Naming Your Freelancing Business – To Personalize or Not? (…with a Poll)
Freelancers are one-person businesses, and as such every freelancer will at some point need a name for their business. There is one question that always pops up, should you personalize your business name or not?
A Personalized Business Name
A Personalised Business Name is one that bears your own name in it. Examples would be things like “Nikolai Anz – Web Application Programmer” or “Ben Morris Design” and so on.
The advantages to a personalized name are that they are easy, often unique (though it depends on your name), descriptive, memorable and usually lend themselves to being Googled. Additionally they tend to lead to easily registrable domain names, something which is becoming more and more important as the domain landscape gets bleaker and domain squatters or just other businesses occupy almost every conceivable name.
12 Breeds of Clients and How to Work with Them
There are loads of different types of clients out there and chances are at some point you’ll get to meet all of them. So let’s take a look through some typical clients and see if you recognize a few of your own in there! Continue Reading
Always Leave Time for the Business of Freelancing
When it’s all quiet on the western front most freelancers will suddenly find they have a lot of time for their business. They sit and think about how to market themselves, check their invoicing is up to date, look for new clients and make sure all those old clients are sitting pretty. When it’s all hands on deck though it is a whole other story. Now everything is focussed on getting the jobs finished on time, on budget. It’s easy to fall into these sorts of habits
I have found that it is best to consistently keep a part of the week that you reserve for your business. You know that old saying ‘work on your business, not in your business’, well it even applies to freelancing. I always set aside Monday mornings for invoicing, and Thursday evening for self promotion. Some weeks I might do more at other times, but these are my bare essentials and it means that I am always on top of admin work (especially billing!) and I promote enough that I don’t need to worry about finding new clients. Try it!
