I am not optimal in a number of ways at the moment.

• I don’t bill a very high % of my hours (I think mostly because I have been outsourcing a lot, which is ok since it’s marked up, but I want to get back to basics)
• I spend 3 hours outsourcing a 10-15 hour job that I could do myself
• I have heaps of projects on the go at once, and hop between them
• I get distracted by the phone and email all day
• My design skills have stopped progressing

Of those, the main thing I want to change is the outsourcing. I’ve advocated outsourcing on this blog, and I still am an advocate. But it does have some downsides, the main one being, it pushes out the turnaround time on projects something fierce. It’s innefficient, which is fine for big companies with big projects, but for a small company like me, maybe I can make more money not doing it (I’ll see).

Another reason I want to try this is that when I’m outsourcing a lot of work and just managing the projects, I’m spending more time sending emails and less time doing actual work. I like doing work, and as much as I like sending emails, it isn’t as fun.

It could be just one of those stupid phase things I seem to go through, but whatever the reason, I’m setting myself a ‘back to basics’ challenge for the next month:

• Plan what days I’ll be doing tasks so I don’t overbook myself
• No outsourcing design work on my projects
• Work on one main project at a time
• No interruptions to the main project
• Small jobs get batched and done while waiting for feedback or input for the main project
• Finish all projects by the planned time
• Track time spent on projects
• Setup an answering machine and batch phone calls/emails

All pretty basic stuff, but I believe doing them all right will result in better results for clients and better results for me. I’ll post results as I go.

Related posts:

1. Charging more for your freelancing
2. The #1 key to happy freelancing
3. Outsourcing for freelancers

The perfect customer is successful. People that are winning are generally good at what they do. It’s far easier getting content and feedback and input from someone who is organised and on top of things than someone bogged down and incompetent. Successful companies pay their bills.

The perfect customer makes much more money from hiring you than they pay you. Here’s an example. Say you make a basic website for a small manufacturer and importer that has $5 million in annual sales a year. You charge $4k for their website. That website is leveraged by their brand and their business and will pay for itself 10 times over in the first year. Contrast that to making a website for a fish and chip shop. If you charge them $4k for a website they’ll be working it off for a year.

Perfect customers care about value not fees. They know they’re getting a positive return on investment, and they’re looking to maximise their return on investment by increasing the value side of the equation, not by skimping on fees. They themselves know “it’s all about the value” because they have the same philosophy with their own customers. They don’t like getting haggled, and they don’t haggle you.

Perfect customers talk lots and explain well. I am currently working on a website for a company that I worked 2 days a week for 12 months for. I have a good understanding already of what the company does and needs. I’m confident of delivering an awesome product because I know exactly what they need without them even having to tell me.

Contrast that to me going into a small manufacturer that sells complex heavy equipment parts. I’ve got no idea about their products, their sales methods or anything. To make a good solution for them, I first have to learn about all that stuff. If it’s hard to get that information from meetings with the client, I’m largely guessing what will work best.

Some customers will talk for ages and explain all the little intricacies of their business. Others are short and need coaxing to delve into the information.

The better a client can explain their business, and the more willing they are to spend time with you, the better they are to work with.

Perfect customers take on partners. They want solutions and support for the long term. They know that there’s a lot that they don’t know they don’t know, and they’re bringing you on to fill that void.

At the same time, they know they have to put in time and effort into the project as well. They don’t have an initial meeting and expect the project to materialise. They’re committed to getting it done, and committed to playing a part.

Perfect customers listen and ask questions when it comes to expertise and process, and they contribute and answer questions when it comes to content.

Perfect customers make for happy freelancers

Perfect customers make for projects that turn around quickly. Quick project turnarounds make for higher income for you and happier customers.

Life is good when projects cruise, money is good, and everyone wins.

The happiest freelancer in the world, whoever that may be, isn’t the most skilled, or the richest, or the smartest… he/she works with a bunch of perfect customers.

What are you doing to work with perfect customers?

Related posts:

1. Sell better by freelancing from a position of strength
2. Assuming; the way freelancing to success
3. Getting back into the swing of freelancing after holidays

Let’s have a look what’s wrong there.

Wrong customer profile. As freelancers we have to have a clear understanding of who we can help. For me, I can best help small businesses that can get value out of a website. Generally manufacturers, importers, service providers etc.

For Frank, his customer profile is much different.

Lets compare websites and video dollar for dollar.

For $3k, you can get a basic and good website. For about the same amount of money, you can get a basic and good video.

The website adds value by being a source of leads and sales, increasing exposure, facilitating word of mouth, educating and informing prospects, branding, creating an impression, etc etc. There is so much value in having a website. I don’t think I’ve ever made a website that didn’t or won’t make substantially more money that it cost.

Video on the other hand enhances a website. It can educate and inform prospects, create an impression, aid branding etc.

Both have their places. But I am a small business. For me to create a video, I’d have to sped a couple percent of my annual revenue. My website converts well already. I can’t see an addition like a video to my website generating more money than it costs. My business doesn’t market to a mass audience. I can’t leverage the video because I can only show it to a few hundred people per month at best.

I am not part of his customer profile. Frank’s customer profile is companies that have larger audiences that can leverage it better.

Wait a second… I know some companies like that… my clients! Which brings me to my next point.

Wrong approach. Alan Weiss says it best: “Think of the fourth sale first”. When I meet with other freelancers, I don’t even dream of pitching to them. In fact, I’d be more inclined to give stuff away, and so would all other freelancers I know.

There is so much to be gained by just knowing other people. And let me tell you, knowing and being friends with someone else, is going to be enough to win you work when the need arises.

Pitching to people who can help you with is like preaching to the choir. It’s a waste of time for the preacher and a boring pain in the arse for the choir.

To be fair, Frank and I did also talk about making videos for my clients. And despite what I’m saying here, I very much enjoyed meeting with Frank. If the need arises, if any of my clients would benefit from a video, I will have him in mind. So I guess the lesson is, even if you completely screw it up, it’s still better to get yourself out there!

Related posts:

1. Sell better by freelancing from a position of strength
2. The #1 key to happy freelancing
3. When SEO turns to Spam

One thing I’ve realized a lot lately as I’ve been outsourcing more and more, is that good planning saves lots of time.

Yesterday I was working on upgrading a site for a client that I made when I first started freelancing in 2007. The css was coded terribly, and as a result, doing the work to the site was an absolute pain. The type of pain where paragraphs weren’t lining up, and font sizes were everywhere! How I coded it so badly is beyond me and to be honest it’s also a bit embarrassing. I was a bit like the polar bear in the photo here – I wasn’t thinking ahead.

Anyways, the point is this: every designer knows how important it is to have clean css. It’s important to have good css so that the website has consistent styling and is flexible.

Similar situations popup for coders all the time. Should they do something the quick way, or do it in a modular and extensible way. The concept of doing things fast or doing it right I’ve seen referred to as “technical debt“.

My assertion here is that our solutions to clients have the same trade-offs attached. Rather than build something that works for the specific instance it’s in, we should build solid solutions that can change and grow as the client changes and grows.

Here are some examples.

Taking future goals into consideration. One of my clients wants an ecommerce store in the future, but only wants a brochure website now. To save work in the future, the product line information pages on the initial site are actually going to be categories in an ecommerce system. A little more work now, but saves redoing work in the future.

Taking growth into consideration. Ever had a situation where you used a top based navigation, and everything was fine.  Then, six months later, the client comes back and says “we need a new page”, and suddenly you realize there’s no room for new pages. Gah.

If the site is likely to grow, keep some “outs”. Using a left nav generally gives plenty of outs. Styling in a drop-down gives some outs if you’re using a top nav. And having outs isn’t just restricted to new pages. It could be new features or forms or whatever.

Lorem Ipsum designs. You see these on deviant art all the time. Designs that look absolutely stunning, and then you realise, they’re stunning because no real website could ever work like that. They have the exact right amount of words in every part, and the reason they can do that is because it’s all Lorem Ipsum. Put those designs around real websites and watch them fall apart.

Time for some solutions.

Get all information up front. Take extra time to talk about what the client wants before starting work. I remember once I had a client where I had just pitched a proposal and got a cheque, and then as soon as I received the cheque, the client started talking about new pages that I had heard nothing about that would come off the site but be part of an entirely different domain!

Probably just hearing that is making your blood boil, but situations like this are often our own fault for being too hasty to start the project and not letting the client flesh out ideas earlier.

Involve yourself in planning for the long term. Why not jump in on the ground floor and have a say in what changes the site is going to go through? Before you’ve finished a project, come up with a 12 month plan for the site with the client. That way you have more control over what might be needed of the site in the future.

There are future proofing issues in everything we do. Thinking ahead helps us tackle them before they happen, and have outs for when we are unprepared.

Related posts:

1. How clients can hate an awesome design
2. Dealing with painful micromanager clients
3. Interview with Tristan Judd from Able Net Design

At first I thought I would just tell him that I can’t do his job, because I thought there’d be no way he’d be interested in my services at the new price. But then I thought, ‘why not?’. Instead of just turning down the work, I talked about some of the improvements I’ve made over the last year, what that would mean for him, and told him about the increased price.

I haven’t banked the cheque yet, but it astounded me how easily I could have cost myself a few thousand dollars.

Other self imposed limits

Price has always been the biggest self imposed limit for me because I was brought up in a tight-arse environment. But self imposed limits can be about anything. Here are some examples…

• ‘I’m not good enough to work for a company that big’
• ‘The client will never agree to that’
• ‘They don’t have the budget to do it right’
• ‘What I can do isn’t worth it for them’
• ‘No-one would hire me when my portfolio looks like it does’
• ‘The client won’t pay 100% upfront’
• ‘There are so many other people better than me’
• ‘If I raise my hourly, clients aren’t going to hire me’

These phrases all have the potential to be completely true in our minds, but completely false in reality.

The solution

One thing I’ve found is that it rarely hurts to ask questions.

Self imposted limits can easily be lifted by finding out if the limits actually exist. And the way to find that out, is to ask.

Ask for payment up front. If you don’t ask, you’re not going to get it anyway. So asking is a ‘freeroll’. There’s an upside to asking but no downside.

Don’t think a client would find a new offering worthwhile? Ask them. Again, there’s no downside but there’s a nice upside.

Are you imposing limits on yourself that are costing you money?

Related posts:

1. Outsourcing for freelancers
2. Charging the right price: Price optimization for freelancers
3. Freelance Philosophy Friday 5: Relationships are resources

That’s true in some senses, but in reality, it’s the same stuff with a different man. Especially as you work for bigger clients and make more money. There are still deadlines and still difficult people to deal with.

Our clients are our bosses.

That’s why I like building up multiple sources of income. It diversifies risk, keeps life interesting, and sometimes removes the need for me to be actively working to produce income.

Here are some ideas for creating alternative income streams.

Create a product and sell it. I often looked at sites for sale on Flippa and on the old Sitepoint marketplace. I saw an iphone unlocking site sell for 1.5 million. I have seen a simple forum population script making over $70k per year.

I see those things and realise I can do the same thing. As a result, selling software is an area I am moving into increasingly.

You already know about Freelance Total, but you may not know I also have two other software products, with two more products planned for this year.

Doing these projects not only creates a bit of money on the side, it also makes me a better freelancer. My marketing skills have increased dramatically. I have experience making sites and products for myself, and especially when I’m talking to potential clients that are a start-up, that experience counts for a lot.

Offer webhosting. It takes some knowledge to offer web hosting, but I believe it’s well worth it. I offer hosting packages to my clients and my clients only. Probably about 60-75% of clients host with me. I’ve been doing it for three years now, and the income just keeps building.

The downside is increased responsibility, but well worth it if you ask me.

Other income producing websites. Maybe you’ve got an idea for a website that can make some money. Whether it be publishing, blogging, affiliate marketing or whatever.

For me, I am a partner in a couple of e-commerce stores. The agreement is that I manage the websites, and my partner handles the operations side of the business. This allows me to work on it when I have the time. It allows my partner to have access to sweet websites without having to lay down large sums of cash up front.

Like creating a product, having experience in ecommerce is great when talking to potential ecommerce clients. My money is where my mouth is.

Other examples that I’ve seen other web designers do is niche informational sites, adsense sites, etc.

Designing themes. This is a great one for designers. I’ve never personally created a theme to sell, but it’s an endeavour that’s well worth it for designers. Especially if it helps to build a portfolio.

Stock photography. Again, this is something I don’t have personal experience with. But if you have the skills, it’s a great thing to do.

Be smart about it

I’m a strong believer in constantly building alternative and passive income streams. But there are pitfalls to avoid. It’s easy to spend more time on things than they’re worth, especially if you’re like me and really hate working for any sort of ‘man’. Building passive income streams takes a large investment of time up front, and it’s important that the time you put in is likely to see returns. There’s no point putting 200 hours of effort in a project, if over 5 years it will pay $2000.

There’s an element of risk in going after passive income. Do your research and make sure the reward is there.

Don’t spread yourself too thin

There’s nothing worse than over-committing and under delivering/being late. And I have to admit I have done it on some occasions. If clients are making the majority of your income, clients come first. After all, they’re the ones paying the bills. (for now =))

Leverage your resources

Leverage the resources you have and the situations you’re in. One of my products, I made after one of my clients wanted a solution, and the current market offerings were lacking. Because it looked like I had to do it anyway, it made sense to capitalize on it and sell it.

Partnerships and other people are resources. There’s no way I have time to process orders in an e-commerce store. There’s no way I can code as much as I would like.

Partner with people where they get the most out of your skills, you don’t spread yourself too thin, and you get the most out of their skills.

Do you diversify your income streams?

I’d be really interested to hear some of the other ways people are diversifying their income. If you have something to share, please do!

Related posts:

1. Outsourcing for freelancers
2. Charging the right price: Price optimization for freelancers
3. The difference between good freelancers and bad freelancers

The phone might ring, some urgent work comes in, meetings pop up, IM messages come in, emails coming through, not to mention all the social media and information we have at our finger tips. And it’s getting worse. If you use gmail and you don’t turn buzz off, when you check you’re emails, you’re also told how many unread “buzz’s” you have.

I don’t think I’m the only freelancer that has at least 10 different programs open, and 10 different browser tabs open all at the same time.

The fact is, we’ve gotten so good with technology, we have so much information available to us, that it’s incredibly easy to be doing lots of things at once. Without even noticing, while writing this post, I’m talking to a designer about some work on MSN, I’ve checked my website statistics twice, and checked my email twice as well.

I’ve written about task management before. It’s all well and good, but if we want to really be productive, we have to remove distractions.

On one of the episodes of Freelance Radio, Von Glitcshka talked about having a mode where he unplugs his phone, closes his door, closes down all his programs, and just focuses on doing the task at hand.

In 4 hour work week, Tim Ferris talks about doing jobs in batches to save time. He will check and answer emails at 2 specific times during the day.

There’s a study somewhere that says after a distraction, it takes something like 15 minutes to get your mind back into the work you’re doing.

Multi-tasking is multi-not-tasking. As freelancers, we have many hats to juggle, and often many jobs on at the same time. 2 hours spent solidly on a task with no distractions can yield more results than a full day of distractions.

Distractions are unavoidable, but we can take steps to cut them down, and perhaps we can set some ‘project time’ aside, and hopefully we’ll get more done in less time.

Related posts:

1. The two to-dos system for organizing tasks and being productive
2. Freelance Philosophy Friday #2: Make it easy to work with you
3. Blow off work or blow at work

A month or two ago posted on some forums that I was looking for people with experience in CMSMS development. This morning, I received the best introduction letter I have ever read.

The letter has a bit of an introduction, and then quickly makes some assumptions.

The letter assumes I’m looking for a long term partnership, and then talks about why he’s perfect for a long term partnership.

The letter assumes I’m the perfect fit for his services, and then talks about how our services can work together

The letter assumes I’m looking for a certain level of quality, and then talks about his experience and his previous work.

By assuming these things, the letter does two things.

1. It pre-qualifies me as a buyer. If I’m not looking for those things, I’m not going to waste his time replying.

2. It is extremely presuasive if I am looking for those things. If I was looking for a long term partnership with someone who has skills that compliment mine perfectly that maintains a certain quality of work, I’ve just found someone who is absolutely perfect!

As freelancers, we can’t work with everyone. We only want to work on jobs that suit us, with clients that suit us. Taking the time to target and qualify prospects is part of what we have to do.

When we assume and miss, we miss by a further amount – after all, we’re laser targeting our approach. If you assume someone is looking for a long term relationship, and they’re looking for a short term relationship, you look dumb. I’m guessing that’s the point of the ‘to assume is to make an ass out of u and me’ saying.

But when you assume and hit, the hit is harder, and makes you stand out from competitors.

Do you think it’s worth it to assume?

Related posts:

1. 5 reasons why job boards suck
2. The #1 key to happy freelancing
3. Charging the right price: Price optimization for freelancers

Location: Weymouth, UK

Freelancing for: 6 years

Website: http://www.weymouthwebdesign.com/ and http://www.thewebdesignblog.co.uk

Firstly can you tell us a little about yourself and what you do?

I’ve been freelancing for nearly 6 years and had the pleasure of working for some really great clients. I setup The Web Design Blog in late 2009 with the intention of sharing useful resources, interviews and downloads with the design community.

How did you get started in Freelancing? How did you land your first customer? What marketing did you do when you were starting out?

I’ve been designing websites as a hobby since 1996. I’d always wanted to work for a design agency but when I was actively searching for comapnies near me (in around 2003) I noticed all of them required a design related university degree which I didn’t have. As a way around this I thought I’d start freelancing to build up a portfolio of design in the hope that this would show them what I could do despite without all important degree. I’m happy to say that the freelancing took off more than I’d anticipate and I’m still doing it to this day!

To gain my initial clients I did some basic advertising on a tiny budget. For my first few jobs I listed an auction on eBay for people to “buy” my web design services for a small business website. The price I sold the first few websites for on eBay was ridiculously cheap but, ironically, my first ever client is still with me to this day. After doing a few of these sites I started to get enquiries via more traditional methods which allowed me to gradually increase my rates to a more sensible level.

When you started freelancing, what were your goals? Do they differ to what they are now? What conscious decisions did you make to reach your goals?

When I started it was all very low risk and I didn’t have specific plans. I still lived with my parents, had very low overheads and didn’t really have a set goal. I just wanted to get some experience under my belt to show potential employees. However, after the first 6 months I had begun to take things a lot more seriously. I’d started to arrange hosting for clients as a way of earning a small amount of residual income each month and I was running Weymouth Web Design more like a business than an experiment.

What was the most important thing that allowed you to grow your business?

I think I was quite lucky that one of my early clients was a domestic cleaning franchise based in the UK. Their managing director knew that I was just starting up in business and he offered me so much advice. Despite being one of my first clients and we still work together today. He told me to find something that I could invoice my clients for monthly or yearly to give me something to fall back on if I experience a quiet month. Luckily, being a web designer, the natural choice was to offer my clients hosting and domain registration services. It is something that I can bill for every year (or in some cases monthly) and it provides a useful service to my clients at the same time.

To help develop my skills I like to learn something new with every website I create. It could be a new CSS technique or simply a new way of displaying a font. I’ve aimed to do this with every new website since the early days.

What was the biggest stumbling block you encountered, and how can other freelancers avoid/overcome it?

A couple of things… Firstly, I didn’t require a deposit from clients for the first three years. I know this sounds crazy but I had never needed to. In my first three years I’d never experienced a non-paying client. It turns out I had just been very, very lucky. It only took one non-paying client to make me realise I had to ensure that my work and time was protected with a deposit. I now charge 50% upfront for web design services (sometimes less on very large projects) and it really has made things a lot easier. And always remember to get a contract signed for every project!

If you could give one piece of advice to freelancers just starting out, what would it be?

My advice would be to find something you love to do and work hard to be the very best you can. If you like designing websites then keep practising different techniques and trying them out. If you want to build up a portfolio of work you can always try to find a worthy charity that could benefit from your design skills. And make sure you charge what you are worth from the beginning. I started off being far too cheap and it makes it difficult to increase your prices later on if your clients are used to your lower prices.

I see you’ve setup a fantastic blog with design resources. How does your blogging affect your freelancing?

Thanks very much! I hadn’t anticipated how much time is required to write a really good article so I am trying to squeeze in a few more hours every week to keep on top of things! I’ve been lucky enough to interview loads of great people for the blog and it is wonderful to learn their design processes, influences and opinions on the current state of the industry. That is definitely my favourite part of running a blog.

It is still very early days for the blog and I haven’t fully decided what the best way to develop it so I’m just going to keep going down the direction I’m on and just see how it goes!

Can you tell us how we can find out more about you and what you’re up to at the moment?

Sure thing. You can checkout my blog at www.thewebdesignblog.co.uk and follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/philmatthews (make sure you say hello!). If you’d like to see my design work my portfolio is online at www.weymouthwebdesign.com

Related posts:

1. Interview with Tristan Judd from Able Net Design
2. Interview with Chris Green from Freelance For Money
3. “Specialize and thrive” or “Generalize and thrive”

What followed was me having to constantly follow up work, the first thing he did caused more problems than he actually fixed, and basically it was the most shitty job I’ve ever come across.

This person was good at completing certain projects, but bad at following through in a relationship.

As freelancers, we can make things a lot easier on ourselves by leveraging relationships. Repeat work is the most obvious example here, and something that most people do really well. But what about other ways to leverage relationships?

Get testimonials. At the end of every job, ask for them. Ask for them to be as specific as possible. Display them on your site and in your proposals. Take a leaf out of conversion-rate-experts.com‘s book. They have so many awesome testimonials that you would hire them in an instant.

Ask for referrals. People don’t automatically think to offer you referrals. Asking for referrals might feel awkward, but it’s worth getting over it. At the end of a job, ask the client if there’s anyone they know that you could help with a similar solution.

Drop names. I have been doing a lot of work recently for a group of family based businesses that are all loosely linked together by family ties and religion. When you can show that people your prospect respects, trusts you to do work for them, that’s a huge boost. I’ve been able to drop names of these client’s extended family that they aren’t aware I have already done work for.

Have relevant referees. I recently won a job to do a website for the primary school. I have the principals wife as a reference! I also have one of the parent’s of kids at the school as a reference. To loose that job I’d have to be incompetent.

Open doors. I have done a lot of websites for health organisations in the area, all through one over-riding organisation. Through my relationship with the contact there, doors were opened into completely different areas of service.

How can you leverage your relationships better?

Related posts:

1. Freelance Philosophy Friday #2: Make it easy to work with you
2. Freelance Philosophy Friday #1: Face to face works best
3. Freelance Philosophy Friday 3: Your time is not your value