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In this article, I’m going to talk about how you can hold yourself accountable on a yearly basis. The first three articles in this series covered:

1. Daily accountability. At the start of each workday, you made a list of things you absolutely had to accomplish. At the day’s end, you asked yourself what you did to make money and what you did to bring in business.
2. Weekly accountability. At the end of your work week, you wrote a review and evaluation of how things went. You also planned the following week, with special attention paid to the tasks involved in doing the work for which you are paid, getting more of it, and running your business.
3. Monthly accountability. On the daily and weekly level, you were working in the world of words. For your monthly accountability, the focus shifted to numbers, specifically, your profit and loss statement as compared to your budget and to the previous year. You also looked at your cash flow and bank balances, and you forecasted your revenues and expenses.

On the annual level, we’re looking at big things like trends and transitions in your business. What better way to record them with an annual report? Like the publicly traded companies’ annual reports, yours will offer two types of information:

1. Narrative
2. Financial

There’s no need to write a War and Peace narrative. After all, you don’t want to fall into the trap that one of my mentors pointed out. She told me, “Martha, you spend too much time writing about your business. You need to do business!”

Oh, was she right!

So, let’s follow her advice and keep our narrative to one page. And on that page, write down your Five Best and Worst Moves of the Year. Where would you find the material for these two Top Five lists? In a couple of places:

1. Your weekly review/evaluation writeups. Are you seeing any disturbing trends? Say, like projects getting tougher to land and clients being slower to pay? Or are you seeing positive transitions, like success in breaking into more lucrative markets or the development of new profit centers?
2. Your financial statements. I’d suggest pulling a couple of profit and loss statements, one that compares your actual results vs. your budget and another that compares this year with last year.

On the P&L vs. your budget, you may see things like cost overruns. There’s one that’s already bopping me over the head, and the year isn’t even over yet. That Big Bopper would be my website redesign, which blew well past its budget. Reason: When it came to choosing subcontractors, I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. So, look for that one on my Worst Moves list.

The P&L vs. the previous year is an excellent check on the progress your business is making. Now, you may be dealing in an economy where just staying even with last year is quite an accomplishment. Or maybe your business down compared to what it was last year. Don’t beat yourself up if the news isn’t good, but don’t just say, “Oh, it’s the economy,” and stop trying to find new business. That’s an easy trap to fall into, and a lot of people do. Many of them don’t get out.

Okay, so you’ve listed your Five Best and Worst Moves of the Year. Next to the Best Moves, write a sentence or two on why these were such good moves. If you’re doing things right, you want to keep up the good work. Recording the whys behind the actions gives you some history to refer back to. (“Hey, if I made that happen back in ’08, I can repeat that success now.”)

For the Worst Moves, what did you learn? And how will you fix the problem so that it won’t happen again?

After the writing’s done, don’t hide this document. Every year, I call a family meeting and share my Best and Worst Moves with them. If your family isn’t readily available, share it with key vendors (such as your accountant) and your mentors.

We’ve reached the end of this accountability series. I’d like to leave you with three books that I’ve found helpful:

1. Getting Things Done by David Allen. Many people consider this book to be the go-to reference for stress-free personal productivity.
2. Get Clients Now! by CJ Hayden. If you’ve been stumbling and fumbling with your promotional efforts, CJ will get you on the right track. But be forewarned that this isn’t one of those “client attraction” systems that allow you to sit back while the work rolls in. Sorry, but you’re going to have to go out and find those clients and (gasp!) sell your services to them. CJ’s also big on the notion of holding yourself accountable.
3. Twist the New by Greg Loumeau. Back in my weekly accountability article, I talked about the tasks involved in doing, getting, and running a business. Greg turned me on to this idea, and many others. This is one of those books that packs a lot of good stuff into just a few pages.

Original post by FreelanceSwitch.com

We all know there are advantages of being a freelancer, especially if get have the luxury of working at home. Unfortunately, it’s hard to be creative every single day, especially if you’re worrying about payments, existing clients, finding new clients, feeling overworked, or whatever.

Don’t get overwhelmed. Here are some general tips to get the most out of your freelancing efforts.

1. Get rid of dud clients. The unfortunate truth is that your ‘dud’ clients are not necessarily bad people. But you’re running a business and if you’re working and not getting paid (at all or on time), then dud clients need to go.
2. Increase your rates. The math is simple, the decision to raise rates is harder. Start by charging more for new clients and for old clients who come back to you after a time. Leave the current rates for clients alone for now unless you think they’ll accept. A strong component to making rate raises work is to have emergency funds and savings. When you have a secure feeling about your finances, this is projected in your communications, whether by e-mail, chat or voice. You’re not worrying and thinking, “if I say my rate is up and they say ‘no’… what if they all say no… how am I going to pay my bills.”
3. Increase your revenue streams. My brother, co-owner of a successful ad agency, said to me recently, “don’t think of yourself as a freelancer. Think of yourself as a business owner.” Wise advice. What do (successful) business ownwers do? They come up with other ways to earn income.
4. Become an entrepreneur. This is really an extension of the last point, but becoming an entrepreneur usually involves working with other people, even if it’s collaboration as opposed to hire. I know “synergy” is an overused word, but when you work on something with a compatible colleague, is amazing what can come of it. And having someone passing on work to you, and vice versa, is a prosperous feeling. If you’re not going after all forms of prosperity in your work and personal life, what are you doing?
5. Leverage the past. Use what you know and what you’ve done before, whether it’s a bit of research, a sketch or partial design, a snippet of code or a few lines of text. Build upon the knowledge you have, to save you time now. Reuse what you can, when you can.
6. Leverage your creative/ productive periods. You know those times when you’re on fire, getting more work done than you might have expected? Don’t waste those times just planning. Use them to get ahead of your workload, so that if you hit a creative “downtime” in a few weeks, you’ll be prepared. This isn’t always easy, depending on the kind of freelance work you do, but it does apply to writing, photography, sometimes even coding or design. You don’t need to produce finished work, if you don’t have a buyer. However, do “sketches” or samples as preparation for work that you are anticipating in the future.
7. Make the effort to plan. Planning really does make the difference between being a successful freelancer and one who is always chasing his/her own tail, trying to get work done. If you’re researching when you should be writing, or writing when you should be sourcing new clients, you’re contributing to a negative sense about your abilities. On the other hand, getting preliminary research and initial tasks for a project out of the way means you can work on remaining tasks with a peace of mind that you have enough time to finish everything.

   For example, if I have 3 articles to write for a client this week, but I start scoping/ planning on Saturday evening for 15 minutes, then do a bit of reseach for 15-30 minutes on Sunday, I now have all three articles prepped. The ideas can brew in mind’s background proceses while I work on something else. Then when I do start writing on Monday, I often have a full or partial article “written” in my head. Because this is such a magic feeling, it means do my work with confidence, and leaving enough room (time) for any edits, should they be necessary.

8. Manage your tasks. While it’s nice to track and manage your gigs and keep a total of how much you’ve earned today, don’t forget that larger gig will throw you off. A gig that pays, say, $500 will possibly be spread out over several days. If you can, put a separate dollar value on each of the subtasks you perform for this gig and track these values. It’ll give you a bigger sense of accomplishment on a daily basis. This beats looking at your task log and seeing a big zero while working on this project.
9. Enjoy life now. Don’t lose yourself in your work. While it’s good to focus and be productive on client projects, if you have to work day and night all week, you can’t possibly be getting all you need out of life. Now, not in a few weeks or a few months, but now. Otherwise, before you know it, a few years will have passed by, gone forever.
10. Give yourself less time. Set your own work hours and stick to those. Force yourself into efficiency. If you have your workstation set up in your bedroom, it’ll very hard to separate your work and personal life.
11. Use the snowflake method. This is a method that some personal finance bloggers write about as option for paying down loan and credit card debt. Instead of paying down the loan with the highest rate, you pay down the smallest loan, to gain a sense of accomplishment. This translates directly to client work: do the smallest, easiest project and get it out the way. When you’re feeling good about yourself, tackle the next smallest project. However, the difference is that you do have to concern yourself with deadlines. If not working on a project NOW means losing a client, then you’d better think twice.

Care to share? What do you do to ensure you get the most of out of your freelancing career?

Original post by FreelanceSwitch.com

How many of you have had jobs or freelance gigs which you billed for once a month? It often takes an act of financial yoga to balance your checkbook each month, right? Wouldn’t you say that being paid weekly or bi-weekly makes life more pleasant?

1. You’re more relaxed about when your next paycheck is coming.
2. You can take a few days off without worrying that you will not earn as much this month. You’ll be relaxed as a result. (See #1)
3. Being paid weekly makes it much easier to ensure that there’ll be enough funds when a bill is paid through automatic deductions from your bank account. You’ll be more relaxed. (See #1. Again.)

When you’re more relaxed, you tend to be more creative, and to “catch” solutions that were otherwise hidden from plain view. This usually results in a higher productivity rate. There’s a nice positive feedback loop at play, as a result:

1. You get paid the following week (or two) for a freelance job.
2. You’ve now exceeded your low-water mark in PayPal funds (or whatever) and feel comfortable shifting some of it to your bank account.
3. You feel happy that you can pre-authorize bills on time and don’t have to shuffle other bills around. It’s nice not having to pay by the skin of your teeth, or robbing Peter to pay Paul, as the saying goes.
4. Your happiness translates into an open mind for ideas and creative solutions, which will show in your IMs, Twitters, Plurks, phone calls, and email messages. (Remember the old advice about smiling when you’re on the phone selling something? It’s the same principle at play,and some people believe it actually has roots in quantum physics, despite seeming all new-agey and metaphysical.)
5. You waste less time and get more work done. When you’re relaxed, you’re likely more efficient in your work.
6. Your positive attitude results in higher quality work. Well, usually so, provided that you leverage your mindset.
7. Your quality work leads to more work from clients, referrals, or even people who saw your work online. It’s happened to me in the past and in the present.
8. You have enough upcoming work scheduled that even if one gig ends, you’ll still be pulling in weekly income.

Now all that said, this does not necessarily mean that every ongoing client pays weekly. Rather, if you establish with clients that completed work is to be paid “on delivery,” “Net 15″ or “Net 30,” then you just need to ensure that you have enough other clients so that someone’s check will be coming to you each week.

As for finding weekly work or accomplishing the net result of getting paid each week by one client or another, that all depends on what type of freelancing you do, and whether you’re doing big projects or small. My experience has been that it is sometimes worth accepting work that pays a bit less if it pays weekly or more than just once a month. Alternately, if I know a client well, some projects might pay 25-50% upfront, with milestone payments afterwards.

Of course, the problem is that some types of freelance work might taking longer. E.g., coding over writing. Just try to balance your workload with large and small projects that get you several paychecks per month.

What is your freelance workload like, and how do you cope?

Original post by FreelanceSwitch.com

I know everyone hates the term “pay your dues,” but sometimes that’s exactly what you’ve got to do.

Case in point: I got a cold-call from an aspiring copywriter a few days back, asking for advice. I put it on my list of people to respond to, but not very high. After all, I’ve got to cover my own butt, first, and I’ve been positively swamped with work. I planned to give her a buzz back within a few days. But later that night as I am cooking dinner, she calls back. Twice in the same day. (Not to mention, after hours.)

I’ll say it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m not a good mentor. Not because I don’t have the expertise, but I don’t have the patience to offer one-on-one support to others. I do better writing about it for the masses. I’ve learned not to feel bad about this, because everyone has their talents and mine will probably never be mentoring. I help in other ways, by offering you witty posts with some valuable advice. And my incessant blabbing on Freelance Radio, which I am told is useful to many.

That said, I don’t mind giving advice to new freelancers. I think it helps all freelancers as part of this great big circle we’re in. Take advice from others, give back… that sort of thing. But I do think there’s a difference between getting pointed in the right direction, and just being lazy while expecting others to do the legwork for you.

Here are some ways you can get advice — without pushing the bar.

Consider someone’s time. For me the fact that this woman called twice in one day, and once after hours (we’re in the same time zone, too!) had me a little annoyed. How was I supposed to get in the mood to help her when she couldn’t respect my time and give me time to respond to her? It’s enough for many freelancers that their clients call at all times of day… it’s more upsetting when someone won’t leave you alone because they want advice on how to start their career.

It’s vital to contact someone at a good time and ask which type of contact method they prefer. If you do call, ask if it’s a convenient time to chat before starting to talk. If it’s not, ask what time is better to call back, or if the person prefers another method of communication.

Ask if they’ll help. I know that I may seem a little harsh, but I also know there are plenty of busy freelancers out there whose time is valuable. That’s why it’s so important to see if a potential mentor is even interested in helping you. Try not to get upset if they’re not—this doesn’t make them a bad person, it just means that he or she is not the right resource for you at this time. Plus, relationships take time—no one should expect to call someone in their industry and immediately get every tip they need for success. Maybe the potential mentor will help you in the future, so try not to burn bridges.

I think this is an important step because if you get their OK, it’s more feasible to bombard him or her with questions. When you do that in an unwanted way, you assume he or she is there to help you, which is another no-no for me.

Don’t blatantly ask for their contacts. I didn’t think this aspiring copywriter would be so bold as to ask for my contacts. In a roundabout way, I think that’s what she was doing. Regardless of my situation, you should never ask for someone else’s contacts. It’s OK to ask what types of companies or organizations to look for, but to ask for exact names can be simply rude.

You shouldn’t expect to get a mentor’s contacts, anyway; only some insight into how you can develop your career. If you’re looking for someone to guide you, keep in mind that a mentor focuses more on helping you with your craft. I may have been more receptive to give this woman tips on how to build her business, but if she thinks I’m giving away my semi-golden Rolodex of contacts I’ve worked hard to make, she would be wrong.

Forge a relationship. It’s can be tough to cold call someone, or even to send an email to someone you’ve never met. But you should also consider how the potential mentor feels about being put on the spot. In my case, being called and asked if I could help this woman with her career wasn’t the problem. When she offered her services it was great. But when she wanted industry contacts and organizations to help herself, I wondered if she had considered why I should give up my knowledge to her. I had no idea who she was, or what her capabilities were.

A better idea probably would have been to call and introduce herself and let me know she’d follow up via email with her resume and contact details. I’m also not much of a phone person unless I know someone, so for me being put on the spot was undesirable, and led me to look at her in an unwelcome light as well. I would have preferred if she’d contacted me and followed up so I could get to know her in my own time—not while my chicken was about to burn.

Offer your services. One thing the aspiring copywriter did do that I appreciated was offer her services. That I don’t mind, because having the contact information to get in touch with someone in a pinch is quite valuable. But again, the relationship must be formed, at least for me, before I would give anyone my work.

If you’re looking to offer your services to a mentor or another person in your industry, you’ve got to tell them why they can trust you with their name. For example, if a client of mine needed help and I was too busy and chose to outsource to this aspiring writer, how would I know she’d come through? Would I want my name put on her work? Many mentors feel this way, so when you approach them it’s good to give your information and include some samples so they can get a feel for you. Maybe follow up in a month and try to forge some sort of friendship or working arrangement, but again: stick to the rules. Stick to their preferred method of communication, approach them at a convenient time and limit what you ask for.

In my case, this call was not a positive experience. Had the aspiring copywriter first asked if I was interested in talking, that would have set a whole separate tone. In addition, it’s OK to ask for advice in general, but remember not to expect someone else to do everything for you. Part of the fun in building your freelance business is paying your own dues and having the experience of learning things by trial and error. Freelancers have to be able to pull off all aspects of business in order to succeed, and that includes boring and painful things like getting clients and managing your accounting.

I try to use every experience to help potential and existing freelancers succeed. So hopefully my semi-sour experience will help you have a better one, no matter which end of the call you’re on. So that’s why I’m writing away with more tough-love advice. It may not be what many would-be freelancers want to hear, but it’s probably just what’s needed to finally find a mentor you can count on.

(Note: Thankfully, my caller got the hint and let me go before my chicken dinner went up in flames, so it wasn’t all so bad.)

Kristen Fischer is a copywriter and author living in New Jersey. More information about her latest book can be found at http://www.ramenrentresumes.com or http://www.kristenfischer.com.

Original post by FreelanceSwitch.com