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Imagine That You Are Interviewing A Freelancer – What Questions Would You Ask? October 17, 2017 |
Weekly Newsletter for FreelancersImagine That You Are Interviewing A Freelancer – What Questions Would You Ask?
In our last newsletter, we asked the question “How Valuable Is Your Time?” The reason that we asked you the question is because it is important from a work-life balance perspective that you know the answer. This enabled you to know what you could outsource to other freelancers and still make a fair and reasonable profit. You could then take your children on an outing during the school holidays.
If you are wise you would foresee when you were undertaking a gig that was complex and had parts that you could outsource during the school holidays that you were prepared to do it. One of the most essential parts of a successful outsourcing is to know the questions to ask of the potential freelancer to help you with the gig.
It means you are then comfortable with your delegation of the
work. This is an important knowledge to have because you can enjoy the break with your family. It is also called effective delegation if you can remember your 9 to 5 work in the corporate world.
UpWork have published 9 Interview questions to find the perfect freelancer online which appears in their Upwork Hiring Headquarters blog which you can read here.
In my copy of The Freelancer’s Bible written by the founder of the Freelancers Union, Sara Horowitz with Toni Sciarra Poynter there is an entire chapter (number 11 on page 283) entitled The Nimble Freelancer: Subcontracting and
Building Teams. This is an important skill that you need to develop. Click on this link to go to the review.
Motivational Tip Of The WeekMotivate Yourself!
“From an early age I didn't buy into the value systems of working hard in a nine-to-five job. I thought creativity, friendship and loyalty and pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable was much more interesting.” - Adam Clayton
Should You Quit Your 9 to 5 Job Without A Backup Plan?
When your boss finally has got you to the stage of wanting to quit your job and walk out and not come back, should you? There are numerous people that have been in this position. However, should you cool it and think? There are two points of view on this and here they are:
One point of view is that if your boss has finally crossed the red line and you can’t take it anymore e.g. bullying, you are better to make a stand and leave on the spot before you lose your courage. There is an article from Inc.com by Quora entitled 10 Things I Learned When I Quit My Job With No Solid Backup Plan. This article takes the point of view of someone that did not have a plan and what they learned from doing it. It is an important article and you can read it from here. This is especially true if you feel that you are approaching that situation.
The second point of view is for those people who leave their 9 to 5 job and have a plan for what they are going to do. As an ex-financial planner, you will know what approach that I favor. Sarah Li Cain has written 5 Critical Steps to take before quitting your job for good and it appears on the blog of Lifehack.org. You can read Sarah’s article here.
They are both worth reading because you can profit from the experience of other people who have travelled
the path before you. Many freelancers go down this path. I will be on the lookout for top rating ebooks on this subject. These articles are worth sharing with friends if you are aware they are going through this situation.
Productivity Tip Of The WeekGetting the Productivity and Work Life Balance Equation Right by Raising Your Rates.
Freelancing can be tough on your family life when you need to earn more money to balance the family budget. Many freelancers immediately think that the solution is to take on more gigs which will eat into your family time. However, there is another way if you have established clients that appreciate your services. The strategy is simple, it is called raising your freelancing rates.
A lot of freelancers avoid this solution because it requires having a strategy and negotiation skills. The required strategy and skills can be learned from how other people who have successfully done it.
The Freshbooks blog has produced some articles on this issue. The first article is entitled It’s Time to Raise Your Freelance Rates – How to do it without losing your best
clients. This article is about the main fear – losing existing clients! Read the article from here. Importantly, they have included in this article a link to Megan Santos’ article entitled What’s Your Rate? Determine How Much to Charge Clients Using This Strategy.
Freshbooks produce accounting software for small businesses and clearly have thought this issue through. It is important that you determine what is a fair and reasonable price for your services so that you are confident in your negotiations. Success in this overall strategy will mean increasing your income without putting stress on your family time. That is a top idea for any freelancer!
Work-Life Balance Tip of the WeekFreelancers Need a Home Office To Focus On Work – Yes or No?
Most freelancers working from home will have to confront whether it is more productive to move to a co-working space outside the home or not. This is usually because of the work life balance distractions that occur from home.
However, the big consideration is that it requires money to move to a co-working space which means you have to earn more to justify the move. It is not a simple decision. If you have young children and you are the caring parent the decision is made for you and you should try to set up a home office.
Laura Vanderkam has written an article for FastCompany.com entitled 10 quick tips to create a home office you’ll actually want to work in. You can read Laura’s article here.
If you have been freelancing for a while, there are no parenting responsibilities and you have an established business with reasonably good cash flow working in a co-working space has some advantages. One of the main ones is that you can share technology costs and outsource to other freelancers with different skills in the same co-working space. It can be similar to a freelancers’ flash team on the internet, but you can discuss projects over a cup of coffee! This can have clear advantages.
Jess Young has written Should freelancers have an office? for TheLondonEconomic.com. Jess looks at the positives of the co-working space and you can read her article.
Financial Tip Of The WeekFinance and Work
The future of work is clearly changing very quickly and should be a top concern to all of us, especially freelancers. The reason for freelancers to be concerned is they are the boss of everything for their businesses and if a change that will impact their careers is missed it will impact their finances. A good indication of where changes are going to come from is to monitor the research and development (R&D) by technical companies. Guess which company is leading in research and development? It is also a leading company in innovation and impact on everyday citizens, check which company it is here.
The question that freelancers have to ask themselves, especially if they are moonlighting to help the family budget, is how can
they take advantage of the changes? If you have checked the article link you will know that the global leading company in R&D is Amazon. Do you have an Amazon website to help boost your income? An important part of the Amazon global business model is that it allows everyday citizens to have an Amazon Associates account and make money. You can see how this global strategy works here. This is a list of the world’s largest internet companies here.
I have two Amazon Associates websites which are Snow Blowers Today and Pressure Washer Today.
I had a lot of help with building these websites! It is my intention to show you how this is done because Amazon is coming to Australia where I live and this is going to have a dramatic impact on the lives of main street Australians. You will be able to follow along and watch the developments, both the trials, mistakes and the successes. It will importantly enable you to ask yourself if you could do it too. Hopefully, learn from my mistakes as I am sure to make some!
The first question that I had to ask myself was what was going to be the biggest impact on Australian citizens? This will lead to the registration of a business name and domain name. What do you think it will be? You can use the contact form below or send me an email at john@freelance-work-guide.com if you wish to have some input.
Freelancers And Cyber SecurityWe have gained approval from Robert Siciliano to bring you extracts from his books related to cyber security for freelancers. Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert and consultant. He also gives self defense and personal safety seminars. Robert provides safety and identity theft fraud prevention tips and advice on multimedia channels in the United States. We have his approval to bring you weekly extracts from his books:
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