When it comes to taxes, are you deducting everything you can?

Bryn wasn’t. 

Bryn Mooth is an independent journalist and copywriter at Writes4Food. We’ve been following Bryn’s journey, and recently, we talked about taxes.

In the first meeting with her accountant, Bryn had a big surprise:

She had a percentage in mind for Uncle Sam, but says,  

“It was significantly higher than I expected… I knew that I needed to account for self-employment tax and social security; what I didn’t realize is that, as an independent contractor … I need to pay my income tax quarterly… When I was employed by someone else, it was sort of off my radar…”

Having to pay a much bigger percentage than she expected was a “rude awakening” for Bryn. Fortunately, she had built up a financial cushion before becoming self-employed. This cushion was a huge relief.

Now, Bryn has a different mindset. Going forward:

She realizes that she can expense a lot more than she thought. All of a sudden, knife sharpening, food for recipe development, and props become expenses. 

Every time a paycheck comes in, half goes into a tax account (just to be safe). 

Bryn is now very careful about keeping receipts and updating her spreadsheet on “Finance Friday.” This way, when she files next, her estimate will be more manageable and realistic. 

Listen to this 10-minute interview here.

Have you experienced any tax surprises?

For guidance when it comes to taxes, we adore June Walker, tax advisor for the self-employed. Read her guest posts on the Creative Freelancer Blog and check out her books,  Self-employed Tax Solutions + Five Easy Steps, and her free resources. 

Bryn Mooth is an independent journalist and copywriter at Writes4Food.com. I’ve been checking-in with Bryn for the past 8 months (since she went freelance) to follow her journey, and last week, we did our first calls of 2012.

How did she do? Overall, 2011 “exceeded” her expectations. Bryn was pleased with the income she earned and the work she did.

But…

January is slow.

Why?

Bryn says she “checked out” in December. She put off doing things like following up on completed projects, “slacked off” on networking and contacting, and now, she’s “paying the price.”

What’s her plan of attack?  She says, “I’m starting from scratch, a little bit.”

Bryn has identified the kind of projects that really appeal to her, and in 2012 is going to actively pursue that kind of work. She spent the last week on LinkedIn building a list of prospects. Then, she’s seeing who in her network can make an introduction.

What she’s learning about the marketing process:

Like most freelancers, I’m not really good at it. Early in this freelance career… some things were landing in my lap… I was doing some networking and yielding some good projects. But I wasn’t doing as much of that as I need to be. I got busy. I kept thinking, I need to allocate some time to think about who my ideal prospects are and get that planning going, and I didn’t.  So, that’s what I’m doing now.

In this 11-minute interview, I suggested for Bryn a three tool combination to turn these prospects into clients:

1. Use LinkedIn to connect.

2. Use email to follow up.

3. Use the phone to make it real.

Bryn is going to do this—and we’re going to talk to her next month to see how she did.

How long does it take to take to turn cold (or warm) prospects that you find on LinkedIn, and turn them into actual clients?

Stay tuned to find out…

Recently I interviewed Scott Hull (www.scotthull.com), an agent for illustrators who, when you ask what he does, says he, “links creativity to the corporate world.”

We talked a lot about how illustration has changed and who the new “art buyers” are. He shared some interesting information for creatives and illustrators—especially when it comes to selling themselves to art buyers and agencies.

Scott believes that we’ve fallen short in marketing creative services and that what the new art buyers care about is: What value are you going to bring to me? How are you going to make my life easier?

So how can a creative sell themselves?

Scott says:

An illustrator can talk about the value they bring and the potential return on investment over stock illustration or photography.

He also suggests emphasizing turnaround time.”The illustrator has the training and sense to convert concepts into a visual translation in 3-4 weeks. This is probably one of the biggest sales tools I have found.”

In this interview, Scott also shares his thoughts on:

Students coming out of art school, what should they do?

Can an illustrator directly approach an art buyer?

Can an illustrator learn enough about ROI to persuade corporate decision-makers?

Listen to this 14-minute interview on the Marketing Mentor podcast.

Sometimes, all you need is a kickstart.

That’s all it took for Julia Nable, co-founder (with her partner) of SandorMax, to decide how to position their small Connecticut-based firm after 6+ years in business. 

I met with Julia and Zoltan for a 2 hour consultation in June 2011 (almost exactly 6 months ago). Then, in early December, Julia wrote to tell me they’d made great strides with their positioning and their target market, healthcare and bioscience companies – and that they were accepted as speakers at a prestigious industry conference later this year.  

I was like a proud parent! Here’s how it happened. 

First, like everyone else, they were generalists, until they came to the realization that this approach just wasn’t working. She said, “We were so broad that we were taking any work that came our way. We were too many things to too many people.”

They knew things had to change. That’s when they called me and we spent 2 hours hashing out potential positioning statements and possible markets to focus on. “At the beginning, our big fear was: How do we turn away business? I think that’s what everyone wonders at the beginning. What if someone calls and they have nothing to do with healthcare, do we turn them away?”

Julia likens their new approach to having a tiny herb garden instead of a huge farm. “Before, we had a gigantic farm. The manpower required to go after business was impossible. Now, with the small garden we’re nurturing, we can become experts in this area and create a prospect list we can actually go after. It’s contained enough that we can get a name in this area, and get high-level referrals through the community we’ve created with our clients. It’s something we can perfect.”

I asked Julia to share their positioning process so others who are struggling can see the small steps it takes. In this interview, Julia defined the process and the benefits so clearly. She also talked about:

• How, exactly, they chose their new market.
• The extensive research and competitive analysis they did 
• How they retooled their website, and how they handled the projects that no longer fit their positioning 
• How she found the industry-focused speaking engagement on LinkedIn. 

Listen to this (14-minute long) interview and you will learn. And if you need a plan to follow, check out the just-released 2012 Marketing Plan Bundle.

We’ve been talking about crowdsourcing a lot on the Creative Freelancer Blog, and designer, Laurel Black, is central to every discussion.

So, I decided to do an interview with Laurel on some basics of crowdsourcing (from her perspective) for those who haven't been following all the comments. We started with a few basic questions:

What is crowdsourcing?

Who is upset about it and why?

How has it affected (is affecting) your business?

How are you dealing with it?

What advice do you have for others concerned about it?

Listen to Laurel’s take on crowdsourcing here.

Should you be putting samples inside your proposals?

Should higher fees equal longer proposals?

What are the 5 basic elements every proposal should have?

Find out answers to these questions, and many more, in my recent interview for the International Freelancers Academy with Ed Gandia. In this hour-long interview, we cover the real information you need to craft winning proposals. Topics also discussed include: 

• The most common types of proposals - 4 types
• Hybrid all-in-one proposals
• Optional elements (marketing, testimonials, usage rights, client responsibility, results )
• Do you need an attorney involved for legal language?
• Should you place an expiration date on your price?
• How to submit your proposal
• How and when to follow up
• Should you ask for the business?
• How to discuss next steps…
• Handling price objections

If you want to increase your chances of winning projects – The Proposal Bundle (we have versions for Designers and Copywriters) will give you 25 resources, plus 11 actual sample proposals to use as models.

Bob Bly, who has been a freelance copywriter since 1982 (and made millions doing it) generously shared his one-page agreement in the new Proposal Bundle for Copywriters (Today only: Get $10 off with promo code: BUNDLE10).

I interviewed Bob on the Marketing Mentor Podcast to find out more about his agreement. Here’s an excerpt… 

Is it safe to skip the agreements—and get right to work for existing clients? Bob says: 

You always need to have, for every job, even if it’s an old familiar client, a written agreement which the client approves. My philosophy is to keep it as short and simple as possible while covering all the salient points. We email it to the client. All they have to do is email back that they approve. New clients pay half the fee up-front.

When it comes to rush jobs, Bob says: 

Since we have a standard agreement, it takes less than three minutes to put in the particulars of the job. Time is no excuse. Just because it’s a rush job doesn’t mean I can’t send out the agreement. 

What about the excuse, they “won’t be able to cut the check in time”? 

Bob makes it easy by accepting Paypal, credit card and wire transfers. 

Find out more about the specifics inside Bob’s agreement. Listen to the full 15-minute interview here.

If you know you need a target market—but don’t know where to start, this interview will help. Often, your market is right there in front of you, where you can see a need. Usually, it comes from your past experience. This is where I found my target market (creative professionals) in 1988.

Last week, I shared the story of how I got started with Anderson Smith, who interviewed me on his radio show, 1 Hour Photo, on ArmadaFM. Listen in if you want to hear:

• Questions to ask yourself to find your market without starting from scratch
• How I found my market under a pile of paper
• How the changing economy affected the “need” for marketing
• How I help clients break old habits and build new ones
• The steps I take clients through in the 6-month marketing group (http://www.marketing-mentor.com/html/beginnermarketinggroup.html) process 

Listen to this 11-minute interview on the Marketing Mentor Podcast.

Daniel Pelavin is entering his 5th decade as a typographic designer and illustrator. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Graphic Artists Guild’s Reboot (http://newyork.gag.org/RRR_Conference/schedule.html) conference. He was pointed out as being “the king of self-promotion,” and of course, I had to find out more.