Graphic Design Lead For Logo Design for Shaker Repair
Posted: 02/08/2010

Graphic Design Project Description: I prefer to work with designers: Worldwide My Industry: SHAKER REPAIR We just need a logo designed for our company.

Graphic Design Details: Best way to reach me is: phone / email ...

Graphic Design Lead For Logo for Customer Service and Collections
Posted: 02/08/2010

Graphic Design Project Description: I prefer to work with designers: Worldwide Number of pages (approx):1 My Goals for this project are:A quality logo for our company, for web, business cards, signage My Industry: Customer Service and collections We want the letters (QRM) to stand out. We just want something very consistent, that we can use for all of our materials going forward, like letterhead business card, etc. More work may be available in the future.

Graphic Design Details: Best time to reach me is:8-5pm PST Best way to reach me is: phone / email ...

Graphic Design Lead For UAE: Business Card and Logo Update for Nail Salon
Posted: 02/08/2010

Graphic Design Project Description: I prefer to work with designers: UAE Number of pages (approx): LOGO, BUSINESS CARD My Goals for this project are: NEW NAIL SALOON My Industry: BEAUTY I HAVE THE LOGO READY I NEED IT ONLY TO BE ENHANCED AND RETOUCHED PLUS A BUSINESS CARD AND BROCHURE.

Graphic Design Details: Best way to reach me is: phone / email ...

Recently, the FreelanceSwitch community was asked what simple, one-line advice they would give newly minted freelancers. The result was a surprising and poignant mix of wisdom, humor, and insight on topics such as clients, money, marketing, and keeping one’s sanity. Read on for the best advice from the FreelanceSwitch community!

It’s a not so well-kept secret that the FreelanceSwitch community forums are filled with experts and seasoned freelancers of every make and specialization. But everyone had to start somewhere! Being a new freelancer can be an exercise in hard lessons learned–we’ve all had to gather valuable wisdom through trial and (sometimes very expensive) error, and we all have “I wish I knew then…” stories to tell. When asked what their best on-liner advice was, the FreelanceSwitch experts had a variety of advice…

On Clients…

“How you handle lateness can strengthen rather than weaken client relationships.” nerdburn

“Don’t mention w3c or valid coding during a pitch…talk about ROI and improving business.” Satch

“If you manage them right, repeat customers will be more profitable than new ones. Work hard to turn all your new customers into repeat customers.” FreelanceMan

“People buy benefits, not features.” Mike_Smith

On Money…

“Charge more. And make sure you are worth it.” betty

“Don’t take on more than you can handle you will end up losing more than you thought you would be earning.” black.p

“Don’t forget taxes.” betty

On the Craft…

“A website is never “done”. It is only abandoned.”  lickynee

“If It’s worth doing twice, it’s worth creating a system for.” Lukevdp

“Don´t be afraid of asking something you dont know to someone who is more experienced than you.” Eliffio

“Get up at the same time every morning, shower, get dressed like you’re leaving the house, and sit down with a cup of coffee in your office at the same time every day.” nerdburn

On Marketing & Growth…

“Make sure you are marketing your business every week, even when you are swamped.” Alovhaug

“Don’t let the marketing messages you send out by accident get in the way of marketing messages you send out on purpose.” FreelanceMan

“Always carry business cards with you and hand them out to everyone you meet, your neighbor’s gardener’s uncle might be a millionaire who needs your services.” Max///AgencyZebra

On Sanity…

“Enjoy what you do, when you stop enjoying it. Stop doing it.” AlexHughes

“Never let your freelance life dictate your personal life, or visa versa.” AmberTurner

Anything to add?

Want more? Check out all the great advice in the original thread. Have some wisdom to add? Share your own one-liner advice in the comments!

As a freelancer, it’s important to focus as much of your time as possible on the work you have or getting the work you need. And that means minimizing administrative tasks. Take bookkeeping, for example.

Bookkeeping is critical for maximizing tax deductions and monitoring the overall health of your business, but it’s a royal pain. In this post I’ll show you how to automate bookkeeping tasks so you can stay focused on existing jobs while marketing your talents.

Decide on a bookkeeping system

Many people still hand-write their income and expenses in a notebook or Excel spreadsheet and then type up invoices in Word or a similar program. This can work just fine if you don’t work a lot of jobs. If, however, you find yourself with multiple clients, invoices and expense reports, you will spend more and more of your time trying to keep everything together. A dedicated, automated bookkeeping system and/or bookkeeper is a necessity at this point.

For years Quickbooks has been the lord and master of small business accounting software. But for me it was just too expensive, too complicated, and not Mac-friendly. And for most independent freelancers without the need for payroll it’s just too big and bulky.

Use online accounting tools

After trying several Mac-based programs I decided to take my bookkeeping online. This was a big decision, since going online with something as private as bookkeeping meant possible exposure to the outside world. If you go this route, you must be confident in the security of the online solution and have a backup plan such as the ability to export whatever you enter into the system.

I’ve been using online invoicing software for three years and am very happy with it so far. I started with Blinksale, which was a good start. At the time all it did was create invoices and run simple reports. I still think it’s a great solution for anyone who wants an easy invoicing program that works.

Two years ago I moved over to Freshbooks. I wanted to integrate time tracking, estimates, richer reporting and some other features into my setup. A few friends were using Freshbooks so I decided to give it a try. However, I still needed a simple online cash accounting system. That’s when I found Outright.com.

Integrate before you automate

While Freshbooks includes expense reporting, it’s a little more involved than Outright. Outright integrates seamlessly with Freshbooks and has beautiful reporting features. I can run a profit/loss statement at the press of a button. I can run monthly, quarterly and annual reports just as fast. And I can quickly see who my highest paying customers are and where I need to cut expenses. In many respects, Outright has become the digital dashboard for my business.

And the best part is Outright is free. At least right now. Freshbooks and Blinksale are free to start, but as you get more clients/invoices you’ll need to pay a monthly fee. There are many other free and online options as well.

Automating the system

The biggest challenge with automating any software solution is actually getting the data into the system. How do you automate that? This is where a system plus a virtual assistant can really help.

I run my entire business using two dedicated credit cards and Paypal so there’s always a paper trail. At the end of the month I download my statements into an encrypted Excel sheet and send it to my VA for entry into Outright. Using this system, my total time each month for bookkeeping is about 15 minutes.

Is it perfect? No. Is it expensive? It depends on your perspective. The monthly cost of Freshbooks plus my VA’s time is around $35. For me it’s a great value. It’s cheaper than a bookkeeper, I can check the pulse of my business at any time and am free to pursue existing projects and opportunities.

Your Turn

Do you think automating your bookkeeping is worth doing or not? How would you do it differently? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Happy Thanksgiving Designers!

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First buy any 3 leads on DesignQuote from Moday 11/23/09 to Sun 11/29/09 and receive one of those leads free. Simply buy 3 leads, then email designquote with the subject "Buy 2 Get 1 Free" and list the RFP numbers 3 leads you purchased. Then we will reimburse credits back into your account worth the value of the lowest lead. For example, if you buy one lead that cost 5 credits, and two leads that cost 3 credits. We will add 3 credits back into your account. It`s just that easy! Mon 12:00AM 11/23 EST - Sun 11:59PM 11/29 EST

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This blog is for Design Quote News. Browse Graphic Design Jobs and Web Design Jobs at DesignQuote.net

Today a DesignQuote designer submitted the following question. I realized that many of our designers may have been wondering the same thing, so I decided to post the QandA here.

Question:
I have noticed something strange happening for the last couple of weeks. I get an email alert for a job and underneath the original email is a list of "More recently approved projects:" and there is a list of RFQ's. They are all in numerical order and usually they are all for the same price range and in each case, they are only looking for a single bid. I never get an individual email reporting those RFQ's. I've been with DQ for several years and I've never seen anybody ever ask for a single quote. So here are my questions.

1. Why am I not receiving emails for those single bid requests?
2. Are those jobs real, or are you just getting spammed with fake jobs?

They seem fake because of their similarity to each other and the fact that I don't receive email alerts for them. Please advise.

Response:
The single slot leads are from a new web-design-lead-provider we have partnered with. We are testing routing some of their lead inventory through DesignQuote. They limit leads to 5 designers. They are giving four slots to their existing customers (designers) and then giving one slot to DesignQuote.

- The reason you do not usually receive an email alert about those leads (and probably many other leads in your price range) is because of the way our email alerts work. When a lead is approved, the alert system sends alert emails in groups of 200 emails every 5 minutes. The order we send emails is based on how many credits are in your account - whoever has the most credits gets the first email, the next highest gets the second, etc. ( as described on the alerts page http://www.designquote.net/provider/set_services.cfm )
　
You currently have 14 credit(s). This puts you at number 232 on the email notification list. Which means that 231 designers have 14 or more credits in their account and receive emails before you. There are currently about 2500 designers who have specified instant alerts for projects over $1000 - so when we post a $1k+ project the system queues up about 2500 emails to be sent. We send the first 250 emails immediately then wait 5 minutes (to give the mail processor time to process those 250 emails) and then we check the RFP slots. If the project has not sold out, we send the next 250 emails, wait 5 minutes and check again until the project sells out or everyone has been emailed.

Once a design project sells out all the remaining emails are cleared from the queue and those designers are never notified about the project. So the reason your not receiving alerts for these projects is because the project sells out before it gets to you name in the alert queue.

The clients are actually getting 5 bids, 1 from DQ and the other four from non-DQ designers that get leads from our partner. In order to make our alert emails more informative, we add in a list of other projects with similar budgets under "More recently approved projects:" - The partner RFP numbers are in numerical order because we process them in batches as they come in, one after another and they get sequential RFP IDs.

The partner prequalifies the leads checking their phone and email so they get approved and posted as soon as we receive them. So if several partner leads get approved they are queued and might appear under "More recently approved projects:" before the alerts are even actually sent for those specific projects. The mail-bot checks all open projects every time it sends a batch of emails.

We are currently beta testing this partnership it will change in the future. We just started the partnership 3 weeks ago (the first week of November) which is why you just started seeing the one slot leads. We are collecting data and feedback from our designers to make sure the quality of the leads we get from our new partner meet the quality standards of our regular leads.

We don't have enough data to determine that yet but we should know in a few weeks. If the quality of the leads is good enough, we will expand our partnership and increase the number of slots per lead for DesignQuote designers. The leads would still be limited to 5, but we may divide them up so DQ gets 3 slots and the partners designers get the remaining 2, as opposed to the one single slot we get now.
　
- Wesley Warren
CEO - Vexcom, Inc.
Parent Company of DesignQuote.net
　

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Designquote.net (Roswell, GA) DesignQuote.net Designers everywhere can browse real projects and find leads without paying commission or subscription fees. New requests for proposals are posted daily.FreelanceDesigners.com (Roswell, GA) FreelanceDesigners.com Reach new customers in all industries who are looking for creative people in graphic design, web design, programming, search engine

Welcome New Members That Joined FreelanceDesigners.com Wednesday 08/12/09 DesignQuote Freelance Design Project Lead: 08/13/2009 Project: Business Cards for Tattoo Artist Bid on this project Bidding Ends Today! Budget: $100 - $250 Lead Details: 08/06/09 I prefer to work with designers located: MESA, AZ … Client located in Mesa, AZ. This lead is for sale on designquote.net

DesignQuote was recently mentioned in the Art Institute Alumni newsletter Freelanecing Ins and Outs:

http://www.aifl.info/alumni/newsletter/2009/freelancinginsouts.html

This blog is for Design Quote News. Browse Graphic Design Jobs and Web Design Jobs at DesignQuote.net