Photo by angela7.

In today’s increasingly competitive business environment, there is tremendous pressure on organizations to offer quick and effective customer support. This is not only an important approach to achieving a high level of customer satisfaction, but also a way to potentially cut time spent on dealing with problems that could otherwise be solved in a quick and organized manner. As a self-employed entrepreneur competing in the IT industry, I’ve come to realize that the most effective and time-saving way to deal with most of my customers’ issues is by offering remote support.

Providing technical support from the comfort of the office allows me to resolve nearly 80% of all technical issues encountered, and subsequently saves the time and money which would otherwise be spent on going on-site to tend to minor issues such as updating a customer’s settings or installing required software onto their machines. Clearly, not all issues could be resolved remotely and on-site visits are still required ever so often; however, the use of remote desktop software has clearly reduced my costs and increased customer satisfaction due to the quick response time.

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Photo by ssh.

Time wasn’t too long ago when the term “photographer’s portfolio” referred to a leather case filled with prints of your very best work.

Those cases are still around, and they’re a worthwhile investment if you’re planning to show your work to local art directors and editors. But, like any other creative field, photography has gone global. You may be based in Houston while you work with clients in Dusseldorf or Singapore.

So, some sort of Internet presence is essential. This article will survey three options for displaying your photography.

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Photo by laihiu.

Handling the legal aspects of doing business has got to be the most dreaded part of freelancing. Most of us have very little knowledge in this field without taking the time to do some research, and even then it can be confusing and frustrating.

Of course, this isn’t one of the core functions of your freelance business, and it’s easy to see any time spent on legal issues as a loss in terms of available working hours. For this reason it’s good to take advantage of the legal resources that are available to freelancers.

In this post we’ll take a look at a number of resources, both online and off, that may be able to make your life easier and help you to achieve more productivity while protecting the legality of your business. Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments.

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The twenty-first episode of Freelance Radio, the official FreelanceSwitch podcast, is now available! This episode, the panel (John Brougher, Kristen Fischer, Dickie Adams, Von Glitschka, and Cyan Ta’eed) talk about a number of topics, including working remotely (a la Andy Howard’s recent article and freelancing with a family and the responsibilities therein. 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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Armed with a college degree in physics, Nik Ainley has become a well-recognized and talented designer with an impressive roster of clients. I talked to this UK-based designer about the challenges of freelancing full-time, using a technical application as a niche and how to leverage the press to boost your business.

Tell us how you got into design?

I’m a pretty late starter, only really getting into art and design at the age of about 20 or 21. I was at university at the time studying for a completely unrelated scientific degree when for some reason or another I obtained a copy of Photoshop (version 5.5 I think). I fell in love with it immediately and soon was devoting way too much of my spare time to playing around, learning new stuff and getting into design in a more general way.

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For some time now Skellie has been the editor here at FreelanceSwitch. As I’m sure you will agree she has done an amazing job with FSw, and helped take the site from strength to strength. In fact she’s so good that when a new management position came up at Envato, we just had to ask her to take it on.

So sadly Skellie is moving on from FreelanceSwitch. She tells me she’ll still be checking in daily as, like me, she’s pretty attached to FSw by now.

Happily we can now announce that we have a new editor to captain the FSw ship. We are so pleased that we were able to ask someone of his talents to lead the FSw team and he actually said yes!! That person is Glen Stansberry.

If you don’t already know Glen, chances are you’ve come past some of his work. He’s the brains behind the LifeRemix Network, LifeDev, and Webjackalope. He’s a working web developer, an all-round nice guy and supremely talented individual in all things freelance.

So welcome Glen, and thanks for coming on board the HMS FreelanceSwitch!

Photo by Plutor.

No matter what our background, most of us can speak a foreign language. One that’s completely opaque to anyone who might be listening in. It’s the language of your industry.

So what’s your second language? Is it ‘web dev’? (Take this quick quiz – have you ever used the words ‘CSS’, ‘XHTML’, ’sFIR3′ or ‘Javascript’ face-to-face with a client?). Or do you lapse into ‘designer’ or ‘blogger’ when you get excited?

Whatever your second language is, chances are either you or your clients are losing something vital in the translation. Every industry creates jargon, acronyms and product-words that aren’t in any dictionary, and mean nothing to outsiders. And then individual companies have their own variations on the dialect.

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The good people from UPrinting have been generous enough to give away 1,000 business cards shipped for free to 10 lucky FSw readers. They’ll give any combination of business cards that you can dream of: Any type of stock (including the eco friendly stock), finish or size. The sky is the limit.

Uprinting has been printing business cards for the past 25 years, and they support FSw’s readers, so don’t be afraid to send people their way.

Contest Details

So, let’s turn this into a little contest, shall we? In the comments below, write how you’ll use your free business cards to improve your freelancing. Be sure to use a real email that we can contact you at if you’re the winner. Comments must be in by Friday at 5pm CST. If you’re a winner, we’ll email you the information.

Now, there’s one unfortunate caveat: The contest is only open to U.S. and Canada residents, due to shipping costs for international rates.

Ok! Let the games begin!

Note: The contest has ended. Thanks for playing!

Photo by orangeacid.

How many of you have had jobs or freelance gigs which you billed for once a month? It often takes an act of financial yoga to balance your checkbook each month, right? Wouldn’t you say that being paid weekly or bi-weekly makes life more pleasant?

1. You’re more relaxed about when your next paycheck is coming.
2. You can take a few days off without worrying that you will not earn as much this month. You’ll be relaxed as a result. (See #1)
3. Being paid weekly makes it much easier to ensure that there’ll be enough funds when a bill is paid through automatic deductions from your bank account. You’ll be more relaxed. (See #1. Again.)

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Photo by Julianne.hide.

One of the realities of being a freelancer is that you will have a wide variety of responsibilities in regards to running a successful business. You won’t have the luxury of passing duties off to another department, and your success depends on your ability to wear multiple hats and develop some versatility. The dizzying amount of responsibilities can be overwhelming at times, but it can also be one of the perks to being a freelancer. You’ll have the opportunity to try your hand at every aspect of business, and you won’t get bored from doing the same repetitive tasks over and over again. Whether you see this diversity as a positive or a negative of freelancing, you can increase your productivity by realizing all of your responsibilities and setting a plan for success.

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