Sunday, 12 May 2013

Ideas & Opportunities

Every once in a while, you come across people who owe their allegiance to no single employer and observe no strict office hours. They work at their own pace and don’t get regular compensation. Yet they flourish, operating outside the safety nets granted to career professionals. These individuals are known as freelancers, and you can be one, too, if you have the discipline and the drive to navigate this way of life. See our list of steps to take before you take the freelance route here.

Once you’ve chosen to focus on the field you want to work in and built a decent portfolio, the next step to succeeding as a freelancer is to get yourself in the market.

Below are tips on how to maximize your chance at success:
 
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3 / 10Create a network
One of the greatest tools available to freelancers is networking. By getting to know a lot of people on a regular basis, you can expand your potential client base. Many independent contractors get projects through direct conversation, or word of mouth. Referrals also form the bedrock of freelance projects, and testimonials from friends can sometimes earn you lucrative deals.

Attend events and seminars related to your field, and make as many friends as you can. Be genial and helpful, and politely explain what you do for a living whenever people ask. Being presentable and well-mannered are critical aspects because you are literally your own advertising platform. The more people you impress, the more likely your extended network will speak well of you to others.

Successful freelancing is about getting yourself out there, and letting as many people as possible know that you’re in the market to do some work. If no one knows about you and the things you do, then your business is dead in the water.
Identify your client
Depending on your expertise, you can zero in on a specific market. If you’re an accountant, your potential clients will probably be small businesses without an in-house numbers cruncher, and not large corporations with accounting departments. Focus your networking efforts on those who are likely to hire you.
Think of this as planting seeds in soil that’s best suited for the crops you’re trying to grow. That said, you should also remember that clients could turn up in unexpected places. In a mixer with CEOs and managers, one of them might have a side project that needs to be handled by outsiders rather than company personnel. In situations like these, be quick to seize the opportunity. Find out what they need, and deal with them as if they were already your clients. Don’t let business slip through your fingers just because you can’t see how someone could use your services.
Mind ethics and legalities
Being a freelancer does not excuse you from the legalities involved in running a business. File your taxes, and make sure your other legal paperwork is in order. Many independent contractors don’t bother incorporating a single proprietorship for what they do, but more established ones find that having official receipts and accreditation from the Securities and Exchange Commission affords them options with bigger clients.

“If you plan to work with corporations and advertising agencies, you definitely need to register. [And] you still need to get the normal business permits,” admits Raffy Tesoro, a freelance production designer and studio owner. “It’s even stricter, actually, when it comes to working with the agencies. You need to get accredited. You’ll have to go through a process in each company, where they determine whether you’re ‘worthy’ of working for them, based on whether you can meet their standards.”

Oral agreements often form the basis of freelance work, but you can also use memorandums of agreement or short-term contracts. These offer you and your clients mutual protection and legal support, should any problems arise. Consult a lawyer about to know what concerns arise in your line of work. You might also want to hire an accountant to help you in managing your finances.

Respect your clients and the work you do for them. Work ethics are important for freelancers, and behaving inappropriately can seriously damage your reputation. If there is one thing independent contractors can never, ever afford to lose, it’s a good reputation.
Determine appropriate compensation
One of the most challenging aspects of being a freelancer is determining how much charge for your products and services. If your fees are too high, you could scare away new clients. If they’re too low, then you could be shortchanging yourself, earning much less than your work deserves.

“All business, no matter how competitive our environment is, is still based on some form of symbiosis,” Tesoro underscores. “I cannot exist without my suppliers, and I cannot exist without my clients. There has to be a balance in terms of how payment is handled, so that we don’t end up undermining ourselves somewhere down the line.”

The best way to ascertain your fee matrix is to keep negotiating with clients. Aside from knowing how to price yourself for a given project, you can use these discussions to learn what clients expect from your industry. Since freelance projects are fluid affairs that often have irregular deliverables, don’t impose a fixed fee that you can charge all the time, no matter what. Pay attention to the market and your clients’ needs, and adjust accordingly.
Manage the feast-famine cycle
Freelancing can lead to alternating periods of wealth and poverty since you don’t have a steady source of income. There may be times when you have a lot of money coming in, and it can be tempting to behave as if good times will roll forever. They never do, though, so when it happens that you don’t have projects for a couple of months, you could find yourself unexpectedly strapped for cash.

Freelancers should have financial discipline in order to survive. You can get through dry spells by using savings from the last windfall, and you can’t do that if you spend money recklessly. Learn the value of saving up and responsible credit-card use. If you happen to bring in that much during your “feast” periods, then you may want to take up lessons in advanced wealth management.

The same discipline will see you through in your later years. Even freelancers need to retire at some point, and without the golden parachute of a company retirement package, it’s even more important to have a nest egg for the future.

Tesoro points out that you can do during lean periods than simply waiting them out. “In times of no work, find ways to make yourself better. Travel, read, or maybe build something. Practice. Eventually, you’ll start getting work again. Also, in creative fields, you’re only as good as your last idea, so you should take the opportunity to beef yourself up.” 
Consult other freelancers
Freelancers from different fields often collaborate on the same projects. An IT company in need of an advertising campaign may choose to enlist a writer, a graphic artist and a networking specialist, and those three people might choose to work together again on other projects if they have good synergy. There’s a lot of flexibility in freelancing, and finding ways to interlock your skills with those of other freelancers can yield impressive results
Ideas & Opportunities
How to survive and thrive as a freelancer
By Dante Gagelonia

Jan 20, 2012
Every once in a while, you come across people who owe their allegiance to no single employer and observe no strict office hours. They work at their own pace and don’t get regular compensation. Yet they flourish, operating outside the safety nets granted to career professionals. These individuals are known as freelancers, and you can be one, too, if you have the discipline and the drive to navigate this way of life. See our list of steps to take before you take the freelance route here.

Once you’ve chosen to focus on the field you want to work in and built a decent portfolio, the next step to succeeding as a freelancer is to get yourself in the market.

Below are tips on how to maximize your chance at success:
 
1

9 / 10Beware your schedule
One of the greatest myths about freelancing is that it gives you a lot of time to do what you want, outside of work. Don’t be misled by this. There are only so many hours in a day, and if you aren’t careful, you could find yourself overbooked with projects and without enough time to rest, much less finish them all on time.

“After many years of managing my own work hours and being my own boss, I realized that I have developed a rhythm to my freelancing work,” Bayan-Llamas explains. “I now know what hours of the day I work best, what days of the week I need to set aside for chores and housekeeping, and which weeks of the month I need to pad with work in order to pay my bills on time. Success in freelancing requires keeping an eye on the big picture.”

To be good at freelancing, it’s important that you manage your time well. Regular office workers may work from 9 to 5, but once it’s time to go home, they can leave their work in the office. Freelancers often don’t get that kind of luxury. In exchange for not having to report to work regularly, you might have to keep working into the early morning hours of a weekend. The pace can be very damaging to your health, if you don’t watch it.
You are your business
If you can handle truly being a master of your own fate, free of both the requirements and benefits of a regular employer, then freelancing can be a satisfying experience, with personal rewards limited only by how well you run your life. This is entrepreneurship at its most distilled, and at its most potent.

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