It’s the start of a new year and a new decade and like many self-employed people you’ve probably been thinking about how to have a good year despite the sluggish economy.
Read on for the one thing you must do this year for your work to take off…
Jen Stakes Roberts | Getting a Job,Training
Whatever your freelance business, whether you provide a service or create your own products, marketing will probably take up a good chunk of your time. You might not have thought of your website, social media time, cold calling or networking as ‘marketing’ but any time you are spending telling people about what you offer, however indirectly, can be set down as marketing.
TimothyTim | Lifestyle & Time out,Training
We’ve all had them – clients who are pushy, moneygrubbing or just downright moronic. Some days it can be difficult to step away from the keyboard and take some deep breaths. If you could, what would you say to these numpties?
Jon Norris | Getting a Job,Training
I’m fairly well known in the Freelance Advisor offices as a massive sceptic when it comes to social media “gurus”, or anyone who offers to run your social media for you. This is for a number of reasons.
Jen Stakes Roberts | Resources,Training
With the gloomy economic outlook in the UK, there’s been a lot of talk recently about Freelancers rescuing the economy with their flexible working practices, ability to tap into global markets and the safe bet to employers of short-term contracts.
Poor customer service can kill a business and it is absolutely vital to get client and customer service right, particularly when handling complaints. If you don't handle complaints well then not only are you likely to lose the customer who is dissatisfied, but they are more likely to tell others about bad service than they are good service, so you stand to lose many more customers by getting it wrong.
Business Mentor Toby Buckle shares his top ten tips for crushing your customer’s quibbles.
Ian Ozsvald | Resources,Training
Building a visible profile is essential if you want to receive a steady stream of readers and referred clients. Demonstrating your knowledge with screencasts is easy and is a very effective way of showing visitors that you’re on top of your game.
Professional Screencaster Ian Ozsvald shows us how short online tutorial and demonstration videos are a powerful way to raise your profile. This post follows the earlier tutorial on (Communicating more effectively with screencasts)
Sandy Dempsey | Getting a Job,Training
Last week Sandy Dempsey, founder and creative director of Dreaming Cafe Ventures, gave us Five Tips to Help You Get Started with Twitter — if you’ve not yet joined the Twitter masses then Sandy’s seven uses for Twitter might help you see if Twitter can help you and your business.
Ian Ozsvald | Resources,Training
Getting your message across to customers and clients is vital and, as a freelancer, communicating clearly and effectively with can make a big difference to the success or failure of a project or product.
Professional Screencaster Ian Ozsvald shows us how short online videos are a powerful way to get communicate clearly.
Sandy Dempsey | Getting a Job,Training
If you’ve not yet joined the 75 million strong Twitterati, Sandy Dempsey founder of The Dreaming Cafe gives us five great tips on how to get started, why you should use Twitter and other social networking tools, and how to make it work for you and your business.
Prioritising and planning how you use your time is a key skill for every great freelancer. Freelancing gives you the freedom to choose what you do and when you do it.
This freedom can have shortcomings however as it’s very easy to be distracted by emails, twitter and other interruptions — and it’s tempting to focus on doing those tasks you like instead of those which may be most useful.
Leif Kendall | Getting a Job,Training
John Williams believes that work doesn’t have be a chore. After itching for something more than the corporate 9 to 5, John went independent and discovered the joys of being paid for things he would happily do for free. John’s interests and work eventually led him to coach other aspiring players.
Freelance copywriter Leif Kendall takes a look at the advice on offer.
I was reminded recently how I used to get frustrated by people not coming back to me if I emailed or left a message. Well, that’s an understatement. I often used to see it as a personal offence and affront and get wound up if it repeatedly happened.
Over the years I have learnt to reframe lack of response and see it from another point of view.
Reframing is a really useful NLP technique that helps prevent negative responses, such as losing motivation or creating frustration. Below are some ways to reframe a lack of response from people as well as some practical tips on getting people to respond.
One thing has been obvious to me since I began freelancing: people buy from people, so to be a successful freelancer you need to know lots of people.
You may be lucky enough to have a huge family or a thriving social group, perhaps assisted by a drama group or rugby club. But most of us don’t know all the people we need to know to be good freelancers.
Darren Fell | Getting a Job,Training
Digital veteran Darren Fell, founder of Pure360.com and the ground breaking online accountancy service Crunch.co.uk, shares his experience in Personal Branding for freelancers – marketing YOU to generate leads
This interactive lecture is now over, however slide of the event are available below.
Michael Rose | Getting a Job,Training
The very heart of any digital consultancy or freelancing business is the sales you bring in. You will literally live or die by this. Sales tactics for the digital freelancer Event Detail: Digital veteran Darren Fell, founder of Pure360.com, freelance advice site FreelanceAdvisor.co.uk and the ground breaking online Accountancy service Crunch.co.uk tells his story of [...]
Daryl Close, a business performance coach, discusses why freelancing success is not directly related to your specific freelancing talent. Whilst personal branding is not a new term, it is a term that has come back to the forefront of success as a professional freelancer. He explains that your actual talent is only a small part of the overall personal branding concept and freelancers need to refine and develop their professional brands in order to thrive in an ever increasingly competitive world.
Courageous conversations: How to say what you mean and get what you want. As a freelancer without a secretary the buck stops (and starts) with you. If you are a designer, developer or a gentle creative type you may not have the hard-nosed confidence and business clout you need to succeed.
Freelance advisor Dianne Bown-Wilson gives some simple confidence boosting tips.
It is competitive out there, the freelancing market is growing every day and now more than ever it is important that we make the most out of every opportunity. So how can we improve the quality of our client interaction?
Let’s look at a simple sales formula for calls/meetings to get us started…
Clients not responding? To-Do list full of ‘waiting-for’ items for people who have not emailed you back yet? Training Expert Hannah Keep reminds us of the basics – picking up the phone, getting in touch directly and rebuilding rapport and relationships.
Don’t blow it at the first hurdle, learn a few basic telephone interview techniques. Former Recruitment consultant Hannah Keep shares a few essential tips for freelancer and contractor phone interviews.
Hannah Keep, Freelance Advisor Training director, shows us how to build upon our natural resilience to overcome our daily obstacles.
Her new book explains how to deal with the blocks and make the most out of the good times and the practical, gentle advice is an invaluable tool for anyone wishing to push themselves and their business to new highs. Here Hannah gives us a great overview of everything you can do to make the most out your life and work.
Emma Jones | Getting a Job,Training
Without a sale we’re not in business and ongoing sales will spur the business to grow.
Emma Jones offers five steps on how to make a sale and keep the cash flowing.
Hannah Keep | Events,Getting a Job,Training
It’s a tough climate out there. If you are looking for a permanent job then you are up against lots of candidates who are all fighting for the same job. If you are freelance/contract then you have to ensure your skills are leading edge, have the confidence to hit the ground running as well as [...]
Whether you are looking for your first freelance job or have been in the market a while you will know how important it is to be able to promote your services to ensure you aren’t out of work for long.
Whether you have sales experience or not, things are different now. Why? Because you are the product. You are selling YOU. Easy right? Think again, even the most experienced sales person who can sell snow to the Eskimos finds selling themselves a challenge and sometimes even embarrassing.
Freelance Coach and Trainer Hannah Keep show us how promoting yourself needn’t be painful and how building your confidence is key.
Ever wondered why you didn’t get that job? Perhaps you were told that someone came along with more experience than you or maybe you didn’t get any feedback at all. The truth is out. In recent research with leading I.T Recruitment agencies in the UK we found that when asked if they thought their clients gave them the truthful answer as to why candidates didn’t get the job and they answered 99% no.
We are pleased to announce the launch of our new training portal Freelance Advisor/Training and would love you to come and see us in action at our launch party on the 16th July from 6-8pm at The Werks, Hove.
If the beer and nibbles don’t entice you then come to hear us share with you the key secrets for successful freelancing and some practical tips that you can use to help you win more business and be more profitable.
How did you decide what to wear today? Did you base your decision on what was clean, comfortable or whether you were seeing a client? If you were seeing a client did you tailor your appearance to their industry or just put on your lucky ‘selling suit’?
Freelance Training director Hannah Keep explains why your clothes are more important than your PowerPoint slides!
As freelancers we know you have absolute passion and pride in your skill set. We know it takes a lot of confidence to break out on your own. We also know that it takes more than just talent to succeed in this tough and competitive economic climate.
How well you sell, market and manage your product, product YOU, is critical. If the thought of cold calling brings you out in a cold sweat or the thought of creating a business strategy gives you a headache then we’re here to help with soft skills and freelancer focused training and coaching.
Lesley Furber | Guides,Training
Certain Employees, who have caring responsibilties for children or adults, now have the legal right to request to work flexible hours. Additionally, employees have the right to request time off for work-related training.
