Freelance Heroes
Aug 02, 2012
Hi, and welcome to the "Freelance Heroes" thread, a place where Articulate Freelancers help each other. Got a question about freelancing? Or perhaps you have an e-learning asset that may be valuable to those "doin' their own thing"? This is the place to share--to give.
To start things off, I'd like to share a short list of questions that help me figure out what kind of training a potential client wants. (So often they have no idea what they want.) The list is far from exhaustive, but may be of some help. Looking forward to meeting you. --Daniel
1293 Replies
OK - I have an "informal" plan, it's just not written down in a formal document called "Business Plan".
Of course it is important to know what your aims and targets are - or else how will you ever know if you hit or missed them. You have to know this so that you can change and grow your business appropriately.
I think this makes a lot of sense before you start.
In conjunction with Nancy's comments - it's important to know what you will not do, but to know who can do it for you, because you will probably be asked to do things for which you have no skills and experience. My particular area for collaboration is illustration and video production/editing. I would love to lean more but it is not my area of core expertise, so I get other trusted colleagues to do it for me.
Bruce
Welcome to Freelance Heroes, Brett:
What helped me get off the ground was the people you see here. I asked honest questions and got very helpful feedback from those more experienced than I. Hope you hang around and can see what I mean.
This field demands many skills, so it'll help to find a focus. The question that has helped me most is "What do I like doing?" And related questions, "On what type of projects can I do that?" and "What types of clients/organizations are the best fit for me?" I have to say "No" way more than I can say "Yes."
Yeah, this sounds me-centered, but like Cyndi Lauper, I just want to have fun. Again, welcome. --Daniel
Thanks for the wealth of information and advice, everyone. The full time gig is here to stay for both of us for quite some time, we have a few goals we want to achieve before diving into this with our first client, we currently are looking to attend seminars, classes, and such as well as a few other things to gain more of the freelance experience, we'd like to do all this within a year before buckling down and getting our first gig.
@Ann:
We currently use a Blue Snowball - Ice as our microphone for recording narratives and voice overs. We picked this up at our local BestBuy after running through about 6 other microphones and this one was pretty impressive. It's a condenser mic and produces a very clean and crisp recording. It ran us about $60 and outperformed the $150+ mics we were toying with. Here is a link to one:
http://www.fullcompass.com/product/443957.html?utm_source=googleps&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=googleps&gclid=COLC9-uf0LkCFeoWMgodaDQA5g
Good idea, Brett: The more experience you have the easier the transition. Thanks for posting back. Hope to hear more from you--your questions, your opinions, and so on.
The article is very interesting based upon economic trends that affect freelancers.Good work !
Thanks everyone who gave advice about the mics. I'm going for the Blue Snowball Ice which looks like really good value. I'll let you know how I get on with it.
I've been following your conversation with @Brett, and felt identified with him when I started my freelance job 1 year ago.
As @Daniel puts it:
But... the last months in my "small business" have been almost empty of projects. I have some money saved for this kind of situation so it wasn't money what I was worrying about, but the lack of work to do. I started (following my rather than informal business plan) sending my profile to different projects, and some of them where for positions inside an office -again.
The thing is that I've been selected for a really good and well paid position in a North-American company with an office based in Madrid, where I live. And now I don't know what to do. This position is international, it's instructional design and more, and I think I could grow with it. However, I would lose my freedom, my working from home, my going out with my dog at any time I want...
And I ask you, experienced and successful freelances: have you ever had this temptation? What have you done? What would you do in my case?
I'd really appreciate your opinions.
Thanks!
Belen Casado
Yes Belen - I have been tempted.
I think that you have a special position in that your country is having a VERY hard time. I would take the role, however, I would try and continue "part-time" in some way if you can.
I think that, if the right role came up for me, I would go back to a "fulltime" role - however I would want to try and do it on my terms in some way.
Freedom is all very well, but it needs to put food on the table.
Bruce
Bruce, taking into account that this advice comes from you... I cannot do anything but taking the role.
You're so right! Yes, the situation in Spain is REALLY difficult, I see lots of people -close to me, not in the news- that can't find a job even if they try day after day.
I think that I feel flattered with the offer of this international position, but yes, I think I could feel much better if I could continue with some freelance jobs.
I asked to work from home but it seems not possible, they want me to develop a good relation face to face with the SMEs in the office. Maybe I could work from home once a week after I show my skills and professionality. Well, I'll let you know when this is done. Anyway, I'll keep connected to Freelance Heroes -my heroes.
Thanks again, really!
That describes me... Full Time Employee / Freelance "Hobbyist"
Belen - Bruce is right (as usual), with this:
Take the role, and think of it as a step in your journey. You can use time in the evenings/weekends to "gear up" for a future freelance stint. You'll learn some great things from within the company, so use it to grow as an instructional designer, a consultant and a business person. Our careers are journeys and sometimes they take a turn. It usually takes 3-5 years to really establish yourself in a service business, so recognize that having a rough first year can be considered normal.
Let us know how it goes, we're rooting for you!
Holly
Agree with Bruce and Holly 100%. Belen, it sounds like the perfect opportunity for your situation - meets financial needs and gives you an opportunity to do good, interesting work and maybe even learn some new things. And taking a job now doesn't mean you'll never be a freelancer again, it just means for now you'll do your freelancing as a "hobbyist" like Owen.
Congratulations on the new job!
Image / photo site question:
I've been asked to price for some Storyline work. I want this particular gig, since it is in a field I want to break into, and I also have an idea of the scope, since I wrote the PPTs that they will be based on.
It looks like I will not have access to the client's image bank, so they want my quote to reflect my purchase of images.
I've never developed without access to a photo library - anyone have a good site for images, and know what the price-per-image would be? The end user would be public education.
Thank you, John
As always, you're getting good advice, Belen! And the challenge in finding clients is pretty much global, I think. I have certainly felt the pinch here in the US. As others have said, the most important thing is being able to pay the bills. If situations make that difficult or impossible via freelancing, then it's great to have the offer of a stable, secure (as secure as any job can be these days!) position--especially one that will use your skills well! And as anyone else in this group will also tell you, freelancing on the side, or returning to freelancing at a later date, can still be options. We all crave stability even as we crave freedom. Kind of like cats. I think we have to remind ourselves that it's natural for the balance to change now and then over time. Best wishes on your new job!
Andrew
Hi, John--and welcome! There are a few points to discuss here.
http://blog.efrontlearning.net/2010/10/free-stock-photos-sites-for-e-learning.html
http://www.elearningonlinetrainingsoftware.com/10-free-stock-photo-resources-for-elearning/
http://www.public-domain-image.com
If you are not charging the audience money for the courseware, and the client has Microsoft Office licenses, then you could also use images from Microsoft's site for free. But they cannot be used if there will be fees involved for taking the courses. And the selection is of course more limited.
And there are a lot of great free downloads from Articulate and this community!
You might also consider a site like eLearning Brothers, who offer a range of characters and other images and interactions for an annual fee: http://elearningbrothers.com It all depends on what you need.
(If music is to be involved for any slides, that's another whole kettle of fish, but again there are many sites out there.)
Anyway, those are some thoughts to get you started. Others will chime in with favorite image banks and other advice, I'm sure!
Hope this helps,
Andrew
John,
Have you considered using custom icons?
They are cheaper to produce (when you find and trust an illustrator), they are less "cheesy", and they are yours.
I struggled with this problem a year or so ago - now I sell the benefits of doing this to virtually all my clients, and have a wonderful re-useable library building up too - they are VERY easy for an illustrator (or you?) to re-colour.
Here are some from a Wall Street Clearing House.
The Clearing House is also a great "hotel" when required, just with a label change. The "Put" has been almost every document known to exist.
Bruce
Hey guys... this thread is extremely useful, but it is getting SO long that it's often difficult to find what I'm looking for. Is there any way we can start a whole forum for Freelance Heroes?
Thanks to all for the image advice - it looks like I can try a subscription service, rather than a per-image fee. The images match pretty closely what the client already has produced.
John
Glad it was helpful, John! As long as the client is happy with the "look" of what they've already produced, and aren't looking to go in a completely new direction, then it sounds like a good approach.
If you go with eLearning Brothers, let me know what you think. I am likely to subscribe myself at some point, when the client need calls for it. Keep in mind that with eLearning Brothers, you have the right to keep using their images as long as you maintain your subscription. If you choose to let it lapse, you keep all the courseware you've built with their images in place, but cannot then reuse those images in new courseware (something of an honor system).
Bruce--I love the custom icons approach. You're right, we should basically all be hooking up with a good graphic designer for some fundamental, reusable "library" items like these. Now, I just have to find the right artist...! Recommendations?
Gina--A bunch of us have suggested this; the thread has become so unwieldy. And I only subscribe again from time to time, as my inbox tends to fill up with well-meaning folks writing humorous (but non-substantive) one-word responses to someone else's post. It would be great to talk seriously about taking our freelancers forum to a separate channel, where we can sort posts by topic and search easily (that has always been a challenge on the Articulate forums). And if we could include the option to send one-word replies only to the poster rather than everyone on the thread, that would be downright magical.
OMG! This is much more than I expected... Well, to be honest, yes, I expected this very good advice from all of you!
Well, Daniel, I hope you don't miss me, I hope to still be around and continue developing my skills in Storyline.
True, this is not "all or nothing", but another step in my career and for sure I can learn a lot from an international position.
(My English will improve, too ).
I'll let you know how it goes.
I'm really really grateful of belonging to this community.
Belen Casado
We have an oppening for a designer/developer in my office... while this is a full-time position.. and ideally we would fill it as such.. i i figured i'd share the posting here in case any of you freelancers happened to be looking for a full-time gig..
eLearning Instructional Designer/Developer – Capital Region, NY
This position is with the CUNY School of Professional Studies (SPS) and is located in the Albany-Rensselaer, New York area.
CUNY SPS is looking for a creative instructional designer/developer to join a dedicated and dynamic distance learning development team working in the human services industry. The team uses synchronous and asynchronous learning technologies to create change and efficiencies in human service agencies throughout New York State. Team members have a track record of creating cutting-edge learning experiences and integrating technologies into blended learning solutions.
For more information and to apply visit: https://www.rfcuny.org/hr/pvn/cgi-bin/show_job.asp?pvn=RIS-1592
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