Freelancing: Freelance Hints, Tips & Strategies by Michelle L Devon

Let’s Talk Freelancing!

Yesterday, I talked about article marketing briefly and said I would discuss it more today. Article marketing is an inexpensive way to generate a buzz about your business and help you increase your PageRank in Google at the same time, while also branding you or your business as a sort of expert in your field.

Here’s how article directories go: you write a short article that is packed with some information your potential clients might find useful that shows you know what you’re talking about in your niche market and that other websites or ezines/newsletters might want to pick up as a feature article or filler content for their site or mailing.

With that article, your name (byline), and an author’s bio is attached, and that bio will have relevant links to your website. Your article gets indexed in Google, and the links are live, and so there’s a bump to PageRank incoming links, and people can click to come to your site. Then, as people pick up your article and it is distributed across the internet or put on other websites and blogs, with your author bio on it, those get indexed too, with your live links, and people again can come to your site and it helps increase PageRank.

If you do this right, you also can write in such a way that people who read it know you know what you’re talking about… it’s a more personal way of showing your potential clients that you know your stuff.

If you’re an editor, like me, you can do what I do: grammar hints and tips, information about how to improve writing, book reviews, etc.

If you’re an administrative freelancer, write about what you do and your field of admin work, or without being ’salesy’, write about why potential clients should outsource their services to freelancers like you. If you’re in the tech field, write some brief how-to things that let potential clients know how to do something simple, and then in the bio section, tell them if they need more help with more advanced things, visit your site.

Of course, if you sell products, you can write information, reviews, uses for your products; tout their benefits, give inside information, and then of course, links to get to your site where you sell the product. (though this blog is really for freelancers, not product sellers)

My favorite article directory is EzineArticles. I have found them to have the best traffic and the best exposure for pick up and reprint on other sites. I highly recommend them. You can see my articles over there by clicking here.

I know some of you who are writers are going to balk at the fact that you’re putting articles up for free, when I say on my other blog about freelance WRITING that you should never give you writing away for free. This is true that I say this, but understand two things 1) THIS blog isn’t about freelance writing but rather about freelancing in general, and that means not everyone who freelances is going to be a writer and 2) I never said not to give writing away for free, but rather, not to give it away without some type of value attached to it. Linkbacks and word-of-mouth advertising and marketing is worth actual money if you’re trying to drive traffic to your site to get customers and to your blogs and other pages that are monetized.

Freelance writers can write articles about why it’s important to hire writers to do web copy, why it’s important to foster a good relationship with writers, why professional writers are better than doing your own writing, what ghostwriting is and how it can benefit the client, etc.

Other freelancers pick their niche and write about benefits of using their services, inside tips and tricks about what they do, etc.

Article directories are an awesome way to help your site get noticed, drive traffic and brand you as a knowledgeable ‘expert’ in your field.

Happy Freelancing!

Love and stuff,
Michy

    Let’s talk freelancing!

So now you’ve set up your website and got your supplies in order, you’ve mailed out your intro letters, so now it’s time to start generating some buzz about your business.

PageRank for Your Business Website

Google PageRank (PR) is essentially a tool in Google that tells the value of the link to your website (at least as far as Google is concerned). The higher your PR is, the higher you will appear in search engine rankings when people use the keywords for your site and your services. The higher you appear in search engine rankings, the moer people looking for your services will find your website, and if your site is quality, the more people who will consider hiring you to provide freelance services to them.

One way to get higher PR is to get quality links to your site. By quality links, I mean links from relevant sites that have decent PRs themselves. This isn’t going to happen overnight, and if you don’t create a bit of a buzz about your website, it’s not going to happen at all.

Create a Buzz: Social Networking

So the first thing you can do to create this buzz is to network on social networking sites. The more professional these social networking sites are, the better. LinkedIn is a good ‘professional’ place, and then you can go with other places like Facebook, Myspace or some of the other social networks. You don’t really want to spam or promote too much on these networks, but they are a chance to create your profile, tell the world who you are and what you do, and then drop your links into your profile so that people can find your website, and then the links help build PR.

Submit Press Releases

Also, you should consider Googling ‘free press release submissions’ and then reading a bit about how to create a press release, and then you can do a press release announcing your business, one announcing your services, one announcing your website, and one for each of your social networks announcing you and your business as a new members.

You can do this on multiple press release sites as well, taking only the amount of time required to copy and paste the release you’ve written on the sites. Yes, there is software you can buy to do this, but I’m a frugal freelancer, and I know many people who dream of running their own freelance business and working from home don’t have the money to fork over for these programs. At worst, more people will see your website and press release and might come visit; at best, several places will pick up at least one of you releases for distribution and lots of people will come to your website and see it.

Expert Articles for Reprint / Article Directories

Next, you can write short, insightful, creative, interesting articles for article directories. My next blog post will explain this more in depth. For now, you can just add it to your list.

Blogs

If you maintain any blogs (and you really should at least have one, doesn’t everyone?), you should put the link to your business on the sidebar of all your blogs. It wouldn’t hurt to post an excited and personal post on your blog about how you are freelancing now, and ask everyone to check out your new website as a favor. You never know who might see it and think, “Hey, I could use their services!”

Ask Others To Help / Network

When you put up the blog posts and social networks, ask your friends and readership if they will help you promote your business. Simply ask them to visit your site, and if they like what they see, to please add your link and business name to their blogroll. You can also find blogs or content sites where people do website reviews for free and ask them if they’ll put up a review of your website.

Advertise

As a last resort, you can advertise your site. There are lots of ways to do this, some of which will cost time and some of which will cost money. I actually created a video promo for free (just my time) for my writers forum, and posted it everywhere I can think to post it without spamming. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci0SUE1YjI4.

If you pay for advertising, don’t spend a lot. I’ve found word of mouth and web exposure pays a lot more than paying for ads in the beginning. You can create a few banner ads and ask others to put them up wherever they want/can though, like on blogs and their own websites.

That’s it for today. Just a quickie here: these tips also work for writers who write for paid-to-view content websites to help promote their profiles and articles on those sites as well. Never spam. Never, ever spam. Spamming will hurt your business more than doing nothing at all to promote your business.

Stay tuned for: article marketing for your business and blogs.

Happy freelancing!

Love and stuff,

Michy

  Let’s talk freelancing!

You’ve picked a business name, applied for your EIN or other necessary business licenses and numbers, bought your business cards, set up your home office, purchased all the required equipment, have a website and email set up, and you’re ready to go with your freelance business.

Now all you need are clients.

Uhmmm, how do you find clients for a new business?

NETWORKING!

Networking is the best way to find clients for your freelance business. Who you know, who knows you, and word of mouth are the biggest things that will get your business going and keep it moving forward. Make a list of all your past business contacts. Think outside the box here. Start with obvious folks, people you’ve worked with or for in the past, people you have wanted to work for or with, and competitors of people you’ve worked with and for!

Then think beyond that to anyone you know in the industry you have chosen, as well as businesses in the industry that provide the types of services you’re going to offer. For example, I am a freelance writer, so I made a listing of all the magazines and websites I might be interested in writing for, as well as a list of people who managed ezines and newsletters I have read over the years.

Make the list and get contact information for them, including email address, postal address, contact name (try to get a direct name and not just a title), and a phone number.

After you’ve made your list, first, write a print letter, a physical letter of introduction, and sign and mail it to these people. In the letter, basically just introduce yourself and your new freelance business. Try in this letter not to be too ’salesy’ here. Remember, at this point, you’re only introducing yourself and announcing your new business, NOT trying to gain a client yet. Marketing is much different than making a sale. You want to network with these people, not necessarily work FOR them.

What’s the difference? Well, networking is saying, “Here I am, here’s what I do, you do something similar, so we should know each other.” Making a sale is trying to get them to purchase your services or DO something. You don’t really want to go there yet. Start by mailing the letter and sending a copy of your business card with the letter.

I don’t suppose I can stress enough how important it is that this letter be professional in the writing, the content and the appearance. Make a nice letterhead or get one for free from the Microsoft Office website for Word. Be sure to put your business name, your name, your contact information including: email address, physical address, phone number, and website. Be sure everything is spelled properly and the grammar is good. Keep it to one page only. Don’t send any sales letters, flyers or advertisements yet. These things can come later. However, you can consider sending goodies. Free pens, scratch pads, lollipops with your business name on the sticks, something cute and memborable that doesn’t cost a lot can really make people remember you.

After  you mail that letter, you can then follow up with an email that addresses the letter, about two weeks after sending the letter out. The email can just basically say something along the lines of following up on the letter you sent, mention that you hope they kept your business card, and then provide them with a link to your website. This will keep you in their mind as well as providing an easy to access link to your website. Most people will at least click to see your site, but they won’t take a printed letter and type your website URL to see it.

About a week after the email, if you still haven’t heard from them, you can either let it go, or follow up with a direct phone call. Make a lunch date. Offer to take them to lunch (and pay for it!), something, anything to get a chance to network with these people you want to work with and for.

Then, always leave it with a, “…keep me in mind, and if you know anyone….”

Letters of introduction do work. However, keep in mind, they don’t work immediately, and you still need to follow up - this is just a way to get your foot in the door and to announce yourself to them.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss other ways of networking and finding clients for your freelance business, but letters of introduction are a good way to, well, to introduce yourself!

Stay tuned tomorrow for other ways to connect with potential clients and stay tuned also for information about freelance bid sites and how to use them to gain a client list and get references.

Until then, Happy Freelancing!

Love and stuff,

Michy

  Let’s talk freelancing!

Now that you have a domain name, have purchased a hosting package, or have decided to use the free Geocities or Google Pages or some type of a blog template platform and forward your domain there, it’s time to consider what should be included on your freelance webpage.

The most important thing to include on your website is going to be your name and your company name. After that, you’ll need all of the following:

About Page

Your main page of your website is your welcome and for a smaller business, it’s probably going to be your  ‘about’ page too. Here you want to tell the potential clients about your business, a bit about you, and provide the tone and feel for the rest of the website.

Contact Information

In order to get clients for your freelance business, they will need to have some way to contact you. I recommend using both an address and a phone number, as well as email addresses. If you’re worried about giving your home address out on the internet (and let’s face it, who can blame you?), I suggest getting a PO Box. However, not just any PO Box. If you go to one of the mailbox stores, you can usually get a physical street address, making it look like your address is a physical address, while not revealing anything personal about where you live. These can run anywhere from $35 per year up to quite expensive.

As for phone numbers, we all know that getting an address from a phone number is pretty easy to do, which would negate the need to get the PO Box. Another option for phone numbers is to get a toll-free number that forwards to your home phone line or to get a VOIP (voice over internet protocol) line. Skype has some that are fully internet based, while Vonage can offer you some that can double as a ‘land line’ type phone.

I personally got a second line in my home and then got a toll-free number to forward to that line. The line is unlisted, and the toll-free number doesn’t list a physical address, and that way, customers can call me for free from anywhere in the USA. There’s a charge of .25 cents per connect and .11 cents per minute for the toll-free calls that are incoming, but it’s worth it to me.

Then, of course, email addresses where you can be contacted are important too. Tomorrow’s blog will give you a nifty way to avoid having strippers/spammers grab your email address from your website but still make it clickable and available to your clients too, so stay tuned for that!

 Services Provided

Depending on what  type of freelancing you plan to do, you’ll need to determine your list of services and display those on your website, with at least brief information about what the services entail. If you want to post prices too, that’s okay. Some people do. I personally don’t put up my cost, because every project is unique and depending on how much work the project will require, how much I already know about the topic/subject, how much research, how much time… etc, prices will vary.
Samples  / Mock Ups / Experience

First, if you have finished projects available for potential clients to see, by all means link to those. For example, if you design websites, link to some of the website you’ve worked on. If you are a writer, list the publications and sites where you have written in the past. If you’re a graphic designer, give links to images other clients have used of yours.

If you provide services, chances are you have some sample of the type of work you do that you can provide for potential clients to see. If you’re brand new to freelancing and don’t have any paid gigs yet to use as examples of past work, then simply create some mock ups or samples of the type of work you can do and put those up on your website for potential clients to see.

The services you provided in the past aren’t as important as the services you are talented enough and capable of providing now. The past services and work only serves to confirm that, but they aren’t required.

References / Testimonials

Rerferences and testimonials aren’t required either, but if you have good references or quotes from clients who have said you’ve done a good job, put them up as references for your work. Be sure not to give personal information about clients on your website though, like email address or phone numbers, without their permission to do so.

Essentially, a freelance website is a combination of a business website detailing services provided and a portfolio of the freelancer. Call it an interactive extended resume of sorts.

I highly recommend searching for other freelance websites and see what works and doesn’t work from looking at real-life examples of other freelancers.

If you’re just getting started and you have a resume detailing your experience, you can convert your resume to PDF and upload it to your website as well, and this will suffice until you can finish getting the site built.

The website doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive. All you need are the basics and to have a web presence where clients can contact you and see a list of your services.

I know, these are just generic tips, and you’ll likely find what works for you after a bit of trial and error, tweaking and changing things, and getting it perfect.

Happy Freelancing!

Love and stuff,

Michy

   Let’s Talk Freelancing!

Okay, so you’ve set up your freelance business, you’ve made the business cards, invoices, letterhead, company name… you’ve applied for an EIN with the IRS… you set up your workspace in your home and have all the necessary supplies.

Now what?

The next step is to look for ways to promote your business, so people can find you or have a place to go to learn more about you when you find them.

You Need a Web Presence!

It is nearly impossible in today’s market to have a business without at least some sort of web presence. Freelancing is so much easier when you have a website where you can put samples, mock-ups, contact information and have an online portfolio of sorts, all in one place for potential clients to see.

Websites don’t have to be expensive. Hosting can be as cheap as two or three dollars per month all the way up to a couple hundred per month, depending on what you plan to do with it. The typical freelancer doesn’t need a big fancy web package though. Let’s look at what you need to do to get a website up and running for your freelance business.

Buy a Domain

The domain name is the name that is going to go in your browser for the URL. That is, the link that you will give to others to make it to your website. The domain name is likely going to be your email address too, if you use a domain mail service, so you might want to consider that when deciding on the length of your domain name. For my personal website, I purchased the domain www.MichelleLDevon.com, which is, of course, the pen name I use for my writing. For my business, I used www.AccentuateServices.com, which is the name of my business. For my writing forum, I chose www.writersforum.info . These are simple, easy to remember domain names that all refer to what the website is all about. They are all hosted on the same hosting package, though, so two of them are forwarded to the main domain.

When buying a domain, you’ll want to consider the name as well as the extension, i.e. dot com, dot info, dot net, etc. The .com and .net domain extensions are the most popular, but that also means they are the most expensive. The .info domain and the .biz domains are less popular, and some services actually look at these extensions as being ‘less than’ the .com or .net domain extensions. Still, a .info or .biz domain is much cheaper than their .com and .net counterparts.

If you can afford it, I recommend purchasing both the .net and .com versions of your domain name. My business, Accentuate Services, had a web presence for nearly three years, when suddenly, I noticed another Accentuate Services pop up on my Google searches. They had purchased the accentuateservices.net domain, and then, because of my hard work in promoting my website, they appeared immediately under mine in the searches, with a really bad website, offering similar administrative services as I offered. I wish I had chunked down the extra seven bucks to purchase both domains.

Even if you can’t afford hosting, buy the domain as soon as you settle on a name for your business, or purchase your ‘name’ as a domain, so you are certain to have the domain. I’ll discuss ways to use the domain later, without paying for hosting, if you need to. Domains can be as cheap as $2-10 bucks. They are well worth the investment.

Hosting Package

Purchasing a domain doesn’t necessarily mean you are purchasing a hosting package. Some domain registrars, like GoDaddy, offer free hosting packages for individuals with the purchase of the domain, and then you can add on special services you want to add. I have found hosting packages for really cheap and I’ve found them for really expensive. Do your homework, because sometimes you do get what you pay for. Search for scams and warnings and information about the host prior to purchasing a package. Some hosting packages will let you pay by the month, while others will advertise a monthly payment, but will require a year in advance to get that low ‘monthly’ rate.

Can’t Afford Hosting?

I know that purchasing hosting can be expensive when you are first starting out. Some companies don’t let you pay by the month, so you have to cough up a hundred bucks or more to get hosting for your domain for the year. As I said earlier, some domain registrars offer free simple hosting for purchasing a domain. If you can find one of them, do so!

Another option for hosting is to use a free hosting site, like Geocities (Yahoo!), Google Pages, or other websites that offer free personal hosting. You can go into your domain control panel and set it up so your domain is forwarded to one of those free hosting platforms.

Another option many people are starting to use is blogs as websites. WordPress blogs have ‘pages’ you can add, so there is navigation similar to a website, and you can pick all sorts of nice, professional templates making it as easy as typing a blog post to build a webpage for your site. Take your domain and forward it to the blog site that is hosting the blog. Blogger, Wordpress, and a few other blog platforms offer very easy to use publishing formats, they’re free, and you can even put advertising on the sites through these blogs (though I don’t really recommend advertising on the freelancing part of your website).

Domain Email

Email doesn’t always come standard with a domain or hosting package, so be sure that you purchase domain mail if you want to use a professional looking and easy to remember email name that is related to your business. I have michelle@accentuateservices.com and michelle@michelleldevon.com for my emails, but I also have a ‘catch all’ so I can get other emails with the same domain name, but different email name. It’s not professional looking to use a ‘free’ email service like Yahoo or Hotmail for your professional email, so using a domain email is a great way to appear more professional in your business dealings.

Building the Site

There is no need to be fearful of building a website for yourself. It’s not as hard as you might think, and most hosting providers even have very easy templates with drag and drop WYSIWYG editors (what you see is what you get). It’s as simple as picking a template, uploading the pictures you want to use, drag and drop them where you want them, and then write your text. Again, GoDaddy has some simple free hosting packages with decent templates to get you started, and you can always add to the templates and alter them or even build your own site later when you learn more about building webpages. The simple templates will get you started though, at a reasonable cost.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk a little bit about what to put on a freelance website, so you have a good online portfolio, must-haves, don’ts and more, so stay tuned!

For now, if you don’t have a web presence, start searching! Purchase your domain name today! I’m not necessarily recommending GoDaddy, nor endorsing them, per se, but they do have reasonable prices, easy to use navigation and domain control, free hosting packages, and they accept PayPal for those who don’t want to give out financial information.

Stay tuned tomorrow for some tips on building a freelance website.

Happy freelancing!

Love and stuff,
Michy

From time to time on this blog, I intend to provide reviews of places geared toward offering services to freelancers or offering a place for freelancers to find work. Some of these reviews are going to help you find new places for great opportunities, while some are going to tip you off to scammers and spammers.

In this instance, I have found a site that pretty much is both of those things: a scammer and a spammer.

I won’t link to the site, so as to not give them linkbacks, but the name of the site is freelancehomewriters.com. I have seen advertisements and glowing endorsements for this website for a couple of years now, but I have never heard of a real writer making any money from this program. How can these glowing endorsements be real if no one has ever made money from signing up with these folks?

Turns out, they make money through their affiliate program, so those glowing endorsements are only to get people to sign up so the reviewer will make a quick buck.

Here’s what I know about freelancehomewriters.com:

At best, FreelanceHomeWriters or Freelance Home Writers, depending on how they are sending out emails this week - are spammers. At worst, they are scammers.

Here’s my short review Freelance Home Writers:

First, the website looks nice, great colors, professionally done - all well and good, but when you click on more information it takes you to a a really high pressured copy written sales page that is just not what a ‘writer’ would typically see for a business posting job offers for writing. It talks about how much money you can make - how if you write three article per day you can make 10,000 bucks per year - wow oh wow, whatever, and man, just think if you do 8-10 per day - you’ll be rich rich rich.

Yeah, BS. First, most people can’t write quality articles at the rate of 10 article per day every single day. Second, I’m really suspicious that they even have enough listings to cover that many per day for every person who wants to do that many.

So I decided I’d at least give them the benefit of the doubt and check them out before making any further judgments about them. I signed up - something I had to do before I could see job postings, and once I did, I figured I’d be able to see at least a partial listing of jobs.

Boy was I wrong. Instead, once they had my email address (thankfully I use a Yahoo! address just for testing sites like this one so they can’t spam my real email), I was then taken to a screen where I was told that TODAY ONLY! I could get my membership from them not at the high 99.95 they usually charge, but for only 49.95!

They even give a nifty membership card and all that other good crap. You cannot see the job postings unless you pay - so there is no way to see if there is even a job posting.

So I was thinking in my head: SCAM!

So what did I do? I went to read the FAQs and here is #1 listed on their Frequently Asked Questions:

” How do I know this isn’t a scam?
Answer: Absolutely not! We wouldn’t be able to do business online very long if we were only here to blindly take your money and leave you high and dry. We’ve been online for nearly 6 years now and are very proud to be legit!”

First - Absolutely not! didn’t actually answer the question that was asked, but you know - when it comes down to it, any place that has to actively tell you that they are not as scam are, indeed, usually a scam.”

Secondly, they charge a fee without even letting you look at what the site has to offer…

Okay, I wrote this article:

http://freelancing.today.com/2008/09/22/ten-tips-for-freelance-contractors/

Which is about tips for freelance contractors to protect yourself when freelancing, and with the exception of freelance bid sites, no one should EVER pay for a freelance job to the employer themselves. Freelance contract employers pay you - you don’t pay them!

Never ever pay someone money to give you job - EVER!

Then, they offer you special discounts - emails pushing you, and saying that you can do a ‘trial membership’ for a smaller fee - about $1.95-2.95 depending on which email you happen to get (they are different for different folks).

I’ve seen people pushing them and saying they are a great place. I discovered those folks are affiliates who are not actually writers, but are internet marketers out to make a few bucks from your membership sale - so when I contacted a few of them, some were honest enough to admit they never actually used the program - only the affiliate part.

They absolutely SPAM you - and you don’t really even have to sign up with them to get the spam. My fourteen year old son who has his own email and has never signed up for any work from home information received an email from Freelance Home Writers saying he had requested the info.

Uh, no, he didn’t.

I’m also pretty sure they either sell your email address or else they are affiliate marketers too and are sending out emails to the email you use to get more information EVEN IF YOU DO NOT purchase a membership. And most of the emails FROM them have NOTHING to do with freelance writing.

I have a mole who just signed up for the program awhile back who is about to try to take advantage of the 100% money back guarantee.

I’ll update with more info when that is confirmed that they likely don’t give refunds, even though they say they do. I’ll keep ya’ll posted.

For now, they are spammers at best and scammers at worst. Stay away!

You can get free writing leads from multiple places online, including the paying writing leads thread on my free writers forum. You do NOT need FreelanceHomeWriters.com to make a good freelance living!

Love and stuff,
Michy

Let’s talk freelancing!

Freelance contractors are more commonplace than ever before. Working from home or telecommuting, with the high gas prices and companies looking to save on overhead, has become an option for many employers, while Freelance contracting provides an opportunity to work from home, be self-employed, or make extra money from freelancing, without spending a fortune on business start-up costs.

The problem with the increase in freelance contractors is that scam artists have become more common too. Freelance independent contractors should know these ten tips for freelance contractors to protect themselves from freelance scams. There are other things to keep in mind too, but these are the ones I know are important from personal experience or from having heard from others.

1. Never pay someone to give you a freelance contract.

A legitimate freelance contract will not require you to pay money to the employer in order to provide a job or freelance contract. While some internet sites require users to purchase a membership to bid on freelance jobs, the person who awards the freelance job should never charge a fee in order to gain the freelance contract. Be very leery of any site that claims to charge a membership fee. Freelance bid sites like Elance and Guru.com are legitimate, but FreelanceHomeWriters (dot) com is not. Do your research before you pay a membership, and NEVER pay a fee directly to the person/company who contracts with you.

2. Secure a deposit or milestone payments on freelance assignments.

Some freelance contractors, especially over the internet, require payment in advance for freelance contracts. However, especially when you are a new, unproven freelance contractor, it is difficult to find employers who are willing to provide payment in advance.

One solution to this problem is to request milestone payments. The freelance contractor can decide what milestones of completion exist in the project, and then partial payments are made to the freelancer once each milestone is completed. Another solution is to secure a deposit on the freelance contract, which shows the freelance employer is willing to put up funds to secure the freelance contract.

3. Do not give employers personal information.

Go to this IRS website and apply for an employer identification number (EIN). This will prevent you from having to provide the freelance employer your social security number. After you have this number, you need not provide the employer with any other information besides your business name and EIN.

4. Do not give bank information to a freelance employer.

Do not fall for the scam of a freelance employer asking for your bank account information in order to send a bank transfer. Someone who has your bank information can wipe out your bank account.

If the freelance employer says bank transfer is the only way they can pay, upgrade to a business account with PayPal and send a request for funds to the employer. The employer can initiate an eCheck transfer to your PayPal account without having any personal information except the PayPal email address. The freelance employer doesn’t even have to have a PayPal account to pay you this way. Again NEVER give bank information to a freelance employer, ever.

5. Never wire, forward or transfer money for a freelance employer for any reason to a third party.

When a freelance employer asks you to forward money to someone else or transfer money to someone else, this is a warning sign of a scam or illegal activity. Never forward money to a third party for the freelance employer, even if they send you the money to do so.

6. Do not send an overpayment back to an employer.

Another common scam is for a freelance employer to send a check or money order in excess of the invoice and ask you to send the balance back to them. Don’t fall for this. Return the entire check or money order and immediately request the freelance employer issue a new payment for the proper amount.

7. Always have a freelance scope of work or freelance independent contractor agreement with every freelance employer.

It’s not unusual for an employer to hire you as a freelancer and agree upon a price- for the freelance services but then discover later the freelance services the freelance employer expects more than the original agreement. Have a firm freelance contract that details exactly what freelance services you provide prior to beginning the freelance assignment.

8. Make sure you have contact details for the employer.

An email address or website is not enough to secure payment if an employer chooses not to pay or skip out on the invoice. You need to be sure to get a person’s name who is responsible for paying the freelance contract and a mailing address and phone number in case the freelance employer doesn’t pay.

9. Keep a good record of all communications with the freelance employer.

Save all your emails and if you are required to talk to the employer on the phone, always follow up with a short email that says something like, “Just following up on our phone call on (date), about (insert topic) and wanted to verify that you requested I (insert the job, etc).” Doing this provides you with a record of your work and conversations, so that if there’s ever a dispute, you have documentation for recovering your loss, in court if need be. (I had to secure an attorney once to get payment on a big project. It CAN happen!)

10. When asked for samples, be careful about giving read-to-use samples!

What I am referring to here are customers who will say they are interested in your bid, quote, services, etc, but they want to see if you can handle the job, so if you would just send them two samples of such and such done to their specifications. This is particularly true when asking for writing samples or graphics samples. What happens is, they ask several people to do the same things, then they have your samples and they use them and never pay you, telling you they selected someone else.

Mock-ups are great when you can use them. A mock-up is a reduced quality version of what they are asking for, to give them an idea you know what they are talking about, but not quite good enough they can use it professionally. This works great with website design, graphics, logos, etc. Mock-ups are great because you don’t put a huge amount of time into it, you can use it as a sample for someone else later down the road, but they can’t use it for any professional purpose. Mock-ups can include watermarks, low-quality, pixelization, or weird characters in the code that messes up the display for professional use.

For writing, though, mock-ups are a bit more difficult. The best way to handle samples for writing is to tell the client that you can show them samples of similar content you’ve done for other clients, but that you cannot submit special request samples without getting paid. If they balk at that, they probably aren’t going to be people you want to work for anyway. After all, an employer would never ask you to work for two days for free to see if you’re going to work out. Submitting special request samples that you will not be paid for is the same thing. Point that out to the employer. If, however, they are willing to pay you for the samples, then by all means, consider it.

***

A freelance contractor can provide quality service and receive fair payment, while the freelance employer saves money on overhead. Freelance contracting can be a win/win situation for both the freelance independent contractor and the freelance employer.

However, one bad scammer and the freelance contractor can lose a lot of money and suffer a setback from which it may be difficult to recover. Use common sense, trust your intuition if something doesn’t feel right and follow these steps above and freelance contracting can be a very profitable and rewarding business.

Let’s talk freelancing! 

Okay, so now you have your business mostly set up and you’re good to go as far as starting to market and promote yourself. Next week, I’ll be chatting with you more about how to go about doing that, but today, I wanted to point out a few places you can familiarize yourself with and then go from there.

Up above this blog, you’ll see some tabs you can click on. Those tabs will take you to a page here on my blog with links to a few places I’ve either personally used to find freelance jobs or that I have verified as legitimate leads and gigs for freelancers. I’m not endorsing them or even recommending them, but rather just making them available to you. However, I won’t post any links to places I know to be frauds and in fact on my blog here, I will discuss fraudulent sites or sites that I know for a fact are not legit or that don’t provide what they promise.

You’re going to hear me tell you repeatedly that you don’t want to ever have to pay someone to give you a job, ever. This is important. However, know that the freelance bid sites do usually require a membership, and this is where some of the fraudulent sites ‘trick’ people into paying for ‘memberships’.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out the links above for those who were wondering what they were. I intend to update those links as I find and verify new sites or links that you can use for your freelancing career. If you read me say in a blog post that I updated one of the tabs, that’s what I’m referring to… I will have added a new link or removed one.

Okay, that’s the short and sweet today. I’ll be back with more later!

Keep freelancing!

Love and stuff,

Michy

Let’s Talk Freelancing!

Some of you, particularly those of you who are members of my forum as well as reading me on my blogs, know I’ve been battling my health for the last two years or so, and particularly so this last year.

Well, today I want to talk about health insurance as a freelancer.

When you quit working or are not working and then you start freelancing, you will be self-employed, and that means, unless you’re lucky enough to be married to someone who has good insurance, you’re without health insurance and you will have to go self-pay or get your own insurance.

Sure, if you’re young and healthy, you’re thinking nothing bad can happen to you, and there’s no need, but let me tell you something…. I was relatively young and thought I was healthy when I quit the corporate world back in 2003 to freelance full time instead of part time on the side, and since then, my health has deteriorated very quickly. Unfortunately, it happened at a time I was without insurance, planning to get some soon but never quite thinking I could afford it. That makes most of what I deal with now a pre-existing condition and it’s very expensive to insure someone with existing health problems.

Get insurance.

I can’t stress it enough. You can go a few months to a year without it, a gamble, but for sure by that time you’d better have insurance, and you best take really good care of your health during the time you’re without - and if you can help it, try to avoid the doctor diagnosing you with ANYTHING other than a common cold while you are uninsured, to avoid a pre-existing condition when you do get insurance.

Don’t think it can’t happen to you. Don’t think you’re too young (the things wrong with me usually don’t happen to people my age, but here I am dealing with them), and don’t think you’re invincible.

You’re not. No one is.

Get insured, and get that way as quickly as possible.

Now, as for health. It’s easy when freelancing from home to work long hours, particularly if you are just getting started or you really love what you do. Working 10 plus hours per day as many freelancers do, and particularly so if you’re sitting and not moving around much….  Get up and move your body. Stretch and walk around the house at least once per hour and take a walk around the block now and then.

Eat properly and eat well… it’s easy to snack on junk while working and your brain not actively be aware you’re doing it. Plan balanced and nutritious meals and keep easy to fix and eat healthy snacks, not junk.

Carpal tunnel and repetitive stress disorders are common with those who type and work at a computer a lot. Buy quality items, like keyboards and mouses, that will reduce strain and then again, stretch and move your fingers and hands regularly to avoid pain and discomfort.

Rest your eyes and wear anti-reflective computer glasses when working at the computer. Set the screen for the lowest brightness you can stand without having to strain to see the screen. Put the screen at the right height so you are looking directly at it or slightly up at it and not downward. Position your chair properly and sit properly in the chair when working.

Take breaks. Not only will you feel better, but you’ll probably do better work if you’re rested and take a few breaks now and then.

Freelancing from home is often solitary as well as sedentary, so be sure to find an outlet for social interaction. If you have kids, do things with them, plan family time. Be sure not to neglect a spouse, partner, significant other. If you’re single and live alone, try to avoid the hermit-syndrome and hole yourself up for days at a time with no social interaction. Remember, one of the reasons you’re probably freelancing is so that you are working for income, not living to work.

Join forums with other freelancers and network. At the very least, socialize with those going through the same things. Don’t allow yourself to sit alone, day in and day out, just working, or work can become a negative thing that isolates and is depressing. It would be a shame to lose your passion for it simply because you isolated yourself. Take the time to do things outside, with people.

Take care of yourself first, because when it comes right down to it, when you’re sick, or worse - dead - you aren’t going to be able to work. Health comes first; then working.

Sorry if this sounds preachy or whatever… but trust me, as I sit here feeling like I do today, looking at my foot, clenching my teeth from the pain, debating whether I should take a nap or try to force through it and work, while thinking of the pile of medical bills that insurance is not going to pay - well, maybe my situation can help you protect yourself too.

Take care of you, get insurance, socialize…. and THEN happy freelancing!

Love and stuff,
Michy

  Let’s talk freelancing!

Before you begin freelancing, or providing any services to a client, you want to prepare your business, so you can focus on the work and not the behind the scenes paperwork. There are a few things you’re going to want to set up before you start doing any freelance work. Let’s look at a few of them you should consider today.

Business Cards

To be honest, I have never needed business cards while freelancing, since the majority of the work I do is via email, phone or snail mail. If you are going to be meeting people in person though, a nice, professional, simple business card is a great thing to have, to give to the potential client at the end of your meeting with them. Generally speaking, a simple, plain business card is best - but as soon as I say that, someone will point out a fancy business card some big business or corporation has. Well, sure, if they are a huge corporation with an existing reputation, a cute, funny, colorful, silly business card might work, but for a new freelancer, it just might make you look unprofessional.

Business cards don’t have to be expensive. You can even get some for free. I wrote an article about inexpensive and free business cards here, if you’re looking for professional business cards without breaking your budget.

Invoices

When I first started freelancing online, I never considered I’d need invoices, but several of my clients asked me to invoice them., particularly when working with a business and not an individual, because they need invoices to get the payment processed through their accounts payable department. You can find free invoices online, particularly if you have MS Word. Go to Microsoft’s Office website and  search for invoice templates. You’ll find them in both Word and Excel. Pick one you like, tweak it to make it personalized for your business, and you’re good to go. These can be printed and mailed or they can be attached to an email. You can also send invoices via PayPal.

PayPal Account/Bank Account

You’ll need a way to both send and receive payments online without compromising your or your client’s privacy. PayPal is the most common form of payment online, though there are other merchant account processors. A merchant account is simply a special account set up with a third party to allow you to receive payments via credit card and bank transfers. If you use a merchant account no one has heard of, you may end up with client hesitant to pay you.

Starting a PayPal account is a great idea, since it is likely one of the most used merchant accounts online, and people either love or hate it, but overall, they seem to trust the PayPal logo. You’ll want to go ahead and upgrade to a premier or business account, otherwise you’ll be limited on credit card payments and a few other things. Yes, there’s a fee for business accounts, but that fee is deductible, and it is likely less expensive than paying a monthly fee for a credit card processing merchant account.

You’ll need a bank account to associate with your PayPal account, and it’s best if you set up a small business account with your bank. This is super easy to do if you have set up an EIN for your business . Just print out the application confirmation with your EIN number on it or take the certificate the IRS sends you in the mail, and it’s easy to get a business bank account. This allows you to deposit and cash checks made out to your name, any principal’s name for your business, and made out to the business name.

Create Logs (Excel?)

You’re going to be signing up for certain websites, services, programs and such to facilitate your freelance career, so you need to find a place to log all your passwords, usernames, account numbers, and other information required to access these accounts. I know many of you will think that your browser, such as Firefox or IE, will store this for you, but if anything happens to your computer, you’ll be super glad you have this log somewhere in hard copy. Keep it safely stored somewhere away from your computer so no one can hack into your computer easily, but be sure to pull it out often and update it with new sites or services to which you subscribe. Later in this blog, when I talk about promoting your business, you’ll be signing up for even more services, so this really is more important than you think.

Hardware/Software

I would highly recommend you get a copy of MS Word, at the very least. While it’s not required, it is still primarily the standard, and somewhat universally used. If your client is using MS Word, you’ll need to be able to format and such in Word to return things to them. OpenOffice.org has a comprable open source program, and I do highly recommend it for most things, except editing using the editing tools, if you’re looking to save some money. OpenOffice is a free program, and there are other MS comparable programs available through them.

I guess it goes without saying that you’ll need a computer and an email program of some sort, and of course, an email address. It is best to use a domain address of even get your own website from a place like GoDaddy.com or some other domain providers, preferably one that matches your business so you can later make a company website (all businesses need some sort of web presence!), and use that email address instead of using a free email provider, like Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL, etc. If you absolutely must use a free email service, I highly recommend Google’s Gmail. It has one of the best spam filters built in I’ve ever used, and it also allows POP3 and IMAP access to get your email in Outlook or some other program (Like Mozilla’s Thunderbird), and also email forwarding. Free email addresses just look a bit cheesey and unprofessional when compared to a domain mail’s email address.

When you can afford it, you’re going to want to buy an external harddrive or a tape drive to back up your computer. Please don’t neglect this. Buy one as soon as you can afford to do so, because if you do lose your computer for any reason, the cost of having purchased the backup drive is neglible compared to the cost of losing everything… everything! Your computer will likely BE your business. Protect it! It could take weeks or even months to recover, and you might never recover everything!

If you can’t afford an external hard drive yet, I suggest you email your work to a Gmail account or some other web-based email service with unlimited storage space, so you can keep a copy of it accessible online, from any computer.

There are likely other things you’ll want to buy or prepare for your business, depending on what type of freelance business you plan to do, but I feel these small things are the biggest things you can do for preparing for your freelance business.

Keep it Cheap

You don’t really need a lot of money to do all this though. Until your business starts making money, there’s not a big reason to send a lot of money upfront. I built my freelancing business in a shoestring budget - nah, more like a nonexistent budget. I was a single mom with two kids living at home, trying to pay a mortgage and a car payment and pinching every penny when I started freelancing.

I let one client’s payment pay for the next thing I needed to take on a bigger client, or a bigger job, or purchase a subscription service for a bid site, or whatever… so don’t think you need a ton of working capital to start a freelance business. You don’t! This is particularly true if you are going to start freelancing part time while maintaining a full-time job. Plus,it’s much more encouraging when you start turning a profit freelancing as quickly as you can, instead of having to wait to make a profit until you make up all the money you’ve invested.

For me, that’s part of the beauty of freelancing services–you don’t have to pay a lot of start up costs; all you have to do is just start working, and then get the equipment you need as you go. For example, I used to freelance transcription work. I found a free transcription software online that let me use the F keys as hotkeys for pause, rewind, etc, and even let me play back at a reduced speed. Until I could afford to buy a good pair of headphones, I would listen to the audio to transcribe over my regular computer speakers. While not ideal, a couple of jobs that way enabled me to afford the nice headphones I wanted with noise reduction. I let my business pay for my business, because goodness knows I was too broke to do it!

You don’t have to be rich to start your own freelance business; you just have to be smart and be willing to improvise when necessary.

Okay, this post is getting to be a bit long, so I’ll leave off there, and talk some more about getting started tomorrow!

Happy Freelancing!

Love and stuff,

Michy

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