Christy's Checklist for Attracting and Acquiring Freelance Clients
IDLance posted a recap from my recent webinar with them with a checklist of key points from my session.
How to create a simple 2-page business plan
If you're a freelancers, you're often a one-person business. You don't need a really complicated business plan, but you do need some sort of plan. This is a list of questions to ask yourself as a freelancer to clarify what you do, who you do it for, and how you make money. I did this for myself a few years ago, and I'm probably due for a refresh of my business plan now.
![How to Create a Client Avatar for Your Freelance Business [Guest Post]](https://rdl.ink/render/https%3A%2F%2Fanti-sell.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F08%2Fcreating-client-avatars-bryn-bonino-avatar.png?width=350&height=&ar=&mode=&format=avif&dpr=2){kind=avatar}
How to Create a Client Avatar for Your Freelance Business [Guest Post]
Questions to consider when creating a client avatar for your business, or a persona of your ideal client. Understanding your target audience makes it easier to articulate your value proposition and to market for their needs.
BreezeDoc | Document signing is a breeze.
This is an alternative to DocuSign that looks like a good option for freelancers and small businesses. The free plan is limited to 2 documents per month, but the lifetime licenses are pretty cheap to increase that number.
DYF’s “All Freelancer Marketing Strategies, Ranked” Master Database | Notion
A database with marketing strategies for freelancers, focused primarily on helping established freelancers and consultants grow their businesses. I'm hesitant to place too much stock in the exact percentages shown for each strategy, but the comparison of which strategies are good for which kinds of freelancers is useful. The notes on how long each strategy takes to be effective and how predictable they are are also helpful.
Need a client?
From the "Double Your Freelancing" newsletter, a simple exercise for identifying what strategies work for finding clients, even if you're brand new. I don't actually recommend Upwork as this author does, but the overall system here makes sense. Think about what you've done in the past that has worked. Spend 5 hours/week doing that thing. Track your time and results.
Donald Taylor's questions for startups
These are great questions to ask when startups ask for reviews of a product. They're also great questions to ask yourself if you're a freelancer or consultant to think about your positioning.
"What problem are you solving for your clients?" "Do your clients know they have that problem?" "Are your clients ready to pay enough for this solution?"
What problem are you solving for your clients?
WorkWise Design | Instructional Design Subscription
This is an interesting model for instructional design work. It's essentially a retainer, where you subscribe and get to make multiple requests per month (but only 1 or 2 at a time). This is focused on workshops and classroom training, not elearning, but you could use a similar model for selling elearning development as a subscription/retainer.
Contract Creator - Freelancers Union
Free fill-in-the-blank form for creating basic contracts for freelancers
My 25 favorite freelancing tips
From the "Double Your Freelancing" newsletter, this is a bunch of tips about how to improve your freelancing business. Some of this is the same advice I have given to others--track your time, spend time working ON your business and not just IN your business, etc. Solid tips if you're a one-person company or small agency, regardless of what industry you work in.
The Magic Email - Closing the Loop
The "magic email" is a template for getting prospective clients to respond to you even if they've been ghosting you for weeks (or even months). The intro of the article talks about sending it in September, but it really works at any time of year. I've used this, or variations of it, with several clients, and it's amazing how quick people respond and how high of a success rate this has.
How Much Should I Charge As A Speaker? Find Out Here!
These benchmarks for professional speaking fees are higher than some other sources, but the infographic at the bottom breaks down the lower end of the range more.
How Much Should You Charge for a Speech?
Pricing suggestions for how much to charge for speaking
How Much to Charge For Public Speaking, Without Apology | Foundr
Benchmarks and suggestions for what to charge for public speaking
Career Tips All Women Should Know - Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
Kayleen Holt recaps the TLDC Women of L&D 2023 event with a summary of key points addressed in multiple sessions. Reading this article may help you determine how to prioritize which recordings from the event you want to watch.
Freelancing Females Rate Sheet — Freelancing Females - The Largest Community of Freelance Women
A database of freelance rates in many fields to help increase pay transparency and give freelancers benchmarks to know what they're worth. Registration required to view.
The Official Speaker Fee Calculator — The Speaker Lab
Free calculator to determine fees for speaking at in person or virtual events, based on your experience speaking, customization required for the presentation, and more.
The Independent Consulting Manual - Your Guide to a Consulting Career
Free ebook and video series on independent consulting. I'm not familiar with all of these authors and speakers, but I have learned a lot from Kai Davis over the years. The topics include writing proposals, pricing, automating processes, email and phone scripts, positioning, and more.
Red Flags to Watch Out For in Freelance Contracts
I hear a lot of questions from new freelancers and consultants about contracts and what to watch for. I agree with this list of red flags: non-compete clauses, no payment terms, intellectual property, indemnity clauses, and rights. Most ID and elearning work is work-for-hire, but sometimes you create something you should license so you can also reuse it (like non-confidential portions of a course for your portfolio).
STRUCTURE magazine | Understanding Indemnification Clauses
Freelancers and consultants need to know how to read contracts and watch for potential red flags. One concern is indemnification clauses. This article provides very specific notes on language to watch for and suggestions for revising the language to be reasonable for the kind of risks individual consultants should assume.
One issue that often arises is the language of the indemnification clause. The reason for this is simple – indemnification clauses can shift significant risks to the design professional, and these risks may not be insurable.
Planning Your 2023 Projects and Projections • Kai Davis
If you work independently, now is a good time to think about planning for the new year. I suspect most people in our field can't really make projections a whole year in advance as this free spreadsheet template shows. However, projecting even a few months in advance helps you see where you're already booked solid and where you have gaps to fill.
Projects and Projections Worksheet - Google Sheets
Free spreadsheet for projecting your annual income based on multiple freelance projects or income streams. This format is different from how I do my own projections, but it's a good starting point. You can make a copy of the template and use it yourself.
Standard Operating Procedures: The Foundation of a Freelancing or Consulting Business • Kai Davis
Free Google Doc template for creating SOPs for freelancers. For a one-person business, this documentation doesn't have to be very fancy--but it does help to document processes to improve your efficiency. You don't have to keep making the same decisions over and over about what comes next if you write down some processes, even for yourself.
The Freelance Designer's Guide to Cold Emailing (with Templates) | Dribbble
Parts of this guide are maybe too general and not specific enough if you're just getting started, but the templates and example emails are helpful.
Freelancers: Five Steps to Write a Cold Email That Converts New Clients | Observer
Options and sample emails for freelancers. These templates assume the writer has a blog and other social media channels to promote content for potential clients.
How much does it cost to start freelancing in instructional design?
Cara North breaks down the expenses to get started freelancing, using her actual costs plus a few alternatives. For setting up an LLC, website, hardware, software, and professional development, you can expect to spend a few thousand dollars in the first year.
So how much does it cost to start as a freelance instructional designer? My estimate is between $3000 and $5000.
Identify your superpower and learn to leverage it - Chris Lema
What are the things you're good at, but take other people a lot of time and effort? What do people compliment you on, but you downplay it because it feels so easy to you? What can you do well that surprises other people? Chris Lema shares questions to reflect on your skills to identify your special strengths. This isn't about instructional design, but it seems relevant to our field where there's a wide range of skills under the general umbrella. Within that broad scope of L&D, what's your superpower? This is also another way to think about identifying a niche for freelancers and consulting businesses.
How to Find Your Next 20 Clients Online in 63 Days
Specific tactics for finding new clients as a freelancer or consultant. This is broken into three phases: an initial phase to get your first 5 clients and learn what you like the best, a second phase of defining your ideal client, and a third phase of scaling by partnering with others and teaching new audiences. eLearning and instructional design freelancers may not even need the third phase (which includes a lot of building a large audience), but I like the targeted alternatives to cold emails here.
<p>If you don’t know who your ideal client is, answer these three questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Who is doing work you respect?</li>
<li>Who would be fun to work with?</li>
<li>Who could give you additional exposure if you worked for them?</li></ol>
Learnexus
Learnexus is a platform for freelancers to find projects and clients to find freelancers. It's focused on instructional designers and elearning developers, rather than being a general freelancer site like UpWork. They also screen freelancers, so they are hopefully filtering out some of the folks at the low end of the market. The site is new though, so the pool of people and projects is small currently.
Marketing YOUR Freelance eLearning Business - YouTube
Ant Pugh on all the marketing tactics he tried when he started freelancing. One problem was that he had no overall strategy for his marketing, just a lot of tactics. The tactics that work for one person might not work for another because they don't fit the strategy.