Pete Rorabaugh – Writer and Editor

Hi! I’m Pete Rorabaugh, a husband, father, teacher, writer, and lover of hammocks and ultimate frisbee. I live in Atlanta, GA, and soak up as much of the film and music scene there as I can. I’m fascinated by the fiction of Cormac McCarthy, the films of the Coen Brothers, and the life Malcolm X.

I am an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Kennesaw State University. I earned an M.A. in English Education and a Ph.D. in American Literature and Rhetoric, both from Georgia State University in Atlanta. My research interests include contemporary American fiction, religious rhetoric, networked culture, and the intersection of digital and critical pedagogy.

Website: http://peterorabaugh.org/about/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/allistelling @AllIsTelling

Pete and I chatted about pop tech and pop culture and the digital age/culture. How technologies, companies, and culture intersect in today’s world.

A few points we talked about include:

• What subtle ways tech has moved into pop culture
  • Entertainment such as Black Mirror is almost “one more step before its real…”
  • Don Glovers show ‘Atlanta’
• Snowballs Effect of giving up our own personal data for convenience
  • See “The Circle” movie
• Terms of Service; Didn’t Read
  • Find out who is actually protecting your data versus getting you just agree on anything
  • https://tosdr.org/
• Has it always been there? (Are we now noticing Tech is merging into Pop culture or has it been there since the 70’s/80’s/90’s)
• Always-connected/sharing culture
• Good and bad
• Targeted marketing exists and knows more about you than you think
  • Woman living with father had Target accidentally reveal pregnancy with advert targeted to new mom
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation
• Aubrey Watters
  • www.hackeducation.com
  • Technology and education blog
• Civic Hack Night – Code for Atlanta
  • https://www.meetup.com/codeforatlanta/
• Data mining
• DuckDuckGo – Privacy search and browsing experience
  • https://duckduckgo.com/
• OwnCloud – Private cloud storage
  • https://owncloud.org/
• Be aware of your media sharing

Quick Tips

Marion

• Korean Short Ribs
  • OMG Amazing: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/grilling-galbi-recipe.html
  • Marinate the ribs for about 8 hours. They cook really quickly.
  • Costco or Sams Club has the best prices for beef short ribs in bulk. Check your local butcher
• Japanese Hardcore Metal
  • Lady Baby – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8-vje-bq9c
  • Babymetal – http://babymetal.com/
  • Dead Lift Lolita – https://www.dl-lolita.com/mv

Pete

• Japandroids – 2 piece rock band
  • http://japandroids.com/
• David Byrne of the Talking Heads
• Hip-hop
  • Run the Jules, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole
• Spotify Playlist – Underground Kings Playlist
  • https://open.spotify.com/user/madchildbaxwar/playlist/0MdJZWbfOCaM4csxERAzg0?si=wxULHz7-QWWrri5pvxIyhg
• Multiple music depending on mood

The post FHS 26 Pop Tech ft Pete Rorabaugh appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Stacey Dandridge – Stacey is a kick-butt Senior Technical Writer with more than 9 years worth of experience in many overlapping industries. She tends to always come back to writing because she loves the ‘puzzle’ aspect of being a technical writer. We sit down and chat with her on finding a technical writer and becoming a technical writer.

Email: stacey@stroberconsulting.com

Website: stroberconsulting.com

What is a Technical Writer?

Someone who can take words and writing that are complex and translate it to something that is easily digestible and consumable. Something that someone can learn from it. It can be considered an art and a science because you have to translate the piece without losing the meaning. The reader should be successful with whatever task with what they are attempting to complete. Think of creating a pamphlet or instructions for a product or service.

Are there any difference between other writer?

Absolutely! The foundation is there between all writers, but a Technical Writer effectively helps to digest a complex piece into something that a layperson can understand. A Technical Writer can also differ based on the industry as the needs, jargon, and outcome of the writing will change. Translating information from an engineer, web developer, or product to something easier to understand. A writer can be involved with user guides, software manuals, whitepapers, regulatory documents, and more!

When should you use a Technical Writer?

The sooner the better would be ideal, but closer to the beginning of the project would help the writer understand the project/product. The writer can also help process move and flow in a more holistic understanding of the product from a customer or user perspective.

Why should you use a Technical Writer?

Technical Writers help create a more polished product by looking at it from a fresh pair of eyes. The writers help by bringing a different perspective to the product, especially from a users lens. The product will be easier to use, retain customers, and have less abandonment. Its obvious when a user guide, documentation, or other information has been poorly written. The same goes for when a technical versus non technical person has written the piece. The Technical Writers expertise will effectively convey your message.

How big of a project should it be for a Technical Writer?

The size of a project is not important. You can use a writer at almost any size of project or company. You do not need to wait until you are a large organization before you can bring on a writer. The writers job is there to help polish your products documentation to convey information in easier and precises ways. You can hire writers for short periods of times rather than full-time staff if you are worried about the size of your project.

Where can I find Technical Writers?

You can find qualified and effective writers from the ‘Society for Technical Communication’ (stc.org). You can use this website for both finding writer and promoting yourself as a writer. The job board is very effective to find professional writers. You can use www.stc.org to find specific Technical Writers based on what you need for your industry and expected outcome!

What to look for in a Technical Writer?

The writer should have some degree of industry knowledge. That person should be able to talk about the subject in some aspect to show proficiency in the chosen industry. You can also request an editing test with strategically placed errors that range in difficulty. This can be used to determine the level of expertise.

Pay attention to the type of technical writer as well as their specialty. You may have a personal product that you need a writer for but the interviewed writer is more experienced with industrial products. The skills may be similar, but the writer may have a different audience focus when writing.

What separates a superstar Writer from a common Writer?

A rock star Writer will be big on paying attention to detail, breaking things down into smaller components, use less words, and look at the document from the lens of a teacher. Keeping up with your industry as well as best-practices when it comes to writing and the tools that are used with writers.

What rate should I expect?

The level of experience as well as location causes this to very. A mid to entry level would be looking at about $60,000 while a senior and larger organizations can make well into the 6-figures. A senior writer at Google, for example, can make around $120,000. The more you can add to your portfolio, skill sets, and industries can help raise your base pay.

For hourly rates, this also varies. An average of $20-25/hr is an expected rate for a Technical Writer. You’ll be paying more for a more experience writer as well as someone who is more niche to what you need. A small project team can take advantage of this by hiring a writer for lower engagement hours to help keep cost down.

How much time should you take towards Technical Writing?

This answer is complex because it ranges based on the engagement. Something as basic as business writing case studies your looking at something significantly lower. A large engagement or document such as a product re-launch or in-depth guide would take longer and therefore cost more.

How to estimate time needed?

There is not really a formula because each document is different. Describing the work, content, industry, etc about the document will allow the Technical Writer to have a better handle on what to expect. The writer will then be able to give you a more accurate quote.

An alternative route to take to get a closer estimate of the final cost would be to budget a small engagement amount, such as 5-hours, to allow the technical writer to flush out the potential cost of the piece.

How to become a Technical Writer? 31:28 Mark

Learn the Industry that You’re Aspiring to Go Into

• IT space
• Finance space
• Medical space

Find organizations that are in that industry you are attempting to branch into. You’ll be able to “talk the talk” when it comes to interacting with the customers. When you specialize, you can be tapped to do the job much easier, command a higher pay, and find work easier than most.

Educational Programs and Track of Learning

Programs in college can help get you started, but it can be very broad. There is not a requirement to have a degree in technical writing as you can have a large variety of technical background. One commonality that helps make people successful is an interest in writing beforehand. There is not a specific degree such as “Technical Writing”, but something that is related to the field you’d like to write for would be greatly beneficial.

Build a Portfolio

Building a very impressive portfolio to show and market what you’re capable of. Someone who is just starting out may think that they don’t have anything, you can create samples based on case studies and/or technologies of what you already know. You can use this as a proof to potential customers and leads on what you’re capable of doing.

Cater and tone your portfolio to the role that you are applying for.

Resumes for Technical Writers

Your resume is different when it comes to a technical writer because this will be your first sample. People who will be reviewing your resume will be looking for small things such as Jargon, Flow, Punctuation, and other writing techniques. The person reviewing your resume will be using your resume as an example of what they will be hiring you for. The more important of a job, the closer they will be looking at your resume for techniques, style, and errors.

Cater and tone your resume to the role that you are applying for.

Research the Potential Client

Research the industry and the potential client. You’ll be able to specify your resume and understand the client a lot better. It speaks volume if you’re able to have a conversation that shows that you have knowledge about the client and industry.

Get Involved

Start networking no matter what level you are. You’ll find that you have more and better opportunities when you do start networking. Join professional groups and get involved. Create a profile on LinkedIn, Society for Technical Communication (stc.org), or Write the Docs (writethedocs.org).

Finding Jobs and Opportunities

Use the internet as your tool with sites such as indeed.com, stc.org, and LinkedIn.com. Don’t limit yourself geographically! You can widen the net of prospective clients by searching for “remote”. This world is getting much more disconnected, you can connect with almost everyone almost everyone in the world.

Make Your Worth

A first time technical writer should be commanding close to $22-25/hr, but you have to show your worth. Don’t short change yourself and leave money on the table. Your skill is valuable and important. As you progress in skill, experience, and specialization, your rates will and should go up!

Push the envelope and get the earning potential you can get!

Don’t be afraid to ask for ask for more money to the organization or company that can afford you. Pay attention to the company or organization and scale your proposal accordingly. You’re valuable and worth it.

Quick Picks

• Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL
  • New phones from Google with amazing camera abilities, portrait mode with impressive clarity, and snappy aps
  • Difference in phones are only in the size
• Lynda.com
  • Learning, training, and understanding with online courses to help better yourself
  • Impressive gambit and size of library of learning

Links List

• Strober Consulting – stroberconsulting.com
• Society for Technical Communication – stc.org
• Write the Docs – writethedocs.org

The post FHS 8: All About Those Technical Writers appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Business entities

Three are a few business entities that you’ll be picking as a business owner. A sole proprietorship, partnership (not covering sub classifications LP, LLP), LLC,
C-Corp and S-Corp. Based on how you’ll be classifying yourself for taxes, choose a business entity that works with your business plan.

Income Tax classification

Your tax classification changes the rules about how you will need to file taxes. The different business entities each have their own classifications. For example, an LLC and an S-Corp are handled different but both have flow-through entity rules. You don’t pay income tax on the business (entity) level, you pay on the personal level. Basically, what you earn at the end of the year.

If you have more than one member (owner) of the entity, you’re automatically labeled as a partnership for tax purposes. There are no maximum level of members for an LLC while an S-Corp is capped at 100.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/limited-liability-company-llc

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/s-corporations

Liability

Your liability is what you are on the hook for if something forces you into bankruptcy or a lawsuit. You are essentially protected when you create a Business Entity.

• Do not cross the “corporate veil”
• Business entity legally separate from its owners (create for liability protection or name recognition if Sch C business); entity liable, not owners or members
• May be different according to state of organization, so check on that
• Liability includes creditors/lender, customers, suppliers, or other owners
• Business assets used to pay off business debts, owners lose what has been invested in LLC, not personal possessions including house or car
• Exceptions include illegal or fraudulent activity
• Business liability and professional liability insurance should be considered

 Formation

Each state has different rules about forming a Business Entity.

• State Articles of incorporation/organization $100 – Georgia
• State Annual registration and license $50 informational form – Georgia
• Federal employer ID # FEIN – Found on the IRS.gov website
• Partnership agreement is a good idea to complete even if you don’t have a partner. You never know where you business will grow.

Tax structure: LLC vs S Corp

• Both Flow Through Entities (FTE), so main difference is how business owners pay Self Employment (SE) taxes (Medicare and SS)
• LLC Pros: more flexibility in management (voting, ownership), distributing profits, and fewer recordkeeping obligations
• LLC Cons: pay SE tax on all income
• S Corp Pros: don’t pay SE taxes on net income (but have to take reasonable salary, typically understated)
• S Corp Cons: fewer than 100 members, no foreign LLC or nonresident alien owners, no corps or partnerships, basically only individuals;
  • Proportionate distributions, take a reasonable salary which creates payroll filings
• S corp: pay reasonable salary on W-2 to owner which will pay medicare and SS taxes, that amount can be deducted from business profits, and remaining about is not subject to SE taxes, additional withdrawals taken as distributions
  • Capital accounts (contributions, net income, separately stated items, TE income, ND exp, distributions)
  • SE tax = 15.3%; SS 12.4% on first $118,500, Medicare 2.9%, (additional 0.9% on high income wage earners $250k Married Filing Joint(MFJ) and $200k single). Half deducted as above the line deduction when arriving at AGI

Tax filings

• Financial statements (BS, IS), open own checking/bank account and keep separate records
• Tax forms: 1040, 1065, 1120S, k-1s both
• Threshold: any activity, really when start earning income;
  • Can deduct $5k each start-up and org costs (phased out over $50k), amortized SL over 15 years, 180 months
  • Net earnings from SE => $400 sch SE filing
  • Estimated tax payments => $1,000 total tax liability
  • UET make sure to pay in 100% PY (110% if over $150k), 90% CY tax liability, actual or expected/annualized (70% GA)
  • Due dates 1120s and 1065 3/15, 1040 4/15

The post FHS 3: LLC vs S-Corp and the Tax Man! appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

As a business owner, you’re going to need clients and customers. There really isn’t any way around it. You can’t operate a business on zero sales. Market research is a tool that will guide you to identifying EXACTLY who is willing to buy what you’re selling. The difficulty for most people is actually finding that group of people. I generally break market research (finding and researching your customers) into two sub tasks; finding customers and reaching customers.

You’re going to want to do what is called “market research”

1. Who, specifically, are you going to be facing (niche, market, clients, customers)
2. What is the problem that you’re hearing the most often
3. What are they willing to pay
4. Is it sustainable
5. Where do they hang out

Finding your customers, what their pain-points, and understanding the value of your services is going to give you that head start that you’re looking for.

Finding and researching your customers is a shortcut to having people pay for whatever you’re selling. You’re able to accurately know what your customers and clients are willing to buy.

Finding Customers/Clients

If you’ve already identified your industry where you’re wanting to plant your flag, then you’ve already made an awesome head start. If not, then you need to sit down and specify who you’re wanting to sell to. Specifically, you want to finish this sentence: “Oh, me? I help __________ to _________ which saves them a lot of time and money.” You’re then going to fill in the blank of one thing you do to a single group of people that helps them save time and money.

That “group of people” piece is now your identified customers and clients. Now we’re going to start identifying where your market lives.

The main tools that I personally use is Reddit.com, Meetup.com, and LinkedIn.com. This is the first step to finding and researching your customers.

http://www.Reddit.com

Reddit is a forum style website that has millions of users and thousands of communities. One of these communities are going to be exactly your client base. On Reddit’s homepage in the upper right corner, you can search for what’s called subreddits. These are the specific communities where your clients and customers live. For example, if you were a web developer who works with non-profit animal shelters, you would want to more than likely search for the ‘animal shelter’ subreddit. Within a few days or hours of using Reddit, you’re be able to identify at least 3-5 subreddits that focus on your niche. This may be one of the easiest places you’ll use when finding and researching your customers.

http://www.meetup.com

Meetup.com is a site that lists communities that line up with who your customers are. You can even find people who have similar tastes, ideas, or industries. Let’s say you’re that web developer that wants to find non-profit animal shelters. You could search “animal adoption drives” or “animal lovers of Atlanta” to find people who have similar interests. Then you can hone in on where and when they congregate. There are dozens of topics or groups or industries that meet all over the world and the States.

http://www.LinkedIn.com

You can think of LinkedIn as a social network for professionals. You can join specific communities within LinkedIn, connect with similar professionals, or target specific people in specific companies. LinkedIn has a very extensive search option that lets you find almost exactly who you’re looking for. You can pay for their premium level account and open up even more options for finding that specific client or audience. 

Other locations where you’re going to find customers include…

• http://www.hunter.io Hunter.io is a researching site that lets you know emails of companies. If you already have a name of someone in a company, you can grab their email address.
• http://www.slack.com – You can join a Slack channel specific to your targeted industry and jump in on the conversation
• Referrals – If you’ve already worked for/with (including professors) someone TELL them that you’d love for them to refer you in the future. Be specific about what type of client you’d like to be referred to.
• Networking Face-to-Face – Go to free trade shows or join an organization that has your target clients. It’s gonna take some practice doing face-to-face conversations, so don’t feel like you’ve failed your first time out.
• Guest Posts – Contact blogs that you follow and offer to guest post. It’s a win-win for both as you get to show what you can do and they get additional content. Finding and researching your customers may become easier after guest posting because they will start coming to you.
• Contact people/organizations/business direct – Use LinkedIn to search for people in a particular field or matches your criteria. Use your local Chamber of Commerce to find companies in your area or demographics. Heck, even looking at Google search results for contact information may work.

Researching Customers/Clients

Now that you know where your customers are, you can then start to research what you’re trying to sell them. You want to validate what you THINK they want to buy to what they are REALLY willing to buy. This is the second part of finding and researching your customers.

http://www.surveymonkey.com

Send out a quick survey to people that you’ve met or collected. Its a lot more effective if you have a phone conversation and talk to your person you are surveying. You can have notes, follow up questions, and get on a personal level with your audience. This does take a lot more time, but you’re able to have a more effective outcome.

https://trends.google.com/trends/

Want to see what is trending right now on Google and compare that with other things? You can use Google Trends to find keywords that are popular within your country/region. You can also see how long that trend word has been popular. Remember “Snuggies”? You can now know what the trend for that search term would be.

Social Media

Get onto Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to search for what you’re attempting to offer. Pay attention to what people are talking about and don’t be afraid to jump in! You can always ask questions about specific topics. After a while, you’ll be able to read between the lines.

Other places you can go to research include…

• http://www.reddit.com Sub-Reddits specific to your industry
• https://stackexchange.com/ – A list of communities where people ask specific questions. Perfect for collecting common, popular, and hot problems.
• https://feedly.com/i/welcome – Feedly is an aggregator of websites that funnels everything into a single dashboard. You can subscribe to a bunch of websites that give you up to date content that you can consume in a single location. You will get a better understanding of what is commonly being said across your industry.
• Mailing list – Create or join a mailing list to collectively gather people who will be your potential clients/customers. You can then interact with this gold mine to get ideas or questions answered.
• Conferences/Tradeshows – You can’t beat the ‘heard it from the horse’s mouth’ effect. Hit the pavement and attend shows or conferences that are specific to your niche. You’ll be able to rub elbows with your clients and get a direct quote of what their problems may be.

Conclusion

Don’t be downhearted if you think you’re taking a while finding and researching your customers. What you’re actually doing is refining your niche and zeroing in on your customers and clients. I would honestly spend about 40-60 hours of effort to find and research your  customers. If you can understand what your audience is thinking, what their pains are, and a way to help, you’re ready to position yourself as the expert! The next step is to then register yourself to make sure you’re legally covered.

The post FHS 2: Finding and Researching Your Customers appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Have you ever wanted to be your own boss but didn’t know where to start? Ever wondered how to start your own business or get your ideas off the ground? Do you feel stuck and overloaded in today’s tech savvy world? Do you shake your fists at these new fandangled websites and gadgets? If you said yes to most or all of these questions; this show is for you! The Freelancers Head Start podcast helps with just how and where to take that first step.

Starting a business may not be as hard as you think. Keeping the business running and operating is the real challenge. But we’ll get to that part soon enough. For now, let’s take things one step at a time. No matter what type of business you want to start, you will need these basic 6 steps.

1 Research Your Customers

Who are you trying to attract to your goods and services? Just because you have an idea, does NOT mean that people are willing to buy. You should test the waters before you dive in. Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT skip this step. You will sink time and money chasing a dream and eventually burn out.

You’re going to want to do what is called “market research”

1. Who, specifically, are you going to be facing (niche)
2. What is the problem that you’re hearing the most often
3. What are they willing to pay
4. Is it sustainable
5. Where do they hang out

Finding your customers, what their pain-points, and understanding the value of your services is going to give you that head start that you’re looking for.

Click Here to Read More

2 Register Yourself

Once you’ve identified your customers and audience, you can then focus on registering yourself. You’re also going to be working on what you’re going to call yourself. You can name your business almost anything you want. Registering your business provides legal protection for yourself, your goods/services, as well as your assets.

Work on a name for you business that mixes creativity and the market research you just performed. Right now, we’re not going to focus on if it’s already been used. You want to just have a brain dump of possible business names.

When you have a few names that you want to use, sleep on it. See how you feel the next day. Once you’ve honed in on a single name, it’s time to register. Each state has different requirements on registration.

You’re going then circle on a Business Structure for your business. They vary on what your goals are for the business, how much risk you are comfortable with, and what tax benefits are you after.

Most people choose either LLC or S-Corp. In a nutshell, LLC separates your personal assets from your business assets. This is good in case your LLC faces a lawsuit or bankruptcy. There are also tax benefits, profit/loss benefits, and legal benefits that may be attractive to you.

An S-Corp is a special type of Corporation that has a whole different range of tax benefits, profit/loss structure, and legal standings. Your business can also take on shareholders and other tax havens with an S-Corp.  All of these are specific to each state

During registration, you will be notified if your name is already taken. Personally, I would check to see if the domain for you business is already taken THEN check your state’s Entity names. Quickly put in your business name into a search engine and see if a website exists. If you’ve found that both the Domain Name and Entity Name are available, go ahead and register!

Congrats! You’ve just made yourself legal. Let’s talk about getting your finances lined up to start taking in payments the right way.

Bonus Interview: LLC vs S-Corp and The Tax Man

Click Here to Read More

3 Finances

Once you’ve finally registered with your state, you’re going to then hop over to the IRS and grab yourself a unique Tax ID. Why do you need a Tax ID? Well, because you’re going to reach a point where your business is making some decent money and you don’t want the government to come in and seize it all. Al Capone didn’t go down for drug charges…..i’ll just say that.

You’re also going to be using your Tax ID to open up a business bank account. This is your new financial operating point of your business. Head down to your favorite bank and ask them about the details of their Business Accounts. Some banks have yearly fees, or minimum amounts, or other special requirements. Go ahead and create an account with an institution you feel comfortable with.

The other reason that you will want a Business Bank account is because you will eventually get to a stage where you may need to take out business loans or other credit-required actions. Even if you think you will never take out a loan or borrow money, you want to set yourself up now for future in-case situations. Building a relationship and credit with your bank will help in the long run.

Make sure you only spend or receive money that is specific to your business. DO NOT MIX YOUR PERSONAL MONEY WITH THIS BANK ACCOUNT. You will screw yourself over royally because you’ve just created a DIRECT path to all of your personal assets. Which will-be and can-be seized if you’re ever faced with a lawsuit or bankruptcy.

That Tax ID can also be used when purchasing bulk or wholesale items. You’ll be doing taxes at the end of the year (or quarterly) with that specific Tax ID and will be tied to your profit/losses for your business.

Now that you have everything registered and set up to take in money, let’s get you online!

Click Here to Read More

4 Get Online

When you registered with your state and federal level, hopefully you found that your business does not exist as a website. Hop over to a domain registration website such as WhoIs.com or domaincheap.com. From there, you’re going to register your website name. A website name is basically an online address that tells browsers and device where to go when people pop in your website name. They’re relatively cheap and should run you about $10-15/year.

After you’ve registered your domain name, you’re going to then want hosting. Hosting is the space for you physical files that live on a server. This will be your images, text, files, and content that live on your website. Based on your business, your hosting can fluctuate in price and complexity.

You can use all-in-one solutions such as Squarespace or Wix. You can also hire a professional to take care of all of this for you. Choosing an all-in-one solution may box you into a product that limits what you can and can’t do with your website. A professional developer will be able to develop a solution for you that will match your business goals and online platform you need.

You’re almost done with the basics. Next step is to get the word out about your business.

5 Marketing

Marketing is one step that a lot of freelancers and entrepreneurs tend to skip or gloss over. Marketing does not mean that you have to have that 50’ billboard on the main highway. You can start off small and grow to needing a second blimp during the Super Bowl.

There are essentially 2 different routes to marketing; organic and paid. Each route requires you to have already done research on your customers. We need to know where they hang out, what problems they are having, how you can solve it, and what they’re willing to pay. If you can answer these questions, then you can easily market.

Organic marketing is using free tools such as word of mouth, referrals, social media, emails, and your website. The cost for organic marketing should be low to none since you’re relying on people naturally finding you. Expect to see slow but steady response if you’re consistent.

Paid marketing is a combination of banner ads, search engine ads, or video ads that are created. You would then create rules about where, when, and who sees the ads to ensure maximum ROI. The larger the audience and the longer the ads, the more this route will cost. You will see the quickest response with this route, but it may not translate into a direct sale every time.

Start off with organic marketing to get a rhythm going. Once you start to get a stronger and stronger following, you’ll be able to maximize the effectiveness of a paid advertising campaign.

Click Here to Read More

6 Get Help!

There is not a single organization or company that has been successful by itself. There are is a mountain of resources and help out there that you can take advantage of. Do not be afraid to reach out and just ask. You’ll be surprised to find that a lot of people are very willing to help with what you’ve got going on. By you asking someone for help on a particular topic or piece of your business, your telling that person that you value their opinions and view them as an expert. How can they NOT be flattered?!

Do not think you have to do this alone. Join a local Meetup.com group. Go to a local Chamber of Commerce event. Talk to people who are in your industry. You want to always be talking about what you’re doing and what you want to do. You never know who you’re going to meet that will help you get over that little hump to tackle the next big thing.

There are so many different avenues for getting advice or help in your business. Social media is possibly one of the easier platforms to raise your hand for help.

You will also need to be open and willing to take a step back and let the expert handle things. Hire help, consultants, and other freelancers when you are moving into an area where you are out of your depths. Do not take it all on; you should build a team of people who you can off load tasks or actions for you business.

Conclusion

Getting a head start as a freelancer or entrepreneur can be daunting at first. But once you start down the path of getting that first client, it becomes easier. You’ll find your stride and identify what does and doesn’t work for you. Don’t think that you have to eat that elephant in one bite!

In the next few articles we’ll be diving deeper into the different aspects of starting down the path of being a freelancer or entrepreneur. The different tech, tools, and advice that will be covered can give you a leg up in your business. We’ll also be talking about challenges and pitfalls that some people face in their own journey.

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