The Three Essentials for Freelancing and how HighPower Freelance Software can Help
These three actions must be done, or you are out of business
Anyone who runs a freelancing business must not only know these three things, but execute them very effectively. Basically, you need to know it, and you need to do it. Without these three, you do not have a freelance service.
1. Every Freelancer must Book new Business
It all starts with booking the business. Somehow, you need to get clients. Maybe you are lucky enough to be in a field where they just come to you, but in most freelance occupations, you need to send out proposals; sometimes a lot of them in order to get the business.
Most freelancers do not get a thrill out of writing proposals. They went into their profession because they like to do what they do. That thing that they do is what gets them up in the morning. But, unfortunately, the need to write proposals is what keeps them up at night. There has got to be a better way.
I built HighPower Freelance software to make it easy to write and track proposals. (Here is more about the Proposal generator.)
Here is where you can track all of your Proposals in HighPower Freelance Software. It shows you the Description, the Proposal Line Items, the Rate, the Estimated Hours, the Timeline, and the estimated Income. It makes the process of creating and following up on Proposals much easier!
2. Every Freelancer must Track the Tasks
You need to know what activities you have to do for your freelance clients. You need a list, and any easy way to track that list, update that list, complete the list, and then, — and here is the key — easily get that list into your invoices for payment. (But more on that in the next section.)
The problem is that as your freelance service grows, so does the number of items which you need to keep track of to do. Sometimes tasks linger, and you need to wait on someone until you can finish it. Then you need to keep track of the Tasks to Do, and the Waiting Tasks. And if you want to get paid you also need to track the Completed Tasks. So now we have three lists, the Do Now Tasks, the Do Later Tasks, and the Already Done Tasks. There needs to be an easy way to organize these Tasks and to focus on the ones which will get you paid.
I wrote HighPower Freelance Software to easily Track the Tasks, do the Tasks, and get paid for the Tasks. It is so wonderful and pain free now!
This is the HighPower Freelance Task Tracker layout. It shows you the Task Title, and Description, Status, Estimated Hours, Assigned Date, Start Date, Date Due, Date Finished, the Rate, the Cost, any pictures that go with it, which developers have been assigned to the work, etc. Everything you need to know about the Task is right here. And as you work on the Worklog each day, the Actual Hours get updated so you can compare them to the Estimated Hours. (Here is more about the Task Tracker.)
3. Every Freelance must get Paid to Play
What do we call athletes in high school and college who do not get paid to play? “Amateurs”. What do we call the ones who get paid to play? “Pros”. If you want to be a Professional in your freelancing field, you need to get paid. And you need to get paid enough so that you can keep playing for many years. That is what separates the hobby-ists from the professionals.
Every Freelancer I know likes to get paid. It is just that the process of getting paid, is sometimes very painful! Lots of people just hate to “do invoicing”. It is time consuming, tedious, and not much fun. But if you want to get paid, it has to happen. But there has to be a better way to do it.
I wrote HighPower Freelance software to make it easy and painless to track and send invoices, and to locate which have been paid, and which have not been paid.
This is the HighPower Freelance Software Invoice page. It shows a detailed Invoice with line items, hours, rates, staff who worked, and the cost. It shows whether this Invoice has been completed, sent, or paid. It allows you to stay on top of your invoices and to make sure that you get paid for your work. (Here is more about the Freelance Invoice options.)
Now, here is the cool part. When it is time to do invoicing each week or month, do you have to tediously hand-type each of these? Do you have to remember what you did, and how long you took for each activity? No you do not. As you have worked each week in the Worklog, all of your time and comments have been captured. Then at the end of each week, you just click the “Create Invoices” button, and all your work is captured, and transferred onto the Invoices. Every Invoice for each Client is prepared with line items, and descriptions, and rate, and hours, and developer. And you didn’t have to type any of it. In my business each week, I can prepare 40 invoices in five minutes. It is very slick, and is no longer a painful process. It is fun and quick.
Being a successful Freelancer is about execution of a few core requirements. You need to get the work, do the work, and get paid for the work. If you can do this, you will succeed. And HighPower Freelance Software has the built-in tools to help you execute successfully on all three of these essentials for any Freelancer.