Getting Serious & Freelancing
Last night I spoke at Refresh-DC about “Getting serious with freelancing”. My presentation was really a discussion on the transition from side-work to serious-work as a freelancer, touching on everything from contracts and invoicing to getting clients and growing a portfolio. I also touched on how to start freelancing, get more clients, and obtain larger projects.
Thanks to everyone who came out. Here are the slides for those interested:
http://nclud.com/presentation/refresh_022108.pdf
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Categories: business, freelance, refresh
- February 22nd, 2008
- 14comments
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Martin -
Thanks so much for a great talk. Especially liked your focus on opportunity costs.
Victoria
it was a great talk, martin, and I know that Ali and I both got a lot out of it, as did a lot of other people I talked to.
My one question has to do with your distinction between the professionality of invoices as opposed to contracts. If it makes you look like an agency to prepare a proper invoice, and clue ts treat you more professionally as a result, why don’t contracts have the same effect? Few agencies would do work of any substance without a signed contract in hand, so why should a freelancer?
Jackson, that is a great question. One that a few people actually brought up after the presentation. I wish I had a little more time to discuss some of these points. I never really even got to touch on the proposal process or engaging with a client — where I think this topic falls.
I personally believe too many “start-ups” and too many “freelances” spend a majority of their early investment or earnings on unnecessary legal costs. But that is really here nor there. I just think that the contract creation and discussion takes up valuable personal time and time engaging with the client — most of us as early freelancing are not really in a position to be dictating too much to the client.
I believe that a very professional proposal is where you accomplish the objective you are after. nclud does actually use contracts and I agree that most agencies or professional freelances do and probably should. But when you are new to the game or dealing with very short scheduled projects with even shorter budgets — a formal proposal with some “legal jargon” mixed in can do the trick. You really should be focusing on the “terms” more so than anything else.
A few one-liners that are as simple as something like the statement below can often times do the trick:
“Upon receipt of final payment, all deliverables, original files and creative work along with full ownership and intellectual property rights will be given over to the client.”
It is funny actually. The very small clients are scared away when you send them a 2 page legal contract and the very big clients always have to send it to the legal department for review (which can take weeks sometimes). We try and keep our documents like invoices, proposals and contracts much like our designs … clean, simple, elegant and useful.
[…] Interesting presentation by Martin Ringlein, co-founder of nclud. Spread the word! […]
Martin,
Sorry I missed your speaking engagement, school & work. Looking forward to the next event, hopefully we can link up?
Nice redesign BTW!
Cheers,
elias
Absolutely … I’ll be at the next refresh event for sure. And at SXSW of course!
Martin,
You did a great speaking at the last Refresh event (for the part I saw–I was a little late). Thanks for sharing your insight and experience.
However, I have to disagree with you on the contract part, at least for my situation. I’m a young (occasionally clueless) guy, so I guess some clients see me as some sort of “whiz kid” fly-by-night web design guy. I do fly at night and fight crime sometimes, but that’s not the point. Anyway, I got a simple contract through LegalZoom for 15 bucks and it’s been useful. I’ve done projects with and without it, and there IS a difference. After I pull out that 10-something page legal contract and explain the terms to them, I seem to get a LOT more respect as a peer than a third cousin doing the work for cracker jacks and soda.
Granted, I did borrow portions of the text from the contract and used it my proposals, which has helped stop scope-creep on my more recent projects. But I still use the contract before any actual work starts. The text doesn’t seem that bad to me. But then again I used to read state and county code at the library for fun in high school, so whatever.
It was great meeting you (and Jackson) at Refresh and I hope to see you again!
-Robert
@Robert, thanks for the comment. Hopefully my response to Jackson above on a similar point helps clarify where I am coming at with contracts.
I hope to catch you at the next refresh event.
martin,
goodness…did not attend the event but have definitely appreciated your slides…excellent…just wanted to leave a comment…thanks a lot…
[…] …stumbled upon this presentation…think it is excellent…associated post here…. […]
@Harold, thanks for the comment and the blog link mention … much appreciative.
If you are others are curious as to some of my insights into how to run an agency after you successfully taken freelancing to the ultimate next level, you may want to check out my interview on subvert: http://subvert.ca/blog/archive/interview-nclud/
Martin,
I did not get a chance to make it to your presentation in February., however I am really interested in becoming a serious web freelancer. I looked over your slides for the presentation, and wanted to know if you have any recommendations on marketing online for people with a very very small budget? -Thanks-
Marcus, thanks for the comment — sorry you couldn’t make it out to the presentation.
Take a look at the nclud interview on Subvert, I talk a bit about how I do marketing now as a small agency: http://subvert.ca/blog/archive/interview-nclud/
There are a lot of things you can do, but I personally find very little value in paid “exposure”, especially in this industry. I know a lot of people who buy localized Google Ad Words or post on Craig’s List and even the local city paper or even drop a business card of the coffee shop. But again, I don’t find value there really and they rarely translate into the type of business or clients I am interested in.
I suggest promoting your reputation first and “marketing” yourself second. Be known for doing great work and people will come to you. My agency, nclud, has never done a cold call, all of our business is referral based or word-of-mouth. Because people know who we are, what we do and like that idea; they want to work with us before they’ve even talked with us … that is a powerful thing.
My advice is to be more active in the community (the community of your industry), but be sincere with your intentions. Be known, do great work and then be known for doing great work.
Check out Andy Servitz’s “Word of Mouth Marketing“. I just started reading it and it doesn’t directly apply to what I am talking about it, but it gets you thinking in the right direction.
It takes time and you need to be patient. But most importantly you need to be good at what you do. If you are terrible and just want more exposure; then yeah … just buy up a bunch of Google Ad Words and buy some small banner space on niche sites; but I believe those tacts to be a waste of time.
Get people to come to you without spending a dime; that is the thing to think about. Marketing is in the traditional sense for freelancers is dead. There is a great book by an ex-exec at Coca-Cola called “The end of Advertising as we know it” — I read that like 5 years ago and it changed my life .. our at least my perspective.
Wow, thanks so much for the speedy and very detail response. I think I will take your advice and concentrate on the business I do have and produce A+ work in a timely fashion, letting my work do the talking.