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Why it’s Crucial to Have an Awesome Profile & Actively Network on LinkedIn

  And why it is less evident that you “do” social media marketing on LinkedIn.

People buy relationships, not products or services. People return and develop loyalty to the brand (relationships) and not products or services. You could have the best ice cream in the world, but if your service stinks or your shop is filthy, you’ll go out of business.

Likewise, if your LinkedIn profile stinks or lacks defining information — it will hurt your professional image and impact your marketability.

In this post, I’ll cover a couple of crucial, but not always evident LinkedIn success tips to ensure your time on LinkedIn is a smart investment and not a waste of precious resources.

Who Should be on LinkedIn? Why you need to thoughtfully target your profile. Relationship building 7 Things not to do on LinkedIn

Understanding and following the above topics will open your door to success on LinkedIn. The key however to your success, is a profile that is cohesive and well written. If you are ready to dive in and write yourself a compelling profile, but not quite sure how to do it,  go check out the F2FSchoo LinkedIn Profile course. We’ll take about 3 hours to walk you through from A to Z the process of efficiently targeting your profile. You won’t regret it.

Who Should be on LinkedIn?

Everyone over the age of 18.

I’ve got a friend who owns an amazing organic farm in Sebastopol, CA. She came to visit us last year in France, and I asked if she was on LinkedIn. She told me that being on LinkedIn doesn’t serve her, so she’s never even bothered to make an account.

I tried to convince her with an analogy about running into a soil researcher at a coffee shop, demonstrating how LinkedIn can be an easy, no-nonsense way to connect with a stranger professionally. She laughed but didn’t buy in.

Ironically, just a few months later, guess who reached out and connected with me? An organic farm soil researcher based in Louisiana, connected to another friend of mine in Minnesota (also into organic farming) and we all three share another connection in California.

Bingo. Point proved.

Who has time for the process of manually introducing, vetting, sharing contacts, and writing up a clever explanatory introduction? On the flipside, with Linkedin, you can share and introduce connections in less than 30 seconds flat.

Even better, if the folks you want to introduce, have complete profiles, you don’t have to write anything about why you want to introduce one contact to another because the profiles will speak for themselves.

If you do any business online, if you interact with other human beings as part of your work or in the process of getting clients or selling a product, you should be on LinkedIn.

Think of it like an old phone book Yellow Pages section on steroids: free marketing for you and your business with everything your audience needs to know to pique their interest and reach out to you.

Retired? Switching gears? Moving to freelance? You can give back to your former network by introducing people and or finding people like you to share stories, resources, or even start a new entrepreneurial venture.

Thoughtfully Target Your Profile

Again, if you were in the phone book Yellow Pages, how would you catch the eye of a potential client?

If you are in an elevator and meet a potential client, what is your pitch?

If you are in an interview, what do you say when the ask you “why do you do what you do?”

Don’t be a generalist — you need to focus your profile to find the right audience.

For the last few years over 500 million people have been on LinkedIn. How are you going to stand-out? If someone is looking for a freelancer, a consultant or a creative to help out their business, you need to make sure that the service or expertise you offer is evident.

Again, think of your profile picture, your headline, and your background image like a modern Yellow Page announcement. Brand yourself. State your offer. Be concise. Don’t ramble and confuse people. Don’t suggest that people offer random jobs to you — that makes you sound unfocused. Don’t try to be an English teacher, a virtual assistant, a web designer and a barista. If you insist on diversifying your offer, target a complimentary suite of jobs such as “VA and web design” and or a “web designer and web design teacher.”

How many clients can you serve in a year? How many interviews or jobs can you handle? The way to make LinkedIn successful for you is to narrow down that marketplace audience of 500 million to something useful.

You don’t need 30,000 connections on LinkedIn because there is no physically possible way you can build a relationship with that many people. Focus. Target. Provide value. Build real human links and you will find LinkedIn success. Don’t be a needle in a haystack.

Stuck writing your profile? Check out my LinkedIn Success Masterclass inside the FTF School Membership.

Build Strong Relationships

LinkedIn isn’t just about social media. It’s about building real relationships.

Have you ever played the children’s game of Operator (or telephone, Russian scandal, Chinese whisper, Grapevine, etc.)? One person whispers a message or word in the ear of the person next to her, and it goes on until you get to the end. When you get to the last person the fun of the game is in seeing how the end message compares with the original message. Usually, the messages have changed slightly; sometimes they’ve become 100% indistinct.

Brene Brown says this:

“When we deny our stories, they define us.

When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending.”

My point? As a business person, your image — how you are defined publicly — is the ticket to your success or your failure. Supporting your public image dictates your ability to cultivate and manage your relationships.

Networking, marketing, sales are all built on relationship building. LinkedIn is your golden ticket to doing so with minimal effort. LinkedIn has everything you need to connect, network and build relationships with people.

Building relationships is why you should do your best to write personal messages when you connect. Why would you link to someone you’ve never even spoken with? Why is this person an interesting connection? How can you give him or her a hand? Maybe you don’t need to connect; perhaps they are someone who you need to follow.

7 Quick LinkedIn NoNos:

Never send an inmail or message without first reading someone’s profile and making sure your message or request is on target. Time is valuable. Don’t waste it (your own or that of a stranger).

Don’t consider your profile just another social media profile. Your LinkedIn is a professional branding platform. Be careful what you say and how your present yourself.

Don’t feel pressured to join the LinkedIn social media frenzy. Step back, watch what works for your peers, make a strategy, set aside the time and make sure your messages will be on target.

Don’t ask for free stuff. Think about the value that you might provide before writing a contact (or stranger) and asking for something. Sure, maybe you need work or advice, but why should a total stranger give it to you? They are busy too, and this is not how you go about building real relationships.

Don’t use up valuable headline space saying something like “seeking new opportunities.”

Don’t ask strangers or contacts that barely know you to endorse you or write recommendations. (see cultivate real relationships above).

Don’t stagnate or go MIA: If you don’t check your LinkedIn messages regularly, make sure your email address is in your professional summary or otherwise tell people how to find you. Make sure you update your profile every few months as your work changes. Make sure you get recommendations when you finish up with clients. Make sure your contact details are current.

Don’t use a profile picture from 10 years ago: if you walk into a room or interview, folks should be able to recognize you from your profile picture.

LinkedIn is a highly useful networking and relationship building tool for all professionals. The key is to not waste your time or that of your network. Rather focus on creating and cultivating genuine relationships that provide value to your audience, your network and of course to your personal professional pursuits.

To do this successfully you need to make sure you that the information you present is the professional brand that you want to represent and that will find you the work you love. Target your profile to your ideal audience, client, or employer.

Do this effectively and you will find LinkedIn success. Without ever having to touch on the social media aspects. Make sure what you post is planned and targeted. Just like any other marketing pursuit, to be successful with posting on LinkedIn, you’ll need a plan. And you’ll need a legitimate and engaged audience.

Stuck writing your profile? Get a full LinkedIn Success Masterclass immediately when you join the FTF School Membership.

The post Why it’s Crucial to Have an Awesome Profile & Actively Network on LinkedIn appeared first on The Freelance to Freedom® Project.

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How to Use Twitter Effectively for Your Freelance Business

If you’re curious about how to use Twitter as an effective marketing tool for your online business…you’re in the right place! One of the best ways to learn this is by starting at the beginning. This means making some small adjustments to your account in order to reap the benefits of Twitter more quickly and more effectively.

So, let’s dive deep and take a sledgehammer to your current Twitter profile (or start building a brand-new one!) so that you can truly start to reap the benefits of having an active account.

If you want to know how to use Twitter, here’s where you should start…

6 Things That Every Amazing Twitter Account Needs

#1: A Profile Photo

Okay, obviously, you need to have some sort of photo here. I don’t want to see any of you guys with just one of those egg-head things that Twitter starts you off with.

So, yes, Step #1 of learning how to use Twitter is: do not use the egg.

But the real secret here is not just to upload any ol’ photo — you need the right one!

Your photo is pretty much the one thing any potential new followers are going to notice about your Twitter account. It’s your virtual first impression, and you need to use that opportunity to catch people’s attention.

So the photo you use should be attention-grabbing (but not in a bad way) and somewhat professional.

Depending on your brand, the “professional” aspect of this photo could have a pretty broad spectrum. But, basically, the important thing to remember is that it should be a clear, high-resolution photo of you personally.

Unless you’re a big brand (like Target), a headshot will convert followers way better than a logo. You’re a small business and random people will not know who you are! So using a logo as the profile photo on your social media account does virtually nothing to help you. Global brand recognition doesn’t exist for you (yet). Don’t worry, you’ll get there.

For now, you’ll need to get people interested in your business by using a shot of your beautiful, smiling face instead!

If possible, you will want to use a professional headshot for this.

Here are some good examples of professional-looking profile photos on Twitter:

#2: An Engaging Bio

After someone gets a glimpse of your profile photo, the next thing they’re going to see is probably your username and bio. When learning how to use Twitter for your business, you should keep in mind that small details like this really do matter.

The username is easy, which is why it’s not its own separate section here….it should simply be your personal name or the name of your business!

Your bio is a bit more complex, though.

You need to think about your bio section strategically. The amount of characters you are allowed use here is very limited (duh, it’s Twitter). So you need to get to the point quickly in order to make an immediate impression.

Here are some great Twitter bio examples:

The goal of your Twitter bio is to give a potential follower a brief overview of who you are and what you do.

You may also want to insert an additional fact about yourself or your business (i.e. Jorden Roper’s “fuschia hair” descriptor) that may help someone connect with you on a deeper level.

You also have the option of adding hashtags. This could help Twitter browsers discover your profile more easily.

#3: A Link to Your Site

As part of the little About section Twitter gives you on your profile, you’re allowed to add a URL to your site.

The cool thing is that, unlike some other social media platforms (like Pinterest), you’re allowed to have this link go wherever you want. So feel free to switch it out or rotate it every so often.

The goal of this link is pretty obvious. You’re a business. You want people to convert from Twitter to become followers, members, customers, clients, etc.

The best thing to do is to point them in the direction that you want them to go. For example, are you looking to grow your email list? Have that link go directly to a freebie. Looking to increase Facebook group membership? Send them there.

Be creative with it!

#4: A Custom, Branded Cover Photo

The next thing that all awesome Twitter profiles have is a custom, branded cover photo. If you want to figure out how to use Twitter to your business’ advantage, true me — these are crucial. Cover photos can wow your followers plus do a little bit of subtle marketing for you.

The cover photo is valuable real estate in the world of Twitter, so make the most of it with a graphic that pops.

Here’s a great example of a Twitter cover graphic from Stacey Tuschl:

#5: A Pinned Tweet

I’ll be honest…it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to even realize you could do this on Twitter. But yes, you can totally pin an important tweet to the top of your profile!

This ensures that anyone who visits your profile (hopefully some brand-new followers!) will see it. So it’s a good idea to use that most-prominent tweet to showcase something important.

Here’s a list of ideas on what you could promote there:

A blurb about + link to your latest blog post

A retweet from someone else talking about your services

Information about a Twitter chat you host

Details for an upcoming webinar or live event

A blurb about + link to your lead magnet

Your latest YouTube video

I love this example of a pinned tweet. Someone sure knows what they’re doing!

#6: A Consistent Daily Schedule

You have all the basics set up now, but it’s not time to relax yet! The very next step in learning exactly how to use Twitter to your advantage is to make sure to keep your account consistently active.

This means posting every single day. Ideally, you’re going to want to post multiple times per day.

According to Moz, the lifespan of a tweet is 18 minutes. I’m sure you’ve probably heard this statistic before, as it’s something that’s often repeated by social media pros. But the important thing here is not to just be shocked by how short that is — it’s to actually work to combat it by using that information to your advantage.

How do you do that? Pretty much just by posting on Twitter as frequently as possible.

The key here, though, is to toe the line somewhere between having an accounts that “barely ever posts” and “spams people nonstop.” Personally, I like to post between 12–30 times per day.

The next step is actually creating and posting the content. This is the hard part.

The whole point of content is to engage your audience, so the two main things to keep in mind are (a) post content they want to engage with, and (b) post content when they’re engaging.

A tool like Buffer can help you choose which specific times you want to post throughout the day.

Creating the content itself is more of a trial-and-error type thing. I like to test my audience by posting a variety of different content and then viewing the analytics of my account to see which types of posts they preferred.

Then, all you need to do is reproduce those positive results at the correct time each day. And voilà! Your Twitter account is now a sleek, optimized, social media marketing ninja tool that is working nonstop for you and your business.

You only need these 6 tools to make your Twitter account a marketing ninja for your online biz Click To Tweet

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Freelancer Legalese: How to Choose the Right Legal Structure for Your Business

Protect Yourself & Go Legit

Working as a freelancer is hard. Freelancers have to run their businesses, find clients, and meet deadlines, all at the same time. So, it’s no wonder why incorporating their businesses isn’t always a top priority. It can also be a scary, expensive, and confusing process, but it really doesn’t have to be so daunting. You just need to know how to get started.

Organizing your business into a “legal entity” can protect you and your work. Forming a legal entity can impact the amount of taxes that you have to pay, if you’re personally on the hook for all of your business debts, and whether or not you’re liable for other business-related problems. It can even help you land bigger jobs and make you look more professional.

There are three main types of legal entities that freelancers working on their own should consider:

Sole Proprietorship

Corporation (C Corporation & S Corporation)

Limited Liability Company (LLC)

It’s important to understand the pros and cons of each type before deciding what legal entity will work best for you and your business. So you should consult with a lawyer and/or an accountant when weighing out your options.

Choices, Choices, Choices

Sole Proprietorships

Have you been working on your own and not yet formed your business into a legal entity? Congratulations, you’re already a sole proprietor!

A sole proprietorship is the easiest way to organize your business. It’s also the cheapest because there really aren’t any formation fees.

As a sole proprietor, you don’t file separate taxes for your business. You report your business income and losses on your personal tax return. Additionally, you have to file a separate IRS Schedule C, listing your business income and expenses. You are also required to estimate and pay Social Security and Medicare taxes 4 times a year to the IRS and you can also be liable for state self-employment taxes.

As a sole proprietor, you are personally liable for all business debts and can be personally sued for something that goes wrong with your business. So if you are a sole proprietor, liability insurance can be a good idea.

THE GOOD: It’s really easy to form, because you don’t have to do anything, and it’s also the cheapest to form.

THE BAD: If your business has a lot of income, you’ll likely be taxed at a much higher rate than if you incorporated or formed an LLC. With a sole proprietorship you’re also responsible for your business’ debt and liabilities, which means your personal assets may be on the line.

Corporations

Corporations are separate and distinct beings from their owners and employees. In fact, corporations can do a lot things that a real person can do like borrow money, purchase property, go to court, and hire employees. Unlike a sole proprietorship, a corporation is the “person” who shoulders the business’ debts, liabilities, and tax responsibilities in most cases.

There are two types of corporations: “C” Corporations and “S” Corporations. One main difference between the two types of corporations is how the federal government taxes them:

All corporations have to start out as a C corporation first. To change the corporation type to an S corporation, you’ll need to file Form 2553 with the IRS.

C Corporations

C corporations are required to pay income tax, but a C corporation’s income tax rate may be lower than personal income tax rates. You’ll only pay personal income tax on the money that your C corporation distributes to you (e.g., salary or dividends).

You can also keep up to $250,000 in a corporate bank account without having to pay extra tax on it. A portion of the money kept by the corporation won’t be subject to employment taxes (15+%). C corporations can also provide their employees with fringe benefits like healthcare and retirement plans that can then be deducted from the corporation’s taxes as business expenses.

S Corporations

For tax purposes, S corporations are not considered separate legal entities from their owners and are taxed like a sole proprietorship. The income earned by the business is required to be reported on the owners’ individual taxes. S corporations usually don’t file any taxes, but are required to file Form 1120-S with the IRS.

Although, there are benefits to incorporating your business into a corporation, the fees, corporate formalities, and some of the tax requirements, like unemployment taxes for it’s employees, can be too burdensome for freelancers.

If you do choose to incorporate, remember that requirements and taxes for corporations can vary from state to state. So make sure that you check with the appropriate state agency in the state that you are incorporating about additional requirements or responsibilities.

THE GOOD: The taxes on your business’ income can be lower if you incorporate as a C corporation. You’re protected against your business’ debts and liabilities (i.e., your business’ bad mojo can’t touch your personal assets).

THE BAD: In terms of administration, it is the most burdensome type of entity to create and to maintain. It can also involve more complex tax requirements than some of the other types of legal entities.

Limited Liability Companies

LLCs are a relatively new, but popular type of legal entity that can provide you with a lot of the benefits of a corporation, but without some of the downsides. With an LLC, you’ll be taxed just like a sole proprietorship, but since the LLC is it’s own separate entity, you’re personally protected from a lot of the liability incurred by the business.

The formalities for forming and maintaining an LLC are much easier than for a corporation. However, LLC members usually have to pay self-employment taxes on the profit that they receive from the LLC regardless of whether it’s in the form of a salary, distribution payment, or if it stays with the company. There are also state taxes, which can very depending on the state. Additionally, some states don’t allow certain professions, like lawyers, from forming an LLC or require them to form a special type of LLC, which is subject to special rules.

THE GOOD: It’s administratively easier to form and maintain an LLC than a corporation. However, like a corporation, you’re protected against your business’ debts and liabilities.

THE BAD: You may be subject to more taxes than if you were a corporation.

  Want to land bigger jobs as a freelancer and feel legit? Set up and use the right legal structure Click To Tweet

You now have a general sense of the different types of legal entities. You’re halfway there to protecting yourself! Next step is deciding which form is right for you. Included below are some resources to help you on your journey to becoming a “legal” business:

Nolo’s Working for Yourself – Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants

Freelancer’s Union “Hive” on Incorporation and LLC Formation

U.S. Small Business Administration’s Guide to Starting Your Business

The above information is for educational and informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for an attorney’s or an accountant’s advice. Please consult a licensed attorney and/or accountant in your area about questions or concerns about your specific situation.

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How to Reuse Old Content and Capture Your Reader’s Interest

If you have been there, it’s hard to continuously come up with new great ideas, especially in content creation. It takes a lot of time to create new content and the same goes to publishing the posts. So it makes a lot of sense to repurpose content to save time, effort and resources.

Repurposing content is a not a widely known trick but smart marketers use to drive traffic to their sites. For those writing jobs you must have a list of many posts. So, instead of writing a new post on the same topic over and over again why not repurpose the content? Repurposing content seems to be an easy way to promote your work.

How to repurpose content

Create new blog posts

After blogging a lot about a specific topic, you can repackage those blogs to create a new guide. For example, you may have written about how to use ads on Facebook, upload images on Facebook, and how to add links to your post and add it on Facebook. Take these blog posts and turn it into “The Complete Guide to Facebook Perfection,” which can be very helpful in your email marketing to create valuable leads.

Based on the response given to your post, you may need to update them a little bit and give them a new touch that is appealing. This ensures that when you write a quality blog post, they don’t end up being lost or forgotten. Reuse those old posts and they will remain relevant forever.

Design an infographic

There are a lot of freelance writing jobs on infographics, meaning that it’s a hot topic. People tend to recall visual content that plain text. Infographics help to capture the attention of your online readers. It is simply a complete summary of the content of your post turned into a visual outline. Infographics are a great way to share content on social media that help readers to relate to what you have written.

If you have a lot of data or content on your site, you can decide to build infographics to repurpose them.

Host a webinar

Audio-video content through a webinar is another way to connect with your audience. It allows you to present on a topic effectively and engage your audience in conversation. Your old blog post can be a great start point for a webinar, or you can use a list of posts as a research to create a final presentation.

A common way to create a webinar is through Google Hangouts. You can create an event and broadcast your content live with Hangouts on Air. A perfect way to reuse old content.

Create a podcast

If you search the internet, there are endless adverts of writers who can create podcasts. Perhaps you have considered creating one, but you have no idea what to include or talk about. Grab several key points from your old articles and expand on each one of them. Then create a podcast or video to open up a new way to connect with your readers.

Write an E-book

Almost done! The next step to repurpose your content is to turn your content into an eBook to generate leads. If you do your research, you will be amazed by how many high-quality eBooks began as blog posts. It’s a great way to turn content into a large guide once the initial hype of your content dies. This can be a good way to keep generating leads all through.

We have come across a section on our old blog posts that we repurpose again and again. This article gives an insight of why repurposing content is important for your online business especially in saving time, effort and resources. So if you have a series of blog posts stuck in one folder, it’s time to repurpose it and either create a podcast, eBook, webinar, or infographics.

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Why You Need a Long Form Sales Page for Your Premium Priced Service

You finally hit publish on your freelance website and you’re getting trickles of traffic to your services page. Someone’s even recommending you in Facebook Groups but all that work is resulting in ZERO enquiries.

It’s the worst feeling ever!

You feel defeated and deflated.

But guess what, it’s not YOU, it’s your services page on your website.

Let me guess, right now your service package pages look a little something like this:

You have a a few paragraphs describing your service and why they need it.

You have dot points on what it includes.

You have the price (at least you should do)

You have the enquiry button.

Here’s the problem with this, all you’re doing is selling the features, which is what every other freelancer is doing.

If everyone in your niche is offering pretty much the same features, have great testimonials and do good work, the deciding factor for the potential client will become price. That is not what you want to build you business on a, price war, because you’ll never win.

What you want people to buy into is YOU, to want to work with YOU specifically.

But, why would they choose you if they don’t even know what sets you apart from the competition?

The answer to this dilemma is to have a long form sales page for your premium priced service.

We often think that sales pages are only required for online courses but this is a complete misconception.

The reasons why online courses have long form sales pages is not because they’re an online course but because it’s going to take some convincing to get someone to fork out $500+ on a course from someone they’re only just hearing about.

It’s no different with your services.

Your service sales page should help overcome any doubts potential clients have about working with… Click To Tweet

  So, what exactly do you need to include on your service sales page to make you stand out from the competition and finally book those dream clients?

1. Where They’re At Right Now?

Before you even begin to talk about your service you need to establish a connection with the potential client so that they feel like you really get where they’re at and what they’re struggling with. This is what transforms you page from a you centric page to a client centric page which potential clients love.

In this section you need to answer:

What is the big challenge they’re trying to overcome by hiring a freelancer? If you’re a web designer targeting solopreneurs you might want to address that they don’t feel professional with their current website, or it’s not getting them enquiries or they just don’t have the time of skill to do it themselves.

What have they tried before? Have they tried DIYing their website before and it was a disaster, or did they try to write their own copy only to give up because it was too hard?

What are their desires? Do they want a website to get more high paying clients so that they don’t feel so spread thin across multiple low paying clients?Do they want to hire a copywriter because they would rather spend time with their kids rather than trying to hack it together themselves?

The key here is to get to the root cause of their desire. They desire this so that they can have that.

2. What’s Your Secret Sauce?

This is all about answering the question “Why me and not them?”. What sets you apart from the competition?

For example, you might:

Have a particular method to get the golden nuggets out of clients to design an incredible brand that oozes their personality.

You might approach the web design process in a different way to most designers. Ask yourself what do they do and what do I do that’s different?

You might have a certain bonus “specialized” skill that compliments your primary service. For example you might be a copywriter who’s also skilled in SEO.

3. What Doubts Might They Have?

It doesn’t matter how much someone wants or needs your service they will always have doubts that may hold them back from even making an enquiring. It’s key that you anticipate what those doubts are and address them upfront.

Here’s the most common doubts you’ll need to address:

Will I even get a return on investment? The best case scenario is that you can guarantee that they’ll make the money they spent on your service back right away but in reality you probably can’t.

That being said what you can guarantee is that they WILL save time so you need to relate that back to money. For example you free up their time therefor they’ll be able to work with more clients etc.

I’m not sure I’m ready… A lot of people feel like they have to have everything perfect before they start working with a freelancer (Even though that’s why they want to work with a freelancer in the first place).

A big reason for this is that most people don’t want to look like they “don’t have it together” and when you bring a freelancer in they will inevitably see that you don’t have all your ducks lined up in a row.

You need to make it clear why now is THE RIGHT time and how waiting will not benefit them in the long run.

So for example they’re getting traffic to their website but it’s not converting because of the copy. Can they really afford to keep waiting and losing potential clients?

By addressing these 3 points, potential clients will feel more understood and more at ease with reaching out to you about their project.

Are you struggling to turn page views into enquiries?

If so, try expand your page into a full sales page making sure to address where they’re at, your secret sauce and what doubts they might have.

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Keep More of Your Cash with the Home Office Tax Deduction

Does the thought of taking the home office tax deduction cause you anxiety? You’re not alone.

The home office deduction used to be associated with something everyone wants to avoid – an IRS audit. This caused many people to avoid taking the deduction even if they could legitimately claim it.

    Fortunately, simplified rules in recent years have made the deduction easier to take. Is it so simple to calculate that self-filers can take it? It depends on the method you use and the costs you factor in. Many filers outsource their taxes so they can concentrate on doing what they do best. If you do decide to do it yourself, make sure to get educated on proper bookkeeping techniques and filing requirements.

Does Your Home Office Qualify?

Freelancers, entrepreneurs and even W2 employees who work from home can generate significant tax savings by taking the home office deduction. If you’re reading this, chance are you are someone who could benefit from this deduction, so here is what you need to know to take it.

If your “home office” is really a desk in the corner of your kids’ play room it doesn’t qualify you for this deduction. Same thing if your office is located in your living room, kitchen counter, or guest bedroom.

In order for your office to satisfy IRS requirements it has to be only used as an office. That means there cannot be any other activities that take place in your home office that wouldn’t take place in a commercial office environment. So splitting a room between crafting and work is going to disqualify you, unless crafting happens to be your business.

Your home office also must be the place where you meet with customers or be the primary place where you manage your business. If you work out of an office but do occasional work at home the deduction does not apply to you. And, the address of your home office should be listed with all relevant authorities as the business address.

If you are ever audited and the IRS determines you’ve claimed the home office deduction illegitimately, the auditor can then look back at prior year returns for other examples of this infraction and other discrepancies. Anyone who decides to bend the rules for claiming the home office deduction must decide if this lookback possibility is worth the risk.

Calculating the Deduction

If the home office tax deduction applies to you there are two options for calculating it. How do you choose which route to take? Come tax season, simply calculate both deductions to see which one benefits you the most.

Percentage of Home. To use this method you need to know the total square footage of your home and the square footage of your home office. Once you have both of these numbers you simply calculate the percentage of your home used for your home office, then apply this percentage to your qualifying expenses for the year. For example, if your home and office are 2,000 and 200 square feet respectively, your office is 10% of your home.

Simplified Rate Per Square Foot. In 2013, the IRS created a simplified calculation in an effort to make things easier. They established a set rate you multiply by a maximum square footage. In 2017 the figures are $5 per square foot up to a maximum of 300 square feet, or $1,500 per year. As these figures are subject to change, check with the IRS to make sure you have the correct ones for the tax year in question.

What Expenses Qualify?

When calculating the percentage of home method, here are the expenses that qualify:

Maintenance and repair expenses – Homes need maintenance and your home office is no different. Repairing a broken office windowpane or patching a hole in an office wall would be included here in their entirety. If you painted your entire house, you could apply the percentage calculation to that cost and include it in your deduction.

Improvements – These are treated a little differently. If you replace the roof or install a security system, these costs can’t be deducted all in one tax year, but can be prorated for the space and depreciated over several years.

Utilities and other home expenses – You can apply your deduction percentage to your gas, electric, water and waste bills, and even to house cleaning costs.

Mortgage, insurance and property tax costs

If you rent your home you can claim the calculated percentage of your rent.

If you own your home you have the option to depreciate the value of the home office space as prescribed by the IRS. Before including this in your deduction you should know that if you sell your house at a profit you will owe capital gains tax on your accumulated depreciation. Since real estate values typically increase the longer you own your home, many home office workers skip depreciation.

With all of the possible expenses that can qualify for the percentage of home option, many tax filers choose to use this method. If you do, it’s important to keep good records of your expenses.

Learn More

The many direct and indirect expenses you incur working at home can create a powerful and legitimate tax benefit. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to keep more of your hard earned money.

For more information on the home office deduction read the IRS’s guidance on business use of your home.

The post Keep More of Your Cash with the Home Office Tax Deduction appeared first on The Freelance To Freedom Project.

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7 Steps to Go From Freelancing to Passive Income

A freelancing career can be very lucrative and rewarding. While it affords you a lot of freedom in how you’re able to spend your time, it can be very difficult to scale into a business since you have to deal with everything from marketing, research, customer service, to the actual work.

    At a certain point, you want to be able to stop trading your hours for dollars and gain leverage by earning a passive income. Here are seven steps you can follow to go from a freelancing career into building a passive income.

Step 1: Start Outsourcing Your Projects

In order to start working on creating passive income, you need have some time away from your freelancing career. The only way you’ll be able to get the time is to outsource your projects. There are many sites like Upwork, Freelancer and People Per Hour where you can find freelancers that can take over your projects.

If you can’t find anyone that’s qualified or can’t trust other people to take on your projects, you’ll need to at least outsource a big part of your project. Outsourcing will also allow you to scale up your freelancing career since you’ll be able to take on more clients than you’d normally be able to.

Step 2: Identify a Niche Where Your Skills Can Make a Difference

The next step is to find a niche where your skills can make a difference. Are you a graphic designer? Do you create video content? Do you help business owners increase their online sales with better copywriting and conversion rate optimization? You need to look for a topic where your expertise can make a difference.

But don’t assume that there will be an audience that’s looking for information about your specific skill set. For instance, let’s say you specialize in creating sketch animation videos.

It’s likely that every few people will be interested in that topic. You need to target the right audience and make sure you go broad enough. For this example, it’s will be a far better idea to focus on video creation/editing.

Step 3: Build an Audience Through Blogging, Email and Social Media

The only way you’re going to be able to monetize your unique expertise is by building an audience. You should start your own blog and support it with email and social media. By creating valuable content and marketing your blog, you’ll start to build a personal brand and amass a strong following in due time.

There are many ways to market your blog. You can build a content marketing campaign, give away free white papers, launch an online PR campaign, run a paid advertising campaign or invest in SEO.

You want to make sure that you set up an email capture form on your blog to keep in touch with your readers. You also get your readers to follow you on social media and share your content through social media platforms for increased exposure.

Step 4: Promote Products and Services as an Affiliate

Once you start to build up a sizable following for your blog and social media accounts, you can start promoting products and services as an affiliate. There are many affiliate networks such as CJ, Clickbank and Amazon where you can promote lead offers, products and services for either a flat commission or a percentage of the total sale.

You may want to look for products and services that pay recurring commissions if you want to focus on generating passive income. One of the most profitable services you can promote to earn a passive income is web hosting services. Some other choices include email marketing platforms, accounting software and membership sites.

Step 5: Create and Sell Products in Digital Marketplaces

There are many digital marketplaces that you can use to sell your work. Graphic designers, in particular can sell their work on popular marketplaces to earn a passive income. Some these marketplaces include Creative Market, ThemeForest, PhotoDune, Graphicriver, Fotolia and BrandCrowd just to name a few.

Of course, these digital marketplaces aren’t limited to graphic designs. Videohive allows you to sell video effects. Audiojungle helps music and sound effect artists sell their work. Codecanyon is a marketplace for plugins. You just have to look for digital marketplaces that are relevant to you.

Step 6: Teach Your Craft With an Online Course

Another great way to earn a passive income is to create your own course. If you want to teach online without having to be present, simply create video and screencast courses. Think about how to add value to other people through your expertise. You can create courses to help web designers, programmers, artists and more.

There are many sites that you can leverage to teach online. You can go with course marketplaces if you want to leverage an existing audience, although that might limit your ability to scale your business.

If you already have an engaged audience or are looking to build a long lasting business, you might want to consider hosting your own online course. The good news is that there are several available platforms where you can do easily do that with no coding experience needed.

Teaching online gives you the ability to continue doing what you like while offering an informational product that can easily scale to serve more customers.

Step 7: Refer Work to Other Freelancers for Commissions

Another smart way to earn or grow your passive income is to partner up with other professionals and refer them your clients in return for commissions. For example, if you’re strictly a web designer, you may want to look for a SEO specialist and set up a deal where you earn a flat or recurring fee (until the client leaves) for each client you refer to them.

The great part about doing this is that you don’t have to do any of the work while still being able to present a more comprehensive service portfolio to your clients. All you have to do is talk to your clients and ask what other services they’re in need of.

Then, you can simply recommend a client to your partner and let him service your client. Make sure that you partner up with a professional that’s reputable, trustworthy and reliable. Your partner also must agree to not offer the same services you offer to your client as that will obviously be a conflict of interest.

There you have it! Those are the steps you can follow if you want to go from freelancing to making a passive income. However, there are many opportunities to earn a passive income, besides what is described in this post.

Ultimately, it will all depend on your willingness to explore multiple revenue streams and put in the work necessary to build this platform for yourself.

The post 7 Steps to Go From Freelancing to Passive Income appeared first on The Freelance To Freedom Project.

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5 Common Copy Mistakes and How to Make It More Desirable

Have you ever landed on a webpage where the words didn’t flow with your brain and you just felt like “ugh forget it” and then clicked away from the page? If you’re browsing the Internet, chances are you’re either reading a blog or watching a video. So the chances of coming across bad content or copy is just all too common.

Today I’m going to talk a few things about copy that many people seem to miss the mark on. Myself included sometimes. And when I’m speaking copy, it can be any conversion-driven page from your sales page, about page to landing page.

Otherwise, some of these mistakes can just be applied to everyday content or blog writing.

    Let’s jump into it, shall we?

#1 You’re boring your readers in the passive voice instead of the active voice.

Using the passive voice instead of the active voice definitely trips new writers as well as experienced ones alike. A sentence that contains a passive voice is something along the lines, “the social media posts were scheduled by the VA.”

But if you were writing pleasantly with an active voice, your sentence should’ve flowed like, “the VA scheduled the outgoing social media posts.”

Sometimes this is easy to miss because we have a tendency to justify our own thoughts. And these thoughts flow out of our mind in words. So you’ll think: if it came out of my mind this way, this ought to be right. Therefore, it’s helpful to run your sentences, blog posts, and copy where an objective software can point out bad writing for you.

It’s very easy to spot these passive sentences. If you’re a WordPress user, your Yoast SEO plugin will point out the sentences that you need to attend to. Install the plugin and in your WordPress editor, click the “eye” icon and it’ll highlight all the passive sentences for you.

Perhaps you can hire an editor to do the work for you, but this self-check method is absolutely free.

#2 You’re just telling them instead of having a conversation with them.

This one can be tricky when you’re writing a blog or crafting a sales page. After all, when you’re watching a Facebook live or YouTube video, you can hear the influencer talking to you. It’s interactive and it feels like a face-to-face conversation. They use both their sense of sight and hearing to engage with you.

You’re automatically engaged… like you really would be if you weren’t already married.

But with reading, your potential customers have to imagine and think about what you’re saying on your sales page When customers are reading your page, they can only rely on their sense of sight to process everything.

So imagine you’re not engaging in a conversation, but giving a lecture or simply tooting your own horn (aka product). Would they alienate or connect with you?

The easiest reminder to write in a natural tone is to imagine you’re having a conversation with a friend over coffee. Wrap yourself around this image and let your words flow each time you sit down to write. If it’s not something you can explain to a friend, then it’s best to approach it in a different way.

Whatever subject matter expert you are, chances are someone somewhere out there has written on it before. But how you phrase and explain it is where the impact lies.

#3 You’re alienating them using the third person instead of building rapport using the first person.

I really don’t understand why some personal brands and online biz owners write in the third person rather than the first person. I really don’t get it. A few weeks ago a prospective client reached out to me for copywriting services.

When I took a look at her About Page, it was written in the third person like she is selling someone else’s brand. Ahem?

Now if you’re a corporate escapee who had jobs where you felt like no one knew what your talents are, your personal brand is the best place to change that. Think about it, when you go to an interview or meet with a potential client, you won’t be saying,

“She created a social media strategy for her last client and it helped her 10x her leads and doubled her sales.”

You’ll want to say,

“I created a social media strategy for my last client and it helped her 10x her leads and doubled her sales.” If she was really that good, I would hire her. Not you, ha. It’s both unnatural and unnecessary to write in the third person. Why would you want to give away your accomplishments to someone else. Don’t you want your audience to land on your page and form an instant connection with you?

Bottom line, write in the first person. It’s more natural, friendly, and relational.

P.S. The only time it’s okay to write in the third person is for your short bio when guest posting. Still, I feel a bit weird every time I write them.

#4 You’re only listing your own accomplishments and not fleshing out your customer’s pain points.

I always believe that understanding your customers pain points is absolutely necessary. Whether someone lands on your About Page, sales page, or really any webpage for the matter, they’re going to want to know what’s in it for them. If they’re looking to buy, they expect you to serve. And serve well and thoroughly.

Answer all the questions and objections you think they’ll have when they’re going through your sales page.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t list your own qualifications because at some point in the buyer journey, your potential clients will begin to wonder why you’re selling what you’re selling. What’s her background and why is she qualified over everyone else.

To flesh out your customer pain points, you really have to interact with your new customers on social media or your email list. There’s no shortcut to this. I usually like to put more weight on people on my list because they’re warm leads already, but social media is just as great of a place to get the conversation rolling.

Followers will scroll by and want to chime in on your already ongoing conversations. When writing your sales or landing page, remember to incorporate the words that your people already use. That way they know your product or service was built just for them.

#5 You’re being too greedy and created more than one call to action.

I’ve had a client ask me to create a landing page for her and then two days later emailed me if I can add some extra copy and text. She wanted to create a landing page for an opt-in freebie, but she also wanted the extra text to tell visitors to browse around her site.

Naturally, unless the landing page is a homepage, there shouldn’t be more than one action to take (or link to click on).

I know you want to build an audience where everyone reads your blog, but whether it’s a landing page, sales page, or about page, there should only be one call to action. Anything beyond one is going to confuse your reader.

Imagine them sitting there and wondering which link they should click. If they click to the blog, your reader might never find their way back to your landing page to opt-in. You just lost a subscriber. Oh bummer!

But if they didn’t want to join your email list, do you care if they read your blog? Maybe. Maybe not. That’s up to you to decide — what’s the purpose of your blog?

The first tip to writing better copy? Write in the first person. Here are 4 others! Click To Tweet

What are the landing and sales pages mistakes you’re guilty of making? Have you noticed an increase in subscribers or sales after you made your call to actions crystal clear?

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Work Smart: How I Get More Done in Less Time

  This method is how I get All The Things done without:

Losing my mind

Annoying my very patient husband (but it happens sometimes anyway)

Missing a beat with my web design business and my very special FTFP community

Now, I’m not saying there are not still days where I want to invent a time machine so 24 hours could be 36…I’m just saying that it doesn’t happen as often anymore.

And, most importantly, it helps me keep my sanity and actually be of service.

The Secret Sauce of Productivity: Batching

There you go, right away: the secret to doing ten million things at once is batching them.

The other half of that equation is two-fold: batching consistently and using automation software.

Ready to go down the rabbit hole?

I batch things in many different ways — which I’ll be sharing here — but mostly I do it because I’m lazy. There are things in my business — most things — which I find incredibly repetitive to do.

These include: admin, accounting, maintaining a constant social media presence..

Getting Started

If you’re new to batching or you’ve heard of it and just don’t know where to start, I’d like you to take a pen and paper and list out the things you know you have to do, every week, so they don’t start to creep up on you and overwhelm you.

Just dump it all on that notepad. Got it? Okay, good.

Now, you have the option of “batching” or grouping these tasks in one of the following ways:

By time pockets

You can do it by week: Monday for social media strategy, Wednesday and Thursday for client work, Tuesday and Friday for consult calls;

You can do it by month: scheduling business accounting at end of the month, one evening or one whole day

You can do it by optimal time periods: I have my best ideas in the mornings so afternoons are reserved ONLY for meetings.

By service or business goal

I want 1000 followers on Twitter by the end of the month so I should schedule out tweets and re-tweets every week.

I want way more traffic on my site so I’m going to write 5 blog posts and pre-schedule these for the month.

By topic

This is the easiest way to batch and it goes something like this:

Week 1, I’ll batch blog posts for the entire month

Week 2, I’ll batch accounting, billing, invoicing tasks for the month

Week 3, I’ll batch write social posts for the month

You get the idea.

Tips for Batching: Batcher Beware!

Consistency, Consistently

Okay, you smart freelancer, you. This is a magic solution but results are not typical. Nothing is sold separately but it comes with one very big consumer warning: you’ve got to do it consistently.

Once you decide on and create your schedule for the batching of these tasks (based on your optimal working hours), set it in stone.

It’s non-negotiable.

Doing these tasks repetitively — in the same way or at the same time every week — will make it a habit. Your mind expects it.

And you know what they say about expectation of success: if you expect it and prepare for it, it happens.

Keep the same ritual surrounding it. For example, if the only way you can go through your business accounting every month is with a nice glass of wine (or a bag of coca-cola gummies, no judgement), then do that every month.

You should also use just one or two pieces of software or hook up several pieces in one workflow.

So, for example, I keep one piece of software for scheduling out tweets only and I use another for social media updates to Facebook and Twitter on new blog posts.

Behind the Scenes

Here’s the really cool thing about batching: it makes you feel like a productivity machine.

Everything is really interconnected. When I work smarter, I do more. When I do more, I serve better and create higher-value, quality content for my clients and community. When I serve them, I end up hitting my income goals. When I hit those, I empower myself and my business to continue this cycle of learning and sharing.

It’s pretty crazy how far reaching the effects of batching have been for me. And any self-employed person who uses batching will tell you the same.

What Others Think You’re Doing

I mean, this is not why you’re doing it right? You just want to get more done in a day without killing yourself and maintaining a work-life balance.

All those Instagram posts showcasing a tanned, leggy entrepreneur chilling in an infinity pool in Bali while working on laptop that you favorite? You want to do that (or, at least, plan for that).

In other words, you want to work to live, not live to work. Right?

Good. Me too. But batching helps you pay more attention to the things that really matter — high value content, serving clients and your community, sharing experiencing, generating traffic and sales — while still appearing to do All. The. Things.

Others will think you’re a machine with no life. Until they see you at an infinity pool in Bali, not quite as leggy but just as tanned.

The bottom line is that there’s no getting around actually doing the work. Whether it’s Mondays-only or mornings-only, someone has to actually do it. Batching just means you don’t have to be doing it all the time.

Bonus: Batching Video

If you’re working on batching video, here are my top tips:

Sunny days, you can do a combination of indoor and outdoor

Dull or rainy days, do outside or only inside with a combination of regular room lights and a bright SAD lamp behind the camera

Use a selfie stick

Change up your clothing between shoots

Pick out 3 – 5 topics beforehand (search through communities, Amazon and Pinterest for issues people are having that you can provide some insight on)

Your videos don’t need to be scripted but you should have a General Nugget or Big Take-away

So what’re you waiting for? Batch to it! And tell me what tasks you batch or how you batch them in the comments below.

The post Work Smart: How I Get More Done in Less Time appeared first on The Freelance To Freedom Project.

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How Long Should You Give Clients To Pay Invoices?

Net 30 is one of the most common invoicing payment terms used by small, medium and large businesses. While it is a standard payment practice, it isn’t the same for all size businesses, and this is especially true for freelancers and solopreneurs.

Today I’ll explain what Net 30 is, why many use it and why it’s bad for you to do the same. Lastly, we’ll go over the steps you can take to protect yourself against the worst parts of Net 30 while still enjoying its benefits.

What is Net 30?

Net 30 is a payment term used as a standard on most types of invoices. It refers to the amount of time—30 days—that the client has to submit payment for the invoice.

While Net 30 is standard, there are also other variations, such as Net 10, Net 60, Net 90, etc. It all depends on the business. In some countries, like the UK, clients are legally obliged to pay suppliers within 30 days unless the parties have agreed to other terms.

In technical terms, Net 30 is a type of short-term credit that you, the supplier or seller, extends to your client. This is because you have already delivered the goods or services, and you are giving your client extra time to pay. In retail and restaurants, for example, there is no short-term credit: when you buy a pair of shoes, you have to pay for it immediately.

Therefore, seeing as you are giving your client 30 days to submit payment for something already provided, you are extending credit to that client.

Why Use Net 30?

Net 30—as short-term credit extension—acts as an incentive for the client to use your services or purchase your goods in the first place.

Naturally, people are more willing to buy things if the payment is delayed. This may be one of the reasons that credit cards are used by 20% of Americans for almost everything.

In addition to that, the other incentive is that Net 30 is an interest-free credit extension, whereas credit cards and other financing usually contain charges.

For larger businesses, Net 30 (and longer payment terms) allows them to keep their cash for longer, which is great for their accounting. This allows them to delay cash outflows, thereby improving their cash flow in general. With better cash flow, they are in better positions to meet their other financial obligations.

Why Net 30 Is Bad for Your Freelance Business

While that is all great for larger businesses, the reality is that not all businesses are the same. There are a few important reasons that Net 30 is not as effective for freelancers.

In fact, it can be quite detrimental.

Primarily, medium- and larger-sized businesses have multiple revenue streams. They have many clients on rotating payment cycles, meaning they have enough cash flowing in to meet their financial obligations on a regular basis.

Freelancers often don’t have that luxury. Many have one or very few clients that make up their main revenue streams. If those clients don’t pay (or they don’t pay on time), these businesses don’t have any other revenue options.

Secondly, different clients have different opinions on when the 30 in Net 30 actually begins. Some believe that it begins from the date the invoice is issued—which is right.

Others might think that it is when the invoice is actually received. You may believe that it begins when the goods or services were delivered.

However, there is an even worse option: the 30 days begins when your client’s gets payment from his or her client. This means that you won’t get paid until your client’s invoice is paid, which may be an extra 30 days.

That’s 60 days for you to get your money, which for most freelancers is a long time to wait.

If this is your main client, you will have no choice but to continually extend credit and wait for payment. Either that or you cut your losses or go to small claims court—neither of which is a great option.

How to Protect Yourself

Net 30 doesn’t have to be all bad. There’s a way to use the good parts of it (incentive for the client to purchase) without exposing yourself to the many disadvantages.

1. Agree on the timing

First of all, you should agree with your client about exactly when the 30 days begins.

Having this as an agreement with your client—or even as a general payment policy for all clients—will ensure that you are on the same page. It will act as a reference document that you can look at when there are problems or challenges.

2. Use Net 15

One of the surest ways to protect yourself against overdue payments is simply to use shortened terms. Instead of Net 30, you can use Net 21 or Net 15.

While this means you should get your money faster, there’s also the tradeoff that you are giving less room for your clients to pay.

3. Include late fees

It is highly recommended that you include charges for late payment of your invoice. While the Net days are interest-free, it shouldn’t mean that everything is interest-free.

You should apply a percentage fee for late payments on a weekly or monthly basis. That means that for every week that the payment is overdue, 5% of the invoice amount is added on top of the original invoice.

This is a strong incentive for your clients to pay faster.

4. Don’t offer Net 30 to new clients

Lastly, one important thing to do is to hold off on your Net 30 offer until you can trust your clients. Once the client has provided you regular, on-time payments for your goods or services, then you can offer Net 30 payment terms.

For example, if you have a new client, you can use Net 15 (or even Net 10) payment terms. Inform your client that after 3 successful and timely invoice payments, you’ll extend Net 30.

That will be as a reward for your client, and it will show you that your client is a dependable payer.

These four steps will help protect you against the standard Net 30 payment terms. With a better agreement between you and your client, you can have much better relationships and cash flow.

And both of these will be crucial to helping you grow your freelance career.

Be a rebel: DON’T offer Net 30 to new clients – here’s 5 reasons why Click To Tweet

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How To Rock Co-Working As A Freelancer

Are you bored of working from home? Fed up with firing up your laptop in a busy coffee shop? But can’t afford an expensive office space to run your business? Co-working offers a middle ground – you can rent a professional shared work space on a flexible day-by-day basis.

You get to work with fellow freelancers where you can network, collaborate and grow your business. There aren’t any restrictive rental agreements – you just pay to use such spaces on a monthly or even daily basis.

Co-working is a great opportunity for the freelancing community. Some 59% of coworkers report increased incomes and 68% report an increase in contracts compared to previous years, research reveals.

If you want to capitalize on co-working, here are five ways to fully exploit all the opportunities it can bring to the freelancing community:

1. Find the Right Space

There are a huge mix of co-working spaces out there. A good starting point is to check out and compare the pricing, location and facilities on offer. From maker spaces with built-in workshops to more corporate environments offering mentorship and access to startup funding rounds, make sure you find one that’s a fit for you and your work.

Lucas Seyhun, co-founder at NYC-based The Farm Coworking, said: “A good way to do this is to look at the space’s events schedule – does it offer the sort of thing that would benefit you and your business? Also, book a visit and go armed with a million questions to ask the space’s managers – and don’t be afraid to ask its coworkers a few questions during a tour of the space – it’s important to gauge if you’d like to work with this community.”

2. Be a Networking Ninja

The variety of people using such spaces means that this community has a unique blend of skills that they can provide to other members. In other words, one of the biggest benefits co-working brings to you is it’s community – so make sure you use this valuable asset.

The most obvious step is to talk to your fellow coworkers about your work and theirs. Just introduce yourself and your business during your first few days.

To really boost your presence, go to some of the space’s events. Whether it’s a yoga class or a business masterclass, it doesn’t matter – use each one as an opportunity to get to know your fellow coworkers.

3. Embrace Collaboration

As you find out about others work, you could see if there’s potential for a work exchange. When I was starting out as a freelance writer, I got chatting to a marketing expert at a co-working space who helped me understand some basic social media tricks and how to better build SEO (Search Engine Optimization) into my articles.

It really helped me to build my audience and, in exchange, I edited a few of his blog posts and helped him with some basic copywriting tips and tricks.

Two years on, this collaboration is still ongoing. If you can forge a similar relationship, it’s mutually beneficial for both parties.

4. Plan an Event

A co-working space is a great place to hold an event. You have access to a ready-made audience with its coworking community and you can use the space’s team to help you plan and execute your event.

Lucas said: “Hosting an event is a pretty daunting experience, and we get that. We help our members at every stage with an event. Whether it’s finding local caterers or layout ideas for our 1,500 sq. ft loft event space – we know what works and can guide our members to create a great event.”

An event will help you to extend the reach of your work. Whether it’s a formal talk or a simple “lunch and learn” session, for example, it’s a platform to advertise your business and your work.

5. Use It To Expand

If used correctly, co-working can help you to grow your business and your network. Most spaces are also adaptable enough to grow with the needs of your business – you can hire extra desks or a dedicated office space, for example.

But, don’t forget that co-working is an incredibly fun and flexible way of working. If you want to keep your head down and plough through your work – you can. Either stay at home, or pop on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. It doesn’t matter.

If you want to hold a networking session to get to know more of the community – chat to your space’s community manager and find out how to run a successful event.

That’s the beauty of co-working. It’s a highly flexible environment designed to meet the needs of your work. Whether you’re just there for the free coffee or an inroad into a new network of business opportunities – the choice is yours.

How to make co-working is so much more than working in the same space from @geditorial_uk  Click To Tweet

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Should You Put Pricing On Your Website

https://youtu.be/5m15KKKfs8o For those that prefer to read than watch:

Hi! I’m Leah from The Freelance To Freedom Project and I want to tell you a little story today of something that I experienced that I think is super relevant and it’s about the topic of should you or should you not put pricing on your website.

So I’m looking currently to add someone to my team and I want a very specific role, a type of freelancer.

Yesterday, or last night, I was going through the different people, searching for different people in our FTF, the free community group I have as well as some other groups and I just kept opening tabs and tabs and tabs of people that do this so I could take a look at all their websites.

And I probably had about 35 tabs open and I realized that when I was looking at one and then Xing out and going on to the next one, the main reason was because they didn’t have pricing on their website.

So I have a very specific budget, I know exactly how much I can pay, how much I want to pay to hire this freelancer and the fact that I had so many options, me having to look at whether or not or having to set up a discovery call which is most of the ones that don’t have pricing, they say ya know, contact me, or general information about their services and then contact me to set up a discovery call to see if we’re a good fit.

So imagine what’s going on in my head. I don’t have time to set up discovery calls with 30 different people just to find out if they fit in my budget.

So I X’ed them out and I moved on and I created my short-list of the small amount of people that actually had pricing because for me, it’s a waste of my time to setup that call if I can’t afford you, or maybe you’re way too cheap and I’m looking to hire someone that’s at a higher level and cheap prices will kinda tell me that maybe you’re inexperienced or that kind of thing.

So whether or not you have pricing on your website is something I think there is a lot of discussion about, there’s a lot of people that would say, don’t put pricing because then you can custom quote people afterwards depending on their budget and what they’re looking for so you can get higher prices out of people. If you don’t put that upfront, you’re not locked into something, right?

But for me, this experience is a perfect example why I put pricing on my website and it’s because I hate searching for people and not seeing their pricing.

So just a little thing to consider and I hope that you DO put pricing because I really believe in it, I think it makes everyone’s life easier for multiple reasons but #1 you don’t have to worry about the cheapos contacting you and you wasting your time having a discovery call with someone that is looking for way cheaper stuff, right.

And also you don’t want to turn away those people that might assume you’re too expensive because you don’t have your pricing listed.

Or people like me that are just gonna not spend the time because there’s so much competition right?

I have so many options in front of me to hire for this person and ya know that was something that stopped me from even spending the time to contact them.

So I hope this was helpful and I will talk to you later.

Bye!

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How to get great testimonials from your freelance clients so that you have good social proof on your website that will make potential clients want to hire you!

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Tips to Make Getting Great Testimonials Easy

Testimonials are super important because they’re social proof on your website.

If someone is looking at you, they’re probably looking at a lot of other freelancers, deciding who they want to go with for your particular service. Having lots of testimonials with headshots, explaining how awesome you are, makes those potential clients want to hire you!

So you want great testimonials but there is a secret to getting really great ones.

Reframe it as feedback

“Ummm, will you write me a testimonial, will you write about how great I am so I can put it on my website?”.

That’s awkward.

And most people are uncomfortable just straight-up asking for a testimonial.

Of course, if it’s a great friend or something or just someone you’re comfortable with, or if you’re just a comfortable person in general, you can just say that outright.

But, if you want to make it a little easier on yourself and just make the experience a little bit better for your client, you can phrase it as feedback.

So basically, when you wrap up with a client, you send them an email and say, “”Can I ask if you can give me some feedback”. It can be part of your project wrap-up (welcome package) or just in a general Thank You email.

Put it on a form

This makes it a lot easier for you to just send them the link. Easier for you, easier for them which means that you’re going to be getting more testimonials because you’re not going to be forgetting.

Set up a form using Typeform, Google Forms, anything like that where they an answer specific questions and click submit.

Ask Questions That Turn Into Great Testimonials

#1  “What hesitations did you have before hiring me?”

This is great because it tells you, kind of, what kind of language you can use for potential clients in the future. What kind of things that you can say to them to counteract those hesitations.

#2 “How do you feel about X {your website, your copy, whatever you’re helping them with} before hiring me?” 

#3 “How did you feel about X after hiring me?”

Those last two really awesome because, when a potential new client reads that testimonial, they’re gonna see the before that they’re going to relate to and the after that they’re aspiring to.

It’s basically someone else validating that you will help them go from that before to that after.

#4 “Can I use this as a testimonial on my website?” 

Since you’re framing this ASK as feedback, you’ll want to ask permission to use the feedback as a testimonial. You’ll also want to ask some things that are helpful to you and are more related to specific feedback.  For example,

“Is there anything I can do to improve?”

“Is there something that you thought was gonna happen that didn’t”

Those kind of things you want to know even though it can be scary to hear something you might perceived as negative. Asking those type of questions is the only way you can actually improve and learn what you can do differently.

So those are some tips on how you get great testimonials.

Frame it as feedback, put it on a form, and make sure that you’re asking questions that the answer will become a great testimonial.

If you don’t do that, you’re just gonna get a bunch of “hey, you were great” and those aren’t really things that are impressive on your website.

– Leah

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