You’ve worked hard to get the clients you have, and the last thing you want to do is risk any of them having second thoughts about looking for another freelancer down the road. But in the real world, competition is fierce and you can’t guarantee your clients won’t develop a wandering eye. Or can you? Check out these slick moves that can transform a lukewarm client into a “raving fan” customer – for life.
Like many creative professionals, Edwin Tofslie never intended on being an artist. But when his education in the engineering field went awry, Edwin explored his artistic side and never turned back.
Now, this 28-year-old Oregon resident is landing national clients from his full-time job and freelancing clients. He’s landed major design jobs with Nike, Old Spice, and Pepsi to name a few. With such an impressive portfolio, I just had to learn the secret to this guy’s success.
Intellectual property (IP) law is a big, nasty, confusing world–one long-time blogger on copyright law and issues recently shut down his blog, partly because “the current state of copyright law is too depressing.” But if you’re a creative, innovative freelancer, and you’d like to protect the materials you create–your original writing, music, software, artwork or designs–this stuff is really important. How do you navigate the murky waters of copyright and intellectual property law? Where do you go for information? Do you need a lawyer? What do you have to do to protect your original creations?
Maximizing productivity is a never-ending task for most freelancers. There’s always some way that we can improve or some area that’s lacking the attention it deserves. This post serves as a guide and a reminder for ways that we can get more done and make better use of our time. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.
This past July, I outlined a five-step process that I’m using to turn my business around.
My July article covered cold calls and e-mails, and I suggest having it open in a separate browser window while you read this one. The same five-step process can be used for warm calls and e-mails. To recap, here’s the process:
The twenty-second episode of Freelance Radio, the official FreelanceSwitch podcast, is now available! This episode, we talk about a number of topics, including managing the ever-delicate work-life balance and some specifics of dealing with billing. Subscriptions to the podcast are available via iTunes and an archive of all podcasts will appear in the podcast section. We hope you enjoy it!
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This week’s linkswitch focuses on the cosmetics of web development. Many readers of FSw are web developers (or web developers at heart), so hopefully this switch will satisfy your weekly craving for all things web dev.
Using technologies like CSS, javascript and some custom scripting, just about anything can be accomplished to spice up a web page. Here’s a few ways to really add some sizzle and pop to your pages, as seen recently around the Internets.
Permit me to start this article with a confession: I have the attention span of a gnat. Which means that biggest f-word in my life is “focus.”
So, how does an easily distracted freelancer like me get anything done during the workday? Part of the answer lies in the question. Instead of working in an office that’s full of attention-grabbing things like talking coworkers, ringing phones, and the aroma of popcorn popping in the break room, I work at home by myself.
While we talk a lot about how to better our working conditions and pay at FSw, there is a much bigger world out there than what we see every day. Poverty is an issue that 99.9% of the good people who read FSw don’t have to worry about. But we should be thinking about it, and we can make a difference with our unique skills. And there’s no better time to talk about how we can help those less fortunate than us than with our unique freelancing skills than on Blog Action Day.
There’s always the option of donating money to those less fortunate, but as freelancers we offer a lot of skills that are sometimes more valuable than money. We have very specialized talents that can be much more beneficial than a few dollars.
This is the second part of a two part series written previously on why doing business like a girl isn’t bad
Whether you’re a man or woman, I think both sexes can learn a little from the characteristics of each gender. Even though these can be interchangeable, those known to be “male” in nature can be a huge plus for any freelancer.
For example, women are great at giving clients a personalized approach and focusing on details, while men are adept at staying competitive and less emotionally involved. Which is better for your business? Neither. You can take away something from both sides.
As I covered last week, selling stock and digital files is a neat way for freelancers to build a steady income stream to supplement their regular income. By using your off-hours, regular skillset and even work that wound up on the cutting room floor, you can piece together a solid portfolio of creative goods to generate a steady bit of cash on the side.
There are sites out there to help you sell everything from website templates to photographs to flash components to 3d goods, and plenty in between. It’s a growing digital economy and one that can produce anything from a nice holiday fund to a fullblown primary income source.
It’s a growing digital economy and one that can produce anything from a nice holiday fund to a fullblown primary income source.
Like anything, selling stock is something that you get better at over time. In my job working on ThemeForest, FlashDen and AudioJungle I get to see a lot of the things people do to maximize their income, some of them are quite ingenious. Since it benefits us if we have clever authors on our sites and it benefits Freelancers interested in selling stock, I’ve put together my top tips for selling well on stock sites.
Selling creative stock is about solving problems. For example, the highest selling photos on iStockPhoto tend to be the ones that are useful in the most situations. As a designer I know there have been innumerable times that I’ve needed some sort of generic “business” photograph, and guess what? They outstrip almost any other category of shot.
So how do you know what problems need to be solved? To do that, you need to get in the heads of buyers. On iStockPhoto I have a portfolio of (not particularly well drawn) vector illustrations. The ones that sell the best are the ones that I needed myself. For example I really needed a vector graphic to represent “News”, so I drew a little newspaper and it’s been selling well ever since - 500 sales at last count. Turns out I wasn’t the only person who needed to represent “News”. Click to Continue »
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