1. Understand that tasks take time

We’ve all made the mistake of saying “give me 10 minutes,” only to realize an hour later that you totally lost track of time.  When we used to photograph weddings, we’d have brides tell us that the church was “5 minutes away,” and on the day of the wedding, we’d be scrambling into the ceremony with seconds to spare because NOTHING takes 5 minutes. Remember that things DO take time and even writing a short email takes longer than 2 minutes, so be sure to schedule your time accordingly ; )

If you have a To-Do list sitting on your desk, do yourself a favor and write a number next to each task so you can be realistic about your day.  Resist the urge to underestimate the length of time you need. In fact, OVERestimate. No one has ever been upset that they completed something earlier than they anticipated and I assume you aren’t the first one out there who would be.

2. Be reasonable about your To-Do lists

It’s also important to break down your tasks into “accomplishable” chunks.  For example, rather than putting a giant task on our list like “edit John Smith’s video,” which could take days of work, we learned to break things down into manageable tasks that take less than 2 hours. For example, instead of:

• Edit Video A 

We’d break that major task down to:

• Load Footage (30 min)
• Organize Footage into folders (20 min)
• Make a Project file and sync footage (20 min)
• Create Markers and label favorite takes (1 hr)
• Cut the video (2 hrs)
• Edit the Audio (1 hr)
• Color the footage (2 hrs)
• Add Graphics and Text (1 hr)
• Export Draft for Review (20 min)

Not only will you be more organized about where you are in the project, you’ve now created clear start and stop points that will allow you to come back to your project, which helps you schedule realistic timeframes to get things done. 

You’ll find that once you start checking tasks off your list, you’ll be more motivated to keep going, rather than staring at the same task on your list for 3 days while you’ve been continuously working on it.  Break your TO DO list down into tasks that take 20 minutes to an hour (2 hours max) and you’ll find yourself becoming more productive and more aware of what you can handle on a normal workday, rather than totally overcommitting and coming up short and stressing out. 

Bonus Tip: Make sure to [especially if you work at a desk or workstation] get up between tasks, have a stretch, drink some water, have a snack and give yourself some credit for what you’ve just accomplished.  It’ll help keep the positive energy flowing right into your next task.

3. Control your own schedule

We used to think that we had to work around our clients’ schedules in order to be a quality and accommodating service provider.  In a lot of ways, this is true. If you are trying to win someone’s business, you want to be able to meet them where they are and work around their needs.  However, don’t let this hurt you and your business. Sometimes we feel like adjusting our schedules to help others is the only option, but the reality is, you can totally set reasonable boundaries that allow you to be more efficient without compromising your ability to accommodate the requests of your clients.

For your client, there is a very slight difference between you saying, “I’m going to be in your area on Tuesday and Friday this week, would there be a time those days that would work for you?” and saying “Whenever you are available this week, I’ll be there.”  On the flip side, there is a HUGE difference between those two scenarios for your schedule and sanity.

Do yourself a solid and resist the urge to make open-ended scheduling for your clients, partners, and colleagues.  When it’s time to schedule a meeting, always lead by providing a few options and asking if either of those options work for the person you’re meeting with.  Worst case scenario: they say those don’t work and give you some options or ask you for some more options. In both cases, YOU are in control of your schedule and still providing an awesome service.  

Bonus Tip:  We actually found that by giving the options it was actually easier to schedule with our customers and potential clients.  Giving them an open-ended option provided too many choices and proved overwhelming and easier to put off. Giving a few choices makes it an easier decision for them and a more efficient way for you to manage your days for productivity!  Win-Win!

4.  Start to automate or simplify repetitive tasks

Think about the things you do over and over again and find ways to automate them.  How could you use a software, template, process, or video to make your repetitive tasks take less time?

We work with an awesome graphic designer that sends us videos of her recorded screen while she explains her design work rather than scheduling a meeting with us to review over the phone or in-person.  This is such an efficient way to manage all of our time. We are able to move projects forward without meeting and getting distracted with side conversations, plus we can refer back to these videos at any point.

Another way we’ve improved our productivity is to create templates for emails we have to send regularly.  You may customize these messages each time depending on the details, but if there is a large chunk of what you say that is the same every time, create an email template that you can start from and save yourself a ton of time doing things over and over again.

Lastly, see what you can do to avoid wasting time on travel and unproductive meetings.  When we first started our business, we were more comfortable in person and every time we had to talk with a client or a subcontractor/team member, we’d schedule an in-person meeting.  This meant preparing for the meeting, packing up our stuff, driving to another location (dealing with traffic, etc), arriving early, conducting the meeting and then often letting things get off-topic or letting a meeting take a full hour or more even though we accomplished the goal in the first few minutes, etc.

Think about meetings you schedule that could be more productive through video, email, over the phone, or through Skype/video chat.  A meeting that could take up 2 hours of your day could be shortened to 1 hour or less if you don’t have to leave your office!

Now that we’ve shared a few ways to improve your productivity (and sanity) let’s put this stuff to good use.  Start to use these tactics in your business and let us know how they work for you! Or, if you have any other tips you’ve implemented that have worked well for you, we want to hear about them.  

Let’s get more done in less time!

The post 4 Simple Tips to Be More Productive! appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

When We Decided to Do Something Different

We started our company Do Something Different Media in 2008 by freelancing for friends, family, local businesses…whoever would let us make something for them. We knew that building a portfolio would be very important if we wanted to start making real money.

This provided us with a ton of experience working with different people, a variety of industries and projects, and helped us gain the confidence to take things to the next level. Whether you’ve started your freelancing career or you’re looking for the courage or strategy to do so, know that NOW is the best time ever to get started!

Acknowledge the Demand for Your Skillset

Whatever your skill is, there is a huge market for freelance help in today’s business sphere. We’ve found that companies are turning to freelance professionals before they look to hire full-time employees because it provides them with quality work that doesn’t require the expense of on-boarding or the need to provide full-time work and benefits.

In addition, this trend is happening because a lot of managers and team leaders aren’t equipped with the proper knowledge base or skill set to train or even manage a new hire. This knowledge gap plays right into the hands of you, the freelancer.  

Strategize a Strong Start

It is extremely important to get started properly! We encourage all of our clients and students to follow these simple steps when launching their freelance businesses. If you’ve already started getting your feet wet with freelance work, take a look at the steps below and make sure you’ve covered your bases before you take things to the next level.

LEGAL ENTITY: Set up a Limited Liability Company to protect yourself and your business. This essentially means that if an unforeseen event should occur (ie: a client is mad at you and wants to sue you for everything you’ve got), your personal assets can’t be claimed in a lawsuit, only the assets your business owns.

We obviously want to keep things positive and assume you will never need this protection, but it’s a simple and fairly inexpensive way to know that you are safe and have nothing to worry about.  (Please note, we are not lawyers, nor are we trying to provide legal advice. This information is a super simple breakdown of why we were told to start an LLC business entity and there are plenty of other reasons and other options available…do your homework!)

BANK ACCOUNT: Open a Business Bank Account under your LLC name. This is very helpful for tracking your business expenses and income. When it’s time to pay your taxes this will make your life SO MUCH easier…and also make doing your taxes less expensive to complete. This also means that your clients can write checks to your business name instead of your personal name. If you are looking to make more money as a freelancer, this is a simple way to seem much more legitimate and to lock in some of those larger clients who wouldn’t be interested in working with a “guy/gal” with a specific set of skills.

CONTRACTS: Make sure that you have a proper and legally binding contract that you can send to your clients. It’s worth paying a lawyer for a few hours of expertise to make sure that your contract is legitimate. Your contract is all you have. It didn’t take long for us to realize as freelancers that you can’t trust everyone’s word and sometimes people will try and not pay you for the work you’ve done. There are a million reasons why this might happen, but if you have a strong, clear and legally binding contract in place you have nothing to worry about.

When we first started out, we looked for contracts for our industry on the internet and then drafted out what we wanted to use and what things we thought were missing. Then we took that document to a lawyer and asked him to review the document and add what we needed.

Make sure that you’re very organized when providing materials to your lawyer. Their time is money and if your stuff is a mess, you’ll pay for it. You can expect to pay between $300 and $500 to put the contract together, but it’s a small price to pay to know you are doing it right, covering yourself, and presenting yourself professionally. Most larger organizations expect you to have a real contract, so if you want good work, hire a lawyer and get a real contract in place.

BUILD YOUR PORTFOLIO:  Building your portfolio is how you are going to prove yourself to potential clients in order to get more work. Start with work that you’ve already created and then add as you go.  

If you haven’t created anything yet, now is the time to start!  You can offer your skills to friends, family, your church, or any other group you are a part of. We’ve had freelance friends create “spec projects” where they create logos/designs/blog posts/video ads for either fake companies or real companies that they encounter and are inspired by. These spec ads are obviously not paid work, so don’t go crazy…but it is a free way to gain experience and build a professional looking portfolio to show off what you can do.   

As you begin to pick up paid jobs, you will rotate them into your portfolio to show people your most updated work. And most importantly, as you grow your portfolio, make sure to only show what you’re really proud of and what you want to do more of.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL MEDIA: When you are starting out, set yourself up a free website [Squarespace, Wix, etc.] and use it to showcase your portfolio, introduce yourself, and the services you offer. Make sure that you are also a part of the same social platforms as your audience. This is the main way people will find and contact you, so make sure that you are there with your best foot forward.

CONFIDENCE & MONEY: It’s very easy to get overwhelmed or feel underwhelmed in the confidence department. Many of us don’t know how to value our own skillset and get a pit in our stomach or a lump in our throats when we think about selling, charging people, and collecting money.  You are not alone…but you DO need to make money to be in business. Money and confidence go hand in hand. It’s okay to start out charging very little so you can build your portfolio and gain experience to build your confidence. In fact, we really recommend doing this. When you aren’t charging a lot you can confidently over-deliver and impress your clients without the high stakes of an expensive price tag.  

But once you’ve done that, you must accept that it is absolutely okay to charge industry rates for the work that you do. You are worth it, your work is worth it, and people who hire you expect to pay you for your work. Look up your industry rates and charge something similar to that.   We’ve found, in our experience, that most companies will question a small quote (especially the high-end clients you really want). They’ll question you, your experience, and your quality if your price is low. n the flip side, if you charge a reasonable industry rate and present it with confidence, you’ll find the clients respect that and think highly of you for it. Just remember, you are already good at what you’re doing, that’s why you’ve received jobs and built a portfolio doing it.

PROCESS & WORKFLOW:  The best way to keep your clients happy and staying stress-free is by having a solid client process. You need to create a process and a system that works for you in order to find clients, onboard (get the project started), create, manage, and deliver your project.   You will find that telling your clients what to expect and delivering on those expectations will make your whole process stress-free and, in the end, you’ll have happy clients that are likely to refer you more business! There are plenty of systems out there that will help you organize your clients and projects. But the BEST system out there, and the only system you need is the one you will actually use.

Being a freelancer who gets paid to provide your service to others is an incredible opportunity and privilege. Remember, in building a proper foundation you’re setting yourself up for the potential to make more money, gain more clients, and enjoy the process.

Good luck, freelance friends! Now, go make it happen!

The post How to Start and Structure Your Freelancing Business appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

The following represents our top 5 steps to help you get out of a rut and rid yourself of fear and doubt.

Of course, there are dozens — probably hundreds — of strategies to shake your stale spell and get back into the groove. But, these are our five favorites because they have proven tried and true, time and again.

We invite you to share your time-tested strategies with us in the comments!

Step One: Reading

You may or may not be into personal development books, but let me tell you, once you find the right topic, author or story that resonates with you, you won’t be able to get enough. Having a consistent dose of personal development reading will help bring balance to your mind and keep you on the proper path.

Step Two: Journaling

Journaling allows you to clear your mental plate. Rather than carrying all of these uncomfortable emotions and thoughts, let them out through journaling and feel lighter, more confident and more creative. A great way to start journaling is to find some prompts to get you going. The best kind of journaling is the one that you do, so make sure you make it easy for yourself!

Step Three: Daily Meditation

Learn to meditate and practice it regularly.  Meditation isn’t a medicine that you take only when you’re sick or run down. Meditation is literally like breathing, you need it always (and it’s also literally 99% breathing in the physical sense).

Please don’t think that you’re going to sit on a pillow with your legs crossed and hum “ommm” for 30 minutes. You need to learn to meditate and — lucky for you! — there are a lot of mindful and meditation-focused apps to do just that. Just like journaling, use guided meditations to introduce you and coach you in meditation techniques.

Personally, I’ve been using Headspace for almost three years and I’m coming up on almost two straight years of daily meditation. Every day for two whole years. Sounds like a commitment that you don’t have time for, right?

Wrong!

My average daily meditation time is approximately seven minutes. Recently, I’ve tried shooting for 15 minutes at a time, but when the days are hectic, I happily turn on a two or five-minute meditation. The whole purpose is to just stop, be present, and create space between your subconscious mind and your thinking brain.

Step Four: Action Breaks the Spell

Whether you’re taking action in your personal life, or taking online courses to further your professional life, you’ll see a dramatic increase in your energy, mindset, and overall well being if you’re pursuing something for yourself.

For instance, I began learning piano and it exercises a new part of my brain that helps bring balance to my life.

Start going to a class [exercise, cooking, dancing, music, etc]. Start writing your book, start planning your next project. It doesn’t matter what it is, just make sure it’s something that brings you joy and then make sure you start.  

Step Five: Camaraderie is Key!

Hang out with people who you look up to. Friends, mentors or other people in your field.  Being around positive energy will help you break the spell.

Make momentum your MO with these five suggestions. Before you know it, you’ll forget that you were ever in a rut to begin with!

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The Small Business Situation

Starting a business or side hustle is always an exciting time. Something that seemed like a far off pipe dream is now falling into place, people are complimenting you on your skills and you’ve just been paid to do something that you actually like doing. You’ve blasted through the walls of your comfort zone and the new you is thriving in this creative space.  

So why am I writing about the struggle to get paid for creative work?  

When Sh** Gets Real

The initial rush of excitement and positive energy will undoubtedly wear off, often times leaving you filled with self-validating questions and self-sabotaging thoughts. Once they start to pile up you go from asking “Am I crazy for doing all of this?” to “Why do I suck so bad, I mean, look at [super awesome person], they’ve got it all, I’m no good. Why am I even doing this?”  

Rest assured, you can avoid this suck bucket of a rabbit hole by understanding a few things about how your brain works and why it’s favorite go-to are misery-producing moves.

Obstacle #1: The Cycle of Comparison

The first is getting caught up in the Cycle of Comparison. This is the most common trap that will set off the onslaught of self-deprecating drivel that your brain will feed you. It often happens quickly when you’re mindlessly scrolling through social media. You see a friend, business acquaintance, business competition or even complete strangers doing something that looks more impressive/good/exciting than what you’re currently doing and then you undoubtedly dive deeper. You go to their page, see what they’ve been up to, what kind of jobs they’ve been doing, what kind of travel they’ve done, and you compare it to everything that you’re currently doing — or not doing. Once this starts you begin to physically feel inadequate, your thoughts spiral out of control and suddenly the world feels heavier, more impossible and you reduce yourself to a worthless puddle.

You need to understand that no one is you and that you are only you. Stop comparing and know that your customer or client is going to hire you for you. If you find yourself getting caught in the social trap, you should consider a digital detox. It is so crucial to your mental health and business mindset. If necessary, schedule time in your calendar away from screens and other social media traps. Whatever it takes to get you back to YOU and minding YOUR own business. Literally!

Obstacle #2: Imposter Syndrome

No sooner have you emerged from the cycle of comparison that you come down with a case of Imposter Syndrome, especially if you’re just starting out.

Imposter syndrome is a state of mind where you feel like a total fraud. You think to yourself, “people are paying me hundreds of dollars to do this? Am I even qualified?”  You look at your body of work and tear it apart, allowing your brain’s ego to obliterate everything you’ve ever made.

A great way to avoid feeling this way is to be active in a creative or social community.  The more people that you interact with, share ideas and collaborate with, the more confidence you will build. You spend tremendously less time by yourself, convincing yourself that you’re the worst.

Obstacle #3: Money Blocks

Even when you’re working on your personal development and you’re confident in your skills, your Money Blocks will be right there to stop you dead in your tracks. A close relative of the two aforementioned symptoms, a money block is when you and your subconscious don’t believe that you can actually be wealthy.

Warning: This belief will…

• strangle your relationship with money
• make you feel awkward about money
• make you feel shy to talk about money
• leave you feeling afraid to ask for money
• make you give your client a quote and at the first sign of adversity immediately shout out, “Yeah, that’s the price, but I can do it for whatever you think” or “I can offer you a discount.”

How do you expect to be a business and make a living if you’re terrified of money?

Now, what happens when you couple your money block with imposter syndrome while constantly obsessing over your competition? Life becomes miserable, that’s what! You need to dissolve your money blocks through personal development and reading. Use daily affirmations and meditation to keep yourself grounded and balanced.

This is why getting paid to do creative work is a struggle. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. We get to use our minds and ideas to create amazing things for people. We get to make a living based on the “you know what would be cool?” question.  

Don’t Lose Your Ticket to Ride

Most people talk about business as a road or a journey. I like to picture a rollercoaster ride at an amusement park. You’re super excited to get on the ride, once seated and buckled you immediately question yourself, you get nervous, you get an immediate thrill, you get thrown around a little, but you always catch a glimpse of a great view if you remember to open your eyes.  

And it makes it all worth it because when you get off the ride all you’re going to remember was everything awesome about it.

The post Getting Paid to do Creative Work is a Real Struggle… appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

Take advantage of these Benefits to Make More Money!

We’re all so fortunate to have the internet at our disposal as a means to create income for ourselves. Whatever your skill is, there is a vast market for freelance help in today’s business sphere. We’ve found that companies are turning to freelance professionals before they look to hire full-time employees! This trend is happening because a lot of managers and team leaders don’t have the proper knowledge base or skill set to train or even manage a new hire. This knowledge gap provides the perfect opportunity for you, the freelancer, to come in and save the day.

Whether you’re just getting started or have a full portfolio, there is plenty of money to be made helping companies meet deadlines, create media, and train employees. In most cases, you’ll be able to make a steady income, even while maintaining your day job.

Check out our list of 7 benefits you should know about your freelance business in order to increase your client base and generate profits.

1. You get to work remotely or from home.

Being remote means that you don’t need to carry overhead, but you can still acquire larger clients. If you have a full-time job, you will still be able to manage your clients. Think about a typical work day at the office, how much of that time is spent getting stuff done? When you work from home as a freelancer, you only have to spend time completing your assignment. You won’t find yourself sitting there just to satisfy your hourly obligation. This means less time and more money in your pocket for the work you do!

2. You will leverage loads of valuable client experience.

As a freelancer, you get to work with tens or even hundreds of clients. You have the freedom and ability to manage multiple clients at the same time and reach people at different business levels within a variety of industries. Ultimately, this leads to work/client experience that you could never match in a job situation. Every client you work with provides a vast array of knowledge, research, and life lessons to help you grow your business and provide better service to future clients.

3. You get first-hand insight into every organization that you do work for.

Working with lots of different clients means you get an inside peek at how various organizations work behind the scenes. You can cherry-pick good ideas for your own business, from marketing, management, customer life cycle, planning, and overall business model. You also get to see what to avoid in your own business. The ability to foresee pitfalls is invaluable to a growing company and this type of education you can’t always learn from internet research.

4. You gain confidence in your work and yourself.

Like I said above, by working with a variety of clients, companies, and industries, you’ll gain knowledge and insight that will allow you to be more effective and efficient in your own business. All of this experience amounts to gaining more confidence in yourself, and your work. The more experience and confidence you have, the higher your perceived value, meaning you can charge more for the work you’re doing and make more money!

5. You get to master the interview process.

As a freelancer, you will end up having hundreds of client inquiry meetings, which are essentially job interviews. After a while, you’ll develop your method to get the sale every time, and you’ll become a professional interviewer. Think about it. Most people interview to get one job to pay them 50k a year. You’ll be interviewed multiple times with the chance to get numerous 50k contracts. The better you are at the interview/proposal meeting, the more money you will make! Find what works for you, and with lots of practice, you’ll be a champion at “interviews.”

6. You call the shots!

Being in charge might be the best feature of being a freelancer. You determine the cost and length of your contract with each client. You get to set the boundaries in your client relationships; what is and is not accepted. You can hire clients and fire them! If you are working with a client who is challenging, unappreciative, and miserable to deal with, you can choose to stop working with that client or at least choose to never work with them again. I cannot overstate this. We’ve all had bosses or co-workers that made our jobs easier or harder. As a freelancer, you decide whom you work with, for how much, and how it will all go down.

7. You get to use other professional freelancers as sub-contractors.

If you find yourself with a big fish on the end of the line and fear you can’t handle it on your own, team up with other freelancers in your sphere to get the job done. We do it all the time, and it works out very well. Working with other freelancers means you get a professional quality product/service every time. Also, let’s face it, there is plenty of work to go around, so collaborating with other freelancers means more opportunity to work together on future projects and provides the ability to build strong relationships with people just like you!

So, if you don’t have a network of other freelancers yet, it’s time to meet some. Having a roster of talent will always come in handy when those opportunities come around! [NOTE: Make sure you have a proper sub-contractor agreement in place with anyone you bring on board to help out. This contract is so you don’t get burned, which keeps these collaborations a win-win.]

By understanding these concepts, you can begin to pay attention to specific details, plan your goals and shape the path of your business to help you grow your profits. It’s time to make some serious money as a kick-butt freelancer! You can do this!

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