freelance business

Rate Calculator Helps Freelance Videographers Set Prices

Like other freelance pros, many freelance videographers often struggle with this question: “How much should I charge for my work?” In today’s competitive economy, it’s easy to find yourself wrestling with similar questions such as:

  • How can I make enough money to survive without scaring away potential clients with high prices?
  • How valuable is my time and work?
  • How much do I need to charge to keep my business afloat?
  • How can I keep my prices competitive without cheating myself?

A new Video Rate Calculator can help you be more confident in quoting reasonable, but profitable rates for your video services. The calculator was developed by Videomaker, the popular website and magazine for all things video.

According to Videomaker, “Finding the right, fair price to charge for video work is a delicate balancing act. Unfortunately, for most videographers it’s little more than a guessing game. But the simple truth is that if you don’t know what your services are worth, there’s no way to run a successful video business.”

Many videographers try to guess the best rate, only to discover they’ve gone too low and their bill doesn’t even cover the equipment and transportation expenses of the shoot.

Videomaker’s Video Rate Calculator takes some of the guesswork out of your pricing process, by taking into account some of the expenses associated with pre-production, production, and post-production as well as your equipment costs, office costs, and desired profit level. The Video Rate Calculator will help you:

  • Track your business expenses
  • Achieve your profitability goals
  • Ensure that your business operates in the black
  • Keeps your prices competitive enough to keep your current clients and attract new ones

LINKS

Videomaker Video Rate Calculator

About Videomaker Magazine

Laura Roeder Explains How to Create Your Own Fame

If the thought of creating a “brand” to promote yourself makes you uncomfortable, maybe it’s time to view the self-promotion process from a different perspective.

During the International Freelancers Day conference sponsored by the International Freelancers Academy, conference organizer Ed Gandia interviewed social-media marketing expert Laura Roeder about how to become the “go to person” in your field.  Laura specializes in teaching small businesses how to create their own fame. During the interview, she emphasized that her approach doesn’t require pretending to be someone you’re not, or puffing yourself up in a way that seems phony.

Before starting her current business, Laura Roeder was a freelance graphic designer. And, like many freelancers, she met most of her first clients at networking events. The problem with this approach, said Roeder, was that each time she introduced herself to someone new she had to start from ground zero, explaining who she was and what she did. The process was long and time-consuming, taking hours away from the time that could be spent on performing billable work.

When Roeder switched from web design to social-media consulting, a project she did for an actor-friend helped her discover a self-promotion process that can make it easier for self-employed creative professionals to find their next gig.

“Through that process, I saw that you can really make yourself famous,” said Roeder. “And you really need to. You can really create your own community. And that can be a very, very small community because you don’t need that many customers.”

The goal is to create a circle of people who know who you are and will approach you when they have projects you can help them with. So, instead of trying to sell yourself to every person you meet, said Laura, you create fame for yourself within a relatively small community of people.

“The  thing you have to remember is that every single person starts at zero,” said Roeder. No website or blog starts with traffic. And every mailing list starts with zero people. It’s a process that takes time and effort. But once you start getting small amounts of online exposure, the cumulative results of your efforts will begin to snowball.

One way to start attracting traffic to your website or blog is to get yourself interviewed, advises Roeder. “When you watch an interview with someone, it automatically positions them as an expert because we think why would they bother being interviewed if people didn’t want to hear what they had to say?” Being interviewed is a way to make people think you’re an expert, without you having to say it yourself.

Finding places to get interviewed has become very easy, says Roeder, because so many people now publish blogs and podcasts and have a constant need for fresh content and ideas. To get herself known as a specialist in motion graphics, Roeder went to the iTunes store and searched for podcasts related to marketing. She made a list of all of the podcasts that small-business owners might listen to, then approached the creator of each podcast one at a time. In a very brief e-mail, she said, “I’m a freelance designer and I specialize in motion graphics. I thought your audience would like to hear a few simple tricks you can do to make your motion graphics look great, even if you’ve never done them before.”

The important thing is to pitch interview ideas that the audience will value, said Laura. You have to figure out why an audience might want to listen to what you have to say.

Another way to create fame for yourself is to offer to write guest posts on blogs that are read by people who might want to hire you.

“What’s cool about guest posting is that it’s all indexed on the Web,” says Roeder. Thus, when a potential client Googles you before they hire you, they will find a page filled with articles that you have written and interviews that you’ve done.  Even if you post on a dinky, little blog that doesn’t have a lot of readers, it still lives in Google forever, so people will continue to see it.

After you have been interviewed on podcasts or written guest posts, make sure that visitors to your website see where you have been featured. Posting small icons or logos of all the sites on which you have appeared quickly creates a visual impression.

One other tactic you can use, says Roeder, is to ask to be a speaker at the conferences you would like to attend. It can be as simple as sending a nice note expressing your enthusiasm for the conference, then mentioning that “if you’re looking for more speakers, here are some topics I can talk about.” Conference organizers won’t always say yes, but you aren’t likely to get invited to speak unless you make it known that you’re interested.

Gandia wrapped up his interview by asking Roeder to share some parting thoughts.

“The most important thing is to just give it a shot, even if you don’t feel like you’re ready,” said Roeder. “In my experience, no one feels like they’re ready.”  Don’t wait until you reach some sort of pinnacle in your career, because working to create fame for yourself is partly how you reach that pinnacle.

To learn more about Laura’s “Creating Fame” online training program, visit: www.lkrsocialmedia.com.

To see some of the inspirational online training that the International Freelancers Academy offers to solopreneurs, visit their website.

LINKS

Laura Roeder: LKR Social Media

About LKR Social Media

International Freelancers Academy

 

AWAI Announces Web Copywriting Portal

According to Forrester Research statistics published by the American Writers and Artists, Inc. (AWAI), the amount of money spent on online marketing is expected to rise from $34 billion in 2011 to $55 billion in 2016.

To help freelance writers develop the skills needed to serve online marketers,  AWAI has created a resource-rich website to assist online copywriters.  Called AWAI’s Web Copywriting Division, the portal includes articles on web copywriting techniques and best practices, a web copywriting-specific forum, a blog to keep readers updated on the latest trends, and an online copywriting job board.

“AWAI’s Web Copywriting Division is a great resource for copywriters specializing in the web and online copy,” says AWAI Executive Director Katie Yeakle. “We’ve collected everything they need to accelerate their careers in one place.”

Web copywriting experts featured on the site include Nick Usborne, Heather Lloyd-Martin, and Jay White. All are industry veterans, with decades of experience in online copywriting. They’ll share proven techniques they’ve learned over the years, as well as the latest tactics they’ve been using with their clients.

Articles already posted on the site include:

Writing Effective, Short-Copy Emails by Michele Peterson

How to Write a Killer Press Release and Use It to Bring Traffic to Your Clients Website by John Wood

What Every Web Writer Needs to Know About Submitting Copy to a Web Designer by Heather Robinson

The site also features copywriting-related books, such as Copywriting 2.0: Your Complete Guide to Writing Web Copy that Converts by Nick Usborne and How to Price and Land the Top 7 Web Copy Projects by Rebecca Matter.

American Writers and Artists Inc. is a leading publisher of home-study programs for direct-response copywriting, travel writing, photography and graphic design.

LINK

AWAI Web Copywriting Division

About AWAI

 

Practical Advice on Managing Your Freelance Business

One big hurdle that new freelance professionals face is learning how to build a steady, livable income. Part of the process involves finding ways to minimize the amount of non-billable hours spent on necessary tasks such as marketing, sales, accounting, and administration.  These were some issues that speakers addressed at the International Freelancer’s Day (IFD) Conference on September 21.

“You have to be good at every aspect of your business when you’re starting your business up—especially if you’re a solopreneur,” said Danielle LaPorte, author of the book “The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide for Creating Success on Your Own Terms.” Even if you must handle everything yourself for the first 12 to 24 months in business, micromanaging every aspect of your business is not likely to make you happy in the long run.

“Your goal is to work yourself into a place where 80% of your time is spent doing things that are your true strengths–the things that are lighting you up, the things that make you feel almost guilty that you are getting paid to do them because they come so naturally and easily,” said LaPorte.  Practices implemented during your first years in business will determine how quickly you reach the point at which you can comfortably outsource some of the business-management tasks.

Two business skills that don’t always come naturally to freelancers are negotiating for reasonable pay and efficiently writing business proposals. During the International Freelancer Day Conference, these topics were addressed by Carol Tice and Ilse Benun.

Setting and Negotiating Prices

Carol Tice is an experienced freelance writer who publishes the “Make a Living as a Writer” blog.  She teaches e-courses, and offers an e-book entitled, “Make a Living Writing: A 21st Century Guide.” During the IFD conference, she talked about pricing your work and offered 13 negotiating strategies that can help you earn more.

“The issue of what to charge as a freelancer is a tough one, because there is no such thing as a going rate in freelancing,” says Tice. “Clients are different, situations are different, topics are different, deadlines are different, and rates a very customizable and variable.”

She said a lot of negotiations go wrong because freelancers fail to nail down the details of the job: “Freelancers tend to get really excited and jump on the offer before getting a lot of questions answered about what is going to be involved.” Find out more about parameters of the project, the goals, and how it will be executed. Get a sense of how many people you will need to interview to get the information, and how many people will review your work.

Then, just ask the client what they are considering spending for the freelance assignment.  If their budget is far too low for the amount of time involved, don’t be afraid to turn down the job.

“It’s key to your overall rate not to let low payers suck up a lot of your time,” said Tice. “And the quickest route to finding out whether this is a client that pays a professional rate is to just ask them.” If they won’t share that information with you, you can find a range of prices in publications such as Writer’s Market. You can also ask around in online freelancers groups.

She urged freelancers to stay alert for potential problem clients: “The woods are just full of dysfunctional companies who would like freelancers to be available 24/7 on instant messaging. These are really needy clients and often they also do not pay well.”

She acknowledges that it’s often difficult to tell a potential client that you don’t want their money, but she reminded attendees that, “Every time you take an assignment, you’re taking marketing time off the table. If the assignment doesn’t pay enough, you’ve sacrificed the chance to use that time to find a better client.”

Once you’ve come to agreement about what you will do and what you will be paid for it, put together a contract that puts it in writing. It doesn’t have to be formal, but it’s important to get something in writing that outlines the gist of your agreement and defines when you will get paid.  You can put the agreement in an e-mail and ask your client to respond with “I agree.”

You can find plenty of additional advice on Carol Tice’s “Make a Living Writing” blog. Subscribers to the blog get a free 20-week e-course entitled “Marketing 101 for Freelance Writers.”  Also check out the guest post she wrote for the Copyblogger blog. That post lists 40 questions you need to ask every potential copywriting client.

LINKS

Make a Living Writing

Copyblogger: 40 Questions You Need to Ask Every Copywriting Client

Writing Proposals

In her presentation “Anatomy of Winning Proposals,” Ilse Benun of Marketing Mentor explained why proposals should be considered selling tools and must do the best possible job of persuading your prospect that you are the best person for their project.  Using project-winning proposals as examples, she highlighted some of the elements that make proposals stand out.

Benun described four types of proposals freelancers can use, keeping in mind that each proposal must be tailored to the type of project, the type of client, and how well you know the client.

  • A one-page agreement is essentially a confirmation letter that puts in writing what you have already discussed with the client.
  • A small proposal (1-3 pages) could be sent as a long e-mail. Use this type of proposal if the client is already sold on you, but just wants more details about how you will go about it.
  • A medium proposal (4-10 pages) is recommended for large projects, or projects in which your contact may need to persuade others in his organization that you are the right person to handle the project.
  • A long proposal (10-20 pages) can take a couple of days to write and should include lots of relevant examples that demonstrate your experience and knowledge. Use these proposals only for major projects with ideal clients and for higher-fee projects that you are fairly confident that you will win.

Each proposal needs five things:

  • a project description
  • deliverables
  • price ranges
  • a timetable
  • a sign-off sheet.

Optional elements include:

  • work samples
  • relevant work samples
  • images that represent your process
  • client references
  • information about your firm
  • details about the people who will be involved in the process.

“Keep in mind that the proposal document isn’t the only element in a winning proposal,” said Benun. “How you present it is important, too.”

To see some of the examples Benun described in her presentation, order her proposal bundles for Designers and Copywriters. Each bundle includes 11 samples of winning proposals, plus additional tips for writing and presenting proposals.

Marketing Mentor specializes in helping creative professionals learn how to get the type of work they want. On the site, you can find a variety of resources related to marketing, pricing, and closing the sale.

LINKS:

Designer’s Proposal Bundle: 25 Resources for Project-Winning Proposals

Copywriter’s Proposal Bundle: 25 Resources for Project-Winning Proposals

Marketing Mentor

Freelancers Can Thrive in New Era of Independent Workers

Plenty of opportunities await professionals who aspire to the flexibility and independence of freelancing. That was the theme of the keynote presentation delivered by Erik Vonk, during the 2012 International Freelancer’s Day Conference held online by the International Freelancer Academy.

Vonk is CEO of Back of The House, a privately held company that offers portable health, retirement, and liability protection to independent professionals. The firm also can handle distracting administrative, accounting, tax, and IT tasks for solopreneurs. Vonk’s speech was titled “How to Thrive as a Free Agent in the Upcoming Era of Independent Work Arrangements.”

The growth of global commerce, online communications, changing demographics, and the speed of technological change have created both confusion and opportunity. In addition, these mega-trends are creating an increasingly dynamic workforce, said Vonk.

Exchanging our competencies for income today is no longer tied to a specific job with a specific employer. Since 1980, the percentage of people who work independently or on a contract or project basis has more than doubled, rising from around 15% in 1980 to 31% in 2011.  Over the same period, the average length of time a person held a specific job has declined from about 15 years to less than 4 years.

“So there’s nothing permanent about work anymore,” observed Vonk. Now that organizations are under pressure to have access to talent and competencies on an as-needed basis, he said, “It no longer makes sense for organizations to make open-ended commitments to workers.”

To replace fixed employment costs with the variable expenses associated with contract workers, many companies now use their business plans to determine what kinds of employees they will need and for how long.

To Vonk, this progression is simply part of societal evolution. The way work worked in the past was steeped in the evolution from an agricultural era to the industrial era. In the industrial era, professionals were all dependent on the employer. As workers, our identities, status, security, and destiny in life were all tied to our place of work. As we have evolved through the information age, our identities as workers have become further and further detached from our place of work, and more attached to ourselves, as individuals.

“And that is where we are today, in the conceptual age, where worker identity is attached to the self,” said Vonk. “The worker has become global and independent, and no longer attached and dependent.”

During the heyday of permanent employment, freelancing was often regarded as something to be tolerated if you happened to find yourself between jobs. Freelance work started to become more desirable as people wanted the flexibility to design their work schedules around family life, travel, and personal interests. Now, independent work is becoming something that more and more people are aspiring to.

Vonk acknowledged that some misperceptions still exist about what the U.S. government still calls “the contingent workforce.” The Back of the House website includes a list of Ten Myths and Realities regarding taxes, terminology, and employee quality and loyalty.  He advised freelancers to educate themselves about these issues, and discuss them when negotiating contracts for new assignments.

“For all of us who work independently or have plans to work independently,” said Vonk. “This is the era in which to do it.”

LINKS

International Freelancers Day Conference

Ten Myths and Realities about Contingent Work Arrangements

About Back of The House

Ebyline Helps Publishers Connect with Freelance Journalists

Happy International Freelancer’s Day! In honor of the occasion, I am calling attention to Ebyline, a new service announced in June. The service is catering to the growing number of businesses that choose to hire contract-based or freelance workers as needed instead of adding to their full-time staff.

Ebyline is an online platform that connects publishers with journalists and other freelance content providers through a virtual newsroom. The goal is to provide publishers, editors, brands, and content developers with access to top-quality freelance writers at an affordable cost.

Ebyline’s pitch to freelance writers is that their service enables you to receive and track assignments from multiple clients, and “Get paid for your work quickly, without the need to create invoices and follow up on payments owed.”

In the press release announcing the company’s launch, Ebyline’s CEO and co-founder Bill Momary said that “Ebyline has recruited and curated a stable of over 2,000 highly qualified freelance writers and journalists in the U.S. With our simple management tools, these journalists are now readily available to newspapers, magazines, blogs and brands that are looking to expand their quality content. Our trusted network allows publications to cover any topic, or create any story they want efficiently and professionally.”

Publishers and businesses can use Ebyline’s self-service platform to manage content production, hire professional journalists, and expand coverage. Four tiers of service are offered:

Basic: This free version of the Virtual Newsroom gives users a simple, clean, easy-to-use dashboard to track all of their freelancers, staff writers, assignments, due dates, pitches and other workflow tasks. The dashboard makes it easy to invite freelancers into the system, assign stories, provide background media, negotiate pricing and track projects through to completion.

Plus: This level offers all of the workflow tools of the Basic product plus features that can help publishers find journalists, expand coverage, and manage operations. For example, by accessing Ebyline’s database of contributors, publishers can find journalists for spot reporting or writers with expertise in specific topics. Ebyline Plus also offers plagiarism scanning tools , reporting and stats, and access to syndicated content from a range of publishers.

Plus w/Payments: Publishers who choose this level of service receive features that allow them to automatically manage all invoicing, billing and payment to freelancers. The payment system also handles all 1099s and independent contractor agreements.
Enterprise: The complete Virtual Newsroom solution can help publications be more efficient while aligning their business models with new economic realities. With the Virtual Newsroom, publishers can automate freelancer administration tasks including assignment and pitch flow, tax management, and electronic payment processing.  Through Ebyline’s marketplace platform, publishers can earn incremental revenue by selling news content directly to other publishers.

The Enterprise edition also offers custom integration with the publisher’s CMS/publishing tool, access to Ebyline’s content strategy team, and advanced management features including private domains.

“Our goal is to help business users and publishers concentrate on their core strengths by automating the content production workflow,” said Allen Narcisse, Ebyline’s COO and co-founder. “The reality is that 70 percent of writers and reporters work for themselves nowadays, and hiring qualified outside sources to produce reliable, quality content has traditionally been a high-cost, inefficient endeavor. Now publishers and business users can access Ebyline and manage all aspects of the freelance hiring process – from hiring to payments to project management – immediately and inexpensively.”

Ebyline’s founders are veterans of the Los Angeles Times and specialists in new content distribution models. Ebyline’s client partners include E.W. Scripps & Col., Gatehouse Media, Intel, and others.

LINKS

Ebyline

Survey Shows Freelancers Are Optimistic About Business Prospects

Despite the meteoric growth in freelancing and self-employment over the past decade, very little information has been published about who freelancers are, what they do, how they land work, what they earn, and why they freelance.  The 2012 Freelance Industry Report by Ed Gandia seeks to fill this information gap.

In the report’s introduction, Gandia cites a May 2012 Aberdeen Group report that shows that in the average organization in the U.S., nearly 26% of the workforce is considered contingent or contract-based. The labor law firm Littler Midelson predicts that over the next few years, contingent labor (i.e., freelancers, consultants and independent contractors) could rise to as much as 30 to 50 percent of the entire U.S. workforce.

“Politicians and the mainstream media seem to completely overlook this segment of the workforce,” says Gandia. “When addressing the needs of small businesses, most discussions center on traditional brick-and-mortar operations. Freelancers and other self-employed service providers are ignored, forgotten or dismissed.”

The bulk of the free, 70-page report summarizes the findings of a 2012 survey of 1,491 freelancers in more than 50 different fields.  The top 10 professions represented in the survey of freelancers were:

  • Designers (20.4 percent)
  • Writers (18 percent)
  • Editor/Copy Editor (10 percent)
  • Copywriter (10 percent)
  • Translator (7 percent)
  • Web Developer (5 percent)
  • Marketing Profesional (4 percent)
  • Business Consultant (2 percent)
  • Virtual Assistant (2 percent)
  • Illustrator (2 percent)

Other creative professionals represented in the survey included Photographers, Videographers/Video Editors, and Authors at around 1 percent each.   Other freelancers specialized in proofreading, IT systems support, training, software development, public relations, blogging, SEO, and social media.

Survey Findings

The report includes charts and data on income trends and lifestyle choices, including: hourly rates, billable time, pricing, the impact of the economic downturn, and how freelancers attract clients. Here are some noteworthy findings:

Status: 47 percent are the primary income earners in their households; 14 percent work their business on the side while holding a full-time day job.

Age: 62 percent of the freelancers were under age 50, with 26 percent in the 30 to 39 age range and 25 percent in the 40 to 49 age group. Of the 38 percent over age 50, 12 percent were age 60 and up.

Satisfaction: 90 percent report being happier now than before going solo. 55 percent said that they wouldn’t consider working as an employee again, regardless of what the job paid or what it entailed.

Business Prospects: Fully 77 percent of the respondents said that they are optimistic about their business prospects over the next year. Pessimism was highest among photographers (25 percent), business consultants (16 percent), and editors/copy editors (16 percent).

Challenges: The biggest challenges facing freelancers as a group were:

  • Finding clients (21 percent)
  • The feast-or-famine cycle of work (16 percent)
  • Maintaining work/life balance (10 percent)
  • Managing time/staying productive (7 percent)
  • Getting better fees (5 percent)
  • Getting affordable health insurance (4 percent)
  • Having to wear all the hats (4 perecent)

Professionals who reported the most difficulty finding clients included photographers (33 percent) and copywriters (27 percent).

Marketing Methods: 68 percent of freelancers named referrals, word of mouth or tapping their own personal and professional networks as their most effective methods for finding and landing clients. Only 6 percent considered online job sites such as Elance and oDesk to be most effective way to get clients, and a mere 3 percent ranked social media as the most effective method.

Self-Promotion: Even though finding clients is the top challenge facing freelancers, most freelancers (53 percent) said they spend five hours or less on self-promotion. In fact, 30 percent spend fewer than 2 hours per month. Only 12 percent spend more than 20 hours per month on self-promotion.  Photographers (44 percent) and copywriters (17 percent) were among those who said they spent more than 20 hours per month promoting themselves.

Accidental and Entrepreneurial Freelancers

The report takes an in-depth look at differences in the data among two key groups: accidental and entrepreneurial freelancers.

“Accidental” freelancers include those who started freelancing as a result of a layoff or company downsizing. The report reveals that “accidental” freelancers are faring well. About 85 percent said they are much happier now than they were as employees, even though they are more likely to earn less than freelancers who planned their way to self-employment. Still, 66 percent of the accidental freelancers are optimistic about their business prospects.

When asked whether or not they considered themselves to be entrepreneurs, 72 percent of the survey respondents said yes. The professionals most likely to identify themselves as entrepreneurs were business consultants, virtual assistants, and copywriters. Photographers, researchers, and editors were the least likely to view themselves as entrepreneurial.

Freelancers who regard themselves as entrepreneurs tend to be happier and earn higher rates: 38 percent of “entrepreneurial” freelancers earn $70 or more per hour, as opposed to 20 percent of non-entrepreneurial freelancers.  When asked if they were happier overall since they started freelancing, 92 percent of the self-labeled entrepreneurs said yes, compared to 86 percent of the freelancers without the entrepreneurial mindset.

International Freelancers Day: September 21

The 2012 Freelance Industry Report helps set the stage for the International Freelance Day event on Friday, September 21. Sessions at the free, online conference are designed to help freelancers take their business to the next level. Experts will cover a mix of business and personal development topics and present tips for negotiating, prospecting, writing winning proposals, promoting yourself, keeping your creativity flowing, and designing an abundant life.

LINKS

The 2012 Freelance Industry Report

About Ed Gandia and The International Freelancers Academy

International Freelancers Day