Best Practices

Oct 22nd, 2008

Best Practices Rewind: Pricing

photo credit: Extra Ketchup
This blog has been up and running for over 2 years. There’s a lot of topics that I’ve covered in that time that could probably stand to be revisited. Since my time seems to be slipping through my fingers as we try to get the house ready to bring [...]

Oct 15th, 2008

How To Choose Pro Bono Work

Today is Blog Action Day. Each year an important topic is selected, and bloggers around the world who wish to participate post about that topic. This year’s subject is poverty. I thought about trying to do a post that ties into poverty, but I think it makes more sense to do a [...]

Oct 8th, 2008

The Exponential Benefits of Networking

photo credit: cambodia4kidsorg
It seems like several of the time management and professional blogs I read have recently talked about limiting how many online social networking sites you get involved with. Although I haven’t personally experienced this phenomenon, I guess some people are finding that after checking in with MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, a couple [...]

Aug 27th, 2008

Feast or Famine: The Freelancer’s Sales Pipeline

photo credit: seeks2dream
Sometimes I feel like I’m riding on a pendulum that is swinging back and forth. At one end I have more websites in development than I can comfortably handle, and I’m working long hours just to meet my deadlines. In a relatively short period of time, though, things will shift [...]

Jun 18th, 2008

The Joy of Working IN Your Business

I’m always looking for ways to improve my business. I mean that literally. It can be a problem. I’m always looking for little tweaks I can make. Last week an opportunity to dive into a new project came up, and I resented it. I didn’t want to do any web development because I was too [...]

Jun 11th, 2008

Keeping Regular Hours As a Freelancer

On August 18th, 2006, I had a huge smile on my face as I drug my sleepy carcass across the bedroom to shut off the alarm clock. I felt so warm and serene knowing this was the last day I would ever have to set my alarm. This was the final episode of hopping on [...]

Jun 4th, 2008

The Downside of Turning Freelance Work Down

A few weeks ago, Noah wrote a guest post about turning projects down. I shared my own ideas on the topic a few months back. Today it occurred to me the posts on this blog are really focusing on one side of the story. Now this is exactly the stuff you need to hear if [...]

May 28th, 2008

Interview with Dean Rieck

Dean Rieck, president of Direct Creative, was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about how he broke into copywriting and running his own business. One of Dean’s strengths is direct mail, and he has an email newsletter for anyone interested in tips on improving the response rate of their direct marketing [...]

May 7th, 2008

What You Can Learn From Gregory House

For anyone who isn’t glued to the TV every Monday night, House is a TV show about an extremely obnoxious doctor who makes life difficult for everyone around him. He’s manipulative and vindictive. He has no faith in the concept of basic human goodness, and he goes out of his way to embarass and ridicule [...]

Apr 16th, 2008

Managing Focus with Multiple Streams of Income

You might have heard the holy grail of entrepreneurship is to have multiple streams of income. The idea is that if any of those revenue sources dry up, you won’t take much of a financial hit because you’ve got money coming from other sources. That is 100% true, but there’s a dark underbelly to managing [...]

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