Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with business and freelance

Brand me

b33j — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:37:49 -0800

What is that I'm doing? Tag my business. I’ve been working freelance for a couple of years while I finished my degree doing a variety of tasks for academics (4 or 5) who work in the field of Education. Some of the things I’ve done have been to create logos for various groups, diagrams and illustrations for lesson plans and books, some photography,animations, presentations, formatting of material for publishing, transcription, managing an international journal and formatting it, creating databases and entering all the data, as well as analysing it (lightly – I’m no expert in statistics) and producing all graphs and reports.

Now that I’ve finished my degree, I want to increase my clientele. I think I can make a go of this because I turned over around $30K at about 14 hours a week. I have a domain which is my own name and the word design. I hope to launch my website (with a blog -thanks metafilter for earlier advice) in January. I’m working on a design for my business card. My current clients will probably forward my details onto their mailing groups if I ask them – I just need one last thing. What do I do and what’s a good tag line? I would have thought “academic support” except that that phrase tends to mean helping students to survive university. I tested the tagline “the whole package” on one of my current clients, and she was aghast, but couldn’t exactly say why.

So, to summarise my business card, for example...

b33jdesign
~~Academic Support~~ (?)
~~The whole package~~ (?)
w: www.b33jdesign.com
e: jr@b33jdesign.com
p: xxx xxxx xxx

Related

What kind of records do most sole proprietors, freelancers and consultants keep?

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:39:33 -0800

What sort of state of organization are the financial records of most sole proprietorships in? I've had a small freelance business for about 15 years. About 3 years ago, I was in a car accident that was 100% not my fault. (The other driver admitted fault and there were witnesses.) I am now in the middle of legal dealings with my insurance company, because of the state of whiplash, the effect on my pregnancy and the effect on my ability to run my business and maximize earnings. (I do have a lawyer.) The insurance company is asking for all my financial records from the past nine years. They want copies of every receipt, invoice, mortgage interest statement, etc.

I've never kept a general ledger or anything like that. I just invoice and pay my expenses and credit cards and stuff like that. I've never been very formal about things, although I am excrutiatingly honest. I don't lie on my taxes. However, there have been situations where I just phoned the mortgage company to get the interest amount for my mortgage for the year (for business use of home), because I figured that if I got audited by the government, I would just phone and get a statement sent out. And, as I mentioned, I don't have cash flow statements or anything like that. And sometimes my receipts are in my name, my husband's name or both our names. But I always put money into our joint account to cover everything, usually lump sums throughout the year.

I had planned to incorporate and set up with an accountant, but, because of the car accident, I am just beginning that process now. Going forward, my records will be more diligent, since I'll be incorporated.

But, I'm wondering...what is the typical state of financial records for most freelance and consulting type businesses? My lawyer seems baffled that I have unaudited records...he's not used to sole proprietors. He seemed surprised that I had been doing my own taxes (for all but 3 of the total years, because, honestly, the accountants never got me any more tax back than I got on my own). For the most part, my business records are my personal income tax records, since the sole proprietorship income tax is part of that. I never saw any point to doing balance sheets and neither did the bookkeepers or accountants. Are other freelancers and consultants in a different situation? (Again, I'll be changing this going forward.)

Can anyone suggest potential clients for a freelance or contract medical writer?

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:12:22 -0800

Can anyone suggest potential clients for a freelance or contract medical writer? Help me hive mind!
A bit of background:
-1 year experience writing and developing continuing medical education materials for physicians (I honestly thought it was boring but it could have been the therapeutic areas); wrote slide kits (ppt presentations for meetings), literature reviews.
-1 year experience writing and developing peer reviewed journal articles on the promotional side of medical education. I really enjoy it because it has provided me with an opportunity to learn much more about clinical trials, oncology, etc. I find it very challenging and have learned a great deal about a few types of cancer but I need to have a few more years experience to truly understand the material. Most people, from supervisors to pharmaceutical companies, really like my writing. However, it is only a specialized type of writing (eg, journal articles for medical journals). At this point, that is all that I have as samples – journal articles or scientific posters.
-Dabbled over the course of the past year and wrote “executive summaries” of meetings (boring, but I can write them). There wasn’t much of an opportunity to really learn new information.
-PhD in the biological sciences (neuroscience). I enjoyed teaching biology to undergraduates, everything from intro biology to graduate level courses, because it was a vehicle for me to learn more. I loved looking at the inside of things and learning how they worked. Bringing this up because perhaps there is a market for writing for this audience? No real samples of this type of writing, however (uh, other than occasional directions for a lab or teaching material…).

Spring forward to now. I would like to become a freelance medical writer in the next few months (stupid with this little experience and stupid in this economy, I know). For various reasons, I have reached my limit for working in an office for any length of time.

Who are my potential clients? I googled, googled, and googled to find a list of about 200 medical education communication agencies - I anticipate that a few will bite but probably not many (because I am an unknown). I plan to try to specialize and offer to similarly write journal articles for clinical trials/oncology or psychiatry. The average medical writer charges $100/hour for this type of project.

To be safe, I would like to target more companies/potential clients. I don’t know what other companies write and for what rate, though. Who else has lots of data (from a clinical trial), needs help writing it, and will pay that much money? Any ideas as to where I can find a big list of these type of companies (I can only take so many hours of googling till my brain falls out and roll on the floor).

Are there other types of areas that I can break into that would be 1) interesting/provide new material to learn, 2) the average person changes between $60 to $100 (or more) to write the material, and 3) may use my background in some way. Is there a way to see samples of what they write (to be honest, this is how I learned to write material for clinical trials, by looking at other material). Is there a way I could learn about this other type of writing or market besides working for such companies full time?

In summary I am looking for suggestions for other clients: whom to target, where to find them, and the going rate. If anyone can suggest really interesting areas of writing that may require a bit of work on the side that would also be helpful.

Temporary e-mail account not linked to me: tryptophanhydroxylase2@yahoo.com Not signing off with my metafilter name because between this and previous posts, there is enough info to figure out who I am (haven’t indicated anything to my current employer yet, and I don't want to launch a freelance career today).

Thanks.

Help us with a name for our business

Hands of Manos — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:15:15 -0800

After many weeks of consideration, my wife has decided to start a Spanish translating/tutoring business. Everything looks good, we've done our research, we're moving into an area where Spanish is taught k-12, we...just can't figure out a name for the biz. Help [more inside] We've brainstormed over a few days trying to come up with clever names but we just get stumped. She wants something with a Spanish word in it, but not something that would require a tilde or difficult to type in a web address.

So do any of you have any clever business names that would say "hey, I can translate Spanish for you as well as tutor your children and/or small business?" Thanks in advance!

Need some tips on how to be a freelance developer

captainawesome — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:11:17 -0800

Now that I'm starting to do more part-time freelance software development, what kinds of things should I be considering? A few months ago, a friend of mine was approached to do some custom software development, but at the time he was unable to take on any more projects. He referred the guy to me instead and I did the job, which was well received. That led to another job, which in turn has led to a few more in the pipeline and a few other clients showing interest in hiring me. This is all good: I'm a full-time grad student, with piles of student loans, so any spare cash I can make on the side is great.

So far I've made relatively little money doing this, but if I'm going to be making any supplemental income from freelancing, I'd like to figure out what hoops I have to jump through (legalities, taxes, etc) to be legit. Googling has found me advice that all seems geared towards people trying to do small business as a career, but that's NOT what I'm shooting for right now - just doing the occasional bit on the side. Before I go spending tons of cash (which is in short supply right now) talking to a lawyer and/or CPA for an income stream that might be pretty small, I'd like to be sure that it's worth it.

Specifically,
1. Am I supposed to be starting a company for this, or can I just do business under my own name?
2. What am I supposed to be doing about taxes and the like?
3. Anybody have any idea what custom software development is worth these days? I'm a few years shy of a PhD in computer science, with 15+ years of independent and corporate software development experience, and the work I've been doing (iPhone app development) is still fairly niche, so it's got to be worth something - but I'm having a very hard time finding information on what I'm supposed to be charging people.
4. Are there things I haven't even thought of yet?

Some vague questions, I know, but if anybody's got any pointers I'd love to hear them.

Escaping the grind

simplesharps — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:31:44 -0800

My friend works in database applications each day to create in house reports. He's bored and wants to go it alone. He's mainly interested in consulting local small to medium size businesses on data trends and training staff in time saving strategies. MS Excel is his preferred weapon of choice.

What are some business websites within this field, so he can best learn how to structure his new solo effort?

Closest thing I could come to was this, but it's not really hitting the mark.

How to Run A Business Providing Freelance Home Tech Support?

kandinski — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:36:01 -0800

How to Run A Business Providing Freelance Home Tech Support? I am a freelance writer working from home (my schedule is my own) starting to get cabin fever. Having recently arrived in Melbourne, Australia, I mostly work for my old contacts in Spain. The downside to this is some social isolation and odd working hours.

So I am considering opening a sideline in home tech support that will give me an excuse to get out of the house and meet people professionally, as well as a way to diversify/increase my income and work during the daytime. And to do something that I enjoy.

Yes, I enjoy home tech support. True, so far I have only done it for friends and family members, but I have done everything and anything your home user and SOHO worker needs: data recovery, network installation, whitebox PC hardware troubleshooting, spyware delousing... I am a happy Debian/Ubuntu user, but I still remember enough of Windows (my last data recovery being only two months ago, and still using Windows for gaming), and I would not mind to have an excuse to buy at least a Mac Mini and learn about Mac OSX.

But... I don't know anything about doing Home/SOHO Tech Support as a business. I am guessing the tech side is like for family, only charging money. But how much, and what for, and to whom, and how to manage it?

Please add more questions you think I am missing if you have a good answer to them:

Rates: How much should I charge? Should I charge per incident? Per visit? A flat hourly rate? A retainer so I have a fixed income?

Services: Should I post a detailed list of services, or just say "I do tech"? Most importantly, how could I as a single guy working from home differentiate myself from the competition?

Customer acquisition: At first I would like to test the waters by doing word-of-mouth and posting bills at local shops and cafes. I don't own a car, so I would only work for clients within reach of cycle or public transportation, say, within 45 minutes of where I live (this is a wide swathe of my city, but it has a funny shape).

Business management: someone asked about this already (looking for freelance computer tech support software), but they used Windows and I am now a happy Linuxer. If you run a comparable business on Linux, how do you run your business?

What are appropriate rates for computer surveillance work?

Jack Feschuk — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:37:08 -0800

I'm currently running a business where I monitor computers for people. I use custom made software that gets by all the anti-malware scanners and through the firewalls. I have been charging $40/hr for the first hour, and $45 for each hour after that. Since most of work may only take 1-4 hours per client I've been told that I'm charging too little. Figures have been thrown at me by friends, family and even clients that I should charge $60, $75 or even $100. What is a fair amount in this business. Yes this involves spying on people at the workplace, churches and spouses. My first question. I've searched mefi for similar stuff and came up empty.

Need X income, therefore business must by Y profitable?

garfy3 — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:42:08 -0800

Simple set of calculations/spreadsheet formulas for thinking about the true cost of starting a business or going freelance? I'd like to do a spreadsheet that "reverse calculates" what I would need to charge per-widget in order to make a living wage. Something like input-current-cost-of-living, then see how many widgets you can make in a day, and see how productive you'd have to be. (Asking because I noted a colleague of mine had "gone independent" and was charging $17 per digital image to clients...thought this was rediculously expensive, then figured taxes/health insurance, etc, might even make this way unprofitable?).

I've seen cortex's question which covers some of the considerations on starting/not-starting a business. One of these is "if you have to pay self-employment tax then reduce your profit calculations by 40%." Got it. So I'm thinking the equation should show loss to taxes, loss to health insurance, loss to business registration fees, loss to capital expenditures, etc? What else do I need to add to this equation?

(Oh, and I'm in the US).

What resource suggestions would you suggest to someone starting their own freelance business?

sully75 — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 08:50:58 -0800

What resource suggestions would you suggest to someone starting their own freelance business? I'm starting a freelance photography business in a small northeastern city. I've never had my own business before. At the start it looks like it will be a combination of my own work and assisting other photographers.

I've billed for various small jobs before but never been particularly organized about it. I have no idea how I would go about keeping a financial record or an invoice system. Or payment tracking.

The photography I'm not particularly worried about, I think I'm holding my own there.

I'm basically at the "Starting a business for dummies" level but I'd appreciate the hive minds suggestions on things I should be reading right now.

Tax MetaFilter

sprocket87 — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:54:47 -0800

I'm planning to do some on-the-side freelance photography in the next year. I'd like some advice on how to play the tax game most effectively. I have an 8-5 weekday job that pays my bills, but I'll probably be doing a small-potatoes amount of photography as a side business over the next year. Nothing to warrant obtaining a business license, incorporating, or anything like that; probably about 6-12 or so events/jobs at a modest rate. My expected earnings will almost certainly be higher than the $600 minimum for reporting additional income, but not anything in the several-thousand range. After doing a bit of research, here's my game plan:

1. Keep detailed receipts and records of ALL income and potential business-related expenses
2. Use 1040 (long) as normal for personal filing of W2s
3. Also file as "sole proprietor" using form Schedule C-EZ for business income based on receipts

Seems simple enough, right? Well, I'm wondering about deductions: I know with the Schedule C-EZ I'm allowed to file up to $5,000 worth of business expenses. I'm NOT planning on filing a home office expense, etc. But what about photo gear, computer equipment, software, or web hosting/printer subscription costs? Should I deduct these?

The obvious answer to me would be "yes", but I'm wondering that since I won't be making a tremendous amount of profit, it might be wiser to ignore some of those deductions to keep "under the radar". I mean, I'd love to get a new MacBook for my photo editing and write it off as a business deduction [which it legitimately would be], but if that offsets the majority of my profit, would the IRS consider me as being a "hobby" and screw me in the long run?

I know that the IRS looks for net profitability in 3 out of 5 years after filing as a sole proprietor. I don't plan on making this a primary source of income - be it next year or in five. Just a little side earnings. So would it be smarter to take the hit on my tax return and skip deducting too many expenses or to deduct away and keep my fingers crossed?

Would it be safe if I just made sure my net profits above were above $600 after all deductions?

Oh, and you can skip the "you should see a CPA" comments, I know you all ANACPA or ANAL, but I'm just "querying the hive mind" :)

How to write a proposal for selling software

pandaharma — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 13:53:44 -0800

How to write a proposal for selling software... I've made a preliminary agreement to sell some software to a company at a set price. Rather than just cut me a check immediately, this paperwork-loving company wants a more formal proposal first.

I've had a fair bit of experience writing technical documents and I usually have a sales network which handles the proposal writing but this product is being sold outside of the normal sales channels and so I have to write this myself with no experience in constructing these things.

So any templates, suggestions, or advice would be most welcome.

How do I encourage a client to help finish a web design project?

damnitkage — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 05:42:12 -0800

collecting for web design....

I've got a client that is sitting around after they've approved the design. I can't seem to make them get off their asses so I can finish this and more importantly collect the final payment. Any and all advice is welcome.

Creating an LLC

Katemonkey — Wed, 20 Oct 2004 10:15:32 -0800

I've been a freelance web designer operating as a sole trader for six months. Now I've gotten a contract that can only hire people as limited companies. I've been told to use an umbrella company, but after reading up on them online, I'm just at a loss. I can understand what they do, but why don't companies want sole traders? And does anyone have any recommendations on umbrellas to use? (Save, of course, the Umbrella Corporation)