Freelancefolder

3+ Ways Finishing Projects Ahead of Schedule Can Hurt You

Posted June 30, 2010 in Managing Clients, Marketing

As discussed in a recent post here on Freelance Folder, it is usually a best practice for freelancers to under promise and over deliver.

One way to under promise and over deliver is to pad your deadline when you agree upon a schedule for a project. Padding your deadline gives you extra time to deal with any unexpected issues and it also creates the possibility of finishing ahead of schedule.

In most cases, your clients will be overjoyed when you deliver their work sooner than expected. I encourage you to continue amazing your clients with your efficiency. This practice will usually help you to grow your business. However, there are times when working quicker than expected can actually inspire a negative response from clients.

In this post, we’ll look at some of the related misconceptions clients can have in an effort to help prevent them from happening to you in your future freelancing endeavors. I’ll also share how working too quickly impacted my own freelance business and explain what I could have done instead.

[Click Here to Read More...]

How Should Freelance Writers Determine What Price to Charge?

Posted June 29, 2010 in Getting Started, How-To

One of the hardest things that any freelancer has to do is determine what to charge for his or her services.

If you’re a freelance writer (or if you hire freelance writers), then you may have a difficult time determining what the market price for writing is. Of course, your lowballing client would have you believe that nearly all writers work for practically nothing all–but, don’t you believe them.

A time-honored method of determining rates is to look at the averages of what other writers charge. When setting your freelance writing rates it’s also important to consider the amount that you need to earn for your business to stay afloat. In this post, I’ll link to some surveys that provide average writing rates and salaries. I’ll also look at some expenses that most freelancers have.

[Click Here to Read More...]

Learning How to Freelance without Clients

Posted June 28, 2010 in How-To, Marketing

For some reason, even though I’ve been in the development world for over ten years, I’d never thought about making my own apps. It seemed to me that web and app development were two completely different things.

That was until I started listening to a bunch of podcasts that mentioned app development and read some books by 37signals. Several months and long nights later, I launched my first web app with Nikita (the wonderful programmer in my life) called CodeSnipp.it.

[Click Here to Read More...]

Freelancing Competition–Friends or Foes?

Posted June 27, 2010 in Business, Inspiration

Let’s face it. If you’re a freelancer, then you’ve got competition.

Competition means that there is someone else who is also targeting your ideal clients and prospects. They may be applying for the same projects. They may even be getting more of those projects than you are getting.

It’s very easy for a freelancer to get distracted by what their competition is doing.

In this post, we’ll discuss the three possible attitudes you can have towards your competition. We’ll also explain why it’s important not to get too sidetracked by focusing on your competitors.

[Click Here to Read More...]

8 Ways to Get the Most Out of Summer

Posted June 25, 2010 in How-To, Productivity

Well, summer has officially arrived in North America. In our area, most kids are out of school. The neighborhood pools are open. And, it seems like everyone’s on vacation or mentally checked out.

For many freelancers, summers can be tough. With so many clients on vacation, projects get put on hold. Tracking down prospects can be difficult. It also seems like no one wants to make a decision because “Pam is out for two weeks, and once she gets back it will take her another two weeks to catch up!”

So, what’s a freelancer to do with the idle time?

[Click Here to Read More...]

Why Bear Grylls Would Make a Better Designer Than You

Posted June 24, 2010 in Graphic Design, Inspiration

Bear Grylls, the star of the hit show Man vs. Wild, defines what every man really wants to be.

For the frequent rock dwellers who don’t know Bear or haven’t been able to catch Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel, picture a man that you could drop out of a plane anywhere on the planet (literally anywhere) and he would survive.

Now picture that man waiting for you when you got back to the airport, probably with some dirt on him, maybe with a little bit of something else’s blood. Bear Grylls can tackle any environment with his keen resourcefulness, endurance, and testosterone.

While I am not entirely aware of Bear’s computer skill set, I am going to go ahead and bet the house that he is a better web designer than you are. Where does my confidence come from? Well first, I have never seen Bear fail to do anything. This guy kills things that kill people and then he eats them… I am serious. He eats them. So am I going to say that Bear sucks at web design? Heck no, I don’t want to get eaten. Apart from the threat of consumption, Bear employs several survival techniques that act as pretty solid advice in the web design world as well. In this post, I’ll share Bear’s techniques and explain how they apply to web design.

[Click Here to Read More...]

How to Find Freelance Jobs through Effective Forum Networking

Posted June 23, 2010 in How-To, Marketing

What if I told you a means that you could use to increase the number of prospects and clients that you get for your business? Would you follow my advice?

In the excitement of using social media tools, many freelancers have completely overlooked an older means of networking–forum participation. Regular participation in the right forums can provide you with job leads.

Now, I’m not against social media. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m an active social media participant.

However, I don’t rely totally on social media for my prospects and neither should you. In this post, we’ll explain what a forum is and provide you with some tips to help you network effectively on them.

[Click Here to Read More...]

How to Beef Up Your Freelancing Skills

Posted June 22, 2010 in How-To, Tools/Resources

When you became a freelancer, you also became your very own human resource director.

That means you’re responsible for your own professional growth and development. Take this responsibility seriously, because this is what keeps you in-demand and able to charge higher than your competitors do.

However, keep in mind that you need to continually improve two areas of skills:

• The specialized skills in your particular field, whether it’s writing, designing, programming, photography or anything else.
• Your entrepreneurial skills–the skills you need to run your freelancing business, manage your finances, and market your services.

Even if you’re just starting out and have limited resources to invest, it’s possible to beef up your skills. The Internet, in particular, provides many opportunities for you to keep updated in your field, as well as in small business management.

What is essential is your investment of time and effort to continually improve your skills.

Below are some free and paid ways you can build up your skills to become a more successful freelancer:

[Click Here to Read More...]

Would You Hire Yourself?

Posted June 21, 2010 in Managing Clients, Marketing

In a previous life as an operations manager, I used to have the responsibility of hiring new employees. One of the first questions I would ask in the interview was “Would you hire yourself?” Of course, the quick, knee-jerk response was always yes, but it took a little while longer for replies to the following question, “Why?”

Although freelancers have the joy of claiming we are no one’s employee, we have the unenviable task of constantly being in the hiring process with every potential client. Regardless of how professional our proposals, how friendly our personality, or how excellent our portfolio, for most it would behoove us to be able to not only answer yes to the question in the title of this post, but to confidently and successfully explain why.

This post will look at some of the main reasons you may or may not be able to claim without a shadow of a doubt that you would hire yourself. In the process, we will attempt to identify ways we each can spot those things that would keep us from hiring ourselves. We’ll also discuss how to improve on any weaknesses that we discover.

[Click Here to Read More...]