Recently I was interviewed for a radio show on NPR called Closing the Loop.
Closing the Loop is a series of mini-stories about people who changed careers within the last several years during the recession.
Most, if not all the guests, like me have been out working for 20 years or more—in fact many of them are in their 60’s.
The thing most of the interviewees have in common is that they transitioned to something they are very passionate about. It wasn’t an impulse decision. It’s something they were thinking about for quite a while.
As a person transitioning to freelancing, you most likely can relate. Whether you’re a designer, developer, consultant or writer, you’ve been passionate about your chosen freelance career path for a while now and you’re eager to say goodbye to your current situation and start living “the freelancer’s life.’
Having successfully transitioned and transformed my life to a six-figure freelance lifestyle, here are nine tips for making your freelance transformation all you want it to be.
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When you switch from working for a company to freelancing on your own, you are essentially putting yourself in charge of every aspect of your business – from the beginning to the finished product. While this can be incredibly exciting, it can also be a little overwhelming, especially in the beginning. The internet provides a wealth of resources to help you resolves issues that will inevitably come up and can also provide ideas and leads to keep your freelancing business successful.
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Maybe you’ve decided to ‘go green’ and reduce your carbon footprint. Maybe you’re tired of spending all of your income on day care and fuel. Maybe you’re a teacher or work in the education field and have a summer with no work (and no income). Whatever your reason, there is work to be found.
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Try and think of freelancing as selling a product (for example t-shirts) at a flea market versus selling them through a company like the Gap. If you worked for the Gap everything from the cost to make the t-shirts, the price to sell them for as well as the price to market and advertise is all predetermined by the company. You basically just complete the transaction of selling the item. Selling at a flea market, all of the “behind the scenes” determinations mentioned are made by you. That is essentially the case with freelancing. Here are 5 Key Things to do in order to get started.
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Getting a good daily routine as a freelancer can be a complex business. Along with the search for news stories and where to try and sell them, you also have to fight to get published and paid. It’s more time consuming than the actual writing. There are also too many ways to procrastinate whilst you’re online, and seeing as being on the Internet is the only real way to function as a freelance writer, this is a problem. The aimless distraction of your social media pages, along with household duties or even writer’s block, can lower your output to a non-existent point. So how do you rise over this slump and boost your productivity? Follow these five steps for a more productive future.
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I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who has just started telecommute work. Knowing that I have been working from home for years she had many questions. One of the questions she asked me was “what is the hardest part of working from your home?”. I thought about this for a couple of minutes and then it came to mind very clearly. The hardest part of working from home is getting friends and family to understand that you are WORKING from home. You will get many calls, emails and texts during the day and they will seem as though you are just hanging around with nothing to do. Get ready for the “Hey, could you pick up Molly from school?” or “I have the cable company coming at 2 today and I have to be at work could you wait for them for me?” or the most popular that you will get at least once per day. “I know you are working but……” Click here to read more »
If you’ve been freelancing for a while, you then likely understand all the wonderful plusses that come with being your own boss. You get to set your own schedule, you can make more time for the important things in life like being with your family, and you don’t have to sit all day in a cold, soulless office. At the same time, there is something less secure about being on your own, and if you are just getting started freelancing, it is important to know all the ins and outs of some basic financial questions that others deal with through work. Here are some tips. Click here to read more »
In February, Google’s Panda update began to rearrange the landscape on the internet. Boilerplate copy got slapped. Large percentages of duplicate content, or low quality irrelevant content got punished. Major websites lost rankings across the board. Some of them were content farms, some of them were legitimate companies, some of them were even industry leaders.
This is the way that the Panda update was explained on Google’s official blog:
This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on. Click here to read more »
Freelancing is my life. It's what I know, it's what I'm good at, and I can't imagine doing anything else. You can call me "Freddie the Freelancer"… because I'd prefer not to use my real name for reasons that I'll tell you about in a moment.
