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We’re publishing the freelancer Q&A series as a podcast. Hope you enjoy!
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How to Handle a Lucrative Client with No Trust in You
Occasionally, you might find yourself with a whale client, or at least a profitable one, that treats you poorly and shows no trust in you. How should...
How to Avoid Giving Away Consultative Services as a Throw-In?
Sometimes a client is looking for labor and expects you to bundle in the strategic piece. For instance, they expect architecture to come along with a...
Setting Up and Filling Your Funnel with Leads to Avoid Gaps
Depending on fate to bring you business can lead to gaps between projects. How do you setup some kind of sales funnel and get leads into it to avoid t...
How To Handle a Client Wanting Work When You're Sick?
You're collaborating with your client on a time-sensitive deadline and you get sick. How should you handle that? Whose problem is it, ultimately?
How to Calculate Runway When You Have an Initial Contract
You've got a full-time job but want to go indie, and you line up your first contract. How do you think about how much runway you need to create betwee...
How to Build a Marketing Funnel with an Audience on Another Platform
If you've built an audience on a platform other than your own website, how do you go about turning that following into a marketing funnel for somethin...
What Should You Do When Asked to Implement a Bad Idea?
It will sometimes come up that a prospect or client asks you to implement something that's either too vague to work or a flat-out bad idea. What shoul...
Is Strategic Advice a Good Up-Sell for a Programmer?
If you're a programmer (or, generally, a labor-based freelancer), is it a good idea to sell strategic advice as a kind of "up-sell" to your normal off...
How Should I Price an Hour-Long Training Session?
I do a lot of theory in this series, but here's something practical. How would I recommend someone price an hour-long training session to teach social...
How Should I Handle a Non-Compete Agreement from a Client?
Sometimes, a client may ask you to sign a non-compete agreement as a prerequisite for engaging with them. Should you do it? How should you handle this...
How Can You Move to Niching and Value Pricing?
The default with freelancing is to charge by the hour and do generalist work. You might have, however, heard of value pricing and heard the idea that...
Does Having More Leads Mean You Can Raise Your Rates?
As you grow your business successfully, you'll have more demand for your work and, thus, more leads. Does that naturally mean you can raise your rates...
Is It Worth It to Bring in Subcontractors?
If you establish a practice and start to earn a good bit of business, sooner or later you'll have to contend with the decision of whether or not to br...
Will ChatGPT Replace Freelance Programming?
I resisted talking about ChatGPT as long as humanly possible, but I did wind up getting a question in the backlog about it. So, will ChatGPT replace f...
Freelancer or Self Employed: What Should You Call Yourself?
If you go into business for yourself, what should you call yourself? Freelancer? Self-employed? Something else?
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What Bookkeeping Software Should I Use to Freelance?
If you're thinking of hanging out your shingle or have just done so, you might wonder whether to use bookkeeping software and, if so, what to use. I h...
How Freelancers Can Avoid Self Employment Tax
When you go off on your own, at least in the US, you might be in for a rude tax awakening. In this video, I talk about what self-employment tax is, an...
Which Meetings with Clients Should I Bill For?
You're a freelancer and doing regular work with your clients. If you bill by the hour or, more generally, for time and materials, which meetings shoul...
When Do You Look Too Much Like an Employee?
Freelancers, especially newbie freelancers, can find themselves caught in situations where their only, large, 40-hour-per week client starts to treat...
Is California a Bad Place to Start a Business or Practice?
I've been asked this more than once, but eventually got around to doing a video about it. Rumor has it that California is "business-unfriendly," and,...
Should I Run Away If Someone Offers Equity?
It's a situation that a lot of techies can relate to. Someone comes along and offers you a stake in their business, instead of money, if you build the...
Is It Okay to "Fake It 'til You Make It?"
We've all heard the phrase "hake it 'til you make it." A reader asked me if this is a good mantra to live by.
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What is the Best Way for Freelancers to Get Paid?
Wire Transfer? Check? Cash? If you're just starting out as a freelancer, what's the best way to get paid?
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Should I Approach Freelancing Differently During a Recession
At the time of recording, there's a good bit of uncertainty about the economy. Against that backdrop, as a freelancer, should you approach your work d...
What is My (Erik's) Worst Client Experience?
One of the questions that came up in my reader/viewer backlog was specific to me and my background. What is/was my worst experience with a client?
Is Coaching a Good Line of Work for Independents?
There are all kinds of people billing themselves as (non-athletic) "coaches" out there. As someone looking to go freelance, is becoming a coach a good...
Should Freelancers Have References, Like Employees?
It's common (at least in the US) for employees to furnish "references," which are essentially friends or colleagues who vouch for them as character wi...
What Are Taxes Like for Freelancers, Compared to Employees?
When you're an employee, you probably only really think about taxes once per year. But what about as a freelancer? Well... it's a little more complica...
How Many Hours Per Day or Week Should Freelancers Work?
In this video I field a question about how much per day or per week a freelancer should work. That's not really an easy question to answer because, in...
Is Freelancing Riskier Than Employment?
If you're a salaried employee, freelancing or starting a business can seem like a major risk. But just how risky is it, actually?
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Should You Charge for Discovery Calls?
Once you start taking sales and discovery calls, sooner or later you might have the impulse to start charging people for your time during this process...
Is Data Science as Viable for Freelancing as Programming?
A lot of the questions I field about freelancing and business come from people that are programmers. But what about data science? Can that be as viabl...
How Do You Win Long Term Clients?
Many freelancers, especially new ones, will want to earn long-term clients. How do you go about doing that, and is it actually valuable to do?
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Is It Normal to Feel Guilty about Raising Rates?
One of the most important (and stress-inducing) times in the career of a freelancer/business-owner is when you increase your rates or prices. Is it no...
Do You Need a Bookkeeper to Freelance?
If you're going off on your own as a freelancer, do you need to have a bookkeeper? If so, when should you hire one?
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What to Say to "Freelancing Isn't a Real Job?"
This is an interesting one. How would should you respond to someone telling you "freelancing isn't a real job?"
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Client Supplied Contract Instead of Signing Mine
This one is kind of a specific question. What happens when you're a freelancer and ask a client to sign a contract, but they supply their own instead...
What's it Like Adjusting to Not Having a Boss?
Once you go off on your own and freelance, likely for the first time in your career, you won't have a boss. What's that like?
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How Do I Become a True Consultant?
One thing that freelancers commonly deal with, and that a lot of people ask me about is how to become a "true consultant" or an advisor, rather than j...
What Questions to Ask During Discovery?
Part of any freelancer's practice is going to be doing sales conversations, and any good sales conversation for custom work will involve a discovery p...