To continue our celebration of reaching an entire year as professional freelancers, I’d like to review a post we wrote fairly early on – Setting Goals for Your Freelance Business. In this post, we shared the goals we put in our business plan. At that point, we had not yet even hit the three-month mark, so all of these goals were things we aspired to in the future. Shall we see how the Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency did?

Three Month Goals

Create an LLC: Not completed. We still occasionally discuss the need to change to an LLC to keep our personal assets protected. The additional cost is fairly minimal (I think it’s less than $200), but we’ve yet to decide if a good, solid contract to use with our clients might be an adequate substitute.

Set up our new bank accounts: Completed. We actually addressed our experience with our local bank here on Freelance Parent. We can’t stress enough how helpful it’s been to have separate accounts for checking, online transactions, and tax savings.

Have our promotional materials ready for clients: Completed. Thanks to the great skills of Billie over at Rainmaker Marketing, we have some really awesome-looking notecards we send out at the completion of each project. Although we originally meant this to include things like brochures and fliers, we’ve since discovered that we don’t really rely much on the type of marketing that requires them…yet.

Earn at least $1,000 each month: Completed. Now that we’re sharing our monthly income, you’ve seen this firsthand.

Have our basic website up and running: Completed. Originally, this meant the website my husband built, which it seems no one loved very much. We’re happy to have our polished one up now – in fact, we can chalk up quite a few of our new clients to its existence.

Introduce our husbands: Not completed. How weird is that? We live about a mile away from each other and chat on a daily basis. Yet we haven’t formally introduced our husbands yet.

Six Month Goals

Have five clients outside of the web: Completed. As with the promotional materials goal, we really thought that local clients were as good as, if not better than, web clients. We now know this is false (unless you live in a city like New York) and that you can make a perfectly good living solely on the web. Still, we do enjoy working with the occasional local client.

Polish our web site: Completed. As I mentioned above, we heart our website.

Earn at least $1,600 each month: Unsure. I’d have to go in and tally the averages to see if this is correct or not. Thanks to the feast or famine aspect of freelancing we’ve come to recognize and accommodate, these numbers are never guaranteed.

Set our writers’ standards for subcontracting: Not completed. We originally planned on subcontracting out our work fairly early on (thereby making ourselves an “agency” in the fullest sense of the word). However, we have yet to really explore these goals of ours – mostly because we are just now reaching the point where our workload exceeds our desired number of hours.

Create a typical bidding process: Completed, in a sense. Although I haven’t really formalized the process, I have a pretty good stock of templates, samples, and query letters. I certainly spend much less time bidding on work now than I used to!

Become part of the BBB and the Chamber of Commerce: Not completed. I’ve discovered that the BBB is actually a little costly, and that there are some negative connotations that go along with it. It’s still something I’d like to explore, but it’s not on my immediate to-do list. As for the Chamber of Commerce, I’d again like to fall back on the excuse that our local interests are much fewer than we anticipated.

One Year Goals

Have set policies and procedures: Not completed. This had more to do with bringing on other writers as subcontractors than anything else. We wanted a sort of company manual to make sure that everything was consistent, legal, and fair.

Hire Travis to the company: Not completed. My husband has a degree in marketing, and we had hoped that we would be making so much money by now that we could pay him to find clients for us (again, mostly on a local level). However, I do not think I could work with him on a daily basis without eventually causing bodily harm. ‘Nuff said.

Create a standard delegation process for assignments: Not completed. Once we had all our subcontracted writers, Lorna and I were going to be more about management and less about writing. Lorna still looks forward to this eventuality, but I really enjoy the writing. We’ll see what the future holds…

Regular salaries for Lorna, Tamara, and Travis: Not completed. Our financial plan was to build up a steady income and savings account that would allow us to create a monthly “salary” that we could count on as a consistency. It wasn’t necessarily going to be a huge salary, but it would at least remove the guesswork out of what we were going to make for the month. This might still be a good idea. We’ll get back to you.

Review business plan and goals (annually): Not completed – yet. We’ll be meeting here in a few weeks to do just this.

Feel confident with a stable of writers to subcontract: Not completed. I hate to beat a dead horse, but this was supposed to arise as a result the “agency” side of our agency. Perhaps next year…

How Did We Do?

Well, we technically got only 7 out of 18 completed. However, I don’t despair – most of these are the visions of a pair of writers with incredible dreams for the future but no real idea of what freelancing in today’s market is like.

Hopefully, our next year’s goals will be much more in line with the realities of freelancing. (Although I still think we’ll wax optimistic – it’s sort of our thing.)

It’s a special week here at Freelance Parent.  One year ago, Tamara Berry and Lorna Doone Brewer officially launched our freelance writing business.  We had big aspirations and a lot of fears, so it is amazing to be here at the anniversary point.

Please join us this week as we celebrate by looking back at the journey we’ve taken and maybe even try to sneak a peek at the road ahead.

Without a doubt, this blog has been a huge part of our success.  We are so grateful for the support and knowledge you all have given.  It’s wonderful to know that so many freelancers out there have been willing to reach out their hands to us as we’ve learned and grown this past year.  It’s also been a priviledge to maybe act as an inspiration to others who want to take the leap to become freelancers.

As a joke, my husband’s coworkers recently created a CD of songs he absolutely abhors. It features such timeless artists as ABBA, N’Sync, Britney Spears, Spice Girls, and Hannah Montana. When he received it, he popped it into the car’s CD player, laughed once or twice, and promptly shoved it into the deep recesses of the pit that is our vehicle.

While we were driving the other day, I came across this little gem. Of course, I had not yet heard the delights in store, so after seeing his look of disgust, I put it in and cranked up the volume. My daughter heard the music and pretty much fell in love. (Even my husband can’t deny that there’s something about that cheesy pop sound that appeals to kids.)

However, none of the music delights her quite as much as the songs by everyone’s favorite teen performer, Hannah Montana. She now demands her music by name and sings along in a disturbingly accurate manner. My daughter has never seen the show, and, if I have my way, she never will. Yet she’s hooked.

Now for a change of topics.

Lorna and I recently stumbled across a writer’s blog and website that made our jaws drop and looks of bewilderment settle permanently on our brows. They were, to say the least, unprofessional. The writer uses cheesy sentimentality, gushing (and often grammatically inaccurate) text, and a nauseatingly bubbly approach to writing. We could not, for the life of us, fathom who was hiring this writer. Yet, there the links were, to blogs and articles all over the web.

What do these two scenarios have in common? There is no accounting for taste.

There are many things in this world that I don’t understand – Hannah Montana and overbearing writing among them. However, these types of things pop up all over the place. More to the point, people pay good money for these things to pop up all over the place.

Although I may deplore the existence of such enigmas, they do represent good news for freelancers.

• When you get passed over for a job you are obviously qualified for, there is a good likelihood that the person’s tastes simply run a different course (i.e., there’s nothing wrong with you; there’s something wrong with them).

• Personality counts. What you lack in technical skill can be made up for with creativity and appeal (i.e, grammatical errors might be overlooked if your clients really like you).

• Marketing to your audience is equivalent to success (i.e., even if what you’re selling is pretty much awful, you can make quite a bit of money if you appeal to the right type of consumer).

• There is a niche out there just waiting for you to tap into (i.e., if Miley Cyrus can reach such ridiculous heights of sccess, there is hope for the rest of us).

Over the course of the life of Freelance Parent, Tamara and I have very decidedly shied away from giving legal advice on the blog. We are not attorneys, and we are certainly not interested in getting ourselves into any trouble for steering someone astray.

It turns out, though, that we have a direct line to someone who isn’t worried about giving out legal advice. In fact, it’s what he does for a living.

Kevin Jablonski of Graybeal, Jackson, Haley in Seattle, Washington is an intellectual property attorney. He is also a heck of a guy. Kevin has agreed to answer a couple of questions here on Freelance Parent.

Your job is to let us know what you’re most interested in learning. Do you have questions about copyright? Do you have issues with deadbeat clients and what to know what recourse you have? Can you come up with an even better question than these?

To have your question considered, leave it in a comment on this post or email it to us at admin@berrybrewer.com.

Here’s a little more about Kevin:

Kevin’s practice involves several aspects of intellectual property law including patent procurement, copyrights, and trademarks. He is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and admitted to practice law in Washington State. Kevin is a member of the Washington State Bar Association, the Audio Engineering Society, the American Bar Association, and the Washington State Patent Law Association.

I will never condone shoddy, mass output work. I think that regurgitated information is the bane of the Internet’s existence and that all employers who want quantity in place of quality deserve to be fired.

Okay, that disclaimer is over and done with.

Now that we all know where I stand, I am going to say that the freelancer who can work quickly is much more likely to succeed than the one who can’t. I’ll even say that the freelancer who can’t get his or her work done efficiently needs to find a way to cultivate the skills of speed. (Either that or find a killer specialty niche that makes him or her absolutely invaluable.) Writing, editing, and simply working faster will result in higher income, a larger client list, and – perhaps the most important of all – more time with your kids.

How Speed Pays

Most freelancers get paid on a per word or per article basis. Hourly wages tend to fall in the rare category – and that is exactly where they need to stay. When you get paid by the word or article, you don’t have to disclose to the client how much time you spent working on their project. If you can write four $15 SEO articles in an hour, you just made $60 that hour. Many clients would have a heart attack if they knew they were paying $60 an hour for – gasp! - just a writer.

However, you probably have experience writing SEO articles. You know where to find the research, how to use keywords effectively, and the type of voice most SEO clients want. You deserve to make more money for your experience. And as you add on the freelancing years, these skills only get stronger and (generally) faster. This means that your “rates” increase even though you still might be landing the clients who aren’t crazy about paying a whole lot of money.

Even if you do make money on an hourly basis, being fast can help to set you apart and get more high-quality referalls. If an employer is happy with your output for the $50 per hour that you charge, they are more likely to give you additional work and tell other businesses about “this great freelancer I use.”

Fitting More in Your Schedule

Being a fast worker can also allow you to fit more clients in your schedule. While working with 20 clients on piddly projects every month isn’t necessarily the ideal way to work, the freelancing field is filled with clients who want articles and WANT ARTICLES NOW. Much of the time, these are smaller projects (say, one or two SEO articles, a press release, a sales letter).

One of the biggest challenges to being a freelancer is keeping a full schedule. When you have tons of work to do, making bids and sending out queries is the last thing you want to do, especially when clients come back and would love to hire you if you can get the work done in three days. However, if you don’t make these bids, you’ll probably end up with a stack of completed projects and a whole lot of nothing else to do. These smaller, ABSOLUTELY IMMEDIATE projects are great for filling in the cracks. If you know you can do these types of things really quickly, you’ll be able to fit them in even during your massively busy times. A press release at the end of the day is pretty minimal for someone who can write one in less than an hour; and, after awhile, they really start to add up to big monthly profits. Plus, if you do a good job, these small jobs often lead to bigger, more substantial projects.

Quality Above All Else

Of course, the trick to being a fast freelancer all boils down to being a fast freelancer who can still produce quality work. Writing an ebook in three days is great, but if what you end up with is a pile of barely coherent mush, you’re not likely to be signing that client again any time soon (you’re also giving freelancers a bad name and I implore you to stop it).

Several weeks ago, Tamara and I realized that we were both wanting to go out of town during the first week in August.  “Hey, let’s close down for a week and take a real vacation!”  It sounded like such an awesome idea.

Awesome and totally, totally doomed to fail.

My little family arrived here in Seattle this evening.  As I unpacked our clothes and set up a changing station for the baby, my husband got to work setting up an internet connection.  Within 15 minutes, I had checked the company email and was drafting my to-do list for the week.

• 12 SEO articles
• 3 blog reviews
• 3 Mama Hacks
• 1 Nonprofit Perspective post
• 1-2 Freelance Parent posts
• Podcasting class on Monday night
• Catch up on Google Reader
• Oh, and that sooper-secret thing I can’t tell you about ’cause it’ll spoil the surprise

So, I suppose there is a bit of a question as to whether or not I’m really on vacation.  The fact that I am practically in the shadow of the Space Needle tells me that I am.  (Seriously, I’m looking at the Space Needle and typing this right now!)

My plan for the week is to intersperse the above projects in between visits to the Children’s Museum, the Pacific Science Center, and whatever other wonderful things I find to do.  I have a sneaking suspicion that I won’t have any trouble finding a Starbucks with an internet connection around here!

Not too long ago, Tamara took a risk and shared her freelance income here on the blog. To be honest, we didn’t know how people would react. Would other freelance writers think we lacked class for talking about money? Would they laugh at how little we make? Would they be inspired to work harder at their own businesses?

James, Allena, Melissa, and Genesis weighed in, and they were all really supportive. We wanted to say “thanks” to all of you for that.

But, it turns out that we’re not done with this topic yet. In fact, it seems that we don’t plan to ever be done with this topic. One of the basic tenants of Freelance Parent is that we want to encourage those who are willing to work hard enough to take the leap into freelancing. In order to do this, we feel it’s important to share the truth and give people a factual example of what others are doing.

In honor of our recent revelation, we’ve decided to offer a monthly look into the finances and workload of the Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency. We are opening ourselves up to scrutiny in hopes that our struggles and successes can inspire others to learn what it means to be a freelance writer in the current market.

Whether you want to compare your own successes to ours (for good or evil purposes); you are a new freelancer wondering about the hows, wheres, and whys of making money on the Internet; or you are simply a lookie-lou of the freelancing community, there is information here for everyone. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions as to how we came up with our numbers or why we do things the way we do.

Total Income for July: $2248.88

Total Number of Clients Served this Month: 13

Number of These Clients Who are New: 3

Original Client Contact Point
Guru.com: 6
Elance.com: 0
Subcontracted work: 1
Referrals: 6

Total Number of Projects Completed: 18

Project Types
SEO and web-based article writing: 3
Website content: 4
Blogs and blog-related work: 5
Nonprofit: 2
Product descriptions: 1
Press releases: 2
Newsletters: 1

Look for additional tallies in the upcoming months. This is no fair weather project; we mean to expose ours numbers every thirty days or so regardless of feast or famine.

Quite some time ago, I let it slip that our freelance business was embarking upon a new marketing adventure. At the time, I also more or less promised we’d fill you in when the time was right. Well, eight weeks later, we’re finally ready to unveil our latest endeavor.

Today marks the official launch of The Nonprofit Perspective. Since I worked so hard on the About page, I’m going to copy and paste a description from there.

“The Nonprofit Perspective is a special project of the Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency. This outlet allows us to combine our love for writing with our passion for social justice. We are striving to create an open, informative space that can act as a starting point for nonprofit professionals who want to grow themselves and their organizations. It helps if you like to laugh, too, as we try not to take ourselves too seriously around here.”

So, the big question: Why are we starting (yet) another blog?

• We really do love the nonprofit world. We understand it, we appreciate it, and we want to support it.
• Nonproft organizations are our “niche” market, and we want to establish a presence there.
• We want the decision makers in nonprofit organizations to realize that we know what the heck we’re talking about.
• We also want them to hire us when they need writers.

Let’s say you’re the Development Director for a nonprofit organization, and you have a big direct mail campaign coming up. Who would you rather work with: Joe Blow & Co. who you’ve never heard of, or those personable, knowledgeable ladies over at Berry-Brewer? And did you know that their company focuses primarily on nonprofits? And that they have personal experience in the field? And here are examples of their writing skills right here on this blog . . . I should hire them for to write the direct mail piece.

At least, that’s how we’re hoping it will go.

We know the blog isn’t perfect. We hired iDesign Studios and then totally hog-tied them by making them tweak an existing template rather than crafting something even more spectacular from scratch. So, thanks, Selene, for working within the parameters we had to set. We’ll certainly be keeping you in mind when it’s time to create something a little more “our own.”

We’ve been working hard on the new blog, and we know the work’s only just begun. We’re really excited, though to be able to combine our passions and interests in this way. Isn’t that one of the best reasons to work for yourself?

My daughter has always been a very verbal child. Which is a euphemism for saying that when she wants or needs something, she demands it at the top of her lungs. Everything from getting a drink of water to a barrette falling out of her hair is a matter of the utmost urgency. I’ve always attributed this to her diva-like personality and tried to stress politeness and reasonable decibel levels.

Over the weekend, I did a little babysitting for my niece and nephew (aged almost two and four). My house was pretty much a zoo of giggling children. At one point during the day, the kids were being pretty independent, so I took the opportunity to answer some emails and make a few job bids on my laptop. All was going well for awhile until my daughter came running up to me.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” she screamed with her normal, frantic tendency. “Piggy* is stuck. He needs help. Help him! Help him!” I sort of murmured a response, saved the email I was working on, and trailed my eyes to where she was jumping about and continuing her screams.

Lo and behold, there he was. My nephew had worked his way through the dog door and all I could see was his bottom half, his legs flailing about trying to work themselves free.

After I had a quick chuckle (and took a picture), I went to go help the poor little guy. He was calling for assistance, but in a way that I have no framework for understanding. His voice was barely above talking level as he cried, “Aunt Tamara, Aunt Tamara, I need help. I’m stuck.” Don’t get me wrong – he was upset about being stuck – but in a quiet, understated sort of way.

I was suddenly struck with a thought: Why does my nephew make calm demands while my daughter screams every little thing as though it were end of the world? Is it inherent personality that makes them so different, or is my daughter reacting in the only way that gets my attention – by screaming bloody murder?

I’ll be the first to admit that I am really, really good at tuning things out when I’m working. I’ve adapted the way I focus so that nothing but obvious danger can penetrate my productive haze. My daughter is smart. She probably just found her own way of getting my attention no matter what.

By screaming.

I’m curious if other freelancing parents have discovered ways in which their work-at-home status has a negative reflection on their kids. We always talk about the benefits of working form home (spending more time with our kids, saving money on childcare), but we rarely address the potentially negative side effects that surely exist in full force.

Care to share?

* Not his real name. Nor is it in any way a reference to Lord of the Flies.

This is just a quick linky update for those of you who have your own blogs and might be interested in going to Blogworld Expo in September. Derek Semmler is one of the Sparkplugging authors, and he is giving away free admission to one lucky reader. Basically, you have to write about why you would make a good speaker at the conference (no, you won’t actually be speaking, it’s just sort of a way to gauge who should win), and a panel of judges will choose from the entries. Our very own Wendy Piersall is one of the judges, too.

So, since Freelance Parent readers are such awesome writers, I thought you should know about the contest!  It’s on his Derek Semmler dot com blog, and you should check it out!