Freelancing
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Contents |
[edit] Self-Management
Freelancing offers unique challenges and opportunities in self-management. By working on your own clock you can implement extra time saving measures and boost your productivity. But you can also face unique challenges as more flexibility requires more self-discipline.
[edit] Timing
Deadlines are going to be a part of your work as a freelancer. Few clients are going to expect you to finish work "when it gets done." Finishing work on time is one of the best assets you can have as a freelancer and it is a quality sought after in complex fields where timing is difficult.
Here are some tips to ensure you stay on track:
- Break down deadlines further - You may be given three months to complete a project, but you should set personal deadlines every few days. Long deadlines aren't meaningful unless they've been broken down into isolated chunks.
- Communicate regularly - Sending ten e-mails a day isn't productive, but inform clients when problems may create setbacks. Keeping them informed will ensure that they can prepare for any schedule adjustments that need to be made.
- Do hard work first - Get tricky elements of a project done as soon as possible. This will reduce the chances that work needs to be redone.
[edit] Productivity
Time-management, energy management and GTD are just a few of the systems people use to get more done. Although a PhD in every productivity hack won't help you, having a general understanding of yourself does. Productivity really means understanding what motivates you, what causes you to procrastinate and what works in helping you complete work.
Self-understanding requires both experience and experimentation. Experience, because without having done enough similar work before you can't anticipate what it will take to complete. Experimentation, because without trying new methods of working you can't assume your current ones are optimal. I used to work with music in the background. Through experimentation I found it slowed me down too much.
[edit] Work/Life Balance
Work/Life blending is a common problem I see in new entrepreneurs and the self-employed. It happens when work fills up your entire life. You love what you do, so you spend all your waking hours trying to work towards it. This also happens because new enterprises can be fragile in the beginning so you feel the need to put all your hours in to stay afloat.
This hurts you for two reasons:
- Your efficiency drops to the point where you are getting little more done working 12 hour days than you would working eight.
- Your energy drops from a lack of rest and relaxation pushing you towards and early burnout.
The first cure for this problem is to maintain a firm work/life distinction. If you are working full time as a freelancer or entrepreneur, this means setting aside specific hours for work. Outside those hours you can't do anything that isn't an emergency. Within those hours, complete nothing but work.
This strategy has limits because some flexibility in scheduling is often required. But it can be a quick measure to save your sanity.
Another method is to simply inject more personal activities into your routine. Going to the gym, attending Toastmasters, meeting with friends, watching a favorite television show or reading a book are all activities you can inject to ensure your work doesn't expand out of proportion.
[edit] Discipline
Along with productivity is self-discipline. This is the ability to wake yourself early in the morning, complete the work you need to do and stay focused during longer hours. Discipline is developed through training and time. If you struggle to focus after two hours, set a goal to focus for two and a half hours. Build discipline like a muscle.
Here are some more tips for enhancing your discipline:
- Make habits - The more consistent your routine the easier it is to follow.
- Cut distractions - Make work the only thing that can occupy your attention. Unplug the phone, turn of twitter or even hang a "Do Not Disturb" on your door if you have to.
- Measure - Record your progress, amount of work accomplished or time spent on critical tasks. What is measured will improve.
[edit] Organization
Organization is critical for a freelancer. You need to keep track of statements, work delivered, tasks and schedules. I am by no means the model of perfection, but if you nature is complete chaos, here are some tips for keeping everything ordered.
Start with a full clean-out. "Spring cleaning" sessions will be less frequent the better your organizational skills are, but they are always necessary when going from disarray. Give yourself a few hours and give everything a home. Organize tasks, schedules, projects and your office so they display some semblance of order.
A full clean-out isn't enough. Without taking further action it will quickly degrade into a complete mess again. To fix that you need to implement simple systems for storing things. Dave Allen's Getting Things Done offers a great system for organization. My system is even more basic:
- Notepad to store ideas and events wherever I am.
- Calendar to schedule activities.
- To-Do List for any one-off activities.
- Goals Binder. Includes all my deadlines for activities to keep me focused.
I also have separate folders to handle my finances, bills and documents. Find a simple solution that works for you. The more effective your system is, the less spillover waste. Since spillover waste creates huge messes in the first place, creating an effective system saves you time doing huge "spring clean-outs."
[edit] Human Resources
So you've decided to bring in some outside help on a big project you're working on. Turning solo efforts into team ones isn't as simple as a few e-mails and signing a check. I've used outside help for many of my projects varying from paid contractors, volunteer contributors and even organizing small teams to work on minimal tasks. These efforts can yield big rewards, but they can also create big headaches if you aren't prepared.
[edit] Switching from a Solo to Team Mindset
Many projects start out as personal ones and then shift to multi-person efforts. You could write a book and decide you need to bring on a publishing agent, cover designer or editor. As a blog you are working on grows you may hire a web-designer or pay freelancers to write articles. Some software projects may start between one or two people but later include dozens as people from different disciplines are brought in.
The biggest problem with the shift is changing your mindset. Many people excel at self-management but lack the skills to effectively delegate and outsource to other people. This results in feeling if they want a job done right, it must be done by themselves.
[edit] Management Basics
Here are the distinctions that need to be made when switching from a solo to a team mindset. Although self-management is similar to managing others, productive workers can get away with poor self-communication or clarity while productive managers never can.
[edit] Be Explicit
Poor communication will ruin any attempts to delegate work. The most common problems you will find when communicating work to another person are:
- Deadlines are vague or unclear. The other person should know exactly when or with what rate and frequency work is to be delivered. This is true of volunteer positions as well. Don't assume that outsourced work will take an average length of time.
- Results are undefined. What level of quality do you expect? What is the desired outcome of the relationship? Be specific or you will get back work that is completely different than what you asked for. Define hard elements such as functionality, scope or target precisely and do your best to convey softer elements such as design, feel or style.
- Broader goals aren't communicated. Obviously you are hiring or delegating someone to reach a larger goal. You might be redesigning a website to focus on your target audience or to handle more traffic. You may be hiring an artist to give your multimedia software a specific style or feel. Without communicating these broader goals, the contractor may give you work unsuitable for them.
Communication is about precision, not breadth. You shouldn't require hundreds of e-mails or hours of consultation to decide on a color scheme. Poor communication takes the same amount of time as great communication does. Word your requests and information clearly so there is less room misunderstanding.
[edit] Pick Your Battles
Feedback is another source of problem for the would-be delegator. Too little feedback and you won't be able to fine tune the results you are getting. Too much feedback and you can overwhelm workers and get them to focus on unnecessary details.
When giving feedback remember to pick your battles. Offer feedback to improve the elements that really matter, and avoid nitpicking about smaller issues - especially early on. Whether you like the font of a website design isn't as important as whether the navigation fits your needs or the proper information is displayed.
Put some trust in your contractors. Assuming you hired someone who knows what they are doing, give them flexibility to make decisions. You might have had a different mental picture for the look of your new logo, but the designer you've hired has probably done hundreds. Trusting her judgement to make smaller decisions allows you to utilize her expertise.
Keep your communication loop tight as the project is starting. The right corrections in feedback early on can mean a lot less revision later.
[edit] Give a Test Project
Freelancers and volunteers for positions will vary. Some may be prompt and respond well to feedback. Others might ignore deadlines and fail to meet your needs. You might hire contractors where the work you are offering is outside their expertise and the result is substandard.
You can't predict performance from an e-mail. I've had to learn this the hard way by cancelling arrangements with people who simply couldn't perform. The first e-mail between someone who is great and someone who is poor may be indistinguishable. Trying to judge character from a few lines of text or even an in-person interview is foolish.
Instead, give them a test project. Isolate a small chunk of work and ask them to finish it. Tell them you want to do a small project before negotiating a larger contract. If you are hiring a website designer, ask them to design you a landing page. Hiring a freelance writer, ask for a few articles. Getting a programmer? Get them to make you a few functions or a simple prototype.
The key with giving a test project is not to measure on quality. Most freelancers or people you hire will have a portfolio. You should already have an idea of the kind of work they can deliver from the onset.
Instead you want to measure three things:
- Promptness. Did they deliver what you wanted, when you wanted it? If you sense that they have trouble managing their time early on, don't waste yours. A great freelancer isn't worth anything if they can't deliver when you need it.
- Understand your needs. How well did they understand what you wanted? Although this is based mostly on your communication and not theirs, some workers can easily detect your needs.
- Coachable. Can they be directed by feedback? Few freelancers are complete prima donna's who throw tantrums at any suggestions for improvement. But some might take your suggestions and fail to act on them in a meaningful way.
[edit] Finance
Money is a critical issue to the budding freelancer. Unlike regular employment where you received a check each month, taxes neatly deducted and overhead payed by your company, you're on your own. Extra work to ensure you have enough money to feed yourself, give the government its cut and a healthy profit, is the price of your added freedom.
[edit] Method of Pricing
There are many different opinions on how you should price your services. Some freelancers use an hourly rate, others base their rate on the quantity provided.
Using an hourly rate has a few advantages. First of all it can take the guesswork out of projects that are flexible. Instead of trying to predict how long it will take to finish an amount of work, you get billed by the hours afterwards. Another advantage is that it becomes easier to predict your annual salary. If you work 2000 billable hours per year, you can quickly calculate your annual income.
However there are reasons you might want to choose a rate based on quantity instead. This could be payment for a volume of words written as a writer, artwork components for a designer or entire projects for a software engineer.
The advantages of this approach is that you can make the cost clear to any prospective client up front. This will mean less speculation on how long you expect the project to take. Another advantage is that by basing rate on production and not time, you give yourself more flexibility to more efficiently produce work.
[edit] How Much Should I Charge?
There are three main ways you can calculate your wages.
- A top-down approach
- A bottom-up approach
- A negotiation approach
A top-down approach is to calculate what you want your annual salary to be. Use this plus any overhead you incur as the basis for pricing. Here is an example:
Personal Income: $50 000 (Including taxes) Overhead: $30 000 Billable Hours: 40 hrs. per week, for 50 weeks per year = 2000 hrs.
Hourly wage = (50 000 + 30 000) / 2000 = $40 per hour
The problem with a top-down approach is that this may not represent optimal or possible payment. Clients may be willing to pay more, or your expected wage might be too high for them to afford.
A bottom-up approach looks at the value of your work fitting into expected goals. This is not as straightforward a calculation. However, it can offer you a better idea of your real worth. Determine how the client would use your work, and then make an estimation on what the perceived value that is.
If you are a speaker or trainer for managers, figuring out what the potential value you have to a company of a few thousand employees can help you determine a wage that is fair. Figuring out the wage offered by other freelancers in your industry can give you a range of values that is normal.
The problem with this approach is that it can be hard to work out a specific number. Worse, some industries expect a huge profit from your work, where others may even incur a temporary loss to hire you.
The negotiation approach is to discuss prices with the client until you can reach the highest price possible. This approach can work if you are in a competitive industry where your labor isn't a commodity. But some industries don't allow for this and a great deal of negotiating skill is required to pull this off. Few clients will let you go "fishing" for potential wages.
No approach is perfect, but a combination of all three can help you value your work and stay well-fed.
[edit] Taxes
The government wants its cut. Remember to put aside some of your income towards paying taxes once a year. Unless your freelancing is minimal and regular sources of income can protect against a surprising bump in tax requirements, you are probably best to get an accountant. That way you can give your monthly bills to them and know how much to set aside.
This article does not constitute legal or financial advice, so see an expert.
[edit] Calculate Your Burn Rate
Prospective entrepreneurs and freelancers should be familiar with the term "burn rate." It can mean the difference between a healthy business and needing to get a job.
Simply put, your burn rate is how long you can live on your savings before you go bankrupt. I would recommend finding work before going into debt, but if the situation requires it you may want to add credit to the value in your burn rate.
Say you are an especially frugal and your monthly expenses are only $1100. Between rent or a mortgage, car payments and utilities even the cheapest miser has to spend money to live. Now if you have $5500 in the bank your burn rate is easy to calculate:
5500/1100 = 5 months.
This means without any new clients or sales you have five months before you need to get a job. Keeping this number in mind is a good way to stay above water and avoid accumulating expensive debt that could sabotage any future efforts for self-employment.
You should always have a couple months of income in the bank saved, even if work is relatively stable. Especially when you are just getting your footing, having a longer burn rate means you have more time to find new clients or make sales.
[edit] Project Management
Quality, consistency and timely are the qualities that most clients look for when hiring a freelancer. But being able to produce quality work, on time, consistently, is a rare skill. Beyond just managing yourself you need to be able to manage your projects and workload to get things done while still having a life.
[edit] Finding Your Pace
Timing is crucial in project management. If you can't meet your deadlines or work gets done improperly to finish fast you probably won't be getting repeat business. Writers and artists shouldn't have too much problem estimating the time they need to complete. Whereas programmers or designers may come up with unforseen bugs and complications that can expand deadlines.
The only way you can accurately predict the time you need is to know your pace. Having experience doing work before can give you an idea of how long it will take in the future. If it takes you two hours to write an article, you can use that as a basis for setting deadlines.
Be honest with yourself and potential clients about the time you need. Setting a tighter deadline will only make you seem irresponsible if you can't meet up with it.
[edit] Evolving To-Do Lists
Most larger projects involve a to-do list. Creating a website, building a piece of software or writing an e-book contains multiple steps. Before you start, it is a good idea to create a simple list of all the major tasks that need to be completed.
Unless your project is routine, your to-do list will need to evolve. Client feedback, unforseen problems or new opportunities may change what needs to be done. Keep your to-do list handy and make updates to it every few days. This will reflect changes that have occurred since you started and give you an accurate picture.
[edit] Coordinating Efforts
If you are working with a team or collaborating with another freelancer, your project needs to be far more organized to prevent a meltdown. Here are some tips on how to keep everyone organized:
- Have a central planning tool. This could be as simple as a whiteboard or collective website. Let everyone update information as they complete it so everyone knows the status of the final project.
- Know your dependant work. Know what aspects of your work are dependant on the progress of other team members. Coordinate to match schedules, and switch to independent work if they stall.
[edit] Handling Client
All professional relationships are a form of trade. If you are a freelancer, you are trading your skills for payment. If you operate a business, you trade the ability to produce goods and services for money. Even writing a blog involves the trade of information for attention, advertising revenue or affiliate sales.
Successful trading requires that you fulfill the needs of the person you are trading with. The better you can satisfy needs, the larger your personal reward in the trade.
As a freelancer, your job is to satisfy the needs of a client. Work to fulfill not only the specifications of your contract, but going the extra mile and helping them reach there goals. If you are in business for yourself, your job is to satisfy the needs of your customers. Identifying those needs and finding ways to fulfill them will ensure that your business thrives and your income rises.
Here are some steps you can take to ensure you are fulfilling the needs of clients and customers and give you new ideas for increasing the value you offer:
[edit] Know Explicit Needs
Explicit needs are the ones a client tells you he has. If you sign a contract to maintain a piece of software, maintenance is an explicit need. Freelancers and employees will usually be given many explicit needs that they need to fulfill. Entrepreneurs and business owners often have less explicit needs to use when serving customers.
The first way to fulfill needs is simply to do what you are told. This will result in fairly standard performance. Unless the explicit demands placed on you are unusually high or all your competition is incompetent, this probably won't make you stand out. To enhance your value, you need to delve into implicit needs.
[edit] Implicit Needs
Implicit needs are the ones that a client or customer might not tell you she has, but are still there. There are many reasons that all needs of the client aren't made explicit:
- Worried about overloading you. Clients may keep your task list simple so you won't overload yourself. Customers may not request particular feedback because they don't see it as critical.
- Legal ease. Clients may not want to create hundreds of pages into your contract to cover every possible need. Simplicity may mean true needs are disguised.
- It's, "Not your job." You may have talents that extend beyond your narrow obligations, but you might not be expected to use them. People may like cooked food in a grocery store, but have come to expect that it isn't the grocery's job to cook their food.
- Don't realize they have it. Implicit needs may be invisible even to the person themselves. A website owner may not realize options available to him for extending his profile. Customers may not realize the potential services you can offer.
[edit] Focusing on Quality
Covering implicit needs means focusing on delivering quality. Do the best job you are capable of. Few people will forgive shoddy work or broken products.
But even quality has an upper limit. Unless you have a particularly unique skill or service, there will be hundreds of people that can do the same job as you. Even delivering your work on schedule and being responsive to feedback won't ensure your value is recognized.
[edit] How to Fulfill Implicit Needs
Start thinking like an entrepreneur. Going beyond just fulfilling your contract and be active in trying to meet the other persons needs.
[edit] Find Their Goals
Start by figuring out what the person wants, not just what they want you to do. Your work needs to fit into a larger picture. Finding the goals will help you tune your work to fit with them. Better yet it will give you a chance to express ideas to improve that go beyond your contract.
If you were hired to do the artwork for a computer game, find out what they need the artwork for. Ask them about their goals for the game in general. Ask them who their expected audience is, how much they plan to sell and what their ambitions are.
[edit] Find Their Problems
Now figure out where they are struggling. In our computer game example, you could start by asking what their biggest problem will be when integrating your work. They might be worried it won't fit the style of other artists, the quality won't match or it isn't flexible enough. Finding genuine problems gives you a new opportunity to help.
[edit] Find Your Added Value Point
Anyone can do a standard job. Quite a few people can do an above average job. To really stand out you need to do a remarkable job. One that isn't just good, but defies expectations to be worth talking about.
An added value point is your secret weapon. It might take you an extra three hours to go up 10% in quality. That's fine, but it isn't worth talking about. Invest that time in a place it will be noticed. A web-designer could add in a few elements so the navigation can be changed easily without distorting the design. A programmer could add extra features to make integration smoother.
Going out of your way to do something unique and valuable will ensure you are worth talking about. When you are worth talking about you can get referrals and expect higher fees. Find one or two points your job that aren't required but fulfill needs.
[edit] Legal matters
Legal matters can be tricky for a new freelancer. With contracts full of the usual "forthwith"'s, "heretofore"'s and "herein"'s and other legalese gibberish, getting past the contract can be tricky. Here are some things to consider before drafting a contract or putting your autograph on the dotted line:
-This article in no way constitutes legal advice, and you should contact a contract lawyer to determine what specific laws apply to freelancing arrangements in your area--
[edit] Contracts are Based on Relationships
The first purpose of a contract is to communicate. If you need to take your contractor to court over some misunderstood detail of the contract, it has already failed. Beyond setting a legal framework, your contract should communicate clearly what is expected of everyone involved.
Although there may be more legal significance to a piece of paper than just a handshake, they are both based on the same idea. Mutual trust and awareness that everyone involved understands their part in the contract. For the freelancer this means knowing exactly what, when and how he is supposed to deliver work. For the client this means knowing exactly what the work can be used for, how much payment will be and by what deadline.
A contract is only a piece of paper. It's a backup in case communication breaks down. Before signing anything, you should be certain that both parties fully understand what is involved, not just what is written down on paper.
[edit] Basics of a Contract
Here are some basic elements of a contract that should be involved:
[edit] Parties Involved
The contract should make clear who is involved. A contract could
[edit] Description of Services Rendered
The contract should clearly demonstrate what services are to be performed and to what specifications. Articles, graphics, composed music or coaching all need to be outlined in specific terms. The contract should state in objective terms what constitutes a unit of completed work. If the contract is for a continuous project, it should be explicit about what the ending conditions are to signify completion of that project.
[edit] Payment
Second only to the services rendered in importance is payment. How is payment to be made, what is the deadline for payment and what the penalties for late payment are all good questions the contract should answer.
[edit] Usage of Content
Under what terms is the content to be used. Most online resources I surveyed suggested that it is extremely unwise for any budding freelancer to accept a contract where they receive payment only if their content is used. This could mean signing a contract where payment is only offered if the article gets published or if a particular amount of revenue is earned.
Some contracts allow the client to reject content or ask for it to be resubmitted. If this is the case, the contract should state how many times this can be done and the additional cost for doing so.
[edit] Rights
Your agreement should cover which rights are being purchased, from reprint rights, one-time rights to complete ownership of the content. This agreement should also cover the medium these rights apply. If you are a writer, are you allowing the client to publish your works offline, in a newsletter or online?
[edit] NDA
NDA is an acronym standing for Non-Disclosure Agreement. This is included in some contracts and it specifies which parts of your contract and relationship are to be kept private. This could be information you require access to when performing services or the nature of the contract itself.
[edit] Developing Trust as a Freelancer
As I mentioned earlier, contracts are based on relationships and trust. A piece of paper isn't worth much if there isn't trust in the relationship. If you are a freelancer, here are some things to consider to ensure your relationship with a client stays on solid grounds:
- Deliver work on time. As someone who has both hired and fired contractors for chronic lateness, being unreliable is a quick way to ruin trust. If you can't deliver something on time, don't promise you can when signing the contract.
- Update regularly. Especially when work is just starting, update frequently with your progress. Don't bombard your client with e-mails, but reassure them that everything is on task or if any complications arise.
[edit] Developing Trust as a Client
Trust goes both ways. Developing trust as a client will ensure anyone you hire can know what to expect from you. In online situations, there is always a certain level of anxiety from knowing what to expect from someone you may never have met before. Here are some things you can do to keep the relationship smooth:
- Pay on time. Nothing kills trust like a client who won't pay their bills. If complications are arising that might make payment difficult, discuss this with anyone you've contracted well before work starts.
- Know what you want. Before you hire a freelancer is the time to examine the type of work they produce. Most freelancers should have a portfolio that demonstrates their capabilities. In more artistic areas such as music, graphics and design this should give you an idea of the type of work they can produce. In more concrete areas like programming it can give you an idea of their competency. Use the portfolio to see if they fit, but don't expect dramatic improvements or flexibility after you've hired them. A fickle client can destroy trust in a relationship.
[edit] IT
Here are some apps and software you might want to consider to help fill your freelancing needs:
Google Calendar (http://www.google.com/calendar/)
A great online tool for scheduling. Not only is it completely free, but calendars are stored on their server space. This means that you and anyone you designate can access your calendar from any computer connected to the internet. I frequently use Google to plan out project deadlines to get a quick view of what needs to be done.
Blinksale (http://www.blinksale.com)
An online tool for sending out invoices and collecting payment from clients. Create invoices with descriptions, payment rates and due dates. Also allows for you to add PayPal addresses so employers can pay you easily through the web.
G-Mail (http://mail.google.com/)
Free online mail accounts with tons of storage. Accessible everywhere and they allow you to send and receive large attachment files.
Ta-Da List (http://www.tadalist.com/)
A free online to-do list manager. A great compliment to Google Calendar for tasks that don't have a specific deadline but still need to get done. Paper and pen work great, but if you're trying to keep your project information digital, here's a quick solution.
Google Docs (http://docs.google.com/)
Spreadsheets and word documents. Just like Google Calendar you can allow shared access to specific documents. A great idea if you want to communicate between project members without clogging inboxes. If you're a writer like myself, it can also function as a portable word processor allowing you to work on documents anywhere.
Linked-In (http://www.linkedin.com/)
Social networking for adults, linked in is the business equivalent of popular social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Great for keeping tabs on colleagues and making new connections to keep your business thriving.
Wesabe (http://www.wesabe.com/)
From their homepage: "Wesabe is a community site that makes managing your money easy. Enjoy secure access to all your accounts, painless tools for taking control of your money and reaching your goals, and members' tips and discussions to help you find the best values."
PayPal (https://www.paypal.com/)
Effortless payments. Two words that describe what PayPal offers for you and clients. Most of my income streams go directly through PayPal without the messy need for checks, money orders or credit cards. You can set up an account for free and transfer money into your bank account, accept and make payments for almost nothing.
Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/)
Still using Internet Explorer? Aside from the low-cost (Firefox is free) it also fixes many of the bugs that plague Microsoft's alternative. I've been using Firefox for several years now and I can't even think about switching back.
OpenOffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org/)
Free, open-source apps to replace the costly Microsoft alternatives. Spreadsheets, powerpoint, documents and almost all your basic software needs for free. I'm a fan of Impress, OO's alternative to PowerPoint which also includes an option to make .pdf files if you want to skip over Adobe too.
Pandora (http://www.pandora.com/)
Okay... This one isn't strictly for freelancing. But who doesn't want to listen to something while they're churning out code or a new article? Pandora offers free music which you can tailor to your preferences.
