So you’ve hired a freelancer to help you achieve your business goals. Now what?

It’s vitally important that you, as the client, do your part in fostering a positive working relationship with your contractor. Embarking on a new project can be overwhelming, especially if it involves technical aspects (such as web design). That’s why you’ve hired an expert!

But in order to make your project a success, you need to develop a solid working relationship, and be aware of some basic “rules” when working with a freelancer.

via Rules for Successful Client-Freelancer Working Relationships – FreelanceSwitch.

This question plagues us freelancers time and time again.  How do we really come up with that $[number] we put at the bottom of the proposal?  I’d be willing to bet that no freelancer quotes the same price for the same project consistently.  There are always other factors that play into it.

It starts by assessing the project scope, deliverables, and time frame.  Just plug the potential client’s request into the formula:

X features  x  Y number of pages  +  Z deadline date = PROJECT FEE

Wouldn’t it be great if it were that easy?

Here are the other variables that you can’t calculate:

• The guess the number game. The number that the client has in their mind, which they have pre-decided they’re willing pay.  Everyone has this number, whether they come out and say it or not.  Will you meet this number?  Will you push it?  Are you bidding too low?
• The client from hell factor. Will this client be your next regret?  I’ve had a few bad ones.  Looking back, it’s always hard to tell which signals I should have noticed before taking them on.  If you do detect these warning signs, should you add to your quote?  Or turn down the project altogether?
• Your current workload. How busy are you?  If you’re (a little too) available this month, maybe you consider knocking a bit off your quote to make sure you secure the contract.  If you already have a lot on your plate, maybe you raise the quote and let the new project compete for your time.

I admit it.  Sometimes I end up with some form of regret.  After giving my proposal, if doesn’t respond (despite a follow up contact), I can safely assume my quote was too high.  Most of the time, this is fine.  It means my number was so high it wouldn’t be worth negotiating.  Not the right client for me.  But sometimes, My quote may have been pushing it and I lost out on work that I could have done for a bit less.  Oh well.

Sometimes the new client instantly accepts my proposal.  Great, new work.  But I can’t help but think, did I quote too low?  No sense in killing yourself over this one.  Even if they are getting a bargain (in their mind), I know I’m personally comfortable with the number, otherwise I would have never sent off that proposal.

Every now and then, I hit the sweet spot.  The proposal keeps the potential new client interested, asking questions.  Perhaps there’s a bit of a negotiation (in price, scope, or time), and we settle on a comfortable deal for both parties.  This leaves me with no regrets or second guessing.

Our choices in apps are often very personal, and sometimes the tiniest detail can make or break our decision to download or purchase it.  The more apps we consume, the more we continue to search that perfect app for our need, our style, our work flow.

Here are some apps I use regularly and why I’m only 99% satisfied with each:

Things for mac + iPhone

Things for Mac & iPhone

It’s a great to-do list app.  I love the simple and clean design.  It’s not overloaded with features and buttons, leaving only the ones that I find useful.  I use this app to keep track of all my upcoming tasks for various projects.  I use their ‘projects’ feature to sort by client (projects = clients).  This way it separates my lists nicely by client.

Why it’s not perfect

Syncing is a pain.  I have the Things iPhone app, but the only way to sync it to my Things desktop app is to physically bring my iPhone into the same wi-fi network as my computer, then open both the iPhone app and Desktop app simultaneously.  Not ideal.  Why can’t I just enter tasks on my iPhone when I’m out, and know that they will show up as soon as I launch Things on my computer?  Or let me email tasks to my Things app when I’m out.  Or have a web-based counterpart to sync it.  Something!

Basecamp

Basecamp from 37 Signals

Basecamp is the most popular project / team management web-app out there.  I recently signed up for an account (did you know that if you start with the free account, then click upgrade from within basecamp, they offer you a $12/month option, which is not listed on their website? Makes pricing a bit more reasonable).

It’s really a fantastic web-app with a super-simple interface.  It’s so easy to pick up right from your first log in, which makes it great when I need to give a colleague access and they’ve never used it before.  I love the hover over link color and nice CSS padding set on every link and button.  Makes everything have a fun and workable feel to it.

Why it’s not perfect

Some people love it, but I’m not a fan of Textile formatting.  That is the method of input for all messages, comments, textarea inputs.  I’m slowly getting used to it, but I’d love to see more formatting options (I found this Firefox plugin, which adds formatting options to basecamp, but it doesn’t work 100% of the time).  When writing long messages (such as detailed task instructions for contractors), better formatting options would make for a more legible message.  Then, tasks are easier to follow and work flow is improved.  And speaking of writing long messages in basecamp…

How about saving drafts?  I’m surprised this is not a feature.  Right now, as I type out messages I keep open a TextEdit doc to constantly paste what I’ve got so far, save it and keep going.  Otherwise, with one wrong click in the browser, everything I’ve got can be lost (Frustrating!  I know from experience.  Several times.)  Autosave drafts please.

Google Reader + Byline for iPhone

Byline iPhone

Google Reader is pretty damn near perfect in my opinion.  It’s a fantastic RSS Reader, with nice folder features, starring, sharing, etc.  I love GReader and RSS feeds in general so much that I need to have constant access on iPhone.  The mobile Google reader is OK (a little slow), but as a New Yorker, I have a unique but very important requirement:  I need access to my feeds when I’m in the subway, underground.  In fact, this is when I most need my feeds.

Enter, Byline.  An iPhone app that syncs my Google Reader feeds to my iPhone and downloads the article content to the phone so I can read it later when I’m not connected.  It’s a great app, and in my opinion worth the $10 price tag.  I like how it separates feeds by folder, and starring articles syncs both ways.

Why it’s not perfect

Downloading articles is too slow and unreliable.  The only way I can have a full batch of new articles to read when I’m underground is if I start my iPhone sync hours before I leave the house.  The ideal solution would be to sync articles in the background, all the time.  Keep the most recent 50 articles, delete the rest.  I’m sure this limitation is caused more by the iPhone and crappy 3G service from AT&T.  but that doesn’t make me crave recent RSS feeds any less when I’m stuck underground between subway stops.

iTrans NYC

iTrans iPhone

Here’s another crucial app for New Yorkers.  It has changed my subway navigation experience for ever.  One of the most mind-numbingly boring things about living in New York is waiting for subways to arrive.  As far as subway systems go, NYC metro is still in the stone age.  We show up on the train platform and hope that a train is only minutes away (which too often is not the case).

iTrans solves this problem perfectly.  The app has the entire NYC subway schedule programmed in, so you can simply click on the station (from the map) and view when the next 5 trains are scheduled to arrive.  It covers every single subway line.  It works completely without internet connection.  Now I walk down to a platform, and know if the next train is 2 minutes or 20 minutes away.  Now I know whether to go for the local train or choose to wait for the express train.  Now I can plan my next subway transfer perfectly.  This app is a gem.

Why it’s not perfect

Honestly, this app is perfect.  There.  I said it.  What’s not perfect is the NYC subway system.  Delays and train traffic cause trains to go off schedule sometimes, making the iTrans app ineffective.  But I’ve been truly surprised at how accurate it is for the most part, or how close it comes.

I get asked that a lot.  Usually from other web designers who are considering but afraid to make the plunge into self-employment.  Signing clients and keeping a steady flow of business may seem like the it’s the hardest part about freelancing.

It’s not.

Client acquisition is not as hard as it seems.  It’s important.  It’s crucial to your success.  But it’s not something to deter you in your quest to professional freedom.  It’s actually a lot easier than you think.

Want to know the answer?

Reliability

Potential clients might say (or imply) that they’re looking for the best portfolio out there.  Or they’re only willing to pay a certain price.  Or they want someone who specializes in flash-based websites.

What they’re really looking for, whether they know it themselves or not, is reliability.  They want to know you’re up to the task, that you communicate clearly, and that their project is in good hands.  They will hire you because you convey that you’re reliable right from day 1.  They will stick with you because you prove a track record of delivering A+ results on time, every time.

Where to find clients?

The best answer is to let clients find you.  Referrals.  It’s the name of the game in web design (and almost any other freelance field).  These days, just about all of my clients come to me through referrals.  Here’s how it happens:

Word of Mouth

Most referrals come to me without much work on my part at all (other than being known as a reliable web designer).  My current and past clients can confidently pass my name along to their colleagues who say they’re in search for a web designer.  My former co-workers and fellow contractors refer work to me because we’ve had a good working relationship.  Even my former boss from my old 9-5 consistently refers clients to me because I left on good terms, and I have delivered for him and each of those referrals.

Email Marketing

I recently began sending out a monthly email newsletter to keep in touch with my network.  It’s not for drumming up business with hot promotional offers.  It’s not for showing off my portfolio of work.  The purpose of my newsletter is to:

• Demonstrate my expertise through written articles and tips.
• Stay in touch with (but not annoy) my network so that I remain at the front of their mind if/when someone they know is looking for a web designer.
• Inform them of new developments and new services / capabilities I offer to my clients.
• Demonstrate that I go the extra mile with personal effort and attention.

Web Design Credit

This is something I do less often now than I used to.  For my smaller clients, I put a small link at the bottom of their site that says “Web Design by CasJam Media“.  Of course, this is only done with the consent of the client.  I’ve had new business come in through people visiting my website via these links.  They’re impressed with my client’s site or their business and decide to check me out.

But in the end, it’s not the quality of my client’s website or even my own website that sells them.  It’s when they come in contact with me and see that I give it to them strait and demonstrate my reliability.

Just starting out

Obviously, you can’t expect to have a steady stream of referral business when you’re just starting out.  I recommend finding work on job boards to build up a portfolio.  Check out a guest post I wrote at FreelanceSwitch, 10 simple steps to landing more gigs.  In it, I gave specific tips for effectively working the job boards plus other ideas.

However, if you rely solely on job boards and craigslist (not recommended) you’ll end up dealing with mostly bottom feeders – those looking for the cheapest web design solution possible.  You need to leverage your first few jobs to develop a strong network of referral business.  The sooner that happens, the more successful your freelance business will be.

Hope this helps.  Got any tips to add?

This freelance web design business has so many twists and turns.  First you’re filled with fresh enthusiasm about quitting your job and landing your own clients.  But as time goes by, satisfying all of your clients (often rediculous) requests becomes draining.  You (I) start to reconsider your business model.

Working in a service industry such as custom web design doesn’t exactly fit into the “set it and forget it” business model advocated by Tim Ferriss in his (awesome) book, The 4-hour workweek (read my reactions to it here).  Serving clients requires constant interaction and personal involvement every day.

As a freelance web designer, you’re not left with many options if you’re hoping to embark on a mini-retirement.  But I’ve been kicking around some ideas that may help to relieve some of the of stress of being overworked and bogged down with mundane website maintenance requests.

I’ve only actually tried and tested some of these.  I’d love to get feedback from those of you who found yourself in a similar situation.

Product-ize your services

Find your most common form of service you do for clients.  For me, the most common jobs are web portfolios and E-Commerce websites.  The idea is to formulate a “Web Portfolio Package” and an “E-Commerce Package”.  When a potential client inquires about either of these, I simply point them to the web page detailing that package.

The E-Commerce Package would consist of a “base” project scope with a set price.  That would include Magento design/development, payment gateway installation, and populating 10 products.  Then they can opt for other popular add-ons with set price additions.  These would include things like email marketing, WordPress blog, Logo Design, etc.

Standardizing the services offering can speed up the discovery / proposal phase.  Your Packages pages might also work well as landing pages for targeted marketing campaigns.

Package your maintenance hours

Offer pre-paid bundles of hours at a slight discount from your normal hourly rate.  This can help to plug up the holes in your maintenance billing.  All of those 5 minute emails and quick tweaks from clients can easily go un-billed if they take less than 10 minutes to complete.  But if they work against a pre-paid plan, then that work is accounted for.

Power to the CMS!

The answer to keeping clients off your back after their site is launched?  Content Management Systems (CMS).  WordPress is my CMS of choice.

But lets face it.  Despite having the CMS, most clients still require lots of hand-holding.  You have to provide thorough training, plus documentation for them to hold on to.  Even better- video screencasts for how to manage their content.

I’d suggest preparing and perfecting these materials once and re-using them for all of your CMS clients.

Be selective

Coming back to my first point about productizing your most popular services, how about focusing on only those services?  Taking on all of those smaller, more specialized and unique projects can often prove to be more time consuming than expected, taking away from your bread and butter projects.

Once you have a good thing going (your freelance web design business), stick to what’s working!  Push your most popular services and market directly to those clients (or should we call them customers?).

Over to you…

How do you structure your business?  Do you do it all or specialize in one thing?  How do you shift your offering as time goes on?  Please share…

Every web design client asks it. It usually goes something like this:

“I want to add a shopping cart to my website. How hard is that to do?”

or

“I’d like a rotating flash animation that changes based on local weather patterns. That’s not too hard is it?”

Does difficulty matter?

Of course not.

I’m still going to charge for it. It must be hard enough for you to hire someone to do it, otherwise you’d do it yourself!

Nothing in web design is hard to do. Everything in web design is hard to do. This question has no meaning to me.

I think many clients have the assumption that if a website is really easy to use, then it must be easy to build. It’s often quite the contrary. Delivering smooth funtionality that’s easy to use is usually a tremendous challenge.

Meeting challenges and working out solutions is what web designers do.

That’s not hard.

I’ve been literally drowning in a sea of client work over the past month.  And it’s attacking from all directions: ongoing website design/development projects, a flurry of website maintenance requests, new client referrals, plus internal business tasks.

Sometimes I joke that all my clients and prospects secretly get together on Sunday nights to plot a massive attack of work requests to bombard me with on Monday morning.  How else could I explain why my client requests always seem to come knocking when my plate is already full?

Ugh.  Being busy is…

The norm.

It’s the job.  Running a freelance web design business is so much more than the job title implies.

It’s more than pushing pixels in photoshop.  It’s more than firing up code.  It’s more than project management.  It’s more than entrepreneurship.

It’s all of these things, mashed together to form a ginormous beast of a job description.  Here are a few of the perks:

• Working an average of 60 hours per week.
• Managing all sorts of stress.
• Working alone.
• Working with others – often over email or instant message.
• No paid vacations.
• No paid sick days.
• No guaranteed pay.
• Little or no job security.
• Employer health care? 401k?  Never heard of it.

Why would anyone subject themselves to this torture you ask?

It’s worth it.

It is for me at least.

I love knowing that I’m in control of my own destiny as a freelance business owner.  I love every part of the job.  Even the parts that are hard, frustrating, annoying, aggravating.

It’s a challenge.  Every day.  And for all the hardships that this job entails, it has proven to be extremely rewarding in terms of personal growth.  I have learned so much about myself through my work as a freelance business owner.

How I make it work

A tremendous amount of mistakes and lessons learned the hard way have brought me to where I am today – a self sustaining freelancer who actually enjoys his job.

My learning, tweaking, and improving is far from complete, nor will it ever be complete.  That aspect is a major part of the job.

But let me share a few things I have picked up along the way that keep me from going completely insane:

1. Time management. There is work time and there is leisure time.  You have to mentally distinguish between the two.  That means letting that “urgent” incoming email on Sunday night during your favorite show (Entourage on HBO) wait until normal business hours on Monday morning.  It also means waking up just as early as the rest of the working world.
2. Task management. I recently began using Things for mac.  Before that, I relied heavily on Google Calendar.  Before that I relied on written to-do lists.  Always keep a bullet-proof system for managing the tasks you can’t forget about.  Don’t rely on your own memory, or scribbling things on post-it notes.
3. Priority management. You have to know what is most important to your life at all times.  Yes, client work and deadlines are important.  That’s how you make your living.  But you have to weigh the other parts of your life heavily as well.  Family, friends, and your own personal time-off.  Without these support systems, you won’t be able to produce your best work.  When prioritizing within the boundries of your work, don’t forget to think big picture.  Where is your business going?  What are your long-term goals?

Obviously, these are just the tip of the iceberg of the freelance business owner’s lifestyle.  I plan to expand on all these ideas in upcoming posts.

Whenever I find another bit of time!

While I don’t claim to be perfect by any means, I can say I have come across my fair share of hacks in this industry and I’m baffled by the way some web designers approach their business.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

When it comes to choosing a web designer for your project or business, everybody seeks talent and reliability. But these qualities can be hard to come by, especially when searching on job sites or online classifieds like craigslist. How can you be sure you won’t end up with a hack?

Go to the full article: Web Design Worst Practices

And here are the five worst practices (go to the full article to read full descriptions):

• Bedroom web hosting
• No IE6 support
• Website is not transferrable
• No CMS options
• Poor communication

That last one is a key point in my opinion.  Excellent communication is absolutely essential in professional web design.

Over to you

I’m interested to hear about other horror stories you have experienced with hack web designers.  Do share them with us in the comments.

If you’re a blogger, you know how important it is to write down your ideas as soon as they come to you.  If you don’t, you’ll forget them and wish you had them when it comes time to write.  Every good blogger should have a long list of blog post ideas ready to go when they’re needed.

Zenbe on the Web

Zenbe Lists makes it easy to quickly jot down these ideas and save them for quick recall later.  It’s a web-based system, so you have access to your lists from any computer.

The interface is super easy to use.  Once you’re logged in, just enter your blog post idea (or any list item) and it immediately gets added to your list.  The site uses lots of nifty ajax effects so everything updates really fast.  I can usually open up Zenbe, enter a list item, and get out within 10 seconds.

Zenbe has the perfect set of features, without over doing it.

You can manage multiple lists.  I currently have three lists.  One for each of my blogs.  Each list is collapsable for easy navigation.  You can also drag and drop list items to re-order them, plus mark items as checked, or delete them.

Zenbe on the iPhone

The thing that really makes this a useful tool in my arsenal, is the Zenbe iPhone application.  I believe its 2 or 3 bucks in the app store.

The iPhone version of Zenbe delivers all of the same features as the web version, with a very similar look and feel.  Add, edit, check, delete list items, create and manage lists… It’s all there on your iPhone.

Syncing is what makes it all worth it.  Hit the “Sync” button on the iPhone app and your lists are now totally synced with your Zenbe account on the web.  Nice.

Anyone else love Zenbe lists?

When managing a growing list of web design clients, it’s crucial to keep a system for storing all of the files associated with each client.  Just about everything we do in web design involves saving files – all different types of files.  Without a reliable folder struture, it’s easy to lose track of your work.  Organization avoids all sorts of problems.

The Benefits of Organization

Before I share my method of managing client files, I’d like to first point out the benefits of staying organized at all times.

• You will never lose anything.  Obvious.
• You know exactly where to look for a specific file.  Saves you time.
• Your clients rely on you as their backup.  Lets be honest, most of our clients aren’t very organized.  That’s where you come in.  Reassurance that all of your client’s materials are secure in your hands is a great benefit, and it will keep them coming back to you for additional work.

Web Design Client Folder Structure

Here is how I set up every one of my web design clients.

I keep all of my clients files inside one folder, called WEBSITES.  I place this folder right on my desktop for easy access, and regularly back up this entire folder to two external hard drives.  Backing up your files is crucial.  More on this another time.

Each client gets their own folder.  Within that folder are four main sub-folders:

1) Design

This folder contains all design files.  Photoshop documents, Illustrator files, design comp screenshots.  I place the main design files at the top level of this folder (homepage.psd, second-level.psd, etc.).

Within the Design folder, I create a folder called “Production Graphics”.  This folder contains design files that are pieces of a larger design.  For example, sometimes I’ll create a PSD for creating a special type of thumbnail image that gets repeatedly created.  Or I might have a PSD for a complex header graphic that gets re-used with different content.

Then I’ll create sub folders for other design related stuff like “Logos”, “Screenshots”, “PDFs”, etc.

2) Development

This folder contains all of the development files.  These are the files that make up the client’s website.  The files and folder structure mirror the structure on the web server.  When I connect via FTP (usually the built in FTP client in Panic Coda), I preset it to open the Development folder on my local machine for easy file transferring with the web server.

3) Documents

This folder contains the project proposal, project contract(s), and any other legal documents.  I also use an online fax service, efax.com.  This folder contains the efax documents for this client.

4) Materials

Here is where I place all of the materials for the project.  These materials usually include raw copy documents provided by the client, unedited photos, guideline documents, and other production-related documents.

This folder can quickly get filled up, so it’s important to create sub-folders to organize this folder even further.  For example, I often create folders named “Photos”, “Copy”, “Feedback” (clients often provide feedback in word documents).

Important! Don’t put off placing your client’s materials in the Materials folder.  Things can get pretty hectic when your inbox gets jammed with client requests, projects are flying at you from every direction, and the tweets keep pouring in.  Don’t let that distract your mission of keeping all of your client’s files organized!  As soon as they email you a document, drop in the Materials folder for that client.  You can get working on it later, but at least you know where to find that file when you need it.  Plus, you will avoid an embarrasing phone call to the client asking them to resend the file because you lost it.

Google Documents

Lately I’ve been utilizing the power of Google Documents.  I usually make personal notes for each project and save them here for quick access from any of my computers (I’m up to three now : )  Again, I separate each client into their own folder within Google Docs.  Organization people!

Over to You

How do my methods for web design client file management differ from yours?  I’m always interested to hear how others do what they do, so please share your organizational tips in the comments section.