Boost Your Profits With Mark Ups
A mark up, also known as percentage over cost, is one way you can increase your freelance revenue. Marking up is a common business practice, but I’m hearing more and…
How To Change Your Mind About Money: 5 Simple Ways To Deal With Fluctuating Freelance Income
One thing I struggled with in the past as an independent creative is money. I have a lot of experience with the all too common challenge of income fluctuation. I'd…
How’s Business? Five Tested Ways To Help Your Freelance Business Thrive
Did you know that your creative business thrives because of how you do business and not because of the quality of your work or your talent? By all means, always…
Debt, Taxes and Your Freelance Business: 2017 Tax Reform Bill
I'm a sole proprietor working with businesses and organizations, and so, like you, I had some concern about how the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would affect me. I…
Twelve Books To Boost Your Creative Business
It's widely acknowledged that there is a direct correlation between reading and success. But it’s not the amount you read, it’s what you read. There’s a difference between reading for…
Try This Easy, 8-Point Tune-Up For Your Freelance Business
Every business needs regularly-scheduled tune-ups. Just like with automobile maintenance, tune-ups keep things running smoothly. They're most effective in maintaining performance when they're done regularly. They're considered preventative maintenance. Think…
Firing A Non-paying Client Is Not Burning A Bridge
From the Freelance Road Trip mailbag: A Freelance Road Trip (FRT) member shared an experience with a non-paying client. The member gave me permission to use her experience as the…
How To Build An Effective Professional Network
When you're in business (and freelancers are in business), you build reputation through social and in-person networking. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a network is a group of people who are…
Creative Freelancer Q&A: What Do You Do About Scope Creep?
What do you do about scope creep? Should you avoid it? Should you agree to it? The affect of scope creep — when a scope of work is increased or otherwise altered…
12 Questions You Need to Ask Every Client BEFORE You Accept Their Project
Have you ever gotten involved on a project and then realized that neither the project nor the client is ideal? The project that was going to be so great for you turns…
Creating Freelance Road Trip
Filling the Gap Between School and Career So you've gone through school and developed a creative portfolio. You've tweaked it up one side down the other until it perfectly represents…
Tactics for Better Business Networking
If you are a self-employed creative, business networking is a significant part of your marketing mix. While designers, illustrators and photographers naturally get together with other creatives for mutual support and trend watching, creative industry events will not…
Creative Freelancer Q&A: Do Business, Not Favors!!!
Avoid awkward moments and misunderstandings about getting paid for your freelance work. Prepare written agreements for each client that outlines the type of work you will do, how much you will charge for it, and how you want to be paid. You cannot make a living by doing favors.
How To Get Clients To Pay You
What do you do when you a client refuses to pay you? According to Freelancers Union nearly 50% of freelancers were stiffed by clients in the past 12 months. Freelancers reported spending an…
Advice for Freelancers: On Being an Owner
Ownership is simply the idea that something belongs to someone. In the case of your freelance business, you own it. It belongs to you. You are the possessor of your…
How To Work With Clients
10 Best Practices For Building Reputation and Relationships When you accept a client’s project, you make it your own. You’re not creating for yourself. Even so, you need to approach a…
Find Your “Why” to Achieve Your Goals
You need to identify what's at stake. I often reflect on how blessed I am to work the way I've always wanted to — independently, and why I do what I do…
How to Save on Gasoline by Freelancing
You probably already know that you can deduct mileage as a business expense. But did you know that, if you work from home, all mileage related to your freelancing is deductible?…
7 Things You Must Do To Start Your Creative Freelance Business
With the excitement and anticipation of embarking on a freelance career, we can easily get caught up in the ideas of freedom, of getting paid for doing what we enjoy,…
7 Places to Find Freelance Clients Online and Offline
One of the huge differences between a salaried worker and a freelancer is that freelancers need to always be looking for work. Freelance work consists of projects with a limited…
How To Budget For A Design Project
To answer the question, “How much will it cost?”, the question, “What do you want to accomplish?” needs to be asked first. Clients are often in the dark about what goes into their design project.…
How To Choose Good Clients
Good clients are integral to successful freelance projects and to your career overall. Beyond the project itself, a referral or recommendation from the right client can open doors for you. But how do…
How To Manage Your Brand
In Part 1 of this article I focused on what a brand is, and the visual and conceptual components of an effective brand. Brand is not a logo. It’s not…
5 Reasons Why I Can’t Be Your Designer
I wish I hadn't said, "Yes" to certain design projects. It's not that the projects were a problem, but something about the clients' approaches, actions or expectations made the work more trouble…