Weekly Newsletter for The Freelancers: Here is the latest newsletter of the week starting on 30th of July 2018.
Some freelancers have success beyond their imagination when it is about a passion that they have. I find these stories very inspiring because quite often the line between freelancing and being an entrepreneur is blurred. Not that it matters, because both are about using their initiative to change their future for the better.
However, there are some freelancers/entrepreneurs who start out small pursuing a passion and end up employing people. This is one such story here (not an affiliate link).
You can tailor the amount of work that you do to your goal. Your goal may initially be a simple goal like generating enough income to cover your health insurance which is becoming increasingly more expensive in many developed countries with rapidly aging populations.
One of the social media channels that offer the opportunity for micro solopreneurs and small businesses is Pinterest.
How to use Pinterest is here from realsimple.com. I too am currently learning about Pinterest so I read the article with great interest.
How small businesses are winning on Pinterest by Jason Falls which appears on the entrepreneur.com can be read here. This is why I am interested in Pinterest.
To help with learning about how to use this social media channel and make money using Pinterest, this is the latest dated eBook on Amazon that I can locate (if you can locate a later publication please share the details on the contact form):
Motivate Yourself!
“Every generation brings something new to the workplace,
and millennials are no exception. As a group, they tend to be
highly educated, love to learn, and grew up with the Internet
and digital tools in a way that can be highly useful when
leveraged properly.”
– Kathryn Minshew
Why You Should Be Motivated To Monitor International Support For Millennials?
The millennial generation is likely to be those who are going to need to take responsibility for the long-term building of wealth because many are facing a housing affordability problem globally.
See the World Economic Forum article by Alice Charles and Dilip Guna entitled 10 ways cities are tackling the global affordable housing crisis by clicking here.
If you are in the renting market and/or are self-employed and starting to moonlight to help grow your income, this is especially true.
Jasper Jolly has written Millennials should receive £10,000 from the government to tackle generation gap says commission.
Jasper’s article appears in cityam.com and you can read it here. The reference to the “commission” refers to the United Kingdom’s Intergenerational Commission and it is a serious option.
It would mean, for example, helping with a home deposit, but more importantly helping to pay for the establishment of a business to generate wealth.
In my opinion, the move to helping millennials start a business, whether freelancing or otherwise, is a very important development.
Smart millennials will have started to realize that if the trend to freelancing continues globally, the sooner they start to think about entrepreneurship and freelancing, the better. This SBDC report shows that this trend has already started, see here.
For those who realize the importance of this development in the United Kingdom here is some help:
Productivity Tip of the Week
Why A Freelancer’s Choice Of How To Be Paid Can Be An Important Productivity Choice?
Choosing how you will be paid is an important productivity step for freelancers. Nowadays there are many convenient ways to be paid as a freelancer that it can be confusing.
To help you, Sarah Brooks has written 6 ways to get paid as a freelancer or consultant. Sarah wrote her article for thebalancesmb.com which you can read here.
It is obvious that the non-payment of accounts for freelancers is a major problem and has been for some time.
When researching this post, I found this 2015 article by Jane Porter entitled How freelancers can protect themselves and get paid on time which appeared in fastcompany.com and you can read here.
This is the main reason that Sara Horowitz when she was the CEO of the Freelancers Union, campaigned strongly for the introduction of a contract form for the Union’s members which you can see here.
Sara also campaigned strongly to get the first act passed in the United States to protect freelancers with the Freelance Isn’t Free Act for New York. You can read the New York City press release about it here.
It does not matter which country you live in, this was a major step forward for freelancers globally and other countries and states will follow.
Nothing can be a bigger hit to your productivity than to have to waste time chasing bad and doubtful debts for work you have already done.
My personal view is that you are better to use a freelancing platform with the money held in escrow, particularly for interstate and international clients.
Michelle Dunn has published some forms and letters to help you limit the amount of time you spend collecting money from your slow paying debtors:
Work-Life Balance Tip of the Week
Where Does Your Country Rank In The OECD’s Better Life Index For Work-Life Balance?
Did you know that the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) actually measures work-life balance? The OECD monitors the work-life balance of its member countries and produces the OECD Better Life Index which you can check out here.
You can look at your country’s performance against other countries and what makes up the index.
We are currently rewriting the front page of the website of Freelance Work Guide to give greater focus to being in charge of your work-life balance and family finances by freelancing.
Hootsuite, the social media platform, will also help us to improve our social listening to the issues facing families on work-life balance. It does this by monitoring social media conversations about work-life balance issues.
If you are interested in how Hootsuite does this, you can read about it here (not an affiliate link). This Kindle eBook is one of the best sellers in work-life balance and business:
Financial Tip of the Week
Why Freelancers Should Use A Tax Accountant?
If you are a work at home freelancer, whether full-time or a part-time moonlighter, it is very clear you should be using a tax accountant, not only to prepare your tax return but to set up your record keeping that is required for each year.
It does not matter which country you live or work in, I believe that this will hold true. Here are some examples from different countries:
Australia: Australian Securities and Investment Commission – Money Smart: Financial guidance you can trust article entitled Tax return tips which you can read here.
United States: Abdullahi Muhammed has written 6 reasons why freelancers should care about bookkeeping for the Forbes.com which you can read here.
United Kingdom: workspace.co.uk article Top tax tips for freelancers which you can read here.
This quote is right on the money:
“This is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher.
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” —
Albert Einstein
In my view, having worked as a banker, accountant, and certified financial planner, getting personal advice about taxation is essential for freelancers and the self-employed. Here is a top-selling eBook:
Amazon News
It is hard to conceive a membership program for an online retail store can have a global membership of 100 million members, but that is exactly what Amazon Prime has.
You can read Dennis Green’s article Jeff Bezos finally revealed how many people pay for Amazon Prime for businessinsider.com.au which you can read here.
From July 1st, 2018 Australian consumers will be locked out of Amazon’s overseas websites according to this article from Emily Piesse Amazon will block Australians from overseas sites from July 1.
Here’s how it will affect you which appeared on abc.net.au which appears here.
The weekly AWS news video link to acloud.guru is here. They are the leading trainers globally for AWS freelancers.
Amazon Associates Website Case Study
The history of the Amazon Case Study can be read at links to the previous newsletter issues. There is no change for this week as we are adjusting our articles to take into account the new offering of Amazon Home Services (AHS). Details of AHS can be read in the 12/02/2018 edition which is here.
We have stopped showing the links for new articles as we have discovered that it could be having adverse impacts on the search engine optimization of the website Best Sellers Hourly. We will advise you when new articles are added. They are currently being worked on.
By this time you can check our social media:
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:
What Can an Identity Thief Gain from Stealing My Mail?
