However, there are a few more important things you should think about when starting your freelance business and that is what I’ll be covering in todays article on Guerrilla Freelancing.

The feast or famine cycle is very, very real

A lot of ‘marketing gurus’ will tell a very different story, but I am here to tell you from first hand experience, the feast or famine cycle is a very real concept and you’ll end up going through it as well. Planning properly for these situations will help keep your business and your sanity afloat during the trying times.

For those who don’t know what the freelancers feast or famine cycle is (and those of you who haven’t clicked through the link above to read more about it), it’s a cycle that freelancers inevitably go through where there are really high pace times with tons of clients and a great amount of cash flow, usually followed by a good solid month or more with little-to-no work whatsoever. You live on the high horse during the happy times and then get crushed.

But, by understanding that this will happen, you’re able to plan better and keep better control of your money and spending.

You don’t need venture capital to start your business

No matter what people tell you, or what you read, you do not need venture capital or back up funding to start your freelance business. For instance, if you read the previous article we wrote here on starting your design business for $25.00 you’ll see that start up cash is not a huge burden on your freelance start up success.

Getting your freelance business set up can be a quick and painless process if you know what you’re doing – and by reading this article, I hope you’re well on your way to knowing what steps you need to take.

You don’t need a portfolio full of client work in order to land your first client

This doesn’t mean that you need to jump into the crowd sourcing sites and design contests either.

Starting your freelance business doesn’t require you to have multiple client projects under your belt. If you like a specific type of design, writing, illustrating or programming, spend a bit of time building things that play off your strengths and use these as your base portfolio. You won’t be getting paid for them, but you also will have the creative freedom to make it your best work ever.

Put together 4-5 pieces and hit the streets running. There are numerous job boards out there that you can contact potential clients through once you get your portfolio together (here, here and here are just a few - get a mega list from freelance switch here).

Invoicing and Accounting is easier than ever

In the past, these two things were a brain killer and would put a lot of fear in potential freelance workers. Today, there are a vast array of invoicing and accounting apps/websites out there that will help take the pain out of keeping track of the books. I was one of the people who hated the idea of invoicing and keeping track of these things because, at the time, I was highly unorganized and very green to the idea of running my own business. I was amazed at how easy it actually can be.

For instance, if you were to sign up for an account at Invoice Machine to send your invoices (which is super easy by the way) and then check outOutright for your accounting (which is also super easy to use), you can be done with this step of your business in a matter of minutes – without any of the extra headaches.

On a side note, I would recommend looking for an accountant in your area to go over your books on a yearly/bi-yearly basis just to be on the safe side. You never know what extra savings they can get for you because, after all, this is what they’re best at.

Your clients will (almost) never pay you quickly

With a lot of freelance businesses, there are net 15-30-60-90 payment plans set up, so you’re semi-aware of the fact that the client will be paying during a certain time period. From the sounds of the payment plans above, you’d think that you can plan ahead for 15-30 days and know when you’ll be getting cash after you’ve submitted your invoices, right? Wrong.

Clients will pay on their time. So, having a back up plan together for cash (remember the feast or famine cycle from above?) is a great idea. You should also make sure you’ve got things on record properly and that you’re emailing reminders out a day or two before – and after – invoices are due. If you’re not in the clients face, reminding them that they’ve got cash to send you that you’re owed, they’ll forget and move onto something else.

You’re only worth as much as you charge – or allow yourself to charge

A classic mistake that freelancers will make happens right when they start out, or when cash is unusually low. Reducing rates is a big no-no, as well as allowing yourself to be talked down from your original rate you quoted. These are clients you’ll want to avoid at all costs because they’re just ‘looking for something for nothing’ and will (almost) never be of any good use to your business future.

Also remember that your rates will dictate what type of clients you attract. If you’ve got bottom end rates of $10-15 dollars an hour, then you’ll be attracting bottom end clients. If your work is worth more than that (and I would assume it is), you need to bump your rates up to a respectable number. Don’t know what to charge? Thats ok. Try a price on for size for a month or two and adjust it accordingly.

In the first year of my freelance design business, I jumped my rates up 3 times – almost tripling the original rate I was charging. As I jumped up, the quality of clients jumped up as well.

Not everyone with a computer can do it

A hard truth that people will try to avoid is that freelancing isn’t built for everyone. Just because you have a computer, read the biggest freelance advice blogs out there and know what to do and not do, doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to cut it. Spending 1 hour a day working and 23 hours goofing off isn’t going to get you anywhere. Downloading photoshop and reading sites like Tutorial9 will not make you the worlds top designer.

Some people have it and some people don’t. It takes discipline and dedication to build a freelance business. Keeping track of clients, payments, open jobs and potential leads can be a daunting task. Add that with the work involved with each client, the countless emails you’ll receive as well as keeping up with the industry you’re in and you’re looking at some solid work days. Can you handle it? I think you can, but you should make sure you can beforehand.

It is the greatest feeling in the entire world

Your freelance business will be fun. Working from home (or your own office) will be great and feel awesome. The freedom that comes with freelancing is amazing and something I would never trade for anything in this world. You’re going to have a blast, and you’ll be able to go as far as your mind can imagine.

Remembering the things above and keeping a level head about yourself, you’ll be able to accomplish anything you set out to do, and do it on your own time. It’s a fun ride – enjoy it to the fullest.

8 things you should know when starting your freelance business is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)

In this article, my aim is to show you what apps you’ll more than likely need and how you can get by in your business with little-to-zero dollars spent. I’ve always been someone who bootstrapped as much as possible (I used to run Bootstrapping Blog and wrote numerous articles on the subject) so I think it’s only right to show some business basics knowledge here on how you can do the same with your business.

Don’t go broke trying to make money

First things first, you do not need apps from 37 signals. I know everyone talks about them and makes you feel like you’re not a part of the in crowd if you don’t use them, but face it – spending $25-$100 per month on apps you (more than likely) will not use is a bit much for the beginnings of your business. You’re going to want to focus on making money first – if you don’t make money, you have no business and there is no reason to spend money on it. 37 signals offers a bunch of awesome products, but it’s not something required in order for you to start your business.

How you can manage clients and money for FREE

I was speaking with Jon Phillips from Spyre Studios about this topic earlier today and I think we both had a good grasp on what was needed for business management. When you’re a one person show, just starting out, there’s no reason you can’t build your business without putting money into it. A couple of the things you can do to manage your clients, projects and money are as follows:

• Client Details: Utilize gmail (or gmail for business and the labels you can apply to emails. Have your clients emails automatically labeled by creating a filter for it, and it makes managing your clients emails/notes/files a breeze
• Money Management: You can check out some of the free invoicing pdf or doc files around the web (or even make your own). And for up to three invoices per month, you can even get a free invoice machine account. If you’re after a free app that does all of this for you, there’s an open source version called siwapp which looks promising.
• Project Management: Vanilla Forums is a great way to set up a project management section of your site quickly and pain free. It’s also minimalist at heart so it makes everything run smoothly. *thanks to Jon for this tip – I’ll be utilizing it on future projects.
• Accounting: I haven’t done much on the accounting side of things, but the one app I have tried out and really enjoy is Outright. If you want to keep records of your money spend and made, see graphs and charts of it on a monthly/quarterly/yearly basis, Outright is perfect for you.

How you can manage your clients for a little bit of cash

After you’ve built up a bit of a client base (5-10 clients) you may want to grow your management a bit. Again, at this point, there’s no need to jump into the expensive apps that you don’t need for a one or two person show. Below are a few things you can check out to manage your money and manage your clients for a little bit of cash each month.

• Invoicing: As mentioned above, Invoice Machine offers up to three invoices per month to be sent and after that, you can jump up to their $12.00 per month plan which gives you up to 30 invoices (the plan I am currently using). You can also check out Freshbooks, which Jon highly recommends. I haven’t tested them out myself but I’m told it is a great app and it’s fairly cheap as well (as low as $19.00 per month).
• Client Management: Six Central is a company that has really caught my eye and seems like a really great fit for the budding freelancers out there. If you’re on a guerrilla mission, their very low $10.00 per month price for unlimited Invoices, Proposals and Clients is perfect!
• Project Management: One of the best project management apps out there is definintely Basecamp. So, if you’re dead set on spending a bit of cash, you can check them out and see that their lowest priced plan is only $24.99 per month which honestly is not that bad (if your business is in need of this much growth).
• Accounting Management: Less Accounting is a great app built by great people who really understand what freelancers need. They offer a limited version for free and have a low cost ($12 per month) plan that would suit you very well.

My personal opinions on the subject of managing clients and money

It’s taken me some time to find the right fit for my business. I’ve tried many (I mean, many) apps and have cancelled the majority of them. For now, I’m sticking with the following for my business.

• Invoicing: Invoice Machine
• Client Management: Gmail for Business
• Project Management: Currently I utilize Gmail for Business for this as well but will be checking into Vanilla Forums more
• Accounting Management: Outright

By no means am I saying that you should use what I use. Get in there, try a few out for a month or so and see what works best for you. And most of all, remember, if you’ve got questions about anything, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll do my best to help you out (and so will the other awesome readers of this blog).

Business Basics: Managing your clients and money is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)

Well, if you can’t sell your product/service then why would anyone else be able to? If you don’t know the ins and outs of what make your target market tick and what makes them open their purses and wallets, how is someone on the outside looking in going to be able to do that for you? You know your product/service better than anyone, because hey, it’s yours! So lets take a quick look at some of the pros and cons of hiring a sales staff and then I want to open the floor to everyone to share their thoughts on the subject in the comments.

Pros to hiring a sales staff right away

1. You can focus more on the creation side of your business. Whether it be designing, coding, drawing, writing or some other form of freelance work, this is where you’re at your best, right?
2. You can potentially generate more sales because you can have multiple people bringing in leads/sales, which in turn allows you to earn more profits and potentially hire more employees to design, code, writer, draw, ect.
3. Lets face it – having a sales staff hitting the streets for you makes people look at your business as a large company and look at you as the head cheese, right?

Cons to hiring a sales staff right away

1. You do not have the first hand knowledge to teach your sales staff what works and what doesn’t.
2. You lose the ability to be a personable company and interaction with your clients/potential clients becomes harder to maintain
3. You might have sales staff who know how to speak well and sell, but what happens when you’re having a conversation and you don’t have your elevator speech?
4. If your product/service is a bust, you just spent unneeded expenses on hiring out that sales staff when you could have easily tried selling yourself, found out it isn’t an indemand enough product/service and moved on without wasting money.

My personal thoughts

I personally do not feel that hiring a sales staff is the right direction to go when you first launch. I believe that with information products like e-books and other forms of product similar in style (ie: wordpress themes, scripts, ect) yes, a sales (affiliate) staff is a good idea, but since the majority of us reading this blog are all Guerrilla Freelancing, getting our feet wet and hitting the full time hurdles, I think that selling yourself should be priority #1.

I will be touching on the sales subject again in some upcoming articles. If you’re interested in learning how you can make more sales, I wrote an article over at the Bootstrapping Blog titled 10 steps to making that first sale and I think it’s worth the read. It will definitely help you get your focus together on how to go about selling your services and products to your niche markets.

So what do you think?

For those of you who are freelancing full time, what do you think about this? Do you hire a sales staff right away or do you learn the ropes, hit the pavement and put in some hours selling your product/service before you even think about hiring a sales staff? For the part-time and/or “thinking about jumping in” freelancers reading this, what do you think you should do after reading the above information? Will you be hiring a sales staff or pushing the product/service yourself?

Business basics: should we hire sales staff right away? is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)