Go to a pond where you can visibly see a lot of fish. Take a stone and throw it in the water. Notice what the fish do? Yes, they race towards the stone in anticipation of a feeding frenzy?
Of course, you know what happens next.
The fish figure out you’re just teasing, and with disappointed guppy faces, they swim away. Um… if you continue to throw stones, they’ll keep coming back, till they work out it’s useless to humour you any more.
Freelancing is a great way for anyone to work independently or make some extra money and for employers to hire talent at an affordable price and in a flexible way. However, freelancing isn’t a hobby; it is a full-time job in which you cannot succeed unless you abide by a certain set of rules.
Using freelancing marketplaces like freelancer.com, elance.com or odesk.com is a first step in making your freelancing work more professional and will be very helpful in getting your projects. However, even when using such platforms, I have seen many freelancers struggle to get projects by making some major mistakes.
This article is about three deadly mistakes freelancers often make that could easily be avoided.
It is all about perception not reality! You could be the best designer, the best coder, the best SEO… if your customers cannot see that in a way or another, for them you just are not.
There are many ways to convey a positive image. Some past showcase work and positive feedback (portfolio, testimonials…), others spend a lot of time writing compelling proposals… However, many fail when it comes to producing enterprise-grade invoices in particular and admin papers in general.
YES, INVOICES! I have seen many freelancers unable to provide a decent invoice and others that couldn’t tell me how much they charged for the last project we worked on together!
The solution is simple, use tools! There are so many free and paid tools out there that can help you look more professional and make your job easier. Just imagine you are at one of your customers’ office and he asks you if he can have an invoice in order to pay you. With a cloud-based invoicing system, all you need is a computer with Internet access, and you’re done, give him the invoice and cash in the check!
Here are my favourite invoicing/billing tools:
INVOICERA, The popular one
Invoicera is probably the most widely used. It has always been reliable and handy. If you want to make online invoicing a straightforward and uncomplicated process, this is one of the best tools out there; they even have a free plan.
MAVENLINK, The comprehensive tool,
If you are ready to pay for a pro tool and get some support, this is your most comprehensive choice. Mavenlink lets you collaborate, share files, invoice, track time, and make or receive payment in a custom-branded project management solution.
HARVEST, The easy one
HARVEST is extremely easy to use and can simplify your timesheets with time tracking and fast online invoicing.
Price is a major parameter in a project manager’s choice, but the quality is also a primary concern. As humans, we have been educated into thinking that quality and price are related, and that’s not always untrue.
In fact, for many people, the price is an indicator of how good your work will be. So being too aggressive on your prices and making sacrifices might have a negative effect on how good you are perceived to be.
In conclusion, my advice is to try and strike a balance between:
Trust is part of life, and many employers need to see you trust them, and they can trust you before they can give you the project.
So you have to inspire trust and manage the customer interactions very carefully. Some people will quickly try and take you to a feeling driven relation because that’s how they do it. In fact, as a freelancer, you will certainly have to work with people from different countries, regions, cultures…
This is why I would strongly advise you to use tools like escrow to make sure you get paid and if not, can file a complaint or a dispute.
As you might already know, most freelancing platforms offer such services, but that doesn’t mean you should entirely rely on them and not filter out your partners carefully.
Of course, once the customer is a recurring one, you might want to be more flexible to speed things up and help make working together easier.
While most copywriters have avidly studied Claude Hopkins’ Scientific Advertising, very few have even heard of Theodore MacManus, let alone read his book, The Sword Arm of Business. And yet MacManus was, in some ways, a more successful ad man, having:
I’ve seen a few big shopping cart no-nos lately, so I just want to alert Grok readers to them–they’re pretty easy to avoid:
The Homepage Dump: You add an item to your cart and are thrown into the checkout process. You’ve got another item on your shopping list, so you click the little link that says “Continue Shopping.” You’re dumped on the homepage. This is especially bad when you’ve done a lot of searching and results-filtering, and now it’s all gone. It really does feel like you’ve just been dumped! I can’t think of any good reason why the homepage is the proper place to land a visitor to continue shopping.
People often ask me what I mean when I say it’s important to appeal to the emotional needs of the folks who come to your Web site. Like, is it really about writing extravagantly, in a fashion that suggests the emotions of the copy’s author are stirred up and yours are about to be next? Should we be in search of flamboyant prose?
It’s then I realize people don’t really have a handle on what it means to appeal to emotion. I mean, if you’re looking to acquire an excavator, how meaningful or appropriate is effusive, flowery language? Think it will stir you up or send you running?
Recently, my erudite buddy Bryan posted a comment on an e-consultancy forum. His observations included a brief discussion of the value of Persuasion Architecture – which, as you dear readers know, is our synthetic philosophy for creating and managing your online presence. Bryan got a comment from a fellow named Chris, who said,
“I can’t help but think of persuasion architecture as one of those multiple choice ending books that I last read twenty years ago – ‘turn to page 121 if you think A, turn to page 84 if you think B…’ etc. There are a number of scenarios on each page and a persuasive writer would be able to channel readers towards the right decision.”
The other day, a guy comes up to me in the grocery store. “Hey, you’re that Martian what’s-it from SurfSentinel, aren’t you?”
I plaster on my how-nice smile as I poke through the tomatoes. “That’s me, alright.”
He settles into a soap-box stance. “You know, I read that book on copywriting … you know, the one with the picture of you on the cover? It was pretty good.”
“Thanks, dude,” I nod. “I’ll convey your reactions to Bryan, Jeffrey and Lisa.”
“Yeah, but …”
Here it comes. I hate this. The moment when I’m going to have to justify something in the nicest way possible when what I really want to do is zap the guy with a lightening bolt (if only Martians could).
It seems my grocery store commentator really liked Persuasive Online Copywriting, so he decided to visit the Web site for this newsletter. It was there he determined that while we might understand the theory of writing persuasively, we were inept at putting it into practice for ourselves.
“I was wondering what I might learn about persuasive writing from evaluating your SurfSentinel Web site. I’m still wondering.” I can still hear his toe tapping.
Every last one of my eyeballs was stuck rolled up in their sockets (but that how-nice smile was still plastered to my face), and then, suddenly, it dawned on me. He doesn’t get it. And if this regular dude who looks very normal and speaks quite intelligently doesn’t get it, then lots and lots of other folks aren’t getting it either (which actually is pretty obvious).
Every little thing you do on your Web site must have a purpose – an objective. You must be clear about what that purpose is, so you can develop all the associated elements with that purpose in mind. Lose the focus of your purpose and you will no longer be able to even communicate, much less persuade, effectively. Your purpose may change over time – very little stays static – but the changes must always be considered and intentional, shaped within the context of the evolving purpose.
I said to my confrontational dude, “The purpose of SurfSentinel’s copy is to inform and build long-term relationships with our readers by providing valuable content, not by selling them anything. Through this laid-back approach, we demonstrate our abilities, which, quite naturally, we hope will influence someone to contact us. But all this material is there for free, whether or not you ever contact us. And you can use it to perform large and small miracles on your Web site.”
“Our strategy not only works for us, it works extraordinarily well. Over 40% of the folks who come to this Web site sign up for the newsletter. Not bad, eh dude?” I grin, plucking the perfect tomato from the pile. “Although it could be a lot better, I’ll grant you that!” And I wink.
Keep this in mind as you puzzle over the many elements on your Web site. No one thing can be everything to all people. You’ll go berserk thinking otherwise. That’s why you need to think of any conversion system in larger terms – as a construction of Persuasion Architecture.
So think about what you need to accomplish, how you can best accomplish it, then head out and get it done. Webward Ho (with a purpose)!
Alphabet soup is on the menu today, except I’m going to ask you to search among the floating pasta for these letters: S, E, A, O and M. Grab three Ss and three Es while you’re at it. The rest you can eat … and while you are slurping away, I’ll talk about some search engine stuff that is terribly important to how you manage your online marketing efforts.
“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you chances are it will burn very briefly.” Steven R. Covey
1. Count every little success. Don’t be so hard on yourself. When you first start writing blogs, it can seem like posts take forever. But with each completion is a success. When the blog is published that is success. Count each step as a success and it becomes easier and easier.
As your sphere of influence gets bigger, new problems will arise. View resolving each new problem as a success and your sphere of influence will grow again.
How much of your business is organized and how much is production? If you guessed a ratio of 80 to 20%, you would be right. Think about it. Take a look at your day. Look at your business, see how much administrative duties are done to get a successful product made and to your customer.
Whether you are doing the tasks your self or having someone else do them the administrative duties take up a big chunk of time. Make it easy and follow these organizing tips.
