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Guide to/Advice on starting Freelancing
RanCiel810
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've never done freelance work before but have the opportunity to and I'm looking for helpful guides/advice for a newbie. Things such as invoice templates, what to be wary of first time around, contract items to insist on before a job starts, etc. General info is fine but specifically I'll be doing copywriting and web design if that helps. Any advice?
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Also keep receipts for things that could be construed as business expenses. As business expenses are tax deductible. And having the documentation is good.
there are services out there that will time track and create invoices based off of the time tracking. years ago when i was freelancing I used paymo. There are others out there that may be better.
get in bed with agencies. Still try and get direct clients, but if you can work on a contract or project-by-project basis with a couple marketing agencies in your town, they will quickly become your bread & butter. In fact, I've known people that will 'apply' for jobs and then go in and pitch that they are willing to work on a contract or freelance basis as a trial run, and be somewhat successful at it.
as freelance you are essentially a 1 man company. That means you are doing all your own marketing, sales, follow-up, execution, support & loyal nurturing all on your own. It's tough, but you'll never get a better education on how small businesses work.
don't be afraid to educate, but don't be demeaning about it. A lot fo people don't understand website stuff and will appreciate your knowledge if you show them you have it. Just...do it without making them feel like they don't know shit. Even if they don't.
Make it incredibly easy for people to contact you in whatever medium they want to contact you with. Phone, email, twitter, facebook, etc.
Every check you get, put aside ~25-30% and DO. NOT. TOUCH. this is your taxes. if you touch this, you will be hurting big time later.
When tax season comes around, get the business version of Turbotax. Or hire a tax accountant.
It will be tempting to do fixed bids. try and avoid it if you can. Go for hourly rate. Fixed bids are sometimes unavoidable if you really need to land a job, but i lot of times they will end up biting you in the ass down the road. Hourly rate means they pay for what you put in, which is the correct and ethical way of doing it. If you feel that while you are doing the work that you are screwing up and taking longer than you should (i.e. learning on the clients dime) maybe then you could flub your hours down a notch to protect your guilty conscious.
PARKER, YOU'RE FIRED! <-- My comic book podcast! Satan look here!
This. All of this.
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Be aware of vagueness. There is always some wiggle room about what is covered (In Scope) for a contract, but you need to be just as clear about what is Out of Scope, and the situations that can cause In Scope work to fall outside of it.
I do IT consulting. Usually it's a multi-discipline contract, so they are wanting a new AD, Exchange, SCOM, SCCM, SCSM, etc. Those likely mean nothing to you, but it's an example of how you get asked to work in many areas under one contract. The problem comes when you complete all the areas but one (because of something the client has done) and they start acting reluctant to pay the whole contract.
So we have very clear outlines saying that if we make a request of the client and it isn't fulfilled (admin access to the Exchange Server) then we put it in writing. If we ask again and it isn't fulfilled, then all of the project depending on that request falls Out of Scope. The client can bring it back In Scope only through mutual agreement, so if they dick about for three months and then try to bring it back with one week to go, we can refuse.
Another is that they are paying for my time as well as my expertise. If I am sat waiting for information for a week, guess what? 40 hours billed. If I do work and then they change their mind a week later? 40 hours billed. The project I am on gets cancelled part-way through because of management decisions? The remains of the project billed. I turn down work to take on a project, so it isn't appreciated when they try and cancel because they can't handle their shit. And you can bet everything that if I tried to cancel mid-way because I was out of my depth they would have lawyers doing all they could to recover money.
Doing creative work means you probably need a non-creative person handling the contract and money side. It's a skillset that you just don't spend time developing. I learned mine by making mistakes, and from the horror stories of fellow contractors. I now know how to approach this, but I could have been a lot better off with a lawyer, or at least legal advice when first starting out.
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Payment terms are part of the contract. If they are late, they should get charged. To quote a wise man "Let me make this abundantly clear: I do the job, and then I get paid."
I try and insist on 7 day payment terms in all my contracts, with this being negotiated on by some clients. But all my invoices have a footer stating that overdue accounts are subject to a service charge of £35 and statutory interest (I think this year is 8% per month). I have only ever had to enforce this once in 7 years.
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Came in here to post this, and found it already done.
That is going to be the main thing. Carrying yourself with the confidence to say "I am a professional. You hired me to do the job. I have done the job, and now you must pay me."
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An easy way to do this for most high tech work like artists and programmers is to require payment on delivery of product.
- Do not work more than the agreed on hours, they won't appreciate it and definitely won't pay you for it.
- For web stuff in particular, make sure that you put in your agreement how many times you're willing to make adjustments/changes or what you will charge for those changes and what the minimum amount is. There are almost always small "can you just change this word?" "We just need you to fix this one link!" etc. that will add up very quickly with some customers, so make sure they're paying you for all those "it'll only take a second" changes.
- Keep in mind that you should charge enough to cover not just the work that you're doing, but the administrative work you have to do with invoices, contracts, phone calls, etc., and any equipment you have to supply to do the work. You can't bill someone for the time you spent billing people or charge just one customer for buying you photoshop or whatever, so that cost should be spread out over all of the customers, otherwise you could end up paying for the privilege of working.
Other than that, what everyone else said