Dear Aunty Entity

I’m project managing a large project for a client who, although are the nicest bunch of people, are so disorganised that sometimes I can wait three months for payment. Although I have steady work and not a lot of time to spare for other clients, two minute noodles more than 5 times a week is getting to be beyond a joke.

What can I do to get paid on time?

Cassy Stoner

Dear Cassy

Not getting paid on time is unfortunately one of the biggest problems freelancers face. Being the norm doesn’t make it right but instead of feeling powerless there are some things you can try to make sure your invoice stays in the front of the queue. Continue Reading

Freelancers spend an inordinate amount of time fretting over how much to charge. But there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to pricing. It’s all completely subjective and dependent on a wide variety of factors, including what the market will bear, geographic location, timing, aggravation factor (or lack thereof) and your level of desperation (hopefully low to non-existent), just to name a few.

If you are selling creative services, one of the things that can get in the way of clear pricing is the belief that what you charge is related to your value as a person. Wrong! It has nothing to do with you.

For example, a client will often ask, “How much do you charge for a web site?” or “How much do you charge for a brochure?” They ask these questions as if they are buying shoes or tomatoes.
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We all know that giving is fantastic. Give great customer service; give great rates, and always give your best. But, what about getting? What kinds of things should you expect from your clients? Asking is also a great marketing strategy! Here is a list of 25 things you can (and should!) ask for when working with a client.

1. Ask for a down payment - Just like there are flaky freelancers out there, there are flaky clients as well. It’s completely okay to protect yourself and your time. Ask for a down payment, and make it fully refundable if you don’t do your share. Most clients will be happy to oblige.

2. Ask for more time if you need it – Sometimes your creative genius self needs time, and who can blame you? Between Twitter, and Facebook and well… clients, it’s a busy life! So, feel free to ask for more time if you need it. Just don’t go overboard.

3. Ask for clear directions - If a client wants exactly what they have in mind, they have to be able to communicate those thoughts. Help them along. Make sure to ask for clear directions and double check.
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If you’re anything like me, you probably feel a little funny about how often you check your stats. I check them throughout the day, with a regularity I’m almost ashamed to admit. There’s even a particular stat program I use which plots out a sexy graph, above which are written the words: “Statistics updated every 24 hours.” That doesn’t keep me from checking it about three times a day.

Regardless of the social implications, we stat-freaks are on the right track. For whether you acknowledge it or not statistics are the very backbone of your business, your production, your income and pretty much everything else that matters. I use them (not just look at them) every single day, whether it’s at my blog or examining my design business.

What are statistics?

If you look up “statistic” in pretty much any dictionary, you’ll notice that even people who write dictionaries have bad days. A survey of dictionaries I have to hand uncovered the following definitions for the word “statistic”:
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This post is a guest post from Allan Branch, a one time freelancer who created LessAccounting for freelancers who need to keep track of money or send invoices.

What if someone could sue your company and then, since your company has no money, take your house or win a judgment that takes you fifteen years to pay? The Corporate Veil provides protection against this happening to you.

What is it?

The Corporate Veil is the legal shield that protects an individual from being personally liable for the actions of his/her company. This only applies to owners, partners, board members, not employees or share holders. In this country a person, or a company may sue any other person or company for anything, at any time. But there is only one reason to sue, and that is to be awarded money. So if a person or company doesn’t have any money, then there isn’t really anything to sue for. Continue Reading

We’re all in business and when running a business, there’s two ways to keep the bank account stocked: increase the money coming in or decrease the money going out.

In this post, I am going to focus on the latter method, looking for ways to shave off some of those business expenses.
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If you’re like me, your bank account tends to live by the seat of its pants. Money comes in, money goes out, records are a bit of a blur. And of course a freelance lifestyle doesn’t tend to help either, with its occasional large sums of money and long droughts in between payments.

If you were to ask what my personal brand of financial plan is, I would have to say it’s something like: try to earn so much that it doesn’t matter too much if I have a financial plan. Well as anybody who actually has a bank balance will tell you, that’s a dumb plan. So as of today I’ve decided to do something about this somewhat grave situation, before I have children and mortgages appear to make it all that much harder.

Fortunately for me, web man that I am, there is pretty much everything I need online. This morning I sat down to compile a toolkit for getting my personal finances in order. Since some of our freelance audience will no doubt be in the same boat as me, here it is for your benefit too!

Personal Finance Blogs

I’ve spent 28 years taking my own advice, and frankly it hasn’t gotten me very far. So it’s time to listen to someone else. Here are the best and brightest voices online on money matters:

1. GetRichSlowly

   The big daddy, the big kahuna, the big cheese. Get Rich Slowly has managed to attract some forty thousand subscribers and there’s no doubt why. There is some sharp, quality advice here, see posts like: How to Get Out of Debt and Basic Tips on Tipping (luckily we don’t have tipping here in Australia!). There’s also the odd amusing post like Lifestyles of the Rich and the Stupid (how is that I know that if I ever manage to qualify as the first, that I’ll wind up being the latter)

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