The Question of Outsourcing
Outsourcing has been on my mind a lot: I’ve had to turn down a couple of projects lately that I just didn’t have time to do. I keep thinking that if I could have outsourced at least part of those projects, I could have gotten them done — and gotten the paychecks that went along with them.
The idea of outsourcing is pretty attractive on the surface. If you work with another freelancer in your field — perhaps one with a little less experience — you can take on at least a few more projects than you might manage to otherwise. If you work with freelancers in other fields, you can take on bigger projects: a web designer, for instance, might take on the whole development of a website (including the content) and subcontract the writing to a freelancer who specializes in web copy.
As long as you’re the freelancer who went out looking for the project and arranged to bring in other freelancers, you get paid. Even if you only get a small slice of the pie on a project where someone else does the lion’s share of the work, you still get paid.
12 Points to Include in Your Design Contract
When I started my own design business, one of the first things I put in place was a well-written contract. Before I spoke to an attorney about drafting an official document for me, I made sure I had my design process established. I also did a lot of research as to what other design firms and freelancers were including in their agreements. With something as subjective as design, there are lots of gray areas that need to be clarified as much as possible on paper.
If you’re in the process of drafting a client contract, or if you are considering revising one that already exists, I would recommend including the following list of items:
How to Handle a Request for Confidentiality
Confidentiality sounds like it really ought to be more of an issues for doctors or lawyers, rather than freelancers. But sooner or later, most freelancers wind up with a client who wants them to sign a non-disclosure agreement or otherwise guarantee confidentiality for a project.
For certain companies, the number of projects they require NDAs on are growing: when every web designer, copywriter and other freelancer has the ability to broadcast current projects and clients on personal blogs and social networks, a little concern is understandable.
How to Handle Tightwads & Charge What You’re Worth
The penny-pinching, wheel-and-dealing, bargain-hunting prospect. As a freelancer, dealing with this type of person is part of the territory. Unfortunately, this is a delicate situation: if you come off as defensive you risk losing a sale or a later referral. If you give in and offer a bargain price to nab the prospect, you give up a bit of your professional integrity and stumble into an ethical gray area (what about all those clients who never got a deal?).
Because I’ve run across this type of person more often than I’d like to admit, I’ve developed some standard lines to deliver when my pricing is challenged.
Educating New Clients: 4 Options to Make Your Work Easier
Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of emails from potential clients who haven’t actually ever worked with a freelancer before. There’s been a few unfortunate assumptions on both sides, and I know that I’ve lost a deal or two because a client didn’t know what to expect from a freelancer.
I keep thinking about one client in particular. I completed what was supposed to be the first part of a series of assignments and sent in my work — along with a standard invoice. In return, I received an angry email asking why I would ever demand payment in such a fashion and why I would put a specific due date on when I expected my payment. I got my money — but I lost the client.
Part of the problem is that there are a lot of companies used to completing work in house (or with another small business in their area) that are turning to freelancers as a source of cheap help. These companies are trying to cut expenses by working with a class of contractors they may never have thought about before. While that extra work can be welcome, the issue of educating clients comes right along with it. There are many options for providing your prospective clients with the information they need to work well with you.
Questions & Answers: How to Describe What You Do
When it comes to the questions we’re asked, “What do you do?” is at the top of the list. There are times when the answer is best delivered in the form of a catchy little “elevator speech.”
And then there are times when a longer answer is needed.
For example, a prospect may be visiting your website. Although he loves your site’s design and the pieces in your portfolio, he just can’t figure out what you do. So he clickety-hops away, never to be seen again.
Although they seem to be an anathema to many designers, photographers, and other visual types, nothing beats words when it comes to explaining what you do. I like the Question/Answer format that’s commonly used on website FAQ pages. It’s simple, direct, and easily customizable. Continue Reading
Brinking
My youngest nephew, Will, is on the cusp of two years old—that adorably maddening tipping point between babydom and full-functioning Big Boy. Sometimes he struggles to communicate his needs, at which point he defaults to a full-throated, full-fake cry; sometimes, he’s clearly and efficiently out-sentencing most reality show contestants.
And sometimes he switches from one to the other within no interval between the two. Recently he was struggling to open a toy, and, seeing a facsimile of an Official Adult nearby in me, he wailed aloud. I bent down to unfasten the latches for him. I might not be willing to endure labor, breastfeeding, and adolescence, but I can unlock the plastic stops on a Fisher-Price barn. Most of the time.
Six Valuable Things Web Design Clients Won’t Tell You
When running a start-up web design business, unless you have some kind of incredible good luck (or no competition), you’re always working hard to acquire new business. Sales leads are valuable, regardless of where they come from. The number varies, but for every ten leads you contact, you’ll be fortunate if two or three of them turn in to paying clients. This means you have to talk to a lot of people. Still, getting a new lead is exciting because it has the potential to be your next big sale, helping you pay your bills and getting you one little step closer to start-up success.
How to Effectively Tackle A $50,000 Freelance Project
Effectively taking on a huge freelance project can be daunting if you don’t know where to begin. This article shows that by breaking the project down into bite-sized deliverables, combined with leveraging the experience of outsourced, professional specialists, can yield positive results in terms of both quality of output and freelancer happiness.
The most treasured of all freelance consulting gigs are the ones that offer huge pay and high prominence. Successfully implementing one or two of these types of projects can be a huge boon to your portfolio and can help garner you even bigger and better contracts in the future.
Gaining an Edge in Tough Economic Times
With economic conditions rather on the grim side, it makes sense to look for ways to distinguish yourself from the competition, to strengthen your appeal to existing and potential clients. This goes beyond just a general increase in marketing activity. It is a matter of enhancing your value to your customers, of showing them how doing business with you can stretch their tight budgets a little farther.
Most freelancers can add value to the services they offer by tapping an area of expertise they may not realize they have. The fact is that as you work with clients and complete projects, you become more and more knowledgeable about the world your client contacts live in: their constraints, their needs, their preferences, their goals, their habits, their procedures, their biases and assumptions about working with people just like you.
Just Say No: Three Reasons the Customer Isn’t Always Right
It’s 11:30 pm. My wife has already gone to bed. I was cramming to get an ad
done for the paper the next morning. The phone rings. It’s the client’s assistant.
“So? Is it okay?” I ask.
“She hates it,” she replies.
“Did she say why?”
“No.”
Frustrated silence. After a fruitless exchange of profanity and exasperation
we get off the phone. My wife is exhausted and livid at this ungodly hour.
So I turn off the ringer and go to bed, knowing full well that the assistant
is still furiously trying to get through to me and leaving messages on my voice
mail. I have a choice here between my wife and my client. I choose my wife.
Holding Yourself Accountable, Part Four
In this article, I’m going to talk about how you can hold yourself accountable on a yearly basis. The first three articles in this series covered:
- Daily accountability. At the start of each workday, you made a list of things you absolutely had to accomplish. At the day’s end, you asked yourself what you did to make money and what you did to bring in business.
- Weekly accountability. At the end of your work week, you wrote a review and evaluation of how things went. You also planned the following week, with special attention paid to the tasks involved in doing the work for which you are paid, getting more of it, and running your business.
- Monthly accountability. On the daily and weekly level, you were working in the world of words. For your monthly accountability, the focus shifted to numbers, specifically, your profit and loss statement as compared to your budget and to the previous year. You also looked at your cash flow and bank balances, and you forecasted your revenues and expenses.
