You can label yourself any way you want, whether it’s self-employed, a freelancer, an entrepreneur or a business owner. You’re making an independent living by yourself and from the business you’re building. I was a freelancer for awhile as I was getting LooseKeys rolling. I knew when I left Daily Planet ltd. that I didn’t want to just be a freelancer; I had already done that for a few years and knew the challenges I was going to run into.

One challenge you face as a freelancer is that you’re going to reach a point where you can’t earn any more income. You can always be working harder but there are only so many hours in the day and your rate can only be so high. Instead, I wanted to build something and to work at starting a business that one day could run itself.

Over the last couple years at LooseKeys  things have been going well and I’m very happy with the people I’m working with, the work we’re doing and the direction we’re headed.

Maybe one day you’ll decide that you too want to go beyond freelancing at a new company every week and decide to go out on your own and start a business. There are many challenges you’ll confront when making that move. 

The difficulty I faced was in that transition from a single freelancer to a business or a brand I was selling to clients. As a freelancer you may be lucky and have a dedicated number of clients who continue to call on you because they are happy with your work. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to explain to clients that it’s not just me doing the work, that I run a business now. These previous clients who have hired you for freelance in the past know you and trust you. So they contact you for a freelance job but you have to let them know that you would be taking the job on with your team. It took at least a year to shake that freelancer idea from my past clients; you have to educate and promote your business. Work on it everyday. 

Most of the questions I got were “Now you’re working with other people?” “Can your old clients trust these people?” “Can they do the same work that they see in your portfolio?” 

Speaking of a portfolio; when you do transition to running your own business, you have to build your new businesses portfolio from scratch. More than likely you can’t show any work you did at your previous employment because that’s not your new businesses work, that’s work you did at another company. Depending on where the work was done, you might be a able to work out a deal but usually company X isn’t going to like to see that your new company is saying they did that work. It’s a Catch-22; you can’t get clients without a portfolio and you can’t build a portfolio if you don’t have any clients. 

I’m sure the same thing happened when you first entered the working world. What did you do to build your name and promote yourself before? You sold your skills and created your own projects. You have to do the same for this new business with your team of people. You need to be getting these jobs and then have your team work on them. Sell, then delegate the work that comes in. Jump in when you can but you’re not a freelancer anymore, you have people working for you who want to do the work. Give them work to do. If you love doing the work too, then hire someone to sell. You have to be delegating the work in order to grow and build a business. 

These are different challenges than being a freelancer but nothing that’s too complicated to overcome. It takes time and I still get emails and calls asking me to freelance on jobs. I make it clear that me and my team at LooseKeys can do this yes, but it’s a team, it’s a WE not an I anymore.

If you’re interested or thinking about making the move from the freelancing life then start by getting a few bigger projects and out-sourcing some of work. See how you like managing a project rather than just being the one doing the entire project. 

If I learned anything from being a freelancer, then starting my own business and now planning a wedding its that there will always be something that can stress the finances. Whether it’s a loss of a client or project, a new competitor or just an unexpected bill. You can’t plan for all of these events but yet you still need to be prepared. A lack of a cash cushion for yourself or your business is scary and if you’re down already, it becomes harder to recover. 

I’ve had a few clients over the years who every time they emailed or called I would hate responding. I knew I was in for trouble with whatever they needed no matter what small task they might have. I knew the projects would be painful and I was never sure why I put myself through it. After a few of those you learn your lesson to get rid of those types of clients. Life is too short to work and deal with people who are rude or only out for themselves. I have no interest in working with people like that. The best part about having your own business or being a freelancer is that if you’re doing quality work there is a good chance you have clients banging down your door and you can afford to turn down the bad ones. Save yourself the headache and say no to people you don’t like to work with.

For years before I started at Daily Planet Productions ltd. I was a freelancer. I had no boss and I was focused on perfecting my craft. Everyday I was learning and growing as a better designer, which as a freelancer is key; you need to become one of the best in your field otherwise no one is going to hire you. As a freelancer you have a sort of freedom to work and do whatever you want since there isn’t a long-term commitment to any one employer.

When I left Daily Planet Productions ltd. over a year ago I knew I could start freelancing again and jump right back into that world. Instead I wanted to build my own business; I wanted to build something that supported the craft. I knew I didn’t want to just be a freelancer forever. I wanted to manage and organize a team that creates amazing and profitable work. Gone is the idea of having no boss and instead I am the boss. That’s one of the big differences between being a freelancer and an entrepreneur, it’s less about you and more about what your team can do. You’re thinking bigger and taking more risks.

Although the lines blur at times and I take much of my experience as a freelancer and put that towards how LooseKeys runs, I no longer call myself a freelancer. I own and run my own business. Some days it feels like its a lot of risk but most of the time I notice the rewards.

One of the many hats you have to wear when you’re running your own business is that of the chief financial officer. Being a freelancer for many years, I didn’t see any issues with taking on this roll. I also manage most of the household finances so it seemed like it wouldn’t be an issue. But over the last year I’ve learned a lot and found that it’s maybe one the hardest and most stressful parts of running your own business.

Knowing your financial status is extremely important, without it you could be in some serious trouble. As a freelancer you mainly have to only worry about money coming in. You do the working, send your invoice and then get paid. Fairly simple, you might have some bumps along the way but it’s all about the money coming in. But then when you are running a business, all of sudden you are hiring people to help with projects and they need to get paid too. Now you have to worry about money coming in and money going out. You have to get money in for your business to pay yourself and keep things moving and you have to pay the people that you hired. The freelancers you hire won’t be paid until after you get paid because you pay them from the money you receive from the client. That doesn’t quite seem fair to the freelancer. Why should a freelancer be at the mercy of the client paying their client before they get paid? I know the feeling, as a freelancer in the industry I typically would not see a check for my work until 30 to 45 days after completion of a project and when the economy got bad it was up to 90 days. I certainly try to be better than that with LooseKeys because I understand the issues and frustrations with not getting paid. I really do try to pay people as soon as possible. I’ve learned the necessity of having extra funds set aside in case I am waiting longer than expected to be paid on many projects, so I’m able to pay the talented people who work for me as soon as I can. Since LooseKeys is small, the margin of error is extremely tight. In most cases it isn’t an issues but when you have too many clients not looking to pay you right away it can become an issue and having to wear the CFO hat becomes a heavy one. I don’t have any magical tricks to make it easier, I just make sure I’m watching what’s happening and be sure to have a little buffer room for those unexpected late payments from clients.

I’m just getting done with a rush job and the coffee and adrenaline are still at peak levels. Rush work is work with an extremely short deadline, a deadline you usually would have never agreed to. As I’m wrapping it up I’m wondering if it was really worth it. I either take on a rush job because it comes with an extra bonus or it’s for a client I have enjoyed working with in the past and want to help them out. More often it’s the cold hard cash that really makes the deal seem sweet. However, after this job and years of accepting rush work it has really started to seem like a mistake. First and formost it really wears on you and burns you out in the long run. Was the extra cash really worth having to take a week or two off because you needed to recover? Wouldn’t you have been better off taking on a job that didn’t come with that bonus but allowed you to still enjoy the project and your life? The other reason I’m really over rush work is because the clients start to expect it. They know that if they kick a little extra cash your way you’ll bend over backwards for them. If every job comes with a bonus, is it really a bonus?

Don’t let the money blind you from seeing the amount of work the projects going to take. And no job is worth missing or spending time with your family. Talk with the client first and find out why it’s needed and when. You’ll find that even those tight deadlines can often be negotiated.

When looking for top creative talent it can feel like you’re searching for a needle in a haystack. Especially when you are looking for a full-time hire. You want that person to be perfect, having all the features you need for the team and your business. It’s even harder when it’s potentially your first business hire. Something that I’ve been tossing around a bit lately. Trying to figure out the type of person you want to hire can be a difficult task. You are looking for a talented individual who you can work well with and who’s skills complement yours. Or maybe what you really want is another you; someone who can handle everything you can with the same sort of magic. But that other you isn’t looking to work with you they are probably running their own business and looking for someone themselves.

Instead of stressing over finding that perfect person to hire on as staff, why not take advantage of the growing pool of freelance workers. You hear everyday about unemployment and I’m sure many of us know friends who have been out of work or freelancers who are between gigs. This year businesses will hire more contract or temporary workers then any previous year. That’s a result of higher unemployment and more people wanting a more flexible schedule. A lot of the time many smaller businesses just need some extra support from time to time in order to help with a heavier workload. Hiring a freelancer is an easy way to help keep your project on track and not have to commit to having someone on full-time. I can tell you from the experience of being a freelancer and when hiring freelancers that they will work hard for your project. And the flip side is that it’s sometimes hard to get a consistent amount of passion out of a staff member who may be overworked and is thinking about the vacation they have planned next month. With a freelancer you get that valuable, fresh, creative mind on your project. Hopefully they bring something to the project that you might have missed or had never thought about.

Besides the advantage of having that fresh perspective on your project you also get a chance to test that person out before your offer them the benefits of a staff position. Don’t be scared about asking for help when it’s needed and passing some of that work off to someone who is more than willing to offer their services, at a price of course.

Social media has become the fastest growing communication medium in our history. It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners, Television 13 years, the Internet just 4 years and Twitter has added 50 million users in the last six months. For everyone involved, Twitter is becoming a preferred way to create meaningful relationships and stay connected. Still, no one simply signs up for Twitter and immediately knows how it works and what to do. No matter how complex a new site or service is, if you take the time to learn what it has to offer, you will see it’s value. I believe that Twitter is one of the biggest values in social media marketing, especially for freelancers. Social media and especially Twitter has completely changed the way I interact with my peers and clients. I’m able to create a direct connection to the clients I want to work with and them with me from anywhere and anytime. For me, Twitter has really replaced Facebook as my main community “hub”, clicking links when people share their blog posts and sharing links to my own work. Before Twitter and other forms of social media, we were limited by phone, snail mail and email to drum up new business and drive growth. Those forms of communication also cost money and cut into the bottom line. Where the cost of sending a message to your followers on Twitter is free and takes less then a minute of your time. Twitter has opened the channel of communication so that anyone can interact and build instant connections. The playing field has leveled out and you can have just as much of a voice as the big agency or design firm down the street. Getting that voice heard is what will benefit your business and as a freelancer your business is you.

Once you have joined the conversation it’s finding people to follow. Don’t just start adding a ton of random people, instead start more slowly and look for quality, not quantity. Choose to follow those whose content matters to you and who you think would benefit from yours. I personally find the discovery tools on Sprout Social to be very useful for finding new people or companies to follow. It uses a combinations of keyword searches and general recommendations to match people you may find useful. There are a ton of other great tools online to help you find useful users as well like Twitter lists or Mr. Tweet.  Now that you have people you are following and some that are following back, your next step is to begin to turn those initial connections into fruitful relationships and meaningful connections. How? You need to show that there is a ‘real’ person behind that Twitter account…not simply the name of a company or corporation. Engage with people, ask questions, make comments, share links and actively interact so others see that you are interested and care about what they care about. Don’t just use this tool to promote yourself and boost your ego, remember it shouldn’t be a one sided conversation. A simple and fast way to add value to your followers and interact with new people is to re-tweet. If you see a tweet that is particularly helpful or provides a link to cool info or work that you think others would appreciate, use the re-tweet function built into Twitter and pass it on to your followers. Be selective with your re-tweets, simply re-tweeting everything will quickly become noise and could create a black mark on your Twitter reputation. Forming relationships and connections on Twitter takes time, just as it does in the ‘real’ world. With large number of new users joining Twitter every day it’s likely some of them are going to find what you have to say beneficial. Be yourself and do your best to add value to your community and your business may grow in the process.

If you’re a freelancer you should have a portfolio website and if you don’t for whatever reason you should be making that one of your most important projects to get done. You should have a place to show off how great you are. Over the weekend I came across a couple blogs that talked about some great steps for creating a better portfolio. I figured I would link them on here and just spread the word about making a better portfolio.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/26/10-steps-to-the-perfect-portfolio-website/

http://www.youthedesigner.com/2009/02/13/7-tips-for-improving-graphic-design-portfolios/

A couple of my favorite tips from these two posts are, keep the portfolio up to date and to use social networking websites. I try and make sure this website is updated at least once a month with new work and I always post a news update when this happens. I hope to update that more often soon, ideas are in the works. As for social networks they only help promote yourself more and allow you to meet interesting folks who do what you do. So those are just a couple of my favorite tips but they are all excellent steps that should be taken when building your portfolio. I for one know I need to think about these as well. One of the tips that I feel like I need take to heart is making the contact information easy to find. I have links at the bottom of my page to see all the social networks I am apart of, but a button to get to my contact information is below that. Personally I think I may have to re-work my navigation area and include a button. As both of these sites say your contact information should be “obvious and easy to access.”