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

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

I have written case studies for clients, but haven’t implemented this in my own business yet. It is definitely something I’m going to be working on in the coming months.

Why, you may ask? Because a case study, at its root, combines the all-powerful client testimonial with step-by-step details on how you attained a positive outcome. In short, once a prospect sees it, and relates to it, that could mean they contact you for business.

In writing up a case study and posting it on your website, you don’t have to do much to generate a solid lead–one that already knows a little bit about your process and is interested in what you have to offer! Continue Reading

View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at Best Tips to Work Better, Not Harder by Lifehacker. In this video Adam Dachis and Adam Pash show us how to improve our freelance office setup, with ergonomic setup advice, cable management hacks, and processes for sinking your laptop and mobile phones. There’s more tips in this episode, including a hack on how to save money at Starbucks while getting the same caffeine buzz. Continue Reading

Most freelancers are eager for tips and information, turning to forums, classes, and networking for ways to learn and improve. But did you ever consider looking to your canine for some wisdom? Here are a few things your dog knows that just may improve your freelancing life. Continue Reading

If you are a freelancer you most likely have your own website where you showcase your wares. Whether it is a service you offer, a showcase of your talents, or an actual product, video is a great way to engage your clients.

Video allows you to get more personal, it allows you to speak to us one-on-one, and is known to hold the viewer’s attention a bit longer than a page full of text. And because of the few barriers to entry, today producing your own video is easier and cheaper than ever. So, you already have a camera and maybe you’ve started making videos…but are they good videos?

Here are five of the biggest mistakes newbies make with their videos and how to correct these missteps. Continue Reading

View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch. This week we look at The Battle Between Your Present and Future Self by Daniel Goldstein.

In this video learn about commitment devices and other tools. Discover new ways to plan for the future and how to make decisions that have good consequences for our future selves and future freelance businesses. Continue Reading

There are gymnasts, tennis players and other athletes who have been training in their sports for years — if not decades — who wouldn’t dream of working without a coach. Recently, a surgeon in New York decided to see if his work could also benefit from the analysis and suggestions of a coach. His answer was yes — which, in turn, leads me to wonder if freelancers can benefit from working with coaches.

A brief search turns up a few different types of coaches who make it clear that they work with freelancers. A lot of them fall into a sort of life coaching category: they are effectively cheerleaders there to work with freelancers who need more of a support structure than they may be getting elsewhere. That’s all well and good, but that’s not the type of coach I’m talking about. Continue Reading

Engagement From Scratch! is a classic tale of learning from other peoples’ mistakes. Thirty professional bloggers prove that hindsight really is 20/20. And you can benefit from their advice thanks to Danny Iny.

I was pretty pumped that I was asked by FreelanceSwitch to preview this book. I had previously written a review for this site on Danny Iny’s online marketing course through his business, Firepole Marketing. I thought Iny’s product was really interesting and provided a lot of great tools, so I was interested to delve into Engagement From Scratch!

The premise is simple. Iny asked 30 bloggers from the very big (Brian Clark of copyblogger.com and Guy Kawasaki) to the up-and-coming (Onibalusi Bamidele from youngprepro.com) what they would do if they had to build a following all over again.

The overarching themes these bloggers shared were pretty straightforward, and nothing you probably don’t already know, such as:

• Be yourself.
• Comment on other blogs thoughtfully.
• Create great content.
• Know who your audience is.
• Find or create your niche.
• It’s not the size of your audience that matters, it’s how engaged they are.
• Write guest posts for other bloggers and have them write for you.

As I read through each essay, I’d nod my head, take some notes for this blog post, and read on. And I listened. I finally listened. Continue Reading

Credit: Charleston's TheDigitel on Flickr

Freelancers have long been drawn to coworking spaces because of the opportunities to network and work alongside others from different or complementary industries and creative fields, sharing the working space and resources. However, what sets coworking apart from mere shared office space is its focus on building community and collaboration.

One of coworking’s selling points is the wealth of knowledge that you can get working among a diverse group of people with different skill sets, backgrounds, and experiences

One of coworking’s selling points is the wealth of knowledge that you can get working among a diverse group of people with different skill sets, backgrounds, and experiences. Whether it’s making sense of your website’s HTML, hammering out a killer proposal, or even just making a barista-worthy pot of coffee in the kitchen, you’re bound to encounter someone who can help you.

It’s what makes the coworking community so valuable and such an attractive option for freelancers and small businesses—it provides daily learning experiences. A member makes a mistake, learns from it, and shares it with members directly or through the coworking space’s built-in forums, and everyone benefits. Continue Reading

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Telling a client that he is, in fact, wrong can be the hardest thing you ever have to do in your freelance career. It’s not something that we generally consider to be a healthy step: it can lose you a client pretty quickly if not handled properly.

Even if a client accepts that he is incorrect about something, it may still be harder to work with him in the long run.

Here are a few options for telling a client that he’s wrong, with a little more grace.

• “X has been updated recently.” Especially when working with anything the least bit technical, I’ve found that clients lock on to concepts that may have been possible with past technology but aren’t handled the same way now. A good turn of phrase is to point to a recent update, rather than trying to tell a client he’s wrong.

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One of the amazing things with Twitter, Facebook and Google+ slowly gaining maturity is the power coming through it to build my personal brand. What I found most crucial when doing so is that I don’t waste all of my day doing this.

The best part here is that this can become very powerful for many aspects of your life. If you develop a fairly large and engaged Twitter following these are only a few of the great aspects you can leverage:

• Amplify your voice for distributing your knowledge and content
• Find new jobs and projects by interacting with like-minds in your field
• Get feedback on ideas and projects from your followers
• Have quality conversations with people interested in the same fields

Here are tips to build your personal brand on Twitter on the side, without wasting hours each day on it. In fact, I believe these things can be done within 30 minutes of effort each day.

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