semantic structures taken from real slogans with related images piped through from Flickr, the Ad Generator is disturbingly good at generating clever little adverts. Made as a Masters Thesis project, I can only hope that Alexis Lloyd (the site’s creator) absolutely dominated his course that year.

FaveUp

FaveUp.com

FaveUp is a site that pares back to the very simplest of galleries, showcasing logos, business cards, CSS websites and Flash sites all in the same place. The site only launched last week but already has some 250 entries on it.

New Web Pick

NewWebPick.com

Part Magazine, part web portal, all inspirational goodness. NWP with it’s super little logo is an oldie but goodie of design portals.

StyleBoost

StyleBoost.com

Not everyone ‘gets’ Styleboost and certainly it isn’t your run of the mill inspiration gallery/blog, but thanks to Johan’s adept steering of the site since way back in 2001, the gallery has flowered into one of the best and brightest showcases around.

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You might be thinking what is iStockPhoto doing in this list, and though perhaps browsing stock photos could be a source of inspiration, rather I’ve included iStock for it’s rather useful Designer Spotlight. The gallery is categorized up into everything from Advertising to Annual Reports, Product Packaging to Television. Some of the design isn’t exactly crash hot, but there’s some good stuff mixed in there and a few of the categories I know of no other place to find examples of.

Ventillate

Ventillate.ca

This is one slick blog/gallery/link hub, built by Canadians with superior design taste, you’ll know you’re getting only top quality filtered goodies.

DesignFCKR’s List of Flickr Photo Pools

DFCKR.com

While DFCKR probably deserves to be in this list in it’s own right, I was actually more interested in this super list of 28 Flickr Photo pools as there is some really great stuff in there.

PhireBrush

PhireBrush.com

Can you say gorgeous? Because that’s what you’ll be getting at Phirebrush which these days is getting to be a veritable inspiration institution. With some spectacular digital art that will blow your socks right off, you’ll love Phirebrush.

UrbanFonts

UrbanFonts.com

You know those moments when you see a font and it just makes you want to design something to use it, well with UrbanFonts you can browse a huge collection of free fonts to do just that. While I do enjoy paying for a good font now and then, I just can’t help myself when it’s FREE, FREE, FREE

TextureKing

TextureKing.com

Literally hundreds of textures freely available – from the dirty to the elegant, there is sure to be a pattern to grace your next design.

Veer’s Wallpaper Collection

Veer.com/Ideas

I only learnt about Veer recently, but I must say they’re pretty cool and they seem to have been around for ages. The Veer Wallpaper gallery spans five years of designs and includes something for everyone.

IconBase

IconBase.com

Icons that will make your drool. And what’s more, there are pages and pages and pages of them. And if that wasn’t enough, they are free for personal and non-comercial use… Yay!

MoreInspiration

MoreInspiration.com

If your flavour of design happens to be product, then you are going to love MoreInspiration, a site hosting some thousand plus innovative ideas and products.

Since FreelanceSwitch started, there is one question that I get asked more often than any other. How can a freelancer find more work and generate new client leads?

Well at FreelanceSwitch we don’t shy away from the pressing questions. So as the kicker for a new series on how to get more freelance work, we have put together an enormous list of ideas, ranging from ones that take 10 seconds to 10 days. There’s something for everyone to try and I guarantee there will be plenty of things you never thought of.

Over the next few months we will be publishing an article on EVERY single one of these topics, so if you need more explanation or examples on any of them, don’t worry they’re coming!

And now without further ado, here they are, your 101 ideas:

Word of mouth is the go

Enlist your family and friends to spread the word about your services
Send out an email to everyone in your address book, announcing what you do, where you are and what you can offer
Ask your satisfied clients for referrals
Offer free consultations to new referrals
Consider a referral or finders fee

Love those clients

Get in touch with past and current clients when you have a new service to offer them
Get in touch with past and current clients when you have completed a flagship project
Start a newsletter
Take advantage of every outgoing email by using your email signature as a marketing tool
Send promotions for services with your invoices
Ask your clients to place a credit on your work in web, video or print
Make a calendar featuring your work for clients to put up in their offices to serve as a constant reminder
Make a poster for your client to hang up on their office wall

Talk the talk

Go to industry events – conferences, association meetings, seminars
Go to events in your client’s industry
Sponsor a client event
Join your local Chamber of Commerce and get involved
Socialize and always have your card ready
Do some pro-bono work for a charitable organization with industry links
Get involved in social groups you’re connected to (church, school, university)
Join an industry organization and get listed
Contact people you used to work with and ask them to send you any run-off work they might have
Offer to give a seminar to a local business group
Practice an elevator speech about what you do and have it ready to go wherever you are
Participate on online forums (using the forum signature line)
Comment on blogs to draw people back to your freelance site

Promote Yourself

Get car signage
Get t-shirts made with your URL
Try location based Google Adwords
Advertise in a niche magazine or trade publication e.g. a magazine just for cafes
List yourself in business directories or the Yellow Pages
Research sites your clients are visiting and buy advertising there
Advertise in online directories
Take out an ad out in a local newspaper
Participate in a trade show
Holidays are your friend! Send a clever holiday greeting to clients showing your work
Promote a free first consulation service
Have a gimmick that makes you stand out
Give something away for free
Place an advert in an industry newsletter
Offer branded pens and paper at industry events

Be an industry expert

Pitch an article to an industry publication
Pitch a story to a blog or resource website
Offer to speak at industry and networking events
Start a blog and publicize it
Submit tutorials or how-to’s to websites
Get on the radio
Write an eBook or Report for your target market and promote it online
Enter your work into competitions and awards… and win

Use the media

Issue a press release about a story related to your services and try and get it into a local newspaper or magazine
Pull a publicity friendly stunt (think Richard Branson)
Run a contest which ties into your services

Job Boards

Keep an eye on online job boards
Check out Craigs List for your city
Keep an eye on offline job boards
Pin up a little advert on boards in your local area or community

Brrr – it’s cold in here!

Find out how you could improve a companies business and profits and cold call them with your pitch
Mail promo postcards to potential clients
Mail fun promotional items to potential clients (calendars, toys, posters etc)

Help leads find you

Search-optimize your website and get Google traffic
Have a follow up conversation with all potential leads
Make sure you’re listed in the Yellow Pages and White Pages business section

Get in bed with local business

Contact your local internet service provider or printing house and offer them a commission if they refer work
Establish contacts in larger agencies that can refer their run-off work
Keep in touch with freelancers that will offer clients a complementary service to yours and throw each other work
Create a local business directory and use it to get to know other business owners who might later need your services
Cross promote with other businesses
Ask if you can put your business cards or brochure in local stores
Rent officespace shared with other businesses or freelancers

Industry Specific Ideas

And here are some ideas that are tailored to certain industries…

Photographers

Enter your work into a gallery or run an exhibition
Submit some work to stock agencies to attract attention
Do a new series of work so you have a reason to show your portfolio to an old contact
Send in your photography work to industry magazines to make a name for yourself
Start an online photojournal
Photograph an event or series and pitch it to a newspaper or magazine
Get an Agent

Programmers & Developers

Pitch your self as a developer who understands web designers, because most of them need a developer
Write a small web app like ta-da list or jobpile and get some recognition
Answer tech questions on forums and use a signature that says you offer freelance coding services
Enter a programming contest like RailsDay
Contribute to open source efforts and get known

Illustrators/Animators

Start a comic strip blog – e.g. gapingvoid.com
Make characters and create merchandise based on them – figurines, badges, tshirts etc
Enter some competitons to get your illustrations in some famous places – snowboards, posters
Create an awesome animation that wins you fame like Laith Bahrani
Do stock illustrations for a site like istockphoto and have a portfolio site offering custom ones
Write to big blogs and offer to do a cartoon strip (k10k)
Send in your illustration work to magazines like computerarts.co.uk
Create a promo Reel of animations or illlustrations and send it around/get it publicised
Send your illustrations to gift card publishers

Writers, Bloggers, Journalists

Pitch yourself at ad, design and web design agencies as a copywriter
Find some photos on iStockPhoto and write some great ad headlines for each and make a mailer out of it
Submit articles to article banks for sale
Write opinionated, witty pieces and get them publicised on Digg with a blurb at the bottom about your services
Pitch article ideas to editors, online and off
Write a book and publish it with lulu.com

Designers

Submit work to design compilation books and magazines
Get your portfolio/profile listed on a site like Coroflot
Design a great website and submit it to design galleries like CSSMania.com
Build a great portfolio and submit it to design portals like DesignIsKinky.com
Start a magazine, design portal or blog

So there you have it, lots of ideas! Do you know of any more? Add them in the comments and we’ll add them to the list…

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13 Breeds Of Freelancer And How To Up Your Game by Jack Knight

Filed under: news — Tags: freelance — Harsha M V @ 11:57 am

Here at FreelanceSwitch, we love to talk about clients and on occasion some of their failings and characteristics, but let’s face it, most freelancers aren’t that perfect themselves. So today we’ve put together 13 Breeds of Freelancer, see if you recognize a bit of yourself in there…

Freelancer Breed #1

The Artiste Freelancer

Is This You?
You are a master of what you do, or at least you think so. Criticism from a client is often met with disbelief or anger and if a client asks for a small change you lament that the whole project is ‘ruined’.
Fulfilling your clients needs isn’t as nearly as important as making it ‘really cool’ and when you talk about your clients, somehow phrases like ‘stifling my creativity’, ‘pleb’, and ‘uneducated buffoon’ keep popping up.

The Highs:
If you’re fiery enough many clients will become too scared to critique you leading to very few revisions. Even if they do ask you for revisions you can always make up reasons why you don’t need to listen anyway. Your portfolio looks exactly the way you want it to.

The Lows:
Your adverse reactions to various client requests mean that often your clients don’t actually get the work they wanted. Plus thanks to your high maintenance you are beginning to develop a reputation – unfortunately it’s probably not the one you were after. If you push them far enough, your clients may refuse to pay you. And because you are unwilling to accept that you may be wrong on things you miss out on opportunities to improve your work.

All of this pales however compared to those horrible situations when after you have finally succumbed to your client’s wishes, the project actually turns out better than it would have if you were left to your own devices!

Picking Up Your Game:
Being an Artiste doesn’t usually mix well with the business of freelancing since most clients want the project to fulfil their needs not yours. When you put a lot of yourself into your work, it’s hard to separate criticism for the work and criticism of you. Unfortunately this is the day-to-day reality of freelancing and you need to grow a thick skin to protect your fragile ego. Try not to expect a first draft or concept to be greeted with congratulations and you won’t feel quite so devastated when you need to revise.

What often works is to think of client requests and revisions as constraints in an elaborate game that you are trying to conquer. Look at them in a positive light and do your best work within those constraints and your clients will be happier, your work will often wind up better and you’ll be a more successful freelancer.

Freelancer Breed #2

The Payin’-The- Bills Freelancer

Is This You?
Although there was a time when you loved what you do, recently it feels like nothing more than a way to support yourself. You don’t really feel any interest in improving your skills and ‘passionate’ or ‘committed’ aren’t adjectives your clients would use to describe you.

The Highs:

Thanks to your lack of idealism you don’t often get bogged down trying to get it ‘just right’ and you’re quite content for work to just be acceptable.
You don’t really get upset when you have to do revisions (so long as you’re getting paid for every single one) and if a client insists on directing your every step you are more than happy to let them.

The Lows:
You don’t have much fun working anymore and like someone working a 9-5 you live for the weekends and afterhours.
While others are happy to be freelancing, for you it’s much the same as any other job – except you don’t get holiday pay.

Because you don’t feel particularly interested or excited about work, chances are you’re not spending time pushing yourself to become better at what you do. This inevitably comes back to haunt you as other freelancers get better and better and you stay pretty much where you always were.

Picking Up Your Game:
Whether you are a freelancer or a 9-5er you are going to spend much of your adult life working, so you might as well enjoy it! Of course knowing this isn’t enough to change your attitude. To bring back the passion you used to have you need inspiration. Try subscribing to magazines, doing non-client projects, going to conferences and hanging out with others in your industry who just can’t help being excited.

If there is something that is making you miserable at work – too much of it, a horrible work environment, the wrong clients – then make some proactive changes! Drop back on some of the workload, get rid of the most soul-killing jobs and change up your work environment. Remember that by igniting your passion and getting excited again you’ll enjoy working more, produce better projects and in the long run make more money.

Freelancer Breed #3

The Pushover Freelancer

Is This You?
Even though you know your client is wrong, you still do exactly as they ask because you’re afraid of losing their business. You inevitably seem to find yourself up at 3am trying to finish off a client’s ‘sudden emergency’ and because you bend over backwards for them regularly, no-one really seems to appreciate it anymore.

When it comes to billing you could never call a client about an overdue invoice and you often give them discounts when they ask (or demand), even if it leaves you with a loss.

The Highs:
The biggest benefit to being a Pushover Freelancer is the amount of work you get because clients love working with you. Repeat clients and referrals flow through the door and you are usually booked up to the hilt. Your reputation for service and customer satisfaction is unequaled.

The Lows:
Unfortunately that reputation has come at a price. You often get the short end of the stick and some clients leave you feeling used and abused. Although you make big sacrifices for clients most of the time you aren’t receiving the appreciation or gratitude you deserve.

Picking Up Your Game:
While you have no problems getting or keeping clients, you’ll soon find yourself getting pretty annoyed and feeling hard done by. Before this happens, practice being firm with your clients. If you really feel that another revision isn’t the right way to go, tell your client. If an invoice is overdue, let them know. If the idea of doing this is downright terrifying, then you will need to either work on your confidence or find someone to partner with in handling your client liaison.

It’s not a bad thing to let clients have their way from time to time, but it should always be an even balance. Remember that if you don’t do it, no-one else will look out for you. It’s unfortunate but true that some clients, particularly larger companies will happily walk over you if you let them.

Freelancer Breed #4

The AWOL Freelancer

Is This You?
Work’s getting a little stressful so you switch off your phone, shut down your email and go to the movies.
You have 10 irate voicemail messages on your cell – but that’s not unusual for you. Avoiding problems is your version of dealing with them. You vastly prefer email as a communication medium because it’s so much easier to ignore.

The Highs:
You’ve found an effective albeit temporary way to avoid stress, pressure and confrontation.
Your clients always seemed immensely relieved to hear from you after one of your disappearing acts.

The Lows:
You live in a constant state of stress, doing everything possible to avoid irate or sometimes even just regular clients. Your phone is off the hook, your cell is switched off and your email usually unchecked.
When you see clients and even ex-clients on the street you hide.

Most clients only ever work with you once because they can’t handle the stress of not knowing what’s going on.

Picking Up Your Game:
The AWOL Freelancer wants to avoid confrontation or difficult conversations. This is particularly hard when a client needs your help or wants to give you a kick in the pants and you’re nowhere to be found. Unfortunately for you, the best solution is to take that first phone call/respond to that first email and get the pain over and done with – like ripping off a band aid. More often than not dealing with the problem isn’t actually that bad and when you face up to things you often find yourself saying ‘Gee, why didn’t I do this before and not go through all the worry’.

Depending on why you avoid contact, you may also need some practice in saying no to client requests and not making promises you can’t fulfill later.

Freelancer Breed #5

The I-Did-It- My-Way Freelancer

Is This You?

No matter what the brief is, what the client asks for and what the audience’s needs are, you do pretty much the same thing for every project. Whether it’s a house design style, the same tone of voice in every piece of writing or the same choice of development environment, you have one tool for every job.

If a client tries to explain why they’d like their work done a certain way you ignore them until they give up. If that doesn’t work you give the appearance of going along with them, but slowly, subtly turn the project around to become one of your usuals.

The Highs:
You often end up doing jobs exactly as you originally envisaged them. You’re very confident and some clients appreciate having it just taken care of for them. If your particular style happens to be in fashion or the project happens to be well suited to your ‘way’ then you can produce spectacular results.

By ignoring your client’s actual needs and doing whatever you feel like you are able to do things that people in the industry appreciate (and often wish they got to do). This can lead to industry awards and accolades even if the end results weren’t actually that effective.

The Lows:
Unfortunately your ‘way’ isn’t appropriate for every job, leading to sometimes poor results, overkill (or underkill) and frustrated clients. Additionally while your ‘way’ is in fashion you might get lots of kudos and recognition, once the boat has passed your work might be seen as passe and irrelevant.

Picking Up Your Game:
Every job is different and it’s unlikely that a one-size-fits-all solution is going to work every time. While you pursue your own agenda you will often wind up giving your client the wrong solution to their brief and no matter how cool or fantastic others in your field think it is, at the end of the day if it doesn’t serve the purpose it was intended for, then Houston we have a problem.

Unless your client has given you a license to do what you may, your responsibility is to produce the right solution for the job – that’s why you’re getting paid. Although you are the expert, and rightly should feel confident you know how to get results, you must take into account both your client’s needs and the audience’s. Although you may often wish to still stick to your guns, it is wise to at least listen and try to be flexible.

Freelancer Breed #6

The Hit’n’Miss Freelancer

Is This You?

While you have had times when you’ve managed to meet deadlines, most of the time you just go right off the tracks. Unless something is urgent you just can’t seem to get it started. Unfortunately too often when you play with fire you get burnt – letting jobs go way over their deadlines – leading to some very unhappy clients.

You suspect your repeat clients are giving you fake deadlines to counterbalance your hit’n’miss ways, but this only leads to you not taking the new supposed deadlines so seriously.

The Highs:
Rather than it just being what you were s’pposed to do, when you hit a deadline both you and your client are overjoyed. Because you thrive under pressure, living close to the edge means you produce some good work.

The Lows:
The irate phone calls and emails from clients when you’ve missed their deadlines are never much fun and sometimes you have to go without payment or you lose a client when you just can’t get a job finished in time. You’re often up at 5am desperately trying to finish a project and sometimes the stress just doesn’t seem worth it.

Picking Up Your Game:
Most of the issues for a Hit’n’Miss Freelancer are related to organization and productivity. You might want to look into a system like Getting Things Done or subscribe to a productivity blog like ZenHabits. Whatever you do it’s going to be annoying to start with and will take work, but you’ll hopefully get closer to meeting those deadlines. This means that overall it will have to be more pleasant than your client screaming down the phone.

It might also help to start considering your client’s perspective. As you begin to identify and consider the ramifications of their deadlines you’ll naturally feel more responsibility to get things done before the deadline has long passed.

Freelancer Breed #7

The Blame- Game Freelancer

Is This You?
It is never, ever your fault. Anytime a project goes wrong you find blame everywhere but on your own shoulders. Most often blame winds up at your client’s feet, often leading to bad relations. Whether it’s because the copy writer didn’t get you the text for the site soon enough, or because the legacy system was badly written or because the client’s brief was poor, somehow there is always some other cause to your woes.

The Highs:
You get to feel self-righteous. Because you are constantly searching for evidence of where others have dropped the ball, you always feel vindicated. You never need to improve because as far as you’re concerned, you’re already perfect.

The Lows:
Clients will get very upset when you tell them it’s their fault. By finding fault elsewhere you often can’t see a way to improve things yourself, leaving you feeling powerless.

Picking Up Your Game:
If the fault lies elsewhere you get the benefit of not having responsibility, but more importantly you also have no power in the situation. Being powerless to affect your work is a depressing place to be. But there is a simple fix, consider that you hold the power over everything. By adopting this mentality you will find that you can start to control the outcome of your projects. If you think a copy writer is going to be late with the text for a website then start contacting them, warn the client, write the text yourself, anything, just take back the power!

If you have to work with some legacy code that is rather poor, explain this to the client and tell them you either need to be paid to clean it up or you can’t take the job. If the brief is too vague, ask the client for more details. And so on.

Running a blame-game will sometimes help you sleep at night, but ultimately leave you feeling less fulfilled. Deciding you are responsible for everything is a hard road to tread, but will get you much further in life and in work.

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Freelancer Breed #8

The Constant- Excuses Freelancer

Is This You?

Unlike the Blame-Game Freelancer, you are quite happy to take responsibility for something going wrong, the problem is things always go wrong, don’t get done or are really late.

Your client has lost count of every time you’ve been sick, detained or the victim of natural disasters. They are also becoming exasperated by how often their emails mysteriously disappear or you have computer problems that hold you back.

The Highs:
At first you get a lot of sympathy, slack and belief, and you milk it for all its worth! This means that you get to take days off, sleep in, do whatever you feel like and then produce one of your patented no-evidence excuses.

The Lows:
Before long telling your client you’ve had another stomach bug is just too embarrassing and you’re pretty certain they are beginning to see through your excuses. Like the boy who cried wolf, you now know that any real emergencies will not be tolerated by your long suffering clientele.

Picking Up Your Game:
This is a stressful habit to get into. It’s not that you’re lying to your clients, but rather you have some great excuses if you just exaggerate a little bit. The only problem is, you do it a bit too often, and your clients are now getting pretty annoyed. Gone are the sympathetic emails – now you get a curt reply with no reference to your latest misfortune.

When it comes down to it, your client probably doesn’t care what your problems are. They just want their work done well and to deadline. You could have a look at your organizational skills if you find you’re missing deadlines. Otherwise, just try to apologize when things don’t go well and get on with it. Not relying on an excuse will make missing that deadline for whatever reason far less appealing.

Freelancer Breed #9

The Hidden-Costs Freelancer

Is This You?
The Hidden-Costs Freelancer is a favourite of clients the world over. You always quote low to make sure you win the job. Then once you have the job and are mid-way through you begin to mention those extras that will be needed and what they’ll add to the bill.

Job bidding sites are perfect for you, because you can quote low initially, and besides you rarely work with the same client twice since they already know your game.

The Highs:
You often wind up getting paid quite well at the end of the day and your prices keep the clients coming. You never worry you’re going overtime on a job, because you know you’ll make them pay in the end.

The Lows:
Your client relations are strained to say the least as most people don’t appreciate the way you add extra charges the way a Nigerian email scammer adds bank fees. Because of this sometimes a client will simply not pay, hoping you’ll go away and hence you rarely get repeat clients. You have also been known to get little pangs of guilt occasionally!

Picking Up Your Game:
Sometimes as freelancers we need to add an extra cost at the tail end of a project if a brief expands. However, if you always find yourself adding unforeseen extra charges at the end of every project, you may need to work on your quoting and communication. Creating an in-depth brief with the client at the beginning of the project may help you to quote more accurately. If you do need to add an extra cost into a project, be sure to let the client know before you commence that portion of the project. A good explanation and some options will go a long way to keeping goodwill, and hopefully your client.

Freelancer Breed #10

The I-Can’t- Finish-This Freelancer

Is This You?
When the going gets tough, you will most often drop out of the project completely. While you share much in common with the AWOL freelancer, when you vanish you generally never return. You often feel guilty for leaving a client in the lurch and there are usually long email exchanges just before the end.

You will forgo pay to avoid having to work on a project any longer and feel immense relief when you finally ditch the job.

The Highs:
If a job is going badly, turns out to be very hard or much bigger than you’d anticipated when you wrote that fixed quote, it is much easier to drop it than stick it out.

The Lows:
You’re often left feeling guilty and generally like a bit of a quitter. You have a string of ex-clients who remain very angry or confused about the way the project ended.

Picking Up Your Game:
There will be a couple of incidents for every freelancer where they’ve decided a project was not working and the best thing to do was walk away. However, if you’re doing this often you may wish to rethink. It’s when things are really complicated and seemingly impossible to resolve that we often pull out our best work and learn new things. If you decide to stick with a project, even when it’s going really badly you will most likely earn a loyal client and some new skills to boot.

Freelancer Breed #11

The Too-Cool Freelancer

Is This You?
Many clients have trouble relating to you and for the most part you think you’re slummin’ it working with them. You feel like working for clients is equivalent to selling out and often drop in that latest art project or open source work you’ve been doing to establish your cred.

The Highs:
You have a lot of confidence and your clients are a bit intimidated by you (and in your opinion so they should be!)

The Lows:
Occasionally clients don’t realize how cool you are and try to tell you want to do or think that their projects are actually important. Other clients just feel bad about themselves and go on to work with someone else. And still other clients just think you’re a bit of a tosser.

Picking Up Your Game:
People like designers and photographers are considered trend-setters in marketing circles, so it’s no surprise if you’re uber cool (power to you). The problems arise when you’re too cool for school, and mere mortals feel horrible around you. Which you probably wouldn’t mind except your clients keep finding goofy but friendly freelancers to replace you. The solution? Broaden your perspective a little. Chances are your clients may not be as cool as you, but they’re probably damn good at what they do. See if you can learn from them a little, and hopefully they won’t get the impression you’re embarrassed to be seen with them.

Freelancer Breed #12

The Big Business Freelancer

Is This You?
Your website uses terms like “our team” and “our organization”. You’ve convinced your clients that you have a team of 10 minions behind you. Every time a client wants to come to your ‘office’ you almost have an aneurysm.

The Highs:
Your website and phone manner look and sound very professional, which can garner a level of respect and you can charge a bit more because clients think you have a mountain of staff to feed.

The Lows:
You live in constant fear your clients will discover you live and work in your uncle’s garage and all those ‘departments’ you keep talking about are really just you. Clients assuming you’re a team of 10 will sometimes give you ridiculous amounts of work for one person, and you’re up all night trying to get it done.
If a client does decide to drop in unexpectedly it is usually rather embarrassing.

Picking Up Your Game:
Some freelancers think there is something to be ashamed of in being a one man band. In fact, many people in business will admire you as being a solo freelancer affords a great deal of flexibility. If there’s just one of you, it’s best to be honest about it. It will make little or no difference to most clients, and you won’t need to lose any sleep over them finding out.

If you’re already embroiled in a big business deception and want to get out, you can transition slowly back to individual freelancer, and if you are subtle enough, hopefully your clients won’t notice the difference. Start referring to I instead of we, and next time a client asks if they can “come check out the office”, you can simply tell them you work from home and you’d rather come see them. Far less stressful and a lot more honest!

Freelancer Breed #13

The No Business Skills Freelancer

Is This You?
After quitting your job with a vision of pursuing your creative passion from home, you’ve woken up to the reality that the business of freelancing has a tendency of getting in the way even more than your boss did. Clients always have to give you pointers on how to run your business, some going as far as reminding you to invoice them. Every accountant you hire quits after seeing your accounts and when you need to quote you just pick a number that sounds about right and hope for the best.

The Highs:
You never get caught up in admin and let’s face it, you’re not in danger of becoming the Payin’ The Bills freelancer!

The Lows:
Your finances live in a constant state of disarray, you resent and avoid the realities of running a small business, have no insurance, haven’t paid your taxes and the truth is you could be making far more money but you just can’t seem to get organized.

Picking Up Your Game:
You love what you do and you’d be very happy, if only you didn’t need to run your own business. It is a very common problem for freelancers starting out to underestimate and avoid the administration work involved in running any business, even one as small as a solo one.

The best thing you can do is hire a good book-keeper and accountant, this will help make sure you don’t get into trouble with the tax department and some will handle your invoicing and payments for you too. You might also like to read this book which deals with all these issues. And finally of course, you should regularly read FreelanceSwitch for tips and advice!

Have we missed any?

So there’s our list, have we missed any?

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101 Essential Freelancing Resources by Cyan Ta’eed

Filed under: news — Tags: freelance — Harsha M V @ 11:56 am

Update: Well it’s actually 126 resources now, thanks to all the people who added resources in the comments.
Update: This article has been translated into Brazillian Portuguese by Rafael Marin.
This article has also been translated into Spanish by Diana at Artegami.
This article has also been translated into Italian by Matteo at Rails On The Road.

The web is such a big and wonderful place, packed with tools and resources which you all too often don’t know about. So to help all you freelancers out there we have compiled a gigantic list of resources, categorized up for your benefit. If you know a resource that we’ve missed, let us know as we’re always looking to grow this list!

Timing
These are tools to help you time and track your work. Some of them plug into invoicing programs and some even come with them built in:

SlimTimer – A Start/Stop little timer that tracks jobs on a main web interface
Tick – Timetracking application focused on keeping track of your budgets
Time Assistant – Professional timesheet software
Harvest – Simple and efficient time tracking
FourteenDayz – Online time tracking for teams
PunchyTime – A simple time tracking tool for creatives
TimePost – Timer that plugs into Harvest, Basecamp and Tick
FunctionFox – Timing for creatives (subscription pricing)

Invoicing
When you don’t invoice, you don’t get paid, so it literally pays to stay on top of your billing. Here are some tools to help:

Billing Orchard – Electronic billing and invoicing software, starting at $14.95 per month
Billable – Service and invoice tracking
SimplyBill – Easy to use invoicing software
Blinksale – More easy to use invoicing software
Quickbooks – Small business financial software
Side Job Track – Free web-based job tracking, invoicing, reporting and project management for the part-time independent contractor
Freshbooks – Tracks time, sends invoices by email or U.S. mail, and generally makes invoicing easier
InvoicePlace – Easy Invoicing and Quotes From Anywhere
LessAccounting – Is your job title Accounting? Probably not. Do less accounting!
MS Office Accounting Express (Free) – Free Microsoft Accounting

Project Management and Organization
These resources will help you stay organised and manage those projects and clients

Proposal Kit – Proposal and contract management tools
Ta-Da Lists – a simple (free!) to-do list application that can be shared with the world
Backpack – Service that integrates to-do lists, notes, files, images, and a calendar with reminders that can be sent to your email or cell
Writeboard – Sharable, web-based text documents that save edits, so you can collaborate, roll back and compare
ConceptShare - Share designs and get feedback with visual annotation tools
Wridea – Free tool for writers focusing on idea generation
GoPlan – Note-taking, calendaring, task management, issue tracking, file management and online real-time chat
Toodledo – Another web based to-do list
ActiveCollab – Open source collaboration and project management tool
MonkeyOn – Your to-do list for things that you want other people to do
Remember The Milk – Another To-Do List manager

Stock Libraries
Templates, Photos, Flash files all to help make you look good

FlashDen – A resource selling stock Flash, audio, video and fonts for as little as 50 cents
Dreamstime – Royalty free stock photography for $1 – $2
Getty Images – When price is no object and quality is essential
Istockphoto – Royalty free stock photography, videos, and illustrations for $1 – $50
Veer – Rights managed and royalty free photography, illutration, type, and motion
Stock.xchng – Completely Free stock photography
Ice Templates – Website templates in Flash and HTML
Template Monster – The biggest website template company on the web!
MyFonts – All the fonts you could ever want and a very handy font identification tool as well.
IconBuffet – Icons, more icons and even more icons
VectorVault – Vector illustration sets

Business Tools
Resources to help with the business of freelancing…

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HighRise – Track communication and conversations with leads, employees, clients, colleagues, vendors
Campfire – Real-time group chat and file sharing
Central Desktop – Shared workspaces and web conferencing
Relenta – Manage your email, contacts, documents and activities
Google Apps – Communication and collaboration tools from Google
Zoho – Free office tools
Campaign Monitor – Email newsletter software
MailBuild – More newsletter software
Breeze – Email campaign and newsletter software
Business-Paper – Easy business cards
GoToMeeting – Easy online meetings
Wufoo – Make forms to survey your clients
AIGA Spec Letter – Sample letter to communicate with clients who want spec work or free pitching
CPA Directory – Find an accountant (in the US)
SBA – Small Business Administration, help and advice
Paypal – Online payment system
Moneybookers – Online payment system
Escrow – Online payment system that protects the buyer and seller, useful for those bigger jobs with anonymous clients.
Resources for the Design Entrepeneur – Free sample forms and agreements
Work – How-to guides to running a small business
XE – Quick and easy currency converter for all your international transactions…
Trendwatching – Consumer trends and insights resource
FaxZero – US & Canada – Send Faxes for Free

Legal
Because you have to protect yourself and your work…

My New Company – Legal and general start-up information
Designers Toolbox – Free legal forms for graphic designers
Copyright – Everything you need to know about US copyright
AIGA Form of Agreement – Standard form of agreement for design services trmplate
HelpMeWork – US – Services to help you focus on what you know best
CreativeCommons – For licensing…just about anything

Job Boards
A whole bunch of places to find jobs, and don’t forget FreelanceSwitch will be adding its very own job board real soon!

37signals Job Board – Mostly full-time design and programming jobs
Authentic Jobs – Full time and freelance job board for standards aware designers and developers
Coroflot Job Board – Designer job board
WebProJobs – Freelance and full-time jobs for designers, developers, copywriters and marketers
Jobpile – Aggregates the best job boards on the web
Krop – Creative and tech jobs
FWjobs – Web jobs board
SlashDot - Jobs for IT professionals
CSS Beauty Job Board – Job board for web designers
MinistryCamp Job Board – Job board for Christian designers and programmers
Guru – Freelancer listing service with job board
Elance – List yourself for freelance jobs

Web Tools
Tools to get your Web Presence Up and running…

Squarespace – Very nice publishing system for websites and blogs
Rackspace – dedicated hosting and customer service that is second to none
Mosso – Advanced hosting at a reasonable price
MyDomain – Domains for $8.50 per year
Media Temple – Easy to set up and use hosting
Light – Content management for designers and ad agencies
SiteKreator – Instant websites – just add your content
StrongSpace – Back-up and store important files
psd2html – Builds websites in html from Photoshop files
xhtml iT – Website builds from design in 24 hours
ExpressionEngine – A neat little CMS app
Inblogit – A great free blogging tool for web designers
PublicSquare – Easy Web Publishing
WordPress – The best damn blogging tool around
AgencyFusion – Outsourcable programmers
XHTMLized – The original – you supply the design and they do the XHTML/CSS

Advertising and Marketing
A few ways to market and advertise yourself online…

Text Link Ads – Text ads to sell your wares and improve your traffic ranking
Review Me – Get your service or Web site reviewed by bloggers
Adbrite – Text and banner ads on over 20,000 sites
AdEngage – Text and Photext ads (image and text ad combined)
Adwords – Text ads on Google searches
Professional On The Web – Get yourself Listed

Miscellaneous
All the many things we couldn’t fit anywhere else!

Creative Public - Useful site for anyone starting a freelance graphic or web design career. A $49.95 fee buys unlimited access to forms, manuals, pricing guides, contracts etc
You Send It – Send files up to 2GB online
Jewelboxing – superior packaging for short run CDs and DVDs
eFax – Send and receive faxes by email
PowerXChange – Extensions for a variety of creative software, including Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Dreamweaver
Coroflot – A great resources for designers to showcase their portfolios, share work and network
Cloudmark – Block spam on your PC
SpamSieve – Block spam on your Mac
Dropsend – Email up to 1GB of files
Media Fire – Send 100MB files online
Box – Store, share and access files online
Icebrrg – Simple web forms
Formsite – Web forms and surveys in minutes
Lorem Ipsum – Lorem Ipsum generator for dummy copy
Textmate – The essential programmers text editor for Macs
ETextEditor – Like Textmate but for Windows
Kuler – Colour scheme picker
Pixie – A useful little colour picker
ColourSchemer – A bunch of colour tools
Jungle Disk – Online storage for 15 cents a gigabyte
AskCharity – free online contacts for journalists
TechInline – Remote Desktop Software
Protolize – Web Resource Directory

Do you have a resource we missed? Leave a comment and let us know!

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Nine Factors to Consider When Determining Your Price by Collis Ta’eed

Filed under: news — Tags: freelance — Harsha M V @ 11:55 am

Part guesswork, part experience, part number crunching – how ever you look at it, determining your price is a difficult task. Here are nine factors to take into consideration:

1. Your Costs
If your rate doesn’t include enough just to break-even, you’re heading for trouble. The best thing to do is sum up all your costs and divide by the number of hours you think you can bill a year. Whatever you do, DON’T think you can bill every hour. You must account for sick days, holidays, hours working on the business, hours with no work and so on.

Also make sure you factor in all the hidden costs of your business like insurance, invoices that never get paid for one reason or another, and everyone’s favourite – taxes.

2. Your Profit
Somewhat related to your costs, you should always consider how much money you are trying to make above breaking even. This is business after all.

3. Market Demand
If what you do is in high demand, then you should be aiming to make your services more expensive. Conversely if there’s hardly any work around, you’ll need to cheapen up if you hope to compete.

Signs that demand is high include too much work coming in, other freelancers being overloaded and people telling you they’ve been struggling to find someone to do the job. Signs that demand is low include finding yourself competing to win jobs, a shortage of work and fellow freelancers reentering the workforce.

4. Industry Standards
It’s hard to know what others are charging, but try asking around. Find out what larger businesses charge as well as other freelancers. The more you know about what others are charging and what services they provide for the money, the better you’ll know how you fit in to the market.

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5. Skill level
Not every freelancer delivers the same goods and one would expect to pay accordingly. When I was a freelancing newbie I charged a rate of $25 an hour for my design, when I stopped freelancing recently my rate was $125 an hour. Same person, but at different times I had a different skill level and hence was producing a different result. Whatever your rate, expect it to be commensurate with your skill.

6. Experience
Although often bundled with skill, experience is a different factor altogether. You may have two very talented photographers, but one with more experience might have better client skills, be able to foresee problems (and thus save the client time and money), intuitively know what’s going to work for a certain audience and so on. Experience should affect how much you charge.

7. Your Business Strategy
Your strategy or your angle will make a huge difference to how you price yourself. Think about the difference between Revlon and Chanel, the two could make the same perfume but you would never expect to pay the same for both. Figure out how you are pitching yourself and use that to help determine if you are cheap’n’cheerful, high end or somewhere in between.

8. Your Service
What you provide for your clients will also make a big difference to your price tag. For example you might be a freelancer who will do whatever it takes to get a job just right, or perhaps you are on call 24-7, or perhaps you provide the minimum amount of communication to cut costs. Whatever the case, adjusting your pricing to the type and level of service you provide is a must.

9. Who is Your Client
Your price will often vary for different clients. This happens for a few reasons. Some clients require more effort, some are riskier, some are repeat clients, some have jobs you are dying to do, some you wouldn’t want to go near with a stick. You should vary your price to account for these sorts of factors.

Give it lots of thought
The more you think about your reasoning behind your price, the easier your quoting will become. Like all these things there is a large amount of trial and error and often you will find yourself constantly changing up your pricing and gauging the ratio of jobs lost to jobs won.

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Top Ten Signs You May Be Charging Too Little by Jack Knight

Filed under: news — Tags: freelance — Harsha M V @ 11:55 am

Finding that pricing sweet spot where you make a great income without scaring clients away is one of the most asked about issues here on FreelanceSwitch. Today for your amusement, here are ten signs you might have gone the other way are charging waaay too little…

<p>.myTop10 { font-size:1.4em; line-height:1.2em; margin-bottom:20px; font-weight:bold; }</p>Number 10:
Your client mistakes your daily rate for an hourly one.

Number 9:
You’ve won every job you’ve ever pitched for.

Number 8:
Even though you work 80 hour weeks your income level qualifies you for welfare payments.

Number 7:
New clients are always asking what “the catch” is.

Number 6:
Clients pay your invoices in cash from their wallet.

Number 5:
Other freelancers regularly send you hatemail.

Number 4:
Your old clients don’t even bother asking you how much something is going to cost.

Number 3:
You never run out of work, yet you are subsisting on baked beans and 2 minute noodles.

Number 2:
Your 12 year old brother earns more spending cash than you flipping burgers.

…. And the number one sign you may be charging too little
Companies have been calling from India wanting to outsource their work to you.

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When a Client Doesn’t Like Your Work by Kristen Fischer

Filed under: news — Tags: freelance — Harsha M V @ 11:52 am

It’s can be difficult enough to complete a project off the top of your head. So when you get it back with demands attached and a client who is giving you attitude, it’s natural to get a little defensive.

But it’s not always the smartest thing to do as a professional.

This article caters to situations when you’ve really done all you could…like when a client says “Just write my website…it’s about Topic A and you can research that on the Web,” or “I like pink and black, make a logo out of that.” It’s geared towards circumstances when the client says, “You’re the professional, I trust your judgment,” and doesn’t give you a lot to go on, despite all of your prodding for more information.

Despite not giving you a good foundation, I’ve found that some clients in this situation can get a little uneasy. Even though your work may have been great, their expectations were somewhere else so no matter what you do, it’ll never measure up. There are times when the client really has nowhere firm to stand because he or she has left you without information, so it’s vital not to just take the heat—but to stand up for yourself and take charge of the situation, moving the project onward and upward (even if the customer has gone a little sour!)

When you’ve given it your all and your client is putting you in a pinch, what can you do? Take a breath and keep cool—I’ve got some tips to help you diplomatically explain your actions and avoid a temper flare at the same time.

Don’t rub in their fault—at first. While it’s okay sometimes to point out that they gave you little information to go on and previously said it was okay to start and you’d go from there, it’s important not to lash back. If and when you do, it’s best to do so politely. But not in the beginning of the conversation—the beginning is for listening, understanding the client’s perspective and then using your skills to get the client back on track.

Explain the process—and that this is a process. When the client says something like “I just don’t like it,” you have to tell them that a normal part of the editing process is to get their input and you’ll need specifics. It’s better not to say, “Well, what don’t you like?” but to lead them into detail-giving with something like, “Okay so let’s start with the headline. Do you feel the tone is too conversational? Do you want to tell me in layman’s terms the tone that you’re going for? Are there any marketing collateral pieces you’ve seen that have a tone closer to what you want?” I think grilling them is essential, especially since you’ve explained that you’re going to need their input and how vital it is.

To be honest, sometimes you’ve got to speak to people like they’re five years old, minus the coddling tone.

Get down to details. To be honest, sometimes you’ve got to speak to people like they’re five years old, minus the coddling tone. Upfront, I tell my clients that it’s perfectly normal not to always be pleased with the first draft. But I need specific information to get things as they want them to be. I let them know that I will work to get it just right, but I need them to sit down and think about what they specifically like and don’t like, and give me examples (if need be) of similar projects they do like. (In my case, I have them tell me in layman’s terms what tone they want, or I advise them to show me a marketing piece with a writing style they like.)

I always try to get as specific as possible and have learned to prod even if they continue to give me simple “I just don’t like it” answers. I toss the ball in their court. “Okay, I understand. So help me make it better and let me know what specifically you don’t like about it? Why don’t we start at the intro paragraph?”

Toss in the past. If that client is still moaning and wailing over spilled milk, you can consider putting up more of a boundary—but do tread with caution. While I don’t believe the customer is always right, I do believe you should never burn bridges. This is where you can mention that you didn’t have a lot of information going in (not so much as a defense but as an excuse), and how they said it was alright to go ahead anyway.

You could say something like, “I know we didn’t have a lot of background going into this, but now that we have a first draft, can you offer anymore information to help me get a better feel for what you’re looking for?” Again, explain things in baby tone without the baby talk (i.e. “This may not be what you really wanted, but it’s a strong start despite not having much to go on. Let’s figure out where you’d like to go from here to get this juuuuust right for you.”) I really only remind a client of that after I’ve explained the editing process and offered to “fix” things and they don’t sound happy. I try not to start getting tit-for-tat over things or bringing in the dreaded, “Well you never gave me much to start with.”

Inject some lightheartedness. This hasn’t happened to me outwardly, but I get the “You’re the writer, you know best” vibe a lot. The truth is that I may know best—but the client has to be happy with it in the end, so my opinion really doesn’t matter unless it’s requested. Since many customers may toss this thought your way, it’s in good taste to reply by stating that while you’re good at the visual interpretation (if you’re a designer, for example), they really know what “look” in an image they want best.

Replying with something like, “I can design whatever you’d like, but I want it to really represent your company the way you want it done. So I’m going to need your input on this. Do you think we should take this line out?”

Remember that some people may just want to put you down. Try to move them away from criticizing to giving you constructive criticism. The key is to facilitate moving forward, even if a client only wants to look back.

Kristen Fischer is the author of Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs. For more visit www.creativelyselfemployed.com.

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How to Make Your Portfolio Site More Effective by Adding a Blog by Steven Snell

Filed under: news — Tags: freelance — Harsha M V @ 11:49 am

Having a killer online portfolio is obviously invaluable to freelancers. The portfolio will show the quality of your work and get potential clients excited about what you can do for them. A great portfolio will sell you and your abilities–you just have to get people to see it.

Publishing a blog at your portfolio site can accomplish many of the same things, it just takes a different approach to get the results. Much like the portfolio, the blog will demonstrate your expertise, only it will do so by sharing knowledge instead of by displaying your work. Potential clients that have read the posts on your blog are likely to feel more comfortable with you and appreciate your experience and your abilities more than they would if they had never seen your blog.

How Can a Blog Improve a Portfolio?

Name Recognition

Freelancers typically work in relative obscurity, but building some name recognition can have a huge impact on your business. A well-known freelancer will generally get more work with less effort, and will be able to charge higher rates due to the increased demand.

Many clients like the idea of working with a freelancer that is well-known, and blogging is one of the easier ways to build your name recognition. If you’re a talented freelancer, most likely you have some valuable information that you could share with blog readers that would in turn help you to become recognized for your abilities.

Search Benefits

One of the biggest reasons to start a blog is the potential that it has for improving the amount of visitors that arrive at your site. A small portfolio site on its own is unlikely to ever draw a significant amount of search engine traffic. However, a blog that is regularly updated can easily improve that traffic exponentially.

Search engines love content, and blogs are all about content. Imagine this scenario. You have a small, five-page portfolio site that gets some search traffic to each of the five pages. If you add a blog and over the course of a year or two you publish 100 posts, you’ll have 105 pages all drawing a little bit of search engine traffic. Add that all together and you’ll have a much stronger presence in the search engines than you could ever have without the blog.

Additionally, blogs are one of the best ways to draw inbound links, which of course will improve the search engine rankings of your site as a whole. So not only will the blog posts be drawing search engine traffic, but the links to those posts are capable of improving the rankings of your home page and the other pages that aren’t even a part of your blog just by helping to build a stronger, more respected domain.

I’ve seen this firsthand at my own site. After about a year of blogging, it now contains a substantial amount of content and has drawn a decent number of links, which all results in a steady flow of search traffic. If I were to generate the same amount of search traffic through other means, like PPC ads, I would be spending thousands of dollars per month.

Visibility of Portfolio

By running a popular blog you will also have the opportunity to make your portfolio much more visible than it could be without the blog. Of course, you won’t want to use your blog as a means of pushing your portfolio onto readers, but you may be able to find ways to get them to see your portfolio while providing them with valuable content.

Graphic designer David Airey occasionally will publish a post where he explains his logo design process for a specific client (including sketches and drafts). This is an excellent practice because it gives us readers some excellent insight into what he does and how he makes design decisions that impact the end result. They’re very helpful posts to readers who want to understand more about graphic and logo design. However, they’re also good for David because they allow him to get his work in front of about 5,000 readers. How long would it take for the average portfolio site to have 5,000 people visit and look at the work?

Some web designers will use their blog to announce a new project and display a new design that gets added to their portfolio. Of course, you’ll want to make your blog a useful place full of content for readers, but it’s also provides a great platform for showing your work to a very targeted audience.

Instant Audience

Once you have a blog with a reasonably-sized audience, you can even use it to help you find work when things are a bit slow. If you’re finishing up a project and looking for some new jobs you’ll have the option and the ability to publish a quick post soliciting new work. While many of your readers may be fellow freelancers or other people working in your field, you’ll probably find that your readers include a number of people who are in need of your services.

Chances are you won’t even get to this point, because a popular blog will bring new clients without even asking for them…but it’s nice to know that the possibility is there if you need it.

Develop Relationships

You may find that your blog helps you to get to know people throughout the world. Some of those people may be in need of your services at some point. When they are, they’ll be likely to come directly to you rather than going out to find someone else that they don’t know.

Tips for Adding a Blog to Your Portfolio

Have Your Own Domain Name

Everything being written throughout this article assumes that your blog is hosted at your own domain as a part of your portfolio site. Don’t simply start a blog at Blogger.com or WordPress.com. If you’re going to devote time to building a blog for business purposes, host it at your own domain.

Develop a Schedule

As a freelancer, I’m sure you’re busy enough as it is without a blog. However, if the blog is going to have any impact on your business you’ll have to be posting to it. You certainly don’t have to publish something every day, but come up with a realistic schedule that will allow you to get all of your work done and still find time for blogging. Even posting just once per week can be enough to make a real impact.

The busier you are, the more you need a realistic schedule.

Without developing a schedule you’re likely to find yourself getting too busy with your other work to write blog posts. The next thing you know your blog will have sat without an update for two months. The busier you are, the more you need a realistic schedule.

Link Back to Your Portfolio

If the purpose of your blog is to attract new clients, be sure to link to your portfolio in prominent places from the blog that will lead visitors back to see your work. This is pretty obvious, but it can easily be overlooked when you’re focused on building your blog.

Don’t Hold Back

In order for your blog to be an effective tool, you’ll need to provide high-quality content that isn’t found at other blogs. Don’t be afraid to share your knowledge with others and give what you’ve got. If you’re afraid to share your knowledge or help others, your blog probably won’t generate much business for you.

Focus on Relevant Topics

A good blog will be focused on the issues that are relevant to your line of work and to your potential clients. Running a blog that contains primarily personal posts will not do the trick.

Think about the issues that potential clients may be facing and what they may be searching for. Find ways to help them out through your posts and you’ll find that these posts are winning you new clients.

Use it as a Networking Tool

Top bloggers in an industry are always well-connected. Use your blog as a platform to get to know other influential bloggers in your niche. Make an effort to comment on other blogs, vote at social media sites, send an occasional email, and even write a guest post for someone else if you have the time. Networking can help freelancers of all kinds, and a blog will make the networking easier and more natural.

Get Involved at Other Blogs in Your Niche

One way to build your name recognition and to gain new readers is to get involved at other blogs. Leave intelligent comments that show your level of knowledge and experience and others are likely to click-through and read your blog.

What’s Your Experience?

Does your portfolio site include a blog? Have you found that it helps you to find new business or to build your own name recognition?

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Legal Resources for Freelancers by Steven Snell

Filed under: news — Tags: freelance — Harsha M V @ 11:40 am

Handling the legal aspects of doing business has got to be the most dreaded part of freelancing. Most of us have very little knowledge in this field without taking the time to do some research, and even then it can be confusing and frustrating.

Of course, this isn’t one of the core functions of your freelance business, and it’s easy to see any time spent on legal issues as a loss in terms of available working hours. For this reason it’s good to take advantage of the legal resources that are available to freelancers.

In this post we’ll take a look at a number of resources, both online and off, that may be able to make your life easier and help you to achieve more productivity while protecting the legality of your business. Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments.

Contracts and Forms:

Creative Public

Creative Public is a membership site for web and graphic designers that provides legal resources, such as contracts, forms, pricing guides, and more. Membership costs $49.95 (a one-time non-recurring fee).

LawDepot

LawDepot has a number of contracts that you can create by filling in your own information. You’ll provide the relevant details of your contract and it will produce the legal document.

Freelancer’s FAQ

The Freelancer’s FAQ is not the prettiest page, but it does provide a number of sample contracts that can save you some time. They provide a sample proposal with cover letter, a short version contract, a long version contract, a non-disclosure agreement, and a few others.

Elance

Elance provides a few sample contracts and agreements, including a non-disclosure agreement, mutual non-disclosure agreement, buyer/service provider agreement, project agreement and statement of work, change order agreement, and an engagement letter.

AIGA

AIGA provides a standard form of agreement for design services (in PDF format)

Rocket Lawyer

Get a free work for hire agreement from Rocket Lawyer. Create an account, fill out the details, and it will create the form.

MyNewCompany

MyNewCompany.com sells a CD-ROM with over 200 business and tax forms of all kinds.

ContractPal

ContractPal is a resource for completing, validating, signing and processing contracts online. Pricing is $3.99 per transaction unless the number of monthly transactions exceeds 2,500.

FindLaw

FindLaw has forms for small businesses available for purchase, some of which are relevant to freelancers.

Articles on Legal Aspects of Freelancing:

How to Create a Freelancing Contract – About.com

What Can I Do if the Final Bill Exceeds the Original Estimate? – About.com

What to Do When You Don’t Get Paid for a Freelance Job – About.com

Ten Tips for Making Solid Business Agreements and Contracts – Nolo

Developing a Contract – AllFreelanceWork.com

How to Write Effective Business Contracts – AllBusiness.com

Organizations:

National Writers Union

The National Writers Union (U.S.) is the trade union for freelance and contract writers. You can get a membership in the union for $120 – $340 per year, depending on your income. Among the benefits of membership is contract advice from the union’s network of contract advisors.

American Society of Journalists and Authors

The American Society of Journalists and Authors helps professional freelance writers advance their writing careers. There is a $50 application fee and, if accepted, a one-time fee of $75. When considering applications, they look for “sustained evidence” that you have written for magazines, newspapers, or major publications.

United States Copyright Office

Creative Commons

The homepage for Creative Commons may provide some helpful information depending on the type of work that you’re doing.

Ask Legal Questions:

FindLaw Answers

FindLaw Answers is a forum where you can post your legal questions.

JustAnswer

At JustAnswer you can ask a question online and pay for an answer from a legal professional.

LawGuru

LawGuru allows you the opportunity to ask a question and receive an answer for free.

Books:

Consultant and Independent Contractor Agreements by Stephen Fishman.

Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants by Stephen Fishman.

Tax Deductions A to Z for Freelance and Contract Workers by Anne Skalka.

Working for Yourself: Law and Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants from Stephen Fishman.

Consultant and Independant Contractor Agreements by Stephen Fishman.

Choose the Best Legal Entity for Your One-Person Business by Stephen Fishman (eGuide).

Legal Forms for Starting and Running a Small Business by Fred S. Steingold.

Legal Guide to Web & Software Development by Stephen Fishman

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The Benefits of Personal Outsourcing by Ed Gandia PART 2

Filed under: news — Tags: freelance — Harsha M V @ 11:38 am

A few months ago, I wrote a brief post about the benefits of personal outsourcing. I explained how outsourcing some of your personal tasks — specifically those that you’re not fond of AND those that someone else can do more cost effectively — can help free up some of your time and enable you to become a more profitable and focused freelancer.

Many of you commented on how helpful the ideas were. You even asked for more suggestions on other tasks that could conceivably be outsourced. So I was asked to write a second post with a more exhaustive list of potentially “outsourceable” tasks.

Glad to do that. But first, I want to clarify a misconception I often hear when the topic of personal outsourcing comes up: the claim that paying someone else to take care of your personal responsibilities is a sign of laziness.

The idea behind personal outsourcing is to farm out tasks that you do not enjoy AND add little to no value to your life.

That comment misses the point. The idea behind personal outsourcing is to farm out tasks that you do not enjoy AND add little to no value to your life. Tasks that, when outsourced, can add productive time to your busy week.

If you believe that having your kids mow the lawn without paying them will teach them about personal responsibility and hard work (and I definitely agree with that), then by all means, have them do it. If you don’t mind making runs to the post office because it gets you out of the house occasionally, then go for it!

But if you hate doing those things (or have no kids to mow the lawn) and know that you could be working on billable projects you truly enjoy, then … why not at least consider having someone else help you?

OK. Enough of that. Let’s get to our list.

Sales Leads

Do you find yourself putting off your marketing efforts because you hate prospecting? If so, you may want to consider hiring an experienced virtual assistant or prospecting expert to help you out. When it comes to lead generation for professional services, the best approach I’ve found is to use a combination of direct mail and phone.

First, send out your letters. Then have your assistant call all recipients to try to schedule an appointment (or phone call) for you. Not only will you save time, but you’ll be giving the task to someone who might be more experienced and effective. Plus, to some prospects, it can make your business appear bigger and more impressive.

Prospect Research

Similarly, when it comes time to assemble your mailing list for your marketing campaign, you can hire an assistant to help you collect the necessary information and even verify all the names and addresses for accuracy. This might seem like a waste of time, but if you’re trying to put together a very targeted campaign — or if you’re sending out an expensive dimensional mailer — list accuracy can pay off.

Mailing Campaign Help

When it comes time to assemble your letters or packages, why not recruit family members to help you out? You’ll get it done in a fraction of the time and they’ll be glad to contribute. Last year, we drove to Florida to visit some family. I took 300 letters, envelopes and postage stamps with me and had a group of 8 relatives help me fold, stuff, seal and stamp all 300 letters. We were done in 45 minutes — a process that would have taken me hours to do by myself.

Vacation Coverage

Go on vacation and forget about the scads of emails and voicemails that will be there waiting for you when you get back! A virtual assistant can check both your email and voicemail while you’re away. He or she can summarize and prioritize voicemail messages into one document and even respond to urgent requests, if needed. When you get back to the office, you return to a manageable environment, not chaos!

Gifts and Cards

We all want to show our appreciation to our good clients during the holidays. But taking time to find and ship (or personally deliver) appropriate gifts can be extremely time consuming. If you find yourself in this situation, why not get some help? Don’t worry, it doesn’t need to be a stranger. Ask your spouse or other family member to help you shop for and deliver your gifts. Provide spending guidelines, office addresses and driving directions. You can even ask him or her to address and mail your presigned greeting cards and run them to the post office.

Personal Tech Support and Help Desk

As writer and consultant, my laptop is arguably my most important physical asset. But that doesn’t mean I know everything about how it works and how to fix it. So I outsource my tech support to a remote help desk. And I’m about to outsource physical repair services to a local IT pro who does house calls. I don’t mind paying these specialists for their services because, again, we’re talking about a critical piece of equipment to my business.

Transcriptions

If you have to interview people for a living, it pays to record the conversation (with the other party’s permission, of course). Trouble is, going back to the recording to find specific information can be a hassle. That’s where a transcription service comes in handy. A skilled transcriber can convert a 1-hour interview into text in a day or two. And once you have the transcript, you can easily use the “Find” feature in your word processing program to locate key words and get to the information you need quickly.

Data Entry

If you need a lot of data entered, a typist with excellent data entry skills can take on the task for you, saving you countless hours and a ton of frustration. Maybe the information you need is only available in a printout, but you need it in a Word document. Or maybe you have a big stack of business cards that need to be entered into your Outlook database. In either case, a skilled typist can save you a great deal of time.

Scheduling Appointments and Reservations

Setting appointments and keeping up with a busy schedule can be overwhelming. And that’s one area where a good virtual assistant can help. He or she can schedule appointments for you (both personal and for business), handle schedule changes, make travel arrangements (or at least do most of the research for you) or even find a great restaurant and make reservations. Don’t knock it until you try it!

Personal Driver

My colleague Pete Savage recently told me a great story about how he managed to turn a bad situation into an opportunity. Turns out that his car broke down on the morning of a very busy day. He had a very important client meeting scheduled, followed by a doctor’s appointment he couldn’t cancel. So instead of bailing out, Pete paid his college-age nephew to be his personal driver for the day. Not only was he able to keep both appointments, but as his nephew drove him around town, Pete used the idle time to get caught up with his email and calls on his BlackBerry.

Home Repair/Handyman

My “honey-do” list grew out of proportion a couple of years ago. So I hired a very reasonable handyman to work on some of the higher-priority projects on that list. And recently, my retired father-in-law, who loves to work on projects around the house, has tackled some of the more labor-intensive jobs. He does great work and loves doing it, and my wife is happy that we’re (finally!) getting these projects done.

As you can see, the possibilities of personal outsourcing are only limited by your imagination. Again, do what feels right to you. Do only what will add value to your business and make your life less stressful. Keep the tasks that are core to your business or those that you enjoy doing. Bottom line: There’s no right or wrong. YOU make the rules!

I mean … isn’t that why you became a freelancer in the first place?

Ed Gandia is a successful freelance copywriter and co-editor of The Wealthy Freelancer blog. To get a free copy of his report, 7 Steps to Landing More Lucrative Freelance Projects, visit TheProfitableFreelancer.

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November 22, 2008

Word of mouth is the go

Love those clients

Talk the talk

Promote Yourself

Be an industry expert

Use the media

Job Boards

Brrr – it’s cold in here!

Help leads find you

Get in bed with local business

Industry Specific Ideas

The Artiste Freelancer

The Payin’-The- Bills Freelancer

The Pushover Freelancer

The AWOL Freelancer

The I-Did-It- My-Way Freelancer

The Hit’n’Miss Freelancer

The Blame- Game Freelancer

The Constant- Excuses Freelancer

The Hidden-Costs Freelancer

The I-Can’t- Finish-This Freelancer

The Too-Cool Freelancer

The Big Business Freelancer

The No Business Skills Freelancer

Have we missed any?

How Can a Blog Improve a Portfolio?

Tips for Adding a Blog to Your Portfolio

What’s Your Experience?

Contracts and Forms:

Articles on Legal Aspects of Freelancing:

Organizations:

Ask Legal Questions:

Books:

Sales Leads

Prospect Research

Mailing Campaign Help

Vacation Coverage

Gifts and Cards

Personal Tech Support and Help Desk

Transcriptions

Data Entry

Scheduling Appointments and Reservations

Personal Driver

Home Repair/Handyman

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