In this 11-minute interview, Luke Mysse previews his upcoming CFC session, Options for Growth.

Join us at the Creative Freelancer Conference, June 21-22 in Boston. Details here.

For today’s podcast interview with a speaker, we have David Baker from ReCourses (www.recourses.com) giving us a preview of his session, “Positioning yourself as if you were outside looking in.”

Join us at the Creative Freelancer Conference, June 21-22 in Boston. Details here.

How is newbie freelancer, Bryn Mooth, progressing?  

Listen to April's interview with wellness and creativity journalist and copywriter, Bryn Mooth.

Join us at the Creative Freelancer Conference, June 21-22 in Boston. Details here.

Newly-minted freelancer, Kelsey Grafton, of Lewiston, Idaho, knows she has a lot to learn about running her new business, BlueSkyMondays. She said it wasn't hard to convince her new boss (herself!) to invest in sending her to the Creative Freelancer Conference as her first big step in that process.

Listen to this 15-minute interview, where Allison Manley, from Rogue Element, answers these questions:

• How much time it takes to do the proposals and how they decide which ones to do.
• What to do if the prospect isn’t responsive during the proposal process.
• What if you don’t have access to the people involved in the actual project, as happens a lot with higher ed and government agencies?
• Why they present the pricing in 2 pages (overview and detail) in the proposal and how much detail is necessary.
• How much self promotion they include and the thinking behind it.
• How and when they decide how to include terms and conditions (T&C) in the proposal or the contract. (See what a good T&C that’s been vetted by a lawyer looks like.)

Want 11 sample proposals to use as examples? Buy the Designer’s Proposal Bundle. 

The 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference, June 21-22 in Boston (early bird deadline is April 30!), is rapidly approaching. For today’s podcast interview, we have Marcia Hoeck, giving us a preview of her session, Skillful Communication with Clients. 

Q: What’s the biggest mistake creatives make when communicating with clients? 

Marcia: The biggest mistake is not setting the right tone and maybe taking things personally. We’re in a business where it’s our art, it’s our creativity, so we tend to take things more personally. We have to step back and realize this is a business relationship. We have to set the right tone. The client has to place his trust in you in order to feel confident that you can do the work. 

The biggest miscommunication mistake is that we don’t establish ourselves right out of the bag as a partner, as a resource, so that the client can relax. When we feel boxed in by client demands, it’s when our role hasn’t been positioned correctly in the beginning, and that’s our job. If the client knows that you have strategic ideas that will help him, as well as the implementation skills, that client can relax … It gives you equal footing and leverage in the relationship. 

Most powerful people … they’re really not looking for “yes” men. That’s the biggest mistake that I see is when we’re making that assumption that they are, and we’re taking things personally as a creative person. 

Q: Do you think these problems are rooted in the creative professional’s lack of confidence? 

Marcia: I’m really glad you brought up confidence. That isn’t talked about enough in business. People don’t teach it. It isn’t something that comes naturally to creative people. But in creative work especially, where we highly value our work, and we are passionate about our work … we often undervalue our own role in what we do. There’s kind of a disconnect. We have great confidence in our work, and we know the value of our work, and we have great confidence in our ability to do the work, but we often can’t show that confidence when communicating our role in the process. We don’t come off as confident in selling situations, or when defending our pricing … What that comes off as to prospective clients is lack of competence. They think we can’t do the work because we can’t defend it, because we can’t talk about ourselves…

Listen to our 11-minute interview to hear more. Use your Big Ticket pass to catch this CFC session – or sign up for CFC on its own. If you aren’t yet registered for CFC, sign up here and take advantage of the combo $100 discount: $50 early bird before April 30th + $50 Marketing Mentor discount with promo code “CMM12” 

And listen to the rest of the podcast interview series with our speakers, including Dyana Valentine, Mark O’Brien, Shane Pearlman, Jonathan Cleveland, Ed Gandia, Sarah Duham and Allen Murabayashi. 

Last time we talked, Jeff Tara from Brand Vue Design had gotten a client by sending an email (in which he shared his honest opinion about his favorite wine company’s new label). Recently laid off, this happened one week after Jeff officially went freelance. 

With such a productive first week, I couldn’t wait to speak to him again and find out what’s happened over the past month. In our 10-minute interview, Jeff brings me up to date with recent developments:

• After reading a “doom and gloom” article about the demise of Kodak (which ultimately caused Jeff’s layoff), Jeff decided, “It’s not all doom and gloom—I have a chance now to chase my dreams.” He wrote a letter to the newspaper, and it resulted in a front page article in his local newspaper.
• A connection in the healthcare industry saw the article about Jeff, and now they’re discussing upcoming projects over golf.
• The wine company who Jeff redesigned a label for—is now having him redesign all of their labels.
• Building on that wine experience, Jeff is reaching out to other wineries. He sent a personalized letter to one, called to follow up on Monday, and by Wednesday, he was inside talking to the owners of the winery for two hours.

Listen to our interview here.

If Jeff keeps sending emails and letters, who knows what will happen next… 
I’ll keep you updated.

One of the most popular speakers from last year's Creative Freelancer Conference, Allen Murabayashi, CEO of PhotoShelter, will be back this year (June 21-22 in Boston -- early bird deadline is this Friday, March 30!).

Allen joined me for a podcast interview to preview his session, Building Your Prospect List: Quality vs. Quantity.

In our interview, we talked about the importance of qualifying prospects. Allen said:

You’re going to drive yourself crazy if all you’re trying to do it gets tons of people through the door. You have to simultaneously qualify your audience. For example, if you’re Prada, and you’re selling shoes for $500, you’re not going to go to a suburban mall where nobody has discretionary income—and the most popular place there is Walmart.

You have to be very strategic in the way you spend your time. I was talking to a wedding photographer, and on their contact form, they say, “How excited are you to work with us on a scale of 1-10?” They told me they didn’t respond to anything where it’s less than an 8—as a pre-qualification mechanism.

Listen to our 8-minute interview to hear more.

Use your Big Ticket pass to catch this CFC session – or sign up for CFC on its own. If you aren’t yet registered for CFC, sign up here and take advantage of the combo $100 discount: $50 early bird before Mar 30th + $50 Marketing Mentor discount with promo code “CMM12”

The 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference, June 21-22 in Boston (early bird deadline is this Friday, March 30!), is rapidly approaching and for today’s podcast interview, we have Sarah Durham, Founder of Big Duck. Sarah’s session will be The Nuts and Bolts of Pricing and Negotiating.

At Big Duck, they design exclusively with nonprofit organizations. In fact, they haven’t worked with a for-profit organization in over a dozen years. With such specific experience, I asked Sarah to share some insight into pricing for nonprofits.

Q: How do you handle pricing for nonprofits? Should you offer discounts?

Sarah: “I think with nonprofits…this idea that they don’t have any money for communications is both true and false. It’s true in that most nonprofits, and particularly very small nonprofits, haven’t budgeted for communications. They aren’t thinking the way a tech startup would think … making sure that they have a marketing person and a budget…Communications tends to be overlooked and under-budgeted.

With that said, they have missions that require them to communicate … when they understand the importance of the work we do for them, they put together budgets.”

Listen to our 14-minute interview to hear more on pricing and non profits.

Use your Big Ticket pass to catch this CFC session – or register for CFC on its own. Sign up here and take advantage of the combo $100 discount: $50 early bird before Mar 30th + $50 Marketing Mentor discount with promo code “CMM12”

The 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference, June 21-22 in Boston (early bird deadline is this Friday, March 30!), is rapidly approaching and for today’s podcast interview, we have Cameron Foote, Editor of Creative Business, who will be taking part in the Perspectives on Pricing Panel at this year’s conference.

In this 14-minute interview, I asked Cam how freelancers can compete with bigger firms. 

Q: Should freelancers be pricing any differently than larger firms or entities? 

Cam: Yes and no. I don’t think a person’s talent should be worth any less depending on whether they work for themselves or whether they work for an organization. On one level, your talent is worth what it’s worth, period.However, the realistic part of this is that when you talk about pricing to clients … they’re looking at you and trying to decide whether you’re worth the money or not. Pricing has to do with perception. So if you’re working from the kitchen table, you haven’t been in business very long, you don’t have a good portfolio and so forth, it would be unrealistic to assume that you could charge what a business that’s been around a while could charge. Your talent is worth what it’s worth, but you have to be realistic.

Q: How can freelancers use marketing to build up the perception of their value?

Cam: You are what clients perceive you to be. If you market extensively … particularly using the editorial “we,” and you’re sending out material regularly, they’re going to see a company. A company is worth more, in most cases, than an individual.

Listen to our 14-minute interview to hear more of Cameron’s thoughts on pricing, including his take on hourly rates vs. project pricing.

And if you aren’t yet registered for CFC, sign up here and take advantage of the combo $100 discount: $50 early bird before Mar 30th + $50 Marketing Mentor discount with promo code “CMM12” 

And listen to the rest of the podcast interview series with our speakers, including Dyana Valentine, Mark O’Brien, Shane Pearlman, Jonathan Cleveland and Ed Gandia.