Open Thread: What Do You Wish You Knew When You Started?
Posted by Dave Navarro
“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.”
- Vernon Law
The admissions office for the School of Hard Knocks is always open, and we’ve all taken our share of courses there. And while you wear your battle scars with pride, it’s always nicer to avoid the pain when possible.
If you could send a message back to yourself when you just started out on the freelancing / entrepreneurial path, what would it be?
Leave Your “Message In A Bottle”
Share your life lesson via the comments below and see what you can learn from the experience of others!
Dave
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37 Rockin' Comments
January 20th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
I’d say, “Look, you over-achieving narcissist, there are only but so many hours in the day. Choose your clients, choose them wisely because they will help shape your day.”
January 20th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Dear Jay,
Dude. Here’s $100. I know you need it. Keep your head up, the future is filled with gold.
P.S. Don’t you love how I gave you no real advice.? Haha…sucker. I had to go through it and so do you. Life is the path; life is the journey, without it we’re just dying standing still.
January 21st, 2008 at 4:26 am
One potentially expensive oversight is starting a business with a lack of business knowledge.
Yes, the boring stuff. All things book keeping …
January 21st, 2008 at 6:15 am
I would have said (and I still say now) “Things don’t have to be perfect. Do it and make improvements along the way.”
January 21st, 2008 at 6:51 am
Alright, listen up really well. You need to be ready for isolation. You need to be ready for a lack of support or people who don’t understand what you do for a living. They won’t understand that you need to work just as much as anyone else in an office somewhere.
Be ready to push yourself out there to be taken seriously – because no one will. Oh, and have a huge sign made that says “WORKING – DO NOT ENTER” and turn on your answering machine, because people will assume that “freelance” equals “always available to drop everything and go have fun.”
Write this down on a piece of paper and post it to your wall for the tough times: “It’s this or work at McDonalds. You choose.” Trust me, you’ll need that inspiration from time to time.
January 21st, 2008 at 7:36 am
A lot of people are making a lot of money on the Internet, but don’t bother trying. You’ll waste hundreds of dollars and months of time with little to show for it. Either get a real job or develop a real offline business.
January 21st, 2008 at 8:10 am
A few very important things - particularly if you offer services (specifically design, but this likely applies to other fields as well…)
1. Get a contract before starting any job - ALWAYS! It protects both you and the client, ensuring that neither of you gets the short end of the stick…
2. Make sure the contract specifies Exactly what they are getting. For example, if designing a web site - specify how many mock-ups they are getting for the price they paid.
I’ve been burned several times in the past, by not specifying this in a contract… In once case, for example, I ended up doing close to 10 mock-ups for a client.
I tend to on a flat-fee for site design (based on the ‘average’ time to complete a design, code the html, etc). In this particular instance, I had estimated far less than 1/2 the amount of time that I actually spent on this particular design. It wasn’t in the contract, though, so I couldn’t go back and charge more for the work.
My new contracts now state that you get X amount of mock-ups with X number of revisions each… beyond that will be billed hourly….
3. Get a deposit up front, and final payment before files delivered to client.
I generally work on terms of 50% up front and 50% after completion of project, but before transferring the files either directly to the client or to their FTP server.
Sometimes, depending on the particular project, I’ll work on a 50/25/25 basis. That happens on cases where you have to work on the client’s server (take a shopping cart, for example). In cases like that, I’ll require 50% up front, 25% after approval of the design and development of the initial html coding, and final payment after complete implementation into the shopping cart.
I haven’t personally been burned by this one (yet), but know far too many people who either don’t take a deposit, or they deliver the files before receiving final payment. You’d be surprised at how many times the client will up and disappear without paying for hours of work and a good product (service)!
—
LOL, I guess I have money on the brain today - or should I say lack of it… ;) - but these are definitely among some of the more important business lessons I’ve learned so far.
I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else has to say on the topic - I know I can certainly use all the advice I can get! :)
January 21st, 2008 at 8:12 am
Goodness gracious! I swear I didn’t intend for that to be such a long comment! [blushing]
I should have turned that into it’s own post on my blog, lol.
January 21st, 2008 at 11:01 am
Hey some really good comments so far! For me it’s not really ‘what’ but more ‘who’ I wish I knew when I started :)
January 21st, 2008 at 12:02 pm
“Hind site is always better than fore site”…
Not all connections you make are necessarily beneficial for your success.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I agree with Jon, I wish I knew the who’s more then the what’s.
January 21st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I’d send a message way back to high school and say drop metal shop and take that boring C++ course or whatever the programming class was called back in the early 90’s. Then when I was a freelancer I’d know how to really program. As I can’t possibly make the time for that now.
January 21st, 2008 at 2:39 pm
“The time you spend searching for shortcuts can be put to better use by building the foundation for a long-term project”.
A lot of people spend a lot of time searching for the easy way out only to receive one reality check after another. At a certain point, they realize that there are no shortcuts and that’s when things start going uphill, but they had been better off not learning everything the hard way.
Alan Johnson
January 21st, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I wish that when I was starting out as a voice-over artist, I had hired an audio engineer to help me set up my recording studio. Instead I patched it together and made some expensive mistakes. For other businesses, I would say to make sure you have the infrastructure you need to do your job right. If you find that you’re inefficient because you don’t have the right equipment, move some mountains to fix that problem because you will. save. money.
January 21st, 2008 at 4:05 pm
The importance of having good contacts, both online and in person. Being friends with people who are relevant to your business is an invaluable resource.
January 21st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Well - pretty much everything I would have said has already been said.
But I can add that I’m extremely glad I never “knew it” before I started, because the experience is what makes the knowledge so valuable.
January 21st, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I think I’m thankful for my ignorance and naivete starting out — I might have never gone solo without them :)
January 21st, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I am so thankful to have found some good solid information to absorb while I work to start my online boutique. Contrary to societal motives, I am not out to make “billions of dollars on the internet” but I am out to do something I love, while giving consumers the opportunity to shop for and purchase a well deserved product that will make their lives a tad bit more beautiful. Everyone has the right to define and believe in their own definition of success.
Keep the advice pouring in…some of us out here are taking it very seriously!
Cheers!
January 21st, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I’m glad I Stumbled across a blog that linked to this site. I have a few business ideas I’m beginning to plot out. Some of the comments in this thread are encouraging and useful.
January 21st, 2008 at 9:31 pm
“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.”
What an appropriate quote for “Message in a Bottle”… cuz you have to break the bottle to read the message!
ps: My hard learned lesson? 50-50 is a great idea. I’m not a ‘full-time freelancer’ (is there anything like that?), but I’ve been approached by people to set up their blog, write/design a brochure, or write a jingle, etc., and I spend some quality time researching only to see the client has lost their steam and has dropped/postponed the project.
January 21st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Are you crazy? I don’t care if they are friends!!!! Make them sign the contract!!!
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:12 am
@Kimberly James
Was your comment directed at me? I wouldn’t be surprised if it were, maybe I AM a li’l krazyyyy… :)
Well, one of things that comes in the way of ‘making them sign the contract’ is that I’m never sure about how much I should charge them. I’m totally clueless about freelancing charges (Jon knows :), so I don’t quote, but keep working and in the end don’t get nuthin’.
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:58 am
Nothing. Everything I’ve become today is a result of my learnings yesterday. And I’m really grateful for that, however little it may seem in other people’s context.
Cheers,
Ellesse
January 22nd, 2008 at 7:30 am
Contrary to most of the guys here.. I don’t have much to share.. in fact I am on the side to whom this would be hugely beneficial so a big thanks for that.. this is building up to be a great resource and I hope a lot more comments happen…
I particularly like Alan’s “The time you spend searching for shortcuts can be put to better use by building the foundation for a long-term project”.
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:01 am
Don’t cave on your rates. It is so rarely about the money.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:59 am
When building a business, especially if you’re starting up on your own, there is a tendency for ambitious individuals to treat everyone as a lead. This in FINE. Treating everyone as a client is NOT FINE. You’ll end up spinning your wheels trying to force a square peg in a round hole. Have a few ideas of the warning signs that someone is less than ideal as a client…and then be on the lookout. Don’t be afraid to lower your tolerance for prospects outside your strike zone!
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Indeed, sometimes being selective when it comes to your clients is a must. I’ve experienced this with my brick&mortar business and can tell you that in some cases, you are better off not working with certain people, as it simply ends up not being worth it down the road.
Alan Johnson
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I would tell myself to relax when glitches occur… and they WILL occur! But there is a tremendous amount of very helpful, very free information out there and persistence pays off!
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:45 am
I wished I had not spent as much money online as many gems on online marketing could be found at James Brausch website. He has just shifted his blog… im sure you can google it up. His full name is James D. Brausch if cant find it.
Highly recommended if your a newbie to internet marketing. Wont cost you a dime to read :)
Cheerio
Duke
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Indeed, most people make the mistake of not realizing exactly how much information they can gain at no cost. There are always more than a few great free resources worth following on a regular basis, no matter what niche we are talking about.
Alan Johnson
January 24th, 2008 at 8:24 am
As said by WAH(web)Mommy - get a deposit up-front and take payments throughout a project. Along with the fact you’re getting paid more regularly, the client makes more of an effort once they’ve departed with money :-)
January 25th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Everything takes longer than expected.
May 30th, 2008 at 5:15 am
After 2 fines from the tax man, I wish I would have fully understood the legalities regarding all taxation matters
May 31st, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Maybe it’s just because I’ve had a rotten week, but my advice would be:
1) Back in my day, they didn’t teach business know-how in art school. Get yourself a mentor and do it early in your career.
THEN/OR
2) Marry someone rich. Never work again. ;-)
Did I mention the rotten week I had?
July 6th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
There is absolutely no shame in not being able to do it all yourself, and trying to anyway will only result in burnout! My most valuable lesson came when I realized how much time and how many headaches I could save by not trying to handle every little aspect of my business “all by myself”. I now outsource my back-office tasks (invoicing, collections, tax management) to a company called MBO Partners, and I get a W-2 at the end of the year. Much simpler!
July 15th, 2008 at 10:43 am
If you have a lot of clients who are obnoxious, demanding, and who insist on you doing “just one more thing” for free, you’re probably doing something wrong, and need to rethink your business model.
If you just have one, get rid of them. You won’t make any money in the long run, and in the short run they’re more bother than they’re worth. Find a good excuse and fire them.
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