You Did The Work But Lost The Contract! Now What? Solopreneur Must Have And A Personal Rant!

It's been a short while since my last post and of course it was inspired by this Freelancer, Soloprenuer and Small Business life that teaches you lessons on a daily basis.  Today I will share just one tip to varying degrees as well as rant on a bit about my recent experience.

I have often posted on how Freelancers can be undervalued and the truth is that no matter what niche or specialty I happen to be working with or in, I continue to grow as a result of  my experiences.  One topic that I can't recall covering in this blog is "Contracts".  Perhaps I did and you can simply gloss over this post, if I haven't or you have not read any previous posts, you'll want to stay-tuned and read this one.

Contracts Are A Must Have

So let us get right to it. Whether you are a Freelance Web Designer or Music Producer, Virtual Services Provider or any other provider, having a contract between yourself and your client is an absolute must. Whether it is enforceable is completely up to your jurisdiction  however, it can only help you. The fact is that many of us have begun or continued to work for a client whom has either not made a deposit or has not fulfilled their payment obligations, it's just a given when you're running a small business or a one-woman (one-man) show and it's bound to have happened or to eventually happen. Save yourself the trouble of unpaid work and grab yourself a contract at the door.  Some clients may tend to get offended at the request for a contract however, if my experience serves me correctly, those are specifically the clients that are likely not to pay or fulfill payment terms. At the worst, this will help you weed out the serious paying client versus those that are shopping around.

A Friend Of  A Friend? Yes, A Contract Is Still Absolutely Necessary!

I have had the misfortune of falling into this gap at least twice and in fact, I just recently discovered that I have completed hours of free work, only to find that the client went ahead and contracted elsewhere to have the work completed.  I completed over 30 hours of work on a website, of which the only hold-up, was that the client needed to give me additional information and now I have nothing to show for it. After several emails and commitments to provide me with some of the most basic items needed in order to complete the site and tie it all together, I didn't so much as get an email back. Needless to say, this client now has an unfinished website, albeit a website nonetheless that was created by another provider. Meanwhile, I am stuck with hours of unpaid work and a domain that I purchased in order to host the website template on as I had never even gotten the login information for the client's hosting account (not very bright on my part).  

I was astonished as I had only been told that the client was pulling the balance of pictures and funds together and after a while had passed, I just assumed that the client ran on hard times and needed to gather themselves. Whatever the real story is, the fact of the matter is that I did a ton of work for which payment was and is still unaccounted for. Of course, this work will end up on my write-off pile because, lets face it, I don't have the time or energy to even bother questioning this client as communication wasn't ideal from the onset. If I am being honest, I had to laugh because had the client and I not had a mutual friend in-common, I would definitely not have been in this situation.  

To add insult to injury I am a female as was the client and I remember thinking "so much for girl power". We are here to build each other up, regardless of gender but it's truly the "wrong end of the stick" when women in business do not respect each other's gifts and talents. Without the mutual friend, under normal circumstances I would have had a signed contract and a deposit. The lesson learned with this client is that I will ensure that all clients, whether referrals from a friend or not, will have to sign a contract for my services. No matter how nice they are or how much I actually like the person and their work, I can't afford to do free work, nobody can and no one should be expected to. It's a matter of principle, class and professionalism and it's our jobs as Solopreneur's to enforce that which will ultimately benefit us in a positive way.

Moving On, Where Can You Find Contracts?

You can find Contract Making software quickly and easily online, there is no excuse in this day and age not to be able to locate this information online. Google is a hell of a business partner and you can literally find anything online or at least the instructions to anything online.  Here are three links for Contract Making software online:

FreelancersUnion I am a member and LOVE their resources page

LegalContract (great for Independent Contractors)

TidyForms (They have multiple types, I would use "Service Contracts" and edit.

What To Do When You've Lost The Contract

If you're experiencing the same situation that I just found myself and did not have a contract, I would suggest contacting the client and exhausting every avenue of communication. Call them, send a fax, send an email and send a letter. If all of that fails, contact a local attorney.  Depending on the amount owed, you might not want to expend additional finances or resources to hire a lawyer so play it by ear. In most cases a lawyer will charge you a few bucks to send a collection letter on your behalf. If that still doesn't work, head to small claims court. There are many ways to communicate non-payment to a client. In the story that I shared above, I will not be taking any action however, it will re-enforce my absolute desire to apply Contract terms to every preceding client and rest assured that future non-paying clients (if I am so unfortunate) will receive all of the above.

There You Have It

There you have it, my personal story along with a tid-bit or two on the necessity for a Contract and where to easily find one. Let's make sure that we put these to good use and end 2016 with a bang. Let us not be taken advantage of whether purposeful or by circumstance. At the end of the day, non-paying clients are a dime a dozen and are plentiful, by enforcing our own contracts we will have a higher success rate and be able to at least attempt to hold parties accountable. A lot of our business as Soloprenuers and Freelancers or Small Businesses comes from word of mouth however, that doesn't mean that ever referral is a solid candidate to do business with and or for. Contracts to the moon and back.

Til Next Time,

Casey

Your Value As A Freelancer And When To Cut Your Losses

What is your value as a freelancer?

This is a question that you will no doubt ask yourself from time to time, especially when you encounter projects that may fulfill you in some way but don't quite cut it when it comes to paying the bills. So do we sacrifice our livelihoods for the integrity of work that we enjoy doing and believe in? Unfortunately, that is just not something that we can do in the state of our current economy. I'm not sure where you're located but I am writing this blog from New York City where like most places, the cost of living continues to increase. At times a clients attentiveness is focused solely on growing their business but not necessarily keeping their financial obligations to their freelancers, who are tasked daily with projects that will grow a business in the long run.

I am lucky in the sense that I have a supportive partner who encourages me to do work that I like but I am not blinded by the fact that without a basic structure and rules levied as a freelancer, my partner would be left holding the bag. Sure, it's great to do work that I enjoy and it's wonderful to have the freedom to freelance and dig my heels into work that I like and that I believe in however, by sacrificing our worth, it's possible to put undo pressure on those elements that support and sustain us on a daily basis. Either that, or the very reality is that we may actually be sacrificing the very sustenance that is required for us to live off of on a daily basis. Why should freelancers have to be concerned with how we're going to cover the cost of one necessity or another? The answer is that we shouldn't! And yet, there is not enough information out here that gives freelancers the nitty gritty, the truth and the facts about real life as a freelancer. I encourage people to freelance all the time and I recently realized that while I have provided people with tools, I neglected to mention my two strike rule. More on that later.

Does the fact that you like a client mean that you should settle?

Absolutely not! And for the record, this is something that it took me a while to understand, accept and work with. I have had clients who I have enjoyed working with but who did not quite understand how to fulfill their financial end of our business relationship. Because I work from home, my rate may be reduced compared to a full time, in-house employee. That alone is a bonus for a client, simply based on my experience and commitment to the clients work. However, in many cases you will encounter a client who is not financially astute enough to be concerned with making sure that a freelancer is paid in a timely manner. As a result the work flow wanes. There is no pleasant way of saying this but, the fact is, when you are not paid in a timely manner, the non-paying client's projects will have to be placed on the back-burner while you hustle on other projects and make sure that you are making a buck to pay your bills. In-effect, where a non-paying or late-paying client leaves a gap, another client must fit the bill.

At the end of the day, we all want the freedom to dictate our work schedules, freelancers understand the scope of an entrepreneurs place in the world and where exactly we fit in. In fact, we understand these business clients more than they can comprehend, because in essence, we are entrepreneurs ourselves. We are our business: our time, our skills, our commitment and expertise all happen to be our business, and therefore we are the entrepreneurs that entrepreneurs come to-to facilitate their businesses' daily operations no? We are the transportation system that runs their productivity and many times as a result, their growth.

So how do you value yourself as a freelancer?

As I have realized over more than a decade as a freelancer, your value as a freelancer solely depends on what you're willing to work for. If you're willing to continue to dole out work in return for late-paying or non-paying clients, your worth stagnates and your service and skill, the business of being  you, gets devalued. My rule of thumb is to allow a client to make two late payments. If I encounter a third late payment, I walk away from the client. The first two times I give the client the benefit of the doubt, perhaps their schedule was busy or they were recently overwhelmed with work. These are easy excuses to verify as in the position of freelancer, you have a pretty good gauge on how busy the client actually is. 

In other instances, you may see that the client is not so overwhelmed that they couldn't tend to their financial obligation to you. In either case, my policy is two strikes and  you're out. Just as the client doesn't have the time to count their fingers over the loss of income on one project, product or opportunity, as freelancers neither do we. My time and your time as freelancers is valuable. Value the fact that you have a marketable skill that increases or enables the client to expand upon income that grows their purpose and realize that you are worth the financial investment. At the point where a client decides that they can put off paying you for another day or time, that is a decisive choice that they are making and consciously or subconsciously, they do  not value you as a freelancer. You are just a means to an end, don't get offended and take it personal, this is part of the business model that we as freelancers have decided to be a part of. With it comes the good and the bad and we have to be prepared to look out for our own best interests.

Cut  your losses, worthy clients are on the horizon!

If you experiencing some roadblocks on the financial end with any clients, maybe it's time to cut your losses. There is plenty of work out here for all freelancers, in all fields. We might have to weed through the client pool to find those that are worthy, but they are out there. If a client is worth your time and energy, your investment and your commitment, they will be more than happy to pay you on time, every single time. An experienced entrepreneur and business owner understands that when you cultivate positive employee relationships, your productivity and business thrive and your brand grows. With that in mind, remember your worth and see to it that you do not devalue yourself because in doing so, not only do you devalue yourself, you devalue all freelancers. 

My take on working from home-online and earning a living. How I do it and some helpful tips.

Get Rich Quick Schemes

For years you have seen these "make money from home" advertisements, most of which turn out to be a scam. Lets be honest here, there are hundreds if not thousands of "work from home" opportunities listed on the internet that require anywhere from a small investment to hundreds of dollars in order to get started.

Most of these offers turn out to be a dead end. You invest $29.95 and up to become part of one program or another and this small investment gives you access to "tools" to get you started and so on and so forth. You end up having to upsell to your friends and family and in many cases try and recruit them into your program. If you're not up-selling to your friends and family or work associates and colleagues, you yourself are buying the "product(s)" in order to meet the minimum quota to stay on board.

Pyramid Schemes

I had a friend many years ago call me and tell me to come down to a meeting in Manhattan and if I liked what I heard, she would "sponsor" me to get me on board. As it turned out, it was a Mary Kay meeting and I had to buy into it with ($100.00)! Yes a hundred bucks! That hundred dollars got me a starter kit with samples and order forms, along with catalogs.  My job was then to come to a meeting every single week. I remember thinking "what the hell do I need a "sponsor" for? If I ran a pyramid scheme, I would naturally assume that if I am "sponsoring" people, that it is a clear indication that I believe that they can sell and market my program or products and I would cover the cost of their membership right?  Is it just me or is the term "sponsor" being used very loosely within the Mary Kay program? Sponsor my shmonser.

At the time I thought to myself "because she's my friend, I'll make her look good and sign up", but once I realized they needed me to attend weekly meetings, I outright said "I don't do meetings and I will not be able to attend them, my schedule as a freelancer will most likely not allow it anyway".  My friend understood but suggested that I try to make some of these meetings anyway. They gave me my own email account and store-link online and I then began to get bombarded with emails from the individual sales director or manager (whoever she was) that was the lead on my friends team. They send you those high energy, peppy emails, telling you that such and such did so well this month and such and such reached another level or rank etc. It was all BS to me. There's no way to make money without duping other people in to signing up for this scam business opportunity and having them sell these products or sign up below you and at some point you earn some kind of residual income from this.  I didn't want a pink freaking Cadillac and I certainly didn't feel like selling makeup and cosmetics to my friends, family or colleagues. I hated the idea of selling false promises.

It's Never "Passive" Income

It's not passive income or part-time effort at all. It's on your mind 24-7! You get brainwashed and you're constantly on the hunt for new recruits and constantly trying to sell this product or that product.  I am now seeing programs like this on Facebook and it's sad how popular these MLM scams have grown. In programs like this, if you don't follow through, they criticize you for dropping out and not being a team-player. I used up my cosmetics from my starter kit and gave away a ton of other items that came with it.  I don't want to dump all over Mary Kay, maybe it's because I am more of a tomboy that this program was not for me. Who knows?  Mary Kay's products are not cheap so oftentimes someone will, out of kindness and compassion, order one or two things to help you out and unless that item is magic, they won't be ordering again. I myself liked Avon growing up. You'd order a cheap product, forget about it and then two weeks or so later, it was like a present that you forgot about when that cherry chap stick or midnight magic perfume came to your door. Mary Kay, was not for me.

Another friend knocked on my door with his Amway kit and told me that he would make us rich. He'd made the investment and now all I had to do was invite all of my girlfriends over and get them to buy crap stuff. I whooped out my Mary Kay kit and asked him what the difference was. I told him that I'd been there and tried that and that I couldn't help him because I wasn't going to be feeding a bunch of chicks every weekend to try and sell his products. So, in order for him to make a few bucks, I'd have to spend over a hundred bucks every weekend in order to host some product sales party at my house? I think not. He was disappointed and bummed out, I mean, he did drive over an hour to show me this program on a late Sunday evening, but shoot...he should have called first.

If you like to sell things, then these Mary Kay, Avon, Amway and all of the new ones out now, might be a good way for you to save money on products and also sell them along with your program. There are far cheaper ways to get discounts on products and make money on referrals (I will cover this in a future post). These programs are not for me and if you do a tiny bit of research, you can figure these MLM programs out and find a better and cheaper way to do it. For that hundred buck buy-in, I could set up my own website and spend some google-adwords dollars and sell my own items. If that's something you want to do and don't know how to do, it's pretty simple and you can message me and I will be glad to walk you through it for FREE.  I will do a blog on these very simple steps in the next week or so and you'll have all of the information at your fingertips.

I Work From Home, So Can You!

I work from home and make money all the same and I'm going to tell you how I do it. I choose to invest in myself and market my own skills in order to make a living. I've been doing it for over a decade and the only individuals that benefit are myself and the people that I do business. There is not an entire flock of upper level MLM folks above me that benefit from one penny that I make and there are no folks recruited beneath me that I earn money from, residual or otherwise. I like this formula.  I work with freelance communities online and while you do run in to a lot of competition, if you do it right, you will always have work coming in and you will feel good about the work that you do and every dollar that you earn.

One such community is Odesk.com and depending on your skills, you can earn money with a flexible schedule and keep a client coming back for more.  This won't work for everyone but if you're educated on any level and know how to use the internet, you've got a starting point.  Most people on these online communities offer Secretarial and Administrative Services as well as things such as: SEO Marketing, Graphic Design, Music and Audio Services, Art and Design etc.  If you have any kind of talent, there is a market for you online that you can tap into for less than one of your many MLM investments floating on the net.

For the above mentioned online community, Odesk.com, as it applies to me, here is my rundown-
I provide the following services:

Ghost Writing, Writing, Transcription, Research, Voice Over, Secretarial and Administrative Services etc.

You can pretty much offer any service that you are capable of offering and following through on.  Once you have established a profile with some samples of your work in your portfolio, you can either apply to jobs that are posted or you will receive invitations for work that is available within the categories that you subscribe to. Below is an example of a job that was offered to me

You then follow-up with the offer and click accept or decline (see below):

Am I going to provide 50 articles for $200 (provider's maximum bid)? Probably not because

it's not a reasonable paying gig but if I have nothing on the table, I might bid for those 50 articles 

and ask for an increase. They would either accept my offer or decline. You get the gist of it right?

Here is my list of categories that I subscribe to:

Odesk allows folks to offer a ton of services so there is no need for you to be a writer or offer any other

kind of administrative things like I do. These are some of the categories that you can provide services in:

Odesk charges 10% of the earnings which is really not that bad at all.  You can  always incorporate

that 10% fee in to your bid for each project, that's up to you. There are different levels of membership, currently I do not pay for any additional membership options. I stuck to the number of categories allowed on the basic/free membership. Imagine that! I'm marketing my skills for free and able to earn a living while doing it.

Below are some online communities that allow you to use skills that you already know. I have listed some below.I did a few music related searches for a friend but these communities cover all specialties and fields. Keep in mind that they cover more than just music, these jpegs are for illustration only on the various searches I did with "music" when I was helping a friend get started:

www.freelanced.com (music, artists, writers, painters, graphic etc.) below you will see one job that quoted up to an $8000 payment for a 6-9 minute video promo. I have many friends that can do this in a weeks time.

www.freelancer.com (in the real sample below, you could earn $269 for a transcription of a song)

https://www.elance.com (good for EVERY field, including audio engineering etc)

 (for graphic designers/artists/web designers)

www.peopleperhour.com (very good for video, photo, audio and other specialities etc. If you master music tracks or make beats, they seem to have a ton of opportunities)

http://www.donanza.com/jobs/music

https://soundbetter.com/

http://www.soundclick.com (here you can open your own music store and sell mp3's with a paypal account) this next link tells you how http://www.soundclick.com/docs/support.cfm?site=store#1.1 

There are many legitimate opportunities to work from home for writers, designers, artists, musicians, engineers and many, many more.

I got a gig on freelanced.com within the first month of my membership which was somewhere around $15.00 and I made that investment back within that same month (for ghost writing a blog).

What helps me is that I have a large portfolio and while I didn't know how to put a portfolio together at the beginning, it wasn't that hard. I created projects on my computer and either uploaded them in word, PDF or simply screen-captured them as jpg's.  For my voice over demo; I created it on my computer with audacity.  A voice over demo is pretty easy to create. You need to either create or find music and beats and then lay your voice down, after you've done these two things, you can mix them on audacity, which is free to download. Audacity also makes it easy to cancel out background noise. Shoot, by reading simple instructions and hitting youtube, I became and audacity expert via the web and now offer voice over services online.

It's really simple to get started on your own with these online communities and you can account for every dollar that you spend (in many cases the free/basic memberships will do just fine) and also have great potential to make great earnings if you take the proper steps to set up a good profile with a good portfolio (see below).

I made over $100 in one day, for one project, with one client on elance.com (for research work) (see below)

I have my paypal account attached to elance.com and therefore I withdrew the funds on the same day and then transferred those funds to my paypal debit card. It's very simple. Use what you already know, to make money that you don't already have.  Use your skills and knowledge to make a legitimate living that you can feel good about.

It takes one job to give you good reviews and then before you know it, you're being invited to take part in paying projects that you can either accept or decline.

You can absolutely make money working from home and online but in my opinion you do not need to invest in one program or another. I don't recommend that you invest in any MLM at all and that's just my opinion. Take your $100 and invest it in yourself (or start out with the basic/free memberships).  If you don't think that you have enough skills to try this or you feel that you're rusty, trust me when I tell you that you can do this, some websites offer free memberships and others start at truly  low monthly membership rates. All it takes is one job to make that money back and pay for continuing monthly fees. It's worth it!! I pay $10 for my elance membership and I have made hundreds on that site alone. In all, I spend less than $50 a month with my various web memberships and I obtain work from all of them. The work pays for my memberships, but you can start with just one of these sites.  There is a library the size of the universe on the internet for free that will help you brush up on your skills and with that same token, there are a ton of free online resources that will teach you a skill or two.  Invest your time in  yourself and use those few bucks you have to get yourself in to one or more of these online communities to get real work, for real pay.

I'm a business owner, a blogger, a writer, a researcher, an executive assistant, a transcriptionist and so much more. I am utilizing all of my skills every day to earn a living. I have built websites, worked with SEO Marketing, Started three businesses, helped start-ups and more. Trust in yourself, believe in yourself and you can use what you already know and what  you already have within your means to start your own work-from-home journey.

Good Luck,

Til we meet again