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This week we look at Career Interview with a Freelance Radio Journalist by Creative Interviews. In this video Career interview with freelance radio journalist, Rene Gutel discusses the freedom and challenges of being a freelance journalist for NPR.
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Credit: Yuri Arcurs on Photodune
As freelancers, our focus is almost always exclusively on getting paying work and getting it done. After all, it’s difficult to pay our bills or buy food with anything other than money. So investing time into a project that isn’t guaranteed to pan out doesn’t always seem to be the best investment of our time.
But there are some contests and challenges that can be worth a great deal to a freelancer if you win — provided you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into ahead of time.
When you’re considering whether to enter a contest, a competition or a challenge, there are several benefits that should be your deciding factors. When the benefits outweigh the time you have to take away from searching for new clients and paying work, then it is worth your while. Entry fees also have to be taken into consideration. Personally, I’ll only pay an entry fee for a contest if it’s based on work that I’ve already completed — but there are some challenges in every industry that make an entry fee worthwhile.
I am absolutely not talking about spec work here. Spec work is, by definition, doing a project and only getting paid if the client likes your work. There are thousands of competitions along the line of ‘design our logo!’ and the end result is usually nothing but tears.
I’m not here to get into an argument about spec work — there are certain situations where the positives outweigh the negatives — but it is important to lay down the fact that spec work is very different from what I’m talking about. By definition, spec work is almost entirely focused on the money, not the prestige that comes from winning a contest, and you’ll often find that spec work contests offer minimal prizes.
There are several crowdsourcing startups that focus on connecting prospective clients with designers and other freelancers. Some of these companies fall more on the spec work end of the spectrum, while others focus on building more beneficial contests. While I’m not so interested in naming names, I’d personally note that if a crowdsourcing site essentially asks you to complete a project as you go up against other freelancers, with no guarantee of money, it’s spec work. If a crowdsourcing site, however, asks you to do a pitch or a few thumbnails and then ensures that you get paid for future stages of work, it’s a competition that can be much healthier for your freelancing work.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by Yuri Arcurs.
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Credit: Yuri Arcurs on Photodune
I’ve exchanged business cards with plenty of freelancers. There’s one thing that strikes me over and over again, though: a freelancer may have an incredibly well designed business card that lists a link to some random portfolio site that the freelancer in question has set up a profile on.
It’s an easy way to get a website up: fill out a short form, upload a couple of images and you’re ready to go. But listing such portfolio sites on your business card, or as the main point of contact for seeing your work, can be dangerous to your freelancing career. Instead, it’s important to purchase your own domain name and use that.
Sometimes things happen — things that can leave you with a thousand business cards listing a link to a portfolio site that doesn’t even exist anymore. When you don’t control the link that you use to connect with clients, if anything ever happens to that platform, you may have all the people you’ve connected with in the past trying to find you at a place that’s disappeared off the web entirely. That’s a dangerous position to be in.
Having a domain name of your own, even if it just redirects to that portfolio profile you’ve set up, gives you much more control over the situation. If a site goes down, you can quickly redirect your domain name somewhere else, even if it’s just to another portfolio site. The same goes for an email address based off of your domain name.
Control is the name of the game: there’s a reason that big businesses buy up domain names that include all sorts of variations on the company’s actual name. As a freelancer, it may not be necessary to pick up every variation on your own name, but having at least a domain name associated with your freelance business is important if you want to control how easily clients and other contacts can find you. And it’s worth remembering that it’s probably going to be easier to find a domain name today than it will be down the road. It’s gotten somewhat difficult to find short .com addresses, and as more and more businesses build an online presence, it’s only going to get harder.
The biggest objection to setting up a freelancer’s website is money, followed closely by time — and time really is money in this situation, considering how easily you can pay another freelancer to set up a site. But cost shouldn’t be the biggest factor for freelancers: it should be the potential return on your investment. Considering that you can do the bare basics of buying a domain name and redirecting it to some free site you’ve set up somewhere for about $10 per year, it’s hard to argue that you can’t afford a website at all.
But there’s a bigger question at stake: how much can a website earn you over time? Just the fact that you have a website can communicate all sorts of information to a prospective client: a website sends the message that you’re serious about your business and you will handle projects professionally. Whether or not you can be a professional without a website is unimportant — many clients will subconsciously judge you on the basis of your website. That means that your website can be key in converting potential clients into actual clients — making it a matter of whether or not your site is providing you with a valuable return on your investment, rather than just a question of how much it will cost you up front.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by Yuri Arcurs.
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Please learn from my mistakes.
First, who is this guy?
I’m Allan and I started as freelance designer six years ago. After a few months I started hired developers because I started taking increasingly larger web projects. Within two years of starting freelancing I took on a business partner and we started to build web applications. These projects have done well and we’ve started hosting conferences for entrepreneurs. I’ve been lucky and blessed, I’ve made my share of mistakes but here’s the mistakes I’ve made and what I’ve learned in the past six years.
Successful freelancers never say that they know too many people. On the flip side, failed freelancers say, “I didn’t have a strong enough network.” Which means “I sat at home and didn’t meet people”.
Looking back at the small successes I’ve had. They’ve all started with the people I’ve met. These real-life relationships, handshakes, dinners and conversations that have turned into friendships. Growing your network, making friends and then nurture those relationships, but to do this it takes time and effort.
How do I meet people?
Realize your potential client will visit several competitor’s websites before they make contact. They’ll call the person they feel can deliver the product/design/photos that they expect and desire. Example: if you’re a photographer with web galleries of black & white wedding pictures but this potential client wants color pictures of their children your portfolio won’t appeal to them. They won’t be able to visualize you taking their children’s pictures.
The good news is you can use this filter to your advantage to target the kinds of clients you want. The client’s critical eye spans further than just your portfolio. They’ll evaluate how the copy on your site is written, how your site looks and even how you talk to them when they call. Everything you do will be judged and if done properly can use to filter your clients into the ones you want.
Most people do one thing very, very well. If you’re a designer, don’t be programmer. You’re a photographer don’t try to be a designer. Even if you’re picking up new skills, stop and find someone that is better than you. Hire them for your next project. Sure you’ll spend more money now but your final product will be better. Your portfolio will get better and your next clients will pay more. It’s a beautiful cycle of awesome.
You can connect great people on these sites
This is the culmination of points 1, 2 and 3. If you meet people and build a network of friends in your industry then make your skill set strong by focusing on one thing and then target the ideal client you’ll be able to charge more for your time. Charge 15% more for your time than you think it’s worth. Most freelancers don’t have the confidence to set their rate at a place where they’re not scrapping the bottom of the barrel for clients. You are good enough to get the rate you deserve.
This is the most important point.
Let’s be honest saving money isn’t as fun as spending it. I love buying new things. It’s human nature to want to spend your cash. But every business will have a cash flow hiccup, a dry spell, a downtime.
Now if you’re thinking “I run a good business and do good, things like that won’t happen to me.” you’re wrong! A hiccup in cash flow can happen to anyone even if you’re running a great business. Just look at the businesses along the Gulf Coast and how the BP oil spill effected their businesses. These businesses were faced with an worse economy due to outside forces. The businesses that are surviving have cash saved. Don’t fool yourself, you will hit a dry spell and that cash reserve will save your butt. Keep 2-4 months of overhead in savings. You’ll thank me later.
What mistakes have you learned from?
By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.
- Robert Frost
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Credit: Cory Doctorow, gruntzooki on Flickr
Back in the early ´80s – if you were actually born at that point when I was a young music student in the UK – on graduating, aspiring soloists organized the production of a nice glossy brochure, set up a few high profile concerts and then gained experience by treading the national music society circuit. You might offer teaching in order to pay your rent and perhaps enter a few local competitions to raise your profile and that was that – all quite straightforward.
With the advent of the Internet, social marketing, MP3 downloads and You Tube, from a marketing perspective it seems to me that a musician’s life is just a mite bit more complicated, or perhaps that’s just my middle-age talking! These days if you fail to have a presence in the Internet, so far as a potential audience is concerned, you don’t exist – period.
One question I’m asked a lot is whether or not a classical musician needs a website in order to be successful. I know I need a website. The answer to that poser is ideally, yes – should you have the requisite funds to pay the costs of a competent web site designer, but not necessarily – an important consideration if you find yourself in a tight financial corner and already possess some working knowledge from your personal use of the Internet.
Whichever of these you choose, whether singly or in combination, I recommend including the following functionality as a basic minimum:
Consider also incorporating these options:
All of these applications have features which you can personalise to a certain degree so I suggest that you review your answers to exercises in my previous posts on Image and Branding in order to help you make decisions on design.
Whilst I’m a great advocate for research i.e., checking out the sites of other classical musicians, I believe it is vital to make sure that your personality comes across and you communicate authenticity.
With a mercifully growing number of exceptions, the majority of the classical musician sites that I look at are as boring as playing variations on C# minor scales for 2 hours solid. Dare to be different!
Don’t fall into the trap of just listing achievements and qualifications! Your personality is part of your brand package.
In addition, it has been proved time and again in marketing that people are more likely to purchase when the trust element is present and if they feel they have some sort of relationship with the person or company with whom they are doing business.
If you decide to blog, be warned that amassing a significant ranking does take work and commitment on a regular basis. That said, it has certainly been worth the effort for me personally in terms of raising my Internet profile.
Before you conceive an all-singing, all dancing totally integrated DIY set of Internet applications to promote your music single-handed, have an honest chat yourself as to whether you have the time and technical know-how to pull off such a big project.
Whilst you may not have the money to pay for a totally bespoke web site outright, do consider hiring a freelance professional for various parts of your grand plan. What you save in time is immeasurable and let’s face it, wouldn’t you rather be making music?
Whatever way you make your existence know on the Internet, make sure that your presence is professional although do bear in mind that need not equate to “accepted traditional.”
Photo credit: Cory Doctorow, gruntzooki on Flickr
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Photo credit: Rures on Flickr
Following on from my last post on Building Image, once you have completed the suggested excises, you should have a good idea as to who you are and how you want to present yourself to your future adoring public.
Perhaps you see yourself as an aspiring classical music sex symbol, a romantic Bohemian traveler or contemporary superstar. Whatever the case, I’m sorry to bring you down to earth with a bump but in the final analysis, in regards to creating a unique, memorable brand, take a quantum leap sideways for one moment and consider yourself as a box of washing up powder.
Why do people buy a well-known make as opposed to a cheaper supermarket brand even though the contents are often manufactured by the same company and the results identical?
Wikipedia concisely defines brand as “a name, sign, symbol, slogan or anything used to identify and distinguish a specific product, service, or business.”
To expand on that in plain English – a brand should express a complete package which includes any sort of visual representation, characteristics, experiences – performances, press, on-line, off-line – and associations. Note that “characteristics” should include a unique selling point – that unique something that sets it apart from similar offerings.
It’s well known in marketing that clients are more likely to purchase from brands they know and trust. Parting punters from their hard earned cash to attend a recital or buy your CD is no different. I’ll write more on this subject when I discuss social media.
In the classical music world at present, the “A-Listers” have the power to attract large audiences and receive all the plum jobs, as opposed to you, who struggle to fill a church hall and exist regularly on packets of pasta in order to survive.
A brief search on the tag word “clarinet” in Facebook reveals for my own field as a classical clarinetist, there are 552 profiles, 500+ pages and 500+ groups so I had to come up with a brand idea which I hoped offered something radically different from the norm in order to attract attention.
I’m still in no way satisfied with initial 5 month results from launch! Remember that branding is often about evolution from initial concept and it’s rare without professional help to get it right first time. Be patient with yourself.
Many musicians ask “What is the difference between image and brand?” If image is essentially a reflection of you as a person and musician – how people feel emotionally when they meet you or hear you play – then brand is all about establishing an identity.
Sometimes but not always.
If you’re an advocate for authenticity like me, image and brand is more or less identical. I personally can’t see the point of marketing something that is not a genuine reflection of the person behind the music whether for good or for ill. On the other hand, I know of many groups and individuals that have made a far more lucrative living out of separating image and brand. Only you can make the decision as to which you feel most comfortable. If you’re aiming at a young, hip audience who have little formal education, you are unlikely to gain ground in building a brand which appeals to the over 50s.
Do consider one – so few classical musicians have bothered, even the big names. A logo with a strap line – memorable phrase – is even better and more likely to be remembered. If you’re seriously thinking about using a logo, my advice is to seek out a good web site designer. These guys really are worth their weight in gold and I certainly don’t regret the money I invested in mine.
Photo credit: Rures on Flickr. Thanks!
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“I’m just freelancing while I’m looking for a job.” “I’m just freelancing while I build up my company.” “I’m just freelancing until something better comes along.” It’s easy to come to the conclusion that any ambitious freelancer is looking to get out of the freelancing game. But the fact of the matter is that there are plenty of freelancers in it for the long haul. Freelancing isn’t just a way to pay the bills — it’s a career path.
But the question of just where ambitious freelancers are headed is a tough one. Unlike a career working for the man, there isn’t exactly a clear corporate ladder to climb. We don’t have the opportunity to change job titles too often, beyond the ‘freelance rockstar’ descriptors we give ourselves. So, what’s an ambitious freelancer to do?
We aren’t a bunch of mercenaries, but the bottom line is important to freelancers. Better paying clients is an ambition that we can work towards — while the dollar amount may not be the most important thing if your reasons for freelancing focused more on a question like flexibility, higher pay rates make it easier to take advantage of flexibility and even cut down on work. It’s easy to make jokes about living on ramen in lean months, but when a freelancer can raise her rates, she can essentially buy security. Higher rates can mean a fatter savings account, more days off and other benefits.
There is something of an upper limit when it comes to rates, though — especially if you charge per hour. You can keep raising your rates, but that doesn’t mean that any client is going to be willing to pay $5,000 for one hour of work. That doesn’t mean that you can’t keep moving forward with your freelance career, but it may mean that the way you move forward requires some consideration.
Who doesn’t have a client that you wouldn’t do just about anything to work with? For me, it’s one particular magazine that I’d be willing to write free content for, as long as I get my name on that page. Working your way up to the point that you can pitch your dream client — or, even better, have them come to you — is well worth working towards.
There are a lot more dream clients out there than there are rate hikes, too.
No two freelance careers are going to look identical. That means that your ambitions may not match up with the next graphic designer over. If your ambitions are to use freelancing as a spring board to something very different, that’s cool. If your ambitions are within freelancing, that’s also cool. The important thing is to have ambitions that will get you where you want to go.
The alternative is to simply stick at your current level of freelancing forever, maybe edging up just a bit. That is, of course, anyone’s prerogative — but it doesn’t appeal to me and most of the freelancers I know personally. We got into freelancing to get rid of limits, from bosses to commutes. Not having goals or ambitions is just a round about way to impose our own limits.
So, what are your ambitions? Where is your freelance career headed?
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Product Description
This work explains how to find a job and develop a career in 22 different areas of graphic design, from preparing an effective portfolio to dealing with clients. Environmental design and toy design are included, and an appendix lists schools, advertising agencies, and publishers…. More >>
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