FreelanceFolder

5 Tips For Filing Your Taxes Easily

Amber Weinberg — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 05:30:23 PDT

One thing that scares a lot of professionals away from becoming freelancers is the thought of doing taxes.

Taking care of your taxes shouldn’t be scary. Especially if you’re a one person business, filing your taxes can easily be done in less than 30 minutes.

In this post, I’ll share some of my tips for filing taxes, as well as some great tools to help make tax time painless and easy.

1. Keep Everything Organized

At the start of each year, I grab a manila envelope and label it with the current year. In this envelope, I keep medical, business and home improvement receipts that I can use to write-off on my taxes. At the end of the year, I also use this envelope to store all the 1099’s I get from agencies I work with.

For all my business receipts, I record these in my client billing app (I use Billings, but there are other great ones out there). Client billing software is great to use around tax time because it allows you to track all your income, expenses and fees in one place.

Most apps also come with a powerful report generator, so you can quickly view everything at once. This is great, because when it’s time to do taxes, everything is together and organized for you.

2. Use a Tax Program Made for Businesses

I don’t want to spend the money on hiring an accountant or tax professional, but I also don’t want to spend ages on filing my taxes, or make a mistake resulting in me over or underpaying them either. That’s why I recommend using some tax software and filing your taxes electronically.

Personally, I love using TurboTax For Business. It quickly walks you through every part of filing your taxes and helps you find all your write-offs. It even does the math for you when calculating home office write-offs (more on that below). And, it only costs around $70 to use.

3. Print Your Reports

Remember the reports we talked about in the first tip? If you’re already using some client billing software, now’s the time to print those handy reports. The two reports I recommend printing are:

Payments By Client–This report is better than a general income report, because it lists the income separately by client, which allows you to easily mark the clients off that sent you a 1099, making sure that you don’t count the client’s income twice and overpay!
Expenses–Billings doesn’t have a strong interface for expenses, but if yours does, try to download a report that lists the expenses by type. This will save you time since you won’t have to sort them manually, since expenses are claimed by type in your taxes.

4. What Can a Freelancer Write Off?

The cool thing about being self-employed, is that you can write everything off that you spend on or while doing business.

Here’s a handy list of some of the things you could write off:

Rent, utilities and renovations to your home office (taken as a percentage of the whole house) or all your expenses for your separate office
Care expenses or mileage if used for business
Internet, landline and cellphone
Expenses incurred while traveling for business
Convention fees and expenses (Barcamp, SXSW, etc)
Business books, tutoring or mentoring
Printers, computers, monitors, faxes and other electronic equipment
Paper, ink, stamps, envelopes and other supplies
Paypal, Google or other expenses incurred while collecting payment
Stock photos, templates, etc
Payments you’ve made to over freelancers or contractors
Software
Advertising expenses
Printed materials

5. Actually Pay Your Taxes Before Tax Time

While most of us probably prefer to pay our taxes once a year, and normally after we find out the actual bill, this makes Uncle Sam jealous. Therefore, if you make any kind of real money and haven’t paid quarterly payments, you’ll be subject to a pretty hefty fee.

So make sure around the beginning of the year, that you download and use Form 1040-ES (PDF) to pay your quarterlies. This will also dampen the amount you’ll owe when you file.

In the same note, make sure you set aside money for taxes throughout the year! I once talked about setting up an automatic budget and the very first envelope I have money go to is taxes.

With every business deposit you make, you should put 20-40% away for taxes. I like to keep mine in a savings account to earn a bit of interest until it’s due, and also to stop me from spending it on something else.

*Disclaimer: I’m not a tax professional or licensed to give tax advice, so make sure you consult a professional before following this advice!

Your Thoughts

What problems do you have with taxes? Do you have any tax tips? Please share!

Image by Cleaver

Pros and Cons of a Public Price List

Tim Wasson — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:30:28 PDT

As freelancers, we can be very flexible on pricing. We can charge by the project, charge by the hour, increase our rates for rush jobs, decrease them for charities or work completely for free for our friends and family if we choose.

However, some freelancers instead choose to publicly disclose their prices on their website or brochures, eliminating some of the flexibility they may have on pricing. There are pros and cons to this issue. In this post, we’ll discuss some of the issues so that you can think about them before putting your prices up where everyone can see them.

Pros of Public Pricing

Here are some of the advantages of displaying your prices publicly:

Eliminates negotiating. Just like how electronic stores put their prices on tags, you can put a tag on your services and eliminate the negotiating that freelancers sometimes have to deal with.
Eliminates tire-kickers. Many freelancers draw up proposals for potential clients who really aren’t interested in creating a project, but instead are interested in seeing how much it would cost. Making your prices public means they won’t waste your time.
Clients will know what they’re getting into. I’m sure most of you have presented a proposal to a potential client only to see their eyes bug out when they see the price. It’s embarrassing for you and the client when you are clearly not on the same page about price. Putting your prices on the site will eliminate the shock factor of some proposals.

Although these advantages exist in favor of public pricing, there are also some disadvantages to displaying your prices publicly.

Cons of Public Pricing

Here are some of the disadvantages of public pricing:

Less flexibility. When publishing a price for a five page website or business card design, you lock yourself into that price and feature set. You get into a situation where you need to explain to your client that what they are requesting falls outside of the bounds of your prices, and you’ll need to explain why. This can sometimes increase time it takes for a proposal instead of decrease it.
Cheap services. Usually (but not always) people who publish their prices are using that as a selling point, because they are less expensive than their competition. You do not want to position yourself as a “cheap” freelancer.
Temptation to keep your rates the same. If your rates are printed in brochures or published on your site, you’ve got a couple more reasons to keep your rates where they are instead of constantly striving to earn more.
Every project is different. Whether you’re a freelance consultant, designer, writer or programmer, every project is different and should be treated accordingly.

Ultimately, most freelancers choose to keep their prices private and quote per job, and for most freelancers that’s probably the right decision. However, not all freelancers are the same. You need to weigh the pros and cons to figure out whether or not to tell the world what you charge.

What About You?

Do you publish your prices? Why, or why not? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Image by comedynose

Elements of a Successful Project Proposal

Lexirodrigo — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:30:19 PDT

Whether you’re actively looking for clients on freelancing job boards, or you only get clients through referrals, you’ll have to submit project proposals.

The project proposal is your sales piece. It’s what will ultimately “sell” your services to the prospect. To be successful, your proposal should perform the following:

show that you understand what the client is looking for
prove that you are the best person for the tasks at hand
convince the prospect that either they can afford you or they cannot afford not to hire you

To accomplish all this, your project proposal should have the following elements:

1. Summary of Client’s Requirements and Goals

This is a critical part of your proposal. However, it’s something many freelancers overlook. I have to admit, I didn’t do this until after many months of freelancing.

The thing is, if you can’t write this part, that means you don’t know enough about the project to prepare a thoughtful proposal for your prospective client.

This is undesirable, because if you completely miss what your prospect really wants, any of these things could happen:

you won’t get the project
you’ll get the project, but realize mid-way that you underestimated the amount of effort and time it will take to complete the work
you’ll get the project, but the client will be disappointed with your outputs

So, by taking the time to really understand what your prospect is looking for, you’ll be ensuring a better outcome for both your prospect and yourself. Furthermore, by showing how well you’ve paid attention to your prospect’s needs, you’ll set yourself apart from your competitors.

2. Tasks Involved and Your Fee for Each

List down the main tasks you’re going to do, along with the fee you will charge for each. Make this as detailed as possible, so that anybody–even someone who isn’t knowledgeable about the project–will be able to say when you have delivered or completed the task.

For example, if I’m going to write a sales page for a client, I’ll say that it will be at least 1,000 words long, will include graphics, and will be submitted in a .HTML file.

3. Breakdown of Each Task with Costs

It’s not enough to simply say what big tasks you will do. Break them down so your prospect appreciates how much work and skill it takes to complete each one.

In my sales page example above, I could specify that writing the sales page includes:

doing market research to better understand my client’s target market and what his competitors are doing
choosing appropriate photographs from iStockPhoto and Fotolia
design and layout of the sales page into a .HTML file

4. Delivery Schedule

Make it clear how long it will take you to complete each task. Take into account the amount of time your client may take to clear each step of the project.

5. Work Process

Describe how you usually work with clients. Will you hold a conference call after the client approves your proposal? Do you use Basecamp or another project management service to track all client communication?

Be specific now so you and your client won’t be in for surprises later on.

6. Mode of Payment

In this part, specify how you want to get paid. Do you require full or partial down payment before starting on a project? Can the client pay you through PayPal, credit card or check?

7. Samples or Other Proof That You Can Do the Job

Make it easy for prospects to decide that you’re suitable for this project. Attach samples of work, or links to samples that show how you’ve fulfilled similar client requirements in the past.

8. Clear Indication of the Next Steps

Tell your prospect clearly what he should do if he either wants to proceed with the project, or if he has further questions before he can make a decision.

Say something like, “If you need clarification on my proposal, please email your questions to me. On the other hand, if you’d like to proceed as I outlined here, I’ve attached an invoice for your first down payment so I can get started right away.”

9. Invoice for First Payment

Obviously, you should include this only if you require a down payment (or full payment) before you start a project.

10. Contact Information

Make sure your proposals include your name and contact details–including your email address even if you are emailing your proposal. Don’t assume your prospect will simply hit the “reply” button, or take the time to find your contact information if he doesn’t see it right away.

Bonus: Some prospects will have their own requirements that aren’t in the list above. Just the other day I saw a job posting where the only requirement was to “tell me why you should get this assignment.”

Always, always review the job posting to make sure you’ve complied with everything the prospect asked for. If you fail to comply, you won’t get the assignment no matter how good you are. The ability to follow instructions counts for a lot among clients.

What Did I Miss?

Do you have a formula for a winning project proposal? Did I miss anything crucial? Please let us know by posting a comment below.

Image by Brent Nelson

Open Thread: What Are Your Most Productive Hours?

Laura Spencer — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 05:30:24 PDT

Some freelancers work best at night. Others rise early and do their best work first thing in the morning before the sun even rises.

One of the benefits about freelancing that many of us enjoy is that we can arrange our schedule to work during those hours when we are most productive rather than when an employer requires us to work. The flexibility of freelancing is a great perk.

Over on our Freelance Folder Fan Page we asked our readers to share whether or not they were a night owl or worked best during the day and we got a great response.

We’d like to give the rest of our readers a chance to respond to the question as well:

When are your most productive hours to work?

Share your story in the comments.

What work schedule have you set for yourself? Tell us whether you are a night owl or an early riser.

Image by luchilu

Ten Plus Ways to Help You Get Paid

Laura Spencer — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:30:10 PST

It’s the one thing that every freelancer dreads–collecting a payment from a delinquent clients. No freelancer ever wants to have to pick up the phone and call a client to ask about a late payment.

Yet, sooner or later, many of us are faced with a client who doesn’t pay us on time. It’s normal, I think, to procrastinate in such circumstances. You tell yourself that the check will be in tomorrow’s mail, but in your heart, you know it’s not really coming.

Getting paid is vital to a freelancer. In fact, the money we receive for our services is what enables us to keep doing what we love. It’s how we support our families and ourselves.

Fortunately, there are some steps a freelancer can take to prevent payment problems from occurring in the first place as well as some steps to follow when a payment is late. In this post, we’ll discuss ten of those steps.

How to Get Your Money

When a client is seriously late with a payment it’s not only a blow to the pocketbook, it’s a threat to our livelihood.

What can a freelancer do to avoid having problems getting paid?

We’ve talked about collecting late payments before at Freelance Folder. In the excellent post What To Do To Avoid Getting Ripped Off? Lois Knight suggests the following steps:

Always send a formal invoice with a description of the work.
Send a gentle reminder after 7-10 days.
Send a second reminder in 15-30 days.
Take the client to court.
File a grievance with the Better Business Bureau.
Require a retainer up front.

These suggestions are great, but there is even more that you can do to keep from losing money.

In addition to the steps listed above, try these steps:

Investigate a client first–Learn everything you can about potential clients. Look at their website. Google their company name. Check the Better Business Bureau for complaints (if he or she treats his or her customers poorly, they will probably also treat their vendors poorly). While you can’t always tell whether a client will be a deadbeat from what you learn online, it’s amazing what you actually can learn. The more information you have up front, the better.
Use a formal contract–A contract should spell out the agreement between you and your client. Having a contract may give you a little legal edge later on if there is trouble later on. Not only does having a contract serve as a record of your agreement, it also tells the client that your business with them is a serious matter.
Offer a discount for early payment–In many industries it is customary for a vendor to offer a discount to customers who pay early. You can do the same thing to encourage your clients to pay you promptly. For example, if your invoices are normally due in a month, but you’d like to be paid sooner you can offer clients who pay within the week a small discount. On your invoice a 2% discount for payment within seven days would be written 2/7 net 30. (On a thousand dollar invoice, this is only $20.00.)
Invoice promptly–It’s very important send an invoice as soon as a project is done. First of all, very few clients will pay you before they receive an invoice. Also, the longer the time period between when you turn in your work and when you invoice the client, the more likely it is that you will have trouble getting paid. Leaving a gap between project completion and invoicing opens the door to a lot of potential problems. Your contact for the project could leave the company. Or, the company may believe that they have already paid you due to the length of time that has passed. If you invoice a client monthly, try to do it on about the same date each month.
Make that telephone call–Sometimes there’s no way around it. You have to call the client on the phone and ask for the money that you are owed. When you are faced with this challenge, it’s a good idea to plan in advance what you are going to say. Jot down some main points that you want to make with the client. If possible, rehearse the phone call. While you are on the phone keep your voice and language professional, but firm. Avoid yelling or cussing at the client, even if you feel angry or upset.

With careful planning, you should be able to reduce your number of unpaying clients and late paying clients.

What Do You Think?

Do you have steps that you take to ensure that you get paid on time? Share your tips.

Have you ever had a client that didn’t pay? Share your story (no names please).

Image by ywds

Dealing With Negative Criticism

Amber Weinberg — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:30:09 PST

As freelancers, we do everything we can to get our names out there. Whether it’s writing blog posts, twittering, using other social media, or just dealing with clients, we try to be everywhere on the web.

Unfortunately, the more you put yourself out there, the more you open yourself up to those people. You know who they are–the ones who disagree with you and aren’t afraid to point that out, the ones who hate your work, writing and thoughts.

While not the same as outright rejection, negative criticism can be just as upsetting and hurtful. So how do we deal with it while staying professional and cool headed? Here are some tips from someone who’s also received lots of criticism in her freelancing career.

Six Tips to Help You Deal with Critics

Here are six tips to help you deal with criticism:

Don’t take it personally.
The person may disagree with your work or what you said, but that doesn’t mean they’re attacking you personally.
Calm down
Take a deep breath. Even if the person is being unfair or just trying to pick a fight, keep your calm. Fighting with the person will not only result in you losing work if it’s a client, but will also ruin your reputation and make you look like the bad guy.
Could they be right?
Try to see the criticism objectively. Can you turn it into something good? What would happen if you tried to follow their advice? If the criticism comes from an industry expert, try following it to see if it would make you better at what you do.
Could you be wrong?
If you’re dealing with a client, could you be in the wrong? Having an angry client is definitely not going to be something you want to deal with. Is it worth fighting about and losing their business? Make sure you listen to their criticism very carefully, they could be right and you could learn something.
What if you’re right?
Is it worth arguing about and wasting valuable time you could be spending working? Would it make you seem petty or immature if you do argue it? If so, it may be better to just move on. If you firmly believe it’s worth addressing, calm down first and remember to behave professionally. Explain your methodology and why you believe it to be correct. Don’t shout or call names. Most people actually enjoy hearing others’ point of views, so don’t be afraid to express yours.
Shrug it off
If all else fails, shrug it off. Not everyone is going to agree with what you say or do, nor should they. If it’s not something you can learn from, or just from an internet bully, ignore it and move on. You’ll probably never see or hear from them again anyways, so there’s no point in worrying about what they think, or wasting your day trying to change it.

It’s tough dealing with criticism. It’s even tougher when you know you’re right. Personally, I’m the kind of person who’ll fight with you all day to prove my point, so I have to remind myself that I’ve got plenty of client work I should be doing instead.

But, don’t let that spoil your freelancing spirit. Just remember that you’re awesome at what you do, otherwise you’d have no clients! So don’t let anyone make you think otherwise. There’s enough room in the internet world for everyone’s opinions, so take a deep breath, smile and move on!

Your Thoughts

Have you had to deal with negative criticism? How did you do it?

Image by Robert Couse-Baker

9 Plugins Your Clients Will Love For Their WordPress Website

Brian McDaniel — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:30:29 PST

There are countless blog posts with lists of plugins for WordPress, including some great lists here on Freelance Folder, but this post focuses on plugins that will make your clients’ experience in WordPress more enjoyable, easier to navigate, rich with important statistics and completely branded to match their website. For freelance web designers or WordPress consultants, taking a small amount of extra time to set up these plugins can boost the professional appearance of WordPress installations you provide for your clients, strengthen their confidence in you and score high marks as you impress them with their own personal WordPress experience.

My Brand

An easy to use plugin that will create a custom login page, complete with backgrounds, font colors, login box color, and replacing the WordPress logo with your client’s. Right from their first login your client will see their own branding and know that their site is unique.

Plugin on WordPress.org
Plugin Homepage

Branded Admin

This plugin gives you the ability to change the WordPress Administration section by adding a branded header and footer. All you do is install the plugin, then replace the header and footer images with your own. It removes the WordPress logo and allows your client’s logo to take its place.

Plugin on WordPress.org
Plugin Homepage

Ozh Admin Drop Down Menu

This handy plugin takes the vertical sidebar navigation on the left and turns it into a much more accessible horizontal menu on top of your dashboard. The drop-down it creates gives your client one-click access to almost everything in the menu, which speeds up the workflow no matter what the task. With the standard admin menu, almost every click initiates a page load, but this menu eliminates that part of the process. Highly configurable, even down to color schemes, this is a huge plus for your clients’ administration.

Plugin on WordPress.org
Plugin Homepage

Admin Menu Editor

With an easy-to-use drag and drop interface, this plugin enables your client to reorganize and edit any existing menu item. They can change the title, access rights, menu icon and so on. Menu items can be hidden and custom menus can be created. Great functionality that allows your client to personalize and customize their WordPress admin menu to fit their specific needs.

Plugin on WordPress.org
Plugin Homepage

Google Analytics Dashboard

Save your clients the extra step of logging into Google Analytics by providing them with a snapshot of their statistics built right into the dashboard. This plugin does not put the tracking code into their pages (I recommend Ultimate Google Analytics for a simple way to do that), but it does link up to their GA account and bring the statistics into an easy to read dashboard element. Another time saver for your clients!

Plugin on WordPress.org
Plugin Homepage

Feed Stats for WordPress

If you are using a plugin to redirect your clients’ WordPress RSS feed to Feedburner (I recommend FD Feedburner Plugin) you can add this plugin to show their Feedburner statistics in the dashboard as well. Easy to install and set up, this will create a Feed Stats menu item under Dashboard that will show subscribers, clicks and views for the RSS feed.

Plugin on WordPress.org
Plugin Homepage

WordPress.com Stats

This is another statistics plugin that will show numbers related to posts themselves, such as pageviews, which posts and pages are the most popular, where traffic is coming from, and what people click on when they leave. It will also add a link to the dashboard which shows all stats on a single page. The plugin connects with a WordPress.com account, so your client must have one for this to work, but then all you have to do is add their API key to get it running.

Plugin on WordPress.org

Wibiya Toolbar

Those Facebook-like footer toolbars are showing up everywhere these days and there are varying opinions on their usage, but if your client likes them then this is a great solution. You have to sign up for a free account and configure it to work with your client’s social media accounts such as Twitter, Facebook and others, then install this plugin and set it up. One of the things I like about this is that it enables visitors to share posts from the toolbar on any page, eliminating the need for additional plugins at the end of each post. It also allows visitors to interact with the client’s Facebook fan page and Twitter without ever leaving the site. For clients that appreciate this functionality, it is a great solution that frees up space on their site and encourages interactive participation.

Plugin on WordPress.org
Plugin Homepage

Technical Support for WordPress

This last plugin is one of my new favorites and will score points for you with your clients. If you’re a freelancer, a web design agency or a WordPress consultant, Technical Support for WordPress is a way to provide quality support to your clients. Installing the plugin will enhance your client’s Dashboard with a new widget for submitting support tickets directly to your e-mail. You can brand it with your logo and company information, customize subjects and email messages and your client will feel as though you are readily available to assist them every time they visit their dashboard. A brilliant addition to any WordPress site you build or install!

Plugin on WordPress.org
Plugin Homepage

Other Plugins?

There are literally thousands of WordPress plugins available and new ones being developed all the time, so you may know of others that I have missed. Please be sure to share your suggestions in the comments. I hope the plugins I’ve listed will enhance your clients’ experience and help to make you look like a superstar whenever you deliver their WordPress site to them.

MediaLoot is Live! Join Now to get 50% Off For Life

Mason Hipp — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:58:35 PST

It’s finally here! Months of hard work have led up to this moment, and I’m very happy to say that MediaLoot is online and accepting new members!

For those of you who haven’t heard yet, MediaLoot is a premium membership site for designers. You can join for $14 per month (with the 50% launch discount), and as a member you’ll get tons of new design resources every month. Forget paying $5, $10, or $15 dollars for every little thing you buy — MediaLoot is all about bringing you the best design resources for a lot less money. If you think that’s cool, check out the tour for more details →

We’ve got icon sets, web elements, print templates, textures, and a lot more. We’ve also got a bunch of free stuff for those of you who aren’t ready to join yet (some really cool free icons). There’s definitely a little something for everyone, so even you non-designers out there can benefit from the new launch.

Hope to see you there!

Click Here to Visit MediaLoot →

The Slippery Slope of Creeping Scope

Laura Spencer — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:35:46 PST

Uncontrolled scope creep costs you money.

When a client asks you to do something that wasn’t part of the original agreement it’s called scope creep.

Some scope creep is relatively minor and doesn’t really make much difference to your freelancing business. Doing a little bit of extra work for a client can be a good way to build up some good will.

In other instances, however, scope creep can drastically increase your workload and negatively impact your bottom line. These are the cases of scope creep that can really damage your freelancing business if they are not addressed.

In this post, we’ll explore some options that a freelancer has for dealing with scope creep.

Dealing with Scope Creep in Short-term Projects

Scope creep is fairly easy to deal with in one time or short-term projects.
The key is in the wording of your agreement with the client.

Your agreement should be specific about the work that you will do and any rework that may be required. The more specific your agreement, the less likely it is that you’ll have to deal with scope creep problems in a one time or short-term project.

For example, you can limit the number of times the client may revise your work (not including revisions due to your mistakes, of course) or you can specify a date by which all requests for change must be turned in.

Be clear that anything additional or after the agreed-upon date is out of scope and can be considered a new project.

Dealing with Scope Creep in Long-term Projects

Scope creep can be tougher to deal with in long-term or ongoing projects, probably because it can creep up a little bit at a time without a freelancer realizing what is happening.

Lots of little changes can really add up!

Before you even realize it, the project has doubled in size and your pay has not kept pace.

I recently read about a freelancer whose regular freelancing gig kept expanding over an eighteen month period to the point where he went from working a normal eight to five hours to nearly working 24/7.

Handling scope creep from a long-time client can be tricky. For one thing, these long-term clients can be a freelancer’s bread and butter–a kind of job security in a very insecure economy. It’s understandable that a freelancer might hesitate to say anything to jeopardize their relationship with a client who gives them recurring work.

Scope creep on a long-term project is also harder to identify because it tends to happen a little bit at a time. While one minor little change may not have much impact on a freelancer, a dozen minor little changes can make quite a bit of difference.

There are steps that a smart freelancer can take to control scope, though.

Five Steps to Controlling Scope

Fortunately, it is possible to manage scope for both small and large freelancing projects. Here are five steps to take:

Know how much time you are spending on your project–Far too many freelancers don’t keep good records of how they use their time. You won’t notice scope creep if you don’t really know how much time you are spending on a project. Even if your client isn’t paying you by the hour, you should be tracking how long each task is taking you to complete.
Set a limit on how much time you are willing to spend doing extra work–Decide in advance how much extra work you will do for a client. This is a very individual decision and may vary from project to project and from freelancer to freelancer. This isn’t something you need to necessarily tell the client, just know when a little more is too much.
Keep a list of changes–Even if a requested change that wasn’t part of the original agreement seems small, make a note of it. Over time, these little requests tend to build up. If you record each client request then if your project starts to spiral out of control you will have an insight into what might be causing the problem.
Evaluate frequently–Periodically, compare the time that you are spending on the project to the time that you thought you would spend. If there’s a significant difference, ask yourself why. Did you underestimate the amount of work the project would require? Did the client add additional requirements to the project?
Speak up sooner rather than later–If you do notice that too many changes have been made to a project, the sooner you speak up about it the better. If you wait too long to speak up, the client may believe that it isn’t a very big problem. You can say something like, “that additional step added a lot more work to the project than we thought. To do it using this step it will cost $X more.”

It’s important to note that scope creep isn’t always done deliberately. Many clients aren’t fully aware of the additional work that they are piling onto the freelancer or truly don’t realize how long it takes to do things.

If a client is satisfied with the freelancer’s work so far, they are often more than happy to do the fair thing and pay additional charges once the scope creep is pointed out. Or, they may decide that the changes aren’t really needed after all.

How Do You Handle Scope Creep?

Have you had to face scope creep on any of your projects? How did you deal with it?

Share your ideas and experiences in the comments.

Image by philliecasablanca

How to Tell When It’s Time to Take a Break

James Chartrand — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 04:30:49 PST

I threw my neck out something fierce not long ago. I don’t know how it happened. I must have been fighting this big monster in my sleep, rolled over so I could grab a rock to clonk him over the head with, and was suddenly awake, clutching my neck in pain. Either the monster got me or I twisted my head so fast in my sleep that I pulled a muscle.

Either way, I was in serious pain. And I had work to do the next morning.

I had clients to call and clients to email. I had to delegate some work to my assistants. I had to manage my team. I had to be there, damn it. Without me, my business grinds to a halt. It’s the siren song of the freelancer: if I go away, even for a minute, my business goes up in smoke.

Guess what? It’s not true.

Why Freelancers Need a Break

Freelancers need a break just as much as any nine-to-five person punching a clock. That nine-to-fiver gets a certain number of vacation days a year, and he often gets sick days too. If he doesn’t, he can use up one of his vacation days to stay home and tend his cold or his injury.

You don’t have that problem. You get to say when you get to take a break.

The problem is allowing yourself to say it.

I know this problem all too well. Here are a few moments when you really need to stop and say, “You know what? I’m taking a sick day.”

1. When You’re Injured

When I hurt my neck, I was putting strain on that injured muscle every minute I spent out of bed. Your head weighs around eight pounds. When your arm is injured and you try to pick up eight pounds, it’s painful. You might even make the injury worse. The same goes for your neck, only it can’t possibly avoid picking up your heavy head.

I should have spent the day on my back, napping a lot and letting the injury heal so that I could be back on my feet the next day. Instead, I kept laying down and getting back up again to try to get some work done and stay on top of things.

The injury lingered and didn’t heal as quickly as it could have, because I didn’t take a full day or two off to give it a fighting chance.

What happened during that time? Well, I definitely didn’t do my best work. I was distracted, and I was in pain. I was cranky every now and then because my neck hurt. I wasn’t available as much as I usually was because I had to keep taking breaks. Even the most minor thing, like cradling the phone between my shoulder and ear, was impossible for me.

And every time I forgot my limitations, I hurt myself more.

I should have taken the day off. So should you. If you’re injured in any way that affects your ability to work–back, neck, tendonitis, RSI–take the time to let your body heal fully so you can go back to work at full strength, instead of hobbling along at a fraction of your ability for weeks.

2. When You’re Sick

Most of us remember working nine-to-five and having those days where you’d call in sick just because you couldn’t face going in that day. We’d fake the cough and weary voice, and we’d try to sound sincere when we said we were so sorry, but we just felt too terrible to show up.

Now you’re a freelancer. The only person you can lie to in order to get out of work is yourself. That’s kind of too bad, because it means you probably don’t pretend you’re sick anymore. You work even when you don’t feel like working, because after all, you don’t have any excuse not to.

But when you’re really sick, you still work. Even when you have the excuse. That’s not good.

If you work through sickness, you’re going to put out low-quality work. No one’s brain functions well when illness chunks it up with snot and you have that blurry-vision, itchy-eye thing going on. Clients are going to be less than pleased if you sniffle your way through it and deliver a project on time but below your usual standard.

They may even wonder if your previous good work was a fluke.

Don’t make clients question your skills. Call them up or email them, explain that you’re very sick, and ask if it would be possible to extend your deadline. Make sure they understand this is optional: you’re willing to deliver on time if they need you to. However, you want to make sure they get your very best work, and you’re afraid they won’t get that if you work through the illness.

Nine times out of ten, your client will choose to wait until you’re well again. That one time out of ten? You can take care of him because you’ll have cleared the rest of your plate. Try to wait until you have at least one day of feeling not so bad, and knock it out of the park.

Then you can catch up on your nicer, more sympathetic clients at your leisure once you’re all better.

3. When You’re Burned Out

It happens to all freelancers. Every single one of us. You simply run out of juice. You stare at the screen for hours, trying to summon the strength to be creative. You know you’re never going to get there. You want to run away from everything. You want to quit.

And you know what? Sometimes you should do just that.

Quit for a day. Just one. If you can manage it, try for a long weekend. Then leave your laptop behind with a nice autoresponder for anyone who sends an email: “I’ll be out of touch until Monday. I’ll get back to you promptly first thing Monday morning.”

If you have an assistant, ask him or her to take messages and send any urgent clients to peers of yours whose work you can vouch for. Odds are slim that you’ll get a last-minute rush client during the very weekend you’re taking off, but if you do, don’t stress. He’ll get taken care of by your colleague. You’re having a break, a mini-vacation, getting over your burnout.

Forget about everything. Go someplace you enjoy, or just hole up in your own house. Banish the computer and the phone to the basement or a dark closet. Read a book you’ve been meaning to read. Spend time with your significant other or your kids or some friends. Just relax.

When you get back, you’ll be recharged, ready to take on anything, and a whole lot happier with your job.

Your Turn

Can you think of other times you need to take a break? Have there been times you’ve pushed through it and regretted not taking a break? Let’s hear it!

Image by danielfoster