I have a lot of mom friends who have decided to leave the typical workforce after having children.

With daycare being as expensive as it is these days, many of these moms didn’t make enough money in their jobs (a couple of them were teachers) to make daycare worth it. Working just to put your child (or children) in daycare can be frustrating—but many moms don’t want to quit their careers to stay home with their kids. I hear that!

But sometimes the numbers don’t add up, and many 9-5 working mothers are left feeling as if they are spinning their wheels. Starting a freelance career suddenly sounds like the best way to keep a healthy work-life balance. And sometimes having kids is just the thing a mom needs in order to make the leap.

There was a recent blog post on The New York Times that asked “Is There a ‘Right’ Time for a Mom to Start a Business?” The author interviewed a mother, Laura Kelly, in Pennsylvania who had opened a shop that offered sewing and knitting classes for children. Kelly always knew she wanted to run her own business, and wanting to provide crafts for her kids gave her the edge she needed to start her own company.

Here are a couple of questions from the blog that I particularly liked:

Q. Do you think that women business owners face different challenges than men?

A. I think women feel like they need to take care of everything in the family; the kids, husband, groceries, cooking, cleaning, birthday gifts, paying bills, etc. I’m not sure that men with families feel the same way.

Q. Does it bother you that women tend to get asked about work-life balance more than men do?

A. No, it doesn’t bother me, but I have a husband that does laundry and dishes — and so much more — so I have nothing to be bitter about. I just feel fortunate.

When asked if there was a “right” time for a mom to start a business, Kelly replied that what worked for her might not work for other moms. She started slowly, when the kids were small, and her business grew as they did.

This interview got me thinking about what sorts of things moms need to consider before starting their own freelancing business. Here’s what I came up with: Continue Reading

Your reputation as a freelancer is pretty much the only thing you have to go on — your bread and butter.

And your reputation is generally based on two things: the quality of your work, and how well you meet deadlines.

Today, we’ll focus on meeting deadlines, as that’s the area that many freelancers have problems with. Sure, you can do great work, but if you don’t turn your projects in on time, you won’t get many repeat customers.

1. Care about deadlines. This is the first step, as many people are very lax about deadlines. You have to be very serious about meeting them, and make them a priority. And make breaking a deadline a cardinal sin in your freelance book. Once you’ve done this step, the rest is just logistics.

2. Keep a list of projects & deadlines. If you care about deadlines, you’ll write them down, and have one place that you check often to make sure you know what’s due and when. I use a simple online list, but you could use paper. Which tool you use doesn’t matter, as long as you use it. Continue Reading

I make a point of getting on the phone, going out to lunch, even traveling to see other freelancers. It’s a good business habit to get into and it pays off well. There are a lot of reasons why you should spend your time with other freelancers — doing so is making an investment in your freelance career.

1. Other Freelancers Earn You Money

Landing projects is probably the best reason for a freelancer to do anything. Your fellow freelancers are a great source of projects, for a variety of reasons:

• Clients ask the freelancers they trust for recommendations for help with other types of projects.
• Some freelancers subcontract out parts of the projects they take on.
• Freelancers often refer projects they pass on to other freelancers who are a better fit.

Honestly, it’s not as common as we think for freelancers to compete with one another for projects. Sure, if you and another freelancer do roughly the same thing, you may go head to head on a few proposals. But there are a lot of referrals passed around and a lot of work gets divided between multiple freelancers. Other freelancers can be a major source of income. Continue Reading

Online employment is skyrocketing across the globe, according to a recent study by Elance, an international platform for online employment. Even the most skeptical would be hard-pressed not to notice the change in the numbers from the first quarter of 2012 to the same time last year.

The Elance Global Online Employment Report for Q1 2012 shows lots of upward pointing graphs. From jobs posted to contractor earnings, the numbers go up and up and up. In fact, both earnings and jobs posted have more than doubled in the past two years.

Elance also tracked the top skills in demand for the following three categories: Creative, Marketing, and IT. Here are the changes from Q1 of 2011:

Creative: +32%

• Web Design +101%
• Photoshop +71%
• Graphic Design +70%
• Video Production +68%
• Content Writing +56%

Marketing: +22%

• SEM +65%
• Internet Marketing +49%
• Social Media Marketing +41%
• Marketing Strategy +41%
• Lead Generation +39%

IT: +14%

• Android +35%
• PHP +33%
• JavaScript +31%
• HTML +29%
• CSS +29%

Some of the trends they found include: Continue Reading

A lot of freelancers get excited about international clients these days. But you can create a niche for yourself as someone local — a freelancer just down the street who is happy to meet in person with clients. For those prospective clients who want to make sure that they get a chance to get to know who they’re working with, working with a local freelancer can be worth a premium over working with someone who is only accessible online.

But if you’re going to promote yourself as the local solution, there are some facts that you need to know about.

The Always On Call Problem

Some clients are bad about considering you always on call — but when you’re in a different time zone, you at least get a reprieve when they have to go to bed. When you’re just around the corner, it can be easier for a client to be constantly asking for more. Of course, this isn’t just a problem for local freelancers, though it is certainly worse.

After all, if a client halfway around the planet has your address, it’s unlikely that he’ll just show up one day. I’ve had local clients who have wanted to see where I work, had a question and were ‘in the area’, and otherwise wind up on my front stoop. Continue Reading

The fact that you can learn anything from John Mayer might surprise you, but I learned a lot about how you can ruin your reputation through social media and interviews in this NPR interview with the musician on All Things Considered this afternoon.

I have to admit, I am not a John Mayer fan. He bothers me. I can’t stand to watch him sing. And after a couple of nitty gritty interviews in 2010—one for Rolling Stone and one for Playboy—I didn’t like what I heard, either.

In Mayer’s interview with Playboy, he made racial comments, talked about his sex life with his famous exes, and made homosexual comments—all of which made the public scream Too Much Information! Continue Reading

Do you dream of quitting your job and going it on your own? Not so fast. Building a freelance business while working a full-time job is difficult.

It is possible though with some juggling and creativity. You’ve got creativity in spades though, right? That — and a fierce sense of independence — are the likely culprits that drew you to freelancing.

Before you ditch your day job, use those creative muscles to find ways to build your freelancing business while you continue to earn your full-time paycheck.

Looking to make part-time freelancing a way of life, rather than a temporary way to build your clients and savings account before going full-time? These secrets will definitely work for you too. Continue Reading

One of the biggest challenges for freelancers just starting out is how to get more press and publicity for their business with few funds. As a one-person shop, you can’t spend a fortune employing your own PR rep or a marketing guru.

There are several D-I-Y strategies you can implement to generate positive publicity. What are PR opportunities for your freelance business? You may think PR is only for big companies, but even small freelance shops can benefit from taking advantage of newsworthy opportunities happening in your business, market, and industry.

Here are five ways to create PR opportunities for your freelance business.

1. Send press releases to relevant media outlets.

Drafting a press release is the easy part. Read tips for crafting the perfect press release. But before you write one, consider factors such as what industry you’re in and determine what the key trade publications and media outlets are in your industry.

As an example, if you’re a photographer that specializes in weddings and family events, then you need to draft separate press releases– perhaps one for a wedding or bridal magazine, and another one for parenting magazines. You’ll need to do some research for each publication, finding the relevant news team or section editor. When you write or call them, make sure you sell your story by getting to the point of how a mention of your services in a story would be of interest to the publication’s reading audience. Continue Reading

There have been many blog posts here about how you, as a freelancer, can give your clients great customer service and why it’s important. Let’s turn the tables for a minute and focus on how you, as a freelancer, can get better customer service.

When you are a freelancer, you don’t have a boss you can go complain to when something has happened to you. Maybe you were double charged when ordering something online or you had a terrible experience flying business class. As a freelancer, you run your own business, which means dealing with your own vendors.

As someone who owns a company, I have a lot of people I have to pay and deal with on a regular basis, including: my internet service provider, phone company, the lenders who let me borrow money for my small business, my credit and debit card companies, the web design team, and the woman hired to manage the distribution of our magazine.

Other people I deal with on a less frequent basis include the tech dude who helps with computer problems and issues with our printer/copier/fax machine. I also have a bookkeeper who manages the books and helps with the taxes. There’s also a lawyer thrown in there for good measure.

When you think about it—that’s a lot of people! And I’m not even mentioning the car repair guy (I drive a lot), the United States Postal Service (I mail a lot of stuff), and the stores where I buy supplies.

A freelancer’s life is stressful (look at all these bills!) and we have to deal with lots and lots of people. So what can you do when you feel like you aren’t getting the customer service you deserve and expect? Below are some tips on how you, as a customer, can get better customer service to make running your business a little easier. Continue Reading

As a freelancer, you have a lot of issues to juggle – branding yourself being one of the least of your concerns most days. But your brand is a critical piece to your long-term success. You don’t have to engage in a massive marketing overhaul or develop a full-tilt brand management plan to take advantage of the power of branding.

The key is to approach your personal brand from the perspective of your clients and customers. How do you want them to perceive you? This article focuses on techniques and concepts to consider as you develop your own brand that you can leverage for long-term success.

Continue Reading

Did you have a favorite Dr. Seuss book growing up? I sure did. It was Green Eggs and Ham. I could read that book over and over and never get tired of it.

But beyond the “Whos” and “Thing-a-ma-Jiggers” is an author with more advice relevant to freelancing than most.

Known by Dr. Seuss for his delightful and whimsical children’s books, Theodor Seuss Geisel was also an advertising ace – spending his early career in the advertising industry.

Urging us to keep moving forward, to learn a lot, and not to worry – here are just a few of the fun and insightful quotes from the poet behind classics like, The Cat in the Hat and Horton Hears a Who. Continue Reading

We’re looking for images of your freelance offices to be submitted to our FreelanceSwitch Facebook Group. This is for a post to run on FreelanceSwitch about Real Freelance Offices of FreelanceSwitch Readers in 2012. We’d love to see how your office looks.

Here are a few home office images we’ve received so far:

When submitting your freelance office photos be sure to include your name and what freelance work you do. We’re looking for 550px wide jpg images for the format.

Upload (or tag) your photo to the FreelanceSwitch Facebook group to participate.