Posts filed under 'This freelance life'
When I asked folks to chime in with their burning freelancing questions last week I wasn’t expecting to get so many. Thank you — both for playing along, and for continuing to read this site despite my increasingly infrequent posts.
The column I wound up writing on the topic – Suddenly Self-Employed? Seven Ways to Boost Your Income – makes the following suggestions. Many of you will have heard some of them before. But hey, when it comes to making more moolah, a little reminder never hurts, right?
1. Follow the money. Sometimes a snoozy yet lucrative gig can be a lifesaver.
2. Don’t let any one client dominate your time. Over the course of the year, up to 25% per client is my recommended time limit.
3. Track your project time. If that $750 article takes you 75 hours to research, write, and revise, you’re either doing too much work or getting robbed.
4. Stop reducing your rates. The worst of the recession is hopefully behind us. Slashing your rates to get more work (or agreeing to a client’s slashed rates in order to hang on to them) is not a viable business model. You’ll just wind up working twice as many hours to pay your bills.
5. Institute project minimums. Why take piddly one-off assignments for $100 to $200 a pop when you can cultivate higher-paying projects and clients who give you steady business?
6. Set firm limits on pro bono work. I think by now you all know how I feel about PIE work.
7. Hire a blasted intern already. As long as you provide some educational value (a bit of mentorship), you can get a budding freelancer to do your admin bidding for free or close to it for several hours a month. And even if you do pony up, say, $10 to $20/hour for a young, eager virtual assistant, if you’re charging clients, say, $60 to $80/hour and up, you still come out ahead. Once you get them trained, having your intern/assistant take four hours of admin work off yours hands each week frees you up to make four more hours of income, dig?
[To read Suddenly Self-Employed? Seven Ways to Boost Your Income in its entirety, see ABCNews.com.]
Meanwhile, I’d like to add a couple items to the above list:
1. Jean is right: hiring an intern or assistant is easy. All that’s required is an initial investment of time. Make a list of the work you need to pawn off on someone else, hit up your local college for creative students ISO internships (require them to commit for at least three to six months) or ask your network for the names of unemployed professionals who could use a little extra cash, wade through a handful of resumes and interviews, make your choice, and then delegate your little heart out.
To keep kosher with the IRS when you pay an intern or assistant, you would simply send your intern/assistant a 1099 in January for work they performed the previous year — that is, if you paid them at least $600 for the year. Otherwise, no 1099 is necessary. You can also claim the money you pay them as an expense of running your business. Talk to your tax preparer for details.
2. Subcontracting is your friend. From an income standpoint, freelancing comes with a big limitation. Suppose you only have 30 billable hours you’re able to work each week. That means the most you can hope to earn on a weekly basis is 30 times your best possible rate. However, if you take a project that involves more work than you alone can handle and farm some of it out to other freelancers, you stand to make more money because (a) you can nab bigger projects and possibly bigger clients, and (b) you can and should take a cut off the top of what you pay your subcontractors.
How much of a cut you take will depend on the project fee, the profit margin you need to make, and the market rate you need to pay to attract quality freelancers. (In other words, I can’t do the math for you, though I can tell you I’ve known freelancers and creative agencies to skim anywhere from 10 to 50% or more off the top. I suspect the appropriate sweet spot lies between 20 and 40%, but it will really depend on the project.)
A few key considerations for those who choose to hire subcontractors:
- Make sure your contract with your client allows you to subcontract. Otherwise, you risk violating the contract and losing the client.
- Prepare to invest some time in finding and overseeing your team of subcontractors.
- Give your subcontractors a contract in writing. If you can’t find a template for this in a book or online (try Nolo.com), talk to a lawyer.
- As with hiring an assistant, you will have to provide 1099s for your subcontractors. Definitely talk to your tax preparer if and when you decide to go this route.
- More freelancers on the job means more room for mistakes. If you don’t have business liability insurance, it may be time to look into it.
As for your other questions, I’ll answer them in the coming days. Thanks, everyone!
July 11th, 2010
Anyone have a question about how to take their freelance business to the next level? I’m looking for fodder for an upcoming article and would love to hear what issues keep you awake at night. Wondering how to raise your rates, tame a tough client, make more money? Want to collaborate with or subcontract to other independents but don’t know how? Covet an assistant but aren’t sure you can afford it? Do tell. Mama’s here to help.
July 2nd, 2010
Maybe you went into business for yourself because you had a million-dollar idea. Or you wanted to set your own hours. Or you wanted to exercise your right to turn away clients who wouldn’t recognize integrity if it slapped them upside the head.
Whatever your MO for going solo, you probably hoped to make that proverbial difference in the world, no matter how small. Chances are, though, your desire to pay it forward has led you to bite off more pro bono work than you can chew somewhere along the way.
Get in over your head with non-paying clients and, at best, your schedule and quarterly earnings take a beating. At worst, you realize you’re dealing with an ungrateful, opportunistic customer, at which point resentments flare, fur flies, and bridges burn.
So how much pro bono work should you accept? How should you choose the customers to whom you donate your services? And most important, how do you ensure these friendly freebies don’t land you in the scope creep sinkhole
[Read the rest of this article on American Express OPEN Forum.]
June 19th, 2010
Hello, happy freelancers! I’m writing an article for Entrepreneur.com about the pros, cons, and WTFs of throwing your hat into the crowdsourcing ring on sites like Helium, 99designs, crowdSPRING, iStockphoto, and Threadless – and I’m interested in interviewing freelancers who’ve participated in the design contests, writing contests, or other crowdsourcing cattle calls on one of these sites.
Note: I’m not going to delve into project bidding sites like Elance, oDesk, and Guru in this article, just sites that feature content contests or otherwise require freelancers to create work on spec before money even enters into the equation. So please only respond if you have experience with these on-spec/contest sites.
Any takers? I’d like to hear about your experience trying to land work, clients, or money through these sites, be it good, bad, or downright fugly. I’d prefer to talk to you on the record, but I don’t necessarily have to say which site you’ve used if you’d rather keep that detail quiet and I don’t need your clients’ names. My deadline is Friday, 3/19. If you’d like to be interviewed, leave me a note in the comments or email me. Thanks so much!
March 14th, 2010
For some reason, Girl Scout cookie season has always screamed ”Love is in the air!” to me — way the heck more than Valentine’s Day ever could. (Yes, I have a bit of a Thin Mints issue. What’s it to you?)
In honor of this lovey-dovey-est of seasons, I recently went on something of a writing-about-couples-who-work-together tear (here, and here). I hadn’t given much thought to whether and when domestic partners in business together should reveal their coupledom to clients — that is, until one of these articles led me to interview spouses Kris Hoots and Steve Thomas, founders of Oneicity, a Seattle-area consulting firm that creates fundraising solutions for non-profit and religious organizations.
Kris and Steve initially opted to keep their relationship status on the down low until clients and colleagues got to know them better. But once they realized that many of the clients and vendors they worked with were also shacked up, they decided they could afford to be less tight-lipped about their personal partnership. While the couple doesn’t exactly come right out and flaunt their marital status in their company’s marketing materials, they have blogged about it on their business site.
How about you? What’s your take on mixing love with business — and letting your customers in on the nature of the personal relationship you and your partner share? If you and your sweetie are in business together, do you play up your relationship status in your marketing materials and new client meetings? Or do you go out of your way to cloak your personal relationship from customers, vendors, and colleagues? Has your relationship status helped or hurt your business image, or has it not made one bit of difference?
March 14th, 2010
Like many entrepreneurs, Adam Levy expected to do well with the music equipment company he started in 2002. Armed with an MBA and pile of money made in the late-nineties technology boom, he invested six figures in his new venture and waited to cash in.
Only things didn’t go as planned.
His business partner, a music industry mastermind, abandoned ship within the first 18 months and the company floundered. Seven years later, Levy still wasn’t making a living wage and was six figures in debt. Out of cash and out of choices, he filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
“If I had known then what I know now, I would have just cut my losses, swallowed my ego and moved on,” says Levy, who’s based in Hoboken, N.J. “I didn’t and it almost cost me my marriage.”
Slash Your Budget
Of course, declaring bankruptcy — which experts say should be a last resort — isn’t the only way to stop the bleeding. Reducing your spending should be at the top of your list.
“Getting out of your office space is one big thing I’ve seen people do,” says Dan Olszewski, director of the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin School of Business. Same goes for trading in that gas-guzzling delivery truck for a smaller vehicle or selling off that five-figure color copier and learning to love Kinko’s.
[Read the rest of this article -- including resources for negotiating both business and personal debt! -- on Entrepreneur.com.]
February 25th, 2010
If we haven’t seen each other yet this year, now’s the time. Join me as I cohost a mediabistro party for Seattle media professionals next week. Not a resident of Washington state? Not to worry. I’m sharing tips during a teleseminar on February 16. All you need is a phone. And finally, I invite you to bid farewell to March with a day chock full of seminars to help you navigate the freelance terrain during these challenging economic times. Event details follow.
Mediabistro cocktail party – Tuesday, February 9
When: 7 to 9 pm
What: Cocktail party for media professionals – freelance, staff, and those between jobs. Admission free; cash bar. I’m cohosting with freelancer Crai Bower.
Where: Grey Gallery & Lounge, 1512 11th Avenue, Seattle
RSVP: On mediabistro’s website
NOTE: The above party could use a volunteer to help the photographer jot down photo captions. Great opportunity for students and new freelancers who want to meet people in the media business. Email me if interested.
“Getting Started as a Freelancer” teleseminar – Tuesday, February 16
When: 9 pm EST
What: I’ll share tips on how to start a freelance career. Come with questions! I’ve got answers.
Where: Your telephone
Registration: IndieBizChicks.com; $10 for the entire IndieBizChicks Feb-March teleseminar series (my session + many others)
The Marketing Conference for Creative Freelancers: Finding and Keeping Work in a Tough Economy - Saturday, March 27
When: 8 am to 5:30 pm
What: In my session “Diversify or Starve! How to Stay Busy in a Tough Freelance Market,” I’ll discuss how to identify markets that are a natural extension of your skills, break into them, and promote yourself like crazy.
Where: Bastyr University, 14500 Juanita Drive NE, Kenmore
Sponsor: Tabby Cat Communications
Registration: $75 for entire conference; more info here
February 8th, 2010
In 2002, Marty Metro ditched corporate America to sell used moving boxes. Customers flooded his eco-friendly Los Angeles store, and Metro rushed to open three more locations, hopeful he’d soon be franchising the business throughout the country.
Only thing was, Metro couldn’t figure out how to turn a profit.
“The sales weren’t the problem,” he explains. “It was the operational costs. We couldn’t get the boxes, inventory them, store them and sell them in a way that actually made money.”
Three years later, Metro’s green business was still in the red and he was forced to shutter it. Saddled with $300,000 of personal debt, he found himself selling his office furniture on the sidewalk and back on the market for a day job.
While some would be discouraged, Metro doesn’t consider his failed business a waste of time or money. The lessons learned, skills acquired and contacts made have since served him well. So well, in fact, that he raised enough venture capital to re-launch in 2006 as UsedCardboardBoxes.com–a web-based version of his original business.
Like Metro, you may not walk away from a venture with any cash in pocket. But that doesn’t mean you’ll leave empty-handed.
[Read the rest of this article on Entrepreneur.com.]
February 4th, 2010
So you’ve had enough of your rotten boss or the hideous job market and decided to give freelancing a whirl. Congratulations. But before you settle into your SpongeBob slippers and turn to the day’s project deadlines, ask yourself this: How’s business? Be honest. Are you bringing in enough work? Making enough money to meet your expenses–and your saving goals? Happy with your current client lineup–or frantically nabbing any project within spitting distance for fear it will be your last?
If your freelance business has yet to meet your expectations, don’t fret. With a little strategy and planning, this could be the year you get there. Here’s how.
Track Your Time
Sure, many freelancers get paid by the project, day, week, month, word, session or click. But it’s helpful to do the math and see what your efforts are yielding per hour. This applies to all indie workers, whether you’re a writer, designer, photographer, programmer, bookkeeper, virtual assistant, social media expert or project manager. If you’re scarcely clearing minimum wage for that client you thought was such a coup, Houston, we have a problem.
Happily, the web is rife with free tools you can use to track your time per project. Examples: myHours, Slim Timer and Toggl. If the hours show that you’re grossly underpaid, you have two choices: ask for more money or replace the client with one that actually pays a living wage.
[Read the rest of this article on Entrepreneur.com.]
February 2nd, 2010
By popular demand, I give you my online class for rookie and veteran freelance writers on how to handle clients from hell:
“Dealing with Nightmare Clients” is a four-week online course – starting Friday, February 5! — sponsored by the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA). Although I’ll be delivering the lessons right to your inbox, you can follow along from anywhere, at your own pace, even if your own pace means working through the lessons at 3 a.m. on a weekend.
In this class, I’ll discuss how to tame those beastly clients and editors who seem all too happy to stiff you, mess with your deadlines, and contact you at all hours of the night. Specifically, you’ll learn how to:
- Chase down MIA payments and ensure you don’t get stiffed in the future
- Handle runaway revisions and keep scope creep at bay
- Deal with clients who are always late with deliverables
- Set firmer boundaries with editors, project managers, and creative directors
- Bolster your contracts with clauses that can help prevent scope creep, deadline changes, and late payments
- Determine whether a troublesome client relationship is salvageable
Since we can all learn from one another’s trials and tribulations, I’ll devote the last session of the class to answering all your burning questions about any nightmare clients you’ve been dealing with. Additional details about the class:
When: Fridays, February 5 – 26 (four online sessions).
Where: Your computer. Each lesson will arrive in your inbox (also accessible via Yahoo Groups on the web), which means you can follow along on your own time.
Cost: Editorial Freelancers Association members $134; nonmembers $159.
Register: On the EFA website.
Questions? Feel free to email me.
January 13th, 2010
Previous Posts
