Freelancefolder

Get Your Clients to Stop Comparing Rates

Posted February 15, 2010 in Managing Clients, Marketing 49 Comments »

You are the best at what you do. No other freelancer can do what you do as well as you do it.

The problem, however, lies in getting clients to understand this. This is particularly hard if you’re still in the start-up stage, where you’re having to find the clients, instead of them coming to you.

In certain industries, like design, it’s easier to get the client to understand the difference in quality and rates (although designers still get rate-comparing clients), but if you’re a developer or writer, it’s tougher to get the client to understand the difference.

So how do you convince the client that your $100 an hour services are better than the other guy’s $30 an hour services?

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Never Miss an Important Email : 100 AwayFind Invites

Posted February 14, 2010 in News 12 Comments »

We have been trying hard to find tools that are useful to freelancers. Some of these tools can be extremely important. A tool that keeps you informed about urgent email messages is certainly one that can’t be ignored.

AwayFind is a powerful web application that finds your most important emails. When you receive an urgent message, AwayFind will notify you with a call, SMS, IM, DM (Twitter), or delegate the message to someone you specify.

AwayFind is still in private beta but we were able to secure 100 invites for FreelanceFolder readers. Click here to try out AwayFind. Be sure to let us know what you think.

Open Thread: Do You Take All the Work You Are Offered?

Posted February 14, 2010 in Open Thread 37 Comments »

Last week we got a huge response when we asked our Facebook followers this question, so this week I want to ask the same thing to everyone who reads our blog:

Do you take all the work that you are offered, or do you turn some of it down?

As freelancers, we sometimes face a feast or famine environment. When work comes, any work, it can be tempting to accept that work even if it’s not really a good fit for our business.

Making the decision to turn down work is a tough one, but all freelancers are faced with this decision eventually.

Share your story in the comments–tell us what makes you accept a project and which projects (if any) you refuse. Be sure to offer any tips that you have for choosing good clients.

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How Committed Are You to Freelancing?

Posted February 12, 2010 in Business 43 Comments »

Freelancers come and freelancers go.

It’s a fact that many start freelancing, but not everyone who starts a freelance business sticks with it. What do you think it is that really separates those who stick with freelancing from those who quit?

Could it be talent? Is it the amount of knowledge that a freelancer has? Or, perhaps popularity is the true measure of a freelancer’s ultimate success…

While all of these factors are important, there is something that is even more crucial to freelancing longevity.

The answer lies in a single word–commitment.

In this post, we’ll discuss some of the traits of a committed freelancer. I’ll also share my own observations about freelancing commitment.

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Two Free Corporate Identity Packs from MediaLoot

Posted February 11, 2010 in News 8 Comments »

Well, it’s time for another freebie from MediaLoot :-) These two free sets were both designed by me (Mason) specifically to be really useful for freelancers in all industries. Everyone needs business cards, letterhead, and other corporate stationery, and for those freelancers out there who aren’t design savvy these could be just the ticket.
 
At launch MediaLoot will primarily be a site for designers — but we will regularly release designs that are useful for other people too (some free and some members-only versions). These two corporate identity packs are just one example of design resources that most everyone can benefit from.
 
To find out more about these stationery sets and download one for yourself, head on over to the MediaLoot resource page →

 

Should You Meet With Prospective Clients?

Posted February 11, 2010 in Managing Clients, Marketing 54 Comments »

“Can you come by this week? We’d like to meet you.”

If you’ve been a freelancer for some time, you’ve probably heard this request more than once from a prospective client.

To some freelancers, meeting requests are a clear sign of legitimate interest. They are a critical step in their selling process.

But other freelancers cringe when they get such requests. For the most part, they view in-person meetings as a waste of time and would rather discuss the project or opportunity over the phone.

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10+ Tips For Using Twitter To Grow Your Freelance Business

Posted February 10, 2010 in How-To, Social Media, Tools/Resources 61 Comments »

Like it or not, social media is here to stay — at least for a while. More importantly, if you are not using the various social media tools that are available to grow your freelance business, you are missing out on a prime opportunity. The audience is global, the tools are almost all free and, with proper time management, the return on your investment could be phenomenal.

I have heard from numerous peers of their struggles to grasp the reigns of the wild stallion that is social media marketing, but I have had measurable success learning how to utilize Twitter in ways that have increased my clientele, enlarged my network of connections, and strengthened my standing as a member of the freelance and design community. In fact, without Twitter I would not be writing for Freelance Folder!

In this post I will share some basic transferable principles I have discovered that could help you not only get your feet wet with Twitter, but quite possibly could open doors you thought were locked to you and your freelance business.

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5 Bad Work at Home Habits: Are You Guilty?

Posted February 9, 2010 in Lifestyle, Productivity 115 Comments »

Isn’t working at home great? That’s why so many of us are either already doing it, or dreaming about doing it. We know it’s just the thing for creative types who don’t like structure and hierarchy. Working at home has its perks.

However, working at home also brings many temptations that can sabotage our productivity, creativity, sanity, happiness and even our health.

Below are what I consider to be the five most common pitfalls of working at home, why they’re bad for us, and how we can avoid or overcome them.

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10 Free Project Management Applications

Posted February 8, 2010 in Productivity, Tools/Resources 72 Comments »

How do you make sure that you get all of your work done on time?

As freelancers, we wear many different hats. In addition to performing our freelancing specialty for the client, we’re also the sales staff, the manager, the support team, and the accountant all rolled into one person.

For many freelancers the project planning tasks that go along with freelancing may seem kind of overwhelming (especially if they’ve never done any project planning). Other freelancers may find that they need to provide the same kind of project plans to their clients that would have been required of them in the corporate world.

Either way, project planning can be a lot of extra work for a freelancer. The project planning task is difficult to handle without good tools to work with.

In this post, I list some project management tools that are either freeware or open source.

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