These skilled professionals have decided to decline the nine-to-five regime and fit work in around their other passions, interests, and commitments. You may already unknowingly give freelance or contract work to people who fall into this growing part of the remote web workforce.

The prevalence of technology means that your favorite freelancer could be building a business in a city just like yours, or they could be living in a jungle and tackling your projects between epic surfing expeditions. So long as they have a reliable web connection, you may never know the difference.

Are these “untemplaters” a good skill resource for growing businesses? To many employers, this breed of digital professional might seem flighty and unreliable — after all, they might pick up and vanish into the wild, blue yonder once they finish this job. Where’s the accountability? Can a project as important as yours rest on their contribution?

In most cases, the answer to all these questions is, “yes.” Here are a few of the main reasons why these “rebels” are good for business.

They’re passionate and skilled

The non-conformist freelancer prioritizes things other than work, sure. But they champion quality of life. As such, they may be more likely than your regular business-building freelancer to restrict themselves to projects that really interest them.

Think about it: If you were to restrict the work you did, you’d want the projects you took on to be extra-rewarding. Instead of taking on anything and everything that comes their way, the smarter web workers in this group pick and choose projects they feel will use their skills, ignite their passions, and satisfy their need to contribute.

The idea of the rebel-freelancer being a “drop-out” is no longer current; you’ll likely find your remote resource highly skilled. These individuals are effectively relying on their own, evolving expertise to make a living in less time than it takes the rest of us. To do that, you’ve got to be good.

They can commit

The idea that a freelancer who’s working from a rented room in Salvador to fund their next Amazonian trek won’t be committed or accountable isn’t likely to play out in reality. The days of fly-by-nighters making it online are over. And if your recruitment and screening processes can’t pick them out, then you have bigger problems than working with untethered remote workers.

Solutions to the issues of commitment and accountability are ultimately rooted in the rapport you build with freelancers, regardless of their locations (or how they spend their spare time). If you need a freelancer to be around after they deliver their part of the project, make that clear up-front, just as you would with a local, more traditional freelancer or contractor. If they can’t commit, they’ll be able to tell you so, and you can move on to other candidates.

They are connected

What’s web connectivity like in Salvador? Depending on where you operate, it may be a step up from what you’re used to. Most people who pursue an “untethered” lifestyle know that to support that lifestyle they need to be reliable, and available. And most are extremely tech-savvy — the less technologically capable are less likely to be able to make remote-location freelancing work.

So if your untemplated freelancer comes with good references, work samples, and communicates with you easily through the selection process, you’re unlikely to encounter show-stopping troubles during the project. Again, set your expectations for contactability and availability up-front, and make sure everyone’s comfortable with, and capable of, meeting those needs.

If you’re really concerned — for example, the individual is located in an area where there’s unrest, issues with freedom of information or connectivity, and so on — discuss that with the candidate and develop contingencies that can be implemented if the worst-case scenario turns into a reality.

Are they for you?

Whether the non-traditional freelancer is right for your business will depend as much on your operation as it does on the remote worker.

Your timeframes, project management approach, expectations, and philosophy may all prevent you from working successfully with an “untemplated” freelancer — or any freelancer.

The businesses that are likely to be best suited to collaboration with these individuals will be flexible, technologically adept and versatile, communicative, human, and results-focused. If this sounds like you, “untemplated” workers might be a sensible and flexible asset to your team.

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Solo’s main screen is its dashboard, shown in the image above. It’s dominated by a message display that offers things like tips and updates about upcoming deadlines, with infographic-like charts below that provide at-a-glance details of project status, as well as turnover and hours recorded over time. You can also start and stop the task timer from this screen. Accessing the other areas of the app, such as the planner, timesheets and invoices, is done through the tabs at the top of the screen.

Designers and other creatives who take aesthetics seriously will appreciate Solo’s beautiful interface. That’s something I rarely get to say about project management apps, which are usually functional rather than pretty. Microproject, a scheduling app I reviewed recently, also has an attractive and well-designed interface, but it really can’t come close to Solo’s data-first design and attention to detail.

Solo’s a lovely product to look at, is quite easy to use and has a good set of features for freelancers, but there are a few potential issues with it. First, there doesn’t seem to be any way to export data, nor is there integration with any existing accounting, CRM or invoicing apps, which is disappointing. There isn’t even seem a way to import contacts from CRM or email apps that I can see. Second, it’s unclear how the product will scale if a freelance business expands to take on additional staff. Thrive’s Jerome Iveson says that the company is working on a multi-user PM app called Studio; hopefully it will be possible to migrate accounts and data between the two products. Finally, once you move beyond the dashboard into other areas of the app, some areas aren’t quite as polished and aren’t all that intuitive in use. It’s not clear how recorded hours are moved from timesheet to invoice, for example. Hopefully, those areas will be cleaned up over time; the app is still in development with several new features due to be added, such as a client area, blog feeds and messages.

Solo costs $10 per month, with a 14-day free trial available.

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Here’s my video interview with Deb Ng of the Freelance Writing Jobs Network. Deb has been writing freelance since 2000. You may have seen her byline on About.com, iParenting Media, and the BlogWorld and New Media Expo, but she also writes for clients. She’s a former newspaper columnist, and currently provides professional blogging and social media consulting services, as well as working with the Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas, coordinating speakers and sessions.

This trend is not exclusive to web app startups, however. Even freelancers seem to apply some aspects of this model to their services. Let’s take a look at how it’s done and how to make it pay off.

Starting With Free

In Charlie Hoehn’s e-book “Recession Proof Graduate,” he recommends that fresh graduates with no job experience offer to do web working projects for free to start their careers. Since the work is done remotely, they can manage this free project while searching for paid ones.

I see this idea reflected in my own career path. I was still a college freshman when I started freelancing, and I did a lot of spec work back then — both graphic design and writing. My experience is not unique; I often hear of new freelancers doing something similar.

Kristine Clarisse Cruz, who has only been a writer for two months, told me that she gives away sample articles to hook potential clients into a working relationship. When I asked why she did this, she replied “I [want to] establish a good first impression with my potential clients and leads, and allow them to see what kind of work I can do….” Kristine doesn’t have a portfolio yet, and this practice allows her to build it and gain clients at the same time. It seems to be paying off, because according to her “I’m actually earning more now than when I had a regular job.”

For beginners, working for free is an important part of the learning process. Fresh graduates and new talents are able to practice their craft and get hands-on business training, usually at low risk to themselves and the client. Through direct experience they learn about client communication, setting deadlines, and managing expectations (especially their own).

Like all first steps, we quickly move beyond this model. But do established freelancers also use free services in their practice?

Free as the Front End

Past the beginner stage, it’s common for freelancers to stop giving away their services unless they are doing pro bono work. But this doesn’t mean that they no longer perform professional tasks for free. Many of us leverage freebies for the purposes of promotion, marketing and gaining authority in our fields. We do this by giving away ideas and information via blogs, social media and case studies. Others work on open-source projects. While this brings us new opportunities, we are faced with new challenges as well.

One such challenge is that your potential clients might judge the value of your free work differently than you do. WWD blogger Nancy Nally is one of the many freelancers who uses her blog, Scrapbook Update, as an anchor for her paying projects. “First, my writing credits from my web site aren’t viewed as highly by many people looking at my writing credits because ‘it’s just a blog’ and I own it myself. That is despite the fact that the site is highly respected in its subject area.”

Lack of control is also an issue. Once you release your free ideas, services, or products into the world, you’re never sure what the results are going to be. According to Nancy, offering free content causes some copyright problems “I do have the common blogger’s problem of my work being stolen and republished by other sites fairly regularly.”

Making Money — Finally

As Kristine and Nancy have illustrated, it is possible to use free projects to induce income generating work. Doing this successfully, however, takes effort and thought. Here are some points to consider:

Remember what you are really selling. Even if you have free content, services, or products working on them does not mean you should lower your prices or devalue your other projects. It’s never just a press release, a logo, or an e-book — these things can be found somewhere for free, or at least close to it. Usually, what we’re really selling is talent, reliability, years of experience, or excellent customer support. Our real product is the value we provide.

Think small. If you’re producing some free blog posts, e-books, or reports, you don’t have to make all of them available for free. Writer and developer Nick Cernis suggests micropayments as an alternative. In his post, “The End of Free Content”, he elaborates on this idea:

“Continue to provide free content just as you are, but sell your more unique content for a small one-off fee or ‘micropayment’. You choose what you sell, your audience still gets a stream of free stuff, plus they get to support you by buying paid content if it’s relevant to them.”

Web cartoonists may be familiar with this idea, especially since it was one of Scott McCloud’s more controversial proposals regarding monetizing online comics almost a decade ago.

Set criteria. Establishing limitations and criteria allows you to work on free projects with less stress. What types of people or organizations are you willing to work with? How much free time do you have to devote to this project? Do you have to be given a non-monetary reward?

While it’s hard to imagine being a freelancer without doing at least one thing for free, we shouldn’t get carried away. Remember that: 1) Freelancers have clients. 2) Clients pay freelancers to do stuff. The rules of the business don’t get any simpler than that — no matter how complex and unpredictable this new “freeconomy” seems. At the end of the day, cash in your bank account is the only objective measure that business is going well.

Have you ever worked for free? How did it affect your freelance practice?

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I found myself contemplating these questions recently, and I’ve realized that there are advantages and disadvantages to both options.

The Single Storefront Approach

A single storefront that covers all your services has its benefits. It makes sense to go this route if you want to reach the same target market, regardless of the variety of services you’re selling. This can work wonders if you’ve already established your expertise, and have gained a good reputation among your clients and their peers.

This can also be beneficial to customers who are looking for one team or person to fulfill all their needs. From design to copywriting to online marketing, these big clients might want you to handle more than one phase of a project. If that’s the case, then they’d prefer having just one contact person for the entire project, rather than several.

Having just one storefront also has its practical advantages. It’s affordable, and easier to update and market. Since you’re just managing one web site or blog, you don’t have to split your marketing and maintenance efforts — all of them will be channeled to one portal only.

Having Separate Storefronts

Still, having separate web sites for each service can have its own benefits. First of all, you won’t be tied to serving just one target market. You can tailor each site to suit whichever market you want to serve.

Also, if you’re providing unrelated services — medical transcription, web design and online marketing consultancy, for example — it will be less confusing to your audience if each of those services has its own portal. Your sites will be easier to navigate individually, and your potential clients won’t get lost in information that is irrelevant to them.

Multiple storefronts can also give you the freedom to work with a wider variety of clients. If you don’t want to limit yourself to one market, but you don’t want to make your personal brand confusing either, it can be better for you to set up a separate site for each service you want to provide.

Personally, I keep my services under a single storefront as much as possible. It’s more practical to do so if you’re working with a limited budget and don’t have the time to maintain and manage several sites. But there are some instances where I am forced to separate them due to differences in target markets.

How about you? Are you a multi-skilled service provider? Do you keep all of your services in one storefront or several?

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It doesn’t stop there. You need to learn how to write well, so you can communicate better with our clients and have more persuasive copy on our web sites. You need to have some SEO skills, too. Learning these skills is much easier now than it was 10 years ago. There are hundreds of online tutorials, e-books and other resources that we can turn to.

As you use these new skills, you’ll eventually become good at them. In fact, sometimes you become good enough to ask yourself, “Should I try to do this professionally?”

The Advantages of Selling Multiple Skills

The most obvious benefit of monetizing all of your skills is that you won’t be putting all our eggs in one basket, so to speak. When I was starting out as a web worker, I marketed myself as a writer, a keyword researcher and a designer. As a result, I was never out of work, and I could provide multiple services to the same client.

Learning and practicing several fields can also feel fulfilling, especially if you’re in a phase where your work is getting too repetitive or feels less challenging. If you’re usually a web designer and you suddenly have an opportunity to work on developing an application, this new direction can be a refreshing change. Some of the things you learn from your new project might shed some insight that you can apply to your usual work.

With that said, trying to sell all our skills also has its disadvantages.

The Disadvantages of Selling Multiple Skills

While it may seem more sensible financially to profit from all of your skills, it’s not necessarily feasible or practical. Unless you have an assistant or are naturally organized, it will be hard to manage different projects, clients and marketing tactics across the several services you provide.

Perhaps more importantly, it’s much harder to stand out in one industry if you spread yourself too thin. By working in several different fields, you can’t commit as much time and effort to any single one of them. For example, if you spend half of your time as a social media marketing consultant, it will be hard to keep up with the other experts in that field who devote 100 percent of their working hours on it.

Even with these disadvantages, it’s rare for me to meet a freelancer who only does one kind of work. Perhaps the challenge lies in knowing how to prioritize and how to make the most out of every skill we develop.

Do you work in one freelancing field exclusively or do you have multiple streams of income? What has your experience been like?

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It’s hard to say he’s going about things the wrong way, because he’s never been fired, but I strongly believe that some kind of CRM software would help him a lot in his work, and single him out as a progressively-minded individual with his employers. There are so many easy-to-use, free options out there, you’d have trouble not finding a good solution. Recently, I tried out Funnela, and I think it has something to offer people like my friend.

Like Relenta, another CRM app I recently covered, Funnela makes simplicity its main selling point. It offers the basics, and little else, which is great for a beginner. There are some minor language issues, since Funnela comes from a Polish developer, but these minor quirks don’t interfere with the app’s usability.

Once you’ve signed up, logging in takes you to your dashboard, where you have an overview of your upcoming tasks and appointments. You also get a feed of changes, new tasks and updates as they occur. This is particularly useful if you attach multiple users to your account, which you may choose to do if you’re running a small business or working with a partner. In the case of someone like my friend, you could set coworkers up with accounts.

You can either jump directly to tasks from your dashboard, or use the tabbed navigation system to access different features. “Mail” works like most web-based services, and even provides smart folders, both pre-set and the option to create ones yourself. You can set up reply-to addresses, but by default, your address will be “yourcompanyname”@funnela.net. On free accounts, you can only work with mail sent to that address, but you can always just set up automatic forwarding from your actual work account.

“Contacts” has a nice three-tiered layout, with groups, lists, and detailed profile panes. You can create contacts from within the app, add them from emails, or import them from .csv files or Highrise. Strangely, there’s no “import” button in the main contacts screen; I finally tracked it down in the “Settings” page, which I found to be a little counterintuitive. I also would appreciate an option to import individual contacts from vCard files, since that doesn’t appear to be an option at this time.

Funnela’s “Calendar” and “Task” screens are also very straightforward and simple. The calendar application in particular looks to be based heavily an Apple’s iCal, which is not a bad thing. You can add as many calendars as you need, and share them with other members on your account, too. Tasks have convenient built-in filters in case your schedule gets complicated, and a nice notes interface for adding additional information.

The real appeal of Funnela, especially for CRM beginners, is the simplicity it offers, because it can be hard adjusting to life beyond the padfolio. Basic options and a straightforward interface that has everything you need, if not all the bells and whistles, are just what the doctor ordered for those unfamiliar with CRM software. With simplicity comes a lack of customizability, though, so more experienced users may find it somewhat vexing. Still, having yet another option when it comes to web apps that might help enliven your sales can never hurt. The free plan is limited to one user and a default funnela.com email address. Paid accounts vary from $15 to $149 per month, depending on how many users you want on the account and how much storage you need. All the paid accounts let you work with your own email addresses. A 30-day free trial is available on all plans.

What CRM software do you use?

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But if something is repetitive, then it can be automated.  How can we make our clients better informed so that they don’t ask us the same questions repeatedly?  I believe that the following 5 documents can help:
Client tutorial reports. I got this idea from Yuwanda Black’s post at Copyblogger.  As an SEO copywriter, she works with many clients who are unfamiliar with her field.  This is common among web workers.  Designers may be approached by clients who haven’t figured out their branding yet, and PPC (pay-per-click) consultants might have clients who haven’t chosen a target market.

So what should be in your client tutorial?

• Prerequisites. What do they need to know, prepare, and have before they can start a project with you?  Why do they need these things?  If they don’t have these prerequisites, list some handy resources that will help get them started.
• A glossary of jargon. Although you should avoid using too much jargon during initial communication, those terms will eventually come up.  Give your clients an easy reference in case they encounter these terms that they don’t understand.
• A short “crash course” on your field. This may include paragraphs on why hiring a professional is important, how good design/copywriting/whatever service you provide will improve their business, and any background information that can help them understand what you’ll be doing.

FAQ document. FAQs or “Frequently Asked Questions” are usually found in websites of a company or small business.  I rarely find links to FAQ pages in a solo freelancer’s website.

For the uninitiated,  FAQs are pages where you respond to anticipated or predicted questions from clients or website visitors.  They are presented in a simple question and answer format.

This document, when introduced well, will lessen the time you spend answering repetitive questions such as “What methods can I use to pay you?” or “Are there other services you provide that aren’t listed on your website?”  Note the most common questions that your previous and current clients have raised.  These will give you a good idea of what questions you should include in your FAQ page or document.  You also have the option to serve this in the same file as your client tutorial.

Layperson’s translation of legalese. While some of your clients can easily afford lawyers, there will always be those who cannot.  It’s entirely possible that some clients actually just skim through your contracts without reading them, leaving them unaware of the details of your arrangement.  If you don’t think it’s possible or if you believe all the fault lies with your client, just remember how many times you signed up for an online app without reading the lengthy Terms and Conditions.

What might work is an accompanying document that translates each paragraph or item from the contract into plain English.  I don’t just do this with clients, I provide a similar document to my contractors as well.

Just remember to add a notice at the end stating that your layperson’s version is not meant to be a replacement for the contract itself.

Annual update. After all, a lot can happen in a year.  You may have received an award, got another certificate, or were featured in a major magazine.  You shouldn’t hide these things, especially not from your clients, who would probably love to know that they’re working with someone as accomplished as you are.  Just make sure that you mention these accomplishments in a way that shows how these will benefit them.  If you’re the overachieving type, you can do this 2 to 3 times a year, just make sure that your tone is personal and that you don’t come off as a spammer.

Case studies. Unlike the 4 documents mentioned above, case studies are better if they’re publicly accessible rather than sent to clients privately or on a need-to-know basis.  They are meant to convince potential clients that your methods work.  They are marketing tools rather than ways to facilitate better communication and understanding between you and your clients.

Darrell Etherington recently wrote an informative post about case studies, which is a must-read for any freelancer who is interested in creating them.

These 5 documents might require many of your non-billable hours if you want to produce them.  You can create them incrementally over time, so that you won’t be too overwhelmed.  Of course, you can always outsource or delegate to others.

Even with all the initial work involved, I think these documents would be worth it.  If you have any experience with creating these documents, please share it with us in the comments.  How have they worked for you?  What are the other advantages of having these documents?

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Sometimes, however, the jobs we take end up costing us instead of giving us profits.  What we intended as another step in our career only becomes a lesson we shouldn’t have learned the hard way.  How do we identify these problematic jobs and what can we do about them?

The Low Paying Job. These are the jobs that are often advertised on craigslist and they try to compensate for the low pay with promises of “exposure” or a percentage of the profits.  They also make excuses, which include the following:

• they’re just starting out as a company;
• web workers in developing countries charge at that low rate and you have to compete with them;
• and your pay will be increased over time (although this claim is vague and not indicated in the contract).

Even if a low paying job were legitimate, accepting it has disadvantages.  This job will take hours away from your work week, hours that could be better spent on boosting your marketing efforts to get the well-paying jobs.  Plus, it will lower your average hourly income overall.  Ideally, you should be increasing your rates as the years go by and not the other way around.

Unless you’re just starting out and looking to build your web working experience, there should be no reason to take this job.

The Job You Can’t Learn From. In a previous post, Mike Gunderloy talked about how he only takes jobs that will allow him to learn something new.  While I believe there’s something to be learned out of every experience, I would rather take Mike’s advice than accept a repetitive copy & pasting job.

Take this kind of job only if you’re low on cash or if you plan to outsource or delegate it, otherwise, you won’t be getting much else apart from the money.

The Audition Job. You know those jobs where you have to “audition” by doing a design mock up or a draft and if your client likes it, they’ll pay you.  If not, well, that’s too bad.  This approach to job applications is also known as speculative work (or simply “spec work”).  While it’s true that not all people who ask for spec work are out to scam you, it’s not the best way to conduct business – both for the freelancer and the client.

The “Easy” Job. Some jobs seems simple enough when you look at your client’s initial specifications, but once you get deep into the project you realize how big the scope actually is.

It’s hard to identify this kind of job at first.  What usually gives it away is when your client tells you “It’s easy!” or “It will only take 10 minutes of your time!”  Think about it, if the job were really easy, shouldn’t they be able to do it themselves?

Also, while there are clients who are appreciative of a freelancer’s skills and efforts, there are always those who will undervalue your work.  Do you know this client well enough to trust that the job is truly easy?

One way to work through the “easy” job is to assess the project yourself, discuss it with your client, and define the deliverables before you start working.  This protects you from “surprise” tasks that suddenly creep in when you realize that the scope of the project is much larger than what your client initially thought.  In some way, you’ll risk looking like you’re out to milk your client for every penny, but if you give them all the information and references they need, they’ll know that you’re only doing what’s best for them in the long run.

What other jobs should online freelancers be cautious about?  What was your experience with these kinds of jobs?

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How do we maintain privacy when we work on such a public platform?

Separate your personal life and your work when it comes to online interaction. Any apps, blogs, or social networking accounts should be separate from your professional accounts.  Alternatively, you can categorize your contacts into separate groups, such as friends, family, business, and filter which types of updates are visible to each group.

This might seem time consuming, but you don’t want a diligent internet troll to start harassing your friends or playing with your holiday photos via Photoshop and sharing it with your clients.  You don’t want your friends and family to be too informed about your work either (I remember my mother seeing one of my clients on Facebook and asking me if she could go out with him). That may be far-fetched, but it’s not something I personally want to risk.

I keep a personal blog on some free blogging platforms – intended for close friends and family only.  Most of my posts are visible only to contacts I have approved.  My professional blog, of course, is free for the rest of the web to read.

Get a pseudonym. Web workers sometimes use nicknames, online screen names, or only their first names as their working name online.  This approach to getting more privacy seems to elicit a variety of reactions.  Some people are for it, while others don’t think it’s necessary, or they think it goes against the culture of transparency on the web.  Online workers such as Skellie, Adii Rockstar, and blogger John Cow (for a time) are just a few examples. You can also use an alias that sounds more like a “real name”.

A pseudonym can also be useful if you want to work on projects that aren’t relevant to the personal brand you’re building.  When I used to write about relationships and dating, it wasn’t something I was passionate about pursuing, so I used a variety of aliases for my work.  Only my clients knew my real name.

The downsides to working with a pseudonym, especially if it doesn’t sound like a “real name”, is that in some cases, it might lead to mistrust.  Still, this could be overcome once you’ve built a reputation on providing quality services.

Monitor your digital footprint. You can do a regular search of your name, pseudonyms, and other nicknames you use on the web.  If you want to automate this, you can simply use Google Alerts to keep up with any new searchable items relevant to your name.  Twitter Search, BackType Alerts, and FriendFeed Search also allow you to search any keyword within their services.

Check the privacy settings and privacy policy of every new app, social network, or online service you’re using. This may sound like common sense, but it’s something that many people neglect.  Call me paranoid, but I tend to check my privacy settings on social networking accounts every few months or so.  Sometimes they add new features or change something and it affects the initial settings I established.

Mike Gunderloy also wrote about the terms and conditions of online office applications, which had interesting points about privacy.  On a related note, the Pew Internet Project conducted a survey on cloud computing with the following results:

…cloud users show high levels of concern when presented with scenarios in which companies might use their data for purposes users may or may not fully understand ahead of time.  This suggests user worry over control of the information they store online.  For nearly all of the scenarios shown, most users of cloud applications say they would be very concerned if their data were sold, used in marketing campaigns, not deleted as requested, or used for targeted ads.

Source: “Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services”, September 2008, Pew Internet & American Life Project

How about you, how concerned are you with your privacy as a web worker?  How do you manage your digital footprints?  What experiences have you had with online privacy?

Image by Dan Shirley from sxc.hu

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Oscar doesn’t need me to beat Pacquiao. He really doesn’t. For this fight, Oscar can beat Pacquiao with just about anyone training him… Ain’t no way Pacquiao can beat Oscar. No way.

At that time, it seemed like Mayweather had every reason to say that.  Pacquiao was much shorter and usually competed at lower weight divisions.  He didn’t have the experience that Oscar had.

Which was why the outcome of the match was a shock to almost everyone, with Pacquiao beating Oscar with a technical knock out before the ninth round.  Oscar just didn’t have the physical disposition to finish the match.

I bet Mayweather is eating his words now.

What does this have to do with web working?  Did you ever enter a contest, submit a proposal, or take on a challenge thinking that there was no way you could lose – and yet you did?  It happens to many freelancers I know, including myself.  We can be so confident with our own skills that we fail to see our faults, and they inevitably trip us up in the end.

Confidence versus overconfidence

Although we should tell prospective clients that we’re good at what we do, deep inside we should always know that we can do better.  This isn’t about low-esteem for your work.  For me, I just know that if I devote more time to practice and learning, I can be a few steps better than I am right now.  In other words, there’s always room for improvement.

Internal overconfidence can sometimes lead you to think that your skills are fixed and unchangeable.  This is the top, and you’ve reached it.  You are naturally good at your field, so you depend mostly on your talents.  But doing this has its limits.  The truth is that there are always more skills to learn, mistakes to fix, and changes to adapt to. Especially on the web where trends and technologies easily shift.  Working on the web often means that diligence, research, and innovation often trumps natural talent.

Instead of being confident solely because of your skills, you should be confident about your ability to learn and adapt.  Know that you can deliver what your client needs now with the skills you have now.  But never tell yourself that you know all there is to know about your field.  You may be the best, but this is something that you will be tested on every day.

Being the best feels good, and there’s nothing wrong with being confident.  But overconfidence can bring a large blow to your ego when you meet someone who does your work better than you do.

Welcoming failure

It seems to me that overconfident people avoid failure.  They have good reason to do so.  Failure is painful and it can even be humiliating.  It tells you “You’re not that good.”  But as many people have already pointed out, failure and imperfection can push you to raise your game.

This is also good news for people who feel like they aren’t “naturally good” at marketing, business, SEO, blogging, or a number of other salable web working skills.  By accepting that there’s always room for learning, even for the experts, it means that you can learn all the new skills you want and explore any field that interests you.  You might not be “that good” yet, but you will be.  It just takes dedication.

Getting to #1 isn’t an end in itself.  It’s a lifelong commitment to learning and practicing what you’ve learned.  We may be good, but we can also be better.  Let’s remember that as we take on projects for the new year.  After all, you don’t want to be knocked out when you least expect it.

Are you always confident about your work? What do you do to prevent your confidence from getting to your head?

Note: This post is the last installment of a 3-part series on “Better Web Working”.  Part 1 can be found here while part 2 is here.

Image by Andrzej Pobiedziński from Sxc.hu

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But there are times when becoming a freelancer seems like a regular 9-to-5 job.  This usually happens when we pull all-nighters, do repetitive work, and can’t seem to find peace of mind during a busy week.  It’s these times that make freelancing seem so much harder than traditional employment.  The good news is that there are ways to minimize the chances of this happening, or to avoid it altogether.

Don’t overbook yourself. While we all want to increase our income, there is such a thing as getting too much work.  If you fill every waking hour with projects, there won’t be room for any unexpected opportunities that will come along.  I generally don’t mind passing up on jobs that are similar to the ones I already have.  What I hate is the feeling that comes when an exciting project comes along but I have to decline working on it because I’ve already got my hands full.

To make sure that I have some allowance time for any new opportunities, I prepare my schedule approximately a month in advance.  This gives me an idea of what my workload is for each month and how much time I have left for new projects.  Whether it’s a month in advance or a week, it’s always a good idea to account for the time you’ll spend on your projects so that you’ll know how flexible you are.

Acquire different skills. It’s also important to have a variety of skills – not necessarily so you could provide several services, but so you could at least have an understanding of other related fields.  This is especially important if you plan to outsource some of the work, so you’ll know what to look for when hiring a specialist in a field that isn’t your forte.

Having different skills also allows you to take advantage of multiple income streams.  You can sell additional services to existing clients and have more variety in the kind of work you do.

Stay small. What I love about solo freelancing is that it’s a small operation.  While you can still delegate to others, but the main work comes from you.  This makes it easy to adapt to changes in the industry, customized requests from your clients, Why is it easier?  Because most of what you’re changing is yourself and your own processes.  37Signals says the same thing about app development, but I think it applies to freelancers as well.

Less mass lets you change direction quickly. You can react and evolve. You can focus on the good ideas and drop the bad ones. You can listen and respond to your customers. You can integrate new technologies now instead of later. Source: “Getting Real” by 37Signals

True, you can still start a business, but know that the larger your business becomes, the harder it will be to maintain flexibility.

If the variety of your schedule and your work is what drew you to freelancing, you should do everything you can to maintain your flexibility.  By keeping your schedule a bit loose, learning new skills, and making yourself adaptable, you’re actually choosing to experience the freedoms that are often promised to freelancers everywhere.

How do you make sure your schedule is flexible?  How do you adapt to the changes in your career?

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I’m not the only freelancer who faces this kind of situation.  Freelancers are used to wearing different hats and providing a variety of services.  Odds are, you needed to do a bit of SEO on your own site.  Or you had to design your own site early in your career when you were low on capital.  The diverse tasks we need to accomplish often lead us to learning new skills which may be applied professionally.

But if you’ve designed a website that converts well, or started an SEO campaign that makes your site the first in a long line of search engine results, does that mean you should be a professional web designer or an SEO consultant?  To answer this big question, you need to ask yourself five simpler questions first.

What’s the point? In other words, “Why do you want to start this?”  The reason you have must be compelling enough to devote hours of your life into this new endeavor.  Is it something you’ve always wanted to try?  Is it your dream venture?  While this is often an awkward question, especially for creative types, you’ll need to identify the force that is driving you to do this type of work.  The answer to this question is what will drive you to keep going when times are tough.

How passionate are you? This is related to the previous question, except this is more about your degree of passion, rather than what’s fueling it.  How much do you want this new venture to succeed?  How serious are you about this particular field?  Before taking this on, you need to want it badly enough to invest your time and money in it.

Do you have the necessary skills? It’s one thing to see and appreciate a website’s design, but it’s a completely different matter to design one yourself.  The same could be said for practically any creative field.

This is why developing a sound portfolio is essential.  Potential clients want to know if you’ll be able to deliver the kind of services they need.  The act of putting together a portfolio, whether it’s for illustration, design, or writing, is a test to see if you’re ready to do professional work.

Even if you’re starting a venture where you’ll just be the manager and you’re going to hire others to do the work, you’ll need to educate yourself about the process and standards needed to produce quality work.  It’s not just about what looks good to you.  What’s more important is that you and your team can identify your clients’ needs and what you have to do to fulfill them.

If you absolutely want to take on this new venture, then go ahead and acquire the skills you need.  Of course, getting professional working knowledge takes a bit of time. It might even cost money if you want to purchase books, learning materials, or attend formal classes.  Just remember that you should never start something unless you’re sure you have the skills to accomplish it well.

How many hours will this add to your workweek? With every new client and business venture comes more working hours.  Before you add a new service or title under your name, you need to know that you’ll have time for it.  Do you have time to spare on new projects?  Do you have a system in place in case you receive an overwhelming amount of requests?

If you find that you’ll be short on work hours, either find a way to increase your productivity or delegate the less important tasks to others.

What’s your exit strategy? If your new venture doesn’t fare as well as you hoped, how will you get out of it?  Will you be able to sell it?  Or will you simply change your strategy?  Also, how do you quantify if it’s a success or not?

Although I’m glad that I was never in the position to opt for an exit strategy, it’s always an important part of my initial planning.  It allows me to have a Plan B if the venture doesn’t turn out to be as profitable or as worthwhile as I thought it would be.

How many freelancing ventures have you started?  What issues did you deal with and how did you deal with them?

Image by Adam Ciesielski from sxc.hu

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