Drew Turney on Freelancing

Jan 14, 2009 50 Words Leave a comment

Drew says…

Doing the actual work once you get it is the easy part. Particularly in the early stages of your freelance career (the first few years, not the first month), every project you get is like going for a job interview and getting hired by a company over and over again. You¹ll be hired for who you are, not just what you can do, so sell yourself and be prepared to be ’switched on’ a lot of the time in order to do it.

About Drew
A graphic designer and web developer by trade, Drew capitalised on his knowledge of technology in the creative field to launch a freelance journalism career, also specialising in his other passions of movies and book publishing.

About this Post
This post is one of a series, written by various people within the web industry. They are responses to my request for a maximum of 50 words on the topic of tips for freelance success. You can use the 50 words category to see all the answers so far.

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed!

Taking Time to Plan

Jan 12, 2009 Excerpts Leave a comment

This is an excerpt from the book, The Principles of Successful Freelancing. Sample chapters are available for downloading from this page.

“Failures don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan,” says best-selling author and business motivational speaker, Harvey MacKay.

If you are planning to start freelancing part-time, you should have the time to put together all of the plans and start saving for the just-in-case rainy-day money. On the other hand, if you plan to move straight into full-time freelancing, remember that you’ll have those looming deadlines as soon as you take on projects. Even so, it doesn’t mean that you should ignore planning or preparation.

For most people, the concept of business planning is likely to provoke a jaw-dislocating yawn. However, it’s much more productive to welcome this as an exciting time, where you start to understand where you really want to travel on this freelance path. The world really is your oyster—you’ve made the emotional commitment, perhaps you already have some prospective clients lined up, and you may have already done much of this planning work in the back of your mind. It’s invaluable to take a little time to write these thoughts and plans down, for future reference and as a way to refine and catalogue your thoughts.

Many freelancers and small businesses fail in their first few years, and it’s widely agreed by experts that the number-one reason for such failure is because those business had little or no form of planning. This planning document doesn’t need to be a huge tome of numbers and words; it really is the summation of what you have been thinking, committed to paper.

This document is where you start to list known and unknown areas of your plans, so you can elaborate on them over time. A good business plan is an evolving one, so don’t consider it a chore to be completed in an hour and then stuck in a desk drawer and forgotten about.

There is a myriad of web sites dedicated to sharing templates and ideas about what they consider a great business plan. Perhaps the most important element of a business plan is that you remain actively involved with it. Review it frequently, adjusting and editing it where required—especially during those first few months.

Your plan could be just a few pages, or it could be dozens, but unless you have grand plans to circulate it for investors or financial institutions to read, avoid using buzzwords and reams of useless blue-sky figures. The plan is for your eyes only, so keep it succinct and to the point, and an honest appraisal of the “who, what, when, and how” of your plans.

There are many elaborate methods for writing a solid business plan, but let’s start by creating a text document, and answering what questions we can from the list in Example 1, “Business Planning Questions”. For those questions to which you don’t know the answer yet, just write the question, reminding yourself to add that material as you go.

Remember, plans change, so at this stage your efforts are likely to be more crystal-ball gazing than actual fact. You’ll expand on the plan, filling it out in more detail as you work your way through this book and progress over the first weeks and months of freelancing. And it’s fine to add other notes besides the questions included here—even if they’re rough dot points, the more notes the better!

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed!

First Bookstore Sighting

Jan 9, 2009 Book Leave a comment

The first photograph to make it’s way to me is from long time friend, Kim Davies, who spotted the book in the Barnes & Noble Manhatta Beach store, Manhattan Gateway Shopping Centre, Manhattan Beach, CA.

Strangely, it was located in the ‘Windows & Office Applications’ section, tucked between Excel and Access titles.

Have you seen the book in your local store? Please take a photo and email it to me - it’s a buzz to see the book on shelves around the world.

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed!

Donna Spencer on Freelancing

Jan 7, 2009 50 Words Leave a comment

Donna says…

Time track every work-related activity – client work, admin, business development, training, everything. Time spent on billable activities is helpful for proposals, tracking your admin load lets you decide when to get help and you can keep your eye on all those other non-billable hours. Count in actual minutes – don’t estimate.

About Donna
Donna has been freelancing for Maadmob for 5 years where she does information architecture, interaction design, teaches and writes. She time-tracks every minute of her working day.

About this Post
This post is one of a series, written by various people within the web industry. They are responses to my request for a maximum of 50 words on the topic of tips for freelance success. You can use the 50 words category to see all the answers so far.

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed!

Deciding How Far to Jump

Jan 5, 2009 Excerpts Leave a comment

This is an excerpt from the book, The Principles of Successful Freelancing. Sample chapters are available for downloading from this page.

Now that you’ve made the decision to become a freelancer, we’ve reached the point of short-, medium-, and long-term preparation. If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to jump in running as fast as you can. However, it’s been proven time and again that to ensure the best chance of success, you should expend plenty of effort in planning and preparation. This raises the question of which work mode to begin your freelance life with: full-time or part-time.

If you’re a student nearing the end of your studies, you’ve got a distinct time to work towards. (That said, I recommend that unless you have run a business previously, don’t go freelance straight after graduating—spend some time in employment in your chosen field first, to get those skills polished.) This also applies if your current work is coming to a close—you may be on a fixed-term contract, or the company you’ve been working for is winding up. However, for many people, the entry to freelancing is a case of juggling full-time employment with preparations to exit the rat race.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both situations, and you’ll need to weigh these up carefully. Let’s take a moment to look at some of them.

Freelancing on the Side

There’s a lot to be said for freelancing “on the side,” at least in the beginning:

• This is a great way to test the waters without making that big jump.
• You can spend as much after-hours time as you need on planning your business.
• You can save just-in-case money for as long as it takes for you to feel comfortable before venturing into the unknown.
• You’re able to be choosier with the work you take on, as your salary is still coming in to help with costs.
• If you don’t have any good recent work to show, part-time freelancing allows you to build a great portfolio before you move to full-time.
• The clients you groom now are likely to be with you once you make that leap, helping with immediate cash flow.
• It allows you to take your time to fit out the home office, without blowing your starting budget.
• Freelancing part-time after hours, as well as holding down a full-time position, gives you the authentic taste of a busy week as a freelancer. This can help you determine your ability to cope with that amount of work at any given time.

There are a few disadvantages to this practice, though:

• Depending on your employment contract, you may be restricted from doing work that directly competes with services offered by your employer. It’s best to approach your boss to discuss this.
• Most clients will want to contact you during their workday hours, which tend to be when you’re busy at your full-time gig.
• You lose out on the all-important downtime hours of evenings and weekends. If you attract lots of work, you may end up exhausting yourself trying to work two jobs.
• You’ll be cautious of growing too fast, given you have restricted hours in which to work. It can become tricky trying to keep everyone happy, and you may have to turn down new work in order not to fail existing clients.

Freelancing Full-time

There are some compelling advantages to jumping in with both feet:

• You’ll have the freedom to set up your freelance life, instead of juggling it with a full-time job.
• Full-time start-up mode means that you have plenty of time in which to network, make important contacts, and meet prospects.
• There are no issues with your employer being aggrieved about you working freelance on the side, and you’ll have no hesitation in taking on as many new clients and projects as you can handle.

There are, however, some disadvantages to full-time freelancing straight away:

• Nothing feeds self-doubt more than work failing to come in during those first few weeks.
• The cash drain while you rush around making contacts and courting business can really hurt your back pocket.
• The all-important planning tends to be the first casualty when those projects come in—understandably, you’ll be more interested in taking an opportunity to earn some much-needed money than mapping out your legal business structure.

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed!