FreelanceSwitch

Microlancer: Recruiting Graphic Design Freelancers Now!

FreelanceSwitch.com — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:00:36 +0000

Here at FreelanceSwitch, we’re really excited to let you know about our new sister site Microlancer. If you have graphic design skills and are looking for freelance work, there is an incredible opportunity to get your foot in the door and start earning a real income by selling creative services on Microlancer. Interested? Read on!

Microlancer is a digital marketplace where you connect with freelancers who offer services to help you get your creative projects off the ground. We put you in touch with those who can provide logo design, app icon design, branding elements, UI features, web design and a whole lot more – easily, affordably, safely and transparently. We’ve only launched with the graphics and design categories so far, but are planning to rapidly expand to other areas like 3D and video soon.

A screenshot from microlancer.com.

We’re looking to recruit readers of FreelanceSwitch who are skilled in graphic design and are interested in making good money performing small, creative jobs for Microlancer buyers. We think you’ll love how easy Microlancer makes the process of finding clients and performing freelance work, as well as the control you always have over your services. We’ve listed some of the benefits our service providers enjoy below.

Control

Decide exactly what your service is and how it works.
Choose your own price and adjust it at any time.
Decide the turn around time on every service you offer.
Decide how many revisions a client gets.
Pause your services when you’re busy or just want a vacation.
Decline any job. You’re not locked in to anything.

It’s Easy

Spend more time doing what you love.
Microlancer will take care of the majority of administrative work for you.
No need to sell yourself or bid for jobs against other freelancers.
Buyers seek you out based on your service offering and profile.

Safety

A secure and reliable platform to sell your freelance services.
Our robust dispute resolution system is in place to support you if you need it.
Our support team will help resolve nasty situations. When you deserve to get paid, you will be.
No need to bid for jobs against other freelancers.
We take full payment up front from buyers, so you never chase up money again.
From the moment you hear about a job, you know the buyer is serious.

Envato

Millions of buyers, right at your finger tips.
Let us take care of bringing people to you.
Spend more time focusing on delivering quality results.
Join a massive network of fellow creatives at Envato.
Get inspired every day!

Why is Microlancer Different to Other Freelance Sites?

You don’t need to set up a project and review bids, you don’t need to bid against other freelancers for work!
Provide all the details of your service to buyers upfront, they already know the price, turnaround time and how many revisions they get.
No negotiations with clients.
Sell your creative services as individual items, presented in an online store – all customised to your liking.
You have control over how much you charge and everything you offer.
It’s easy and will save you time!

There is a tremendous opportunity here to kick-start your freelance career, supplement your income or really take advantage of what Microlancer can offer you and make it your full-time job! We’re actively seeking graphic designers to sell their freelance services on Microlancer now, if you have the skills – what are you waiting for? Submit an application to become a Microlancer service provider with Envato today!

Over the coming week we’ll be publishing a series of articles with tips on how to join the ranks of Microlancer’s most popular service providers and unlock a new source of freelance gigs and income.

How to Build an Online Business From the Ground Up

FreelanceSwitch.com — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:00:53 +0000

When I first decided that I wanted to quit my job and create my own successful online business back in May 2011, I was driven more by blind determination than belief. In fact, for many months thereafter I couldn’t shake a little voice in my head that kept telling me how fruitless my efforts were.

What I failed to realize was that launching your own successful online business doesn’t have to be a pipe dream. It isn’t an unattainable goal that will forever live only in your mind. In reality, becoming a relatively successful online business owner requires a few more skills than you probably have right now. The rest you can pick up along the way.

What makes the real difference — far more than technical ability or entrepreneurial nous — is your belief and determination. Those are the assets that will pull you through the roadblocks and setbacks that inevitably await you. With that in mind, in this post I want to give you a roadmap that will equip you with the knowledge, belief and determination to launch your own successful online business.

1. Pick the Right Path

If you’re anything like me then you have dreams of passive income success.

That’s how I started — I wanted to build websites and generate an income from them. What I didn’t appreciate is that the learning curve is extremely steep and it is likely to take years before you can make a liveable income from passive income projects.

I can personally attest to that likelihood — although my total net income in April 2013 was a shade under $8,000, just one third of that was what you might call “passive” income (incidentally, usage of the word “passive” in this context is a misnomer, but that’s a topic for another day). Although passive income is perhaps the ultimate goal for many people, there is a far easier and more immediate way to make money online.

I am of course talking about freelancing. Freelancing is the reason I was able to quit my job; it is in fact the reason you are reading this. After months of passive income failures I turned to freelancing and discovered a whole world of possibilities that I had never previously considered.

The process of making money from freelancing may initially be intimidating, but it is in fact relatively straightforward. That’s why I find it so appealing and consider it the best way for any would-be online business owner to make money online.

2. Assess Your Abilities

The first roadblock you are likely to come across in terms of building a freelance business is figuring out what service you will sell. I have found that many people are quick to assume that they have nothing of worth to offer to potential clients. To this I have one response: Everyone has something of value to offer to other people.

If you can realize just a fraction of your worth in your own business that you generated through your employment, you will make just as much money as you ever did (and probably much more).

For instance, let me assume for a moment that you are employed or have been employed at some point in your life. Your employer didn’t hire you because he or she fancied throwing some money away — they saw inherent value in you. Not only that, but they had to factor in multiple financial considerations when calculating your worth: employment costs, taxes, overheads, profit margin, and so on. If you freelance then those considerations are reduced dramatically. If you can realize just a fraction of your worth in your own business that you generated through your employment, you will make just as much money as you ever did (and probably much more).

I appreciate that it may not be obvious what your chosen service should be. If you are say a graphic designer, writer or bookkeeper, it’s obvious. But for others that may not be the case. Take me as an example — before I launched my business I was in charge of property management and development in my father’s business. There is no obvious connection between that and freelance writing, and yet here I am. If we dig a little deeper though we see that I spent a lot of my day composing professional letters and emails. Although writing wasn’t technically my job, it made up a proportion of what I did.

So don’t be afraid to think out of the box when it comes to assessing your abilities and remember this: almost everything is outsourced these days. Outsourcing has become extremely popular in today’s economic climate because hiring an outsider to do work is often cheaper than hiring someone full time. Now is as good a time as any to launch a freelancing business.

3. Identify Your Client Base

Once you have decided upon the service you are going to offer, the next step is to figure out who your clients will be.

I want you to be specific here. If you’re planning on being a freelancer writer then you shouldn’t identify potential clients as “people and businesses who want a writer.” Marketing yourself as a specialist will give you far more clout in that industry and lead to greater opportunities down the line. It also gives you an opportunity to work within a specific field that you find particularly interesting.

Take me for example — I write almost exclusively about the WordPress Content Management System, blogging, freelancing, and entrepreneurship. These are topics I love to write about and people know me as someone who writes about those topics. Because of that I attract highly qualified prospects without having to look for them myself.

While you may have to be less picky when you’re just starting out, always have your ideal client in mind. At some point when your business reaches a level of maturation, you will probably overhaul your client base and hone it down to those specific areas in which you want to focus.

Although identifying your client base is important in terms of establishing a business that you enjoy, it is equally as important so that you know how to market yourself and where to look for your clients. That is the next step.

4. Establish Your Platform

In my opinion, the perfect freelance business is one that markets itself. Through word of mouth referrals, examples of your work on the web (if applicable) and a quality online presence, you should eventually find yourself in a position where you are no longer reaching out to prospective clients for work. They will approach you.

You reach this goal by building a platform — typically made up of a website, blog, and social media outlets. These are the tools you can use to establish yourself on the web as a business that offers a solution to a specific problem (which again highlights the value of specialization).

Your platform should clearly advertise a few things:

your expertise
your experience
examples of your work
testimonials

For the most part, those four items represent the entirety of what any prospective client is looking for. Provide them with the answers before they have asked the questions.

You need to pour a great deal of effort into your platform in order for it to perform effectively.

I cannot understate the importance of the quality of the various online properties that make up your platform. Your website should not be a half-hearted, incomplete affair. Your Twitter account shouldn’t have just a handful of followers. Your blog shouldn’t be updated once every two months. You need to pour a great deal of effort into your platform in order for it to perform effectively. It is almost worse to have a ”dead” platform than nothing at all.

But make no mistake — your platform can develop into the fulcrum that drives the success of your business. All of the new clients find me in three ways:

via my blog
via bylines on other blogs
via social media

I don’t reach out to clients; they come to me. That puts me in a position of great strength — they are specifically interested in my services and I am in a sense “pre-sold.” Without a platform for people to find and contact you, the chances of your prospect referral system becoming self-propagating is greatly reduced.

5. Market Yourself

Once you have created your platform, the next step is to find prospective clients. When you are just starting out they will not simply come to you, as you probably have no established means of them discovering you. Until that time comes, you will need to put the effort into seeking them out and making yourself known.

There are a number of ways in which you can do this and approaches vary depending upon what field you are operating in. For instance, if you are a web developer/graphic designer/writer, your first port of call might be the Freelance Switch Jobs Board. Alternatively, you may decide to start local and cold call businesses near you. Or you may leverage the power of Google to find businesses that are clearly in need of your services — for instance, if you were a social media strategist you might look for businesses with a poor social media presence. The possibilites are practically endless if you are creative enough in your thinking.

The key here is confidence. Even if you are brand new to the scene, you must act like you are a seasoned pro. While you certainly shouldn’t lie about your expertise or experience, you should look to put a positive spin on your value to the prospect. And remember — whatever relevant work you did (or do) in your job can count as relevant experience.

If you fear the concept of approaching the market without any prior freelancing experience, seek out opportunities to work for free with reputable people or businesses. You can then use this experience to bulk out your portfolio and obtain testimonials without the pressure of actually having to find someone to pay you straight off the bat.

The key to getting started (whether you get paid or not) is to find quality clients. Quality clients lead to more quality clients. Poor quality clients lead to more poor quality clients or no clients at all. Think long term with your business — what kind of client do you want to work with in a year’s time? Those are the clients you should be targeting now.

Exponential growth will be driven by the quality of clients you engage with. To get the best referrals you must do quality work for reputable people. These are the people that will appreciate you as a professional and thus refer you to likeminded prospects. Although you may choose to take on one or two low quality clients to get yourself off the ground, always be looking to make that step up. No one made good money freelancing by competing on price — compete on quality instead.

6. Take the Next Step

The above five steps are not an overnight blueprint for success. In fact, they represent months — or even years — of hard work and determination. But Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will your business be.

The key to success is in applying yourself rigorously to the fundamentals. It is all too easy to work hard in the wrong way and get nowhere, so focus instead on what really matters:

Your Abilities: what do you have to offer?
Your Client Base: who are you going to work for and why?
Your Platform: is it made up of online assets that project the best possible representation of your expertise and experience?
Marketing: have you discovered where your ideal client operates and have you found the best way to promote your services to them?

If you nail all four of these areas then there is no logical reason for failure. To put it another way, if your fledgling business is struggling then it means that you are almost definitely failing in one of the above four areas.

While there are many pathways to success, freelancing is a sure-fire way to give your online business a solid foundation for growth. With a reliable income and established clients in place, you can start work on implementing passive income strategies as you move your online business forward.

So what are you waiting for? It’s time to open a new chapter of your life and build a successful online business! If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask them in the comments section below.

Photo Credit: Jakob Montrasio.

Freelance Freedom 311: Different Worlds

FreelanceSwitch.com — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:00:59 +0000

Once a week, we feature a fantastic freelance-themed comic from the talented N.C. Winters. Why not also take a look at our comic archive?

What You Need to Know to Improve Your Public Speaking

FreelanceSwitch.com — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:00:48 +0000

Public speaking is hard: we’ve all heard that it’s the most common fear, above and beyond death. Everybody in the room is staring at you, which is enough to make most of us want to run.

There are some lucky people who seem to not experience that particular sensation or who even seem to be natural speakers, but for the majority of us, there are always steps to take that will make us steadier on stage.

Choose a Target Audience Early and Get to Know Them

You can’t be all things to all people, even if you can see a benefit to doing so. As you’re working to improve your public speaking, you need to focus in on the audience you’re trying to reach. If, for instance, you’re using speaking as a strategy to drum up business for yourself, look at what types of clients are going to be worth the investment of time necessary to give a talk.

Knowing your market is an important step to improving your speaking.

Narrow down who your target audience is, so that you can make sure that you appeal to them. After all, there are major differences in the styles and presentations of motivational speakers who are reaching out to high schoolers than those speakers who give workshops to improve business practices in large organizations. Knowing your market is an important step to improving your speaking.

Once you know who you want to reach, make a point of getting to know them. Look at what sources of information they rely on and the opinions they typically hold. The more information you have about your audience, the better. You’ll be able to find plenty of topics to speak about in the questions they ask and the stories they tell, and you can make the process of gaining their interest less work. It’s like any marketing situation: if you know who you want to reach and where they’ll be, the process is always significantly easier.

You also want to know who you’re up against. Go to events geared towards the audience you want to reach and listen to the speakers who are essentially your future competition. You may not want to run your speaking career along the same lines they do, but you want to know, at least, what’s working for them and why. You may find spots for improvement, as well as entirely new opportunities you’ll want to pursue.

Go Out and Speak, Every Chance You Get

It would be nice if we could all get great at speaking to audiences before we actually had to talk in front of one of those audiences, but the reality is that it takes practice to acquire the skills you need to be an effective speaker. Practice in front of an empty room isn’t the same as the real deal, making it necessary to actually go out and find more audiences.

There are plenty of speaking opportunities out there for anyone willing to chase them, although you’re not going to start out without a lot of acclaim for your efforts. Speaking to local organizations is one of the best ways out there to get the practice you need: as long as you have something relevant to say, you may be able to arrange to speak just by contacting whoever is in charge of the group and offering to speak. I’ve talked to groups of high school students, local professional groups, and even just a handful of people at my local library. There’s no group so small that you can’t benefit from the practice of speaking to them.

Such groups are also a little easier to speak to: you’ve got training wheels on with them. Because these sorts of talks are relatively low risk, it can be a little easier to get yourself up there. You are building your reputation in front of these audiences, but they’ve seen some pretty bad speakers. You would actually have to try to be the worst speaker who has ever gotten up in front of them. Don’t take that as an excuse to do less than your best, of course, but use the knowledge to make yourself more comfortable with speaking.

One of the reasons that organizations like Toastmasters are so effective is because members have to speak to the group on a regular basis. There can be a definite benefit to joining a group that puts you on the spot to speak regularly if only to get some of that low risk practice. Such groups also make a point of offering feedback, which is necessary to be able to improve.

While feedback can be scary, make a habit of asking for it at each event you speak at, even the small ones. It’s ideal to film any talks you give, even if you just have a friend record it on her phone — that way, you can compare your efforts and see where you’re improving, as well as continuing weak spots.

It’s Not Just the Ability to Speak Well

You absolutely need to invest time in polishing your speaking, but there are actually several other skills that go into being a great public speaker. Designing your presentation, for instance, is a very necessary step. There are plenty of software packages out there that make the process of creating a presentation much easier than it used to be, but even the best software relies on what you put into it. Learn how to use your tools as effectively as possible, as well as what goes into making a good design. You’ll set yourself up for success if you have the best looking presentations around.

It doesn’t matter how polished the actual speech is if there’s some small detail distracting the audience.

The same goes for all the other little details that go into speaking: writing an excellent talk title, choosing the right clothes and other factors contribute to how well a talk is received. It doesn’t matter how polished the actual speech is if there’s some small detail distracting the audience.

Make a habit of practicing the soft skills that go into public speaking at least as often as you might practice an actual talk. Treat every talk you give as an opportunity to improve your skills and take each one seriously, even if you’re just giving a brown bag talk on your lunch hour.

You might even consider preparing some talks (along with all the bits and pieces that go along with them) that you haven’t scheduled an opportunity to give. There are often chances to fill in at the last minute at an event, as well speaking opportunities at unconferences which aren’t set until the day of the event. By being ready to go with a polished talk on short notice, you may impress key decision makers at the events you’d like to be invited back to.

All of this probably sounds like a lot of work, and it is. In order to truly improve your public speaking, though, you need to put the hours in. In the long term, you can get help, but in the short term, you need to know how to do everything yourself.

You’ve Got to Spend Money to Make Money

It can seem like public speaking is one of those things that you should be able to just pick up on your own. It may be, but it’s one of those skills that’s a lot easier to learn if you can get both instruction and feedback on a regular basis.

Taking a class or joining Toastmasters is only the first step. I’ve worked with a coach who has helped me both with general improvement and polishing a particular presentation that I had concerns with. There’s a price tag that goes along with that sort of help but it is definitely worth the money.

You can get a lot more help than just coaching on your delivery. There are professionals out in the world who specialize in designing slide decks, writing speeches, booking speaking gigs, picking out clothes for special presentations and every other aspect of offering your services as a public speaker.

Especially if you’re running a business that doesn’t include speaking as a major component, getting some help with the prep work makes sense: you can hire specialists who can help you give talks that help your career elsewhere once you’ve established yourself. You can speed up the learning curve immensely with just a little investment.

It’s still important to understand the mechanics behind each aspect of the speeches you give. You need to make sure that you’re sending exactly the right message and no one else is going to be able to be sure of that fact except you. Public speaking is part of your career, so you have to take full responsibilty for it — even with help at hand.

Graphic credit: Some rights reserved by talrevivo.

How to Install Google Analytics on WordPress

FreelanceSwitch.com — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:00:36 +0000

Have you heard about all the powerful insights Google Analytics can churn out for your business? (Here are just 3 Google Analytics insights you can learn about your business.)

If you haven’t heard about Google Analytics, it’s an amazing, free tool you can use to track everything related to your website visitor data – from how many, to where they’re coming from, to what they’re doing on your website (and what’s making them leave!).

If you have heard of Google Analytics and its powerful insights, you know that installing it on your site is a must do item.

If you’re a WordPress user, I have a secret for you: installing Google Analytics on your WordPress site involves very little code. We can install Google Analytics easily. Sound good? Let’s get to it.

1. Sign Up for a Google Analytics Account

Step 1

If you don’t already have one, head on over to Google Analytics and grab yourself an account. It’s totally free! Already have a Gmail, YouTube, Google Apps for Business or other Google-related email address for your business? You can use that to sign up.

Step 2

Once you’ve created a new Google account or signed in with your existing Google account, Google Analytics will ask you to sign up.

Step 3

On the next screen, make sure you keep the Web Site button pressed, as installing the tracking code for an App is a bit of a different animal.

Step 4

Next up, we’re choosing a tracking method. Go ahead and keep the Classic Analytics selected. (Universal Analytics is currently in beta and isn’t quite fully functional just yet.)

Step 5

Now here’s the part where we start to tell Google Analytics a little more about the website we’re trying to track:

What’s this about a property versus an account? Google does explain what they are in the screenshot above, but the diagram below gives more insight into the structure of property versus account:

Image Source: EquatorLive

The account you have is tied to the email address you signed up with. Under the account, we’re setting up your website as property. You can have multiple properties associated with one account. Under that, you use profiles to filter your data in different ways for one web property/website.

You can give multiple users access to your account or to your profiles (if say, you wanted to outsource the data tracking piece of your business or get some help configuring conversion tracking and other more advanced Google Analytics capabilities).

So back to the setup:

Website Name: this is simply that – your website name. A lot of people just type in the URL of the website here for naming purposes.
Website URL: enter the URL of the site you’re going to track.
Industry Category: this helps Google learn more about how different industries are using Google Analytics and potentially serve up more relevant information for you. Select the industry that best matches this website.
Reporting Time Zone: Pay attention to this one! You cannot change this later. This will determine where your ‘day’ starts and ends in Google Analytics for counting visitors & everything else.
Account Name: If you have just one business and only ever plan on having one business, this can be the same name as your main website name. Think business name = account name, whereas website names = property names. If your needs are simple enough, these are often the same.
Data Sharing: this is your option – do you want to share your traffic data with Google? These are selected by default.

Hit the blue Get Tracking ID button and Google will give you a pop-up to accept those terms and conditions. Pay attention to these – among the terms includes disclosing to visitors that you’re using tracking cookies on your website.

Now you’re finally ready to install the Google Analytics tracking code on your WordPress site.

2. Installing the Google Analytics Tracking Code on Your WordPress Website

Step 1

Once you hit the blue Get Tracking ID button and agree to the Terms and Conditions of Service, you’ll see your Tracking ID displayed on this complicated page:

Note that your Tracking ID will be a different number than displayed in this screenshot, but since you’re a WordPress user – you don’t have to worry about anything other than that UA- number at the top!

Step 2

Let me introduce you to my favorite WordPress plugin ever, the Joost Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.

There are a lot of Google Analytics plugins out there, but this one is my favorite because not only does it install Google Analytics in the recommended section of your site (in the header) but it also comes with easy to configure options for a more advanced setup (if and when you need it).

Step 3

Let’s walk through how to install the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin. Once signed in to your WordPress dashboard, head to Plugins > Add New.

Step 4

Search for “Google Analytics for WordPress”. Hit the details link under the plugin description to verify that it’s the one developed by Joost de Valk (look for his name as the author in the blue box on the right).

Step 5

Hit the red Install Now button above the blue box. Once installed, hit Activate.

Note that in the screenshot above it says Latest Version Installed where your Install Now button will be because I already have this setup on my site.

Step 6

Now we just have to link up your Google Analytics account with this plugin to start tracking your website visitor data. Head to Settings > Google Analytics in your Dashboard. Enter that UA- tracking ID in the plugin’s settings:

Then hit the blue Save Google Analytics Settings button and you’re all set!

3. Block Your Internal Traffic from Showing Up in Google Analytics

Follow this optional section if you need to block internal traffic from showing up in Google Analytics..

Ever worry about work on your website, whether it’s content updates, new pages, or a redesign could be messing with your traffic data? You can actually apply a filter in Google Analytics to block that traffic out – but Joost’s plugin eliminates the need for creating anything custom and makes it easy to block your internal traffic.

Step 1

Simply make sure Show Advanced Settings is checked in the first gray box then scroll down to Advanced Settings:

Step 2

Select Administrator from the drop down menu for which type of users to ignore. Once you hit save, this will keep any internal traffic from messing with your Google Analytics data.

4. Ensuring Data Accuracy: What to Watch Out For

The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin makes installing Google Analytics on WordPress a super-simple process. However, there are a few things about your WordPress site that might make your data a little wonky if left unchecked.

There is one scenario that will mess this up: you already have Google Analytics setup on your site, just not with this plugin. What to do about it?

Step 1

Check that you don’t already have another Google Analytics plugin installed. Head to Plugins > Installed Plugins and check for any that are already doing this for you. Make sure to uninstall those before or right after you install Joost’s plugin.

Check to make sure your UA- code isn’t already added somewhere in your theme’s settings. Check your Theme Options under Appearance or other setting areas where your theme lets you add code to your header.

Why can’t you just use the default Google Analytics settings offered by your theme? Because often they don’t install it correctly (in your website’s header) but almost more importantly, your theme doesn’t even come close to making it as easy as the Joost plugin does to make extra configurations to your Google Analytics tracking without having to actually edit the code. (like blocking your internal traffic, tracking outbound clicks, cross-domain tracking and more).

5. Analytics Visitor Data Check

The final step of installing Google Analytics on your WordPress site is to make sure Google Analytics is actually receiving your website visitor data.

Step 1

Log into your Google Analytics account and head to your reporting screen. See any traffic data? (keep in mind Google Analytics can take up to 24 hours to start counting visits).

Another place to check: Head to Admin and select the web property (website) you’re trying to setup tracking for. You’ll see a status similar to this one if the tracking code isn’t setup properly:

Of course, remember to make sure to wait 24 hours before getting concerned that your code might not be setup right.

When it’s working, you’ll see a green checkmark to indicate Google Analytics is receiving data. Once you have that green checkmark, you’re all setup! Fairly simple, right?

Over to You

Do you have Google Analytics installed on your site? Do you have a WordPress site? Have you used the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin in the past? Did you find it easy to use? Did you find this Google Analytics installation guide for WordPress helpful? Let me know in the comments!

How to Land Your First Speaking Gig

FreelanceSwitch.com — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:00:16 +0000

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to land your very first speaking gig, before you have any experience speaking in public. It’s an approach that can get you more than just one speaking gig, so that you can get on your way to establishing a speaking career.

Come up with the perfect idea for your presentation, target your audience with your message, pitch your ideas to event organizers, utilize time-saving techniques, track responses, and get speeding towards touching down your first speaking gig.

1. Brainstorm a Topic Idea

Step 1

Come up with as many ideas as you would feel comfortable talking about as possible. Keep a list of your ideas — you may want to refer back to them later. I choose to create a document or note, containing the ideas that I come up with, so they’re easy to reference. Even if you choose to brainstorm on paper or on a white board, digitize your ideas after you come up with them.

You may have a lot of ideas, but the talks you give, especially when you’re first starting out, should match up with your goals outside of public speaking.

Step 2

Narrow down your topics to those that make sense inside what you’re trying to sell or any other impact that you hope to have. You may have a lot of ideas, but the talks you give, especially when you’re first starting out, should match up with your goals outside of public speaking.

Step 3

Choose a specific idea to focus on. If you’re having trouble narrowing down the field, look at which topics you’re going to have a unique perspective on — what you can talk about that no one else can effectively cover. It can also make sense to choose a topic that is easy to present on; nothing too emotional or research-intensive. But you want to have something concrete to pitch to event organizers: something that will get them interested.

Step 4

Finalize your idea. While you may wind up shifting your actual topic depending on where you wind up speaking, it’s important to know what you’re pitching before you start contacting people. Even if you have to write out the details, make sure that you can discuss what you’re offering with the organizer of any event you hope to speak at.

2. List Audiences You Want to Reach

Step 1

Just giving talks to anyone who will listen won’t let you reach people who can take action on what you’re saying. You’re likely trying to promote a specific product or service, so write out who will be likely to buy what you’re selling and what types of organizations they might belong to. Creates a list of audiences you want to reach.

Step 2

Research events and organizations that cater to the audiences you want to reach. Rather than trying to turn on an audience that may only be a little interested in your work, focus on groups that are going to get things right off the bat. If you’re not closely connected to your audience and don’t know how they choose talks to attend, do some research.

You can look into the following:

What links are promoted on forums or social media groups catering to that audience?
What conferences do other professionals in your line of work speak at?
What blogs do members of your audience read? And what events do those blogs promote and review?
What professional organizations cater to your audience? Do those organizations have meetings or other events?

Step 3

Narrow down your list to less than five events that you think you would be a good fit for. Double-check if those events accept outside speakers. Depending on the type of event you’re looking at, it may be worthwhile to attend another event organized by the same people. When you’re first starting out, smaller groups are likely to be your best bet, especially those that tend to have a local speaker address each individual group meeting they hold.

Step 4

Write out why you appeal to those audiences you are trying to reach. You’re almost certainly going to be asked why you’re a good fit for the audience — what you can do for them, rather than what they can do for you. So, get ahead of the game and put together an explanation.

3. Find a Point of Contact for Each Event or Organization

Step 1

For some organizations, it’s immediately clear who is in charge of lining up speakers for their events — the organizational website may say so explicitly. If not, however, you may need to do some research into who is in a leadership position. Sites like LinkedIn are invaluable for this purpose. Search for names associated with specific organizations.

Step 2

Find a useful contact method for reaching each contact you find. I prefer using email, especially if I can’t find a mutual acquaintance who can connect us. You may have to build on a social media connection to get a more direct contact method.

4. Compose a Cold Email Template

Step 1

Write out your pitch to speak to a given audience. Since it can take several tries to land your first speaking opportunity, write a general email that you can easily customize for each organization you approach. Alternately, if you have phone numbers for each contact who you want to pitch your talk to, consider a phone script. Refer to the explanation you’ve already written about why your topic is relevant.

Get feedback on your pitch before you send it out. While you may not have access to an event organizer who chooses speakers, you likely have access to someone in your core audience.

Step 2

Get feedback on your pitch before you send it out. While you may not have access to an event organizer who chooses speakers, you likely have access to someone in your core audience. Run your pitch past that person to make sure that you’re offering something interesting.

Step 3

Customize your template for each of the five or fewer organizations that you wish to contact in your first go. Double-check that you’ve got each name right, along with any other relevant details. You don’t want your email to actually look like a template — you want anyone who receives it to know that you’ve researched them and their organization thoroughly.

5. Contact Organizers and Track Responses

Step 1

Send out your emails. As you send each email, make a note of the date you sent it. I use a spreadsheet for all of my pitches, so that I can see their status at a glance.

Step 2

As each response comes in, positive or negative, make a note of it in your spreadsheet. If there’s any additional feedback beyond a ‘no,’ it’s worth tracking that information and acting on it, as well.

Step 3

Follow up with any positive responses to schedule your talk. Make the process as easy as possible on the organizer you’re working with, so they have a good reason to recommend you as a speaker.

Step 4

If you don’t get a ‘yes’, go back to your list of organizations and events. Choose a few more to contact. Rejection can be frustrating, but you have to keep at it. Eventually you’ll get a positive response.

6. Tweak Your Talk to the Event

Step 1

In most cases, you’ll find that you need to tweak your talk a little for the audience you end up speaking to — at least until you have more extensive public speaking experience. Adjust your topic idea so that it fits.

Practice your presentation to the point you could give it in your sleep.

Step 2

Prepare your presentation. You’ll likely need to put together both what your audience is going to look at and what you’re going to say to them. Practice your presentation to the point you could give it in your sleep.

Step 3

Ask for feedback. One of the best options you may have access to is the organizer of the event you’re speaking at — but such people tend to be busy. If you can’t get feedback on your presentation from an event organizer, consider finding a few people who might fall into your target market: ask them to listen to you practice your presentation.

Leveraging Your Speaking Gig

By following the tutorial above, you’ll land your first speaking gig — the start to a career that integrates speaking with the other creative work you do. You’ll be able to use speaking to amp up your marketing,

Once you’ve given your first talk, you’ll be able to follow the same cycle repeatedly to land more speaking gigs. Eventually, if you give great speeches and you market yourself as a speaker, event organizers may start coming to you, letting you slow down on finding your own opportunities. Until then, though, keep chasing speaking opportunities.

Graphic credit: Some rights reserved by talrevivo.

Freelance Freedom 310: Reminder Tech

FreelanceSwitch.com — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:00:17 +0000

Once a week, we feature a fantastic freelance-themed comic from the talented N.C. Winters. Why not also take a look at our comic archive?

Top Freelance Jobs from Job Board – Week 1, May

FreelanceSwitch.com — Sat, 11 May 2013 13:48:11 +0000

Looking for a new client? The FreelanceSwitch job board is a great resource of freelance gigs and opportunities. These opportunities are in various fields, from development to writing to design, and come from a wide range of potential clients. The job board is hand-moderated by dedicated staff and volunteers from the freelance community.

Each week, we’ll feature a selection of the best job opportunities posted for the week. This week, we’re featuring jobs in Software Development, Blogging, Web Development and more!

To apply for any of these jobs, simply pick up a FreelanceSwitch membership for an affordable $7 a month. See something you like? Join now!

Software developer joining amazing startup!

Budget: $1,000 to $2,500

Hi,
I am Spiros Mantadakis i am part of a development team and we are in search of developers with a particular skill set from the US or UK. A short introduction; I’m a designer, i have been designing since the age of 15 (11 years) on digital platforms and autonomous arts since i was 7 years old. I have extensive experience in UI and UIX design as well as web design.

I have created UI’s and applications for numerous projects ranging from themes on Themeforest to large domestic companies to working with the guys from Microsoft on upcoming web apps, i have done it all but i needed a real challenge. That is why we are currently working on the design for an innovative online file handling platform which will be intended to replace the front end usage of the major file handling platforms. The idea and the UI is already conceptualized but we are looking for more partners who can help us realize this. Currently there is no identical competitor on the net for a web app like this and we are working towards building the application to create a crowdfunding campaign and skyrocket it towards a great platform!

Currently we have 1 programmer who has extensive experience in developing software for major transporation and security organizations but we need more help and this is where you come in. We are giving developers the chance to participate and have a share in this amazing product/company and help us change the way people handle files and collaborate across the internet. If you think this might be an opportunity for you to be part of the beginning of something great just say the word and maybe you can join our team!

Learn more & apply!

Looking for a Writer/Blogger/Trouble Maker

Budget: Less than $100

Are you someone who thinks outside of the box and can learn about new topic areas quickly? If so, read on!
We’re a new startup that’s looking to hire an article writer/blogger to write about innovation, technology, productivity, and the future of these areas. You don’t necessarily have to have experience writing about this space (although that is a plus), but here is what you do need to have:

curiosity
creativity
excellent research skills
ability to grab the reader’s attention with your headline and first paragraph
ability to write 500-1000 word articles or blog posts
native English
experience with SEO is a plus

Learn more & apply!

Video Web Portfolio/Portal

Budget: $2,500 to $5,000

Looking for one or more programers to take the lead in developing a web portal/portfolio similar to behance.com. All work presented will be videos. A full project scope with development requirements as well as initial creative comps will be provided to interested programmers.

Ideal programmer should have (at least some) experience with video handling, YouTube’s API and Google’s OAuth 2.0. Please contact me if interested. We will need an NDA signed before you can receive project scope and comps.

Learn more & apply!

Senior PHP Developer

Budget: $10,000+

Our business is built on people. People with passion. People who want to build great solutions to tricky problems.

We believe that a website can be more than just a means to list your services or take orders. Beyond anything else we value forward thinking, the ability to learn new things quickly and real enthusiasm. We believe that a good team is greater than the sum of its parts and that the best learning comes from working with others towards a common goal.

What makes this role different from other PHP jobs is that we care about how our sites look inside as well as out. You won’t find anyone pressuring you to “just make it work” because we know that this is not how you write good code. We believe that the quality of our work is the most important ingredient and that sales, good account management and good marketing strategies naturally follow.

Learn more & apply!

Graphic Motion Design/Animation Required

Budget: $500 to $1,000

Looking for graphic motion design and animation for a client of ours similar to this reference video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qZ0JBATYvMw
Elements will need to be created and animated based on an offline edit which will be provided.
At this stage looking for submissions and samples of work.

Learn more & apply!

Using Scrivener to Write and Publish an eBook

FreelanceSwitch.com — Thu, 09 May 2013 12:00:47 +0000

So you want to write and publish an ebook? Good for you! With the writing tools and online publishing platforms available today, there’s never been a better time to write a book.

Whatever kind of freelancer you are, publishing an ebook can only be good for your business. It shows you’re a thought-leader in your field. You wrote the book, clients will reason, so you must know what you’re doing. It boosts the visibility of your business, making every reader a potential lead. Finally, it provides a source of passive income. Once it’s written, the work is done.

Knowing how to write a book can be intimidating. Of course, if you feel unsure about your writing skills, you can work with a ghostwriter or editor to make sure your book reflects the high quality of work you do for your clients.

That said, I highly recommend giving writing a go yourself. You’ll find it hard to go wrong if you give Scrivener a try.

What’s so great about Scrivener? Scrivener makes writing a breeze. As well as providing one of the best writing experiences, it helps with the heavy lifting of giving your ebook a solid structure, and it will format your ebook ready for self-publishing.

Tutorial Assets

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following assets:

A computer.
A copy of Scrivener. At the time of writing, a full license costs around $45. You can download a free trial version for OS X and Windows here and Linux (beta) here.
An idea.

Note: This tutorial is for the Mac version of Scrivener, so some of the instructions may be slightly different for a PC. Scrivener is a very powerful writing tool, and this tutorial only covers the basics.

1: Choose a Template

When you open Scrivener, you’re given a choice of templates for your document. The best choice for a non-fiction ebook is “Non-Fiction (with Sub-heads)”. Subheadings are handy for you as a writer, because they provide a simple way to structure your ebook. They’re also good for your readers, as subheadings provide landmarks for them to navigate through your book. This is the template we’ll be using for this tutorial.

2: Create Your Document

Once you’ve chosen your template, you’ll be asked to name your ebook. Give it a name, click “create”, and you’re ready to go.

You’ll now be inside Scrivener. It can look grand and intimidating at first, but don’t panic, you’ll quickly get used to it.

3: Jot Down Your Ideas

The left hand column of Scrivener is called the Binder, which gives an overview of your book as well as space for ideas and research.

Click on “Ideas” to open the ideas section in the central column, called the editor. Here, you can note down your ideas for your ebook.

You may want to divide your ideas into several sections of text. If this is the case, Control-click Ideas and select Add > New Text.

The default name for new sections is “Untitled”, so you’ll want to give it a more suitable name.

If you struggle to come up with ideas, you’re probably trying to be too clever. You’re not trying to be the 21st century’s Shakespeare. You’re just trying to help people solve a problem. What common problems do your clients face? What do you bring to the table that helps them solve their problems?

Remember, very few ideas are completely original. What will make your book unique is unlikely to be a groundbreaking idea, but rather how you bring together the ideas and experiences you’ve absorbed and benefitted from in your life.

4: Collect Your Research

Once you’ve got your idea – or even an inkling of what you plan to write about, you can start your research.

As well as being a writing tool, Scrivener provides a space for you to gather your research. You can import screenshots, images, video files, text documents, web pages and pdfs. That means when you’re ready to write, everything is there for you. What’s more, you can turn off the Internet to minimize distractions.

To add a file to your research folder, simply drag and drop from your desktop or file manager onto the Research folder. To add a webpage, drag and drop from the address bar or your web browser.

Research often leads to new ideas. If you’re still nurturing new ideas, don’t be afraid to read other books or blogs in your niche to get the ideas flowing. If you use or quote someone else’s idea in your book, always give credit.

5: Turn Your Idea and Research into a Structure

Now your research is finished, you’re ready to outline your book. This won’t be the perfect outline, and it’s unlikely to be the ideal outline, but it’s a vital step to writing a book, and Scrivener makes outlining lots of fun.

Start your outline with chapters. In the “Manuscript” section of the Binder, add a new folder for each chapter of your book.

Control-click Manuscript, then click Add > New Folder. Rename the folder as the chapter title. Scrivener will use these folder names as chapter titles when it compiles your document.

Here’s a basic outline that works well for nonfiction ebooks:

Introduction.
Chapters 1-3: Identify common problems faced by your clients, and show you understand, that you know what they’re going through.
Chapters 3-7: Provide a range of solutions to the problem, ones that you know work.
Chapters 8-9: Show how the solutions work in practice.
Chapter 10: Summarize and encourage readers to implement your advice.
Conclusion.

Once you’ve outlined your chapters, you can break these down into sections and subsections by adding new text sections to the chapter folders. As with chapter titles, the names you give these will be the subheadings Scrivener uses when it compiles your ebook.

Remember, the plan you make now isn’t set in stone. Scrivener makes it easy to juggle things around, and chances are your book will evolve as you write.

6: Try Out the Corkboard

If you want to see how easy it is to move things around right now, select “Manuscript” in the binder, and select corkboard view in the top menu (to the left of the search bar).

Here, you can easily drag and drop the index cards to reorder the chapters.

You can also reorder sections and subsections within chapters by selecting the chapter folder from the Binder while in corkboard view.

7: Start Writing!

You’ve laid the foundations of your book, now you’re ready to start writing. This step will likely take the longest of all.

Scrivener isn’t only useful for structuring documents. It also provides handy tools for the writing process, including Composition Mode, and Split Screen writing.

Composition Mode provides a distraction free writing experience. This allows you to focus on getting words onto the page. It’s just you, a keyboard, and a sheet of paper on the screen.

To enter Composition Mode, in the taskbar menu select View > Enter Composition Mode. This is what Composition Mode looks like:

Split screen writing allows you to have your research open next to your document, so you don’t have to keep switching back and forth between them. Alternatively, you can have two different sections of your ebook open at once.

To view a split screen, in the taskbar menu select View > Layout > Split Vertically. You can also split horizontally. This is what a vertical split looks like:

8: Keep Track of New Ideas as You Write

As you start writing, you’ll find new ideas pop into your head.

Scrivener’s got this covered, too. The right hand column in Scrivener is called the Inspector. In the Inspector, you can add document notes to every section of your document. This is great for noting down the perfect-for-later ideas that pop into your mind as you’re writing.

You can also use it to make notes on sections you need to research further, or ideas for new sections to add to your book.

Top tip: The Inspector is Scrivener’s Swiss Army knife. In addition to notes it allows you to add references, keywords, and comments to your document.

9: Edit and Restructure

After you’ve finished your first draft, the real work begins. Editing isn’t only about proofreading for spelling and grammar, though that’s important. It’s also about how your document is structured, how it flows from section to section, how your arguments and ideas develop through your book. This is where you’ll be most grateful for Scrivener’s superpowers. Instead of fiddling around with copy and paste, you can drag and drop chapters, sections and subsections in corkboard view (see Step 6).

10: Compile Your Book for Publishing

Your book is finished and ready to be published. Congratulations!

Formatting word processed manuscripts into ebooks can be a nightmare, but Scrivener makes it a doddle.

In the taskbar menu, select File > Compile. You’ll be given options for how you want to compile your book.

Use the following to create an ebook:

Format as: E-book.
Compile: Manuscript.
Leave Add front matter unselected.
Your title is the name of your Scrivener project. If you want to change the title, go back to Scrivener and “Save As” with the title you want.
Select Generate HTML table of contents and Remove comments and annotations.
You can choose a cover image from any image within your document. If you have a cover image prepared, drag and drop it into your research before you compile, so you can select it here.
The Compile for option you select depends on where you plan to publish your ebook. Amazon uses .mobi files. All other major online stores use .epub files.

Click Compile.

That’s it. Congratulations! Your book is ready to be published.

Launch Your Freelance Website in a Day – Using WebStartToday

FreelanceSwitch.com — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:00:24 +0000

Every freelancer needs a website, no matter your specialty.

A website gives you a way to provide information to interested parties that are searching for your services online. However, a website launch can be both expensive and time-consuming, which is why some freelancers shy away from it. Fortunately, there are options for creating a free website and you can get it launched in less than a day!

This is where WebStartToday.com comes into play. It is an amazingly simple site builder tool specifically designed for freelancers and business owners with little technical experience. The process of launching a website with WebStartToday is intuitive. The other great benefit is that they allow you a free website for an entire year (with the domain name of yourbusinessname.webstarttoday.com).

For those of you who would like to give WebStartToday a try, use this tutorial for tips on how best to go through the process for creating your own freelance website in less than a day.

While this tutorial is made to help you create a website with WebStartToday, you can check out other website builders in my previous article. In fact, I would encourage you to first go through tips for launching your freelance website to make sure you have gathered the right resources, such as images and planned keywords, before starting your design.

1. Start Now

Step 1

If you haven’t done so already, go to WebStartToday.com and then click on the green Start Now – It’s Free! button located in the center of the home page.

Step 2

Fill out the Get Started Now box that pops up. Next, check your email to make sure you’ve received the welcome message and that it’s not in your spam folder.

Step 3

Before we move on, you may want to take note of the Need Some Help? box, which is locaed in the lower right corner of the page. The Live Support box is also available in the upper right corner. This is one of the many perks of WebStartToday — at any point in building your website, before and after, you can always chat with one of their specialists if you have questions.

2. Select Your Design

After you create your account, it’s now time to build your website.

Step 1

First, you’ll need to select your base design. WebStartToday has made this easy by dividing websites into categories based on industry. Although all of the designs are viewable on other devices, not all are responsive (which means they adapt to the device for easier navigation). Just recently, though, WebStartToday added 6 responsive designs for those clients who need a website that is specifically optimized for mobile or tablet use.

You’ll notice, too, that if you don’t want a site for a specific industry, you can simply search for Responsive, Businesses, Professional Services, or Nonprofit Organizations. Just keep in mind that the specific industry designs will be more SEO-friendly for your line of freelance work. Click on a design category to start browsing.

Step 2

Each of the themes have little icons in the lower right of the thumbnail. The first icon indicates multiple color selections. The second one shows that there’s a gallery available. The third one indicates SEO content. Not all themes will have all of these options, so make sure when selecting one that it contains the features you need.

Step 3

To see just the preview versions of each theme, simply hover over them with your mouse. In this preview window, you can see different color choices as well. To see a full page version, click the Select button below the theme or in the preview window select Choose this design.

Step 4

Once you are in the full page view, you can still try out different color themes by clicking on the thumbnails at the bottom of the theme. Or to go back and choose another theme, click on the Select another design. This will take you back to the Select a Design page on which you can browse through more designs.

Step 5

Once you have found a design and color you like, you have two options. You can click on the Publish Your Site button to make your site live right now using WebStartToday’s content and images. For now, though, let’s click on Start Customizing to see just how quickly you can add in your own content and images.

3. Customize Your Home Page

Step 1

Once you click on the Start Customizing button, a box will appear that asks you to enter your contact information. Notice the message on the top: this is NOT your account information. This is the contact info that will appear on your website. Enter your information and then click Continue.

Step 2

WebStartToday will take you back to your website view where you should now see your information inserted in the content of the pages. You are ready to begin customizing. Notice that as you hover your mouse over different sections of the page, an Edit Control button appears.

Step 3

Just click on this button to start customizing. If you edit a section with text, a Rich Text Control box appears with any option you may need to create customized content. You may notice options such as insert images, adding flash, and even adding and creating new buttons. You can even add in a radio play button, a checkbox, or a form. If you are comfortable with HTML, then you can click on the Source option to see the page in code.

Step 4

If you edit an image, you’ll see the Image Control box appear. This is where you can add in new images to replace the stock ones if you so choose. One very important SEO aspect to note is the Alternate Text option. WebStartToday already has keyword text entered in here for you – your business name and industry. However, you can further optimize this by including one of the keywords on which you are focusing the page.

Ideally, you already have a list of keywords. If not, then read through the important steps for launching a website in a day, or get some more great tips on what keywords freelancers should try to rank for. You may also notice that each image on the page contains different keyword tags, since good SEO practice usually optimizes each page for 2 or 3 keywords.

Step 5

During editing, you can always preview your entire site simply by clicking the grey Preview button, located in the lower left corner. This will show you exactly how your site will appear to visitors.

If you decide you really hate the design you picked, you can always completely scrap your choice and start over by clicking the Delete and Start Again button. Or create a completely new website by clicking the Make Another Website.

At any point in the process, you can click on the Help Center to search for answers to common questions or click on Live Chat, which is available 24/7 for those burning the candle late at night.

4. Managing Pages

Step 1

You may have noticed that you can’t just edit other pages from your home page. To make changes to pages, or what pages your website contains, click on the Manage Pages button, which is located in the lower left corner. This will take you to a Manage Pages view from which you can rearrange the order of pages in your navigation bars, edit pages, delete or add pages, and even edit metatags for SEO purposes. You will notice, too, that to rearrange the pages you simply drag and drop.

Hiding pages is easy with a simple click on the eye icon, but why would you want to hide pages? If you delete a page, it’s gone. However, if you hide a page, you can add it back later. For instance, you may not have time to work on some of your pages now, so you may want to hide them until you can customize them for your viewers.

Step 2

If you click on Settings, you’ll be taken to a box that allows you to change the name of the page and add in keywords and other SEO information. The Page Name is what will show up in your navigation menu. The Page Title and the Metatag Description is what will show up in search engine results. The Metatag Key Words are simply the main keywords associated with that page. Thankfully, WebStartToday already has all of these fields set up for existing pages, but if you add new pages, you’ll have to fill in these fields yourself.

Step 3

To edit any of the pages on your site, click on the pencil Edit Page icon. Or to go back to editing the page you were just customizing, click on the green Continue Editing button in the lower left hand corner.

5. Publish Your Site

Step 1

Once you are ready to take your website live, click on the Publish This Site. First you will need to click on and move the slider to the billing of your choice. For now, let’s simply choose the Free option. You can always choose a paid option at any point, which will get you a free custom domain and no ads on your website. With the free account, you still get a custom domain, but it will be listed as YourBusinessName.WebStartToday.com.

Step 2

Now type in the domain you’d like to have in the text box. Ideally, you went through my previous tutorial on getting started with launching a website in a day, and searched for an available domain that matches your business name. If so, then this domain should be available. If it is, then click the Publish Now button and your website is now live! It does take a couple minutes for your website to show up, but should be up and running by the time you finish reading this tutorial.

Step 3

At any point in the design process, now or later, you can click on My Account, located along the bottom of the page edit view, to make changes to your account. This is where you can change your account from free to a paid version, add or change billing information, or even use a domain name that you’ve already purchased. This is also the page you’ll see when you log back into your account at another time. To start editing again, you would just click on the Edit Website button that is in the My Websites section.

Make Use of This Quick Web Builder Tool

As a web builder tool, WebStartToday makes it pretty darn easy for anyone to create their own website, especially those with little to no technical experience. Minus the slow response time, it’s a great way to throw up a freelance website in less than a day. And it’s easy to go back and further customize for your freelance work later. If you decide that this is the design for you, at any point in the free year, you can switch to the paid version to get a unique domain.

For those that have budgeted for a custom site, hiring a professional website designer is certainly a strong choice. Yet, WebStartToday is a good tool to use to get started with building your first freelance website while on a really tight budget.

If you give this web builder a try, be sure to share your thoughts and experience with the rest of us!