Assess your talents and skills

Before you get too deep into planning your business, evaluate your talents and skills. Talents refer to things you are naturally good at, while skills are learned over time. It’s not enough to enjoy doing something; talents and skills are essential for running a successful business.

Explore financing options

You will probably need funding in the early stages of your business. Obtaining financial assistance for your business can reduce stress and provide you with the means to put a good team together, expand your product and service offerings, and reach other goals within a shorter span of time. Do your research and stay open-minded to both government and private options.

Study your market

Another critical part of preparing your new business is to conduct market research. Study both local and global markets for the industry you are considering entering. This will give you an idea of how you can meet the needs of your potential customers/clients and whether the business can be profitable. It will also provide an opportunity to strategize competitively.

Think through the space you will need

Whether it’s a lot or a little, you will need space for your home-based business. If you will be fulfilling all of your duties with minimal equipment, such as a computer and printer, then you will need less space than if you will be manufacturing, storing, and/or shipping products. Consider your needs, and make sure your current home provides adequate space.

Draft a business plan

One of the most vital aspects of starting a business is drafting a business plan. A good business plan will serve as a blueprint for how you will structure, operate, and grow your business. It will describe your company‘s mission and values, include a market analysis, present how you will organize operations and who will manage things, and provide details of products or services offered. It will also include a marketing and sales strategy and funding requirements.

Become a legal entity

In the early stages of planning your new business, you will need to determine what kind of business structure will work best for your short-term and long-term needs. A sole proprietorship is the simplest entity to set up and manage. Although more is involved in the process, forming an LLC can benefit you by limiting your liability to the amount of your investment. So, unlike with a sole proprietorship, you’re not personally liable for debts associated with your LLC. Plus, an LLC comes with tax advantages and many other benefits.

Set up a home office

As previously mentioned, you will need the right space if you want your business to succeed. But it comes down to more than just the space itself; you need a home office or work area that is outfitted to facilitate your daily business operations. Among other things, this means choosing a location that allows you to stay focused, getting inspiring decor, and investing in all the equipment, furniture, and tools you need. And it’s important to have a phone line and Internet connection that’s used only for your business.

Get to marketing

Few things are more important for a home-based business than marketing, especially considering that you don’t have the exposure to walk-in customers and clients that many brick-and-mortar establishments do. And it’s never really too early to start. As soon as you create a stellar website, have your products or services lined up, and have an idea about your target market, you can begin promoting your brand through social media and other channels.

Remain open to adjustments

While it’s essential to come up with a solid, detailed plan of how you will launch and run your business, it’s equally as important to remain flexible and open-minded to other ways of thinking. That is, always be prepared to adapt and make adjustments to your products, services, and strategies that can move your business forward. On the other hand, your faith, values, and morals should always remain as your cornerstone.

As long as you come at it with the right approach and use an effective strategy, you can start a successful home-based business doing almost anything. Remember to consider the tips and information provided here, and keep researching to grow your business and leadership knowledge. Most importantly, always prioritize using your talents and operating with integrity!

Be sure to tune in to The Freelancer Head Start podcast for more information on “getting a head start with the right technology, advice, and tools for the freelancer or entrepreneur!”

Image via Pexels

The post 9 Key Steps to Building a Flourishing Home-Based Business appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Adjust Where Necessary

Every company will have to make some changes right now.

• Start by looking through this article from Work-from Home Depot about ways to adapt your business during the pandemic.
• If you weren’t remote to start with, provide resources to encourage success at home.
• Take the opportunity to remodel your office with improved furniture or new carpeting.
• The Freelancer Head Start podcast offers entrepreneurs tips on technology and tools needed for success.

Lean on Your Digital Presence

Make the most of your website and social media.

• Take some time to evaluate your website to ensure it’s doing all it can for your company.
• Consider hiring a copywriter to edit and refresh your landing page copy.
• Come up with a regular social media schedule to stay on your audience’s minds.

Connect with Clients

Interpersonal connection is more important now than ever.

• Create a survey to get a sense of your clients’ needs in the midst of the pandemic.
• Use your mailing list to keep customers aware of your businesses’ offerings and how you’re adapting.
• Schedule phone calls and video chats with clients wherever possible – voice and video will always be more personal than text.

Digital businesses are well equipped to get through this pandemic successfully. However, you have to make the right moves to keep your company running at its best. Bookmark this list and use it as a reference when trying to figure out your business’s next steps.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

The post Solid Moves for Digital Businesses During COVID-19 appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

A nanny turned Melanin (dot) Tech Founder and Help Scout growth specialist, she is dedicated to showing the world that there is more to black people than what you see in the media. Chanita is committed to helping people of color earn opportunities in the tech industry and sustain long-term, rewarding careers. She is usually advocating for the advancement of diversity and inclusion, traveling the world, playing Uno or attempting to dance salsa.

Chanita’s mission is to create lasting change in the tech industry that she knows and loves. Her brand of change is focused on inspiring others to stand up for what they believe in and to never run away from something they enjoy, even if they feel as if they don’t belong.

She and her partners created Melanin.Tech to give techies of color a safe space to share stories, enhance skills, find opportunities and feel heard. Melanin.Tech host meet-ups, curate an online community, offer conference scholarship, provides job listings and sells apparel to all techies in order to amplify the importance of diversity, inclusion and belonging in the tech world.

Website:https://www.melanin.tech
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melanintech/
Blog: https://medium.com/@melanintech

Here are a few points of what we talked about:

• Chanita started off as a nanny
• Works for Growth Scout as a growth specialist
• Impostor syndrome is real and can hit harder if you are a minority
• Step up and take ownership of your career – You’ll be viewed as the expert
• You may be the only person in your organization that looks like you, but that shouldn’t stop you from BEING you
• You don’t have to be the same to be in tech
  • Be bold and be yourself! Stand out and you’ll make it farther
• Take time to invest in yourself and learn something new. You don’t have to always have a degree or be a developer to be in the tech field
• Do what you love; what you know and get experience from your journey
• Join small projects + Volunteer / Freelance forums
  • Fiverr.com
  • Upwork.com
  • etc
• Start somewhere by. Work on projects

Once you get a little experience, start flexing! It doesn’t pay to be humble.

• Going from 0 to 100 is not required. You can go from 0 to 1 and you’re still an expert
• There are always levels to what you’re an expert with
• Don’t be afraid to start!
• Technology evolves and so will you. There are so many avenues of the tech field
• Step up to challenges and ask for more if you’re already working in a tech field/company
• Don’t prioritize prestige over what fits for you
• Burn out is real and will creep up on
• Go where the people are! Make friends in the tech space and network
• Melanin.tech is striving to help build relationships
• Helping you find jobs, but with screeners to include diversity
  • Indeed
  • Zip Recruiter
  • Atlanta Tech Village
• Finding a job is a full-time job in itself, and having someone in your corner is a win-win!
• Knowing your own worth and being firm with what your requirements are powerful
• Diversity and inclusion consulting
• Build a community where you can be yourself
  • Meetup events hosted with Melanin
• HATE those “speed dating for professionals” events
• Building that relationship takes time
• Icebreakers at events help get people started
• Challenges with working from home
  • Impostor syndrome X 1,000,000
  • Fear of being fired
• Codeswitching – Change yourself to match the environment/people
• How DARE you!
  • College drop out
  • Woman
  • Woman of color
• Be yourself and you’ll be just fine! You’ll enjoy yourself and your clients can tell
• Your clients and customers can sense when you’re real and genuine
  • Reduces stress
  • Builds trust
• “Your baby is cute as a button!” vs “Wow…your baby looks JUST like you…”

People are just people. At the end of the day, we’re all talk about the same things.

• Networking does not have to be collecting a business card
• Keep the conversation going and flow with F.O.R.D.
  • Family
  • Occupation
  • Recreation
  • Dreams
• You can start the conversations
• Working at Toys-R-Us as Geoffrey the Giraffe
• Everyone should work in retail at least one sale cycle
• Be friends with your tech support department
• Face time with the different tech levels. Build that report
• Conferences and networking events
  • Afro Tech – Large conference with a diverse group of people
  • Code camp – Local Atlanta techie conference
• As you progress with your career, your roles changes
• Diversify your skills to be more independent
  • Meeting customers
  • Closing sales
  • Meeting other professionals
  • Non-tech skills; soft skills
• Sometimes you have to experience it to learn you don’t like it
• Working in South America
• You have to put some action towards your learning
• Melanin.Tech 2019 Focus
  • Career Awareness
  • Screened Job Listings
  • Building a community
  • Flat Iron Schools
  • Virtual Meetup

Quick Picks

Chanita

• Switch Yards Coworking space – Downtown co-working space
  • Dope coffee partnerships

Marion

• Savannah River Street Sweets – Local candy company in the historic section of Savannah
  • https://www.riverstreetsweets.com/

The post FHS 40 Starting in Tech ft Chanita Simms appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Where to Start

Most freelancers or entrepreneur start off as moonlighters working on side projects. You can transition into a full-time endeavor when you’re ready to take the plunge. “When” is always up to you, but 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
2. Register yourself
3. Taxes and finance
4. Get online
5. Marketing
6. Getting help

When you’re just starting out and wondering where to start, your mind is full of tons of ideas that you just want to get out there and hit the ground running. But hold up a minute, we need to start planning this out. We’ll first need to find out who our customers are. We need to research our customers and 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.

After you’ve got a grasp on who and where your clients are. You’re ready to make things legal with your state, federal, and the IRS. Register yourself will help keep them off your back so you can make transactions happen without having to worry about Uncle Sam.

I have an interview with a CPA about taxes and registering with the IRS to keep them off your back. Check out FHS 3: http://freelancerheadstart.com/llc-vs-s-corp-and-the-tax-man/

During the registration process, you’re able to also get yourself a bank account. You need to keep your personal and business money separate, so go ahead and take care of that now.

Once you’re good and registered with a shiny new bank account, you can move onto getting an online presence. The world is smaller than you think and getting online will help you reach all corners of the earth. Grab yourself a domain name and host to do it yourself or purchase a pre-made package. A better and ideal way would be to hire a professional to take care of and grow your online presence while you work on your business.

When you’ve got a place to shuffle clients to see what you’re about, online marketing can help you gain even more traction. You’ll be able to focus your sales funnel, track engagement, and carry clients through your pipeline. As a result, you’ll be able to have a steady flow of potential clients.

And finally, when you’re look for where to start, always ask for help. Don’t be shy to talk to people about what your idea is or what your planning on doing. Make friends in your industry, reach out to Meetup groups, engage in forums and blogs, and generally “show up”. You’ll be surprised at how many people are going to be willing to help you through your tough times. The second pair of eyes and ears can bring about a new perspective on what you’re trying to do!

How to Get Clients

Finding and getting clients is one of the most common challenge for freelancers and entrepreneurs. There really isn’t a secret to finding clients, you have to put in some social effort and go where they are! To find clients, you need to have something that someone needs and be willing to pay for it. The easiest way to get a client is to show them how you are going to better that client from where they are now. They are essentially investing in what you have to offer to help them 2x, 10x, or 20x their returns.

In order to get your clients rolling in, you first need to work on your client profile. You need to be able to pick your client type, industry, and budget level out of a lineup. If you don’t know who your target client is, you’ll be shouting into the void hoping someone will stop by. Finish this sentence, then you’ll be ready to begin finding and winning clients

“I help __________ to __(single group of people)__ who have a yearly profit of _____________”

What you’re doing is making it easier for you to combine your services or products with the companies or people out there. Finally you can start using that to start looking for clients with laser focus.

Common places to find clients includes

• Job Boards
• Conferences
• Chatroom
• Face-to-face networking events
• Cold calls
• Cold emails
• Yellow Pages

If you’re like me, you want to maximize your exposure to potential clients and not a huge fan of shaking hands and kissing babies. Well, there are a lot of online sources where you can find GREAT clients and start to work on your sales funnel. Here is a rundown list of where to find clients and jobs online that I’ve used in the past:

1. Authentic Jobs
2. Behance Jobs
3. Craigslist
4. Drupal Jobs
5. LeadPages Jobs
6. Reddit /r/forhire
7. Smashing Jobs
8. Stack Overflow Jobs
9. We Work Remotely
10. WordPress Jobs

Once you’ve identified your niche, your client profile, and potentially where they’re hanging out, you’ll be able to create a proper sales/client funnel. Where to start is becoming more clearer.

Basic Funnel

Here are the steps that you’ll need to do EVERY DAY to keep your pipeline steady. Take at least an hour:

1. Visit each site above and filter to find projects.
   1. Subscribe to RSS feed or email to get listings automatically
2. Bookmark or note at least 5 potential
3. Research each lead
   1. Carefully read the description – understand the goal of the work
   2. Research the contact person and company. Learn their products, competitors, etc.
4. Contact the lead through email
   1. User verbiage that quick, short, and to the point. Don’t come off as sleazy, rude, or know-it-all. Keep it casual.
   2. Include information that you researched
   3. Include a simple call-to-action that lets you know they might be interested
5. Followup with the sent email at least twice, per listing. Once every week.

That’s a basic sales cycle for cold-emails, but it will help get your pipeline steady with potential clients who may need your services. The pattern is similar if you meet people face to face or on the phone. Don’t think you have to stick to one type of client outreach. You can use combinations if you’re comfortable.

Validate an Idea

So you’ve got a big idea or service that you think will change the world, but you don’t know if it will fly or where to start. Do NOT pursue an idea or product unless you have a little glimpse of proof that you wont be wasting time or money. Sometimes the market is not ready, sometimes you may need to tweak something, sometimes you’ll find something WAY better. Validate your ideas or products with market research. A little goes a long way!

Market Research is a technique you can use to validate your idea. Market research also will help you find that group of people that your product may be interesting to. You can 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” to help validate your idea

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

I talk with Patrick Selby about how he focused on the “What” with a few pointers and what he learned from his mistakes. Check out FHS 19: http://freelancerheadstart.com/fhs-19-market-research-building-product/

Additional Sources

• 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.

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!

Running your Business

Running your business day in and day out may be the easier part of being a Freelancer or Entrepreneur. You’ll get into the rhythm of things and do a lot of your processes automatically. You’ll also get to a point where you can use tools to help take care of the lower-hanging fruit for you. Such as your invoicing, email marketing, contacts, client on-boarding, and other task.

The main rule for being self employed: 1/2 your week is finding clients/work and business admin tasks…the other half is active work

Don’t think that you’re going to be up to the ceiling in client work. You have to keep your machine running and clients coming in. You have to make sure the bills are literally paid, your emails are sent, and your plants are watered. This goes outside of physical client work and we sometimes forget that part of working for ourselves.

Plan your day (or week) where you work on your business and yourself. Don’t overestimate the amount of work you’ll need for client work and pace yourself.

Don’t Forget about Yourself

When you start down the road of actually servicing clients and producing contents or widgets, you’ll slowly start to forget to work on yourself. We get caught up in servicing our clients and customers with 100% of our efforts, we don’t think we need the same amount of effort or services for ourselves. We think that since we’re the experts, we don’t need our own help.

Candace Schilling and I chat about ‘minding your own business’ and working on ourselves. Check out FHS 24: http://freelancerheadstart.com/fhs-24-minding-your-own-business-ft-candace-schilling/

When I, myself, was starting out I slowly noticed that I was polishing my clients websites more than myself. I was putting it a lot more effort into their content and website rather than my own….. We’re the experts but sometimes we need to look internally at our business or ourselves to make sure that we’re using our own talents. We sometimes forget that WE are the experts! Don’t forget to turn our own skills on ourselves

Take a Time Out

Leave time in the week and the day for yourself. Unwind and de-compress. Your business is mostly you and its WILL suffer if you overwork yourself. Make it a priority to take an hour a day to do nothing. Have lunch outside of your work area. Go see a movie. Walk in the park. Play a level of your fave video game. Whatever it takes, make sure you pause your work day. Where to start will depend on your personality, but allot time out of your day to take a breath.

Use tools to your advantage

It’s 2018….don’t fight the digital age! Adopt a few and simple tools that are going to make your everyday work easier. Since we’re in the digital age, we’re also able to work online with most of our content and tools. Here are the two main tools that I use almost daily to run my business:

Dropbox – Free for 2GB. Up to 1TB of space on paid plan

Dropbox is a dynamic synchronizing file stored on your devices. It automatically back things up to the cloud and allows you the ability to access the files and content from anywhere you want or need with your freelancer tools.

Dropbox is my main work space because it allows me grab files, share content, and move things around multiple machines whenever i need. I also use Dropbox to allow my clients a quick and easy way to send me files if needed.

Check it out here: https://db.tt/i1gKYQepsg [Referral/affiliate link]

Get Harvest – http://try.hrv.st/1-294321 (Free for 2 project OR $130/year for unlimited)

Harvest is my go-to for invoicing. It definitely pays for itself with your first client. You can send out an invoice and give the option of 2 payment routes: PayPal or Stripe. Invoices get sent electronically either with a PDF, link, or an email where the clients can pay online directly. You get reporting on who is late and who paid on time. The invoices also have automatic reminders that are sent out at specific intervals.

You can also use Harvest to keep track of time to bill hourly (which is what I use daily), keep track of projects, and keep track of expenses. Reporting is not bad. It won’t tell you categories in your spending like Mint does, but it will let you know if you’ll be pretty close to blowing your budget out the water in overspending. If you have a team of more than one person, you can also keep track of spending and income per-person or per project.

Conclusion

Working for yourself is a fun and exciting challenge and is full of different paths on where to start. You’re the boss and you make all the decisions…good or bad. It may not all be roses and peaches at the end of the rainbow, but for most, its SO worth it! This shouldn’t discourage you from starting down the path of becoming self employed.

To sum it up, these are the 6 starting points when you wanna work for yourself and where to start.

1. Research your customers
2. Register yourself
3. Taxes and finance
4. Get online
5. Marketing
6. Getting help

Don’t think your idea or product is stupid one. You never know what you’re going to find with market research and validation.

Start by finding clients online and create a basic sales funnel. From there, you can refine what works for you and where your niche clients are hanging out.

Take time out of the day and week to take care of yourself and that business admin work. There are tons of tools out there that you can use to make your day-to-day easier. Don’t push yourself to the limits and burn out. Its too easy to do that in the beginning.

And lastly, don’t forget to work on your own business! We sometimes forget that we need our own help. Take a look at your own processes and look for ways to improve or change it.

Once you go down the route of becoming your own boss, yes, you’ll com across a lot of obstacles. But I promise you that it only looks like a mountain from where you’re standing. Take that first step and you’ll realize you’re only on a small hill.

The post FHS 32 Where to Start appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Your Income is Variable

Generally speaking, the effort that you put into your business is the income that you will see. Your income is totally dependent on a lot of different aspects of your business and the major piece is YOU. You are the driving force behind the $$ that you bring in. If you don’t work, you don’t paid.

This is detached from the 9-5 day job where you get paid on a 2 week cycle, especially if you’re salaried. You already know what your income is going to be every 2 weeks. With a consulting or freelancing job, you have to go after that $, that income, that client, that project.

Your income is actually variable. Some months you make little to no money while the next month you make three times your normal amount. But over the course of the year, your income is looking pretty good on paper.

You can mitigate the variable income by changing the strategy on how you get paid, such as being on retainer. You can have a SaS product or a productized service that you can sell regularly. Maybe even advertising revenue from your website that you’ve already built..

You Have to Make the Decisions

Another gotchas of Freelancing and Consulting is that you’re the one in charge and you have to live with the consequences. You cant sit around and just let someone else take the wheel…and the blame… You may be stuck in that impostor syndrome cycle where you feel that you can never get anything accomplished. You actually have decision that could effect you negatively or positively. Heading down the route of market research can definitely help you make that decision if you want to go down this route long term.

You Are On Your Own

You are a one-man-band, for the most part. When you’re starting out, you’re by yourself. You need to be accountable for your own self, your action, and your decisions. When a decision is made, you don’t have anyone behind you telling you its good or bad. This can be GREAT if you need to just get things done….or it can backfire if you’re the type that needs validation.

Build a community around you can help mitigate some of the “Im alone” situations and help you move through ideas, decisions, or points in your product.

It can get lonely working by yourself and can drive you crazy! Break up your routine every once in a while and go out to eat lunch with a friend. Visit a relative you haven’t seen in a while. Go hang out at a co-working space. Get out of the house and socialize so you don’t start to become that ‘weird freelance guy…(or gal)…’.

Tough Skin

A common gotchas of Freelancing and Consulting is the need to have tough skin. Sometimes things don’t go your way and you need to not take things personally. People will let you down, clients will lie, vendors will fall through, and life will become real. This will not always be the case every time, but you need to know how to handle situations as they arise and keep moving.

You’ll get to a point where people keep telling you “no” and you’re going to face adversity. Don’t forget there is always something better on the other side.

Getting through 50 ‘no’ to that one makes all the difference!

Self Starter

There is no-one really behind you. Becoming a self starter requires you to have that effort behind you to get going to get started. You don’t have anyone watching over your shoulder to make sure you’re doing what you’re suppose to be doing (and honestly that feels GREAT most of the time). But this can also give you that false sense of being lost and don’t know where or when to begin.

Don’t forget, you ARE the expert here. You ARE the one who is kicking butt and taking names.

Start small and snowball into being better at becoming a self starter! No-one will be there to tell you to start; you have to actually start.

Easy to Overwork/Burnout

Another gotchas of Freelancing and Consulting is that is pretty easy to get overworked and burn yourself out. Burning the candle on both ends maybe something that you’re use to doing on a 9 to 5…but when you’re on your own, that’s the quickest way to burn out. Just because you CAN stay up until 3 am every night working on your product or project doesn’t mean that it won’t catch up with you shortly. Set boundaries with yourself and your work to make sure you don’t go down the path of burnout and being overworked.

You quality of work will suffer and will show. Set limitations, goals, and boundaries with your clients and with yourself. ‘Mind Your Own Business‘ and work on yourself. Set policies and procedures on yourself and your business where you do slow down and stop overworking.

Know your limits because you can easily push over. You are NOT going to catch up on sleep this weekend….

Time Management

Because you are by yourself, you definitely need to work on your time management skills. You need to have some sort of system to manage your time. There are only 2,000 work hours a year. Which boils down to 40 hours a week. In reality, you’re only going to be getting about 20 hours a week on billable hours. The rest of the week, you need to do all the administrative work that comes to running a business.

This can include answering emails, checking the mail, filling out your taxes, doctors appointments, etc. Set yourself on a schedule where you can time-box “work work” and stick to it! You can gain a better understanding on how long it takes you to do things which will then translate into billing clients.

The quality of your work will actually show if you’re not rushing to cram a day in.

What Vacation?

When you’re working a 9 to 5, your vacation times and days allowed are almost a given. You’re awarded roughly 2 weeks of time off that you can completely disconnect from work and do what you want to do: relax! When you’re working for yourself, your time away from your baby can lose you money. You’re not 100% autonomous (yet) and still need to have a few ‘check ups’ to make sure everything is ok. This could be checking emails really quick and only replying to important ones or making sure that launch went smoothly.

The gotchas of Freelancing and Consulting are that vacations are a luxury where you can have 100% relaxation. We have to plan for this a lot further and harder than a traditional 9 to 5.

The post FHS 27 Gotchas of Freelancing and Consulting appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Affiliate Links are included in this article.

A a freelancer or entrepreneur, the tools that you use are going to vary depending on what you specialize in. In this article, we’ll go over tools that you should take advantage of regardless of the type of work you do.

For most people, we can break down the tools you’ll use into 4 main groups:

• Contract/Proposal management
• Money management
• Time management
• Utilities

Contract Management

Anytime you deal with a client or a project, you need to make sure you have a contract in place. A contract is there to spell out the expectations that you and the client has. It helps protect both parties interests as it defines what you are doing for the client, the time frames, cost, and expected outcomes.

Hello Bonsai – https://www.hellobonsai.com/ [$16/month or $24/month/user]

Hello Bonsai is simple online contract and project manager tool. You can use it primarily to send agreements to clients for them to sign from their emails or online or as your invoice management tool. It helps keep things simple and straight forward.

They’ve added additional features such as sending invoices out based on the agreement of your contract. You also have the options of sending out reminders as well as new invoices to your clients. A newly added option is the proposal options. You’re able to send off proposals to your potential clients and allow them to choose.

Money Management

Mint – http://mint.com (free)

Mint is one of the freelancer tools that lives online. It does an awesome job of letting you know about your spending habits. You can also easily use it to automatically categorize and organize income and expenses. You can also set goals for yourself and use Mint to tell you REALISTICALLY how to create them. Pretty slick. You connect your bank account(s) to Mint and it helps you keep track of spending and income in a meaningful way.

The reporting features that comes from this freelancer tools can give you foresight into your expected income and spending.

Alternative: Quickbooks  http://quickbooks.com ($5/month)

I tried Quickbooks a few times in the past as well as the online version. The online version is the preferred route if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution. QB has a LOT of features that might make that $5/month fee very attractive, for sure.

List of financial freelancer tools can include additional apps that can help manage your money.

Time management

Rescue Time – Free – https://www.rescuetime.com/

Rescue Time is one of the freelancer tools to help you focus on your day. You install it on your computer or phone and it keeps track of the things you do. You have two main categories: Work and Entertainment. You get graded for how long you work versus play. You can set goals for yourself and RescueTime will keep track of what you’re actually doing.

It can measure how long you play games on your computer, how long you’re on Netflix, on Reddit, or any other sites. You can also set parameters such as your working hours and what programs constitute as “fun” versus “work”.

I love metrics and what better way to see where you’re leaking productivity than RescueTime.

Utilities

Slack – Free https://slack.com

Slack is a collaborative chatroom for your workspace that you can add to your collection of freelancer tools. You can create private chat rooms for your productivity team to talk about your project, deadlines, or general information. You can also create or join groups that have different topics or ideas. Create your own or join in on an existing group.

You can use it to keep tabs of your industry, connect with colleagues, or chit-chat with friends. Slack is great for working on and keeping tabs on projects that take a lot of people and a lot of moving parts. The ability to communicate in a chat room setting, and have offshoot private conversations, is what won me over.

Dropbox – Free for 2GB. Up to 1TB of space on paid plan

Dropbox is a dynamic synchronizing file stored on your devices. It automatically back things up to the cloud and allows you the ability to access the files and content from anywhere you want or need with your freelancer tools.

Dropbox is my main work space because it allows me grab files, share content, and move things around multiple machines whenever i need. I also use Dropbox to allow my clients a quick and easy way to send me files if needed.

Check it out here: https://db.tt/i1gKYQepsg

Skype – Free Skype-to-Skype

If you’ve never heard of Skype, then I feel bad for you. Skype is a great video and chat took that you can use to conduct conference calls. You can have a lot of people on a single call and see little to no degradation of performance. The ability to join from any device such as your phone, laptop, or table is a great way to let you work from anywhere.

Just slap in some headphones and you can jump into the call anywhere you want!

Evernote – Free

Evernote is an awesome note taking solution that allows you to save all of your notes online. You can jump onto your phone, laptop, tablet, or whatever device you choose. You can easily do search across all of your notes to find that information you’ve been looking for. For the paid version, you’ll have the option of OCR (optical character recognition; fancy way of saying it reads your handwriting)

Bonus – Equipment

Adding to your freelancer tools are a few hardware pieces you could pick up. You are not tied down to a specific location and can roam wherever you’d like. What type of equipment you’d be looking for almost always boils down to something that is going to power up your different devices.

High Capacity Charger

When out and about, you’ll need to have a way to juice back up your devices. One of my favorite devices to use is the Anker High Capacity Portable Charger ($42 on Amazon.com) to keep your devices charged when need.

Portable/Light Laptop

When you’re on the go, smaller and lighter is better. Ounces add up really quickly and device that can shave off ½ an ounce will be appreciated. Look into getting a light Chromebook such as the Asus Chromebook Flip ($497.50 on Amazon) that can be a table or a laptop when needed to reduce that weight. If you’re a developer, you’ll need a more horsepower to keep your build time down. I personally like the Dell XPS laptops that are carbon fiber bodies.

Check your Sack

Lugging your devices and work around is important when working remotely. Get yourself a backpack or satchel that is comfortable and can carry your work with you. I’ve checked out the 17.3 Inch Laptop Convertible Backpack ($45 on Amazon.com) as a great middle-ground for backpacks or over the shoulder.

The post FHS 25 Tools of the Trade appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Roadmapping sessions, for me, are paid engagements that gives my clients a low-cost introductory to a project. It reduces risk to you and the client while eliminating ‘Tire kickers’. My session is a credit towards total cost of the project if the clients chooses to move forward.

The session is a 90-minute dive into the customers business and problems. During the session, I build that customer relation and trust by asking questions that traditional developers don’t ask or show concern about. The goal of the Roadmapping Session is to identify where they are now, where they want to be, and how you can get them there.

At the end of it all, there is a report that I create for the client. That report is essentially the proposal and blueprint that was derived from the Roadmapping Session. The client is free to do whatever they want with that report, including shop around. But 9 times out of 10, the client has already built up that trust with you and knows first hand that you understand their “expensive problem”.

Typical Proposal

A typical proposal usually involves the following:

• Cost base

• Feature focused

• Possibly hourly

• Pray and hope they accept

With the traditional route, your proposal is usually based on a ‘McDonalds’ style; menu of features and options. You are throwing in features that all websites/projects have and you already have a cost associated with that feature/solution. You may even have an hourly rate attached to the proposal. At the end of it all, after you’ve submitted the proposal, you hope and pray that the customer accepts what you’ve thrown at them.

Revised Proposals

A revised and updated proposal may involve the following:

• Anchor Price  base

• ‘Expensive Problem’  focused

• Moves away from Hourly

• Re-iterate clients problems

Your new proposals after the roadmapping sessions can take advantage of anchor based pricing. This means that you can potentially earn more and ask for more in your proposals. You’re also not tied down to an hourly fee. You’ve found what the clients “expensive problem” is; what is costing them money if this is not fixed.

Using that knowledge, you can definitely justify a higher fee.

Roadmapping Session

The session is a 90-minute dive into the customers business and problems. During the session, you’re building the customer relation and trust by asking questions about the business and eventually that “expensive problem”. These questions are generally what traditional developers don’t ask or show concern about. The goal of the Roadmapping Session is to identify where they are now, where they want to be, and how you can get them there.

You’re going to break down the session into 4 main points. Business, Demographics, Finances, and Risk & Success. With these 4 points, you’re able to get a better picture of what’s going on. AND you’ll be able justify the price you’re asking for because you’ve just identified how much it is costing if the client DOESN’T get this problem fixed.

4 Main Points to a Roadmapping Session

Business

The business part of the Roadmapping Session are questions that are designed to talk about the business overall. A few questions that you’ll want to have are these for example:

1.       How are your products cross-sold or up-sold? Do you have anything in place that increases the customer lifetime value besides customers deciding to come back for more?
2.       What are your best-selling products? Worst-selling? And why?
3.       Of the potential clients you interact with in a month, what % of them convert to purchase products or become customers? How many net new customers?
4.       How many customers do you have total? How many buy just the one-off products? How many have joined a recurring plan?  
5.       What email marketing work, if any, are you doing now? (Broadcast newsletters, subscriber onboarding, post-purchase up-selling or cross-selling, etc.)

Demographics

The demographics of a product or service is important. This information can help you identify a plan on how to target your clients customers more effectively. A few example questions would be:

1.       Do you have a defined market or industry you target?
2.       Define your ideal subscriber (reoccurring)? Your ideal customer (single sale)?
3.       For your ideal customer, what do they buy first? What leads them to your website and to buy?
4.       What resistance do people have in buying your products?
5.       For your monthly subscription product, what do you think separates these customers from the rest of your subscriber base?

Finances

During the discussions about the finances, its OK to get rounded numbers. This is where you’re going to start putting value against the demographics and products. A few examples:

1.       Without introducing any new products or getting an increase in monthly opt-ins, what realistic monthly sales figures would make this project a success? What increase in monthly sales would make this a home-run?
2.       What is the value of a subscriber? (Example: Total annual sales + revenue divided by subscriber count)
3.       What is the average value of a customer? (Easy formula: Total sales divided by number of customers)
4.       What percentage of customers buy just once, and what percentage buy again?
5.       What is the customer lifetime value (CLTV) of those who buy once vs. repeat buyers?
6.       What is the value of a subscriber who comes organically / via social media / via paid ads? (Don’t worry if you can’t figure this out just yet.)

Risk/Success

The risk/success portion is used to help your client, as well as yourself, understand what would make the project a success. As well as a failure. We’ll also want to identify what external and internal risks could be keep the project from moving on. A few examples:

1.       Define success for this project.
2.       Define failure for this project.
3.       What risks internally (e.g., untested business model) are there that could keep this project from being successful?
4.       What risks external (e.g., risky 3rd party APIs) ) are there that could keep this project from being successful?

Parking Lot (Bonus)

I include a section at the end called “The Parking Lot”. The parking lot is where ideas that are off-topic but business relate will go. If the idea does not need to be discussed now, write it down in the parking lot so we can circle back around.

Conclusion

After the session is completed and over with, both you and the client should walk away with a better understanding of the problem. You have an idea of what the problem is right now. Where the client is aiming to be. And how you can help get them there.

Mixing all that you know about the problem and how it could be costly if the client DOESN’T resolve it, you can now create a proper proposal. Take the time to compile a report that will essentially reiterate the information that you found during the session. From there, you can formulate a fee for each section of the business that you can help with.

When doing price anchoring, you will use the information from the business, finance, and demographic section to show that your higher rates are only a fraction of the money that the client will be saving/earning in the long run.

The post FHS 22 Roadmapping Sessions appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

How many times have you thought of an idea and said to yourself “I need to start a business around this!”? But you start and stop, sit and stew, or just do nothing. A lot of time we focus on how we are going to execute the idea rather that WHAT the idea is. Or if its even a valid one.

It’s very easy to get caught up in the weeds of how you plan on implementing your idea. Where you’re going to sell. What website you need to make. What the logo is going to look like.

But you’re more than likely forgetting a key step: Is this something that people are willing to pay for?

Your Baby

You need to sit down and specify who you’re wanting to sell to. Specifically, your goal is to finish this sentence:

“Oh, me? I help __________ to __(single group of people)__ which saves them a lot of time and money.”

if you’re doing services or  

“I sell __________ to _(single group of people)_.”

If you’re selling products

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.

As a business owner, you’re going to need clients and customers. These are the people who are going to buy your idea from you. There really isn’t any way around it. You can’t operate on zero sales. Who doesn’t like sales?

We need to shift our mindset and take a hard look at our own product and idea and scrutinize it. Are we holding onto that idea or product because its “MY BABY!”? Yes, it’s your idea, but let’s take the time to do a little research to see if its a valid idea. Don’t be shy to modify and adapt. We’re going to do a little Market Research.

Market Research is a tool that will guide you to identifying EXACTLY who is willing to buy what you’re selling. Market research will help you find that group of people that your product may be interesting to. 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” to help validate your idea

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

I talk with Patrick Selby about how he focused on the “What” with a few pointers and what he learned from his mistakes. Check out FHS 19: http://freelancerheadstart.com/fhs-19-market-research-building-product/

Finding your customers, what their pain-points are, and understanding the value of your services is going to give you that head start that you’re looking for. It’s going to help get you out of that feeling stuck mode.

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

That “group of people” piece from up above 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.

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.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. 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.

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, and in turn, your product. 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!

Set Your Milestones

You may have a vague idea of what you’d like to accomplish with your product or service. And count that as good enough. But, each goal needs a plan, or it’s just a wish.

Once you’ve settled on WHAT you are going to be selling and to WHO, you can then slowly look at the vehicle to make it happen. It should be easier now because you know where your customers live, play, work, etc. You’ve gotten over one of the more difficult parts; now focus on getting your things in the hands of your customers/clients.

Create goals and milestones for yourself that can help you gauge if your idea and delivery methods are working. Don’t be afraid to change course when you realize something isn’t working. Your goals should have a something that is measurable behind it.

Say you want to sell T-shirts to concert attendees to a specific band. With your market research, you should have an idea on where those fans hang out (online, offline, conferences, etc) and you’ll be able to target them. Keep track of the performance of your sales when you sell in person, online, through 3rd party, etc. From those metrics, you’ll be able to refine HOW you are going to sell your products.

Now, this is a basic example but you can essentially track everything about your product and its performance. The HOW part. Eventually, you’ll find out a rhythm to what you’re doing and find that sweet spot.

Don’t forget, each goal needs to have a plan on how you’re going to achieve the goal and what ‘success’ will look like. One method in creating and achieving goals is the S.M.A.R.T. method.   

Focus on WHAT then HOW

Your product or service may go through many revisions before you will find if have an audience. Focusing on getting a product created and delivered before you even know if people will care will lose you a lot of time and money. Focus on the WHAT first; will people actually care about what i am offering?

If you find that the answer is “Yes”, THEN focus on How to deliver.

The post FHS 21 Figuring out the “WHAT” appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Patrick Selby – On Learning Point (Technology Guru)

https://www.onlearningpoint.com/

Twitter: @OnLearningPoint

Patrick loves to kayak when he is not developing innovative technical strategies to integrate technology LMS platforms. Having led large-scale projects such as migrating 20,000 users from Pathlore to SumTotal, as well as numerous installation upgrades, Patrick has an intimate understanding of all that is required to implement a successful LMS. Highly-skilled in Lectora and Captivate course troubleshooting, course setup, UAT testing, reporting and all aspects of a major system migration, Patrick brings expertise, the latest know-how and passion to any development and implementation project.

We’ll be chatting about the process he took to go down the road to building an actual product. He has insight and experience from the “I’ll build it and hope they come” to the actual work he’s put in to validate the idea. Patrick has done the leg work to talk to experts, get feedback, and has learned a lot on his journey. We sit down to chat about the stumbles and successes Patrick has had along the way.

90% of all learning happens outside of the Learning Management System and in places like Sharepoint. Where the training has not been tracked!

Highlights from this episode include

• When did you start working on your idea?
• How did you start to validate
• What type of help did/do you have
• Biggest Lesson learned
• What do you regret
• What would you do again
• Any “ah-ha” moments?

The post FHS 19 Market Research and Building a Product ft. Patrick Selby appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Lisa Treadwell – Boss Lady

Lisa is the QUEEN of pursuing those “What if…” ideas and making them into reality. Lisa is a Senior Business Analysis hailing from Chicago who take challenges head on an isn’t afraid to overcome her fears. Recently, Lisa took on the challenge of becoming a truck driver after many years as a Business Analysis. She planned on pursuing a trucking career to learn the ins-and-outs about trucking to one day own/operate her own logistics company.

She has shown time and time again that pushing through that barrier of ‘what if’ has success on the other side. Her resilience and drive to go after her goals and blaze her own path is inspiring. I talk to her the process and ideas she goes through when she looks at something and says “What if…”, because more often than not, she’s going to accomplish that goal.

Her History

• In the mid 2000s, she was off-on short term contracts
• Spiritual motivation
• Chicago was not working as expected, moved to Charlotte, NC on a whim
• Learned within 6-months did not like Charlotte
  • Finished Masters degree
• Moved back to Chicago, but soon moved to Ga
  • Joined CDC contract
• Epiphany: in order to gain some control in her life, she sought creating a company
• Get license for Trucking to start own trucking company
• Passed license course first time!
• Planned and put into motion to go out on the road for about a year
  • Lasted 4 months: learned a lot in the process
• Shifted goals to focus on Dump-trucks versus 18-wheelers
  • Refined goals to be more specific

What motivates you

• Reduce risk
  • False sense of security with a single company
• Control your income
• Unlimited potential income
• Self motivated rewards
• Long term – End life goals

Suggestions on pushing through the negativity

• Naysayers will be around and you can’t let them get to you
• Can’t let fears stopping you from your dreams
• Spiritual strength
• Looking where you cam from to where you are now
• Being realistic with your goals

Setting goals

• Make sure your goals are measurable
• Short term, medium term, and long term
• Write your goals down!
• Progress up the ladder
• Review your goals
• Focus on what you want to do

When to put things in motion

• Support from friends and family
• Financial safety net

The post FHS 15 Turning “What if…” Into Reality ft Lisa Treadwell appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.