15 Habits Of Professional Freelancers

 

There’s very little to stop anyone becoming a freelancer. In a highly competitive and, in most places, saturated market, you need to make sure your reputation as a freelancer is well-managed and continues to grow. It’s very possible to get a good reputation without being the best in the world, and it’s even easier to lose that reputation.

In this article, we’ll explore 15 habits that are essential in helping freelancers effectively safeguard and grow their reputation, and we’ll also discuss how to make freelancing work for you. The habits are split into 3 sections: Marketing, Business and time & Specific business areas.

Marketing and Relationships 

1. The Presentation Habit 

Your website should be at the centre of your marketing strategy. It’s where people go to see who you are, what you’re about, whether you know what you’re talking about and what work you have done. It’s your silent ²⁴⁄₇ salesman, and it needs to be right. Fortunately, what your website needs is straightforward:

• Well-presented work with a good description of the roles you played
• A brief history of who you are and why you’re where you are
• Contact details that are easily accessible
• Content that is continually tweaked, added to, and updated

Other than that, you can go wherever you want with your own website — and so you should. Personality is key.

2. The Networking Habit 

They say that within 6 degrees of separation, everyone knows everyone. So you need to make sure that everyone within your 1st degree (i.e. people you know), know exactly what you do. It needs to be exact as well. If you’re a developer you don’t want people saying you’re a website designer, and so on. Your current network of friends, family, and associates are your free word-of-mouth marketing - so get them talking about you right now.

Once this is done, your network needs to be extended and enhanced. Register with any social networking platforms that can work for you — LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Within those places, start getting into the right circles. On LinkedIn you may join some appropriate discussion groups that are either local or skill based. On Twitter you may start tweeting and including appropriate hashtags so more people can see your tweet on that subject.

There are many ways to network and connect with people, so it’s crucial that a freelancer not be afraid to talk to people and share information and contacts. Learn the networking habit and get yourself known.

3. The Niching Habit 

Freelancers can get into the habit of not only finding their niche, but creating niches. A niche in this case is an area in your overall field of work in which you particularly specialise. If you’ve become very good at creating websites for golf courses, for example, then that’s a great niche.

The reasons having a niche is valuable are simple: It’s easier to become an expert in a niche. It’s easier to sell to other prospects within that niche as they can see what you have done before. As an expert in that niche you can charge a premium for your depth of knowledge.

The key to this habit is to proactively build your own niches. Seek out profitable areas in which you can work and concentrate on building niches.

4. The Pricing Habit 

How you price your projects can easily be the difference between winning and not winning some work. Your pricing needs to be transparent at all times and should be agreed upon up front. Things go wrong when hidden costs appear later on. Clients like to know how much they’re paying, when they’re going to pay it, and what they’re paying for. So make it clear from the start.

Second part of the pricing habit — protect yourself. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in winning a project that you forgot some simple rules. If you have never worked with a client before, ask for a small percentage of the fee before you do any work. At this early stage, you won’t know whether they will pay! Reduce your bad debt by either only working for clients you trust or having some remuneration first.

Third part of the pricing habit — be flexible. Make sure you find a way to make the commercial deal a win-win for both parties. This could be:

• Monthly payments (regular cash flow over the course of the project)
• Payment when you hit certain project milestones (e.g. project performance)
• Deposit and balance on completion (best avoided for cash flow reasons)
• Possible exchange of services

5. The Growth Habit 

It’s been claimed that it costs seven times as much in resources to acquire a new client than it does to grow an existing one. So the growth habit is about proactively looking at your clients in detail so you can discover new ways to help them.

One practical way to do this is to cross reference. Write all your services across the top of an excel sheet, then put your clients down the left hand column. Now place an X in the box where a service you have done matches a client. The boxes without X’s are potential growth opportunities and should all be explored before spending too much energy trying to acquire new clients.

Business and Time 

This section is less screenshot, more serious business.

6. The time management habit 

Lacking good habits in time management could cause you to over-committing yourself at certain times, which could lead to:

• Missing a deadline and disappointing a client
• Producing sloppy or inaccurate work
• Causing yourself stress because of the pressure to get everything done

The solution to this is an effective planning mechanism. Estimate how long the work will take you, then add a buffer to your estimation. This will ensure that, if it does take longer, it won’t eat into other projects. A 50% buffer works well. That may sound like a lot, but if you go over by 25% and then there are additional client emendations, you’ll need it. Once you have the total time allocation, add it to your diary. Now, here’s the crucial part: Do not move it, shrink it, or change it in any way. If you have to do something urgent that will interfere with that scheduled work, make sure the time is reallocated elsewhere.

A simple calendar application like Google calendar or Outlook can help you plan your time as a freelancer. If you struggle with where all that time goes and want to get serious about making improvements in time management, something like Rescue Time can really help.

7. The Flexibility Habit 

Being flexible, responsive, and effective at what you do will allow you to handle unexpected situations, such as when a client contacts you with urgent needs and expects you to help. Having set aside time in advance for such urgent situations will ensure that you earn a reputation as a flexible worker.

What happens if nothing comes up to fill that pre-allocated time? Well you might finish that other project early and can add something special. What happens if the whole day is taken up by urgent project? No problem, you had already planned this might happen, so you won’t let anyone down.

Of course you’re not going to be able to foresee everything, but a certain level of flexibility will allow you to please your clients and be relatively free of stress because of time constraints.

8. The Honesty Habit 

Agencies will not use you again if you let a client down, and your chance of repeat work is slim to none. In the same way, you should not over commit your time, but stay within your capabilities. We all need to stretch ourselves on new projects and learn new techniques and practices — that’s not what this is about. This is about promising to do a task in a specified time when, in actuality, you don’t have any idea whether it’s feasible or not. Above all else, people appreciate honesty. You’re better off being honest about whether you can handle a project rather than taking the risk of letting them down.

So how can you grow your skills and help your clients? By being honest and asking some good questions:

• “I don’t think this project is right for me. I don’t have much experience in [insert technology here]”
• “I can really help you with the [insert service here] part of this project, but I know another freelancer who can help with it. Would you be happy if I managed the project for you but outsourced this other work?”
• “I’ll need more information before I know how long this project will take. Would you mind if I spent a couple of hours doing some research so I can give you an accurate timescale?”

9. The Over-Delivery Habit 

Do not deliver your projects early. Sound strange? It’s not. If you deliver early, there’s a possibility the client will think you overcharged, and may expect part of his payment to be returned. They might also expect future work to be completed ahead of schedule, which may set a bad precedent.

Instead, use the extra time to focus on whizz-bang elements — those extra bits of polish and creativity that will gain you the reputation you deserve and let you grow. For a designer this might mean spending time adding nice touches to your graphics; for a developer, it could mean more time to implement a cool piece of JavaScript to replace the plain functionality you originally settled for. The “over-deliver” will earn you a solid reputation, whereas finishing early could get you into trouble.

10. The Business Advice Habit 

Although as a freelancer you’re skilled at what you do, don’t assume you’ll be able to do your accounts and bookkeeping, fill in tax returns, produce an invoice or write a proposal all by yourself.

Seek regular advice from respected professionals to help you with these aspects of running your business. This might include speaking with people who run their own operations and understand the ins and outs better than you do. Learn as much as possible from their experiences and mistakes.

Specific Business Areas 

What’s out there to help you run your business and what areas do you need to focus on? In this section, we’ll discuss some applications that have earned reputations for helping freelancers do their jobs and be more professional.

11. The Email Habit 

Email is toxic. As a freelancer you can easily become what’s commonly known as a busy fool. You might spend a significant part of your day just sending and receiving email without ever getting any work done. Instead, be in the habit of controlling email, and not letting it control you.

To do this you need to:

• Turn off all the little reminders, message counts, and other indicators that may catch your eye
• Configure your email client to run a “send and receive” at longer intervals, maybe as little as once per hour
• Set aside blocks of time in the day to deal with all email, then switch it off; if something is urgent, people will use the phone
• Use the ‘touch it once’ philosophy; fully read and deal with every email you open, instead of half-reading some and coming back to them later

12. The Project Management Habit #

Some clients will want you to fit in with their processes, while others will not enforce this. You need to have very clear processes for how you start working with a client and start a new project. What questions do you ask a new client? Where do you store the information they tell you? How do you keep track of how close the deadline is? Where do you store all the files they send you?

Email is not sufficient for this! Things will get lost, forgotten or overlooked. You might prefer cardboard folders or ring binders or whatever works for you — but use something and stick to your own system. There are applications like Basecamp and activeCollab that can help with this.

13. The Research & Development Habit 

Sounds like a big company thing to do but R&D is essential to a good freelance operation. You need to be ahead of the curve or at the very least on it to be servicing your clients most effectively. Be in the habit of investing time for research and development. Expand your current skills and learn new ones.

Never designed a billboard before? That’s development.

Don’t know which email marketing system might help your clients? That’s research. Campaign Monitor and MailChimp are good options.

Set aside time every week to do R&D. Build up a list of blogs that feed you new thinking and new ideas. Listen to informative podcasts - Boagworld is a good one.

14. The Sales and CRM Habit 

How can you allocate your time and resources and figure out whether or not you need to be hunting for new work or concentrating on servicing current clients? You should know at any given time what your work pipeline looks like, how likely is it all to materialize, and at roughly what value.

There are various applications out there to help, such as Salesforce, SugarCRM (open source edition), as well as 37signals’ popular Highrise.

15. The Accounts Habit 

Making sure you have any easy way to produce, send, and track invoices is essential, as is getting into the habit of running your accounts professionally, because such habits will ensure regular cash flow. Applications like Blinksale, Freshbooks or Simply Invoices can help formalise the accounts side of your business and give a good professional feel to how you operate. Clients will need invoices for their accounts — make sure they’re not hand written or unbranded.

Further Resources 

• Freelance UK Host of articles to help freelancers.
• Upwork A place to get freelance work - referral work is better though!

Expressive Web Typography: Useful Examples and Techniques

 Wherever we turn online, typography jumps out at us — sometimes literally, with the assistance of some clever coding. And now more than ever, we are seeing greater focus on this design element and its varied implementations around the Web. With the growing popularity of font embedding services and @font-face, typography is the talk of the town, but even though it is a regular topic among communities, not all of our typographic efforts are successful. S

This is what brings us together today. We have looked around the Web and checked some of the many typographic choices of website owners — some of which are successful, others not so much. Below is a selection of some elegant and interesting websites. We will critique the typography on them, in order to explore how we can improve the type on our own websites. Look through them to see whether you spot any typographical trespasses that you may have committed yourself.

Typography Examples 

Denise Chandler When we look at the portfolio of Denise Chandler, right away the typography begins talking. The original hand drawn sans-serif offers a personal, artistic yet professional feel at the same time. Denise focuses on the most important information and presents it in a relatively simple one page layout. The hover effects offer a great element of interactivity to the site for sure, while the large, bold caps type along with the intricate ampersand for the header works well to playfully complement the page.

ometimes we swing for the fences, only to miss or fall short.

The only critique really would be in the contact area. A slightly larger font and line-height, along with some extra spacing between the paragraph and the social media links would have made the area feel as open as the rest of the site. Also, it’s a pity that the “Submit”-button in the contact form doesn’t change on click — a nice :hover and :active-effect could make the experience even more pleasant.

Jessica Hische Using a good type that doesn’t detract from the content is imperative. Jessica does a tremendous job with this, opting for a simple thin sans-serif font. Even in its simplest form, the italic type adds a flourish to the design. Perhaps for readability, though, the designer could have broken from the italics for the description of the featured pieces. Also, the type could stand to be a bit larger, and not only because the headers appear to blur a bit at that size.

MCQ The portfolio of Mike McQuade has a truly remarkable interactive page change effect that really grabs your attention. The site is set up as a grid with each square changing position and/or size to accommodate the content that opens with each selection. Also, because the layout is fluid, content squares appear on different positions when you resize the window and hence ensure the proper alignment of the content. It is a very clean, minimalist design that uses a unique combination of a thin and quirky serif and a clean and bold sans-serif to complete the tone and attitude of the portfolio.

The classic color scheme, a monochrome black and cream with just a splash of mint green thrown about, give the site a very attractive overall look. Though the contrast between the gray text and the dark gray background could be brought up by making the text just a tad bit lighter for sharper text.

Cooper Type The large illustrated ampersand on Cooper Type is a perfect mascot for this typography website, and it works well with the big bold header. A bit more space between the illustration and the rest of the content would make it feel less cluttered. Some of the body type is too small to be readable, and a few of the paragraphs could use a wider letter spacing. Larger type or an alternate font would improve this greatly. The navigation looks a bit misaligned as well; it might work better aligned to the right over the main content.

Hype Nation Hype Nation uses a stylized font in the header which works really well for the funky feeling of the site, as does the bright orange and gray color scheme. And given that they went with such an unusual header font, the follow-up choice of a simple sans-serif for the rest of the site was a wise one. Though the header is certainly complementary to the site feel, it might have benefited from the contrast of the footer rather than the black on orange that they went with.

The footer is beautiful and perhaps working the header to match the footer a bit more would have been very beneficial to the overall look of the site. The ‘Projects’ section is a bit confusing to use: there is no separate, detailed portfolio or project pages which isn’t good for what is essentially a simple portfolio site. Though overall, the page has excellent type spacing and a good use of white space.

Wing Cheng Wing Cheng is a uniquely styled portfolio that uses hand drawn effects along with a script font on an accordion sketchbook background to bring together the entire presentation. Using the wireframes look to preview each project instead of the finished product is a very interesting choice, and it certainly adds to the uniqueness of the portfolio. The classy serif font used in the sidebar contrasts well to the hand drawn effect of the rest of the site, and plays into the finished designs you receive when you click on the wireframe of a project.

Though the handwritten, cursive font used to describe each of the projects is a little bit hard to read, and it could stand some tweaking. Also, because the whole website feels a bit more like illustration, it’s a bit difficult to see what elements are clickable, partly also because various elements are underlined. This problem is particularly apparent in the footer of the page where a contact form is displayed. Tooltips or striking button-like appearance of some elements could improve the user experience a bit.

Stephen Caver Stephen Caver’s portfolio is another site where the typographical presentation strongly stands out as soon as you arrive. The layout of the site is truly remarkable: the font size of the main header and position of elements change when you resize the browser window. The big, bold header with a very subtle letterpress effect, as well as the combination of thin and bold type, creates a great look.

However, the main site navigation on the top is far too small, especially for the font used, and as a result, has some readability issues. The same goes for the vast majority of the body text. Also, the large part of the ‘Vitals’ section has some really low contrast to deal with that creates some issues too. The overall layout of the site is really good with a really strong focus on the work which is great for a portfolio, but so much of the site is hard to read which could end up just driving visitors away.

Kaleidoscope This web app website has an appealing combination of circular script and squared-off sans-serif font. The typographic choices really add versatility to this single-page website, a testament to the imagination of the designer. The type sets off each distinctly styled section, making the page easily scannable. The contrast could stand to be a bit stronger in a few places on the website (e.g. the section “Complete your workflow” and “Details”), to keep things readable and flowing.

Trent Walton Trent Walton has a minimalist black and white website with heavy typography. Each article on the website has an original design that features a number of typefaces, but always as large blocks of sharp text, thus maintaining consistency. The most recent article is always the landing page for the website, which gives the recent article a prominent position on the site. The “Articles” page has generous white space and solid alignment, although post illustration do appear to be position a bit too far away from the excerpts. The typography carries the page, filling in the white space and fleshing out the design quite nicely.

Barley’s This bar website combines serif headers with sans-serif body type well, a combination that tends to be used quite often on the Web. The entire home page could use a bit more white space; the elements feel a bit stacked on top of one another. The type and content need room to breathe. The “News & Events” and “Contact” pages are a much better example of how spacing for the whole website could have been handled.

They feel much less compressed, which only makes the other pages feel that much more confined. One can argue if it is necessary to employ the letterpress effect for navigation items, as it does not quite match the rest of the website. A hidden highlight: the food menu page is a pleasure to look at, but it is not clear what the column “Beer pairings” stands for, especially because it’s always empty.

New Deal Festival Right off the bat, the header on the home page for New Deal Festival really grabs attention. The script, combined with the block-style sans-serif, gives a clean sharp look. For some reason, though, the company changes the header on interior pages, and these headers are squished together and distorted, making the rest of the website feel a bit unfinished and unpolished.

New Deal Festival could have kept the home page header throughout the website. Also, the typography would benefit from a wider letter spacing. And the main content area would look better with more padding between the edge and the type; 40 pixels would probably do it.

Futu The clean classic look created by the big bold type stands out right away on the Futu website. There is a bit too much animation, distracting you from the text. A better approach might have been to make the header ad either different or static and then just scroll the featured content. Also, the leading on the body type could stand some work. Some of the paragraphs have an uneven rag, which could rub some users the wrong way. As it stands, the website has a bit confusing hierarchy, and the reader could have difficulty figuring out what to focus on.

Design 977 The sans-serif type works really well for this website, which is clean, minimalist and to the point. Only the most important information is presented, and it’s done straightforwardly. At first glance, the letter spacing might seem a bit small, but in this case it complements the overall design. The website has a sharp angular look, and the tightness of the type sets this off. But while the social media link area is original, the constant animation in the corner is distracting. The text on the profile page could use more leading, and so does the contact form.

Robots Are Friends Here, the texture works quite well behind the bold serif font, although the type could use a wider letter spacing. Sans-serif fonts seem to work wonderfully for these kinds of minimal websites with big bold typography. However, the sudden solid-gray footer feels a bit out of place here, and the black and gray text on the “About” page has a low contrast against the dark blue, making it a bit difficult to read. Also, the font size in the “Design” section on the front page is way too small, and we are not quite sure if the choice of type for the body copy is optimal.

Louise Fili Ltd. The script and sans-serif type that Louise Fili Ltd. has selected for its website make for a classic and elegant look. The all-caps serif in the sidebar works well visually, but the sidebar would be more scannable if it were not in full-caps (although the full-caps everywhere else on the website do not detract from the design). The “About” page integrates a drop-cap beautifully into the typographical presentation, setting it apart from the other websites we’ve reviewed so far.

The flourishes between menu items really tie in with the logo script in a whimsical way. The main problem with the design is that the text is embedded into images almost throughout the site, making it impossible to copy. Also, on some pages the embedded text appears a bit blurry. Using plain text would be an improvement of this website.

Attack of Design The font on Sacha Greif’s website blends really well with the retro feel of the rest of the website. And there is plenty of white space, making the content a pleasure to read. The subtle hover effects on headlines and icons make for a pleasant user experience. The headings in the sidebar are a bit difficult to read, though; perhaps a bigger font size or different font altogether would help. The navigation and hover effect for the different categories are clean and original.

Overall, another great example of type spacing: easy on the eyes and legible. The dates on the comments could use some extra padding around them to feel less constricted. Also, the “Read more” links could stand out a bit stronger. The highlight of the site is a beautiful comments design. The hover effect on the logo is a nice touch, too.

Process Type Foundry Process Type Foundry uses a combination of serif and sans-serif type, which works really well. The clean minimalist design really highlights the big bold typography. The main body type could use higher contrast, and the relatively small light-gray type is not easy on the eyes. Still, the type throughout the website has a very good leading and letter width, making for a pleasant reading experience.

Also, the large bold headings combined with the thin, evenly kerned sub-heading make the website welcoming and engaging. The “About”-page is a beauty of simplicity and clean, sharp design with generous leading and whitespace.

Chipotle This restaurant website has a grungy handwritten look for its font, which, combined with the other hand-drawn elements, fits well with the brand and the ‘industrial’ design of the restaurants. However, the typography on the website is almost completely embedded in images, to the point that the little bit of HTML type looks out of place because the other fonts are so distinct.

Also, the paragraph text (as seen on Chipotle’s story page) would look much better with a bit more attention paid to leading. As it is, it seems a bit squeezed together. Also, the main drawback of the site is the audio that starts playing automatically on page load. Notice: the footer contains some hidden treasures for typography lovers.

Worry Free Labs Another fine example of a subtle texture working with the type instead of against it. As has been demonstrated a number of times, script and sans-serif fonts can complement each other well, especially on websites with the kind of retro look of Worry Free Labs. However, the letterpress effect on the type looks rough and unattractive, while the script font does look attractive and playful. If a font does not scale properly, then finding an alternative is better than forcing it into your design.

One site highlight that stands out, even though it is not necessarily type related, is in the portfolio section, the fluid scrolling through their work with the click of the ‘Next’ navigation button is — sorry for the wording — extremely awesome. We don’t really know why the company uses the German greeting “Willkommen” in the header of the page, though. But it is a nice touch for German visitors!

Made By Water The first thing that jumps out at us from this website was the oversized type for “Running Water,” bold and eye-catching for sure. Spreading “Running” out some and bringing “Water” closer together could improve the introduction of the site. The uneven, almost sketchy, font establishes the website’s character well, and the background works well, too.

The gray and yellow color scheme works well with the font, and the minor yellow highlights stand out… except when you mouse over the header, the yellow is blindingly bright; a darker tone would work better. The contrast of the light-gray link and the subheading color could also use a bit of tweaking.

The Design Cubicle TDC has a minimalist theme, with a heavy focus on typography. The squared-off sans-serif fonts complement the rest of the design, with their diversity of italic, bold and all-caps. A fine example of well thought out spacing in the body text, making for optimum readability; you can tell a lot of attention was paid to this aspect. Much of the text in the footer feels a bit small; the difference between 11 and 12 pixels may not seem much, but as you can see here, it can make a huge difference in readability. The beautiful drop-down menu in the top navigation is subtle, but looks great and even has nice hover effects.

Dubbed Creative In the header, the thin red font of “Creative” gets lost next to the bold white of “Dubbed” and could use better balance. At first glance, the user is overloaded with information. An easy fix for this typographical barrage would be to move the description of the website from beside the header to under it. The site has a very promising structure, yet feels way too overwhelming because of the lack of whitespace. There are too many colors, too many icons, too much text, too much buttons. An example of a site where nice typography doesn’t necessarily lead to optimal results.

The Combine 2010 The designers of this website do a good job of establishing visual hierarchy by combining font types. Combining serif, sans-serif and script typefaces is no easy task, no matter how simple they make it look here. All of the calls to action are visible and attractive. The texture in (rather than behind) the heading type sets off the solid background well; this texture is different than most of the other ones we’ve seen.

It is pretty obvious that the designers know their typography. On the “Schedule” page, “2010” would look better with a bit tighter letter spacing; also, the logos on the Sponsors page present so many different colors and fonts that it looks a bit sloppy.

Edgar Leijs As soon as you land on Edgar Leijs’ portfolio website, you are met with a bold oversized typographic header. The mouse-over effect in the logo is certainly nice, but the light yellow on white in the “LeIJs” is visually grating. Perhaps the yellow could be replaced by a more muted color, or the white could be softened to more of a gray. The yellow text in the main content area looks really good there, but it is not compatible with the white behind it.

Also, increasing the contrast between the dark-gray background and light-gray text would improve readability. When you hover over a portfolio item, a clever text box pops up that offers details unobtrusively. The screenshots of the works in the portfolio don’t have to be greyed out though, making them clearer and more vibrant (at least on hover) would make them a bit more attractive. Very original, distinctive and interesting design.

Rouse Rouse employs a letterpress effect for the sub header which looks great on the textured background, really carving out the letters sharply. The combination of the sans-serif headers with the serif body text plays well into the slight retro look of the site. Though the effect that was used on the word ‘Rouse’ looks a bit strange. It is easy to see that it is supposed to be a 3D-effect, however it is pretty poorly rendered. The line length and leading of the body copy are done beautifully.

A couple of negative remarks: the footer could use some extra top padding to balance it out and give the overall design a symmetry, and too much text is embedded in the images, making it impossible to copy and paste.