Archive for July, 2007
Toward the end of Sunday’s live chat on Writers Revealed about how to be a successful entrepreneur, one woman asked what mistakes newbie freelancers make and how that hinders their success. I talk about this a lot in the book, serving up many of my own wildly embarrassing gaffes from my first few months working solo, including:
- Quitting my job with no money saved, no clients, no business know-how, no networking savvy, and no contacts
- Signing truly shitty contracts that effectively had me working for peanuts
- Agreeing to work with clients who basically had “666″ tattooed on their forehead
Emira Mears of Boss Lady, who I had the pleasure to do Sunday’s live chat with, also wrote this incredibly sharp post about how we fempreneurs have a tendency to undercharge for our time and talents. (For pep talk on setting and negotiating rates, see my previous post.) And here are a few more rookie freelancer screwups, culled from a Q&A I recently did with Work It, Mom:
- Spending too much money on equipment, supplies, and consultants you don’t need right off the bat
- Working in a vacuum rather than finding other independent professionals to bounce ideas off of, share war stories with, and help you feel less isolated
- Failing to sufficiently research the market you’re getting into
- Not being realistic about how much money you need to keep the business afloat and a roof over your head
- Not educating yourself about what makes a good contract (so you can steer clear of the crappy ones)
- Not keeping set business hours, which often translates into working round the clock
Feel free to share any and all of your own fempreneur fuckups in the comments. We’re not here to laugh at each other, only to help. And telling others what stupid business move you would never make again can certainly help them avoid stepping in the same steaming pile of crap.
July 31st, 2007
AlmostGotIt’s comment on a recent post of mine raises a question I hear a lot: How much more should I charge as a freelancer? Is there a hard-and-fast rule or formula? I’ve also heard a variety of percentages we freelancers should be charging above the corresponding employee rate — 30% more, 40% more, 50% more, etc. (Here’s one take on what to charge.)
But rather than worry about whether I’m living up to some universal formula of freelance wages, I’m most concerned with whether I’m pulling in enough money to cover my business expenses, unbillable hours worked per project (invoicing, contract negotiations, and the like), personal benefits, tax requirements, and living expenses. And of course, I’m concerned about whether the rate is fair for the industry, geographic region, and my experience level.
Of course that means doing the math and necessary research, but I think crunching the numbers yourself can help boost your confidence when it comes time to haggle with clients. If you know you need, say, $500 a day to cover your business and living expenses, you won’t settle for anything less.
I offered up some negotiation tips here. But today I wanted to direct your attention to this cool hourly freelance rate calculator. I especially like the “here’s your break-even rate” feature. I think this information can also help you strengthen your negotiation skills. If you know a client’s only willing to pay 2% above your break-even rate, it will be easier to stand your ground and walk away if necessary (that is, if you’re looking to do more than merely cover your business and living expenses and would like to make an actual business profit). My one gripe about this calculator is that it doesn’t have a field for utilities other than telecom, but you can add that in with the rent or “other expenses” fields.
July 31st, 2007
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to do a web radio interview with Felicia Sullivan of Writers Revealed. Today I’m back on Writers Revealed doing a live web chat on how to be a successful entrepreneur. I’ll be joined fellow fempreneurs Alex Beauchamp of Girl at Play and Emira Mears and Lauren Bacon of Boss Lady.
If you have a burning question about freelancing, fleeing the cube, or running your own business, ask away. Alex, Emira, Lauren, and I will be taking and answering as many questions as we can today, Sunday, July 29, from 7 to 8 p.m. Eastern Time in the comments section of this here link.
If you can’t make it, feel free to enjoy the link in the coming days at your leisure. Happy Sunday.
July 29th, 2007
The anti 9-to-5er: Liene Stevens, Scottsdale, Arizona
My job: Event consultant and designer. After working in events in both the non-profit and corporate sectors, I opened up shop for myself in 2006 with the creation of Blue Orchid Designs, a luxury wedding and event firm.
What makes my gig anti 9-to-5: Working for myself, I try to have a paperless office as much as possible. Faxes are sent from and delivered to my email inbox, my phone can sync with my calendars, and the phone numbers roll to my cell so I can have the office wherever I’m at. I semi-joke that my car is my office and that I’d be lost without my laptop or phone.
I work more hours than I have in any other job, but the difference now is that I love what I do so it isn’t draining. I can work in the middle of the night and have the freedom to take an extended lunch with a friend who may be in town. Having burned out while working for a non-profit, I knew that I wanted to set up a flexible structure so that I could stick this out for the long haul. Now that I have that freedom in my life I can’t imagine going back to the 9-5 cubicle.
What I did in my former 9-to-5 life: I worked in both the accounting and event planning fields for seven years. Polar opposites, but knowing how to crunch the numbers has more than paid for itself in venturing out on my own.
How I made the anti 9-to-5 leap: I usually take a long time to make decisions, but with this one, I decided to start the company and within a few days had registered for my EIN [employer ID number from the IRS] and my business licenses and was filing the rest of the paperwork. I had some money in savings, so that helped float my living and startup expenses. After starting up, I wrote my business and marketing plans. I know that I am going in reverse order to what all the experts advise, but it is what worked for me.
My biggest obstacles: My biggest obstacles were probably my own naivete of how the industry ran, specifically the wedding industry. I had been involved in business and charity events, but the wedding industry is an entirely different animal. I have been fortunate to have partnered with some honest, genuine, and like-minded people, but the wedding business can be very harsh, back-biting, and full of ego.
My tips for other cubicle expats: For people specifically wanting to get into the wedding planning field, I would recommend really pinpointing why you want to. It is a lot of fun, but it also includes giving up weekends and a lot of evenings and can lead to burnout really quickly if your heart’s not really in it.
I’d also recommend finding like-minded people and being choosy as to which organizations you join, as several are outdated and are more for name recognition than education and business building. Most will let you attend a meeting or two as a guest so you’ll be able to get an idea of whether or not they will be a good fit for what you are doing.
Also, advertising can suck you dry, especially in startup, so really research which avenues will give you the best ROI [return on investment] for those dollars.
What’s that link again? Blue Orchid Weddings and Blue Orchid Blog
Read past anti 9-to-5 profiles. Then fill out your own profile to be featured on this site.
July 26th, 2007
The anti 9-to-5er: Amy Beekley, Frederick, MD
My job: I am a recruiter, a small business owner, and a blogger within the employment services industry, helping frustrated and frayed individuals find work at businesses that offer flexible scheduling options and family-friendly benefits.
What makes my gig anti 9-to-5: I work through email and the Internet almost exclusively and therefore find myself writing, responding to emails, and connecting with clients almost anywhere and virtually every time I find myself behind a keyboard. Even sticky notes with my article ideas and to-do lists are virtual on my iGoogle homepage.
What I did in my former 9-to-5 life: I worked in administrative positions in the healthcare industry and then in human resources in the engineering industry. Each of my past jobs was unfulfilling and I have never worked for someone else without finding myself bored.
How I made the anti 9-to-5 leap: Working online, I launched my business using entirely free software. My best advertisement has been my blog, capitalizing on the writing process that I love so much. I slowly built readership and the clients followed.
My biggest obstacles: My biggest obstacle has been my utter lack of business sense and networking skills. As a fairly introverted person, I struggled at first even to tell people about the business venture I was starting. My friends were my biggest support and my best marketing device. With faith in my vision to achieve greater flexibility in the corporate world, I have taught myself basic business skills along the way.
My tips for other cubicle expats: Muddling through various admin jobs, I had no idea what my passion was, much less how to capitalize on it. I knew that I loved writing and started the blog as a creative outlet. Even if you don’t know where your passion will lead you, do what you love until you find your niche.
What’s that link again? Flexible Workforce
Read past anti 9-to-5 profiles. Then fill out your own profile to be featured on this site.
July 24th, 2007
You’ll be hearing today about how the U.S. minimum wage finally rose from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour, its first increase in a decade and an end to the longest stretch of time without a federal minimum wage hike since the law hit the books in 1938.
BFD. It was hard to live on $12K a year twenty years ago when I was fresh out of school and sleeping on a futon on the floor (with no dependents). Imagine being a single mom trying to feed your kids on that pittance. And to those who say increasing the mimimum wage is bad for businesses, how the heck do you sleep at night, endorsing poverty-level pay? If a business can’t afford to pay an employee a fair living wage, they don’t have any business hiring an employee.
Looking forward to 2009, when the minimum wage rises to $7.25 an hour, which still won’t be enough to live on and is less than many middle-class kids currently get paid to babysit.
July 24th, 2007
Journalist and alt career author Marci Alboher made my day when she featured The Anti 9-to-5 Guide in her New York Times web column. This is my favorite part:
Even as an established freelancer, Ms. Goodman follows her own advice, taking the occasional long-term temp assignment to meet a big financial goal. We did our interview while she was stealing a few moments from what she called a “a temporary, part-time, ultra-flexible” day job that allowed for furtive cellphone use.
You can read the rest of the article here. (And yeah, I’m doing a temp gig again to give my savings account a boost. I’ll write more about that in the coming days.)
July 23rd, 2007
Elizabeth Cockle writes: Have you encountered any former cube dwellers who left the 9-to-5 world because they could earn more on their own? Making the leap definitely requires guerrilla measures in budgeting and taking second-choice projects to pay the bills, but what about down the line? More women would be inspired to flee the cube with proof that they can be just as financially successful, if not more so, working on their own.
Excellent question, EC! The short answer is, yes, of course you can make more green working solo, and yes, I’ve met many freelancers and entrepreneurs over the years who’ve made as much as or more than their former 9-to-5 selves, in all industries too. But all this depends on your business structure, how far along in your business you are, and what you did in your former 9-to-5 life. For example, last time I was in the cube as a full-timer (back in ‘92) I was making under $20K at a book publishing company. Since I already wasn’t earning enough to live on in the greater Manhattan area (yeah, even back then) there was only one way for my income to go and that was up.
I think it’s important to be realistic about the fact that depending on what type of solo venture you’re embarking on, you may not draw much of a salary the first two or three years (despite customer checks pouring in), which experts at organizations like SCORE will tell you is normal for brick-and-mortar businesses with hefty operational overhead and merchandise to make, buy, and sell. But if you’re shifting to a sole proprietorship with minimal business expenses, say as a freelance editor, you should start seeing some green in your personal checking account right away, unless of course you’re undercharging.
Since every industry, solo job, and entrepreneur’s own career path and level of experience varies, it’s impossible for me to say (or even guarantee) that you’ll make X percent more than you did before — and at what point that will start to happen. It’s also up to the freelancer or business owner to negotiate prices and rates wisely (competitive yet commensurate with her experience) so that she doesn’t shortchange herself. And this negotiation should an ongoing process — otherwise, how else are you supposed to get a raise?
It’s also important to realize that just because you make, say, $80 an hour as a freelance copywriter this year and you made $40 an hour last year as a corporate copy monkey doesn’t mean you’re making 50 percent more money than before. This should be fairly obvious, but in case it’s not, allow me to explain: You’re now paying your own benefits; the higher rate should account for that and then some. You’re also not getting paid to invoice clients, market your business, or negotiate contracts; again, the higher rate should account for the fact that you’re working more hours than you’re billing for.
With all that in mind, I think it’s key for cubicle expats to define what “making more money” looks like to them. (You also need a business plan, but that’s a whole other blog post.) How much more do you want to take home? Do you consider it “making more money” if your take-home pay is the same as it was when you were a corporate drone but your billable + unpaid solo working hours now amount to less than 40 a week? (I do!) And how do flexibility, autonomy, and creative control rate? For me and many others, this trio is as critical if not more important than commerce.
Feel free to chime in if you’re making more (or less, or the same amount of) money now that you’re a solo artist or small business owner. What have been the high points? The rough spots? What have you learned? As always, inquiring minds want to know…
July 23rd, 2007
The Anti 9-to-5 Guide has been making the online rounds again. Some recent blog coverage that blew my painted-on black leather skirt clear over my head:
Killer write-up on the Feminist Review. I think this might be my best review yet. I love that writer Heather Irvine mentions the book’s coverage of surviving as a temp, working in a male-dominated field, and negotiating your fanny off.
5 Q’s on The Urban Muse. Check out my advice on dealing with rejection as a writer and handling the financial ebbs and flows of freelancing on Susan Johnston’s fab freelance writing blog.
Beefy freelancing Q&A on Work It, Mom! See what I have to say about the top mistakes newbie freelancers make, how I deal with the lack of steady paycheck, and how moms and non-moms alike can transition to freelance work.
July 17th, 2007
I’m a little late in commenting on this, for reasons I’ll explain later this week (no, I’m not knocked up). But I couldn’t let Friday’s media feeding frenzy du jour slip by without weighing in.
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that the Pew Research Center revealed that the number of working moms who find part-time employment ideal — as opposed to full-time employment, or sitting out the employment merry-go-round altogether –has jumped to 60 percent in the past decade. (It was 48 percent in 1997.) You can read more of the stats here.
On the one hand, is this really news? I mean, doesn’t anyone with multiple responsibilities and to-do lists coming out of their ears want to work less? We’re not our first-wave feminist mothers and grandmothers with something to prove: We now know we can take office work or leave it (that is, if we can afford it, which most of us unfortunately can’t).
On the other hand, only 12 percent of the working dads Pew surveyed thought that part-time work was ideal for them. Sure, most single- or dual-parent families can’t live off a part-time salary (or two). But why are today’s dads so much more squeamish than their female counterparts about sitting out a couple days of office work? Is it that they don’t want to get “stuck” at home changing diapers and folding laundry? Are their identities — even in this sensitive-DIY-male day and age — so wrapped up in being the manly breadwinner? Or is it just that they (wisely) can’t get past the hits in pay, benefits, and even career advancement that often come with part-time work? (And since women can get past all this more often than their male counterparts, are we just a bunch of suckers? Or are we simply more disposed to putting quality of life first?)
Hopefully studies like this will continue to drive home the need for more fair ‘n flexible work options for parents and non-parents alike. And for parents, my hope is that more and more couples will continue to take that long, hard look at the division of household/financial labor when weighing who should work and who should stay home (if that’s even a financial option). And hopefully the next time someone does a big fancypants study like this, they’ll bother to ask the non-parents what they think, too. I, for one, would love to see the number of non-parents who prefer part-time work. I have a sneaking suspicion they’d be similar across the gender lines.
July 17th, 2007
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