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?

2. Anticipate Questions

Once you’ve been freelancing for a month or two, you’ll find that clients will keep coming up with the same questions. These will vary depending on your industry. When I started out making websites for very small businesses, I had some clients who struggled with emails, and knew they needed a website but didn’t understand much about the process. They wanted to know things like:

• Why do I need to pay for hosting when I already have a computer?
• What’s a domain name?
• Can you put the link to our website at the top of Google?

…and so on. My clients weren’t stupid – they were successful small business owners – but they had little experience of the web. Get a feel for how much your clients typically know, and try to anticipate the questions that they might have. This will help reassure them that you have their interests in mind, and that you’re not trying to sneak in extra charges. (My clients often didn’t understand the need to pay for a domain name and hosting, for instance.)

You might consider creating an FAQ page for your website, or a document to give to new clients, which answers common questions. If you’re just starting out, this can help add credibility by indicating to your clients that you have a lot of knowledge of your area.

3. Communicate regularly

Most clients will like to be updated on a regular interval about how things are going. Just sending an email once a week to reassure them that the project is on track is enough to make sure that they feel taken care of.

Don’t send them huge amounts of detail – just keep it brief and succinct. This indicates that you value their time, and it also reduces the chances of them getting confused about any of the details and emailing you back with questions!

If you have a client who bombards you with emails, try leaving a time delay before replying. Unless it really is urgent, don’t answer till the next day: this reduces the chances of ending up in a game of email ping-pong, and it’ll encourage your client to save up all their questions for one email.

4. Over-deliver

Something that will really impress your clients is to over-deliver on what you’ve promised. They’ll be all too used to delays, excuses and problems. Give them a great experience by hitting milestones early, or by throwing in a small extra.

Clients will often be pleased if you take the initiative: perhaps mentioning something that they could update on their website, or explaining that you could help with one of their other projects, and I’ve often had clients complain about previous freelancers or employees, saying that they “never made any suggestions.” You do have to be a little careful with this – the last thing you want to do is accidentally end up slating the wonky-looking logo that the boss designed himself – but thoughtful feedback from an outside perspective are often much appreciated.

5. Go the extra mile

Following on from over-delivering is going above and beyond the call of duty. You might not want to do this with every single client – but on long-standing clients, or ones who you know will be good for plenty of repeat business, it’s a great way to win their loyalty.

For example, I’ve sometimes received emails from clients at 9pm with a small request, and have carried it out there and then. It only takes me thirty minutes or so, but it leaves the client feeling grateful! I do have core hours, and I could charge overtime, but I find that a strong client relationship and repeat business is worth far more.

6. Send a “thank you” or small gift

This is common advice – but how often do we take it? Spending a few minutes and a few dollars choosing a nice card or gift for your client is a huge step towards creating a lasting impression. Try to make the gift something thoughtful; perhaps something that relates to one of their hobbies or interests, or that will conjure up a smile.

Many freelancers like to send out holiday cards to clients, and this is another nice way to stay in touch. You may find that your card lands on the desk at just the right time, when your client is thinking about a project that they could use some help with. If your name’s in their mind, chances are it’ll be you that they call.

7. Offer a discount

If you’ve had a good working relationship with a client, let them know that you’d be interested in continuing to work with them – and offer them a discount. You might like to simply have a standard discount for ongoing work, or you might prefer to frame this as a special offer just for them (“It’s been so great working with you…” etc).

A discount makes people feel special, and it makes them feel that they’re getting a bargain. It’s also a great technique to use if you want to up-sell: telling clients that, for example, you can write a press release as well as their website copy.

How do you make sure that your clients are so impressed that they want to recommend you to all their friends? Do the above tips work for you, or do you have some of your own to add?

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.

1. Content

This is by far the most important aspect of getting traffic to your site, I know I know I said outrageous but before you call me a lair let me explain myself. Writing great content is marketing on its own, imagine someone accidentally stumbles on to your site and instantly like whats on it, then its referred to someone else and it starts a chain, then this people often comeback to see if you’ve posted anything to inform and entertain them again. That’s outrageous!! Remember the average internet user has no patience, so always try and keep it has short and interesting as possible

2. Ethical Mind Control

Here you simply create a top list or award in your niche, you can allocate a page for this or simply make a blog post on it. I’ve noticed that most people who write content are often focused on themselves, by focusing on your competitors you are appealing to their egos and insecurities, which they will perceive subconsciously and in return, they will link back to you in some form.

3. Start Page Programs Or Traffic Exchange

This is a technique that even experienced online marketers have forgotten about, these are free programs that will allow you to advertise your site to other members, all you have to do is view other members site. Simple enough and more outrageously its free advertisement!!

4. Killer Headline

Have you been to the grocery store lately? precisely the checkout aisle, well somewhere in between the colorful array of packets of gum and the chapstick you’ll find the tabloids.You cant miss it, glossy finish and outrageous headlines, if I could get all the money I spent on these while waiting impatienly to pay for my groceries; you probably wont be reading this. I spend a fortune on those you know why? Cause the headline gets you and you want to read the juicy details. Your headline should create the same curiosity, force your readers to read the rest of the story.

5. SEO

Search Engine Optimization, well I dont know to much about this to be honest, but the key thing you should know is always tag keywords and have a decent URL and maybe someday you’ll be recoginsed by google. Outrageous right?

The information contained in this article does not guarantee your success, it is purely a guidline to help you with your online success. Ultmately, it is you who will decide if your are to become successful or not, so don’t come knocking at my door when you end up back at your 9 to 5.

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

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.

1. Read in English

When you want to master a language, you can never read enough.

Every new book, short story or article you read teaches you new words, new ways to formulate sentences, and more natural ideas on how to use the language. They go to your subconscious and slowly start becoming more natural to you, until one day you notice that you start to think in English and know that you’re on the right track.

The easiest way to get started with reading in English rather than your own language is to pick up a non-fiction book on a familiar, interesting topic. Non-fiction tends to be easier to follow than fiction (fiction authors use tricky words to touch their readers’ feelings) and reading about a familiar topic makes it easier to guess what the author is trying to say to you when you don’t quite understand the words he’s using. Don’t use a dictionary unless you really have to – just skip the parts you don’t understand. If you make your reading feel too much like work, you’ll lose the fun in it, and the habit of reading won’t last for long.

Some great, free e-books to get you started:

1. The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson
2. Make a Name for Yourself by Scott Ginsberg
3. Why’s Poignant Guide To Ruby: This is a programming book, but also a reading experience like no other. I suggest you take a look even if you are not interested in learning to code in Ruby.

2. Listen to native speakers

Blogging is a form of public speaking, which is why one of the best tips for making your text come alive is to write as you speak.

But if you don’t speak English every day, this is a rather tricky advice to follow. So, one thing I have found useful in practicing conversational writing is to watch and listen natives speak.

The Internet comes to rescue here through podcasts and videos from speaking events. Pick your favorite speakers and listen to them deliver their message. You will learn not only about how they use the language, but also how to captivate the audience, and a bit about the topic at hand.

Check out these videos for a good start:

1. Randy Pausch on Time Management
2. Steve Jobs talks to Stanford students
3. Scott Ginsberg, “that guy with the nametag”, tells you how to be more approachable at NametagTV

3. When writing in English, think in English

This is one of the most important tips that separate a decent foreign language writer from a lousy one. The lousy writer thinks in his own language and then tries to translate his thoughts to English. But that simply doesn’t work: the idioms, grammar rules, and cultural differences make text written in this manner sound clumsy and unnatural.

Finnish is probably one of the extreme cases when it comes to grammar. In Finnish we concatenate a big part of words together (for example a railway station would be called railwaystation in Finnish) whereas English is full of small words. We have no future tense. We don’t use prepositions but suffixes… The list of examples could go on forever.

That’s why every time I set out to write in English, I push all my Finnish thoughts far to the background and don’t even look back. Then I pretend to be English speaking until the work is done and I can move back to my Finnish self.

I suggest you do the same.

4. Write

The best way to learn anything is by throwing yourself out there and practicing. With writing practice is even more important. In fact, I would give you the same advice even if you were considering writing in your native language. But of course, it’s even more important when writing in some other language.

When you are just starting out with your blogging, you should write something every day to really get your writing routine developed. After a while it’s OK to drop the pace a bit – although even then, if you want to become best at what you do, keeping up the habit of daily writing helps a lot.

Write in different styles: lists, humorous posts, serious posts, interviews, and if you have the time, even text that is completely unrelated to your blog. Just to get more practice.

5. Trust your gut

The human brain is an amazing machine.

You put in the source material by reading, listening to people talk, and speaking. Then you start writing your own blog posts and tune in the mind set of writing in English. And all of the sudden, words just start flowing from straight from your brain to the keyboard.

This can be a bit scary at first as you don’t know how you have learned the sayings and word plays you are using, and can’t be sure if they are correct or not. Uncertainty is the price you have to pay for trying to learn to use the language in a natural way. You just have to go with your gut and trust your brain when it keeps popping up words that you didn’t know you even knew.

I usually write freely on my first cycle, just trying to get the words and ideas out on paper. And then, on the second round of checking my text I drop sayings that sound too uncertain to me – or run them through a friend to see if they make sense or not. Usually they do.

6. Proofread

When you have finished writing your article and it seems nearly perfect to you, the next thing to do is to check it for typos, grammar mistakes, and just some plain weird sounding sentences.

The easiest way for checking for typos is to use a spellchecker:

1. If you have a word processor, you can use the spell checker that comes with it.
2. If you are using Firefox as your web browser, you can use the built-in spell checker support.
3. Another option for having a spellchecker in your browser is Google toolbar.
4. And finally, if you are using WordPress as your blogging platform, you can use the spellchecking feature built in to WordPress ever since version 2.1.

Checking for grammar mistakes is a lot trickier. What I do is that I usually check the grammar first in Microsoft Word or in an online tool and then go through it manually. For manually checking your grammar you can use a checklist of the most common grammar mistakes (here’s another one) or just play it by the ear, depending on how much you trust your own English language skills.

And of course, if you want to play it safe, you can always ask one of your English speaking friends to double check your article once you have done all in your own powers.

7. Have English-speaking friends who are not afraid to correct your mistakes

The best way to learn to sound like a native is to hang out with them as much as you can. By paying a close attention to how they speak, you will learn the sayings they use, the slang, and even the jokes that they throw at you. All of this is important in making your English sound more natural and conversational rather than something learned from a book.

Instant messaging, e-mailing, or even chatting with them face to face, if possible, are all good ways to learn from friends. And the best part in all of this – you can do it while having a great time getting to know new, interesting people.

When you apply tip number five, having native friends to point out your mistakes gets even more important. Even my gut goes wrong every now and then, and at times like that I rely in my friends. When they notice something weird in my posts, they let me know and guide me to the right direction.

8. Study spelling and grammar

Yeah. I admit it, this doesn’t sound like a lot of fun at all. But to achieve greatness, you have to put in some effort. And in the end, the reward of learning and becoming more confident with your writing is really worth it. Go find the books you were using on your English courses back in school, or if you can’t find them, check if there are any good course books at the local library.

If you still want to go one step further, you can enroll to a language course. Just make sure to pick one that is mostly about creative writing, because that will get you moving faster towards your goal.

But you don’t have to go that far for good results. These days you can find pretty much everything on the web – also material for studying English. Check out these links to get started:

1. Visual thesaurus: A fun way to improve your vocabulary by finding synonyms and related words. The page also contains word lists and a word of the day. For example, today I learned that Sesquipedalian is a fancy word that simply means long.
2. 40+ Tips to Improve your Grammar and Punctuation: A sesquipedalian list of tips and tricks to improve your English from the Dumb Little Man blog.
3. Dictionary.com: I use Dictionary.com mostly for checking up words that I have used when I’m not sure if they mean what I think they do. But that’s not all you can do with this brilliant web site. They have an interesting feature called reverse dictionary that looks up words when you write few words to describe their meaning, and a good list of further online resources for writers to check out.
4. The Economist Style Guide: The guide book given to all journalists who write for The Economist. Most of the advice applies really well to blogging.

With online services like these you will soon notice that learning English is indeed a fun activity that fuels your curiosity and gets you even more excited on your writing.

9. Commas and hyphenation – the tricky buggers

Commas are hard. Hyphenation nearly impossible.

The good thing here is that not even the English speaking bloggers always get these things right. But does that mean you don’t have to worry about them? No. If you want to be a great writer, you have to try to practice the hard things as well.

Let’s tackle hyphenation first: Definitive rules for how to do this right don’t even exist, so the trick I have adopted is simply to never do it. When blogging, you can always keep words in one piece and thus never make hyphenation mistakes.

Unfortunately you can’t get past commas and punctuation that easily. All you can do is to learn about using them and then always double check your text to see if your punctuation is correct.

1. Tips on Using Commas at Dumb Little Man.
2. Top 4 Guidelines for Using Commas Effectively at About.com.

10. Relax

Last comes the most important tip of all: Relax, and enjoy your writing. To be a great writer, you have to put in a lot of effort, but it’s not going to happen overnight. So, while you are practicing, don’t panic. Just write the best content you can with the skill set you have right now. Put it online on your own blog and learn more as you go.

Also, when you think about it, blogging is quite a forgiving platform: many of your readers are not from the English speaking parts of the world and won’t notice the small mistakes you make with things like prepositions or commas. Plus, people these days are busy. They don’t have time to stop and read every word you write. While that can be annoying in the sense that you can’t get their full attention, it also means that they won’t notice all of your mistakes either.

Relax, have fun, and share your thoughts with the world!

What this means for our readers:

All articles, including new ones moving forward, will be published at FreelancerMagazine.com. Over time we will be publishing back articles from NorthxEast.com on this site. No update to your RSS readers is necessary – Freelancer Magazine RSS Feed.

Not only will you continue to receive articles geared toward all freelancers, but a wider range of articles devoted to helping independent bloggers promote and manage all functions of their websites. Here is a sampling of articles you will find at the new NxE / FM:

• NxE’s Fifty Most Influential Bloggers…and…
• NxE’s Fifty Most Influential ‘Female’ Bloggers
• Good to Great: Why Some Blogs Succeed and Others Don’t
• Building a Super Blog: Part 1 and Part 2
• 19 Blog Designs that Are a Sight for Sore Eyes
• 10 Ways to Focus on the Reader and Build Long-Term Traffic

We appreciate your past and continued readership, and hope to provide some great resources for you moving forward! Feel free to comment on the new site, or add suggestions for the types of content you’d like to see.

Cheers,
John Cottone
NorthxEast.com, FreelancerMagazine.com

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So, let’s get out of the house!  Here are 6 alternative work spaces to explore, ranging from office-like settings to some very casual places.  Try them out, work them into your schedule periodically, and enjoy the benefits of adding variety and renewed thinking to your work day.

1.)  Co-Working Facilities

Best for – socializing and collaborating, having desk space
Downside – usage fees are common

Imagine a modern shared office with a collaborative cafe culture, and you have a co-working space.  Over the past few years, co-working facilities have been launching around the world at an increasing rate.  These managed community spaces are geared toward developers, writers and independents who want to socialize and find networking benefits.

Sometimes co-working spaces are available free of charge, but many have modest usage fees by the day, weekend or month.  For information on locations in your city, check out this global Wiki on the subject: 

http://wiki.coworking.info/

2.)  The Cafe

Best for – energizing with the buzz of activity (and caffeine, of course)
Downside – tough to find a table in busier locations

The cafe is the “traditional” alternative work space for freelancers, and has many perks in its own right.  The coffee aroma can be fantastic, and your only fees are the cost of beverages and snacks (unless you prefer Starbucks, who charges for their Wi-Fi access).  It’s also a great place to meet former co-workers for a friendly chat or brainstorming session.

My best advice on this location is to be aware of your own working style. The noise and activity might be very distracting for some personalities, or the perfect white noise for other freelancers.

3.)  The Working Vacation

Best for – Workaholics, Adventurers
Downside – cost

If you feel like you need to get away, but you can’t leave your work, take your work with you!  I’m an avid traveler, but recently have had daily responsibilities to clients and content development.  The quick solution for both needs is to bring the laptop on the road, and find a new destination with these characteristics:

• Connectivity – good cell phone service and Internet access
• A location with a mix of tranquil locales and bustling hotspots to foster relaxation, work productivity and nighttime fun
• Accessibility – easily reached by major air carriers and train lines for a low-stress travel experience

A quick example: next month I’ll be taking a long weekend to the Rocky Mountains for skiing, nightlife, and blog management.  The location is accessible (3 hour drive), the lodges offer Wi-Fi and quiet relaxation by the fireplace, and the towns are bustling with activity at night.  The key to this working vacation will be to spend half my time enjoying fun, new experiences, and the other half on maintaining productivity.

4.)  The Public Library

Best for – focusing and finishing tasks
Downside – you can’t yell at your monitor

As I type this article, I’m sitting in a Denver Public Library, wearing headphones and sipping a coffee.  Yes the scene is quiet and slightly sterile, but I need to reduce distractions so I can crank out a few articles today.  At home, I’ve been finding excuses to avoid writing for a couple days now – laundry needs to be cleaned, Netflix movies to watch, yard work, etc.

So, this is my pseudo-punishment for procrastinating today – no cafe, no co-working, all business.  Maybe I can find a great book to read when I’m finished, and all will be good again.

5.)  WiFi-enabled Public Parks

Best for – fresh air inspiration, writing, brainstorming, creativity
Downside – bad weather

When I lived in New York a few years ago and worked for “the man”, catching up on email in Bryant Park was my favorite lunch escape.  With laptop and deli sandwich in hand, I’d walk around the park and find an open place to sit.  Somehow the sights and sounds of the city would invigorate me for the rest of the work day.

Maybe your city or town doesn’t offer Wi-Fi in public spaces. Take a walk through the park anyways! You can always work on offline tasks, or contemplate your business strategy or latest article topic.

6.) The Public House (a.k.a., the Reward)

Best for – indoor creative inspiration, buzz
Downside – potential for laptop damage (spills, sticky tables)

Every once in a while you should treat yourself to a light working day, so why not find a table at a nice pub? Maybe you just earned a new gig, had a super-productive week, or finished another big project.  Reward yourself with a pint and some pub grub!  Luckily my neighborhood has a few nice pub & eatery’s that offer free Wi-Fi access, and I can easily find a table during the weekdays.

OK, so the pub isn’t for everyone – but you see the point that I’m really trying to make.  As freelancers, we don’t have bosses to congratulate or motivate us.  So, take it upon yourself to recognize and reward good performance and milestones achieved.  You deserve it!

Dénouement

These six alternative work spaces can fit a range of personality-types and moods. I hope you try them out to spice up your freelancing lifestyle, reward yourself, and boost your mental well-being.

Do you have a favorite or unique alternative work space you’d like to share?  Let us know via the comments section below.

If you liked this article, please subscribe to our RSS feed and social bookmark this post using the links below.

First thing’s first…
There’s no point in the world trying to make an effort to grow awareness of your services in your locality without you offering damn good work so success in getting more clients at its core lies with your own abilities in whatever you’re freelancing in. If you’re a freelance designer, you need to be one of the best around, or you could choose to specialize in a certain field which also puts you at an advantage when a client comes looking for someone to work on a project within the scope of that field. That’s why I say, and I’ll keep on saying, practice, practice, practice!

Start slowly
When you’ve decided that your skills are now good enough for you to attractive some good exposure through viral “word-of-mouth” marketing, then you take the next step. Start telling your friends, family, work colleagues and acquaintances about what you do without making them feel akward. Go about it in a non-obtrusive way so that they don’t feel you’re just pitching to them; just bring it up in conversation somehow by linking it to a topic of discussion. This way it’ll be within the person’s mind that you offer such a service and therefore they will have the ability to passively tell other’s about it in everyday talk.

Do something unique
Once you have your surroundings (in terms of people) acknowledging what you do, it’s time to take a much bigger (and very important) step. This step involves doing some very unique and “attention-grabbing” (no, I don’t mean go into the middle of town dressed as a clown juggling pins). What I mean by do something “attention-grabbing” is do something that can potentially catch the eye of the local media. For example, I know a freelance artist who got permission from local authorities to do some art work using spray-paints on a wall of a building on a busy highstreet. Not only did he do one, he did many, and he garnered A LOT of attention for this and was swamped with people asking him to do art-work for them.

You could also try something like a charity event of some sort (but try to link it to what you do as a freelancer) – so you can show your support to those who are less fortunate than yourself. No one said you’re not allowed to do good on the way to freelancing success.

It may also be a good idea to subtly notify the local media on what you’re doing as nothing really happens without a little nudge sometimes.

Speak at events
The best way to get noticed and become an “industry expert” is to participate in local, related events in the forms of conferences, lectures, meet-ups etc. People have a keen sense of “association by face” so it’s always a good idea for you to be seen, especially at events linked to your work.

Establish a quality brand
As soon as those bundles of clients come gushing forth from your media idea, your next step is to “mould the minds” of the new clients you receive. It is of utmost importance that you and the clients you work with believe you are offering a valuable, quality service. Quality sells itself. If your clients know you offer a quality service, and have experienced that from you, there’s no doubt that recommendations will be made in your favour. Also remember though, that one bad move could quite literally crush a lot of your branding efforts, so watch out for bad clients, and always treat them well.

Continue the high client satisfaction
You’ve got that influx of initial clients, you’ve treated them well, they’ve referred excess business to you. Now, all you need to do is keep it up. Continue offering your quality service to whoever needs it – sooner or later you’re going to get to a point where you’re over-booked, and this is where you take certain economical steps such as raising prices or being more picky with what projects you wish to take on.

If your steam of clients start dying down, consider the second step again in order to garner more attention.

Live the dream
Freelancing takes a lot of effort, and with continued effort should come continued reward. Freelancers should typically be aiming for what I call “working freedom” where they choose whatever they wish to work on, when they want to, and get a rate which they choose – that is what freelancing is all about.

Don’t forget to sit back, relax, and enjoy your work freedom – you deserve it.

Questions/Comments
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The Client’s Psychology

Clients are people, and we as a people are very prejudgemental in our everyday lives, whether that be subconsciously prejudging the mindset of a person from their outward appearance, or prejudging the quality of a piece of clothing from its price tag. There are a lot of external factors that have no real effect on the issues that matter to us, but are considered subconsciously by the mind without us even knowing it. As a freelancer, you could use this to your advantage (in a non-malicious kind of way!)

Usually when a person asseses the price for a service when attempting to put a value on it, they will attempt to associate it with the “quality” of the work/product/service in their eyes. For example, if they feel that the end product(s) from your portfolio are better than the competitions’, then they are more willing to pay a premium for the service in mind. If however, they feel the end product is not of a high enough quality they will be less willing to pay a premium for it. This however, also works in reverse when it comes to the prejudgemental nature of us human beings.

Subconsciously, if we see a product or service with a high price tag, or “better” outward appearance (in terms of branding), we usually think it is because that product is of a very high “quality” (and I’m deliberately using speech marks here). This is rather deliberately triggered in our heads with all the subliminal marketing campaigns that go on in society on a daily basis. Therefore, it may well be a good idea to price yourself higher, in order to portray yourself in a better light. Pricing has a lot to do with establishing a quality brand.

So putting this all into the perspective of a freelancer, you could well be charging higher than the competition, establishing yourself as “quality” and therefore reap the benefits in terms of being able to charge more for your work.

If we further explore this mindset, you do come to realize though that your pricing also should rely heavily upon whom the client is – and not for discriminatory purposes. If you’re pitching to a business owner, then they’re inevitably going to be price-savvy and be looking for the best deal possible for work of a good standard (and that’s not to say the tactic won’t work at all); however, target the common individual and you could leverage this psychology and charge more for your work in order to increase your income and establish yourself as a quality brand.

You could also take the opposite direction, charge less, and in turn by my predictions attract a lot more business clients rather than what I’ve referred to as the “common individual”.

The Economics of Pricing

The economics of pricing is very important in the freelance-industry. Immediately, I hear you crying “but I didn’t pay attention in Economics classes!” – well, maybe you should have.

It’s a very basic concept which shows that there is a inversely linear relationship between price and amounts sold or in this case, number of pitches accepted. This means that as price increases, the number of pitches your clients are likely to accept are lower and vice versa. Simple – but again in such an industry this can be manipulated using the techniques described previously. It’s just something to generally think about when pricing as a general rule with a “bog-standard” product/service when quality of work is not taken into consideration.

I would put up a nice little graph to illustrate this point, but what the heck, it’s not hard to understand.

Hourly Rates

What I’ve covered so far has mainly affected the actual price you want to charge for your freelance services, but, how will you structure these charges? Well, hourly rates are a very good way to go about it. Why? Simply because it gives you a solid price structuring that you can always rely on instead of having to come up with a price per project. Again though, this has its disadvantages. In order to obtain a higher income, the only ways to do this would be to increase your hourly rate (which is a difficult step which could have great negative/positive effects) or work for longer periods of time. To me, this really goes against the “freedom” principles of freelancing if you were to take the latter step, as one core advantage of freelancing is being able to earn a good income with less hours of work in comparison to the typical 9 to 5 jobs.

Per Project-based Pricing

A lot of people think that per project-based pricing is something that is decided from midair. No. It is also based on hourly rates, but loosely. A good way of pricing per project is to first estimate how long a project is going to take if worked on at a decent speed (in hours – making sure the estimate is conservative) and multiply that by how much you wish to earn from doing the project per hour. You’d then add on certain premiums such as costs, and other extras.

What’s the difference?

So what’s the difference between per project-based pricing and hourly rates you ask – well, the answer to that is effort. When conducting the hourly rates method, you’ll be paid directly dependent on how long you took to complete the project. On the other hand though, per project is based on a conservative estimate on how long the project would take, and therefore allowing you to reward working more efficiently.

Just take a look at this example:

- John works on a fixed amount per hour.
- Linda works on a per-project basis.

John conducts his work at the rate of $40/hour. The project takes him 10 hours to complete, and therefore he sends an invoice of $400 to the client.

Linda estimates that the project will take 14 hours to complete (remember, it’s a conservative estimate). She wants about $40/hour whilst working on the project. She decides to multiply $40 x 14 = $560, and therefore prices the project at that amount. She then invoices the client at that price. Linda decided to work very efficiently and focus on the project and therefore gets it done within 10 hours.

If we do the maths, effectively Linda was paid $56/hour for the services she rendered, whilst John was only paid $400.

There are obviously a lot of factors which affect each situation that have not been considered in this case, but you get the general jist of things.

Conclusion

So, how do you think pricing should be decided upon? Do you have a particular formula in mind? Let us know your thoughts on the topic via the comments section below.

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