Looking for a new client? The FreelanceSwitch job board is a great resource of freelance gigs and opportunities. These opportunities are in various fields, from development to writing to design, and come from a wide range of potential clients. The job board is hand-moderated by dedicated staff and volunteers from the freelance community.
Each week, we’ll feature a selection of the best job opportunities posted for the week. This week, we’re featuring jobs in WordPress Design, Web Development, PHP/Facebook Development and more!
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Magazine Style / WordPress Content Website DesignBudget: $2,500 to $5,000
I need a magazine style/ wordpress content website designer someone with specific experience and specialist in designing these types of websites understanding content flow, layout, background, icons, and typography all which play a major role in these style of websites. Sites like adweek.com, bonappetite.com, buzzfeed.com, and newser.com you must have a special touch, and creative detail to do these sites. You also have to meet deadlines establish weeks ago and come in working quickly, efficiently, producing quality, this is a high impact, strict time frame project so only apply if you can and are will to do this project.
Junior Web DeveloperBudget: $10,000+
Have you yearned to work on stuff that leaves the world a better place? Ever wanted to stand back at the end of the day and see how your 8 hours made a difference? This is the opportunity to do just that. Work on a highly motivated team that is working to save North American Charities over $1billion dollars every year. Want to contribute to our lofty goal? Join Team Frendo.
The Junior Web Developer will work with the development team to contribute to the evolution, support, and maintenance of our current projects. The primary responsibility of the Junior Web Developer will be to provide support for internal systems and site users.
Freelance WordPress Developer for premium themeBudget: $500 to $1,000
We are looking for a freelance WordPress/PHP/jQuery expert to help with development of a premium WP theme that will be sold online. We have already used our own design and front-end/PHP skills to build the bulk of the theme but are finding we lack the jQuery and advanced PHP skills to finish it.
Freelance PHP / Facebook Web DeveloperBudget: $500 to $1,000
Need an intermediate level PHP developer with Facebook experience. Our application is just about finished and we require an extra hand to help get the bugs out and finish some functionality. We’ve built a large codebase as a combination WordPress plugin and theme.
Flash/ActionScript Developer (2 month contract)Budget: $5,000 to $10,000
Segue Technologies, Inc. seeks a Software Engineer to develop new software and to integrate new and enhanced modules into an existing code library using Flash, ActionScript and object-oriented JavaScript technologies. This position will have a duration of two months with possible extension.
Position Duties & Responsibilities:
The effort requires working in a fast-paced, team environment to realize interactive, browser-based applications within an existing object-oriented JavaScript framework. The right candidate must be able to develop parameterized interfaces callable from JavaScript, create ActionScripts to interact with SWF files, including capture, crop and extract sections, and use Flash with browser XML capabilities to render rich content in a maintainable and sustainable application or module. Candidate will create engaging, maintainable and sustainable animations.
View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.
This week we look at Paul Boag: Get Clients to say ‘Yes!’ by Paul Boag. This weekend we’re sharing a great talk from Carsonified. In this talk at FOWD NYC, Paul Boag covers strategies for working better with design clients.
Paul Boag on “Get Clients to say ‘Yes!’” from Carsonified on Vimeo.
There are a lot of stories written about home-based businesses—trust me, I just did a Google search. Working from home has changed drastically over the years, thanks to technology.
If you think back not even 20 years about home-based businesses, you might envision a low-tech service business such as a daycare or landscaping company. To run a professional business, you needed to be located in commercial office space. Not only did commercial space provide the technical services you needed, but it also provided a professional atmosphere appropriate for meeting with clients. —seacoastonline.com
Luckily, for us freelancers, that is no longer the case.
I have a computer, high speed internet, printer, and cell phone that allow me to do my work at home. And I have a nice office/laundry room to do it in. I know a bunch of people who work from home and I have some tips on how to run it right. See if you agree.
Find Your Own SpaceWorking from your kitchen table is hard. Especially if you have a spouse and/or children who like to use that kitchen table. My desk is chaos to an outsider, but I know exactly where everything is and no one is allowed to touch it.
I work on a desktop computer (an iMac)—if I didn’t I’d undoubtedly work in bed or in front of the television, and that’s not very productive. I have an ergonomically correct chair and lots of natural light pouring in all day.
Having a space all to yourself is important. You can shut the door when you need to and focus. You don’t need to rely on a noisy coffee shop or the hours at your public library to get things done.
Schedule Kid-Free TimeA lot of people who work at home make the mistake of thinking they can also take care of their children during the day, saving on the cost of child care for younger children. More often than not, you end up working in spurts when (and if) your child goes down for a nap. And since that’s only a couple of hours (if you are lucky) during the day, you are playing catch-up at night after the kids have gone to bed, leaving you no time to socialize with your spouse.
Depending on the amount of freelance work you have, this arrangement may work out fine. If you are busy, however, it could prove to be your downfall.
Also, I can’t tell you how annoying it is when you are on the phone with someone and your child is howling in the background. I have had several conference calls where this has happened. I didn’t appreciate it, and your client won’t either. If you are going to take important phone calls, make sure your lovely children aren’t causing a ruckus in the background. It’s unprofessional.
Find Someplace Where You Can Have a Client MeetingIf your clients are local, you may have to meet them face to face on occasion. Please don’t invite them to your house if it is a catastrophe. I know several professional photographers who work from home that have a separate meeting space where they can sit down with their clients that is a part of their home, oftentimes with a separate entrance.
If you need to have a meeting, and it can’t be at your client’s office, try to find a quiet place outside of your home to have it. Scope out some coffee shops in the area and find out when they aren’t busy (i.e., quiet) and schedule a meeting there. Many co-working spaces and libraries have designated conference areas—see what it would take to use these spaces if you have frequent meetings.
Hire A Virtual AssistantIf having a professional presence is important to you, a virtual assistant can be a great help. It’s like having a secretary that doesn’t work in your office. This person works remotely, and can help you with your bookkeeping, scheduling, and even answer your phone calls and forward them to your phone or voicemail.
Create Separation Between Work and Home LifeThe downside to working from home is that you can feel like you should be working all the time. It’s nice to have an office door that you can close to create a literal barrier between your work space and home space.
Trying to keep regular office hours can help with this, but, as any freelancer knows, that can be a tall order. Set your alarm to get up at the same time every day and have a routine. The later in the day you start your work, the later in the evening you will be spending on finishing up.
Just because you are working from home doesn’t mean you can’t run a professional office. Do you have any tips on ways to make freelancing from home even more successful?
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by xilius.
In this issue of Ask FreelanceSwitch, we look at growing into an agency and freelancing internationally. Ask FreelanceSwitch is a regular column here that allows us to help beginners get a grip on freelancing. If you have a question about freelancing that you want answered, send an email to askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com.
Question 1I have been a successful freelancer for many years now, and I had such a successful year last year that I’ve realized it’s time for me to start hiring and building my own team. I am looking to start my own agency, but could use some advice on funding to help cover the initial hiring and marketing expenses to boost up from a freelancer to a full-blown agency.
Believe it or not, I am having a hard time finding any type of information on this subject online or in forums. How does one take your successful freelance business and officially move it forward to the “cooler” side of the creative corporate world?
The funding options available to a freelancer looking to grow her business are extremely varied, and you’re going to have to decide what really works for you. That said, here are a few ways to get started.
Hiring Your Own Freelancers: The greatest portion of freelancers who have built up businesses beyond themselves have done so by bringing in other freelancers when there was work available, rather than hiring on a permanent basis right away. It’s not a perfect situation, since you can wind up spending a lot of time on finding freelancers when new projects come along. But it’s probably the cheapest option.
Getting a Small Business Loan: Provided that you’ve been building up your business credit as you’ve freelanced, you may be well positioned to take out a business loan to make the transition. This option is attractive because you can get a lump sum and just get everything done, but it can also be tough to get through all the layers of lenders to actually get money.
Build Up Some Savings: Just as you might be advised to sock away some cash before striking out as a freelancer in the first place, you might consider setting aside a certain portion of your freelance income every month until you’ve built up the amount you need to launch your agency right.
Question 2I am a freelancing wanna be based in Egypt. I know it’s hard to freelance internationally, especially from a third world country, what with scams and lack of trust along side with different culture and lifestyles. I have lived in the U.S for a year as an exchange student so I kinda understand the culture better, but my question is: Is it possible to freelance from the other side of the world, especially a third world country?
It absolutely is possible. One of the most reliable freelancers I’ve had the pleasure of working with is based in the Philippines. The thing is that I don’t think most of her clients really realize where she’s based. It’s not a question of lying to her clients — she simply presents herself as a professional and doesn’t bring up the matter of location unless it actually impacts her work.
If you’re looking to freelance and want to land clients from other countries that typically pay more, the first thing to focus on is presenting yourself as a professional. If you have a great website and portfolio, written perfectly in the local idiom of the clients you want to attract, you’re going to be more attractive to them — most people want to work with freelancers that seem like they’ll be easy to explain a project to, so not only is a shared language crucial, but so is a shared dialect.
Simply leave off your address in Egypt — or wherever — from your website. if a client asks, be truthful. You’ll be surprised how many people don’t ask, though.
A recent story in The Australian caught my eye. The title of the piece is “Online magazine offers less than 2c a word to freelancers”. The name of the online magazine is Breathe Magazine Australia (BreatheMagazine.com) and it is scheduled to launch in April 2012.
The Australian journalists’ union, called Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) has a recommended word rate of 93c a word (which is comparable to U.S. currency). The MEAA criticized Breathe Magazine’s owner, Flujo, stating that “Employers must realize that journalists must be paid properly for their work.”
Flujo is looking for three full-time writers, and is asking journalists to agree to write a minimum of six 400-word articles throughout the course of a month in the hopes they are hired for the full time gig. A 400-word article, by Breathe Magazine’s pay rate, is $7.
Many established freelancers would scoff at that rate—and it’s unclear by this article if the full-time writer would be paid more than that once hired.
The editor of Breathe Magazine Australia, Cedric Chenefront, conceded that it was a low rate but defended the offer on the grounds of his publication’s limited advertising budget.
“We’ll give it three months (at the $7 per article rate) but we’re hoping to pay them more as soon as we have more budget,” he said. —theaustralian.com.au
When I first started freelancing for a couple of monthly publications in Boston, MA in my early 20s, I wrote for free. I was testing the waters. I had a full-time job that I liked, but I was trying to figure out if I wanted to go back to school to become a journalist. I got perks—like free movie tickets and DVDs—but that wasn’t what I cared about. I wanted to see my name in print for the first time ever. I didn’t care about getting paid.
Fast forward 10 years and I have a graduate degree in journalism under my belt, and a handful of bylines at newspapers and magazines along the East Coast. I work as an editor for a regional publication and I do some freelancing on the side. I have some great credentials and I have a lot of experience. Heck, I even teach undergraduate courses at a local university. I am a good writer, and there is no way I would accept a job that paid 1.7 cents a word—not in the stage of my career today. I know my worth.
If you are just starting out in the freelance world, writing for little to no pay might help you get some clips under your belt. If you’ve never written before, you might have to write for free (or very low pay) because you have no experience. We’ve all been there at one time or another. Once you start building your portfolio and getting better paying clients, you can start turning down work that doesn’t help your bottom line. And pretty soon, 1.7 cents a word is going to sound pretty ridiculous to you, too.
“It is clear from the work that the alliance has done into freelance rates in Australia, $7 for a 400-word article is clearly well below the rate a professional journalist would expect to receive for their work.” —MEAA spokesman, Jonathan Este
It always makes me roll my eyes when any magazine offers the following retorts when faced with people complaining about their low pay rate:
These are excuses, and not a sound way to run a business. Clearly, magazines that are not willing to pay their writers a fair wage, are not overly concerned with publishing the best content.
Freelance payment should be worked into a publications monthly budget from the get-go, and should not be predicated on how much advertising revenue is generated. What happens, say, if you raise your rates because you are generating more revenue, and then have a few months when your ad sales are abysmal? Are you going to pay your writers less because your ad sales team is not doing a good job? Good luck keeping any of your best writers on board.
Unless you’ve been living underneath a very large rock for the past couple of years, you’ve probably heard that Europe is teetering on the brink of financial armageddon.
While there’s no shortage of doom and gloom in the the global outlook, it’s not all bad news – especially if you’re a freelancer. There’s opportunity in every crisis, and mobile workers are now in a better position than ever.
As freelancers who aren’t tied to a desk and a physical location, we’re uniquely poised to take advantage of the shifting financial landscape.
The Euro Crisis in a NutshellThe Euro (EUR) is used by 17 member states within the European Union. The common currency performed well in the early 2000s, but since 2009 has been embroiled in a severe and complicated debt crisis.
The net result of all this is that the EUR has nosedived in value, relative to most other major currencies.
The looming threat of one or more Eurozone members defaulting on their debts has scared the bejesus out of currency investors, who are dumping the Euro en masse and looking for a safer place to park their money.
The net result of all this is that the EUR has nosedived in value, relative to most other major currencies. The US, Canadian and New Zealand Dollars are all worth significantly more against the Euro now than they were three years ago.
The biggest winner, however, has been the Australian Dollar, which has gained a whopping 60 percent on the Euro since early 2009.
Dollar-Earning Freelancers Can Capitalize on a Weaker EuroThe huge advantage that remote freelancers enjoy is the ability to earn money in one place and spend it somewhere else. If the bulk of your freelance income is dollars, you might want to give some serious thought to a long-term working holiday in Europe.
As an Australian freelancer living in Germany, I’ve watched the value of my income rise steadily over the last couple of years, without ever increasing my fees or taking on extra work.
I’ve crunched some numbers and determined that my cost of living here in Berlin, taking account of the current exchange rate, is less than half of what the same lifestyle would cost me in Sydney or Melbourne. Earning the AUD while spending the EUR has been a very favorable arrangement. And Berlin is an amazing place to live.
For a regular 9-5 desk jockey, currency fluctuations mean next to nothing. But for freelancers and remote workers, this is the stuff we thrive on. We’re the lucky few who can jump the fence and turn financial turmoil into personal gain. So I say pack your bags, and get in while the getting is good.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by brux.
I love sleeping. Always have, always will. I was the kid whose parents had to wake up on Christmas morning. If I don’t get enough sleep—watch out.
Admittedly, sometimes I feel ashamed at getting nine hours of sleep at night. But when I read this article in Inc.com about how important sleep really is, I decided to never feel ashamed again.
The overall arching theme of this article? Working overtime doesn’t increase your output. It makes you stupid. AMEN!
This, however, is hard for some people to understand—especially if they are working on deadline.
Early productivity studies show that up to 40 hours, us humans are pretty productive. After that, when we get tired, we’re less able to produce reliable work.
“Although we might all like to imagine that we can work happily through the night, once again the data’s all against us. Lose just one night’s sleep and your cognitive capacity is roughly the same as being over the alcohol limit. Yet we regularly hail as heroes the executives who take the red eye, jump into a rental car, and zoom down the highway to the next meeting.” —Inc.com
Ever heard of quality over quantity? I would rather work a solid six-hour day without fatigue and call it quits—even if there is more stuff to do—than push myself to work 10 hours. Trust me, I’ve done both (and worked longer than 10 hours a day) and guess what? I was miserable. And one day like that affects the rest of your week. Here’s some science on what I’m talking about…
When we are tired, our performance doesn’t degrade equally. Instead, when you lose a night’s sleep, the parietal and occipital lobes in your brain become less active. The parietal lobe integrates information from the senses and is involved in our knowledge of numbers and manipulation of objects. The occipital lobe is involved in visual processing. So the parts of our mind responsible for understanding the world and the data around us start to slow down. —Inc.com
Have you ever caught yourself not being able to figure out simple things? Maybe you are having a hard time finishing a sentence or finding the right word to use in something you’re writing. You feel dumb, and numb, and you are off your game. Call it a day and take a nap.
I’m sure some of you out there are arguing “but I don’t have time!” Make time. Go to bed at a reasonable hour and wake up at the same time every day. Make a schedule for yourself and stick to it. It’s better for you to put in a little extra time on the weekends than to try to pull an all-nighter. You’re not in college anymore. You can’t stay in bed the entire next day because you were up late studying the night before.
Depriving yourself of sleep is also related to weight gain.
After 24 hours of sleep deprivation, there is an overall reduction of six percent in glucose reaching the brain. (That’s why you crave donuts and candy.) —Inc.com
Your diet is compromised when you aren’t working regular hours. Skipping dinner with the family to work late? What are you grabbing from the refrigerator at 9 pm when you’re stomach won’t stop growling? I opt for bagels or baked goods. Carbs. They’re my weakness.
Here are some tips on how to get more sleep:
Sleep depravation also causes you to make mistakes. I remember we were really pushing the deadline on sending one of our magazines to the printer. We were cranky, tired, and unhappy people. When the magazine came back from the printer I noticed all sorts of mistakes that embarrassed me. I knew our team was better than what we produced, but because we worked an 80-hour workweek, we weren’t in top shape. I hope it never happens again.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by Yuri_Arcurs.
So you finally got a call back and that client is ready to move forward with working with you! Great! Now it’s time to get down to business.
How do you make sure you get paid for the work you do? We all hate this part, but the nuts and bolts of a business relationship are the foundation for freelance success. It’s time to make a contract.
This is a part of the freelance gig that most of us all hate with a passion. Let’s face it – not too many people enjoy having to go through the process of reviewing and signing a contract. Unfortunately, it’s a necessary part of doing business.
In the context of a “safer” client contract, the temptation is to automatically jump to the idea of an “airtight” contract that covers every possible situation or scenario. For the most part, that’s just not the case.
Do You Need a Contract?Of course you do, but that doesn’t mean your contract is formal. Contracts serve many purposes, but the real function is to help everyone know what’s expected. You should know how much work to do and how much you’re getting paid, when you’re expected to be finished, and other technical matters. Contracts help spell these types of details out.
Some freelancers or clients will only work if and when a contract is produced.
Some freelancers or clients will only work if and when a contract is produced. This is often because they’ve been burned in the past and are playing it safe. That’s their preference and there’s nothing wrong with that.
On the other hand, some clients just want to get to work and don’t or won’t move forward if you demand a contract. This can be for legitimate reasons, such as the dollar amount not being worth the trouble for the formality. The situation may call for moving quickly: they trust you, they’re in a really big hurry, they’re comfortable with the arrangement, and the time it takes for legal to review means they can’t move forward quickly.
A client not wanting a contract should set off a warning bell, but don’t automatically reject a client that doesn’t want a formal contract either.
What Makes a Contract?The most basic contract simply spells out what is being offered to whom and why. The legal terms are offer, acceptance, and consideration. Simply put, in the freelance world we offer our services, the client accepts our proposals, and the consideration for both parties is pay (for you) and the finished product (for the client).
Once the client has engaged you and given you the go-ahead for a project, so long as you in turn provide what they ordered, you should get paid.
The point here is that a formal contract document is not necessary. Contracts can be complicated documents that spell out each party’s responsibilities to the letter, but that’s not always necessary.
Keep it in WritingOne of the keys to safer client contracts is to keep everything in writing. If you have a phone conversation or meet face-to-face, always follow up with an email to spell out what was agreed upon. Bullet points are fine. The point is to make sure that you have a paper trail should a dispute arise later.
Safer contracting means keeping everything in writing, even through an informal email.
Believe it or not, these written communications can become part of the contract between you and your client. In fact, they may be the only form of contract that you really need. From a legal standpoint, any documentation showing that you and your client have agreed upon some terms is a contract.
The most recent documents generally are the only ones that matter. So, if you fail to follow up on that last meeting where the client agreed to increase your payments but “forgot,” you’re out of luck unless you can show in writing the conversation took place.
Safer contracting means keeping everything in writing, even through an informal email. This also serves to ensure you are communicating effectively, and most clients always appreciate the follow up anyway.
Formal Contracts at a ThresholdDo you really need a formal contract for each client? Your attorney would say “Yes!” but let’s be practical – some jobs just don’t justify the extra work. What about that long-standing client relationship where you have a clear process and you trust each other? How about that small project where messing with a contract means you cut your profits in half?
These are just a few examples of when you should consider skipping the formalities and moving forward without that airtight contract. “But that’s not safe!” you say? You can still cover yourself legally without the formalities (see above).
One way to figure out whether or not to move forward without a formal contract is to set some thresholds. Two general thresholds work: amount of money and complexity.
If the dollar amount for a project reaches a certain point, you always reach for the contract. You know how much time it takes to put a contract together. If not, you’ll figure it out at some point. And if you have an attorney review contracts, then you have that cost to cover as well. Practically speaking, you probably don’t need a contract for every project.
If a project starts to get incredibly complicated, you may want to take the time to put together a formal contract. Complexity is the reality of freelancing. Some projects are going to juggle multiple workloads across several team members, and at some point you realize that the project has taken on a life of its own. That may be a good time to move forward with a contract to ensure everyone stays on the same page.
Consider a Kill FeeOne very simple way to make your contracts safer is to always include a kill fee. If you’re not familiar with this concept, a kill fee is the amount you get paid if the client cancels the project, even if you haven’t done a single thing.
Having a kill fee often sets the unscrupulous apart from the legitimate. Industry standards vary, but generally speaking if you ask for 5-10% of the project value as your kill fee, you’re safe.
Even if you don’t use a formal contract, you can get a kill fee established for the project. In any initial proposal you make or final follow up documents, include your kill fee. Also, it’s better to put an exact dollar amount for your kill fee, rather than a percentage in writing. Use the percentage to develop your kill fee amount.
Critical Terms for All ContractsRemember, a contract is mostly about communicating. Whether that’s a formal document or an email, the key is to get all the pertinent information included.
My grandfather once told me, “Only get into a contract with someone you trust.” I think this is sound advice for every freelancer. Regardless of the formality of your agreement, if the client can’t be trusted to pay you for your work, you’re out a lot of time and effort if you need to recover for your work through the legal system.
So the safest client contracting method for working with anyone is to make sure you trust them. If they’ve burned you before, they’re likely to do it again. A contract might make them think twice, but shady clients usually don’t turn into angels just because a contract is on the table.
What has your experience been when it comes to safer contracting? Do you have any horror stories of your own? What about those of you out there who will only work with a formal contract?
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by Fotografia.
I love a good infographic, and this one created by Jobvite (view full infographic post or view it at full size) is really cool. It shows how Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter help people find work.
This research looks at how people are using social media to look for and find work. Facebook leads the pack, with 44% of job seeking activity followed by LinkedIn at 26%. Are you a ‘super social’—someone who is highly active in social media circles with more than the average number of contacts? Twenty-eight percent of you found their last job through social networking, and 85% of you did so on Facebook.
And my mother thinks you can still find good jobs in the daily newspaper…
This infographic doesn’t just look at the millions of unemployed workers, it also takes into consideration the 61% of Americans (sorry, foreign readers) who are currently employed but are open to a new job.
Some statistics from this infographic I found especially interesting…
There is a great story on Forbes about how one man, David T. Stevens, found not one but TWO jobs through LinkedIn. It’s worth a read but I’ll boil it down for you below:
Stevens signed up for LinkedIn in 2008 in the hopes that it would help him organize his sales contacts at the radio stations he worked at in San Jose, California. Seven months later his boss told him he would no longer be earning a salary and benefits—but could work on a commission-only base if he would like. He did not like that idea and left his job. Before he packed up his things at his office he updated his LinkedIn status to say “I’m up for grabs. Who wants me?”
In the car on his way home he got a call from one of his LinkedIn contacts who knew of a job opportunity at a local Chamber of Commerce they thought Stevens would be a good fit for. Stevens scheduled an interview that very same day and landed the job less than two weeks later.
Fast forward two years and Stevens was getting restless in his job and was interested in looking for a new opportunity. He turned to LinkedIn again. He emailed one of his contacts and asked her some questions about her job. In a phone conversation Stevens told this person he was thinking about changing jobs and was told of an opportunity his contact knew about. The next week he sent in his resume for the open position, had two interviews, and within two weeks the company made him an offer.
This story led me to another post on Forbes on what to say on LinkedIn when you’ve been laid off. I liked Stevens’s “I’m up for grabs. Who wants me?” update, and wanted to see if the author of this post (Deborah L. Jacobs) would think it was kosher.
In her blog post, Jacobs interviews a New York-based executive coach named Sandra A. VanGuilder. Here are her tips for updating your LinkedIn page when you are laid off and looking for work.
The same tips can be used for freelancers—even if you haven’t been laid off. Here are some LinkedIn tips for your profile.
The way people look for and find jobs has drastically changed in the past 10 years. Do you have a success story you’d like to share about your social networking job search? We’d love to hear it!
To do list task managers and full productivity software is essential to a freelancers business. The style of design your looking for in a to do list app will differ based on the size of your small business, the nature of the services you offer, and your personal preferences.
You may be a one man freelancer and prefer a stripped down, easy to use task app that syncs well in the cloud and works with your preferred devices. Or you may regularly work with a team and need some specific features to have you all working in harmony and efficiently.
While every user will have different needs in a to do list manager, there are some features that clearly add functionality, and looking at them will help you choose the best to do app for you.
How a to do list task manager implements these features has a big impact on it’s user base. Here are some of the most prevalent and useful features to consider in reviewing task based productivity software:
If you’re still lugging around a paper based day planner, then now is the time to switch to digital. Here are 20 to do list apps that will help you get organized and increase your productivity.
Keep an eye on features you are looking for, what fits your freelance company’s needs, and give these apps a trial run. Many of these apps are free or have a free trial version to get started with.
1. WunderlistThis is the to do list manager I currently use. It looks like a native mac app, has an intuitive UI, which you can change the skin of easily to fit your taste. It has most of the features mentioned above, such as categorizing, prioritizing, setting due dates, notes, multi-device synching with the cloud, and collaboration tools.
It does lack the ability to tag and organize your tasks with hierarchies. It also lacks a full calendar view or calendar integration. With a price tag of free though, it’s an awesome solution that I’ve been happily using.
2. TeuxdeuxTeuxdeux is a simple task manger that is free on the web and has an affordable iPhone app that synchs with the cloud. It has one calendar view, which is weekly with Someday tasks shown below.
With the limited functionality and simple design you can get up and running quickly. It does lack collaboration, note fields, categorization, and other features you may need. This is a nice bare-bones solution that could work well for solo freelancers with little need for advanced task manager functions.
3. TadalistThis app has been around for ages. When writing this article I logged into the app with an account I hadn’t used in years. The app is still as intuitive, simple, and easy to use as it always has been. It fits in with the 37 signals software design philosophy of less is more.
It features the simple ability to make multiple lists, with multiple items, add notes, share them with others, and complete tasks. It’s free to use, but lacks helpful features, such as setting due dates, tagging, and adding notes. It does have a well thought out mobile version when browsing to the site on your iPhone as well.
4. Remember the MilkRemember the Milk is a web application with numerous mobile app options on popular devices. It can also integrate into Gmail, Outlook, and other apps. This task manager allows you to create an unlimited number of lists, which can be prioritized, tagged, have notes added, and more. It has sharing features and advanced notification options. Some advanced options for this to do manager require a Premium subscription. Most of the features though are free to use.
5. Do it TomorrowDo it Tomorrow is about as simple as it gets for managing your tasks. The only thing simpler would likely be plain old paper. This app has a simple interface with two columns, one for tasks to do today, and the other for tasks to do tomorrow. Anything you don’t complete today will automatically get moved to the tomorrow column.
The interface is beautifully designed and has multiple app options for popular gadgets. There is a small cost for these apps, but accessing the app via the web is free. While this is a great solution for simple task management, if you need to keep track of advanced projects and deadlines, it’s likely not the app for you. Here is a more in-depth review of Do it Tomorrow.
6. ToodledoToodledo is a robust task manager solution. It offers all the tools you’d want to organize your tasks, such as tags, contexts, and subtasks. It has numerous options for working with your various devices, through native apps, browser extensions, and more.
Toodledo has advanced customization options and for Premium users the ability to share tasks and collaborate. It offers a unique scheduler and can send you alerts. You can get started with a free account or upgrade to Premium to take advantage of its more advanced features. Visit the Toodledo Task Manager Review here on FreelanceSwitch for more in-depth information.
7. FlowFlow has a mac feel, with a polished, beautiful UI design. It function on a PC in your browser, but has a standalone app for mac users, as well as iPhone and iPad apps. If you’re a Mac user, you’ll love this app. This app is more than a simple task app to track your to do list. It has advanced collaboration ability, allowing you to assign tasks to other users, and work with your team.
It also helps cut down on your need for long-winded email discussions by including a commenting system. Flow is made to track both your personal and work projects in one application, yes this productivity app can be used to manage all your projects and life.
8. HitaskHitask is another high quality collaboration task manager. This to do list app has great data support and is ubiquitously available across whatever device you’d like to use. It has a clean interface design, though it feels a bit more at home in Windows operating system.
There is a calender integration built in, as well as ease of use collaboration, and management features by task or project. Popular blogger Chris Brogan also gave the app high marked in this review: HiTask is My New Favorite Organizer.
9. TodoistTodoist is a leading personal task manager that’s useful, fast and easy to use. It has a clearn interface design. It integrates with various browsers, email apps, and operating systems. Tasks are organized by project type and can be color coded. It’s a simple task based web app that you can get up and running with for free quickly. It does have a Fremium business model, so you can add additional features at low cost if you need them, such as labeling ability and more.
10. Get it DoneGet it Done is an easy to use and powerful to do list task app. It’s as easy to keep track of your grocery list as it is to use to keep track of your client projects. It supports many of the features you’d want in a to do list manager, such as tags, calendar syncing, notes, task delegation, secure data backup, and more.
The app is based from the productivity book Getting Things Done. So if you’re a fan of that popular productivity system, then you’ll feel right at home in this productivity application. They support apps in iPhone, iPad and Android, all the major operating systems, and of course everything is synced in the cloud application.
11. Stay Useful – DoThis is a very simple to do list app. It doesn’t have any advanced features, or even common tagging, assigning due dates, or categorizing features. That’s part of the beauty of it though, it’s very easy to use and focussed. It allows you to narrow down to what you need to get done today. It reminds me of how I use paper lists. I always write down todays task with good old pen and paper, so I have a focused list of what I need to do at work for the day.
I use my task app managers to track most of my longer term tasks. This manager could replace pen and paper for managing tasks for me. It has a simple interface that can be accessed through any browser on just about any device. It’s a web based to do list, but boasts the ability to function while offline.
12. ProducteevProducteev is free for up to 2 users. It’s a powerful to do list task manager and full feature project organizer. The interface is really well designed and it has powerful featured packed inside it. It’s available across multiple devices and operating systems. It offers advanced collaboration options and calendar synching.
It’s organized first by workspaces, which is a sectional way to organize your projects. It offers multiple options for importing tasks, it can be done via email, Twitter, IM, and more, which brings loads of flexibility to how you can add tasks. This is one of the best to do list managers available.
13. CoolendarCoolendar is a to do list app with a narrow focus. It lacks many advanced features, but has an attractive and easy to work with interface. It doesn’t have collaboration features, so it’s a solution more aimed at solo freelancers.
Rather than organizing your tasks with categories, this app uses hash tags. Coolander allows you to manage your time and tasks without complicated features getting in the way. In addition to a web app interface there is also an Android and iPhone app available as well.
14. VitalistIf you’re a big fan of the Getting Things Done method, then you’ll love Vitalist. It implements GTD in an accessible online to do list app. You can access via your web browser on just about any device. It’s set up to easily implement GTD fully, so contexts can be assigned to tasks, as well as due dates and priorities. It features collaboration options as well. This productivity app is feature packed, but it’s interface design feels dated.
15. Google TasksIf you’re a big Gmail user, then Google tasks is a simple solution you can use for task management. It’s a small window that opens to use for sorting your tasks directly in Gmail, it ties into Google Calendar, and can be accessed through any browser, like all Google services. While not a full featured project manager, this is an excellent addition to your inbox for tracking to do items and staying on top of your priorities.
16. GtdagendaGtdagenda is a to do list manager app that allows you to implement a GTD system. It has multiple tier categorization, which begins with goals, then you can organize projects, lists, and more inside of goals. You can set schedules, which are templates for recurring tasks.
This is a simply designed app, available in multiple languages, and cloud-syncs. It works on mobile apps and in your favorite browser. It’s a bit more pricey then some of the other apps available. This app is really straightforward to use and will boost your productivity.
17. CheckvistCheckvist is a a to do list task manager that has implemented simple sharing tools. You can easily share a task, with functionality much like the interface in Google Docs. You also have an option of making a list public and accessible on the internet. This productivity app is simply designed and lean to work with. This cloud to do app has multiple features, such as hierarchical lists, advanced keyboard commands, ability to assign tasks, tags, due dates, and more.
18. NozbeNozbe is a robust to do list task manager that supports a feature rich web platform. You can tap into this cloud application via your web browser, mobile phone, or iPhone app. It’s a mature productivity app with a simple interface that’s easy to interact with and drag and drop tasks.
In addition to everything you’d want in a task manager, it also supports GTD methodology. It has more advanced features as well, such as integration with Evernote, the ability to add docs, and collaboration tools. This is a solid solution for those looking for an easy to use to do list app that supports advanced team functionality.
19. PlancakePlancake is a to do list manager that stands out by being open source. You can create a free account on Plancake’s domain or install the productivity software on your own server. It’s a simple interface and supports many of the features you’d want in todo list productivity software.
It works on any computer, tablet and smartphone – even without an Internet connection (works offline), and it has a Chrome extension. It’s setup for putting the GTD system to use and supports current task options to speed up your productivity.
20. DoosterDooster is a full featured task manager and productivity app. This cloud application is robust and made to compete with Basecamp and Outlook. It’s organized based on projects, you assign projects and then organize your to do tasks inside them. The cost structure is also based on projects, starting with a free account for 3 projects and scaling from there.
This web based productivity app offers excellent data protection through Amazon, useful collaboration options, and interesting extras like mindmaps. It boasts everything you’d want in a to do list manager and full productivity software.
Have you a fallen in love with a do do list manager? Did we miss any awesome web based task list applications? What productivity app features are essential for your business? Let us know in the comments below.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by robynmac.
When you’re looking at banking options for yourself as an individual, you need different things than you need as a freelancer. A personal bank account is usually part and parcel of building a larger relationship with your bank. After you’ve got the bank account, you’re likely to look at car loans and home mortgages from the same place you handle the rest of your finances.
But when you’re opening a business checking account, you’re looking at the whole enchilada. While you might be able to allow for some leeway in getting good service on your personal account, you have to know that any incoming payments will be handled promptly, and any payments you make to contractors or to buy new equipment will be paid out immediately. A frozen business account can cause big problems with your ability to do business.
Choosing the Right BankThe first decision you have to make when it comes to your banking options is whether to go with a local financial institution or a bigger bank. You may have some personal preferences right off the bat — at the very least, it usually makes sense to try to do all your banking in one place. However, there are a few different considerations worth looking at before your final decision:
Most banks consider business checking and savings accounts a great way to make money. Business owners are generally more willing to pay for banking services (especially those that might save time or money) than personal account holders.
You need to do some research and decide exactly what you need in terms of maintaining your business.
When you’re opening an account, someone is guaranteed to try to upsell you, at the very least. You may also find that some of the standard features of personal banking just aren’t available — it isn’t impossible to find a free business checking account, but it also isn’t all that easy.
You need to do some research and decide exactly what you need in terms of maintaining your business. Take a little time and go around to the banks you’re considering and actually sit down with one of their advisers.
As long as you’re firm that you’re still in the research phase, you should be able to have a conversation about what the bank offers without getting too hard of a sell to open a bank account immediately.
There is No One True SolutionUnfortunately, I can’t point to one particular bank account and say ‘this is exactly what you need.’ Each of us runs our freelance business differently, giving us different requirements. I will, however, tell you what I’ve chosen to use.
I have a business account with Bank of America — actually, it’s three accounts. I have two checking accounts (one for accounts payable and one for accounts receivable) and a savings account. By being religious about how I make deposits and pay for expenses, most of my bookkeeping is a breeze.
I chose Bank of America for convenience. I have several clients who pay with paper checks (something I encourage over PayPal when possible) and I can make deposits with Bank of America even when I’m working from the road. I’ve had to make deposits in at least six states now and I haven’t had a problem with that.
I also like that because I’m working with a big bank, I’ve been able to get problems resolved relatively quickly: someone gained unauthorized access to my business account last year. Bank of America resolved the entire matter and while I was worried out of my skull, it took minimal effort on my part to get the matter handled. I’ve heard horror stories about Bank of America’s customer service, but I haven’t had a problem myself.
I do pay a fee for my account. From previous employers, I know I’m on the lower end, but that’s partly due to the fact that I don’t need any credit card processing services or anything like that. For the record, my personal accounts are not at Bank of America — I’ve found better options than that.
I don’t currently have a line of credit open for my business (I’m a bit paranoid about credit in general) but I do have a card I’m considering and it is not through Bank of America either. I firmly believe in picking and choosing what works for me, and if you can handle the lesser convenience this approach offers, I certainly recommend it.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by trekandshoot.
Chris Brogan is the author of the new book, Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything.
As a Google+ skeptic (heck, I’m skeptical of all new social media) I was interested to learn more, so I sat down and watched this video where Michael Stelzner of Socialmediaexaminer.com interviewed Brogan about how Google+ can help small businesses.
As a freelancer, you are running a small business—a very small business that probably includes just you. And you should think of yourself as a small business when it comes to representing yourself both online and in the real world. If you are thinking about creating a page on Google+, you might want to watch the video for yourself (or check out Chris Brogan’s book)—here are some snippets and take-aways from Brogan’s interview:
“Most small businesses are approaching [Google+] thinking, ‘I just figured out Facebook, why are you doing this to me?’ First off, no one is doing this to you. Sorry, technology is always adapting, you have to adapt with it. We all don’t still have car phones, we have mobile phones, it’s the same thing.” —Chris Brogan
True, technology is always changing. But it doesn’t mean that every social networking site makes sense for you. Heck, we could all spend the majority of our time trolling different social media sites all day long—but finding what works best for you and your career is what is important.
I haven’t joined Google+ for a very simple reason—I don’t have time right now. Creating a new social media circle takes time and a lot of effort. I’m not going to start something new if I don’t have the time to cultivate it. It’s sort of like having a blog that you never update—it just makes you look bad. I already use Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter and, for me, I’m OK with it. Find what is right for you and go for it. Do some research into Google+ and see if it makes sense for you before you jump in head first.
The good thing about Google+ that I learned is that your information is indexed by Google—the number one search engine in the world. Brogan points out that this happens quickly, faster than your own website. Brogan says that Google+ answers the question, “How do I keep giving away for free as much as I can to show my value to my colleagues who refer me.” Google+ works for him because he has built a vast network. If you don’t take the time to build your network and circles in Google+, who is going to hear you? If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it….yadda, yadda, you get the picture.
Brogan is a proponent of sharing personal stuff on Google+. He says that the more you share personally the more people can connect with you. An example he offers: He recently bought a juicer and has been juicing and talking about it on Google+. He Met head of marketing at a huge hotel chain who saw his juicing stuff on Google+ and was interested in talking to him more about juicing. Then she asked him a business question. It’s another way to connect to people.
By sharing personal information on Google+, Brogan argues, people get a sense of the kind of person you are and the kind of person you are not. And they can discern if you are the kind of person they would like to work with.
“By sharing those personal things, there is a strategy point there to say ‘you know who I am in 360, and you really know I’m this guy and you can do business with me.’” —Chris Brogan
So, should small businesses (aka: freelancers) get personal on Google+?
Brogan suggests the balance should be one-quarter personal and three-quarters about your business. You don’t want to be a machine, but you want to be efficient in what you do on Google+.
Brogan also suggests you take the time to really use your circles (groups of people you have decided to pay attention to). You can set up different circles to discuss different aspects of your business. For example, you can set up a circle where you discuss marketing, or generating leads, or web design. “The more you can isolate, segregate, and understand how you want to group things,” Brogan says, “you can use [circles] in a very smart way that allows you to not overflood things.”
That way, people who only want to discuss the merits of massage therapy don’t have to listen to you pontificate about proper grammar.
The downside of Google+? “It’s not that great yet at saying ‘this is what’s happening immediately.’ I use Twitter for the now, for real time,” Brogan says. So even though the most powerful search engine in the world has it’s own social media arm, it is not all things to everyone—yet.
There’s another book circulating about Google+ for business from HubSpot called How to use Google+ for Business. You can download it for free here.
We’d love to hear your feedback on either Chris Brogan’s book or the eBook from HubSpot. Are they useful? What did you learn?
Photo courtesy of Chrisbrogan.com.
Usually two words “freelancer” and “time” go together. Freelancers can’t juggle multiple tasks simultaneously and that’s why we need to allocate time carefully. Time is an essential source of freelancer financial success.
There are lots of web apps that help track time and create reports. If you use one of the tools on a daily basis, you can turn your work into a structured schedule, get more spare time for fun, and improve your productivity. Here’s is an overview of 10 top free apps for time management for freelancers.
Google CalendarGoogle Calendar
Google Calendar is a free universal tool to track your time, appointments and organize your freelance tasks. Google app may serve as a calendar or a to-do list. Besides, it’s easy to export Google calendar data to lots of project management solutions and thus, you can always keep an eye on your schedule.
OfficeTimeOfficeTime
OfficeTime is an elegant cross platform time tracking application. You can track your activity on your computer and iPad. OfficeTime contains advanced time management features: dashboard, spreadsheets data import and stat reports. Besides, the app has built-in invoicing options. So it enables you to start your freelance project, assign a rate per hour and generate the final invoice.
TimePantherTimePanther
TimePanther claims to be a time tracker for freelancers. The app includes time management options that help set tasks, divide them between your projects and calculate your revenue. TimePanther allows you to sync all freelance tasks without any mess within clients.
CubeCube
Cube Anywhere is a nice time tracker for any device. Freelancers are famous for mobility; that’s why our time tracker must be a cross-platform product. Add your tasks, create a schedule and manage your earnings per hour. Cube has an easy sign-up from. You can quickly create an account with your Google ID.
ClockodoClockodo
Clockodo is an easy time tracking suite. It lets you manage tasks, track time and view reports. The stylish web app represents all information in a simple to comprehend way and turns time management into a real pleasure.
KlokKlok
Klok is a cross platform time management program that work on Windows, Linux, Mac and Android OS. You can analyze your time consumption and share your calendar with freelance colleagues. Moreover, you can transfer data smoothly between Basecamp, Harvest or Fresh Books.
PaymoPaymo
Paymo is a freelancer business center. The app has lots of handy features inside: time tracking, billing and invoicing, project management tools. It’s up to you to select the options you need. For example, you can count hours and create reports for your clients.
ChrometaChrometa
Chrometa has an exceptional approach to time tracking. It automates time tracking. Install a tiny app on your computer and it will record your software usage. Examine your daily reports and see how much time you spend on web surfing, Skype, Photoshop or coding. Thus, Chrometa lets you revalue your time and boost your freelancing productivity.
30 Boxes30 Boxes
30Boxes is a web calendar. Fill it with important tasks and alerts. Plus, place your personal reminders and track all key events in one place. This way 30 Boxes lets you balance your freelancing life efficiently.
Your TimerYour Timer
As you see the list contains only 9 apps for freelancers to track time. The last but not the least can be a default timer app, your favorite spreadsheet program, or your watch. Let us know which time tracker you prefer that deserves to be on this list!
Once a week, we feature a fantastic freelance-themed comic from the talented N.C. Winters. Why not also take a look at our comic archive?
Catch the whole Freelance Adventurer series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.
This week we look at Women Entrepreneurs, Example Not Exception by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. In this inspiring video she gives examples of women entrepreneurs across the world. She argues that women running all types of firms– from home businesses (such as freelancing) to major factories– are the overlooked key to economic development.
I have yet to adopt the new Facebook Timeline interface. I don’t want to. I’m comfortable with using Facebook the way it is, thank-you-very-much. When I found this post on mashable about how to revert back to Facebook classic, I knew I wasn’t alone in wishing some things would just stay the same.
I know I probably sound like a curmudgeon to you, but honestly, when things I use on a constant basis—like Facebook—go through an “upgrade” it’s all I can do to not pout. They say they are making their product more user friendly, but all change has a learning curve. I’m a busy freelancer, if I don’t have to learn new things I’m fine with it.
I know that I am going to have to use Facebook Timeline in the near future—there’s no getting around it—but I’m not sure I really like the new look. For one thing, I have to scroll down just to see my friend’s status updates. I don’t really care about having a great big photo at the top, either. I think it just takes up valuable real estate.
“We want to design a place that feels like your home. Where you tell story online is very personal. You spend a lot of time curating it. We want to make timeline a place you’re proud to call your home,” Zuckerberg said of the Timeline at the f8 conference. “It’s a completely new aesthetic for Facebook. It gives you the ability to curate all your stories so you can express who you really are.” —huffingtonpost.com
I don’t want Facebook to feel like my home! I want to have an actual life that doesn’t involve a computer or Internet. I want to be able to enjoy a family meal without someone updating their status, or watch a movie without checking wikipedia for “factual” information. I’m also not all that interested in “expressing who I really am” on Facebook. That’s not what I use it for.
At its core, Timeline is a chronology of a user’s life on Facebook, with items automatically appearing based on an algorithm intended to capture a user’s most important life events. —socialmediaexaminer.com
Yikes! There is an algorhythm that’s going to capture my most important life events! I wonder how they figure this out…and how accurate it is.
Timeline wants to recreate your life online. And this frightens me a little bit. It frightens me because I teach college kids, and I always warn them that what they post on Facebook is published material—so to think twice about how they want to represent themselves. Now, it seems like Timeline is making it easier to do this, and easier for others to paw through your life from start to finish. For people who grew up with smartphones in their hand, this is no big deal. But to me, I think, is nothing private anymore?
Never has it been so easy to slice and dice your Facebook activity over the years, which can be particularly troublesome if the way in which you’ve used the network has changed over the years. Those that used the social network during their college years, for instance, may have behaved differently than they do today back when it was closed environment with no grownups allowed. —bostinno.com
Let’s turn from personal use to professional use. Will I have to use Timeline on my business Facebook page? So far, I think my business pages are safe.
The essence of a timeline is to show the history of something. Do businesses want to show their history graphically, and more important, do their customers care? And what if that company has some negative publicity in its history: Would it want to hide that? What if it has rebranded and doesn’t want customers to think about the old perception of the company? In short, timeline for companies or brands could be boring or problematic.—allfacebook.com
Do you know that once someone likes your Facebook business page they rarely go back to it? They are 40 to 120 times more likely to see your posts in their news feed, according to Brian Carter, who wrote this article for allfacebook.com.
Carter argues that Timeline would not affect your business page, because the news feed still appears.
Timeline cannot majorly impact how people experience Facebook, and a timeline for brand pages would not make much impact, either. For something to impact your customers, it has to affect the news feed. —allfacebook.com
I am in hopes that Facebook will not implement Timeline for their business pages. Not just because it is something new that I will have to learn, but also because for many businesses, it doesn’t make sense. What will they come up with instead? We’ll have to wait to find out.
What do you think? Am I off my rocker? Should I just accept change and move on? Am I the only one who isn’t in love with Timeline?
Want to boost your profile? Add additional income streams to your freelancing business? Release your own self published book? It’s time to have a chat with author and freelance marketer Danny Iny.
He quit school at the age of fifteen to start his first freelance web design business. The only problem with it was that it didn’t work. He then tried several other businesses, continually pushing himself. A lot of hard work and devotion paid off.
Soon he saw himself guest lecturing at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University, making a good income from his blog Firepole Marketing, doing more than 80 guest posts on all the A class websites and co-authoring the book Engagement from Scratch! with well known people like Guy Kawasaki and Brian Clark.
Recently I had the opportunity to pick Danny’s brain. Read on to learn more about self publishing, tips for promoting your freelance business, and boosting your name recognition.
Q: You left school at 15 to start your first business. What business was that? And was that successful?My very first business was doing freelance web design. I got into it because I knew HTML, and I figured that it would be easy. Of course, knowing HTML has nothing to do with knowing how to build a website that achieves the marketing goals of the client, but I didn’t know that at the time.
It wasn’t successful – I quickly transitioned into freelance game development, which was more successful, and that led to a lot of other businesses.
Q: What do you think is the best way for freelancers (writers, bloggers, designers, anyone) to conduct and promote their business?That’s a pretty broad question, but I’ll do my best to answer it. At a high level, business plans are really simple, with only four key parts:
(1) Johnny has a problem,
(2) Here is our solution,
(3) Here’s how we’ll get it to Johnny, and
(4) Here’s all the money we’ll make.
At a high level, conducting and promoting business requires clarity about all of these sections; who is the customer, why is your solution best for them, how are you reaching new customers on a regular basis, and how do the numbers fit into a profitable business model.
Q: You have said in a blog post on Firepole Marketing that when your blog was new – “We’d get 30 visitors a day – on a really good day.” How many visitors do you get now? What do you think is the main reason your traffic increased? Guest posts?These days we get about 300-600 visitors per day, and that range is going up pretty fast. I could point to a lot of tactics and strategies, particularly all the guest posts that I’ve written, or the launch of my book Engagement from Scratch!, but at the end of the day, I think it really has more to do with the mind-set of just taking on big projects and getting work done.
Q: The ideas that you apply to your business are your own or are they from those 38 critical books for bloggers?I’d like to think that they’re a bit of both. I’ve learned a lot from many resources, books, and people who I’ve had the privilege of connecting with, just as every successful entrepreneur has.
That isn’t enough, though – you’ve got to take all the things that you learn, and turn them into mental models that make sense, give you insight into your life and business, and help you make good decisions that lead to the results that you’re trying to create.
Q: What advice do you have for someone working on a book to self-publish?My advice would be to focus on quality, and to think about marketing. For the book to have any chance of success, it has to be awesome, so they should do everything that they possibly can to make it great. Once they’ve finished writing it, the real work begins with marketing the book; it won’t sell itself!
Q: Your guest posts are everywhere and everyone’s posts are in your book. How?Mostly a lot of hard work, and a little bit of being in the right place at the right time. I’ve written more about this in detail in my post about How I Became the Freddy Krueger of Blogging (and in my book).
Q: You have said in your book; “…my first post on ProBlogger …led to more notoriety, and more traffic back to Firepole Marketing.” Why do you say “notoriety”?Because I was using the word “notoriety” in its much less common usage, which means “generally known or widely acknowledged” (and not “well-known for some bad or unfavorable quality, deed, etc”). Oops.
Q: A critic said that the information provided in your book gets redundant by the end. Also, that most of the things mentioned there are usually already known by people. Your comments?The book is a collection of the perspectives of the smartest people that I could find, and many of them share their ideas publicly and freely (which is why they’re so engaging in the first place).
There is a lot of overlap when it comes to tactical advice, because there are some best practices that are universal. The book features 30 people, so of course there’s going to be some overlap in their advice.
I think that most people reading the book will already know part of what’s in it, but it will be a different part for each person. I also think that each reader will resonate with different contributors to the book. Really, the question isn’t “will you find 20% of the book redundant” (yes, most people will, and it’ll be a different 20% for each person), but rather “will the other 80% be incredibly valuable to you” (and the answer to that is yes, too).
Q: Will you consider approaching a publisher in the future? Why or why not?It’s hard to say for sure, but I think that the answer is probably not. I’ve looked at it in a lot of different ways, and I can’t find a way to slice the numbers in which it would make financial or marketing sense.
Q: Despite doing dozens of guest posts and working on your own blog – you’ve replied to all my emails and tweets. And usually you reply pretty soon. How do you manage your time?It’s funny, I’ve been asked that a lot lately, to the point that we’re thinking of spending some time on the blog talking about productive marketing. In the meantime, I’ll point you to this post that I wrote about Parkinson’s Law and what I call the Bugs Bunny Effect.
It’s the beginning of the year and things are slow. You are hustling to get work and the work that comes your way you don’t feel you can turn down. By the time summer rolls around, you have been working your butt off and let things—like life outside of your office—go by the wayside.
Having a life outside of your job is incredibly important. Spending time with your family and friends, as well as making time for your hobbies keep you grounded, energized, and overall happy.
I really loved the ideas these entrepreneurs shared with Inc.com on how to get a life outside of your job. Here are more of my favorites:
Communicate Constantly With Your SpouseThen you will know how to best support each other. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, says the biggest decision you’ll make in your career is who you decide to marry. I think this has really been true for me. Having a spouse that you know is in your corner is a huge source of comfort and confidence. – Anishiya Taneja, founder and CEO of TravelDNA, a travel planning site.
I would not have the confidence to do what I do if I did not have the support of my husband. He believes in me, which helps me believe in myself. We can both tell when the other has had a bad day, and we do little things for each other—like cook dinner, do laundry, shovel the snow off our deck—to help each other out.
We also make sure to tell each other when we need an extra hug or quiet time. We both have high stress jobs, so talking about them and being honest with our needs is important.
Be There For Your Family When It’s Most Important To ThemI have two-year-old twins. At this age, it is important for my kids to spend time with their dad each day. So I make sure I do so before their bed time. This will morph into attending their soccer games as they grow bigger. – Navin Bathija, founder and CEO of Silicon Valley start up Neo, which provides auto loans to America’s youth.
You do not want your life to end up like that Harry Chapin song, Cats in the Cradle, where the dad didn’t have enough time for his son when he was younger. The son grows up to be just like his dad—never having time for him as an adult. If you are not going to make time for your kids—don’t have them in the first place.
Schedule Time With Family And Friends And Stick To ItIt creates a deadline that forces you to prioritize your work. – Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, a visual voice-mail smartphone app.
When I was in college, my part-time jobs helped me prioritize my class work. If I knew I was working the night before a paper was due, I’d be sure to get it done beforehand. Now that I am out of school, other things help me prioritize. Backing out on plans I make with my friends and family members makes me feel like a schmuck. If you constantly break plans, you are going to stop being invited to do things.
My family takes a week-long vacation to the mountains every winter—and the past two years I have had to either not go or only go for a night or two. My family stopped asking me when would be the best time to schedule the vacation, because I never seemed to be able to make time to go anyway. It hurt my feelings, but after bailing on them two years in a row, I can’t say I blame them. It reminds me that if I want to be involved in fun activities, I need to commit my time—or miss out on all the fun.
Be As Organized As PossibleThis is one of the many things that people forget when launching a business, but it leads to a much more efficient and productive day. For example, I manage over 30 different e-mail accounts, which you’d think would be a big draw on time. One tool I use is Thunderbird by Mozilla which is one of the easiest tools for managing more than one e-mail account.” – Rick Singer, founder and CEO of GreatApps.com, an online media platform that focuses on app marketing and consumer use of apps.
My iCal is my savior. I put every scheduled lunch meeting, interview, and deadline into it and check it frequently. It helps me from double booking myself—which is not only annoying, it’s embarrassing. Google Calendar is another great tool to use, especially if you use multiple devices. Plus, since it’s online you can check it from anywhere.
Being organized will also save you time—which will give you more time to do the things outside of the office that you really want to do. Time is money, people! And a freelancers time is very precious.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by xilius.
So, you want to be a freelance web designer? Ah, the glamor of it all.
Your own boss, answering only to the call of your creative muse… get up, feel inspired, do some work, go for a walk, laugh knowingly with other freelancers who have also discovered The Secret of: high profile projects, the big bucks, expensive coffee, conferences in glamorous European cities, laughing at the corporate rats you’ve left behind… enjoying the high life that you so richly deserve. Hurrah!
Or… welcome to a world of uncertainty, of irregular income, of blurred lines between work and home. Where, instead of having just one boss telling you what to do, you have 20 bosses across 3 different time zones who want their logo bigger now, dammit!
The truth lies somewhere in between, of course – but you’re more likely to achieve the success you would like (and the balance you strive for) if you can create a plan and structure for your freelance business early on.
In this post you’ll learn the main issues you need to consider to set up your freelance web design business. Up front though, I’m going to make some assumptions about you – I’m going to assume that you’re motivated to do this. It’s not something you want to fall into by accident.
I’m going to assume that you have some basic skills in web design – that you’ve learned your craft and that you’re ready to promote your services to potential paying clients. And I’m going to assume that you have a little business savvy, a good amount of time, and a real commitment to doing this. Okay? Okay! Let’s get started.
Resources: Are you ready to freelance?Everything has costs associated with it – how much will a move to freelancing cost you? Make a list of the basic equipment you’re going to need. At first, it might just be a computer and a phone.
You’ll want to factor in the cost of registering your domain name and hosting your own website. You might want to get business cards printed, a dedicated desk, stationery supplies and so forth. You’ll need new pajamas for sitting around in all day (optional).
I know people who hopped from one free trial to another for the first 6 months of their freelance career.
Will you need new software? As you start out, download free trials of popular web design software – like Espresso, Coda, Aptana, or Adobe Dreamweaver – it’ll give you 30 days to get familiar with it. I know people who hopped from one free trial to another for the first 6 months of their freelance career. When you have the money, purchase the one you liked the best.
Do you need health insurance? Do you need personal liability insurance (yes, if you are taking office space)? Do you need any other insurance, or to pay any kind of taxes before you start out?
Finding a good accountant early on who can help you with this is essential. Most accountants won’t charge you for an initial meeting, so meet up with a few local ones, and glean as much advice as you can up front as regards your tax position and any other liabilities you might have.
Resources: the cost of becoming a freelancerHow are you going to brand yourself? Many freelance web designers use their name as their brand – this is great and can lend real personal attachment – clients know that they’re getting an individual, someone who maybe has a bit more flexibility in their availability, someone they can hire probably a bit cheaper than a fully fledged agency.
Alternatively, like I did, consider using a more formal name for your fledgling business, especially if you envisage your business becoming more robust in the future. If you have plans to maybe turn yourself into a studio, with a couple of people working for you, you might want to start out with a more formal company name.
Think about how you would like to be perceived – as an individual brand, or as a young company. Think about what your potential clients will read into this and ask yourself whether that fits in with your view as a freelancer.
Resources: Developing your brandYou’re going to need something to point people to – to show off your expertise, to seal the deal, to… well, you know why you need your own website: who’s going to buy a website from someone who doesn’t have one? That’s right. Nobody.
Your website should at the very least clearly state the services you offer, provide a clear means for people to contact you, and wherever possible, showcase some of your work. ‘Ahh,’ I hear you say, ‘but how can I showcase work if I’m just starting out?’. ‘Well, ‘ you hear me answer, ‘let me count the ways…’
I bet there are organizations or groups in your local community who could benefit right now from your services.
Do work for free. I don’t mean take on spec work, or enter design competitions, or get your hopes up with the guy who says ‘look, just do this one little project for me and I’ll give you more work than you can handle in the future’. (Put the phone down on that guy. Now.)
I bet there are organizations or groups in your local community who could benefit right now from your services. Charity organizations, social clubs, church groups, community sports, local schools… whoever they are, they’d likely be extremely grateful to you if you could provide them with a new website, a Facebook page, some banner ads, a blog, or whatever. You can do it for free or very low cost, you’re helping a worthy cause, and you’re generating a portfolio piece.
Do 3 or 4 of these and suddenly your new portfolio is looking quite respectable. Nobody puts all the work they’ve ever done in a portfolio – so just having a few pieces in there might be enough for you.
Resources: Developing your own portfolio websiteThis is a whole separate debate in itself, but you need to at least have a framework for establishing your rates up front or else you’ll end up working for peanuts, find it difficult to ever raise your rates, and it will take much longer for your freelance web design business to get off the ground.
Figure out your monthly costs – rent, heat, power, phone bill, travel, insurance, tax liability, etc. Multiply that by 12. Add on what you’d like your annual salary to be. Divide that whole thing by 48 to figure out how much you need to make in a week (allowing for 4 weeks vacation). Then, assume that you’ll be able to do billable work for about 20 hours a week at first. That’s a good place to start for your hourly rate.
You should try and get as specific as you can – although this can be difficult as you’re looking for your first client. But the resources below will help.
Resources: how to bill and what to chargeNotice how I haven’t talked about the actual ‘doing web design’ bit? That’s because you’re not really in the business of web design at all. You’re in the business of selling. From now on, your only real job is to promote your services.
Being a fabulous web designer might make you feel all tingly inside, but it means nothing if you’re unable to sell your services.
Being a fabulous web designer might make you feel all tingly inside, but it means nothing if you’re unable to sell your services. It won’t put food on the table, that’s for sure.
So, you need to formalize a sales cycle: a process for finding prospects, cultivating your relationship with them, educating them about your services, offering your services to the right ones, fulfilling their expectations, and developing that relationship with them.
You’re going to need ways to find good prospects. Start by identifying your ideal client, who are they, what do they do and where do they hang out (either in person or online)? Start hanging out there too and engaging them in conversation. Work on your elevator pitch – that little burst of information that explains clearly to potential clients how you can help their business and why they should hire you to do it.
Use your elevator pitch to summarize who you offer your services to, identify the biggest concerns facing those people, explain how you solve those problems, show how you’ve helped similar people in the past. In conversation it might go something like this:
You know how small businesses often struggle to get the most out of their websites? Well, what I do is create websites that really engage browsers and work hard to convert them into customers – with measurable results. One company I worked with recently was able to increase online sales by 40% over 3 months.
You’ve told people your target market, and what their concerns are. You’ve explained how you tackle the problem, and you’ve given an example of how you’ve achieved it.
LINKS: for building sales cycle, book yourself solid, etc.Your day is going to need structure. It’ll help you if you can have a consistent structure for your working day. Have a daily schedule mapped out which works around when you are most productive and when you are more likely to get things done.
I try and group like tasks together – if I have a bunch of phone calls to make, I try and do them all mid-morning (after my 2nd cup of coffee). Emails I typically handle mid-afternoon. If I’m coding, I find that easiest to do first thing in the morning when my brain is fresh, and, oddly, last thing in the evening when I get a second wind.
Go with whatever works for you. But being able to stick to a similar routine each day will help you.
Resources: sticking to a routineThe great thing about being a freelance web designer is that there is a tremendous community of professionals who can support you in what you do. It’s a very open, communicative bunch of people. So start following people on Twitter, getting to know them on LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media hang outs. There are other people out there in similar situations and they have a lot to offer.
Be sure to get involved in the communities where you customers are.
LinkedIn offers a number of groups for freelance professionals. Many are great places to network. Answering questions on LinkedIn is another great way to network – both with fellow professionals and potential clients. Sign up to receive RSS updates on questions from web development boards and spend 10 minutes each day helping out people in need. You establish your expertise and help people out who may be looking for your services.
Be sure to get involved in the communities where you customers are. If you’re targeting a specific niche, what online forums do they use? Are there newsgroups that you should belong to? Are there regular meetups that you should be attending?
Immerse yourself in the communities in which you operate and you’ll build up a really strong network – not just of other web designers but of potential clients and referrals.
Resources – web design communityLook for any sites where the blog posts have a high number of comments and regular contributors. The following are some of the blogs I follow for that reason:
There are too many others to mention, but look up the blogs of Jeffrey Zeldman, Dan Cederholm, Eric Meyer, Ethan Marcotte, Sarah Parmenter… they’ll all inspire you at one point or another. Freelance Switch, of course, is a great resource, with daily posts publishing regularly and years worth of advice in the archives.
On LinkedIn, the following groups I’ve also found helpful:
There are a wealth of web design conferences and other opportunities out there for you to keep on learning your craft. Fabulous resources with a wealth of information to share – some free, some paid for. The important thing is to make time for yourself to develop your craft, to continue learning and to share what you learn with others.
Something often overlooked though is to continue learning the art of freelancing itself – not just web design. There comes a point where, for most of us, continuing to learn more about web design is ‘only’ about our own professional and personal development. It becomes less valuable to the majority of our clients that we know XYZ about latest technology ABC. (It is still valuable to us, but the salable value of the skill becomes diminished). It is at this point that becoming a better freelancer is more important than becoming a better web designer – so never stop learning that also.
Resources – for developing your core skillsOf course, as you go on you’ll need more bits and pieces. I use software to track time, keep on top of task management, you might use tools for project management or for managing your finances. Here, I’ve listed out a few for each main category of my day to day freelance existence. Most are paid for services, but some are free or have very cheap entry level plans.
One word of advice, take an audit of all your monthly web app payments at the end of each year (or every 6 months) You may well be surprised at how many things you’ve signed up for – and how much it’s costing you!
Time TrackingMy favorite apps are always task management apps, and I’m genetically incapable of limiting this to just 3 items. Currently, I use three of the below – Things, TeuxDeux and Omni Outliner. I’ve tried all the others though and they’re all fab. It depends on what fits your needs the best, but check them all out:
So, there it is. A by no means comprehensive, easy to disagree with, guide to the things you’ll need to start your freelance web design business. Don’t take my word for it though – get out and do it!
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by NexusPlexus.
Online job marketplaces are billion dollar businesses today, ducking the recent recession and expanding at a tremendous rate. No wonder then that more and more sites open up every day catering to a small niche of freelancers.
The two biggest general online job marketplaces are Elance and oDesk, but there are many smaller ones which are specialized, offering differentiated options for freelancer. These marketplaces have potential to add value at every stage of a freelancer’s career.
While online job marketplaces are a current trend worthy of your attention, you should consider the pros and cons before investing your time and energy into one. Let’s take a closer look.
Pros of Online MarketplacesOnline job boards bring freelancers and employers together to discuss the terms of working on projects. An online job marketplace offers a few more features than a job board, such as: payment, billing, invoicing, terms of the contract, and numerous administrative tasks. Here are more job marketplace benefits to consider:
Ease of Finding Jobs: In this regard, online marketplaces are akin to a job board, in that you have plenty of employers looking for freelancers. Thus, it is easy to find potential clients, all listed in one place.
This is especially attractive to beginners who do not yet have the necessary contacts in their industry and are looking to get their foot in the door. However, experienced freelancers can benefit from this too, if they are highly selective about which jobs they want to apply for.
Level Playing Field: By this, I mean that when you are looking for work through online marketplaces, it is your work, rather than your qualifications that matter the most. If you have a good portfolio and a proven track record with other employers, you would likely be eligible for most jobs.
This allows freelancers to try out new fields and encourages self-learning. If you are passionate about any field, you can learn it on your own and excel, without needing to go to college for specialized training.
Feedback System: Although there is potential for abuse (and such cases aren’t unheard of), the feedback system at these online marketplaces are a great feature which allows freelancers to distinguish themselves.
It also provides a good indicator of the quality of the worker and allows the job poster to filter out applicants. It is a good system for both parties involved because as a freelancer, you would want to avoid an employer with consistently poor feedback from other workers, and vice versa.
Potential Lifelong Clients: Most of the people looking for freelancers are small businesses and entrepreneurs. If the quality of your work is good and you are reliable, companies will often approach you first the next time they need something done (rather than post on job marketplace again). This saves them time to work with you again and gives you opportunities to build long term clients.
Ease of Starting: Online marketplaces give you a good starting point to understand the business that you are in. Serious freelancers, as they progress, will have a professional website and/or blog dedicated to their services. However, if you are starting out, you can post your portfolio, resume, and more on your profile on the online marketplace that you choose to be a part of.
Depending on the site, they can have special features like the ability to take specialized tests, the results of which can be posted on your profile. All these are helpful tools to sell yourself.
Of course, there are also reasons why many freelancers do not like to be part of online marketplaces. Some of these include:
Pay: This is one of the most important reasons why freelancers tend to shy away from these places. As a freelancer, you need to fend for yourself and you need to demand a certain pay for your time and expertise. A very important feature of online marketplaces is that it is global in nature, which is a huge strength and weakness.
For freelance workers in countries with a higher standard of living, it is just not viable to compete on wages with someone from the developing world. The difference in wages can be enormous.
Each freelancer, after all, bids according to the standard of living they are comfortable with in the place they currently live in. This causes a downward pressure on the overall wages in the marketplace which, understandably, freelance workers aren’t too fond of.
Commission: Since freelance marketplaces do a lot more than simply post jobs, they take a cut out of your paycheck. This can be anywhere from 8% to 12%. They handle things like invoicing and give you easy tools to manage your tax returns. They also have systems in place to make sure you are paid for your services.
Whether all these features are worth the extra money that you end up paying is difficult to determine. However, commission is a big reason why freelancers don’t want to work through this system. An alternative is to form a personal relationship with the client so that the next project you can work on independently without the involvement of a third party.
Freedom and Privacy: You would think that as a freelancer you have more freedom than a regular employee at a company in terms of how you complete the work. You would be surprised then to learn about monitoring tools some job boards have in place.
oDesk is notorious for using a very intrusive system to monitor working hours of workers. They monitor keystrokes and mouse-clicks, take random screenshots of your computer screen, and send it to your employer. This is not the ideal work environment that many freelancers would like to work in.
Filtering Time: Owing to the quality of jobs posted, the filtering time to go through all the jobs and apply for the ones that you like can be a significant portion of the total time you spend freelancing on these online marketplaces. On the plus side, there is a market for all kinds of services, but as a writer, you probably don’t want to transcribe an hour long audio recording for a couple of dollars.
Sorting through the job postings take time and effort. This is another reason why even if you work through this system, you should always try to form a personal relationship so that for future projects you don’t have to spend a lot of time filtering through all the listings.
Payment Delays: Freelancers should also be aware that in job marketplaces there is a delay between the time when an employer pays for the project and when you actually receive the money. This averages about a week or 10 days.
Not all freelancers are comfortable with such delays. This is also one of the ways in which these companies make money. In addition, transferring money from your online account to your bank account can involve additional fees, which is again a loss of immediate revenue and liquidity for the freelancer.
If you wish to join an online job marketplace, be sure to weigh the pros and cons carefully first. You could be investing a significant amount of time and energy into this and you don’t want to end up doing something you don’t like.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by raywoo.
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