Create Your Freelance Consultant Invoice Template for Marketing Effortlessly

Freelance consultant invoice template for Marketing

all right well um I would love to get us started here um good morning and good afternoon wherever you are um thanks so much for joining us today I'm Emily George I'm a recruiter here at right side up um I'm based in the Bay Area I love um working with great marketing Talent on um The Fabulous projects that we work on with the Stellar clients we have here at right side up um for those of you who aren't familiar we are a collective of growth marketing Specialists who have helped more than 400 VC backed tech companies as well as many companies outside of tech hit their growth goals we cover virtually all paid channels SEO cro email marketing product marketing analytics and more today's discussion is going to be all about finding success as a freelance marketer we've got three fabulous panelists with a ton of experience who are going to help us discuss questions to ask yourself if Consulting is right for you some really practical tips and areas like benefits and taxes and then some common pitfalls and best practices for freelancing before we begin just want to mention a couple of important housekeeping items um first please submit any and all questions as we go through the session using zoom's q a functionality which you'll find at the bottom of your screen and we will plan to address those in the last 15 to 20 minutes and then secondly we are recording this session and we will be able to share that recording as well as these slides with you via email next week um all right so let's jump into the introductions um and Daniel I would love to start with you all right thank you Emily hey everyone I'm Daniel um I live on the North Shore of Kauai and I've been freelancing I think since 2015 or 2016. um I really work at the intersection of product and growth marketing I kind of do a bit of everything because that's the way I describe it um so managing projects ranging from market research and customer interviews through to messaging and positioning strategy and then the actual nuts and bolts of conversion optimization or growth strategy most of my clients are larger B2B or b2c Brands but I've worked with a fair number of startups and then also small businesses here on Kauai um I got into freelancing I was laid off I worked full-time at a number of startups when I lived in San Francisco I was laid out for my job I wanted to see if I could defer getting another full-time job and it turned out um that I could turn freelancing into career and I've done that for the last seven years or so and I've worked with right side up since 2018 it's really been a wonderful relationship so I'm really excited to be here and chat with you all wonderful thanks so much Daniel um Jacqueline let's go next to you hi um I'm Jacqueline I'm a freelance writer and consultant I started freelancing in 2015 on the side of my full-time job so lots of nights and weekends but it was a great and very safe space to do that and to kind of learn the ropes of freelancing and build my client roster and kind of you know um grow my network and learn everything I needed before I eventually transitioned full time in 2018 to Consulting I started working with right side up in 2020 which was very nice during all that Madness that came with that I work with both B2B and b2c Brands I've done everything from editorial work to more of content marketing you know blog posts for Brands they're trying to bring um expertise set to back themselves and bring the traffic to their website as well as copywriting so when you see like a little sentence anywhere on the page of a website the side of a bottle a pamphlet that could be me wonderful um thanks Jacqueline and Kaylee tell us about yourself hi everybody um I'm Kaylee I currently live in Dallas Texas um I am a graphic designer and currently design director at RSU um I've been working with RSU since 2021 last year um and I started freelancing in college so I've been doing this a while um on and off with in-house and freelance but I've mostly started that journey in college I went to Savannah College of Art design and I've been sort of rocking it since awesome love it we'll love that you all are bringing each of your own interesting perspectives and areas of expertise we've got Kaylee who is in-house with us now at right side up but have been um freelancing and Moonlighting before so I think you guys are going to bring a great um breadth of perspective here to our conversation so um with that said let's jump in so kind of the first question that we know a lot of folks have asked themselves is you should I freelance uh making that jump from that W-2 um full-time in-house role um or you know working at an agency and then moving to freelancing on their own can kind of be a big deal so I would love to kind of hear from you all um you know how do you make that decision about should I freelance and some of the things we can talk about here in the next couple minutes you know pros and cons of Consulting some of those challenges and then a question I'm sure a lot of people kind of ask how do I find my first client um so Daniel would love to start with you um some thoughts on you know how folks should decide whether freelancing is right for them sure uh I mean I feel like the Bold Quest question should I freelance like for me I stumbled into this and absolutely the answer is yes um but I think there's there's almost two pieces to help you think through that um there's kind of the like are you personally maybe like constitutionally and financially suited for freelancing and then also like are you set up for Success depending on where you are in your career so I'll kind of quickly go through I think about both those things um I really think freelancing like you do need to be comfortable with ambiguity and this can be ambiguity in terms of your own ability to direct your learning or manage your clients and definitely Financial ambiguity um where it's not the same thing as having a W-2 job so I think that's really important to just kind of sit with yourself and be honest about like is is this suited for my life and my career right now and I think also like freelancing on the side of your full-time job is a great way to like dip your toe in without making a full-time commitment there for whatever reason um one of those things doesn't fit with you um my personal experience I was incredibly lucky to start freelancing I would say like I don't want to say the middle of my career but I had worked at a couple of startup jobs where I both learned a lot and then also like developed a pretty robust Network that was integral to me to like finding work so I think if you are really early in your career freelancing can be a little difficult both in terms of having the necessary skill set to take on new projects um and also like having that Network to tap to go to find new projects you can overcome both of those things but I do feel like it's better suited to folks who maybe have some experience across those areas um I'll pause there Jacqueline any response to that I could kind of talk forever so I'll win I can chime in on challenges and first client and all the rest of that but sure well you kind of just nailed it on the head and this is something I always say when people reach out to me for advice about freelancing because my work is so public facing I often have a byline I hear from a lot of young people who want to do what I what I do which is great but they want to do it right now and I remember being 22 and knowing I wanted to freelance and thinking I should do it now do it now and looking back I'm glad I waited a few years because the experience you gain from a full-time job and the connections you gain from a full-time job are what make it possible to freelance I think we all think we know so much and then you get older and realize maybe you didn't quite know so much so I think taking a breath pausing learning how the kind of clients you want to freelance for work wall in-house gives you a very good perspective on how to service your clients how to behave in a professional environment which you might not know when you're young how to deliver you know a clean work product and then I think the other thing like you said is financial stability is huge which is also harder when you're younger and I think a big factor you have to look at before deciding do I make this sleep is can I afford to make this leave and but what I mean by that is you know do you have six months of savings where you don't have to worry about money while you try to build your business because if you wake every wake up every day and you're like how am I going to pay the bills you're not going to be able to focus on doing good work you're not going to make strategic decisions for your business and you're not going to be able to build your business in a sustainable way and so I think that was the best thing I did was I had a lot of savings so I was able to kind of put those worries aside for a few months while I built up that consistency so I think um taking your time is great and then I think also just knowing yourself is really important realistically like when you get work from home days do you work like do you get it done can you focus on your own um do you find admin work appealing you honestly spend a lot of time doing admin work or your own accountant you're your own marketing team you kind of are your own operations team so you have to think very critically about whether or not that's right for you and it's okay if it isn't like it's totally okay to be like no know I want to focus on the one thing I do you know really well and not focus on those other things so I think self-reflection is pretty important and just being very honest with yourself about where you are in your career and where you are financially that's great that's super helpful um Kaylee do you kind of agree with all of these comments from a design perspective yeah I definitely do um my experience is a little different than Jacqueline because I definitely did not have a plan um I definitely agree with a lot of the points that were made especially knowing yourself um I started in college and it did not did not have a whole ton of discipline um so I think the biggest takeaway for me when it comes to starting this journey is making sure that you have a plan and you are asking those important questions um before you actually get started in this because it could make a big difference maybe the timing isn't right right now or you know maybe we should look at doing this later um so yeah I think that is a really big uh big thing to to do before you jump into this that's great great Dan you would love to go back to you on this question of you know how do I find my first client yeah absolutely and I think that is 100 like having that Network um and not being afraid like this goes back to Jacqueline's Point around like wearing many hats like you do need to be a salesperson I like working with someone like RSU who can help you find those clients helps um but they may want to see that you've done work before that um so for me personally I think I sent a LinkedIn message to anyone I had a professional relationship with saying I'm starting marketing Consulting do you need work um then almost immediately um I'd interned for a startup in college and the director if that's um sorry for a non-profit in college they needed help that was not paid help to start but that was a way for me to immediately do work and build my portfolio and it actually ended up being a client through my entire freelancing career and a paying client so I would just say you have to put yourself out there um I don't want to say you need to like stretch the truth but you do need to be a salesperson to sell yourself right so like sometimes that means like merchandising your work to the very best of your ability so for me personally I had only worked in-house um but I built a website and basically like presented my full-time jobs as clients and the work I had done so it's just like a nice version of my resume I'd done all of those projects um not as a freelance works like that worked for me very well um and you really just have to put yourself out there and also um to Jaclyn's Point around like kind of financial stability um like the income I earned in my first six months in a year of Consulting was very different from like year two and year three and you just have to be ready that like those first clients may not be the perfect ones but you just need to like get the ball rolling um and it's absolutely your network I hunger but um my belly is rumbling and hunger we have somebody who maybe has a a kid or is watching a show on the uh on their other screen both of which have happened to me um Jacqueline any other thoughts there on on finding your first client sure I mean there's so many different ways to go about it and I don't think there is a wrong way I think diversity is kind of key here and Daniel's totally right putting yourself out there is huge so when I first started freelancing I had emailed some contacts like privately and let them know and that led to work but I was kind of afraid to like really put it out there that I'd left my job and I was freelancing because I was like well what if I fail and go back and I've just put this on LinkedIn so I waited like six months and when I finally did put it up there within five minutes I had a new client in my inbox he was like I didn't know you left XYZ company I want to hire you I went on to work with them for years so I think you have to not be shy which is a hard adjustment to make if you don't come from like that sales or self-promotion like background um and then I think kind of just really paying attention to the industries you want to be in is huge like I think my first couple of clients actually came off Instagram I followed the brands I liked and when they posted they were hiring freelance writers I like left in and you know put myself out there and because I knew the brand so well it was very organic um but I've landed clients all all kinds of ways like one time I went to an event there was a founder of a local company I really wanted to work for and she was speaking and then after it ended um I sent her an email pretended I didn't have a chance to ask a question at the event and put fashion copywriter in my signature even though I do all kinds of businesses but Fashion's one of them and within a few hours I had a new client because she happened to need a fashion copywriter so you have to get a little creative sometimes you can go through like the total application system people put up there looking for Freelancers you can do cold reach outs and then of course working with someone like right side up makes it very very easy but like Daniel said you do have to have a portfolio first so small businesses can be great like I went and worked for my local newspaper after college and things like that and I mean local isn't like small very small like nothing exciting that anyone would have heard of but again you just have to kind of build your portfolio and get things going and Daniel's also writing that you can use your full-time job work in your portfolio that's work you've done and it you know if it looks really polished and great like include it great great and a lot of these tips too I would think you know are beneficial to for folks who are kind of looking to even Moonlight to get started to kind of how are they finding their first client as a moonlighter on the side um of their full-time job as a kind of experience for the first time what having their own client looks like as opposed to to working in-house or agency um I think these are great tips for folks who are kind of looking to Moonlight as well um last question here um on this topic just kind of you know as you think back across the last few years of freelancing you know what is just what are some of the aspects of freelancing um that you you really love and enjoy yeah I think this is the easy one like you get to Be Your Own Boss and I think that's like a we say that a lot in our society but like the at least for me personally that has been the most uh amazing thing and it's totally changed my relationship with my work where um I can work hard on what I want to work on and when I want to do it and that's um incredible as opposed to having to work to escape set schedule or like in a certain framework or organization that may not work for you it's like getting to do that is unbelievably freeing it's the best thing that ever happened to me uh career-wise so I think that's um that's incredible and just getting to be self-directed in terms of the projects you want to take and what you want to learn and grow is is really neat as well um and yeah you do need to take projects like there are definitely projects I worked on that I wasn't thrilled about because I needed the money or that was a good client um but you really do get to think about like what do I want to learn what do I want to do and how do I want to specialize and own that yourself um and personally I also really enjoy kind of the multi-faceted nature of Consulting I think that's not for everyone where some folks right like learning how to do your own taxes we'll talk about that like I I like to learn and do a bunch of things like that it keeps me stimulated and I think that's another part of Consulting that's amazing it's just like you always will be doing new things and and that's really uh engaging for me personally great sure I you know I think for me um I don't really take advantage of the flexible schedule I'm very like a nine to five gal but um for me the big thing is I feel like I get a lot more sense of control and I know the big thing everyone always says about freelancing is like put the stability the stability but for me not having all my eggs in one basket has like drastically lowered my stress and anxiety about like how I perform at work um and I like the control I get over choosing who I work with I now only work with really lovely people who I look forward to working with every day I choose the projects I work on and then I also have a lot of control over the trajectory of my career at past jobs I found you know you're waiting for the promotion you're asking can I move to this department can I please take on this style of project whereas I can kind of control what I charge what I work on if I want to build a new skill set I can either like Daniel did you know work for free while you build up that portfolio or I can um offer a low rate until I build it or I can just convince someone to take a chance on me maybe one of my current clients and I can kind of build up new strengths or I can join a new industry and so for me the flexibility you get with freelancing makes me feel a lot more stable and a lot more in control and I just enjoy the personal and professional growth I've experienced through it wonderful Kaylee anything else to add there yeah I think I definitely agree with uh both of them on the flexibility aspect of freelancing it's definitely a major big benefit especially if you are the type like me I love to travel and work at the same time so it's nice to be able to do things on your own time as you are your own boss but I think from a creative and design perspective I think the biggest thing for me freelancing is being able to work with different companies and Brands um it not only is a great way to like increase your skill set but just to tap into different brands and identities and different Creative Solutions is for for creative and a designer it's kind of like a Haven not being stuck on this one thing so it's been the funnest part for me I love it wonderful well let's move on to our next question um you know this is something that I get asked a ton um when I'm talking to folks who are thinking about freelancing for the first time you know these benefits and Logistics questions so how do I get health insurance um do I need help filing my taxes and how do I make that happen um you know how do I figure out how much to charge some of these really concrete questions that folks are wondering so would love to to hear your thoughts um as you all have have grappled with these things um and so Kaylee would love to uh to start with you to jump in you can you pick your poison on on any of those which one you'd like to kick off with okay cool I'll start with number one um health insurance obviously I think the most common would be open enrollment um in your state Marketplace um my journey is a little interesting though because like I mentioned before I freelanced and did in-house work and sometimes at the same time um so I've worked with a lot of different agencies before and some of them have tree treated me as that W-2 sort of employee so I've been lucky enough to um be able to have that benefit if I'm working a certain amount of hours through the week in the past um so that I would be eligible to have health insurance through that particular agency um so I've been lucky enough to fall back on that but in the times that that didn't work out that way I definitely utilized open enroll or the marketplace during open enrollment I do know that if you're outside of that open enrollment time that you can get short-term Insurance I've not had to use that or done that route myself but I know it's available so I would definitely advise to do some research if you fall into that um category um but yeah and I think that's about it no that's great that's super helpful um Daniel more thoughts here on kind of these logistical pieces yeah um I think Kelly covered it pretty well I think the other thing with health insurance is like there can be some sticker shock if you've always had a W-2 job where it's kind of hidden and uh your your employer is able to negotiate a great rate it's not necessarily like that for an individual so I think that's just something to be prepared for in terms of um the quality of the plan whatever your premium is if you have dependents like just things to think about as your freelancing and maybe to research and to bake into um just your planning um I can talk about taxes I would say it's really not something to be afraid of it's really simple to do um to like you do need to do like have some simple accounting software and track um track basically your income and make quarterly tax payments all this can be like researched and figured out pretty simply um I think and you could basically do this without having to set up like a separate legal entity or anything like that it's super lightweight especially if you're doing this um Moonlighting with your current job it's really simple um what I will say is that as you go further down the freelancing career and you're you're having more freelance income you do want to talk to a tax professional and figure out like there are certain structures that can make it more advantageous for you as terms of a freelance employees like I'm not a tax professional I won't go into that but it's something to think about um as you're like a couple of years down that road um and figure out how much to charge um I think this is a delicate one like you need to to um you need to earn get clients at the beginning and sometimes that means a rate that isn't great um or maybe what you'd like to have um but what I really tried to do and what um I found is important is not to negotiate too much on rate once you feel established um like you want to find the clients who value you and you can kind of see who values you based on if they're trying to nickel and dive you based on your hourly rate or not so think about um maybe the takeaway is like it's less about the absolute number you're charging and it's more about like the relationship around price and how your clients react to that and that's just something you have to learn like I've made mistakes or along the way um but just to think about the signals you're getting when someone is saying they're they're trying to negotiate with you on raid and that sort of thing that's a whole can of worms but I would just think about it less as a dollar value and more about um the context is really important yeah that's super helpful yeah I I agree with that um I think in the beginning this the finding figuring out your rate can be pretty tricky um I think what was beneficial for me in the beginning was doing a lot of research I don't think that a lot of tools and research resources were available online when I was starting out or at least that were I guess free but I ended up buying a book that was specifically for Creative careers that was really helpful in creating a um well giving you a formula and how to calculate your rate for certain industries um certain skill levels so I definitely if you have a hard time especially in the beginning figuring out where you should start or at least some kind of Benchmark I definitely advised taking advantage of some of those resources that might be available online or some materials that you can find in some books because that was really helpful in the beginning for me I had no idea what I was doing um so that was really helpful and just starting and of course evaluating that as you are advancing your career in developing advancing your skills and learning different softwares and stuff but I definitely agree with Daniel's Point once you do get to a certain point the negotiations and you should be really really comfortable and and I wouldn't say set in stone but um that's something that you want to try and avoid as as much when you have gotten to a certain point in your freelance career so that's super helpful um just to let you all know we will be sending out um as a follow-up to this webinar on both our slideshow and a list of resources um so Kaylee we'll get that name of that book from you um and we've got some other resources we're going to be sending along um right side up in particular we partner with a platform called catch which is a really great place to find some of these benefits and pieces um it is open enrollment time right now if you are a right side up contractor um and uh that would just be a great place to kind of to start off and begin there's also other resources on our web website around um how do I set up an LLC and um more details on taxes and so those are all pieces um that we can we can share I'm wondering from you all um you know is there a point where you feel like you kind of get all these ducks in a row and you can relax um is there is it more of a boy I'm kind of always just figuring it out and I gotta live with a little bit of ambiguity um and maybe it's different for each of you but just wondering um have you reached some spots where you feel like yep I've got all of these pieces figured out or are you kind of living in that of that in that ambiguity a little bit no it does it does fall into place eventually it doesn't feel that way and maybe it even takes like you know a second year of signing up for health insurance to feel like you figured out but it it does work out in the end once I mean things can be so overwhelming for example the big thing you hear is I'm oh but like what about retirement matches and things like that and so it can be super overwhelming to set up you know an sap I earn scp-41k but once it's set up it's set up you're making contributions and it all goes fine and I think it's one thing I want to like touch on about benefits is keep them in mind when deciding what to charge what you need to charge depends heavily on what your health insurance is costing what your retirement goals are um and I don't think you should let your benefits necessarily hold you back because you will get them in order you will get them in place and they're very very valuable but you can charge for that but they're also not as valuable as they seem sometimes so for example retirement match a big one but I came from the retirement industry and the well every company is different the standard match from an employer is up to half of six percent of your salary so if you're making a hundred thousand dollars which is a great salary if you can afford to contribute six thousand a year you're getting three thousand dollars from your employer great take advantage but is that a make or break amount to choose between you know your your goals of freelancing if you're making fifty thousand dollars that's only fifteen hundred dollars a year so I think sitting sound down and I'm researching well how much is health insurance gonna cost me it didn't cost me that much I was young um I had no children and I was in good health so I didn't need you know a lot of prescriptions or appointments or anything um so I think sitting down doing the math and just getting everything in order as quickly as possible will make it easy for you to like just focus on the work that matters and to feel confident about what you're charging great great wonderful that's all super helpful and as we mentioned we're going to send out some more resources um that you all can take a look at um in a follow-up all right wonderful so our third section is kind of um the the yin and yang of both pitfalls on the one side and kind of best practices on the other so we'd love to hear you know what is a top piece of advice you might give um you know tips for client engagement you know kicking off and then really nurturing the relationship with your client and then you know how do I make my resume stand out so um would love Jacqueline to uh to kick this off with you sure um I think my best piece of advice for anyone who wants to pursue freelancing or Consulting running your own business whatever you want to call it is to um is to not get so hung up on the fact that it's your own business so if you're in the Facebook communities on Instagram these places where there's a lot of um freelancer solopreneurs whatever you want to call them um there's a very popular mindset of it this is your business you call the shots and it can really feel that way when you leave a full-time job you feel very empowered and you are calling the shots but you have to remember that you are offering a service a product and you are servicing clients and customers and you need to be flexible and provide them with what they need so for example a big complaint I hear is um this isn't a problem with right side up they have a super easy invoicing system but when you work with a variety of clients they all have their own invoicing system some will go with yours sure send me your preferred invoice great but you'll see a lot of um Freelancers saying they have to do it your way that would be lovely that would be great that would be super convenient and Speedy for me but I work with a lot of like Fortune 100 Fortune 500 companies with big standardized processes of how they onboard vendors how they pay vendors if I walked into a Fortune 500 company and said you do it my way I think I'd be gone like so I think you have to remember that as much as it is your business and you you're in sales you're in client services and you have to provide um a good service and be flexible and accommodating or else um you'll find it very hard to find those magical clients that will do everything your way yeah that's great Kaylee top advice from you yeah I actually agree with that um a lot I think my biggest my biggest pieces of advice would be communication and organization um especially when you're working on multiple clients especially in the creative world kind of crazy pretty fast um and I agree with being flexible in adapting to um you know other people's processes for sure but you'll also come across clients that don't have that at all so being prepared to uh kind of have that process yourself in place is helpful too so that you're kind of ready to go um whenever you need to but over communication and staying organized especially when it comes to kicking off with a client um I have a very specific process that I adhere to to make sure that I'm taking notes and organized just to fall back on some of that miscommunication those breakdowns especially in the beginning of a relationship and it just makes a really good impression when you are just really aware and organized with all of your note-taking sometimes client communication can be challenging so getting all the information that you need up front um and making sure that you are organizing that properly is really really helpful that's great Keeley are there tools platforms you know apps in particular that you like for the communication or organization honestly I think I've used every single platform there is out there just working with different clients and everybody else having their own different processes but for me personally I'm fine with Google Docs as long as I personally have a really good organization and can link back to stuff um I I love to do that um and I'm happy to adapt to whatever communication the client um is you know prefers the most um but I'm pretty simple and straightforward over here um there's so much out there um that people use these days and they're really they all do the same thing so I feel like whatever one you like the best just stick with it um and yeah I think you'll you'll be surprised with how far that'll take you that's great that's great Daniel any uh top advice from you um yeah a huge plus one not just being flexible right you are Your Own Boss um but you won't have many clients if you can't uh be someone adaptable to what the client needs right so are they using slack or Microsoft teams or do they like to call you like kind of these sorts of things like you do just have to kind of lean into working with whatever's going on for them um or if you do that and it's not working for you maybe they're not the right client like that's always something happening um for me Beyond 100 on staying organized I think just over communicating with clients and kind of showing up is really important like um they are kind of like taking a risk on you in some sense like here's this freelancer I've seen it like he or she has done really good work but I've never worked with that before so like um like my camera's always on in meetings I'm always like obviously paying attention I take notes and send follow-ups like really just showing both because it's it helps you do better work and just showing that you're very engaged I feel like goes a long way in terms of um at least when you're starting a relationship to get folks to like build that trust with you because you are kind of an unknown quantity to a certain degree when you work as a freelancer that's great well and here here's a question I'll throw at you all out of left field because we didn't talk about this one ahead of time um but you know uh the flip side of this is kind of best practices around ending and engagement you know if something isn't going well um wondering if you all have um thoughts you can also say Emily you didn't ask us this ahead of time so we'll get back to you but um wondering if you just have thoughts about you know are there situations where you just have to you know say okay I've got two more months on this contract I'm gonna finish it out even though this isn't a great situation or are there other situations where you you really have said like this I I'm gonna end this contract early and kind of how to do that in an in a graceful way um I can go if not no one else says anything yeah I'm kind of touching on it a little bit Daniel in your last Point yeah um I feel I'll be totally honest I think the first thing is like um always unless there's something really dramatic happening I think it's really important to fulfill your obligation to the client so if you said like I will deliver this project or I will be this resource for this length of time like really trying to deliver on that obligation unless there's something like dramatically wrong um I honestly think this is a really hard part of freelancing um like if I've had a client where just like their work style was not compatible with my work style um and I think it's yeah if you're a full-time employee there's like structured feedback channels for you to like tell your manager like kind of deliver that kind of feedback I personally don't really feel like that's super value this is just my take on this um I don't know if that's really valuable as a freelancer to like deliver that feedback um honestly like a lot of times uh I help my wife she's an interior designer I like in the operation side of her business a lot of times I just say like I need to scale up that work and we need to I can't continue working with you like use something like that that lets them feel good about the end of the project I delivered the work and we move on as much as I'd love to like deliver feedback on how hard working relationship wasn't working I don't really feel that's very valuable that is just my take on things fun way to offload clients too is if if you think you could take it um up your rate drastically and see if they go for it and most likely they'll let you go just double your rate and then if it works out I guess yeah totally great great um what's some thoughts around this question of how to make my resume stand out um and I think the second piece of that too is you know um do you all recommend that folks create their own you know their own personal website where they where folks can find them and their portfolios and Jacqueline would love to hear your thoughts on that absolutely I mean some people have more visual work which is really fun my work isn't super visual but what a website allows me to do is um you know link to samples of my writing sometimes I do take screenshots if it's something like a product description that's going to go away um which is great for me it's helped me stay not just like have something to show my clients but it's helped me I think navigate working in multiple Industries so it's my website's horribly outdated because I don't have time to update it which is a good thing but I have Pages where it's like samples of financial writing samples of B2B work b2c work fashion writing different kind of industry so I can quickly just shoot off like here's all my samples in one place which I think is really valuable because um the sales process is something that's it's hard it's time consuming and you don't get paid for it it can pay off but um every time you don't land a client it's like oh shoot I spent all this time on this and so I think um the faster and easier you can make it for yourself the better and it just gives clients yeah they need an example right like Daniel said they don't necessarily trust you they are taking a risk on you it's not like applying for traditional job they kind of need to see the proof right in front of them um so I think it's really valuable to have a website yeah the the proof is is very important in fact if I don't have the proof I don't have the job for me um because I I need to display creatively what what I can do um so coming even coming out of school that was taught to specifically like you need to make sure you have your portfolio and not only have a portfolio but have it filled with projects that you really enjoyed working on or that you can really speak to the ups and the challenges of it because I think that makes for a really good conversation and what you can offer and your value um to said client so I think that's really important but as a creative I think specifically with the resume I think that is a great opportunity to showcase some of your skill set right there it doesn't have to be over the top doesn't have to be super complicated or like too much but from a visual standpoint I think for Creative specifically I think that's a great way to make your resume Stand Out by just putting a little extra emphasis there that's great that's super helpful um Daniel from kind of a digital perspective what do you think makes a resume stand out um whether it's on LinkedIn or anywhere else as folks who might be considering you for a freelancing project yeah that's a good question and I feel like it is a little um or you can't be as direct as you can as a creative but I feel like in the end like we are all marketers and like your website is just a chance for you to like kind of showcase your whether it's like for me like even if I do growth marketing writing is important so showcase my skills as a writer I think from a digital perspective um figuring out a way to like generically talk about the campaigns you've run without being clearly you can't go into specifics um and then also testimonials and maybe you can get a testimonial from like a former manager or even a peer um but I think that goes a long way to saying like um you know like this person can like own something end to end and deliver results that I count on so I think the testimonials at least for me went a long way in terms of generating trust when I was starting out freelancing that's great fabulous okay wonderful well did the three of you have any kind of other additional thoughts that we haven't covered before we jump into our q a I don't think so and a lot of I think we've hit a lot of points which is great okay fabulous well let's jump into q a we've got a number of um a number of great questions but if other things are popping up um please feel free to um just throw them in the Q a and and and we will we'll jump in um okay so I've got a question here um from a freelance um growth paid media perspective what's the typical or average churn rate with a client for example how long does the client keep you on and that you noticed sorry Jacqueline were you going to say something well I was gonna say I don't really do paid media all that I mean I do copy for paid media sometimes um but I was gonna say I don't think you can really put a time frame on that I've had some clients for like eight years now and I've had some where it's a three-month project boom done I think the more you can nail that the expectations down up front is really helpful but they'll all say that to be honest they'll all say we're looking for a long time partner a long time whatever but budgets change projects come to an end maybe something's not a fit whatever can happen honestly budgets are changing constantly that's going to be like the bane of your existence but I think um trying to suss out in advance like what their needs are and you can tell if it's a one-time project like you can't guarantee that they're going to come back to you with another one but for example like I've had clients who need a Weekly Newsletter it's like well that's most likely going to go on for every week and so I think that's why um the sales calls are important not just for trying to sell them on you but you need to learn what they're looking for and see what works for you and I know some Freelancers love not doing long projects they like to um mix it up all the time they like to jump from Project to project some prefer longevity so just being you know knowing what you need and trying to set out what they're actually looking for is really helpful that's great yeah I I would totally agree that I think it is a lot more client driven than necessarily like growth versus creative driven um though I can only speak to doing like the growth and product marketing side of things um I would also just encourage you to think about like you're almost like building relationships like I've had I've done a short engagement for a client and they've changed roles and then they've brought me on at their new Organization for like multiple years in a row so sometimes like things come back around that way but it is really difficult to predict um Beyond when you're working on a project basis and you say like I'm committing to the next three months or to deliver this project in six weeks or that sort of thing like um it is fairly variable um I think in general clients do like yeah sometimes they just need someone to do something for them and that's it but like they are spending time and energy to search for a freelancer and and like find someone to do work and to onboard folks on their systems and all that sort of stuff so like generally they do want to find someone for a longer rather than a shorter time Horizon I would say but it is tough to predict and they might come back to you too is the other thing just because the project I have some clients where it is more sporadic twice a year but you know it'll be that way for a couple years in a row and so I think always maintaining those good relationships don't write someone off just because they only want a three-month project like treat everyone with respect and like they are going to be a long-term client that's great yeah you know right side up in terms of projects with us you know we usually tell folks most of our projects land in that four to eight months um contract duration we tend to be a little bit longer term partners and we do see shorter term projects um those are usually more on the creative space so usually they're working with Kaylee and Alexander to you know put together you know just a suite of advertisements you know for a particular campaign something that's a shorter term project um and then we may place like you know someone for a much longer term if they're really an extension of that client's marketing team um in a very integral way but kind of four to eight months tends to be um kind of a follow-up question on invoicing um Andy's wondering um oh no I'm sorry where am I where am I here uh if we are um are there particular tools or platforms that you've used if someone doesn't have an invoicing tool is there something that you personally use to keep track of that I use Google Docs um I I don't know how effective I know there's a lot of tools you can pay for where like it sends it to the client and it follows up with them and stuff but again people aren't often too keen on following complicated processes they didn't set so logging into your system and yada yada I usually just send Google doc PDF it send it their way and then they can deal with it however they want again unless they request a certain you know log into this platform and do this which is always a bummer but it's just something you have to kind of account for and that's another good thing to Circle back to on setting your rates is you do need to leave a little buffer for things like that so for example if you want to charge a hundred dollars an hour you can even remind the client sometimes like well this includes admin work this includes things like um your health care because what can happen is if you do three hours of work you Bill 300 they don't probably want you billing for the time you spend sending your invoice through their complicated system so I think sometimes adding some buffer in your rate will help you get over the frustrations of like oh you dealt with their HR person or things like that I um also do PDF invoicing just to be more flexible in how they choose to get back to you but I do include a link for Squarespace which is what I use for invoicing payments um so there's a bit convenience there but I like to kind of just make it simple and easy by passing along the the PDF to them and I use a platform called Harvest which is like a Time tracking software press invoice thanks to some of my clients like I just track what I'm working on which is helpful for me and then helpful for clients who you work on an hourly rate to say oh this is what I did this week um back to communication also like a weekly email saying this is everything I worked on you know what's going on um Harvest also generates a PDF invoice generally um to Jacqueline's Point like the client has their own system the invoice is more just so they know that they need to pay you you have to log in or figure out what's going on in their end um I really like Harvest just because it reminds me um has an invoice been paid or not so a lot of times you have to follow up with folks you can make sure you get paid and then it'll let me see like how much I got paid every month it's really lightweight and simple and it costs like it's like five dollars a month or something so that's a tool it's been really helpful for me but it's just a PDF at the end of the day great great yeah so at right side up you know internally we um we use a browser extension for our Consultants who you know then that's um we use clockify that gets sent to us and then um if you're working with right side up we are you know handling the invoicing we're handling all of that um admin paperwork side of things and and so uh so kind of following up there another question you know if it's contracted work with right side up you know we're handling contracts we're handling those pieces um if you're freelancing on your own um we've got a question here you know does the freelancer typically provide the contract with the client or does the contract come from the client you know what has been your experience there is a is it a little bit of both or depending on company size I would imagine yeah I would definitely say it depends on the client um I like I said I think it's a good practice to kind of always have your own thing in the background ready to go so I do have a contracted template that I can sort of customize depending on the relationship and the scope of the project with the client um but for the most part yeah that's that's pretty much how would I do yeah right side up definitely makes all that super easy you really don't have to worry about anything honestly aside from doing your work which is a nice change of pace um you're totally right big companies almost always send over their own contracts and have very complex onboarding systems small companies and smaller Brands they sometimes will send a contract not normally so it's best to send one over I know it's super super scary to create a contract but there's a ton of templates online and it's more so about having it in writing and having their signature so I think the important thing is to not just email them that contract with your signature but like make sure you get their signature and they send it back to you um because it just if a payment issue ever does arise I haven't had that happen but I feel like um it'll just give you a little bit more protection and it also gives you a final chance to lay everything out in writing so in the contract you can put your rates the deliverables the timeline I don't get too complicated but I know some writers have like late payment fees or if you go past XYZ timeline because you know you're dragging your feet on your end I get XYZ more amount of money and I don't do all that because it just sounds like a lot of negotiation back and forth to arrange all that but if that's something you're interested in a contract can help you kind of just one final glance over all those details yeah same thing for me I think I looked up like freelance statement of work template online um and kind of modified it but I totally agree with the points around um it's more just a chance for you to put the most important parts of your relationship on paper and get a signature to it so right the rate what you're agreeing to deliver when you're agreeing to deliver it I also have some scary language around like if you don't pay Daniel doubles his rate and something happens I've never had to use that the point is more just to remind folks they need to pay you um it's really pretty straightforward but I totally agree just around like where you communicate um like what success is for the engagement both in terms of what you're going to deliver and what you're going to get paid and then everyone's on the same page there great great um another technical question and we covered this a little bit already but um you know when you set up your freelance business do you recommend immediately setting up an LLC or is it not necessary I think Daniel you were saying not necessary to write off the bat but going forward I'm sure there's pros and cons either way and again we do have um I think we have a webinar um that we've done previously on this very specific topic and we can we can share that but kind of initial thoughts on setting up an LLC right away or waiting um well I don't have one all these years later my accountant always advised me not to um I think it kind of something to keep in mind is it depends on what state you live in so I think in California where I live it's like 800 a year to keep re-registering it so I think when he looked at like the potential tax benefits he didn't feel like it was going to outweigh for me the cost of the LLC so I think when it comes to LLC it can help to consult a local professional who kind of maybe especially one that understands your business and understands like the laws and rules where you live um but yeah I've done just fine without it so yeah I agree same here um I am not a LLC and I don't think that it's necessary but again um I definitely advise speaking to a professional for any advice or suggestions there because everybody has uh different needs so yeah I 100 on talking to a professional in your state because and that's what's going to determine I think there is like some certain threshold where it is probably financially makes sense to have an LLC um I would say what you don't need to be scared of um I think when I first started out I was like oh if I'm doing business under as myself a client could sue me and in theory all my personal assets are something they could take um I think the chance of that happening um given the nature of like the business we're on is is incredibly incredibly low and that's not something I would be too stressed about um I didn't have an LLC for a number of years and that was totally fine um something to think about um I I think that's it I think to get started you have it's absolutely not something that you need um we've got another question here um I've been freelancing for over three years now and I find it difficult to be up on the latest marketing Trends social media algorithms Etc how do you stay up to date any Publications you subscribe to blogs Etc well I think that's actually kind of the good thing about freelancing so I came from a marketing background so I know what you're talking about like it's really really hard to keep up with all the social and you know SEO algorithm changes um so that's one of the good things about working with different clients is a lot of times you can kind of keep up on things by working with them and learning with things so when I work with really big companies for example they often have massive SEO teams and then I learned from that SEO team and then I'm able to go offer SEO consulting services to other brands and so I think that's huge is like is really taking opportunity the fact that you are working in with different clients of different sizes with different tools resources and philosophies and backgrounds and learning from them um and then also just like staying abreast on like LinkedIn is great I know it's like not the most exciting platform but if you follow the right people and are in the right circles you can learn a lot about what's going on in your industry and so um I think that's super important podcasts are also a really easy way to squeeze in that information there's tons of like business podcasts and marketing podcasts that can quickly help you stay up to date like while you're on the treadmill or driving or whatever great I would definitely agree on like I let kind of my clients drive a lot of that learning in terms of like what do they need me to learn um or like absolutely taking skills from one client and transfer them to another client or like a philosophy of communication or measuring things or reading out on results anything like that um what I do think is important to try to find a resource to ask a question because I think as a consultant if you're coming as an expert um there will absolutely be times you don't know how to do something but you just don't necessarily want the client to know that so whether that's like your own network there's some wonderful like slack groups there's one called measure but I'm sure there's a whole bunch of them and I'm sure there's ones for every type of specialty just to folks who have a lot of expertise where you can ask questions like that so it's kind of like stack Overflow for programming like I would encourage you to find something like that to where um if you have a question or can't figure out you have a back channel to figuring it out that doesn't require you telling your client like I don't know I don't know the answer to this which will happen sometimes but um that's kind of My Philosophy well if you're a right side up consultant you actually can right because we have a slack Channel full of well all of us are in there and you can't ask questions and stuff so that's a great place um to find colleagues doing similar work yeah absolutely I was going to say Jacqueline we um we do have a slack community at right side up once you've been on boarded to a project um that you're invited to and it's absolutely a great place to look for Best Practices have you ever tried this tool or platform what are you reading um that could be a great place as well so yeah great um awesome okay well we've got one last question here um someone's asked thinking about upskilling because um certain areas of marketers can be low in demand when everyone is tightening their wallets um do you see areas in freelancing that are growing quickly during these economic conditions um you know I will answer that to kind of to start off from the recruiting side you know I would say kind of the the technical analytical um piece of marketing is certainly an area where we're continuing to see projects in an area where we're seeing grow even in this time of folks tightening their wallets you know if we are you know spending money on Facebook we want to make sure those dollars are going as far as they can go we don't want to be spending putting money in the wrong place um so those analytical roles you know we're seeing companies really looking for folks with great attribution experience um SQL experience some of these really technical tools to really help companies make really really wise business decisions um that's an area that I would say we're really seeing um companies looking for help um in this time um so there's loads of you know certifications in in classes and and those kinds of things that can be taken to kind of up level skills in those areas um that's the first thing that comes to mind for me uh any additional thoughts from from you all I think it's important to focus on industry too not just your specific role because I think there will always be a place for you but some Industries struggle more than others so for example when the coveted pandemic like hit overnight everything closed down I had a high fashion client that was really struggling because no one was buying their you know thousand dollar tops to wear at home but at the same time so that was like a huge bummer they started to slow down but at the same time all of my finance clients went crazy needed tons of content immediately because they were quickly adapting to what was going on around them in their audience needed Financial advice because there was all this you know concern about what was going on people's jobs and money so anything I lost from one industry almost doubled in another industry um I got a ton of work in real estate during that time for example whereas I wouldn't be surprised if my real estate clients scale back now that you know interest rates are rising and things like that so I think um keeping an eye on what's going around in the world around you and focusing on the industries that are thriving now and there will be companies that thrive even during a recession and there'll be certain types that don't um just paying close attention to that yeah plus one for that for sure we definitely saw a big difference um in across different Industries um regards to pulling back and really ramping up in certain industries like delivery platforms and Tech like you mentioned so definitely is a good idea to keep an eye out on what's going on in the world and that's why diversity is key too and that again I said this earlier the the key to I think being happy with freelancing is not having all your eggs in one basket so as tempting as it is to Niche down and there can be a lot of value and that I think trying to keep your foot in a few different Industries maybe um offer a few different Services can help you with things um if things go crazy for example if you're really into Tick Tock and you're the best Tick Tock Video Creator that's great right now but like if that app goes away it's great if you also know Pinterest and Instagram and so I think just always kind of keeping an open mind and being open to learning and trying different things helps yeah I totally agree with that like I think um especially if you have a relationship with a client a lot of times they want to continue working with you so maybe they're like facing down their growth spending and they're going to invest in email and they might ask like Daniel do you know how to do email marketing and like you're um ability to do that or degree of comfort and saying yes and like learning as you go to some degree I think is incredibly important um just like keeping your business going through all this uncertainty cool well this has bee