I can’t take credit for this idea but recently a neighbor of mine suggested I record some of the articles I’ve written over the years. So I created a podcast series I’m calling, Audio Articles, and I’ve started with some of the tried and true, feature articles I’ve written for HOW Magazine. Here are the...
Pricing Your Freelance Work
How to Work with Friends as Clients
As a creative professional, it is inevitable that at some point in our career, we'll have to work with our friends as clients. Here's how.
PhotoShelter’s new guide! How to Market Your Photography
Have you downloaded PhotoShelter’s latest guide yet? It’s called How to Market Your Photography –and it’s free! Whether you’re a photographer or some other type of creative professional, the tips in this guide will help you create a marketing plan, tackle SEO, blog better, succeed with social media, and take advantage of email marketing. And check out all...
Primer: Pricing Tips for Freelancers & Solopreneurs
Pricing design work is an important and challenging topic for creative professionals, so here’s a roundup of the most popular posts on how to price creative services. 3-Tier Pricing Strategy That Works Like Crazy via Ed Gandia’s Smarter Freelancer Podcast. How Laura Foley used the 3-tiered pricing technique the day after she learned it from Jason Blumer at...
Summer Lull = Time to Improve Your Proposals?
If you’re experiencing a little “summer slowdown,” please don’t use it as an opportunity to panic. Instead, use the little August lull to work “on” your business instead of “in” your business. Let’s start with your proposals — I’ll be they can use some improvement. Well, I have the perfect solution to that problem: Monday,...
[Podcast] The Art & Science of Pricing
There is an art and a science to pricing your services and to do it well, you have to have both! As a creative professional, the art part shouldn’t be a problem, right? I wrote about the “science” part in a HOW article published in the magazine and excerpted here. And I recently recorded the...
Here’s what happens when you don’t ask the budget….
Love this short video of Bill Carney speaking on determining your value at Creative Mornings. In it he tells the story of a lesson he learned when he didn’t ask for a client’s budget and instead blurted out a number….
Freelancers: It pays to charge what you’re worth
Several years ago I got a call from one of my favorite clients, who I’ll call “Frank” because it’s not his real name. “Tom,” he said, “we’re going to have to start working with someone less expensive. We simply can’t afford your rate anymore.” Was I disappointed? You bet. Frank had been a great...
Pricing Tips for Freelancers (+ Resources too!)
More and more mainstream publications are writing more and more frequently about the challenges of freelancing — here’s one more article from Alina Tugend (@atugend) of The New York Times “Personal Business” section (from 5/31/14) called “Tips for Those Who Set Their Own Salaries.” In it she cites Lindsay Van Thoen from The Freelancers...
[Podcast] How to Detect Clients Who Suck Your Time
We all have experiences with that type of client, of course, but hopefully they’re not all like that. But wouldn’t it be great if you could detect those people in advance, so you can charge more? In the latest podcast interview with Ed Gandia, who spoke at CFC in Boston in 2012, we came...














