Running a freelance business means that, on any one day, you have to wear a number of different hats. You’re the marketing director, the salesperson, the stationery buyer, the IT technician and the administrator – all rolled into one.

With all these different roles, where do you find the time to actually do your clients’ work?

I find that outsourcing certain tasks buys me a considerable amount of time. Also, there’s no way we can excel at all these various roles, so outsourcing those that I’m not that good at – and therefore don’t enjoy – makes eminent sense to me.

Here’s what I outsource so I can be more productive :

• I have an IT person on a monthly retainer who sorts out any problems with my computer equipment and keeps everything running smoothly.
Read more »

It’s an old adage that it’s far easier to sell more to an existing client than to get a new one on board. But how do you get existing clients to buy more from you?

Here’s my suggestion. I call it my ‘marketing table’:

Create a table, with the product/service you offer down the left hand side and the names of your clients across the top. Where a client has bought a product or service from you, check that box with an ‘x’.

So, my table would look something like this:

Client testimonials are a powerful tool in your armoury as they are proof that other people are happy to say great things about you.

The client testimonial page on my copywriting website is the most visited page on the site. In fact, I once got a web writing project purely on the strength of my testimonial page.

The new client, who had never met me, said: “I’m not looking at any other copywriter. I know two of the people quoted on your testimonial page and if they say good things about you, then I believe them.”

How to get testimonials

1. Ask for them. You’ll be surprised how many clients will be happy to provide you with one.

2. When a client sends you a ‘thank you’ email for doing such a great job, ask them if you could use this as a testimonial. They will almost always say ‘yes’.

Guest blogger, Liz Kershaw, explains how flexible working is the secret to successful freelancing when you’re also a mother of two.

Picking up Nerf gun bullets, finding the appropriate box for the several loose DS games, locating “Baby Annabel’s” lost socks and putting the lounge back together while carefully avoiding the kitchen, my thoughts are on the business of the day (perhaps rather more than getting the DS games in the right box).

This is a typical Monday morning post school run in my house and probably fairly typical of most working mums across the UK. This is unless you are lucky enough to have a nanny who is expert at DS game filing and who never has to crawl under beds risking life and limb among the rubbish gathered there, to retrieve the one game you have not found and which is needed now!

Welcome to guest blogger, John Brook, who tells us about ten essential tools for a paperless office.

In today’s fast-paced office environments, the emphasis is trending toward an office that is free of paper and printed documents. There are many computer and phone based applications and software services that allow busy modern professionals to maintain their contacts, projects and clients without having to stay in the office. From online document creation and sharing, to software that allows a contract to get signed without ever getting printed and mailed, there are many ideas on how to make the office more flexible and mobile.

1.) Email
One of the quickest and easiest ways to reduce the amount of paper coming out of an office is to use email services instead of sending documents through the mail.

Every freelancer knows what it’s like to have cashflow problems. You may have invoices worth thousands of pounds (or dollars) owing to you but your bank account is just about up to its overdraft limit.

Here are a few tips on how you can improve your cashflow:

• Always invoice promptly. The sooner your invoice is with the client, the sooner you should receive your money.

• Make sure your clients pay you by electronic transfer. Payment by cheque can mean a delay of almost a week by the time you’ve received it in the post, gone to the bank, and then waited for the money to clear. And cheques also go missing in the post.

• When you submit your quote for the project, state in your accompanying  terms and conditions that you invoice 50% of the project upfront and 50% on completion.  If it’s a long project, I generally invoice 1/3 upfront, 1/3 half way through and 1/3 on completion.
Read more »