Category: Business

  • Freelance as a Career Choice

    CollabMiami recently got invited by Miami International University of Art & Design to present to the student body freelancing as a business model. We cannot express the honor (and fun) it was. Presenting alongside five top creatives from the CollabMiami community, we took students from starting a freelance business all the way to billing for work done.

    Younger generations of workers are now choosing to steer clear from the traditional employer/employee work environment, to a less traditional, freelance career or what some call “micro-entrepreneur”. This trend seems to be a lot more common for the millennial generation. According to research commissioned by the Freelancers Union, 53 million Americans now freelance in some capacity. Of that, 38 percent are millennials, compared to 32 percent of non-millennials (i.e., people over 35).

    This choice was the subject of a recent workshop, The Business of Freelancing that took place at Miami International University of Art & Design in collaboration with CollabMiami featuring six panelists from different industries discussing their experiences in making freelance a career choice. The panelists included…

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  • Tips On Collaborating With Other Freelancers

    Successful creative freelancers build a business not just a place to exercise a skill. In this interview Amanda Abella interviews George Cuevas, founder of CollabMiami and discuss pressing creative business issues. Give it a listen and be ready to take some notes.

    Who are you? What’s your background? 

    George is the founder of CollabMiami, a group in Miami, Florida that is made up of creative freelancers. They get together once a month for meetups and work out of different different spaces all over Miami.

    George was born in Miami, and is of Cuban descent. He has freelanced since he was in high school, and he graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in design. After graduation, he found himself back in Miami and decided to change the way freelancers worked with ad agencies.

    With years of experience building creative teams, George decided to bridge the creative networking gap and created CollabMiami. Over the last two years, he has connected with hundreds of freelancers in the community.

    Check out the rest of the post.

  • Deal with good people, use a contract anyway

    The ability to have freedom of choice is something seemingly innate to freelancing. Where to work, how to work, who to work with. With this mind set it seems that having a contract is also one of those optional choices. Well, think again. As a freelancer your commitment is to run a business… and businesses include contracts.

    In the midst of working with a friend on a contract, he sent me an e-mail with the quote “You can’t have a good contract with a bad person.”* He hates contracts. A lot of freelancers and business owners do. They slow down projects and are a hallmark of the corporate world.

    Don’t miss the rest of this awesome post at Freelancers Union

  • Style Over Everything

    Why carving out your own artistic voice is the most important thing you can do.

    Artist spend a lot of time looking at the market and trying to make their art fit a commercial mode. Should I paint with oils? But Acrylics dry faster! Watercolor or do I just go digital? What’s the next big interest?

    From the earliest age, we’re taught to strive for perfection. We’re supposed to attend the best schools, get straight A’s, and win Olympic gold medals while we’re at it. To achieve this, we need to have impeccable grades, flawless technique, and unmatchable skills. Once in a while, our society makes a half-hearted attempt to say, “be who you are,” but it’s usually within the context of a winner’s story — someone who wasn’t pitch perfect on paper but still ended up on top anyway.

    Read more at Style Over Everything – 99U

  • How to Sell Your Services to Past Freelance Clients

     

    Selling Services to Past Freelance Clients.

    Having a pipeline of potential business always seems to be a concern for most freelancers. We tend to focus on the task we got hired for and neglect the sales part of our business.

    Well for the professional freelancer keeping a healthy flow of potential projects on the burner is not an option. We can seek to continually find new clients or we can back up and resurrect our prior clients that might be waiting in the wings.

    Break out your modern rolodex and start searching for any clients that slipped through your fingers the first time.

    For most freelancers, that means email. Hopefully, you archive all of your email conversations for future reference. Alternatively, if you save project files locally or on a cloud service, search through past clients folders and look for names you may have forgotten.

    Read the rest of this awesome article on FreshBooks

  • Why I Stopped Calling Myself A “Freelancer”

    As you introduce yourself as a freelancer what reaction do you get back? How do you position your freelance business not to come off as a person in between “real” jobs? Freelancers are real business people having to deal with the entire business process. Consider the following as you introduce yourself the next time the opportunity presents itself.

    THE TROUBLE WITH “FREELANCER

    “The words you use influence others’ perception of you. What’s your first thought when you hear the word “freelancer”? Do you picture a college kid working out of her parent’s basement? Many people who call themselves freelancers don’t exactly think of what they do as a business. But they should.

    Saying you’re a freelancer doesn’t signal to others that you’re a know-what-you’re-doing, take-no-crap professional.

    That bias may be unfair, but it’s a reality. Clients too often see freelance arrangements as low-cost line items rather than strategic partnerships.

    Read the rest of this awesome post on FastCompany

  • The Best Invoice Payment Terms to Avoid Past Due Invoices

    Invoice payment seems to be the stitch on every freelancer’s side. When to do it. How to do it. What terms are best?

    Being clear as to how to get paid is an important step in actually getting paid on time.

    When you send out an invoice, you’re telling your client how much money you expect in return for the work you’ve done. The payment terms specify when that money is due and how it should be paid.

    So the most important aspect of the payment terms is the timeframe in which you expect to be paid.

    But as part of the payment terms, you can also specify what will happen if people don’t pay: perhaps a penalty or interest to be applied after a certain date. Or, if you want to be more positive, you can offer a discount to anyone who pays early. You can also specify payment methods.

    We’ll look at how those options work in the next section, as well as examining which ones work best.

    Read the rest of this awesome post on Envato Tuts+ Business Tutorial

  • Stabilize your freelancer rollercoaster income

    One of the most difficult things to a freelancer is how to stabilize their rollercoaster income.

    It seems like the fluctuation from month to month is sometimes to much to bare. It also makes running a home budget nearly impossible.

    No matter how new or experienced my creative entrepreneur clients are, one of their top worries is how to manage inconsistent income.It’s easy to find personal finance and business planning tips on how to control your expenses or increase your income, but to truly develop a well-oiled system for achieving financial stability, you need to tackle both sides.

    Check out these 5 steps to start creating a more stable income.

    Read full post on Millo.co

  • How to Overcome the 5 Biggest Obstacles to Business Growth

    2015 is almost behind us. As freelancers we already need to be looking back and planning to move forward.

    If your business is ready to grow, check out these tips for dealing with some of the factors that frequently thwart small business growth and putting them to your advantage.

    Trust Your Gut, But Pay Attention to Business Indicators

    Your gut instinct is a great catalyst for growth, but don’t rely on it alone or you may find yourself going down the wrong path. Instead, look to your business reports to assess growth opportunities.

    Read entire post on FreshBooks Blog

  • Land juicy freelancer projects with budgets to match

    collabmiami freelancer freelance

    Finding a client that loves your work is the easy part. Landing juicy freelancer projects with budgets to match is a completely different thing.

    As a freelancer, you’ve got the skills. But as potential clients become more savvy they not only want skill, they want to know that the value you bring to the table is worth it.

    Identify what makes you unique and how that is of value to your ideal clients.

    Imagine this: you have a full pipeline of high-quality clients who have great projects and budgets to match. Your clients respect what you do, you love your work, and your business affords the lifestyle you wish to have. Does that feel like an inspiring and attainable goal? Or are you so stuck in a cycle of unfulfilling, low-budget projects, you don’t even have time to think about it? If it’s the latter, don’t feel bad, everyone’s been there at some point.  But if you have the talent (and I know you do!), those projects and budgets are within your reach, and this post is all about taking the first step to making that dream a reality.

    I learned that high-quality clients will hire the most qualified person to solve their problem, and are willing to pay top-dollar for their services.  It was my job was to position each creative professional on my roster as a specialist within their field, uniquely qualified to solve the problems their ideal clients had.

    Whether you know it or not, we are all born with a unique gift or talent. No exceptions! Whether you’re a freelancer photographer, illustrator, graphic designer or video producer, your unique talent or specialty is how you create positive transformation in the lives of others. And when you identify your talent and share it with your ideal clients, you can’t help but achieve the fulfillment and success that you wish for.

    Read the full post at: Freelancers Union