Freelance Heroes

Thank you very much!! 

And I should quote Bruce Graham on this important concept:

Treat clients like business partners.

@Daniel, thanks for the links, it's really good to find the offers right here, in the "freelance corner" of e-Learning Heroes.

Hey, I'm getting smarter about contracting (thanks to you all), but am thinking about putting together a list of things that new freelancers often forget to budget for when submitting a bid or statement of work. For instance,

• 2.5 hrs formatting the voiceover script (underlining points to stress, indicating how things should be pronounced, etc.)

Forgot that one recently, which surprised me. Anybody else think of items that are easy to miss when submitting bids?

Make sure that, if required, you get your currency conversion rates the correct way around 

Bruce

Very quickly off the top of my head:

• When/how much time the client and the SME should expect to contribute to the development of the module. 
• Always add a +/- contingency for unforeseen snafus (minimum or 10%)
• Creating any development notes for handover of source files

I also recently had a few requests post-completion for screenshots, demo videos for digital media (to run as advertising on a website for the courses) and sample CDs to give buyers a mini-version before they purchased courses.

As I never anticipated these requests I quoted on an hourly rate but next time I will offer these upfront and build them into costs.

• I usually spend more time than budgeted in reading and really understanding the raw content given by client. Sometimes it's a set of legal corporative texts that are really difficult to assimilate and make understandable and the SME is unreachable.

I'll add one:  when the client says they'll provide images, clarify exactly what they'll be providing, and when.  I recently had a client who wanted me to use their picture of their equipment (yep, totally makes sense) and then gave me access to over 700 pictures to choose from, not organized in any recognizable way, some of them obviously taken on a smartphone at really low res.  It took FOREVER to go through them and select the ones to use!

I've been doing Instructional Design for the last few years and love what I do. The deal is, I was hired in for this position and now my partner and I would like to take this a big step further freelancing together offering complete end-to-end redesigns, from-scratch training, and "beefing" up of companies' current training curriculum. We've been brainstorming this idea for a while and I was urged to join this forum and "just ask" about it. We'd like to get started but ... honestly don't know where to even begin. We have ideas that we feel will set us apart from the majority of the freelance ocean. I've been through as much of this thread as I can at the moment but there is just sooooo much information. Can anyone shoot me a run down of starting this up? I'd be forever appreciative!

Hi Brett -

It's mostly irrelevant what we think, the important indicator is your market/customers.

Take a leaf out of the start-up world, and follow Steve Blank's advice around customer development: "get out of the building" (meaning, test your hypothesis with live customers). http://steveblank.com/.

I find Cindy Alvarez has some good posts on how to do that: http://www.cindyalvarez.com/learning/faq-customer-development-for-product-managers.

The bottom line, is that it isn't about instructional design, or who has the killer widget, it's about starting a business. Anticipate lots of hard work is all I can say.

Good luck and I encourage you to read the thread, there's lots of good stuff there from many perspectives.

Hope that helps,

Holly

Hi everyone,

I need to buy a new microphone for voiceovers. Has anyone got any advice or suggestions about what spec to go for? There's a lot of choice out there and wide variation in prices. I'm happy to pay for benefits that are real but don't want to over-specify for quality that won't be noticed in e-learning courses.

Thanks in advance!

Ann

Hi Ann,

I've really enjoyed using my Blue Microphones Snowball USB Microphone. I used it to record audio for a course that I did on Identity Theft. You can listen to it here (second example down).

Best of luck!

Tim

I second this recommendation!

Hi Ann,

There are a couple of good threads out there - here, and here

Bruce

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

Hi Brett - There are all kinds of things to consider when making the transition from employee to running your own freelance business but I think it all boils down to how you are going to structure and manage your business and on getting your first client.

So IMHO I think you need to put together a Business Plan  which will help you access if your business makes financial and operating sense.  A basic plan should include a profile of your company (who you are and what you do), a profile of your target market, a sales and marketing plan, and operating plan (what equipment, software etc. are you going to need to run your business), a resources plan to identify the people you need to deliver your services ( are you going to need a bookkeeper, graphic designer etc.) and a financial plan. 

I also think that because you are doing this with a partner you need to put in place a partnership agreement to avoid potential conflicts down the road.  People start businesses for different reasons and have different expectations so you want to make sure you and your partner are on the same page. The agreement should include things like banking arrangements, capital contributions and financing, how profits  will be distributed, rules on ownership draws, management structure and dissolution agreements etc. 

Landing your first client can be a challenge. It may involve using your network to get a foot in the door, cold calling (or using an agency to do this for you), responding to job boards etc., but whatever method you use you need to make sure that you make a good impression on initial contact and in any follow up meetings.  At a minimum you should put together a strong portfolio. If you don't have material for a portfolio then create some quality examples that showcase what you can and want to do for your clients. I also recommend putting together a capabilities presentation and prepare a good story for why you are unique and why the client should hire you over the 50 million other vendors out there.

@Brett

+1 for everything Nancy just said.

I would seriously consider setting-up and getting started BEFORE you chuck in any fulltime job you may have. You need to have quite a large pipeline in place, which takes time to build, before you commit to this.

Saying that - I wish you a lot of luck, keep asking, and let us know how it all goes.

Bruce

This is sensible advice (including Holly's and Nancy's).  I went freelance completely this year, but started down the road April last year doing additional paid work on evenings and weekends and during annual leave.  Getting the pipeline setup takes time and effort (I think Kevin thorn started this way as well).  Managing that pipeline is also a skill (one that I may never master), because clients always want it yesterday.

You cannot start a business without hard work, you can be the best in the world (and I am not) but without a plan you are dead in the water.

Put a foot in the water and see how it goes, I knew by October/December that it was going to work, I also had earnt a safety net by this point and could last 3 months without any work.

On a positive I am still working for all my clients who I started with, I have produced over 120 courses, and I love my job and I get paid to do what I love,  I also have the benefit on most days of not having to wear socks .

I am also forever in debt to Bruce because he had to answer all my inane and insane questions (and he still does).

+1up to what Phil, Bruce, and Nancy.

I'm actually preparing myself to go freelance in a year or two, until then I'm sticking with my full-time jobs and beefing up on some skills I need to work on. (Though I did take a little side-trip and already created a company and website to provide illustrated characters to other developers.)

I pay attention closely to this thread (and download/copy everything I can) to help me when I make that transition. This community is great in responding to questions and helping other people who freelance or want to in the future. 

@Phil...

What you never figured out is that I answered most of the questions off the top of my head, and guessed 

If there were answers and a specific way to do it - everyone would be doing this.

A substantial trait that people need is to answer before going freelance, (and making a success of it), is to answer questions around self-confidence and belief.  Unfortunately there are few boundaries to this, and it is easy to cross a line into evangelism, and then easily slip across another boundary into arrogance - something I am very aware of in myself.

Different people will play the game in different ways. I have no formal Business Plan. I have a figure that I know I want/(need) to hit each month, and I have done that as a minimum every month bar one for 4 years now. That month's fail was a cash-flow issue, not invoices.

I suspect there's no better "Small business forum for eLearning people" in the World than this thread, Daniel deserves kudos for starting it.

@ Bruce, I still think a business plan (it doesn't have to be formal) is a good idea because it helps you think through issues like how much money  you need to earn each month and what kind of capital outlay you will need to get started . This type of thing is especially important in partnerships because one partner might be in a different financial situation then the other so while you might be content to earn x number of dollars, pounds or euros a month your partner is not.

A plan can also help you focus your efforts on what type of client you are going after and how you spend your money on the business.

For example, if you are going to be developing eLearning solutions for corporate clients - do you plan on investing in one tool such as Storyline or Studio and only work for clients who use these tools or don't care what tool you use, or, do you invest in Storyline, Captivate and Lectora (for example) to reach a broader market?  

Are you going to accept every job that comes your way or only take on jobs that you know you can do well?  Case in point: one of my clients recently installed some new project management software and had the software vendor develop the online training modules. I was called in at the last minute to redo all of the modules because the vendor could not get them to work. I looked at the vendor's website and it was pretty clear that online training is not a service they offer yet they took on the job.

I totally agree with Nancy.  It can be intimidating, but think of it less like a "Business Plan" and more like "planning for your business."  It doesn't need to be a formal, "official" business plan, but it's a good idea to think about - and write down -  what your financial goals/targets are, what your other goals/objectives are (aside from money, why are you going into business for yourself instead of keeping a corporate job?), and your guiding principles for getting to both those sets of goals.

In the case of a true partnership (you're doing business as an entity in which you both have ownership), you might still not need a formal business plan, but I think you'd definitely need a Partnership Agreement.