photo cc pasotraspaso

No, Summer…I didn’t mean it that way, come baaaaack!!

Just as quickly as the summer crept up on you, it’s already leaving. You can start feeling wisps of cool autumn air gliding in, and retail stores are in full fledged “back to school” mode!

So far this summer you’ve:

• Organized
• Processized
• Optimized
• and…. Visualized! (Close enough, cuz ‘readized’ isn’t a word…yet)

But all the fun of the Summer Series doesn’t have to end here!

We’d like to introduce you to the Institute of Awesome.

The IoA (for short) is a 30 day series of quick tips & tricks for injecting even more awesome into your freelance business.

And if nothing else, it has a sweet crest!

sweet crest

Check out Day 1 of the IoA, and sign up to get all the awesome interactive checklists, helpful ideas, excellent top 10 lists, and that rad crest delivered to your inbox everyday for the next THIRTY days.

The Institute of Awesome Summer School for Freelancers should keep you busy until we cook up our next seasonal treat. So go ahead and sign up for the IoA! It may be the best summer reading you’ve done since a Choose Your Own Adventure Novel!

Processizing the Processizing! It's fun & easy. (original photo cc alancleaver_2000)

Processizing is like Jazzercising for your business, only way more useful… and involving no leg-warmers (unless, of course, you like ‘em).

In Jazzercise! Processize!, we talked about all the reasons why you should Processize.

Today, we’re all about the HOW.

Step 1: Identifying targets for Processizing

What can you Processize? Anything that you do over & over again. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Talking points and questions for a potential new client
• Steps to take to create a solid estimate
• Rule sheet to help you decide if a new project fits your vision for your future
• Onboarding questionnaires for new client projects (all those angles you try to get inside their head)
• Checklist for all paperwork you need to create, sign, or have them sign
• Research map for when you need to gather materials, inspiration, or facts
• Flow chart for the basic segments of every client project you have
• Monthly (or other-ly) recipe for keeping in contact with old & new clients
• Recipe for handling mistakes, and/or angry or upset clients: If… then…

Yes, indeedy — there’s a lot you can Processize, no matter what type of biz you have.

This list is just the beginning. To find more Processizing targets in your biz, just ask yourself: What do you do over & over?

Especially if you ever happen to, you know, uh, slightly forg—I mean misplace—a step or two…

Step 2: Gather & Distill

A Processizing document can be as simple as a bunch of items on a checklist, and as complex as a flow chart with hanging dependencies.

To create that, though, first you’ve gotta know what to put in it. Here are some excellent resources to get you started:

• How To Create The Perfect Client Questionnaire
  Asking questions up front can help you avoid design disasters and functionality failures, but sometimes the wrong questions can throw a serious cramp straight to your creative hamstring. Like stretching before a workout, limber up by asking the right questions at the beginning of your next big project.
• 42 Questions Every Freelancer Should Ask Their Clients
  These questions include everything from basic contact info, project specs, work agreements, and possibly most importantly, work philosophy. These 42 questions help raise red flags, well before a potential project goes down in flames.
• How to Extract the Facts with a Web Design Client Questionnaire
  This checklist goes even further into the “why” of a project to better understand the “what”. Knowing your client’s motivators can make it easier for you to offer the best solutions, and ultimately a better end product.
• Using a Pre-Launch Checklist for your Website
  We live in a world of accountability, not checkmarks. Lists can also be used to keep track of who’s done what and when they did it, so you can see where there might be a kink in the pipe line before the project goes bust.
• The Ultimate Website Launch Checklist
  Cross your i’s and dot your t’s, mind your p’s and q’s, and validate, validate, validate, with a detailed quality control worksheet.

“Working with a new client is like the first couple of dates. Lots of personal questions and guarded fascination.” -@Cennydd

Step 3: Create!

This is where your particular Interpretive Jazzercise skills come in to play. Remember that you don’t have to answer to anyone but YOU when it comes to this process – go straight for the glitter pens if that’s what makes you happy

When you’ve done all the heavy lifting and fancy footwork before it comes time to start work on a project, you can sit back and enjoy a stress free start to any project. and what the hell, go ahead and enjoy an ice cream treat of your choosing, after that workout, you’ve earned it!

photo cc Jenn and Tony Bot

The Freckle Time Tracking Summer Series for Freelancers is better than the neighborhood ice cream truck (and without the annoying jingle, and line of clamoring children).

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Photo cc agiamba

Be productive when you’re energetic,
and relaxed when you’re not.

A hammock is meant to be calming, not a topsy-turvy ride of anxiety and possible motion sickness! Similarly, if you force yourself to be active when you are feeling lazy, it will not be fun or productive and you will only get tangled up in the details.

Finding the balance between work and life is tricky, but possible, if you’re wiling to take a minute to catch your balance, and figure out which way is up.

Taking a long hard look at your schedule is a good way to know what day or even times you are better suited for jobs that will melt your brain, or when you just need some mindless inbox cleaning. This way you can plan your schedule less haphazardly, and you won’t be stuck doing boring tasks when your time would be better spent creating awesomeness!

By tracking your schedule over time you will be able to see which days, weeks, and even seasons you are more productive!

Freckle does this through a visual map of your time tracking called the Pulse:

For example, it is easy to see here that in May you were the most productive in the beginning of the week, and especially on Tuesdays. You can also see based on the colors that you tend to to work on the same projects on the same days.

When are you the most productive?

You may find that you should get some mindless filing done while you are waiting for that morning coffee to kick in, and the afternoon is when your creative juices are overflowing!

You might be surprised at the reality of your productivity sweet spots: Rachel, a long-time Freckler, realized she “was only working an average of two and a half to three hours a day on things I could actually charge money for. It completely blew me away.” It’s easy to sit in front of a computer and feel like you are working when you are really just jumping the shark, headed straight for burnout beach.

It’s important to know when it is better to go on an adventurous snorkeling trip, and when you should give into an afternoon snooze in a hammock. Knowing the difference will better suit your mood AND your productivity.

We’re gonna need a bigger boat…

Don’t be the last one in the water – be the shark. Get the Freckle Time Tracking Summer Series delivered straight to the JAWS of your inbox.

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Fire up that barbecue and spice up your summer with some sizzling tips and tricks about freelancing and consulting! Take advice from people who have been there before and who can help you add some zest to your biz.

Here’s a list of 10 hot freelancing summer reads:

These book recommendations come straight from Amy Hoy, our very own Freckle Pirate Queen (she rules with an iron fist!). And by “Pirate Queen,” we mean the progenitor of Freckle, the designer & our benelovent dictator.

Amy really knows her stuff, with over 14 years of freelance & self-employment experience, and a seriously scary business book habit.

So please… Read, grow, earn more & enjoy!

• Purple Cow by Seth Godin (“An inspirational and practical guide on how to find remarkability — and ergo word-of-mouthability — in your products, services, and in you.”)
• Linchpin by Seth Godin (“Do you wanna kick ass in life, or sit on the sidelines? Assuming you want to kick ass, this book will help you kick YOUR own ass, and get it done.”)
• Radical Careering by Sally Hogshead (“This book is a crash course in thinking about your work — even your employed or client work — as one big long self-improvement course. And an asset which can earn you more.”)
• Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port (“The best book for any freelancer who wants more work and/or better work. A real, solid, practical guide. You can’t go wrong with it.”)
• Beyond Booked Solid by Michael Port (“Once you have all the work you want, it’s time to start thinking about your growth opportunities. After all, you only have so many hours of work you can do per week. This book will help you take yourself to the next level.”)
• Rules For Revolutionaries by Guy Kawasaki (“So much about being successful is down to changing your mindset. From ‘Eat like a Bird, Poop like an Elephant’ to ways to keep slogging thru the hard parts of your own business… this book is inspirational and will teach you how to think, how to market, and how to make it.”)
• The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey (“Ever hear the saying, ‘Clients don’t pay for the design/the writing/the code, they pay for the relationship’? Well, 14 years in, I can tell you: it’s all true. If you’re struggling, wobbly relationships — and lack of deep-seated trust — may be the reason. This book will help you fix it.”)
• The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg (“Nobody teaches about client relationships like Gerald. Have problems gathering requirements effectively? Do your clients not want to implement your changes? Are they constantly overriding you? Gerald will teach you what to do about it. And make you smile.”)
• More Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg (“More good stuff, just like the previous book — but MORE!”)
• The Back of the Napkin – Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam (“Thinking visually probably comes naturally to you, but how often do you use it to come up with ideas rather than simply implement them? Using the techniques in this book seriously upped my creativity quotient, and based on all the positive reviews from others, I bet it’ll do the same for you.”)

What did you think of these books? Share your favorite titles for freelancers in the comments below, we’d love to hear from YOU!

Want more awesome advice like this list?

Class is now in session with The Freckle Time Tracking Institute for Awesome Freelancers Summer Series, where glitter pens are completely optional (but totally encouraged).

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Photo cc kusine

Put those sweaters away!!

Sweaters are great, but even thinking about touching their heavy itchy wool fabric can make you break out into a sweat. Summer is here, and it’s time to shelve both the clothes and expenses that are making you lose your cool.

It’s also a great time to try out new business tools that you haven’t been able to learn and master when you’re buried under work (or sweaters). This way you can optimize your workflow and be more profitable by not throwing money away on useless expenses (or sweaters).

Out with the old, in with the new!

While you are reorganizing where your money is going out, it is also a good time to see where your money is coming in! Invoices tend to get messy very quickly.

• Do you have a good organizational system for your invoices?
• Do you have a stack of old, crumpled & unorganized invoices crowding up a junk drawer?
• Can you quickly see which are paid or awaiting payment?

Do your invoices look as happily organized as this?

Freckle will set you free! By eliminating the need for a paper invoice (though you can still print em if you need to!) you can create and share an invoice with a client by sending a private link or email a copy of the invoice directly to their billing department. You can also identify which invoices are paid or pending at a glance, sans file cabinets and invoice numbers. On top of all of that, the invoice templates are super customizable!

Once your invoices are organized, you should easily be able to tell where you can drop expenses such as clunky applications (or clients in sweaters) and where you need to make improvements! While it may take a while to get organized, the benefits greatly outweigh stewing in a sticky pile of paperwork and unnecessary expenditures.

Go go ahead, strip off that hot sweater and dive into the refreshing and crystal clear pool of summery organization

Photo cc redjar

The dog days of summer are here again, but you can keep your cool with The Freckle Time Tracking Summer Series for Freelancers.

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Photo cc williamcho

Seems like yesterday we were pulling on our winter coats, doesn’t it? And a few days ago, the Summer Solstice just zoooomed past. Time, she is a-fleetin’.

If you’re like us, your biz s-l-o-o-o-w-s down over the summer. Clients are on holiday. Everybody’s feeling hot and listless.

But instead of just sweating to death, you are going to smartly take advantage of the slow summer months to retool, revamp, and re-sexify your business.

You’re going to take advantage of the slow pace of full-on summer. Try new things. Design and implement new professional processes. Spiff up your “company” web site, now while you’re not slammed with work. Try new tools that can save you time, money, and gnashing of teeth. Plan out your marketing campaign for the next 6 mos. Mine your old client list, reach out to folks in your network.

You know, the kind of work that you never get around to the rest of the year — cobbler’s children and all that! The kind of stuff that can increase your profits and happiness. Ripe, juicy stuff, just right for summer.

Sounds good, but you’re not sure where to start? No worries, we’re here to help! That’s what the Freckle Time Tracking Summer Series for Freelancers is all about.

And that’s why you should subscribe below to get the Summer Series in your inbox for absolutely free:

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Processizing: Like dance aerobics, but without the leg warmers! (unless you like legwarmers...) (photo cc Marshall Astor)

Screw singing for your supper — freelancers dance for theirs!

High-kicks and project kickoffs, dips and onboarding questionnaires. Tapping. The questions to ask. Jazz hands. The agreements to sign. Interpretive swanning around — the clarifications to clarify.

You’re a pro; you know all the moves. But you’re only human. Occasionally, you make a misstep: forget to ask a question; forget to clarify; forget to give ‘em something important… oooops, forget to have them sign something.

Those steps will get done — you are a pro, after all. But, alas, the order has been broken. Your groove has been stepped on.

By your own clumsy feet.

Ouch.

Sound familiar?

If this doesn’t sound even a teensy bit familiar, then bravo to you! You are a truly organized human being. But, for the rest of us, there’s a sneaky way to kick missteps in the can-can, for once and forever!

Jazzercise! Process-ize!

Yep, that shiny ray of hope is emanating from the realm of Process Management, the sexiest discipline alive!

Don’t be fooled by its humble, schoolmarm exterior — inside Process Management beats the heart of a harlot. A harlot that knows how to do every type of tango. Backwards.

Dudes and dudettes, I can sense your skepticism from here. But hear me out. Processizing is a beautiful thing.

Stupendous benefits!

If you create a process — just an ordered check list, really — you will reap the following delicious benefits:

1. Never accidentally forget a step.
2. Never accidentally do a step in the wrong order.
3. Stop wracking your brain wondering which steps you need to do, and save your Executive Function for other, better, more profitable things.
4. See your workflow explicitly — so you can improve it.
5. Gain the ability to easily track time for each step to see where the energy & time hogs are.
6. Feel shiny and professional, like on the first day of school when you organize all your subjects into their specially colored sections of your Trapper Keeper.

You’ve gotta admit: those are some wicked awesome benefits, for not a whole lotta work.

If you go a step further and create pre-made documents such as potential client interviews, “This is how we work” letters, and onboarding templates? Oooh, the possibilities are endless!

But, I love spontaneity! Won’t that take the joy out of it?

Nope, it won’t.

Think about it: Are you really more excited about spontaneity in paperwork… or spontaneity in creative work?

Executive Function is finite, remember? Giving yourself fewer decisions in the paperwork department means you have more brainpower available to make choices in the creative department.

And since you run both departments, this is A Very Good Thing.

Processizing doesn’t suck the life outta your little biz… it gives it CPR! And then an all-inclusive trip to Club Med.

Convinced? Or slightly curious?

In the next installment, processizing guru Kathleen Jaffe of Biznicillin is going to teach you how to create these delicious documents!

Previously: How Freelancers can Avoid Old Boot Soup, How to Avoid the Sales Funnel Swirly

That Pareto was a real dog! (photo cc dairycows2)

Do you track your clients before the ink is dry?

PROBLEM: Your True Hourly Rate is a hidden, mystical creature. A unicorn! But you want to find and pet the unicorn. Petting unicorns is profitable. To find the unicorn, you must go on a quest… to track all the time related to your work.

SOLUTION, PART ONE OF MANY: Figure out exactly what it costs you to acquire a new client. How many hours spent prospecting? How many hours spent doing initial consultations? Then how much work does that lead to?

Track time spent swirling around your sales funnel from the very first point of contact, and you’ll find your True Hourly Rate unicorn coming out of the magical mist.

Begin tracking your time the second a new client reaches out to you — by email, phone, twitter, or carrier pigeon.

Track…

• the time spent on emails
• the time spent fretting about what to put in the email
• time spent on the phone
• time spent visiting the client
• time spent researching the client and/or project
• time spent planning & writing proposals / responses to RFPs

Don’t know what to call the project-before-it-is-a-project? Don’t let that stop you — use the client’s name.

Only then can you begin to calculate your True Hourly Rate! (Well, with that, plus all the other things you might be accidentally forgetting to track!)

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments!

Want more hilarious, summery advice for upping your freelancin’ game? Follow us on Twitter! Or subscribe by RSS.

the Summer Series… brought to you by the Freckle Institute for Incredibly Awesome Freelancing! (cc Genista

Summertime, and the living is easy… or at least really freakin’ hot.

In Freckle land (Vienna, Austria), things are really heating up. Until a week or two ago, the summer was all grey skies and rain. Now it’s bright as you please and 90 degrees F (that’s 32.5 C, for our fellow non-USians).

And in Freckle land, nobody has air conditioning.

It’s pretty much too hot to work. So instead, let’s talk about work, shall we? So that we may be better prepared to work, when we can stop sweating to death.

Enter the Freckle Summer Series: a bunch of short, easily digestible tidbits that will help you improve your freelancing, consulting, or other time-based business.

Current Summery Tips:

• Avoid the Sales Funnel Swirly, or, if the Pareto principle were visualized as a dog
• How Freelancers Can Avoid Old Boot Soup
• Jazzercise! Processize!

Don’t miss a single Summer Series tip!

We’ll be tweetin’ em (@letsfreckle), and here’s the feed just for the Summer Series so you don’t have to miss a thing!

Or, for the lazy among us (that is, including me), get the Summer Series and other freelance-related posts direct to your email inbox: