Freelance Radio, Episode 18: Flaky Clients
John BrougherThe eighteenth episode of Freelance Radio, the official FreelanceSwitch podcast, is now available! This episode, we talk about a number of topics, including flaky clients, managing money, how to craft a great business name and more! 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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The Shownotes:
- Theme of the Episode: This episode’s theme is flaky clients: we talk about how to deal with clients that string you along but don’t commit as well as share some stories from our experiences.
- Fantastic Forum Post and Mailbag: We talk about managing money (question from Nicole of sodevious.net) and talk about good business names (forum post by gdraper).
- Freelance Radio Recommends…: Each panelist recommends a freelancing tool.
- John: Media streaming tools from Nullriver that allow you to stream from your Mac to your Xbox 360 or PS3.
- Kristen: Word art fun site Wordle.net.
- Dickie: Texture site Lostandtaken.com, fun Twitter viewer Twistori.com.
- Von: iPod/iPhone wallpaper site iPodpaper.com (it has Green Lantern wallpaper!).
Other links and topics mentioned include Von’s session at the HOW Design Conference at IllustrationClass.com as well as previous Freelance Radio recommendation and fantastic money management web app Mint.com.
- Outro: No outro this time…next episode, it’s coming back!
And that’s the episode! If you like it, please feel free to rate it in iTunes or your favorite podcast aggregator (check us out on Digg at http://www.digg.com/podcasts/Freelance_Radio), and don’t forget to email your questions/comments via the Freelance Radio form. If you’d like to record a question/comment or submit an original outro song, you can upload them via this form!
Caleb
July 30th, 2008
Hey, I just wanted to thank Dickie for picking LostandTaken.com for his recommendation. I’m glad you found the textures on the site useful.
Caleb Kimbrough
LostandTaken.com
mia
July 30th, 2008
Where were the tips for handling flaky clients? You guys just kind of spoke about how you HAVE flaky clients, not how you DEAL with flaky clients.
Rogers
July 30th, 2008
Hey where is the final music? So sad!!!
Patrick
July 30th, 2008
Von,
Where is this blog post? I honestly want to see their horrible logo and laugh.
Patrick
Dickie
July 30th, 2008
Happy to share Caleb!
Rogers: we opted to skip the final music this session. It will return!
Mia: We left some tidbits in there, but thinking back, we did talk more about having than dealing in specific manners. Have no fear, I’m sure we will return to this topic soon enough. Perhaps you should send a message to the Freelance Radio address with a push to readdress next episode.
Thanks for listening everyone!
Patrick
July 30th, 2008
Kristen,
I have separate checking with my wife also and I would highly recommend it. It makes surprises much more special! I laugh at the people who say we are not married because we do not have a joint checking account.
Patrick
Von
July 30th, 2008
You can see the project I mentioned here: http://snipurl.com/34otk
Jason
July 30th, 2008
For windows users, try TVersity as an alternative to NullRiver. Dead simple.
Prescott Perez-Fox
July 30th, 2008
Major Dryspells:
Lately, I think I’ve earned the rank of Lt. Colonel Dryspell — forget Major.
2008 is the first year where I’ve found I actually had to dip into that 3-month reserve of basic living expenses. On the year, I’m down about 10% from last year, which equates to about an entire month of income simply not present.
The problem is that lately the multi-week projects — the ones that feel very much like full-time — seem to be more and more evasive. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit it, but I haven’t been in a 40-hour gig since February! These 2- and 3-day gigs are annoying, but the only way to pay the bills, it seems. Some months are up, some are down. All I can do is hope that things improve and that some connections come through.
The trouble is, I don’t think this is a Dryspell but rather a Major Shift. The system in which I existed for 2 years seems to be falling apart at the seems, and I wonder how much longer I can sustain it.
*sigh*
frank
August 3rd, 2008
hi,
i’m not english speaking very well - you talked about a “niche” oder “nitch” in this episode - did you mean “niche” - would make sense to me, but i haven’t come across this pronounciation… or what else?
(sry for this stupid question, but your help helps me understanding is completely
kristen
August 5th, 2008
Patrick–I hear you on the “you’re not married unless you have a joint account.” Joint savings, yes! But joint checking? Too much maintenance!
bronius
August 10th, 2008
Regarding niche.. I can see both sides: those that say, “Be the best at one thing,” and those that are jacks of all trades. I thought being a renaissance man was the joy of my freelancing, but my full time and family take so much out of me, that I can’t seem to juggle both freelancing and “doing all things for all people.”
It crushes the spirit a little but is better for time management for me to try to really focus on just one thing at a time. However, it takes real discipline, and I’m afraid I’m still easily wooed by creative, random projects!
Stéphane Bergeron
August 13th, 2008
I just listened to this episode (I know I’m one late
and would like to chime in on the budgeting aspects.
The thing is, I just became a full time freelancer very recently myself after quitting a job at a company I’d been with for over 20 years. One criteria for my “readiness” to take the full time freelance plunge was to have my budget in order. To get there I used the “You Need A Budget” system and software (http://www.youneedabudget.com/). The system is based on 4 simple rules the first of which is to stop living paycheck to paycheck (or payment to payment for frreelancers…). It means you need to get real about your actual monthly expenses and get at least enough money to cover those a month in advance. This also means I do not have to worry about this month’s bills. The money to cover those is already available in my bank account and any money I’m being paid this month goes into next month’s budget (it’s actually more flexible than that as you can decide that some money is immediately available too but you get the idea).
Yes it does mean you need to follow the details of your expenses (or outflows) but it really is not very time consuming (the YNAB Pro software is really easy to use). What it gave me is a clear view into what I was really spending vas well as my real basic expenses (mortgage, utilities, etc). The system really forced me to be honest about my spending habits and it gave me a sense of empowerment and control over money I never had before. It really enabled me to go into full time freelancing with a much lower level of stress than I might have had otherwise. Yes, other things in my personal situation made it the right time to make the move but this aspect really helped reassure me I had a real shot at it.
I was surprised listening to the podcast that I think Von didn’t have the cashflow to meet upcoming bills. Using a system like YNAB would help avoid these kinds of situations as you’d never be in a situation of stress and urgency like that which certainly affected my own work when I ran into similar situations.
Get a look at the site. The program comes with great documentation that explains the rules and the system very clearly. For freelancers I think it’s an ideal budgetting system:
http://www.youneedabudget.com/