August 15, 2017
Weekly Newsletter for Freelancers
Did You Know That Freelancing Can Help You Save For A House?
Is your country like Australia with housing affordability for those under forty on moderate income a critical issue? The problem for young couples is to save a deposit for a house. With wages stagnating home buyers have to look at ways and means of increasing their income either to increase savings or help pay the repayments on an existing housing loan.
In many countries freelancing is now a multi-billion dollar industry. In 2014 in Australia it was estimated that the value of freelancing was $51 billion per annum, it would be much more now. You can read the article here.
In other countries the experience is similar. The infographic on freelancing in America for 2016 revealed that the contribution to the economy was $1 trillion. You can see the infographic here.
This newsletter and its related website are aimed at helping you succeed in the freelancing economy whether you are freelancing part-time to increase your income of going full time.
This is the latest find on articles for those looking to freelance part time. The article is by Lindsay Van Thorn for the Freelancers Union Blog and the tips are timeless. You can read Lindsay’s article here.
Motivate Yourself!
“The attitude you have as a parent is what your kids will learn from more than what you tell them. They don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.” – Jim Henson
What Motivates Your Decision as a Mum or Dad When it is Time to Return to Work?
It does not matter in what country you live, families matter. It is because most people realize that the passage of time in one’s life watching your children grow and develop is important and will not come again.
A number of developed countries have maternity and paternity leave to encourage couples to have a family and to help them financially. There is a reason that governments do this as a part of their policies. It is because the aging populations have an impact on a country’s ability to provide a workforce and pay taxes to provide the populations with the services that they require.
What this newsletter is about is finding you the ideas that will help you with the decision if you decide not to return to work because you want to find ways to work at home and be successful.
I know that these decisions are complex and vary from country to country. The issues can be of childcare, tax credits, and benefits and shared parental leave, just to mention a few issues.
The Baby Centre website in the United Kingdom has looked at the various issues that parent’s face that will motivate their decision. The decisions are almost universal and are variations that most parents face. You can read their article here.
Productivity Tip Of The Week
Have You Heard About True Story and Flash Organizations for Freelancers.
Flash organizations for freelancers are true! As a freelancer, you can become a part of a flash team that is working on a project, but you may never meet personally and when the project is over you will go your separate ways. That is the way that work has evolved and will be increasing so because it is the future of work. The internet and freelancing platforms have made this possible.
The New York Times has printed an article about True Story which is about a Flash organization, but I believe that you will be interested in this true story about: “How to Become a Self-Employed Freelance Specialist or Solopreneur Even if You Have No Idea How to Get Started“.
Over the coming weeks, I will tell you the story of some of the specialist freelancers that participated in the flash team that worked on the Kindle eBook mentioned above. I will also tell you some success stories of other solopreneurers and freelancers. There are specialist online jobs that people do not realize exist. It will be increasingly so with technology allowing freelancers to successfully work from home or in co-working spaces.
The New York Times article about True Story was written by Noam Scheiber and is entitled The Pop-Up Employer: Build a Team, Do the Job, Say Goodbye. You can read Noam’s article here. I think it is a great story. Do you?
Specialist Tip
Specialist Tip For This Week
Recently my virtual assistant and I both undertook a training course from Udemy on how to produce infographics because we wanted to improve the performance of the cyber security website we run. You can see the result of the training here. The purpose was that the infographic would increase the visits to the website. The topic was about an important global compliance issue in cyber security for which training is
necessary for organizations dealing with the identities of European Union residents.
As I am an affiliate of IT Governance Ltd. I am paid a commission on sales of training courses and support material. The motivation was a business development opportunity that would hopefully result by increasing our skills. It is early days for this strategy, but I will let you know if it works and what other skills training that will be necessary that will make the landing page work better.
The reason that I am telling you this story is that as a freelancer you need to be aware of major trends that are occurring in the world that will present you with personal development opportunities to increase your skills and earning ability. Cyber security is one of these trends. If you have a look on the Upwork Skills In Demand Index for Q1 2017 you will find Penetration Testing at number 13.
What opportunities can you see in your particular freelancing skills area that will help you earn more money?
This is the current list of freelance penetration testing jobs advertised on the world largest freelancing platform Freelancer.Com, check it from here. It is hard to believe the demand!
Financial Tip Of The Week
Do You Know How to Track Billable Hours as a Freelancer?
Do you know how most accountants charge for their services? Most charge for billable hours and there is a very important reason for this. The reason they do this is that it enables them to plan to reach their income goal. As a freelancer exposed to the international competition you will say that for you that it is not possible or you would not win any gigs because people would under quote to do a gig.
Stop! Think about this and do not dismiss the idea out of hand. Thinking about your strategy is important. If you consider that the field that you are in is ultra competitive e.g. logo design, it might be time to think about how you can add value to your existing services and increase the value of your billable hours.
If you have ever used Fiverr.Com you will realize that some of the contractors are very skillful at this with their graduation of services to improve their charge out rate and billable hours. It is worth joining to have a look how they do it.
This quote is very applicable to this article and pricing for your services:
People would rather be shown how valuable you are, not told. – Roger Babson
Andrew Harker has written an article entitled How to Track Billable Hours for the Freelancers Union Blog and you can read it here.
Freelancers And Cyber Security
We have gained approval from Robert Siciliano to bring you extracts from his books related to cyber security for freelancers. Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert and consultant. He also gives self defense and personal safety seminars. Robert provides safety and identity theft fraud prevention tips and advice on multimedia channels in the United States. We have his approval to bring you weekly extracts from his books:
