It’s going to take a lot of hard work for freelance designers, developers and writers to succeed in 2009. It can be done though, with effort and smart planning. Here are some tips and resources for how to prosper as a freelancer in the new year.
Strategic Business Plan
1. Writing The Plan – If you want to earn a good amount of money next year, you are going to need to start with a foundation, a plan. Before the year even starts, write out a well structured and smart business plan. What does this mean? Well, first look at how you’re going to make your income. Once you’ve analyzed your sources of income, determine what you are going to need to spend your money on. Maybe software, computer equipment, and don’t forget the essentials like food and taxes. Include everything you are going to need to buy, and write down how much it will cost you. Make sure to write them in order, too. Put the things you really need first, then the items that you want at the end. You can get to those items you want if you earn enough money.
2. Make Monetary Goals – Don’t plan to buy at a set date, plan on buying it once you reach a monetary goal. Write the list based on cash flow instead of time. For example, if you want to buy another copy of Photoshop CS4 ($700), plan to buy it when you earn an extra thousand dollars. Notice that I said $1000 and not $700. You always want to have money left over.
3. Edit/Remove Unnecessary Items – Review your entire plan. Add or remove any items. Also, make sure to be realistic in your planning.
4. Finance Software – Of course, you could do your whole plan out on paper, but that’s no fun, right? Here are a few of the best finance applications for budgeting.
Mint
Mint is one of the best free finance applications. I personally recommend Mint, and Wall Street Journal agrees. Mint is easy, visually awesome, secure, and it has all the features you could possibly want. There is also a Mint iPhone app, which is always very useful.
Wesabe
Wesabe is another safe and very useful budgeting tool. Like Mint, it is well organized and easy to use.
Learn Some Extra Skills
Have you ever looked at a job board, and soon become discouraged because the best jobs require skills that you don’t have? Well, learn those skills so you can expand to a wider variety of jobs, and therefore possibly increase your income. It’s a smart way to get more money than previous years, and learning new skills is always a good idea.
Self Promotion/Build Your Personal Brand
If you are looking for more work, or possibly higher paying jobs, start promoting yourself and build up your personal brand. If you do well promoting yourself, you will become widely known throughout the design community and become more respected. This makes it much easier when applying for jobs.
If you don’t already have one, make a portfolio for yourself. Design a really good portfolio, and submit it to inspiration galleries. This is a great trick for increasing the traffic flow on your portfolio, building your personal brand, and getting your name out there. If your portfolio is good enough, you could get it featured on many other galleries and blogs. For a good list of galleries to submit your portfolio to, check out The CSS Gallery List.
Extra Sources of Income
If you really want that extra money, you are going to have to work extra hard. It’s a good idea to put your design knowledge to work and make some extra money. How? Well, within the realm of design there are plenty of ways. I think one of the best sources of income for a talented designer is writing articles for blogs (or starting your own blog). Try writing for blogs such as Smashing Magazine, NETTUTS, PSDTUTS, VECTORTUTS, SitePoint, and more. There are plenty of good blogs to write on, and you can make a significant amount of extra money while building your personal brand at the same time.
You can also design WordPress themes, HTML templates, icon sets, brush packs, etc. You can sell these on your own, or use a marketplace.
Improve Your Productivity
How productive you are determines how many projects you can tackle, and therefore the amount of money that you can earn. So, if you are more productive, you will make more money. There are many little ways to increase your productivity such as project/time management tools (planners, software, apps, to-do lists), organizing your workspace, and many more.
Goals (They’re More Important Than You Think)
You’re going to need a strong business plan with monetary goals, but you also need to set personal goals to go along with that plan. A goal could be learning a new skill, or maybe get a project for a really big company. Goals can motivate you to work harder, and achieve greater success.
Share Your Strategy
Please, feel free to tell us your strategy for 2009Â via comments.
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Great read! Mint is an excellent tool! Definitely would recommend it as well. Some more options for freelancers to take advantage of squeezing in that extra bucks by adding a couple more services:
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2008/12/10-excellent-tips-for-designers-to-improve-their-income/
Tracked back to from here: http://www.presidiacreative.com/web-picks-5/
Thanks so much!! I really need blog posts like this! I’m relatively new to this freelancing thing and this article helps a lot!
Very helpful for people just starting out to do freelance services over the web.
Thanks for the info. I will be putting these to use.
A pretty good article.
raf
Thanks for article. It’s good.
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