PDF Viewers

The free Adobe Reader has been the de facto standard for viewing PDF files ever since it was introduced in 1993, but it has become bloated and vulnerable to malware attacks over the years. There are some free alternatives for viewing PDF files that are more streamlined and faster.

• Foxit PDF Reader is a lightweight PDF viewer for that is popular. (Windows)
• CoolPDF Reader is freeware that claims to be the smallest PDF reader available, at only 650kb. It can also convert PDF files to many different formats such as TXT, GIF, JPG and more. (Windows)
• PDF-XChange Viewer reads and edits PDF files for free. (Windows)
• Skim is an open-source PDF reader. (Mac)

Tools for Creating, Editing & Converting PDF Files

The good news is that just about every popular office application — including Microsoft Office 2007/2010, OpenOffice, Google Docs — now include built-in ways to save documents as PDF files. This means that many people no longer needs that expensive Adobe Acrobat license if all they need to do is create basic PDF files from documents. That said, there are also some useful standalone free tools for creating and editing PDF files:

• CutePDF Writer is my favorite free tool for creating PDF files outside of using the built-in PDF features of tools like Office and Google Docs. It installs a PDF printer that you send documents to in order to create them as PDF files. (Windows)
• PDF Creator creates PDF files for free, as well as converting them to other usable formats. (Windows)
• PrimoPDF is another free PDF writer for personal and commercial use. (Windows)
• HelloPDF converts PDF files to Microsoft Word document format, for free. (Windows)
• PDFill PDF Editor is the most robust free solution in this bunch, so don’t let its rather unimpressive website give you the wrong impression. It is chock full of features normally only found in premium PDF editors, such as the ability to merge files, convert files to multiple image formats, e-book options and more. (Windows)
• Skim, the open-source PDF reader I listed above, also includes some editing tools. (Mac)

e-Book Creation Tools

If you want to distribute your PDFs as e-books, you can use one of the free eBook publishing platforms.

• Stanza has a powerful e-book publishing solution for Windows and Mac.
• Calibre provides a publishing platform for Windows, Mac and even Linux.

Online PDF Tools

There are some free online tools that do the same things as the desktop tools listed above. Some let you edit PDF files, some convert them and others merge them. Here are some of the most popular solutions.

• PDFescape lets you create PDF files online; you don’t even need to register without even registering. However, if you do register (for free) then you can do other things such as save the PDF files online in your own secure account. There’s also a free PDF reader. You can create PDF files with up to 50 pages and up to 2 MB in size for free. Commercial use is acceptable, and there is no watermarked logo on any of the PDF pages. You can also password protect your PDF files.
• PDF to Word Convert PDF files to Word format with Nitro PDF’s online tool. The only catch is that it might take a little while to get the converted file.
• Nitro PDFHammer allows you to edit PDF files online and convert them to other formats.
• PDF2Word Online is another tool for converting PDF files to Word documents.
• Free OCR is a useful online service for extracting the text from PDF and image files. The one caveat is that it will only scan one-page PDF files or the first page of a multi-page PDF for free (although, of course, you could convert multiple page PDF files to images first, before uploading them to Free OCR).

Let us know your favorite free PDF tools in the comments.

Photo credit: cohdra

Backoffice

1. Invoice management

Freshbooks is still an excellent invoicing service, but there are some new and some improved invoicing apps in this space, such as:

• WinkBill
• SimplyBill
• WorkingPoint

You can also track expenses with:

• Expensify (see our review here)

And add functionality to your online invoicing:

• OfficeDrop (includes Freshbooks integration. See my review here)

Also check out Celine’s piece on managing your finances online. If you are looking for solutions for creating and managing contracts, check out Celine’s roundup of contract resources. You may also want to check out Outright, a bookkeeping and tax prep tool that Scott reviewed.

2. Time tracking

Need to get a handle on how much time you’ve spent on a particular project or task? There are apps for that — some standalone, some that integrate with your invoicing systems, and some like Where is My Time that help you to analyze how the time flew by and how productive you were during that time. Here are some others:

• Klok
• BubbleTimer
• toggl
• Paymo (tracking with invoicing)
• Intervals (plus task and project management)
• RescueTime (with time management and project tracking. See our review here.)

And in the time-, cash- and distance-tracking category, take a peek at 1DayLater (see our review here).

3. Social CRM

Here are some startups that provide useful Social CRM products:

• BatchBlue
• SugarCRM

For quick contact information exchange, I love the Poken social business card and am so disappointed that they aren’t taking off like I think they should. I wear my cute skull Poken at every conference I go to but have yet to get “poked” unless Poken is a conference sponsor.

I’m also keen on Bump for the iPhone and Android, and also covered some other contact sharing apps in this roundup: DropCard, Rmbrme, BeamMe, ShareCard, SnapDat.

At SXSW, I was given a very impressive demo of relationship management tool Gist (see our review here) that promised a lot, though I have yet to incorporate it into my daily work.

4. RSS Reader

I don’t know about you, but I’m over RSS readers. But to be fair to those who have yet to discover the social firehose, you could go with the ever-popular Google Reader and the novelty of Snackr, which puts a little ticker at the bottom of your computer screen for passive, almost subliminal consumption of your feeds.

And here are a few other popular feed readers:

• Filtrbox (see my initial review here)
• Netvibes (this is really more of a “build your own landing page” service that incorporates feed reading features)
• Feedly (a similar landing page service)

For saving articles to read later, I currently use a combination of Delicious, Instapaper, and “favoriting” tweets containing links on Twitter.

Communications

5. Email management Social communications management

I have changed the heading of this section because I find that my communications are no longer mainly taking place through email, and are increasingly moving into my social networks.

While I am trying to move away from Gmail and start using email management tool PostBox again (its attachment management tools make it a compelling option for me), I am also looking out other social communications management systems and apps.

I was panicked to find Threadsy — the intriguing integrated communications client that you could use to see your email, social networks, and Twitter in a single place — under “re-construction” but have signed up to see what is happening with the app.

You might also like to check out a few email productivity add-ons we’ve reviewed, such as Xobni, Rapportive and MailBrowser.

6. Calls, Conferencing and Instant Messaging

Right now, my company has been moving away from Skype. Although we all love the app, it seems to drops our calls almost constantly now. We are moving back to the old-fashioned telephone for calls, while for conferencing we have been using FreeConference.com.

Here are a few phone conferencing and webinar-style conferencing systems that I also use:

• Calliflower
• DimDim
• GoToMeeting

Note that I didn’t include WebEx in the list. I am convinced that the company, which once dominated this space, has had a hard time keeping pace with the more nimble startups.

One other phone-related service that my company is trying is eVoice, because we need a virtual PBX system that can accommodate our UK office as well as multiple U.S. locations. Unfortunately,  I don’t have enough experience with it yet to tell you how it is working for us. Stay tuned.

Work Process

7. Project management

My company first used Basecamp for project management before switching to 5pm. Today, I’m seriously checking out glasscubes as it provides project management together with collaborative space. It is much lighter on the project management side — it’s really just a task management  app — but I’m getting a feel for the company’s interesting take on how virtual groups can work better together. More on that soon, too.

Just for giggles and grins, check out my old post about this topic: “Project Management, Collaboration and How Our Brains Work.”

8. Calendars and Schedules

I’m excited about the web-based services that allow me to give out a link to my calendar — or just a portion of my calendar — so  people can get on my schedule. But as my post about a scheduling bungle at SXSW due to system time zone issues, I know that there is still no single tool that “does it all.”

Still, here is a quick rundown of a few tools I’m still using or trying out:

• TimeBridge and their Meetwith.me feature
• TimeDriver
• Tungle
• ScheduleOnce

9. Cloud-based collaboration/document sharing

While I still use Google Docs, some fundamental integration issues are making me look elsewhere. As I mentioned earlier, my company is currently experimenting with glasscubes.

Here are a few others:

• iWork.com (from Apple)
• Zoho
• Colaab (see our review here)
• Backboard (useful for feedback on docs and files)

And I know you’re going to think this is kooky, but the 2.0 version of Spinscape combines mind mapping principles and collaborative communications in a way that is quite compelling to me.

10. File storage/backup/sync

Take a look at SugarSync. It provides backup, file sync and file sharing “on-the-go” on any Mac, PC or mobile device (check out my review here). Here are some other useful options:

• DropBox
• Box.net
• Mozy

A newbie in the “active backup” and file storage space is Soonr, which also has Mac, PC and mobile capabilities.

What are some of the must-have applications you’ve found invaluable in your own web work?

stock.xchng images by johnnyberg, gun, toutouke

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution

These various online spaces — social networks, company wikis, personal blogs, professional web sites and so on — become online repositories of our personalities. And text is crucial to all of them. Spelling errors, senseless sentences, structureless content and ill-thought-out arguments are just a few of the technicalities that will undermine your credibility.

Don’t worry, this isn’t an article about the importance of your dictionary. It’s an article about the things you can and should do to build your credibility in a largely text-dependent online space. It’s basically the advice I wish I’d been given before I ever started writing stuff and sticking it up all over the web. These are just some of the things that every blogger, tweeter, article writer and emailer should know before they set fingers to keyboard.

1. Know what you’re talking about.

It’s tempting to see the web as fleeting. You post a blog post today, and in a month it’s forgotten, right? Perhaps. But it’s undoubtedly still buried somewhere on your blog, people will have linked to it, and it will still be available.

Oh, sure, you can remove offending content from the web in many cases. But taking an erroneous or controversial article offline is something any self-respecting publisher wants to avoid — it can raise difficult questions, make you look like you don’t stand behind what you say, and infer that you leap to conclusions and have trouble handling yourself in public. So it’s best to make sure you never publish something you regret later.

The key is to know what you’re talking about. If you have an opinion on something, but you don’t know the full story, find out. If you think you know the full story, find out more. Do your research. Look past the first page of results, look beyond online sources, and be creative about your searches. For example, make sure the search terms you’re using aren’t biasing the results you’re retrieving. And go into the past so that you can be sure you understand the history of the issue you’re talking about. Keep a list of those sources, so that you can reference them when you’re talking about the topic.

This research will undoubtedly provide you with new angles on whatever it is you want to say. Consider them — don’t just take the one that speaks to you, personally. Consider the broader context, and how your issue fits into a bigger picture. And if there’s a piece of the puzzle you can’t locate, be prepared to acknowledge that when you talk about this issue.

2. Know who you’re talking to.

Once you have something to say, you need to think about who you’re going to tell it to. Whether your audience is your family and friends or a group of rights activists, you need to think about what interests and appeals to them. If you’ve ever set up a filter so you could avoid “humorous” emails sent by a well-meaning friend or workmate, you’ll know how it feels to be inaccurately communicated to online. It’s annoying and frustrating.

Don’t make that mistake with your readers. Understand their expectations, their sensibilities and their limitations. Respect their desires and interests. Assess whether the thing you want to say has relevance for them. If it doesn’t, don’t bother communicating it.

3. Know how to say it.

You have a message, and you have an audience. All you need to do is put these things together, right?

It sounds simple enough — type something into your blog interface, run a spell check and publish! Draft an email, spellcheck and send! It’s true that communicating online doesn’t need to be hard, but it does need some care. There are a few basics that most of us writing online fail to achieve — things that will make your communications stand out. I’ll cover them in my next post.

This is the advice I’d give to someone who’d never used the web before. What advice would you give them?

Photo by stock.xchng user jimrhoda.

In a previous article, I listed finance as a major component of successful web working. The problem is that while you’re juggling work and household responsibilities it can be hard to find the time to keep your accounts in order.

The good news is that there are tools and strategies that you can use to manage your money more efficiently — you just need to know where to look.

Budgeting and Money Management

Budgeting and tracking expenses is one of the most basic skills anyone with an income should learn. Though it may sound daunting, there are apps available that can make the process easier, allowing you to track as you spend. Mint, Wesabe and PearBudget are examples of such apps.

Automating Bill Payments and Savings

If you have apps, web hosting and other online services that require a subscription, odds are you’re paying for them automatically. Each billing cycle you are charged via your PayPal account or credit card so you don’t waste any time having to pay for these services each month. The same principle can be applied to your bills and savings.

Most banks offer online banking, which can reduce the time you spend managing your money. You can do this by looking for automation opportunities offered by either your bank or service providers. This is easy for subscriptions with fixed monthly fees. If some of your utilities don’t charge a fixed amount, such as your water or electric provider, you can probably enroll in an automatic debit arrangement program that charges your account as the bills arrive.

By having this system, I don’t need to worry about whether bills are getting paid, nor do I spend time actually paying them. All it takes is one look at my transaction history for the month just to make sure that everything is running smoothly — but this never takes more than 10 minutes.

You can also apply automation to your savings and investments. For more information, check out Ramit Sethi’s guest post over at the 4-Hour Workweek blog, which explains the process clearly.

Your Salary / Fees

Even when you’ve been working for a while, it can be hard to estimate what your salary should be. This is where sites like PayScale and WageExchange can help. Basically, both sites ask you to complete a questionnaire based on your job details, education, location and cost of living.

With WageExchange, your profile is saved anonymously and you can search its database for the salary and benefits details of other members. WageExchange only covers a limited range of disciplines, although most of the those it does cover are web worker-friendly job types, such as “IT / Software Development professionals.”

PayScale, on the other hand, has more detailed data. You’ll receive a graphed report that shows you where your current salary falls among your industry’s standards. You can also answer more questionnaires that will allow you to evaluate job offers.

If you’re a freelancer, a salary site won’t really help; you’re better off with a rate calculator, such as the one offered by Freelance Switch.

Financial Planning

Though the above tools and techniques will help you get your finances in order, you still need to think about the long run. That’s where financial planning comes in. Tools like SimpliFi and ESPlanner Basic can help you create a sound financial plan without the added cost of hiring a professional planner.

Do you use any web tools to manage your money? Are there any you would recommend?

Photo by stock.xchng user vierdrie

As I start business planning, I usually find the problem is to work out specifically what I want to achieve. “I want to be able to make a living doing this” is a nice idea … but what’s “a living”? Whatever it is, I don’t usually expect I’ll be making it in the first month of operation — I need time to build a client base, secure contacts, sell my services, and complete some work. And that’s usually before I get paid.

All this can very quickly become overwhelming — sometimes to the point of paralysis. Rather than giving up, I’ve narrowed down three possible options that I pull out when I reach this point. These kick-start my planning and get me on the road to starting something new.

Option 1: Set a Dollar Goal

This is a fairly easy way to get started: set an income goal that you want to reach every month (or week, if you prefer). The only thing you really need in order to do this effectively is an idea of the rate you can charge, and/or a grasp of the size of the market for your offering.

Once you’ve decided that you’d like to generate an income of $x from this new venture each month, your planning can follow. How many hours you’ll need to work, or how many products you’ll need to sell, will be clear. You can start thinking about which prospects you’ll focus on first, how you’ll approach them, and, if necessary, how you’ll keep the rest of your business operating while you devote time to this new goal.

If you take the dollar goal approach, you’ll likely find yourself thinking that selling $x-worth of work to one client is going to be easier than selling portions of that sum to different clients — and that realization’s likely to affect your planning.

You might end up targeting clients with deeper pockets and more extensive needs; you might consider value-adding to your service with contractors’ offerings if this allows you to reach your sales targets more easily (though obviously this will see your costs increase too — you’ll need to factor that into your planning as well).

If you’re trying to sell larger-scale, more expensive projects, and you’re looking to make the selling process as easy as possible for the first few months, you might take a solution you’ve already provided to one client and offer it to similar businesses — probably not competing businesses — in that industry, or look to repurpose that solution to other industries and operations.

On the other hand, if you don’t charge very much per unit of product or work, taking this planning approach may see you dissecting on your market very closely, breaking the major prospects up on the basis of sales potential. It may also encourage you to look at other industries or niches that you haven’t considered before, but which may contribute to your pool of prospects at leach level of sales potential.

Option 2: Set a Sales Goal

This option may be better suited to those who are selling products, or small service units rather than large multi-phase projects or ongoing consulting work. Using this process, you use your knowledge of the market size and demand levels to set a realistic goal for the number of sales you want to make in a month or week.

If yours is a service offering, this approach may still be handy — especially if your objective is to put yourself out there as much as possible, and get a number of clients on your list quickly. Perhaps you’ll develop an introductory offer that’ll take a day or half-day per client, and sell that to as many new clients as you can, with a view to on- and up-selling additional services once you’ve trialled the client and they’ve trialled you.

Setting a sales goal is a good way to ensure you’re giving your new offering a lot of exposure in the right circles — circles that may well expand as you seek more and more buyers to meet your monthly sales quota. So long as you have a minimum amount you’ll accept for your offering, this approach should go hand-in-hand with some assurance of income, too.

Importantly, this option can give you a different business focus than a dollar goal. If sales volumes are your goal, you might focus on volume marketing, or, alternatively, pitching, in part at least, to large organisations that can buy multiples of your product.

This option may encourage you to formulate a more standardized offering that’s easily understood, has clear benefits, and is swiftly approved for purchase by your prospects. Or it might encourage you to try alternative sales channels, such as offering your service through agencies or consultancies, to give yourself the best chance of meeting those sales goals.

Option 3: Wing It

I know, I know: failing to plan is planning to fail. But I know quite a few people who have left uninspiring jobs for three-month contracts offered by friends, and have segued from those into other contracts, then others, finally settling into a happy, ongoing freelance scenario.

Others find their clients ask them more and more often for a particular service, and that service becomes part of their standard offering gradually, without them doing much about it, then, later, decide to take a more planned approach to turning that service into a commercialized part of their offering.

Winging it might be unadvisable, but it isn’t impossible. I think it happens more than we realize. This can be a flexible way to evolve the way you work, experiment within a market space, develop new skills, and expand (or focus) what you do. It can preclude you from feeling tied to particular industries or fields; it can mean that if you end up deciding to try something different, you do little to no mourning for the “closure” of your “business”.

Given the experiences of the people I know who have winged it, I think you really need a project in hand, as well as the obligatory financial buffer that’s big enough to cushion you for a decent amount of time if things don’t work out as you expect. I think you might also need self-assurance, faith/daring, and a resilient, positive outlook.

Finally, you may also need to be very good at what you do — to have the kind of renown that sees the right people calling you up to see if you’re available for a job. Although you can’t necessarily rely on these kinds of contacts, they do seem to be a gauge of the kind of demand that will put you on the firmest possible footing if you do decide to wing it.

Kick-start Your Plan

These are just a few starting points that I fall back on if I’m feeling overwhelmed by the planning process, but there are others. As you’re choosing between options, spend some time thinking about the ways in which each approach is likely to affect the way you approach your particular market with your particular offering, and how long it’s likely to be effective for you.

Consider how often you’ll review your progress, and how. I set a monthly goal, and review it at the end of each week, making the coming week’s plans accordingly.

Also have a think about how you’ll identify the point at which you need to up your goals, and how you’ll go about that, given that if you’re adding to an existing offering, expansion may well take your focus away from other parts of your business.

These are just three of my ways to kick-start my business planning. What’s your favorite way to get started?

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In this post, I’m going to list the standard things I provide every client. If any of these elements are missing, I find that someone walks away dissatisfied, be it the client or me. When present, they seem to allow things to progress fairly smoothly, although, as we all know, there’s no such thing as a sure thing.

Contract Document

Get it on paper. This is something I can’t stress enough, and something which still gets forgotten or overlooked so often it makes me doubt our capacity for learning as a species. If you need any evidence about the necessity of a contract document, look no further than the recent kerfuffle between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage over the CrunchPad/JooJoo device.

You don’t have to spend hours putting together a huge and complex contract before you start doing any work. At one firm I used to work with, we would issue proposals that included an abbreviated contract component. It wasn’t much, and it didn’t require a massive amount of time upfront when we weren’t yet getting paid, but it did ensure that clients felt the agreement was strong, and protected the interests of all parties.

Simple Mission/Objective Statement

The key to the document I’m talking about in this section is that it be simple. Make sure that you can express in plain language what it is the project is meant to achieve. Ensure that both you and your client agree on the wording, and agree on what it means before you set it in stone.

It will also help if this statement details a specific product or project endpoint that’s measurable. Otherwise, you might run into problems with an unknown quantity or an ambiguous endpoint that could result in a contract that drags on to a point where it isn’t really profitable for you to work on it any further.

Scheduled Check-Ins

Just like your significant other, your client is going to want you to check-in once in a while to make sure everything is still OK. It can become quite annoying, depending on the client, though you should always remember that the client is risking money on you as a contractor, so progress updates really are their due.

However, you can make it easier on yourself. At project outset, set up a regular schedule for progress updates, and hopefully that will curtail some of the unnecessary looking over the shoulder clients tend to do. It will also give you mini-goals to work towards between your larger milestones or deliverables, which should keep you on target.

Scope Change Documents

This isn’t strictly always necessary, but if it looks like the scope of the project is going to change, then it’s a definite must-have. I have a template of this type of document ready to go at project outset, in fact, because I end up using it so often, even though it only comes into play when the project you find yourself doing deviates from the one you set out to do.

As soon as you anticipate having to do more or different work than you and the client had agreed upon, the best thing for all involved is to provide them with a scope change document for approval before proceeding, unless you absolutely know that you have free reign. You’ll be protecting yourself from a whole heap of trouble, believe me.

Needs and Wants

Not every client will want all of the things I’ve listed here. In fact, a good many of them may try to talk you out of some of these. The fact remains that I think they’re necessities, and most clients will, too, once you actually use them. In the end, it’s all about making sure everyone involved gets what they want out of a project, not just what they think they want.

Do you agree with this list? Is there anything missing?

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You don’t have to limit your marketing and promotional efforts to content creation, though. Here are a few other ideas to help you get the word out about your business.

1. Create and maintain a high-quality, easy-to-use, self-explanatory web site.

Your web site works for you 24/7/365, so it’s important that it does a good job. It doesn’t need to be beautiful or showy. As a web designer, I would actually recommend clean and easy-to-use over pretty, fun or cute.

When thinking about your web site’s design and functionality, focus on answering these questions for your ideal visitor:

• What is this site about?
• What does this person/company do?
• How much does the service/product cost? How does the service/product work? What else do I need to know about this service/product?
• How can I sign up or purchase this service/product? How can I contact this person/company?
• Should I keep up with this person/company (through a blog, newsletter, regular email coupons/discounts, etc.)? If so, how do I sign up or follow the person/company?

Your site should quickly and obviously answer these questions so that visitors can find their way around your site easily and so that they take action as quickly and painlessly as possible.

2. Use a short and effective email signature.

Every time you send an email, it’s a chance to remind your followers and new contacts what you do. Take advantage of the opportunity. Don’t be spammy. Don’t overdo it. Just provide a concise message to jog their memory and get them to click over to your site every once in a while.

Here’s my signature.

Amber Singleton Riviere
http://www.ambersingleton.com/

I also like my friend Betsy’s.

Betsy Talbot | www.marriedwithluggage.com | Twitter @marriedwluggage

3. Be a guest on other video blogs, podcasts and radio shows.

Monitor places like Twitter, Blogger Linkup, and HARO for opportunities to be interviewed for video blogs, podcasts and radio shows. It’s a great way to expand your reach and get known for your expertise.

4. Invite others to be guests on your blog, video cast or podcast.

One of my best methods for networking actually revolves around guest posts, whether I’m inviting people to contribute to my site or offering content for their sites. It’s been a very effective way to generate interest around my business. It takes a lot of effort to keep up, but it’s worth every minute of it.

I offer guest posts regularly on my site (usually ten or more per month), and what’s great about it is that you usually get the added benefit of promotion to the person’s followers and audience.

5. Participate in online networking.

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are great places to meet new people and get the word out about you and your company or site. Also, be sure to follow and comment on other blogs that target your ideal customer or client. By participating in conversations surrounding your niche, you’ll become known as an expert and a valued source of information.

6. Run promotions and discounts on your services periodically.

Getting potential customers and clients to take action and actually purchase your products or services can be tricky, but if you run occasional discounts, you’ll find customers coming out of the woodwork, and it’s a good way to get new prospects to test the waters with you and your company.

I offer a discount in each of my newsletter issues, as well as occasional discounts on Facebook and Twitter. On that note, running contests can also be a good way to get attention for you and your business, especially on Twitter.

Promoting a business doesn’t always have to be difficult. The key, though, is consistency.  Select the methods that work best for you and then stick with them. Do them on a regular basis, even if you’re not seeing immediate results. It takes some time to gain traction, but if you’re persistent, you’ll eventually hit the tipping point and business will start to snowball.

What other easy ways do you promote your business?

Image from Flickr by Slack pics

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So what are these not-very-obvious challenges? These are the main hurdles I’ve faced and the tactics I used to get past them. But I’d also love to hear about how you’ve overcome self-directed work pitfalls in the comments.

Secret #1: Stay on Course

When you’re thinking in broad terms about starting your own business, your direction seems clear. You’re thinking “I’m going to develop and sell an app that…” or “I’m going to make designing marketing collateral my life!” and everything seems very clear cut.

Keep in mind, though, that no matter how driven you feel in those early days, as the weeks press on and you’re bogged down actually doing whatever it is you set out to achieve, you may find it increasingly hard to maintain momentum and direction. When you work for someone else, you have their demands to spur you onwards; when you work for yourself, you very swiftly become aware that you’re the only thing keeping you at your desk.

“Oh,” you say, “but I have a mortgage/child/holiday to finance. That’ll motivate me.” And it’s true … to a degree. But in reality, you could meet those expenses doing anything — you don’t have to meet them by working for yourself.

How will you maintain direction when you realize the only person keeping your train on the rails is yourself, and the journey could take a while? My preferred approach is not to let myself be daunted by the bigger picture: keep focused on the small steps, the little goals, and leave the bigger-picture-progress reviews for some other time — usually one I’ve set aside specifically  for longer-terms planning.

Secret #2: Overcome the Sense of Disconnection

Moving from a team work environment to a solo environment can be a big culture shock. Above all, as we’ve heard here many times, it can leave you with a pervasive sense of isolation. But as a corollary, you may feel as if you’re swimming around in your own little pond, rather than making a contribution to a larger objective. Instead of seeing yourself as a valuable part of a team, you can start to see yourself as being disconnected from the working world. And that’s all before you’ve had your morning coffee!

Over time, the WWD team has discussed a range of approaches to overcoming that sense of disconnection. I find that it helps to be strongly self-reliant, and to believe firmly in what you’re doing.

Developing a sense of self-reliance takes time, but it’s vital. I find that consciously focusing on my successes, reminding myself of my capabilities, seeking feedback on my output from clients, and keeping an eye firmly fixed on my plans for the future of my work are good ways to counter that feeling that I’m not contributing in the traditional way — that I’m not part of a team working toward a bigger goal.

These tactics also help to remind me of the reasons why I’m not working in an office for someone else, which reinforces my belief in what I do. And that gives me impetus to keep at it.

Secret #3: Learn to Live in Exile

As an individual trying to establish yourself in a new place within your industry, or within a whole new industry, town, field, or market space, you can find yourself feeling as if you’re on the outside of something, trying to get in. When you look at the big, shiny offices (or big shiny web sites) of the clients you want to land, you may well start to see an impervious wall rather than possibilities for opening doors.

The sense of exile can easily be exacerbated in the online space, as you fight to be heard above the hubbub of communication, or find yourself at the mercy of technology and distance. Is anyone listening? Does anyone even know who you are?

For some, the sense of exile won’t be a huge deal — many people who choose to do their own thing already prefer to fly solo. But there are others who feel it keenly. When I’m in that boat, I like to spend some time thinking about my client list and planning ways to either expand it or mine it further. I may also do something that I can only do because I’m not employed by someone else: take a few hours off at a moment’s notice, or change tasks to something that’s more fun or interesting, for example. This helps remind me of the positive aspects of exile, and makes it easier to live with the tougher elements.

Secret #4: Take Control

When you work for someone else, although you may be able to plan your time and tasks yourself, your work will, in some part at least, be dictated by someone else. The fact that employees don’t have complete control over their work is the reason for a lot of workplace whining, and in some workplaces this shared experience of restricted power is a crucial part of the glue that builds community and relationships among staff.

When you work for yourself, there comes a day when you realize that you need to take control of, and responsibility for, everything that happens in your work. By “work”, I mean work day, work tasks, work product, work planning, work schedule, work direction, work achievements, work partners … the list goes on. By “everything”, I mean everything.

Your business will thrive or fail on your efforts. It can be hard to get your heard around this, but you must. Accepting it — and full responsibility for whatever happens — doesn’t necessarily mean you need to become an overly driven, sales-focused bulldozer of a business owner overnight. What it does mean is that when you decide to take Friday off and go away for an impromptu long weekend, you’ll make sure you know — and are comfortable with — what that means for your workload, your clients, and your budget.

Accepting responsibility and taking control are actually great motivators that can help you overcome several of the challenges we’ve already covered, including disconnection and maintaining direction, as well as helping boost that good, old-fashioned key to success: motivation.

Secret #5: Offer, Don’t Wait to Be Asked

In a company workplace, you’ll usually have a nicely defined job with clearcut responsibilities. When your colleagues need something done that’s in your line of work, they’ll come to you and ask, or have your boss put it on your task list.

But if you’re on your own, that expectation needs to shift. Instead of having people come to you, you’ll need to offer yourself to people. You can call this “selling yourself” if you like; I prefer to think of it as offering my services. The point is that when you work for yourself, the focus will likely move from receiving work requests to actively creating work. Moreover, you probably won’t be eager to take just any work at all; you’ll want the right kind of work that suits your business direction, your capabilities and interests, and your goals.

When I started working entirely for myself, I quickly realized that any slowdown in my offers to potential clients would coincide with an increased sense of disconnection and exile, and sometimes, a questioning of my direction. The more I work to match my offers to clients’ needs, the more focused, involved, and valued I feel. Offers lead to work, which leads (in most cases!) to success — the one thing every business owner desires.

These are the five key challenges I’ve experienced since I’ve been working for myself. What challenges have you faced, and how did you overcome them?

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One of the advantages of being a web worker is not having to worry about travel on days like today, but if you have colleagues who are being forced to temporarily join our ranks, why not send them our e-book, “Web Work 101: How to Escape the Cubicle.” Written by the WWD team, it’s chock full of hints and tips for web working newbies, covering topics like what apps to use, what to do if hardware fails, and maintaining work/life balance — and best of all, it’s free. You never know, it might just encourage them to become a web worker full-time.

Photo credit: Flickr user cooljinny http://www.flickr.com/photos/11600215@N02/ / CC BY 2.0

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Unfortunately, though, the financial questions are often dismissed with the cursory thought: “It’ll be cheaper because I won’t have to travel.”

Even if you’re lucky enough to work for a company that will pay to set up your remote office, you’ll still need to take a range of other likely costs into account. So while you may save money, you may not save as much as you think.

It might be worth jotting down a simple budget to work out what the financial implications of working from home may be. If you’re already working remotely, this can be a good way to find aspects of your arrangement that are costing you more than they should.

The Budget

Here’s an example budget that I used to assess how much I’d benefit (or otherwise!) by working remotely. No, it doesn’t itemize my improved quality of life and decreased road rage. If I decided that I was going to use the extra hours in my day to do paid work, though — for example, by taking freelance projects while holding a paid job — I could certainly add those figures in.

I’m going to talk you through my own example, which will hopefully alert you to some of the unexpected elements of your own life that may impact on the cost-effectiveness of your decision to work remotely.

Travel

When I worked in the city, I caught buses, trains and trams, and spent around $275 AUD ($240) a month on public transport.

Working remotely, I travel to the city less often, but each time I do, I drive to the station, because the public transport in my local area is only available at peak times. The costs total around $34.75 AUD per trip.

That running figure was calculated using an average cents-per-kilometer cost provided on my local motoring association web site for a car like mine. On a monthly basis, assuming I go into the city six times, I now spend around $208.50 AUD on work travel.

I used to drive to the station about twice a week when I worked in the city, so the actual cost of work travel for me back then was actually around $553 AUD a month. As it turns out, I am making quite a saving on travel by working from home. Woo! I’m off to a good start.

Eating Out

I’ve heard many people comment that if they worked from home, they’d save significantly on eating out, because they wouldn’t have to buy lunch from a cafe every day. Of course, you don’t have to buy lunch from a cafe if you work on site — you can bring lunch from home. As an office worker, I spent more on coffees and snacks than lunch — around $30 AUD a week on average.

As a remote worker, I still find myself in cafes very often — each time I work away from my home office now, I’ll undoubtedly wind up doing work in a cafe, which costs me, at a minimum, the price of a coffee and something to eat. Frequently, I’ll meet up with other people socially for lunch or a drink when I travel to town, so I might end up spending $50 on food and drinks in an away-from-home day.

As a consequence, the $30 or so a week I used to spend on eating out when I worked in an office hasn’t decreased — it’s risen.

Gym

Some of my colleagues complain that they have to join a gym because there aren’t enough daylight hours after work in which to exercise. If they worked remotely, they reason, they’d be able to fit more into their day — including exercise outside a gym. And then they could save around $50 a month!

This may be true … provided you can find the time during the day to exercise. You may find you miss the gym equipment enough to join a gym close to home, which may negate some or all of the savings you expected to make.

I didn’t think my cost-free roadside running regime would be affected at all by working from home — until I bought a mountain bike to ride in the extra hours after work, which cost and additional $500 AUD.

Time

If you’re traveling for three or more hours each day just to get to your place of work, you’ll likely enjoy the extra time you have if you work from home. Those who commute know it’s not just the time you spend commuting that’s a problem — its the fact that it tires you before you get a chance to start anything else.

If you’re planning to obtain paid work to fill these extra hours, you might want to reduce your work-from-home expenses by the net income you’ll earn in that time.

Take care, though: it’s easy to overestimate this additional time you’ll have. Though you might be able to do a couple of hours of extra work here and there, you may not have the oceans of extra time you imagined.

Another pitfall, if you’re starting your own business, is to imagine that you’ll have three or more additional chargeable hours in every single day. If you’re starting a business, you’ll likely spend a lot of time initially on legwork, which may not add directly to your bottom line.

Technology

While some of us can work with nothing more than a laptop and a chair, if you’re taking your remote working seriously, you’ll probably find that you need to obtain new technology.

Computer, phone and software upgrades can leave you out of pocket. In the first month of working purely from home I spent $180 AUD on unexpected but necessary software purchases alone.

Of course, technology also includes connectivity. If you work from home, you may need to upgrade your home communications service to a business account, which will undoubtedly come at a higher price. I’ve included the upgrade cost in my budget. You may also decide to use any number of paid web apps — security, storage, and so on — that add unanticipated dollars to your weekly outgoings.

When I started working from home, we had to upgrade our wireless Internet connection, and, since that hasn’t made an appreciable difference, we’re now considering paying to have a cable connection put in — not cheap. So far, the trenching has cost us $250. I’ve put this, plus the one-off software purchase, in my budget.

Home Office

The other expense you may not have considered is your home office — you have a chair and table, and think that’s all you’ll need. But you may find over time that you need a better chair, ergonomic devices such as wrist pads and foot rests, lamps, shelves, filing cabinets, reference materials — the list goes on. A few weeks after I started working full-time from home, neck and back pain indicated that I needed to upgrade my desk chair — at a one-off cost of $270 AUD.

As well as the one-offs, there are also ongoing costs like paper, postage, couriers, office supplies and so on. Make sure you include those in your budget, no matter how small the cost might be.

Believe me: These items add up. I left my nice cushy office job expecting to save money, and swiftly found that working from home wasn’t nearly as cheap as I’d expected. As you can see, working from home saves me just $154.50 AUD per month — I was definitely expecting to save more than that when I first considered it. Moreover, the unexpected expenses that have cropped up so far have totaled a whopping $1,200 AUD. Even if I hadn’t bought my mountain bike, I’d still be $600 worse off than if I’d stayed working on-site.

What About Tax?

It’s likely I’ll be able to claim many of these expenses as tax deductions, which is great news. Of course, as any business owner knows, it’s best to keep the expenses low in the first place, rather than rationalizing wild spending with the possibility of reduced taxation.

I’ve included a column in my budget to itemize my tax deductions, and as you can see, though I’m doing OK here, the deductions don’t come anywhere near my total expenditure. Traveling to and from client meetings isn’t a deduction in my country; nor are the coffees I purchase while working in city cafes. These costs, and the price of my expensive bike, come straight out of my pocket.

As you can see, before you make the leap — and start planning what you’ll do with all the money you’ll save by working from home — it’s worthwhile to do some quick sums to make sure your expectations are reasonable. Of course, now that I know what I’m spending, I can also think about ways to reduce my non-deductible expenses if I wish.

If you’re thinking about making the leap to web work, check out our free “Web Work 101: How to Escape the Cubicle” e-book.

How has working remotely affected your budget? What unexpected outlays did you face in establishing your work-from-home lifestyle?

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1. Get a professional email address. Most clients aren’t likely to take you seriously if you are using an address that contains “hotmama23,” “sexydude12,” “ilovemykittycat,” or anything similar. Your best option is something like yourname@yourdomain.com, or in a pinch, you can use some variation of your full name on Gmail (avoid Hotmail, AOL, and other consumer services that have ever targeted newbie internet users).
2. Have a professional web site. Your web site doesn’t need to be complex or extensive, but you need to have something for potential clients to see, and having a simple, professional site lends credibility to your services. At the minimum, it should have your contact information and an overview of your services presented in a professional manner. If you have a little more time to devote to your web site, a portfolio page with examples of your work and a blog where you can highlight your professional expertise are great additions. Some of the popular blogging platforms are a good choice to act as a content management system for your web site, and most of them can be used with no programming or design work required. I also recommend having your professional web site at the same domain as your email, which should ideally be something like businessname.com or yourfullname.com.
3. Always use clear, concise, professional communications. The most important thing that you can do to have better communications is to carefully proofread every client email. I have a hard time taking someone seriously if their email is littered with mistakes. Your initial communications should be extremely professional with no SMS abbreviations, no smiley faces, no profanity and no other unprofessional language. You can start to relax some of these rules as you get more familiar with your clients. You should also remember that people are busy, so concise and clear communications with clients are important. I always include a descriptive subject line and try to keep my emails as short as possible. Another tip is to put any really critical information in the first couple of lines, along with any requests that you are making of the client. The harsh reality is that if your email is long, most people will start skimming after they get the gist, and any critical information that is buried near the end is more likely to be missed.
4. Dress like a professional. When working from home, pajamas and sweatpants are perfectly acceptable, but when you are meeting with new clients, you need to look like a professional. The definition of professional varies depending on the location and industry; for example, a meeting at a Silicon Valley startup is going to be less formal than a meeting at a financial institution in New York or London. Oregon, where I am based, tends to be much more informal, so I can easily get away with khakis and a nice shirt in most situations. When in doubt, err on the side of being slightly over-dressed rather than appearing under-dressed. Will’s recent post has more tips for surviving client site visits.
5. Use social media wisely. Take a few minutes to look at what your client sees if they search for you on Twitter, forums or other social web sites. Is your client going to see a professional that they can respect? I’m not suggesting that every post be professional. I spend quite a bit of time talking about interesting goings-on in Portland, food and other non-work topics, and I encourage you to show your full range of personality. However, if you are bashing your clients, are often negative or complaining, or are engaging in questionable activities, this can reflect on your professionalism as a freelancer. This is one of those gray areas where you have to balance how you want to behave online with how you want people to see you in your professional career.

These are my top five tips for making a good first impression as a freelancer. What are your tips for making a professional impression, or what are your pet peeves for unprofessional first impressions?

Photo by Flickr user yngrich, used under Creative Commons.

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Those in corporate jobs that come with a daily commute get a few chapters’ worth of advice on how to convince the boss to let you work from home. The authors only address this for a small part of the book, so if this is important to you it may be better to borrow the book from your library. It probably would have been helpful to split the book into two: one for corporate employees looking to work from home, and another for those who want their own businesses. The two groups have different needs and requirements, and Lister and Harnish concentrate more on the latter in this book.

The book gives you most of the information you need to figure out the whole “work from home” thing. Unfortunately, the book barely touches upon how to deal with health benefits, a big concern for many self-employed folks. The contracts and proposals chapter are also lacking detail.

If you’re a regular WWD reader or already work from home, you probably won’t get a lot from this book, unless you’re thinking about switching gears and starting your own business. But if you’re thinking about becoming a web worker, “Undress for Success” is a well-rounded beginner’s resource. Visit the book’s companion site at undress4success.com.

What tips do you have for people looking to dive into web working?

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Why Bother

One of the most important reasons to separate your business expenses from any personal money is that you can often write off business expenses as deductions come tax season. Just what you can write off depends on whether you’re self employed or not, but there are some deductions available to employees who telecommute, too. A tax preparer can help you find which deductions apply to you — but he or she is going to want to know what money you spent over the course of the last year.

It’s also important to have a good record of your expenses. In some cases, you may find that an employer or client is already set up to reimburse expenses. And if you find that certain expenses are getting out of hand — perhaps you’ve been asked to travel into the office more than you originally agreed to — you may be able to convince an employer or client that reimbursing you is the right thing to do.

Lastly, it’s easy for expenses to get out of hand if you don’t keep a close eye on them. Even being able to budget for work expenses you have to pay out of pocket can make the process of managing your personal finances a lot easier.

The Nuts and Bolts

How you choose to separate out your work expenses from your personal budget depends on what’s easiest for you. Personally, I found that since I’m self-employed, the easiest option was to open a separate business account at my bank — all my work expenses are paid out of that account and all of my income goes into it. From there, I cut myself a pay check into my personal account as I need to.

You don’t necessarily need a separate checking account for your work expenses, especially if most of your income comes from one source. In that case, something as simple as creating a new category in whatever system you use to manage your money is enough. As long as you can quickly sort out which expenses where for work and which were personal, the exact method doesn’t matter. Most software makes categorization easy. Some even allow you to create rules to automatically categorize certain expenses as work-related.

Another alternative is to use an expense-tracking tool. It can be a little harder to manage the record keeping with this approach, but it does provide a simple solution for many people.

How do you keep track of your expenses?

Image by Flickr user shanechambers

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We all diligently plan ahead, so we allow plenty of time for our colleague to pull together the necessary input to our project. We go out of our way to establish some kind of understanding and rapport. We explain the timeframes and constraints of the project so they know where we’re coming from. And we try to make our follow-up requests as polite and professional as possible.

To no avail, sadly. As the deadline approaches, we find we’re still waiting on that input they promised three weeks ago. Are they avoiding us? Do they think that because we’re not on the other side of the partition that they can ignore our project? Are they using distance as an excuse to relegate our project to the bottom of their to-do list?

It can be a frustrating scenario. Resolving these kinds of problems certainly isn’t rocket science but, in the heat of the frustrating moment, it can be easy to act in haste, rather than in your usually impeccably professional manner. Well, that’s how it is for me, anyway. Here’s a little process I use to ensure that I handle this kind of annoyance appropriately.

Step 1: Call.

Forget email, text and IM. Just call your contact. If you can’t get onto them, leave a message. Speak to their PA. And try them later the same day, or the next day.

If they don’t get back to you within what you deem to be a reasonable timeframe, you’ll have to identify some other way to obtain the input you need. I usually do this around the time I first get the sense that my contact’s not going to deliver, just in case. It’s better to have a backup than nothing.

Step 2: Follow up.

Follow up your call with an email, IM or text. Explain what you need and, if you’re getting edgy about, or are already past, the delivery deadline, identify the steps you’ll take if you don’t hear from the person.

This step — advising the person of what you’ll do if you don’t hear from them — is essential. You must give the contact fair warning about the consequences of their inaction, and allow time for them to get back to you. Even if it’s just a call to admit they can’t deliver what they promised, it’s essential that you give your colleague that opportunity. If they don’t take it, that’s their choice — but you need to do the right thing.

Obviously, you may need to discuss your contingency plans with other team members in order to arrive at a suitable outcome for the project. In some cases, you may effectively need to pull rank — speak to someone higher up in the chain of command — to ensure you can have the task delegated to another individual, or simply to have pressure applied to your colleague from above.

Step 3: Deploy Plan B.

If the contact still hasn’t produced the work, or responded to you, it’s time to deploy Plan B: unleash the consequences you described in your follow-up message.

In my experience, tasks are very rarely re-delegated to another team member. Usually, my project timelines have been extended to allow the original delegate to complete the task or — gasp! — if I’m capable, I’m asked to pick up the slack and do it myself.

Regardless of what the contingency plan is, it’s courteous and professional to let your colleague know that you’ve decided to implement it. That way, you can avoid the potential for doubling up on work, since you both know where you stand, what the next steps are, and who’s taking responsibility for producing the input.

Contingency Planning Pays Off

The key point here for those working in a team is: don’t go it alone. It’s important in such circumstances to let your team members know early if you’re having trouble obtaining inputs from one person. This ensures you can do your contingency planning ahead of time, and that you feel supported in your efforts to do your job.

If you’re working alone, not in a team, and you can’t obtain an answer that you need — such as client approval to proceed on a new project — your contingency plans may include devising strategies to shift the potential project to the backburner without upsetting the client or undermining your income for the month, and sourcing a new client or project with which to replace this one.

This is the way I usually approach the issues of avoidance that seem to crop up in the world of web work. How do you handle such situations?

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We might like to think we know it all, and many of us spend innumerable hours reading, researching and learning so that we do actually know a heck of a lot. But for all of us, there are times when things get hairy — times when we wrestle with technology and struggle to get even the (apparently) simplest things done. Although web workers may not like to admit it, we too experience technical challenges from time to time.

When I think about the people I know who aren’t tech-savvy, their responses to tech problems seem to encompass these options:

1. Employ strong language in questioning the piece of technology’s intentions.
2. Strike the device in use, or one of its peripherals.
3. Ask “what kind of idiot designed this thing.”
4. Call offspring or partners for advice.
5. Complain to friends.
6. Hack an improbable and unproductive workaround at best; give up at worst.

Fortunately, as web workers, we don’t have to resort to such tactics. We have access to a veritable treasure trove of possible solutions to technical problems, courtesy of the web and in-the-know contacts. So what techniques do we use to solve tech issues? Here, in no particular order, are my usual ports of call when my knowledge of technology falls short.

• Check Preferences. If I’m having trouble using a service or piece of software, my first thought is that I must have specified something incorrectly in my preferences for the service. So I check my preferences — for the service itself or for the piece of functionality that I’m trying to use — to ensure I haven’t missed some crucial checkbox that will enable the facility I need.
• Check the Help files. Yes, I do read the Help files for software, services, and so on. If I’m having trouble using a device, I’ll read its instruction manual. In my experience, much of the proprietary software products and physical devices I use offer reasonably helpful Help and instructional content, while few online services do. I use the Help search tools (which often leave much to be desired) as well as browsing the contents listings. Despite the failings of many service’s Help files, I frequently find the answers to my questions using this approach.
• Check development blogs and service updates. The developers of some services contribute to company blogs or publish service development updates to some part of the organization’s web site. These pages can be fabulous sources of to-the-minute information on functionality issues, service problems and bugs. More than once I’ve found the answers to my problems via these sources — most recently, for diagnosing issues with web hosting and RSS services.
• Search the web. If I can’t find what I need in the service’s Help files, I usually search online to see if anyone’s discussed the feature or issue I’m facing. Even if I can’t find a precise phrase match for my issue, some quick searching will usually lead me in a roundabout way to a solution to my problem — someone will have mentioned it as they’ve developed a separate service, for example, which will give me an inside hint about what I need to look for next.
• Ask a question in Help forums. Some services have active, passionate Help forums, which can be a real boon. I remember the first time I used NeoOffice/J and had a problem. I asked a support question in what were the small hours for those in the USA, and expected to wait days for a reply, if indeed one might ever come. But the reply came inside ten minutes, and it worked. Help forums can be a great way to get useful assistance from real people who understand both the service you’re using and how it feels to be stuck with a problem.
• Phone a friend. If I know someone who deals with the service I’m using, I may contact them to ask them if they’re familiar with the functionality I’m wrestling with, or have any advice to help me solve it. But, as a remote worker, I tend to use this option only as a last resort, primarily because my contacts are busy and may not be able to help me as quickly as I’ll be able to help myself.

These are the basic tactics I use to overcome any … ahem … “technology challenges” I may face in the course of my work. What do you do to solve the technology problems that inevitably crop up for web workers?

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While the prospect of working from home (or maybe by a swimming pool, or by a beach hut somewhere exotic) sounds very enticing, it can also bring its challenges. How do you stay motivated when you’re not surrounded by your colleagues? What do you do if a critical piece of hardware fails? What are the best applications to use to stay productive? How do you make sure that you maintain good work/life balance?

This 33-page e-book should help answer those questions. It contains advice on what tools you need to use; what traits successful web workers have; how to set up your home office; planning and budgeting; how to avoid loneliness; and much, much more. If you’re a new web worker, or are thinking about becoming one, it’s worth checking out — download it here.

Let us know what you think of “Web Work 101: How to Escape the Cubicle” in the comments.

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