Freelancefolder

Thank-You to Our June Advertisers

Posted June 19, 2010 in Business

It’s June. It’s hot outside. Many freelancers are thinking about vacation.

June is also a great time to update your freelance toolkit–you know, those resources that help your run your business effectively. Why not update your toolkit today by visiting one of our advertisers?

At Freelance Folder we have the good fortune to have some extraordinary companies supporting the blog. Our advertisers provide services and products that are vital to freelancing success. Trust us, these companies know and understand freelancing. We would definitely recommend checking them out.

Here’s the complete list of our wonderful advertisers:

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What to Do When Constant Client Emails Keep You from Working

Posted June 16, 2010 in Business, Managing Clients

I love my clients. They keep me in business and they allow me to have the kind of career and lifestyle I’ve always wanted. However that’s not to say they aren’t without their vices. The busier we get as freelancers, the less time we have to answer emails, yet the more emails we seem to get.

What’s worse is that we often get several clients who seemed to need babysitting on the web. While I don’t mind teaching my clients how to use their new sites, I’ve come across several clients that would literally email me at least 10-15 times a day on every subject from their website, to SEO, to using email, to turning on their computer.

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The Common Sense Post on Building a Freelance Business

Posted June 6, 2010 in Business, Getting Started

New freelancers who have never owned a business before often get overwhelmed after a short while. That’s because there’s much more to running a web design business than designing or to running a writing business than writing.

In short, there’s a business aspect to freelancing that most of us aren’t used to. Even the best designers and programmers often don’t understand some basic business principles when they start. That’s understandable, because running a business is usually not the primary focus of a freelancer. Most of us became freelancers because we love what we do, whether it be writing, programming, or designing.

However, if a freelance business is to succeed eventually the freelancer must learn some basic principles. To an experienced businessperson, these principles may seem like common sense. For that reason, these principles are often overlooked in articles and blog posts.

Here at Freelance Folder we’re not going to overlook these so-called common sense principles. We don’t want anyone to fail at their freelance business. That’s why we’ve created this common sense post on building your freelance business for new freelancers or for those who need a refresher.

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The Importance of Doing What You Say

Posted June 1, 2010 in Business, Managing Clients

“I’ll have the final copy for that email to you in an hour and then it will need to be coded immediately,” he said. I made plans to be ready to receive the document and translate it into an email with superhuman customer service strength, satisfying the client’s needs and exceeding his expectations. Four hours later, I was still waiting, my schedule for the day had been turned upside down, and the client had set a precedent that I would pin to him for the remainder of our relationship.

Has something like this ever happened to you?

Even worse, have you ever done it to your clients?

For freelancers, one of the most critical things you can do is exactly what you say you are going to do. To fail to do so will have lasting effects on your business, your reputation and your client relationships. In this post, we will look at reasons this is important, as well as a way to insure that it becomes a consistent element of how you run your business.

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Thank-You to Our May Advertisers

Posted May 22, 2010 in Business

May has been an exciting month at Freelance Folder. We’ve opened up our forums. We’ve launched our own YouTube channel.

Our terrific advertisers help make all these developments, and all the wonderful posts that you read each day, possible.

At Freelance Folder we have the good fortune to have some extraordinary companies supporting the blog. Our advertisers provide services and products that are vital to freelancing success. Trust us, these companies know and understand freelancing. We would definitely recommend checking them out.

Here’s the complete list of our wonderful advertisers:

[Click Here to Read More...]

The Care and Keeping of Long-Term Clients

Posted May 19, 2010 in Business, Managing Clients

Basically, there are two kinds of clients that a freelancer can have:

• One-time clients–Clients who need your services a single time
• Long-term clients–Clients who return frequently to use more of your services

Both types of clients are important for a successful freelancing business. Long-term clients can offer you many benefits that one-time clients cannot.

In this post, we’ll focus on long-term clients and how to keep them happy.

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10 Hidden Skills of Successful Freelancers

Posted May 18, 2010 in Business, Getting Started

Anyone who’s spent any time freelancing knows far too well that there is much more to it than simply doing that thing you love whenever you want in your pajamas.

The truth is that a freelancer must become the equivalent of a business owner in many ways, and there are a number of other requirements that extend beyond that job title as well. In this post, I will point out some of the hidden skills that a freelancer must possess or learn in order to fully succeed in their endeavors.

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Using Zen Practices to Increase Your Organization & Productivity

Posted May 13, 2010 in Business, Productivity

There comes a time in every freelancer’s business that they realize the sad truth–that we spend more time answering emails, talking on the phone, sending estimates and invoices and doing generally everything but what we actually went into business for.

I hate, absolutely hate, the management part of projects and of business in general. If I had my way, projects would beam down from the sky on to my desk with perfect budgets and perfectly detailed specs. I would never again have to answer 100 emails about why you can’t do a full site in Flash or why it’s not OK to hand me 100 mockups when they paid for three.

Unfortunately though, that will never happen. So I’ve spent a considerable amount of time reading up on different practices to decrease the amount of time I spend doing something other than development. I’ve found that you can actually apply the basic principles of Zen living to your office to reduce up your management time.

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5 Minute Book Review: Outliers by Malcom Gladwell (VIDEO)

Posted May 12, 2010 in Business

This week in our FreelanceFolder video we’re going to take a look at a very popular book in the business world — Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The book is currently number three on the New York Times Business Bestsellers list, and Gladwell is well known for producing excellent books, his two previous ones being The Tipping Point and Blink.

In this 5 minute book review we’re going to give you a quick summary of the book, we’ll discuss any and all of the interesting points we came across while reading it, and then we’re going to give you our impressions and a few actionable takeaways. Yes, it’s a lot to cover in 5 minutes, but just take a peek at the video and 5 minutes later you’ll be well versed about Outliers.

For those who would rather read a quick summary, we’ve typed out most of the review in the full article. Read on or watch the video to see more.

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