Freelancefolder

Can the Bad Attitude of a Few Bad Apples Hurt Your Business?

Posted March 31, 2010 in Business, Freelance Stories

It’s time to get serious about freelancing!

A few freelancers don’t take their business seriously enough, and quite frankly their unprofessionalism is hurting the rest of us who want to make a career out of freelancing.

So, if you’ve been merely dabbling in freelancing, if you’ve been inconsistent with the quality you provide, or if your attitude towards clients needs a little bit of adjustment, I have just two words for you:

QUIT IT!

To all the bad apples out there–Quit having a bad attitude towards clients. Quit producing low quality work. Quit playing at freelancing and get serious. The rest of us would really appreciate it.

If you’ve ever had to clean up after an unprofessional freelancer, you’ll probably relate to this post (you might even want to add your own thoughts about unprofessionalism in the comments).

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Seven Benefits of Hiring Your Children

Posted March 30, 2010 in Business, Lifestyle

Do you remember the day your child was born? Took her first step? Went to school for the first time?

Of course, you remember these milestones and cherish them as a parent. It’s amazing to watch a child grow from a completely helpless infant to a teen or young adult with his own opinions and ways of doing things.

Maybe your child is even old enough and capable enough to help you in your freelancing work. That’s right, how about contracting your child to work for you?

If you’re self-employed or run your own business, at some point you’re likely to receive the advice to hire your own children as a means of getting a tax break.

However, hiring your children has benefits beyond taxes. It’s excellent training for your child, and gives you practical help. Most of all, it can be good for your relationship.

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Set Up Your Desk to Maximize Productive Web Development

Posted March 29, 2010 in How-To, Productivity

I get lots of questions about how both my desk and apps are set up and about how productivity can be improved. This is a very important topic for many reasons, yet it isn’t discussed very often on the web.

Properly setting up both your physical and virtual desks can make you more productive while also helping you avoid serious injury like frequent headaches and carpal tunnel syndrome.

While I’m no ergonomic expert, I’ve spent several days over the years tweaking my setup to be the quickest it can be. I’ll show you my own setup and give you some tips for your own.

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Open Thread: Do You Have a Smart Phone?

Posted March 28, 2010 in Open Thread

Mobile computing is on the rise, and most web workers are eager to take advantage of this trend since having a mobile computing device such as a smart phone can help make them location independent.

The number of applications available for mobile computing device has risen also, making them a much more practical (if not indispensible) addition to a freelancer’s set of tools.

So, this week we want to ask our readers the following question:

Do you own a smart phone or other mobile computing device?

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Thank-You to Our March Advertisers

Posted March 27, 2010 in News

It’s spring, and in the springtime our thoughts often turn to getting more organized. What better way to get organized than to take advantage of some of the great products and services provided by companies that support FreelanceFolder?

So, if you have a few minutes out of your day to browse some of these extraordinary companies, we would definitely recommend doing so. Many of our advertisers provide services integral to freelancing and, trust us, many of them can make your life a lot easier. Without further ado, here are our wonderful FreelanceFolder advertisers:

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Five Simple Tactics to Find New Clients

Posted March 26, 2010 in Getting Started, Marketing

Finding work…it’s one of the most challenging, yet most vital, tasks that a freelancer must face.

When they start out many freelancers have no idea how to find new clients. This is especially true if the freelancer is coming from a corporate background where new work is assigned to them as soon as they complete a project.

While the task of finding clients can seem overwhelming to a new freelancer, clients are actually all around you if you know where to look.

In this post we’ll share five easy tactics that you can use regularly to build your client base.

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How to Approach Big Clients

Posted March 25, 2010 in Marketing

When we first start out as freelancers, we tend to be tentative about approaching new clients. In fact, one of the biggest obstacles to growing a freelancing business is that most freelancers are terrified to pitch themselves. They’ll go after job postings on major boards or on craigslist.org, but they won’t go out and find the clients who need their services unless they see an ad somewhere.

Most of us get over that hurdle and start pitching ourselves to businesses that we think need our help. Bigger companies are struggling right now, and they don’t have as much in-house talent as they used to.

There’s a lot of room for freelancers to pick up the slack–if you know how to position yourself. Some of the biggest freelancers you know today got their start because they made the right pitch to the right company at the right time. Forever after, they had that name in their portfolio.

So can you.

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Can You Teach Yourself Web Design?

Posted March 24, 2010 in Getting Started, Web Design

I recently received an email from someone who was interested in becoming a web designer. They wanted to know if they should go to school for it, or if it is possible to learn on your own. My answer, in short, was “Yes.” 

I am a completely self-taught web and graphic designer, so I know that it is possible to actually succeed in freelance web design from such humble roots. However, it has been quite an uphill climb and if I had the chance to do it again I probably would have chosen to go to school for it. My guess is that I could have greatly compacted the amount of time it has taken to get educated in everything that I have learned up to this point. A formal education could have provided a solid foundation to start from.

Before I go any further, let me make one thing clear: I am not suggesting that anyone who puts their mind to it can teach themselves to become a financially successful or even a quality web designer. I believe there is still a prerequisite of design talent that one must have in order to succeed. Others may disagree, but I can’t imagine someone with zero natural artistic or design talent managing to pull off a website design that meets all modern aesthetic standards. I think that one can ingest a wealth of information, learn and apply all of the available tutorials and teachings available, and still come up short if they have never demonstrated an ounce of artistic ability before.

This post will explore some of the positives and negatives of being a self-taught web designer, as well as some of the ways you can teach yourself. Let’s take a look at what it takes and how to proceed with teaching yourself how to design and build websites.

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15 Reasons Why I Utterly Refuse to Give Up on Freelancing

Posted March 23, 2010 in Inspiration, Lifestyle

Freelancing is hard.

Not only do you have to face feast and famine cycle, do everything yourself, struggle to maintain a good work/life balance, and have a plan in place for emergencies–you might have to deal with difficult people.

Whew!

Is it any wonder that some freelancers fail?

We’ve already explained why freelancing may not be for everybody.

I’ll never give up on freelancing, though, for reasons that are personal, professional, and people-related. Here’s why I won’t give up:

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