How Can You Manage And Develop Trust With A Virtual Client?

Weekly Newsletter for Freelancers: Here is the latest newsletter of this week starting on 9th of January 2018.

Imagine that you lived in Wilcannia in the middle of New South Wales, Australia and needed to build trust with virtual clients in London, United Kingdom, how could you do it? This is the situation that is frequently faced by freelancers working on the internet.

Clients are only a few computer mouse clicks away but can be on the other side of the world. I know that this can present some freelancers with a problem because when you are pitching for a gig over the internet it is not unusual to be requested to have a Skype interview with the person posting the job on a freelancing platform.

It is possible for some freelancers to be reluctant to do this. The reason is that harassment could possibly follow. Here is what the Upwork Community thinks about the issue. In summary it is what you feel comfortable with.

Chris Sturgess from the Freelancer Union has written How to earn a client’s trust for their Blog and you can read it here. Chris is of the opinion that there are many ways that you can earn a client’s trust.

Sara Horowitz and Toni Sciarra Poynter have covered this issue of trust in Chapter 4 of the Kindle eBook The Freelancers Bible. Chapter 4 is entitled Getting Clients and has a notation:

“You can’t be a pest, but your name has to come to mind when they need someone.”

That is the truth of the matter. The more information you gather about getting clients and developing your skills and knowledge, the more successful you will be as a freelancer.

Tom May has looked at this issue for you through Ted Talks and has recommended 10 important TED talks that every freelancer must watch which you can read and watch by clicking on the title. 

If you have not yet got The Freelancers Bible it is available here: 

Motivate Yourself

Who Completes Your Annual Performance Review And Pays Your Bonus As A Freelancer?

Rewarding yourself for achieving self-imposed goals may seem foolish when you start out freelancing, but there are sound reasons why you should.

When you are at work for an employer in a 9 to 5 job with a large corporate, they often have an appraisal system for your performance. This is quite often linked to a bonus and promotion system.

The more innovative employers also have a system of minor monthly awards for achieving specific goals.

These appraisal and reward systems are part of managing motivation and you usually sign up for the goals for the forthcoming year so that you know what is expected of you and how to get your bonus.

Andrew Blackman from Envato’s business.plustuts.com has looked at How to Set Effective Goals for Your Freelance Business, check out the article. You'll find how you manage your motivation, by setting your own goals.

Jay Douglas from the Upwork Blog has written about how to stay motivated to achieve your goals with 10 Tips entitled Staying Motivated as a Work-at-Home Freelancer which you can read about here.

How will you reward yourself for achieving a goal so that you stay motivated, not sure? Florante Valdez from the FreelanceChannel.com blog gives you some tips on how to go about it here. 

Productivity and Budget Tip of the Week

Do You Know How To Manage Your Mood To Increase Your Productivity?

Have you ever heard of sports people saying that they were “in the zone” after a peak performance? Those people who have had an experience in their sport by playing in the zone will tell you that everything they do seems to flow effortlessly and they can’t do anything wrong.

After the performance, they all want to know how it happened so they can repeat it. As a freelancer have you had an experience of being “in the zone” with your creativity and productivity?

Like sports people you should ask the question as to how to recreate this high productivity performance because it translates into increased earning power and more money in the bank.

The question, of course, is how can you manage to be “in the zone” when your mood is less than optimal and you feel like taking the day off and having a lazy day at the beach, but you know that you have a gig with a deadline.

When you think about the issue as a freelancer it comes down to managing your mood so that you can increase your creativity. Nils Salzgeber from Medium.com has written Six Reliable Strategies to Improve Your Mood which you can read by clicking on the title. 

Work-Life Balance Tip of the Week

Do You Use A Grandparents’ Emergency Response Team?

If you have children you will know what I mean! In our senior’s bike riding group, there is a standing joke about riders that are unexpectedly absent.

The other riders will shrug and say that they have been called away on GERT (Grandparents’ Emergency Response Team) duties to help their children by minding their grandchildren. 

If you are a freelancer, GERT teams can be especially helpful when you have a tight deadline for producing a gig for your best client.

However, for co-working freelancers, there is the possibility of developing Community Emergency Response Teams, also known as friendship groups. That is why the community is so important to freelancers. It can transcend families and last a lifetime.

The Freelancers Union have developed the concept of Hives to give fellow freelancers a helping hand with an issue that they have not come across before. Hives is an international movement and they have now started in Europe. 

Financial Tip of the Week

How Do You Manage Late Paying Clients?

For international clients, freelancers should always use a freelancing platform in my opinion. This means that the payment of your contract will be held in an escrow account.

Providing you fulfill the terms of the contract and the quality of your work is acceptable, you know that you will be paid.If there is a dispute you know that the arbitration system of the platform is there to help you settle a dispute with the person for whom you are working.

However, there will always be freelancers who prefer not use a platform for either local or international contracts.

In the situation where this occurs and you have a late-paying client, you have to have a strategy for dealing with these clients. If you delay too long a bad debt may result. This means, of course, that it is a loss to your freelancing business.

Rebecca Knight has written How Freelancers Can Make Sure They Get Paid on Time for the Harvard Business Review and you can read about it here.

There are some freelancers who advocate that you should reward clients for early payment because it helps with your cash flow as well.

Taylor Gordon has looked at this issue for the Due.com blog. Taylor’s article Why you should reward clients for early payment appears here.

There is an interesting article written by Ali Montag for cnbc.com entitled Kevin O'Leary explains one big thing people don't understand about bitcoin (but need to) which you can read here.

Kevin O’Leary looks at the situation where he was considering a transaction in bitcoin. Freelancers should read this article because it is a warning from Kevin.

Amazon Associates Website Case Study

The history of the Case Study can be read at links to the previous newsletter issues:

• Newsletter of 30/10/2017 entitled The Importance of Freelancers Subcontracting And Building Teams.
• Newsletter of 07/11/2017 entitled Freelancers Home Office Security Requires Business Security.
• Newsletter of 21/11/2017 entitled Having Trouble Staying Focused When Working from Home?
• Newsletter of 05/12/2017 entitled Moonlighting Freelancers Need to Know How to Outsource.
• Newsletter of 12/12/2017 entitled Should a freelancer aim to have passive income and active income?
  

Work has started on the tweets to promote the content on the Amazon Associates’ website. This will be focused on promoting the content that is on the website and how to maximize the benefits of Amazon Prime and their best sellers’ hourly service.

The research work regarding the customer service, links and articles are continuing and the current results can be seen here:

• BestSellersHourly.com
• Facebook.Com/BestSellersHourly
• Twitter.Com/BestSellersHourly

Freelancers And Cyber Security

We 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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