Creative Freelance Fundamentals: Keys and Tools to Find Success With Your Business

1. Welcome: Success doesn't happen overnight, but with the right tools, methods, and techniques, it's not rocket science to really build a successful freelance career. Hi, my name is Leslie said Linus, and I run my own business as a freelance designer here in Mullen. I canceled and design digital solutions for my clients all around the world. Some of the bigger corporates like Adobe, Google or BMW, but also some smaller companies and startups and agencies. I am also a speaker, podcasts, and an educator. I love to give workshops and talk to people about business freelancing and user experience design. Developing my own personal branding helped me so much to attract the right client and build business that is growing. This class will guide you through all the basics of business design. So we're going to cover defining your business values and your vision, setting up your finances, your target audience, and where to find them. We're going to talk about different income streams and also how to build passive income. We're going to talk about how to start a project from beginning to end. And we're going to talk about different legal aspects that are very important to start your business or in project. Legally. This class is ideal for you if you're either already freelancing or if you're thinking about freelancing and if you're not so sure if this is the right thing for you. I created this class on the one hand to really give you the confidence to start your own business and your own career. And on the other hand, really to provide you all the tools and the business strategies to be successful. This class also comes with a digital work sheet that will guide you through all the exercises, all the tasks that we're going to go through together in this class. So I can't wait to see you in class. So let's get started. 2. Getting Started: Hello and welcome to this class about creating a business strategy for your freelance career. My name is possibly is that ins and I'm going to be your instructor for this class and will guide you through all the different steps and all the exercises to really come up, which have profound strategy for your business. In this class, we're going to talking about a business mindset. And from my experience, most creatives and I would definitely include myself until that when I was younger. Don't really have the best business knowledge. But this is very important to have a successful freelance career because you will need this, need to learn this anyway at some point. So the sooner the better. So in this class we are going to go through different exercises together. I'm going to guide you through everything. And in the end you will come up with your own business plan and a guideline for your freelance career. One thing that I really want to emphasize from the very beginning is that you are unique and you are your own superpowers. So all the skills that you already bring to the table are like your, your biggest treasurer. And you can look at other designers or other people for inspiration of our guidance. But never really comparable of them, right? So use them as inspiration but don't copy them or just follow what they're doing. Because otherwise you will never really find your niche. So rather really embrace what makes you unique and don't look too much on others. So when I decided to quit my full-time job many years ago and start my freelance career. I felt that I'm definitely lacking some business knowledge. And that also was comparing myself to other people who are presenting themselves online. And from my experience back then, you know, who were super successful. So this course is on the one hand for you to really give you the confidence to believe in your strings and to really know your worth and what you stand for. And on the other hand, very much to learn about all the essential business parts that will help you to build a successful freelance career. So before we get started, I just wanted to say that I prepared a worksheet for you, a workbook that will guide you through all the exercises and where all the chips are included. And you can either use the printed out version, the print out a workbook, and print it out at home. It's a black and white version. Or if you have an iPad or a tablet or a tablet with an apple pen, something like that. You can just add drop or send it via email to your iPad, can use the digital version, and then you can use the Apple pen to write on it. My favorite note-taking app where I'm importing it is not ability but feel free to use the note-taking app that is the most helpful for you or that you would like to use. I'm going to use the iPad version, but feel free to use the version that works for you. If you don't want to print out the worksheet, worksheet, that's totally fine. You can also use pen and paper because I am going to guide you through all the exercises so you don't need the worksheet or workbook. This is just an additional resource for you. Okay, So let's kick start this course with a few important tips in the very beginning. So my very first tip is, don't compare. This is easier said than done. I would say. Not comparing yourself to others isn't a very important part of keeping a healthy mindset and business, one of the most important tools. So everyone is on a very different path and you cannot compare your own goals or your own successes to someone else's. They might be on a very different page and might have also very different goals. So use other people as inspiration and never as competition, right? Because this is definitely not good for your mental health to compare yourself with others. And another really important thing is everything you put out there, how you treat other people would get back to you. So if you rise of the people, if you support other people in the industry, they're going to a hub, your rights as well. This is a community thing. And although you are a freelancer and you are all by your own, it's very much about supporting others and being an active, a positive part of the community you're in. The second very important for me is this takes a totally okay and it's totally normal to make mistakes someday. And that you don't know everything perfectly from the start. Use your mistakes and your failures really true reflect and to learn from them. Don't really be ashamed of say the you can do it. It's totally normal to make mistakes, especially in the beginning, totally normal. Everyone went through that. In the beginning of my freelance career, I used to take everything very personal. And since I started to not judge myself from the mistakes and from the failures, I feel much better and the quality of my work also has horizon. So working as a freelancer than I can teach you many, many things. I didn't. Number three is you are the expert and especially when you're working alone, you don't need to ask anyone. Is that okay? When you're working at an agency, it's very different because you always have someone you need to align roof or your manager or wherever. But if you're all by your own, you need to be confident in your skills. You need to know what you know, and you really need to know your superpower. So confidence is key. Don't forget, you are the expert. This the reason why people hire you, why they want to have you as a part of their team when they integrate you as a freelance designer. So really trust in yourself. My next tip is try to set goals. So goals or some kind of your compass and help you make the right decisions to not get lost on the way we live. Setting goals for your year, for your month, for your week really helps you to be inspired and to know where you want to go on the end. Also, get out of your comfort zone. And this is not that easy. I totally understand that. But it's essential to really challenge yourself and to start doing things that might scare you. Write. For me to be totally honest and I like presenting myself online, was like My biggest fear, even talking to the camera when I started my freelance career, I couldn't imagine that like sharing on my personal life online like I'm doing right now on Instagram. But I realized that I need to do that at some point where certain amount, although I'm scared of it. So just try it out and see what happens. So this was definitely out of my comfort zone, but this was like the biggest career push for me that I could hope for. Really be honest about my process, sharing myself online. Also like doing these courses, e.g. I'd definitely out of my comfort zone, but a really important step. So you can think about what might be things for you that are out of your comfort zone, but that you would actually like to do but are a little bit scared. So think about them, use them as inspiration and just try them out. Don't be too scared that people are judging. That's not important. Your goals are important and that you reach them. So let's get started. I really hope that this course will be the guide that is helpful for you or that you need right now. So my goal is definitely a bad at this course is the guy that I needed when I was younger, when I was, when I were starting out. So through this course, I will be sharing my own experiences, my own learning, but also a lot of resources with you that will guide you and hopefully also inspire you. In the next lesson, we're going to talk about the business mindset. Really defining your ideas, your vision, and your business values. 3. Business Mindset: Hello and welcome back to the next lesson. In this lesson, we're going to talk about the business mindset, about your mission vision, your business values. Because they clear they are the better you know, where you want to go. Regarding the mission statement, a mission statement related to finance your business. It's about who you are, what you do, why your business exist. So really keep it simple and always adjust and iterate on it. But I want to say is that I already defined the mission statement and what you can do with it, a whole task about it. And the first part of this course, as you can see in my Skillshare profile, because there's the first part of this course which is very much about the basic strategy and also the visual part of your personal branding drove right now you are in the second part of this class, but feel free to check out the first part of this class after you've watched this course or even before, stop this one here and then continue on the first one. And really do the mission statement and everything you want to learn there in this class. So the next really important thing besides the mission statement are your values and also your business volumes. Generally your values should be a really cool thing of every business. And they all watch your business stands for your principles, your philosophy, your reason of being your business values will help you to really steer your business management and maybe at some point also employees in the right direction. So what we're going to do is we're going to come up with our own business values. Yes, you can see here, and this will also be your very first task is you see different areas, different sections here in this circle. And what you can do is we need to think about how important these things are for you. There's the first exercise you can find that in your worksheet are also in your digital e-book. And you can just go step-by-step through the different areas which are your business values. And then really underline or think about how important they are. So here in my digital e-book worksheet, I'm going to take a pen first. Then really think about on each of the different sections here, think how important they are. Example education. So you can see is pretty, pretty important to me. I'm doing a lot of online courses, I'm doing teaching. I am doing a lot of things to really educate people. I'm also teaching at a university. Growth as well as transparency is important to me. So the more important that is, the bigger is just this little area here. Inspiration is also very important to me. Tolerance little bit more difficult for me to answer. So I'll just leave it out for now and we'll continue later on. Self-improvement is very important to me in the supporting others as well. And then kindness, of course, it's important to me. And I'd might be difficult for us to really think what is more important if things are just equally important to you, that's totally fine. But think about like, what is a little bit more important than others. So just go through the different areas. And this helps you to also reflect on your own business goals or your own values. What is important for you and what, not so much as you can see e.g. spirituality, it's not that important to me in my business or my editor to day tasks. Same with money. Of course we need money there versus very important, but this is not one of the biggest goals for me to have a certain amount of money or to make a lot of money. I have other goals that might be for you, very similar. So take your time. You can stop the video if you want to do the exercise right now. Or you can just fill out the sections later and continue with the video, maybe after the course when you find the time on, whenever it is so good time for you. Then there is the vision statement. And I think it really gets interesting because this focuses on the future of your business and your freelance career. The vision statement is more than vision about the future. This is how you are imagining your business future. And this might be pretty difficult to really think about the vision for more than ten years if you're just getting started. So just think about the next two years, e.g. how do you imagine your future and this vision statement that will help you. Um, yeah, to use some kind of like a guideline for your business. And my tip is to start with some questions that we really should help you to define how you want your business to be. So to really come up with your vision that it helps you to ask some really good questions. Like, what kind of impact do you want your business to have? What problems are you solving for your clients? Do you? How do you solve them? How do you differentiate yourself from others? And what is your desired future? Difficult questions, but very, very helpful for you to understand and help you to find your way. So for me, e.g. what kind of impact do I want to have? I really want to create lasting user-friendly experiences. This is super important for me. This is last thing that this has a long-term impact and it's not short-term. That'll be important for me, very important for my business and things like that. Also, what problems are you solving for your clients? Of course, most of the times it's very much research and prioritizing understanding how they want to implement and when they want to implement certain features in their digital products. Those are really big topic and there's a lot of money behind it to make a good decision, of course, right? So building prototypes and all those kind of things. So in the end, when I summarize my own answers, I come up with a vision statement that sounds like that. So I want to create user centered content that make long, long-term impact for business end-users and help also UX designers or other freelancers really learn the skills for a successful design career. This is very important for me. This is my own vision, my own very personal vision that might sound very, very different for you. So now it's your turn. And here comes the second task of this lesson and answer the questions on the right side. You can do that in your workbook or just use some pen and paper or the printed out version. So how do you want your business to be in the future? What's your vision? And the questions on the side really help you to frame your vision. Just ampere them one-by-one. And then the end really tried to combine the answers in one statement, which is usually around one or two sentences. You can find my example. And yeah, feel free to just pause the video and take around. I would say ten to 15 min to complete the sections. And if you want to do the access layer, that's totally fine. You can just continue with the video. Okay, so now we're going to talk about your niche and how do you present yourself? What do you, what kind of services do you really want to offer to your clients? So generally, if you can really decide if you want to niche down and really focus on one service, become better at it and eventually become an expert. So e.g. if you are a photographer and you do many kind of photography's, you do wedding photography, you do portrait photography, you do event photography. Initialing down would be e.g. focusing on one certain topic like wedding photography and you really become an expert. You only do wedding photography and you are in the expert to that certain topic. Or if you are an illustrator and do certain kinds of styles of illustration, you could say, I only do illustrations for a kids book, e.g. so the other idea is also to be a journalist that you offer multiple services and have bigger variety of projects and skulls that even go that far that you are a graphic designer, e.g. and you do photography, illustration, you do web design, maybe you do editorial design, right? So this would be really a generalist, general skills, and you offer a general service. And there are some pros and cons and everyone should really decide on their own if they want to niche down or not. So there's some pros and cons, e.g. if you are a journalist, so like I said, e.g. a. Graphic designer or an illustration, we'll offers multiple services to the client. So being a generalist really means that you have a really great variety, but also a lot of competitions, right? So you need to build more different skulls, which is exciting, helps you to crawl. But also you have less guidance and it will be much more work, right? So it doesn't get someone so boring because you do different things each day. Usually you don't do just the one thing, but they are also a lot of people who are doing similar things. So like I said, a lot of competition if you are a specialist. So if you really niche thing down on one topic or one service, you really focus on a very specific topic that can be a certain service or a certain industry. Like as a photography like I mentioned, you can focus on portrait photography only, e.g. the advantages are that over time you become better at this certain service because you do it over and over and over again. So really you become an expert, which means that you can charge more. But you also need to keep in mind that it limits you to certain clients. And this definitely don't might be for all of you, but it can get also boring, especially if you have a lot of interests and just want some variety. So you can just think about yourself and your skills. What it makes sense for you to really niche down and focus on a certain service. Can just keep that in your head and think about it. For me. E.g. I decided to niche down a little bit. So as I am doing UX UI design, I am usually doing projects for future innovation clients. I'm doing a lot of AR VR and future topics, which is definitely, I would say niche, but it's still big enough that I feel there's lot of variety and I'm not doing other things over and over again that there are many different things to do and to learn, which is very important to me, but it might be very different for you. So just really think about yourself and your own skills. So in the next lesson, we're going to talk about your target audience and how to find them. 4. Your Target Audience: Welcome back to this lesson. We're going to talk about your target audience and your ideal clients. And most importantly, where to find them will make your life so much easier for you to really know your target audience and what you can do for them. If you are a freelancer right now, or if you're thinking about going to freelance. And if you're looking for clients, if you are e.g. if you are a photographer who really want to work with companies from the e-commerce sector. Really think about what clients, especially you want to work with and where to find them. What might help is to really talk to other photographers, other designers, other freelancers who've worked in that sector and ask them how they met their clients. So this isn't important to think about who you want to address. Who are your dream clients? Where they're spending time with social media networks, they use Instagram, maybe they're in-person events or where can you actually find them and how do you find, you know, how do they usually find designers to work with? And how can you make their life much easier? Those questions really help you. So, so, so much, right? So it's really helpful to ask yourself some questions and we need to think about how that up for you. I am as a freelance UX UI designer, I am looking for clients and the area of XR, which is extended reality, augmented reality and virtual reality. So basically topics around the future innovation. So how do I find my clients are usually how do they find me? I never really reach out to clients, so they always reach out to me. So how do they find me? They usually find me through LinkedIn. I react to different articles or when I share my own content. Or people find me on Instagram and then recommend me when the team's needs support with you. I actually did a little analysis because each time a client reached out to me, I asked them how they found me and this is how I realized, okay, this is definitely the way how they are reaching out to me. What's really helpful is make a list of your dream clients, the clients you really want to work with. And in the next steps on there right side of the columns. You can also write down why you can find them and maybe also what kind of problem you can solve for them. So e.g. Samsung and there are other people that out would definitely find in in-person events that I could look a few events up where they are and then contact those people are probably on LinkedIn and see what kind of content they pose, react to the articles they share, and some kind of start building a relationship that they maybe check you out and see what kind of content you share. Start by building up some kind of a long-term relationship with the people. This is so helpful, so really reach out to them. And also on LinkedIn you'll see if you have maybe some mutual friends are some mutual connections. You can, they might be able to introduce you. Take around 10 min or so. You can either do the task right now if you want, or you can just do it a little bit later after you've finished this class. And you can find all the information in your workbook or in your printout sheets. So in the next lesson, we're going to talk about how to cure it, your portfolio. So really how to present yourself online to attract these clients, right? So once they got to know you, they may be saw your profile on LinkedIn, on Instagram because your reacted to a post. They're going to check out your portfolio. How do you present yourself in a way that these clients, when you want to work with you. 5. Curate Your Portfolio: Welcome back. In this lesson we're going to talk about how to curate your portfolio to attract the right clients that work for you. So curating your portfolio, a portfolio in the end is everything clients can find about you, right? So what's the office, the articles that you share on your blogs, social media feed that you have, the tweets that you share on Twitter. Also your projects. And right, so we need to think about your portfolio as some kind of your personal brand. So everything you put out there, everything that people, clients, stakeholders, whoever can find about you when they Google your name is your portfolio, then only your projects, but also, like I said, the articles that tweet, etc. But people really see your expertise. This changed so much in the legs. Next, in the last couple of decades, right? So a few years ago, people just printed out their portfolio and send it to agencies. This is very different. Now, people are googling your name and then they're seeing what they watch, things come up. My very first recommendation is to only put work out there that you're really proud of, that you also want people to see because you can be very strategic about the content that you put out there. E.g. for me, when I want to attract more clients that are the XR augmented reality area. Of course, I'm going to write articles about that topic on my block or that I am going to share my content about that in my newsletter, e.g. I'm going to share more content on social media about that topic. So the same point, you will be very, very strategic about things that you put out there. And here's the awesome quote from entrance and diarrhea and design agency from New York. Don't put crap in your portfolio. Otherwise, people will hire you for crap. Same roof projects that you are the work or the case studies that you worked with. We think about the quality that they have. And I would rather recommend you to have like two to three really great project that you are proud of, that you think are really great. I'm going in that direction that you want to go. Then ten mediocre projects. So what's really helpful is to have projects online that are already showing the skills that you would like to use for the upcoming projects. And it can look like this. Although I have my own website, I still upload a curated version of my portfolio to Behance. I make sure to upload only the best work of course. And, and in the case studies are in the case studies even more. So what I realized this, that when clients hire you, they usually hire you or ask you to join a certain project B because they saw something very similar worked on. So there are thinking about them is that they had outcome for their project and they saw something very similar in your portfolio and they're going to ask you to join you. E.g. this product that you are seeing there right now is a personal project. I was redesigning the jump up of some future innovation thoughts in mind. And I actually had several clients only from this project. So they reached out to me and they said they are looking for a very similar approach for an automatic motor version, offer a different kind of for different kinds of topics. But they saw this and they were like, okay, she knows what she does. I want something similar. I can already imagine how this should look like. And that's the reason why personal projects or so, so, so important for many clients. It's not, it's not super important that all of the clients are, all of the projects are real projects, but more how you think, how you design. They really want to understand how you work. And there are some different areas, are some different. I would say social media platforms are different ways how to design those portfolios. So one is definitely, you can code a portfolio or your website yourself if you really want to do that. We always said that the industry has changed so much. And the website is a really great way to have your portfolio accessible for everyone online. You can also include any kind of content. Maybe you're on sharp, you're on block, but you don't necessarily need the website. You can also use any kind of web pages like be hands, e.g. but I would actually recommend you to have a website where people can find all the kind of content. I, myself use WordPress for my own website because I feel it's very easy, it's very usable. You can buy different templates and then adjust and change things whenever you want. Of course, behind all kinds of social media platforms are great way to show your portfolio or your work behind us. An awesome tool, I would say, for attracting clients because a lot of clients are looking through Behance, forefoot and designers and then they're going to reach out. And they have Squarespace, WIX, and also Editor X, which is very similar to this kind of like WordPress approach. You have some kind of template and you can adjust them. They are a little bit more expensive because you pay some kind of a monthly fee, which is €10-20. But the templates look really great and very professional. And of course, social media at some kind of a portfolio. So your Instagram page at dribble as well. Twitter, like I already mentioned. And this depends also very much on your industry. I know that for photographers, e.g. Instagram is definitely a super bored part of your portfolio. Your ex designers like me, not that much. For me. Instagram is more about like showing my expertise and my personal brand and showing what I am doing, what I'm up to an hour. I work little bit more about my own personality. So how do you present this work, this work now unlike these different case studies, right? I can say for UX UI design, and this is very similar for all the other design disciplines. It's very important that you show the process and that you show the different stages you went through to come up with the final result. So don't only show the perfect mock up, the perfect design and the end, but really guide the viewer a little bit through your process so they understand how you work. You know, imagine that you are the clients and you're not really sure if you want this person to hire, the more they help you understand how awesome their design process is. Hello, thought through it is, the better is that in the end for the client to feel confident and to hire you. What I am usually doing or what I really love for those case studies is creating a lot of content. My top tip is really to tell a story. Guide the viewer, which is your client or potential. Yeah, maybe also recruiter if you're looking for a job, guide them through your thought process. And do not only show the glossy final product, but by it, but also the way how you design. So Wally, show them how you did the research, first concepts and also talking about the learnings you gathered about testing e.g. which methods, which style to chose and why which colors. And really make sure to add some text here and there so that the user can read about your thought process, but makes sure that it's not too long, otherwise, no one is going to read it. So in the next chapter we're going to talk about social media and how to use it in the right way. How to build up a strategy to really be successful and get the most out of social media. 6. Social Media: In this lesson, we're going to talk about social media. So what kind of content is helpful for you and your business? What platform to use, and really where to focus to keep the mental balance and a great mental health. Like already mentioned, social media is a part of your portfolio to, and it is really an awesome way to present yourself in a very strategic way. A few things to think about before you develop a social media strategy for your business is really thinking about where are your potential clients and customers. Think about a typical day in their life. Which social media platforms do they use to find designers are creatives, freelancers to work with. And also thinking about what kind of content will really attract these kind of clients. How can you really help people to get this peek behind the curtain? And how can you share your process and your personal liability. Very important, and I want to emphasize that before we really get into the topic, is you don't need to be present on all social media platforms and post every day. From my experience, it's much better to really choose the platforms wisely. And yet only choose the platforms that make sense to you and stay to be very, very consistent. So choose the channels wisely. It really goes back to your mission statement. We are target audience and also to your vision. E.g. if you are a UX designer like me, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram are super important for you. If you are a little bit more visual like a photographer, e.g. then Instagram and Pinterest might be the right platforms for you. But before we talk too much, Let's have a quick look on the different social media platforms. The first and probably most, most common social media platform is probably Instagram. Instagram is great for high resolution photos, for, for videos like shot reveals that like TikTok style for corrodes, but also for educational content. But it's important to emphasize that the focus is really on the visual contents. So it needs to be appealing, needs to be engaging. We have Pinterest, which is some kind of like a platform where you can create your own moodboard. It's very much about inspiration. And it's a little bit similar to Instagram because the focus here is also on images, on the visual part, like people want to create a mood board. They want to save recipes, etc. So again, a very visual focus, but also great for ads and also to promote your own work and you're on visual elements of your creative business. Yeah, we have Twitter, which is much more about short texts. You can integrate visuals as well, but the focus is really on short and crisp text, not visual, but interesting discussions and content sharing. So really being part of a community, they're sharing opinions, sharing interesting things to spark inspiration from others. A lot about technology and things that are going on right now. We have TikTok, which is focusing on video content. You started out with dancers, but now it goes into educational content behind the scenes. There a lot of trends, all focusing on different kind of audio that you can use for your own videos and create your own content that can be educational like mine TikTok, e.g. can be expiring, can be edutainment. So basically anything and target audience there is much, much younger. We have LinkedIn, which is more professional. There you can share a long post. Copy text, can share events, you can connect with other people and also other professionals. So a lot of the clients who might be interested in hiring you are probably on LinkedIn, especially if you're working in the tech industry like me. So building a LinkedIn profile that is professional, helpful anyway, but how much content you put out there really depends on your target audience. We also have dribble, which is, I think a little bit like Instagram, but focusing on work projects with high-end shots, videos, and animations. It's pretty new that you can also upload your own case studies like Behance, because it's also a platform where clients look for designers. So if you have the final project, are really nice mock-up of your design, of your illustration of your animation, e.g. you can upload it on durable than we have Behance. Which is kind of like a social media platforms, but for your work projects will upload these case studies. They're like the whole project or you worked on and really show the process. We already talked about that as some kind of like a separate part of your website as a portfolio presentation platform. We also have Facebook, which might sound a little bit outdated for us. But we need to keep in mind that there are a lot of, especially like older generations were still spending time on Facebook and then specially in Facebook groups. So depends on your target audience, but still very important for some target audience. And he has some tips when it comes to really be present on social media. So share behind the scenes. That means that you can be very open and a little bit more transparent about how you work. Instagram, e.g. you can take people little bit in your story is how our day-to-day life look like. How do you organize yourself and all those kind of things. Social media is very much about connecting, connecting to your clients, connecting to other people, build a community, and engaging with other people, right? So it's not about just expecting that people like your powers, but really interacting, engaging with other people's content, asking questions, sharing your opinion on things as erecting to their stories, their power. So it's a two-way street. Also show your process, like how you work. That's the reason why people they want to connect also with few and this is much, much easier if you shot a little bit more about the way how you work, some tips and tricks, and also your personality. What kind of person are you? People are always very interested. Also clients. What do you do in your free time? How do you spend your time? What Who are you Like the package when they hire you? Who are you? And of course, and educated, help and be kind, especially if you are successful in a certain area. Share content about that, really help others have other people to rise as well and be kind. So if people ask you questions, if they send you messages, if they react to your post, if they ask any questions in the comments, don't forget to respond. That's super, super, super important and respond in a nice way. I think it's always very, very interesting and makes such a difference how you also read to private messages, I e.g. always try to answer in full sentence. Add some emojis really make the other people feel valued about if they ask a question or something like that and try to be really mindful about having a proper conversations. I have seen this with other creators, are people who I reached out to and they just responded with one word, e.g. so now if I ask like, where's this software from Apple? So this doesn't seem very nice. And for people it's very difficult to connect band. So always try to respond in a full sentence. Be nice at some emojis, maybe ask a question afterwards if you really want to connect with that person, do you think it's interesting? Another really important thing, and I also mentioned that in the very beginning is after you have chosen your social media platform and it's right for you based on your target audience, if you were thinking about the content, consistency is key. So rather, post two times per week or one time per week and be very consistent about it then starting every day and then stopping because it's too much work. So social media is actually about engagement. And this means it's a two-way street like I already mentioned. Interacting with other cons, commenting, liking their posts and stories, asking questions, re-posting their content and other posts. Other content creators is super important because this is, this shows that you are part of a community that you're willing to give and not only get. So social media is all about building a community. And this community will be a game changer for you also for your business because they are going to support you and open up opportunities that you can't even think about today. So I'll try to create a community by sharing valuable content and support your community. But freebies with content, with education, with help. Even a Q&A where you ask questions in your Instagram stories can be very helpful for people. Engage with your community. There might be potential clients as well. Like in my case, I found a lot of the clients are a lot of the big projects I was working with in the past through Instagram, that someone from their team kind of found my Instagram profile, like my content. We connected the road a few personal messages back and forth. And at some point they reached out and said, By the way, we're actually looking for UX design. I think it would be an awesome, awesome fit. And they've got me on their team. The beginning. I didn't really expect that. I didn't really know who this person is. I just started actually, they started a conversation and we were talking and it was pretty interesting. And then this came out of it. So this is always possible. Yes. And also when it comes to social media, and especially nowadays, it's so important to really stay mindful, not only being kind, but to set yourself limits to not scroll through Instagram and TikTok for hours, but try to really set yourself time limits that can be ten or 20 min when you boil, you want to engage with other users, not just scroll around, but really engage and make the most out of this time. Social media is not about building a large following, but really to attract the right people, a lawyer, community, and lead clients or potential clients, have a look behind the curtain, behind the scenes. I think this is super, super, super important. I'm e.g. doing is when I'm working, I switching my phone or flight mode, I have these dedicated focus times where I am not looking on my phone. So I hope this was helpful. Think about your own social media platforms that are red for you. And if you want to know more about what kind of contents right for you, go back to the first part of this course, the creative personal branding course, and check out the lessons about content creation there. So in the next lesson of this course, we're going to talk about different ways how to find clients or even better, how can they find you? Social media, of course, we already talked about it. It is one way, but there are many, many others. 7. Finding Clients: Welcome back. In this lesson, we're going to talk about how to find clients or even better, how they can find you. So finding clients is important for every freelancer, for every creative business, because without clients, you are not profitable. So they are essential. And I wanted to share with you how I am getting my clients and also my own experiences and tips. So I'm getting most of my clients through referrals. So this usually works when I worked with a client or a company and they refer me to the friends or colleagues or other companies. So someone I know refers me to someone in neat. Also social media. I would say like hop off the client or the people I work with are coming from social media because they see my posts. I'm putting a lot of effort in presenting myself on social media. So there are also a lot of clients coming through that although they never really met me, but they only saw my post or my presence online. And the last area that works for me. So what is my network? So my network or all the people I know, all the people I have spoken to. And my tip here is always makes sure that people really know what you're doing. With my network. It works so well because I always tried to explain to people what I'm doing then also my services. You never really know who can recommend you to a job or whatever. So they always need to know what you're actually offering. So getting clients through these three ways is actually absolutely perfect for me and it makes my life very, very easily because these clients already heard about me and through the recommendation, they already saw my work on social media. So it's very easy, especially if someone refers you, right? So client already has some trust. But what I experience, or actually to get these three ways to get clients, you need to build your business very practically. So you need to make sure that clients are coming to us. For that, we really need to proactively present ourselves online. We need to talk to people about our offerings. And then the beginning are I remember when I started, it was much more difficult to find clients because I haven't built up my social media presence and my network and all those kind of things. So especially in the beginning, it was very important for me to have the website so that even when someone referred me, they could look me up and find my website and all my projects there. But keep in mind, you need to be very proactive for that. And I think what's also really important to highlight here is that there will always be slow seasons, always be times where they don't have any clients, where you don't work with anyone or where you only have a few clients. So it's totally normal also that you have month that are very slow. I can recommend you to use the time to pitch your services to clients or keep your website up-to-date. Show you a recent projects on social media, etc. Because this is very, very important to not just relax or be frustrated that nothing gotten, that nothing is coming. But really be very proactive and work on other things that you have in the bank and write articles, be really strategic about that time. Now I want to share a few ways to find clients or to connect with clients. And the first or ofcourse in-person events that can be meetups, that can be conferences. I met a lot of people throw meet-ups and conferences. And I also think like the first small drug is difficult, but usually you get started with people in the know, in the beginning or when there's an after party, or the people you sit next to try to make as many connections as you can, really connect with them and be interested and use that time to meet new people, maybe also new friends nucleus, you never really know who you meet at one of them, e.g. it was pretty interesting. I'm at crystal, like the designer or the head of design at the future. And after that, we did an Instagram live stream together. And this was so, so, so nicely. Never know who you meet. Disconnect np Nice. Yes. And also check out the local events in your community where you live. There might be some meet-ups. There might be any kind of events, any kind of things where you could be a part of. Then of course, through your own network. Those are the people you know, and also your friends, your family. And forbad need to make sure that they know what kind of service you offer. I feel, especially with creatives, it's very difficult sometimes for people outside to know what kind of service you offer it for me, e.g. some of my friends thought that I am doing some kind of graphic design and logo design. Although I'm doing web design, which is very difficult, a different. And I think it's actually all it has to explain. Our friends. People are on that drug, the people we need, what do we do? And maybe it's helpful to take some pen and paper and write down what is actually at the service that you are offering. Then we already talked about that is social media. To really present your work, connect with people also to clients and the people you want to work with. He also have the option of cold outreaching. And this basically means that you are reaching out to clients that are cold, that haven't been warmed up in the past. They are not yet clients of you, have probably never heard of you and they don't know what you're offering. So what you can do is you can grab them. A mayor, e.g. like a cold email with your services and introduce yourself. Maybe even asked for an intro call where you would talk more about your services. Then there are different platforms where you can present yourself. I'm not only talking about social media platforms, but business or freelance platforms. Here are few. You can decide if this is the right way for you. This depends very much on your business and also your personality. I am not on these platforms. I haven't presented myself there, but I heard from other freelancers that they're getting a lot of offers from that. So that might be interesting for you. Just check it out. So in the next lesson, I'm going to walk you through the financial side of running your business. You will learn how to organize your money, create a budget that will allow you to pay yourself and have a sustainable freelance career. 8. Finances: In this lesson, I will walk you through the financial side of running your own business. You will learn how to organize your money, create a budget, and also how to build a sustainable freelance career. My very first tip is to create a separate bank account only for your business. This is going to make your life so much easier because in case you need to do a tax audit Sunday, you have everything organized, but also in your day-to-day life, you keep track of all your expenses, your income, and everything that goes out. There are many great banks that provide low fees or even no fees. Like n 26, e.g. this the bank I'm using. One thing to check is if the bank account can be added to your account with things sub-brand case you're using one. But I'm going to talk about that a little bit later. Generally, it's very important that you track your expensive, which means to keep all the receipts. So I'm buying most of the things online for my business, which makes it very easy to keep track of receipts. E.g. if you buy all your office supply at Amazon who have all your receipts digitally. One thing that's super helpful is three, to start tracking your expenses. You can write them down all the expense of the month. You can do that in the Google Sheet or you can use a tool like QuickBooks, e.g. we lead your business bank account at least a month, a month and see where all the money is going. So as a freelancer, it's pretty difficult to keep track of all the different budgets for different areas like marketing education or even new equipment. And I'm going to talk about the different budgets are the different buckets for the budgets in the section. Before it is clarify one thing that I think is very important. So profit is actually the sales minus the expenses. So everything like all the income you have minus the expenses. So all the things that you need to pay your office supplies, all the subscriptions, maybe your and employees, everything. This is the profit. So this is like what you actually gain. Usually, the more sales you have, the bigger your business gets, the more expensive You also has. Expenses may vary. There are 1 million sidenote subscriptions, American tech equipment, etc. So it's very easy to overspend, especially on that area. What I do, usually, when this is all my income, are you really pay myself 25 per cent of their monthly income directly? I live 50 per cent on my business account for Texas or for other cost. And I use the other 25% for business expenses like subscription rent and tech equipment. Paying yourself as an important part of really feeling appreciated by yourself and all the work you are doing. So you're seeing the different areas and the percentage I use, but feel free to customize them and adjust them based on your business, your needs, and also adjust them when the income may rise. I usually sit down once a month or two months for a few hours and go through all the transactions, all the invoices and expense and really calculate percentages. Another thing that I found extremely helpful was having a three to six months cash reserve. I can pay all my expensive myself and all the Texas. This really helps you to be able to pay for everything that is essential. You think. Also think about yourself as essential. Having this cash reserves really made the biggest difference for me mentally to be honest. Because it really helped me to feel very calm and maybe more confident saying no to projects. I didn't believe in 100 per cent. So in the beginning when you get started, the percentage of your buckets may sound or may look like this. You add a ten per cent cash reserve in it and your salary and your expenses are little bit lower. My recommendation is to make a list of all your expensive and then set up a budget to keep track of how much you have left in each category each month. You can either do that in your workbook, used to print out version or an e-book. Or I can recommend you to use like an Excel sheet or an Excel spreadsheet. Write down all your business expensive. That might be your internet, not be your Zoom license, other licenses you're using your wife or your phone. All subscriptions, all the rent, and of course, these expenses very bad. Well, I can recommend you is to write down an average expense, e.g. IS sometimes by mockup images for personal projects, for presentations and my website. This varies a lot. There are few months where I'm buying a lot. They're also someone who don't buy anything. But I can give myself some the budget of €50 per month for all kinds of mockups, visualizations, illustrations that I buy on different websites. So this would be one thing that I would write down in this little sheet. So now it's your turn. Make a list of the expensive. This really helps you to know how much money you need are in each month and how much money you have left for additional purchases in case you decide to go with the 25 per cent bucket for your expensive. So you can either do the task right now and stop the video, or you can do that a little bit later and do it after you've finished this class. In case you wanted to go forward. Let's talk real briefly about inverses. Generally, an invoice is the timestamp commercial document, itemize and records a transaction between a buyer and a seller. So when you do work for your client, they're going to ask you for an invoice for being able to pay you for you and your clients. Invoices will help to keep track of the cashflow. Invoices are super important in case you ever need to do a tax audit. The auditor asked you where all the money is coming from and you can show them all your invoices and the Texas you paid with each noise. Now I'm going to talk about a few things that each invoice really need to have. The first thing is the invoice number. This is important because each invoice has a unique number. For me, e.g. I. Use use the letter R for rational because it's like a German word for for invoice. So it's like our E as all national invoice and then the year 22 and then the number. So I would start the year of the very first invoice. I would write it in this year. So in the year 2022 would be minus and then 22 for the yen, then number one. So the next inwards would be 22 -22 and then two and so on and so on. You also need a date. This is the day to send out the invoice to the client. It's important because most of the times we have a due date which is 14 days or 30 days after the day you send out the invoice? Yeah. For the bidders inflammation. This is your business address, name, texts, inflammation, email, and also your phone number. Then you have to offer services, the services you want to build. I just wrote your extra time, but this could also be a workshop. And underneath you'll write down what you have done, e.g. different analogies that you charged, like the workshops setup, etcetera, etcetera. Then you have taxes and tax rate. This is different from region and country to country. In Germany, we need to pay 90% texts on top of the amount. In this case, I didn't add any Texas because the client I charged here. It's not based in the UK. Also, they need to pay the taxes. Then the due date or how many days the client has to pay the invoice. One tip in Germany that might be very different for the reason you are based designing invoices with Word or InDesign is not illegally arrived. So in case you have an audit, those invoices are not valid because you can change the amount afterwards as well. What I would recommend you is to use a software for it. I personally use Ceph desk, which is around $20 per month. You can write all invoices and those two keep track of which are already pay connect the software and your bank account directly. So this saves a lot of time. Here are a few tools that you can use. Freshbooks, best of all, purpose invoicing software. We have QuickBooks. It's also really great tool, wave, best free invoicing tool. We have pay a pore. We have self-test the tool that I'm using, and we have lexoffice. Make sure to set a tool to really track those finances. This could also be google or an Excel spreadsheet, or you use a program like QuickBooks or FreshBooks or hello bonsai. If you have a small number of expenses, I really recommend to start with a spreadsheet to really keep everything. Yeah, obvious. So in the next lesson we're going to talk about the difference of hourly and project-based prices. What way is to find out what is right for you. 9. Hourly- vs. Project Based Pricing: In this lesson, I will be talking about the difference of hourly versus project-based prices. And one way is to find out what is right for you. So we have hourly based pricing and we have project-based prices. I'm usually, you can say that Ali phase pricing is when, imagine that you have a certain weight per hour or per day, that could be €100 per hour, e.g. and if you work for 100 h than what you have, you have 10,000, right? So you may also use the hourly prices when the scalp is very unclear. So imagine a client comes to you and you don't really know what the scope are, not 100% sure what they want. They didn't know what they want. And it's very, very difficult to say in the end we have a certain result. So that could also happen if you don't really know how many changes the client wants. If the scope and gentle is like very, very unclear, then you can boot by our lipase pricing. Another really important thing about hourly based pricing is that he usually bill for your time. You work the hour for you. So usually you submit your invoice at the end of the month and the client will take anywhere between like I would say, yeah, 30 to 90 days to really pay the invoice. This means that you often need to wait a month before getting paid for the Alice that you've worked? Yeah. But I think it always depends very much on the project and on your goals about that project and also the setup of the project. Then we have the project-based pricing and this look, it looks very different. This looks like if we can come through and one something e.g. a. Logo design, then you don't charge them by the hours. You charge them for the service. So e.g. one logo would be €1,000. How long you take this really depends on you, but you don't pay any, you don't get any additional payment. So a project-based pricing strategy is definitely the upper side of the hourly based pricing. And does approach charges a flat fee per project instead of a direct exchange of money for time. And it's also used by consultants, freelancers, contractors, and other individuals are laborers who provide business services. In my experience, I usually switch a little bit between both. So when I'm working on longer projects who are very time-intensive, well, I don't know for how long I'm going to work with them where the scalp is very unclear. And yeah, whereas there's just a lot of work to get done, I usually charge per day, so I don't charge per hour. So for me, I charged per day. Because then your x It's things just take a lot of time. Usually, it's much easier if you charge the whole day and really get a lot of things done doing that day in 1 h. You don't know, you can actually finish anything I feel. And the same with project-based pricing. I usually do that when the project is pretty clear, when the scope is pretty clear when we have a briefing and I feel that I know exactly what I need to do. And when there's a really high value that I'm delivering, then I may only take two days or something like that. But I would charge like all the amount would be much, much higher than today roads because the value is so high. Here's an example. E.g. think about a man who is having any plumbing issues in his home. So we call the plumber. And the plumber goes into the basement and spend a few minutes looking at all the pipes. And soon after he hits on one of the pipes a few times with his hammer, he says, Your problem is solved. That will be $1,000, says the plumber. So the man who owns the house is a little bit angry and says $1,000 to hit a pipe a few times over hammer. That's ridiculous. And I demand an itemized bill, and the plumber quickly writes an itemized invoice, hitting the pie Prof. the hammer, $2, knowing where to hit, $9,908. This story exists in many different form, but the message is very clear. Value doesn't come from performing the action. It also comes from the hundreds of thousands of hours of training that helped you perform the action and that helped you to know what exactly needs to be done and don't waste any time on the wrong things. So for my experience, the more advanced you are, the more professional you get, the more hours of training experience or having something, the better is the project-based or value-based pricing. Because the less you can actually work as an exchange for time as money, the more freedom you actually have. So really determining how much to charge is the other way. Big challenge with project pricing, I'll also with hourly pricing. If you price too low, then you may be working or even less than you would have if you were charging hourly. So if you press too higher than us really losing the project. I can talk a little bit about my own experience when I charge per project. So first, I calculate the time that I would need to really finished this project, e.g. it's two days, just working time. So I would just write my day rate two times. And then I would add additional fields, e.g. if it's used for promotion, e.g. how much value that I get if I can use the project in my own portfolio, etc, etc. So all those different pyramid has really lead to the final price. And most of the times the pencil a bit on the clients. There's also a back and forth where you talk about the price. So sometimes there is a little bit of discussion and back-and-forth included, which is also totally fine. You really need to know what is the good price for your service. And there is really helpful to be transparent brief prices. Talk to other freelancers and see what you can find online. The same with day rates or hourly or yeah, daily rates. You can just look up online what is a very common day rate or hourly rate that you can charge as a freelance designer in your region. There are a lot of tools, a lot of platforms where you can find other freelancers and see their day, right? So it's, it's usually very helpful. It also depends a lot on supply and demand displays a very big role in all of your pricing negotiation. But this pricing and post is titled directly. It's actually quite simple as you get more leads and more scheduled fluids up, you continue rising your prices. And of course, each project there'll be very different and the scope will impact price. Using the supply and demand approach, you will let the market decide how much to charge. You use price as a way to narrow down your client list. This gives you time to produce higher-quality work for your clients. You need to do as well as more time for professional development and also growing your business. In the next lesson, I'm going to talk about passive income and different ways to build them up to create a more sustainable and secure business for yourself. 10. Create Passive Income: In this lesson, I'm going to show you a few ways to create passive income. What I realized pretty early in my freelance career is that freelancing is absolutely unpredictable. Which can easily stress you out, especially in low seasons where you don't have a lot of projects or a lot of income. Passive income really stabilizes your income in the long term. Some of the streams that I'm going to share with you are not 100% passive, but still worth mentioning, 58 streams of income are great. They don't need to be truly passive with passive income. It's not that easy to Alex as it may sound, because you need some effort and time to really set it up first and then maintain it. Because every person is different. You can also choose different passive income streams and they will work better for others. Other streams will work better for you most of the time. It takes some time to make them profitable. I'm going to share my personal streams with you now. The first is educational content. Like the content on skill share, for example, the content that you're seeing here right now, It takes time and money to set up. The good thing about that is that you only do it once and then you put it out there. It's definitely 100, 100% path, but 99% because there will always be some maintenance when we do need to adjust the courses or the content. Students will have questions, want feedback here and there, There's still things that you need to do. Another thing are downloads and templates. They only has to be made once it takes some time to create them. I, for example, offer a few templates that you can purchase on my website. This is a Focus Time Time blocker template that you can download. Another stream is renting out equipment or your office if you have an office space. If you are on vacation for some time or if you are not there on the weekend, there might be either freelancers or businesses who would like to rent it out for either like shootings for example. Depends on how it looks, the interior and everything or if they need some place to work. The same with your equipment. It's mostly passive, but you definitely need an insurance or something who covers it. Yeah. Ensures it in case anything happens. I would definitely recommend you to use a platform for that. Another way is podcasting. I have my own podcast future of your podcast. And you actually can monetize that by adding sponsors, for example. By adding any paid content you need to buy equipment which is expensive, but you don't need a fancy studio. You can just use the things that you have at home and just buy a microphone. It's not passive and it's time intensive. It definitely takes a lot of time to build an audience, but it's also a really great way for your personal branding. I think especially podcasting is not only about making money, but also about getting clients or getting seen. Then another way is patron. I'm personally not on patron, but a lot of my colleagues are, there are a lot of other creatives. There's a variety of uses you can share. For example, behind the scenes, additional content, educational content, or lifestyle. This really builds a very loyal community and you earn money from each subscriber and they're very loyal. Very similar to Youtube, there are a variety of uses. You can share any kind of content that's interesting for you. You also build a very loyal community and you usually get money from brand collaborations. Generally, it takes time, any passive income stream, take time and effort to develop. Make sure that the education you share and teach have quality that people really trust you. Because especially when it comes to sharing educational content, it comes with a great responsibility. What I realized is that really trying different things out and seeing what you're truly enjoying makes the most sense. Because you need a lot of time to build up, like I already mentioned. And the more passion you have, the easier will it be for you. I personally realize that I'm really enjoying making courses and sharing educational content. The whole process is nothing but fun for me, and I'm always looking forward to create new courses and content for my community. For me, it's a win win because I absolutely enjoy it, also earn money with it. Now, make a task of all the income streams that sound interesting to you and write down how you especially implement them into your business. You can use either the digital workbook that I prepared for you or the worksheet, or you just use pen and paper. Make a list of your passive income streams that sounds interesting to you and write it down. Take around 10 minutes or so for that exercise. The next lesson we're going to talk about the legal aspect of your business and what kind of people you rather include or ask for advice when necessary. 11. Legal Aspects: The business structure you choose mainly different the way you will be taxed for protection you have and what forms you need to submit an order to start your business to really set everything up, I would recommend you to work with these people. First an accountant. And I count them can really consolidate you based on the country specifications. They can help you with that, with your taxes, but also with financial advice. The second person is definitely a lawyer. He can review your contract and wide your AGI base and classroom, all those kind of things. It can also help you with difficult situations like when a client doesn't pay an invoice, a lawyer can write a letter and usually this hubs. There's also like legal insurance for any cases like that. In case you don't want to pay a lawyer for that. You can also have an insurance which covers I'm getting a lawyer in there if it's necessary. Also a business card, this is definitely not necessary, but something I would recommend. A business coach can help you with your strategic approach and really help you if you feel stuck. I had several coaching sessions throughout my freelance career and found them very, very helpful. We went through my strengths, my weaknesses, my strategic way of working with clients, of course, and also my goal is and the things that really make me happy. So it was awesome to have this kind of like sparing partner who ask the right questions and Willie helped me to plan the best thoughts for my business. The next person is a mentor, and this is usually someone who is three to ten years ahead of you, who are generally where you want to be. So someone you can ask for advice and someone you can ask for feedback. You usually meet that person on a weekly or a monthly basis, depends of course, on you and your mentor. But a mentor is much more for guidance from motivations, for feedback. And super helpful. Also not necessary, but definitely recommendable. The next lesson we're going to talk about your contract. So when do you actually need a contract and what does it need to include? 12. Contract : Welcome back. In this lesson we're going to talk about some more legal aspects. So we're going to talk about the contract. Again before we get started this chapter, I quickly want to emphasize again that I am not a lawyer and I don't offer any legal advice. So everything I'm going to tell you as my own experience, please consult a lawyer to get a recommendations for your business structure. And another thing that I also wanted to mention is that usually when I work with clients, at least for your x y, my clients provide the contract. So especially with bigger client, they usually have a contract in hand that they're sending me that I just need to sign and to check. But the smaller clients, they don't usually have a client, so you need to provide it. And from my own experience, these topics that I'm going to mention are great to include in your surface. So first, the services, of course. So what are you responsible for and also the specifics of exactly what kind of deliverables you will be providing and what the client is responsible for, then also any kind of fee. So the amount of time and the method of payment does include details about the retainer or deposit or if it's refundable, as well as late fees. And when they kick in, I usually never do a deposit or some kind of like an upfront payment, but that might be very different for your business. Then the project timeline is also very important. Include a full timeline of when you were week re uh, things from the clients as well as all the delivery dates, the way visions and of course c iterations. Do you allow for any revisions or iterations? Is there specific timeframe for these requests? And are there any additional costs? Also include what happens if the client request additional work or wants to change the scope of work? This usually requires some extra payment. Intellectual property. So who owns the final assets? If you are licensed thing the work, make sure to outline the exact lysis and it's given what happens if the licenses are violated and how the client or in renew the license. And so in my case, I usually give all the licenses and all his intellectual properties to the client, promotional rights. So I'll make sure to include that you are allowed to use the final deliveries as well as samples, etc. In your portfolio to advertise your services, you need to ask bed or I think this is optional, but also an interesting part. So if the client doesn't want you to be able to share the work, then you should charge a higher rate to make sure that the potential loss of business, of course, also cancellation. So what happens if the client canceled and what happens if you can't include that? If the client cancers after work has begun, you will keep the retain as well as require payment for any demonstrable work done to that point. The independent contractor. So you will want to say that you are an independent contractor and not an employee. It's also very important when it comes to tax audits. Non-exclusive state that you can work with other companies and the client doesn't have exclusive rights to your services. Also, mutual confidentiality. You and the client acknowledged that each of you may have access to confidential info and agreed to protect that inflammation for you and the client. And also identification. This really ensures that any potential loss to your business will be compensated by the client. E.g. attorney fees from a third pardon suing here because of the project. I think this is also optional. I've also the government Laura, so states were any legal disputes would be arbitrated. You want this to be where you live so you don't have to pay to travel in case you get sued. You also want to include that the client will pay for all legal costs if you win the case. This is also optional and nothing like very specific. Definitely talk to your lawyer about these things. Many designers really make it a rule for themselves that they never start any work without a signed contract in place. Make this clear to the client from the very first point of contract. Let them know that you that you need to sign that contract at some point before you really get started. Like I said, I usually get a contract for my clients and most cases, so I don't need to write one. But in the next lessons I'm going to talk about how to really become profitable and how travel a financially successful business. 13. Becoming Profitable: Welcome back. In this lesson we're going to talk about how to become profitable. So I'm going to share different types of few that really help you to be successful in a long-term way and great financial success. So becoming profitable is an important part of a very successful business. It's not rocket science, but building a profound structure is essential for successful business. Number one tip is to radius set up a separate bank account. I already talked about that. Milk for a bank that will have low fees, set up an account, put any business money you have in your personal account into that new account and yeah. Invoices. So the form of your invoices and the tool you will use to keep track of these are very important. The side, if you will, be sending a PDF invoice or if you're using a program to send invoices. If you will be using a PDF, make a template for yourself. If you will be using a program, get the invoicing tools setup with all your business information. The first profit method. So decide what percentage of your income will be delegated to your different buckets. If you'll remember a few lessons back, we talked about the different profit back buckets. Set up accounts within your bank account. For each of these buckets, create a list of the ways your money will be divided. This depends, of course, very much on your income and your structure. So omega list of all the expense and then set up the budget to keep track of how much you have left in each category each month. Then you can print out the budget and put it in your worksheet, e.g. track them digitally, but it can be very helpful to also have them printed out and see them every day. Define your pricing structure by really choosing whether you will be charging on an hourly or project basis, might be different for different services. Also, 3D data mine, if it would make sense for you to have packages. And if so, we develop those and create a PDF that you can send to a potential client. This could be like if you're a photographer like wedding package, where you offer like wedding photography and photographers at the event. And maybe also some editing. Or if you are in Illustrator, then you offer different kinds of packages like e.g. and three illustrations and one round of revisions. Or a package where you offer a pack of five illustrations and true revisions and with a pricing. So this helps you when clients reach out to you and one something, you already have something prepared and in PDF. So really print out that structure and edit to your folder, to your binder wherever you keep your stuff. And also based on your expenses, goals, and the amount of work you can do each month, create a minimum rage that you will stick to for all upcoming project that really helps you to no. Two which projects to say no to because there's just not enough bunch it. Also the passive income streams. You already made a list of all the passive income streams that sound interesting to you. So you wrote down where you specifically can implement them in your business. It's helpful to just pick your top three with which you want to start, break down the steps needed to implement them at them to your business goals with due dates for yourself. So in the next lesson, we're going to talk about how to Kickstarter projects and how to how it looks like in my freelance career when I start a new project. 14. Resources & last words: So welcome back to the last lesson of this course. Before we finish with all the content, I wanted to share some additional resources with you. So when you're freelancing or I think when you're working in the creative industry, you need to live a life with a long life, all life learning approach. So you're always learning. I just wanted to share some books with you, some resources that I find very, very helpful to become better every day and to become even better freelancer and to learn a little bit more. So the first thing I'd different books that I can highly recommend that are super helpful and where I learned so much. One is freelancing business and stuff. That's a really awesome book. Also be brutally honest book is the Bible, I think are freelancing super awesome. The profit first book about paying yourself first and all the different kinds of content and profit buckets that I talked about in the financial part. And also deep work. There are some other books, but I think these are essential for every freelancer. Another really great thing that I wanted to share with you is Legal Zoom. This is awesome platform if you want to legalize surname. So in case that you're a freelance brand, has a certain name, e.g. imagined that I would legalize my name like x dot Patricia, e.g. as a brand name, then you can do that with this kind of company if you want to do with that. I'm actually naming myself Patricia Ryan us, which is my first and my second name. So I don't need to do that. But in case interesting for you, here's an interesting tool that helps you with your contracts. It's the freelance contract software. So in case you need some inspiration, graduate and how to write contracts just as an inspiration. And please don't forget to upload your final project. Please upload your worksheets and make some copies. Upload them. I would absolutely love to see them. I would love to give you feedback. And I really can't wait to see your creative business grow, and I can't wait to see you succeed. I really hope that you enjoyed this class. I hope that you'll learn a lot of new things and I feel a little bit more confident in your self and with your crude freelance career. If you have any questions, anything you want to ask me, or just to reach out and say hello or something like that. Feel free to just reach out to me on Instagram, on Twitter and say, hi, Let's connect. And yeah, can't wait to see your final project and you're successful freelance business. Thank you so much for taking this class and see you on the next one.