How to Juggle Clients in Different Countries
The web allows us to offer our services and skills almost anywhere in the world. Many of us are able to speak more than one language and have already worked for clients overseas.
As a freelancing web designer who is currently in the process of moving from Germany, where I was born, to Melbourne in Australia (Good city, that. — Ed.), I’ve been able to establish a client base in both countries. Over the last 6 years I’ve been flying back and forth visiting friends and family while also staying in touch with clients and picking up new gigs.
Dealing with clients in two countries that are 10 hours or about 15,000km apart can create many new challenges. Simple things like the time difference make communication a lot trickier and depending on what nationalities you are dealing with, there can also be differences in business culture you should be aware of.
How NOT to Get Freelance Work
It goes without saying that in the process of doing business, mistakes will be made — especially in the beginning. Small mistakes and stumbles happen, but there are a few that beginners make that can put a freelance career on the rocks before it has even started.
Although the items on this list may seem like common sense behaviors to avoid, they’re all things that people have done. Don’t do them! Continue Reading
Remote Working Works for Freelancers
As a creative professional, constant inspiration is vital to career success. Sure, home and agency studios can be stimulating, but regardless of how cool the fitout is, it’s still the same environment.
It gets boring.
You’ll need a change, and relocating to a park or co-working space for a fresh outlook is a great idea. Checking out art galleries and city architecture during a lunch break is even better.
Traveling and working from the road? It’s the best of all. After remote working for three months, here’s the story so far — from the coast of Costa Rica. Continue Reading
Knowing What You’re Not
We all know how many responsibilities a freelancer has and how many different hats we have to wear (client work, invoicing and finances, marketing, customer service, etc.). It can be easy to forget that we all have strengths and weaknesses because we spend so much time trying to be good at everything.
In order to do our best work and to maximize efficiency and productivity, we need to recognize what we do well (and what we don’t) and avoid trying to be all things to all people.
From what I see, our weaknesses can be broken down into two categories: 1) specific types of projects, and 2) the various tasks of freelancing. On this first point, most of us have a particular type of service that we specialize in. A designer/developer may be best at designing high-end flash-based sites, and may not be so skilled at designing an attractive website with a minimalist approach, or vice versa. Freelance writers will typically have certain topics or types of writing that they are more experienced with, and so on.
On the second point, we all have certain aspects of freelancing that we excel at, and others that are more of a struggle. For example, you may have a hard time with keeping your invoices and finances organized, but you may excel at dealing directly with clients.
Regardless of what our strengths and weaknesses are, we need to recognize them and realize when we’re not able to do an effective job on a particular project or a specific aspect of freelancing. Continue Reading
20 Types of Freelance Work Identified and Explained
If freelancers could invent our own clichés, one might be: no two jobs are the same. Each gig we take on brings with it new personalities, new challenges and new rewards. Despite these differences, most any freelancing gig will fit into one of these twenty types.
Where does the job you’re (supposed to be) working on now fit in? Have you done each of these kinds of jobs before? My guess is that most experienced freelancers will have encountered quite a few!
1. The magnum opus
The job you’ve always wanted, the job you’ll tell your grand-kids about. You get asked to write a book, land design work for a super-company like Coca Cola or get an article published in Business Week. The money doesn’t really matter — though it’s probably pretty good! Because this kind of opportunity doesn’t come along every day, you make this job personal, you obsess over it and make sure every single detail has been polished to a brilliant shine.
The pros:
These kinds of jobs can feel more like play than work. They’re hard to forget for all the right reasons, and can take your credibility and perceived value as a freelancer to the next level.
The cons:
Magnum opus jobs can be time vacuums. Being paid $X,000 for a project doesn’t work out to much if you spend a total 100s of hours polishing up the bells and whistles.
What Are You Selling?
As a freelancer you are obviously offering a service to clients, whether it be designing, programming, writing, photography, etc., but what else are you selling?
You should be able to improve your overall effectiveness and your conversions of leads to clients by emphasizing and selling these aspects of your work as well:
Customer Service
Besides being great at the work that you do, you have an opportunity to separate yourself from the others and win clients over by providing exceptional customer service. Some clients will prefer to work with freelancers because of the one-to-one contact that they may not get with a large firm. Clients like to know who is going to answer the phone when they call and they like to have someone who is there to work closely with them. Continue Reading
Day in the Life of a Freelance Writer
Last month, I spoke at my alma mater about freelance writing. The request letter from the high school was helpful and precise: I was to inform the students about a “typical day.”
So I gathered several digi-photos of me at a book signing, me wrapped in a tipsy embrace with my Random House publicist, me propping my computer up against a thatch-shaded picnic table on the sugar shores of Cocoa Beach. And then I digi-ditched them. I had half an hour to address fifteen-year-old me, and she was going to hear the truth of it all.
What is my day? This is my day. Continue Reading
Eight Lessons from Eight Months of Full-Time Freelancing
I’ve been creating websites for about half of my life now — nearly 14 years focused on creating comps, writing code, and, of course, making designs look right in Internet Explorer. I’ve spent many of those years moonlighting, creating websites for clients who didn’t mind me working only at night. But it was only eight months ago that I decided to quit my third job in four years (all of which were decent jobs by the way) and launch out on my own.
Although I’ve really enjoyed the last eight months, I will say that I’ve learned quite a bit about freelancing and myself. Many of these lessons are the more obvious ones like “Work Hard” or “Budget Well,” but there are a number of lessons that are probably not so apparent. Here are eight that I’ve learned:
1. Focus Your Offering
An easy trap to fall into as a freelancer is to accept any work that is offered, even if the skill necessary is not really related to your field. You quickly find yourself promising the finest work in not only web design, but also in print work, content writing, photography, and business consultation. I guarantee that no individual can be all these things, and potential clients that hear you say this will be equally skeptical. Though there may be times when wearing multiple hats is necessary, in general, try to keep your offered skills focused. If your talent and skillset are up to snuff, there will always be work in your niche.
2. Business Skills Are More Important Than Freelancing Skills
A talented businessperson with subpar freelance skills (in whatever field) can still make a pretty good living. But a talented freelancer with subpar business skills is often found working 80-hour weeks for much less than what he/she could earn in the 40-hour corporate world. When you’re freelancing, you’re running a business, and thus, you need to develop those business skills (or find someone who can help or do it for you). There’s no reason why a freelancer should not be able to make a good salary. Continue Reading
