Do you want to have more time?

If your ultimate goal is to get more time to do things you love, you’re going to have to change up your approach a bit when freelancing and focus on things that’ll help you achieve this goal.

First, you’re going to want to cut back your expenses a bit. Do you pay for Netflix or other subscription based items? If so, they’ve got to go. Are you eating fast food on a regular basis? Yeah, that’ll have to stop too. Do you buy a ton of music on iTunes? Spend some time listening to songs on Youtube instead, but don’t watch the videos, just listen to them – you don’t want to waste all the extra time you’re finding by watching videos all day.

Next, you’ll need to raise your rates so you can earn more money while doing less work. Start by increasing price quotes by 20-30% and see how the responses go. If new clients are still buying your services at the same speed as before, increase the pricing even more.

It’s not a bad thing to want more time to spend with friends and family, so if this is what you want to do, you’re going to have to accept the fact that most freelance businesses will need to either stay the same or increase rates while decreasing spending in order to make it work.

Do you want to have more money?

If your ultimate goal is to get more money, there’s some things you’re going to have to give up too, so don’t think you’re getting off that easy. When you’re looking at the worlds most successful people (I’m talking about multi-millionaires and billionaires), you’ll notice that they’re constantly working and moving their businesses forward, so if you’re wanting to get more money, be prepared to hustle your ass off and working 8 days a week.

First, you’ll need to stop going out to bars, the movies and brunch with friends. Actually, you’ll notice that in order to really hit strides in your monetary growth, you’re going to disappear for a while. If your friends aren’t calling your phone and asking you if everything’s o.k., you haven’t been hitting the ground running hard enough.

Next, you’ll need to cut back on your spending as well. Just like the people who want more time, Netflix and other subscription based services should be cut. The trick here though is to cut subscription services which don’t further your business (ie: Netflix, magazines, music, etc) while keeping memberships that will benefit your freelance business.

But can there be balance?

I know there’s someone reading this right now who thinks that this article is bullshit and that there’s definitely ways to balance both time and money. Hell, maybe it’s you who’s thinking that right now.

And you’re right.

Yes, you can balance both time and money but you’ll never reach the full potential on either side of the spectrum.

If deep down inside you just want to spend time with friends and family, travel, read more and see the world, you’ll find it hard to do while working 40+ hours a week on average to maintain a normal work life.

If you’re looking to put a couple extra commas in your bank account, you’ll find it hard to do when you’re constantly distracted by friends and family who want to hang out, talk, go see a movie, go to bed at a reasonable time, etc.

Staying in the middle ground is death to your spirit. It’s what we call average and I know you’re anything but average. So quit trying to be average, figure out what you really want most out of your life and hit the ground running.

You’ll love your live much more that way.

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Below are three reasons you’re not making more money and how you can change it. It’s simple, practical advice that anyone can use, from a new freelancer all the way down to people like Tim Steinouer who mentioned on our Facebook page that he’s been freelancing for 20+ years.

You’re not working hard enough

You tell yourself every day that you’re going to “bust your ass” and get a bunch of work done, but at the end of the day when you look back at what you’ve done, a lot of it ends up being classified as “research” – which we all know that this just means you’ve spent all day reading blogs and pretending to work by clicking your mouse.

Listen, if you’re going to make it as a freelancer and you want the big bucks, you’re going to have to learn how the 10+ hour days feel. 10+ hours of actual work – designing, coding, writing proposals, project management, emails. These are the things that will make you dollars and these are the things you need to focus on. If you want to network on Twitter or Facebook, that’s fine but make sure it’s not cutting into your 10-12 hours of actual work.

If you don’t have 10-12 hours worth of work to do every day, fill the time up with something worthwhile. Cold call or cold email potential clients. Look around job boards to see who’s looking for freelancers.

You’re slacking once you get the job

If you put down that you’re going to have a design sample to your client in 6 days, the odds of you actually working on it until day 5 are pretty slim, am I right? You know the saying that whatever amount of time you allow for something to be done, that’s how long it will take?

The same holds true for you and your work. I get that you don’t want to tell your client that the design will be sent in 24 hours because you don’t want to feel rushed, but tell him that it’s coming in 6 days and deliver it in 3. This will give you the ability to be relaxed while designing and it will show that you’re over delivering to your client, which is never – ever – a bad thing.

Working over the internet gives you the ability to relax as much as you’d like because you know that with a simple email of “I am a bit under the weather and things might take a couple extra days longer”, you just bought yourself more time to slack. Slacking will get you nowhere in your freelance business and it damn sure isn’t going go to make you more money than what you’re making now.

You’re not charging what you’re worth

Upping your rates can be scary because you’re not sure that people will pay you more money than what you’re charing now, but trust me, you deserve to make more money. If you’ve been designing for a year or more, that’s a years worth of knowledge and experience that you’ve gained and should be compensated for.

There’s a reason that lawyers who have done their job for 10+ years make more than an entry level lawyer who is fresh out of school – they’re good at what they do and they deserve to be paid for their work. The same goes with you. You may have started out making blog designs for $375 but after 3 or 4 years of work, don’t you think that it’s time you make more than that? At this point, you should be making $1,000 or more per job.

If you’re nervous to up your rates too much, then start off small. Up the rates by $200 per job. After 10 jobs, you’ve just made an extra $2,000 compared to what you were making before the price hike. After a couple months, try upping it a little bit more for new clients coming in. You’re worth it.

Why aren’t you making the money you deserve?

Is there a reason you’re not making as much money as you want? Can you honestly sit down and figure out a few reasons why your bank account isn’t as large as you’d like? When you are able to do that, define the problem areas and change course, you’re able to make more money. Until then, you might as well just suck it up and be happy with what you’re getting.

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1. Get a P.O. Box – When you have a P.O. Box address, it instantly adds some credibility to your company in peoples eyes because it’s not just a home address and it shows that you’re serious enough about your business to pay for it’s own personal address. Yes, it’s not an office address, but it’s more than having your home address on everything (and more secure as well, so no one knows where you live). If you do not want to buy a P.O. Box, you could always add “suite 3″ to your address, this way it still comes to your house but it looks like it’s an office.
2. 1-800 Number – Picking up a 1-800 number for your business will help you look larger than you actually are. You can use a service like Kall8 to have the number ring to your home phone or cell phone and the caller won’t be none the wiser. This is great if you’re doing international business over the internet because it could cost less for those clients to call and also makes you look like you’re a worldwide company instead of a local one.
3. Fax without a fax machine – No matter if you’re faxing contracts back and forth or you need to send some documents around the world, having a fax machine in your house might cost a little more than you’re willing to spend at the beginning of your freelance career and lets be honest, who want’s a huge machine in their office if you don’t have to? That’s where eFax comes in. You’re able to send and receive faxes on your computer without the need for an actual fax machine or a trip to Kinko’s.
4. Your Own .com Address (and Email Address) – I lumped these two together because they’re both tied in together, but it’s amazing how many people try to build their business by only using a free hosting service or put their portfolio on a site that allows them to showcase their work. A .com address only costs $9.00 a year at Namecheap and you’re instantly able to run your own business without the risk of the free host shutting you down. Also, an email address like this – yourname@yourwebsite.com is always more professional looking than something like this – superhottie184@yahoo.com.
5. Build a solid portfolio – Showing results is always a key to the potential client who visualizes how big you are by how many jobs you’ve got in your portfolio. I’d stick to 10 or less and then have something that mentions you can show more work on request, this way you’re putting your best work forward as well as subliminally letting them know you’ve got even more than that. If you don’t have clients yet, design work that you’d like to get more of (grunge layouts for bands, corporate layouts for, well, corporations, etc).

Got any tips that you use to appear big on a small budget?

Drop a comment and let us know what your secrets to looking large on a small budget are. I know that the above isn’t everything we can be doing, so share feel free to your knowledge with the rest of the freelancers here

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How to secretly find your competitors pricing

If you’ve looked around online to find out what exact prices are that people charge for the work you do and haven’t found solid figures, there’s a couple of ways you can find out. The first way is to check out Freelance Switch’s Freelance Statistic’s Report. It cost $19.99 and has a ton of information inside of it.

But what if you’ve looked that over and you want a more real-world approach (ie: knowing what the person does for a living, their quality of work and the exact prices they charge for the same work you’d be doing)? It’s as easy as sending an email.

Here’s what you do

The first thing you’ll need to do is set up a personal email account – one that isn’t attached to your business. Do not reference your business in the email name or anywhere in the email (signature).

After you’ve set the email address up, think of a project that you’d like to find out pricing on. For web designers, get a few links together to websites you like and put together an email requesting something that looks similar to those in style. For logo designers and print designers, adjust your emails according to your profession.

Make sure your email is as close to what you’d be doing as possible, this way you can find out exactly what other people are charging for the same work.

Now, find 10-15 of the top people in your industry and send them the emails; then you wait. Once you get responses from them, you can go over their emails, read their quotes and find out what they charge. At this point, you’ve got a solid base as to what the others in your industry charge for the work you will be doing.

An example email you can send

Below is a sample email that you can tailor to fit your needs.

Hey (insert name),

I was just checking out your site and I love your work. I’ve been thinking of starting a website recently and I wanted to know what the pricing would be for something like this:

I am in need of a blog design that looks similar to the following websites

• Website Name
• Another website
• Third website name

The main idea behind my site is that I want to discuss (insert topic here) and would like to have some social media integration (insert other options here).

A price quote for something like this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
(insert name)

And that’s all there is to it. Within a week or so, you could get anywhere from 10-50 quotes, depending on how many people you actually contact.

What do you think – is this a clever idea or too ‘sneaky’?

Let us know in the comments what you think. Some might think the idea is a bit too ‘sneaky’ while others look at it like a clever opportunity to find out real world pricing for their projects.

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Raise your damn rates!

It’s the easiest way to make more money per client while working less. Lets look at the above example and adjust your rate to $50.00 per hour. In order to make that same $2,000 per month, you’ll only need 40 billable hours – 60% less time than you would need to work at $20.00 per hour!

But what if people don’t think your work is worth the $50.00 per hour? What if you don’t think it’s worth the $50.00 per hour? Have you ever hear of the power of perception? People will see a $50.00 per hour price tag and gladly pay it if it’s something they need – and you’re able to show them that you believe you’re worth that amount of money. Do not haggle the price, do not budge – stick to the price and people will pay you what you believe you’re worth.

Closed mouths don’t get fed, right? So open your mouth and ask for more. Hell, you can even test it out on a few clients (without publically discussing your rate raising) and see how it works. Test the water for a month or two and see how things go. I think you’ll enjoy the free time you find by doing this

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Below you will find a loosly guided outline on what you need to do in order to turn your passion into profits. Your steps may be a bit different depending on what it is that you love to do, but the overall process will be the same – state what it is you love, define the money making opportunities within that field, and (as Gary Vaynerchuk will tell you) CRUSH IT!

What do you LOVE to do?

This is the first question you need to ask yourself. Can you play sports for hours a day without even thinking about food, rest or water? Could you write about politics without getting up from your seat for 6-7 hours at a time? Would you be able to draw sketches for the entire day without looking up from your notepad once?

No matter what it is that you love, you need to find what it is, because without a true love for what it is you will be building your business off of, you will, without a doubt, hit roadblocks and find times where you are discouraged. You’ll want to quit – and just might – if you do not truly love what it is you’re going to be doing.

How can you make money from your passion?

Now that you’ve figured out what you truly love to do more than anything, the fun part begins; how do you make money from it? Is it possible to make money by directly doing it (ie: sketching and drawing illustrations) or would you have to form a business venture based on it (ie: if you love playing sports, you could start a sports website). I’d recommend sitting down with pen and paper and pounding out as many business oriented ideas as possible. Do not worry about neatness, or order of biggest to smallest – just get them out on paper until your brain hurts. You’ll notice that once you hit a flow, you’ll start to see ideas on the paper you never even thought of before.

Now take that list after you have exhausted your brain and find the one or two that interest you the most. Remember, you NEED to be interested in what you’re doing, so make sure it’s definitely something you could see yourself doing (or are already doing) for 12-16 hours a day. Once you’ve got them together, you’re ready for the next step.

Formatting your business

At this point, you’ve figured out what it is that you love and you’ve got your one or two business ideas on how you can make money by doing what it is you love – so now, you’ve got to start doing it! If you’ve got the opportunity to already be working from home, make sure you’re devoting as much time as possible to the passion you’ve got. If you’re working a 9-5, come home from that job and get to work. Hard work and hustle is what will pay off in the end. You might hear success stories of people who sit around and work 1-2 hours a day while making $1,000+ per day – odds are they are full of shit. You’ve got to get off your ass and make things happen. Success isn’t going to just fall into your lap.

If you’re truly comfortable spending time doing things you hate, then disregard this article entirely. But if you’ve got a passion burning inside of you, one that you know you need to focus more time and energy on, you need to get up, get out and get it! You’ve got the ideas on how to make money from your passion, so get out there and make things happen – you’re going to enjoy ever minute of it.

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But back to our regularly scheduled program, we all want to make (some extra) money online right? Well, below I’ve put together a nice list of 50 niches that will definitely bring you in some serious cash. However, without the passion for the niches, you might get bored quickly and forget the projects, so my one word of advice would be to choose wisely. Some of these niches are perfect to build a strong solid readership, while others I have personally tested and do really well with Google Adsense clicks (I’m talking .75-1.00 per click or better)

And with that said, lets get the list going.

1. Quit Smoking Cigarettes
2. Trendy Furniture
3. Surgery and Doctors
4. Graffiti and Street Art
5. Acne Skin Care
6. Home theater systems
7. Mortgage and Real Estate
8. Bathroom Lighting
9. Breast Cancer
10. Car Donation Information
11. Carpet Installers
12. Christian Singles
13. Criminal Record Search
14. Fast Payday Loans
15. Free Mortgage Calculators
16. Ice Fishing Shelters
17. Indoor Thermometers
18. Kitchen Cookware
19. Mixed Drinks
20. Recycling Information
21. Yoga
22. Anxiety
23. Investing and the Stock Market
24. Health Care
25. Adult (yes, like porn – grow up  )
26. Fashion Trends
27. Celebrity Gossip
28. Green Living
29. Religion
30. Healthy Eating
31. Organization (home, body and mind)
32. Psychology
33. Suicide Prevention
34. Music
35. Traveling
36. Aviation
37. Home Repairs
38. Car repairs
39. Electronics
40. Relationship Advice
41. Movie Reviews
42. Video Games
43. Diet and Exercise
44. Marketing (offline and online)
45. Photography
46. Animal Rights
47. Guerrilla Marketing
48. Mixed Martial Arts
49. Global Warming
50. Blogging about Blogging (yeah, I had to include it in this list too  )

Got any you could add to the list? Or maybe you’re trying one of these out now?

Let me know in the comments or through the contact page.

Disclaimer: These blogs will take some time to build up and gain search engine rankings for and/or a steady reader base. This list is not meant to be a “get rich quick” type of scheme. But with some hard work up front, you can put together 1-2 months worth of articles, have them post on auto pilot and literally FORGET about it while you continue working on your freelance business.

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