In this inaugural issue of Ask FreelanceSwitch, myself and Thursday Bram look a the pros and cons of “I vs We” and the best ways to expand your business.

Ask FreelanceSwitch is a new regular column here that allows us to help beginners get a grip on freelancing. If you have a question about freelancing that you want answered, send an email to askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com.

Let’s get started!

Question #1

This may be an old / asked a lot question but I have been thinking a lot about it recently.

As a freelancer, is it better to market yourself as a company, and refer to yourself as ‘we’ – or better to go with the more personal touch just me, myself and I.

-Paul

Thursday: As a freelancer, most of my clients are generally aware of the fact that I’m the only person in my office. Because of that, I tend to go towards the personal side when writing marketing materials, blog posts or anything else that a client sees. There are a couple of scenarios, however, when ‘we’ works just fine. If you’re working on a team or plan to subcontract out some of the work, there really will be a ‘we,’ for instance.

There is a certain school of thought that says it makes sense for a freelancer to bill herself as a company, rather than an individual. It does make it seem as if you have a larger company than you might actually be operating and potentially land you bigger projects. I know that I’ve never had problems landing those bigger projects because I happen to be a freelancer, though. Personally, I also feel that representing myself as a bigger company is a little misleading and isn’t entirely fair to my clients.

Travis: Well Paul, there’s been plenty of good discussion about this very thing over on the forum, but most of it is pure nonsense. Let me tell you right now, you’ll never get anywhere with clients until you learn to talk in the third, fourth and even fifth person.

What silliness is this you ask? Let me ask you, would you call the Queen Mom silly? I didn’t think so.

No one in his right mind is going to sass the Queen of England for talking in the third person, so when your clients hear you speaking this way, they’re sure to give you nothing but respect. Let me illustrate:

Client: We would like you to add a scrolling marquee to the top of the site.

You: The web designer thinks this idea is stupid.

Client: Uhh…the…wha? I thought you were our web designer?

You: A web designer grows angry with your questions.

Client: Uhh…you know what…maybe just do it the way you wanted.

You: One’s web designer thanks you.

Pure gold.

An added bonus is if you come across sounding like the Borg. Let me tell you, no one wants to mess with those guys.

Question #2

I am an 18 year old web designer and graphic artist and I am so excited that I can ask this question:

I am having so much success in the freelance web design sector, that I want to approach becoming a firm. What is the process in finding fellow designers to join my team? Are they commissioned, or salary? As for the rent of an office space, how do I know when the design industry is so crazy when I get half up front and half upon completion?

-Tyler

Thursday: If you’re operating successfully as a freelancer, it’s normal to want to build a bigger team so that you can take on larger projects. There are a wide variety of options of doing just that, depending on how you want to structure the business. It can make sense to operate your own company, hiring designers to work for you — but you’ll be responsible for paying employees a regular salary, along with finding enough work to keep those employees busy. As a general rule, designers are not employed on commission, although you could hire other freelancers on an as-needed basis.

An alternative is creating a partnership. While you won’t necessarily be in charge in that situation, it can prove more practical for making sure that both you and another designer are finding projects and getting work done. In such a situation, it would be up to you and your partner to determine an equitable split of the firm’s income.

Finding designers may be a matter of posting a listing on one of the many job boards catering to other freelancers. Once you’ve found a few people with great portfolios who you’d like to work with, it’s a matter of getting them on board. That can be a bit more difficult than in other professions: freelancers have chosen to work on their own for a reason. You may have to sell those other designers on the idea.

As far as renting office space goes, you may choose to delay choosing space as long as possible. Rents and what you can expect for your money vary in every geographic area. In some cities, it may be prohibitively expensive, while in some areas, you might be able to get office space relatively inexpensively. Even inexpensive space makes for major overhead, especially since you’ll be expected to sign a lease of at least a year.

Travis: I’m glad you asked me this question Tyler because I’m somewhat of an expert in firming up. Let me tell you right now, forget all the garbage you’ve hear about working on your deltoids and your altoids or your minumus maximuses. All that stuff is for babies. To get real results, you want to pump iron directly into the guns.

Your best approach to becoming firm is to concentrate all you attention on the biceps, or the pythons as I like to call mine. No one cares if you’ve been working on any of your other muscles groups. Ever hear someone say “Oh those are nice obliques!”? Didn’t think so. Unless you’re working your Guns & Roses, you’re wasting your time.

After all, what do you want the first thing new clients think about to be when you enter the room? “Can I trust this guy?” or “I wonder how much he can bench?” Let me illustrate by an actual client meeting I just came from:

Me: Thanks for having me in to talk about your web site project.

Client: Wow. Have you been working out?

Me: *flex*

Client: *swoon*

By the way, if you need help naming your biceps, just let me know. I’m partial to Run & Hide.

Have a question for FreelanceSwitch? Send it to: askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com