Posts Tagged ‘freelance’

Yes, you heard right!

My hit series, “The Freelancer’s Guide” is becoming an eBook!

The eBook version will contain new content, examples, and more! This eBook will be sure to get even the most lazy person with artistic ability on their way to freelancing!

I won’t give a release date just yet, but I want to get your guys opinions on this. I think it’s a great idea, and it will be a great eBook. I’m thinking free for subscribers, and a small price for others, but we’ll see. This might lead to another case study, so we’ll see.

I also want to mention that tomorrow we will have the next p ost in the MonkeyBlogger Challenge, I promise. So don’t worry about that, you’ll get you MB Challenge fix.

*NOTE* I fully apologize for this not being posted yesterday, I had something very important that I needed to do right when I was finishing up this post, and I couldn’t get it out. My sincere apologies. *NOTE*

Well, the time has come.

Yes you are reading the fifth and final part of the series “The Freelancer’s Guide”, it’s been over a week and a half since the first part launched, and it’s proved to be a success on the blog.

In the first four parts, there were 30 comments! That’s great for a new blog, and it came to 7.5 comments per post. That’s more than some much larger blogs get! I’m really happy about that, as like I’ve mentioned, I really want to build a strong community here. Let’s just see if we can hit say, 15 comments on this one post. That would be nice.

Anyways, let’s get onto the post.

Today in this part we’re going to talk about “How to create a work flow when you are working with multiple jobs”.

This is something that a lot of freelancers struggle with, including myself! Due to the very nature of freelancing, you sometimes don’t have any work one day, and the next day, a ton of jobs that need to be done the same week! This can be very stressful for any freelancer, including myself. But there are a few ways you can create a work flow when you have multiple jobs that will not only keep your work organized, but at the same time lighten your workload essentially.

1. Use a time management program, such as Fruitful Time
2. Set assigned times to work on each project, not just work on one until it’s done.
3. Set times to take off from work
4. Set reasonable deadlines, and meet them. No need to finish before, but finish on time.

Let’s go into detail with each of these tactics.

Use a Time Management Program

When your working with multiple jobs, it can be tough to keep track of every one, and it’s deadline. Not to mention other things you need to take time for; eating, sleeping, showering (hopefully ) running errands, and this and be something that messes up your schedule and can cause you to lose focus on what you need to do, and you may even totally forget about jobs. That would be horrible. These time management programs, such as Fruitful Time.

Assigned Work Times for Each Project

Something a lot of freelancers do, which is not a very good idea, is take one project, and force themselves to work on it until it’s done. There are two major problems with this.

1. When you work too long or too much on one project, you can lose focus and desire to get it done, and you lose your creativity when you have to work on the same thing for days, or weeks even.
2. When you work so long on one thing, you can in many cases start to forget about your next job! It won’t be fresh in your mind, and thus you won’t do as well on it, almost guaranteed.

If you set aside different times to work on different projects, you really keep the creative juice flowing, an you won’t ever lose your train of though on any of your jobs as long as they are all fresh in your mind. This is something I didn’t start doing until fairly recently, and it’s help me out very much. I see my jobs getting done faster, and of better quality,

Take Time off!

I know a lot of bloggers and freelancers alike don’t ever do this, or don’t want to do this. But in my opinion, it’s absolutely essential. When your a freelancer, your job is sitting in front of a computer, 24/7. Searching for jobs, landing jobs, working on them, communicating with other freelancers. It’s a hard job. Why? Not because of physical reasons, but because your cooped up all day in an office, looking at a computer screen!

It’s been proven that taking time off, maybe just taking a walk, or sleeping in a day, or even going on a vacation to the beach can really help you mentally and physically, as a freelancer or any other job really.

When you take time off, you relax, you recuperate, and it’s just a good experience. In some cases, you can even use nature or something outside to further help you in your work! Whether it be the way you see some trees in the wind that helps you on a web design project, or two birds in a bird bath that helps you visualize a logo your working on, all these things can be of great benefit. That and there’s no better medicine than taking a walk I think.

Setting Reasonable Deadlines

Now, I’m the kind of person that always wants things done, and done now. But when it comes to freelancing, you should never have that pompous attitude.

When your working on a job, or even two or three, you need to have deadlines. You want things done by a certain time, and clients need things done. The problem is that a lot of freelancers just work, work, work until everything is done. Now this is very ambitious, but your deadlines need to be reasonable. You need to budget your time correctly to get things done on time, and with the highest of quality. But there’s no reason for it to be done three days before it needs to be.

See, what I mean here is that if you rush a project, or set unreasonable deadlines, like saying you have to finish a whole web development job in one day, that’s just crazy, and even if you do finish it by that time, the quality will not be anywhere near as good as it should be, or as good as you know you can make it.

I personally set deadlines maybe one to two days further in time than I know I will probably have it done. Why? So that I can make sure everything is perfect, and if time and unforeseen occurrences befall me, I’ll be ready, and I’ll have that extra day as a cushion to fall back on.

Well, I know it’s sad to say, but this will conclude the series, “The Freelancer’s Guide”

I think it’s been a pretty good one, and I hope it helps a lot of you in your online ventures. Let’s just go ahead and recap what we’ve gone over, shall we?

The Freelancer’s Guide

• Part One: Where to find Work
• Part Two: How to Land a Job
• Part Three: Gaining Repeat Clients
• Part Four: How to Deal with Clients
• Part Five: Creating a Work Flow for Multiple Jobs

Well, I guess that’s it. I really, honestly, do hope that you all learned something in this series, and I hope it benefits you greatly in your online ventures.

Hey guys, and welcome to Part four of this series!

I’m really happy with the feedback and response I’ve gotten so far with this series. The first three parts have generated 22 comments! That’s pretty darn good for a new blog. (In my opinion at least)

So without further adieu, let’s introduce Part Four.

In this part of the series “The Freelancer’s Guide”, we are going to discuss How To Deal With Clients, basically just some tips to deal with clients.

This is extremely important when freelancing. One thing I should mention though, is don’t be too nice. Now, I’m not a mean person by any means, but hear me out.

In some cases, when you are too nice, and too giving with a client, they may try and walk all over you. They might try and get you to work cheaper than you can, and don’t let this happen. If you decide you can’t work for less than a certain price, than stick to it!

With that said, on with part four.

When dealing with clients, once you already have the job, (Part two ) you need to deal with your clients in a respectful manner.

Slang

This is so unprofessional in my opinion. When your speaking with a client, be it over the phone, through email, or on instant messenger, you should never use words like “yo” or “dogg” or “omg”, “lol” or whatnot. Speak with good English, and have good grammar, as well as put stress on your spelling.

Attitude

When dealing with a client, you need to have a good attitude about the job you are doing. Don’t be a “You get what you get” freelancer, and work with the client to achieve the best results.

If your a jerk, and don’t reply to emails, don’t work with the client, you’ll do two things.

1. You won’t satisfy exactly what they need/want.
2. You will most likely never work with them again.

These are just a few things that you need to remember when working with a client. It’s important because not only does decide whether you will ever work with a client again, it will also trash your reputation, and that will only hurt you.

Well, that’s pretty much it for this part, it’s a short one, but it’s full of some great information that as a freelancer you need to use. Stick around for the last (but not least) part in this series, where we’ll cover How to Create a Workflow when you have multiple clients.

Well, part three is finally here. (Yay!) In this section of the series, “The Freelancer’s Guide, we’ll speak about how to gain repeat clients, or “regulars” as you might call them.

When your in a position where you have a client or two, (or three! ) that come to you with work every month, every other week, or even five or 6 times a month, you are greatly benefiting from this “relationship”. Why? Well, it’s not only because you have a lot of work, equaling a lot of revenue, but it’s due to the fact that you now have a steady income. Everyone knows that freelancing is a risky business, due to the fact that you may have too many jobs to take on one month, and absolutely nothing the next three months. This makes it tough and stressful, because you never, ever know when you will have work.

This is where having regular clients comes in handy.

When you have these repeat clients, you have something to fall back on really. It gives you more “job security” if you will, as you know, “Well, I haven’t had a job in three weeks, but I know Bill has that project I’ll be working on.” In some situations, a repeat client won’t help you. So what if you get one $50 banner job each month from them, you still need more to live off of. Right? Well that’s the beauty of having “regulars”, not a “regular”.

You see, when your in a situation where you have, say, five clients that bring you 3 jobs a month, each worth, $125 on average, that’s $375 per client, times five, equaling $1875. Now imagine you have 10 clients bringing you the same quantity of work each month, and you are making $3750 per month, and that’s just from the clients you know will bring you work. Then factor in a few other jobs, and your looking at around $4,000 a month if you play your cards right. That’s how having repeat clients will help you.

But enough about why you should have repeat clients, let’s talk about how to get repeat clients.

Gaining a repeat Client

I’m going to be honest with you, it’s not easy.

If a client can find someone who will work $5 cheaper, and their work is of similar quality, your off the MSN list.

So how can you achieve being a clients “go to” man, and their only choice? How do you get a client to only turn to you, and not even get price quotes from other freelancers? Let’s talk about how.

When you have a client that you see is bringing you fairly steady work, speak to them about it. Mention to them that you would like form a better business relationship with them.

Something that I have done that brings in more and more work is this.

Tell them that you have a pricing chart, and that if they bring 5 jobs or more to you a month, they get, say a 5% discount, and if they bring 10 or more, a 10% discount.

Do things like this, and maybe doing them a favor here and there, and bam!, you’ve got a repeat client.

It’s a pretty simple thing, but it will really help you, as I spoke about above.

Also, what you can do is be real friendly with them, always giving them “special treatment” if you will, and you will form a trust. This trust is extremely beneficial, as they will start viewing you as “their” graphic designer, not just some graphics dude that does my banners. When you reach this point, your pretty much locked in, and you will have a much more steady stream of jobs, therefore creating a steady income.

Well, that will conclude Part Three of the series, “The Freelancer’s Guide” and I hope you really liked it, and will use the tips. Any suggestions you have, I would love to see them in the comments, so feel free. Also, stick around for Part Four, in which I will be bringing out how to deal with clients. Audios!

*NOTE* I know that I speak more specifically about graphic design, and not other freelancing work. But please try to keep in mind that these techniques apply in all aspects of freelance work, not just graphic design. My reason for speaking more of graphic design is that designing is my strong point, and what I do the most when I freelance. *NOTE*