Freelancers – The New Workforce

Founder of the Freelancers Union Sara Horowitz explains why the self-employed are a bigger factor in today’s economy. Check out this video from CNNMoney:

Seven Ways to Impress Your Clients – And Win Repeat Business

Ali Hale is a freelance writer and blogger. You can find her all over the net, but especially at her home blog, Aliventures.

When I started out freelancing, the thought of having clients was quite scary … though the thought of having no clients at all was even scarier! Something about the word clients implied that they’d be demanding, ultra-professional, and intimidating.

Of course, it was nothing like I’d feared: my clients have all been very human, warm and friendly! However, I have found that there are seven easy ways to really impress clients, and to guarantee that they’ll want to work with you or refer you in the future:

1. Dress Professionally

I’m most comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt – but when meeting clients, I make the effort to smarten up. Business people can sometimes have slightly negative stereotypes of “freelancers”, and looking like a professional is a great way to make a great first impression and dispel their fears.

Think about it this way: if you had the choice between an assistant who turned up wearing cut-off jeans, scuffed sneakers and a slogan t-shirt and an assistant who wore smart trousers, a nice shirt, and clean shoes – who would you be more inclined to hire?
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5 Internet Marketing Techniques You’d Be A Fool Not To Practice

Guest blogger Jimi Olaghere is a young business owner who runs Broke Tycoon, a blog and forum with advice for business and marketing techniques.

It’s no secret that the internet is a very saturated place. According to Archive.com, if you are planning to put some sort of content on the internet you have 85 billion competitors! Today’s internet users are nothing like the past, gone are days when the internet was used solely for informative purposes only. It should be no surprise to learn that today’s internet users want to be not only informed, but entertained as well.

So if you would like to learn a couple of outrageous marketing techniques that can keep you afloat while others are drowning, then read this article. But if your happy with the hopeless feeling you get when you check your web stats and don’t mind sinking to the bottom of the internet ocean, then why don’t you go ahead and click the red x button in the top right corner.
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Around the Web: Telecommuting is a Quiet Environmental Success Story

Our friends at GreenNationToday.com make the case that telecommuting is much better for sustainability and the environment than traditional work modes. We say that the same applies to the freelance workforce, who share many of the beneficial aspects of the telecommuter’s working style. As stated by Richard Blake from GNT:

One of the most effective and certainly one of the easiest steps that can be taken to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and cut US dependence on foreign oil – and the balance of trade, national security, economic and other problems directly associated with that dependence – would be the widespread use of telecommuting or telework by US businesses.

Click to read the rest of Telecommuting is a Quiet Environmental Success Story

Ten Practical Tips for Writing in English

Online opportunities are not created equal. Although access to the Internet is open to everyone, and the cost of publishing your thoughts are minimal, language gives a huge advantage to those who have learned English as their first language. They can reach the whole world by writing in their own language. For the rest of us, it requires a bit more work.

I’m from Finland, a country of 5,2 million inhabitants at the northern end of Europe, right between Sweden and Russia, so when I started blogging, my decision was easy: if I wanted to reach more than a handful of people, I had to go with English. If you speak French, Spanish or Chinese, there is a bit more incentive for writing in your own language, but even then, the only way to reach the whole population of our planet is to write in English.

It’s not always easy, so that’s why today I am sharing with you the ten most useful and practical tips for writing in a foreign language that I have learnt during my blogging career.
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Announcement: FreelancerMagazine and NorthxEast.com to Merge

I am pleased to announce that NorthxEast.com and FreelancerMagazine.com will soon be merging and operating as one site. Our combination unites two complementary resources, with NxE aimed at providing advice and resources for independent bloggers, and FM providing additional resources on marketing, productivity, self-management, and more.
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List Your Services in Our New Business Directory

We’re glad to announce a new Freelance Business Directory on our site, where individuals and businesses are free to list their webite, description and contact information on FreelancerMagazine.com/business-directory.   All links are of the “dofollow” variety.  All that we ask in return for a listing is a backlink to our site, with the anchor “Freelance Advice and Resources”. Here are the current categories of businesses offered, feel free to suggest more in the comments:

• Web and Programming - PHP, SQL, .NET, HTML, Java, C, MySQL, CSS, ASP, Flash, Javascript, ASP.NET, AJAX, SQL Server, XML, Windows, SEO, XHTML, Linux, Joomla!, Web Services, WordPress, VB.NET, JSP, Perl, J2EE, Visual Basic, Unix, Drupal, PayPal, Apache, Adobe Flash, DHTML, Flex, Social Networking, osCommerce, Facebook

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