Have you absolutely had it up to here with your boss? Sick and tired of the demanding schedule, the stressful deadlines, the abysmal pay and office politics? Dreaming of days when you can work anytime, anywhere while still in your pajamas? Looking forward with gusto to long, creative-fueling walks spent with exotic coffee in hand?
For freelancers, especially those just starting out, it can be difficult to find the time and money needed to launch your website.
Many, in fact, simply opt to use social media sites in place of a website in the beginning of their career. This can be quite detrimental to a small startup, however, and end up causing your career to grow more slowly than necessary.
A dedicated website shows prospects that you are serious about your business – that you believe in yourself as a viable resource. A website adds legitimacy to your freelance work; without it prospects may turn away, scared you may be just another scam artist. Also, a website makes it easier for would-be clients to find you on the web.
If you’ve decided to go solo and become a freelance designer, congratulations! There are certainly a lot of benefits to working for yourself. You’ve got the flexibility to set your own working hours and to choose who you want to work with and how. There’s also no annoying boss or co-workers and no stressful daily commute to contend with...
Once you’ve got a newsletter set up to bring you in new clients, you may start to think about what else you can do with the newsletter format to promote your freelance business. One of the options worth considering is sending a newsletter to the clients you’ve already landed.
The logic behind this is clear: if you’ve knocked the socks off of a client already, that company may be more than happy to work with you again. But you need to remind them that you are available and point out the services you offer, particularly beyond what you’ve already done. A newsletter can provide a useful reminder to past clients of your existence.
Of course, you have to be targeting a specific niche of clients if you really want to make sure that your newsletter is effective: it’s much harder to create a broad newsletter that appeals to every client who has ever hired you to design a website than just writing for those clients who operate ecommerce sites. When it comes to newsletters, narrow is good...
Have you been avoiding Pinterest? Why? With its 40 million users, Pinterest is a relatively small social network compared to Facebook (which hit 1 billion users late last year), but it’s an active one. 80% of Pinterest’s pins are repins – that is, someone enjoyed something that someone else shared, and pinned it to one of their own boards. There is a thriving art community on Pinterest, and it’s just waiting for you to join in.
If you’re a freelancer and you have a blog, you’re probably hoping your posts will impress clients and get them to hire you.
Unfortunately, most freelancer blogs don’t get so much as a nibble, much less a steady stream of clients.
If your blog has a nice clean design and you know how to write an interesting blog post, it’s time to look deeper at why your blog isn’t getting the results you want.
If you want to start a small business, you craft a plan, make some financial decisions, complete some legal statements and you are done. Sounds easy and simplistic enough. You know what, freelancing is also an easy business. However, there is more you can do than just sitting in front of your computer, marketing your services, delivering projects to satisfy and please clients.
Many look at freelancing as a hit or miss career. Some even don’t believe that writers can make a substantial income freelancing from their backyard. But the arrival of the Internet changed everything: there are now plenty of vacancies online, and the writing industry has picked up tremendously.
Granted, there are uncertainties in freelance writing. You never know when your next assignment will arrive, and freelancers have been known to have plenty of insecurities in their jobs. Plus, you need more than just writing skills to succeed in your freelance writing career, skills such as how to find topics that your targeted readers might be interested in and how to promote your writing services.
“I’ve been getting ready to make the switch to freelancing for months now, and I think I’m almost ready to take the leap.”
Today, I want to crush all the excuses you’ve been making (maybe some you don’t even realize you’re making) so that you can literally make the switch to freelancing today!
If you agree with this post, give it a tweet and help save all the “wish-I-were-a-freelancer”s in your circle of influence.
If you’ve decided to go solo and become a freelance designer, congratulations! There are certainly a lot of benefits to working for yourself. You’ve got the flexibility to set your own working hours and to choose who you want to work with and how. There’s also no annoying boss or co-workers and no stressful daily commute to contend with.
One of the most common struggles in freelancing is making sure that you get paid enough for your time and effort for every project. Determining the right price for the job can be a difficult assessment to make. As a result, we freelancers have to be stingy in offering discount prices.
In fact, you may be wondering why you would ever want to offer discount pricing, and you may be right.
If you are backed up for months on projects to complete, then you probably do not need to offer a price discount. And sometimes being too quick to take up a project for a lower price can hurt the perceived quality of your work. Some clients would rather go with a higher priced freelancer than a lower priced one simply because they believe the quality of work to be better.
Your freelance business is doing something great—no, colossal—and you want to share the news with the world! Before you start emailing your press release and calling every newspaper, magazine, blogger, radio and TV station in the tri-state area, take a deep breath and make a plan.
As the editor of two glossy magazines, I know a thing or two about how to pitch someone like me. There is a right way to do it, and a wrong way to do it. You don’t want to alienate the people who have the power to give you press, so here are some suggestions on how to make a great first impression...
At some point in every freelancer’s career there comes a time when you’re going to write a freelance pitch for a client’s project. If the thought of being a salesman isn’t intimidating enough,this at least doubles after realizing how many other freelancers pitching and hoping for the project. All those different screaming freelancers saying, “Pick me!” makes it almost impossible to feel like your voice is getting through. Let’s get you that voice!
In this article we’ll be going over the ins and outs of crafting a freelance pitch that I gained through my years in the industry to help let your voice stand out in a crowd. This includes:
best practices
mistakes to never make
how to track results of your pitch
how to use these tracked results to adjust your approach
High school students have it made – the first thing they do when they get to school is hang out in homeroom for a few minutes. Joking around with friends about the weekend and checking the day’s class schedule is a good precursor for what every adult should do as well: prepare for the day ahead without diving into tedious work right away. In Adult World, “homeroom” should last for longer than eight minutes and it won’t necessarily include our best buddies. The first real hour of the workday – the “Power Hour” – plays a huge part in setting up the day for success.
How long have you been freelancing? Even if it’s just been a handful of years, you’ve probably noticed how quickly your industry changes.
Just look at the freelance news journalist, who initially delivered his craft in long form, typewritten prose; then transitioned to faster, shorter digital copy; and now is looked upon for instant, informative updates, delivered in micro-blurbs.
Every profession is impacted by advances in technology and social media, and to remain fresh and marketable, you’ve got to accommodate those changes. But you don’t have to invest large amounts of time or money to do so; here are 6 tips to help any type of freelancer evolve with the changing times.
A picture is worth 1,000 words.
Keep that in mind when you go to your next potential client meeting. You want to make a great first impression and win the account. While what you say and how you act are very important, ultimately, the client wants to know that you can deliver.
However, you’re probably not the only freelancer your client is interviewing. You need to wow them, and you can do it with your portfolio – and your accompanying presentation.
I have taken my share of awful gigs just to make a buck and put something in my portfolio but it was all just a headache; I have decided not to do that after a while and I very happy I made that decision. In this post, I will go over a pricing strategy that will ensure you to get the best clients for you. I am going to change your life – okay, fine career. In short, if you have the work to back it up, the best way to get the best clients is to set high prices. That’s about it. Now, I am going to explain to you why this is true.
Deciding to pursue a freelancing career may not exactly be like a walk in the park. True that it has its perks but before you can enjoy those, you will have to go through some rough spots before you can actually make a name and stand out in the overwhelming number of freelancers.
Coveting a spot in the freelancing world will not be easy especially if you are an amateur who lacks experience. Think of the competition you will be facing when you start looking for freelance jobs. It’s no secret that most clients would prefer to hire those who have a solid portfolio and a considerable amount of experience as opposed to newbies.
So, how exactly can you get that first job and how can you start a freelancing career if you can’t find a client? The answer is really simple. You just need to know the basics. In other words, you have to learn the tricks of the trade before you can expect to find solid ground. As a budding freelancer, you have to begin with the important first steps.
I often read about designers who cannot stand freelancing yet continue to use this path for solid income. I suppose there is nothing wrong with hating your job, but some designers actually enjoy freelancing. It is not a career choice that many people would keep for decades. But it does offer a unique lifestyle of working on various projects and studying new trends.
A designer, in order to survive in this competitive world, has to be on his/her toes and usher-in new creativity to please the clients. Freelancing has its own benefits and there can be innumerable reasons why you would want to take the plunge.
There can also be an instance where you, as a designer, want to break-free from the clutches of working under an organization and might want to venture out. After building-up a good number of contacts, getting the desired knowledge and accumulating the confidence, you can decide to make it on your own. Many glitches await you on the on-set, though. Some of them, like tracking your input-time, looking for clients, catering to customer inquiries, all have to be taken into account. You need tools to assist you in your daily activities. Multi-tasking will be the order of the day and managing the tasks will require priority.
