Going Freelance Now!

1. Class Intro: All right, so we're going to learn how to become a freelancer. Ah, this is focusing on creative freelancing. So anything design illustration. If you are a programmer or coder, I consider that creative as well. You can apply some of the same principle so you can still get something out of this class. I've been a freelance graphic designer for over 12 years now. I started off my 1st 3 years as a part time freelancer, and I was able to get enough client work to be able to move into full time freelance and my fourth year s. So I was able to kind of quit my career in finance and beautiful time. And I've done that for almost a decade, full time. Uh, so it's been fantastic. I'm able to work at home, have flexibility. I can choose what client work. I want to work with which clients I want to work with, what types of clients, and it's absolutely fantastic. So I don't really need to sell you on why to become a freelancer because you're already in this class. So the first thing you want to do when you start a business issue would have focus and talk about your offerings, so focus, Okay, Are you gonna focus just on graphic design? Are you gonna focus just on illustration or coding? Figure out your focus for me has started off his graphic design but slowly move towards social media marketing as they kind of done more social media, freelance projects with my client work doing graphic design. I've just kind of brought my experience. So I brought my offerings and brought my focus. Another thing you're gonna have toe worry about, we're not worry about. But ah, price is how much we get a charge are gonna charge hourly or are you going to charge per project? And this is probably one of the toughest things to work out. It's going to depend on what your industry standard is an infographic sign, you know, for price. I started off really low to build my portfolio, to be able to get a lot of easy client work because my price was so low. I remember when I first started out, I was charging $10 for logo. Of course, that was a good five hour, six hours of work at the time. Um, so that's you know less than $2 an hour. So I was never gonna be ableto be successful charging that much. But I was able to build a portfolio out of that work. Um and so that's what was so valuable about charging so little at first, but slowly increasing that price to where I now kind of do a branding package, um, anywhere from 500 to $1000 for a braiding package. And I spend anywhere from 10 to 20 hours. So when you break it down hourly, it ends up being anywhere from 40 to $70 an hour. Um, and if I work really fast and get the job done really well, um, and when you do something for 10 years, he end up becoming quicker at it. You can actually double or triple what you make per hour because you do it efficiently and fast. So I'm able to make $150 an hour. In some cases, not all cases, some cases you end up making 30 an hour because the project scope increased. It wasn't in your contract. That's another thing. Contracts. So in terms of price, it's going to depend. I like to do per project. Ah, project based instead of hourly because I work very fast. I'm kind of a speed designer after spending a decade and design. And if you're an illustrator and he can illustrate pieces very fast, charging hourly is not gonna be fair for you. You're gonna end up making $10 an hour. Uh, it's not gonna end up working well free. So do per project costs. If you're fast and efficient, if you're just starting you sometimes doing the hourly rate is good because you're guaranteed to get paid. Ah, that certain amount per hours. If you charged $30 an hour, you put five hours of work into it, then you're guaranteed to get that amount of money. So each one hourly and per project has its own benefits. I started out per project, charging $10 a logo. I know that's really low. Um, but, you know, I usually start out per project until I can get an idea of what, in my worth, hourly. Um, and if you're very fast sometimes keeping on that per project costs, you can end up making way more per hour when you break it down so that's pricing. And so your goals, where they're gonna be your goals for your freelance career. Do you want to quit your job entirely and do freelance for the rest of your life? Do you want have a great work life balance? Stay home, kids. Those goals will also be good in terms of Okay, I'm going to start off graphic design, but I'm going to end up and you X or user experience and get into Web development, which is much more profitable, actually. So you have your goals of where you want to start in terms of skills and where you want to end in terms of what you offer. So you may start out as illustrator, but you end up getting into user interface design, and that's absolutely possible when you have 10 years of freelance experience. This is just kind of your quick introduction to focus offerings, price and goals and ah, I look forward to the next class 2. Freelance Finance : All right. So how do we do the accounting and finances of going freelance And are you ready to go freelance? So when I started off doing freelance, I, you know, just start off making a couple $100 a month as I was building my client base. And that was the case, probably for the 1st 2 years on. By the third year, I was making you know 20 25,000 enough. Where? If I scraped by, I would be able to quit my job to really focus on my freelance career. So then every hero is able to build on that a little bit, So it's really about you're gonna get all sorts of crazy monthly incomes because clients are gonna pay when they're gonna pay. Sometimes they wait 60 days, which is a little too much. Sometimes they go 30 days, which is perfect. And some clients I have that I've worked with for years. They pay as soon as I send them an invoice, which is fantastic. You want to keep those clients even if you make less money from them. If they give you consistent payment and they pay on time, that's a winner um So when I do invoices, uh, this is kind of the software that I use. It's called zip books, but I have also used QuickBooks. QuickBooks has something online. I think they have a subscription based now. So if you go toe QuickBooks, this is all I need to. QuickBooks is very powerful. The only reason I use it book since I'm able to use them for free because I just take checks. I don't take any kind of all. I do have one client. Why do pay, pal? But everyone else I accept. I just get checks in the mail, which reduces the transaction costs. Because I don't have to pay two or 3% fee every time I charge someone pays me via credit card eso. I love getting paid by check. If you could work out with the client that that's the most Ah, preference TWE. That's fantastic. Go for it. But I use the book systems free. Um, let me see if I can log in here real quick. Okay. So I'm gonna go ahead and law again. This is kind of a dash where I'm gonna go ahead, go to invoices. It can actually create and voices on the fly. So these are all kind of outstanding invoices that I'm rotating between different clients. So, uh, good to you Just could easily created and voice. Where's she gonna want it? Put your logo on top of your invoice. Um, so I'm not gonna go too much into details, because that's a personal account. Ah, but here's QuickBooks actually have a subscription based where you can do it all online. You can actually go on your website and be able Teoh create invoices and send them via email while you're driving in the car. Which is gonna cool to be able to do that. And I have to sit at a desk top to computer to do invoicing because I usually don't have time to do invoicing. So I'll do it a lot at night or when I'm traveling. I like to sit there and created and voice and go ahead and send it. Um, so this is fantastic. QuickBooks for small businesses. Let's see products and I don't know what they're charging meat these days, but self employed independent contractors, five bucks a month. So that's definitely worthwhile to be able to track your expenses create invoices. And at the end of the year, when it's tax time, they're gonna be able to have everything for you. So you got to be ableto report all your income when you do TurboTax or whatever your taxes and you're gonna be able to have all that information available. You just have to recall your total amount made and pop it into your taxes. And then you could start doing all your write offs, so that's kind of a quick kind of invoices and kind of the things that I use now currently . 3. Contracts! And My Story of How I Suffered Without One: now, this is the time where I didn't get paid for $1000 of work. So I started my freelance career about 12 years ago, and when I first started, I was only charging $10 for Logo's $50 for websites. It was actually absolutely insane. Um, so one day I could get one of my new clients. I'm really excited. I don't want to lose him. And they agreed to do about $1000 for a website. This was way more money than I was used to making when it first started, so I didn't want anything to go wrong. I didn't know anything about contracts, so that wasn't even an issue. At that point, I went ahead and started work right away. In the end, the client was happy and satisfied, so I happily sent my invoice via email and waited to collect my money. But I was kind of surprised when she emailed me back and said she wasn't happy with it. All of a sudden, she wasn't willing to pay. Oh no, I just put 30 to 40 hours of hard labor into this website. The images live, the websites live, the images air created. How could you not pay? Especially when you already said you were satisfied. This happens often. Freelance careers. It's It happens more often than it should. So what did I do? Well, I just said I'm sorry, and I never got paid. I never asked her to pay because we had no contract. She had every right to just say I wasn't happy. Couldn't take her to court. I had no contract. I had no say and it sucked. So what can you do in this situation So that this never happens to you? Well, first of all, have a contract, have a contract, have a contract. And in that contract state that refunds cannot happen once the project is past a certain level and that the 1st 50% down payment is due before any work starts. Trust me, I've had clients get me started on work, and they all of a sudden disappear after I already started never to be found again. And they lost a couple hours of work each time that happened. If you get 50% upfront before the project starts, you're guaranteed to at least have that money. And if you have signed a contract. You can make sure that's not refundable unless there certain circumstances. Obviously, if you don't satisfy, um, everything you and the client agree upon. So contracts are so vital, and getting that 50% down payment before any big project starts is very important. So how do I go about creating the contract? There's a fantastic website called legal contracts dot com, where you can go on and you put in certain specifications and what your hourly rate will be and all these other specifications, whether you want a down payment or not and will actually create a contract for you. You could do that. Or you can there several websites of graphic designers of illustrators where they had created contracts for you to download an attack. Um, so I am not a legal expert. But this is just kind of a general starting point to go ahead and get that contract and to go ahead and prepare future clients that you will require some kind of upfront payment. 25 to 50% would be standard, but just know whatever you don't get, it could disappear forever. You just I never know if you don't have a relationship with the client. What will happen by the end? And you want to protect yourself and make sure you get that money up. 4. Getting Those Clients!: All right. So where we gonna find all these amazing clients that we're going to start a freelance business with? That is a great question. That's the golden question. So hopefully this video will lease, get you started with kind of the process that I went through and the process I continue to go through with finding new clients. So back in the day 12 years ago, when I decided to do this full time one of the first places I went and it's dangerous, but it could work. It's Craigslist, and this is kind of Ah, it's a little bit sketchy to go on Craigslist because you hear about all the horror stories . Ah, but I did put an ad on the services side. I believe I did the creative services side. And so you'll see people putting their posts on here. So this is a photography mini session. They're advertising it. So you're gonna get scams and all sorts of things coming to your inbox. But as long as you're careful, um, and you don't worry about accepting any online money transfers than then then that this is a nok route. So I'm trying to think looking for an affordable graphic designer. I was going to click on this, so he kind of has this little business card courses a new future. Now we can scroll through a portfolio so you can put maybe eight different pieces that you have, maybe from school. Or maybe that you've had from your agency experience and go and put it on here. So definitely not my first recommendation. That's how I personally got started. I That's where I did my $10 lobos. Ah, couple of for a couple of people overseas. And that's how I built my portfolio to begin with, to then be able to charge $30 then $50 slowly work my way up. Eso definitely haven't add rotating around on the creative side if your computer ah, you have coating, which is high and demands, you have to worry as much about that. So that is an option, and I'm starting at the worst and good slowly work to the best. So the next gotta be fever. There was huge discussion in the design community, or whether fever is good for the community, whether it's benefiting designers or not. And I am kind of in the middle of that, Um, I believe it does have a lot to offer people who are just starting out. If you're an expert in the field, I don't think so. So this is great. If you're just starting out, you don't have a portfolio. You need to build a portfolio, go ahead and put a gig on. So let's say I want to do a digital marketing gig for Social Media marketing these people, some people. Actually, it's not just $5 you can actually set your own price. Not every gig is gonna be a $5 gig. So starting at $2000 this guy's gonna give you a social media instagram audit seems kind of high. There's all sorts of add ons you can do to be able to charge the client more, so I'm sure this guy goes over everything he does. So just like Craigslist, go ahead and rotate a couple of different types of gigs on fever and see what you get. It could build your portfolio that way, or you can get references as well, but it's mostly a portfolio builder and just have to say you've had clients before this is kind of starting at the bottom of the wrong kind of thing. But you know, you gotta start here than slowly work your way up. So there's Craigslist. There's fever. Of course. There's always Facebook Recon log on Facebook. You can get involved in groups, small business groups, because I was gonna be the people they're gonna need logo and branding sign. So let's go ahead and go to. There's one called Not Promoting Any Particular One. There's one called Being Boss, but there's plenty of other small business. This one's focus toward young women entrepreneurs. They have quite it. I usually look for groups that have a lot of members, anything. 5000 plus that's going to be a great audience to post things on. And the thing you're gonna want to do is you're gonna wanna build a little bit of rapport with everybody. Don't go on and say I'm a designer. I'm looking for work. Be involved in feedback, giving feedback on everybody's stuff. Ah, lot of people have logo designs that they post on here that you can get if you'd be active for about, I would say solid two weeks. Then, once you build a little bit of rapport. People have seen your name over and over and the feeds in terms of giving, giving something back to the community. Then you can post your awesome ads. You're gonna have your you know, your branded post with your description and a link to your website. Um, so that's one way to do it. Of course, we're gonna talk about how the build a portfolio website on the next class. Um, so this is kind of how you get out there. So Okay, so that's Facebook. So getting involved in groups, I'm involved in quite a bit of different groups. And so I rotated into the different groups to promote classes. So even for the school share class, I promote my classes through the Facebook groups, and I try to find ones that have the more than 10,000 because any are 5000 cause any less than that, you're not gonna get quite. You have to post in 20 groups as opposed to getting the benefit from posting toe five big groups. So there's a lot of great solid work you can get on here If you do amazing work and you charge a reasonable price. They're gonna give you another job, and then you can have a permanent client. Um, that's great with Facebook. Same thing with Pinterest. Although I haven't had any success with Pinterest, I wouldn't worry about, um that too much unless your individual creative field where maybe, let's go to Pinterest. Let's see if you have such a visual. Like, if you do, ah, photography Pinterest maybe a successful outlet for you in terms of ah, graphic design marketing. I haven't had a lot of success on it. Um, but in terms of, you know, finding someone to be like a floral floor arrangements. I mean, you're gonna be able to find people on here, but just haven't quite had success with my particular field. And you probably want with coding either. That's pretty tough one. So Pinterest is out. Twitter, unless you have a large Twitter following already, I haven't I focused more on the Facebook groups that has been amazing on finding new client work. Of course, you can always focus on your own internal networks person to person, talking to people I've joined, you know, local business groups, small business groups locally that meet face to face. The power of face to face is wonderful. There's all sorts of small business groups that you can join. There's meet up groups, certain ones in your field as well. You could take local classes in your field to be able to connect with students that you know could possibly have connections to work. So that's another option. Um, so that's the first section of this video, and the next one will focus on even more options. 5. Freelance Portfolio Building: All right, Welcome back. So, um, now that we talked about a few marketing outlets ways you go ahead and get your portfolio out there. Well, we have to have a portfolio first, So this is kind of you're very quick down and dirty, making a portfolio. So, uh, what I've done is, if you haven't Adobe subscription, you can actually create a even if you don't have subscription. I believe you can still do this with some advertisements involved. It's the my portfolio by adobe. And this is kind of a new thing they're offering. And you could actually go in here and create kind of portfolio very quickly, much more quickly if you were to try to do a WordPress site. Although, if you already have a WordPress site Great. Where press is an incredibly powerful tool for building websites very easily. So all you have to do is come on here. It's gonna prompt you to edit your portfolio or start your portfolio. Ah, this one's mine. I built this in probably 10 minutes. I already took a few hours to kind of find my favorite shots of my portfolio to put as my headline portfolios of course, there's different layouts that you can explore, um, into the switch layouts panel. Ah, but this was a way to add Ling second athletes to my classes, and I have my different projects. So if I go ahead and click on here where Census, The edit panel. You can kind of see this portfolio of this particular client and only have my top three listed just because I just want to show my best work. Not necessarily all of my work. I usually show the top 20 to 30%. They're still a lion share of work that people don't see. But I'm gonna show off what I feel like It's gonna sell them right away. So I feel like these top three clients remember sellable work. Anything else? It's OK. It's great that I have it. I can always use it if I ah, pitching to a nonprofit client. I want to work in some nonprofit work. I can switch out one of these with some of my nonprofit work. I'm so I'm gonna go and click on Wine Summit. I'm just trying to create, um and you could actually click on these, and, um, this is just the builder. But when If I was actually live on the website and be ableto zoom in a little bit on these and see the work a little bit better. I also have a PdF portfolio that I designed and in design that took quite a while. But it's really nice to have a Pdf to be able to email for whatever reason. They want to keep it on their computer and not have it on the website. I don't know why, but you know you can still do it old school and have a PdF. Let's see if I still have, uh, let's see portfolio. Okay, so here's the one that I actually designed. It's my 2017. Of course, I've collected all the images that I feel like It's my best work. Tried to create good screenshots. I went online to try to see when people were sharing the past tags. Some of the work with my design on it, um, so let me see. But go ahead and go to Datemodified, so I'm just gonna go ahead and open this in and design really quickly just to kind of show you the breath of this portfolio and how, really this is much better of a streamlined look as having the website with just offering three of your clients because this is my first full portfolio. If I were to apply for work at the agency, I would probably send this to them. It is 38 pages, so I have my little cover letter and you scroll down. You can kind of see all my work well, new seem over here. Oh, my work. But it's very overwhelming and the colors are off because it's that there we go. There's the colors, so that's very overwhelming for people. So when you're pitching online and Craigslist or Facebook, you definitely want to stick to the check out the my portfolio by Adobe. I believe you could still do it. If you don't have have a subscription, there might be a design by Adobe down here at the bottom that you could have to contend with if you don't have a subscription. Um, so So there's how I built this particular website or how you do your portfolio, Um, click on this one kind of show you this one. I was trying to pick out the best and That's it. You know, I'm not gonna show every single piece I did because not every single piece is, uh, what's gonna sell the client. So this is kind of a quick overview on how to build a build your portfolio. Of course, you can always do a WordPress. There's plenty of portfolio. Ah, were pressed premium templates. Mom, I used the go Daddy is hosting back when I did my am Go. Daddy is pretty cheap. Oakland show you go, Daddy First, I don't make any money on promoting anything that just kind of recommending it. So I use go. Daddy was super cheap. My old domain name is to be marsh graphic signs click on OK, it's only 12 bucks for that domain for a year and you pay maybe $5 for hosting every month . That is pretty incredible. In pretty cheap I'm using Adobe now is absolutely free and it's all I need. But if you needed to have Mormon extensive website, I recommend Go Daddy or any any other online hosting account. It's pretty darn cheap. And then we're pressed paint premium templates. You can actually spend about 50 bucks and get a really nice portfolio website have actually bought, um, things of WordPress premium themes from this, uh, and bottom market. But there's so many other premium WordPress theme sites you go to. I've actually bought this one before. This was really expansive. Ah, lot of different options, but yeah, you can have a lot of different premium templates if you want out, but go that route and have them work since a portfolio 6. Create a Promo Video: Okay, So we're going to talk about other ways we could promote ourselves and went a big way that people really resonate and connect with in terms of showing your work, especially if you've built up a really nice portfolio is to do videos, and I have a YouTube channel. I highly recommend YouTube to start building a following, Uh, I've had by YouTube channel for ever since I started. Right now, I have a pretty close to 1700 subscribers, about half a 1,000,000 views. But that's just really because the time, um, I post right now I'm posting my glasses. But before I would post tutorials on what I do to kind of get my exposure and you can actually post your video portfolio on here is kind of, uh, a way to promote yourself. So I highly recommend YouTube. It's a great way to go ahead when you're sending your portfolio linked to clients potential clients, where you're posting on the face script book group to try to get some jobs toe link, um, to a promo video that pretty much talks about what you do and kind of shows off some of your screenshots or videos of what you dio, Whether you're an illustrator or you or your video producer, Obviously, this is gonna be what you're gonna want to dio even graphic design. You can show off some local work kind of do some nice videography when you're zooming in on your local work and certain angles that you can do definitely get a promo video. Definitely get a YouTube account. So that's that's a definite right There. You want to have a video, and if you don't know how to create a promo video, you can do it. Either way, we have a Mac. I highly recommend I movie. That's been pretty powerful tool for me. Ah ah, very easy way. They have templates, we can pop in some things, and it's very easy. Another thing I just discovered actually have a class on skill share of how toe um create, uh, spark Social media posts toe to advertise your business. And I'm eventually gonna create a how to create a Adobe Spark video. So I created promo videos for all my classes and about 10 minutes using spark. I created a nice 32nd clip, and you could do that with your portfolio as well to advertise it. Um, so I go ahead and show you kind of my promo video, which you could see on my skull share portfolio. Um, but let me just go ahead and see if this is if we go ahead and play it. But yeah, this is spark. And if you have an adobe subscription, it's Brie without ads. If you do not have Adobe subscription, I believe you could still use spark just at the very end. Last brain, they put kind of a little thing say you sparked today or some kind of little cross promotion, but you can do all sorts of different. Um, the music on here is incredible. They have some really good music options. Of course, music adds to the emotional punch of everything. So let's go ahead. And preview design is simple. It's a beautiful thing. Warming design way. Have the tools to create things faster, never imagined. So let's learn together 7. Upwork: so there's several great alternatives to fiver fibers, not something out Recommend. If you're experienced and you already have a fantastic portfolio, I would recommend up work and also the lands. And there's a couple other really good solid companies. Some that have been around a while up works kind of a new up and comer. But, uh, they're solid. I've had a really great experience without work. You put your portfolio on there and you name your hourly rate and people come find you. And, of course, having a great profile image. Having a great portfolio up there is obviously gonna sell you. That's why working on that's so important. Um, but this is definitely where you can kind of see what other people in your industry or charging so obvious. Obviously, a UX designer is gonna come at a hefty charge, especially this guy. But, you know, he's probably got a stellar portfolio, and he deserves it s so you can kind of go on their set your rates you're gonna have toe writes, um, description and some copy of what you do. This guy's made $30,000 on this platform. He's at 15 jobs. It's not bad. He's work 692 hours, Um, so they'll be able to contact you. You can respond right away and get to work. And so building up reviews on sites like this. If you choose one and really focus on it, get some great positive reviews. You'll be trending and you'll show up on the home page. Moore's recommendations so highly recommend up work. Another one is a lance. Let me go there right now, lance dot com. This one has been around a while. This was run when I first started, actually actually got a client from the lance and built my portfolio that way. Um, e lancers also freelancer, there's just so many different ones. Um, so let me go ahead and click you. Lance, Let's go ahead, check it out. Yeah, I don't really recommend Viber if you're experienced or you already have agency work freelancing. That's definitely a step you can skip if if you don't need to build your portfolio. Um 8. Linked-In: end has a fantastic way to network and possibly make new connections and new clients. And make sure you're on Lincoln. You have your profile perfectly set up. You have your portfolio linked. Lots of photos, all your past work, any kind of education that you might have had. Even if it's just a summer study or an extensive study or a workshop. Make sure you put all that as well. Make sure you have your friends do any kind of Ah, um skill endorsement for anything that you wanna do and make sure you encourage people to write reviews. Uh, especially for gonna be charging a little bit for logos in the beginning to do portfolio building. Also, make sure you're getting MAWR additional reward out of that by making sure they give you networking but also great positive reviews, as's many places as possible. So do not forget, linked in as a 9. Freelance - Keeping Track of Hours: kind of a quick productivity tip. How I keep track of ours and, um, rates and everything and all the different items I'm working out throughout the day. I have about eight or nine different clients and says, Sometimes I could get a little overwhelming because there are days when I work with all nine of them on different projects. So every time I finish a project or I finish a chunk of time, I'll go ahead and type a line item. Um, so let's say, for example, let's go down. Okay, so all right, this NC mm client. It's a nonprofit client, So I went ahead and I didn't Ain't half by 11 Flyer when I Whenever I was done with that, I would have had put in the amount of hours, and I do it by quarters. So it's either one and 1/4 which is 1.25 1.5, 1.75 or one hour and 45 minutes and of course to for two hours. And the reason I divided like this is when you put it in the invoice, um, it actually needs it by the decimal point instead of by, like, a fraction. So I go ahead and do kind of my I round up a lot of times eso and also have on the half hour minimum. If I do, Ah, one individual project, um, and it takes me 15 minutes. I'm gonna charge 1/2 hour for it. So you could make ah good amount of money by having this rounding up system. It also prevents clients from dumping a ton. A little projects on you, Um, and they kind of wrap it up in a bigger project and send it to you instead. Um, so it's kind of what I do. So each time I'm done with a project that put a line item on here. What's great? This is just a note pad. Or you could do it in word and I'm able to copy. And then I paste this into my QuickBooks invoice creating system. Or is it books? And I just copy and paste it into that particular invoice that I'm creating. And when I'm ready to do invoices, it's really just a copy and paste job. Because throughout the day I'm able to kind of put down each little individual, um, hours in here, so it's kind of just a quick little tip in terms of keeping track of your hours and how to put those on the invoices.